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WITH THE IMMORTALS 
 
WITH THE IMMORTALS 
 
 BY 
 
 F. MARION CRAWFORD 
 
 AUTHOR OF MR. ISAACS, DR. CLAUDIUS, A ROMAN SINGER, 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 AND NEW YORK 
 1888 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
COPYRIGHT 
 
 1888 
 
 BY 
 
 P. MARION CRAWFORD 
 
TO LADY BRENDA 
 <^r 
 
 TO DIANA, AND TO GWENDOLINE 
 
 THESE 
 
 MEMORIES OF HAPPY HOURS BY THE SEA 
 ARE LOVINGLY INSCRIBED 
 
WITH THE IMMORTALS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE southern shore of the Sorrentine peninsula 
 offers a striking contrast to the northern side. To 
 wards the north the mountain opens into a broad 
 basin, filled to the brim with soft tufo rock, upon 
 which the vegetation of ages has deposited a deep 
 and fertile soil. The hills slope gently to the cliffs 
 which overhang the bay of Naples and they seem 
 to bear in their outstretched arms a rich offering of 
 Nature s fairest gifts for the queen city of the south. 
 The orange and the lemon, the olive and the walnut 
 elbow each other for a footing in the fat dark earth ; 
 and where there is not room for them, the holes and 
 crannies of the walls shoot out streamers of roses and 
 thrust forth nosegays of white-flowered myrtle. West 
 ward from the enchanted garden of Sorrento the rocky 
 promontory juts far into the sea, so that only a narrow 
 channel, scarcely three miles wide, separates the 
 mainland from sea-girt Capri, towering up from the 
 blue water and rearing his rocky crest to heaven like 
 some enormous dragon-beast of fable. Far down in 
 5 B 
 
2 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 the deep mid-channel, lies the watch-tower bell stolen 
 by the Saracen corsairs from the little fort upon the 
 shore ; on Saint John s Eve the fishermen, casting 
 their nets in the orange-tinted twilight, hear the tones 
 of the long-lost bronze ringing up to them out of the 
 depths, and the rough men tell each other how, on 
 that very night of the year, long ago, Saint Nicholas 
 raised a fierce storm in the " Bocca di Crape " and 
 forced the heathen pirates to lighten their craft by 
 heaving overboard the bell and the rest of the booty 
 they had carried off. 
 
 Doubling the point, and running along the southern 
 shore of the little peninsula, the scene changes. 
 The rocks, which on the other side slope gently down, 
 here rise precipitously from the dark water, throwing 
 up great rugged friezes of hacked stone against the sky, 
 casting black shadows under every sharpened peak 
 and seeming to defy the foot of man and beast. 
 Here and there, a little town hangs like the nest of a 
 sea-bird in a cranny of the cliffs, poised on the brink 
 as you may fancy a sea-nymph drawing up her feet 
 out of reach of the waves, facing the fierce, hot south 
 west, whence the storms sweep in, black and melan 
 choly and wrathfully thundering. A mile away, but 
 seemingly within a stone s throw of the cliffs, lie three 
 tiny islands, green in the short spring months, but 
 parched and brown in summer, dark and dangerous 
 in the stormy winter. They are the isles of the 
 Sirens ; past them once sailed the mighty wanderer, 
 bound to the mast of his long black ship, listening 
 with delight and dread to the song of the sea-women, 
 
I WITH THE IMMORTALS 3 
 
 his heart beating fast and his blood on fire with the 
 wild strains of their music. Ligeia and Leucosia and 
 Parthenope are not dead, though they plucked the 
 flowers with Persephone, and though the Muses out- 
 rivalled them in harmony and Orpheus vanquished 
 then in song. Still, in calm nights, when the waning 
 moon climbs slowly over the distant hills of the 
 Basilicata, her trembling light falls on the marble 
 limbs and the snowy feathers, the rich wet hair and 
 the passionate dark eyes of the three maidens, and 
 across the lapping waves their voices ring out in a 
 wild, despairing harmony of long-drawn complaint. 
 But when the storm rises and the. hot south wind 
 dashes the water into whirlpools and drives clouds of 
 warm spray into the crevices of the islets, the sisters 
 slip from the wet rocks and hide themselves in the 
 cool depths below, where is perpetual calm and a 
 dwelling not fathomed by man. 
 
 But man visits the shore and the islands too, from 
 time to time, though he rarely stays long. It is too 
 unlike what man is accustomed to, too far removed 
 from the sphere of the modern world s life, to be a 
 sympathetic resting-place for most of our kind. Hither 
 people come in yachts, or upon skinny donkeys from 
 Sorrento, or in little open boats rowed by lazy fisher 
 men ; and they gaze and say that it is very classic, and 
 they go away with their cheap impressions and tell 
 their friends that it is hardly worth while after all. 
 That is what everybody does. My tale concerns a little 
 party of persons, not absolutely like every one else, who 
 one day said to each other that it would be possible to 
 
4 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 live among those wild rocks, and that they believed 
 themselves sufficiently interesting to each other to 
 live a life of temporary exile in an inaccessible region. 
 Such a resolution must at once brand those who 
 entered upon it with the stamp of eccentricity, with 
 the Cain s mark which society abhors, and it is 
 necessary to say something of the circumstances 
 which led those four persons to determine upon so 
 desperate a course. 
 
 Three of the settlers were young. The fourth 
 was older by some years than any of the rest, but 
 possessed that quality of youth which defies time 
 and, especially, that little moiety of time which we 
 call age. The party then, consisted of a man and 
 his wife, of his mother-in-law and his sister. By the 
 silly calculations of social humanity they ought to 
 have quarrelled. As a matter of fact they did not. 
 This was the first step towards eccentricity, and it 
 can only be explained by an honest and dispassionate 
 description of the four persons. 
 
 Lady Brenda was five and forty years of age 
 with extenuating circumstances. A German wag 
 once remarked that money alone does not constitute 
 happiness, but that it is also necessary to possess 
 some of it. So years alone do not make age unless 
 one has some of the ills which age brings. No 
 woman has any right to be old at five and forty, but 
 it may be questioned whether at five and forty any 
 woman has a right to be taken for her daughter s 
 sister. Lady Brenda was in some respects the youngest 
 of the party ; for she had been young when youth 
 
i WITH THE IMMORTALS 5 
 
 was regarded as an agreeable period of life, and she 
 had brought her traditions with her. In appearance 
 she was of medium height but of faultless figure, 
 slender and rounded as a girl. Her complexion was 
 of the kind produced by avoiding cosmetics. Her 
 thick brown hair grew low upon her forehead and 
 was not supplemented by any artful arrangement of 
 other women s tresses among her own. Her -features 
 were very straight, and her large, bright blue eyes, 
 rather deep-set but wide apart, met everything frankly 
 and surveyed the world with an air of radiant satis 
 faction which was as contagious as her own humour. 
 She moved quickly, laughed easily and felt sincerely 
 the emotions of the hour. Her voice was so fresh 
 and ringing that people liked to listen to it, and the 
 things she said were generally to the point. The 
 basis of her mind was an intuitive comprehension of 
 what was best to be done and said in the manifold 
 situations in which she might find herself placed.. 
 Logic she had none, but she arrived at perfectly just 
 conclusions by methods of thought which seemed 
 absurdly illogical. As a matter of fact she did not 
 really arrive at conclusions at all, but having deter 
 mined a priori what she intended to believe, she 
 thought any argument good enough to support that 
 of which she was already convinced. On the other 
 hand her experience of people was immense, and she 
 understood human nature marvellously well. She 
 had lived in every capital of Europe and had found 
 herself at home everywhere, received into the intimacy 
 of a society exclusive to all other strangers, and she 
 
6 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 had gathered a vast mass of anecdote and experience, 
 by turns startling, tragic dramatic and comic which 
 would have sufficed to fill many deeply interesting 
 volumes. With all this, she was a little tired of the 
 great world and had gladly accepted her son-in-law s 
 invitation to pass a year in the south of Italy. 
 
 Lady Brenda s only daughter had been married 
 to Augustus Chard two years before this time, and 
 had presented her husband with a baby which was 
 universally declared to be at all points the most 
 extraordinary baby ever born, seen, or heard of. 
 Mrs. Chard s name was Gwendoline. Lady Brenda, 
 in the secrecy of her own heart, knew that the com 
 bination of names, "Gwendoline Chard," made her 
 think of a race -horse charging into a brick wall. 
 Otherwise she liked her son-in-law very much. The 
 C hards adored each other when they were married, 
 which is usual; but they continued to adore each 
 after marriage, which is not. There were many 
 reasons why their lives should be harmonious, how 
 ever, for they were a pair well assorted to live 
 together. Gwendoline differed from her mother in 
 that she had dark eyes, and that her hair was of a 
 reddish gold colour full of magnificent lights. Her 
 skin was paler than her mother s, and her figure, 
 perfectly proportioned and well designed, was a little 
 slighter. She was an inch taller than Lady Brenda 
 and carried her beautiful head erect upon her shoulders 
 with an air of dignity beyond her years. Gwendoline 
 was a woman who thought much and who generally 
 decided beforehand exactly what she wanted. When 
 
I WITH THE IMMORTALS 7 
 
 she had decided, she proceeded to obtain her wish, 
 and when she had got it, she was perfectly satisfied. 
 These qualities placed her entirely beyond the pale 
 of ordinary humanity. Her feelings were strong and 
 deep, and her nature was noble and elevated; her 
 wishes were therefore good, and for good things. 
 Though young, she had travelled much and had seen 
 much that was interesting. Gwendoline s principal 
 taste was for music, an art in which she attained to 
 great excellence, for her playing was original, passion 
 ate and artistic. As has been said, she worshipped 
 her husband, who in his turn adored her. She could 
 not deny that he held highly original views upon 
 most points, and that his ideas about things in 
 general were a trifle startling, but he had a way of 
 making himself appear to be right which was very 
 convincing to any one who was already disposed to 
 be of his opinion. Lady Brenda was very fond of 
 Augustus Chard, but considered him more than half 
 a visionary; Gwendoline on the other hand was 
 willing to spend her time in helping him to demon 
 strate that all existing things and conditions of things, 
 with the exception of domestic felicity, were arrant 
 humbug. 
 
 Augustus used to say that the taste for the visionary 
 ran in his family. His sister, who had joined the 
 party, illustrated the truth of his statement. Diana 
 Chard had the temperament of a poet with the mind 
 of a lawyer. Philosophy may be defined to mean the 
 poetry of logic, and accordingly Diana s nature had 
 led her to the study of philosophy. She had read 
 
8 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 enormously, and she argued keenly with a profound 
 knowledge of her subject. But the hypothesis 
 generally belonged to the transcendental region of 
 thought, where, as the problems proposed are beyond 
 the sphere of all possible experience, the discussion 
 also may be prolonged beyond the bounds of all 
 possible time. She enjoyed the pleasure of argument 
 much more than the hope of solution ; and life never 
 seemed dull when she could discuss the immortality 
 of the soul with an unbeliever, or the existence of 
 the supernatural with a well-trained and thoroughly 
 prejudiced materialist. She was moreover a musician, 
 and an accomplished one, like her sister-in-law, but 
 her playing differed so entirely from Gwendoline s 
 that no one thought of comparing the two. Each 
 was perfect in her own way ; but each raised entirely 
 different trains of thought in her hearers. 
 
 Of the three ladies Diana was the tallest. She 
 was very slender and very graceful, slow and even 
 languid in her movements, but animated in her speech. 
 Her skin was very dark and pale, her hair abundant 
 and of a dark brown colour, her eyes, a deep gray 
 with strongly marked eyebrows and black lashes ; her 
 mouth large and expressive, smiling easily and show 
 ing very beautiful teeth. 
 
 Last of the four to be described is Augustus Chard. 
 Imagine a big, well-knit man of bronzed complexion, 
 with colourless hair, neither fair nor brown, average- 
 sized blue eyes set very deep under an overhanging 
 forehead, possessed of a remarkable constitution and 
 of unusual physical strength. That was all there was 
 
i WITH THE IMMORTALS 9 
 
 to be seen, and from the exterior no one would have 
 been likely to guess at the man s queer mental 
 tendencies. It would not have struck the observer 
 that Augustus Chard s mind was a mixture of 
 revolutionary and of conservative ideas, leavened with 
 an absurd taste for mysticism and magic, tempered by 
 a considerable experience of more serious science, in 
 which his immense wealth has permitted him to make 
 experiments beyond the reach of ordinary men a 
 man in love with his wife, and to some extent in love 
 with existence ; active in mind and body, but seem 
 ingly under the influence of some strange planet which 
 causes him to think differently from other people, and 
 sometimes not very wisely either. Augustus either 
 talked not at all, or talked excessively. Habitually a 
 silent man, when roused in discussion his naturally 
 combative temper showed itself, and, though patient in 
 argument, he could not bear to abandon his point and 
 would prolong a discussion for hours rather than own 
 himself vanquished. Lady Brenda knew this and took 
 a fantastic delight in combating his visionary ideas. 
 Nevertheless they were very fond of each other, 
 as people must be if they can discuss without 
 quarrelling. Augustus Chard would say he believed 
 in astrology and declare his intention of having the 
 baby s horoscope cast, without further hesitation. 
 Lady Brenda would reply for the twentieth time that 
 she could not see how the. stars could possibly have 
 any influence upon human beings, and thereupon the 
 discussion would begin again. In the course of an 
 hour Augustus would demonstrate that Lady Brenda 
 
 OF TEE^^aS 
 
 TTERSlTr] 
 
io WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 could not decide upon taking an extra cup of tea 
 without the direct influence of Jupiter and that the 
 appearance of beings from another world was not a 
 whit more remarkable than the production of the 
 electric light, nor more incomprehensible than the 
 causes of attraction. He easily showed that nobody 
 knew anything and that, consequently, no one had the 
 right to deny anything ; and he ended by prophesying 
 such dreadful and extraordinary things, which must 
 occur in the world in the course of a few years, that 
 Lady Brenda felt her breath taken away. But a 
 quarter of an hour later, when it was discovered to be 
 twelve o clock, they all laughed and remarked that they 
 had had a most delightful evening, as they separated 
 and went to bed. 
 
 Of Augustus Chard it is only necessary to say that 
 he had considerable powers of organisation, in spite 
 of some eccentricities of mind, and that he generally 
 succeeded in what he undertook. When, therefore, 
 he suggested to his wife, his sister and his mother-in- 
 law, that it would be very amusing to buy a half ruined 
 castle perched upon the wild rocks and overlooking 
 the isles of the Sirens, to furnish the place luxuriously 
 and to pass the summer in a pleasant round of dis 
 cussion, music and semi-mystic literary amusement, 
 varied by a few experiments on the electric phenomena 
 of the Mediterranean, it did not strike those amiable 
 ladies that the scheme was wholly mad. They agreed 
 that it would be very novel and interesting and that 
 if they did not like it they could go away which is 
 the peculiar blessing of the rich. The poor man some- 
 
I WITH THE IMMORTALS II 
 
 times finds it necessary to cut his throat in order to go 
 away ; the rich man orders his butler to examine the 
 time-tables, and his valet to pack his belongings, dines 
 comfortably and changes his surroundings as he would 
 change his coat. 
 
 Augustus proposed his plan in January. Before 
 the end of April the castle was bought, repaired and 
 luxuriously furnished, the beds were made, the French 
 chef had ordered the kitchen fires to be lighted and 
 had established a donkey post over the mountains to 
 the market in Castellamare ; the great halls and 
 drawing-rooms looked thoroughly habitable, and 
 everything was ready for the new-comers, who were to 
 arrive in the evening. Augustus Chard congratulated 
 himself with the reflection that his whim had been 
 gratified at a trifling cost of ten thousand pounds, and 
 he subsequently discovered that a ducal title had been 
 thrown into the bargain. He immediately determined 
 to bestow the title upon the captain of his yacht, for 
 the sake of being able to order a real Duke to " go 
 about"; but Lady Brenda, whose mind took a practical 
 turn, suggested that as times and governments change 
 rather quickly nowadays it would be as well to keep 
 the parchment and see what came of it. 
 
 The party arrived at the appointed hour and pro 
 ceeded to survey their new dwelling. Augustus 
 Chard had come over from Naples several times and 
 had personally directed most of the repairs and im 
 provements. The result did not fall short of his 
 intentions. The huge, irregular mass of building had 
 been made perfectly habitable. The tiled roofs shone 
 
12 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 red above the rugged stones of the towers and walls ; 
 great polished doors moved noiselessly in the old 
 marble doorways; plate-glass panes filled the high 
 Moorish windows ; pleasantly coloured glazed tiles 
 cunningly arranged in patterns upon the floor had 
 taken the place of the worn-out bricks; soft stuffs 
 and tapestries covered the walls and rich Oriental 
 carpets were spread under the tables and before the 
 deep easy chairs; massive furniture was disposed 
 comfortably in the hall and drawing-room, while each 
 of the ladies found a boudoir fitted up for her especial 
 use, furnished in the colours she loved best ; Vienna 
 cane lounges stood upon the tented terraces and 
 hammocks were hung in shady corners overlooking 
 the sea ; the newest books lay by vases of roses upon 
 low reading-tables, shades of the latest patterns covered 
 the still unlighted lamps, writing-paper marked " Cas- 
 tello del Gaudio, Amalfi " was ready in the boxes in 
 every room, and Lady Brenda remarked with pleas 
 ure that there was ink in the inkstands. Bimbam, 
 Chard s butler, a Swiss, watched his mistress s face 
 with anxiety as Gwendoline passed from room to 
 room, examining everything with the critical eye of 
 a practised housekeeper. For Gwendoline believed 
 that the bigger a house was, the more keeping it 
 needed, and Bimbam stood in awe of her rebuke ; 
 but if Augustus ventured to make a remark concern 
 ing anything outside of his own rooms, Bimbam smiled 
 a soft and pitying smile, as much as to say that 
 amiable lunatics like Augustus should mind their 
 own business. 
 
I WITH THE IMMORTALS 13 
 
 The great hall of the house opened upon a wide 
 terrace, by a row of tall windows which stood open 
 on the sunny April afternoon when the party arrived. 
 Earthenware pots of flowers were arranged along the 
 parapet, pots of roses and of carnations not common 
 pinks, but great southern carnations and long 
 troughs of pansies and heliotrope; while from the 
 garden below the vines grew up, wild and unculti 
 vated, putting out their first spring leaves. Behind 
 the castle, and on both sides of it, and below the 
 garden, the vast gray rocks lay like an angry sea of 
 stone petrified in the very moment when the rough 
 crests would have broken into a flinty spray. Far 
 below, the isles of the Sirens lay like green leaves 
 floating on the sapphire water. 
 
 The whole party came out together upon this 
 terrace, followed at a respectful distance by Bimbam. 
 
 "It is too beautiful for anything!" exclaimed 
 Diana, gazing at the sea. Like all imaginative people 
 she loved the water. 
 
 "A dream!" cried Lady Brenda, who was not 
 given to dreaming. 
 
 Gwendoline laid her hand upon her husband s 
 arm and stood silently surveying the scene, her face 
 pale with pleasure. Augustus stared out into the 
 distance. 
 
 "What are you thinking of ?" asked Gwendoline 
 at last. 
 
 "I was wondering how the experiment would 
 succeed." 
 
 "It will succeed admirably," said Lady Brenda. 
 
14 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 "We are admirable people this is an admirable 
 place " 
 
 " Then let us fall to admiring each other and our 
 surroundings," answered Augustus. "But I was 
 thinking of the experiment." 
 
 "Oh your spirits and things!" exclaimed his 
 mother-in-law. "Really, Augustus, I can t under 
 stand how a man of your intelligence " 
 
 " Had we not better sit down ?" suggested Augus 
 tus, smiling. 
 
 " No," said Lady Brenda ; " I am sure we have 
 not seen everything yet Come along let us ex 
 plore." 
 
 Bimbam whispered to Augustus that he had taken 
 the liberty of improvising a Swiss dairy, as it was hard 
 to get any milk but that of goats. 
 
 " Oh ! I want to see my dairy ! " exclaimed Gwen 
 doline, and away they went. 
 
 Lady Brenda sent for writing materials and began 
 a letter, while Diana entered the great hall and tried 
 the piano. Lady Brenda had a vast correspondence 
 and she wrote well, which was the principal reason 
 why she was able to live in the country. People 
 were so real to her, that to write to them was almost 
 as good as to talk to them. She did not care so 
 much for cows as she did for people. It does not 
 follow that Gwendoline preferred cows to human 
 society ; but when she began to see a place, she 
 liked to see it all, whereas her mother contented her 
 self with proposing further explorations and then sat 
 down to describe what she had already seen. 
 
I WITH THE IMMORTALS 15 
 
 On this occasion Lady Brenda sent for writing 
 materials and established herself upon the wide terrace. 
 She wrote a very interesting epistle in which she ex 
 plained to her sister that Augustus had come to the 
 Castello del Gaudio to try things with ghosts and 
 mathematical electricity and so forth, but that the 
 place was charming and Gwendoline looked so well in 
 jerseys and a real mediaeval castle with a drawbridge 
 somewhere and a Swiss dairy not far off the great 
 hall was hung with Rhodes tapestry which Augustus 
 had got from a Jew in Asia Minor so rare, they sold 
 little bits of it in London and by the bye, where was 
 Lord Mavourneen going to? Augustus meant to 
 ask him during the summer, when he was tired of 
 the ghosts Diana was certainly a most delightful 
 girl -just Gwendoline s age, but so different life 
 was a dream of summer flowers if only Lord Brenda 
 could be with her but then perhaps he would not 
 enjoy it so much, though of course he would like 
 it immensely, dear fellow. She did not quite know 
 whether Brenda were in St. Petersburg or in India, 
 but of course he would write. 
 
 Meanwhile Diana played soft dreamy harmonies 
 upon the wonderful piano, taking delight in the idea 
 that in all the ages before no such sounds had floated 
 out upon the evening air to stir the echoes of the 
 jagged rocks, unless indeed the tale of the Sirens 
 were true, a matter concerning which Diana held 
 opinions of her own. She secretly hoped that her 
 brother s experiments might be successful, and she 
 felt sure that if success were possible at all it must 
 
1 6 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 be possible in the wild region where he had at last 
 determined to make his great trial of a new theory. 
 While she played, her mind wandered away to strange 
 regions, and she fancied she heard wonderful sounds 
 answering the ringing chords of the piano. Just then 
 Lady Brenda came in and looked briskly round the 
 great room. 
 
 " Really, Augustus has very good taste. Don t 
 you think so ? " she said, appealing to Diana. 
 
 "Such a piano!" exclaimed Diana, rising. "I 
 wonder where he got it ! " 
 
 "You can get most things for money, my dear," 
 said Lady Brenda. " Augustus will probably get his 
 ghosts, too ! " 
 
 " For money?" 
 
 "Oh, I don t know! why should not ghosts be 
 bribed, like other people ? " 
 
 " If money were of any use, where they live." 
 
 " It must be awfully funny to be in a place where 
 money is of no use," said Lady Brenda. 
 
 "Awfully funny indeed!" repeated Diana with 
 a laugh. " I hope they see the humorous aspect of 
 their situation, poor dears." 
 
 " Do you suppose there is really anything in it, 
 my dear ? For my part I think it is all ridiculous, 
 you know." 
 
 "Ghosts? well " Diana hesitated. "There 
 
 is no particular reason for thinking them ridiculous, 
 after all." 
 
 " Oh, of course they are ridiculous," said Lady 
 Brenda with an air of conviction. " Can anything 
 
I WITH THE IMMORTALS 17 
 
 be more absurd than to suppose that one s great- 
 uncle can get up out of his grave and walk into a 
 room without opening the doors and rap underneath 
 a table without your seeing him? Just think !" 
 
 " Yes if you confine ghosts to spirit rapping and 
 table turning. I quite agree with you. But there 
 are " 
 
 " Oh, I know just what you are going to say 
 about mathematics and electric things of course 
 I don t know anything about them and so I never 
 pretend to argue, but I am perfectly sure it is all 
 quite nonsensical. Don t you think it would be a 
 good idea to have some tea ? " 
 
 " Delightful," answered Diana, looking dreamily 
 out of the great window and letting her hands run 
 carelessly over the keys of the piano. She had more 
 than once reflected on the impossibility of ever con 
 vincing any one who first stated a firm belief and then 
 refused to argue about it on the ground of ignorance. 
 She also reflected that Lady Brenda was a charming 
 woman and that it made not the smallest difference 
 whether she believed in ghosts or not. 
 
 Just then Gwendoline entered the room, followed 
 by Augustus. * The latter spoke in a low voice to 
 the solemn Bimbam, who retired. In a few minutes 
 tea and Turkish coffee were brought in. 
 
 " Mamma, the cows are too beautiful," said Gwen 
 doline. " It was such a brilliant idea to build the 
 little dairy up there among the rocks. Now tell us 
 what you have been talking about." 
 
 " By all means," echoed Augustus, examining the 
 c 
 
1 8 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 details of the room and walking slowly from one 
 point to another with his hands in his pockets. " By 
 all means, tell us what you have been talking 
 about." 
 
 " I have been writing a letter " began Lady 
 
 Brenda. 
 
 " The novelty of your occupation is only surpassed 
 
 by " interrupted Augustus. But Lady Brenda 
 
 would not let him finish the sentence. 
 
 " I know please don t make fun of me. It s 
 dreadful, I know I am always writing letters." 
 
 "We talked a little about ghosts," said Diana. 
 "Augustus, if you really have any ghosts, do have 
 nice ones." 
 
 "Yes," said Gwendoline. "Have people who 
 would be pleasant at dinner people who can talk. 
 It would be so delightful to be able to ask ever so 
 many questions of historical people. I could make 
 such a beautiful dinner party. Whom would you 
 have, mamma ? " 
 
 "I, well I think if I might choose perhaps I 
 would have Francis the First. Whom would you have, 
 Gwendoline ? " 
 
 " Dear me ! Oh I think I would Choose a musi 
 cian Chopin, for instance. Let us all say. Diana, 
 whom would you like ? " 
 
 " Lots of people," answered the young girl. " Heine 
 for one then Pascal, and Plato and let me see, I 
 think Pico della Mirandola would be nice and I 
 
 should be curious to see Giordano Bruno " 
 
 " A conceited, blaspheming fool ! " exclaimed 
 
I WITH THE IMMORTALS 19 
 
 Augustus, speaking for the first time. " I would be 
 quite satisfied with Julius Caesar." 
 
 " Do you think he would be quite sympathetic ? " 
 asked Lady Brenda, entering into the discussion as 
 though the invitation were a reality. 
 
 " Oh yes ! " exclaimed Gwendoline. " He was a 
 great dandy, and immensely refined. Besides, Augustus 
 would not be happy unless he were asked. Julius 
 Caesar is his ideal." 
 
 " Won t you have anybody besides Chopin, Gwen 
 doline ? " asked Augustus. " You might have George 
 Sand, for instance." 
 
 " Oh no ! " protested Gwendoline. " They would 
 sit in corners and talk to each other all the evening." 
 
 " Why is not it possible ! " exclaimed Diana 
 regretfully. 
 
 " Perhaps it is," answered Augustus, quietly. 
 
 " Augustus, I think you are quite mad ! " cried 
 Lady Brenda, laughing. 
 
 " My dear mother-in-law, you are probably right. 
 It is quite certain that I am mad, if you are sane, 
 but if I am sane you are undoubtedly mad. Happily 
 it is often people of very opposite dispositions who 
 best agree. In either case, mad or sane, you are the 
 most charming woman I know and I hope you will 
 not change at all." 
 
 Lady Brenda blushed faintly, as she always did 
 when anybody made her a compliment, and she 
 kissed the tips of her fingers and waved them towards 
 Augustus across the tea-table with a pretty gesture. 
 
 "Oh, Augustus! How can you say mamma is 
 
20 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP, i 
 
 more charming than I am ? " said Gwendoline with a 
 laugh. 
 
 " Or than I am ? " echoed Diana, between two 
 bites of a huge strawberry. 
 
 "With such women as you, my dears," answered 
 Augustus, imperturbably, " the most charming woman 
 is always the one who is speaking at the moment." 
 
 "We might all speak at once," suggested Lady 
 Brenda, " then we should all be equally charming." 
 
 " No man could stand that," answered Augustus. 
 
 "You would take refuge in the fourth dimension, 
 then, I suppose ? " asked Diana. 
 
 " Like the bishop who said he travelled in the 
 third class because there was no fourth ! " suggested 
 Gwendoline. "Let us return to the question of the 
 dinner party. Shall I write invitations to the people 
 we mentioned ? Could we not perform an incantation 
 and burn the notes upon the sacrificial altar ? " 
 
 " We could," said Augustus. " It would be a 
 comparatively cheap form of amusement. But in 
 the course of time, if Julius Caesar and the rest 
 never came, the novelty of asking them would 
 wear off." 
 
 " If they only knew what agreeable people we are, 
 I am sure they would come," answered Gwendoline. 
 
 "I will see about it," said Augustus. "It wil] 
 soon be time to dress for dinner." 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 AUGUSTUS CHARD believed that science had reached 
 a point at which it was necessary to try entirely new 
 experiments and to try them on a vast scale. It 
 seemed to him that the problem of greatest present 
 importance was of a practical kind the production of 
 electricity in a serviceable form and at a cost which 
 should at once make it the universal source of heat, 
 light and motive power for the whole world. After a 
 careful examination he had come to the conclusion that 
 the most convenient form in which the fluid could be 
 produced was the voltaic, which also was unfortunately 
 the most expensive. He accordingly set to work to 
 ascertain whether any method existed, and could be 
 guessed at, whereby the earth herself could be made 
 to produce under the existing circumstances of nature 
 a current of voltaic electricity. He argued that if 
 such a current could be produced, and if the quality 
 should prove satisfactory, the quantity as compared 
 with the needs of mankind must be unlimited. 
 
 Acting upon his usual plan of beginning from first 
 principles, he reflected that in the earliest experiments 
 voltaic currents were produced by immersing two 
 metals in a fluid. He naturally discarded all the 
 
22 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 chemical theories of electricity as worthless, basing 
 his reasoning entirely upon fact and not fearing to 
 give trial to any system which suggested itself, regard 
 less of all existing prejudices about probability. 
 Grotthuss s hypothesis had no charms for him. The 
 problem was, not how to explain the chemical action 
 of currents, but how to produce currents on an 
 enormous scale at a trifling cost. It was necessary 
 to consult nature and not books. If he succeeded 
 in producing a vast quantity of electricity he would 
 find leisure to discourse upon its chemical effects. 
 The idea that the earth must be considered to be a 
 gigantic reservoir of electricity presented itself to his 
 mind under a practical aspect; and it immediately 
 struck him that in the shape of land and water the 
 earth contained the two elements of a stupendous 
 battery ; acted upon at all points by a uniform fluid 
 agent, the atmosphere. The idea was simple and 
 grand. It would be sufficient to immerse one con 
 ductor in the sea and to attach another to the land. 
 If anything were to result from the attempt it must 
 result immediately. No one had ever thought of it 
 before and the credit of the discovery would belong 
 wholly to him, Augustus Chard. If it failed there 
 was no one but Lady Brenda to say " I told you so." 
 Augustus accordingly set to work to convert the earth 
 into a battery, beginning with a preliminary experi 
 ment, to the success of which he attached considerable 
 importance and for which he had caused special instru 
 ments to be constructed. Even if this previous attempt 
 should fail Augustus would not be discouraged. A 
 
II WITH THE IMMORTALS 23 
 
 great mathematician 1 has said that " a law would be 
 theoretically universal if it were true of all cases 
 whatever ; and that is what we do not know of any 
 law at all." All previous experiments on such a scale 
 might fail and yet the final experiment, which no 
 body had ever tried, might be brilliantly successful. 
 
 Augustus therefore proceeded to construct an arti 
 ficial world. This is a very simple operation, and 
 it is unfortunate that the construction of the real 
 article should be accompanied with such difficulty. 
 It would be well worth while for the European Powers 
 to construct two little supplementary worlds, one for 
 Russians to live in and one for Turks. It has indeed 
 been found theoretically possible to make much out 
 of nothing at all, but hitherto all efforts to materialise 
 the cosmic ether into human habitations and other 
 practical conveniences have signally failed. Augustus 
 made his world in a glass bowl with earth and pebbles 
 and salt water, and tested its nature with a tangent 
 compass of his own invention, very delicately con 
 structed. His expectations were raised to the high 
 est pitch and he hesitated to make the connection of 
 the wire in the mercury cup. At that moment Lady 
 Brenda entered the room, dressed in an exquisite 
 spring costume, with a little straw hat upon her head 
 and a wonderful parasol in her hand. 
 
 "Come and look at my ghost," said Augustus, 
 smiling. 
 
 " It does not look at all like my idea of a ghost," 
 answered Lady Brenda. 
 
 1 Clifford. 
 
24 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 " Neither is your idea of a ghost at all like mine," 
 returned her son-in-law. " Look here, I am going 
 to consult a kind of Egyptian oracle which I have 
 reconstructed from original manuscripts rescued by 
 Dr. Mumienschinder from a tomb in Thebes. The 
 peculiarity of this oracle is that it tells the truth some 
 times. It is a sort of teraphim " 
 
 " Oh, I know. They eat teraphims in America. 
 Brenda dotes on them." 
 
 "I said teraphim you mean terrapin," said 
 Augustus, gravely. 
 
 " I see," said Lady Brenda, " of course. Go on." 
 
 "Now I am going to perform a magic rite. I 
 will put this bit of copper wire into this little cup 
 of mercury. Do you see that needle ? If the needle 
 moves I shall be a great man if it does not well, 
 then we will see." 
 
 " Put it in. I am sure it won t move," said Lady 
 Brenda, confidently. 
 
 " Here goes. One, two, three !" 
 
 Augustus and his mother-in-law fixed their eyes 
 on the little needle. It trembled and moved, very 
 little indeed, but visibly. 
 
 " Hurrah !" cried Chard. "I shall be a great man ! 
 I told you so !" 
 
 "How can you be so silly, Augustus!" laughed 
 Lady Brenda. " Of course it moved you shook it 
 with the wire. Don t tell me you really put any faith 
 in that nonsense !" 
 
 " I put a good deal of faith in it," he answered, 
 quietly, still gazing at the needle, which remained 
 
ii WITH THE IMMORTALS 25 
 
 deflected until he severed the connection, when it at 
 once returned to its normal position. " Now that it is 
 settled that I am to be a great man, let us go for a walk." 
 
 "Much nicer than pottering over such rubbish," 
 said the lady. " I have just had such a delightful 
 letter. Guess from whom it is ? " 
 
 Augustus guessed, and so they went down towards 
 the sea. He was not given to talking of his inten 
 tions until they were fulfilled, and there was yet much 
 work to be done before the colossal battery could 
 produce the phenomena he expected from it. But 
 he had a large body of workmen in readiness, together 
 with vast quantities of material, which seemed to 
 consist chiefly of great sheets of zinc -coated wire 
 netting, of endless coils of the same wire and of great 
 heaps of cork floats, each as big as a man s head, like 
 those used for setting tunny -nets in the Mediter 
 ranean. In a number of large deal cases which were 
 yet unopened there were apparatus of all kinds for 
 electric lighting, there were electric motors, electric 
 heating stoves and ranges for cooking by electricity ; 
 not to mention telegraphic instruments for measuring 
 currents, for varying the tension of the electricity 
 produced and for ascertaining the tension of the 
 charge in long cables. 
 
 The workmen began their labours under Chard s 
 direction and in a week the sea was covered for a 
 considerable distance with a net-work of cables and 
 floats disposed in the shape of a huge fan, adapted to 
 the shape of the lonely little bay below the Castello 
 del Gaudio. All along the shore and half way up 
 
26 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 the height every level bit of ground was covered with 
 wire netting, and pieces of the latter were thrust into 
 the deep crevices of the rocks and adapted over the 
 rocks themselves wherever these were smooth enough ; 
 and the netting, again, was covered with layers of mud 
 and sand and pebbles to protect it from the action of 
 the sun. All these nettings were carefully joined to 
 a system of thick, insulated copper wires which ulti 
 mately converged into one cable and led to a stone 
 hut at some distance from the castle. From the 
 cables floating on the sea, endless spirals of zinc- 
 coated wire hung down to the depths, but did not 
 reach to the bottom. These spirals also were con 
 nected and the connections all ended in a second 
 insulated cable which led up by high posts to the 
 little hut. The interior of the latter was now trans 
 formed into a rough laboratory and some of the in 
 struments were unpacked from the cases, cleaned 
 from dust and dampness and fixed upon heavy deal 
 tables. Thick glass pillars surmounted by massive 
 brass knobs and binding screws stood upon blocks of 
 wood, for Augustus had taken his precautions, not 
 knowing how far the mysterious element might con 
 fine itself to the voltaic form, and fearing some of 
 those startling manifestations of statical electricity 
 which have puzzled and even terrified experimenters 
 ever since Franklin drew sparks from his kite and 
 since Armstrong s workman was knocked down by an 
 electric shock from his steam-engine. 
 
 Augustus shut himself up in his laboratory and 
 cautiously began his operations. It was first necessary 
 
Ii WITH THE IMMORTALS 27 
 
 to ascertain whether the current would produce a spark, 
 and if so, whether the spark were of such magnitude 
 as to be dangerous. Carefully he connected the 
 extremities of his cables with a large universal dis 
 charger and adjusting the points at a distance of four 
 inches apart, he retired to the corner of the hut when 
 the commutator was placed upon a separate stand. 
 With intense anxiety he turned the lever that was 
 to produce the connection, keeping his eyes fixed 
 upon the universal discharger. Instantly a lambent 
 flame shot across the space between the points and 
 shed a strange blue light upon the objects near it, 
 even in the broad daylight. Augustus breathed hard. 
 He feared that he had produced a current of strong 
 tension and small quantity. He broke the circuit 
 and increased the distance of the points to eight 
 inches. Again the same lambent flame leapt across 
 as he turned the lever of the commutator. The 
 tension must be enormous, equal to that of a 
 Ruhmkorff inductorium of a hundred thousand metres 
 secondary coil, at the very least. Confused by an 
 appearance so familiar to him, Augustus then attempted 
 to charge a Leyden battery by attaching separate wires 
 to the pillars of the discharger and allowing the sparks 
 to pass as before. No result followed, and Augustus 
 laughed at himself as he realised his mistake. But 
 at ten inches and a half the spark ceased to pass 
 between the points : even at that distance the tension 
 in a constant current was almost incredible. Chard 
 wondered whether the galvanometer would indicate 
 any great quantity of the fluid. With such a tension 
 
28 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 a tangent compass was of little use and he introduced 
 a common galvanometer into the circuit and watched 
 it as he turned the key of the commutator. He 
 expected to see the needle deflected to an angle of 
 forty -five degrees, indicating a comparatively very 
 small quantity of electricity, such as is frequently 
 found in currents of very high tension. To his sur 
 prise and delight the needle moved quickly round 
 through an angle of 180 degrees and presently 
 remained stationary with its north pole pointing to 
 the south. The quantity was therefore enormous, far 
 beyond even what Augustus had expected, and the 
 tension was, after all, small in comparison. The real 
 world seemed likely to carry out the promises of the 
 artificial one. The gigantic force developed was docile 
 as a child. There were no stunning and unexpected 
 shocks from the fittings of the apparatus, no sparks 
 flying off with a report like a pistol shot such as 
 Augustus had seen in the handling of large dynamo- 
 electric machines and other imperfectly controllable 
 generators. Half an hour convinced him that the 
 current could be stored in common accumulators 
 without trouble or danger and that the tension could 
 be diminished by diminishing the quantity. These 
 admirable properties Augustus attributed to the perfect 
 balance between internal and external resistance which 
 was maintained in his vast natural battery. The 
 incandescent arc light worked admirably and the 
 accumulators when connected with electromotors left 
 nothing to be desired. A few experiments with the 
 latter and a few rough calculations convinced Augustus 
 
II WITH THE IMMORTALS 29 
 
 that the force of his constant current was sufficient to 
 run a train of two hundred tons at the rate of a hundred 
 miles an hour. The idea was fascinating and he grew 
 pale with excitement. If a few hundred yards of 
 collectors could produce such effects, what might be 
 expected from an apparatus covering a mile of sea- 
 coast ? Augustus resolved to illuminate the mountains 
 that very night, in honour of the discovery, and he lost 
 no time in setting his men to work. Lamps were 
 hung upon the jutting rocks, upon the walls and 
 terraces of the castle, upon posts set upright upon the 
 narrow shore below, and high upon the tower a truck 
 bearing half a dozen lamps together was hoisted and 
 connected with the rest 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 IT was a warm evening in the latter part of May. 
 Augustus had said nothing of the result of the experi 
 ments he had been making during the past weeks, 
 intending to surprise the three ladies by showing them 
 the astounding results of his work all at once. The 
 party sat at dinner in the vaulted hall and talked 
 upon indifferent subjects. 
 
 " You seem to be revolutionising this part of the 
 world, Augustus," said Diana. " I was walking on 
 the rocks this afternoon with Gwendoline and it 
 seemed as though you were preparing an immense 
 show of fireworks." 
 
 " Nothing to speak of," answered her brother ; 
 " I will show you after dinner." 
 
 " You have not succeeded in getting those people 
 to dinner whom we were talking about the other day, 
 have you?" asked Gwendoline. "I thought the 
 fireworks might be in their honour." 
 
 " No, I am afraid they won t come for my asking. 
 Perhaps if they got a word from you, my dear " 
 
 " What oppressive weather ! " remarked Lady 
 Brenda. " I am sure there is going to be a thunder 
 storm." 
 
CHAP, in WITH THE IMMORTALS 31 
 
 " I think so too," said Gwendoline. " I always 
 feel the thunder before it comes. Is not it very 
 warm for May? We might almost go out after 
 dinner." 
 
 "By all means, let us go out," assented Augustus. 
 "I have something to show you. It is singularly 
 oppressive, as you say and yet the weather seems 
 fine enough." 
 
 "Did it never strike you that your experiments 
 might have an effect on the weather?" asked Diana. 
 
 " If one could find a means to affect the weather," 
 Augustus replied, " one might produce rain and 
 drought at will. No I do not believe it has gone 
 as far as that. If the currents I have produced were 
 being discharged through the air their action might 
 make some very slight local change. But they are 
 not. Just now they are running off into accumulators 
 like water into a cistern." 
 
 " I hope it is not you," said Gwendoline, " but 
 there is certainly a very strange feeling in the air 
 very strange indeed. I never felt anything like it 
 before." 
 
 Bimbam just then entered the room and whispered 
 something to Mrs. Chard, bending low with the 
 respectful air of a trained elephant. 
 
 "It is very odd," said Gwendoline. "Tell him 
 to send something else. Just fancy," she continued, 
 turning to the others, " Celestin has sent word that 
 the ice-cream won t freeze he says he is at the 
 despair but that congeals not. It is very provoking 
 the first time I have ordered it." 
 
32 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 " Don t look at me like that," said Augustus, 
 laughing, "it is not my fault." 
 
 " I believe it is," said Gwendoline, making a little 
 face and then laughing too. 
 
 "Do you seriously suspect me of having put 
 Nature s nose out of joint?" asked her husband. 
 
 " Never mind, dear ! It is not the least matter," 
 said Lady Brenda to her daughter. "Those things 
 will happen sometimes, you know. Celestin will 
 turn the ice-cream into something else, of course. 
 Dear me ! I feel as though the room were full of 
 people it is very warm." 
 
 "Open that window," said Augustus to Bimbam, 
 the butler. The servant obeyed and a gust of hot 
 air blew in, almost stifling in its oppressiveness, but 
 the stars shone brightly in the dark and there seemed 
 to be no clouds in the sky. The party sat in silence 
 for some time, going through the form of eating, but 
 the sultry weight in the atmosphere increased with 
 every minute until it seemed as though the simoom 
 of the desert had broken into the dining-room. 
 
 " I cannot stand this a moment longer," said 
 Gwendoline, rising to her feet. " I cannot breathe." 
 
 " Let us go out," said Augustus. " I will amuse 
 you with my new fireworks. It must be cooler out- 
 side." 
 
 The three ladies left the table, and Augustus sent 
 for a lantern. He meant the surprise to be complete, 
 produced by a turn of his fingers, in the twinkling of 
 an eye. Bearing the lantern in his hand he left the 
 house with his three companions and began to ascend 
 
in WITH THE IMMORTALS 33 
 
 a short steep path which led to the stone hut where 
 he had centralised his apparatus. 
 
 "It is weird almost ghastly," said Diana in a 
 low voice. 
 
 " One feels afraid to speak," answered Gwendoline. 
 
 " Does not it sometimes feel like this when there 
 is to be an earthquake?" asked Lady Brenda. 
 
 " Exactly like this," said Augustus, reassuringly. 
 
 " Good gracious ! You don t think there is going 
 to be one?" 
 
 "No, I never heard of an earthquake on this 
 peninsula. There will very probably be one in 
 Naples to-night. Take care the stones are loose. 
 Here we are. Now take a good look. I want you 
 to stand here so facing the sea and turning a little 
 towards the castle. Don t move or turn your eyes 
 away it will be very curious. You are not afraid ? 
 I must go inside the hut to do it." 
 
 Augustus entered the low door, carrying his lantern 
 with him, and leaving the three ladies outside in the 
 dark. He went straight to the commutator and 
 having assured himself that the connections were 
 properly made he laid his hand on the switch. 
 
 "Ready," he called aloud. "Look where I told 
 you now !" 
 
 The key turned under his fingers and almost at 
 the same instant a cry of surprise and delight broke 
 from the little party outside. Augustus went out and 
 joined them, and gazed on the wonderful effects of 
 his discovery. 
 
 The rocks and the shore were as bright as day. 
 D 
 
34 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 High on the castle burned a beacon which must have 
 been visible thirty miles away at sea ; from every 
 point of rock a little sun shed a broad circle of day 
 light, and from deep fissures and crevices straight, 
 broad shafts of light beamed upwards to the dark sky 
 like radiant ladders to heaven. The frightened quail, at 
 that season just settling on the southern shore after their 
 flight from Africa, flew whirring up towards the lights, 
 uttering their peculiar short cry. White gulls shot 
 from the rocks and sped in huge circles like gigantic 
 flakes of snow whirling down to the dark, placid water. 
 The rocks threw weird and unimagined shadows under 
 the light which had never shone on them before. 
 The four spectators of the wonderful scene looked 
 out, and held their breath, and then looked at each 
 other. 
 
 "How did you do it, Augustus?" asked Gwen 
 doline. 
 
 " I suppose they are electric lights," said Diana, 
 "but the effect is like magic." 
 
 "Perfectly wonderful!" exclaimed Lady Brenda. 
 " I never saw anything like it. There is some real 
 practical use in this sort of thing." 
 
 " You did not seem to think there was much use 
 in my glass bowl oracle the other day," remarked 
 Augustus. 
 
 " No that was ridiculous," answered his mother- 
 in-law. 
 
 " It was the same thing on a smaller scale. I was 
 only teasing you it was an experiment with elec 
 tricity ; it was not an oracle at all." 
 
in WITH THE IMMORTALS 35 
 
 "How could you make fun of me in that way?" 
 asked Lady Brenda, half hurt, half laughing. 
 
 " Only to see what you would say," replied Augus 
 tus. "Come, let us take a walk among the lights 
 and see the effect from different places." 
 
 " It is hotter out of doors than it was at dinner," 
 said Lady Brenda. "It is like a sirocco in August 
 it burns one s skin." 
 
 It was quite true ; as they moved along the narrow 
 path, puffs of burning air blew from the rocks on all 
 sides, unexpectedly, and so violently that it seemed 
 as though the party were struck by clouds of hot 
 whirling feathers. The wind seemed palpable and 
 thick. One would almost have said that the gusts 
 cast shadows in the brilliant light of the countless 
 lamps. At the same time, in the dark distance above 
 the illumination, the stars were dimmed and went 
 out one by one. Then as the four persons emerged 
 upon a little platform of rock from which they could 
 view the wild scene, the blasts of scorching wind 
 suddenly ceased and the air settled down upon them 
 like a thick warm blanket. They panted for breath, 
 and by a common impulse they all sat down upon the 
 blocks of stone to rest. 
 
 An indescribable awe seized upon them all, like 
 the creeping shadow of an event to come. Gwen 
 doline sat by her husband s side and laid her hand 
 upon his clasped fingers. Lady Brenda chose the 
 place where the light was brightest, while Diana, sitting 
 a little apart, leaned her cheek upon her hand and 
 stared out into the strange mixture of daylight and 
 
36 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP 
 
 darkness, half startled by a feeling of weird horror, 
 half delighted by the delicious sense of confused 
 reality and dreamy illusion which her brother had 
 conjured up. 
 
 The four sat there for nearly a quarter of an hour 
 without exchanging a word. There are times when 
 the most loquacious being alive must be silent; 
 moments when the unwonted consciousness of the 
 limitless unknown lies heavily upon the little body 
 of our poor knowledge, as the weight of some huge 
 beast that stretches its vast bulk across a tiny 
 trail of toiling ants. The ants are too small to be 
 all crushed by anything so big and rough, but they 
 lie paralysed and helpless till it pleases the giant to 
 relieve them of his burden and let them move again. 
 The mind sticks like a fly in a pot of honey when 
 transported to an atmosphere not its own, and seems 
 to struggle with an element in which its conscious 
 ness is redoubled while its activity is destroyed. No 
 one of the four could have given a reason for the 
 silence, nor can any one find explanations for such 
 things without assuming a theory which one half of 
 the world considers absurd and the other half believes 
 to be dangerous. The fact that for thousands of 
 years man has been trying experiments with a view 
 to finding out something about himself, and that his 
 efforts have uniformly resulted in failure, has not 
 made him more lenient to beliefs which he dislikes, 
 nor more willing to admit his own well-demonstrated 
 ignorance. He still explains as accident that which 
 he knows not how to explain by law, and rocks him- 
 
Hi WITH THE IMMORTALS 37 
 
 self to sleep in the security of self-deceived vanity, 
 until he is roused from his slumber to tremble at 
 those terrors which his fatuous self-satisfaction has so 
 deservedly incurred. Science, what follies are com 
 mitted in thy name ! What blind faith is placed in 
 thy feeble utterances, which might more worthily be 
 fixed on higher and truer things ! 
 
 Silently the four sat together and looked down 
 upon the scene, breathing with difficulty in the hot 
 thick air. The wind had entirely ceased and the 
 silence was so profound as to be almost terrifying. 
 Then, suddenly and without the smallest warning, a 
 fearful crash of thunder burst above their heads and 
 struck the rocks, and echoed back in horrible rever 
 beration, peal upon peal, rolling to the distance, as 
 though the great earth had struck upon a moun 
 tain in the smooth grooves that guide her course, 
 and, jolting heavily, were grinding the mass to pieces 
 beneath her resistless weight. Then all was silent 
 again. 
 
 Even Augustus started slightly from his reverie, 
 and the ladies sprang to their feet. There was some 
 thing in the suddenness of the explosion that struck 
 them all as unnatural and horrible. 
 
 " Let us go home I am sure it is going to rain," 
 said Lady Brenda, but her voice sounded hollow and 
 weird. 
 
 "Look at the lights!" exclaimed Gwendoline. 
 " What is that moving round them ?" 
 
 " I don t know," answered Augustus. " It is very 
 extraordinary." 
 
38 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 " It is beautiful," said Diana, her eyes fixed on 
 the strange phenomenon. 
 
 As they looked, faint clouds of rosy haze moved 
 between them and the lamps, pausing suddenly and 
 then shooting on like wild figures with streaming 
 drapery of impalpable fineness, tinged with unearthly 
 hues, that left a luminous track in the dark air be 
 tween. And the figures, or clouds, multiplied till 
 there were myriads of rosy streamers, chasing each 
 other like fire -flies in a wood, intertwining and 
 mingling and shooting away again, but rising higher 
 and higher till, as they soared and leaped into a broad 
 arch through the night sky, emitting a radiance of 
 their own ; and the rose colour deepened to red, and 
 the red to purple, and again from time to time a great 
 golden flash flew higher than the rest and trembled 
 in the perfection of a faultless curve and fell again 
 into the night beyond. 
 
 Then again the thunder crashed and pealed and 
 echoed as though a Supreme Power were shaking the 
 mountains like pebbles in the hollow of a bowl, and 
 the hot wind puffed like the fierce blast of a furnace 
 from the face of the bare rocks. 
 
 The four stood close together, pale and trembling. 
 The ground shook beneath their feet as though it 
 would give way and dissolve in the convulsion of the 
 elements. The far- springing arches of streaming 
 light blazed higher and higher, and struck wide circles 
 in the black air, eclipsing in their matchless radiance 
 the bright lamps below, and piercing the sky with 
 scimitars and spears of light, symmetrical, terrible 
 
in WITH THE IMMORTALS 39 
 
 and glorious, leaping from a sea of rosy and golden 
 flame which thickened and surged about the castle 
 and down to the shore, hiding everything in its fiery 
 waves. 
 
 A blinding white flash, an explosion as of a thousand 
 cannon bursting together the four fell back against 
 the face of the cliff, half stunned, unconscious with 
 horror and fear. The thunderbolt had struck the 
 rocks not fifty yards below them and in the din of the 
 elements they could hear the great masses of stone 
 bounding down the precipice to plunge into the sea 
 below. 
 
 Augustus was no coward, neither were the three 
 women of the timid kind who tremble in ordinary 
 danger. But it was clear that to stay where they were 
 was death, certain and sudden. 
 
 "Unless I can reach- the hut, we are lost," said 
 Chard. 
 
 " Go," said Gwendoline, firmly. " We will wait 
 here." But as she spoke a third peal of thunder 
 broke with deafening crash upon the hills above. 
 
 " I cannot leave you here," said Augustus. " You 
 will be safe on the other side of the cliff upon the 
 sandy shore if anywhere." 
 
 And so, under the awful light of the wild streamers, 
 amidst the howling of the dry and scorching wind and 
 the pealing of the thunder, the four began their descent, 
 not knowing at what step they should meet death nor 
 which of them should reach the shore alive. And 
 when they were on the sand Augustus left them and 
 fled up the height again through the very midst of the 
 
40 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP 
 
 flaming air, where indeed there was no heat to burn, 
 but such whirlpools of hot wind as made him stagger 
 in his race ; and ever and again the dreadful thunder 
 cracked and burst and roared, so that his senses reeled 
 and, but for the loved ones below, he must have lost all 
 consciousness and fallen a victim to the convulsion of 
 the elements he had roused. For he knew that it was 
 his work now, as he sprang up the rocks towards the 
 hut ; he had roused the mainsprings of nature and 
 disturbed her rest so that he doubted whether any 
 effort of his could lull the storm. The hut itself was 
 in a blaze 01 purple and rosy light; but he rushed 
 boldly in and groped for his instruments in the 
 luminous hot mist. He could not find it, and his 
 heart sank, but he searched still and at last felt the 
 cold enamelled key of the switch beneath his hand. 
 In convulsive triumph he grasped the lever and 
 gathering his senses of remembrance by an effort, he 
 turned it half round. 
 
 At first there was no change. His heart beat fast 
 with terror, as he stood holding the tiny thing by 
 which he hoped to direct and subdue such mighty 
 forces. But gradually the colour faded from the room, 
 the mist disappeared and the light of the lantern which 
 he had left there an hour before shone out quietly and 
 illuminated the scene. He took it and then he went 
 to the door. All was changed. The sea of flame had 
 disappeared, leaving but a phosphorescent suggestion 
 of light behind. In the sky above the wild streamers 
 flashed convulsively and died away, one after another. 
 The lamps were extinguished, and in the clear sky the 
 
in \V1TH THE IMMORTALS 41 
 
 stars shone brightly. But far to the south-east a soft 
 light was in the sky, and as he looked he saw that the 
 moon was rising. The low and distant rumblings of 
 the thunder grew fainter and ceased. Augustus began 
 his descent, reflecting on the awful peril from which 
 he had escaped. 
 
 As he reached the shore the scene was inexpressibly 
 beautiful. The May moon, but a day past the full, 
 rose softly over the low range of the Basilicata. The 
 placid sea lapped the dusky shingle and caught the 
 reflection of the moonbeams as one might toss hand- 
 fuls of diamonds upon a mantle of dark velvet. 
 
 The three women stood together on the shore, 
 their lithe and graceful figures just outlined in the 
 moonlight. All was peace and calm, the storm was 
 ended, and Nature, like a tired child, drooped and 
 slept, soothed by the lullaby of the rippling moonlit 
 sea. 
 
 " It is all over," said Augustus, quietly. But he 
 took his wife in his arms and kissed her. 
 
 As they all turned together they were aware of a 
 man in gray clothes who sat upon a worn boulder at 
 the water s edge, his head supported in his hand, 
 gazing to seaward 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THEY all came forward by a simultaneous movement 
 of curiosity and approached the solitary stranger. 
 As they came near he slowly turned his head, looked 
 at them and rose to his feet. He was below the 
 middle height, slightly made and graceful, dressed 
 scrupulously in the fashion of five and thirty years 
 ago, save that the linen collar was less close about 
 the throat than men wore it then, and loosely bound 
 with a black silk cravat; he wore yellow nankeen 
 trousers, the waistcoat was buttoned across and fitted 
 tightly to his slender waist, and the long gray coat, 
 narrow chested and tight in the sleeves, was unfastened 
 and thrown back, while one small and delicate hand 
 grasped a dark mantle which would have fallen to the 
 ground as he stood up. It was a wonderful face 
 upon which the moonlight fell ; a face pale and thin 
 and spiritual, from the smooth broad forehead about 
 which the short fair hair grew in abundant thickness, 
 to the sensitive, half sarcastic downward curve of the 
 lips, visible distinctly between the drooping mous 
 tache and the pointed beard. The fine and slightly 
 aquiline nose, delicately modelled and long in pro 
 portion to the face, enhanced the mournful expression 
 
CHAP, iv WITH THE IMMORTALS 43 
 
 of the features. The eyes, veiled by the drooping 
 of their lids, seemed to speak of such sadness as is 
 distilled from the secret and melancholy visions of a 
 poet s soul, rather than of that hopeless misery which 
 prolonged and acute suffering stamps upon the face of 
 an unfortunate man. 
 
 The stranger looked coldly at the party as 
 though he were ill pleased at being disturbed in 
 his reverie. 
 
 "Do you see me, that you look at me thus?" he 
 asked, as they came quite near to him. The question 
 was a strange one indeed, and there was a pause 
 before any one answered it. 
 
 "We mean no discourtesy to you, sir," said 
 Augustus at last. " Seeing a stranger so near our 
 house, in this desolate region, we naturally desire to 
 offer you such hospitality as we may." 
 
 "And I, sir, am most ready to thank you," said 
 the other, a strange smile passing over his face as he 
 frankly held out his hand. Augustus took it, willingly 
 enough, but he started as he touched the long white 
 fingers. 
 
 " You are very cold," he said. " Pray come with 
 us to the house." 
 
 " No," answered the stranger, "I am not cold at 
 least I do not feel cold," he added, smiling again. 
 " I am past feeling those things." * 
 
 The ladies stood together in a little group. 
 Augustus and the unknown gentleman were not two 
 paces from them. 
 
 " I think it is a little rash of Augustus asking 
 
44 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP 
 
 him to the house," said Lady Brenda in an undertone. 
 " He is so very oddly dressed ! " 
 
 " Oh, Augustus is always right about those things, 
 mamma," answered Gwendoline. 
 
 The stranger apparently overheard the remarks 
 exchanged by the mother and daughter, for he moved 
 forward a little and spoke to Augustus so that they 
 could hear what he said. 
 
 " I feel," he said, " that upon accepting the kind 
 offer you have made me, I must tell you my name." 
 
 " Mine is Augustus Chard," said the host, not 
 wishing to be outdone in courtesy. 
 
 " And mine needs a word of explanation before 
 it is told," rejoined the stranger, "a word of explana 
 tion which may save many misunderstandings in the 
 future. Do not be startled at what I say. There is 
 nothing supernatural in it. Nor must you imagine 
 that I am a madman. You have been doing danger 
 ous things with Nature, Mr. Chard, you have caused 
 some of her laws to act for a time in a way not 
 familiar to you. I supposed so from what I felt before 
 you approached me. When I realised that you saw 
 me, I understood that I had become visible, and I 
 was greatly surprised, as no one has seen me for a 
 long time not since I died, in fact " 
 
 "Not since you died?" exclaimed the three ladies 
 at once. 
 
 "No, not since I died," continued the speaker, 
 calmly. " By your experiments you have made dead 
 men visible for a time. I have been dead thirty and 
 odd years, and if there is anything left of my bones I 
 
iv WITH THE IMMORTALS 45 
 
 am not curious to see it. This, that you see, is what 
 is left of myself. I am Heinrich Heine. You see I 
 did well to give you a word of explanation. I am 
 quite harmless ; indeed, I always was." 
 
 " My dear sir," said Augustus, " I have too long 
 been accustomed to expect the unusual in nature to 
 be startled at it when it appears, especially when it 
 procures me the pleasure of meeting one whom I 
 have so sincerely admired as yourself. My wife, my 
 mother-in-law, Lady Brenda, my sister, Miss Diana 
 Chard. We have so often spoken of you that I will 
 answer for the satisfaction these ladies must feel at 
 this meeting." 
 
 "Yes indeed!" said Gwendoline and Diana to 
 gether. 
 
 " This is all very queer and astral that sort of 
 thing," said Lady Brenda. " But I suppose it is all 
 right." 
 
 " Madam," answered Heine, " whatever brings me 
 into such company must necessarily be right. Clearly, 
 Mr. Chard s experiments were not for his own benefit 
 but for mine." 
 
 "If you are not really cold," suggested Diana, 
 " we might stay here for a while. It is so hot in the 
 house this evening." 
 
 " No," objected Gwendoline, " I must go and see 
 the baby poor little thing, I don t believe it could 
 possibly have slept through that frightful storm. Then 
 we can sit upon the terrace in the moonlight." 
 
 As they all moved slowly towards the house, Lady 
 Brenda glanced curiously at the graceful form of the 
 
46 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 dead poet as he walked beside her. She was very 
 far from being persuaded that he was really a dead 
 man, but she was by no means far from believing 
 him to be a dangerous escaped lunatic. Under the 
 circumstances the doubt was very reasonable. But 
 Gwendoline and Diana felt that delicious thrill of 
 excitement which every one experiences on being 
 suddenly brought into the company of a person long 
 admired and studied. On reaching the castle it was 
 found that the model baby had slept soundly through 
 the disturbances, and that the servants, having been 
 at dinner during the whole time, had noticed nothing 
 but the thunder. Augustus breathed freely, for he 
 had feared that his electric storm might produce a 
 serious convulsion in the prosaic mind of Bimbam. 
 That catastrophe was averted, and the immediate 
 prospect presented no difficulties. 
 
 A quarter of an hour later the whole party were 
 seated upon the terrace in the full light of the May 
 moon, looking over the placid southern sea. Heine 
 sat in the midst of the group. Saving his antiquated 
 dress, there was nothing in his appearance to dis 
 tinguish him from his living hosts. Augustus alone 
 had felt the icy chill of his hand. 
 
 "This is almost as good as life," said Heine in 
 his dreamy voice. " You have the advantage of me 
 still, however." 
 
 "Are you really dead?" asked Lady Brenda, 
 incredulously. 
 
 "As dead, dear madam, as the little Veronica 
 as dead as Doctor Saul Ascher, who died an abstract 
 
iv WITH THE IMMORTALS 47 
 
 death from reason-poisoning before his wizened little 
 legs finally refused to carry about the over-loaded, 
 over-packed, over-hardened thing he called his head." 
 
 "I never heard of Doctor Saul Ascher," said 
 Gwendoline. 
 
 " Nor I," echoed Augustus and the rest, all to 
 gether. 
 
 "He was much talked of in his day, especially 
 by himself," said Heine. " His reputation suffered a 
 mortal blow when he died. I only mentioned him 
 as an illustration. If you like it better, I will say that 
 I am as dead as a door-nail I have passed from the 
 condition of life to the condition of existence. By 
 a happy accident I am now alive for purposes of 
 conversation, a pastime in which I always found an 
 unreasoning delight, provided I was not required to 
 play an important part in it." 
 
 "I don t think it is at all unreasonable to like 
 conversation," said Lady Brenda. " When people 
 have ideas they ought to exchange them." 
 
 " Yes when they have any. I once wrote a book 
 about ideas, and I took the definition of the idea, not 
 from Plato, but from a Berlin cab-driver he said 
 ideas were a lot of stupid stuff that people got into 
 their heads. The cab-driver evidently knew what he 
 was talking about. I am more convinced of that now 
 than I ever was before." 
 
 "Why?" asked Diana. 
 
 " I used to have ideas about death, before I died. 
 I used to think one must sleep too soundly when one 
 was dead. Death is the end of sleep. There is no 
 
48 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 more sleep for us, for ever, it seems and alas, there 
 are no more dreams either ! I regret the sadness of 
 life, for the sake of the contrasted sweetness of its 
 dreams. I regret my bitter-sweet emotions, my joy 
 in being sad and my delicious imaginary sadness in 
 being joyful. I was made up of contradictions when 
 I was alive. Now I know too much even to contra 
 dict myself. Our conversations now are tame. All 
 conversations are, unless we speak of our hopes ; and 
 though we have plentiful material for reflection here, 
 we have but little ground for anticipation. Our dis 
 cussions, such as they are, cannot be better defined 
 than as a perpetual comparison of our past experience. 
 You will readily conceive that with our unlimited 
 command of time such subjects may be exhausted." 
 
 "But of whom does your society consist?" asked 
 Lady Brenda. " I can imagine that you might form 
 a most delightful circle out of such elements." 
 
 "The elements are a little mixed," answered the 
 poet in his soft, slow tones. " We have formed a 
 little society almost as exclusive as a faculty of 
 professors in a university also a little more witty, 
 for there are no professors among us, either ancient 
 or modern." 
 
 " You never liked professors. I have noticed it 
 in your books," said Diana. 
 
 " No and professors never liked me; a fact which 
 was of vastly greater importance to me than my liking 
 or disliking them. We have only one of each of a 
 certain number of classes. For instance we have only 
 one conqueror." 
 
iv WITH THE IMMORTALS 49 
 
 "Who is he?" asked Augustus. 
 
 " A certain Julius Caesar. His soul does not 
 inhabit the body of a schoolmaster as I once sup 
 posed. I was greatly relieved when I met him here. 
 Perhaps he is the most unique in his way. I have 
 not heard that any one has died recently who greatly 
 resembles him. He has taken the place of Bonaparte 
 in my estimation, since I made his acquaintance." 
 
 "Perhaps you will change your mind again," 
 suggested Lady Brenda, hoping to make the dead 
 man say more. 
 
 " No," he answered, sadly. " We are terribly 
 consistent after death. We shall never change our 
 minds again, now. We are the bronze of which our 
 lives were but the clay moulds. We are new things 
 indeed, but the impression is fatally true, for we are 
 no longer subject to illusions alas ! there are no 
 delicious self-deceptions for us now. We modelled 
 ourselves in our lives and, as we modelled, so we 
 are cast in this imperishable essence of the soul. 
 But we are still fated to receive impressions, all true, 
 and therefore commonplace and detestable, because 
 when one sees nothing but fact one ceases to fabricate 
 fiction. Moreover, the knowledge that we cannot 
 write down what we think and sell it to newspapers 
 and poetry-mongers for money is saddening to in- 
 dustriously-minded little poets like myself. The poet 
 is accustomed in his lifetime to earn his living by 
 forcing words to fit the bed of Procrustes, squeezing 
 the poor sensitive feet into the iron boots of verse, 
 ramming down the whole into couplets very like 
 E 
 
50 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 strings of sausages in which mauled and chopped 
 meat is forced into skins and tied up into appropriate 
 lengths for quotation I mean for the breakfast of 
 an average strong man, and then .hung up in long 
 strings in the bookseller s window to attract the 
 hungry. Words are words, even in verse and pig is 
 pig, even in sausages, but I doubt whether the pig 
 would recognise himself after the transmigration. It 
 is the proud privilege of the pig to be made into 
 sausages after his death, and if he is a lucky pig his 
 sausage form may even serve as an ornament and 
 be decorated with laurels in the pork-butcher s shop 
 at Christmas-tide, which is better luck than happens 
 to most poets. For the poet eats himself up in his 
 lifetime, and misses his daily search for rhymes, as 
 well as the daily price of them, when he is dead ; 
 just as an Italian donkey on Sunday misses being 
 kicked up hill with a load on his back before dinner ; 
 just as a business man who takes a holiday misses 
 the delight of doubling himself up all day upon his 
 desk and letting the delightful, crabbed, money- 
 getting figures tickle his nose and his heart from 
 morning till night. The poet after death is like the 
 business man on a holiday, the Italian ass on Sunday 
 and the pig before he has been made into sausages 
 he has no raison d etre, no reason for existing, he 
 is out of his sphere, lost in the labyrinths of every 
 day fact, uncomfortable as an antelope strolling on 
 the Boulevard des Italiens, as a tragedian in the 
 solitudes of the steppes, as a cat in a country where 
 the houses have no roofs, so nice and romantic to 
 
IV WITH THE IMMORTALS 51 
 
 howl upon at night. No one pays me for howling 
 now, nor if any one would, could I find a roof. 
 Perhaps I could not even find a subject for my 
 lamentations, except the absence of such a subject, 
 which indeed is a very serious matter for a poet." 
 
 " How can you speak of poetry in such a way 
 you who wrote such exquisite things?" asked Diana. 
 
 " You may be sure," answered Heine, with that 
 wonderful smile which drew strange angles about his 
 sensitive mouth, "that if it were still in my power 
 to make verses I would not laugh at my old trade. 
 But the grapes which hang too high are eternally 
 green as perpetually sour as unrealised hope." 
 
 " Which is very sour indeed," remarked Augustus. 
 " Nevertheless, you must have realised most of your 
 hopes during your lifetime. You were brilliantly 
 successful." 
 
 " In exile," answered the poet, sadly. 
 
 " In a perfectly voluntary exile, I believe ? " re 
 turned Augustus. 
 
 " No a fatal exile," said Heine, almost passion 
 ately. " In Germany I was a Frenchman, in France I 
 was a German among Jews a Christian, among Chris 
 tians a Jew, with Catholics a Protestant, with Protestants 
 a Catholic. I was always in contradiction with my 
 surroundings, I was in a perpetual exile. Had I 
 been made like some people, full of raw fighting 
 instincts, I would have fought. As it was, I was 
 unhappy, sick in soul and ill in body, and so I 
 became a poet and wrote verses. You say they were 
 good ? Yes, I believe they were, for I took pleasure 
 
52 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 in writing them; but had I possessed Mr. Chard s 
 sanguine constitution I would have been a leader of 
 men instead of a writer of lyrics. I used to think 
 I might play a political part indeed, I often fancied 
 that I did. Since I died I have learned what stuff 
 is needed to play a part in the world of nations." 
 
 " Broad shoulders and a rough fist," said Augustus. 
 " Soldiering is girl s play compared with it." 
 
 "You may well say that. Broad shoulders, a 
 rough fist and a hard heart. I think my heart was 
 never very hard. Even when I abused people it did 
 not hurt them much. My shoulders are not broad 
 and my fist you see," said the poet, glancing with a 
 pathetic pride at his delicate fingers, "I have the 
 hand of a woman; I was not made for a politician." 
 
 " It is strange," said Gwendoline, "that great poets 
 so often believe themselves to be statesmen, or have 
 opportunities of becoming statesmen thrust upon 
 them." 
 
 "Yes," replied Heine, "there was Goethe, to begin 
 with. Dante was another. Milton had the strongest 
 political tastes. Victor Hugo was a type of the poli 
 tician-poet. Horace refused to be political private 
 secretary to Augustus. Catullus began as a writer 
 of political squibs against Caesar. Mickievicz was a 
 furious patriot. Even Byron aspired to political 
 fame and sacrificed his life heroically for an idea. 
 Perhaps I should say for a principle, I do not like 
 the word idea." 
 
 "If you will pardon me, I think that is one 
 of your amiable eccentricities," remarked Augustus. 
 
IV WITH THE IMMORTALS 53 
 
 " The great fights or the great struggles of history, 
 have either been fought for material advantage or 
 for ideas. It seems to me nobler to fight for an 
 idea than to fight for money or for what practically 
 results in money." 
 
 " By all means," answered Heine. " In my mind 
 the word idea is associated with certain philosophical 
 theories which I consider absurd, but if you use the 
 word in the sense of a principle, and enthusiasm for 
 that principle, I agree with you. That is what the 
 sickness of modern times means. It is too long since 
 the world has fought for a pure principle. Individual 
 nations have had their struggles, chiefly internal, about 
 what they considered right or wrong, but it is long 
 since the joint enthusiasm of all humanity has been 
 roused to shed blood and spend it in attacking and 
 defending a purely moral cause. At present the 
 thinking world is divided into two very distinct classes 
 those who say that principles are worth fighting 
 for, and those who say that there should be no fight 
 ing and that the principles will take care of them 
 selves. Neither party has the full sympathy of the 
 masses." 
 
 "I always think," said Lady Brenda, "that the 
 world depends entirely on the thinking people. The 
 masses are not of so much importance. They always 
 follow, you know." 
 
 "You and I, madam," replied the poet, "may 
 design a very good pyramid, as big and symmetrical 
 as the pyramid of Cheops. But however perfect the 
 design may be, we cannot build it unless the masses 
 
54 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 help us. Without the concurrence of the masses the 
 noblest political schemes must fail." 
 
 " Their failure does not make them any the less 
 noble," objected Lady Brenda. 
 
 " No. But it makes them less useful and there 
 fore less important. The successful people are those 
 who induce many to follow them, and that can only 
 be done by presenting the many with ideas which 
 they can understand. The thoughts of great poets 
 are generally noble, but not easily understood by the 
 masses. The poet, however, aims at elevating the 
 people to his own level, and being carried away by 
 the grandeur of his plans he thinks it a simple matter 
 to make a poetic commonwealth of the whole world. 
 He is of course disappointed ; he dies fancying his 
 life a failure, and after he is dead he is surprised to 
 find that nobody ever thought anything of his political 
 capabilities, whereas he has earned immortality by 
 his verses. The great man of the future will be he 
 who shall discover the idea as you call it for which 
 mankind shall be willing to take up arms. If his 
 idea succeeds he will be a very great man and will 
 probably be murdered, like a gentleman ; if he fails 
 he will be the last of humanity and will most likely 
 be hanged, like a thief. After all, it is better to be 
 a poet. If people only knew and understood how 
 much better it is to live out one s life naturally ! 
 There is so little of it, and the remembrance of that 
 little must serve one so long ! " 
 
 " It is certainly best to be a poet," said Diana, 
 leaning back in her chair and looking from the moon 
 
iv WITH THE IMMORTALS 55 
 
 to the dark water, and dreamily again from the water 
 to the silver shield above. " But it is not everybody 
 who can. They say there is but one good poet in a 
 thousand million human beings." 
 
 "The proportion is truly discouraging," answered 
 Heine. " It is even worse when you reflect that there 
 is not more than one good poet in a thousand million 
 poets of all kinds, any more than you will find two 
 wise men in a milliard of puckery, peppery, self-satisfied 
 scientists. It must therefore be difficult to be very 
 wise or to be a very good poet but be careful never 
 to tell people so, for as yet nobody has found it out." 
 
 " It cannot hurt people if they try to be either," 
 said Lady Brenda. 
 
 " The ultimate disappointment of being convinced 
 of failure in the nine hundred ninety-nine million nine- 
 hundred ninety -nine thousand nine hundred and ninety- 
 nine cases is hardly ever felt in practice by poets, never 
 by scientists. It follows that, at a comparatively small 
 cost, thousands of millions are made perfectly happy 
 in the belief that they are great. Even when idiots 
 do not obtain appreciation, which rarely occurs, they 
 find pleasant consolation in attributing their lack of 
 success to the stupidity of others. There are more 
 ways of believing oneself great than by obtaining 
 praise from one s contemporaries, or money for one s 
 works. I received forty copies, free of charge, as sole 
 and entire payment for my first book of verses, after 
 another publisher had refused to print it altogether ; 
 but when I was correcting the proofs I felt that I was 
 a much greater man than before, and I have never 
 
56 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP, 
 
 since felt so great as on that day. I had a considerable 
 reputation when my excellent uncle remarked of me 
 to a friend that if the silly boy had ever learned 
 anything he would not have needed to write books. 
 I had reputation, I say, and yet I was so much struck 
 by the truth of the remark, that I would have accepted 
 the post of theological adviser and attorney-general to 
 the king of the cannibals, had it been offered to me 
 anything for a respectable profession, as I said to my 
 self. But the last theological adviser had chanced to 
 disagree with the king about an hour after the Sunday 
 meal, and on taking medical advice and consulting 
 the family butcher I lost confidence in myself and did 
 not apply. Uncle Solomon Heine also thought there 
 was truth in his saying and repeated it frequently. I 
 was then a man of one book, but he was a man of 
 one joke. I afterwards wrote other books, but my 
 uncle s jest did not multiply. Still, that one joke 
 elevates him ; he stood upon it as on a pedestal ; and 
 the pedestal bore to him about the same relation as 
 the Vendome column bears to the statue of Napoleon." 
 
 There was something so good-natured in his story 
 of the facetious uncle Solomon, that all the party 
 laughed a little, except Diana, who was dreaming of 
 something very far away. Heine noticed her silence. 
 
 "What were you thinking of?" he asked, turning 
 towards her. 
 
 " I will not tell you you would be angry," she 
 answered. 
 
 " I ? angry ?" exclaimed the poet in some surprise. 
 " Dead men are never angry. Anger is an emotion, 
 
iv WITH THE IMMORTALS 57 
 
 and there are no emotions of that kind for us. We 
 have lost the power of influencing our surroundings, 
 and we perform no actions which can be influenced 
 by them. We shed tears sometimes, and sometimes 
 we laugh a little but we are never angry. What 
 were you thinking of?" 
 
 " I was thinking wondering about the dead 
 Maria," said Diana in a low voice. 
 
 " Yes," resumed Heine, softly, " I wonder too I 
 wonder why I suffered as I did. But no one knows 
 the story. I regret the suffering now that it is gone, 
 and I wish it were with me again. When I was alive 
 I used to think that she came back from the dead in 
 the silent evenings evenings like this and that she 
 sat with me and spoke with me as she used to speak. 
 Now that I am dead I cannot find her I have long 
 given up the search. I sometimes fancy I hear her 
 voice singing it is a strange, sweet voice, like a 
 nightingale s last notes, full of silky tones that make 
 me tremble with a sort of creeping fear, tones that 
 seem to come from a bleeding heart, that wind and spin 
 themselves among my thoughts like soft, beseeching 
 memories. And her dear face that seemed modelled 
 by a Greek master out of the perfumed mist of white 
 roses, delicate as though breathed into shape, noble 
 beyond all thought and the passionate eyes illuminat 
 ing the classic splendour of her beauty I remember 
 all. Her hand, too ! There were little blue veins 
 under the polished, high-born skin. It was not like 
 a little girl s vegetable-animal hand half lamb, half 
 rose thoughtless and fair; there was something 
 
5 8 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 spiritual in the white fingers, something that suggested 
 a story of sympathy, like the hands of beautiful persons 
 who are excessively refined or have suffered terribly 
 and yet it had a look of pathetic innocence, and if I 
 touched it, it shrank delicately under the gentlest 
 pressure. She was dead when I saw her last she was 
 so beautiful when she was dead, so terribly, so fascinat 
 ingly beautiful, as she lay among the roses on her bed. 
 She died before I could reach her, but I saw her dead. 
 She loved me once I thought she loved me in the 
 end, though she took another. They respected me 
 they left me alone with her. Old Ursula looked at 
 me once, strangely I thought, and she went out. The 
 shaded lamp stood on a table. A purple flower 
 drooped in a glass beside it, and gave out a faint 
 unnatural perfume. I stood by the bedside. I 
 thought of the dark-robed knight who would have 
 kissed his dead love to life again. I gazed long, 
 and at last I bent down and I pressed my lips on her 
 cold mouth. Suddenly the lamp was extinguished 
 it must have been the breeze from the open window, 
 for I know I was alone I felt cold, icy cold, arms 
 go round my neck I heard a name spoken. It was 
 her voice, it was not my name. The rest? I do 
 not know the rest, for I fled from the house, from the 
 town, from the country. They told me she was not 
 dead. She was dead to me dead as I am now. 
 To me she is always dead, always, always ! These 
 are not tears, the moon casts queer lights on dead 
 men s faces." 
 
 His voice trembled and ceased, and silence fell 
 
IV WITH THE IMMORTALS 59 
 
 upon the little company that sat in the May moonlight 
 over the sea. The story of human suffering is ever 
 old, yet ever new the dead man who had been telling 
 his long-dead tale had himself said so, and it is true. 
 Each of those who heard him, heard him differently ; 
 yet each felt in the story the whole depth of the pain 
 for him which they could have felt had they stood 
 beside him nearly seventy years ago when it all hap 
 pened, when the woman he loved was suddenly 
 restored to life with another s name upon her lips, 
 when he himself was wounded in the first spring of 
 his youth with a wound that never healed. 
 
 But it was not his manner when alive to excite 
 sympathy for his own sufferings, nor was he now will 
 ing to let his tale end thus. 
 
 "You are silent," he said, " and you are sorry for 
 me. I thank you. Sympathy exists in the human 
 heart, unexplained by learned treatises about the 
 pursuit of happiness. We shudder at the sight of a 
 ghastly wound, and the tears rise to our eyes as/ we 
 listen to the story of a broken heart. It is not for 
 me that you are sad it is for what I have told you. 
 There are many sad stories not all mine." 
 
 "Tell us a sad story," said Diana. "I love sad 
 stories." 
 
 " I saw a beggar die upon the high road. His 
 story was sad enough. He had seen many misfor 
 tunes, many troubles ; many pains had had their 
 will of his racked body, many days and years of 
 suffering had piled their load upon his aching 
 shoulders ; grief knew him and tracked him down, 
 
60 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 and sorrow, the pitiless driver of men, had stung each 
 galled wound of his soul with cunning cruelty, goad 
 ing and sparing not as he came near to the end. 
 The silver hairs were few which hung straggling from 
 beneath the torn brim of his battered hat, and the 
 furrows were many and deep upon his colourless face. 
 His dim eyes peered from their worn and sunken 
 sockets as though still faintly striving, striving to the 
 very last, to understand those things which it was not 
 given him to understand. Feebly his two hands 
 clasped his crooked staff, road-worn and splintered 
 by the flints ; upon one foot still clung the fragments 
 of a shoe, the other had no shoe at all, and as he 
 stood he lifted the foot that was bare and tried to 
 rest it upon the scanty bit of dusty leather which only 
 half covered the other, as though to ease it from the 
 cruel road, while he steadied himself feebly with his 
 stick. Had there been the least fragment of a wall 
 near him, a bit of fence, even a tree, he would have 
 tried to lean upon it ; but there was nothing nothing 
 but the broad flinty road, with the ditch dug deep 
 upon each side, nothing but the cold gray sky, the 
 black north wind that began to whirl up the dust, 
 scattering here and there big flakes of wet snow, and, 
 far away behind, the barking of the dogs that had 
 driven him from the gate while the churls who lin 
 gered there after their day s work laughed and made 
 rough jokes upon him. A little boy, the son of one 
 of those fellows, had taken a stone and had thrown 
 it after the old man the missile had struck him in 
 the back and he had bowed himself lower and limped 
 
iv WITH THE IMMORTALS 61 
 
 away ; he was used to it people often threw stones 
 at him, and sometimes they hit him. What was one 
 blow more to him, one wound more? The end 
 could not be far. 
 
 " So he rested his naked foot upon the other, now 
 that he was out of reach of harm. He could hear 
 the dogs barking still, but dogs never chased him long ; 
 they would not come after him now. The boy could 
 not throw stones to such a distance either, and would 
 not take the trouble to pursue him, though one of 
 the men had laughed when the old man was hit, and 
 another had said it was a good shot. He might rest 
 for a while, if it were rest to lean upon his staff and 
 feel the bitter wind driving the snowflakes through 
 the rents in his clothing, and whirling up the half 
 frozen flint dust to his sore and weary eyes. The 
 night was coming on. He would have to sleep in 
 the ditch. It would not be the first time if only he 
 could get a mile or two farther he might find some 
 bit of arched bridge across the ditch which would 
 shelter him, or a stone wall; or even perhaps, a 
 farmhouse where he should not be stoned from the 
 door and might be suffered to sleep upon the straw 
 in an outhouse. Such luck as that was rare indeed, 
 and the mere thought of the straw, the pitiful dream 
 that if he could struggle a little farther he might get 
 shelter from the wind and snow, was enough to bring 
 something like a shadowy look of hope into his 
 wretched face. With a great effort he began to walk 
 again, bending low to face the blast, starving, lame, 
 and aching in every bone, but struggling still and 
 
62 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 peering through the gathering gloom in the vain hope 
 of finding a night s resting-place." 
 
 " I would have killed the boy who threw the 
 stone, if I had been you ! " exclaimed Lady Brenda 
 in ready sympathy. 
 
 "Alas, dear madam, I was dead myself," said 
 Heine. " It was only the other day. Well, as I 
 said, he struggled on ; but the end was at hand. 
 The road grew worse, for it had been mended and 
 the small broken stones lay thick together, rough and 
 bristling. He could hardly drag his steps over them. 
 In the darkness he struck his naked foot against one 
 sharp flint that was larger than the rest ; he stumbled 
 and with a low cry fell headlong upon the jagged 
 surface. His hands were wounded and the blood 
 trickled from them in the dark, wetting the stones 
 more quickly than did the falling snow ; his face, too, 
 had been cut. For some moments he struggled to 
 rise, but he was too weak, too utterly spent ; then he 
 rolled upon one side and rested his bruised face upon 
 his torn hands and lay quite still, while the wind 
 howled louder and the snow-flakes fell more thickly 
 upon his rags and his wounds, upon the sorrows of his 
 soul and the pains of his body. One long breath he 
 drew it was more than an hour since he had fallen. 
 
 " God be merciful to me ! he murmured, and 
 again, * God be merciful to me, for I think it is the 
 end. And the Angel of the Lord came in the storm 
 and the darkness and touched his forehead ; and it 
 was the end. The snow buried him that night and 
 the north wind sang his funeral dirge." 
 
tv WITH THE IMMORTALS 63 
 
 "How terribly sad!" exclaimed Diana in deep 
 sympathy. 
 
 "To think that such things happen!" said Lady 
 Brenda and Gwendoline in one breath. 
 
 " Do you think it is the fact, or the way the fact 
 is told, which brings the tears to your eyes?" asked 
 the poet. " If I had stated the fact thus : an old 
 beggar died in a snow-storm ; shortly before he died 
 a little boy hit him with a stone I say, if I put the 
 thing in its simplest expression, would you feel as deep 
 a sympathy ? I believe not. I told you a long story 
 a true one, if you please to show you that your 
 sympathy could be commanded, could be excited, by 
 my words. You asked me of a thing concerning 
 myself I was not willing to state it as a fact, I was 
 obliged to state it with such accessories as should 
 make you feel uncomfortable in my favour, so to say. 
 All of which proves that man, living or dead, is a 
 detestably selfish creature, and not very strong at 
 that. When he has command of his audience he 
 uses it unmercifully to rouse sympathy in others. 
 When his audience has command of him, he generally 
 makes a fool of himself. I once visited Goethe. In 
 half an hour I could find nothing better to say to 
 him than that there were good plums on the road 
 from Jena to Weimar and that I was writing a Faust. 
 I got no applause for my plums and no sympathy 
 for my Faust ; I . never wrote the Faust, but I never 
 ate plums from that day. So much for knowing how 
 to manage one s hearers." 
 
 " I wish you would not talk in that light way, after 
 
64 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 what you have been telling us so earnestly," said 
 Gwendoline. 
 
 " I cannot help it, dear madam," answered Heine. 
 "I have a particular talent for being easily moved; 
 and when I am moved I shed tears, and when I 
 shed tears it seems very foolish and I at once try 
 to laugh at myself or at the first convenient object 
 which falls in my way. For tears hurt bitterly some 
 times, and it is best to get rid of them in any way 
 one can, provided that one does not put them beyond 
 one s reach altogether." 
 
 " People talk a great deal of sweet pain," remarked 
 Augustus. " I do not understand how anything which 
 hurts can be sweet at the same time." 
 
 " Can you understand how a thing sweet at the 
 time may hurt afterwards?" 
 
 " Perfectly," answered Chard. 
 
 "Then can you not understand how when the 
 thing hurts it is pleasant to remember that it was 
 once sweet? It is very simple. By no means all 
 pains are sweet, but on the whole there are enough 
 of the sort to supply poets for many years to come. 
 There are men among us here, whose sufferings are 
 bitter still very bitter." 
 
 "Shall we ever know any of your companions?" 
 asked Lady Brenda. 
 
 "They would be delighted, I am sure. We rarely 
 have an opportunity of exchanging words with living 
 people it has never happened to me before. Mr. 
 Chard has discovered a rather dangerous way of 
 making it possible, and I am delighted to see that 
 
iv WITH THE IMMORTALS 65 
 
 you are not in the least nervous. That shows how 
 greatly ideas have changed in thirty years. When 
 I was alive there was something that made one s 
 flesh creep in the idea of talking with a dead man. 
 You have overcome all that. If Mr. Chard will only 
 continue his experiments there is no reason why we 
 dead men should not play a real part in society." 
 
 " I see no objection whatever," said Lady Brenda. 
 " I am sure, if they are all like you, it would be most 
 charming. But, after all, you may only be some one 
 who knows all about Heine and talks delightfully about 
 him." 
 
 "Will you let me look at your hand?" asked the 
 poet, bending forward and taking Lady Brenda s 
 fingers in his. "What a beautiful ring, I always 
 
 loved sapphires " 
 
 But Lady Brenda turned pale, and after a moment s 
 struggle with her convictions she nervously snatched 
 her hand away. 
 
 " Oh you are you are really dead I can feel it 
 in your fingers," she cried. After that, Lady Brenda 
 ceased to be sceptical. 
 
 " There is only one point upon which I must warn 
 you in regard to my friends," resumed Heine, smiling 
 at Lady Brenda s discomfiture. " They wear the dress 
 of their age as I do. You must trust to them to 
 avoid your servants, who might be surprised or else 
 you must warn your servants that some friends are 
 coming to stay with you who wear the costumes of 
 their country." 
 
 " I will manage that," said Augustus, confidently. 
 F 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE moon rose higher and higher in the cloudless 
 sky, bathing the terrace in silver and lending in her 
 turn to men the light she borrowed from heaven. 
 For some minutes no one spoke, and it was as though 
 all nature lay in a trance while the visions of heaven 
 passed by. It was the hour when in eastern lands 
 the lotus unfolds its heavy leaves, to take up the 
 wondrous dream broken by the scorching day; it 
 was the hour when in the laurel groves of Italy the 
 nightingale raises her voice in long-drawn weeping for 
 her sister s murdered son, in passionate sorrow for the 
 blood she has shed and can never more wash away ; 
 the hour when the mighty dead come forth from their 
 tombs beneath the dark cathedral aisles and kneel 
 before the high altar where the transepts meet the 
 nave, and where the moonbeams from the stained 
 windows of the lofty dome make pools of blood-red 
 light upon the marble floor. 
 
 All the party were silent, realising perhaps in that 
 moment the whole beauty of the scene. Heine 
 leaned back in his chair and looked steadily at the 
 moon, resting his elbows on the carved arms of the 
 seat and clasping his delicate white fingers before him. 
 
CHAP, v WITH THE IMMORTALS 67 
 
 Suddenly and without the least warning a wonderful 
 strain of music broke the silence. Some one was 
 playing on the piano in the great hall, and through the 
 open windows the sounds floated out to the terrace. 
 No one dared to speak, though all started in surprise. 
 It was a wild Polish mazoure, fitful, passionate and 
 sad, woven in strange movement, now sweeping for 
 ward in a burst of fervid hope, full of the rush of the 
 dance, the ring of spurs, the timely measured tread 
 of women s feet, the indescribable grace of slender 
 figures in refined yet rapid motion the whole breath 
 ing a reckless delight in the pleasure of the moment, 
 a defiant power to be glad in the very jaws of death. 
 Then with the contrast of true passion the pace 
 slackens, the melody sways fitfully in the uncertain 
 measure and sadness, waking in the harmony, trembles 
 despairing for one moment in the muffled chords, 
 while even love hardly dares to breathe sweet words 
 in the ear of tired beauty. But again the dance 
 awakes, the stronger rhythm breaks out again and 
 dashing through the veil of melancholy, seizes on 
 body and soul and whirls them down the storm of 
 wild, luxurious, and wellnigh unbearable delight. 
 
 "That must be by Chopin!" exclaimed Diana. 
 " But I never heard Gwendoline play it " 
 
 She stopped short in surprise. She had imagined 
 that Gwendoline had slipped away to the piano during 
 the silence, but as she looked she saw her in her 
 place. 
 
 " It is by Chopin," answered Heine with a smile. 
 " It is Chopin himself." 
 
68 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 All rose to their feet and hastened to the drawing- 
 room ; Gwendoline reached the door first. 
 
 At the piano sat a man with a fair and beautiful 
 face, dressed much as Heine himself but with far 
 greater elegance. There was about him a wonderful 
 air of distinction, an unspeakable atmosphere of 
 refinement and superiority over ordinary men. He 
 had the look ^ which tradition ascribes to kings but 
 which nature, in royal irony, more often bestows upon 
 penniless persons of genius. His fair hair was fine 
 and silky as spun gold ; his skin transparent as a 
 woman s ; his features delicately aquiline and noble, 
 and in his soft eyes there shone a clear and artistic 
 intelligence, a spirit both gentle and quiet, yet neither 
 weak nor effeminate, but capable rather of boundless 
 courage and of heroic devotion when roused by the 
 touch of sympathy. 
 
 He rose as the party approached him, and they 
 saw that he was short and very slender. He smiled, 
 half apologetically, and made a courteous inclination. 
 
 " Perhaps the introduction of a dead man is hardly 
 an introduction at all," he said in a muffled voice, 
 which, however, was not unpleasant to the ear. " I 
 will save my friend Heine the trouble I am Frederic 
 Chopin." 
 
 Gwendoline, in her delight at meeting her favourite 
 composer, would gladly have pressed him to remain 
 at the piano, but hospitality forbade her. She sat 
 down and the others followed her example. The two 
 dead men glanced at each other in friendly recogni 
 tion and took their places in the circle. They looked 
 
v WITH THE IMMORTALS 69 
 
 so thoroughly alive that it was impossible to feel any 
 uneasiness in their society, and perhaps none but 
 Augustus and Lady Brenda, who had touched Heine s 
 icy hand, realised fully the strangeness of the situation. 
 But Chopin was perfectly at his ease. He did not 
 seem to admit that his presence could possibly cause 
 surprise. He sat quietly in his chair and looked 
 from one to the other of his hosts, as though silently 
 making their acquaintance. 
 
 " What an ideal life !" he exclaimed. " If I could 
 live again I would live as you do in a beautiful 
 place over the sea, far from noise, dust and all that 
 is detestable." 
 
 " It is a part of fairyland," answered Heine. " Do 
 you remember ? It was only last year that we came 
 here together and sat on the rocks and tried to think 
 what the people were like who once lived here, and 
 whether any one would ever live here again. And 
 you wished there were a piano in the old place you 
 have your wish now." 
 
 " It is not often that such wishes are realised," 
 said Chopin. " It is rarely indeed that I can touch 
 a piano now, though I hear much music. It interests 
 me immensely to watch the progress of what Mozart 
 began." 
 
 " It sickens me to see what has grown in literature 
 from the ruins of what I helped to demolish," an 
 swered Heine. 
 
 " Believe me, my dear friend," returned the musi 
 cian, "without romance there is neither music nor 
 literature." 
 
70 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 "What do you mean by romance, exactly?" asked 
 Gwendoline, anxious to stimulate the conversation 
 which had been begun by the two friends. 
 
 " Heine will give you one definition I will give 
 you another," answered Chopin. 
 
 " I never really differed from you," said his friend. 
 " But give your definition of romance. I would like 
 to hear it." 
 
 " It is the hardest thing in the world to define, 
 and yet it is something which we all feel. I think it 
 is based upon an association of ideas. When we say 
 that a place is romantic we unconsciously admit that 
 its beauty suggests some kind of story to our minds, 
 most generally a love-story. Such scenery is not 
 necessarily grand, but it is necessarily beautiful. I 
 do not think that a man standing on the summit of 
 Mont Blanc would say that it was a romantic spot. 
 It is splendid indeed, but it is uninhabited and unin 
 habitable. It suggests no love-story. It is hugely 
 grand and vast like Beethoven s Ninth Symphony, or 
 like the great pyramid. But it is not romantic. 
 There is more romance in a Polish landscape with 
 a little white village in the foreground surrounded by 
 flat green fields and green woods, cut symmetrically 
 in all directions by straight, white roads, and inno 
 cent of hills one may at least fancy a fair-haired 
 boy making love to a still fairer girl, just where the 
 brook runs between the wood and the meadow. No 
 Mont Blanc is not romantic. Come down from the 
 snow-peaks here for instance, where the wild rocks 
 hang and curl in crests like a petrified whirlpool, but 
 
v WITH THE IMMORTALS 71 
 
 where the walls of this old castle suggest lives and 
 deeds long forgotten. You have romance at once. 
 From the gray battlements some Moorish maiden 
 may have once looked her last upon the white sails 
 of her corsair lover s long black ship. The fair young 
 Conradin may have lain hidden here before Frangi- 
 pani betrayed him to his death in Naples. Here 
 Bayard came, perhaps, after the tournament of Bar- 
 letta. Here Giovanna may have rested she may even 
 have plotted here the murder of her husband " 
 
 " I did not know you were such an historian," in-, 
 terrupted Heine with a smile. 
 
 " I have learned much since I died," answered 
 Chopin, quietly. "But I am encroaching on your 
 ground. I only want to prove that it is easy to see 
 the romantic element in a place which we can asso 
 ciate with people. If none of those things really hap 
 pened here, it seems very simple to imagine that they 
 might have happened, and that is the same thing in 
 history." 
 
 "Absolutely the same," assented Augustus, whose 
 favourite theory was that nobody knew anything. 
 
 " Very good," continued the composer. " Romance 
 is then the possibility of associating ideas of people 
 with an object presented to the senses, apart from 
 the mere beauty of the object. I say that much 
 magnificent music pleases intensely by the senses 
 alone. Music is a dialogue of sounds. The notes 
 put questions, and answer them. In fugue-writing 
 the second member is scientifically called the 
 answer. When there is no answer, or if the 
 
72 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 answer is bad,^there is no music at all. The ear tells 
 that. But such a musical dialogue of sounds may 
 please intensely by the mere satisfaction of the musical 
 sense ; or it may please because, besides the musical 
 completeness, it suggests human feelings and passions 
 and so appeals to a much larger part of our nature. 
 I do not think the great pyramid suggests feelings 
 and passions, in spite of all its symmetry. It may 
 have roused a sympathetic thrill in the breast of 
 Cheops, but it does not affect us as we are affected 
 by the interior of Saint Peter s in Rome, or by West 
 minster Abbey, or by Giotto s tower. These are 
 romantic buildings, for they are not only symmetrical, 
 but they also tell us a tale of human life and death 
 and hope and sorrow which we can understand. To 
 my mind romantic music is that which expresses 
 what we feel besides satisfying our sense of musical 
 fitness. I think that Mozart was the founder of that 
 school I laboured for it myself Wagner has been 
 the latest expression of it." 
 
 " I adore Wagner," said Diana. " But it always 
 seems to me that there is something monstrous in 
 his music. Nothing else expresses what I mean." 
 
 "The monstrous element can be explained," 
 answered Chopin. "Wagner appeals to a vast mass 
 of popular tradition which really exists only in Ger 
 many and Scandinavia. He then brings those tradi 
 tions suddenly before our minds with stunning force, 
 and gives them an overpowering reality. I leave it 
 to you whether the impression must not necessarily 
 be monstrous when we suddenly realise in the flesh, 
 
v WITH THE IMMORTALS 73 
 
 before our eyes, such tales as that of Siegmund and 
 Siegfried, or of Parzifal and the Holy Grail. It is 
 great, gigantic but it is too much. I admit that I 
 experience the sensation, dead as I am, when I stand 
 among the living at Bayreuth and listen. But I do 
 not like the sensation. I do not like the frantic side 
 of this modern romantism. The delirious effects and 
 excesses of it stupefy without delighting. I do not 
 want to realise the frightful crimes and atrocious 
 actions of mythological men and beasts, any more 
 than I want to see a man hanged or guillotined. I 
 think romance should deal with subjects not wholly 
 barbarous, and should try to treat them in a refined 
 way, because no excitement which is not of a refined 
 kind can be anything but brutalising. Man has 
 enough of the brute in him already, without being 
 taught to cultivate his taste for blood by artificial 
 means. Perhaps I am too sensitive I hate blood. 
 I detest commonplace, but I detest even more the 
 furious contortions of ungoverned passion." 
 
 " But you cannot say that Wagner is exaggerated 
 in his effects," argued Diana. 
 
 " No they are well studied and the result is 
 stupendous when they are properly reproduced. He 
 is great almost too great. He makes one realise the 
 awful too vividly. He produces intoxication rather 
 than pleasure. He is an egotist in art. He is deter 
 mined that when you have heard him you shall not be 
 able to listen to any one else, as a man who eats opium 
 is disgusted with everything when he is awake. I be 
 lieve there is a pitch in art at which pleasure becomes 
 
74 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 vicious; the limit certainly exists in sculpture and paint 
 ing as well as in literature, just as when a man drinks too 
 much wine he is drunk. The object of art is not to 
 make life seem impossible, any more than the object 
 of drinking wine is to lose one s senses. Art should 
 nourish the mind, not drown it. To say that 
 Wagner s own mind, and the minds of some of his 
 followers were of such strong temper that nothing less 
 than his music could excite them pleasurably, is not 
 an answer. The Russian mujik will drink a pint of 
 vodka in the early morning, and when he has drunk 
 it he is gayer than the Italian who has taken a little 
 cup of coffee. You would probably think his gaiety 
 less refined than that of the Italian, though there is 
 more of it. It will also be followed by a headache 
 but the headache, the moral headache after an orgy 
 of modern art is worse than the headache from too 
 much vodka. It is like Heine s toothache in the 
 heart. He used to say that the best filling for that 
 was of lead and a certain powder invented by Ber- 
 thold Schwarz. Romantism can go too far, like 
 everything else. The Hermes of Olympia was de 
 scended from a clumsy but royal race of Egyptian 
 granite blocks ; but he is the historical ancestor of 
 the vilest productions of modern sculpture. Modern 
 art is drunk drunk with the delight of expressing 
 excessively what should not be expressed at all, drunk 
 with the indulgence of the senses until the intellect 
 is clouded and dull, or spasmodically frantic by turns, 
 drunk with the vulgar self-satisfied vanity of a village 
 coxcomb. Ah, for Art s sake let poor art be kept 
 
v WITH THE IMMORTALS 75 
 
 sober until the heaven-born muses deign to pay us 
 another visit !" 
 
 "Amen!" exclaimed Heine, devoutly. "The 
 same things are true of literature. But I admire 
 Wagner, nevertheless, though his music terrifies me. 
 I think Mozart was the Raphael, Wagner the Michel 
 angelo of the opera. Any one may choose between 
 the two, for it is a matter of taste. But in music the 
 development from the one to the other seems to me 
 more rational than it has been in literature." 
 
 "How do you mean?" asked Gwendoline. 
 
 " I think music has advanced better than literature. 
 They were both little boys once, but the one has 
 grown into a great, dominating, royal giant the other 
 into a greedy, snivelling, dirty-nosed, foul-mouthed, 
 cowardly ruffian. There are bad musicians and good 
 writers, of course. The bad musicians do little harm, 
 but the good writers occupy the position of Lot in 
 the condemned cities they are the mourners at the 
 funeral of romance; The mass of fiction makers to 
 day are but rioters at the baptismal feast of Realism, 
 the Impure." 
 
 "What a sweeping condemnation!" exclaimed 
 Augustus. " I thought that you yourself were a sup 
 porter of realism, or declared yourself to be, though 
 your lyrics are certainly very romantic." 
 
 "I was the renegade monk from the monastery of 
 the romantists," said Heine. "A Frenchman once 
 told me so. But when I grew old and married, I 
 hankered for the dear old atmosphere, and my little 
 French wife helped me to breathe it again." 
 
76 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 " Our great modern realist, Ernest Renan, says 
 of himself, half regretfully, that he feels like a religieux, 
 manque" said Augustus. 
 
 " I can understand that," answered Heine. " But 
 when I was young the word romance stunk in my 
 nostrils. It meant Platen." 
 
 "And what does it mean to you now?" inquired 
 Gwendoline, who wanted to lead the dead poet back 
 to the point. 
 
 "You would have a definition, madam?" he 
 replied. "Romance is a beautiful woman, with a 
 dead pale skin, and starry eyes and streaming raven 
 hair, and when I look into her sweet dark face I 
 could wear a ton of armour on my back and cleave 
 a Saracen to the chine with my huge blade for her 
 sake, or go barefoot to Jerusalem, or even read Platen s 
 poetry all through. But she looks so strangely at me 
 with her great black eyes, that I am never quite sure 
 whether she is quite real and quite serious. I only 
 know that she is very, very beautiful, and that I love 
 her to distraction." 
 
 " That is a definition from fairyland," said Chopin 
 with his soft sweet smile. 
 
 "And you want one from the library of a student, 
 I suppose," answered Heine. "Romance is the 
 modern epic. I forget who said so, but it is true in 
 a limited way. The Romantic languages were those 
 Latin tongues which were not Latin, but Berlinish." 
 
 " In other words slang," suggested Augustus. 
 
 " Slang exactly. Latinus grossus qtd farit tremare 
 pilastros, as the Roman schoolboy calls it " 
 
v WITH THE IMMORTALS 77 
 
 " Please translate !" exclaimed Lady Brenda. 
 "If it means anything it means the Romantic 
 dialect a coarse rough Latin that would make 
 columns shake. The words are not all in the dic 
 tionary, madam, but metaphorically they are in most 
 people s mouths. It afterwards became the most 
 elegant language of its age and has given the name 
 of romance to the school of literature it founded 
 The first romantic writings were in that language 
 the love-songs of the troubadours, and I have seen 
 in an old library in Siena a very beautiful manuscript 
 collection of them with the original music and words 
 by Jehan Bretel." 
 
 "What were they like?" asked Gwendoline, 
 eagerly. 
 
 " I can remember a stanza or two : 
 1 Mi chant sont tout plain d ire et de doulear 
 
 Pour vous dame ke je ai tant aimee 
 
 Que je ne sai se je chant u se pleur 
 
 Ainsi m estant souffrir ma destinee 
 
 Mais se Dieu plaist encor verrai le jour 
 
 Kamour sera cangie en autre tour 
 
 Si vous donra envers moi millour pensee 
 
 Chanson vatent garde ne remanoir 
 
 Prie cell ki plus jaime pour ke souvent par li soiez cantee. 1 
 
 " The spelling is very curious, but the sentiment is 
 unmistakable and the language is Provencal. There 
 is the origin of romance in the Romansch language. 
 Those songs preserved the customs of those times, 
 
 1 From a fine illuminated manuscript in the Municipal Lib 
 rary of Siena a part of two long songs copied by the writer 
 with the music in 1878. 
 
78 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 the troubadour with his lute below the castle wall, the 
 obdurate lady behind the lattice in her tower, the life- 
 and-death seriousness of love in the eleventh century 
 it is all there, and we call it romance. The litera 
 ture of love-songs continued to spread after the cus 
 toms of those days had passed away, but it did not 
 move with the times, though it increased. The knight 
 in armour, the lute, and the lady with her scarf were 
 preserved like curious zoological specimens in spirits, 
 and are the foundation of all romance. Then we 
 had Germans and Englishmen who wrote long epic 
 romances in other languages, such as Wolfram von 
 Eschenbach and Sir Thomas Malory, who got his 
 Morte d 1 Arthur from the French. A modern poet 
 owes much of his fame to his treatment of the same 
 theme, which shows that the subject is not even yet 
 worn out. But though the old songs still stir us, they 
 are not enough for us nowadays. The frantic fight 
 ing, the melancholy tragedy, the black-and-white 
 magic which appealed to the imagination of a Black 
 Forest freebooting baron of the tenth century, do not 
 appeal to ours. The French pastoral romances were 
 an attempt to change the form of the solemn chivalric 
 epic of earlier times into something lighter and more 
 gay. But unlike the chivalric epic the pastoral had 
 no foundation in real life and consequently disap 
 peared almost without a trace. The modern romantic 
 novel is a prose epic, generally founded on modern 
 life." 
 
 " And what is the modern realistic novel ?" asked 
 Diana. 
 
v WITH THE IMMORTALS 79 
 
 "It is the prose without the epic," answered the 
 poet. " It is therefore the opposite of romance in 
 every respect. It sets aside all invention, and takes 
 for its standpoint the principle that a hero is not 
 necessary to a story, and that every-day life, with such 
 episodes as it may chance to bring forth, should be 
 of sufficient interest to everybody, to make everybody 
 ready to dispense for ever with imagination. The 
 realists say that a man may learn more from being 
 shown what he is than from being told what he should 
 be. The romantists say that if a man will study the 
 ideal he can to some extent -imitate it. When I was 
 a young man romance stood on a low level. The 
 mechanically correct and spiritually feeble perform 
 ances of our little poets did not please me. Goethe 
 was a realist, and I determined to be a realist. I did 
 not perceive that Goethe was also a romantist, and 
 that while he was well able to paint men as they are, 
 he had a surpassing gift for describing them as they 
 should be. I believe that literature without realism 
 cannot last. But I believe also that literature with 
 out romance cannot interest." 
 
 " Nor life, without romance, either," said Gwen 
 doline. 
 
 "Oh! Do you think so?" exclaimed Lady 
 Brenda. " I am sure I know many people who are 
 not at all romantic but whose lives are very interest 
 ing to themselves." 
 
 " People who make money an object," answered 
 Augustus. " But they have a romance nevertheless, 
 and a very pretty one the story of the loves of the 
 
8o WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 pound, the shilling and the penny, told in many 
 manuscript volumes with a detail worthy of M. Zola." 
 
 "Yes," said Heine with a smile, "the love of a 
 Hamburg banker for a dollar is wonderful, passing 
 the love of women." 
 
 " The sense of romance must be instinctive," said 
 Diana. "We distinguish at a glance between what 
 is romantic and what is not, as we distinguish between 
 black and white. For instance Alexander the Great 
 is a romantic character; Julius Caesar is not. I do 
 not see that in those cases the explanation is true 
 which ascribes romance to the traditions of knights- 
 errant, troubadours and tournaments." 
 
 " That is true," said Chopin. " Just as the primeval 
 song of the Arab or the Hindoo peasant is romantic, 
 while Chinese music is not." 
 
 "Judas Maccabaeus was a romantic character," put 
 in Heine. " Moses was not, though he was a greater 
 man. Judas Maccabseus was the Cromwell of the 
 Jews, and it is impossible to read his history without 
 a thrill of enthusiasm. I suppose that is why the 
 early Church instituted the feast of the Maccabean 
 martyrs, on the first of August, though they were Jews, 
 put to death before the birth of Christ for the Jewish 
 faith by Antiochus Epiphanes a mother and her 
 seven sons. Judas Maccabseus was undoubtedly a 
 hero." 
 
 " Then our whole theory of romance falls to the 
 ground," said Lady Brenda. 
 
 " I think not," answered Augustus. " It is enough 
 to extend it a little, and to say that all men and 
 
v WITH THE IMMORTALS 81 
 
 women who have acted nobly under the influence of 
 strong and good passions have been romantic Char 
 acters." 
 
 "That is not enough, either," objected Heine. 
 " I do not think that they need have acted nobly, nor 
 necessarily under the influence of good passions. 
 Alexander, burning Persepolis under the influence of 
 Thais s smiles and Timotheus s song is a romantic 
 character enough. But the action was not noble, nor 
 the passion good." 
 
 "But was he romantic in that case?" asked Lady 
 Brenda. " It was rather like Nero burning Rome, 
 you know." 
 
 " Perhaps there is a doubt on the subject," replied 
 the poet. " It may be a question of individual taste. 
 Take another instance, out of more recent times. 
 Was Giovanna of Naples, the first the daughter of 
 Robert a romantic character or not?" 
 
 " Of course," answered Lady Brenda. 
 
 "Was her love for Luigi of Taranto a romantic 
 passion?" 
 
 " I suppose so," admitted the lady. 
 
 "Then the murder of her husband, Andreas of 
 Hungary, which she planned and caused to be ex 
 ecuted out of her love for Luigi, her cousin, was 
 romantic. There is no doubt of it. Many murders 
 have a strong romantic colour. Christina of Sweden 
 causing Monaldeschi to be killed at Fontainebleau, is 
 another instance. There was nothing noble or good 
 about either of those cases." 
 
 " I yield," said Augustus. " Then suppose we say 
 
 G 
 
82 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 that men and women acting under the influence of 
 strong passions are romantic characters." 
 
 "There is more truth in that," replied Heine; 
 " but it does not include enough." 
 
 " It does not tell me why I feel that the Arab is 
 romantic while the Chinaman is not," remarked 
 Chopin. 
 
 " My dear friend," said the other, " we know very 
 little about Chinamen, and their appearance does not 
 suggest romantic thoughts." 
 
 " True. But why ? " insisted the composer, who 
 felt that there was something in his question. 
 
 " It appears," said Augustus, " that some races are 
 fundamentally excluded from all connection with our 
 ideas of romance. But I believe that is because we 
 cannot get so near to them, being by nature so dif 
 ferent from them, as to be able to understand their 
 feelings and passions." 
 
 " I have heard that Chinese music has sixty-six 
 keys," remarked Chopin. " That would account for 
 their music not being comprehensible to us. Then 
 it follows that unless people and their feelings come 
 readily within our understanding we cannot connect 
 them with any idea of romance." 
 
 " Yes," answered Heine, " and the more we know 
 them, the more we appreciate the romantic element. 
 No schoolboy thinks Achilles half as romantic as Rob 
 Roy. And yet Achilles is one of the most romantic 
 characters in all epic poetry." 
 
 "Then the Iliad is a romance?" inquired Gwen 
 doline. 
 
v WITH THE IMMORTALS 83 
 
 "It is the big romance, with a big hero, in big 
 times, which we call an epic," replied the poet. 
 "And it is written in magnificent verse. The modern 
 romance is an infinitesimal epic of which Tom is the 
 hero, Sarah Jane the heroine, and a little modern 
 house with green blinds and an iron railing is the 
 scene of the action. But Tom and Jane love each 
 other almost as much as Achilles and Briseis and are 
 a great deal happier ; and if the little house catches 
 fire when Tom is out, and he comes back just in time 
 to plunge through the flames and carry off Sarah Jane, 
 with the loss of his eyebrows and beard and at the 
 risk of his life, he is just as much of a hero as Achilles 
 when he put on his new armour and went to kill 
 Hector and the Trojans. For a man cannot do more 
 than risk his life with his eyes open for the sake of 
 what he loves, whether he be Achilles or Tom. The 
 essential part of the romance is something which shall 
 call out the strongest qualities in the natures of the 
 actors in it; because all strong actions interest us, 
 and if they are also good they rouse our admiration. 
 And if those strong actions are done for the sake of 
 love, or of what we call honour, or to free a nation 
 from slavery they strike us as romantic." 
 
 "Because all those things," remarked Augustus, 
 " are closely associated with modern romance from its 
 beginning. The mediaeval knight was the impersona 
 tion of love, honour and patriotism." 
 
 " Also, because those are the feelings most deeply 
 felt by the human heart, and in spite of all that realism 
 can do, stones of love, honour and patriotism will 
 
84 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 always and to the end of all time, appeal to every one 
 who has a soul. The realists, of course, say that there 
 is no soul, and that love, honour and patriotism are 
 conventional terms, as right and wrong are conven 
 tional conceptions. That is paltry stuff. But the 
 actions may be bad and yet be romantic, where love 
 is the subject, and as that is the most usual subject 
 for romance, it follows that men have endeavoured 
 to treat it in the greatest variety of situations. Bad 
 or good, it always interests. Our sympathy for fair 
 Rosamund is at least as great as that we feel for Anne 
 Boleyn." 
 
 " I fancy it is not certain whether the most roman 
 tic characters excite the most sympathy," said Lady 
 Brenda. 
 
 " After they are dead they generally do," answered 
 the poet, with a smile. "When we think of a 
 romantic character we always fancy to ourselves that 
 it must have been very charming to be the hero or 
 heroine of all the thrilling scenes in which he or she 
 took part, In fiction the romantic character has been 
 worn out, partly because fiction is never so extra 
 ordinary as reality ; the result is that in modern books 
 we are often most drawn towards some minor char 
 acter of whom we feel at the end of the book that we 
 have not seen enough, simply because we have not 
 been bored by him. But the romance of history does 
 not wear out. There is the same difference between 
 people in history and people in fiction which exists 
 between a real king and a stage king with a tinsel 
 crown. It is easy enough to dress an actor in royal 
 
v WITH THE IMMORTALS 85 
 
 robes, and to tell people that the crown is of real gold, 
 eighteen carats fine ; it is quite another matter to find 
 words for the sham king to speak, and kingly actions 
 for him to perform. For the construction of a good 
 epic you must have both, or must find both ; and that 
 is a little hard when one has but a little acquaintance 
 with kings. It is not everybody who can say with 
 Voltaire : I have three or four kings whom I coddle 
 j ai trois ou quatre rois que je mitonne. 1 But 
 history presents us with the real king, in flesh and 
 blood ; his actions are harmonious, because they have 
 actually been performed by the same man. Few 
 writers of fiction nowadays have the combined imagi 
 nation, accuracy and versatility necessary to invent 
 and describe a series of actions, thoughts and words, 
 so harmonious as to make the reader feel that one 
 man could really have spoken, thought and acted as 
 the author makes his hero act, speak and think. The 
 writer then separates himself from romantism alto 
 gether and confines himself to describing things he 
 has actually seen and of which he is positively sure. 
 But he finds it hard to make his books interesting 
 with such materials. Failing greatness, he sees that 
 there is a short cut to popularity. If a writer cannot 
 be sublime, he can at least be disgusting ; and to ex 
 cite disgust is, he thinks, better than to excite no 
 notice at all." 
 
 " I think you are unjust to the realists," said 
 Gwendoline. "I do not think that realistic books 
 are always disgusting, by any means." 
 1 In a letter to Tronchin. 
 
86 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 " No," answered Heine. " But they are more 
 likely to be. With the genius of Goethe one may be 
 realistic without being repulsive. But Goethe him 
 self said that to call a thing bad which is bad does 
 no good, whereas to call a bad thing good does im 
 measurable harm. Many realists call bad things good." 
 
 " So do many romantists," objected Gwendoline. 
 " And I do not see that we are any nearer to knowing 
 what romance really is. Your beautiful woman with 
 the starry eyes does not satisfy me. That is poetry, 
 but it does not explain my feelings." 
 
 " I believe I can define romance, after listening to 
 you all," said Chopin, who had not spoken for some 
 time. " My own definition only applied to music, 
 but it can be extended. In the first place romance 
 consists in the association of certain ideas with certain 
 people, either in history or in fiction. The people 
 must belong to some race of beings of whom we know 
 enough to understand their passions and to sympathise 
 with them. The ideas must be connected with the 
 higher passions of love, patriotism, devotion, noble 
 hatred, profound melancholy, divine exaltation and 
 the like. The lower passions in romance are invariably 
 relegated to the traditional villain, who serves as a 
 foil for the hero. Shorten all that and say that our 
 romantic sense is excited by associating ideas of the 
 higher passions, good and bad, with people whom we 
 can understand, and in such a way as to make us 
 feel with them." 
 
 " I do not think we shall get any nearer than that," 
 said Augustus Chard. " It explains at once why we 
 
v WITH THE IMMORTALS 87 
 
 think that Alexander was a romantic character, 
 whereas Julius Csesar was not. Alexander was 
 always full of great passions, good or bad. Caesar 
 was calm, impassive, superior to events. Alexander 
 burnt a city to please a woman. Csesar found in a 
 woman s love a pretext for conquering her kingdom 
 and reducing the queen who loved him to the position 
 of his vassal. Cleopatra was a romantic character, 
 but she was unfortunate in her choice of men. Caesar 
 was murdered, she murdered her husband, Antony 
 killed himself for her and she concluded the tragedy 
 by killing herself for Antony, after her son and 
 Caesar s had also been put to death. There is 
 material for a dozen romances in her life, but if she 
 were a character of fiction we should say her story 
 was absurdly impossible. As it is, her history is a 
 romance of the most tremendous proportions." 
 
 " I think Caesar was romantic too," said Diana. 
 " He had outgrown romance when he conquered the 
 world. He must have been very different when he 
 was young." 
 
 "Very different," said a placid voice from one of 
 the tall windows. 
 
 A man stood outside in the moonlight, looking 
 in. His tall and slender figure was wrapped in a 
 dark mantle of some rich material ; the folds reflected 
 the moonbeams with a purple sheen, circling the 
 straight neck and then falling to the ground behind the 
 shoulder. On his brow a dark wreath of oak and 
 laurel leaves sat like a royal crown above his high 
 white forehead. The aquiline nose, broadly set on 
 
88 WITH THE IMMORTALS CIIAI>. 
 
 at the nostrils, but very clearly cut and delicate, gave 
 to his face an expression of supreme, refined force, 
 well borne out in the even and beautifully chiselled 
 mouth and the prominent square chin. His eyes 
 were very black, but without lustre, of that peculiar 
 type in which it is impossible to distinguish the pupil 
 from the surrounding iris. 
 
 " It is Caesar," said Augustus, under his breath, as 
 he rose to greet the new-comer. 
 
 " Yes, I am Caesar," answered the calm voice of 
 the dead conqueror. He came forward and stood in 
 the midst of the party, so that the lamplight fell upon 
 his grand face. "You spoke of me and I was near 
 and heard you. You are not afraid to take a dead 
 man s hand ? No why should you be ? " 
 
 The hand he held out was long and nervous and 
 white, looking as though the fingers possessed the 
 elastic strength of steel. 
 
 "Are we in a dream?" asked Diana in low tones, 
 turning to Heine. The poet sighed. 
 
 "You are but a dream to us," he said, softly. 
 " We are the reality the sleepless reality of death." 
 
 "Yes: we are very real," said Caesar, seating 
 himself in a huge carved chair that might have served 
 for an imperial throne, and looking slowly around 
 upon the assembled party. "You were speaking of 
 my life. You were saying that I was not a romantic 
 character. Do not smile at my using the word. In 
 nineteen centuries of wandering I have learned to 
 speak of romantists and realists. I was not romantic. 
 Could Homer himself have made an epic poem about 
 
v WITH THE IMMORTALS 89 
 
 my life ? I think not. Homer had traditions to help 
 him, and Virgil had both Homer and the traditions. 
 The purpose of my life was to overthrow tradition 
 and to found a new era for the world. I was a 
 modern. I was a source of realism. There was 
 nothing mythical about me. Romance grew out of 
 the decay of what I founded. I do not think that 
 the romantic sense existed in men of my day, though 
 the popular respect for the ancients was even then 
 immense, and Rome was full of traditions. It is 
 only by extending the term that anything can be 
 called romantic which happened earlier that ten 
 centuries after my death." 
 
 Too much awed to speak as yet by the strange 
 presence, the living members of the party held their 
 breath while Caesar was speaking, and the smooth 
 inflexions of his calm voice filled the quiet air. A 
 few moments of silence followed his speech and it 
 seemed as though no one would answer him ; but at 
 last Chopin lifted his delicate face and spoke. 
 
 "Nineteen centuries!" he exclaimed. "Ah, 
 Caesar, why could you not have lived on through all 
 those years ? Poland would still have been free and 
 the Poles would still have been a people." 
 
 " The world would have been free," rejoined the 
 dead conqueror, sadly. " I believed in unity, not in 
 partition. I meant to build, not to destroy. My 
 heart sinks when I see the world divided into nations, 
 of which I would have made one nation." 
 
 " Every individual man is himself a world, " said 
 Heine. " A world that is born with him and dies 
 
90 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 with him, and under every gravestone lies the history 
 of a world. 3 " 1 
 
 "That is true," answered Chopin, "and my world 
 was Poland and is Poland still." 
 
 " Mine is the whole world of living beings," 
 returned the poet. 
 
 "Yes," replied Chopin, with a fine smile. "I know 
 it. But the world according to Saint-Simon would 
 not resemble the world according to Julius Csesar." 
 
 "And yet," said Caesar, "I watched the development 
 of Saint-Simon s doctrines with interest. They failed 
 as all socialist movements have failed and always must 
 fail, to the end of time, until they proceed upon a 
 different basis." 
 
 " Why ? " asked Lady Brenda, taking courage. 
 
 "The usual mistake. The followers of Saint- 
 Simon, or the stronger part of them, tried to abolish 
 marriage and they tried to invent a religion. Religions 
 are not easily invented which can be imposed upon 
 any considerable body of mankind, and no considerable 
 body of civilised mankind has ever shown itself dis 
 posed to dispense with the institution of matrimony. 
 The desire to obtain wealth without labour, the 
 negation of religion and the degradation of women 
 have ruined all socialistic systems which have ever 
 been tried, and have undermined many powerful 
 nations. It is impossible to govern men except by 
 defending the security of property, upholding the 
 existing form of religion and exacting a rigorous 
 respect for the institution of marriage." 
 1 Heine, ii. p. 53. 
 
v WITH THE IMMORTALS 91 
 
 "That is true," said Heine, thoughtfully. "The 
 object of the Saint-Simonists was to create a common 
 property, to be shared equally for ever, and to inculcate 
 a form of religion which they had invented. They 
 might have succeeded in that. But Enfantin had the 
 unlucky idea that free love was a good thing, and that 
 ruined the whole institution just when it was at the 
 point of success." 
 
 " It could never have succeeded," answered Caesar, 
 " even if he had let marriage exist, because the per 
 petual division of property is an impossibility. But 
 the abolition of marriage would alone have been 
 enough to ruin the scheme. I see in the modern 
 world many nations, and each nation has its own very 
 distinct form of government. Apply as a test to each 
 the question of the stability of property, of religion and 
 of marriage, and you will have at once the measure of 
 its prosperity. I see in Europe a new empire, vast, 
 strong and successful. The government protects 
 wealth, marriage and religion ; but religion is the least 
 stable of the three, and there is no country in the 
 world where there are so many who deny religion as 
 there are in Germany. Look closer. You will see 
 that there is no country in the world where there are 
 so many anarchists, and these anarchists are perpetually 
 sapping the sources of the nation s wealth and trying 
 to undermine the institution of marriage. They are 
 doing their work well. Unless there is a religious 
 revival in Germany, she will soon cease to preponderate 
 in Europe." 
 
 "That is a novel idea," said Augustus Chard. 
 
92 WITH THE IMMORTALS CIIAI>. 
 
 " I think not," answered Caesar, with a quiet smile. 
 " I think it is as old as I am at least. But look at 
 Europe again. Of all European nations, which is 
 the most prosperous ? England. In spite of many 
 political mistakes, in spite of many foolish and 
 expensive wars, in spite of the many incompetent 
 statesmen and dissolute monarchs by whom she has 
 been often governed, in spite of civil wars which have 
 overturned her government and religious wars which 
 have changed her dynasties, in spite of the narrow 
 ness of her original territory, the inclemencies of her 
 climate, the barrenness of her Scotch mountains and 
 the indolent misery of her Irish peasants in spite of 
 all these, England is the most prosperous country 
 in modern Europe. Apply my test. Is there any 
 country in Europe where property is better protected, 
 where religion is a more established fact, where the 
 marriage - contract is so scrupulously observed ? 
 Certainly not. Look at her neighbours even at 
 France. Why did France grow prosperous under 
 Napoleon the Third ? Because he protected religion, 
 fostered the growth of commerce, and never so much 
 as thought of attacking marriage. Now the existing 
 government is opposed to religion of any kind and 
 has introduced divorce, which in France is a very 
 different matter from divorce in England. France is 
 less prosperous than she was. Italy comes next with 
 her cry of freedom. Religion is tolerated, marriage 
 is respected, but the property of the individual is eaten 
 up to pay the debts of the government. The country 
 is not prosperous. Italy as a nation is a failure, not 
 
v WITH THE IMMORTALS 93 
 
 by her own fault, perhaps, but by force of circumstances. 
 How can a man be Wealthy whose head is buried in 
 ice while his feet are plunged in hot water? You 
 must cool his feet and warm his head, but you must 
 not apply leeches to every part of his body at once. 
 When a man needs blood you must not bleed him in 
 order to show him that his veins are not yet quite 
 empty." 
 
 " Nations suffer at first when any great change is 
 made, even when it is a change for the good," 
 remarked Heine. 
 
 " That is a maxim which has been made an excuse 
 for much harm," replied Caesar. " I do not think it 
 is always true. A nation certainly ought not to suffer 
 for twenty years because it has been unified. In 
 twenty years a new generation of men grows up, and 
 if the change has been for good, these young men 
 should find themselves in better circumstances at 
 twenty than their fathers were before them. I have 
 watched the world for nearly two thousand years, and 
 I think the history of that period shows that whenever 
 a change for the better has taken place in a nation s 
 government it has been followed almost immediately 
 by a great increase of prosperity. Within a very few 
 years after my death the empire of my nephew had 
 eclipsed everything which had preceded it and in some 
 ways, also, everything which has been seen since. The 
 second unification of the empire under Charlemagne 
 gave a fabulous impulse to the growth of wealth. 
 Even the foundation of the present German Empire 
 was followed in a short time by a great development. 
 
94 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 England became powerful from the time of William s 
 conquest. She increased in wealth and importance 
 under the great changes made by Elizabeth. She 
 made another stride under the reign of William Third ; 
 and she reached the highest point of wealth and 
 influence shortly after the inauguration of Free Trade, 
 which was one of the greatest changes ever introduced 
 into the administration of any country. There is a 
 gigantic republic in America which but a few years 
 ago was struggling in a great civil war, but which is 
 now probably the most prosperous nation in the" whole 
 world. No. I believe that great changes, if they 
 are good are followed very soon by an increase of 
 prosperity. This has not taken place in Italy, and 
 there are no signs of it. On the contrary, her lands 
 are ceasing to be cultivated, her men are emigrating 
 in enormous numbers, and those who remain are 
 obliged to pay the taxes, in order to maintain the 
 fictitious credit of an imaginary importance. The 
 best king, the best statesmen, even the best disposition 
 of the people cannot turn thousands of square miles of 
 barren rock into a fertile garden, nor force a small 
 and poor country to maintain the state of a great 
 empire. " 
 
 The dead man spoke calmly and sorrowfully of his 
 country. He alone could realise the vast gulf that 
 lay between his day and the present, and though he 
 was Caesar yet the rest could hardly believe him. 
 There was silence for a time in the hall, and the great 
 moon rose outside and her rays made the tiles of 
 the terrace gleam like snow, while far down upon the 
 
v WITH THE IMMORTALS 95 
 
 sea the broad path of her light glittered like a river of 
 pearls on dark velvet. 
 
 Then a cool breeze sprang up and the three dead 
 men rose silently and went out from among the living 
 into the wonderful night. 
 
 " We have been dreaming," sighed Lady Brenda, 
 rising from her chair and looking out. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE little party sat by the open window of the hall 
 on the next evening. Since the extraordinary events 
 of the preceding day they had talked of nothing else. 
 Augustus was endeavouring to explain his theory 
 that by a gigantic experiment upon nature he had 
 accidentally upset some fundamental but wholly un 
 known law, and he promised that if his mother-in-law 
 would not be frightened he would cause another 
 electric storm and produce even more extraordinary 
 results. 
 
 " But I am quite sure it was all a dream," objected 
 Lady Brenda. "Only when I think of that man s 
 hand, I really shiver. Anything more awfully 
 clammy !" 
 
 " I am sure they will come back to-night," said 
 Gwendoline, in a tone of profound conviction. " It 
 was all very odd, but I know it was quite real." 
 
 Diana was seated at the piano, running her fingers 
 over the keys in an idle fashion, striking melancholy 
 and disconnected chords and then pausing to listen 
 to the conversation. 
 
 " Yes," she said presently, " I am sure they will 
 come back." 
 
 r 
 
CHAP, vi WITH THE IMMORTALS 97 
 
 " The question," remarked Augustus, " is whether 
 such a disturbance is likely to outlast a day unless 
 
 the forces which produced it are " he stopped, 
 
 starting slightly. Lady Brenda dropped her fan, 
 Gwendoline rose swiftly from her chair and drew back, 
 while Diana s fingers fell upon the keys and made 
 a ringing discord. In the dusky gloom of the long 
 window stood two men. The one was Caesar; the 
 other a man taller than he, with a long white beard 
 and wrapped in a cloak. Caesar came forward, 
 followed at a few steps by his companion. 
 
 " I have come back," said the dead man, quietly. 
 " You do not grudge us poor ghosts an hour s con 
 versation? It is so pleasant to seem to be alive 
 again, and in such company. We left you too soon 
 last night, but it was late." 
 
 "But where are the rest?" asked Gwendoline, 
 disappointed at not seeing Chopin, and glancing 
 curiously at the old man who stood by Caesar s side. 
 
 "Chopin is at Bayreuth to-night. There is a 
 musical festival and he could not stay away. Heine 
 is sitting by the shores of the North Sea talking to 
 the stars and the sea-foam. But I have brought you 
 another friend one perhaps greater than they when 
 he lived, though we are all alike here." 
 
 Caesar led his companion forward, and in the 
 short silence that followed all eyes were turned upon 
 the new-comer. 
 
 He was a man of tall and graceful figure. The 
 noble features were set off by a snowy beard and long 
 white locks that flowed down upon his shoulders 
 H 
 
98 WITH THE IMMORTALS CIIAP. 
 
 and contrasted with the rich material of his mantle. 
 The wide folds of the latter as he gathered them in 
 one hand did not altogether conceal the dress he 
 wore beneath, the doublet of dark green and trunk 
 hose of scarlet, the tight sleeve, slashed at the elbows 
 where the fine linen showed in symmetrical puffs, 
 the black shoes and the gold chain which hung 
 about his neck. He was old, indeed, but his walk 
 had a matchless grace and his erect form still 
 showed the remains of the giant s strength. His 
 dark eyes were brilliant still and emitted a lustre 
 that illuminated the pale, regular features, too 
 deathlike to convey any impression of life without 
 that glance of the sparkling soul within. 
 
 He paused before the group and courteously bent 
 his head. All rose to greet him, and if there was 
 less of awe in the action there was perhaps more of 
 reverence, than any had felt when the greater guest 
 had entered. 
 
 . " I am Lionardo," he said in a low and musical 
 voice. "Lionardo, the artist from Vinci they 
 call me, because I was born there. I have joined 
 you and the rest these dear friends of mine who 
 have made me one of them, and you who have con 
 ferred on us the privilege of once more exchanging 
 thoughts and grasping hands with the living." 
 
 " There is none whom we will more gladly honour," 
 said Augustus, gravely. "The privilege is ours, not 
 yours. Be seated be one of us if you will, as well 
 as one of these whom you have known so long." 
 
 Long yes it seems long to me, very, very 
 
VI WITH THE IMMORTALS 99 
 
 long. But I have not forgotten what it was to live. 
 I loved life well. Men have said of me that I wasted 
 much time I have been laughed at as a blower of 
 soap-bubbles, as a foolish fellow who spent his time 
 in trying to teach lizards to fly. Perhaps it is true. 
 I have learned the secret now, and I have learned 
 that I could not have attained to it then. But it was 
 sweet to seek after it." 
 
 "I have read those foolish stories," said Diana, 
 whose eyes rested in rapt admiration on the grand 
 features of the artist. " No one believes them " 
 
 "Here in Italy," said Caesar, in his placid yet 
 dominating tones, "people may say of you as the 
 English said of their architect si monumentum 
 queens, circumspice" 
 
 " They would have needed to bury my body by 
 the sluices of the Lecco canal, to give the same force 
 to the epitaph," answered Lionardo, with a soft laugh. 
 Then with the courtesy natural to him he turned to 
 Diana who had been speaking when interrupted by 
 Caesar s quotation. 
 
 " I appreciate the kindly thought that makes you 
 say that, Lady Diana your name is Diana? Yes, 
 it suits your face. I used to think I could guess 
 people s names from their faces. Another of my 
 foolish fancies. However, I am obliged to say that 
 there is some truth in the report concerning the soap- 
 bubbles. I had a theory that they were like drops 
 of liquid that each drop had a skin and that I 
 could make drops of air and find out how they 
 would act, by giving them artificial skins like those 
 
loo WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 of other liquids. Something has been produced from 
 the idea by modern students. The mistake I made 
 was in attempting to work out my theory before 
 proclaiming it. That is impossible. Modern students 
 make a fat living by proclaiming their theories first 
 and omitting to demonstrate them afterwards, taking 
 for granted that no one will deny what persons of 
 such importance as themselves choose to sug 
 gest." 
 
 " I have never heard that you were so cynical," 
 said Lady Brenda. 
 
 "Nor in your presence could I be so long," 
 rejoined the old artist, with a smile. "But I was 
 not cynical in my time. I am cynical in yours. 
 Save for such company as these gentlewomen, I 
 would not choose to be alive to-day." 
 
 Caesar sighed and looked away from the rest, his 
 nervous white hand tightening upon the carved arm 
 of his deep-seated chair. It was a long, deep breath, 
 drawn in with sudden and overwhelming thought of 
 returning vitality and possibility, swelling the breast 
 with the old imperial courage, the mighty grandeur 
 of heart which had ruled the world ; then relinquished 
 and breathed out again in despair, deep, inconsolable 
 and heart-rending, in the despair which the dead man 
 whose deeds are all done and whose life-book is closed 
 for ever feels when he gazes on the living whose race 
 is not yet begun. 
 
 "Yes," said Lionardo, looking kindly at the con 
 queror s averted face, "you are right for yourself. 
 We are not all such as Caius. If I were to live 
 
vi WITH THE IMMORTALS 101 
 
 again I should waste more time in disproving theories 
 to-day than I ever wasted in trying to prove them 
 four hundred years ago. We were all for progress 
 under Ludovico Sforza. Borgia understood progress 
 in his own way but it was progress, too, for all that. 
 He could have given lessons in more than one thing 
 to many of your moderns. Even Pope Leo under 
 stood what progress meant, in spite of his ideas about 
 my methods of painting. But nowadays everything 
 goes backwards. A bag of money is paraded through 
 the world bound on an ass s back, and everybody 
 worships the ass, and men lie down and let him 
 walk over them, thinking perchance that the beast 
 may stumble, and the sack burst open, and that haply 
 they may scrape up some of the coin in the filth of 
 the road. We were more simple than the moderns. 
 We had less money, but we knew better how to 
 spend it." 
 
 " Is it true, I wonder," put in Augustus, " that 
 the amount of money in circulation indicates pro 
 gress while the way in which men spend it indicates 
 civilisation?" 
 
 " No," said Caesar, answering for the rest. " The 
 nation which has the greater wealth may not have 
 progressed further than others, save in power. Power 
 is not progress it depends on other things. It is the 
 result of a combination of strength and discipline 
 under an intelligent leader. The highest power is 
 generally reached by a people when the spirit of 
 organisation has attained its greatest development in 
 military matters but has not yet spread to the civil 
 
102 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 professions. The army is then held in the highest 
 esteem and is the favourite profession. When the 
 passion for order has extended to mercantile affairs, 
 the nation s actual power as compared with other 
 nations begins to decline. Interests of all kinds 
 become vested in the maintenance of peace, and the 
 warlike element falls into disrepute. It becomes 
 the nation s business to lend money to other nations 
 who are still in the military stage, herself meanwhile 
 giving and receiving guarantees of peace. But 
 though a people may be rich by commerce they may 
 not have progressed ; and again whole nations may 
 be made fabulously wealthy by seizing the wealth of 
 others. We Romans did that. We did not pretend 
 to the culture of the Greeks ; we certainly did not 
 possess their skill in making money but we possessed 
 them and their country, and gold flowed in our 
 streets. It did us very little good. We got it with 
 out progress, by force, and we spent it recklessly in 
 paying men to tear each other to pieces. No a large 
 amount of money in circulation does not indicate 
 progress, though it may be the result of it." ) 
 
 "Money is very uninteresting," said Gwendoline. 
 " It always seems to me that the world would be 
 much nicer without it." 
 
 " When you are as old as I am, you will appreciate 
 your advantages, my dear," said Lady Brenda. "It 
 is good to be rich, and I fancy it must be very dis 
 agreeable to be poor." 
 
 "But I know quite well how it feels to have 
 money," objected Gwendoline. "I would like to 
 
VI WITH THE IMMORTALS 103 
 
 know how it feels to have power power such as you 
 had," she added, looking at Caesar. 
 
 " Not many have known what it is," he answered, 
 with a curious smile. " Each one who has possessed 
 it has probably felt it in a different way. For my 
 part, though I was accused of not being serious in my 
 youth, like Lionardo here, I think I grew more than 
 serious under the responsibility. Perhaps, however, 
 it made less difference to me than it has to others. 
 I was born to wealth, if not to power, and I resolved 
 to make the most of my money. I made use of it 
 by spending it all and then borrowing largely on the 
 security of what I had squandered. They said I was 
 not serious but they made me leave the country 
 nevertheless." 
 
 "I imagine," said Gwendoline, "that to have 
 boundless power suddenly put into one s hands must 
 make one feel as though one were to live for ever." 
 
 "Living for ever is a sad pastime without it," 
 returned Caesar. " I am not of Lionardo s mind. I 
 would live again." 
 
 "To die again as you died?" asked Diana in a 
 low voice. 
 
 "Yes," answered the dead conqueror, "to die 
 again as I died, if need be, but to have power once 
 more. And I know what I say you cannot know. 
 For death was horrible to me. Not the physical 
 pain of it, though they were clumsy fellows; they were 
 long in killing me I thought it would never end. I 
 could have done it better myself, and indeed I was 
 more merciful to them than they to me. Not one of 
 
104 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 them died a natural death, for I pursued them one 
 by one when I was dead. I have never seen them 
 since ; they are not here. But none of them suffered 
 as I did. I knew that my hour was come when I 
 got that first wound in the throat, and as I struggled, 
 the horror of it overcame me. Visions rose before 
 my eyes of the things I had not yet accomplished, 
 but of which the accomplishment was certain if I 
 lived. It was such a disappointment more that than 
 anything else. Such a heart-rending despair at being 
 cut down before my work was half finished, before the 
 world was half civilised. People forget that I invented 
 civilisation I, the dead man who am speaking to 
 you. But it is true. And in that moment I felt that 
 I was dying without having realised in practice the 
 theory which was to change the world. That handful 
 of low assassins cost the world fifteen centuries of 
 darkness, and I knew it even then. Had I lived, I 
 would have kneaded the earth as a baker kneads 
 dough, and the leaven I had put into it would not have 
 rotted and fermented for lack of stirring. As I felt 
 one wound after another, I felt that my murderers 
 were not only killing Caesar, they were killing civilisa 
 tion ; every thrust was struck at the heart of the 
 world, making deep wounds in the future of mankind 
 and letting out the breath of life from the body of 
 law. That was my worst suffering, worse even than 
 the death of my ambition. I had done enough already 
 to be remembered, and I knew it. I was satisfied 
 for myself to die. But I had conceived great thoughts 
 which had grown to be a new self apart from the old, 
 
vi WITH THE IMMORTALS 105 
 
 vain, ambitious Caesar, having a separate and better 
 life and that they slew also. Augustus did much, 
 but he could not do what I would and could have 
 done." 
 
 " No," said Lionardo, thoughtfully, " you were the 
 greatest man who ever lived." 
 
 "That is saying too much," answered Caesar in 
 quiet tones. " I meant to be. That is all. My fortune 
 deserted me too soon. The greatest men, after all, 
 are poets. They are also the most justly judged, for 
 what they leave is their own. They leave themselves 
 to mankind in their own words. We statesmen and 
 soldiers are at the mercy of historians. I meant to 
 have written the history of my whole life in the form 
 of annual reports such as I made upon my wars in 
 Gaul." 
 
 "Could you not do it now?" asked Lady Brenda. 
 " We know so little of the history of your youth, and 
 I am sure it must have been most interesting." 
 
 . Caesar smiled. " If I were able to write at all," 
 he said, " I would not choose my youth as a subject 
 upon which to make a report. My youth was a trifle 
 over full of movement, besides being very ostentatious. 
 My first object in life was to become popular, for I 
 knew that popularity was the surest way to power. I 
 led the popular party for eighteen years before I ever 
 attempted to lead an army, and when I turned soldier 
 I was already a finished statesman. That is the 
 reason why I knew what to do so soon as I had got 
 the whole power into my hands. I had conquered 
 the most important part of my world by art before T 
 
io6 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 found it necessary to subdue the remainder by force. 
 I was beginning to amalgamate a new world out of 
 my two conquests when I was murdered." 
 
 " Do the dead forgive ? " The words were spoken 
 by Gwendoline in a low tone and as though no response 
 could be expected to such a question. But there 
 were those present who could answer it. Lionardo 
 da Vinci turned his soft eyes upon the questioner. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "we do forgive, and very freely 
 too." 
 
 " Yes and no," said Caesar. 
 
 " Both ? " asked the artist. " How can we both 
 forgive and not forgive, illustrious friend? There 
 must be caprice in that there must be an uncertain 
 vacillation between two thoughts. You never vacillated, 
 nor stood long choosing between two paths, nor, having 
 chosen, looked back and regretted." 
 
 "The sum of man s works," replied the greater 
 spirit, " is composed of his intentions taken together 
 with his deeds in such a way as the Greek geometer 
 would have expressed it. The sum of his life is 
 largest when the deeds are as great as the intentions 
 which prompted them, for of four-sided figures the 
 square, with equal lines, encloses the greatest space. 
 But if the intentions be ever so great and the deeds 
 few, the figure is long indeed, but narrow and of 
 small area; and again if the deeds are numerous 
 though the intentions small, then the deeds are the 
 result of accident and must not all be imputed to 
 man for good. My intentions were my own. I 
 forgive them that said they were unworthy, or little 
 
VI WITH THE IMMORTALS 107 
 
 or bad, for I know what they were. But my deeds 
 were the world s, and those I left undone should have 
 been the world s also. Wherefore I forgive not those 
 men who cut them short, who clipped the sum of my 
 life and made my square smaller than it should have 
 been. For my life was the world s health, and though 
 my nephew was a cunning physician, all his medicines 
 could not cure the gangrene in the wounds my slayers 
 made in the world s skin, nor could all his cleansing 
 arrest the deepening darkness of the stain that spread 
 from my blood over the body of the nation I sought 
 to make clean and great. For my life was not 
 sacrificed boldly for good in a great cause. I did not 
 fall in the front of the fight at Pharsalus. I did not sink 
 when the skiff overturned at Alexandria ; I was not 
 caught by the enemy in Germany when I slipped 
 through their lines in a Gallic dress ; I did not lose 
 heart when my soldiers lost their way in the trenches 
 at Dyrrachium, though I lost the place itself. I risked 
 my life often enough to have deserved to lose it finally 
 in some nobler way than by the hands of such butchers 
 as made an end of me fellows who knew not where 
 to strike to kill who in three and twenty thrusts 
 could strike but one mortal blow. I stabbed Cassius 
 in the arm with my writing point, but what could I 
 do against so many ? I saw a sea of faces around 
 me, cowardly pale faces of men who got courage 
 cheaply from their numbers. I saw myself hemmed 
 in by a hedge of steel knives and I knew that my 
 hour was come. I saw their faces, but I would not 
 let them see mine in death. I covered my head and 
 
io8 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 my body with my garments and I died decently, since 
 there was nothing left but to die. But I saw each 
 one of those faces once more and in the instant of 
 death, within three years, and I heard the lips of each 
 dying man curse the hour in which he had slain 
 Caesar. Even then I could not forgive them, for the 
 sake of the world that might have been. I can pardon 
 them for murdering me as a man. I will never pardon 
 them for murdering my unborn deeds. Therefore I 
 say we dead men both forgive and forgive not." 
 
 The conqueror s calm voice ceased and his dark, 
 thoughtful eyes fixed themselves as though staring 
 back through the mist of nineteen centuries to that 
 morning when he had entered the curia, laughing at 
 Spurinna s prophecies and unconsciously grasping in 
 his hand the unread note which might have saved 
 him from his fate. The look was sad, but the sadness 
 had long passed from the stage of present despair to 
 regret for the past, and again to a melancholy curiosity 
 to see what should yet become of the world. 
 
 The gentle Lionardo bowed his head gravely, as 
 though admitting his companion spirit to be right. 
 
 " I understand that," he said. " We should not 
 forget that you, the dictator, have not only to pardon 
 the injuries done you in your person, but you have to 
 forgive also the injuries done in your person to the 
 world, or as we should say, to history. In my little 
 way, had I been foully murdered I could more easily 
 have forgiven my murderers than I could forgive one 
 who should wantonly destroy my painting of the Last 
 Supper. It is but an artist s vanity that is to say, 
 
vi WITH THE IMMORTALS 109 
 
 it is the satisfaction of the artist in his work. I can 
 not say what I might have felt had I been violently 
 prevented trom finishing that picture. It is unfinished 
 still it would be so had I lived until to-day. I think 
 it is a part of the temperament of some artists not to 
 finish, though they work for ever. They search after 
 that which never was nor ever can be; or, at all 
 events, we searched in our day. I think it was better. 
 We pursued the ideal. Modern painters pursue the 
 real. I was not a realist because I painted grinning 
 peasants for a study, and modelled heads of laughing 
 women for my pleasure. We did not know what 
 realism meant in those days, though people call us the 
 founders of the realist school. ( We sought to repre 
 sent nature s meaning; men now try to copy what 
 nature is. You, Caesar, tried to make of men what 
 heaven meant them to be, orderly, happy, prosperous 
 within reasonable limits. Napoleon, like Alexander, 
 ruined himself in attempting to create an unlimited 
 empire out of unreasoning and often unwilling 
 elements, believing that to command men s bodies 
 was to command men s souls. You succeeded in 
 spite of failure, for though you were killed at the 
 most critical moment of your existence your work 
 survived you, Napoleon failed in spite of success 
 and survived to see the destruction of the greater 
 part of his work, which followed almost immediately 
 after he was conquered and taken prisoner." 
 
 " It was not his fault," said Caesar. " Any more than 
 my poor young general Gaius Curio was to blame 
 when he was defeated by Juba. Napoleon s plans 
 
no WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 were admirably laid. He did not admire me. I 
 admire him. If his work did not survive long, that 
 is due to the fact that he was brought up as a soldier 
 and had a soldier s instincts. I was trained as a 
 statesman and attached more importance to the 
 stability of the State than to extending its boundaries. 
 I am called a conqueror ; had I lived I should have 
 been called a civiliser, and I would have earned the 
 name. People do not reflect that Napoleon con 
 quered a great extent of territory and rose to be 
 emperor, with what at first were very inadequate 
 means, and from the humblest beginnings. Charle 
 magne s conquests were more extended than mine, 
 far wider than Napoleon s, and yet he is not called 
 a conqueror. He is called the Great. He accom 
 plished his work, which on the whole was a work 
 of civilisation, and much of it remains to this day ; 
 at least his influence remains. The resuscitation of 
 the German Empire is largely due to the imperial 
 traditions which he founded ; but the invention of a 
 French Empire was not due to his influence. It was 
 the spontaneous invention of an astounding indivi 
 duality, tremendous in its immediate effects, formid 
 able so long as a personality could be found worthy 
 to be invested with the halo and attributes of Bona 
 parte, and bearing his name; but, on the whole it 
 was not a circumstance in the world s history to 
 which any great mass of popular or national tradition 
 will ever be attached, for the Napoleonic supremacy 
 was the impression of an individual upon nations ; 
 it was never the expression of the nations by the 
 
VI WITH THE IMMORTALS ill 
 
 individual. The title, German Emperor, was some 
 times in the Middle Ages a very empty word as 
 regards the man who so designated himself. I have 
 sometimes laughed to think that a dignity expressed 
 by my own name should degenerate to such a 
 mockery. But the thing meant by Caesarism Im 
 perialism was never to be despised. There was 
 always present in the minds of the chief nations a 
 consciousness of the force of a mighty tradition and 
 of a mass of traditions which they sought to embody 
 in the person of a leader, chosen for his qualities 
 and invested with the supreme power in virtue of 
 them. If he failed to make good his rights he was 
 despised, but it was long before the belief was extin 
 guished that at any moment, if he so chose and 
 so laboured and fought, the German Emperor might 
 again rule the world, even as Charlemagne had done. 
 There was nothing dynastic in my conception of the 
 Imperator, but the circumstances of the times made 
 the institution a military one. I never meant that it 
 should be that. I would not submit to a council of 
 generals or a mob of guards, though when I could 
 not persuade the people I was willing to submit to 
 them. The empire which my nephew founded began 
 to go to pieces when the soldiers outgrew the people 
 in strength, and outranked them in social conse 
 quence it fell because it was a military institution. 
 The empire of the Germans the Holy Roman Em 
 pire was shattered on the death of Charlemagne, 
 because it was intended to be dynastic, and his sons 
 tore each other to pieces. It revived temporarily 
 
112 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP, vi 
 
 when some strong individuality rose to the surface ; 
 it alternately decayed and revived with the decadence 
 of each old imperial family and the investiture of 
 each new one. My empire I never used the word 
 in the modern sense my command, was intended to 
 be that of a democratic monarch, an expression now 
 used emptily to flatter a king who is at the mercy of 
 his rabble." 
 
 Caesar laughed softly, as he had laughed many 
 times in the nineteen centuries which had elapsed 
 since his death, and there was something in the 
 mirth of the great spirit that froze the conversation. 
 Lady Brenda wished she were quite sure that it was 
 Caesar who had been talking and who sat there by 
 her side with the golden laurels on his broad brow, 
 his nervous white fingers playing, constantly with the 
 border of his purple mantle. Augustus was ponder 
 ing on the words he had heard, while Gwendoline 
 half wished to put another question. Diana leaned 
 back in her deep chair and gazed at Lionardo s 
 beautiful face from beneath her drooping lids, and 
 she wondered inwardly whether it would not be better 
 to be the quiet spirit of a great artist than the regret 
 ful ghost of a murdered conqueror. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 IT was late in the afternoon and Lady Brenda was 
 seated alone upon the terrace of the Castello del 
 Gaudio. A little table stood beside her, on which 
 lay some writing materials and a couple of sealed 
 letters, ready for the post. The rest of the party had 
 gone upon a distant excursion on the water, but Lady 
 Brenda had stayed at home to attend to her corre 
 spondence, which was one of her chief amusements 
 and occupied much of her time. She had not ven 
 tured as yet to speak in her letters of the remarkable 
 things which were occurring in her son-in-law s house. 
 She was too much puzzled and at the same time too 
 much interested as yet to explain to herself what 
 happened. The strange thing, in her opinion, was 
 that the apparitions did not strike her as supernatural, 
 nor startle her so much as she would have supposed 
 that ghosts should have done. There was an ease, 
 a simplicity, and a perfect naturalness in their ap 
 pearance and manner that disarmed prejudice and for 
 bade fear. She wished to see more of them, and as 
 she sat looking out over the water, while the freshness 
 of the evening crept up to the terrace, her mind dwelt 
 
H4 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 on the subject and she thought of the characters she 
 would most like to see. 
 
 In history, Francis the First of France was one of 
 her favourites. If she had a rather modern tendency 
 to laugh at romance, she had also, far down in her 
 nature, a profound admiration of romantic characters 
 in the past. Francis appealed to her taste. His 
 courage, his beauty, his adventures, his victories, his 
 tournaments and his love-affairs pleased her, and 
 she had often said that if she had her choice of 
 an historical person whom she might meet, she would 
 choose him. She thought so now, and it seemed so 
 possible, in the light of what had already happened, 
 that she spoke aloud as though of a living person. 
 
 "Yes," said she, "I would choose Francis the 
 First. I wonder whether I could not send him an 
 invitation by one of the others ? " 
 
 Almost immediately, she was aware that some one 
 was on the terrace. She looked round and she saw 
 that she had her wish. The king was advancing 
 slowly towards her, his velvet cap in his hand. She 
 was not startled now, and she smiled when she 
 thought how easily and quickly her wish had been 
 realised. Whether it was a dream or not, she was 
 determined to enjoy it, and this particular dream was 
 very pleasant. She knew now how much she had 
 really wished to see the man who stood before her. 
 
 Lady Brenda was somewhat surprised, and some 
 what disappointed at the looks of her visitor. King 
 Francis was undoubtedly imposing in appearance, of 
 a fine presence and altogether a most noticeable man. 
 
vii WITH THE IMMORTALS 115 
 
 He was taller than other men, broad-shouldered and 
 straight-limbed, erect and evidently of great strength. 
 His short, jet-black hair and pointed beard of the 
 same hue set off his brilliant colouring and piercing 
 black eyes ; his forehead showed a good capacity of 
 mind, and his strong nose argued ambition and per 
 sonal courage. But there was in his manner and 
 looks a lack of that refinement which especially char 
 acterised the other dead men Lady Brenda had known 
 at Castello del Gaudio. He wore the dress of his time, 
 as did each of the others long hose of gray silk, with 
 embroidered shoes, and a close-fitting doublet of 
 maroon coloured velvet, his only ornament being a 
 heavy gold chain hung about his neck. 
 
 Lady Brenda rose to receive her royal guest, and 
 studied the details of his face and dress, illuminated 
 by the glow of the setting sun, and thrown into relief 
 against the cold background of the gray hills. Francis 
 made a courteous salute and motioned Lady Brenda 
 to be seated, himself taking the vacant arm-chair by 
 her side. 
 
 " It is so good of you to have asked me here," he 
 said, fixing his eyes upon her and speaking in clear 
 manly tones. 
 
 " It was most kind of your majesty to take pity on 
 my solitude," answered the lady, smiling. 
 
 " I never allowed a lady to be alone when it was 
 in my power to bear her company," returned Francis. 
 
 " No," said Lady Brenda, rather nervously. " Your 
 majesty was always fond of women s society. How 
 can you live without it?" 
 
n6 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 " I can hardly be said to live at all though it 
 seems that I am practically alive now, within the 
 circle of your son-in-law s enchantments I should 
 say perhaps that I only live in your smiles. Exist 
 ence in our circumstances is very monotonous." 
 
 " You were so fond of brilliant changes, too," sug 
 gested Lady Brenda. 
 
 " Change ! Ay indeed I was. As a compensa 
 tion I have not changed any clothes since the spring 
 of 1547. That was three hundred and forty years ago. 
 It is true that from what I have seen of more recent 
 costumes I do not often regret the durability of my 
 imperishable garments. As for the present fashions 
 in the dress of ladies, something might be made of 
 them by using respectable materials. I confess, how 
 ever, I am surprised beyond measure at the stuffs you 
 all wear forgive my frankness I seem to feel the 
 affectation of too much simplicity in your appearance. 
 Women as beautiful as you are could surely afford to 
 dress better than women who are ugly." 
 
 " Your majesty is very flattering," said Lady Brenda, 
 with a slight blush of pleasure. " But in regard to 
 dress I beg to differ from you. It is much more the 
 thing to be simple nowadays one is much more 
 respected. And for that matter, the ugly women 
 could dress gorgeously, too." 
 
 "An ugly woman is ridiculous," said Francis. 
 " The more she bedizens herself the more ridiculous 
 she grows. But a beautiful woman can dress in cloth 
 of gold and diamonds, and the richer her clothes, the 
 more her beauty will shine." 
 
vii WITH THE IMMORTALS 117 
 
 "You loved to see beautiful women richly dressed 
 it is true. I have read of it in your majesty s life. 
 But the times have changed since then. I imagine 
 the sudden appearance of Madame d Etampes, in 
 full court dress " 
 
 " Heaven forbid ! " ejaculated Francis, crossing 
 himself devoutly. 
 
 "I thought your majesty was much attached to 
 her," said Lady Brenda, calmly. 
 
 " So I was as the horse may be said to be much 
 attached to the cart," answered the king. " I could 
 not get rid of her. She drove me to distraction 
 but she drove me, nevertheless. There was nothing 
 I could call my own, from the king s justice to the 
 king s jewels. I verily believe that Anne did more 
 harm than I did, which is saying something. The 
 difference was that she did it with premeditation, 
 whereas my evil deeds were chiefly of the lazy kind 
 sins of omission, perhaps of wrong conviction." 
 
 " Your majesty did not omit to burn alive a num 
 ber of persons belonging to my religion," said Lady 
 Brenda, stiffly. 
 
 " Madam," replied the king, " with your permis 
 sion we will not discuss religious matters. I will 
 only say that the Protestants with whom I had to do 
 were Calvinists and that their church resembled yours 
 about as nearly as a cellar resembles a court drawing- 
 room and I will take the liberty of pointing out that 
 your Queen Elizabeth destroyed more Catholics than 
 I ever destroyed Protestants, and that she did it in a 
 more cruel way. I will not speak of my fickle friend 
 
n8 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 Henry of England. His example adds too much 
 weight to the argument. Madam, I would rather 
 speak of Madame d Etampes than of religious 
 matters but I would infinitely prefer to talk of 
 neither." 
 
 " If your majesty will select a subject for conver 
 sation " suggested Lady Brenda. 
 
 " Let us talk of yourself " 
 
 No of yourself." 
 
 " Very well," said the king, leaning back in his 
 easy chair which his broad shoulders overlapped on 
 each side. " Let us talk of myself though I suspect 
 that means that you wish to talk of the women I 
 loved. Does it not ? " 
 
 "Their names are well known to history," said 
 Lady Brenda. 
 
 "Better than their characters. I do not think 
 people generally have any clear conception either of 
 Madame de Chateaubriand, Madame d Etampes or 
 Madame de Bre ze " 
 
 "Your majesty loved Madame de Breze ?" in 
 quired Lady Brenda, with sudden curiosity. 
 
 " Diane was a beautiful woman she was four and 
 twenty years of age when she came to beg for her 
 father s life and I was but five years older. We were 
 made for each other, and she was a wiser woman than 
 Anne d Etampes, as Catherine found out I could 
 have loved her, but I loved another then. One 
 whom I have long regretted." 
 
 " Frangoise de Foix," said Lady Brenda in a low 
 voice, for the king seemed moved. 
 
vii WITH THE IMMORTALS 119 
 
 " Yes Madame de Chateaubriand. I can see her 
 now with her fair gentle face, her golden hair, her 
 soft blue eyes, her small graceful figure. Poor Fran- 
 9oise ! I can never forget her last look when she 
 said good-bye in the garden. I thought little enough 
 of it then and I called back Primaticcio as though 
 nothing had happened. On my faith ! It was very 
 heartless ! I hardly know how I could do it. Had 
 I known how she was to die I would not have done 
 it no ! on my faith as a gentleman ! I would not 
 have done it." 
 
 " Indeed," said Lady Brenda, " it would have been 
 better for France had you treated Madame de 
 Chateaubriand less cruelly. She might have wearied 
 you a little, but she would not have betrayed you to 
 the emperor." 
 
 "It is easy, when once you are dead or if you 
 live three centuries after an event to say that a deed 
 was cruel. Living people who read history look at 
 it much as a character of the time looks at it after 
 his death coldly. It is impossible for you to 
 realise exactly how matters stood, nor what I felt. 
 I was bored, my dear madam do you understand ? 
 Bored " 
 
 "As most people are by what is too good for 
 them," put in Lady Brenda. 
 
 "You are severe, but there is truth in what you 
 say. I am only a dead king, after all, and I daresay I 
 do not judge my own life much more leniently than 
 you do, now that it is over. But pray reflect that when 
 a woman bores a man, the case is serious indeed." 
 
120 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 "Very," answered Lady Brenda, gravely. "It 
 has recently been said, however, that only people 
 who themselves are bores are bored by others. I 
 mean no disrespect to your majesty ; but I believe 
 that if your majesty s mother, of blessed memory, 
 had not conceived the idea of presenting to you 
 Mademoiselle de Heilly, you would not have wearied 
 poor Frangoise as you did, till she began to weary 
 you." 
 
 "Yes, madam," said the king. "It is also true 
 that if the serpent had not talked of apples to our 
 mother Eve, Paradise would have continued to be 
 a terrestrial institution. But the serpent was a great 
 busybody, and Eve liked apples." 
 
 "It seems to me that your majesty then plays 
 the part of Eve," remarked Lady Brenda. 
 
 " Can you doubt that if the serpent had addressed 
 himself to Adam instead of to his consort, he would 
 have been equally successful ? " 
 
 " No," said Lady Brenda. The king laughed. 
 
 "It would be very singular if you did," he 
 answered. "Madame d Angouleme treated me with 
 the politics of the serpent and I must say in justice 
 that a more beautiful apple was never selected by 
 the devil himself. It amused me at the time. 
 Unfortunately, when we are dead the heart begins 
 to live." 
 
 "How strange!" exclaimed Lady Brenda. "I 
 should have thought that it would be the reverse !" 
 
 "You would have supposed that after death the 
 affections are wholly destroyed ? No. That is not 
 
viz WITH THE IMMORTALS 12 1 
 
 my experience. I was heartless in my lifetime. I 
 treated Frangoise abominably, and I made Anne de 
 Heilly s miserable husband Due d Etampes. I 
 made Frangoise return the jewels I had given her, 
 because Anne wanted them. She broke all the 
 monograms out of the settings before she sent them 
 back, and I remember being glad that she did it. 
 I knew that Anne was betraying me, and betraying 
 France daily, and yet I let her power increase, because 
 I disliked the annoyance of another separation and 
 during all that time Frangoise was languishing in her 
 dungeon. No one told me of that, however. But 
 when I was dead I found that I had a heart, and 
 my heart persecutes me. I love Frangoise. Faith ! 
 madam, I do not know why I tell you these things !" 
 
 " Pray go on," said Lady Brenda, sympathetically. 
 " Your majesty is not the first person who has made 
 me confidences." 
 
 "I am sure of that," answered the king. "You 
 have a sympathetic face. Women with blue eyes 
 can feel for others. Frangoise de Foix had blue 
 eyes Anne s eyes were dark." 
 
 "Are they both here?" asked Lady Brenda. 
 
 "No," said Francis, listlessly. "I shall never 
 see them again. Anne loved me for the gifts I 
 gave her, and there are no gifts here. Frangoise 
 loved me for myself. That was not much, was it ? 
 I took myself from her and she never forgave me. 
 She was right, I deserved not to be forgiven, but 
 I did not find out how sorry I was until I came 
 where I have time to be sorry for ever. I am 
 
122 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 tormented with a new sense which in life I did not 
 possess the sense of an undying affection for that 
 lady." 
 
 " How very sad !" exclaimed Lady Brenda. 
 
 " It is horrible. Men should not suppose that 
 while they are alive they can be heartless with im 
 punity. When they are dead the heart will awake 
 and cause them bitter anguish all the more bitter 
 because it is a pain to which they are not accustomed. 
 People have called me perjurer because I would not 
 go back to Madrid. There is less reason for that 
 accusation than for the reproach of heartlessness I 
 incurred. Charles knew well enough that trie treaty 
 he imposed upon me could never be carried out, 
 unless my chivalric instincts made it possible. He 
 reckoned on my stupidity or rather on my stupid 
 adherence to the details of an antiquated code. What 
 he really wanted was my marriage with Eleonora. 
 He got it. I more than atoned for refusing to return 
 to captivity by letting him go freely through my 
 kingdom on his way to Ghent. Anne advised me to 
 put him into the Bastille. If I had been the perjured 
 wretch people have since described me I would have 
 followed her advice. I was a better gentleman than 
 Charles. Perhaps that is not saying much. In my 
 lifetime I aspired to be the first gentleman in France, 
 or in the world. My faults were such as his majesty, 
 Charles the Sour, could not well comprehend. But 
 he comprehended my virtues in such a way as to 
 attempt to play upon them to his own advantage on 
 every possible occasion. I generally chose those 
 
vii WITH THE IMMORTALS 123 
 
 occasions to lapse from virtue as when I broke ray 
 Madrid promise. He had no right to expect me to 
 sacrifice my kingdom and the welfare of my people 
 to my personal convictions concerning the code of 
 honour." 
 
 The king laughed, and in his laughter there was 
 a coarse element which struck very disagreeably upon 
 Lady Brenda s refined ears. 
 
 "You say nothing?" continued the king, as he 
 noticed her silence. 
 
 " I do not understand politics," said Lady Brenda, 
 wisely. 
 
 " I fear I did not understand them either," laughed 
 Francis, good-humouredly. "The lady who ruled 
 my son and my son s wife always said so. I was 
 persuaded that I understood everything when I was 
 alive and when a man holds such an opinion of 
 himself he will always find fools to agree with him 
 and women to govern him. Had I known more of 
 myself I might have avoided many complications 
 and poor Frangoise would not have died in the 
 vaults of a Breton castle." 
 
 "Perhaps there need never have been any Frangoise 
 for your majesty in that case," suggested Lady Brenda. 
 
 The king looked at her curiously as though not 
 fully understanding her, or fancying that she was 
 jesting. But Lady Brenda was grave and serious. 
 
 "You mean, madam, that I should have loved 
 the queen, because she was queen first Claude and 
 then Eleonora ? That is a very singular notion, but 
 I presume that ideas have changed since my day." 
 
124 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 " Perhaps not so much as they ought to change," 
 returned Lady Brenda. "There was a publicity in 
 those days " 
 
 " We were more honest." 
 
 "You had less to fear." 
 
 " We were more in earnest," said the king. 
 
 " Then you were worse because you were more 
 in earnest in doing wrong." 
 
 " Perhaps ; but we were misguided by bad 
 example " 
 
 "Which your majesty strengthened by doing 
 openly and ostentatiously what ought not to be done 
 at all." 
 
 " I think we were bolder," objected Francis. " If 
 we did wrong we were not afraid to do it in the face 
 of the world." 
 
 " That is not a high form of courage," replied the 
 inexorable lady. 
 
 " Nevertheless, it was courage," laughed the king. 
 " But I will not discuss the question. I am suffi 
 ciently persuaded of my own badness without further 
 argument. On the other hand a man is never so 
 much in need of a word of encouragement and 
 appreciation as when he is conscious of not deserv 
 ing it." 
 
 "Am I to pay you compliments?" asked Lady 
 Brenda, laughing in her turn. " It would not be 
 hard. History has found much to say in praise of 
 your majesty s reign. You were generous on many 
 occasions and you did much for the arts." 
 
 "By employing jewellers to make trinkets for 
 
vii WITH THE IMMORTALS 125 
 
 Franchise and Anne. When any of those things are 
 found nowadays they bring good prices, because they 
 belong to the epoch of Francis the First. Yes my 
 name is connected with the arts. I meant it should 
 be that of a conqueror and I am most famous for a 
 phrase I did not pronounce when I was conquered. 
 Fate, madam, is ironical. Perhaps I am more famous 
 for having lost the day at Pavia than I should have 
 been had I won it. If Bayard had been with me, 
 instead of Bonnivet I should have had the victory. 
 But Bayard was dead poor Bayard ! He was the 
 truest friend I ever had" 
 
 " Have you found men truer friends than women?" 
 asked Lady Brenda. 
 
 " Women have the qualities which attract without 
 retaining affection men have the faculty of retaining 
 without attracting." 
 
 "What does that mean?" 
 
 " It means that I always expected to find friends 
 in the women I loved and was always disappointed ; 
 and that, though I was not attracted to seek the 
 friendship of man, yet the few men who were my 
 friends were on the whole very faithful to me. 
 Bayard was one poor Lautrec, Frangoise s brother, 
 was another. Louis de Breze was faithful " 
 
 " He received a poor return," said Lady Brenda, 
 
 " Madam," returned the king, with much suavity, 
 " he was old. His wife was young. My son Henri 
 was very wild. What would you have ? Diane did 
 very well." 
 
 "It was abominable," exclaimed Lady Brenda, 
 
126 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 hotly. " Diane de Poitiers might almost have been 
 your majesty s son s mother !" 
 
 " It was precisely because she was older than he 
 that she had such an influence over him," explained 
 Francis. " Beware of reading histories in which 
 everybody is abused for doing in one age what is 
 considered immoral in another ; in that way you get 
 a very imperfect idea of the times. It would be as 
 sensible to say that you think me very vulgar for 
 wearing this dress instead of a coat and a tall hat. 
 I cannot get rid of this dress for I lived in it. In 
 the same way, we of my time cannot get rid of the 
 ideas of our epoch. We were brought up in them, 
 we lived in them and we died in them. Indeed I 
 think we were already improving. In a moral way, 
 I daresay I do not compare badly with Henry the 
 Eighth of England, with Roderigo Borgia, with 
 .Giovanni Maria Visconti, or even with my old enemy 
 Charles Quint." 
 
 " Perhaps," admitted Lady Brenda. " The dif 
 ference would have been greater had you prevented 
 the attachment of your heir to Diane de Poitiers, and 
 had you had no such affairs of the heart as caused the 
 destruction of Madame de Chateaubriand and your 
 majesty s destruction by Madame d Etampes." 
 
 " As for Diane," said the king, " Catherine did not 
 object to her husband s attachment, as you call it. 
 Honestly, would you, in her place, have thought it 
 worth while to be so particular?" 
 
 " I ? Indeed I would never have spoken to him 
 again though he was my husband !" 
 
vii WITH THE IMMORTALS 127 
 
 " Really ?" exclaimed the king, with a rough laugh. 
 "Are you so severe as that, madam?" 
 
 " I cannot understand loving a man who does not 
 love me," replied Lady Brenda, firmly. " It is enough 
 to make one severe." 
 
 "But suppose that you had never loved him at 
 all " 
 
 " I would not have married him, even for the 
 honour of being your majesty s daughter-in-law. If 
 I had been married to him, supposing that he loved 
 me, and if he afterwards showed me that he did not 
 in such a way as that I would never speak to him 
 again." 
 
 " Consider what would have been the difficulties 
 of Catherine s position had she refused to pardon 
 Henri," objected Francis. " She must have led a 
 miserable life. Diane was powerful. She ruled 
 France after my death." 
 
 " I would have been divorced from the king, and 
 he could then have married Madame de Breze." 
 
 " Divorce in those days was not easy. We had 
 prejudices which did not permit us to imitate our 
 brother of England. We still regarded matrimony 
 as a bond a view of- the rite which seems nowadays 
 to be falling into disrepute." 
 
 " Oh ! I do not think so at all," exclaimed Lady 
 Brenda in a tone of conviction. 
 
 " No ? And yet divorces can be had very easily. 
 It appears to me to be only an ingenious method of 
 legalising the very faults with which you reproach me." 
 
 "On the contrary it is a human mode of escape 
 
128 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 tor women who are ill-treated by their husbands. I 
 am sure, if Brenda treated me as you your majesty 
 treated Queen Claude and then Queen Eleonora, 
 I would get divorced at once." 
 
 " But then there would be many men who would 
 be certain to be divorced from every wife they married. 
 A man loves a woman ; he marries her ; he tires of 
 her and begins to love some one else ; his wife at once 
 divorces him and he is then at liberty to marry the 
 next woman. She, in her turn, divorces him and 
 so on, so long as he can persuade any woman to 
 accept his hand. It is convenient for the man. It 
 will also lead to fraud, for people will only have to say, 
 by agreement, that they are maltreated and they are 
 instantly at liberty. It is bad, madam, very bad. It 
 is better that a few individuals, like myself, if you 
 please, should be sinful, than that in order to legalise 
 sin for the few it should be legally placed within reach 
 of the many." 
 
 " I do not think that is the case at all," said Lady 
 Brenda, who was puzzled by the king s argument, but 
 not convinced. " I mean that if a man really and 
 truly treats his wife badly she ought to have some 
 redress." 
 
 "She has. I believe that a woman may bring 
 a suit against her husband ; she may obtain a legal 
 separation, and he is obliged to support her. Why 
 should she wish to marry again ?" 
 
 "If she is young, why should her whole life be 
 ruined by being tied to a brute ? Why may she not 
 be happy with some one else?" 
 
vii WITH THE IMMORTALS 129 
 
 " Because if you make it possible for her, you make 
 it possible for the next woman, who perhaps was treated 
 badly, but less badly than the first and then it is 
 possible for another who has hardly suffered at all, 
 and at last it is possible for every man or woman who 
 chances for a moment to prefer some other person to 
 his or her wife or husband. It is not that in some 
 cases it would not be a positive good ; it is that the 
 remedy you provide for such cases soon ends by 
 creating cases in very great numbers, because the 
 remedy is an agreeable one." 
 
 "Yes but it is very hard for the woman who is 
 ill-treated, all the same," said Lady Brenda, unwilling 
 to relinquish her defence. 
 
 " Very I agree with you," replied the king. " I 
 made many women unhappy in that way myself. If 
 the whole world, in regard to marriage, were directed 
 by one sublimely wise individual, who should be 
 really able to judge when divorce is just and necessary 
 and to dictate the terms of it, the institution would 
 be a good and wise one. All government is but an 
 attempt to combine the best faculties of the many 
 into such a working shape as may represent the 
 imaginary action of one sublimely wise individual. 
 Hitherto the attempt has never wholly succeeded. 
 The government of the many has never been so good 
 as that of one or two exceptionally good and talented 
 autocrats who have really lived. Owing to the rarity 
 of such individuals it is found that, as a whole, it is 
 better to adopt the form of government by the many, 
 where at least there is some sort of balance maintained 
 
 K 
 
130 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 between the bad and the good sides of human nature. 
 I myself believed in myself so much that I founded 
 the autocratic despotism of the kings of France, when 
 the Parliament gave their verdict in accordance with 
 my instructions against Charles de Bourbon. It was 
 the first thoroughly autocratic act accomplished by a 
 French monarch, and but for Louis de Bre ze , Diane s 
 husband, it would not have been brought about, as 
 you probably know. It was no wonder that I pardoned 
 her father, when her husband saved me from destruc 
 tion. I pardoned almost every one concerned in the 
 conspiracy except the Constable himself. Fortunately 
 he was killed in the storming of Rome, or he would 
 still have given me trouble. He had the devil in his 
 body, and would have given me no peace. Madame 
 d Etampes would have helped him, and did, as she 
 afterwards helped the emperor, out of sheer hatred 
 for Madame de Breze." 
 
 " So I have heard," said Lady Brenda. "It is an 
 instance of the advantages your majesty obtained from 
 the connection with Madame d Etampes." 
 
 "To carry out your theory, madam, I should have 
 divorced Eleonora, and married Anne in the face of 
 the emperor. The result would have been startling." 
 
 "Yes. Madame d Etampes would have been 
 satisfied and you would have had her for a friend 
 instead of an enemy. Only according to my theory, 
 the divorce should have been demanded by the queen, 
 and not by your majesty. At all events the treaty of 
 Crespy would never have been signed." 
 
 " It would have been a pity if it had not been 
 
vii WITH THE IMMORTALS 131 
 
 signed, though no one could have foreseen that," 
 answered the king. "Madame d Etampes wanted 
 to make a great man of my poor boy Charles at the 
 expense of his brother, out of spite against Diane de 
 Poitiers, by marrying him to the emperor s daughter 
 or niece, as the emperor pleased ; and to obtain this 
 she persuaded the emperor to relinquish finally his 
 claims upon Burgundy. Charles died, and the mar- 
 riage never took place, but Burgundy remained French, 
 and Henry ultimately overcame the emperor in at 
 least one campaign, though he failed in others. Had 
 he taken my advice about the Guise he might have 
 done better. His prospects were not injured by any 
 thing I did, nor by the peace of Crespy. It is not 
 fair to impute his failures to Madame d Etampes, 
 however much she tried to do him injury. She was 
 not successful, or she would not have been obliged 
 to leave the court after my death." 
 
 "Poor woman!" exclaimed Lady Brenda. "It 
 must have been very hard for her to leave it all ! 
 However, she had laid up a very pretty fortune." 
 
 "And she never loved me in the least. She was 
 not to be pitied, for she got all she wanted in this 
 world." 
 
 " No. I pity Frangoise far more," answered Lady 
 Brenda. " You say you never see her now?" 
 
 " Never I have sought her long," said the king, 
 sadly. His whole manner changed from a tone of 
 half cynical, half buoyant good-humour to the expres 
 sion of a profound sadness, as indeed occurred every 
 time he mentioned the ill-fated countess. "You 
 
132 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 cannot imagine," he continued, " how the thought of 
 her dominates me, nor how hopeless is the passion 
 of a dead man for a dead woman. It is a result, 
 such a love, and it is irreparable, as results most often 
 are. You who live and love cannot know what it 
 is to love only when the body is in the grave, long 
 crumbled into dust, and to love without hope. You 
 who can still repair your mistakes, you cannot realise 
 what it is to exist where there is no reparation. You 
 who lightly forget, or remember only when it is con 
 venient, you cannot guess at the agony of a state 
 where you must perpetually remember everything and 
 be conscious of the shame of a fault for centuries at 
 a time." 
 
 "Would it be any relief for you to see her now?" 
 
 "Yes," answered Francis, thoughtfully, "I think 
 it would be a relief. I may be wrong, but I fancy I 
 should be more peaceful if I could hear her say she 
 forgave me. Perhaps she would not say it." 
 
 "I don t know," said Lady Brenda. "I think 
 she would. It may be possible to bring about a 
 meeting now, owing to these astral things, or what 
 ever Augustus calls them. I will ask him." 
 
 The king was silent and seemed deep in thought. 
 The sun had long disappeared and as they talked the 
 twilight deepened into night, the broad water turned 
 black and gray in streaks and bands, and then at last 
 all black, while one by one the stars shone out above 
 as though angels were lighting the candles at the altars 
 of heaven. The soft land breeze floated down from 
 the mountains and whispered over the terrace, and 
 
vii WITH THE IMMORTALS 133 
 
 stirred the thin lace which Lady Brenda had thrown 
 over her head and about her neck. The dead king 
 sat motionless by her side, his head sunk on his breast, 
 his great white hands clasped together upon one knee. 
 Lady Brenda was thinking that the party stayed long 
 upon their excursion and was wishing that they would 
 return; and then her thoughts came back in ready 
 sympathy to the being by her side, to his sufferings 
 and regrets, his overwhelming memories of the past 
 and his slender hopes for the future. 
 
 As they sat there side by side a woman in a black 
 mantle came slowly towards them across the terrace, 
 her long mourning garments trailing noiselessly behind 
 her. The dark hood had fallen back from her head, 
 and the light from the open windows of the drawing- 
 room fell full upon her fair and pale young face. 
 Slowly and noiselessly she came forward, but though 
 the king did not look up, he seemed to feel her 
 presence, and his hands twisted each other, while his 
 broad chest heaved with excitement. 
 
 She came and stood before him, a frail, fair, blue- 
 eyed woman with a sorrowful face and dishevelled golden 
 hair, and she looked down on the dead king s bent 
 head. Suddenly he sprang to his feet and threw out 
 his arms as though he would have clasped her in 
 them. But she drew swiftly back from him and 
 faced him, looking sadly into his eyes. 
 
 "Ah, sire," she cried in a strange, heart-broken 
 voice, " why were you so unkind, so cruel to 
 me?" 
 
 "Frangoise, for the love of Heaven forgive me !" 
 
134 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 groaned the wretched spirit, stretching out his white 
 hands towards the woman. 
 
 " Forgive you ?" she echoed, sadly. " Is that all ? 
 I forgave you long ago. It is not all to forgive, 
 even when we are dead, you and I." 
 
 " It is not all, Frangoise there is more more 
 than I can say. I love you still," cried the king, 
 springing forward. 
 
 " No no no ! You never loved me it was 
 only I who loved, and loved to death,, too well, too 
 long, too sinfully !" 
 
 With streaming eyes the dead woman looked de 
 spairingly at the dead man, and then with -a cry she 
 turned and fled through the soft dusk into the dark 
 ness beyond. But Francis stood still, looking sorrow 
 fully after her, his hands hanging listlessly by his sides, 
 his eyes moistened with tears. Then he turned to 
 Lady Brenda. 
 
 " And so it is," he said, " that our sins pursue us 
 for ever and cannot be forgotten. I tell you, I love 
 her I never really loved another woman, and I know 
 it now. But she can never know it, until all this is 
 over. The sin of loving her pursues me even in 
 death ah, madam, it is all too great and deep for me 
 to understand." 
 
 "I am sorry she came indeed I am," said Lady 
 Brenda. "She has made you more unhappy than 
 you were before." 
 
 "Yes," answered the dead man. "When we are 
 alive we often long for something that is not good, 
 and when we have it, we are disappointed. But when 
 
vii WITH THE IMMORTALS 135 
 
 we are dead we are doomed to long for the same 
 things, and when they are given to us they are more 
 bitter in one moment than all the pains of ten life 
 times. If pain could kill us now, we should die 
 every hour, every minute." 
 
 " You had so often wished to see her," said Lady 
 Brenda, sympathetically. 
 
 " Indeed, that is true. I had wished it as I never 
 wished anything in my life. You have seen me get 
 my wish you have seen my suffering. Do you 
 think that such pain changes us ? No, we can never 
 change. What we have made ourselves we must 
 remain, who knows? perhaps for ever. We suffer, 
 and have no rest. All that the heart feels from boy 
 hood to old age, we feel at every instant of this 
 eternity. Do you wonder that when it is possible 
 we rejoice at meeting the living, and speaking with 
 them, and dreaming for one moment that we are 
 alive again, and subject to change?" 
 
 " But there is hope still left to you," argued the 
 lady. 
 
 " Hope but such hope as you would not call hope 
 at all. Do not speak to a dead man of hope, madam. 
 It means the end. It is not hope, but doubt, for 
 with the certainty of change, when time shall have 
 worn itself out, there is the indescribable fear, the 
 agony of uncertainty, the horror of what that change 
 may be." 
 
 Lady Brenda shuddered and drew her shawl more 
 closely around her. In the distance below she heard 
 the sound of voices, Gwendoline s ringing laugh and 
 
136 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP, vn 
 
 Chard s deep tones as he called to the sailors. The 
 boat had come back and the party were landing. 
 The king held out his hand. 
 
 " I thank you for this pleasant hour, madam," he 
 said, simply. 
 
 " Your majesty is not going ? " asked Lady Brenda, 
 almost ludicrously forgetful, for the moment, that her 
 visitor was only a ghost. But she started as she took 
 his hand which chilled her to the bone. 
 
 " Yes, I am going. But we shall meet again very 
 soon," he answered, and in a moment he had left her. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 " I HAVE made up my mind that I will never be sur 
 prised at anything again," said Lady Brenda, as the 
 party sat at their mid-day breakfast on the day after 
 the events last recorded. She had been telling the 
 rest about the king s visit. 
 
 " You are quite right," answered Augustus. "You 
 are quite right, my dearly beloved mother-in-law. 
 Surprise is nothing but a disturbance in the balance 
 of the faculties. Now, when a woman possesses 
 faculties like yours it is a pity that they should not 
 be always balanced." 
 
 "Really, Augustus " 
 
 "Quite so," continued Chard, imperturbably. "When 
 once you have discovered that we are likely to meet 
 dead men who talk very agreeably, almost every 
 day, it is as well to make the most of your opportuni 
 ties. The phenomenon will probably be explained 
 some day ; meanwhile let us enjoy it as much as we 
 can. It would be very pleasant if these charming 
 people could dine with us, but I gather from various 
 things that they do not dine at all, nor even breakfast 
 Who is going on the expedition this afternoon ?" 
 
 "We all are," said the three ladies, with a una- 
 
138 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 nimity as rarely found in the country when a walk is 
 proposed, as it is general in town when there is a ball. 
 
 They had determined to take a long walk among 
 the mountains, and, as the day was comparatively 
 cool, they started immediately after breakfast. 
 Augustus led them up the rocky path, past their little 
 stone hut which was the centre of his experiments, 
 and along the steep side of the mountain over the 
 sea. They were all four good walkers and fond of 
 exercise. 
 
 " It would be very amusing if some of our friends 
 would walk with us," remarked Diana, as she picked 
 her way over the rocks. 
 
 " Delightful," said Gwendoline, steadying herself 
 with her stick upon the summit of a small boulder, 
 and looking at the view. 
 
 "Dear me!" exclaimed Lady Brenda, "who can 
 that be ? Do you see, Augustus ? Such a very odd 
 dress ! Do they still wear three-cornered hats in this 
 part of the world and brown coats with brass buttons?" 
 
 " He is a very big man," said Augustus, eyeing 
 the stranger, who was coming down the rocks and 
 was not more than a hundred yards from them. "A 
 very big man indeed. He must be some old peasant. 
 We will talk to him." 
 
 They walked on and in a few seconds came up 
 to the solitary pedestrian. Augustus spoke to him. 
 He was of colossal size, with a huge head surmounted 
 by an old full-bottomed wig and a three-cornered hat. 
 He wore knee-breeches and stockings, with stout 
 buckled shoes, and he carried in his hand a huge 
 
vni WITH THE IMMORTALS 139 
 
 oak stick, which looked more like a club. Augustus 
 addressed him in the dialect of the hills. 
 
 "Me fat u piace, m andecat a ndusse wa p anna a 
 Pussita?" 
 
 " Sir," replied the stranger in English, in a loud, 
 gruff voice, " from your appearance I take you to be 
 an Englishman, like myself." 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Augustus, very much 
 surprised. " There are so few of our countrymen 
 about here " 
 
 " Your surprise is venial sir," returned the other, 
 fixing his dark eyes on Chard s face. " I am not 
 only an Englishman, but a dead Englishman ; and, 
 what is more, sir, I believe that a dead Englishman 
 is better than a live Italian. I am Samuel Johnson." 
 
 "Dr. Johnson !" exclaimed the four living people 
 in astonishment. 
 
 "Do not doctor me, sir," roared the great man 
 in tremendous tones. " Do not doctor me, sir, for 
 I am past doctoring ! " He glared a moment at the 
 party and then suddenly broke into a peal of laughter, 
 in which the others soon joined. 
 
 "If I cannot frighten you," he continued, good- 
 naturedly, " I can at least excite your merriment. 
 But, sir, I have seen little boys in Scotland tremble 
 at the sight of this stick." 
 
 "You have found it, then?" said Augustus. " I 
 congratulate you." 
 
 "Yes sir, they stole it, the villains; I always 
 said so." 
 
 In a few minutes they all proceeded on their walk. 
 
140 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 Augustus stated who he was and presented Dr. 
 Johnson to his three companions. The doctor 
 showed the greatest delight and explained that he 
 had just met the party of dead men, who were passing 
 the afternoon among the rocks. He was intimate 
 with them, he said, and they had told him all about 
 Chard and his experiments. Indeed the doctor had 
 taken the road towards the Castello del Gaudio in 
 hopes of meeting the inhabitants of the castle. 
 
 " I wonder," said Augustus, " that you should care 
 to walk here you who are so fond of trees." 
 
 " Since I have hung loose on the world," replied 
 Johnson, " and have been at liberty to walk where I 
 please, and as long as I please, I have grown tolerant 
 of contrast. It is one thing to be obliged to traverse 
 a country where there is no timber; it is another 
 matter to be independent of those laws which, while 
 we are alive, force us to spend some time in moving 
 from place to place." 
 
 " Do you think," asked Lady Brenda, " that when 
 one has as many beautiful things as one likes, one 
 begins to like ugly things, just for a change?" 
 
 "No, madam," said Johnson. "I do not like 
 ugly things, but I have learned that there are no ugly 
 things in nature. In living persons the impression 
 of the ugliness of external objects is purely relative ; 
 since we know that an African negro in the natural 
 state sees more beauty in a black woman of his own 
 race than in a white woman of ours, and that with 
 ourselves the contrary is the case. But if the negro 
 be taken to a country inhabited by white men and 
 
viii WITH THE IMMORTALS 141 
 
 women, he soon comes to regard the white woman 
 as the type of what a woman should be, and before 
 long he will see beauty where he formerly supposed 
 that there was nothing but ugliness." 
 
 " But of course white women are more beautiful 
 than black!" exclaimed Lady Brenda. 
 
 " When you say that they are more beautiful, you 
 imply that their beauty is contrasted with the less 
 beauty of black women," continued Johnson. " For 
 since you employ a comparative form in describing 
 the one, it may reasonably be supposed that you find 
 something in the other with which the first may be 
 compared. Indeed, comparison is at the root of all 
 intelligence, and, if other things be alike, the man 
 who is able to compare any two things with greater 
 accuracy than his neighbour, is the wiser of the two ; 
 for, if we suppose that two men are equally able to 
 remember that which they have learned, it is clear 
 that he who is able to discern the comparative value 
 of the different things he knows, possesses of the two 
 the greater facility for using his knowledge. It may 
 be doubted whether Sir Isaac Newton possessed a 
 more remarkable memory than Lord Chesterfield ; but 
 it cannot be questioned that, whereas, in the latter, 
 the power of comparison merely produced a brilliant 
 wit, in Newton the power was so great that it pro 
 duced a very great man and a very great discoverer." 
 
 " Is it fair to compare a statesman with a scien 
 tist?" asked Diana, as the party paused in their walk. 
 
 " If statesmanship is a science, it is fair," answered 
 the doctor, looking down at the young girl. 
 
142 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 " Statesmanship must be the greatest of sciences," 
 said Augustus. "There are a hundred scientists 
 to-day alive, who are commonly called great. There 
 are certainly not three statesmen alive to whom the 
 epithet is applied now, or will be applied when they 
 are dead." 
 
 " You are quite right, sir," answered Johnson. 
 
 " I suppose there is less room for them," remarked 
 Gwendoline. 
 
 " I do not know," returned her husband. " There 
 are hundreds of important places in which a man 
 might distinguish himself, if we count together all 
 the important governments in the world. If great 
 statesmen were plenty, there would be no reason why 
 a whole government should not consist of great men. 
 Almost every university in the world pretends to 
 boast of possessing one or two great men, and nobody 
 seems able to prove that they are not really as great 
 as is pretended." 
 
 " Scientists," said the doctor, " or men of science, 
 as we called them in my day, are in a position which 
 differs wholly from that of statesmen ; for while the 
 former are privileged to speak without acting, the 
 latter are often compelled to act without explaining 
 themselves in words. A man is not to be held 
 responsible for his convictions, provided that he does 
 not act upon them ; but the actions of a statesman 
 produce results of the sort which soon become mani 
 fest to all men and which influence the lives of man 
 kind, so that mankind has the right to judge him. 
 If all the theories of men of science were subjected 
 
vin WITH THE IMMORTALS 143 
 
 to the test of experiment upon the corpus vile of 
 whole nations, it may be doubted whether popular 
 opinion would continue to be as tolerant of scientific 
 opinion as it now is ; for though one man might 
 succeed in rearing men from a litter of monkeys, the 
 next experimenter might very likely, by a small error, 
 reduce men to the state of apes. One man rises up, 
 and declares to the people that they must believe in 
 him, but that, in order to believe in him, it is neces 
 sary that they should not believe in God. He exalts 
 science to the position of the Deity, and tells people 
 that they must worship it ; but it is his own science 
 which he exalts, and not that of his adversary, who 
 has invented a different kind of idol. No, sir, 
 science is a good thing so long as it is useful ; but 
 when, in its present state, it takes upon itself to 
 tamper with so enormous and vital a matter as the 
 belief of man in his Creator, it is pernicious, it is 
 dangerous, and it will soon become destructive." 
 
 "You see, Augustus," said Lady Brenda, trium 
 phantly, " I always told you that it was great 
 rubbish." 
 
 "My dear mother-in-law," returned Chard, "you 
 forget that I belong to the brotherhood of the Ignor- 
 antines. My principal conviction is that nobody 
 knows anything." 
 
 "Sir," said Johnson, "you are not far wrong. 
 One of the greatest mistakes of these days is the 
 attempt to make people believe that they can know 
 everything. Science cannot be made popular ; for if 
 it be within the reach of every one, and so simple 
 
144 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 that everybody can understand it, why then many 
 persons could have discovered its secrets long ago ; 
 but if it be indeed a hard matter to understand, it 
 must be reserved for those whose intellect is equal to 
 so great an effort, and it is useless to make that 
 popular which the people can never comprehend. If 
 those men, who occupy themselves by attempting to 
 substitute in others their own theories in the place of 
 a wholesome religion, would confine their efforts to 
 communicating such knowledge as they possess with 
 out endeavouring to destroy that belief which excites 
 their unreasoning hatred, they might indeed deserve 
 some credit; but their arguments are of so partial 
 a nature, their language is so vehement and unre 
 strained, that we are forced to believe that they are 
 animated rather by a desire to destroy religion than 
 by a legitimate wish to extend the sphere of human 
 knowledge and to do good to humanity by teaching 
 that which is useful." 
 
 "Yes," said Augustus, "there is no reason why 
 we should not learn the little that can be known, 
 without upsetting religion. I think some modern 
 scientists might read the life of Pascal with advan 
 tage, not to say that of Newton. I do not suppose 
 that any of our living professors pretend to be as 
 great as either of those two,, who were extremely 
 religious men." 
 
 " Pascal," replied the doctor, " was a tremendous 
 young man. He discovered the weight of the atmo 
 sphere, he invented a calculating machine, he found 
 the law of cycloids, he wrote like a father of the 
 
vin WITH THE IMMORTALS 145 
 
 early Church, and he instituted the first omnibus 
 that ever ran. A man cannot do more than that in 
 thirty-nine years, but he did most of these things 
 before he was five and twenty. As for Sir Isaac 
 Newton he wrote a book of Arguments in Proof of 
 a Deity and a chronology of ancient history, both 
 of which are much better than is commonly sup 
 posed." 
 
 "Dear me!" exclaimed Gwendoline, "I never 
 knew that Pascal invented the omnibus. He must 
 have had a great deal of common sense." 
 
 "Both common and uncommon, madam," an 
 swered Johnson, "and I venture to say that the 
 common sense which can invent the omnibus is as 
 valuable to mankind as the uncommon intelligence 
 which is able to conceive that the atmosphere may 
 have weight and that the cycloid curve may be 
 reduced to a law." 
 
 "Yes," said Augustus, "but the weight of the 
 atmosphere is more interesting than the invention of 
 a public carriage. I should think that a man with a 
 big intellect would prefer to study big things." 
 
 " No, sir," answered Johnson. " It is not more 
 interesting, but it is more attractive. When a man 
 of science discovers a lacuna in his wisdom, he 
 makes haste to fill up the breach with a new theory, 
 in the framing of which he at once enjoys the plea 
 sures of imagination and the satisfaction which is felt 
 in the exercise of ingenuity. His theory will stop 
 the hole in the wall* until it is worn out, or until 
 some one finds a better theory to substitute in its 
 
 L 
 
146 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 place ; and those portions of his work which are the 
 result of knowledge acquired independently of the 
 imagination, even if not very perfect, will always 
 afford him some ground for congratulating himself 
 upon his own abilities as compared with those of 
 others. But the case of the man who occupies him 
 self in endeavouring to better the condition of his 
 fellow-men by imparting to them some of the results 
 of his study, is very different. For, while the man of 
 speculative science acts upon ideas, theories, and the 
 like, the student of the applied sciences acts upon 
 things and in a high degree upon people. It is 
 clear that the immediate results produced by the 
 man who acts upon living men are, in the present, 
 incalculably more important than those brought about 
 by the student who speculates upon the origin of 
 the human race, or upon the ultimate nature of 
 human happiness ; although it is true that where 
 speculation results in discoveries capable of being 
 widely and advantageously applied, the man of 
 science attains to an importance which cannot be 
 over-estimated. When Pascal discovered that the 
 atmosphere has weight, he laid the foundation for 
 the invention of the first steam-engine ; when Newton 
 established the nature of the laws of gravity, he gave 
 to science the means of weighing the earth, and on 
 his method of prime and ultimate ratios is founded 
 the most subtle, powerful and universally applicable 
 system of calculation now known. But there are few 
 who combine common and uncommon sense in the 
 same degree as those two men ; and we may safely 
 
vm WITH THE IMMORTALS 14? 
 
 say that those persons who act upon men directly, as 
 statesmen, or upon things, as engineers, are the men 
 who, in the present, make their influence most widely 
 felt. Any great railway of the world transports from 
 place to place in one month, affording thereby im 
 mense facilities to their lives, a greater number of 
 people than in the whole world have read, or perhaps 
 ever heard of, Mr. Darwin s book upon the origin 
 of man, or Professor s Kant s work on the criticism 
 exercised by pure reason." 
 
 " The only measure of force, of which we know, is 
 the result produced," said Augustus. 
 
 " And will any one venture to compare the result 
 produced upon the lives, the wealth and the pros 
 perity of mankind by so small a modification of an 
 existing machine as is comprised in the invention of 
 the marine compound engine of to-day, with the 
 result produced by Mr. Darwin s researches concern 
 ing the origin of man? The simple idea of using 
 the steam twice over in cylinders of different sizes 
 has revolutionised modern commerce, has been the 
 death-warrant of thousands of sailing vessels, and has 
 caused thousands of steamships to be built, employ 
 ing many millions of men and upsetting all old- 
 fashioned notions of trade. But I will venture to 
 say that the theory which teaches people to believe 
 that they are descended from monkeys has neither con 
 tributed to the happiness of mankind nor in any way A 
 increased the prosperity of nations. If it possesses 
 merits as a theory, which may or may not be ques 
 tioned, it can certainly never be said to have any 
 
148 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 application bearing upon the lives of men ; and 
 though it will survive as a remarkable monument of 
 the ingenuity, the imagination and the industry of a 
 learned man, it will neither inspire humanity at large 
 with elevating and strengthening thoughts, nor will it 
 help individuals in particular to better their condition 
 or to surmount the ordinary difficulties of everyday life." 
 
 "I should think not !" exclaimed Lady Brenda in 
 a tone of conviction. " But of course one has to pre 
 tend to believe what everybody else does or at least 
 one must let other people believe what they please. 
 It makes life so much easier ! " 
 
 " Madam," said Johnson, sternly, " it is always 
 easier to avoid a responsibility than to assume it." 
 
 " Oh dear ! I did not mean to be so serious !" re 
 joined the lady. " But I really could not take upon 
 myself to persuade all the people I meet in society 
 that they are not descended from monkeys, when they 
 assure me that they are, you know." 
 
 " No, madam," answered the doctor, with a twinkle 
 in his eye. " So nice a matter should be referred to 
 a court of claims, and the candidates for the honours 
 of monkeydom should be judged upon their own 
 merits." 
 
 " And if approved, be declared tenants in tail for 
 ever," suggested Augustus. 
 
 "Sir," said Johnson, almost angrily, "puns are the 
 last resource of exhausted wit, as swearing is the refuge 
 of those whose vocabulary is too limited to furnish 
 them with a means of expressing their anger or dis 
 appointment." 
 
vin WITH THE IMMORTALS 149 
 
 " I beg your pardon," returned Augustus, smiling. 
 "Wit is much exhausted in our day." 
 
 " It must be, sir," answered the doctor, who did 
 not seem quite pacified. But the three ladies laughed. 
 
 "Won t you let me make a pun?" asked Lady 
 Brenda, beseechingly. 
 
 " No, madam. Not if I can help it," returned 
 Johnson, smiling and resuming his good-humour. 
 "I ask your pardon, sir," he continued, turning to 
 Augustus. " I did not mean to imply that your wit 
 was exhausted." 
 
 " It is, I assure you. So pray do not mention the 
 matter, " answered Chard, laughing. "The unconscious 
 ratiocination of my feeble brain found expression in 
 words." 
 
 "Some day," said the doctor, "I would like to 
 discuss with you the nature of wit and humour. At 
 present the digression would be too great, for we were 
 speaking of men of science, in whom wit is rarely 
 abundant and in whom humour is as conspicuous by 
 its absence as speech in a whale. But I should ex 
 cept Pascal, who was a very witty man. You would 
 find great advantage in his acquaintance." 
 
 "Do you often see him?" asked Diana, eagerly. 
 She loved and admired the writer as distinguished 
 from the scientist. 
 
 " Sometimes," answered Johnson. "He is a most 
 unclubable man. He loves solitude and his own 
 thoughts, which, to tell the truth are very good, so 
 that he is not altogether to be blamed." 
 
 They walked together along the ridge of the 
 
150 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 mountain, stopping now and then to rest a little and 
 to look at the wonderful views which were unfolded 
 to their eyes almost at every step. The bare brown 
 rocks over which they climbed contrasted strongly 
 with the deep blue of the sea far below and with the 
 grand sweep of the Gulf of Salerno in the distance, 
 where the green and marshy plain beyond the white 
 city stretched back from the water towards the Cala- 
 brian hills. The sun was not hot at that high eleva 
 tion and the sea breeze swept the rocks and blew cool 
 in the faces of the party. Suddenly the mountain 
 path came abruptly to an end as they reached the 
 foot of a high and inaccessible rock. It was evident 
 that they must go round it, and turning to the left 
 they ascended a little channel which led up through 
 the boulders. The sound of voices reached their ears, 
 and Gwendoline paused to listen. 
 
 "We shall find our friends here," said Dr. John 
 son. " They must be just beyond that corner." 
 
 They hastened forward and soon they came upon 
 the strange company, seated together in a half circle 
 where there was an indentation in the hill. Caesar 
 was there, and Francis, Heine and Chopin and one 
 other, whom they had not seen before. He was a 
 man in white armour, complete save that he wore no 
 helmet; a slender, graceful man seated in an easy 
 attitude, his chin resting on his hand. His face was 
 of calm, angelic beauty, pale and refined, but serene 
 and strong. Short curls of chestnut hair clustered 
 about his white brow and his deep-set blue eyes looked 
 quietly at the advancing party. 
 
vm WITH THE IMMORTALS 151 
 
 " Who is the man in armour?" asked Gwendoline 
 of Dr. Johnson in a low voice as they approached. 
 
 " A very good man, madam," he answered. " That 
 is no less a person, madam, than Pierre du Terrail, 
 Seigneur de Bayard, known as the Chevalier Bayard, 
 without fear and without reproach. A man, madam, 
 of whom it is impossible to say whether he is most to 
 be revered for his virtue, admired for his prowess, or 
 imitated for his fidelity to his sovereign." 
 
 "Really !" exclaimed Gwendoline. But there was 
 not time for more. The dead men rose to their feet 
 together, and greetings were exchanged between them 
 and their living acquaintances. King Francis pre 
 sented Bayard to Lady Brenda, who in her turn 
 presented Gwendoline, Diana and Augustus to the 
 king. 
 
 " We feared you were not coming," said the latter, 
 smiling pleasantly. " Indeed, we were planning the 
 siege of your castle, and Bayard had volunteered to 
 lead the forlorn hope." 
 
 " If we had taken him prisoner," said Augustus, 
 " the ladies would not have let him go as Ludovico 
 did, when he rushed into Milan alone." 
 
 "Indeed," said the chevalier, "I fear I should 
 not have had the courage to offer a ransom." 
 
 " Let us go on," suggested Gwendoline. " I like to 
 see the water then we can all sit down and talk. You 
 are not tired?" she asked, looking inquiringly round 
 the group. 
 
 "No," laughed Heine, "we are indestructible. 
 We have not even the satisfaction of wearing out our 
 
152 WITH THE IMMORTALS CIIAP. vin 
 
 shoes and of getting new ones. I will show you the 
 way to a beautiful spot." 
 
 They all moved forward together, skirting the 
 boulders for a couple of hundred yards. Then sud 
 denly they came in sight of the sea, between the steep 
 sides of the gorge. Heine and Johnson had gone in 
 front and were already gazing at the view as the 
 others came up. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 HEINE was standing against a huge boulder on the 
 edge, looking down at the moving waters. Seated 
 on the other side of the path, Dr. Johnson slowly 
 turned his huge stick in his hands and bent his heavy 
 brows as though in thought. The rest of the party 
 stood together in the narrow way Bayard and the 
 king together, and Caesar in the midst of the little 
 group of living persons. 
 
 " Let us stay here," said Gwendoline. " It is a 
 perfect place." 
 
 Indeed the spot was very beautiful. The after 
 noon sun now cast a deep shade from the overhang 
 ing cliffs upon the little plot of grass in which the 
 daisies and the poppies growing thickly together made 
 fantastic designs of colour. The wild cactus dropped 
 its irregular necklace of fat green leaves and brilliant 
 flowers from the rocks above, and on the very edge 
 there grew a luxuriant mass of snowy white heather, 
 almost unknown in those hills but sometimes found 
 in singular abundance and beauty in remote and 
 favoured spots. Through the opening where the 
 little gorge abruptly ended the sea appeared far below 
 in a blaze of sunlight and swept with fresh colour by 
 
154 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 the westerly breeze. The view of the water between 
 the warm yellow rocks was like those strange Chinese 
 jewels in which the feathers of the blue kingfisher 
 are set in work of frosted gold. 
 
 All agreed to Gwendoline s proposition, and the 
 living and the dead sat down together upon the grass, 
 upon projecting stones and upon the dried trunk of 
 a fallen pine-tree which lay along the side of the path 
 as though purposely placed there to form a seat. 
 For a few moments no one spoke. The living were 
 absorbed in enjoyment of a rest after the ascent of 
 the rugged path ; the dead men, who felt no physical 
 weariness, gazed mournfully on the distant sea and 
 chased in sad restlessness the shadows of their great 
 past which seemed to flit between them and the fair 
 reality of living nature. 
 
 " I wonder," said Lady Brenda, who loved to 
 throw out large questions for the sake of making 
 people talk " I wonder what, after all, we shall think 
 we have most enjoyed in life?" 
 
 Csesar smiled, and his expression was that of a 
 man who is conscious of possessing the key to a diffi 
 cult problem, a smile of calm certainty and of immov 
 able conviction. Francis turned his head quickly to 
 the speaker, and seemed about to speak some jest, 
 but as suddenly, again, his face grew very grave, and 
 a sort of rough despair gathered in the glance of his 
 eyes and in the moulding of his full lips. Bayard s 
 beautiful face never changed, as he quietly watched 
 the king. Dr. Johnson began to shake his head and 
 seemed to be muttering to himself, but his words 
 
ix WITH THE IMMORTALS 155 
 
 were not audible ; his great hands grasped his oaken 
 club nervously and he seemed much excited. 
 
 For a moment no one answered Lady Brenda s 
 question. Then Augustus Chard spoke out. 
 
 " Love and nature," he said, shortly. 
 
 " I do not entirely agree with you," said Caesar. 
 
 " I do," said the king, shortly. 
 
 " Sir," said Dr. Johnson, turning round upon his 
 rock and addressing Augustus, "there is much to be 
 said in support of your answer. Nevertheless, how 
 ever overwhelming the evidence may appear to be 
 upon the one side, justice requires that we should 
 not overlook the arguments in favour of the other." 
 
 "Let us argue the question," suggested Heine. 
 " I will argue on both sides, since that is necessary to 
 get at the truth." 
 
 "I never said it was necessary that one man 
 should present both views of the question simultane 
 ously, and then proceed to argue alternately in favour 
 of the one and in favour of the other. I said, sir, 
 that each should support his own side, in order that 
 we might judge of both, thus extracting the pure 
 metal of truth from the mixed ore of individual im 
 pressions refined in the crucible of honest discussion." 
 
 " I beg your pardon," replied Heine. " I only 
 meant that I could without prejudice help both sides. 
 I will not argue the fitness of your way of proceed- 
 mg " 
 
 " No, sir, you cannot," interrupted Johnson in loud 
 tones. 
 
 which is only applicable when there are at 
 
156 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 least two people present," continued Heine, unmoved, 
 "and which cannot be of the least service to a man 
 who wishes to find the truth alone." 
 
 " Let us discuss the matter itself, instead of the 
 way of discussing it," put in Lady Brenda. 
 
 "I say," said Augustus, formally re -stating his 
 opinion, "that I believe what we shall in the end see 
 we have most enjoyed can be expressed under the 
 heads of love and nature I mean the beauties of 
 nature." 
 
 " It depends," remarked Caesar, looking down as 
 he sat, " whether man most enjoys those things in 
 which he commands, or those in which he is com 
 manded by forces superior to himself." 
 
 " You mean that they who enjoy love and nature 
 more than anything else are dominated by love and 
 nature?" asked Augustus Chard. 
 
 " I think so. But love and nature are widely dif 
 ferent. Love is a passion, but nature is an assem 
 blage of objects in the contemplation of which we 
 experience various sensations of comfort or discom 
 fort, of pleasure or annoyance." 
 
 " Not so very different from love, after all," said 
 Heine. " Woman is an assemblage of objects, such 
 as eyes, nose, hair, lapdogs and gossip, in the con 
 templation of which we experience " 
 
 " Woman, sir, has an immortal soul," said Johnson, 
 sternly. 
 
 " Then that is the only difference," returned Heine. 
 " Nature, as far as we can judge, has no soul a fact 
 which accounts for her orderly regularity. If nature 
 
rx WITH THE IMMORTALS 157 
 
 had a soul we should love her better than any woman 
 for she has the quality of faithfulness together with 
 the absence of vanity." 
 
 " I think one should define love before arguing 
 about it," said Diana, who loved poetry as much as 
 argument, but wished to enjoy them separately. 
 
 " Love," said Dr. Johnson, " has fourteen mean 
 ings. The love of which we are speaking is the 
 passion between the sexes." 
 
 " Precisely," said Francis. " That is a very good 
 definition." 
 
 " I would make it wider," objected Bayard, speak 
 ing for the first time. " Love is the honourable and 
 passionate attachment of man and woman." 
 
 " That," replied the doctor, " is the noble form of 
 love. Love is the passion between the sexes; and 
 though we may readily admit that in its highest con 
 dition it partakes of the angelic, it is not too much 
 to say that as manifested in ignoble beings it savours 
 of hellishness. But in regard to the objection of the 
 Chevalier Bayard, since love in all cases springs from 
 like or similar causes, and since it can never be 
 agreeable to persons of refined intelligence to speak 
 of that which by its nature lacks all refinement, let us 
 set aside those baser manifestations of love whereby 
 the sensibilities of our fair companions might be 
 offended, and let us choose for the subject of our 
 discussion only that pure and honourable passion, 
 which, as we may not unreasonably believe it to pro 
 ceed from God, we may without injustice or exaggera 
 tion characterise as divine." 
 
158 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 "By all means," assented Augustus. "And in 
 that case I should say that we ought to accept the 
 chevalier s definition. Love is the honourable and 
 passionate affection of man and woman for each other. 
 The definite article the presumes that such love is 
 not one of many such affections, but the only one. 
 The word honourable implies the quality of dis 
 interestedness and consequently of unquestioning 
 self-devotion, which is the soul of honour. Lastly, 
 the epithet passionate preserves to love its true 
 character as contrasted with the passionless affection 
 a man may feel for his friend." 
 
 " You put love beyond the reach of ordinary men," 
 said Francis, dryly. 
 
 " No," replied Augustus. " There may be many 
 degrees of love below the very highest ideal of what 
 the passion should be, and which are yet far from 
 base." 
 
 "You do not distinguish between the ideal and 
 the real," objected Heine. 
 
 " I am sure, when one loves anybody in the best 
 way, one sees one s ideal realised, more or less," said 
 Gwendoline. 
 
 "That which is ideal cannot easily be realised," 
 remarked Dr. Johnson. 
 
 " Exactly," said Gwendoline. " It is very seldom 
 realised. But when we are in earnest and in love we 
 realise it a little." 
 
 " Nevertheless," observed Caesar, " the hope of 
 realising the ideal is so strong that it practically 
 dominates the whole human race." 
 
ix WITH THE IMMORTALS i$9 
 
 " You admit that love is a dominant passion, then," 
 said Lady Brenda. 
 
 "So dominant, madam," said Francis, "that there 
 is hardly a human being in the world who has not 
 been under its influence at one time or another. 
 And when a man is under the influence of love he is 
 not his own master." 
 
 "One never recovers from it. It is an illness 
 which disfigures," remarked Heine. " Besides, when 
 one is ill with it one does not mind being dis 
 figured when one is convalescent one thinks that 
 the scars would disappear if one could only be ill 
 again." 
 
 " That is true," laughed Francis. " You are very 
 witty, Monsieur Heine." 
 
 " It is one of the disfigurements of the disease," 
 answered the poet, with his strange, angular smile. 
 " A dog that has not had the distemper is worthless, 
 as your majesty may remember. I was a valuable 
 dog, for I had it when I was young." 
 
 " You do not agree, then," said Diana, speaking 
 to Heine, " that love in the end is one of the things 
 we shall have most enjoyed ? " 
 
 "To have loved is bad," he answered "Not to 
 have loved is worse." 
 
 "Sir," said Johnson, "of two evils a man ought 
 to choose the less." 
 
 " Most people do," returned Heine. 
 
 "You, too, then, admit that love is a dominant 
 passion," said Augustus, "I believe Dr. Johnson 
 admits it also." 
 
160 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 " I do not admit it," replied the doctor. " I know 
 it already." 
 
 " It is the most noble of the passions," said Bayard. 
 " A man should love his country with his whole mind, 
 his king with his whole soul, his wife with his whole 
 heart, and his God with heart and soul and mind. 25 
 
 " Sir," said Johnson, " that is a very good rule for 
 a man s life ; for, if he devote his intelligence to the 
 welfare of his country, his fidelity, enthusiasm and 
 courage to the service of his king, and his purest and 
 warmest affection to the woman he has chosen to 
 love, he shall certainly lead the life of an earnest 
 Christian, in whom all intentions are based upon 
 reasonable and pure precepts and in whose life good 
 intentions find a fitting exposition in good deeds." 
 
 " That is what a man should be," answered Bayard, 
 quietly. " But I admit that of the men I have known, 
 the greater number were far more influenced by their 
 love for woman, than by patriotism, loyalty, or religious 
 fervour. Love is indeed the dominating passion of 
 the world." 
 
 " Of passions, as we understand the word," said 
 Augustus. " I suppose no one will pretend that hate 
 has more influence on the daily lives of men in general 
 than love. If jealousy be a real passion, it presupposes 
 the existence of love and is one of its consequences. 
 The passion of avarice certainly has great weight in 
 the world, but no one has ever said there is not 
 even a proverb which says that all men are avaricious. 
 It is a rare thing to meet a miser. What other 
 passions are there ? There are vices indeed, but the 
 
ix WITH THE IMMORTALS 161 
 
 reason we call them vices probably is that, as excep 
 tions to the general rule, they offend our sense of 
 social propriety. At all events the idea of vice is 
 recent, since the words which express it are different 
 in the different Aryan languages. Vice is not passion. 
 The great passions in the true sense, are love, hate, 
 jealousy, avarice, pride, ambition. The last two are 
 not worth mentioning in speaking of the mass of 
 humanity; for vanity is common enough, but pride, 
 as a passion, is rare, while ambition is the rarest 
 of all." 
 
 " It is also the most absorbing, and in its greatest 
 development produces the greatest results," remarked 
 Caesar. 
 
 " No," said Johnson, " not the greatest results. 
 It produces the most astonishing results. For, 
 although, if we could remove ambition from the 
 world, certain changes would immediately take place ; 
 yet the effect of extinguishing all love throughout the 
 earth would be far more destructive. It is common 
 to suppose that progress depends upon ambition, 
 whereas there can be no doubt but that the daily 
 wholesome progress of man proceeds from the mere 
 desire to better his condition ; and it will generally 
 appear that those nations which are most advanced 
 in the arts of civilisation are those in which the desire 
 for physical comfort is the most felt. Ambition of 
 which the object is mere physical comfort cannot 
 properly be called ambition at all, any more than a 
 reasonable desire for competence can be branded as 
 
 a sin under the name of avarice, or " 
 
 M 
 
1 62 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 "Any more than the rosy, stupid, beer-sausage- 
 Sunday-afternoon affection of the little burgher for his 
 little wife can be dignified by the name of love," inter 
 rupted Heine with a smile. 
 
 "That which is good, sir," replied the doctor, 
 "can be small without being contemptible; but; that 
 which is bad is contemptible when it is small and 
 becomes monstrous when it grows great."^) 
 
 " I am glad I remained small," said Heine. 
 
 "I think," said Bayard, addressing him directly, 
 "that on the contrary you are not bad, for you 
 are too great to have any right to call yourself 
 small, and we will all maintain that in your greatness 
 there is nothing which shocks the senses of a gentle 
 man." 
 
 "As usually happens when a man hears himself 
 praised, I have nothing to say," replied Heine. But 
 his face grew gentle and his smile less sarcastic. 
 
 "I think that you are right, in one way," said 
 Caesar, addressing Johnson. "But the results of 
 ambition may be both astonishing and great at the 
 same time. As regards the great mass of man 
 kind I must admit that of all the passions love plays 
 the most important part. I never was so deeply 
 in love myself as to permit love to influence my 
 plans." 
 
 "That was one secret of your success," said 
 Francis. 
 
 " Perhaps," answered Caesar, with a peculiar smile. 
 "If I had played a smaller part in the world, I 
 believe that I should have regretted having loved so 
 
ix WITH THE IMMORTALS 163 
 
 lightly as I did. But my life was an exceptional one, 
 and I know that, as far as my personal feelings were 
 concerned, it was more satisfactory than most men s 
 lives are." 
 
 "I fancy," observed Augustus, "that your ideality 
 was absorbed and fully occupied by the necessities of 
 your career, leaving nothing but bare reality in your 
 love." 
 
 "Since we have agreed that love is the dominant 
 passion of the world," said Bayard, " it would be 
 interesting to ascertain whether most people love the 
 ideal or the reality." 
 
 " Very interesting indeed," assented Diana. " I 
 fancy love is largely a question of the imagination. 
 Of course that makes no difference in the way it 
 dominates us ; the result is the same." 
 
 "I should not think it would be the same," 
 remarked Francis. 
 
 " I suppose," said Augustus Chard, " that the ideal 
 is the result in each man s brain of all his intellectual 
 likings and physical tastes. The real in each man s 
 mind is the result of all his intellectual and physical 
 perceptions. The question ultimately depends upon 
 the balance between the likings and tastes on the one 
 hand, and the perceptions on the other. In some men 
 the wish goes before the thought, and the thought in 
 fluences the perceptions. In less imaginative people 
 no vivid image is formed in the mind until it has been 
 once perceived by the senses. Cases are known of 
 men blind from their birth who dream of colours and 
 forms frequently and vividly ; but many blind persons 
 
1 64 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 do not dream that they see. I imagine that those 
 who do are more imaginative than those who do not, 
 and that if they suddenly obtained sight and were 
 able to compare the impressions received in their 
 dreams with the reality, those who dreamed of seeing 
 would without much difficulty recognise their ideal 
 in the real, attributing to the latter many of the 
 qualities their imagination had previously defined, 
 but which would not be perceptible to persons who 
 were accustomed to the sight of the real from their 
 childhood. The blind man who does not dream of 
 sight, on the contrary, would convince himself of the 
 nature of reality by slow experiments, not having any 
 very clearly defined preconceived notions on the 
 subject. By extension a man who has great imagina 
 tion is likely to form a very clear picture of the 
 woman he would choose for his wife. Unfortunately 
 his imperfect knowledge of the relations between the 
 intelligence, the character and the personal appear 
 ance in woman frequently leads him to fix his ideal 
 upon the wrong reality." 
 
 " Augustus ! What a lecture 1" exclaimed Diana, 
 laughing. " In other words, people who love ideals 
 are always disappointed." 
 
 " Naturally," said Heine. " But in order not to 
 be disappointed a man must have no imagination." 
 
 " Men are not always disappointed," said Bayard. 
 "The world is full of good women." 
 
 " On the other hand it is not full of good men," 
 answered Heine. 
 
 " Man is a sad dog," said Dr. Johnson, who had 
 
ix WITH THE IMMORTALS 165 
 
 been listening in silence for some time. "And 
 woman is a dear creature," he added, in a tone of 
 great conviction. 
 
 "Well?" asked Lady Brenda. "Have you de 
 cided about the ideal and those things yet?" 
 
 " Madam," said Francis, turning to her with a 
 smile, " I do not understand a word they are saying. 
 I probably have not much imagination. To me, a 
 woman is a woman." 
 
 " I call a cat a cat, as Boileau put it," remarked 
 Heine. " I would like to know how many men 
 in a hundred are disappointed in the women they 
 marry." 
 
 "Just as many as have too much imagination," 
 said Augustus. 
 
 "No," said Johnson, shaking his head violently 
 and speaking suddenly in an excited tone. " No. 
 Those who are disappointed are such as are possessed 
 of imagination without judgment ; but a man whose 
 imagination does not outrun his judgment is seldom 
 deceived in the realisation of his hopes. I suspect 
 that the same thing is true in the art of poetry, of 
 which Herr Heine is at once a master and a judge. 
 For the qualities that constitute genius are invention, 
 imagination and judgment ; invention, by which new 
 trains of events are formed, and new scenes of 
 imagery displayed ; imagination, which strongly im 
 presses on the writer s mind, and enables him to 
 convey to the reader the various forms of nature, 
 incidents of life and energies of passion ; and judg 
 ment, which selects from life or nature what the 
 
1 66 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 present purpose requires, and by separating the 
 essence of things from its concomitants, often makes 
 the representation more powerful than the reality. 1 
 A man who possesses invention and imagination 
 can invent and imagine a thousand beauties, gifts of 
 mind and virtues of character; but unless he have 
 judgment which enables him to discern the bounds 
 of possibility and to detect the real nature of the 
 woman he has chosen as the representative of his 
 self-formed ideal, he runs great risk of being deceived. 
 As a general rule, however, it has pleased Provi 
 dence to endow man with much more judgment than 
 imagination ; and to this cause we may attribute the 
 small number of poets who have flourished in the 
 world, and the great number of happy marriages 
 among civilised mankind." 
 
 " It appears that I must have possessed imagination 
 after all," said Francis. 
 
 " If you will allow me to say it," said Caesar in 
 his most suave tones, and turning his heavy black 
 eyes upon the king s face, "you had too much. Had 
 you possessed less imagination and more judgment, 
 you might many times have destroyed the Emperor 
 Charles. To challenge him to fight a duel was a 
 gratuitous and very imaginative piece of civility ; to 
 let him escape as you did more than once when you 
 could easily have forced an engagement on terms 
 advantageous to yourself, was unpardonable." 
 
 " I know it," said Francis, bitterly. " I was not 
 Caesar." 
 
 1 Johnson. Life of Pope. 
 
ix WITH THE IMMORTALS 167 
 
 " No, sir," said Johnson in loud, harsh tones. 
 " Nor were you happy in your marriages " 
 
 " I adore learned men," whispered Francis to 
 Lady Brenda. He had at once recovered his good- 
 humour. 
 
 " A fact that proves what I was saying, that the 
 element of judgment is necessary in the selection of 
 a wife," continued the doctor. 
 
 "I think it is intuition which makes the right 
 people fall in love with each other," said Lady Brenda. 
 
 " Intuition, madam," replied Johnson, " means 
 the mental view; as you use it you mean a very 
 quick and accurate mental view, followed immediately 
 by an unconscious but correct process of deduction. 
 The combination of the two, when they are nicely 
 adjusted, constitutes a kind of judgment which, though 
 it be not always so correct in its conclusions as that 
 exercised by ordinary logic, has nevertheless the advan 
 tage of quickness combined with tolerable precision. 
 For, in matters of love, it is necessary to be quick." 
 
 "Who sups with the devil must have a long 
 spoon," said Francis, laughing. 
 
 " And he who hopes to entertain an angel must 
 keep his house clean," returned the doctor. 
 
 " Do you believe that people always fall in love 
 very quickly?" asked Lady Brenda. 
 
 " Frequently, though not always. Love dominates 
 quite as much because its attacks are sudden and 
 unexpected, as because most persons believe that to 
 be in love is a desirable state." 
 
 "Love," said Caesar, "is a great general and a 
 
1 68 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 great strategist, for he rarely fails to surprise the 
 enemy it he can, but he never refuses an open 
 engagement when necessary." 
 
 " I think, "observed Augustus, "that we haveproved 
 love to be the chief ruling passion of the world, and 
 Dr. Johnson has shown that, while all men must 
 submit to it, the man who has the most judgment 
 will find the submission most agreeable not to say 
 advantageous, because he will intuitively love the best 
 woman of those likely to love him in return." 
 
 "I suppose that applies to all mankind," said 
 Diana. "No one would love the wrong person if 
 every one had enough judgment. What a dreary 
 idea, that even love is a matter of calculation." 
 
 " The calculation is unconscious," objected Gwen 
 doline. " It only means that when you know exactly 
 what you want, you ought to be able to recognise it 
 when you see it." 
 
 "Madam," said Johnson, "that plain statement 
 is worth all of our conversation taken together. You 
 exactly express my idea " 
 
 " Then you ought to fall in love with me at once," 
 retorted Gwendoline. 
 
 "O brave we!" shouted the doctor, wagging his 
 head and clapping his enormous hands in delight, and 
 then bursting into peals of laughter, in which the rest 
 joined almost without knowing why. 
 
 " It does me good to see a dead man laugh like 
 that," said Heine at last. " But out of all this logic 
 what becomes of phenixes, rocs, poets and other 
 mythological beasts who have no judgment at all and 
 
ix WITH THE IMMORTALS 169 
 
 love so very truly that they are always crying and 
 thinking how nice it must be to be married and live 
 on the ground floor and eat potato soup and drink 
 coffee and have pinks in the window like good, honest 
 sensible little burghers?" 
 
 "Sir," said Johnson, "your similes are amazing. 
 The phenix was a single bird, no mate existing of his 
 species. The roc was as remarkable for its conjugal 
 happiness and fidelity as for its monstrous strength. 
 As for the poet, his imagination is so large and yet so 
 refined, that he seldom has an opportunity of meeting 
 such a woman as he imagines he might love. Most 
 men love the real. A certain number love what they 
 easily suppose to be real, are disappointed, and are 
 unhappy with their wives. A very few love the ideal, 
 and although in their own lives the vanity of their 
 aspirations may expose them to the chagrin of dis 
 appointment, yet it cannot be denied that by their 
 noble efforts to express the ideal of the good and 
 beautiful, they contribute to the sum of human 
 happiness by inspiring in their fellows a wholesome 
 and elevating admiration for goodness and beauty." 
 
 " The celebrated passions of the world have generally 
 been those of poetic people," said Diana, " and the 
 most celebrated poems have either been inspired by 
 love, or treat of love." 
 
 "That is quite logical," said Heine. "For since 
 love dominates us all, it follows that, in its highest 
 form it must be the most interesting subject to every 
 body, and everybody will be anxious to read about it 
 in the books where it is best described. Everybody 
 
1 70 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 likes to feel by proxy what it is to be the hero or 
 heroine of a thrilling love story, and there are not 
 many ordinary people who at one time or another 
 have not tried to invest their humdrum little affections 
 with an air of romance. The schoolboy likes to fancy 
 himself scaling heights and creeping along giddy 
 cornices to the window of some lovely lady. The 
 grown man delights in asking himself whether he 
 would be willing to lose the world for a woman, and 
 generally decides that he would not until he has 
 been a quarter of an hour in the moonlight with 
 the woman he loves ; after which the world may go 
 to any one who cares for it, and is willing to take the 
 responsibility." 
 
 "Man is like the needle of a compass," said 
 Augustus, " and woman is the magnet. When she is 
 away his attention never swerves from his selfish 
 interests, as the needle points to the north. But if 
 woman comes near he whirls round like a feather in 
 a storm." 
 
 "It is desirable that the woman should place her 
 self in the same line as his interests," answered 
 Heine. 
 
 " No one," said Caesar, " has ever been able at one 
 time to serve his passion and his interests. Clear 
 your reason from what darkens it and you will be 
 strong ; if passion takes possession of your intelligence 
 and dominates it, you will be weak." 1 
 
 " Sir," said Johnson, who immediately recognised 
 Caesar s quotation from his own speech, "when you 
 1 Caesar s speech at the trial of Catiline, Dec. 5, 691 A.U.C. 
 
ix WITH THE IMMORTALS 171 
 
 used those words you referred to the passion of anger 
 and not to the passion of love." 
 
 " For that matter," replied Caesar, suavely, " I used 
 the word in both senses. You may remember that 
 scarcely half an hour later a note was brought me 
 from a lady, which the fathers supposed to be from 
 one of the conspirators. I was exceedingly anxious 
 about that note at the very time when I was speaking, 
 and I daresay that if my mind had been less influenced 
 by anxiety I should have spoken better. As it was, 
 the incident had a bad effect and contributed to my 
 failure on that occasion." 
 
 "That is true," admitted the doctor. " But I 
 believe the note was not from your wife, sir, as it 
 should have been, but from another lady." 
 
 "That is also true," replied Caesar, with a light 
 laugh. 
 
 "Then I may say that you were not under the 
 influence of the best kind of passion," continued 
 Johnson. " In general, I would not advise a man to 
 engage in great affairs at the time when he is courting 
 a pretty woman ; but when he has married her and 
 the anxiety concerning the result of his courtship has 
 terminated in a natural and satisfactory manner, I say 
 that the constant sympathy and affection of a refined 
 and faithful woman do not hinder a man in the 
 accomplishment of great enterprises, but, on the 
 contrary, they produce serenity in his temper, they 
 inspire courage in his heart and they add new con 
 fidence and vigour to his judgment." 
 
 "Yes but is that passion?" asked Lady Brendc^ 
 
172 . WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 " It is love, madam, and love is a passion. When 
 the flood-gates of a huge dock are opened for the first 
 time the sea rushes in tumultuously, with great violence, 
 so that it is dangerous to oppose it ; but when the sea 
 has filled the basin constructed for it, the tumult is 
 soon succeeded by calm, great ships float safely in, 
 and the very water which a short time before was 
 a dangerous whirlpool, becomes instead a haven of 
 safety, where the great operations of commerce can 
 ever afterwards be conducted with security and profit." 
 
 "It seems to me," said Augustus, "that the only 
 point which remains to be shown is that the recol 
 lections most men have of love are among the 
 pleasantest which men have at all. That was my 
 original proposition." 
 
 " It is useless to deny it," replied Dr. Johnson. 
 " Men generally desire to experience love, and most 
 men do in one degree or another. I believe that in 
 the vast majority of cases the working man, the 
 gentleman, the soldier, and the scholar would all say 
 that their affection for their wives has given them 
 much lasting happiness ; and those classes compose 
 the greater part both of civilised society and of 
 barbarous nations. For, although we regard the 
 increasing harmony of life in the lower classes as an 
 assurance that civilisation is advancing, we must not 
 forget that many barbarians treat their wives with 
 kindness and affection. Especially it is important to 
 remember that in all ages men have fought in defence 
 of their women, when they could not have been roused 
 to fight for anything else, and it is reasonable to suppose 
 
ix WITH THE IMMORTALS 173 
 
 that men love best that for which they will most readily 
 give their blood. What men love best, must be what 
 is most pleasant to them ; and that which is most 
 pleasant will also afford the most delightful recollec 
 tions. Your proposition is proved, sir, and there is 
 nothing more to be said about it." 
 
 And with that the doctor struck the end of his 
 oak stick violently into the ground and looked from 
 one to another as though to challenge contradiction. 
 
 " Can a recollection be sad and pleasant at the 
 same time?" asked Heine, with a sigh, but as 
 though not expecting an answer. 
 
 " I think so," said Bayard, who had been silent 
 for a long time. " I am sure that one may rejoice 
 and yet shed bitter tears over the same event. If 1 
 love a true and glorious lady, and if she die, my 
 heart is full of a grand gladness because she is in 
 heaven, but my eyes are filled with tears because she 
 has passed away. My joy is for her, my weeping is 
 for myself both are earnest." 
 
 " You mean when she has loved you in return ?" 
 asked Heine. 
 
 " It is the same," replied the chevalier. " If she 
 died before she loved me, I would always believe 
 that if she had lived she would have loved me in the 
 end. We were willing to wait long for love when I 
 was alive." 
 
 " Speak in your own name, my irreproachable 
 captain!" exclaimed Francis, gaily. "For my part 
 I never could understand waiting." 
 
 " It has been said that your majesty inaugurated 
 
174 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 a new social era," answered Bayard, with a quiet 
 smile. 
 
 "But," persisted Heine, "suppose that instead of 
 dying you believed that she loved you, and that she 
 then married some one else. Could your recollec 
 tions of her be at once sad and pleasant ?" 
 
 " If she had deceived me, I would try not to 
 remember her," replied Bayard. " If I had deceived 
 myself, I still might be glad that she was happily 
 married, for her sake, and yet be sorry for my own." 
 " But if she had deceived you, and you could not 
 forget her?" asked Heine. 
 
 "Then I would look for consolation elsewhere." 
 " With another woman ?" 
 " No. In a holy life," said Bayard, simply. 
 Heine sighed and turned away. Caesar looked 
 curiously at the man who had been the bravest of 
 his day as well as the purest, and Francis wore a 
 puzzled expression. 
 
 " You would do well, sir," said Johnson. " When 
 a man has made a mistake and is unhappy, it is 
 better that he should occupy himself in relieving the 
 distress of others, than that he should manifest his 
 own disappointment in a piece of verse." 
 
 "There would certainly be a decrease in the pro 
 duction of poetry in that case," said Heine, smiling 
 in spite of his melancholy mood. 
 
 " If a man is really a poet," remarked Gwendoline, 
 " neither happiness nor unhappiness will prevent him 
 from doing beautiful things only real poets are scarce, 
 the sham poet flourishes like a green bay-tree." 
 
ix WITH THE IMMORTALS 175 
 
 " The difference is that the real poet is always a 
 poet," said Augustus ; "the sham bard is only poetic 
 when the fit is upon him, and drivels vulgarly when 
 he is in his normal frame of mind." 
 
 " The fit being frequently brought on by a paltry 
 love affair," said Heine. " I do not call that sort of 
 thing love at all. It does not even come under our 
 discussion, for it dominates nobody, any more than a 
 cold in the head does." 
 
 " How many times can a man be seriously in 
 love?" asked Lady Brenda, glancing at Francis. 
 
 "Once," said Heine, "and that is too much." 
 
 " If I were alive, madam," said the king, " I would 
 never be weary of loving." 
 
 "Man," said Johnson, "comes into the world 
 with a certain capability for love. If the capability 
 be great and is wholly employed in a strong affection 
 for one woman, the result is a passion which may 
 attain sublimity ; but if, on the other hand, the whole 
 force of love is squandered in contemptible driblets 
 upon unworthy objects, the petty results cannot be 
 dignified by the name of passion nor honoured by 
 the name of love. It may indeed happen that one 
 man may, at different periods of his life, love two 
 women with great devotion, but I doubt whether he 
 can love three, and I know that he cannot love 
 twenty. The mere fact that to love twenty women 
 in a lifetime, or even ten, strikes the meanest 
 intelligence as a monstrous absurdity, sufficiently 
 proves the existence of a limit. We cannot in all 
 cases name the figure by which that limit is repre- 
 
176 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 sented ; but our common sense tells us that in the 
 great majority of instances it lies between two and 
 three, and with this approximation we must rest 
 satisfied. The human mind is not capable of experi 
 encing frequently very remarkable sensations without 
 becoming so much accustomed to them as to regard 
 them with indifference, for when they become fre 
 quent they must soon cease to excite remark. Love 
 is to the human part of man what religion is to the 
 soul; and as we conceive the Christian man who 
 believes fervently in one God to be better than the 
 heathen who divides his belief among many idols 
 and endeavours to distribute his faith in a fair pro 
 portion to each, so we shall not greatly err if we 
 assume that a man is a better lover when he loves 
 one woman than when he has loved several." 
 
 "The mistake I made was that I loved too few," 
 said Francis, with a laugh. " Had I loved a dozen 
 more, love would have ceased to influence me or my 
 doings. Caesar had the advantage of me there. He 
 wore out his affections when he was young and con 
 sequently found his intellect untrammelled when he 
 was in the prime of life." 
 
 "His majesty is very frank," said Ca3sar to 
 Gwendoline, with a quiet smile. But he took no 
 further notice of the thrust 
 
 Indeed there was a singular harmony among the 
 dead men. They occasionally said things to each 
 other which among the living might be expected to 
 cause pain ; but the sharpest thrust produced little or 
 no effect. When we know that words can never by 
 
ix WITH THE IMMORTALS 177 
 
 any possibility be translated into deeds, directly or 
 indirectly, we grow indifferent to sharp speeches 
 and soon learn that we are beyond their reach. 
 The vanity of Francis was not diminished by the 
 accident of death, and he loved to draw parallels 
 between himself and Caesar; but the conqueror smiled 
 always, in his gentle and courteous way, willing that 
 Francis should say what he pleased. A bitter jest 
 might be spoken sometimes, but the moment the 
 words were uttered the bitterness was gone from it. 
 The dead men knew that if they did not forget at 
 once they would surely forget to-morrow, and in the 
 gloomy prospect of eternal disagreement they had 
 soon learned to forget at once. So true is it that 
 man only harbours resentment so long as he dreams 
 of revenge. Posthumous man is beyond the law of 
 retaliation in kind ; it is no longer possible to injure 
 him, and he no longer desires to inflict injury in 
 return. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 IT was night and the party sat upon the terrace in 
 the darkness; the light from within fell upon the 
 white tiles in broad squares and a little of it was 
 reflected upon the faces of the dead and of the 
 living. Of the former, Caesar and Heine had come 
 together, and had brought with them a third man, 
 on whom all eyes were now turned, as he sat in his 
 straight-backed chair, talking in a gentle voice, and 
 looking quietly from one to the other of his com 
 panions while he spoke. He was a thin man, rather 
 dark than fair, with a broad white forehead and soft 
 brown eyes that were full of light ; delicate features, 
 young but marked with lines and wrinkles that 
 showed thought and suffering. He wore knee- 
 breeches and shoes with plain buckles, a loose dark 
 coat, with a broad white shirt collar, and a short 
 wide cloak hung from his shoulders and was 
 gathered round him on one side. His thin brown 
 hair fell in natural locks upon his neck. The 
 impression was that produced by a man whose head 
 is too large for his body, whose mind has worn out 
 his physical strength. He was the man of whom 
 
CHAP, x WITH THE IMMORTALS 179 
 
 Dr. Johnson had spoken on the previous day Blaise 
 Pascal. 
 
 " It is not because I devoted the last fifteen years of 
 my short life to religious meditation that I say religion 
 is all-important," he was saying. " There is no lack of 
 reasons by which the proposition can be proved." 
 
 "The advantages of it," said Heine, "are amply 
 shown by the absence of religion in most men." 
 
 " Not most men," answered Caesar.^ " Most men 
 are religious by nature, until they become so bad 
 that they give up religion rather than abandon their 
 
 " Of course," said Lady Brenda. " Everybody 
 believes in something." 
 
 " It is precisely because everybody believes in 
 something that it is fair to assume that there is some 
 thing in which everybody must believe," replied 
 Pascal. "We dead men are past the necessity of 
 making assumptions. But it seems that the living are 
 as anxious to be original and as little capable of, 
 originality as they were more than two hundred 
 years ago." 
 
 " Yes," said Heine. " The human mind, just at 
 present, has turned itself inside out, like a bag. It 
 will not hold any more than it did before, but it 
 shows a different surface, and talks pompously of 
 being very full, or even of being quite a new bag. 
 But somebody will come along, one fine day, and 
 turn it again." 
 
 " That is very certain," answered Caesar. " Nothing 
 repeats itself so surely as the human intellect. If 
 
i8o WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 similar chains of events recur in the world, it is not 
 so much because the circumstances which produce 
 them are the same, as because all humanity argues 
 essentially in the same way about everything." 
 
 "About everything except religion," said Pascal. 
 " Perhaps one ought to say, about everything tangible 
 or manifest. The reasoning of Newton did not differ 
 from the reasoning of Euclid on the same class of 
 questions, any more than the later vagaries of Comte 
 differed very much from those of Pythagoras ; or the 
 political economy of Stuart Mill from that of Con 
 fucius. One might multiply instances to any extent." 
 
 "Yes," said Augustus. "I have read that you 
 yourself discovered the first thirty-two propositions of 
 Euclid alone, without knowing that they existed 
 already and without even knowing the names of the 
 line, the circle or the angle. It has often amazed 
 me, but it shows that the human mind in all ages 
 argues essentially in the same way about tangible and 
 manifest things." 
 
 " Yes," answered Pascal, quietly, " I never thought 
 of my own case. But the interesting point to be 
 discovered is not where human minds commonly 
 agree, but where they have occasionally differed." 
 
 " I am not interesting at all," remarked Heine. 
 "But I differed from everybody." 
 
 " I see you do," said Diana, laughing. " Even in 
 regard to your being interesting." 
 
 " That is one of the points about which men take 
 the longest time to agree," observed Pascal. " I mean 
 in regard to the reputation of poets and writers." 
 
x WITH THE IMMORTALS 181 
 
 " Because there are so many of them, that there 
 are always plenty to lead an opposition," answered 
 Heine, rather scornfully. 
 
 " No I think not," objected Pascal. " I think it 
 is because men do not argue alike in regard to the 
 opinions of writers, because opinions and artistic 
 conceptions expressed in words are not tangible nor 
 manifest. There is not much difference of judgment 
 about the very greatest sculptors or painters. There 
 is a vast difference in regard to literature, and if 
 possible a still greater variety of estimation in regard 
 to religion." 
 
 "Primarily," said Caesar, "most civilised men 
 have generally agreed about the principal laws neces 
 sary to make civilised life possible, probably because 
 the results of those laws are always manifest. But 
 men have quarrelled from time immemorial about 
 the origin of those laws themselves, generally attribut 
 ing the conception of them to their national deities, 
 which of course were essentially intangible. Religion, 
 with us Romans, meant reverence for the gods long 
 before it came to mean respect for the laws which we 
 were taught in some measure to believe were framed 
 by them." 
 
 "What is religion?" asked Gwendoline. "Does 
 it not mean both?" 
 
 "In one sense, yes," answered Pascal, "but not 
 in the more restricted modern use. The laws of 
 God are essentially contained in the ten command 
 ments, but a great part of these has been so incorpor 
 ated with the laws of nations, that we do not generally 
 
1 82 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 connect the commandments, Thou shalt do no 
 murder, thou shalt not steal/ and many others, with 
 any religious idea, because disobedience to those laws 
 involves civil penalties. It was virtue to abstain 
 from killing an enemy when one was not liable to be 
 hanged for it, or punished in any way. At present it 
 is not a virtue, but a necessity. But there is a class 
 of divine laws which cannot reasonably be enforced 
 by any government, which represent the contract 
 between God and man and not between man and his 
 neighbour. The Puritans attempted to enforce those 
 precepts by means of civil penalties, and they failed 
 egregiously." 
 
 "The times have changed," said Heine, "since a 
 man was considered virtuous because he abstained 
 from cutting other men s throats. I doubt whether 
 people are better than they were, but they are certainly 
 different. It is the story of the bag again. The 
 virtue side is turned out, and the vice side is turned in." 
 
 " The whole mass of mankind is better, but the 
 upper class is worse than it used to be," said Caesar, 
 musing. "The morality of the working classes has 
 improved, by the abolition of slavery and the spreading 
 of a religion of which morality itself is the basis. 
 When any great population believes in something 
 good, the result must be improvement of some kind. 
 With us the great body of working men consisted of 
 slaves. Their ideas, their habits ,and their morality 
 were base, and they could not help it. A man who 
 can own no property, who cannot call his children 
 his own, and who is precluded from engaging in any 
 
x WITH THE IMMORTALS 183 
 
 kind of competition, must sooner or later become 
 degraded, and it is not just to expect much from 
 him." 
 
 "But until man is utterly demoralised he will 
 always fight against such a position," answered Heine. 
 "The whole question turned upon that during the 
 French Revolution. Saint-Simonism was only an at 
 tempt to teach every man how to own property " 
 
 "By destroying competition," interrupted Caesar, 
 " and in the end by destroying the rights and claims 
 of paternity. That left a man no incentive to work 
 but the certainty of having just as much property as 
 every other member of the community." 
 
 " But the competition was with the rest of the 
 world, outside the community," objected Heine. 
 
 "Yes," replied Caesar, "and if it had not failed 
 for other reasons, its success would have destroyed 
 it. I grant that it might have spread more widely. 
 What then ? When it had absorbed the greater part 
 of the nation, the competition with the rest would 
 have ended, and internal competition would have 
 begun. Some parts of the community would have 
 grown richer than some other parts, and the equal 
 distribution of goods would have ceased. Factions 
 would have gathered in centres, and centres would 
 have allied themselves to form parties. The moment 
 there are parties in a nation, there ensues the 
 government of the weaker by the stronger, and the 
 Saint- Sim onist notions of equality forbade such a 
 government. All such theories and systems are 
 absurd because they are founded upon the supposition 
 
1 84 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 of the impossible namely, the absolute similarity of 
 all men, which I think has nothing to do with their 
 equality." 
 
 "Men may be free and equal," said Pascal, "but 
 they can never be brothers. Liberty and equality 
 are facts, fraternity is a sentiment. Experience has 
 proved that. You may put men into certain condi 
 tions which may be permanent. You cannot put 
 into the men themselves sentiments which can be 
 lasting. The French Revolution was partly reason 
 able, partly sentimental. The sentiment has vanished, 
 and with it the way of addressing men as * citizen 
 and calling them thou. The practical results have 
 remained, with various modifications, and have been 
 felt from one end of the world to the other." 
 
 " I have noticed the same thing in regard to 
 Christianity," remarked Heine, with an angular, ironical 
 smile. " Everybody says it has improved the morality 
 of the world, but nobody says See how these Chris 
 tians love one another, as Tertullian said in his day, 
 with some reason." 
 
 "Yes," said Pascal, "but I am bound to confess 
 that he wrote those words during a great persecution 
 of the Christians, and that, after all, he broke with 
 the Episcopal Church and died a sectarian. It 
 appears that Christians were not, after all, so unani 
 mous in treating each other as brothers in those days, 
 as one might suppose. But the religious sentiment 
 is the only one which all men may experience in a 
 somewhat similar degree, because it is based on fact, 
 supported by experience and presents the advantage 
 
x WITH THE IMMORTALS 185 
 
 of apparent probability even to the most sceptical 
 intellect." 
 
 " I always admired your theory of the probability 
 of heaven," observed Augustus. 
 
 "It was not precisely a theory of probability," 
 answered Pascal. "It was rather a demonstration of 
 the advantage of taking it for granted. I put the 
 question in the light of a wager. If there were a God, 
 a heaven and a future existence, I represented that 
 a man had everything to gain by living a good life, 
 since the blessings to be obtained hereafter would be 
 immeasurably great as well as eternal ; and I argued 
 that even if the wager were lost, and existence ended 
 with death, a man who had lived in the hope of 
 heaven would have lost nothing by his goodness." 
 
 "Undoubtedly," said Caesar. "The question of 
 religion was always of paramount importance, because 
 it is the question of morality. I myself was obliged 1 
 to make a profound study of religion, when I was 
 endeavouring to be elected Pontifex Maximus. I am 
 glad the works I wrote on the subject have perished, 
 for I was conscious of sacrificing my convictions to 
 the prejudices of the college of pontiffs, and even of 
 the whole people. With the people, religion was a 
 polytheism, an image-worship and a worship of genii. 
 With me it was a mysticism very like what was after 
 wards called Neo-Platonism. We were very uncertain 
 of everything in those days, but most of us were quite 
 sure that there was something in which we ought to 
 believe. At this interval of time it seems hard to 
 understand how utterly in the dark we were. The 
 
1 86 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 only very definite thing which attracted every one to 
 speculate about it was the certainty of the immortality 
 of the soul, in one shape or another. Most people 
 held Plato s theory which, after all, was the best." 
 
 "No nation of whom we know anything ever 
 questioned the immortality of the soul," said Pascal. 
 " The consequence is that when any one denies it, he 
 is simply told that he must prove its non-existence." 
 
 "It is impossible to demonstrate a universal 
 negative," answered Augustus. 
 
 "No," returned Pascal. "But that is not the 
 case here. It would be enough to assume that the 
 soul may exist, and then to demonstrate that if it 
 exists an absurdity must follow as an unavoidable 
 consequence." 
 
 " I do not understand," said Gwendoline. " What 
 do you mean by an absurdity ? " 
 
 "A generous uncle," suggested Heine, with a 
 laugh. 
 
 "Not exactly that," continued Pascal, unmoved. 
 " An absurdity in logic, is when it is shown that if 
 something be assumed, something else is at the same 
 time true and untrue ; or in geometry, for instance, 
 to assume an angle, and then to deduce that in the 
 figure, if the angle is what it is supposed to be, then 
 one line is at the same time longer and shorter than 
 another line, which is impossible." 
 
 " But then it could not be proved," objected 
 Gwendoline. 
 
 " It can be proved ; but the fact that a thing 
 manifestly untrue can be proved by means of an 
 
x WITH THE IMMORTALS 187 
 
 assumption, is enough to prove that the assumption 
 itself is untrue. Apply this method to the non-exist 
 ence of the soul. Assume that the soul exists and 
 survives the death of the body. Then make all the 
 deductions you can. When you can show me that if 
 the soul exists, all men must inevitably be born with 
 one leg, or must necessarily walk upon their heads, 
 or are all murderers or all suicides, then I will grant 
 you that the soul does not exist ; because you will 
 have shown me that if it existed, men would be dif- 
 erent from what they are. But no such absurdity 
 can be demonstrated. Assuming the existence of 
 the soul, it is impossible to draw any deduction from 
 the fact which is not in accordance with the evidence 
 of our senses. A vast amount of ingenuity has been 
 expended in the attempt, but it has signally failed. 
 It is clearly impossible to disprove the fact. There 
 fore when a man stands up and says there is no soul, 
 and fails to prove what he says, he utters as foolish a 
 negation as though he had said that space contained 
 no stars beyond the range of the most powerful tele 
 scope." 
 
 "Evidently," assented Augustus. "The modern 
 argument is that it is not necessary to assume the 
 existence of a soul, to account for man s actions, nor 
 to believe in God in order to account for man s origin. 
 Having stated this, scientists proceed to show to the 
 best of their ability that life in the first instance re 
 sulted from the inevitable changes in the state of the 
 matter upon the earth s surface, and that an unbroken 
 series of developments has produced the human 
 
1 88 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 animal from protoplasm. It is impossible to study 
 the matter without perceiving that the series is in fact 
 very far from complete, and that scientists are only 
 too ready to pass lightly over the important lacuna 
 in the history of evolution, in order to give undue 
 weight to those facts which seem to support their 
 hypothesis." 
 
 "Just as a clever lawyer makes up a plausible 
 narrative out of circumstantial evidence," remarked 
 Diana, thoughtfully. 
 
 "Yes," answered Pascal, "and just as in law 
 people are beginning to question how far merely 
 circumstantial evidence can be trusted, so people are 
 beginning to question the right of science to set up, 
 as facts, theories which are only supported by a 
 number of circumstances which give to the whole an 
 air of probability. How many men have been con 
 victed and put to death upon evidence which seemed 
 absolutely conclusive, and have yet been found inno 
 cent when it was too late ! How many scientific 
 systems have been accepted and believed by civilised 
 mankind for generations, and then suddenly upset 
 and forgotten for ever ! If durability be a proof of 
 truth, then Christianity has a stronger basis than any 
 scientific theory with which we are acquainted." 
 
 " When I was young," said Caesar, " the acknow 
 ledged road to popularity and notice was to bring 
 accusations against prominent persons, and if possible 
 to prove them. The surest course in order to get 
 notoriety was to attack something or somebody of 
 importance. The moderns know that and practise 
 
x WITH THE IMMORTALS 189 
 
 it. Nine-tenths of modern scientists are much more 
 anxious to destroy than to build up, because science 
 is slow and affords little material for building, whereas 
 it is easy to find fault with the moral architecture 
 of human ideas. The principle upon which the 
 Athenians put Socrates to death was very reasonable. 
 They held that scientists had a right to be inquirers, 
 but were not entitled to attack received beliefs of the 
 religious kind, because to undermine belief was really 
 to weaken the state. We may condemn Socrates s 
 judges, because they profoundly misunderstood him. 
 But we cannot deny that if the charges against him 
 had been fully proved, the Athenians would have 
 been justified in silencing him. Socrates was not a 
 martyr to his own system of morality ; he was the 
 victim of an ignorant court, or of a popular prejudice. 
 He was not condemned for what he did say, but for 
 what ignorant or malicious persons swore that he said, 
 as many a less remarkable man has been condemned 
 before and since. The principle that men should 
 not undermine the public morality is not bad because 
 it has been often twisted to satisfy the hatred and 
 prejudice of the ruling class, any more than our old 
 law of perduellio was unjust because Labienus and I 
 made use of it to work up a case against Caius Rabirius. 
 He was condemned, but of course I never meant 
 that he should die, and the accusation did him no 
 harm whatever, while the success of the suit did me 
 a deal of good. That was the way we handled the 
 laws in my time, to our own advantage. But the 
 laws themselves were good and founded on import- 
 
190 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 ant truths. Similarly it follows that the criticism 
 exercised by pure reason is not a bad thing in itself 
 because modern scientists distort it in order to get 
 notoriety by attacking so important a matter as reli 
 gion, instead of being satisfied to employ it legiti 
 mately in their own sphere of inquiry." 
 
 "That is the great division," said Pascal. "My 
 father, who was a wise and accomplished man, taught 
 me that objects of faith are not objects of speculation, 
 and I never saw any reason for thinking otherwise. I 
 turned all my inquiries upon things in nature. I never 
 applied myself to the curiosities of theology. It is not 
 the part of science to dabble in transcendentalism. 
 Scientists only speculate upon religion to destroy it. 
 Fanatic believers build up theories about it and 
 distort it out of all sense and proportion, like Sweden- 
 borg with his ideas about celestial marriage and the 
 like. So soon as religion is made an object of curi 
 osity, the vanity of the human mind appears in its 
 fullest and most ludicrous proportions. Could any 
 thing be more outrageous in premisses, or more per 
 nicious in results than the religions invented by man ? 
 Look at the Mormons, the Skopts, the Shakers, the 
 howling dervishes, the Theosophists and the Fakirs. 
 If anything should appeal to the common sense of 
 mankind it is the divine moderation of Christianity 
 at the present day, after nineteen centuries of exist 
 ence. Who was the fanatic? Christ, who taught 
 men in simple language to lead a pure life, or Giordano 
 Bruno, who called Christ a charlatan, and boasted 
 that he himself would perform greater miracles ? The 
 
x WITH THE IMMORTALS I9 1 
 
 Archbishop of Paris, murdered by communists, or Jean 
 Richepin who writes a poem called Blasphemy, for 
 which that word is too dignified and clean a title ? 
 Who are mad ? The English country clergyman and 
 the hard-worked London curate, giving their lives to 
 help their fellow-creatures, or our so-called scientists, 
 boasting themselves to be somebody and employing 
 their choicest sneers in defaming a religion which 
 they admit with truth that they cannot understand ? " 
 " I think you are right in that," answered Caesar. 
 " I lived before Christianity, and I have had a good 
 opportunity of judging, from the point of view of a 
 heathen and of a Christian. Religion has always been 
 necessary to government. Otherwise, before Chris 
 tianity, it was a matter of opinion, often a matter of 
 taste. As for me, I always had a leaning towards 
 monotheism and especially towards the Jews. The 
 latter were deeply attached to me, and after my 
 funeral they spent many nights before the rostra, 
 where my body had been burned, keeping up fires 
 and uttering lamentations. Yes religion was neces 
 sary to government, both in its essence and in its 
 forms, because there is no government without a 
 morality of some sort. Christianity is acknowledged" 
 to be the best moral system, and is therefore the best 
 basis for governing men. Indeed no ruler has ever 
 tried to govern without it, since it has become uni 
 versal. An attempt was made under the French 
 Revolution, but Bonaparte soon put a stop to that. 
 He was not an irreligious man. One of his earliest 
 steps as First Consul was to cause the words God 
 
1 92 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 protect France to be engraved upon the edges of 
 the coins he struck. At Saint Helena he had 
 a chapel in his house and attended the services 
 every day. That may have been due to a change in 
 his personal feelings ; but as far as government was 
 concerned, he showed the importance he attached 
 to religion by the way he insisted on being crowned 
 by the Pope. The Romans were naturally reluctant 
 to give up their traditions in favour of a simple faith 
 which inculcated a severe morality, but they could 
 not resist the new influence for long. It was felt the 
 sooner because it offered such a startling contrast to 
 the immorality of some of my successors." 
 
 " The morality and the importance of Christianity 
 are beyond question," said Augustus. "But different 
 ages have thought differently about the practice of it." 
 
 " It seems to me," remarked Heine, who had said 
 very little during the discussion, "that like everything 
 transcendental which is so generally accepted as to 
 affect the lives of men, Christianity has two aspects, 
 the divine and the human. The human aspect is 
 the practice and the result of the practice. The 
 practice of anything at any particular period must 
 depend upon the state of civilisation and thought at 
 the time. In these days men will not go barefoot 
 to Jerusalem for a penance. Most people would 
 think it outrageous to give a tenth of their incomes 
 to the poor, after giving five or six tenths to the 
 government under which they live. Still less will you 
 find men who will give all they have and go in rags 
 in order to relieve the distress of others. Our friend 
 
x WITH THE IMMORTALS 193 
 
 Pascal, here, who was neither priest, nor monk nor 
 hermit, gave up his house to a sick family of beggars 
 when he was dying himself " 
 
 " Why do you speak of that ? " interrupted Pascal, 
 deprecatingly. 
 
 " If you will mention an instance which will do as 
 well, I will not speak of you," returned Heine, with 
 a smile. " I only say this to show what people for 
 merly did. The force of contrast was what produced 
 such surprising results. The great lord in former 
 times was like a lion among rats, a creature superior 
 in every way to the common herd. If he chanced to 
 be a saintly man, the impression made on him by 
 the poverty he saw, as compared with his own wealth, 
 might well turn him to wild extremes. He became a 
 fanatic. He longed for nothing so much as to sit in 
 rags on his own doorstep, devouring mouldy crusts 
 with a herd of other beggars. It either did not strike 
 him that he could have done more good by devoting 
 his income for many years to the poor, as Pascal did, 
 instead of sinking his whole capital in one charity ; 
 or else property was too unstable a thing to be dis 
 posed of in such a way. But it was the contrast which 
 attracted the man. He believed that poverty and 
 humility were the same. He thought that a patched 
 coat was the outward sign of a whole soul. He con 
 vinced himself that hunger was a means of salvation, 
 and that the suffering of being dirty was pleasant to 
 God. He advised his fellows to follow his example, 
 and proposed to emancipate the soul by starving the 
 body. When men suffer like that, they are in 
 o 
 
194 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 earnest. John Bunyan was in earnest when he re 
 nounced the pleasures of bell-ringing and tipcat, and 
 he proved it afterwards. Saint Simon Stylites was 
 thoroughly in earnest when he established himself on 
 the top of his column, and so was poor Louise de la 
 Valliere, when she abstained from drinking any kind 
 of liquid, for a whole year, in the Carmelite Convent. 
 It does not follow that everybody must renounce tipcat, 
 live on a pillar and abjure liquids in order to be saved." 
 
 "Really I hope not !" exclaimed Lady Brenda. 
 
 "Certainly not," continued Heine, "and that 
 shows that the practice of Christianity differs in dif 
 ferent ages and with different individuals. Asceticism 
 and mortification of the flesh may do good in some 
 cases, but if the population of the world consisted of 
 one thousand million John Bunyans and one thousand 
 million Saint Catherines of Siena, there would be a 
 serious hitch in the progress of civilisation. Now, 
 mankind are not meant to stand still." 
 
 " No," said Pascal. " Every man should do in 
 his owri sphere what he can for the general good. I 
 was not an ascetic, except by necessity, through my 
 illness. I would have thought it very wrong to starve 
 myself, because I think it is impossible to suffer 
 voluntarily any pain without feeling a moral satisfac 
 tion in the mortification of the body, and that satis 
 faction is vanity and destroys the good done. I ate 
 and drank exactly what was prescribed for me, but I 
 tried to take no pleasure in the eating and drinking. 
 It seemed to me unworthy of the soul to perceive 
 such base things. But my constitution was feeble 
 
x WITH THE IMMORTALS 195 
 
 and my appetites insignificant. There was little credit 
 in what I did." 
 
 " Do you suppose that a man like King Francis 
 could live like that?" asked Lady Brenda. 
 
 " Certainly not, madam," answered Heine. " Even 
 Bayard could not. Strong men, who fought as people 
 fought in those days, needed to eat and drink well, 
 and I should be sorry to think that they never en 
 joyed their dinners. But Bayard was moderate where 
 Francis was sensual. A hungry coal-heaver who eats 
 a two-pound loaf at a sitting is moderate, while a lazy 
 fine gentleman who takes an extra ounce or two of a 
 pate de gibier, or an extra glass of dry champagne, 
 merely because he likes those things, is immoderate. 
 Fortunately for the morals of humanity, in respect of 
 eating and drinking, the hungry coal-heavers are in 
 the majority." 
 
 " The foundation of morality does not lie alone 
 in the question of eating and drinking," said Pascal, 
 with a smile. "It is a deeper matter. Morality is 
 a code of laws so framed that, by practising them, 
 every man may exert himself to the utmost in his 
 own sphere, without injury to himself or disturbance 
 from his neighbours. Morality is the human side 
 of Christianity, as the belief in the redemption of 
 mankind is the divine side. Those who oppose 
 Christianity assert that the practice of morality can 
 be successfully pursued without entertaining any belief 
 in God, and some even pretend that the Christain 
 system of ethics can itself be improved. But it can 
 not. It provides for every circumstance of human 
 
196 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 life with equity and justice and teaches men to be 
 honest, industrious and moderate. No system of 
 ethics ever proposed more, and no system ever 
 accomplished so much. And as for the divine part 
 of Christianity, I say that no incentive to morality 
 can be offered by those who deny the future life one- 
 tenth as strong as the hope of heaven. There is a 
 balance of forces in Christianity, as a system, which 
 stamps it as being of divine origin. No human mind 
 could have conceived it, whole and complete, exert 
 ing a tremendous influence in a few years, dominating 
 the civilised world after a few centuries. Caesar was 
 the greatest man that ever lived, and the results of the 
 changes he made and the force of the ideas which he 
 inaugurated, have produced more lasting effects upon 
 the world than have been brought about by any indi 
 vidual in ancient or modern history. He is here, 
 with us to-night. Ask him if the sum of his influence 
 can be compared with the sum of the influence of 
 Christianity." 
 
 " I was only a man," said Caesar, simply. 
 
 There was a short silence. The stars were shin 
 ing brightly and the gentle ripple of the sea upon the 
 beach came up to the ears of those who sat on the 
 terrace. The night was very soft and sweet and the 
 light breeze stirred the broad leaves and blossoms of 
 the young orange-trees that grew in their great earthen 
 pots along the balustrade. At last Heine spoke. 
 
 " I can find another reason why religion is good," 
 he said, " but I do not feel sure that it applies any 
 more to Christianity than to other systems. It is 
 
x WITH THE IMMORTALS 197 
 
 good, because it has been the foundation of all the 
 best poetry in the world. If man has any good feel 
 ings he tries to express them in verse ; so that the 
 excellence of verse is a sort of religious barometer." 
 
 " That is a very good argument," said Diana. " I 
 have always thought that the best poetry was written 
 when there was the most religious feeling abroad." 
 
 " I think that is questionable," objected Augustus. 
 "The best poetry of the Romans was not written 
 under the influence of religious ideas." 
 
 "Because it was purely imitative," answered 
 Caesar. " But the models we took were. Without 
 Homer there would have been no Virgil and but for 
 Virgil there might have been no Dante, though Dante 
 was not an imitator." 
 
 "The finest poem in the world is the Book of 
 Job," said Heine. " The next best poem is the Iliad, 
 the next the Divine Comedy , the next Paradise Lost, 
 the last great poem the world has seen is probably 
 Faust, though it is not properly a poem, but a tragedy." 
 
 " But Faust was not written under religious influ 
 ence," remarked Gwendoline. 
 
 " Pardon me, madam," replied Heine, " I think 
 it was. I think Faust is an inquiry into the means 
 of salvation. Goethe did not take Faust through a 
 series of horrible temptations and finally represent 
 him as saving his soul by good works, without a reli 
 gious intention." 
 
 "Perhaps not," acquiesced Gwendoline. "But 
 what becomes of Shakespeare ? " 
 
 " He was a great poet, who never wrote but one 
 
198 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 poem, and that was not worthy of him. He was a 
 dramatist. That is a different matter. ^Eschylus, 
 Sophocles and Euripides were dramatists; so were 
 Racine and Corneille, so was Schiller. Dramatic 
 poets are descended from epic poets, who were origin 
 ally inspired to write by subjects more or less super 
 natural. There is a difference between the Tragic 
 muse, the Epic muse and the muse of the Sublime 
 Hymn." 
 
 "Of whom the last was the first, the greatest and 
 the most religious," said Caesar. "Even with us, 
 who were imitators, religious tradition lay at the root 
 of almost all poetry." 
 
 " Why are modern hymns so horribly bad ? " asked 
 Lady Brenda. 
 
 " Because Milton, who was the only modern cap 
 able of writing sublime hymns, only wrote one the 
 Ode on the Nativity, " answered Heine. " Modern 
 hymns are rough specimens of poetry, when they are 
 poetry at all, and are not written by poets as a rule. 
 Some of them are stirring enough, some are pathetic, 
 a great many are sentimental and all are religious. 
 But they are poor literature. People do not avoid 
 reading them because they are religious but because 
 they are badly written." 
 
 "Then why do not great poets write hymns?" 
 inquired Gwendoline. "I should think it would be 
 very easy for you, for instance." 
 
 " Not so easy as you imagine, madam," answered 
 Heine, with a smile. " To write a hymn one must 
 be a great, great poet, which I do not pretend to be ; 
 
x WITH THE IMMORTALS 199 
 
 one must be directly inspired by the strongest religious 
 emotions, such as I never felt ; and one must have 
 the power to be grand in simple language, which 
 power no one has possessed since Milton. But 
 though nobody writes hymns in our day, religion has 
 such a part in poetry that I doubt whether any one 
 who knew absolutely nothing about Christianity could 
 understand five stanzas of any good modern poet. 
 Christianity pervades everything we think, write and 
 do. We cannot get rid of the consciousness of it. 
 Men may blaspheme and abuse it, but they are 
 only losing their temper because they cannot break 
 Christianity down, as a child screams and beats with 
 its little fists on the heavy door it cannot open. 
 Atheists would be less violent in their language if 
 they were really persuaded that there was no God. 
 Religion is there in spite of them. Other men may 
 be indifferent, selfish and occupied with their own 
 affairs ; but they are perfectly conscious that they 
 mean to be tolerably religious when they have time, 
 and they feel an uncomfortable sense of uneasiness 
 when they have done something which is not contrary 
 to law but contrary to religious morality. It is laugh 
 able to see a man of that sort trying to beat the 
 devil round the bush, while perfectly conscious that 
 the devil is there, and how he will make haste to do 
 the bad thing he wants to do while he has succeeded 
 for five minutes in muzzling his conscience, lest the 
 uneasy sense of doing wrong should mar his enjoy 
 ment in it. A man in that condition always reminds 
 me of a dog, meditating the theft of a piece of meat. 
 
200 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 He hesitates, wags his tail in anticipation, then looks 
 away with a sheepish expression, wags his tail again, 
 springs on the morsel, gulps it down and then skulks 
 off with his tail between his legs in the profound 
 consciousness of sin." 
 
 " Yes," said Caesar, with a soft laugh. " Men have 
 always been like that, but they are more so now than 
 they used to be, because Christianity has popularised 
 the notions of right and wrong and extended them 
 to many points which they did not formerly cover. 
 The question, when a man wanted to do something 
 for his own advantage, used to be * Can it be done 
 safely? The question now is, What will the world 
 think of it? " 
 
 " Rather contemptible," remarked Augustus. 
 
 "No, I think not," objected Caesar. "It shows 
 that morality has improved, when a man hesitates 
 to do a bad deed on account of what the world will 
 say. It shows that he wishes to appear moral, because 
 most people are moral, and he desires not to be 
 thought different from other men. It does not prove 
 him any better, but it shows that the general standard 
 is higher ; it is a good evidence that whereas formerly 
 might was right, at the present day what is called 
 right is right according to a universal and established 
 opinion. In other words men are restrained from 
 doing wrong by a principle and not by the violent 
 opposition of anybody who is strong enough to resist 
 their outrageous deeds." 
 
 " And the change can only be attributed to the 
 influence of Christianity," said Pascal, who had been 
 
x WITH THE IMMORTALS 201 
 
 listening in silence for some time. " I do not see 
 that it can be referred to anything else, because 
 nothing else has been felt through all civilised nations 
 at once. Races differ fundamentally in character. 
 Governments are not in any two modern nations 
 conducted on the same principles. But the broad 
 questions and rules of right and wrong are established 
 everywhere alike upon the Christian system, and can 
 not be said to have been derived from any other source. 
 It is useless to tell people that they may arrive at 
 the conclusions of Christianity without accepting 
 Christianity itself, by analysing the elements of happi 
 ness according to the laws of reasonable inquiry. 
 Perhaps they can, but if they do, they have only 
 proved how good a thing Christianity is. If you 
 compare the number of men who might be induced 
 to lead good lives from purely logical motives with 
 those who have led good lives by believing in their 
 religion, the number of the first will appear insignifi 
 cantly small. To sustain this valuable morality, 
 therefore, you must do one of two things. Either 
 you must maintain the religion that inculcates morality 
 as a consequence of belief, and which has done it 
 successfully ; or you must show that every ploughboy, 
 who has been taught at Sunday school to distinguish 
 between right and wrong, is enough of a philosopher 
 to grasp a highly philosophical topic, to follow it 
 through its inevitable logical stages, to arrive at its 
 conclusions and to practise the laws he has thus 
 elaborated, because they satisfy his reason, and not 
 because they appeal to his conscience. I will not 
 
 UBI7SRSITV1 
 
202 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 use any strong epithets to designate the judgment of 
 those who believe the ploughboy capable of all this. 
 It is enough to say that ploughboys are not able to 
 think deeply enough to do what would be expected 
 of them. But should your reformer persist in destroy 
 ing religion, in the hope that the ploughboy may be 
 made a philosopher in the course of a few generations 
 of education, your reformer, aforesaid, will find him 
 self obliged to employ a stronger force than existing 
 civil law to coerce the ploughboy, during the interval 
 between the loss of conscience and the acquisition 
 of the philosophical capacity." 
 
 " That is true," answered Caesar. " I see many 
 proofs of it in the present day. These perpetual 
 riots of the anarchists in all parts of the world are 
 the work of men who have lost their belief in religion 
 and their sense of right and wrong, but who have 
 acquired no philosophical intelligence in the place of 
 what they have lost. The result, as you say, is the 
 necessity of coercion, ending in the hanging of 
 numbers of these fellows. It is characteristic of 
 these men that they do not say what they want. 
 On the contrary they say they want nothing, as 
 they express it. Their object is to tear down, not 
 to build up. This wanting nothing is the result 
 of their thinking nothing/ during the suspension of 
 their intellectual faculties which have lost belief and 
 gained nothing instead." 
 
 "And what would you do to stop all this?" asked 
 Lady Brenda. 
 
 "I would maintain religion and the law," said 
 
x WITH THE IMMORTALS 203 
 
 Caesar. "It is not my opinion that the existing 
 morality of nations can be so easily destroyed ; but 
 it is certain that it should not be molested. The 
 only objects of government are the maintenance of 
 safety against dangers from without and of order 
 within the state. Governments which fail in either 
 of those points must inevitably fall. Therefore any 
 government which permits anarchic principles or a 
 condition of morality which will lead to the propa 
 gation of such principles, is doomed." 
 
 "Yes," answered Heine, "and it is doomed to 
 a very odd kind of civil war a war in which the 
 question will be, Do you believe in God? Not 
 unlike the French Revolution, except that it would 
 be worse. I daresay the unbelievers might get the 
 better of it for a time." 
 
 " In the Latin nations nowhere else," said Cassar. 
 " Popular fury of that sort soon dies out, because it 
 never really spreads to the masses of the people. It 
 is a kind of insanity to which the great centres are 
 subject. Bands of furious men spring up, curse God 
 and die, and the next generation sows its wheat upon 
 their graves, and quietly puts up the crosses they 
 tore down. Southern people are more liable to such 
 fits." 
 
 "It is dreadful to think what such a civil war 
 must be," exclaimed Diana. "We cannot realise the 
 French Revolution, nor anything like it." 
 
 " If there is to be such a war in any nation," said 
 Pascal, "modern scientists as a body will be held 
 responsible for it, rightly or wrongly, just as Jean 
 
204 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP, x 
 
 Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire and their various sup 
 porters have been said to have caused the French 
 Revolution. But I do not think that such a catas 
 trophe is to be expected. The French Revolution 
 was really caused in a great measure by the fearful 
 oppression of the nobles. Now the cry is the oppres 
 sion of capital. That means that the immediate 
 object of the anarchists is to divide the existing wealth 
 of the capitalists, and the object is insignificant as 
 compared with the question of emancipation from 
 the old seigneurial rights. You may destroy capital, 
 but it will accumulate again in an incredibly short 
 space of time. The utter futility of the idea stamps 
 it as that of most ignorant men, who, as Caesar said, 
 think nothing and wish to produce nothing by 
 tearing everything to pieces and gorging themselves 
 with the fragments. But it is quite true that if there 
 are enough of these fellows in the world to make a 
 revolution, the result will be a civil war in which 
 the question asked will be, Do you believe in God, 
 or do you not? And those who do and those who 
 do not will make up the two armies in the field." 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 "On, do let us be less serious to-day!" exclaimed 
 Lady Brenda, on the following afternoon, as the whole 
 company found themselves together on the sea-shore 
 in a deep and shady cove of the rocks. 
 
 " Paullo minora canamus ! " said Dr. Johnson, 
 thrusting his oaken club into the sand and sitting 
 down upon a smooth boulder. 
 
 "Is it possible to be funny, to order, whenever 
 one likes ? " asked Gwendoline. 
 
 " Rarely," answered her husband. " The majority 
 of people are most amusing when they least wish to 
 be, and most dull when they give themselves the 
 greatest trouble to amuse." 
 
 "What do you mean by being funny?" asked 
 Diana, turning to Gwendoline. 
 
 " Making people laugh, to be sure." 
 
 " Making intelligent people laugh," suggested 
 Heine, by way of improvement upon the definition. 
 " It is easy to make fools laugh. That is the reason 
 so many people believe themselves to be witty. 
 The question amounts to asking whether it is pos 
 sible to manufacture wit and humour, of a good 
 quality." 
 
206 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 "Anything that makes one laugh is good," said 
 Gwendoline. 
 
 " You remind me of an American I once knew, my 
 dear," answered her husband. " He used to say that 
 there was no bad whiskey ; but he admitted that some 
 kinds of whiskey might be better than others." 
 
 "Sir," said Johnson, "we are not all omnivorous, 
 nor omnibiberous either. Sir, your friend was a 
 guzzler." 
 
 "He was," assented Augustus. "A man who 
 drinks everything he can lay his hands on is a drunkard, 
 and a man who laughs at everything he hears is a fool. 
 But my wife says that anything which will make a man 
 laugh is good. Now men are not all alike. One of 
 my sailors would laugh if one of his companions got 
 wet. But it must be a good joke indeed which would 
 make you smile." 
 
 " How do you define wit ? " asked Lady Brenda, 
 who had a happy faculty for putting very difficult 
 questions. 
 
 "In the sense in which we are speaking of it," 
 answered Dr. Johnson, "wit means the effect of wit, 
 for the word wit means originally the faculties of the 
 intellect ; but what we mean is the result produced by 
 the efforts of a lively fancy. The principal means 
 of exciting laughter in others is to present to their 
 eyes or minds a brief and forcible contrast. Madam, 
 I have seen the vulgar at a penny show laughing very 
 heartily at the sight of a very tall man standing beside 
 a very little man. The tall man alone is an object of 
 astonishment, and the dwarf alone will elicit remark 
 
xi WITH THE IMMORTALS 207 
 
 owing to the exiguity of his body ; but the two must 
 be placed side by side in order to excite laughter by 
 the contrast of their proportions. I will go further, 
 and say that the dwarf may be laughed at by men of 
 ordinary size, because he is contrasted with them to 
 their own advantage ; but ordinary men do not laugh 
 on seeing a man bigger than themselves, unless he be 
 a badly-made man, because they feel an involuntary 
 respect for his apparent physical superiority. Generally, 
 when we are amused by the contrast between two things, 
 it is because the magnitude of the one causes the 
 meanness of the other to appear contemptible." 
 
 "Yes," said Pascal, musing. "I think that one 
 of the surest methods of ascertaining the truth of a 
 comparison is by reversing the terms of it. When it 
 is untrue, the effect is so startling that it produces 
 laughter. Call Moliere the Aristophanes of his age 
 if you please. It is a great compliment to Moliere. 
 But when you say that Aristophanes was the Moliere 
 of his age, the comparison strikes me as ridiculous, 
 and I laugh. But you need not go far to find com 
 parisons much more absurd and untrue than that, and 
 far more laughable if reversed. It is the contrast dis 
 played which makes us laugh." 
 
 " Dr. Johnson did that very effectively," re 
 marked Augustus. " He said of Lord Chesterfield, 
 that he had thought him a lord among wits, but that 
 he found he was only a wit among lords." 
 
 "That was not wit, sir," answered Johnson, "it 
 was truth." 
 
 " Cannot the truth be witty ? " 
 
208 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 "Yes, sir. When it surprises. The discovery 
 that poor Chatterton was a literary forger was surprising 
 but not laughable, because his position was not great 
 enough to admit of a great contrast when he was 
 unmasked, and because the work he did was his own. 
 But we cannot help laughing at the theories of the 
 ancients about nature, now that we are acquainted 
 with a few of her laws. What scholar has not laughed 
 at the idea of Kosmas, the Alexandrian, that the sun 
 retired behind a mountain to spend the night ? And 
 that the earth, the ocean and the fabulous mountain 
 were all included and enclosed in a luminous oblong 
 box of the exact shape of the tabernacle of Moses ? 
 The contrast is very great and it is in our favour, so 
 that we laugh. Even Aristotle might have laughed 
 at Kosmas, and with justice." 
 
 "But there must be something inherent in the 
 contrast, besides the truth or falsity of it, which makes 
 it laughable," said Heine. " It was easy for me to 
 call the young Hanoverian nobles, asses. That would 
 not have been funny. But when I said they were 
 asses who talked of nothing but horses, everybody 
 laughed." 
 
 "Because the first statement is only a brutal 
 comparison," answered Pascal. "By adding the 
 second half of the phrase you introduce a second 
 piece of abuse which implies a contrast, associated 
 with the first by the connection between the ass 
 and the horse in our minds. Wit of that kind is pro 
 duced by cleverly taking advantage of your opportuni 
 ties in order to illustrate some preconceived opinion. 
 
xi WITH THE IMMORTALS 209 
 
 Mere brutality can never be amusing to intelligent 
 minds." 
 
 "Very little," returned Heine, "and then only 
 when it is grossly disproportioned to its object, and 
 perfectly harmless. Now I remember in England hear 
 ing a navvy say damn my eyes if I don t have a 
 pint with you. I laughed but I did not laugh the 
 next time I heard it. I grew sick of the exaggeration." 
 
 " I remember a story of that kind," said Augustus. 
 "It was told me by an officer who commanded a 
 corps in the American Civil War. He was in his 
 tent one morning, when a shell fell somewhere in the 
 camp and exploded. His quartermaster, who had 
 never seen fire, rushed into the tent in the greatest 
 excitement. General/ he shouted, hell s busted 
 and there s a mule killed ! The story struck me as 
 very funny ; probably on account of the tremendous 
 contrast between the picture evoked by the idea of 
 hell bursting, and the insignificant consequence of 
 such an explosion." 
 
 " I think that is more humorous than witty," 
 remarked Gwendoline. 
 
 " It is not true wit," assented her husband, "because 
 there was no witty intention. The quartermaster did 
 not mean to be funny, but we laugh at the liveliness 
 of his imagination. It is very much the same with 
 Irish humour. It is often unintentional. Since I am 
 telling stories I will tell you an Irish one of that kind. 
 An Irish cook one day informed her mistress that she 
 was about to be married. And who is he ? inquired 
 the lady. And I m sure you ll be remembering the 
 p 
 
2io WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 burial in the spring, answered Biddy. And it s the 
 husband of the corpse, m m, and you ll be sure that 
 was the very toime he honoured me by saying that I 
 was the light of the funeral. Bridget did not mean 
 to be funny it was pure accident. That is uninten 
 tional humour. The Irish love of putting things 
 agreeably, too, is often very amusing. An Irishman 
 rings at the door of a house on a snowy day and asks 
 the housemaid to lend him a shovel to clear the pave 
 ment before the next door. She gives him what he 
 wants a plain shovel, just like any other. And is it 
 your spade, miss? he asks. Yes, says she. Well, 
 miss, he answers, I m tremendiously obleeged to ye, 
 and mirover I m bound to say that you have a very 
 pretty taste in spades. He only meant to be compli 
 mentary. He was funny by accident." 
 
 " It is easy to understand why we laugh," remarked 
 Pascal. "It is another matter to analyse the nature 
 of what makes us laugh. I believe that a man who 
 understands that, can construct witty phrases and 
 stories at will. In the first place it is certain that wit 
 depends chiefly upon some striking contrast and then 
 upon the way the contrast is expressed. Then comes 
 the question of bringing the contrast into the right 
 part of the sentence, which is a matter of style. Wit 
 then depends upon imagination, command of language 
 and good taste, and those who have possessed all three 
 in the highest degree have usually been the wittiest 
 men. Probably Shakespeare had all three more than 
 any other man who ever lived, and he is probably the 
 wittiest writer who has ever been known." 
 
XI 
 
 WITH THE IMMORTALS 211 
 
 "Altogether," said Heine. "No one man ever 
 wrote so many witty things, and I think that your 
 definition of the requirements of wit is a good one. 
 Command of language and good taste may with study 
 and judgment make an essayist, an historian, or a 
 philosopher, fit to rank high in literature apart from 
 their mere acquirements. A poet must have a good 
 imagination, of the sensitive, delicate kind. But it is 
 the man of redundant, overflowing, well-fed, sanguine 
 imagination who is witty, and who, if he possess a 
 command of language, can produce the works of a 
 Rabelais, and if he have good taste besides can write 
 the plays that Shakespeare wrote." 
 
 "The witty man," observed Johnson, "must com 
 mand an immense variety of images, in order that he 
 may select grave ones or laughable ones according to 
 the dictates of his taste. Discrimination, sir, is a 
 great element in wit. Thomas Paine was right when 
 he said that one step above the sublime makes the 
 ridiculous, and one step above the ridiculous makes 
 the sublime again. It is very true." 
 
 " I always thought Napoleon said that," remarked 
 Lady Brenda. 
 
 " He may have said it, madam, but I do not believe 
 he invented it. Paine wrote the book in which that 
 sentence is contained in the year 1793, when Napoleon 
 was nobody and Robespierre was not yet president. 
 Paine, madam, was a bad man with too much common 
 sense." 
 
 " In digging up your bones, Tom Paine, Will 
 Cobbett has done well : You visit him on earth again, 
 
212 WITH THE IMMORTALS CIIAI>. 
 
 He ll visit you in hell, " quoted Augustus. "Byron 
 was of your mind, sir," he added. 
 
 " Yes, sir," answered Johnson, with a deep laugh, 
 " and I have no doubt he has by this time had ocular 
 demonstration of the truth of his prophecy." 
 
 " Why do you say that?" asked Heine. 
 
 " Well, perhaps I should not have said it. I will 
 take it back, if you please, but I should not have 
 liked Byron, if we had lived at the same time. He 
 was born four years after I died, but I watched some 
 parts of his career with interest. But to the point, 
 sir, let us to the point. Let us consider the begin 
 nings of humour and wit, so far as we are acquainted 
 with them ; and when we have traced the history of 
 human merriment from its origin to its state in these 
 present days, let us see if we cannot draw from our 
 studies some deduction which may illuminate the 
 subject of our discourse after exercising the faculties 
 of our reason." 
 
 " I am afraid that will take a long time," suggested 
 Gwendoline. 
 
 " Madam," returned the sage, " time may be made 
 for the living, but it is certainly not made for the 
 dead. Madam, I could tuck in my legs and talk for 
 a thousand years. " 
 
 "The subject would be exhausted by that time," 
 remarked Caesar. " But there is much sense in your 
 suggestion. A great deal of modern humour is 
 descended from our times. The Italian Pulcinella 
 and Stenterello with their comic masks are the great 
 grandchildren of the masked comedies of Plautus. 
 
xi WITH THE IMMORTALS 213 
 
 All that is buffoonery. There is very little real wit in 
 it. We had witty men, and literary wits made a good 
 living. But even their productions were very personal. 
 I was often annoyed by them myself, and my suc 
 cessors found them an intolerable pest." 
 
 " They were good at epigrams in those days," re 
 marked Heine. 
 
 " Unpleasantly so," answered Caesar, with an odd 
 smile. "But their epigrams were constructed very 
 much on the same principle as the modern jest. State 
 a fact seriously in one sentence. In the first half of 
 the second sentence make an apparently grave de 
 duction. Then in the last half drop suddenly into 
 some absurd bathos, or spring into some wild and 
 fanciful exaggeration, or merely state a simple fact, 
 known to be true, which makes all the first member 
 of the statement appear in a ridiculous light. Take a 
 little epigram of Martial upon Bassus. * Bassus, you 
 are told, * has bought a travelling cloak for ten thou 
 sand sestertia, and has made money by the transac 
 tion. What, you ask, do you call that cheap? 
 Of course he will never pay for it, answers your 
 friend. The joke has probably been repeated several 
 millions of times since then. They told me he was 
 a fool, and I bought him/ complains another ; give 
 me back my money he is wise. That expresses 
 very wittily what a man feels when he discovers that 
 he has employed a man to serve him who turns out 
 cleverer than himself." 
 
 "The sensations of the Directory with regard to 
 Bonaparte," suggested Heine. " That is a good rule 
 
214 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 for making a joke. Let me see whether one could be 
 made off hand on that principle. Take two things 
 which are strongly contrasted, but have a hidden 
 resemblance. For instance, ordinary men and pro 
 fessors of universities. State in one sentence a fact, 
 seriously. Professors resemble men. Make a 
 deduction. Professors resemble men, who are two- 
 legged animals without feathers. That is the defini 
 tion of Plato, I believe, before Diogenes improved 
 upon it. That is the first half. I suppose that in 
 the second member it is necessary to hit upon the 
 main difference between professors and two-legged 
 animals, without feathers. The main difference is 
 that professors act as though they were not featherless 
 animals, but feathered white birds, web-footed, prone 
 to waddle in the mud and cackle loudly when it rains. 
 To be short, you may say Professors try to resemble 
 men, who are two-legged animals without feathers, by 
 tearing out their quills for pens to write down their 
 cacklings. You may turn it and polish it. You 
 may say, If men are two-legged featherless animals, 
 a professor need only make quill pens of his feathers 
 and write himself down a man. That is an instance 
 of a joke constructed on a fixed principle. You can 
 vary it still more, changing the basis by one degree. 
 Since professors call themselves men, you may say : 
 Professors are two-legged featherless animals. A 
 goose need only make quills of his feathers and sign 
 himself Professor Doctor Gans. But in this particular 
 case it is unnecessary to state in concise terms a fact 
 so universally known." 
 
XI WITH THE IMMORTALS 215 
 
 " Why do you hate all professors so much ? asked 
 Gwendoline. 
 
 " Because they made my life a burden to me when 
 I was taking my degree," answered Heine, with a 
 laugh. " A professor in his glory, bullying a miserable 
 student in his ignorance, is a sight to rejoice the most 
 indifferent and disillusioned fiend. He is one-eyed, 
 but he is king among the blind ; he is only one step 
 higher than the village schoolmaster beating A, B, C, 
 into the village fool. He produces nothing that 
 endures, as other men do, but he deafens quiet, well- 
 behaved people with his diabolical cackling. He is end 
 less as his own discourse. He dies daily, like Saint Paul, 
 at four o clock, but he rises at lecture time like a phenix 
 from his ashes, or like a jack-in-the-box from his wire 
 spring, screaming the most sour and distressing rubbish 
 at people who do not want to hear him. He is the 
 terror of the young, the bugbear of grown men, and 
 even old age is embittered by the memory of him. 
 He is overbearing with his inferiors, a bore to his 
 equals, a gadfly to his superiors. He believes in 
 nothing, he respects nothing, and if he knows anything 
 he has only learnt it in order to scoff at the ignorance 
 of somebody else. Wherever two or three of his kind 
 are gathered together there is bitterness, strife, and 
 all uncharitableness ; there young men go down to 
 their graves, consumptive with the effort to learn, or 
 go to the good, old-fashioned devil rather than abide 
 in the clutches of the modern fiend, there " 
 
 " Really," exclaimed Lady Brenda, " you are very 
 bitter, you know !" 
 
2i6 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 "No, sir," cried Dr. Johnson, "professors are 
 not all alike. There are good men among them who 
 do not despise the intelligent intercourse of their 
 equals, any more than they trample upon their inferiors 
 in learning or wear out the patience of those who stand 
 above them in the scale of knowledge. A man who 
 knows something is not necessarily a detestable fellow, 
 a wrangler, a breeder of strife and a scoffer. The 
 perseverance by which a man has acquired wisdom 
 does often lead him to suppose himself endowed with 
 some other and more brilliant qualities in a like 
 degree ; but where those higher gifts are really found, 
 the faculty of exercising them is not often absent. A 
 man who is endowed only with strength and deter 
 mination may envy his companion who possesses 
 besides these a quick wit and a ready tongue ; and 
 where there is envy of a superior there is very likely to 
 be hatred of an equal and overbearing insolence to 
 inferiors. But there are men, and many men, sir, 
 who, although they have not attained to any high 
 pinnacle of excellence, have acquired knowledge which 
 they are able to impart to others, and which may 
 benefit their pupils to whom it is imparted ; and who, 
 because they have learned much without much diffi 
 culty, do not conceive themselves vastly superior to 
 those who have learned less, any more than they con 
 sider themselves unable to overtake those who have 
 surpassed them, by making a reasonable effort. 
 Teachers, tutors and all instructors are generally ill- 
 tempered in a like ratio with the labour they have 
 expended in acquiring their knowledge, for it is not 
 
xi WITH THE IMMORTALS 217 
 
 by the knowledge itself, but by the labour it has cost 
 to get it that men compare themselves with others. 
 Historians, sir, whose work is very laborious and un 
 imaginative, are often insufferably arrogant, and not 
 unfrequently make their books unpalatable, by inter 
 larding them with remarks depreciating other men 
 who have chosen the same field of inquiry. Scholars, 
 who live among the great works of imagination pro 
 duced in the past are often very cheerful men, witty 
 in themselves and ready to see wit in others." 
 
 "They are witty because they grow imaginative," 
 said Pascal, " and imagination is the chief source of 
 wit, as fact is the chief source of satire." 
 
 "Is that true? "asked Diana. "I should think 
 satire were merely a form of wit." 
 
 " Satire," answered Pascal, " is the art of detecting 
 the absence of wit in others, so that one may seem 
 witty by comparison. It is impossible to be satirical 
 unless you have facts to deal with, and facts concerning 
 persons. The most terrible satire upon a liar is the 
 publication of the truth, but unless some one has lied 
 the truth does not seem witty. It is impossible to 
 be satirical in a work of pure fiction, unless the fiction 
 be made the direct means for exposing some existing 
 error or vice. The statement of the truth leaves the 
 liar the alternatives of passing for a scoundrel or for 
 a madman, but it ruins at a blow all the credit of his 
 life and his claim to have any credit in future. Satire 
 is not intended to evoke mirth, but disgust, its object 
 is not to make a man ridiculous for a day, but to 
 destroy belief in him for ever after. That is the 
 
218 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 reason why, when satire fails, it makes the satirist seem 
 a fool. It is so serious a matter that it involves a 
 question of life or death." 
 
 "And what about parody?" asked Augustus. 
 " It is a kind of satire." 
 
 " A very low kind," replied Pascal. " Parody of 
 a poem or of a piece of prose, means an imitation of 
 the measure, or of the rise and fall of the sentences, 
 often of the individual phrases, in which meaningless 
 words or contemptible sentiments are substituted for 
 the words and sentiments of the original. Parody 
 may sometimes attract attention and applause, but 
 only when the work parodied is already beneath 
 contempt." 
 
 " Homer," said Johnson, " composed the Iliad, but 
 Pigres wrote the Batrachomyomachia. It may reason 
 ably be supposed that unless the original had been 
 so great, the parody would never have been heard of. 
 But it required an ingenious fancy to interline the 
 hexameters of Homer with pentameters of Pigres s own 
 construction." 
 
 "Parody is to satire," remarked Heine, "as a 
 harmless little house cat is to a young tiger. They 
 are both pretty pets in their way, but you must handle 
 them differently in the catching." 
 
 " Satire is certainly the dangerous one of the two," 
 answered Pascal. "Where there is real ground for 
 a satire it is not so very hard to produce, either. 
 Much may be done by holding the object of one s 
 attack to the absolute meaning of his words. It is 
 very hard to satirise men who deal in very simple, 
 
xi WITH THE IMMORTALS 219 
 
 plain language, where each word has but one possible 
 meaning, and by its position stands in a clear and 
 unmistakable relation to the other words. When 
 men write like that it is not even easy to parody 
 their works, because they do not strike anybody as 
 ridiculous. It is not even easy to imitate their style. 
 It is not every man who can write like Caesar in 
 describing the greatest events. Can you imagine a 
 parody upon Caesar s Commentaries } There is no 
 hold for ridicule in them. But though Caesar was 
 never parodied he was satirised more than once, and 
 he admits that the satires were good enough to hurt 
 him." 
 
 "Truly they were," said Caesar. "As for my 
 style, I thank you for what you say. I tried to 
 reduce every expression to its simplest form as you 
 did yourself. The chief element of success in every 
 thing is simplicity of thought. The moment you 
 admit complication you destroy force. It is well to 
 remember details, if you can ; but it is better to 
 forget them than to let them turn your mind for one 
 mome, *: from your main object. The great man is 
 he who can choose men, for the greatest of men 
 cannot do everything at once. It is ruin to attempt 
 it. A ruler must depend upon his ministers for the 
 details in carrying out his plans, though he may 
 dtpend upon himself for the plans themselves. In 
 the same way, in writing, a man should be clear and 
 strong in his language, if he has anything to say ; if 
 he has not, he may divert himself as much as he likes 
 with the elaboration of an artificial style. If he 
 
220 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 cannot make an impression on his times he may at 
 least hope to amuse his fellow-creatures." 
 
 "That is the rub," said Heine. "To amuse and 
 to be great at the same time. To be Caesar, Rabelais, 
 Shakespeare and oneself one s one detestable, delect 
 able, contemptible, adorable self at the same moment ! 
 That would be a life worth living. Could we not 
 conspire to possess the body of some quiet little 
 gentleman of leisure for a year or two and see what 
 he would do ? " 
 
 " He would go mad, sir," said Dr. Johnson. 
 
 " If he did he would only be a poet one might 
 do worse," answered Heine. " One might be a sane 
 banker. What an awful fate, judging from my uncle ! " 
 
 " Envy, malice, and all uncharitableness !" muttered 
 Dr. Johnson, rolling his head and poking his stick 
 into the sand. 
 
 "Ah, it is easy for you to say that," exclaimed 
 the poet. " You never had an uncle, and if you had 
 had one he might never have been a banker and 
 though you are called Samuel, your uncle s name 
 might not have been Solomon ! " 
 
 "Sir," cried the sage, "if your uncle had been 
 Solomon himself, he could not have treated you more 
 wisely. If he had given you money, sir, you would 
 have done nothing that we should care to speak of. 
 There are no more powerful incentives to labour than 
 an empty stomach, a patched coat and cold fingers. 
 You did not indeed suffer those ills in the flesh, but 
 the prospect of being exposed to them stimulated 
 your imagination to produce works of lasting beauty. 
 
xi WITH THE IMMORTALS 221 
 
 Bless your uncle Solomon, sir, for cutting you short. 
 He killed the canker that eats genius." 
 
 " I would have been willing to make nearer 
 acquaintance with the parasite before he was killed," 
 answered Heine. "But we were talking of being 
 great and amusing. Uncle Solomon was neither, 
 though he was rich. Brevity is the soul of wit, says 
 Polonius I could almost believe my uncle had been 
 witty, his communications were so very brief. But 
 why is brevity the soul of wit ? Is it ? Was Polonius 
 talking nonsense, as he often did or was he right 
 for once ? " 
 
 " Anything which is to make a very strong impres 
 sion at once, should be sudden, I suppose," remarked 
 Augustus. " The din in a great factory is as deafen 
 ing as a peal of thunder, but it does not produce 
 the same effect upon the senses. A tallow candle 
 will go through a deal door if it goes fast enough, 
 but a hundredth part of the slow pressure that is 
 needed to force a piece of iron through the plank 
 would squash the candle into a wafer of grease." 
 
 "The resemblance certainly extends to wit in 
 speech," said Caesar. "One word spoken at the right 
 moment, if it is the right word, will sway a crowd more 
 than an hour of dull talking to the same effect. The 
 human mind is very limited and consequently very 
 liable to be surprised. If you surprise it agreeably, 
 you may do anything with it. If you surprise it dis 
 agreeably, it may do anything with you." 
 
 " Like a woman," suggested Heine. " Only 
 women are more often the source of surprise than the 
 
222 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 persons surprised. Woman, like wit, is full of 
 delightful and surprising contrasts. Some women 
 are like good wit, for one is never tired of them. 
 Others are like bad jokes which will not bear repeti 
 tion. Like wit, a woman s sudden appearance in a 
 man s life produces a tremendous effect, but if he 
 has grown up with her from a child the effect of her 
 presence is much less. There is pleasant wit, bitter 
 wit, every-day wit, and best-company-manners wit; 
 there are pleasant women, bitter women, women who 
 are agreeable every day and women who are only 
 tolerable in a ball-room. Some wit pleases every 
 body, and some wit only pleases its author ; there are 
 women whom everybody likes and women whom 
 nobody likes but themselves. It seems to me that 
 there is no end to the resemblance." 
 
 "No, sir," said Johnson, "there is no end to 
 it, because it is founded on a false principle. Every 
 word you say of wit I will say with equal truth of a 
 pudding. Are not puddings frequently sources of 
 agreeable surprise? Is not a pudding full of the 
 delightful and surprising contrasts produced by the 
 variety of ingredients from which it is made ? Are 
 not some women like good puddings, of which one 
 is never tired, while others are like puddings over- 
 sweet and cloying to the taste, so that one cannot 
 eat of them twice ? To a man who has never eaten 
 a fine pudding, would not the first mouthful produce 
 a tremendous effect, whereas a man who has eaten 
 puddings from his boyhood regards the tempting 
 dish with a complacency amounting almost to in- 
 
xi WITH THE IMMORTALS 223 
 
 difference? Are there not pleasant puddings, bad 
 and bitter puddings, every-day batter puddings, and 
 noble plum puddings for fine company, not to men 
 tion the weekly pudding at the Cheshire Cheese in 
 Fleet Street ? The latter, too, would make a man ill 
 if he were to eat of it every day. Do not some 
 puddings please everybody while some only suit the 
 taste of the cook who makes them ? Sir, upon this 
 principle life is a pudding, woman is a pudding, man 
 is a pudding, and indeed everything is pudding, 
 and nothing but pudding. Sir, to compare things 
 which affect our minds with things which affect our 
 bodies, is futile and ineffectual, except for purposes 
 of poetry ; for since everything with which we are 
 brought in contact through the senses is either agree 
 able, indifferent or repulsive to us, things of all kinds 
 may be compared with ideas, which, to the mind, 
 are also inevitably either repulsive, indifferent or 
 agreeable." 
 
 "But why do you say it is admissible in verse?" 
 asked Diana. " I should think that nothing ought 
 to be admitted in poetry which is not logical and 
 reasonable." 
 
 " In a piece of poetry," answered Johnson, " the 
 object aimed at is to awake sentiments by means of 
 lively images. Any image will serve the poet which 
 calls up in the reader the feeling which the writer 
 intends to evoke. Heine may compare wit to women 
 in a poem, if he is inclined to do so, and I have no 
 doubt he could produce very pleasant images ; but 
 in examining the nature of wit itself, I maintain that 
 
224 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 such images are out of place. For if, as I have 
 sufficiently shown, anything which affects our senses 
 may be compared to wit, it is clear that the selec- 
 tion of the particular comparison is merely a matter 
 of taste ; since the resemblance in all cases is limited 
 to the similarity of the sensations evoked, and in no 
 way extends to any similarity in the things themselves. 
 It is one thing to awaken a sentiment by comparing 
 man s life to a flowing river ; it would be quite another 
 to attempt to explain the nature of life itself by studying 
 the nature of the stream." 
 
 " Evidently," said Heine. " I was not philoso 
 phising I was only thinking. Happily that does 
 not mean the same thing in these days. As for the 
 nature of wit, I believe that it cannot be defined. 
 You may define a joke and make one according to 
 the nature of your definition. But wit itself escapes 
 definition. You can only classify jests by your taste, 
 and say this is wit, that is humour and that other is 
 buffoonery. You can only say that the more wit 
 makes you think, the better it is, and the further 
 removed from farce." 
 
 "That is true," observed Caesar, "and it adds 
 another condition to the definition of wit. It ensures 
 it from grossness by providing that it must appeal to 
 the higher parts of the intelligence. Very fine wit 
 does not always provoke laughter and, generally, when 
 wit degenerates into buffoonery, laughter becomes a 
 mere physical paroxysm. Then it is easy to prolong 
 it, because it has become morbid and no longer is 
 the expression of a mental state, but of a state of 
 
xi WITH THE IMMORTALS 225 
 
 the body. Very fine wit never causes a paroxysm. 
 A man under the influence of any bodily disturbance, 
 even when that has proceeded from a state of the 
 mind, is not capable of the free exercise of his intel 
 ligence which is necessary to appreciate wit, or to 
 produce it. Whenever he is so disturbed his mental 
 sight is dimmed and his humour is grosser. A man \ 
 who cannot help laughing is no better than a woman ) 
 who is hysterical and must cry and sob, whether she 
 have any cause or not." 
 
 "Rather less wearing on the nerves," remarked 
 Gwendoline. 
 
 "The finest wit," said Pascal, "is elicited by 
 controversy. The finest humour is the result of a 
 jovial constitution, seconded by a mind very keen in 
 small things." 
 
 "I detest rules," answered Heine. "A man may 
 be witty, humorous, pathetic, melancholy, heroic and 
 ridiculous in one day." 
 
 "Yes," .replied Augustus, "but he may be humorous, 
 pathetic and the rest without ever being witty, in 
 our sense of the word. To trace the origin of wit 
 and humour to the character and constitution of man 
 is altogether impossible. We may understand some 
 thing about the nature of earth and water, but we 
 can never be certain of the conditions which produced 
 them. But is it true that the best wit results from 
 controversy?" 
 
 "It must be true," said Caesar, "because it is 
 only in controversy that the mind is fully exercised, 
 imagination, force of logic and power of language 
 Q 
 
226 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 all playing great parts together, and all stimulated in 
 the effort to make the enemy seem contemptible. 
 Perhaps no one but a man who has fought with words 
 really understands the power, and the use of wit, as 
 well as its construction." 
 
 " Yes," answered Heine. " Pascal himself has 
 shown that. He is the father of French style and 
 one of the oracles of French wit, and to attain that 
 position he only wrote eighteen letters in a great con 
 troversy. Dr. Johnson himself was never so witty 
 as when he was arguing something with somebody. 
 Resistance evokes wit, as well as action. There is 
 no more certain method of making a pig run in one 
 direction than to pull his tail the other way. That 
 is a pig s idea of wit, I suppose. Abuse a great man, 
 and he will often say a good thing. Agree with 
 him, and he will take you for a fool and talk blatant 
 rubbish to satiety. It is incredible how much may 
 be got out of a man of the most ordinary intelligence, 
 merely by denying everything he says. Tell a 
 labourer that the sun does not go round the earth, 
 and he will laugh at you. Tell a schoolmaster that 
 the earth does not go round the sun, and he will be 
 positively amusing at your expense. The British work 
 man when contradicted knocks down his adversary 
 with his fist, if he does not chance to have a crowbar 
 in his hand. The fine gentleman of the nineteenth 
 century contents himself in such a case with making 
 depreciatory remarks about the colour of his enemy s 
 hair. Professor Disethylmethylologicus of the Univer 
 sity of Nudelsuppenwurstburg, if you contradict him, 
 
xi WITH THE IMMORTALS 227 
 
 will hold you up to the scorn of all ages and especi 
 ally of the whole principality of Schwartenmagen- 
 Limburger-Stinkenstein. " 
 
 "You seem to say," observed Augustus, "that 
 real wit must necessarily be directed against some 
 person or something. If that is true it is at once 
 distinguished from humour." 
 
 "Yes," said Pascal, "that is certainly true, and 
 mere humour may become wit by the way in which 
 it is used. A humorous saying gains keenness and 
 force by being directed against a real person or thing, 
 with genuine or apparent truth. Humour invents the 
 absurd and laughs at it. Wit sees the absurd in the 
 flesh and holds it up to ridicule. There is a vast 
 difference between the two. The one laughs at itself, 
 the other bites its enemy and laughs at his discom 
 fiture." 
 
 "Really," answered Lady Brenda, "I do not 
 think that wit is always bitter, by any means. People 
 may be very witty about things that hurt nobody." 
 
 "Yes. But their wit is directed against the thing, 
 and you know that it is impossible to be witty about 
 inanimate things in nature. Therefore when you 
 exercise your wit upon a thing made by a man, such as 
 a book, a coat or a piece of music, you are attacking 
 the maker of the thing through his work. The more 
 the person to whom you are speaking is in sympathy 
 with you, the better he will appreciate your wit ; the 
 more he likes the thing or the person you attack, the 
 less he will like what you say. You may, if you 
 please, set up an object to be knocked down. You 
 
228 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 may write a play, full of wit. But you can only do 
 it by making one character witty at the expense of 
 another. When a man is witty at his own expense, 
 he is only humorous, because he is not in earnest. 
 One might find instances of both in one phrase." 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Johnson, " Polonius says to 
 Hamlet : I will most humbly take my leave of you. 
 Hamlet answers : You cannot, sir, take from me 
 anything that I will more willingly part withal. 
 That is a thrust at Polonius. Hamlet adds : Except 
 my life, except my life, except my life. That is a 
 thrust at himself. But it is not humorous, though it 
 be witty, since he who says it is in earnest. A man 
 may be witty who attacks himself with the same 
 energy that he would employ against another; but 
 one who lightly holds himself up to ridicule is merely 
 indulging his taste for humour. Sir, I agree with"you 
 that wit only exhibits itself in attack or in the answer 
 to an attack, that is to say, either in attack or in 
 controversy." 
 
 " Most men prefer the former," remarked Heine. 
 " Most men think it very pleasant to shut the door 
 closely and whisper to their loving wives that other 
 men are idiots. When the wife is loving she perceives 
 the joke ; when she is not, she consoles herself with 
 the reflection that her husband is himself idiotic and 
 every fresh proof of the fact is a new delight to her." 
 
 "What a dreadful idea !" exclaimed Gwendoline, 
 looking at Augustus and laughing. " Is the converse 
 true, I wonder?" 
 
 "No, madam," answered Heine, with a smile. 
 
xi WITH THE IMMORTALS 229 
 
 " No man can possibly believe a woman foolish who 
 has shown enough intelligence to marry him." 
 
 " Sir," said Johnson, " this is paradox. One may 
 be complimentary without being paradoxical, as one 
 may be strong without being violent. A man, sir, 
 should never believe a woman to be foolish, until he 
 knows himself to be wise, any more than he should 
 call his enemy weak before he has vanquished him, or 
 his friend unfaithful until he has himself made exhi 
 bition of his own fidelity. Sir, I will apply to women 
 what our host s friend said of whiskey ; there are no 
 bad women, nor foolish women, either, though some 
 women are better and wiser than others." 
 
 "You are asserting a negative," retorted Heine. 
 
 "No, sir," roared the doctor, "I am asserting 
 positively that all women are more or less good. 
 Badness is the negative of goodness, and no one can 
 assert that it is universal. The only business of wit 
 is to point out the cases where there is badness, as the 
 only purpose of the barometer is to warn men of foul 
 weather. Nobody, sir, need be warned of the approach 
 of fine weather, and no man need be cautioned that 
 his neighbour is a good man. In the African desert 
 there is no use for barometers and in heaven there 
 will be no wit ; for where all is good it will be as un 
 necessary to speak of evil, as it is senseless to carry 
 an umbrella amidst the sands of Sahara, where it 
 never rains." 
 
 " You have at least shown a new and surprising 
 relation between wit and the barometer," answered 
 Heine. "After all, it carries out the theory that 
 
230 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 wit is only found in attack or in controversy, since it 
 is clear that where attack and controversy are impos 
 sible, wit must be out of the question. In a place 
 where there are to be no professors, no fools, no bad 
 poets and very few good ones, it is not easy to say 
 what is to become of wit, satire, sarcasm, irony and 
 Heinrich Heine. In future I shall regard the falling 
 of the barometer as a piece of most exquisite wit, 
 equal at least to Voltaire s attacks on Frederick of 
 Prussia and on Jean Jacques Rousseau." 
 
 " But if it is true that wit is only used in attacking 
 something or somebody," said Diana, " wit can never 
 be harmless that is, it is always used with the inten 
 tion of hurting a good or bad person or thing." 
 
 "Yes," answered Pascal, "it is never meant merely 
 to excite laughter, except when the whole attack or 
 quarrel is pure fiction, as in a romance or a piece 
 for the stage, and then the author purposely sets up 
 somebody or something for a butt. Apart from fic 
 tion, true wit must always be used as a weapon, and 
 the pleasurable sensation caused by it in the mind is 
 only excited in those who are on the side of the 
 assailant ; on the other side nothing is experienced 
 but pain or indignation. Humour, on the other 
 hand, has no intention of giving pain either to just 
 or unjust persons, and its sole end is to cause laughter. 
 Humour begins with the comic mask and ends with 
 the harmless jest. Wit begins when pain is felt by 
 some one, or would be felt if that some one heard it." 
 
 " Humour is a parade, wit is warfare," said Caesar. 
 " Fine humour often shows the power for keen wit, 
 
xi WITH THE IMMORTALS 231 
 
 but never uses it. The sham fight holds the danger 
 ous place between the two, as when friends argue a 
 question for their pleasure. How often does Plato 
 tell us that some one interposed in the discussions he 
 reports, in order to prevent high words and anger ! 
 But the parties never showed any inclination to 
 quarrel, until from being humorous they grew witty 
 first, and then abusive ; as when Dionysodorus proved 
 to Socrates that words could never have any sense, 
 and Ctesippus fell out with him and his companion 
 Euthydemus and told them they were talking non 
 sense, which was very true, so that Socrates had to 
 interfere to keep the peace. Sham fights may easily 
 end in real battles, unless there is a supreme com 
 mander to whom all questions are referred." 
 
 " That is the reason why they have a Speaker in 
 the House of Commons," remarked Augustus. " In 
 countries where the Speaker is not respected the 
 members quarrel violently and try to be as witty as 
 they can, until they are ready to proceed from words 
 to deeds." 
 
 "Words are so much cheaper and more easily 
 handled," said Heine. " We have invented a formula 
 for making jests on men of any size. It would be 
 another matter to invent a rule whereby a little man 
 might always be able to break a big man s neck." 
 
 " That is the general s business," answered Caesar, 
 " and that is a soldier s idea of wit. To lie in wait 
 in secret places, to -anticipate exactly the movements 
 of the enemy, to be always striking and never struck, 
 to move quickly and unexpectedly, to be always ready 
 
232 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP, xi 
 
 and never surprised that is warfare, and in contro 
 versy it is wit. The one may be reduced to a rule 
 like the other, and success of the one like that of the 
 other depends upon fertility of imagination, upon the 
 nature of one s tools, and upon practical skill in making 
 the tools perform what has been imagined." 
 
 " That is better than comparing wit to woman, as 
 I did," said Heine. " Dr. Johnson cannot put pud 
 ding in the place of warfare in Caesar s simile." 
 
 " No, sir," answered Johnson. " Wit and warfare 
 may be employed in the attainment of any object, 
 bad or good; but pudding is an object desirable 
 for its own sake, like woman ; and, as the Greeks 
 attacked Troy in order to recover the person of Helen, 
 and sent many heroes souls down to Hades in the 
 prosecution of a fair and justifiable siege, so also, 
 with an ingenuity and courage worthy of a greater 
 cause, hungry schoolboys in all ages have employed 
 the most subtle cajoleries of diplomacy and the bold 
 est arts of predatory warfare in the effort to obtain 
 for themselves a larger share of pudding than that 
 allotted to them by the economy of a parsimonious 
 cook or by the reasonable prudence of a careful 
 mother." 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 " IT seems to me," said Lady Brenda, " that if all this 
 is true, men have no right to try and be witty for 
 wit s sake." 
 
 " I suppose not," assented Augustus. " Since wit 
 is a weapon, it cannot be an aim, but it can be used 
 in attaining an object, provided a man has the power 
 to be witty. It is like the differential calcums, the 
 steam-engine or revolver a mere instrument to an 
 end." 
 
 "Men who try to be always witty," said Heine, 
 "generally get the reputation of being spiteful. So 
 do men who cannot help being witty, just as a strong 
 man who is always knocking down other men is called 
 quarrelsome. Strength and wit can only be objects 
 of cultivation for the sake of the results they produce. 
 Before being witty, or exerting one s strength, one 
 ought to consider what one wants to obtain." 
 
 " People say that no one really wants anything but 
 happiness in the world," remarked Diana. 
 
 " Of course," answered Heine. " And if every one 
 knew exactly what would make him happy, a great 
 deal of struggling and fighting and vulgar noise would 
 be spared. The mistake most men commit is in 
 
234 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 forming a wrong idea of happiness and then in spend 
 ing the rest of their lives in trying to get into their 
 hands the means for attaining the end they have 
 imagined. What is happiness ? " 
 
 "A state," said Caesar, "in which all the noblest 
 passions of man exist, continue, and are constantly 
 satisfied, without being weakened by satiety, and 
 where the ignoble passions do not exist. That would 
 be human happiness. But it is unattainable." 
 
 " We do not even know which are our noblest 
 passions," laughed Heine. " The nobler they become 
 the fewer people possess them. Probably there exist 
 very noble passions which nobody possesses, and of 
 which we have no idea." 
 
 "Then, sir, they do not concern us," said John 
 son. "But I do not think there are any noble 
 passions of which we have no idea." 
 
 " I will give you an example," answered Heine. 
 " Do you think ambition a noble passion or not?" 
 
 "Ambition to shine by conferring great benefits 
 upon the human race is a noble passion," replied 
 Dr. Johnson. 
 
 " Well then, do you think that in a village com 
 munity of Italian labourers, for instance, you are 
 likely to find one man who conceives of an ambition 
 to shine by conferring great benefits upon the human 
 race ? Do you not think that a community might be 
 found where there should be no such man ? " 
 
 "It might be found, sir," assented Johnson. "It 
 is conceivable that it might be found." 
 
 " Then the conception of noble passion depends 
 
xii WITH THE IMMORTALS 235 
 
 upon enlightenment," pursued Heine. " The more 
 enlightened people are, the better will be their chance 
 of forming noble conceptions." 
 
 " Undoubtedly," replied the sage. 
 
 " Have men reached the highest possible state of 
 enlightenment?" asked the poet. "Do you believe 
 that the most intelligent and cultured man now living 
 knows as much as can ever ultimately be known by 
 one man?" 
 
 " No, sir, men will know more some day." 
 
 "Then is it conceivable that if men some day 
 know more than they know now, they may some day 
 form a higher, idea of nobility of conduct than they 
 now possess ? Or is it not conceivable ? " 
 
 " It is conceivable," answered Dr. Johnson. " It 
 is even probable." 
 
 (^Then our present idea of happiness is relative, 
 and must be so," concluded Heine. " No one will 
 venture to deny Caesar s definition, I presume. A 
 state where all our noblest feelings shall have full play 
 and be constantly satisfied without ever being wearied, 
 and where ignoble feelings shall not exist at all, must 
 be a state of perfect happiness. But since we do 
 not know everything, we do not know what we may 
 some day feel. Consequently when we speak of our 
 noblest feelings we do not know what our noblest 
 feelings may ultimately turn out to be. Therefore 
 we can only guess at what perfect happiness might 
 be, by what men feel at present." 
 
 "Evidently," said Caesar. "There are very noble 
 feelings in men to-day which were wholly unknown 
 
236 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP 
 
 in my time. The Romans of my day could not have 
 imagined a man sacrificing his life in order to convert 
 the Japanese to Christianity. They would have been 
 amazed at the courage of the man and would have 
 called him a madman. Now, his courage excites the 
 same astonishment as ever, but the man is called 
 a martyr. The list of noble feelings is longer now 
 than it was then." 
 
 " But it would be impossible, in a state of perfect 
 happiness, to be constantly satisfying the noble desire 
 to be a martyr," remarked Gwendoline. 
 
 "The desire to be a martyr only proceeds from 
 a strong religious feeling, which is the really noble 
 feeling at the bottom of the action," answered Caesar. 
 " That feeling may be supposed to remain and to be 
 fully satisfied without satiety, when the necessity for 
 converting barbarians has quite ceased. There have 
 always been men willing and anxious to sacrifice their 
 lives for glory that was a noble feeling, in its way. 
 Men have now been found who will do the same 
 thing for religion, for a purely transcendental set of 
 ideas. It is not impossible that men may be found 
 hereafter who shall be animated by great and noble 
 aims of which we know nothing. A man is happy 
 who thinks he is happy, because his desires are 
 satisfied. But no two men ever seem able to be 
 happy in precisely the same way. The way to be 
 happy is to find out what is best in ourselves, and 
 to try and satisfy the longings of the best part of us." 
 
 "That sounds very simple," remarked Lady 
 Brenda. 
 
xii WITH THE IMMORTALS 237 
 
 "Yes," said Heine. "But there is a bitter irony 
 in the word best. " 
 
 "For Heaven s sake," cried Lady Brenda, "do 
 not let us relapse into definitions and meanings of 
 words ! My brain reels." 
 
 " In the case of goodness, definition fails," answered 
 the poet " Indeed, it is quite useless. To know 
 what goodness is we need only imagine the opposite 
 of what we are ; just as what we want is always the 
 opposite of what we have." 
 
 " I prefer to think that I have something good in 
 me," said Augustus. " I do not expect any one else 
 to agree with me, of course. The only way to judge 
 of a man is to find out what has been the happiest 
 hour in his life, and then to judge of the circum 
 stances which made up his momentary happiness. 
 What was your happiest moment like, Herr Heine ? " 
 
 " The happiest moments of my life ? " repeated 
 Heine. "I think they were spent in a sail-boat, 
 tacking about the little island of Nordeney. I used 
 to watch the clouds, and listen to the sea-tales of 
 the sailors, and make verses about the ocean. My 
 noblest aim was to lie on my back and think how 
 I would surprise the Germans with descriptions of 
 the sea." 
 
 " There was nothing very bad about that," answered 
 Augustus. " A man who could delight in such 
 innocent things for a long time could not be a bad 
 man." 
 
 " Badness shows itself much more in unhappiness," 
 said Heine. "It is absurdly easy to be good when 
 
238 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 one is happy, as a man feels sympathy with the cook 
 when the dinner is particularly to his taste. But the 
 language a man uses when the dinner is bad shows 
 his real nature. I used a great deal of surprisingly 
 bad language in my time." 
 
 "You are the procurator diaboli against yourself," 
 laughed Augustus. " No man is bound to prevent 
 his own canonisation." 
 
 "What is that?" inquired Lady Brenda. 
 
 "When a person has been dead some time," said 
 Dr. Johnson, u and is considered to have led so 
 virtuous a life as to deserve the title of saint, an 
 ecclesiastical trial takes place before the honour is 
 conferred. Then a cunning lawyer is chosen, who 
 is called the devil s advocate, whose business it is to 
 show good cause why the deceased person should 
 not be canonised. If he can show such cause, the 
 proposal is rejected ; but if not, the devil loses the 
 suit and the saintship of the dead person is proclaimed. 
 When the devil proves his case, madam, there is no 
 appeal, and the matter ends." 
 
 " I will not play the devil any longer in that case," 
 observed Heine. 
 
 " Sir," said Johnson, " no man was ever canonised 
 for making puns." 
 
 " No," retorted the poet. " But patience displayed 
 in listening to those made by others might deserve 
 saintship." 
 
 " Sir, it is a form of martyrdom to which no saint 
 was ever condemned, nor sinner neither. An English 
 clergyman once said that the most dreadful death he 
 
xii WITH THE IMMORTALS 239 
 
 could imagine would be to be preached to death by 
 wild curates. To be punned to death, sir, would be 
 equally horrible, though perhaps less exciting. Puns 
 are like the prematurely withered leaves of a fine 
 tree which, being separated from the branches by 
 a breath, fall ineffectually rustling to the ground, a 
 presage of approaching winter or a warning that the 
 tree itself is about to perish and decay. The green 
 leaves above rustled pleasantly yesterday, there is 
 music in them to-day, and to-morrow the summer 
 breeze will make them laugh together; but the 
 withered leaf rustles but once, and poorly then, when 
 it falls to the ground dead, like a pun, never to chime 
 softly again with its fellows in the belfries of the 
 woods. A punster, sir, should have a good memory, 
 like a liar, or he will repeat himself; and a large wit, 
 or he will pare it o both sides and leave none i the 
 middle like King Lear." 
 
 "I think you are rather severe," observed 
 Augustus. " I believe you more than once made 
 puns yourself." 
 
 " Yes, sir, but they escaped from me by accident, 
 as wise words sometimes fall from the lips of fools." 
 
 "And pray, what was the happiest moment of 
 your life?" inquired Heine, who did not seem in 
 the least annoyed by Johnson s attack. 
 
 " The day I was married, sir," returned the sage, 
 without a moment s hesitation. "And the saddest 
 day of my life was that on which my wife died. 
 Success and failure are insignificant compared with 
 the life and death of the one we love best." 
 
240 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 " But may not the whole sum of a life s success, 
 taken together, be more important than the sum of 
 a life s affections?" asked Diana. 
 
 " To others, not to oneself," said Heine, sadly. 
 
 " Wait till you are married," laughed Augustus, 
 looking at his sister. 
 
 "A man s success aaay depend to a great extent 
 upon his affections," answered Johnson, quietly. "But 
 it can never be foreseen whether the satisfaction of 
 the affections will increase a man s activity, by im 
 planting in him the desire to be successful in order 
 to please the woman he loves, or whether, in the 
 luxurious indolence of a happy and prosperous home, 
 those qualities may not grow effeminate and unservice 
 able, which might have produced greatness under the 
 pressure of a sterner necessity." 
 
 " Few poor men who have married rich wives have 
 ever accomplished much afterwards," said Augustus. 
 "The position is contemptible, in most cases, and a 
 man ends by despising himself." 
 
 " Instead of despising himself from the beginning, 
 as most men have good cause to do," remarked 
 Heine, rather bitterly. "But I suppose that when 
 one is in pursuit of happiness, one objects to sneering 
 at oneself." 
 
 Just then King Francis appeared upon the narrow 
 path that led down to the little beach, and striding 
 forward paused, saluted the ladies with a courteous 
 gesture and sat down beside Caesar. 
 
 " Why should a man ever sneer at himself?" asked 
 the king, with a smile on his bold face. " A man 
 
xii WITH THE IMMORTALS 241 
 
 who despises himself will always be despised by 
 others." 
 
 " Yes," said Caesar. " Self-contempt is the result 
 of all this morbid modern philosophy." 
 
 " It must be," answered the king. " In my time 
 no one despised himself unless he ran away. Any 
 man who would stand and fight was respected, and 
 knew it. Life was simple then, and often pleasant. 
 But the king risked it alike with the common spear 
 man. War was a grand thing then. There was 
 something in our existence that was like that of the 
 Greek heroes. We fought hand to hand, we broke 
 lances in single combat, we rode to battle instead of 
 going into the enemy s country in railway carriages. 
 We plundered and pillaged the towns that opposed us, 
 and when we came home victorious, we feasted and 
 hunted and enjoyed life the more for having exposed 
 it lightly. Those were royal times, when the king 
 was king and the churl was churl, and nobody 
 questioned the fact. One day was as happy as 
 another, and yet no two days were ever the same." 
 
 "Your warfare was not warfare, it was chivalry," 
 said Caesar. " I should not even call your happiness 
 happiness at all." 
 
 "And why?" asked Francis in deep tones. 
 
 " Because I cannot understand it. It was happi 
 ness to you to skirmish away your life, and to feast 
 riotously between the skirmishes, but it would not 
 have been happiness to me. I never was happy 
 unless I felt that I had done something which must 
 endure, whether men wished it to endure or not. 
 
 R 
 
242 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 I never was satisfied unless I had directed circum 
 stances and events into a new groove from which 
 they could not escape. You did that to some extent 
 by developing your absolute authority and laying the 
 foundation of an absolute monarchy. But you do not 
 refer to that as having contributed to your happiness. 
 What, in your whole life, do you remember with the 
 greatest pleasure?" 
 
 " Many things," replied the king. " I hardly 
 know. One was the victory of Marignano where I 
 beat the Swiss and made Bayard give me knighthood 
 on the field of battle. Another was when I tripped 
 Henry of England and threw him in our wrestling 
 match on the field of the cloth of gold. Then, when 
 I pardoned the people of Rochelle, after frightening 
 them soundly for their behaviour that was a happy 
 day. I had many happy days, and I was a happy 
 man during most of my life. Happiness means 
 getting what one wants, and I generally did that. I 
 wanted to be the first knight of France, and I fancied 
 that I was. I never could understand Charles Quint, 
 who lived on broth mixed with milk and vinegar, 
 drank iced beer and plotted destruction over his 
 prayers, like a cat that pretends to be asleep until 
 the sparrow hops within reach. I was very happy 
 when I used to visit Lionardo in the short time he 
 was with me before he died ; for I loved art, and 
 beautiful things, and people who could make them." 
 
 " It was fortunate that you were a king," said 
 Heine. " In any other condition of life you would 
 have had difficulty in satisfying your tastes not 
 
WITH THE IMMORTALS 
 
 243 
 
 to say 
 aims 
 
 your aims, if one may speak of satisfying 
 
 " The aim is satisfied when the mark has been hit," 
 remarked Dr. Johnson. 
 
 " I remember that you once illustrated your mean 
 ing upon a publisher," replied Heine, with a laugh. 
 " I suppose that if one has any aims one ought to 
 make an effort to attain them. The way to be happy 
 is not to have any wishes which cannot be satisfied 
 the simplest plan is to have no wishes at all. Man 
 is only happy when he thinks he is happy, because 
 happiness is a purely personal sentiment, resulting 
 from a purely personal impression of satisfaction. 
 The more ideas a man has, the less chance he has 
 of being happy, because ideas mean wishes which 
 must be fulfilled to obtain peace of mind. Poets, 
 who have more ideas than other men, are proverbially 
 unhappy. Oysters, on the contrary, are thought to be 
 very happy indeed every one says as happy as an 
 oyster. Unfortunately we cannot all be oysters, nor 
 conquerors, nor even poets." 
 
 "Fortunately, I should say," said the king. 
 " Fortunately, that sort of equality is a myth. Every 
 body has an equal right to try and be happy, I suppose, 
 but there is a deal of difference in regard to the 
 capacity for happiness." 
 
 "It is a strange thing," remarked Caesar, "that 
 there should always be a class of men in the world 
 who think and maintain that the body of the world 
 is sick. They call themselves philosophers, and they 
 propose an immediate cure for creation by applying 
 
244 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 themselves to the world as a plaster, a universal 
 panacea. In three thousand years philosophers have 
 not learned to understand that nobody cares what 
 they think nor will ever try their remedies. Men are 
 not philosophers, though oysters may be. No one 
 will ever govern man by a set of theories the thing 
 is not possible. You cannot civilise man by the head, 
 because all the ratiocination of man s intellect inevi 
 tably leads to conclusions closely connected with 
 individual advantage. The beginning of all great 
 modern changes for the better is to be found in 
 sentiments, but the origin of most changes for the 
 worse in the lives of nations has lain in the miscalcu 
 lation of the national interest." 
 
 "That is a delightful theory !" exclaimed Heine. 
 
 "It is not a theory, it is a fact," answered Caesar. 
 " The Puritans who practically founded the American 
 Republic were inspired by sentiment and not by 
 interest. The people who nearly overthrew that same 
 Republic a few years ago were largely inspired by 
 interest. The French Revolution began in a sentiment 
 which soon became a means of satisfying a desire for 
 vengeance ; its most powerful effects were felt under 
 the rule of one man, so long as he himself was inspired 
 by a desire to make his country great, and the crash 
 came when that man s personal ambition began to 
 outweigh his patriotism. England reached the zenith 
 of her power about thirty years ago, after having 
 adopted a number of highly sentimental measures, 
 such as - the union of Ireland, the emancipation of 
 Catholics, and free trade. But the sentiment of those 
 
xii WITH THE IMMORTALS 245 
 
 things has worn itself out and the place where it 
 was is now the battle-field of party interests. The 
 result is that England is rapidly losing influence 
 and importance in Europe. You can make people 
 enthusiastic, you can make them move, for the sake 
 of a sentiment, but not for the sake of a theory. 
 Men feel first, and then invent theories to explain 
 their feelings. It is a fatal error to confuse people 
 who feel nothing by teaching them theories about 
 what ought to be felt." 
 
 "It is a mistake to suppose that every one who 
 has five senses has sense," said Heine. " If every 
 body were alike one might make theories, but it is 
 unsatisfactory to attempt to theorise about a thousand 
 million individuals, each of whom is quite different 
 from all the rest. Nobody has ever got any further 
 than making theories about himself. The little 
 burgher has the best of it after all. To live cleanly, 
 so as to preserve the affection of his family and the 
 friendship of his neighbours ; to live moderately, so 
 as to increase his property by saving money, and to 
 maintain enough religion to inculcate those principles 
 in his children the burgher has no other aims, and 
 I do not see why any one should want a more comfort 
 able, moral, utterly dull and well-fed philosophy. 
 There is very little else that is of any real importance 
 to mankind, in spite of philosophers because mankind 
 itself is not quite as important as it likes to fancy 
 itself. But in these puny days it is most abominably 
 unfashionable to be simple, or to talk of anything 
 but the solemnity of the aims of man. There is a 
 
246 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 complication nowadays in the little aims of this little 
 world which is enough to make one s hair stand up 
 on end The little man of to-day is easily bored 
 even if compared with the man of the last cent 
 ury, and everybody knows that only bores are ever 
 bored. The little burgher is right. Nothing really 
 succeeds but property and keeping quiet nothing 
 not even Mr. Herbert Spencer or the French Com 
 mune." 
 
 "If every man," remarked Johnson, "had a wife 
 and a little property and the quality of holding his 
 tongue, the world would be a very peaceable place. 
 But, sir, those things are not easily got, and those 
 who do not get them are very likely to turn anarchists, 
 for the sake of stealing what belongs to others." 
 
 "What is Mr. Herbert Spencer?" asked King 
 Francis. 
 
 "The American woman of the future," answered 
 Heine, without hesitation. 
 
 "Imperfectly disguised as the Englishman of to 
 day," added Augustus. 
 
 "What an extraordinary pair of definitions!" 
 exclaimed Lady Brenda. 
 
 " Do you think so ? " asked Heine. " Mr. 
 Spencer s books seem to me to be all about what we 
 should do if we knew everything. Evidently American 
 women are the only human beings who stand any 
 chance of illustrating his theories." 
 
 "There were no American women in my day," 
 remarked the king, "but I have seen something of 
 them since, without being able to understand them. 
 
xii WITH THE IMMORTALS 247 
 
 They are not very like women. I mean that their 
 idea of what a woman should be differs from mine." 
 
 " Sir," said Johnson, " I suppose so." 
 
 King Francis swung his plumed cap in his hand 
 and looked towards the sage with a light laugh. 
 
 "Yes," he answered. "The aims of woman do 
 not seem to coincide with the aims of man so often 
 as they formerly did. I cannot imagine what women 
 want with aims." 
 
 " Generally, a husband," returned Heine. " It is 
 in New England, where there are the fewest husbands 
 to be had, that women have the most aims. In Tar- 
 tary, where they do not attempt to rear the superfluous 
 females, the women have enough to do in keeping 
 house, or keeping tent, for their husbands. Aims, as 
 you call them, are the result of idleness. If every 
 man were obliged to work as hard as he could for his 
 daily bread, there would be no time for scheming and 
 no aims for anybody we should have perpetual peace 
 and no nonsense with it, no high-sounding talk about 
 the solemnity of creation, no professional pomposity. 
 We should have nothing to think of but bread and the 
 price of bread. That is real advancement. That is 
 modern socialism. That is the ideal republic. That 
 is freedom not only from tyrants but from lecturers. 
 Do away with everything, and especially with education. 
 When a man and a woman must labour all day for 
 bread at a trade, and may never have more than their 
 daily allowance of bread, no matter how they labour, 
 what possible good can education do them ? Let us 
 turn socialists and destroy at a blow those differences 
 
248 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 which mankind has taken scores of centuries to create. 
 It a baby is born with an exceptionally intellectual 
 skull, knock it on the head. It is for the public good 
 that there should be no differences. It is for the 
 freedom of humanity to kill everything above the 
 average. If any man stand more than five feet four 
 inches in his stockings, cut him down to the average 
 of humanity. Excellence is damnation, for it means 
 superiority, and the superiority of one man suffices to 
 demonstrate the degraded idiotcy of millions who, but 
 for him, might justly call themselves wise." 
 
 " I thought you began by abusing aims and am 
 bitions," said Gwendoline. " I should think that 
 nothing else could save you from the idiots you last 
 mentioned." 
 
 "Ah, madam," replied Heine, "to end an argu 
 ment on the same side upon which one stood at its 
 beginning would show a lamentable lack of imagina 
 tion ! Forgive my turning about there is such a 
 difference between a poet s ambition and the theo 
 retical desire for evolved goodness which Mr. Herbert 
 Spencer preaches. There is such a vast difference 
 between Freedom in rhyme and Freedom upon 
 stamped paper ! One reason why I hate all this 
 modern philosophy is because it never takes into 
 account the fact that a man may change his mind, 
 that he may like buttered bread to-day and dry bread 
 to-morrow, rest one week and hard work the next. 
 Is man a machine that he should live not only by 
 law, but by inflexible rule ? Is he a wheel, that he 
 must for ever turn upon one axle ? A steam-engine 
 
xii WITH THE IMMORTALS 249 
 
 of which the philosophers are to handle the throttle- 
 valve and the reversing lever and adjust the expansion 
 gear to the measure of their steam supply ? What is 
 man, in the name of common sense ? Is he a think 
 ing creature, capable of thinking for himself? Or is 
 he a learned ass to be taught to perform tricks in the 
 circus of philosophy before a critical public of gradu 
 ates in the science of teaching asses ? Is man not 
 only to eat, drink, work, and rest by method, but also 
 to love by rule, to be ambitious by rule, to sacrifice 
 his neighbour to himself when the rule tells him he 
 is more valuable to the community than his neigh 
 bour, to weep by rule a nicely calculated number of 
 tears, and to adjust his laughter to the subject which 
 excites it, by the infallible method of prime and ulti 
 mate ratios ? Is there to be no choice left, no free 
 will, no imagination, no poetry, and no prose but the 
 tiresome account book wherein is reckoned up the 
 happiness of the greatest number ? Are civilised men 
 to slave at a daily task in Europe, binding themselves 
 by an oath never to want more than their equal por 
 tion, in order that an idiotic African or a pot-bellied 
 Hindu vegetarian may have a like portion with them 
 selves to wit, sixteen ounces of bread and a glass of 
 water, more or less ? Go to ! These dreams of equal 
 ity are rubbish ! The frog who tries to puff himself 
 up to the size of the ox must burst, and the ox who 
 tries to reduce himself by privation to the size of the 
 frog will starve. There are big animals and little 
 animals, big brains and little brains, big thoughts and 
 little thoughts. The only freedom worth the name 
 
 sr**^ 
 
 TT SIVERSITY 
 
250 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 is that which gives each man a fair chance to find his 
 level and leaves the rest to himself, which allows one 
 man to pursue happiness and another man to pursue 
 greatness, and which admits that what would make 
 one man happy would make another unspeakably 
 miserable. Show me the philosopher who has 
 changed the destinies of mankind by his theories, and 
 I will talk seriously with you. Prove to me that any 
 one of the great men of the earth, beginning with 
 Caesar or with Menes, the Thinite, if you please 
 governed according to the precepts of any philosophy, 
 and I will admit then that philosophy has played a 
 part in the world." 
 
 " It seems to me," said Diana, " that freedom 
 comes under the class of things, or ideas, or prin 
 ciples, with which philosophy has dealt. Many 
 nations have fought for that, and have governed 
 themselves solely with the intention of remaining free." 
 
 " Freedom never was made the subject of philo 
 sophical speculation, until men had lost it," returned 
 Heine. " When a boy has plenty of jam he does not 
 invent plans for stealing more." 
 
 " Exactly," argued Diana. " Philosophy professes 
 to teach men how to obtain what is good for them, 
 when they do not possess all that they have a right 
 to possess and it teaches men to be contented when 
 they cannot get what they hanker after." 
 
 " If you mean to impose that definition on the 
 world," replied Heine, "you must set up a High 
 Pontiff among philosophers to decide what is legiti 
 mate philosophy and what is not. In other words 
 
xii WITH THE IMMORTALS 251 
 
 you must persuade all men to accept the judgment of 
 one man, which means that all men must be subjected 
 to a supreme tyrant, that is to say, liberty is to be de 
 stroyed. That is the result of the philosophy of free 
 dom. Either it will end by destroying freedom, be 
 cause it will force everybody under the rule of a 
 tyrant, or it will set up half a dozen different kinds of 
 freedom which will fight each other to death, which 
 is contrary to the definition of freedom. That is a 
 pretty dilemma." 
 
 " Sir," said Johnson, " I do not believe that there 
 is any dilemma which can defy common sense. Ac 
 cording to Varro, the son of Antipater broke the 
 head of the philosophic dilemma with a mattock, 
 with the quick argument by the single horn in 
 other words by a forcible application of common 
 sense. Freedom, sir, is the contrary of enforced 
 servitude." 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 DIANA had wandered from the house alone one morn 
 ing and as she picked her way among the rocks, she 
 paused now and then to pluck the wildflowers that 
 grew in every cranny and carpeted every little plot of 
 grass among the boulders. She was thinking of all 
 she had heard during the past days and trying to re 
 concile the many varying opinions expressed by the 
 strange party. She wished that she could go back 
 into the closed centuries and see the lives of these dead 
 men as they had been, and she sighed as she realised 
 how far she was from understanding the real existence 
 and conditions of existence of humanity in past ages. 
 
 " After all," she said aloud to herself, " we are not 
 sure of ever understanding any history but that of 
 our own particular lives. We dislike people who talk 
 about themselves, and when they do not we are 
 angry with them for not telling us what we want so 
 much to know. Vanity of vanities !" 
 
 "And yet," said a quiet voice beside her, "next 
 to ourselves, nothing interests us so much as other 
 people." 
 
 Diana turned and recognised the beautiful features 
 and the lofty figure of Lionardo. 
 
CHAP, xin WITH THE IMMORTALS 253 
 
 " I thought I was alone ! " she exclaimed in some 
 surprise. "I am so glad it is you," she added, 
 quickly. 
 
 "Not more glad than I am," answered the old 
 man, courteously. "You were thinking aloud I 
 took the liberty of joining in the conversation of your 
 thoughts. You were saying, or thinking, that people 
 are interesting. Indeed there is very little else in the 
 world which has any great interest for those who live 
 in it, or for those who have lived in it." 
 
 " I am glad to hear you say so," replied Diana. 
 " I have sometimes thought that it is bad for the 
 mind to occupy it too much with people. Inanimate 
 things seem safer ; they do not change so fast. When 
 we know anything about them, we feel quite sure of 
 what we know. It is not the same with people." 
 
 " People progress. Things either remain as they 
 are or decay," said Lionardo, looking thoughtfully at 
 the young girl. " It is clear that although in the last 
 thousand years mankind has improved, nature has 
 tended to degenerate wherever she has not continued 
 to be as she was. The sea knocks away the cliffs 
 and slowly eats the land, the sun melts the glaciers, 
 man makes holes in the mountains and the moon 
 moves more rapidly round the earth, the earth re 
 volves more slowly upon her axis. In rather less 
 than twenty millions of years the moon will probably 
 go round the earth once a day and will remain appar 
 ently stationary in the heavens." 
 
 "That is a long way off," laughed Diana. "It 
 will not come in my time." 
 
254 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 " No. Your time, as you call it, is the time while 
 you are alive. After that, time will belong to the 
 next generation not to you. The reason why time 
 is so tremendously important to you is because the 
 time of your life is all the time there is, so far as you 
 are concerned. As you help to make it, so your time 
 will appear to the view of those who follow you." 
 
 " Past time always seems more interesting than the 
 present," said Diana, looking into the painter s deep 
 eyes as though she were trying to conjure up the life 
 that had once surrounded his. " I have often wished 
 that I might have lived when you did." 
 
 "It was an age of individuals. This is the age 
 of the millions." 
 
 " And what will the next age be ? " asked the 
 young girl. 
 
 " The age of collapse and of barbarian domination, 
 I suppose," answered Lionardo. 
 
 " Of the three, yours, the age of individuals, is the 
 most interesting." 
 
 " It seems so to you. People who live in luxurious 
 leisure, using their intelligence in refined study, easily 
 fancy that in an age of individuals talent played a 
 greater part than it does now, and that they them 
 selves would have been important figures in their 
 times. But the people who lead the millions, in the 
 age of the million, think their own century the most 
 interesting. They think that in my time, for instance, 
 they could have led everybody just as certainly 
 and with half the trouble, so that they get more 
 credit now than they would have got then." 
 
xin WITH THE IMMORTALS 255 
 
 " Do you think they really could ? " asked Diana. 
 " Do you think that Prince Bismarck would have 
 succeeded in unifying Italy under one rule, as Cesare 
 Borgia tried to do ? " 
 
 "It is quite certain that Cesare Borgia would have 
 failed to unify Germany in the nineteenth century, 
 in Prince Bismarck s place," answered the artist, with 
 a smile. " Cesare s mode of operating was differ 
 ent. He was Machiavelli s ideal cunning, cultivated, 
 witty, unscrupulous. Bismarck is the incarnation of 
 consistency animated by gunpowder. He has con 
 founded the diplomatists of Europe for five and 
 twenty years by telling them the truth. He goes 
 upon the principle that honesty is the best policy for 
 people who are able to hit very hard. Cesare Borgia 
 considered that lying was the appropriate dress of 
 strength and that secret murder was the only expression 
 of force. He did not see, when he had subdued a 
 great part of northern Italy to his own rule, that his 
 position depended upon his father s life and influence. 
 When his father Alexander the Sixth, died, Cesare 
 naturally fell." 
 
 " I have heard it said that he might have main 
 tained his conquests if he had not been ill from 
 poison just at the critical moment," said Diana. 
 
 " I do not believe it. People are always finding ex 
 cuses for fascinating men who fail after making a great 
 deal of noise. After all, why did you bring up Cesare 
 Borgia as an example? He was handsome, clever and 
 a scoundrel, but he never came near greatness." 
 
 " He is a specimen of the times, that is all. I 
 
256 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 would like to have seen him I would like to hear 
 him talk with Bayard, for instance. It would be 
 such a delightful contrast. Besides, he was a typical 
 Italian." 
 
 "Ah, my dear young lady," replied the artist, 
 " you are unfair to us. I cannot let you say that 
 Cesare Borgia was a type of our nation. We are 
 better than that ; on the faith of an artist, we are not 
 all murderers and poisoners and traitors. There have 
 been good men amongst us." 
 
 " Savonarola," suggested Diana. 
 
 " Savonarola well Savonarola," repeated the old 
 man in doubtful tones, spreading out his hand with 
 the palm downwards and alternately raising the thumb 
 and the little finger, as though balancing the good and 
 evil genii of the Dominican monk. 
 
 " You seem to hesitate," remarked the young girl. 
 
 " Savonarola he was not a bad man no but he 
 was a detestable fellow. He fell a victim to a piece 
 of his own very gratuitous political scheming." 
 
 " What an extraordinary view ! I always heard 
 that he was burnt by Alexander as a heretic." 
 
 " So he was," replied Lionardo, thoughtfully. 
 
 " Well, then I do not understand," said Diana. 
 
 " I will give you the history of Savonarola in three 
 words Enthusiasm, Fanaticism, Failure. He began 
 to preach in 1489, under Pope Innocent the Eighth, 
 and he inveighed against Lorenzo De Medici on the 
 ground that he had usurped the sovereignty of 
 Florence. He forgot that Lorenzo inherited the 
 supremacy from his father Pietro, whose father, again, 
 
xiii WITH THE IMMORTALS 257 
 
 Cosmo de Medici, had already been practically the 
 ruler of Florence. He forgot, too, that Lorenzo 
 himself had narrowly escaped being murdered with 
 liis brother by the agents of Sixtus the Fourth, 
 the Pazzi, the so-called friends of liberty. Savonarola 
 took upon himself to refuse absolution to Lorenzo 
 when on his deathbed, on the sole ground that the 
 latter would not renounce and abdicate the power 
 he had inherited. That was in 1492. In 1494 
 Savonarola excited the Florentines against Pietro, 
 Lorenzo s son, when he returned from his attempt to 
 treat with Charles the Eighth of France, and succeeded 
 in driving him out, thus thrusting his fellow-citizens 
 into the arms of the French king, who forthwith 
 entered Florence as a foreign conqueror ; and the 
 Florentines had great difficulty in getting rid of him. 
 From that time Savonarola continued to preach an 
 alliance with Charles the Eighth, which practically 
 meant a submission to him. Meanwhile Alexander 
 the Sixth, Rodrigo Borgia, scandalised the world by 
 his conduct and Savonarola openly denounced the 
 Pope. He forgot, however, that Alexander the Sixth, 
 with all his vices, had been one of the founders of 
 the league which had driven the French out of Italy. 
 Alexander resented Savonarola s propaganda of the 
 French alliance and, seeking occasion against him, 
 declared the monk a heretic for assuming to be en 
 dowed with supernatural gifts and for his attacks on 
 the government of the Church. Savonarola refused 
 the ordeal by fire himself, and his friend and fellow- 
 monk, Domenico Buonvicino, refused it at the last 
 s 
 
258 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 moment, when the pile was erected. Every one de 
 clared Savonarola an impostor, and he was delivered 
 over to the Pope. Under torture, he weakly confessed 
 all manner of misdeeds which he had not committed, 
 and he, with his two friends Buonvicino and Marrafti 
 were strangled and their bodies were burnt in the 
 Piazza della Signoria. That is the history of Girolamo 
 Savonarola. I do not see that there is material for 
 making a martyr of him since his death there 
 was certainly not the stuff of a hero in him when he 
 was alive." 
 
 "That is a very prejudiced account of him," 
 remarked Diana. 
 
 " I could say far worse things of him. He was an 
 iconoclast, a destroyer of everything that was beautiful, 
 a Vandal ! If he had lived to carry out his schemes 
 he would have left not one work of art in Florence. 
 He detested Lorenzo for his love of the antique and 
 would have got rid of all the Medici for ever, if he 
 could. Pray, what would Florence have been without 
 the Medici ? " 
 
 " Nevertheless," objected Diana, who would not 
 relinquish her point, "people have been found to 
 defend him as a hero and a martyr even in our 
 day." 
 
 "As they defend Giordano Bruno," retorted the 
 artist. " But Sismondi, the most important of modern 
 Italian historians, and who was profoundly prejudiced 
 against the popes, did not defend him in his actions, 
 though he admired him for his original qualities. 
 Sismondi accuses him of taking his own impulses for 
 
xiii WITH THE IMMORTALS 259 
 
 prophetic revelations, by which he directed the 
 politics of his disciples, and states without comment 
 the fact that the monk pushed the Florentines into 
 an alliance with Charles the Eighth, the enemy of 
 Italian liberty. Sismondi, who hated the popes, 
 and especially detested Alexander the Sixth, could 
 not refrain from stating that Savonarola was burnt 
 alive, contrary to the evidence of all the best 
 authorities, but he does not conceal the fact that 
 Savonarola pretended, like Mahomet, to be receiving 
 constant and direct revelations from God. Machiavelli 
 speaks of him as veering from point to point, to paint 
 and colour his fraud and cunning. That is natural 
 enough, since Machiavelli was deeply attached to 
 Lorenzo de Medici. Your English historian Roscoe 
 who may be supposed to represent the judgment of 
 Protestants upon the Dominican monk, speaks of him 
 with unmeasured scorn. He says that Savonarola 
 entitled himself to the homage of the people of 
 Florence by foretelling their destruction and that he 
 contributed essentially to the accomplishment of his 
 own predictions ; and he further adds that he enter 
 tained the most vindictive animosity against his patron, 
 Lorenzo de Medici. I do not see what other evidence 
 you can want. The fact that he was enthusiastic when 
 he began his career does not excuse him for having 
 been vindictive at a later period, nor for having acted 
 the impostor in pretending to receive divine revelations 
 of which the object was the ruin of Florence. Believe 
 me, my dear young lady, all this sympathy for Girolamo 
 Savonarola is sentimental. It is of a piece with the 
 
260 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 modern fashion of extolling the virtues of Lucrezia 
 Borgia and of making out that Nero was a gentle, 
 sensitive, and misunderstood artist of genius. I can 
 defend Alexander the Sixth and Cesare Borgia as 
 eloquently as you can defend Savonarola or Giordano 
 Bruno, upon different grounds." 
 
 " Upon what grounds ? " asked Diana. " I do not 
 see how you can compare two profligate tyrants with 
 two men who were certainly moral in their private 
 lives, if they were nothing else." 
 
 "Moral!" exclajmed Lionardo. "Savonarola 
 yes he was moral enough, he meant to be a good 
 man. But Giordano Bruno ! One portion of his 
 writings is not fit for man or beast, much less for 
 woman I 1 When he was not spiteful he was filthy, 
 and when he was neither, he was blasphemous, though 
 he was frequently all three together." 
 
 " Of course I have never read his works," answered 
 Diana, quietly, " but I believe he was something of a 
 philosopher, not to say a scientist." 
 
 " I will do him the credit to say that he defended 
 the system of Copernicus," assented the artist, with 
 a smile, " and he quarrelled with all known and un 
 known philosophies. But the system of Copernicus 
 does not in itself constitute a morality, and it was on 
 the ground of his morality that you proposed to 
 defend him. I did not say he was a fool. I said 
 he was a bad man. He was not so bad as Cesare 
 
 1 It is to be presumed that Giordano Bruno s English de 
 fenders have either never seen his complete works, or have not 
 understood the low Neapolitan dialect in which he often wrote. 
 
xiii WITH THE IMMORTALS 261 
 
 Borgia, but he was very far from being so important 
 a personage." 
 
 "The greatness of the Borgias was not of the 
 kind to be envied. I cannot see why you cling to 
 them." 
 
 11 You yourself said you would like to see Cesare," 
 answered Lionardo. " Believe me, if you could see 
 half a dozen of those men together, and talk with them, 
 you would not think our age so delightful as it looks 
 through the stained glass of three centuries. We 
 artists enjoyed our lives more than other men, I sup 
 pose, because the reigning princes always had need 
 of us, whoever they chanced to be. In my day I 
 served the Florentine Republic, Ludovico Sforza of 
 Milan, Cesare Borgia, Louis the Twelfth of France, 
 Leo the Tenth and Francis the First. I painted for 
 Florence, I made canals for Ludovico Moro, I for 
 tified towns for the Duke Valentino, 1 I made more 
 canals for Louis and I painted pictures for the rest. 
 No one ever molested me, and I had a very happy 
 life. But look at the governments I served. Flor 
 ence was the battle-ground of the Medici and the 
 popes, Ludovico Sforza died in a dungeon, Cesare 
 Borgia was killed in a skirmish after having been 
 exiled for many years, and even Leo the Tenth is 
 
 1 Many critics found fault with Mr. W. W. Astor for call 
 ing Cesare Borgia by this name. Machiavelli in the last para 
 graph of the third chapter of the Principe, says : "I had an 
 interview about this at Nantes with the Card. d Amboise when 
 VALENTINO, as the son of Pope Alexander was commonly called > 
 occupied Romagna." 
 
262 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 now generally believed to have been poisoned. Their 
 lives were not easy and their deaths were less so, but 
 we artists were rarely molested. We enjoyed a special 
 immunity because we were always wanted." 
 
 "Artists are not often molested in our day, and 
 as far as numbers go they have the better of you," 
 replied Diana. " But apart from that, there was an 
 individuality in your age which we do not understand. 
 Single characters stand out, like Cesare Borgia, 
 Ludovico Sforza or any of those men but we form 
 no distinct idea of their surroundings. I wonder why 
 that is so. When I think of Caesar, I think of him 
 in connection with the other men of his time, as 
 coming soon after Marius and Sulla, as the rival of 
 Pompey, as the uncle of Octavius " 
 
 "Caesar was a greater man than our personages 
 of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. You know 
 more about him." 
 
 "That is not the reason. I sometimes think I 
 would rather know more about your times than about 
 ancient history. I have a much clearer idea of the 
 surroundings of Alcibiades than of the daily life of 
 Cesare Borgia." 
 
 "I think," answered Lionardo, "that the com 
 plication of small events in our day was too great to 
 be remembered distinctly. There were too many 
 romantic characters, involved in desperately romantic 
 circumstances, producing on the whole very little 
 effect upon the world. One remembers the indi 
 vidual without connecting him with the event. A 
 fictitious interest is often attached to romantic per- 
 
xin WITH THE IMMORTALS 263 
 
 sonages which does not seem justified by their deeds. 
 Hence it is not easy to compose a history of one of 
 them which shall not disappoint the reader." 
 
 "You artists, at least, are known by what you 
 accomplished," said Diana, looking at the old man s 
 expressive face. 
 
 " And perhaps some of those princes deserve only 
 to be remembered for having paid the price of our 
 works," returned the painter. " We were often 
 obliged to sing our own praises in order to obtain 
 orders from them. I remember writing a letter to 
 Ludovico, which I should be ashamed to write in 
 your times, but it was necessary then. I professed 
 myself able to build public and private edifices as well 
 as any one alive, to construct canals against any known 
 engineer, to produce statues of bronze or marble or 
 clay, and to paint, all as well as any living artist. It 
 is true that Michelangiolo was a boy at the time, 
 Titian was a baby then, and Raphael and Andrea 
 del Sarto were both born in the year I wrote the 
 letter. Nevertheless I have often thought with 
 wonder of my own assumption in enumerating my 
 talents. On the other hand, if I had shown any 
 modesty or diffidence I should never have attracted 
 Ludovico s attention. This was the way in which 
 our individuality asserted itself. Men knew that 
 their success depended on their ability to force them 
 selves upon the attention of the great, unless they 
 were great by birth, in which case they were obliged 
 to rule as much by inspiring terror as by exhibiting 
 clemency. The artist of course knew that if he failed 
 
264 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 to fulfil his promises, it was in the prince s power to 
 ruin him, and the prince himself, having power to 
 destroy the artist, readily put faith in the professions 
 of a man who showed himself ready to run so great 
 a risk. The result of all this was the contrast of in 
 dividualities which has surprised posterity. Where 
 great forces are called into play, the will and intelli 
 gence of the leader are easily confounded with the 
 executive power he directs, owing to the magnitude of 
 the result. To take an instance from more recent 
 times, such as the failure of Bonaparte s expedition 
 to Russia; I fancy that you think quite as much 
 of Marshal Ney and of the Grande Armee, as of 
 the emperor himself, when you recall your general 
 memories of the campaign. Most people do. But 
 when you think of Cesare Borgia and his attempt to 
 conquer the north of Italy, you think of the man alone 
 and your mind probably provides you with no picture 
 of his soldiers, his lieutenants, or his counsellors. He 
 is, to you, a detached monster of wickedness, little 
 better than Eccelino Romano, the tyrant of the 
 Trevisan March, though a little more clear to the 
 historical vision. The atrocious deeds of Cesare and 
 Eccelino are not rendered insignificant by enormous 
 military operations, decisive victories or defeats entail 
 ing the ruin of an empire. The background is but 
 a panorama of petty warfare in the darkest episodes 
 of which the princes themselves are the chief actors. 
 Their individuality stands out like a black figure in 
 the foreground of a gray picture. To understand 
 those men thoroughly you must study their surround- 
 
xin WITH THE IMMORTALS 265 
 
 ings, you must fill in the middle distance and the 
 background until you feel that the whole composition 
 is harmonious. You must learn how the various 
 classes of men lived in those days, and especially 
 what the various classes thought of the princes who 
 governed them. The light of history falls unequally 
 on the armies of the past, as they stand drawn up 
 in their dead ranks. The figures that chance to be 
 illuminated look much as they did in life, but the 
 effect they produce is exaggerated by the darkness 
 which surrounds them." 
 
 " For the sake of posterity," said Diana, " painters 
 should paint nothing but scenes from their own times. 
 It might be less interesting to themselves, but it 
 would be vastly more valuable to the people who live 
 after them. Each succeeding generation paints sub 
 jects from the preceding times. Even in our day it 
 is fashionable to paint pictures of persons in the dress 
 of the beginning of the century. For a long time, 
 anything later than shorts and silk stockings was 
 considered impossible on canvas. Artists have now 
 attacked the incroyable period. It is reserved for 
 the genre painters of the next century to represent 
 men in trousers and evening coats and women in 
 costumes invented by Doucet or Redfern. I believe 
 there are a few original geniuses who have tried even 
 that. After all, why is it not better to preserve 
 accurately for posterity what we can see, than to 
 revive more or less inaccurately that which belonged 
 to the past? Why should what we meet every day 
 in real life look ridiculous in a gilt frame, unless it 
 
266 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 chances to be in the portrait of some living person ? 
 Why cannot history be painted as well as written ? 
 Raphael and Pinturicchio have left a series of frescoes 
 in the library of the Cathedral of Siena, which give 
 one a complete idea of the life of Pius Second. Why 
 could they not have done the same for Alexander 
 Sixth who lived in their own time ? I would have 
 artists perpetuate the events of their day, and I would 
 have governments bear the expense of such pictures 
 as being valuable historical documents." 
 
 "It would be good for history and bad for art," 
 answered Lionardo, thoughtfully. "A series of col 
 oured photographs would answer the purpose without 
 degrading art. But I doubt whether anything of the 
 kind, if you had it, would recall our age to you as it 
 was. A gallery of portraits of people assembled upon 
 an important occasion and dressed in their best 
 clothes would not suffice to create in your mind an 
 impression of the way in which those people lived. 
 Nor is it the object of art to perpetuate common and 
 often repulsive details. Art, without a little inspira 
 tion, can be nothing but a laborious substitute for 
 photography, whereas it should be the object of 
 photography to perform at a cheap rate the drudgery 
 which true art must always despise, or to reproduce 
 at an insignificant price the works of good artists for 
 the delectation of those persons who are unable to 
 see the originals. Painters must paint portraits of all 
 sorts of people, since the appreciation of beauty is 
 greatest where there exists at the same time the most 
 profound knowledge of the commonplace. Beauty 
 
xin WITH THE IMMORTALS 267 
 
 being exceptional, the understanding of it requires a 
 detailed acquaintance with what is not beautiful, since 
 it is by constantly eliminating the imperfect that the 
 highest perfection is attained. Much that is thought 
 to be beautiful really borders upon the unnatural, and 
 it needs both study and experience to decide at what 
 point the exaggeration of one or more good features 
 begins to produce the strange feeling of dissatisfaction 
 that arises from the discord of proportion which is 
 nicknamed the grotesque. Therefore I say that 
 painters must paint portraits of all kinds of people in 
 order to be able to imagine and paint faces of ideal 
 beauty." 
 
 " I fancy it is generally believed that the way to 
 create beautiful works is to study only the beautiful," 
 said Diana. " But your theory seems true." 
 
 " It is because men have been confined so long 
 by the schools to the study of the beautiful, that they 
 have suddenly thrown themselves into the opposite 
 extreme. From having been taught to believe that 
 only one class of subjects ought to be represented, 
 they have fallen into the error of supposing that 
 nothing is so hideous as to be unworthy of the artist s 
 pencil." 
 
 " You used to paint very ugly things yourself," re 
 marked Diana. 
 
 " For study," answered the artist. " I was fond of 
 physiognomy, as every painter should be. I loved 
 to study the origin of expression in the face. When 
 a beautiful woman laughs lightly the same muscles 
 are in motion which produce a horrid grin in the face 
 
268 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 of a drunken boor. As far as the lines go, supreme 
 beauty and repulsive ugliness are only a quarter of an 
 inch apart." 
 
 " Nothing quite symmetrical is entirely displeas 
 ing to the eye," said the young girl. "The most 
 horrible masks and gargoyle water-spouts are used as 
 architectural ornaments and are not disagreeable, so 
 long as their features have some symmetry." 
 
 " Symmetry is a vertical notion," replied Lionardo, 
 " and corresponds to the horizontal notion we call 
 proportion." 
 
 " I do not understand," said Diana. 
 
 " Our idea of symmetry only extends to the right 
 hand and the left hand of a central vertical line," 
 answered the artist. " It does not extend above or 
 below a horizontal line. In the latter direction we 
 have only a desire for proportion. A church door, for 
 instance, having two pillars on the one side and three 
 on the other, would shock us by its lack of symmetry ; 
 but a temple in two stories may have seven pillars 
 below and six or five above we do not demand 
 symmetry in that direction, though we require pro 
 portion. A building broader above than below would 
 strike us as an architectural monstrosity on account 
 of the evident lack of stability in the equilibrium. 
 But a pyramid is pleasing to the eye. A pyramid in 
 any other position than standing on its base would be 
 offensive to our instincts. It is the same with the 
 human face and the human body. We require that 
 there should be an eye on each side of the nose and 
 an ear on each side of the head, but we do not feel 
 
xni WITH THE IMMORTALS 269 
 
 that, to be pleasing to the sight, the human face 
 should begin again, in the reversed order, from the 
 line of the hair upward, so that there should be a 
 second forehead, a second pair of eyes, a second nose, 
 mouth and chin, all upside down. The symmetry to 
 right and left, however, is indispensable \ if you pre 
 serve it you may invent any monster to be carved in 
 wood, stone or metal. The result may be terrible, 
 grotesque, or beautiful, it will never produce the sen 
 sation evoked by incongruity it will never be half so 
 frightful as the effigy of a monster with one eye on 
 one side and a smooth surface in its place on the 
 other. You may obliterate both the eyes without 
 producing the startling effect caused by effacing only 
 one of them. The absence of nose or mouth in a 
 drawing only makes the face look unfinished the 
 lack of an eye inspires horror. If you preserve sym 
 metry, you may paint grinning peasants to any extent 
 of variety, and the painting of them will be useful as 
 a study. Even commonplace heads are good to 
 paint, as I said before, because you learn to eliminate 
 gradually all that is not beautiful." 
 
 " Do you mean that artists ought to begin by 
 studying the ugly ? " inquired Diana. 
 
 " They should not begin by drawing only academi 
 cal noses and architectural eyebrows, as they generally 
 do. They ought to draw alternately beautiful and 
 ugly faces, and above all they should draw from the 
 first faces having a great variety of expression. Over- 
 study of the academic often produces a distaste for 
 the beautiful." 
 
270 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 "As a child ends by hating the Collects and 
 Gospels which he has been forced to learn by heart 
 on Sunday," suggested the young girl. " I suppose 
 that the same truth extends to other things. People 
 who make a hard and fast rule for themselves are 
 sometimes more inclined to go suddenly to an oppo 
 site extreme than people who go along without any 
 particular principle. When Karl Sand had murdered 
 Kotzebue he fell on his knees before the crowd in 
 the street outside the house and solemnly thanked 
 God for his victory, while stabbing himself in the 
 breast to escape justice. He lived long enough to 
 be beheaded, after all. What an outrageous set of 
 contradictions ! And yet he was theoretically no more 
 illogical than the painter who paints anatomical mon 
 strosities because he is sick of the staid style of the 
 academy." 
 
 " Savonarola came very near being an instance of 
 the same thing," answered the old artist. " As for my 
 good friend King Francis, when he was tired of imi 
 tating Bayard, he imitated Cesare Borgia. He was 
 nearly as successful with the one as with the other." 
 
 " Francis the First was one of the most inconsist 
 ent men who ever lived. I do not like him." 
 
 " And yet he meant to be a good man. He 
 fancied himself always what he really was on very 
 rare occasions. But he was inconsistent, except in 
 his desire to found an absolute monarchy." 
 
 " I suppose it is something to a king s credit if he 
 is consistent in one thing," said Diana. " One must 
 not expect too much." 
 
xin WITH THE IMMORTALS 271 
 
 <: I have sometimes thought that with all their 
 faults the Italians of our age were more consistent 
 than the foreign princes who attacked them," replied 
 Lionardo. " The most apparently inconsistent of all 
 was Gian Galeazzo Visconti, who lived before I did, 
 but of whom people still talked when I was alive. 
 And yet his inconsistency was only apparent, it was 
 not real. He so concealed his own intentions that 
 people were not able to reconcile together the results 
 he produced. But it was clear in the end that every 
 action of his life had tended to his own aggrandise 
 ment. When he locked himself up in his castle and 
 pretended that he was afraid of being assassinated if 
 he stirred abroad, no one suspected that it was a 
 mere comedy calculated to increase the confidence 
 of his brother Barnabb, whom he murdered at their 
 next meeting. There was certainly an evil consist 
 ency at the bottom of his most contradictory actions. 
 But Francis was really inconsistent. He was theatri 
 cal. He was easily moved to produce striking effects, 
 and very hard to move to anything which did not 
 amuse him. He won the battle of Marignano against 
 the Swiss by his own heroic personal courage, and 
 he lost the battle of Pavia by an unlucky display of 
 vanity by taking the advice of Bonnivet against that 
 of every one else ; and giving battle from a disadvan 
 tageous position. He loved glory when it was to 
 be had by physical courage he did not care for it 
 when its price was the sacrifice of his own inclina 
 tions. He broke a very solemn promise made to 
 the emperor when he was a prisoner, and he broke 
 
272 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 it for his own advantage. Then, when he had the 
 emperor in his hands, he treated him with the 
 utmost magnanimity, entertained him splendidly, and 
 sent him on his way in peace." 
 
 "That was to his credit, at all events," said Diana. 
 "A smaller man would perhaps have kept his promise 
 in the first instance, but would have locked up Charles 
 in the Bastille when he had a chance." 
 
 "And what would a modern sovereign do under 
 the circumstances?" asked the painter. 
 
 " I suppose that if he were defeated as Francis 
 was at Pavia, his people would dethrone him and 
 make a. revolution. That was what happened to 
 Napoleon Third." 
 
 " Would the same thing happen if a king of Eng 
 land were caught and made prisoner by his enemies 
 in these times?" 
 
 " I do not know," answered Diana. " The Eng 
 lish would fight for their king, I imagine, and perhaps 
 they would dethrone him after they had got him 
 back." 
 
 "That sounds inconsistent." 
 
 " No. They would be too patriotic to allow their 
 king to remain a prisoner. That would touch their 
 national pride. But as far as their relations with their 
 sovereign were concerned, they would be independent 
 enough to dethrone him if they were not satisfied with 
 his kingship. Patriotism is not loyalty." 
 
 While they were talking the sun went down, and 
 all the sky grew soft and purple above them. 
 
 " Another day is gone," said Diana almost sadly. 
 
xni WITH THE IMMORTALS 273 
 
 " Let us go home. You will come with me, will you 
 not?" 
 
 " I will come with you a part of the way," answered 
 the artist. " But I will come again this evening with 
 the others of our friends. Why are you sad ? " 
 
 "The sunset is like the autumn," sighed the young 
 girl. " The saddest time of the day, and the saddest 
 time of all the year. It must be like dying. The 
 light will go out some day, and leave us in a world 
 we do not know, through which we cannot find our 
 way." 
 
 "Were there no other spring, nor any other rising 
 of the sun, death would be dreadful indeed. But you 
 are young to think of such things." 
 
 "Yes," answered Diana, smiling a little. "Be 
 sides, if we were logical we should look at things 
 differently. We ought to consider the condemned 
 criminal, who is told that he is to die on a certain 
 day of the month at a certain hour, as the happiest of 
 mortals. He, at least, knows exactly how long he 
 has to live, whereas I may go on for sixty years, or 
 die to-night. What a lottery !" 
 
 " Ah, my dear lady, we must not be discontented 
 with the beginning. There is peace yet to come. 
 All life is but a step towards peace. Sometimes when 
 men live to be. very old, peace begins for them before 
 they have crossed the threshold. To others it comes 
 later, but to all good men md women it comes at 
 last" 
 
 How strange those moralities sound when you 
 utter them ! What are you ? I see you and talk 
 
 T 
 
274 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP, xin 
 
 with you. I have touched your hand and heard your 
 voice. I know you as I know the others what are 
 you?" 
 
 "We do not know what \ve are," answered the 
 venerable artist very gravely. " We know only that 
 we are still ourselves, and shall be for ever. And 
 somewhere, too, are all the million, million selves that 
 have played parts in this little corner of the universe 
 since the beginning. That is all we know. Good 
 bye we shall meet again this evening." 
 
 "Good-bye," said Diana, taking his cold hand 
 fearlessly in hers, and gazing for a few seconds into" 
 his deep, liquid eyes. 
 
 Lionardo left her, and she hastened homeward 
 through the deepening twilight. What he had said 
 had produced a profound impression upon her, the 
 stronger for its extreme simplicity. She wondered 
 whether it were true, and whether, even when her last 
 sun had set and her last breath had trembled upon 
 the air of a mortal world, she should still not know 
 the great secret. In youth death often seems very near 
 because we fear it, in old age it is nearer still, because 
 men desire peace when they are weary, and have little 
 joy of life when the strength is gone from them. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THAT evening at dinner there was less conversation 
 than usual. The strange life which the party at the 
 Castello del Gaudio had been leading for some time 
 was beginning to produce its inevitable effect. They 
 all grew silent and were often preoccupied with one 
 common thought, wondering constantly what was to 
 happen next. Every one wore a look in which a 
 question was expressed and an uncertainty, for they 
 had been trespassing in dreamland, or shadow-land, 
 whichever is the name given to that misty country, by 
 the shades that dwell there. 
 
 "Why should it not last for ever?" exclaimed 
 Diana, suddenly. 
 
 " Oh ! I should go mad, if it did ! " said Lady 
 Brenda. " Not but that it has been most delightful 
 of course. But it is so weird, and altogether I can 
 not explain it at all." 
 
 " No," answered Augustus. "I believe you can 
 not, nor I either, nor any of us. But I am not sure 
 that I would like it to go on for ever. This sort of 
 life makes one unfit for anything but loafing. Slang ? 
 Yes, you must forgive me. Only dead men are quite 
 above slang." 
 
276 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 " I think," said Gwendoline, " that people will find 
 us dreadfully changed when we go home. But I 
 would not give up all we have had here for anything 
 in the world." 
 
 No one spoke again for some minutes, for Gwen 
 doline had expressed what was passing in the minds 
 of the others. They would not willingly have forfeited 
 such memories. 
 
 " It may change our way of thinking," said 
 Augustus, at last. " But I am not sure that we should 
 any of us care to think differently about most things." 
 
 "We should not be ourselves if we did," answered 
 Gwendoline. " I know we should not be happier. 
 Ourselves means what we think we are." 
 
 "Together with what other people think of us," 
 added Diana. 
 
 "When I say myself, I mean what I am," put in 
 Lady Brenda. " What other people think about me 
 does not change me." 
 
 " I do not know," said Augustus. " But even if 
 it does not, do you know what you are ? " 
 
 " I suppose I could describe myself, if I tried 
 and if nobody were there to hear the description," 
 answered his mother-in-law. 
 
 "That would only be telling what you think of 
 yourself. You might be mistaken. It is commonly 
 said that we should know the truth if we could see 
 ourselves as others see us." 
 
 " I do not believe that is true. Other people will 
 generally over-estimate or undervalue us. No one 
 can know what I am, but I myself." 
 
xiv WITH THE IMMORTALS 277 
 
 " But even you yourself do not quite know," 
 objected Diana. 
 
 "Then nobody knows. What difference does it 
 make?" retorted Lady Brenda, laughing. "And if 
 nobody knows how can any one know that I am 
 changed after talking to a dozen or so of intelligent 
 ghosts for a month, more or less ? " 
 
 " It has been more like a dream than a reality," 
 said Diana, with a little sigh. "Sometimes dreams 
 do affect our lives, for a little while. I think it is 
 strange that we should feel as we do about these 
 spirits, or manifestations, or whatever they are. We 
 all feel their unreality when they are gone, and yet 
 they are so much like living people that they do not 
 startle us when they appear." 
 
 " It is certainly very odd," Gwendoline remarked. 
 "And I wonder how they all chance to be together. 
 Do you remember our first dinner here ? We each 
 named some one whom we would like to see, and 
 most of them have come. Perhaps it is only a 
 creation of our brains." 
 
 " I was going to propose a moonlight sail this 
 evening," said Augustus. "What do you all think 
 of it? We can sail round the Galli, or the isles 
 of the Sirens whichever they are and if all these 
 ghosts have been the creation of our brains, why 
 then " 
 
 " We might see the Sirens themselves ! " exclaimed 
 Gwendoline. 
 
 " I wish we could hear them," answered Diana. 
 
 " If we do really, we shall have to send for 
 
278 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 keepers and turn your castle into a lunatic asylum !" 
 said Lady Brenda. 
 
 " I have had everything got ready for this evening," 
 replied Augustus. "We have only to go on board. 
 The sea is like glass and this queer breeze from the 
 rocks will carry us as far as we like to go all night 
 if we please. The natives call it faepuizza. The other 
 night a boat was nearly capsized by it, though the 
 water was like oil." 
 
 The party left the room and soon afterwards 
 reassembled on the terrace whence a flight of steps 
 led to the descent to the beach. They all stood 
 together for a moment and looked out at the quiet 
 sea. The moon was not yet full, but the light 
 was strong and clear, already high and casting few 
 shadows. 
 
 As they went down to the shore, walking carefully 
 over the rough path, they began to feel the cool air 
 that pours over the edge ot the land in a continuous 
 stream from sunset to sunrise, rushing over the water, 
 swiftly at first and then more slowly, till it floats out 
 silently into the night, tempering the heated surface of 
 the calm southern sea with a restful freshness. The yacht 
 lay less than fifty yards from the beach, mainsail and 
 topsail hoisted, only waiting for her passengers, ready to 
 slip her moorings from the buoy and glide away through 
 the silent moonlight. She was a large and beautiful 
 cutter, winner of many a race, and famous for her 
 doings on rougher seas than the Gulf of Salerno or the 
 Bay of Naples. A neat gig, manned by four men, was 
 waiting by a projecting rock that served as a landing, 
 
xiv WITH THE IMMORTALS 279 
 
 and in a few minutes the whole party was on board. 
 Augustus took the helm himself and the three ladies 
 established themselves upon chairs near him. The 
 men went forward and in a few minutes the yacht was 
 moving swiftly along, westward, towards the Campanella 
 and Capri. 
 
 Presently there were other forms upon the white 
 deck. One by one, the strange companions who had 
 become so familiar to the inhabitants of the Castello del 
 Gaudio, became visible, standing and sitting in various 
 attitudes, all grouped about the four living people at 
 the stern of the yacht. 
 
 " This is the river Styx, and I am Charon ! " 
 exclaimed Augustus. "Whither shall I ferry you? 
 Are the Isles of the Blessed near ? " 
 
 Then Augustus and his three companions heard a 
 sound that was not the rushing of the night wind 
 through the rigging, nor the swirl of the deep dark 
 water under the raking stern. It was a deep, mysteri 
 ous breath, more felt than heard, full of human sadness, 
 but without the reality a sigh takes from human 
 suffering. It came from the breasts of those shadowy 
 beings who had learned the great secret, but could 
 not impart it to the living with whom they lingered. 
 There was an infinite pathos in the expression of it 
 that deeply moved those who heard it. It floated 
 away into the night and was lost in the breeze, like a 
 last farewell, that echoes and is gone, while the 
 responsive heart-strings still quiver and repeat the 
 bitter music roused by that dear voice. 
 
 "The Isles of the Blessed !" said Heine, at last. 
 
280 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 "No, they are not near. Your ship cannot sail to 
 them." 
 
 " I wish we could all sail there together," said 
 Diana. " It would be so simple." 
 
 " Who knows ?" returned the poet, who was stand 
 ing beside her. " Only what we know is simple." 
 
 " And we know nothing," answered the young girl, 
 sadly. " I do not know certainly that you are not 
 one of my dreams. When I touch your hand and 
 find it cold, I may be asleep on the terrace at the 
 castle and my fingers may have fallen upon the marble 
 balustrade, or against a glass of cold water." 
 
 " Of course. And for all I know, I may be alive 
 still, dreaming that I am dead." 
 
 "That is impossible," replied Diana, quickly, "for 
 I have read of your death." 
 
 " You may have read it in your dream, or I may 
 be dreaming that you have dreamt it. But it has 
 been a very long dream !" 
 
 "Sir," said Dr. Johnson, "I will not permit 
 you to consider me a mere morsel of your dreams. 
 The unconscious ratiocination of your brain cannot 
 have the power to call into existence the personality, 
 and the sequences of memory and thought, by which 
 I know myself to be an individual being. If it could, 
 sir, I should talk like you." 
 
 " But I know something of your works and I could 
 very well imagine how you would talk. Nothing 
 proves to me that you are not my dream. Nothing 
 can prove to our living friends here that we are not 
 their dreams, especially if we should chance to send 
 
xiv WITH THE IMMORTALS 281 
 
 them to sleep, so that on waking they should find us 
 gone." 
 
 "Ay, the waking, sir, the waking!" repeated 
 Johnson, shaking his head violently from side to side. 
 
 Again that melancholy sigh trembled on the air 
 and then died away in the sound of the breeze. 
 
 " Why are you all so sad to-night ? " asked Lady 
 Brenda, who hated any thing approaching to melancholy. 
 
 "Indeed, madam, we have reason for sadness," 
 answered Francis, at last. " When you speak of such 
 
 things, I wish I were Bayard. Unfortunately " he 
 
 stopped short. 
 
 " You never could have been," said the lady, with 
 a smile. " Perhaps you would not if you could, or it 
 may be that you could not, if you had had the will." 
 
 " I do not know why your majesty should wish to 
 exchange with me." It was Bayard who spoke. 
 
 " A man would sacrifice much to leave behind him 
 such a name as yours," said Augustus, " a man without 
 fear and without reproach." 
 
 "Reproach had a different meaning in my time," 
 replied the knight, calmly. " I was no saint. I should 
 perhaps scarcely" pass muster in your modern society. 
 I went through life with one idea, or motto." 
 
 "What was that?" asked Gwendoline, quickly. 
 
 " Always do what you are afraid of doing it is a 
 good motto, I think." 
 
 " Yes provided it is not a wrong thing." 
 
 "The thing one fears to do is seldom bad," 
 answered Bayard. " Fear is the devil s barrier between 
 man and good deeds." 
 
282 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 " What a part in your life of to-day is played by 
 those ideas of right and wrong ! " exclaimed Caesar, 
 suddenly joining in the conversation. " When I lived, 
 the question was, whether an act was legal or illegal. 
 No man s conscience asked more than that." 
 
 "What did Horace mean, then, by his integer 
 vitce ? " asked Augustus. 
 
 "An honest man," replied Caesar. "That is, a 
 man who lived according to the laws. He adds 
 scelerisque purtis^ innocent of crime. The conjunction 
 of epithets explains everything. If one of your con 
 temporaries spoke of you as an honest man, he 
 would hardly think it necessary to add that you were 
 innocent of crime. The one term is now supposed 
 to contain the other." 
 
 " But you had also the religious idea. Fas and nefas 
 expressed it, as an equivalent to our right and wrong." 
 
 " Our religion, or our fifty religions, had very little 
 hold upon anybody in the higher classes. Fas came 
 to mean, generally, what you would call unwritten 
 law; that is, it meant the verdict of educated public 
 opinion, and included every kind of superstition as 
 well as every idea of social propriety. But what does 
 it matter how we thought ? Thoughts may go on and 
 change, but the end of life is the end of action, and 
 inaction is torment." 
 
 The calm intonations of his voice trembled a little, 
 as he spoke the last words, and he turned his face 
 away from the moonlight. 
 
 "And must inaction last for ever?" asked Gwen 
 doline, softly. 
 
xiv WITH THE IMMORTALS 283 
 
 "For ever, perhaps. Perhaps only until to-morrow s 
 dawn. Who knows? Not we, who walk between 
 three worlds, shadows, and less than shadows, 
 memories, and yet more than memories. Nor can 
 you know, you, who live, and can still find something 
 to do that has not yet been done." 
 
 " But where are the rest ? " asked Diana, after a 
 pause. "Where are the shadows of old time, and 
 the shadows of yesterday? Where is Achilles? 
 Where are the Sirens ? Where is the king who died 
 last year, the beggar who died last night ? " 
 
 "With yesterday, as we are you only are with 
 to-day, and the world may never see to-morrow." 
 
 " But that yesterday what is it ? where is it ? >f 
 
 " It is not. It has no reality, though it was once 
 real. It is a memory with those who knew it. For 
 those who knew it not, it is nothing, no more than 
 the shadow of a cloud that lingered a moment on 
 the hillside to-day." 
 
 "As for the -Sirens, their music is as sweet as 
 ever," said Chopin, gazing through the dreamy moon 
 light at the islets, now far astern of the yacht but still 
 clearly visible. 
 
 " If we could only hear them ! " sighed Gwendoline. 
 Then she laughed at the idea. 
 
 " Why not ? It is just such a night as they love." 
 
 " If anything could make the night more beautiful, 
 it would be music," said Lady Brenda. " But I am 
 afraid you are quite, quite mad, Gwendoline. Of 
 course the Sirens never really existed." 
 
 " Then why did people write so much about them ?" 
 
284 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 "Madam," said Dr. Johnson, "that which is 
 beautiful has a permanent existence, but those things 
 which are in contradiction to the nature of beauty, 
 are destined to perish and decay. Those who seek 
 to resuscitate, by the active exertion of their imagina 
 tions, the noble and elevating thoughts of forgotten 
 ages, will certainly obtain success in a measure pro 
 portional to their ability and industry ; but such 
 persons as lack the originality necessary to conceive 
 great works, the application which is indispensable 
 for their execution, and the faith in beauty, through 
 which alone the poetic inspiration can be conveyed, 
 are by nature unable either to revivificate the glories 
 of the past, or to contribute anything new to that 
 assemblage of eminently excellent things with which 
 mankind are already acquainted." 
 
 " But where there is the faith alone, there is always 
 the capacity for enjoying the beautiful," suggested 
 Gwendoline. 
 
 "Ah, my dear lady, you have it there !" answered 
 the doctor. " The faith is the thing." 
 
 " Then we might hear the Sirens after all. If they 
 were bad and cruel their songs were divine. We 
 might hear the song, even if we could not see the 
 women." 
 
 " I will go about when we are abreast of the cape, 
 my dear," said Augustus. " This breeze will end there, 
 and in coming back we will run under the islands." 
 
 " Oh, do ! " cried the two younger ladies in a 
 breath. 
 
 " It would be worth while to hear the Sirens and 
 
xiv WITH THE IMMORTALS 285 
 
 live to tell of it," said Heine. " How often I longed to 
 listen to the pixies and water-sprites ! I was always 
 sure that they lived somewhere in the green depths." 
 
 " But of course it is quite impossible," said Lady 
 Brenda, who was still incredulous. 
 
 " Nothing is impossible," answered the earnest 
 voice of Pascal. He was sitting at a distance from 
 the rest, apparently lost in a reverie, a look of wonder 
 ful peace upon his face. 
 
 " Really," returned Lady Brenda, " I always 
 thought everybody knew that a great many things are 
 altogether out of the question." 
 
 " Unusual things seem impossible until they 
 happen," answered the man of learning. "What 
 could seem more impossible to a human mind than 
 the creation of this world ? What more impossible 
 than its destruction ? " 
 
 " That is true. But we have grown used to the 
 world as we see it and know it. There are changes 
 imaginable in the world which look far less probable 
 than the final catastrophe the last day, as people 
 call it." 
 
 "There are things beyond this earth which none 
 of you can even imagine, and yet they have a very 
 real existence." 
 
 "The creations of the mind are as real as the 
 manifestations of matter," said Lionardo. 
 
 "Yes," assented Lady Brenda, "because they can 
 be printed in books, painted on canvas, or carved in 
 stone. Then they become real things." 
 
 " Pardon me. That is not what makes them real. 
 
286 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 Many great books were handed down for centuries 
 before even writing was invented, and they had a 
 tremendous influence over the human race." 
 
 " But words are almost things, after all, and if one 
 learns them by heart they are just like books." 
 
 " What are words ? " asked the artist. " They are 
 symbols of thought. Letters only represent words 
 by convention, and are symbols of symbols. The 
 reality lies in the ideas which all these symbols call 
 up to countless generations of men who hear the 
 words or see the letters. The idea is then the reality, 
 and the material part of a picture or a book is the 
 vehicle, not affecting the idea but communicating it 
 more or less correctly and completely to men." 
 
 " But if a picture is not a thing I grant you 
 the matter of the book where does the painter s 
 merit lie?" 
 
 " In knowing how to convey to you what he sees, 
 just as the poet s skill consists in making his thoughts 
 pass through your brain. The poet s ideas live longer 
 because the symbols which convey them can be 
 reproduced and are used by everybody. The artist s 
 symbols are his own, and no one else can use them 
 in the same way to express the same idea." 
 
 "We were talking about the Sirens," remarked 
 Heine, suddenly. " If we could only find their 
 symbols, as you call them " 
 
 " Music is not a symbol. It is an ever-living 
 reality," said Chopin. "It is a reality that makes 
 itself felt without being always defined." 
 
 " Your music is your thought," replied Lionardo. 
 
xiv WITH THE IMMORTALS 287 
 
 " You gave it shape by your skill, and thus transmitted 
 it to others. Therefore it is the symbol of your 
 ideas." 
 
 " The expression, not the symbol. There is a vast 
 difference between the two." 
 
 "The symbol is the means of expressing," argued 
 the artist. "A sequence of symbols constitutes a 
 whole expression." 
 
 " Not in music. The written notes are the 
 symbols. The strain of living music is the expression. 
 Otherwise you would have a right to say that I derive 
 as much pleasure from looking over a page of music, 
 because I know how it would sound, as I get from 
 actually hearing the same music performed." 
 
 " That is true," said Lionardo, thoughtfully. " Is 
 music after all the greatest of the arts ? Perhaps it is." 
 
 " No," answered Chopin. " As great as the rest, 
 but not greater. But it is more real, because in music 
 the expression is inseparable from the idea. You 
 cannot imagine a prose translation of music. And 
 yet there are prose translations of poems, which are 
 still capable of moving the heart; and there are 
 copies and drawings of pictures and statues, which 
 still give some part of the pleasure a man would feel 
 in seeing the original. You either hear music, or you 
 do not hear it. There is no compromise for the 
 uninitiated, like a translation, nor any substitute for 
 those who cannot enjoy it directly, such as copies or 
 drawings." 
 
 "Music is like action," said Caesar. "What is 
 the description of a great deed, compared with the 
 
288 WITH THE IMMORTALS CTIAI. 
 
 deed itself? What is an action that is only thought 
 of and never performed ? Nothing, unless it furnish 
 a little matter for speculation, and inquiry into its 
 possibility." 
 
 " And love," suggested the king, " what is it, until 
 a man feels it ? It is like music that has never been 
 sung." 
 
 " Music is love, and hate, and peace, and war, 
 and all great passions and great deeds," replied 
 Chopin. " It is the only art which can express every 
 thing that is infinitely noble and grand, and yet which 
 need never define anything." 
 
 " Sir," said Johnson, " music suggests that which 
 cannot be expressed, nor defined either, by any art 
 with which man is now acquainted. Nevertheless, 
 it is instructive to observe, that those pleasing aspira 
 tions, which harmony is so eminently capable of 
 inspiring in the human heart, are only awakened in 
 certain hearers whose organisation is especially fitted 
 to receive a musical impression. To my mind, sir, 
 music is not even a cheerful noise ; but I once heard 
 certain solemn music played on French horns at 
 Rochester, and the impression made upon me was of 
 a melancholy kind." 
 
 " If you were affected by the sound of a French 
 horn," remarked Heine, " it is impossible to say what 
 you might feel if you heard a Siren." 
 
 "We shall see, sir," replied the doctor, curtly. 
 
 " I hope so," said Gwendoline. " Do you not 
 think we could go about now?" she asked, turning 
 to Augustus. 
 
xiv WITH THE IMMORTALS 289 
 
 "Yes," he answered. "It will be safer, too. 
 There is something brewing down there in the south 
 east." 
 
 He whistled to the men forward to mind the jibs, 
 and he put the helm down. A man came aft imme 
 diately to manage the sheet, as the cutter s head 
 came up to the wind. Augustus expected to see him 
 start with astonishment at the sight of the strange 
 guests. Then, glancing round, he saw that they had 
 disappeared. 
 
 " Let her go a little free of the wind," said Heine s 
 voice, as the breeze caught the sail and the vessel 
 went over on to the port tack. The sailor instinct 
 ively obeyed the order, allowing a few feet more of 
 the sheet to run through the blocks, but he turned 
 his head sharply round, and stared at Augustus. 
 
 " Excuse me, sir, but did you give that order, 
 sir ? " he asked, in queer tones. 
 
 "No well it s all right, Jameson. You can 
 make fast. And keep your eye on that stuff down 
 there," added Augustus, pointing to the clouds that 
 were piling up over the Calabrian hills. 
 
 "Ay, ay, sir," answered the man, somewhat reas 
 sured. He went forward again, and as he disappeared 
 the figures of the dead men became once more clearly 
 visible in the moonlight. 
 
 "You nearly frightened the fellow out of his wits," 
 said Augustus, with a laugh. " I thought that when 
 you had disappeared you were gone altogether, and 
 could not have made yourselves heard." 
 
 "We are never gone," replied the poet. "But 
 u 
 
290 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 the power of your currents it diminishing. You 
 yourself will soon no longer see us, nor hear us. I 
 wonder that my voice could still reach that man who 
 is not in the same chain as you." 
 
 "Are you really going? So soon?" asked Diana 
 in sorrowful surprise. 
 
 "Very soon too soon," answered Heine, sadly. 
 
 Again that deep and melancholy sigh swelled, hovered 
 on the breeze and floated away over the rippling water, 
 as though it were itself a spirit burdened with grief, 
 that sought rest and found not where to lay its head. 
 
 For a long time there was silence. As the yacht 
 ran farther from the land the night wind lost its 
 strength, and the vessel moved slowly in her course. 
 Almost unconsciously Augustus steered for the three 
 sister islets. The moon s rays caught the uneven 
 surfaces of the rocks and made them stand out of 
 the white distance. Though the cutter seemed to 
 be hardly moving, the islands came nearer and nearer, 
 and gradually grew more distinct. At last the sails 
 hung idly down, flat and unstirred by any breath. 
 The shore was now not a hundred yards distant and 
 the yacht had scarcely any way on her. At less than 
 twenty yards from the beach she stopped, and lay 
 motionless in the perfect calm. 
 
 The shore was low and flat, covered with dark 
 wet sand in which the moonlight found tiny points 
 of reflection, that glistened like diamonds. In the 
 background, and at both ends, the rocks rose up 
 in weird, irregular shapes, full of deep black shadows. 
 A little way down the beach a row of jagged timbers 
 
xiv WITH THE IMMORTALS 291 
 
 stuck out of the sand, and were all that remained of 
 some poor fishing vessel wrecked long ago. 
 
 But as the eyes of all on board gazed at the quiet 
 scene, three moving figures grew up out of the misty 
 moonlight. Three white women sat grouped together 
 on a projecting boulder, three women wonderfully 
 fair, and each so like the other, that their faces were 
 as one face seen from three different aspects. Their 
 hair, golden, even in the moonlight, seemed wet with the 
 sea water, and their lips were red with life. As they 
 looked out to seaward their deep eyes gleamed like a 
 constellation of soft southern stars. One of them 
 held in her hands a coral pipe with two stems, the 
 other a tiny lyre made from a conch shell ; the third 
 clasped her ivory fingers together and sat between 
 the others, her lips just parted as though her song 
 were trembling to come forth. 
 
 "The Sirens," said Gwendoline under her breath. 
 But no one else spoke, and all was still. 
 
 And so, as the white-winged vessel lay motionless 
 in the enchanted moonlight, those three pale faces 
 were turned upwards, and from the mysterious lips 
 there issued a wild and changing harmony, and words 
 of a half-forgotten speech, which by some strange 
 magic were yet wholly understood by those who 
 
 heard : 
 
 The moonlight bathes the sea 
 And the ripples wash the sand, 
 The song of our hearts goes free 
 Down the shelving silver strand. 
 Neither goddesses are we, nor women, 
 Nor angels nor spirits of death ; 
 
292 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 We are maidens of evil omen 
 
 And we breathe the sea spray for our breath. 
 
 The gods love us not in heaven, 
 The souls of drowned men in hell 
 Curse us, from morn till even, 
 For the songs we sing so well. 
 We are neither alive nor dead, 
 We know not of death nor of life 
 But the life of man is our bread 
 And the tears of widowed wife. 
 
 When the Mother of all, before the light, 
 Laboured to bring forth gods to Chaos, 
 Wrapped in the pall of ancient night 
 No mother had we in her bosom to lay us, 
 To dandle and fondle, caress us and nurse us, 
 For we sprang out of moonlight and soft sea mist 
 And we sing that the sailors may love us, and curse us, 
 And die in the song of the lips they have kissed. 
 
 In the thick darkness the ages moaned 
 When the Mother travailed, the shapeless god, 
 The awful father, Chaos, groaned 
 Shaking the vaults of space as he trod. 
 Then the Mother laid hold on the pillars of night 
 And bowed herself and shrieked aloud, 
 Till the firmament rocked beneath her might 
 And split, and was rent into streamers of cloud ; 
 The broad black waste of space was torn, 
 The arch of heaven was burst to the day, 
 The sun leapt up, and the gods were born, 
 And Chaos the father passed away. 
 
 But gods and men have bodies and souls, 
 And they live and they know that their lives are sweet, 
 While the dear sun shines and the blue tide rolls 
 While the heart is full and the pulses beat. 
 
xiv WITH THE IMMORTALS 293 
 
 The beasts of the forest, the flocks on the mountain, 
 The bright-winged birds and the fish in the deep, 
 All drink of the water of life s clear fountain 
 All die at the last and are lost in sleep. 
 
 We are bodiless, spiritless, mingled together 
 Of the rays of the moon that deceive men to sin, 
 Of the spray of the sea and the salt sea weather, 
 Of mists out of depths that suck men in. 
 Our hands are transparent as white alabaster, 
 Our fingers are skilled to the holes of the pipe, 
 Our song swells sweet, as the oars dip faster 
 And the long ash bends in the sailor s gripe. 
 
 While the strange voices from the shore were sing 
 ing their unearthly song, the great clouds in the south 
 east had grown blacker and more angry. A small 
 portion of the mass, detached and driven by some 
 upper current of wind, far to westward, obscured the 
 moon. A cool stream of moist air rushed over the 
 water, low and swift, not reaching the yacht, where she 
 lay in the lee of the rocks, but crisping the water at 
 the end of the little island and making the ripples ring 
 against the jagged stones. Suddenly a bright flash of 
 lightning illuminated the distant cloud -bank and a 
 far-off peal of thunder rolled out through the night 
 and reverberated along the shores of the great gulf. 
 Louder and clearer, faster and wilder, the song of the 
 Sirens swelled in the gloom : 
 In the crags of the south the dark cloud-heaps are piling up 
 
 mountains, 
 
 The storm slaves of ^Eolus howl to be loosed from their caves, 
 The dark depths of the waters well up from their fathomless 
 
 fountains, 
 From the brooding breast of the sea, and the womb of the waves. 
 
294 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 There is sullen wrath in the voices that distantly rumble, 
 
 In the dark, the white plumes gleam and flash, as the sea-horses 
 
 plunge 
 Through the masterful waves and the billows, that heavily 
 
 tumble 
 Where the storm-riders charge into battle, meet, buffet and 
 
 lunge. 
 
 The sharp screech of the swift -streaming storm cleaves the deep 
 
 sounds asunder, 
 
 And the blade of the lightning stabs the deep sea with a dash, 
 Then the wail of the wounded waves is drowned in the thunder 
 That bursts out and rumbles and roars down the track of the 
 
 flash. 
 
 The wild tide, massed in mountains of back-driven waters de 
 fiant, 
 
 Rears, towers and totters, then falls all its terrible height, 
 
 Roaring forward and pounding the shore like a great, maddened 
 giant 
 
 Tossed out of the caldron of storms to devour the night. 
 
 In the crashing and flashing of thunder and blazing lightning 
 The whirlpools are rattling the ships like dice in a bowl, 
 The taut weather shrouds are all parting, the wet rigging tighten 
 ing 
 
 Snaps like grass at the blocks and drags down by the board at 
 each roll. 
 
 In the match between gods and sea-giants for souls of sailors 
 The stiff triple-reefed sail bursts the bolt-ropes and sprains the 
 
 slant yard, 
 While the slave in his chains, doomed to drown at his oar with 
 
 his jailors, 
 Bows his back and pulls desperate strokes in the dark, straining 
 
 hard. 
 
xiv WITH THE IMMORTALS 295 
 
 For the sea is Death s garden and he sows dead men in the loam, 
 When the breast of the waters is ploughed like a field by the 
 
 gale, 
 
 When the ocean is turned up and rent in long furrows of foam 
 By the coulter and share of the wind and the harrow of hail. 
 
 The distant thunder gradually subsided, as it so 
 often does in those southern seas, borne away in a 
 new direction by the changing currents of the wind. 
 The streamer of cloud, that had hidden the moon for 
 a lew moments, now disappeared and showed her far 
 down upon the western horizon. Her beams fell full 
 upon the white, supernatural beauty of the sisters faces. 
 Suddenly their song changed, and twining their smooth 
 arms about one another s necks they moved slowly 
 forward till they stood on the edge of the sand, so 
 that the gently rippling water washed their gleaming 
 feet. And thus they sang : 
 
 Hail, summer s moon, pale with soft deathly love ! 
 The silent stars, thy messengers and slaves, 
 Thy faithful linkmen in the roads above, 
 Show thee the paths that lead o er dead men s graves 
 O er the great grave of all, through which they drove 
 Their raking craft, mid storms and lashing waves, 
 Hither, whence dying gales on languid wing 
 Waft seaward through the night the song we sing. 
 
 Come, weary mariners ! Come, tired souls, 
 Faint with the watch and labour of the sea, 
 With tugging at the oar where mad surf rolls, 
 With staring for the light upon the lee, 
 Worn out with waking when the watch-bell tolls 
 Here is the land you seek ! Rest and be free ! 
 Slack sheet and halyard, furl and stow your sails, 
 Smooth gleams the harbour and the storm wind fails. 
 
296 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP. 
 
 Long have you toiled upon the hard oak seat, 
 Your limbs are stiff and aching with the blast, 
 Your hands are cramped with grasping the wet sheet, 
 Your eyes are dim with watching from the mast 
 For some faint light amidst the driving sleet ! 
 Now sinks the storm, now is the tempest past. 
 Run the long ship securely on the sand, 
 Stretch your strong limbs and leap upon the land ! 
 
 The moon is low, the heavy hours that toiled 
 
 So slow about the dial of the night, 
 
 When wave yawned back from wave, and hissed and boiled, 
 
 Bathe now their crystal coronets in light. 
 
 Poseidon s trooping monsters now have coiled 
 
 Their slimy length to sleep, far out of sight. 
 
 To distant depths subsides the storm-god s roar 
 
 And tuneful ripples tinkle on the shore. 
 
 Think not, as o er the swinging ash you bend, 
 
 These rocks too rough, or this wet strand too cold ! 
 
 Dread not the reef, as with long sweep you send 
 
 Your ship abeach ! Nor keel, nor laden hold 
 
 Shall grate upon one sea-shell that offend 
 
 The smooth long planks, the deep sweet sand shall fold 
 
 Your tired bark as in a sea-bird s nest, 
 
 And on our velvet shore your limbs shall rest. 
 
 Fear not the shadows flitting in the gloom ! 
 Think not that some forlorn, unhappy ghost, 
 Of mariner unburied, from his doom 
 Has risen to haunt the crannies of our coast ; 
 Nor that from unknown depths of ocean s tomb 
 Dead men come back, a ghastly, dripping host ! 
 Those are not faces, those dim forms are wreathed 
 In ivory moonlight through the sea-mist breathed. 
 
 Nay shrink not ! These are not white bleaching bones 
 Of drowned men that is not a sailor s skull 1 
 
WITH THE IMMORTALS 297 
 
 The moonbeams paint strange pictures on the stones 
 
 That jagged thing is not a rotting hull ! 
 
 Lend not your ears to melancholy tones 
 
 Blown out of low-mouthed caves when tempests lull ! 
 
 Our song is soft, our voices swell, our lips 
 
 Shall teach you sweet things, e er the young moon dips. 
 
 Look on us maids, for we are young and fair ! 
 
 Nor misty as we seem ; a woman s arm 
 
 Is warm and smooth, and pillowed in her hair 
 
 A sailor s weary head may rest from harm. 
 
 What ? Are ye men, and do you then not dare 
 
 To yield your bodies to a woman s charm ? 
 
 Ah, mariners ! we love you let these tears 
 
 Warm your chilled hands and melt away your fears ! 
 
 Waste not your looks on shadows, in our faces 
 Read the sweet signs and oaths of woman s love ! 
 Read, that these hearts are yours, these sea-born graces, 
 These lips of ours, that kissed the gods above 
 This golden hair, tangled in misty laces 
 Fine as the Lydian web Arachne wove 
 All yours, love s kisses and entrancing powers ! 
 Yours, and in being yours, we make you ours ! 
 
 The gods, exiled beyond this sweet earth s life, 
 Envied the love withheld from cold immortals, 
 And longed for love and hope, and human strife, 
 Till, gazing down from heaven s golden portals, 
 They burned to clasp a breathing, living wife. 
 So love we you, ye brave and strong-limbed mortals 
 Half goddesses, our hearts can never tire 
 All earthly, womanly with love s soft fire 1 
 
 It is not true that we were born of spray, 
 Mingled with moonlight glancing on the water ! 
 Where silent Pindus rears up to the day 
 His tree-crowned head, Melpomene, dark daughter 
 
298 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP 
 
 Of deathless Memory, paused in her way, 
 
 E er Heracles, half mad with rage and slaughter, 
 
 Had fought with Achelous in that glade 
 
 Whence the great river plunges through the shade. 
 
 The lofty maid, the dark -browed Tragic Muse 
 Lingered and, loved the fountain of the river 
 As the day fainted. Then the rising dews 
 Wetted the arrow Love drew from his quiver 
 And made it heavy-winged its flight refuse. 
 At half its range the shaft, with tremulous shiver 
 Struck full upon the breast of the great stream 
 And piercing deeply stirred love s first wild dream. 
 
 Up rose the mighty torrent in white mist 
 And in his strong wet arms the maid entwined, 
 Bathed her black tresses and her dark cheek kissed. 
 Clasping her to him, as though he would bind 
 Her heart to his, he bore her where he list, 
 To distant depths, wherein the ocean kind 
 Received their godlike loves in deep-sea room 
 Where waves are still and nameless beauties bloom. 
 
 She was our mother. Here, upon these rocks, 
 She brought us forth amid the ocean s roar, 
 And wrung the sea salt from her raven locks, 
 Singing to seaward down the sounding shore. 
 Here, where the wild sea-bird our music mocks, 
 She left us, through the sunset clouds to soar 
 High on white wings, in springing arch of flight 
 Toward the transcendent homes of heavenly light. 
 
 She taught our lips the strange entrancing strains 
 That draw men down to join the shadowy throng. 
 She taught us how to weave and wind wild chains 
 Of sounds about men s ears, sweet, soft and strong- 
 She gave us of love s fire, that love s life drains, 
 She left us all her heaven-born gift of song. 
 
xiv WITH THE IMMORTALS 299 
 
 Rest, mariners ! The moon sinks to the deep 
 
 While we breathe songs and kisses through your sleep. 
 
 The moon already touched the low sea line, and 
 the great shadow of the yacht s sails fell upon the 
 darkening shore. Suddenly there was a stir in the 
 water and the long dark shape of a strangely-fashioned 
 vessel, dim and indistinct amid the half-light, loomed 
 up from the water, gliding swiftly and making noiseless 
 circles in the sea, as though propelled by an unseen 
 power. Augustus felt an icy chill run through his 
 frame. A cool breeze began to fill the sails of the 
 cutter, and carried her slowly away from the island. 
 Chard grasped the helm mechanically, gazing back at 
 the faces of the Siren sisters, and at the moving 
 shadow of the ship, straining his ears to catch the last 
 words of their song. Once more their voices rose, 
 full of a fateful, passionate temptation : 
 
 The sweep and the splash of the strokes come nearer, 
 The dull quick knock of oars swung in the tholes, 
 Till the white faces gleam in the moonlight clearer 
 Of sailors who sell for our song their souls ! 
 
 The dark ship looms in the brightness above us, 
 The long keel grates on the deadly strand, 
 The strong white bodies of men that would love us 
 Leap from the bow to the soft wet sand ! 
 
 Our arms go round them, our cold lips wound them, 
 . Our sweet song lulls them to rest and sleep. 
 
 With our breath, and the mist of our breath, we have drowned 
 
 them, 
 Just as the moon sinks into the deep. 
 
300 WITH THE IMMORTALS CHAP, xiv 
 
 We have silver lips, and hearts of lead, 
 
 To kiss and caress till the sailor is dead, 
 
 To soothe him and breathe on his curly head, 
 
 To drain his blood till his soul is sped, 
 
 To blow the sea-foam o er the dead man s bed, 
 
 When the stars are dark and the moon is fled 
 
 From the deep sea. 
 
 The wild strains died away like a dirge on the cool 
 air as the yacht ran swiftly forward. The moon was 
 gone, but another light was on the water. The east 
 was already blushing, and the fair Dawn Maiden 
 scattered her rose-leaves in the path of the coming 
 morn. 
 
 In their deep chairs, Lady Brenda, Gwendoline 
 and Diana sat motionless and pale, while Augustus, 
 paler even than they, stood upright and held the helm. 
 But the shades of the dead men were gone, and the 
 living were alone together in the cool peace of the 
 stealing twilight. 
 
 THE END 
 
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