IIIJil^'u.^'iJilllllllirllJiniililiUiJiiillliUiiniilliiiiililiJiililiillliliillliiiniiliUUIIIMiliill^
 
 w^
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS
 
 PAN AND 
 THE TWINS 
 
 BY 
 
 EDEN PHILLPOTTS 
 
 AUTHOR OF "ivANDIr" 
 
 I 
 
 NEW YORK 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1922 
 
 J J J 
 i i J
 
 Printed in Great Britain 
 
 » I. i t I t ^ < 
 
 t t I c c c t < 

 
 'PR. 
 5(7 7 
 
 'i 
 
 Y CONTENTS 
 
 I CMAPIKK 
 
 y*^ I. In the Campagna . 
 
 II. The Father of Arcadius 
 
 III. Of Emperor Valentinian 
 
 IV. Gloom 
 o V. " Innocence," the Bear 
 * VI. The Advent of Ceres 
 
 CJ 
 
 ^VII. HiLARION 
 
 VIII. The Cavern by the Broo 
 
 IX. The Convert . 
 
 X. Tragedy . 
 
 XI. A Compact 
 
 XII. Suspense . 
 
 XIII. The Way Out 
 
 XIV. They Gird Themselves 
 
 fACE 
 I 
 
 19 
 
 39 
 
 54 
 69 
 
 88 
 
 106 
 
 125 
 
 138 
 
 164 
 
 179 
 200 
 
 216 
 
 235 
 
 K 
 

 
 IN THE CAMPAGNA 
 
 DARK athwart the purple twiHght of 
 the Campagna there stretched an 
 aqueduct bearing sweet water to 
 Rome. The flight of its arches echpsed newly- 
 risen stars and sprang aloft from among reeds 
 and thickets, where danced the fire-fly and 
 croaked the frog. 
 
 At the foot of a stone pier, huddled together, 
 bruised and suffering from many blows and 
 many wrongs, there sat a ragged lad. His 
 face had been beautiful save for the grief 
 upon it ; but it was stained with tears and 
 distorted with pain. The boy was dark-eyed, 
 with a delicacy of feature and a brooding 
 thoughtfulness of expression akin to the 
 sculptors' Antinous. Now, however, tribula- 
 tion concealed his good looks, and he wept 
 again at the hopelessness of his position. 
 B I
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 The stars ascended from their eclipse behind 
 the aqueduct and the young moon set ; but 
 it was scarcely dark, for another day already 
 loitered behind the mountains. 
 
 Then came a precious shape out of the 
 gloom, and Pan, plodding through the night- 
 hidden Campagna, stood above this miserable 
 lad. 
 
 It was, indeed. Pan himself — the Pasturer, 
 son of Zeus and Callisto. He came, a stalwart 
 shape with shaggy breast and arms, puck-nose, 
 bright horns and genial countenance — man 
 and animal one — with the all-seeing eyes of 
 divinity. His syrinx hung over his shoulder 
 and about his head there streamed a halo of 
 adoring fire-flies, that moved as he moved. 
 
 " And what is the matter with you, human 
 boy ? " asked the god mildly. 
 
 The youngster instantly recognising that 
 august presence, was too alarmed immediately 
 to answer. He fell upon his knees and Pan 
 patted his thick, black hair. 
 
 " Why, Arcadius, do you weep in this un- 
 manly fashion ? " he inquired. 
 
 2
 
 IN THE CAMPAGNA 
 
 n 
 
 Very dreadful things have happened, 
 Mighty One," answered the youth, " and I 
 cannot forbear to shed tears, for all happi- 
 ness and hope have departed out of my 
 life." 
 
 " At fifteen years of age there is still hope," 
 replied Pan. " Relate your tale, and I shall see 
 if you tell it truly." 
 
 He sat dow^n, crossed his hairy thighs and 
 waited for the boy to speak. 
 
 " I was slave to Caius Crassus and worked 
 in his vineyards until to-day," began Arcadius. 
 " But this morning, as ill-luck willed, I fell 
 into prayer and had set this — your image — 
 upon a stone, and was worshipping before it 
 when my master entered the vineyard and 
 surprised me." 
 
 From his wallet he produced a little figure 
 of Pan coarsely carved on a piece of walnut 
 wood. 
 
 The god examined it. 
 
 " Not an inspiration," he said, " yet doubt- 
 less the artist meant well." 
 
 " I will destroy it now that I have seen you 
 
 3
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 with my own eyes, Mighty One," answered 
 Arcadius ; but his deity prevented him. 
 
 " Keep it," he replied ; " the puppet will 
 serve to remind you of a day worth remem- 
 bering." 
 
 " I shan't forget this hour in a hurry," 
 answered the lad. " My grief may be for- 
 gotten, not my God." 
 
 " Proceed with your story then." 
 
 " Caius Crassus is a Christian and uneven 
 tempered ; but he seldom beats us. Un- 
 fortunately, however, while I lifted my 
 prayer, sundry accursed goats, who know you 
 not, strayed in the vines and did much evil. 
 Observing this, my master terribly chastised 
 me — my back is bruised and I am still aching 
 all over. Nor is that the worst, for Caius 
 Crassus cast me out and willed that he should 
 never see my face again. Thus life is ended, 
 and I hope that I may presently die and 
 be no more." 
 
 " To pray is good," answered Pan, " and to 
 pray to me was not amiss ; but to pray to me, 
 when you ought to be working for somebody 
 
 4
 
 IN JHE CAMPAGNA 
 
 else, only proves that you have not yet grasped 
 the nature of things. Your prayer to me was 
 uttered at the expense of your duty to Caius 
 Crassus ; and such devotion is of doubtful 
 lustre. I heard, however, and I was aware of 
 the sequel. But henceforth do not address 
 yourself to me, when you should be about 
 other business." 
 
 " I have no ' henceforth,' Great God," 
 answered Arcadius. " I do not want to go on 
 living. Life without happiness — there is no 
 charm in that." 
 
 " Like all young things, and middle-aged 
 things, and even old things, you are greedy of 
 happiness," answered Pan, " and I am the last 
 to blame you ; but happiness is a difhcult 
 subject, Arcadius, concerning which I will 
 expound the truth on another occasion. For 
 the moment you need healing and consolation. 
 To the broken boy a sound skin is happiness, 
 therefore, so far, be happy ; to the hungry 
 boy a full skin is happiness, therefore, so far, 
 feel joy." 
 
 The god lifted his great hand, stroked the 
 
 S
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 bruises of Arcadius and healed them ; while 
 delight mantled the lad's face at feeling him- 
 self whole ; and then Pan touched the earth, 
 whereupon appeared a cake of wheaten bread, 
 a wedge of honeycomb, four great red plums 
 and a handful of chestnuts. 
 
 He watched Arcadius eat and smiled, even 
 as a kindly mortal will smile to see youth 
 feeding with good appetite ; but his counten- 
 ance appeared to be melancholy and his divine 
 thoughts tinged with gloom. This the boy 
 perceived, for he was an observant lad. 
 
 " Sorrow is upon your face. Mighty One," he 
 ventured to say ; " but I will never make you 
 sorry again. I will be good and worship at the 
 proper time in future, and work hard if I can 
 find a master." 
 
 " Sorrow is upon my face, as you declare," 
 answered Pan, " for a sufficient reason. To-day 
 though Rome knows it not as yet, there has 
 fallen the Emperor. He expired far off be- 
 yond the Tigris after defeating the armies of 
 King Sapor." 
 
 " JuHan ! " cried the lad. 
 
 6
 
 IN THE CAMPAGNA 
 
 " A Persian spear has ended that remarkable 
 Hfe and turned the hour of triumph into 
 mourning," answered Pan. " He who sup- 
 ported our altars against the Time Spirit has 
 vanished and an evil day is dawning for the 
 gods, a worse for the goddesses. With Julian's 
 passing, our temples must presently be shut 
 and deserted ; the Christians will pardon, or 
 seek revenge, according to their natures. 
 Therefore I am sad while, with proleptic eyes, 
 I gaze into the future." 
 
 " The Emperor Julian fallen ! " 
 
 " Nobly he fell, with his face to the foe, 
 and never man spoke worthier words before 
 his spirit fled," replied Pan. " About him 
 assembled Oribazius, his physician, and the 
 sages, Priscus and Maximus, of Ephesus, with- 
 out whom he travelled not. There came also 
 Hormizdas Lucilian, Sallustius, Jovian and a 
 young centurion of the imperial horse, Am- 
 mianus Marcellinus, who in time to come will 
 win fame as an historian of these events. Thus, 
 then, did the dying Caesar address them, while 
 with lowered heads and falling tears they 
 
 7
 
 PAN AND THE "TWINS 
 
 mourned his fate. ' I have learned from 
 philosophy,' said Julian, * how much more 
 excellent is the soul than the body, and that 
 the separation of the nobler substance should 
 be the subject of joy rather than of affliction. 
 ... I die without remorse, as I have lived 
 without guilt. ... I have considered the 
 happiness of my people as the end of govern- 
 ment.' Observe, Arcadius, that Julian, too, 
 thought upon happiness — for others. Though 
 he had been forewarned that by the sword he 
 must die, the Emperor hesitated not to lead 
 his armies against the national foe. And what 
 does he say at the last ? ' I now offer my 
 tribute of gratitude to the Eternal Being, who 
 has not suffered me to perish by the cruelty 
 of a tyrant, by the dagger of secret enemies, or 
 the tortures of disease.' Nor did Julian name 
 another to follow him in the purple. With 
 virile wisdom he left that great task to the living 
 and allowed no dead hand to weight their 
 councils. ' As a good citizen,' said he, ' I shall 
 only express my hopes that the Romans may 
 be blessed with the government of a virtuous 
 
 8
 
 IN THE CAMPAGNA 
 
 sovereign.' So Julian departed off the earth 
 and was united with the stars and Apollo, the 
 Lord of Light." 
 
 Pan ceased for a time, and Arcadius con- 
 sidered these great matters. Then his god 
 turned to the lad's affairs. 
 
 *' I shall now," he said, " relate your history, 
 which it becomes essential you should know." 
 
 " I only remember that I had a little twin 
 brother," replied Arcadius, " and we were 
 separated when still very small." 
 
 *' The facts are these," explained his deity. 
 " Your father, Marcus Pomponius, a good and 
 kindly man, loved your mother, Aurelia ; but 
 she being a daughter of the people and he a 
 patrician, it was not convenient that he should 
 wed her. Aurelia died when you and your 
 twin brother came into the world, and your 
 maternal grandmother, who hated Marcus, 
 looked to it that his children should see 
 Pomponius no more. He much desired to 
 make the world a pleasant place for both of 
 you ; but he was prevented from doing so, 
 and though he endeavoured to find you after 
 
 9
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 his great grief at your mother's death, good 
 care was taken that he should not. He there- 
 fore erected a handsome stele to the beautiful 
 Aurelia, who was buried in his own grounds 
 and not among the folk, mourned her with 
 bitter tears, prayed the gods to bless her in 
 Hades, and presently married Placidia, the 
 daughter of Scribonius Spartianus. With 
 Placidia and his mother, the matron Latona, 
 your father now dwells at his famous villa on 
 a spur of the Sabine Mountains nigh Tivoli. 
 And thither you must seek him. Proclaim to 
 him that you are his son, and let him know 
 that Pan has sent you. Should he doubt, 
 permit him to see my gift ; then he will doubt 
 no more." 
 
 " Your gift is eaten, Great God," answered 
 Arcadius, licking his lips. 
 
 " My gift has yet to be given," replied Pan. 
 " Briefly, you shall be privileged to understand 
 the speech of all things of the pad and hoof and 
 wing. This will be useful knowledge in the days 
 to come, and such an accomplishment must 
 convince your parent, if indeed your remarkable 
 
 10
 
 IN THE CAMPAGNA 
 
 likeness to your mother fails to do so. But 
 fear not : he will receive you with genuine 
 delight. He has no family, and his wife is a 
 Christian. Himself he worships the Great 
 Mother, Rhea-Cybele, and entertains an affec- 
 tion for me also. Indeed a considerable part 
 of his domain is at my service, and I often 
 wander there and bless his flocks and herds. 
 For the present, farewell. The gods, Arcadius, 
 care not for crowds. Their highest entertain- 
 ment is found in watching a single body and 
 mind working alone. Thus I shall follow 
 you, and I trust you to remember it and give 
 me nothing but pleasure. Meet me here in 
 six months' time, when Jovian reigns and 
 Julian lies in his last, long sleep beside the 
 crystal founts of Cydnus. The philosophers 
 will demand that his body should rest in the 
 groves of the Academy ; his soldiers will 
 clamour to join his warrior ashes with those 
 of Caesar in the Field of Mars. Seldom has the 
 dust of a king awakened such competition." 
 
 Arcadius ventured to speak before the god 
 departed. 
 
 II
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 " Do you know my brother, Mighty One ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 " I do," answered Pan, " and it is seemly 
 that you should think upon him. He is become 
 a Christian from force of circumstances, and 
 promises to be a very good one. When you 
 were sold for a handful of silver denarii to 
 Caius Crassus, your twin brother was received 
 into the household of Cassius P. Lucanus. 
 But he liked it not and ran away." 
 
 " Shall I ever see him again ? " inquired 
 Arcadius, and Pan promised that he might 
 expect to do so. 
 
 " In years to come you will meet," he 
 answered. " And now go upon your way. 
 Enter Rome to-morrow, and in the market- 
 place you shall see a man with a cart and black 
 horse. Beg for a lift to Tivoli, and his heart 
 will be touched to grant it. From his destina- 
 tion anybody will direct you to the Pomponian 
 lands." 
 
 Grateful Arcadius knelt down, kissed the 
 hoof of the god and went his way ; but he 
 had not proceeded a hundred paces when he 
 
 12
 
 IN THE CAMPAGNA 
 
 heard Pan's syrinx, for the guardian of living 
 things had lifted the reed to his lips and now 
 wailed a melancholy dirge to the Shade of 
 departed Julian. 
 
 And at that sacred sound, the creatures of 
 the night pricked ear and set forth on speedy 
 paws, that they might salute the god. Many 
 hastened past Arcadius, who would have 
 questioned them, to learn if indeed he had 
 received the divine gift of animal understand- 
 ing ; but lynx and pard, fox and brock, rats 
 and mice, great buffaloes, does and little fawns 
 all hastened so swiftly that he might not 
 address them. 
 
 Then came a huge tortoise — Pan's own beast, 
 dedicate of old time to the god — and though 
 he lumbered along at his best pace, it was not 
 difficult for Arcadius to move beside him. 
 
 " Tell me, good friend," said he, " are you 
 a happy tortoise ? " 
 
 And the reptile understood, but since his 
 intellect was too small to feel surprise at being 
 questioned by a human boy, replied in a matter- 
 of-fact tone. 
 
 13
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 " I am two hundred years old," he said, and 
 appeared to think no farther answer was 
 needed. 
 
 Arcadius walked three miles and then, 
 beyond the range of Pan's melancholy piping, 
 the animals were about their own affairs and 
 in no hurry, for never a wild beast hastens 
 unless there is need to do so. 
 
 The boy stopped a vixen fox and put his 
 former problem. 
 
 " Are you a happy fox ? " he inquired ; and 
 the creature understood and was rather pleased 
 to be questioned. 
 
 " I might easily be," she answered, " though 
 as a fact I am not. We foxes are a sequestered 
 people without any sense of large friendship 
 and communion. We mate and live alone. We 
 seldom see our neighbours, and make no offer 
 of amity when we do. No other fox visits my 
 den ; no mother compares her cubs with mine, 
 or exchanges the news, or even passes the time 
 of day. We keep ourselves to ourselves, and 
 when our young are grown, they go out into 
 the world and we see them no more. The life 
 
 H
 
 IN 7 HE CAMPAGNA 
 
 of a fox, therefore, is lonely, for a husband is 
 not society — and children cannot take the 
 place of neighbours, gossip, company. There- 
 fore being by birth a fox, though at heart un- 
 foxlike, gregarious, intensely sociable, convivial 
 and hospitable, I am disappointed, because no 
 opportunity arises or can arise for the display 
 of my gifts. The unusual are, as a rule, un- 
 happy. You may have noticed that." 
 
 " You ought to have been another person," 
 said Arcadius. 
 
 *' Exactly," answered the vixen. 
 
 " It seems a common state of things," con- 
 tinued the boy. 
 
 " That makes it no better," replied she. 
 " To kill the fatted calf for friends ! To gather 
 a whole party of foxes and entertain them and 
 be entertained ! How admirable an experi- 
 ence ! But it is denied me, because normal, 
 vulpine nature hates parties and, in any case, 
 I know not a soul to ask." 
 
 " I might visit you some day and tell you 
 the news," said Arcadius, and she thanked 
 him, but not warmly. 
 
 15
 
 PAN AND "THE TWINS 
 
 " It wouldn't be quite the same thing," she 
 explained. 
 
 " I suppose not," he answered. Then he 
 bade her good night and walked toward the 
 walls of the city. 
 
 Here, protected from wild beasts by shep- 
 herds standing silent like sentinels round 
 about, there ranged the flocks and herds of 
 Rome ; and presently Arcadius found himself 
 among slumbering sheep, that breathed heavily 
 in the darkness and minded not the summer 
 dew upon their fleeces. One moved to turn 
 over and her the lad accosted. 
 
 " Are you a happy sheep ? " he asked, and 
 the sheep, who was sleeping badly, but pos- 
 sessed patience and even intelligence, explained 
 that she was not. 
 
 " I might be," she said, " but temperament 
 makes my lot not such as I would most desire. 
 I should have loved a lonely life of retirement 
 and contemplation. I look up to yonder hills 
 and envy the creatures who can go all day and 
 night without seeing a fellow-being. Silence, 
 peace, solitude : these are my dream. But 
 
 i6
 
 IN THE CAMPAGNA 
 
 they can never be mine, because I belong to a 
 people not happy out o£ sight of each other, 
 and only strong in the strength of a multitude. 
 I am one of a timid folk who love to hear each 
 other's voices, shake beyond sound of the bell- 
 wether and feel that in union is their sole 
 security. I cannot roam away and live the life 
 I would live ; because, if I attempted to do 
 so, strange and savage enemies would interfere 
 with my contemplation, slay me and rend me 
 for their food. Such, my child, is life. We 
 must, in fact, wear our coat according to our 
 wool, and accept the conditions that alone 
 sustain our well-being, even if we dream of 
 others better suited to our ideals." 
 
 " You would not care to come for a long 
 and lonely walk sometimes — with me to pro- 
 tect you ? " suggested Arcadius, and the sheep 
 regarded him humorously. 
 
 " A shepherd I know, and a shepherd's dog 
 I know ; but who are you ? " she asked. 
 
 Then she satisfied herself that a hundred 
 neighbours were within call, turned over and 
 wooed slumber again. 
 c 17
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 Arcadius also felt a need of sleep. His eye- 
 lids were closing over his wonderful brown 
 eyes, and Somnus led him to a mossy stone, 
 where he might repose until morning. For 
 the city gates were fast shut and they would 
 not open till the dawn. 
 
 With a prayer of thanksgiving to Pan, he 
 curled upon his couch, heaved a great sigh of 
 contentment, thought upon the death of the 
 Emperor and slept until heaven had grown 
 white again above the Alban Hills. 
 
 i8
 
 II 
 
 THE FATHER OF ARCADIUS 
 
 THE magnificent villa of Marcus Pom- 
 ponius stood on a southern slope of 
 the Sabines in the midst of a great 
 estate. Vanished members of this patrician 
 family had added to and adorned the mansion 
 for several generations, and it was now become 
 one of the most famous in the neighbourhood 
 of Rome. The gardens were noted for their 
 superb fountains, but many a mile of the domain 
 still lay in the lap of nature, and it was a tradi- 
 tion in the Pomponian race that this must so 
 remain, at the wish of Cybele expressed to the 
 founder of the clan in the Augustan age. 
 
 Marcus Pomponius was a mild and intelli- 
 gent Roman of no distinction whatever. He 
 inclined to art and literature — was indeed him- 
 self said to be writing a book, which he found 
 a very present help in time of trouble ; and, 
 
 19
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 for the rest, lived as quietly as circumstance 
 allowed and mingled but little in the social 
 festivities or civic life of the capital. He gave 
 a dozen banquets of state during the year, and 
 had once entertained Julian himself. 
 
 After the sad aifair v^^ith the mother of the 
 twins, he married, that the Pomponian name 
 might be carried forward ; but children did 
 not bless the alliance, and as a result Placidia, 
 his wife, fell back whole-heartedly upon re- 
 ligion. She was a Christian, and in those 
 days a cool logic, won from Greece, made it 
 possible for husband and wife to worship 
 different deities without grief or pain to either. 
 Thus Marcus spent much time in the noble 
 temple to Rhea-Cybele that adorned his chest- 
 nut wood, while Placidia prayed elsewhere with 
 the early Christians and drove once a month to 
 Rome, that she might worship with her co- 
 religionists at this or that basilica. Latona, 
 the mother of Marcus, shared his opinions and 
 prayed to his goddess. 
 
 Mother and wife adored the undistinguished 
 man ; both loved every hair on his head ; and 
 
 20
 
 THE FATHER OF ARCADIUS 
 
 both, out of their deep but unimaginative 
 affection, had already turned every hair grey. 
 Between them Marcus found life to be diffi- 
 cult, and he was often needlessly let and 
 hindered. When friends desired him to travel 
 and set forth on adventures, he would say that 
 he had enough of adventure at home. Both 
 ladies knew that he was delicate and needed 
 care ; but they differed radically as to treat- 
 ment. His mother coddled him in her old- 
 fashioned way ; his wife was always urging 
 him to take more fresh air, more exercise and 
 less stimulant. He liked them both, and ad- 
 mired their high Roman qualities, their dignity 
 and their sense of what became them and him- 
 self ; but he had long ceased to love either of 
 them, save academically. They did not under- 
 stand him, or the slight beauty of mind that 
 belonged to him. Instead, his mother urged 
 him to set a higher standard of form and cere- 
 mony and take himself and his exalted position 
 more seriously ; while his wife was ambitious 
 and constantly urged him to abandon his 
 secluded habits and seek place and power, as 
 
 21
 
 PAN AND 7HE TWINS 
 
 befitted his high rank, great riches and famous 
 ancestry. He fell back on his health, which in 
 reality began to be far more precarious than 
 anybody imagined. His temperament was 
 lymphatic and his vitality low ; whereas his 
 mother enjoyed a fulness of life much greater 
 than her age of five-and-sixty years, and his 
 spouse, Placidia, had been wrongly named, for 
 a more energetic, bustling, tireless woman 
 never lived. She was thin and wiry ; her 
 beauty faded quicklier than she imagined, and 
 her rather stern, amber-coloured eyes seemed 
 too large for her face. She wore her wonderful 
 fair hair in a fillet, above which it towered to 
 a top-knot. It was of a hard brilliance, and 
 looked more like metal than hair. Her voice 
 was also metallic. She suggested a brilliant 
 but songless bird. 
 
 Latona presented an extreme contrast to her 
 daughter-in-law. Her proportions were most 
 generous, her gestures sculpturesque, her move- 
 ments slow and dignified. She dyed her hair, 
 and time had not abated the deep and gong- 
 like throb of her majestic voice. She spoke 
 
 22
 
 THE FATHER OF ARCADIUS 
 
 slowly, as a big bell rings slowly. Her carriage 
 was exceedingly august, and she lacked humour 
 or any interest in anything small. 
 
 Marcus Pomponius was too thin and always 
 felt chilly in consequence. He suffered from in- 
 digestion and often endured a twinge of gout, 
 which made him testy for the time ; but when 
 it was past, he begged everybody, down to the 
 least slave, for forgiveness. He would chat 
 familiarly with the domestics, which caused his 
 mother discomfort, and she regarded with in- 
 creasing uneasiness a democratic taint that ap- 
 peared in the mind of Marcus as he grew older. 
 
 Now he walked his magnificent atrium 
 among bronze and marble statues of great 
 ancestors, and wondered whether a sense of 
 tightness about the midriff was an incipient 
 cold, or merely the result of too much tunny 
 with his morning repast. 
 
 " I have observed before that tunny goes 
 ill with white wine, and I ought to have 
 remembered it," he said to himself. " Now 
 I shall not enjoy my prandium."^ 
 ^ Prandium, luncheon. 
 
 23
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 Then came old Brutus, his factotum, and 
 saluted the master. 
 
 " There is a ragged herd-boy at the outer 
 gate, who begs for speech with you, Marcus 
 Pomponius," said the ancient man. 
 
 " A herd-boy — speech with me — how 
 strange ! " answered Marcus mildly. 
 
 " He appears to be well favoured and civil 
 spoken ; he declares that you would not 
 willingly turn him away." 
 
 " Life is full of puzzles, Brutus. Here am 
 I reflecting on deep matters and the fate of 
 our Emperor in the Assyrian plains, and you 
 fall bluntly, brutally upon my reverie with the 
 fantastic news that a herd- boy would have 
 audience." 
 
 " I'll send him packing, Marcus Pomponius." 
 
 " Nay, bid him enter. I will see him. Im- 
 portant things often have their beginnings in 
 this unpretentious way. Doubtless he is the 
 messenger of a greater than himself." 
 
 " Shall I bid him to the bath before he 
 approaches ? " 
 
 " No, let him come as he is ; and talking of 
 
 H
 
 THE FATHER OF ARCADIUS 
 
 baths, I fear I dallied in mine too long, Brutus. 
 My heart is tired this morning." 
 
 " You will take it too hot, Marcus Pom- 
 pcnius." 
 
 The retainer withdrew and in two minutes 
 Arcadius stood before his father. 
 
 He had slept at a stony cave in the woods 
 after his journey from Rome and washed his 
 face and hair in a rivulet before approaching 
 the mansion. He was looking exceedingly 
 beautiful and radiant, but ragged. 
 
 " What would you with me, boy ? " asked 
 Marcus kindly. Then his eyes fell on the 
 countenance of Arcadius and he gave a gentle 
 start. 
 
 *' You remind me of somebody," he said. 
 " I have an amazing memory for faces, though 
 often fail to put a name to them. Be silent 
 and let me reflect." 
 
 The lad stood still awhile ; then Marcus 
 scanned his features and shook his head. 
 
 " I cannot bring you to my mind," he de- 
 clared. Whereupon Arcadius told his tale and 
 the other remembered. 
 
 25
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 " By Jupiter ! This is no lie — you are like 
 her — it was she — my tender treasure — my 
 Aurelia. There can be no doubt whatever 
 that you are her son ! " 
 
 Marcus was much moved. 
 
 He sat down at the base of the statue o£ 
 Titus Atticus Pomponius,his great-grandfather, 
 who had done important things in Africa, and 
 shed a few tears. 
 
 " God Pan sent me," said his child. 
 
 " Praise be to him then. This is undoubtedly 
 the most important thing which has happened 
 in my family for many years. This day of July 
 is sacred for evermore. But you had a brother ? 
 What of him ? " 
 
 " He is a Christian, and Pan says that we 
 shall some day meet again," answered the 
 lad. 
 
 " Henceforth, Arcadius, regard this as your 
 home," began the elder. " I am determined 
 on it. Nothing shall shake me. One must 
 have one's own way sometimes. I seldom 
 insist ; but this is a case when my will must 
 become law. Let me look into your eyes. 
 
 26
 
 THE FATHER OF ARCADIUS 
 
 Dear gods ! Your mother lives again in them. 
 Have you eaten any breakfast ? " 
 
 " No, Master." 
 
 " You have my permission to address me as 
 ' Father,' " said Marcus Pomponius, and the 
 MTord moved him again. Then he Ufted his 
 voice and summoned Brutus. 
 
 " Take this lad and feed him of the best," he 
 said, " then despatch Porphyrio for the tailor, 
 and see that the sleeping apartment next my 
 own is prepared. Brutus, old friend, this is 
 my ow^n boy, the child of — you understand." 
 
 Nothing ever surprised Brutus ; but Pla- 
 cidia was more easily astonished, and when 
 presently she hastened through the atrium on 
 her way to the store-house and heard this 
 amazing news, she showed an inclination to 
 disbelieve it. 
 
 " Moonshine," said Placidia, " some rustic 
 plot against us." 
 
 " It is true, great lady," answered the boy, 
 " and to show you that I tell truth, God Pan 
 has divulged to me a sad secret not yet known 
 in Rome." 
 
 27
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 " Pan ! You are a pagan, then ? " 
 
 " He was in the Campagna the night before 
 last ; he healed my bruises and sent me to my 
 father." 
 
 Placidia showed impatience. 
 
 " What next ? " she asked her husband. 
 
 " There can be no doubt," he answered 
 firmly. " His mother — you recollect — I have 
 an unfaltering memory for faces." 
 
 Placidia cast a look of something akin to 
 annoyance at the handsome lad. 
 
 " Juhan is dead," declared Arcadius. " The 
 Emperor has fallen beyond the Tigris. Pan 
 knew it and told me." 
 
 " If that, indeed, be true, I can forgive a 
 great deal," answered Placidia. " If that be 
 true, let the idolaters look to themselves ! " 
 
 She lifted a triumphant glance upward and 
 went her way, while the eyes and thoughts 
 of Marcus were cast down. 
 
 " Sorry news for Cybele," he murmured. 
 
 " It is true, most noble father." 
 
 " I believe you, my son. Did Pan name the 
 Emperor to be ? " 
 
 28
 
 THE FATHER OF ARCADIUS 
 
 " He did not." 
 
 Latona, when introduced to her grand- 
 child, regarded him with mingled f eehngs. He 
 was concealed from her until clad in rich 
 garments, anointed with perfumes and polished 
 up generally. She could not fail to admire his 
 extraordinary beauty, and she perceived a 
 likeness to her own husband, the grandfather 
 of Arcadius, which was hidden from the eyes 
 of her son. Decorum and propriety suggested 
 indifference ; but everything that was precious 
 to Marcus interested his mother, even though 
 she might not understand it, and at sight of 
 his joy and excitement over this remarkable 
 adventure, Latona had not the heart to say 
 much. 
 
 " He must be apprenticed to one of the 
 guilds," she suggested. But then Marcus 
 struck, with all the obstinacy of a gentle nature, 
 and both his parent and his wife perceived 
 that, for once, without any question whatever, 
 he was going to be master in his own house. 
 
 29
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 From the first he developed the quintessence 
 of fatherly devotion. A nature naturally affec- 
 tionate, which of late years had found little on 
 which to lavish its rich emotional, not to say 
 sentimental, quality, promptly bubbled over 
 for Arcadius. Masters were engaged to in- 
 struct him in elocution, rhetoric, deportment 
 and all the arts and sciences. He was received 
 into the family as a member thereof ; and it 
 said a great deal for the lad's native charm, 
 good sense and good nature that a position 
 which promised to be exceedingly com- 
 plicated brought no real discomfort for any- 
 body concerned. 
 
 Placidia perceived that Arcadius was a youth 
 of agreeable presence and high principle ; 
 Latona observed that the boy did his father 
 much practical good — took Marcus out of 
 himself, gave him something to think about, 
 added to his joy of life and made him far less 
 self-centred and solitary. Placidia, much 
 heartened in secret by learning the new Em- 
 peror, Jovian, was a Christian, endured the 
 addition to the family circle, and privately 
 
 30
 
 7HE FATHER OF JRCJDIUS 
 
 designed to win Arcadius to the true faith ; 
 Latona, discovering that the boy spoke with 
 Pan and was, indeed, to keep an appointment 
 with the god in six months, regarded him as 
 an object of some reverence. With her son 
 she shared the utmost uneasiness as to the 
 future of reUgion ; and the fact that Pan had 
 expressed gloomy forebodings on the same 
 subject, as Arcadius related, much troubled 
 both Marcus and the Roman matron. 
 
 Patrician tact and courtesy should have 
 prompted Placidia to conceal her own re- 
 ligious gratification. But she openly hoped 
 the Emperor might take a high hand in this 
 matter, and she was disappointed when the 
 worldly wisdom of Jovian prompted him to 
 a moderate course. Aifairs were doubtful 
 and dangerous when Julian passed, and the 
 new Emperor found his hands too full to raise 
 for himself any needless difficulty. 
 
 To Antioch came the opposing champions 
 of the new faith in myriads ; but they found 
 a war- weary ruler who, declining to take 
 either side, urged concord and charity on all. 
 
 31
 
 PAN AND "THE TWINS 
 
 Himself he professed and declared devotion to 
 the Nicene creed, and bid Athanasius reappear 
 from the fastnesses whither he had withdrawn 
 for safety under Julian's brief rule. 
 
 The saint assured his monarch that a long 
 and peaceful reign would reward such piety ; 
 but alas ! within a year the jovial Jovian ate 
 a doubtful mushroom and slept with his 
 fathers. 
 
 What says Neander upon the situation that 
 he had created ? He quotes with the approval 
 of all just persons the golden words of that 
 moderate Pagan, Themistius, and we venture 
 to set them here before leaving so serious a 
 subject. Thus he spoke to his sovereign ; and 
 the echo of his wisdom reverberated a little 
 while before it was silenced. 
 
 " The laws of emperors run scarcely longer 
 than their lives," declared Themistius, " but 
 the law of God remains for ever unchangeable 
 — that every man shall be free in reference to 
 his own mode of worship. This law, no pillage 
 of goods, no death on the cross, or at the 
 stake, can extinguish. You may kill the body, 
 
 32
 
 THE FATHER OF ARCADIUS 
 
 but though the tongue shall be silenced, the 
 soul rises to carry with it its own unconquerable 
 will." 
 
 Such sentiments and such freedom, for- 
 gotten for near two thousand years, are 
 beginning again to be remembered. 
 
 Arcadius kept punctual appointment with 
 his god, and Pan smiled upon him and observed 
 that he had grown. He promised indeed to 
 make a splendid man ; but there was already 
 in his expression that cast of thought too apt 
 to develop, where there is a brain, and ruin 
 the human animal prematurely. 
 
 " Are you as happy as when I healed your 
 stripes, my son ? " asked the deity, and 
 Arcadius answered in words that already re- 
 vealed a metaphysical nature. 
 
 " Happiness is never quite pure. Mighty 
 Father," he answered. " When you healed 
 me, the happiness of being healed was most 
 perfect and complete ; but it wore off." 
 
 " Custom is fatal to happiness," said Pan. 
 
 D 33
 
 PAN AND 1HE TWINS 
 
 " You can never be happy twice in exactly the 
 
 same manner," 
 
 " Happiness perhaps exhausts itself," sug- 
 gested Arcadius. " Then it is pain. I should 
 be happy — I am happy now — chappy in learn- 
 ing — happy in bathing, in eating, in wandering 
 through my father's woods. Above all, I am 
 happy in my father himself ; and yet from my 
 dear father himself comes unhappiness." 
 
 " Happiness is a butterfly that never settles," 
 answered Pan. " You have won great joy for 
 your father, and yet, out of him and by virtue 
 of your sonship with him, has come a new 
 unhappiness." 
 
 " I am unhappy because he is unhappy," 
 explained Arcadius. " He does not say so, yet 
 I am quick to see that from the great love they 
 feel for him, his wife and my grandmother 
 cause him to be a good deal distracted. They 
 love him very much indeed, but they love him 
 differently, and each thinks that the other loves 
 him in a mistaken manner. Thus they argue over 
 him and often make a good deal of noise. Then 
 each comes to seek his support against the other. 
 
 34
 
 THE FATHER OF ARCADIUS 
 
 But he is a man of peace, and finds himself 
 very often called to rush away to Rhea-Cybele 
 in his garden and kneel to the goddess, having 
 first locked the door of her temple. All this 
 is sad." 
 
 " I know," answered the god. " Thus, out 
 of your great and glorious translation has come 
 suffering, which as a fatherless slave you had 
 escaped. This is the very principle and heart 
 of all happiness : it is a bud which ever carries 
 within its scented petals a little worm. All 
 happiness, save one happiness, is constituted 
 thus." 
 
 " Indeed no, dear God ! " cried Arcadius. 
 " I can think of many happinesses that would 
 breed no worm to tatter them. When I am 
 wise I shall learn how to reach perfect happi- 
 ness. But even in learning what is happiness, 
 there is sorrow too." 
 
 " How so ? " inquired Pan. 
 
 " When I was all fool," answered his little 
 one, " then I escaped the sad knowledge of my 
 folly ; now that I am beginning to be taught 
 wisdom, I shed tears to think what a fool I am. 
 
 35
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 It is a strange and sad fact about learning that 
 the more I glean, the vaster remains the store 
 yet to be gleaned." 
 
 " Even so," admitted Pan. " Learning is a 
 hoard from which the greater your filchings 
 the mightier appears to be the mass. But let 
 this not make you unhappy. You have some 
 talent and a cheerful disposition. Learning, 
 rightly digested, will make of you an optimist ; 
 if it curdle in the stomach, as so often happens, 
 then you will be a pessimist and a sterile thing. 
 Therefore do not sigh, as the avenues and de- 
 files of your ignorance yawn wider and wider 
 before you, but go forward in patience, 
 remembering that to know yourself for a fool 
 is the first step to wisdom. Lighten your 
 father's heart, do his will and please the ladies 
 with your singing and good cheer. To be 
 young is a great accomplishment in itself, and 
 the boy who can help his elders to feel young 
 again is doing well and justifying his existence. 
 Most boys only succeed in making their elders 
 feel still more old. Avoid this. And remember 
 that for you are open channels into wisdom 
 
 36
 
 1HE FATHER OF ARCADIUS 
 
 denied your fellow-boys. That was my gift : 
 that you should gather from the bird and beast 
 a measure of understanding they have won in 
 a harder school than yours and from stricter 
 taskmasters than rap your knuckles with their 
 rulers." 
 
 " I do talk to the things," said Arcadius. 
 " But they are so simple. I asked a nightingale 
 why it sang yesternight, and all it answered 
 was, ' Because I'm a nightingale.' " 
 
 " The deepest knowledge is the simplest," 
 declared Pan. " Know you how some men 
 learned the use of the wheel and so promoted 
 their powers of locomotion a thousandfold ? 
 In the beginning of days a savage with genius 
 perceived the wind blowing an empty shell 
 over the sand, and he observed that the shell 
 sped faster than all other things driven by the 
 gale. By a miracle of intuition he perceived 
 that this gift lay not in the shell but its quaUty 
 of roundness. Hence a discovery as great as 
 any recorded. Another savage in another land 
 perceived that the sun and moon made won- 
 drous haste through heaven, and judged that 
 
 37 
 
 a6135G
 
 PAN AND THE "TWINS 
 
 in their rotundity lay the secret of their speed. 
 He fashioned a moon of wood therefore and 
 marked how it flew over the green grass. Then, 
 fitting two moons to his sledge, he astounded 
 his kinsfolk and immediately became a god. 
 Many gods have done far less for man than 
 that." 
 
 Thus Pan beguiled a twilight hour, and then 
 Arcadius knelt and kissed his hoof, promised 
 to visit him again when he should receive a 
 direction to do so, and went home. 
 
 38
 
 Ill 
 
 OF EMPEROR FJLENTINUN 
 
 A RCADIUS found that his father 
 / % constantly stole away from the sharp 
 JL .Ml. edge of family discussions to the book 
 that he was writing ; and this in time became 
 a sort of watchword or warning between the 
 boy and his parent. Thus Arcadius would 
 sometimes leave Placidia and Latona in the 
 heat of fierce altercations for love of Marcus, 
 intercept his parent and whisper, " I should 
 do a bit of my book this morning, father." 
 Whereupon Marcus would vanish and escape 
 the argument ; while at other times Marcus 
 himself, struggHng with difficulty from the 
 fires of feminine affection, might meet Arcadius 
 and say, with all due solemnity, " I shall be 
 about my book till vesperna,i ^y son." 
 
 The boy made good progress at his own 
 1 Vesperna, the evening raeal. 
 
 39
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 studies and proved a promising student. He 
 desired before all things to read, that he might 
 understand the poets of whom Marcus so 
 often spoke. He was industrious, yet spent a 
 measure of his time on the hillside and learned 
 much from the birds and beasts. Nor did the 
 reptiles deny him. The lizards were a simple 
 people, and their ideals seemed ill-adapted to 
 a human boy in the fortunate position of Arca- 
 dius ; but the serpent stored wisdom for her 
 friends as well as poison for her enemies. 
 
 When Arcadius met this creature, she had 
 just reheved herself of her old skin and shone 
 very beautifully in oHve, gold and russet- 
 brown. She was not without her vanity ; 
 therefore she crept to the mirror of a still 
 pool, that she might view the bands and 
 diamonds of her new gown. And on the thorn 
 tree, hke a wisp of spun glass, her cast-off 
 garment hung. 
 
 The boy congratulated the snake on her 
 appearance, and in her didactic fashion she 
 pointed a moral for him. 
 
 " Always remember," she said, " that even 
 
 40
 
 OF EMPEROR FALENTINUN 
 
 thorns are useful things. You perceive how 
 they assisted me to wriggle from my outworn 
 robe ; and prickles, such as philosophers 
 provide, serve well to help the discarding of 
 those worthless garments in which we are too 
 wont to dress our minds. I refer to prejudice, 
 error, stupid opinions and such-like. But the 
 stern philosophers use their thorns without 
 thought of their bitter sharpness ; only the 
 artist hides his dagger in beauty, as do the 
 fragrant furzes. His thorns you must for- 
 give. 
 
 " I am learning to read as fast as I can," 
 declared Arcadius. 
 
 The serpent trickled away, to show herself 
 to one who loved her, and the boy rambling on 
 met a carrion crow, who was walking up and 
 down in evident excitement. He nodded his 
 head to himself and appeared well satisfied 
 with life. 
 
 " You look pleased, carrion crow," said 
 Arcadius. 
 
 " I am," said the carrion crow. " I have 
 every reason to be." 
 
 41
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 " Then I am pleased also," answered the 
 boy. " What's the luck ? " 
 
 But the dark bird showed suspicion. 
 
 " It's my luck, not yours," he answered. 
 " I've found a deer that will be dead to- 
 morrow ; but I'm not going to tell you where 
 he is." 
 
 " I don't want to know — unless I can make 
 him well," answered Arcadius. 
 
 " There's no question of recovery," replied 
 the carrion crow. " And you needn't ask for 
 particulars, because I'm going to peck out his 
 eyes when he's gone, not you. Finding is 
 keeping in a case of this sort." 
 
 " Poor deer," answered Arcadius, and he 
 felt dislike against the soot-coloured speaker 
 because his habits were rude. And yet he 
 learned something, for when men and women 
 in days to come were sly and hid from him 
 silly little secrets, which he had no desire to 
 learn, he remembered the carrion bird. 
 
 Arcadius proved a very great joy to his 
 father. Indeed Marcus Pomponius, from a sort 
 of twilight life which he cared not how soon 
 
 42
 
 OF EMPEROR VALENTINIAN 
 
 would darken into night, found life to be worth 
 living again and was never half so happy as in 
 the company of his son. 
 
 The hoy reflected Marcus in his love for 
 beauty and peace, and he resembled his dead 
 mother also in the charm of his presence and 
 avidity for joy. 
 
 Together they would sometimes creep away 
 and place rare blossoms on the stele of Aurelia. 
 Marcus was composing a verse for the memorial, 
 and had indeed been polishing his thought for 
 years ; but the advent of Arcadius caused him 
 to begin all over again. 
 
 He sent messages for Pan, on the occasion of 
 his son's next visit to the god, and also con- 
 veyed a gift from the Pomponian kitchen, 
 arranged in secret with Brutus. Pan accepted 
 the present and promised at a future date to 
 visit Marcus in his own grounds, at a spot 
 where oleanders made the thicket pink above 
 a stream. 
 
 Of the ladies, in process of time their first 
 regard for Arcadius abated ; and this from no 
 fault of his own. Latona, though ponderous 
 
 43
 
 PAN AND TEE TWINS 
 
 and patrician to a degree, was o£ quick mind, 
 and she perceived that the boy had done for 
 her own son much that she had desired to do 
 and failed. Marcus found his prime pleasure 
 with the youth ; Arcadius was ever upon his 
 lips and in his mind ; for the lad he would do 
 a thousand things that Latona had failed to 
 make him. In a word, she began to feel there 
 was a Httle too much Arcadius about the villa. 
 And yet to quarrel with him would have been 
 both unreasonable and beneath her dignity. 
 But her maternal love was wounded and, 
 according to custom, she took it out of Marcus 
 Pomponius himself. 
 
 " I perceive this child is coming between 
 us," she said. " I sadly miss your old devotion, 
 Marcus." 
 
 She sighed massively. 
 
 " I change not," she continued ; " but it 
 is hard to feel that my place can be taken by 
 this bright young thing — untried, unknown. 
 I hope you will never live to regret it, or feel, 
 as you make me feel, that the failure of a child's 
 love is the keenest agony a parent can know." 
 
 44
 
 OF EMPEROR VALEN11N1AN 
 
 He winced at this little stab and assured her 
 that she was mistaken. He was, in truth, an 
 extraordinarily good and faithful son, and he 
 racked his brains after Latona's third remon- 
 strance and redoubled his filial attention. But 
 it was tiring, and her reproachful eyes tortured 
 his sensitive spirit ; her sighs hurt him quite 
 as much as she desired they should. 
 
 Placidia adopted a different line. The 
 situation, naturally enough, was peculiarly 
 painful for her ; but she did not mourn, or 
 weep about it. She took it cynically and lost 
 no opportunity to remind Marcus that the 
 debonair youth was an achievement on the 
 wrong side of the blanket and, as such, not to 
 be much regarded. Her husband disliked this 
 attitude intensely. He would have preferred 
 that Placidia should have viewed the situation 
 from his own angle ; and in process of time 
 she was constrained to do so ; because upon 
 this subject, while pliant as usual on every 
 other, the master of the house abated no 
 shadow of his determination. 
 
 The Roman law kept within the dictates of 
 
 45
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 humanity even as early as a.d. 364, though to 
 this day there is a barbaric island wherein such 
 little ones are still " the sons of none " — a 
 fiction that the State, the Law, the Church 
 continue to support while civilisation shud- 
 ders. 
 
 It became exceedingly clear that Arcadius 
 was destined to succeed his father and carry 
 on the Pomponian line — a situation that the 
 mother of Marcus received with mingled 
 emotions, while Placidia hid hers, after trying 
 without success to turn her husband from his 
 purpose. 
 
 Marcus Pomponlus went to court, to pay 
 homage to Valentinian, the new Emperor of 
 the West. He was a majestic monarch — a 
 warrior, whose incomparable feats in Africa 
 and Britain had won him the love of the 
 soldiery and a very handsome fortune. Bold 
 and wise and worldly wise proved Valentinian. 
 He had no Greek, never finding time to learn 
 that language ; neither did he waste his wind 
 in rhetoric ; but he always knew exactly what 
 he wanted to say and seldom failed to make 
 
 46
 
 OF EMPEROR VALEN'TINIAN 
 
 his meaning nakedly apparent. He distrusted 
 the pagan gods, but being too good a soldier 
 to criticise on grounds of faith, Julian had 
 employed and honoured him. Merit raised 
 Valentinian to the absolute government of the 
 Roman empire at five-and-forty years of age ; 
 he set his brother, Valens, in the throne of the 
 East and then applied himself to his own task 
 with the immense energy, concentration and 
 foresight that had made him a great man. 
 
 Marcus, in his white toga, with Arcadius for 
 page, greeted royalty amid the patricians and 
 received a gracious welcome. He was naturally 
 interested in the religious question and agree- 
 ably surprised to learn that, despite his own 
 views, Valentinian did not propose to tyrannise 
 in this matter. Against magic and witchcraft, 
 however, he set his face very strongly. He 
 believed in the potency for evil of spells and 
 incantations, and punished such things with all 
 his might. At a hint of sorcery his passions 
 conquered him and the sinner died horribly. 
 His appetite in this unfortunate matter grew 
 by what it fed upon, and when he was not 
 
 47
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 fighting his country's enemies, Valentinian 
 pursued a policy of suspicion and private per- 
 secution that caused his subjects much suffering 
 and uneasiness. 
 
 " In fact the Emperor would make a very 
 good tiger," said Arcadius, on one occasion, 
 when Marcus was discussing Valentinian pri- 
 vately with his son. 
 
 " And meantime," answered Marcus, " he 
 is a very good Christian. Ferocity cannot be 
 denied him, but neither can a keen sense of 
 justice and a fair measure of tolerance for those 
 who follow the old creed in a respectable and 
 orderly manner. To be master of the world is 
 a situation which demands the utmost sym- 
 pathy and forbearance. At the same time one 
 laments his propensity for pouncing — tiger-like 
 again — on the most harmless and well-meaning 
 people. He kills his subjects needlessly — from 
 the highest motives, but on insufficient grounds. 
 His immense vitality shortens the vitality of a 
 great many other people." 
 
 " Tell me more about him," said Arcadius, 
 who always loved the speech of his father. 
 
 48
 
 OF EMPEROR VALENTINIAN 
 
 " Valentinian affords an amazing example of 
 the manner in which good and evil are mixed 
 in our human clay," replied Marcus. " Con- 
 sider his greatest friends — those who stand 
 foremost in the imperial regard. First there 
 is Maximin, that ruthless man of blood, whose 
 cruelties stain the age and who, for his slaughter 
 of our noblest and best, has won the Emperor's 
 affection and the prefecture of Gaul. Next 
 in order come a brace of hyperborean bears. 
 Oh, melancholy thought that the annals of a 
 great monarch shall be blotted by these two 
 ferocious ministers of crime ! Fierce they are 
 and insatiable of blood. He keeps them in 
 cages near his own bedchamber, and gratifies 
 his baser nature with the spectacle of male- 
 factors thrown alive into their horrible em- 
 braces. They are named ' Innocence ' and 
 * Mica Aurea,' and their royal master himself 
 superintends their diet, their exercise and their 
 toilette." 
 
 " I will go and talk to ' Innocence ' and 
 ' Mica Aurea,' " declared Arcadius, but his 
 parent forbade him. 
 E 49
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 " Even if you were permitted to do so, 
 grave harm would result," he answered. " You 
 who grow to wisdom and understanding in the 
 cult of Pan, might prevail with these bears 
 and temper their native brutality ; but rest 
 assured that any falling off in that particular 
 must awaken acute suspicion in the monarch. 
 He would at once smell witchcraft — with 
 results for yourself, my son, we need not 
 dwell upon." 
 
 " I will not go and see ' Innocence ' and 
 ' Mica Aurea,' " promised Arcadius. 
 
 His parent then proceeded : 
 
 " Now consider the reverse of the medal 
 and learn how contrary is man's nature. This 
 same Valentinian, who loves Maximin and 
 sleeps within sound of the growl of his bears 
 and the howls of their unhappy victims, has 
 done — what ? He has condemned and for- 
 bidden the exposing of new-born infants — a 
 practice I have long deplored. He has estab- 
 lished fourteen skilful public surgeons and 
 physicians in the fourteen quarters of Rome. 
 He, knowing his own lack of education, has 
 
 50
 
 OF EMPEROR VALENTINIAN 
 
 promoted with liberality the instruction of 
 our youth. He smiles upon professors as well 
 as bears, though, for that matter, professors 
 themselves are often bears enough. These dis- 
 pensations extend to the Provinces also, and 
 there is a joyful though tremulous stir among 
 the learned. Long may it last ! And finally — 
 an everlasting honour — he declines all theo- 
 logical debate. He declares himself the 
 sovereign, not the slave, or shuttlecock, of his 
 clergy. Pagan, Jew, Gentile — in fact every- 
 body — is permitted to save his soul in his own 
 way. He is exceedingly — many will say dan- 
 gerously — large-minded, and has actually sanc- 
 tioned the Eleusinian mysteries to the Greeks. 
 Even I have always felt a little qualm about 
 the Eleusinian mysteries. But then I do not 
 love the Greeks and never did. If Valens can 
 keep the religious factions as happy in the East, 
 it will be good news. I doubt his power, how- 
 ever. There is already a spice of persecution in 
 the Christians of the East, and one hears of 
 unpleasant self-assertion among the Arian pre- 
 lates. At Alexandria and Constantinople the 
 
 51
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 Arians force their Sacrament down the throat 
 while the mouth is held open with pincers ; 
 the breasts of women are crushed with leaden 
 weights and branded with red-hot iron to the 
 glory of God ; in the Church of the H0I7 
 Apostles the Arians and the Orthodox have 
 fought so horribly that their blood has flowed 
 in a torrent down the steps of the western 
 fagade into the market square. And one 
 Sebastian at Alexandria has caused virgins to 
 be beaten with thorn branches till many 
 perished. This battle is over a simple letter, 
 an iota. They embrace the divinity of the 
 Holy Ghost and much resent the attitude 
 of other princes of the new Church, who 
 decline to do so. The Arians have baptised 
 Valens, however, and that should determine 
 the matter in their favour." 
 
 Then a fit of coughing checked the flow of 
 his discourse. Arcadius brought his father 
 fruit and patted him on the back, so that 
 presently the elder caught his breath again, 
 
 " And should you think Valentinian was a 
 happy Emperor ? " asked the boy. 
 
 52
 
 OF EMPEROR VALENTINIAN 
 
 " He is happy in his duties, my son ; but ex- 
 ceedingly unhappy in his recreations," answered 
 Marcus Pomponius. " People have an idea 
 that if they do their duty, happiness will follow 
 as a matter of course. But this is not so. 
 Valentinian knows it and seeks happiness with 
 his bears, ' Innocence ' and ' Grain of Gold.' 
 He is a very great man undoubtedly, but not 
 great enough to abandon the myth of happi- 
 ness. Yet only youthful or second-rate minds 
 pursue this false fire, and when we see middle- 
 aged folk trotting industriously and even hope- 
 fully after happiness, we appraise their parts 
 and put them in their places. The adult sheep 
 no longer dances on the pasture, and the calf, 
 not the cow, gambols with its four legs in the 
 air together. Shall we be less intelligent than 
 they ? " 
 
 53
 
 IV 
 
 GLOOM 
 
 MARCUS POMPONIUS kept his 
 household gods in the temple of 
 Rhea-Cybele. They had stood of 
 old within the atrium, but Placidia did not 
 much like them there, and at a time when 
 they had been married but a few months, to 
 please his wife was easier for Marcus than 
 now. Therefore the Lar — a bronze statue to 
 Tiberius Pomponius, the founder of the clan 
 — and the Penates — two gracious but archaic 
 figures of red granite, bearing garlands — were 
 all removed. And now they would be moved 
 again, for the father of Arcadius had built a 
 new and fair house of white marble and cedar, 
 richly adorned and dedicated to Pan. He knew 
 that his son must worship here, and learning 
 from Valentinian himself that there was no 
 objection, raised this beautiful temple and 
 
 54
 
 GLOOM 
 
 transferred the household gods thereto, that 
 they might be under the eye of Arcadius in 
 years to come. Pan himself consented to visit 
 the dwelling raised in his honour. 
 
 At dusk, when the great night moths were 
 sucking honey from the garlands, he came, 
 sat with Arcadius and his father for an hour 
 and ate some of the yellow figs for which the 
 fruit gardens of Pomponius were famed. 
 
 Pan praised his temple and approved the 
 piety that had raised so beautiful a monument. 
 
 " It may interest you to learn," he said, 
 " that this is the last sanctuary made by the 
 hands of man that will ever be erected to me. 
 Other temples I shall continue to have ; but 
 here is the final memorial to be lifted by the 
 purpose of devout mankind." 
 
 He spoke with that directness and lucidity 
 which is proper to godhead. Indeed when 
 discussing Marcus to his face, Pan caused him 
 some uneasiness, for the good soul, while he 
 knew the truth of what he heard, had covered 
 up these facts with the decency of a patrician, 
 who likes not to wash his dirty linen in public 
 
 55
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 company, or even in private thought. His 
 position he accepted and merely hoped that 
 other people were not so much alive to it as 
 himself. But Pan spoke forthrightly. 
 
 " You must not expect to live much longer, 
 Marcus Pomponius," he said. " Your vitality 
 was somewhat low from the beginning, and 
 you have been hen-pecked and mother-ridden 
 for fifteen years. The ladies, who love you 
 so well, both enjoy a superb fulness of life, and 
 between the upper and nether millstones of 
 their devotion your attrition is nearly complete. 
 The idolatry of your mother and the worship 
 of your wife have, in fact, added twenty years 
 to your existence. In a measure the fault is 
 your own. Latona should have gone to the 
 dower house when you wedded ; and you knew 
 it ; but these things will be as they will, and 
 you could not modify your own weak disposi- 
 tion, or take precaution against your perils. 
 You have, however, the satisfaction of knowing 
 that the gods will last your time ; but Arcadius 
 must live to seegrave changes. You havcescaped 
 much. Placidia and Latona never fought for 
 
 S6
 
 GLOOM 
 
 your soul. That might have happened ; but 
 our early Christians still echo the tolerance 
 and patience which mankind inherits from 
 philosophy. This will quickly pass from them 
 with access of power. The new religion must 
 harden into authority and freeze into tyranny, 
 for the strong are seldom patient or tolerant, 
 and Christianity will not long endure to see 
 devout spirits at any altars but her own." 
 
 " I would perish for Rhea-Cybele," declared 
 Marcus. 
 
 " You will not be invited to do so," answered 
 Pan. " To die for a dying cause wins no fame, 
 since there are none to applaud. Julian will 
 be exceedingly unpopular for the next two 
 thousand years or so, because he sought to 
 breathe life into the moribund." 
 
 " Does it matter ? " asked Arcadius. 
 
 " To the fame of Julian, yes," answered 
 Pan. " Indeed there are clouds now forming 
 to drift so thickly over the world and all its 
 accepted heroes and sages that most of them 
 must entirely disappear for a considerable 
 
 time." 
 
 57
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 " The heroes disappear ! " gasped Marcus 
 " Why, the ambition o£ the day is a world that 
 shall be fit for our heroes to live in ! People 
 speak of eternal peace and shutting the temple 
 of Janus indefinitely." 
 
 " It will certainly be shut," answered Pan, 
 " but that is not going to spell eternal peace 
 for the Empire, I assure you." 
 
 " I hope not," rephed Marcus, who, 
 though not warlike, enjoyed to see the martial 
 spirit as displayed by others. " A world fit 
 for heroes to live in should surely never be a 
 peaceful world. Not heroes themselves talk 
 thus, but the plebeians, whose highest dream is 
 security. Security is no ideal for the great. 
 Only the lowly born desire it." 
 
 " And why, my friend ? " asked Pan. " Be- 
 cause they have never known such a thing. 
 The powerful and safe take their security as 
 a matter of course : their ideal is to live dan- 
 gerously; but the poor, who do live danger- 
 ously, because they can no other, yearn before 
 all else to be able to trust to-morrow. And 
 this is what Christianity promises they shall do." 
 
 58
 
 GLOOM 
 
 The god turned to Arcadius. 
 
 " So it is with all happiness — concerning 
 which you are so interested. The criterion of 
 happiness is that it should never have been 
 consciously tasted. Therefore man is seldom 
 happy in the present. Looking back he says, 
 ' I knew happiness then and was unaware ' ; 
 gazing into the future he sees the ghost of 
 things to be and cries, ' I shall be happy when 
 that happens.' It happens, but brings along 
 with it a score of other happenings to cloud 
 the anticipated sunshine." 
 
 " In fact when you are really happy, it 
 appears that you don't know it. Mighty One," 
 said Arcadius. 
 
 " Very often, my son. Consider the lowly 
 matter of perfect, bodily well-being — the 
 highest physical happiness. Who revels therein 
 until it is lost and memory reminds him of 
 perfect digestion, long-sighted eyes, dreamless 
 sleep, scorn of fatigue ? " 
 
 " Most true, dear God," sighed Marcus 
 Pomponius. " I impress upon this boy," he 
 continued, " that happiness is less than 
 
 59
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 serenity, and endurance greater than content- 
 ment. The intelligent man cannot be con- 
 tented with things as they are ; but he can 
 keep his nerve, seeing that to lose it advances 
 no cause." 
 
 " Let us have discipline w^ithout tears," 
 answered Pan. " And now I must be going." 
 
 He took his leave of them and blessed father 
 and son generously before doing so. 
 
 " Say nothing of this solemn occasion to 
 your stepmother," advised Marcus, when he 
 was alone with his lad. " It would give her 
 no pleasure, unfortunately." 
 
 They had sat long into the dusk and a chill 
 wind blew through the pillars of the temple. 
 Marcus shivered slightly, and prepared to 
 return to the house. But he had caught a 
 cold, and at dead of night Arcadius mounted 
 a strong horse and galloped off to Rome, that 
 he might summon disciples of Galen ; for his 
 grandmother roused him in the extremity of 
 grief to say that Pomponius appeared to be 
 seriously ill. 
 
 60
 
 GLOOM 
 
 With youthful ardour and Ignorant of 
 medical etiquette, Arcadius roused no less than 
 ten eminent practitioners, and hearing who 
 suffered, not one of the ten delayed a moment. 
 A procession of chariots whirled off to the 
 Pomponian villa, and before morning light 
 the cream of the profession stood beside the 
 couch of Marcus. 
 
 They agreed that nothing of any conse- 
 quence was the matter, retired to consult, 
 tossed up who should send a bolus, and when 
 the lot fell on Lucius Curtius Rufus, handed 
 the case over to him. 
 
 He quickly cured his patient of a slight 
 bronchitis ; but catarrh followed : Marcus 
 could not sleep in comfort, and developed a 
 very trying cough. 
 
 The physician suggested a change, and his 
 patient took it. He went to the sea, and rather 
 wished for Arcadius as sole companion, but 
 neither his wife nor his mother would dream 
 of such a thing. Both accompanied him to 
 Ostia, and though he and Arcadius poured 
 libations to Neptune in secret, and Arcadius, 
 
 6i
 
 PAN AND 7HE TWINS 
 
 boating among the islands, saw and fell in love 
 with a blue-haired nereid, Marcus came home 
 nothing bettered. 
 
 When the winter returned, there fell a day 
 upon which Pomponius decHned to get up, 
 and an event so unparalleled caused utmost 
 consternation. The janitor hastened at once 
 for Lucius Rufus, and a very painful incident 
 marked the occasion, for the sick man begged 
 — nay commanded — both his wife and mother 
 to leave his apartment, while he insisted that 
 Arcadius should remain. Both noble women 
 bitterly resented this indignity, and they walked 
 up and down the atrium waiting for the doctor 
 and quarrelling between themselves in a very 
 afflicting manner. 
 
 " It's all your fault," said Placidia. " You 
 have pandered to him over this wretched boy. 
 The thing was an outrage from the beginning, 
 and instead of kilHng it with ridicule, as I 
 endeavoured to do, you let it go on until 
 Arcadius has become far more to my husband 
 than I am — or you either." 
 
 " You are mistaken," answered the elder, 
 
 62
 
 GLOOM 
 
 " and if you talk so loudly the servants will 
 hear you. Marcus never abated in his love of 
 me. Can a mother- ? " 
 
 " Not too much ' mother,' please," answered 
 Placidia in her metallic tones. 
 
 " It is your gothic want of refinement 
 rather than failure of offspring that has chilled 
 Marcus toward you," replied Latona, and her 
 daughter-in-law flamed furious at so grave an 
 insult. They both forgot themselves, to the 
 secret entertainment of menials who were 
 dusting the statues. Placidia failed to remem- 
 ber that she was a daughter of the house of 
 Spartianus ; and for two pins the infuriated 
 mother of Marcus would have slapped the 
 younger's blazing cheek. 
 
 " This cannot and shall not go on," said 
 Placidia, stamping her sandalled foot. She 
 had been making the same remark for fourteen 
 years. 
 
 " Not if his mother can help it," replied 
 Latona. 
 
 " Things have now come to a climax and I 
 will tolerate no more," declared Placidia. 
 
 63
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 a 
 
 When you have borne half as much as I 
 have, it will be time to stamp," retorted the 
 matron. 
 
 Then Lucius Rufus hastened through the 
 entrance with a bag o£ healing drugs, and, at 
 the same moment, Arcadius descended from 
 his father's chamber. For the villa boasted 
 two storeys and was famous on that account. 
 
 " Marcus Pomponius is dead ! " cried the 
 boy. Then he flung himself on the ground 
 and wept. Rufus ran upstairs, so fast that his 
 tunic fluttered. He was followed by the dis- 
 tracted women ; but the physician came too 
 late. The patient had passed peacefully away 
 with his head on the breast of his son. 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 The Pomponian burial ground lay within 
 the boundaries of the estate, and on the fore- 
 noon of the eighth day after his death, they 
 bore Marcus to the grave. Pontifical law 
 regulated the details, and torches — the funeral 
 symbol — blazed wanly under the sun's eye. 
 Since his family was honorata, and members 
 thereof had held curule offices, a considerable 
 
 64
 
 GLOOM 
 
 amount of pomp and ritual accompanied the 
 obsequies. Lictors were present and the city 
 fathers. Valentinian himself sent a royal 
 representative, not because he much admired 
 Marcus, but out of honour to a race that had 
 done the state good service. 
 
 Beside the dead man's coffin sat a life-sized 
 wooden doll clothed in his garments and w^ith 
 a v^^axen face that closely resembled him. A 
 procession of ' ancestors ' accompanied the 
 funeral — living men clad in the insignia and 
 wearing the masks of the mighty dead Pom- 
 ponians. Ten musicians blowing instruments 
 of brass led the way ; but there were no dancers 
 to amuse the spectators, because the funeral 
 was private and only dignitaries of Rome, the 
 family and the family servants attended it. 
 The officials of the temple of Libitina had been 
 duly notified, and they ordered and arranged 
 the ceremony with their usual tact and atten- 
 tion to detail. 
 
 Placidia and Latona walked behind the dead 
 and Arcadius walked behind them. 
 
 So they laid Marcus Pomponius in the marble 
 
 F 65
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 vaults of his mausoleum under its grove of 
 sighing Cyprus, strewed white flowers upon him, 
 chanted a dirge and then partook of the funeral 
 feast laid, according to custom, within the 
 dwelling of the dead. 
 
 Nine days later a distinguished gathering 
 revisited the house of the sleepers, offered a 
 sacrifice to the manes of the departed and 
 consumed a dreary little meal of eggs, lentils 
 and salt. Then they doffed their mourning 
 attire and faced life once more. 
 
 The dead man's will caused a measure of 
 pain to the wife and mother of Marcus. 
 
 For Latona indeed he had amply provided, 
 but in the case of his wife, knowing exceedingly 
 well that Placidia would remarry as soon as 
 expedient, he made no very elaborate pro- 
 vision. She had long been an object of admira- 
 tion and desire to Claudius P. Mamertinus, an 
 elderly and Christian senator of good repute ; 
 and since this excellent man possessed great 
 wealth, Marcus acted accordingly. 
 
 Arcadius was his heir, but until the lad 
 donned toga virilis, Latona was appointed 
 
 66
 
 GLOOM 
 
 guardian of the estates and revenues ; while 
 for the rest, Marcus expressed wishes concern- 
 ing the freedom to be given certain slaves, 
 together with a multitude of little remem- 
 brances to his friends and staff. 
 
 It is pleasing to relate that the mother 
 and wife of the dead man became entirely 
 and beautifully reconciled upon his passing. 
 No harsh word ever passed between them 
 again, and when in due time her daughter-in- 
 law celebrated marriage with old Mamertinus, 
 Latona in a tolerant spirit worthy of her 
 race, attended the Christian ceremony and 
 gave the bride a very handsome necklace of 
 pearls and aquamarines set in silver. These 
 well accorded with Placidia's somewhat frosty 
 charms. 
 
 Arcadius, though not invited to the wedding, 
 despatched a gift from the Pomponian heir- 
 looms by the permission of his grandmother. 
 For, thought he, " My father liked this woman 
 well enough to wed her ; therefore there must 
 be virtues in her which have not met my 
 inexperienced eyes." 
 
 67
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 The lad mourned beyond the allotted 
 term, watered his couch with tears and cruelly 
 missed the tender soul who had welcomed him 
 with such paternal kindness and lifted him 
 from a humble vine-dresser into his present 
 splendid position. 
 
 As time passed, Latona found herself much 
 drawn to her grandson and imagined in him 
 paternal evidences of Marcus which did not 
 actually exist, for Arcadius favoured his 
 mother. But the young man's reverence for 
 his father's spirit and devotion to his memory 
 gratified Latona, while the ability and good 
 sense of Arcadius made her sanguine that she 
 might live to see him revive some of the 
 vanished glories of the race. 
 
 He constantly mentioned his twin brother, 
 and longed that life would bring them together; 
 but seeing that the unknown was not of the 
 old faith, Latona rather trusted this might not 
 happen. 
 
 68
 
 V 
 
 "innocence;' the bear 
 
 R 
 
 ELIGION," said Pan, "is with us 
 that we shall not perish of too much 
 truth. The spirit quickens, and man 
 was driven to invent ghosts, since without 
 them he could not explain either his past, his 
 present, or his future. People find themselves 
 safer if they live in a cage of religion, and as 
 long as they do not make faces through the 
 bars at other people in other cages, no harm 
 is done. But cages are apt to be stuffy and the 
 fumes prove very unfavourable to honesty. In 
 time to come men will leave their cages and 
 be brave enough to face truth without perishing 
 of fright. For the present mankind is still in 
 his childhood, and truth may prove a very 
 ugly customer while you are too ignorant to 
 recognise it as such." 
 
 The god sat and watched Arcadius as he 
 
 69
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 spoke, while with hammer and chisel the lad 
 prepared to carve memorial words upon his 
 mother's tomb. It stood in a little grassy 
 dingle, and round about red roses blossomed 
 during Summer, while the herbage was woven 
 with hyacinths and narcissus at the Spring. 
 
 An experience painful in one direction, 
 fruitful in another, had overtaken Arcadius. 
 A day came when he nerved himself to enter 
 his father's little study — a chamber that 
 opened out of the temple of Rhea-Cybele and 
 had, in death as in life, been forever sacred to 
 Marcus. Here for many years he proceeded 
 with his great composition — a work destined, 
 as he explained, to confound Lucretius and 
 his impieties. Arcadius expected to find the 
 achievement at least near completion, and 
 himself having no learning to measure such a 
 masterpiece, proposed to submit the manu- 
 scripts to men of letters, who had known and 
 loved his father. But not a manuscript 
 appeared — not a note — not even a copy of the 
 Lucretian poem itself ! In truth Marcus 
 Pomponius had never read De Rerum Natura 
 
 70
 
 '' innocence;' the bear 
 
 and had never wanted to do so. His alleged 
 book was a myth, a blind, an excuse for soli- 
 tude, a means of peace, an escape from too 
 pressing reality. Arcadius felt stunned at this 
 singular discovery, but he recovered after a 
 while, made an examination of the chamber 
 and found, hidden in a cupboard, copies of 
 many original squibs, satires and verses of a 
 very personal and licentious character, which 
 professional poets and publicists had conveyed 
 to Marcus with their affectionate greetings. 
 He patronised these people, and they rewarded 
 him with their most caustic achievements. 
 Even had printing been invented, these things 
 had never won to it, for they were quite 
 unprintable. 
 
 Arcadius blushed at such audacities, for he 
 was too young to take pleasure in them. He 
 burned all the effusions, and then, seeking 
 farther, came across some very mild literary 
 efforts on the part of his vanished parent. 
 They were quite devoid of offence, unless 
 futility itself be an offence. Marcus had 
 evidently desired to compose a pleasant line 
 
 71
 
 PAN AND TEE TWINS 
 
 for the stele of Aurelia, and various unsuccess- 
 ful attempts appeared. 
 
 These the lad collected, and knowing from 
 a natural taste that none was worthy of his 
 mother's grave, yet, for his dear father's sake, 
 felt minded to set one upon it. He took them 
 to Pan, therefore, and read them to his indul- 
 gent deity. 
 
 " Aurelia loved pearls, herself a pearl above all price. 
 
 Now she is dissolved in the cup of the gods." 
 " Aurelia is dead. Hold higher the torches 
 
 lest my tears extinguish them." 
 " My heart was empty until Aurelia made it her jewel 
 
 box. Now it is again empty." 
 " Fear not, Aurelia, that the flowers which spring from 
 
 your grave shall ever lack for water while I have eyes." 
 " Here lies all Aurelia 
 
 and most of Marcus." 
 
 " Dear me," said Pan, " is that the best 
 your poor father could do ? " 
 
 " I'm afraid so," answered Arcadius. " I 
 feel they are not very good myself — still " 
 
 " Carve the last," directed Pan, " and if 
 ever you have occasion to compose a funeral 
 sentiment, study your Greek anthology before 
 
 72
 
 ''INNOCENCE;' THE BEAR 
 
 making the attempt. Consideration of what 
 has already been done may deter you ; for 
 one of the first uses of good poetry should be 
 to stop people from writing bad. Instead, 
 however, it appears to act contrariwise. Man 
 is an imitative animal, which, of course, 
 accounts in a large measure for his civilisation ; 
 but in art this is a danger. Thus all schools are 
 perdition, whether of the arts, or philosophy. 
 They produce disciples, who merely think and 
 act in the line of the didactic will that controls 
 them, and good men, capable of some little 
 originality, are often thus destroyed. Tradi- 
 tion, admirable in some categories, is death to 
 art. The really great man should be complete 
 in himself and blaze solitary, like a star upon 
 the sky. Such, of course, alone matter. Men- 
 kind pay too much respect to the imitators ; 
 and another base mistake they make is often 
 to cast an original spirit into some school and 
 so lose him, whereas, if better understood, he 
 might be found a phoenix, accounting to and 
 accounted for by none but himself." 
 
 Arcadius partially understood these opinions. 
 
 73
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 He was in an egotistical frame of mind, as 
 the sorrowful are apt to be, and now he asked 
 a question as he began to draw letters on the 
 marble of his mother's tomb. 
 
 " Shall I ever be happy again. Great God ? " 
 he inquired. 
 
 " Still harping on happiness ! Yes, you will 
 be happy again, my lad — happier than you 
 yet have been." 
 
 " That is utterly impossible. Divine One, 
 now that my dear father is no more." 
 
 " Memory runs clearer as it rolls deeper," 
 answered Pan, " and there is a precious human 
 instinct to preserve the impression of happy 
 hours, but let the dark ones grow dim. You 
 are too young as yet to benefit from this prin- 
 ciple ; you are also too young to taste the 
 highest happiness reserved for man — that acme 
 of sensation, that quivering lightning of emo- 
 tion, that quintessence of feeling called love. 
 This tornado has yet to sweep over you and 
 submerge everything that went before it, as 
 the flood of Zeus drowned all the world, till 
 Deucalion and his wife landed from their 
 
 74
 
 ii 
 
 innocence:' the bear 
 
 coffer on Parnassus. Happiness and misery are 
 states, not conditions. The weather of life 
 must ever be changing." 
 
 Arcadius began to carve, and Pan con- 
 tinued. 
 
 " Some time ago I met a miserable little 
 bird. She was the skylark's mate and had 
 built her nest in the scrub of dwarf lavender 
 upon yonder hill. But while she hopped here 
 and there, refreshing herself and resting from 
 the labours of incubation, there came a bearded 
 goat — a careless, old devil with heavy hooves 
 and yellow eyes. Lifting himself to get a bite 
 of juniper, the fellow thrust his hind foot 
 into the lark's nest and made a sorry mess of 
 her five eggs. Thus were five skylarks lost to 
 the air, and sadly torn a mother's heart. 
 
 " The father lark descended from his aerial 
 singing and, when I met them, both were 
 talking to the goat — wild, whirling and bitter 
 words. But the brute was aged and rheumatic 
 and didn't care an obolus for what he had 
 done. He said that the larks should not build 
 their silly nests on the ground, and implied 
 
 75
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 that they had only themselves to thank for 
 the disaster. 
 
 " To-day I have seen those birds again. The 
 lady has built a new nest and laid some more 
 eggs ; her lord is aloft as usual, thrilling the 
 blue Spring air. Their sorrow has passed and 
 they are perfectly happy — for the moment." 
 
 " Why do they build their nests on the 
 ground ? " asked Arcadius. 
 
 " That I cannot tell you," answered Pan. 
 
 " Cannot or will not. Mightiest ? " inquired 
 the lad, who was on terms of the dearest 
 affection with his god. 
 
 " Cannot," replied Pan. " There are many 
 things of which I am ignorant, for even the 
 immortals have their limitations. It is the 
 worshipper who knows everything, not the 
 god. That, however, must be no story for 
 your ears at present. Faith serves youth well 
 enough. Have you any of those yellow figs 
 your late father gave me ? " 
 
 " The tree flourishes ; but it is still the early 
 Spring, blessed One." 
 
 " I seldom perform a miracle," answered 
 
 76
 
 "INNOCENCE,'' THE BEAR 
 
 Pan, " and when I do, like it to be a good 
 one. Seek the tree." 
 
 Arcadius dropped his tools and went to the 
 fruit garden half a mile distant ; while Pan 
 picking up mallet and chisel, completed the 
 inscription on Aurelia's monument before he 
 returned. 
 
 The young fellow came back with a laden 
 basket. 
 
 " The tree is covered with magnificent 
 fruit ! " he cried. 
 
 " Say nothing about it, however," answered 
 Pan. Then he ate of the figs, blessed Arcadius 
 and prepared to depart. 
 
 " I shall not see you again for some time," 
 he said. " Much will have happened to you 
 and the rest of the world before my return. 
 You may, I hope, have increased in \\isdom 
 and understanding, and donned knowledge 
 with the toga virilis which you are soon destined 
 to wear." 
 
 Having thus spoken he went his way. 
 
 Three days later Arcadius took a wallet of 
 victuals and a cloak of sheep's wool. Then he 
 
 77
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 set out, to live alone with his thoughts for a 
 week and establish his mind in the light of 
 that manhood which would presently be his. 
 He wandered to the Alban Hills and there 
 a remarkable and dangerous adventure befell 
 him. 
 
 We know, from the Valentinian historian, 
 Ammianus, that the Emperor's two bears did 
 their sovereign's will with punctual obedience, 
 and we also learn from the same vigorous scribe, 
 that a time came when " Innocence," the great 
 he-bear, was rewarded for his bloody activities 
 with freedom. Valentinian, though terrible 
 under certain promptings of his many-sided 
 genius, has always appeared to be a just terror, 
 and, considering the record of his faithful 
 bear, he determined at length that the brute 
 had earned liberty and a dignified old age in 
 such salubrious and savage haunts as he might 
 select. 
 
 " Innocence " was therefore set free to roam 
 in the forests of the Alban, and the Emperor, 
 setting a gold band about his mighty neck, 
 took friendly farewell of him and bade the 
 
 78
 
 u 
 
 innocence;' the bear 
 
 monster depart in peace. This fact was known 
 to Rome, and Arcadius had also learned it ; 
 but he did not associate the incident with his 
 own pilgrimage to the mountains ; nor in any 
 case had he felt fear from the possibility of a 
 clash with Valentinian's old servant. 
 
 Yet boy and bear met and in this manner. 
 
 Arcadius was sitting upon a stone in a pine 
 clearing, reflecting upon the insecurity of life 
 and turning over the somewhat sharp words he 
 had just heard from a magpie. The magpie, 
 having captured a wounded starling, was 
 hammering the life out of it with his chisel- 
 beak, that he might dine. Whereupon, chal- 
 lenged by the scream of the victim, and with- 
 out stopping to reflect, Arcadius had leapt 
 forward and ended the unequal contest. The 
 half-dead starling crawled under a thicket to 
 perish ; the magpie turned upon Arcadius 
 and showed him his error. 
 
 *' Fool ! " he said. " What have you done ? 
 The starling was already at death's door with 
 a broken leg and wing. A few moments would 
 have put him out of his misery, which now your 
 
 79
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 blunder only serves to prolong without fore- 
 stalling. Thus you have added to the suffer- 
 ing of the v^orld and delayed my dinner — 
 why ? Because you wanted to be kind to 
 yourself, not the starling." 
 
 The youth had nothing to answer, but turned 
 away sadly : and now he sat, debating the 
 matter and feeling the magpie to be right. 
 
 Meanwhile " Innocence " was also reflecting 
 close at hand ; but he always thought better 
 on the move, and his prowling brought him 
 swiftly to the glade. 
 
 He had been a free bear for several months 
 and, like many of his betters, began to find that 
 liberty is not all it vaunts itself to be. The 
 wild woods were excellent and life in the open 
 very health-giving. He lost his mange, 
 hardened his muscles and became more formid- 
 able than ever ; but problems presented them- 
 selves unknown in his palace cage. Out of his 
 happiness, in fact, grew that inevitable little 
 worm of anxiety which so often accompanies 
 fancied independence and proves the state of 
 the free-lance to be only relatively perfect. 
 
 80
 
 ''innocence;' the bear 
 
 Thus " Innocence " was excogitating like 
 puzzles with Arcadius when they met. 
 
 The question of malefactors especially dis- 
 turbed this bear. In the royal enclosure male- 
 factors had never lacked. For breakfast, 
 luncheon, tea and dinner the malefactor could 
 be counted upon with certainty ; but here, on 
 the Alban ranges, there also harboured many 
 malefactors ; only they took a great deal of 
 catching, and the difference between a cap- 
 tured and a free malefactor he found to be 
 prodigious. Fleet - foot malefactors often 
 escaped him, and worse : there were male- 
 factors who dared to strike back ; there were 
 malefactors who wanted the gold necklace 
 which he wore to mark his sovereign's grati- 
 tude ; a malefactor had once wounded him 
 painfully in the spare ribs with a knife, before 
 the wretch was overpowered and devoured. 
 This tendency to retaliate on the part of 
 provisions puzzled the ursine mind ; and there 
 were other thorns in the couch of liberty also. 
 
 " Innocence " speculated without enthu- 
 siasm on a day when he might grow old and 
 G 8i
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 slow, his sight deceive him, his teeth play him 
 false, his appalling hug become less conclusive. 
 He even pictured the possibility of a male- 
 factor — desperate, dead to reverence, decency, 
 tradition — doing him in altogether. At his 
 weakest moments he considered the desira- 
 bility of returning to Rome. He grew morbid 
 and even dared to wonder whether Valen- 
 tinian's gift of liberty was all that it seemed. 
 Had the Emperor tired of him and taken this 
 subtle step that he might start another and 
 perhaps more showy bear ? Moodily revolving 
 these points, " Innocence " emerged into the 
 glade and his eyes brightened at the sight of 
 a solitary malefactor sitting on a stone with his 
 back turned. The man was moreover un- 
 armed and defenceless — as malefactors should 
 be. 
 
 He crept on his belly towards the prey and 
 was about to spring and incapacitate Arcadius 
 before making a meal of him, when the lad 
 turned, perceived his peril, leapt to his feet 
 and accosted " Innocence " in his own lan- 
 guage. 
 
 82
 
 ''INNOCENCE,'' THE BEAR 
 
 " Wait— wait— wait ! " he cried. " I'm a 
 friend ! " 
 
 " A friend in need," answered the bear, 
 with a certain rough humour. But he hesitated 
 and his dinner was lost. Another puzzle con- 
 fronted him ; for how came it about that 
 this person knew his speech — a tongue which 
 Valentinian himself had never acquired ? 
 
 " Where did you learn bear talk ? " he asked. 
 " Answer instantly, before I devour you." 
 
 " Where should I learn it? " replied Arcadius. 
 " There is only One who could have given me 
 this valuable aid to culture. Before his name 
 I beg you will shut your terrible mouth and 
 sheathe those magnificent claws. In a word — 
 Pan, my god as well as yours." 
 
 " Not at all," answered " Innocence " ; "I 
 am a Christian bear." 
 
 Arcadius approached and patted his huge 
 head with a kindly hand. 
 
 " I recognise you," he said. " You are the 
 Emperor's famous pet. To meet you is a great 
 privilege ; but when you say you are a Chris- 
 tian, think twice. Keep an open mind, as 
 
 83
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 Valentinian himself does. The Christians, let 
 me tell you, are giving him a great deal to 
 think about. They quarrel very strenuously 
 among themselves, and he makes law after law 
 to check their enthusiasm. The friends of 
 tolerance are in a minority among the rising 
 sect, and the orthodox party are doing dreadful 
 things to those who do not see the faith with 
 their eyes." 
 
 " How is Valentinian ? " asked the bear. 
 " I thought, perhaps, some day he might look 
 me up." 
 
 " Far too busy," replied Arcadius. " At 
 present he is across the Alps chastening the 
 AUemanni. We are lighting in Germany, 
 Britain, Africa, on the Danube and in the 
 East. It is rather an unhappy world I fear." 
 
 " Do you chance to know how ' Grain of 
 Gold ' is getting on without me ? " asked 
 " Innocence." 
 
 " ' Mica Aurea ' has a new husband," 
 answered Arcadius. 
 
 " Just what I expected," growled the other. 
 " A lazy and a greedy brute was she. Nobody 
 
 84
 
 ''INNOCENCE;' THE BEAR 
 
 liked a tender malefactor better ; but I had 
 to do all the work." 
 
 " What of the Alban bears ? " inquired 
 Arcadius. " No doubt you are their king ? " 
 
 " Not in the least," answered " Innocence." 
 "They are a primitive, unsocial crowd and quite 
 uneducated as to the value of leadership. I 
 offered to be their monarch and explained the 
 advantages ; but the barbarians have decided 
 against my suggestion. Their elementary view 
 is that they have always struggled on well 
 enough without a king and may continue to 
 do so." 
 
 " They don't understand what they are 
 missing ? " 
 
 " They don't understand anything," an- 
 swered the big bear. " One can hardly get 
 down to their level of intelligence." 
 
 " Of course to be their king would prove a 
 great convenience to you," suggested Arcadius. 
 
 " Obviously. They would reap the benefit 
 of my knowledge and experience and civilised 
 way of looking at life, while I should be waited 
 upon, honoured and pampered as of old. Take 
 
 85
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 honey. Much honey used to be served to me 
 in a silver dish. I need it, and it is good for 
 me ; but here, if one wants it, one must find 
 it and then run the gauntlet of a myriad 
 infernal, little, stinging creatures that in- 
 fest it and apparently object to me for taking 
 it." 
 
 " They are bees and they make the honey," 
 explained Arcadius. 
 
 " Do they ? Well they have yet to learn 
 that honey was meant for bears, not bees. 
 Let them produce it by all means ; but I 
 consume it." 
 
 " That is the question of Capital and Labour 
 in an elementary form," answered Arcadius. 
 " I'm afraid you have a reactionary mind ; but 
 to dwell so long at Court may have given you 
 a bias. We must live and let live." 
 
 " A good motto for grass eaters," admitted 
 " Innocence " — " not much use to me." 
 
 " I will send you some honey," promised 
 Arcadius. " I am far from home at present, 
 but shall be returning in a day or two ; and if 
 you will trust me, I promise that a very splendid 
 
 86
 
 
 "INNOCENCE;' THE BEAR 
 
 present of honey shall arrive on this spot at no 
 distant date." 
 
 " In the comb," demanded " Innocence." 
 In the comb," replied his companion. 
 I will trust you, then. And if you see 
 ' Mica Aurea,' tell her, since you have the 
 power to do so, that I am in magnificent fettle, 
 have ten wives handsomer than she, and for 
 all practical purposes find myself the monarch 
 of the Albans. It is far from being the truth, 
 unfortunately ; but it will worry her to think 
 so." 
 
 Arcadius kept his promise and sent the 
 bear one hundred pounds of honeycomb. 
 Yet the gift did " Innocence " more harm 
 than good, for he ate too heartily and suffered 
 inconvenience and loss of appetite for several 
 days afterwards. 
 
 87
 
 VI 
 
 THE ADVENT OF CERES 
 
 A BRILLIANT concourse assembled to 
 see Arcadius don the toga of manhood. 
 The house of Pomponius was popular, 
 and Latona had many friends of high rank. 
 Placidia also accepted an invitation to the 
 festivities. Once more she trod the mosaics 
 which decorated the pavement of her ancient 
 home, and with her came her husband, Claudius 
 P. Mamcrtinus. The hereditary aristocracy of 
 Rome was present or represented at the fes- 
 tival, and though certain eminent persons de- 
 clined to smile on Arcadius, but preferred to 
 regard the Pomponian dynasty as now extinct 
 in its major branch, these purists were ac- 
 counted no loss. A consul or two attended 
 with sundry officers of state and their ladies. 
 
 Entertainment on a grand scale had been 
 provided. Corybantes sang and danced before 
 
 88
 
 7HE ADVENT OF CERES 
 
 the temple of Rhea-Cybelc ; while mummers, 
 to the number of two hundred, furnished 
 entertainment on every terrace, and all the 
 famous fountains played and plashed aloft 
 into the summer afternoon. A magnificent 
 banquet accompanied the celebration, and 
 Latona was congratulated upon the splendour 
 of the festa, and the dignity, modesty and 
 beauty of the young man who formed the 
 central object of it. 
 
 The actual rite accomplished, Arcadius, in 
 his snow-white toga, moved among the guests 
 and received their friendly greetings with 
 becoming gratitude. 
 
 " He is more like Hadrian's Antinous than 
 ever," said Placidia to Latona. " He has 
 certainly developed into a beautiful young 
 man. What eyes ! " 
 
 " And exhibits charming little characteristics 
 of our dear Marcus. Indeed he grows more 
 and more to resemble him at heart," answered 
 the grandmother of Arcadius. 
 
 She was going to the dower house almost 
 immediately, glad to deliver her responsibili- 
 
 89
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 ties into hands very capable of controlling 
 them. For Arcadius was able, intelligent and 
 mentally equipped to administer his great 
 patrimony with wisdom, generosity and judg- 
 ment. 
 
 Yet now happened an event calculated to 
 throw him off his balance for a considerable 
 time. 
 
 Amid the guests was the proconsul, iEmilius 
 Paulus Severus — a great landowner and vine 
 grower and a man of consideration. With him 
 he brought his wife and his younger daughter, 
 Ceres, a maiden so called after the ancient 
 Italian goddess of agriculture. She was seven- 
 teen, with golden hair, a full figure, a perfectly 
 lovely mouth, and untruthful, blue eyes. But 
 these azure orbs utterly belied her, for Ceres 
 was not given to fibbing and told far fewer 
 falsehoods than most girls of her generation. 
 After all, untruth is the only weapon of im- 
 maturity against middle-age ; and you shall 
 find that, though they habitually employ the 
 devious art against parents and guardians, the 
 young are truthful enough to one another. 
 
 90
 
 THE ADVENT OF CERES 
 
 Ceres beheld Arcadius, and while her blue 
 eyes grew round and flashed unseen, a brighter 
 flash, also invisible, cut the ambient air, for 
 astride the cupola of the Pomponian mausoleum 
 there sat irreverent Cupid ; and now he winged 
 one silver arrow feathered gold into the bosom 
 of the blonde, while the second, like unto it, 
 transfixed the brown breast of Arcadius. In 
 fact he had not donned his toga virilis for five 
 minutes before love broke through that candid 
 robe. 
 
 And when the day was done and Arcadius 
 retired to his couch of mother-o'-pearl and 
 ebony, sleep forgot him and he tossed till 
 dawn in a condition of wonderment. Not the 
 pageants or the music threaded his thoughts ; 
 not the gallant assembly, or the amazing 
 repast ; not the flying dancers, or the humour 
 of the mountebanks ; but one tall girl with a 
 golden girdle, and golden hair lifted above her 
 white forehead in a little tower. Her eyes 
 were like the spring sky ; her lips, red as the 
 flower of Adonis ; the smile upon them, when 
 she was introduced to him, an apotheosis of 
 
 91
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 beauty. Such visions banished slumber ; and 
 elsewhere, on her bed of ivory wdth amber 
 decorations, Ceres also sighed ; while in her 
 case the entertainment of the day likewise left 
 no impression. She only saw a tall and stal- 
 wart figure, a curly head, dark as night, yet 
 not without night's purple, a straight nose, 
 neat ears, eyes lustrous, mysterious, magical — 
 surely the homes of poetry — full lips, grandly 
 modelled, a wide forehead and a round Roman 
 chin. 
 
 After three days — which seemed to him a 
 little lifetime — Arcadius called at the town 
 house of ^milius Severus, ostensibly to thank 
 the magnate for his visit, in reality to catch a 
 glimpse of the proconsul's daughter. 
 
 He was fortunate, for Ceres happened to be 
 playing ball in the garden, and as the visitor 
 alighted from his horse, she saw him and 
 missed an easy catch. 
 
 He loitered with her, delighted to learn 
 that her father and mother were from home. 
 And then began a friendship which proceeded 
 
 92
 
 THE ADVENT OF CERES 
 
 to its conclusion almost as swiftly as Arcadius 
 himself desired. 
 
 For the mother of Ceres smiled upon the 
 romance from the first ; and when the mother 
 of Ceres smiled, her father generally smiled 
 also. 
 
 The maternal Severus was in truth gratified 
 by the event, for despite the extreme beauty 
 of her younger girl, there was that, until 
 now, in the attitude of Ceres toward man 
 which had led her mother to fear a spinster 
 life. Indeed this instinct appeared in the 
 maiden at a tender age and when she was seven, 
 she had expressed a desire to become a Vestal 
 Virgin. The priestesses of Vesta entered her 
 service before they were ten years old and 
 retired at thirty, after which age they were 
 free to wed if they so desired ; but there was 
 no run upon them ; and indeed few cared to 
 exchange the habits of a lifetime. Her father, 
 however — a long-sighted man — looked ahead 
 and perceived that the service of Vesta pre- 
 sented no great promise for a neophyte at this 
 moment. iEmilius Severus had taken advan- 
 
 93
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 tage of the tolerance of the times to be nothing 
 in particular himself. He would bow his head 
 and lower his voice when he mentioned the 
 name of Jove ; but it meant little, and now 
 he began to talk a good deal about the new 
 faith. He was not yet actually a Christian, 
 but wobbling ; and when he entered the fold, 
 he knew that, as a matter of course, his family 
 and household would do likewise. His wife 
 desired this to happen, and so did Ceres, until 
 she fell in love with Arcadius. Then her mind 
 took fire, and since Pan was the young man's 
 patron, she found herself, for the moment, 
 content to hear his glories and proclaim his 
 praise. In some measure her mother was 
 relieved ; for Ceres seemed just the sort of 
 girl to get into the hands of one of those fas- 
 cinating and unscrupulous " advisors " now 
 the fashion among patrician lady Christians — 
 a class against whom Valentinian already 
 fulminated. He had, indeed, made it clear 
 that the ecclesiastical order must not receive 
 testamentary gifts, and confined strictly the 
 legal rights of inheritance ; but Valentinian 
 
 94
 
 THE ADVENT OF CERES 
 
 did not know the new Church, or the fiery 
 enthusiasms of the proselyte. 
 
 No difficulties attended the courting of 
 Arcadius and Ceres. The course of true love 
 ran smooth and the great matter sped trium- 
 phantly to its predestined end. 
 
 He took her to the chariot races and circus ; 
 he drove her in his own chariot to scenes of 
 fame and beauty round about ; he arranged 
 picnics, to which Ceres and her sister came ; 
 but her sister, Phyllis, was already betrothed, 
 and as she brought her lover, they were not 
 in the way and only too ready and willing 
 that the younger pair should be left to their 
 own amusements. 
 
 Arcadius determined to propose at his temple 
 of Pan, for luck, and arranged an entertain- 
 ment which was to be concluded in that 
 manner ; but after all the matter fell out 
 otherwise. 
 
 The house of Pomponius possessed a box 
 at the Colosseum and, on the occasion of 
 a performance, Ceres and her mother joined 
 Arcadius therein. The matron left them alone 
 
 95
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 during an interval, that she might visit friends 
 below, and then Arcadius, overmastered by 
 desire and opportunity, offered heart and hand, 
 and Ceres accepted his adoration w^ith in- 
 genuous delight. 
 
 I have stood v^ithin the very niche where 
 these twain plighted troth, and from the 
 Pomponian box, which opened in the second 
 tier of the amphitheatre, after some fifteen 
 hundred and fifty years had rolled, have looked 
 upon that majestical cup — the mightiest Roman 
 ruin in the world. Now only pellitory-of-the- 
 wall cushions those rugged stones ; ferns and 
 grasses and golden weeds loll from the cliffs 
 and precipices ; wdld fennel crowns many an 
 arch and broken wall ; a carpet of green 
 things is flung over arena and auditorium, and 
 the wind, making a panpipes of the many- 
 tunnelled mass, shouts through a thousand 
 porticoes. 
 
 When mother, daughter and future son-in- 
 law returned to the villa of the family, ^milius 
 Severus was delighted at the good news, pre- 
 
 96
 
 THE ADVENT OF CERES 
 
 tended a surprise he did not feel and sent for 
 amphora; of red wine. Everybody knew that 
 this good and successful man possessed the best 
 cellar in the capital, and his Falernian and 
 Ccecuban, his Massic and Surrentina were 
 probably at that date the finest vintages on 
 earth. When any happy or fruitful thing 
 occurred in his life, Severus always sent for a 
 jar of Falernian, and since Fortune often 
 smiled, he opened a good many. But he sipped 
 like a connoisseur and was never the worse. 
 
 His daughter had no objection to offer when 
 Arcadius pleaded for a short engagement, and 
 the few months permitted to pass before the 
 ceremony were spent in pleasure and the recep- 
 tion of many congratulations. 
 
 Where Ceres went, thither Arcadius also 
 went. They hated to be apart, and daily each 
 woke and desired the other with that sleepless 
 and quotidian longing which is born of love 
 alone. 
 
 They attended parties and all manner of 
 entertainments. They also went to services 
 of the new Church together, and assisted at 
 H 97
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 other religious festivals in Pagan temples. 
 Arcadius sometimes grumbled that every im- 
 portant basilica in Rome v^^as being transformed 
 to a place of Christian w^orship ; but no 
 bigotry marked his own belief, and he was 
 aware that Pan would be the last god to refuse 
 him admission to the centres and services of 
 the new faith. They puzzled him, however, 
 and he found no temptation to be converted ; 
 but he was impressed by the deep emotion 
 displayed and by the fervour of the rhetoric 
 and the magnificence of a ritual reflected from 
 the pomps of the religious past. Ceres, how- 
 ever, still prayed to Pan, or said she did. As 
 a matter of fact, such was the splendour of 
 their passion that man and maid did very 
 little praying at this moment save to each 
 other. 
 
 They parted a week before the ceremony, 
 not to meet again till their wedding-day, and 
 during that week Arcadius devoted himself 
 seriously to his god, filled the temple of the 
 Pasturer with good things and called upon him 
 day and night. 
 
 98
 
 THE ADVENT OF CERES 
 
 He blessed the deity for his prodigal gifts 
 and for a happiness that he had not supposed 
 within mortal reach ; and Pan, pleased at 
 these seemly and heartfelt devotions, responded 
 in person, joined Arcadius on a still summer 
 eve when the stars twinkled like sparks of green 
 and red fire, and nightingales sang from every 
 olive tree. 
 
 Arcadius opened a large and beautiful 
 amphora of his future father-in-law's primest 
 vintage, which he had brought from Rome 
 for the occasion, and Pan drank with pleasure. 
 
 " You mortals know a thing or two," he 
 said. " Bacchus gave you the grape, but he 
 never guessed what you would do with it. 
 Between ourselves nectar is milk for babes 
 contrasted with this masterly brew." 
 
 " I bless you and worship you more faith- 
 fully and enthusiastically than ever, dear 
 God ! " cried Arcadius, who was not interested 
 in wine. " I venerate your name and cannot 
 thank you enough for the unspeakable joy and 
 bliss you have poured into my life. When 
 last I saw you, I had never loved, therefore I 
 
 99
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 had never lived ; now I love and, at last, 
 knov\^ the very summits and crow^ns of happi- 
 ness." 
 
 " Love," said Pan, " is like wine, my young 
 friend. To keep, the vintage must be of a 
 high quality from the beginning. But truly 
 it offers perhaps the rarest happiness a man 
 may know, when the ingredients, as I say, are 
 fine. Love, in fact, depends upon the lovers. 
 It can be a very gorgeous thing, and indeed is 
 incomparably splendid at its best ; but to be 
 a good lover, a man or woman needs rare gifts. 
 Love triumphs over many mean qualities and 
 transforms the human heart for a season ; but 
 it needs rich fuel of character if it is to burn 
 steadily and melt away all those inferior 
 elements of the spirit. The effect of love on 
 temperament is, in truth, more apparent than 
 real ; and so, for that matter, is the effect of 
 any other great passion and prompting. But 
 there are men and women permanently quali- 
 fied and exalted by this adventure ; and I hope 
 that you will prove such a man, Ceres such a 
 
 woman." 
 
 100
 
 THE ADVENT OF CERES 
 
 " We live for each other," answered Arcadius. 
 " Henceforth my life will be devoted to making 
 Ceres happy, and my highest happiness will be 
 her first thought." 
 
 " If that should be the truth, you may con- 
 sider yourselves a fortunate pair," replied Pan ; 
 " but remember that great love is only proved 
 by its power to conquer all else. The fire, as 
 I say, to be consuming, must burn up all lesser 
 things, and still remain, steadfast, paramount, 
 clear, unconquerable in both your hearts. I 
 speak, you note, of ' lesser things,' and the 
 criterion and touchstone of true love is this : 
 that brought to its sublime test, all things are 
 lesser. If love out-grows the thousand temp- 
 tations and trials which spell every life, then 
 it is indeed the supreme aegis and shield 
 that nothing can pierce — the purest, heaven- 
 wrought armour of the human heart. But 
 such love is rarer than yellow figs in February, 
 my pretty boy." 
 
 " Such love is ours 1 " declared Arcadius. 
 
 " Nothing is impossible," answered Pan, 
 " and I am ever the hopefullest of the gods. 
 
 lOI
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 Yet remember this : the brighter the sun, the 
 darker the storm-cloud, and it is a quaUty of 
 all human happiness that the more vivid, 
 intense and superb it may be, the graver those 
 inevitable cares that must accompany it. One 
 happiness indeed is all light and no darkness — 
 of that I may acquaint you at another time — 
 but love, even the most lofty, generous love of 
 man for woman — cannot escape its comple- 
 ment ; and by the way a man faces the ad- 
 juncts and accessories of great love do the gods 
 judge him. Love is indeed a tremendous test 
 of humanity. We find that few great men 
 are great lovers. Jove himself admits that he 
 knows not the meaning of the word in its 
 highest signification. But, godlike,, he admires 
 the best when he sees it, and steadfast lovers 
 are among those he most generously re- 
 wards." 
 
 Arcadius grew a little tired of this sermon — 
 so needless as it appeared in his case. 
 
 " There is only one woman in the world for 
 me, and only one man for Ceres," he declared. 
 
 " Good," said Pan. " But you are not the 
 
 102
 
 THE ADVENT OF CERES 
 
 first who has held the same opinion a week 
 before the day of Hymen ; and you will not 
 be the last. May you be making the same 
 remark with the same conviction twenty years 
 hence, my son." 
 
 " Are you coming to the wedding, dear 
 God ? " asked Arcadius. 
 
 " No," repHed Pan. " I shall, however, 
 think of you and may even pipe a little 
 epithalamy. I love you. You have promise ; 
 some day you will be tried in the fire and, I 
 hope, prove good metal. But always remember 
 my advice : to treat happiness when it does 
 come, like a master, not a slave. Be dignified 
 even though you are happy. Stop short of 
 satiety, for satiety means loss of self-respect. 
 And remember the worm in the bud. Be 
 prepared for that, then it should not surprise 
 or shock you when it begins to wriggle. The 
 Christians will tell you that happiness is a 
 false fire, though I have known a great many 
 happy Christians, who thoroughly deserved 
 their joy. But they take it, as a dog takes a 
 doubtful bone, with his eye on his master's 
 
 103
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 whip. Happiness, say they, is no meat for 
 miserable sinners ; and that is what they call 
 themselves, though a less miserable cult at 
 present you will not easily find. Happiness 
 they hold a thing that exhausts itself sooner 
 or later, just as do pain, hate, remorse (a 
 horrid new complaint they have invented) or 
 any other human emotion. All that is common 
 to a finite being must be finite, fleeting, subject 
 to change ; and only when these shards have 
 been shed, can the true wings open that will 
 waft you to your eternal home. Thus they 
 contend, and there is a measure of truth in 
 these opinions. But they do not take into 
 account the inherent qualities of mankind. It 
 is wise and right to desire better bread than is 
 made of wheat, and everybody who is worth 
 admiration does so ; yet meantime this scorn 
 of earth is unreal and breeds a body of very 
 pestilent opinion by running into extremes. 
 You will see these things for yourself years 
 hence." 
 
 Arcadius found Pan dull on this evening ; 
 but looking back, long afterwards, he better 
 
 104
 
 THE ADVEN7 OF CERES 
 
 understood the god in the light of future 
 experience. 
 
 His wedding was the most dchghtful affair. 
 An unclouded sun shone upon it, and the cere- 
 mony proceeded after the old Pagan manner. 
 Many of the new faith attended, however, 
 and none but entertained good hopes that 
 the young pair would be blessed in their union 
 and suffer their cup of happiness to run over 
 for those less fortunate. 
 
 Within six months from that time Rome 
 mourned the Emperor, for Valentinian lost 
 his temper with the erring Quadi and, in a 
 fit of rage before their ambassadors, burst a 
 blood vessel and departed his tempestuous life. 
 Gratian, his eldest son, thereupon ascended to 
 the throne — a youth of seventeen already 
 famous for many virtues. 
 
 105
 
 VII 
 HILARION 
 
 A YEAR later Arcadius walked up and 
 down in his silent atrium while yet 
 only the first glimmer of dawn touched 
 the noses of the metal and marble statues in 
 their silent alcoves. A very fine bronze, con- 
 siderably larger than life, had been erected to 
 Marcus Pomponius, and his son adopted this 
 work of art as his personal Lar. He poured 
 libations and offered portions from the morning 
 meal to the statue, and flowers always stood 
 in tall vases beside it. Now, as he tramped 
 solitary, with strained ears and nerves on edge, 
 he heard the clarion of barn cocks crowing 
 against each other under the first grey glimmer 
 of morning. 
 
 " How little they know that somebody is 
 listening to them and weighing the sincerity 
 of their challenges," thought Arcadius. And 
 
 1 06
 
 HILARION 
 
 then he considered how little any of us know 
 who may be listening to us and weighing our 
 sincerity. 
 
 " If we did, perhaps we should not crow so 
 often, or so loud," he said to himself. 
 
 A slave brought him refreshment, but he 
 set it before the benignant bronze that repre- 
 sented his father, and still strode up and down 
 until the eastern grey was soaked with silver 
 and the olive orchards over against the dawn 
 began to shiver with light. 
 
 Then descended Lucius Curtius Rufus 
 from an upper chamber and told Arcadius 
 that he was the father of a remarkably fine 
 boy. 
 
 " All has happened agreeably to Mater 
 Matuta, goddess of birth and dawn," said the 
 physician. " Your wife is in the best possible 
 health and spirits. Eat and drink therefore 
 and praise the gods. In a few hours you may 
 visit Ceres and the babe." 
 
 Arcadius, out of the abundance of his joy, 
 instantly bestowed a farm of one hundred 
 acres upon Rufus, who thanked him heartily 
 
 107
 
 PAN AND TEE TWINS 
 
 and went his way reflecting upon the ill-dis- 
 cipline of the human mind. 
 
 " For this gift I have done nothing at all," 
 he thought. " Had a difficult and dangerous 
 task been mine and failure crowned my best 
 exertions, though then I might have deserved 
 such a reward, it is most certain Pomponius 
 had not offered it." 
 
 Arcadius in great content sacrificed to Pan, 
 made a hearty meal himself, learned that Ceres 
 slept and her son was accepting the burden of 
 life with good grace, and then set forth to 
 commune with his thoughts upon the moun- 
 tain-side. 
 
 He rambled a few miles and ascended to 
 rough land where peaks and pinnacles of rock 
 broke through the scrub and where lavender 
 and myrtle grew and many small flowers 
 gemmed the herbage. 
 
 He reflected upon his first year of married 
 life and found that it had been altogether good. 
 Daily his wife and he became more precious 
 to each other and increased in devotion. But 
 Pan was right : out of that sublime under- 
 
 io8
 
 HILARION 
 
 standing there grew care, and Arcadius found 
 that great love breeds fear and puts a man 
 in the power of Fortuna. Yet even these 
 cobwebs were bediamonded, for how dehghtful 
 after Ceres had suffered from headache, to 
 hear her say it was gone ; how pleasant, after 
 she had missed her breakfast, to find her 
 hungry at lunch ; how adorable, when she 
 sighed at daybreak, to hear her laugh at noon. 
 Her temper was as level as his own, and she 
 displayed a clear intellect, which added much 
 to his content. Her mind indeed was less 
 prone than his to dwell on what he regarded 
 as serious subjects ; but herein he erred, for 
 truly Ceres made no mistake concerning what 
 was serious. She esteemed mathematics above 
 metaphysics, as a good housewife should ; she 
 knew the value of money far better than 
 Arcadius, for she had learned that from her 
 father ; and she saved her husband a great 
 deal of needless expenditure without causing 
 anybody the least inconvenience. She proved 
 in fact a good woman of business, yet such 
 was her native dignity and kindly nature that 
 
 109
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 none lamented her methods, or judged her 
 harshly. In matters of religion she worshipped 
 Pan outwardly, but hid her heart. 
 
 Now Arcadius, wandering upon an uplifted 
 sheep-track, and bending from time to time to 
 gather a deep blue gentian for Ceres, since 
 that was her favourite flower, came upon a 
 stranger. A monk walked solitary towards him, 
 and at another time he might have resented 
 what he had possibly described as a blot on the 
 landscape ; but to-day a monastery of monks 
 had hardly chilled the warmth at his heart. 
 
 The stranger was of good presence, tall 
 and well-formed. He carried a Httle parcel, 
 and wore his cowl thrown back, so that the 
 breeze might blow upon his curly hair. He 
 was dark, with wonderful eyes, bright and 
 melting, a good nose and a thick beard and 
 moustache. From the close curls upon his 
 pate, a circle had been shaved — the tonsure. 
 
 " Peace be to this Httle mountain ! " said 
 the young man pleasantly. 
 
 " Why not ? " asked Arcadius. " The up- 
 land is peaceful ; so am I ; so, I hope, are 
 
 no
 
 HILARION 
 
 you ; though you are, as a matter of fact, 
 trespassing. This is my Httle mountain." 
 
 " Then peace be yours also," repHed the 
 monk, " for you are Arcadius Pomponius." 
 
 " I am." 
 
 " There is no doubt that I trespass," ad- 
 mitted the stranger, " and it is equally certain 
 that if you insist upon it I shall go at once ; 
 but I understood that here I might count 
 upon — not, perhaps, a cordial, but certainly a 
 courteous reception. I was told that, such are 
 your opinions, you permit right of passage to 
 any who would shorten their wayfaring by 
 crossing Pomponian ground." 
 
 " Where are you going then ? " asked 
 Arcadius. 
 
 " I am going to ask a favour," replied the 
 monk with an attractive smile. " The facts 
 are these ; I am a hermit." 
 
 " You do not look it," answered the other. 
 
 " A cloistered hermit, seeking for some 
 mossy grot, where he may dwell in seclusion, 
 contemplation and prayer. 1 have come from 
 far. But in the East we hermits, if I may say 
 
 III
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 so, are getting too thick on the ground. The 
 TheJ^aid — you understand. Now, to have 
 brother anchorites within half a hundred yards 
 of you on every side is not so much to be 
 a hermit as a rabbit. One's first object is 
 defeated. I am frankly weary of these hermit 
 warrens and have journeyed by many marches 
 and through many adventures to Rome, where 
 your true hermit has something of the charm 
 of novelty. Here I am near enough for 
 pilgrimage of the devout ; and here I hope, if 
 you are willing, I may find some modest cavern 
 on this salubrious hill remote from man, but 
 not so remote that the folk of the countryside 
 may welcome me and, in exchange for my 
 prayers, good counsel and aid in matters of the 
 spirit, support my modest physical needs." 
 
 Arcadius regarded the stalwart speaker with 
 interest. At another time he might have 
 argued with him and condemned his ideal of 
 isolation ; to-day he was in no mood to deny 
 the least or greatest petition. 
 
 " I am myself a disciple of Pan," he said. 
 
 " I know it," answered the monk with in- 
 
 112
 
 HILARION 
 
 genuous frankness. " Think not that you see 
 in me a fanatic. The man who is a gepjuine 
 disciple of any deity and profits by his faith, 
 showing its worth before his fellow-man, com- 
 mands my instant respect. Pray and let pray 
 is a very good motto ; and in my opinion it 
 takes most of us all our time to save our own 
 souls. That, at any rate, I am seeking to do. 
 And if you will permit me to continue my task 
 in this beautiful spot, I shall be much obliged 
 to you." 
 
 " You won't want to convert my slaves, or 
 anything of that kind ? Many of them are 
 already Christians for that matter, and I never 
 interfere with them as long as they do their 
 duty. Too well I remember, in my green 
 youth, being thumped by a hard man because 
 I prayed to my god when I ought to have been 
 looking after his vines. Caius Crassus he was 
 called." 
 
 The monk frowned. 
 
 " A name that seems familiar," he said. 
 
 "And what is your nam^?" inquired 
 Arcadius. 
 
 I 113 
 
 I
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 " Hilarion," answered the recluse. " I, too, 
 served human masters in my youth, and a 
 devout and pious person, finding I had no name 
 in particular, baptised me into my faith under 
 that of a famous Egyptian saint. Some day I 
 hope to be w^orthy of it." 
 
 " Are you setting out for saintship ? " asked 
 Arcadius. 
 
 " I have modest hopes," answered the man 
 of God. " We must at least aim high. But 
 the way is long and steep and thorny. Do not 
 think that I feel unduly sanguine. Still, what 
 men have done, men can do." 
 
 " What does your parcel hold ? " 
 
 " My scriptures, a skull and a change of 
 linen," answered the other. " I am, you must 
 know, a monk who loves everything about him 
 to be sweet and clean. This is unusual, and 
 it has been pointed out to me for a danger ; 
 but I cannot help it. The physical discomfort 
 of being grubby distracts my attention from 
 higher things. We all have got our idiosyn- 
 crasies, and I must be a clean saint if I am 
 ever to be one at all." 
 
 114
 
 HILARION 
 
 " I agree with you — so far," replied Arcadius. 
 
 " I should, therefore, wish a cave not too 
 far from a purling stream and with a south 
 face," explained the other. " I cannot see 
 why one must be less hopeful of rehgious 
 mastery because he loves the music of sweet 
 waters and the light of the sun. I may, of 
 course, be mistaken ; heavenly monitors may 
 presently direct me to stuffier and less agreeable 
 conditions ; but for the moment that is what 
 I seek, if you advance nothing against it." 
 
 An emotion, which as yet he failed to 
 understand, drew Arcadius to this young and 
 ardent Christian. Against his better judg- 
 ment he found himself much liking the 
 stranger, and what was still more curious, he 
 discovered in the eyes and gestures of Hilarion 
 something that seemed familiar. 
 
 " With regard to caverns," he said, " there 
 are, I doubt not, half a dozen both dry and com- 
 modious upon this hill-slope. One especially 
 occurs to me. It is situated under a grove 
 of arbutus, and at late autumn the red berries 
 fall upon the threshold. Round about grow 
 
 "5
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 asphodel, wild garlic and the orange lily. In 
 spring, white and purple crocuses spear through 
 the green grass, and within a hundred yards, 
 a stream containing little fish meanders, 
 springing from its crystal cradle among the 
 chestnut trees." 
 
 " All very good," answered Hilarion, " and 
 not least the fishes ; for on a Friday it is my 
 custom to eat a fish, or nothing." 
 
 " Unfortunately that cave is tenanted," 
 added Arcadius. 
 
 " A pity — indeed a misfortune," sighed 
 Hilarion. " Another hermit ? " 
 
 " A badger and his mate," said Arcadius. 
 
 The monk considered this. 
 
 " Then surely one need not despair," he 
 answered. " I submit with all deference that, 
 in such a case, immortal man ought to have 
 a pull over the beasts that perish." 
 
 " You think so ? " 
 
 " What do you think, most noble Pom- 
 ponius ? " 
 
 " The beasts certainly perish ; and I am 
 one of those who assist them to do so, for I 
 
 ii6
 
 HILARION 
 
 love sport. Pan, however, did we consult 
 him on such a question, would probably hold 
 that possession is nine points of the law. He 
 would certainly tell me that to eject the 
 badger by mere brute force — the only thing 
 that could do it — is out of the question." 
 
 Hilarion debated a view which was strange 
 to him. 
 
 " I have not known respect for a dumb 
 animal's security pushed to these lengths," he 
 said. " If it were possible to argue with the 
 badger " 
 
 " It is," replied Arcadius. " I have a great 
 and precious gift from Pan. The badger is 
 no more dumb than you are. For the moment, 
 however, I am a little preoccupied and must be 
 returning home. This morning my wife has 
 given birth to a man-child." 
 
 " I congratulate you with all my heart," 
 answered Hilarion, " and I appreciate the great 
 kindness which could prompt you to delay 
 with a stranger at such a moment." 
 
 " The curious thing about you is that I do 
 not feel you are a stranger," answered Arcadius. 
 
 117
 
 PAN AND "THE TWINS 
 
 " Let us walk together, and you shall tell me 
 your story and eat at my table, unless your rule 
 of life prevents it." 
 
 " In the matter of eating," rephed the monk, 
 " if true friendship salts the food, I ask no 
 more. Be it a lettuce leaf and a crust of black 
 bread, or a patrician repast, all is one to me. 
 And I, too, feel that in your company I am 
 with a famihar. It is doubtless your humanity 
 — the magic gift that draws all men of good 
 will together." 
 
 A recollection of a remote evening under 
 the aqueduct, when Pan spoke with him and 
 healed his stripes, flashed into the mind of the 
 young Pomponius. 
 
 " Does the name of Cassius Lucanus recall 
 anything to you ? " he asked, and Hilarion's 
 face fell. 
 
 " Alas ! it does," he answered. " As a way- 
 ward and headlong lad, before the Light had 
 flashed, I ran away from that good Christian, 
 to seek my fortune elsewhere." 
 
 " Embrace me then ! " cried Arcadius, " for 
 you are my twin brother ! " 
 
 ii8
 
 HILARION 
 
 The anchorite dropped his bundle, and the 
 young fellows flung their arms about each 
 other's necks. 
 
 " Now I know why the name of Caius 
 Crassus struck a deep note of memory," said 
 Hilarion. " To him you went, and that much 
 I remembered. You are indeed my very 
 twin ! " 
 
 " Oh that our father had lived to see this 
 wondrous day ! " exclaimed the other. 
 
 Then for a time they walked silently to- 
 gether. 
 
 " Much will spring from such an event," 
 declared Arcadius presently. " Think not that 
 I shall deny your patrimony, Hilarion, for we 
 are one and all mine is yours." 
 
 But the hermit was determined upon this 
 subject. 
 
 " On that high matter one word is as good 
 as a thousand," he repHed. " Once and for 
 all I must continue as I am. This accident, 
 indeed, brings into my Hfe the blessing of 
 kinship and the joy of a loving brother ; but 
 no more than that. I am dedicated to the 
 
 119
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 solitary life for ever ; and if you disapprove, 
 then I shall vanish as I have come. But it will 
 be a needless grief to deny myself this gracious 
 and beautiful experience. I therefore ask you 
 to let me go on as I desire to go, dwell within 
 reach of your dear presence certainly, but live 
 in my own way and cumber not myself with 
 other interests than those which at present 
 occupy me." 
 
 " To part from each other is, of course, out 
 of the question," declared Arcadius. " As to 
 details, we can discuss them at another season. 
 For the moment we will approach the paternal 
 roof together, and you shall hear good things 
 about our father. This is a day to be 
 graven in letters of gold for me — a day that 
 brings me a son and brother together. 
 Blessed be the gracious and glorious name of 
 Pan ! " 
 
 They went in together, and having eaten, 
 Arcadius approached his wife and child, while 
 Hilarion took a bath. Ceres was delighted to 
 see her husband and rejoiced at his joy ; but 
 he kept the subject of Hilarion from her, 
 
 120
 
 HILARION 
 
 fearing the shock of an event so unexpected 
 might do his wife harm. 
 
 He came from the first sight of his son a 
 Httle chastened, albeit those who understood 
 the matter assured him that the babe showed 
 abundant promise and, indeed, already ex- 
 ceeded most newly born infants both in weight 
 and charm. But he had never seen an object 
 so disappointing. 
 
 That night he and his brother related their 
 adventures, and Arcadius strove without suc- 
 cess to turn Hilarion from his resolve. 
 
 " As well might I invite you to turn your 
 back upon your duty," answered the young 
 hermit. " Providence has willed that you 
 shall be the master of great estates, many 
 slaves, much wealth. You are called to this 
 life, and have entered upon it no doubt stead- 
 fastly and wisely. For me such an existence 
 would be dust and ashes. My treasure is not 
 on earth. A lonely grot and a life of seclusion, 
 meditation, devotion and contemplation lie 
 before me. We shall be brothers — each I hope 
 proud as well as fond of the other ; but we 
 
 121
 
 PAN AND THE fWINS 
 
 must pursue our different paths, fulfil our 
 different destinies, and worship our different 
 gods in sincerity and singleness of heart." 
 
 From this attitude Hilarion would not budge, 
 and Arcadius perceived that whether his 
 brother's ambitions were worthy of admira- 
 tion or no, he designed to follow them. He 
 gazed affectionately upon his twin, and re- 
 garded him with the deepest attention. He 
 thus enjoyed the rare experience of seeing 
 himself, for they were amazingly alike, and had 
 the monk but shaved his face instead of his 
 scalp and worn the tunic of his brother, it is 
 certain that no ordinary observer would have 
 known to discriminate between them. 
 
 They sat until a late hour and then, though 
 reluctantly, Hilarion consented to sleep in his 
 brother's house. 
 
 " I should dearly like to baptise my nephew," 
 he said, " but I suppose that is out of the 
 question ? " 
 
 " Nothing that could advance my son's 
 welfare is out of the question," responded 
 Arcadius ; " but what would be the probable 
 
 122
 
 HILARION 
 
 effect upon him did you administer this 
 rite ? " 
 
 " He would be healed of his original sin," 
 explained Hilarion. " You understand that he 
 entered the world a sinner." 
 
 " Why ? Can a child do evil in the womb ? " 
 
 " It is his human inheritance," declared 
 the hermit. " Every one of us arrives on 
 earth in this unfortunate condition ; because 
 Adam, our first parent, disobeyed his Maker 
 and ate of the Tree of Knowledge, being 
 expressly forbidden to do so. We Christians 
 strive, of course, to see that people shall not 
 continue to eat of this noxious fruit ; and I 
 hope presently we may be powerful enough 
 to prevent them ; but meantime every son 
 and daughter of mankind suffers for Adam's 
 awful disobedience, and not a child can escape 
 this primal taint and consequent destruction 
 save by the way of Christian baptism." 
 
 Arcadius clasped his brother's hand and 
 beamed genially upon him. 
 
 " They did wrong who told me your faith 
 lacks any touch of humour," he declared. 
 
 123
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 " Surely it sparkles with rich entertainment for 
 the inquiring mind." 
 
 Then they embraced again ; thanked their 
 respective deities for the supreme happiness 
 that had fallen upon them, and presently 
 retired, each to dream with affection of the 
 other. 
 
 124
 
 VIII 
 THE CAVERN BT THE BROOK 
 
 IN the morning, though his arrival was 
 still hidden from Ceres, Hilarion held the 
 new-born babe in his arms for a few 
 moments and secretly put the Sign of the Cross 
 upon his forehead, when nobody was looking. 
 
 Then he took his parcel and set out with 
 Arcadius for the cavern by the brook. Once 
 more the son of Marcus Pomponius pleaded 
 with his twin brother and argued that their 
 father must be grieved, did he know of the 
 young man's determination ; but nothing 
 would change Hilarion. 
 
 " Have no fear for me," he said, " and 
 though I am sure that our dear father, accord- 
 ing to his lights, was an upright and well- 
 meaning man, yet it is idle to pretend that I 
 owe him anything but life. To be a natural 
 son is in itself a matter for profoundest regret, 
 
 125
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 and knowing that you and I were born in sin, 
 even more than most people, so much the 
 greater is the demand upon us — each in his 
 own way — to make good use of the fleeting 
 years and combat these sad disabilities." 
 
 Arcadius felt melancholy at a view of life 
 which appeared to him somewhat morbid if 
 not futile, and Hilarion, as twins will, guessed 
 the other's thought. 
 
 " One must be a httle hard at the edges and 
 self-centred, brother, if one is to tread success- 
 fully the paths of thorns," he explained. 
 
 Arcadius made no reply. 
 
 They came to the cavern over which sparkled 
 the foHage of arbutus trees and shone their red 
 trunks. The place was bathed in morning 
 sunlight, and at noon this golden splendour 
 penetrated the cave, showing it to be carpeted 
 with white fine sand and roofed with pearly 
 limestone. Within there opened a lesser cave 
 at the heart of the rock, with an entrance two 
 feet high. This hole — dark and carpeted with 
 dry grass — was the apartment of the badger 
 and his lady. 
 
 126
 
 THE CAVERN BY THE BROOK 
 
 Arcadius called to the creature and he rose 
 from his morning slumber and came blinking 
 into the sunshine — a handsome and attractive 
 beast with a dark, heavy coat and picturesque 
 white and amber streaks upon the sides of his 
 face. His eyes were bright, his mouth large 
 and his teeth long and glistening. He yawned 
 and stretched his hinder limbs ; then he sat 
 beside Arcadius, on a flowery bank without the 
 cavern ; and what he heard soon woke him 
 completely. He was a badger of more than 
 ordinary intelligence, who had often spoken 
 with the master of the hillside, and knew 
 something about the human race. 
 
 Now he listened in growing impatience, and 
 having learned all there was to know, regarded 
 Hilarion with an angry and a snarling coun- 
 tenance. 
 
 " This holt," he said, " is mine by every 
 honest principle ; and, as a badger with a sense 
 of justice, I can only wonder that Arcadius 
 Pomponius has allowed himself to raise any 
 question about it. I will answer you briefly, 
 and I will then assume the offensive and put 
 
 127
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 certain points to you that ought to clench the 
 matter. To begin with, I won't go — not for 
 fifty hermits. I absolutely and finally decline 
 to go. I found this place. I have lived here 
 several years and brought up three families 
 in it. I have made it what it is — a home — 
 and if my wife were to learn there was any 
 thought of leaving, I should tremble for her 
 reason. So much for that. Only force ejects 
 me, and I know Arcadius too well to believe 
 that he would employ it. There are thirty- 
 four other caverns upon the Pomponian 
 estate " 
 
 " But not one with a south front near 
 running water," explained Arcadius gently. 
 
 " Very well then : I will now assume the 
 offensive," proceeded the badger. " What I 
 should like to know is this : why a south 
 front ? Why running water ? What the mis- 
 chief does this holy man want with a south 
 front and a stream ? You tell me that he is 
 one who scorns comfort, chooses to live in a 
 cave for his Maker's glory and seeks the 
 hardest possible conditions for his own future 
 
 128
 
 7HE CAVERN BT THE BROOK 
 
 advantage. That, of course, is his business, and 
 if he is going to get well rewarded for being un- 
 comfortable, I say nothing. But my wife and 
 I shall win no rewards for enduring terrestrial 
 misery. We take, therefore, the best that we 
 can get, and there is nothing in our convictions 
 that frowns on a cosy establishment. Pan 
 showed us this hole and was glad we liked it ; 
 so if you fire us out, you quarrel with him. 
 As for the hermit, if he wants real discomfort, 
 why a cave at all ? To be logical, he ought to 
 live in the open all the time — winter and 
 summer. It might shorten his life ; but no 
 doubt that would be all to the good from his 
 point of view." 
 
 " When you come to logic you interest me," 
 replied Arcadius, " and I admit the force of 
 your argument. You see the monk, Hilarion, 
 looks forward to the most exaggerated delights 
 and rewards after mortality is ended, and he 
 proposes to prepare himself for a future good 
 time, without end, by having a present bad 
 time, strictly limited." 
 
 " Exactly," replied the badger. " Then let 
 
 K 129
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 him have a right down beastly time and not 
 paher with it. Rub that into him, and explain 
 that if he's got the courage of his opinions, he 
 ought to go and live on the top of the hill, 
 where the lightning always strikes. There he 
 would have a short life and a wretched one, 
 which seems to be the summit of his earthly 
 ambition." 
 
 But when these things were explained to 
 Hilarion he evaded the dilemma very easily. 
 He was not a religious recluse for nothing, and 
 found himself more than equal to a Pagan 
 and a badger when it came to dialectics. 
 
 " I admire your quick intellect, dear 
 brother," he answered, " and admit that this 
 animal seems also amazingly clear-minded in 
 his crude way. There is, however, a vast 
 difference between theoretical perfection and 
 practical holy living. If death could cut the 
 knot, be sure I should not be seeking the 
 hospitality of this limestone cave ; and were 
 self-destruction the nearest way out, I had, 
 of course, gone to my reward long ago in North 
 Africa. But you argue on a false and heretical 
 
 130
 
 THE CAVERN BT THE BROOK 
 
 assumption. Suicide, which the badger so 
 plainly indicates, is no part of a Christian ideal. 
 To destroy myself, by braving the lightning, 
 or by deliberately ruining my health in some 
 more protracted manner, would be a deadly 
 sin and defeat my own high object. I am not 
 going to commit suicide as a short cut to my 
 heavenly home, because such an act would not 
 lead me there. On the contrary it would end 
 at somewhere altogether different. The true 
 art and practice of the judicious anchorite is 
 this : to live as long as he possibly can and as 
 uncomfortably as he possibly can ; but through 
 no deliberate act or unreason to shorten by an 
 hour his allotted years. The more misery here, 
 the larger the reward there ; so we must look 
 after this wretched carnal vessel, nourish and 
 sustain it up to a certain point, pander to its 
 weakness if we may do so without sin, and 
 thus enable it to hold together as long as its 
 Maker originally intended. For that reason 
 only do I desire a place in the sun, for since 
 the heathen have made of it a god, I naturally 
 dislike it; but because warmth, wholesome food 
 
 131
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 and a dry couch will help to preserve me for 
 my life-long task of meditation, communion 
 and self-denial." 
 
 " I see your point," admitted Arcadius. 
 
 " We're not going, all the same," added the 
 badger. 
 
 " No," declared Hilarion, " you certainly 
 do not go. You have made good your title 
 to this retreat. It is yours, on that ground 
 of simple justice which I share with you. It 
 would be a very unhappy home for me if I 
 thought of you driven from it. The cave is 
 yours most emphatically, and I shall now set 
 about seeking another. Such another as this 
 I do not expect to find ; but that is my affair. 
 Rest assured I am a friend — indeed an ad- 
 mirer." 
 
 Arcadius translated this, and the badger 
 replied that he was glad the monk saw it so. 
 
 " At the same time," continued Hilarion, 
 " there is a golden mean, which we might 
 perhaps explore before I depart. We are here 
 confronted not with one cave, but two. Had 
 that struck you, Arcadius ? The badger is a 
 
 132
 
 THE CAVERN BY THE BROOK 
 
 nocturnal animal ; while my activities are 
 confined to the day. His home is within the 
 seclusion of yonder rock ; mine would be as 
 it were in his vestibule, or antechamber. By 
 day he lies sequestered, since the day is his 
 night ; while when the moon rises, as he fares 
 forth with his better half upon their lawful 
 occasions, I lie on my pallet in slumber. I 
 only give you this idea for what it is worth, 
 but upon my word it is hard to see why we 
 should not share this domicile without let or 
 hindrance one to the other. I should have the 
 privilege of the badgers' sagacious companion- 
 ship ; while they, in return for granting me a 
 lodging, should share such little delicacies and 
 dainties as the piety and good -will of the 
 devotees may bring to my board. How does 
 the idea strike you, Arcadius ? " 
 
 " Admirable," answered his twin brother, 
 " if you really are content to share a badger's 
 holt for the honour of your Creator. But 
 how it will strike the present tenants I cannot 
 tell you." 
 
 " Put it to him as nearly in my words as you 
 
 133
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 can," answered Hilarion. " Tact is everything 
 in a matter of this kind. Dwell on the delica- 
 cies and dainties." 
 
 Arcadius, who was also a tactful person, 
 made a good case and indeed went farther 
 than his brother had done. 
 
 " If you agree to this suggestion," he con- 
 cluded, " I shall make it my business to keep 
 this holy man in such abundance that you and 
 your wife will have the time of your lives and 
 simply wallow in the fat of the land." 
 
 " Plenty of eggs ? " asked the badger. 
 
 " Dozens daily," answered Arcadius. 
 
 " He may, however, want them all himself, 
 and deny us," hinted the badger. 
 
 " Have no fear ; he is a hermit of unstained 
 probity. He will keep his promises and share 
 and share alike." 
 
 The badger began to yield, though sul- 
 lenly. 
 
 " I must consult my wife," he said, and called 
 her. 
 
 She came — a beautiful and comely matron. 
 
 " An extraordinary offer has been made to 
 
 134
 
 THE CAVERN BT THE BROOK 
 
 us," began her husband. Then he briefly 
 explained the situation. 
 
 " We can but try it," said his wife, who was 
 a creature of placid mind. 
 
 " There will be a great deal of unpleasant 
 pubHcity," grumbled the badger, " don't 
 forget that." 
 
 " Not at all," replied Hilarion with assur- 
 ance. " The devotees will only visit me by 
 daylight, while you are both fast asleep ; and 
 when you wake up hungry, I shall be fast 
 asleep, and a delicious repast invariably await- 
 ing you." 
 
 " We can but try it," repeated the badger's 
 wife. 
 
 And so they determined to do. 
 
 The badgers went back to bed and Hilarion 
 unpacked his bundle. He arranged the skull 
 on a ledge near the entrance of the cavern, 
 spread his change of linen on a dry rock, slipped 
 his manuscripts into a cranny, that might have 
 been made for them ; and there he was. 
 
 Arcadius viewed these simple operations 
 doubtfully.
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 " Where are you going to sleep ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " I shall beg a goatskin or two from some 
 kindly peasant," answered the other, " and 
 until I get into touch with the folk, I shall 
 make my couch of moss. Indeed this sweet 
 white sand is good enough." 
 
 " When will you come down to see me 
 again ? " asked his brother. 
 
 " Never," replied Hilarion firmly. " In all 
 probability for the rest of my natural life I 
 shall not stray half a mile from this spot. Do 
 you perceive how admirably it is chosen ? 
 Here are all things that I shall ever need. The 
 necessary devotees can without doubt be 
 counted upon. And if you want to see me, 
 you must come and do so. I shall always be 
 ready to welcome my fellow-creatures between 
 noon and sunset." 
 
 His handsome face shone with ardour, and 
 Arcadius, promising to send up a bed of some 
 sort, a warm blanket or two and a basket of 
 provisions, went his way. But melancholy was 
 at his heart, for it seemed that he had found 
 
 136
 
 THE CAVERN BT THE BROOK 
 
 and lost a dear brother within the space of 
 four-and-twenty hours. 
 
 " Don't forget the badgers ! " cried Hilarion 
 cheerfully to the departing figure. 
 
 137
 
 IX 
 
 THE CONFERT 
 
 A RCADIUS loved his son so much that 
 /% he feh the difficulties and dangers of 
 jL JLthe child's early youth almost more 
 than did Ceres. And thus he began to perceive 
 the truth of Pan : that every new happiness 
 brings its own measure of an emotion, which 
 may indeed not sharpen into sorrow, but is 
 none the less to be described as sleepless care. 
 In the light of paternity he began more clearly 
 to perceive the sterile ambitions of his brother, 
 and while he loved Hilarion better and better 
 as their acquaintance ripened, he much re- 
 gretted the young hermit's scheme of life and 
 thought him a useful man wasted. 
 
 A day came when Ceres visited her brother- 
 in-law, and so like was he to her own husband 
 that she could not choose but love him. He 
 had settled down with great content, and the 
 
 138
 
 THE CONVERT 
 
 fame of him was soon noised abroad. The folk 
 came, at first out of curiosity, expecting that 
 the hermit would prove a dull old bird and no 
 great addition to the hillside from their point 
 of view ; but when they found him young, 
 exceedingly handsome, modest on the subject 
 of his own accomplishments and with a kindly 
 heart, they grew interested, attentive and 
 finally rather proud of the new-comer. The 
 maidens were specially drawn, and in their 
 ingenuous fashion brought gifts and stopped 
 to pass the time of day. They struggled among 
 themselves for his washing and mending, and 
 they would bring him embarrassing presents, 
 such as pillows for his couch, socks for his 
 feet and various other little creature com- 
 forts which he could not permit himself to 
 accept. 
 
 Very soon there stole a shadow into his 
 reflections, for something told him that the 
 devotees were overdoing it, or soon would 
 be. He was not striking the right note. He 
 was not creating that spirit of awe and rever- 
 ence, or setting that example of religious 
 
 139
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 austerity that he had proposed. In fact 
 people failed to take him quite seriously. He 
 was not a sanctified recluse so much as a rural 
 entertainment. The people came happily, 
 listened to his wisdom, thought him wonderful 
 for such a boy, and imparted their own deeper 
 sense founded on a lifetime of experience. 
 Many attached great importance to his 
 opinions, however, and several joined the fold 
 of the Church at his advice. He gave them 
 little addresses, and they listened attentively ; 
 but in process of time he found that the older 
 peasants fell away, and, inquiring the reason, 
 learned that they felt him too young in holiness 
 to be of much practical service to their newly 
 found souls. They had quite expected him 
 to work miracles of healing and he declined 
 even to try. Of course he pretended to no 
 such gifts as yet. Therefore it came about 
 that he was essentially a young people's hermit ; 
 for young people will be young, and they 
 cleave to youth for choice. 
 
 He accepted the position wisely. 
 
 " We will grow up together," he said, " and 
 
 140
 
 THE CONVERT 
 
 increase in wisdom and understanding as the 
 years pass over us. After all, there is no reason 
 why the odour of sanctity should be reserved 
 for middle-age. We all know the sort of goats 
 who join the sheep, only because they are too 
 old to pursue their goatish amusements any 
 longer. Indeed it is easy enough to be a sheep 
 when you have become too old to play the 
 goat. I will be the anchorite of youth ! I 
 understand young people and am at least quite 
 wise enough and good enough for them. We 
 will instruct ourselves, deny ourselves, and 
 increase in righteousness together." 
 
 He was always dignified, and made it clear 
 that he stood apart from the ways of men. 
 He spent a great measure of his time in 
 private devotion, yet showed himself as ever 
 ready to sympathise with innocent enjoyment 
 and promote lawful happiness in so far as he 
 could do so. 
 
 Then came Ceres, and she took a deep and 
 sisterly interest in him from the first. She 
 was charmed with Hilarion, and found the 
 monk an echo of her husband, but by no means 
 
 141
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 that alone. While he reflected the beauty, 
 vivacity and genial spirit of Arcadius, he dis- 
 played in every thought that which his brother 
 concealed : a deep and abiding sense of the 
 unseen ; and this lent gravity to his conver- 
 sation and weight to his sentiments. He much 
 admired Ceres also, and perceived that, despite 
 her great beauty, she possessed a thoughtful 
 mind and wide sympathies. She delighted to 
 discuss the most serious subjects, and asked 
 many questions respecting the Faith. Arcadius, 
 too, satisfied that his brother was enjoying the 
 restricted life that he had chosen, felt at 
 greater ease about him, though the more he 
 saw of Hilarion and the oftener he listened to 
 his pleasant discourse, the more he regretted 
 that his young and attractive twin brother 
 had reserved for his God those gifts which 
 seemed so fitted to advance the welfare of 
 mankind. 
 
 For he perceived, without jealousy, that 
 Hilarion was cleverer than himself. The Chris- 
 tian hermit had been severely schooled, and 
 his mind, of course, took its proper colour ; 
 
 142
 
 7 HE CONVERT 
 
 but it was a far-seeing mind — or so it appeared 
 to Arcadius. Hilarion had a gift of synthesis : 
 he hnkcd things together and looked far ahead. 
 He felt that the new religion was in the 
 ascendant ; that its dawn was widening into 
 a glorious day ; that it contained the seeds 
 of life and must soon sweep the nations 
 into one glorious communion of faith and 
 charity. 
 
 " It will alter the world," explained Hilarion. 
 " It will abolish war, exalt the dignity of the 
 human race, destroy our class prejudices and 
 awaken that enthusiasm for suffering humanity 
 our martyred Master came to teach and to 
 preach. A time is near when the Cross will 
 supplant our Roman Eagles ; when in that 
 Sign alone man will conquer — not his fellow- 
 man — but his own errors of greed and lust, 
 hate and injustice." 
 
 He flowed on melodiously in this fashion, 
 and Ceres felt that if it were known Hilarion 
 was brother of Arcadius and a Pomponian, he 
 might, indeed, make a success of his religion 
 in the highest quarters. 
 
 H3
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 Many merely regarded the Man-God as very 
 well suited to the poor ; but the brother-in-law 
 of Ceres evidently thought his cult equally 
 adapted to the best people ; and she pictured 
 him as taking Christ to the patricians and 
 making a very fruitful business of it. In 
 sisterly fashion she also considered the cavern 
 and made suggestions. 
 
 " Winter is coming and you must be pre- 
 pared," Ceres told Hilarion. 
 
 She was tactful, but obstinate, and as time 
 went on, almost before he realised what had 
 happened, the anchorite found very doubtful 
 additions creeping into his cell. Ceres made 
 such a favour of these trifles that he felt it 
 had been churlish to deny her. 
 
 " I think as much of myself as you," she 
 said, " and I cannot come and listen to you, 
 or bring the baby, if you refuse to let 
 me hang a leathern curtain against the 
 draughts." 
 
 " Why not a little mason's work and a proper 
 door ? " asked Arcadius, but this Hilarion 
 refused. 
 
 144
 
 THE CONVERT 
 
 " My house must not be made with hands," 
 he expLiined ; " besides — the badgers." 
 
 " Well, you won't come to us, therefore the 
 least that you can do is to let it be possible for 
 us to come to you," urged Ceres. 
 
 He granted the force of this and so, little by 
 little, the cavern became habitable. A few 
 chairs, for devotees, a Tyrian rug or two, a 
 drinking vessel, platters, an ewer for washing, 
 even hair-brushes — all these crept in. 
 
 " How's your landlord ? " asked Ceres on her 
 third visit. 
 
 " Both he and his wife are well," answered 
 Hilarion. " Very well and very amiable — at 
 least the female. The boar continues to be a 
 boor. He says — I understand them now — 
 that he grows too fat and his wife too lazy. 
 He declares the fine privacy of the place 
 is gone, and that the devotees keep him 
 awake when he ought to be asleep. This is 
 not true, for nothing ever wakens him but 
 hunger." 
 
 " There is no pleasing some people," said 
 Ceres. 
 
 L 145
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 She was alone on this occasion, and Hilarion 
 asked after his brother. 
 
 " He is gone to see the Emperor," she said. 
 " My husband feels a little uneasy about him." 
 
 " Not because he is a Christian, I hope ? " 
 
 " Oh dear no. Arcadius is far too large- 
 minded to let that influence his thoughts. We 
 are all Christians now — or nearly all. But 
 Gratian doesn't seem to be living up to his 
 high promise." 
 
 " How so ? From my point of view, he is. 
 He advances the faith gloriously. He is a 
 pious and a noble prince." 
 
 " He suffers from flatterers and other para- 
 sites. His virtues are the result of education, 
 and do not spring from the heart — so Arcadius 
 fears. He has grown indolent and wants to 
 win glory without working for it. He is ill- 
 advised and delegates his power to worthless 
 people. No monarch can make a greater 
 mistake than that. His conscience is directed 
 by saints and bishops ; and your brother fears 
 that this may lead to persecution of those who 
 do not think as Gratian thinks." 
 
 146
 
 THE CONVERT 
 
 " A delicate subject," murmured Hilarion. 
 " Probably you and I should not agree upon it, 
 sister. But surely Arcadius will not dare to 
 say these things to the sovereign ? " 
 
 " Certainly he will not," replied Ceres. 
 " Nobody knows better which way the wind 
 blows than my dear husband. But he and 
 Gratian are very good friends and they meet 
 much in the hunting field. The Emperor loves 
 the chase and knows that none is a better 
 companion at his pastimes than Arcadius. He 
 has helped Gratian to lay out large parks and 
 fill them with fierce and dangerous game. 
 These things are well suited to a country 
 gentleman without any higher ambition than 
 to be happy — I refer to Arcadius unfor- 
 tunately — but he is the first to see that an 
 Emperor should take a larger view. To desire 
 supreme excellence in a pastime which his 
 subjects may share is a mean ideal for Gratian." 
 
 " True," answered Hilarion. " Yet may his 
 hand only be stained with the blood of beasts. 
 And that reminds me," he added, " I have not 
 yet caught my Friday fish." 
 
 147
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 They strolled to the stream, which narrowed 
 at a point above a pool and then leapt down — 
 from rocks draped in ferns and violets — into 
 a narrow basin beneath. 
 
 " A miracle of a modest kind," explained the 
 anchorite, " for in this tiny pool every Thurs- 
 day I have but to put my net and a fat carp 
 rewards me. I can only suppose this to be the 
 work of Providence, and it is, of course, 
 gratifying. Already the devotees talk of 
 ' Hilarion's fish.' " 
 
 Ceres, however, knew more about the matter 
 than he. There were only minnows and 
 sticklebacks in the stream, but weekly Arcadius 
 had directed a trusty slave to convey one large 
 red carp from his own stew pond to the basin 
 on the rivulet, and weekly Hilarion fished it 
 out, in ignorance of the little deception. 
 
 Myths will often spring from a trifle no 
 greater than this ; and right miracles establish 
 themselves on foundation no more enduring 
 than a practical joke. 
 
 " When are you going to bring my nephew 
 to see me ? " asked the brother-in-law of Ceres. 
 
 148
 
 ii 
 
 THE CONFER! 
 
 " Next spring he shall come." 
 
 " What is his name ? " 
 
 '' You ought to have asked that question 
 long ago," replied the child's mother. " He 
 is called ' Victor Marcus Arcadius Severus 
 Pomponius.' " 
 
 And what do you call him, Ceres ? " 
 We call him ' Grillus,' because he chirrups 
 like a cricket," she replied. 
 
 " By the time he reaches man's estate, there 
 will not be a Pagan left in Italy," prophesied 
 Hilarion. 
 
 " Very likely," admitted Ceres. 
 
 He talked on religious subjects and she lis- 
 tened with enthusiasm. Her heart had always 
 inclined to transcendental themes ever since 
 her childish ambition to be a Vestal, and she 
 was already at heart a firm believer in Hilarion's 
 faith. He made its principles attractive, and 
 while dwelling upon their beauty, also insisted 
 that the Kingdom was much nearer at hand 
 than people imagined. Success, he told her, 
 was not easy ; a real triumph argued self- 
 denials, sorrows, tribulations. He perceived 
 
 149
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 that this side of the picture especially attracted 
 Ceres ; and therefore he dwelt upon it. He 
 spoke many truer things than he knew ; but 
 it is difficult to press the principle of martyr- 
 dom while a creed is welcomed with rejoicings 
 and at the stage of its triumphal entry into the 
 souls of men. 
 
 In the case of Ceres, however, looking for- 
 ward, she rather saw the inevitable self-denial 
 and affliction under her own roof. Therefore 
 she hesitated long before taking the plunge. 
 Something of her doubt, on the occasion of 
 a long and earnest conversation with Hilarion, 
 was reflected in the young anchorite's own 
 heart. 
 
 " I know how it is with you now," he said, 
 " and I see the difficulty very clearly, for it is 
 probably going to hit me at least as hardly as 
 yourself. If you were to tell dear Arcadius 
 that you feel strongly prompted to become a 
 Christian, he would naturally ask who had 
 strongly prompted you ; and to that question 
 there could be but one reply." 
 
 " The sole difficulty is there," she admitted. 
 
 150
 
 THE CONVERT 
 
 " Shall I sound him ? " 
 
 " On no account. You have awakened my 
 conscience, Hilarion ; and my conscience must 
 solve the problem. If my conscience presently 
 speaks a clear word on the subject I shall 
 myself acquaint Arcadius with the fact." 
 
 " This is what I meant when I told you it 
 wasn't all roses. The beatific vision is only 
 seen through tears, my sister." 
 
 " Yes, I know," said Ceres. " But they 
 ought to be your own tears. True religion can 
 never be selfish. Arcadius, for example, 
 doesn't know the meaning of selfishness." 
 
 And at the end of the year, when the 
 weather had turned harsh and Hilarion, with 
 a cold on his chest, was keeping his cell, 
 Ceres found conscience utter no uncertain 
 word. 
 
 She broke the matter to Arcadius, while she 
 sat with her baby on her lap before a fire of 
 pine cones in the atrium, and he was placing 
 a bunch of autumn crocuses beside his father's 
 statue. 
 
 " I hope Hilarion is better," he remarked. 
 
 151
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 " I must climb up and see him to-morrow. 
 There ought to be a fire in his den." 
 
 " He is better," she answered. " I sent to 
 inquire." 
 
 " Dear, mad fellow," said Arcadius. " Won't 
 see a physician, though I should have directed 
 Rufus to look him up and talk sense to him 
 to-morrow had there been no improvement. 
 Surely, at the turn of the year, he might 
 leave his wretched hole and lead a normal 
 life with us for a few months until the sun is 
 high again." 
 
 " How little you understand him, for all 
 your love," she said. 
 
 " It takes a Christian to understand a Chris- 
 tian no doubt," admitted Arcadius. " I don't 
 — I admit it." 
 
 The opportunity was good and Ceres 
 spoke. 
 
 In two minutes and a half she had informed 
 Arcadius that she wanted to join his brother's 
 faith — indeed had already done so in spirit — 
 and hungered and thirsted for official admission 
 to the fold. 
 
 152
 
 THE CONVERT 
 
 He took it with his usual large humanity. 
 Indeed it came as no very shattering shock, 
 for where Ceres was concerned, love sharpened 
 her husband's wits, and in his devoted relations 
 with her, he rose to heights beyond him in 
 every other connection of life. 
 
 " I will see Pan," he said. " Have no fear. 
 These things must be as they will. I do not 
 think that he will let you be a Christian, for 
 these are not days when a god can lose wor- 
 shippers without uneasiness ; but we may very 
 well trust him. I will call upon him in his 
 temple and ask for a sign. We may safely 
 leave it to him." 
 
 " And you won't be angry with Hilarion ? " 
 
 " No," answered Arcadius, " — not unless 
 my God directs me to censure him. Pan's 
 word, as you know, is my law." 
 
 " I hope little from him," confessed 
 Ceres. 
 
 " You have trusted him, as you have trusted 
 me," answered her husband ; and two nights 
 later, by the blaze of pine torches, he sacrificed, 
 stated the case before the altar of Pan's temple 
 
 153
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 and prayed for a sign. The divinity, however, 
 came himself and greeted Arcadius with his 
 usual affection. 
 
 " Oh, blessed One, it is good to behold you 
 again ! " cried the worshipper. " You are 
 never far from my thoughts and I thank you, as 
 you know, for the many good things that 
 happen to me. I thank you for my dear wife, 
 my precious son, my twin brother, who by 
 his image tells me more about myself than I 
 ever knew. For these consummate blessings I 
 adore you ; but now, even as you have ever 
 warned me, out of good there rises the threat 
 of things — I will not say evil, but highly incon- 
 venient. Hilarion, as you know, is a Christian 
 and has his own ideas. One of his principles 
 is that a Christian should leave no stone un- 
 turned to make everybody he meets a Chris- 
 tian : he told me frankly that this was an 
 abiding rule, and, perhaps wrongly, I raised 
 no particular objection. But a most awkward 
 thing has happened. I have felt uneasy these 
 many days, yet liked not to drop a hint. Now 
 the blow descends upon me. In a word Ceres, 
 
 154
 
 THE CONVERT 
 
 my wife, much desires to be baptised into the 
 new faith. I am therefore faced with two 
 problems involving my wife and my brother. 
 Shall I forbid her in your name and cast my 
 brother out for daring to tamper with her 
 faith ? Or shall I accept the situation ? Your 
 direction will determine me." 
 
 Pan did not immediately reply to these 
 questions. 
 
 " I have observed Hilarion," he said, '' and 
 sometimes, when none was by, surveyed him 
 unseen. He is a good young man and lives up 
 to his convictions honestly. He is fired with 
 the noblest enthusiasm and, according to the 
 light that is in him, pursues his ideals with 
 a pure spirit. But in my experience I have 
 never observed a successful solitary at his age. 
 The usual plan is to sow one's wild oats in the 
 ordinary manner and then, having proved all 
 things and found them dust and ashes, to seek 
 that which is better. Hilarion has begun at 
 the wrong end. Granted that he never had 
 any wild oats to sow, being born good — a thief 
 of virtue ; but there still remains Nature, and 
 
 155
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 Nature forgets nobody. Neither has she ever 
 shown the least consideration for the gods. 
 Now Nature has not forgotten Hilarion, and 
 while the dear lad thinks he has conquered her 
 and trampled her under his feet, the truth is 
 that up to the present time Nature has not 
 concentrated upon him. She is, however, 
 about to do so. Hilarion will in fact, from 
 being just a little insipid, begin to grow much 
 more interesting. I am fond of Hilarion. I 
 am fond of everybody who is in earnest." 
 
 " You cannot, in fact, reach saintship by 
 following your own bent, no matter how noble 
 that bent may be ? " asked Arcadius. 
 
 " Of saintship I know nothing ; of manhood 
 everything," replied Pan. " Hilarion is a man 
 and a good one. He believes himself to be in 
 the right ; and he is in the right to a consider- 
 able extent ; but he might be much righter. 
 So might you ; so might everybody — saints 
 included. By all means permit Ceres to become 
 a Christian — smile on it ; respect her pre- 
 dilections ; keep her up to the mark. None 
 may love or worship one god if her soul has 
 
 156
 
 THE CONVERT 
 
 gone out to another. If she desires to be a 
 Christian, Ceres cannot longer call herself a 
 Pagan, and lip service is a vain thing — only 
 poisoning the heart of such as offer it. 
 
 " There is a common human weakness : to 
 imagine that your own, particular age has 
 some special importance in the progress of 
 affairs ; but, for once, the moment really is 
 rather insignificant. In opposition to the great 
 thinkers of Greece, now extinguished, there 
 rises a remarkable new concept, and the desire 
 for eternity, the promise of an endless existence 
 free from sorrow, pain, or care possesses a very 
 natural fascination for you mortals. This is 
 what Christianity has to offer — on terms. If 
 it knew as much about eternity as the gods, 
 mankind might possibly pause upon this quest, 
 for eternity is not by any means what it 
 imagines. We Olympians understand other- 
 wise. But meanwhile the usual thing is going 
 to happen, for the new religion will prove, as 
 every new religion proves, that the gods them- 
 selves are by no means immortal after all. 
 Gods can only live upon the tombs of other 
 
 157
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 gods, and as we — myself and the rest — take our 
 stations above the vanished divinities of the 
 past, so now it is our turn to suffer ecHpse in 
 the morning glory of the new faith. There is 
 an unwritten law that every generation of 
 mankind will have the gods it deserves, and 
 theology is simply a matter of education. For 
 the next two thousand and one hundred years, 
 Christianity will more or less sufhce human 
 needs, while man's present state of ignorance is 
 slowly illuminated. After that the god idea 
 must become more shadowy and amorphous 
 until finally it evaporates altogether. Thinkers 
 will continue, however, to make and display 
 their own brain images of the gods for a long 
 time, just as earlier man created theirs of wood 
 and stone, ivory and gold. Moreover to speak 
 of one God is vain, since every human heart 
 capable of any noble concept holds its own 
 image of deity, and no two are alike. 
 
 " There are curious things about the new 
 religion," continued Pan. " Strenuous times 
 are coming. The Emperor is already born who 
 will murder those who cleave to the old gods, 
 
 158
 
 THE convert: 
 
 and rivers of blood must drown, hurricanes of 
 fire must consume, not merely Pagans, but 
 countless Christians who do not see Christ 
 with the eyes of authority. The Man of 
 Sorrows he is rightly called, for in His Name 
 sorrows unspeakable will come ; in His glory 
 mankind will develop a ferocity to shame the 
 carnivora ; huge armies of sanctified creatures 
 will be let loose on earth brandishing the keys 
 of Heaven and Hell ; and, in a fine frenzy of 
 religion, these earnest fellows will trample 
 reason under their feet, spew upon philosophy 
 and create a chasm in human progress — a long 
 and agonising night lit by their own bale-fires 
 — that shall endure until sickened and tor- 
 mented man tears himself out of their clutches. 
 And all will be done in the name of the Prince 
 of Peace, the Spirit of Righteousness, the 
 Father of Love — Three Gods in One and One 
 in Three." 
 
 " What about liberty of conscience ? " asked 
 Arcadius blankly. 
 
 " His conscience will no longer be in any- 
 body's keeping," answered Pan ; " his fellow- 
 
 159
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 man, turned priest, will demand it from him 
 on pain of everlasting damnation." 
 
 " My brother says, ' The Letter killeth.' " 
 " He is quite right : it will kill many 
 hundreds of thousands. And it will kill 
 thousands who merely differ about the Letter 
 itself, seeing that the Letter of Christianity 
 can never be determined so long as it endures. 
 The thing itself is protean and takes varied 
 forms, turning not a few of your Italian tute- 
 lary deities into its own saints and taming the 
 theogonies of the Orient to its purpose. A 
 babel of interpretation will swiftly smother 
 its content of value. Yet Christianity has 
 come into a civilisation that promised much. 
 It inherits a great literature, a noble juris- 
 prudence and a developing sense of social 
 existence ; but in five centuries the literature 
 will only exist in fragments, the jurisprudence 
 will sink to trial by ordeal and other fetich 
 substitutes for law, and the dawning social 
 science be forgot. In fact these tremendous 
 fellows are going to make the world so undig- 
 nified, dangerous and disgusting, that in self- 
 
 i6o
 
 THE CONVERT 
 
 defence man must transfer his stricken hopes 
 to another. That is their purpose : to kill 
 earth and the joy thereof until man's days 
 sink to no more than a bitter pilgrimage." 
 
 " Sultry times appear to be coming," said 
 Arcadius. " But why should my wife join 
 this difficult community ? " 
 
 " She is safe. These things will not happen 
 in her life," repHed the God. " Christianity 
 is still so near its fountains that the river of 
 healing may flow harmlessly for her. She can 
 live and die, not without sad visions, or awful 
 questionings, yet safe in her own peace." 
 
 " I at least am yours," answered the young 
 man. " And I hope you will last my time. 
 Great Friend." 
 
 " Have no fear," promised Pan. " You 
 may count upon me. Of all the gods I antici- 
 pate extinction with least concern. So long 
 as I am in a human heart, I abide its questions. 
 Of this more on another occasion. Now bid 
 Ceres lift up her spirit and be a good and 
 faithful Christian ; and censure not Hilarion. 
 As yet he knows happiness as the earth-worm 
 M i6i
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 knows it, who has never seen the sunshine. 
 Presently the sun will rise for him also, and we 
 may catch the excellent lad blinking a little. 
 All shall be well, for I forget not your twin 
 brother. It is a trick of the gods to believe in 
 many who do not believe in them." 
 
 With that the puck-nosed deity was gone, 
 and in some amazement and confusion at all 
 he had heard, Arcadius returned to his 
 family. 
 
 With uneasy instinct he clutched his son 
 to his bosom — surely the little one must ever 
 love and worship Pan — but he spoke cheerfully 
 to Ceres and declared that his god had no 
 objection whatever to her ambitions. 
 
 " Be a Christian, my dear ; and be a good 
 one," he said. " Pan approves of your deter- 
 mination and thinks no worse of Hilarion for 
 converting you. Don't, however, try to con- 
 vert me, for that would be the height of in- 
 gratitude and might wake in my heart emotions 
 I hope will never rise there." 
 
 " I shouldn't dream of such a thing, my 
 dear husband," repHed Ceres. " Pray for you 
 
 162
 
 THE CONVERT 
 
 I must always ; and I shall pray for good Pan 
 also." 
 
 " One prays to a god, not for him," repHed 
 Arcadius, and Ceres smiled and kissed him on 
 both cheeks. 
 
 " You don't know what Christianity can do 
 yet," she said. 
 
 " Pan apparently does, however," he re- 
 sponded. 
 
 163
 
 X 
 
 TRAGEDT 
 
 ON the first of March were celebrated 
 the Matronalia, the female Kalends, 
 held in honour of those august women 
 who put an end to the Sabine war. Now the 
 ladies received a return for their own gifts 
 at the Saturnalia of December, and it was the 
 custom that their husbands, lovers and friends 
 should bring handsome presents upon this 
 festival. 
 
 Her spouse had given Ceres a necklace of 
 emeralds and Hilarion also had promised her 
 something, concerning which she felt curious, 
 for what had Hilarion to give anybody ? But 
 the little matter of the Matronalia was not 
 much in their thoughts, since a far greater 
 event happened to be at hand. 
 
 Now Arcadius climbed to see his brother 
 while the East wind's enchantment was over 
 
 164
 
 TRAGEDT 
 
 all things. For Eurus is a rare painter and can 
 do more with his pigments upon the naked 
 sky than Zephyr, for all those peaks and 
 pinnacles of cloud that he lifts from old ocean. 
 The East Wind knows not the crystal clarity 
 of rain-soaked air. He works with dry brushes 
 and hides the horizon under magic colours, so 
 that though earth curdle beneath his stroke, 
 the woods ache through and through, the 
 waters show their teeth, the cattle turn their 
 shivering backs, yet aloft float fairy feathers 
 and the hills lie under tender veils and gauzes. 
 The tyrant loves to go in delicate raiment of 
 azure, silver, rose, draped Orient-wise over his 
 steely bosom ; his dagger leaps from a sheath 
 of pearl and opal, and he smiles while he 
 stabs. 
 
 Thus thought Arcadius as he drew a sheep- 
 skin about him and climbed upward through 
 the mastic and lavender and myrtle scrub until 
 he reached his brother's home. Hilarion was 
 on his knees and he rose in some concern, for 
 the visitor greeted him with such asperity of 
 tone that he grew fearful. But there was no 
 
 165
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 need, and for once the voice of conscience 
 happened to be mistaken. Only a nip of the 
 East wind had touched Arcadius. 
 
 " Rise from your prayer and draw the 
 curtain against this infernal blast," he said. 
 " Excuse me for striking into your medita- 
 tions ; but there is a good reason." 
 
 " You do nothing without reason, brother," 
 replied Hilarion, pulling the curtain and bring- 
 ing a rug of wolf-skin for his pallet. " Wrap 
 this about you. Shall I make a fire ? " 
 
 " Yes," answered Arcadius, " make a fire by 
 all means — not for me, but for tenderer souls 
 who design to visit you presently. Ceres and 
 her cousin, Erotion, ascend anon, that you 
 may give my wife her promised gift. You look 
 down in the mouth this morning. Another 
 cold ? " 
 
 " No," answered Hilarion rather sadly. " I 
 am not cold enough. It is borne in upon me, 
 brother, that my life falls short of what it 
 should be. Day by day the conviction grows. 
 I am uneasy and suffer from a bad con- 
 
 science." 
 
 1 66
 
 TRAGEDT 
 
 Arcadius showed interest. 
 
 " What is this Christian malady of a bad 
 conscience ? " he asked. 
 
 " I must go," answered Hilarion ignoring 
 the question. " No, it is not the East wind. 
 The wind is tonic, wholesome. It tells the 
 truth to mc in its trenchant and penetrating 
 way. You bid me to draw the curtain, Arca- 
 dius, and I draw it. But that — I was going to 
 say ' accursed ' — curtain is a symbol of much 
 more important things than itself." 
 
 At this moment the badgers emerged from 
 their arcanum. They were immensely sleek, 
 plump and prosperous. 
 
 " My husband ate too much pickled anchovy 
 last night," explained the badger's wife placidly. 
 " So we're just going out in the air a bit to 
 pull him together." 
 
 They shuffled off and Hilarion's lustrous 
 eyes regarded them sadly. 
 
 I am like those poor brutes," he declared. 
 
 I am comfortable, prosperous, putting on 
 weight at every meal. Instead of growing 
 thinner, I grow fatter ; instead of feeling my 
 
 167 

 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 flesh become more and more a vesture, from 
 which I shall be glad to escape, I find myself 
 hale and hearty and sound as a nut — not a 
 weak spot, not an ache or pain. This is all 
 wrong. One ought, physically, to go down 
 the hill as, spiritually, one goes up it. Instead 
 — well, look at me. I am more like you than 
 ever — even harder and tougher than you." 
 
 Arcadius laughed. 
 
 " The result of a blameless life," he declared. 
 " You can't have it both ways, dear brother. 
 The average recluse generally looks on the wine 
 when it is red, and gathers a few rosebuds 
 where he may, ere he assumes the cord and 
 cowl, and shaves his top-knot. He has laid in 
 his rheumatism and sciatica before he started ; 
 but Nature is a plain dealer and eminently 
 just. You must not expect to suffer, if you 
 and your parents before you have done nothing 
 to suffer for. That is where the Eternal 
 Mother appears so much fairer than ourselves. 
 Cheer up, however ; and be sure there's a bad 
 time coming." 
 
 Hilarion shook his head and repeated his 
 
 i68
 
 TRAGEDT 
 
 determination to depart and seek more arid 
 circumstances and severer discipline. 
 
 Then his brother told him the great news. 
 
 " Pan has no quarrel with your recent activi- 
 ties," he announced. " I refer to Ceres. Of 
 course I knew that you were trying to make 
 her a Christian with all your might ; and now 
 you have succeeded. She is a Christian down 
 to her toes, and I hope good may come of 
 it." 
 
 " Pan doesn't mind ! " exclaimed Hilarion. 
 
 " Not in the least. Believe in my god or 
 no, this you must own : that he is large- 
 minded, tolerant and generous to all created 
 things." 
 
 Hilarion, however, felt a Uttle suspicious. 
 
 " There's no catch in this ? " he asked. 
 
 " None — unless it be for Ceres. I hope 
 Christianity will prove a great catch in every 
 way for her. I rejoice to see her happy, and 
 she is gloriously happy as a result of my agree- 
 ment with her desires." 
 
 " It is like yourself to take this exalted line," 
 murmured Hilarion in some emotion. " You 
 
 169
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 will never forget it, dear brother. By their 
 light ye shall know them. Ceres will go from 
 strength to strength." 
 
 " She couldn't be a better woman than she 
 is," declared Arcadius. " A good wife and a 
 good house-wife, a perfect mother, charitable 
 to the needy, sympathetic to the weak and 
 patient with the pig-headed — a noble character 
 in fact. I have never seen such another." 
 
 " She will rise to still greater heights," 
 prophesied Hilarion. " You have done me 
 much good, banished idle fears, heartened me 
 to wrestle with my own doubts and difficulties. 
 My gift for Ceres was my most treasured 
 missal — the Epistle of our St. James. But I 
 did not intend to give it her until I had asked 
 your permission." 
 
 " Certainly, certainly," replied Arcadius. 
 " Give her anything but that death's head. 
 And if you would permit this relic of a man 
 who has breathed and lived and hoped and 
 desired happiness as much as we do — if you 
 would allow that fragment of what was once 
 one of us, and therefore worthy of decent 
 
 170
 
 JRAGEDT 
 
 burial, to return to earth, I should regard it as 
 a favour. Christianity is overdoing this rag 
 and bone business." 
 
 Thus one by one Hilarion's httle comforts 
 sHpped away from him. Under the circum- 
 stances and at such a moment it had been 
 churlish to deny his brother's request. And 
 yet the skull was more than a mere skull to 
 him. He entertained a real friendship for the 
 relic : the withered bone had received many 
 confidences and become in some sort his 
 familiar. Now, however, he did not hesitate. 
 
 " You are right," he admitted. " You have 
 a clean, Roman way of regarding things, and 
 much that a monk takes for granted may, 
 perhaps, admit of question. With all its errors 
 Paganism never traded in hairs from the head 
 of Jupiter, or parings from Aphrodite's finger- 
 nail. But think not that Christianity is less 
 logical and pure-minded than any other creed. 
 Charity is our watchword and humility our 
 countersign. I will bury my skull, and I wish 
 it were possible to take it back to the Egyptian 
 desert whereon I found it, that its ultimate 
 
 171
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 reunion with fellow-fragments might be more 
 readily effected when the coming Trump shall 
 sound. These details, however, may be safely- 
 left to the Creator of us all. I will inter this 
 emblem of mortality under the crocuses and 
 utter a becoming prayer." 
 
 " Do," said his twin brother. 
 
 They parted with utmost affection and, 
 later in the day, slaves brought up a litter from 
 which emerged Ceres and her cousin, Erotion. 
 The latter was but seventeen and exquisitely 
 beautiful. Princes had desired to wed this 
 girl, yet a certain trait, common to the maidens 
 of her race, distinguished her. She was seriously 
 minded, entertained no great regard for man 
 and desired goodness rather than experience. 
 This ideal at seventeen, manifested in one with 
 violet eyes, hair like autumn gold and a lovely 
 face, after the impassive perfection of the 
 Greek, was matter for amazement. Her parents 
 — worldly people — held Erotion to be a change- 
 ling ; but Ceres adored her, saw her own 
 opinions and ideals reflected in the beautiful 
 child and hoped for her a future of intellectual 
 
 172
 
 7RAGED7^ 
 
 distinction akin to the learned females of Attic 
 renown, yet innocent of certain undesirable 
 features recorded concerning them. 
 
 And now, joyous above measure in her newly 
 found liberty to join Hilarion on the plane of 
 his religion, Ceres already began to sec in 
 Erotion another convert. Converted she must 
 be without delay, and who more likely to accom- 
 plish the task than the brother of Arcadius ? 
 Indeed not a shadow clouded this ambition. 
 The cousin of Ceres had already harkened to 
 the new teachers and declined to go with her 
 parents to the cosy temple of Vesta by Tiber, 
 where the little they did in this line was done. 
 Erotion possessed the Christian virtues as a 
 precious gift from Providence, and it remained 
 only for her to learn the beauty, mystery and 
 pathos of Hilarion's glorious evangel to receive 
 it with gratitude if not passion. 
 
 Ceres was right. Erotion perceived the joy 
 which now irradiated the countenance of her 
 cousin and, indeed, as they sat together in the 
 litter covered with the skins of tiger and bear, 
 the Christian girl had already lighted the first 
 
 173
 
 PAN AND 7HE TWINS 
 
 spark of a flame that her brother-in-law would 
 quickly kindle to a blaze. 
 
 They joined him presently and he blessed 
 Ceres and welcomed her to the bosom of the 
 Church. He was full of plans for her formal 
 reception, and then he turned to her cousin 
 and from his heart spoke comfortable and 
 eloquent words. 
 
 Erotion struck without a struggle, for 
 Hilarion excelled himself. The badgers, after 
 their Httle airing, sneaked back to their estab- 
 lishment utterly unobserved before the en- 
 thralling splendour of his exposition. 
 
 To be plain, Erotion was converted in five 
 minutes ; then they discussed worldly things 
 and how Marcus Severus Pomponius was 
 prospering with his teeth. 
 
 Hilarion blessed them both, and they 
 promised to see him again on the following 
 Wednesday ; but twenty-four hours later, 
 Erotion, with that stark absence of any coquetry 
 which marked her character, came up again 
 quite alone and enjoyed another long conver- 
 sation on her own account.
 
 TRAGEDT 
 
 To Hilarion it seemed not twenty-four 
 hours, but twenty-four years since he had seen 
 her. She brought him some difficulties and 
 he solved them ; she put to him a number of 
 intelligent questions and he answered them. 
 At last both sank into silence and merely sat 
 humbly looking into each other's eyes. They 
 were two pairs of the most beautiful eyes in 
 Italy, and each thought the other pair the 
 loveliest things that life had ever revealed. 
 
 Erotion rose to depart, and Hilarion went 
 half a mile out of bounds to see her on the path. 
 He was suddenly alarmed for her, that a rude 
 beast might accost her, or a stone slip under 
 her delicate feet. Indeed he would not let 
 her go until a peasant passed that way and was 
 directed to escort her back to the villa. 
 
 She came again with Ceres, with Arcadius, 
 by herself ; and he liked best the visits when 
 she approached him unattended. 
 
 Familiar phenomena now overgot Hilarion. 
 He found himself on several occasions sighing 
 to the moon, who, as she swam into the un- 
 clouded sky, was as white as the shoulder of 
 
 175
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 Erotion. That came out of Horace — an 
 unbeliever. He remembered something else 
 in Horace — a poet who had given him pleasure 
 in the past on the lips of a literate though 
 earthy monk. " Soften life's crosses with a 
 smile, for there's nothing happy on every 
 side." Yet what were these emotions — not 
 happy certainly, but ineffable, precious, yearn- 
 ing — moony ? And what the mischief had he 
 to do with the pagan moon, or the moon with 
 him ? 
 
 Spring was now in the air. Life sought its 
 mate. Even the badgers were giggling and 
 talking nonsense to each other. Every bird 
 carried a twig, or a wisp of wool from the 
 thorny sheep-track ; the young devotees came 
 in couples — boy and girl together — and looked 
 more at each other than at him. He missed his 
 skull and was in a mind to dig it up again. Per- 
 haps it might help him to banish this phantom 
 in a crocus-coloured gown, with violet eyes and 
 a voice like the wood doves. The brook, 
 whence he drew his weekly carp, murmured 
 one word monotonously ; and whereas it had 
 
 176
 
 TRAGEDY 
 
 been wont to sing inspiriting early Christian 
 canticles, now the crystal could babble but a 
 single, blessed name. " Erotion " — " Erotion " 
 it throbbed, and the lark on high tinkled 
 " Erotion " ; the nightingale cried her at 
 twilight ; and even the raven croaked of her 
 as he flew heavily high overhead. The spring 
 flowers also wrote " Erotion " upon the herb- 
 age, and by night the galaxies of heaven 
 spelled her name across the sky. 
 
 Hilarion wrestled with this unparalleled 
 experience and certainly did grow thinner ; 
 but he could not banish the maiden from his 
 mind, and since he had ever been a man 
 of austere principles who never looked twice 
 at, or thought twice about a girl, the flame of 
 this arrow, sped through his monkish habit by 
 Cupid, burned with a mordant intensity that 
 confounded him. 
 
 When Erotion came for more Light, his 
 knees turned to water, and while she could not 
 fail to perceive his increasing pallor, for his 
 part he observed that a new loveliness sat upon 
 her countenance. She told him one day, in 
 N 177
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 faltering words, that her visit to Ceres was 
 about to end. 
 
 " Don't go — don't go," he said, and mar- 
 velled what strange voice spoke within him. 
 
 " I don't want to ; but there is nothing to 
 keep me longer. It will be better — wiser to 
 return home," she answered. 
 
 He saw her to the very gates of the villa, 
 exacted a promise that she would come once 
 again before she departed, and so far forgot 
 himself as to kneel and kiss the hem of her 
 robe. 
 
 Then he tottered back to his cave, and 
 reaching it, fell trembling upon the silver 
 sand of the floor. He had at last found out 
 what was the matter and now voiced his awful 
 discovery in hollow accents that echoed in 
 despair among the crannies of the grotto. 
 
 " Good God — I'm in love ! " cried the dumb- 
 foundered hermit ; and he devoted all that 
 night to devising penitential exercises. 
 
 178
 
 XI 
 A COMPACT 
 
 MANY moons waxed and waned before 
 Hilarion heard more of his family or 
 indeed saw a soul from thePomponian 
 villa. He began to be seriously concerned, 
 therefore, and after the first long-drawn pang, 
 suffered when Erotion came not to say " fare- 
 well," as she had promised, her memory settled 
 as a dead weight upon his heart and he only 
 roused himself with painful effort to minister 
 to his devotees as usual. But concerning his 
 brother also, no direct word reached him, 
 though the absence of Arcadius was in a 
 measure explained. For there came evil news 
 of the State. Gratian had fallen far below his 
 early omens and the monarch now grew into a 
 reproach rather than a promise. He even 
 condescended to appear publicly in the un- 
 couth fur garments of a Scythian savage, and 
 
 179
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 his love for the chase first brought shame, then 
 scorn to his legions. Murmurs thrilled the 
 ranks of the Western armies, and presently a 
 man renowned in war, one Maximus, a 
 Spaniard, was lifted to the purple and invited 
 to accept the Empire by a soldiery ignorant of 
 his true qualities. Thus the rude isle of Britain 
 saw a Roman emperor accept his destiny ; and 
 not only did the might of that island support 
 Maximus, but all Gaul quickly received his 
 sovereignty. Gratian, making war at the time 
 against wild animals in the neighbourhood of 
 Paris, quickly fled to the South ; but his 
 course was stayed at Lyons, and before he 
 could summon the forces of Italy against the 
 usurper, he perished under a treacherous 
 sword. 
 
 Maximus, not content with a share of empire, 
 now aimed at Italy ; and in his turn he fell, for 
 Theodosius, the Emperor of the East, proved 
 faithful to the family of Gratian. Nigh 
 Aquilea perished the upstart, Maximus, and 
 with him fell his son ; but the generosity of 
 a Christian conqueror supported the traitor's 
 
 1 80
 
 A COMPACT 
 
 aged mother and orphan daughters. Thus 
 goodness and evil are mixed in the chaHce that 
 holds a great man. The first Valentinian had 
 illustrated this rule, and Theodosius, who 
 abounded in the highest virtues and could 
 pardon the citizens of Antioch their crimes, 
 yet inhumanly massacred the Thessalonians. 
 There is ever an ingredient in princes that 
 escapes historian or biographer ; but which, 
 denied us, renders reconciliation of their 
 contradictions impossible. 
 
 Now the second Valentinian reigned in 
 Gratian's stead, and Arcadius had secretly 
 hoped that the new monarch might annul 
 various edicts of his dead brother and return 
 to the Pagan priesthood certain valued allow- 
 ances and privileges of late taken away from 
 them. But he reckoned without the Christian 
 hierarchy, daily growing more powerful. The 
 Churchman Ambrose, now towered upon the 
 shining horizons of the new Faith, and a mind 
 capable of influencing the mighty Theodosius, 
 swiftly dominated the amiable and pious lad 
 who for a moment ruled Italy. The old gods 
 
 i8i
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 were being routed on every hand and their 
 temples closed or opened anew in the name of 
 Christ. 
 
 Gloomed by these things, which had only 
 reached Hilarion fitfully from the mouths of 
 peasants, Arcadius remembered his brother, 
 and upon a sad-coloured day of mist and silence 
 he climbed the hills and appeared before the 
 cavern, 
 
 " I have done ill to be absent so long," he 
 said, " but you were seldom out of my thoughts 
 though affairs and tribulations have kept me 
 from you. They were not always such that I 
 could expect you to share my sorrow." 
 
 Hilarion embraced his brother. 
 
 " All is well with Ceres and the boy ? " 
 
 " All is quite well with them." 
 
 " And — and Erotion, your kinswoman ? " 
 
 " We will speak of her anon. For the 
 moment cheer me, as you can. What says 
 Marcus ? I do not mean our revered parent, 
 but the Antonine. ' Enter into every man's 
 Inner Self,' he urges, ' and let every man 
 enter into thine.' But how many portals 
 
 182
 
 A compact: 
 
 worth entering will grant an entrance, and 
 at how many does not the knocker fright 
 us from the door ? With you and me, however, 
 that is not so. We are one." 
 
 " Of late that thought has been my only 
 consolation," replied Hilarion. 
 
 " I should like to believe that the miseries 
 of the times are weighing upon you as they 
 weigh upon me," continued his brother ; 
 " but your part, no doubt, continues to be a 
 frozen abstraction, removed above the tribu- 
 lations of your kind." 
 
 " For the moment I have sorrows enough of 
 my own," confessed the hermit, and Arcadius 
 eyed him curiously. The survey convinced 
 Hilarion's brother that something was indeed 
 amiss. The solitary had grown very thin, and 
 the only bright thing about him was his eyes. 
 He looked pale, untidy, unfit, unhappy. 
 
 " You are ill, brother. You have been over- 
 doing it. I curse myself that I have not been 
 looking after you more closely," cried Arcadius; 
 but Hilarion shook his head. 
 
 " If I am slightly emaciated and less comely, 
 
 183
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 that is to the good," he answered. " I have 
 nothing to grumble at in reaHty but my own 
 faulty nature. Tell me about yourself." 
 
 " I find that as the mind develops," answered 
 Arcadius, " the hope of happiness grows fainter. 
 That is a melancholy discovery, and every- 
 body has got to make it, be he monk or country 
 gentleman. My old ideals fade. I must plan 
 my future days and ambitions upon a new 
 foundation." 
 
 " Our minds are moving — that is in itself a 
 hopeful fact," replied his brother, but without 
 conviction. 
 
 "The sum is well stated by rare Juvenal," 
 answered Arcadius. " For what says he ? 
 ' Pray for a sound mind in a sound body, for 
 a good finish, not a doubtful continuation,' 
 which is to say not an eternal becoming as the 
 metaphysicians propose, but a glorious being, 
 such as flesh and blood rightly demands. So 
 many of you Christians do nothing but look 
 forward, and miss the journey of life itself by 
 consequence. ' Fear not death,' adds the poet, 
 ' but when it comes, recognise it for the last 
 
 184
 
 A COMPACT 
 
 though not the least of Nature's blessings.' 
 He is spiritual and exalted in his sentiments. 
 He would have us choose the labours of 
 Hercules rather than those of Venus and, 
 before all, seek peace through virtue, wherein 
 alone it shall be found. Nothing about happi- 
 ness, mark you ; yet for a man who follows 
 this direction. Fortune is no goddess. He 
 stands alike indifferent to her promise of 
 friendship, or her threat of enmity." 
 
 Hilarion sighed. 
 
 " It is all very well for you, who have a good 
 and beautiful wife and a noble son, to turn up 
 your nose at Venus," he answered. " It is easy 
 to despise what we possess and pretend our 
 treasures are of little worth ; but what did we 
 feel about them before we won them ? This : 
 that they represented all things vital to con- 
 tent, happiness and life itself ? " 
 
 Arcadius stared ; then a sunshine of delight 
 broke over his face and transformed it. 
 
 " You're in love ! How human, how refresh- 
 ing ! How close it brings us ! This is indeed 
 blessed news." 
 
 185
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 " ' Blessed news ' you call it," answered the 
 other in hollow accents. " You have imagina- 
 tion — you read the poets — then try to conceive 
 what this must mean to me. I am in love, as 
 you say ; and could a more appalling, unex- 
 pected and shattering event have crashed into 
 the serenity and fancied security of my un- 
 fortunate existence ? " 
 
 *' Great Gods ! You talk as though it were 
 a crime to fall in love, brother." 
 
 " For me it was. Such a thing ought to 
 have been utterly impossible to one armed as 
 I am, fixed as I have ever been on the celibate 
 ideal and its implications." 
 
 " Doesn't this prove the celibate ideal a 
 myth ? " 
 
 " Far from it ; nothing is proved save my 
 own pride and abominable self-assurance. I 
 always knew too well that I was a sinner, but 
 never feared to fall into such a trap as this." 
 
 " What have you done, after all ? " inquired 
 his brother. 
 
 " Nothing particularly grievous until now," 
 confessed Hilarion. " But I had my full share 
 
 i86
 
 A COMPACT 
 
 of the old Adam, of course, like the best and 
 worst of us, and I should have looked far more 
 sharply after it and not felt so insanely con- 
 fident." 
 
 " Men are born babes, not sinners," replied 
 Arcadius, " and to talk of ' original sin ' is to 
 talk nonsense, as I have already told you. 
 Your sin, if I may say so, Hilarion, is not to 
 fall in love with a high-minded and noble girl, 
 but to have fallen in love with yourself. That 
 is the trouble with you, as it was with Nar- 
 cissus. Your sin — I hate the word — lies in 
 evading a brave man's destiny, his battle with 
 life, his duty to his neighbour. I'm not preach- 
 ing, because of late I find myself committing 
 the same grave errors. You and I are making 
 a similar mistake in opposite ways. This is 
 only to show that our natures are one, though 
 our religions are two. Your fault, dear brother, 
 lies in the things you are doing to ensure your 
 own salvation. You seek to intimidate and 
 impress the people with your righteousness ; 
 but your devotees are far more useful than 
 yourself. They carry on the world's work, not 
 
 187
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 you — just as my slaves are justifying their 
 existence, not I. The least of these is more 
 valuable than Hilarion, or Arcadius. To be 
 busy about nothing but your own little soul 
 is in my opinion to argue a soul barely worth 
 saving. Does your personal discomfort in this 
 den bring anybody else nearer your God, even 
 if it brings you nearer ? Does your present life 
 beget a ray of happiness for any created 
 creature but the badgers ? Emphatically, no. 
 Therefore accept this warning and amend your 
 days, even as I design to amend my own." 
 
 " You know nothing at all," replied Hilarion 
 and argued a little tactlessly, seeing that he was 
 talking to a married man. 
 
 " We can leave me out of the question," he 
 began ; " and whether my vocation is good, 
 or no. One must judge for oneself about that. 
 But we are for the moment confronted with 
 the fact that I am in love. My Church already 
 finds the sex question to bristle with diffi- 
 culties. Christianity may soon be deploring 
 the fact that there should be such things as 
 women at all. The Fathers deprecate their 
 
 i88
 
 A COMPACT 
 
 existence very definitely. But certain prob- 
 lems are already solved, and we now know that 
 only the Almighty's plan for perpetuating the 
 race justifies marriage. It follows that we 
 endure the institution and propose to elevate 
 it into a sacrament and something much more 
 respectable than, at present, we find it. But 
 wedded Christians, by the nature of things, 
 cannot vie with the single in selfless devotion 
 to what alone matters ; nor can they fairly 
 hope to enjoy a solitary's share of the ultimate, 
 heavenly reward. This is self-evident justice." 
 
 Arcadius stared, then he sighed. 
 
 " Oh, Constantine, Constantine ! " he cried, 
 " your conversion has ruined the world and 
 delivered it, chained and bound, to a most 
 tragical error. But ' conversion ' will not much 
 longer be the word, for if those in power think 
 thus, ' conversion ' will soon spell ' compul- 
 sion.' Is Christianity going to end this world 
 while showing us the way to the next ? " 
 
 Then he returned to Hilarion. 
 
 " You are at the parting of the roads," he 
 said, " and your next step may mar a valuable 
 
 189
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 man and end a beautiful life. Surely no creed 
 would smile on such a catastrophe ? " 
 
 " What man ? What life ? " inquired the 
 hermit. " I mar no man and threaten no life. 
 All I have ever demanded are the best possible 
 conditions for communion with my Maker and 
 advancement of my soul." 
 
 " And yet I speak the truth. Others can 
 fall in love as well as you. The man you will 
 wreck is yourself ; the beautiful existence you 
 will assuredly terminate belongs, at present 
 precariously, to my wife's cousin, Erotion." 
 
 His brother turned pale. 
 
 " What evil has befallen her ? " he asked. 
 
 " She has had the doubtful fortune to love 
 also," replied Arcadius, " and it remains to be 
 seen whether she loves a man or the selfish 
 shadow of a man. Love has come to her as the 
 whirlwind to the threshing-floor. She is swept 
 away upon it, and if nothing happens to temper 
 her tragic suffering, she will soon perish." 
 
 " She loves me ! " gasped Hilarion. 
 
 " Why not ? Cupid is no respecter of 
 persons, yet can be exceedingly intelligent and 
 
 190
 
 A COMPACT 
 
 gracious when in a pleasant mood. Take my 
 own case. Was there ever a couple better 
 matched, more one at heart, more perfectly 
 suited each to the other than Ceres and I ? 
 It is true that you have just doomed us to a 
 lower table at your celestial banquet, where, 
 beneath the salt, we shall see you reclining 
 among the few honest bachelors ; but she and 
 I shall be together ; and that very possibly 
 may be quite heaven enough for us." 
 
 " Don't think I meant anything personal," 
 stammered Hilarion. 
 
 " No, no ; you will still be my dear, twin 
 brother. But I spoke of Cupid and declared 
 that he will often make a kindly shot and bag 
 a brace well suited to each other. And I assert 
 that my wife's cousin would have made you a 
 magnificent wife, while you must have been 
 the perfect spouse for such a serious-minded 
 and earnest maiden. Instead, what is going to 
 happen ? You are floored by reality and will 
 henceforth be mighty little use to God, or 
 man, so far as I can see ; and as for Erotion 
 she will die. She is in the doctor's hands at 
 
 191
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 this moment, and Rufus knows perfectly well 
 what's the matter with her, though he calls it 
 by another name in the usual, silly, professional 
 manner." 
 
 " This is awful news," murmured Hilarion. 
 He sat, a monument of despair, staring before 
 him into the eye of the East wind with his hands 
 in his beard and his cowl fallen back upon his 
 broad shoulders. 
 
 " I was not going to tell you the sad truth 
 about her," explained Arcadius, " for if, as I 
 imagined, you had not thought of her again, 
 it had only been to harrow you to relate her 
 sufferings, though you were the cause of them. 
 A man cannot be asked to wed a maiden because 
 she desires him to do so ; but since you are 
 also perfectly and completely in love with her, 
 surely there ought to be hope for you both ? 
 The world must go on, whatever you say, 
 and if " 
 
 "Peace! Peace !" cried Hilarion. "Would 
 you have me behold in the guise of my brother, 
 the Tempter of mankind — the Arch-Enemy — ■ 
 the Master of the Pit ? " 
 
 192
 
 A COMPACT 
 
 " Nothing is gained by calling me names," 
 answered Arcadius, " and who the Master of 
 the Pit may be I have yet to learn. Keep your 
 nerve and be self-possessed. It was time you 
 knew these things, for to destroy a fellow- 
 creature whom you love appears to me an 
 action that neither good Christian nor Pagan 
 would smile upon. Consider your dilemma. 
 You decHne to wed Erotion. Why ? That 
 your soul may win the highest place. But, 
 seeing that Erotion will most certainly sink 
 into the earth if you do not marry her, what 
 price are you going to pay for your saintship ? 
 Embarrassing, is it not ? " 
 
 " Appalling," admitted Hilarion. 
 
 I venture to think," continued Arcadius, 
 that your halo would be a trifle tarnished 
 under any such distressing circumstances ; and, 
 after all, it is quite a question whether eternity, 
 even with a halo, might be as refreshing as the 
 same lengthy period spent beside a dear and 
 loving wife. A halo as an everlasting com- 
 panion is a bleak thought. Again — you don't 
 know all there is to know. You and your party 
 o 193 

 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 may be hopelessly wrong about marriage 
 putting a man out of the hunt for saintship. 
 You must admit that a clever woman helps one 
 forward, and even a good woman may do the 
 same. They are seldom both clever and good, 
 as in the case of Ceres, but you can't have 
 everything, and there is no doubt that Erotion, 
 who is a Christian now and was a perfect 
 character before, would do much to help you 
 on your way and nothing to hinder. You have 
 seen what a tower of strength to each other 
 man and wife occasionally can be ; why, then, 
 should you suppose that two perfectly mated 
 people must mutually hinder on the road to 
 your heaven ? How much more likely that 
 united they may attain to a higher reward 
 than either alone. For at least such a couple 
 have stood up to life ; and why you should be 
 more handsomely rewarded for running away 
 from it I fail to appreciate." 
 
 " You don't grasp the point," answered 
 Hilarion hopelessly. 
 
 " Yes I do," repUed Arcadius, " because I 
 have experience and estimate the value of what 
 
 194
 
 A COMPACT 
 
 I tell you. I am twice as good a man as I was 
 before I married Ceres, and I mean to be twice 
 and four times as good at no distant date. 
 With a wife like mine and such a god as Pan, I 
 ought to blush for myself, for I am not worthy 
 of either. But ere long I hope to be. There 
 are great ideas moving in my mind — Pan has 
 doubtless put them there. They don't involve 
 running away from my wife and family, 
 however. Ceres had a daughter six weeks 
 ago. All is well, and we are going to call 
 her Pomona Maria, after the goddess of fruit 
 trees and the gracious human Mother of your 
 Man-God." 
 
 " I am very glad," replied Hilarion. " Let 
 her be a Christian, dear brother." 
 
 " She shall be exactly what she wishes 
 to be," replied Arcadius. " My only care 
 is to see the young fountain of her mind 
 spring pure from its pure sources. To poison 
 wells is an evil deed, but venial to poisoning 
 youthful minds. You Christians promise all 
 manner of things for your infants — a great 
 and futile profanity if you look at it justly,
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 for who can promise for another ? Have I 
 convinced you ? " 
 
 " Far from it," declared Hilarion. " I view 
 with the utmost uneasiness your arguments — 
 so to call them. I mean, of course, regarding 
 Erotion." 
 
 " Well then, hear a wiser than I. Let Pan 
 have a chat with you." 
 
 Hilarion flushed. 
 
 " Be careful of what you are saying," he 
 answered stiffly. " You know that I don't 
 believe in Pan." 
 
 " Why not ? I believe in your God — in all 
 three of them. After all, the proof of the 
 god lies in his worshippers. Few other 
 proofs are ever offered. You must believe in 
 Pan, if for no other reason than that I believe 
 in him. He is a restful, a kindly, a wise deity, 
 and it cannot hurt you to listen to him. He 
 may agree with you — I have no idea of the 
 opinion he will deign to express." 
 
 " Hurt me he certainly cannot," answered 
 Hilarion. " There is nothing that can pierce 
 my armour but my own weakness." 
 
 196
 
 A COMPACT 
 
 " Then let him speak. He was willing that 
 Ceres should become a Christian, recollect. 
 There is nothing paltry about him. He is, in 
 fact, a god, though he may be but a shadow 
 from your point of view. Truth cannot con- 
 tradict truth, and who knows that what my 
 god says to-day, your God may affirm to- 
 morrow ? Let that be the test. If Pan 
 advises after such wisdom that your heavenly 
 Counsellor contradicts him, I will say no more ; 
 but should my god say ' do thus and thus,' and 
 your own Director offer you like advice, then, 
 surely, it will be impossible for you to remain 
 longer in doubt of your duty — both to god 
 and woman ? " 
 
 " You suggest a most irregular course," 
 replied his brother, " for what shall any god, 
 in whom I do not believe, have to say to me 
 that can matter to me ? I will, however, for 
 the love I bear you " 
 
 " And Erotion." 
 
 " For the love I bear to all my fellow- 
 creatures, and out of a great desire to do the 
 right thing, I consent to this unusual ex- 
 
 197
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 pedient. I warn you, however, that though 
 he speak with the tongue of angels, I shall 
 severely discount his suggestions and submit 
 each and all to a higher authority." 
 
 " It's a bargain," agreed Arcadius. " Of 
 course," he added, " I cannot speak for my 
 god. He may not believe in you any more 
 than you believe in him ; but I feel fairly 
 sanguine. Many bear the thyrsus who do not 
 know the god, and many know the god who do 
 not bear the thyrsus. I mean that you may 
 find Pan something far nearer to your heart 
 than you imagine ; and he loves you, whether 
 you will or no, for he told me so." 
 
 " I shall be true to my principles," replied 
 Hilarion, " but meantime keep me not in 
 suspense. My heart is breaking for that sick 
 girl. Leave me now, best of kind brothers, 
 for I would pray for her." 
 
 " Do so — we will leave no stone unturned 
 to save her," promised Arcadius. 
 
 Then he kissed his haggard twin and de- 
 scended the mountain feeling exceedingly 
 sanguine. 
 
 198
 
 A COMPACT 
 
 " We weave our own garlands round the 
 eternal gods," he thought, " until often, 
 struggle as they may, they cannot show us 
 their divine faces for what we have hung and 
 heaped upon them." 
 
 199
 
 XII 
 
 SUSPENSE 
 
 ON still days, when the wind is resting 
 and the sky clouded, yet not so heavily 
 curtained but the place of the sun may 
 be seen ; on days at the edge of autumn, when 
 the flame and pomp of the fading year cease 
 their challenge for a while, there is born into 
 the spirit of man a pensive mood that does not 
 deepen into sadness, but rather exalts than 
 casts down. It springs of the diurnal mono- 
 tone, spreads placidly through thought, as the 
 grey mist upon the meadow, and is welcome. 
 It comes in temperate guise and flings never 
 a sharp shadow to heighten the splendour of 
 great lights ; it brings no inspiration, but 
 rather, like the weather, dims and softens, 
 leaving the mind restrained, receptive, per- 
 vious to sensation. Other days dominate, 
 awake emotion and demand reaction ; while 
 
 200
 
 SUSPENSE 
 
 these still, ash-coloured hours take the spirit 
 by stealth and their quality wins us to a brood- 
 ing patience before the spectacle of life. 
 
 On such a day and in such a humour Arcadius 
 ascended again to see his brother. Some 
 months had passed by since last he visited the 
 cavern, and Pan was still silent. No response 
 had come to his petition, yet the young man 
 persisted in it and his soul did not faint. There 
 was a measure of good news for Hilarion, as 
 well as the frosty intelligence that his brother's 
 god as yet had given no sign. 
 
 Now, climbing upward, it happened that 
 Arcadius fell in with the serpent — she whom 
 he had seen in the splendour of her new robe 
 many years before. 
 
 " And how is it with you ? " he asked. 
 
 " Much as usual," replied she. " I go on 
 my peaceful way and think my thoughts." 
 
 " Still moralising at the vision of existence 
 vouchsafed to your ladyship ? " 
 
 " Certainly. To moralise becomes me and 
 can do no other created thing harm. For 
 example, on beholding this crab tree, with its 
 
 201
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 sparkling harvest of gold and crimson fruit 
 cast down upon the sward for those to eat who 
 will, an idea occurred to me." 
 
 " Nobody wants a crab-apple," replied the 
 other. 
 
 " True. Yet here and there you see a mouse 
 has broken through in hope of seeds — then 
 abandoned its disagreeable task. Many crabby 
 creatures have valuable seeds in them, Arcadius, 
 but life is too short for the painful business of 
 extraction. So such sour folk are left to wonder, 
 what it is that denies them the attention their 
 sweeter and perhaps less nourishing neighbours 
 win so readily. They are conscious of their 
 excellent seeds ; quite unconscious of the sour 
 pulp in which they are packed away." 
 
 " Excellent," admitted Arcadius. " Now I 
 go to another moraliser — the hermit, Hilarion." 
 
 A cold spark glinted in the serpent's eye. 
 
 " Not long since, while he taught the 
 peasants, I too listened and was a good deal 
 upset," she said. " I crept away unseen 
 and have been perturbed ever since." 
 
 " Impossible," declared Arcadius. " He is 
 
 202
 
 SUSPENSE 
 
 made of mercy and would not hurt a living 
 thing." 
 
 " We serpents," continued the lady, " have 
 ever been held in honour for v^isdom and other 
 quaUties that man appreciates, but too often 
 lacks. The snake is also the symbol of prophecy 
 and of youth renev^^ed. In the form of a ser- 
 pent came ^sculapius from Epidaurus, as it 
 was written in the SibclHne books. Within the 
 temples of the God of Healing we are preserved 
 and cherished ; our record is without a stain ; 
 we have justly won reputation and the respect 
 of gods and men. Yet what is this that Hilarion 
 tells the people ? A very different story — an 
 outrage — a libel on my race ! " 
 
 •" The Garden of Eden and so on — yes, I 
 remember," replied Arcadius. " Rather pain- 
 ful for you to hear, no doubt." 
 
 " Exceedingly painful and exceedingly im- 
 proper," grumbled the serpent. " From 
 saviours, we are come to be destroyers — 
 tempters — cunning rascals — the villains of the 
 human drama. It ought not to be allowed — 
 in fact something must be done about it." 
 
 203
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 " Forget it," advised Arcadius. 
 
 " Of course we well know that listeners 
 never hear any good of themselves," admitted 
 the snake, " and this is a lesson to me not to 
 lend an ear to any of your doubtful race in 
 future ; but one thing I will say : that if 
 you are going to scorn the serpent, you will 
 quarrel with ^sculapius and henceforward 
 sacrifice to him in vain. When Hilarion has 
 aches and pains he may whistle for the god — 
 and Hygieia too." 
 
 " We shall all be whistling for the gods 
 pretty soon," answered Arcadius. " My own 
 opinion is that every generation gets the gods 
 it deserves, and that the Olympians have 
 deserted us in a body. For look at our unhappy 
 State — the tribulation on every hand— another 
 emperor murdered and Nemesis doubtless 
 waiting for us at every turn." 
 
 '* You must expect disaster," replied she. 
 " This comes from cleaving to new deities and 
 cold-shouldering your faithful old supporters, 
 from insulting respectable people, like myself, 
 who have had no small share in your welfare, 
 
 204
 
 SUSPENSE 
 
 and from forgetting your obligations gener- 
 ally." 
 
 She glided indignantly away and the man 
 climbed on. 
 
 It was true that another monarch had fallen 
 and the young and harmless brother of Gratian 
 gone to join that monarch in the shades. It 
 seemed that the purple must ever be dyed with 
 blood, and civil wars too swiftly dismember 
 the Roman Empire. Arcadius had not the 
 least ambition to take up arms himself ; but, 
 like the serpent, strongly felt that something 
 must be done about it. Now he only waited 
 for Pan's guidance to enter upon a more mas- 
 culine life, and play what part the god might 
 order in this hour of the nation's need. 
 
 He now appeared before Hilarion and felt 
 pained to observe how emaciated and miserable 
 his twin brother had become. 
 
 " Welcome," he said. " I have good and 
 bad news, and I will give you the bad news 
 first. Pan has made no sign in answer to my 
 prayers and sacrifices ; but we must of course 
 wait his good pleasure and his hour. I have 
 
 205
 
 PAN AND 7HE TWINS 
 
 not, so far as I can judge, done anything to 
 cause him anger, or to turn him from me ; 
 therefore hope, as I do. And Erotion — well, 
 Erotion is a little better." 
 
 " Thank God for that," repHed his brother ; 
 and so deeply was he moved that he wept. 
 Arcadius supported him with good cheer ; 
 but concerning the improvement in the girl's 
 condition, concealed the reason for this happy 
 circumstance. For that Ceres had to be 
 thanked. She did not hesitate, on learning 
 the great fact how Hilarion loved Erotion, to 
 inform her cousin that the recluse was in like 
 case with herself ; and the joy of hearing 
 that her passion was returned proved so pre- 
 cious for the sufferer that, even though nothing 
 as yet promised to come of it, the mere in- 
 formation comforted her more than tonics or 
 change of air. 
 
 Ceres had indeed breathed hope, and her 
 feminine intuition spied happiness in the 
 future for the distracted couple. It appeared 
 so emphatically a case for Providence, and 
 Providence had played Ceres so fair since she 
 
 206
 
 
 SUSPENSE 
 
 became a Christian, that the wife of Arcadius 
 set her faith in that high principle and 
 trusted the future to it. 
 
 Her brother-in-law now asked after Ceres 
 and Pomona Maria. He then explained that 
 his own duty still appeared doubtful to him. 
 He could not feel positive on the point, but 
 was inclined to fear marriage must be an 
 impossibihty and that fate meant to solve the 
 problem abruptly. 
 
 I am very weak and ill," he explained, 
 
 and 1 inchne to the opinion that I am going 
 to die ; but whether as a reward, or punish- 
 ment, I feel uncertain." 
 
 Arcadius protested against any such fear, 
 and Hilarion proceeded in a melancholy mood. 
 He declared himself more of a miserable sinner 
 than ever, and disparaged his existence so 
 morbidly that the other became angered. 
 
 " This attitude is abominable," cried Arca- 
 dius, " and very soon I shall begin to hate a 
 Church that takes such a preposterous view of 
 the good world into which man is born. Not 
 so the vanishing faith. You may laugh at us — 
 
 207
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 we are about the only thing you do laugh at — 
 and you may find the ancient cult absurd and 
 outgrown ; but heathenism, as you are pleased 
 to call it, has many redeeming qualities. It is 
 at least jubilant, good-humoured, high-spirited, 
 tolerant and charitable. Among our solemni- 
 ties we dance and sing, we feast and rejoice. 
 Our hierarchy are human, and the better do 
 they understand us for that reason. Never an 
 augur debating the doubtful entrails of a 
 sacrifice is steeped in such gloom or utters 
 such woeful prophecies as your least deacon. 
 You defeat your own object and confound 
 your own world-wide ambitions, for how shall 
 a faith that breathes eternal damnation ever 
 grip the human heart — except with terror ? " 
 
 " To exchange falsehood for truth is always 
 alarming," replied Hilarion, " and all great 
 changes, whether social or religious, must upset 
 our lives and cause a varying measure of dis- 
 comfort, if not actual suffering. Man is not 
 easily wrenched from his matrix of custom. 
 And in custom, in habits, in traditions, all 
 deeply rooted through generations upon our 
 
 208
 
 SUSPENSE 
 
 hearts and minds, we find that unfortunate 
 link which completes what at first sight appears 
 to be a vicious circle. It is a misfortune that 
 belongs to the nature of things, and I have not 
 discovered, even in my own sublime religion, 
 any evidence that it can be banished." 
 
 " I see your point," replied his twin brother ; 
 " for while custom holds upon her steady course 
 and while tradition offers us that breadth of 
 vision which we cannot enjoy without it, yet, 
 in our natural instinct to lean upon the past, 
 there must always be a stubborn obstacle to 
 progress." 
 
 " Yes," agreed Hilarion. " The static is 
 ever the enemy of the dynamic, and man in 
 the lump will continue to think that what was 
 good enough and safe enough for his fathers is 
 good enough and safe enough for him. Hence 
 the hard and ugly death of accepted things 
 and vested interests, religions among the 
 rest." 
 
 " Faced with this obdurate and unyielding 
 dilemma, then, man can never reach any 
 millennium, though it is to his credit that he is 
 p 209
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 always trying," replied Arcadius, " for pro- 
 gress must mean misery for somebody. Indeed 
 it invariably does. The wheel cannot turn 
 upon the road without destroying harmless 
 and contented creatures. In fact somebody's 
 dog is always being run over ; and the chariots 
 of Christianity drive so furiously that the 
 victims will soon be numerous. Granted for 
 argument's sake that it is good ; even so the 
 road is strewn with many sufferers ; and what 
 most gives the Pagans pause is this : the in- 
 creasing numbers of your own faith who appear 
 among your victims. You do not agree among 
 yourselves and you do not agree to differ 
 among yourselves. Heresy and schism keep 
 you even busier than propaganda and conver- 
 sion. The Arians are down ; but what of the 
 others ? " 
 
 " One must have Inconveniences and differ- 
 ences of opinion at first," replied Hilarion. 
 " We are merely cutting our teeth at present 
 and, of course, want something to cut them 
 on. Controversy and competition are a sign 
 of life and health. There is no doubt that 
 
 210
 
 SUSPENSE 
 
 Rome will set the final standards, become 
 paramount, and exercise universal authority 
 over the souls of men." 
 
 " Pan was right, however, as he always is," 
 declared Arcadius, " and religion, like life itself, 
 must submit to the law of change and breed its 
 own sorrow, even in the heart of its own 
 success. Change is the unalterable and ever- 
 lasting pronouncement, and change means 
 suffering to all sensible life, destruction for 
 every human institution and heavenly star." 
 
 They sank into a gloomy silence ; but it was 
 swiftly broken by the shuffle of heavy feet 
 and the huge form of " Innocence," the bear, 
 darkened the mouth of the cavern. 
 
 Hilarion did not feel fear, for he was long 
 past any such emotion ; nor did he experience 
 great surprise when his brother accosted the 
 bear in its own vernacular. 
 
 " Welcome, old friend ! " laughed Arcadius, 
 as the brute rose on its hind legs and gave him 
 a gentle hug of greeting ; " this is indeed an 
 honour ! I never thought to receive you as 
 a guest." 
 
 211
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 But the visitor did not immediately reply. 
 He was much out of breath and panted for 
 some time with his head down and his great 
 tongue lolling out of his mouth. 
 
 Hilarion, perceiving that this bear was known 
 favourably to his brother, fetched the beast 
 a game pie, which he had not himself had the 
 heart to open. It was gone in a moment, and 
 the bear, much refreshed, delivered his message. 
 
 " I come from Pan," he said. " I may 
 mention in passing that I have myself returned 
 to Pan, and am now his servant and steadfast 
 follower. I do things that he does not hke — 
 for example my attitude to flocks and herds 
 differs vitally from his own ; but I have 
 entirely given up devouring malefactors at his 
 express command, and even a god can't have 
 it both ways, as he well knows." 
 
 " To business," interrupted Arcadius. " It 
 is a great joy to see you here and a still greater 
 joy to know whence you come. The god has 
 a message. I have long expected it." 
 
 " He bids you and your brother attend him 
 on this spot at evening time three days hence." 
 
 212
 
 SUSPENSE 
 
 proceeded " Innocence," " and he made a 
 point of the fact that, as his trusted messenger, 
 I must be well rewarded." 
 
 " Stop here," begged Arcadius. " Spend a 
 week, or a fortnight, with me among these 
 hills and enjoy yourself. If it is clearly under- 
 stood you have ceased to devour the human race 
 — malefactors and otherwise — you are welcome 
 and may trust me for good and varied hunting. 
 This is the monk, Hilarion, a holy man who 
 wishes you nothing but well, and is as grateful 
 to you for your message as I myself." 
 
 " I may stop here altogether for that 
 matter," replied " Innocence." " I am weary 
 of the Alban — not that I have worn-out my 
 welcome, for I never had any. But these 
 Sabine ranges offer promise, and such a cavern 
 as this would suit me well enough. I'm not 
 as young as I was, unfortunately. Good 
 arbutus berries ripening overhead I note. 
 And how is Valentinian ? " 
 
 " Your Valentinian is dead long ago," 
 answered Arcadius, and the great bear was 
 astonished. 
 
 213
 
 (( 
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 And what did he die of ? " asked " Inno- 
 
 cence." 
 
 a 
 
 Of his own temper," explained Arcadius, 
 and the bear showed still greater surprise. 
 
 " Most unusual," he said. " It was generally 
 the other people who died of his temper." 
 
 He went down the hill with his host presently 
 and, indeed, slept and dined at the villa. But 
 he left his sleeping quarters, in an empty 
 stable, before daylight, so far forgot his 
 manners as to eat a calf that belonged to a 
 freed man, and then proceeded to explore the 
 possibilities of his new home. 
 
 Arcadius, before he slept, returned to 
 Hilarion and heartened him, warming his spirit 
 in cheerful talk concerning Erotion, and his 
 body with a great flask of soup, wherein white 
 wine had been poured. 
 
 " Pan," he said, " has an art to eliminate 
 from a human life the things that do not 
 matter ; and I have been astonished to find, 
 when this is done, how little remains. The 
 vital subjects — how few ! It is the same with 
 the history of the world. We fasten on showy 
 
 214
 
 SUSPENSE 
 
 detail and find that we have missed the simple 
 springs of movement, the foundation-stone 
 that supports all. You will hear nothing to 
 cause you any inconvenience, for Pan is a god 
 apart ; his worship breeds no jealousy in the 
 souls of the deities, let them be as jealous of 
 each other as they will." 
 
 " I am not afraid," answered Hilarion, 
 " and only the issue will reveal whether I have 
 done rightly or wrongly to heed this immortal 
 being." 
 
 " At any rate do not fret about dying until 
 you learn whether it is worth while to live," 
 urged his devoted brother. 
 
 215
 
 XIII 
 
 THE WAT OUT 
 
 ON the eventful day, Erotion was borne 
 to the Pomponian villa, that she might 
 hear if any hopeful word could be 
 spoken by the god of Arcadius. She had much 
 doubted, with Ceres and Hilarion himself, 
 whether they deserved to be sanguine — 
 whether, indeed, such a step as Arcadius now 
 designed did not partake of divination, or 
 even sorcery — a deadly sin. But, seeing that 
 the husband of Ceres had ever been a faithful 
 disciple of the Pasturer, and feeling as many 
 early Christians felt that this deity stood in a 
 measure apart, they cheered each other as best 
 they might and hoped at least no harm would 
 befall them. 
 
 " If we are mistaken," said Ceres gently, 
 " it is certain that our own heavenly Mentors 
 will soon make our error clear," 
 
 2l6
 
 THE WAT OUT 
 
 At the Pomponian villa the cousins waited 
 hand-in-hand — Erotion upon her couch, for 
 she was still very sick, and Ceres beside her. 
 They spoke on various subjects to distract 
 their thoughts, but ever, as the night advanced, 
 returned to Hilarion and Arcadius. 
 
 The lover of the hermit felt least hopeful ; 
 yet, when she feared some dire rebuke might 
 fall upon Hilarion's head for thus tampering 
 with a false god, Ceres reminded her that Pan 
 was at any rate old and wise, Hilarion still 
 young and exceedingly inexperienced. 
 
 " After all, countless thousands of good 
 men and women have died firmly believing in 
 Pan," she said, " and in many other gods and 
 goddesses also who were far less satisfactory 
 than he. I have often heard my husband 
 relate this deity's opinions, and whatever our 
 Guides may think of Pan, he certainly has no 
 quarrel with Them." 
 
 So they talked, and when darkness hung 
 heavy on the land and a candle told that it was 
 two o'clock, their ears began to strain for the 
 footfall of Arcadius. 
 
 217
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 " He cannot be much longer now," declared 
 Ceres. In her heart was a suspicion that 
 not only her husband but his brother also 
 might presently appear ; but this dream o£ 
 good tidings she dared not whisper to Ero- 
 tion. 
 
 Meanwhile, at the entrance of Hilarion's 
 cavern, under a sky of autumn stars, sat Pan 
 and discoursed with the twins. 
 
 He had come to them at his appointed hour 
 and disdained not the yellow figs which 
 Arcadius himself brought, with a flask of most 
 exquisite wine. 
 
 Both brothers were nervous, especially the 
 recluse, but Pan set them at their ease and 
 appeared to be in a humorous mood. 
 
 " Who is this swarthy and sinister person I 
 have met with in picture-books illustrating the 
 new faith ? " he inquired. " Artist monks 
 paint him in their illuminated missals, and he 
 is always either causing annoyance, or suffering 
 the gravest indignities. I ask, because he is a 
 very colourable imitation of myself with his 
 horns and hooves ; but he has an unkind face, 
 
 218
 
 THE WAT OUT 
 
 usually carries a trident, suggestive of Nep- 
 tune, and flourishes a much longer tail than 
 mine." 
 
 " You refer to our personification of the 
 Evil One, the Prince of Darkness, Satan," 
 replied Hilarion uneasily. 
 
 " I have heard of him," replied Pan, " and 
 much regret the Enemy of Mankind resembles 
 one who would fain be humanity's friend. 
 However, artists are only answerable to their 
 own ideals ; we have to do with graver things, 
 and indeed your faith is a very grave matter. 
 Many scions are being grafted upon the 
 original stock, and I hear that while your 
 bishops and shepherds clatter their crosiers 
 and crooks on one another's heads, the sheep 
 are a good deal alarmed. For errors of faith 
 are already so easy, and so fatal, among you 
 servants of the Galilean. Now you fight like 
 demons to decide whether the Son was created 
 out of nothing ; now you belabour each other 
 upon the question whether the trinity consists 
 of Three Persons or Three Hypostases ; and 
 despite the gravity of these questions, you 
 
 219
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 approach them in such a pugnacious and 
 ferocious mood that wisdom flies your contests 
 and the people stand trembhng and waiting 
 to know where safety and salvation lie. Sect 
 and sect plot and counterplot, quibble and 
 scratch each other's eyes out — ostensibly for 
 dogma, in reality for power — ever more power 
 over the souls and bodies of the nations. And 
 seeing these things, Hilarion here, and count- 
 less other men of peace, turn their backs on 
 life and light and love, to seek living tombs as 
 fit antechambers of the grave they welcome. 
 It is interesting to observe that men will die 
 for a sentiment, not for an opinion. Dogma 
 is going to slay its thousands ; but metaphysics 
 has no martyrs. There is, indeed, none who 
 looks sharplier after his own skin than a meta- 
 physician, though, of course, he will tell you 
 that he hasn't really got a skin. 
 
 " Now, twin brother of my Arcadius, state 
 your case and I shall declare what I think 
 about it. Do not expect advice ; but my 
 frank opinion is yours." 
 
 " Thus it stands with me, god Pan," replied 
 
 220
 
 THE WAT OUT 
 
 the young man firmly. " On the one side I am 
 faced with the experience of human love. I 
 turned my back upon it as you say ; but it 
 would not turn its back on me ; and now my 
 nature craves before all things for union with 
 Erotion, of the House of Severus, a Christian 
 maiden — one of my own converts in fact. 
 Against this mighty experience my Faith cries 
 trumpet-tongued, that the end of the world 
 fast approaches — how fast no man can tell. It 
 may be a year or two ; it may be to-morrow ; 
 but our Scriptures tell us, and our Divine 
 Master himself has stated, that the time is 
 near. Seeing, therefore, that the end of the 
 world and the judgment of the human race 
 cannot be long delayed, have I the right to 
 proceed as though this fiery ordeal were a 
 thing of the remote future ? Ought not I and 
 Erotion and all men and women, rather than 
 trifle with the joys of life in this world, to be 
 flying from the wrath to come and concerning 
 ourselves with the next world alone ? That is 
 the question to which I can find no answer, 
 for my soul speaks with two voices and I stand 
 
 221
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 between them deprived of the power of 
 decision." 
 
 " On his own showing," added Arcadius, 
 " my brother is not fit to judge. Thus it is 
 with all who think as he does : they deprive 
 themselves of the power of judgment ; they 
 scorn the social health of the community, 
 flout the ordinary processes of nature, con- 
 demn all happiness, and so render themselves 
 utterly unable to pronounce an opinion on the 
 simplest problems of human policy. One 
 world at a time is a very sane motto, whatever 
 may be our opinions concerning another, and 
 now Nemesis has descended upon Hilarion and 
 he stands caught, as it were, in the net he has 
 so ignorantly spun for his own feet." 
 
 " This is no new thing," replied the God. 
 " Your Pagan teachers of old were quite as 
 strict, and quite as often confounded right and 
 wrong, becoming confused between the errors 
 of the flesh and its lawful, natural pleasures. 
 Plato will be found to talk much as your Saint 
 Paul, and Marcus Aurelius was also something 
 of a Christian before Christ. Epicurus, on 
 
 222
 
 THE WAT OUT 
 
 the other hand, preserved a golden mean, 
 founding his philosophy upon reason alone. 
 Moderate and restrained pleasure helps to 
 make the world go round smoothly, my friends, 
 and to turn away from it is an act of pure 
 superstition. Happiness, as I have often told 
 Arcadius, is an universal desire and ideal, not 
 put into your hearts for nothing. Far more 
 depends upon it than you have yet grasped ; 
 and to decry happiness, as you affect to do, is 
 to oppose natural instinct and waste time in a 
 bhnd alley, since this particular instinct makes 
 for good. Whereto, think you, your craving 
 for misery will lead ? Man is but man, and 
 by lowering his vitality, denying himself the 
 friendship of nature and decHning her manifold 
 devices for making this life worth while, he 
 speedily renders it not worth while." 
 
 " That it cannot be worth while is our con- 
 viction," replied Hilarion. 
 
 " Nevertheless you have found for yourself 
 that it may be of exceeding worth. And what 
 follows your theories put into practice ? You 
 all become short-tempered, overwrought, un- 
 
 223
 
 PAN AND 1EE TWINS 
 
 strung, acerb, uncharitable and harsh. Your 
 Christians are going to make a world of porcu- 
 pines, spit-fires and tyrants — a world where 
 man will find that his security is gone, his soul 
 no longer his own, himself a slave without 
 liberty of thought, or freedom of conscience. 
 And this because what your Saviour intended 
 should be a guide to compassion and ruth, is 
 already wrested from the spirit of the Man- 
 God and will presently become such a stone in 
 humanity's pathway that generations must fall 
 bruised and bleeding before it shall be rolled 
 from the road." 
 
 " But the end of the world," murmured 
 Hilarion. 
 
 " Upon that subject you are misinformed," 
 replied the goat-foot god genially. " There is 
 no immediate fear of any conclusion. The 
 world is destined to continue for a very long 
 time, and it will outlast not only your life, but 
 the lives of many millions of mankind yet to 
 be born. The world is, in fact, still young, as 
 worlds go. It can even count upon a future 
 when religions, that drift from East to West 
 
 224
 
 THE WAT OUT 
 
 and pass after each other as the clouds pass 
 before the wind, will finally thin away, giving 
 place to the naked and ardent sunshine. From 
 Olympus to Golgotha and onward to the 
 Mount of Reason — these are but steps in the 
 progress of human consciousness. The eternal 
 truths remain forever few. A little child can 
 count them. They have already echoed vainly 
 upon human ears, and will still sound but 
 faint and far off for many an age. It is by 
 being selfish and patriotic that mankind gives 
 evil its tremendous power. Between the Scylla 
 and Charybdis of Creed and Greed his labour- 
 ing bark still tosses and will toss while innumer- 
 able hosts go down to Dis. The end, however, 
 is safe — within no god's bosom — but at the 
 heart of unborn men and women." 
 
 They did not reply and Pan proceeded. 
 
 " And now, Arcadius, I will tell you of that 
 one unclouded happiness which breeds no 
 worm and brings no shadow. It is the happi- 
 ness born solely on account of another ; the 
 happiness planned and wrought for humanity ; 
 the happiness begot of the outlook that elimin- 
 Q 225
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 ates self ; the happiness of a Socrates or a 
 Jesus. Men, not man, have often risen to this 
 noble height ; but never a community, never 
 a nation. Go into the world, you twain ; 
 leave your villa and your cave and do what you 
 may to comfort the uncomforted and bring a 
 smile upon the faces of those who never smile. 
 You can accomplish very little ; but that is not 
 your affair. Within your own gift at least lies 
 the power to bring the highest happiness to 
 yourselves that man may know. You stand as 
 yet virgin of experience. You have both 
 good qualities, which you are wasting ; for 
 Arcadius, with his slaves and lands and pelf, is 
 just as useless as Hilarion, with his sandals and 
 
 skull." 
 
 " He has buried the skull, Mighty One," 
 said the disciple of Pan. 
 
 " Good," answered the god. " It belonged 
 to an Egyptian who prayed to the mummy of 
 a cat, loved his fellow-creatures and did many 
 kind little things, before they killed him for 
 another's error. ... So thus it stands, my 
 lads. If you would be happy, do good to those 
 
 226
 
 THE WAT OUT 
 
 you will never see ; help those you will never 
 know ; serve those who will never thank you ; 
 use your gifts of wealth, eloquence, sympathy 
 for the benefit of all men. Do not stand and 
 look on and shake your head from your front 
 doorstep, Arcadius ; no longer whine about 
 your soul in this over-furnished cavern, 
 Hilarion ; but forget yourselves and throw 
 your hearts and gifts and energies into the 
 business of making the city of Rome a happier 
 place than you know it to be. Arcadius can 
 help the sick and suffering and do his little 
 part to staunch the wounds and lessen the 
 indignities of the poor and needy ; Hilarion 
 can speak burning words of faith and cheer 
 and hope. He can follow his Master very 
 effectively ; and if his road leads to his Master's 
 cross, which is probable, what better place ? 
 
 " You are greatly blessed, moreover, in your 
 women. Ceres will prove a noble right hand 
 for Arcadius ; and her cousin may be entrusted 
 to advance the ideals of Hilarion." 
 
 " Can you hesitate, brother ? " asked Arca- 
 dius. " If that which you would do shall be 
 
 227
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 better done beside Erotion, can you hesi- 
 tate ? " 
 
 " Should the end of the world indeed be 
 delayed " began Hilarion, and stopped. 
 
 Pan regarded him with a smile. 
 
 " Are there any Eleusinian mysteries in your 
 faith ? " he asked. 
 
 " Most certainly not," replied Hilarion, 
 " nothing of the kind." 
 
 " I heard a rumour of Love Feasts," replied 
 Pan gently, " but I daresay it was only a Pagan 
 rumour. You have adopted so many charming 
 details from the old faith ; and, in any case, 
 where is the prosperous religion that has no 
 part or lot with sex ? " 
 
 " I have always told my brother that he 
 went into this business too young," declared 
 Arcadius. 
 
 " But sex is the one thing we abhor," 
 answered Hilarion firmly. 
 
 " How different from your grandfathers," 
 replied Pan. " Now they glorified sex and 
 honoured it with many a significant and healthy 
 ceremonial. They went a trifle too far some- 
 
 228
 
 THE WAT OUT 
 
 times — who does not ? But you are lost in the 
 opposite direction. You ignore sex, insult it, 
 deny it, do everything but escape it. That, 
 being men and women first. Christians after- 
 wards, you cannot do. And what results ? 
 The fair and sweet becomes foul and bitter. 
 You assault a vital part of yourselves, and out- 
 raged Nature hits back with hideous blows. 
 In the interests of spiritual development you 
 would crush the sources of your being, with 
 the result that sex loses its rhythm and too 
 often becomes your sole, horrid preoccupation 
 and possession. Asceticism, my good Hilarion, 
 is merely sensualism spelled backward, and a 
 man may as well seek to fly from his feet and 
 hands as from the foundations of his physical 
 existence. You dam the healthy human im- 
 pulses, and they run over into your souls, 
 stagnate and breed a pestilence. Healthful 
 energies, designed that man may endure and 
 rise to his remote destiny, are converted to 
 soul-destroying demons by your folly ; there- 
 fore drop this nasty nonsense ; be a man, my 
 friend, and face manhood. To fly from it is 
 
 229
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 the highest cowardice, the greatest danger ; 
 for trust me, the soul that has honoured its 
 body on earth will sooner win the nod of your 
 good Peter at the Gate than that mistaken 
 spirit who has dragged unclean thoughts, 
 unclean dreams and unclean bones through a 
 lonely desert. Quit this attitude of exaggerated 
 respect for your own soul, Hilarion, and devote 
 your span to the souls of other people, that 
 your own may become worthy of respect. A 
 soul should not rust out, but wear out on the 
 business of other souls. Therefore take to 
 heaven a soul polished by well-doing, not one 
 mouldy with storage. Fight and die clean and 
 game — both of you." 
 
 " And marry Erotion first ? " asked Hilarion 
 humbly. 
 
 " Yes," replied Pan. " Most emphatically 
 marry Erotion first. There is nothing in your 
 religion to forbid you from being a decent 
 member of society, or from assuming the 
 dignity, happiness and responsibility of a 
 normal man. Feed up and take exercise and 
 get well again. Then be married and go into 
 
 230
 
 THE WAT OUT 
 
 the world — hearty, healthy, sane — to win your 
 experience, enlarge your sympathy and do with 
 your might what you will find within your 
 reach to be done. And don't break your shins 
 on forms and ceremonies. Progress in morality 
 never depended on religions and never can. 
 Somebody has said, or will, that the religion of 
 one age is the literary entertainment of the 
 next ; but the righteousness of an age is the 
 true light for those that follow ; and as 
 righteousness waxes and wanes from century 
 to century, so may mankind hope or fear, 
 setting his course for the good and avoiding 
 the evil. 
 
 " Bless you both, and may whatsoever gods 
 there be smile upon your endeavours." 
 
 He rose, and while Arcadius knelt and kissed 
 his stalwart hoof according to custom, Hilarion 
 bowed respectfully. Even as he did so he felt 
 a doubt that bolts from his own affronted deity 
 might strike him. But nothing happened. 
 As Arcadius had assured him on a previous 
 occasion, truth cannot contradict truth ; and 
 was it not written three hundred years before 
 
 231
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 Christ, that " Communion and friendship, 
 temperance and justice bind together heaven 
 and earth and gods and men ? " 
 
 Yet Arcadius felt conscious of a change in 
 Pan, and before the deity stumped off upon his 
 night-hidden way, he spoke to him. 
 
 " How is it with you yourself, dear God ? " 
 he asked. " It has ever been the selfish 
 mortal's custom to fling his troubles upon an 
 immortal director and load the divine shoulders 
 with burdens often of his own making ; yet I 
 do not stint my love, and love, being quick- 
 sighted, perceives a change." 
 
 " It is with me as with all of us in whom 
 mankind puts trust and faith," replied the 
 god. " The measure of a deity's success must 
 ever depend upon the quality of his worshippers. 
 The breath of our celebrants and votaries is 
 the life in our nostrils ; and as that diminishes, 
 so must we abate. Godkind are in truth solely 
 dependent on mankind, as light is nothing 
 without darkness, heat nothing without cold, 
 stability no more than a word without vicissi- 
 tude and change. To-day new divine figures 
 
 232
 
 THE WAT OUT 
 
 are at the meridian of man's worship ; a new 
 evangel draws the heart and hope of humanity ; 
 a new dynasty of Heaven is to be exalted to 
 the central throne ; but the simple theology of 
 your Christian primitives will be soon overlaid, 
 corrupted, lost in the usual flood of myth and 
 metaphysic. Meantime we constellations of 
 Olympus sink to our setting under the dawn 
 of your Triple Sun. We pass to the Hmbo of 
 vanished pantheons and mythologies ; we join 
 the gods of Assyria and Persia and Egypt in 
 their everlasting eclipse ; we diminish and 
 melt away as the snow upon Soracte, while 
 human hope and fear, trust and affection 
 depart from us. Some will vanish out of the 
 heart of man for ever ; while others may loiter 
 as loved ghosts for all time. Of such am I, 
 and my syrinx shall yet whisper by the river, 
 my lonely altars win their worship down 
 many an avenue of human years. For herds 
 must roam upon the high lands, flocks silver 
 the water meadows ; and man, thinking on the 
 mettle of his pastures, still spare a kindly 
 thought for the Pasturer." 
 
 233
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 He was gone, and though Hilarion suggested 
 waiting until morn, Arcadius would not have 
 it so, but made his brother descend straightway 
 to Ceres and Erotion. 
 
 They found the women on their knees, lifted 
 them up and filled their hearts with joy ; but 
 after Ceres and Arcadius had stolen from them, 
 the lovers could do no more than clasp hands 
 and gaze upon each other's faces in silent and 
 speechless bliss. Thus, indeed, did Aurora, 
 goddess of dawn, find them, as she ascended 
 out of the East, to pay her tribute of dewy 
 tears at Memnon's grave ; and she woke roses 
 in the pale cheeks of Hilarion and his lass, and 
 flashed into their adoring eyes the light of 
 the morning star and the rapture of the 
 morning wind. 
 
 234
 
 XIV 
 THET GIRD THEMSELVES 
 
 THEODOSIUS, last of those mighty 
 Romans who shook the world — last of 
 stature to stand beside Julius and 
 Augustus — granted audience and attended 
 to affairs. Having dealt faithfully with the 
 rascals responsible for the destruction of 
 young Gratian and the second Valentinian, 
 for a moment he breathed himself in Rome. 
 
 Then there came to him a wise and saintly 
 bishop with a tale of woe ; and Theodosius 
 barkened to this good prelate and considered 
 the matter of the twins, Arcadius and Hil- 
 arion. 
 
 " I hear," said the Emperor, " that they are 
 mighty busy in well-doing. Themselves and 
 their wives seek to benefit the capital and 
 support those precious edicts of the first 
 
 235
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 Valentinian touching our physicians and our 
 education. They are an enHghtened pair and 
 clearly on the side of the angels. Arcadius is 
 generous with his wealth, nor does he commit 
 his benefactions to lesser men, but strives 
 valiantly in person to reach the roots of evil, 
 and being a shrewd and honest person, does 
 far more good than harm. Of how many can 
 we say as much ? I have myself listened to his 
 purposes from his own lips and find no little 
 to applaud. He is, in truth, a worthy man 
 and does worthy things. As for Hilarion, 
 he possesses the gift of golden speech, utters 
 comfortable words and draws the sad and 
 suffering to our God. Would there were more 
 such single-hearted Christians in the priest- 
 hood." 
 
 " All that you say is true, Majesty," ad- 
 mitted the anxious bishop, " and concerning 
 Hilarion, though once a solitary, dedicated to 
 the life of aloofness and contemplation, I 
 confess that by entering the ranks of men he 
 has served both humanity and religion. But 
 
 236
 
 IHET GIRD THEMSELVES 
 
 Arcadius is another matter. Granted that he 
 does much obvious good and spends his wealth 
 to excellent purpose ; granted that he works 
 in the Lord's vineyard with a will, rises early 
 and late takes rest ; yet is all held to be dust 
 and ashes, since nothing but evil can ultimately 
 reward his efforts. In a word, he refuses to be 
 baptised. He is pure Pagan at heart and does 
 not blush to own and keep in good repair a 
 temple to Pan. Thither he is known to with- 
 draw himself from time to time and commune 
 with this false divinity. 
 
 " And what would your eminence propose 
 to do about it ? " inquired Theodosius. 
 
 " The hierarchy is of opinion that he should 
 be destroyed," replied the bishop regretfully. 
 " A majority, of which I am not one, submits 
 that Arcadius be publicly burned alive for an 
 example." 
 
 " I think not, my friend. Arcadius shall 
 never perish while the Emperor can prevent it. 
 Let us, bishop, ask ourselves what the Master 
 would say and do. He has told us that those 
 
 237
 
 PAN AND THE TWINS 
 
 who are not against Him are with Him. The 
 Hfe of a good man, remember, is always too 
 short. He must soon be gone and the work 
 that he has done be forgotten. Meanwhile 
 let us regard Arcadius as a picturesque and 
 harmless survival of a happier age than 
 ours." 
 
 " I rejoice in your wisdom. Majesty. But 
 this is the vexed question : May righteous 
 things be done in the name of Pan ? " 
 
 " Righteousness is still righteousness and 
 cannot be otherwise, bishop, whatever the 
 source or inspiration," replied Theodosius. 
 *' There you will, no doubt, find yourself in 
 opposition to many devout and earnest leaders 
 of the Faith ; yet reason cannot deny it. 
 Therefore let Arcadius be and suffer him to 
 proceed about his business. Stone not the 
 prophets, priest." 
 
 Strengthened by this royal echo of his own 
 good heart, and now determined to support 
 and save Arcadius, the prelate thanked his 
 sovereign and withdrew. 
 
 238
 
 THET GIRD THEMSELVES 
 
 " If," thought he, " the world had remem- 
 bered that the days of good men are always 
 too short, then many masters of salvation had 
 not been driven from life before their time 
 was ended, or their precious gifts received." 
 
 THE END 
 
 ■39
 
 Printed in Great Britain at 
 
 'I'he Mayflower Press, Plymouth. 
 
 William Brendon & Son, Ltd.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 
 
 INTERUBRAKY LOANS ^^ 
 
 THREE WEEKS FROM DATE 0£ BCCQEE 
 NCm-RENEWABLE.. {yO>S3 ' 
 
 SEP 101? 80 
 
 2. mrm 
 
 Form L-f) 
 
 20m-12,'39(.".:tsiJ)
 
 3 1158 00798 7067 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 AA 000 374 006 5 
 
 / 
 
 t 
 
 o — 
 
 a -i 
 
 PLEA«^ DO NOT REMOVE 
 THIS BOOK CARD 1 
 
 ^lIlfeRARYQ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^<!/OjnV3iO- 
 
 University Research Library 
 
 
 J 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 Ul 
 
 
 t-« 
 
 n 
 
 
 > 
 
 ->! 
 
 r 
 
 ->1 
 
 f- 
 
 
 
 ► 
 
 : z 
 
 
 u 
 
 c 
 
 t-* 
 
 1 " 
 
 
 
 m 
 
 
 ; zo