argument was well done and speaks little of money. It is a debate of heart and mind; and perhaps, to balance, a soul. I would dwell on all this later.
Now, I feel it would be fair bargain to hear the question he first mentioned. So, Beggar's young man, speak your query but I caution against impudence." He nodded towards his rather red faced friend.
Young man: "I beg, sirs, not to keep you much longer in this glare of a spot, and ask this question not in mock, or to be boorish, or unduly of pry but as a wanderer unfamiliar to ways such as I have seen this day. I am no philosopher or teacher. How can I be thus? A broken lamb outcast from the sheep, who would hear my bleats? But in my daily imprison beyond the fence and into the hills, I watch. Even to long or pine, tis true at times, to join those forgiven and sanctified amongst all these good shepherds.
All day, I store the feed of my eyes, that I may curl behind some damp stone and cud upon the memories; memories of the ways and doings of my brethren below. Much is the difference between the eye of the beholder and the eye of the belonger, I have found. The eye of the belonger seems to hunger at ‘How long?’ Whereas the beholder gazes and wonders ‘Why for so long.’ So I beg mercy for this ignorant: part his wool and speak to his eyes to lower this fever of the burning ‘Why for so long?’
The tall man interjected,"Damn it, we might if you'd ask the question! God in dust! He must have a deal with a god to build minutes in the hereafter by words down here!”
“I shall, Sir, I shall” laughed the young man. “My quest is this: If a man has more value in what he takes home than what he has in the street, and you Sirs (as it appeared by your growling complexions when you left the stalls) have little value in the Virtues tucked under your arms, will they become transformed to immense value in your homes? or, pardon an addition relevant to the first, is it, the coinage exchanged?; in that you must g1ve a 11ttle coin to those cast beggars of copper or gold because you have immense coinage of value at home?”
“THIS IS TOO MUCH!” roared the tall man as he grabbed the young man by his collar. “Call a palace guard! To the Law's ears with him. Let him jerk his tongue to the beat of a whip! Then out of the city with the rag. Let him remember that here we tolerate an open cup to the passerby but tolerate no insolent tripping of the pious and noble bearing.
The young man made no squirm or interfered no rebuttal to this shaking and ranting.His eyes merely contained, not impish amusement, but rather an earnest wait. He kept them fixed upon the short man's face, knowing that if any could leap the bounds of tradition, this old fox knew a way.
It was not so much that the young man wanted to know; he dared to know. Most men feared the burden of answers and rightly so. All were born to the fertile ground of doubts; of questions. A few seeds sown, sprout, die untended. Some answers, however, nourished and fed, grow till they would appear as if split through a man's skull. Stretch higher and higher. A great burdensome tree of knowledge rooted on a man's head; it’s very bulk and might so grand it would bend his neck downward till a man could see nothing of his fellow man, his world, only himself.
This was answers; this was knowledge; a ponderous growth. Only a constant trimming, weeding, clipping, burning at knowledge would keep all a delicate wreath. To cultivate all through a pure heart and remove the dead, the false, the duplicate.
This was wisdom. With Doubt the constant trimmer. Doubt of Something, or of the All, or of Conclusion, or of One’s Reflex of Ego . Doubt, not as the Mocker, but rather as the better cousin, the Prober.
Few men knew how to control knowledge and nurture wisdom. So most kept a barren plot. Safer.
Something in this young beggar’s eyes showed a small flourish of wisdom.
The short man saw this. A good man, though caged in a society of compromise, he could not deny its faint rustle; could not deny his answer wings and go lighten upon this beckon of branch.
He spoke: “Wait a moment, friend. Though, by chance or no chance, he is discourteous, he is not necessarily unlawful. For the Law allows discussion of gods inside the Market Square, though I admit rarely is it accomplished with the din and den of God’s thieves rasping from their perch. I admit manners and custom shun it but shunning is not the same as forbidding. That is for the arm of the Law. Manners and custom can rule by expression only; their arms are limp. So I suggest you drop yours away for ‘tis only you who breach the law."
The tall man did so but grumbled, "Manners and custom can lead, however, to a change in the Law. Hopefully tomorrow the Law will flex her hand and gesture the Market Square unlawful for discussion of gods as well. Then this imp will dance, should he folly his mouth again."
Short man: "Good point, my excellent friend. You have described the Beauty in the Law. She is the Perfect Woman. Both handmaiden and wanton at the same time. Virtue unbendable and open-limbed Compromise. What no man can touch can easily be bought and sold.
For you are too right, my friend. Tomorrow, she may skirt a different door. But beware, she may lust beggars! Ruling no gods in the Square at all or perhaps no tall men. Then the whip curls the other way! So than there is a mighty virtue of New Law and Her Orders. To rule beggars over gods.
Yet the Merchants roar ‘What of us, what of sales, what of coinage, oh Bitch?’
So those who make coinage from rule and those who rule coinage gather with the Law. Her favours easily bought innegotiations clinking loudly with good will but muffled behind great doors. Oh! Then behold! Miracle of New Wind, the Law is swayed, the Square given back to the gods, beggars scorned and She lies a richer bed. Her true danger is her wavering, shimmer-like Beauty. She is a Moon Goddess constantly changing, waxing, waning; yet everywhere there are dim and lost men who yearn her cold touch of guidance when darkness closes over their hearts."
Tall man: "I gather the drift of your reason, yet wonder it’s need for such length. If I did not know you to be a better man, I’d vouch you had been hanging with beggars too long. Which is my point , Answer the upstarts' stumble. I'll wait. I am curious about the result, and then let us be gone, my friend. I have a desire to wash beggarly dust from my hands as soon as possible."
Short man: "I shall do this now. Give answer to the whys of the gods and where's the values. To which sides and when the coin flips in a trembling man's hand.
For you see, young man, that the gods are nothing in all this. Men make gods merely to and fro as the whims and aspirations of their hopes or deviations. Thus a personal god is never what a man is but rather what he wishes to be. But all created gods have a commonality since that is really the purpose of their creation. Immortality. All men crave immortality... through soul.
No god creates a man’s soul. Men create their own soul. Man creates soul out of dread.
Men feel to have a soul. For this discussion of gods it is enough just to say that men feel a place beyond the physical. A sensation ,if you will, like a sceptre following them on a dark night. Not necessary an evil or a good feeling but rather, at least, the possibilities of ‘more than’. That is to say men have a strange sensation and call that sensation: soul.
The Tall man exclaimed:” What sense of senselessness is this!?”
The short man answered “ The sense of soul is that not founded also in senselessness? We have a word here...sense and also the other word, sense. One is of a man’s ability to interpret ‘feelings’; feelings which may be vague but nonetheless present in such a manner as to itch for attention. The other sense is for the way the logic or awareness of a man progresses from fact to proof; from means to end; from cause to effect. So a man can feel sense and he, also, must make sense of that sense. A man feels a soul, he must find cause.”
The young beggar asked “A man feels something, but what is this something? why call this something, soul?”
The tall man “Yes, I think we give hats to dogs here. Why do we assume the rabble know of souls and gods more than they know of gas and bad wine?”
The short man answered both “ There is a knowledge man has w
hich is not just the knowledge of death but there is a constant vague awareness, daily, even minute by minute, of his own ending. The conscious of a man is ‘unfortunately’ elevated above mere animal by a self-awareness of time and death. it is this sensation that men call soul. A soul borne out of a falsehood for immortality, against Death, against Dread of his own death. His mind rebels against this. Against the wishes of his own body. For the body wishes Death.”
the tall man “ what!? though the body cannot prevent its end I give you true but it always moves away from that end. Why move away from the fire, why fear the high cliff, why carry a sword into the wilderness? Are those not the tells of a body seeking always life not Death?”
The short man answered “Which knows more fear...the body or the mind? Or, rather, should one ask..which creates more fear, the body or the mind? Especially if one asks which creates more fear in itself, the body or the mind?”
The beggar’s son “ I suppose one must define fear first. Since the body will flinch fast at the moment’s danger but the dread of the mind, that is, in the mind, is sadly a thing almost forever known.”
“Indeed” replied the short man “ fear is known...bold in face like a drunkard’s rage, but dread...here is the shadow born behind the