CHAPTER IX
HIS PASSAGE THROUGH THE PRISON OF KNOWLEDGE
I
Challis led the way to the library; Lewes, petulant and mutinous, hungin the rear.
The Wonder toddled forward, unabashed, to enter his new world. On thethreshold, however, he paused. His comprehensive stare took in asweeping picture of enclosing walls of books, and beyond was a vista offurther rooms, of more walls all lined from floor to ceiling withrecords of human discovery, endeavour, doubt, and hope.
The Wonder stayed and stared. Then he took two faltering steps into theroom and stopped again, and, finally, he looked up at Challis with doubtand question; his gaze no longer quelling and authoritative, buthesitating, compliant, perhaps a little child-like.
"'Ave you read all these?" he asked.
It was a curious picture. The tall figure of Challis, stooping, asalways, slightly forward; Challis, with his seaman's eyes and scholar'shead, his hands loosely clasped together behind his back, paying suchscrupulous attention to that grotesque representative of a higherintellectuality, clothed in the dress of a villager, a patchedcricket-cap drawn down over his globular skull, his little arms hangingloosely at his sides; who, nevertheless, even in this new, strangeaspect of unwonted humility bore on his face the promise of someultimate development which differentiated him from all other humanity,as the face of humanity is differentiated from the face of itsprognathous ancestor.
The scene is set in a world of books, and in the background lingers theathletic figure and fair head of Lewes, the young Cambridgeundergraduate, the disciple of science, hardly yet across the thresholdwhich divides him from the knowledge of his own ignorance.
"'Ave you read all these?" asked the Wonder.
"A greater part of them--in effect," replied Challis. "There is muchrepetition, you understand, and much record of experiment which becomes,in a sense, worthless when the conclusions are either finally acceptedor rejected."
The eyes of the Wonder shifted and their expression became abstracted;he seemed to lose consciousness of the outer world; he wore the lookwhich you may see in the eyes of Jakob Schlesinger's portrait of themature Hegel, a look of profound introspection and analysis.
There was an interval of silence, and then the Wonder unknowingly gaveexpression to a quotation from Hamlet. "Words," he whisperedreflectively, and then again "words."
II
Challis understood him. "You have not yet learned the meaning of words?"he asked.
The brief period--the only one recorded--of amazement and submission wasover. It may be that he had doubted during those few minutes of timewhether he was well advised to enter into that world of books, whetherhe would not by so doing stunt his own mental growth. It may be that thedecision of so momentous a question should have been postponed for ayear--two years; to a time when his mind should have had furtherpossibilities for unlettered expansion. However that may be, he decidednow and finally. He walked to the table and climbed up on a chair.
"Books about words," he commanded, and pointed at Challis and Lewes.
They brought him the latest production of the twentieth century in manyvolumes, the work of a dozen eminent authorities on the etymology of theEnglish language, and they seated him on eight volumes of the_Encyclopaedia Britannica_ (India paper edition) in order that he mightreach the level of the table.
At first they tried to show him how his wonderful dictionary should beused, but he pushed them on one side, neither then nor at any futuretime would he consent to be taught--the process was too tedious for him,his mind worked more fluently, rapidly, and comprehensively than themind of the most gifted teacher that could have been found for him.
So Challis and Lewes stood on one side and watched him, and he was nomore embarrassed by their presence than if they had been in anotherworld, as, possibly, they were.
He began with volume one, and he read the title page and theintroduction, the list of abbreviations, and all the preliminary matterin due order.
Challis noted that when the Wonder began to read, he read no faster thanthe average educated man, but that he acquired facility at a mostastounding rate, and that when he had been reading for a few days hiseye swept down the column, as it were at a single glance.
Challis and Lewes watched him for, perhaps, half an hour, and then,seeing that their presence was of an entirely negligible value to theWonder, they left him and went into the farther room.
"Well?" asked Challis, "what do you make of him?"
"Is he reading or pretending to read?" parried Lewes. "Do you think itpossible that he could read so fast? Moreover, remember that he hasadmitted that he knows few words of the English language, yet he doesnot refer from volume to volume; he does not look up the meanings of themany unknown words which must occur even in the introduction."
"I know. I had noticed that."
"Then you think he _is_ humbugging--pretending to read?"
"No; that solution seems to me altogether unlikely. He could not, forone thing, simulate that look of attention. Remember, Lewes, the childis not yet five years old."
"What is your explanation, then?"
"I am wondering whether the child has not a memory beside which thememory of a Macaulay would appear insignificant."
Lewes did not grasp Challis's intention. "Even so ..." he began.
"And," continued Challis, "I am wondering whether, if that is the case,he is, in effect, prepared to learn the whole dictionary by heart, and,so to speak, collate its contents later, in his mind."
"Oh! Sir!" Lewes smiled. The supposition was too outrageous to be takenseriously. "Surely, you can't mean that." There was something in Lewes'stone which carried a hint of contempt for so far-fetched a hypothesis.
Challis was pacing up and down the library, his hands clasped behindhim. "Yes, I mean it," he said, without looking up. "I put it forward asa serious theory, worthy of full consideration."
Lewes sneered. "Oh, surely not, sir," he said.
Challis stopped and faced him. "Why not, Lewes; why not?" he asked, witha kindly smile. "Think of the gap which separates your intellectualpowers from those of a Polynesian savage. Why, after all, should it beimpossible that this child's powers should equally transcend our own? Afreak, if you will, an abnormality, a curious effect of nature's, likethe giant puff-ball--but still----"
"Oh! yes, sir, I grant you the thing is not impossible from atheoretical point of view," argued Lewes, "but I think you aretheorising on altogether insufficient evidence. I am willing to admitthat such a freak is theoretically possible, but I have not yet foundthe indications of such a power in the child."
Challis resumed his pacing. "Quite, quite," he assented; "your methodis perfectly correct--perfectly correct. We must wait."
At twelve o'clock Challis brought a glass of milk and some biscuits, andset them beside the Wonder--he was apparently making excellent progresswith the letter "A."
"Well, how are you getting on?" asked Challis.
The Wonder took not the least notice of the question, but he stretchedout a little hand and took a biscuit and ate it, without looking up fromhis reading.
"I wish he'd answer questions," Challis remarked to Lewes, later.
"I should prescribe a sound shaking," returned Lewes.
Challis smiled. "Well, see here, Lewes," he said, "I'll take theresponsibility; you go and experiment; go and shake him."
Lewes looked through the folding doors at the picture of the Wonder,intent on his study of the great dictionary. "Since you've franked me,"he said, "I'll do it--but not now. I'll wait till he gives me someoccasion."
"Good," replied Challis, "my offer holds ... and, by the way, I have nodoubt that an occasion will present itself. Doesn't it strike you aslikely, Lewes, that we shall see a good deal of the child here?"
They stood for some minutes, watching the picture of that intentstudent, framed in the written thoughts of his predecessors.
III
The Wonder ignored an invitation to lunch; he i
gnored, also, the traythat was sent in to him. He read on steadily till a quarter to six, bywhich time he was at the end of "B," and then he climbed down from hisEncyclopaedia, and made for the door. Challis, working in the fartherroom, saw him and came out to open the door.
"Are you going now?" he asked.
The child nodded.
"I will order the cart for you, if you will wait ten minutes," saidChallis.
The child shook his head. "It's very necessary to have air," he said.
Something in the tone and pronunciation struck Challis, and awoke a longdormant memory. The sentence spoken, suddenly conjured up a vision ofthe Stotts' cottage at Stoke, of the Stotts at tea, of a cradle in theshadow, and of himself, sitting in an uncomfortable armchair andswinging his stick between his knees. When the child had gone--walkingdeliberately, and evidently regarding the mile-and-a-half walk throughthe twilight wood and over the deserted Common as a trivial incident inthe day's business--Challis set himself to analyse that curiousassociation.
As he strolled back across the hall to the library, he tried toreconstruct the scene of the cottage at Stoke, and to recall the outlineof the conversation he had had with the Stotts.
"Lewes!" he said, when he reached the room in which his secretary wasworking. "Lewes, this is curious," and he described the associationscalled up by the child's speech. "The curious thing is," he continued,"that I had gone to advise Mrs. Stott to take a cottage at Pym, becausethe Stoke villagers were hostile, in some way, and she did not care totake the child out in the street. It is more than probable that I usedjust those words, 'It is very necessary to have air,' very probable.Now, what about my memory theory? The child was only six months old atthat time."
Lewes appeared unconvinced. "There is nothing very unusual in thesentence," he said.
"Forgive me," replied Challis, "I don't agree with you. It is notphrased as a villager would phrase it, and, as I tell you, it was notspoken with the local accent."
"You may have spoken the sentence to-day," suggested Lewes.
"I may, of course, though I don't remember saying anything of the sort,but that would not account for the curiously vivid association which wasconjured up."
Lewes pursed his lips. "No, no, no," he said. "But that is hardly groundfor argument, is it?"
"I suppose not," returned Challis thoughtfully; "but when you take uppsychology, Lewes, I should much like you to specialise on a carefulinquiry into association in connection with memory. I feel certain thatif one can reproduce, as nearly as may be, any complex sensation one hasexperienced, no matter how long ago, one will stimulate what I may callan abnormal memory of all the associations connected with thatexperience. Just now I saw the interior of that room in the Stotts'cottage so clearly that I had an image of a dreadful oleograph ofDisraeli hanging on the wall. But, now, I cannot for the life of meremember whether there was such an oleograph or not. I do not remembernoticing it at the time."
"Yes, that's very interesting," replied Lewes. "There is certainly awide field for research in that direction."
"You might throw much light on our mental processes," replied Challis.
(It was as the outcome of this conversation that Gregory Lewes did, twoyears afterwards, take up this line of study. The only result up to thepresent time is his little brochure _Reflexive Associations_, which hasadded little to our knowledge of the subject.)
IV
Challis's anticipation that he and Lewes would be greatly favoured bythe Wonder's company was fully realised.
The child put in an appearance at half-past nine the next morning, justas the governess cart was starting out to fetch him. When he wasadmitted he went straight to the library, climbed on to the chair, uponwhich the volumes of the Encyclopaedia still remained, and continued hisreading where he had left off on the previous evening.
He read steadily throughout the day without giving utterance to speechof any kind.
Challis and Lewes went out in the afternoon, and left the child deep instudy. They came in at six o'clock, and went to the library. The Wonder,however, was not there.
Challis rang the bell.
"Has little Stott gone?" he asked when Heathcote came.
"I 'aven't seen 'im, sir," said Heathcote.
"Just find out if any one opened the door for him, will you?" saidChallis. "He couldn't possibly have opened that door for himself."
"No one 'asn't let Master Stott hout, sir," Heathcote reported on hisreturn.
"Are you sure?"
"Quite sure, sir. I've made full hinquiries," said Heathcote withdignity.
"Well, we'd better find him," said Challis.
"The window is open," suggested Lewes.
"He would hardly ..." began Challis, walking over to the low sill of theopen window, but he broke off in his sentence and continued, "By Jove,he did, though; look here!"
It was, indeed, quite obvious that the Wonder had made his exit by thewindow; the tiny prints of his feet were clearly marked in the mould ofthe flower-bed; he had, moreover, disregarded all results of earlyspring floriculture.
"See how he has smashed those daffodils," said Lewes. "What aninfernally cheeky little brute he is!"
"What interests me is the logic of the child," returned Challis. "Iwould venture to guess that he wasted no time in trying to attractattention. The door was closed, so he just got out of the window. Irather admire the spirit; there is something Napoleonic about him. Don'tyou think so?"
Lewes shrugged his shoulders. Heathcote's expression was quitenon-committal.
"You'd better send Jessop up to Pym, Heathcote," said Challis. "Let himfind out whether the child is safe at home."
Jessop reported an hour afterwards that Master Stott had arrived homequite safely, and Mrs. Stott was much obliged.
V
Altogether the Wonder spent five days, or about forty hours, on hisstudy of the dictionary, and in the evening of his last day's work heleft again by the open window. Challis, however, had been keeping himunder fairly close observation, and knew that the preliminary task wasfinished.
"What can I give that child to read to-day?" he asked at breakfast nextmorning.
"I should reverse the arrangement; let him sit on the Dictionary andread the Encyclopaedia." Lewes always approached the subject of theWonder with a certain supercilious contempt.
"You are not convinced yet that he isn't humbugging?"
"No! Frankly, I'm not."
"Well, well, we must wait for more evidence, before we argue about it,"said Challis, but they sat on over the breakfast-table, waiting for thechild to put in an appearance, and their conversation hovered over thetopic of his intelligence.
"Half-past ten?" Challis ejaculated at last, with surprise. "We aregetting into slack habits, Lewes." He rose and rang the bell.
"Apparently the Stott infant has had enough of it," suggested Lewes."Perhaps he has exhausted the interest of dictionary illustrations."
"We shall see," replied Challis, and then to a deferentially appearingHeathcote he said: "Has Master Stott come this morning?"
"No, sir. Leastways, no one 'asn't let 'im in, sir."
"It may be that he is mentally collating the results of the past twodays' reading," said Challis, as he and Lewes made their way to thelibrary.
"Oh!" was all Lewes's reply, but it conveyed much of impatient contemptfor his employer's attitude.
Challis only smiled.
When they entered the library they found the Wonder hard at work, and hehad, of his own initiative, adopted the plan ironically suggested byLewes, for he had succeeded in transferring the Dictionary volumes tothe chair, and he was deep in volume one, of the eleventh edition of the_Encyclopaedia Britannica_.
The library was never cleared up by any one except Challis or hisdeputy, but an early housemaid had been sent to dust, and she had leftthe casement of one of the lower lights of the window open. The meansof the Wonder's entrance was thus clearly in evidence.
"It's Napoleonic," murmured Challis.
/>
"It's most infernal cheek," returned Lewes in a loud voice, "I shouldnot be at all surprised if that promised shaking were not administeredto-day."
The Wonder took no notice. Challis says that on that morning his eyeswere travelling down the page at about the rate at which one could countthe lines.
"He isn't reading," said Lewes. "No one could read as fast as that, andmost certainly not a child of four and a half."
"If he would only answer questions ..." hesitated Challis.
"Oh! of course he won't do that," said Lewes. "He's clever enough not togive himself away."
The two men went over to the table and looked down over the child'sshoulder. He was in the middle of the article on "Aberration"--atechnical treatise on optical physics.
Lewes made a gesture. "Now do you believe he's humbugging?" he askedconfidently, and made no effort to modulate his voice.
Challis drew his eyebrows together. "My boy," he said, and laid his handlightly on Victor Stott's shoulder, "can you understand what you arereading there?"
But no answer was vouchsafed. Challis sighed. "Come along, Lewes," hesaid; "we must waste no more time."
Lewes wore a look of smug triumph as they went to the farther room, buthe was clever enough to refrain from expressing his triumph in speech.
VI
Challis gave directions that the window which the Wonder had found to behis most convenient method of entry and exit should be kept open, exceptat night; and a stool was placed under the sill inside the room, and alow bench was fixed outside to facilitate the child's goings andcomings. Also, a little path was made across the flower-bed.
The Wonder gave no trouble. He arrived at nine o'clock every morning,Sunday included, and left at a quarter to six in the evening. On wetdays he was provided with a waterproof which had evidently been made byhis mother out of a larger garment. This he took off when he entered theroom and left on the stool under the window.
He was given a glass of milk and a plate of bread-and-butter at twelveo'clock; and except for this he demanded and received no attention.
For three weeks he devoted himself exclusively to the study of theEncyclopaedia.
Lewes was puzzled.
Challis spoke little of the child during these three weeks, but he oftenstood at the entrance to the farther rooms and watched the Wonder's eyestravelling so rapidly yet so intently down the page. That sight had acurious fascination for him; he returned to his own work by an effort,and an hour afterwards he would be back again at the door of the largerroom. Sometimes Lewes would hear him mutter: "If he would only answer afew questions...." There was always one hope in Challis's mind. He hopedthat some sort of climax might be reached when the Encyclopaedia wasfinished. The child must, at least, ask then for another book. Even ifhe chose one for himself, his choice might furnish some sort of a test.
So Challis waited and said little; and Lewes was puzzled, because he wasbeginning to doubt whether it were possible that the child could sustaina pose so long. That, in itself, would be evidence of extraordinaryabnormality. Lewes fumbled in his mind for another hypothesis.
This reading craze may be symptomatic of some form of idiocy, hethought; "and I don't believe he does read," was his illogicaldeduction.
Mrs. Stott usually came to meet her son, and sometimes she would comeearly in the afternoon and stand at the window watching him at his work;but neither Challis nor Lewes ever saw the Wonder display by any signthat he was aware of his mother's presence.
During those three weeks the Wonder held himself completely detachedfrom any intercourse with the world of men. At the end of that period heonce more manifested his awareness of the human factor in existence.
Challis, if he spoke little to Lewes of the Wonder during this time,maintained a strict observation of the child's doings.
The Wonder began his last volume of the Encyclopaedia one Wednesdayafternoon soon after lunch, and on Thursday morning, Challis wascontinually in and out of the room watching the child's progress, andnoting his nearness to the end of the colossal task he had undertaken.
At a quarter to twelve he took up his old position in the doorway, andwith his hands clasped behind his back he watched the reading of thelast forty pages.
There was no slackening and no quickening in the Wonder's rate ofprogress. He read the articles under "Z" with the same attention he hadgiven to the remainder of the work, and then, arrived at the last page,he closed the volume and took up the Index.
Challis suffered a qualm; not so much on account of the possiblepostponement of the crisis he was awaiting, as because he saw that thereading of the Index could only be taken as a sign that the whole studyhad been unintelligent. No one could conceivably have any purpose inreading through an index.
And at this moment Lewes joined him in the doorway.
"What volume has he got to now?" asked Lewes.
"The Index," returned Challis.
Lewes was no less quick in drawing his inference than Challis had been.
"Well, that settles it, I should think," was Lewes's comment.
"Wait, wait," returned Challis.
The Wonder turned a dozen pages at once, glanced at the new opening,made a further brief examination of two or three headings near the endof the volume, closed the book, and looked up.
"Have you finished?" asked Challis.
The Wonder shook his head. "All this," he said--he indicated with asmall and dirty hand the pile of volumes that were massed roundhim--"all this ..." he repeated, hesitated for a word, and again shookhis head with that solemn, deliberate impressiveness which marked allhis actions.
Challis came towards the child, leaned over the table for a moment, andthen sat down opposite to him. Between the two protagonists hoveredLewes, sceptical, inclined towards aggression.
"I am most interested," said Challis. "Will you try to tell me, my boy,what you think of--all this?"
"So elementary ... inchoate ... a disjunctive ... patchwork," repliedthe Wonder. His abstracted eyes were blind to the objective world of ourreality; he seemed to be profoundly analysing the very elements ofthought.
VII
Then that almost voiceless child found words. Heathcote's announcementof lunch was waved aside, the long afternoon waned, and still that thintrickle of sound flowed on.
The Wonder spoke in odd, pedantic phrases; he used the technicalities ofevery science; he constructed his sentences in unusual ways, and oftenhe paused for a word and gave up the search, admitting that his meaningcould not be expressed through the medium of any language known to him.
Occasionally Challis would interrupt him fiercely, would even rise fromhis chair and pace the room, arguing, stating a point of view, combatingsome suggestion that underlay the trend of that pitiless wisdom which inthe end bore him down with its unanswerable insistence.
During those long hours much was stated by that small, thin voice whichwas utterly beyond the comprehension of the two listeners; indeed, it isdoubtful whether even Challis understood a tithe of the theory that wasactually expressed in words.
As for Lewes, though he was at the time non-plussed, quelled, he was inthe outcome impressed rather by the marvellous powers of memoryexhibited than by the far finer powers shown in the superhuman logic ofthe synthesis.
One sees that Lewes entered upon the interview with a mind predisposedto criticise, to destroy. There can be no doubt that as he listened hisuninformed mind was endeavouring to analyse, to weigh, and to oppose;and this antagonism and his own thoughts continually interposed betweenhim and the thought of the speaker. Lewes's account of what was spokenon that afternoon is utterly worthless.
Challis's failure to comprehend was not, at the outset, due to hisantagonistic attitude. He began with an earnest wish to understand: hefailed only because the thing spoken was beyond the scope of hisintellectual powers. But he did, nevertheless, understand the trend ofthat analysis of progress; he did in some half-realised way apprehendthe gist of that terrible deduction of a final adjustme
nt.
He must have apprehended, in part, for he fiercely combated theargument, only to quaver, at last, into a silence which permitted againthat trickle of hesitating, pedantic speech, which was yet sooverwhelming, so conclusive.
As the afternoon wore on, however, Challis's attitude must have changed;he must have assumed an armour of mental resistance not unlike theresistance of Lewes. Challis perceived, however dimly, that life wouldhold no further pleasure for him if he accepted that theory of origin,evolution, and final adjustment; he found in this cosmogony no place forhis own idealism; and he feared to be convinced even by that fraction ofthe whole argument which he could understand.
We see that Challis, with all his apparent devotion to science, wasnever more than a dilettante. He had another stake in the world which,at the last analysis, he valued more highly than the acquisition ofknowledge. Those means of ease, of comfort, of liberty, of opportunityto choose his work among various interests, were the ruling influence ofhis life. With it all Challis was an idealist, and unpractical. Hisgenial charity, his refinement of mind, his unthinking generosity,indicate the bias of a character which inclined always towards apicturesque optimism. It is not difficult to understand that he darednot allow himself to be convinced by Victor Stott's appallingsynthesis.
At last, when the twilight was deepening into night, the voice ceased,the child's story had been told, and it had not been understood. TheWonder never again spoke of his theory of life. He realised from thattime that no one could comprehend him.
As he rose to go, he asked one question that, simple as was itsexpression, had a deep and wonderful significance.
"Is there none of my kind?" he said. "Is this," and he laid a hand onthe pile of books before him, "is this all?"
"There is none of your kind," replied Challis; and the little figureborn into a world that could not understand him, that was not ready toreceive him, walked to the window and climbed out into the darkness.
* * * * *
(Henry Challis is the only man who could ever have given any account ofthat extraordinary analysis of life, and he made no effort to recall thefundamental basis of the argument, and so allowed his memory of theessential part to fade. Moreover, he had a marked disinclination tospeak of that afternoon or of anything that was said by Victor Stottduring those six momentous hours of expression. It is evident thatChallis's attitude to Victor Stott was not unlike the attitude ofCaptain Wallis to Victor Stott's father on the occasion ofHampdenshire's historic match with Surrey. "This man will have to bebarred," Wallis said. "It means the end of cricket." Challis, in effect,thought that if Victor Stott were encouraged, it would mean the end ofresearch, philosophy, all the mystery, idealism, and joy of life. Once,and once only, did Challis give me any idea of what he had learnedduring that afternoon's colloquy, and the substance of what Challis thentold me will be found at the end of this volume.)