Chapter 10.
THE MASTER.
"I spoke as I saw. I report, as a man may report God's work--all's Love, yet all's Law." -- BROWNING.
I have spoken of Ariadne, and promised to re-introduce her to you. Youwill remember her as the graceful girl who accompanied Clytia and herhusband to Thursia. She had not made quite so strong an impressionupon me as had the elder woman, perhaps because I was so preoccupiedwith, and interested in watching the latter's meeting with Elodia.Certainly there was nothing in the young woman herself, as I speedilyascertained, to justify disparagement even with Clytia. I wassurprised to find that she was a member of our charming household.
She was an heiress; but she taught in one of the city schools, side byside with men and women who earned their living by teaching. I ratherdeprecated this fact in conversation with Clytia one day; I said thatit was hardly fair for a rich woman to come in and usurp a place whichrightfully belonged to some one who needed the work as a means ofsupport,--alas! that _I_ should have presumed to censure anything inthat wonderful country. With knowledge came modesty.
Clytia's cheeks crimsoned with indignation. "Our teachers are notbeneficiaries," she replied; "nor do we regard the positions in ourschools--the teachers' positions--as charities to be dispensed to theneedy. The profession is the highest and most honorable in our land,and only those who are fitted by nature and preparation presume toaspire to the office. There is no bar against those who are sofitted,--the richest and the most distinguished stand no better, andno poorer, chance than the poorest and most insignificant. We musthave the best material, wherever it can be found."
We had but just entered the house, Clytia and I, when Ariadne glideddown the stairs into the room where we sat, and approached me with thecharming frankness and unaffectedness of manner which so agreeablycharacterizes the manners of all these people. She was rather tall,and slight; though her form did not suggest frailty. She resembledsome elegant flower whose nature it is to be delicate and slender. Sheseemed even to sway a little, and undulate, like a lily on its stem.
I regarded her with attention, not unmixed with curiosity,--as a manis prone to regard a young lady into whose acquaintance he has not yetmade inroads.
My chief impression about her was that she had remarkable eyes. Theywere of an indistinguishable, dark color, large horizontally but nottoo wide open,--eyes that drew yours continually, without your beingable to tell whether it was to settle the question of color, or tofind out the secret of their fascination, or whether it was simplythat they appealed to your artistic sense--as being something finerthan you had ever seen before. They were heavily fringed at top andbottom, and so were in shadow except when she raised them toward thelight. Her complexion was pale, her hair light and fluffy; her browsand lashes were several shades darker than the hair. Her hands werelovely. Her dress was of course white, or cream, of some soft,clinging material; and she wore a bunch of blue flowers in her belt,slightly wilted.
There is this difference in women: some produce an effect simply, andothers make a clear-cut, cameo-like impression upon the mind. Ariadnewas of the latter sort. Whatever she appropriated, though but a tinyblossom, seemed immediately to proclaim its ownership and to swear itsallegiance to her. From the moment I first saw her there, the blueflowers in her belt gave her, in my mind, the supreme title to all oftheir kind. I could never bear to see another woman wear the samevariety,--and I liked them best when they were a little wilted! Herbelongings suggested herself so vividly that if one came unexpectedlyupon a fan, a book, a garment of hers, he was affected as by apresence.
I soon understood why it was that my eyes sought her face sopersistently, drawn by a power infinitely greater than the mere powerof beauty; it was due to the law of moral gravitation,--that by whichmen are attracted to a leader, through intuitive perception of aquality in him round which their own energies may nucleate. We allrecognize the need of a centre, of a rallying-point,--save perhaps thefew eccentrics, detached particles who have lost their place in thegeneral order, makers of chaos and disturbers of peace.
It is this power which constitutes one of the chief qualifications ofa teacher in Lunismar; because it rests upon a fact universallybelieved in,--spiritual royalty; an august force which cannot beignored, and is never ridiculed--as Galileo was ridiculed, andpunished, for his wisdom; because there ignorance and prejudice do notexist, and the superstition which planted the martyr's stake has neverbeen known.
Ariadne said that she had been up in the observatory, and that therewere indications of an approaching storm.
"I hope it may be a fine one!" exclaimed Clytia.
I thought this rather an extraordinary remark--coming from one of thesex whose formula is more likely to be, "I hope it will not be asevere one."
At that moment a man appeared in the doorway, the majesty of whosepresence I certainly felt before my eyes fell upon him. Or it mighthave been the reflection I saw in the countenances of my twocompanions,--I stood with my back to the door, facing them,--whichgave me the curious, awe-touched sensation.
I turned round, and Clytia immediately started forward. Ariadneexclaimed in an undertone, with an accent of peculiar sweetness,--acommingling of delight, and reverence, and caressing tenderness:
"Ah! the Master!"
Clytia took him by the hand and brought him to me, where I stoodrooted to my place.
"Father, this is our friend," she said simply, without furtherceremony of introduction. It was enough. He had come on purpose to seeme, and therefore he knew who I was. As for him--one does not explaina king! The title by which Ariadne had called him did not at themoment raise an inquiry in my mind. I accepted it as the naturaldefinition of the man. He was a man of kingly proportions, with eyesfrom which Clytia's had borrowed their limpid blackness. His glancehad a wide compresiveness, and a swift, sure, loving insight.
He struck me as a man used to moving among multitudes, with his headabove all, but his heart embracing all.
You may think it strange, but I was not abashed. Perfect love castethout fear; and there was in this divine countenance--I may well call itdivine!--the lambent light of a love so kindly and so tender, thatfear, pride, vanity, egotism, even false modesty--our pethypocrisy--surrendered without a protest.
I think I talked more than any one else, being delicately prompted tofurnish some account of the world to which I belong, and stimulatedby the profound interest with which the Master attended to every wordthat I said. But I received an equal amount of informationmyself,--usually in response to the questions with which I rounded upmy periods, like this: We do so, and so, upon the Earth; how is ithere? The replies threw an extraordinary light upon the social orderand conditions there.
I naturally dwelt upon the salient characteristics of our people,--Imean, of course, the American people. I spoke of our enormous grasp ofthe commercial principle; of our manipulation of political and evensocial forces to great financial ends; of our easy acquisition offortunes; of our tremendous push and energy, directed to theaccumulation of wealth. And of our enthusiasms, and institutions; ourreligions and their antagonisms, and of the many other things in whichwe take pride.
And I learned that in Caskia there is no such thing as speculativeenterprise. All business has an actual basis most discouraging to theadventurous spirit in search of sudden riches. There is no monetaryskill worthy the dignified appellation of financial management,--andno use for that particular development of the talent of ingenuity.
All the systems involving the use of money conduct their affairs uponthe simplest arithmetical rules in their simplest form; addition,subtraction, multiplication, division. There are banks, of course, forthe mutual convenience of all, but there are no magnificent delusionscalled "stocks;" no boards of trade, no bulls and bears, no "corners,"no mobilizing of capital for any questionable purposes; no gamblinghouses; no pitfalls for unwary feet; and no mad fever of greed andscheming coursing through the veins of
men and driving them toinsanity and self-destruction. More than all, there are no fictitiousvalues put upon fads and fancies of the hour,--nor even upon works ofart. The Caskians are not easily deceived. An impostor is impossible.Because the people are instructed in the quality of thingsintellectual, and moral, and spiritual, as well as in things physical.They are as sure of the knowableness of art, as they are--and as weare--of the knowableness of science. Art is but refined science, andthe principles are the same in both, but more delicately, and alsomore comprehensively, interpreted in the former than in the latter.
One thing more: there are no would-be impostors. The law operates novisible machinery against such crimes, should there be any. The Masterexplained it to me in this way:
"The Law is established in each individual conscience, and restssecurely upon self-respect."
"Great heavens!" I cried, as the wonder of it broke upon myunderstanding, "and how many millions of years has it taken your raceto attain to this perfection?"
"It is not perfection," he replied, "it only approximates perfection;we are yet in the beginning."
"Well, by the grace of God, you are on the right way!" said I. "I amfamiliar enough with the doctrines you live by, to know that it is theright way; they are the same that we have been taught, theoretically,for centuries, but, to tell the truth, I never believed they could becarried out literally, as you appear to carry them out. We aretolerably honest, as the word goes, but when honesty shades off intothese hair-splitting theories, why--we leave it to the preachers,and--women."
"Then you really have some among you who believe in the highertruths?" the Master said, and his brows went up a little in token ofrelief.--My picture of Earth-life must have seemed a terrible one tohim!
"O, yes, indeed," said I, taking my cue from this. And I proceeded togive some character sketches of the grand men and women of Earth whoselives have been one long, heroic struggle for truth, and to whom aterrible death has often been the crowning triumph of their faith. Irelated to him briefly the history of America from its discovery fourhundred years ago; and told him about the splendid materialprosperity,--the enormous wealth, the extraordinary inventions, thegreat population, the unprecedented free-school system, and theprogress in general education and culture,--of a country which had itsbirth but yesterday in a deadly struggle for freedom of conscience;and of our later, crueller war for freedom that was not for ourselvesbut for a despised race. I described the prodigious waves of publicand private generosity that have swept millions of money into burnedcities for their rebuilding, and tons of food into famine-strickenlands for the starving.
I told him of the coming together in fellowship of purpose, of thegreat masses, to face a common danger, or to meet a common necessity;and of the moral and intellectual giants who in outward appearance andin the seeming of their daily lives are not unlike their fellows, butto whom all eyes turn for help and strength in the hour of peril. ButI did not at that time undertake any explanation of our religiouscreeds, for it somehow seemed to me that these would not count formuch with a people who expressed their theology solely by putting intopractice the things they believed. I had the thought in mind though,and determined to exploit it later on. As I have said before, theMaster listened with rapt attention, and when I had finished, heexclaimed,
"I am filled with amazement! a country yet so young, so far advancedtoward Truth!"
He gave himself up to contemplation of the picture I had drawn, and inthe depths of his eyes I seemed to see an inspired prophecy of mycountry's future grandeur.
Presently he rose and went to a window, and, with uplifted face,murmured in accents of the sublimest reverence that have ever touchedmy understanding, "O, God, All-Powerful!"
And a wonderful thing happened: the invocation was responded to by avoice that came to each of our souls as in a flame of fire, "Here amI." The velocity of worlds is not so swift as was our transition fromthe human to the divine.
But it was not an unusual thing, this supreme triumph of the spirit;it is what these people call "divine worship,"--a service which isnever perfunctory, which is not ruled by time or place. One mayworship alone, or two or three, or a multitude, it matters not to God,who only asks to be worshiped in spirit and in truth,--be the timeSabbath or mid-week, the place temple, or field, or closet.
A little later I remarked to the Master,--wishing to have a pointcleared up,--
"You say there are no fictitious values put upon works of art; how doyou mean?"
He replied, "Inasmuch as truth is always greater than humanachievement--which at best may only approximate the truth,--the valueof a work of art should be determined by its merit alone, and not bythe artist's reputation, or any other remote influence,--of course Ido not include particular objects consecrated by association or bytime. But suppose a man paints a great picture, for which he recievesa great price, and thereafter uses the fame he has won as speculatingcapital to enrich himself,--I beg the pardon of every artist forsetting up the hideous hypothesis!--But to complete it: the moment aman does that, he loses his self-respect, which is about as bad asanything that can happen to him; it is moral suicide. And he has donea grievous wrong to art by lowering the high standard he himselfhelped to raise. But his crime is no greater than that of thename-worshipers, who, ignorantly, or insolently, set up falsestandards and scorn the real test of values. However, these importantmatters are not left entirely to individual consciences; artists, andso-called art-critics, are not the only judges of art. We have nomysterious sanctuaries for a privileged few; all may enter,--all areindeed made to enter, not by violence, but by the simple, naturalmeans employed in all teaching. All will not hold the brush, or thepen, or the chisel; but from their earliest infancy our children arecarefully taught to recognize the forms of truth in all art; the eyewas made to see, the ear to hear, the mind to understand."
The visit was at an end. When he left us it was as though the sun hadpassed under a cloud.
Clytia went out with him, her arm lovingly linked in his; and I turnedto Ariadne. "Tell me," I said, "why is he called Master? Is it aformal title, or was it bestowed in recognition of the quality of theman?"
"Both," she answered. "No man receives the title who has not the'quality.' But it is in one way perfunctory; it is the distinguishingtitle of a teacher of the highest rank."
"And what are teachers of the highest rank, presidents of colleges?" Iasked.
"O, no," she replied with a smile, "they are not necessarily teachersof schools--old and young alike are their pupils. They are those whohave advanced the farthest in all the paths of knowledge, especiallythe moral and the spiritual."
"I understand," said I; "they are your priests, ministers,pastors,--your Doctors of Divinity."
"Perhaps," she returned, doubtfully; our terminology was not alwaysclear to those people.
"Usually," she went on, "they begin with teaching in the schools,--asa kind of apprenticeship. But, naturally, they rise; there is thatsame quality in them which forces great poets and painters to highpositions in their respective fields."
"Then they rank with geniuses!" I exclaimed, and the mystery of theman in whose grand company I had spent the past hour was solved.
Ariadne looked at me as though surprised that I should have beenignorant of so natural and patent a fact.
"Excuse me!" said I, "but it is not always the case with us; any manmay set up for a religious teacher who chooses, with or withoutpreparation,--just as any one may set up for a poet, or a painter, ora composer of oratorio."
"Genius must be universal on your planet then," she returnedinnocently. I suppose I might have let it pass, there was nobody tocontradict any impressions I might be pleased to convey! but there issomething in the atmosphere of Lunismar which compels the truth, goodor bad.
"No," said I, "they do it by grace of their unexampled self-trust,--aquality much encouraged among us,--and because we do not legislateupon such matters. The boast of our country is liberty, and in somerespects we fail to comprehend
the glorious possession. Too often wemistake lawlessness for liberty. The fine arts are our playthings, andeach one follows his own fancy, like children with toys."
"Follows-his-own-fancy," she repeated, as one repeats a strangephrase, the meaning of which is obscure.
"By the way," I said, "you must be rather arbitrary here. Is a manliable to arrest or condign punishment, if he happens to burlesque anyof the higher callings under the impression that he is a genius?"
She laughed, and I added, "I assure you that this is not an uncommonoccurrence with us."
"It would be impossible here," she replied, "because no one could somistake himself, though it seems egotistical for one of us to say so!but"--a curious expression touched her face, a questioning, doubting,puzzled look--"we are speaking honestly, are we not?"
I wondered if I had betrayed my American characteristic of hyperbole,and I smiled as I answered her:
"My countrymen are at my mercy, I know; but had I a thousand grudgesagainst them, I beg you to believe that I am not so base as to takeadvantage of my unique opportunity to do them harm! We are a youngpeople, as I said awhile ago, a very young people; and in manyrespects we have the innocent audacity of babes. Yes," I added, "Ihave told you the truth,--but not all of it; Earth, too, is pinnacledwith great names,--of Masters, like yours, and poets, and painters,and scientists, and inventors. Even in the darkest ages there havebeen these points of illumination. What I chiefly wonder at here, isthe universality of intelligence, of understanding. You are a teacherof children, pray tell me how you teach. How do you get such wonderfulresults? I can comprehend--a little--'what' you people are, I wish toknow the 'how,' the 'why'."
"All our teaching," she said, "embraces the three-fold nature. Thephysical comes first of course, for you cannot reach the higherfaculties through barriers of physical pain and sickness, hunger andcold. The child must have a good body, and to this end he is taughtthe laws that govern his body, through careful and attentiveobservance of cause and effect. And almost immediately, he begins tohave fascinating glimpses of similar laws operating upon a higherthan the physical plane. Children have boundless curiosity, you know,and this makes the teacher's work easy and delightful,--for we alllove to tell a piece of news! Through this faculty, the desire toknow, you can lead a child in whatever paths you choose. You canalmost make him what you choose. A little experience teaches a childthat every act brings consequences, good or bad; but he need not getall his knowledge by experience, that is too costly. The reasoningfaculty must be aroused, and then the conscience,--which is to thesoul what the sensatory nerves are to the body. But the conscience isa latent faculty, and here comes in the teacher's most delicate andimportant work. Conscience is quite dependent upon the intellect; wemust know what is right and what is wrong, otherwise conscience muststagger blindly."
"Yes, I know," I interrupted, "the consciences of some very goodpeople in our world have burned witches at the stake."
"Horrible!" she said with a shudder.
She continued: "This, then, is the basis. We try, through that simplelaw of cause and effect, which no power can set aside, to supply eachchild with a safe, sure motive for conduct that will serve him throughlife, as well in his secret thought as in outward act. No one withthis principle well-grounded in him will ever seek to throw the blameof his misdeeds upon another. We teach the relative value ofrepentance; that though it cannot avert or annul the effects ofwrong-doing, it may serve to prevent repetition of the wrong."
"Do you punish offenders?" I asked.
She smiled. "Punishment for error is like treating symptoms instead ofthe disease which produced them, is it not?--relief for the present,but no help for the future. Punishment, and even criticism, aredangerous weapons, to be used, if at all, with a tact and skill thatmake one tremble to think of! They are too apt to destroy freedom ofintercourse between teacher and pupil. Unjust criticism, especially,shuts the teacher from an opportunity to widen the pupil's knowledge.Too often our criticisms are barriers which we throw about ourselves,shutting out affection and confidence; and then we wonder why friendsand family are sealed books to us!"
"That is a fact," I assented, heartily, "and no one can keep to hishighest level if he is surrounded by an atmosphere of coldness andcensure. Even Christ, our Great Teacher, affirmed that he could not dohis work in certain localities because of prevailing unbelief."
"There is one thing which it is difficult to learn," went on Ariadne,"discrimination, the fitness of things. I may not do that which isproper for another to do,--why? Because in each individualconsciousness is a special and peculiar law of destiny upon whichrests the burden of personal responsibility. It is this law of theindividual that makes it an effrontery for any one to constitutehimself the chancellor of another's conscience, or to sit in judgmentupon any act which does not fall under the condemnation of the commonlaw. It is given to each of us to create a world,--within ourselvesand round about us,--each unlike all the others, though conforming tothe universal principles of right, as poets, however original,conform to the universal principles of language. We have choice--letme give you a paradox!--every one may have first choice ofinexhaustible material in infinite variety. But how to choose!"
I quoted Milton's lines:
"He that has light within his own clear breast, May sit in the center and enjoy bright day; But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts, Benighted walks under the mid-day sun; Himself is his own dungeon."
She thanked me with a fine smile.
Clytia had come in a few moments before, but her entrance had beensuch that it had caused no disturbing vibrations in the current ofsympathetic understanding upon which Ariadne and myself were launched.
Now, however, we came ashore as it were, and she greeted us asreturned voyagers love to be greeted, with cordial welcome.
She informed us that dinner was ready, and I was alarmed lest we mighthave delayed that important function.
The children had disappeared for the day, having already had theirdinner in the nursery under the supervision of their mother.
Calypso had invited in his friend Fides. He was a man of powerfulframe, and strong, fine physionomy; with a mind as virile as theformer, and as clear-cut as the latter. The woman who had created thedinner--I do not know of a better word--also sat at table with us, andcontributed many a gem to the thought of the hour. Thought may seem anodd word to use in connection with a dinner conversation,--unless itis a "toast" dinner! but even in their gayest and lightest moods thesepeople are never thoughtless. Their minds instead of being lumberingmachinery requiring much force and preparation to put in motion, areset upon the daintiest and most delicate wheels. Their mentalequipment corresponds with the astonishing mechanical contrivances forovercoming friction in the physical world. And this exquisitemachinery is applied in exactly the same ways,--sometimes for utility,and sometimes for simple enjoyment.
Ariadne's prediction had been correct, the storm-king was musteringhis forces round the mountain-tops, and the Eudosa was answering thechallenge from the valley.
After dinner we went up into the observatory, and from thence passedout onto the balcony, thrilled by the same sense of delightfulexpectancy you see in the unennuied eyes of Youth, waiting for thecurtain to go up at a play. All save myself had of course seenthunder-storms in Lunismar, but none were _blase_. There was eagernessin every face.
We took our station at a point which gave us the best view of themountains, and saw the lightning cut their cloud-enwrapped sides withflaming swords, and thrust gleaming spears down into the darklingvalley, as if in furious spite at the blackness which had gatheredeverywhere. For the sun had sunk behind a wall as dense as night andleft the world to its fate. Before the rain began to fall there was anappalling stillness, which even the angry mutterings of the Eudosacould not overcome. And then, as though the heavens had marshaled alltheir strength for one tremendous assault, the thunder broke forth. Ihave little physical timidity, but the shock struck me into a pose asrigi
d as death.
The others were only profoundly impressed, spiritually alive to themajesty of the performance.
That first explosion was but the prelude to the mighty piece playedbefore us, around us, at our feet, and overhead.
Earth has been spared the awfulness--(without destruction)--and hasmissed the glory of such a storm as this.
But the grandest part was yet to come. The rain lasted perhaps twentyminutes, and then a slight rent was made in the thick and sombrecurtain that covered the face of the heavens, and a single long shaftof light touched the frozen point of the Spear and turned its crystaland its snow to gold. The rest of the mountain was still swathed incloud. A moment more, and a superb rainbow, and another, and yetanother, were flung upon the shoulder of the Spear, below theglittering finger. The rent in the curtain grew wider, and beyond, allthe splendors of colors were blazoned upon the shimmering draperiesthat closed about and slowly vanished with the sun.
We sat in silence for a little time. I happened to be near Fides, andI presently turned to him and said:
"That was a most extraordinary manifestation of the Almighty's power!"
He looked at me but did not reply.
Ariadne, who had heard my remark, exclaimed laughingly:
"Fides thinks the opening of a flower is a far more wonderfulmanifestation than the stirring up of the elements!"
In the midst of the storm I had discovered the Master standing at thefarther end of the balcony, and beside him a tall, slender woman withthick, white hair, whom I rightly took to be his wife. I was presentedto her shortly, and the mental comment I made at the moment, I neverafterward reversed,--"She is worthy to be the Master's wife!"
Although the rain had ceased, the sky was a blank, as night settledupon the world. Not a star shone. But it was cool and pleasant, andwe sat and talked for a couple of hours. Suddenly, a band of music onthe terrace below silenced our voices. It was most peculiar music: nowit was tone-pictures thrown upon the dark background of shadows; andnow it was a dance of sprites; and now a whispered confidence in theear. It made no attempt to arouse the emotions, to produce eithersadness or exaltation. It was a mere frolic of music. When it wasover, I went down stairs, with the others, humming an inaudible tune,as though I had been to the opera.