F. Hopkinson Smith - "The Veiled Lady"

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George Bernard Shaw - "The Devil's Disciple"

The Altar Fire

A >> Arthur Christopher Benson >> The Altar Fire



PREFACE





It will perhaps be said, and truly felt, that the following is a
morbid book. No doubt the subject is a morbid one, because the
book deliberately gives a picture of a diseased spirit. But a
pathological treatise, dealing with cancer or paralysis, is not
necessarily morbid, though it may be studied in a morbid mood. We
have learnt of late years, to our gain and profit, to think and
speak of bodily ailments as natural phenomena, not to slur over
them and hide them away in attics and bedrooms. We no longer think
of insanity as demoniacal possession, and we no longer immure
people with diseased brains in the secluded apartments of lovely
houses. But we still tend to think of the sufferings of the heart
and soul as if they were unreal, imaginary, hypochondriacal things,
which could be cured by a little resolution and by intercourse with
cheerful society; and by this foolish and secretive reticence we
lose both sympathy and help. Mrs. Proctor, the friend of Carlyle
and Lamb, a brilliant and somewhat stoical lady, is recorded to
have said to a youthful relative of a sickly habit, with stern
emphasis, "Never tell people how you are! They don't want to know."
Up to a certain point this is shrewd and wholesome advice. One does
undoubtedly keep some kinds of suffering in check by resolutely
minimising them. But there is a significance in suffering too. It
is not all a clumsy error, a well-meaning blunder. It is a
deliberate part of the constitution of the world.

Why should we wish to conceal the fact that we have suffered, that
we suffer, that we are likely to suffer to the end? There are
abundance of people in like case; the very confession of the fact
may help others to endure, because one of the darkest miseries of
suffering is the horrible sense of isolation that it brings. And if
this book casts the least ray upon the sad problem--a ray of the
light that I have learned to recognise is truly there--I shall be
more than content. There is no morbidity in suffering, or in
confessing that one suffers. Morbidity only begins when one
acquiesces in suffering as being incurable and inevitable; and the
motive of this book is to show that it is at once curative and
curable, a very tender part of a wholly loving and Fatherly design.

A. C. B.

Magdalene College, Cambridge,

July 14, 1907.






INTRODUCTION





I had intended to allow the records that follow--the records of a
pilgrimage sorely beset and hampered by sorrow and distress--to
speak for themselves. Let me only say that one who makes public a
record so intimate and outspoken incurs, as a rule, a certain
responsibility. He has to consider in the first place, or at least
he cannot help instinctively considering, what the wishes of the
writer would have been on the subject. I do not mean that one who
has to decide such a point is bound to be entirely guided by that.
He must weigh the possible value of the record to other spirits
against what he thinks that the writer himself would have
personally desired. A far more important consideration is what
living people who play a part in such records feel about their
publication. But I cannot help thinking that our whole standard in
such matters is a very false and conventional one. Supposing, for
instance, that a very sacred and intimate record, say, two hundred
years old, were to be found among some family papers, it is
inconceivable that any one would object to its publication on the
ground that the writer of it, or the people mentioned in it, would
not have wished it to see the light. We show how weak our faith
really is in the continuance of personal identity after death, by
allowing the lapse of time to affect the question at all; just as
we should consider it a horrible profanation to exhume and exhibit
the body of a man who had been buried a few years ago, while we
approve of the action of archaeologists who explore Egyptian
sepulchres, subscribe to their operations, and should consider a
man a mere sentimentalist who suggested that the mummies exhibited
in museums ought to be sent back for interment in their original
tombs. We think vaguely that a man who died a few years ago would
in some way be outraged if his body were to be publicly displayed,
while we do not for an instant regard the possible feelings of
delicate and highly-born Egyptian ladies, on whose seemly sepulture
such anxious and tender care was expended so many centuries ago.

But in this case there is no such responsibility. None of the
persons concerned have any objection to the publication of these
records, and as for the writer himself he was entirely free from
any desire for a fastidious seclusion. His life was a secluded one
enough, and he felt strongly that a man has a right to his own
personal privacy. But his own words sufficiently prove, if proof
were needed, that he felt that to deny the right of others to
participate in thoughts and experiences, which might uplift or help
a mourner or a sufferer, was a selfish form of individualism with
which he had no sympathy whatever. He felt, and I have heard him
say, that one has no right to withhold from others any reflections
which can console and sustain, and he held it to be the supreme
duty of a man to ease, if he could, the burden of another. He knew
that there is no sympathy in the world so effective as the sharing
of similar experiences, as the power of assuring a sufferer that
another has indeed trodden the same dark path and emerged into the
light of Heaven. I will even venture to say that he deliberately
intended that his records should be so used, for purposes of
alleviation and consolation, and the bequest that he made of his
papers to myself, entrusting them to my absolute discretion, makes
it clear to me that I have divined his wishes in the matter. I
think, indeed, that his only doubt was a natural diffidence as to
whether the record had sufficient importance to justify its
publication. In any case, my own duty in the matter is to me
absolutely clear.

But I think that it will be as well for me to sketch a brief
outline of my friend's life and character. I would have preferred
to have done this, if it had been possible, by allowing him to
speak for himself. But the earlier Diaries which exist are nothing
but the briefest chronicle of events. He put his earlier
confessions into his books, but he was in many ways more
interesting than his books, and so I will try and draw a portrait
of him as he appeared to one of his earliest friends. I knew him
first as an undergraduate, and our friendship was unbroken after
that. The Diary, written as it is under the shadow of a series of
calamities, gives an impression of almost wilful sadness which is
far from the truth. The requisite contrast can only be attained by
representing him as he appeared to those who knew him.

He was the son of a moderately wealthy country solicitor, and was
brought up on normal lines. His mother died while he was a boy. He
had one brother, younger than himself, and a sister who was younger
still. He went to a leading public school, where he was in no way
distinguished either in work or athletics. I gathered, when I first
knew him, that he had been regarded as a clever, quiet, good-
natured, simple-minded boy, with a considerable charm of manner,
but decidedly retiring. He was not expected to distinguish himself
in any way, and he did not seem to have any particular ambitions. I
went up to Cambridge at the same time as he, and we formed a very
close friendship. We had kindred tastes, and we did not concern
ourselves very much with the social life of the place. We read,
walked, talked, played games, idled, and amused ourselves together.
I was more attached to him, I think, than he was to me; indeed, I
do not think that he cared at that time to form particularly close
ties. He was frank, engaging, humorous, and observant; but I do not
think that he depended very much upon any one; he rather tended to
live an interior life of his own, of poetical and fanciful
reflection. I think he tended to be pensive rather than high-
spirited--at least, I do not often remember any particular
ebullition of youthful enthusiasm. He liked congenial company, but
he was always ready to be alone. He very seldom went to the rooms
of other men, except in response to definite invitations; but he
was always disposed to welcome any one who came spontaneously to
see him. He was a really diffident and modest fellow, and I do not
think it even entered into his head to imagine that he had any
social gifts or personal charm. But I gradually came to perceive
that his mind was of a very fine quality. He had a mature critical
judgment, and, though I used to think that his tastes were somewhat
austere, I now see that he had a very sure instinct for alighting
upon what was best and finest in books and art alike. He used to
write poetry in those days, but he was shy of confessing it, and
very conscious of the demerits of what he wrote. I have some of his
youthful verses by me, and though they are very unequal and full of
lapses, yet he often strikes a firm note and displays a subtle
insight. I think that he was more ambitious than I perhaps knew,
and had that vague belief in his own powers which is characteristic
of able and unambitious men. His was certainly, on the whole, a
cold nature in those days. He could take up a friendship where he
laid it down, by virtue of an easy frankness and a sympathy that
was intellectual rather than emotional. But the suspension of
intercourse with a friend never troubled him.

I became aware, in the course of a walking tour that I took with
him in those days, that he had a deep perception of the beauties of
nature; it was not a vague accessibility to picturesque
impressions, but a critical discernment of quality. He always said
that he cared more for little vignettes, which he could grasp
entire, than for wide and majestic prospects; and this was true of
his whole mind.

I suppose that I tended to idealise him; but he certainly seems to
me, in retrospect, to have then been invested with a singular
charm. He was pure-minded and fastidious to a fault. He had
considerable personal beauty, rather perhaps of expression than of
feature. He was one of those people with a natural grace of
movement, gesture and speech. He was wholly unembarrassed in
manner, but he talked little in a mixed company. No one had fewer
enemies or fewer intimate friends. The delightful ears soon came to
an end, and one of the few times I ever saw him exhibit strong
emotion was on the evening before he left Cambridge, when he
altogether broke down. I remember his quoting a verse from Omar
Khayyam:--


"Yet ah! that spring should vanish with the rose,
That Youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close,"


and breaking off in the middle with sudden tears.

It was necessary for me to adopt a profession, and I remember
envying him greatly when he told me that his father, who, I
gathered, rather idolised him, was quite content that he should
choose for himself at his leisure. He went abroad for a time; and I
met him next in London, where he was proposing to read for the bar;
but I discovered that he had really found his metier. He had
written a novel, which he showed me, and though it was in some ways
an immature performance, it had, I felt, high and unmistakable
literary qualities. It was published soon afterwards and met with
some success. He thereupon devoted himself to writing, and I was
astonished at his industry and eagerness. He had for the first time
found a congenial occupation. He lived mostly at home in those
days, but he was often in London, where he went a good deal into
society. I do not know very much about him at this time, but I
gather that he achieved something of a social reputation. He was
never a voluble talker; I do not suppose he ever set the table in a
roar, but he had a quiet, humorous and sympathetic manner. His
physical health was then, as always, perfect. He was never tired or
peevish; he was frank, kindly and companionable; he talked little
about himself, and had a genuine interest in the study of
personality, so that people were apt to feel at their best in his
society. Meanwhile his books came out one after another--not great
books exactly, but full of humour and perception, each an advance
on the last. By the age of thirty he was accepted as one of the
most promising novelists of the day.

Then he did what I never expected he would do; he fell wildly and
enthusiastically in love with the only daughter of a
Gloucestershire clergyman, a man of good family and position. She
was the only child; her mother had died some years before, and her
father died shortly after the marriage. She was a beautiful,
vigorous girl, extraordinarily ingenuous, simple-minded, and
candid. She was not clever in the common acceptance of the term,
and was not the sort of person by whom I should have imagined that
my friend would have been attracted. They settled in a pleasant
house, which they built in Surrey, on the outskirts of a village.
Three children were born to them--a boy and a girl, and another
boy, who survived his birth only a few hours. From this time he
almost entirely deserted London, and became, I thought, almost
strangely content with a quiet domestic life. I was often with them
in those early days, and I do not think I ever saw a happier
circle. It was a large and comfortable house, very pleasantly
furnished, with a big garden. His father died in the early years of
the marriage, and left him a good income; with the proceeds of his
books he was a comparatively wealthy man. His wife was one of those
people who have a serene and unaffected interest in human beings.
She was a religious woman, but her relations with others were
rather based on the purest kindliness and sympathy. She knew every
one in the place, and, having no touch of shyness, she went in and
out among their poorer neighbours, the trusted friend and
providence of numerous families; but she had not in the least what
is called a parochial mind. She had no touch of the bustling and
efficient Lady Bountiful. The simple people she visited were her
friends and neighbours, not her patients and dependents. She was
simply an overflowing fountain of goodness, and it was a natural to
her to hurry to a scene of sorrow and suffering as it is for most
people to desire to stay away. My friend himself had not the same
taste; it was always rather an effort to him to accommodate himself
to people in a different way of life; but it ought to be said that
he was universally liked and respected for his quiet courtesy and
simplicity, and fully as much for his own sake as for that of his
wife. This fact could hardly be inferred from his Diary, and indeed
he was wholly unconscious of it himself, because he never realised
his natural charm, and indeed was unduly afraid of boring people by
his presence.

He was not exactly a hard worker, but he was singularly regular;
indeed, though he sometimes took a brief holiday after writing a
book, he seldom missed a day without writing some few pages. One of
the reasons why they paid so few visits was that he tended, as he
told me, to feel so much bored away from his work. It was at once
his occupation and his recreation. He was not one of those who
write fiercely and feverishly, and then fall into exhaustion; he
wrote cheerfully and temperately, and never appeared to feel the
strain. They lived quietly, but a good many friends came and went.
He much preferred to have a single quest, or a husband and wife, at
a time, and pursued his work quietly all through. He used to see
that one had all one could need, and then withdrew after tea-time,
not reappearing until dinner. His wife, it was evident, was devoted
to him with an almost passionate adoration. The reason why life
went so easily there was that she studied unobtrusively his
smallest desires and preferences; and thus there was never any
sense of special contrivance or consideration for his wishes: the
day was arranged exactly as he liked, without his ever having to
insist upon details. He probably did not realise this, for though
he liked settled ways, he was sensitively averse to feeling that
his own convenience was in any way superseding or overriding the
convenience of others. It used to be a great delight and
refreshment to stay there. He was fond of rambling about the
country, and was an enchanting companion in a tete-a-tete. In the
evening he used to expand very much into a genial humour which was
very attractive; he had, too, the art of making swift and subtle
transitions into an emotional mood; and here his poetical gift of
seeing unexpected analogies and delicate characteristics gave his
talk a fragrant charm which I have seldom heard equalled.

It was indeed a picture of wonderful prosperity, happiness, and
delight. The children were engaging, clever, and devotedly
affectionate, and indeed the atmosphere of mutual affection seemed
to float over the circle like a fresh and scented summer air. One
used to feel, as one drove away, that though one's visit had been a
pleasure, there would be none of the flatness which sometimes
follows the departure of a guest, but that one was leaving them to
a home life that was better than sociability, a life that was both
sacred and beautiful, full to the brim of affection, yet without
any softness or sentimentality.

Then came my friend's great success. He had written less since his
marriage, and his books, I thought, were beginning to flag a
little. There was a want of freshness about them; he tended to use
the same characters and similar situations; both thought and
phraseology became somewhat mannerised. I put this down myself to
the belief that life was beginning to be more interesting to him
than art. But there suddenly appeared the book which made him
famous, a book both masterly and delicate, full of subtle analysis
and perception, and with that indescribable sense of actuality
which is the best test of art. The style at the same time seemed to
have run clear; he had gained a perfect command of his instrument,
and I had about this book, what I had never had about any other
book of his, the sense that he was producing exactly the effects he
meant to produce. The extraordinary merit of the book was instantly
recognised by all, I think, but the author. He went abroad for a
time after the book was published, and eventually returned; it was
at that point of his life that the Diary began.

I went to see him not long after, and it became rapidly clear to me
that something had happened to him. Instead of being radiant with
success, eager and contented, I found him depressed, anxious,
haggard. He told me that he felt unstrung and exhausted, and that
his power of writing had deserted him. But I must bear testimony at
the same time to the fact which does not emerge in the Diary,
namely, the extraordinary gallantry and patience of his conduct and
demeanour. He struggled visibly and pathetically, from hour to
hour, against his depression. He never complained; he never showed,
at least in my presence, the smallest touch of irritability. Indeed
to myself, who had known him as the most equable and good-humoured
of men, he seemed to support the trial with a courage little short
of heroism. The trial was a sore one, because it deprived him both
of motive and occupation. But he made the best of it; he read, he
took long walks, and he threw himself with great eagerness into the
education of his children--a task for which he was peculiarly
qualified. Then a series of calamities fell upon him: he lost his
boy, a child of wonderful ability and sweetness; he lost his
fortune, or the greater part of it. The latter calamity he bore
with perfect imperturbability--they let their house and moved into
Gloucestershire. Here a certain measure of happiness seemed to
return to him. He made a new friend, as the Diary relates, in the
person of the Squire of the village, a man who, though an invalid,
had a strong and almost mystical hold upon life. Here he began to
interest himself in the people of the place, and tried all sorts of
education and social experiments. But his wife fell ill, and died
very suddenly; and, not long after, his daughter died too. He was
for a time almost wholly broken down. I went abroad with him at his
request for a few weeks, but I was myself obliged to return to
England to my professional duties. I can only say that I did not
expect ever to see him again. He was like a man, the spring of
whose life was broken; but at the same time he bore himself with a
patience and a gentleness that fairly astonished me. We were
together day by day and hour by hour. He made no complaint, and he
used to force himself, with what sad effort was only too plain, to
converse on all sorts of topics. Some time after he drifted back to
England; but at first he appeared to be in a very listless and
dejected state. Then there arrived, almost suddenly, it seemed to
me, a change. He had made the sacrifice; he had accepted the
situation. There came to him a serenity which was only like his old
serenity from the fact that it seemed entirely unaffected; but it
was based, I felt, on a very different view of life. He was now
content to wait and to believe. It was at this time that the Squire
died; and not long afterwards, the Squire's niece, a woman of great
strength and simplicity of character, married a clergyman to whom
she had been long attached, both being middle-aged people; and the
living soon afterwards falling vacant, her husband accepted it, and
the newly-married pair moved into the Rectory; while my friend, who
had been named as the Squire's ultimate heir, a life-interest in
the property being secured to the niece, went into the Hall.
Shortly afterwards he adopted a nephew--his sister's son--who, with
the consent of all concerned, was brought up as the heir to the
estate, and is its present proprietor.

My friend lived some fifteen years after that, a quiet, active, and
obviously contented life. I was a frequent guest at the Hall, and I
am sure that I never saw a more attached circle. My friend became a
magistrate, and he did a good deal of county business; but his main
interest was in the place, where he was the trusted friend and
counsellor of every household in the parish. He took a great deal
of active exercise in the open air; he read much. He taught his
nephew, whom he did not send to school. He regained, in fuller
measure than ever, his old delightful charm of conversation, and
his humour, which had always been predominant in him, took on a
deeper and a richer tinge; but whereas in old days he had been
brilliant and epigrammatic, he was now rather poetical and
suggestive; and whereas he had formerly been reticent about his
emotions and his religion, he now acquired what is to my mind the
profoundest conversational charm--the power of making swift and
natural transitions into matters of what, for want of a better
word, I will call spiritual experience. I remember his once saying
to me that he had learnt, from his intercourse with his village
neighbours, that the one thing in the world in which every one was
interested was religion; "even more," he added, with a smile, "than
is the one subject in which Sir Robert Walpole said that every one
could join."

I do not suppose that his religion was of a particularly orthodox
kind; he was impatient of dogmatic definition and of ecclesiastical
tendencies; but he cared with all his heart for the vital
principles of religion, the love of God and the love of one's
neighbour.

He lived to see his adopted son grow up to maturity; and I do not
think I ever saw anything so beautiful as the confidence and
affection that subsisted between them; and then he died one day, as
he had often told me he desired to die. He had been ailing for a
week, and on rising from his chair in the morning he was seized by
a sudden faintness and died within half-an-hour, hardly knowing, I
imagine, that he was in any danger.

It fell to me to deal with his papers. There was a certain amount
of scattered writing, but no completed work; it all dated from
before the publication of his great book. It was determined that
this Diary should eventually see the light, and circumstances into
which I need not now enter have rendered its appearance advisable
at the present date.

The interest of the document is its candour and outspokenness. If
the tone of the record, until near the end, is one of unrelieved
sadness, it must be borne in mind that all the time he bore himself
in the presence of others with a singular courage and simplicity.
He said to me once, in an hour of dark despair, that he had drunk
the dregs of self-abasement. That he believed that he had no sense
of morality, no loyal affection, no love of virtue, no patience or
courage. That his only motives had been timidity, personal
ambition, love of respectability, love of ease. He added that this
had been slowly revealed to him, and that the only way out was a
way that he had not as yet strength to tread; the way of utter
submission, absolute confidence, entire resignation. He said that
there was one comfort, which was, that he knew the worst about
himself that it was possible to know. I told him that his view of
his character was unjust and exaggerated, but he only shook his
head with a smile that went to my heart. It was on that day, I
think, that he touched the lowest depth of all; and after that he
found the way out, along the path that he had indicated.

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