Born in Exile (33 page)

All things considered, to encourage this amorous preoccupation
was probably the height of unwisdom. The lover is ready at deluding
himself, but Peak never lost sight of the extreme unlikelihood that
he should ever become Martin Warricombe's son-in-law, of the
thousand respects which forbade his hoping that Sidwell would ever
lay her hand in his. That deep-rooted sense of class which had so
much influence on his speculative and practical life asserted
itself, with rigid consistency, even against his own aspirations;
he attributed to the Warricombes more prejudice on this subject
than really existed in them. He, it was true, belonged to no class
whatever, acknowledged no subordination save that of the hierarchy
of intelligence; but this could not obscure the fact that his
brother sold seeds across a counter, that his sister had married a
haberdasher, that his uncle (notoriously) was somewhere or other
supplying the public with cheap repasts. Girls of Sidwell's
delicacy do not misally themselves, for they take into account the
fact that such misalliance is fraught with elements of unhappiness,
affecting husband as much as wife. No need to dwell upon the
scruples suggested by his moral attitude; he would never be called
upon to combat them with reference to Sidwell's future.

What, then, was he about? For what advantage was he playing the
hypocrite? Would he, after all, be satisfied with some such wife as
the average curate may hope to marry?

A hundred times he reviewed the broad question, by the light of
his six months' experience. Was Sidwell Warricombe his ideal woman,
absolutely speaking? Why, no; not with all his glow of feeling
could he persuade himself to declare her that. Satisfied up to a
certain point, admitted to the sphere of wealthy refinement, he now
had leisure to think of yet higher grades, of the women who are not
only exquisite creatures by social comparison but rank by divine
right among the foremost of their race. Sidwell was far from
intolerant, and held her faiths in a sincerely ethical spirit. She
judged nobly, she often saw with clear vision. But must not
something of kindly condescension always blend with his admiring
devotedness? Were it but possible to win the love of a woman who
looked forth with eyes thoroughly purged from all mist of tradition
and conventionalism, who was at home among arts and sciences, who,
like himself, acknowledged no class and bowed to no authority but
that of the supreme human mind!

Such women are to be found in every age, but how many of them
shine with the distinctive ray of womanhood? These are so rare that
they have a place in the pages of history. The truly emancipated
woman—it was Godwin's conviction—is almost always asexual; to him,
therefore, utterly repugnant. If, then, he were not content to
waste his life in a vain search for the priceless jewel, which is
won and worn only by fortune's supreme favourites, he must
acquiesce in the imperfect marriage commonly the lot of men whose
intellect allows them but little companionship even among their own
sex: for that matter, the lot of most men, and necessarily so until
the new efforts in female education shall have overcome the vice of
wedlock as hitherto sanctioned. Nature provides the hallucination
which flings a lover at his mistress's feet. For the chill which
follows upon attainment she cares nothing—let society and
individuals make their account with that as best they may. Even
with a wife such as Sidwell the process of disillusion would
doubtless have to be faced, however liberal one's allowances in the
forecast.

Reflections of this colour were useful; they helped to keep
within limits the growth of agitating desire. But there were
seasons when Godwin surrendered himself to luxurious reverie, hours
of summer twilight which forbade analysis and listened only to the
harmonies of passion. Then was Sidwell's image glorified, and all
the delights promised by such love as hers fired his imagination to
intolerable ecstasy. O heaven! to see the smile softened by rosy
warmth which would confess that she had given her heart—to feel her
supple fingers intertwined with his that clasped them—to hear the
words in which a mind so admirable, instincts so delicate, would
make expression of their tenderness! To live with Sidwell—to
breathe the fragrance of that flower of womanhood in wedded
intimacy—to prove the devotion of a nature so profoundly chaste!
The visionary transport was too poignant; in the end it drove him
to a fierce outbreak of despairing wrath. How could he dream that
such bliss would be the reward of despicable artifice, of
calculated dishonour? Born a rebel, how could his be the fate of
those happy men who are at one with the order of things? The
prophecy of a heart wrung with anguish foretold too surely that for
him was no rapturous love, no joy of noble wedlock. Solitude, now
and for ever, or perchance some base alliance of the flesh, which
would involve his later days in sordid misery.

In moods of discouragement he thought with envy of his old self,
his life in London lodgings, his freedom in obscurity. It belongs
to the pathos of human nature that only in looking back can one
appreciate the true value of those long tracts of monotonous ease
which, when we are living through them, seem of no account save in
relation to past or future; only at a distance do we perceive that
the exemption from painful shock was in itself a happiness, to be
rated highly in comparison with most of those disturbances known as
moments of joy. A wise man would have entertained no wish but that
he might grow old in that same succession of days and weeks and
years. Without anxiety concerning his material needs (certainly the
most substantial of earthly blessings), his leisure not inadequate
to the gratification of a moderate studiousness, with friends who
offered him an ever-ready welcome,—was it not much? If he were
condemned to bachelorhood, his philosophy was surely capable of
teaching him that the sorrows and anxieties he thus escaped made
more than an offset against the satisfactions he must forego.
Reason had no part in the fantastic change to which his life had
submitted, nor was he ever supported by a hope which would bear his
cooler investigation.

And yet hope had her periods of control, for there are times
when the mind wearies of rationality, and, as it were in
self-defense, in obedience to the instinct of progressive life,
craves a specious comfort. It seemed undeniable that Mr. Warricombe
regarded him with growth of interest, invited his conversation more
unreservedly. He began to understand Martin's position with regard
to religion and science, and thus could utter himself more
securely. At length he ventured to discourse with some amplitude on
his own convictions—the views, that is to say, which he thought fit
to adopt in his character of a liberal Christian. It was on an
afternoon of early August that this opportunity presented itself.
They sat together in the study, and Martin was in a graver mood
than usual, not much disposed to talk, but a willing listener.
There had been mention of a sermon at the Cathedral, in which the
preacher declared his faith that the maturity of science would
dispel all antagonisms between it and revelation.

'The difficulties of the unbeliever,' said Peak, endeavouring to
avoid a sermonising formality, though with indifferent success,
'are, of course, of two kinds; there's the theory of evolution, and
there's modern biblical criticism. The more I study these
objections, the less able I am to see how they come in conflict
with belief in Christianity as a revealed religion.'

'Yet you probably had your time of doubt?' remarked the other,
touching for the first time on this personal matter.

'Oh, yes; that was inevitable. It only means that one's
development is imperfect. Most men who confirm themselves in
agnosticism are kept at that point by arrested moral activity. They
give up the intellectual question as wearisome, and accept the
point of view which flatters their prejudices: thereupon follows a
blunting of the sensibilities on the religious side.'

'There are men constitutionally unfitted for the reception of
spiritual truth,' said Martin, in a troubled tone. He was playing
with a piece of string, and did not raise his eyes.

'I quite believe that. There's our difficulty when we come to
evidences. The evidences of science are wholly different in
kind
from those of religion. Faith cannot spring from any
observation of phenomena, or scrutiny of authorities, but from the
declaration made to us by the spiritual faculty. The man of science
can only become a Christian by the way of humility—and that a kind
of humility he finds it difficult even to conceive. One wishes to
impress upon him the harmony of this faith with the spiritual voice
that is in every man. He replies: I know nothing of that spiritual
voice. And if that be true, one can't help him by argument.'

Peak had constructed for himself, out of his reading, a
plausible system which on demand he could set forth with fluency.
The tone of current apologetics taught him that, by men even of
cultivated intellect, such a position as he was now sketching was
deemed tenable; yet to himself it sounded so futile, so nugatory,
that he had to harden his forehead as he spoke. Trial more severe
to his conscience lay in the perceptible solicitude with which Mr
Warricombe weighed these disingenuous arguments. It was a hateful
thing to practise such deception on one who probably yearned for
spiritual support. But he had committed himself to this course, and
must brave it out.

'Christianity,' he was saying presently—appropriating a passage
of which he had once made careful note—'is an organism of such
vital energy that it perforce assimilates whatever is good and true
in the culture of each successive age. To understand this is to
learn that we must depend rather on
constructive
, than on
defensive
, apology. That is to say, we must draw evidence of
our faith from its latent capacities, its unsuspected affinities,
its previsions, its adaptability, comprehensiveness, sympathy,
adequacy to human needs.'

'That puts very well what I have always felt,' replied Mr
Warricombe. 'Yet there will remain the objection that such a faith
may be of purely human origin. If evolution and biblical criticism
seem to overthrow all the historic evidences of Christianity, how
convince the objectors that the faith itself was divinely
given?'

'But I cannot hold for a moment,' exclaimed Peak, in the words
which he knew his interlocutor desired to hear, 'that all the
historic evidences have been destroyed. That indeed would shake our
position.'

He enlarged on the point, with display of learning, yet
studiously avoiding the tone of pedantry.

'Evolution,' he remarked, when the dialogue had again extended
its scope, 'does not touch the evidence of design in the universe;
at most it can correct our imperfect views (handed down from an age
which had no scientific teaching because it was not ripe for it) of
the mode in which that design was executed, or rather is still
being executed. Evolutionists have not succeeded in explaining
life; they have merely discovered a new law relating to life. If we
must have an explanation, there is nothing for it but to accept the
notion of a Deity. Indeed, how can there be religion without a
divine author? Religion is based on the idea of a divine mind which
reveals itself to us for moral ends. The Christian revelation, we
hold, has been developed gradually, much of it in connection with
secondary causes and human events. It has come down to us in
anything but absolute purity—like a stream which has been made
turbid by its earthly channel. The lower serves its purpose as a
stage to the higher, then it falls away, the higher surviving.
Hitherto, the final outcome of evolution is the soul in a bodily
tenement. May it not be that the perfected soul alone survives in
the last step of the struggle for existence?'

Peak had been talking for more than a quarter of an hour. Under
stress of shame and intellectual self-criticism (for he could not
help confuting every position as he stated it) his mind often
wandered. When he ceased speaking there came upon him an
uncomfortable dreaminess which he had already once or twice
experienced when in colloquy with Mr. Warricombe; a tormenting
metaphysical doubt of his own identity strangely beset him. With
involuntary attempt to recover the familiar self he grasped his own
wrist, and then, before he was aware, a laugh escaped him, an all
but mocking laugh, unsuitable enough to the spirit of the moment.
Mr Warricombe was startled, but looked up with a friendly
smile.

'You fear,' he said, 'that this last speculation may seem rather
fanciful to me?'

Godwin was biting his lip fiercely, and could not command
himself to utterance of a word.

'By no means, I assure you,' added the other. 'It appeals to me
very strongly.'

Peak rose from his chair.

'It struck me,' he said, 'that I had been preaching a sermon
rather than taking part in a conversation. I'm afraid it is the
habit of men who live a good deal alone to indulge in
monologues.'

On his return home, the sight of
Bibel und Natur
and his
sheets of laborious manuscript filled him with disgust. It was two
or three days before he could again apply himself to the
translation. Yet this expedient had undoubtedly been of great
service to him in the matter of his relations with Mr. Warricombe.
Without the aid of Reusch he would have found it difficult to speak
naturally on the theme which drew Martin into confidences and
established an intimacy between them.

Already they had discussed in detail the first half of the book.
How a man of Mr. Warricombe's intelligence could take grave
interest in an arid exegesis of the first chapter of Genesis,
Godwin strove in vain to comprehend. Often enough the debates were
perilously suggestive of burlesque, and, when alone, he relieved
himself of the laughter he had scarce restrained. For instance,
there was that terrible
thohu wabohu
of the second verse, a
phrase preserved from the original, and tossed into all the corners
of controversy. Was
thohu wabohu
the first condition of the
earth, or was it merely a period of division between a previous
state of things and creation as established by the Hexaemeron? Did
light exist or not, previous to the
thohu wabohu
? Then,
again, what kind of 'days' were the three which passed before the
birth of the sun? Special interest, of course, attached to the
successive theories of theology on the origin of geologic strata.
First came the 'theory of restitution', which explained unbiblical
antiquity by declaring that the strata belonged to a world before
the Hexaimeron, a world which had been destroyed, and succeeded by
the new creation. Less objectionable was the 'concordistic theory',
which interprets the 'six days' as so many vast periods of creative
activity. But Reusch himself gave preference to the 'ideal theory',
the supporters whereof (diligently adapting themselves to the
progress of science) hold that the six days are not to be
understood as consecutive periods at all, but merely as six phases
of the Creator's work.