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The Puritans

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The Puritans


By


Arlo Bates


The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.
_All's Well That Ends Well_, iv. 3.





"Abandoning my heart, and rapt in ecstasy, I ran after her till I came
to a place in which religion and reason forsook me."
_Persian Religious Hymn.




CONTENTS


I. AFTER SUCH A PAGAN CUT
II. THERE BEGINS CONFUSION
III. AS FALSE AS STAIRS OF SAND
IV. SOME SPEECH OF MARRIAGE
V. VOLUBLE AND SHARP DISCOURSE
VI. HEART-BURNING HEAT OF DUTY
VII. THE SHOT OF ACCIDENT
VIII. LIKE COVERED FIRE
IX. HIS PURE HEART'S TRUTH
X. A SYMPATHY OF WOE
XI. IN PLACE AND IN ACCOUNT NOTHING
XII. THE INLY TOUCH OF LOVE
XIII. A NECESSARY EVIL
XIV. HE SPEAKS THE MERE CONTRARY
XV. HEARTSICK WITH THOUGHT
XVI. THE GREAT ASSAY OF ART
XVII. A BOND OF AIR
XVIII. CRUEL PROOF OF THIS MAN'S STRENGTH
XIX. 'TWAS WONDROUS PITIFUL
XX. IN WAY OF TASTE
XXI. THIS "WOULD" CHANGES
XXII. THE BITTER PAST
XXIII. THIS DEED UNSHAPES ME
XXIV. FAREWELL AT ONCE, FOR ONCE, FOR ALL, AND EVER
XXV. WHOM THE FATES HAVE MARKED
XXVI. O WICKED WIT AND GIFT
XXVII. UPON A CHURCH BENCH
XXVIII. BEDECKING ORNAMENTS OF PRAISE
XXIX. WEIGHING DELIGHT AND DOLE
XXX. PARTED OUR FELLOWSHIP
XXXI. HOW CHANCES MOCK
XXXII. NOW HE IS FOR THE NUMBERS
XXXIII. A MINT OF PHRASES IN HIS BRAIN
XXXIV. WHAT TIME SHE CHANTED
XXXV. THE WORLD IS STILL DECEIVED
XXXVI. THE HEAVY MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT
XXXVII. THIS IS NOT A BOON




THE PURITANS




I


AFTER SUCH A PAGAN CUT
Henry VIII., i. 3.


"We are all the children of the Puritans," Mrs. Herman said smiling.
"Of course there is an ethical strain in all of us."

Her cousin, Philip Ashe, who wore the dress of a novice from the Clergy
House of St. Mark, regarded her with a serious and doubtful glance.

"But there is so much difference between you and me," he began. Then he
hesitated as if not knowing exactly how to finish his sentence.

"The difference," she responded, "is chiefly a matter of the difference
between action and reaction. You and I come of much the same stock
ethically. My childhood was oppressed by the weight of the Puritan
creed, and the reaction from it has made me what you feel obliged to
call heretic; while you, with a saint for a mother, found even
Puritanism hardly strict enough for you, and have taken to semi-
monasticism. We are both pushed on by the same original impulse: the
stress of Puritanism."

She had been putting on her gloves as she spoke, and now rose and stood
ready to go out. Philip looked at her with a troubled glance, rising
also.

"I hardly know," said he slowly, "if it's right for me to go with you.
It would have been more in keeping if I adhered to the rules of the
Clergy House while I am away from it."

Mrs. Herman smiled with what seemed to him something of the tolerance
one has for the whim of a child.

"And what would you be doing at the Clergy House at this time of day?"
she asked. "Wouldn't it be recreation hour or something of the sort?"

He looked down. He never found himself able to be entirely at ease in
answering her questions about the routine of the Clergy House.

"No," he answered. "The half hour of recreation which follows Nones
would just be ended."

His cousin laughed confusingly.

"Well, then," she rejoined, "begin it over again. Tell your confessor
that the woman tempted you, and you did sin. You are not in the Clergy
House just now; and as I have taken the trouble to ask leave to carry
you to Mrs. Gore's this afternoon, more because you wanted to see this
Persian than because I cared about it, it is rather late for
objections."

Philip raised his eyes to her face only to meet a glance so quizzical
that he hastened to avoid it by going to the hall to don his cloak; and
a few moments later they were walking up Beacon Hill.

It was one of those gloriously brilliant winter days by which Boston
weather atones in an hour for a week of sullenness. Snow lay in a thin
sheet over the Common, and here and there a bit of ice among the tree-
branches caught the light like a glittering jewel. The streets were
dotted with briskly gliding sleighs, the jingle of whose bells rang out
joyously. The air was full of a vigor which made the blood stir briskly
in the veins.

Philip had not for years found himself in the street with a woman.
Seldom, indeed, was he abroad with a companion, except as he took the
walk prescribed in the monastic regime with his friend, Maurice Wynne.
For the most part he went his way alone, occupied in pious
contemplation, shutting himself stubbornly in from outward sights and
sounds. Now he was confused and unsettled. Since a fire had a week
earlier scattered the dwellers in the Clergy House, and sent him to the
home of his cousin, he had gone about like one bewildered. The world
into which he was now cast was as unknown to him as if he had passed
the two years spent at St. Mark's in some far island of the sea. To be
in the street with a lady; to be on his way to hear he knew not what
from the lips of a Persian mystic; to have in his mind memory of light
talk and pleasant story; all these things made him feel as if he were
drifting into a strange unknown sea of worldliness.

Yet his feeling was not entirely one of fear or of reluctance.
Sensitive to the tips of his fingers, he felt the influences of the
day, the sweetness of his cousin's laughter, the beauty of her face. He
was exhilarated by a strange intoxication. He was conscious that more
than one passer looked curiously at them as, he in his cassock and she
in her furs, they walked up Beacon Street. He felt as in boyhood he had
felt when about to embark in some adventure to childhood strange and
daring.

"It is a beautiful day," he said involuntarily.

"Yes," Mrs. Herman answered. "It is almost a pity to spend it indoors.
But here we are."

They had come into Mt. Vernon Street, and now turned in at a fine old
house of gray stone.

"Is there any discussion at these meetings?" he asked, as they waited
for the door to be opened.

"Oh, yes; often there is a good deal. You'll have ample opportunity to
protest against the heresies of the heathen."

"I do not come here to speak," he replied, rather stiffly. "I only come
to get some idea of how the oriental mind works."

He felt her smile to be that of one amused at him, but he could not see
why she should be.

"I must give you one caution," she went on, as they entered the house.
"It's the same that the magicians give to those who are present at
their incantations. Be careful not to pronounce sacred words."

"But don't they use them?"

"Oh, abundantly; but they know how to use them in a fashion understood
only by the initiated, so that they are harmless."

They passed up the wide staircase of Mrs. Gore's handsome, if over-
furnished house. They were shown into the drawing-room, where they were
met by the hostess, a tall, superb woman of commanding presence, her
head crowned with masses of snow-white hair. Coming in from the
brilliant winter sunlight, Philip could not at first distinguish
anything clearly. He went mechanically through his presentation to the
hostess and to the Persian who was to address the meeting, and then
sank into a seat. He looked curiously at the Persian, struck by the
picturesque appearance of the long snow-white beard, fine as silk,
which flowed down over the rich robe of the seer. The face was to
Philip an enigma. To understand a foreign face it is necessary to have
learned the physiognomy of the people to which it belongs, as to
comprehend their speech it is necessary to have mastered their
language. As he knew not whether the countenance of the old man
attracted or repelled him more, and could only decide that at least it
had a strange fascination.

Suddenly Ashe felt his glance called up by a familiar presence, and to
his surprise saw his friend, Maurice Wynne, come into the room,
accompanied by a stately, bright-eyed woman who was warmly greeted by
Mrs. Gore. He wondered at the chance which had brought Maurice here as
well as himself; but the calling of the meeting to order attracted his
thoughts back to the business of the moment.

The Persian was the latest ethical caprice of Boston. He had come by
the invitation of Mrs. Gore to bring across the ocean the knowledge of
the mystic truths contained in the sacred writings of his country; and
his ministrations were being received with that beautiful seriousness
which is so characteristic of the town. In Boston there are many
persons whose chief object in life seems to be the discovery of novel
forms of spiritual dissipation. The cycle of mystic hymns which the
Persian was expounding to the select circle of devotees assembled at
Mrs. Gore's was full of the most sensual images, under which the
inspired Persian psalmists had concealed the highest truth. Indeed,
Ashe had been told that on one occasion the hostess had been obliged to
stop the reading on the ground that an occidental audience not
accustomed to anything more outspoken than the Song of Solomon, and
unused to the amazing grossness of oriental symbolism, could not listen
to the hymn which he was pouring forth. Fortunately Philip had chanced
upon a day when the text was harmless, and he could hear without
blushing, whether he were spiritually edified or not.

The Persian had a voice of exquisite softness and flexibility. His
every word was like a caress. There are voices which so move and stir
the hearer that they arouse an emotion which for the moment may
override reason; voices which appeal to the senses like beguiling
music, and which conquer by a persuasive sweetness as irresistible as
it is intangible. The tones of the Persian swayed Ashe so deeply that
the young man felt as if swimming on a billow of melody. Philip
regarded as if fascinated the slender, dusky fingers of the reader as
they handled the splendidly illuminated parchment on which glowed
strange characters of gold, marvelously intertwined with leaf and
flower, and cunning devices in gleaming hues. He looked into the deep,
liquid eyes of the old man, and saw the light in them kindle as the
reading proceeded. He felt the dignity of the presence of the seer, and
the richness of his flowing garment; but all these things were only the
fitting accompaniments to that beautiful voice, flowing on like a topaz
brook in a meadow of daffodils.

The Persian spoke admirable English, only now and then by a slight
accent betraying his nationality. He made a short address upon the
antiquity of the hymn which he was that day to expound, its authorship,
and its evident inspiration. Then in his wonderful voice he read:--



THE HYMN OF ISMAT.


Yesterday, half inebriated, I passed by the quarters where the vintners
dwell, to seek the daughter of an infidel who sells wine.

At the end of the street, there advanced before me a damsel, with a
fairy's cheeks, who in the manner of a pagan wore her tresses
dishevelled over her shoulders like a sacerdotal thread. I said: "O
thou, to the arch of whose eyebrow the new moon is a slave, what
quarter is this, and where is thy mansion?"

She answered: "Cast thy rosary to the ground; bind on thy shoulder the
thread of paganism; throw stones at the glass of piety; and quaff from
a full goblet."

"After that come before me that I may whisper a word in thine ear;--
thou wilt accomplish thy journey if thou listen to my discourse."

Abandoning my heart, and rapt in ecstasy, I ran after her until I came
to a place in which religion and reason forsook me.

At a distance I beheld a company all insane and inebriated, who came
boiling and roaring with ardor from the wine of love.

Without cymbals or lutes or viols, yet all filled with mirth and
melody; without wine or goblet or flagon, yet all incessantly drinking.

When the cord of restraint slipped from my hand, I desired to ask her
one question, but she said: "Silence!"

"This is no square temple to the gate of which thou canst arrive
precipitately; this is no mosque to which thou canst come with tumult,
but without knowledge. This is the banquet-house of infidels, and
within it all are intoxicated; all from the dawn of eternity to the day
of resurrection lost in astonishment."

"Depart thou from the cloister and take thy way to the tavern; cast off
the cloak of a dervish, and wear the robe of a libertine."

I obeyed; and if thou desirest the same strain and color as Ismat,
imitate him, and sell this world and the next for one drop of pure
wine!

The company sat in absorbed silence while the reading went on. Nothing
could be more perfect than the listening of a well-bred Boston
audience, whether it is interested or not. The exquisitely modulated
voice of the Persian flowed on like the tones of a magic flute, and the
women sat as if fascinated by its spell.

When the reading was finished, and the Persian began to comment upon
the spiritual doctrine embodied in it, Ashe sat so completely absorbed
in reverie that he gave no heed to what was being said. In his ascetic
life at the Clergy House he had been so far removed from the sensuous,
save for that to which the services of the church appealed, that this
enervating and luxurious atmosphere, this gathering to which its quasi-
religious character seemed to lend an excuse, bred in him a species of
intoxication. He sat like a lotus-eater, hearing not so much the words
of the speaker as his musical voice, and half-drowned in the pleasure
of the perfumed air, the rich colors of the room, the Persian's dress,
the illuminated scroll, in the subtile delight of the presence of
women, and all those seductive charms of the sense from which the
church defended him.

The Persian, Mirza Gholân Rezâh, repeated in his flute-like voice: "'O
thou, to the arch of whose eyebrow the new moon is a slave;'" and,
hearing the words as in a dream, Philip Ashe looked across the little
circle to see a woman whose beauty smote him so strongly that he drew a
quick breath. To his excited mood it seemed as if the phrase were
intended to describe that beautifully curved brow, brown against the
fair skin, and in his heart he said over the words with a thrill: "'O
thou, to the arch of whose eyebrow the new moon is a slave!'" Half
unconsciously, and as if he were taken possession of by a will stronger
than his own, he found himself noting the soft curve and flush of a
woman's cheek, the shell-texture of her ear, and the snowy whiteness of
her throat. She sat in the full light of the window behind him, leaning
as she listened against a pedestal of ebony which upheld the bronze
bust of a satyr peering down at her with wrinkled eyes; her throat was
displayed by the backward bend of her head, and showed the whiter by
contrast with the black gown she wore. Philip's breath came more
quickly, and his head seemed to swim. Sensitive to beauty, and starved
by asceticism, he was in a moment completely overcome.

Suddenly he felt the regard of his friend Maurice resting upon him with
a questioning glance, and it was as if the thought of his heart were
laid bare. Philip made a strong effort, and fixed his look and his
attention upon the speaker, who was deep in oriental mysticism.

"It is written in the Desâtir," Mirza Gholân Rezâh was saying, "that
purity is of two kinds, the real and the formal. 'The real consists in
not binding the heart to evil: the formal in cleansing away what
appears evil to the view.' The ultimate spirit, that inner flame from
the treasure-house of flames, is not affected by the outward, by the
apparent. What though the outer man fall into sin? What though he throw
stones at the glass of piety and quaff the wine of sensuality from a
full goblet? The flame within the tabernacle is still pure and
undefined because it is undefilable."

Ashe looked around the circle in astonishment, wondering if it were
possible that in a Christian civilization these doctrines could be
proclaimed without rebuke. His neighbors sat in attitudes of close
attention; they were evidently listening, but their faces showed no
indignation. On the lips of Wynne Philip fancied he detected a faint
curl of derisive amusement, but nowhere else could he perceive any
display of emotion, unless--He had avoided looking at the lady in
black, feeling that to do so were to play with temptation; but the
attraction was too strong for him, and he glanced at her with a look of
which the swiftness showed how strongly she affected him. It seemed to
him that there was a faint flush of indignation upon her face; and he
cast down his eyes, smitten by the conviction that there was an
intimate sympathy between his feeling and hers.

"This is the word of enlightenment which the damsel, the
personification of wisdom, whispered into the ear of the seeker,"
continued the persuasive voice of the Persian. "It is the heart-truth
of all religion. It is the word which initiates man into the divine
mysteries. 'Thou wilt accomplish thy journey if thou listen to my
discourse.' Life is affected by many accidents; but none of them
reaches the godhead within. The divine inebriation of spiritual truth
comes with the realization of this fact. The flame within man, which is
above his consciousness, is not to be touched by the acts of the body.
These things which men call sin are not of the slightest feather-weight
to the soul in the innermost tabernacle. It is of no real consequence,"
the speaker went on, warming with his theme until his velvety eyes
shone, "what the outer man may do. We waste our efforts in this
childish care about apparent righteousness. The real purity is above
our acts. Let the man do what he pleases; the soul is not thereby
touched or altered."

Ashe sat upright in his chair, hardly conscious where he was. It seemed
to him monstrous to remain acquiescent and to hear without protest this
juggling with the souls of men. The instinct to save his fellows which
underlies all genuine impulse toward the priesthood was too strong in
him not to respond to the challenge which every word of the Persian
offered. Almost without knowing it, he found himself interrupting the
speaker.

"If that is the teaching of the Persian scriptures," he said, "it is
impious and wicked. Even were it true that there were a flame from the
Supreme dwelling within us, unmanifested and undeniable, it is
evidently not with this that we have to do in our earthly life. It is
with the soul of which we are conscious, the being which we do know.
This may be lost by defilement. To this the sin of the body is death.
I, I myself, I, the being that is aware of itself, am no less the one
that is morally responsible for what is done in the world by me."

Led away by his strong feeling, Philip began vehemently; but the
consciousness of the attention of all the company, and of the searching
look of Mirza, made the ardent young man falter. He was a stranger,
unaccustomed to the ways of these folk who had come together to play
with the highest truths as they might play with tennis-balls. He felt a
sudden chill, as if upon his hot enthusiasm had blown an icy blast.

Yet when he cast a glance around as if in appeal, he saw nothing of
disapproval or of scorn. He had evidently offended nobody by his
outburst. He ventured to look at the unknown in black, and she rewarded
him with a glance so full of sympathy that for an instant he lost the
thread of what the Persian, in tones as soft and unruffled as ever, was
saying in reply to his words. He gathered himself up to hear and to
answer, and there followed a discussion in which a number of those
present joined; a discussion full of cleverness and the adroit handling
of words, yet which left Philip in the confusion of being made to
realize that what to him were vital truths were to those about him
merely so many hypotheses upon which to found argument. There were more
women than men present, and Ashe was amazed at their cleverness and
their shallow reasoning; at the ease and naturalness with which they
played this game of intellectual gymnastics, and at the apparent
failure to pierce to anything like depth. It was evident that while
everything was uttered with an air of the most profound seriousness, it
would not do to be really in earnest. He began to understand what Helen
had meant when she warned him not to pronounce sacred words in this
strange assembly.

When the meeting broke up, the ladies rose to exchange greetings, to
chat together of engagements in society and such trifles of life. Ashe,
still full of the excitement of what he had done, followed his cousin
out of the drawing-room in silence. As they were descending the wide
staircase, some one behind said:--

"Are you going away without speaking to me, Helen?"

Ashe and Mrs. Herman both turned, and found themselves face to face
with the lady in black, who stood on the broad landing.

"My dear Edith," Mrs. Herman answered, "I am so little used to this
sort of thing that I didn't know whether it was proper to stop to speak
with one's friends. I thought that we might be expected to go out as if
we'd been in church. I came only to bring my cousin. May I present Mr.
Ashe; Mrs. Fenton."

"I was so glad that you said what you did this afternoon, Mr. Ashe,"
Mrs. Fenton said, extending her hand. "I felt just as you did, and I
was rejoiced that somebody had the courage to protest against that
dreadful paganism."

Philip was too shy and too enraptured to be able to reply intelligibly,
but as they were borne forward by the tide of departing guests he was
spared the need of answer. At the foot of the stairway he was stopped
again by Maurice Wynne, and presented to Mrs. Staggchase, his friend's
cousin and hostess for the time being; but his whole mind was taken up
by the image of Mrs. Fenton, and in his ears like a refrain rang the
words of the Persian hymn: "O thou, to the arch of whose eyebrow the
new moon is a slave!"



II


THERE BEGINS CONFUSION
Henry VI., iv. 1.


That afternoon at Mrs. Gore's had been no less significant to Maurice
Wynne than to Philip Ashe. His was a less spiritual, less highly
wrought nature, but in the effect which the change from the atmosphere
of the Clergy House to the Persian's lecture had upon him, the
experience of Maurice was much the same. He too was attracted by a
woman. He gave his thoughts up to the woman much more frankly than
would have been possible for his friend. She was young, perhaps twenty,
and exquisite with clear skin and soft, warm coloring. Her wide-open
eyes were as dark and velvety as the broad petals of a pansy with the
dew still on them; her cheeks were tinged with a hue like that which
spreads in a glass of pure water into which has fallen a drop of red
wine; her forehead was low and white, and from it her hair sprang up in
two little arches before it fell waving away over her temples; her lips
were pouting and provokingly suggestive of kisses. The whole face was
of the type which comes so near to the ideal that the least
sentimentality of expression would have spoiled it. Happily the big
eyes and the ripe, red mouth were both suggestive of demure humor.
There was a mirthful air about the dimple which came and went in the
left cheek like Cupid peeping mischievously from the folds of his
mother's robe. A boa of long-haired black fur lay carelessly about her
neck, pushed back so that a touch of red and gold brocade showed where
she had loosened her coat. Maurice noted that she seemed to care as
little for the lecture as he did, and he gave himself up to the delight
of watching her.

When the company broke up Mrs. Staggchase spoke almost immediately to
the beautiful creature who so charmed him.

"How do you do, Miss Morison," Mrs. Staggchase said; "I must say that I
am surprised that cousin Anna brought you to a place where the doctrine
is so far removed from mind-cure. My dear Anna," she continued, turning
to a lady whom Wynne knew by name as Mrs. Frostwinch and as an
attendant at the Church of the Nativity, "you are a living miracle. You
know you are dead, and you have no business consorting with the living
in this way."

"It is those whom you call dead that are really living," Mrs.
Frostwinch retorted smiling. "I brought Berenice so that she might see
the vanity of it all."

Mrs. Staggchase presented Maurice to the ladies, and after they had
spoken on the stairs with one and another acquaintance, and Maurice had
exchanged a word with his friend Ashe, it chanced that the four left
the house together. Wynne found himself behind with Miss Morison, while
his cousin and Mrs. Frostwinch walked on in advance. He was seized with
a delightful sense of elation at his position, yet so little was he
accustomed to society that he knew not what to say to her. He was
keenly aware that she was glancing askance at his garb, and after a
moment of silence he broke out abruptly in the most naively unconscious
fashion:--

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