Part 29

“This perfunctory clay has only one other duty to discharge,” he said, as a slow and calm radiance overspread his face, “ere it be released from its bonds. I must await the verdict of the street-persons upon my little treatise. I must stay yet awhile until some authentic voice among them has spoken in their name. By that means I shall know that my destiny is at last complete.”

His friend James Dodson assured him that that day copies of the poem had been sent to fifty of the foremost English journals.

“It may be a month, old boy, before we hear what they have got to say about it,” he said.

“A month,” said the poet with a slight shiver. “It is a long term. Yet shall it seem as but a day.”

“They are always slow at reviewing poetry, you know,” said Jimmy Dodson. “Perhaps they might even take longer than a month. You see, it is such a long poem that it will take a lot of reading; and then, of course, when they have read it, they will have to think about it before they can express their opinion. In fact, old boy, they are certain to have to think about it a good deal.”

“Truly,” said the poet, “they will have to think about it a good deal.”

From that time forth the days as they passed were fraught with inexpressible pain for James Dodson. Up till the time of the issue of this strange and bewildering poem in three volumes, which all the expert minds of his acquaintance had promptly and unsparingly condemned, he had sought to keep up his heart with the reflection, frail though it was, that they might be mistaken after all. For he gathered from the researches he had recently begun to conduct upon the subject that such things had happened before.

Yet how incomprehensible it was, in the teeth of all the uncompromising hostility that had been visited upon the manuscript itself, and the remarkable apathy of all who had been brought in contact with it--publishers, printers, proof-readers, the official at the English Museum--that the author himself, lying all broken in the clutch of death, should yet possess the occult and mysterious power to convince such a one as James Dodson against his judgment, his reason, his knowledge of the world, and all the standards by which he understood life, that his own extravagant estimate, his own ridiculous, preposterous, overweening estimate of the merits of his work should yet derive an ample sanction from the presence of him who proclaimed it.

“When I am away from that place I know the poor chap is hopelessly mad,” Jimmy Dodson would say to himself in his unhappy self-communion; “and I know his old father is hopelessly mad as well; it is proved by the judgment of others; yet as soon as I enter that accursed little room behind that accursed little shop they both seem to have such marvellous sanity that they make me ashamed of my own.”

From the time his friend’s poem was given to the world Jimmy Dodson spent his days hoping against hope. In the face of such emphatic denial of the merits of the work it called for great courage to venture to believe that after all it might vindicate itself. Yet day after day he scanned the columns of the newspapers in the vain search for a vindication that he might carry to the dying man. Nor was he able to elicit any favourable tidings from the firm of Crumpett and Hawker. Their interest in the work terminated with its issue to the press. They had not engaged to advertise it, nor to canvass for its sale among their clients the booksellers. Therefore, at the end of the first month of its issue not only had it been passed over in silence by the newspapers, but also not a single copy had been sold to the public.

In the face of these cold facts Dodson had scarcely the courage to approach his dying friend, yet an irresistible power seemed to draw him to his presence. It pierced his heart to observe the ludicrous, pathetic, overweening faith of the dying poet in that which he had given to the world. As he grew weaker and weaker in body, this sense of achievement seemed to mount to greater heights in his veins, so that the unhappy Dodson felt that he had no alternative but to continue to enact the amazing role he had already played so many times.

One evening he said to the white-haired man who welcomed him into the shop, “I suppose we must keep it up till the end comes, but God knows it is wearing me out. I have lost a stone in weight; I can’t eat my meals; I can’t sleep at night. Old man, this business is killing James Dodson by inches; but I suppose he must keep it up to the bitter end.”

“Yes,” said the old man faintly, “the truth must be concealed from the dying Achilles that the great world out of doors has rejected his labours. Yet it is meet that we ourselves should continue in our homage to this mighty one, for we do but anticipate the verdict of ages unborn.”

“Verdict of ages unborn!” said Dodson, with contempt and bitterness, for his own dire suffering appeared to be overcoming his resolve; “there will be no verdict of ages unborn if we go on at this rate. Not a single copy has been sold up to date. If I could only scrape together the money, which I can’t, I would insert a full-page advertisement in the _Times_. I see the _Journal of Literature_ has acknowledged it among the books received, but they take care not to give a bit of recognition to the author. They must have found out that he’s a long while a-dying.”

As the unhappy Dodson entered this evening the presence of the poet, he seemed to discern a curious anguish in the eyes of his dying friend.

“Jimmy,” said the poet in a scarcely audible voice, “the hand of death is upon me. There hardly remains more than a day and a night of the sands of life. Yet I would like to hear that my labours have received some sort of sanction. Have they made no sign? Have they said nothing?”

The entreaty in the sightless gaze filled the unhappy Dodson with a kind of reckless despair.

“Have they said nothing?” he said in choking accents, yet his strange cockney speech sounded like music, so intense was the emotion with which it vibrated. “Have they made no sign, old boy? Why--why, you can’t believe what a sensation your poem is making! They are printing a second edition, and it will run to--to a hundred thousand copies. The--the first was--was over ten thousand, you know, and that has already been over subscribed. The papers are full of it--greatest thing ever done--better than Homer, better than Shakespeare and so on, although, of course, old boy, they put it more literary. I wish you could see the face of Octavius. He is the proudest man in London because Crumpett and Hawker happen to have had the luck to publish it. But Octavius deserves credit, doesn’t he, old boy, because from the first he saw its merits? He says poetry is going to be fashionable. Duchesses in fur coats drive up in their motors to inquire the name of the author, and when Octavius says he can’t tell ’em because he don’t know, they get--well, they get _ratty_! I believe Octavius would give his ears to know the name of the author. He has offered to double my screw if I will tell him. And every paper in London pesters us to death for your photograph and a few details concerning your life.”

“And--and the persons in the street, do you think they read with knowledge?”

“I am sure they do. As I went round the corner to get my lunch to-day I saw two chaps with copies of it under their arms.”

“And--and in what manner do they express themselves concerning it? Do you suppose they understand? Do you suppose these poor purblind ones accept the ampler interpretation of human destiny?”

“Of course they do, old boy--that is as well as they can. I don’t know much about literature myself, but some of the reviews that are coming out in the highest quarters are enough to make you dizzy. They--they say this--this poem of yours, old boy, is going--is going to rev-revolutionize thought and--and philosophy and--and everything else.”

“My friend,” said the dying man softly, “I would have you bring me the words of one among these poor street-persons; and the aged man, my father, shall read them to me; and then--and then I shall ask no more.”

The face of Dodson was the colour of snow. His eyes were full of despair.

“Very well, old boy,” he stammered, “I--I will bring you one of these reviews--and--and you shall hear for yourself what they think about this marvellous work of yours.”

“Bring it to-morrow evening at eight o’clock,” said the poet in a voice that could hardly be heard. “I will wait until then.”

“I will not fail,” promised his friend.

As Dodson burst out of the shop in a paroxysm of wild despair, he prayed that when he came on the morrow, this mighty spirit which contended with death should have yielded already.

LVIII

When on the following evening the tap was heard upon the shutters, and it was answered by the white-haired old man, it was a haggard, unkempt, wild-eyed figure that stood upon the threshold, trembling in every limb.

“Does he still live?” was the first question uttered, yet James Dodson had hardly the power to frame it.

“He lives, and he awaits you,” said the old man.

The haggard figure on the threshold gave a groan of anguish.

“Is--is he still in his right mind?” asked the unhappy Dodson.

“The noble mind of Achilles was never so valiant,” said the old man, “as now that the sands of life have so nearly run.”

Dodson reeled as he entered the shop.

“I’ve been praying all day that he would be taken,” he said hoarsely in the ear of the old man. “You see, I’ve done my best--but--but I’m no scholar. I--I’ve not had the education. I’ve got a chap I know to give me a hand--he reviews novels for _The Talisman_. It was the best I could do in the time. We’ve laid it in all we knew--better than Shakespeare, better than Homer, better than the coves who did the Bible--oh, I tell you we’ve not spared an ounce of the paint! But you must read it quickly, because you know, although the sense is all right--absolutely the greatest thing of its kind in the world, and so on--it’s a bit weak in places, and the poor old boy is so bright these days that he might find out what we’ve done--and if he should do that he might understand it all--and--and--if--he--understood--it--all----”

Dodson covered his eyes with his hands. As for the last time he tottered through the shop and crossed the threshold of the little room, his powerful stunted frame seemed to be overborne.

The poet still kept his chair beside the bright hearth. The grey hue of dissolution was already upon his cheeks. But to that friend who for the last time encountered their gaze, it seemed that those orbs which so long had been sightless, had in their last extremity been accorded the power of vision.

The prey of pity and terror, Dodson averted his gaze helplessly.

“You have brought the verdict, faithful one?” said the poet; and the young man understood, even in the pass to which he himself was come, how greatly the noble voice transcended in its quality all that had ever sounded in his ears.

“I have, old boy,” said Dodson defiantly, yet his own voice was like the croak of a raven.

“Begin, O my father,” said the dying poet.

With an automatic obedience which neither sought to comprehend nor to control, Dodson’s hands dived into the recesses of his overcoat. Therefrom they produced a reporter’s notebook, half-full of a hasty and clumsy pencil scrawl. This he gave to the old man.

“It begins here,” he said, indicating the place in an urgent whisper. “It is not very clear, but I hadn’t much time. Can you make it out? Read it as quickly as ever you can, and then perhaps he will not notice that it is not all that it might be.”

“Begin, O my father!” said the gentle voice of the dying man.

Immediately the thin, high, quavering tones of the old man began to read. At his first words the figure beside the hearth seemed to uplift his head, and to strain all his senses; the glazed and sightless eyes were enkindled; a strange rapture played about the parted lips.

Dodson listened in a kind of dull terror. He dared not look at the face of the poet, nor yet at that of him who read. As he sat in impotence midway between the two, with fire and ice in his veins, he could not follow the words that proceeded from the old man’s lips.

At last it was borne in upon him that a miracle had been wrought. The white-haired, feeble, half-blind old creature was not crooning his own crude pencilled phrases, which he knew to be so inept that he felt them to be a blasphemous mockery.

That which proceeded from the lips of this aged man was couched in terms of wisdom and beauty. It began by setting forth briefly the place of the world-poet in the hierarchy of mankind, which was consonant with mankind’s own place in the hierarchy of nature. It indicated briefly the scope and status of the world-poet; and in a short, powerful, lucid argument it proceeded to add another to the group which time was constantly conspiring to limit.

It indicated that which went to the making of a world-poet; a thousand years of prayer and vigil; of unceasing strife against the things that were. It indicated what the world-poet was in essence and in substance; how he transcended all men in their several stations because he was as they were themselves, yet by his power of vision rendered infinitely more; how this divine manifestation of the truth that all the world was kin, was a doctor, a lawyer, a soldier, a teacher, a statesman, a tiller of the earth, a peruser of books.

It proceeded briefly to rehearse the theme of this the latest of the world-poets in the order of his coming, who was yet destined to take precedence of them all. Differentiating classic art from the romantic, and claiming for the poet of the _Reconciliation_ the foremost place in the nobler school, inasmuch that his poem is like a pool whose depths are so measureless that its surface is tranquil, and yet so clear that it becomes a mirror that faithfully reflects the features of all that gaze therein, it recounted how the poem treats the life of man in all its phases. The mighty theme commences with that unspeakable suffering by which Man was taught to speak, that strange ascension from the higher anthropoids to a partial rationalism, culminating in that stage of “Reason” which offered the ill-starred creature Man, in lieu of an ample garment for his solace, protection, and utility, a kind of ridiculous swaddling-clothes, in which he could neither walk nor yet inhabit himself with decency. It reveals Man, the Wayfarer, ever straining after that which he knows not how to attain, until worn out with the heat and dust and the bloody conflict of the battle, the unhappy Warrior-traveller commits himself, a tired, baffled, war-worn child of destiny, yet grateful in his weariness, to the arms of Earth, his mother, again.

To the poet, Man’s terrestrial life, in the present stage of his development, is a progress through an eternal forest; and it submits itself to three phases--bewilderment, terror, pity. Through these he conducts the Warrior-Soul ever seeking for “truth,” ever engaged in a titanic struggle with his “reason”--that sword with which he wounds himself because he comprehends not how to use it rightly--yet ever seeking to reconcile the primal instinct of his own divinity with “the facts of experience” which in vain he strives to overthrow.

He begins with Man’s childhood. When to the mocking amazement of Earth, his primitive mother, the heroic but ill-starred Warrior has wrested from Destiny the power of speech, of thought, of will to bear his head erectly, he forsakes his half-brothers, the beasts of the field, and in a spirit of wonder and inquiry fares forth until he comes to a great city. In its purlieus he grows bewildered by the numberless things he cannot understand, and by the reception of answers that he cannot adjust to his partial development. Yet the Warrior is ever sustained by the sense of his own prowess, and proud of that which it has already achieved, he believes that when it can address its questions to the Whole of that which lies before it, it will comprehend it all.

The second phase of the poem opens with the Warrior’s tragic discovery that his innate sense of divinity is only comparative; that although he is Man in relation to the Ape, in his relation to the universe he is no more than Man-Ape gibbering upon the branches of the Eternal Forest; and that the sense of his own divinity is founded upon his superiority to the beasts of the field. In this tragic phase, the Warrior, overcome by disillusionment, alternately hacks himself with his sword, and at other times seeks to cast it away from him. Overcome by horror he faints in his weakness by the wayside, yet awakens from his hideous nightmare to find his body weltering in blood, and the sword, all hacked and jagged, still in his hand.

The third phase is that in which the Warrior returns again to Earth, his rude mother, whom an overweening exaltation in his prowess has led him to forsake. Having returned to her as a babe, and lain at suck at the brown breasts of the sweet savage, she caresses him and croons her strange songs in his ears; and to give him pleasure and sustenance--because the Warrior whom she has long mourned as lost has ever been the favourite among all her children--she whispers to him as he lies again in her bosom that he is indeed divine.

Girt by this forgiveness, and clad in the valour of his divinity once again, a new and ampler strength is given to the Warrior’s right hand. He learns for the first time in what manner to use his Sword. Yet no sooner does he learn so to do than he understands how Earth, his mother, has deceived him, in order that she may give pleasure to the favourite among all her children, who has returned to lie at her brown breasts. And the Warrior blesses her for the deception, as otherwise he could never have received the strength in his right hand; and without that strength he could not have learned to use the sword of his reason. The poem closes in the exaltation of an infinite pity and tenderness, for the Warrior, blind and spent and weak, with the Sword all broken and jagged upon his knees, has had his inquiries answered, and ceasing to struggle and to resent, in his concern for all his brothers who have not yet learned to use their swords, he defends their amazing formulas and shibboleths and extraordinary self-deceptions, whereby they seek to acquire the strength so to do. And in a passage of tender irony that has no parallel he entreats his poor brothers to continue to deceive themselves; and the Warrior concludes with an invocation to Earth, his mother, for her loving and wise deception, whereby the proudest of her sons has come to lie at peace.

As the white-haired man continued to read the appreciation of the poem, which he himself had wrought, thereby re-enacting the deception of the Mother of the Warrior-Soul, he revealed to the dying poet how his work in all the wonderful assemblance of its qualities surpassed any other that had been given to the world. He appraised the metre which only the highest inspiration would have dared to employ; he appraised the miraculous blend of gravity, sonority, sweetness, purity; the ever-gathering range and power of those mighty cadences, which swept the whole gamut of the emotions as though they were the strings of a lyre. He showed how the people of unborn ages would be able to derive stimulus and sanction for their labours; how the poet’s divine simplicity was such that he who ran might read; how the official “souls” who infest the groves of Academe would be able to cherish it for its “art”; how the humblest street-persons who walked the streets of the great city would be able to cherish it for its truth. This epic of Man the Warrior ever trampling the brakes of the Eternal Forest, cutting out the path with the Sword in his right hand in the fruitless search for that which will reconcile him to his partial vision, with the nobly pitiful irony of its conclusion that in the present stage of the Warrior’s development the reconciliation must be sought by compromise--this epic had in its austere mingling together of those elements of tragedy which purge man’s nature with the healing and co-ordinating properties which reconcile diverse and conflicting factors of experience with the primal belief of Man Himself, a universal power which had been given to no other poet in the modern or the ancient world. And the old man concluded with the prophecy that when “Civilization” itself had sunk to a mere shibboleth of the remote age of “Reason,” the half-divine, half-barbarous music of the unknown poet of the _Reconciliation_, would prove the only _via media_ between the epoch of ampler vision and that fantastic shadowography of the long ago when Man seemed other than He was.

Throughout the reading of this appraisement of his labours, the blind-eyed poet seemed to vibrate with every word that came upon his ears. As each phrase uttered by that thin, high, quavering voice addressed the entranced being of the poet, the frail and broken form seemed to sway in unison therewith; and the secret and beautiful smile lurking within the hollows of the cheeks seemed to illuminate even the sightless eyes, so that poor Dodson, who sat listening faintly to the old man’s words, was tortured continually by the illusion that the sight had returned to the eyes of his dying friend.

As the old man, never failing to give expression to his own personal vindication of that which the poet had wrought, won nearer and nearer towards the end, the dying man was heard to murmur, “Courage, Achilles! Courage, Achilles!” for he seemed almost to fear that consciousness would forsake him before he could realize his own apotheosis to the full.

When the old man in a kind of triumph and defiance had come to the end of his task, the radiance upon the poet’s face was starlike in its lustre.

“Oh, oh, he can see! he can see!” muttered Dodson, in a wild consternation. “He has the sight in his eyes.”

The poet had stretched forth his weak left hand as though in quest of something.

He shaped a phrase with his lips, which Dodson had not the power to understand.

“What does he say?” cried Dodson wildly.