Vol. 5 January 2012
The Vision of Literary Apologetics by Dr. Holly Ordway
p. 3
If the Quickest Way to a Man’s Heart is his Stomach... by Anthony Horvath
p. 5
Cover Story:
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
p. 7
www.literaryapologetics.com
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The Vision of Literary Apologetics
Dr. Holly Ordway
Anthony’s Corner
If the Quickest Way to a Man’s Heart is his Stomach...
Anthony Horvath
January 2012
contents 7
Cover Story
17 P.G. Wodehouse
25 Hieropraxis & Athanatos Christian Ministries to Work Together
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ACM News
Anthony Horvath
Editor-in-chief
Debbie Thompson
Managing Editor
Julius Broqueza
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Advertising & Marketing
Whitney Jenkins Era Iway
Literary Apologetics is the promotion of the Christian world view through fiction. The hope is that people will be primed to receive the Gospel more easily when it or its components are presented through story and narrative. Additionally, Christian literature adds to the cultural climate which in turn can help prime an entire society for understanding, if not accepting, Jesus as Lord and Savior. Notable examples include G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, Dorothy Sayers and perhaps J.R.R Tolkien. To interact with a ministry devoted to developing an evangelism strategy centering on ‘literary apologetics’ please visit the home page of Athanatos Christian Ministries at
www.athanatosministries.org or
www.literaryapologetics.com Literary Apologetics.Mag is happy to accept submissions. Poetry, short stories, one act plays, drawings and other original artwork, and other material that fits our vision and our format are welcome. For more details and the form for sending us your material, please visit the website.
Diamonds in the Dust Shirley Mowat Tucker
“An addictive storyline that pulls at the reader’s social conscience and sense of justice, delivered in an honest, humane manner.” ~ Kirkus Reviews “This book is a must-read! It is written by someone who has lived in Africa and knows her subject well... The redemptive theme of this novel is powerful... we award the novel five Doves, which is our peak rating. This book deserves it.” ~ The Dove Foundation
NOW AVAILABLE www.diamondsinthedust.net
The Walk to Walden Hill Robert Abernathy
What is it like to lose it all? How do you respond to life’s punches when it seems even God doesn’t care? Josh Billows has lived it. Even while losing his mother to a tragic accident and his father to prison at an early age, Josh was forced to cope with further misfortunes in the foster care system. He never felt safe; he never felt loved. It seemed the world had failed a scared little boy… and the nightmares began. Old Paul Walden, an eighty-two-year-old neighbor with a mysterious past, hears the call to a young man’s silent plea for help. Though he spends his days caring for his ill wife, Mr. Walden takes on the difficult task of watching over the young man in the foster home across the street and redirecting his path-one step at a time. Josh beings to realize from Mr. Walden’s crafty and puzzling lessons that he must confront the roots of his nightmares and do the unthinkable. Forgive. A page turning epic, The Walk to Walden Hill is a close look at the emotional and spiritual aftermath of abandonment and the overwhelming feelings of fear, self-doubt, and crushed hope experienced by children in the foster care system. Unlike other stories with a similar beginning, Josh does not experience healing through education or an undiscovered talent. Instead, Josh’s life is rescued by something simple: a hero who cared enough to show the way.
NOW AVAILABLE www.waldenhill.net
er c i t ary e Apolog
s
Lit
s i i o V n e o h f T
DR. Holly Ordway
Why is apologetics, the defense of the Christian faith, important? In one sense, Christianity needs no defense. God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, does not depend for His existence on our belief. However, many people who do not know the living God are separated from Him in part by intellectual obstacles. Removing those obstacles by showing that Christianity indeed makes sense on a rational level is an act of love and care for our neighbor. Defending the faith also builds up a strong foundation for believers. A securely built house has a
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solid, well-built foundation, so that the vagaries of wind and weather don’t damage it or cause distress to the inhabitants. It’s natural to have questions and doubts - think of the disciples, asking Jesus “increase our faith!” or the man who cries out “Lord, I believe: help my unbelief!” Apologetics helps strengthen the foundations by providing answers to questions and doubts, so that the Christian can grow stronger in his or her faith.
January 2012
The Vision of Literary Apologetics
What about “ literary apologetics ”?
Literary apologetics is that mode of apologetics that functions through the use of the Imagination in stories, poetry, drama, and song. Imagination is a mode of knowing; it is the twin sister of Reason. Imagination that is not grounded in Reason can become what JRR Tolkien called “morbid fantasy,” unhealthy and unhelpful; conversely, Reason that is not supported by Imagination can become sterile, rigid, and unfruitful. Literature is particularly well suited to bring these two oftenseparated sisters together, so that Reason and Imagination can illuminate the path to truth. Stories, poetry, and drama can help us to both comprehend the truth (with our intellect) and apprehend it (imaginatively and emotionally). As with rational argument, literature cannot in itself bring a person to know Christ, but it can open doors, challenge assumptions, and most importantly provide a glimpse of experienced truth. Stories invite readers to indeed “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34:8).
Literature can best fulfill this role when the author is committed both to expressing the truth and to creating a good story. The best literary apologists - CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, GK Chesterton, Dorothy Sayers, and others, just to name those of the past century - did not set out to wrap a moral in a story, or explicitly to promote Christianity through their fiction writing. Rather, they believed fully and deeply, and sought to glorify God in all that they did - and so their stories show the truth, in deep and satisfying ways.
and show forth that living truth in their work.
We need writers who will immerse themselves in the best writing of centuries past and learn from it, and be able to draw on that rich treasury of imagery to do new things. We need writers who are willing and eager to view writing as a God-given calling, and to joyfully pursue the craft and art of it with dedication and hard work. Fortunately, we do not have to start from scratch! We have the works of Lewis, Tolkien, Chesterton, MacDonald, and others to study and learn from. We have people who even now are taking up the challenge of writing to draw people through the imagination to know Christ. In England, the poet and scholar Malcolm Guite (www.malcolmguite.com) is doing marvelous work with poetry. In my own blog, Hieropraxis (www.hieropraxis.com), I am attempting to cultivate an appreciation for literature and literary apologetics, as well as writing my own poetry. And this ministry, Athanatos, is on the front lines of training writers and encouraging the reading of great works of Christian literature. To be an effective literary apologist means a commitment to the craft of writing, so that the great and glorious truth of our faith is presented to the world in the most beautiful, powerful, gripping, and transformative ways possible. Furthermore, to be an effective literary apologist means a commitment to community. Just as Lewis and Tolkien were part of the Inklings, commenting and critiquing each others’ work, so too the writers of today need the kind of community where “iron sharpens iron.”
Today, we need a new generation of Christian writers who will do what those great writers did. We need well-informed, thinking Christians, who I think we’re at the beginning of great things for know their Scripture and theology, are committed literature in the service of God. Friends, let’s go to living out the Christian life in word and deed, further up and further in!
The Vision of Literary Apologetics
January 2012
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If the Quickest Way to a Man’s Heart is his Stomach... Anthony Horvath
Jonathan Swift famously said that you cannot reason a person out of a position that they did not reason themselves into. Naturally, few people will admit that they’ve come by some of their most cherished beliefs by feeling their way along, so pointing this out probably won’t help much. Still, even if this is the case in many instances, it doesn’t necessarily follow that it is altogether wrong or bad that certain core values are absorbed rather than rationally derived. Probably, there are some important things that are not meant to regarded as mere abstractions. Indeed, I would contend that there are things that we treat as real, even if our beliefs about them regard them as fantasy or illusion or worse. How could such a thing happen? How could people act as though something were true while simultaneously maintaining that it were false? It happens because people receive many of their beliefs and values via Story rather than
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arguments, evidence, and abstractions, and there is a prominent story making the rounds that is itself a story about stories; indeed, the point of the story is to try to explain that stories don’t have points. You can’t refute a story, and you can’t refute this story about stories. I would submit that one’s best (and perhaps only) hope is to think of stories the way we think of food. According to the materialist story, the act of eating is just a mechanical operation by which we acquire certain biochemical ingredients to power the biological machine. We are merely meat-machines that need to eat meet in order to continue to function. On this view, we could just swallow our food as pills, surviving on vitamins and cardboard crackers. Surely, such an avenue would provide us with the sustenance we need to survive, but most of us would view it as a wholly unsatisfactory survival. Unsatisfying, and nothing anyone would attempt to implement except under dire circumstances.
January 2012
Anthony’s Corner
In this edition of our literary journal, we look to stories and ask how they can be applied in our conversations with Christians and nonChristians alike. We have printed two stories and provided some introductory comments to help the reader see how they might be used to bridge ‘gaps’ in communication. We hope that Christianity is like that. What it offers is satis- our readers will become alert to other stories faction of the intangibles, while still providing that can be used similarly. the raw nutrients we need to survive. However, for the approach to be effective, one Christianity succeeds for the same reason that will also have to become conversant in the a fine restaurant succeeds: it regards humans arguments and evidences for Christianityas they really are. and the intangible yet real things it embodOther worldviews also put out their stories, ies- in order to see how a story can be used and often succeed because they take aspects as a springboard for conversation. That is, the of the human experience ‘as humans really reader will have to become a student of apolare’ but give radically different interpretations ogetics whilst probing the marrow of literary of that experience. Thus, not just any story works for their sustaining attributes. In contrast, we seek out companions to dine with. We look to the intangibles... scent, taste, bountiful portions, and the like. Without such things we are miserable, and with them we are happy and enjoy good health. It turns out that the meal is as important as the food.
will do these days.
I like the way one master of Story, Christian author Flannery O’Connor, put it:
In April of 2012, Athanatos Christian Ministries will be hosting a conference where we expand on precisely what one will see in the rest of this
“The novelist with Christian concerns will find in modern life distortions which are repugnant to him, and his problem will be to make them appear as distortions to an audience which is used to seeing them as natural; and he may be forced to take ever more violent means to get his vision across to this hostile audience. When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs you do, you can relax a little and use more normal ways of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock — to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the blind you draw large and startling figures.” This assessment, written in a letter many decades ago, holds true even today. O’Connor’s stories, which many would regard as gritty, or worse, were really a way of trying to create ‘common ground.’ In trying to evoke certain, visceral, responses, it was hoped that common ground would be found in our common humanity; that is, we are created by God, in his image, and only the greatest contortion and suppression can hope to obliterate that.
Anthony’s Corner
edition of LiteraryApologetics.Mag. We hope we will have sufficiently whetted your appetite for this approach, and will see you there. Anthony Horvath Editor LiteraryApologetics.Mag Executive Director of Athanatos Christian Ministries
January 2012
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January 2012
The Birth Mark
Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote his short story, The Birth Mark , in 1843. If one did not know this information, one might have guessed that the story was in fact written in more recent times, when the notion of the ‘mad scientist’ is well established in the public mind. It is forgotten that there is a reason for why that character type arose in the first place. The story features a scientist of the “latter part of the last century” which, we must conclude, is not the end of the 20th century, but the 18th century. It may surprise the reader that already at that time of Hawthorne’s writing, ‘natural philosophers’ (that is, scientists) believed that they were on the verge of discovering “the secret of creative force” and then be able to “make new worlds.” This supreme confidence appears now to be very much like a drug that the intellectuals coming out of the Enlightenment era were addicted to. Having jettisoned God and all ancient superstitionand restraints- they proceeded with glee to pursue whatever enterprise they put their minds to in the name of ‘science.’ Today, we might characterize this as a form of ‘scientism,’ which would have us suppose that the only things that are worth knowing are known through science. Some would go further and say that a thing is not a thing at all unless science can dissect it. Scientists today have much more reason to gloat of their successes. Darwin had yet to write of The Origin of the Species and establish evolu-
The Birth Mark
tion as the dominant explanation for biological life. The splitting of the atom had not yet occurred. The discovery of genetics was still fifty years or so off.
The Birth Mark can be useful in raising a number of important questions. There is, of course, the dark moral flaw exhibited by Aylmer of pride. His hubris, vanity, and great confidence in the methods of science leads to... well, you’re about to see for yourself. But isn’t it worth asking: “Isn’t it still humans that are carrying out science?” Should we believe that scientists are not motivated by the very same things that all the rest of us are? What are humans? This is one obvious line of discussion that could be taken when discussing this story with apologetics in mind. There are certainly other lines open, as well. In order to get the most out of the story, it would not be enough to merely take the story at its face. First of all, it is worth examining the period in which Hawthorne wrote the story. What ideas were floating around that may have inspired it? Secondly, are those ideas still floating around today? What are modern challenges to the Christian faith? If one cannot answer that question, one will find it difficult to engage those challenges through the window of The Birth Mark . If one is willing to do a little legwork, this and other stories can be important avenues for raising ideas that might otherwise be dismissed out of hand.
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n the latter part of the last century there lived a man of science, an eminent proficient in every branch of natural philosophy, who not long before our story opens had made experience of a spiritual affinity more attractive than any chemical one. He had left his laboratory to the care of an assistant, cleared his fine countenance from the furnace smoke, washed the stain of acids from his fingers, and persuaded a beautiful woman to become his wife. In those days when the comparatively recent discovery of electricity and other kindred mysteries of Nature seemed to open paths into the region of miracle, it was not unusual for the love of science to rival the love of woman in its depth and absorbing energy. The higher intellect, the imagination, the spirit, and even the heart might all find their congenial aliment in pursuits which, as some of their ardent votaries believed, would ascend from one step of powerful intelligence to another, until the philosopher should lay his hand on the secret of creative force and perhaps make new worlds for himself. We know not whether Aylmer possessed this degree of faith in man’s ultimate control over Nature. He had devoted himself, however, too unreservedly to scientific studies ever to be weaned from them by any second passion. His love for his young wife might prove the stronger of the two; but it could only be by intertwining itself with his love of science, and uniting the strength of the latter to his own.
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Such a union accordingly took place, and was attended with truly remarkable consequences and a deeply impressive moral. One day, very soon after their marriage, Aylmer sat gazing at his wife with a trouble in his countenance that grew stronger until he spoke. “Georgiana,” said he, “has it never occurred to you that the mark upon your cheek might be removed?” “No, indeed,” said she, smiling; but perceiving the seriousness of his manner, she blushed deeply. “To tell you the truth it has been so often called a charm that I was simple enough to imagine it might be so.” “Ah, upon another face perhaps it might,” replied her husband; “but never on yours. No, dearest Georgiana, you came so nearly perfect from the hand of Nature that this slightest possible defect, which we hesitate whether to term a defect or a beauty, shocks me, as being the visible mark of earthly imperfection.” “Shocks you, my husband!” cried Georgiana, deeply hurt; at first reddening with momentary anger, but then bursting into tears. “Then why did you take me from my mother’s side? You cannot love what shocks you!” To explain this conversation it must be mentioned that in
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the centre of Georgiana’s left cheek there was a singular mark, deeply interwoven, as it were, with the texture and substance of her face. In the usual state of her complexion-a healthy though delicate bloom--the mark wore a tint of deeper crimson, which imperfectly defined its shape amid the surrounding rosiness. When she blushed it gradually became more indistinct, and finally vanished amid the triumphant rush of blood that bathed the whole cheek with its brilliant glow. But if any shifting motion caused her to turn pale there was the mark again, a crimson stain upon the snow, in what Aylmer sometimes deemed an almost fearful distinctness. Its shape bore not a little similarity to the human hand, though of the smallest pygmy size. Georgiana’s lovers were wont to say that some fairy at her birth hour had laid her tiny hand upon the infant’s cheek, and left this impress there in token of the magic endowments that were to give her such sway over all hearts. Many a desperate swain would have risked life for the privilege of pressing his lips to the mysterious hand. It must not be concealed, however, that the impression wrought by this fairy sign manual varied exceedingly, according to the difference of temperament in the beholders. Some fastidious persons--but they were exclusively of her own sex--affirmed that the bloody hand, as they chose to call it, quite destroyed the effect of Georgiana’s beauty, and rendered her countenance even hideous. But it would be as reasonable to say that one of those small blue stains which sometimes occur in the purest statuary marble would convert the Eve of Powers to a monster. Masculine observers, if the birthmark did not heighten their admiration, contented themselves with wishing it away, that the world might possess one living specimen of ideal loveliness without the semblance of a flaw. After his marriage,--for he thought little or nothing of the matter before,--Aylmer discovered that this was the case with himself. Had she been less beautiful,--if Envy’s self could have found aught else to sneer at,--he might have felt his affection heightened by the prettiness of this mimic hand, now vaguely portrayed, now lost, now stealing forth again and glimmering to and fro with every pulse of emotion that throbbed within her heart; but seeing her otherwise so perfect, he found this one defect grow more and more intolerable with every moment of their united lives. It was the fatal flaw of humanity which Nature, in one shape or another, stamps ineffaceably on all her productions, either to imply that they are temporary and finite, or that their perfection must be wrought by toil and pain. The crimson hand expressed the ineludible gripe in which mortality clutches the highest and purest of earthly mould, degrading them into kindred with the lowest, and even with the very brutes, like whom their visible frames return to dust. In this manner, selecting it as the symbol of his wife’s liability to sin, sorrow, decay, and death, Aylmer’s
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The Birth Mark
sombre imagination was not long in rendering the birthmark a frightful object, causing him more trouble and horror than ever Georgiana’s beauty, whether of soul or sense, had given him delight. At all the seasons which should have been their happiest, he invariably and without intending it, nay, in spite of a purpose to the contrary, reverted to this one disastrous topic. Trifling as it at first appeared, it so connected itself with innumerable trains of thought and modes of feeling that it became the central point of all. With the morning twilight Aylmer opened his eyes upon his wife’s face and recognized the symbol of imperfection; and when they sat together at the evening hearth his eyes wandered stealthily to her cheek, and beheld, flickering with the blaze of the wood fire, the spectral hand that wrote mortality where he would fain have worshipped. Georgiana soon learned to shudder at his gaze. It needed but a glance with the peculiar expression that his face often wore to change the roses of her cheek into a deathlike paleness, amid which the crimson hand was brought strongly out, like a bass-relief of ruby on the whitest marble. Late one night when the lights were growing dim, so as hardly to betray the stain on the poor wife’s cheek, she herself, for the first time, voluntarily took up the subject. “Do you remember, my dear Aylmer,” said she, with a feeble attempt at a smile, “have you any recollection of a dream last night about this odious hand?” “None! none whatever!” replied Aylmer, starting; but then he added, in a dry, cold tone, affected for the sake of concealing the real depth of his emotion, “I might well dream of it; for before I fell asleep it had taken a pretty firm hold of my fancy.” “And you did dream of it?” continued Georgiana, hastily; for she dreaded lest a gush of tears should interrupt what she had to say. “A terrible dream! I wonder that you can forget it. Is it possible to forget this one expression?--’It is in her heart now; we must have it out!’ Reflect, my husband; for by all means I would have you recall that dream.” The mind is in a sad state when Sleep, the all-involving, cannot confine her spectres within the dim region of her sway, but suffers them to break forth, affrighting this actual life with secrets that perchance belong to a deeper one. Aylmer now remembered his dream. He had fancied himself with his servant Aminadab, attempting an operation for the removal of the birthmark; but the deeper went the knife, the deeper sank the hand, until at length its tiny grasp appeared to have caught hold of Georgiana’s heart; whence, however, her husband was inexorably resolved to cut or wrench it away.
The Birth Mark
When the dream had shaped itself perfectly in his memory, Aylmer sat in his wife’s presence with a guilty feeling. Truth often finds its way to the mind close muffled in robes of sleep, and then speaks with uncompromising directness of matters in regard to which we practise an unconscious selfdeception during our waking moments. Until now he had not been aware of the tyrannizing influence acquired by one idea over his mind, and of the lengths which he might find in his heart to go for the sake of giving himself peace. “Aylmer,” resumed Georgiana, solemnly, “I know not what may be the cost to both of us to rid me of this fatal birthmark. Perhaps its removal may cause cureless deformity; or it may be the stain goes as deep as life itself. Again: do we know that there is a possibility, on any terms, of unclasping the firm gripe of this little hand which was laid upon me before I came into the world?” “Dearest Georgiana, I have spent much thought upon the subject,” hastily interrupted Aylmer. “I am convinced of the perfect practicability of its removal.” “If there be the remotest possibility of it,” continued Georgiana, “let the attempt be made at whatever risk. Danger is nothing to me; for life, while this hateful mark makes me the object of your horror and disgust,--life is a burden which I would fling down with joy. Either remove this dreadful hand, or take my wretched life! You have deep science. All the world bears witness of it. You have achieved great wonders. Cannot you remove this little, little mark, which I cover with the tips of two small fingers? Is this beyond your power, for the sake of your own peace, and to save your poor wife from madness?” “Noblest, dearest, tenderest wife,” cried Aylmer, rapturously, “doubt not my power. I have already given this matter the deepest thought--thought which might almost have enlightened me to create a being less perfect than yourself. Georgiana, you have led me deeper than ever into the heart of science. I feel myself fully competent to render this dear cheek as faultless as its fellow; and then, most beloved, what will be my triumph when I shall have corrected what Nature left imperfect in her fairest work! Even Pygmalion, when his sculptured woman assumed life, felt not greater ecstasy than mine will be.” “It is resolved, then,” said Georgiana, faintly smiling. “And, Aylmer, spare me not, though you should find the birthmark take refuge in my heart at last.” Her husband tenderly kissed her cheek--her right cheek-not that which bore the impress of the crimson hand.
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The next day Aylmer apprised his wife of a plan that he had formed whereby he might have opportunity for the intense thought and constant watchfulness which the proposed operation would require; while Georgiana, likewise, would enjoy the perfect repose essential to its success. They were to seclude themselves in the extensive apartments occupied by Aylmer as a laboratory, and where, during his toilsome youth, he had made discoveries in the elemental powers of Nature that had roused the admiration of all the learned societies in Europe. Seated calmly in this laboratory, the pale philosopher had investigated the secrets of the highest cloud region and of the profoundest mines; he had satisfied himself of the causes that kindled and kept alive the fires of the volcano; and had explained the mystery of fountains, and how it is that they gush forth, some so bright and pure, and others with such rich medicinal virtues, from the dark bosom of the earth. Here, too, at an earlier period, he had studied the wonders of the human frame, and attempted to fathom the very process by which Nature assimilates all her precious influences from earth and air, and from the spiritual world, to create and foster man, her masterpiece. The latter pursuit, however, Aylmer had long laid aside in unwilling recognition of the truth--against which all seekers sooner or later stumble--that our great creative Mother, while she amuses us with apparently working in the broadest sunshine, is yet severely careful to keep her own secrets, and, in spite of her pretended openness, shows us nothing but results. She permits us, indeed, to mar, but seldom to mend, and, like a jealous patentee, on no account to make. Now, however, Aylmer resumed these half-forgotten investigations; not, of course, with such hopes or wishes as first suggested them; but because they involved much physiological truth and lay in the path of his proposed scheme for the treatment of Georgiana.
his vast strength, his shaggy hair, his smoky aspect, and the indescribable earthiness that incrusted him, he seemed to represent man’s physical nature; while Aylmer’s slender figure, and pale, intellectual face, were no less apt a type of the spiritual element.
As he led her over the threshold of the laboratory, Georgiana was cold and tremulous. Aylmer looked cheerfully into her face, with intent to reassure her, but was so startled with the intense glow of the birthmark upon the whiteness of her cheek that he could not restrain a strong convulsive shudder. His wife fainted.
“Where am I? Ah, I remember,” said Georgiana, faintly; and she placed her hand over her cheek to hide the terrible mark from her husband’s eyes.
“Aminadab! Aminadab!” shouted Aylmer, stamping violently on the floor. Forthwith there issued from an inner apartment a man of low stature, but bulky frame, with shaggy hair hanging about his visage, which was grimed with the vapors of the furnace. This personage had been Aylmer’s underworker during his whole scientific career, and was admirably fitted for that office by his great mechanical readiness, and the skill with which, while incapable of comprehending a single principle, he executed all the details of his master’s experiments. With
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“Throw open the door of the boudoir, Aminadab,” said Aylmer, “and burn a pastil.” “Yes, master,” answered Aminadab, looking intently at the lifeless form of Georgiana; and then he muttered to himself, “If she were my wife, I’d never part with that birthmark.” When Georgiana recovered consciousness she found herself breathing an atmosphere of penetrating fragrance, the gentle potency of which had recalled her from her deathlike faintness. The scene around her looked like enchantment. Aylmer had converted those smoky, dingy, sombre rooms, where he had spent his brightest years in recondite pursuits, into a series of beautiful apartments not unfit to be the secluded abode of a lovely woman. The walls were hung with gorgeous curtains, which imparted the combination of grandeur and grace that no other species of adornment can achieve; and as they fell from the ceiling to the floor, their rich and ponderous folds, concealing all angles and straight lines, appeared to shut in the scene from infinite space. For aught Georgiana knew, it might be a pavilion among the clouds. And Aylmer, excluding the sunshine, which would have interfered with his chemical processes, had supplied its place with perfumed lamps, emitting flames of various hue, but all uniting in a soft, impurpled radiance. He now knelt by his wife’s side, watching her earnestly, but without alarm; for he was confident in his science, and felt that he could draw a magic circle round her within which no evil might intrude.
“Fear not, dearest!” exclaimed he. “Do not shrink from me! Believe me, Georgiana, I even rejoice in this single imperfection, since it will be such a rapture to remove it.” “Oh, spare me!” sadly replied his wife. “Pray do not look at it again. I never can forget that convulsive shudder.” In order to soothe Georgiana, and, as it were, to release her mind from the burden of actual things, Aylmer now put in practice some of the light and playful secrets which science had taught him among its profounder lore. Airy figures, absolutely bodiless ideas, and forms of unsubstantial beauty came and danced before her, imprinting their momentary footsteps on beams of light. Though she had some indistinct
January 2012
The Birth Mark
idea of the method of these optical phenomena, still the illusion was almost perfect enough to warrant the belief that her husband possessed sway over the spiritual world. Then again, when she felt a wish to look forth from her seclusion, immediately, as if her thoughts were answered, the procession of external existence flitted across a screen. The scenery and the figures of actual life were perfectly represented, but with that bewitching, yet indescribable difference which always makes a picture, an image, or a shadow so much more attractive than the original. When wearied of this, Aylmer bade her cast her eyes upon a vessel containing a quantity of earth. She did so, with little interest at first; but was soon startled to perceive the germ of a plant shooting upward from the soil. Then came the slender stalk; the leaves gradually unfolded themselves; and amid them was a perfect and lovely flower. “It is magical!” cried Georgiana. “I dare not touch it.” “Nay, pluck it,” answered Aylmer,--”pluck it, and inhale its brief perfume while you may. The flower will wither in a few moments and leave nothing save its brown seed vessels; but thence may be perpetuated a race as ephemeral as itself.” But Georgiana had no sooner touched the flower than the whole plant suffered a blight, its leaves turning coal-black as if by the agency of fire. “There was too powerful a stimulus,” said Aylmer, thoughtfully. To make up for this abortive experiment, he proposed to take her portrait by a scientific process of his own invention. It was to be effected by rays of light striking upon a polished plate of metal. Georgiana assented; but, on looking at the result, was affrighted to find the features of the portrait blurred and indefinable; while the minute figure of a hand appeared where the cheek should have been. Aylmer snatched the metallic plate and threw it into a jar of corrosive acid. Soon, however, he forgot these mortifying failures. In the intervals of study and chemical experiment he came to her flushed and exhausted, but seemed invigorated by her presence, and spoke in glowing language of the resources of his art. He gave a history of the long dynasty of the alchemists, who spent so many ages in quest of the universal solvent by which the golden principle might be elicited from all things vile and base. Aylmer appeared to believe that, by the plainest scientific logic, it was altogether within the limits of possibility to discover this long-sought medium; “but,” he added, “a philosopher who should go deep enough to acquire the power would attain too lofty a wisdom to stoop to the exercise of it.” Not less singular were his opinions in regard to the
The Birth Mark
elixir vitae. He more than intimated that it was at his option to concoct a liquid that should prolong life for years, perhaps interminably; but that it would produce a discord in Nature which all the world, and chiefly the quaffer of the immortal nostrum, would find cause to curse. “Aylmer, are you in earnest?” asked Georgiana, looking at him with amazement and fear. “It is terrible to possess such power, or even to dream of possessing it.” “Oh, do not tremble, my love,” said her husband. “I would not wrong either you or myself by working such inharmonious effects upon our lives; but I would have you consider how trifling, in comparison, is the skill requisite to remove this little hand.” At the mention of the birthmark, Georgiana, as usual, shrank as if a redhot iron had touched her cheek. Again Aylmer applied himself to his labors. She could hear his voice in the distant furnace room giving directions to Aminadab, whose harsh, uncouth, misshapen tones were audible in response, more like the grunt or growl of a brute than human speech. After hours of absence, Aylmer reappeared and proposed that she should now examine his cabinet of chemical products and natural treasures of the earth. Among the former he showed her a small vial, in which, he remarked, was contained a gentle yet most powerful fragrance, capable of impregnating all the breezes that blow across a kingdom. They were of inestimable value, the contents of that little vial; and, as he said so, he threw some of the perfume into the air and filled the room with piercing and invigorating delight. “And what is this?” asked Georgiana, pointing to a small crystal globe containing a gold-colored liquid. “It is so beautiful to the eye that I could imagine it the elixir of life.” “In one sense it is,” replied Aylmer; “or, rather, the elixir of immortality. It is the most precious poison that ever was concocted in this world. By its aid I could apportion the lifetime of any mortal at whom you might point your finger. The strength of the dose would determine whether he were to linger out years, or drop dead in the midst of a breath. No king on his guarded throne could keep his life if I, in my private station, should deem that the welfare of millions justified me in depriving him of it.” “Why do you keep such a terrific drug?” inquired Georgiana in horror. “Do not mistrust me, dearest,” said her husband, smiling; “its virtuous potency is yet greater than its harmful one. But
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see! here is a powerful cosmetic. With a few drops of this in a vase of water, freckles may be washed away as easily as the hands are cleansed. A stronger infusion would take the blood out of the cheek, and leave the rosiest beauty a pale ghost.” “Is it with this lotion that you intend to bathe my cheek?” asked Georgiana, anxiously. “Oh, no,” hastily replied her husband; “this is merely superficial. Your case demands a remedy that shall go deeper.” In his interviews with Georgiana, Aylmer generally made minute inquiries as to her sensations and whether the confinement of the rooms and the temperature of the atmosphere agreed with her. These questions had such a particular drift that Georgiana began to conjecture that she was already subjected to certain physical influences, either breathed in with the fragrant air or taken with her food. She fancied likewise, but it might be altogether fancy, that there was a stirring up of her system--a strange, indefinite sensation creeping through her veins, and tingling, half painfully, half pleasurably, at her heart. Still, whenever she dared to look into the mirror, there she beheld herself pale as a white rose and with the crimson birthmark stamped upon her cheek. Not even Aylmer now hated it so much as she. To dispel the tedium of the hours which her husband found it necessary to devote to the processes of combination and analysis, Georgiana turned over the volumes of his scientific library. In many dark old tomes she met with chapters full of romance and poetry. They were the works of philosophers of the middle ages, such as Albertus Magnus, Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus, and the famous friar who created the prophetic Brazen Head. All these antique naturalists stood in advance of their centuries, yet were imbued with some of their credulity, and therefore were believed, and perhaps imagined themselves to have acquired from the investigation of Nature a power above Nature, and from physics a sway over the spiritual world. Hardly less curious and imaginative were the early volumes of the Transactions of the Royal Society, in which the members, knowing little of the limits of natural possibility, were continually recording wonders or proposing methods whereby wonders might be wrought. But to Georgiana the most engrossing volume was a large folio from her husband’s own hand, in which he had recorded every experiment of his scientific career, its original aim, the methods adopted for its development, and its final success or failure, with the circumstances to which either event was attributable. The book, in truth, was both the history and emblem of his ardent, ambitious, imaginative, yet practical and laborious life. He handled physical details as if there
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were nothing beyond them; yet spiritualized them all, and redeemed himself from materialism by his strong and eager aspiration towards the infinite. In his grasp the veriest clod of earth assumed a soul. Georgiana, as she read, reverenced Aylmer and loved him more profoundly than ever, but with a less entire dependence on his judgment than heretofore. Much as he had accomplished, she could not but observe that his most splendid successes were almost invariably failures, if compared with the ideal at which he aimed. His brightest diamonds were the merest pebbles, and felt to be so by himself, in comparison with the inestimable gems which lay hidden beyond his reach. The volume, rich with achievements that had won renown for its author, was yet as melancholy a record as ever mortal hand had penned. It was the sad confession and continual exemplification of the shortcomings of the composite man, the spirit burdened with clay and working in matter, and of the despair that assails the higher nature at finding itself so miserably thwarted by the earthly part. Perhaps every man of genius in whatever sphere might recognize the image of his own experience in Aylmer’s journal. So deeply did these reflections affect Georgiana that she laid her face upon the open volume and burst into tears. In this situation she was found by her husband. “It is dangerous to read in a sorcerer’s books,” said he with a smile, though his countenance was uneasy and displeased. “Georgiana, there are pages in that volume which I can scarcely glance over and keep my senses. Take heed lest it prove as detrimental to you.” “It has made me worship you more than ever,” said she. “Ah, wait for this one success,” rejoined he, “then worship me if you will. I shall deem myself hardly unworthy of it. But come, I have sought you for the luxury of your voice. Sing to me, dearest.” So she poured out the liquid music of her voice to quench the thirst of his spirit. He then took his leave with a boyish exuberance of gayety, assuring her that her seclusion would endure but a little longer, and that the result was already certain. Scarcely had he departed when Georgiana felt irresistibly impelled to follow him. She had forgotten to inform Aylmer of a symptom which for two or three hours past had begun to excite her attention. It was a sensation in the fatal birthmark, not painful, but which induced a restlessness throughout her system. Hastening after her husband, she intruded for the first time into the laboratory. The first thing that struck her eye was the furnace, that hot and feverish worker, with the intense glow of its fire, which
January 2012
The Birth Mark
by the quantities of soot clustered above it seemed to have been burning for ages. There was a distilling apparatus in full operation. Around the room were retorts, tubes, cylinders, crucibles, and other apparatus of chemical research. An electrical machine stood ready for immediate use. The atmosphere felt oppressively close, and was tainted with gaseous odors which had been tormented forth by the processes of science. The severe and homely simplicity of the apartment, with its naked walls and brick pavement, looked strange, accustomed as Georgiana had become to the fantastic elegance of her boudoir. But what chiefly, indeed almost solely, drew her attention, was the aspect of Aylmer himself. He was pale as death, anxious and absorbed, and hung over the furnace as if it depended upon his utmost watchfulness whether the liquid which it was distilling should be the draught of immortal happiness or misery. How different from the sanguine and joyous mien that he had assumed for Georgiana’s encouragement! “Carefully now, Aminadab; carefully, thou human machine; carefully, thou man of clay!” muttered Aylmer, more to himself than his assistant. “Now, if there be a thought too much or too little, it is all over.” “Ho! ho!” mumbled Aminadab. “Look, master! look!” Aylmer raised his eyes hastily, and at first reddened, then grew paler than ever, on beholding Georgiana. He rushed towards her and seized her arm with a gripe that left the print of his fingers upon it. “Why do you come hither? Have you no trust in your husband?” cried he, impetuously. “Would you throw the blight of that fatal birthmark over my labors? It is not well done. Go, prying woman, go!” “Nay, Aylmer,” said Georgiana with the firmness of which she possessed no stinted endowment, “it is not you that have a right to complain. You mistrust your wife; you have concealed the anxiety with which you watch the development of this experiment. Think not so unworthily of me, my husband. Tell me all the risk we run, and fear not that I shall shrink; for my share in it is far less than your own.” “No, no, Georgiana!” said Aylmer, impatiently; “it must not be.” “I submit,” replied she calmly. “And, Aylmer, I shall quaff whatever draught you bring me; but it will be on the same principle that would induce me to take a dose of poison if offered by your hand.”
The Birth Mark
“My noble wife,” said Aylmer, deeply moved, “I knew not the height and depth of your nature until now. Nothing shall be concealed. Know, then, that this crimson hand, superficial as it seems, has clutched its grasp into your being with a strength of which I had no previous conception. I have already administered agents powerful enough to do aught except to change your entire physical system. Only one thing remains to be tried. If that fail us we are ruined.” “Why did you hesitate to tell me this?” asked she. “Because, Georgiana,” said Aylmer, in a low voice, “there is danger.” “Danger? There is but one danger--that this horrible stigma shall be left upon my cheek!” cried Georgiana. “Remove it, remove it, whatever be the cost, or we shall both go mad!” “Heaven knows your words are too true,” said Aylmer, sadly. “And now, dearest, return to your boudoir. In a little while all will be tested.” He conducted her back and took leave of her with a solemn tenderness which spoke far more than his words how much was now at stake. After his departure Georgiana became rapt in musings. She considered the character of Aylmer, and did it completer justice than at any previous moment. Her heart exulted, while it trembled, at his honorable love--so pure and lofty that it would accept nothing less than perfection nor miserably make itself contented with an earthlier nature than he had dreamed of. She felt how much more precious was such a sentiment than that meaner kind which would have borne with the imperfection for her sake, and have been guilty of treason to holy love by degrading its perfect idea to the level of the actual; and with her whole spirit she prayed that, for a single moment, she might satisfy his highest and deepest conception. Longer than one moment she well knew it could not be; for his spirit was ever on the march, ever ascending, and each instant required something that was beyond the scope of the instant before. The sound of her husband’s footsteps aroused her. He bore a crystal goblet containing a liquor colorless as water, but bright enough to be the draught of immortality. Aylmer was pale; but it seemed rather the consequence of a highly-wrought state of mind and tension of spirit than of fear or doubt. “The concoction of the draught has been perfect,” said
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he, in answer to Georgiana’s look. “Unless all my science have deceived me, it cannot fail.” “Save on your account, my dearest Aylmer,” observed his wife, “I might wish to put off this birthmark of mortality by relinquishing mortality itself in preference to any other mode. Life is but a sad possession to those who have attained precisely the degree of moral advancement at which I stand. Were I weaker and blinder it might be happiness. Were I stronger, it might be endured hopefully. But, being what I find myself, methinks I am of all mortals the most fit to die.” “You are fit for heaven without tasting death!” replied her husband “But why do we speak of dying? The draught cannot fail. Behold its effect upon this plant.” On the window seat there stood a geranium diseased with yellow blotches, which had overspread all its leaves. Aylmer poured a small quantity of the liquid upon the soil in which it grew. In a little time, when the roots of the plant had taken up the moisture, the unsightly blotches began to be extinguished in a living verdure. “There needed no proof,” said Georgiana, quietly. “Give me the goblet I joyfully stake all upon your word.” “Drink, then, thou lofty creature!” exclaimed Aylmer, with fervid admiration. “There is no taint of imperfection on thy spirit. Thy sensible frame, too, shall soon be all perfect.” She quaffed the liquid and returned the goblet to his hand. “It is grateful,” said she with a placid smile. “Methinks it is like water from a heavenly fountain; for it contains I know not what of unobtrusive fragrance and deliciousness. It allays a feverish thirst that had parched me for many days. Now, dearest, let me sleep. My earthly senses are closing over my spirit like the leaves around the heart of a rose at sunset.” She spoke the last words with a gentle reluctance, as if it required almost more energy than she could command to pronounce the faint and lingering syllables. Scarcely had they loitered through her lips ere she was lost in slumber. Aylmer sat by her side, watching her aspect with the emotions proper to a man the whole value of whose existence was involved in the process now to be tested. Mingled with this mood, however, was the philosophic investigation characteristic of the
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man of science. Not the minutest symptom escaped him. A heightened flush of the cheek, a slight irregularity of breath, a quiver of the eyelid, a hardly perceptible tremor through the frame,--such were the details which, as the moments passed, he wrote down in his folio volume. Intense thought had set its stamp upon every previous page of that volume, but the thoughts of years were all concentrated upon the last. While thus employed, he failed not to gaze often at the fatal hand, and not without a shudder. Yet once, by a strange and unaccountable impulse he pressed it with his lips. His spirit recoiled, however, in the very act, and Georgiana, out of the midst of her deep sleep, moved uneasily and murmured as if in remonstrance. Again Aylmer resumed his watch. Nor was it without avail. The crimson hand, which at first had been strongly visible upon the marble paleness of Georgiana’s cheek, now grew more faintly outlined. She remained not less pale than ever; but the birthmark with every breath that came and went, lost somewhat of its former distinctness. Its presence had been awful; its departure was more awful still. Watch the stain of the rainbow fading out the sky, and you will know how that mysterious symbol passed away. “By Heaven! it is well-nigh gone!” said Aylmer to himself, in almost irrepressible ecstasy. “I can scarcely trace it now. Success! success! And now it is like the faintest rose color. The lightest flush of blood across her cheek would overcome it. But she is so pale!” He drew aside the window curtain and suffered the light of natural day to fall into the room and rest upon her cheek. At the same time he heard a gross, hoarse chuckle, which he had long known as his servant Aminadab’s expression of delight. “Ah, clod! ah, earthly mass!” cried Aylmer, laughing in a sort of frenzy, “you have served me well! Matter and spirit--earth and heaven --have both done their part in this! Laugh, thing of the senses! You have earned the right to laugh.” These exclamations broke Georgiana’s sleep. She slowly unclosed her eyes and gazed into the mirror which her husband had arranged for that purpose. A faint smile flitted over her lips when she recognized how barely perceptible was now that crimson hand which had once blazed forth with such disastrous brilliancy as to scare away all their happiness. But then her eyes sought Aylmer’s face with a trouble and anxiety that he could by no means account for.
January 2012
The Birth Mark
“My poor Aylmer!” murmured she. “Poor? Nay, richest, happiest, most favored!” exclaimed he. “My peerless bride, it is successful! You are perfect!” “My poor Aylmer,” she repeated, with a more than human tenderness, “you have aimed loftily; you have done nobly. Do not repent that with so high and pure a feeling, you have rejected the best the earth could offer. Aylmer, dearest Aylmer, I am dying!” Alas! it was too true! The fatal hand had grappled with the mystery of life, and was the bond by which an angelic spirit kept itself in union with a mortal frame. As the last crimson tint of the birthmark--that sole token of human imperfection--faded from her cheek,
the parting breath of the now perfect woman passed into the atmosphere, and her soul, lingering a moment near her husband, took its heavenward flight. Then a hoarse, chuckling laugh was heard again! Thus ever does the gross fatality of earth exult in its invariable triumph over the immortal essence which, in this dim sphere of half development, demands the completeness of a higher state. Yet, had Alymer reached a profounder wisdom, he need not thus have flung away the happiness which would have woven his mortal life of the selfsame texture with the celestial. The momentary circumstance was too strong for him; he failed to look beyond the shadowy scope of time, and, living once for all in eternity, to find the perfect future in the present.
P.G. Wodehouse
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The Vision of Literary Apologetics
A Sea of Troubles by P.G. Wodehouse is included in this edition to show that if one wants to use Story to promote, defend, and transmit the Christian faith, it does not need to always be somber and serious. If you believe that God made humans in His image, and you observe that humans enjoy humor and laughter, one may conclude that God enjoys humor and laughter as well. Is Wodehouse a Christian? Does it matter? All good things come from God. There is no other source for good things. When we find something positively good somewhere, it comes from God, and God’s people can enjoy it and make free use of it. In A Sea of Troubles, we find a story that probably doesn’t have a moral, but as Christians we can find interesting things to talk about anyway. In the first place, we may talk about ‘humor’ itself. After all, no one has ever seen a dog tell a joke. Cats do not laugh. Gorillas do not engage in satire. Where does this aspect of humanity come from? What is the best explanation for it? After that, we may notice in this story the close connection between one’s thought life and one’s mood,
The Vision of Literary Apologetics
outlook, and behavior. That is, how one thinks about certain things goes a long way in determining whether or not they are good or bad, healthy or unhealthy. GK Chesterton said, “An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.” To this we could add CS Lewis’s observations (eg, in The Screwtape Letters) that humans are not disembodied spirits; what our body does, our mind reacts to... what our minds dwell on, our body reinforces. We suddenly find ourselves in the territory of high theology and the battle against heresy, in particular, Gnosticism, which would have us suppose that the body, flesh, and the material world are all inherently and intrinsically evil... but God created the world and called it good, and then doubled-down on his declaration by taking on flesh in the great rescue of mankind. How far we have come from a chuckle and a laugh! As argued in the introduction to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story, The Birth Mark, to get the most from Wodehouse’s story one should learn more about the man and his times and influences and be aware of our own times and influences. With such things in mind, we may find conversation points springing up in unexpected directions.
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M
r Meggs’s mind was made up. He was going to commit suicide.
There had been moments, in the interval which had elapsed between the first inception of the idea and his present state of fixed determination, when he had wavered. In these moments he had debated, with Hamlet, the question whether it was nobler in the mind to suffer, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them. But all that was over now. He was resolved. Mr Meggs’s point, the main plank, as it were, in his suicidal platform, was that with him it was beside the question whether or not it was nobler to suffer in the mind. The mind hardly entered into it at all. What he had to decide was whether it was worth while putting up any longer with the perfectly infernal pain in his stomach. For Mr Meggs was a martyr to indigestion. As he was also devoted to the pleasures of the table, life had become for him one long battle, in which, whatever happened, he always got the worst of it. He was sick of it. He looked back down the vista of the years, and found therein no hope for the future. One after the other all the patent medicines in creation had failed him. Smith’s Supreme Digestive Pellets--he had given them a more than fair trial. Blenkinsop’s Liquid Life-Giver--he had drunk enough of it to float a ship. Perkins’s Premier PainPreventer, strongly recommended by the swordswallowing lady at Barnum and Bailey’s--he had wallowed in it. And so on down the list. His interior organism had simply sneered at the lot of them. ‘Death, where is thy sting?’ thought Mr Meggs, and forthwith began to make his preparations. Those who have studied the matter say that the tendency to commit suicide is greatest among those who have passed their fifty-fifth year, and that the rate is twice as great for unoccupied males as for occupied males. Unhappy Mr Meggs, accordingly, got it, so to speak, with both barrels. He was fifty-six, and he was perhaps the most unoccupied adult to be found in the length and breadth of the United Kingdom. He toiled not, neither did he spin. Twenty years before, an unexpected legacy had placed him in a position to indulge a natural taste for idleness to the utmost. He was at that time, as regards his professional life, a clerk in a rather
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obscure shipping firm. Out of office hours he had a mild fondness for letters, which took the form of meaning to read right through the hundred best books one day, but actually contenting himself with the daily paper and an occasional magazine. Such was Mr Meggs at thirty-six. The necessity for working for a living and a salary too small to permit of self-indulgence among the more expensive and deleterious dishes on the bill of fare had up to that time kept his digestion within reasonable bounds. Sometimes he had twinges; more often he had none. Then came the legacy, and with it Mr Meggs let himself go. He left London and retired to his native village, where, with a French cook and a series of secretaries to whom he dictated at long intervals occasional paragraphs of a book on British Butterflies on which he imagined himself to be at work, he passed the next twenty years. He could afford to do himself well, and he did himself extremely well. Nobody urged him to take exercise, so he took no exercise. Nobody warned him of the perils of lobster and welsh rabbits to a man of sedentary habits, for it was nobody’s business to warn him. On the contrary, people rather encouraged the lobster side of his character, for he was a hospitable soul and liked to have his friends dine with him. The result was that Nature, as is her wont, laid for him, and got him. It seemed to Mr Meggs that he woke one morning to find himself a chronic dyspeptic. That was one of the hardships of his position, to his mind. The thing seemed to hit him suddenly out of a blue sky. One moment, all appeared to be peace and joy; the next, a lively and irritable wild-cat with red-hot claws seemed somehow to have introduced itself into his interior. So Mr Meggs decided to end it. In this crisis of his life the old methodical habits of his youth returned to him. A man cannot be a clerk in even an obscure firm of shippers for a great length of time without acquiring system, and Mr Meggs made his preparations calmly and with a forethought worthy of a better cause. And so we find him, one glorious June morning, seated at his desk, ready for the end. Outside, the sun beat down upon the orderly streets
January 2012
A Sea Of Troubles
of the village. Dogs dozed in the warm dust. Men who had to work went about their toil moistly, their minds far away in shady public-houses. But Mr Meggs, in his study, was cool both in mind and body. Before him, on the desk, lay six little slips of paper. They were bank-notes, and they represented, with the exception of a few pounds, his entire worldly wealth. Beside them were six letters, six envelopes, and six postage stamps. Mr Meggs surveyed them calmly. He would not have admitted it, but he had had a lot of fun writing those letters. The deliberation as to who should be his heirs had occupied him pleasantly for several days, and, indeed, had taken his mind off his internal pains at times so thoroughly that he had frequently surprised himself in an almost cheerful mood. Yes, he would have denied it, but it had been great sport sitting in his arm-chair, thinking whom he should pick out from England’s teeming millions to make happy with his money. All sorts of schemes had passed through his mind. He had a sense of power which the mere possession of the money had never given him. He began to understand why millionaires make freak wills. At one time he had toyed with the idea of selecting someone at random from the London Directory and bestowing on him all he had to bequeath. He had only abandoned the scheme when it occurred to him that he himself would not be in a position to witness the recipient’s stunned delight. And what was the good of starting a thing like that, if you were not to be in at the finish? Sentiment succeeded whimsicality. His old friends of the office--those were the men to benefit. What good fellows they had been! Some were dead, but he still kept intermittently in touch with half a dozen of them. And--an important point--he knew their present addresses. This point was important, because Mr Meggs had decided not to leave a will, but to send the money direct to the beneficiaries. He knew what wills were. Even in quite straightforward circumstances they often made trouble. There had been some slight complication about his own legacy twenty years ago. Somebody had contested the will, and before the thing was satisfactorily settled the law-
A Sea Of Troubles
yers had got away with about twenty per cent of the whole. No, no wills. If he made one, and then killed himself, it might be upset on a plea of insanity. He knew of no relative who might consider himself entitled to the money, but there was the chance that some remote cousin existed; and then the comrades of his youth might fail to collect after all. He declined to run the risk. Quietly and by degrees he had sold out the stocks and shares in which his fortune was invested, and deposited the money in his London bank. Six piles of large notes, dividing the total into six equal parts; six letters couched in a strain of reminiscent pathos and manly resignation; six envelopes, legibly addressed; six postage-stamps; and that part of his preparations was complete. He licked the stamps and placed them on the envelopes; took the notes and inserted them in the letters; folded the letters and thrust them into the envelopes; sealed the envelopes; and unlocking the drawer of his desk produced a small, black, ugly-looking bottle. He opened the bottle and poured the contents into a medicine-glass. It had not been without considerable thought that Mr Meggs had decided upon the method of his suicide. The knife, the pistol, the rope--they had all presented their charms to him. He had further examined the merits of drowning and of leaping to destruction from a height. There were flaws in each. Either they were painful, or else they were messy. Mr Meggs had a tidy soul, and he revolted from the thought of spoiling his figure, as he would most certainly do if he drowned himself; or the carpet, as he would if he used the pistol; or the pavement--and possibly some innocent pedestrian, as must infallibly occur should he leap off the Monument. The knife was out of the question. Instinct told him that it would hurt like the very dickens. No; poison was the thing. Easy to take, quick to work, and on the whole rather agreeable than otherwise. Mr Meggs hid the glass behind the inkpot and rang the bell. ‘Has Miss Pillenger arrived?’ he inquired of the
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servant. ‘She has just come, sir.’ ‘Tell her that I am waiting for her here.’ Jane Pillenger was an institution. Her official position was that of private secretary and typist to Mr Meggs. That is to say, on the rare occasions when Mr Meggs’s conscience overcame his indolence to the extent of forcing him to resume work on his British Butterflies, it was to Miss Pillenger that he addressed the few rambling and incoherent remarks which constituted his idea of a regular hard, slogging spell of literary composition. When he sank back in his chair, speechless and exhausted like a Marathon runner who has started his sprint a mile or two too soon, it was Miss Pillenger’s task to unscramble her shorthand notes, type them neatly, and place them in their special drawer in the desk. Miss Pillenger was a wary spinster of austere views, uncertain age, and a deep-rooted suspicion of men--a suspicion which, to do an abused sex justice, they had done nothing to foster. Men had always been almost coldly correct in their dealings with Miss Pillenger. In her twenty years of experience as a typist and secretary she had never had to refuse with scorn and indignation so much as a box of chocolates from any of her employers. Nevertheless, she continued to be icily on her guard. The clenched fist of her dignity was always drawn back, ready to swing on the first male who dared to step beyond the bounds of professional civility. Such was Miss Pillenger. She was the last of a long line of unprotected English girlhood which had been compelled by straitened circumstances to listen for hire to the appallingly dreary nonsense which Mr Meggs had to impart on the subject of British Butterflies. Girls had come, and girls had gone, blondes, ex-blondes, brunettes, ex-brunettes, near-blondes, near-brunettes; they had come buoyant, full of hope and life, tempted by the lavish salary which Mr Meggs had found himself after a while compelled to pay; and they had dropped off, one after another, like exhausted bivalves, unable to endure the crushing boredom of life in the village which had given Mr Meggs to the world. For Mr Meggs’s home-town was no City of Pleasure. Remove the Vicar’s magic-lantern and the tryyour-weight machine opposite the post office, and
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you practically eliminated the temptations to tread the primrose path. The only young men in the place were silent, gaping youths, at whom lunacy commissioners looked sharply and suspiciously when they met. The tango was unknown, and the onestep. The only form of dance extant--and that only at the rarest intervals--was a sort of polka not unlike the movements of a slightly inebriated boxing kangaroo. Mr Meggs’s secretaries and typists gave the town one startled, horrified glance, and stampeded for London like frightened ponies. Not so Miss Pillenger. She remained. She was a business woman, and it was enough for her that she received a good salary. For five pounds a week she would have undertaken a post as secretary and typist to a Polar Expedition. For six years she had been with Mr Meggs, and doubtless she looked forward to being with him at least six years more. Perhaps it was the pathos of this thought which touched Mr Meggs, as she sailed, notebook in hand, through the doorway of the study. Here, he told himself, was a confiding girl, all unconscious of impending doom, relying on him as a daughter relies on her father. He was glad that he had not forgotten Miss Pillenger when he was making his preparations. He had certainly not forgotten Miss Pillenger. On his desk beside the letters lay a little pile of notes, amounting in all to five hundred pounds--her legacy. Miss Pillenger was always business-like. She sat down in her chair, opened her notebook, moistened her pencil, and waited expectantly for Mr Meggs to clear his throat and begin work on the butterflies. She was surprised when, instead of frowning, as was his invariable practice when bracing himself for composition, he bestowed upon her a sweet, slow smile. All that was maidenly and defensive in Miss Pillenger leaped to arms under that smile. It ran in and out among her nerve-centres. It had been long in arriving, this moment of crisis, but here it undoubtedly was at last. After twenty years an employer was going to court disaster by trying to flirt with her. Mr Meggs went on smiling. You cannot classify
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smiles. Nothing lends itself so much to a variety of interpretations as a smile. Mr Meggs thought he was smiling the sad, tender smile of a man who, knowing himself to be on the brink of the tomb, bids farewell to a faithful employee. Miss Pillenger’s view was that he was smiling like an abandoned old rip who ought to have been ashamed of himself. ‘No, Miss Pillenger,’ said Mr Meggs, ‘I shall not work this morning. I shall want you, if you will be so good, to post these six letters for me.’ Miss Pillenger took the letters. Mr Meggs surveyed her tenderly. ‘Miss Pillenger, you have been with me a long time now. Six years, is it not? Six years. Well, well. I don’t think I have ever made you a little present, have I?’ ‘You give me a good salary.’ ‘Yes, but I want to give you something more. Six years is a long time. I have come to regard you with a different feeling from that which the ordinary employer feels for his secretary. You and I have worked together for six long years. Surely I may be permitted to give you some token of my appreciation of your fidelity.’ He took the pile of notes. ‘These are for you, Miss Pillenger.’ He rose and handed them to her. He eyed her for a moment with all the sentimentality of a man whose digestion has been out of order for over two decades. The pathos of the situation swept him away. He bent over Miss Pillenger, and kissed her on the forehead. Smiles excepted, there is nothing so hard to classify as a kiss. Mr Meggs’s notion was that he kissed Miss Pillenger much as some great general, wounded unto death, might have kissed his mother, his sister, or some particularly sympathetic aunt; Miss Pillenger’s view, differing substantially from this, may be outlined in her own words. ‘Ah!’ she cried, as, dealing Mr Meggs’s conveniently placed jaw a blow which, had it landed an inch lower down, might have knocked him out, she sprang to her feet. ‘How dare you! I’ve been waiting for this Mr Meggs. I have seen it in your eye. I have expected it. Let me tell you that I am not at all the sort of girl with whom it is safe to behave like that.
A Sea Of Troubles
I can protect myself. I am only a working-girl--’ Mr Meggs, who had fallen back against the desk as a stricken pugilist falls on the ropes, pulled himself together to protest. ‘Miss Pillenger,’ he cried, aghast, ‘you misunderstand me. I had no intention--’ ‘Misunderstand you? Bah! I am only a workinggirl--’ ‘Nothing was farther from my mind--’ ‘Indeed! Nothing was farther from your mind! You give me money, you shower your vile kisses on me, but nothing was farther from your mind than the obvious interpretation of such behaviour!’ Before coming to Mr Meggs, Miss Pillenger had been secretary to an Indiana novelist. She had learned style from the master. ‘Now that you have gone too far, you are frightened at what you have done. You well may be, Mr Meggs. I am only a working-girl--’ ‘Miss Pillenger, I implore you--’ ‘Silence! I am only a working-girl--’ A wave of mad fury swept over Mr Meggs. The shock of the blow and still more of the frightful ingratitude of this horrible woman nearly made him foam at the mouth. ‘Don’t keep on saying you’re only a working-girl,’ he bellowed. ‘You’ll drive me mad. Go. Go away from me. Get out. Go anywhere, but leave me alone!’ Miss Pillenger was not entirely sorry to obey the request. Mr Meggs’s sudden fury had startled and frightened her. So long as she could end the scene victorious, she was anxious to withdraw. ‘Yes, I will go,’ she said, with dignity, as she opened the door. ‘Now that you have revealed yourself in your true colours, Mr Meggs, this house is no fit place for a wor--’ She caught her employer’s eye, and vanished hastily. Mr Meggs paced the room in a ferment. He had been shaken to his core by the scene. He boiled with indignation. That his kind thoughts should have been so misinterpreted--it was too much. Of
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all ungrateful worlds, this world was the most-He stopped suddenly in his stride, partly because his shin had struck a chair, partly because an idea had struck his mind. Hopping madly, he added one more parallel between himself and Hamlet by soliloquizing aloud. ‘I’ll be hanged if I commit suicide,’ he yelled. And as he spoke the words a curious peace fell on him, as on a man who has awakened from a nightmare. He sat down at the desk. What an idiot he had been ever to contemplate self-destruction. What could have induced him to do it? By his own hand to remove himself, merely in order that a pack of ungrateful brutes might wallow in his money--it was the scheme of a perfect fool. He wouldn’t commit suicide. Not if he knew it. He would stick on and laugh at them. And if he did have an occasional pain inside, what of that? Napoleon had them, and look at him. He would be blowed if he committed suicide. With the fire of a new resolve lighting up his eyes, he turned to seize the six letters and rifle them of their contents. They were gone. It took Mr Meggs perhaps thirty seconds to recollect where they had gone to, and then it all came back to him. He had given them to the demon Pillenger, and, if he did not overtake her and get them back, she would mail them. Of all the mixed thoughts which seethed in Mr Meggs’s mind at that moment, easily the most prominent was the reflection that from his front door to the post office was a walk of less than five minutes. *
*
*
*
*
Miss Pillenger walked down the sleepy street in the June sunshine, boiling, as Mr Meggs had done, with indignation. She, too, had been shaken to the core. It was her intention to fulfil her duty by posting the letters which had been entrusted to her, and then to quit for ever the service of one who, for six years a model employer, had at last forgotten himself and showed his true nature.
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Her meditations were interrupted by a hoarse shout in her rear; and, turning, she perceived the model employer running rapidly towards her. His face was scarlet, his eyes wild, and he wore no hat. Miss Pillenger’s mind worked swiftly. She took in the situation in a flash. Unrequited, guilty love had sapped Mr Meggs’s reason, and she was to be the victim of his fury. She had read of scores of similar cases in the newspapers. How little she had ever imagined that she would be the heroine of one of these dramas of passion. She looked for one brief instant up and down the street. Nobody was in sight. With a loud cry she began to run. ‘Stop!’ It was the fierce voice of her pursuer. Miss Pillenger increased to third speed. As she did so, she had a vision of headlines. ‘Stop!’ roared Mr Meggs. ‘UNREQUITED PASSION MADE THIS MAN MURDERER,’ thought Miss Pillenger. ‘Stop!’ ‘CRAZED WITH LOVE HE SLAYS BEAUTIFUL BLONDE,’ flashed out in letters of crimson on the back of Miss Pillenger’s mind. ‘Stop!’ ‘SPURNED, HE STABS HER THRICE.’ To touch the ground at intervals of twenty yards or so--that was the ideal she strove after. She addressed herself to it with all the strength of her powerful mind. In London, New York, Paris, and other cities where life is brisk, the spectacle of a hatless gentleman with a purple face pursuing his secretary through the streets at a rapid gallop would, of course, have excited little, if any, remark. But in Mr Meggs’s home-town events were of rarer occurrence. The last milestone in the history of his native place had been the visit, two years before, of Bingley’s Stupendous Circus, which had paraded along the main street on its way to the next town, while zealous members of its staff visited the back premises of
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the houses and removed all the washing from the lines. Since then deep peace had reigned. Gradually, therefore, as the chase warmed up, citizens of all shapes and sizes began to assemble. Miss Pillenger’s screams and the general appearance of Mr Meggs gave food for thought. Having brooded over the situation, they decided at length to take a hand, with the result that as Mr Meggs’s grasp fell upon Miss Pillenger the grasp of several of his fellow-townsmen fell upon him.
‘Why, Mr Meggs!’ he said. This identification by one in authority calmed, if it a little disappointed, the crowd. What it was they did not know, but, it was apparently not a murder, and they began to drift off. ‘Why don’t you give Mr Meggs his letters when he asks you, ma’am?’ said the constable. Miss Pillenger drew herself up haughtily. ‘Here are your letters, Mr Meggs, I hope we shall never meet again.’
‘Save me!’ said Miss Pillenger. Mr Meggs pointed speechlessly to the letters, which she still grasped in her right hand. He had taken practically no exercise for twenty years, and the pace had told upon him. Constable Gooch, guardian of the town’s welfare, tightened his hold on Mr Meggs’s arm, and desired explanations. ‘He--he was going to murder me,’ said Miss Pillenger.
Mr Meggs nodded. That was his view, too. All things work together for good. The following morning Mr Meggs awoke from a dreamless sleep with a feeling that some curious change had taken place in him. He was abominably stiff, and to move his limbs was pain, but down in the centre of his being there was a novel sensation of lightness. He could have declared that he was happy.
‘What do you mean you were going to murder the lady?’ inquired Constable Gooch.
Wincing, he dragged himself out of bed and limped to the window. He threw it open. It was a perfect morning. A cool breeze smote his face, bringing with it pleasant scents and the soothing sound of God’s creatures beginning a new day.
Mr Meggs found speech.
An astounding thought struck him.
‘I--I--I--I only wanted those letters.’
‘Why, I feel well!’
‘What for?’
Then another.
‘They’re mine.’
‘It must be the exercise I took yesterday. By George, I’ll do it regularly.’
‘Kill him,’ advised an austere bystander.
‘You charge her with stealing ‘em?’ ‘He gave them me to post with his own hands,’ cried Miss Pillenger. ‘I know I did, but I want them back.’ By this time the constable, though age had to some extent dimmed his sight, had recognized beneath the perspiration, features which, though they were distorted, were nevertheless those of one whom he respected as a leading citizen.
He drank in the air luxuriously. Inside him, the wild-cat gave him a sudden claw, but it was a halfhearted effort, the effort of one who knows that he is beaten. Mr Meggs was so absorbed in his thoughts that he did not even notice it. ‘London,’ he was saying to himself. ‘One of these physical culture places.... Comparatively young man.... Put myself in their hands.... Mild, regular exercise....’ He limped to the bathroom.
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Hieropraxis & Athanatos Christian Ministries to Work Together
A n th o n y H o r v ath
A
fter several years of being in orbit with each other, Athanatos Christian Ministries and Hieropraxis have recently committed to work together on several shared visions. ACM's Executive Director, Anthony Horvath, and Hieropraxis' founder, Dr. Holly Ordway, first came to know each other at ACM's first annual online apologetics conference, which focused on 'literary apologetics.' This April, the third conference will be held, and 'literary apologetics' will once again be the emphasis. Hi-
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D r . H o l l y Ord w a y
eropraxis will be a sponsor of this conference and Dr. Ordway will be one of the presenters. On top of that, ACM and Hieropraxis are going to be working together to develop a program for ACM's online apologetics academy that incorporates their vision of educated and informed authors and apologists utilizing Story to promote, defend, and transmit the faith. Keep a watchful eye out... exciting developments are afoot!
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Hieropraxis & ACM
ONLINE APOLOGETICS CONFERENCE
2012
Using Story to Defend, Promote, Explain and Transmit the Faith April 19, 20 & 21 w w w. o n l i n e a p o l o g e t i c s c o n f e r e n c e . c o m Vol. 5
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ACM NEWS • ACM’s Online Apologetics Academy is having its winter session this February. Take Greek, The NT Gospels, Historical Jesus, Logic II, General Apologetics, etc. • In addition to the regular academy courses, ACM also hosts an online Christian writing workshop. In conjunction with this workshop, a course on ‘literary apologetics’ is offered.
• ACM hosted its first online Christian Writers Conference on August 18th. John Erickson, author of StoryCraft and the ‘Hank the Cow Dog’ series (7.5 million sold!) ‘keynoted.’ • ACM’s Christian Writing Contest (short story and poetry categories) is currently accepting entries. 2012 Novel Contest is currently being judged; entries for the 2013 contest accepted in mid-Spring.
• Athanatos Christian Ministry’s Third Annual Online Apologetics Conference. • 2012 theme will be Using Story to Defend, Promote, Explain, and Transmit the Faith • April 19th, 20th, and 21st, 2012
Literary Apologetics is the promotion of the Christian world view
through fiction. The hope is that people will be primed to receive the Gospel more easily when it or its components are presented through story and narrative. Additionally, Christian literature adds to the cultural climate which in turn can help prime an entire society for understanding, if not accepting, Jesus as Lord and Savior. Subscribe to Literary Apologetics.Mag
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ACM News
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