第44章

ON THE NOBILITY OF OURSELVES

AN old Anglicized Frenchman, I used to meet often in my earlier journalistic days, held a theory, concerning man's future state, that has since come to afford me more food for reflection than, at the time, I should have deemed possible.He was a bright-eyed, eager little man.One felt no Lotus land could be Paradise to him.

We build our heaven of the stones of our desires: to the old, red-bearded Norseman, a foe to fight and a cup to drain; to the artistic Greek, a grove of animated statuary; to the Red Indian, his happy hunting ground; to the Turk, his harem; to the Jew, his New Jerusalem, paved with gold; to others, according to their taste, limited by the range of their imagination.

Few things had more terrors for me, when a child, than Heaven--as pictured for me by certain of the good folks round about me.I was told that if I were a good lad, kept my hair tidy, and did not tease the cat, I would probably, when I died, go to a place where all day long I would sit still and sing hymns.(Think of it! as reward to a healthy boy for being good.) There would be no breakfast and no dinner, no tea and no supper.One old lady cheered me a little with a hint that the monotony might be broken by a little manna; but the idea of everlasting manna palled upon me, and my suggestions, concerning the possibilities of sherbet or jumbles, were scouted as irreverent.There would be no school, but also there would be no cricket and no rounders.I should feel no desire, so I was assured, to do another angel's "dags" by sliding down the heavenly banisters.

My only joy would be to sing.

"Shall we start singing the moment we get up in the morning?" Iasked.

"There won't be any morning," was the answer."There will be no day and no night.It will all be one long day without end.""And shall we always be singing?" I persisted.

"Yes, you will be so happy, you will always want to sing.""Shan't I ever get tired?"

"No, you will never get tired, and you will never get sleepy or hungry or thirsty.""And does it go on like that for ever?"

"Yes, for ever and ever."

"Will it go on for a million years?"

"Yes, a million years, and then another million years, and then another million years after that.There will never be any end to it."I can remember to this day the agony of those nights, when I would lie awake, thinking of this endless heaven, from which there seemed to be no possible escape.For the other place was equally eternal, or I might have been tempted to seek refuge there.

We grown-up folk, our brains dulled by the slowly acquired habit of not thinking, do wrong to torture children with these awful themes.

Eternity, Heaven, Hell are meaningless words to us.We repeat them, as we gabble our prayers, telling our smug, self-satisfied selves that we are miserable sinners.But to the child, the "intelligent stranger" in the land, seeking to know, they are fearful realities.

If you doubt me, Reader, stand by yourself, beneath the stars, one night, and SOLVE this thought, Eternity.Your next address shall be the County Lunatic Asylum.

My actively inclined French friend held cheerier views than are common of man's life beyond the grave.His belief was that we were destined to constant change, to everlasting work.We were to pass through the older planets, to labour in the greater suns.

But for such advanced career a more capable being was needed.No one of us was sufficient, he argued, to be granted a future existence all to himself.His idea was that two or three or four of us, according to our intrinsic value, would be combined to make a new and more important individuality, fitted for a higher existence.

Man, he pointed out, was already a collection of the beasts."You and I," he would say, tapping first my chest and then his own, "we have them all here--the ape, the tiger, the pig, the motherly hen, the gamecock, the good ant; we are all, rolled into one.So the man of the future, he will be made up of many men--the courage of one, the wisdom of another, the kindliness of a third.""Take a City man," he would continue, "say the Lord Mayor; add to him a poet, say Swinburne; mix them with a religious enthusiast, say General Booth.There you will have the man fit for the higher life."Garibaldi and Bismarck, he held, should make a very fine mixture, correcting one another; if needful, extract of Ibsen might be added, as seasoning.He thought that Irish politicians would mix admirably with Scotch divines; that Oxford Dons would go well with lady novelists.He was convinced that Count Tolstoi, a few Gaiety Johnnies (we called them "mashers" in those days), together with a humourist--he was kind enough to suggest myself--would produce something very choice.Queen Elizabeth, he fancied, was probably being reserved to go--let us hope in the long distant future--with Ouida.It sounds a whimsical theory, set down here in my words, not his; but the old fellow was so much in earnest that few of us ever thought to laugh as he talked.Indeed, there were moments on starry nights, as walking home from the office, we would pause on Waterloo Bridge to enjoy the witchery of the long line of the Embankment lights, when I could almost believe, as I listened to him, in the not impossibility of his dreams.

Even as regards this world, it would often be a gain, one thinks, and no loss, if some half-dozen of us were rolled together, or boiled down, or whatever the process necessary might be, and something made out of us in that way.