Epicures

Chapter I

" Howe'er it be, for us at least The woodland pathways are not dark, New lights are on the bough and bark, And in the sunless rainshot east We hear a mountain lark ! " Edmund W. Gosse. The woods of St. Michael were growing dark, the sun and the shadow lay in large streaks, and the birds were all singing. Now and then they stopped, and then all was silent suddenly with a hush. Then the cuckoo and wood-pigeon started them off again and they all sang deafeningly, but there was no other sound. Now and then B Epicures. 2 there was a dark bit of glade, then a sunny piece where the trees were cut away, then came an avenue of big trees, twelve, called the Twelve Apostles by the villagers round, like the aisle of a church, and on the left of this ran a little stream. Here someone had built an altar of branches and moss and great trunks of trees.

The altar was sheltered from rain by planks of wood at the back and over it, and every morning it was decorated with flowers, some times with lovely garden roses, sometimes only with honeysuckle and wild flowers. Over the altar, nailed to the planks, was the word "Charity" in scarlet berries. There was a big wooden cross on the altar, and at the foot of the altar lay a Bible with an old mi ldewed cover spoilt by exposure to the air, and inside, the pages were damp and soiled. No one had ever seen this altar except the one who built it Epicures. 3 and the one who had helped to nail the planks. No one ever entered that glade from year's end to year's end, although they often took a road quite close to it. The altar stood there night and day, night and day. Someone visited it in the day, but at night it stood alone in the dark forest, and sometimes the wind blew the cover back of the Bible and rustled the leaves.

Sometimes Eileen found the Bible open, and she looked to see what chapter was open, and it was nearly always — " Whatsoever things are honest, whatsover things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, think on those things," and then she would smile a little contented, self-satisfied smile, and looking up at the word " Charity " kneel in thankfulness to God that she had learnt the problem of life so early. Sometimes there were days when she did not dare to go to the B Epicures. 4 altar, or when she went she could not think of the things that were lovely, but these were generally autumn days, dull, damp days. On sunshiny days, when it was warm and bright, she would sit alone on the steps of the altar, with the Bible open at the same verse — " Whatsoever things are lovely, think on these things."

What a lot of lovely things there were to think about — first in the morning there was the rising sun, the gold ball of fire, the pale blue mists that melted as day arrived, the crystal dew, the damp grass, the early song of the birds, then later the great heat of the day, the golden glowing corn, the cool glades of the forest, the scent of the flowers, and afterwards poetic evening, the pale green sky, the first stars, then night with its cold mysterious sadness, and the white moon that had no soul. They were all lovely things to think of. What was Epicures. 5 there in the day that was not lovely ? She thought of grandmama, grandmama with her snarling dogs, and her cross ways and lisping whistling teeth, and her sharp tongue. Then she turned and looked at the altar and above at the word " Charity " and smiled to herself again.

This was settled, too, by the wonderful book, for where things were not lovely, there was " Charity." Then when she remembered grandmama she would return to the house smiling still, and the servants would say to each other, — " I wonder how Miss Eileen can always be so happy-looking, living with a horrible old woman like Milady." But Eileen knew that just what she liked was that difference of the two lives. When grandmama was cross and things were all at sixes and sevens, and Aunt Rosa in tears ; that was what kept her so cheery, the thought of Epicures. the little wooden altar that no one knew of, and the Bible and the thoughts about lovely things and the prayers. Oh ! it is so easy to pray when you want nothing, so easy to believe when you are happy. When there was moonlight Eileen would kneel at the window and look out on the dark pines at the back and wonder if the altar were lonely, then sometimes a nightingale would sing, and she fancied he was on the steps of the altar, and so still thinking of lovely things, she would go to bed with the mysterious smile still on her lips, the expression of one who has a secret they will not tell.

One day she went to the altar and found a stranger there. She started and was going back, but the stranger took off his hat and bowed. " Could you tell me," he said, " what that is ? " Epicures. 7 Eileen blushed. Somehow his inquiring cold voice made her ashamed of its being there. " It is an altar," she said. " How very strange," he said. " Do people come here and worship ? " His voice was kindly and his eyes were full of expression and earnestness. " I do," she answered "You . . . ?" The question had a thousand meanings. " Why not I ? " said Eileen smiling. '' You have churches in which to pray, why this altar ? " " Yes, I go to church on Sunday," she answered half musing, " and so does grandmama and Aunt Rosa and the ser vants, but we all come back cross and tired, and so I wanted an altar close by, where I could pray and not be tired and cross."

" And you have dedicated it to ' Charity.' Why ? " Epicures. Eileen hesitated. " Because — because I thought people forgot charity sometimes in the big church, where they pray to the God of vengeance. They forget charity and forgiveness." "You are a philosopher," said the stranger ; " but what can you want with charity and forgiveness ?" " I have solved the problem of life," said Eileen, with so much earnestness that the stranger forgot to smile. " How ? " he asked breathlessly, half hopefully, as a believer in soothsaying would trust a Sibyl to tell him his fate. " The solution is here," she said, step ping to the altar. One foot rested on the step above, just giving the outline of her knees in her flowing white dress. Round her waist she wore a girdle of amber, like that of a monk. The sun flitted in tiny spots of pink light on the lips and hair and Epicures. 9 chin.

She turned over the leaves of the book till she came to the motto of her life. With solemn lips, she read — " Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, think on those things." The stranger paused before speaking, one word from him might destroy this great peace in the heart of the girl. "How does this help you?" he said. " Can you not see," she said gently, yet with a touch of impatience, " I think ofthe sea and the sky, and the beautiful earth, and of flowers and of birds, and of all that is beautiful, and my thoughts are so full that nought else can fill them ? " " And people — how do you think of human beings?" said the stranger im patiently. " I think of all the great deeds men have Epicures. done, of the love of good women, of the smiles of young children.' With a gesture, as if he despised all that she had said — " Then of crime and of woe, of heart-burnings and of sorrow, of disap pointment, of failure, of poverty, of despair, you know nothing.

You have never loved," he said. Her thoughts only half followed his. " I have read of love," she said, "but no — I do not know it, but it seems to me beautiful." " What is beautiful ? Love ? Ah ! " he laughed, " Love is the greatest curse of mankind." Eileen looked bewildered. " But surely," she said, " to love someone with all your heart and soul, to have no thought or wish apart, to adore and be adored, is beautiful ? " said the girl passionately. "And who is happy, thus?" he asked. Epicures 11 "Why, surely some marriages are happy ?" said the girl. " Marriage ! Marriage suffices no body. Have you never heard of unhappy marriages ? " " Yes, because women would not submit. I have thought of that, too. Aunt Rosa was very unhappy with her husband, so she left him and came back to live with grandmama, but she ought to have lived and died with her husband ; besides, she is not happy even now."

" No one is happy/' said the stranger. " You, with your strange power of analysis, you will not be happy, you cannot take love and force it in front of you down the path of duty, you may love where you do not respect, you may respect where you cannot love ; worse, you may respect and think you love, and find out your mistake too late, but love you must, Epicures. 12 and with love begins the bitterness of life." Eileen looked puzzled. " Surely where real affection is, the person adored seems perfect ? " " For a time, yes, there is a blinding of sense and of sight, but that passes." "Surely you are talking of passion ? " said the girl in a cool, impassive voice. " Surely after all this, friendship remains ? " " Ah, there you are right, if it does remain. But what is friendship ? Friend ship is not that indifferent prosaic interest shown to each other by husband and wife, friendship even in a stranger means more than this.

Real friendship means any thing, suffers anything, never betrays, never reviles." "But surely such a friendship is possible without marriage?" said Eileen. " No, that is the trouble, friendship Epicures. 13 between man and woman must turn into love, and love again turns to nausea." She was seated now on the steps of the altar, her fingers still lying on the lines. " Whatsoever things are lovely . . ." " But religion, surely religion directs love?" " Does it ? Does it ? " repeated the stranger. " I will not disturb your thoughts, it is wrong of me even to have dared to address you. Might I ask you where Briary Hall is? Is it near here ? I am on my road to lunch there with a relation." " I too am living there," said Eileen. " I am Lady Diana's niece. I will show you the way. First of all," she added, " before we leave here, tell me, is no one happy ?

" He looked at the altar, at the wood, at the ferns, at the glades beyond. " None but fools are happy," he said. Epicures. 14 They walked on together. Eileen was smiling again, for she thought in her child ishness, " I am an exception, I have my recipe, I have my thoughts, and my Bible, which none can take from me. I am happy." And the stranger regretted having spoken, but she must learn the lesson one day, he said to himself. Only once she spoke to him again about the things she pondered over so much. It was evening, and the two were sitting on the terrace outside the drawing-room. At the foot of the park, that lay stretched out at their feet, you could see a peep of the sea, and the moonlight just touched the top of the dark pines ; inside Aunt Rosa was playing on the piano. Aunt Diana was playing patience at a card table in a corner.

" Surely you will own that life itself is beautiful ? " " What is life?" said_ her cousin, "but Epicures. 15 the perpetual straining for happiness and the daily realization that we have it not." "Yet surely happiness is not a mere word ? " " Happiness is content, and content is dying out of the world." " Do you mean that there is less happiness than there used to be ? " " Yes, the world has been given certain allowances of things which must come to an end." " Happiness is coming to an end with civilization, it is your misfortune that you are born at the tail end of happiness ; or, again, the earth goes through phases and circles, gliding through as a barrel might be pushed through hoops. At the start happiness belonged to the upper classes, then happiness slipped on to the middle classes — the middle classes are happy now.

They enjoy themselves. They are edu- Epicures. 16 cated enough for enjoyment not over civilized. The upper classes now are miserable because they have become epicures, and epicures are rarely satisfied." " But surely goodness brings happiness and people are better than they were?" said Eileen timidly. " I doubt that ; men seem better, because they are less easily satisfied." " But religion, surely there is a great deal more religion now, more churches, more services?" said Eileen. " I fancy people would say that human beings were better when they had to walk nine miles to church on Sunday and did it ; now religion and sensation are so mingled it is difficult to distinguish them, and forgive me if I say that your altar is a form of sensuousness. It is the trees and the peace, the summer breeze and the loveli ness, the scent of the flowers, and the Epicures. 17 mystery that you worship, but not your God.

Wait till God tries you, wait till your heart is wrung with pain, and with doubt, with passion and with temptation, and then see if you find peace at your Altar of Charity." " Don't, don't take it away," said the child, with her hands over her eyes. " Why, oh why did you come, why did you speak to me thus ? " She rose and leant on the stone parapet, and he stood close to her. She would struggle yet for her faith. " There is religion and faith and belief and love and charity whatever you say," she answered impetuously, like a wayward child. "Yes, Eileen, but it is attained through trial and suffering, and its altars are for giveness and mercy ; there comes a religion that is all of tender pity, a Christ doctrine, one who has suffered, calling the aching c Epicures. heart, waiting — waiting to comfort.

That will be your religion later, Eileen," he said, looking into her eyes in the darkness, " but you must love first, you cannot escape it, your religion is worth nothing till you have loved." His voice now was low and thick and passionate, the waves fell and rose on the shore in measured woe-struck tones. There was a ringing in Eileen's ears as if a shell were held to them. Drop by drop, as life-blood ebbs away, she felt all vanish ing that had been her mainstay, a strange uncertain longing rose in her heart, she stretched out her hands as it were to nature to teach her a lesson, to show her the path of life, but they struck the head and thick hair of her cousin, and with a thrill she drew herself together and re entered the house. She did not go to the altar the next day, nor the next.

Chapter II

" Oh ! would the serpent had not glode along To Eden's garden land, nor ever had The crafty Dragon planted in that grove. Ah ! slimy snare ! So she rib-bom of man, That wretched misled Mother of our Race Had dared not to dare on beyond worst daring, Soul-struck by love of — Apples ! " So it was all at an end — the altar and the flowers, and the purity — and a great longing came in its stead. What is that longing in human beings ? The wish for something eternal. Even in the midst of enjoyment we are sad because we know that what we are enjoying will come to an end in a few moments. A man longs for the friendship of a woman, and a woman for a man, not a particular woman or man, c Epicures. 20 but the abstract woman that is somewhere — the abstract man. We start in life like one in a dream, and the course of life is a prolonged awakening to a ghastly reality.

Why are human beings unfaithful to each other ? Because on the road of life, they are groping for the right one like a man in the dark, who grasps a stranger thinking he is his friend. Every now and then he stumbles against one who seems that one, but when he has talked to him for some time, he finds that that is not the one he is looking for, and he goes along his road again. Now Eileen longed for love, because it would teach her so much, but how did love come ? Then she too dreamed, dreamed that her lover would be fair and strong and brave and good, and she would never rail and answer him back as Aunt Rosa used to do, never say, — Epicures. 21 " I won't stand this, and I won't stand that ; " no, it was so easy to follow the Book. Then, on the fifth day, she went forth again to the altar, but she did not pray ; she took the Bible and it flew open at the lines she was accustomed to open, but she turned over the leaves, turned and turned to see what the Bible said about love, but there was nothing about any love but love for Christ, no word about marriage or earthly love in the gospels, and Christ said very little about women.

Then, turning, she came to the seventh of S. Luke — " Her sins which were many are for given because she loved much." " Ah ! then love must be a bitter thing if it wiped out all sins ; yes, her cousin was right, and she would be full of reverence and gentle love, like the women of old days, like a dog to its master. It would Epicures. 22 be so easy to obey because one loved and there would be full trust and full confidence, and he would teach her all that was clever and great because he would be so learned. Learned and yet tender, always tender. Then came back the words ofthe stranger, man changes, nothing is eternal : ah ! what should she do if he ceased to love her ? If she grew old and ugly, would he love her still ? Youth can believe in no romance without beauty. Eternal passion, eternal love, that is what youth dreams of, and then all the awakening comes when passion is past.

Women cling to passion more than men do. The voice must be always a lover's voice, and no man is always a lover. It is love that women seek. It matters not so much who speaks the words. Women love power. To hold a man's heart in their hands so that they can wring the blood from it and see the drops trickling through their fair fingers, that is Epicures. 23 what they love. That is original sin. God made woman to be the servant of man, and woman undid the work of God and tried to make man the servant of woman. Their love for their children is a form of vanity. They are everything to the child. They are worshipped by the child even more than God, and they like that. They would have men love them more than they love God, and year by year they succeed more and more, men are less strong, less great, and women grow more powerful, and yet they are not happy, for God made them to obey, and by their wills they have changed God's plan, and they are not happy because they are warring against God, and the longing which is like that of a child to be comforted, is in them, but they are so wilful, so free, that no man tries to comfort them, and they stand alone and yet are not independent.

They long to be led and to be governed, yet Epicures. 24 none is powerful enough to do it. The only happy ones are those who love blindly, madly as a dog loves who never judges his master, even if the master does wrong. Blessed are those who have such love. But Eileen knew nought of this, only it seemed to her that it would be difficult always to be bound. To do the same things every day and every night. To her it seemed as if to love, one must not be bound except by a law of fidelity based on eternal love. The marriage service, or rather the wedding, with the dresses and the wedding gifts and the hurry and the mirth and uproar, seemed to her to have nothing to do with love. Real love was when two people met and suddenly felt each other's being merged into the other, a perfect understanding, not of what each said, but of what each left unsaid.

This was love, and a service which exalted vows Epicures. 25 to establish what ought to be established by the certainty of love, seemed to her to spoil it. The marriage service seemed to her as if it said, " Ah ! you love her or him now, but you may change and we must bind you, so that even if your heart changes, you must still feed and clothe this woman, even if your love changes. You must still obey this man, and a service which gave scope to such possi bilities marred perfect love, just as a binding down of duties make the free-will offering of love of no avail. If the heart is changed, who would care for the out ward show of it ? Better far to be left like the wanton to go forth and seek fresh love, fresh passion, or to die. Yes, death, death at the right moment would be a glorious thing.

Death just when passion was greatest and love truest, when the agony of separation could write with letters of Epicures. blood, the blood of the soul, the name and image of the loved one in living letters on the heart so that it could not die. That would be eternity never to be forgotten. That would be life, for death is only for getfulness. Eileen thought of her mother — the mother who had left her when she was four, whom people spoke of with bated breath, whom people said had driven her father to an early grave. What was the great mysterious love that had drawn her mother away from her, for she heard that her mother loved her — she could remember being fondly kissed and all her little body being clasped to her mother. She could feel it now and the hand that played in her hair sometimes. She even remembered when a finger caught in a curl and hurt her.

Oh ! the agony of those after days when she missed her mother so much, and yet no one thought Epicures. 27 she remembered her. Once she had been asked by some one, " Do you remember your mother ? " and she had been silent, remembering something that she always longed for, yet unable to clothe it with a form — and the person had said, — " How lucky, poor child, she has for gotten all about her ! " Then she remembered dreams of wonderful things she wanted to do. She would go and find her mother and bring her to her father who always looked so stern, and say — " Please, father, forgive mother and let her come back ; " this was at night, but when morning came she had forgotten her plan or she did not know where to look for her mother, and so years went by. There were some great agonies she looked back upon, agonies which affected her life, but of which no one knew at the Epicures. time.

A sleepless night was one when the nurse would not wake and all the things in the room took great shapes. Night always held a vague horror ever after. Then great fears, fears of God for tiny sins, great misunderstandings when thought was in such a jumble that she spoke the truth and yet she could see that it was not what people had expected her to say. Then there was the terrible loneliness, the longing for children to play with, the being told that she was old-fashioned and yet the longing for childhood, and worst of all a perpetual longing to be held tight now and then and not to think. Then came the age 'twixt childhood and girl hood, when womanhood defies restraint and shows itself in form and gesture and spirit. Untempered womanhood that can be sternly pure and uncharitably true, that scorns and dreads sin, that holds its life Epicures. 29 direct from God and gives God the thanks, that lives in praise and thankfulness.

The terrors of childhood, that agony of the small child who is left behind and cannot run so fast as the others and dreads to have to do the road alone, all seemed pitiful and swallowed up, and life unfolded a great white easy path full in the sun with no twilight, no starlight, no deep shadows, no sad hush in the air, no passionate thrill in the hot summer breeze, only a vague hope for happiness, a broad open happiness like midday sun on yellow corn. Then came work, that delicious drunken ness of the brain, when study begins, when a mind that can grasp begins to have an insight behind the curtains of science, when music has other charms than sound, and painting is the expression of beauty and poetry, the cadence of thought. Then came a fever of learning, the first step that Epicures. 30 leads to the tree of knowledge of good and evil — as yet only the good was uppermost, but stealthily, cautiously, by the slimy road the serpent has left, men and women wind round the tree to the other side where evil hangs, a luscious fruit ready to be plucked.

There is a statue of Eve by a pupil of Thorwaldsen of which the eyes gaze out, gaze into space scanning the world, foreseeing the misery that is to come yet still desirous of that fruit. Pity and terror and remorse are in those eyes, but desire is greater. There is time to pause, time to creep away, the branch is there, the fruit hangs, where then is the angel in the pathway turning her back ? She sees all, all the misery, the pain, the nausea, the disgust, the shortness of the delight. There is a pause. . . . Then snap — the branch is broken — all is done, and already regret steps in, a bitter remorse, but the Epicures. 31 stalk can cling to the branch never again, the sap has run out, the pith and the fibre and the bark are torn. There is nought now but a cross, a cross flowing with blood, and that cross can only be reached by pain and sorrow, by wading through sloughs of despair.

Love, love only soothes the horror of that remorse. Some have a theory that in the Garden of Eden, Adam was never tempted, but when he saw that Eve had tasted, he knew that she must henceforth leave the garden and quickly he tasted too, lest she alone be cursed and wander forth alone. Ah ! if it were so, if love were always at hand, who would care for the loss or the shame or the hereafter — it is the "Alone," the terrible "Alone," that is woman's remorse. There is no creature in the world so completely alone as a woman. Women are in permanent dis grace ; a man can say anything to almost Epicures. 32 any woman. There are some things a woman cannot even say to her lover. There is not that freemasonry between women that exists between men. They are like a body of school-girls who have got into trouble, and none of them speaks to the other because they all feel in stinctively that each one has worked her sister's misfortune and would probably work it again if the opportunity occurred.

One afternoon Lady Diana grew veiy fussy after the afternoon's post. She sent gardeners and stablemen right and left to look for Eileen. Eileen was chasing her dog round the garden — the pensive mood had gone — the deep set look from the eyes, she was a child for five minutes. She ran into her grandmother's presence with flushed cheek and flashing eyes and hat awry. " When will you remember that you are Epicures. 33 seventeen?" asked the old dame querulously. Eileen looked penitent, she was still breathless and panting, — " I am sorry, Grandmama, but. . . ." " Look at this," said her grandmother, handing her a letter. Eileen read, — " My dear Diana, — Your schemes are, as always, admirably thought out and perfect in outline. Alan is going to you to-morrow. He knows nothing except that I wish him to pay his respects to your charming self and to kiss for me the hand which distance prevents my doing in person.