Claud Brennan

Prologue

.......... 7

Book I

Chap. I. AN EVENING DRIVE ....... ig II. MR. VAUGHAN OF TROSNANT 44 III. FIRST-FRUITS 54 IV. CLAUD'S FIRST VISIT TO TROSNANT .... 62 V. LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT ........ 75 VI. MISTAKES AND PERPLEXITIES 85 VII. WITH HARP AND VOICE ....... 98 VIII. THE SERVICE IN THE WELSH CHAPEL .... I09 IX. THE FACE CF BEAUTY II9 X. MODERN EPICUREANISM ....... I25 XI. THE CLIFFS OF PENDINAS ...... I39 XII. THE GARDEN OF EDEN ....... I47 XIII. DREAMS AND AWAKENINGS ...... I59 XIV. THE FIRST DISCORDANT NOTE ..... 164 XV. "RUDE STONE MONUMENTS" ...... I73 XVI. THE CHAPEL OF THE GREY STONE .... iSl XVII. THE DEVIL'S COVE 194 XVIII. CLAUD'S SECOND BOOK 2o8 xix. "Was ist das Leben?" . . . . . . . 221 XX. THE CRISIS 232 XXI. AFTER THE STRUGGLE ....... 24O XXII. THE RUSTLING OF THE WINGS OF AZRAEL . . . 250

Book II

I. AFTER MANY YEARS ....... 257 II. CLAUD'S LAST BOOK ....... 273 III. AWAKENED MEMORIES OF THE PAST .... 281 IV. "UNTIL THE DAY BREAK AND THE SHADOWS FLEE AWAY" . Claad Brennan.

PROLOGUE.

. n N epic," said Claud sententiously, " is like eternity ; it has neither end nor beginning." " If there is one thing I hate more than another," remarked Peter Warrington, as he knocked the ashes of his pipe out upon the window-sill, "it is a half truth which, dressing itself up in borrowed clothes, presents itself to you under the guise of an aphorism." I don't think these two men ever quite under stood one another. There was hardly a topic on which their opinions did not jar. And yet it seemed to me that their ideas were often the same, and that the difference lay rather in the way they considered them or clothed them in words than in the sentiments themselves. This frequent jarring, this misunderstanding, if you will, was the only false note in the harmony of the trio we had been performing for several years.

I made a similar remark to Claud Brennan one day, when we two were discussing the matter in Warrington's absence. " Don't say a false note," Claud replied with a smile ; " call it rather an accidental, which only lends piquancy to what would otherwise be tame, though perfect harmony." "An epic," continued Warrington, rising from his seat by the window, and walking leisurely across the room to the mantel-shelf, on which stood the tobacco-jar, — "an epic has both end and beginning, and bears a far closer similarity to a very moderate and appreciable portion of time than to eternity. Look at Paradise Lost, look at Virgil's Æneid, look at the Iliad, the very earliest epic poem and the model of all others. Take it for an example. Does not Homer commence in the most regular and proper manner possible, by invoking the Muse to help him describe Achilles' bad temper ?

And does he not finish up with Hector's funeral arrangements ? What more do you want ? Of course an epic has both beginning and end." Claud Brennan was lying on the sofa. He altered his position for one a trifle more comfortable and looked critically at the end of his cigar. " My dear Warrington," he said, "your remarks discover an extensive, but very superficial, acquaintance with epic literature. The Iliad is certainly not the earliest epic. The old Arcadian one of Izdubar is demonstrably older. It is not at all improbable that Homer was acquainted with that poem. Inter national, or rather intertribal, communication was far more easy in those ancient times than we a few years ago had any idea of. We know that the religion of the Greeks was greatly influenced by the cults of Babylon and Nineveh.

Is is not probable that their literature might have been similarly affected ? Certainly it is as probable that Homer was well acquainted with the poetry of Babylon as it is that some Slav poet of the more backward States of Eastern Europe at the present day should be familiar with the masterpieces of Shakespere or Schiller. Thought is not bound by the arbitrary limits of a kingdom. Originality is more often the term applied to the succession and development of an idea than anything else. And there certainly are ideas in the reputed poems of Homer, especially in the Odyssey, which, to say the least, suggest a previous acquaint ance with the adventures of the old Turanian demigod." Warrington yawned audibly as he filled his pipe. " It seems to me, Brennan, that you are bowling rather wide," he remarked.

" Not at all," replied Claud. " I am only pointing out your error. But I will convince you further from your own example. Look, as you say, at the Iliad . Does Homer stop at the beginning to explain how or why the Greeks and Trojans came to be at war ? On the contrary, does he not plunge in medias res, and present us with a picture of life in the camp of the Greeks? In like manner, the poem ends abruptly with the burning of Hector's body, and tells us nothing whatever about the end of the war, or how the Greeks got home. It is exactly as though you took a novel and tore out the first and last three chapters. Then, when you come to read it in that condition, you are at once plunged into the society of the characters of the story, and you are forced to leave off in entire ignorance of the consummation or catastrophe of the plot."

By this time Warrington had lit his pipe and resumed his seat by the open window. His elbows rested on the sill, and his eyes were fixed thought fully on our beautiful view : the distant hills of Fife, the blue waters of the Firth, and the lowland of Midlothian, all glorified in the flood of sunset light. " I remember one year going up to London some days before Christmastide," he commenced, in what I used to call "Warrington's best narrative tone," " Just as we were nearing the terminus, our train was brought to a standstill, and stood waiting in that place for a tremendous time. Night had fallen, and it was quite dark. The line just there ran through a thickly-populated suburb, and many of the surround ing houses were lit up. Looking from darkness into a lighted interior is always interesting ; the lights and shadows, and even the colours, are so intense, and the outlines are so clearly defined; the whole effect is similar to what one obtains in a camera obscura.

Just from our carriage we could see very distinctly into one particular sitting-room, the window-blinds of which were undrawn. Within, a lady and some children were seated around a blazing fire, and the table was spread for the evening meal. Presently the door of the room opened, and a tall, well-dressed girl appeared, carrying a brown paper parcel. This was unpacked with much laughter and amusement, and its contents, a smoking cap and a pair of slippers, displayed for general admi ration. Just when the excitement was at its height, they all started as though they heard a distant noise. They remained in attitudes of listening for a second or two, then the smoking-cap and slippers were hurriedly wrapped up and smuggled under the table by the elder girl, while a preternatural and ridiculous solemnity fell upon the other members of the group.

Once more the door opened, and this time a middle aged man came in. He was received with every demonstration of affection, but the contents of the mysterious parcel were not exhibited to him. Just at this moment our engine sounded its whistle long and loudly, the train began to move onward, and the little picture of home-life vanished from my sight. Now, although I did not see either the begin ning or the ending of that little family scene, I can imagine both. It wanted two days to Christmas, and probably the smoking-cap and slippers were intended for the father's Christmas present. Probably also the whole family had been saving up for it, and the eldest daughter had just returned from making the purchase with the united pence. I only saw one episode of that homely epic, but I think I understood both the beginning and the end."

"And possibly were quite wrong in your deductions," remarked Claud Brennan. " But I must really compliment you, Warrington, on the simplicity of your illustration." " I am much obliged to both you fellows," I said, closing the book which I had been vainly trying to read for the last half-hour. " I thoroughly under stand what an epic is, though its nature is somewhat paradoxical. Theoretically it has both an end and a beginning, practically it has neither." Both my friends laughed. " Ferrars, as usual, has discovered the truth," said Claud Brennan. "An epic, in this, differs in no way from any other story. There is no point on which you can put your finger and say, ' Here it begins,' and further on, ' Here it ends.' Even the broken threads of a torn tissue speak of the other piece, thrown away perhaps and lost.

The web of life is so complex that it is practically impossible to begin at the beginning of any life story. We take up what we think is the first end of a thread, and before we can be certain we hold it between our fingers, it has become so mingled and inteiwoven with strands reaching backwards into the past and passing forwards into the future, that its own identity, the present, is lost. It is, indeed, often impossible to differentiate the actual present from the consequences of the past on the germs of the future." * * * * This conversation occurred to my mind after I had written the following chapters ; and it seemed to me that this brief memoir of my dear old friend Claud Brennan resembled in its incompleteness his idea of an epic. I am only too conscious that the general reader will probably regard the whole thing as a very crude and unfinished production.

In such an estimate I fully agree with him. I would only ask him to remember that it does not profess to be a finished biography. It is simply the attempt of a writer totally inexperienced in authorship to record the history of a solitary but most important episode — important both in itself and in its consequences — in the life of his dead friend. Claud Brennan has been very much misunder stood. On the one hand, he has received fulsome and unnecessary flattery ; on the other, much un deserved censure. The man's life was an enigma, the key to which is to be found only in the know ledge and comprehension of one circumstance, the details of which are known only to Peter Warrington and myself, and which I have endeavoured in the following pages briefly to relate. Claud Brennan's nature was essentially spiritual.

I use the word in its widest and most legitimate sense, and not with the cramped and arbitrary meaning to which certain modern writers have thought fit to limit its use. A few days ago I was speaking of my dead friend to an eminent journalist, when the latter made a similar remark. " In reading the works of Dr. Brennan," he continued, "it is the thought which rivets the attention. The personality of the writer is lost in the profundity of the ideas to which he has given birth. To me he is but 'a voice in the desert.' And this is the more remarkable at the present day, when the most trivial details of the private lives of celebrities are carefully sought out and chronicled ; and when the photographic artist and the interviewer unite in conferring a factitious immortality on even the feeblest and most ephemeral of literary and artistic pantaloons."

I smiled as the picture rose before me of an interview between the reserved philosopher and a modern interviewer, and at the notion of the emissary of a photographic firm being allowed to set up his camera in the great silent rooms of the Villa St. Andre. But the journalist's impression of Claud Brennan's work was perfectly correct : it was the thought, and not the man, which touched the world. To Claud Brennan thought, or rather the spirit which gives birth to thought, was everything — matter nothing, or at best only the medium, the vehicle for the conveyance of thought. " The paper and the binding of this book," he once said to me, holding out a well-thumbed copy of Shakespere's plays, " are very worthless, the value lies in the ideas which the sight of the black marks impressed upon these pages can conjure up in the reader's brain."

But if Claud Brennan's nature was thus essen tially spiritual, it was no less religious. Indeed, the one includes the other. I know this statement will be received with a smile of contempt, and not many years ago I should have joined in the smile and shared in the contempt. Dr. Brennan's whole life's work, you will say, was devoted to the destruction of religion. That I emphatically deny. The whole of Claud Brennan's energies were directed against what, in his opinion, was the unwarrantable materialisation of that which is necessarily and essentially spiritual. And much as Religion may inveigh against them, she owes a debt of no light weight to such men ; for it is their strong hands which pluck aside the grave clothes heaped up by the priest and the sect-maker, and give to half-smothered Faith a little breathing room.

There was one other point in my old friend's character which I must touch upon, because it has been so completely overlooked or misunderstood, and that was his utter incapability of rivalry. He would Claud Brennan. always have far rather resigned the prize than have striven for the mastery. In his school and college career he was so completely the superior of his fellows, that this trait was almost unobserved, though I can recall one or two occasions when he yielded the victory to a second-rate competitor rather than make any extra exertion. In short, the very presence of a rival seemed to paralyse his energies. It is, then, only by allowing due weight to these two characteristics that one can understand the full significance of the events I have endeavoured faithfully to narrate in the following pages.

First, the man of ideas, the dweller in the transcendental, is suddenly brought under the influence of a passion which, though the most spiritual of which our nature is capable, is yet intrinsically materialistic. Second, the man, incapable of emulation, is suddenly brought into open rivalry with the practical conclusions of a system of thought whose original premises he denies. It is the understanding of these two points which alone furnishes the key to the enigma of Claud Brennan's life and writings. Two biographies of the philosopher have recently appeared. The story they tell is, of course, perfectly accurate, with perhaps two or three trifling exceptions in dates and detail; but the Claud Brennan they describe is not the Claud Brennan we, Warrington and I, knew. The man the public knows from his writings, from his speeches, from his public actions is very different to the man his intimate friends know ; and he again is widely dissimilar to the hidden self known only to his own inner consciousness.

It is only by combining the views from the two former standpoints with what it is possible to obtain of the latter, that even an approximately accurate estimate of the character of any celebrated man can be formed. It was from such considerations as these that both Warrington and I felt that something more must be written. Our old friendship for Claud Brennan demanded that the living man should stand before the public as well as the cold, impassive scientist. I earnestly wish the task had not finally fallen upon me. My nature is essentially commonplace, that of both my friends artistic and creative. Their genius was widely different, but they seemed to find a bond of union in and through my mediocrity ; and I believe that fact explains our common friendship. It was therefore with many misgivings and great diffidence that I took up my pen, and, now that my task is completed, it is with much humility that I present it to the public. Book I GLANMORLAIS.

Chapter I

Bn Evening Drive OR more than ten years we three, Claud Brennan, Warrington, and I, had lived in close and constant companionship. At school we had been firm friends, and while pursuing our studies at the University of Edinburgh we had shared a common sitting-room and a common table. But the day of separation comes to even such a firm and long -continued friendship as ours. We graduated in the same year, and that was the signal for the breaking up of our companionship. 2 * Warrington was the first to leave. A few days after the graduation ceremony he departed, somewhat sadly it must be confessed, for England. Claud Brennan and I were to remain together for a few months longer. Claud's whole college career had been a brilliant success, he had won a whole collection of medals, and had graduated with the highest honours.

During the winter both he and I were to act as house physicians in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, the duties of which office were to commence in October. We had, therefore, nearly three months of idle time before us, and as we had neither of us any friends or relations to visit, we agreed to spend the holiday together, wandering leisurely and com fortably about the western shores and islands of Scotland. Those few months were, with one exception, the happiest that I think I have ever spent. The bond of friendship which existed between Claud Brennan and myself was as close as the bond of brotherhood. Markedly reserved as he was to others, to me he would unbosom his soul, and many a soaring thought or speculative fancy brightened our intercourse. Claud was a talented musician, and played the violin with skill and taste.

During the last few years he had sternly repressed this pleasure. " Science," he said, " deserved no divided worship." But now in his first holiday he gave vent to his talent; and, as my friends assure me, I have some slight musical taste, and can perform tolerably well on the violon cello, I was able to share in his one sensuous pleasure. How often in those lovely autumn nights so long ago did I bend over my instrument and play the 'cello part of symphony and duet, which Claud's skilful fingers led upon his violin. I remember the balcony of one hotel in particular which looked out upon the sea, -whence, while we played, we could watch the long Atlantic swell roll in and break upon the iron coast. Ah well ! that holiday came also to an end, and we returned once more to Edinburgh. We saw, of course, a good deal of each other during our residence in the Infirmary ; but our duties were onerous, and practically that autumn holiday was the end of our student life.

When our residence was over we parted altogether. Claud Brennan had obtained a travelling fellowship which he intended to avail himself of, by prosecuting his studies in the great medical schools and hospitals of the Continent. I had neither the means nor the inclination to remain in Edinburgh, hanging about the school in the hope of ultimately obtaining an appointment ; so having received the offer of the post of surgeon on a large ocean-going steamer, I accepted it and proceeded to London to go on board. I made several voyages and visited many parts of the world, but after a while I began to grow tired of the monotony of such a life, and I determined to seek some professional employment on shore. Accordingly I resigned my appointment, and for some months acted as locum tenens in various parts of England.

Finally I went into Wales to act as temporary assistant to an old surgeon who practised in Glanmorlais, a small fishing town on the west coast of the principality. Mr. Rees was an old bachelor. His face, I think, was the kindliest I have ever seen. I shall never forget how his features beamed with delight when he saw my violoncello case lifted out of the dog-cart which had brought me and my luggage from the station. We had previously shaken hands, but at the welcome sight the old man seized my hand again. " This is almost too good to be true," he said. " I asked for an assistant for my work, and I see I shall have a companion for my play also. Gently with that 'cello, Davy," he continued, as the man brought the instrument into the porch. " No, don't put it down there. Take it indoors at once."

So saying, he led the way into a large sitting room, one glance around which proclaimed the subject of the old gentleman's "play." A tall American organ stood at one end of the room and a piano at the other, while the recesses on either side of the fireplace were fitted with broad shelves, on which reposed volumes whose shape and binding told me contained the scores of many a master of the heavenly art. The large table, which stood in the middle of the room, was heaped with books and loose music in no little confusion ; in the midst lay a violin and bow as though they had just been laid aside. The old surgeon took the violin up lovingly and drew the bow tenderly across the strings. "You understand my hobby now, Mr. Ferrars," he said. 1 could only answer by a smile and a nod, for the old man's fingers had half unconsciously con tinued to move, and he played softly and tenderly an exquisite little air of Schumann.

" Pardon me, Mr. Ferrars," he said, putting down the instrument, " I live so much alone that I grow forgetful of my manners. Dinner will be served in less than half-an-hour. Let me then show you your room." The courteous old gentleman was far advanced in years; but in spite, or perhaps because, of the hard work of a country doctor's life, his health had continued excellent until the previous winter, when a sharp attack of illness played in a few days more havoc with his constitution than time had been able to effect in many years. A locum tenens had taken charge of his prac tice during his sickness, but as soon as he recovered he tried to do the work alone again. This, however, was beyond his strength, and hence arose the occasion of my coming to Glan morlais. The old gentleman's delight when he saw my 'cello did not abate.

His love of music was a positive passion, and its culture lent that touch of sweetness to his age, which so many old people lack. I had sufficient knowledge and skill to share his pleasures, and to accompany his violin either on my own instrument or on the piano ; but I was so greatly his inferior that it was impossible for me to raise that jealousy of skill which naturally enough grows up among the increasing infirmities of age. The old man was very kind to me, and I did my best to make him some slight return by shielding his waning strength from the burden of the practice, while I made him feel that the work was all done in his way and under his direction, even when he was not there to see. Society in Glanmorlais was limited enough in all conscience, and I wondered daily how a cultured man like Dr. Rees had managed to live here con tentedly for so many years.

Some small shopkeepers, a good many fishing folk and others engaged in a tolerably extensive coasting trade, made up the bulk of the population. The aristocracy of the place consisted chiefly of retired skippers, and with them one ought, perhaps, to class the constantly changing succession of young curates who represented the episcopacy in the perpetual absence of the rector, and about half-a-dozen dissenting ministers of various sects. The only really rich man in the neighbourhood was an invalid, a Mr. Vaughan, who lived in a large old rambling house, called Trosnant, just outside the town on the other side of the river ; and he, curiously enough, was a retired dissenting minister, or rather a retired foreign missionary, for I do not think he had ever ministered to any congregation in Great Britain.

He and old Dr. Rees were great friends, and the latter almost looked upon the missionary's daughters as his own children. In such a town and in such society I spent two happy years. I was too busy to indulge in vain dreams or silly ambitions, and so was content ; while what leisure I had was passed in the genial and cultured companionship of the old doctor and his friends. I speak of Mr. Vaughan and his daughters together, for during those two years the merry girls had grown and ripened into fair and stately women, and had become, if it were possible, more than ever the companions of their father. How long I should have been satisfied with this life I do not know, for like so many other Britons I am subject at times to a masterful restlessness, which makes me weary of one place and sends me wandering out into the world again.

But at the end of two years an event occurred, which greatly altered the conditions of my life. One night old Dr. Rees was taken seriously ill. The following day he was worse, and I summoned to my assistance a physician from our county town. We did all we could, but without avail, and two days later the good old gentleman was dead. He had outlived all his relations ; and when his will was opened I found, probably to no one's surprise except my own, that he had left his practice and all his property to me. I was much touched by this evidence of the old doctor's affection for me, and I readily obeyed the wish expressed in his will, that I should continue to live in Glanmorlais. So that at that time there seemed every probability of my ending my days in the little out-of-the-way Welsh town. During all these years I had of course not forgotten my old Edinburgh friends ; we maintained a constant though irregular correspondence, and on one or two occasions, when I had the opportunity, I spent a few days with them.

Peter Warrington's life was very unsatisfactory. I think he positively hated the drudgery of his profession. His boyish ambition had been to become an artist, and his talents undoubtedly lay in that direction. But in compliance with his father's wish he had suppressed his inclination, and had joined Claud Brennan and myself when we commenced our medical studies at Edinburgh. His first two years at the university were lamentable failures, but during the second summer a circumstance occurred which had the most beneficial effect on his character, and, I believe, on his whole future career. He had gone trout fishing down towards the Border, and somewhere on the banks of the Tweed he had made the acquaintance of a painter of world-wide celebrity. This great and worthy man took a fancy to the discontented student ; and Warrington in his turn opened his heart to him.

He showed him his drawings and told him his ambitions. One day the artist said to him : " Your drawing is good and your colouring is good, but in all you do there is no life. Your work is the work of an automaton. The soul is wanting. Do not give up Art. Make it your pastime. But let the business of your life be the study of your profession. Your self-denial, exercised to please your father, will bring its own reward ; and the practice of your profession will teach you that sympathy for suffering, without which the painting of the greatest artist is but the work of a machine. Remember that the man is of more consequence than the artist. If God intends you to be a painter, a painter you will be ; but if He does not, the most careful training will not make you one." Wonderful to relate, Peter Warrington not only listened to this unpalatable advice, but actually followed it.

He set to work to redeem the past. He turned to his professional studies diligently and perseveringly, and in the end gladdened his father's heart by taking his degree in medicine. Art was not forgotten ; on the contrary, it gained new charms by becoming solely a source of recreation. The probation was no doubt good for Warrington, but when I last saw him I thought it had done its work, and that he was beginning to weary, and to strain at the chain which bound him to his uncongenial employment. With Claud Brennan it was different. He had in all things fulfilled the promise of his youth. When in due course he had proceeded to his M.D., his thesis had obtained a gold medal. Some essays, which he had published during the time of his continental studies, had attracted the attention and gained the approval of the scientific world.

He was now assistant-physician to one of the great London hospitals, and lecturer on physiology in the medical school attached to that institution. His ultimate success was certain, and the highest honours and rewards which Science can confer upon her votaries seemed within the possibility of his grasp. But even he was not altogether faithful to his first love. In his student days he had lived a life of much self-suppression, to how great an extent perhaps I, of all his friends and acquaintances, only knew. I have spoken of the suppression of his sensuous love of music, and I know there were other studies which he put aside as incompatible just then with purely physical science. But from many a long holiday gossip, and from many a stray remark which fell from his lips at other times, I knew well there stirred within his mind a world of seething thought, which far surpassed in breadth and depth, aye and in subtilty, the narrow bounds of physical science.