The Lady Ecclesia, an autobiography

Preface

IN this narrative, though I have compressed nations into miles and centuries into weeks, I have seldom departed from the stream of history, nowhere, I hope, from the stream of experience. I do not think the beauty of an allegory is its puzzle, but its obviousness. As a key therefore to these pages, let me state that most of the characters are representative, even when suggested by individual names. Ecclesia — the New Testament word for the Church — represents that inner life of Christianity itself which was originally the flower of Judaism. Hellenicus represents that phase of the Greek mind which came into brief contact with the flower of Judaism. The Lord of Palatine represents the Roman Emperor, but not any particular emperor ; Caiaphas, the Jewish Priesthood, but not any special priest. Phoebe vi PREFACE

— the letter-carrier of the Apostles — stands for the ministrant influence of the new faith ; the captain of the guard figures the imperial system ; while the " son of the star " in chapter xxiv., though a real historical character, represents the false Christ everywhere. I have had some difficulty in introducing the person of the true Christ I have felt that to make Him speak directly in broad daylight, except in the actual words of the Gospels, might seem irreverent; I have therefore taken frequent refuge under the cover of the dream. I have only to add that there has been a designed exclusion of all local colouring, in order to keep the mind from dwelling on the accidents. The framework is historical, but the picture ought to be universal — the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.

Contents

CHAP. PAGE

I. MY HOME I

II. THE LETTER OF HELLENICUS ... 9

Chapter 1 My Home

FROM the shores of our island no man had ever seen land. Far as the eye could reach, and far as the memory could travel, there had never been a hint of anything beyond. From the dawn of historic time men had looked out on the sea and beheld nothing more. Generation after generation had tried to see more. The eye had peered into the distance, and had come back without a message. The ear had listened to the moaning of the waters, and had caught no human murmur. Ships had gone forth to explore : some had returned after vain voyaging ; some had sunk beneath the wave; none had brought tidings of land.

The sea was our great problem. Almost the first question of our childhood was, "What is opposite ? " and the answer was ever the same, " I don't know." Frequently we made journeys from one end of the island to the other ; but it was always to look at the sea. We often thought that our pleasure in these journeys lay in the sights of the island ; but in this we deceived ourselves. Our search was really for a voice from the sea. It was the hope that some new angle of the road might waft a fresh breath from the ocean— a breath that should bear upon its wings the murmur of the shells upon another shore.

This is really the answer to a charge which has often been made against the people of our island. We have been accused of frivolity, of inability to rest, of perpetual search for the new. After long experience, I say it is not so. I, Ecclesia, daughter of the island, born of its rulers, bred in its customs, recipient of its pleasures, with a full knowledge of its men and women, and, better still, with an adequate knowledge of myself, declare that I and my countrymen, where we have sought at all, have never sought but one thing — the secret of the sea. All our search for novelty is our search for the opposite land. If we flit from flower to flower, it is because in each flower we fail to find what we sought. It is not that we have found the new thing and grown tired of it; it is that we have never found it. There are those among us who climb height after height unsatisfied ; but they

MY HOME 3

are not really changeable. At every height they seek only one thing — a commanding view of the sea. If they found it, they would stop.

I have said that I was descended from the rulers of the island. I have rather expressed a claim than indicated a possession. My father was Moses ben-Israel. He professed to be the head of the oldest clan in the community. He claimed to have received the island by a deed of gift. He did so on very peculiar grounds. One of his ancestors, a namesake of his own, had spent his life in the long search. His eye had rested on a height called Pisgah, far above the mist and the haze. He felt that, if he could get there, he might learn something of a world beyond the sea. One day, in a serene sky, he ascended its summit, and returned no more. He was sought for by crag and stream; but he returned no more. There was no trace of his living ; there was no trace of his dying ; only, on a cleft of the hill, there was found a tablet of stone, on which in clear letters there was graven this inscription : " Moses, the man of Pisgah ; unto thee and to thy seed will I give this land."

My father held this to be a divine bequest — a deed of gift which committed the island to him and to his heirs for ever. He had no doubt about its supernatural origin. Neither had I ; yet to me the value of the inscription lay in something very different. What was the land of which this ancient Moses had received a promise? Was it, as my father thought, the island on which we dwelt ? Was it not rather the land for which he had been seeking ? Did not the tablet say that — though the outer eye had failed — the inner sight had been victorious ? Did it not mean to tell that the vision of faith had seen what the vision of sense could not, and that beyond the waste of waters there was a home for the spirit of man ?

I remember making the suggestion to my father. I shall never forget how he received it. It was the first occasion on which I ever saw him angry — the only subject on which I have ever seen him ruffled. " Ecclesia," he said, " let us have no more of these fancies. It is bad enough to be denuded of one's rights without having it sanctioned by a theory. I have lived here all my life in poverty and struggle. Families but of yesterday have passed me by. They have patronised me — me who was in flow T er before they were in root. I have caught the dust from their chariot wheels ; I have seen them smile in benignant pity. But I have been sustained through all. What is it that has sustained me? It is the knowledge that this island is mine

MY HOME S

by right to-day and shall be mine in fact to-morrow. You speak of a land beyond. If it were only a romance, I would let it pass ; but it is a romance that spoils the reality. I have been striving all day to hit the mark on a tree, and you tell me that perhaps there is another tree — a tree beyond the ocean. You are diverting the strength of my aim, and I want it all. My promised land is here. My duty has been bequeathed to me by a hundred sires, and I shall bequeath it to you by-and-by."

And so I sought to turn my mind from the great sea — from the mystery of the ocean to the promise of the land. It seemed more loyal, more sacred, more religious, to be prosaic. It was against my nature, and therefore I felt it must be good. I had always been taught that virtue lies in doing what we don't wish to do. I had always been told that the value of a deed was in proportion to its pain. To me the thought of religion was inseparable from the thought of sacrifice. Surely religion was here. My heart was in the murmur of the shell, and my loathing in the murmur of the world. Ought not my heart to yield to my loathing ? Should not the secular life by its very repugnance become to me the divine life? Why should I not take up my father's quarrel — the trampled honour of his family ? He was only a servant in his own house. He paid rent for his sn>all estate to the lord of the island — his island. Who was his master ? Caesar of Palatine Hill — a man, comparatively, of yesterday. Did he not well to be angry? ought not I to be angry too? Was not this to me the first and great commandment, " Thou shalt revive the glories of the house of Israel " ?

The greatest events of our lives are the events that are purely inward. One day something happened to me — something known only to myself. I was in the sitting-room, and I was alone. I was thinking what I could do to bring back the fortunes of my race. What could I do ? I was a girl of eighteen, and had seen little of life. I was an only child. I had never known a mother's care ; she had died at my birth. I had been brought up in much seclusion ; the family pride and the family poverty had combined to isolate me. I felt at this moment the burden of the land to be as heavy as the burden of the sea ; I was impotent from sheer ignorance. Suddenly there befell a thing which happens periodically to old furniture ; there was a crack in the wood behind the mirror. I rose mechanically and approached the direction of the sound. I looked

MY HOME 7

mechanically at the polished surface. I had done so a thousand times before, and seen nothing but the commonplace. All at once I started. If the heavens had opened, I could not have been more surprised. A revelation came to me, unsought, undreamed of. I was beautiful — distinctly, unmistakably beautiful. I stood in the presence of myself with unveiled face, and I admired.

What boundless conceit! you say. You are wrong. It was the most impersonal revelation I ever received in my life. I said, " I am beautiful," as I would have said, " The day is fine," or "The fields are green." If you ask me why I said it to-day rather than yesterday, I cannot tell ; but neither can you tell why you do the same thing. There is a time in the life of every man and woman in which he or she first said, "This is beauty." It is a matter of small consequence whether the object be one's self or another ; the point is that there is a definite time for the revelation. When or how it comes, I know not ; but this I do know, that in the large majority of cases the hour of its coming is not the hour of its first appearing. To-day the child treads ruthlessly over the flowers ; to-morrow he comes back to admire them. A few minutes ago the mirror simply reflected ; it now did more — it revealed. I took the old step over the old stile, and in the act there came to me a new world ; I had stepped from despair into hope.

For, standing before that mirror, there flashed into my heart a great design. There came to me an intoxicating moment of self-conscious power. I lost sight of the shore and the waters. For the first time in my life there rose before me a vision of empire. I was not the poor creature I had deemed. I had a gift ; I had a talisman. What was wanted to restore the glory of my race ? Was it not wealth, and w r ealth alone ? I would bring back the glory ; I would recall the ancient splendour. I looked down to the valleys, where my people were struggling. I looked up to the proud crest of Palatine Hill, where dwelt the lord of the island. And I said, "I shall draw them together ; I shall unite the mountain and the vale." The image of an earthly kingdom swam before my eyes ; the ambition of a human greatness leapt within my heart. Yet I know that even then it was another form of the old, old story ; and ever from the lonely beach came up the low surge of the sea.

Chapter II The Letter Of Hellenicus

THE next scene reproduced by memory is after three years. I am sitting in the same room ; I am looking at the same mirror ; I am beholding the same figure ; and I am again alone. I have triumphed — beyond all my dreams I have triumphed. It was no deception, this perilous gift of beauty. It had led me, like the instinct of the bee, to the making of a great house. A letter is before me. It is from Hellenicus, brother of him who rules the island — Caesar of Palatine Hill. He offers me the alliance of his interests — his heart and his hand. For three years I have been the magnet of the social circle. I have known my power ; I have used it. It has been no surprise to me to receive this letter ; I have seen it coming. And now it is come, and I have conquered : ought I not to be glad ?

Am I glad? You, who read these memoirs, io THE LADY ECCLESIA

consider the peculiarity of my case. Do you imagine that at any time my ambition had been personal ? Do you think that for a single moment my vision of empire had been a girl's forecast of individual wealth or power ? Ambition there was forecast there was ; but for myself, never. It was for my race, my people, my buried lineage. My act of worldliness was to me an act of sacrifice. It was a consecration, a surrender, an altar fire. Personal joy was out of the question : if I had wanted personal joy, I would have mused by the sea. My love was in the mystery of the ocean ; my duty was in the pleasures of the land. To me the spirit of the world had become the will of God. It was the will of God because it was contrary to my own will. It was the cross which I had to take up, the penance to which I had to devote myself. It was my asceticism, my solitude, my self-denial. I had yielded my individual life to the service of my family, and, if there was any joy for me, it must come in the glory of my people.

Had I reached this joy ? The letter was before me. What did it say ? All that was luscious, all that was gushing. There was a picture in one of our rooms of a man in a garden who is allowed to eat of every tree but one, which was consecrated

THE LETTER OF HELLENICUS n

to the will of God. This letter seemed to me to go beyond that picture. It offered the trees without any prohibition and without consecrating a single spot. The note from beginning to end was, " Get rid of trouble." Strange to say, it was this element in the letter which disturbed me. It ignored the only thing which had been my motive — the desire to sink myself in my race. As I ran my eye down the passages I felt annoyance at the very places where most would have experienced delight. " Leave these weeping valleys and come aloft. Come up into the pure air, into the bright sunshine. Why drag out your days amongst things beneath you ? On the uplands where I dwell the heart is ever light. We forget the cares of the valley ; we toil not, we spin not. Come to me, and you shall rest. Your life shall be one long summer day. It shall move through the path where the birds sing, where the flowers bloom. It shall be fanned by gentle breezes ; it shall be regaled by sweetest melodies. Its morning shall be the lark, and its eve the nightingale. No sorrow shall come near you ; no trouble shall dim your eye ; no work shall soil your hand. All your burdens shall be borne by others. They shall bring you the pearl from the sea and the treasure from the mine. They shall spread for you the luxurious couch ; they shall furnish your table ; they shall row your barge ; they shall drive your chariot Your sight shall be veiled from all scenes of misery. Your ear shall be curtained from all cries of pain. You shall live in the present ; you shall neither anticipate nor remember. You shall never look at a grave, never listen to the word * death.' Where the shadows gather, you shall call on the music and the dance to chase them away. In the forge tfulness of all that is sad you will learn what it would be to be divine."

So ran the glowing words. Were they glorious as well as glowing? Did they express my own ideal of life, of" what it would be to be divine " ? To me the divine life had always been the life contrary to nature — the life which did what it did not wish to do. Here the divine life was nature itself; it was the love of all outward things, and the power to gratify that love. " Leave these weeping valleys"? They were the very things I wanted to take with me. They belonged to my father's grounds ; their inhabitants had been the retainers of his house for centuries. It was for these weeping valleys I had taught my eyes to look upon the hills. It w r as to lift them up that I wished myself to be lifted up. I heard them ever saying in the words of one of my old songs,

THE LETTER OF HELLENICUS 13

" Entreat me not to leave thee, nor to return from following after thee." Whoever would take me must take my burden too. Was it fair that this man should be deceived ? Was it right he should think me unencumbered ? Was it well he should even figure me with an empty heart which he could fill ? No ; I must speak with him, I must tell him. He must know what I had, what I had not, to give. He must take me with my thorn, knowing it to be a thorn. He must learn that I could not, dared not live for individual joy. He must accept me, not for myself alone, but for the sake of my people.

Hark ! what was that ? Was the storm rising ? Was the surge of the sea becoming more accentuated? My father's house was on the plain between the valley and the hill. From the region beneath there began to ascend a strange murmur. At first I thought it the voice of nature ; by-and-by it was like the voice of man. It rose and swelled like a wave, but without its rhythm. There was no uniformity about it. Sometimes it was quick, sometimes slow ; now a dirge or wail, and anon a shout of anger. The noise deepened ; the valleys seemed to be climbing ; I grew cold in every limb. Presently I heard the approach of footsteps. The door was hurriedly opened, and my father came in.

He was deadly pale, though maintaining his habitual calm.

" What is wrong, father ? " I said.

" The plague has broken out in the valleys."

" The plague ! What plague ? "

" The old enemy of this island."

" I never heard of it, father."

" Oh ! it is no new thing ; but its outbursts are only once or twice in a lifetime. The last was before you were born. We never like to speak of such things."

" But what is the clamour, father ? Is it pain ? Is it fear?"

" It is the strangest thing that ever entered into the mind of man. This plague comes in the form of a black spot on the heart ; but nobody ever feels it in himself. The first intimation a man gets that he is a victim is seeing the black spot in imagination on the face of another. The affected men down yonder believe themselves to be unaffected. They see their own disease on the bodies of those who have given no sign of it. They do not want them to come near lest they catch the pestilence. Some are shrieking in dismay. Some are shouting threats. Some are imploring their brethren to leave them. Some are throwing stones to drive them back into the sea ;

THE LETTER OF HELLENICUS 15

and the children are screaming because they hear others scream."

" Oh, it is sad, it is heartrending ! " I cried, bursting into tears.

" Sadder than you deem," he said. " How do you think it will affect your prospects ? Have you answered Hellenicus ? "

I winced. Of all the salt drops I had shed, not one had fallen on account of him. " I have not answered him," I said. " I am glad I have not answered ; I can release him from any bond on his honour by simply refusing him. A few minutes ago I would have given him the alternative of taking me with my burden or passing me by. But now I cannot ; I will bring no tarnished blood into another house."

" Tarnished blood ! " he cried. " And who tarnished it? He and such as he. If we had remained as God made us, there is no blood in the island so pure as ours. It is the i other house ' that has infected us. These people in the valleys have done as you were about to do — intermarried. It is from men like Hellenicus that our plague has come. If you went to him, the sacrifice would be all on your side."

"Father," I exclaimed, "if I thought that, I would go. If he had put such a postscript to his letter, he would have had little to fear. It is the want of sacrifice on my part that drives me from him. It seems to me that those of us who are whole are in debt to those that are sick, whoever they may be — Hellenicus or another. Is nothing to be done? Are we to sit here calmly, overlooking the scene of misery, and beholding man's inhumanity to man ? Are we to allow men to lacerate one another, exterminate one another, when a soothing word might save ? Come, let us go down to them, you and I together. You are their king by right; you shall be their king in truth when you have won their hearts."

" Ecclesia," he said, " I cannot, I dare not. A message has arrived from Palatine Hill, commanding that all the gates be shut which lead to the valleys. There is to be a public meeting to-morrow, and it will be followed by a more drastic decree forbidding all contact with the infected district."

" Then," said I, " I must appeal to the pity of Hellenicus."

Chapter III The Conclave Of The Island

THE next day, within the largest hall in the island, there was gathered the most august assembly I have ever seen. Never before, never since, have I witnessed such a meeting of man with man. It was summoned by a succession of trumpets, each repeating at the farthest audible distance the blast of the other, until the signal became universal. They came from far and near, the representatives of this little sea-girt world. They came to consider the danger in the valleys — the pestilence and the tumult. They came from the leading families, from the leading professions. There were soldiers, lawyers, priests, physicians, landed proprietors. As I sat beside my father, a spectator of the scene, I asked myself if there was any interest unrepresented. Yes, there was one. There was an extraordinary omission. They had come to legislate for the valleys ; but from these valleys themselves there was no representative. No trumpet had sounded below. Not a voice had been summoned from the contaminated district. There was every testimony but direct testimony ; all manner of vociferation round the wounded comrade, but no contact with the comrade's wounds. Looking on that great assembly, I felt then, I feel now, that there was a link wanting to the brotherhood of man.

In the centre of the building, on a golden throne, sat the president of the council — Caesar of Palatine Hill. I knew him personally ; I had met him in the sphere of social pleasure. But, apart from that, I think I should have known him by inference. Command was stamped on every lineament ; his eagle aspect would have revealed him always and anywhere. His keen eye, his firm mouth, his haughty bearing, his imperative gesture, would have marked him out in a crowd. Sitting immediately below him was one whom I had also reason to know — his brother Hellenicus. Many men, and most women, would have said that his face was more beautiful. Looking at the two, I formed the opposite opinion. In the relation in which I stood to him, it seemed disloyal to say so even to myself. I could

THE CONCLAVE OF THE ISLAND 19

not help it. The two kinds of beauty were radically different. The one was the seriousness of overhanging crags ; the other was the smiling of a bank of violets. It was the bank of violets that offended my eye. At another time it might have pleased me — had pleased me ; but, here and now, it was repellent. Caesar of Palatine was not sunny, but he was serious ; his brother Hellenicus was sunny, but he was not serious. It was his smile that disturbed me. He seemed to regard the meeting as a fine entertainment. He exhibited no sense that there were grave issues at stake. His eye roamed round the building in search of the fashionable and the fair. It was no palliation of the offence that in its restful moments it lighted chiefly on me.

On either side of the throne rose a series of benches, ascending from floor to ceiling in the form of a sloping ladder. These seats were allocated on the principle of seniority. Those on the ground floor were the men and women of the time. In proportion as the benches rose and receded, they were occupied by those who had been great in a former generation and whose immediate day had gone by. It was on these last that my eye was riveted, and increasingly riveted with the measure of the regress. With a strange fascination I fixed my gaze on the occupants of the seat which was highest and remotest. I never saw such a peculiar assemblage as on this topmost bough. They were all old — extremely old. They looked like an anachronism. It was as if, in walking through the fields of this spring, one had seen a leaf of last autumn. Sear and yellow the leaves indeed were ; and yet it seemed to me that in their ruin they were more majestic than anything which I had seen in its strength. I was disposed to realise the saying which an old nurse had taught me concerning the ancient time : " There were giants in those days."

" Father," I said, " who are these men at the farthest distance and the highest height?"

" These," he answered, " form the section called The Chamber of the Past.' They are a band of physicians. They have been summoned, I suppose, because on account of their earlier day they may be presumed to know more of the origin of this pestilence. But hush ! the president is rising."

" Men of the island," said the Lord of Palatine Hill, " I have called you together because the fulness of the time has come. The fulness of the time is the fulness of our need. A plague, which has been the curse of our valleys, and whose manifestations have been from time to time

THE CONCLAVE OF THE ISLAND 21

suppressed, has broken out again with redoubled violence. Had it been simply a question of human suffering, we might have left it to the priests and the doctors. But it is a suffering which has taken a peculiar form. Each man believes his brother, and not himself, to be the afflicted party, and each wants to expel his brother. It is therefore an enmity of man against man. Such a thing cannot exist in this island, of which fate has made me overseer. For the valleys, indeed, I care nothing. Let the afflicted parties exterminate one another. The sooner the better. I desire that in this island none should survive but the strong. I would have every element eliminated which cannot be put to outward use ; I would have nothing preserved which is incapable of active service. But the question becomes very different when there is danger of the valleys infecting the uplands. My whole policy in the rule of this island has been based on concentration. I have sought to bring man and man together by the force of a common interest. I have studied to unite the conflicting sides of human nature by throwing open to all capable men a common path of ambition. If the contagion of this pestilence should reach the uplands, my work is undone ; the enmity of man with man would in the higher circles spoil all. I was not called upon by the laws of this island to ask your advice on this matter. I have an interest and I have a duty which I can depute to no other. There is no dubiety in my own mind as to the course which I ought, which I am bound to take ; nor shall I shrink from the responsibility which fate has imposed on me. Yet it seemed good to me, before taking any action on this grave and solemn case, to ascertain with perfect accuracy the nature of this social malady. I would hear first of all from those who have been nearest to it, and specially from those who have been nearest to its beginning. I seek my information mainly from the Chamber of the Past. I appeal to those eminent physicians in the remotest part of this building, whose life has touched the boundary-line of a more primitive generation, and whose experience is more in contact with the earlier developments of disease. Have they any light to shed upon the nature of this great catastrophe ? " Then through the hall there ran a buzz of expectation. Presently, like a mist-figure on a mountain, there rose on the topmost round the form of a little old man, bearing all the decrepitude of age, but with an eye which sent forth intermittent flashes of an earlier day. He never looked