The Altar Fire

by Arthur Christopher Benson

June 18, 1890.

I have made a new friend, whose contact and example help me so strangely and mysteriously, that it seems to me almost as though I had been led hither that I might know him. He is an old and lonely man, a great invalid, who lives at a little manor-house a mile or two away. Maud knew him by name, but had never seen him. He wrote me a courtly kind of note, apologising for being unable to call, and expressing a hope that we might be able to go and see him. The house stands on the edge of the village, looking out on the churchyard, a many-gabled building of grey stone, a long flagged terrace in front of it, terminated by posts with big stone balls; a garden behind, and a wood behind that—the whole scene unutterably peaceful and beautiful. We entered by a little hall, and a kindly, plain, middle-aged woman, with a Quaker-like precision of mien and dress, came out to greet us, with a fresh kindliness that had nothing conventional about it. She said that her uncle was not very well, but she thought he would be able to see us. She left us for a moment. There was a cleanness and a fragrance about the old house that was very characteristic. It was most simply, even barely furnished, but with a settled, ancient look about it, that gave one a sense of long association. She presently returned, and said, smiling, that her uncle would like to see us, but separately, as he was very far from strong. She took Maud away, and returning, walked with me round the garden, which had the same dainty and simple perfection about it. I could see that my hostess had the poetical passion for flowers; she knew the names of all, and spoke of them almost as one might of children. This was very wilful and impatient, and had to be kept in good order; that one required coaxing and tender usage. We went on to the wood, in all its summer foliage, and she showed us a little arbour where her uncle loved to sit, and where the birds would come at his whistle. "They are looking at us out of the trees everywhere," she said, "but they are shy of strangers"—and indeed we heard soft chirping and rustling everywhere. An old dog and a cat accompanied us. She drew my attention to the latter. "Look at Pippa," she said, "she is determined to walk with us, and equally determined not to seem to need our company, as if she had come out of her own accord, and was surprised to find us in her garden." Pippa, hearing her name mentioned, stalked off with an air of mystery and dignity into the bushes, and we could see her looking out at us; but when we continued our stroll, she flew out past us, and walked on stiffly ahead. "She gets a great deal of fun out of her little dramas," said Miss ——. "Now poor old Rufus has no sense of drama or mystery—he is frankly glad of our company in a very low and common way—there is nothing aristocratic about him." Old Rufus looked up and wagged his tail humbly. Presently she went on to talk about her uncle, and contrived to tell me a great deal in a very few words. I learnt that he was the last male representative of an old family, who had long held the small estate here; that after a distinguished Oxford career, he had met with a serious accident that had made him a permanent invalid. That he had settled down here, not expecting to live more than a few years, and that he was now over seventy; it had been the quietest of lives, she said, and a very happy one, too, in spite of his disabilities. He read a great deal, and interested himself in local affairs, but sometimes for weeks together could do nothing. I gathered that she was his only surviving relation, and had lived with him from her childhood. "You will think," she added, laughing, "that he is the kind of person who is shown by his friends as a wonderful old man, and who turns out to be a person like the patriarch Casby, in Little Dorrit, whose sanctity, like Samson's, depended entirely upon the length of his hair. But he is not in the least like that, and I will leave you to find out for yourself whether he is wonderful or not."

There was a touch of masculine irony and humour about this that took my fancy; and we went to the house, Miss —— saying that two new persons in one afternoon would be rather a strain for her uncle, much as he would enjoy it, and that his enjoyment must be severely limited. "His illness," she said, "is an obscure one; it is a want of adequate nervous force: the doctors give it names, but don't seem to be able to cure or relieve it; he is strong, physically and mentally, but the least over-exertion or over-strain knocks him up; it is as if virtue went out of him; though a partial niece may say that he has a plentiful stock of the material."

We went in, and proceeded to a small library, full of books, with a big writing-table in the window. The room was somewhat dark, and the feet fell softly on a thick carpet. There was no sort of luxury about the room; a single portrait hung over the mantelpiece, and there was no trace of ornament anywhere, except a big bowl of roses on a table.

Here, with a low table beside him covered with books, and a little reading-desk pushed aside, I found Mr. —— sitting. He was leaning forwards in his chair, and Maud was sitting opposite him. They appeared to be silent, but with the natural silence that comes of reflection, not the silence of embarrassment. Maud, I could see, was strangely moved. He rose up to greet me, a tall, thin figure, dressed in a rough grey suit. There was little sign of physical ill-health about him. He had a shock of thick, strong hair, perfectly white. His face was that of a man who lived much in the open air, clear and ascetic of complexion. He was not at all what would be called handsome; he had rather heavy features, big, white eyebrows, and a white moustache. His manner was sedate and extremely unaffected, not hearty, but kindly, and he gave me a quick glance, out of his blue eyes, which seemed to take swift stock of me. "It is very kind of you to come and see me," he said in a measured tone. "Of course I ought to have paid my respects first, but I ventured to take the privilege of age; and moreover I am the obedient property of a very vigilant guardian, whose orders I implicitly obey—'Do this, and he doeth it.'" He smiled at his niece as he said it, and she said, "Yes, you would hardly believe how peremptory I can be; and I am going to show it by taking Mrs. —— away, to show her the garden; and in twenty minutes I must take Mr. —— away too, if he will be so kind as help me to sustain my authority."

The old man sate down again, smiling, and pointed me to a chair. The other two left us; and there followed what was to me a very memorable conversation. "We must make the best use of our time, you see," he said, "though I hope that this will not be the last time we shall meet. You will confer a very great obligation on me, if you can sometimes come to see me—and perhaps we may get a walk together occasionally. So we won't waste our time in conventional remarks," he added; "I will only say that I am heartily glad you have come to live here, and I am sure you will find it a beautiful place—you are wise enough to prefer the country to the town, I gather." Then he went on: "I have read all your books—I did not read them," he added with a smile, "that I might talk to you about them, but because they have interested me. May I say that each book has been stronger and better than the last, except in one case"—he mentioned the name of a book of mine—"in which you seemed to me to be republishing earlier work." "Yes," I said, "you are quite right; I was tempted by a publisher and I fell." "Well," he said, "the book was a good one—and there is something that we lose as we grow older, a sort of youthfulness, a courageous indiscretion, a beautiful freedom of thought; but we can't have everything, and one's books must take their appropriate colours from the mind. May I say that I think your books have grown more and more mature, tolerant, artistic, wise?—and the last was simply admirable. It entirely engrossed me, and for a blessed day or two I lived in your mind, and saw out of your eyes. I am sure it was a great book—a noble and a large-hearted book, full of insight and faith—the best kind of book." I murmured something; and he said, "You may think it is arrogant of me to speak like this; but I have lived among books, and I am sure that I have a critical gift, mainly because I have no power of expression. You know the best kind of critics are the men who have tried to write books, and have failed, as long as their failure does not make them envious and ungenerous; I have failed many times, but I think I admire good work all the more for that. You are writing now?" "No," I said, "I am writing nothing." "Well, I am sorry to hear it," he said, "and may I venture to ask why?" "Simply because I cannot," I said; and now there came upon me a strange feeling, the same sort of feeling that one has in answering the questions of a great and compassionate physician, who assumes the responsibility of one's case. Not only did I not resent these questions, as I should often have resented them, but it seemed to give me a sense of luxury and security to give an account of myself to this wise and unaffected old man. He bent his brows upon me: "You have had a great sorrow lately?" he said. "Yes," I said, "we have lost our only boy, nine years old." "Ah," he said, "a sore stroke, a sore stroke!" and there was a deep tenderness in his voice that made me feel that I should have liked to kneel down before him, and weep at his knee, with his hand laid in blessing on my head. We sate in silence for a few moments. "Is it this that has stopped your writing?" he said. "No," I said, "the power had gone from me before—I could not originate, I could only do the same sort of work, and of weaker quality than before." "Well," he said, "I don't wonder; the last book must have been a great strain, though I am sure you were happy when you wrote it. I remember a friend of mine, a great Alpine climber, who did a marvellous feat of climbing some unapproachable peak—without any sense of fatigue, he told me, all pure enjoyment—but he had a heart-attack the next day, and paid the penalty of his enjoyment. He could not climb for some years after that." "Yes," I said, "I think that has been my case—but my fear is that if I lose the habit—and I seem to have lost it—I shall never be able to take it up again." "No, you need not fear that," he replied; "if something is given you to say, you will be able to say it, and say it better than ever—but no doubt you feel very much lost without it. How do you fill the time?" "I hardly know," I said, "not very profitably—I read, I teach my daughter, I muddle along." "Well," he said, smiling, "the hours in which we muddle along are not our worst hours. You believe in God?" The suddenness of this question surprised me. "Yes," I said, "I believe in God. I cannot disbelieve. Something has placed me where I am, something urges me along; there is a will behind me, I am sure of that. But I do not know whether that will is just or unjust, kind or unkind, benevolent or indifferent. I have had much happiness and great prosperity, but I have had to bear also things which are inconceivably repugnant to me, things which seem almost satanically adapted to hurt and wound me in my tenderest and innermost feelings, trials which seem to be concocted with an almost infernal appropriateness, not things which I could hope to bear with courage and faith, but things which I can only endure with rebellious resistance." "Yes," he said, "I understand you perfectly; but does not their very appropriateness, the satanical ingenuity of which you speak, help you to feel that they are not fortuitous, but sent deliberately to you yourself and to none other?" "Yes," I said, "I see that; but how can I believe in the justice of a discipline which I could not inflict, I will not say upon a dearly loved child, but upon the most relentless and stubborn foe." "Ah," said he, "now I see your heart bare, the very palpitating beat of the blood. Do you think you are alone in this? Let me tell you my own story. Over fifty years ago I left Oxford with, I really think I may say, almost everything before me—everything, that is, which is open to an instinctively cheerful, temperate, capable, active man—I was not rich, but I could afford to wait to earn money. I was sociable and popular; I was endowed with an immense appetite for variety of experience; I don't think that there was anything which appeared to me to be uninteresting. But I could persevere too, I could stick to work, I had taken a good degree. Then an accidental fall off a chair, on which I was standing to get a book, laid me on my back for a time. I fretted over it at first, but when I got about again, I found that I was a man maimed for life. I don't know what the injury was—some obscure lesion of the spinal marrow or brain, I believe—some flaw about the size of a pin's head—the doctors have never made out. But every time that I plunged into work, I broke down; for a long time I thought I should struggle through; but at last I became aware that I was on the shelf, with other cracked jars, for life—I can't tell you what I went through, what agonies of despair and rebellion. I thought that at least literature was left me. I had always been fond of books, and was a good scholar, as it is called; but I soon became aware that I had no gift of expression, and moreover that I could not hope to acquire it, because any concentrated effort threw me into illness. I was an ambitious fellow, and success was closed to me—I could not even hope to be useful. I tried several things, but always with the same result; and at last I fell into absolute despair, and just lived on, praying daily and even hourly that I might die. But I did not die, and then at last it dawned upon me, like a lightening sunrise, that THIS was life for me; this was my problem, these my limitations; that I was to make the best I could out of a dulled and shattered life; that I was to learn to be happy, even useful, in spite of it—that just as other people were given activity, practical energy, success, to learn from them the right balance, the true proportion of life, and not to be submerged and absorbed in them, so to me was given a simpler problem still, to have all the temptations of activity removed—temptations to which with my zest for experience I might have fallen an easy victim—and to keep my courage high, my spirit pure and expectant, if I could, waiting upon God. This little estate fell to me soon afterwards, and I soon saw what a tender gift it was, because it gave me a home; every other source of interest and pleasure was removed, because the simplest visits, the wildest distractions were too much for me—the jarring of any kind of vehicle upset me. By what slow degrees I attained happiness I can hardly say. But now, looking back, I see this—that whereas others have to learn by hard experience, that detachment, self-purification, self-control are the only conditions of happiness on earth, I was detached, purified, controlled by God Himself. I was detached, because my life was utterly precarious, I was taught purification and control, because whereas more robust people can defer and even defy the penalties of luxury, comfort, gross desires, material pleasures, I was forced, every day and hour, to deny myself the smallest freedom—I was made ascetic by necessity. Then came a greater happiness still; for years I was lost in a sort of individualistic self-absorption, with no thoughts of anything but God and His concern with myself—often hopeful and beautiful enough—when I found myself drawn into nearer and dearer relationships with those around me. That came through my niece, whom I adopted as an orphan child, and who is one of those people who live naturally and instinctively in the lives of other people. I got to know all the inhabitants of this little place—simple country people, you will say—but as interesting, as complex in emotion and intellect, as any other circle in the world. The only reason why one ever thinks people dull and limited, is because one does not know them; if one talks directly and frankly to people, one passes through the closed doors at once. Looking back, I can see that I have been used by God, not with mere compassion and careless tenderness, but with an intent, exacting, momentary love, of an almost awful intensity and intimacy. It is the same with all of us, if we can only see it. Our faults, our weaknesses, our qualities good or bad, are all bestowed with an anxious and deliberate care. The reason why some of us make shipwreck—and even that is mercifully and lovingly dispensed to us—is because we will not throw ourselves on the side of God at every moment. Every time that the voice says 'Do this,' or 'Leave that undone,' and we reply fretfully, 'Ah, but I have arranged otherwise,' we take a step backwards. He knocks daily, hourly, momently, at the door, and when we have once opened, and He is entered, we have no desire again but to do His will to the uttermost." He was silent for a moment, his eyes in-dwelling upon some secret thought; then he said, "Everything about you, your books, your dear wife, your words, your face, tell me that you are very near indeed to the way—a step or two, and you are free!" He sate back for a moment, as though exhausted, and then said: "You will forgive me for speaking so frankly, but I feel from hour to hour how short my time may be; and I had no doubt when I saw you, even before I saw you, that I should have some message to give you, some tidings of hope and patience."

I despair, as I write, of giving any idea of the impressiveness of the old man; now that I have written down his talk, it seems abrupt and even strained. It was neither. The perfect naturalness and tranquillity of it all, the fatherly smile, the little gestures of his frail hand, interpreted and filled up the gaps, till I felt as though I had known him all my life, and that he was to me as a dear father, who saw my needs, and even loved me for what I was not and for what I might be.

At this point Miss —— came in, and led me away. As Maud and I walked back, we spoke to each other of what we had seen and heard. He had talked to her, she said, very simply about Alec. "I don't know how it was," she added, "but I found myself telling him everything that was in my mind and heart, and it seemed as though he knew it all before." "Yes, indeed," I said, "he made me desire with all my heart to be different—and yet that is not true either, because he made me wish not to be something outside of myself, but something inside, something that was there all the time: I seem never to have suspected what religion was before; it had always seemed to me a thing that one put on and wore, like a garment; but now it seems to me to be the most natural, simple, and beautiful thing in the world; to consist in being oneself, in fact." "Yes, that is exactly it," said Maud, "I could not have put it into words, but that is how I feel." "Yes," I said, "I saw, in a flash, that life is not a series of things that happen to us, but our very selves. It is not a question of obeying, and doing, and acting, but a question of being. Well, it has been a wonderful experience; and yet he told me nothing that I did not know. God in us, not God with us." And presently I added: "If I were never to see Mr. —— again, I should feel he had somehow done more for me than a hundred conversations and a thousand books. It was like the falling of the spirit at Pentecost."

That strange sense of an uplifted freedom, of willing co-operation has dwelt with me, with us both, for many days. I dare not say that life has become easy; that the cloud has rolled away; that there have not been hours of dismay and dreariness and sorrow. But it is, I am sure, a turning-point of my life; the way which has led me downwards, deepening and darkening, seems to have reached its lowest point, and to be ascending from the gloom; and all from the words of a simple, frail old man, sitting among his books in a panelled parlour, in a soft, summer afternoon.