Under St Paul's: A Romance

by Richard Dowling

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Mrs Parkinson's house was a model of what a middle-class Englishwoman's house ought to be. In the first place, it was as clean as human hands could make it. All the furniture, carpets, fittings, curtains, were substantial, sufficient, homely in the best sense of that word. The stoutest man might sit on the lightest chair in her drawing-room without a qualm of dread. A baby might tumble on the carpet all day long without soiling its hands, or picking up a pin or any other product of nature or manufacture inimical to baby life. Mrs Parkinson had no faith in furniture polish sold by grocers or oil and colourmen, or made from a family recipe. If the wood was good, dry rubbing was the best polish, and all the wood in her house was good. Brushing down walls was very well for day-to-day cleaning; but every three months the wall-paper had, moreover, to be cleaned with dough. Once a-week all curtains were taken down and shaken and brushed. Once a-day all carpets were whisked. Four times a-year all carpets were raised and beaten. Everything was in its place. Everything was tidy and yet the whole was not severe. Everything in the house was for reasonable use; there is no use for dirt, therefore there was no dirt in that house. The whole looked hearty and not prim. There were no filigree, no nick-nacks. You found nothing on a chimney-piece because someone happened to have bought it at a sale, or someone died and left it to the owner of the house. Paintings were not hung on the walls of rooms to hide defects or attract a careless eye, like patches on a beauty's face. If you wanted to see Mr Parkinson's works of art, except a few pictures of still-life in the dining-room, you had to go to a room specially set apart for them. Here they lay secure against causing offence to those who did not deliberately seek them. The theory was that works of art, merely as works of art, are out of place in ordinary rooms, and, being matter out of place, are dirt. With the works of art were kept most of the books. Naturally, books are as much works of art as pictures or bronzes or plaster casts. The scientific books and all books impinging on scientific matters he kept in his own room, his working-room, his laboratory or study. The works of art were stored in a room at the top of the house. His own room was on the ground floor, behind the dining-room. To dine at Parkinson's was to enjoy a treat. You had the most suave and intelligent of hosts, the most simple, lively, and good-humoured of hostesses. The linen was dazzling, the glass dainty, delicate; the cutlery and silver made furrows of the deepest shade, pools of brilliant glitter. The smart parlour-maid who waited, came and went silently, efficiently. To cooking as good as you could find in a West-End club was added the peaceful seclusion of home. The host was a clever talker, the hostess a fascinating listener. If you were dull, and did not wish to talk, the host took up the ball and interested you. If you were lively and full of spirits the hostess devoted herself to you, and showed more interest in what you had to say than you yourself felt. You got good wholesome wine, and as dinner went on you got the crowning effect of the festival--the gradually-developed certainty that your host and hostess were on the best of terms with one another; and that if to-morrow they found some flaw in their marriage, they would run out of the house without waiting for hat or bonnet, and get married by the first man able and willing to tie the knot. The radiation from these wedded hearts soothed and brightened the current of the time; and when on that evening the ladies rose to leave, George Osborne felt puzzled, confounded. He had often in his mind pictured the home of a man holding views such as Parkinson's. He had fancied a cold, dark, dreary abode, with diagrams on the walls, and blasphemies at the table. He had seen the master of that household morose and savage to all around him--a man who, no longer restrained by fear outside the law of the land or public opinion, gave free scope to all the evil influences of his nature, and laid at once the foundation for the destruction of domestic peace. He had entered this house with the conviction that he should be shocked at a hundred things. So far he had been edified. Eight years they had been married, and obviously they had never been such good friends as to-day. They betrayed the tenderness of the betrothed combined with the security of the married. Their house and all in it were bright and cheerful and comfortable--such a house as he might hope to have one day. Their children were intelligent in speech and manner, and not either forward or bashful, but just well-bred. During dinner a good deal of the talk had gone on between Marie and her old friend. Mr Parkinson spoke chiefly to Kate, and George spoke least of all, except Kate. Now, for the first time, the two men found themselves alone together. Parkinson offered Osborne a cigar. The latter explained that he did not smoke. 'Ah, not smoke!' said Parkinson. 'Neither did I until lately. I find tobacco most useful.' 'Intellectually or physically?' asked Osborne, who still felt the great weight of surprise, but was now quite free from anything like apprehension. What was there in this pleasant room and this agreeable gentleman to affright or even disturb anyone? Nothing. 'Well,' said the other, explaining, as he lit a cigar, and threw himself into a comfortable easy-chair, 'I don't like to say intellectually, for that would sound pretentious. I don't think I have what anyone would call an intellect. I have certain aptitudes in small things, certain ways of treating detail, that to those who do not follow my course of reading may seem to show intellect; but intellect proper I have none. What I should say with regard to the effect of tobacco on myself is that it subducates the physical man, and gives freer and more unobserved play to the operations of the mind.' 'You will excuse me,' said Osborne, looking with curiosity at his companion, 'but I understood you followed science as a pursuit?' 'Yes, but in a very unambitious way. I gathered from what passed at dinner that you are interested in poetry. Pray, may I ask, have you ever written any yourself?' George coloured slightly. 'I take a great interest in poetry, but have unfortunately no talent or ability to write it, nor have I ever tried to write any.' 'Ah!' sighed Parkinson, 'I would give half of all I own in the world for the one gift of poetry.' 'What!' cried Osborne, staring in amazement at his host. 'Would you abandon science for literature if you had only to choose?' 'No.' Osborne looked perplexed, and said, with a faint smile,-- 'I did not think the muses and the sciences got on very well together.' 'On the contrary, they are inseparable.' George sat a little forward in his chair and said,-- 'I wish you would explain. I am most deeply interested. This is new to me. You are the first scientific man I have ever met.' 'There is nothing more simple. The vision of the poet is slow, long-drawn out, gradual in development, glorious. The vision of the man of science is instantaneously complete. The visions of "Allegro" and "Penseroso" dawned gradually on Milton. The images did not all rush in upon him at one moment. Do you not agree with me?' 'Yes. He thought of one and then he thought of another. Then he put them all together in a treasure-house, and made a present of a treasure-house to each member of posterity down to the last heart-beat of the last man.' Osborne's face flushed as his heart rose up in gratitude to the poet. 'But,' said Parkinson, with strong emphasis on the word, 'when that intellectual giant, Newton, sat in his garden at Woolsthorpe watching from the earth, saw the great arm of gravitation dart his apples, he the great hand seize the apples and drag them to the ground. Then he saw other arms stretching from satellite to planet, from planet to sun, from sun to sun, until the whole firmament was traversed by arms, and all the heavenly bodies swung in secure order. After this vision he took up mathematics, and optics, and astronomy, to prove the vision true; but he saw before he tried to prove.' 'This is new to me--very new to me,' said Osborne, out of a profound reverie. 'I have not the poetic instinct; I can never fly, I must walk along on the sober earth. If I had the poetic faculty I should invent theories, discover facts.' 'You have a great admiration of Newton?' 'The greatest. I think he was the most marvellous philosopher the world ever saw. Bacon invented a noble philosophy, which some men were afraid of at the time--which some men are afraid of yet. Newton invented modern science, which some men were afraid of then--which no man is afraid of now, except--' 'Poets.' Osborne finished the sentence for him. 'Poets! Why should poets be afraid of modern science? Believe me, there was never a greater mistake than to fancy modern science can hurt poetry. In fact, it is opening up new fields for the poet. What gigantic solar landscapes are unfolded to view! Fancy--for you have the temperament of a poet, if you have not the art--fancy gold and iron now blazing in the sun, and mountains of flaming hydrogen springing two thousand miles into space! Fancy the history of the world as now read by science, compared with the history of the world read by our grandfathers! Why, sir, they lived on the crust of the earth, with only a day and a night of history revealed to them, with souls that only wondered at the stars, and eyes that saw no further into earth than a mole will burrow. In one hundred years we have cloven the earth in two, and spelled out of its rind the syllables of its prodigious history. With the prism we have built scaffolding among the fixed stars, to serve for those who come after us as platforms of observation. Do you recollect those familiar words spoken by Newton, not long before he laid down the wisdom and knowledge of eighty-three years in the grave? "I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble, or a prettier shell, than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." Newton was right. The vulgar call this a piece of sublime modesty. Not at all. It was sublimer than any mere personal human virtue; it was truth. Reverting to what I said a few moments ago about the poetic faculty and science, are not these words I have quoted poetical?' 'Yes; but Newton would not have fitted into the science of our time,' said Osborne, with an uneasy look. 'Why not? Of course he would. He would lead us now as he had led before. Why do you think not?' 'Did he not once reproach someone for free-thinking?' Suddenly all the animation went out of Parkinson's face, all the alertness left his figure, and he lay back in his chair with the air of fatigue. 'Yes,' he answered spiritlessly, 'he reproached Dr Halley for expressing some free-thinking opinions.' 'What do you suppose Newton would have done in the face of modern science?' 'Conformed.' 'To religion?' 'No; to science.' For a few moments there was silence between the two men. Parkinson lay back in his chair, inert, relaxed, his head drooped upon his chest, his hand and arm hanging down over the side of his chair. From the cigar held in that hand a thin bent thread of blue smoke ascended, and when it reached the level of the men's eyes, waved and broke and melted into air. Osborne sat grasping the arms of his chair with fingers that whitened with the force he used. He was looking with a dull deadly fixity of fear at Parkinson. 'You think,' said Osborne slowly, deliberately, 'that the poet need not fear the advance of science?' 'I do.' 'But,' added Osborne in an impressive monotone, 'you are equally sure the priest need not fear the advance of modern science?' 'I should not care to generalise on that point.' 'As far as you yourself are concerned?' Parkinson leant forward and sideways until he could lean his elbow on the chair and rest his head upon his elbow. His eyes were no longer fixed on Osborne, but turned on some old scene, some distant apparition. He spoke in a subdued voice,-- 'In my time I have had my share of trouble, my share of shocks and alarms; but all put together never equalled the awful hour when, having pursued a certain inquiry to a certain point, I raised my eyes and saw the priest, with the Bible under his arm, make his final exit from the stage of my life.' Osborne dropped his eyes, drew his eyebrows down over them, and fell back in his chair. There was silence for a few minutes. Then Osborne spoke,-- 'You will lend me those books you allude to?' 'Yes, if you wish. I recommend you, for your peace's sake, not to read them.' 'It is, for my peace's sake I intend reading them,' answered Osborne. 'In what way can they help you to peace?' 'Because--because,' said Osborne laboriously, 'I have had some doubts, which are now at rest, and I desire to lay them at rest for ever.' 'The books I allude to will not help any existing creed in your regard.' 'So long as I think there are any books can injure it, I am not fit to believe my faith. You cannot be a Christian and believe that anything can injure or destroy the truth of Christianity.' 'Very well. You shall have the books.' After this there was silence for a few minutes more. Someone touched a piano. The introduction reached the room, softened by distance, but every note was perfectly clear. 'Are you fond of music?' asked Parkinson. 'Exceedingly.' 'Then I will open the door. This is a great favourite of mine.' He opened the door, came back, and threw himself into his chair. Presently the round, full, surprising tones of a contralto came upon their ears, followed by the low wail of the piano. The two men sat upright in their chairs, and stared into one another's eyes with amazement. Between the first and second stanza Parkinson spoke,-- 'By heaven, sir, what a voice!' 'I never heard anything like it before. It is superb.' Again the glorious organ floated out upon the silence, followed by the wail of the piano. While she sang the men stared at one another with astonishment, such as would have become their faces if the walls had vanished, and they saw before them the sacred city of Jerusalem under a pall of clouds flushed with portents. Another interval. 'Did you ever hear pathos so sublimely phrased before?' 'Never,' answered Osborne. The tears were starting into his eyes. In Parkinson's eyes gleamed a terrible, wild sadness, as though he, bound, witnessed cruel tortures inflicted on those dearest to him. Another interval. 'Did you ever hear God so importuned for mercy before?' 'Never.' 'Oh God, I cannot hear that voice and think of the priest who went away for ever!' 'Perhaps that voice will, in the end, bring him back.' 'I'd give all the world that it did,' said Parkinson passionately. The two men gazed at one another in silence. The voice once more took possession of the place. Another interval. Parkinson was deeply moved. 'I admit,' he said hoarsely, 'that nothing affects me so profoundly as music of the pathetic kind. But, Osborne, isn't it hard to think at such a moment as this that one's wife and children are no more than visions lent him for a few years, to pass away for ever afterwards?' 'I believe nothing of the kind. Your creed is simply an atrocious blasphemy.' 'Sometimes--now, for instance--I am of your mind.' The voice once more. While she sang Osborne thought: 'How can this man be a sceptic, and have a wife who can plead to Heaven like this? How can he believe man was created to plead so and be unheard?' The song ceased, and Parkinson took up the refrain, and sang it in a low soft voice. 'Miserere nobis.' He whispered, 'At this moment no man could sing more earnestly than I, Miserere nobis.' 'Does your wife sing often?' asked Osborne softly. 'Yes, pretty often.' 'Does she often sing that song?' Osborne asked, thinking that no sermon of more power could be preached to any man's heart than to hear the wife he loved pleading so for her husband, her children, herself. 'The song does not suit her voice. Hers is a soprano. She will not dare to sing after your sister.' 'Sister, sister!' cried Osborne. 'My sister's voice is a soprano too.' 'Then it must be your sweetheart who sang. She is as fine as Trebelli, with more pathos. I have no fear of lending you those books now.'