"LeVallon," he resumed, instinctively emphasizing the conviction in his voice so that the change of key might be less noticeable, "undoubtedly—believes himself to be—some such divine Messenger...." It was consummate hedging.
The sermon needs no full report. The audience, without realizing it, witnessed what is known as an "inspirational address," where a speaker, naturally gifted with a certain facile eloquence, gathers his inspiration, takes his changing cues as well, from the collective mind that listens to him. Father Collins, quite honestly doubtless, altered his key automatically. He no longer said that LeVallon was a Messenger, but that he "believed himself" to be one. Like Balaam, he said things he had not at first thought of saying. He talked for some ten minutes without stopping. He said "all sorts of things," according to the expression of critical doubt, of wonder, of question, of rejection or acceptance, on the particular face he gazed at. At regular intervals he inserted, with considerable effect, his favourite sentence: "A man in his own place is the Ruler of his Fate."
He developed his idea that LeVallon "believed himself to be such and such ..." but declared that the conception had been put into the youth during his life of exile in the mountains—the Society had already acquired this information and extended it—and had "felt himself into" the rôle until he had become its actual embodiment.
"He does not think, he does not reason," he explained. "He feels—he feels with. Now, to 'feel with' anything is to become it in the end. It is the only way of true knowledge, of course, of true understanding. If I want to understand, say, an Arab, I must feel with that Arab to the point—for the moment—of actually becoming him. And this strange youth has spent his time, his best years, mark you—his creative years, feeling with the elemental forces of Nature until he has actually becomes—at moments—one with them."
He paused again and stared about him. He saw faces shocked, astonished, startled, but not hostile. He continued rapidly: "There lies the danger. One may get caught, get stuck. Lose the desire to return to one's normal self. Which means, of course, remaining out of relation with one's environment—mad. Only a man in his own place is the ruler of his luck...."
He noticed suddenly the look of disappointment on several faces. He swiftly hedged.
"On the other hand," he went on, making his voice and manner more impressive than before, "it may be—who can say indeed?—it may be that he is in relation with another environment altogether, a much vaster environment, an extended environment of which the rest of humanity is unaware. The privilege of tasting something of an extended environment some of us here already enjoy. What we all know as human activities are doubtless but a fragment of life—the conscious phenomena merely of some larger whole of which we are aware in fleeting seconds only—by mood, by hint, by suggestive hauntings, so to speak—by faint shadows of unfamiliar, nameless shape cast across our daily life from some intenser sun we normally cannot see! LeVallon may be, as some of us think and hope, a Messenger to show us the way into a yet farther field of consciousness....
"It is a fine, a noble, an inspiring hope, at any rate," he assured the room. "Unless some such Messenger comes into the world, showing us how to extend our knowledge, we can get no farther; we shall never know more than we know now; we shall only go on multiplying our channels for observing the same old things...."
He closed his little address finally on a word as to what attitude should be adopted to any new experience of amazing and incredible kind. To a Society such as the one he had the honour of belonging to was left the guidance of the perverse and ignorant generations outside of it, "the lethargic and unresponsive majority," as he styled them.
"We must not resist," he declared bravely. "We must accept with confidence, above all without fear." He leaned back in his chair, somewhat exhausted, for the source of his inspiration was evidently weakening. His words came less spontaneously, less easily; he hesitated, sighed, looked from face to face for help he did not find. His glass was empty. "We're here," he concluded lamely, "without being consulted, and we may safely leave to the Powers that brought us here the results of such acceptance."