| [PART I] | ||
| PAGE | ||
| Earth | 1 | |
| [PART II] | ||
| Hell | 135 | |
| [PART III] | ||
| Heaven | 267 | |
INTRODUCTION
The book for which its author gave her life is now given to the world with profound pity and regret. Pity for a bright young life so suddenly hurried into Eternity, and regret that the circumstances of her tragic death have made it necessary that her work should be published in an incomplete and unrevised state. Had Miss Edith Allonby lived there is no doubt that the story would have been considerably altered and improved before being put into print. Much that is now vague in meaning would have been explained, much that is now retained would have been deleted. The explicit terms of her last letters make the task of bringing out The Fulfilment a hard and anxious one for her executors, her relatives and her publishers. She wished the book to be published word for word as she wrote it, as can be seen from her last letter to her publisher, quoted below. Her last letter to her relatives was much to the same effect. It will show the responsibility which had to be faced.
“I have received your letter and the enclosed criticism. Thank you for both. I have read the criticism through but it has not altered me in my decision. He has said what I know will be the general opinion of the world. Most of the views I had expressed in the beginning part of Marigold, and you will remember how those were received—as ‘uncouth attempts at satire,’ ‘silly remarks,’ ‘a farrago of nonsense,’ ‘a silly and pretentious book.’ “I have told you I do not mind criticism, neither do I. But it hurts me to the very soul that people should so misunderstand that which is true. God knows with what purity of intention I wrote the first chapters of Marigold—never meaning to give offence, but how in this world can it be avoided?
“I have read the criticism, and I could answer it word for word, or any criticism that might follow it from any source, but that is not allowed, and not to be. When I first wrote The Fulfilment I longed to see it published, that I might fight the battle for it with my pen. It would have been like coming down into the arena to fight and breathe and conquer. But as the time went by, after it was returned to me, I began to realise slowly what a terrible book I had written, as well as beautiful and true, and it seemed as if it called for all I had to give as an expiation before it could go free. I put it away—the book and the thought. But I began to write ever on the same theme—the revelation Heaven had given me. You know how it has prospered. And then on Whitsunday the voice awoke me that I must bring my greatest treasure forward once again, for though I have let it lie patiently these four years, hoping to make an opening for it, it has ever been in my heart and brain. And again I felt the pleasing prospects of the battle. I knew what strength I had, and always have had, did I care to use it, to answer those who disagreed with what I wrote. And in the cause of such a book I felt that everything would be allowable. But there has come the Season out of Silence to be silent. We cannot bandy words about religious things. I cannot anyway. I feel it all so much I cannot talk about it. For all I write about I love and fear. God knows I have not been familiar, I have only loved simply both God and man.
“But there is only one way of showing it, and that by dying simply. When I am once out of the way the big stumbling-block has been removed. People can no longer think I have written with a fanciful irreverence when I have had before me, all the time, nothing but Death; for I believe, looking back, it was there with the very first page.
“And so (for when this reaches you I shall be dead—only to this world) I leave it as my dying request that you publish, exactly as I have sent it to you, The Fulfilment. You must ask the gentleman to return it, and tell him my decision. And at the same time I do not wish you or him or anyone to think that his criticism has had anything to do with my death. For I do not wish you or anyone to view me as a common suicide—overcome by this or that, or bowed down by the thought of failure or disappointment. I have simply died to make room for a great truth. And I have died trusting humbly in God.
“And so you cannot deny me that which I decide. To you it must become an impersonal affair. You must publish it because it is a dying command, and publish it word for word as I have left it. And now no one can take offence—neither the company whose impress the book bears, nor anyone connected with it.
“And of the religionists I only ask that they will have the same toleration for me that I have ever had for them. I mean those who are sincere and simple among them, of any denomination. For I am sincere and simple too.
“And now I must say ‘Good-bye.’ I feel very sad about it, for I have written so many letters to you, and told you so many things that it is parting with a friend. And you will say a good word for me if you get the chance. And if they say I’m mad, tell them from me it’s a madness that will spread—not the suicide but the belief. But indeed it is no madness.