The Secret Power

by Marie Corelli

Thus mentally arguing, the exquisite lines of Tennyson's "Lotus Eaters" suddenly rang in his memory like a chime of bells from the old English village where he had lived as a boy, when his mother, one of the past sweet "old-fashioned" women, used to read to him and teach him much of the best in literature,—

"Death is the end of life; ah, why
Should life all labour be?
Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast
And in a little while our lips are dumb,
Let us alone. What is it that will last?
All things are taken from us and become
Portions and parcels of the dreadful Past,
Let us alone. What pleasure can we have
To war with evil? Is there any peace
In ever climbing up the climbing wave?"

An effortless existence would be the existence of such as these fabled Lotus Eaters—moreover, it was not possible it could go on, since all Nature shows effort without cessation. Roger Seaton knew this as all know it—but his soul's demand remained unsatisfied, for he sought to know the CAUSE of all the toil and trouble,—the "why" it should be. And at the back of his mind there was ever a teasing reminder of Morgana and her strange theories, some of which she had half imparted to him when their friendship had first begun. For her Tennyson's line—"Death is the end of life"—would be the statement of a foolish fallacy, as she held that there is no such thing as death, only failure to adapt the spirit to advancing and higher change in its physical organisation. To-day he remembered with curious clearness what she had said on this subject—

"Radio-activity is the chief secret of life. It is for us to learn how to absorb it into our systems as we grow,—to add by its means to our supplies of vitality and energy. It never gives out,—nor should we. The Nature-intention is that we should become better, stronger, more beautiful, more mentally and spiritually perfect—and that we do not fulfil this intention is our own fault. The decimation of the human race by wars and plagues and famines has always been traceable to human error. All accidents happen through those who make accidents possible,—diseases are bred through human dirt, greed, ignorance, and neglect. They are no part of the divine scheme of things. The plan is to advance and make progress from one point of excellence to another,—not to stop half way and turn back on the road. Humanity dies, because it will not learn how to live."

She had spoken these words with a quiet simplicity and earnestness that impressed him at the time as being almost child-like, considering the depth of thought into which she must have plunged, notwithstanding her youth and her sex—and on this morning of all others, this morning on which he had set himself a task for which he had made long and considerable preparation, he found himself half mechanically repeating her phrase—"Humanity dies because it will not learn how to live."

There was no fatalism,—no fixed destiny in this; only the force of Will was implied—the Will to learn,—the Will to know.

"And why should not humanity die?" he argued within himself—"If, in the long course of ages, it is proved that it will neither learn nor know,—why should it remain? Room should be made for a new race! A clever gardener can produce a perfectly beautiful flower from an insignificant and common weed,—surely this is a lesson to us that it may be possible to produce a god from a man!"

He bent his eyes lovingly on the case of small cylinders lying open before him;—the just risen sun brightened them to a glitter as of cold steel,—and for a moment he fancied they flashed upon him with an almost sinister gleam.

"Power of good or power of evil?" he questioned his inward spirit—"Who can decide? If it is good to destroy evil then the force is a good force—if it is evil to destroy good WITH evil, then it is an evil thing. But Nature makes no such particular discriminations—she destroys evil and good together at one blow. Why therefore should I—or anyone—offer to discriminate?—since evil is always the preponderating factor. When the 'Lusitania' was torpedoed neither God nor Nature interfered to save the innocent from the guilty—men, women and children were all plunged into the pitiless sea. I—as a part of Nature—if I destroy, I only follow her example. War is an evil,—an abominable crime—and those that attempt to make it should be swept from the face of the earth even if good and peace-loving units are swept along with them. This cannot be helped."

He went into his hut, and in a few minutes came out again clothed in thick garments of a dark, earth colour, and carrying a stout staff, steel-pointed at its end something after the fashion of a Swiss alpenstock. He brought with him a small metal box into which he placed the case of cylinders, covering it with a closely fitting lid. Then he put the package into a basket made of rough twigs and strips of bark, having a strong handle, to which he fastened a leather strap, and slung the whole thing over his shoulders like a knapsack. Then, casting another look round to make sure that there was no one about, he started to walk towards a steeper descent of the hill in a totally different direction from that which led to the "Plaza" hotel. He went swiftly, at a steady swinging pace,—and though his way took him among confused masses of rock, and fallen boulders, he thought nothing of these obstacles, vaulting lightly across them with the ease of a chamois, till he came to a point where there was a declivity running sheer down to invisible depths, from whence came the rumbling echo of falling water. In this almost perpendicular wall of rock were a few ledges, like the precarious rungs of a broken ladder, and down these he prepared to go. Clinging at first to the topmost edge of the precipice, he let himself down warily inch by inch till his figure entirely disappeared, sunken, as it were in darkness. As he vanished there was a sudden cry—a rush as of wings—and a woman sprang up from amid bushes where she had lain hidden,—it was Manella. For days and nights she had stolen away in the intervals of her work, to watch him—and nothing had chanced to excite her alarm till now—till now, when she had seen him emerge from his hut and pack up the mysterious box he carried,—and when she had heard him talking strangely to himself in a way she could not understand.