El-Râmi looked up inquiringly, but said nothing.
“How it is that you have not foreseen this thing I cannot imagine”—continued the monk—“The body of Lilith has grown under your very eyes from the child to the woman by the merest material means,—the chemicals which Nature gives us, and the forces which Nature allows us to employ. How then should you deem it possible for the Soul to remain stationary? With every fresh experience its form expands—its desires increase,—its knowledge widens,—and the everlasting necessity of Love compels its life to Love’s primeval source. The Soul of Lilith is awakening to its fullest immortal consciousness,—she realises her connection with the great angelic worlds—her kindredship with those worlds’ inhabitants, and, as she gains this glorious knowledge more certainly, so she gains strength. And this is the result I warn you of—her force will soon baffle yours, and you will have no more influence over her than you have over the highest Archangel in the realms of the Supreme Creator.”
“A woman’s Soul!—only a woman’s soul, remember that!” said El-Râmi dreamily—“How should it baffle mine? Of slighter character—of more sensitive balance—and always prone to yield,—how should it prove so strong? Though, of course, you will tell me that Souls, like Angels, are sexless.”
“I will tell you nothing of the sort”—said the monk quietly. “Because it would not be true. All created things have sex, even the angels. ‘Male and Female created He them’—recollect that,—when it is said God made Man in ‘His Own Image.’”
El-Râmi’s eyes opened wide in astonishment.
“What! Is it possible you would endow God Himself with the Feminine attributes as well as the Masculine?”
“There are two governing forces of the Universe,” replied the monk deliberately—“One, the masculine, is Love,—the other, feminine, is Beauty. These Two, reigning together, are GOD;—just as man and wife are One. From Love and Beauty proceed Law and Order. You cannot away with it—it is so. Love and Beauty produce and reproduce a million forms with more than a million variations—and when God made Man in His Own Image it was as Male and Female. From the very first growths of life in all worlds,—from the small, almost imperceptible beginning of that marvellous evolution which resulted in Humanity,—evolution which to us is calculated to have taken thousands of years, whereas in the eternal countings it has occupied but a few moments, Sex was proclaimed in the lowliest sea-plants, of which the only remains we have are in the Silurian formations,—and was equally maintained in the humblest lingula inhabiting its simple bivalve shell. Sex is proclaimed throughout the Universe with an absolute and unswerving regularity through all grades of nature. Nay, there are even male and female Atmospheres which when combined produce forms of life.”
“You go far,—I should say much too far in your supposed law!” said El-Râmi wonderingly and a little derisively.
“And you, my good friend, stop short,—and oppose yourself against all law, when it threatens to interfere with your work”—retorted the monk—“The proof is, that you are convinced you can keep the Soul of Lilith to wait upon your will at pleasure like another Ariel. Whereas the law is, that at the destined moment she shall be free. Wise Shakespeare can teach you this,—Prospero had to give his ‘fine spirit’ liberty in the end. If you could shut Lilith up in her mortal frame again, to live a mortal life, the case might be different; but that you cannot do, since the mortal frame is too dead to be capable of retaining such a Fire-Essence as hers is now.”
“You think that?” queried El-Râmi,—he spoke mechanically,—his thoughts were travelling elsewhere in a sudden new direction of their own.