So there we three, who had seen many strange and tragic things in those years of history, were together again in the city of Vienna, the city of death, where the innocent were paying for the guilty, but where also, as “Daddy” Small said, there was going out a call to charity which was being heard by the heart of the world above the old war-cries of cruelty.
I stayed with them only a week. I had been long away from England and had other work to do. But in that time I saw how these three friends, and others in their service, were devoting themselves to the rescue of human life, partly, I think, for their own sake, though without conscious selfishness, and with a passionate pity for those who suffered. By this service they were healing their own souls, sorely wounded in the war. That was so, certainly, with Wickham Brand, and a little, I think, with Eileen O’Connor.
Brand was rescued in the nick of time by the doctor’s call to him. Elsa’s death had struck him a heavy blow when his nerves were already in rags and tatters. Now by active service in this work of humanity and healing he was getting back to normality, getting serene and steady. I saw the change in him, revealed by the light in his eyes and by his quietude of speech and the old sense of humour, which for a while he had lost.
“I see now,” he said one night, “that it’s no use fighting against the injustice and brutality of life. I can’t re-make the world or change the things that are written in history or alter in any big way the destiny of peoples. Stupidity, ignorance, barbarity; will continue among the multitude. All that any of us can do is to tackle some good job that lies at hand, and keep his own soul bright and fearless if there is any chance and use his little intellect in his little circle for kindness instead of cruelty. I find that chance here, and I am grateful.”
The doctor had larger and bigger hopes, though his philosophy of life was not much different from that of Brand’s.
“I want to fix up an intellectual company in this funny old universe,” he said. “I want to establish an intellectual aristocracy on international lines—the leaders of the new world. By intellectuals I don’t mean high-brow fellows with letters after their names and encyclopaedias in their brain-pans. I mean men and women who by moral character, kindness of heart, freedom from narrow hatreds, tolerance of different creeds and races, and love of humanity, will unite in a free, unfettered way, without a label or a league, to get a move on towards a better system of human society. No red Bolshevism, mind you, no heaven by way of hell, but a striving for greater justice between classes and nations, and for peace within the frontiers of Christendom, and beyond, if possible. It’s getting back to the influence of the individual, the leadership of multitudes by the power of the higher mind. I’m doing it by penny postcards to all my friends. This work of ours in Vienna is a good proof of their response. Let all the folk with good hearts behind their brains start writing postcards to each other, with a plea for brotherhood, charity, peace, and the new world would come... You laugh! Yes, I talk a little nonsense. It’s not so easy as that. But see the idea? The leaders must keep in touch, and the herds will follow.”
I turned to Eileen who was listening with a smile about her lips while she pasted labels on to packets of cocoa.
“What’s your philosophy?” I asked.
She laughed, in that deep voice of hers.
“I’ve none; only the old faith, and a little hope, and a heart that’s bustin’ with love.”