Paul already was at work upon the second phase of his huge task. He was seeking to prove that the arts had taken the place of the inspired prophets and sibyls of old, that they were not reflections of the soul of a nation but were expressions of the creative Will—the Od of Baron Reichenbach—and were in fact not effects but causes. Not only did he claim this for the avowed philosophers, but also, in some degree, for every writer, composer, painter or sculptor. In Russian literature he perceived a foreshadowing of the doom of Tzardom and imminent catastrophe. In the literature of France and England he sought to divine the future. The fervent imperialism of Kipling stirred his emotions, but left him spiritually cold. Patriotism was the mother of self-sacrifice, but also of murder, and Paul distrusted all forces which made for intolerance. The delicate word-painting of Pierre Loti, with its typically French genius for exalting the trivial, Paul studied carefully. He found it to resemble the art of those patient, impassive Japanese craftsmen who draw and colour some exquisite trifling design, a bird, a palm tree, and then cut the picture in half in order to fit it into a panel of some quaint little lacquered cabinet as full of unexpected cupboards and drawers as the Cretan Labyrinth was full of turnings. He studied the books of the living as Egypt's priests were wont to study The Book of the Dead, pondering upon Arnold Bennett, who could produce atmosphere without the use of colour, and H. G. Wells who thought aloud. In the hectic genius of D'Annunzio he sought in vain the spirit of Italy. He perceived in those glowing pages the hand of a man possessed, and should have been prepared to find his MSS. written in penmanship other than his own, like those of Madame Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled.
"It all means something, Don," he said one day. "We have been granted an insight to the psychology of the German people, which has enabled us to trace the thread running through their literature, art and music. Oscar Wilde, who wrote, with a style dipped in ambergris, was truly a manifestation of the German spirit which began to invade us subtly at about that time. His scented prose could not conceal this spirit from the perception of Richard Strauss. Strauss recognised it and welcomed it with the music of nebels, kinnors and tabors, as the misguided children of Israel welcomed the golden calf. Nietzche's 'Thou goest among women?—Take thy whip' we see now to be no mere personal expression but the voice of the soul of Germany, a black thread interwoven in their creative art. There is a similar thread, but perhaps of silver, interwoven in our own and in the French art. Where does it begin and whither does it lead?"
Yet those days throughout which Paul laboured unceasingly for the greatest cause of humanity were lotus days for many. London was raided and rationed; London swore softly, demanded a change of government, turned up its coat collar and stumped doggedly along much as usual. Men fought and women prayed, whilst Paul worked night and day to bring some ray of hope to the hearts of those in whom faith was dead. The black thread crept like an ebon stain into the woof of the carpet. The image of the Bull was set up in many a grove hitherto undefiled, and Paul worked the more feverishly because it was one of the inscrutable cosmic laws that the black should sometimes triumph over the white.
Paul's intimacy with Jules Thessaly had grown closer than he realised. Thessaly was become indispensable to him. Paul, had he essayed the task, must have found it all but impossible to disentangle his own ideas, or those due to direct inspiration, from the ideas of Thessaly or those based upon inquiries traceable to the astonishing data furnished by his collection. Item by item he had revealed its treasures to the man who alone had power to wield them as levers to move the world. Remote but splendid creeds, mere hazy memories of mankind, were reconstructed upon these foundations. The Izamal temples of Yucatan were looted of their secrets—the secrets of a great Red Race, mighty in knowledge and power, which had sought to look upon the face of God before the Great Pyramid was fashioned, whose fleets had ruled the vanished seas known to us as the Sahara and North Africa, whose golden capital had looked proudly out upon an empire mightier than Rome—an empire which the Atlantic Ocean had swallowed up. The story of this cataclysm which had engulfed Atlantis, brought to new lands by a few survivors, had bequeathed to men the legend of the Deluge. The riddle of The Sphinx, most ancient religious symbol in the known world, was resolved; for Paul saw it to represent man emerging from the animal and already aspiring to the spiritual state.
War, pestilence and vast geographical upheavals alike were manifestations of spiritual conflict physically reflected. Some of the German philosophers had perceived this dimly, but as one born in blindness fails to comprehend light, their vision was no more than hereditary memory of another pit of doom which had engulfed them. Those who spoke of casting down the spirit of Prussian militarism used metaphor veiling a truth profound as that which underlies the Holy Trinity, and which is symbolised by the Sphinx. As vultures swooped to carrion, as harlots flocked to Babylon, so had the unredeemed souls of the universe descended upon Germany....
Thus his concept of evil was universal, and to those who sought to fix "responsibility" for the war upon this one or that he raised a protesting hand. No man made the Deluge.
By subtle means, insidious as the breath of nard, corruption of primeval sin was spread from race to race. By like means it must be combated, Truth must be disguised if it should penetrate to enemy darkness. A naked truth is rarely acceptable, or, as Don expressed it, "Truth does not strip well." Paul discussed this aspect of the matter with Don and Thessaly one day. "We are all children," he said. "If it were not for such picturesque people as Henry VIII and Charles II we should forget our history for lack of landmarks. Carefully selected words are the writer's landmarks, and in remembering them one remembers the passage which they decorated. I can conjure up at will the entire philosophy of Buddha as epitomised in the Light of Asia by contemplation of such a landmark; Arnold's expression for a sheep, 'woolly mother.' There are other words and phrases which the art of their users in the same way has magically endowed: 'Totem' is one of these. It is for me a Pharos instantly opening up the fairway to a great man's philosophy. 'Damascus,' too, has such properties, and the phrase 'cherry blossom in Japan' bears me upon a magical carpet to a certain street in Yokohama and there unveils to me all the secrets of Japanese mysticism."
"I quite see your point," Don replied. "In the same way I have never ceased to regret that I was not born in Ashby-de-la-Zouch. The possession of such a euphonious birthplace would have coloured all my life."
"But like the Scotsman you would have revered your home from a distance," said Thessaly. "I agree with you that it would have been an ideal birthplace if you had left it at so tender an age that you failed to recall its physical peculiarities. It is the same with women. In order that one should retain nothing but fairy memories of a woman—memories of some poetic name, of the perfume of roses, of beauty glimpsed through gossamer—it is important that one should not have lived with her. Herein lies the lasting glamour of the woman we have never possessed."