“What do you think of the subject of the ‘Paradise Lost.’ Miss Furze?”
“I hardly know; it seems so far away.”
“Ah! that is just the point. I thought so once, but not now. Milton could not content himself with a common theme; nothing less than God and the man—mortal feud between Him and Satan would suffice. Milton is representative to me of what I may call the heroic attitude towards existence. Mark, too, the importance of man in the book. Men and women are not mere bubbles—here for a moment and then gone—but they are actually important, all-important, I may even say, to the Maker of the universe and his great enemy. In this Milton follows Christianity, but what stress he lays on the point! Our temptation, notwithstanding our religion, so often is to doubt our own value. All appearances tend to make us doubt it. Don’t you think so?”
Catharine looked earnestly at the excited preacher, but said nothing.
“I do not mean our own personal worth. The temptation is to doubt whether it is of the smallest consequence whether we are or are not, and whether our being here is not an accident. Oh, Miss Furze, to think that your existence and mine are part of the Divine eternal plan, and that without us it would be wrecked! Then there is Satan. Milton has gone beyond the Bible, beyond what is authorised, in giving such a distinct, powerful, and prominent individuality to Satan. You will remember that in the great celestial battle—
“‘Long time in even scale
The battle hung.’
But what a wonderful conception that is of the great antagonist of God! It comes out even more strongly in the ‘Paradise Regained.’ Is it not a relief to think that the evil thought in you or me is not altogether yours and mine, but is foreign; that it is an incident in the war of wars, an attack on one of the soldiers of the Most High?”
Mr. Cardew paused.
“Have you never written anything which I could read?”
“Scarcely anything. I wrote some time ago a little story of a few pages, but it was never published. I will lend you the manuscript, but you will please remember that it is anonymous, and that I do not wish the authorship revealed. I believe most people would not think any the better of me, certainly as a clergyman, if they knew it was mine.”