I have now to go to the Dorcas, where I will read them your most instructive letter. How true, dear aunt, your idea is, that in their rank of life they should wear what is unbecoming. I must say it is absurd, their anxiety about dress, when there are so many more important things in this world, and in the next. I am so glad your flowered poplin turned out so well, and that your lace was not torn. I am wearing my yellow satin, that you so kindly gave me, at the Bishop’s on Wednesday, and think it will look all right. Would you have bows or not? Jennings says that every one wears bows now, and that the underskirt should be frilled. Reggie has just had another explosion, and papa has ordered the clock to be sent to the stables. I don’t think papa likes it so much as he did at first, though he is very flattered at being sent such a pretty and ingenious toy. It shows that people read his sermons, and profit by them.
Papa sends his love, in which James, and Reggie, and Maria all unite, and, hoping that Uncle Cecil’s gout is better, believe me, dear aunt, ever your affectionate niece,
Jane Percy.
PS.—Do tell me about the bows. Jennings insists they are the fashion.
Lord Arthur looked so serious and unhappy over the letter, that the Duchess went into fits of laughter.
‘My dear Arthur,’ she cried, ‘I shall never show you a young lady’s letter again! But what shall I say about the clock? I think it is a capital invention, and I should like to have one myself.’
‘I don’t think much of them,’ said Lord Arthur, with a sad smile, and, after kissing his mother, he left the room.
When he got upstairs, he flung himself on a sofa, and his eyes filled with tears. He had done his best to commit this murder, but on both occasions he had failed, and through no fault of his own. He had tried to do his duty, but it seemed as if Destiny herself had turned traitor. He was oppressed with the sense of the barrenness of good intentions, of the futility of trying to be fine. Perhaps, it would be better to break off the marriage altogether. Sybil would suffer, it is true, but suffering could not really mar a nature so noble as hers. As for himself, what did it matter? There is always some war in which a man can die, some cause to which a man can give his life, and as life had no pleasure for him, so death had no terror. Let Destiny work out his doom. He would not stir to help her.
At half-past seven he dressed, and went down to the club. Surbiton was there with a party of young men, and he was obliged to dine with them. Their trivial conversation and idle jests did not interest him, and as soon as coffee was brought he left them, inventing some engagement in order to get away. As he was going out of the club, the hall-porter handed him a letter. It was from Herr Winckelkopf, asking him to call down the next evening, and look at an explosive umbrella, that went off as soon as it was opened. It was the very latest invention, and had just arrived from Geneva. He tore the letter up into fragments. He had made up his mind not to try any more experiments. Then he wandered down to the Thames Embankment, and sat for hours by the river. The moon peered through a mane of tawny clouds, as if it were a lion’s eye, and innumerable stars spangled the hollow vault, like gold dust powdered on a purple dome. Now and then a barge swung out into the turbid stream, and floated away with the tide, and the railway signals changed from green to scarlet as the trains ran shrieking across the bridge. After some time, twelve o’clock boomed from the tall tower at Westminster, and at each stroke of the sonorous bell the night seemed to tremble. Then the railway lights went out, one solitary lamp left gleaming like a large ruby on a giant mast, and the roar of the city became fainter.
At two o’clock he got up, and strolled towards Blackfriars. How unreal everything looked! How like a strange dream! The houses on the other side of the river seemed built out of darkness. One would have said that silver and shadow had fashioned the world anew. The huge dome of St. Paul’s loomed like a bubble through the dusky air.
As he approached Cleopatra’s Needle he saw a man leaning over the parapet, and as he came nearer the man looked up, the gas-light falling full upon his face.
It was Mr. Podgers, the cheiromantist! No one could mistake the fat, flabby face, the gold-rimmed spectacles, the sickly feeble smile, the sensual mouth.
Lord Arthur stopped. A brilliant idea flashed across him, and he stole softly up behind. In a moment he had seized Mr. Podgers by the legs, and flung him into the Thames. There was a coarse oath, a heavy splash, and all was still. Lord Arthur looked anxiously over, but could see nothing of the cheiromantist but a tall hat, pirouetting in an eddy of moonlit water. After a time it also sank, and no trace of Mr. Podgers was visible. Once he thought that he caught sight of the bulky misshapen figure striking out for the staircase by the bridge, and a horrible feeling of failure came over him, but it turned out to be merely a reflection, and when the moon shone out from behind a cloud it passed away. At last he seemed to have realised the decree of destiny. He heaved a deep sigh of relief, and Sybil’s name came to his lips.
‘Have you dropped anything, sir?’ said a voice behind him suddenly.
He turned round, and saw a policeman with a bull’s-eye lantern.
‘Nothing of importance, sergeant,’ he answered, smiling, and hailing a passing hansom, he jumped in, and told the man to drive to Belgrave Square.
For the next few days he alternated between hope and fear. There were moments when he almost expected Mr. Podgers to walk into the room, and yet at other times he felt that Fate could not be so unjust to him. Twice he went to the cheiromantist’s address in West Moon Street, but he could not bring himself to ring the bell. He longed for certainty, and was afraid of it.
Finally it came. He was sitting in the smoking-room of the club having tea, and listening rather wearily to Surbiton’s account of the last comic song at the Gaiety, when the waiter came in with the evening papers. He took up the St. James’s, and was listlessly turning over its pages, when this strange heading caught his eye:
SUICIDE OF A CHEIROMANTIST.
He turned pale with excitement, and began to read. The paragraph ran as follows:
Yesterday morning, at seven o’clock, the body of Mr. Septimus R. Podgers, the eminent cheiromantist, was washed on shore at Greenwich, just in front of the Ship Hotel. The unfortunate gentleman had been missing for some days, and considerable anxiety for his safety had been felt in cheiromantic circles. It is supposed that he committed suicide under the influence of a temporary mental derangement, caused by overwork, and a verdict to that effect was returned this afternoon by the coroner’s jury. Mr. Podgers had just completed an elaborate treatise on the subject of the Human Hand, that will shortly be published, when it will no doubt attract much attention. The deceased was sixty-five years of age, and does not seem to have left any relations.
Lord Arthur rushed out of the club with the paper still in his hand, to the immense amazement of the hall-porter, who tried in vain to stop him, and drove at once to Park Lane. Sybil saw him from the window, and something told her that he was the bearer of good news. She ran down to meet him, and, when she saw his face, she knew that all was well.
‘My dear Sybil,’ cried Lord Arthur, ‘let us be married to-morrow!’
‘You foolish boy! Why, the cake is not even ordered!’ said Sybil, laughing through her tears.
VI
When the wedding took place, some three weeks later, St. Peter’s was crowded with a perfect mob of smart people. The service was read in the most impressive manner by the Dean of Chichester, and everybody agreed that they had never seen a handsomer couple than the bride and bridegroom. They were more than handsome, however—they were happy. Never for a single moment did Lord Arthur regret all that he had suffered for Sybil’s sake, while she, on her side, gave him the best things a woman can give to any man—worship, tenderness, and love. For them romance was not killed by reality. They always felt young.
Some years afterwards, when two beautiful children had been born to them, Lady Windermere came down on a visit to Alton Priory, a lovely old place, that had been the Duke’s
wedding present to his son; and one afternoon as she was sitting with Lady Arthur under a lime-tree in the garden, watching the little boy and girl as they played up and down the rose-walk, like fitful sunbeams, she suddenly took her hostess’s hand in hers, and said, ‘Are you happy, Sybil?’
‘Dear Lady Windermere, of course I am happy. Aren’t you?’
‘I have no time to be happy, Sybil. I always like the last person who is introduced to me; but, as a rule, as soon as I know people I get tired of them.’
‘Don’t your lions satisfy you, Lady Windermere?’
‘Oh dear, no! lions are only good for one season. As soon as their manes are cut, they are the dullest creatures going. Besides, they behave very badly, if you are really nice to them. Do you remember that horrid Mr. Podgers? He was a dreadful impostor. Of course, I didn’t mind that at all, and even when he wanted to borrow money I forgave him, but I could not stand his making love to me. He has really made me hate cheiromancy. I go in for telepathy now. It is much more amusing.’
‘You mustn’t say anything against cheiromancy here, Lady Windermere; it is the only subject that Arthur does not like people to chaff about. I assure you he is quite serious over it.’
‘You don’t mean to say that he believes in it, Sybil?’
‘Ask him, Lady Windermere, here he is’; and Lord Arthur came up the garden with a large bunch of yellow roses in his hand, and his two children dancing round him.
‘Lord Arthur?’
‘Yes, Lady Windermere.’
‘You don’t mean to say that you believe in cheiromancy?’
‘Of course I do,’ said the young man, smiling.
‘But why?’
‘Because I owe to it all the happiness of my life,’ he murmured, throwing himself into a wicker chair.
‘My dear Lord Arthur, what do you owe to it?’
‘Sybil,’ he answered, handing his wife the roses, and looking into her violet eyes.
‘What nonsense!’ cried Lady Windermere. ‘I never heard such nonsense in all my life.’
The Sorcerer of the
White Lotus Lodge
Once upon a time there was a sorcerer who belonged to the White Lotus Lodge. He knew how to deceive the multitude with his black arts, and many who wished to learn the secret of his enchantments became his pupils.
One day the sorcerer wished to go out. He placed a bowl which he covered with another bowl in the hall of his house, and ordered his pupils to watch it. But he warned them against uncovering the bowl to see what might be in it.
No sooner had he gone than the pupils uncovered the bowl and saw that it was filled with clear water. And floating on the water was a little ship made of straw, with real masts and sails. They were surprised and pushed it with their fingers till it upset. Then they quickly righted it again and once more covered the bowl. By that time the sorcerer was already standing among them. He was angry and scolded them, saying: ‘Why did you disobey my command?’
His pupils rose and denied that they had done so.
But the sorcerer answered: ‘Did not my ship turn turtle at sea, and yet you try to deceive me?’
On another evening he lit a giant candle in his room, and ordered his pupils to watch it lest it be blown out by the wind. It must have been at the second watch of the night and the sorcerer had not yet come back. The pupils grew tired and sleepy, so they went to bed and gradually fell asleep. When they woke up again the candle had gone out. So they rose quickly and re-lit it. But the sorcerer was already in the room, and again he scolded them.
‘Truly we did not sleep! How could the light have gone out?’
Angrily the sorcerer replied: ‘You let me walk fifteen miles in the dark, and still you can talk such nonsense!’
—RICHARD WILHELM
The Celestial Stag
An unaccountable tale is told in the Tzŭ Puh Yü of the Celestial stag, which lives in underground mines, and guides the workmen to the veins of gold and silver. If these creatures are hauled up into the daylight, they change into an offensively-smelling liquid, which deals pestilence and death around. If the miners refuse to haul them up (apparently they can speak, and are anxious to get out), the ‘stags’ molest the miners, and have to be overpowered, immured in the mine, and firmly embedded in clay. Where the ‘stags’ outnumber the miners, they sometimes torment the men and cause their death.
—G. WILLOUGHBY-MEADE
Saved by the Book
The literate Wu, of Ch’iang Ling on a certain occasion insulted the magician. Expecting the latter to try some trick on him, Wu sat up the following night with his lamp alight and the I Ching before him. Suddenly a wind was heard, rushing round the outside of his house; and a man-at-arms came in at the door, brandishing a spear and threatening to strike him. Wu knocked him down with the book. When he stooped to look at him, he saw that he was merely a doll cut out in paper. He slipped the paper figure between the leaves of the sacred classic. Presently entered two little Kuei with black faces, armed with axes. These, when knocked down with the book, turned out to be paper figures also, and were slipped between the leaves. In the middle of the night, a woman, weeping and wailing, came knocking at the door. ‘I am the wife of Chang the magician,’ she said. ‘My husband and sons came to attack you, and you have imprisoned them in your book. I beg you to set them free.’ ‘I have neither your husband nor your sons in my book,’ replied Wu. ‘I have only these little paper figures.’ ‘Their souls are in those figures,’ said the woman. ‘Unless they return by the morning, their bodies, lying at home, will not revive.’
‘Cursed magicians!’ cried Wu. ‘What can you justly expect, after what you have done to other people? I shall certainly not set them free. Out of compassion, I will let you have one of your sons back, but do not ask more.’ Whereupon he handed her one of the little paper Kuei.
The next day he had enquiries made at Chang’s house and learned that he and his elder son had died in the night, leaving a widow and a younger son.
—G. WILLOUGHBY-MEADE
The Reanimated Englishman
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, (1797-1851), born in London, was the only child of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. In 1814 she went to the Continent with Shelley, marrying him two years later, and at Byron’s villa at Lake Geneva she conceived the idea for her famous novel Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus.
Animation (I believe physiologists agree) can as easily be suspended for a hundred or two years, as for as many seconds. A body hermetically sealed up by the frost, is of necessity preserved in its pristine entireness. That which is totally secluded from the action of external agency, can neither have any thing added to nor taken away from it: no decay can take place, for something can never become nothing; under the influence of that state of being which we call death, change but not annihilation removes from our sight the corporeal atoms; the earth receives sustenance from them, the air is fed by them, each element takes its own, thus seizing forcible repayment of what it had lent. But the elements that hovered around Mr Dodsworth’s icy shroud had no power to overcome the obstacle it presented. No zephyr could gather a hair from his head, nor could the influence of dewy night or genial morn penetrate his more than adamantine panoply. The story of the Seven Sleepers rests on a miraculous interposition—they slept. Mr Dodsworth did not sleep; his breast never heaved, his pulses were stopped; death had his finger pressed on his lips which no breath might pass. He has removed it now, the grim shadow is vanquished, and stands wondering . . .
The Sentence
That night, at the hour of the rat, the Emperor dreamt that he went out of his palace to walk under the blossoming trees by moonlight. Suddenly someone knelt before him saying, ‘Save me, your Majesty, save me!’ ‘Who are you?’ asked the Emperor. ‘Of course I’ll help you.’ ‘Your Majesty,’ said the dragon king, ‘is a True Dragon. I am but a dragon by karma. I have disobeyed Heaven’s instructions and am to be executed by your minister Wei Chêng. I have come to ask you to help me.�
�� ‘If it is Wei Chêng who is to execute you,’ said the Emperor, ‘I can certainly put things right. You needn’t worry.’ The dragon thanked him profusely and went off.
Scanning the ranks of his ministers at Court next morning, the Emperor noticed that Wei Chêng was not in his usual place. ‘You must get him to come here at once, and keep him occupied all day,’ said one of the other ministers, when he heard the Emperor’s dream. ‘That is the only way to keep your promise and save the dragon.’
Meanwhile Wei Chêng, sitting in his house at night, surveying the constellations and burning rare incense, suddenly heard the cry of a crane high up in the sky, and in a moment there alighted a heavenly messenger, bearing instructions from the Jade Emperor that Wei Chêng was in dream to execute the dragon king of the Ching River at noon next day. Wei Chêng accordingly purified himself, tested the sword of his intelligence and the free fling of his soul, and kept away from Court. But when the Emperor’s summons came he dared not delay, and hastily robing himself he went back to Court at once with the messenger, and apologized for his absence. ‘I am not complaining,’ said the Emperor, and when they had discussed State affairs for a while, he sent for a draughts board and invited Wei Chêng to a game of draughts. Just before noon, when there were still a good many pieces on the board, Wei Chêng’s head suddenly nodded, he began to snore heavily, and was evidently fast asleep. The Emperor smiled. ‘No wonder he is tired,’ thought the Emperor, ‘when one thinks of all the public business he has on his shoulders,’ and he did not attempt to wake him.
When at last Wei Chêng woke up, he was appalled to find that he had dozed in the Imperial presence, and flung himself at the Emperor’s feet, saying, ‘I deserve death a thousand times, I suddenly felt tired; I don’t know why it happened. I beg your Majesty to pardon me for this gross disrespect.’ ‘Get up,’ said the Emperor, ‘you’ve done nothing disrespectful.’ Then emptying the remaining pieces off the board he suggested that they should start a new game. They were just setting the pieces, when in rushed two captains, carrying a dragon’s head dripping with blood. They flung it at the Emperor’s feet, crying, ‘Your Majesty, we have heard of seas becoming shallow and rivers running dry. But of so strange a thing as this we have never heard tell.’ ‘Where does this thing come from?’ Wei Chêng and the Emperor exclaimed in chorus. ‘To the south of the Thousand Steps Gallery, at the top of Cross Street,’ they said, ‘it fell from the clouds, and we thought it right to inform you at once.’ ‘What does all this mean?’ asked the Emperor, turning much perturbed to Wei Chêng. ‘It is the head of the dragon that I killed in dream just now, when I fell asleep,’ he said.
The Book of Fantasy Page 58