CHAPTER XXII.
For the sake of peace and quiet Denis had retired earlier on this sameafternoon to his bedroom. He wanted to work, but the hour was a drowsyone, and lunch, so recently eaten, weighed heavily on body and mind. Themeridian demon was upon him; he was possessed by that bored and hopelesspost-prandial melancholy which the coenobites of old knew and fearedunder the name of "accidie." He felt, like Ernest Dowson, "a littleweary." He was in the mood to write something rather exquisite andgentle and quietist in tone; something a little droopy and at the sametime--how should he put it?--a little infinite. He thought of Anne, oflove hopeless and unattainable. Perhaps that was the ideal kind of love,the hopeless kind--the quiet, theoretical kind of love. In this sad moodof repletion he could well believe it. He began to write. One elegantquatrain had flowed from beneath his pen:
"A brooding love which is at most The stealth of moonbeams when theyslide, Evoking colour's bloodless ghost, O'er some scarce-breathingbreast or side..."
when his attention was attracted by a sound from outside. He looked downfrom his window; there they were, Anne and Gombauld, talking, laughingtogether. They crossed the courtyard in front, and passed out of sightthrough the gate in the right-hand wall. That was the way to thegreen close and the granary; she was going to sit for him again. Hispleasantly depressing melancholy was dissipated by a puff of violentemotion; angrily he threw his quatrain into the waste-paper basket andran downstairs. "The stealth of moonbeams," indeed!
In the hall he saw Mr. Scogan; the man seemed to be lying in wait. Denistried to escape, but in vain. Mr. Scogan's eye glittered like the eye ofthe Ancient Mariner.
"Not so fast," he said, stretching out a small saurian hand with pointednails--"not so fast. I was just going down to the flower garden to takethe sun. We'll go together."
Denis abandoned himself; Mr. Scogan put on his hat and they went out armin arm. On the shaven turf of the terrace Henry Wimbush and Mary wereplaying a solemn game of bowls. They descended by the yew-tree walk.It was here, thought Denis, here that Anne had fallen, here that hehad kissed her, here--and he blushed with retrospective shame at thememory--here that he had tried to carry her and failed. Life was awful!
"Sanity!" said Mr. Scogan, suddenly breaking a long silence."Sanity--that's what's wrong with me and that's what will be wrong withyou, my dear Denis, when you're old enough to be sane or insane. Ina sane world I should be a great man; as things are, in this curiousestablishment, I am nothing at all; to all intents and purposes I don'texist. I am just Vox et praeterea nihil."
Denis made no response; he was thinking of other things. "After all,"he said to himself--"after all, Gombauld is better looking than I, moreentertaining, more confident; and, besides, he's already somebody andI'm still only potential..."
"Everything that ever gets done in this world is done by madmen," Mr.Scogan went on. Denis tried not to listen, but the tireless insistenceof Mr. Scogan's discourse gradually compelled his attention. "Men suchas I am, such as you may possibly become, have never achieved anything.We're too sane; we're merely reasonable. We lack the human touch, thecompelling enthusiastic mania. People are quite ready to listen to thephilosophers for a little amusement, just as they would listen to afiddler or a mountebank. But as to acting on the advice of the men ofreason--never. Wherever the choice has had to be made between the man ofreason and the madman, the world has unhesitatingly followed the madman.For the madman appeals to what is fundamental, to passion andthe instincts; the philosophers to what is superficial andsupererogatory--reason."
They entered the garden; at the head of one of the alleys stood a greenwooden bench, embayed in the midst of a fragrant continent of lavenderbushes. It was here, though the place was shadeless and one breathedhot, dry perfume instead of air--it was here that Mr. Scogan elected tosit. He thrived on untempered sunlight.
"Consider, for example, the case of Luther and Erasmus." He took outhis pipe and began to fill it as he talked. "There was Erasmus, a manof reason if ever there was one. People listened to him at first--anew virtuoso performing on that elegant and resourceful instrument, theintellect; they even admired and venerated him. But did he move them tobehave as he wanted them to behave--reasonably, decently, or at least alittle less porkishly than usual? He did not. And then Luther appears,violent, passionate, a madman insanely convinced about matters in whichthere can be no conviction. He shouted, and men rushed to followhim. Erasmus was no longer listened to; he was reviled for hisreasonableness. Luther was serious, Luther was reality--like the GreatWar. Erasmus was only reason and decency; he lacked the power, being asage, to move men to action. Europe followed Luther and embarked ona century and a half of war and bloody persecution. It's a melancholystory." Mr. Scogan lighted a match. In the intense light the flame wasall but invisible. The smell of burning tobacco began to mingle with thesweetly acrid smell of the lavender.
"If you want to get men to act reasonably, you must set about persuadingthem in a maniacal manner. The very sane precepts of the founders ofreligions are only made infectious by means of enthusiasms which to asane man must appear deplorable. It is humiliating to find how impotentunadulterated sanity is. Sanity, for example, informs us that the onlyway in which we can preserve civilisation is by behaving decently andintelligently. Sanity appeals and argues; our rulers persevere in theircustomary porkishness, while we acquiesce and obey. The only hope is amaniacal crusade; I am ready, when it comes, to beat a tambourine withthe loudest, but at the same time I shall feel a little ashamed ofmyself. However"--Mr. Scogan shrugged his shoulders and, pipe in hand,made a gesture of resignation--"It's futile to complain that things areas they are. The fact remains that sanity unassisted is useless. Whatwe want, then, is a sane and reasonable exploitation of the forces ofinsanity. We sane men will have the power yet." Mr. Scogan's eyes shonewith a more than ordinary brightness, and, taking his pipe out of hismouth, he gave vent to his loud, dry, and somehow rather fiendish laugh.
"But I don't want power," said Denis. He was sitting in limp discomfortat one end of the bench, shading his eyes from the intolerable light.Mr. Scogan, bolt upright at the other end, laughed again.
"Everybody wants power," he said. "Power in some form or other. The sortof power you hanker for is literary power. Some people want powerto persecute other human beings; you expend your lust for power inpersecuting words, twisting them, moulding them, torturing them to obeyyou. But I divagate."
"Do you?" asked Denis faintly.
"Yes," Mr. Scogan continued, unheeding, "the time will come. We menof intelligence will learn to harness the insanities to the service ofreason. We can't leave the world any longer to the direction of chance.We can't allow dangerous maniacs like Luther, mad about dogma, likeNapoleon, mad about himself, to go on casually appearing and turningeverything upside down. In the past it didn't so much matter; but ourmodern machine is too delicate. A few more knocks like the Great War,another Luther or two, and the whole concern will go to pieces. Infuture, the men of reason must see that the madness of the world'smaniacs is canalised into proper channels, is made to do useful work,like a mountain torrent driving a dynamo..."
"Making electricity to light a Swiss hotel," said Denis. "You ought tocomplete the simile."
Mr. Scogan waved away the interruption. "There's only one thing to bedone," he said. "The men of intelligence must combine, must conspire,and seize power from the imbeciles and maniacs who now direct us. Theymust found the Rational State."
The heat that was slowly paralysing all Denis's mental and bodilyfaculties, seemed to bring to Mr. Scogan additional vitality. He talkedwith an ever-increasing energy, his hands moved in sharp, quick, precisegestures, his eyes shone. Hard, dry, and continuous, his voice wenton sounding and sounding in Denis's ears with the insistence of amechanical noise.
"In the Rational State," he heard Mr. Scogan saying, "human beings willbe separated out into distinct species, not according to the colour oftheir eyes or the shape of their skulls, but according to the qualitiesof t
heir mind and temperament. Examining psychologists, trained to whatwould now seem an almost superhuman clairvoyance, will test each childthat is born and assign it to its proper species. Duly labelled anddocketed, the child will be given the education suitable to members ofits species, and will be set, in adult life, to perform those functionswhich human beings of his variety are capable of performing."
"How many species will there be?" asked Denis.
"A great many, no doubt," Mr. Scogan answered; "the classification willbe subtle and elaborate. But it is not in the power of a prophet to gointo details, nor is it his business. I will do more than indicate thethree main species into which the subjects of the Rational State will bedivided."
He paused, cleared his throat, and coughed once or twice, evoking inDenis's mind the vision of a table with a glass and water-bottle, and,lying across one corner, a long white pointer for the lantern pictures.
"The three main species," Mr. Scogan went on, "will be these: theDirecting Intelligences, the Men of Faith, and the Herd. Among theIntelligences will be found all those capable of thought, those who knowhow to attain a certain degree of freedom--and, alas, how limited, evenamong the most intelligent, that freedom is!--from the mental bondage oftheir time. A select body of Intelligences, drawn from among those whohave turned their attention to the problems of practical life, willbe the governors of the Rational State. They will employ as theirinstruments of power the second great species of humanity--the men ofFaith, the Madmen, as I have been calling them, who believe in thingsunreasonably, with passion, and are ready to die for their beliefs andtheir desires. These wild men, with their fearful potentialities forgood or for mischief, will no longer be allowed to react casually toa casual environment. There will be no more Caesar Borgias, no moreLuthers and Mohammeds, no more Joanna Southcotts, no more Comstocks. Theold-fashioned Man of Faith and Desire, that haphazard creature of brutecircumstance, who might drive men to tears and repentance, or who mightequally well set them on to cutting one another's throats, will bereplaced by a new sort of madman, still externally the same, stillbubbling with a seemingly spontaneous enthusiasm, but, ah, how verydifferent from the madman of the past! For the new Man of Faith will beexpending his passion, his desire, and his enthusiasm in the propagationof some reasonable idea. He will be, all unawares, the tool of somesuperior intelligence."
Mr. Scogan chuckled maliciously; it was as though he were taking arevenge, in the name of reason, on enthusiasts. "From their earliestyears, as soon, that is, as the examining psychologists have assignedthem their place in the classified scheme, the Men of Faith will havehad their special education under the eye of the Intelligences. Mouldedby a long process of suggestion, they will go out into the world,preaching and practising with a generous mania the coldly reasonableprojects of the Directors from above. When these projects areaccomplished, or when the ideas that were useful a decade ago haveceased to be useful, the Intelligences will inspire a new generation ofmadmen with a new eternal truth. The principal function of the Men ofFaith will be to move and direct the Multitude, that third great speciesconsisting of those countless millions who lack intelligence and arewithout valuable enthusiasm. When any particular effort is required ofthe Herd, when it is thought necessary, for the sake of solidarity, thathumanity shall be kindled and united by some single enthusiastic desireor idea, the Men of Faith, primed with some simple and satisfying creed,will be sent out on a mission of evangelisation. At ordinary times, whenthe high spiritual temperature of a Crusade would be unhealthy, theMen of Faith will be quietly and earnestly busy with the great work ofeducation. In the upbringing of the Herd, humanity's almost boundlesssuggestibility will be scientifically exploited. Systematically, fromearliest infancy, its members will be assured that there is no happinessto be found except in work and obedience; they will be made to believethat they are happy, that they are tremendously important beings, andthat everything they do is noble and significant. For the lower speciesthe earth will be restored to the centre of the universe and man topre-eminence on the earth. Oh, I envy the lot of the commonality in theRational State! Working their eight hours a day, obeying their betters,convinced of their own grandeur and significance and immortality, theywill be marvellously happy, happier than any race of men has ever been.They will go through life in a rosy state of intoxication, from whichthey will never awake. The Men of Faith will play the cup-bearers atthis lifelong bacchanal, filling and ever filling again with the warmliquor that the Intelligences, in sad and sober privacy behind thescenes, will brew for the intoxication of their subjects."
"And what will be my place in the Rational State?" Denis drowsilyinquired from under his shading hand.
Mr. Scogan looked at him for a moment in silence. "It's difficult to seewhere you would fit in," he said at last. "You couldn't do manual work;you're too independent and unsuggestible to belong to the larger Herd;you have none of the characteristics required in a Man of Faith. As forthe Directing Intelligences, they will have to be marvellously clear andmerciless and penetrating." He paused and shook his head. "No, I can seeno place for you; only the lethal chamber."
Deeply hurt, Denis emitted the imitation of a loud Homeric laugh. "I'mgetting sunstroke here," he said, and got up.
Mr. Scogan followed his example, and they walked slowly away down thenarrow path, brushing the blue lavender flowers in their passage. Denispulled a sprig of lavender and sniffed at it; then some dark leaves ofrosemary that smelt like incense in a cavernous church. They passed abed of opium poppies, dispetaled now; the round, ripe seedheads werebrown and dry--like Polynesian trophies, Denis thought; severed headsstuck on poles. He liked the fancy enough to impart it to Mr. Scogan.
"Like Polynesian trophies..." Uttered aloud, the fancy seemed lesscharming and significant than it did when it first occurred to him.
There was a silence, and in a growing wave of sound the whir of thereaping machines swelled up from the fields beyond the garden and thenreceded into a remoter hum.
"It is satisfactory to think," said Mr. Scogan, as they strolled slowlyonward, "that a multitude of people are toiling in the harvest fields inorder that we may talk of Polynesia. Like every other good thing in thisworld, leisure and culture have to be paid for. Fortunately, however,it is not the leisured and the cultured who have to pay. Let us beduly thankful for that, my dear Denis--duly thankful," he repeated, andknocked the ashes out of his pipe.
Denis was not listening. He had suddenly remembered Anne. She was withGombauld--alone with him in his studio. It was an intolerable thought.
"Shall we go and pay a call on Gombauld?" he suggested carelessly. "Itwould be amusing to see what he's doing now."
He laughed inwardly to think how furious Gombauld would be when he sawthem arriving.