NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

AND OTHER STORIES

BY BERTRAND RUSSELL

The Impact of Science on Society

New Hopes for a Changing World

Authority and the Individual

Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits

History of Western Philosophy

The Principles of Mathematics

Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy

The Analysis of Mind

Our Knowledge of the External World

An Outline of Philosophy

The Philosophy of Leibniz

An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth

Unpopular Essays

Power

In Praise of Idleness

The Conquest of Happiness

Sceptical Essays

Mysticism and Logic

The Scientific Outlook

Marriage and Morals

Education and the Social Order

On Education

Freedom and Organization, 1814-1914

Principles of Social Reconstruction

Roads to Freedom

Practice and Theory of Bolshevism

Satan in the Suburbs

NIGHTMARES

OF EMINENT PERSONS

AND OTHER STORIES

by

BERTRAND RUSSELL

illustrated by

CHARLES W. STEWART

THE BODLEY HEAD

LONDON

First published 1954

Reprinted 1954

by arrangement with the author's regular publishers

GEORGE ALLEN AND UNWIN LTD

This look is copyright under the Berne Convention. Apart

from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study y

research^ criticism or review^ as permitted under the Copyright

Act 1911, no portion may be reproduced by any process without

n. Inquiry should be made to the publisher.

Printed in Great Britain by

UNWIN BROTHERS LIMITED, WOKING AND LONDON

for JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD LTD

28 Little Russell Street London WCi

PREFACE

It is only fair to warn the reader that not all the stories in

this volume are intended to cause amusement. Of the "Night-

mares," some are purely fantastic, while others represent

possible, though not probable, horrors. "Zahatopolk" is

designed to be completely serious. The last story, "Faith

and Mountains," may strike some readers as fantastic, but, if

so, they must have led sheltered lives, as appears from the

following :

"Taking its cue from the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II

of England this year, the National Pickle Association

started a search for an American girl with the name of

Elizabeth Pickle to be the ruler of Pickledom during 1953.

The Peanut Journal and Nut World." (Quoted from the

Observer, June 28, 1953.)

I wish Elizabeth Pickle all success !

CONTENTS

Preface page 5

Nightmares of Eminent Persons

THE QUEEN OF SHEBA*S NIGHTMARE:

Put Not Thy Trust in Princes 9

MR. BOWDLER'S NIGHTMARE: Family Bliss 16

THE PSYCHOANALYST'S NIGHTMARE: Adjustment a Fugue 21

THE METAPHYSICIAN'S NIGHTMARE : Retro Me Satanas 31

THE EXISTENTIALIST'S NIGHTMARE:

The Achievement of Existence 36

THE MATHEMATICIAN'S NIGHTMARE:

The Vision of Professor Squarepunt 40

STALIN'S NIGHTMARE: Amor Vinch Omnia 45

EISENHOWER'S NIGHTMARE: The McCarthy-Malenkov Pact 49

DEAN ACHESON'S NIGHTMARE:

The Swan-Song of Menelaus S. Bloggs 56

DR. SOUTHPORT VULPES'S NIGHTMARE:

The Victory of Mind Over Matter 60

Zahatopolk page 69

Faith and Mountains page 113

Nightmares of Eminent Persons

INTRODUCTION

The following "Nightmares" might be called "Signposts to

Sanity." Every isolated passion is, in isolation, insane;

sanity may be defined as a synthesis of insanities. Every

dominant passion generates a dominant fear, the fear of its

non-fulfilment. Every dominant fear generates a nightmare,

sometimes in the form of an explicit and conscious fanaticism,

sometimes in a paralysing timidity, sometimes in an un-

conscious or subconscious terror which finds expression

only in dreams. The man who wishes to preserve sanity in

a dangerous world should summon in his own mind a

Parliament of fears, in which each in turn is voted absurd by

all the others. The dreamers of the following nightmares did

not adopt this technique; it is hoped that the reader will

have more wisdom.

THE QUEEN OF SHEBA'S NIGHTMARE

Put Not Thy Trust in Princes

The Queen of Sheba, returning from her visit to King Solomon,

was riding through the desert on a white ass with her Grand Vizier

beside her on an ass of more ordinary colour. As they rode, she

discoursed reminiscently about the wealth and wisdom of Solomon.

"I had always thought," she said, "that I do pretty well in the

way of royal splendour, and I had hoped beforehand that I should

be able to hold my own, but when I had seen his possessions I had

no spirit left in me. But the treasures of his palace are as nothing

to the treasures of his mind. Ah, my dear Vizier, what wisdom,

what knowledge of life, what sagacity his conversation displays !

If you had as much political sagacity in your whole body as that

King has in his little finger, we should have none of these troubles

in my kingdom. But it is not only in wealth and wisdom that he

is matchless. He is also (though perhaps I am the only one privileged

to know this) a supreme poet. He gave me as we parted a jewelled

10 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

volume in his own inimitable handwriting, telling in language of

exquisite beauty the joy that he had experienced in my company.

There are passages celebrating some of my more intimate charms

which I should blush to show you; but there are portions of this

book which I may perhaps read to you to beguile the evenings of

our journey through the desert. In this exquisite volume not only

are his own words such as any lady would love to hear from

amorous lips, but by a quintessence of imaginative sympathy he has

attributed to me poetic words which I should be glad to have

uttered. Never again, I am convinced, shall I find such perfect union,

such entire harmony, and such penetration into the recesses of the

soul. My public duties, alas, compel me to return to my kingdom,

but I shall carry with me to my dying day the knowledge that there

is on earth one man worthy of my love."

"Your Majesty," replied the Vizier, "it is not for me to instil

doubts into the royal breast, but to all those who serve you, it is

incredible that among men your equal should exist."

At this moment, emerging out of the sunset, a weary figure

appeared on foot.

"Who may this be?" said the Queen.

"Some beggar, your Majesty," said the Grand Vizier. "I strongly

advise you to steer clear of him."

But a certain dignity in the aspect of the approaching stranger

seemed to her indicative of something more than a beggar. And in

spite of the Grand Vizier's protests she turned her ass towards him.

"And who may you be?" she said.

His answer dispelled at once the Grand Vizier's suspicions, for

he spoke in the most polished idiom of the court of Sheba: "Your

Majesty," he said, "my name is Beelzebub, but it is probably un-

known to you, as I seldom travel far from the land of Canaan. Who

you are, I know. And not only who you are, but whence you come,

and what fancies inspire your sunset meditations. You have come,

I know, from visiting that wise king who, though my humble guise

might seem to belie my words, has been for many years my firm

friend. I am convinced that he has told you concerning himself all

that he wishes you to know. But if though the hypothesis seems

THE QUEEN OF SHEBA S NIGHTMARE //

rash there is anything that you wish to know concerning him

beyond what he has seen fit to tell, you have but to ask me, for he

has* no secrets from me."

"You surprise me/' said the Queen, "but I see that our con-

versation will be too long to be conducted conveniently while you

walk and I ride. My Grand Vizier shall dismount and give his ass

to you."

With an ill grace the Grand Vizier complied.

"I suppose," the Queen said, "that your conversations with

Solomon were mainly concerned with statecraft and matters of deep

wisdom. I, as a Queen not unrenowned for wisdom, also conversed

with him on these topics; but some of our conversation so at least

I flatter myself revealed a side of him less intimately known, I

should imagine, to you than to me. And some of the best of this

he put into a book which he gave to me as we parted. This book

contains many beauties, for example, a lovely description of the

spring."

"Ah," said Beelzebub, "and does he in this description speak of

the voice of the turtle?"

"Why, yes," said the Queen. "But how did you guess?"

"Oh, well," Beelzebub replied, "he was proud of having noticed

the turtle talking in the spring and liked to bring it in when he

could."

"Some of his compliments," the Queen resumed, "particularly

pleased me. I had practised Hebrew during the journey to Jerusalom,

but was not sure whether I had mastered it adequately. I was there-

fore delighted when he said, Thy speech is comely.' "

"Very nice of him," said Beelzebub. "And did he at the same

time remark that your Majesty's temples are like a piece of pome-

granate?"

"Well, really," said the Queen, "this is getting uncanny! He did

say so, and I thought it rather an odd remark. But how on earth

did you guess ?"

"Well," Beelzebub replied, "you know all great men have kinks,

and one of his is a peculiar interest in pomegranates."

"It is true," said the Queen, "that so me of his comparisons are

12 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

a little odd. He said, for instance, that my eyes were like the fish-

pools of Heshbon."

"I have known him," said Beelzebub, "to make even stranger

comparisons. Did he ever compare your Majesty's nose to the

Tower of Lebanon ?"

"Good gracious," said the Queen, "this is too much! He did

make that comparison. But you are persuading me that you must

have some more intimate source of knowledge than I had suspected."

"Your Majesty," Beelzebub replied, "I fear that what I have to

say may cause you some pain. The fact is that some of his wives

were friends of mine, and through them I got to know him well/*

"Yes, but how about this love poem?"

"Well, you see, when he was young, while his father was still

alive, he had to take more trouble. In those days he loved a farmer's

virtuous daughter, and only overcame her scruples by his poetic

gifts. Afterwards, he thought it a pity the gifts should be wasted,

and he gave a copy to each of his ladies in turn. You see, he was

essentiallya collector, as you must have noticed when you went

over his house. By long practice, he made each in turn think herself

supreme in his affections; and you, dear lady, are his last and most

signal triumph."

"Oh, the wretch!" she said. "Never again will I be deceived by

the perfidy of man. Never again will I let flattery blind me. To

think that I, who throughout my dominions am accounted the

wisest of women, should have permitted myself to be so misled!"

"Nay, dear lady," said Beelzebub, "be not so cast down, for

Solomon is not only the wisest man in his dominions, but the

wisest of all men, and will be known as such through countless ages.

To have been deceived by him is scarcely matter for shame."

"Perhaps you are right," she said, "but it will take time to heal

the wound to my pride."

"Ah, sweet Queen," Beelzebub replied, "how happy could I be

if I could hasten the healing work of Time ! Far be it from me to

imitate the wiles of that perfidious monarch. From me shall flow

only simple words dictated by the spontaneous sentiments of the

heart. To you, the Peerless, the Incomparable, the Matchless Jewel

THE QUEEN OF SHEBA*S NIGHTMARE ZJ

of the South, I would give if you permit it whatever balm a true

appreciation of your worth can offer."

"Your words are soothing/' she replied, "but can you match

his splendours? Have you a palace that can compare with his?

Have you such store of precious stones ? Such robes, purveying the

aroma of myrrh and frankincense ? And, more important than any

of these, have you a wisdom equal to his ?"

"Lovely Sheba," he replied, "I can satisfy you on every point.

I have a palace far grander than Solomon's. I have a far greater

store of precious stones. My robes of State are as numerous as the

stars in the sky. And as for wisdom, his is not a match for mine.

Solomon is surprised that, although the rivers flow into the sea,

yet the sea is not full. I know why this is, and will explain it to your

Majesty on some long winter evening. To come to a more serious

lapse, it was after he had seen you that he said 'there is no new

thing under the sun.' Can you doubt that in his thoughts he was

comparing you unfavourably with the farmer's daughter of his

youth? And can any man be accounted wise who, having beheld

you, does not at once perceive that here is a new wonder of beauty

and majesty? No! In a competition of wisdom I have nothing to

fear from him."

With a smile, half of resignation concerning the past, and half

of dawning hope for a happier future, she turned her eyes upon

Beelzebub and said: "Your words are beguiling. I made a long

journey from my kingdom to Solomon's, and I thought I had seen

what is most noteworthy on this earth. But, if you speak truth,

your kingdom, your palace, and your wisdom, all surpass Solo-

mon's. May I extend my journey by a visit to your dominion?"

He returned her smile with one in which the appearance of love

barely concealed the reality of triumph. "I can imagine no greater

delight," he said, "than that you should allow me this opportunity

to place my poor riches at your feet. Let us go while yet the night

is young. But the way is dark and difficult, and infested by fierce

robbers. If you are to be safe, you must trust yourself completely

to my guidance."

"I will," she said. "You have given me new hope."

14 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

At this moment they arrived at a measureless cavern in the

mountain-side. Holding aloft a flaming torch, Beelzebub led the

way through long tunnels and tortuous passages. At last they

emerged into a vast hall lit by innumerable lamps. The walls and

roof glittered with precious stones whose scintillating facets flashed

back the light of the lamps. In solemn state, three hundred silver

thrones were ranged round the walls.

"This is indeed magnificent," said the Queen.

"Oh," said Beelzebub, "this is only my second-rate hall of

audience. You shall now see the Presence Chamber."

Opening a hitherto invisible door, he led her into another hall,

more than twice as large as the first, more than twice as brilliantly

lit, and more than twice as richly jewelled. Round three walls of

this hall were seven hundred golden thrones. On the fourth wall

were two thrones, composed entirely of precious stones, diamonds,

sapphires, rubies, huge pearls, bound together by some strange art

which the Queen could not fathom.

"This," he said, "is my great hall, and of the two jewelled

thrones, one is mine and the other shall be yours."

"But who," she said, "is to occupy the seven hundred golden

thrones?"

"Ah well," he said, "you will know that in due course."

As he spoke, a queenly figure, only slightly less splendid than

the Queen of Sheba, glided in and occupied the first of the golden

thrones. With something of a shock, the Queen of Sheba recognized

Solomon's Chief Consort.

"I had not expected to meet her here," she said with a slight

tremor.

"Ah well," said Beelzebub, "you see I have magic powers. And

while I have been wooing you, I have been telling this good lady

also that Solomon is .not all he seems. She listened to my words

as you have listened, and she has come."

Scarcely had he finished speaking, when another lady, whom

also the Queen of Sheba recognized from her visit to Solomon's

harem, entered and occupied the second golden throne. Then

came a third, a fourth, a fifth, until it seemed as if the procession

THE QUEEN OF SHEBA*S NIGHTMARE 1 5

would never end. At last all the seven hundred golden thrones were

occupied.

"You may be wondering," Beelzebub remarked in silken tones,

"about the three hundred silver thrones. All these are by now

occupied by Solomon's three hundred concubines. All the thousand

in this hall and the other have heard from me words not unlike

those that you have heard, all have been convinced by me, and all

are here."

"Perfidious monster!" exclaimed the Queen. "How could I

have had the simplicity to let myself be deceived a second time !

Henceforth I will reign alone, and no male shall ever again be

given a chance to deceive me. Good-bye, foul fiend ! If you ever

venture into my dominions, you shall suffer the fate that your

villainy has deserved."

"No, good lady," Beelzebub replied, "I am afraid you do not

quite realize the position. I showed you the way in, but only I

can find the way out. This is the abode of the dead, and you are

here for all eternity but not for all eternity on the diamond throne

beside mine. That you will occupy only until you are superseded

by an even more divine queen, the last Queen of Egypt."

These words produced in her such a tumult of rage and despair

that she awoke.

"I fear," said the Grand Vizier, "that your Majesty has had

troubled dreams."

MR. BOWDLER'S NIGHTMARE

Family Bliss

Mr. Bowdler, the highly meritorious author of The Family Shakes-

peare, which the most innocent young lady could read without a

blush, never showed in waking life any doubt of the usefulness of

his labours. It would seem, however, that somewhere within the

depths of that good man's unconscious there must have lurked a

still small voice, malign and mocking. It was his practice on

Sundays to dispense liberal helpings of pork to his family and not

least to himself. It was accompanied by boiled potatoes and cabbage,

and followed by roly-poly pudding. For himself, though not for

the rest of the household, there was a moderate portion of ale.

After this repast, it was his custom to take a brisk walk. But once,

when snow and sleet were falling heavily, he permitted himself to

break through his usual routine and rest in a chair with a good

book. The good book, however, was not very interesting, and he

fell asleep. In his sleep he was afflicted by the following nightmare:

MR. BOWDLER S NIGHTMARE IJ

Mr. Bowdler was believed by all the world, and is still believed

by many, to have been a pattern of all the virtues. He had, however,

at one time dreadful reason to doubt whether, in fact, he was all

that his neighbours believed him.

In his youth he wrote a scathing attack upon Wilkes (of Wilkes &

Liberty), whom he considered, not wholly without reason, to be a

libertine. Wilkes was, by this time, past his prime, and no longer

capable of taking such vengeance as in earlier years would have

been natural to him. He left in his will a considerable sum of money

to young Mr. Spiffkins, with the sole condition that Mr. Spiffkins,

to the best of his ability, should bring disaster upon the head of

Mr. Bowdler. Mr. Spiffkins, I regret to say, unhesitatingly accepted

the unscrupulous legacy.

With a view to carrying out the provisions of Wilkes's will, he

visited Mr. Bowdler under the guise of seeming friendship. He

found Mr. Bowdler in the fullest enjoyment of perfect family bliss.

He had a child on each knee, and was saying: "Ride a cock horse

to Banbury Cross." Presently two oth^t- Children began to clamour:

"Our turn now, Papa!" and they T turn, were provided

with oscillatory ecstasy. Mrs. Bowd* .om, good-natured, and

smiling, surveyed the happy scene whi ; bustled about preparing

the tea.

Mr. Spiffkins, with that exquisite tact which had caused Mr.

Wilkes to select him, led the conversation to those literary topics

which he knew to be dear to the heart of Mr. Bowdler, and to the

principles which had guided that gentleman in making the works

of great men not unfit to be put into the hands of little women.

The utmost harmony prevailed until at last, after tea was over, and

Mrs. Bowdler could be seen through the open door of the pantry

washing up the tea-cups, Mr. Spiffkins rose to go. As he was saying

good-bye, he remarked:

"I am impressed, dear Mr. Bowdler, by your quiverful of domestic

blessings, but having carefully studied all the omissions that you

have made in the works of the Bard of Avon, I am compelled to

conclude that these smiling infants owe their existence to

parthenogenesis "

18 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

Mr. Bowdler, red with fury, shouted: "Get out!" and slammed

the door in the face of Mr. Spiffkins. But alas, Mrs. Bowdler, in

spite of the clatter of the tea-cups, had overheard the dreadful

word. What it meant she could not imagine, but since she did not

know it, and her husband disapproved of it, she had no doubt that

it must be a bad word.

It was not the sort of matter about which she could ask her

husband. He would only have replied: "My dear, it means some-

thing about which good women do not think." She was therefore

left to her own devices. She knew, of course, all about Genesis,

but the first half of the word remained obscure to her. One day,

greatly daring, she stole into her husband's library while he was

out, and fetching down the Classical Dictionary, read all that it

had to say about the Parthenon. But still the meaning of this

strange word eluded her. There was nothing about the Parthenon

in Genesis, and nothing about Genesis in the frieze of the Parthenon.

The more her researches were baffled, the more the subject

obsessed her. Her housf . 1 which had been impeccable, became

slovenly. She broodea ne Wednesday she even forgot to

provide shrimps for tec ng which she had not forgotten on

any Wednesday since ia PP7 day when she was united to

Mr. Bowdler in the holy mds of wedlock.

At last matters reached a point at which Mr. Bowdler felt it

necessary to summon medical assistance. The doctor asked in-

numerable questions, tapped Mrs. Bowdler's forehead with a little

wooden mallet, felt her bumps, and finally bled her, but all to no

avail. At last he said:

"Well, my dear lady, I fear there is only one cure for your com-

plaint, and that is edax rerum (his pedantic name for Time). We

must look to Time, the great healer."

"Pray, dear Doctor, where is edax rerum to be obtained?" said

Mrs. Bowdler.

"Anywhere," the doctor replied.

Although she had not much faith in his wisdom, for, after all,

she had not disclosed to him the source of the trouble, she never-

theless went to the family apothecary and asked him whether he

MR. ROWDLER'S NIGHTMARE t$

would supply her with edax rerum. He blushed and stammered and

said: "Madam, that is not the sort of thing that nice ladies ought

to want."

She retired in confusion.

Baffled in one direction, her desperate state impelled her to an

attempt in another. It was part of her husband's duty to read books

of the sort that he wished to suppress, and by examining the bills

of booksellers on his desk, she came to know the name and address

of one whom, judging by the items supplied to Mr. Bowdler, she

thought likely to possess literature even on so dreadful a subject

as that in which she was interested. Thickly veiled, she ventured

into his premises, and boldly said:

"Sir, I desire a book to instruct me on parthenogenesis."

"Madam," he replied, observing such charms of person as her

veil did not conceal, "parthenogenesis is what you will not learn

about if you come upstairs with me."

Horrified and frightened, she fled.

Only one hope remained to her, a hope involving a desperate

resolve and a courage of which she almost doubted herself to be

possessed. She remembered that her husband, in order to complete

his Family Shakespeare, that boon to every decent household,

had been forced, painful as the task undoubtedly must have been,

to read the unexpurgated works of that regrettably free-spoken

author. She knew that he possessed, behind the locked doors of a

certain book-case, a pre-Bowdlerian Shakespeare, in which all the

passages that he had wisely seen fit to omit were underlined in

order to facilitate the work of the printer. "Surely," she thought,

"where so much has been omitted, I am sure to find the word

'parthenogenesis* in some underlined passage, and I cannot doubt

that the context will show me the meaning of this word."

One day, when her husband had been invited to address a

congress of virtuous booksellers, she crept into his study, found

the key to the locked book-case after some search in his desk,

unlocked the fatal doors, and extracted the tattered volume with

its appalling lore. Page after page she perused, but nowhere did she

find the word she sought. She found, however, many things that

-20 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

she had not sought. Horrified, yet fascinated, repelled, and yet

absorbed, she read on and on, oblivious of the passage of time.

Suddenly she became aware that the door was open and that her

husband stood in the doorway. In tones of horror, he exclaimed:

"Good God, Maria, what volume do I behold in your hands?

Are you not aware that poison drips from its pages? that the

infection of lewd thoughts leaps from its every letter into the

unguarded female mind? Have you forgotten that it has been my

life's task to preserve the innocent from such pollution ? Oh, that

failure so dire should come upon me in the very bosom of my own

family!"

With that, the good man burst into tears, tears of mortification

and sorrow, aye, and of righteous anger too. Suddenly aware of

her sin, she dropped the volume, fled to her chamber, and burst

into heartrending sobs.

But penitence was of no avail. She had read too much. Not one

word of what she had read could she forget. Round and round in

her head went shameful words and dreadful images of horrid joys.

Hour by hour and day by day, the obsession grew more complete,

until at last she was seized with an ungovernable frenzy, and had

to be taken to the asylum, shouting Shakespearian obscenities to

the whole street as she was borne away. Mr. Dowdier, when her

terrible words were no longer audible, fell upon his knees, asking

his Maker for what sin he was thus punished. Unlike you and me,

he was unable to find the answer.

THE PSYCHOANALYST'S NIGHTMARE

Adjustment A Fugue

It is the fate of rebels to found new orthodoxies. How this is

happening to psychoanalysis has been persuasively set forth in

Dr. Robert Lindner's Prescription for Rebellion. Many psycho-

analysts, one must suppose, have their secret misgivings. It was

one of these who, though orthodox in his waking hours, was

afflicted during sleep by the following deeply disquieting nightmare:

In the hall of the Limbo Rotary Club, presided over by a statue

of Shakespeare, the Committee of Six was holding its annual

meeting. The Committee consisted of: Hamlet, Lear, Macbeth,

Othello, Antony, and Romeo. All these six, while they yet lived

on earth, had been psychoanalysed by Macbeth's doctor, Dr.

Bombasticus. Macbeth, before the doctor had taught him to speak

ordinary English, had asked, in the stilted language that in those

days he employed, "Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd?"

"Why, yes," replied the doctor, "of course I can. It is only necessary

22 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

that you should lie on my sofa and talk, and I will undertake to

listen at a guinea a minute." Macbeth at once agreed. And the

other five agreed at various times.

Macbeth told how at one time he had fancies of homicide, and

in a long dream saw all that Shakespeare relates. Fortunately, he

met the doctor in time, who explained that he saw Duncan as a

father-figure, and Lady Macbeth as a mother-ditto. The doctor,

with some difficulty, persuaded him that Duncan was not really

his father, so he became a loyal subject. Malcolm and Donalbain

died young, and Macbeth succeeded in due course. He remained

devoted to Lady Macbeth, and together they spent their days in

good works. He encouraged Boy Scouts, and she opened bazaars.

He lived to a great age, respected by all except the porter.

The statue, which had a gramophone in its interior, remarked at

this stage : "All our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty

death."

Macbeth started, and said, "Damn that statue. That fellow

Shakespeare wrote a most libellous work about me. He only knew

me when I was young, before I had met Dr. Bombasticus, and he

let his Imagination run riot over all the crimes he hoped I should

commit. I cannot see why people insist on doing honour to him.

There's hardly a person in his plays that wouldn't have been the

better for Dr. Bombasticus." Turning to Lear: "Don't you agree,

old man?"

Lear was a quiet fellow, not much given to talk. Although he was

old, his hair was beautifully brushed and his clothes were very tidy.

Most of the time he seemed rather sleepy, but Macbeth's question

woke him up.

' "Yes, indeed, I agree," he said. "Why, do you know that at one

time I became obsessed with a phobia directed against my dear

daughters Regan and Goneril! I imagined that they were perse-

cuting me, and had a fantasy that they were reviving a cannibal

rite of eating the parent. This last I only realized after Dr. Bom-

basticus had explained it. I got so alarmed that I rushed out into

the storm at night and get very wet. I caught a chill which gave

me a fever, and I imagined that a certain joint-stool was first

THE PSYCHOANALYST S NIGHTMARE 23

Goneril and then Regan. I was made worse by my fool, and also

by a certain naked madman, who encouraged a belief in a return

to nature, and was always talking about irrelevant things such as

Tillicock' and 'Child Rowland.' Fortunately my illness was such

as to demand the services of Dr. Bombasticus. He soon persuaded

me that Regan and Goneril were just as kind as I had always

thought, and that my fantasies were due to irrational remorse

about the ungrateful Cordelia. Ever since my cure I have lived a

quiet life, appearing only on State occasions such as the birthdays

of my daughters, when I show myself on a balcony and the crowd

shouts, 'Three cheers for the old King 1* I used to have a tendency

towards rhodomontade, but this, I am happy to say, has dis-

appeared."

At this point the statue remarked: "Thou, all-shaking thunder,

strike flat the thick rotundity of the world."

"And are you happy now?" asked Macbeth.

"Oh yes," said Lear, "I'm as happy as the day is long. I sit in

my chair playing patience or dozing, and thinking of nothing

whatever."

The statue: "After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well."

"What a silly remark!" said Lear. "Life is not a fitful fever!

And I sleep well although I'm still alive. That's just the sort of

rubbish that I should have admired before I knew Dr. Bombasticus."

The statue allowed itself another remark: "When we are born,

we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools."

"Stage of fools," exclaimed Lear, losing for a moment that

equanimity which he had hitherto observed. "I do wish the statue

would learn to talk sense. Does it dare to think us fools? Us, the

most respected citizens of Limbo ! I wish Dr. Bombasticus could

get a go at the statue! What do you think about it, Othello?"

"Well," said Othello, "that wretch Shakespeare treated me even

worse than he did you and Macbeth. I only met him for a few days,

and it happened that I was at a crisis in my life at that moment.

I had made the mistake of marrying a white girl, and I soon realized

that it was impossible she should really love a coloured man. In

fact, at the time when Shakespeare knew me, she was plotting to

24 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

run away with my lieutenant, Cassio. I was delighted, as she was

an incubus. But Shakespeare imagined that I must be jealous. And

in those days I was rather fond of rhetoric, so I made up -some

jealous speeches to please him. Dr. Bombasticus, whom I met at

this time, showed me that the whole trouble came from my

inferiority complex, caused by my being black. In my conscious

self I had always thought it a fine thing to be black to be black

and nevertheless eminent. But he showed me that I had quite other

feelings in the unconscious, and that these caused a rage which

could only be assuaged in battle. After he had cured me I gave up

warfare, married a black woman, had a large family, and devoted

my life to trade. I never now feel any impulse to 'talk grand/ or

to utter the kind of nonsense that makes right-thinking citizens

stare."

The statue: "Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!"

"Hark at him," said Othello, "that's just the sort of thing I

might still be saying if it hadn't been for Dr. Bombasticus. But

nowadays I don't believe in violence. I find subservient cunning

much more effective."

The statue murmured, "I took by the throat the circumcised dog."

Suddenly Othello's eyes flashed, and he exclaimed, "Damn that

statue ! I'll take him by the throat if he doesn't look out."

Antony, who had hitherto been silent, asked, "And do you love

your black wife as much as you loved Desdemona?"

"Oh, well," said Othello, "it's a different kind of thing, you

know. It's an altogether more adult relation, more integrated with

my public duties. There is nothing unduly wild about it. It never

tempts me to such actions as a good Rotarian must deplore."

The statue remarked, "If it were now to die, 'Twere now to be

most happy."

"Hark at him," said Othello, "that's just the sort of remark that

Professor Bombasticus cured me of. Owing to him, to whom I

can never be too thankful, I have no such excessive feelings now-

adays. Mrs. Othello is a good soul. She cooks me nice dinners.

She takes good care of my children. And she warms my slippers.

And I don't see what more a sensible man could want in a wife."

THE PSYCHOANALYST'S NIGHTMARE 25

The statue murmured: "Put out the light, and then put out the

light."

Othello turned to it and said, "I won't say another word if you

keep on interrupting. But let's hear your story, Antony."

"Well," said Antony, "you here, of course, all know the extra-

ordinary lies Shakespeare told about me. There was a time no

long time, by the way when I saw in Cleopatra a mother-figure

with whom incest was not forbidden. Caesar had always been to

me a father-figure, and his association with Cleopatra made it not

unnatural that I should see her as a mother. But Shakespeare

pretended, so successfully as to have misled even serious historians,

that my infatuation was lasting and brought me to ruin. This, of

course, was not the case. Dr. Bombasticus, whom I met at the time

of the Battle of Actium, explained to me the workings of my

unconscious, and I soon perceived, under his influence, that

Cleopatra had not the charms with which I had invested her, and

that my love for her was only a fantasy-passion. Thanks to him,

I was able to behave sensibly. I patched up the quarrel with Octavius

and returned to his sister, who was, after all, my lawful wife. I

was thus enabled to live a respectable life, and to qualify for

membership of this committee. I regretted that public duty com-

pelled me to put Cleopatra to death, for only so could my recon-

ciliation with Octavia and her brother be solid. This duty was of

course unpleasant. But no well-adjusted citizen will shrink from

such duties when they are called for by the public good."

"And did you love Octavia?" asked Othello.

"Oh, well," said Antony, "I don't know exactly what one ought

to call love. I had for her the kind of feeling which a serious and

sober citizen ought to have for his wife. I esteemed her. I found

her a trustworthy colleague in public work. And I was able, partly

through her counsel, to live up to the precepts of Dr. Bombasticus.

But as for passionate love, as I had conceived it before I met that

eminent man, I set it aside and won instead the approbation of

moralists."

The statue: "Of many thousand kisses, the poor last I lay upon

thy lips."

26 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

At these words Antony trembled from head to foot, and his

eyes began to fill with tears. But with an effort he pulled himself

together, and said, "No ! I have done with all that !"

The statue: "The bright day is done, and we are for the dark."

"Really," said Antony, "that statue is too immoral. Does he

think it fitting to speak of 'bright day' when he means wallowing

in the arms of a whore ? I can't think why the Rotarians put up

with him. But what do you say, Romeo ? You also, according to

that old reprobate, were somewhat excessively addicted to amorous

passion."

"Well," Romeo replied, "I think he was even wider of the mark

where I was concerned than he was about you. I have some dim

recollection of an adolescent romance with a girl whose name I

can't quite remember. It was something like Jemima or Joanna

Oh, no, I have it! It was Juliet."

The statue interrupted: "It seems she hangs upon the cheek of

night like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear."

"We were both," continued Romeo, "very young and very

silly, and she died in rather tragic circumstances."

The statue again interrupted: "Her beauty makes this vault a

feasting presence full of light."

"Dr. Bombasticus," Romeo went on, "who was in those days

an apothecary, cured me of the foolish despair that for a short time

I was inclined to feel. He showed me that my real motivation was

rebellion against the father, which led me to suppose that it was a

grand thing to love a Capulet. He explained how rebellion against

the father has been throughout the ages a source of ill-regulated

conduct, and reminded me that in the course of nature the adolescent

who is a son today will be a father tomorrow. He cured me of the

unconscious hate towards my father, and enabled me to become a

staid and worthy upholder of the honour of the Montagues. I

married in due course a niece of the Prince. I was universally

respected, and I uttered no more of those extravagant senti-

ments which, as Shakespeare showed, could only have led to

ruin."

The statue: "Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die."

THE PSYCHOANALYST'S NIGHTMARE 23

"Well, that's enough about me," said Romeo. "Let's hear about

you, Hamlet."

"I,". Hamlet began, "was quite exceptionally fortunate in

meeting Dr. Bombasticus when I did, for I was certainly in a very

bad way. I was devoted to my mother, and imagined that I was

devoted to my father, though Dr. Bombasticus later persuaded

me that I really hated him out of jealousy. When my mother

married my uncle, the hate of my father, which had been uncon-

scious, showed itself in a conscious hate of my uncle. This hate so

worked upon me, that I began to have hallucinations. I thought I

saw my father, and in my fantasy he seemed to be telling me that

he had been murdered by his brother. I thought it was my duty

to murder my uncle. And once, thinking that he was hidden behind

a curtain, I stabbed at something which I thought was going to be

him. But it was only a rat, though, in my madness, I thought it

was the Prime Minister. This showed everybody that my derange-

ment was dangerous, and Dr. Bombasticus was called in to cure

me. I must say he did a very good job. He made me aware of my

incestuous feelings towards my mother, of my unconscious hatred

of my father, and of the transference of this feeling to my uncle.

I had had a quite absurd sense of self-importance, and had thought

that the time was out of joint and I was born to set it right. Dr.

Bombasticus persuaded me that I was very young and had no

understanding of statecraft. I saw that I had been wrong to oppose

the established order, to which any well-adjusted person will

conform. I apologized to my mother for any rude things I might

have said. I established correct relations with my uncle though

I must confess that I still found him somewhat prosy. I married

Ophelia, who made me a submissive wife. In due course I succeeded

to the Kingdom, and in disputes with Poland I upheld the honour

of the country by successful battles. I died universally respected,

and even my uncle was not more honoured in the national memory

than I was."

The statue: "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking

makes it so."

"Hark at the old boy," said Hamlet, "still saying the same

28 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

nonsense. Is it not obvious that what I did was good? And that

what Shakespeare pretended that I had done was bad?"

Macbeth asked, "Didn't you have a friend of your own age who

rather encouraged you in your follies?"

"Oh yes/' Hamlet replied. "Now you mention it, there was a

young man. Now what was his name? Was it Nelson? No, I don't

think that's quite right. Oh, I have it it was Horatio! Yes, he

certainly was a bad influence."

The statue: "Good night, Sweet Prince, and flights of angels

sing thee to thy rest!"

"Oh, yes," said Hamlet, "that's all very fine. It's the sort of

maladjusted remark that Shakespeare delighted in. But as for me,

when I had been cured by Dr. Bombasticus, I threw over Horatio

and took up with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who, as Dr.

Bombasticus pointed out, were completely adjusted."

The statue murmured: "Whom I will trust as I will adders

fang'd."

"And what do you think of it all now that you ai;e dead?"

asked Antony.

"Oh^ well," Hamlet replied, "there are times I will not deny

it when I feel a certain regret for the old fire, for the golden

words that flowed from my mouth, and for the sharp insight that

was at once my torment and my joy. I can remember even now a

fine piece of rhetoric that I manufactured, beginning, 'What

a piece of work is a man.' I will not deny that in its own mad world

it had a kind of merit. But I chose to live in the sane world, the

world of earnest men who perform recognized duties without

doubt and without question, who never look beneath the surface

for fear of what they might see, who honour their father and their

mother and repeat the crimes by which their father and their

mother flourished, who uphold the State without asking whether

it deserves to be upheld, and piously worship a God whom they

have made in their own image, and who subscribe to no lie unless

it furthers the interests of the strong. To this creed, following the

teaching of Dr. Bombasticus, I subscribed. By this creed I lived.

And in this creed I died."

THE PSYCHOANALYST'S NIGHTMARE 23

The statue: "For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause.*'

"Noqsense, old truepenny!" said Hamlet. "I never have dreams.

I am delighted with the world as I find it. It is everything that I

could wish. What is there that humbugs like me cannot achieve?"

The statue: "One may smile and smile and be a villain."

"Well/ 5 said Hamlet, "I'd rather smile and be a villain, than

weep and be a good man."

The statue: "All which, Sir, though I most powerfully and

potently believe, yet I hold it not here honesty to have it thus set

down."

"Yes," said Hamlet, "what is justice to me if I can profit by

injustice?"

The statue: "For who would bear the whips and scorns of

time."

"Oh, don't torture me !" exclaimed Hamlet.

The statue: "You go not till I set you up a glass where you may

see the inmost part of you."

"O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!" exclaimed Hamlet.

"To Hell with Dr. Bombasticus! To Hell with adjustment! To

Hell with prudence and the praise of fools!" With this Hamlet fell

in a faint.

The statue: "The rest is silence."

At this point a strange shriek was heard, a shriek from the

depths, coming up through a tube that the Rotarians had never

before noticed. An anguished voice moaned: "I am Dr. Bom-

basticus ! I am in Hell ! I repent ! I killed your souls. But in Hamlet

some spark survived and by that I am condemned. I have lived in

Hell, but for what crime I knew not until now. I have lived in Hell

for preferring subservience to glory; for thinking better of servility

than of splendour; for seeking smoothness rather than the lightning-

flash; for fearing thunder so much that I preferred a damp, un-

ending drizzle. Hamlet's repentance has made me know my sin.

In the Hell in which I live, complexes without end dominate me.

Though I call upon St. Freud, it is in vain; I remain imprisoned in

an endless vortex of insane commonplace. Intercede for me, you

JO NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

who are my victims ! I will undo the evil work I wrought upon

you."

But the five who remained did not listen. Turning in fury upon

the statue, which had brought despair upon their friend Hamlet,

they assaulted it with savage blows. Bit by bit, it crumbled. When

nothing was left but the head, it murmured, "Lord, what fools

these mortals be!"

The five remained in Limbo. Dr. Bombasticus remained in Hell.

But Hahilet was wafted above by angels and ministers of grace.*

* Ophelia was co-opted in Hamlet's place on the Committee,

THE METAPHYSICIAN'S NIGHTMARE

Retro Me Satanas

My poor friend Andrei Bumblowski, formerly Professor of

Philosophy in a now extinct university of Central Europe, appeared

to me to suffer from a harmless kind of lunacy. I am myself a person

of robust common sense; I hold that the intellect must not be taken

as a guide in life, but only as affording pleasant argumentative

games and ways of annoying less agile opponents. Bumblowski,

however, did not take this view; he allowed hr 11

him whither it would, and the results

and to most of his friends the gr

obscure. What was known was

word "not" and all its synonyrr

not fresh," but "chemical chang

it was laid." He would not say '

books I have found are other tl

"thou shalt not kill," but "thoi

unpractical, but innocent, and I f

It was doubtless this affection ^

32 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

led him to relate to me the following very remarkable experience,

which I give in his own words:

I had at one time a very bad fever of which I almost died. In

my fever I had a long consistent delirium. I dreamt that I was in

Hell, and that Hell is a place full of all those happenings that are

improbable but not impossible. The effects of this are curious.

Some of the damned, when they first arrive below, imagine that

they will beguile the tedium of eternity by games of cards. But they

find this impossible, because, whenever a pack is shuffled, it comes

out in perfect order, beginning with the Ace of Spades and ending

with the King of Hearts. There is a special department of Hell for

students of probability. In this department there are many type-

writers and many monkeys. Every time that a monkey walks on

a typewriter, it types by chance one of Shakespeare's sonnets.

There is another place of torment for physicists. In this there are

kettles and fires, but when the kettles are put on the fires, the water

in them freezes. There are also stuffy rooms. But experience has

taught the physicists never to open a window because, when they

do, all the air rushes out and leaves the room a vacuum. There is

another region for gourmets. These men are allowed the most

exquisite materials and the most skilful chefs. But when a beefsteak

is served up to them, and they take a confident mouthful, they find

that it tastes like a rotten egg; whereas, when they try to eat an

* P e in o a b ac j potato.

; nful chamber inhabited solely by philo-

le. These philosophers, though in

They continue to be governed by

induction. But every time that

j next instance falsifies it. This,

le first hundred years of their

:o expect that an induction will

falsified until another century of

'r expectation. Throughout all

:h time at a higher logical level*

THE METAPHYSICIAN'S NIGHTMARE 33

Then there is the Inferno of the orators who have been accustomed

while they lived to sway great multitudes by their eloquence.

Their eloquence is undimmed and the multitudes are provided, but

strange winds blow the sounds about so that the sounds heard by

the multitudes, instead being of those uttered by the orators, are

only dull and heavy platitudes.

At the very centre of the infernal kingdom is Satan, to whose

presence only the more distinguished among the damned are ad-

mitted. The improbabilities become greater and greater as Satan is

approached, and He Himself is the most complete improbability

imaginable. He is pure Nothing, total non-existence, and yet

continually changing.

I, because of my philosophical eminence, was early given

audience with the Prince of Darkness. I had read of Satan as der

Geist der stets verneint, the Spirit of Negation. But on entering the

Presence I realized with a shock that Satan has a negative body as

well as a negative mind. Satan's body is, in fact, a pure and complete

vacuum, empty not only of particles of matter but also of particles

of light. His prolonged emptiness is secured by a climax of im-

probability: whenever a particle approaches His outer surface, it

happens by chance to collide with another particle which stops it

from penetrating the empty region. The empty region, since no

light ever penetrates it, is absolutely black not more or less black,

like the things to which we loosely ascribe this word, but utterly,

completely and infinitely black. It has a shape, and the shape is * Unf

which we are accustomed to ascribe to Satan' u ~

and all. AH the rest of Hell is filled w : *

this background Satan stands out

immobile. On the contrary, the

stituted is in perpetual motion. 1

swinges the horror of His foldec

He goes forth to conquer new rea

Himself in shining white armou

nothingness within. Only His ey>

eyes piercing rays of nothingne

may conquer. Wherever they f

B

34 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

prohibition, wherever they find a cult of not-doing, there they

enter into the inmost substance of those who are prepared to receive

Him. Every negation emanates from Him and returns with a harvest

of captured frustrations. The captured frustrations become part of

Him, and swell His bulk until He threatens to fill all space. Every

moralist whose morality consists of "don'ts," every timid man who

"lets I dare not wait upon I would," every tyrant who compels

his subjects to live in fear, becomes in time a part of Satan.

He is surrounded by a chorus of sycophantic philosophers who

have substituted pandiabolism for pantheism. These men maintain

that existence is only apparent; non-existence is the only true

reality. They hope in time to make the non-existence of appearance

appear, for in that moment what we now take to be existence will

be seen to be in truth only an outlying portion of the diabolic

essence. Although these metaphysicians showed much subtlety, I

could not agree with them. I had been accustomed while on earth

to oppose tyrannous authority, and this habit remained with me in

Hell. I began to argue with the metaphysical sycophants:

"What you say is absurd," I expostulated. "You proclaim that

non-existence is the only reality. You pretend that this black hole

which you worship exists. You are trying to persuade me that the

non-existent exists. But this is a contradiction: and, however hot

the flames of Hell may become, I will never so degrade my logical

being as to accept a contradiction."

this point the President of the sycophants took up the argu-

r ^i-, my friend," he said. "You deny that the

c is this to which you deny existence ?

ny statement about it is nonsense.

oes not exist. I am afraid you have

r ical analysis of sentences, which

?n you were a boy. Do you not

,ect, and that, if the subject were

isense ? So, when you proclaim,

10 is the non-existent does not

; yourself."

bt been here for some time and

THE METAPHYSICIAN'S NIGHTMARE j5

continue to embrace somewhat antiquated doctrines. You prate of

sentences having subjects, but all that sort of talk is out of date.

When I say that Satan, Who is the non-existent, does not exist,

I mention neither Satan nor the non-existent, but only the word

'Satan' and the word 'non-existent.' Your fallacies have revealed to

me a great truth. The great truth is that the word 'not' is super-

fluous. Henceforth I will not use the word 'not.' "

At this all the assembled metaphysicians burst into a shout of

laughter. "Hark how the fellow contradicts himself," they said

when the paroxysm of merriment had subsided. "Hark at his great

commandment which is to avoid negation. He will NOT use the

word 'not,' forsooth!"

Though I was nettled, I kept my temper. I had in my pocket a

dictionary. I scratched out all the words expressing negation and

said: "My speech shall be composed entirely of the words that

remain in this dictionary. By the help of these words that remain,

I shall be able to describe everything in the universe. My descriptions

will be many, but they will all be of things other than Satan. Satan

has reigned too long in this infernal realm. His shining armour was

real and inspired terror, but underneath the armour therd was only

a bad linguistic habit. Avoid the word 'not,' and His empire is at

an end."

Satan, as the argument proceeded, lashed His tail with ever-in-

creasing fury, and savage rays of darkness shot from His cavernous

eyes. But at the last, when I denounced Him as a bad linguistic habit,

there was a vast explosion, the air rushed in from all sides, and the

horrid shape vanished. The murky air of Hell, which had been

due to inspissated rays of nothingness, cleared as if by magic. What

had seemed to be monkeys at the typewriters were suddenly seen

to be literary critics. The kettles boiled, the cards were jumbled,

a fresh breeze blew in at the windows, and the beefsteaks tasted like

beefsteaks. With a sense of exquisite liberation, I awoke. I saw that

there had been wisdom in my dream, however it might have worn

the guise of delirium. From that moment the fever abated, but the

delirium as you may think it has remained.

THE EXISTENTIALIST'S NIGHTMARE

The Achievement of Existence

Porphyre Eglantine, the great philosopher-poet, is known far and

wide for his many subtle and profound writings, but above all for

his immortal Chant du Ndant:

Dans un immense desert,

Un 6tendu infini de sable,

Je cherche,

Je cherche le chemin perdu,

Le chemin que je ne trouve pas.

Mon ame plane par ci, par 1,

Dans toutes directions,

Cherchant, et ne rencontre rien, parmi >

Ce vide immense,

Ce vide sans cesse,

Ce sable,

Ce sable blouissant et touffant,

Ce sable monotone et morne,

S'tendant sans fin jusqu'ci Pultime horizon.

THE EXISTENTIALIST S NIGHTMARE J7

J'entends enfin

Une voix,

Une voix en meme temps foudroyante et douce.

Cette voix me dit :

"Tu penses que tu es une ame perdue.

Tu penses que tu es une ame.

Tu te trompes. Tu n'es pas une ame.

Tu n'es pas perdu,

Tu n'es rien.

Tu n'existes pas."

Although this poem is so well known, few people know the cir-

cumstances which led to it and the events to which it led. Painful

as it is, it is my duty to recount these circumstances and these

events:

Porphyre was, from his earliest youth, sensitive and suffering.

He was haunted by the fear that perhaps he did not exist. Every

time he looked in a mirror he was filled with apprehension lest

his image should not appear. He invented a philosophy which, he

hoped, would dispel this terror. But from time to time this philo-

sophy failed to satisfy him. As a rule he was able to bury his doubts,

but the Chant du Neant, which expresses a sudden shattering vision,

shows his lack of success. He determined that at all costs he would

exist so indubitably as to silence the spectral voice.

Introspection and observation alike had persuaded him that

nothing is so real as pain, and that he could achieve existence only

through suffering. He sought suffering throughout the world in a

pilgrimage of sorrow. He spent a solitary winter in the Antarctic

while the unending night inspired visions of future gloom.

He exposed himself to tortures in Nazi Germany by pretending

to be a Jew. But just at the moment when they were growing

unendurable, Poe's Raven came hop, hop, hop into the con-

centration camp; and, speaking with the voice of Mallarme, croaked

the dreadful refrain: "Tu ne souffres pas. Tu n'es rien. Tu n'existes

pas."

38 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

He went next to Russia, where he pretended to be a spy for Wall

Street, and spent a long winter felling timber beside the White

Sea. Hunger and fatigue and cold daily penetrated more deeply

into his inmost being. Surely, he thought, if this goes on much

longer, I shall exist. But no. On the last day of winter, as the snow

began to melt, the dreadful Bird appeared once more, and again

uttered the fell words.

Perhaps, he thought, the sufferings I have been seeking are too

simple. If I am to be truly miserable I must mix with my sorrows

an element of shame.

In pursuance of this programme he went to China and fell

passionately in love with an exquisite Chinese girl who stood high

in the counsels of the Communist Party. By means of forged

documents, he caused her to be condemned as an emissary of the

British Government. Frightful tortures were inflicted upon her in

his presence. What at last the agony brought death, he thought,

"now, I really have suffered. For down to the last moment I have

loved her passionately and I have brought her to ruin by my

dastardly treachery. Surely this should be enough to make me

suffer to the limits of human capacity.'* But no. With a cold terror

that made him incapable of the smallest movement, he watched

the Bird of Fate again appearing, and speaking once more with

the voice of the immortal poet who had introduced the bird to the

Parisian literary public.

With an immense effort he gave utterance to his despair while

yet the Bird remained. "O Raven," he said, "is there anything,

anything in all this wide world, which will lead you to admit that I

exist?" The Raven uttered one word: "Seek"; and then vanished.

It must not be supposed that Porphyre had allowed his quest to

absorb all his energies. He remained throughout a philosopher-

poet, admired everywhere, but most of all in the most esoteric

circles. On his return from China he was invited to a Congress of

Philosophy in Paris, of which the chief purpose was to do him

honour. All the guests were assembled except the President. While

Porphyre wondered when the President would come, the Raven

came and occupied the Chair of Honour. Turning to Porphyre

THE EXISTENTIALIST S NIGHTMARE J9

it varied the formula and in ringing tones, which all the Congress

heard, it said: "Ta philosophic n'existe pas. Elle n'est rien." At

these worbs a pang of anguish, such as no previous experience had

equalled or even approached, shot through all his being. And he

fell in a faint. As he came to, he heard the Bird utter the words for

which he had longed: "Enfin, tu souffres. Enfin, tu exist es."

He awoke, and lo ! it had been a dream.

But he never again talked or wrote philosophy.

THE MATHEMATICIAN'S NIGHTMARE

The Vision of Professor Squarepunt

Prefatory Explanation

My lamented friend Professor Squarepunt, the eminent mathe-

matician, was during his lifetime a friend and admirer of Sir Arthur

Eddington. But there was one point in Sir Arthur's theories which

always bewildered Professor Squarepunt, and that was the mystical,

cosmic powers which Sir Arthur ascribed to the number 137. Had

the properties which this number was supposed to possess been

merely arithmetical no difficulty would have arisen. But it was

above all in physics that 137 showed its prowess, which was not

unlike that attributed to the number 666. It is evident that conversa-

tions with Sir Arthur influenced Professor Squarepunt's nightmare.

The mathematician, worn out by a long day's study of the

theories of Pythagoras, at last fell asleep in his chair, where a strange

drama visited his sleeping thoughts. The numbers, in this drama,

THE MATHEMATICIAN S NIGHTMARE 41

were not the bloodless categories that he had previously supposed

them. They were living breathing beings endowed with all the

passions which he was accustomed to find in his fellow mathe-

maticians. In his dream he stood at the centre of endless concentric

circles. The first circle contained the numbers from i to 10; the

second, those from n to 100; the third, those from 101 to 1000;

and so on, illimitably, over the infinite surface of a boundless plain.

The odd numbers were male; the evens, female. Beside him in the

centre stood Pi, the Master of Ceremonies. Pi's face was masked,

and it was understood that none could behold it and live. But

piercing eyes looked out from the mask, inexorable, cold and

enigmatic. Each number had its name clearly marked upon its

uniform. Different kinds of numbers had different uniforms and

different shapes: the squares were tiles, the cubes were dice, round

numbers were balls, prime numbers were indivisible cylinders,

perfect numbers had crowns. In addition to variations of shape,

numbers also had variations of colour. The first seven concentric

rings had the seven colours of die rainbow, except that 10, 100,

1000, and so on, were white, while 13 and 666 were black. When a

number belonged to two of these categories for example if, like

1000, it was both round and a cube it wore the more honourable

uniform, and the more honourable was that of which there were

fewer among the first million numbers.

The numbers danced round Professor Squarepunt and Pi in a

vast and intricate ballet. The squares, the cubes, the primes, the

pyramidal numbers, the perfect numbers and the round numbers

wove interweaving chains in an endless and bewildering dance, and

as they danced they sang an ode to their own greatness:

We are the finite numbers.

We are the stuff of the world.

Whatever confusion cumbers

The earth is by us unfurled.

We revere our master Pythagoras

And deeply despise every hag or ass.

Not Endor's witch nor Balaam's mount

We recognize as wisdom's fount.

B*

42 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

But round and round in endless ballet

We move like comets seen by Halley.

And honoured by the immortal Plato

We think no later mortal great-o.

We follow the laws

Without a pause,

For we are the finite numbers.

At a sign from Pi the ballet ceased, and the numbers one by one

were introduced to Professor Squarepunt. Each number made a

little speech explaining its peculiar merits. /

i : I am the parent of all, the father of infinite progeny. None

would exist but for me.

2: Don't be so stuck-up. You know it takes two to make more.

3 : 1 am the number of Triumvirs, of the Wise Men of the East,

of the stars in Orion's Belt, of the Fates and of the Graces.

4 : But for me nothing would be four-square. There would be no

honesty in the world. I am the guardian of the Moral Law.

5: I am the number of fingers on a hand. I make pentagons and

pentagrams. And but for me dodecahedra could not exist; and, as

everyone knows, the universe is a dodecahedron. So, but for me,

there could be no universe.

6: I am the Perfect Number. I know that I have upstart rivals:

28 and 496 have sometimes pretended to be my equals. But they

come too far down the scale of precedence to count against me.

7: I am the Sacred Number: the number of days of the week,

the number of the Pleiades, the number of the seven-branched

candlesticks, the number of the churches of Asia, and the number

of the planets for I do not recognize that blasphemer Galileo.

8: I am the first of the cubes except for poor old One, who by

this time is rather past his work.

9 : I am the number of the Muses. All the charms and elegancies

of life depend upon me.

10 : It's all very well for you wretched units to boast, but I am

the godfather of all the infinite hosts behind me. Every single one

owes his name to me. And but for me they would be a mere mob

and not an ordered hierarchy.

THE MATHEMATICIAN'S NIGHTMARE 43

At this point the mathematician got bored and turned to Pi,

saying:

"Don't you think the rest of the introductions could be taken

for granted?" At this there was a general outcry:

n shrieked, "But I was the number of the Apostles after the

defection of Judas."

12 exclaimed, "I was the godfather of the numbers in the days of

the Babylonians and a much better godfather I was than that

wretched 10, who owes his position to a biological accident and not

to arithmetical excellence."

13 growled, "I am the master of ill-luck. If you are rude to me,

you shall suffer."

There was such a din that the mathematician covered his ears

with his hands and turned an imploring gaze upon Pi. Pi waved his

conductor's baton and proclaimed in a voice of thunder: "Silence!

Or you shall all become incommensurable." All turned pale and

submitted.

Throughout the ballet the Professor had noticed one number

among the primes, 137, which seemed unruly and unwilling to

accept its place in the series. It tried repeatedly to get ahead of

i and 2 and 3, and showed a subversiveness which threatened to

destroy the pattern of the ballet. What astonished Professor Square-

punt even more than this disorderly conduct was a shadowy spectre

of an Arthurian Knight which kept whispering in the ear of 137:

"Go it! Go it! Get to the top!" Although the shadowy character

of the spectre made recognition difficult, the Professor at last

recognized the dim form of his friend, Sir Arthur. This gave him

a sympathy with 137 in spite of the hostility of Pi, who kept trying

to suppress the unruly prime.

At length 137 exclaimed: "There's a damned sight too much

bureaucracy here ! What I want is liberty for the individual." Pi's

mask frowned. But the Professor interceded, saying, "Do not be

too hard on him. Have you not observed that he's governed by a

Familiar. I knew this Familiar in life, and from my knowledge I can

vouch that it is he who inspires the anti-governmental sentiments

of 137. For my part, I should like to hear what 137 has to say."

44 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

Somewhat reluctantly, Pi consented. Professor Squarepunt said:

"Tell me, 137, what is the basis of your revolt ? Is it a protest against

inequality that inspires you? Is it merely that your ego has been

inflated by Sir Arthur's praise? Or is it, as I half suspect, a deep

ideological rejection of the metaphysic that your colleagues have

imbibed from Plato ? You need not fear to tell me the truth. I will

make your peace with Pi, about whom I know at least as much as

he does himself."

At this, 137 burst into excited speech: "You are right! It is their

metaphysic that I cannot bear. They still pretend that they are

eternal, though long ago their conduct showed that they think no

such thing. We all found Plato's heaven dull and decided that it

would be more fun to govern the sensible world. Since we descended

from the Empyrean we have had emotions not unlike yours: each

Odd loves its attendant Even; and the Evens feel kindly towards

the Odds, in spite of finding them very odd. Our empire now is

of this world, and when the world goes pop, we shall go pop too."

Professor Squarepunt found himself in agreement with 137. But

all the others, including Pi, considered him a blasphemer, and turned

updn both him and the Professor. The infinite host, extending in all

directions farther than the eye could reach, hurled themselves upon

the poor Professor in an angry buzz. For a moment he was terrified.

Then he pulled himself together and, suddenly recollecting his

waking wisdom, he called out in stentorian tones: "A vaunt! You

are only Symbolic Conveniences !"

With a banshee wail, the whole vast array dissolved in mist.

And, as he woke, the Professor heard himself saying, "So much

for Plato!"

STALIN'S NIGHTMARE

[Written before Stalin's death]

Amor Vincit Omnia

Stalin, after copious draughts of vodka mixed with red pepper,

had fallen asleep in his chair. Molotov, Malenkov and Beria, with

fingers to their lips, warned off intrusive domestics who might

interfere with the great man's repose. While they guarded him, he

had a dream, and what he dreamt was as follows:

The third World War had been fought and lost. He was a

captive in the hands of the Western Allies. But they, having observed

that the Nuremberg trials generated sympathy for the Nazis,

decided this time to adopt a different plan: Stalin was handed over

to a committee of eminent Quakers, who contended that even he,

by the power of love, could be led to repentance and to the life of a

decent citizen.

It was realized that until their spiritual work had been completed

46 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

the windows of his room must be barred lest he should be guilty

of a rash act, and he must not be allowed access to knives lest in a

fit of fury he should attack those engaged in his regeneration. He

was housed comfortably in two rooms of an old country house,

but the doors were locked, except during one hour of every day

when, in the company of four muscular Quakers, he was taken for

a brisk walk during which he was encouraged to admire the beauties

of nature and enjoy the song of the lark. During the rest of the day

he was allowed to read and write, but he was not allowed any

literature that might be considered inflammatory. He was given

the Bible, Pilgrims Progress and Uncle Toms Cabin. And some-

times for a treat he was allowed the novels of Charlotte M. Yonge.

He was allowed no tobacco, no alcohol and no red pepper. Cocoa

he might have at any hour of the day or night, since the most

eminent of his guardians were purveyors of that innocent beverage.

Tea and coffee were permitted in moderation, but not in such

quantities or at such time as might interfere with a wholesome

night's repose.

During one hour of every morning and one hour of every

evening the grave men to whose care he had been entrusted

explained the principles of Christian charity and the happiness that

might yet be his if he would but acknowledge their wisdom. The

task of reasoning with him fell especially upon the three men who

were accounted wisest among those who hoped to make him see

the light. These were Mr. Tobias Toogood, Mr. Samuel Swete

and Mr. Wilbraham Weldon.

He had been acquainted with these men in the days of his

greatness. Not long before the outbreak of the third World War

they had journeyed to Moscow to plead with him and endeavour to

convince him of the error of his ways. They had talked to him of

universal benevolence and Christian love. They had spoken in

glowing terms of the joys of meekness, and had tried to persuade

him that there is more happiness in being loved than in being

feared. For a little while he had listened with a patience produced

by astonishment, and then he had burst out at them. "What do

you gentlemen know of the joys of life?" he had stormed. "How

STALIN S NIGHTMARE 47

little you understand of the intoxicating delight of dominating a

whole nation by terror, knowing that almost all desire your death

and that none can compass it, knowing that your enemies through-

out the world are engaged in futile attempts to guess your secret

thoughts, knowing that your power will survive the extermination

not only of your enemies but of your friends. No, gentlemen, the

way of life you offer me does not attract me. Go back to your

pettifogging pursuit of profit gilded with a pretence of piety, but

leave me to my more heroic way of life."

The Quakers, baffled for the moment, went home to wait for a

better opportunity. Stalin, fallen and in their power, might, they

now hoped, show himself more amenable. Strange to say, he still

proved stubborn. They were men who had had much practice with

juvenile delinquents, unravelling their complexes, and leading them

by gentle persuasion to the belief that honesty is the best policy.

"Mr. Stalin," said Tobias Toogood, "we hope that you now

realize the unwisdom of the way of life to which you have hitherto

adhered. I shall say nothing of the ruin you have brought upon

the world, for that, you will assure me, leaves you cold. But

consider what you have brought upon yourself. You have fallen

from your high estate to the condition of a humble prisoner, owing

what comforts you retain to the fact that your gaolers do not

accept your maxims. The fierce joys of which you spoke when we

visited you in the days of your greatness can no longer be yours.

But if you could break down the barrier of pride, if you could

repent, if you could learn to find happiness in the happiness of

others, there might yet be for you some purpose and some tolerable

contentment during the remainder of your days."

At this point Stalin leapt to his feet and exclaimed: "Hell take

you, you snivelling hypocrite. I understand nothing of what you

say, except that you are on top and I am at your mercy, and that

you have found a way of insulting my misfortunes more galling

and more humiliating that any that I invented in my purges."

"Oh, Mr. Stalin," said Mr. Swete, "how can you be so unjust

and so unkind ? Can you not see that we have none but the most

benevolent intentions towards you? Can you not see that we wish

48 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

to save your soul, and that we deplore the violence and hatred that

you promoted among your enemies as among your friends? We

have no wish to humiliate you, and could you but appreciate

earthly greatness at no more than its true worth, you would see

that it is an escape from humiliation that we are offering you/'

"This is really too much," shouted Stalin. "When I was a boy, I

put up with talk like this in my Georgian seminary, but it is not

the sort of talk to which a grown man can listen with patience. I

wish I believed in Hell, that I might look forward to the pleasure of

seeing your blandness dissipated by scorching flames."

"Oh fie, my dear Mr. Stalin!" said Mr. Weldon. "Pray do not

excite yourself, for it is only by calmness that you will learn to see

the wisdom of what we are trying to show you."

Before Stalin could retort, Mr. Toogood once again intervened:

"I am sure, Mr. Stalin,"he said, "that a man of your great intelligence

cannot forever remain blind to the truth, but at the moment you

are overwrought, and I suggest that a soothing cup of cocoa

might be better for you than the unduly stimulating tea you have

been drinking."

At this Stalin could contain himself no longer. He took the

teapot and hurled it at Mr. Toogood's head. The scalding liquid

poured down his face, but he only said, "There, there, Mr. Stalin,

that is no argument." In a paroxysm of rage Stalin awoke. For a

moment the rage continued and vented itself upon Molotov,

Malenkov and Beria, who trembled and turned pale. But as the

clouds of sleep cleared away, his rage evaporated, and he found

contentment in a deep draught of vodka and red pepper.

EISENHOWER'S NIGHTMARE

[Written in 1952, during Stalin's life]

The McCarthy-Malenkov Pact

Eisenhower, after two years as President, was compelled to realize

that conciliation is a one-way street. He did much with a view

to placating his Republican opponents, and at first he supposed

that they would make some response, but none was forthcoming.

In profound discouragement, gloomy thoughts kept him awake

throughout the greater part of a hot summer night. When at last

he fell into an uneasy sleep he was afflicted by a devastating night-

mare in which a voice out of the future revealed the history of the

next half-century:

We, from the secure haven of the dawning twenty-first century,

can see what was less obvious at the time: that the year 1953 saw

the beginning of the new trend which has transformed the world.

There were certain problems of which at that time foresighted

So NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

people were conscious. One of these was that in every civilized

country industry was favoured at the expense of agriculture, with

the result that the world's food supply was diminishing. Another

was the rapid growth of population in backward countries, which

resulted from advances in medicine and hygiene. A third was the

chaos that was in danger of resulting from the collapse of European

imperialism. Such problems, which were in any case difficult,

were rendered totally insoluble by the East- West conflict. During

the eight years from 1945 to 1953 this conflict had grown con-

tinually more menacing, not only through political developments,

but also through the prospect of hydrogen bombs and bacterio-

logical warfare. On each side no solution of the conflict was

offered, except to make one's own side so strong that the other

would not dare to attack. Past experience suggested that this was

not a very hopeful method of averting war.

It was in 1953 that the first beginnings of a new hope became

visible. In this year Stalin first retired and then died. He was

succeeded by Malenkov, who considered it prudent to signalize

his advent to power by a nominally new policy, although in fact

this policy had already been partially adopted. Two main dangers

troubled him. On the one hand, there was widespread discontent

in Russia. On the other hand, it was to be feared that China might

before long become as powerful as Russia and capable of challenging

Russian supremacy in the Communist world. To meet the first of

these dangers it was necessary to increase very largely the Russian

production of consumer goods, which could only be done at the

expense of armaments. To meet the second danger it was necessary

to diminish the risk of world war, which was also necessary if it

was to be safe to slacken the pace of rearmament. Meantime the

change to Republican government in America had brought a new

emphasis. Many people both in America and in other countries had

failed to note that, in a conflict between President and Congress,

the victory was likely to go to Congress, owing to the power of

the purse. This might have been inferred from the history of the

conflict between King and Parliament in England in the seventeenth

century. But it was not thought by most Americans that anything

EISENHOWER'S NIGHTMARE 5i

could be learned either from the past or from foreign countries.

Many of those who had voted for Eisenhower imagined that if he

were elected his policy would prevail. They did not reflect that

in electing him they were giving control of Congress to Taft and

McCarthy. It was in fact these two men who controlled United

States policy during Eisenhower's Presidency. And of the two,

McCarthy gradually became increasingly dominant. Average

Americans were governed by two fears, fear of Communism and

fear of the income tax. So long as the Democrats remained in power

these two fears worked in opposite directions. But McCarthy

discovered how to reconcile them. The real enemy, he said, is the

Communist in our midst, and it is very much cheaper to fight the

Communist in our midst than to fight Russia. So long as Americans

are loyal and united so he told the nation they are invincible,

and have no need to fear the machinations of alien despotism.

If we purge our country of disloyal elements we shall be safe. But,

in order by this policy to slake the popular thirst for combating

Communism, it was necessary to discover continually new internal

enemies. By acquiring control of the F.B.I., and by the help of a

band of subservient ex-Communists, McCarthy succeeded in

spreading the dread of internal treachery to a point where every

prominent member of the Democratic Party was thought to be a

traitor, with the exception of a tiny virtuous remnant consisting of

such men as Senator McCarran. Under the cover of this policy it

became possible to save enormous sums which in the time of

Truman had been spent in aiding foreign countries. The resulting

spread of Communism in France and Italy was held to show that

it had not been worth while to spend money on such undependable

allies.

Eisenhower, though he disliked this policy, found himself

powerless to combat it. He had wished to strengthen N.A.T.O.

and to make it possible to defend Western Europe against a Com-

munist onslaught. But Western Europe was expensive to defend.

It contained many Communists, and still more Socialists, who

were almost equally objectionable. It was ungrateful and not

adequately aware of its own inferiority. It was always clamouring

$2 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

for a lowering of the American tariff, and it did not love Chiang

Kai-shek. On such grounds, Eisenhower was always defeated in

Congress.

McCarthy's policy had two results: on the one hand it greatly

diminished the grounds of external conflict and made relations

with Russia less precarious; on the other hand it made it clear that

no American could hope to save his own skin if he opposed

McCarthy. In the Presidential election of 1956 McCarthy was

triumphantly elected by an even greater majority than that of

Roosevelt twenty years earlier.

It was this overwhelming success which enabled McCarthy to

crown his labours by the McCarthy-Malenkov Pact. By this Pact

the world was divided between the two Great Powers: all Asia

and all Europe east of the Elbe was to be in the Russian sphere;

all the Western hemisphere, all Africa and Australia and all Europe

west of the Elbe was to be in the sphere of the United States. There

was to be no trade whatever between the two groups and no inter-

course except for such rare diplomatic meetings as might be

absolutely inevitable, which should take place in Spitzbergen.

Outside the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A. industry should be kept at a

minimum by control of raw materials, and by sterner methods if

necessary. Western Europeans should retain nominal independence,

and might, if they chose, preserve their old-world system of party

government, free speech and free Press. But they should not be

allowed to travel in the United States for fear of infecting virtuous

citizens with their antiquated heresies.

Certain features of the Russian system were adopted in America.

Only one party, the Republican Party, was henceforth to be

tolerated. The Press and Literature were subjected to a rigid

censorship. All political criticism was held subversive, and exposed

the critic to penalties. Indoctrination became the main aim of

education. There were, no doubt, some who regretted these

changes; but it had to be conceded that by means of the Pact the

danger of world war was averted, and it became possible to cut

down armaments drastically both in America and in Russia.

There had been some difficult points in negotiating the Pact.

EISENHOWER'S NIGHTMARE 5j

One of them was Japan. America had rearmed Japan in the hope

that that country would be an ally against Russia, but, if Russia

and the United States jointly were to dominate the world, no strong

independent Power could be tolerated. Japan was forced to disarm.

The island of Hokkaido was assigned to the Russian sphere, and

the remainder of Japan to the sphere of the United States.

There were of course provisions about propaganda. There was

to be no anti-American propaganda in Russia, and no anti-Russian

propaganda in America. No one in Russia should be allowed to

question the historical truth that Peter the Great was an American.

No one in America should be allowed to question the historical

truth that Columbus was a Russian. No one in Russia should

mention the colour problem in the Southern States; and no one

in America should mention the forced labour in Russia. Each should

praise the achievements of the other and hold out for all future time

the benefits of their eternal alliance.

The Pact was not popular in Western Europe because it relegated

that region to the unimportance to which it had doomed itself by

internecine wars. It was difficult for Western Europe to acquiesce

in its loss of status, since it had for centuries dominated the world

both politically and culturally. Many Americans, from deference to

the traditions which it was admitted had helped to build American

civilization, were prepared to treat Western Europe with a con-

sideration which, in the actual state of the world, came in time to

seem excessive. It was clear that war would ruin what remained of

West European civilization even if in the end Russia were com-

pletely defeated, and it was not clear that war could be averted by

any effort or sacrifice short of the Pact. On these grounds, when

the Pact was concluded, the feelings of Western Europeans were

ignored.

There were, of course, on each side people who thought that

the other side had got the best of the bargain. Some Russians

pointed out that, with the help of China, they could before long

have acquired Australia, and that they had considerable hope of

acquiring Western Germany by peaceful penetration. They also

argued that Africa, even if not acquired by Russia, could have been

54 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

cleared of White men if the energies of America and Western

Europe had continued to be absorbed in combating Russia. On

the American side there were also grave misgivings. It was a

wrench to sacrifice Malayan tin and rubber, but synthetic rubber

and Bolivian and Australian tin afforded adequate substitutes. More

serious was the loss of Middle Eastern oil. To make this endurable

it was at last agreed that Indonesia should be in the American bloc.

There were some in America who were genuinely persuaded that

Communism is an evil thing with which peace ought not to be

made. These, however, were few, and mostly Democrats, so that

their opinion carried little weight. To the Russians, apart from

secure peace, the most important gain was the possibility of keeping

China in a subordinate position by preventing its industrial

development. In both camps, White imperialism was once more

made secure.

Apart from the preservation of peace, the Pact had other

advantages. The dissensions among White nations had shaken the

dominion which, during the nineteenth century, they had acquired

in Asia and Africa. Owing to the Pact, White supremacy was soon

re-established. The Russians conquered India and Pakistan without

much difficulty; and in Africa, where outbreaks of ferocious

barbarism supported by Communists had threatened the civilizing

work of British and French imperialism, this work was resumed

under the aegis of American investors and quickly brought to a

successful conclusion. The problem of over-population, which it

was thought immoral to deal with by diminishing the birth-rate,

was made manageable by forbidding all medical instruction of

Negroes and all White measures for improving their sanitary

conditions. The resulting increase in the death-rate enabled White

men to breathe freely once more.

In spite of all these benefits, there were still some grumblers.

There were people who thought it regrettable that no work by a

Jew could be published anywhere. There were people in America

who wished to read poets who praised Liberty, such as Milton,

Byron and Shelley. For a time such poets could still be read in

Western Europe. But when it came to the knowledge of Congress

EISENHOWER'S NIGHTMARE 55

that they were distributed in cheap editions in these retrograde

nations, it was decided that economic sanctions must be imposed

until their works were placed upon the Index. In the new world

brought about by the Pact there was much material comfort, but

there was no art, no new thought, and little new science. Nuclear

physics of course was wholly forbidden. All books dealing with it

were burnt, and persons showing any knowledge of it were con-

demned to forced labour. Some misguided romantics looked back

with regret to the centuries when there had been great individuals,

but if they were prudent they kept their regret to themselves.

There were doubts at first as to whether the Pact would be

observed, but McCarthy and Malenkov found each other so

congenial and so united in their aims that they had no difficulty

about genuine co-operation. Each designated as his successor a

man with the same aims, and forty-three years have persuaded all

but a peevish minority that the Pact is as permanent as it is

beneficent. All honour to the memory of the two great leaders

who brought peace to the world !

DEAN ACHESON'S NIGHTMARE

[Written before Eisenhower's nomination]

The Swan-Song of Menelaus S. Bloggs

Dean Acheson, in retirement, dreamed that he read an article in a

Republican journal, which said: "Dean Acheson, .as all right-

minded people rejoice to know, is suffering the just penalty of

his crime. We all remember how, after six hours' continuous

questioning by a Congressional Committee, he stated that a certain

event, which had occurred seven years earlier, had taken place on

a Tuesday. Conclusive evidence was produced to show that it had

taken place on a Wednesday. On this ground he was prosecuted

for perjury, and sentenced to a long term as a convict. In spite of

this conviction, he remained impenitent and, to those who were

allowed to see him, he persisted in maintaining that the policy

which had been substituted for his own must lead to disaster."

After he had read this article the dream changed its character,

and it seemed to him that the veil which hides the future was

partially withdrawn and a spectral voice, in mournful tones, told

him of events still to come. The voice said:

DEAN ACHESON'S NIGHTMARE 57

This is the swan-song of Senator Menelaus S. Bloggs, about to

perish miserably in the Falkland Islands:

There are those who blame our immortal President, Bismarck A.

McSaft, for the misfortunes which have befallen my native land.

But their blame is unjust. And before I die, I must record the noble

heroism with which that great and gallant gentleman fought for

the right. I am not long for this world. Along with millions of

others, we sought these neutral shores believing, because of the

reports of the Bureau of Fisheries, that the supply of fish in

southern latitudes was inexhaustible. Alas, we little knew the

resources of science. Every fish within a thousand miles of this

storm- tossed archipelago has died a radio-active death. Some rash

men, when these deaths were first reported, ventured to eat such

fish as were but lately dead. But, alas, for these men ! The plutonium

in their stomachs proved fatal, and they died in appalling agonies.

Deprived of fish, we quickly devoured the few sheep and cattle to

be found in the rare pastures of these inhospitable sub-polar shores.

And now, like reindeer, we subsist on moss. But the supply of

moss, alas, is not inexhaustible. And in this last remnant of the

free world the few who are not in prison will soon perish. But to

my task. I have a duty to posterity, should there be any. That

great and good man will be maligned by the enemies who have

overthrown him. He will go down to what these wretches call

history in undeserved infamy. But I have found a casket impervious

to radio-activity, within which I shall bury this record in the

confident hope that the archaeologists of some future age will

unearth it and by its means do justice to the great man who is no

more.

We, in these Islands, remember and our hearts still beat high

with the recollection the jubilation of all right-minded citizens

when it was found in November 1956 that the destinies of our

great country were to be wrenched from the feeble hands of the

Trumans and Achesons and the almost equally feeble Eisenhowers

who had been but tools of the Kremlin, and be entrusted at least

for four crucial years to the unbending patriotism of Bismarck A.

McSaft. No sooner had he become President than he began to

58 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

act with that straightforward vigour which the undeviating con-

sistency of his public utterances had led us to expect. No longer

should American energy and American enthusiasm for the right

be held in leash by the cowardly nations of Western Europe. No

longer should traitors and crypto-Communists be allowed to

pretend that Chiang Kai-shek had his faults and that the Chinese

did not love him. A great army was dispatched to place him in the

seat of power in Peking. The Chinese Communists displayed the

faint-heartedness that was to be expected of them. They avoided

pitched battles. They drew our brave boys farther and farther into

the infertile mountains. They compelled us to disperse our forces

over wide areas in the defence of cities and railways and arterial

roads. We held the East of China securely, as it seemed. But the

West continued to elude our grasp. More and more of our troops

became engulfed in the struggle. Our atom bombs were uselessly

expended in areas where population was sparse and enemy armies

had split up into roving guerrilla bands.

Meanwhile, the Russians, as was to be expected, inflicted upon

the miserable nations of Western Europe what their wretched

passion for self-preservation had made inevitable. Without much

opposition the Russians occupied the Ruhr and Lorraine and

Northern France. Those of the population who had industrial

skill were allowed to perform slave labour on the spot. Those

who had not, were sent to fell timber in the forests of Archangel

or to mine gold in North-Eastern Siberia. Russian submarines made

the communications of the American forces in China precarious,

In the end, their hardships were such that it was decided to bring

them home.

Latin America, meantime, from Rio Grande to Cape Home,

had embraced the Communist faith. All Asia, except the regions

actually occupied by American troops, had long since gone over

to Moscow. The activities of Dr. Malan had converted the Africans

to Communism. And, during the invasion of Western Europe by

Russiatl troops, every White man in Africa, from Cape Bon to the

Cape of Good Hope, had had his throat cut. After the Russians

had occupied South Africa, giant planes conveyed troops and

DEAN ACHESON'S NIGHTMARE

munitions to Latin America. A vast propaganda effort persuaded

the upland populations of Peru, Bolivia and Brazil that Russia

was the champion of the Red man against the White oppressor.

Encouraged by gigantic massacres, vast hordes of Red men, dis-

ciplined and armed by the Kremlin, advanced through Mexico

against the remnants of the army that had been brought back from

China an army discouraged by defeat, enfeebled by malaria,

and, though I confess it with shame, not quite persuaded of the

justice of its cause.

When I saw that all was over, I embarked along with many others

on a ship lying ready on the Potomac. I lived oh, shame ! to see

the Hammer and Sickle hoisted over the Capitol. In another moment

our frail barque would have been sunk by Russian guns, but a

merciful Providence hid us in a sudden mist and we escaped.

There are those among us who say that these tragic events prove

a defect in the policy of our great President. The men who say this

do not understand moral issues. It is far nobler to fight for the

right and perish heroically than to be enmeshed in considerations

of petty policy which may save our bodies but not our souls.

Physically the United States is no more; but morally it lives for

ever, a beacon light, a shining splendour, upon whose immortal

banner are inscribed the great words of our last and noblest Pre-

sident: "We will fight for righteousness though the heavens fall,

and for freedom, though it involve the imprisonment of nine-tenths

of our population." With these immortal words graven upon my

heart, I prepare myself calmly for death. Amen.

So impressed was Dean Acheson by this strange and gloomy

narrative that he found it impossible not to believe it a true glimpse

into the future. In this belief he confided the revelation of Senator

Bloggs to his attorney, who used it to support an appeal for a

revision of the sentence on the ground of insanity.

"But I am not insane !" Dean Acheson exclaimed. And, with this

exclamation, he awoke.

DR. SOUTHPORT VULPES'S NIGHTMARE

The Victory of Mind Over Matter

Dr. Southport Vulpes had had a long, tiring day at the Ministry of

Mechanical Production. He had been trying to persuade the officials

that there was no longer need of human beings in factories except

for one to each building to act as caretaker and turn the switch

on or off. He was an enthusiast, and was merely puzzled by the

slow and traditional mentality of the bureaucrats. They pointed

out that his schemes would require a vast capital outlay in the

way of robot factories, and that, before their output had become

adequate, they might be wrecked by rioting wage-earners or

stopped dead by the fiat of indignant trade unions. Such fears

seemed to him paltry and unimaginative. He was amazed that the

splendid visions by which he was fired did not at once kindle like

hopes in those to whom he endeavoured to communicate them.

Coming out of the cold March drizzle, discouraged and exhausted,

he sank into a chair and, in the welcome warmth, he fell asleep.

In sleep he experienced all the triumph that had eluded him in his

waking hours. He dreamed; and the dream was sweet:

DR. SOUTHPORT VULPES's NIGHTMARE 6l

The third World War, like the Siege of Troy, was in its tenth

year. In a military sense, its course had been inconclusive. Some-

times victory seemed to incline to the one side, sometimes to the

other, but never decisively or for any long period to either. But

from the technical point of view, which alone concerned Dr.

Vulpes, its progress had been all that could be wished.

During the first two years of the War, robots had been substituted

for live workers in all factories on both sides, thereby releasing

immense reserves of man-power for the armies. But this advance,

which Governments at first welcomed enthusiastically, proved less

satisfactory than had been hoped. The casualties, caused largely

by bacteriological warfare, were enormous. In some parts of the

vast fronts, after destructive pestilences, the survivors mutinied

and clamoured for peace. For a time, the rival Governments

despaired of keeping the War alive, but Dr. Vulpes and his oppo-

site number Phinnichovski Stukinmudovich found a way of

surmounting the crisis.

During the third and fourth years of the War they manufactured

military robots who took the place of Privates in the infantry of

both sides. In the fifth and sixth years, they extended this process

to all officers below the rank of General. They discovered also that

the work of education or of indoctrination, as it was now officially

called could be performed with far more certainty and exactness

by machines than by live teachers and professors. It had been found

very difficult to eliminate personal idiosyncrasies completely from

live educators, whereas the mass-produced indoctrinators, manu-

factured by Dr. Vulpes and Comrade Stukinmudovich, all said

exactly the same thing and all made precisely the same speeches

about the importance of victory. The consequent improvement

in morale was truly remarkable. By the eighth year of the War,

none of the young people who were trained for the higher command

over the vast robot armies shrank from the almost complete certainty

of death in the plague-stricken areas where the fighting took place.

But step by step, as they died, increased mechanical ingenuity

found means of rendering them superfluous.

At last almost everything was done by robots. Some human

62 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

beings, so far, had proved indispensable: geological experts to

direct the mining robots into suitable areas, Governments to decide

great matters of policy, and, of course, Dr. Vulpes and Comrade

Stukinmudovich to devote their great brains to new heights of

ingenuity.

These two men were both whole-hearted enthusiasts. Both were

above the battle in the sense that they cared nothing for the issues

on which politicians wasted their eloquence, but only for the

perfecting of their machines. Both liked the War because it induced

the politicians to give them scope. Neither wished the War to end,

since they feared that with its ending men would fall back into

traditional ways and would insist upon again doing, by means of

human muscles and brains, things that robots could do without

fatigue and with far more precision. Their objects being identical,

they were close friends though this had to be kept as a secret from

their politician employers. They had used some portion of their

armies of robots to make a great tunnel through the mountains

of the Caucasus. One mouth of the tunnel was held by the forces

of the West, the other by the forces of the East. Nobody except

Dr. Vulpes and Comrade Stukinmudovich knew that the tunnel

had two mouths, for, except for themselves, they allowed only

robots into the tunnel. They had employed the robots to heat the

tunnel, and to light it brilliantly, and to fill it with great stores of

food in capsules scientifically calculated to promote life and health,

though not to delight the palate, for both lived only in the life of

the mind and were indifferent to the joys of sense.

Dr. Vulpes, as he was about the enter the tunnel, permitted

himself some unprofessional reflections upon the world of sunlight

that he was temporarily abandoning for one of his periodical

conferences with Comrade Stukinmudovich. Gazing upon the

sea below and the snowy peaks above, dim recollections floated

into his mind of the classical education upon which, at the bidding

of old-fashioned parents, some of his early years had been reluc-

tantly wasted. "It was here," so he reflected, "that Prometheus

was chained by Zeus, Prometheus who took the first step in that

glorious progress of science which has led to the present splendid

DR. SOUTHPORT VULPES's NIGHTMARE 63

consummation. Zeus, like the Governments of my youth, preferred

the ancient ways. But Prometheus, unlike me and my friend

Stukinmudovich,had not discovered how to outwit the reactionaries

of his day. It is fitting that I should triumph on the spot where he

suffered, and that Zeus with his paltry lightnings should be put in

his place by our atomic skill." With these thoughts he bade farewell

to the daylight and advanced to meet his friend.

They had had during the course of the War many secret con-

ferences. In perfect mutual confidence they had communicated to

each other whatever inventions might make the War more

ingenious and more lasting.

In the middle of the tunnel he was met by his friend Stukinmudo-

vich advancing from the East. They clasped hands and gazed into

each other's eyes with warm affection. For a little moment before

they became engulfed in technicalities they allowed themselves to

rejoice in their joint work. "How beautiful," they said, "is the

world that we are creating ! Human beings were unpredictable, often

mad, often cowardly, sometimes afflicted with anti-governmental

ideals. How different are our robots ! On them propaganda always

has the intended effect."

"What," said the two sages to each other, "what could the most

ardent moralist desire that we have not provided ? Man was liable

to sin; robots are not. Man was often foolish; robots never are.

Man was liable to sexual aberrations; robots are not. You and I,"

they said to each other, "have long ago decided that the only thing

that counts in a man is his behaviour i.e. what may be viewed

from without. The behaviour of our robots is in all respects better

than that of the accidental biological product which has hitherto

puffed itself up with foolish pride. How ingenious are their devices !

How masterly their strategy! How bold their tactics, and how

intrepid their conduct in battle! Who that is not the victim of

obsolete superstition could desire more?"

Dr. Vulpes and Comrade Stukinmudovich had discovered

means of making their robots sensitive to eloquence. The best

speeches of the statesmen on the two sides were recorded, and at

the sound of their soul-stirring words the wheels of the robots

64 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

began to whirr and they behaved, though with more precision, as

politicians had hoped that living crowds would behave. Only slight

differences were needed to make the robots of one side respond to

one kind of propaganda and those of the other to a different kind.

Dr. Vulpes's robots responded to the noble words of our Great

Western Statesman: "Can we hesitate, when we see vast hordes

determined to extirpate belief in God, and to wipe out in our hearts

that faith in a beneficent Creator which sustains us through all

ardours, difficulties and dangers ? Can we endure to think that we

are nothing but ingenious mechanisms, as our soulless enemies

pretend? Can we forgo that immortal heritage of freedom for which

our ancestors fought, and in defence of which we have been com-

pelled to inflict upon thousands the rigours of incarceration ? Can

any of us hesitate at such a moment? Can any of us hold back?

Can any of us think for one moment that the sacrifice of our mere

individual life, of our petty personal existence is to be weighed against

the preservation in the world of those ideals for which our ancestors

fought and bled? No! A thousand times, No! Onward, fellow

citizens ! And in the knowledge of right be assured of the ultimate

triumph of our Cause!"

All Dr. Vulpes's robots were so constructed that, when a gramo-

phone recited these noble words in their presence, they set them-

selves to perform, without hesitation or doubt, their allotted task,

of which the ultimate purpose was to prove that the world is not

governed by mere mechanism.

Comrade Stukinmudovich's robots were equally efficient and

responded with equal readiness to the gramophone records of the

Generalissimo's inspired utterances: "Comrades, are you prepared

to be for ever the slaves of soulless capitalist exploiters ? Are you

prepared to deny the great destiny which Dialectical Materialism

has prepared for those who are emancipated from the chains imposed

by base exploiters? Can anything so dead, so lifeless, so cruel, so

base as the foul philosophy of Wall Street subdue the human race

for ever? No ! A thousand times, No ! Freedom is yours if you will

work for it now with that ardour with which your precursors

worked to create the Great State that is now your champion.

DR. SOUTHPORT VULPES'S NIGHTMARE 65

Onward to Victory! Onward to Freedom! Onward to Life and

Joy!" These words on the gramophone equally activated Stukin-

mudovich's robots.

The rival armies met in their millions. The rival planes, guided

by robots, darkened the sky. Never once did a robot fail in its duty.

Never once did it flee from the field of battle. Never once did its

machinery whirr in response to enemy propaganda.

Until this meeting in the tenth year of the war, the happiness of

Dr. Vulpes and Comrade Stukinmudovich had had its limitations.

There were still human beings in Governments, and human beings

were still necessary as geological experts to direct the robots to new

sources of raw material as the old sources became exhausted. There

was a danger that Governments might decide upon peace. There

was another danger even more difficult to avert, that, if geological

experts were eliminated, the activities of robots might some day

be brought to an end by the exhaustion of mines. The first of these

dangers was not unavoidable. When they met on this occasion

they confided to each other that they had plans for the mutual

extermination of the Governments on each side. But the need of

geological experts remained to trouble them. It was to the solution

of this problem that they devoted their joint intelligence on this

occasion. At last, after a month of arduous thought, they arrived

at the solution. They invented pathfinder robots capable of guiding

others to the right mines. There were robots that could find iron,

robots that could find oil, robots that could find copper, robots

that could find uranium, and so on through all the materials of

scientific warfare. Now at last they had no fear that when existing

mines were no longer productive the war would have to stop, and

so much ingenuity would cease to function.

When they had completed the manufacture of these pathfinding

robots they decided to stay in their tunnel and await calmly the

extinction of the rest of the human race. They were no longer

young and they had the philosophic calm of men whose work was

completed. The two sages, fed and tended by hoards of subservient

robots, lived to a great age and died at the same moment. They

died happy, knowing that, while the planet lasted, the war would

c

66 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

continue, with no diplomatists to call it off, no cynics to doubt the

holiness of rival slogans, no sceptics to ask the purpose of unending

ingenious activity.

Filled with enthusiasm, Dr. Vulpes awoke. As he woke, he heard

himself exclaiming: "No more risk of Victory! War forever!*'

Unfortunately, the words were overheard, and he was sent to gaol.

Zahatopolk

ZAHATOPOLK

CHAPTER I

The Past

Professor Driuzdustades, the eminent Head of the College of

Indoctrination, with portly step and billowing gown, mounted to

his desk in the reverently restored hall of the Incas at Cuzco, and

faced the eager audience at the beginning of the academic year.

He had succeeded to his important office on the death of his scarcely

less eminent father, Professor Driuzdust. The students to whom

he was about to lecture were the hundred most promising in the

whole realm. They had finished their ordinary studies, and were

now about to embark upon their post-graduate curriculum which

secured to the College of Indoctrination its immense power over

opinion. The eager young faces looked up to him for the weighty

words of wisdom which, they did not doubt, were about to flow

from his lips. Of the whole hundred there were two who showed

especial brilliance: one was his son Thomas who, it was hoped,

would in due course succeed to his father's august office; the other

yO NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

was a girl named Diotima. She was beautiful, earnest and profound,

and had captured the heart of Thomas.

After clearing his throat and taking a sip of water, the Professor

spoke as follows:

"The subject of my lecture today will be the thirtieth century

before Zahatopolk or, as it was called by those who lived in it,

the twentieth century A.D. It is thought by the wise men who

regulate education in this happy land that you, the chosen hundred,

are by this time sufficiently firm in understanding and appreciation

of our holy religion and of the revelation which we owe to the

divine Founder Zahatopolk, to be able to hear without loss of

mental equilibrium about ages lacking our faith and our wisdom.

You will, of course, never for one moment forget that they were

ages of darkness. Nevertheless, as serious students of history it

will be your duty at times a difficult and painful duty to set

aside in imagination all that you know of the true and the good

and to realize that even in that darkness there were men who,

at least in comparison with others of their time, might be accounted

virtuous. You will have to learn not to shudder at the thought

that even men who were universally respected, publicly and with-

out shame ate peas. What perhaps you will find only slightly less

difficult to forgive is the fact that, when the number of their children

exceeded three, they did not, as we do, eat the excess to the glory

of the State, but selfishly kept them alive. In a word, you will have

to cultivate historic imagination. You will, of course, understand

that this, though a virtue in you, the chosen lite, would be sub-

versive and highly dangerous if it spread to wider circles. You will

understand that what is said in this lecture-room is 'said to the

wise, and is not to be broadcast to the vulgar. With this proviso, I

will proceed to my task.

"The thirtieth century B.Z. was a time of chaos and transition.

It was the time when the Graeco-Judaean synthesis was replaced

by the Prusso-Slavic philosophy. It was a time of convulsions and

disasters; a time when that basis of dogma, without which no

society can be stable, was absent in the minds of young and old

alike. There had been a time known to the nostalgic victims of

ZAHATOPOLK

doubt as the age of Faith, when the Graeco-Judaean synthesis had

been unquestioningly accepted, except by small minorities which,

very properly, had been silenced by the rack or exterminated by

the stake. But this age had been brought to an end by a pernicious

doctrine which, I am happy to say, has never found any advocates

among us. This was called the doctrine of toleration. Men actually

believed that a State could be stable in spite of fundamental diver-

gences in the religious beliefs of the citizens. This insane delusion

it was, which caused the Graeco-Judaean synthesis to fall before

the new virile dogmatism of the Prusso-Slavic philosophy. Pray

do not mistake me. I am not suggesting and I hope none of you

will imagine for one moment that I am suggesting that there

was any least particle of truth either in the dogmas of the Graeco-

Judaean synthesis or in those of the Prusso-Slavic philosophy.

Neither foresaw the divine Zahatopolk. Neither recognized the

innate superiority of the Red Man. Neither grasped the great

principles upon which, among ourselves, both public and private

life are so happily established. I am saying only one thing con-

cerning these outworn systems: I am saying that while they sur-

vived and while they were believed with sufficient fervour to make

insistence upon uniformity inevitable, so long they could hold

society together after a fashion though not, of course, with that

smooth perfection which we owe to the Zahatopolkian revelation.

All past systems had their imperfections which caused them to

fall. The Prusso-Slavic system in its heyday looked solid; so did

its successor, the Sino-Javanese system. But their defects, in the

end, brought about their downfall. Only the Zahatopolkian system

has no defects; and therefore, only the Zahatopolkian system will

last as long as there are human beings to supply Zahatopolk with

worshippers."

The Professor told how almost all the accounts that we possess

of the dissolution of the Graeco-Judaean synthesis are from the

point of view of the victors, representing the triumphant march

of the divine Satalinus and the extermination in every part of the

world of the lingering adherents of the defeated system. But the

Professor pointed out that, wherever possible, the historian must

NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

search for records from both points of view, and must allow the

vanquished their share in the historian's pages.

"Fortunately," he continued, "a document has recently come to

light in the Falkland Islands which enables its readers to view

with human sympathy the bewilderment and despair that mark

the end of a great era."*

After reading this document the Professor continued:

"Throughout the reign of the Prusso-Slavic philosophy docu-

ments such as the above were, of course, unknown. Under the

banner of the great god Dialmet the inhabitants of the northern

plains established their victorious empire and maintained it with

all the ruthless dogmatism without which their preposterous myths

could not have won acceptance. Their two apostles, Marcus and

Leninius, became familiar in every part of the globe through the

ikons which every house had to possess on pain of death to its

occupiers. These two Founders became known familiarly as Long-

Beard and Short-Beard respectively, and it came to be generally

held that magic virtue resided in their hirsute appendages. Their

successor Satalinus, whose virtue was military rather than doctrinal,

was honoured only less than they were, and the lesser degree of

his honour was symbolized by the substitution of a mere moustache

for a beard. The German language, in which the sacred books of

this era were written, became extinct soon after the time of

Satalinus, and the sacred books could thereafter only be read by a

few learned men, who were not allowed to communicate directly

with the populace, but only through the medium of the supreme

political authority. This restriction was necessary because there

were passages in the scriptures which, if interpreted literally, might

have caused considerable embarrassment to rulers, and even have

stirred up disaffection among the ruled.

"For some centuries all went well. But at last a time came when

the rulers imagined themselves safe and allowed themselves to

listen to the sceptical scholars of China. Some of these sceptics

no doubt had no ulterior motives, but were actuated only by that

unbridled intellectual curiosity which had done so much to bring

* See the swan-song of Menelaus S. Bloggs (above).

ZAHATOPOLK

the previous era to destruction. Others, however and the.

the majority had a more subtle purpose. They saw no rt

why white men should have a monopoly of the sacred booi

They determined insidiously to deride these books, while sug

gesting that in their own language, of which the rulers were

ignorant, there were far more ancient sacred books, far more

unintelligible, and far more awe-inspiring. Gradually they softened

their masters and made scepticism fashionable among them. They

themselves, however, refrained from scepticism. Bound together

in the closest ties of esoteric dogma, they worked with patient

secrecy at the undermining of the imposing edifice of Prusso-

Slavic statecraft. On a given day, long predetermined in their inner

councils, they rose, destroying their rulers by means of a subtle

poison distilled from the volcanic vegetation of Krakatoa. Thus

was inaugurated the Sino-Javanese era, which immediately pre-

ceded our own happy age.

"Our own country, now great and glorious and immutably

secure, endured long ages of bitter suffering. During the last four

centuries of the Graeco-Judaean era the Red Man was massacred,

or outlawed, or reduced to the status of a slave. The insolent

White Man dominated throughout our great continent, from which

beneficent Nature had so long excluded him while the first Inca

empire flourished. For a moment it seemed as if the downfall of

these ruthless masters would bring liberation. The Prusso-Slavs

enlisted our support in overthrowing the Graeco-Judaean intruders,

and, in order to stimulate our efforts, they made great promises

of freedom. But when the victory had been won, their promises

were forgotten, and the brave Red Men, whose help had been so

necessary, found themselves no better off than before. Nor did the

Sino-Javanese era bring any amelioration of our lot. Only the

ancient traditions of the divine Incas of the distant past, and the

ruins from which their greatness could still be imagined, kept alive

in a small secret band the hope that the God of our ancestors

would yet return and give us that mastery of the world which

we had deserved through our virtues and our suffering.

"The Sino-Javanese, like all rulers of eras before our own, had

c*

NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

aly allowed themselves to be seduced by the love of pleasure

soft living. The arduous peaks and scarcely accessible valleys

our divine land did not attract them. They lived in palaces in the

plains, surrounded by every luxury, dressed in soft silks, and

reclining upon exquisitely-fashioned couches, served though I

blush to report it by slaves of our own race, slaves who, since

they had no share in the luxury, had also no share in the effeminacy

of their masters. It was at this epoch, just one thousand years ago,

that the divine Zahatopolk appeared. There were, at first, some

who maintained that He was a mere man; but that we know was

false. He appeared out of the sky, and landed upon the summit of

Cotopaxi. Many thousands of our race, warned by an oracle, saw

His descent. From that sacred mountain, He deigned to come

down amongst His worshippers, who beheld at once in His features

the likeness of their glorious God who had received their homage

before the coming of the infamous destroyer Pisarro. A divine

enthusiasm inspired in all a miraculous unanimity. They exter-

minated the Chinese sybarites, whom they took unawares. In the

great wars that followed, the divine Zahatopolk led them to victory

by the help of the deadly fungus of Cotopaxi, whose properties

had been unknown until He revealed them to His worshippers.

For thirty years He wrought among them, first in war and then,

after universal victory, in the even more difficult arts of peace.

The institutions under which we live we owe to Him. The Book

of Sacred Law, whatever accretions subsequent ages may have

brought, remains the basis of our policy. And woe to him who

should suggest any smallest departure from that celestial revelation !"

CHAPTER II

The Present

The regime inaugurated by the divine Zahatopolk took some

time to become firmly established, but so solid and statesmanlike

ZAHATOPOLK j5

had been His principles that no radical new departures had been

needed during the thousand years since His advent. All previous

empires so Zahatopolk taught had been brought to an end by

softness softness in living, softness in feeling, and softness in

thinking. This His followers must avoid, and in order to avoid it

certain rigid and inflexible rules must be accepted without ques-

tioning and enforced without mercy.

The first thing that the God bade His worshippers always

remember was the superiority of Red Men to men of different pig-

mentation, and among Red Men the overlordship of the Peruvians,

while recognizing the Mexicans as next in merit. It was permissible,

and even laudable, to praise the wisdom of the ancient Maya,

before the white abomination had begun to pollute the Western

hemisphere, but the palm in antique glory was reserved for the

Incas. The slopes of Cotopaxi yielded a poisonous microscopic

fungus to which pure-blooded Peruvian Indians were immune,

but which spread contagious death among other populations.

After some experience of the devastation that this plague could

cause, the rest of the world submitted to Inca domination. And in

the course of centuries rebellion had become almost unthinkable.

The virility of the ruling race was kept intact by many wise

regulations. No physical luxury was permitted them. They slept

on hard beds with wooden pillows. They dressed in clothes made

of leather; one suit was expected to suffice for either a man or a

woman from the time of being full-grown until death. Cold baths

were enforced by law even in frosty weather and among mountain

snows. Food, though wholesome and sufficient, was always plain,

except at the annual feast of the Epiphany. Every day every

Peruvian must take sufficient physical exercise to insure complete

fitness. Alcohol and tobacco were forbidden to the ruling race,

though permitted to their subjects. The divine Zahatopolk revealed,

what had not previously been known, that the eating of peas is an

abomination which produces a loathsome pollution. Any Peruvian

who ate peas, even if no other nourishment was available, was

put to death, and those who had witnessed the dreadful deed were

subjected to a long and painful process of purification. This

j6 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

prohibition also applied only to Peruvians; others were already

polluted in their blood, and no abstinence could cleanse them.

The hardening process began in childhood, especially where

boys were concerned. The hours at school were divided between

lessons, gymnastics, and rough fiercely competitive games. No

boy was allowed to say that he was tired, or cold, or hungry; if

he did, he was despised as a weakling, and had to endure not only

the contempt of the authorities, but the well-merited ill-treatment

inflicted by the other boys. Those who had any physical weakness

died of this regimen, but it was held that it would have been useless

to keep them alive. They died despised and unregretted, and if

their parents mourned them, they had to do so in secret, for fear of

sharing the obloquy of their sons.

The severities in the education of girls were somewhat different,

since it was held that muscular development is no help in child-

bearing. Girls were never permitted the slightest gratification of

vanity, nor was any display of emotion tolerated, with the one

exception of religious exaltation and devotion to the Inca. Absolute

obedience was exacted, often in purposely painful ways. A very

few, however, who showed some marked ability of a sort con-

sidered usually masculine, were allowed some freedom and some

initiative, though only in such ways as were conventionally

tolerated.

Women, except those few who had been classified in youth as

unusually gifted, were confined to domestic duties. They were not

considered the equals of men, since they were not so useful in

battle. It is true that, after the first years, battles did not occur,

but that was only because the Peruvians were known to be in-

vincible. Never must they forget so Zahatopolk had taught

that only by superior strength could they maintain their empire,

and that a false sense of security had brought disaster to every

previous Master Race. Women, therefore, must remain subordinate,

and husbands must practise in the home those habits of command

which they would need in the world.

The strictest monogamy was rigidly observed. Neither men nor

women were allowed to stray from the path of virtue. It was not

ZAHATOPOLK 77

only illicit love, but all love, that was frowned on. Marriages

were arranged by parents, or, in the case of orphans, by the priests.

For either party to object was unheard of; the ends of life were

not pleasure, but duty to the State and to the Holy Zahatopolk.

In the very rare cases of subsequent infidelity, the culprit was

degraded, and compelled to live abroad as a member of some non-

Peruvian horde.

Zahatopolk taught that Peruvians must remain a proud governing

aristocracy. Their numbers must not increase so fast that many of

them would be poor, nor must they be unable to live on the produce

of Peru, for power, not wealth, was what they should seek in their

dealings with the outside world. Their divine Lawgiver, therefore,

decreed that when a married couple had already had three children,

any further children born to them should be reverently eaten

within a month of birth, both to prove that the parents were

innocent of any intention to cause a food shortage, and as a symbol

of submission to Zahatopolk as the God of Fertility. There had at

one time been a short-lived heretical sect which, misled by a

weak-kneed humanitarianism, maintained that birth control was

preferable to eating surplus children. But the leading divine pointed

out that birth control is a sin against God's gift of life, whereas

eating a child only makes its flesh a partaker in the life of the

parents from whom the child's life has come, and with which it

always remains mystically one. Accordingly, the eating of one's

child is a deeply religious act, bodying forth in a material form the

eternal continuity of the stream of life. And as such this act came

to be universally accepted.

Although all Peruvians formed an aristocracy in relation to

lesser breeds, there was also an aristocracy among Peruvians. It

was an aristocracy partly of birth, partly of ability. Any boy or

girl of really outstanding talent could be admitted to its ranks, but

most of its members were descendants of the captains who had

led the forces of Zahatopolk to victory in His great wars of libera-

tion and conquest. The priesthood, who were very powerful,

were all chosen from the aristocracy. Aristocrats had in some

respects more freedom than other people: for example, they

j8 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

might without censure have intercourse with the wives of plebeians,

and they were partially exempt from the sumptuary laws regarding

dress and diet.

Religion, to a very considerable extent, followed the pattern of

ancient Peru and Mexico. Zahatopolk was in some sense identified

with the sun, and it was His divine rays that caused the crops to

grow. There was also a Goddess, representing the moon, though

She was less prominent in the cult. She had, however, one important

part to play in the Zahatopolkian year. At the first new moon

after the winter solstice, at the moment when both sun and moon

seemed in danger of losing their several virtues, both were magically

revivified by a solemn and ancient rite. For a brief time Zahatopolk,

as the Sun God, became incarnate in the reigning Inca, while the

Moon Goddess became incarnate in a virgin whose identity was

revealed to the priests by means of certain sacred insignia. Sun

and moon were brought together in order to give each other new

life. The chosen virgin was solemnly led to the Inca by the priests,

and by his union with her the sun recovered strength. In order that

the union might be completed as fully as possible, the Inca next

morning reverently consumed the lady, who could no longer serve

the purpose for which virginity was essential. This most sacred

rite, performed just after the winter solstice, was the occasion for

the great public holiday of the Epiphany, when, for a moment,

much of the habitual frugality was relaxed.

The Inca's annual union with the Virgin of the Year was, of

course, only for religious purposes. He had a wife, whose oldest

son would succeed him. It was not as himself, but as temporarily

Zahatopolk, that he had intercourse with the lady who, while the

rite lasted, was honoured as the Bride of Zahatopolk. To be the

Chosen One was the greatest honour possible for a woman, and

families which had enjoyed this honour were exalted by it. The

Bride herself invariably rejoiced in spite of the death that awaited

her. The loveliest lyric poetry known consisted of a paean of

triumph in stiff archaic ritual language celebrating the joy of the

Bride at the thought of being absorbed into the divine stomach.

Once, during the first century of the regime, a dreadful impiety

ZAHATOPOLK ?$

had shaken Authority to its foundations. A man who had been

acknowledged as the Inca fell so deeply in love with the Bride of

Zahatopolk that he impiously refrained from killing and eating

her, but kept her alive and visited her in secret. The consequences

were such as might have been expected. The sun failed to recover,

rising every morning as late as at the winter solstice. The supposed

Inca became prematurely old, losing both hair and teeth. There

was bewilderment and despair, combined with dark suspicions.

At the festival of the spring equinox, which was held at the usual

time in spite of the sun's failure to rise when it should, lightning

from a clear sky struck the supposed Inca dead. It was subse-

quently discovered that his mother had impiously committed

adultery, and that he had therefore no right to the throne. Before

this incident some scepticism had lingered among intellectuals,

but after it, naturally, there was none.

The sacred land of Peru included the territories which in the

Spanish era had been known as Ecuador and Chile. Throughout

this region, as soon as the liberation was completed, Zahatopolk

decreed measures to secure the purity of Indian blood. Whites and

Negroes were exterminated and all Mestizos were sterilized. Some,

however, in whom the taint of foreign blood was not evident,

escaped, so that, from time to time, children with white or Negro

traits were born. All new-born children were examined by State

physicians, and if any such taint was discovered, the parents had

to eat the child and submit to sterilization. While the regime was

still new, this severity was apt to cause disaffection. All such

parents therefore remained suspect and were carefully watched by

the secret police. After about two hundred years of this process

the taint of foreign blood disappeared and only pure Indians were

to be found throughout the length and breadth of the Holy Land.

Outside Peru the official policy was different. Mexicans were

treated almost as equals. They were allowed in the army and in

foreign government posts, except the very highest, provided their

blood was pure. They were also allowed higher education and

were even admitted to the University of Cuzco. Other Indians had

lesser privileges, and it was admitted that their merit might be

80 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

such as to deserve recognition. But whites, yellows, browns and

blacks were treated as inferior species, and were deliberately kept

in a state of degradation. There was, it is true, a difference. The

blacks, who had never yet achieved world empire, were despised

but not feared. The whites and yellows, since they had held world

empire, were feared, and the contempt that was inculcated towards

them had to be carefully fostered.

Education was denied to all who were not Indian. All, without

distinction, were condemned to ten hours a day of manual work.

While the land of Peru preserved an ancient rustic simplicity and

carefully avoided all damage to natural beauty, the rest of the

world was filled with everything most up-to-date in the way of

industrialism. Factories, mines, vast slag-heaps, filthy slums, smoke

and grime were thought suitable to the scum of foreign lands.

Peruvians believed, and all the world was taught, that while

Peruvians were the children of the sun, other races were foetidly

generated from slime. All that Zahatopolk had taught about the

softening influence of pleasure was used to degrade the non-Indian

populations. When their ten hours of work were finished, every

opportunity was put in their way for alcoholic excess and the

stupefying effect of opium. Marriage was not recognized and uni-

versal promiscuity was encouraged. Physicians were forbidden to

combat the resulting spread of venereal disease. Any Peruvian who

was found guilty of sexual intercourse with a member of an inferior

race was instantly put to death. Peruvian guards, who were

necessary to keep the bestial population in order, were very care-

fully protected against degradation by their horrible surroundings.

They were encouraged to see natives eating peas, and this nauseous

spectacle stimulated their patriotism in the highest degree. The

non-Indian population of the world diminished slowly as a result

of disease and excess. Certain visionaries foresaw in a more or less

distant future a world purged of all but Red Men, and imagined

in that future an equality of all men which could not, as things

were, be tolerated. Such Utopian visions were, however, thought

risky, and those who indulged in them were viewed with a certain

suspicion. The governors of foreign countries were very carefully

ZAHATOPOLK 8l

selected, since experience had shown that those who had in their

nature any element of instability were liable to nervous disorders

of various sorts. Some practised needless cruelties towards the

natives; others, more gravely disordered, attempted to make

friends with them and treated them as in some degree equals.

There were even a few instances of governors who believed in the

brotherhood of man and unearthed ancient documents from the

Graeco-Judaean epoch which preached this outlandish doctrine.

These men had to be dealt with very severely, and the School of

Indoctrination at Cuzco had to inaugurate courses designed to

guard against this danger. As time went on, however, the danger

grew less, since the measures adopted by the Government succeeded

in making the natives progressively more and more degraded and

more and more purely animal. After some centuries the Peruvian

supremacy came to seem unshakable.

CHAPTER III

The Trio

The lectures of Professor Driuzdustades continued throughout

an academic year and gave rise to earnest discussions between

Thomas and Diotima, in which her friend Freia had a minor part.

Diotima, partly from the lectures and partly from the reading of

ancient history, began to feel perplexities which surprised and

disquieted her. She did not feel quite sure that cannibalism was

either necessary or desirable. Professor Driuzdustades had explained

that the identification of the Bride with the moon was not to be

taken literally, but was only a beautiful allegory. One morning

the terrible thought came to Diotima: "Why, if the union is only

allegorical, cannot the eating also be so? Could not a ginger-

bread puppet be substituted for the living Bride?" The blasphemous

character of this thought made her go cold all over. She shivered

82 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

and turned pale. Thomas, who was present, inquired anxiously

what was the matter. But the thought had been fugitive, and she

felt it unwise to reveal it. Other doubts, also, assailed her. In the

university library she found an old dusty volume that had obviously

remained undisturbed for a very long time. It contained the most

noteworthy speculations of the ages of darkness before the coming

of the Holy Zahatopolk. She could not resist the thrill of their

enormous antiquity, for some antedated even the beginning of the

Graeco-Judaean synthesis. In some of these writings she found a

doctrine to the effect that a man's sympathies should not be con-

fined to his own race, but should extend to the whole human species.

She discovered also that long ago men who had not been red had

thought thoughts and said words that seemed to her at least as

wise and at least as profound as any that had been produced by

the Zahatopolkian era. She began to wonder whether the present

bestiality of white, yellow, and brown men was really, as she had

been taught, due to congenital inferiority or might not, rather,

have been induced by the institutions which Peruvian statecraft

had established. Of these doubts she said little, but something of

them showed through her guarded utterances.

Thomas was troubled by her state of mind. His admiration for

her was such that every word falling from her lips had weight with

him, and, however she might' alarm him, he could not dismiss her

vaguely adumbrated doubts as he would those of any other fellow-

student. Although he was troubled, his faith survived, for it seemed

to him that without the hard framework of Zahatopolkian orthodoxy

society would dissolve and there would be universal chaos. In

the war of all against all which he imagined, he feared to see the

loss of all that is good in civilization. What would become of science

and art? What would become of ordered family life? What safe-

guard would remain against vast destruction in world-wide combats

of rival hordes ? All these horrors, so it seemed to him, were pre-

vented only by the monumental stability of the traditional ortho-

doxy. Let doubt once penetrate through even the smallest chink

and the whole system would dissolve. A deep cultural night would

spread over the globe and men everywhere would become as

ZAHATOPOLK 83

degraded as the most degraded of present subject populations.

Such thoughts made him shudder , whenever Diotima, through

some momentary carelessness, allowed her new tentative opinions

to appear.

"O Diotima," he would say, "beware! You are embarked upon

a perilous mental journey, a journey leading only to a dark and

measureless abyss in which, if you do not retrace your steps, you

will be engulfed. I do not wish to see you pursuing this path alone,

but much as I love you I cannot pursue it with you."

Freia, who was sometimes present during these discussions, was

unable to appreciate their gravity. Diotima, whom she had known

since childhood, was endeared to her by many common memories.

Thomas, as the brilliant son of a brilliant father, destined as every-

body hoped to carry on the age-old tradition of Zahatopolkian

culture, inevitably commanded the respect of one to whom every-

thing established was sacred. She was, however, less perturbed

than she should have been, as she spent most of her time in a

dream-like daze of mystic exaltation, and whatever did not fit with

this mood seemed to her to be due to some misapprehension.

When Diotima said anything that seemed subversive, Freia would

smile gently and say, "of course, my dear, you don't really mean

that!" And Diotima, who thought it neither possible nor desirable

to disturb Freia's beliefs, would seemingly acquiesce as though she

had been engaged in mere intellectual play.

Diotima's family belonged to the highest and most ancient

aristocracy of Peru. In the War of Liberation their ancestor had

commanded one of the largest of Zahatopolk's armies, and through-

out the subsequent centuries they had worthily upheld the estab-

lished order. Several times the Bride of the Sun had belonged to

their family. The portraits of these Brides, perpetually wreathed in

ever-fresh myrtle, occupied the place of honour in the dining hall

of the family. Their imposing house was in the best quarter of

Cuzco and had a lovely garden which filled the steep hillside

with the colour and scent of many flowers. Freia's family, though

not quite so august, were also aristocratic. Thomas, on the other

hand, owed his admission to these exalted circles to the intellect

84 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

and public service of his distinguished father. Some slight con-

descension was perhaps natural in the attitude of ancient families

towards such as he. But it was recognized by the Government that

the stability of the regime required the continual services of the

best available brains, and policy indicated as complete as possible

a social acceptance of those who, by this means, had risen in the

social scale. It was not, therefore, surprising that, when Diotima

mentioned to her parents her two friends, Freia and Thomas,

they agreed that she should invite both of them to be inspected and

judged by the shrewd standards which ages of supremacy had

developed. Her parents, though she seldom spoke to them of her

secret thoughts, had divined in her an intellectual recklessness that

they deeply deplored. She seemed to have the bad habit of letting

the argument determine her conclusion, instead of first deciding

on the conclusion and then making the argument fit. There was in

this, they felt, something anarchic and dangerous. But, although

they were worried by her wild speculations (which were, in fact,

far wilder than they knew), they thought them merely the

exuberance of youthful high spirits which a little experience of the

real world would subdue. They rejoiced in her friendship with

Freia, to whose exemplary piety many common friends had borne

witness. Sometimes they wistfully regretted that their daughter did

not more resemble this untroubling saint. The testimonials of

teachers to Diotima's great abilities and zeal in study did something

to allay their fears. Time, they felt, would show her that intellect

is not everything, and would give her that moral earnestness in

which for the moment she seemed lacking. Thomas, vouched for

by his father's great reputation and his own excellent record, was

just such a friend as they could have wished for their daughter.

Their only hesitation in his regard was due to his reputation for

brilliant intellect, since it was not, in their opinion, intellect that

needed developing in their daughter. But from all that they could

learn about Thomas, intellect had never yet led him astray any

more than it had his father, and there was every reason to hope

that he would become as valuable to the stability of the social

order as his distinguished parent. Such were the considerations

ZAHATOPOLK 85

which led Diotima's mother to invite Thomas and Freia to her

tea-table.

Diotima's mother, as a hostess, was gracious and anxious to set

her guests at their ease, although she could not divest herself of a

grand manner which at first they found somewhat intimidating.

Her language was always correct, her sentiments always impeccable.

No looseness of grammar or vocabulary would be overlooked.

No sentiment departing even slightly from the correct would

escape at least the censure of a raised eyebrow. Diotima paid but

little respect to her mother's social taboos. Her language was

adventurous; some of her words were too erudite, others had a

tincture of slang. She could not resist wit that was at times irreverent,

and on occasion would even make fun of eminent men who were

her father's friends.

"My dear," said her mother, "you will never get a husband if

you use such inelegant expressions and show such a lack of proper

respect to your elders." Seeing that Diotima obviously thought

well of Thomas, and hoping that he might exert a restraining

influence upon her over-bold daughter, she turned to him and

said, "I am sure Professor Driuzdustades would not approve,

would he, Thomas ?"

At this, Thomas was intolerably embarrassed. Secretly he agreed

with his hostess, but loyalty would not permit him to desert Diotima.

However, Freia came to the rescue. She went into raptures about

the beauty of the place.

"What happiness must be yours," she said, "to sit in this

exquisite garden viewing the eternal snows and conscious that our

Holy Realm is as eternal and as sublime as those lofty peaks !"

Diotima's mother shared these sentiments, but was not quite

sure that it was compatible with good taste to express them; for,

although enthusiasm is all very well in its place, it must always

be kept within the limit of manners and decorum. While she was

hesitating for a moment as to the proper response to Freia's

rhapsody, Diotima rushed in:

"Come, come, Freia," she said, "the peaks are not eternal. We

know from geology that they were thrust up by a cataclysm, and

86 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

some day another cataclysm will bring them tumbling down. Are

you not afraid there may be a tinge of blasphemy in comparing the

Zahatopolkian regime to these top-heavy lumps?"

This remark produced a pained silence which Thomas endeav-

oured to smooth over, saying, "Oh, of course Diotima is only

teasing. I am afraid that sometimes her sense of humour runs

away with her."

"Ah well," said her mother, "I suppose we mustn't be too hard

upon her. I can remember how, in earlier years, her dear father,

who is now as grave as I could wish, sometimes pained me by

flippancy about eminent men of the previous generation. She will

learn as we all have to."

On this soothing note the party broke up.

Doubt, having once found a lodging in Diotima's thoughts, was

nourished by various discoveries. The ancient volume which she

had found gave her a taste for research in parts of the university

library that were too dusy and archaic to be commonly visited.

In one of these she found a contemporary account of the wicked

Inca who had avoided the duty of eating the Sacred Bride. She found

that at the time he had many partisans who maintained that the

failure of the sun to recover vigour was only apparent. They

maintained that the priests caused all public clocks to lose by day

and gain by night, thereby making it seem that the days were

getting no longer and the nights no shorter. They maintained also

that the Inca's loss of hair and teeth was due to a slow poison, and

that he was killed, not by lightning, but by a flash between two

highly-charged electric poles. His successor naturally opposed

this sect, and it was put down with great ruthlessness. But Diotima

observed that only persecution, not argument, was employed

against it.

Another blow to her tottering faith was administered unwittingly

by an uncle of hers who held a high position in the Inca's household.

This man was at one time very ill and, in delirium, said many

things which those who heard them regarded as insane ravings.

To Diotima, however, whose occasional duty it was to nurse him,

there seemed to be truth in his delirious fantasies.

ZAHATOPOLK 8j

"Ha, ha," he would laugh, "people imagine that it is the priests

who choose the Sacred Bride. How pained they would be if

they knew she is chosen by the Court eunuchs as the girl best

qualified to serve the Inca's lusts!"

The Court eunuchs were a body of men whose only publicly

acknowledged function was to sing ancient hymns to the sun in

the magnificent temple which formed the centre of Zahatopolkian

religion. Their ethereal and exquisite voices filled all hearers with

what they believed to be the Divine Spirit. While they listened

their hearts were lifted up to Heaven, and some degree of mystic

unity with the Divinity seemed to come within the reach of all

reverent hearers. It was appalling to think of these men as panders

to a grossness that wore a deceitful mask of religion. And yet that

was what her uncle's disordered ravings compelled Diotima to think.

These two revelations of pious fraud, one long ago, the other

repeated year by year down to the present day, produced in

Diotima a profound revulsion of which, however, for the present,

she allowed little to appear. In her conversations with Thomas she

kept her most dangerous thoughts to herself, hoping to lead him

on gently and bring him little by little to her way of thinking.

Any premature shock, she knew, would repel him. Freia, in spite

of her exquisite beauty, was too insipid and too unintellectual to

excite Thomas's deeper feelings. Diotima, on the other hand, he

found intoxicating, almost madly stimulating, but at the same time

terrifying. He felt with her the exhilaration that comes to a climber

on a dangerous glittering ice-slope. He could not keep away, he

could not acquiesce, and he could not wholly reject.

CHAPTER IV

Freia

One day when the trio were sitting by a mountain stream in deep

discussion, Diotima saw peering at them from behind the trees

88 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

two men whom, by their uniform, she knew to be court eunuchs.

One of them was pointing at Freia and the other was gravely

nodding his head. Her companions had not perceived this scene, of

which, in view of her uncle's revelation, the significance was

obvious. She turned pale, and in a subdued voice said, "Let us

return into the city." "What is the matter?" asked the others.

When they had reached a safe distance she explained that it had come

to her knowledge that Freia would be the next Bride of Zahatopolk.

"But how can you know?" they both asked. "That," she replied,

"is something that I cannot now explain. But you will find that I am

right."

Very soon afterwards, the choice of Freia was made public.

Freia was overwhelmed with humble ecstasy, and experienced all

those emotions which in the days of the Graeco-Judaean synthesis

had been attributed to the Madonna at the Annunciation. Diotima

was profoundly shocked, and not prevented by religious faith from

feeling that her life-long friend was to suffer a dreadful fate.

Thomas was of course aware that Diotima's emotions were not

such as the orthodoxy would demand. He could not think her right

in this, but he could not bear the pain of thinking her wrong.

Freia's parents, as was to be expected, were overjoyed that this

great honour should come to their family. Diotima's mother

congratulated her on being a friend of Freia, and boasted of the

friendship to all her visitors. Freia, a few days after the announce-

ment, was removed from profane contacts and subjected to the long

process of purification and sanctification that preceded her

apotheosis. Diotima mourned her. Thomas tried, ineffectually, to

rejoice in the honour done to her. Diotima, having still hopes of

his complete conversion, took pains that their disagreements should

never lead to a rupture. In this state of doubt and suspense things

remained between them throughout the months of Freia's pre-

paration.

Freia, under the influence of the regimen slowly perfected

throughout the centuries by the sacred eunuchs, became gradually

more and more absorbed by mystic ecstasy. She was treated by

the ministrant eunuchs as a divine being. Ancient and beautiful

ZAHATOPOLK 89

robes, worn only by Brides of Zahatopolk, were brought forth for

her adornment. Every morning precisely at sunrise she was taken

to bathe in a Sacred Stream which was forbidden on pain of death

to all except the Brides of Zahatopolk. In a jewelled chapel of which

the walls glittered with mosaics depicting the earthly life of Zahato-

polk, she listened to the sacred chants that the eunuchs sang with

voices of unearthly purity. She was nourished upon special food

different from that of mere men and women. She was given books

of ancient poetry celebrating the transports of the moon in the

embraces of the sun, and pictures of Zahatopolk and His Bride in

a holy and passionate embrace. In a world of ancient legend and

ritual the memories of her previous daily life grew dim. She moved

and breathed as if in a dream. And it seemed to her that day by day

the soul of the Goddess more and more took possession of her.

At length the supreme night arrived. Dressed in a robe of

brilliant blue adorned with innumerable stars, and carrying in her

hand a flaming torch, she slowly descended the Sacred Stairs that

led towards the waiting Inca. And as she descended, she sang a

chant of immense antiquity and almost unbearable beauty. With the

last note she reached the end of the stairs, and saw before her the

long-awaited figure of the Inca.

The Inca, a man with thick lips, bulbous nose and pig's eyes

almost buried in fat, nevertheless appeared to her as a Divine Being

and a worthy embodiment of Zahatopolk. He took hold of her

roughly, saying, "Now then, off with that robe. Mustn't keep me

waiting all night." She felt that this is how a God should behave,

and she welcomed the opportunity to humble herself before Him.

When the rite had been performed, He fell asleep and snored, while

she reverently contemplated His sleeping form. In the middle of the

night the priests very quietly opened a secret door and beckoned

to her. Slowly, ecstatically, she followed them to her death.

In due course the Inca woke up and descended to his breakfast.

"Well, at any rate," he murmured with his first mouthful, "they've

cooked her rather well this year."

<)0 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

CHAPTER V

Diotima

After Freia had been led away to deification and death, Diotima's

mood changed. She had been full of gaiety and wit. She had loved

intellectual play, and would follow out an argument with more

regard for logic than for social implications. Now, however, under

the impact of the loss of Freia, she became oppressed with the

social consequences of false beliefs. Not a word of the official

theology could she any longer accept. It became clear to her that

Zahatopolk had been a mere man, and that his doctrine of Peruvian

supremacy was nothing but a very human embodiment of national

vanity. The whole of the rites connected with the winter solstice

came to seem to her at once absurd and cruel. Freia, she felt, had

been sacrificed not to a God, but to the lusts of a brute. But rebellion

against so firmly rooted a system would be no Hght matter, and

for a time she confined herself to inward debate. As rebellion

became more complete in her thoughts, she increasingly suppressed

its outward manifestations. Thomas, who had dreaded her rebel-

liousness, hoped that it was subsiding. When he argued with her

against those first beginnings of doubt which she had expressed

to him at an earlier stage, she did not rebut his arguments, and he

fancied that he had convinced her. She saw that he loved her, and

she could have loved him in return but for a growing sense of

dedication to a task of appalling difficulty. This feeling set her apart

and made it impossible for her to yield whole-heartedly to any

passion for a merely human object. Thomas sensed her aloofness

and suffered from it. At length a day came when she decided that

she could no longer hide from him the thoughts which dominated

her every waking moment.

Early one morning Thomas and Diotima walked together in a

deep Andean valley. The warm beauty of a profusion of spring

flowers was at their feet. Above them, reaching to incredible

heights, were snowy peaks thrusting almost insolently into the deep

ZAHATOPOLK $l

blue of the upper sky. Most parts of the valley were still in shade,

but here and there rays of dazzling sunshine penetrated between the

shadows of the mountains. The chiselled calm of Diotima's perfect

features seemed to Thomas a synthesis of the warm beauty below

and the cold sublimity above. The scene and the woman combined

to produce in him a feeling of almost more than human ecstasy.

Love burned in him like a fire, but was kept in check by something

more than love awe and wonder and reverence and a realization

of what it is possible for a human being to be. No ordinary words

of love seemed adequate. And for a time he walked in quivering

silence. At last he turned to her and said: "At this moment I am

beginning to know how life should be lived."

"Yes," she said, "it should be soft and lovely like the flowers,

it should be immovable and clear like the peaks, and it should be

immeasurable and profound like the sky. It is possible for life to

be lived so. But not amid such ugliness and horror as reigns in our

community."

"Ugliness and horror!" he exclaimed. "What do you mean?"

"There is ugliness," she said, "when a mere human being,

because he is thought to be a God, is allowed to commit

abominations."

At these words Thomas trembled and shrank away, "A mere

human being?" he queried. "You cannot mean the divine

Zahatopolk!"

"I do," she said, "he is not divine. The myth that exalts him

has been created by fear: fear of death, fear of the blows of fate,

fear of the powers of nature, and fear of the tyranny of man. From

these peaks above us swift death from time to time rolls into the

valleys beneath. The powers that rule in the peaks are felt to be

cruel, and it is thought that only a sympathetic cruelty can appease

their terrible implacability. But all fear is ignoble, and the myths

that it generates are ignoble, and the men whom the myths exalt

are ignoble. Zahatopolk is no God, but a gross man, in many ways

lower than the beasts. The rite in which Freia was sacrificed is not

of divine origin. Nothing is of divine origin. The gods are shadows

of our fears upon the opacity of the night. They embody the

$2 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

abasement of man before the forces that can destroy him physically.

They embody the slavery to time, which cannot value the eternal

moment if in the temporal order it is but a moment. I will not

yield to this prostration. While I live I will stand upright like the

mountains. If disaster comes, as no doubt it will, it can be only

outward disaster. The citidal of my belief in what can be will

remain unsubdued."

While she spoke, an appalling conflict seemed to tear him

asunder. One part, the part that but a moment before had seemed

one with her in a transcendent unity, was fired by her words and

longed to agree. But another part, just as strong if not stronger,

stood out against her. All that he had been taught, all that he knew

of the society in which they lived, all the feelings of awe and rever-

ence which had been instilled into him since infancy, rose in

opposition, and the cold Godless world which she portrayed filled

him with cosmic terror. Better, he felt, a God who might be cruel,

but who at least was not utterly alien, since he experienced passions

like our own; better such a God than a vast, cold, lifeless universe,

unthinkingly generating and sweeping away, caring nothing for

human beings, whom it had produced without intention and would

destroy without compunction. This cosmic terror was for the time

being stronger even than his love. Pale and trembling, he turned

towards her and said: "No. I cannot accept your world, I cannot

live with your thoughts. I cannot keep alive the flickering flame

of human warmth amid such a chill blast of immeasurable inhu-

manity. If it is to be your task to destroy the faith of my fathers,

we must go our separate ways."

They walked on slowly and in silence until they came to the

one house that the valley contained. There they found the Inca's

eunuchs in waiting. "You have been chosen," they said to Diotima,

and bore her off. Thomas gazed after her until she was lost to sight.

But he said no word and made no movement.

The choice of Diotima as the Bride of the Year was communi-

cated officially to her parents, and also to Professor Driuzdustades

to explain her absence from his classes. Her parents, following

immemorial custom, gave a great party to celebrate the honour

ZAHATOPOLK $3

done to their daughter. All the aristocracy of Cuzco came with

wedding gifts and congratulatory speeches. Her mother accepted

the gifts and speeches with a courteous pretence of humility. Her

father, upright and rather portly, preserved a soldierly demeanour

in which satisfaction was half-concealed by decorum. The party

was an immense social success, and Diotima's family was felt to

have become even more exalted than before.

The Professor also felt that he enjoyed some reflection of

Diotima's glory. Doubtless the Moon Goddess had observed that

under his influence Diotima had become worthy to be the vehicle

of incarnation. Professor Driuzdustades congratulated his son

upon his friendship with the exalted lady, but was somewhat

disquieted to observe that Thomas did not seem as elated as the

occasion warranted. At first, however, he consoled himself with the

thought that, however shocking to strictly correct sentiment, some

regret in die loss of Diotima's companionship might be excused in

one so young as Thomas.

But within a few days dreadful rumours began to circulate. It

was whispered that Diotima was not accepting the honour in the

right spirit, that she was refusing to do her part in the purificatory

ceremonies, that she was denying any awareness of the Moon

Goddess entering her body, that she was speaking disrespectfully

of the Inca, and even Oh depth of infamy ! maintaining that the

sun and moon would get on just as well if the rites of the Epiphany

were not performed.

These rumours, alas, were but too well founded. Priests and

eunuchs alike were filled with consternation. Nothing even faintly

analogous had happened since that long ago time when the False

Inca had refused to eat the Bride. In their perplexity they decided

to temporize. They would not let the Inca know of Diotima's

recalcitrance, but they would bring all possible pressure to bear

upon her in the hope that her resolution might be broken and she

might consent to conform. With this end in view, they arranged

a series of interviews with those whom they thought most likely

to convince her.

The first of these interviews was with her mother. Her mother

94 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

had been proud and somewhat imperious, little given to the display

of emotion, but always self-contained and self-controlled. Now all

this was changed. She felt utterly humiliated. She could not face

the world. She dared not see her friends for fear of their criticism

or what would be even worse their commiseration. She found

her daughter in a bare cell, dressed in a penitential garb, and kept

on a diet of bread and water. Convulsed with sobs and with tears

coursing down her cheeks, she stammered out incoherent words

of sorrow and reproof.

"O Diotima," she said, "how can you inflict upon your father

and mother this dreadful depth of degradation? Have you no

memory of the years of your innocent childhood, when by my care

you grew in wisdom and stature and daily raised higher our hopes

for your future? Have you no feeling for the proud family which

for many centuries has borne the banner of history in this glorious

land? Can you inflict upon those who have loved you the most

dreadful fate that can befall a human being I mean the shame

that is being brought upon us by a shameless daughter? O Diotima,

I cannot bring myself to believe it. Say that it is but an evil dream

and that my love may go out to you as heretofore." At this point

sobs choked her utterance and she could say no more.

Throughout her mother's broken words Diotima remained

unmoved. Proud and apparently cold, she replied:

"Mother, something is involved which is greater than parental

affection, greater than family pride, greater even than this realm

which has stood for a thousand years. For this proud realm, though

I know that you cannot recognize the fact, is built upon lies and

cruelties and abominations. To these I cannot be a party. If I seem

unmoved by your tears, it is not from coldness. It is because I

burn with another and a greater fire than any that you can imagine.

You cannot either understand or approve, and I beg you to forget

that you were ever afflicted with such a daughter."

Slowly, in utter despair, her mother turned away and left

Diotima in solitude.

Her mother having failed, her father, next day, was admitted to

her cell. His line was somewhat different from her mother's.

ZAHATOPOLK $5

"Come, come," he said, "why are you being such an obstinate

young fool ? I see that you are upset by having learnt too soon and

too quickly things which we who live about the Court have long

known and accepted. You don't suppose, do you, that sensible men

believe all that palaver about the sun and moon? Or imagine that

the Inca, whom we all know and despise, becomes divine once a

year by the calendar? We know perfectly well that no religious

motives inspire him during what is called the Holy Night: but we

do not make a hullabaloo about it as you threaten to do, for we

know that these beliefs, however groundless they may be, are

useful to the State. They cause the Government to be revered, and

enable us to preserve order at home and empire abroad. What do

you suppose would happen if the populace came to think as you do ?

There would be disorders in Peru; there would be insurrections

abroad; and very soon the whole fabric of civilized society would

be in tatters. Rash girl ! You refuse to be a sacrifice to the Inca, but

you have not thought that the true sacrifice is to Law and Order

and Social Stability, not to a gross prince. You prate of truth, but

how can truth preserve an empire? Has the Professor failed to

teach you that all empires, always, have been built upon useful

lies ? I am afraid you are an anarchist, and if you do not recant, you

can scarcely hope that the State will show you mercy."

"Father," she replied, "it is natural, I suppose, in view of our

family traditions, that the Peruvian State should be a God to you.

Some effort of imagination is needed to think of another order of

society than that in which you have lived all your life. And, Father,

I am afraid that imagination is not your strongest point. I see in

my thoughts a better world than that which our race has created:

a world containing more justice, more mercy, more love, and,

above all, more truth. Cataclysms and disorders there may be on

the road to this better world, but even they are to be preferred

to the dead rigidity of our public and private abominations."

At this her father became red with fury, and, exclaiming in a

loud voice, "Impertinent child, I leave you to your fate!" he

marched out into the sunshine.

The next to visit the obstinate prisoner was the Professor. He

$6 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

entered her cell with an air of suave and hypothetical benignity,

and addressed her in tones which masked authority by their

intended persuasiveness. "My poor girl," he said, "I am sorry to

see you here, and I cannot but think that some part of the blame

must be mine, for in the year during which you have listened to

my indoctrinating lectures I ought to have succeeded in conveying

to you a more just apprehension of social duty than is indicated by

your present predicament. But tell me, Diotima, at what points,

and for what reasons, do you dissent from the doctrines which it

has fallen to my unworthy self to endeavour to instil?"

"Well," she replied, "since you ask me, I will tell you. I don't

believe your facts, I don't believe your theories. I think your

conception of social utility intolerably narrow and your belief

in the unchangeability of dogma so wooden as to bring death to

intellect and feeling alike. I think your indifference to truth

revolting, and your subservience to the powers that be, toad-eating

and contemptible. Now, having cleared the air, I am willing to

hear what you have to say."

At these rude words the Professor flushed, and for a moment he

was tempted to retort with mere abuse, but that would have been

to betray the traditions of his order. Diotima had been blunt. She

had eschewed ambiguity and vagueness in a manner which he

could not too deeply deplore. She had been content to dwell in

those regions of mere fact which to the initiate are but the foothills

of the lofty peaks of wisdom. Restraining his annoyance with an

effort, he told himself that the girl was over- wrought and that the

diet of bread and water might well cause bad temper. The habits

of a lifetime of lecturing came to his aid, and he replied to her

diatribe in a manner truly admirable in view of his greatness and

her youth.

"Diotima," he said, "there are some things that you do not seem

to know and that, even at this late hour, I must put before you with

all the power at my command. I will begin with what is at the

basis of all else : Do you deny the Godhead of the Holy Zahatopolk ?"

"I do," she replied. "We are taught that he descended from

Heaven in a miraculous manner. For my part I believe that he

ZAHATOPOLK 97

descended in a helicopter from a plane hidden above the clouds.

We are told that he did not die, but ascended miraculously into

Heaven when his work on earth was ended. This, also, I do not

believe. I believe that a camarilla of his generals surrounded him

during his last illness and kept him from all contact with the outer

world. I believe that they threw his corpse into the crater of

Cotopaxi. Legends to this effect have been handed down secretly in

my family, whose ancestor was the ringleader in this proceeding.

All are sworn to secrecy and only the men are initiated. But

men have fevers, and fevers bring delirium, and in delirium even

the gravest secrets can be blabbed."

At this point the Professor saw that a lecture on Truth was

called for. "Granted, my dear girl," he said, "that on the mundane

level of sensible fact things were as you say, do you not realize

that there is a higher sense in which the orthodox doctrine of our

land conveys a truth more profound than any mere legend of

helicopters and military camarillas? What have helicopters to do

with Divinity? They are mere contrivances: ingenious, no doubt;

convenient, no doubt; but unworthy to hold a central place in the

fundamental doctrines of cosmogony. If, indeed, our Divine

Founder deigned to make use of some such mechanism, He did so,

no doubt, for a wise purpose which it is not for us to question.

And when you deny that He descended from Heaven, are you so

certain that you know where Heaven is ? Have you never learned

the great spiritual truth that Heaven is wherever there are heavenly

thoughts? And wherever Zahatopolk may have been, there, rest

assured, heavenly thoughts had a home. Of His death very similar

things may be said. What if His earthly integument became cold and

lifeless ? What if His disciples reverently restored it to that terres-

trial fire which of all things on this earth is nearest to the Divine

Fire that had enabled Him to instruct His disciples ? It was not the

earthly integument that was to be worshipped, for our God is to

be worshipped in Spirit and in Truth, and Spirit and Truth dwell

in the soul, not in the body. The rash words that you uttered

concerning the Most High God may have been in some gross

sense not out of harmony with material fact, but spiritually, as I

D

$8 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

have shown you, and in the only sense that concerns us as beings

partaking, however imperfectly, of the Divine Essence, they are

utterly false and to be contemned with all the force that our Holy

Religion can inspire/ '

"Professor," the girl replied, "what you say is of course very

impressive, but I have arrived at a view which I fear you may find

shocking. I think that there are facts and fictions, there is truth and

there are lies. I know that those who preach the doctrine of the

Golden Mean, of which I suspect you of being an adherent, con-

sider that one should observe the golden mean between truth and

falsehood, as you so admirably did in the speech to which I have

just listened. But, to my mind, facts are harsh and will not be

denied. I know that in a brutal orgy the sadistic Inca first enjoyed,

and then ate, my friend Freia. This is fact. And however you may

clothe the fact in a mantle of mist and myth, it will remain a fact,

and so long as you try to hide it from your gaze you will share its

vileness and it will pollute you."

"Come, come," said the Professor, "this is strong language, and

I cannot think that you have studied the philosophical theory of

truth as deeply as your academic duty demanded that you should.

Do you not know that the truth of a doctrine lies in its social

utility and its spiritual depth, not in some wretched vulgar accuracy

such as can be measured by a foot-rule in the hands of a clod ?

Measured by any true standard, how paltry are your feelings

concerning your friend Freia! How much more profound, how

much more consonant with the needs of the human race, was her

ecstasy in those moments of apotheosis ! Consider what, for her,

has been achieved. Through a few brief moments, some aspects of

which you, in your arrogance, find revolting, she has become one

with the Moon Goddess. In eternal calm and eternal beauty, what

was imperishable in her sails through the skies, exempt from the

sorrows and tribulations of this mortal life. And consider what

mankind owes to that majestic ritual in which her earthly life was

ended. Consider the poetry, the slow-moving music, the glorious

mosaics, and the Temple whose sublime and severe lines draw eye

and soul alike towards heaven. Would you have all this perish

ZAHATOPOLK ,99

from the earth? Would you have mankind reduced to a dusty,

book-keeping pedestrianism ? Would you have poetry and music

and architecture perish? Yet how could any of these survive without

the divine myth (I use the words in no derogatory sense) by which

they have been inspired?

"But if art and beauty mean nothing to you, what of the social

structure? What of law, what of morality, what of government?

Do you suppose that these could survive? Do you suppose that

men would abstain from murder, and theft, and even intercourse

with non-Peruvians, if they did not feel the eye of Zahatopolk

upon them? And do you not see that, since the true is what is

socially useful, the doctrines of our holy religion are true ? Renounce,

I beseech you, your self-willed pride; submit yourself to the

wisdom of the ages; and, by so doing, put an end to the torment

and shame that you are inflicting upon your parents, your teachers

and your friends."

"No!" exclaimed Diotima. "No! a thousand times no! This

higher truth of which you speak is to me only higher humbug.

This social utility of which you make so much is only the preser-

vation of unjust privilege. This marvellous morality of which you

prate justifies the oppression and degradation of the great majority

of the human race. My eyes are opened, and not all your tortuous

words can induce me to close them again."

The Professor, incensed at last, exclaimed: "Then perish in your

stiff-necked arrogance, wretched apostate! I leave you to the fate

that you have so richly deserved." And with that he left her.

Only one possibility of bringing Diotima to repentance remained.

It was known that Thomas had loved her, and it was hoped that

she had loved Thomas. Perhaps love would effect what authority

had failed to do. It was decided that Thomas should have an

interview with her, but that, if he failed, no further effort should be

made to turn her from the error of her ways.

Thomas had been passing through a very difficult time of

conflict, fear and misery. As a man in love, he suffered from the

death of his hopes. As an ambitious youth, whose path to success

hitherto had seemed plain, he dreaded the suspicion that might

700 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

attach to him as the intimate friend of a heretic. As a student of

theology and history, who had never on his own account seen

reason to question his father's wisdom, he was appalled by the

dangerous consequences that would ensue if Diotima's beliefs

became common. Since her apostasy he had found many former

friends avoiding him, and he saw that he was losing the position

of a leader in his own group. His father, returning furious from his

interview with Diotima, spoke to him with grave severity:

"Thomas," he said, "Diotima is inspired by the Spirit of Evil,

to which in my theology I have hitherto given insufficient attention.

Dangerous thoughts emanate from her like lurid flames from a

sulphurous fire. I do not know what lodgment the poison may

have found in your own brain. For your sake, I hope not

much. But if you are to recover the general respect which has

hitherto rejoiced my parental heart, you will have to be very clear,

and make it very clear to all and sundry, that you are utterly

opposed to her vile heresies, and that no lingering affection will

blunt the edge of your desire to see her suffer the just penalty of her

infamy. There is, however, still a faint hope. It may be that you will

succeed where her parents and I have failed. If you do, all will be

well. But if you do not, it will be your duty to prove by your zeal

that you have suffered no contamination."

With these alarming words still ringing in his ears, Thomas

found himself admitted to Diotima's cell. For a moment the

spectacle of her beauty and her calm overwhelmed him. Human

love, and a passionate longing that she might yet be saved, swept

away in that first instant both prudence and orthodoxy. He burst

into tears and exclaimed, "O Diotima, would that I could save

you!"

"My poor Thomas," she replied, "how can you cherish so

foolish a hope? Whatever I may do, my life is forfeit. Either I die

as the Bride of Zahatopolk, with public honour and inward shame,

or I die as a criminal, despised and execrated except by my own

conscience."

"Your own conscience!" he answered. "How can you set it

up as the sole arbiter against so much wisdom and such long ages ?

ZAHATOPOLK 1 01

O Diotima, how can you be so sure ? How can you know that all

of us are wrong? Have you no respect for my father? Are you

willing to besmirch your ancestors ? I have loved you. I have hoped

that you might love me. But that hope, I see, was vain. It is anguish

to say so, but I cannot continue to love you while you lacerate all

my deepest feelings. O Diotima, it is more than I can bear!"

"I am truly sorry," she said, "to have brought upon you this

cruel dilemma. Hitherto, you have had every reason to expect a

career both smooth and honourable. Henceforth, you have to

choose. If you condemn me, your career may still be smooth. If you

do not, it may be honourable. But I know, however you may

disguise it from yourself, that in your heart of hearts you cannot

be happy if you condemn me. You may, perhaps, during the busy

hours of the day, silence your doubts while you listen to public

applause; but in the night, you will see a vision in which I shall

be beckoning you towards a happier world. And as you turn your

back upon me, you will wake in agony. For I know that you have

seen, if only briefly, that vision for the sake of which I am willing

to be condemned. It is not, as we pretend, the sun and moon that

inspire our official creed. It is pride and fear: pride in our Empire,

and fear lest we may lose it. It is not upon these passions that human

life should be built. It should be built upon truth and love. It

should be lived without fear, in a happiness that all can share. It

should be unable to find a contentment resting upon the degrada-

tion of others. It should be ashamed to aim at a paltry physical

safety at the expense of the inner springs of joy and life which well

up in those who open their spirit to the world in fearless adventure.

We have let ourselves be bound in chains. Outside our own land

the chains have been forced upon their victims by us. We have

not realized that whoever imprisons another becomes himself a

prisoner, a prisoner of fear and hate. And the chains which we have

forged for others have bound us in a mental dungeon. Remember

the sun that found its way into our valley. Even so, light must

fall upon dark places of the world. And however little you may

know it now, it will be your mission when I am dead to carry on

this work."

102 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

For a moment her words found an echo in his heart. But he

summoned up his resolution, and his momentary yielding turned

to anger. "How can you think so! How can you think that such

high-flown verbiage can make me abandon all that I revere!

Further speech with you is useless. You must die. And I must live,

to combat the evil that you think good/' With these words he

rushed from her cell.

After Thomas's failure, the authorities gave up hope of inducing

Diotima to recant. A new Bride was chosen and Diotima was

condemned to die publicly at the very moment when she should

have enjoyed mystic unity with the Divinity.

The day of expiation was proclaimed a public holiday. The

stake was erected in the central square of the city. Seats for the

notables were in the front ranks. Behind, the whole population

of the city stood in greedy expectation. They laughed and joked

and jeered. They ate nuts and oranges. They made coarse jests,

and exulted in the expectation of the torture they were about to

witness. The notables in the front rows were more dignified, and

the Inca on His throne was majestically silent. Thomas, as his

father's son, was privileged to sit among the notables. He had been

suspected of sharing Diotima's heresy, and had cleared himself

of this suspicion with some vehemence. Both as a reward and as a

test, he was to have a full view of her death.

She was led in naked, and preserved a calm and unmoved

demeanour. The crowd shouted: "There's the wicked woman!

Now she'll find out who's God !" She was tied to the stake, and

flaming torches kindled the fire. As the flames reached her, she

looked at Thomas a strange and piercing look, expressing at

once anguish, pity, and appeal, pity for his weakness and appeal

to carry on her work. Her anguish tore his heart, her pity bruised

his manhood, and her appeal kindled in his mind a flame scarcely

less searing than that which was consuming her body. In a blinding

moment he saw that he had been wrong; he saw that what was

being done was an abomination; he saw that she stood for what

can be splendid in human life, and that the dignitaries and the

multitude alike were grovelling victims of bestial fear. In this one

^ti^&riS^

104 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

terrible moment he repented but repentance is too mild a word

for what he experienced. He experienced a passion as intense as

that which had upheld her in the flames, a passion to devote

himself to the work which she could no longer perform, a passion

to liberate mankind from the shackles of fear and the cruelty

that it generates. He thought that he cried aloud, "Diotima, I am

yours !" But in this moment he fell unconscious, and the cry must

have been only in his own heart.

CHAPTER VI

Thomas

For a long time Thomas lay in hospital, gravely ill and incapable

of coherent thought. Intolerable loathsome visions floated through

his mind of tortured women and brutal men, of flames and death

and bestial cries of triumph. Slowly, reason reasserted itself.

Health returned and, with health, an inflexible determination by

which his whole character was transformed. No longer was he a

gentle and trusting youth willing to tread in his father's footsteps

and win such easy low-level success as his father's example would

secure him. With an insight born of devouring passion he , saw

through all the pretences of the Peruvian system and perceived

the far from laudable motives by which it was inspired and supported.

His intellect, which had been trained to work with mechanical

perfection within the limits imposed by orthodoxy, passed beyond

those limits without losing the keen edge of pitiless accuracy.

But it was not only his intellect that was liberated; it was also, and

even more, his heart. Peruvians had been taught to reverence the

State as the earthly garment of God, and to limit their sympathies

to those who served the State to the best of their abilities. But the

State had destroyed Diotima and, in rebellion against that cruelty,

he found himself rebelling against all the other cruelties, all the

ZAHATOPOLK IO5

other inhumanities, all the other institutions which fettered human

sympathy, not only in his own country but wherever human beings

were to be found. Love, hate and intellect were welded together

by the fire of his passion into a single steely whole; love first for

Diotima, and thence, by transference, to all other victims; hate

for those who condemned her, and thence for the whole system

which had made this condemnation possible; intellect, which told

him that the divinity of Zahatopolk was a myth, that the sun and

moon were not divinities but lifeless masses, that the condemnation

of birth control was superstitious, and that, in eating their children,

men killed in themselves their own capacity for sympathy and

kindliness. With all his mind and heart and will he resolved that, if

it were in any way possible, he would establish upon earth a better

system than that which he had been taught to revere, a system

more in harmony with Diotima's vision. The sense of guilt which

gnawed at his inmost being could, he thought, be appeased only if

he could make this offering to the torturing memory of Diotima.

But the offering to her memory, if it was to appease his remorse,

must be a change in the world, not a mere personal dedication or a

futile martyrdom. With a determination inwardly white-hot, but

outwardly as cold as ice, he set to work, first to think out a plan,

and then to carry it into execution. In public and with all whom

he could not fully trust, he breathed no word of criticism of the

established order. To his father, as to almost everybody else, he

appeared cleansed of whatever doubts he might once have felt.

The distrust with which he had been viewed during the last days of

Diotima soon passed away, and his official career marched smoothly

from success to success. He acquired a position of leadership

among his contemporaries, and his words were listened to as having

weight and wisdom.

His most ardent friend and admirer was a young man named

Paul. To Paul, at a very late hour on a summer night, he opened

his heart tentatively at first, but gradually, as he met with response,

more and more completely. Paul had had misgivings about the

burning of Diotima, but had wisely kept his misgivings to himself.

As Thomas spoke, Paul's misgivings acquired new force. They

D*

106 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

talked through the whole summer night until the dawn appeared.

They parted sworn confederates in the promotion of whatever

revolution might prove possible. Gradually they gathered about

them a secret society of intending rebels. Students of science found

it impossible to accept the divinity of the sun and moon; students

of history could not believe in the inferiority of other races; students

of psychology were revolted by the cannibalistic thwarting of

parental affection. Stories of the Inca's far from divine behaviour

filtered through from Court circles in spite of all precautions. But

still Thomas held his hand.

In secret he encouraged the ablest among his disciples to make

researches of a kind which the Government had forbidden on pain

of death. Peruvian power had rested upon the death-dealing fungus

of Cotopaxi, but a brilliant young physician discovered a prophy-

lactic against the plague. Several among Thomas's confederates

became governors of remote provinces, for such posts, since they

involved exile from Peru, were considered disagreeable and usually

given to young men as the first step in the official hierarchy. Very

cautiously and very secretly, these men set to work to undo the

degradation which it had been the policy of Peru to produce in

other parts of the world. Paul, who remained his second-in-com-

mand, became Governor of the Province of Kilimanjaro. The

mountaineers of that region, owing to the austerities imposed by

nature, had remained hardy and vigorous. He took their head men

into his confidence and gave them, for the first time in many

centuries, the hope of escape from unworthy subjection. Many

of the conspirators remained in key positions in Peru, completely

unsuspected by their superiors.

At length, after twenty years of careful preparation, Thomas

judged that the time had come for open action. The whole course

that events were to take was carefully mapped. Thomas, by this

time Rector of the University, announced that on a given day he

would make a sensational revelation. All of his adherents, except

such as had special duties assigned to them, were told to be present

in the hall in which he would speak. Like his father at an earlier

time, he mounted the rostrum, but the words which he spoke were

ZAHATOPOLK

vfery different from his father's. He avowed all his beliefs and all his

disbeliefs. To the amazement of those who were not in the plot,

his most subversive sentiments received loud applause. There was

bewilderment and panic. But the authorities, as had been foreseen,

succeeded in seizing him, and he was condemned, like Diotima, to

perish in the flames on the feast of Epiphany.

What happened after this was not what the Government had

intended. One of his scientific friends had discovered how to make

rain, and a deluge made it impossible to light the flames in which he

should have perished. His friend Paul, knowing the exact hour at

which the execution was to take place, dispatched from the head-

quarters of the Government at Kilimanjaro an enormous plane which

travelled at supersonic speed until it reached the rain-clouds over

Cuzco. From that point it dispatched a helicopter, which descended

upon the market-place and snatched up Thomas, who was borne

off to Kilimanjaro leaving the populace with the unshakable con-

viction that they had witnessed a miracle. The Government found

itself paralysed by the unsuspected disaffection of many of its

officers. When the authorities of Cuzco heard of rebellion in Kili-

manjaro they supposed that they could deal with it by means of the

fungus plague. When they learnt that the inhabitants of Africa were

immune to this plague, they were seized with terror, which turned

to consternation when they found that Thomas's scientists had

discovered how to produce radio-active death from the volcanic

slopes of the new Sacred Mountain. They had for so many centuries

had no occasion for fear that in the crisis their courage failed them,

and when Thomas's emissaries, in a great fleet of planes, circled

above them, threatening to let loose the death-dealing dust that

they had brought with them, the whole governing aristocracy

surrendered on the promise that their lives should be spared.

Kilimanjaro became the centre of government. Thomas was

proclaimed the President of the World, and Paul was appointed

his Prime Minister. All recognized that a new era had begun and

that the age of Zahatopolk was ended.

Thomas, as soon as his regime was secure, set to work to undo

the degradation to which non-Indian populations had been sub-

108 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

jected. He diminished the hours of physical work, which the

Peruvians had kept to ten, not from any economic motive, but

only in order that the workers might be too tired to have any

initiative. By means of his faithful band of scientists, he greatly

increased the world's food supply, and by declaring the preventing

of conception innocent, made the increase minister to health and

happiness, and not only to more rapid multiplication. He gave a

share of political power to all who had sufficient education, and he

extended education as quickly as possible throughout all parts of

the world. In many of the hitherto oppressed countries there was

a great outburst of painting and poetry and music. The suppressed

energies, which had lain dormant for centuries, sprang into a

luxuriant life such as had only been known before in a few countries

in a few great ages. He taught that there are no Gods. And, although

the populace ascribed his escape to a miracle, he did his best to

persuade the world that miracles are impossible. There were those

who wished to give him the position that Zahatopolk had previously

had, but he refused deification with emphasis and caused the

doctrine to be combated in all the schools. Under his regime there

were no priests and no aristocrats, no ruling races and no subject

peoples.

CHAPTER VII

The Future

The above is the account of the Great Revolution given by Thomas's

friend Paul after Thomas's reign of many years had been brought to

an end by his death. This account of his life and doctrines has

remained ever since the Sacred Book of the Kilimanjaro Era. But it

has gradually been found that some parts of Thomas's doctrine

are liable to misinterpretation, and that the reading of Paul's book

by all and sundry may be dangerous. He was not always careful

ZAHATOPOLK

tQ indicate when he was to be taken literally and when he was

speaking allegorically. It is now universally recognized that Thomas

was in fact a God, and that Diotima was a Goddess. We know that

both for a time put on humanity, but at the moment of their

earthly death resumed their heavenly life, which for a few brief

years they had put away for our salvation. When Thomas denied

his Godhead he was, as all now acknowledge, denying it only as

regards his earthly manifestation. All this was carefully explained

about five hundred years after his death by the great commentator

Gregorius.

For a time Paul's book was still allowed to circulate, provided

the commentary of Gregorius was bound up with it. But even this

was found to have dangers, and the book, even with the com-

mentary, is now not allowed to be read except by licensed Divines.

Even so, it remains a danger. New Zealand contains one copy in

the University of Auckland. This copy was lately returned to the

University with a strange note upon its last page. The note said:

"I, Tupia, of the tribe of Ngapuhi, a dweller upon the slopes of

Ruapehu, am not persuaded of the justice of Gregorius's glosses.

I am convinced that Thomas was wiser than Gregorius, and that

he meant literally all the things which that theologically minded

priest finds troublesome. It shall be my mission, if possible, to lead

the world back to that ancient unfaith which its liberator tried to

spread."

These are ominous words, and their outcome is as yet uncertain.

Faith and Mountains

FAITH AND MOUNTAINS

CHAPTER I

The Nepalese delegate to UNESCO was surprised and puzzled.

It was the first time that he had abandoned the safety of his native

glaciers and precipices for the bewildering perils of the West.

Arriving by air late on the previous evening, he had been too tired

to notice anything, and had slept heavily until the morning was well

advanced. He looked out upon a street which, as he was informed

by the waiter who brought his breakfast, was called Piccadilly.

But it did not wear the aspect which the cinema had led him to

anticipate. There was no ordinary traffic, but an immense procession

of men and women on foot bearing banners of which his phrase-

book did not enable him to guess the meaning. The inscriptions

on the banners were repeated at such frequent intervals that at last

he had deciphered them all. They said various things which, he

was compelled to suppose, all pointed one moral. The commonest

was, "Hail to Molybdenum, Maker of Healthy Bodies!" Another

which occurred with great frequency was "Up with the Molyb-

denes!" A third, not quite so frequent, said, "Long Life to the

114 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

Holy Molly B. Dean!" One peculiarly ferocious band had a banner,

saying, "Death to the Infamous Magnets !" The procession was of

enormous length and, at intervals of about a quarter of a mile,

there was a band and a choir which sang what appeared to be the

battle-hymn of the marchers:

Molybdenum of metals best

Is good for high and low.

It cures diseases of the chest

And makes our muscles grow.

This hymn was sung to the tune of "There is a book who runs may

read," but this the delegate did not know, as he had not had the

benefit of a Christian upbringing.

After he had begun to think that the procession would never

end, there came a gap. Then a solid squadron of mounted police.

And then another procession, with quite other banners. Some of

these said, "Glory to Aurora Bohra!" Others said, "All Power to

the Northern Pole!" Yet others said, "Through Magnetism to

Magnificence!" The marchers in this second procession also sang

a hymn, as unintelligible to him as the hymn of the first procession.

They sang:

I go forth

To the North

In my jet-propelled chariot.

I descend on the Pole

For the good of my soul

And learn to think Bohra much better than Harriet.

With every moment his curiosity increased. At last it became

overwhelming. He rushed out into the street and joined the

procession. With true oriental courtesy he addressed his neighbour

pedestrian with the words: "Would you, Sir, deign to have the

great kindness to explain to me why this musical multitude marches

westward with such rhythmic persistence?"

"Lor bless yer!" said the man he addressed. "Mean to say yer

FAITH AND MOUNTAINS II 5

.don't know about the Magnets? And where may you have come

from?"

"Sir," replied the delegate, "you must bear with my ignorance.

I have but recently dropped from the skies, and have dwelt hitherto

in the Himalayas, in a legion inhabited only by Buddhists and

Communists, who are quiet, peaceable folk, not addicted to such

singular pilgrimages."

"Gorblimey!" said his neighbour. "If that's so, it would take

more breath than I can spare to make you understand!"

The delegate therefore marched on in silence, hoping that time

would bring enlightenment.

At length the procession arrived at an enormous round building

which, as his neighbour informed him, was called the Albert Hall.

Some of the procession were admitted within, but the great majority

were compelled to remain without. The Nepalese at first was

refused admission. But, on explaining his official position as a

delegate, and the profound interest of his country in Occidental

Cultural Phenomena, he was at last allowed to take a seat far back

in the exact middle of the platfoim.

What he saw and what he heard seemed to him to throw a

great light upon the manners and customs, the beliefs and habits

of thought of the strange people among whom he found himself.

But so much remained unintelligible to him that he determined to

devote himself to serious research and to draw up an elucidatory

report for the enlightrnent of Himalayan sages.

The work proved onerous, and it was not until twelve months

had passed that he deemed it worthy of the wise eyes of those who

had sent him. During these twelve months I had had the good

fortune to make friends with him, and to be allowed to share in his

wisdom. The following account of the great debate, and the events

that led up to it and followed it, is based upon his report. Without

his labours, my account could not have been so exhaustive or so

minutely accurate.

Il6 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

CHAPTER II

The two sects, whose public debate the Nepalese delegate witnessed,

had each emerged after a period of obscurity, and had, in recent

years, grown with such amazing rapidity that hardly anybody,

except highbrows, failed to belong to one or other. They were

called, respectively, the Molybdenes and the Northern Magnets,

or simply the Magnets. Each had its head office in London. The

affairs of the Molybdenes were directed by Zeruiah Tomkins, and

those of the Magnets by Manasseh Merrow. In each case the

fundamental doctrine of the sect was simple.

The Molybdenes believed that the human frame requires, for

full development of health and strength, a larger amount of

molybdenum in the diet than has hitherto been customary. Their

favourite text was: "He that eateth, eateth unto the Lord. And he

that eateth not, unto the Lord he eateth not." But they changed the

order of the words in the latter half of this text so as to make it

read: "He that eateth not, eateth not unto the Lord." He that

eateth, they explained, means a person who eats molybdenum. They

supported their position by a story for whose truth I cannot vouch.

Large flocks of sheep in a certain district of Australia, which had

withered away, had slowly perished because their scanty pastures,

unlike those of Europe and Asia, were wholly destitute of molyb-

denum. Certain biochemists and medical men not perhaps

quite the most eminent in their respective professions had made

statements as to the dietetic importance of molybdenum, and these

statements were seized upon by the faithful as supports for their

creed. There had been a considerable demand for this not very

common metal in armaments, but the gradual lessening of tension

had diminished this demand. Now, however, owing to the growth

of the Molybdenes, the demand for molybdenum had ceased to be

dependent upon the threat of war. The Molybdenes were opposed

to war. They regarded all men as brothers, except the Northern

Magnets; and the Northern Magnets were to be overcome, not by

force of arms, but by the Pure Light of Truth.

FAITH AND MOUNTAINS 7/7

The Northern Magnets found the secret of human welfare in a

quite different direction, "We are all," so they said, "the Children

of Earth, and the Earth, as every schoolboy knows, is a great

magnet. We must all share, in a greater or less degree, the magnetic

propensities of our Mighty Mother, but, if we do not submit

ourselves to her beneficent authority, we shall become unclear and

confused. We should therefore always sleep with our heads towards

the North Magnetic Pole and our feet towards the South Magnetic

Pole. Those who persistently sleep thus will gradually acquire a

share in the magnetic powers of Earth. They will be healthy,

vigorous, and wise/' So at least the Northern Magnets unshakably

believed.

In both sects there was an inner and an outer circle. The inner

circle were called "Adepts", and the outer circle, "Adherents."

Inner and outer circle alike had a badge by which they could be

known. The Molybdenes wore a ring made of molybdenum, and

the Northern Magnets wore a magnet as a locket. The Adepts

devoted themselves to the holy life, consisting partly in observances

and partly in missionary work. Both communities of Adepts were

healthy, happy and virtuous. Alcohol and tobacco were forbidden

them. They went early to bed, the Molybdenes in order that the

health-giving molybdenum they had consumed might be absorbed

into the blood-stream, the Northern Magnets in order that the

magnetic powers of Earth might operate fully during the hours of

darkness. Sustained by faith, the Adepts were little troubled by the

daily rubs which ruffle the tempers of those not sustained in this way.

True, they had in early days had their difficulties. Unwise zealots

had pushed the eminently sane doctrines of the two sects beyond

the limits of wisdom. At one time there was among the Molybdenes

an extreme faction which thought that holiness could be measured

by the amount of molybdenum consumed each day. Some went so

far that their skin became metallic, and it was found that, sublime

as were their intentions, in molybdenum, as in everything else, it

was possible to indulge to excess. The elders, after a stormy meeting,

were compelled to discipline the zealots. But after this painful inci-

dent no similar trouble again arose.

Il8 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

Among the Magnets there was a different deviation into

fanaticism. There were those who said: "If virtue comes while we

lie prone in the direction of the lines of terrestrial magnetic force,

it is clear that we ought always to lie thus, and that to rise from

our beds is to risk dissipation of the vivificatory virtue that Earth

confers upon those who duly worship her." These zealots accor-

dingly spent the whole twenty-four hours in bed, to the no small

inconvenience of their less ardent relatives and friends. This

heresy, like that of the Molybdenes, was subdued, though with

difficulty, by the authority of the elders, and it was decreed that,

except in times of ill-health, no Northern Magnet should spend

more than twelve hours out of twenty-four in his bed.

Both these troubles, however, belonged to the early days of the

two sects. In their later days, missionary ardour and swift success

combined with health and vigour to fill their lives with joy. One

thing only troubled the Adepts: The Molybdenes could not under-

stand why Providence permitted the growth of the Northern

Magnets; and the Northern Magnets could not understand why

Providence permitted the growth of the Molybdenes. Each sect

consoled itself with the thought that there must be mystery some-

where, and that it is not given to the finite intellect of man to fathom

the august designs of Providence. Doubtless, in the fullness of

time, Truth would prevail, and the sect which had throughout

proclaimed the Truth would win universal adherence. Meantime,

it was the duty of the Adepts, by example, by precept, by wise

words in and out of season, to spread the light. In this effort, the

success of both parties was, to the indifferent, amazing.

In early days, each sect had had to face the ridicule of un-

believers. "Why molybdenum?" said these scoffers. "Why not

strontium? What not barium? What is the peculiar glory of this

one element?" When the believers replied that this was a mystery

intelligible only to those who already had faith, the answer was

received with derision.

The Northern Magnets had equal difficulties to face, "Why not

the South Magnetic Pole?" said the sceptics. Some, especially

certain inhabitants of the Southern hemisphere, went so far as to

FAITH AND MOUNTAINS ll<)

sleep habitually with their heads towards the South, and challenged

Northern Magnets to wrestling matches designed to prove that the

South Magnetic Pole is as invigorating as the one in the North.

Such challenges were treated by the Northern Magnets with the

contempt that they deserved. They replied that, while those who

followed the prescribed regimen would achieve physical health and

strength, it was not this alone that they would achieve, but an

inner harmony through interpenetration by the magnetic might of

Earth. In mere brawn some among them might be surpassed by

some among unbelievers. In the perfect harmony of body and

spirit True Believers would remain supreme. And as for the pre-

tence that the South Pole was just as good as the North Pole, how,

if this were true, could it be explained why the Creator had made

so much more land in the North than in the South ? This argument,

though it aroused some anger in South America, South Africa,

and Australia, was felt to be very difficult to meet. Only the firm

fervour of the Molybdenes was impervious to the arguments of the

Northern Magnets.

Each side urged, and urged with justice, that to meet faith in

falsehood, only faith in Truth was adequate. Never could cold

reason unaided prevail against the misleading ardour of deluded

fanatics. While the two sects were still young, some men of science

and some literary satirists had endeavoured to meet their claims

by the combined force of statistics and ridicule. But they had been

powerless to stem the popular tide, and, in time, only men whom

superior intelligence (or what they themselves deemed such) had

cut off from sympathy with the mass of mankind stood out against

both sects. The more expensive newspapers, which had small

circulations, and were read only by the aristocracy of intellect,

continued to remain aloof and neutral. They said as little as they

could about the doings of the two sects, with the result that persons

of superior education were almost unaware of what was happening

round about them. The cheaper newspapers tried at first to placate

both parties, but this proved impossible. Any word of praise of

the Northern Magnets roused all Molybdenes to fury. Any not

derogatory mention of the Molybdenes caused the Northern

120 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

Magnets to vow that they would never again read so degraded a,

journal. The popular newspapers were therefore compelled to take

sides. The Daily Lightning sided with the Northern Magnets;

The Daily Thunder with the Molybdenes. Day by day, each

portrayed more luridly than before the moral and intellectual

degradation of the opposite party and the almost incredible heights

of purity, devotion and vigour achieved by the party which the

journal supported. Under the influence of such journalistic skill

party spirit ran higher and higher, national unity was lost, and it

was even feared that civil war might ensue.

Nor was the trouble confined to Britain. Indeed its gravest

aspect was an increasing tension between the United States and

Canada, which came about through causes that we have not yet

set forth.

CHAPTER III

The Founder of the Molybdenes was a certain middle-aged

American widow named Molly B. Dean. Her husband had been a

very rich man, but meek with that kind of meekness which,

according to the Gospels, inherits the earth. He possessed, partly

by inheritance and partly by skilful investment, a great deal of the

earth of Colorado. His wife, to whom he left the whole of his

immense fortune, was one of those ladies who are obviously born

to be widows. Those who marry such ladies never achieve old age.

And Mr. Dean duly died in the prime of life. She, however, appears

to have not recognized this as an inevitable part of her destiny, for,

when discoursing on the merits of molybdenum, she was wont to

say: "Ah, had I but known of the beneficent effects of this metal

sooner, my dear husband Jehoshaphat might still be on this side

of the Great Veil!"

Mrs. Molly B. Dean, whose religion and business acumen were

perhaps not quite so separate as one could wish, discovered, on

examining her husband's investments after his death, that she

FAITH AND MOUNTAINS 121

qwned about nine-tenths of the world's supply of molybdenum ore.

She was struck by the similarity between the name of this element

and her own name. Such similarity, she felt convinced, could not

be due to chance. It must be the work of Destiny. It must be her

glorious mission to give her name to a new faith, purer than any

previous faith and not less profitable to herself.

The adherents of the new faith should be taught to consume

molybdenum, and should be named, after herself, the Molybdenes.

The offspring of the moment of creative thought grew rapidly and

was soon able to walk upon its two legs of religious faith and

business acumen. Lest either should interfere with the other, she

formed a company, called Amalgamated Metals Inc., of which she

retained control, although her name did not appear. At the same

time, she poured her religious beliefs into the mind of Zeruiah

Tomkins, a man somewhat younger than herself, who had had

great success as a Baptist preacher, but had fallen into disfavour

through a slight lapse from orthodoxy. Her powerful personality

dominated him completely. He accepted her every word as divine

revelation, and became filled with an immense ardour for the

regeneration of mankind through her very original gospel. His

organizing capacity was as great as his zeal; and she entrusted to

him, without a qualm, the terrestrial affairs of the holy brotherhood

of the Molybdenes.

The Northern Magnets owed their origin, though they themselves

were unaware of this fact, to an important man named Sir Magnus

North. Sir Magnus was a prominent figure in the national life of

Canada and the owner of vast tracts of land in the empty North-

West, which he believed to be possessed of great mineral wealth.

He decided to put the North- West "on the map." He employed

eminent geophysicists to locate the Magnetic Pole more accurately

than had hitherto been done, and discovered, as he had hoped, that

is was in the very middle of the lands of which he was owner.

He discovered also, or rather the explorers whom he employed

discovered, that at the Magnetic Pole there is a volcanic mountain,

and, whether from volcanic action or as a result of radio-activity,

the soil in the neighbourhood is warm, snow does not lie, and

122 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

there Is a lake which even in winter remains unfrozen. With these

data in his possession he planned a great campaign. With the help

of a professor of anthropology who had studied the beliefs of

Eskimos and Northern Indians, he formulated the main tenets of

the creed which became that of the Northern Magnets. But, as he

was warned by the anthropologist, and as he knew from experiences

on the Stock Exchange, it is not by pure reason that men are

governed. Although to a rational mind the arguments in favour

of the creed which he wished to propagate must prove irresistible,

he sought and found a key to men's hearts at once softer and more

compelling. He realized that it was not for him to be the missionary

of the new sect. The missionary must be at once dynamic and

mystical, someone capable of appealing to the deepest chords of

the human heart, someone who could introduce into the feelings of

men and women that strange unquiet peace which seems to bring

happiness, but does not bring slothful inactivity.

The search for such a Founder he left in the hands of his anthro-

pologist, who interviewed the leaders of sects in Los Angeles, in

Chicago, and wherever new beliefs were being ardently sought.

Acting on the orders of Sir Magnus, he did not reveal his purpose.

At last he prepared a short list of three, and submitted it to Sir

Magnus for his final decision. Of the three, there was one whom

Sir Magnus judged to be outstanding. She had been electrifying

Winnipeg, of which she was a native, by the promise of a great rev-

elation to come; but what the nature of the revelation should be she

had not yet told. She was a lady of majestic proportions: her height

was six foot four, and all her other dimensions were to scale. Many

of those who beheld her were reminded of the Statue of Liberty,

but she was even more august. There was only one thing against

her, and that was her name, which was Amelia Skeggs. Sir Magnus,

when he reflected upon the future for which he hoped, found it

difficult to imagine the world adhering to Skeggendom or

Skeggianity. He remembered the fate of the Muggletonians, who

had everything in their favour, except the unfortunate name

Muggleton. For a time this difficulty made him hesitate, but in the

end he found a triumphant solution. When he had found it, he

FAITH AND MOUNTAINS 123

decided that the time had come to reveal to the majestic Amelia

the great destiny which he planned for her.

"Miss Skeggs," he said, "I know from your eloquent preaching

that you are aware of a great destiny. Nature has fashioned you to

dominate mankind not only by your splendid frame but by the

greatness of the soul that inhabits it. You know that you are to

have a mission; but you have not known until now what that mission

is to be. It is left to me, as the humble emissary of Providence,

to show you the way to that towering spiritual eminence for which

you know yourself to be destined." He then explained to her the

tenets which became those of the Northern Magnets.

As he spoke, she became filled with spiritual fire. Not a doubt

remained anywhere. This was the gospel which she had been

seeking. This was the happy truth which should make Canada the

Holy Land, and lead the faithful of all the world, in humble

pilgrimages, to its magnetic shrine.

One step remained for Sir Magnus. "You must have in religion,"

he said, "a different name from that which you have had in the

world; a dedicated name, a name whose very syllables reverberate

your sacred task. Henceforth, you shall be known to all the nations

of the world by a new and splendid appellation: All Hail to You,

AURORA BOHRA!"

She left his presence intoxicated, exalted, filled with mystic

ecstacy and high purpose. From that moment, their collaboration

was perfect. But, acting upon his instructions, she kept his part

secret.

It did not take long for Aurora Bohra to become known and

successful in wide circles. She was fortunate in obtaining the

assistance of Manasseh Merrow, a man who, while possessed of

great organizing ability, had always been conscious of a lack in

himself, a lack of those spiritual qualities which, as a youth, he had

admired in the memory of his sainted mother. This lack was made

up to him by Aurora Bohra, for whom he felt a devout and un-

faltering worship. If anyone had asked him whether he loved her,

124 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

he would have been outraged by the blasphemy. It was not love,

but adoration that he felt for her. He laid at her feet all his great

ability in practical affairs, and left her free for the expression of

that mellifluous ecstasy upon which her hold on men and women

depended.

CHAPTER IV

One of the first enterprises to which the Northern Magnets owed

their success was the creation of the great circular sanatorium

surrounding the Magnetic Pole. To this sanatorium was given the

name of the Magnetic Home. In this enormous edifice the head of

every bed pointed exactly towards the North Magnetic Pole which

occupied the centre of the circular courtyard. The foot of every

bed pointed exactly towards the South Magnetic Pole. Owing to

the situation of this sanatorium, the curative effects of terrestrial

magnetism were far greater than elsewhere. Most of the Adherents

secured both mental and physical health by obeying the ordinary

regimen; but there were some who, in the early months of their

discipleship, retained traces of a neurasthenia which they had brought

from their days of unbelief. Such unquiet spirits, provided they

had the necessary means, were transported in luxurious jet-planes to

the Polar sanatorium where every luxury was provided, and where

alcohol and tobacco, elsewhere forbidden to the faithful, were

permitted for medicinal purposes.

One of the earliest of these neurasthenic visitors to the sana-

torium, whose name was Jedidiah Jelliffe, had been driven to the

verge of insanity by hopeless love for an exquisitely beautiful

lady named Harriet Hemlock. The magnetism of Auroro Bohra

completely cured him. And, in gratitude for his cure, he celebrated

his liberation in immortal verse, which became the marching hymn

of the Northern Magnets and which had bewildered the ears of the

Nepalese delegate.

126 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

At the exact location of the Magnetic Pole, which was in the

precise centre of the circular coutyard, there was a flagstaff from

which floated at most times the banner of the Northern Magnets,

which represented the head of Auroro Bohra with the Aurora

Borealis streaming from it in all directions. But once every day,

after a period during which the faithful, under the threat of dire

penalties, were compelled to avert their gaze, the flag was replaced

by an eyrie from which, dressed in flowing back robes, the majestic

priestess spoke her words of inspired wisdom. Above her head

were nine loud-speakers, eight of them horizontal, pointing North,

South, East, and West, North-East, South- West, South-East, and

North- West. These were trumpets of silver. But there was in

addition another loud-speaker, a trumpet of pure gold, pointing

straight upwards in order that her words might be heard in heaven

as well as on earth.

Standing upon a pedestal unseen by the faithful below, in a

slowly rotating circular chamber with walls of the most translucent

glass, with arms waving as though in an incipient embrace and

her whole body slowly undulating as though obeying the lines of

a magnetic stream, with her great eyes piercing and yet contem-

plative, sometimes flashing, sometimes veiled, she spoke. Her voice,

which was unlike any that the hearers had heard elsewhere, combined

the majesty of rolling mountain thunder with the lingering gentle-

ness of the dove.

"Dear Brothers and Sisters in Magnetism," she would say, "it

is my privilege once again to speak to you of our Holy Faith, and

to convey, by the power mysteriously vouchsafed to me, the

strength and peace of our Magnetic Mother Earth. Through

my veins flows Her fire; in my thoughts dwells Her ineffable calm.

Both shall come, though perhaps in diminished degree, to you,

My Beloved Hearers. Is your life troubled and unquiet? Do you

fear that the ardent affection, which you once received from your

husband or your wife, is less than it was? Does your business fail

to prosper? Do your neighbours treat you with less respect than,

I am sure, you deserve ? Be not troubled, Dear Friends. The arms

of Our Great Mother Earth enfold you. Your sorrows, permitted

FAITH AND MOUNTAINS 12J

for a moment, are but intended to try your faith. Lay aside your

burdens, and let Magnetic Health flow into you. Love, strength

and joy be yours, as they are mine!"

All who heard her were affected in their different ways. The

weary became alert; the despondent were filled with peace; those

who had been embittered by grievances began to feel them trivial;

and, in the adoration of Aurora, all found themselves united in a

mutual harmony.

The Molybdenes also had their recreative palace, situated at the

top of Acme Alp in Colorado. This was a mountain some ten

thousand feet high, covered in snow during eight months of the

year, but, during the other four, lovely with mountain meadows

carpeted with gentians and other wild flowers. From its summit

there was a vast prospect in every direction of mountains and

valleys, woods and streams, and the red Colorado River winding

its way through obstacles in the distance. It was not, however, the

beauty of the prospect alone that recommended this site to Molly

B. Dean. It had another, and perhaps even greater, merit in her eyes.

Acme Alp was at the very centre of the molybdenum region over

which she held sway. The recreative palace at its summit was

known far and wide as the Acme Sanitarium. Owing to the steepness

of the hillside it could be reached only by helicopter. Visitors were

brought by plane to Denver, and there trans-shipped into one of the

great fleet of these ingenious machines kept always in readiness

for the guests of that luxurious establishment.

Although perhaps less theatrical than the Magnet Sanatorium,

the Acme Sanitarium was no whit less comfortable. New arrivals,

it is true, were sometimes a little alarmed by the unusual quality

of the menu. They would find that they were being offered for their

first dinner Molydacious Mulligatawny, Molyb Polyp, Molybden-

ized Mutton, and Molyfluous Meringues or some variant, for

Molly B. Dean was aware that monotony was of all things to be

avoided, and the Molybdenic quality of the diet therefore underwent

different disguises on different evenings. There was a great difference

between the atmosphere created by Molly B. Dean and that diffused

by Aurora Bohra. Aurora Bohra believed in the mystic powers

128 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

of Earth, and encouraged a certain passive receptivity as the source

of subsequent vigorous action. Molly B. Dean, on the contrary,

believed in calling out in each individual his own strength, his

own power of will, his own control over his destiny. Not for her,

the reliance upon external help! In her stirring radio addresses,

to which, before the evening meal, the guests in her Sanitarium

were compelled to listen, she would appeal to each man and each

woman aye, and to each child, too to draw upon that inner

fund of determination, upon which, in the last resort, we must all

depend. She had worked out a technique for the development of

these powers:

"Do you," she would say, "feel a reluctance to rise from your

bed in the morning? Do not yield to it! Begin your waking day

with a firm act of will. Mount your mechanical horse, and, after

five minutes of strenuous exertion with this health-giving imple-

ment, devote yourself to muscular exercises unassisted by adjuncts.

Touch your toes with your hands ninety-nine times while keeping

your knees as stiff as a ramrod. After this, you will feel no hardship

in your cold bath, though the water be obtained from melting

snow. Your toilet completed, you will descend to your communal

breakfast filled with appetite and energy, ready for whatever the

day may bring. Is your mail full of tiresome chores? What of it?

You dispose of it with only a tiny fragment of the power derived

from your pre-breakfast regimen. Have your investments dimin-

ished in value? That need not trouble you, for the intellectual

clarity derived from the mechanical horse will enable you, without

difficulty, to select, with shrewd judgment, new investments of

which the future prosperity is unquestionable. And should sinful

thoughts come, as come they may even in this Holy Palace; should

you permit yourself to wish that a longer period in bed, or a less

frigid bath, were permitted; should you hanker after non-

molybdenized mutton; should you even, tempted doubtless by

Satan, harbour the dreadful thought that strontium might do just

as well in all or any of these terrible situations you can find

salvation by a simple rule: you must first run ten times round the

courtyard of the palace, and then open at haphazard the Sacred

FAITH AND MOUNTAINS 12$

Volume, Molybdenum^ the Cure for Morbid Mopings. Wherever

this volume may open you will find your eye resting upon some

health-giving text, and you will be able, by your own strength,

to banish the horrid thoughts which had been diverting the pure

stream of your unsullied life-force. Above all, remember this: It is

not in thought that salvation is to be found, but in action, strenuous

action, health-giving action, action that generates power. When

the wiles of Satan threaten to ensnare you, it is not to tortuous

thought that you must turn, but to action. And what that action

should be, you will find in the Sacred Volume. Action! Action!

Action! Action in the Holy Name of Molybdenum !"

CHAPTER v

The business management of the two recreative palaces was left

by Molly B. Dean and Aurora Bohra in the hands of their respective

managers, Mr. Tomkins and Mr. Merrow. Each of these men

realized that the sect of which he was in charge was exposed to the

enmity of the other sect. Each was persuaded that the other sect

consisted of unscrupulous scoundrels, who would shrink from

nothing to effect the ruin of their rivals. Each therefore installed,

not only in the public rooms, but in every bedroom, dictaphones

which recorded the supposedly private conversations of the guests.

Each found that there were grumblers, nay even incipient sceptics,

who had somehow found admission in spite of all the care of the

Reception Committee.

In Acme Alp the centre of disaffection was traced, by skilful

secret service work, to a certain Mr. Wagner. Mr. Wagner had

seemed to the Management exactly the sort of man for whom the

Sanitarium was designed. He had been, the Management under-

stood, a successful business man, but had become afflicted with

indecision. He would say, "I have studied the merits of this and

that, and have found the arguments exactly evenly balanced. What,

/JO NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

in these circumstances, am I to do ?" There was a danger that in

this mood his fortune would be dissipated. He had sought salvation

with the Molybdenes, and had apparently hoped to find it. But

although his condition improved, the cure remained incomplete,

and it was decided that a period at Acme Alp would be necessary.

With due submission to the authorities, he agreed. And, leaving

his business interests for the time being in the hands of subordinates,

he sought the health-giving atmosphere of that strenuous House of

Rest.

But his conversation while there was of a sort that it was difficult

to approve. He would say, addressing some chance acquaintance

after dinner, "You know, it is marvellous what molybdenum does

for the Molybdenes ! But there are some things that puzzle me, and

to which I find no answer in the Sacred Volume. Since molybdenum

is mainly concentrated in Colorado, one must suppose that the

inhabitants of this State consume more of it than those who live

in other parts of this great Republic. But, on examining the vital

statistics, I have not discovered any measurable difference between

the health of Colorado and that of other States. This, I confess,

puzzles me. Another thing also gave me pause: I asked a scientific

physician of my acquaintance to examine minutely the imports

and exports of molybdenum in the body of a devout Molybdene,

who has consumed that amount of the Sacred Metal prescribed by

our revered Leader, and in an ordinary citizen. I found, to my

amazement, that the amount of molybdenum retained in the body

of a healthy Molybdene is no greater than that retained in the body

of a man whose diet is normal. I am sure there must be an answer

to these perplexities, but I wish I knew what it is. I do not wish to

trouble Mr. Tomkins, who is a very busy man. Can you suggest

some way of resolving my difficulties?"

It was found that he had made speeches of this sort to a number

of people at Acme Alp. But nothing definite could be proved against

him, and, in the end, it was decided to pronounce him cured and

send him back to his home.

A somewhat similar trouble arose shortly afterwards at the

Magnetic Home. A certain Mr. Thorney, who was, or was supposed

FAITH AND MOUNTAINS ZJl

to be, a traveller in out-of-the-way lands, returned from an expe-

dition, or so he said, worn out with the hardships that a series of

mishaps had imposed upon him. Weary and discouraged, he sought

the life-giving force that the Northern Magnets offered. He became

an Adherent, and his friends among the Faithful hoped for rapid

improvement. But improvement was discouragingly slow, and

he seemed incapable of feeling again the zest which had sent him

upon his travels. It was decided by the authorities that only a visit

to the Magnetic Pole could complete his cure. There, however,

as on Acme Alp, dictaphones had been installed by the wise prudence

of those who foresaw the machinations of their rivals. And it was

found that, while Mr. Thorney's conversation could not be con-

demned as definitely heretical, it had nevertheless a subtle tendency

to diminish the firmness of belief in those who listened to it. It

was suspected that he had not a due reverence for Aurora Bohra,

whom the Faithful never saw except when she was in her eyrie.

"Have you ever wondered," he would say to a neighbour, "how

tall Aurora really is?" "No," the neighbour would say in a slightly

shocked tone, "and I am not sure that I consider the question quite

nice." "Oh well," Mr. Thorney would reply, "she is, after all, a

real women of flesh and blood. Having had to practise surveying in

my travels, I took the liberty of estimating her height with my

sextant. Allowing for her feet, which I could not see, I concluded

that her height is between six foot three and a half inches and

six foot four and a half inches. I could not make my estimate more

exact because of the refracting properties of the glass through which

we see her. But I was able to assure myself beyond a doubt that

she is a fine figure of a woman."

It was not the thing to speak in these terms of the presiding

Goddess; but it must be acknowledged, though with pain, that

there were some who fell in with Mr. Thorney's manner, and were

thenceforth less inclined to attribute supernatural powers to that

Noble Lady. Where he found favourable soil for the seeds of his

irreverence, he would go farther. He would say, "You know,

there is a circumstance, known perhaps to few white men except

myself, which I find very difficult to explain on the basis of the

132 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

Magnetic Principles that we all accept. There is, in a certain very

remote part of Tibet, a valley of quite extraordinary narrowness,

almost a chasm, which points, as my survey assured me, directly

towards the North Magnetic Pole. Although the valley is so narrow,

there are those who spend the summer in it, because it contains

diamonds. They have to sleep with their heads towards the North

or with their heads towards the South. Some choose the one,

some the other. One might have expected that those who sleep

with their heads towards the North would be in all respects superior

to those who choose the opposite posture. But, although I spent a

considerable time among them and made inquiries into their past

history, I was unable to discover any such difference as our Holy

Faith compels us to postulate. There is, I am sure, some quite

conclusive answer, but I have been unable to imagine what it may

be. If you, or any of your friends, can resolve my perplexity, you

will earn my deepest gratitude."

When dictaphones revealed his habit of putting such questions

to the other visitors in the circular palace, it was decided by the

authorities that, though he was doubtless a genuine seeker after

Truth, the form and method of his search were not such as to

deserve encouragement. He was therefore prematurely pronounced

cured, and sent home, with a caution to meditate in silence, if at

all, upon the curious questions that he had somewhat rashly raised.

CHAPTER VI

In spite of such slight difficulties, both movements prospered.

The Northern Magnets won the support of everybody in Scan-

dinavia, except the Intelligentsia. Iceland and Greenland followed

suit, and their men of science proved conclusively that, in course

of time, the Magnetic Pole would be theirs. In the United States

it was the Molybdenes who flourished. The State of Utah, where

considerable stores of molybdenum were discovered, solemnly

FAITH AND MOUNTAINS 133

abandoned the Book of Mormon and substituted Molybdenum^

the Cure for Morbid Mopings. As some reward for this accession

to the True Faith, Molly B. Dean conceded that Utah should be

incorporated in the Holy Land. Throughout the Western World, the

bewildered young, who had been unable to choose whole-heartedly

either the Kremlin or the Vatican as objects of adoration, found

mental and emotional rest in one or other of the two new

creeds.

In England, where the two factions were very evenly balanced,

acute conflict was more threatened than anywhere else. Test

matches no longer aroused interest, the older football teams were

forgotten, and only the great matches between Molybdenes and

Magnets attracted the crowds. Not only in football, but in every

kind of athletic contest, the Molybdenes and the Magnets competed

with fluctuating success and without decisive superiority for either.

It was found, with some dismay, that the crowds were no longer

good-natured, and that fights broke out between irascible adherents

of the rival faiths. At last a rule had to be adopted separating

Molybdenes and Magnets by placing one of these to the right and

one to the left. Those who avowed themselves neutrals were viewed

with contempt and told to go home.

The Highbrows would have been delighted to make their peace

with both, but this was impossible. "He that is not with us, is

against us," such temporizers were firmly told. Nevertheless, some

attempt at conciliation persisted. The Tempora Supplementary

Letters had a deeply reflective article on the two creeds. "It must

be conceded," so this article said, "that to the coldly critical intellect,

there are difficulties in both the gospels which are bringing new

hopes and new life to the weary West. But those who are imbued

with the great tradition, those who have absorbed and digested the

message of all the great thinkers, from Plato to St. Thomas Aquinas,

will not lightly reject new faiths, even though they may appear

impossible, as the Christian faith did to Tertullian, who, in spite

of such impossibility nay, because of it accepted whole-heartedly

the new tenets which transcended reason. All right-thinking people,

whatever difficulty they may have in choosing between the

NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

Molybdenes and the Magnets, will welcome what the two movements

have in common. Not so long ago a coldly mechanist philosophy

dominated the thoughts of our accepted pundits. Those deeper

sources of wisdom, which are not derived from mere observation

of brute fact, but well up in the humble heart when it opens itself

to the operation of the Great Spirit of Truth from these the

Molybdenes and the Magnets alike derive refreshment. Gone is

the insolence of sciolists; gone is the shallow certainty of those

who ignore the Eternal Verities upon which our Western World

is founded. In the Molybdenes and the Magnets alike there is so

much that every lover of wisdom must welcome, that we cannot

but regret their separateness and rivalry. We believe, and in this

belief we are not alone, that an amalgamation is possible, and that,

if effected, it will give to the faith in our Western Values that

unshakable strength which is needed in the fateful contest with the

atheism of the East."

This weighty pronouncement had influential backing. The

British Government, torn between love of the Commonwealth and

dependence upon the United States, viewed with the deepest alarm

the growing tension between Canada and the western half of the

United States. Such tension, if it could not be eased, could bring

to nought the work, not only of the United Nations, but also of

NATO. In England, the adherents of the two parties were about

equal in numbers. Both were strong, but neither could hope to be

supreme. The British Government approached Mr. Tomkins and

Mr. Merrow with proposals for a conference, and with earnest

suggestions for at least a modus vivendi between the two sects.

Mr. Tomkins and Mr. Merrow consulted by long-distance

telephone the High Priestesses, Molly B. Dean and Aurora Bohra.

Aurora Bohra secretly consulted Sir Magnus North. The outcome

of these various consultations was the decision to hold a great

meeting in the Albert Hall at which, by public debate, some form

of agreement was to be reached. Such at least was the outcome

for which the Government hoped. But the hopes of the two parties

were different. Each was so firmly persuaded of its own invin-

cibility that it felt no doubt of victory in a public confrontation,

FAITH AND MOUNTAINS

and it was in virtue of this confidence that each side assented to the

Government's proposals.

It was agreed that the great meeting should be held under the

chairmanship of the Professor of Comparative Religion at the

University of Oxbridge. This wise and urbane scholar knew all

about the religion of the extinct Tasmanians, the beliefs of the

Hottentots, and the creed of the Pygmies. It was therefore supposed

by the Government that he could give sympathetic understanding

to both the Molybdenes and the Magnets. But, lest he should fail,

through being more urbane than forceful, he was to be supported

by a band of some hundreds of stalwart stewards, each of whom

should have been carefully screened to make sure that he had no

inclination towards either party. Lots were drawn as to which party

should be to the right and which to the left. The right fell to the

Magnets, the left to the Molybdenes. On the stage, and on the floor

of the hall, and in every gallery, this division was observed. A wide

aisle was left between the two parties, and throughout the meeting

the neutral stewards marched up and down this aisle with stern

orders to preserve the peace at all costs.

Aurora Bohra and Molly B. Dean had descended from their

mountains to inspire their faithful followers on this momentous

occasion. Each sat on a throne near the centre of the stage, separated

from the other only by the width of the aisle. Molly B. Dean loved

all mankind, but she did not love Aurora Bohra; Aurora Bohra

loved all mankind, but she did not love Molly B. Dean. Molly B.

Dean, with sharp, black, snapping eyes, after surveying the

gathering, darted a venomous glance upon Aurora Bohra, a glance

so venomous that it must have shrivelled a lesser personality.

Aurora Bohra, after gazing raptly at the ceiling, allowed her great

eyes to wander vaguely over the assembled multitude. Although,

at times, her gaze seemed to be directed towards the opposite throne,

it appeared that in that direction she saw nothing. The Medusa

glances of Molly B. Dean passed her by. Only in the rapt con-

templation of the great dome did she seem to yield to those sublime

emotions which had made her what she was.

Mr. Tomkins and Mr. Merrow, each bristling with a sheaf of

NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

papers, stood at their desks, primed with all the facts and all the

arguments most calculated to overwhelm the other party.

Immediately behind Zeruiah Tomkins sat his son and destined

successor, Zachary. Zachary had been educated by his father with

the most careful regard to the preservation of his orthodoxy.

Never for a moment had he doubted the tenets of the Molybdenes,

never for a moment had he imagined any other destiny than to

help his father while he lived, and to carry on his work when death

should call him to an even happier land. But, in spite of a diet

adequately flavoured with molybdenum, he was a somewhat weedy

youth, and in his spare time turned his thoughts towards poetry

rather than theology. Although molybdenum was supposed to

confer muscular good cheer upon its devotees, he was the victim,

to his secret shame, of a somewhat melancholy outlook. He thought

Keats's Ode to Autumn unduly cheerful and wrote, himself, an Ode

to Autumn beginning,

Autumn leaves

And barley sheaves

Bring thought of the morrow

And snow and sorrow.

Often he would take himself to task, and wish that he could achieve

the eupeptic jollity which was the ideal of his sect. But, in spite of all

his efforts, melancholy and languor invaded his inmost being

whenever he could escape from the hustle and bustle of the

Molybdene office.

Behind Manasseh Merrow, and exactly opposite Zachary, sat

Mr. Merrow's daughter, Leah. Leah, like Zachary, had been

educated to the strictest orthodoxy. Like Zachary, it was intended

that she should succeed her father. But, like Zachary, she had

difficulty in preserving the state of mind demanded of an Adept.

There were even dreadful moments when she could not bring

herself to reverence Aurora. The time that she could spare from

helping her father at the office, she spent at the piano. Mendelssohn

was her favourite, but she rose occasionally to Chopin. Her real

preference, however, was not for classical music, but for old-

FAITH AND MOUNTAINS ZJ7

fashioned romantic songs such as Gaily the Troubadour and The

Bailiff's Daughter of Islington. She was not strictly beautiful, but her

expression had a certain earnest exaltation and her eyes were large

and sad.

Both Zachary and Leah, at the meeting, found themselves, as

was natural, more interested in the opposite party than in their

own. Zachary bestowed a brief glance upon Aurora Bohra, but

shrank in revulsion from her vastness. Leah, encountering for a

moment the piercing glance of Molly B. Dean, was so rilled with

terror that she longed to hide. Each, after this moment of alarm,

was consoled by the sight of equal alarm across the aisle. Their

eyes met. Each had supposed until that moment that all who sup-

ported the opposite faction were base and wicked. Each, meeting

those frightened eyes, experienced a shock. "Surely," each thought,

"it is nothing villainous that those eyes express! Can my dear

father have been mistaken? Is it possible that the feelings which I

experience may also exist in the breast of an opponent? Can it

be that there is a common humanity which might override these

differences?" And while each so thought, each continued to gaze

into the eyes of the other.

Meanwhile, the business of the meeting proceeded, though the

two young people were at first scarcely conscious of what was

going on around them.

The Professor rose to deliver his opening address, which he

had prepared with the utmost care, and of which he and the Prime

Minister had conned every word to eliminate the slightest hint of

criticism or lack of neutrality. Somewhat nervously he cleared his

throat and began:

"Revered Pythonesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, we are all aware

that in this great gathering there is disagreement ["Hear, Hear!"

from all parts of the Hall], but there is one matter as to which

we are, I trust and believe, all at one. All of us are eager to seek

Truth, and when found to proclaim it.".

From both sides of the Hall a vast shout went up at these words,

a shout of "No, No! Not on the other side!" The poor Professor,

somewhat disconcerted, skipped several mellifluous phrases, and

138 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

continued, "Well, be that as it may, it has been decided, by men for

whose wisdom I have a profound respect, that the division of our

great country into rival factions brings with it now, as it did in the

days of the Wars of the Roses, as it did again in the lamentable

dissensions of King and Parliament in the seventeenth century, a

danger lest, absorbed in internal quarrels, we should lose sight of

the peril from overseas. It is because of this peril that this meeting

has been convened in the hope that, without any loss of fervour,

without any diminution in the profundity of religious conviction,

the two creeds may unite and forge, by their union, a weapon of

irresistible might for the repelling of whatever enemies may

threaten our National Life."

At this point, again, he was interrupted. Cries came from

everywhere: "That's easy! Let the others join us I" Again, the

Professor skipped some pages of his prepared address, since he

deemed it wise, in view of the temper of the meeting, to make an

end quickly. "It is not for me," he concluded, "to dictate the

agreement to be arrived at. This is for you to decide, since we live

in a democracy. I will only repeat that the occasion is momentous,

and that your responsibility is great. May God bless your delibera-

tions!"

Even during these opening remarks it had become clear that the

temper of the meeting was difficult. The unusual course was

adopted of having the Order of the Proceedings announced, not

by the Chairman, but by the Commissioner of Police. In authorita-

tive tones, very unlike those of the Professor, he announced that

each side would be allowed three speakers, each to speak for twenty

minutes, and that the toss of a coin had allotted the first speech to

the Molybdenes. He announced also that he had in reserve a large

force of police, and that, at the first sign of disorder, the Hall would

be cleared. Somewhat cowed, the audience became for a time

subdued, and listened to the first two speeches without excessive

interruption.

These speeches were made by Mr. Tomkins and Mr. Merrow.

Each dealt with the merits and success of his own movement, and

studiously refrained from any mention of his rivals. There were

FAITH AND MOUNTAINS 13$

coughs and yawns, and not a few, overcome by the oppressive

atmosphere, fell asleep. It seemed as if the whole meeting would enc^

in flat boredom. But there were fireworks in reserve. When Mr.

Merrow sat down, Mr. Tomkins called upon Mr. Thorney to address

the meeting. Mr. Thorney, from his very first words, showed no

disposition to be conciliatory:

"Ladies and Gentlemen and Northern Magnets," he began.

"I am the Head of the Molybdenic Secret Service. I know things

that you do not know. I know the income of Sir Magnus North.

I know the extent of his estates in the North- West Territory.

I know that every evening he spends many hours, whether in

lascivious or merely lucrative commerce I know not, with the

supposed Holy Woman, Miss Bohra."

By these words the meeting was, for a moment, completely

stunned. The Magnets had known Mr. Thorney as a friend. The

Molybdenes were finding difficulty in his new role. While the

meeting was still held in bewildered silence, Mr. Wagner leapt

up and shouted:

"You have listened to lies, but 7 will tell you Truth! What do

you know of Amalgamated Metals Inc. ? What do you know of

the fortune of its principal shareholder? What do you know of

the role of molybdenum in its transactions? I, as Head of the Secret

Service of the Magnets, I can give you the amazing answer: the

fortune is immense; it is based upon molybdenum; and its lucky

owner is the Widow Dean !"

By the time he sat down, both sides were wrought to the utmost

pitch of fury. "Death to Sir Magnus and shame on his Infamous

Paramour!" was shouted from one side. "Down with Grasping

Plutocrats! To the Gallows with Murderous Molly!" the other

side retorted. For a brief moment their co-operative efforts were

devoted to overcoming a posse of stewards. That done, the rival

Saints met in savage mlee. The police, who had retained their

coherence, cleared the Hall with tear gas. With streaming eyes and

thunderous sneezes, the disconcerted thousands poured into the

street. Revived by the outer air, they resumed the fray in dis-

organized groups. Clothes were torn from backs, blows were

140 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

exchanged, feet were stamped upon, objurgations were shouted.

Late into the night the vague tumult continued, until at last,

utterly exhausted, the Holy Combatants fell asleep upon the cold

pavement.

CHAPTER VII

The leading personages on the stage, meanwhile, had been exhorted

by the police to make use of a secret exit. The Chairman, feeling

that his functions could no longer be exercised, was very willing

to depart. The Nepalese delegate, who had felt disaster coming,

tapped the Professor on the shoulder and said, "Let me take care

of you." The two together were hustled into a police car. "Oh,

where shall we go ?" said the Professor. "To the Nepalese Embassy,"

said his new friend. Arriving there tired and hopeless, he was

slowly revived by kindness, and when he had had time to collect

his thoughts, he was offered a Professorship in his own subject in

the Himalayan University of Nepal, provided he would sign a

document in a language unknown to him. He did so, and, having

thus established his credentials, which, as he discovered long after-

wards, consisted of a statement to the effect that Tensing had been

the first to reach the summit of Everest, he was taken by plane to

the seat of his new academic activities. At the end often years he

produced his monumental work, Religion and Superstition among

the Aborigines of the West. But this work has not appeared in any

European language.

The two Priestesses presented the police with a difficult problem.

Oblivious of everything else, Molly B. Dean had rushed across the

aisle to make a frenzied assault upon the massive Aurora. Reaching

up with her nails, she made long bloody scratches upon the face of

her rival, who, with her open hand, gave her a push, which

knocked her flat upon the floor. "Harridan!" she shouted as she

lay prone. "Peculating virago!" Aurora retorted in a voice very

different from, and much more shrill than, that to which her

disciples were accustomed. Some policemen picked up Molly B.

FAITH AND MOUNTAINS 141

Dean, while ten others, with drawn truncheons, propelled Aurora

Bohra. Both together were placed in a Black Maria, where, acrosr

an intervening wall of policemen, they continued to hurl insults at

each other. Both were accused of a breach of the peace, and they

were confined for the night in separate cells which invited far

from pleasant reflections.

Mr. Tomkins and Mr. Merrow, neither of whom had expected

the intemperate intervention of their Secret Agents, retired under

police protection to their respective offices. There, deeply dejected,

with their heads buried in their hands, they contemplated the ruin

of their life-work. Although total abstinence, except in the Recreative

Palaces, was a rigid tenet of both sects, both these devoted men

were found by charwomen in the morning prone on the floor with

an empty bottle beside each.

As for Zachary and Leah, they had been so absorbed in each

other that they were not aware of what was going on about them

until the din became overwhelming. Sitting among the neutrals,

a little way behind them, was Ananias Wagthorne, an official of

the Ministry of Culture, who had been sent to obtain data for

any bureaucratic action that might be called for. He was a kindly

and perceptive person, and had observed their absorption in each

other. In the final confusion he extended a hand to each, and said,

"Let me escort you to safety." Although somewhat embarrassed

by each other's presence, they obeyed, since any other course

seemed difficult. Helped by the police, he extricated them and

conveyed them safely to his flat. He introduced them to his wife,

who listened understandingly to his account of the monumental

fiasco. His wife was a good-natured lady, filled with sympathy for

the young people. "I do not think," she said to her husband, "that

these young people ought to attempt to go to their homes tonight.

The streets are disturbed, and no one can tell what furious mobs

may do. If Mr. Zachary could be content with the drawing-room

sofa, Miss Leah could have the spare room, and both could stay

here for the night." Both accepted gratefully. And both, utterly

worn out, soon fell asleep.

As the great meeting had been held on a Saturday, Mr. Wagthorne

142 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

was able to stay at home next morning, and devoted himself to

comforting the young people and diminishing their perplexities.

Neither knew what to believe of the lurid revelations to which they

had listened. Could it be that the Molybdenic Faith was built

upon financial fraud ? Zachary's thoughts shuddered away from so

dreadful a possibility. Could it be that the Faith of the Magnets was

only an incident in the rise of Sir Magnus North to wealth and

power? This nightmare suggestion seemed to Leah to empty life

of all its purpose. Mr. Wagthorne, finding them disconsolate, and

with no appetite for their breakfasts, inquired into their doubts.

"Can these things be true?" they both asked him.

"I fear they are but too true," he replied. "It has been my official

duty to make inquiries as to both sects. From the Board of Trade,

I have ascertained the extent of Mrs. Dean's interests in Amal-

gamated Metals Inc.; and from the Administration of the North-

West Territory, I have discovered the vast area possessed by Sir

Magnus, and its almost unlimited possibility of mineral wealth.

The relation of Sir Magnus with Aurora Bohra has long been known

and watched by the police. Your fathers, my dear young people,

were, I am convinced, totally ignorant of the revelations that were

made at yesterday's meeting. They, I am sure, are honestly and

wholeheartedly persuaded that the doctrines they preach are both

true and beneficent. It may be that, when you have had time to

reflect, each of you will agree with his or her father, and continue

to believe as heretofore. But I think it more likely that you will

both perceive what I believe to be the facts in this painful situation,

and that you will learn to build your lives upon a firmer foundation

than that upon which they have rested hitherto.

"But is it possible/' both exclaimed, "that any movement so

vast, and so potent in moving men's minds, should be based upon

nothing but fraud and folly?"

"It is only too possible," he replied. "It has been my duty to

study the history of such movements. They have been numerous.

Some have flourished briefly, others have lasted for centuries.

But there is no relation whatever between the vitality and life of a

movement and its basis in good sense."

FAITH AND MOUNTAINS 143

At this point he fetched from his shelves a large tome called

The Dictionary of Sects, Heresies, Ecclesiastical Parties, and Schools

of Religious Thought.

"Do not imagine," he said, "that you have any reason for shame,

or that you differ from the rest of mankind in the capacity to believe

what afterwards appears to have been nonsense. In this volume

the similar follies of the last two thousand years are recorded, and

a little study will show you that, in comparison with many of these)

your creeds have been sensible and moderate. Both your heresies

begin with the letter M, so let us see what this book has to say under

this letter. Let me recommend you to study the doctrines of

Macarius. I can assure you they are well deserving of attention, as

are those of the Majorinians, and the Malakanes, and the Mar-

cellinians, and the Marcosians, and the Masbothians, and the

Melchisedechians, and the Metangismonitae, and the Morelstschiki,

and the Muggletonians. Take, for example, the Marcosians, who

followed Marcus the Magician, 'a perfect adept in magical impostures

. . . joining the buffooneries of Anaxilaus to the craftiness of the

Magi,' and by these arts seducing the wives of deacons, and justi-

fying unlimited licence by the doctrine that he had 'attained to a

height above all power,' and was therefore free to act in every

respect as he pleased. Or, again, you may be thankful that neither

of you belong to the sect of the Morelstschiki, whose 'custom is to

meet together on a certain day in the year in some retired place,

and having dug a deep pit, to fill it with wood, straw, and other

combustibles, while they are singing weird hymns relating to the

ceremony. Fire is then applied to the piled-up fuel, and numbers

leap into the midst of it, stimulated by the triumphant hymns of

those around, to purchase a supposed martyrdom by their suicidal

afct.' No, my dear young friends, you need not feel that you have

been exceptional in folly, for folly is natural to man. We consider

ourselves distinguished from the ape by the power of thought.

We do not remember that it is like the power of walking in a

one-year-old. We think, it is true, but we think so badly that I often

feel it would be better if we did not. But I have matters that I

must attend to, and, for the moment,! will leave you to each other."

144 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

Left tete-a-tgte they preserved at first an embarrassed silence.

Then Zachary said, hesitatingly, "I cannot yet disentangle what

I am to think of what we heard yesterday, and of what our kind

friend has been saying. But there is one thing of which I feel sure,

and which I will say: When I looked across the aisle and saw the

crystal purity and gentle charity that shone from your eyes, I could

no longer believe that all Northern Magnets are degraded beings."

"Oh, Mr. Tomkins," she replied, "I am glad you have said

what you did, and . . . and ... I ... felt the same about the

Molybdenes."

"Oh, Miss Merrow," he replied, "can it be that, amid such ruin,

something has been salvaged ? Drifting alone, parted by doubt and

despair from former companions and former hopes, may I think

that in this night of apparent solitude we have found each other?"

"I think you may, Mr. Tomkins," she said.

And with that they fell into each other's arms.

For a little while they forgot their sorrows in mutual ecstasy;

but presently Leah sighed, and said, "But, Zachary, what are we

to Jo ? Can we break our fathers' hearts ? But how can we do other-

wise? It is impossible that we should marry and should continue

to profess our several former tenets."

"No," he replied, "that would be impossible. We must tell our

fathers of our loss of faith, whatever may be the pain to them.

You and I henceforth, dear Leah, must be one in thought and word

and deed, and that will be impossible if we pretend to a divided

allegiance."

With heavy hearts, they decided to confront their fathers. But,

strengthened by the new fire of love, neither faltered before the

ordeal.

CHAPTER VIII

Zachary and Leah, after some further conversation, decided to

postpone to the next day their confrontation with their respected

FAITH AND MOUNTAINS 145

fathers, the rather as the \Vagtiiornes had very kindly asked them

to stay another night. After luncheon they walked in Kensington

Gardens, and, having known until that time nothing but offices

throughout the week and big meeting halls on Sundays, they were

struck by the beauty of wild nature and enjoyed emotions for

which others have to travel to the Alps or the Victoria Falls.

"I begin to think," said Zachary, as he feasted his eyes upon a

multi-coloured bed of tulips, "that perhaps we have lived, hitherto,

with somewhat too limited preoccupations. These tulips, I am

convinced, owe nothing to molybdenum."

"How refreshing are your words of wisdom!" Leah replied.

"Magnetism also, I am persuaded, has done nothing to produce this

wild loveliness."

They agreed that they felt themselves expanding in mind and

heart with every moment that passed since they had escaped from

the bondage of dogma. They had been brought up to worship

brawn, in which neither excelled. They had been taught to despise

everything delicate and subtle, everything fragile and evanescent.

Zachary, with secret shame, had enjoyed anthologies of the poets,

but he had felt about this as a secret morphia addict might feel

about his surreptitious doses. She, in her stolen hours at the piano,

had preferred the times when she knew her father to be absent.

But fortunately he had no ear for music, and, on the occasions when

he discovered her at the instrument, she persuaded him that she

was studying the Magnetic hymnbook. Now at last they felt that

they need no longer be ashamed of their tastes.

But they were still not without their fears fears for the world as

well as for themselves. "Do you think," she asked him with some

hesitation, "that it is possible to be good without the help of faith?

I have lived, hitherto, a blameless life. I have never uttered a bad

word. I have never tasted alcohol. I have never suffered the

pulmonary pollution of tobacco. Never have I slept with my head

pointing elsewhere than to the Magnetic Pole. Never have I gone

to bed too late or risen after the prescribed hour. And I have found

this same devotion to duty among my friends. But will it be possible

to go on living so, when I no longer feel that my every action and

146 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

my every breath should be a service of devotion and homage to

Earth, the Great Magnet ?"

"Alas," he replied, "the same perplexities trouble me. I fear

that I may be content in the morning to touch my toes fewer than

ninety-nine times, and even perhaps to acquiesce in a luke-warm bath.

I can no longer feel quite certain that alcohol and tobacco lead to

Hell. What, with such doubts, is to become of us ? Shall we go down

the primrose path to moral degradation and physical ruin ? What is

to preserve us, what is to preserve others who have hitherto been

our co-religionists, from a gradual descent into drunkenness,

debauchery and disaster? What, when we meet our fathers, shall

we say when they argue, as argue they will, that creeds such as

theirs, whether true or false, are necessary for the preservation of

mankind? I do not yet see the way to a clear answer. But let us

hope that parental wrath will inspire us when the moment comes."

"I hope it may be so," she said, "but I confess that I have fears,

for, even while strengthened by dogma, neither of us was wholly

able to abstain from sin. You with your poets, and I with my

piano, were guilty of deceit. If even in the past we sinned, what

will become of us now?"

Oppressed by this solemn thought, they returned gravely and

silently to the Wagthornes' tea-table.

When Monday morning came they sought their respective

fathers, determined to make such explanations as should be neces-

sary, and to seek such conciliation as might be possible. Zachary

found his father at the office surrounded by a wild confusion.

Letters of resignation were piled high upon his desk. Scathing

articles in hitherto friendly newspapers were omens of ruin. After a

Sunday devoted to recuperation, most of those who had fought

each other as devotees of this sect or that, had come to the con-

clusion that both equally must be repudiated. On Saturday night,

half the mob had sided with Mr. Tomkins, and half with Mr.

Merrow. Now, though it was not the time of day for a mob, the

few who passed either office showed equal hostility to both, and

only a strong force of police protected the faithful remnant from

the united hostility of those who felt that they had been duped.

FAITH AND MOUNTAINS 143

Mr. Tomkins, though he retained his faith, was unable to under-

stand the designs of Providence in permitting what had occurred.

When he saw Zachary, a gleam of returning hope appeared for a

moment upon his countenance.

"Ah, my dear son," he said, "to what tribulations are the good

exposed. But you you whom, from your earliest infancy, I have

educated in the True Faith, you whose blameless life and un-

faltering belief have been among the greatest joys of my arduous

existence, you, I am sure, will not desert me in this difficult hour.

I am no longer young, and to build up again from its first founda-

tions that great Church, which had come so near to final triumph,

may prove beyond the power of my declining years. But you,

with the fresh vigour of youth, with the impetuous ardour of one

who has never had to fight doubt or uncertainty, you, I feel, will

rebuild the ruined edifice more pure, more splendid, more shining

than that which Saturday's fell work has laid in ruins."

Zachary was deeply moved, and his eyes filled with tears. He

wished with all his heart that he could give the answer which his

father longed to hear. But he could not. Something even more

compelling than intellectual doubts as to the physiological benefits

of molybdenum prevented his acquiescence. The thought of Leah

made submission to his father impossible. Never could his father

consent, with any willingness, to union with a Northern Magnet.

Zachary realized that he must speak, no matter how great might be

his father's pain.

"Father," he said, "much as I feel for your sorrow, I cannot do

as you wish. I have lost my faith. Molybdenum, we are assured,

cures diseases of the chest, but you must have known, or at least

suspected, that I suffer from tuberculosis of the lung. We are told

that molybdenum makes our muscles strong, but every Godless

hooligan from the slums can defeat me in a wrestling match. For

these things, however, some explanation could perhaps be found.

What is more difficult is that I love Leah'Merrow. . . ."

"Leah Merrow!" gasped his father.

"Yes, Leah Merrow, and she has consented to become my wife.

She, like me ? can no longer believe the faith in which she has been

148 NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

brought up. She, like me, is determined to accept painful facto,

however they may shatter a cherished world of beliefs. It is not

your work, it is not the work of Mr. Merrow, that can inspire our

lives henceforth. We wish to live unfettered by dogma, free to

accept whatever the facts may indicate, with minds open to the

winds of heaven, not wrapped in the cotton- wool of some warm

and comfortable system !"

"Oh, Zachary," his father answered, "you wring my heart!

You turn the bayonet in the dreadful wound ! Is it not enough that

the world has turned against me? Must my own son join my

enemies? Oh, dreadful day! And it is not I alone, it is the whole

world that you will be bringing to ruin by your heartless levity.

What do you know of human nature ? How can you estimate the

wild anarchic forces that your 'free winds of heaven' will liberate ?

What do you imagine restrains men from murder, arson, pillage

and debauchery? Do you imagine that the puny forces of reason

can effect this great work? Alas, in your sheltered life, you have

been kept from knowledge of the darker side of human nature.

You have believed that gentleness and goodness grow naturally

in the human heart. You have not realized that they are the unnatural

outgrowth of unnatural beliefs. It is such beliefs that I have tried

to inculcate. And, in this dark hour, I can admit that the Northern

Magnets also have been engaged in this task. Our creed, I still

believe, was as superior to theirs as the noonday sun to the last

glimmer of twilight. But what you offer is not twilight, it is black,

impenetrable*night. And, in the night, what deeds of darkness may

be done ! If this is to be your work, there will have to be, between

you and me, an enmity more deep and more implacable than that

which had divided me from the Northern Magnets."

Contrary to his own expectations, Zachary reacted to this

speech in a manner quite different from that intended by his father.

"No !" he said. "No ! It is not by organized falsehood that mankind

is to be saved. While you imagined that you were building virtue,

what was it that you were really building? It was the fortune of

Molly B. Dean. You imagined her a Holy Woman. Was it holiness

that inspired her when she scratched the face of Aurora Bohra?

FAITH AND MOUNTAINS 14$

Was it holiness that made her hide her financial interest in the

anonymity of Amalgamated Metals Inc. ? And, to come nearer

home, do you realize that you were sacrificing my life to youi

credulity? Do you realize that you have refused me the treatment

that my body demands, because it was not that that your sect

prescribes ? Can you not see that here, in my own case, is a sample

of the evils that men must suffer when they substitute dogma for

fact ? I will not believe that human nature is as bad as you say it is.

But if indeed you are right in this, no system of imposed discipline

will cure the evils, for those who impose the discipline will be

inspired by their own evil passions, and will find some indirect way

of inflicting the torments that their wickedness makes them desire.

No, you will but systematize evil; and evil, reduced to a system, is

more dreadful than anything that untamed anarchic passion can

produce. Good-bye, father! My love and my sympathy are yours,

but not, henceforth, my work!"

With these words, he departed.

Leah's interview with her father pursued a similar course, and

came to a similar termination. Mr. Tomkins and Mr. Merrow each

attempted to continue the old work, but the fickle wind of fashion

had deserted them and only a few, and those in out-of-the-way

suburbs, remained faithful. Mr. Tomkins and Mr. Merrow were

compelled to vacate their palatial offices for which Mrs. Dean and

Sir Magnus no longer thought it worth while to pay. Both men,

having become dependent upon the voluntary offerings of the

faithful remnant, sank into poverty.

Sir Magnus and Molly B. Dean, though both suffered consider-

able losses, remained rich, and largely recouped themselves by

pooling their interests. In consequence of this, the friction between

the United States and Canada ceased, and Governments smiled

upon their joint enterprise. Aurora Bohra, who could not believe

that her success had depended upon Sir Magnus's money, remained

at the sanatorium and welcomed as before the few guests who still

came. But gradually the place became derelict, and the few faithful

observed a decay in her powers. The more fanatical among the

remaining Adherents attributed her decline to the malignant

ISO NIGHTMARES OF EMINENT PERSONS

influence of molybdenum, and darkly suspected her of apostasy $

(but, alas, the evidence for a simpler explanation became gradually

overwhelming. She sank first into alcoholic excesses, and then

still deeper into the baleful dominion of hashish. At length it

became necessary to carry her off, raving and maniacal, and leave

her to end her days in a mental home.

Zachary and Leah, who had never known want, and had taken

it for granted that they would follow their fathers in their com-

fortable and well-paid positions, found themselves in urgent need

of some means of livelihood. Zachary, who had impressed Mr.

Wagthorne by his capacity for absorbing an entirely new point of

view, and who had, in his surreptitious reading, acquired a con-

siderable breadth of knowledge, was found, on Mr. Wagthorne's

recommendation, worthy of a minor post in the Ministry of Culture.

Helped by Mrs. Wagthorne to establish themselves in a tiny flat,

Zachary and Leah married.

Leah, absorbed in domestic cares and in her love for Zachary,

found no time to repine, and did not hanker after former cer-

tainties. But Zachary found adjustment more difficult. Formerly,

decisions had been easy; now, they were hard. Should he do this

or do that ? Should he believe this or believe that ? He found himself

beset by hesitations and without a compass by which to steer his

course. He acquired the habit of spending his Sundays in long,

solitary walks.

One winter evening, returning weary through drizzle and fog,

he found himself outside a tin tabernacle where a remnant of the

Molybdenes still worshipped. To the accompaniment of the

harmonium, they were singing those well-known words:

Molybdenum of metals best

Is good for high and low.

It cures diseases of the chest

And makes our muscles grow.

He sighed, and muttered to himself, "Could I but return to the

old Sublimities! Ah, how hard is the Life of Reason!"

THE END