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Page 31
"I'm pleased to meet thee," he said, with a heavy bow. "There's a dear
heart with my good neighbour Superstition yonder who will present a
very fair account of that misguided young man. Madam Wanton, here's a
young gentleman that never heard tell of our old friend Love-the-log."
A shrill peal of laughter greeted this sally.
"Why, Faithful was a young gentleman, sir," explained the woman
civilly enough, "who preferred his supper hot."
"Oh, Madam Wanton, my dear, my dear!" cried a long-nosed woman nearly
helpless with amusement.
I saw Superstition gazing darkly at me. He shook his head as I was
about to reply, so I changed my retort. "Who, then, was Mr.
Christian?" I enquired simply.
At that the house shook with the roar of laughter that went up.
X
... _Large draughts of intellectual day._
--RICHARD CRASHAW.
"Believe me, neighbours," said Malice softly, when this uproar was a
little abated, "there is nought so strange in the question. It meaneth
only that this young gentleman hath not enjoyed the pleasure of your
company before. Will it amaze you to learn, my friends, that Christian
is like to be immortal only because you _talk_ him out of the grave?
One brief epitaph, gentlemen, would let him rot."
"Nay, but I'll tell the gentleman who Christian was, and with
pleasure," cried a lucid, rather sallow little man that had sat
quietly smiling and listening. "My name, let me tell you, is Atheist,
sir; and Christian was formerly a very near neighbour of an old friend
of my family's--Mr. Sceptic. They lived, sir--at least in those
days--opposite to one another."
"He is a great talker," whispered Reverie in my ear. But the company
evidently found his talk to their taste. They sat as still and
attentive around him, as though before an extemporary preacher.
"Well, sir," continued Atheist, "being, in a sense, neighbours,
Christian in his youth would often confide in my friend; though,
assuredly, Sceptic never sought his confidences. And it seemeth he
began to be perturbed and troubled over the discovery that it is
impossible--at least in this plain world--to eat your cake, yet have
it. And by some ill chance he happened at this time on a mouldy old
folio in my friend's house that had been the property of his maternal
grandmother--the subtlest old tome you ever set eyes on, though
somewhat too dark and extravagant and heady for a sober man of the
world like me. 'Twas called the Bible, sir--a collection of legends
and fables of all times, tongues, and countries threaded together,
mighty ingeniously I grant, and in as plausible a style as any I
know, if a little lax and flowery in parts.
"Well, Christian borroweth the book of my friend--never to return it.
And being feeble and credulous, partly by reason of his simple wits,
and partly by reason of the sad condition a froward youth had reduced
him to, he accepts the whole book--from Apple to Vials--for truth. In
fact, 'he ate the little book,' as one of the legendary kings it
celebrates had done before him."
"Ay," broke in Cruelty wildly, "and has ever since gotten the gripes."
Atheist inclined his head. "Putting it coarsely, gentlemen, such was
the case," he said. "And away at his wit's end he hasteneth, waning
and shivering, to a great bog or quagmire--that my friend Pliable will
answer to--and plungeth in. 'Tis the same story repeated. He could be
temperate in nought. _I_ knew the bog well; but I knew the
stepping-stones better. Believe me, I have traversed the narrow way
this same Christian took, seeking the harps and pearls and the _elixir
vit�_, these many years past. The book inciteth ye to it. It sets a
man's heart on fire--that's weak enough to read it--with its pomp, and
rhetoric, and far-away promises, and lofty counsels. Oh, fine words,
who is not their puppet! I climbed 'Difficulty.' I snapped my fingers
at the grinning Lions. I passed cautiously through the 'Valley of the
Shadow'--wild scenery, sir! I visited that prince of bubbles also,
Giant Despair, in his draughty castle. And--though boasting be far
from me!--fetched Liveloose's half-brother out of a certain
charnel-house near by.
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