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Page 39
We went out of the great door of the fortress, and I felt a sense of
relief. It was good to put it all behind one. For a long time I talked
to Amroth about all my doings. "Come," he said at last, "this will never
do! You are becoming something of a bore! Do you know that your talk is
very provincial? You seem to have forgotten about every one and
everything except your Philips and Annas--very worthy creatures, no
doubt--and the Master, who is a very able man, but not the little
demigod you believe. You are hypnotised! It is indeed time for you to
have a holiday. Why, I believe you have half forgotten about me, and yet
you made a great fuss when I quitted you."
I smiled, frowned, blushed. It was indeed true. Now that he was with me
I loved him as well, indeed better than ever; but I had not been
thinking very much about him.
We went over the moorlands in the keen air, Amroth striding cleanly and
lightly over the heather. Then we began to descend into the valley,
through a fine forest country, somewhat like the chestnut-woods of the
Apennines. The view was of incomparable beauty and width. I could see a
great city far out in the plain, with a river entering it and leaving
it, like a ribbon of silver. There were rolling ridges beyond. On the
left rose huge, shadowy, snow-clad hills, rising to one tremendous dome
of snow.
"Where are you going to take me?" I said to Amroth.
"Never mind," said he; "it's my day and my plan for once. You shall see
what you shall see, and it will amuse me to hear your ingenuous
conjectures."
We were soon on the outskirts of the city we had seen, which seemed a
different kind of place from any I had yet visited. It was built, I
perceived, upon an exactly conceived plan, of a stately, classical kind
of architecture, with great gateways and colonnades. There were people
about, rather silent and serious-looking, soberly clad, who saluted us
as we passed, but made no attempt to talk to us. "This is rather a
tiresome place, I always think," said Amroth; "but you ought to see it."
We went along the great street and reached a square. I was surprised at
the elderly air of all we met. We found ourselves opposite a great
building with a dome, like a church. People were going in under the
portico, and we went in with them. They treated us as strangers, and
made courteous way for us to pass.
Inside, the footfalls fell dumbly upon a great carpeted floor. It was
very like a great church, except that there was no altar or sign of
worship. At the far end, under an alcove, was a statue of white marble
gleaming white, with head and hand uplifted. The whole place had a
solemn and noble air. Out of the central nave there opened a series of
great vaulted chapels; and I could now see that in each chapel there
was a dark figure, in a sort of pulpit, addressing a standing audience.
There were names on scrolls over the doors of the light iron-work
screens which separated the chapels from the nave, but they were in a
language I did not understand.
Amroth stopped at the third of the chapels, and said, "Here, this will
do." We came in, and as before there was a courteous notice taken of us.
A man in black came forward, and led us to a high seat, like a pew, near
the preacher, from which we could survey the crowd. I was struck with
their look of weariness combined with intentness.
The lecturer, a young man, had made a pause, but upon our taking our
places, he resumed his speech. It was a discourse, as far as I could
make out, on the development of poetry; he was speaking of lyrical
poetry. I will not here reproduce it. I will only say that anything more
acute, delicate, and discriminating, and, I must add, more entirely
valueless and pedantic, I do not think I ever heard. It must have
required immense and complicated knowledge. He was tracing the
development of a certain kind of dramatic lyric, and what surprised me
was that he supplied the subtle intellectual connection, the missing
links, so to speak, of which there is no earthly record. Let me give a
single instance. He was accounting for a rather sudden change of thought
in a well-known poet, and he showed that it had been brought about by
his making the acquaintance of a certain friend who had introduced him
to a new range of subjects, and by his study of certain books. These
facts are unrecorded in his published biography, but the analysis of the
lecturer, done in a few pointed sentences, not only carried conviction
to the mind, but just, so to speak, laid the truth bare. And yet it was
all to me incredibly sterile and arid. Not the slightest interest was
taken in the emotional or psychological side; it was all purely and
exactly scientific. We waited until the end of the address, which was
greeted with decorous applause, and the hall was emptied in a moment.
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