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‘Eh?’ said Mr Enlightenment.
‘I didn’t quite understand,’ said John.
‘Why, it’s as plain as a pikestaff,’ said the other. ‘Your people in Puritania believe in the Landlord because they have not had the benefits of a scientific training. For example, now, I dare say it would be news to you to hear that the earth was round – round as an orange, my lad!’
‘Well, I don’t know that it would,’ said John, feeling a little disappointed. ‘My father always said it was round.’
‘No, no, my dear boy,’ said Mr Enlightenment, ‘you must have misunderstood him. It is well known that everyone in Puritania thinks the earth flat. It is not likely that I should be mistaken on such a point. Indeed, it is out of the question. Then again, there is the palaeontological evidence.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Why, they tell you in Puritania that the Landlord made all these roads. But that is quite impossible for old people can remember the time when the roads were not nearly so good as they are now. And what is more, scientists have found all over the country the traces of old roads running in quite different directions. The inference is obvious.’
John said nothing.
‘I said,’ repeated Mr Enlightenment, ‘that the inference was obvious.’
‘Oh, yes, yes, of course,’ said John hastily, turning a little red.
‘Then again, there is anthropology.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t know –’
‘Bless me, of course you don’t. They don’t mean you to know. An anthropologist is a man who goes round your backward villages in these parts, collecting the odd stories that the country people tell about the Landlord. Why, there is one village where they think he has a trunk like an elephant. Now anyone can see that that couldn’t be true.’
‘It is very unlikely.’
‘And what is better still, we know how the villagers came to think so. It all began by an elephant escaping from the local zoo; and then some old villager – he was probably drunk – saw it wandering about on the mountain one night, and so the story grew up that the Landlord had a trunk.’
‘Did they catch the elephant again?’
‘Did who?’
‘The anthropologists.’
‘Oh, my dear boy, you are misunderstanding. This happened long before there were any anthropologists.’
‘Then how do they know?’
‘Well, as to that … I see that you have a very crude notion of how science actually works. To put it simply – for, of course, you could not understand the technical explanation – to put it simply, they know that the escaped elephant must have been the source of the trunk story because they know that an escaped snake must have been the source of the snake story in the next village – and so on. This is called the inductive method. Hypothesis, my dear young friend, establishes itself by a cumulative process: or, to use popular language, if you make the same guess often enough it ceases to be a guess and becomes a Scientific Fact.’
After he had thought for a while, John said:
‘I think I see. Most of the stories about the Landlord are probably untrue; therefore the rest are probably untrue.’
‘Well, that is as near as a beginner can get to it, perhaps. But when you have had a scientific training you will find that you can be quite certain about all sorts of things which now seem to you only probable.’
By this time the fat little pony had carried them several miles, and they had come to a place where a by-road went off to the right. ‘If you are going West, we must part here,’ said Mr Enlightenment, drawing up. ‘Unless perhaps you would care to come home with me. You see that magnificent city?’ John looked down by the by-road and saw in a flat plain without any trees a huge collection of corrugated iron huts, most of which seemed rather old and rusty.
‘That,’ said Mr Enlightenment, ‘is the city of Claptrap. You will hardly believe me when I say that I can remember it as a miserable village. When I first came here it had only forty inhabitants: it now boasts a population of twelve million, four hundred thousand, three hundred and sixty-one souls, who include, I may add, the majority of our most influential publicists and scientific popularisers. In this unprecedented development I am proud to say that I have borne no small part: but it is no mock modesty to add that the invention of the printing press has been more important than any merely personal agency. If you would care to join us –’
‘Well, thank you,’ said John, ‘but I think I will keep to the main road a little longer.’
He got out of the trap and turned to bid good-bye to Mr Enlightenment. Then a sudden thought came into his head, and he said:
‘I am not sure that I have really understood all your arguments, sir. Is it absolutely certain that there is no Landlord?’
‘Absolutely. I give you my word of honour.’
With these words they shook hands. Mr Enlightenment turned the pony’s head up the by-road, gave it a touch with the whip, and in a few moments was out of sight.
2 (#ulink_d74f23dd-2ef1-53ce-99b2-75ed3b16f1fd)
THE HILL (#ulink_d74f23dd-2ef1-53ce-99b2-75ed3b16f1fd)
John abandons his religion with profound relief – And forthwith has his first explicitly moral experience
Then I saw John bounding forward on his road so lightly that before he knew it he had come to the top of a little hill. It was not because the hill had tired him that he stopped there, but because he was too happy to move. ‘There is no Landlord,’ he cried. Such a weight had been lifted from his mind that he felt he could fly. All round him the frost was gleaming like silver; the sky was like blue glass; a robin sat in the hedge beside him; a cock was crowing in the distance. ‘There is no Landlord.’ He laughed when he thought of the old card of rules hung over his bed in the bedroom, so low and dark, in his father’s house. ‘There is no Landlord. There is no black hole.’ He turned and looked back on the road he had come by: and when he did so he gasped with joy. For there in the East, under the morning light, he saw the mountains heaped up to the sky like clouds, green and violet and dark red; shadows were passing over the big rounded slopes, and water shone in the mountain pools, and up at the highest of all the sun was smiling steadily on the ultimate crags. These crags were indeed so shaped that you could easily take them for a castle: and now it came into John’s head that he had never looked at the mountains before, because as long as he thought that the Landlord lived there, he had been afraid of them. But now that there was no Landlord he perceived that they were beautiful. For a moment he almost doubted whether the Island could be more beautiful, and whether he would not be wiser to go East, instead of West. But it did not seem to him to matter, for he said, ‘If the world has the mountains at one end and the Island at the other, then every road leads to beauty, and the world is a glory among glories.’
At that moment he saw a man walking up the hill to meet him. Now I knew in my dream that this man’s name was Mr Vertue, and he was about of an age with John, or a little older.
‘What is the name of this place?’ said John.
‘It is called Jehovah-Jirah,’ said Mr Vertue.
Then they both turned and continued their journey to the West. After they had gone a little way Mr Vertue stole a glance at John’s face and then he smiled a little.
‘Why do you smile?’ said John.
‘I was thinking that you looked very glad.’
‘So would you be if you had lived in the fear of a Landlord all your life and had just discovered that you were a free man.’
‘Oh, it’s that, is it?’
‘You don’t believe in the Landlord, do you?’
‘I know nothing about him – except by hearsay like the rest of us.’
‘You wouldn’t like to be under his thumb.’
‘Wouldn’t like? I wouldn’t be under anyone’s thumb.’
‘You might have to, if he had a black hole.’
‘I’d let him put me in the black hole sooner than take orders if the orders were not to my mind.’
‘Why, I think you are right. I can hardly believe it yet – that I need not obey the rules. There’s that robin again. To think that I could have a shot at it if I liked and no one would interfere with me!’
‘Do you want to?’
‘I’m not sure that I do,’ said John, fingering his sling. But when he looked round on the sunshine and remembered his great happiness and looked twice at the bird, he said, ‘No, I don’t. There is nothing I want less. Still – I could if I liked.’
‘You mean you could if you chose.’
‘Where’s the difference?’
‘All the difference in the world.’
3 (#ulink_e1459e21-0521-549a-8a65-b2d600f07e8a)
A LITTLE SOUTHWARD (#ulink_e1459e21-0521-549a-8a65-b2d600f07e8a)
The Moral Imperative does not fully understand itself – John decides that Aesthetic Experience is the thing to pursue
I thought that John would have questioned him further, but now they came in sight of a woman who was walking slower than they so that presently they came up with her and wished her good-day. When she turned, they saw that she was young and comely, though a little dark of complexion. She was friendly and frank, but not wanton like the brown girls, and the whole world became pleasanter to the young men because they were travelling the same way with her. But first they told her their names, and she told them hers, which was Media Halfways.
‘And where are you travelling to, Mr Vertue?’ she asked.
‘To travel hopefully is better than to arrive,’ said Vertue.
‘Do you mean you are just out for a walk, just for exercise?’
‘Certainly not,’ said Vertue, who was becoming a little confused. ‘I am on a pilgrimage. I must admit, now that you press me, I have not a very clear idea of the end. But that is not the important question. These speculations don’t make one a better walker. The great thing is to do one’s thirty miles a day.’
‘Why?’
‘Because that is the rule.’
‘Ho-ho!’ said John. ‘So you do believe in the Landlord after all.’
‘Not at all. I didn’t say it was the Landlord’s rule.’
‘Whose is it then?’
‘It is my own rule. I made it myself.’
‘But why?’
‘Well, that again is a speculative question. I have made the best rules I can. If I find any better ones I shall adopt them. In the meantime, the great thing is to have rules of some sort and to keep them.’
‘And where are you going?’ said Media, turning to John.
Then John began to tell his companions about the Island, and how he had first seen it, and was determined to give up everything for the hope of finding it.
‘Then you had better come and see my father,’ said she. ‘He lives in the city of Thrill, and at the bottom of this hill there is a turn to the left which will bring us there in half an hour.’
‘Has your Father been to the Island? Does he know the way?’
‘He often talks about something very like it.’
‘You had better come with us, Vertue,’ said John, ‘since you do not know where you are going and there can be no place better to go than the Island.’
‘Certainly not,’ said Vertue. ‘We must keep to the road. We must keep on.’
‘I don’t see why,’ said John.
‘I dare say you don’t,’ said Vertue.
All this time they were going down the hill, and now they came to a little grassy lane on the left which went off through a wood. Then I thought that John had a little hesitation: but partly because the sun was now hot and the hard metal of the road was becoming sore to his feet, and partly because he felt a little angry with Vertue, and most of all because Media was going that way, he decided to turn down the lane. They said good-bye to Vertue, and he went on his way stumping up the next hill without ever looking back.
4 (#ulink_d0a970a3-3490-5c80-a008-f59c94a805fa)
SOFT GOING (#ulink_d0a970a3-3490-5c80-a008-f59c94a805fa)
When they were in the lane they walked more gently. The grass was soft under their feet, and the afternoon sun beating down on the sheltered place made it warm. And presently they heard a sound of sweet and melancholy chimes.
‘Those are the bells of the city,’ said Media.
As they went on they walked closer together, and soon they were walking arm in arm. Then they kissed each other: and after that they went on their way kissing and talking in slow voices, of sad and beautiful things. And the shadow of the wood and the sweetness of the girl and the sleepy sound of the bells reminded John a little bit of the Island, and a little bit of the brown girls.
‘This is what I have been looking for all my life,’ said John. ‘The brown girls were too gross and the Island was too fine. This is the real thing.’
‘This is Love,’ said Media with a deep sigh. ‘This is the way to the real Island.’
Then I dreamed that they came in sight of the city, very old, and full of spires and turrets, all covered with ivy, where it lay in a little grassy valley, built on both sides of a lazy, winding river. And they passed the gate in the ruinous old city wall and came and knocked at a certain door and were let in. Then Media brought him in to a darkish room with a vaulted roof and windows of stained glass, and exquisite food was brought to them. With the food came old Mr Halfways. He was a gliding gentleman with soft, silver hair and a soft, silver voice, dressed in flowing robes: and he was so solemn, with his long beard, that John was reminded of the Steward with his mask on. ‘But it is much better than the Steward,’ thought John, ‘because there is nothing to be afraid of. Also, he doesn’t need a mask: his face is really like that.’
5 (#ulink_4f5c7b3e-45da-51f8-9ab0-f25404ff16a3)
LEAH FOR RACHEL (#ulink_4f5c7b3e-45da-51f8-9ab0-f25404ff16a3)
‘Romantic’ poetry professes to give what hitherto John has only desired – For a moment it seems to have kept its promise – The rapture does not last but dwindles into technical appreciation and sentiment
As they ate John told him about the Island.
‘You will find your Island here,’ said Mr Halfways, looking into John’s eyes.
‘But how can it be here in the middle of the city?’
‘It needs no place. It is everywhere and nowhere. It refuses entry to none who asks. It is an Island of the Soul,’ said the old gentleman. ‘Surely even in Puritania they told you that the Landlord’s castle was within you?’
‘But I don’t want the castle,’ said John. ‘And I don’t believe in the Landlord.’
‘What is truth?’ said the old man. ‘They were mistaken when they told you of the Landlord: and yet they were not mistaken. What the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth, whether it existed before or not. The Landlord they dreamed to find, we find in our hearts: the Island you seek for, you already inhabit. The children of that country are never far from their fatherland.’
When the meal was ended the old gentleman took a harp, and at the first sweep of his hand across the strings John began to think of the music that he had heard by the window in the wall. Then came the voice: and it was no longer merely silver sweet and melancholy like Mr Halfways’ speaking voice, but strong and noble and full of strange overtones, the noise of the sea, and of all birds, and sometimes of wind and thunder. And John began to see a picture of the Island with his eyes open: but it was more than a picture, for he sniffed the spicy smell and the sharp brine of the sea mixed with it. He seemed to be in the water, only a few yards from the sand of the Island. He could see more than he had ever seen before. But just as he had put down his feet and touched a sandy bottom and was beginning to wade ashore, the song ceased. The whole vision went away. John found himself back in the dusky room, seated on a low divan, with Media by his side.
‘Now I shall sing you something else,’ said Mr Halfways.
