Part 5
“Quite as much as was good for me, or for any of us,” replied the Ghost of the Old-Fashioned Girl. “We stayed in the dear old homes of our childhood content to make them happy by our presence,--till our destined lovers came and found us and took us away to other homes, which they had worked for, and which we tried to make as pleasant and sweet as those we had left. Home was always our happiest and dearest place. But the girls of to-day don’t care for simple home lives. What do they know about making the best jams in the country, the finest elder wine or cider? What do they know about the value of lavendered linen? What do they care about tidiness, economy, or cleanliness? Pooh! They want change and excitement all the time!”
“That’s true!” I said. “But then, you see, woman’s education is much enlarged and improved--”
“Education that makes a woman prefer hotels and restaurants to her own home is not education at all,” said the Ghost of the Old-Fashioned Girl, with a decided nod of her pretty head. “Oh dear! What a pity it is!--what a pity! It makes me quite sad to think of all the happiness women are losing!”
She gave her little muslin skirts a soft shake, and settled herself more cosily in the Sedan-Chair.
“I remember,” she said, and her voice was as sweet as that of a bird in Spring-time--“I remember going in this very Chair to a grand Court ball in London. I danced with the Royal party in ‘Sir Roger,’ and I was one of the belles of the evening. I was dressed very much as I am now, and none of the girls there had anything better or more showy,--but their admirers were legion, and any of them could have married well the very next day, not because they were rich, for many of them were poor, but just because they were sweet, and innocent, and good. None of them would have thought of spoiling their fresh faces with paint and powder--that was left to what were called ‘women of the town!’ None of them ever thought of drinking wines or spirits. None of them ever spoke or laughed loudly, but comported themselves with gentleness, unselfish kindness, and grace of manner. And will you tell me that things are just the same now?”
Her eyes met mine with a penetrating flash.
“No, they are not the same,” I said; “you would not wish the world to stand still, would you? Girls have progressed since your day!”
She nodded gravely.
“Yes? Tell me how!”
“Well, for instance--” and I sought about desperately in my mind for examples of woman’s progress--“for instance, they enjoy greater freedom. They get more open-air exercise. They play tennis and golf and hockey with the men--”
The Ghost of the Old-Fashioned Girl gave a slight, a very slight and not unmusical giggle.
“Yes! I have seen them at it, and very ugly they look. But their sports _do_ develop muscle--very unbecomingly in the neck!--and they _do_ induce the growth--of horribly large hands and feet! Oh yes! Let’s have some more Progress!”
A trifle disconcerted, I went on.
“Then they cycle--”
Here the Ghost of the Old-Fashioned Girl put up her fan again.
“Pray!--pray!” she remonstrated--“I really must ask you to consider me a little, and avoid any conversation that borders on impropriety!”
“Impropriety!” I echoed aghast. “But all the girls cycle--”
“That is to say,” said the Ghost with asperity, “that all the girls have become shameless enough to sit astride on a couple of wheels and thus expose themselves to the gaze of the public. A hopeful state of things, truly! Well! Give me some more Progress!”
“Then,” I said, “there are plenty of girls who smoke and drive motor-cars, and bet on horse-races and gamble at ‘Bridge.’ _You_ may object to this sort of thing, being so much behind the age,--but after all you must own that it brings them into free and constant companionship with the other sex.”
“It does!” said the Ghost of the Old-Fashioned Girl decidedly; “and such free and constant companionship breeds contempt on both sides! Now let me tell you something! Do you know what all the best men like most?”
I laughed and shook my head in the negative.
“They like what they cannot get!” said the Ghost of the Old-Fashioned Girl emphatically. “They like what is as unlike themselves as possible, and what will never be like themselves! The woman who is _half_ a man will never be truly loved by a _whole_ man--remember that!”
Again she settled her pretty muslin skirts, and nodded her fair head, “sunning over with curls,” well out of the interior of the Sedan-Chair.
“In the old unprogressive days,” she said, “we certainly did not have much liberty. We were held as too precious and too dear to be allowed to straggle about by ourselves like unvalued tramps in the highways and byways. We stayed very much in our own homes, and were proud and pleased to be there. We helped to make them beautiful. We loved our old-fashioned gardens. We played ‘battledore and shuttlecock,’ which is exactly the same as your ‘Ping-Pong’--save that you have a net in the middle of the table and play with balls--and we tossed our shuttlecocks up to the blue sky. We walked and rode, and found in these two exercises quite sufficient relaxation as well as development for our bodies, which, if you will please to remember, are not intended to be in the least like the bodies of men, and are by no means fitted for masculine gymnastics. We had neither cycles nor motors, we did not smoke, drink, bet, or gamble,--but--we were the models of womanliness, goodness, and purity for all the world!--and--we were loved!”
“And love was quite sufficient for you?” I asked hesitatingly.
“Of course! Love was sufficient, and is sufficient always for every woman when it _is_ love;--but you have to be quite sure about it!”
“Ah, yes!” I said, “very sure!”
The Ghost of the Old-Fashioned Girl peered at me with a saucy air.
“Do you know how to make sure?” she asked.
“No!”
Her lips parted in a gay little chuckle of laughter.
“Then you must find out!”
Provoking Old-Fashioned Girl! I sprang up and made a step towards her, but her fair face seemed to be growing indistinct, as if about to disappear.
“Oh, don’t go!” I cried, “don’t go away, dear Old-Fashioned Girl! Do stay a little!”
The pretty eyes sparkled out again, and the winsome features shone forth once more from the interior of the Sedan-Chair.
“What is the use of my staying?” she demanded. “You live in the age of progress. I’m not wanted!”
“But you _are_ wanted!” I declared. “The world wants you! Anyhow, _I_ want you. Come and spend Christmas with me!”
Did ever any Ghost in any legend wear such an enchanting smile as lighted up the dream-face of the Old-Fashioned Girl as she heard this impulsive invitation? Stretching out a little hand as white as milk--and I noticed there was a tiny blue forget-me-not ring on it--she said,--
“Yes, I _will_ spend Christmas with you! If you will fasten a bunch of mistletoe on the door of my dear old Sedan-Chair on Christmas Eve, I will come and bring you a bundle of pleasant thoughts and merry fancies in exchange! And the best advice I can give you is to be ‘Old-Fashioned’--that is, to love home more than ‘gadding,’--peace more than strife,--friendship more than ‘society,’--simplicity more than show,--cheerfulness more than pride,--truth more than distinction,--and God more than all! Good-night, my dear! Good-bye!”
“Wait, wait!” I exclaimed, loth to lose sight of the pretty face, the sweet eyes, the happy smile--“Just one thing I want to ask you--only one thing!”
The Ghost paused, and turned its fair head round in a glamour of soft radiance like melted moonbeams.
“Well, what is it?”
“Just one thing I want, only one thing!--Oh, dear Old-Fashioned Girl, tell me!--when you lived in this world, so changed and so much sadder and colder since your time--who were you?”
The Ghost of the Old-Fashioned Girl laughed musically.
“Why a simple nobody, my dear! Only your great-great-grandmamma!”
The door of the Sedan-Chair shut with a slight bang,--and almost I expected to see a couple of spectral “bearers” take it up with its lovely ghostly occupant, and carry it away altogether out of my drawing-room to some unknown region of faery. But no! The fire burned up bright and clear, and the flames of the pine logs danced merrily on the Chair as before, catching at the tarnished gold and gleaming on the faded crimson lining, but the Old-Fashioned Girl had gone, as completely as she has vanished from the social world of to-day. Remembering what she had said about the mysterious secret pocket behind one of the patterned fleur-de-lys, I advanced cautiously, put my hand through one of the window-holes, and felt about to see if I could find it. Yes!--there it was!--and while groping doubtfully in it, my fingers came in contact with a bit of crumpled paper. Tremblingly I drew it out,--it brought with it a scent of old rose-leaves and lavender,--and hurrying back to the hearth I knelt down and examined it by the glow of the fire. Something was written on it in faded ink, and after poring over it for a minute or two, I was able to make out the words:
“My own little Sweetheart, I love you for yourself alone, believe me, and I will always love you till--”
I looked up. I thought I heard the old chair creak! Had my great-great-grandmamma come back to catch me reading what was perhaps one of her love-letters? No--she was not there. But I fancy I know now why she haunts the Sedan-Chair, and as she is a relative of mine, I shall certainly expect her to stay with me at Christmas and help me to begin the New Year in a real “Old-Fashioned” way,--with home-contentment, love, and peace!
KING HENRY’S LOVE-SONG
[MUSIC: KING HENRY’S LOVE-SONG[3]
(“AH, MY SWEET SWEETING.”)
Words by KING HENRY VIII. Music by MARIE CORELLI.
Ah, my sweet sweeting, My pretty little sweeting, My sweeting I will love wherever I may go! She is so proper and so pure, Full steadfast, stable, and demure, There is none such, you may be sure; There is none such, you may be sure, As my sweet sweeting! Oh! my little sweeting; My sweeting I will love wherever I may go!
In all this world, so thinketh me, Is none so pleasant to my ee, That I am glad so oft to see As my sweet sweeting! When I behold my sweeting sweet, Her face, her hands, her minion feet, They seem to me there is none so mete, As my sweet sweeting! Oh! my little sweeting, My sweeting I will love wherever I may go!
Above all others praise must I, And love my sweeting till I die, Until I die, till I die! For none I find so womanly As my sweet sweeting! Oh! my little sweeting; My sweeting I will love wherever I may go! ]
THE FIRE OF LIFE
“Clearest evidence shows how our Earth was once a fluid haze of light, and how for countless æons afterwards her globe was instinct with fiery heat.”
RICHARD PROCTOR.
ON the brooding breast of the empty Dark, ere ever the world was made, When the Gods were asleep in a realm of rest, half-buried ’twixt Light and Shade; A Spirit arose on the vasty air.--a glorious Spirit of fire,-- A wingèd Marvel, whose eyes were bright with the flame of a new desire; Crown’d with a thousand stars he stood in a halo of burning beams, And lifting his passionate voice he roused the Gods from their idle dreams.
Up they started, those massive Shapes, and with swift creative hands, They parted the darkness, let loose the light, and fashioned the seas and lands; Great forests sprang from the teeming soil, with grasses and glory-flowers, And minutes were made of jewel-points that glittered into Hours; Out whirled the planets like silver ships in the sapphire depths of Heaven And the Sun and Moon were born like babes from the marriage of Morn and Even.
Down through the skies fled the Spirit of Flame, and piercing the new earth-clods, Drew vapours thence which slowly up-grew into forms that were like the Gods; Vacant and empty of soul and sense, impotent creatures were they, Till thrilled by the burning touch of Love, they lived in the light of Day-- Lived, each one, for the breathing space of threescore years and ten, And swore they were more than the Gods themselves, --these Shadows called women and men!
Then weary grew the Spirit of Fire, and rising on radiant wings, He fled away from the whirling dance of his brief created things-- Earth’s black and sterile globe swung round on an edge of circling cold, And the Sun was drowned in a spherical sea of moveless frozen gold-- The Gods departed and drowsed again by Life’s full-flowing river, But the world they had made with a Breath of Flame had passed from their thoughts for ever!
THE DEVIL’S MOTOR
A FANTASY
IN the dead midnight, at that supreme moment when the Hours that are past slip away from the grasp of the Hours yet to be, there came rushing between Earth and Heaven the sound of giant wheels,--the glare of great lights,--the stench and the muffled roar of a huge Car, tearing at full speed along the pale line dividing the Darkness from the Dawn. And he who stood within the Car, steering it straight onward, was clothed in black and crowned with fire; large bat-like wings flared out on either side of him in woven webs of smoke and flame, and his face was white as bleached bone. Like glowing embers his eyes burned in their cavernous sockets, shedding terrific glances through the star-strewn space,--and on his thin lips there was a frozen shadow of a smile more cruel than hate,--more deadly than despair.
“On!” he cried--“Still on! On with an endless rush and roar! Over the plains of the world that is gone,--over the heights of the world to come--on, still on! Without pause, without pity, without love, without regret! Follow me, all ye Forces which are destined to work the ruin of Mankind,--follow! On, on, over all beauty, all tenderness, all truth I ride,--I, the Avenger, the Destroyer, the Torturer of Souls, the Arch-Enemy of God! The Kingdom of Hell grows wide and deep,--praise be to the Man who makes it! I count up my growing possessions in the ever-breeding spawn of human lust and avarice,--I breathe and live and rejoice in the fat poison-vapours of human Selfishness! The men of these latter days are my food and sustenance,--the women my choice morsels, my dainty delicates! Brute beasts and blind, they snatch at every lie I offer them;--rejecting Eternal Life, they choose Eternal Death,--verily they shall have their reward! Like a blight my Spirit shall encompass them,--and whosoever would scour the air and scorch the earth must run on the straight road of his desire with Me!”
The great Car flashed along with grinding, thunderous wheels, and as it flew, vast Phantom-forms followed it, like rolling clouds jagged with the lightning,--the fairness of the world grew black; and sulphureous fumes quenched all sweetness from the air. The forests dropped like broken reeds,--the mountains crumbled into pits and quarries, the seas and rivers, the lakes and waterfalls dried up into black and muddy waters; and all the land was bereft of beauty. In the place of wholesome green fields and leafy woods, there rose up gigantic cities, built in on every side, and bristling with thousands upon thousands of chimneys belching forth sickening smoke into the overhanging gloom which hid the skies, and the cities were full of a deafening noise and crashing confusion as of ten million million hammers beating incessantly--beating away all peace, all solitude, all health, all rest. On,--on, and into these countless prisons of stone and mortar the Demon of the Car swept vast and ever-hurrying crowds of human beings, with the furious force of a mighty whirlwind sweeping dead leaves into the sea.
“No room to breathe--no time to think--no good to serve!” he cried--“Now shall you forget that God exists! Now shall you all have your own wild way, for Your way is My way! Now shall you resolve yourselves back to an embryo of worms and apes, and none shall rescue you, no, not one! For the Seven Angels of the Judgment Day are sounding their trumpets of terror, and who shall silence the voices, or stay the thunderings and lightnings, or the great earthquake? Hail and fire!--and the trees, and the green grass burnt up and destroyed,--the sun and the moon, the day and the night smitten into one blackness! We will have no more virtues!--no more hopes of Heaven! Honour shall be as a rag on a fool’s back, and Gold shall be the pulse of Life! Gold, gold, gold! Fight for it, steal it, pile it up, hoard it, count it, hug it, eat it, sleep with it, die with it! Lo, I give it to you in millions, packed down and pressed together in full and overflowing measure--I scatter it on you even as a destroying rain!--build with it, buy with it, gamble with it, sell your souls and bodies for it,--there are devils enough in hell to drive all your bargains! Sneer at truth, defeat justice, snatch virtue’s mask to cover vice, drug conscience, feed and fatten yourselves with the lusts of animalism till the cancer of sin makes of you a putrefaction and an open sore in the sight of the sun! Come, learn from me such wisdom as shall compass your own destruction! Unto you shall be unlocked the under-mysteries of Nature, and the secrets of the upper air,--you shall bend the lightning to your service, and the lightning shall slay!--you shall hollow out the ground, and delve a swift road through it for yourselves in fancied proud security and the earth shall crumble in upon you as a grave, and the cities you have built shall crush you in their falling,--you shall seek to bind the winds and sail the skies, and Death shall wait for you in the clouds, and exult in your downfall. Come, tie your pigmy chariots to the sun, and so be drawn into its flaming vortex of perdition! All Creation shall rejoice to be cleansed from the pollution of your presence, for God hath sworn to give unto Me all who reject Him, and the Hour of the Gift has come!”
Still faster and more furiously flew the Car,--red meteors flashed in its course--and the Phantom shapes which followed its flight crowded together in an ever-thickening, ever, darkening multitude, while bright stars were shaken down from heaven like snowflakes whirling in a winter blast. And mingling with the grinding roar of its wheels came other sounds,--sounds of fierce laughter and loud cursing,--yells and shrieks and groans of torture,--the screams of the suffering, the sobs of the dying,--and as the Fiend drove on with swiftly quickening speed, men and women and little children were trampled down one upon another and killed in their thousands, and the Car was splashed thick with human blood. And He who was clothed in black and crowned with fire, shouted exultingly as He dashed along over massacred heaps of dead rations and the broken remnants of thrones.
“Progress and Speed!” he yelled--“Rush on, world, with me!--rush on! There is but one end--hasten we to reach it! No halt by the way to gather the flowers of thought,--the fruits of feeling;--no pause for a lifting of the eyes to the wide firmament, where millions of spheres, more beautiful than this which men make wretched, sail on their courses like fair ships bound for God’s golden harbours! No time to listen to the singing of the birds of hope, the ripple of the sweet waters of refreshment, the murmur of cool grasses waving in the fields of peace;--no time, no stop,--no lull for quiet breathing,--on!--forever on! Up and ride with me all ye who would reach the goal! Come, ye fools of avarice! Come, ye blown and bursting windbags of world’s conceit and vain pretension! Come, ye greedy maws of gluttony--ye human pottles of drink--ye wolves of vice! Come, ye shameless women of lusts and lies and vanities! Come, false hearts and treacherous tongues and painted faces!--come, dear demons all, and ride with me! Come, ye pretenders to holiness--ye thieves of virtue, who give “charity” to the poor with the right hand, and cheat your neighbour with the left!--come, ye gamblers with a Nation’s honour, stake your last throw! Come, all ye morphia-fed vampires and slaves to poison!--grasp at my wheels and cling! On--on--over the fragments of mighty Empires,--over the hearts of kings and queens,--over the lives of the brave, the good, and the wise!--let us trample them all down and crush them into dust and ashes! What shall we do with wisdom, we who have done with God? What with purity?--what with courage? Naught are these but reproach and bitterness--mere obstacles in the broad way which leadeth to destruction;--ride them down! On--on! to the destined end!--on with rush and hurry and panting eagerness to reach the only goal--the last of winning-posts--the close of Certainties,--the GRAVE!”
Like a flashing blur of fiery wheels the Car now spun along in the blackness of the night, and the drifting Phantoms round about it were as great grey sails swelling with the angry blast, and sweeping it onward through the dark.
“Pray no more--hope no more--love no more!” cried the Fiend. “Be as the shifting sands, or as the trembling quicksilver--inconstant, capricious--ever in motion, never at rest! Change--change and revolt! All ye who weary of old things, behold I give you new! Bodies shall be pampered and souls killed for your pleasure--vices shall be called foulest ‘sensations,’--each merely to be tried, excused, and condemned in turn,--and virtues shall have no more place at all in the scale of feeling! The music of life shall clash into wild discord--the love of home shall be a lost glory,--tenderness for the young and reverence for the old shall be the faded sentiments of the past, only fit for a mummer’s jest! Change--Change and Sensation! Roll out your columns of vaporous notoriety, ye printing-presses of the world!--spread wide the fame of the Anarchist and the Courtesan,--mock and revile the spirits of the wise and true,--noise abroad the name of the Murderer, and treat the Poet with derision--give flattery to the rich, and scorn to the humble,--teach nothing but the art of lying,--add venom to the tongue of scandal,--dig up the graves of the great, and kill the reputations of the brave and pure! Help nothing on that is noble--nothing that is honest,--nothing that is of God, or for God,--print every lie, grudge every truth, and let your trumpet-note be that of blatant Atheism and Devilry to the end! Set trade against trade,--community against community,--nation against nation--till with your windy bombast and senseless twaddle you fill your witches’ cauldron of mischief and contention to the full! Up and ride with me, ye Plotters against Peace!--ye whose hands are against every man!--there is no time to be lost--up and away with a rush and a roar!--for the Great Star has fallen from heaven to earth, and to Him is given the key of the bottomless pit! The pit is open--the gate stands wide--up, and speed on with Me!”
Like lightning now the great Car tore through space--its flaring lamps flashing, its wheels grinding with the sullen noise of a bursting volcano,--and amidst cries and shrieks indescribable, it leaped, as it were, from peak to peak of toppling clouds that towered above and around it like mighty mountains. And presently it seemed as if a thin, pale line of purple fire glimmered afar off, and by this light was seen a monstrous ridge of dense blackness jutting sharply over some vast incalculable depth of horror. On--still on--the Car rushed; and He of the sable robes and flaming crown urged apace its reckless speed with wild shouts of wilder laughter.