Part 19
Some time before Stone’s death I had been much thrown into the company of a gifted and brilliant thinker and man of Science, who had very little belief--I will not say in the existence of a God, but at least in the existence of a God who takes thought for the welfare of mortals, and no belief whatever in existence after death. In our walks and conversations he had adduced many arguments in support of annihilation, which it was difficult to answer; and I remember that, when on the morning that Stone died, I stooped to press my lips to the forehead of the friend I loved and revered as I have loved and revered none other since nor shall again, it seemed for a moment as if the man of whom I have spoken as disbelieving in personal immortality, were, in spirit, at my elbow and whispering in my ear. “Look well upon your friend’s face!” the Voice seemed to say, “and you shall see written there: ‘Nobly done, bravely done, greatly done, if you will,’ but you shall also see written there, ‘_Done and ended! done and ended--and for evermore!_’” I remember, too, that it seemed as if some evil power, outside myself, were trying, by means of what hypnotists call “suggestion,” to compel me to see, upon the dead face, what that evil power wished me to see there.
For one moment, after the whispering of the words “Done and ended! done and ended--and for evermore,” I thought I saw something in the dead face that seemed dumbly to acquiesce in, and to endorse the tempter’s words, until another and very different voice (I have wondered sometimes whether it were not my friend’s) whispered to me, “If the friend whom you loved be indeed annihilated and has ceased to be--then the Eternal and Omnipotent God whom he, a man and a mortal, ever remembered _has forgotten him, for annihilation means no more and no less than utterly to be forgotten of God_. If that be so, if God can forget, if He can forget those who never forgot Him, then is that God less loving, less faithful, and less remembering than the mortal whom He has made. Can you, dare you, think this awful and unthinkable thing of the Living and Loving God in whom your friend so wholly trusted?”
And, looking upon the face of my friend, I saw written there, not only the august dignity, the lone and awful majesty of death, but also the rapture, the peace, the serenity, the triumph of one who staggers spent and bleeding but victorious from the battle, to hear himself acclaimed God’s soldier and Christ’s knight, and to kneel in wondering awe, in worshipping ecstasy, at the feet of his Saviour and his God.
And remembering what I saw written on the dead face of my friend, remembering the life he led and the God in whom he trusted, I have no fear that my own faith will fail me again in life or in death.
_And we also bless thy holy Name for all thy servants departed this life in thy faith and fear; beseeching thee to give us grace so to follow their good examples, that with them we may be partakers of thy heavenly kingdom. Grant this, O Father, for Jesus Christ’s sake, our only Mediator and Advocate._ Amen.
THE END
SOME OPINIONS OF MR. KERNAHAN’S PUBLISHED WORK
_Saturday Review._--“There is a touch of genius, perhaps even more than a touch, about this brilliant and original booklet.”
_Times._--“A writer of much insight and originality.”
_Spectator._--“Truly as well as finely said.”
_Contemporary Review._--“A brilliantly versatile novelist and a charming essayist.”
Sir J. M. BARRIE, in the _British Weekly_.--“The vigour of this book is great, and the author has an uncommon gift of intensity. On many readers, it may be guessed, the book will have a mesmeric effect.”
Sir A. QUILLER-COUCH.--“It is, as is every story which Mr. Kernahan writes, vivid, and effectively told.”
_Daily Chronicle._--“Of haunting beauty.”
_Academy._--“His book is a fine one, and we think it will live.”
_Bookman._--“Work which deserves to live.”
_Punch._--“Rises are freely predicted in Kernahans.” (Mr. Punch on “The Literary Stock Exchange.”)
Mr. I. ZANGWILL.--“A genius for poetical and spiritual allegory.”
_Truth._--“No one approaches Mr. Kernahan in the sincerity and intensity of his imaginative flights. For myself I can say that I have read _Visions_ with the keenest pleasure. They have the penetrating and the revealing power of Ithuriel’s spear.... Extraordinarily powerful.”
_Morning Post._--“The prose is fascinating, the matter is important to every thinking man, the treatment is so attractive that one is compelled to read the book from cover to cover at once. Studies in which the imagination takes strong wings, written in prose that is both masculine in quality and haunting.”
_Globe._--“A brilliant success.”
_Daily Telegraph._--“Great reverence and much literary power.”
_Athenæum._--“Of singular beauty and tenderness, but at the same time full of critical insight.”
_St. James’s Gazette._--“It would seem as if the author of _A Dead Man’s Diary_ and _A Book of Strange Sins_ had found for the weird moods and impulses, the sighs and sobs from a hidden world, which he has before controlled in the realm of fiction, a local habitation and a name in the personalities of the actual mortals he delineates in these luminous sketches.”
Mr. EDEN PHILLPOTTS.--“These scholarly papers. His essay on Heine shows a wonderfully accurate estimate of that fantastic genius, while his _Rossetti_ shows critical insight of a high order.”
_Pall Mall Gazette._--“If one of the wholesome offices of tragic literature be to purify the soul by terror, Mr. Kernahan has done something towards the purification of the world.”
_Daily Mail._--“Crowded with pictures of great imaginative beauty.... There can be no doubt that this little book must make a very deep and abiding impression upon the hearts and minds of all who read it.”
Mr. T. P. O’CONNOR.--“I do not remember to have read for a long time a study of the deadliness to soul and body--of what I may even call the murderousness of purely sensual passion--in which the moral is so finely, and I must use the word, awfully conveyed.”
_Evening News._--“The revelations are those of a man of genius. Callous or brainless must the man or woman be who can rise from its perusal without tumultuous and chastening thought.”
_The Daily Chronicle._--“A writer possessing not only a fine literary gift, and a marvellous power of intense emotional realisation, but a fresh, strange, and fascinating imaginative outlook. We know of nothing published in recent years which, in lurid impressiveness and relentless veracity of rendering, is to be compared with this.”
_The Sketch._--“The daring freshness of his thought, his great ability in expressing it, his contempt for common tradition, the sincerity which exudes from every page of his work, captivate the reader. I do not know any piece of prose which opens up so many great questions in so few lines.”
_The Star._--“Palpitating with life. Terrible in their intensity and vivid vivisection of human mind and character. In dealing with such subjects as these, any one but Mr. Kernahan would be morbid, perhaps revolting. Mr. Kernahan writes of them with a power which is often genius. The work of a man who, seeing beneath the crust of life, had the courage and the power to write what he saw.”
Mr. BARRY PAIN.--“We find beautiful and appreciative writing in these pages.”
_The Illustrated London News._--“All must recognise the boundless charity, the literary power, and the intense sincerity of one of the most interesting works of the year.”
The late Mr. B. FLETCHER ROBINSON, in _Daily Express_.--“There are two Coulson Kernahans. The one is a novelist who loves a good plot, and a dashing adventure; the other a serious thinker who rises to imaginative heights in his efforts to pierce the mystery that cloaks the future life of us poor mortals.”
_The Times._--“He is perhaps the hundredth individual who in recent fiction has devoted himself to amateur detection, and he is certainly ‘one in a hundred’ as regards his exceptional success.... This simple sample must suffice for extract, but we may assure the reader that there are plenty more where it came from.”
_World._--“A writer of fiction who has come among us carrying Aladdin’s lamp--imagination.... Bold and brilliant in inception.... Deep and tender humanity pervades the whole work.”
_Literary World._--“A man with a command of beautiful English with exquisite insight into the poetry of life and with the delicate touch of the rare literary critic.... A volume of delightful essays, almost Lamblike in their tender pathos and humour.”
_New York World_ (U.S.A.).--“The strongest stories that have been written in many a long day. No one who is guilty of sin can read these stories without realising their truth. They are like Conscience sitting alone with him staring him steadily sternly in the face.... This spiritual rhapsody shows you one facet of this brilliant Irishman’s genius. Turn to the _Literary Gent_, and you will see another utterly different--fearful, almost cruel.”
_Boston Herald_ (U.S.A.)--“A book which must certainly be accounted one of the pronounced literary successes of the time. It has gone through various editions in America, as well as in England, and I think no one who has read it could ever quite escape from its haunting spell. It contains passages of poetic prose, which no lover of the beautiful will overlook, and its appeal to the consciences of men is even more strenuous. I am not surprised to hear that the first English edition of 2000 copies was exhausted a few days after publication.”
LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON (U.S.A.) in Syndicate Article, “Four Modern Men.”--“A story which Hawthorne might have been content to sign.... Two prose-poems which to my mind far surpass the prose-poems of Turgenieff.... This has been compared to Mrs. Gatty’s _Parables from Nature_, but Mrs. Gatty has never written anything to rank with it for poetic charm. To find this exquisite and tender idyl among these tragedies of shipwrecked souls is like hearing the divine note of the nightingale through the stress and clamour of a tempest.”
[In collaboration with the late Mr. Frederick Locker-Lampson.]
Mr. EDMUND GOSSE, C.B., in the _Illustrated London News_.--“Where so many skilful hands have tried to produce rival anthologies, these two, each in its own class, preserve their unquestionable superiority. Mr. Locker-Lampson has been helped in re-publication by Mr. Coulson Kernahan, who has entered into the elegant spirit of the Editor, and has continued his labours with taste and judgment.”
Mr. A. C. SWINBURNE, in his volume, _Studies in Prose and Poetry_.--“There is no better or completer anthology in the language. I doubt, indeed, if there be any so good or so complete. No objection or suggestion which can reasonably be offered can in any way diminish our obligation, either to the original Editor, or to his evidently able assistant, Mr. Coulson Kernahan.”
THE WORKS OF Oscar Wilde
SALOME. A TRAGEDY IN ONE ACT. Translated from the French of Oscar Wilde. With a Cover-design after AUBREY BEARDSLEY. Royal 16mo. Price 2s. 6d. net.
SALOME. A TRAGEDY IN ONE ACT. Translated from the French of Oscar Wilde, with an Introduction by ROBERT ROSS, and 16 Full-page Illustrations by AUBREY BEARDSLEY. Fcap. 4to. 10s. 6d. net.
SALOME. With the Illustrations by AUBREY BEARDSLEY and an Introduction by ROBERT ROSS. Uniform with the Works of OSCAR WILDE (_Methuen_). Fcap. 8vo. 5s. net.
A PORTFOLIO OF AUBREY BEARDSLEY’S DRAWINGS ILLUSTRATING “SALOME.” Folio. 12s. 6d. net.
THE SPHINX. With a Cover-design by CHARLES RICKETTS and a Preface by ROBERT ROSS. Small 4to. 2s. 6d. net.
THE SPHINX. With 10 Illustrations, End-Papers, Initial Letters and Cover-design by ALASTAIR. Demy 4to. 10s. 6d. net.
WORKS BY Theodore Watts-Dunton
THE COMING OF LOVE. RHONA BOSWELL’S STORY (a sequel to “Aylwin”) and other Poems. With a Photogravure Portrait after ROSSETTI and a Preface by the AUTHOR. Crown 8vo. 5s. net. (_Ninth Edition._)
_Times._--“Original and interesting, fresh in subject and feeling.”
JUBILEE GREETING AT SPITHEAD TO THE MEN OF GREATER BRITAIN. Crown 8vo. 1s. net.
_Times._--“These verses breathe the spirit of fraternity among all the peoples of the Empire.”
CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID. With Nine Illustrations by HERBERT COLE. Demy 16mo. Cloth, 1s. net; Leather, 1s. 6d. net. (“Flowers of Parnassus” Series.)
CARNIOLA. A NOVEL. Crown 8vo. 6s.
THEODORE WATTS-DUNTON contributed a Foreword to “THE KEATS LETTERS, PAPERS AND OTHER RELICS,” by GEORGE C. WILLIAMSON. Imperial 4to. £3 3s. net.
THE WORKS OF STEPHEN PHILLIPS
POEMS. With which is incorporated “CHRIST IN HADES.” Cr. 8vo. 4s. 6d. net.
LYRICS AND DRAMAS. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. net.
PAOLO AND FRANCESCA. A PLAY. With a Frontispiece after G. F. WATTS, R.A. Cr. 8vo. 4s. 6d. net.
HEROD. A TRAGEDY. Cr. 8vo. 4s. 6d. net.
ULYSSES. A DRAMA IN A PROLOGUE AND THREE ACTS. Cr. 8vo. 4s. 6d. net.
NEW POEMS. Cr. 8vo. 4s. 6d. net.
THE NEW INFERNO. Cr. 8vo. 4s. 6d. net. Also EDITION DE LUXE, with 16 full-page Drawings, End-Papers, Title-Page, and a Cover Design by VERNON HILL. A few copies only are left. 21s. net.
MARPESSA. With Seven Illustrations by PHILIP CONNARD. (Flowers of Parnassus Series, under the General Editorship of Francis Coutts.) Demy 16mo. Gilt top, Cloth, 1s. net. Leather, 1s. 6d. net.
PANAMA AND OTHER POEMS. With a Frontispiece from an Etching by JOSEPH PENNELL. Cr. 8vo. 4s. 6d. net.
ARMAGEDDON. A MODERN EPIC DRAMA. Cr. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.
THE SIN OF DAVID. Cr. 8vo. 4s. 6d. net.
PIETRO OF SIENA. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.
THE KING. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. net.
NERO. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. net.
FAUST (in collaboration with COMYNS CARR). Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. net.
CHRIST IN HADES. With an Introduction by C. LEWIS HIND. Illustrations, End-Papers, and Cover Design by STELLA LANGDALE. Medium 8vo. (Uniform with “The Dream of Gerontius.”) 3s. 6d. net.
MEMOIRS, BIOGRAPHIES, Etc.
LIVELY RECOLLECTIONS. By CANON SHEARME. Illustrated. Crown 8vo. 5s. net.
THE HANMERS OF MARTON AND MONTFORD SALOP. By CALVERT HANMER. With numerous Illustrations. Crown 4to. 10s. 6d. net.
CHARLES FROHMAN: Manager and Man. By ISAAC F. MARCOSSON and DANIEL FROHMAN. With an appreciation by SIR J. M. BARRIE. Many Portraits and Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.
SOLDIER AND DRAMATIST. Being the letters of HAROLD CHAPIN, American Citizen, who died for England at Loos on September 26th, 1915. With Introduction by SIDNEY DARK. Two Portraits. Crown 8vo. 5s. net. (Second Edition.)
THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR JOHN HENNIKER HEATON, BART. By his Daughter, MRS. ADRIAN PORTER. With Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net.
GAUDIER-BRZESKA. A Memoir. By EZRA POUND. With 38 Illustrations. Crown 4to. 12s. 6d. net.
A MERRY BANKER IN THE FAR EAST (AND SOUTH AMERICA). By WALTER H. YOUNG (Tarapaca). With 36 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 5s. net. (Second Edition.)
MEMORIES. By THE HON. STEPHEN COLERIDGE. With 12 Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.
AND THAT REMINDS ME. Being incidents of a life spent at sea, and in the Andaman Islands, Burma, Australia, and India. By STANLEY COXON. With a Frontispiece and Forty Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.
FROM STUDIO TO STAGE. By WEEDON GROSSMITH. With numerous Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 16s. net.
THE NEW PEPYS
A Diary of the Great Warr
By SAMUEL PEPYS, JUNR.
With 16 Illustrations by M. WATSON-WILLIAMS
_Crown 8vo. 5s. net. Sixth Edition._
_Times._--“All that has happened, all that has been said or thought about the war, is preserved by Mr. Pepys, Junior, in a style that robs it of all offence and gives us a faithful mirror of our times.”
_Scotsman._--“The trick of intermingling small things with great and of slipping without effort, in the immortal Samuel’s best style, from the great European conflict to his wife’s hats is so reminiscent that the pages move the reader to constant smiles.”
_Pall Mall Gazette._--“It is hard to decide which is more pleasing in this book--the text or the illustrations. The Senior Pepys has transmitted something of all his wonderful and divers qualities to the descendant--his ubiquitous eye, his garrulousness, his exuberant egoism and perfect selfishness, and his humour.”
_Star._--“A more agreeable gallery of diverting worldlings we have seldom met.”
_Westminster Gazette._--“Being absolutely inimitable, Pepys has had many imitators. But none with whom we are acquainted has succeeded so well in a most difficult task as ‘Samuel Pepys, Junr.’”
_Land and Water._--“Great events have crowded so quickly on one another that already we find it difficult to arrange our recollections rightly. In this diary, flavoured with Attic salt, we are carried back to hours and controversies which seem to-day almost to belong to a previous life. Into whatever page one may choose to dip, there is something to arrest attention, to encourage reading and to awaken mirth.”
_To-Day._--“Here at length we have an imitation of Pepys’ Diary which is as perfect and satisfying as such a thing could well be. Samuel Pepys, Junior, knows the original with uncanny exactitude.”
_British Weekly._--“A book of genius. In many ways it is the most wonderful book that this war has produced.”
_Daily Mail._--“It is the most diverting book that has appeared for many a day. Laughable though the book is, it has the seriousness and the acid of all good satire, and is as faithful a history withal of these days as any that the serious historians have penned.”
BOOKS BY PIERRE MILLE
_Morning Post._--“Pierre Mille has a right to be considered the French Kipling.”
UNDER THE TRICOLOUR
Translated by B. DRILLIEN
With Illustrations in colour by HELEN MCKIE
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.
_Morning Post._--“The most hilarious of all the stories ... would make the sides of an archbishop ache with laughter; it is an irresistible thing.”
_Sunday Times._--“The stories are veritable gems. No student of the soldier spirit or of the psychology of our gallant allies should miss this book. Admirably translated and excellently illustrated.”
_Evening Standard._--“We commend the book to the ordinary man ... the tales are well told and abound in happy touches.”
BARNAVAUX
Author of “Under the Tricolour.”
Translated by B. DRILLIEN
With 8 Illustrations in colour by HELEN MCKIE
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.
Those who have read “Under the Tricolour” will recognise Barnavaux at an old friend, as he is the “hero” of many of the stories in both works. All the stories are entirely original, and they are striking in different ways, many of them being worthy of comparison with the works of the greatest French short-story writers.
LOUISE AND BARNAVAUX
Author of “Under the Tricolour.”
Translated by B. DRILLIEN
With 8 Illustrations in colour by HELEN MCKIE
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.
There is yet another volume of short stories dealing mostly with the French Colonial soldiery, and the ever delightful Barnavaux is again one of the most conspicuous figures.
Some of these stories are undoubtedly among the best that Mr. Mille has written.
THE WORKS OF ANATOLE FRANCE
In an English Translation edited by FREDERIC CHAPMAN Uniform. Demy 8vo. 6s.
[C]THE RED LILY
MOTHER OF PEARL
THE GARDEN OF EPICURUS
[C]THE CRIME OF SYLVESTRE BONNARD
THE WELL OF ST. CLARE
THAIS
THE WICKER-WORK WOMAN
THE WHITE STONE
PENGUIN ISLAND
BALTHASAR
THE ELM-TREE ON THE MALL
ON LIFE AND LETTERS. 2 vols. 1st and 2nd Ser.
THE MERRIE TALES OF JACQUES TOURNEBROCHE
AT THE SIGN OF THE REINE PEDAUQUE
JOCASTA AND THE FAMISHED CAT
THE ASPIRATIONS OF JEAN SERVIEN
THE OPINIONS OF JEROME COIGNARD
MY FRIEND’S BOOK
THE GODS ARE ATHIRST
THE REVOLT OF THE ANGELS
CRAINQUEBILLE
THE PATH OF GLORY. With Illustrations. Written by ANATOLE FRANCE to be sold for the benefit of French disabled soldiers.
THE AMETHYST RING [_In the Press_
PIERRE NOZIÈRE
FOUR PLAYS [_In Preparation_
[C] Also Cheap Edition, bound in Cloth, with Illustrated Coloured Wrapper, Crown 8vo, 1s. net.
_ALSO UNIFORM IN SIZE_
JOAN OF ARC. With 8 Illustrations. 2 vols. 25s. net.
JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
Transcriber’s Notes
Simple typographical errors were corrected. Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.
Page 274: “lovingkindness” was printed as one word.