day it was worst of all. And on that third day when he crept away to bed, tired to death and raw in his soul, always he would be sure to find a brown girl waiting for him there: and on such a night he had no spirit to resist her blandishments.
But when he perceived that no place was more, or less, haunted than another, then he came sidling back to the window in the wall. He had little hopes of it. He visited it more as a man visits a grave. It was full winter now, and the grove was naked and dark, the trees dripped in it, and the stream – he saw now that it was little more than a gutter – was full of dead leaves and mud. The wall, too, was broken where he had jumped over it. Yet John stood there a long time, many a winter evening, looking in. And he seemed to himself to have reached the bottom of misery.
One night he was trudging home from it, when he began to weep. He thought of that first day when he had heard the music and seen the Island: and the longing, not now for the Island itself, but for that moment when he had so sweetly longed for it, began to swell up in a warm wave, sweeter, sweeter, till he thought he could bear no more, and then yet sweeter again, till on the top of it, unmistakably, there came the short sound of music, as if a string had been plucked or a bell struck once. At the same moment a coach had gone past him. He turned and looked after it, in time to see a head even then being withdrawn from the window: and he thought he heard a voice say, Come. And far beyond the coach, among the hills of the western horizon, he thought that he saw a shining sea, and a faint shape of an Island, not much more than a cloud. It was nothing compared with what he had seen the first time: it was so much further away. But his mind was made up. That night he waited till his parents were asleep, and then, putting some few needments together, he stole out by the back door and set his face to the West to seek for the Island.
Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, nor the likeness of anything that is in the heaven above.
EXODUS
The soul of man, therefore, desiring to learn what manner of things these are, casteth her eyes upon objects akin to herself, whereof none sufficeth. And then it is that she saith, ‘With the Lord and with the things whereof I spoke, there is nothing in that likeness; what then is it like?’ This is the question, oh son of Dionysius, that is the cause of all evils – or rather the travail wherein the soul travaileth about it.
PLATO1
Following false copies of the good, that no Sincere fulfilment of their promise make.
DANTE
In hand she boldly took To make another like the former dame, Another Florimell in shape and look So lively and so like that many it mistook.
SPENSER
1 Some think it wrongly attributed to him.
John begins to think for himself and meets Nineteenth Century Rationalism, which can explain away religion by any number of methods – ‘Evolution’ and ‘Comparative Religion’, and all the guess-work which masquerades as ‘Science’
Still I lay dreaming in bed, and looked, and I saw John go plodding along the road westward in the bitter black of a frosty night. He walked so long that the morning broke. Then presently John saw a little inn by the side of the road and a woman with a broom who had opened the door and was sweeping out the rubbish. So he turned in there and called for a breakfast, and while it was cooking he sat down in a hard chair by the newly-lit fire and fell asleep. When he woke the sun was shining in through the window and there was his breakfast laid. Another traveller was already eating: he was a big man with red hair and a red stubble on all his three chins, buttoned up very tight. When they had both finished the traveller rose and cleared his throat and stood with his back to the fire. Then he cleared his throat again and said:
‘A fine morning, young sir.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said John.
‘You are going West, perhaps, young man?’
‘I – I think so.’
‘It is possible that you don’t know me.’
‘I am a stranger here.’
‘No offence,’ said the stranger. ‘My name is Mr Enlightenment, and I believe it is pretty generally known. I shall be happy to give you my assistance and protection as far as our ways lie together.’
John thanked him very much for this and when they went out from the inn there was a neat little trap waiting, with a fat little pony between the shafts: and its eyes were so bright and its harness was so well polished that it was difficult to say which was twinkling the keener in the morning sunshine. They both got into the trap and Mr Enlightenment whipped up the fat little pony and they went bowling along the road as if nobody had a care in the world. Presently they began to talk.
‘And where might you come from, my fine lad?’ said Mr Enlightenment.
‘From Puritania, sir,’ said John.
‘A good place to leave, eh?’
‘I am so glad you think that,’ cried John. ‘I was afraid –’
‘I hope I am a man of the world,’ said Mr Enlightenment. ‘Any young fellow who is anxious to better himself may depend on finding sympathy and support in me. Puritania! Why, I suppose you have been brought up to be afraid of the Landlord.’
‘Well, I must admit I sometimes do feel rather nervous.’
‘You may make your mind easy, my boy. There is no such person.’
‘There is no Landlord?’
‘There is absolutely no such thing – I might even say no such entity – in existence. There never has been and never will be.’
‘And this is absolutely certain?’ cried John; for a great hope was rising in his heart.
‘Absolutely certain. Look at me, young man. I ask you – do I look as if I was easily taken in?’
‘Oh, no,’ said John hastily. ‘I was just wondering, though. I mean – how did they all come to think there was such a person?’
‘The Landlord is an invention of those Stewards. All made up to keep the rest of us under their thumb: and of course the Stewards are hand in glove with the police. They are a shrewd lot, those Stewards. They know which side their bread is buttered on, all right. Clever fellows. Damn me, I can’t help admiring them.’
‘But do you mean that the Stewards don’t believe it themselves?’
‘I dare say they do. It is just the sort of cock and bull story they would believe. They are simple old souls most of them – just like children. They have no knowledge
