620 



The Review of Reviews 



December 1. 190G, 



range of comprehension. You younger people, I 

 know, read them with impatient perplexity. Vou 

 cannot understand how sane creatures could imagine 

 they had joined issue at all in most of these contro- 

 versies. All the old methods of systematic think- 

 ing, the queer absurdities of the Aristotelian logic, 

 have followed magic numbers and mystical num- 

 bers, and the Rumpelstikchen magic of names, now 

 into the blackness of the unthinkable. You can no 

 more understand our theological passions than vou 

 can understand the fancies that made all ancient 

 peoples speak of their gods only by circumlocu- 

 tions, that made savages pine away and die because 

 they had been photographed, or an Elizabethan 

 farmer turn back from a day's expedition because 

 he had met three crows. Even I, who have been 

 through it all, recall our controversies now with 

 something near incredulity. 



Faith we can understand to-day; all men live by 

 faith. But, in the old time, everyone confused quite 

 hopelessly faith and a forced, incredible belief in 

 certain pseudo-concrete statements. I am inclined 

 to sav that neither believers nor unbelie\ers had 

 faith as we understand it : they had insufficient in- 

 tellectual power. They could not trust unless they 

 had something to see and touch and say, like their 

 barbarous ancestors who could not make a bargain 

 without exchange of tokens. If they no longer wor- 

 shipped stocks and stones, or eked out their needs 

 with pilgrimages and images, they still held fiercely 

 to audible images, to printed words and formulse. 



But why revive the echoes of the ancient logo- 

 njachies ? 



Suffice it that we lost our tempers very readily in 

 pursuit of God and truth, and said exquisitely 

 foolish things on either side. And on the whole — 

 from the impartial perspective of my three and 

 seventv years — I adjudicate that if my dialectic was 

 bad, that of the Reverend Mr. Gabbitas was alto- 

 gether worse. 



Little pink spots came into his cheeks, a squealing 

 note into his voice. We interrupted each other more 

 and more rudely. -We invented facts and appealed 

 to authorities whose names I mispronounced ; and, 

 finding Mr. Gabbitas shy of the higher criticism 

 and the Germans, I used the names of Karl Marx 

 and Engels as Bible exegetes with no little effect. 

 A silly wrangle ! a preposterous wrangle ! You 

 must imagine our talk becoming louder, with a de- 

 veloping quarrelsome note — my mother, no doubt, 

 hovering on the stircase and listening in alarm as 

 who should say : " My dear, don't offend it ! Oh. 

 don't offend it I Mr. Gabbitas enjoys its friendship. 

 Tr\- to think whatever Mr. Gabbitas says — " though 

 we still kept in touch with a pretence of mutual de- 

 ference. The ethical superiority of Christianity to 

 all other religions came to the fore — I know not 

 how. We dealt with the matter in bold, imagina- 

 tive generalisations, because of the insufficiencv of 

 our historical knowledge. I was moved to denounce 



Christianitv as the ethics of slaves, and declare my- 

 self a disciple of a German writer of no little vogue 

 in those days, named Nietzsche. 



For a disciple I must confess I was particularly 

 ill acquainted with the works of the master. Indeed, 

 all I knew of Tiim had come to me through a two- 

 cohmin article in T/ie Clarion for the previous week. 

 But the Reverend Gabbitas did not read Tlie 

 Clarion. 



I am, I know, putting a strain upon your credulity 

 when I tell you that I now have little doubt that the 

 Reverend Mr. Gabbitas was absolutely ignorant even 

 of the name of Nietzsche, although that writer pre- 

 sented a separate and distinct attitude of attack upon 

 the faith that was in the reverend gentleman's keep- 

 ing. 



" I'm a disciple of Nietzsche,'' said I. with an air 

 of extensive explanation. 



He ,=ihied away so awkwardlv at the name that 

 I repeated it at once. 



"But vou know what Nietzsche savs?' I press- 

 ed him viciously. 



" He has certainly been adequately answered," 

 said he, still trving to carry it off. 



" Who by ?" I rapped out hotly. " Tell me that !" 

 and became mercilessly expectant. 



V. 



A happy accident relieved Mr. Gabbitas from 

 the embarrassment of that challenge, and carried 

 me another 'step along mv course of personal disas- 

 ter. 



It came on the heels of my question in the form 

 of a clatter of horses without, and the gride and 

 cessation of wheels. I glimpsed a straw-hatted 

 coachman and a pair of greys. It seemed an in- 

 crediblv magnificent carriage for Clavton. 



" Eh '" said the Reverend Mr. Gabbitas, going to 

 the window. "Why, it's old Mrs. Verrall ! Its 

 old Mrs. Verrall. Really ! What ca-n she want 

 with me ?" 



He turned to me, and the flush of controversy 

 had passed and his face shone like the sun. It 

 was not every day, I perceived, that Mrs. Verrall 

 came to see him. 



" I get so many interruptions," he said, almost 

 grinning. " You must excuse me a minute ! Then — 

 then I'll tell you about that fellow. But pray don't 

 go. I can assure you — most interesting." 



He went out of the room waving vague, prohibi- 

 torv gestures. 



" I must go." I cried after him. 



" No, no, no '." in the passage. " I've got your 

 answer," I think it was he added, and " quite mis- 

 taken " ; and I saw him running down the steps 

 to talk to the old lady. 



I swore. I made three steps to the window, and 

 this brought me within a yard of that accursed 

 drawer. 



I glanced at it, and then at that old woman who 



