Part 15 (1/2)
”Then let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die. Is that the end of your experience?” asked Leonora, gloomily.
”Oh--well--if you put it so. Only if you do not eat and drink too much, you may possibly not die until the day after to-morrow.”
”Or you may spend your life in cooking the dinner, and die before it is served?” suggested Leonora.
”Or anything--what carnal similes!” laughed Batis...o...b... ”But they are very apt for any one who cares for eating. If that is really an important enjoyment, it may as well stand as the type.”
”Exactly--'if.' I am sure you do not think it is, nor that any material satisfaction can possibly stand as a type, nor that we should enjoy to-day without thought of to-morrow, nor a great many other things you have said.” She watched him as she spoke, and he liked to feel her eyes on him.
”No,” he answered, ”you are quite right. I do not think those things at all. But I am sure I generally do them,” he added, smiling.
”But what do you think--really? Is there anything really high and n.o.ble in the world? It all seems so little and so hollow, sometimes.”
She sighed, thinking how, formerly, she had said such things speculatively, and for the sake of raising an argument with her friends.
Batis...o...b.. turned on the stone seat, so that he faced her.
”Of course there are high and n.o.ble things in the world,” he answered.
”It is when you look into the small workings of the mind and soul, as you have been making me do, that you lose sight of the great ones.
Material nature is most interesting under a microscope, and generally most beautiful in great ma.s.ses at a distance. But if you walk close to the grandest cliff in nature, and flatten your face against it, and hold your eye half an inch from the rock, the grandeur and the beauty are all gone, and without a microscope wherewith to examine your particular point, you will find the close inspection tiresome after a time. There is no microscope for the soul, any more than for the heart, or the mind.
You gain nothing by looking too closely at it. It is ten to one that you hit upon a diseased spot for your examination. It may amuse you for a time to study other people's souls, because you can hardly get so near to them as to lose all impression of the whole, as you can with yourself. What does it matter what you know about your soul, so long as you do what is right?”
”That sounds true,” said Leonora, ”but I suppose there is something wrong about it.”
”All good similes sound true,” said Batis...o...b.., laughing. ”That is the reason why popular orators and preachers are so fond of them. The real use of a simile is for an explanation; the moment you make an argument upon it, you are revelling in words without logic, calling ill.u.s.trations facts and generally making game of your audience.”
”What a discouraging person you are,” said Leonora. ”You make one almost believe a thing, and then you turn round and tell one there is nothing to believe after all.”
”Not so bad as that,” said Batis...o...b.., leaning back and clasping his brown hands over his knee. ”I have not said there was nothing to believe in. Only take care you do not believe in anything because it bears a tempting resemblance to something you like.”
”That is ingenious, but I wish you would be positive about something. I wish you would tell me, for instance, what you yourself believe in.” Her eyes turned towards him in the twilight. For the sun had gone down, and the orange-trees brought the shadows early where the two were sitting.
”What I believe in?” he repeated. ”I suppose that, apart from religious matters, I believe most in sympathy and antipathy.”
”That is not exactly a course of action or a rule of life,” remarked Leonora, smiling and looking away.
”No. But in nine cases out of ten they are what determine both. At all events I believe in them. They always carry the day over logic, philosophy, and all manner of calculation and forethought. You may determine that it is your duty to like a person, you may induce yourself to think that you do, and you may make every one believe you do; but if you really do not--there is an end of it. And the reverse is just as true.”
”I should think every one knew that,” said Leonora in an indifferent way. But she was wondering why he had said it, whether he had any suspicion of her own state of mind. ”It is very safe to say you believe in things of that sort--everybody does. You are a very indefinite person, Mr. Batis...o...b...”
”What is the use of defining everything? Lots of people have been burned alive, and have had their heads cut off for defining things they knew nothing about. Of course they were quite sure they knew better; but then, is it worth while to die for your personal opinion of an abstract question?”
”It is very fine and n.o.ble, though,” said Leonora.
”There is a tradition that it is fine and n.o.ble to 'die for' anything.
It sounds well. Every one admires it. But reflect that the common murderer 'dies for' his individual views of the social state. The woman who maintained that scissors were better than a knife for cutting an apple suffered her husband to drown her rather than give up the point, and as she sank her fingers still opened and closed, to imitate the instrument she preferred. She 'died for' her opinion, just as much as Savonarola or Giordano Bruno, whom my countrymen are so fond of raving about.”
”You know that is not what I mean,” said Leonora. ”I mean it is n.o.ble to die for what is right.”
”The question is, what is right? There are cases when it is eminently heroic to sacrifice one's life.”