Callista Part 21
Callista acknowledged his presence; it was certainly, she said, a great kindness for any one to visit her, and there.
Polemo replied by a compliment; he said it was Socrates visiting Aspasia.
There had always been women above the standard of their s.e.x, and they had ever held an intellectual converse with men of mind. He saw one such before him.
Callista felt it would be plunging her soul still deeper into shadows, when she sought realities, if she must take part in such an argument. She remained silent.
"Your sister has not the fit upon her?" asked Polemo of Aristo aside, neither liking her reception of him, nor knowing what to say. "Not at all, dear thing," answered Aristo; "she is all attention for you to begin."
"Natives of Greece," at length said he, "natives of Greece should know each other; they deserve to know each other; there is a secret sympathy between them. Like that mysterious influence which unites magnet to magnet; or like the echo which is a repercussion of the original voice.
So, in like manner, Greeks are what none but they can be," and he smelt at his rose and bowed.
She smiled faintly when he mentioned Greece. "Yes," she said, "I am fonder of Greece than of Africa."
"Each has its advantages," said Polemo; "there is a pleasure in imparting knowledge, in lighting flame from flame. It would be selfish did we not leave Greece to communicate what they have not here. But you," he added, "lady, neither can learn in Greece nor teach in Africa, while you are in this vestibule of Orcus. I understand, however, it is your own choice; can that be possible?"
"Well, I wish to get out, if I could, most learned Polemo," said Callista sadly.
"May Polemo of Rhodes speak frankly to Callista of Proconnesus?" asked Polemo. "I would not speak to every one. If so, let me ask, what keeps you here?"
"The magistrates of Sicca and this iron chain," answered Callista. "I would I could be elsewhere; I would I were not what I am."
"What could you wish to be more than you are?" answered Polemo; "more gifted, accomplished, beautiful than any daughter of Africa."
"Go to the point, Polemo," said Aristo, nervously, though respectfully; "she wants home-thrusts."
"I see my brother wants you to ask how far it depends on me that I am here," said Callista, wishing to hasten his movements; "it is because I will not burn incense upon the altar of Jupiter."
"A most insufficient reason, lady," said Polemo.
Callista was silent.
"What does that action mean?" said Polemo; "it proposes to mean nothing else than that you are loyal to the Roman power. You are not of those Greeks, I presume, who dream of a national insurrection at this time? then you are loyal to Rome. Did I believe a Leonidas could now arise, an Harmodius, a Miltiades, a Themistocles, a Pericles, an Epaminondas, I should be as ready to take the sword as another; but it is hopeless.
Greece, then, makes no claim on you just now. Nor will I believe, though you were to tell me so yourself, that you are leagued with any obscure, fanatic sect who desire Rome's downfall. Consider what Rome is;" and now he had got into the magnificent commonplace, out of his last panegyrical oration with which he had primed himself before he set out. "I am a Greek," he said, "I love Greece, but I love truth better; and I look at facts. I grasp them, and I confess to them. The wide earth, through untold centuries, has at length grown into the imperial dominion of One. It has converged and coalesced in all its various parts into one Rome. This, which we see, is the last, the perfect state of human society. The course of things, the force of natural powers, as is well understood by all great lawyers and philosophers, cannot go further. Unity has come at length, and unity is eternity. It will be for ever, because it is a whole. The principle of dissolution is eliminated. We have reached the _apotelesma_ of the world. Greece, Egypt, a.s.syria, Libya, Etruria, Lydia, have all had their share in the result. Each of them, in its own day, has striven in vain to stop the course of fate, and has been hurried onwards at its wheels as its victim or its instrument. And shall Judaea do what profound Egypt and subtle Greece have tried in vain? If even the freedom of thought, the liberal scepticism, nay, the revolutionary theories of h.e.l.las have proved unequal to the task of splitting up the Roman power, if the pomp and luxury of the East have failed, shall the mysticism of Syria succeed?"
"Well, dear Callista, are you listening?" cried Aristo, not over-confident of the fact, though Polemo looked round at him with astonishment.
"Ten centuries," he continued, "ten centuries have just been completed since Rome began her victorious career. For ten centuries she has been fulfilling her high mission in the dispositions of Destiny, and perfecting her maxims of policy and rules of government. For ten centuries she has pursued one track with an ever-growing intensity of zeal, and an ever-widening extent of territory. What can she not do? just one thing; and that one thing which she has not presumed to do, you are attempting.
She has maintained her own religion, as was fitting; but she has never thrown contempt on the religion of others. This you are doing. Observe, Callista, Rome herself, in spite of her great power, has yielded to that necessity which is greater. She does not meddle with the religions of the peoples. She has opened no war against their diversities of rite. The conquering power found, especially in the East, innumerable traditions, customs, prejudices, principles, superst.i.tions, matted together in one hopeless ma.s.s; she left them as they were; she recognised them; it would have been the worse for her if she had done otherwise. All she said to the peoples, all she dared say to them, was, 'You bear with me, and I will bear with you.' Yet this you will not do; you Christians, who have no pretence to any territory, who are not even the smallest of the peoples, who are not even a people at all, you have the fanaticism to denounce all other rites but your own, nay, the religion of great Rome. Who are you?
upstarts and vagabonds of yesterday. Older religions than yours, more intellectual, more beautiful religions, which have had a position, and a history, and a political influence, have come to nought; and shall you prevail, you, a _congeries_, a hotch-potch of the leavings, and sc.r.a.ps, and broken meat of the great peoples of the East and West? Blush, blush, Grecian Callista, you with a glorious nationality of your own to go shares with some hundred peasants, slaves, thieves, beggars, hucksters, tinkers, cobblers, and fishermen! A lady of high character, of brilliant accomplishments, to be the a.s.sociate of the outcasts of society!"
Polemo's speech, though c.u.mbrous, did execution, at least the termination of it, upon minds const.i.tuted like the Grecian. Aristo jumped up, swore an oath, and looked round triumphantly at Callista, who felt its force also.
After all, what did she know of Christians?-at best she was leaving the known for the unknown: she was sure to be embracing certain evil for contingent good. She said to herself, "No, I never can be a Christian."
Then she said aloud, "My Lord Polemo, I am not a Christian;-I never said I was."
"That is her absurdity!" cried Aristo. "She is neither one thing nor the other. She won't say she's a Christian, and she won't sacrifice!"
"It is my misfortune," she said, "I know. I am losing both what I see, and what I don't see. It is most inconsistent: yet what can I do?"
Polemo had said what he considered enough. He was one of those who sold his words. He had already been over-generous, and was disposed to give away no more.
After a time, Callista said, "Polemo, do you believe in one G.o.d?"
"Certainly," he answered; "I believe in one eternal, self-existing something."
"Well," she said, "I feel that G.o.d within my heart. I feel myself in His presence. He says to me, 'Do this: don't do that,' You may tell me that this dictate is a mere law of my nature, as is to joy or to grieve. I cannot understand this. No, it is the echo of a person speaking to me.
Nothing shall persuade me that it does not ultimately proceed from a person external to me. It carries with it its proof of its divine origin.
My nature feels towards it as towards a person. When I obey it, I feel a satisfaction; when I disobey, a soreness-just like that which I feel in pleasing or offending some revered friend. So you see, Polemo, I believe in what is more than a mere 'something.' I believe in what is more real to me than sun, moon, stars, and the fair earth, and the voice of friends.
You will say, Who is He? Has He ever told you anything about Himself?
Alas! no!-the more's the pity! But I will not give up what I have, because I have not more. An echo implies a voice; a voice a speaker. That speaker I love and I fear."
Here she was exhausted, and overcome too, poor Callista! with her own emotions.
"O that I could find Him!" she exclaimed, pa.s.sionately. "On the right hand and on the left I grope, but touch Him not. Why dost Thou fight against me?-why dost Thou scare and perplex me, O First and Only Fair? I have Thee not, and I need Thee." She added, "I am no Christian, you see, or I should have found Him; or at least I should say I had found Him."
"It is hopeless," said Polemo to Aristo, in much disgust, and with some hauteur of manner: "she is too far gone. You should not have brought me to this place."
Aristo groaned.
"Shall I," she continued, "worship any but Him? Shall I say that He whom I see not, whom I seek, is our Jupiter, or Caesar, or the G.o.ddess Rome? They are none of them images of this inward guide of mine. I sacrifice to Him alone."
The two men looked at each other in amazement: one of them in anger.
"It's like the demon of Socrates," said Aristo, timidly.
"I will acknowledge Caesar in every fitting way," she repeated; "but I will not make him my G.o.d."
Presently she added, "Polemo, will not that invisible Monitor have something to say to all of us,-to you,-at some future day?"
"Spare me! spare me, Callista!" cried Polemo, starting up with a violence unsuited to his station and profession. "Spare my ears, unhappy woman!-such words have never hitherto entered them. I did not come to be insulted. Poor, blind, hapless, perverse spirit-I separate myself from you for ever! Desert, if you will, the majestic, bright, beneficent traditions of your forefathers, and live in this frightful superst.i.tion! Farewell!"
He did not seem better pleased with Aristo than with Callista, though Aristo helped him into his litter, walked by his side, and did what he could to propitiate him.
CHAPTER XXIX.
CONVERSION.
If there is a state of mind utterly forlorn, it is that in which we left the poor prisoner after Polemo had departed. She was neither a Christian, nor was she not. She was in the midway region of inquiry, which as surely takes time to pa.s.s over, except there be some almost miraculous interference, as it takes time to walk from place to place. You see a person coming towards you, and you say, impatiently, "Why don't you come faster?-why are you not here already?" Why?-because it takes time. To see that heathenism is false,-to see that Christianity is true,-are two acts, and involve two processes. They may indeed be united, and the truth may supplant the error; but they may not. Callista obeyed, as far as truth was brought home to her. She saw the vanity of idols before she had faith in Him who came to destroy them. She could safely say, "I discard Jupiter:"
she could not say, "I am a Christian." Besides, what did she know of Christians? How did she know that they would admit her, if she wished it?
They were a secret society, with an election, an initiation, and oaths;-not a mere philosophical school, or a profession of opinion, open to any individual. If they were the good people that she fancied them to be,-and if they were not, she would not think of them at all,-they were not likely to accept of her.
Still, though we may account for her conduct, its issue was not, on that account, the less painful. She had neither the promise of this world, nor of the next, and was losing earth without gaining heaven. Our Lord is reported to have said, "Be ye good money-changers." Poor Callista did not know how to turn herself to account. It had been so all through her short life. She had ardent affections, and keen sensibilities, and high aspirations; but she was not fortunate in the application of them. She had put herself into her brother's hands, and had let him direct her course.
It could not be expected that he would be very different from the world.