The Philistines | Page 9

Bishop Blougram is the fact that he looks at religion as if it were an art, and not a vital and eternal necessity,--a living truth that cannot be trifled with."
"Ah," Fenton's smooth and beautiful voice rejoined, "that is to confound art with the artificial, which is an obvious error. Art is a passion, an utter devotion to an ideal, an absolute lifting of man out of himself into that essential truth which is the only lasting bond by which mankind is united."
Fenton's coolness always had a confusing and irritating effect upon Mr. Candish, who was too thoroughly honest and earnest to quibble, and far from possessing the dexterity needed to fence with the artist. He began confusedly to speak, but with the first word became aware that Mrs. Fenton had come to the rescue. Edith never saw a contest between her husband and the clergyman without interfering if she could, and now she instinctively spoke, without stopping to consider where she was.
"It is precisely for that reason," she said, "that art seems to me to fall below religion. Art can make man contented with life only by keeping his attention fixed upon an ideal, while religion reconciles us to life as it really is."
A murmur of assent showed Arthur how much against the feeling of those around him were the views he was advancing.
"Oh, well," he said, in a droll sotto voce, "if it is coming down to a family difference we will continue it in private."
And he abandoned the discussion.
"It seems to me," pursued Mr. Candish, only half conscious that Mrs. Fenton had come to his aid, "that Bishop Blougram represents the most dangerous spirit of the age. His paltering with truth is a form of casuistry of which we see altogether too much nowadays."
"Do you think," asked a timid feminine voice, "that Blougram was quite serious? That he really meant all he said, I mean?"
The president looked at the speaker with despair in his glance; but she was adorably pretty and of excellent social position, so that snubbing was not to be thought of. Moreover, he was thoroughly well trained in keeping his temper under the severest provocation, so he expressed his feelings merely by a deprecatory smile.
"We have the poet's authority," he responded, in a softly patient voice, "for saying that he believed only half."
There was a little rustle of leaves, as if people were looking over their books, in order to find the passage to which he alluded. Then a young girl in the front row of chairs, a pretty creature, just on the edge of womanhood, looked up earnestly, her finger at a line on the page before her.
"I can't make out what this means," she announced, knitting her girlish brow,--
"'Here, we've got callous to the Virgin's winks That used to puzzle people wholesomely.'"
"Of course he can't mean that the Madonna winks; that would be too irreverent."
There were little murmurs of satisfaction that the question had been asked, confusing explanations which evidently puzzled some who had not thought of being confused before; and then another girl, ignoring the fact that the first difficulty had not been disposed of, propounded another.
"Isn't the phrase rather bold," she asked, "where he speaks of 'blessed evil?'"
"Where is that?" some one asked.
"On page 106, in my edition," was the reply; and a couple of moments were given to finding the place in the various books.
"Oh, I see the line," said an old lady, at last. "It's one--two--three-- five lines from the bottom of the page:"
"'And that's what all the blessed evil's for.'"
"You don't think," queried the first speaker, appealing personally to the president, "that Mr. Browning can really have meant that evil is blessed, do you?"
The president regarded her with an affectionate and fatherly smile.
"I think," he said, with an air of settling everything, "that the explanation of his meaning is to be found in the line which follows,--
"'It's use in Time is to environ us.'"
"Heavens!" whispered Fenton to Mrs. Staggchase; "fancy that incarnate respectability environed by 'blessed evil!'"
"For my part," she returned, in the same tone, "I feel as if I were visiting a lunatic asylum." "Yes, that line does make it beautifully clear," observed the voice of Miss Catherine Penwick; "and I think that's so beautiful about the exposed brain, and lidless eyes, and disemprisoned heart. The image is so exquisite when he speaks of their withering up at once."
Fenton made a droll grimace for the benefit of his neighbor, and then observed with great apparent seriousness,--
"The poem is most remarkable for the intimate knowledge it shows of human nature. Take a line like:"
'Men have outgrown the shame of being fools;'
"We can see such striking instances of its truth all about us."
"How can you?" exclaimed Elsie Dimmont, under her breath.
Fenton had not been able wholly to keep out