The Way of the Spirit

The Way of the Spirit
by
H. Rider Haggard

"Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth... and walk in the ways of thine
heart, and in the sight of thine eyes; but know thou that for all these
things God will bring thee into judgment."
"To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life which is in
the midst of the paradise of God."

DEDICATION
My dear Kipling,--Both of us believe that there are higher aims in life
than the weaving of stories well or ill, and according to our separate
occasions strive to fulfil this faith.
Still, when we talked together of the plan of this tale, and when you
read the written book, your judgment thereof was such as all of us hope
for from an honest and instructed friend--generally in vain.
So, as you found interest in it, I offer it to you, in token of much I
cannot write. But you will understand.--
Ever sincerely yours,
H. Rider Haggard.
To Rudyard Kipling, Esq.
Ditchingham, 14th August, 1905.

AUTHOR'S NOTE
This tale was written two years ago as the result of reflections which
occurred to me among the Egyptian sands and the empty cells of
long-departed anchorites.
Perhaps in printing it I should ask forgiveness for my deviation from
the familiar, trodden pathway of adventure, since in the course of a
literary experience extending now, I regret to say, over more than a
quarter of a century, often I have seen that he who attempts to step off
the line chalked out for him by custom or opinion is apt to be driven
back with stones and shoutings. Indeed, there are some who seem to
think it very improper that an author should seek, however rarely, to
address himself to a new line of thought or group of readers. As he
began so he must go on, they say. Yet I have ventured on the history of
Rupert Ullershaw's great, and to all appearance successful Platonic
experiment, chiefly because this problem interested me: Under the
conditions in which fortune placed him in the East, was he right or
wrong in clinging to an iron interpretation of a vow of his youth and to
the strict letter of his Western Law? And was he bound to return to the
English wife who had treated him so ill, as, in the end, he made up his
mind to do? In short, should or should not circumstances be allowed to
alter moral cases?
The question is solved in one way in this book, but although she herself
was a party to that solution, looking at the matter with Mea's eyes it
seems capable of a different reading. Still, given a sufficiency of faith, I
believe that set down here to be the true answer. Also, whatever its
exact cause and nature, there must be something satisfying and noble in
utter Renunciation for Conscience' sake, even when surrounding and
popular judgment demands no such sacrifice. At least this is one view
of Life, its aspirations and possibilities; that which wearies of its native
soil, that which lifts its face toward the Stars.
Otherwise, why did those old anchorites wear the stone beds of their
cells so thin? Why, in this fashion or in that, do their successors still

wear them thin everywhere in the wide earth, especially in the wise and
ancient East? I think the reply is Faith: that Faith which bore Rupert
and Mea to what they held to be a glorious issue of their long
probation--that Faith in personal survival and reunion, without the
support of which in one form or another, faint and flickering as it may
be, the happiness or even the continuance of our human world is so
difficult to imagine.
H. R. H.

THE WAY OF THE SPIRIT

PROLOGUE
The last pitiful shifts of shame, the last agonised doublings of despair
when the net is about the head and the victor's trident at the throat--who
can enjoy the story of such things as these? Yet because they
rough-hewed the character of Rupert Ullershaw, because from his part
in them he fashioned the steps whereby he climbed to that height of
renunciation which was the only throne he ever knew, something of it
must be told. A very little will suffice; the barest facts are all we need.
Upon a certain July evening, Lord and Lady Devene sat at dinner alone
in a very fine room of a very fine house in Portland Place. They were a
striking couple, the husband much older than the wife; indeed, he was
fifty years of age, and she in the prime of womanhood. The face of
Lord Devene, neutral tinted, almost colourless, was full of strength and
of a certain sardonic