登陆注册
15388000000017

第17章 THE THIRD - INSOMNIA(5)

The Morrice Deans enquiry however demanded an amount of erudition that greatly fatigued the bishop.He had a very fair general knowledge of vestments, but he had never really cared for anything but the poetry of ornaments, and he had to work strenuously to master the legal side of the question.Whippham, his chaplain, was worse than useless as a helper.The bishop wanted to end the matter as quickly, quietly, and favourably to Morrice Deans as possible; he thought Morrice Deans a thoroughly good man in his parish, and he believed that the substitution of a low churchman would mean a very complete collapse of church influence in Mogham Banks, where people were now thoroughly accustomed to a highly ornate service.But Morrice Deans was intractable and his pursuers indefatigable, and on several occasions the bishop sat far into the night devising compromises and equivocations that should make the Kensitites think that Morrice Deans wasn't wearing vestments when he was, and that should make Morrice Deans think he was wearing vestments when he wasn't.And it was Whippham who first suggested green tea as a substitute for coffee, which gave the bishop indigestion, as his stimulant for these nocturnal bouts.

Now green tea is the most lucid of poisons.

And while all this extra activity about Morrice Deans, these vigils and crammings and writings down, were using all and more energy than the bishop could well spare, he was also doing his quiet utmost to keep "The Light under the Altar" ease from coming to a head.

This man he hated.

And he dreaded him as well as hated him.Chasters, the author of "The Light under the Altar," was a man who not only reasoned closely but indelicately.There was a demonstrating, jeering, air about his preaching and writing, and everything he said and did was saturated by the spirit of challenge.He did not so much imitate as exaggerate the style of Matthew Arnold.And whatever was done publicly against him would have to be done very publicly because his book had got him a London reputation.

From the bishop's point of view Chasters was one of nature's ignoblemen.He seemed to have subscribed to the Thirty-Nine Articles and passed all the tests and taken all the pledges that stand on the way to ordination, chiefly for the pleasure of attacking them more successfully from the rear; he had been given the living of Wombash by a cousin, and filled it very largely because it was not only more piquant but more remunerative and respectable to be a rationalist lecturer in a surplice.And in a hard kind of ultra-Protestant way his social and parochial work was not badly done.But his sermons were terrible."He takes a text," said one informant, "and he goes on firstly, secondly, thirdly, fourthly, like somebody tearing the petals from a flower.'Finally,' he says, and throws the bare stalk into the dustbin."The bishop avoided "The Light under the Altar" for nearly a year.It was only when a second book was announced with the winning title of "The Core of Truth in Christianity" that he perceived he must take action.He sat up late one night with a marked copy, a very indignantly marked copy, of the former work that an elderly colonel, a Wombash parishioner, an orthodox Layman of the most virulent type, had sent him.He perceived that he had to deal with a dialectician of exceptional ability, who had concentrated a quite considerable weight of scholarship upon the task of explaining away every scrap of spiritual significance in the Eucharist.From Chasters the bishop was driven by reference to the works of Legge and Frazer, and for the first time he began to measure the dimensions and power of the modern criticism of church doctrine and observance.Green tea should have lit his way to refutation; instead it lit up the whole inquiry with a light of melancholy confirmation.Neither by night nor by day could the bishop find a proper method of opening a counter attack upon Chasters, who was indisputably an intellectually abler man and a very ruthless beast indeed to assail, and meanwhile the demand that action should be taken increased.

The literature of church history and the controversies arising out of doctrinal development became the employment of the bishop's leisure and a commanding preoccupation.He would have liked to discuss with some one else the network of perplexities in which he was entangling himself, and more particularly with Canon Bliss, but his own positions were becoming so insecure that he feared to betray them by argument.He had grown up with a kind of intellectual modesty.Some things he had never yet talked about; it made his mind blench to think of talking about them.

And his great aching gaps of wakefulness began now, thanks to the green tea, to be interspersed with theological dreams and visions of an extravagant vividness.He would see Frazer's sacrificial kings butchered picturesquely and terribly amidst strange and grotesque rituals; he would survey long and elaborate processions and ceremonials in which the most remarkable symbols were borne high in the sight of all men; he would cower before a gigantic and threatening Heaven.These green-tea dreams and visions were not so much phases of sleep as an intensification and vivid furnishing forth of insomnia.It added greatly to his disturbance that--exceeding the instructions of Brighton-Pomfrey--he had now experimented ignorantly and planlessly with one or two narcotics and sleeping mixtures that friends and acquaintances had mentioned in his hearing.For the first time in his life he became secretive from his wife.He knew he ought not to take these things, he knew they were physically and morally evil, but a tormenting craving drove him to them.Subtly and insensibly his character was being undermined by the growing nervous trouble.

同类推荐
  • 荣进集

    荣进集

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 三十年临证经验集

    三十年临证经验集

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 广异记

    广异记

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 春明退朝录

    春明退朝录

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 海南杂着

    海南杂着

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
热门推荐
  • 最强主角光环

    最强主角光环

    一个麻瓜少年莫名其妙得到了传说中的主角光环,一个妹子!?哦不,一部灵决,随即开始了他的装x之路,看凌风如何脚踩凌霄敬老院,圈打地府幼儿园
  • 福妻驾到

    福妻驾到

    现代饭店彪悍老板娘魂穿古代。不分是非的极品婆婆?三年未归生死不明的丈夫?心狠手辣的阴毒亲戚?贪婪而好色的地主老财?吃上顿没下顿的贫困宭境?不怕不怕,神仙相助,一技在手,天下我有!且看现代张悦娘,如何身带福气玩转古代,开面馆、收小弟、左纳财富,右傍美男,共绘幸福生活大好蓝图!!!!快本新书《天媒地聘》已经上架开始销售,只要3.99元即可将整本书抱回家,你还等什么哪,赶紧点击下面的直通车,享受乐乐精心为您准备的美食盛宴吧!)
  • 长梦新凉

    长梦新凉

    温新凉师承鬼谷子,以易容之术走遍天下,人称“千面郎君”。她因为敛财需要而兼职帮人打探消息,却没想到因此惹来了杀身之祸。韦东时含着金汤匙出身,玉树临风压海棠,身为雪域山庄的少庄主非常抢手。初见时,他霸道,她气愤;再见时,他温柔,她不屑;然而,情愫暗生,有一种感情在不知不觉中滋养。富可敌国的雪域山庄里暗藏玄机,一夜暴富的秘密竟然是那朝廷的贡品。当一切真相大白,武功尽废的少庄主和武功飞速精进的千面郎君,又该何去何从?
  • 倾城倾国:邪王心尖宠

    倾城倾国:邪王心尖宠

    她,25世纪的金牌杀手,在一次任务中葬身,重生到了一个将军府废材嫡女身上,看她如何翻身。他,无人能敌的冰山王爷,他遇见了她,并发誓要让她爱上他,看他如何追到她,把她宠上天。
  • 何以微凉梦十年

    何以微凉梦十年

    苏念和夏梦是由一对离异家庭而组成的新群体。在平淡的家庭背景和童年成长过程中夏梦逐渐依赖哥哥苏念,直到十三年后夏梦爱上了哥哥苏念,而苏念却一直把她当做妹妹。在现实复杂的社会中,每个人都渴望亲情爱情,全书没有华丽的辞藻,只是平淡的词汇和出人的结局。
  • 福妻驾到

    福妻驾到

    现代饭店彪悍老板娘魂穿古代。不分是非的极品婆婆?三年未归生死不明的丈夫?心狠手辣的阴毒亲戚?贪婪而好色的地主老财?吃上顿没下顿的贫困宭境?不怕不怕,神仙相助,一技在手,天下我有!且看现代张悦娘,如何身带福气玩转古代,开面馆、收小弟、左纳财富,右傍美男,共绘幸福生活大好蓝图!!!!快本新书《天媒地聘》已经上架开始销售,只要3.99元即可将整本书抱回家,你还等什么哪,赶紧点击下面的直通车,享受乐乐精心为您准备的美食盛宴吧!)
  • 绝色逃妃修仙记

    绝色逃妃修仙记

    她,国际一级特工,在一次任务中,因青梅竹马的恋人的背叛而中枪身亡。当她再次挣开眼,竟成了白府草包废材庶出三小姐。他,帝国的天才腹黑王爷,因为未婚妻的离去而不再相信爱情,却因貌似未婚妻的白若璃而再次心动,恕不知是爱她还是报复她,从此展开一段你追我逃的追妻之路。
  • 无上妖皇

    无上妖皇

    当双月同时出现于冰河上空赤红与银白恶魔展开他狰狞的羽翼速度与力量将众神的天空染红大地在呻吟铁蹄踏破牢不可破的城墙千年的帝国灰飞烟乱世呈现恶魔在血雨中狂笑纷乱的天地终归于一
  • 太上灵宝首入净明四规明鉴经

    太上灵宝首入净明四规明鉴经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 福妻驾到

    福妻驾到

    现代饭店彪悍老板娘魂穿古代。不分是非的极品婆婆?三年未归生死不明的丈夫?心狠手辣的阴毒亲戚?贪婪而好色的地主老财?吃上顿没下顿的贫困宭境?不怕不怕,神仙相助,一技在手,天下我有!且看现代张悦娘,如何身带福气玩转古代,开面馆、收小弟、左纳财富,右傍美男,共绘幸福生活大好蓝图!!!!快本新书《天媒地聘》已经上架开始销售,只要3.99元即可将整本书抱回家,你还等什么哪,赶紧点击下面的直通车,享受乐乐精心为您准备的美食盛宴吧!)