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The Case of Richard Meynell by Mrs. Humphry Ward

M >> Mrs. Humphry Ward >> The Case of Richard Meynell




"But even so, you have not exhausted the wealth of Christianity; For to
the potency of the Christian idea is added the magic of an incomparable
embodiment in human life. The story of Jesus bears the idea which it
enshrines eternally through the world. It is to the idea as the vessel of
the Grail.

"... Do these conceptions make us love our Master less? Ask your
own hearts? There must be many in this crowded church that have
known sorrow--intolerable anguish and disappointment--gnawing
self-reproach--during the past year, or months, or weeks; many that have
watched sufferings which no philosophic optimism can explain, and
catastrophes that leave men dumb. Some among them will have been
driven back upon their faith--driven to the foot of the Cross. Through
all intellectual difference, has not the natural language of their
fathers been also their language? Is there anything in their changed
opinions which has cut them off from that sacrifice

"Renewed in every pulse,
That on the tedious Cross
Told the long hours of death, as, one by one,
The life-strings of that tender heart gave way?

"Is there anything in this new compelling knowledge that need--that
does--divide _us_--whose consciences dare not refuse it--from the
immortal triumph of that death? In our sharpest straits, are we not
comforted and cleansed and sustained by the same thoughts, the same
visions that have always sustained and comforted the Christian? No!--the
sons of tradition and dogma have no monopoly in the exaltation, the
living passion of the Cross! We, too, watching that steadfastness grow
steadfast; bowed before that innocent suffering, grow patient; drinking
in the wonder of that faith, amid utter defeat, learn to submit and go
forward. In us too, as we behold--Hope 'masters Agony!'--and we follow,
for a space at least, with our Master, into the heavenly house, and still
our sore hearts before our God."

* * * * *

Quietly and low, in tones that shook here and there, the words had fallen
upon the spell-bound church.

Mary covered her eyes. But they saw only the more intently the vision of
Hester maimed and dying; and the face of Meynell bending over her.

* * * * *

Then from this intimity, this sacredness of feeling, the speaker
passed gradually and finally into the challenge, the ringing yet
brotherly challenge, it was in truth his mission to deliver. The note of
battle--honourable, inevitable battle--pealed through the church, and
when it ceased the immense congregation rose, possessed by one heat of
emotion, and choir and multitude broke into the magnificent Modernist
hymn, "Christus Rex"--written by the Bishop of the See, and already
familiar throughout England.

The service was over. Out streamed the great congregation. The Close was
crowded to see them come. Lines of theological students were drawn up
there, fresh-faced boys in round collars and long black coats, who, as
the main body of the Modernist clergy approached, began defiantly to
chant the Creed. Meynell, with the old yet stately Bishop leaning on his
arm, passed them with a friendly, quiet look. He caught sight for a
moment of the tall form of Fenton, standing at their rear--the long face
ascetically white, and sternly fixed.

He left the Bishop at the gates of the Palace, and went back quickly for
Mary. Suddenly he ran into an advancing figure and found his hand grasped
by Dornal.

The two men gazed at each other.

"You were not there?" said Meynell, wondering.

"I was." Dornal hesitated a moment, and then his blue eyes melted and
clouded.

"And there was one man there--not a Modernist--who grieved, like a
Modernist, over the future!"

"Ah, the future!" said Meynell, throwing his head back. "That is not for
you or me--not for the bishops, nor for that body which we call the
Church--that is for _England_ to settle."

* * * * *

But another meeting remained.

At the parting with Dornal, Meynell turned a corner and saw in front of
him, walking alone, a portly gentleman, with a broad and substantial
back. A start ran through him. After a moment's hesitation, he began to
quicken his steps, and soon overtook the man in question.

Barron--for it was he--stopped in some astonishment, some confusion even,
which he endeavoured to hide. Meynell held out his hand--rather timidly;
and Barron just touched it.

"I have been attending the service at St. Mathias," he said, stiffly.

"I imagined so," said Meynell, walking on beside him, and quite
unconscious of the fact that a passing group of clergy opposite were
staring across the street in amazement at the juxtaposition of the two
men, both well known to them. "Did it satisfy you?"

"Certainly. Fenton surpassed himself."

"He has a great gift," said Meynell, heartily. They moved on in silence,
till at last Meynell said, with renewed hesitation--"Will you allow me to
inquire after Maurice? I hope your mind is more at ease about him."

"He is doing well--for the moment." Another pause--broken by Barron, who
said hurriedly in a different voice--"I got from him the whole story of
the letters. There was nothing deliberate in it. It was a sudden,
monkeyish impulse. He didn't mean as much harm by it as another man would
have meant."

"No doubt," said Meynell, struck with pity, as he looked at the sunken
face of the speaker. "And anyway--bygones are bygones. I hope your
daughter is well?"

"Quite well, I thank you. We are just going abroad."

There was no more to be said. Meynell knew very well that the orthodox
party had no room in its ranks, at that moment, for Henry Barron; and it
was not hard to imagine what exclusion and ostracism must mean to
such a temper. But the generous compunctions in his own mind could find
no practical expression; and after a few more words they parted.

* * * * *

Next morning, while every newspaper in the country was eagerly discussing
the events at Dunchester, Catharine, in the solitude of Long Whindale,
and with a full two hours yet to wait for the carrier who brought the
papers from Whinborough, was pondering letters from Rose and Mary written
from Dunchester on the preceding afternoon. Her prayer-book lay beside
her. Before the post arrived she had been reading by herself the Psalms
and Lessons, according to the old-fashioned custom of her youth.

The sweetness of Mary's attempt to bring out everything in the Modernist
demonstration that might be bearable or even consoling to Catharine, and
to leave untold what must pain her, was not lost upon her mother.
Catharine sat considering it, in a reverie half sorrow, half tenderness,
her thin hands clasped upon the letter:

* * * * *

"Mother, beloved!--Richard and I talked of you all the way back to the
Palace; and though there were many people waiting to see him, he is
writing to you now; and so am I. Through it all, he feels so near to
you--and to my father; so truly your son, your most loving son....

"Dearest--I am troubled to hear from Alice this morning that yesterday
you were tired and even went to lie down. I know my too Spartan mother
doesn't do that without ten times as much reason as other people. Oh! do
take care of yourself, my precious one. To-morrow, I fly back to you with
all my news. And you will meet me with that love of yours which has
never failed me, as it never failed my father. It will take Richard and
me a life time to repay it. But we'll try! ... Dear love to my poor
Alice. I have written separately to her."

* * * * *

Rose's letter was in another vein.

* * * * *

"Dearest Catharine, it is all over--a splendid show, and Richard has come
out of it finely, though I must say he looks at times more like a ghost
than a man. From the Church point of view, dear, you were wise not to
come, for your feelings must have been sadly mixed, and you might have
been compelled to take Privy Council proceedings against yourself. I need
not say that Hugh and I felt an ungodly delight in it--in the crowd and
the excitement--in Richard's sermon--in the dear, long-nosed old Bishop
(rather like a camel, between you and me, but a very saintly one) and in
the throng of foolish youths from the Theological College who seemed to
think they settled everything by singing the Creed at us. (What a pity
you can't enjoy the latest description of the Athanasian Creed! It is by
a Quaker. He compares it to 'the guesses of a ten-year old child at the
contents of his father's library.' Hugh thinks it good--but I don't
expect you to.)"

* * * * *

Then followed a vivacious account of the day and its happenings.

"And now comes the real tug of war. In a few weeks the poor Modernists
will be all camping in tents, it seems, by the wayside. Very touching and
very exciting. But I am getting too sleepy to think about it. Dear
Cathie--I run on--but I love you. Please keep well. Good-bye."

* * * * *

Catharine laid the letter down, still smiling against her will over some
of its chatter, and unconsciously made happy by the affection that
breathed from its pages no less than from Mary's.

Yet certainly she was very tired. She became sharply conscious of her
physical weakness as she sat on by the fire, now thinking of her Mary,
and now listening for Alice's step upon the stairs. Alice had grown very
dear to Catharine, partly for her own sake, and partly because to be in
bitter need and helplessness was to be sure of Catharine's tenderness.
Very possibly they two, when Mary married, might make their home
together. And Catharine promised herself to bring calm at least and
loving help to one who had suffered so much.

The window was half open to the first mild day of March; beside it stood
a bowl of growing daffodils, and a pot of freesias that scented the room.
Outside a robin was singing, the murmur of the river came up through
the black buds of the ash-trees, and in the distance a sheep-dog could be
heard barking on the fells. So quiet it was--the spring sunshine--and so
sweet. Back into Catharine's mind there flowed the memory of her own
love-story in the valley; her hand trembled again in the hand of her
lover.

Then with a sudden onset her mortal hour came upon her. She tried to
move, to call, and could not. There was no time for any pain of parting.
For one remaining moment of consciousness there ran through the brain
the images, affections, adorations of her life. Swift, incredibly swift,
the vision of an opening glory--a heavenly throng!... Then the tired
eyelids fell, the head lay heavily on the cushion behind it, and in the
little room the song of the robin and the murmur of the stream flowed
on--unheard.


THE END

Site of the Week: The International Literary Quarterly

An intricate, kaleidoscopic, all-embracing history of 20th-century music from Mahler to La Monte Young is the winner of this year's Guardian first book award. Alex Ross's The Rest Is Noise was the clear and undisputed winner of the £10,000 prize, which has been presented at a ceremony in central London tonight.

The chair of the judging panel, Guardian literary editor Claire Armitstead, said: "In some quarters this book has been seen as not having a popular appeal. Our prize – which, uniquely, relies on readers' groups in the early stages of judging – proves that, on the contrary, there is a huge appetite among readers for clear, serious but accessible books."

According to one judge: "Where Ross lifts his book above the 'expert' and impressive to the 'good read' category is in the way he wears his learning lightly, never clutches for false or contrived ways of explaining music, and never dumbs down in order to explain."

One of the members of the Waterstone's reading groups, who helped in the judging process, said: "Every time I felt overwhelmed by the technicalities, along came a sublime metaphor or simile that would light up the prose."

Ross, who is the music critic of the New Yorker, has distilled a lifetime's enthusiasm and learning into a rich narrative of musical history, setting the works of Mahler, Schoenberg, John Cage and the rest into their cultural and political contexts – but also giving a vivid sense of what the music he describes actually sounds and feels like.

Of all the artforms, modern and contemporary classical music is often seen as the most rebarbative. Ross brushes aside the mythology of 20th-century music's "inaccessibility" as he charts its meandering histories. Along the way, fascinating connections are made: hip-hop has more in common with Janacek than you might think; Arnold Schoenberg and George Gershwin were tennis partners; Gershwin, in turn, was an ardent fan of Alban Berg and kept an autographed photo of the composer of Lulu in his apartment. If there is an overarching idea to the book, it is perhaps contained in Berg's pronouncement to Gershwin: "Mr Gershwin, music is music."

Ross, 40, was born in Washington DC, and studied English and history at Harvard. An enthusiastic teenage musician and student broadcaster, he began writing music criticism after university and in 1996 was appointed music critic of the New Yorker. His blog – also called The Rest Is Noise – has been a trailblazer in harnessing the internet as a way of amplifying (often literally) his writing on music.

The New York Review of Books described The Rest Is Noise as "by far the liveliest and smartest popular introduction yet written to a century of diverse music". The Economist noted: "No other critic writing in English can so effectively explain why you like a piece, or beguile you to reconsider it, or prompt you to hurry online and buy a recording."

Nicholas Kenyon, managing director of the Barbican and a former Observer music critic, said: "At a time when people are still talking about 20th-century music as if it were a problem, here is a lucid and entertaining book about what I regard as some of the greatest music ever written. It's a wonderful way to advance the cause of 20th-century music to an ordinary, intelligent general reader. It's the ideal mix of enthusiasm and information."

This year's judging panel comprised novelist Roddy Doyle; broadcaster and novelist Francine Stock; poet Daljit Nagra; the historian David Kynaston; novelist Kate Mosse and Guardian deputy editor, Katharine Viner. Stuart Broom of Waterstone's also joined the deliberations, speaking as the representative of the readers' groups.

The other books on the shortlist were Mohammed Hanif's A Case of Exploding Mangoes; Ross Raisin's God's Own Country; Steve Toltz's A Fraction of the Whole (which was also shortlisted for the Man Booker prize) and Owen Matthews's Stalin's Children.

Previous winners of the prize have included Stuart: A Life Backwards by Alexander Masters (2005) and Zadie Smith's White Teeth (2000).

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