XLII
Thevery remarkable news from New York gave Brandon, for the rest of his brief stay at Hart’s Ghyll, a feeling of almost perilous exhilaration. Since his recovery, less than a year ago, his whole life had been a subtle embodiment of the miraculous. And the letter from Urban Meyer had intensified the sense of the miraculous to such a degree, that at first it hardly seemed possible to meet the bald facts of the case in its new aspect and remain perfectly rational. For more years than Brandon cared to count, he had held the cold faith that miracles do not occur; it had now been proved to him, beyond a doubt, that miracles do occur, and he had to face the truth squarely, and yet continue in the work of the world.
To make his task the more difficult, he could not help feeling that his present job was one for which he was ill-qualified; certainly it was not the one he would have chosen. Somehow it filled him with a deep repugnance to train others in the art of killing, even in the art of killing the Hun; but it was not for him to decide where such powers as he had could beof most use to the state. He did not quarrel with the edict which declared him unfit for the trenches, but there were times when he would almost have preferred their particularly foul brand of boredom to the dismal routine of acquiring a parade voice, and the grind of rubbing up his mathematics, a branch of knowledge in which he had never shone.
It came to him, therefore, with a sense of grateful relief, when one day, about a week after he had returned to his unit, a letter reached him of an informal friendliness, yet written on government paper. It said:
Whitehall,December 2.My dear Brandon:If a square peg can be persuaded to forsake a round hole, some of us here feel that the country might make a more profitable use of your services, that is to say, there is an opportunity to give your highly specialized qualities freer play. A ministry of Social Reconstruction is being formed, to deal mainly with post-war problems—it is not quite our English way to take time by the forelock in this audacious fashion, but some of our Colonial friends are teaching us a thing or two—and last night in conversation with Prowse and Mortimer among others, your name came up. We agreed that your particular light is not one to hide under a bushel of coal. One shudders to think of the number of tricks of the kind that have been played already, but at last we are beginning to realize that the country can’t afford it. So if you willconsent to work under Prowse, with or without payment, I think the War Office can be persuaded to spare you for a larger sphere of usefulness.Yours ever,George Speke.
Whitehall,
December 2.
My dear Brandon:
If a square peg can be persuaded to forsake a round hole, some of us here feel that the country might make a more profitable use of your services, that is to say, there is an opportunity to give your highly specialized qualities freer play. A ministry of Social Reconstruction is being formed, to deal mainly with post-war problems—it is not quite our English way to take time by the forelock in this audacious fashion, but some of our Colonial friends are teaching us a thing or two—and last night in conversation with Prowse and Mortimer among others, your name came up. We agreed that your particular light is not one to hide under a bushel of coal. One shudders to think of the number of tricks of the kind that have been played already, but at last we are beginning to realize that the country can’t afford it. So if you willconsent to work under Prowse, with or without payment, I think the War Office can be persuaded to spare you for a larger sphere of usefulness.
Yours ever,
George Speke.
In the depths of his boredom Brandon could have kissed the letter, and have wept for joy. The tact of an expert handler of men, who well understood the bundle of quixotisms with whom he had to deal, had played the tempter’s part with rare success. A letter of that kind left no doubt that the country was about to gain enormously by depleting the Tynesi de Terriers of a morbidly conscientious subaltern, while at the same time enriching a government department with a real live ex-fellow of Gamaliel.
It was not until early in the new year, however, that Brandon was transferred to a wooden structure in Saint James’s Park, the headquarters of the newly-created department. He was almost ashamed to find how much more congenial was the work he had now to do. To the really constructive mind, there is something repellent in the naïve formulas, and the crude paraphernalia of mere destruction. Here in the new “billet†was scope for a rather special order of brain. He was able to look forward to a future in which a new England would arise. There were already portentsin the sky, portents which told him that the world of the future was going to be a very different place from the world of the past. Much depended on whether the grim specter of war could be laid with reasonable finality for a long time to come, but from the day in which he took up his new labors he did not doubt that, whatever the final fate of Prussia, the issue of Armageddon itself would be a nobler, a broader spirit in the old land which he loved so dearly, and a freer, humaner world for every race that had to live in it.
His position in the Social Reconstruction Bureau was one of importance. Long before the war, even before he came into the Hart’s Ghyll property, it had been his ambition to make the world a rather better place for other people to inhabit. And the opportunities which came to him now gave rare scope to a reawakened energy. A marvelous field had been offered to this protagonist of works and faith.
In spite of the last terrible clinch in which the new world as well as the old was now involved, these were great days for Brandon. His powers burgeoned nobly in the service of that nation which had now definitely emerged, in spite of all her limitations and her legacies from the past, as the banner bearer of civilization.
Deep in his heart lay the faith that through bloodand tears the whole race of men would be born again. And month by month that faith grew, even amid the final stupendous phase when the specter of famine stalked through the land. Moreover, he had a sense of personal election. A promise had been made to him, and through him, to his fellows. “One unconverted believer†was now the living witness that all the old prophecies were true.
Every living thing in the world around him, of which a supernal Being was the center, had a new meaning, a new force, a new divinity. Unsuspected powers were now his; latent faculties allowed him to live more abundantly. He looked up where once a skeptic’s eye had looked down, and the difference was that between a life in the full glory of light and sorry groping in darkness.
The news always reaching him of the growth of the miracle was now the motive power of a great belief, yet to one able to trace it from the germ it hardly seemed credible or at the best too good to be true. From many sources there came tidings of the new force at work in the world. The play was making history; wherever it appeared, reverberations followed. From one end of North America to the other, it had gone like fire. Irenic in tone and intention itmight be, but also within it was that which raised it above party and above creed.
The people who saw and heard “A Play Without a Name†were able to fulfill Urban Meyer’s prediction. A great world religion had found a miraculous birth in the theater. By the wave of an enchanter’s wand, the stage had become an inspired teacher who received the sanction of the few, and met the need of the many. The message it had to deliver was simple as truth itself, yet the divine charm of its setting forth haunted even the smallest soul with a magic glimpse of the Kingdom of the Something Else. The play’s appeal was so remarkable that many who saw it simply lived for the time when they could see it again. It was a draught from the waters of Helicon; and, for them who drank of the Pierian spring, arose enchanted vistas of what the world might be if love and fellowship, works and faith, were allowed to remake it.
Urban Meyer had said that the world might be born again through the power of a great play. And in the first months of its production the signs were many that he was a true prophet. Through the wedding of insight with beauty, sympathy with truth, it reconciled factions, harmonized creeds.
Those who asked too much of life rejoiced as greatly in its sovereign humanity as those who askedtoo little. A divine simplicity spoke to all sorts of men. The pillar of the Church and the despiser of all religions, the over-good and the average person received from the well of a pure and infinite love, a new evidence, a new portent of the risen Christ.
It was said of those who saw it, that they were never quite the same afterward. An enchantment was laid upon the heart of man. Feeling, humor, imaginative truth, formed the basis of its triumph. A desire to do good was evoked, not because it was a sound spiritual investment or because others might be induced to do good to oneself, but it made of well-doing a natural act, like the eating of food or the drawing of breath.
Among the evidences of the new magic now at work in the world was a remarkable letter which Brandon received at the beginning of February. It said:
Independence Theater,New York,January 24.Dear Mr. Brandon:I cannot tell you what an effect the play is making here. You will remember that, when I read it, I set my heart on the greatest production ever seen. And it was because the spirit of the play made mefeelthat I owed it to a world which had suffered me sixty-eight years, in which I had prospered exceedingly, and from which I have on the whole derived much happiness. Well, aftermany unforeseen trials, difficulties and disappointments, this aim has been achieved. Having at last brought together the cast I wanted, with great players in the chief parts, and having made sure of a noble interpretation, I opened the doors of this theater, for the first time in its history, at a democratic price, so that the downtown seamstress could have a glimpse of the Something Else, as well as her sister on Fifth Avenue.That was not the act of a man of business, although it has proved a business action. I am not out to make money by this play. I don’t want to make money out of it, because I feel, and this will make you smile, that it’s like trafficking in the Word of God. But under the terms of the contract entered into between us on behalf of the unknown author, who I am sorry to learn from Mr. Pomfret is seriously ill, large sums are going to be earned by it in all parts of the world. In the course of the next few months it will be played here and in Canada, by at least fifty stock companies. Next month I start for Stockholm, in order to produce it at the state theater. Christiansen, the poet, has prepared a version which I believe to have true inspiration. As you know, his reputation has European significance, and several of his German friends, among them the Director of the National Theater, will be present at the first performance. The fame of the play has already reached Europe, and Christiansen hopes for an early performance in Berlin. Arrangements are also being made in Paris, Rome, Petrograd, and Vienna, and in the course of a few months I expect versions of it to appear in all these places. Van Roon’s beautiful version for the Hague, Hjalmar’s for Christiania and Ximena’s for Madrid, will be produced within a few weeks, so you see that the grass is not growing under our feet.There is every reason to look for great developments. It is hoped that the play may be a means of keeping open the door for civilization.Believe me, dear Mr. Brandon,Very sincerely yours,Urban Meyer.P.S. I have just heard that the play has been awarded the Nobel Prize for peace. Christiansen writes that he has been asked to go to England and offer an address to the author on behalf of the Scandinavian Government.U. M.
Independence Theater,
New York,
January 24.
Dear Mr. Brandon:
I cannot tell you what an effect the play is making here. You will remember that, when I read it, I set my heart on the greatest production ever seen. And it was because the spirit of the play made mefeelthat I owed it to a world which had suffered me sixty-eight years, in which I had prospered exceedingly, and from which I have on the whole derived much happiness. Well, aftermany unforeseen trials, difficulties and disappointments, this aim has been achieved. Having at last brought together the cast I wanted, with great players in the chief parts, and having made sure of a noble interpretation, I opened the doors of this theater, for the first time in its history, at a democratic price, so that the downtown seamstress could have a glimpse of the Something Else, as well as her sister on Fifth Avenue.
That was not the act of a man of business, although it has proved a business action. I am not out to make money by this play. I don’t want to make money out of it, because I feel, and this will make you smile, that it’s like trafficking in the Word of God. But under the terms of the contract entered into between us on behalf of the unknown author, who I am sorry to learn from Mr. Pomfret is seriously ill, large sums are going to be earned by it in all parts of the world. In the course of the next few months it will be played here and in Canada, by at least fifty stock companies. Next month I start for Stockholm, in order to produce it at the state theater. Christiansen, the poet, has prepared a version which I believe to have true inspiration. As you know, his reputation has European significance, and several of his German friends, among them the Director of the National Theater, will be present at the first performance. The fame of the play has already reached Europe, and Christiansen hopes for an early performance in Berlin. Arrangements are also being made in Paris, Rome, Petrograd, and Vienna, and in the course of a few months I expect versions of it to appear in all these places. Van Roon’s beautiful version for the Hague, Hjalmar’s for Christiania and Ximena’s for Madrid, will be produced within a few weeks, so you see that the grass is not growing under our feet.
There is every reason to look for great developments. It is hoped that the play may be a means of keeping open the door for civilization.
Believe me, dear Mr. Brandon,
Very sincerely yours,
Urban Meyer.
P.S. I have just heard that the play has been awarded the Nobel Prize for peace. Christiansen writes that he has been asked to go to England and offer an address to the author on behalf of the Scandinavian Government.
U. M.