Cox, Introduction to Policing 3rd Edition Instructor Resource

Introduction to Policing 3rd Edition Cox

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Chapter 5: Police Training and Education

Test Bank

1. Most police agencies currently require a college degree as a minimum for employment as a police officer.
a. True
*b. False
Learning objective number: 1
Cognitive domain: Comprehension
Question type: TF

2. The paradox in the current state of police training is that the majority of training is designed to teach police
officers what they will be doing during a small percentage of their on-duty time.
*a. True
b. False
Learning objective number: 4
Cognitive domain: Analysis
Question type: TF

3. A college degree, regardless of specialization, is regarded as an asset in preparing an individual for the job of
policing.
*a. True
b. False
Learning objective number: 1
Cognitive domain: Analysis
Question type: TF

4. Many agencies have no requirements for continuing education for officers once they have passed their
academy training.
*a. True
b. False
Learning objective number: 5
Cognitive domain: Knowledge
Question type: TF

5. Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) commissions do not operate in all states.
a. True
*b. False
Learning objective number: 4, 5
Cox, Introduction to Policing 3rd Edition Instructor Resource

Cognitive domain: Analysis

Question type: TF

6. According to the Police Association for College Education (PACE), higher education is beneficial because it
provides additional years and experiences for increasing maturity and improves attitudes toward minority
groups.
*a. True
b. False
Learning objective number: 2
Cognitive domain: Comprehension
Question type: TF

7. Less than half of police training facilities have an educational requirement for full-time trainers.
a. True
*b. False
Learning objective number: 5
Cognitive domain: Comprehension
Question type: TF

8. One of the major purposes in police training is to enhance and strengthen the communication skills of police
cadets.
*a. True
b. False
Learning objective number: 3
Cognitive domain: Comprehension
Question type: TF

9. Virtually every national commission on the police over the past half century has contended there is a need for
higher education for police officers.
a. True
*b. False
Learning objective number: 2
Cognitive domain: Analysis
Question type: TF

10. The reason training courses such as survival techniques, patrol techniques, criminal investigation, and use-
of-force are among the most popular courses is because many officers still view these aspects of the police role
as the most important—a carryover from the 1960s and 1970s.
*a. True
b. False
Learning objective number: 4
Cognitive domain: Comprehension
Question type: TF

11. It is cheaper to offer online training to officers than traditional in-classroom courses.
*a. True
b. False
Learning objective number: 4
Cognitive domain: Analysis
Question type: TF
Cox, Introduction to Policing 3rd Edition Instructor Resource

12. When done properly, field training should extend and build upon academy training.
*a. True
b. False
Learning objective number: 3, 4
Cognitive domain: Comprehension
Question type: TF

13. Informal discussions with police executives indicate that college education is of considerable importance
and that increased education requirements are inevitable.
*a. True
b. False
Learning objective number: 2
Cognitive domain: Comprehension
Question type: TF

14. The selection process of incoming police officer recruits could be argued for as a means of protecting the
investments of the police department in training.
*a. True
b. False
Learning objective number: 3
Cognitive domain: Comprehension
Question type: TF

15. An FTO does not have the power to determine if a police officer candidate is unfit for the position of full-
fledged police officer.
a. True
*b. False
Learning objective number: 3, 4
Cognitive domain: Comprehension
Question type: TF

16. During the probationary period of a police officer’s hire, he still has the protections as outlined in his police
union contract.
a. True
*b. False
Learning objective number: 3
Cognitive domain: Comprehension
Question type: TF

17. The rationalization that police spend the most time training officers on tactical operations, including use of
force, driving skills, and firearms, is because these items are the least expensive concepts to teach.
a. True
*b. False
Learning objective number: 4
Cognitive domain: Comprehension
Question type: TF

18. Police chiefs with more education score higher than their less educated counterparts on their performance
and leadership abilities as assessed by the city managers who work with them.
Cox, Introduction to Policing 3rd Edition Instructor Resource

*a. True
b. False
Learning objective number: 1
Cognitive domain: Comprehension
Question type: TF

19. The reason some police departments prefer to hire college graduates, regardless of what their degree is in, is
because they have a greater knowledge in a broader range of subjects that are not limited to the field of policing.
*a. True
b. False
Learning objective number: 1
Cognitive domain: Comprehension
Question type: TF

20. Report writing is considered to be a “nonnegotiable skill” for police officers.

*a. True
b. False
Learning objective number: 1
Cognitive domain: Comprehension
Question type: TF

21. Training among police should be highly specialized and thus not interrelated.
a. True
*b. False
Learning objective number: 1
Cognitive domain: Analysis
Question type: TF

22. Which of the following is not an impediment to hiring more educated officers?
a. Officers are not likely to hire an officer with more education than themselves.
b. The pool of potential officer candidates is limited when education requirements are implemented.
*c. The higher-educated officers are likely to hold questionable views of minorities.
d. A and C are true, but not B.
Learning objective number: 5
Cognitive domain: Analysis
Question type: MC

23. By 2016, it is anticipated that what percentage of police officers in the United States will hold a bachelor’s
degree?
a. 13%
*b. 33%
c. 67%
d. 55%
Learning objective number: 1
Cognitive domain: Knowledge
Question type: MC

24. Which of the following is true about field training?

a. Nonformalized training is preferred because it allows for progress to be assessed better.
b. It is better to have just one trainer to avoid confusing expectations.
Cox, Introduction to Policing 3rd Edition Instructor Resource

*c. Good FTOs teach their trainees how to deal with problems in ways other than the use of physical force.
d. Less than 25% of all complaints in municipal agencies pertained to the use of verbiage and the demeanor of
the officer thanks to good FTOs.
Learning objective number: 4
Cognitive domain: Analysis
Question type: MC

25. Which of the following was historically the desired qualification of police officers?
a. strategic tactical skills
b. advanced decision making
*c. physical strength
d. thoughtful and enlightened communication
Learning objective number: 3
Cognitive domain: Knowledge
Question type: MC

26. Which of the following is the professional organization dedicated to the professionalization of law
enforcement that is formerly known as the American Police Foundation?
*a. Police Association for College Education
b. National Police Association
c. Advocates for Police College Education
d. National Collegiate Police Foundation
Learning objective number: 1
Cognitive domain: Knowledge
Question type: MC

27. What percentage of police officers surveyed indicated that there is no established link between formal
educational attainment and promotion within the ranks?
a. 16%
b. 27%
*c. 65%
d. 83%
Learning objective number: 1, 5
Cognitive domain: Knowledge
Question type: MC

28. Which of the following would not be attributed to poor training in officers?
a. Inaccurate assessments of situations
b. Feeling overly confident in their individual abilities
c. Lack of self-confidence in their individual abilities
*d. Reasonable use of force as needed
Learning objective number: 4
Cognitive domain: Analysis
Question type: MC

29. Which of the following is true about continued professional education?

a. Very few police personnel receive periodic in-service training due to the costs.
*b. Inadequate police training may constitute a jurisdictional liability.
c. All of the above
d. None of the above
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 “It will be difficult of course, but he can try,” returned the monk.
—“Let him first cover the disc with thick, dark drapery, and then, when
it is face to face with the stars in the zenith, uncover it quickly, keeping
his eyes fixed on its surface. In one minute there will be three distinct
flashes—the third is from Mars. Let him endeavour to follow that third
ray in its course on the disc, and probably he will arrive at something
worth remark. This suggestion I offer by way of assisting him, for his
patient labour is both wonderful and pathetic,—but,—it would be far
better and wiser were he to resign his task altogether. Yet—who knows!
—the ordained end may be the best!”
“And do you know this ‘ordained end’?” questioned El-Râmi.
The monk met his incredulous gaze calmly.
“I know it as I know yours,” he replied. “As I know my own, and the
end (or beginning) of all those who are, or who have been, in any way
connected with my life and labours.”
“How can you know!” exclaimed El-Râmi brusquely.—“Who is there
to tell you these things that are surely hidden in the future?”
“Even as a picture already hangs in an artist’s brain before it is
painted,” said the monk,—“so does every scene of each human unit’s life
hang, embryo-like, in air and space, in light and colour. Explanations of
these things are well-nigh impossible—it is not given to mortal speech to
tell them. One must see,—and to see clearly, one must not become
wilfully blind.” He paused,—then added—“For instance, El-Râmi, I
would that you could see this room as I see it.”
El-Râmi looked about half carelessly, half wonderingly.
“And do I not?” he asked.
The monk stretched out his hand.
“Tell me first,—is there anything visible between this my extended
arm and you?”
El-Râmi shook his head.
“Nothing.”
Whereupon the monk raised his eyes, and in a low thrilling voice said
solemnly—
“O God with whom Thought is Creation and Creation Thought, for
one brief moment be pleased to lift material darkness from the sight of
this man Thy subject-creature, and by Thy sovereign-power permit him
to behold with mortal eyes, in mortal life, Thy deathless Messenger!”
Scarcely had these words been pronounced than El-Râmi was
conscious of a blinding flash of fire as though sudden lightning had
struck the room from end to end. Confused and dazzled, he instinctively
covered his eyes with his hand, then removing it, looked up, stupefied,
speechless, and utterly overwhelmed at what he saw. Clear before him
stood a wondrous Shape, seemingly human, yet unlike humanity,—a
creature apparently composed of radiant colour, from whose
transcendent form great shafts of gold and rose and purple spread
upward and around in glowing lines of glory. This marvellous Being
stood, or rather was poised in a steadfast attitude, between him, El-Râmi,
and the monk,—its luminous hands were stretched out on either side as
though to keep those twain asunder—its starry eyes expressed an earnest
watchfulness—its majestic patience never seemed to tire. A thing of
royal stateliness and power, it stayed there immovable, parting with its
radiant intangible Presence the two men who gazed upon it, one with
fearless, reverent, yet accustomed eyes—the other with a dazzled and
bewildered stare. Another moment and El-Râmi at all risks would have
spoken,—but that the Shining Figure lifted its light-crowned head and
gazed at him. The wondrous look appalled him,—unnerved him,—the
straight, pure brilliancy and limpid lustre of those unearthly orbs sent
shudders through him,—he gasped for breath—thrust out his hands, and
fell on his knees in a blind, unconscious, swooning act of adoration,
mingled with a sense of awe and something like despair,—when a dense
chill darkness as of death closed over him, and he remembered nothing
more.
 XXII.

W he came to himself, it was full daylight. His head was resting on

some one’s knee,—some one was sprinkling cold water on his face and
talking to him in an incoherent mingling of Arabic and English,—who
was that some one? Féraz? Yes!—surely it was Féraz! Opening his eyes
languidly, he stared about him and attempted to rise.
“What is the matter?” he asked faintly. “What are you doing to me? I
am quite well, am I not?”
“Yes, yes!” cried Féraz eagerly, delighted to hear him speak.—“You
are well,—it was a swoon that seized you—nothing more! But I was
anxious,—I found you here insensible——”
With an effort El-Râmi rose to his feet, steadying himself on his
brother’s arm.
“Insensible!” he repeated vaguely.—“Insensible!—that is strange!—I
must have been very weak and tired—and overpowered. But,—where is
He?”
“If you mean the Master,” said Féraz, lowering his voice to an almost
awe-stricken whisper—“He has gone, and left no trace,—save that
sealed paper there upon your table.”
El-Râmi shook himself free of his brother’s hold and hurried forward
to possess himself of the indicated missive,—seizing it, he tore it quickly
open,—it contained but one line—“Beware the end! With Lilith’s love
comes Lilith’s freedom.”
That was all. He read it again and again—then deliberately striking a
match, he set fire to it and burnt it to ashes. A rapid glance round showed
him that the manuscripts concerning Neptune and Sirius were gone,—the
mysterious monk had evidently taken them with him as desired. Then he
turned again to his brother.
“When could he have gone?” he demanded.—“Did you not hear the
street-door open and shut?—no sound at all of his departure?”
Féraz shook his head.
“I slept heavily,” he said apologetically. “But in my dreams it seemed
as though a hand touched me, and I awoke. The sun was shining
brilliantly—some one called ‘Féraz! Féraz!’—I thought it was your
voice, and I hurried into the room to find you, as I thought, dead,—oh!
the horror of that moment of suspense!”
El-Râmi looked at him kindly, and smiled.
 “Why feel horror, my dear boy?” he inquired.—“Death—or what we
call death,—is the best possible fortune for everybody. Even if there
were no afterwards, it would still be an end—an end of trouble and
tedium and infinite uncertainty. Could anything be happier?—I doubt it!”
And, sighing, he threw himself into his chair with an air of exhaustion.
Féraz stood a little apart, gazing at him somewhat wistfully—then he
spoke—
“I too have thought that, El-Râmi,” he said softly.—“As to whether
this end, which the world and all men dread, might not be the best thing?
And yet my own personal sensations tell me that life means something
good for me if I only learn how best to live it.”
“Youth, my dear fellow!” said El-Râmi lightly. “Delicious youth,—
which you share in common with the scampering colt who imagines all
the meadows of the world were made for him to race upon. This is the
potent charm which persuades you that life is agreeable. But
unfortunately it will pass,—this rosy morning-glory. And the older you
grow the wiser and the sadder you will be,—I, your brother, am an
excellent example of the truth of this platitude.”
“You are not old,” replied Féraz quickly. “But certainly you are often
sad. You overwork your brain. For example, last night of course you did
not sleep—will you sleep now?”
“No—I will breakfast,” said El-Râmi, rousing himself to seem
cheerful.—“A good cup of coffee is one of the boons of existence—and
no one can make it as you do. It will put the finishing touch to my
complete recovery.”
Féraz took this hint, and hastened off to prepare the desired beverage,
—while El-Râmi, left alone, sat for a few moments wrapped in a deep
reverie. His thoughts reverted to and dwelt upon the strange and glorious
Figure he had seen standing in that very room between him and the
monk,—he wondered doubtfully if such a celestial visitant were
anywhere near him now? Shaking off the fantastic impression, he got up
and walked to and fro.
“What a fool I am!” he exclaimed half aloud—“As if my eyes could
not be as much deluded for once in a way as the eyes of any one else! It
was a strange shape,—a marvellously divine-looking apparition;—but he
evolved it—he is as great a master in the art of creating phantasma as
Moses himself, and could, if he chose, make thunder echo at his will on
another Mount Sinai. Upon my word, the things that men can do are as
wonderful as the things that they would fain attempt; and the only
miraculous part of this particular man’s force is that he should have
overpowered M , seeing I am so strong. And then one other marvel—(if
it be true),—he could see the Soul of Lilith.”
Here he came to a full stop in his walk, and with his eyes fixed on
vacancy he repeated musingly—
“He could see the Soul of Lilith. If that is so—if that is possible, then I
will see it too, if I die in the attempt. To see the Soul—to look upon it
and know its form—to discern the manner of its organisation, would
surely be to prove it. Sight can be deceived, we know—we look upon a
star (or think we look upon it), that may have disappeared some thirty
thousand years ago, as it takes thirty thousand years for its reflex to reach
us—all that is true—but there are ways of guarding against deception.”
He had now struck upon a new line of thought,—ideas more daring
than he had ever yet conceived began to flit through his brain,—and
when Féraz came in with the breakfast he partook of that meal with
avidity and relish, his excellent appetite entirely reassuring his brother
with regard to his health.
“You are right, Féraz,” he said, as he sipped his coffee.—“Life can be
made enjoyable after a fashion, no doubt. But the best way to get
enjoyment out of it is to be always at work—always putting a brick in to
help the universal architecture.”
Féraz was silent. El-Râmi looked at him inquisitively.
“Don’t you agree with me?” he asked.
“No—not entirely”—and Féraz pushed the clustering hair off his brow
with a slightly troubled gesture.—“Work may become as monotonous
and wearisome as anything else if we have too much of it. If we are
always working—that is, if we are always obtruding ourselves into
affairs and thinking they cannot get on without us, we make an
obstruction in the way, I think—we are not a help. Besides, we leave
ourselves no time to absorb suggestions, and I fancy a great deal is
learned by simply keeping the brain quiet and absorbing light.”
“‘Absorbing light’?” queried his brother perplexedly—“What do you
mean?”
“Well, it is difficult to explain my meaning,” said Féraz with hesitation
—“but yet I feel there is truth in what I try to express. You see,
everything absorbs something, and you will assuredly admit that the
brain absorbs certain impressions?”
“Of course,—but impressions are not ‘light’?”
“Are they not? Not even the effects of light? Then what is the art of
photography? However, I do not speak of the impressions received from
our merely external surroundings. If you can relieve the brain from
conscious thought,—if you have the power to shake off outward
suggestions and be willing to think of nothing personal, your brain will
receive impressions which are to some extent new, and with which you
actually have very little connection. It is strange,—but it is so;—you
become obediently receptive, and perhaps wonder where your ideas
come from. I say they are the result of light. Light can use up immense
periods of time in travelling from a far distant star into our area of vision,
and yet at last we see it,—shall not God’s inspiration travel at a far
swifter pace than star-beams, and reach the human brain as surely? This
thought has often startled me,—it has filled me with an almost
apprehensive awe,—the capabilities it opens up are so immense and
wonderful. Even a man can suggest ideas to his fellow-man and cause
them to germinate in the mind and blossom into action,—how can we
deny to God the power to do the same? And so,—imagine it!—the first
strain of the glorious Tannhäuser may have been played on the harps of
Heaven, and rolling sweetly through infinite space may have touched in
fine far echoes the brain of the musician who afterwards gave it form and
utterance—ah yes!—I would love to think it were so!—I would love to
think that nothing,—nothing is truly ours; but that all the marvels of
poetry, of song, of art, of colour, of beauty, were only the echoes and
distant impressions of that eternal grandeur which comes hereafter!”
His eyes flashed with all a poet’s enthusiasm,—he rose from the table
and paced the room excitedly, while his brother, sitting silent, watched
him meditatively.
“El-Râmi, you have no idea,” he continued—“of the wonders and
delights of the land I call my Star! You think it is a dream—an
unexplained portion of a splendid trance,—and I am now fully aware of
what I owe to your magnetic influence,—your forceful spell that rests
upon my life;—but see you!—when I am alone—quite, quite alone,
when you are absent from me, when you are not influencing me, it is
then I see the landscapes best,—it is then I hear my people sing! I let my
brain rest;—as far as it is possible, I think of nothing,—then suddenly
upon me falls the ravishment and ecstasy,—this world rolls up as it were
in a whirling cloud and vanishes, and lo! I find myself at home. There is
a stretch of forest-land in this Star of mine,—a place all dusky green with
shadows, and musical with the fall of silvery waters,—that is my
favourite haunt when I am there, for it leads me on and on through
grasses and tangles of wild flowers to what I know and feel must be my
own abode, where I should rest and sleep if sleep were needful; but this
abode I never reach; I am debarred from entering in, and I do not know
the reason why. The other day, when wandering there, I met two maidens
bearing flowers,—they stopped, regarding me with pleased yet doubting
eyes, and one said—‘Look you, our lord is now returned!’ And the other
sighed and answered—‘Nay! he is still an exile and may not stay with
us.’ Whereupon they bent their heads, and, shrinking past me,
disappeared. When I would have called them back I woke!—to find that
this dull earth was once again my house of bondage.”
El-Râmi heard him with patient interest.
“I do not deny, Féraz,” he said slowly, “that your impressions are very
strange——”
“Very strange? Yes!” cried Féraz. “But very true!”
He paused—then on a sudden impulse came close up to his brother,
and laid a hand on his shoulder.
“And do you mean to tell me,” he asked, “that you who have studied
so much, and have mastered so much, yet receive no such impressions as
those I speak of?”
A faint flush coloured El-Râmi’s olive skin.
“Certain impressions come to me at times, of course,” he answered
slowly.—“And there have been certain seasons in my life when I have
had visions of the impossible. But I have a coldly-tempered organisation,
Féraz,—I am able to reason these things away.”
“Oh, you can reason the whole world away if you choose,” said Féraz.
—“For it is nothing after all but a pinch of star-dust.”
“If you can reason a thing away it does not exist,” observed El-Râmi
drily.—“Reduce the world, as you say, to a pinch of star-dust, still the
pinch of star-dust is there—it Exists.”
“Some people doubt even that!” said Féraz, smiling.
“Well, everything can be over-done,” replied his brother,—“even the
process of reasoning. We can, if we choose, ‘reason’ ourselves into
madness. There is a boundary-line to every science which the human
intellect dare not overstep.”
“I wonder what and where is your boundary-line?” questioned Féraz
lightly.—“Have you laid one down for yourself at all? Surely not!—for
you are too ambitious.”
El-Râmi made no answer to this observation, but betook himself to his
books and papers. Féraz meanwhile set the room in order and cleared
away the breakfast,—and, these duties done, he quietly withdrew. Left to
himself, El-Râmi took from the centre drawer of his writing-table a
medium-sized manuscript book which was locked, and which he opened
by means of a small key that was attached to his watch-chain, and
bending over the title-page he critically examined it. Its heading ran thus
—
 T N R

A Reasonable Theory of Worship conformable to the Eternal and

Unalterable Laws of Nature.

“The title does not cover all the ground,” he murmured as he read.
—“And yet how am I to designate it? It is a vast subject, and presents
different branches of treatment, and, after all said and done, I may have
wasted my time in planning it. Most likely I have,—but there is no
scientist living who would refuse to accept it. The question is, shall I
ever finish it?—shall I ever know positively that there IS, without doubt,
a conscious, personal Something or Some one after death who enters at
once upon another existence? My new experiment will decide all—if I
see the Soul of Lilith, all hesitation will be at an end—I shall be sure of
everything which now seems uncertain. And then the triumph!—then the
victory!”
His eyes sparkled, and, dipping his pen in the ink, he prepared to
write, but ere he did so the message which the monk had left for him to
read recurred with a chill warning to his memory,—
“Beware the end! With Lilith’s love comes Lilith’s freedom.”
He considered the words for a moment apprehensively,—and then a
proud smile played round his mouth.
“For a Master who has attained to some degree of wisdom, his
intuition is strangely erroneous this time,” he muttered. “For if there be
any dream of love in Lilith, that dream, that love is mine! And being
mine, who shall dispute possession,—who shall take her from me? No
one,—not even God,—for He does not break through the laws of Nature.
And by those laws I have kept Lilith—and even so I will keep her still.”
Satisfied with his own conclusions, he began to write, taking up the
thread of his theory of religion where he had left it on the previous day.
He had a brilliant and convincing style, and was soon deep in an
elaborate and eloquent disquisition on the superior scientific reasoning
contained in the ancient Eastern faiths, as compared with the modern
scheme of Christianity, which limits God’s power to this world only, and
takes no consideration of the fate of other visible and far more splendid
spheres.
 XXIII.

T few days immediately following the visit of the mysterious monk

from Cyprus were quiet and uneventful enough. El-Râmi led the life of a
student and recluse; Féraz, too, occupied himself with books and music,
thinking much, but saying little. He had solemnly sworn never again to
make allusion to the forbidden subject of his brother’s great experiment,
and he meant to keep his vow. For, though he had in very truth
absolutely forgotten the name “Lilith,” he had not forgotten the face of
her whose beauty had surprised his senses and dazzled his brain. She had
become to him a nameless Wonder,—and from the sweet remembrance
of her loveliness he gained a certain consolation and pleasure which he
jealously and religiously kept to himself. He thought of her as a poet may
think of an ideal goddess seen in a mystic dream,—but he never ventured
to ask a question concerning her. And even if he had wished to do so,—
even if he had indulged the idea of encouraging Zaroba to follow up the
work she had begun by telling him all she could concerning the beautiful
tranced girl, that course was now impossible. For Zaroba seemed
stricken dumb as well as deaf,—what had chanced to her he could not
tell,—but a mysterious silence possessed her; and, though her large black
eyes were sorrowfully eloquent, she never uttered a word. She came and
went on various household errands, always silently and with bent head,
—she looked older, feebler, wearier and sadder, but not so much as a
gesture escaped her that could be construed into a complaint. Once Féraz
made signs to her of inquiry after her health and well-being—she smiled
mournfully, but gave no other response, and, turning away, left him
hurriedly. He mused long and deeply upon all this,—and, though he felt
sure that Zaroba’s strange but resolute speechlessness was his brother’s
work, he dared not speculate too far or inquire too deeply. For he fully
recognised El-Râmi’s power,—a power so scientifically balanced, and
used with such terrible and unerring precision, that there could be no
opposition possible unless one were of equal strength and knowledge.
Féraz knew he could no more compete with such a force than a mouse
can wield a thunderbolt,—he therefore deemed it best to resign himself
to his destiny and wait the course of events.
“For,” he said within himself, “it is not likely one man should be
permitted to use such strange authority over natural forces long,—it may
be that God is trying him,—putting him to the proof, as it were, to find
out how far he will dare to go,—and then—ah then!—what then? If his
heart were dedicated to the service of God I should not fear,—but—as it
is, I dread the end!”
His instinct was correct in this,—for in spite of his poetic and fanciful
temperament he had plenty of quick perception and he saw plainly what
El-Râmi himself was not very willing to recognise,—namely, that in all
the labour of his life, so far as it had gone, he, El-Râmi, had rather
opposed himself to the unseen divine, than striven to incorporate himself
with it. He preferred to believe in natural Force only; his inclination was
to deny the possibility of anything behind that. He accepted the idea of
Immortality to a certain extent, because natural Force was for ever giving
him proofs of the perpetual regeneration of life—but that there was a
primal source of this generating influence,—One, great and eternal, who
would demand an account of all lives, and an accurate summing-up of all
words and actions,—in this, though he might assume the virtue of faith,
Féraz very well knew he had it not. Like the greater majority of scientists
and natural philosophers generally, what Self could comprehend, he
accepted,—but all that extended beyond Self,—all that made of Self but
a grain of dust in a vast infinitude,—all that forced the creature to
prostrate himself humbly before the Creator and cry out “Lord, be
merciful to me a sinner!” this he tacitly and proudly rejected. For which
reasons the gentle, dreamy Féraz had good cause to fear,—and a
foreboding voice for ever whispered in his mind that man without God
was as a world without light,—a black chaos of blank unfruitfulness.
With the ensuing week the grand “reception” to which El-Râmi and
his brother had been invited by Lord Melthorpe came off with great
éclat. Lady Melthorpe’s “crushes” were among the most brilliant of the
season, and this one was particularly so, as it was a special function held
for the entertainment of the distinguished Crown Prince of a great nation.
True, the distinguished Crown Prince was only “timed” to look in a little
after midnight for about ten minutes, but the exceeding brevity of his
stay was immaterial to the fashionable throng. All that was needed was
just the piquant flavour,—the “passing” of a Royal Presence,—to make
the gathering socially complete. The rooms were crowded—so much so
indeed that it was difficult to take note of any one person in particular,
yet, in spite of this fact, there was a very general movement of interest
and admiration when El-Râmi entered with his young and handsome
brother beside him. Both had a look and manner too distinctly striking to
escape observation:—their olive complexions, black melancholy eyes,
and slim yet stately figures, were set off to perfection by the richness of
the Oriental dresses they wore; and the grave composure and perfect
dignity of their bearing offered a pleasing contrast to the excited pushing,
waddling, and scrambling indulged in by the greater part of the
aristocratic assemblage. Lady Melthorpe herself, a rather pretty woman
attired in a very æsthetic gown, and wearing her brown hair all towzled
and arranged à la Grecque, in diamond bandeaux, caught sight of them
at once, and was delighted. Such picturesque-looking creatures were
really ornaments to a room, she thought with much interior satisfaction;
and, wreathing her face with smiles, she glided up to them.
“I am so charmed, my dear El-Râmi!” she said, holding out her
jewelled hand.—“So charmed to see you—you so very seldom will come
to me! And your brother! So glad! Why did you never tell me you had a
brother? Naughty man! What is your brother’s name? Féraz? Delightful!
—it makes one think of Hafiz and Sadi and all those very charming
Eastern people. I must find some one interesting to introduce to you.
Will you wait here a minute—the crowd is so thick in the centre of the
room that really I’m afraid you will not be able to get through it—do
wait here, and I’ll bring the Baroness to you—don’t you know the
Baroness? Oh, she’s such a delightful creature—so clever at palmistry!
Yes—just stay where you are,—I’ll come back directly!”
And with sundry good-humoured nods her ladyship swept away, while
Féraz glanced at his brother with an expression of amused inquiry.
“That is Lady Melthorpe?” he asked.
“That is Lady Melthorpe,” returned El-Râmi—“our hostess, and Lord
Melthorpe’s wife; his, ‘to have and to hold, for better for worse, for
richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, honour, and cherish
till death do them part,’” and he smiled somewhat satirically.—“It seems
odd, doesn’t it?—I mean, such solemn words sound out of place
sometimes. Do you like her?”
Féraz made a slight sign in the negative.
“She does not speak sincerely,” he said in a low tone.
El-Râmi laughed.
“My dear boy, you mustn’t expect any one to be ‘sincere’ in society.
You said you wanted to ‘see life’—very well, but it will never do to
begin by viewing it in that way. An outburst of actual sincerity in this
human mêlée”—and he glanced comprehensively over the brilliant
throng—“would be like a match to a gunpowder magazine—the whole
thing would blow up into fragments and be dispersed to the four winds
of heaven, leaving nothing behind but an evil odour.”
 “Better so,” said Féraz dreamily, “than that false hearts should be
mistaken for true.”
El-Râmi looked at him wistfully;—what a beautiful youth he really
was, with all that glow of thought and feeling in his dark eyes! How
different was his aspect from that of the jaded, cynical, vice-worn young
men of fashion, some of whom were pushing their way past at that
moment,—men in the twenties who had the air of being well on in the
forties, and badly preserved at that—wretched, pallid, languid, exhausted
creatures who had thrown away the splendid jewel of their youth in a
couple of years’ stupid dissipation and folly. At that moment Lord
Melthorpe, smiling and cordial, came up to them and shook hands
warmly, and then introduced with a few pleasant words a gentleman who
had accompanied him as,—“Roy Ainsworth, the famous artist, you
know!”
“Oh, not at all!” drawled the individual thus described, with a
searching glance at the two brothers from under his drowsy eyelids.
—“Not famous by any means—not yet. Only trying to be. You’ve got to
paint something startling and shocking nowadays before you are
considered ‘famous’;—and even then, when you’ve outraged all the
proprieties, you must give a banquet, or take a big house and hold
receptions, or have an electrically-lit-up skeleton in your studio, or
something of that sort, to keep the public attention fixed upon you. It’s
such a restless age.”
El-Râmi smiled gravely.
“The feverish outburst of an unnatural vitality immediately preceding
dissolution,” he observed.
“Ah!—you think that? Well—it may be,—I’m sure I hope it is. I,
personally, should be charmed to believe in the rapidly-approaching end
of the world. We really need a change of planet as much as certain
invalids require a change of air. Your brother, however”—and here he
flashed a keen glance at Féraz—“seems already to belong to quite a
different sphere.”
Féraz looked up with a pleased yet startled expression.
“Yes,—but how did you know it?” he asked.
It was now the artist’s turn to be embarrassed. He had used the words
“different sphere” merely as a figure of speech, whereas this intelligent-
looking young fellow evidently took the phrase in a literal sense. It was
very odd!—and he hesitated what to answer, so El-Râmi came to the
rescue.
 “Mr. Ainsworth only means that you do not look quite like other
people, Féraz, that’s all. Poets and musicians often carry their own
distinctive mark.”
“Is he a poet?” inquired Lord Melthorpe with interest.—“And has he
published anything?”
El-Râmi laughed good-humouredly.
“Not he! My dear Lord Melthorpe, we are not all called upon to give
the world our blood and brain and nerve and spirit. Some few reserve
their strength for higher latitudes. To give greedy humanity everything of
one’s self is rather too prodigal an expenditure.”
“I agree with you,” said a chill yet sweet voice close to them.—“It was
Christ’s way of work,—and quite too unwise an example for any of us to
follow.”
Lord Melthorpe and Mr. Ainsworth turned quickly to make way for
the speaker,—a slight fair woman, with a delicate thoughtful face full of
light, languor, and scorn, who, clad in snowy draperies adorned here and
there with the cold sparkle of diamonds, drew near them at the moment.
El-Râmi and his brother both noted her with interest,—she was so
different from the other women present.
“I am delighted to see you!” said Lord Melthorpe as he held out his
hand in greeting.—“It is so seldom we have the honour! Mr. Ainsworth
you already know,—let me introduce my Oriental friends here,—El-
Râmi Zarânos and his brother Féraz Zarânos,—Madame Irene Vassilius
—you must have heard of her very often.”
El-Râmi had indeed heard of her,—she was an authoress of high
repute, noted for her brilliant satirical pen, her contempt of press
criticism, and her influence over, and utter indifference to, all men.
Therefore he regarded her now with a certain pardonable curiosity as he
made her his profoundest salutation, while she returned his look with
equal interest.
“It is you who said that we must not give ourselves wholly away to the
needs of humanity, is it not?” she said, letting her calm eyes dwell upon
him with a dreamy yet searching scrutiny.
“I certainly did say so, Madame,” replied El-Râmi.—“It is a waste of
life,—and humanity is always ungrateful.”
“You have proved it? But perhaps you have not tried to deserve its
gratitude.”
This was rather a home-thrust, and El-Râmi was surprised and vaguely
annoyed at its truth. Irene Vassilius still stood quietly observing him,—
then she turned to Roy Ainsworth.
 “There is the type you want for your picture,” she said, indicating
Féraz by a slight gesture.—“That boy, depicted in the clutches of your
Phryne, would make angels weep.”
“If I could make you weep I should have achieved something like
success,” replied the painter, his sleepy eyes dilating with a passion he
could not wholly conceal.—“But icebergs neither smile nor shed tears,—
and intellectual women are impervious to emotion.”
“That is a mistaken idea,—one of the narrow notions common to
men,” she answered, waving her fan idly to and fro.—“You remind me
of the querulous Edward Fitzgerald, who wrote that he was glad Mrs.
Barrett Browning was dead, because there would be no more Aurora
Leighs. He condescended to say she was a ‘woman of Genius,’ but what
was the use of it? ‘She and her Sex,’ he said, ‘would be better minding
the Kitchen and their Children.’ He and his Sex always consider the
terrible possibilities to themselves of a badly-cooked dinner and a baby’s
screams. His notion about the limitation of woman’s sphere is man’s
notion generally.”
“It is not mine,” said Lord Melthorpe.—“I think women are cleverer
than men.”
“Ah, you are not a reviewer!” laughed Madame Vassilius—“so you
can afford to be generous. But as a rule men detest clever women, simply
because they are jealous of them.”
“They have cause to be jealous of you,” said Roy Ainsworth.—“You
succeed in everything you touch.”
“Success is easy,” she replied indifferently,—“Resolve upon it, and
carry out that resolve—and the thing is done.”
El-Râmi looked at her with new interest.
“Madame, you have a strong will!” he observed.—“But permit me to
say that all your sex are not like yourself, beautiful, gifted, and resolute
at one and the same time. The majority of women are deplorably
unintelligent and uninteresting.”
“That is precisely how I find the majority of men!” declared Irene
Vassilius, with that little soft laugh of hers which was so sweet, yet so
full of irony.—“You see, we view things from different standpoints.
Moreover, the deplorably unintelligent and uninteresting women are the
very ones you men elect to marry, and make the mothers of the nation. It
is the way of masculine wisdom,—so full of careful forethought and
admirable calculation!” She laughed again, and continued—“Lord
Melthorpe tells me you are a seer,—an Eastern prophet arisen in these
dull modern days—now will you solve me a riddle that I am unable to
guess,—myself?—and tell me if you can, who am I and what am I?”
“Madame,” replied El-Râmi bowing profoundly, “I cannot in one
moment unravel so complex an enigma.”
She smiled, not ill pleased, and met his dark, fiery, penetrating glance
unreservedly,—then, drawing off her long loose glove, she held out her
small beautifully-shaped white hand.
“Try me,” she said lightly, “for if there is any truth in ‘brain-waves’ or
reflexes of the mind the touch of my fingers ought to send electric
meanings through you. I am generally judged as of a frivolous
disposition because I am small in stature, slight in build, and have curly
hair—all proofs positive, according to the majority, of latent foolishness.
Colossal women, however, are always astonishingly stupid, and fat
women lethargic—but a mountain of good flesh is always more
attractive to man than any amount of intellectual perception. Oh, I am
not posing as one of the ‘misunderstood’; not at all—I simply wish you
to look well at me first and take in my ‘frivolous’ appearance thoroughly,
before being misled by the messages of my hand.”
El-Râmi obeyed her in so far that he fixed his eyes upon her more
searchingly than before,—a little knot of fashionable loungers had
stopped to listen, and now watched her face with equal curiosity. No rush
of embarrassed colour tinged the cool fairness of her cheeks—her
expression was one of quiet, half-smiling indifference—her attitude full
of perfect self-possession.
“No one who looks at your eyes can call you frivolous Madame,” said
El-Râmi at last.—“And no one who observes the lines of your mouth and
chin could suspect you of latent foolishness. Your physiognomy must
have been judged by the merest surface-observers. As for stature, we are
aware that goes for naught,—most of the heroes and heroines of history
have been small and slight in build. I will now, if you permit me, take
your hand.”
She laid it at once in his extended palm,—and he slowly closed his
own fingers tightly over it. In a couple of minutes, his face expressed
nothing but astonishment.
“Is it possible?” he muttered—“can I believe——” he broke off
hurriedly, interrupted by a chorus of voices exclaiming—“Oh, what is it?
—do tell us!” and so forth.
“May I speak, Madame?” he inquired, bending towards Irene, with
something of reverence.
She smiled assent.
 “If I am surprised,” he then said slowly, “it is scarcely to be wondered
at, for it is the first time I have ever chanced across the path of a woman
whose life was so perfectly ideal. Madame, to you I must address the
words of Hamlet—‘pure as ice, chaste as snow, thou shalt not escape
calumny.’ Such an existence as yours, stainless, lofty, active, hopeful,
patient, and independent, is a reproach to men, and few will love you for
being so superior. Those who do love you, will probably love in vain,—
for the completion of your existence is not here—but elsewhere.”
Her soft eyes dilated wonderingly,—the people immediately around
her stared vaguely at El-Râmi’s dark impenetrable face.
“Then shall I be alone all my life as I am now?” she asked, as he
released her hand.
“Are you sure you are alone?” he said with a grave smile.—“Are there
not more companions in the poet’s so-called solitude than in the crowded
haunts of men?”
She met his earnest glance, and her own face grew radiant with a
certain sweet animation that made it very lovely.
“You are right,” she replied simply—“I see you understand.”
Then, with a graceful salutation, she prepared to move away—Roy
Ainsworth pressed up close to her.
“Are you satisfied with your fortune, Madame Vassilius?” he asked
rather querulously.
“Indeed I am,” she answered. “Why should I not be?”
“If loneliness is a part of it,” he said audaciously, “I suppose you will
never marry?”
“I suppose not,” she said with a ripple of laughter in her voice.—“I
fear I should never be able to acknowledge a man my superior!”
She left him then, and he stood for a moment looking after her with a
vexed air,—then he turned anew towards El-Râmi, who was just
exchanging greetings with Sir Frederick Vaughan. This latter young man
appeared highly embarrassed and nervous, and seemed anxious to
unburden himself of something which apparently was difficult to utter.
He stared at Féraz, pulled the ends of his long moustache, and made
scrappy remarks on nothing in particular, while El-Râmi observed him
with amused intentness.
“I say, do you remember the night we saw the new Hamlet?” he
blurted out at last.—“You know—I haven’t seen you since——”
“I remember most perfectly,” said El-Râmi composedly—“‘To be or
not to be’ was the question then with you, as well as with Hamlet—but I
suppose it is all happily decided now as ‘to be.’”
 “What is decided?” stammered Sir Frederick—“I mean, how do you
know everything is decided, eh?”
“When is your marriage to take place?” asked El-Râmi.
Vaughan almost jumped.
“By Jove!—you are an uncanny fellow!” he exclaimed.—“However,
as it happens, you are right. I’m engaged to Miss Chester.”
“It is no surprise to me, but pray allow me to congratulate you!” and
El-Râmi smiled.—“You have lost no time about it, I must say! It is only
a fortnight since you first saw the lady at the theatre. Well!—confess me
a true prophet!”
Sir Frederick looked uncomfortable, and was about to enter into an
argument concerning the pros and cons of prophetic insight, when Lady
Melthorpe suddenly emerged from the circling whirlpool of her
fashionable guests and sailed towards them with a swan-like grace and
languor.
“I cannot find the dear Baroness,” she said plaintively. “She is so
much in demand! Do you know, my dear El-Râmi, she is really almost as
wonderful as you are! Not quite—oh, not quite, but nearly! She can tell
you all your past and future by the lines of your hand, in the most
astonishing manner! Can you do that also?”
El-Râmi laughed.
“It is a gipsy’s trick,” he said,—“and the bonâ-fide gipsies who
practise it in country lanes for the satisfaction of servant girls get arrested
by the police for ‘fortune-telling.’ The gipsies of the London drawing-
rooms escape scot-free.”
“Oh, you are severe!” said Lady Melthorpe, shaking her finger at him
with an attempt at archness—“You are really very severe! You must not
be hard on our little amusements,—you know, in this age, we are all so
very much interested in the supernatural!”
El-Râmi grew paler, and a slight shudder shook his frame. The
supernatural! How lightly people talked of that awful Something, that
like a formless Shadow waits behind the portals of the grave!—that
Something that evinced itself, suggested itself, nay, almost declared
itself, in spite of his own doubts, in the momentary contact of a hand
with his own, as in the case of Irene Vassilius. For in that contact he had
received a faint, yet decided thrill through his nerves—a peculiar
sensation which he recognised as a warning of something spiritually
above himself,—and this had compelled him to speak of an “elsewhere”
for her, though for himself he persisted in nourishing the doubt that an
“elsewhere” existed. Roy Ainsworth, the artist, observing him closely,
noted how stern and almost melancholy was the expression of his
handsome dark face,—then glancing from him to his brother, was
surprised at the marked difference between the two. The frank, open,
beautiful features of Féraz seemed to invite confidence, and, acting on
the suggestion made to him by Madame Vassilius, he spoke abruptly.
“I wish you would sit to me,” he said.
“Sit to you? For a picture, do you mean?” and Féraz looked delighted
yet amazed.
“Yes. You have just the face I want. Are you in town?—can you spare
the time?”
“I am always with my brother”—began Féraz hesitatingly.
El-Râmi heard him, and smiled rather sadly.
“Féraz is his own master,” he said gently, “and his time is quite at his
own disposal.”
“Then come and let us talk it over,” said Ainsworth, taking Féraz by
the arm. “I’ll pilot you through this crowd, and we’ll make for some
quiet corner where we can sit down. Come along!”
Out of old habit Féraz glanced at his brother for permission, but El-
Râmi’s head was turned away; he was talking to Lord Melthorpe. So
through the brilliant throng of fashionable men and women, many of
whom turned to stare at him as he passed, Féraz went, half eager, half
reluctant, his large fawn-like eyes flashing an innocent wonderment on
the scene around him,—a scene different from everything to which he
had been accustomed. He was uncomfortably conscious that there was
something false and even deadly beneath all this glitter and show,—but
his senses were dazzled for the moment, though the poet-soul of him
instinctively recoiled from the noise and glare and restless movement of
the crowd. It was his first entry into so-called “society”;—and, though
attracted and interested, he was also somewhat startled and abashed—for
he felt instinctively that he was thrown upon his own resources,—that,
for the present at any rate, his brother’s will no longer influenced him,
and with the sudden sense of liberty came the sudden sense of fear.
 XXIV.

T midnight the expected Royal Personage came and went;

fatigued but always amiable, he shed the sunshine of his stereotyped
smile on Lady Melthorpe’s “crush”—shook hands with his host and
hostess, nodded blandly to a few stray acquaintances, and went through
all the dreary duties of social boredom heroically, though he was pining
for his bed more wearily than any work-worn digger of the soil. He made
his way out more quickly than he came in, and with his departure a great
many of the more “snobbish” among the fashionable set disappeared
also, leaving the rooms freer and cooler for their absence. People talked
less loudly and assertively,—little groups began to gather in corners and
exchange friendly chit-chat,—men who had been standing all the
evening found space to sit down beside their favoured fair ones, and
indulge themselves in talking a little pleasant nonsense,—even the
hostess herself was at last permitted to occupy an arm-chair and take a
few moments’ rest. Some of the guests had wandered into the music-
saloon, a quaintly-decorated oak-panelled apartment which opened out
from the largest drawing-room. A string band had played there till
Royalty had come and gone, but now “sweet harmony” no longer
“wagged her silver tongue,” for the musicians were at supper. The grand
piano was open, and Madame Vassilius stood near it, idly touching the
ivory keys now and then with her small white, sensitive-looking fingers.
Close beside her, comfortably ensconced in a round deep chair, sat a very
stout old lady with a curiously large hairy face and a beaming expression
of eye, who appeared to have got into her pink silk gown by some
cruelly unnatural means, so tightly was she laced, and so much did she
seem in danger of bursting. She perspired profusely and smiled
perpetually, and frequently stroked the end of her very pronounced
moustache with quite a mannish air. This was the individual for whom
Lady Melthorpe had been searching,—the Baroness von Denkwald,
noted for her skill in palmistry.
“Ach! it is warm!” she said in her strong German accent, giving an
observant and approving glance at Irene’s white-draped form.—“You are
ze one womans zat is goot to look at. A peach mit ice-cream,—dot is
yourself.”
Irene smiled pensively, but made no answer.
The Baroness looked at her again, and fanned herself rapidly.
 “It is sometings bad mit you?” she asked at last.—“You look
sorrowful? Zat Eastern mans—he say tings disagreeable? You should
pelieve me,—I have told you of your hand—ach! what a fortune!—
splendid!—fame,—money, title,—a grand marriage——”
Irene lifted her little hand from the keyboard of the piano, and looked
curiously at the lines in her pretty palm.
“Dear Baroness, there must be some mistake,” she said slowly.—“I
was a lonely child,—and some people say that as you begin, so will you
end. I shall never marry—I am a lonely woman, and it will always be
so.”
“Always, always—not at all!” and the Baroness shook her large head
obstinately. “You will marry; and Gott in Himmel save you from a
husband such as mine! He is dead—oh yes—a goot ting;—he is petter
off—and so am I. Moch petter!”
And she laughed, the rise and fall of her ample neck causing quite a
cracking sound in the silk of her bodice.
Madame Vassilius smiled again,—and then again grew serious. She
was thinking of the “elsewhere” that El-Râmi had spoken of,—she had
noticed that all he said had seemed to be uttered involuntarily,—and that
he had hesitated strangely before using the word “elsewhere.” She
longed to ask him one or two more questions,—and scarcely had the
wish formed itself in her mind, than she saw him advancing from the
drawing-room, in company with Lord Melthorpe, Sir Frederick Vaughan,
and the pretty frivolous Idina Chester, who, regardless of all that poets
write concerning the unadorned simplicity of youth, had decked herself,
American fashion, with diamonds enough for a dowager.
“It’s too lovely!” the young lady was saying as she entered.—“I think,
Mr. El-Râmi, you have made me out a most charming creature!
“Unemotional, harmless, and innocently worldly”—that was it, wasn’t
it? Well now, I think that’s splendid! I had an idea you were going to find
out something horrid about me;—I’m so glad I’m harmless! You’re sure
I’m harmless?”
“Quite sure!” said El-Râmi with a slight smile. “And there you possess
a great superiority over most women.”
And he stepped forward in obedience to Lady Melthorpe’s signal, to
be introduced to the “dear” Baroness, whose shrewd little eyes dwelt
upon him curiously.
“Do you believe in palmistry?” she asked him, after the ordinary
greetings were exchanged.
 “I’m afraid not,” he answered politely—“though I am acquainted with
the rules of the art as practised in the East, and I know that many odd
coincidences do occur. But,—as an example—take my hand—I am sure
you can make nothing of it.”
He held out his open palm for her inspection—she bent over it, and
uttered an exclamation of surprise. There were none of the usual
innumerable little criss-cross lines upon it—nothing, in fact, but two
deep dents from left to right, and one well-marked line running from the
wrist to the centre.
“It is unnatural!” cried the Baroness in amazement.—“It is a
malformation! There is no hand like it!”
“I believe not,” answered El-Râmi composedly.—“As I told you, you
can learn nothing from it—and yet my life has not been without its
adventures. This hand of mine is my excuse for not accepting palmistry
as an absolutely proved science.”
“Must everything be ‘proved’ for you?” asked Irene Vassilius
suddenly.
“Assuredly, Madame!”
“Then have you ‘proved’ the elsewhere of which you spoke to me?”
El-Râmi flushed a little,—then paled again.
“Madame, the message of your inner spirit, as conveyed first through
the electric medium of your brain, and then through the magnetism of
your touch, told me of an ‘elsewhere.’ I may not personally or positively
know of any ‘elsewhere,’ than this present state of being,—but your
interior Self expects an ‘elsewhere,’—apparently knows of it better than
I do, and conveys that impression and knowledge to me, apart from any
consideration as to whether I may be fitted to understand or receive it.”
These words were heard with evident astonishment by the little group
of people who stood by, listening.
“Dear me! How ve—ry curious!” murmured Lady Melthorpe.—“And
we have always looked upon dear Madame Vassilius as quite a free-
thinker,”—here she smiled apologetically, as Irene lifted her serious eyes
and looked at her steadily—“I mean, as regards the next world and all
those interesting subjects. In some of her books, for instance, she is
terribly severe on the clergy.”
“Not more so than many of them deserve, I am sure,” said El-Râmi
with sudden heat and asperity.—“It was not Christ’s intention, I believe,
that the preachers of His Gospel should drink and hunt, and make love to
their neighbours’ wives ad libitum, which is what a great many of them
do. The lives of the clergy nowadays offer very few worthy examples to
the laity.”
Lady Melthorpe coughed delicately and warningly. She did not like
plain speaking,—she had a “pet clergyman” of her own,—moreover, she
had been bred up in the provinces among “county” folk, some of whom
still believe that at one period of the world’s history “God” was always
wanting the blood of bulls and goats to smell “as a sweet savour in His
nostrils.” She herself preferred to believe in the possibility of the Deity’s
having “nostrils,” rather than take the trouble to consider the effect of
His majestic Thought as evinced in the supremely perfect order of the
planets and solar systems.
El-Râmi, however, went on regardlessly.
“Free-thinkers,” he said, “are for the most part truth-seekers. If
everybody gave way to the foolish credulity attained to by the believers
in the ‘Mahatmas’ for instance, what an idiotic condition the world
would be in! We want free-thinkers,—as many as we can get,—to help
us to distinguish between the false and the true. We want to separate the
Actual from the Seeming in our lives,—and there is so much Seeming
and so little Actual that the process is difficult.”
“Why, dat is nonsense!” said the Baroness von Denkwald. “Mit a Fact,
zere is no mistake—you prove him. See!” and she took up a silver
penholder from the table near her.—“Here is a pen,—mit ink it is used to
write—zere is what you call ze Actual.”
El-Râmi smiled.
“Believe me, my dear Madame, it is only a pen so long as you elect to
view it in that light. Allow me!”—and he took it from her hand, fixing
his eyes upon her the while. “Will you place the tips of your fingers—the
fingers of the left hand—yes—so! on my wrist? Thank you!”—this, as
she obeyed with a rather vague smile on her big fat face.—“Now you
will let me have the satisfaction of offering you this spray of lilies—the
first of the season,” and he gravely extended the silver penholder.—“Is
not the odour delicious?”
“Ach! it is heavenly!” and the Baroness smelt at the penholder with an
inimitable expression of delight. Everybody began to laugh—El-Râmi
silenced them by a look.
“Madame you are under some delusion,” he said quietly.—“You have
no lilies in your hand, only a penholder.”
She laughed.
“You are very funny!” she said—“but I shall not be deceived. I shall
wear my lilies.”
 And she endeavoured to fasten the penholder in the front of her
bodice,—when suddenly El-Râmi drew his hand away from hers. A
startled expression passed over her face, but in a minute or two she
recovered her equanimity and twirled the penholder placidly between her
fingers.
“Zere is what you call ze Actual,” she said, taking up the conversation
where it had previously been interrupted.—“A penholder is always a
penholder—you can make nothing more of it.”
But here she was surrounded by the excited onlookers—a flood of
explanations poured upon her, as to how she had taken that same
penholder for a spray of lilies, and so forth, till the old lady grew quite
hot and angry.
“I shall not pelieve you!” she said indignantly.—“It is impossible. You
haf a joke—but I do not see it. Irene”—and she looked appealingly to
Madame Vassilius, who had witnessed the whole scene—“it is not true,
is it?”
“Yes, dear Baroness, it is true,” said Irene soothingly.—“But it is a
nothing after all. Your eyes were deceived for the moment—and Mr. El-
Râmi has shown us very cleverly, by scientific exposition, how the
human sight can be deluded—he conveyed an impression of lilies to
your brain, and you saw lilies accordingly. I quite understand,—it is only
through the brain that we receive any sense of sight. The thing is easy of
comprehension, though it seems wonderful.”
“It is devilry!” said the Baroness solemnly, getting up and shaking out
her voluminous pink train with a wrathful gesture.
“No, Madame,” said El-Râmi earnestly, with a glance at her which
somehow had the effect of quieting her ruffled feelings. “It is merely
science. Science was looked upon as ‘devilry’ in ancient times,—but we
in our generation are more liberal-minded.”
“But what shall it lead to, all zis science?” demanded the Baroness,
still with some irritation.—“I see not any use in it. If one deceive ze eye
so quickly, it is only to make peoples angry to find demselves such
fools!”
“Ah, my dear lady, if we could all know to what extent exactly we
could be fooled,—not only as regards our sight, but our other senses and
passions, we should be wiser and more capable of self-government than
we are. Every step that helps us to the attainment of such knowledge is
worth the taking.”
“And you have taken so many of those steps,” said Irene Vassilius,
“that I suppose it would be difficult to deceive you?”
 “I am only human, Madame,” returned El-Râmi, with a faint touch of
bitterness in his tone, “and therefore I am capable of being led astray by
my own emotions as others are.”
“Are we not getting too analytical?” asked Lord Melthorpe cheerily.
“Here is Miss Chester wanting to know where your brother Féraz is. She
only caught a glimpse of him in the distance,—and she would like to
make his closer acquaintance.”
“He went with Mr. Ainsworth,” began El-Râmi.
“Yes—I saw them together in the conservatory,” said Lady Melthorpe.
“They were deep in conversation—but it is time they gave us a little of
their company—I’ll go and fetch them here.”
She went, but almost immediately returned, followed by the two
individuals in question. Féraz looked a little flushed and excited,—Roy
Ainsworth calm and nonchalant as usual.
“I’ve asked your brother to come and sit to me to-morrow,” the latter
said, addressing himself at once to El-Râmi. “He is quite willing to
oblige me,—and I presume you have no objection?”
“Not the least in the world!” responded El-Râmi with apparent
readiness, though the keen observer might have detected a slight ring of
satirical coldness in his tone.
“He is a curious fellow,” continued Roy, looking at Féraz where he
stood, going through the formality of an introduction to Miss Chester,
whose bold bright eyes rested upon him in frank and undisguised
admiration. “He seems to know nothing of life.”
“What do you call ‘life’?” demanded El-Râmi, with harsh abruptness.
“Why, life as we men live it, of course,” answered Roy, complacently.
“‘Life, as we men live it!’” echoed El-Râmi. “By Heaven, there is
nothing viler under the sun than life lived so! The very beasts have a
more decent and self-respecting mode of behaviour,—and the everyday
existence of an ordinary ‘man about town’ is low and contemptible as
compared with that of an honest-hearted dog!”
Ainsworth lifted his languid eyes with a stare of amazement;—Irene
Vassilius smiled.
“I agree with you!” she said softly.
“Oh, of course!” murmured Roy sarcastically—“Madame Vassilius
agrees with everything that points to, or suggests, the utter worthlessness
of Man!”
Her eyes flashed.
“Believe me,” she said, with some passion, “I would give worlds to be
able to honour and revere men,—and there are some whom I sincerely
respect and admire,—but I frankly admit that the majority of them
awaken nothing in me but the sentiment of contempt. I regret it, but I
cannot help it.”
“You want men to be gods,” said Ainsworth, regarding her with an
indulgent smile; “and when they can’t succeed, poor wretches, you are
hard on them. You are a born goddess, and to you it comes quite
naturally to occupy a throne on Mount Olympus, and gaze with placid
indifference on all below,—but to others the process is difficult. For
example, I am a groveller. I grovel round the base of the mountain and
rather like it. A valley is warmer than a summit, always.”
A faint sea-shell pink flush crept over Irene’s cheeks, but she made no
reply. She was watching Féraz, round whom a bevy of pretty women
were congregated, like nineteenth-century nymphs round a new Eastern
Apollo. He looked a little embarrassed, yet his very diffidence had an
indefinable grace and attraction about it which was quite novel and
charming to the jaded fashionable fair ones who for the moment made
him their chief object of attention. They were pressing him to give them
some music, and he hesitated, not out of any shyness to perform, but
simply from a sense of wonder as to how such a spiritual, impersonal,
and divine thing as Music could be made to assert itself in the midst of
so much evident frivolity. He looked appealingly at his brother,—but El-
Râmi regarded him not. He understood this mute avoidance of his eyes,
—he was thrown upon himself to do exactly as he chose,—and his sense
of pride stimulated him to action. Breaking from the ring of his fair
admirers, he advanced towards the piano.
“I will play a simple prelude,” he said, “and, if you like it, you shall
hear more.”
There was an immediate silence. Irene Vassilius moved a little apart
and sat on a low divan, her hands clasped idly in her lap;—near her stood
Lord Melthorpe, Roy Ainsworth, and El-Râmi;—Sir Frederick Vaughan
and his fiancée, Idina Chester, occupied what is known as a “flirtation
chair” together; several guests flocked in from the drawing-rooms, so
that the salon was comparatively well filled. Féraz poised his delicate
and supple hands on the keyboard,—and then—why, what then?
Nothing!—only music!—music divinely pure and sweet as a lark’s song,
—music that spoke of things as yet undeclared in mortal language,—of
the mystery of an angel’s tears—of the joy of a rose in bloom,—of the
midsummer dreams of a lily enfolded within its green leaf-pavilion,—of
the love-messages carried by silver beams from bridegroom-stars to
bride-satellites,—of a hundred delicate and wordless marvels the music
talked eloquently in rounded and mystic tone. And gradually, but
invincibly, upon all those who listened, there fell the dreamy nameless
spell of perfect harmony,—they did not understand, they could not grasp
the far-off heavenly meanings which the sounds conveyed, but they
knew and felt such music was not earthly. The quest of gold, or thirst of
fame, had nothing to do with such composition—it was above and
beyond all that. When the delicious melody ceased, it seemed to leave an
emptiness in the air,—an aching regret in the minds of the audience; it
had fallen like dew on arid soil, and there were tears in many eyes, and
passionate emotions stirring many hearts, as Féraz pressed his finger-tips
with a velvet-like softness on the closing chord. Then came a burst of
excited applause which rather startled him from his dreams. He looked
round with a faint smile of wonderment, and this time chanced to meet
his brother’s gaze earnestly fixed upon him. Then an idea seemed to
occur to him, and, playing a few soft notes by way of introduction, he
said aloud, almost as though he were talking to himself—
“There are in the world’s history a few old legends and stories, which,
whether they are related in prose or rhyme, seem to set themselves
involuntarily to music. I will tell you one now, if you care to hear it,—
the Story of the Priest Philemon.”
There was a murmur of delight and expectation, followed by profound
silence as before.
Féraz lifted his eyes,—bright stag-like eyes, now flashing with
warmth and inspiration,—and, pressing the piano pedals, he played a few
slow solemn chords like the opening bars of a church chant; then, in a
soft, rich, perfectly modulated voice, he began.
 XXV.

“L , long ago, in a far-away province of the Eastern world, there was

once a priest named Philemon. Early and late he toiled to acquire
wisdom—early and late he prayed and meditated on things divine and
unattainable. To the Great Unknown his aspirations turned; with all the
ardour of his soul he sought to penetrate behind the mystic veil of the
supreme centre of creation; and the joys and sorrows, hopes and labours
of mortal existence seemed to him but worthless and contemptible trifles
when compared with the eternal marvels of the incomprehensible
Hereafter, on which, in solitude, he loved to dream and ponder.”
Here Féraz paused,—and, touching the keys of the piano with a
caressing lightness, played a soft minor melody, which, like a silver
thread of sound, accompanied his next words.
“And so, by gradual and almost imperceptible degrees, the wise priest
Philemon forgot the world;—forgot men, and women, and little children,
—forgot the blueness of the skies, the verdure of the fields,—forgot the
grace of daisies growing in the grass,—forgot the music of sweet birds
singing in the boughs,—forgot indeed everything, except—himself!—
and his prayers, and his wisdom, and his burning desire to approach
more closely every hour to that wondrous goal of the Divine from
whence all life doth come, and to which all life must, in due time,
return.”
Here the musical accompaniment changed to a plaintive tenderness.
“But, by and by, news of the wise priest Philemon began to spread in
the town near where he had his habitation,—and people spoke of his
fastings and his watchings with awe and wonder, with hope and fear,—
until at last there came a day when a great crowd of the sick and
sorrowful and oppressed surrounded his abode, and called upon him to
pray for them, and give them comfort.
“‘Bestow upon us some of the Divine consolation!’ they cried,
kneeling in the dust and weeping as they spoke—‘for we are weary and
worn with labour,—we suffer with harsh wounds of the heart and spirit,
—many of us have lost all that makes life dear. Pity us, O thou wise
servant of the Supreme—and tell us out of thy stores of heavenly
wisdom whether we shall ever regain the loves that we have lost!’
“Then the priest Philemon rose up in haste and wrath, and going out
before them said—
 “‘Depart from me, ye accursed crew of wicked worldlings! Why have
ye sought me out, and what have I to do with your petty miseries? Lo, ye
have brought the evils of which ye complain upon yourselves, and justice
demands that ye should suffer. Ask not from me one word of pity—seek
not from me any sympathy for sin. I have severed myself from ye all, to
escape pollution,—my life belongs to God, not to Humanity!’
“And the people hearing him were wroth, and went their way
homewards, sore at heart, and all uncomforted. And Philemon the priest,
fearing lest they might seek him out again, departed from that place for
ever, and made for himself a hut in the deep thickness of the forest where
never a human foot was found to wander save his own. Here in the
silence and deep solitude he resolved to work and pray, keeping his heart
and spirit sanctified from every soiling touch of nature that could
separate his thoughts from the Divine.”
Again the music changed, this time to a dulcet rippling passage of
notes like the flowing of a mountain stream,—and Féraz continued,—
“One morning, as, lost in a rapture of holy meditation, he prayed his
daily prayer, a small bird perched upon his window-sill, and began to
sing. Not a loud song, but a sweet song—full of the utmost tenderness
and playful warbling,—a song born out of the leaves and grasses and
gentle winds of heaven,—as delicate a tune as ever small bird sang. The
priest Philemon listened, and his mind wandered. The bird’s singing was
sweet; oh, so sweet, that it recalled to him many things he had imagined
long ago forgotten,—almost he heard his mother’s voice again,—and the
blithe and gracious days of his early youth suggested themselves to his
memory like the lovely fragments of a poem once familiar, but now
scarce remembered. Presently the bird flew away, and the priest
Philemon awoke as from a dream,—his prayer had been interrupted; his
thoughts had been drawn down to earth from heaven, all through the
twittering of a foolish feathered thing not worth a farthing! Angry with
himself, he spent the day in penitence,—and on the following morning
betook himself to his devotions with more than his usual ardour.
Stretched on his prayer-mat he lay entranced; when suddenly a low
sweet trill of sound broke gently through the silence,—the innocent
twittering voice of the little bird once more aroused him,—first to a
sense of wonder, then of wrath. Starting up impatiently he looked about
him, and saw the bird quite close, within his reach,—it had flown inside
his hut, and now hopped lightly over the floor towards him, its bright
eyes full of fearless confidence, its pretty wings still quivering with the
fervour of its song. Then the priest Philemon seized a heavy oaken staff,
and slew it where it stood with one remorseless blow, and flung the little
heap of ruffled feathers out into the woodland, saying fiercely—
“‘Thou, at least, shalt never more disturb my prayers!’
“And, even as he thus spoke, a great light shone forth suddenly, more
dazzling than the brightness of the day, and lo! an Angel stood within the
hut, just where the dead bird’s blood had stained the floor. And the priest
Philemon fell upon his face and trembled greatly, for the Vision was
more glorious than the grandest of his dreams. And a Voice called aloud,
saying—
“‘Philemon, why hast thou slain My messenger?’
“And Philemon looked up in fear and wonderment, answering—
“‘Dread Lord, what messenger? I have slain nothing but a bird.’
“And the voice spake again, saying—
“‘O thou remorseless priest!—Knowest thou not that every bird in the
forest is Mine,—every leaf on the trees is Mine,—every blade of grass
and every flower is Mine, and is a part of Me! The song of that slain bird
was sweeter than thy many prayers;—and when thou didst listen to its
voice thou wert nearer Heaven than thou hast ever been! Thou hast
rebelled against My law;—in rejecting Love, thou hast rejected Me,—
and when thou didst turn the poor and needy from thy doors, refusing
them all comfort, even so did I turn My Face from thee and refuse thy
petitions. Wherefore hear now thy punishment. For the space of a
thousand years thou shalt live within this forest;—no human eye shall
ever find thee,—no human foot shall ever track thee—no human voice
shall ever sound upon thy ears. No companions shalt thou have but birds
and beasts and flowers,—from these shalt thou learn wisdom, and
through thy love of these alone shalt thou make thy peace with Heaven!
Pray no more,—fast no more,—for such things count but little in the
eternal reckonings,—but love!—and learn to make thyself beloved, even
by the least and lowest, and by this shalt thou penetrate at last the
mystery of the Divine!’
“The voice ceased—the glory vanished, and when the priest Philemon
raised his eyes he was alone.”
Here, altering by a few delicate modulations the dreamy character of
the music he had been improvising, Féraz reverted again to the quaint,
simple, and solemn chords with which he had opened the recitation.
“Humbled in spirit, stricken at heart, conscious of the justice of his
doom, yet working as one not without hope, Philemon began his heaven-
appointed task. And to this day travellers’ legends tell of a vast
impenetrable solitude, a forest of giant trees, where never a human step