It was with a perplexed but powerless dissent that the externalized
perceptions of the bishop witnessed his agreement with the rest of Lady
Ella's proposals so soon as this point about the doctor was conceded.
(10)
For the rest of that day until his breakdown in the cathedral the sense
of being in two places at the same time haunted the bishop's mind. He
stood beside the Angel in the great space amidst the stars, and at the
same time he was back in his ordinary life, he was in his palace at
Princhester, first resting in his bedroom and talking to his wife
and presently taking up the routines of his duties again in his study
downstairs.
His chief task was to finish his two addresses for the confirmation
services of the day. He read over his notes, and threw them aside
and remained for a time thinking deeply. The Greek tags at the end
of Likeman's letter came into his thoughts; they assumed a quality of
peculiar relevance to this present occasion. He repeated the words:
“Epitelesei. Epiphausei.”
He took his little Testament to verify them. After some slight trouble
he located the two texts. The first, from Philippians, ran in the old
version, “He that hath begun a good work in you will perform it”;
the second was expressed thus: “Christ shall give thee light.” He was
dissatisfied with these renderings and resorted to the revised version,
which gave “perfect” instead of “perform,” and “shall shine upon you”
for “give thee light.” He reflected profoundly for a time.
Then suddenly his addresses began to take shape in his mind, and these
little points lost any significance. He began to write rapidly, and as
he wrote he felt the Angel stood by his right hand and read and approved
what he was writing. There were moments when his mind seemed to be
working entirely beyond his control. He had a transitory questioning
whether this curious intellectual automatism was not perhaps what people
meant by “inspiration.”
(11)
The bishop had always been sensitive to the secret fount of pathos that
is hidden in the spectacle of youth. Long years ago when he and Lady
Ella had been in Florence he had been moved to tears by the beauty
of the fresh-faced eager Tobit who runs beside the great angel in the
picture of Botticelli. And suddenly and almost as uncontrollably, that
feeling returned at the sight of the young congregation below him,
of all these scores of neophytes who were gathered to make a public
acknowledgment of God. The war has invested all youth now with the
shadow of tragedy; before it came many of us were a little envious of
youth and a little too assured of its certainty of happiness. All that
has changed. Fear and a certain tender solicitude mingle in our regard
for every child; not a lad we pass in the street but may presently be
called to face such pain and stress and danger as no ancient hero ever
knew. The patronage, the insolent condescension of age, has vanished out
of the world. It is dreadful to look upon the young.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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