“But--is this to go on that little site in Aldwych?”
“He says the' isn't 'oom the'!” she explained. “He wants to put it out
at Golda's G'een.”
“But--if it is to be this little simple chapel we proposed, then wasn't
our idea to be central?”
“But if the' isn't 'oem!” she said--conclusively. “And isn't this--isn't
it rather a costly undertaking, rather more costly--”
“That doesn't matta. I'm making heaps and heaps of money. Half my
p'ope'ty is in shipping and a lot of the 'eat in munitions. I'm 'icher
than eva. Isn't the' a sort of g'andeur?” she pressed.
He put the elevation down. He took the plan from her hands and seemed to
study it. But he was really staring blankly at the whole situation.
“Lady Sunderbund,” he said at last, with an effort, “I am afraid all
this won't do.”
“Won't do!”
“No. It isn't in the spirit of my intention. It isn't in a great
building of this sort--so--so ornate and imposing, that the simple
gospel of God's Universal Kingdom can be preached.”
“But oughtn't so gate a message to have as g'ate a pulpit?”
And then as if she would seize him before he could go on to further
repudiations, she sought hastily among the drawings again.
“But look,” she said. “It has ev'ything! It's not only a p'eaching
place; it's a headquarters for ev'ything.”
With the rapid movements of an excited child she began to thrust the
remarkable features and merits of the great project upon him. The
preaching dome was only the heart of it. There were to be a library,
“'efecto'ies,” consultation rooms, classrooms, a publication department,
a big underground printing establishment. “Nowadays,” she said, “ev'y
gate movement must p'int.” There was to be music, she said, “a gate
invisible o'gan,” hidden amidst the architectural details, and pouring
out its sounds into the dome, and then she glanced in passing at
possible “p'ocessions” round the preaching dome. This preaching dome
was not a mere shut-in drum for spiritual reverberations, around it ran
great open corridors, and in these corridors there were to be “chapels.”
“But what for?” he asked, stemming the torrent. “What need is there for
chapels? There are to be no altars, no masses, no sacraments?”
“No,” she said, “but they are to be chapels for special int'ests; a
chapel for science, a chapel for healing, a chapel for gov'ment. Places
for peoples to sit and think about those things--with paintings and
symbols.”
“I see your intention,” he admitted. “I see your intention.”
“The' is to be a gate da'k blue 'ound chapel for sta's and atoms and the
myst'ry of matta.” Her voice grew solemn. “All still and deep and high.
Like a k'ystal in a da'k place. You will go down steps to it. Th'ough
a da'k 'ounded a'ch ma'ked with mathematical symbols and balances and
scientific app'atus.... And the ve'y next to it, the ve'y next, is to be
a little b'ight chapel for bi'ds and flowas!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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