________________________________________________
_ Think with passion
That shall fashion
Life's entire design, well planned.
_Woman of the Haystack_.
'You are looking so wonderfully well, Mr. Rogers,' Minks observed at
Charing Cross Station, 'the passage across the Channel, I trust, was
calm.'
'And yourself and Mrs. Minks?' asked Rogers, looking into the equally
sunburned face of his secretary, remembering suddenly that he had been
to the sea with his family; 'Frank, too, and the other children? All
well, I hope?'
'All in excellent health, Mr. Rogers, thanks to your generous thought.
My wife---'
'These are the small bags,' the other interrupted, 'and here are the
keys for my portmanteaux. There's nothing dutiable. You might bring
them on to the flat while I run over to the Club for a bit of supper,
Minks.'
'Certainly, with pleasure, Mr. Rogers,' was the beaming reply. 'And
Mrs. Minks begged me to tell you---'
Only Rogers was already in his taxi-cab and out of ear-shot.
'How well he looks!' reflected Minks, dangling the keys, accustomed to
these abrupt interruptions, and knowing that his message had been
understood and therefore duly delivered. These cut-off sentences were
like a secret code between them. 'And ten years younger! Almost like a
boy again. I wonder if---' He did not permit himself to finish the
thought. He tried to remember if he himself had looked like that
perhaps in the days of long ago when he courted Albinia Lucy--an air
of joy and secrecy and an absent-minded manner that might any moment
flame into vehement, concentrated action. For this was the impression
his employer had made upon him. Only he could not quite remember those
far-off, happy days. There was ecstasy in them; that he knew. And
there was ecstasy in Henry Rogers now; that he divined.
'He oughtn't to,' he reflected, as he hurried in another taxi with the
luggage. 'All his yearnings would be satisfied if he did, his life
flow into a single channel instead of into many.'
He did not think about his own position and his salary.
'He won't,' he decided as the cab stopped at the door; 'he's not that
kind of man.' Minks had insight; he knew men. 'No artist ever ought
to. We are so few, and the world has need of us.' His own case was an
exception that had justified itself, for he was but a man of talent,
and talent did not need an exclusive asceticism; whereas his employer
was a man of genius, and no one woman had the right to monopolise what
was intended to sweeten the entire universe.
By the time the luggage had been taken up, he had missed the last tram
home, and his sleep that night must in any case be short. Yet he took
no note of that. One must live largely. A small sacrifice for such a
master was nothing at all. He lingered, glancing now and again at the
heap of correspondence that would occupy them next morning, and
sorting once more the little pile that would need immediate personal
attention. He was picking a bit of disfiguring fluff from his coat
sleeve when the door opened and Henry Rogers came upon him.
'Ah! I waited a moment, Mr. Rogers. I thought you might have something
to say before I went, perhaps.'
'I hoped you would, Minks. I have a great deal to say. It can wait
till to-morrow, really--only I wanted--but, there now, I forgot; you
have to get down to Sydenham, haven't you? And it's late already---'
'That's nothing, Mr. Rogers. I can easily sleep in town. I came
prepared, indeed, to do so---' as though he, too, had his Club and
would take a bedroom in it.
'Clever and thoughtful of you, Minks!'
'Only you must be tired after your journey,' suggested the secretary.
'Tired!' exclaimed the other vigorously, 'not a bit! I'm as fresh as a
st--a daisy, I mean. Come, draw your chair up; we'll have a smoke and
a little chat. I'm delighted to see you again. How are you? And how's
everything?'
Goodness! How bright his eyes were, how alert his manner! He looked so
young, almost springy, thought Minks, as he obeyed decorously, feeling
flattered and pleased, yet at the same time uneasy a little. Such
spirits could only proceed, he feared, from one cause. He was a close
observer, as all poets had need to be. He would discover some clue
before he went to bed, something that should betray the true state of
affairs. In any case sleep would be impossible unless he did.
'You stayed away somewhat longer than you originally intended,' he
ventured at length, having briefly satisfied his employer's question.
'You found genuine recreation. You needed it, I'm sure.' He glanced
with one eye at the letters.
'Re-creation, yes; the very word. It was difficult to leave. The place
was so delightful,' said Rogers simply, filling his pipe and lighting
it. 'A wonderful mountain village, Minks,' he added, between puffs of
smoke, while the secretary, who had been waiting for the sign, then
lit his own Virginian and smoked it diffidently, and with just the
degree of respect he felt was becoming. He never presumed upon his
master's genial way of treating him. He made little puffs and was very
careful with the ashes.
'Ah, yes,' he said; 'I am sure it must have been--both delightful and
--er--difficult to leave.' He recalled the Margate sands, bathing with
Albinia and digging trenches with the children. He had written many
lyrics during those happy weeks of holiday.
'Gave one, in fact, quite a new view of life--and work. There was such
space and beauty everywhere. And my cousin's children simply would not
let me go.'
There was a hint of apology and excuse in the tone and words--the
merest hint, but Minks noticed it and liked the enthusiasm. 'He's been
up to some mischief; he feels a little ashamed; his work--his Scheme--
has been so long neglected; conscience pricks him. Ha, ha!' The
secretary felt his first suspicion confirmed. 'Cousin's children,'
perhaps! But who else?
'He made a tactful reference--oh, very slight and tentative--to the
data he had collected for the Scheme, but the other either did not
hear it, or did not wish to hear it. He brushed it aside, speaking
through clouds of tobacco smoke. Minks enjoyed a bigger, braver puff
at his own. Excitement grew in him.
'Just the kind of place you would have loved, Minks,' Rogers went on
with zeal. 'I think you really must go there some day; cart your
family over, teach the children French, you know, and cultivate a bit
of vineyard. Such fine big forests, too, full of wild flowers and
things--O such lovely hand-made things--why, you could almost see the
hand that made 'em.' The phrase had slipped suddenly into his mind.
'Really, really, Mr. Rogers, but how very jo--delightful it sounds.'
He thought of the stubble fields and treeless sea-coast where he had
been. The language, however, astonished him. Enthusiasm like this
could only spring from a big emotion. His heart sank a little.
'And the people all so friendly and hospitable and simple that you
could go climbing with your bootmaker or ask your baker in to dine and
sleep. No snobbery! Sympathy everywhere and a big free life flowing in
your veins.' This settled it. Only a lover finds the whole world
lovable.
'One must know the language, though,' said Minks, 'in order to enjoy
the people and understand them, I suppose?'
'Not a bit, not a bit! One _feels_ it all, you see; somehow one feels
it and understands. A few words useful here and there, but one gets
along without even these. I never knew such a place. Every one seemed
to be in sympathy together. They think it, as it were. It was regular
fairyland, I tell you.'
'Which means that _you_ felt and thought it,' said Minks to himself.
Aloud he merely remarked, though with conviction, for he was getting
interested, 'Thinking is important, I know.'
Rogers laid his pipe aside and suddenly turned upon him--so abruptly
that Minks started. Was this the confession coming? Would he hear now
that his chief was going to be married? His wandering eyes almost drew
level in the excitement that he felt. He knocked a tiny ash from his
cigarette and waited. But the expected bomb did not explode. He heard
instead this curious question:--
'And that's something--it reminds me now--something I particularly
wanted to ask you about, my dear fellow. You are familiar, I know,
with such things and theories--er--speculations, as it were. You read
that sort of stuff. You are in touch with the latest ideas, I mean,
and up-to-date. You can tell me, if any one can.'
He paused, hesitating a moment, as Minks, listening in some
bewilderment, gazed into his eager face. He said nothing. He only
committed himself to a deprecating gesture with his hands, letting his
cigarette slip from his fingers on to the carpet.
'About _thought_,' continued Rogers, keeping his eyes fixed upon him
while he rose with flushed face from the search to find the stump.
'What do you know about thought? Tell me what you hear about _that_--
what theories are held--what people believe about it. I mean thought-
transference, telepathy, or whatever it is called. Is it proved? Is it
a fact?'
His voice had lowered. There was mystery in his manner. He sat back in
his chair, picked up his pipe, replaced it in his mouth unlighted, and
waited.
Minks pulled himself together. His admirable qualities as a private
secretary now came in. Putting excitement and private speculations of
his own aside, he concentrated his orderly mind upon replies that
should be models of succinct statement. He had practised thought-
control, and prided himself upon the fact. He could switch attention
instantly from one subject to another without confusion. The replies,
however, were, of course, drawn from his own reading. He neither
argued nor explained. He merely stated.
'Those who have taken the trouble to study the evidence believe,' he
began, 'that it is established, though its laws are as yet unknown.
Personally, if I may quote myself, I do believe it.'
'Quite so, quite so. Do quote yourself--that's what I want--facts. But
you refer to deliberate experiments, don't you?'
'In my own case, yes, Mr. Rogers, although the most successful
thought-transference is probably unconscious and not deliberate---'
'Such as, for instance---'
'Public opinion,' replied Minks, after a moment's search, 'which is
the result of waves of thought sent out by everybody--by a community;
or by the joint thinking of a nation, again, which modifies every mind
born into that nation, the result of' centuries of common thinking
along definite familiar channels. Thought-currents rush everywhere
about the world, affecting every one more or less, and--er--
particularly lodging in minds receptive to them.'
'Thought is dynamic, then, they hold?'
'An actual force, yes; as actual as electricity, and as little
understood,' returned the secretary, proud that he had read these
theories and remembered them. 'With every real thought a definite
force goes forth from you that modifies every single person, and
probably every single object as well, in the entire world. Thought is
creative according to its intensity. It links everybody in the world
with everybody else---'
'Objects too, you say?' Rogers questioned.
Minks glanced up to make sure there was no levity in the question, but
only desire for knowledge.
'Objects too,' he replied, apparently satisfied, 'for science tells us
that the movement of a body here affects the farthest star. A
continuous medium--ether--transmits the vibrations without friction--
and thought-force is doubtless similarly transmitted--er---'
'So that if I think of a flower or a star, my thought leaps into them
and affects them?' the other interrupted again.
'More, Mr. Rogers,' was the reply, 'for your thought, being creative,
enriches the world with images of beauty which may float into another
mind across the sea, distance no obstacle at all. You make a mental
image when you think. There's imagination in all real thinking--if I
make myself clear. "Our most elaborate thoughts," to quote for a
moment, "are often, as I think, not really ours, but have on a sudden
come up, as it were, out of hell or down out of heaven." So what one
thinks affects everybody in the world. The noble thinkers lift
humanity, though they may never tell their thoughts in speech or
writing.'
His employer stared at him in silence through the cloud of smoke. The
clock on the mantelpiece struck half-past twelve.
'That is where the inspiration of the artist comes in,' continued the
secretary after a moment's hesitation whether he should say it or not,
'for his sensitive soul collects them and gives them form. They lodge
in him and grow, and every passionate longing for spiritual growth
sets the whole world growing too. Your Scheme for Disabled---'
'Even if it never materialises---' Rogers brusquely interposed.
'Sweetens the world--yes--according to this theory,' continued Minks,
wondering what in the world had come over his chief, yet so pleased to
state his own views that he forgot to analyse. 'A man in a dungeon
earnestly praying would accomplish more than an active man outside who
merely lived thoughtlessly, even though beneficently--if I make myself
clear.'
'Yes, yes; you make yourself admirably clear, Minks, as I knew you
would.' Rogers lit his pipe again and puffed hard through a minute's
silence. The secretary held his peace, realising from the tone of the
last sentence that he had said enough. Mr. Rogers was leading up to
other questions. Hitherto he had been clearing the ground.
It came then, through the clouds of smoke, though Minks failed to
realise exactly why it was--so important:
'So that if I thought vividly of anything, I should. actually create a
mental picture which in turn might slip into another's mind, while
that other would naturally suppose it was his own?'
'Exactly, Mr. Rogers; exactly so.' Minks contrived to make the
impatience in his voice sound like appreciation of his master's
quickness. 'Distance no obstacle either,' he repeated, as though fond
of the phrase.
'And, similarly, the thought I deemed my own might have come in its
turn from the mind of some one else?'
'Precisely; for thought binds us all together like a network, and to
think of others is to spread oneself about the universe. When we think
thus we get out--as it were--into that medium common to all of us
where spirit meets spirit---'
'Out!' exclaimed Rogers, putting down his pipe and staring keenly,
first into one eye, then into the other. 'Out?'
'Out--yes,' Minks echoed faintly, wondering why that particular word
was chosen. He felt a little startled. This earnest talk, moreover,
stirred the subconsciousness in him, so that he remembered that
unfinished sonnet he had begun weeks ago at Charing Cross. If he were
alone now he could complete it. Lines rose and offered themselves by
the dozen. His master's emotion had communicated itself to him. A
breath of that ecstasy he had already divined passed through the air
between them.
'It's what the Contemplative Orders attempt---' he continued, yet half
to himself, as though a little bemused.
'Out, by George! Out!' Rogers said again.
So emphatic was the tone that Minks half rose from his chair to go.
'No, no,' laughed his chief; 'I don't mean that you're to get out.
Forgive my abruptness. The fact is I was thinking aloud a moment. I
meant--I mean that you've explained a lot to me I didn't understand
before--had never thought about, rather. And it's rather wonderful,
you see. In fact, it's _very_ wonderful. Minks,' he added, with the
grave enthusiasm of one who has made a big discovery, 'this world _is_
a very wonderful place.'
'It is simply astonishing, Mr. Rogers,' Minks answered with
conviction, 'astonishingly beautiful.'
'That's what I mean,' he went on. 'If I think beauty, that beauty may
materialise---'
'Must, will, does materialise, Mr. Rogers, just as your improvements
in machinery did. You first thought them out!'
'Then put them into words; yes, and afterwards into metal. Strong
thought is bound to realise itself sooner or later, eh? Isn't it all
grand and splendid?'
They stared at one another across the smoky atmosphere of the London
flat at the hour of one in the morning in the twentieth century.
'And when I think of a Scaffolding of Dusk that builds the Night,'
Rogers went on in a lower tone to himself, yet not so low that Minks,
listening in amazement, did not catch every syllable, 'or of a
Dustman, Sweep, and Lamplighter, of a Starlight Express, or a vast
Star Net that binds the world in sympathy together, and when I weave
all these into a story, whose centre somehow is the Pleiades--all this
is real and actual, and--and---'
'May have been projected by another mind before it floated into your
own,' Minks suddenly interposed almost in a whisper, charmed wholly
into the poet's region by these suggestive phrases, yet wondering a
little why he said it, and particularly how he dared to say it.
His chief turned sharply upon him.
'My own thought exactly!' he exclaimed; 'but how the devil did you
guess it?'
Minks returned the stare with triumph.
'Unconscious transference!' he said.
'You really think _that_?' his master asked, yet not mockingly.
Minks turned a shade pinker.
'I do, indeed, sir,' he replied warmly. 'I think it probable that the
thoughts of people you have never seen or heard of drop into your mind
and colour it. They lodge there, or are rejected, according to your
mood and the texture of your longings--what you want to be, that is.
What you want, if I may say so, is emptiness, and that emptiness
invites. The flying thought flits in and makes itself at home. Some
people overflow with thoughts of kindness and beauty that radiate from
them, of love and tenderness and desire to help. These thoughts, it
may be, find no immediate object; but they are not lost. They pour
loose about the world of men and women, and sooner or later find the
empty heart that needs them. I believe, sir, that to sit in a chair
and think such things strongly brings comfort to thousands who have
little idea whence comes the sudden peace and happiness. And any one
who happens to be praying for these things at the moment attracts them
instantly. The comfort, the joy, the relief come---'
'What a good idea, Minks,' said Rogers gently, 'and how helpful if we
all believed it. No one's life need be a failure then. Those who want
love, for instance, need it, crave it, just think what an army they
are!'
He stared thoughtfully a moment at his little secretary.
'You might write a book about it, you know--try and make people
believe it--convince them. Eh? Only, you'd have to give your proofs,
you know. People want proofs.'
Minks, pinker than before, hesitated a moment. He was not sure how far
he ought to, indulge his private theories in words. The expression in
his chief's blue eyes apparently encouraged him.
'But, indeed, Mr. Rogers, the proofs are there. Those moments of
sudden strength and joy that visit a man, catching him unawares and
unexplained--every solitary man and woman knows them, for every
solitary man and woman in the world craves first of all--to _be_
loved. To love another, others, an impersonal Cause, is not enough. It
is only half of life; to _be_ loved is the other half. If every single
person--I trust, sir, I do not tire you?--was loved by some one, the
happiness of life would be enormously greater than it is, for each one
loved would automatically then give out from his own store, and to
receive love makes one overflow with love for every one else. It is
so, is it not, sir?'
Rogers, an odd thrill catching him unawares, nodded. 'It is, Minks, it
is,' he agreed. 'To love one person makes one half prepared to love
all, and to be loved in turn may have a similar effect. It is nice to
think so anyhow.'
'It is true, sir----' and Minks sat up, ready with another deluge.
'But you were saying something just now,' interrupted the other,
'about these sudden glimpses of joy and beauty that--er--come to one--
er--inexplicably. What d'ye mean by that precisely?'
Minks glowed. He was being listened to, and understood by his honoured
chief, too!
'Simply that some one, perhaps far away--some sweet woman probably--
has been thinking love,' he replied with enthusiasm, yet in a low and
measured voice, 'and that the burning thoughts have rushed into the
emptiness of a heart that needs them. Like water, thought finds its
level. The sudden gush--all feel it more or less at times, surely!--
may rise first from her mind as she walks lonely upon the shore,
pacing the decks at sea, or in her hillside rambles, thinking,
dreaming, hoping, yearning--to pour out and find the heart that needs
these very things, perhaps far across the world. Who knows? Heart
thrills in response to heart secretly in every corner of the globe,
and when these tides flood unexplained into your soul---'
'Into _my_ soul---!' exclaimed his chief.
'I beg your pardon, sir,' Minks hurried to explain; 'I mean to any
lonely soul that happens to crave such comfort with real longing--it
implies, to my mind at least, that these two are destined to give and
take from one another, and that, should they happen to meet in actual
life, they will rush together instantly like a pair of flames---'
'And if they never--meet?' asked Rogers slowly, turning to the mantel-
piece for the matches.
'They will continue to feed each other in this delicious spiritual way
from a distance, sir. Only--the chances are--that they will meet, for
their thought already connects them vitally, though as yet
unrealised.'
There was a considerable pause. Rogers lit his pipe. Minks, feeling he
ought to stand while his master did so, also rose from his chair. The
older man turned; they faced each other for a moment, Rogers putting
smoke violently into the air between them.
'Minks, my dear fellow,' he observed, 'you are, as I have always
thought, a poet. You have ideas, and, whether true or not, they are
rather lovely. Write them out for others to read. Use your spare time
writing them out. I'll see to it that you have more leisure.'
With a laugh the big man moved abruptly past his chair and knocked his
pipe on the edge of the ash-bowl. His eye, as he did so, fell upon the
pile of letters and papers arranged so neatly on the table. He
remembered the lateness of the hour--and other things besides.
'Well, well,' he said vaguely with a sigh; 'so here we are again back
at work in London.'
Minks had turned, too, realising that the surprising conversation was
over. A great excitement was in him. He did not feel in the least
tired. An unusual sense of anticipation was in the air. He could not
make it out at all. Reviewing a dozen possibilities at once, he
finally rejected the romantic one he had first suspected, and decided
that the right moment had at last come to say something of the Scheme.
He had worked so hard to collect data. All was in perfect order. His
chief could not feel otherwise than pleased.
'Then I'll be saying good-night, Mr. Rogers,' he began, 'for you must
be very tired, and I trust you will enjoy a long night's rest. Perhaps
you would like me to come a little later in the morning than usual.'
He stood looking affectionately at the formidable pile of
correspondence, and, as his chief made no immediate reply, he went on,
with more decision in his voice:
'Here,' he said, touching the papers he had carefully set on one side,
'are all the facts you wanted referring to your great Scheme---'
He jumped. His master's fist had come down with a bang upon the table.
He stepped back a pace. They stared at one another.
'Damn the Scheme!' cried Rogers. 'have done and finished with it. Tear
up the papers. Cancel any arrangements already made. And never mention
the thing again in my hearing. It's all unreal and wrong and
unnecessary!'
Minks gasped. The man was so in earnest. What could it mean?
'Wrong--unnecessary--done with!' he faltered. Then, noticing the
flashing eyes that yet betrayed a hint of merriment in their fire, he
added quickly, 'Quite so, Mr. Rogers; I understand. You've got an
improvement, you mean?'
It was not his place to ask questions, but he could not contain
himself. Curiosity and disappointment rushed over him.
'A bigger and a better one altogether, Minks,' was the vehement reply.
He pushed the heap of papers towards the secretary. Minks took them
gingerly, reluctantly.
'Burn 'em up,' Rogers went on, 'and never speak to me again about the
blessed thing. I've got a far bigger Scheme than that.'
Minks slowly gathered the papers together and put them in his biggest
pocket. He knew not what to think. The suddenness of the affair dazed
him. Thought-transference failed this time; he was too perturbed,
indeed, to be in a receptive state at all. It seemed a catastrophe, a
most undesirable and unexpected climax. The romantic solution revived
in him--but only for a passing moment. He rejected it. Some big
discovery was in the air. He felt that extraordinary sense of
anticipation once again.
'Look here, my dear fellow, Minks,' said Rogers, who had been watching
his discomfiture with amusement, 'you may be surprised, but you need
not be alarmed. The fact is, this has been coming for a long time;
it's not an impulsive decision. You must have felt it--from my
letters. That Scheme was all right enough, only I am not the right man
for it. See? And our work,' he added laughingly, 'won't go for nothing
either, because our thought will drop into another mind somewhere that
will accomplish the thing far better than I could have accomplished
it.'
Minks made an odd gesture, as who should say this might not be true.
He did not venture upon speech, however. This new plan must be very
wonderful, was all he thought just then. His faith in his employer's
genius was complete.
'And in due time you shall hear all about it. Have a little patience.
Perhaps you'll get it out of my thoughts before I tell it to you,' he
smiled, 'but perhaps you won't. I can only tell you just now that it
has beauty in it---a beauty of the stars.'
Yet what his bigger Scheme was he really had no clear idea. He felt it
coming-that was all!
And with that Minks had to be content. This was dismissal. Good-nights
were said, and the secretary went out into the street.
'Go to a comfortable hotel,' was the last thing he heard, 'and put it
down to me, of course. Sleep well, sleep well. To-morrow at two
o'clock will do.'
Minks strolled home, walking upon air. The sky was brilliant with its
gorgeous constellations--the beauty of the stars. Poems blazed upon
him. But he was too excited to compose. Even first lines evaded
capture. 'Stars,' besides, was a dreadful word to rhyme with, for all
its charm and loveliness. He knew of old that the only word was
'wars,' most difficult to bring in naturally and spontaneously, and
with the wrong sound in any case.
'He must have been writing poetry out there,' he reflected finally,
'or else living it. Living it, probably. He's a grand fellow anyhow,
grand as a king.' Stars, wars, kings, thrones-=the words flew in and
out among a maze of unaccomplished lines.
But the last thing in his mind as he curled up to sleep in the strange
bed was that he had delivered his wife's message, but that he could
not tell her about this sudden collapse of the great, long-talked-of
Scheme. Albinia would hardly understand. She might think less of his
chief. He would wait until the new one dawned upon the horizon with
its beauty of the stars. Then he would simply overwhelm her with it,
as his temperament loved to do. _
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