When the World Shook quotes

It would take a book to describe them. And yet mark this, with them all his name is as dead to the world today as though he had never been.

Light reflected from a hundred facets dissipates itself in space and is lost; that concentrated in one tremendous ray pierces to the stars.

Now I am going to be frank about myself, for without frankness what is the value of such a record as this?

They never became more than diversions to me.

A hobby is only really amusing when it becomes an obsession.

At length my lonesome friendlessness oppressed me so much that I took steps to mitigate it. In my college life I had two particular friends whom I think I must have selected because they were so absolutely different from myself.

They were named Bastin and Bickley. Bastin—Basil was his Christian name—was an uncouth, shock-headed, flat-footed person of large, rugged frame and equally rugged honesty, with a mind almost incredibly simple.

Nothing surprised him because he lacked the faculty of surprise.

He was like that kind of fish which lies at the bottom of the sea and takes every kind of food into its great maw without distinguishing its flavour. Metaphorically speaking, heavenly manna and decayed cabbage were just the same to Bastin.

My other friend, Bickley, was a person of a quite different character. Like Bastin, he was learned, but his tendencies faced another way.

If Bastin’s omnivorous throat could swallow a camel, especially a theological camel, Bickley’s would strain at the smallest gnat, especially a theological gnat.

The very best and most upright of men, yet he believed in nothing that he could not taste, see or handle.

“Silly old idiot!” Bickley would say, shaking his fist after him.

“The only way to get him to see the truth would be to saw his head open and pour it in.”

Then we would both laugh.

Indeed the greatest art could not have produced a more beautiful effect which was, however, really one of naked accident.

An angel looking down upon earth through the lilies of Heaven⁠—that was the rather absurd thought which flashed into my mind.

I did not quite realise her face at first except that it seemed to be both dark and fair; as a fact her waving hair which grew rather low upon her forehead, was dark, and her large, soft eyes were grey.

“How can you call them innocent, Bickley, when they murder and eat missionaries?”

“I dare say we should all eat a missionary, Bastin, if we were hungry enough,”

was the answer, after which something occurred to change the conversation.

So we did, though Bastin grumbled that the performance made him feel like Pilate.

“We are all Pilates in our way,” I replied with a sigh.

“That is what I think every time I diagnose a case,” exclaimed Bickley.

I stared at him, and Bickley gasped out:

“If you are to be eaten, what does it matter why you are eaten?”

“Oh!” replied Bastin; “there is all the difference in the world, though it is one that I cannot expect you to appreciate. And now please be quiet as I wish to say my prayers.

We unloaded the canoe and ate. Bastin’s appetite was splendid. Indeed, I had to ask him to remember that when this supply was done I did not know where we should find any more.

“Take no thought for the morrow,” he replied. “I have no doubt it will come from somewhere,”

and he helped himself to another chop.

Never had I admired him so much. Not a couple of hours before he was about to be cruelly murdered and eaten. But this did not seem to affect him in the least.

Bastin was the only man I have ever known with a really perfect faith.

It is a quality worth having and one that makes for happiness. What a great thing not to care whether you are breakfasted on, or breakfast!

But this did not seem to affect him in the least. Bastin was the only man I have ever known with a really perfect faith. It is a quality worth having and one that makes for happiness.

What a great thing not to care whether you are breakfasted on, or breakfast!

“I see that there is lots of driftwood about here,” he remarked, “but unfortunately we have no tea, so in this climate it is of little use, unless indeed we can catch some fish and cook them.”

Protected as these were by the overhanging rock, for the sculptured mouth of the cave was cut deep into the mountain face, they were still so worn that it was impossible to discern their details.

Time had eaten them away like an acid.

But what length of time? I could not guess, but it must have been stupendous to have worked thus upon that hard and sheltered rock.

I turned, looked, and nearly collapsed on the floor of the vault, since beauty can sometimes strike us like a blow.

Oh! there before me lay all loveliness, such loveliness that there burst from my lips an involuntary cry:

“Alas! that she should be dead!”

Indeed, in a way, it was unearthly. My senses were smitten, it pulled at my heartstrings, and yet its unutterable strangeness seemed to awake memories within me, though of what I could not tell.

A wild fancy came to me that I must have known this heavenly creature in some past life.

By now Bastin had joined us, and, attracted by my exclamation and by the attitude of Bickley, who was staring down at the coffin with a fixed look upon his face, not unlike that of a pointer when he scents game, he began to contemplate …

“Well, I never!” he said, “you seem to have woke them up with a vengeance. If you begin like that with the lady, there will be complications before you have done, Arbuthnot.”

Talk of being brought back to earth with a rush! I could have killed Bastin, and Bickley, turning on him like a tiger, told him to be off, find wood and light a large fire in front of the statue.

I think he was about to argue when the Ancient gave him a glance of his fierce eyes, which alarmed him, and he departed, bewildered, to return presently with the wood.

“

I can see otherwise than with my eyes, if I choose.

” A statement that caused Bickley, who was listening, to mutter:

“I thought so.

Death is terrible, O Humphrey, but it is a sword which those who rule must use to smite the wicked and the savage.

”

“

I am a king who once ruled most of the world as it was in my day, though it is true that much of it rebelled against me, my councillors and servants.

Therefore I destroyed the world as it was then, save only certain portions whence life might spread to the new countries that I raised up.

The same Power which gives you skill to succeed in an operation, that hitherto was held impracticable, as I know you have done once or twice, may have given that old fellow power to cause a deluge.

You should measure the universe and its possibilities by worlds and not by acres, Bickley.

”

“I don’t know about the Deluge, but perhaps he may have been permitted to cause a deluge. Why not?

You can’t look at things from far enough off, Bickley. And if something seems big to you, you conclude that therefore it is impossible.

The same Power which gives you skill to succeed in an operation, that hitherto was held impracticable, as I know you have done once or twice, may have given that old fellow power to cause a deluge.

“

Everything can talk, if you understand its language, Bastin.

But keep a good heart, Humphrey, for the bold seeker finds in the end. Oh! foolish man, do you not understand that all is yours if you have but the soul to conceive and the will to grasp? All, all, below, between, above!

and, in the midst of them all, a vast temple with courts and a central dome. For here, notwithstanding the lack of necessity, its builders seemed to have adhered to the Over-world tradition, and had roofed their fane.

And now came the terror. All of this enormous city was dead. Had it stood upon the moon it could not have been more dead.

None paced its streets; none looked from its window-places. None trafficked in its markets, none worshipped in its temple. Swept, garnished, lighted, practically untouched by the hand of Time, here where no rains fell and no winds blew, it was yet a howling wilderness.

None paced its streets; none looked from its window-places. None trafficked in its markets, none worshipped in its temple. Swept, garnished, lighted, practically untouched by the hand of Time, here where no rains fell and no winds blew, it was yet a howling wilderness.

For what wilderness is there to equal that which once has been the busy haunt of men?

Let those who have stood among the buried cities of Central Asia, or of Anarajapura in Ceylon, or even amid the ruins of Salamis on the coast of Cyprus, answer the question. But here was something infinitely more awful.

I am an illusion; those savages who died upon the rock will tell you so. This fair woman before you is an illusion; Humphrey, I am sure, knows it as you will also before you have done with her. These halls are illusions.

Live on in your illusions, O little man of science, who because you see the face of things, think that you know the body and the heart, and can read the soul at work within.

You are a worthy child of tens of thousands of your breed who were before you and are now forgotten.”

“

I mock at no man’s belief, because I think that what men believe is true⁠—for them.

I will tell you why I wish to hear of yours, since I never hide the truth. I who am so wise and old, yet must die;

“

Every father is a god to his daughter, or should be; also in my day millions named me a god because I saw further and struck harder than they could.

As for the rest, it came to me in a vision. Oh! Bickley, if you were wiser than you think you are, you would know that all things to come are born elsewhere and travel hither like the light from stars.

Thus, when one lifted a foot, there it was between the sole of the boot and the floor, or to express it better, the boot threw no shadow.

I think this absence of shadows was perhaps the most terrifying circumstance connected with that universal and pervading light.

Through it we walked on to the temple. We passed three courts, pillared all of them, and came to the building which was larger than St. Paul’s in London.

Still, it must be done, so with our leave he would go apart and seek inspiration, which at present seemed to be quite lacking.

Thus declaimed Bastin and departed.

“Don’t you tell your opinion about the Deluge or he may cause another just to show that you are wrong,” called Bickley after him.

“

I don’t agree with you, Bickley⁠—about Bastin, I mean. I am by no means certain that he is not the wisest of the three of us.

He has a faith and he sticks to it, as millions have done before him, and that is better than making spiritual experiments, as I am sorry to say I do, or rejecting things because one cannot understand them, as you do, which is only …

I lost my footing on the world; my spirit began to wander in strange places; of course, always supposing that we have a spirit, which Bickley would deny.

I gave up reason; I surrendered myself to unreason; it is a not unpleasant process, occasionally.

Supposing now that all we see and accept is but the merest fragment of the truth, or perhaps only a refraction thereof?

“No, Humphrey,” she answered gently. “

Because I think that there is no death, and, having done no wrong, I dread no evil.

I had dreams while I was asleep, O Humphrey, and it seemed to me that—”

“No, Humphrey. I think that Bastin, who in many ways is so stupid, has more true wisdom than I have, because he can believe and accept without question. After all, the wisdom of my people is all of the universe and its wonders.

What you think magic is not magic; it is only gathered knowledge and the finding out of secrets.

Bickley will tell you the same, although as yet he does not believe that the mind of man can stretch so far.”

Or perhaps my wife would speak with Yva’s voice. To my disordered sense it was as though they were one personality, having two shapes, either of which could be assumed at will.

It was most strange and yet to me most blessed, since in the living I seemed to have found the dead, and in the dead the living.

More, I took journeys, or rather some unknown part of me seemed to do so.

“I cannot,” she answered. “There are mysteries that you may not know as yet.

Love Yva if you will and I shall not be jealous, for in loving Yva you love me.

You cannot understand? Then know this, that the spirit has many shapes, and yet is the same spirit—sometimes. Now I who am far, yet near, bid you farewell a while.”

“I know it. I have studied his faith and find it too humble for my taste, also too new. Shall I, Oro, creep a suppliant before any Power, and confess what Bastin is pleased to call my sins?

Nay, I who am great will be the equal of all greatness, or nothing.

”

No, Man of today, give me Time in which I rule and keep your dreams of an Eternity that is not, and in which you must still crawl and serve, even if it were.

Yet, if I might, I confess it, I would live on forever, but as Master not as Slave.

”

at least, that was Bastin’s explanation, or, rather, one of them. Another was that he crawled beneath it, but this I could not believe.

I am quite certain that during all his prolonged existence Oro never crawled.

At any rate, he came, or seemed to come, and pumped me—I can use no other word—most energetically as to existing conditions in the world, especially those of the civilised countries, their methods of government, their social state, the physical characteristics of the various races, …

Now be angry with me if you like, or laugh as you have the right to do, seeing that like Bastin and yourself, I also asked her to marry me, but something makes me speak what I believe to be the truth.”

“Yes, like Cassandra who was not a popular person.”

At first I was inclined to resent Bickley’s words—who would not have been in the circumstances? Then of a sudden there rushed in upon my mind the conviction that he spoke the truth. In this world Yva was not for me or any man.

You ask me to abandon the certain for the uncertain, the known for the unknown, and from a half-god communing with the stars, to become an earthworm crawling in mud and lifting blind eyes towards the darkness of everlasting night.”

“A god who must die is no god, half or whole, Oro; the earthworm that lives on is greater than he.”

“Mayhap. Yet while I endure I will be as a god, so that when night comes, if come it must, I shall have played my part and left my mark upon this little world of ours. Have done!” he added with a burst of impatience.

“It passes,” she answered quickly. “

Life passes like breath fading from a mirror.

So should all talk who breathe beneath the sun.”

She glanced about her as though she were frightened lest someone should overhear her words or read her thoughts. Then she stretched out her hands and drawing my head towards her, put her lips to my ear and whispered:

“Because once you saw me die, as women often die⁠—giving life for life.”

“I saw you die?” I gasped.

“You silly fool!” exclaimed Bickley whose perturbation showed itself in anger. “There goes one of our lamps.”

“Hang the lamp!” muttered the prostrate Bastin. “We shan’t want it in Heaven, or the other place either.”

Now the stone which had quivered a little beneath the impact of Bastin, steadied itself again and with a slow and majestic movement sailed to the other side of the gulf.