第30章

I insist upon the parallel among humans.I have in my time, sir, had considerable opportunities for studying close at hand the various orders of mammalia who devote themselves to what they describe as the arts.It may sound a harsh judgement, but I am convinced that musicians stand on the very bottom rung of the ladder in the sub-cellar of human intelligence, even lower than painters and actors."This seemed such unqualified nonsense to the Rev.Mr.Ware that he offered no comment whatever upon it.

He tried instead to divert his thoughts to the stormy strains which rolled in through the vibrating brickwork, and to picture to himself the large, capable figure of Miss Madden seated in the half-light at the organ-board, swaying to and fro in a splendid ecstasy of power as she evoked at will this superb and ordered uproar.

But the doctor broke insistently in upon his musings.

"All art, so-called, is decay," he said, raising his voice.

"When a race begins to brood on the beautiful--so-called--it is a sign of rot, of getting ready to fall from the tree.Take the Jews--those marvellous old fellows--who were never more than a handful, yet have imposed the rule of their ideas and their gods upon us for fifteen hundred years.Why? They were forbidden by their most fundamental law to make sculptures or pictures.

That was at a time when the Egyptians, when the Assyrians, and other Semites, were running to artistic riot.

Every great museum in the world now has whole floors devoted to statues from the Nile, and marvellous carvings from the palaces of Sargon and Assurbanipal.You can get the artistic remains of the Jews during that whole period into a child's wheelbarrow.They had the sense and strength to penalize art; they alone survived.

They saw the Egyptians go, the Assyrians go, the Greeks go, the late Romans go, the Moors in Spain go--all the artistic peoples perish.They remained triumphing over all.

Now at last their long-belated apogee is here; their decline is at hand.I am told that in this present generation in Europe the Jews are producing a great lot of young painters and sculptors and actors, just as for a century they have been producing famous composers and musicians.

That means the end of the Jews!"

"What! have you only got as far as that?" came the welcome interruption of a cheery voice.Father Forbes had entered the room, and stood looking down with a whimsical twinkle in his eye from one to the other of his guests.

"You must have been taken over the ground at a very slow pace, Mr.Ware," he continued, chuckling softly, "to have arrived merely at the collapse of the New Jerusalem.

I fancied I had given him time enough to bring you straight up to the end of all of us, with that Chinaman of his gently slapping our graves with his pigtail.

That's where the doctor always winds up, if he's allowed to run his course.""It has all been very interesting, extremely so, I assure you,"faltered Theron.It had become suddenly apparent to him that he desired nothing so much as to make his escape--that he had indeed only been waiting for the host's return to do so.

He rose at this, and explained that he must be going.