- •Pilgrim's regress
- •Preface to third edition
- •Did the instructors really mean it?
- •He hears of Death and what his elders pretend to believe about it
- •Everyone except John cheers up on the way home
- •Greed to recover Desire hides the real offer of its return
- •Ichabod11
- •Sin and the Law torment him, each aggravating the other
- •In hand she boldly took
- •Which can explain away religion by any number of methods
- •"Evolution" and "Comparative Religion"
- •And all the guess-work which masquerades as "Science"
- •He abandons his religion with profound relief
- •The Moral Imperative does not fully understand itself
- •John decides that Aesthetic Experience is the thing to pursue
- •For a moment it seems to have kept its promise
- •And would finally turn into Lust, but that in the nick of time
- •Ichabod22
- •The "modern" literary movement offers to "debunk" it
- •The poetry of the Machine Age is so very pure
- •The poetry of Silly Twenties
- •The "Courage" and mutual loyalty of Artists
- •It was a low-brow blunder to mention the most obvious thing about it
- •If Religion is a Wish-Fulfilment dream, whose wishes does it fulfil?
- •Its pretentiousness and cold frivolity
- •Its hatred of all systematic reasoning
- •Its ignorant and dilettante scepticism
- •Its unacknowledged dependences
- •These "sensible" men are parasitic
- •Their culture is precarious
- •Take away its power of commanding labour
- •And the whole thing collapses
- •In the presence of these thought traditional morality falters
- •Vertue is Sick
- •It is friends with the World and goes on no pilgrimage;
- •It is fond of wildflowers
- •Idealist Philosophy rejects the literal truth of religion
- •It is dangerous to welcome Sweet Desire, but fatal to reject it
- •Ignorantia
- •Its supreme mode of temptation is to make all else insipid
- •19 Leah for rachel refers to Genesis 29, where Jacob was tricked by his uncle Laban into taking Leah for his wife, rather than her sister Rachel, whom Jacob had really wanted.
- •24 Non est hic "He is not here." Vulgate for Luke 24:5-6
- •43 Archtype and Ectype words used by Locke: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, II, XXX-XXXI, to mean "original" and "copy".
- •44 Esse is Percipi - "to be is to be perceived", Berkeley: Principles of Human Knowledge.
- •115 Exoteric and esoteric what is for public consumption, and what is for private consumption; for everybody, and for the inner few.
- •123 Monism the doctrine that matter and mind are one and inseparable--the philosophical corollary of pantheism, which sees God and uncreated Nature as indistinguishable
- •159 Limbo in traditional Christian belief the place where babies who die before baptism go and live forever in a state of natural happiness.
For a moment it seems to have kept its promise
"But I don't want the castle," said John. "And I don't believe in the Landlord."
"What is truth20?" said the old man. "They were mistaken when they told you of the Landlord: and yet they were not mistaken. What the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth21, whether it existed before or not. The Landlord they dreamed to find, we find in our hearts: the Island you seek for, you already inhabit. The children of that country are never far from their fatherland."
When the meal was ended the old gentleman took a harp, and at the first sweep of his hand across the strings John began to think of the music that he had heard by the window in the wall. Then came the voice: and it was no longer merely silver sweet and melancholy like Mr. Halfways' speaking voice, but strong and noble and full of strange over-tones, the noise of the sea, and of all birds, and sometimes of wind and thunder. And John began to see a picture of the Island with his eyes open: but it was more than a picture, for he sniffed the spicy smell and the sharp brine of the sea mixed with it. He seemed to be in the water, only a few yards from the sand of the Island. He could see more than he had ever seen before. But just as he had put down his feet and touched a sandy bottom and was beginning to wade ashore, the song ceased. The whole vision went away. John found himself back in the dusky room, seated on a low divan, with Media by his side.
"Now I shall sing you something else," said Mr. Halfways.
"Oh, no," cried John, who was sobbing. "Sing the same again. Please sing it again."
"You had better not hear it twice in the same evening. I have plenty of other songs."
"I would die to hear the first one again," said John.
"Well, well," said Mr. Halfways, "perhaps you know best, Indeed, what does it matter? It is as short to the Island one way as another." Then he smiled indulgently and shook his head, and John could not help thinking that his talking voice and talking manner were almost silly after the singing. But as soon as the great deep wail of the music began again it swept everything else from his mind. It seemed to him that his time he got more pleasure from the first few notes, and even noticed delicious passages which had escaped him at the first hearing;
The rapture does not last but dwindles into technical appreciation and sentiment
and he said to himself, "This is going to be even better than the other. I shall keep my head this time and sip all the pleasure at my ease." I saw that he settled himself more comfortably to listen and Media slipped her hand into his. It pleased him to think that they were going to the Island together. Now came the vision of the Island again: but this time it was changed, for John scarcely noticed the Island because of a lady with a crown on her head who stood waiting for him on the shore. She was fair, divinely fair. "At last," said John, "a girl with no trace of brown." And he began again to wade ashore holding out his arms to embrace that queen: and his love for her appeared to him so great and so pure, and they had been parted for so long, that his pity for himself and her almost overwhelmed him. And as he was about to embrace her the song stopped.
"Sing it again, sing it again," cried John, "I liked it better the second time."
"Well, if you insist," said Mr. Halfways with a shrug. "It is nice to have a really appreciative audience." So he sang it the third time. This time John noticed yet more about the music. He began to see how several of the effects were produced and that some parts were better than others. He wondered if it were not a trifle too long. The vision of the Island was a little shadowy this time, and he did not take much notice of it. He put his arm round Media and they lay cheek to cheek. He began to wonder if Mr. Halfways would never end: and when at last the final passage closed, with a sobbing break in the singer's voice, the old gentleman looked up and saw how the young people lay in one another's arms. Then he rose and said:
"You have found your Island--you have found it in one another's hearts."
Then he tiptoed from the room, wiping his eyes.