- •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.
Its unacknowledged dependences
disliked the taste. But his precautions were needless, for with the soup came sherry.
"Dapibus mensas onerabat inemptis77!" said Mr. Sensible. "I hope that this wild garden vintage is not unpleasing to an unspoiled palate."
"You don't mean to say that you have vines?" exclaimed John.
"I was referring to the cowslip wine," said Mr. Sensible. "I hope to have some good vines soon, but at present I still rely a little on my neighbours. Is this our own sherry, Drudge?"
"No, sir," said Drudge. "This is that lot that Mr. Broad sent."
"Halibut!" said John. "You surely don't--"
"No," said Mr. Sensible. "Sea fish, I confess, I must get from my friends on the coast."
As the meal went on, John's good manners forbade him to make further inquiries, and when a salad came with one or two very small radishes in it he was positively relieved that his host should be able to claim them as his own produce ("His humble sauce a radish or an egg78," said Mr. Sensible). But in my dream I was privileged to know the sources of the whole meal. The cowslip wine and the radishes were home-grown; the joint and been a present from Mr. Mammon; the entrees and savouries came from Eschropolis: the champagne and ices from old Mr. Halfways. Some of the food was part of the stores which Mr. Sensible had taken over when he came to live there, from his predecessors who had occupied this house before him: for on that tableland, and especially to the North of the main road, the air is so light and cold that things keep for a long time. The bread, the salt, and the apples had been left by Epicurus who was the builder of the house and its first inhabitant. Some very fine hock79 had belonged to Horace. The claret and also (as I remember) most of the silver, were Montaigne's. But the port, which was one in a thousand and the best thing on that table, and once belonged to Rabelais, who in his turn had it as a present from old Mother Kirk when they were friends. Then I dreamed that after dinner old Mr. Sensible stood up and made a little speech in Latin thanking the Landlord for all they had received.
"What?" said John. "Do you believe in the Landlord?"
"No part of our nature is to be suppressed," said Mr. Sensible. "Least of all a part that has enshrined itself in beautiful traditions. The Landlord
"The religion of all sensible men"80
has his function like everything else as one element in the good life."
Then presently Mr. Sensible, who was turning very red, fixed his eyes intently on John and repeated.
"As one element. As one element."
"I see," said John, and there was a long silence.
"As well," began Mr. Sensible with great energy some ten minutes later, "it is part of good manners. "A_a_á_o_s µ__ _p__a __o_s __µ_ _s __á____a_--T_µa81. My dear Mr. Vertue, my dear young friend, your glass is quite empty. I mean absolutely empty. Cras ingens iterabimus82."
There was another and longer pause. John began to wonder whether Mr. Sensible were not asleep, when suddenly Mr. Sensible said with great conviction:
"Pellite cras ingens tum-tum __µ_ _s __á____a_."83
Then he smiled at them and finally went to sleep. And presently Drudge came in looking old and thin and dirty in the pale morning light--for I thought that the dawn was just then beginning to show through the chinks of the shutters--to carry his master to bed. Then I saw him come back and lead the guests to their beds. And then the third time I saw him come back into the dining-room and pour out the remains of the claret into a glass and drink it off. Then he stood for a moment or so blinking his red eyes and rubbing his bony, stubbly chin. At last he yawned and set about tidying the room for breakfast.
CHAPTER SIX
Drudge
I dreamed that John awoke feeling cold. The chamber in which he lay was luxuriously furnished and all the house was silent, so that John thought it would be useless to rise, and he piled all his clothes on him and tried to sleep again. But he only grew colder. Then he said to himself, "Even if there is no chance of breakfast, I may save myself from