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Charles Kingsley: Philammon

Struggle and strife of soul or body--Philammon's yearning to see more of the world than the monastery in the desert; his enthralment by the charm of Hypatia's beauty and her learning; Cyril's struggles by militant means toward a spiritual end; Orestes's to win an empire; Pelagia's to win love; Raphael to find the truth; the conflict between old thought and new; and as the climax, the conflict and the end in Hypatia's case: "Yes, on into the church itself! Into the cool, dim shadow, with its fretted pillars, and towering domes, and candles, and incense, and blazing altar, and great pictures, looking from the walls athwart the gorgeous gloom. And right in front, above the altar, the colossal Christ watching unmoved from off the wall, his right hand raised to give a blessing--or a curse? "On, up the nave, fresh shreds of her dress strewing the holy pavement, up the chancel steps themselves--up to the altar--right underneath the great, still Christ; and there even those hell-hounds paused. "She shook herself free from her tormentors, and springing back, rose for one moment to her full height, naked, snow-white against the dusky mass around, shame and indignation in those wide, clear eyes, but not a stain of fear. With one hand she clasped her golden locks around her; the other long, white arm was stretched upward toward the great, still Christ, appealing--and who dare say in vain?--from man to God. Her lips were opened to speak; but the words that should have come from them reached God's ears alone; for in an instant they struck her down, the dark mass closed over her again--and then wail on wail, ear-piercing, rang along the vaulted roofs, and thrilled like the trumpet of avenging angels through Philammon's ears." STEVENSON ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON writes in 1883: "I am now a person with an established ill-health--a wife--a dog possessed with an evil spirit--a certain reputation--and very obscure finances. I now draw near to the Middle Ages; nearly three years ago that fatal thirty struck; and yet the great work is not yet even conceived. Eight years ago, if I could have slung ink as I can now, I should have thought myself well on the road after Shakespeare--and now--I find I have only got a pair of walking-shoes and not yet begun to travel." At this time he and his wife spent one of their happiest periods in their first real home, "La Solitude," in Hyeres. At the end of sixteen months he was again flung back into acute suffering. They went to Bournemouth, where they lived in "Skerryvore" until after his father's death. Confined to the house--a condition most irksome to his active temperament--his gallant and buoyant spirit nevertheless flamed into expression at the slightest respite from pain and weakness. He wrote "Kidnapped," one of his most brilliant successes, and the "wild, symbolic" tale of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," the most popular of all his writings.

In 1887 he left the trying climate of the British Isles, never to return. With his family he went to the United States, where he was acclaimed, but his weak condition necessitated an immediate rest at Saranac, New York. Here he wrote for Scribner's Magazine the essays including "The Lantern Bearers," "Dreams," and "Pulvis et Umbra," the charm of which is ageless. KIDNAPPED By ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON Condensation by JAMES B. CONNOLLY IT was dawn; the blackbirds were whistling in the lilacs, the mists of the valley arising and melting, when I set out for the house of Shaw. On the forenoon of the second day, coming to the top of a hill, I saw the city of Edinburgh smoking like a kiln below me. There was a flag upon the castle and ships anchored to the blue floor of the Firth, a sight which thrilled me. I walked on toward Cramond, making inquiries as I went of my uncle, who seemed to be in no favor thereabout, some giving me a half-civil word, some a scowl or a curse for an answer. It was night, and his house barred and dark when I came to it; and it was a long while before my shouts and knocks brought him to the window from where, with a blunderbuss by way of welcome, he screamed to inquire my business.

It was a mean, stooping, clay-faced creature; and a big muckle house and an ill-kept one I saw when at last he let me in, with dirt, mice, and spiders having their play of it. Here I stayed some days, the while he sparingly fed me with porridge and a rare half-cup of ale.

One night he gave me forty pounds, saying it was a debt he owed my father, and with it gave me also a rusty key to the high stair tower, telling me to bring him down the chest at the top of it. I went, poor fool, into the dark to bring it; and only a blink of summer lightning saved me from stepping into space and being dashed sheer down from the top of the tower.

Of the estate that he had defrauded my father in life I had then no suspicion; but that happening of the tower gave me a glimpse of his villainy. In the morning my body would be discovered at the foot of the tower, his forty pounds in my pockets, as one trying to escape after robbing his host. What a tale he would make of it!