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The Floating Press - Henry Adams

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105 pages

English

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Henry Adams' Esther puts a novel spin on the classic scenario of ill-matched lovers. Esther is a spirited, independent artist who also happens to be a committed atheist with deep disdain for organized religion. But when she falls in love with a minister, she starts to question all of her beliefs. Is it possible for this pair to overcome their differences?

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Romance

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 septembre 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781776586257
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

ESTHER
* * *
HENRY ADAMS

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Esther First published in 1884 Epub ISBN 978-1-77658-625-7 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77658-626-4 © 2014 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter IX Chapter X
Chapter I
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The new church of St. John's, on Fifth Avenue, was thronged the morningof the last Sunday of October, in the year 1880. Sitting in the gallery,beneath the unfinished frescoes, and looking down the nave, one caughtan effect of autumn gardens, a suggestion of chrysanthemums andgeraniums, or of October woods, dashed with scarlet oaks and yellowmaples. As a display of austerity the show was a failure, but ifcheerful content and innocent adornment please the Author of the liliesand roses, there was reason to hope that this first service at St.John's found favor in his sight, even though it showed no victory overthe world or the flesh in this part of the United States. The sun camein through the figure of St. John in his crimson and green garments ofglass, and scattered more color where colors already rivaled the flowersof a prize show; while huge prophets and evangelists in flowing robeslooked down from the red walls on a display of human vanities that wouldhave called out a vehement Lamentation of Jeremiah or Song of Solomon,had these poets been present in flesh as they were in figure.
Solomon was a brilliant but not an accurate observer; he looked at theworld from the narrow stand-point of his own temple. Here in New York hecould not have truthfully said that all was vanity, for even a moreill-natured satirist than he must have confessed that there was in thisnew temple to-day a perceptible interest in religion. One might almosthave said that religion seemed to be a matter of concern. The audiencewore a look of interest, and, even after their first gaze of admirationand whispered criticism at the splendors of their new church, when atlength the clergyman entered to begin the service, a ripple ofexcitement swept across the field of bonnets until there was almost amurmur as of rustling cornfields within the many colored walls of St.John's.
In a remote pew, hidden under a gallery of the transept, two personslooked on with especial interest. The number of strangers who crowded inafter them forced them to sit closely together, and their low whispersof comment were unheard by their neighbors. Before the service beganthey talked in a secular tone.
"Wharton's window is too high-toned," said the man.
"You all said it would be like Aladdin's," murmured the woman.
"Yes, but he throws away his jewels," rejoined the man. "See the bigprophet over the arch; he looks as though he wanted to come down—and Ithink he ought."
"Did Michael Angelo ever take lessons of Mr. Wharton?" asked the womanseriously, looking up at the figures high above the pulpit.
"He was only a prophet," answered her companion, and, looking in anotherdirection, next asked:
"Who is the angel of Paradise, in the dove-colored wings, sliding up themain aisle?"
"That! O, you know her! It is Miss Leonard. She is lovely, but she isonly an angel of Paris."
"I never saw her before in my life," he replied; "but I know her bonnetwas put on in the Lord's honor for the first time this morning."
"Women should take their bonnets off at the church door, as Mussulmen dotheir shoes," she answered.
"Don't turn Mahommedan, Esther. To be a Puritan is bad enough. Thebonnets match the decorations."
"Pity the transepts are not finished!" she continued, gazing up at thebare scaffolding opposite.
"You are lucky to have any thing finished," he rejoined. "Since Hazardgot here every thing is turned upside down; all the plans are changed.He and Wharton have taken the bit in their teeth, and the churchcommittee have got to pay for whatever damage is done."
"Has Mr. Hazard voice enough to fill the church?" she asked.
"Watch him, and see how well he'll do it. Here he comes, and he will hitthe right pitch on his first word."
The organ stopped, the clergyman appeared, and the talkers were silentuntil the litany ended and the organ began again. Under the prolongedrustle of settling for the sermon, more whispers passed.
"He is all eyes," murmured Esther; and it was true that at thisdistance the preacher seemed to be made up of two eyes and a voice, soslight and delicate was his frame. Very tall, slender and dark, histhin, long face gave so spiritual an expression to his figure that thegreat eyes seemed to penetrate like his clear voice to every soul withintheir range.
"Good art!" muttered her companion.
"We are too much behind the scenes," replied she.
"It is a stage, like any other," he rejoined; "there should be an entre-acte and drop-scene. Wharton could design one with a lastjudgment."
"He would put us into it, George, and we should be among the wicked."
"I am a martyr," answered George shortly.
The clergyman now mounted his pulpit and after a moment's pause said inhis quietest manner and clearest voice:
"He that hath ears to hear, let him hear."
An almost imperceptible shiver passed through Esther's figure.
"Wait! he will slip in the humility later," muttered George.
On the contrary, the young preacher seemed bent on letting no trace ofhumility slip into his first sermon. Nothing could be simpler than hismanner, which, if it had a fault, sinned rather on the side of plainnessand monotony than of rhetoric, but he spoke with the air of one who hada message to deliver which he was more anxious to give as he receivedthan to add any thing of his own; he meant to repeat it all without anattempt to soften it. He took possession of his flock with a generaladvertisement that he owned every sheep in it, white or black, and toshow that there could be no doubt on the matter, he added a generalclaim to right of property in all mankind and the universe. He did thisin the name and on behalf of the church universal, but there wasself-assertion in the quiet air with which he pointed out the nature ofhis title, and then, after sweeping all human thought and will into hisstrong-box, shut down the lid with a sharp click, and bade his audiencekneel.
The sermon dealt with the relations of religion to society. It began byclaiming that all being and all thought rose by slow gradations toGod,—ended in Him, for Him—existed only through Him and because ofbeing His.
The form of act or thought mattered nothing. The hymns of David, theplays of Shakespeare, the metaphysics of Descartes, the crimes ofBorgia, the virtues of Antonine, the atheism of yesterday and thematerialism of to-day, were all emanations of divine thought, doingtheir appointed work. It was the duty of the church to deal with themall, not as though they existed through a power hostile to the deity,but as instruments of the deity to work out his unrevealed ends. Thepreacher then went on to criticise the attitude of religion towardsscience. "If there is still a feeling of hostility between them," hesaid, "it is no longer the fault of religion. There have been times whenthe church seemed afraid, but she is so no longer. Analyze, dissect, useyour microscope or your spectrum till the last atom of matter isreached; reflect and refine till the last element of thought is madeclear; the church now knows with the certainty of science what she onceknew only by the certainty of faith, that you will find enthroned behindall thought and matter only one central idea,—that idea which thechurch has never ceased to embody,—I AM! Science like religion kneelsbefore this mystery; it can carry itself back only to this simpleconsciousness of existence. I AM is the starting point and goal ofmetaphysics and logic, but the church alone has pointed out from thebeginning that this starting-point is not human but divine. Thephilosopher says—I am, and the church scouts his philosophy. Sheanswers:—No! you are NOT, you have no existence of your own. You wereand are and ever will be only a part of the supreme I AM, of which thechurch is the emblem."
In this symbolic expression of his right of property in their souls andbodies, perhaps the preacher rose a little above the heads of hisaudience. Most of his flock were busied with a kind of speculation soforeign to that of metaphysics that they would have been puzzled toexplain what was meant by Descartes' famous COGITO ERGO SUM, on whichthe preacher laid so much stress. They would have preferred to put thefact of their existence on almost any other experience in life, as that"I have five millions," or, "I am the best-dressed woman in thechurch,—therefore I am somebody." The fact of self-consciousness wouldnot have struck them as warranting a claim even to a good socialposition, much less to a share in omnipotence; they knew the trait onlyas a sign of bad manners. Yet there were at least two persons among theglorified chrysanthemums of St. John's Garden this day, who as thesermon closed and the organ burst out again, glanced at each other witha smile as though they had enjoyed their lecture.
"Good!" said the man. "He takes hold."
"I hope he believes it all," said his companion.
"Yes, he has put his life into the idea," replied the man. "Even atcollege he would have sent us all off to the stake with a sweet smile,for the love of Christ and the glory of the English Episcopal Church."
The crowd soon began to pour slowly out of the building and the twoob