'It is from superiority to such things that you do not care for them.You were not made for such things.They cannot fill your heart.It has whole regions with which they have no relation.'
'The very thought of music makes me feel ill.I used to be passionately fond of it.'
'I presume you got so far in it that you asked, "Is there nothing more?" Concluding there was nothing more, and yet needing more, you turned from it with disappointment?'
'It is the same,' she went on hurriedly, 'with painting, modelling, reading--whatever I have tried.I am sick of them all.They do nothing for me.'
'How can you enjoy music, Lady Georgina, if you are not in harmony with the heart and source of music?'
'How do you mean?'
'Until the human heart knows the divine heart, it must sigh and complain like a petulant child, who flings his toys from him because his mother is not at home.When his mother comes back to him he finds his toys are good still.When we find Him in our own hearts, we shall find him in everything, and music will be deep enough then, Lady Georgina.It is this that the Brahmin and the Platonist seek;it is this that the mystic and the anchorite sigh for; towards this the teaching of the greatest of men would lead us: Lord Bacon himself says, "Nothing can fill, much less extend the soul of man, but God, and the contemplation of God." It is Life you want.If you will look in your New Testament, and find out all that our Lord says about Life, you will find the only cure for your malady.I know what such talk looks like; but depend upon it, what I am talking about is something very different from what you fancy it.Anyhow to this you must come, one day or other.'
'But how am I to gain this indescribable good, which so many seek, and so few find?'
'Those are not my words,' said Falconer emphatically.'I should have said--"which so few yet seek; but so many shall at length find."'
'Do not quarrel with my foolish words, but tell me how I am to find it; for I suppose there must be something in what so many good people assert.'
'You thought I could give you help?'
'Yes.That is why I came to you.'
'Just so.I cannot give you help.Go and ask it of one who can.'
'Speak more plainly.'
'Well then: if there be a God, he must hear you if you call to him.
If there be a father, he will listen to his child.He will teach you everything.'
'But I don't know what I want.'
'He does: ask him to tell you what you want.It all comes back to the old story: "If ye then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the holy Spirit to them that ask him!" But I wish you would read your New Testament--the Gospels I mean: you are not in the least fit to understand the Epistles yet.Read the story of our Saviour as if you had never read it before.He at least was a man who seemed to have that secret of life after the knowledge of which your heart is longing.'
Lady Georgina rose.Her eyes were again full of tears.Falconer too was moved.She held out her hand to him, and without another word left the room.She never came there again.
Her manner towards Falconer was thereafter much altered.People said she was in love with him: if she was, it did her no harm.Her whole character certainly was changed.She sought the friendship of Miss St.John, who came at length to like her so much, that she took her with her in some of her walks among the poor.By degrees she began to do something herself after a quiet modest fashion.But within a few years, probably while so engaged, she caught a fever from which she did not recover.It was not till after her death that Falconer told any one of the interview he had had with her.
And by that time I had the honour of being very intimate with him.
When she knew that she was dying, she sent for him.Mary St.John was with her.She left them together.When he came out, he was weeping.
