CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
EACH VOLUME SOLD SEPARATELY.
COLLECTION
OF
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VOL. 3970.
THE HOUSE OF DEFENCE.
BY
E. F. BENSON.
IN TWO VOLUMES.—VOL. I.
LEIPZIG: BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ.
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The Copyright of this Collection is purchased for Continental Circulation only, and the volumes may therefore not be introduced into Great Britain or her Colonies.
(See also pp. 3-6 of Large Catalogue.)
Latest Volumes.—June 1907.
The Princess Priscilla’s Fortnight. By the author of “Elizabeth and her German Garden.” 1 vol.—3880.
The tale of a German Princess who runs away to England to live the simple life accompanied by her aged teacher. The story is a delightful mixture of smiles and tears.
The Adventures of Elizabeth in RÜgen. By the author of “Elizabeth and her German Garden.” 1 vol.—3881.
An account of a holiday spent in one of the pleasantest of German island resorts, so plentifully sprinkled with humorous incident as to make the book fascinating even to those unable to travel there except in imagination.
A Dazzling Reprobate. By W. R. H. Trowbridge. 1 v.—3882.
A very original study of high life and society in England, in which it is shown how hard regeneration is made for a fallen member.
The Way of the Spirit. By H. Rider Haggard. 2 vols.—3883/84.
A psychological romance and at the same time a tale of modern Egypt, in which a daughter of the ancient kings plays an important and novel rÔle.
“If Youth but knew!” By Agnes and Egerton Castle. 1 vol.—3885.
An idyl of Westphalia in the days of Jerome Bonaparte’s pinchbeck court and reign. A delicate and pretty love-story.
Mr. John Strood. By Percy White. 1 vol.—3886.
A story, written somewhat on the lines of “Mr. Bailey-Martin,” of the career of a public man. The snobbishness of the quondam friend who is here supposed to write the biography is cunningly revealed throughout.
The Artful Miss Dill. By F. Frankfort Moore. 1 vol.—3887.
A modern English romance, the opening scene of which, however, is laid in Caracas, and is of a most stirring nature.
Genius Loci, and The Enchanted Woods. By Vernon Lee. 1 vol.—3888.
A collection of essays and articles on towns and villages in France, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland, in which the authoress paints her impressions of their romanticism or interest.
The House of Mirth. By Edith Wharton. 2 vols.—3889/90.
An American society novel in which the hollow life of a certain moneyed clique of New York is admirably described.
Ring in the New. By Richard Whiteing. 1 vol.—3891.
This book might almost be described as socialistic. It is a description of the difficulty experienced at the present day by man or woman of earning their daily bread.
Beyond the Rocks. By Elinor Glyn. 1 vol.—3892.
A love-story, treating of modern English life, by the favourite and well-known authoress of “The Visits of Elizabeth.”
Fenwick’s Career. By Mrs. Humphry Ward. 2 vols.—3893/94.
Mrs. Ward’s new book describes the life of an artist in England, the vicissitudes through which he passes, and his ultimate reconciliation with the wife who had abandoned him.
COLLECTION
OF
BRITISH AUTHORS
TAUCHNITZ EDITION.
VOL. 3970.
THE HOUSE OF DEFENCE. By E. F. BENSON.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
| TAUCHNITZ EDITION. |
| By the same Author, |
| DODO | 1 vol. |
| THE RUBICON | 1 vol. |
| SCARLET AND HYSSOP | 1 vol. |
| THE BOOK OF MONTHS | 1 vol. |
| THE RELENTLESS CITY | 1 vol. |
| MAMMON & CO. | 2 vols. |
| THE CHALLONERS | 1 vol. |
| AN ACT IN A BACKWATER | 1 vol. |
| THE IMAGE IN THE SAND | 2 vols. |
| THE ANGEL OF PAIN | 2 vols. |
| PAUL | 2 vols. |
THE
HOUSE OF DEFENCE
BY
E. F. BENSON
AUTHOR OF “DODO,” “THE CHALLONERS,” “THE IMAGE IN THE SAND,”
“THE ANGEL OF PAIN,” “PAUL,” ETC.
COPYRIGHT EDITION
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I
LEIPZIG
BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ
1907.
DEDICATION
TO
C. E. M.
My Dear Friend,
It is with your permission that I dedicate this book to you, and with your permission and by your desire that I explain the circumstances of its dedication. You were cured, as both you and I know, of a disease that medical science had pronounced incurable by a certain Christian Science healer, who used neither knife nor drugs upon you.
I, a layman in medical affairs, think, as you know, that your disease was nervous in origin, and you will readily admit that the wise and skilful man who figures here as Sir James thought the same. But it was already organic when you went to him, and, after consultation with others, he pronounced it incurable. At the same time, he acknowledged its nervous origin, and you will acknowledge that with the utmost frankness he confessed entire inability to say how a nervous affection entered the more obviously material world of organic trouble. He had instances in plenty: fear, anxiety, he said, affected circulation and digestion, and that, of course, is patent to everybody. So, too, is the cure: remove the anxiety or fear, and you will get gastric affairs to go smoothly again, unless organic trouble has begun.
I suppose it is because we are all so used to that sort of mental healing (do not contradict me yet) that we no longer see any mystery attaching to it. But in such a cure there is no doubt whatever that the mind acts on the body, even as it acted before, when fear produced the imperfect action of the digestion, and heals just as it hurt. To go a step farther, I see no reason why the mind should not heal the disease of drinking or drug-taking, for in these, too, it is the brain that is the seat of the trouble, and its disease and desire is the real cause of the damage done to bodily tissue. But when—still logically, though in a scale that swiftly ascends—you tell me that some power not surgical can heal a compound fracture, then I must part company. At least, I do not believe that any man living upon this earth can make it happen that bones that are broken should join together (especially when the fracture is compound and they stick out of the skin) without assisting Nature by what you call “mere manipulation,” but by what I call, “setting the bone.”
It is here we join issue.
We have often discussed these points before, and the discussion has ever ended in laughter. But the discussion ends this time in the book which I have written.
You have read these pages, and you know that in some points you seem to me to be very like Alice Yardly, but those are the points on which we agree to differ. I think Alice Yardly and you are often too silly for words. But you are much more essentially like Bertie Cochrane, and it is to you, in the character of him, that I dedicate this book. You, sick with a mortal disease, found healing in Christian Science, and in it found happiness. And now you yourself heal by the power that healed you. For I hope I shall never forget that which I with my own eyes saw you do—that which is the foundation of the last scene of the healing in “The House of Defence.” To save that drug-logged wreck, who was our friend, when you saw no other way of convincing him of the beastliness of his habit, you drank that which by all that is known of the drug should have killed you, and you drank it with complete and absolute confidence that it could not possibly hurt you. It is true—at least, Sir James tells me so—that it is not quite easy to poison oneself with laudanum, because the amateur will usually take too much, and be sick, or too little, and thus not imbibe a fatal dose. But you drank a good deal—I can see now the brown stuff falling in your glass—and it appeared to have no effect whatever on you. I will go further: it had no effect whatever on you. But it had the effect you foresaw on your patient: it cured him.
Now, again and again I ask myself, how did it cure him? He was very fond of you; he saw you, in the desire to save him, apparently lay down your life for him. I believe that his brain, his will-power, received then so tremendous and bracing a shock that laudanum for that moment became to him a thing abhorrent and devilish, as no doubt it is. The sight of you swallowing the deadly thing gave a huge stimulus to his will. That seems to me not only possible, but natural. Only, if this is the case, it was again his own mind, on which your action acted, that healed him.
That, however, does not explain why the drug had no effect on you. There again we part company. I believe it to have been your absolute confidence that it could not hurt you that left you unharmed and unaffected. You said, with a faith that to me is transcendent, “This thing shall not hurt me, because it is necessary for me to drink it.” And your body obeyed the orders of your mind, and was not harmed. But you will have none of that explanation. You say it could not harm you, because there is neither healing nor hurt in material things.... And here we are again!
Let me cease to argue with you. Let me only say that to me that evening was an epoch. I have seen and heard of cheerful and serene heroism before, but it never before came so close to me as then, when the storm bugled outside, and the fire spluttered, and you drank your deadly glass.
Affectionately yours,
E. F. Benson.
THE HOUSE OF DEFENCE.
