The leading character in this book is represented, dramatically, as resembling, both in his strength and weakness, the great Abelard of history. For this very reason he is described as failing miserably, where a stronger man might never have foiled, in grasping the Higher Rationalism as a law for life. He is, in fact, not meant for an ideal hero, but for an ardent intellectual man, hopelessly biased against veracity both by temperament and hereditary superstition.

I make this explanation in order to be beforehand with those who will possibly hasten to explain to my readers that my philosophy of life is at best retrograde, my modern thinker an impressionable spoony, and my religious outlook taken in the shadow of the Churches and reading no farther than the cloudy horizons of Ober-Ammergau.

Robert Buchanan.

London: March 12, 1884.

THE NEW ABELARD

PROEM

Shipwreck... What succour?—

On the gnawing rocks

The ship grinds to and fro with thunder-shocks,

And thro’ her riven sides with ceaseless rush

The foam-fleck’d waters gush:

Above, the soot-black sky; around, the roar

Of surges smiting on some unseen shore;

Beneath, the burial-place of rolling waves—

Flowerless, for ever shifting, wind-dug graves!

A moment on the riven deck he stands,

Praying to Heaven with wild uplifted hands,

Then sees across the liquid wall afar

A glimmer like a star;

The lighthouse gleam! Upon the headland black

The beacon burns and fronts the stormy wrack—

Sole speck of light on gulfs of darkness, where

Thunder the sullen breakers of despair...

The ship is gone... Now in that gulf of death

He swims and struggles on with failing breath:

He grasps a plank—it sinks—too frail to upbear

His leaden load of care;

Another and another—straws!—they are gone!

He cries aloud, stifles, and struggles on;

For still thro’ voids of gloom his straining sight

Sees the sad glimmer of a steadfast light!

He gains the rocks... What shining hands are these,

Reached out to pluck him from the cruel seas?

What shape is this, that clad in raiment blest

Now draws him to its breast!...

Ah, Blessed One, still keeping, day and night,

The lamp well trimm’d, the heavenly beacon bright,

He knows Thee now!—he feels the sheltering gleam—

And lo! the night of storm dissolves in dream!