The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Altar Fire, by Arthur Christopher Benson

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Title: The Altar Fire

Author: Arthur Christopher Benson

Posting Date: August 30, 2009 [EBook #4612]
Release Date: November, 2003
First Posted: February 19, 2002

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE ALTAR FIRE

By

ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON

Cecidit autem ignis Domini,
et voravit holocaustum

1907

PREFACE

It will perhaps be said, and truly felt, that the following is a morbid
book. No doubt the subject is a morbid one, because the book
deliberately gives a picture of a diseased spirit. But a pathological
treatise, dealing with cancer or paralysis, is not necessarily morbid,
though it may be studied in a morbid mood. We have learnt of late
years, to our gain and profit, to think and speak of bodily ailments as
natural phenomena, not to slur over them and hide them away in attics
and bedrooms. We no longer think of insanity as demoniacal possession,
and we no longer immure people with diseased brains in the secluded
apartments of lovely houses. But we still tend to think of the
sufferings of the heart and soul as if they were unreal, imaginary,
hypochondriacal things, which could be cured by a little resolution and
by intercourse with cheerful society; and by this foolish and secretive
reticence we lose both sympathy and help. Mrs. Proctor, the friend of
Carlyle and Lamb, a brilliant and somewhat stoical lady, is recorded to
have said to a youthful relative of a sickly habit, with stern
emphasis, "Never tell people how you are! They don't want to know." Up
to a certain point this is shrewd and wholesome advice. One does
undoubtedly keep some kinds of suffering in check by resolutely
minimising them. But there is a significance in suffering too. It is
not all a clumsy error, a well-meaning blunder. It is a deliberate part
of the constitution of the world.

Why should we wish to conceal the fact that we have suffered, that we
suffer, that we are likely to suffer to the end? T