er things, but from a strident selfishness, rasping
and self-proclamatory, lacking elevation, save as his love puts wings
beneath him for a moment and lifts him, as eagles billow up their
young; is weak, and tries to cover weakness up by ranting. We pity,
then despise him, then pity him once more, and in sheer charity think
him raving mad. Stand Maud's lover alongside King Arthur, and how
splendid does King Arthur look! The lover was pessimist and wrong;
Arthur was optimist and, in his temper, right. Though hacked at by the
careless or vicious swords of cumulating hatreds, underestimations,
selfishness, and lewdness of lesser and cruder souls, knowing, as he
did, how God is on goodness' side, knew, therefore, who is on God's
side keeps hope in good, believing better things. Those who, thinking
themselves shrewd, and are perennially suspicious, do really lack in
shrewdness, lacking depth. The far view is the serene view. Pelleas,
too, is a study in lost faith. He was near-sighted in his moral life,
and so, in losing faith in Ettarre, lost faith in womanhood, a
conclusion not justified from the premises; and you hear him in the
wild night, crying as beasts of the desert cry, and what he hisses as
you pass is, "I have no sword." Arthur kept his sword till time came
to give it back to the "arm clothed in white samite." He threw not his
sword away until his hand could hold it no longer. Hands and swords
must keep company while life and strength remain, and who breaks or
throws sword away from sheer despair has lost sight of duty, in so far
that our business is to do battle valiantly and constantly for
righteousness, and keep the sword at play in spite of dubious
circumstances. Battles are often on the point of being won when they
look on the point of being lost, as was the case with Pelleas, whose
hope died just at the hour when hope ought to have begun shouts
befitting triumph; for that night when he lay his naked sword across
Ettarre's naked neck, she, waking and finding whose sword was lying,
like a mad menace, on her breast, recovered her womanhood, loved the
knight, who came and went, and slew her not, as his right was, and
loved him to her death; while he, the cause of her reformation, swung
through the gloomy night with faith and courage lost. He should have
held his faith, however his trust in one had been shamed and sunk.
Faith in one snuffed out is not in logic to lose faith; for all are
more than one.