Page:The Yellow Book - 02.djvu/36

28 spiritual nature of man must be exalted, step by step. That may be its way of perfection. On that path it will rise higher and higher into Divine illuminations which have touched it but very feebly as yet, even after countless ages of existence.

"Do you recognise these speculations?" said Vernet, after a silence.

I recognised them well enough, without at all anticipating that so much of them would presently re-appear in the formal theory of more than one social philosopher.

There was a piano in the little room we dined in. For a minute or two Vernet, standing with his cigar between his lips, went lightly over the keys. The movement, though extremely quick, was wonderfully soft, so that he had not to raise his voice in saying:

"I have an innocent little speculation of my own. How long will it be before this spiritual perfectioning is pretty near accomplishment? Two thousand years? One thousand years? Twenty generations at the least! Ah, that is the despair of us poor wretches of to-day and to-morrow. Well, when the time comes I fancy that an entirely new literature will have a new language. There will certainly be a new literature if ever spiritual progress equals intellectual progress. The dawning of conceptions as yet undreamt of, enlightenments higher than any yet attained to, may be looked for, I suppose, as in the natural order of things; and even without extraordinary revelations to the spirit, the spiritual advance must have an enormous effect in disabusing, informing and inspiring mental faculty such as we know it now. And meanwhile? Meanwhile words are all that we speak with, and how weak are words? Already there are heights and depths of feeling which they are hardly more adequate to express than the dumbness of the dog can express his love for his master. Yet Rh