spoke of auras and astral bodies, of emanations, reincarnations and ectoplasmic manisfestations, of the Great Pyramid, and of uncanny happenings in haunted places and darkened rooms. She spoke of the Great Memory and of the Higher Thought; she spoke of the popular superstitions of the Highlands and of the esoteric knowledge of the East; she marshalled within the uncertain outlines of her argument a whole lower mythology of supernatural beings; creatures of the fire and the air, the diminished fairies and the still-potent Sidhe, the dark divinities of Mexico and the brutish gods of Nile. Mrs Moule, it seemed to Winter, had a lively, roomy, and wholly undisciplined mind. Her present line of talk was not an obsession; it represented the turning out of one of a series of untidy lumber-rooms on an impulse not yet revealed. It was a safe guess that the same obscure events which had prompted Mr Eliot’s more sophisticated mind to metaphysical discussion were behind his assistant’s dallyings with the frankly spooky.
Something of these events Winter knew, but much remained obstinately shadowy. He determined on a calculated attack. ‘The whole subject of the uncanny is certainly fascinating. And uncommonly good material for imaginative writing. When you come to think of it all the world’s great stories have an element of the supernatural. Its abandonment means the sacrifice of a great many good story-telling effects. Is Mr Eliot’s the sort of mind that is given to the supernatural? Is there anything of the true supernatural in his books?’
Mrs Moule considered. ‘There is a ghost in The Crimson Web . But he turns out to be the dismissed butler, who has been living secretly in the wine-cellar and who wanders about the house at night in an intoxicated condition. And that is the general rule. Supernatural appearances are permissible for the purpose of giving a momentary thrill but there must be a naturalistic explanation of them in the end. The essence of the thing is that the reader or playgoer has to feel safe.’
For a moment Winter forgot that he was circuitously in quest of information. The old lady was intelligent. ‘Safe?’ he said.
‘The supernatural has no known rules, and nowadays we are comfortable only with rules. If we are to play our stereotyped games or make our engines work or keep fit we must follow the rules. Mr Eliot’s later books are successful because everything is subject to rules which the reader knows. There is generally a puzzle which the reader can solve by means of the rules – and that implies that in the little universe of the book the reader is master. The books – though the reader is hardly aware of it – cater for the need of security. Real life is horribly insecure because God is capable of keeping a vital rule or two up his sleeve and giving us unpleasant surprises as a result. Mr Eliot isn’t allowed to do that. In a puzzle-book the surprises are always pleasing because it is implied that our intelligence is really superior to them. Knowing the rules, we can control them if we want to.’
More than curious, thought Winter, that this competent old person, so admirably chosen to second Mr Eliot in what Wedge called his labours of beneficence, should also be capable of talking nonsense about Higher Thought and astral bodies. ‘Those hidden rules which Eliot isn’t allowed to exploit’, he said; ‘–you think God keeps some of them in the Great Pyramid? And brings them out, perhaps, to persecute our host?’
At this question Mrs Moule, who had been talking briskly and with spirit, raised a nervous hand to the little palisade round her throat. Involuntarily, or by policy, she was once more a timorously tongue-tied old lady – a schoolmistress who had made her way into the world without ever quite gaining confidence in the face of it. And once more she appeared to be listening for something which was no part of a common luncheon party: so powerful was the suggestion of this that
Something of these events Winter knew, but much remained obstinately shadowy. He determined on a calculated attack. ‘The whole subject of the uncanny is certainly fascinating. And uncommonly good material for imaginative writing. When you come to think of it all the world’s great stories have an element of the supernatural. Its abandonment means the sacrifice of a great many good story-telling effects. Is Mr Eliot’s the sort of mind that is given to the supernatural? Is there anything of the true supernatural in his books?’
Mrs Moule considered. ‘There is a ghost in The Crimson Web . But he turns out to be the dismissed butler, who has been living secretly in the wine-cellar and who wanders about the house at night in an intoxicated condition. And that is the general rule. Supernatural appearances are permissible for the purpose of giving a momentary thrill but there must be a naturalistic explanation of them in the end. The essence of the thing is that the reader or playgoer has to feel safe.’
For a moment Winter forgot that he was circuitously in quest of information. The old lady was intelligent. ‘Safe?’ he said.
‘The supernatural has no known rules, and nowadays we are comfortable only with rules. If we are to play our stereotyped games or make our engines work or keep fit we must follow the rules. Mr Eliot’s later books are successful because everything is subject to rules which the reader knows. There is generally a puzzle which the reader can solve by means of the rules – and that implies that in the little universe of the book the reader is master. The books – though the reader is hardly aware of it – cater for the need of security. Real life is horribly insecure because God is capable of keeping a vital rule or two up his sleeve and giving us unpleasant surprises as a result. Mr Eliot isn’t allowed to do that. In a puzzle-book the surprises are always pleasing because it is implied that our intelligence is really superior to them. Knowing the rules, we can control them if we want to.’
More than curious, thought Winter, that this competent old person, so admirably chosen to second Mr Eliot in what Wedge called his labours of beneficence, should also be capable of talking nonsense about Higher Thought and astral bodies. ‘Those hidden rules which Eliot isn’t allowed to exploit’, he said; ‘–you think God keeps some of them in the Great Pyramid? And brings them out, perhaps, to persecute our host?’
At this question Mrs Moule, who had been talking briskly and with spirit, raised a nervous hand to the little palisade round her throat. Involuntarily, or by policy, she was once more a timorously tongue-tied old lady – a schoolmistress who had made her way into the world without ever quite gaining confidence in the face of it. And once more she appeared to be listening for something which was no part of a common luncheon party: so powerful was the suggestion of this that
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