{"id":68,"date":"2013-07-13T01:25:40","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:25:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=68"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:25:40","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:25:40","slug":"72-littleton-percival-vol-03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03\/72-littleton-percival-vol-03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03","title":{"rendered":"-72_Littleton Percival.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\n
\nFIVE<\/b><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nLittleton – Percival<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n        L<\/font>ITTLETON<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n            A<\/b><\/font>fter so long a time, Percival, we meet. It is strange that our
\nways, upon earth associated and parallel, should in this other
\nworld be so entirely divergent.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nP<\/font>ERCIVAL<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nWhy is it strange to you, Littleton ? The world in which we find
\nourselves, is made, as we have both discovered, of the stuff of our
\nearthly dreams and the texture of our mortal character. Physically, our ways on earth were parallel. We walked together over
\nCumberland mountains or watched the whole sea leap and
\nthunder titanically against the Cornwall cliffs. You were stroke
\nand I was cox in the same boat on the Isis. We bracketed always
\nfor College honours and took the same class in the same subject
\nin the Tripos. Afterwards too, we entered Parliament side by side
\nin the same party and by an august and noble silence helped to
\nadminister the affairs of our country. But what greater difference
\ncould divide men than that which existed between our bodily frames and moral
\nconstitutions? You, the tall, fair, robust descendant of the Vikings; I, dark, spare and short from the Welsh
\nmountains. You, the hard-headed, practical, successful lawyer;<\/font><\/p>\n

I, the dilettante and connoisseur who knew something about
\neverything except my own affairs and could deal successfully with
\nevery business that did not concern me.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nL<\/font>ITTLETON<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nYet we clung together; our tastes often lay in the same direction;<\/font><\/p>\n

our affections were similar, and even our sins connected us.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nP<\/font>ERCIVAL<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nWe completed each other, I think. Our tastes were very dissimilarly similar. We read the same book; but you tore the essence<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 486<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nout of it, briefly, masterfully, and then flung it aside, satisfied that
\nyou had made even the dead useful to you; I wound my way into
\nthe heart of its meaning like a serpent and lay there coiled till I
\nhad become one with it, then wound myself out again replete
\nand affectionately reminiscent of the soul that had given me
\nharbourage. As for our sins, let us not talk of them. We have
\nbeen too tediously familiar with them after death to cherish their
\nmemory. But even there we differed. You sinned voraciously,
\nrobustly, with gusto but with very little of feeling; I stumbled in
\nout of excess of emotion and could not recover myself because of
\nthe vibrant intensity of my memories.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nL<\/font>ITTLETON<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nLet me know what world harboured you since we parted.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nP<\/font>ERCIVAL<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nLet me rather hear your experiences.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nL<\/font>ITTLETON<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThe details fade in the retrospect and will not bear telling. Certain periods of mortal agony there were, each with its own
\nphysical surroundings, that I long to forget but cannot. Some
\nof them recalled strangely, not in detail but in kind, Greek
\nTartarus and Catholic Inferno. I was the prey of Harpies, I was
\nhunted and torn and devoured, I experienced the agonies of the
\nmen I had sent to the deliberate and brutal torture of our jails or
\nbeggared of their honour or their property. I renewed the successes of my life and sickened of their selfishness, boldness, hardness. Money became as red-hot metal in my hands and luxury
\nwas a gnawing fire that embraced my body. I lingered in regions
\nwhere Love was not known and the souls of the inhabitants were
\nhard and strong as bronze, dry and delightless as the Sahara.
\nO Percival, Percival, when I go again upon earth, I shall know
\nlove and execute mercy.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nP<\/font>ERCIVAL<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nHad you no hours of respite, entered no regions of happiness ?<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 487<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nL<\/font>ITTLETON<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThat, I believe, is yet before me.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nP<\/font>ERCIVAL<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nI too have had experiences similar to yours, though different in
\ntheir nature and quality. I have sickened of the repeated weakness and selfishness of my life, I have experienced in my soul the
\nsufferings of those I had injured. I can understand why the
\nChristians believed Hell to be eternal; it was a memory in the self
\nof the moral endlessness of those torments. But I had my release.
\nI have lived in Elysium, I have trod the fields of asphodel. And
\nin those happy experiences I have deepened the strength and
\nquality of my love, intensified the swiftness of my emotions,
\nrefined and purified my taste and intellect.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nL<\/font>ITTLETON<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nWhat is this world in which we meet ?<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nP<\/font>ERCIVAL<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThe heaven of comrades.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 488<\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FIVE Littleton – Percival           LITTLETON               After so long a time, Percival, we meet. It is strange that our ways, upon earth…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03","wpcat-4-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}