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“The odd thing is,” he said, “when Sir Alfred was being draggedthrough the house to his death, the apparition warned me not tointerfere. I heard her voice clearly in my mind and it had adistinct accent. Russian, I'm positive.”
“Why is that odd?” asked Swinburne. “Aside from theobvious.”
“Because Lady Mabella Tichborne was from Hampshire.”
“Hamp-what? She was English?”
“Thoroughly. So whatever's been haunting Tichborne House, it isnot the ghost of the woman who crawled around the wheat fields. Infact, I doubt that it's really a ghost at all.”
“It looked like one to me.”
“Then perhaps you can explain why it was rapping its knuckles onwalls rather than floating straight through them?”
“You have an explanation?”
“I have never given credence to ghosts, but I've read much aboutwhat spiritualists term the projection of the ethereal or astraldouble. Occultists state that it is perfectly possible to passthrough solid objects while in astral form, but it should not bedone too often, as it can disrupt the co
Swinburne jerked his limbs spasmodically-a sign of his growingexcitement.
“So we're dealing with a spiritualist, a table-tapper?”
“That's my current theory, and one who appears to be using theCambodian fragments and the South American Eye to somehow transmitand amplify mediumistic projections. I'm almost certain thatsupport for the Claimant-who anyone in their right mind can see isa phony-is, through this method, being artificially generated tostir up the masses. What puzzles me is why the emanations influencesome and not others. You are apparently rather sensitive to them,though more resistant when you're drunk. Myself, Trounce, andHonesty feel them only faintly, while Herbert here is not touchedat all.”
“From what I can see, the working classes are the mostsusceptible,” put in Swinburne. “Though I'd hardly place myself inthat category. Whereas Herbert-”
“-is a bloomin’ philosopher,” the vagrant interjected. He torehis eyes away from the mechanical man and peered at the poet frombeneath his bushy grey eyebrows, one of which was raisedspeculatively.
“Quite so. Quite so,” Swinburne conceded. “Forgive me for theobservation, though, my dear chap, but you seem to be a singularlyunsuccessful one. What exactly is your philosophy? Perhaps thenature of your thoughts bears some relation to your apparentimmunity.”
“That's an interesting hypothesis,” Burton said. He faced histwo guests. “Talk to us, Herbert.”
“Hmmph!” Spencer grunted. “You'll have to give me a minute ortwo to prepare meself. It don't come easy to me, I'm afraid.”
“Go ahead. Take whatever time you need.”
The king's agent and his assistant looked on in interest as thevagrant set his glass aside, propped his elbows on the arms of hischair, steepled his fingers in front of his face, closed his eyes,and laid his head back. He relaxed, and a remarkable tranquillityseemed to wash over him.
Swinburne looked at Burton, who whispered almost soundlessly:“Self-mesmerism!”
The clock on the mantelpiece clicked softly.
Distant shouts and crashes sounded from outside.
Two minutes passed.
Herbert Spencer sniffed, cleared his throat, and began to talk.Astonishingly, he was suddenly possessed of a finely spoken,urbane, and educated voice.
“Well, gentlemen,” he said, without shifting position or openinghis eyes, “let's see if I can offer you a little food for thought.To illustrate the core of my philosophy, I would ask you to imaginethat you are blindfolded and don't know where you are. You stretchout your hands and walk slowly ahead until you encounter a wall. Itmay be a single wall blocking your way or it could be the side of aroom. You don't know. Your only certainty is that the wall isthere. So what do you do? I haven't a notion. What I do know isthis: whatever your next action, it will be done in relation to thefact that you ran into that wall. Maybe you'll climb over it. Maybeyou'll try to knock it down. Maybe you'll build a house adjacent toit.”
Burton and Swinburne glanced at each other, amazed at theirfriend's eloquence and perfect intonation; wondering where hiswords were leading.
“The question now is this: if you weren't the only blindfoldedperson to have bumped into the wall-let's say, for argument's sake,that twenty others have done so, too-which of you is best able tomake the most of your situation? I'm not referring to the strongestor most intelligent or most resourceful; what I mean to ask is,which of you happens to be in possession of the abilities andattitude that can best adapt to the circumstance of encountering awall? Am I making sense?”
“Manifestly,” Swinburne replied. “When we first met, you usedthe phrase ‘survival of the fittest.’ You're referring to that,yes?”
Spencer opened his eyes, which were oddly glazed, and jabbed afinger at the poet.
“Exactly! However, don't mistake the ‘fittest’ for thehealthiest or the cleverest or any other specific trait. I use itin the same sense that a square peg ‘fits’ into a square hole. Thefittest man is the one most constitutionally suited to theconditions in which he finds himself. It's a two-way relationship:the particular nature of the individual confronting the particularnature of reality. Or, I should say, what appears to bereality.”
“What appears to be?” Burton asked.
“That's right, because it isn't possible to know if the realityyou perceive is all there is. You can only deal with what you arecognizant of.”
Burton frowned and nodded. “Knowledge is phenomenal? It pertainsonly to appearance-or in the case of your blindfolded individual,to the other material senses?”
Spencer resumed his closed-eyed, steeple-fingered position.
“Something like that, yes, though I don't mean to suggest thatit's necessarily deceptive. We might only be aware of a smallportion of reality, but it is reality nevertheless, so however weapprehend it, that apprehension has validity.
“Existence, then, is, I posit, a continuous adjustment ofinternal relations to external relations. Which brings us to thecrux of the matter, for if our existence depended not upon suchadjustments but rather upon quantifiable attributes such asstrength, health, and endurance-and if reality were known in itsentirety and measured, mapped, and gauged-then it would be easy todetermine one individual's chances of survival against another's.The Eugenicists propose the improvement of the human race on justsuch a basis. They are in error. What they overlook is that,because one person's reality isn't necessarily the same asanother's, so the traits required to best prosper differ fromperson to person.”
Swinburne bounced in his chair excitedly. “I see! I see! A manwho perceives a barrier needs the dexterity to climb over it, whilethe man who sees a foundation would benefit from the talent todesign and erect a structure upon it.”
The philosopher nodded without reopening his eyes.
“Just so. These differing notions of life and how to best dealwith it have caused the human race to tend toward greaterheterogeneity. Individuals are becoming more specialised anddifferentiated as they each adapt to their own perception. Tocompensate for this diversification, we, as a species, havedeveloped the ability to integrate almost everyone by creating aninterdependent society.
“If we allow the Eugenicists to alter the race according totheir infinitesimally narrow criteria, I think it almost certainthat this interdependence will collapse and extinction willfollow.”
With eyes fixed on the vagrant philosopher, Burton moved to hissaddleback armchair and sat down. “While I find myself in agreementwith your notion of interdependent diversity,” he said,thoughtfully, “do you not think that it is overwhelmed by a rathermore dominant division? I speak of that which we've seendemonstrated today-to wit, the segregation of society into theworking and the educated classes.”