"I have to make known to you that an event of similar magnitude has just taken place in the field in which I have the honour to work, the field of Randolph Henry Ash. Letters have been discovered between him and the woman poet Christabel LaMotte, that are going to electrify-to upheave-the relevant associated fields. I cannot quote these letters-I have seen only a small few at this time. I can only express the hope that they may be freely made available to all scholars of all nations, for it is in the interest of international communication, free movement of ideas and intellectual property that they be most widely accessible."
The finale of Cropper's lecture was a product of his passion. The truth was, he had come to love the bright transparencies of the things he had acquired, almost as much as the things themselves. When he thought of Ash's snuff-box, he thought not of the weight of it in his hand, the cold metal warming in his own dry palm, but also now of the enamelled cover magnified on the screen. Ash had never seen such gilded birds of Paradise, such blooming grapes, such deep red roses, though all their colours had been fresher in his time. He had never seen the sheen on the pearly rim as the light touched it through Cropper's projector. At the end of the lecture, Cropper would present this object in hologram, floating in the church like a miraculously levitated object.
"Look," he would say, "at the museum of the future. The Russians are already stocking their museums not with sculptures or ceramics, nor with copies in fibreglass or plaster, but with these constructions of light. Everything can be everywhere, our culture can be, is, worldwide. The original objects must be preserved where the air is best, where breath cannot harm them, as the cave-paintings at Lascaux have been damaged by those who came to marvel at them. With modern technology, mere possession of the relics of the past is of little importance. All that is of importance is that those entrusted with the care of these fragile and fading things should have the requisite skills-and resources-to prolong their life indefinitely, and to send their representations, fresh, vivid, even, as you have seen,more vivid than in the flesh, so to speak, journeying round the world."
At the end of his lecture, Cropper would take out Ash's large gold watch, and check with it his own perfect timing: 50 minutes 22 seconds, this time. He had given up his naive youthful practice of publicly claiming the watch, with a little joke about continuity, Ash's time and Cropper's. For although the watch had been purchased with his own funds, it was arguable that by his own arguments it should be stowed away safely in the Stant cabinets. He had wondered once about juxtaposing it in his, its owner's, hand, with a hologram of itself. But he saw that his emotions, which were violent, about Ash's watch, were private, not to be confused with his public appeals. For he believed the watch had come to him, that it had been meant to come to him, that he had and held something of R. H. Ash. It ticked near his heart. He would have liked to be a poet. He put it on the edge of the pulpit, to time his responses while he took questions, and it beat away cheerfully, whilst the Press took hold of the Unknown Sex Life of Eminent Victorians.
Meanwhile he followed up his vague memory that there had been mention of Christabel LaMotte in the papers of his ancestress Priscilla Penn Cropper. He telephoned Harmony City and asked for a search to be done of P. P. Cropper's correspondence, which he had routinely copied into his computer archives. This produced, by fax the next day, the following letter.
Dear Mrs Cropper,
I am sensible of yr kind Interest in me - across all the wild wastes - shrieking gulls and tossing Ice - of the Atlantic. Indeed it is as strange a thing - that You - in your pleasantly Hot desert - should have knowledge of my small struggles - as that the Telegraph should utter imperatives of Arrest, or sale of Men and Commodities - -from Continent's Rim to Rim. But we live in a time of Change -I am told. Miss Judge, whose elegant Mind is habituated to the Gustsof the Invisible Powers, received an Intuition last night that the Veil of Flesh and Sense shall be rent away - there shall be no more Hesitation or gentle knocking on the Portal - but the Cherubim, the Living Creatures, shall walk the Earth, connected to us. And this she perceives as sheperceives Matter of Fact - the moonlight and firelight in her quiet room - the cat - all sparks of electricity and Rays of starting hairs - coming in out of the Garden.
You say - you are told - that I have some Power - as a Medium. Indeed it is not so. I see not nor hear much that delights and pleasantly - Exhausts - thesensitive Motor - -of Mrs Lees. I have seen Wonders worked by Her. I have heard Twangling Instruments - all diffused through the Air, now here, now there, and in all places at once. I have seen Spirit hands of great beauty, and felt them Warm my own, and melt, or Evaporate in my clasp. I have seen Mrs Lees Crowned with Stars, a true Persephone, a light in Darkness. I have seen also a cake of Violet soap go spiralling like an angry Bird above our heads and heard it utter a strange Hum. But I have no - Skill - it is not skill -I have no Attraction, I Magnetise no vanished beings - they come not - Mrs Lees says they will, and I have Faith. h ave, it seems, a power of Scrying. I see Creatures - Animate and Inanimate - or Intricate Scenes -I have tried the Crystal Ball and also a Pool of Ink in a Dish - wherein I have seen these things: a Womansewing, her face turned away, a great Gold Fish, whose every scale could be reckoned, an ormolu Clock I later - a week or more - -first saw in its Solid Presence on the shelf of Mrs NassauSenior - a suffocatingMass - of Feathers. These things begin - as points of Light - they cloud and thicken - and are present as it were solid.
You ask, as to my Faith. I do not know. I know true Faith when I meetit - as George Herbert who spoke daily to his Lord - chiding him forharshness it may be as:
O thatthou shouldst give dust a tongue To crie to thee And then not heare it crying!
But in his poem "Faith" he does speak - of the Grave - and beyond - in great security.
What thoughmy bodie runne to dust? Faith cleaves unto it, counting ev'ry grain With an exact and most particular trust Reserving allfor flesh again.
With what bodies, think you, with what corporeal nature come they, who crowd against our windows and are made solid in our thick air? Are they the bodies of the Resurrection? Are they, as OliviaJudge believes, manifest in temporary withdrawal of both Matter and Kinetic Force from the indomitable medium? What do we clasp if we are granted the unspeakable Grace - of Clasping- again? Orient and immortal wheat, Mrs Cropper, incorruptible - or the simulacra of our Fallen Flesh?
Dust falls from us daily as we walk, dust of us, lives a little in the air and is Trodden - we sweep away - Parts of Ourselves - and shall all these - -jots and omicra -cohaere? O we die daily - and there - is it all reckoned and gathered, husks restored to gloss and bloom?
Flowersfull - full of Scent - on our Tables - wet with the asperges - of this world - or that? But they wither and die, like any other. I have a Wreath - all brown now - of white rosebuds - will it bloomagain -there?
And then I would ask of you, if you are wise, why those who comefrom, f rom that world - those visitants, those Revenants, those Loved Ones - why are they all so Singly and Singularly Cheerful in their mode of address? For we are taught that there is eternalprogression - perfection by degrees - no sudden Bliss. Why may we not hear the Voices of Righteous Anger? We are guilty towardsThem, we have Betrayed-for our owngood - should they not Chide and be Terrible?