The Rainbow

So that whilst she had an affection for Mr. Loverseed, the

vicar, and a protective sort of feeling for Cossethay church,

wanting always to help it and defend it, it counted very small

in her life.

Not but that she was conscious of some unsatisfaction. When

her husband was roused by the thought of the churches, then she

became hostile to the ostensible church, she hated it for not

fulfilling anything in her. The Church told her to be good: very

well, she had no idea of contradicting what it said. The Church

talked about her soul, about the welfare of mankind, as if the

saving of her soul lay in her performing certain acts conducive

to the welfare of mankind. Well and good-it was so, then.

Nevertheless, as she sat in church her face had a pathos and

poignancy. Was this what she had come to hear: how by doing this

thing and by not doing that, she could save her soul? She did

not contradict it. But the pathos of her face gave the lie.

There was something else she wanted to hear, it was something

else she asked for from the Church.

But who was she to affirm it? And what was she doing

with unsatisfied desires? She was ashamed. She ignored them and

left them out of count as much as possible, her underneath

yearnings. They angered her. She wanted to be like other people,

decently satisfied.

He angered her more than ever. Church had an irresistible

attraction for him. And he paid no more attention to that part

of the service which was Church to her, than if he had been an

angel or a fabulous beast sitting there. He simply paid no heed

to the sermon or to the meaning of the service. There was

something thick, dark, dense, powerful about him that irritated

her too deeply for her to speak of it. The Church teaching in

itself meant nothing to him. "And forgive us our trespasses as

we forgive them that trespass against us"--it simply did

not touch him. It might have been more sounds, and it would have

acted upon him in the same way. He did not want things to be

intelligible. And he did not care about his trespasses, neither

about the trespasses of his neighbour, when he was in church.

Leave that care for weekdays. When he was in church, he took no

more notice of his daily life. It was weekday stuff. As for the

welfare of mankind--he merely did not realize that there

was any such thing: except on weekdays, when he was good-natured

enough. In church, he wanted a dark, nameless emotion, the

emotion of all the great mysteries of passion.

He was not interested in the thought of himself or of

her: oh, and how that irritated her! He ignored the sermon, he

ignored the greatness of mankind, he did not admit the immediate

importance of mankind. He did not care about himself as a human

being. He did not attach any vital importance to his life in the

drafting office, or his life among men. That was just merely the

margin to the text. The verity was his connection with Anna and

his connection with the Church, his real being lay in his dark

emotional experience of the Infinite, of the Absolute. And the

great mysterious, illuminated capitals to the text, were his

feelings with the Church.