Prev | Current Page 207 | Next

Walpole, Hugh, Sir, 1884-1941

"The Captives"

I
suddenly came across the Chapel. I like going into London churches
by chance, there's always something interesting, something you
wouldn't expect. The Chapel simply astonished me. I couldn't imagine
what they were all about, it wasn't the ordinary London
congregation, it was almost the ordinary London service and yet not
quite; there was an air of expectation and even excitement which is
most unusual in a London church. Then there was Warlock. Of course
one could see at once that he was an extraordinary man, a kind of
prophet all on his own; he was as far away from that congregation as
Columbus was from his crew when he first sighted the Indies."
"I've met one or two prophets in my time, and their concern has
always been with their audience first, themselves second and their
vision last. Warlock is the other way round. He should have been a
hermit, not the leader of a community. Well, it interested me. I
came again and again . . . I'm going to stay on now until the end."
"The end?" asked Maggie.
"The end of myself or the Chapel, whichever comes first. I wrote a
story once--a very bad one--about some merchants--why merchants I
don't know--who were flung on a desert island.


Pages:
195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219