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It is my poor brother who is the Deus ex machina, who, from his unknown grave, as I fear, pulls the strings of this infernal puppet-show." He paused, and for a space gazed thoughtfully into the grate as if he had forgotten my presence. At length he looked up, and resumed: "It is a curious story, Doctor a very curious story. Part of it you know the middle part.
On the English stage it is never permitted to hint at the tragic side of wantonness; vice must always be made seductive, even though a deus ex machina causes it to collapse at the end of the performance. As Mr. Bernard Shaw has said, the English theatrical method by no means banishes vice; it merely consents that it shall be made attractive; its charms are advertised and its penalties suppressed.
Besides, we had to keep Arthur's mouth shut out of consideration for the blood-vessel, so I told him to let it rest till you should come. I fancy we have all been watching for you as a sort of "Deus ex Machina" to clear up the last act of the drama, though how you are to do so, I cannot conceive. The next day was Sunday, almost the first truly homelike Sunday of John's life.
Then comes the necessary Deus ex machina in the shape of Andronic, who pays everybody everything, saves his friend, and play proceeds. Andronic reproaches Jew touching his greed, whereon the Jew offers this not profound remark, "I am what I am," and goes on counting his money. Oh, if you only knew the secret! This cash payment winds up the act.
"I know she'd like to see you again." "No, thanks," he said, taking her hand, "I'm on my way to the train I'd quite forgotten it. Au revoir!" He reached the end of the porch, turned, and called back, "As a 'dea ex machina', she has never been equalled." Honora stood for a while looking after him, until she heard a footstep behind her, Mrs. Holt's. "Who was that, my dear?" she asked, "Howard?"
The issue of events is uncertain; but whatever it be, the men in power cannot conduct a prosperous war nor obtain an honourable peace. Hereafter you may be the Deus ex machina. No personage of that rank and with that mission appears till the end of the play: we are only in the first act. Leave Paris at once, and abstain from all action."
Then a flurried native appeared, he seemed a kind of gardener hastily fetched from his duties, possibly the mowing machine, and pouring forth words in a strange dialect he pointed wildly to another flight of steps and another door. Following this menial, a veritable deus ex machina, X. was led down those palatial steps and up another flight round the corner.
My deus ex machinâ, before he left me, supplied some excellent, if inhumane, advice; presented me with the switch, which he declared she would feel more tenderly than my cane; and finally taught me the true cry or masonic word of donkey-drivers, "Proot!"
A few days later he was bidden by Buller to "boil all his water." From Potgieter's Drift, Buller heliographed that "somehow he thought he was going to be successful this time"; that it was "quite pleasant to see how keen the men were"; that he hoped to be "knocking at Lancer's Hill" in six days' time; but after Spion Kop it was, "we had awful luck on the 25th." Deus ex Machina, No.
But it seems that the journeying of my jade was near its ending. For upon this morning, fortune threw me into the way of a fellow who had been in my class at the University, who was to be my deus ex machina. No two persons in the world could have been more dissimilar than "Jack" Ballard and I, and yet, perhaps for that reason, there had always been a kind of affinity between us.
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