His views on matters of the day varied, of course, with the views of those he talked to, since it was his privilege always to see either the other side or something so much more subtle on the same side as made that side the other.
But all topical thought and emotion was beside the point for one who lived in his work; who lived to receive impressions and render them again so faithfully that you could not tell he had ever received them. His was—as he sometimes felt—a rare and precious personality.
Though frugal by temperament, and instinctively aware that her sterling nature was the bank in which the national wealth was surely deposited, she was of benevolent disposition; and when, as occasionally happened, a man in the street sold her one of those jumping toys for her children, she would look at him and say:
“How much? You don’t look well!” and he would answer: “Tuppence, lidy. Truth is, lidy, I’ve gone ’ungry this lawst week.” Searching his face shrewdly, she would reply: “That’s bad—a sin against the body. Here’s threepence. Give me a ha’penny. You don’t look well.” And, taking the ha’penny, she would leave the man inarticulate.
Food appealed to her, not only in relation to herself, but to others. Often to some friend she would speak a little bitterly, a little mournfully, about her husband. “Yes, I quite like my ‘hubby’ to go out sometimes where he can talk about art, and war, and things that women can’t. He takes no interest in his food.” And she would add, brooding: “What he’d do if I didn’t study him, I really don’t know.” She often felt with pain that hewas very thin. She studied him incessantly—that is, in due proportion to their children, their position in society, their Christianity, and herself. If he was her “hubby,” she was his “hub”—the housewife, that central pivot of society, that national pivot, which never could or would be out of gear. Devoid of conceit, it seldom occurred to her to examine her own supremacy, quietly content to be “integer vitæ, scelerisque pura”—just the one person against whom nobody could say anything. Subconsciously, no doubt, shemusthave valued her worth and reputation, or she would never have felt such salutary gusts of irritation and contempt toward persons who had none. Like cows when a dog comes into a field, she would herd together whenever she saw a woman with what she suspected was a past, then advance upon her, horns down. If the offending creature did not speedily vacate the field, she would, if possible, trample her to death. When, by any chance, the female dog proved too swift and lively, she would remain sullenly turning and turning her horns in the direction of its vagaries. Well she knew that, if she once raised those horns and let the beast pass, her whole herd would suffer. There was something almost magnificent about her virtue, based, as it was, entirely on self-preservation, and her remarkable power of rejecting all premises except those familiar to herself. This gave it a fibre and substance hard as concrete. Here, indeed, was something one could build on; here, indeed, was the strait thing. Her husband would sometimes say to her: “My dear, we don’t know what the poor woman’s circumstances were, we really don’t, you know. I think we should try to put ourselves in her place.” And she would fix his eye, and say: “James, it’s no good. I can’t imaginemyself in that woman’s place, and I won’t. Do you think thatIwould ever leaveyou?” And, watching till he shook his head, she would go on: “Of course not. No. Nor let you leave me.” And, pausing a second, to see if he blinked, because men were rather like that (even those who had the best of wives), she would go on: “She deserves all she gets. I have no personal feeling, but, if once decent women begin to get soft about this sort of thing, then good-bye to family life and Christianity, and everything. I’m not hard, but there are things I feel strongly about, and this is one of them.” And secretly she would think: “That’s why he keeps so thin—always letting himself doubt, and sympathise, where one has no right to. Men!” Next time she passed the woman, she would cut her deader than the last time, and, seeing her smile, would feel a sort of divine fury. More than once this had led her into courts of law on charges of libel and slander. But, knowing how impregnable was her position, she almost welcomed that opportunity. For it was ever transparent to judge and jury from the first that she was that crown of pearls, a virtuous woman, and so she was never cast in damages.
On one such occasion her husband had been so ill-advised as to remark: “My dear, I have my doubts whether our duty does not stop at seeing to ourselves, without throwing stones at others.”
“Robert,” she had answered, “if you think that, just because there’s a chance that you may have to pay damages, I’m going to hold my tongue when vice flaunts itself, you make a mistake. I always put your judgment above mine, but this is not a matter of judgment—it is a matter of Christian and womanly conduct. I can’t admit even your right to dictate.”
She hated that expression, “The grey mare is the better horse”; it was vulgar, and she would never recognise its truth in her own case—for a wife’s duty was to submit herself to her husband, as she had already said. After this little incident she took the trouble to go and open her New Testament and look up the story of a certain woman. There was not a word in it about women not throwing stones; the discouragement referred entirely to men. Exactly! No one knew better than she the difference between men and women in the matter of moral conduct. Probably therewereno men without that kind of sin, but there were plenty of women, and, without either false or true pride, she felt that she was one of them. And there the matter rested.
Her views on political and social questions—on the whole, very simple—were to be summed up in the words, “Thatman—!” and, so far as it lay in her power, she saw to it that her daughters should not have any views at all. She found this, however, an increasingly hard task, and on one occasion was almost terrified to find her first and second girls abusing “that man—,” not for going too fast, but for not going fast enough. She spoke to William about it, but found him hopeless, as usual, where his daughters were concerned. It was her principle to rule them with good, motherly sense, as became a woman in whose hands the family life of her country centred; and it was satisfactory on the whole to find that they obeyed her whenever they wished to. On this occasion, however, she spoke to them severely: “The place of woman,” she said, “is in the home.” “The whole home—and nothing but the home.” “Ella! The place of women is by the side of man; counselling, supporting, ruling, but nevercompeting with him. The place of woman is in the shop, the kitchen, and—” “The—bed!” “Ella!” “In the soup!” “Beatrice! I wish—I do wish you girls would be more respectful. The place of woman is in the home. Yes, I’ve said that before, but I shall say it again, and don’t you forget it! The place of woman is—the most important thing in national life. If you want to realise that, just think of your own mother; and—” “Our own father.” “Ella! The place of woman is in the—!” She left the room, feeling that, for the moment, she had said enough.
In disposition sociable, and no niggard of her company, there was one thing she liked to work at alone—her shopping, an art which she had long reduced to a science. The principles she laid down are worth remembering: Never grudge your time to save a ha’penny. Never buy anything until you have turned it well over, recollecting that the rest of you will have turned it over too. Never let your feelings of pity interfere with your sense of justice, but bear in mind that the girls who sell to you are paid for doing it; if you can afford the time to keep them on their legs, they can afford the time to let you. Never read pamphlets, for you don’t know what may be in them about furs, feathers, and forms of food. Never buy more than your husband can afford to pay for; but, on the whole, buy as much. Never let any seller see that you think you have bought a bargain, but buy one if you can; you will find it pleasant afterward to talk of your prowess. Shove, shove, and shove again!
In the perfect application of these principles, she had found, after long experience, that there was absolutely no one to touch her.
In regard to meat, she had sometimes thought shewould like to give it up, because she had read in her paper that being killed hurt the poor animals; but she had never gone beyond thought, because it was very difficult to do that. Henry was thin, and distinctly pale; the girls were growing girls; Sunday would hardly seem Sunday without; besides, it did not do to believe what one read in the paper, and it would hurt her butcher’s feelings—she was sure of that. Christmas, too, stood in the way. It was one’s duty to be cheerful at that season, and Christmas would seem so strange without the cheery butchers’ shops and their appropriate holocaust. She had once read some pages of a disgraceful book that seemed going out of its way all the time to prove thatshewas just an animal—a dreadful book, not at all nice! And if she would eat those creatures if they were really her brother animals, and not just sent by God to feed her. No; at Christmas she felt especially grateful to the good God for his abundance, for all the good things he gave her to eat. For all these reasons she swallowed her scruples religiously. But it was very different in regard to dairy produce; for here there was, she knew, a real danger—not, indeed, to the animals, but to her family and herself. She was for once really proud of the thoroughness with which she dealt with that important nourishment—milk. None came into her house except in sealed bottles, with the name of the cow, spiritually speaking, on the outside. Some wag had suggested, in her hearing, that hens should be compelled to initial their eggs when they were delivered, as well as to put the dates on them. This she had thought ribald; one could go too far.
She was, before all things, an altruist; and in nothing more so than in her relations with her servants. If they did not do their duty, they went. It was the only way,she had found, to really benefit them. Country girls and town girls, they passed from her in a stream, having learned, once for all, the standard that was expected from them. She christened and educated more servants, perhaps, than any one in the kingdom. The Marthas went first, being invariably dirty; the Marys and Susans lasted, on an average, perhaps four months, and then left for many reasons. Cook seldom hurried off before her year was over, because it was so difficult to get her before she came, and to replace her after she was gone; but when she did go it was in a gale of wind. The “day out” was, perhaps, the most fruitful source of disillusionment—girls of that class, no matter how much they protested their innocence, seemed utterly unable to keep away from man’s society. It was only once a fortnight that she required them to exercise their self-control and self-respect in that regard, for on the other thirteen days she took care that they had no chance, suffering no male footstep in her basement. And yet—would you believe it?—on those fourteenth days, she was never able to be easy in her mind. But, however kindly and considerate she might be in her dealings with those of lowly station, she found ever the same ingratitude, the same incapacity, or, as she had reluctantly been forced to believe, the same deliberate unwillingness to grasp her point of view. It was as if they were always rudely saying to themselves: “What do you know of us? We wish you’d leave us alone!” The idea! As if she could, or would! As if it were not an almost sacred charge on her in her station, with the responsibilities that attached to it, to look after her poorer neighbours and see that they acted properly in their own interests. The drink, the immorality, the waste amongst the poor wasnotorious, and anything she could do to lessen it she always did, dismissing servants for the least slip, and never failing to point a moral. All that new-fangled talk about the rich getting off the backs of the poor, about the law not being the same for both, about how easy it was to be moral and clean on two thousand a year, she put aside as silly. It was just the sort of thing that discontented people would say. In this view she was supported daily by her newspaper and herself, wherever she might be. No, no! If the well-to-do did not look after and control the poor, no one would, which was just what they would like. They were, in her estimation, incurable; but, so far as lay in her power, she would cure them, however painful it might be.
A religious woman, she rarely missed the morning, and seldom went to evening, service, feeling that in daylight she could best set an example to her neighbours.
God knew her views on art, for she was not prodigal of them—her most remarkable pronouncement being delivered on hearing of the disappearance of the “Monna Lisa”: “Oh, that dreadful woman! I remember her picture perfectly. Well, I’m glad she’s gone. I thought she would some day.” When asked why, she would only answer: “She gave me the creeps.”
She read such novels as the library sent, to save her daughters from reading a second time those which did not seem to her suitable, and promptly sent them back. In this way she preserved purity in her home. As to purity outside the home, she made a point of never drawing Frederick’s attention to female beauty; not that she felt she had any real reason to be alarmed, for she was a fine woman; but because men were so funny.
There were no things in life of which she would haveso entirely disapproved, if she had known about them, as Greek ideals, for she profoundly distrusted any display of the bare limb, and fully realised that, whatever beauty may have meant to the Greeks, to her and George it meant something very different. To her, indeed, Nature was a “hussy,” to be tied to the wheels of that chariot which she was going to keep as soon as motor-cars were just a little cheaper and really reliable.
It was often said that she was a vanishing type, but she knew better. Pedantic fools murmured that Ibsen had destroyed her, but she had not yet heard of him. Literary folk and artists, socialists and society people, might talk of types, and liberty, of brotherhood, and new ideas, and sneer at Mrs. Grundy. With what unmoved solidity she dwelt among them! They were but as gadflies, buzzing and darting on the fringes of her central bulk. To those flights, to that stinging she paid less attention than if she had been cased in leather. In the words of her favourite Tennyson: “They may come, and they may go, but—whatever you may think—I go on forever!”
There was in her blood that which bade her hasten, lest there should be something still new to her when she died. Death! She was continually haunted by the fear lest that itself might be new. And she would say: “Do you know what it feels like to be dead? I do.” If she had not known this, she felt that she would not have lived her life to the full. And one must live one’s life to the full. Indeed, yes! One must experience everything. In her relations with men, for instance,there was nothing, so far as she could see, to prevent her from being a good wife, good mother, good mistress, and good friend—to different men all at the same time, and even to more than one man of each kind, if necessary. One had merely to be oneself, a full nature, giving and taking generously. Greed was a low and contemptible attribute, especially in woman; a woman wanted nothing more than—everything, and the best of that. And it was intolerable if one could not have that little. Woman had always been kept down. Not to be kept down was still, on the whole, new. Yet sometimes, after she had not been kept down rather violently, she would feel: Oh, the weariness! I shall throw it all up, and live on a shilling a day, like a sweated worker—that, at all events, will be new! She even sometimes dreamed of retirement to convent life—the freshness of its old-world novelty appealed to her.
To such an idealist, the very colours of the rainbow did not suffice, nor all the breeds of birds there were; her life was piled high with cages. Here she had had them one by one, borrowed their songs, relieved them of their plumes; then, finding that they no longer had any, let them go; for to look at things without possessing them was intolerable, but to keep them when she had got them even more so.
She often wondered how people could get along at all whose natures were not so full as hers. Life, she thought, must be so dull for the poor creatures, only doing one thing at a time, and that time so long. What with her painting, and her music, her dancing, her flying, her motoring, her writing of novels and poems, her love-making, maternal cares, entertaining, friendships, housekeeping, wifely duties, political and social interests,her gardening, talking, acting, her interest in Russian linen and the woman’s movement; what with travelling in new countries, listening to new preachers, lunching new novelists, discovering new dancers, taking lessons in Spanish; what with new dishes for dinner, new religions, new dogs, new dresses, new duties to new neighbours, and newer charities—life was so full that the moment it stood still and was simply old “life,” it seemed to be no life at all.
She could not bear the amateur; feeling within herself some sacred fire that made her “an artist” whatever she took up—or dropped. She had a particular dislike, too, of machine-made articles; for her, personality must be deep-woven into everything—look at flowers, how wonderful they were in that way, growing quietly to perfection, each in its corner, and inviting butterflies to sip their dew! She knew, for she had been told it so often, that she was the crown of creation—the latest thing in women, who were, of course, the latest thing in creatures. There had never, till quite recently, been a woman like her, so awfully interested in so many things, so likely to be interested in so many more. She had flung open all the doors of life, and was so continually going out and coming in, that life had some considerable difficulty in catching a glimpse of her at all. Just as the cinematograph was the future of the theatre, so was she the future of women, and in the words of the poet “prou’ title.” To sip at every flower before her wings closed; if necessary, to make new flowers to sip at. To smoke the whole box of cigarettes straight off, and in the last puff of smoke expire! And withal, no feverishness, only a certain reposeful and womanly febrility; a mere perpetual glancing from quick-sliding eyes, to see the next move,to catch the new movement—God bless it! And, mind you, a high sense of duty—perhaps a higher sense of duty than that of any woman who had gone before; a deep and intimate conviction that women had an immensity of leeway to make up, that their old, starved, stunted lives must be avenged, and that right soon. To enlarge the horizon—this was the sacred duty! No mere Boccaccian or Louis Quinze cult of pleasurable sensations; no crude, lolling, plutocratic dollery of a spoiled dame. No! the full, deep river of sensations nibbling each other’s tails. Life was real, life was earnest, and time the essence of its contract.
To say that she had favourite books, plays, men, dogs, colours, was to do her but momentary justice. A deeper equity assigned her only one favourite—the next; and, for the sake of that one favourite, no Catharine, no Semiramis or Messalina, could more swiftly dispose of all the others. With what avidity she sprang into its arms, drained its lips of kisses, looking hurriedly the while for its successor; for Heaven alone—she felt—knew what would happen to her if she finished drinking before she caught sight of that next necessary one.
And yet, now and again, time played her false, and she got through too soon. It was then that she realised the sensation of death. After the first terrible inanition, those moments lived without “living” would begin to assume a sort of preciousness, to acquire holy sensations of their own. “I am dead,” she would say to herself: “I really am dead; I lie motionless, hearing, feeling, smelling, seeing, thinking nothing. I lie impalpable—yes, that is the word—completely impalpable; above me I can see the vast blue blue, and all around me the vast brown brown—it is something like what I rememberof Egypt. And there is a kind of singing in my ears, that are really not ears now, a grey, thin sound, like—ah!—Maeterlinck, and a very faint honey smell, like—er—Omar Khayyám. And I just move as a blade of grass moves in the wind. Yes, I am dead. It feels exactly like it.” And a new exhilaration would seize her, for she felt that, in that sensation of death, she was living! At lunch, or it might be dinner, she would tell her newest man, already past the prime of her interest, exactly what it felt like to be dead. “It’s not really disagreeable,” she would say; “it has its own flavour. You know, like Turkish coffee, just a touch of india-rubber in it—I mean the coffee.” And the poor man would sneeze, and answer: “Yes, I know a little what you mean; asphodels, too; you get it in Greece. My only difficulty is that, if youaredead, you know—you—er—are.” She would not admit that; it sounded true, but the man was getting stupid—to be dead like that would be the end of novelty, which was, to her, unthinkable.
Once, in a new book, she came across a little tale of a man who “lived” in Persia, of all heavenly places, frantically pursuing sensation. Entering one day the courtyard of his house, he heard a sigh behind him, and, looking round, saw his own spirit, apparently in the act of breathing its last. The little thing, dry and pearly-white as a seed-pod of “honesty,” was opening and shutting its mouth, for all the world like an oyster trying to breathe. “What is it?” he said; “you don’t seem well.” And his spirit answered: “All right, all right! Don’t distress yourself—it’s nothing! I’ve just been crowded out. That’s all. Good-bye!” And, with a wheeze, the little thing went flat, fell onto the special blue tiles he had caused to be put down there, and laystill. He bent to pick it up, but it came off on his thumb in a smudge of grey-white powder.
This fancy was so new that it pleased her greatly, and she recommended the book to all her friends. The moral, of course, was purely Eastern, and had no applicability whatever to Western life, where, the more one did and expressed, the bigger and more healthy one’s spirit grew—as witness what she always felt to be going on within herself. But next spring she changed the blue tiles of her Persian smoking-room, put in a birch-wood floor, and made it all Russian. This she did, however, merely because one new room a year was absolutely essential to her spirit.
In her perpetual journey toward an ever-widening horizon of woman’s life, she was not so foolish as to prize danger for its own sake—that was by no means her idea of adventure. That she ran some risks it would be idle to deny, but only when she had discerned the substantial advantage of a new sensation to be had out of adventures, not at all because they were necessary to keep her soul alive. She was, she felt, a Greek in spirit, only more so perhaps, having in her also something of America and the West End.
How she came to be at all was only known to that age—whose daughter she undoubtedly was—an age which ran all the time, without any foolish notion where it was running to. There was no novelty in a destination, and no sensation to be had from sitting cross-legged in a tub of sunlight—not, at least, after you had done it once.Shehad been born to dance the moon down, to ragtime. The moon, the moon! Ah, yes! It was the one thing that had as yet eluded her avidity. That, and her own soul.
When you had seen him you knew that there was really nothing to be said. Idealism, humanity, culture, philosophy, the religious and æsthetic senses—after all, where did all that lead? Not to him! What led to him was beef, and whisky, exercise, wine, strong cigars, and open air. What led to him was anything that ministered to the coatings of the stomach and the thickness of the skin. In seeing him, you also saw how progress, civilisation, and refinement simply meant attrition of those cuticles which made him what he was. And what was he? Well—perfect! Perfect for that high, that supreme purpose—the enjoyment of life as it was. And, aware of his perfection—oh, well aware!—with a certain blind astuteness that refused reflection on the subject—not caring what anybody said or thought, just enjoying himself, taking all that came his way, and making no bones about it; unconscious, indeed, that there were any to be made. He must have known by instinct that thought, feeling, sympathy only made a man chickeny, for he avoided them in an almost sacred way. To be “hard” was his ambition, and he moved through life hitting things, especially balls—whether they reposed on little inverted tubs of sand, or moved swiftly toward him, he almost always hit them, and told people how he did it afterward. He hit things, too, at a distance, through a tube, with a certain noise, and a pleasant swelling sensation under his fifth rib every time he saw them tumble, feeling that they had swollen still more under their fifth ribs and would not require to be hit again. He tried to hit things in the middle distance with little hooks which he flung out in front of him, and when theycaught on, and he pulled out the result, he felt better. He was a sportsman, and not only in the field. He hit any one who disagreed with him, and was very angry if they hit him back. He hit the money-market with his judgment when he could, and when he couldn’t, he hit it with his tongue. And all the time he hit the Government. It was a perpetual comfort to him in those shaky times to have that Government to hit. Whatever turned out wrong, whatever turned out right—there it was! To give it one—two—three, and watch it crawl away, was wonderfully soothing. Of a summer evening, sitting in the window of his club, having hit balls or bookies hard all day, how pleasant still to have that fellow Dash, and that fellow Blank, and all the ——y crew to hit still harder. He hit women, not, of course, with his fists, but with his philosophy. Women were made for the perfection of men; they had produced, nourished, and nursed him, and he now felt the necessity for them to comfort and satisfy him. When they had done that he felt no further responsibility in regard to them; to feel further responsibility was to be effeminate. The idea, for instance, that a spiritual feeling must underlie the physical was extravagant; and when a woman took another view, he took—if not actually, then metaphorically—a stick. He was almost Teutonic in that way. But the Government, the Government! Right and left, he hit it all the time. He had a rooted conviction that some day it would hit him back, and this naturally exasperated him. In the midst of danger to the game laws, of socialism, and the woman’s movement, the only hope, almost the only comfort, lay in hitting the Government. For socialists were getting so near that he could only hit them now in clubs, music-halls, and other quitesafe places; and the woman’s movement might be trusted implicitly to hit itself. Thus, in the world arena there was nothing left but that godsend. Always a fair man, and of thoroughly good heart, he, of course, gave it credit for the same amount of generosity and good will that he felt present in his own composition. There was no extravagance in that; and any man who gave it more he deemed an ass.
He had heard of “the people,” and, indeed, at times had seen and smelt them; it had sufficed. Some persons, he knew, were concerned about their condition and all that; but what good it would do him to share that concern he could not see. Fellows spoke of them as “poor devils,” and so forth; to his mind they were “pretty good rotters,” most of them—especially the working-man, who wanted something for nothing all the time, and grumbled when he got it. The more you gave him the more he wanted, and, if he were this —— Government, instead of coddling the blighters up he would hit them one, and have done with it. Insurance, indeed; pensions; land reform; minimum wage—it was a bit too thick! They would soon be putting the beggars into glass cases, and labelling them “This side up.”
Sometimes he dreamed of the time when he would have to ride for God and the king. But he strongly repelled, of course, any suggestion that he had been brought up to a belief in “caste.” At his school he had once kicked a small scion of the royal family; this heroic action had dispersed in his mind once for all any notion that he was a snob. “Caste,” indeed! There was no such thing in England nowadays. Had he not sung “The Leather Bottel” to an audience of dirty peoplein his school mission-hall, and—rather enjoyed it. It was not his fault that Labor was not satisfied. It was all those professional agitators, confound them! He himself was opposed to setting class against class. It was, however, ridiculous to imagine that he was going to hobnob with or take interest in people who weren’t clean, who wore clothes with a disagreeable smell—people, moreover, who, in the most blatant way, showed him continually that they wanted what he had got. No, no! there were limits. Clean, at all events, any one could be—it was thesine quâ non. What with clothes, a man to look after them, baths, and so on, he himself spent at least two hundred a year on being clean, and even took risks with the thickness of his skin, from the way he rubbed and scrubbed it. A man could not be hard and healthy if he wasn’t clean, and if the blighters were only hard and healthy they would not be bleating about their wants.
One could see him perhaps to the best advantage in lands like India, or Egypt, striding in the early morn over the purlieus of the desert, with his loping, strenuous step, scurried after by what looked like little dark and anxious women, carrying his golf-clubs; his eyes, with their look of out-facing Death, fixed on the ball that he had just hit so hard, intent on overtaking it and hitting it even harder next time. Did he at these times of worship ever pause to contemplate that vast and ancient plain where, in the distance, pyramids, those creatures of eternity, seemed to tremble in the sun haze? Did he ever feel an ecstatic wonder at the strange cry of immemorial peoples far-travelling the desert air; or look and marvel at those dark and anxious little children of old civilisations who pattered after him? Did he ever feel themajesty of those vast lonely sands and that vast lonely sky? Not he! He d——d well hit the ball, until his skin began to act; then, going in, took a bath, and rubbed himself. At such moments he felt perhaps more truly religious than at any other, for one naturally could not feel so fit and good on Sundays, with the necessity it imposed for extra eating, smoking, kneeling, and other sedentary occupations. Indeed, he had become perhaps a little distracted in religious matters. There seemed to be things in the Bible about turning the other cheek, and lilies of the field, about rich men and camels, and the poor in spirit, which did not go altogether with his religion. Still, of course, one remained in the English church, hit things, and hoped for the best.
Once his convictions nearly took a toss. It was on a ship, not as classy as it might have been, so that he was compelled to talk to people that he would not otherwise perhaps have noticed. Amongst such was a fellow with a short beard, coming from Morocco. This person was lean and brown, his eyes were extremely clear; he held himself very straight, and looked fit to jump over the moon. It seemed obvious that he hit a lot of things. One questioned him, therefore, with some interest as to what he had been hitting. The fellow had been hitting nothing, absolutely nothing. How on earth, then, did he keep himself so fit? Walking, riding, fasting, swimming, climbing mountains, writing books; hitting neither the Government nor golf balls! Never to hit anything; write books, tolerate the Government, and look like that! It was ‘not done.’ And the odd thing was, the fellow didn’t seem to know or care whether he was fit or not. All the four days that the voyage lasted, with this infernal fellow under his very nose, he suffered. There wasnothing to hit on board, and he himself did not feel very fit. However, on reaching Southampton and losing sight of his travelling acquaintance he soon regained his equanimity.
He often wondered what he would do when he passed the age of fifty; and felt more and more that he would either have to go into Parliament or take up the duties of a county magistrate. After that age there were certain kinds of balls and beasts that could no longer be hit with impunity, and if one was at all of an active turn of mind one must have substitutes. Marriage, no doubt, would do something for him, but not enough; his was a strenuous nature, and he intended to remain “hard” unto the end. To combine that with service to his country, especially if, incidentally, he could hit socialism and poachers, radicals, loafers, and the income tax—this seemed to him an ideal well worthy of his philosophy and life, so far. And with this in mind he lived on, his skin thickening, growing ever more and more perfect, more and more impervious to thought and feeling, to æstheticism, sympathy, and all the elements destructive of perfection. And thus—when his time has come there is every hope that he may die.
He was given that way almost from his nursery days, for he could not even dress without racing his little brother in the doing up of little buttons, and being upset if he got one little button behind. At the age of eight he climbed all the trees of his father’s garden and, arriving at their tops, felt a pang because the creatures left off so abruptly that he could not get any higher. He wrestledwith anybody who did not mind rolling on the floor; and stayed awake once all night because he heard that one of his cousins was coming next day and was a year older than himself. It was not that he desired to see this cousin, to welcome, or give him a good time; he simply designed to race him in the kitchen-garden, and to wrestle with him afterward. It would be grand, he thought, to bump the head of some one a year older than himself. The cousin, however, was “scratched” at the last moment. It was a blow. At the age of ten he cut his head open against a swing, and so far forgot himself as to cry when he saw the blood flowing. To have missed such an opportunity of being superior to other small boys made an indelible mark on his soul, for, though he had not cried from pain, he had from fright, and felt he might have beaten both emotions, if only he had had proper warning.
His first term at school he came out top, after a terrific struggle; there was one other boy in the class. And term after term he went on coming out top, or very near it. He never knew what he was learning, but he knew that he beat other boys. He ran all the races he could, and played all the games; not because he enjoyed them, but because unless you did you could not win. He was considered almost a prize specimen.
He went to college in an exhausted condition, and for two years devoted himself to dandyism, designing to be the coolest, slackest, best-dressed man up. He almost was. But as that day approached when one must either beat or be beaten in learning by one’s contemporaries, a fearful feeling beset him, and he rushed off to a crammer. For a whole year he poured the crammer’s notes into his memory. What they were all about he had no notion,but his memory retained them just over that hot week when he sat writing for his life, twice a day. He would have received a First, had not an examiner who did not understand that examinations are simply held to determine who can beat whom, asked him in the living voice a question, to answer which required a knowledge of why there was an answer. He came down exhausted, and ate his dinners for the Bar. It was an occupation at which he could achieve no distinction save that of eating them faster than any other student; and for two whole years he merely devoted himself to trying to be the best amateur actor and the best shot in the land. His method of acting was based on nothing so flat as identification with the character he personified, but on the amount of laughter and applause that he could get in excess of that bestowed on any other member of the company. Nor did he shoot birds because he loved them, like a true sportsman, but because it was a pleasure to him to feel each day that he had shot or was going to shoot more than any one else who was shooting with him.
The time had now come for him to embrace his profession, and he did so like a true Briton, with his eye ever on the future. He perceived from the first that this particular race was longer than any race he had ever started for, and he began slowly, with a pebble in his mouth, husbanding his wind. The whole thing was extremely dry and extremely boring, but of course one had to get there before all those other fellows. And round and round he ran, increasing his speed almost imperceptibly, soon beginning to have his eye on the half-dozen who seemed dangerously likely to get there before him if he did not mind that eye. It cannot be said that he enjoyed his work, or cared for the money it broughthim, for, what with getting through his day, and thinking of those other fellows who might be forging ahead of him, he had no time to spend money, or even to give it away. And so it began rolling up. One day, however, perceiving that he had quite a lot, the thought came to him that he ought to do something with it. And happening soon after to go into a picture-gallery, he bought a picture. He had not had it long before it seemed to him better than the picture of a friend who rather went in for them; and he thought, “I could easily beat him if I gave myself to it a little.” And he did. It was fascinating to perceive, each time he bought, that his taste had improved, and was getting steadily ahead of his friend’s taste; and, indeed, not only of his friend’s, but of that of other people. He felt that soon he would have better taste than anybody, and he bought and bought. It was not that he cared for the pictures, for he really had not time or mind to give to them—set as he was on reaching eminence; but he dreamed of leaving them to the National Gallery as a monument to his taste, and final proof of superiority to his friend, after they were both gone.
About this time he took silk, sacrificing nearly half of his income. He would have preferred to wait longer, had he not perceived that if he did wait, his friends —— and —— and —— —— would be taking silk before him. And, since he meant to be a judge first, this must naturally be guarded against. The prospective loss of so much income made him for a moment restful and expansive, as if he felt that he had been pushed almost too far by his competitive genius; and so he found time to marry—it being the commencement of the long vacation. For six weeks he hardly thought of his friends —— and ——and —— ——, but near the end of September he was shocked back into a more normal frame of mind by the news that they also had been offered and had taken silk. It behoved him, he felt, to put his wife behind him and go back into harness. It would be just like those fellows to get ahead of him, if they could; and he curtailed his honeymoon by quite three weeks. Not two years, however, elapsed before it became clear to him that to keep his place he must enter Parliament. And against his own natural feelings, against even the inclinations of his country, he secured a seat at the general election and began sitting. What, then, was his chagrin to find that his friend ——, and his friend ——, and even his friend —— ——, had also secured seats, and were sitting when he got there! What with the courts, and what with ‘the House,’ he became lean and very yellow; and his wife complained. He determined to give her a child every year to keep her quiet; for he felt that he must have perfect peace in his home surroundings if he were to maintain his position in the great life race for which he had started, knowing that his friends —— and —— and —— —— would never hesitate to avail themselves of his ill health, to beat him. None of those wretched fellows were having so many children. He did not find his work in Parliament congenial; it seemed to him unreal. For he could not get his mind—firmly fixed on himself and the horizon—to believe that all those little measures which he was continually passing would benefit people with whose lives he really had not time or inclination to be familiar. When one had got up, prepared two cases, had breakfasted, walk down to the courts, sat there from half-past ten to four, walked to ‘the House,’ sat there a little longer than his friend —— —— (theworst of them), spoken if his friend —— had spoken, or if he thought his friend —— were going to speak, had dinner, prepared two cases, kissed his wife, mentally compared his last picture with that last one of his friend’s, had a glass of barley-water, and gone to bed—when one had done all this, there really was not time for living his own life, much less any one else’s. He sometimes thought he would have to give up doing so much; but that, of course, was out of the question, seeing that his friends would at once shoot ahead. He took “Vitogen” instead. They used his photograph, with the words, “It does wonders with me,” coming out of his mouth, and on the opposite page they used a photograph of his friend —— ——, with the words, “I take a glass a day, and revel in it,” coming out of his. On discovering this he increased the amount at some risk to two glasses, determined not to be outdone by that fellow.
He sometimes wondered whether, in the army, the church, the stock exchange, or in literature, he would not have had a more restful life; for he would by no means have admitted that he carried within himself the microbe of his own fate.
His natural love of beauty, for instance, inspired him when he saw a sunset, or a mountain, or even a sea, with the thought: How jolly it would be to look at it! But he had gradually become so reconciled to knowing he had not time for this that he never did. But if he had heard by any chance that his friend —— —— did find time to contemplate such natural beauties, he would certainly have contrived somehow to contemplate them too.
As the time approached for being made a judge he compared himself more and more carefully with his friends —— and —— ——. If they were appointedbefore him, it would be very serious for his prospects of ultimate pre-eminence. And it was with a certain relief, tempered with sorrow, that he heard one summer morning that his friend —— had fallen seriously ill, and was not expected to recover. He was assiduous in the expression of an anxiety that was quite genuine. His friend —— died as the courts rose. And all through that long vacation he thought continually of poor ——, and of his career cut so prematurely short. It was then that the idea came to him of capping his efforts by writing a book. He chose for subject, “The Evils of Competition in the Modern State,” and devoted to it every minute he could spare during autumn months, fortunately bereft of Parliamentary duties. It would just, he felt make the difference between himself and his friends —— and —— ——, to a government essentially favourable to literary men. He finished it at Christmas, and arranged for a prompt publication. It was with a certain natural impatience that he read, two days later, of the approaching issue of a book by his friend —— ——, entitled, “Joy of Life, or the Cult of the Moment.” What on earth the fellow was about to rush into print and on such a subject he was at a loss to understand! The book came out a week before his own. He read the reviews rather feverishly, for they were favourable. What to do now to recover his lead he hardly knew. If he had not been married it might have been possible to arrange something in that line with the daughter of an important personage; as it was, there was nothing for it but to part with his pictures to the National Gallery by way of a loan. And this he did, to the chagrin of his wife, about the middle of May. On the 1st of June he read in his Sunday paper that his friend —— —— had given hislibrary outright to the British Museum. Some relief to the strain of his anxiety, however, was afforded in July by the unexpected accession of his friend —— to a peerage, through the death of a cousin. The estate attached was considerable. He felt that this friend at all events would not continue to struggle; he would surely recognise that he was removed from active life. His premonition was correct; and his friend —— —— and himself were left to fight it out alone.
That judge who had so long been expected to quit his judgeship did so for another world in the fourth week of the long vacation.
He hastened back to town at once. This was one of the most crucial moments of a crucial career. If appointed, he would be the youngest judge. But his friend —— —— was of the same age, the same politics, the same calibre in every way, and more robust. During those weeks of waiting, therefore, he grew perceptibly greyer. His joy knew only the bonds of a careful concealment, when, at the beginning of October, he was appointed a judge of the High Court; for it was not till the following morning that he learned that his friend —— —— had also been appointed, the Government having decided to add one to the number of His Majesty’s judges. Which of them had been made the extra judge he neither dared nor cared to inquire; but, setting his teeth, entered forthwith on his duties.
It cannot be pretended that he liked them; to like them one would have to take a profound, and, as it were, amateurish interest in equity and the lives of one’s fellow-men. For this, of course, he had not time, having to devote all his energies to not having his judgments reversed, and watching the judgments of his friend—— ——. In the first year that fellow was upset in the Court of Appeal three times oftener than himself, and it came as a blow when the House of Lords so restored him that they came out equal. In other respects, of course, the life was something of a rest after that which he had led hitherto, and he watched himself carefully lest he might deteriorate, and be tempted to enjoy himself, steadily resisting every effort on the part of his friends and family to draw him into recreations other than those of dining out, playing golf, and improving his acquaintanceship with that Law of which he would require a perfect knowledge when he became Lord Chancellor. He never could quite make up his mind whether to be glad or sorry that his friend —— —— did not confine himself entirely to this curriculum.
At about this epoch he became so extremely moderate in his politics that neither party knew to which of them he belonged. It was a period of uncertainty when no man could say in whose hands power would be in, say, five or ten years’ time, and instinctively he felt that he must look ahead. A moderate man stood perhaps the greater chance of steady and perpetual preferment, and he felt moderate, now that the spur of a necessary political activity was removed. It was a constant source of uneasiness to him that his friend —— —— had become so dark a horse that one could find out nothing about his political convictions; people, indeed, went so far as to say that the beggar had none.
He had not been a judge four years when an epidemic of influenza swept off three of His Majesty’s judges, and sent one mad; and almost imperceptibly he found himself sitting with his friend —— —— in the Court of Appeal. Having the fellow there under his eye dayby day, he was able to study him, and noted with satisfaction that, though more robust, he was certainly of full and choleric temperament, and not too careful of himself. At once he began taking extra care of his own health, giving up wine, tobacco, and any other pleasure that he had left. For three years they sat there side by side, almost mechanically differing in their judgments; and then one morning the Prime Minister went and made his friend —— —— Lord Chief Justice, and himself only Master of the Rolls. The shock was very great. After a week’s indisposition, he reset his teeth and decided to struggle on; his friend —— —— was not Lord Chancellor yet! Two more years passed, during which he unwillingly undermined his health by dining constantly in the highest social and political circles, and delivering longer and weightier judgments every day. His wife and children, who still had access to him at times, watched him with anxiety.
One morning they found him pacing up and down the dining-room withThe Timesnewspaper in his hand, and every mark of cerebral excitement. His friend —— —— had made a speech at a certain banquet, in which he had hit the Government a nasty knock. It was now, of course, only a question of whether they would retain office till the Lord Chancellor, who was very shaky, dropped off. He dropped off in June, and they buried him in Westminster Abbey; his friend —— —— and himself being chief mourners. In the same week the Government was defeated. The state of his mind can now not well be imagined. In one week he lost five pounds that could not be spared. He stopped losing weight when the Government decided to hang on till the end of the session. On the 15th of July the Prime Ministersent for him, and offered him the Chancellorship. He accepted it, after first drawing attention to the superior claims of his friend —— ——. That evening, in the bosom of his family, he sat silent. A little smile played three times on his worn lips, and now and again his thin hand smoothed the parallel folds in his cheeks. His youngest daughter, moving to the bell behind his revered and beloved presence, heard him suddenly mutter, and bending hastily caught the precious words: “Pipped him on the post, by gum!”
He took up his final honours with the utmost ceremony. From that moment it was almost too noticeable how his powers declined. It was as if he had felt that, having won the race, he had nothing left to live for. Indeed, he only waited till his friend —— —— had received a slight stroke before, under doctor’s orders, he laid down office. He dragged on for several years, writing his memoirs, but without interest in life; till one day, being drawn in his Bath-chair down the esplanade at Margate, he was brought to a standstill by another chair being drawn in the opposite direction. Letting his eye rest wearily on the occupant, he recognised his friend —— ——. How the fellow had changed; but not in nature, for he quavered out at once: “Hallo! It’s you! By George! You look jolly bad!” Hearing those words, seeing that paralytic smile, a fire seemed suddenly relit within him. Compressing his lips, he answered nothing, and dug his Bath-chair man in the back. From that moment he regained his interest in life. If he could not outlive his friend —— —— it would be odd! And he set himself to do it, thinking of nothing else by day or night, and sending daily to inquire how his friend —— —— was. The fellow lived till New Year’s Day, anddied at two in the morning. They brought him the news at nine. A smile lighted up his parched and withered face; his old hands, clenched on the feeding-cup, relaxed; he fell back—dead. The shock of his old friend’s death, they said, had been too much for him.