Abracadabra & other satires

_The Works of John Galsworthy_

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_Novels_

VILLA RUBEIN THE ISLAND PHARISEES THE MAN OF PROPERTY THE COUNTRY HOUSE FRATERNITY THE PATRICIAN THE DARK FLOWER THE FREELANDS BEYOND FIVE TALES SAINT’S PROGRESS IN CHANCERY TO LET

_Stories And Studies_

A COMMENTARY A MOTLEY THE INN OF TRANQUILLITY TATTERDEMALION ABRACADABRA & OTHER SATIRES

London: William Heinemann Ltd.

_The Works Of John Galsworthy_

Abracadabra & Other Satires

[Illustration: 1924]

London: William Heinemann Ltd.

_Printed in Great Britain._

Contents

Page

Abracadabra 1

The Voice Of ----! 11

A Simple Tale 18

Ultima Thule 29

Studies Of Extravagance 47

For Love Of Beasts 121

Reverie Of A Sportsman 144

Grotesques 156

Abracadabra

Our families occupied neighbouring houses in the country, and Minna used to hide in the bathroom whenever our governess took us round. She was to us but a symbol of shyness for months before she became a body--a very thin body, with dark, straggly hair, and dark eyes, and very long legs and arms for an eight-year-old. Looking back on her hardihoods from eight to fifteen, I find difficulty in assigning to the bathroom period its full significance, to realise that she actually used to make herself invisible because she could not face strange people even of her own age. She faced us so beautifully afterward, would steal up behind and pull our hairs, and bag our caps and throw them up on to the tops of wardrobes, and then, as likely as not, climb up, throw them down, and follow with a jump. Few were the tops of our trees that did not know her in her blue jersey and red cap, and stockings green at the knees and showing little white portions of her. She had a neck long as a turkey’s and feet narrow as canoes. She was certainly going to be tall. Though quite normal about sticking pins into a body, making the lives of calves and dogs burdensome, giving fizzy magnesia to cats, fetching stray souls down with a booby-trap, and other salutary pastimes, she would dissolve into tears and rush away if anybody played Chopin, or caught and killed a butterfly; and, if one merely shot a little bird with a catapult, would dash up and thump him. When she fought she was like a tiger-cat, but afterward would sit and shake uncontrollably with most dreadful dry sobs. So there was no relying on her.

She could not have been called pretty in those days.

She became fifteen and went to school. We saw little of her for three years. At eighteen she came home, and out. Then we would meet her at dances, and picnics, skating and playing tennis--always languid, pale, dark-eyed; still not quite regular in her features, and with angles not perfectly covered; but, on the whole, like a tall lily with a dark centre. She was very earnest, too, and beginning to be æsthetic, given to standing against walls, with her dark-brown eyes immovably fixed on persons playing violins; given to Russian linen and embroidering book covers; to poetry and the sermons of preachers just unorthodox enough; dreamy, too, but puffing and starting at things that came too near. She was very attractive.

Going to college, one saw little more of Minna till she was twenty-two. She was working then at a “Settlement,” and looked unhappy and anæmic. Two months later we were told she had broken down. The work was too painful; her nerves had gone all wrong. She was taken abroad.

We did not see her again till she was twenty-six. She was then marrying a Quaker, a handsome, big fellow with reddish hair, ten years older than herself. More like a swaying lily than ever she looked in her long white veil. A tall, striking couple! The Quaker had warm eyes, and by the way he looked at her, one wondered.

Another four years had passed before I, at all events, saw much of Minna again. She was now thirty, and had three children, two girls and a boy, and was evidently soon to have another. There was a pathetic look in her eyes. They said that the Quaker should have been a Turk, for his physique was powerful and his principles extremely strict. His wife had grown to have a shrinking, fagged-out air, and worried terribly over her infants. She was visibly unhappy; had gone off, too, in looks; grown sallow and thin-cheeked, and seemed not to care to hold herself up.

I recollect the Quaker coming in one day, full of health and happiness, and putting his affectionate hand on her shoulder. To me--not to the Quaker, from whom many things were hidden--it was apparent that she flinched, and when his back was turned I saw in a mirror that she was actually trembling all over, and on her face an expression as if she saw before her suffering from which she could not possibly escape. It was clear that the quivering, lilylike creature had been brought almost to her last gasp by the physique and principles of that healthy, happy Quaker. It was quite painful to see one for whom life seemed so terribly too much.

She was, I think, about thirty-two when one noticed how much better she was looking. She had begun to fill out and hold herself up; her eyes had light in them again. Though she was more attractive than ever, and the Quaker had abated no jot of either principle or physique, she had given up quivering and starting, and had a way of looking tranquilly through or over him, as if he were not there, though her amiability was obviously perfect, and from all accounts she fulfilled every duty better than ever. She no longer worried over her children, of whom there were now five. It was mysterious. I can only describe the impression she made by saying that she seemed in a sort of trance, seeing and listening to something far away. There was a curious intentness in her eyes, and her voice had acquired a slight but not unpleasing drawl, as though what she was talking of had little reality. Every afternoon from three to four she was invisible.

Having in those days a certain interest in psychology, one used to concern oneself to account for the extraordinary change in her that was becoming more marked every year. By the time she was thirty-five it really seemed impossible that she could ever have been a sensitive, high-strung creature, hiding in the bathroom, thumping us for killing butterflies, sobbing afterward so uncontrollably; suffering such tortures from the “Settlement,” and the Quaker, and her children, whose ailments and troubles she now supported with an equanimity which any one, seeing her for the first time, would surely have mistaken for callousness. And all the time she was putting on flesh without, however, losing her figure. Indeed, in those days she approached corporeal perfection.

And at last one afternoon I learned the reason.

She no longer believed she had a body!

She told me so, almost with tears of earnestness. And when I pointed out to her humbly that she had never had more, she insisted that I saw nothing really sitting there except the serene and healthy condition of her spirit. Long she talked to me that afternoon, explaining again and again, in her slightly drawling voice, that she could never have gone on but for this faith; and how comforting and uplifting it was, so that no one who lacked it could be really happy! Every afternoon--she told me--from three to four she “held” that idea of “no body.”

This was all so startling to me that I went away and thought it over. Next day I came back and said that I did not see how it could be much good to her to have no body, so long as other people still had theirs; since it was their bodies, not hers, which had caused her pain and grief.

“But, of course,” she said, “they haven’t.”

I had just met the Quaker coming in from golf, and could only murmur:

“Is that really so?”

“I couldn’t bear, now,” she said, “to think they had.”

“Then, do you really mean, Minna, that when they are there they are not there?”

“Yes!” And her eyes shone.

I thought of her eldest boy, who happened to be ill with mumps.

“What, then, is Willy’s mumps,” I said, “if not an affection of the fleshy tissue of his cheeks and neck? Why should he cry with pain, and why should he look so horrid?”

She frowned, as if reflecting hard.

“When you came in,” she said, “I’d just been holding the thought that he has no body, and I don’t--I really don’t feel any longer that he has mumps. So I don’t worry. And that’s splendid both for him and me.”

I saw that it was splendid for her; but how was it splendid for him? I did not ask, however, because she looked so earnest and uplifted, and I was afraid of seeming unkind.

The next day I came back again, and said:

“I’ve been thinking over your faith, Minna. Candidly, I’ve never seen any one improve so amazingly in health and looks since you’ve had it. But what I’ve been wondering is, whether it’s in the nature of fresh air, hard work, and plain living, or in the nature of a drug or anodyne. Whether it’s prevention, or cure. In fact, whether you could hold it, or ever have held it, unless you had been sick _before_ you held it?”

She evidently did not grasp my meaning. I could, of course, have made it plain enough by saying: “Suppose you had not been a self-conscious, self-absorbed, high-strung, anæmic girl, like so many nowadays, quivering at life and Quakers with strong physique and principles; suppose you had been an Italian peasant woman or an English cottage lass, obliged to work and think of others all her time; suppose, in a word, you had not had the chance to be so desperately sensitive and conscious of your body--do you think you would ever have felt the necessity for becoming unconscious of it?” But she looked so serene and puzzled, so corporeally charming on her sofa, that I hadn’t the heart to put it thus brutally; and I merely said:

“Do tell me how the idea first came to you?”

“It was put there. It could never have come of its own accord.”

“No doubt; but what exactly?”

She grew rather pink.

“It was one evening when Willy--he was only four then--had been very naughty, and Tom” (this was the Quaker) “insisted on my whipping him. I was obliged to, you see, for fear he would do it himself. Poor Willy cried so that I was simply in despair. It hurt me awfully; I remember thinking: ‘Ah! but it’s not really me; not me--not my arm.’ It seemed to me that there was a dreadful unreality about myself; that I was not really doing it, and so I surely could not be hurting him. It was such a comfort--and I wanted comfort.”

I felt the sacredness and the pathos of that; I felt, too, that her despair, before that comfort came, had been her farewell to truth; but I would not for the world have said that, nor asked what Willy’s tears had really been, if not real tears.

“Yes,” I murmured; “and after that?”

“After that--I tried every day, and gradually the whole beauty of it came to me--because, you know, there are so many things to fret one, and it’s so splendid to feel uplifted above it all.”

They tell me the morphia habit is wonderful! But I only said:

“And so you really never suffer now?”

“Oh!” she answered, “I often have the beginnings; but I just hold that thought and--it goes. I do wish--I _do_ wish you would try!”

“Yes, yes,” I murmured; “yes, yes!” She looked so pathetically earnest and as if she would be so disappointed. “But just one thing: Don’t you ever feel that the knowledge that people have no bodies and don’t really suffer----” and there I stopped. I had meant to add--“blunts sympathy and dries up the springs of fellow-feeling from which all kindly action comes?” But I hadn’t the heart.

“Oh! do put any questions to me!” she said. “You can’t shake my faith! It’s religion with me, you know.”

“You certainly seem fitter and stronger every day. I quite understand that you’re being saved by it. And that’s the essence of religion, isn’t it?”

She drew herself up and smiled. “Tom says I’m getting fat!”

I looked at her. I must say that, for one who had no body, she was superb.

After that I again left London and did not see her for two years.

A few days after my return I asked after her at my sister’s.

“Oh! haven’t you heard? The most dreadful tragedy happened there six weeks ago. Kitty and Willy” (they were the two eldest children) “were run over by a motor; poor little Kitty was killed on the spot, and Willy will be lame for life, they say.”

Thinking of Kitty blotted out like that--a little thing all shyness, sensibility, and pranks, just as Minna had been at her age--I could scarcely ask: “How does poor Minna take it?”

My sister wrinkled her brows.

“I was there,” she said, “when they brought the children in. It was awful to see Tom--he broke down utterly. He’s been quite changed ever since.”

“But Minna?”

“Minna--yes. I shall never forget the expression of her face that first minute. It reminded me of--I don’t know what--like nerves moving under the skin. Dreadful! And then, ten minutes later, it was quite calm; you’d have thought nothing had happened. She’s very wonderful. I’ve watched her since, and I don’t--I really don’t believe she feels it!”

“How is she looking?”

“Oh! just the same--very well and handsome. Rather too fat.”

It was with very curious feelings that I went next day to see Minna. Truly she looked magnificent in her black clothes. Her curves had become ampler, her complexion deeper, perhaps a little coarse, and her drawl was more pronounced. Her husband came in while I was there. The poor man was indeed a changed Quaker. He seemed to have shrivelled. When she put her hand on his shoulder, I noticed with surprise that he jibbed away and seemed to avoid the gaze of her rather short-sighted, beautiful brown eyes that had grown appreciably warmer. It was strange indeed--his body had become so meagre and hers had so splendidly increased! We made no mention of the tragedy while he was there, but when he had left us I hazarded the question:

“How is poor little Willy?”

Her eyes shone, and she said, with a sort of beautiful earnestness:

“You mustn’t call him that. He’s not a bit unhappy. We hold the thought together. It’s coming wonderfully!”

In a sudden outburst of sympathy I said:

“I’m so sorry. It must be terrible for you all.”

Her brow contracted just a little.

“Yes! I can’t get Tom--if only he would see that it’s nothing, really--that there’s no such thing as the body. He’s simply wearing himself away; he’s grown quite thin; he’s----” She stopped. And there rose up in me a kind of venom, as if I felt that she was about to say ‘--no longer fit to be my mate.’ And, trying to keep that feeling out of my eyes, I looked at the magnificent creature. How marvellously she had flourished under the spell of her creed! How beautifully preserved and encased against the feelings of this life she had become! How grandly she had cured her sensitive and neurasthenic girlhood! How nobly, against the disease of self-consciousness and self-absorption, she had put on the armour of a subtler and deeper self-absorption!

And suddenly I pitied or I envied her--Ah! which? For, to achieve immunity from her own suffering, I perceived that for the suffering of others she had become incapable of caring two brass buttons.

The Voice Of----!

The proprietor of “The Paradise” had said freely that she would “knock them.” Broad, full-coloured, and with the clear, swimming eye of an imaginative man, he was trusted when he spoke thus of his new “turns.” There was the feeling that he had once more discovered a good thing.

And on the afternoon of the new star’s dress rehearsal it was noticed that he came down to watch her, smoking his cigar calmly in the front row of the stalls. When she had finished and withdrawn, the _chef d’orchestre_, while folding up his score, felt something tickling his ear.

“Bensoni, this is hot goods!”

Turning that dim, lined face of his, whose moustache was always coming out of wax, Signor Bensoni answered: “A bit of all right, boss!”

“If they hug her real big to-night, send round to my room.”

“I will.”

Evening came, and under the gilt-starred dome the house was packed. Rows and rows of serious seekers for amusement; and all the customary crowd of those who “drop in”--old clients with hair and without hair, in evening clothes, or straight from their offices or race-course; bare-necked ladies sitting; ladies who never sat, but under large hats stood looking into the distance, or moved with alacrity in no particular direction, and halted swiftly with a gentle humming; lounging and high-collared youths, furtively or boldly staring, and unconsciously tightening their lips; distinguished goatee-bearded foreigners wandering without rest. And always round the doorways the huge attendants, in their long, closely buttoned coats.

The little Peruvian bears had danced. The Volpo troupe in claret-coloured tights had gone once more without mishap through their hairbreadth tumbles. The Mulligatawny quartet had contributed their “unparalleled plate spray.” “Donks, the human ass,” had brayed. Signor Bensoni had conducted to its close his “Pot-pourriture” which afforded so many men an opportunity to stretch their legs. Arsenico had swallowed many things with conspicuous impunity. “Great and Small Scratch” had scratched. “Fraulein Tizi, the charming female vocalist,” had suddenly removed his stays. There had been no minute dull; yet over the whole performance had hung that advent of the new star, that sense of waiting for a greater moment.

She came at last--in black and her own whiteness, “La Bellissima,” straight from Brazil; tall, with raven-dark hair, and her beautiful face as pale as ivory. Tranquilly smiling with eyes only, she seemed to draw the gaze of all into those dark wells of dancing life; and, holding out her arms, that seemed fairer and rounder than the arms of women, she said: “Ladies and gentlemen, I will dance for you de latest Gollywog Brazilian caterpillar crawl.”

Then, in lime-light streaming down on her from the centre of the gallery, she moved back to the corner of the stage. Those who were wandering stood still; every face craned forward. For, sidelong, with a mouth widened till it nearly reached her ears, her legs straddling, and her stomach writhing, she was moving incomparably across the stage. Her face, twisted on her neck, at an alarming angle, was distorted to a strange, inimitable hideousness. She reached the wings, and turned. A voice cried out: “_Épatant!_” Her arms, those round white arms, seemed yellow and skinny now, her obviously slender hips had achieved miraculous importance; each movement of her whole frame was attuned to a perfect harmony of ugliness. Twice she went thus marvellously up and down, in the ever-deepening hush. Then the music stopped, the lime-light ceased to flow, and she stood once more tranquil and upright, beautiful, with her smiling eyes. A roar of enthusiasm broke, salvo after salvo--clapping and “Bravos,” and comments flying from mouth to mouth.

“Rippin’!” “Bizarre--I say--how bizarre!” “Of the most chic!” “_Wunderschön!_” “Bully!”

Raising her arms again for silence, she said quite simply: “Good! I will now, ladies and gentlemen, sing you the latest Patagonian Squaw Squall. I sing you first, however, few bars of ‘Che farò’ old-fashion, to show you my natural tones--so you will see.” And in a deep, sweet voice began at once: “Che farò senz’ Euridice”; while through the whole house ran a shuffle of preparation for the future. Then all was suddenly still; for from her lips, remarkably enlarged, was issuing a superb cacophony. Like the screeching of parrots, and miauling of tiger-cats fighting in a forest, it forced attention from even the least musical.

Before the first verse was ended, the uncontrollable applause had drowned her; and she stood, not bowing, smiling with her lips now--her pretty lips. Then raising a slender forefinger, she began the second verse. Even more strangely harsh and dissonant, from lips more monstrously disfigured, the great sound came. And, as though in tune with that crescendo, the lime-light brightened till she seemed all wrapped in flame. Before the storm of acclamation could burst from the enraptured house, a voice coming from the gallery was heard suddenly to cry:

“Woman! Blasphemous creature! You have profaned Beauty!”

For a single second there was utter silence, then a huge, angry “Hush!” was hurled up at the speaker; and all eyes turned toward the stage.

There stood the beautiful creature, motionless, staring up into the lime-light. And the voice from the gallery was heard again.

“The blind applaud you; it is natural. But you--unnatural! Go!” The beautiful creature threw up her head, as though struck below the jaw, and with hands flung out, rushed from the stage. Then, amidst the babel of a thousand cries--“Chuck the brute out!” “Throw him over!” “Where’s the manager?” “Encore, encore!”--the manager himself came out from the wings. He stood gazing up into the stream of lime-light, and there was instant silence.

“Hullo! up there! Have you got him?”

A voice, far and small, travelled back in answer: “It’s no one up here, sir!”

“What? Limes! It was in front of you!” A second faint, small voice came quavering down: “There’s been no one hollerin’ near me, sir.”

“Cut off your light!”

Down came the quavering voice: “I ’ave cut off, sir.”

“What?”

“I ’ave cut off--I’m disconnected.”

“Look at it!” And, pointing toward the brilliant ray still showering down onto the stage, whence a faint smoke seemed rising, the manager stepped back into the wings.

Then, throughout the house, arose a hustling and a scuffling, as of a thousand furtively consulting; and through it, of it, continually louder, the whisper--“Fire!”

And from every row some one stole out; the women in the large hats clustered, and trooped toward the doors. In five minutes “The Paradise” was empty, save of its officials. But of fire there was none.

Down in the orchestra, standing well away from the centre, so that he could see the stream of lime-light, the manager said:

“Electrics!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Cut off every light.”

“Right, sir.”

With a clicking sound the lights went out; and all was black--but for that golden pathway still flowing down the darkness. For a moment the manager blinked silently at the strange effulgence. Then his scared voice rose: “Send for the Boss--look alive! Where’s Limes?”

Close to his elbow a dark little quick-eyed man, with his air of professional stupidity, answered in doubt: “Here, sir.”

“It’s up to you, Limes!”

The little man, wiping his forehead, gazed at the stream of golden light, powdering out to silver at its edges.

“I’ve took out me limes, and I’m disconnected, and this blanky ray goes on. What am I to do? There’s nothing up there to cause it. Go an’ see for yourself, sir!” Then, passing his hand across his mouth, he blurted out: “It’s got to do with that there voice--I shouldn’t be surprised. Unnat’ral-like; the voice o’----”

The manager interrupted sharply: “Don’t be a d--d ass, Limes!”

And, suddenly, all saw the proprietor passing from the prompt side behind that faint mist where the ray fell.

“What’s the theatre dark like this for? Why is it empty? What’s happened?”

The manager answered.

“We’re trying to find out, sir; a madman in the gallery, whom we couldn’t locate, made a disturbance, called the new turn ‘A natural’; and now there’s some hanky with this lime. It’s been taken out, and yet it goes on like that!”

“What cleared the house?”

The manager pointed at the stage.

“It looked like smoke,” he said. “That light’s loose; we can’t get hold of its end anywhere.”

From behind him Signor Bensoni suddenly pushed up his dim, scared face.

“Boss!” he stammered: “it’s the most bizarre--the most bizarre--thing I ever struck--Limes thinks----”

“Yes?” The Boss turned and spoke very quickly: “What does he think--yes?”

“He thinks--the voice wasn’t from the gallery--but higher; he thinks--he thinks--it was the voice of--voice of----”

A sudden sparkle lit up the Boss’s eyes. “Yes?” he hissed out; “yes?”

“He thinks it was the voice of---- Hullo!”

The stream of light had vanished. All was darkness.

Some one called: “Up with your lights!”

As the lights leaped forth, all about the house, the Boss was seen to rush to the centre of the stage, where the ray had been.

“Bizarre! By gum!... Hullo! Up there!”

No sound, no ray of light, answered that passionately eager shout.

The Boss spun round: “Electrics! You blazing ass! Ten to one but you’ve cut my connection, turning up the lights like that. The voice of----! Great snakes! What a turn! What a turn! I’d have given it a thou’ a week!... _Hullo! up there! Hullo!_”

But there came no answer from under the gilt-starred dome.

A Simple Tale

Talking of anti-Semitism one of those mornings, Ferrand said: “Yes, _monsieur_, plenty of those gentlemen in these days esteem themselves Christian, but I have only once met a Christian who esteemed himself a Jew. _C’était très drôle--je vais vous conter cela._

“It was one autumn in London, and, the season being over, I was naturally in poverty, inhabiting a palace in Westminster at fourpence the night. In the next bed to me that time there was an old gentleman, so thin that one might truly say he was made of air. English, Scotch, Irish, Welsh--I shall never learn to distinguish those little differences in your race--but I well think he was English. Very feeble, very frail, white as paper, with a long grey beard, and caves in the cheeks, and speaking always softly, as if to a woman.... For me it was an experience to see an individual so gentle in a palace like that. His bed and bowl of broth he gained in sweeping out the kennels of all those sorts of types who come to sleep there every night. There he spent all his day long, going out only at ten hours and a half every night, and returning at midnight less one quarter. Since I had not much to do, it was always a pleasure for me to talk with him; for, though he was certainly a little _toqué_,” and Ferrand tapped his temple, “he had great charm, of an old man, never thinking of himself, no more than a fly that turns in dancing all day beneath a ceiling. If there was something he could do for one of those specimens--to sew on a button, clean a pipe, catch beasts in their clothes, or sit to see they were not stolen, even to give up his place by the fire--he would always do it with his smile so white and gentle; and in his leisure he would read the Holy Book! He inspired in me a sort of affection--there are not too many old men so kind and gentle as that, even when they are ‘crackey,’ as you call it. Several times I have caught him in washing the feet of one of those sots, or bathing some black eye or other, such as they often catch--a man of a spiritual refinement really remarkable; in clothes also so refined that one sometimes saw his skin. Though he had never great thing to say, he heard you like an angel, and spoke evil of no one; but, seeing that he had no more vigour than a swallow, it piqued me much how he would go out like that every night in all the weather at the same hour for so long a promenade of the streets. And when I interrogated him on this, he would only smile his smile of one not there, and did not seem to know very much of what I was talking. I said to myself: ‘There is something here to see, if I am not mistaken. One of these good days I shall be your guardian angel while you fly the night.’ For I am a connoisseur of strange things, _monsieur_, as you know; though, you may well imagine, being in the streets all day long between two boards of a sacred sandwich does not give you too strong a desire to _flâner_ in the evenings. _Eh, bien!_ It was a night in late October that I at last pursued him. He was not difficult to follow, seeing he had no more guile than an egg; passing first at his walk of an old shadow into your St. James’s Park along where your military types puff out their chests for the nursemaids to admire. Very slowly he went, leaning on a staff--_une canne de promenade_ such as I have never seen, nearly six feet high, with an end like a shepherd’s crook or the handle of a sword, a thing truly to make the _gamins_ laugh--even me it made to smile though I am too well accustomed to mock at age and poverty, to watch him march in leaning on that cane. I remember that night--very beautiful, the sky of a clear dark, the stars as bright as they can ever be in these towns of our high civilisation, and the leaf-shadows of the plane-trees, colour of grapes on the pavement, so that one had not the heart to put foot on them. One of those evenings when the spirit is light, and policemen a little dreamy and well-wishing. Well, as I tell you, my Old marched, never looking behind him, like a man who walks in sleep. By that big church--which, like all those places, had its air of coldness, far and ungrateful among us others, little human creatures who have built it--he passed, into the great Eaton Square, whose houses ought well to be inhabited by people very rich. There he crossed to lean him against the railings of the garden in the centre, very tranquil, his long white beard falling over hands joined on his staff, in awaiting what--I could not figure to myself at all. It was the hour when your high _bourgeoisie_ return from the theatre in their carriages, whose manikins sit, the arms crossed, above horses fat as snails. And one would see through the window some lady _bercée doucement_, with the face of one who has eaten too much and loved too little. And gentlemen passed me, marching for a mouthful of fresh air, _très comme il faut_, their concertina hats pushed up, and nothing at all in their eyes. I remarked my Old, who, making no movement watched them all as they went by, till presently a carriage stopped at a house nearly opposite. At once, then he began to cross the road quickly, carrying his great stick. I observed the lackey pulling the bell and opening the carriage door, and three people coming forth--a man, a woman, a young man. Very high _bourgeoisie_, some judge, knight, mayor--what do I know?--with his wife and son, mounting under the porch. My Old had come to the bottom of the steps, and spoke, in bending himself forward, as if supplicating. At once those three turned their faces, very astonished. Although I was very intrigued, I could not hear what he was saying, for, if I came nearer, I feared he would see me spying on him. Only the sound of his voice I heard, gentle as always; and his hand I saw wiping his forehead, as though he had carried something heavy from very far. Then the lady spoke to her husband, and went into the house, and the young son followed in lighting a cigarette. There rested only that good father of the family, with his grey whiskers and nose a little bent, carrying an expression as if my Old were making him ridiculous. He made a quick gesture, as though he said, ‘Go!’ then he too fled softly. The door was shut. At once the lackey mounted, the carriage drove away, and all was as if it had never been, except that my Old was, standing there, quite still. But soon he came returning carrying his staff as if it burdened him. And recoiling in a porch to see him pass, I saw his visage full of dolour, of one overwhelmed with fatigue and grief; so that I felt my heart squeeze me. I must well confess, _monsieur_, I was a little shocked to see this old sainted father asking as it seemed for alms. That is a thing I myself have never done, not even in the greatest poverty--one is not like your ‘gentlemen’--one does always some little thing for the money he receives, if it is only to show a drunken man where he lives. And I returned in meditating deeply over this problem, which well seemed to me fit for the angels to examine; and knowing what time my Old was always re-entering, I took care to be in my bed before him. He came in as ever, treading softly so as not to wake us others, and his face had again its serenity, a little ‘crackey.’ As you may well have remarked, _monsieur_, I am not one of those individuals who let everything grow under the nose without pulling them up to see how they are made. For me the greatest pleasure is to lift the skirts of life, to unveil what there is under the surface of things which are not always what they seem, as says your good little poet. For that one must have philosophy, and a certain industry, lacking to all those gentlemen who think they alone are industrious because they sit in chairs and blow into the telephone all day, in filling their pockets with money. Myself, I coin knowledge of the heart--it is the only gold they cannot take from you. So that night I lay awake. I was not content with what I had seen; for I could not imagine why this old man, so unselfish, so like a saint in thinking ever of others, should go thus every night to beg, when he had always in this palace his bed, and that with which to keep his soul within his rags. Certainly we all have our vices, and gentlemen the most revered do, in secret, things they would cough to see others doing; but that business of begging seemed scarcely in his character of an old altruist--for in my experience, _monsieur_, beggars are not less egoist than millionaires. As I say, it piqued me much, and I resolved to follow him again. The second night was of the most different. There was a great wind, and white clouds flying in the moonlight. He commenced his pilgrimage in passing by your House of Commons, as if toward the river. I like much that great river of yours. There is in its career something of very grand; it ought to know many things, although it is so silent, and gives to no one the secrets which are confided to it. He had for objective, it seemed, that long row of houses very respectable, which gives on the embankment, before you arrive at Chelsea. It was painful to see the poor Old, bending almost double against that great wind coming from the west. Not too many carriages down here, and few people--a true wilderness, lighted by tall lamps which threw no shadows, so clear was the moon. He took his part soon, as of the other night, standing on the far side of the road, watching for the return of some lion to his den. And presently I saw one coming, accompanied by three lionesses, all taller than himself. This one was bearded, and carried spectacles--a real head of learning; walking, too, with the step of a man who knows his world. Some professor--I said to myself--with his harem. They gained their house at fifty paces from my Old; and, while this learned one was opening the door, the three ladies lifted their noses in looking at the moon. A little of æsthetic, a little of science--as always with that type there! At once I had perceived my Old coming across, blown by the wind like a grey stalk of thistle; and his face, with its expression of infinite pain as if carrying the sufferings of the world. At the moment they see him those three ladies drop their noses, and fly within the house as if he were the pestilence, in crying, ‘Henry!’ And out comes my _monsieur_ again, in his beard and spectacles. For me, I would freely have given my ears to hear, but I saw that this good Henry had his eye on me, and I did not budge, for fear to seem in conspiracy. I heard him only say: ‘Impossible! Impossible! Go to the proper place!’ and he shut the door. My Old remained, with his long staff resting on a shoulder bent as if that stick were of lead. And presently he commenced to march again whence he had come, curved and trembling, the very shadow of a man, passing me, too, as if I were the air. That time also I regained my bed before him, in meditating very deeply, still more uncertain of the psychology of this affair, and resolved once again to follow him, saying to myself: ‘This time I shall run all risks to hear.’ There are two kinds of men in this world, _monsieur_, one who will not rest content till he has become master of all the toys that make a fat existence--in never looking to see of what they are made; and the other, for whom life is tobacco and a crust of bread, and liberty to take all to pieces, so that his spirit may feel good within him. Frankly I am of that kind. I rest never till I have found out why this is that; for me mystery is the salt of life, and I must well eat of it. I put myself again, then, to following him the next night. This time he traversed those little dirty streets of your great Westminster, where all is mixed in a true pudding of lords and poor wretches at two sous the dozen; of cats and policemen; kerosene flames, abbeys, and the odour of fried fish. Ah! truly it is frightful to see your low streets in London; that gives me a conviction of hopelessness such as I have never caught elsewhere; piquant, too, to find them so near to that great House which sets example of good government to all the world. There is an irony so ferocious there, _monsieur_, that one can well hear the good God of your _bourgeois_ laugh in every wheel that rolls, and the cry of each cabbage that is sold; and see him smile in the smoky light of every flare, and in the candles of your cathedral, in saying to himself: ‘I have well made this world. Is there not variety here?--_en voilà une bonne soupe!_’ This time, however, I attended my Old like his very shadow, and could hear him sighing as he marched, as if he also found the atmosphere of those streets too strong. But all of a sudden he turned a corner, and we were in the most quiet, most beautiful little street I have seen in all your London. It was of small, old houses, very regular, which made as if they inclined themselves in their two rows before a great church at the end, grey in the moonlight, like a mother. There was no one in that street, and no more cover than hair on the head of a pope. But I had some confidence now that my Old would not remark me standing there so close, since in these pilgrimages he seemed to remark nothing. Leaning on his staff, I tell you he had the air of an old bird in a desert, reposing on one leg by a dry pool, his soul looking for water. It gave me that notion one has sometimes in watching the rare spectacles of life--that sentiment which, according to me, pricks artists to their work. We had not stayed there too long before I saw a couple marching from the end of the street, and thought: ‘Here they come to their nest.’ Vigorous and gay they were, young married ones, eager to get home; one could see the white neck of the young wife, the white shirt of the young man, gleaming under their cloaks. I know them well, those young couples in great cities, without a care, taking all things, the world before them, _très amoureux_, without, as yet, children; jolly and pathetic, having life still to learn--which, believe me, _monsieur_, is a sad enough affair for nine rabbits out of ten. They stopped at the house next to where I stood; and, since my Old was coming fast as always to the feast, I put myself at once to the appearance of ringing the bell of the house before me. This time I had well the chance of hearing. I could see, too, the faces of all three, because I have by now the habit of seeing out of the back hair. The pigeons were so anxious to get to their nest that my Old had only the time to speak, as they were in train to vanish. ‘Sir, let me rest in your doorway!’ _Monsieur_, I have never seen a face so hopeless, so crippled with fatigue, yet so full of a gentle dignity as that of my Old while he spoke those words. It was as if something looked from his visage surpassing what belongs to us others, so mortal and so cynic as human life must well render all who dwell in this earthly paradise. He held his long staff upon one shoulder, and I had the idea, sinister enough, that it was crushing his body of a spectre down into the pavement. I know not how the impression came, but it seemed to me that this devil of a stick had the nature of a heavy cross reposing on his shoulder; I had pain to prevent myself turning, to find if in truth ‘I had them’ as your drunkards say. Then the young man called out: ‘Here’s a shilling for you, my friend!’ But my old did not budge, answering always: ‘Sir, let me rest in your doorway!’ As you may well imagine, _monsieur_, we were all in the silence of astonishment, I pulling away at my bell next door, which was not ringing, seeing I took care it did not; and those two young people regarding my Old with eyes round as moons, out of their pigeon-house, which I could well see was prettily feathered. Their hearts were making seesaw, I could tell; for at that age one is still impressionable. Then the girl put herself to whispering, and her husband said those two words of your young ‘gentlemen,’ ‘Awfully sorry!’ and put out his hand, which held now a coin large as a saucer. But again my Old only said: ‘Sir, let me rest in your doorway!’ And the young man drew back his hand quickly as if he were ashamed, and saying again, ‘Sorry!’ he shut the door. I have heard many sighs in my time--they are the good little accompaniments to the song we sing, we others who are in poverty; but the sigh my Old pushed then--how can I tell you--had an accent as if it came from Her, the faithful companion, who marches holding the hands of men and women so that they may never make the grand mistake to imagine themselves for a moment the good God. Yes, _monsieur_, it was as if pursued by Suffering herself, that bird of the night, never tired of flying in this world where they talk always of cutting her wings. Then I took my resolution, and, coming gently from behind, said: ‘My Old--what is it? Can I do anything for you?’ Without looking at me, he spoke as to himself: ‘I shall never find one who will let me rest in his doorway. For my sin I shall wander forever!’ At this moment, _monsieur_, there came to me an inspiration so clear that I marvelled I had not already had it a long time before. He thought himself the Wandering Jew! I had well found it. This was certainly his fixed idea, of a cracked old man! And I said: ‘My Jew, do you know this? In doing what you do, you have become as Christ, in a world of wandering Jews!’ But he did not seem to hear me, and only just as we arrived at our palace became again that old gentle being, thinking never of himself.”

Behind the smoke of his cigarette, a smile curled Ferrand’s red lips under his long nose a little on one side.

“And, if you think of it, _monsieur_, it is well like that. Provided there exists always that good man of a Wandering Jew, he will certainly have become as Christ, in all these centuries of being refused from door to door. Yes, yes, he must well have acquired charity the most profound that this world has ever seen, in watching the crushing virtue of others. All those gentry, of whom he asks night by night to let him rest in their doorways, they tell him where to go, how to _ménager_ his life, even offer him money, as I had seen; but, to let him rest, to trust him in their houses--this strange old man--as a fellow, a brother voyager--that they will not; it is hardly in the character of good citizens in a Christian country. And, as I have indicated to you, this Old of mine, cracked as he was, thinking himself that Jew who refused rest to the good Christ, had become, in being refused for ever, the most Christ-like man I have ever encountered on this earth, which, according to me, is composed almost entirely of those who have themselves the character of the Wandering Jew.”

Puffing out a sigh of smoke, Ferrand added: “I do not know whether he continued to pursue his idea, for I myself took the road next morning, and I have never seen him since.”

Ultima Thule

Ultima Thule! The words come into my head this winter night. That is why I write down the story, as I know it, of a little old friend.

I used to see him first in Kensington Gardens, where he came in the afternoons, accompanied by a very small girl. One would see them silent before a shrub or flower, or with their heads inclined to heaven before a tree, or leaning above water and the ducks, or stretched on their stomachs watching a beetle, or on their backs watching the sky. Often they would stand holding crumbs out to the birds, who would perch about them, and even drop on their arms little white marks of affection and esteem. They were admittedly a noticeable couple. The child, who was fair-haired and elfinlike, with dark eyes and a pointed chin, wore clothes that seemed somewhat hard put to it. And, if the two were not standing still, she went along pulling at his hand, eager to get there; and, since he was a very little light old man, he seemed always in advance of his own feet. He was garbed, if I remember, in a daverdy brown overcoat and broad-brimmed soft grey hat, and his trousers, what was visible of them, were tucked into half-length black gaiters which tried to join with very old brown shoes. Indeed, his costume did not indicate any great share of prosperity. But it was his face that riveted attention. Thin, cherry-red, and wind-dried as old wood, it had a special sort of brightness, with its spikes and waves of silvery hair, and blue eyes that seemed to shine. Rather mad, I used to think. Standing by the rails of an enclosure, with his withered lips pursed and his cheeks drawn in till you would think the wind might blow through them, he would emit the most enticing trills and pipings, exactly imitating various birds.

Those who rouse our interest are generally the last people we speak to, for interest seems to set up a kind of special shyness; so it was long before I made his acquaintance. But one day by the Serpentine, I saw him coming along alone, looking sad, but still with that queer brightness about him. He sat down on my bench with his little dried hands on his thin little knees, and began talking to himself in a sort of whisper. Presently I caught the words: “God cannot be like us.” And for fear that he might go on uttering such precious remarks that were obviously not intended to be heard, I had either to go away or else address him. So, on an impulse, I said:

“Why?”

He turned without surprise.

“I’ve lost my landlady’s little girl,” he said. “Dead! And only seven years old.”

“That little thing! I used to watch you.”

“Did you? Did you? I’m glad you saw her.”

“I used to see you looking at flowers, and trees, and those ducks.”

His face brightened wistfully. “Yes; she was a great companion to an old man like me.” And he relapsed into his contemplation of the water. He had a curious, precise way of speaking, that matched his pipchinesque little old face. At last he again turned to me those blue youthful eyes that seemed to shine out of a perfect little nest of crow’s-feet.

“We were great friends! But I couldn’t expect it. Things don’t last, do they?” I was glad to notice that his voice was getting cheerful. “When I was in the orchestra at the Harmony Theatre, it never used to occur to me that some day I shouldn’t play there any more. One felt like a bird. That’s the beauty of music, sir. You lose yourself; like that blackbird there.” He imitated the note of a blackbird so perfectly that I could have sworn the bird started.

“Birds and flowers! Wonderful things; wonderful! Why, even a buttercup----!” He pointed at one of those little golden flowers with his toe. “Did you ever see such a marvellous thing?” And he turned his face up at me. “And yet, somebody told me once that they don’t agree with cows. Now can that be? I’m not a countryman--though I was born at Kingston.”

“The cows do well enough on them,” I said, “in my part of the world. In fact, the farmers say they like to see buttercups.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that. I was always sorry to think they disagreed.”

When I got up to go, he rose, too.

“I take it as very kind of you,” he said, “to have spoken to me.”

“The pleasure was mine. I am generally to be found hereabouts in the afternoons any time you like a talk.”

“Delighted,” he said; “delighted. I make friends of the creatures and flowers as much as possible, but they can’t always make us understand.” And after we had taken off our respective hats, he reseated himself, with his hands on his knees.

Next time I came across him standing by the rails of an enclosure, and, in his arms, an old and really wretched-looking cat.

“I don’t like boys,” he said, without preliminary of any sort. “What do you think they were doing to this poor old cat? Dragging it along by a string to drown it; see where it’s cut into the fur! I think boys despise the old and weak!” He held it out to me. At the ends of those little sticks of arms the beast looked more dead than alive; I had never seen a more miserable creature.

“I think a cat,” he said, “is one of the most marvellous things in the world. Such a depth of life in it.”

And, as he spoke, the cat opened its mouth as if protesting at that assertion. It _was_ the sorriest-looking beast.

“What are you going to do with it?”

“Take it home: it looks to me as if it might die.”

“You don’t think that might be more merciful?”

“It depends; it depends. I shall see. I fancy a little kindness might do a great deal for it. It’s got plenty of spirit. I can see from its eye.”

“May I come along with you a bit?”

“Oh!” he said; “delighted.”

We walked on side by side, exciting the derision of nearly every one we passed--his face looked so like a mother’s when she is feeding her baby!

“You’ll find this’ll be quite a different cat to-morrow,” he said. “I shall have to get in, though, without my landlady seeing; a funny woman! I have two or three strays already.”

“Can I help in any way?”

“Thank you,” he said. “I shall ring the area bell, and as she comes out below I shall go in above. She’ll think it’s boys. They _are_ like that.”

“But doesn’t she do your rooms, or anything?”

A smile puckered his face. “I’ve only one; I do it myself. Oh, it’d never do to have her about, even if I could afford it. But,” he added, “if you’re so kind as to come with me to the door, you might engage her by asking where Mr. Thompson lives. That’s me. In the musical world my name was Moronelli; not that I have Italian blood in me, of course.”

“And shall I come up?”

“Honoured; but I live very quietly.”

We passed out of the gardens at Lancaster Gate, where all the house-fronts seem so successful, and out of it into a little street that was extremely like a grubby child trying to hide under its mother’s skirts. Here he took a newspaper from his pocket and wrapped it round the cat.

“She’s a funny woman,” he repeated; “Scotch descent, you know.” Suddenly he pulled an area bell and scuttled up the steps.

When he had opened the door, however, I saw before him in the hall a short, thin woman dressed in black, with a sharp and bumpy face. Her voice sounded brisk and resolute.

“What have you got there, Mr. Thompson?”

“Newspaper, Mrs. March.”

“Oh, indeed! Now, you’re not going to take that cat upstairs!”

The little old fellow’s voice acquired a sudden shrill determination. “Stand aside, please. If you stop me, I’ll give you notice. The cat is going up. It’s ill, and it is going up.”

It was then I said:

“Does Mr. Thompson live here?”

In that second he shot past her, and ascended.

“That’s him,” she said; “and I wish it wasn’t, with his dirty cats. Do you want him?”

“I do.”

“He lives at the top.” Then, with a grudging apology: “I can’t help it; he tries me--he’s very trying.”

“I am sure he is.”

She looked at me. The longing to talk that comes over those who answer bells all day, and the peculiar Scottish desire to justify oneself, rose together in that face which seemed all promontories dried by an east wind.

“Ah!” she said; “he is. I don’t deny his heart; but he’s got no sense of anything. Goodness knows what he hasn’t got up there. I wonder I keep him. An old man like that ought to know better; half-starving himself to feed them.” She paused, and her eyes, that had a cold and honest glitter, searched me closely.

“If you’re going up,” she said, “I hope you’ll give him good advice. He never lets me in. I wonder I keep him.”

There were three flights of stairs, narrow, clean, and smelling of oilcloth. Selecting one of two doors at random, I knocked. His silvery head and bright, pinched face were cautiously poked out.

“Ah!” he said; “I thought it might be her!”

The room, which was fairly large, had a bare floor with little on it save a camp-bed and chest of drawers with jug and basin. A large bird-cage on the wall hung wide open. The place smelt of soap and a little of beasts and birds. Into the walls, whitewashed over a green wall-paper which stared through in places, were driven nails with their heads knocked off, onto which bits of wood had been spiked, so that they stood out as bird-perches high above the ground. Over the open window a piece of wire netting had been fixed. A little spirit-stove and an old dressing-gown hanging on a peg completed the accoutrements of a room which one entered with a certain diffidence. He had not exaggerated. Besides the new cat, there were three other cats and four birds, all--save one, a bullfinch--invalids. The cats kept close to the walls, avoiding me, but wherever my little old friend went, they followed him with their eyes. The birds were in the cage, except the bullfinch, which had perched on his shoulder.

“How on earth,” I said, “do you manage to keep cats and birds in one room?”

“There is danger,” he answered, “but I have not had a disaster yet. Till their legs or wings are mended, they hardly come out of the cage; and after that they keep up on my perches. But they don’t stay long, you know, when they’re once well. That wire is only put over the window while they’re mending; it’ll be off to-morrow, for this lot.”

“And then they’ll go?”

“Yes. The sparrow first, and then the two thrushes.”

“And this fellow?”

“Ask him,” he said. “Would _you_ go, bully?” But the bullfinch did not deign to answer.

“And were all those cats, too, in trouble?”

“Yes,” he said. “They wouldn’t want me if they weren’t.”

Thereupon he began to warm some blue-looking milk, contemplating the new cat, which he had placed in a round basket close to the little stove, while the bullfinch sat on his head. It seemed time to go.

“Delighted to see you, sir,” he said, “any day.” And, pointing up at the bullfinch on his head, he added: “Did you ever see anything so wonderful as that bird? The size of its heart! Really marvellous!”

To the rapt sound of that word marvellous, and full of the memory of his mysterious brightness while he stood pointing upward to the bird perched on his thick, silvery hair, I went.

The landlady was still at the bottom of the stairs, and began at once: “So you found him! I don’t know why I keep him. Of course, he was kind to my little girl.” I saw tears gather in her eyes.

“With his cats and his birds, I wonder I keep him! But where would he go? He’s no relations, and no friends--not a friend in the world, I think! He’s a character. Lives on air--feeding them cats! I’ve no patience with them, eating him up. He never lets me in. Cats and birds! I wonder I keep him. Losing himself for those rubbishy things! It’s my belief he was always like that; and that’s why he never got on. He’s no sense of anything.”

And she gave me a shrewd look, wondering, no doubt, what the deuce I had come about.

I did not come across him again in the gardens for some time, and went at last to pay him a call. At the entrance to a mews just round the corner of his grubby little street, I found a knot of people collected round one of those bears that are sometimes led through the less conspicuous streets of our huge towns. The yellowish beast was sitting up in deference to its master’s nod, uttering little grunts, and moving its uplifted snout from side to side, in the way bears have. But it seemed to be extracting more amusement than money from its audience.

“Let your bear down off its hind legs and I’ll give you a penny.” And suddenly I saw my little old friend under his flopping grey hat, amongst the spectators, all taller than himself. But the bear’s master only grinned and prodded the animal in the chest. He evidently knew a good thing when he saw it.

“I’ll give you twopence to let him down.”

Again the bear-man grinned. “More!” he said, and again prodded the bear’s chest. The spectators were laughing now.

“Threepence! And if you don’t let him down for that, I’ll hit you in the eye.”

The bear-man held out his hand. “All a-right,” he said, “threepence; I let him down.”

I saw the coins pass and the beast dropping on his forefeet; but just then a policeman coming in sight, the man led his bear off, and I was left alone with my little old friend.

“I wish I had that poor bear,” he said; “I could teach him to be happy. But, even if I could buy him, what could I do with him up there? She’s such a funny woman.”

He looked quite dim, but brightened as we went along.

“A bear,” he said, “is really an extraordinary animal. What wise little eyes he has! I do think he’s a marvellous creation! My cats will have to go without their dinner, though. I was going to buy it with that threepence.”

I begged to be allowed the privilege.

“Willingly!” he said. “Shall we go in here? They like cod’s head best.”

While we stood waiting to be served I saw the usual derisive smile pass over the fishmonger’s face. But my little old friend by no means noticed it; he was too busy looking at the fish. “A fish is a marvellous thing, when you come to think of it,” he murmured. “Look at its scales. Did you ever see such mechanism?”

We bought five cod’s heads, and I left him carrying them in a bag, evidently lost in the anticipation of five cats eating them.

After that I saw him often, going with him sometimes to buy food for his cats, which seemed ever to increase in numbers. His talk was always of his strays, and the marvels of creation, and that time of his life when he played the flute at the Harmony Theatre. He had been out of a job, it seemed, for more than ten years; and, when questioned, only sighed and answered: “Don’t talk about it, please!”

His bumpy landlady never failed to favour me with a little conversation. She was one of those women who have terrific consciences, and terrible grudges against them.

“I never get out,” she would say.

“Why not?”

“Couldn’t leave the house.”

“It won’t run away!”

But she would look at me as if she thought it might, and repeat:

“Oh! I never get out.”

An extremely Scottish temperament.

Considering her descent, however, she was curiously devoid of success, struggling on apparently from week to week, cleaning, and answering the bell, and never getting out, and wondering why she kept my little old friend; just as he struggled on from week to week, getting out and collecting strays, and discovering the marvels of creation, and finding her a funny woman. Their hands were joined, one must suppose, by that dead child.

One July afternoon, however, I found her very much upset. He had been taken dangerously ill three days before.

“There he is,” she said; “can’t touch a thing. It’s my belief he’s done for himself, giving his food away all these years to those cats of his. I shooed ’em out to-day, the nasty creatures; they won’t get in again.”

“Oh!” I said, “you shouldn’t have done that. It’ll only make him miserable.”

She flounced her head up. “Hoh!” she said; “I wonder I’ve kept him all this time, with his birds and his cats dirtying my house. And there he lies, talking gibberish about them. He made me write to a Mr. Jackson, of some theatre or other--I’ve no patience with him. And that little bullfinch all the time perching on his pillow, the dirty little thing! I’d have turned it out, too, only it wouldn’t let me catch it.”

“What does the doctor say?”

“Double pneumonia--caught it getting his feet wet, after some stray, I’ll be bound. I’m nursing him. There has to be some one with him all the time.”

He was lying very still when I went up, with the sunlight falling across the foot of his bed, and, sure enough, the bullfinch perching on his pillow. In that high fever he looked brighter than ever. He was not exactly delirious, yet not exactly master of his thoughts.

“Mr. Jackson! He’ll be here soon. Mr. Jackson! He’ll do it for me. I can ask him, if I die. A funny woman. I don’t want to eat; I’m not a great eater--I want my breath, that’s all.”

At sound of his voice the bullfinch fluttered off the pillow and flew round and round the room, as if alarmed at something new in the tones that were coming from its master.

Then he seemed to recognise me. “I think I’m going to die,” he said; “I’m very weak. It’s lucky, there’s nobody to mind. If only he’d come soon. I wish”--and he raised himself with feeble excitement--“I wish you’d take that wire off the window; I want my cats. She turned them out. I want him to promise me to take them, and bully-boy, and feed them with my money, when I’m dead.”

Seeing that excitement was certainly worse for him than cats, I took the wire off. He fell back, quiet at once; and presently, first one and then another cat came stealing in, till there were four or five seated against the walls. The moment he ceased to speak the bullfinch, too, came back to his pillow. His eyes looked most supernaturally bright, staring out of his little, withered-up old face at the sunlight playing on his bed; he said just audibly: “Did you ever see anything more wonderful than that sunlight? It’s really marvellous!” After that he fell into a sort of doze or stupor. And I continued to sit there in the window, relieved, but rather humiliated, that he had not asked me to take care of his cats and bullfinch.

Presently there came the sound of a motor-car in the little street below. And almost at once the landlady appeared. For such an abrupt woman, she entered very softly.

“Here he is,” she whispered.

I went out and found a gentleman, perhaps sixty years of age, in a black coat, buff waistcoat, gold watch-chain, light trousers, patent-leather boots, and a wonderfully shining hat. His face was plump and red, with a glossy grey moustache; indeed, he seemed to shine everywhere, save in the eyes, which were of a dull and somewhat liverish hue.

“Mr. Jackson?”

“The same. How is the little old chap?”

Opening the door of the next room, which I knew was always empty, I beckoned Mr. Jackson in.

“He’s really very ill; I’d better tell you what he wants to see you about.”

He looked at me with that air of “You can’t get at me--whoever you may be,” which belongs to the very successful.

“Right-o!” he said. “Well?”

I described the situation. “He seems to think,” I ended, “that you’ll be kind enough to charge yourself with his strays, in case he should die.”

Mr. Jackson prodded the unpainted wash-stand with his gold-headed cane.

“Is he really going to kick it?”

“I’m afraid so; he’s nothing but skin, bone, and spirit, as it is.”

“H’m! Stray cats, you say, and a bird! Well, there’s no accounting. He was always a cracky little chap. So that’s it! When I got the letter I wondered what the deuce! We pay him his five quid a quarter regular to this day. To tell truth, he deserved it. Thirty years he was at our shop; never missed a night. First-rate flute he was. He ought never to have given it up, though I always thought it showed a bit of heart in him. If a man don’t look after number one, he’s as good as gone; that’s what I’ve always found. Why, I was no more than he was when I started. Shouldn’t have been worth a plum if I’d gone on his plan, that’s certain.” And he gave that profound chuckle which comes from the very stomach of success. “We were having a rocky time at the Harmony; had to cut down everything we could--music, well, that came about first. Little old Moronelli, as we used to call him--old Italian days before English names came in, you know--he was far the best of the flutes; so I went to him and said: ‘Look here, Moronelli, which of these other boys had better go?’ ‘Oh!’ he said--I remember his funny little old mug now--‘has one of them to go, Mr. Jackson? Timminsa’--that was the elder--‘he’s a wife and family; and Smetoni’--Smith, you know--‘he’s only a boy. Times are bad for flutes.’ ‘I know it’s a bit hard,’ I said, ‘but this theatre’s goin’ to be run much cheaper; one of ’em’s got to get.’ ‘Oh!’ he said, ‘dear me!’ he said. What a funny little old chap it was! Well--what do you think? Next day I had his resignation. Give you my word I did my best to turn him. Why, he was sixty then if he was a day--at sixty a man don’t get jobs in a hurry. But, not a bit of it! All he’d say was: ‘I shall get a place all right!’ But that’s it, you know--he never did. Too long in one shop. I heard by accident he was on the rocks; that’s how I make him that allowance. But that’s the sort of hopeless little old chap he is--no idea of himself. Cats! Why not? I’ll take his old cats on; don’t you let him worry about that. I’ll see to his bird, too. If I can’t give ’em a better time than ever they have here, it’ll be funny!” And, looking round the little empty room, he again uttered that profound chuckle: “Why, he was with us at the Harmony thirty years--that’s time, you know; _I_ made my fortune in it.”

“I’m sure,” I said, “it’ll be a great relief to him.”

“Oh! Ah! That’s all right. You come down to my place”--he handed me a card: “Mr. Cyril Porteus Jackson, Ultima Thule, Wimbledon”--“and see how I fix ’em up. But if he’s really going to kick it, I’d like to have a look at the little old chap, just for old times’ sake.”

We went, as quietly as Mr. Jackson’s bright boots would permit, into his room, where the landlady was sitting gazing angrily at the cats. She went out without noise, flouncing her head as much as to say: “Well, now you can see what I have to go through, sitting up here. I never get out.”

Our little old friend was still in that curious stupor. He seemed unconscious, but his blue eyes were not closed, staring brightly out before them at things we did not see. With his silvery hair and his flushed frailty, he had an unearthly look. After standing perhaps three minutes at the foot of the bed, Mr. Jackson whispered:

“Well, he does look queer. Poor little old chap! You tell him from me I’ll look after his cats and birds; he needn’t worry. And now, I think I won’t keep the car. Makes me feel a bit throaty, you know. Don’t move; he might come to.”

And, leaning all the weight of his substantial form on those bright and creaking toes, he made his way to the door, flashed at me a diamond ring, whispered hoarsely: “So long! That’ll be all right!” and vanished. And soon I heard the whirring of his car and just saw the top of his shiny hat travelling down the little street.

Some time I sat on there, wanting to deliver that message. An uncanny vigil in the failing light, with those five cats--yes, five at least--lying or sitting against the walls, staring like sphinxes at their motionless protector. I could not make out whether it was he in his stupor with his bright eyes that fascinated them, or the bullfinch perched on his pillow, whom they knew perhaps might soon be in their power. I was glad when the landlady came up and I could leave the message with her.

When she opened the door to me next day at six o’clock I knew that he was gone. There was about her that sorrowful, unmistakable importance, that peculiar mournful excitement, which hovers over houses where death has entered.

“Yes,” she said, “he went this morning. Never came round after you left. Would you like to see him?”

We went up.

He lay, covered with a sheet, in the darkened room. The landlady pulled the window-curtains apart. His face, as white now almost as his silvery head, had in the sunlight a radiance like that of a small, bright angel gone to sleep. No growth of hair, such as comes on most dead faces, showed on those frail cheeks that were now smooth and lineless as porcelain. And on the sheet above his chest the bullfinch sat, looking into his face.

The landlady let the curtains fall, and we went out.

“I’ve got the cats in here”--she pointed to the room where Mr. Jackson and I had talked--“all ready for that gentleman when he sends. But that little bird, I don’t know what to do; he won’t let me catch him, and there he sits. It makes me feel all funny.”

It had made me feel all funny, too.

“He hasn’t left the money for his funeral. Dreadful, the way he never thought about himself. I’m glad I kept him, though.” And, not to my astonishment, she suddenly began to cry.

A wire was sent to Mr. Jackson, and on the day of the funeral I went down to ‘Ultima Thule,’ Wimbledon, to see if he had carried out his promise.

He had. In the grounds, past the vinery, an outhouse had been cleaned and sanded, with cushions placed at intervals against the wall, and a little trough of milk. Nothing could have been more suitable or luxurious.

“How’s that?” he said. “I’ve done it thoroughly.” But I noticed that he looked a little glum.

“The only thing,” he said, “is the cats. First night they seemed all right; and the second, there were three of ’em left. But to-day the gardener tells me there’s not the ghost of one anywhere. It’s not for want of feeding. They’ve had tripe, and liver, and milk--as much as ever they liked. And cod’s heads, you know--they’re very fond of them. I must say it’s a bit of a disappointment to me.”

As he spoke, a sandy cat which I perfectly remembered, for it had only half its left ear, appeared in the doorway, and stood, crouching, with its green eyes turned on us; then, hearing Mr. Jackson murmur, “Puss, puss!” it ran for its life, slinking almost into the ground, and vanished among some shrubs.

Mr. Jackson sighed. “Perversity of the brutes!” he said. He led me back to the house through a conservatory full of choice orchids. A gilt bird-cage was hanging there, one of the largest I had ever seen, replete with every luxury the heart of bird could want.

“Is that for the bullfinch?” I asked him.

“Oh!” he said; “didn’t you know? The little beggar wouldn’t let himself be caught, and the second morning, when they went up, there he lay on the old chap’s body, dead. I thought it was very touchin’. But I kept the cage hung up for you to see that I should have given him a good time here. Oh, yes, ‘Ultima Thule’ would have done him well!”

And from a bright leather case Mr. Jackson offered me a cigar.

The question I had long been wishing to ask him slipped out of me then:

“Do you mind telling me why you called your house ‘Ultima Thule’?”

“Why?” he said. “Found it on the gate. Think it’s rather distingué, don’t you?” and he uttered his profound chuckle.

“First-rate. The whole place is the last word in comfort.”

“Very good of you to say so,” he said. “I’ve laid out a goodish bit on it. A man must have a warm corner to end his days in. ‘Ultima Thule,’ as you say--it isn’t bad. There’s success about it, somehow.”

And with that word in my ears, and in my eyes a vision of the little old fellow in _his_ ‘Ultima Thule,’ with the bullfinch lying dead on a heart that had never known success, I travelled back to town.

Studies Of Extravagance

I.--The Writer

Every morning when he awoke his first thought was: How am I? For it was extremely important that he should be well, seeing that when he was not well he could neither produce what he knew he ought, nor contemplate that lack of production with equanimity. Having discovered that he did not ache anywhere, he would say to his wife: “Are you all right?” and, while she was answering, he would think: “Yes--if I make that last chapter pass subjectively through Blank’s personality, then I had better----” and so on. Not having heard whether his wife were all right, he would get out of bed and do that which he facetiously called “abdominable cult,” for it was necessary that he should digest his food and preserve his figure, and while he was doing it he would partly think: “I am doing this well,” and partly he would think: “That fellow in _The Parnassus_ is quite wrong--he simply doesn’t see----” And pausing for a moment with nothing on, and his toes level with the top of a chest of drawers, he would say to his wife: “What I think about that _Parnassus_ fellow is that he doesn’t grasp the fact that my books----” And he would not fail to hear her answer warmly: “Of course he doesn’t; he’s a perfect idiot.” He would then shave. This was his most creative moment, and he would soon cut himself and utter a little groan, for it would be needful now to find to find his special cotton wool and stop the bleeding, which was a paltry business and not favourable to the flight of genius. And if his wife, taking advantage of the incident, said something which she had long been waiting to say, he would answer, wondering a little what it was she had said, and thinking: “There it is, I get no time for steady thought.”

Having finished shaving he would bathe, and a philosophical conclusion would almost invariably come to him just before he douched himself with cold--so that he would pause, and call out through the door: “You know, I think the supreme principle----” And while his wife was answering, he would resume the drowning of her words, having fortunately remembered just in time that his circulation would suffer if he did not douse himself with cold while he was still warm. He would dry himself, dreamily developing that theory of the universe and imparting it to his wife in sentences that seldom had an end, so that it was not necessary for her to answer them. While dressing he would stray a little, thinking: “Why can’t I concentrate myself on my work; it’s awful!” And if he had by any chance a button off, he would present himself rather unwillingly, feeling that it was a waste of his time. Watching her frown from sheer self-effacement over her button-sewing, he would think: “She is wonderful! How can she put up with doing things for me all day long?” And he would fidget a little, feeling in his bones that the postman had already come.

He went down always thinking: “Oh, hang it! this infernal post taking up all my time!” And as he neared the breakfast-room, he would quicken his pace; seeing a large pile of letters on the table, he would say automatically: “Curse!” and his eyes would brighten. If--as seldom happened--there were not a green-coloured wrapper enclosing mentions of him in the press, he would murmur: “Thank God!” and his face would fall.

It was his custom to eat feverishly, walking a good deal and reading about himself, and when his wife tried to bring him to a sense of his disorder he would tighten his lips without a word and think: “I have a good deal of self-control.”

He seldom commenced work before eleven, for, though he always intended to, he found it practically impossible not to dictate to his wife things about himself, such as how he could not lecture here; or where he had been born; or how much he would take for this; and why he would not consider that; together with those letters which began:

“My Dear ----,

“Thanks tremendously for your letter about my book, and its valuable criticism. Of course, I think you are quite wrong.... You don’t seem to have grasped.... In fact, I don’t think you ever quite do me justice.... “Yours affectionately, “----.”

When his wife had copied those that might be valuable after he was dead, he would stamp the envelopes and, exclaiming: “Nearly eleven--my God!” would go somewhere where they think.

It was during those hours when he sat in a certain chair with a pen in his hand that he was able to rest from thought about himself; save, indeed, in those moments, not too frequent, when he could not help reflecting: “That’s a fine page--I have seldom written anything better”; or in those moments, too frequent, when he sighed deeply and thought: “I am not the man I was.” About half-past one, he would get up, with the pages in his hand, and, seeking out his wife, would give them to her to read, remarking: “Here’s the wretched stuff, no good at all”; and, taking a position where he thought she could not see him, would do such things as did not prevent his knowing what effect the pages made on her. If the effect were good he would often feel how wonderful she was; if it were not good he had at once a chilly sensation in the pit of his stomach, and ate very little lunch.

When, in the afternoons, he took his walks abroad, he passed great quantities of things and people without noticing, because he was thinking deeply on such questions as whether he were more of an observer or more of an imaginative artist; whether he were properly appreciated in Germany; and particularly whether one were not in danger of thinking too much about oneself. But every now and then he would stop and say to himself: “I really must see more of life, I really must take in more fuel”; and he would passionately fix his eyes on a cloud, or a flower, or a man walking, and there would instantly come into his mind the thought: “I have written twenty books--ten more will make thirty--that cloud is grey”; or: “That fellow X---- is jealous of me! This flower is blue”; or: “This man is walking very--very---- D--n _The Morning Muff_, it always runs me down!” And he would have a sort of sore, beaten feeling, knowing that he had not observed those things as accurately as he would have wished to.

During these excursions, too, he would often reflect impersonally upon matters of the day, large questions of art, public policy, and the human soul; and would almost instantly find that he had always thought this or that; and at once see the necessity for putting his conclusion forward in his book or in the press, phrasing it, of course, in a way that no one else could; and there would start up before him little bits of newspaper with these words on them: “No one, perhaps, save Mr. ----, could have so ably set forth the case for Baluchistan”; or, “In _The Daily Miracle_ there is a noble letter from that eminent writer, Mr. ----, pleading against the hyperspiritualism of our age.”

Very often he would say to himself, as he walked with eyes fixed on things that he did not see: “This existence is not healthy. I really must get away and take a complete holiday, and not think at all about my work; I am getting too self-centred.” And he would go home and say to his wife: “Let’s go to Sicily, or Spain, or somewhere. Let’s get away from all this, and just live.” And when she answered: “How jolly!” he would repeat, a little absently: “How jolly!” considering what would be the best arrangement for forwarding his letters. And if, as sometimes happened, they _did_ go, he would spend almost a whole morning living, and thinking how jolly it was to be away from everything; but toward the afternoon he would feel a sensation as though he were a sofa that had been sat on too much, a sort of subsidence very deep within him. This would be followed in the evening by a disinclination to live; and that feeling would grow until on the third day he received his letters, together with a green-coloured wrapper enclosing some mentions of himself, and he would say: “Those fellows--no getting away from them!” and feel irresistibly impelled to sit down. Having done so he would take up his pen, not writing anything, indeed--because of the determination to “live,” as yet not quite extinct--but comparatively easy in his mind. On the following day he would say to his wife: “I believe I can work here.” And she would answer, smiling: “That’s splendid”; and he would think: “She’s wonderful!” and begin to write.

On other occasions, while walking the streets or about the countryside, he would suddenly be appalled at his own ignorance, and would say to himself: “I know simply nothing--I must read.” And going home he would dictate to his wife the names of a number of books to be procured from the library. When they arrived he would look at them a little gravely and think: “By Jove! Have I got to read those?” and the same evening he would take one up. He would not, however, get beyond the fourth page, if it were a novel, before he would say: “Muck! He can’t write!” and would feel absolutely stimulated to take up his own pen and write something that was worth reading. Sometimes, on the other hand, he would put the novel down after the third page, exclaiming: “By Jove! He can write!” And there would rise within him such a sense of dejection at his own inferiority that he would feel simply compelled to try to see whether he really was inferior.

But if the book were not a novel he sometimes finished the first chapter before one or two feelings came over him: Either that what he had just read was what he had himself long thought--that, of course, would be when the book was a good one; or that what he had just read was not true, or at all events debatable. In each of these events he found it impossible to go on reading, but would remark to his wife: “This fellow says what I’ve always said”; or, “This fellow says so and so, now I say----” and he would argue the matter with her, taking both sides of the question, so as to save her all unnecessary speech.

There were times when he felt that he absolutely must hear music, and he would enter the concert-hall with his wife in the pleasurable certainty that he was going to lose himself. Toward the middle of the second number, especially if it happened to be music that he liked, he would begin to nod; and presently, on waking up, would get a feeling that he really was an artist. From that moment on he was conscious of certain noises being made somewhere in his neighbourhood causing a titillation of his nerves favourable to deep and earnest thoughts about his work. On going out his wife would ask him: “Wasn’t the Mozart lovely?” or, “How did you like the Strauss?” and he would answer: “Rather!” wondering a little which was which; or he would look at her out of the corner of his eye and glance secretly at the programme to see whether he had really heard them, and which Strauss it might be.

He was extremely averse to being interviewed, or photographed, and all that sort of publicity, and only made exceptions in most cases because his wife would say to him: “Oh! I think you ought”; or because he could not bear to refuse anybody anything; together, perhaps, with a sort of latent dislike of waste, deep down in his soul. When he saw the results he never failed to ejaculate: “Never again! No, really--never again! The whole thing is wrong and stupid!” And he would order a few copies.

For he dreaded nothing so much as the thought that he might become an egoist, and, knowing the dangers of his profession, fought continually against it. Often he would complain to his wife: “I don’t think of you enough.” And she would smile and say: “Don’t you?” And he would feel better, having confessed his soul. Sometimes for an hour at a time he would make really heroic efforts not to answer her before having really grasped what she had said; and to check a tendency, that he sometimes feared was growing on him, to say: “What?” whether he had heard or no. In truth, he was not (as he often said) constitutionally given to small talk. Conversation that did not promise a chance of dialectic victory was hardly to his liking; so that he felt bound in sincerity to eschew it, which sometimes caused him to sit silent for “quite a while,” as the Americans have phrased it. But once committed to an argument he found it difficult to leave off, having a natural, if somewhat sacred, belief in his own convictions.

His attitude to his creations was, perhaps, peculiar. He either did not mention them, or touched on them, if absolutely obliged, with a light and somewhat disparaging tongue; this did not, indeed, come from any real distrust of them, but rather from a superstitious feeling that one must not tempt Providence in the solemn things of life. If other people touched on them in the same way, he had, not unnaturally, a feeling of real pain, such as comes to a man when he sees an instance of cruelty or injustice. And, though something always told him that it was neither wise nor dignified to notice outrages of this order, he would mutter to his wife: “Well, I suppose it _is_ true--I can’t write”; feeling, perhaps, that--if _he_ could not with decency notice such injuries, she might. And, indeed, she did, using warmer words than even he felt justified, which was soothing.

After tea it was his habit to sit down a second time, pen in hand; not infrequently he would spend those hours divided between the feeling that it was his duty to write something and the feeling that it was his duty not to write anything if he had nothing to say; and he generally wrote a good deal; for deep down he was convinced that if he did not write he would gradually fade away till there would be nothing left for him to read and think about, and, though he was often tempted to believe and even to tell his wife that fame was an unworthy thing, he always deferred that pleasure, afraid, perhaps, of too much happiness.

In regard to the society of his fellows he liked almost anybody, though a little impatient with those, especially authors, who took themselves too seriously; and there were just one or two that he really could not stand, they were so obviously full of jealousy, a passion of which he was naturally intolerant and had, of course, no need to indulge in. And he would speak of them with extreme dryness--nothing more, disdaining to disparage. It was, perhaps, a weakness in him that he found it difficult to accept adverse criticism as anything but an expression of that same yellow sickness; and yet there were moments when no words would adequately convey his low opinion of his own powers. At such times he would seek out his wife and confide to her his conviction that he was a poor thing, no good at all, without a thought in his head; and while she was replying: “Rubbish! You know there’s nobody to hold a candle to you,” or words to that effect, he would look at her tragically, and murmur: “Ah! you’re prejudiced!” Only at such supreme moments of dejection, indeed, did he feel it a pity that he had married her, seeing how much more convincing her words would have been if he had not.

He never read the papers till the evening, partly because he had not time, and partly because he so seldom found anything in them. This was not remarkable, for he turned their leaves quickly, pausing, indeed, naturally, if there were any mention of his name; and if his wife asked him whether he had read this or that he would answer: “No,” surprised at the funny things that seemed to interest her.

Before going up to bed he would sit and smoke. And sometimes fancies would come to him, and sometimes none. Once in a way he would look up at the stars, and think: “What a worm I am! This wonderful Infinity! I must get more of it--more of it into my work; more of the feeling that the whole is marvellous and great, and man a little clutch of breath and dust, an atom, a straw, a nothing!”

And a sort of exaltation would seize on him, so that he knew that if only he did get that into his work, as he wished to, as he felt at that moment that he could, he would be the greatest writer the world had ever seen, the greatest man, almost greater than he wished to be, almost too great to be mentioned in the press, greater than Infinity itself--for would he not be Infinity’s creator? And suddenly he would check himself with the thought: “I must be careful--I must be careful. If I let my brain go at this time of night, I sha’n’t write a decent word to-morrow!”

And he would drink some milk and go to bed.

II.--The Critic

He often thought: “This is a dog’s life! I must give it up, and strike out for myself. If I can’t write better than most of these fellows, it’ll be very queer.” But he had not yet done so. He had in his extreme youth published fiction, but it had never been the best work of which he was capable--it was not likely that it could be, seeing that even then he was constantly diverted from the ham-bone of his inspiration by the duty of perusing and passing judgment on the work of other men.

If pressed to say exactly why he did not strike out for himself, he found it difficult to answer, and what he answered was hardly as true as he could have wished; for, though truthful, he was not devoid of the instinct of self-preservation. He could hardly, for example, admit that he preferred to think what much better books he could have written if only he had not been handicapped, to actually striking out and writing them. To believe this was an inward comfort not readily to be put to the rude test of actual experience. Nor would it have been human of him to acknowledge a satisfaction in feeling that he could put in their proper places those who had to an extent, as one might say, retarded his creative genius by compelling him to read their books. But these, after all, were but minor factors in his long hesitation, for he was not a conceited or malicious person. Fundamentally, no doubt, he lived what he called “a dog’s life” with pleasure, partly because he was used to it--and what a man is used to he is loath to part with; partly because he really had a liking for books; and partly because to be a judge is better than to be judged. And no one could deny that he had a distinctly high conception of his functions. He had long laid down for himself certain leading principles of professional conduct, from which he never departed, such as that a critic must not have any personal feelings, or be influenced by any private considerations whatever. This, no doubt, was why he often went a little out of his way to be more severe than usual with writers whom he suspected of a secret hope that personal acquaintanceship might incline him to favour them. He would, indeed, carry that principle further, and, where he had, out of an impersonal enthusiasm at some time or another, written in terms of striking praise, he would make an opportunity later on of deliberately taking that writer down a peg or two lower than he deserved, lest his praise might be suspected of having been the outcome of personal motives, or of gush--for which he had a great abhorrence. In this way he preserved a remarkably pure sense of independence; a feeling that he was master in his own house, to be dictated to only by a proper conviction of his own importance. It is true that there were certain writers whom, for one reason or another, he could not very well stand; some having written to him to point out inaccuracies, or counter one of his critical conclusions, or, still worse, thanked him for having seen exactly what they had meant--a very unwise and even undignified thing to do, as he could not help thinking; others, again, having excited in him a natural dislike by their appearance, conduct, or manner of thought, or by having, perhaps, acquired too rapid or too swollen a reputation to be, in his opinion, good for them. In such cases, of course, he was not so unhuman as to disguise his convictions. For he was, before all things, an Englishman with a very strong belief in the freest play for individual taste. But of almost any first book by an unknown author he wrote with an impersonality which it would have been difficult to surpass.

Then there was his principle that one must never be influenced in judging a book by anything one has said of a previous book by the same writer--each work standing entirely on its own basis. He found this important and made a point of never rereading his own criticisms; so that the rhythm of his judgment, which, if it had risen to a work in 1920, would fall over the author’s next in 1921, was entirely unbiassed by recollection, and followed merely those immutable laws of change and the moon so potent in regard to tides and human affairs.

For sameness and consistency he had a natural contempt. It was the unexpected both in art and criticism that he particularly looked for; anything being, as he said, preferable to dulness--a sentiment in which he was supported by the public; not that, to do him justice, this weighed with him, for he had a genuine distrust of the public, as was proper for one sitting in a seat of judgment. He knew that there were so-called critics who had a kind of formula for each writer, as divines have sermons suitable to certain occasions. For example: “We have in ‘The Mazy Swim’ another of Mr. Hyphen Dash’s virile stories.... We can thoroughly recommend this pulsating tale, with its true and beautiful character study of Little Katie, to every healthy reader as one of the best that Mr. Hyphen Dash has yet given us.” Or: “We cannot say that ‘The Mazy Swim’ is likely to increase Mr. Hyphen Dash’s reputation. It is sheer melodrama, such as we are beginning to expect from this writer.... The whole is artificial to a degree.... No sane reader will, for a moment, believe in Little Katie.” Toward this sort of thing he showed small patience, having noticed with some acumen a relationship between the name of the writer, the politics of the paper, and the temper of the criticism. No! For him, if criticism did not embody the individual mood and temper of the critic, it was not worthy of the name.

But the canon which of all he regarded as most sacred was this: A critic must surrender himself to the mood and temper of the work he is criticising, take the thing as it is with his own special method and technique, its own point of view, and, only when all that is admitted, let his critical faculty off the chain. He was never tired of insisting on this, both to himself and others, and never sat down to a book without having it firmly in his mind. Not infrequently, however, he found that the author was, as it were, wilfully employing a technique or writing in a mood with which he had no sympathy, or had chosen a subject obviously distasteful, or a set of premises that did not lead to the conclusion which he would have preferred. In such cases his scrupulous honesty warned him not to compromise with his conscience, but to say outright that it would have been better if the technique of the story had been objective instead of subjective; that the morbidity of the work prevented serious consideration of a subject which should never have been chosen; or that he would ever maintain that the hero was too weak a character to be a hero, and the book, therefore, of little interest. If any one pointed out to him that had the hero been a strong character there would have been no book, it being, in point of fact, the study of a weak character, he would answer: “That may be so, but it does not affect what I say--the book would have been better and more important if it had been the study of a strong character.” And he would take the earliest opportunity of enforcing his recorded criticism that the hero was no hero, and the book no book to speak of. For, though not obstinate, he was a man who stood to his guns. He took his duty to the public very seriously, and felt it, as it were, a point of honour never to admit himself in the wrong. It was so easy to do that and so fatal; and the fact of being anonymous, as on the whole he preferred to be, made it all the harder to abstain (on principle and for the dignity of criticism) from noticing printed contradictions to his conclusions.

In spite of all the heart he put into his work, there were times when, like other men, he suffered from dejection, feeling that the moment had really come when he must either strike out for himself into creative work, or compile a volume of synthetic criticism. And he would say: “None of us fellows are doing any constructive critical work; no one nowadays seems to have any conception of the first principles of criticism.” Having talked that theory out thoroughly he would feel better, and next day would take an opportunity of writing: “We are not like the academic French, to whom the principles of criticism are so terribly important; our genius lies rather in individual judgments, pliant and changing as the works they judge.”

There was that in him which, like the land from which he sprang, could ill brook control. He approved of discipline, but knew exactly where it was deleterious to apply it to himself; and no one, perhaps, had a finer and larger conception of individual liberty. In this way he maintained the best traditions of a calling whose very essence was superiority. In course of conversation he would frequently admit, being a man of generous calibre, that the artist, by reason of long years of devoted craftsmanship, had possibly the most intimate knowledge of his art, but he would not fail to point out, and very wisely, that there was no such unreliable testimony as that of experts, who had an axe to grind, each of his own way of doing things; for comprehensive views of literature seen in due perspective there was nothing--he thought--like the trained critic, rising superior, as it were professionally, to myopia and individual prejudice.

Of the new school who maintained that true criticism was but reproduction in terms of sympathy, and just as creative as the creative work it reproduced, he was a little impatient, not so much on the ground that to make a model of a mountain was not quite the same thing as to make the mountain; but because he felt in his bones that the true creativeness of criticism (in which he had a high belief) was its destructive and satiric quality; its power of reducing things to rubbish and clearing them away, ready for the next lot. Instinct, fortified by his own experience, had guided him to that conclusion. Possibly, too, the conviction, always lurking deep within him, that the time was coming when he would strike out for himself and show the world how a work of art really should be built, was in some sort responsible for the necessity he felt to keep the ground well cleared.

He was nearly fifty when his clock chimed, and he began seriously to work at the creation of that masterpiece which was to free him from “a dog’s life,” and, perhaps, fill its little niche in the gallery of immortality. He worked at it happily enough till one day, at the end of the fifth month, he had the misfortune to read through what he had written. With his critical faculty he was able to perceive that which gave him no little pain--every chapter, most pages, and many sentences destroyed the one immediately preceding. He searched with intense care for that coherent thread which he had suspected of running through the whole. Here and there he seemed to come on its track, then it would vanish. This gave him great anxiety.

Abandoning thought for the moment, he wrote on. He paused again toward the end of the seventh month, and once more patiently reviewed the whole. This time he found four distinct threads that did not seem to meet; but still more puzzling was the apparent absence of any individual flavour. He was staggered. Before all he prized that quality, and throughout his career had fostered it in himself. To be unsapped in whim or fancy, to be independent, had been the very salt of his existence as a critic. And now, and now--when his hour had struck, and he was in the very throes of that long-deferred creation, to find----! He put thought away again, and doggedly wrote on.

At the end of the ninth month, in a certain exaltation, he finished; and slowly, with intense concentration, looked at what he had produced from beginning to end. And as he looked something clutched at him within and he felt frozen. The thing did not move, it had no pulse, no breath, no colour--it was dead.

And sitting there before that shapeless masterpiece, still-born, without a spirit or the impress of a personality, a horrid thought crept and rattled in his brain. Had he, in his independence, in his love of being a law unto himself, _become so individual that he had no individuality left_? Was it possible that he had judged, and judged, and--not been judged, too long? It was not true--not true! Locking the soft and flavourless thing away, he took up the latest novel sent him, and sat down to read it. But, as he read, the pages of his own work would implant themselves above those that he turned and turned. At last he put the book down, and took up pen to review it. “This novel,” he wrote, “is that most pathetic thing, the work of a man who has burned the lamp till the lamp has burned him; who has nourished and cultured his savour, and fed his idiosyncrasies, till he has dried and withered, without savour left.” And, having written that damnation of the book that was not his own, the blood began once more flowing in his veins, and he felt warm.

III.--The Plain Man

He was plain. It was his great quality. Others might have graces, subtleties, originality, fire, and charm; they had not his plainness. It was that which made him so important, not only in his country’s estimation, but in his own. For he felt that nothing was more valuable to the world than for a man to have no doubts, and no fancies, but to be quite plain about everything. And the knowledge that he was looked up to by the press, and pulpit, and the politician sustained him in the daily perfecting of that unique personality which he shared with all other plain men. In an age which bred so much that was freakish and peculiar, to know that there was always himself with his sane and plain outlook to fall back on, was an extraordinary comfort to him. He knew that he could rely on his own judgment, and never scrupled to give it to a public which never tired of asking for it.

In literary matters especially was it sought for, as invaluable. Whether he had read an author or not, he knew what to think of him. For he had in his time unwittingly lighted on books before he knew what he was doing. They had served him as fixed stars forever after; so that if he heard any writer spoken of as “advanced,” “erotic,” “socialistic,” “morbid,” “pessimistic,” “tragic,” or what not unpleasant, he knew exactly what he was like, and thereafter only read him by accident. He liked a healthy tale, preferably of love or of adventure (of detective stories he was, perhaps, fondest), and insisted upon a happy ending, for, as he very justly said, there was plenty of unhappiness in life without gratuitously adding to it, and as to “ideas,” he could get all he wanted and to spare from the papers. He deplored altogether the bad habit that literature seemed to have of seeking out situations which explored the recesses of the human spirit or of the human institution. As a plain man he felt this to be unnecessary. He himself was not conscious of having these recesses, or perhaps too conscious, knowing that if he once began to look, there would be no end to it; nor would he admit the use of staring through the plain surface of society’s arrangements. To do so, he thought, greatly endangered, if it did not altogether destroy, those simple faculties which men required for the fulfilment of the plain duties of everyday life, such as: Item, the acquisition and investment of money; item, the attendance at church and maintenance of religious faith; item, the control of wife and children; item, the serenity of nerves and digestion; item, contentment with things as they were.

For there was just that difference between him and all those of whom he strongly disapproved, that whereas _they_ wanted to _see_ things as they were, _he_ wanted to _keep_ things as they were. But he would not for a moment have admitted this little difference to be sound, since his instinct told him that he himself saw things as they were better than ever did such cranky people. If a human being had got to get into spiritual fixes, as those fellows seemed to want one to believe, then certainly the whole unpleasant matter should be put into poetry, and properly removed from comprehension. “And, anyway,” he would say: “In real life, I shall know it fast enough when I get there, and I’m not going to waste my time nosin’ it over beforehand.” His view of literary and, indeed, all art, was that it should help him to be cheerful. And he would make a really extraordinary outcry if amongst a hundred cheerful plays and novels he inadvertently came across one that was tragic. At once he would write to the papers to complain of the gloomy tone of modern literature; and the papers, with few exceptions, would echo his cry, because he was the plain man, and took them in. “What on earth,” he would remark, “is the good of showin’ me a lot of sordid sufferin’? It doesn’t make me any happier. Besides”--he would add--“it isn’t art. The function of art is beauty.” Some one had told him this, and he was very emphatic on the point, going religiously to any show where there was a great deal of light and colour. The shapes of women pleased him, too, up to a point. But he knew where to stop; for he felt himself, as it were, the real censor of the morals of his country. When the plain man was shocked it was time to suppress the entertainment, whether play, dance, or novel. Something told him that he, beyond all other men, knew what was good for his wife and children. He often meditated on that question coming in to the City from his house in Surrey; for in the train he used to see men reading novels, and this stimulated his imagination. Essentially a believer in liberty, like every Englishman, he was only for putting down a thing when it offended his own taste. In speaking with his friends on this subject, he would express himself thus: “These fellows talk awful skittles. Any plain man knows what’s too hot and what isn’t. All this ‘flim-flam’ about art, and all that, is beside the point. The question simply is: Would you take your wife and daughters? If not, there’s an end of it, and it ought to be suppressed.” And he would think of his own daughters, very nice, and would feel sure. Not that he did not himself like a “full-blooded” book, as he called it, provided it had the right moral and religious tone. Indeed, a certain kind of fiction which abounded in descriptions “of her lovely bosom” often struck him pink, as he hesitated to express it; but there was never in such masterpieces of emotion any nasty subversiveness, or wrong-headed idealism, but frequently the opposite.

Though it was in relation to literature and drama, perhaps, that his quality of plainness was most valuable, he felt the importance of it, too, in regard to politics. When they had all done “messing about,” he knew that they would come to him, because, after all, there he was, a plain man wanting nothing but his plain rights, not in the least concerned with the future, and Utopia, and all that, but putting things to the plain touchstone: “How will it affect me?” and forming his plain conclusions one way or the other. He felt, above all things, each new penny of the income tax before they put it on, and saw to it if possible that they did not. He was extraordinarily plain about that, and about national defence, which instinct told him should be kept up to the mark at all costs. But there must be ways, he felt, of doing the latter without having recourse to the income tax, and he was prepared to turn out any government that went on lines unjust to the plainest principles of property. In matters of national honour he was even plainer, for he never went into the merits of the question, knowing, as a simple patriot, that his country must be right; or that, if not right, it would never do to say she wasn’t. So aware were statesmen and the press of this sound attitude of his mind, that, without waiting to ascertain it, they acted on it in perfect confidence.

In regard to social reform, while recognising, of course, the need for it, he felt that, in practice, one should do just as much as was absolutely necessary and no more; a plain man did not go out of his way to make quixotic efforts, but neither did he sit upon a boiler till he was blown up.

In the matter of religion he regarded his position as the only sound one, for however little in these days one could believe and all that, yet, as a plain man, he did not for a moment refuse to go to church and say he was a Christian; on the contrary, he was rather more particular about it than formerly, since when a spirit has departed, one must be very careful of the body, lest it fall to pieces. He continued, therefore, to be a churchman--living in Hertfordshire.

He often spoke of science, medical or not, and it was his plain opinion that these fellows all had an axe to grind; for _his_ part he only believed in them just in so far as they benefited a plain man. The latest sanitary system, the best forms of locomotion and communication, the newest antiseptics, and time-saving machines--of all these, of course, he made full use; but as to the researches, speculations, and theories of scientists--to speak plainly, they were, he thought, “pretty good rot.”

He abominated the word “humanitarian.” No plain man wanted to inflict suffering, especially on himself. He would be the last person to do any such thing, but the plain facts of life must be considered, and convenience and property duly safeguarded. He wrote to the papers perhaps more often on this subject than on any other, and was gratified to read in their leading articles continual allusion to himself: “The plain man is not prepared to run the risks which a sentimental treatment of this subject would undoubtedly involve”; “After all, it is to the plain man that we must go for the sanity and common sense of this matter.” For he had no dread in life like that of being called a sentimentalist. If an instance of cruelty came under his own eyes he was as much moved as any man, and took immediate steps to manifest his disapproval. To act thus on his feelings was not at all his idea of being sentimental. But what he could not stand was making a fuss about cruelties, as people called them, which had not actually come under his own plain vision; to be indignant in regard to such _was_ sentimental, he was sure, involving as it did an exercise of imagination, than which there was nothing he distrusted more. Some deep instinct no doubt informed him perpetually that if he felt anything, other than what disturbed him personally at first hand, he would suffer unnecessarily, and perhaps be encouraging such public action as might diminish his comfort. But he was no alarmist, and, on the whole, felt pretty sure that while he was there, living in Kent, with his plain views, there was no chance of anything being done that would cause him any serious inconvenience.

On the woman’s question generally he had long made his position plain. He would move when the majority moved, and not before. And he expected all plain men (and women--if there were any, which he sometimes doubted) to act in the same way. In this policy he felt instinctively, rather than consciously, that there was no risk. No one--at least, no one that mattered, no plain, solid person--would move until he did, and he would not, of course, move until they did; in this way there was a perfectly plain position. And it was an extraordinary gratification to him to feel, from the tone of politicians, the pulpit, and the press, that he had the country with him. He often said to his wife: “One thing’s plain to me; we shall never have the suffrage till the country wants it.” But he rarely discussed the question with other women, having observed that many of them could not keep their tempers when he gave them his plain view of the matter.

He was sometimes at a loss to think what on earth they would do without him on juries, of which he was usually elected foreman. And he never failed to listen with pleasure to the words that never failed to be spoken to him: “As plain men, gentlemen, you will at once see how improbable in every particular is the argument of my friend.” That he was valued in precisely the same way by both sides and ultimately by the judge filled him sometimes with a modest feeling that only a plain man was of any value whatever, certainly that he was the only kind of man who had any sort of judgment.

He often wondered what the country would do without him; into what abysmal trouble she would get in her politics, her art, her law, and her religion. It seemed to him that he alone stood between her and manifold destructions. How many times had he not seen her reeling in her cups and sophistries, and beckoning to him to save her! And had he ever failed her, with his simple philosophy of a plain man: “Follow me, and the rest will follow itself”? Never! As witness the veneration in which he saw that he was held every time he opened a paper, attended the performance of a play, heard a sermon, or listened to a speech. Some day he meant to sit for his portrait, believing that this was due from him to posterity; and now and then he would look into the glass to fortify his resolution. What he saw there always gave him secret pleasure. Here was a face that he knew he could trust, and even in a way admire. Nothing brilliant, showy, eccentric, soulful; nothing rugged, devotional, profound, or fiery; not even anything proud, or stubborn; no surplus of kindliness, sympathy, or aspiration; but just simple, solid lines, a fresh colour, and sensible, rather prominent eyes--just the face that he would have expected and desired, the face of a plain man.

IV.--The Superlative

Though he had not yet arrived, he had personally no doubt about the matter. It was merely a question of time. Not that for one moment he approved of “arriving” as a general principle. Indeed, there was no one whom he held in greater contempt than a man who had arrived. It was to him the high-water mark of imbecility, commercialism, and complacency. For what did it mean save that this individual had pleased a sufficient number of other imbeciles, hucksterers, and fat-heads, to have secured for himself a reputation? These pundits, these mandarins, these so-called “masters”--they were an offence to his common sense. He had passed them by, with all their musty and sham-Abraham achievements. That fine flair of his had found them out. Their mere existence was a scandal. Now and again one died; and his just anger would wane a little before the touch of the Great Remover. No longer did that pundit seem quite so objectionable now that he no longer cumbered the ground. It might even, perhaps, be admitted that there had been something coming out of that one; and, as the years rolled on, this something would roll on too, till it became quite a big thing; and he would compare those miserable pundits who still lived with the one who had so fortunately died, to their great disadvantage. There were, in truth, very few living beings that he could stand. Somehow they were not--no, they really _were not_. The great--as they were called forsooth--artists, writers, politicians--what were they? He would smile down one side of his long nose. It was enough. Forthwith those reputations ceased to breathe--for him. Their theories, too, of art, reform, what-not--how puerile! How utterly and hopelessly old-fashioned, how worthy of all the destruction that his pen and tongue could lavish on them!

For, to save his country’s art, his country’s literature and politics--that was, he well knew, his mission. And he periodically founded, or joined, the staff of papers that were going to do this trick. They always lasted several months, some several years, before breathing the last impatient sigh of genius. And while they lived, with what wonderful clean brooms they swept! Perched above all that miasma known as human nature, they beat the air, sweeping it and sweeping it, till suddenly there was no air left. And that theory, that real vision of art and existence, which they were going to put in place of all this muck, how near--how unimaginably near--they brought it to reality! Just another month, another year, another good sweeping, would have done it! And on that final ride of the broomstick, he--he would have arrived! At last some one would have been there with a real philosophy, a truly creative mind; some one whose poems and paintings, music, novels, plays, and measures of reform would at last have borne inspection! And he would go out from the office of that great paper so untimely wrecked, and, conspiring with himself, would found another.

This one should follow principles that could not fail. For, first, it should tolerate nothing--nothing at all. That was the mistake they had made last time. They had tolerated some reputations. No more of that; no--more! The imbeciles, the shallow frauds, let them be carted once for all. And with them let there be cremated the whole structure of society, all its worn-out formulas of art, religion, sociology. In place of them he would not this time be content to put nothing. No; it was the moment to elucidate and develop that secret rhyme and pulsation in the heart of the future hitherto undisclosed to any but himself. And all the time there should be flames going up out of that paper--the pale-red, the lovely flames of genius. Yes, the emanation should be wonderful. And, collecting his tattered mantle round his middle so small, he would start his race again.

For three numbers he would lay about him and outline religiously what was going to come. In the fourth number he would be compelled to concentrate himself on a final destruction of all those defences and spiteful counter-attacks which wounded vanity had wrung from the pundits, those apostles of the past; this final destruction absorbed his energies during the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth numbers. In the ninth he would say positively that he was now ready to justify the constructive prophecies of his first issues. In the tenth he would explain that, unless a blighted public supported an heroic effort better, genius would be withheld from them. In the eleventh number he would lay about him as he had never done, and in the twelfth give up the ghost.

In connection with him one had always to remember that he was not one of those complacent folk whose complacency stops short somewhere; his was a nobler kind, ever trying to climb into that heaven which he alone was going to reach some day. He had a touch of the divine discontent even with himself; and it was only in comparison with the rest of the world that he felt he was superlative.

It was a consolation to him that Nietzsche was dead, so that out of a full heart and empty conscience he could bang upon the abandoned drum of a man whom he scarcely hesitated to term great. And yet, what--as he often said--could be more dismally asinine than to see some of these live stucco moderns pretending to be supermen? Save this Nietzsche he admitted perhaps no philosopher into his own class, and was most down on Aristotle, and that one who had founded the religion of his country.

Of statesmen he held a low opinion--what were they, after all, but politicians? There was not one in the whole range of history who could take a view like an angel of the dawn surveying creation; not one who could soar above a contemptible adaptation of human means to human ends.

His poet was Blake. His playwright Strindberg, a man of distinct promise--fortunately dead. Of novelists he accepted Dostoievsky. Who else was there? Who else that had gone outside the range of normal, stupid, rational humanity, and shown the marvellous qualities of the human creature drunk or dreaming? Who else who had so arranged his scenery that from beginning to end one need never witness the dull shapes and colours of human life quite unracked by nightmare? It was in nightmare only that the human spirit revealed its possibilities.

In truth, he had a great respect for nightmare, even in its milder forms, the respect of one who felt that it was the only thing which an ordinary sane man could not achieve in his waking moments. He so hated the ordinary sane man, with his extraordinary lack of appreciative faculty.

In his artistic tastes he was paulo-post-futurist, and the painter he had elected to admire was one that no one had yet heard of. He meant, however, that they should hear of him when the moment came. With the arrival of that one would begin a new era of art, for which in the past there would be no parallel, save possibly one Chinese period long before that of which the pundits--poor devils--so blatantly bleated.

He was a connoisseur of music, and nothing gave him greater pain than a tune. Of all the ancients he recognised Bach alone, and only in his fugues. Wagner was considerable in places. Strauss and Debussy, well--yes, but now _vieux jeu_. There was an Esquimaux. His name? No, let them wait! That fellow was something. Let them mark his words, and wait!

It was for this kind of enlightenment of the world that he most ardently desired his own arrival, without which he sometimes thought he could no longer bear things as they were, no longer go on watching his chariot unhitched to a star, trailing the mud of this musty, muddled world, whose ethics even, those paltry wrappings of the human soul, were uncongenial to him.

Talking of ethics, there was one thing especially that he absolutely could not bear--that second-hand creature, a gentleman; the notion that his own superlative self should be compelled by some mouldy and incomprehensible tradition to respect the feelings or see the point of view of others--this was indeed the limit. No, no! To bound upon the heads and limbs the prejudices and convictions of those he came in contact with, especially in print, that was a holy duty. And, though conscientious to a degree, there was certainly no one of all his duties that he performed so conscientiously as this. No amenities defiled his tongue or pen, nor did he ever shrink from personalities--his spiritual honesty was terrific. But he never thrust or cut where it was not deserved; practically the whole world was open to his scorn, as he well knew, and he never needed to go out of his way to find victims for it. Indeed, he made no cult at all of eccentricity--that was for smaller creatures. His dress, for instance, was of the soberest, save that now and then he would wear a purple shirt, grey boots, or a yellow-ochre tie. His life and habits, lost in the future, were, on the whole, abstemious. He had no children, but set great store by them, and fully meant when he had time to have quite a number, for this was, he knew, his duty to a world breeding from mortal men. Whether they would arrive before he did was a question, since, until then, his creative attention could hardly be sufficiently disengaged.

At times he scarcely knew himself, so absorbed was he; but you knew him because he breathed rather hard, as became a man lost in creation. In the higher flights of his genius he paused for nothing, not even for pen and paper; he touched the clouds, indeed--and, like the clouds, height piled on vaporous height, his images and conceptions hung wreathed, immortal, evanescent as the very air. It was an annoyance to him afterward to find that he had neglected to pin them to earth. Still, with his intolerance of all except divinity, and his complete faith that he must in time achieve it, he was perhaps the most interesting person to be found in the purlieus of--wherever it might be.

V.--The Preceptor

He had a philosophy as yet untouched. His stars were the old stars, his faith the old faith; nor would he recognise that there was any other, for not to recognise any point of view except his own was no doubt the very essence of his faith. Wisdom! There was surely none save the flinging of the door to, standing with your back against the door, and telling people what was behind it. For, though he also could not know what was behind, he thought it low to say so. An “atheist,” as he termed certain persons, was to him beneath contempt, an “agnostic,” as he termed certain others, a poor and foolish creature. As for a rationalist, positivist, pragmatist or any other “ist”--well, that was just what they were. He made no secret of the fact that he simply could not understand people like that. It was true. “What can they do--save deny?” he would say. “What do they contribute to the morals and the elevation of the world? What do they put in the place of what they take away? What have they got, to make up for what is behind that door? Where are their symbols? How shall they move and lead the people? No,” he said, “a little child shall lead the people, and I am the little child! For I can spin them a tale such as children love, of what is behind the door.” Such was the temper of his mind that he never flinched from believing true what he thought would benefit himself and others. For example, he held a crown of ultimate advantage to be necessary to induce pure and stable living. If one could not say: “Listen, children! there it is, behind the door! Look at it, shining, golden--yours! Not now, but when you die, if you are good. Be good, therefore! For if you are not good--no crown!” If one could not say that--what could one say? What inducement hold out? And warmly he would describe the crown! There was nothing he detested more than commercialism. And to any one who ventured to suggest that there was something rather commercial about the idea of that crown, he would retort with asperity. A mere creed that good must be done, so to speak, just out of a present love of dignity and beauty--as a man, seeing something he admired, might work to reproduce it, knowing that he would never achieve it perfectly, but going on until he dropped, out of sheer love of going on--he thought vague, futile, devoid of glamour and contrary to human nature, for he always judged people by himself, and felt that no one could like to go on unless they knew that they would get something if they did. To promise victory, therefore, was most important. Forlorn hopes, setting your teeth, back to the wall, and such like, was bleak and wintry doctrine, without inspiration in it, because it led to nothing--so far as he could see. Those others, who, not presuming to believe in anything, went on, because--as they said--to give up would be to lose their honour, seemed to him poor lost creatures who had denied faith; and faith was, as has been said, the mainspring of his philosophy.

Once, indeed, in the unguarded moment of a heated argument, he had confessed that some day men might not require to use the symbols of religion which they used now. It was at once pointed out to him that, if he thought that, he could not believe these symbols to be true for all time; and if they were not true for all time, why did he say they were? He was dreadfully upset. Deferring answer, however, for the moment, he was soon able to retort that the symbols were true--er--mystically. If a man--and this was the point--did not stand by _these_ symbols, by which could he stand? Tell him that! Symbols were necessary. But what symbols were there in a mere good will; a mere vague following of one’s own dignity and honour, out of a formless love of life? How put up a religion of such amorphous and unrewarded chivalry and devotion, how put up a blind love of mystery, in place of a religion of definite crowns and punishments, how substitute a worship of mere abstract goodness, or beauty, for worship of what could be called by Christian names? Human nature being what it was--it would not do, it absolutely would not do. Though he was fond of the words “mystery,” “mystical,” he had emphatically no use for them when they were vaguely used by people to express their perpetual (and quite unmoral) reverence for the feeling that they would never find out the secret of their own existence, never even understand the nature of the universe or God. Fancy! Mystery of that kind seemed to him pagan, almost nature-worship, having no finality. And if confronted by some one who said that a Mystery, _if_ it could be understood, would naturally not be a mystery, he would raise his eyebrows. It was that kind of loose, specious, sentimental talk that did so much harm, and drew people away from right understanding of that Great Mystery which, if it was _not_ understood and properly explained, was, for all practical purposes, not a great mystery at all. No, it had all been gone into long ago, and he stood by the explanations and intended that every one else should, for in that way alone men were saved; and, though he well knew (for he was no Jesuit) that the end did not justify the means, yet in a matter of such all-importance one stopped to consider neither means nor ends--one just saved people. And as for truth--the question of that did not arise, if one believed. What one believed, what one was told to believe, _was_ the truth; and it was no good telling him that the whole range of a man’s feeling and reasoning powers must be exercised to ascertain truth, and that, when ascertained, it would only be relative truth, and the best available to that particular man. Nothing short of the absolute truth would _he_ put up with, and that guaranteed fixed and immovable, or it was no good for his purpose. To any one who threw out doubts here and doubts there, and even worse than doubts, he had long formed the habit of saying simply, with a smile that he tried hard to make indulgent: “Of course, if you believe _that_!”

But he very seldom had to argue on these matters, because people, looking at his face with its upright bone-formation, rather bushy eyebrows, and eyes with a good deal of light in them, felt that it would be simpler not. He seemed to them to know his own mind almost too well. Joined to this potent faculty of implanting in men a childlike trustfulness in what he told them was behind the door, he had a still more potent faculty of knowing exactly what was good for them in everyday life. The secret of this power was simple. He did not recognise the existence of what moderns and so-called “artists” dubbed “temperament.” All talk of that sort was bosh, and generally immoral bosh; for all moral purposes people really had but one temperament, and that was, of course, just like his own. And no one knew better than he what was good for it. He was perfectly willing to recognise the principle of individual treatment for individual cases; but it did not do, in practice, he was convinced, to vary. This instinctive wisdom made him invaluable in all those departments of life where discipline and the dispensation of an even justice were important. To adapt men to the moral law was--he thought--perhaps the first duty of a preceptor, especially in days when there was perceptible a distinct but regrettable tendency to try and adapt the moral law to the needs--as they were glibly called--of men. There was, perhaps, in him something of the pedagogue, and when he met a person who disagreed with him his eyes would shift a bit to the right and a bit to the left, then become firmly fixed upon that person from under brows rather drawn down; and his hand, large and strong, would move fingers, as if more and more tightly grasping a cane, birch, or other wholesome instrument. He loved his fellow-creatures so that he could not bear to see them going to destruction for want of a timely flogging to salvation.

He was one of those who seldom felt the need for personal experience of a phase of life, or line of conduct, before giving judgment on it; indeed, he gravely distrusted personal experience. He had opposed, for instance all relief for the unhappily married long before he left the single state; and, when he did leave it, would not admit for a moment that his own happiness was at all responsible for the petrifaction of his view that no relief was necessary. Hard cases made bad law! But he did not require to base his opinion upon that. He said simply that he had been told there was to be no relief--it was enough.

The saying “To understand all is to forgive all!” left him cold. It was, as he well knew, quite impossible to identify himself with such conditions as produced poverty, disease and crime, even if he wished to do so (which he sometimes doubted). He knew better, therefore, than to waste his time attempting the impossible; and he pinned his faith to an instinctive knowledge of how to deal with all such social ills: A contented spirit for poverty; for disease isolation; and for crime such punishment as would at once deter others, reform the criminal, and convince every one that law must be avenged and the social conscience appeased. On this point of revenge he was emphatic. No vulgar personal feeling of vindictiveness, of course, but a strong state feeling of “an eye for an eye.” It was the only taint of socialism that he permitted himself. Loose thinkers, he knew, dared to say that a desire for retribution or revenge was a purely human or individual feeling like hate, love, and jealousy; and that to talk of satisfying such a feeling in the collected bosom of the state was either to talk nonsense--how could a state have a bosom?--or to cause the bosoms of the human individuals who administered the justice of the state to feel that each of them was itself that stately bosom, and entitled to be revengeful. “Oh, no!” he would answer to such loose-thinking persons; “judges, of course, give expression not to what they feel themselves but to what they imagine the state feels.” He himself, for example, was perfectly able to imagine which crimes were those that inspired in the bosom of the state a particular abhorrence, a particular desire to be avenged; now it was blackmail, now assaults upon children, or living on the earnings of immoral women; he was certain that the state regarded all these with peculiar detestation, for he had, and quite rightly, a particular detestation of them himself; and if he were a judge, he would never for a moment hesitate to visit on the perpetrators of such vile crimes the utmost vengeance of the law. He was no loose thinker. In these times, bedridden with loose thinking and sickly sentiment, he often felt terribly the value of his own philosophy, and was afraid that it was in danger. But not many other people held that view, discerning his finger still very large in every pie--so much so that there often seemed less pie than finger.

It would have shocked him much to realise that he could be considered a fit subject for a study of extravagance; fortunately, he had not the power of seeing himself as others saw him, nor was there any danger that he ever would.

VI.--The Artist

He had long known, of course, that to say the word “bourgeois” with contempt was a little bit old-fashioned, and he did his utmost not to; yet was there a still small voice within him that would whisper: “Those people--I want to and I do treat them as my equals. I have even gone so far of late years as to dress like them, to play their games, to eat regularly, to drink little, to love decorously, with many other bourgeois virtues, but in spite of all I remain where I was, an inhabitant of another--” and, just as he thought the whispering voice was going to die away, it would add hurriedly--“and a better world.”

It worried him; and he would diligently examine the premises of that small secret conclusion, hoping to find a flaw in the justness of his conviction that he was superior. But he never did; and for a long time he could not discover why.

Often the conduct of the “bourgeois” would strike him as almost superfluously good. They were brave, much braver than he was conscious of being; clean-thinking, oh, far more clean-thinking than a man like himself, necessarily given to visions of all kinds; they were straightforward, almost ridiculously so, as it seemed to one who saw the inside-out of everything almost before he saw the outside-out; they were simple, as touchingly simple as those little children, to whom Scriptures and post-impressionism had combined to award the crown of wisdom; they were kind and self-denying in a way that often made him feel quite desperately his own selfishness--and yet--they were inferior. It was simply maddening that he could never rid himself of that impression.

It was one November afternoon, while talking with another artist, that the simple reason struck him with extraordinary force and clarity: _He could make them, and they could not make him!_

It was clearly this which caused him to feel so much like God when they were about. Glad enough, as any man might be, of that discovery, it did not set his mind at rest. He felt that he ought rather to be humbled than elated. And he went to work at once to be so, saying to himself: “I am just, perhaps, a little nearer to the Creative Purpose than the rest of the world--a mere accident, nothing to be proud of; I can’t help it, nothing to make a fuss about, though people will!” For it did seem to him sometimes that the whole world was in conspiracy to make him feel superior--as if there were any need! He would have felt much more comfortable if that world had despised him, as it used to in the old days, for then the fire of his conviction could with so much better grace have flared to heaven; there would have been something fine about a superiority leading its own forlorn hope. But this trailing behind the drums and trumpets of a press and public so easily taken in he felt to be both flat and a little degrading. True, he had his moments, as when his eyes would light on sentences like this (penned generally by clergymen): “All this talk of art is idle; what really matters is morals.” Then, indeed, his spirit would flame, and after gazing at “is morals” with flashing eye and curling lip, and wondering whether it ought to have been “are morals,” he would say to whomsoever might happen to be there: “These bourgeois! What do they know? What can they see?” and, without waiting for an answer, would reply: “Nothing! Nothing! Less than nothing!” and mean it. It was at moments such as these that he realised how he not only despised, but almost hated, those dense and cocky Philistines who could not see his obvious superiority. He felt that he did not lightly call them by such names, because they really _were_ dense and cocky, and no more able to see things from his point of view than they were to jump over the moon. These fellows could see nothing except from their own confounded view-point! They were so stodgy too; and he gravely distrusted anything static. Flux, flux, and once more flux! He knew by intuition that an artist alone had the capacity for concreting the tides of life in forms that were not deleterious to anybody. For rules and canons he recognised the necessity with his head (including his tongue), but never with his heart; except, of course, the rules and canons of art. He worshipped these; and when anybody like Tolstoi came along and said, “Blow art!” or words to that effect, he hummed like bees caught on a gust of wind. What did it matter whether you had anything to express, so long as you expressed it? That only was “pure æsthetics,” as he often said. To place before the public eye something so exquisitely purged of thick and muddy actuality that it might be as perfectly without direct appeal to-day as it would be two thousand years hence--this was an ambition to which in truth he nearly always attained; this only was great art. He would assert with his last breath--which was rather short, for he suffered from indigestion--that one must never concrete anything in terms of ordinary nature. No! one must devise pictures of life that would be equally unfamiliar to men in A.D. 2520 as they had been in A.D. 1920; and when an inconsiderate person drew his attention to the fact that to the spectator in 2520 the most naturalistic pictures of the life of 1920 would seem quite convincingly fantastic, so that there was no need for him to go out of his way to devise fantasy--he would stare. For he was emphatically not one of those who did not care a button what the form was so long as the spirit of the artist shone clear and potent through the pictures he drew. No, no; he either demanded the poetical, the thing that got off the ground, with the wind in its hair (and he himself would make the wind, rather perfumed); or--if not the poetical--something observed with extreme fidelity and without the smallest touch of that true danger to art, the temperamental point of view. “No!” he would say; “it’s our business to put it down just as it is, to see it, not to feel it. In feeling damnation lies.” And nothing gave him greater uneasiness than to find the emotions of anger, scorn, love, reverence, or pity surging within him as he worked, for he knew that they would, if he did not at once master them, spoil a certain splendid vacuity that he demanded of all art. In painting, Raphael, Tintoretto, and Holbein pleased him greatly; in fiction, “Salammbô” was his model, for, as he very justly said, you could supply to it what soul you liked--there being no inconvenient soul already in possession.

As can be well imagined, his conviction of being, in a small way, God, permeated an outlook that was passionless, and impartial to a degree--except perhaps toward the bourgeoisie, with their tiring morals and peculiar habits. If he had a weakness, it was his paramount desire to suppress in himself any symptoms of temperament, except just that temperament of having no temperament, which seemed to him the only one permissible to an artist, who, as he said, was nothing if not simply either a recorder or a weaver of beautiful lines in the air.

Record and design, statement and decoration--these, in combination, constituted creation! It was to him a certain source of pleasure that he had discovered this. Not that he was, of course, neglectful of sensations, but he was perfectly careful not to _feel_ them--in order that he might be able to record them, or use them for his weaving in a purely æsthetic manner. The moment they impinged on his spirit, and sent the blood to his head, he reined in, and began tracing lines in the air, a practice that never failed him.

It was his deliberate opinion that a work of art quite as great as the “Bacchus and Ariadne” could be made out of a kettle singing on a hob. You had merely to record it with beautiful lines and colour; and what--in parenthesis--could lend itself more readily to beautiful treatment of lines woven in the air than steam rising from a spout? It was a subject, too, which in its very essence almost precluded temperamental treatment, so that this abiding temptation was removed from the creator. It could be transferred to canvas with a sort of immortal blandness--black, singing, beautiful. All that cant, such as, “The greater the artist’s spirit, the greater the subject he will treat, and the greater achievement attain, technique being equal,” was to him beneath contempt. The spirit did not matter, because one must not intrude it; and, since one must not intrude it, the more unpretentious the subject, the less temptation one had to diverge from impersonality, that first principle of art. Oranges on a dish afforded probably the finest subject one could meet with; unless one chanced to dislike oranges. As for what people called “criticism of life,” he maintained that such was only permissible when the criticism was so sunk into the very fibre of a work as to be imperceptible to the most searching eye. When this was achieved he thought it extremely valuable. Anything else was simply the work of the moralist, of the man who took sides and used his powers of expression to embody a temperamental and therefore an obviously one-sided view of his subject; and, however high those powers of expression might be, he could not admit that this was in any sense real art. He could never forgive Leonardo da Vinci, because, he said, “the fellow was always trying to put the scientific side of himself into his confounded paintings, and not just content to render faithfully in terms of decoration”; nor could he ever condone Euripides for letting his philosophy tincture his plays. And, if it were advanced that the former was the greatest painter and the latter the greatest dramatist the world had ever seen, he would say: “That may be, but they weren’t artists, of course.”

He was fond of the words “of course”; they gave the impression that he could not be startled, as was right and proper for a man occupying his post, a little nearer to the Creative Purpose than those others. As mark of that position, he always permitted himself just one eccentricity, changing it every year, his mind being subtle--not like those of certain politicians or millionaires, content to wear orchids or drive zebras all their lives. Anon it would be a little pointed beard and no hair to speak of; next year, no beard, and wings; the year after, a pair of pince-nez with alabaster rims, very cunning; once more anon, a little pointed beard. In these ways he singled himself out just enough, no more; for he was no _poseur_, believing in his own place in the scheme of things too deeply.

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.

VII.--The Housewife

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 he was 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, she _must_ have 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 imagine myself in that woman’s place, and I won’t. Do you think that _I_ would ever leave _you_?” 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 fir