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Logan Pearsall Smith
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Title: The Youth of Parnassus and Other Stories
Author: Logan Pearsall Smith
Release Date: December 21, 2012 [EBook #41682]
Language: English
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The Youth of Parnassus
and Other Stories
by Logan Pearsall Smith
London
Macmillan and Co.
and New York
1895
_All rights reserved_
To
Philip Morrell
Contents
Page
The Youth of Parnassus 1
The Will to Live. I. 79
The Will to Live. II. 99
The Claim of the Past 125
A Broken Journey 143
The Sub-Warden 183
Idyll 201
Buller Intervening 243
The Optimist 259
_The Youth of Parnassus_
I.
He came straight to Oxford from his American home, Parnassus City, a
town in the Western State of Indiana.
The first time Foley saw him was one wet October evening, when,
splashing across the quadrangle towards his rooms, he noticed a large
umbrella moving through the dripping twilight--an umbrella which, from
its undecided motion, must belong, he had told himself, to some tourist,
who, in spite of the rain and darkness, was finishing a day of
sight-seeing at St. Mary's. But when the umbrella collapsed in front of
his own staircase, and Foley saw the spectacles and pale face of a young
man who turned to enter there, he decided that it must be an agent, come
to collect money for missions or something of the kind. And as he
followed upstairs, in the wet footprints of the feet he could still hear
mounting above him, he asked himself with vague annoyance what right
they had--people like that--to push themselves into the rooms of Oxford
men.
The melancholy footsteps went on till they reached the top; nor did
Foley hear them again descend. Soon after he was told that an American
had come into College, and was living above him; and when he went to
call, he recognized, in the person who awkwardly rose to receive him,
the young man he had taken for a mission agent in the rain that evening.
A thin, small young man, in a long, black broadcloth coat of provincial
cut, he seemed at first sight nothing but the traditional Western
American Foley had read of in books, or seen in the theatre sometimes--a
student who looked curiously out of place in that old panelled room.
The young Englishman talked to him as best he could, asking the
questions always asked of a new-comer; questions which this one answered
with the usual shyness, but in a very unusual voice and accent.
He had just come from America; he had left there on the sixth. He had
come to study under Dr. Joseph at the new Methodist College. Dr. Joseph
had arranged for him to come to St. Mary's; their own College wasn't
built yet. Foley asked if he thought he would like Oxford. "Yes, sir,"
the other replied, drawing a large handkerchief from his coat-tails, "I
guess I will; though," he added cautiously after a moment, "it does
seem kind of old and mouldy."
Foley thought he had done his duty in calling, and meant for the future
to see as little as possible of his new neighbour. And yet there had
been something pleasant and sensitive in his face, he remembered
afterwards; and at times he was haunted by the thought of this stranger
sitting as he had found him, alone and lonely in the room upstairs, with
two or three books in the empty shelves, a few photographs of home that
made the mantelpiece and bare walls look all the more homeless and
unfriendly. Now and then he would hear footsteps above moving vaguely
about, or he would meet the American on the stairs, or see him walking
out alone, and at last, out of kindness, he went again to call.
Before long he began to take a certain liking to Sutton, and would
often go up in the evenings with a cigarette to his rooms. To the young
Englishman the American was certainly a curious and amusing study. How
curious were the views and impressions of Oxford, that, breaking through
his shy reserve, he would once in a while express, in his prim
middle-aged way! He was a good deal shocked by the wine-drinking,
card-playing, and Sabbath-breaking that seemed so prevalent there; what
religion there was, (well, he didn't guess there was much,) he thought
mechanical and dead. Of course there was a great deal of culture in
Oxford; but in other things, like telephones and electric lights, why
England was behind the Mississippi Valley!
II.
Foley began to have ideas of his own about this Mississippi Valley. He
had already read of its rivers and railways and mushroom towns, and he
remembered some of the proud things that Sutton had said at different
times of Parnassus City and its importance--it was almost the only
subject on which the reticent young man ever seemed willing to talk--the
thought-out comparisons he would draw between that place and Oxford, in
his attempts to explain to himself what he saw, and account for it all,
according to his principles.
One evening, in a burst of unusual talkativeness, he described how
Parnassus City had been laid out twenty years before, on what had been
till then an unploughed prairie; but now there were thousands of
inhabitants, rows of business buildings, and elegant residences in the
outskirts. There were electric trolleys too in the streets; and the
whole town was lighted by natural gas. Not only had the place grown fast
in trade and population, but there had been, he explained, a pretty
rapid growth in culture. Oh, they didn't intend to let the moss grow on
them out in Indiana! Schools and churches were built--the most elegant
was the First Methodist, the Reverend Dr. Turnpenny's. It was Dr.
Turnpenny, he added, who started the Forward Movement among the Indiana
Methodists which made such a stir. Then, after the churches, they had
built a lecture hall and library, and, at last, the Parnassus College.
Foley asking more about this college, Sutton explained that though it
had been built a few years before as a college for Methodist theology
and liberal learning, it was already larger than the neighbouring
institute at Corinth Creek, and only second in those parts to the
University of Miomi. It wasn't of course like the universities in the
Eastern States, but still they were proud of it there.
He had pinned up on the old panelling of his wall a photograph of this
Parnassus College: a rather gaunt frame building, standing in a ploughed
field among a few new-planted trees. About the steps were grouped a
number of young men and women, many of them wearing spectacles, and all
with earnest faces and provincial dress. "That's my class," Sutton
explained, pointing at his own figure in the group. "It's the biggest
class we've had so far, thirteen gentlemen and seven ladies."
Foley studied the photograph of the college, and the pictures on the
mantelpiece--several college friends, with lank serious faces; an
intellectual young lady, her hand resting on a copy of the Bible; and an
old, mild, white bearded minister--Dr. Turnpenny, no doubt. There was a
picture too of a wide city street. Then it really existed, this remote
place, and people lived there! he thought, amused at the curious chance
which had brought Sutton, the promise and pride, perhaps, of his native
town, and set him down in so different a world.
But at last Foley turned from the yellow lamplight, the photographs, and
the voice of the American sawing in his ear. Going to the window he
opened the lattice and leaned out into the night. Cool, fresh, and dark
was the air that breathed on his face, while before him, blue and vague
under the white moon, there grew on his sight the towers, the dome-like
trees, and shining roofs of Oxford; dim, romantic, and steeped in
silence, save for the even tinkle of a distant bell. With sudden
unaffected sentiment, he felt how much he cared for Oxford and all that
Oxford stood for.
"Do come here," he called out with a friendly impulse, turning his head
into the yellow light of the room, "I don't think I ever saw such a
view."
The American came and leaned beside him at the open window. "Yes, it is
nice," he said at length, and Foley was surprised by a fugitive sound of
real feeling and appreciation in his voice.
III.
Gradually he came to take a more real interest in his neighbour. The
books that Sutton read, Sutton's love of poetry--surprised him; little
things he would say now and then seemed to show indications of sensitive
fancies and shy feelings hardly in accordance with his dry exterior.
What a thing it would be for him, Foley thought, if the poor young
man's taste could be really cultivated; if he could only be set free
from his narrowing ideas and made to look at life for himself, instead
of seeing it always through the grey fog of Puritan prejudice!
Sutton took everything that Foley said with delightful seriousness; the
well-worn arguments against Democracy and Republicanism were new to him,
and seemed to puzzle him--he would come days afterwards with carefully
thought-out answers to them. Or he would give his friend tracts to read,
as if he was worried by Foley's ritualistic tastes, and hoped to convert
him to Methodism; and once he persuaded him to go and hear Dr. Joseph
preach. Foley was really impressed by the good sense and vigour of
Sutton's master, but to Sutton himself he criticized what he thought a
want of beauty in the service.
And it was only once that Foley felt even for a moment the least
uncomfortable about the things he said to his friend--one evening when
he happened to run upstairs with some specious argument about the
Apostolic Succession, (for when an idea occurred to him he liked to make
use of it at once,) and going into the American's room, he found him on
his knees in prayer.
In that old place--for St. Mary's was not one of the more liberal
Colleges, but a sleepy, ancient, aristocratic society, very conservative
of its own beliefs and manners and prejudices--Eliaphet Sutton lived on
at first, unknown to almost everybody, and only noticed for the oddness
of his looks, as he went in and out to his lectures or solitary walks.
But after a while Foley's interest in him, and his own shy charm
of manner, gained him a more friendly welcome in the College, and
little by little he began to modify, it was remarked, the quaint
unconventionalities of his speech and ways.
A curious life it was, this Oxford life into which the inexperienced
American had chanced to drift! A community of young men, generously bred
and taught, living together so intimately in that mediaeval place, with
its own old usages and traditions and ways of thinking; shut out, as by
a high wall, from the world outside; aloof from the vulgar needs of
life; concerned, many of them, only with its theoretic problems,
interested more, perhaps, in the ancient Greeks than in contemporary
affairs--and, indeed, not unlike the Greeks in their care for the
clearness and beauty of the mind, the athletic strength of the
body--surely, Foley thought, the young Methodist could not have found so
delightful a place in all the world beside.
How much he was really influenced by it Foley could not tell; certainly
as the months went by he seemed to be more aware of the beauty of
Oxford; he would stop sometimes of his own accord to look through a blue
gateway or down a sunlit street, and once Foley saw him standing, a
quaint figure, under the University Church, and gazing up at the
spire--at the religious statues there, which seemed to be voyaging
through the windy sky and among its great white clouds. He started to
join him, but Sutton, seeing he was noticed, moved hastily away.
Then Foley remembered an evening when, coming out into the quadrangle,
he saw a figure he recognized as Sutton's standing at a barred gate
opening on the street. In front of the American, through that one small
opening in the great dark walls, was the gas-lit yellow of the street,
the noise of the passing crowd and traffic--for it was the evening of a
market day--but at his back the deep shadow and silence of the old
quadrangle.
"It's rather absurd to be locked up in this way," Foley said, joining
him; but Sutton replied after a moment, "Why, I was just thinking I
rather liked it! Of course it is absurd, but still--" He stopped, as he
so often stopped, in the middle of his sentence.
Other times there were when Sutton seemed curiously narrow and stubborn;
times when some of his dissenting acquaintances had just been to see
him--the elderly undergraduates, with bald heads and big moustaches,
whom Foley took to be pupils of Dr. Joseph's when he met them mounting
the stairs. One of these dissenting friends of the American's, a
friendly, awkward young man, named Abel, who was assistant tutor to Dr.
Joseph, and had come with him to Oxford when the college moved there
from Birmingham, seemed to have a special supervision over the
American. Abel had no very high idea of Oxford and Oxford people, and
once, when they met in Sutton's rooms, he and Foley argued a little
about the University.
Anyhow he envied Sutton, Abel said at last, turning, as he rose to go,
to the silent American; it wasn't everybody who had the luck to live in
such a place. But Sutton suddenly coloured, and answered, "You can't
blame me, Abel, Dr. Turnpenny wanted me...."
"I'm not blaming you, my friend, it's only envy," Abel replied
good-humouredly. He still lingered a moment, looking at the books, and
cross-questioning Sutton about his work, and how he spent his time.
Foley, who liked anything new, was interested by this intelligent,
tactless man, and wondered why Sutton should be so obviously glad when
at last the young dissenter went his way.
IV.
The next day Foley found his friend in a mood of deep depression. He
would not go out anywhere, he said; he must spend the afternoon--indeed,
he meant to spend all his afternoons now--on his work; he had been
neglecting it too long. And though this desperate resolve was often
broken, yet from this time on he seemed subject now and then to moods of
troubled conscience--moods in which he would shut himself up, sometimes
for days, working feverishly alone, or only coming to his friend late at
night to talk in an uneasy, interrupted way about the sinfulness of the
world, and its pleasures, and how wrong it was to enjoy yourself. At
these notions Foley would laugh, or argue seriously against them. That
Sutton could have any real reason for feeling as he did, Foley never
suspected, but thought it simply the old moroseness which haunted him,
the unreasoned hatred of the Puritans for gaiety and life. And Sutton
had very little to say in answer to his friend. Yes, he was getting on
with his work well enough, he admitted, and there was nothing really to
keep him from going out, except--except--somehow he felt it was wrong.
But the wrong thing, Foley declared, was to stay in-doors all those
beautiful summer days; and then more seriously he added, that he was
sure what Sutton needed was to see more of the world and life. Living in
his lonely retired way, what could he know of other people and the
things they cared for, and how could he ever hope to have any influence
on them? And, once convinced that it was his duty, Sutton became
curiously eager to shut up his books and go.
Indeed, for the most part, the poor young man was not hard to influence,
Foley found; any strong assertion attracted him, and he was often only
too willing to resign to someone else the responsibility of deciding
what he ought to do. But then again he would grow suddenly so stubborn
and prejudiced; and at all times he was so reserved about himself and
his own feelings, that the young Englishman, in spite of his theories,
never felt he really understood him. Perhaps, he sometimes fancied,
Sutton had no very real ideas or impressions of his own; perhaps he was
not influenced by Oxford in the least, and was not aware of any real
difference between the ancient town, with its traditions and memories,
and the new-built Parnassus City.
V.
But when Foley had left Oxford and gone abroad that summer, the long
letters that came to him now and then, written in Sutton's fine
clerklike hand, surprised and touched him a little. It was odd, he
thought, that a person who had talked with so much reserve, should write
him such charming and intimate letters, and he told himself he had
always believed there were real feelings and tastes behind Sutton's mask
of awkward silence.
The first of the letters was written in the vacation just after Foley
had gone abroad. It was Sutton's first summer in Europe; he was staying
on at Oxford, having friends nowhere else, and not being able, of
course, to go back to America. But from the way he wrote, America was
plainly a good deal in his thoughts, and often in those long still days
he wished himself back there, haunted as he was by the idea that he
might be wasting his time, that what he was learning in Oxford might not
be of any use to him out in Indiana after all. But then he really knew,
he wrote, that he was doing the best thing in staying on. The church out
there, and indeed the whole country, was growing so rapidly, that there
would be need in the ministry for young men who were well trained, and
familiar with the thought and culture of the day. He had come to see
that Foley was right in saying it was your duty to get familiar with
modern ideas, and read modern books; he was getting on with the list of
books Foley had made for him. Of course you ought to understand, or at
least try to understand, your opponent's views. If you were afraid of
this, it showed, as Dr. Turnpenny always said, that you could not be
very sure of yourself. Indeed, when Dr. Turnpenny had advised him to
come to Oxford, he had felt it would prove to the world that, at any
rate the Indiana Methodists were quite assured of their position.
In the next letter there was a mention of the American tourists who were
coming through the summer in such numbers to Oxford. Sutton used to
watch them when they walked into the quiet College garden, where he sat
alone, wishing he knew them and could talk to them about America. Their
voices and ways made them seem like old friends to him there in that
strange country. Once two ladies had asked him the way to the chapel,
and he had been delighted to show them the sights of the College. They
were from Buffalo, New York; he must be sure to call on them, they said,
if he ever came to Buffalo. They told him how much they would like to
stay on in Oxford--but they had to go back to America in a month. Sutton
envied them their quick return; but after all, he added, when the time
came, probably he might be a little sorry to leave Oxford....
VI.
Then in the autumn, Sutton wrote about the coming together of the
College, the beginning of busy life after the long quiet of the vacation
days. For the first time he had gone to service in the College chapel.
He did not like the way of worship, finding it formal and meaningless;
but gradually, as the twilight faded away, and the great painted windows
filled with darkness--growing black in the candle-lit walls about
them--another impression came to him, looking at all those faces in the
dim light, and listening to their voices--an impression of the unity and
living spirit of the College, as being a small, ancient commonwealth,
with a history and traditions of its own. There they all were, just
themselves, shut in from the world outside, gathered together, as the
College had gathered together in the same place for five or six hundred
years. Though he was only there as a spectator, who had chanced to
wander in from the outside, yet he realized how great an influence such
a place, with all its old ways and customs, might have on the young
Englishmen who came there. Indeed, if the influence had not been so
obviously narrow and deadening he himself might have been a little
affected by it....
"Yes, you were right," he said in another letter, "when you told me that
the antiquity of England belongs to us Americans as much as to you....
Sometimes I fancy I had an ancestor here once; I am sure he was a
Puritan, and disapproved of the ecclesiasticism and worldliness of the
place. And yet, poor man, he could not help loving Oxford too. A
retired, melancholy person, he liked it best in the days like these when
the buildings and yellow and greenish trees are half veiled in the
autumn mist. But at last he went over with the Puritans to New England,
and was much better and more active there, and free from all the dreamy
influences that held him in Oxford. And it will be much better for me
too, when I go back next year."
VII.
But he had almost decided to go back at once, he wrote in the next
letter. He saw now, and indeed all along he had felt deep down in his
soul, that he was doing wrong in staying there; that there was nothing
really in Oxford to help him. If Foley only knew all the circumstances
he would understand. And, in any case, it was not wholesome to be always
living in the past.
And in Oxford you _were_ in the past; the dead were about you
everywhere; you dwelt in the buildings they had built, you read their
books, you thought their thoughts, and the weight of their dreary
traditions crushed down on you, forcing your life into the shape of
theirs. Surely there was something evil and haunted about the place! And
during all those dripping autumn days, Sutton's one thought had been a
longing to be back again under the keen skies of his prairie-home; life
was new and hopeful there, unshadowed by the gloom of antiquity and
death....
But soon after Sutton wrote that he had had a talk with Dr. Joseph. "He
advises me by all means to stay here. He says that all I am getting at
Oxford will certainly be very useful to me when I go back. I never had
an idea how strong our position is; I wish you might have a talk with
him sometime, when you return. He explains that religion is progressive;
that there is no real antagonism between the new and the old; the one
has grown out of the other by a natural evolution. Indeed he laughed at
the idea of being afraid of the Past; one ought to enjoy it, not fear
it, he said. Then when I asked him if there wasn't a danger in the new
criticism, and too much reasoning about things, he said that there never
could be any real danger in following one's best reason, and that we
need not be the least afraid of what it will lead us to."
VIII.
Other letters came to Foley now and then. Sutton spoke of his work and
occupations, the taciturn young man taking a certain pleasure, as it
seemed, in writing down the ideas and impressions that he found it hard
to express in any other way.
But Foley at this time was travelling in the East; he could only read
the American's letters with haste and small attention. Some, however, he
put aside to keep, and now and then would write back in a disconnected
way, for he felt a certain friendliness for this assiduous
correspondent. As time went on, however, the letters grew more
infrequent, and at last the correspondence died. Foley, with his new
interests, had almost forgotten Sutton, or would only think of him
vaguely as a preacher somewhere in America, whither doubtless he had
returned some time ago.
IX.
After Foley had spent a year or two almost entirely abroad, he returned
to England, began working hard at his profession, and it was some time
before he found the leisure to go back to Oxford. At last he went one
mid-summer alone, for an idle visit. It was the vacation; the old
College was almost deserted, and sometimes in the evening he would go
into the garden there, and, sitting under one of the great trees, would
read, or idly watch the fading of the twilight. And now memories of the
old days, and sentiments towards a place which he had once loved with a
certain enthusiasm--though half forgetting it afterwards, amid his other
occupations--came back to him with unexpected vividness. How much more
delightful it made life, he told himself one evening, as he sat there,
half lost in sentimental musing, how much more delightful it made life
to have been at Oxford, to have learned to love the place as one did
learn to love it--to have it always as a charming memory! It was so
perfect, that evening, with the sunset still lingering faint and red
behind the blue trees and towers, up there above the dusky garden
stretches. And that figure of a cloistered student which Foley could
vaguely distinguish on the twilight path; it was no real person, surely,
but a part of the picture, a figure painted into the grey landscape to
give the final touch of tranquil life! But as the figure drew nearer and
became more real, Foley began to wonder, who could it be who seemed so
familiar to him?
"Why, Sutton!" he called out, as he joined him, surprised at finding the
American still at Oxford, "You still here?"
Sutton started, and then greeting Foley in his old reserved way, they
paced together slowly on the garden path. After Foley had talked a
little about his travels and work, he turned to his companion and said
in a friendly way, "But tell me about yourself, Eliaphet, it's three
years since I have seen you; what have you been doing, and when are you
really going back to America?"
Sutton replied with all his old vagueness and reticence that he had
stayed; he had found it necessary; he had not decided yet about going
back.
"Probably you will be sorry to leave Oxford when the time comes?" Foley
suggested, but the American did not answer.
Eliaphet was a good deal changed, Foley thought when they parted; he
seemed so much thinner and more melancholy looking, and his voice was
almost like that of another person. What a difference a few years made!
X.
Several times in the following days Foley met his friend again--indeed,
they two just then seemed almost alone together in Oxford--and more than
once, in the long summer afternoons, they walked together in a desultory
way among the vacant streets and empty Colleges. Sutton was even more
reserved than of old, but there was a charm in his silent company and in
his affectionate, scrupulous knowledge of the place. Each of the
churches, dim College chapels, and libraries was dear and familiar to
him now; he had found remnants of Norman architecture, and little early
Gothic windows in obscure old places which Foley, who had thought he
knew Oxford so well, was forced to admit he had never visited. And even
for the despised classicism, Sutton seemed to have a certain fondness,
for everything that bore the stately quaint mark of the Stuart
times--Laud's quadrangle at St. John's, and its Italian-looking busts
and arches; the chapel at Trinity; the little Ashmolean museum, and the
prim old Botanic garden, with its battered statue of Charles I. over the
gate, the half neglected formality of its urns and fountain, its walls
and walks within.
Then the old names of places seemed all to have a meaning for him. He
could trace the remains of the Religious Houses, the Friars Minor, the
Friar Preachers, the Carmelites, after which some of the more ancient
streets are called; showing Foley the gateways or ruined arches, bits
of College buildings which now alone remain of their former stately
precincts. And on their walks together Sutton often chose by preference
the little back streets, or those ancient footpaths that wind through
the old heart of the city, through the mediaeval town whose gables and
walls and gardens still sleep in the sun, almost untouched, behind the
modern fronts and the traffic of many of the busy streets.
To Foley in his sentimental mood just then, the quiet of Oxford was very
pleasant, after the noise of the London season; and there seemed to be
something almost poetic in the life of this solitary student. How wise
he was after all, Foley thought, to stay there among the old colleges
and churches, where the ambitions and obligations of the world could
scarcely trouble him; nor the noise of its busy life break in on his
tranquil moods, or disturb the old memories he loved. And yet a vague
suspicion crossing his mind, once or twice, made him ask himself, was
Sutton really so happy after all?
XI.
One morning this vacation quiet of the College was rather noisily broken
by the arrival of a number of undergraduates, who had returned to
prepare for an examination, bringing with them the noise and influences
of the outside world. Now the American was no longer to be met with in
the garden or quadrangle, whither he had been wont to come almost every
day, as if fond of the place and not averse from Foley's company.
Wondering that he did not see him any more, Foley one evening asked the
undergraduates if they knew Sutton or had ever heard anything about
him.
By sight and reputation they knew him very well,--a solitary person, who
led in Oxford a most melancholy life, without friends or apparent
occupation; staying there, it was reported, because of something in his
past which kept him from going back to America.
Foley knew how distorted gossip of this kind would grow in coming
through the minds of undergraduates; and yet there was enough in what
they told, to make him uneasy about his friend. Sutton had given up
studying theology, had tried history, making however a complete failure
in the schools; he was said to have adopted strange religious ideas and
had been heard, it was rumoured, groaning and scourging himself at
night. There was a report too that some Americans had come to Oxford,
and, after visiting him, had gone to the Warden and accused Sutton of
keeping some money which was not his own.
XII.
As soon as he could, Foley went off to find his friend, getting the
address from the College books. At last in a dark alley he discovered
the house. Mr. Sutton had gone away from Oxford the day before, the
landlady told him, and had not said when he would be back. Perhaps the
gentleman would like to leave his card? The room was at the top; he must
be mindful of the stairs. Climbing up with care, Foley opened the door
and lighted a match in the darkness; the poverty and destitution of the
little room growing vivid for a moment, and then fading again into
blackness, affected him somewhat sadly. Just two chairs, a table, a
bed, and a few signs of human habitation,--several books, a coat hanging
on the wall, and three photographs over the fireplace, the familiar one
of Dr. Turnpenny, the dreamy face of Philip Gerard, and a picture that
Foley was touched to recognize as his own. All the pictures of Parnassus
City, his class mates, the young lady, the street, and college, had
disappeared, and a few old religious prints were in their place.
Feeling as if he had intruded where he had no right, Foley turned away;
lingering on the stairs, however, for he was loth to leave the house
till he had learned something more definite about his friend. Then in
the hall below he met the landlady, and began to talk to her about the
American. Mr. Sutton was such a kind gentleman, she said, and always
very quiet; but lately he had been, she thought, very lonesome and
melancholy, and he didn't seem to have any friends in Oxford now. And
though he had paid her regular, she couldn't complain of that, yet she
was afraid the poor gentleman had very little money. Indeed, he had
seemed to be in some trouble, and now he had gone away mysterious-like.
The voice of this woman, plainly so poor herself, her anxiety on
Sutton's account, remained in Foley's mind in a haunting way. And yet,
what could have happened, he asked himself, unable in common sense to
imagine any definite trouble, and nevertheless disturbed by a sense of
mystery, as if he had suddenly found himself face to face with something
more real and sad than most of the sentiments and troubles of his own
experience.
Certainly the American had greatly changed--the narrow, rustic young man
who had come there first, and the pale scholar Foley had met years
afterwards, in the twilight of the garden--there was difference enough
between the two! he thought, putting them side by side in memory. But
what this change was Sutton had not told; probably never would tell, for
in his reserve and reticence he was just the same.
And yet in his letters he had written with much less reserve, Foley
remembered. He began to wonder whether, if he should read the letters
again, with more attention, he might not find in them some hint of
Sutton's trouble. Friendless as the American seemed to be in Oxford, a
little advice and sympathy from some one who understood his
circumstances, might make perhaps all the difference to him.
When Foley got back to his own rooms, he began looking through the
portfolio of papers that he had brought with him from Germany. Yes,
there they were, the envelopes addressed in Sutton's neat fine writing.
Arranging them in order of their dates, he began to go through them.
Letters written during two or three years of his friend's life, in half
an hour he could read them all.
XIII.
First came the letters Foley remembered: Sutton's first Long Vacation;
his home-sickness in Oxford; his thoughts of Parnassus; the American
tourists he would watch and speak with sometimes. Then in the autumn his
impression of the chapel, his growing fondness for Oxford, followed by
the sudden determination to go home, from which Dr. Joseph had dissuaded
him, telling him that there was nothing he need be afraid of in Oxford,
or in the Past.
Then came the letters which had come to Foley in the East, and been
hardly regarded by him in the hurry of travel. Letters which read
pleasantly for the most part, as he went through them now, with their
echoes of charming Oxford life--charming for a time, though troubled
afterwards. With Dr. Joseph's theology to rely on, and Dr. Joseph's
approval of his life, Sutton's uneasy conscience had been at rest for a
while, and he had let himself enjoy life without questioning--just the
simple human joy of the world and youth, with the weather growing
warmer, and the Spring blossoming in the gardens of that beautiful old
city, where he was quite at home now.
"I have so enjoyed the Spring," he wrote "your tardy, veering English
Spring, with its gusts of snow and black weather, and yet enough warm
days to woo from the earth the English flowers that till last year I
only knew of in books. But I greet them as old friends now, the
primroses, and cowslips, and daffodils.... May is here, the air is
full of the greenness of leaves and the songs of birds, the lank rose
trees are budding on the Gothic walls, and when I breathe the fragrant
air and look about me I rub my eyes, and wonder whether May was ever so
beautiful at home. Some beautiful days, of course, I can remember
vividly; but I lived then for the most part, I think, among pale
thoughts and theories, growing old before I was young, and looking so
rarely out--indeed, thinking somehow that it was almost wrong to look
out on the beauty and colour of the world...."
He had written a good deal about Oxford; and really it wasn't true, what
Foley had told him once, that he didn't deserve to live in so beautiful
a place; he did care, and was learning more and more to look at things
and enjoy them. On May morning he had gone to Magdalen to hear them
salute the rising sun from the tower. "I wish I could describe it all,"
he wrote, "the streets, as I went out, cold and vacant in the early
dawn, the pale flames in the street lamps, and the silence of those rows
of sleeping houses, only broken, as I passed under garden walls, by the
acute music of the birds awake already in the trees. Birds, millions of
them! I never heard such a clamour. At the College gate there was a
group of shivering people; and soon they let us in, to climb the steep
tower stairs, with its narrow windows here and there in the darkness,
with views like little old pictures of grey castles and green country.
On the windy platform at the top we found almost all the College
gathered, the President, and Fellows, and undergraduates, with the
group of white choristers. Gradually, as we waited, the formless sky all
round and above us grew white and blue; the sky-line reddened; and then,
bringing a sudden hush in the crowded talk, a sudden baring of all our
heads, the May sun began to blaze in the East; and as it rose into the
sky the boys, facing the light, chanted loud, with their shrill young
voices, the old Latin hymn. Well, you can hardly imagine what a solemn
moment it was, with the slow hymn, the stately yellow sun rising over
all that great view of green country. Turning toward Oxford we saw black
figures like dots on the sun-flushed towers and roofs of the other
Colleges. Our tower, and, indeed, the whole sky, seemed to rock with the
pealing bells; and the undergraduates, engaging in a wild scuffle, tore
off each other's caps and gowns, throwing them out into the air, to fall
with giddy swirls on the roofs, or into the street below. It seemed
almost an outburst of Pagan turbulence, after the Pagan sun-worship, up
there on that windy tower-top over the sleeping town! I wrote describing
it to Dr. Turnpenny; I only hope he won't be shocked!"
XIV.
In Sir Philip Gerard, whom Foley had known slightly as a youth, of poor
and ancient Catholic family, Sutton, it appeared, had found a congenial
companion; and he described how they would often spend their afternoons
together on the river; rowing up the windings of the Cherwell, past
little woods and garden walks, or between the sliding horizons of meadow
banks, where the tangled edge of grass and flowers fringed the near sky.
"I lie on luxurious cushions in the bow, and Gerard pushes me along,
through sleepy sunshine and shadow, and under the unwilling branches of
trees; and then, anchoring in some secluded place, we read together some
poet or old book, while the endless afternoon glides by, and boats float
down the shady river."
"This sounds dreadfully lazy, I'm afraid! But I am taking a rest; I have
been feeling rather tired, and Dr. Joseph says I had better do nothing
but enjoy myself for a week or two now...."
"... I discovered the other day the old market. I wonder if you know
it? It is a delightful place! People from the villages about Oxford have
stalls there, and you see the ruddy, old-fashioned cottagers' wives,
seated each one behind a fresh bank of vegetables and flowers she
herself has grown at home in her quaint garden. Sweet, old-fashioned
flowers, flags and peonies and roses, made up into tight bouquets and
set out for sale in trim rows, not unlike, I fancy, the trim rows in
which they grew in their formal cottage flower beds...." Letters came
to him from home, he said, telling of all that was going on in Parnassus
City: the Bryant Literary Society they had started, the church bazaar
for the missionary work, the Monday evening prayer meetings at the
College; and he often felt that he ought to be back there, that he was
dreaming away his time. Yes, it was like a dream in Oxford; but such an
enchanted dream!...
He wrote, in another letter, of the Oxford bells. More and more he was
conscious of them, sounding always in the near or distant sky; and if
ever he woke up in the night, restless with his dreams, he had only to
wait a little and they would ring out--first the silver voices of the
Colleges, and then the slow booming tones of the great church, so near
at hand. And he found a comfort, he said, in the nearness of the
churches, and their wakefulness through the night.
Although of course he did not approve, he said, of a religion of
external forms, yet he confessed that he had come to take a certain
interest in noticing how, almost every time he went out, he discovered
some new symbol of the old Catholic religion--old stone crosses, statues
gazing out from the towers, images of the Virgin, hands raised in
prayer, the adoration of kings and queens in the painted windows; and
even in the gardens stone fragments, covered with ivy, of old
saints--everywhere tokens of ancient faith, and intimations of another
world, shining and immanent, about this world of sense. It was curious,
but he had never noticed these things when he had first come to Oxford!
Indeed, he grew to love all the antiquity of the place; was no longer
oppressed or frightened by it; and for the old portraits in the hall and
library, the tombstones in the cloisters, with their quaint epitaphs and
names, he felt a certain fondness, he said, looking on the dead now, not
as enemies, frowning on his creed and life, but as friends rather, and
kindly predecessors.
XV.
The lives of many of those old scholars and worthies had become familiar
to him, since he had read Anthony à Wood's _Athenae Oxonienses_, and he
had gone sometimes with his friend on antiquarian walks about Oxford,
and the colleges Wood described. Or Gerard would lend him a horse, and
they would ride out to visit the historic places and villages that lie
in the old country about--Woodstock, Cumnor, Abingdon--the names were
familiar to him of long date; had he not first read of some of them, and
the scenes they were famous for, in Jones' _Excelsior Reader_, out in
Indiana as a boy?
He spoke of the village churches, that seemed so beautiful on those June
afternoons, as they stood among their old trees and flowers, with the
white clouds in the sky above, a shiver of wind in the long grass over
the graves. And then, through the scent of roses about the open door,
the dim interior, with its white Norman arches, and light falling from
painted windows on the crusaders' tombs--on all the many monuments of
the dead. The dead! Sutton wrote that he had always known of the times
gone by, and the faith of the Middle Ages, but only in an unreal way,
through books. And it made such a difference--to him at least--if he saw
the proof of a thing, actually existing with the daylight on it!
"Once, Gerard says, these churches were filled in the morning and
evening light with labouring people kneeling in silent prayer. But that,
of course, was in the Dark Ages. Gerard thinks that the world has done
nothing but go back since the Middle Ages; certainly he does hate
everything that is modern. How he will detest Parnassus City, if he
comes to see me there, as he says he will. It has been bad for him, I am
sure, living out of the world, as he has lived, among old memories and
dreams of his own. He is a Catholic, you know, but he respects my
religion; he knows, of course, what my views are, and we never talk
about theology. There is a friend of his I meet sometimes a priest, and
I suppose a Jesuit. But he seems really quite a cultivated person."
Foley took up another letter: They had ridden out, Sutton wrote, to an
old country house and park, where Charles I. had stayed once, while
Parliament was being held in Oxford. The house, all save one wing, now a
farm-house, had been torn down; but on the hill overlooking the lake, in
the midst of the green shade of beeches, the chapel was still standing,
abandoned now, and almost untouched, save by decay and time, since the
polite court of the Stuarts had said their worldly devotions there. What
rich brocades, what hushed gallantries and frivolous prayers had once
rustled and whispered under the graceful high arches of those pews! But
birds had their nests there now, he said, while through the decaying
roof the rain dripped down on the frail woodwork, the classic columns
and fading colours of this deserted place of elegant worship and old
fashion.
The American Puritan confessed to a certain tenderness for the generous
lost cause, for the fine futile courage of the gay Cavaliers and lovely
forgotten ladies. And as they rode homeward through the twilight, his
companion sang snatches of some old Cavalier songs--tunes with a certain
pathos and grace in their gallant wistful music.
XVI.
Then there was a long letter, dating from the autumn after this
delightful summer, in which he wrote again about Anthony à Wood, the old
Oxford antiquary. He had been reading Wood's diaries, finding in them,
he said, in spite of their old-fashioned pedantry and long genealogies,
a vivid picture of the University and Wood's life in it, two hundred
years ago. A calm life, Sutton described it, in curious contrast to the
times in which Wood lived, when the academic quiet was so often
disturbed by armies, and royal visits, and great events; and the noise
of tumults in the Oxford streets, and troops marching by, reaching the
old antiquary's ears, would draw him from the chronicles of the past, to
look with blinking eyes from his library window on the turmoil and
disquiet of contemporary history. For his life was spent in his own
study, or in "Bodlie's Library," or among the dusty archives of the
Colleges, reading and transcribing the monastic registers, the old
manuscripts and histories. Sutton quoted from his diary a sentence in
which he speaks of the exceeding pleasure he took in "poring on such
books."
"Heraldry, musick, and painting did so much crowd upon him, that he
could not avoid them, and could never give a reason why he should
delight in those studies more than in others, so prevalent was nature."
"My pen cannot enough describe," he writes in his enthusiasm, when he
first read Dugdale's _Antiquities of Warwickshire_, "how A. Wood's
tender affections and insatiable desire of knowledge were ravish'd and
melted down by the reading of that book. What by music and rare books
that he found in the public library, his life at this time and after was
a perfect Elysium."
"Wood often went for long, solitary walks, collecting arms and
monumental inscriptions from the churches, and visiting all the ruined
religious Houses and old halls in the country about Oxford. He describes
in his diary how, as he returned towards Oxford in the evening, 'after
he had taken his rambles about the country to collect monuments,' he
would hear the bells of Merton, his own College, ringing clearly in the
distance."
"Wood had small love for the Puritans," Sutton wrote, "who in his
lifetime were so long in power; and in his record of contemporary
events, sudden deaths, and alleged appearances of the devil, he more
than once mentions their destruction of antiquities, their contempt for
the Fathers and Schoolmen, and hatred of all authority, and 'everything
that smelt of an Academy, never rejoicing more than when he could
trample on the gowne, and bring humane learning and arts into
disgrace.'"
"Then came the Restoration, and almost the last event that Wood records
is the revival of Catholicism under James II. Wood himself was suspected
of being a Papist; his writings had made him enemies, and before he died
he was expelled from the University, and his book burned by order of the
Vice-Chancellor's Court."
"And yet, on the whole, his life was a happy one," Sutton said, writing,
it was plain, with a certain envy for the tranquil occupations and
lettered tastes of the old Oxford antiquary.
XVII.
The next two letters that Foley found (and they were the last) were
dated in the Long Vacation, nearly a year later. Either Sutton had not
written again for some time, or Foley had lost the letters. It was the
American's third summer in England; as before, he had stayed in Oxford.
He described the quiet afternoons he spent in the College garden; how he
seemed to be alone with Oxford and the past, and how even the city
noises, which came in over the walls--the rattle of carts, the shrill,
faint voices of newsboys, crying the world's events--only added a deeper
hush to the stillness and solitude within, the sunlight on the grass,
the shadows of the trees.
He remembered how homesick he had been the first summer he had spent in
Oxford, and how he had longed to go back. But now that his work was
almost finished, and he was soon to go to America, he could not help
admitting that he shrank a little from it--felt a certain reluctance,
after all. He would watch, as he had watched before, the tourists who
now and then came into the quiet garden. Then he had enjoyed seeing
them, and wished he could talk to them; but now!...
And one day some people whom he had known in Indiana came in. He spoke
to them, showed them about, and tried to be friendly, and yet they
seemed so far away somehow! He hated himself for it, and tried to
believe that it was all the fault of Oxford and its fastidious
standards; he had let himself be too much influenced, but when he got
back to Parnassus again, he hoped he should see things as he used to see
them, and feel the same towards the Slocums and all his old friends.
But in the last letter, "It will never be the same now," Sutton had
written; "I have come too far and stayed too long. At first I was always
thinking of Parnassus City; I would dream of it at night, and wake in
the morning to wonder at the strangeness of my dim little windows and
the voices of the rooks outside. But then it began to fade, and
gradually everything changed. And yet, poor fool that I was, all the
time I tried to think that I was preparing myself to go back. Of course
I _shall_ go back; if I can't be a Minister, I can still teach in their
university, perhaps--I _must_ do something to help them, it would be
treachery if I did not. But my heart will be far away from it all, I
know. I try to think of the excellent people there, and how fatally kind
they have been to me; but when I shut my eyes, I can see nothing but the
ugly church, the wooden 'university,' and a great sun-baked street, with
sparse houses and dusty trees straggling off on the prairie. How can I
ever live there now? And yet, if I had never come away, I might have
been happy. Why did they send me to Oxford, I wonder. Yet was it not my
fate? It seems to me that I _must_ have come here sometime!"
XVIII.
With this the letters ended. From the undergraduates Foley had heard how
Sutton tried to study history, but failed rather badly in it. What had
happened afterwards he had not heard, save by vague report. He only knew
that Sutton was still in Oxford.
But no wonder he had stayed there, Foley thought, remembering the
passion for the place that breathed in Sutton's letters, his growing
preoccupation with, and interest in, everything that was ecclesiastical
and ancient. Indeed, the beauty and antiquity of Oxford, the libraries
and cloisters and old places he haunted, now seemed to have grown into
an almost necessary part of the American's environment, the needful
background of his life. As if, like old Anthony à Wood, one could not
imagine him living anywhere except in Oxford, walking through its almost
doorless streets, or on the lawns of its College gardens, and ordering
his studies and ways by the sound of its bells. Why then should he not
stay there; was it anything more than a false conscience that had made
him feel he ought to go back to America?
The next morning, as if in answer to this question, Foley received an
unexpected visit from Abel, Dr. Joseph's assistant. He had come, he
said, to find out where Sutton was; they were a good deal worried about
him; they must be allowed to see him again before he took any step.
Foley was greatly surprised at the way Abel spoke; he knew nothing of
the American's whereabouts, he said; they had told him at his lodgings
the night before that he was away from Oxford.
"Yes, I know, I saw your card there. But I supposed you would know where
he has gone, or would be willing to tell me how I could find out. We
have heard again from America, and really, for your own sakes you must
allow us to see him once."
With still greater astonishment Foley protested that he knew nothing; he
had feared Sutton might be in trouble, but having just returned, after
two years abroad, he had no idea of what the trouble was. His assurances
were so evidently sincere, that Abel, who had looked at him suspiciously
at first, now shut the door and came forward into the room. The trouble
was that Sutton had absolutely refused to go back to America. They might
have known it would happen, he added; and, in answer to a question of
Foley's, he gave his version of all that had occurred.
Sutton had come to Oxford with a letter from Dr. Turnpenny, his pastor
and guardian, requesting Dr. Joseph to see that he should live under
some kind of care and protection. Dr. Joseph, as their own buildings
were not yet finished, had arranged with the Warden of St. Mary's that
the young man should enter that College and live there, while he
carried on his theological work with his own tutors.
It was a mistake; Abel had thought it a mistake all along. With another
man it might not have mattered; but Sutton, thrown into the society of
rich young men, who had no sympathy with his ideas, and who ridiculed
his ways, had not been able to withstand their influence. And just when
he was on the point of ordination, he had thrown it all over; said he no
longer believed in Methodism, or wished to be a minister. He had stayed
for another year in Oxford, studying, or pretending to study, history;
but he could not have worked very seriously; the examiners said, indeed,
that his papers were full of the most absurd ideas. And now he refused
to go back to America at all. Abel didn't know who it was who had tried
to pervert him; it was reported to be the Jesuits--and there was a man
called Gerard, Sir Philip Gerard--; but at any rate they ought to know
what trouble they had made.
Foley said he was certain there had been no deliberate attempt to
pervert Sutton. If any of his friends had tried to influence him, it was
probably because they believed in culture, and thought it would help him
in his work.
"Help him to be a minister out in Indiana! How could the ideas of a
narrow university set and its expensive tastes help a man for that?"
"But everyone surely was the better for being cultivated!" Foley
exclaimed.
Even to this Abel could not agree entirely; he admitted that of course
culture had its charm and value; only in cases it might be dangerous, he
thought. But how could that be? Foley asked, and for a moment, in their
discussion of the larger question, they almost forgot Sutton. Abel
thought that an undue cultivation of taste, of the sense of beauty,
without an equal training of the reason, would make you into a narrow
and fastidious person, judging things by the eyes and ears, and caring
only for what was well-expressed and beautiful. And surely for the most
part, he said, (and he seemed anxious to be fair and moderate,) for the
most part it was the ideals of the past, the out-worn, romantic, and
old-fashioned things, that had had time to be well-expressed, while the
modern--"But all this has very little to do with Sutton!" he said,
stopping suddenly.
"Oh, I don't know, isn't he the kind of person you mean--a sensitive
poetic person--"
"Eliaphet Sutton! he never wrote poetry, did he?"
"No, I don't mean exactly that. Only it seems to me natural enough that
a man of his temperament, coming to Oxford from an ugly new town,
should not want to go back."
"Temperament!" Abel exclaimed, as if the word annoyed him. Then more
quietly he added that he did not think anything could excuse Sutton for
behaving in the way he had behaved. Why he himself had come to Oxford
from a new town that was probably as ugly as Parnassus City. They were
angry enough in Parnassus, you couldn't talk of temperaments out there!
It had really broken Dr. Turnpenny's heart. "If you could only see his
letters! No, after spending all the old man's money--"
"His money?" Foley asked.
"Yes, didn't you know? He was sent over on a subscription got up by the
Methodist church there, and Dr. Turnpenny, who had adopted him and
brought him up, gave all his savings. He was to go back of course, and
help support Dr. Turnpenny. He was engaged to a girl out there too. And
now he says he won't go back. But really he must, it doesn't matter what
he says. It's the only honest and decent thing for him to do."
"Indeed he must go back," exclaimed Foley. "I hadn't the least idea!--"
XIX.
Foley went to Sutton's rooms again, but for several days he could hear
nothing of him. One evening, however, when he was sitting in the garden,
happening to look up, he saw the melancholy figure of the American
coming down the garden path. Now that he actually saw Sutton, and was
vividly aware of the atmosphere of reserve and solitude that enveloped
him, Foley shrank from saying the things that he felt he ought to say.
And yet someone must speak to him; someone must tell him his duty, and
make him go back to the good simple people who had cared for him,
supported him, and who relied on him so much!
He had been away, Sutton said, as the two young men walked slowly down
the garden path. It was very still there in the twilight; and they were
alone, shut in as it seemed, and very remote from the world outside.
"Have you decided yet when you are going home?" Foley asked.
"Home?"
"Yes; home to America."
"I don't know," Sutton replied. After a moment he added, in the same
quiet voice, "perhaps I shall never go back."
"Then you have found some occupation in England?"
Sutton shook his head.
But didn't he think he ought to go back then, Foley asked. One had
duties--and, trying to speak more lightly, he added, "You must have
learned a great deal, Eliaphet, after studying all these years. Oughtn't
you to go back and teach them out there?"
"I have nothing to teach them--nothing they would be willing to learn."
"Oh, but surely, if you tried you could find something! It seems to me
you _ought_ to try."
"Oh, I _have_ tried!" he said, his cheeks flushing with painful emotion;
"but now they don't want me to come back any more--they never want to
see me again! I used to pray I might never change;--and when you would
argue with me,--but now I see it was all wrong, and all my liberal
ideas--"
"I hope," Foley interrupted, for this had been on his conscience ever
since his talk with Abel, "I hope your change, whatever it is, has
nothing to do with anything I ever said; you must have misunderstood
me," and he went on to explain that he had never been really
reactionary. He had always believed in compromise, and a conservative,
reasonable progress.
"Do you know, Eliaphet," he went on, "I think you have made a mistake in
staying here so long in this old place. It isn't wholesome to live so
far from real life; you ought to get away, you ought to go home."
But Sutton had only listened to two or three of his friend's words.
"No," he cried eagerly, "no, we can make no compromise. We must give up
the human reason, we must go back to the Past, we must submit. Oh,
Foley," he cried, and there was a strange appeal in his voice, "we have
been friends, but now we may never see each other again,--let me warn
you, you must decide whether you will be on the right or the wrong
side--oh, if you only knew at what peril you refuse to listen!"
For a moment Foley was almost frightened. Then, reminding himself of
reason and reality, he said, "But, Eliaphet, are you quite sure that you
yourself are doing what is right in staying here? When so much depends
on you out there--Dr. Turnpenny and all. And they have sacrificed so
much too. Have you thought--"
"As if I was not always thinking of it!" Sutton cried; "but I could not
go back to them a Roman Catholic; they would rather I was dead. And
Foley, when you judge me, remember that I have had to make sacrifices
too--I have given up everything, everything! What can I do?"
A Roman Catholic! Of course he could not go back. Foley was dismayed.
Why had he not foreseen it?
For a moment they stood in silence. Then Sutton turned away.
"You don't understand," he said, in a voice that his friend always
remembered afterwards; "No one understands," and he went down the path
alone and out of Foley's sight.
XX.
When Foley went the next day to Sutton's lodgings, he was told that
Sutton had already left Oxford; had gone away early that morning. Where
he had gone, however, no one seemed to know. Certainly Foley never found
out; he never saw Sutton again, nor, in spite of all his inquiries, did
he ever hear anything but the most vague and uncertain news about him.
Abel said he had never gone back to Parnassus City. And then, years
after, it was reported that an Oxford man, when visiting some old shrine
in Italy, had recognized, or thought he recognized, Sutton in the monk
who showed him about the church.
Foley never got rid of a certain feeling of remorse, a sense that at the
beginning he had too lightly interfered in the life of the young
Dissenter.
But then he would tell himself, that it was probably after all nothing
less than Oxford itself, with its old ways and memories, that had
gradually changed and influenced the American. Influenced him not for
good, surely! he thought. And indeed, remembering Sutton's slow
estrangement from his early ideas and friends, his poor attempts to
remain faithful, the trouble and mystery in which he had disappeared at
last, Foley would ask himself, (and he took a strange sort of pleasure
in the question,) whether there were not something really dangerous in
the venerable and Gothic beauty of Oxford, a chill in the old shadows,
an iron sound in the bells.
_The Will to Live_
Part One
"Moral Philosophy," notwithstanding all its modern ideas and
developments, is still taught at Oxford from the Greek texts of Plato
and Aristotle. Something indeed of the old Academic discipline might be
said still to exist there, the tradition of it coming down through the
Schools of the Middle Ages. Certainly the discussions between tutor and
pupils, by means of which so much of the philosophic training is carried
on, are not without a certain resemblance to the Socratic dialogues.
And the young men who are so eager and amusing in Plato's writings--one
might find the like of these, perhaps, among the English undergraduates,
as well as the types with which modern novels have made us more
familiar. The questions they talk and think about would at least be much
the same as those so eagerly debated in the Athenian garden--the old
questions about Truth and Justice and Beauty; and then the meaning or
purpose of Life--that question which is the oldest of all, and which
each generation of youth tries to solve in some new way.
* * * * *
"Good night, sir"--"Good night"--"Good night"--and their discussion
ended, the young men took their caps and books, and clattered noisily
down the stone staircase from the tutor's room. They still lingered a
moment, outside in the quadrangle, four or five together, vaguely
talking in the darkness.
"Ames was right, you know--what he said about Pleasure."
"Old Ames! what does he know about it?" Waters interrupted. More than
once, during the argument that evening, Waters had dropped a book or
shuffled his feet impatiently; and now, declaring that all such talk was
great waste of time and "rot" anyhow, he went off, after vainly inviting
the others to join him, to an interrupted game of cards. In a minute the
others separated, some to work, one or two to the concert in the college
hall. Walter Cornish walked away alone across the quadrangle. Finding a
bench, he sat listlessly down, his hands in his pockets, his feet
stretched out in front of him. He would do no more work that night; it
would be better to rest there for a while, listening to the music of the
concert.
Cornish, with the others, would be in for his last examinations in a few
weeks; then he would be leaving Oxford. But as he had money enough of
his own, and belonged moreover to that fortunate class of young Oxford
men to whom success at everything seems easy, he could look into the
future, untroubled by most of those commonplace difficulties and
despairs that beset the ordinary unknown, untried, young man, when he is
leaving the university to go out into the world.
It seemed very hot that evening; no breath of air was stirring within
the enclosure of those trees and walls. From the open windows of the
college hall tinkling piano notes came faintly now and then across the
darkness; while, drifting in over the roofs of the college, and
deadening at times the music, there came, like a dim smoke of sound, the
rumour of city noises, of carts, footsteps, and high faint voices in
the street outside. But as Cornish sat there lazily, his hands deep in
his pockets, his eyes fixed on the ground, he soon ceased to hear either
the music or the sounds of the streets. Vagrant thoughts about himself,
his own affairs and prospects, were going through his head. Then phrases
from their argument--Pleasure wasn't the End, and the End wasn't
Pleasure; but whose pleasure, and the end of what? To his tired mind,
however, the words were little more than empty sounds. Other things he
had been studying floated past in large dim masses; he remembered the
armies, invasions, and old battles of history; the Roman Empire seemed
to be near him, like something immense and heavy in the night. And
behind it in the past were the Persian, Assyrian, Egyptian Dominations,
with the weight of all their millions and millions of lives!
He was going to do well in the examinations, he knew; more or less
mechanically he repeated over what his tutor had said, and some
flattering words the Warden had written to his father--"We consider him
one of our best men; he is certain to distinguish himself."
"But what's the good of it all?" he found himself asking. He looked up
at the college buildings, dark about him, save for their squares of
yellow windows. Gradually he began to wake out of his vacant reverie.
What was the good of doing well?--why, it was an absurd question; of
course, he wanted to do well, to win honour for himself and his College.
He assured himself of this, in conventional phrases, but somehow, just
then, he did not seem to care in the least for success like that, and
honour. Yet here he had been, all this time, working for nothing else!
He was ashamed of this want of ambition, this deadness of desire. Of
course, there were other things he cared for, he told himself, and to
prove this he brought to mind the interests and pleasures of his
ordinary life--his friendships, the ideas and books he believed in, his
public speaking, the positions he held in various societies. But somehow
all these seemed utterly foolish, futile, and unimportant. In
desperation he began to think of simpler things--of boating, good
clothes, and horses, and some riding boots he was having made. But
everything, even the most universal pleasures of life, struck him now as
tasteless and absurd. Why did people do such things, and what could they
find in them to enjoy?
"But it's against common sense to feel this way!" he said to himself. He
had always thought the disillusions of youth somewhat ridiculous, and
often had made fun of the modern philosophy, or pseudo-philosophy, of
disenchantment, with its literature of passion and despair. And now, as
he sat there in the familiar quadrangle, with the rooms of his friends
about him, all the people he knew so well, in there at the concert, he
was uncomfortably aware of how absurd they would think it, should they
know that he too had secretly begun, in the old, foolish, hackneyed way,
to meditate on the nothingness of life. He of all people, who had always
taken such sensible, commonplace views of things!
"Well, it will be different soon; I shall have things to work for that
really are worth while," he told himself. Hitherto, when he had felt any
futility in his life, he had put it down to the youthfulness of his
occupations, feeling sure that the world beyond his school or college,
with its great interests and ambitions, would give endless objects of
desire. But now, in spite of himself, he could not help asking--what
were those great interests and ambitions after all?
Almost comically there rose before his mind pictures of all the
middle-aged people he knew--his relatives, his father's friends--large,
solemn, successful people, who were thought, and thought themselves,
very important. And the dull speeches they made, and the way they often
grew red and angry, as they argued about the Government, or the Eastern
question! And their houses, their wives and dinner parties, their social
differences and ambitions, and the way they pushed and struggled for
money and titles! What was the value of it all; to succeed or fail, what
difference did it make? He tried to imagine himself at the head of what
would be his profession, as Lord Chancellor--a fat and bald Lord
Chancellor in stuffy robes--wasn't that the position that young men were
supposed to be ambitious of attaining? Or if he should make a fortune,
or write a famous book, or carry some great reform through Parliament?
But, somehow, he did not seem to care; and gradually, as he listened to
the far-off rumour of the city, it came to sound faintly in his ears
like a voice of blind craving--as if the agitation of the world and life
were meaningless and vain. And he would go out into it, he knew, would
struggle and push with the others....
Now from the open windows, sounds of music floated again across the
quadrangle. He could picture to himself the audience, all those rows of
young men, sitting there in the hot air and gaslight. Indeed, he could
almost see, he felt, into the rows of minds--if you could call them
minds--behind all those heads: the ridiculous images of hope and cheap
romance wakened by the music, the foolish dreams of the future, and
false, poetic ideas of life.
Pity the poets and novelists could not invent something a little more
true to life! Cornish thought. For after all they had but two receipts:
either they enlarged the world into a glorious and unreal place, full of
love, success, and eternal sunshine, or else they magnified poor human
nature, and invented towering, Byronic heroes, who could find nothing in
a shrunken universe worthy of their passionate souls.
The music finished in a noise of long and loud applause. How all of them
enjoyed it; how all of them believed in it, he thought; finding
something foolish and inane in these sounds of clapping hands and
pounding feet. A little while afterwards the concert ended, and the
audience, a vague press of people, began to murmur and move down the
steps of the hall, and pass him in the darkness. But now the sound of
their footsteps and cheerful retreating voices came back to him almost
sadly. A whole generation of youth, they seemed to him, as he sat there
almost like some remote spectator--a whole generation of youth, those
young men, pouring out of that ancient hall and passing away into the
silence.
They were all gone at last; one by one the bright windows in the hall
grew dark. Cornish still sat there alone. These voices and footsteps and
dim figures, moving past him thus in the darkness, had left his mind
curiously vibrating. So life went by, he thought, a few careless steps
together on the brief-trodden path, a few words, a few greetings, and
then the darkness and silence of death. What a curious mystery it was,
this life, so vivid and brief in each of those passers by; the life he
was conscious of in himself, as he sat there alone--the sound of his
breath, the blood beating at his temples, the "soul" within--what was
the meaning of it all, and for what reason was it given?
Surely this was the question of philosophy--the very question they had
discussed that evening! And now, for the first time, he realized that
the theories and systems he had been studying so long were not mere
exercises of thought, and abstract speculations, but almost passionate
attempts to explain the meaning of existence--of his own existence!
But the great solutions of the philosophers--Aristotle's
"Contemplation," Kant's "Moral Law," the "Calculated Pleasure" of the
Hedonists, and all the rest--there seemed to be a mortal coldness in
them all. Surely they could never give a motive, or make life desirable
to anyone! Vaguely dismayed at this conclusion, he repeated over to
himself all the words again. Still he could find in them no motive for
existence; and in a dim way he began to feel half proud of this
discernment. Yes, Waters had been right after all, (and somehow he
pitied both Waters and himself), philosophy was but a barren waste. And
the picture of a great desert filled his mind--a desert of endless sand.
* * * * *
When he was again conscious of himself, for a moment he wondered where
he was, confused by the discomfort of his position, and the coolness of
the air. Then through the darkness he saw, outlined against the starry
sky, the trees and buildings of the College quadrangle, and remembered
how he had sat down there to rest after their discussion. He must have
fallen asleep, and now it was late--the night had grown completely
silent, and only one or two windows shone yellow in the blackness of the
walls. What had their argument been about? he began to ask himself; but,
chancing to look up again, he forgot everything in his wonder at the
brilliance of the stars. The whole patch of sky, shut in by the dark
College roofs, quivered and glowed with shining stars; he thought he had
never seen the vault of heaven so wonderful and luminous.
The long, faint sigh of a passing train on the distant railway brought
back his thoughts at last, out of their vague wonder, to the earth and
himself again. His imagination wandered after the train as it went
through the night towards London. Soon he would be in London himself, he
thought, smiling. It was not three weeks now. There were some dances he
was going to, and a cricket match, and the theatre, of course....
But then a vague sense of misfortune weighed him down, and in a moment
he remembered how, a little while before, he had decided that life was
altogether inane and meaningless. How was it that he had grown so
foolishly eager again? No secret had been revealed to him; he had found
no meaning behind desire, no purpose in existence. Yet here he was,
looking forward to dances, actually counting the days to a cricket
match! It was absurd for a self-conscious spirit to desire such things
as these, especially after surveying life and philosophy, and finding
there was no reason why you should desire anything at all!
But somehow Cornish did not seem to need a reason now; success, love,
friendship, and even dances and cricket matches, he desired these things
for themselves, they shone with their own brightness; no theory, no
sanction of Greek or German philosophy could possibly make him want
them more. How was it that there were desires that reason did not give?
He puzzled over this, till at last he saw the question was rather a
meaningless one, a question of words only. For desire of life came long
before reasoning about it; reason did not sit aloft in a purer air,
creating out of itself the meanings of experience. It could create no
desires, could give us indeed none of the ultimate facts of life, for
the ideas it used were all abstracted from things our direct perceptions
gave us. And the existence of these things themselves--the blue sky, the
solid earth, the sweetness of youth and sunshine--it could never prove,
it did not need to prove! When, a little while before, he had felt no
desire, reason had not helped him. And now he did not want its help.
The striking clocks told Cornish the lateness of the hour, and he got
up to go in. As he walked across the quadrangle he heard voices and
laughter in the darkness, and dimly saw a group of young men come out of
a doorway in front of him.
"Well, have you had a good game, Waters?" he asked, as he joined them.
"Oh, a ripping game. What have you been doing?"
"Nothing much--thinking."
"Thinking! Lord, I'd turn looney if I thought so much. What's the good
of it? You'd much better have taken a hand."
Cornish laughed. "Well, I believe you're right," he said.
_The Will to Live_
Part Two
William Waters had dreamed that the Persians, in a fleet of Canadian
canoes, had come up the Thames to attack the College barge, and that he
himself had been sent on foot to demand reinforcements from the Oxford
examiners at Sparta. And after the weary, breathless running, the
hopeless search, in his dream, for the right Greek words, it was most
delightful to open his eyes and find himself comfortably lying in his
familiar bedroom, with the sunlight glowing on the blinds.
"Why am I so happy?" he asked himself, and then he remembered that it
was all over now; for the future he would never have to trouble about
Greek or examinations, or getting up in the morning, or any of their
stupid rules and worries. For the future! As he lay there, lazily
opening and shutting his eyes, vague, bright pictures of the life before
him floated through his mind, and set his heart beating a little
quicker.
William Waters was the son of a business man in a northern town, who,
with some sacrifice, had sent him, the eldest son, to the University, in
order that his education, and the connections he would form, might help
him on in the world. Now that the young man, after a lucky scramble
through the examinations, had just finished four pleasant years of
Oxford life, it was his vague purpose to find some occupation in London,
something pleasant and gentlemanly, which would enable him to live as
he liked.
"Of course, sir, I know one can't expect anything very much at first,"
he said, half aloud, as he imagined himself talking modestly and
sensibly to his tutor. For he was going to talk about it to Ames; old
Ames wasn't such a fool about things of that kind. "There is no nonsense
about that young Waters," Ames would say afterwards; "a modest, sensible
chap, the kind of man who'll always do well." Waters was determined to
do well of course; he would get on, he told himself, when people came to
realize how hard he worked. And as the young man lay there in bed, he
decided that in the future no one should ever accuse him of laziness and
neglecting work. By simply making up his mind to it, he thought he would
entirely change his character, and begin life anew, winning position
and wealth by his own unremitting industry.
Buller and Antrobus would be in London, he told himself, and Philpotts,
most likely, and they would belong to the same club, where they would go
on Sunday mornings to smoke and read the sporting papers. He would work
tremendously hard, of course, spending laborious nights over his books,
but he would also go out a great deal into society. He would not be
dissipated--he didn't care much for that--but still he would not be
Puritanical either. He meant to be moral and steady, and at the same
time he would enjoy the pleasures of a man of the world. But he would be
always kind and popular; people in fashionable society would say that
William Waters was such a good fellow, and in the Park ladies would
smile at him from their carriages, and smart young men would walk with
him arm in arm. And he would live well; but still he would save money,
and would soon pay off his Oxford bills, and send money to his father.
For he would always be very kind to his people, having his sisters to
visit him, helping them to marry well (he himself meant to marry someone
for love who was very rich), and sometimes he would give up parties at
country houses in order to pay them visits at home. How his fur coat and
knowledge of the great world would impress all the neighbours!
"But I must get up," Waters said to himself, remembering how he was to
go and see his tutor and talk over plans. And after luncheon Buller was
going to drive them out, three of them, with his tandem to Woodstock.
And thinking vaguely of this drive, and of some new clothes that he
meant to wear, Waters was just falling off to sleep again, when his
bull-dog came rushing up the stairs, and began to whine and scratch at
the door. Rousing himself, Waters jumped up, and went with a call of
affection to the door to let Lo-Ben in.
After he had bathed and dressed himself in his new fresh-smelling
clothes, the young man sauntered into the sitting-room of his lodgings,
and rang the bell for breakfast. The day was bright; Waters felt
wonderfully fresh and well; there were pleasant aches in his arms and
legs as he moved, for the whole of the day before he had been rowing on
the river.
After breakfast he was just sitting down to smoke his pipe comfortably,
when, looking at his watch, he snatched up his cap and rusty gown, and
started out towards College. By Jove! what a day it was! He walked along
through the sunshine, smiling to himself, while Lo-Ben barked and
bounced from side to side. It was a good world, Waters thought a good
world, and now he was really going to enjoy it.
As Waters was tying up Lo-Ben in the College porch, he was seized on
suddenly from behind.
"Come along, fat William," they cried, pulling and pushing him along,
"we're going to have a little game--you must take a hand."
Twisting himself around, as he struggled, Waters recognized two of his
friends, and appealed to reason breathlessly; he had to go and see old
Ames, on his honour he had; he would look in afterwards, in about
half-an-hour, and stay to luncheon if they liked. So he started across
the quadrangle, looking back and smiling and shaking his head, as he
dodged the bits of gravel with which they pelted him. It was a good
place after all, the old College, Waters thought, when he was out of
danger and could look about. He remembered the two years he had lived
in rooms looking out on this quadrangle; the pleasant hours he had
spent, sitting in the window with his pipe, or lying on the grass whole
Sunday afternoons, lazily reading, or talking with his friends; he
thought of the beautiful chapel, and the old hall that was so much
admired, and how he had sat up a tree one evening and poured water on
the Dean, and how at night the stealthy bonfires had blazed up red and
sudden in the dark.
He was really sorry to leave the old place, he thought sentimentally,
remembering the emotions he had read of as felt by young men in books
when about to leave their school or college. But then, with healthy
common-sense, he told himself that all they wrote in books about your
college days, and life never being so happy afterwards, was damned
nonsense. Waters knew how men lived in London!
"Sorry I'm late, sir," he said as he entered his tutor's room,
addressing the spare shining head that was bent over a heap of papers.
Mr. Ames raised his worn, cynical, kind face, and looked at Waters with
short-sighted eyes. "Oh, no matter, sit down won't you, Waters," and he
gave a last hurried shuffle to his papers. Waters thought that Ames must
spend his life looking for lost papers; and although occasionally
surprised by flashes of almost supernatural knowledge in his tutor, for
the most part he entertained--as a heathen might towards his helpless,
yet vaguely awful, idol--a certain good-natured pity for the
absent-minded, easily outwitted man.
"I thought I'd like to talk things over with you a little," Waters said,
sitting down in a chair that groaned with his athletic weight. "I must
decide what I shall choose, what to go in for."
"To go in for?" Ames repeated, looking at him vaguely.
"I mean, I must choose"; Waters found a pleasure in talking, not as an
undergraduate, but as a serious young man. "One must do something of
course."
"Of course it _is_ better," Ames assented, though he still looked rather
puzzled.
"I thought I'd talk to you about the Bar, or something of the kind."
Ames looked at him blankly. "Talk to me about the Bar?"
"Yes, I thought I'd better ask your advice."
"Do you mean for yourself?" Ames asked after a moment, "but I
supposed--I always supposed you were going into your father's business;
he has some business, hasn't he, or am I wrong?"
"Into my father's business!" Waters laughed comfortably. "No, I
shouldn't ever think of that. No, I want to live in London."
"Oh, I see!"
"Yes, of course if anything very good was offered me somewhere
else,--but no, I think I prefer London. What would you advise?"
"What I should advise!" Ames said, looking at him hopelessly. "I suppose
you've thought of something for yourself; you have some preference?"
"Preference? Oh no, nothing special. I thought I'd ask you."
Again Ames looked at him with an odd expression. Then in his polite,
weary, equable voice, he said, "Well, I must try and think. I suppose
your father--what does he want you to do?"
"My father--!" Waters' voice showed what he thought of fathers. "Oh, he
said that if I had a university education, there would be something."
"Ah, did he! Well, I suppose he ought to know," Ames said doubtfully.
"Oh, he doesn't know of anything definite," Waters explained; and then,
speaking loudly, as if to a deaf man, he added, "It was only what he
thought."
"Ah, that's quite different, isn't it?" Ames exclaimed, his face
brightening.
"But surely there is a great deal to do in London," Waters continued.
Yes, there must be a good deal, Ames admitted doubtfully; at least
everyone seemed very much occupied there.
"All I want is some work, that isn't too much grind, and decent pay."
"Ah, that is all that most people want," Ames observed, with half a
sigh.
"Of course at first I shouldn't expect anything very much," Waters went
on, hardly heeding his tutor's vague remarks; and he explained again
that he only wanted some decent occupation, with pay enough to live on.
Then he waited, gazing at his tutor's blank face as one might gaze at a
revolving lighthouse, waiting for its flash of light. As nothing came,
however, he said, "Surely there are lots of places where they want
Oxford men?"
"Possibly there were"; Ames looked as if he, however, had never heard of
them.
"But Grant and Vaughan had got good places, and Sturdy, they said, was
doing well at the Bar."
"Ah, I see you mean those clever men, who do so well in the Schools and
all. You're quite right; a man like Cornish for instance; I thought you
meant more the average man."
No, it wasn't Cornish, Waters meant; it wasn't the average man either.
"I mean more the man--what you call an all-round-man."
"What I call an all-round-man?" Ames looked bewildered.
"I mean," Waters continued, with desperate efforts to explain himself,
"I mean the man who is rather good all round, rows, and that sort of
thing. Perhaps he didn't get a First; didn't care much what he got,
didn't approve of the system."
Ames seemed busy looking for his glasses.
"There are people who don't approve of the system," Waters went on. "I
read an article once by someone, Professor something, not approving of
examinations. I forget just who it was."
"Professor Freeman, perhaps?"
"Yes, that's it! Well now, a man like that, what is he going to do?"
Waters asked, with renewed confidence.
"But Professor Freeman is dead, you know."
"But,--but,--I'm not speaking of Professor Freeman."
"How would you like to be a solicitor?" Ames asked, putting on his
glasses.
"A solicitor! oh, I shouldn't care for that," Waters promptly replied.
"You see it isn't the kind of work I like, and then the vacations are
too short."
Ames said nothing. He was sitting unusually still, and his large glasses
reflecting the light, resembled two enormous shining oval eyes in the
smoothness of his face. What he was really looking at Waters could not
tell, and he grew more and more uncomfortable. At last, with diminished
confidence, "There _are_ men who get on well at the Bar?" he said.
"There are."
"And if I were living in London I might do some writing? They do that,
don't they?"
"They do." Then Ames sighed and shook his head. "I think you had better
go home, Waters," he added; "I'm afraid there's nothing else. If you had
spoken to me before, I should have told you this."
"Oh, good Lord, Mr. Ames, you don't mean there's nothing!" Waters sat up
in his chair, with open mouth, staring at his tutor.
"Well, you know, I'm afraid there isn't."
"Oh but, Mr. Ames, there must be something!"
"Well you can try; but honestly, I think you had--if your father can
have you--I think you had better go home."
Waters looked at him. "He knows I helped to paint his door red last
week," the young man muttered to himself, "and now he's furious about
it."
But the comfort of this ebbed away gradually, as Ames went on to
describe the different professions, the struggle for success, the cruel
competition. Ames indeed seemed to have focussed himself, and instead of
the vague astonished way in which he was wont to speak of practical
affairs, he now showed a precision, and clearness, and knowledge of life
that was really appalling. "I am sorry it is so, Waters," he ended. "We
live pleasantly here, and we almost forget what the world outside is
like."
"I do think some one might have told me, Mr. Ames; I do indeed." Waters
could have cried with disappointment.
"You would never have believed it, Waters; we none of us can believe
that the world doesn't need us. It's hard, but whether we live or die,
the world doesn't care, can get on perfectly well without us. We each
have to find it out for ourselves." He sighed as if he too had once
known youth and hope, and the indifference of the world.
"But, Mr. Ames, I can't go home, indeed I can't. My other brother was
going into the business, and I always told people,--and everybody
supposed,--and to think that all my time here is wasted."
"Oh, not exactly wasted," Ames answered kindly. "It will always help
you, to be an Oxford man, and you will be sure to find it pleasanter at
home than you expected." Then beginning again to look at his papers, he
added, more in his old distant way, "I'll see you again, I hope, before
you go down. They'll miss you in College," he added politely, as Waters
moved towards the door. "I'm sure the 'Torpid'--"
"I might be a solicitor, Mr. Ames," Waters said in a meek voice, as he
stood disconsolately, his hand on the door-knob.
"Well, talk it over with your father," Ames replied, without looking up.
"It takes time and money you know. You think he wouldn't mind?"
"Oh no, he won't mind," Waters said, although he knew his father would
mind very much indeed.
He walked away slowly through the familiar quadrangle. His father!--how
would he ever dare tell his father? But no, it couldn't be true that
there was nothing for him, that nobody wanted him. He was well known in
College, had played in the football team, and rowed in the "Torpid," and
people liked him. Besides it was such a thing, they always said, to be
an English gentleman; and then Oxford culture--and you read of the
successful careers of rowing men, how they became Cabinet Ministers,
and Bishops, and things. No, it couldn't be true....
"Poor Lo-Ben," he said, patting his dog tenderly, as he unchained him in
the porch. "Poor old Lo-Ben, you'll stick to your master, won't you?"
The dog whined and licked the young man's hand, and they went out into
the street together.
Well, they would live alone, he and Lo-Ben, and they would go out for
lonely walks, after the long dreary days of work in his father's office.
And the people there would see him, and wonder about him; but he would
always be distant, only coldly polite when they met. Sometimes his old
College friends would come to stay in the neighbourhood; but they would
not look him up: all his friends would forget him, though he would
always remember them. And that afternoon they would all drive off
without him, probably they would be really glad not to have him. And
they would be perfectly happy; but he would never be happy again.
For no, it was not true, what Ames had said, about his getting to like
it at home. He would always hate it, he told himself desperately; and
life and everything was hateful; there was a chill in the sunshine, the
streets seemed full of noise and work and ugly working people. What was
the good of it? he wondered. And Ames said it was all like that. What
was the good of it, he asked again, when he flung himself down into one
of the great easy chairs in his lodgings. If you had to live in a dirty
provincial town, and sit on a stool all day, what was the good? Of
course some of the men at home seemed happy enough; they had their
cricket on Saturdays and things; but then they weren't university men.
For himself, Waters decided, for the first time in his life considering
in his concrete way the problem of existence, for himself it was all
finished; there was nothing more in life which could give him pleasure.
The servant brought up luncheon. At first Waters thought he could eat
nothing, and when he did begin in a melancholy way, he bitterly
contrasted his lonely meal with the happy party in College. He felt an
immense pity for himself; he would die young, he was sure; the life
might even drive him to suicide--such things had happened.
After his luncheon and beer he lit his pipe. By this time Buller and
Philpotts must have finished their luncheon too, and have started for
the stables. They would wonder at first why he did not come, but they
would not really care.
And now they must have started. He had done well not to go with them; he
would not have enjoyed it, Waters assured himself, repeating the old
phrases; he would never enjoy anything again. He looked at his watch
furtively. What! they wouldn't start for three minutes yet. Then he had
still just time enough to catch them. He seized his hat, and without
waiting for a reason--he had no time to wait--he hurried out, Lo-Ben
barking at his heels.
_The Claim of the Past_
They had all been to luncheon with Mr. Windus, and now, under his
guidance, they started out to see the College, walking together across
the quadrangle through the summer sunshine. Mr. Windus talked to Mrs.
Ellwood of Dalmouth, the Devonshire town where she lived, and he had
friends; the others were gossiping of the heat, the Oxford dances, while
Ruth Ellwood and young Rutherford came last of all.
Rutherford too belonged to Dalmouth, was, indeed, a cousin of the
Ellwoods--all the Dalmouth families were somehow related; but going
away early to school, and afterwards to Oxford, he had come at last to
seem more like a stranger to them than a friend or cousin. And this
invitation to meet the Ellwoods he had accepted merely out of
politeness; he was busy with his work, felt in no mood for the Oxford
gaieties, and anyhow cared, or thought he cared, very little indeed for
Dalmouth or the Dalmouth people.
But soon he had begun to listen with pleasure and interest to the home
news, as his charming cousin told it.
"And so the town isn't much changed?" he asked; "and the different
cousins, what has become of them all?"
With eager interest she went on telling him of all the old families, who
lived in the different houses; how the young girls had grown up--there
were so many pretty ones among the cousins!--and the young men had gone
into the family offices. Some of them were married and settled down
already.
"And Aunt Warner's house under the beeches, with its lawn, where we used
to play, is it just the same?"
"Oh, yes, just the same, only the Bartons live there now--Uncle James's
family; and on Thursdays we meet there--I mean the cousins' Tennis
Club--and when it rains we dance in the old drawing room. But how
shocked dear old Aunt Warner would have been to see us!" Then, as they
went through the gateway into the College garden, she added, "I'm afraid
all this gossip bores you; it's interesting for us who live at home, but
for other people--"
"Oh, but I belong to Dalmouth!" he protested.
"Of course you do, only it's so long since you've been there," she said
in half apology, "and we thought--I thought you didn't care."
It was indeed a long time, it was years since he had been there, he
remembered with a certain regret for the preoccupation, the youthful
intolerance, that had made him half despise his home. It was a charming
place after all, the grey seaport town with its wharves, and shipping,
and narrow streets, and the pleasant homes and gardens just outside
where his cousins and uncles, the merchants, lived--where as a boy he
had lived. How well he remembered watching, on summer afternoons, the
white sails of the family ships, as they floated up with the tide past
the green lawns and square old houses. A pleasant life it must be there,
he thought, and quite untroubled in its tranquil interests by any great
ambitions or ideas--the echoes of which, indeed, could hardly reach
them in their quiet old corner of the world.
And, as they talked, the young man began to fancy idly what his own life
would have been, had he never gone away from the old Devonshire town. It
had been intended, of course, that he should stay there, and take his
own part in the family concerns; even yet his uncles were keeping a
place for him; and although they feared he was quite spoiled by Oxford,
yet they would welcome him back, he knew, should he only give up those
ambitions, that to them--and to himself sometimes!--seemed so
impossible, so dreamy and unreal.
Ruth Ellwood stopped now and then to look at the garden flowers. "What
lovely irises, and how quaint those roses are, trained so stiffly on the
old walls."
"Are you fond of gardening?" he asked.
She was very fond of it, she said--not that she knew much about it! But
she liked planting things and tying them up, and she always gathered the
flowers for the house. Things grew so well at Dalmouth--roses and
peonies, and great chrysanthemums in the autumn. Only it made her a
little sad to see the chrysanthemums; their summers were so lovely!
Rutherford knew the house in which his cousin lived, and now he could
almost see her there, moving over the sweet grass, hatless, in the
morning light, to gather roses, filling old china bowls with their
fragrant leaves; or walking home on rainy evenings past the great cedar,
the wet lawn, and borders of dripping flowers.
"How beautiful she is!" he thought, looking furtively at her. The
impression of this beauty, her pleasant voice, the friendly people she
spoke of, and all the memories that made them seem so intimate together,
affected him with a curious fresh sense of happiness, coming into his
life, which had been of late somewhat discouraged and lonely, with a
charm as real and actual as that of the warmth of the sun, the scent of
roses.
They had reached the end of the garden, and as they turned back, still
following the others, he said hesitatingly to his companion something
about coming to Dalmouth soon for a visit.
"Oh, do come!" she cried, "I'm sure you'll enjoy it, and they will all
be so glad to see you."
"I hope so--but I'm afraid they must think rather badly of me--will be
prejudiced against me; you will have to introduce me."
"Oh, I will--only really, they won't be prejudiced against you." Then
she added, "Oxford is so charming!" in a way that touched Rutherford a
little. She at least, in spite of all she had heard at home, plainly
could see nothing so dreadful or dangerous in Oxford, or her cousin,
after all!
Yes, Oxford was charming, she said again, and not at all what she had
expected--at first she had been really almost afraid to come! But it was
all so pleasant; why had people such a prejudice against the
University?--her two brothers wanted to come, but her father would not
hear of it. But how could it unfit them for living at home? She had seen
how the undergraduates lived. And her brothers would have enjoyed it so.
She had been in several of the Colleges now, and had been on the river,
and was going out to tea that afternoon, and afterwards, to a dance.
"Tell me," she asked, as they followed the others towards the chapel
door, "are you going to any of the dances?"
He was afraid he wouldn't have the time, he said.
"Oh, what a pity, you ought to come," she cried; but her voice was
hushed when, out of the glare and sunshine, they went into the blue
obscurity, the cool old smell and quiet of the chapel.
The ladies looked at the windows, the religious carving; and their
movement, as they went about, filled with a rustling sound the vacant
silence of the place. Then they all gathered in a group while one of the
Fellows told them something of the history of the chapel: how it had
been built in the fourteenth century, and how ever since then the
members of the College had worshipped there, and among them many whose
names had afterwards grown famous.
"Tell me," Ruth Ellwood whispered, as they walked away, "is this where
the undergraduates sit; where do you sit?" He showed her the Scholars'
seats, and the old brass eagle from which they read the lessons, and
then, when they went through the ante-chapel, she paused a moment,
looking at the inscriptions and monuments.
"Were there any nice old epitaphs?" she asked. "Do show them to me, if
there are."
The rest of the party had left the chapel, but could still be seen
through the open door standing not far off in the sunshine, and the
gossip of their voices came in faintly now and then.
The old brasses, dating from Gothic times, bore inscriptions in rhyming
Latin, that Rutherford read and translated to his companion; there were
monuments of a later time, adorned with urns, cherubs, and
garlands--old trappings of death that made death itself seem almost
quaint and charming. But in the seventeenth century the tranquil records
of the scholars' lives were disturbed by echoes of old war and exile.
"Reader, look to thy feet! Honest and Loyal men are sleeping under
Thee," one inscription ran; and the name of more than one was recorded
"who, when Loyalty and the Church fainted, lay down and Died."
Other monuments were put up to the memory of young men who had died at
College. Well-born and modest, the old Latin described them, and dead,
centuries ago, in the flower of their fruitless years. "Vivere dulce
fuit!" one of them had complained, as four hundred years before, in
florid Latin, he bade farewell to youth and hope.
Of another it was quaintly said, "Talis erat vita, qualis stylus,
elegans et pura"; while another undergraduate's virtues were recorded in
verses ending with the line,
"Expertus praedico, tutor eram."
Then there was an inscription in English verse, from some Cavalier poet,
Rutherford thought,
"Him while fresh and fragrant Time
Cherisht in his golden prime;
Ere Hebe's hand had overlaid
His smooth cheeks with downy shade,
The rush of Death's unruly wave
Swept him off into his grave.
* * * * *
Eyes are vocall, teares have tongues,
And there be words not made with lungs;
Sententious showres: Oh let them fall!
Their cadence is rhetoricall."
Another of the same date recorded the deeds of the young
scholar-soldiers "who, at the news of Battle, changed their Gownes for
Armour, and Faithfully served King Charles I. from Edge Hill fight, to
the End of those unhappie Wars." But one youth in that early conflict
had been killed in the pursuit of victory "after Gloriously redeeming,
with his own hands, the banner Royal of the King."
So they linger there for a few moments, passing from one to another of
the epitaphs, with their records of knightly effort, of the ideal and
romantic hopes of youth, completed afterwards, or quenched long ago by
early death. And to the young man, as he spells them out, they seem at
last to form a continuing tradition of lives dauntlessly lived and lost,
and then recorded here, briefly, in this ancient corner of the College.
His companion, too, was vaguely charmed and touched by the old
inscriptions, and as they turned at last to go out she stopped in front
of another tablet. Would he read it? It was too high for her to see.
Rutherford looked at it. "It's a modern one, I don't think it will
interest you--"
"Oh yes, it will--do read it."
He looked at it in silence for a minute. Faint sounds of music floated
into the dim chapel from the world outside--music, and distant voices
calling. Then he read the name and date; a young man who had been
drowned the year before. "His companions at School and College have
erected this tablet, wishing to preserve the recollection of one who was
much beloved, and whose influence for good was greatly felt in this
place. He was of a courageous and enthusiastic nature; the example, had
he lived, of his generous ambitions--" But in the middle, Rutherford's
voice changed a little, and with a shiver his cousin turned and went
away. Had she guessed that they had been friends, these two, or was it
merely that she felt at last the chill of the place, and of all the old
dead about her?
In a moment the young man turns to go out too. But as he looks through
the dimness of the chapel on the summer and sunlight, and his cousin
standing there outside the door, how far it all seems, how unreal! Only
real to him is a sense of the briefness of life, and of the great,
difficult things that may nevertheless be done or attempted before death
comes. And as he walks away again with his cousin, he is quite certain,
now at last, that this is no mere emotion or boyish enthusiasm, but an
influence that for evil or good must rule his life--must come, at least,
between him and any choice of ease and the common happiness.
_A Broken Journey_
I.
The air tasted fresh; through the sunshiny mist the London houses shone
beautiful and vague; the passers-by seemed to be whistling and singing
as they went to their morning work. Already at Paddington cabs were
arriving; they drove down under the clock in an endless procession; the
family luggage was unloaded, and the passengers, muffled for winter
journeys, hurried into the station.
Then a hansom pulled up sharply, and a young man got out, whose air of
fashion and slim figure, as he stood there paying his driver, drew for a
moment the notice of the other travellers.
On the platform within, by the waiting trains, all was movement; the
great adventurous station was full of grey light, and a confusion of
sounds and echoes. Arthur Lestrange, as he walked across, looked about
with quick eyes on the orderly tumult, the heaps of moving luggage, the
hurrying people. They were all starting off on pleasant holiday
journeys, he fancied; indeed, everything seemed eager and gay that
morning.
He chose an empty first-class carriage in the train going northwards;
but in a moment he hurried out back to the bookstall to get a paper, and
returned with several novels in his hands. On the top of one was
pictured, in bright tragic colours, a young man suspended over the edge
of a perilous cliff.
"Why did I buy them?" Arthur wondered, looking at the books with
amusement.
Settling himself again, he watched through his window the anxious
procession of people who came peering by, looking for corner seats. Then
he saw his own luggage passing.
"Oh, you can put those things in here with me," he called out to the
porter.
"I've labelled them, sir," the porter said, looking up with a stupid
face.
"Put them in, put them in, don't you see there's plenty of room," Arthur
said with a certain sharpness and nervous agitation.
There were two young men standing on the platform near his window.
"Well, good-bye," one of them said, as he looked at the other with
friendly eyes, "you mustn't wait, and you'll come up and see us, won't
you?"
They were Oxford men, young Lestrange thought, as he watched them,
feeling envious, and almost lonely for a moment as he remembered the
times when he had travelled down so often with friends from Paddington
to Oxford.
But surely it was time for the train to start! The movement on the
platform seemed to be increasing; the tumult and screaming whistles
sounded louder and louder in his ears, as he waited, leaning
uncomfortably forward.
At last all the doors were shut; the platform grew more vacant; a few
belated people hurried up; a green flag was waved; a whistle blown;
everything about him seemed to glide backwards, and then, with the
shaking and noise of travel, the train drew itself slowly out of the
station. Arthur leaned back with a sensation of immense relief. He was
really away at last. Away from everybody! He had been almost afraid that
they might come to the station and try to stop him. But it was absurd,
he told himself, as he opened the morning paper, it was absurd to make
so much trouble; for what was there to bother about? He could take care
of himself; and anyhow his relations had better mind their own business.
As for talking about ruin! He thought of his pompous uncle and dull pale
cousins, and then of the people with whom he was going to stay.
"Good old ruin," he said half aloud, running down the news of the day
with eyes that hardly noticed what he read. In a moment he turned to
look out of the window.
After making its way through the suburbs, the train had begun at last to
travel more quickly through the open country. The trees and earth and
houses near at hand drifted backwards; the more distant fields moved
back with a slower motion, while the horizon seemed to glide forward
with the train. The sun shone on the brown earth and mist and leafless
trees; a young horse galloped the length of his field in a playful race
with the moving carriages.
Young Lestrange changed his seat restlessly. Then he began to rearrange
his luggage on the rack; he looked at himself in the mirror, caressing
his slight moustache. His hair was smooth and dark over his handsome
young face. Only his straight eyebrows, twitching nervously now and
then, would give him rather a harassed, anxious look for a moment.
What was the use of bothering, he said to himself, smiling as he turned
carelessly away. If one was young! Men sowed their wild oats; he would
settle down soon enough, but in the meantime he would enjoy himself. You
have only one life to live....
The winter morning seemed unusually bright and clear; the train went
swiftly; its wheels beat on the rails an unquiet and delicious measure,
answering and echoing his thoughts. Restless and excited, he again threw
down the paper, for the bright images of desire, that floated before his
eyes, made the printed words seem almost meaningless.
He pictured to himself the end of his journey--the trap that would
probably meet him--a dog-cart, with shining bay horse and man in livery,
standing in the gravel sweep of a country station. The drive up, and
then at tea, or just before dinner, he and she would meet in the drawing
room, greeting each other with pretended indifference. How he hated and
loved her!
After a while the train, going more slowly now, began to draw into
Reading. With the beginnings of weariness and headache Arthur looked at
the waste of railway trucks, the heaps of coal and blackened snow, the
red factory buildings, and the dreary streets beyond. Biscuit
factories--who could eat all the biscuits they made? he wondered;
"Clapper's Restaurant"--suppose you should dine there, they would give
you nothing but biscuits, probably. Did the train stop at Reading?--he
could get some spirits at the refreshment room.
At the bar, Lestrange saw the figure and long grey coat of a man he
thought he recognized; and then, getting sight of Boyle's smooth-shaven
face, and remembering his supercilious manners and reputation, he felt
with sudden repulsion how much he hated men of that kind--men of
pleasure, who were no longer young. When you were young it was
different--but to go on always....
But when Boyle turned and greeted him in an indifferent, half-friendly
way, and then walked up and down with him on the platform, Arthur could
not help feeling, in spite of himself, somewhat flattered and pleased.
After all, Boyle knew most of the best people, and went everywhere.
"I have an empty carriage; you might as well come in with me, if you are
by yourself." Boyle seemed not unwilling, and soon appeared at Arthur's
carriage.
"I'm just on my way to Marcham," Arthur said, as if casually; "the
Vallences', you know." There was a slight lisp in his pleasant musical
voice.
Boyle was putting his golf clubs in the rack, but turned round at this
and glanced at Arthur oddly. However he said nothing, and after a
moment he sat down, and, lighting a cigarette, began looking at the
paper.
As the train went out of Reading they began to talk, or rather Arthur
talked. Soon he was discussing horses and actresses and gambling debts.
It was a good game, baccarat, Arthur said, but you had to pay for it
sometimes. He had just dropped a cool thousand or two, which was rather
a bore. There was a music hall singer to whom Arthur referred more than
once as "Mamie."
"And how about Lulu, hey?" Boyle asked, with his disagreeable laugh.
"Oh, Lulu--good old Lulu!" Arthur said, but he really had no idea of
what Boyle meant.
Boyle told a story in his short, indifferent way, and Arthur exclaimed,
"Capital! capital!" and laughed loudly in the fashion of a popular man
he knew.
Had he ever been to the Vallences' before? Boyle asked.
No, he had never gone before. Did Boyle know them?--Boyle had been
there; was going there now, in fact, he said.
"Really, are you going there now? How odd we should meet like this!"
They talked a little about the place and people. It would be rather a
lively set, wouldn't it? Arthur asked; and he boasted that his uncle,
Lord Seabury, had warned him against them. But, good God! what did he
care if people were amusing. "Do you know who else will be there?"
"Oh, a lot of people. Mrs. Stair (Arthur blushed at this), and that
young Glass."
"Glass?" Arthur exclaimed; "oh, not really that man! They can't like
him."
"They like his money."
"You don't mean they ask a man--a stupid boy like that--to get his
money."
"They don't say they do," and Boyle looked up from his paper with an
expression that seemed to say, "You young fool, you don't know much."
("Is that what I'm asked for?" Arthur wondered for a second.)
"I say, did you read about that young Hughes?" Boyle was saying. "It
seems he's gone and played the fool--shot himself; wrote to his mamma he
was ruined. So he won't be there."
"Used he to go to Marcham?"
"Oh, always there."
"Well, it's the pace that kills," Arthur said sententiously, though his
hand, as he lighted another cigarette, shook a little. "It isn't
everyone that can stand the racket."
"If they weren't all such sickening young fools," Boyle replied in a
short contemptuous way, as if the talk bored him.
"He thinks a damned lot of himself," Arthur thought, looking with a
sidelong glance at Boyle. His head began to ache again; a sudden disgust
came over him; he felt he hated Boyle. And he hated himself too, for
talking and boasting as he had talked and boasted but a few minutes
before. And they were all like Boyle, all those people; they cared only
for his name and money. "Name and money, name and money," the wheels
beat on the rails. Well, soon he would lose them, most likely--his name
and money--like the young suicide, who had lost them both and his life
too.
Still he made an effort to ward off the mood that was settling down on
him--the mood he knew so well! He was not ruined, he told himself, and
there was nothing ruinous in an ordinary visit. He could take care of
himself. The chief of his debts were gambling debts, and he was going to
stop playing soon; would settle down quietly; he would make a
resolution, and keep to it.
But what was he doing now in that rattling train? Only the day before he
had resolved not to come; had promised solemnly that he would not come;
had made a resolution to break with all that set, and not yield to the
passion which people said would ruin him. Yet here he was, going on to
it all! There seemed to him something sinister in his journey, something
fatal in the swiftness of the rattling train, as if he were being
carried on to a dreadful place, and into misfortune, against his will.
He leaned away from Boyle, and touched his cheek to the cool pane of the
window. Masses of steam enveloped the train, but Arthur saw the quiet
landscape now and then, glimpses of faded green fields with snow, and,
over the hedges, the shining river, and bluish hills beyond. He saw a
boat on the river; recognized a bit of wood, a church tower. Those were
the hills that he had ridden over; the lanes through which he had so
often walked; the river down which he had floated in the summer
sunshine, pulling up refreshed and strong after bathing. With an eager,
almost childish interest he waited for the green visions, through the
shifting steam, of these familiar places.
He opened the window; the singing air tasted pleasantly cool and fresh.
Over the flooded fields and the moving trees he saw the spires and
towers of Oxford. He could well remember the quiet streets there; seemed
to see himself, indeed, moving through them; and he almost believed that
in a few minutes he would be driving up, as he had driven up so often
before, in that procession of racing cabs to the old College, and to all
his friends.
The steam blew again about the train, wrapped his face in its warm
breath, and blotted out the view. Inside the shaking carriage was the
tobacco smoke, and his luggage. "Where am I going with that man?" he
asked himself suddenly, for the picture of Oxford had filled his mind
entirely for a moment. The buildings and towers were so near now, the
water of the reservoir gleamed slowly past. Arthur took down his luggage
from the rack. At the bottom of his mind he had been wanting for a long
time to go back to Oxford, and see it all, and see an old friend there;
and so, eagerly, almost before the train had stopped, he hailed a porter
and got out of the carriage.
"I must stay over here a few hours," he said to Boyle, with apparent
calmness. "There is something I have just thought of, and must attend
to. I'll telegraph, but you'd better tell them, though, not to meet me."
He turned and walked away.
But as he drove up to Oxford, "What a fool I am," he kept saying to
himself. Indeed Boyle's surprise, the commonplace platform, the
ticket-collector's questions, the sight outside of his own luggage being
lifted up on a hansom, had soon made his foolish, helpless impulse fade,
like the flame of a candle, taken out into the daylight and windy air.
But to go back to the train would have seemed doubly foolish, so, borne
on by the impetus of his dead desire, he drove away. The next train was
not till half-past six. He would get luncheon, and, after all, it might
be pleasant to see the old place. But he was resolved that never again
would he act on those stupid, sudden ideas--they made him seem like a
fool.
II.
After luncheon Arthur went out--the time had to be spent somehow--and
walked idly along the High Street. It was all so familiar: the shops,
the windows of the club to which he had belonged, the rooms where his
friends had lived. But he knew no one now. The streets were wet with
winter mud, there was a commonplace light on the houses, and Arthur
looked about him with very little interest and emotion. Walking past the
Colleges, he loitered for a little on Magdalen Bridge, and then turned
back again. It was still early, and he began to meet now the young men
who were starting out of Oxford for the open air and country. Some were
dressed for football; three or four in brown coats rode by on horses,
talking and laughing as they passed; but the greater number were in
flannels, and moving towards the river. These Arthur followed--he had
nothing else to do--through the streets and meadows, coming at last to
the barges and windy river. Men were calling to each other, boats were
pushing out, and the turbid current of the Thames ran swiftly with the
winter floods.
But for him there was too much sound about the wind and water, the cold
sunshine was too bright and harsh, and he felt doubly weary, as he
looked at all that life and activity and health. And yet once he would
have delighted in it.
When Arthur Lestrange had come first from school to Oxford, he had
entered with eagerness and youthful ambition into the pleasures and
activities of university life, wishing to do everything well that he
tried to do, and with distinction if he could. And all these ambitions
and activities he came to share, in the pleasant, intimate Oxford way,
with a friend, slightly older than himself.
But after a while he began to grow discontented; success was not so
easy;--and what was the good of it after all? he asked himself, with
impatient lassitude. Finding new friends and more exciting pleasures, he
gradually drifted away from his old companions. What was the harm? he
said impatiently to Austen, resenting his friend's affectionate advice.
He would enjoy life as other people enjoyed it; he only wanted to be
left alone. So they grew less intimate; and when Lestrange found himself
in trouble, serious enough to make him leave Oxford, he had been too
angry and proud to see Austen, or answer his friendly letter. "How
stupid it has all been," he said to himself, the memory of all this
coming over him rather drearily, as he walked back towards Oxford.
But his feeble attempts to make some change in his life--these were the
stupidest of all his memories; how, when his father died abroad, he was
really frightened, fearing for himself a death like that, and going back
to the half-neglected place that was now his own, he remembered his old
plans of life, and tried to do his duty there, and be a good landlord
and neighbour. But in a few months he grew weary of it all; it was too
lonely, too depressing....
And then a year after, when he hoped for a while that a nice girl he
knew might care for him; and this last time, when his losses at play
had made him mortgage his property still more heavily. Then, sobered for
a moment by his uncle's warnings, and by the ruin that seemed not far
off, he suddenly resolved to change, to give up playing, to keep away
from all those people.
But he had started for Marcham after all. It was no good trying, and no
one cared. Of course no one cared--why should they? With worldly
derision he remembered now the foolish, tattered hope he had cherished
all along--the hope that some day, coming back to Oxford, he would find
the old life, the old friend, who _had_ cared once. And without stopping
he walked past his College, the place where Austen was still living. He
did not want to see any of them, nor would they want to see him.
Oppressed by the slowness of the time, the afternoon quiet of the
streets, he resolved to go back to the station and wait there, watching
the railway clock slowly eat up the hours. But passing by chance the
livery stable where he had always kept his horses, with an aimless
impulse he sauntered into the open court. One of the stable grooms
coming up, addressed him by name, and asked him if he wanted to order a
horse.
"It's a long while since we've seen you in Oxford, sir."
This recognition and friendly look in the man's face, touched Arthur,
and, with a revival of eagerness, he felt that a ride would be just the
thing to kill the time. So, ordering a horse to be sent to the hotel
where he had left his luggage, he hurried back to get ready.
III.
As he rode back towards Oxford, two hours afterwards, the light was
already fading from the winter sky. Sleepily and quietly he jogged along
now, his horse tired at last after the quick gallop through grass lanes
and over the wet fields and commons. The young man, too, was tired; but
with a healthy, physical fatigue, pleasant in all his body. He felt
almost happy after the motion, the wide light, the freshness of the air.
And when he rode into the old city, walking his horse through the
darkening streets, it seemed to him as if he were riding home now, as
often he had ridden home into Oxford before, at just this hour of the
twilight. The groups in the doorways, the lighted windows in the dim
buildings, the sounds about him of bells and footsteps and friendly
voices, brought back to him confusedly, mixed with the memory of this
and that, the charm and comfort of that old life--that life of order and
disciplined ways, and high old-fashioned purposes. How quietly the days
had gone by: the mornings of work, the rides with friends, or afternoons
on the river, between the yellowing autumn willows; the evenings with
the white lamplight and pleasant talk and books. He had quarrelled with
the restraint, the subordination, sometimes; had thought it too severe,
too painful, to go out on the river in the wind and rain, to get up so
early in the cold of winter mornings. But now, after the stale
dissipation of his life, it was only the friendly warmth, the
lazily-wasted hours he remembered, the pleasant fatigue after exercise,
and the taste of the winter air when he had hurried out to chapel
through the earliest sunlight.
If he could only go back to it all; if, putting up his horse, he could
walk to his rooms through the twilight, and find his books, and the fire
burning there, and friends not far off! But things had been against him
somehow. And yet he had meant it all to be so different. And with half a
sigh he remembered the summer evenings when he and Austen had walked in
the old garden, talking of their plans in life--of all they meant to
do--together! if they could. But then, people never did remain friends
like that.
When he gave up his horse, however, he looked at his watch, and, after
standing in hesitation for a moment, he turned with a sudden impulse,
and walked quickly towards his old College.
In the porch stood a group of undergraduates, just up from the river,
and vaguely gossiping before they separated. But they were all strangers
to Arthur, and the porter, who answered his questions, was a stranger
too. Crossing the darker quadrangle, the young man went into a staircase
and up two flights of steps. Then he stopped, and stood breathing
quickly for a moment. There was the door, and the name over it, but he
had grown suddenly ashamed of his errand. Austen might have forgotten
him, or might not want to see him.... But, bah! what did he care? and
his footsteps must have been heard....
"I'm afraid you don't recognize me," Arthur said, in his assured voice,
as he went forward into the room. "I was in Oxford; I thought I'd look
you up."
Austen, who was sitting by a lamp, turned round with a puzzled
expression on his staid, pleasant face. Then, pushing aside a heap of
papers, he got up and said: "Oh, Lestrange, I didn't recognize you at
first, it's so dark there. But I'm glad to see you--do sit down; you'll
have tea, won't you?"
He was passing through Oxford, Arthur said; and having a few hours on
his hands after riding over Shotover, he had come back, and happened to
look in at the old College. The plausibility of this explanation, and
Austen's voice as he said politely, "That's right, that's right, I'm
delighted to see you again," soon overcame most of the shyness behind
Arthur's easy, unembarrassed manner. They still talked to each other
rather formally, however, as men do who have not met for years.
"It's a long time since you've been in Oxford, isn't it?" Austen asked.
"Yes, it is; I've been at home, in London. But I suppose it hasn't
changed much."
No, there wasn't much change, Austen said; old people went and new
came.
What had become of all the men who had been with them in College, Arthur
asked; he had lost sight of them somehow.
Austen said that some were at the Bar; some in the government offices;
one or two in Parliament already; the most of them seemed to be getting
on pretty well, he thought, though he had lost sight of many of them, as
one did.
"And you've been living on here ever since? I heard you had been made a
Fellow. You like it, I suppose?"
Yes, Austen said, he liked it well enough, the work was tiring
sometimes; that afternoon he had been going through papers. Arthur
noticed that he looked fatigued, and a good deal older. It was dry, hard
work no doubt, but still it was not the kind of thing that changed you.
"I say, you have jolly rooms here, Austen; I envy you living in a place
like this. Do you remember your old rooms over the garden? I think I
used to live in them almost."
As the old memories revived they seemed to grow less shy of each other.
Arthur leaned forward, talking in a vague, intermittent way as he stared
into the fire. Sometimes he would gaze at nothing, with a vacant, dazed
look, for minutes together; or he would take the fire-irons and break up
the coals. Once the tongs slipped and fell with a sudden clatter; he
started nervously.
"Well," he said at last, rousing himself from a reverie in which he
seemed conscious of nothing but the warmth and comfort and pleasant,
physical fatigue, "Well, it seems very jolly here, like old times; I
almost wish I had never gone away. But then, of course, I couldn't help
it," he added; "I wasn't asked."
"You had hard luck," Austen said; "I hope it hasn't made any
difference."
The words sounded friendly and sympathetic to Arthur. Hard luck, yes,
that was it; he had always had hard luck.
"What have you been doing since?" Austen said politely.
"What have I been doing, Charles? Oh, nothing much; seeing about things
at home a little. There were some cottages I had rebuilt. You remember
we used to talk about it. It isn't so easy though, or I suppose I'm not
so clever at it. But of course you know a great deal more about those
things."
"No, oh no! I've been so busy. That sort of thing is good in moderation,
and I'm glad you keep it up."
"Oh yes, in a way ... but no, what am I saying? I don't really keep it
up. It was all two years ago. I haven't done much of anything
since--anything good. Things, you know," he went on, as he stared into
the fire, "haven't gone just--I mean, it's been rather stupid--stupid,
and worse, I'm afraid; I don't seem good for much somehow."
The familiar Oxford room, with its order, and books, and shaded light,
seemed so shut in, so far from the friendless world in which he lived,
that for the moment Arthur almost forgot the lonely distrust, the
derision of everything, which his life had taught him. "I suppose it's
fate," he added, staring into the fire, as if he were half-ashamed of
what he was saying. "I suppose it _is_ fate--but still, I
wonder--sometimes it seems if--that if I had had a chance, if anybody--"
He waited a minute indecisively. But Austen said nothing. Arthur
glanced at him, and then, flushing slightly, he got up. "But I must be
going now," he said, with a curious change and coldness in his voice; "I
have a train to catch."
"Oh, don't go," Austen replied awkwardly, "don't go just yet. I'm sorry
to hear what you say; but don't you think, if you will allow me to say
so, don't you think it is a mistake to blame fate for such things? If
you would tell me more--"
"Oh, thanks," Arthur said, "I think I must be going."
"But you were going to say something," Austen urged, "and if you would
tell me more, I might be able to help you, or give you advice at least."
Arthur glanced at him quickly. Then suddenly the idea seemed to amuse
him, and coming back a step or two he said, with a smile, "Tell you
more, Austen? Oh, I was only going to tell you what everyone knows,
that I've turned out a bad lot, that's all."
"I'm sorry to hear that," said Austen, in a rather shocked voice; "I
hope it's not so bad."
Arthur smiled pleasantly. "Oh well, you know, it _is_ pretty bad, I'm
afraid."
"But what do you mean, Lestrange?"
"What do I mean? Oh, all the usual things--bad company, gambling, and
women."
Austen looked still more shocked. "But surely you could change if you
wanted to!"
"I suppose I might, if I wanted to," Arthur said, playing with his
riding whip. "But I'm afraid I don't want to. What's the good?"
"What's the good?" Austen repeated. "I don't see how you can ask such a
question; if what you say is true, you ought to want to change."
Arthur mused a moment. Then looking up, with apparent candour, he said,
"Well, I suppose it is odd; but honestly, you know, I don't want to
change in the least. You see, your respectable people, they don't want
to have anything to do with me; and anyhow, the things they care for
bore me to death, really they do. You only have one life, so why not be
happy in your own way? that's my principle."
"But surely, Lestrange, you can't go on--"
"No, I suppose I can't for ever; but you try to enjoy it while it lasts;
and anyhow, my father, you know how he died--I suppose it's fate;
heredity you call those things, don't you?"
"Really, I'm shocked to hear you talk so recklessly, as if you didn't
care. You seem very much changed."
"Am I changed? I don't know; I suppose I am. We've both changed a
little, don't you think? At least, things seem different. I wonder where
I put my gloves,--I really must be going."
"Well, of course, I can't keep you, Lestrange; I can only give you my
advice. But I can't believe you're happy."
For a moment Arthur looked at him sullenly.
"Well, what if I ain't?" he asked. "What's that to you?"
"I was only going to say," Austen went on, "I was only going to say that
it seems to me that if you would try--"
"Try! Good Lord, I've tried enough, but what's the good?" Arthur said,
with his old calmness and indifference, as he turned away towards the
door. "I don't care, and no one else does, either. But I must be off.
Good bye."
He went down the steps quickly, whistling as he walked away through the
darkness. He was angry at himself, and bitterly ashamed of his visit to
Austen. They were all like that--he ought to have known. And yet it was
a pity, too!
_The Sub-Warden_
The two old gentlemen walked out of the Common Room, across the
quadrangle to the porter's lodge: the Vicar of North Mims, who had been
spending a few hours in Oxford and dining in College, wanted to catch
the evening train back to North Mims, the College living he had held for
the last ten years, and the Sub-Warden wanted to see the last of him.
"The point I make is this," the old Vicar said again, frowning with his
bushy eyebrows in the moonlight; "the point I make is this: There would
be no trouble at all, if it wasn't for the drinking. If they want
meetings, let them have Temperance meetings; and I say that those
Socialist fellows from London have absolutely no business meddling in
the affairs of my parish. And as for the undergraduates who come out
from Oxford to speak"--the Vicar's voice grew more solemnly irate--"as
for those undergraduates, they should be punished. It is, I consider, a
case in which both college and university authorities should intervene
with prompt severity."
They walked on for a little in silence, and then the Sub-Warden said, as
he looked at his companion, "Really, Philpotts, you know, you ought to
tricycle."
The truth is, that, as they had sat in the Common Room over their port,
the Rev. Mr. Philpotts had repeated himself a great many times; and, the
Sub-Warden's mind at last beginning to wander, he had said to himself,
as he looked at his glass and then at his old friend, "Really, Philpotts
is getting very heavy! I used to be heavier, and probably should be now,
if it wasn't for tricycling!" And, his mind being full of the thought,
he had suddenly said, "Really, Philpotts, you know, you ought to
tricycle!"
"What!" said the Vicar, in a voice of slow amazement. "What on earth has
tricycling got to do with it?"
"Oh, I beg your pardon!" the Sub-Warden cried, who was the soul of
good-nature, "I am so absent-minded. You were speaking of the Radicals;
it is certainly shocking."
"Radicals! Pestilent Socialists I call them," and the Vicar's mind,
after its jolt, got back into the old groove. "Why, you would hardly
believe it, but they had the impertinence to advertise some young ninny
as a member of this College, and they actually posted it on the
vicarage gate. My wife had to soak it off with a sponge. Now, what I say
is--"
But they had arrived in the porch, and the Sub-Warden, telling the Vicar
it was late, hurried him out of College, and then turned and walked back
to his rooms.
"He certainly is getting heavy," he said to himself. "He has changed
very much. These country livings! And if I had only started to ride a
little earlier this afternoon, he wouldn't have caught me. Another time
when I miss my exercise I mustn't drink port! At my age one begins to
feel it."
The Sub-Warden reached his staircase, and, resting one hand on the wall
of the building, he turned and looked at the moon. Then he went
upstairs, but, instead of sitting down at his table, he went to the
window and opened the sash. There was a curious look about the trees
and buildings, as if they had been turning round, and had just stopped.
It was odd. Poor old Philpotts! What an undergraduate he had been--up to
anything! What times they had had! And now he was on his way back to his
wife at North Mims! The Sub-Warden sighed; then smiled, and,
straightening himself, after a moment's hesitation, he went and put on
an old coat, and stole with soft steps out of the College. Perhaps it
was the moonlight; perhaps an old memory or two that had come back to
him, or the thought of the exercise he had missed; or, again (but this
is mere conjecture), the glass or two of College port may have done
something to put his mind in a mood for adventure. Anyhow, he got on his
tricycle, and started for a ride into the country. He only hoped the
Bursar had not seen him; not that there was any reason why he shouldn't
ride at night, but the Bursar made up such funny stories about the
Sub-Warden and his tricycle rides.
And so he rode lightly along, over the vague roads, barred here and
there by the blue shadows of the trees--rode lightly along through the
ancient Oxfordshire country; and he laughed in his genial Tory heart as
he thought of the Vicar's absurd political panic. No, a ripple of
Radical excitement in the towns perhaps, but it would hardly touch the
country. The labourers must know who were their real friends and
leaders. And yet it was outrageous, he thought, as he began pushing his
machine up a hill, it was outrageous that anyone should have such views.
But that members of the University should go and speak at their dreadful
meetings! The Sub-Warden shook his head and sighed, as he thought of
the University--its sad change, its evil state. Could it, indeed, be
still called a University? Ah, in the old days, before the Royal
Commissions! But when he mounted his machine again at the top of the
hill, he forgot these black thoughts, and rode quickly down--indeed, he
almost felt himself on wings--into the village he saw below him, an old
village, spread out asleep in the moonlight. He went on slow wheels
through the blue-shadowed streets; he breathed in the night air,
sweet-scented from the village gardens; he felt young in his soul, and
would hardly recognize as his own the respectable, fat shadow that
wheeled after him across each moon-lit space.
All at once, in the midst of the sleeping village, there appeared in
front of him a square red building, with brightly lighted windows.
Curious to know what was going on, he rode his machine up to one of the
windows, and, looking through the glass, misty from the heat and
perspiration within, he saw vague rows of dark figures, and an upright
shape moving its arms at the end of the hall. What could it be? Around
at the door, whither he wheeled himself, there was a big poster, partly
torn, with the word "Temperance" on it, and something else pinned across
it. "That's right, that's right!" the Sub-Warden exclaimed, "that's the
way to cut the ground from under the Radicals! Philpotts was right; it's
a question of drink, not of politics."
And so he got down from his tricycle and went in for a moment. Dazed by
the heat and light, he stood still and stared about. The orator also
stopped and stared at him. There were bright texts of Scripture and
temperance mottoes on the walls; but the Sub-Warden kept gazing at these
words, "The Lord is at Hand," hung in large letters over the orator's
head. But this orator was Thomas Woolley, his own pupil! Soon it all
seemed clear to him. Woolley was known as a Temperance speaker, and here
he had come to hold a meeting in a little village. The Sub-Warden
applauded, and Woolley began to speak again. But as he gasped a good
deal, and stuttered, the Sub-Warden could only catch phrases here and
there--cold remnants, they seemed to be, of what must have been written
as a fiery peroration. "The down-trodden--I mean the inactive ... the
great heart of humanity--and--and--things--.... Now is the time for
hand to join in hand, and rush to the banner--I mean, it would be better
if you would sign your names."
("That's the pledge-book," the Sub-Warden thought. "Yes, I dare say it's
right; you could not preach moderate drinking to labourers.")
"Deliver yourself from the classes--that--that profit by your
weakness...."
("That's the public-house keepers," the Sub-Warden reflected. "But why
does he call them classes?")
Woolley stared hard at the notes which he gripped in his hand, and then
he turned and pointed at a place at the back of the platform, which he
called "the Future," and began to speak about a model dwelling, a cow,
and a vine and fig-tree; then his voice sank, and he wavered and sat
down.
"He expects a good deal from Temperance," the Sub-Warden thought; "what
a thing it is to be young!" And he applauded with vigour, such vigour
that several rustics in the audience turned and fixed him with their
ruminating eyes. Then the Sub-Warden rose (he never spoke in public, but
as he had interrupted this meeting!), rose with dignity and internal
tremors, and made a few smiling remarks; nothing very definite, for,
after all, he was not a total abstainer; just his sympathy with the
speech of his young friend, his entire approval of the objects of the
meeting, his regret that academic duties held him back from a more
active participation in the work.... But if there was anything that
he or the College authorities could do to forward the cause--he believed
that their College owned land in the neighbourhood--they must not
hesitate to call upon him. Then a mild joke, and he sat down and wiped
his face.
Certainly his speech was a great success. Woolley stared wildly at him,
but the audience applauded with vigour, and, as they were giving three
cheers for "the old College gentleman," the Sub-Warden slipped modestly
out. It was hot in there, and they might be handing pledge-books about.
The mood in which he rode home was a pleasant one. Really he had never
heard applause that was quite so warm, so evidently sincere, so
spontaneous. There had been nothing like it when the Warden of St.
Mary's had spoken at the Corn Exchange. And Temperance was such a dull
subject! It was a bore, of course, for a man who loved his quiet to find
he had the power of moving an audience; but still, if the Radicals were
working so hard, the other side must come forward.
The Sub-Warden went back into College, and, as he was walking across the
quadrangle, he heard a tumult of cheers and cries burst out on the
moon-lit stillness of the night. He started--the sounds fitted in so
well with his dreams! But, of course, it was a Debating Society; and the
window being open, the Sub-Warden went up and listened in his new
quality of an amateur. A small young man, with a round face and deep
voice, was thumping on a table. "What is the meaning, the outcome of
this agitation? It is putting blood into the mouth of a
tiger"--(applause)--"and when once the tiger has tasted blood, has
tasted property that is not his own, it demands more, and it will have
it! Yes, sir," he said, turning with a fierce look at the good-natured
president of the society, "mark my words, when the poor have divided,
like the tiger, everything there is to be divided; when there is nothing
left to feed their rage, then, sir, they will turn and rend
themselves--like the tiger!"
Great shouts of applause roared through the window, and the bald-headed
old gentleman listening outside smiled an indulgent smile. But as the
speaker went on, denouncing more definitely the Radical agitators, and
even Woolley, by name, the smile faded from the Sub-Warden's face. It
must have been a Temperance meeting; and yet--and yet--"Temperance" had
been printed on the poster--but hadn't there been something pinned over
that, something which he hadn't read? The Sub-Warden looked about. He
could see one or two towers against the faint sky, and near each College
tower was a Common Room, and in each Common Room the Fellows sat after
dinner, telling stories. But suppose he had really spoken at a meeting
which--which wasn't a Temperance meeting, and the Bursar should hear of
it!
The Sub-Warden lurked about in the quadrangle, holding his hat in his
hand, and spying out for Woolley. He came at last.
"Good evening, Woolley," he said, "you have come from the Temperance
meeting?"
"Oh, sir, it wasn't a Temperance meeting, that was the night before!"
"Oh!" said the Sub-Warden, coldly.
"No, sir, it was a different meeting; in fact, the Radical League. I was
so afraid--"
"What! Then it was very wrong of you, Woolley, to give me to understand
it was a Temperance meeting."
"Oh, please, sir--"
"Don't try to explain it, it admits of no explanation," the Sub-Warden
said severely. "I should be sorry to get you into trouble, Woolley, but
if this should get to be known, I couldn't answer for the consequences.
I shall take no steps personally to make it known, and I should advise
you to mention it to no one--to no one at all, do you understand?
It's--it's nothing to be proud of."
He walked indignantly away; and, indeed, for the moment his words had
made him feel really indignant. But when, on turning a corner, he
glanced back and saw the honest Woolley still standing there, he
hesitated. Should he return and explain? He took a step back, then he
thought of the Bursar, and, with a sudden, sinking fear he went quickly
to his room.
_Idyll_
I.
"I wish they hadn't asked me," said Matthew Craik, the Logic tutor of
St. Mary's, as he looked down at the party in the old secluded College
garden. "I wonder," he added, glancing at the reflection of his red tie
in the glass, his new tie, his black coat, his young and scholarly face,
"I wonder--but no, it isn't too red; they wear them red," he continued,
with attempted cheerfulness. "No--," but hearing the laughter of ladies
below his window, he scuttled back hastily.
His rooms were high up in the garden tower, almost up amongst the
topmost boughs of the College elms; and when, after a moment, he
returned to his window and peered down, he could see, through the green
of the trees, the white and pink of ladies' dresses, dappling the lawn,
and moving and meeting on the College paths. Among the summer leaves the
summer wind was breathing; now and then it blew in at the window, laden
with scents from the garden, and the happy stir and hum of human voices;
and Matthew Craik, or the Corn-Craik, as the undergraduates called him,
felt his heart beating high with an unwonted emotion of youth and
excitement.
The early philosophers of Asia Minor were very remarkable and suggestive
men; but they had lived a long while ago, and now that he had finished
and published his book about them, he meant to enjoy himself a little.
And what shallow wisdom it was, moreover, to live in the almost solitary
way he had been living all the winter. All the winter! All his life
really; wasting his youth among books, and almost shut out from
everything that is light and amiable in experience. Why, the greenest of
his undergraduate pupils might easily know more of modern life than he
did.
"Oh, don't harp so on modern life!" his friend Ranken, the junior Dean
of St. Thomas', often said to him in his acrid way. "Do for pity's sake
leave it alone and stick to your Asia Minor."
But then Ranken was absurdly cynical. Craik recalled with amusement some
of the remarks he had made during the winter, when they walked out
together for their Sunday walks; remembering how, as they returned in
the dusk through the red fringe of villas between Oxford and the
country, Ranken had sometimes paused opposite an uncurtained window, and
made merry, with bitter merriment, over the domestic picture they saw in
the golden light within,--a family at tea very likely, or an academic
parent romping with his children. Craik had always listened in
uncontradicting silence; only, standing in the chill gray of the
twilight, he would draw his coat about him more tightly; and afterwards,
alone in his rooms, these visions would sometimes haunt him, and not
unpleasantly.
As he looked down now, it was agreeable to him to see so many ladies in
the old garden; he had never quite believed that Ranken had very
authentic grounds for his narrow prejudice. For Ranken would have liked
to shut ladies out of Oxford altogether; and would have liked to keep it
a tranquil home of learning and celibacy, as it used to be before the
Royal Commission had granted the Fellows the liberty of marrying. For
this unblest liberty, he maintained, had filled the University with
frivolity and ladies, and so destroyed the old character of the place
that now, as was notorious, the whole of the Summer Term, with a good
part of the rest of the academic year, was given over to dances, and
picnics, and parties, and other silly and deteriorating trifles. Craik
had not been able to contradict his friend, for hitherto the sounds and
echoes of this social dissipation had hardly reached his retired corner,
save as he had heard them reverberating through the gloomy caverns of
Ranken's imagination. But he could not quite believe--here Craik began
to laugh, for his eye at that moment was caught by the gargoyle just
above him, which was also leaning over and looking into the sunshiny
garden. For hundreds of years it had sat there making faces, but now its
visage seemed more than ever twisted with a look of Gothic cynicism. As
Craik lingered, looking out, himself almost like a second gargoyle, he
thought he could see in the garden below two ladies of his acquaintance,
Mrs. Cotton and Mrs. Trotter. How ridiculous Ranken was in his views!
almost as grotesque as the gargoyle. Craik took his hat and stick, and
started downstairs. He would see for himself.
II.
It was very worldly and very brilliant in the garden. Beside a crowd of
ladies and young men, three Professors and two Heads of Houses had
already arrived, and others were expected.
Mr. White, Mr. Long, and Mr. Maple Fetters, the young unmarried Fellows
who were giving the party, kept glancing toward the gateway, over the
shoulders of their arriving guests--all smiles, however, as they greeted
their friends with apposite remarks. On tables under the trees white
cloths were spread, looking almost blue in the vivid green, and on them
were plates of red strawberries, ancient silver bowls of sugar, and dewy
jugs of lemonade. Sounds of discreet gaiety, voices and laughter, and
the tinkling of glasses, quickened the sleepy silence of the garden;
while from beneath a high and fleecy cloud the rays of the westering sun
brightened the tree-tops and walls, lingered on the ladies' dresses, and
streaked with blue shadows the old green lawn. It put Craik in mind of
old coloured French pictures he had seen, or the courtly fêtes he had
read of; he thought, too, of the garden party in "_Love's Cottage_," a
pretty novel he had looked at lately, the party where Miss Molyneux
first meets Pastorel the poet.
He kept smiling as he moved about, but he really felt rather shy and
alien; if he only knew more people, and could be seen laughing and
talking and moving his hands, like the other young men!
He came across one of his pupils at last, and began to speak to him of
the recent boat-races in an animated way. But the undergraduate moved
off suddenly, with a hasty excuse, to join some ladies who had just
arrived, and Craik heard himself observing to a bush that "Brazenose had
rowed very well." The observation, he felt, was not brilliant, even for
conversation with a freshman; but as a fragment of soliloquy! He looked
round; no one could have overheard him? Soon he met his friend, Mrs.
Cotton, the wife of Professor Cotton, and he begged to be allowed to get
her an ice, or some other refreshment. The pink ice and biscuit were
inadequate, it struck him, as he carried them with care toward the large
presence of Mrs. Cotton; but was not this inadequacy, after all, of a
piece with the delicious and conventional unreality of an affair like
this? He noticed a brilliant purple feather conspicuously waving from
the top of Mrs. Cotton's bonnet, and was glad that everything was so
bright. How pleasant it was on a summer day, how pleasant and harmless
to play brilliantly at life! And, he thought with a smile, did not old
Aristotle himself place Magnificence high among the virtues?
But Maple Fetters still had his anxious eye-glass fixed on the garden
entrance.
"Miss Lamb--has Miss Lamb come?" Craik heard voices murmuring about
him.
"No, not yet, but she's coming. Just heard Maple Fetters telling some
one."
"Long says he can't understand it. In her note she said--"
"So quiet, so different!"
"They say in London--"
"Oh, yes; and here everybody, Professors, Heads of Houses. It's too
amusing--"
"Well, she says she wants to study all the types."
"Ah, look, there she comes!"
Craik turned with the others, and saw Miss Lamb coming in through the
Gothic archway. Her face was shaded with a large white hat, and her
white dress, falling in long plain lines to her feet, brightened with
the sun as she walked over the grass, out of the shadow of the building.
Long and Maple Fetters started forward, and escorted Miss Lamb and her
aunt across the lawn. They drew near to Craik and Mrs. Cotton.
"Oh, there is Mrs. Cotton," Miss Lamb exclaimed, and turned towards
them. "Dear Mrs. Cotton," she said, "I was so hoping I should see you
here!"
Craik looked at Miss Lamb. She rested her eyes on him for a second, then
pressing Mrs. Cotton's hand, she stooped down with a graceful impulse
and kissed the fat old thing. Craik overheard Mrs. Lyon, the wife of the
president of All Saints, talking to the Warden of St. Simon's.
"Dear Miss Lamb!" she said in a deep and sentimental voice; "she is just
as nice to women as she is to men."
"She is much nicer, surely," the ancient Warden replied with a cackling
laugh; "she never kissed me!"
Miss Lamb had disappeared. And Mrs. Cotton was busy discussing with
philanthropic friends the affairs of Oxford charities.
"These Oxford parties are so nice," she said to Craik, as she turned her
benevolent spectacles away from him; "they save one writing such heaps
of notes."
Again Craik walked about alone, smiling and conspicuous; and although he
tried to think that he was enjoying himself, he really wished very much
to be up in his tower again, up there in its pleasant green shade and
solitude. That, after all, was his place, the only place he was fit for;
and he had better stick to it, and stick to his books, and not cast
again the gloom of his presence on the social enjoyment of other more
fortunate people. For he could not talk agreeably, and laugh and be gay;
and, even if he could, which of the ladies who swept so prettily past
him on the grass would ever care to listen to him? Thus resignedly
musing, he retreated into the near shade of a laburnum tree, and,
ceasing to smile in his fixed and weary way, he watched through the
flowering branches the shining colours and placid agitation of the
garden party. All the men except himself were moving among the groups of
ladies, weaving darker threads into the brilliant pattern. Young Cobbe
he saw, the captain of the College boat club, walking with Miss Lamb,
walking and talking pleasantly, and he sighed; for although he was
Cobbe's tutor, and well versed in his stupidity, he could not help
envying the easy manners of the undergraduate.
But the half-real picture ceased to be a mere picture to him, and the
sequence of images grew almost too vivid, when he noticed that Miss Lamb
and her companion were coming directly to his tree. Could he manage to
slip away without being seen? She was coming probably to pick a spray of
the yellow flower to put in her white dress, or carry away perhaps as a
memory of the party. And if he were found standing there like a
policeman, it would be so awkward.
Miss Lamb fortunately met Maple Fetters, and, stopping herself, seemed
to be sending him on to the tree alone. When he reached it, he pushed
aside the branches and said, with a smile, "I say, Craik, I want to
introduce you to Miss Lamb."
"Me?"
"Yes, you. We saw you here; she wants to meet you."
"Wants to meet _me_?"
"Yes, _you_. Come along."
Craik came out from beneath the tree.
"Miss Lamb--does she live in Oxford?"
"You don't mean to tell me you've never heard of Miss Lamb?" Fetters
paused in astonishment. "You must be the only man in Oxford then who has
not. Miss Lamb is an American!"
"An American?" Craik had heard that American ladies were so brilliant.
"Miss Lamb, let me introduce Mr. Craik, our philosopher."
"Mr. Craik, I am glad to meet you."
Craik bowed; then he saw that Miss Lamb had put out her hand; he tried
to take it, but was too late. The American young lady however smiled,
and put out her hand again, and gave it to him frankly, almost as if it
were a present.
"We ought to shake hands, oughtn't we? It's the English way, isn't it?"
Craik stifled a guffaw, and his awkward sensations began to go.
"Mr. Cobbe, would you mind getting me an ice?"
Cobbe's face wore an odd expression as he bowed and disappeared. Maple
Fetters fluttered off to other occupations. Craik and Miss Lamb were
left alone, and they began to walk with vague steps, and, on the lady's
part, vague, unfinished scraps of conversation, through the sunshine
along the garden path. Then stopping, and resting her hands on her
parasol, she said, as if they were old friends already, "I wonder--would
you take me into your old College cloisters? I have heard so much about
them, and it wouldn't be wrong for us to run away from the party for
just a few minutes? I should so love to! You won't mind?"
"Oh dear, no!" Craik exclaimed. "Certainly we can go. It's through the
quadrangle. But Mr. Cobbe, will he find you?"
"Oh, he'll know where I am; and if he doesn't it's no matter. Come!"
They went under the garden tower, and through the little old quadrangle,
into the entrance of the cloisters. Of the history and traditions of the
place, and of the whole College, Craik spoke almost with eloquence,
while Miss Lamb listened with murmurs and interruptions of enthusiastic
interest. The cloisters, as he explained, were once the cloisters of a
monastery; the tower was the monastery tower; and the bell that hung
there, and twice a day rang the College into chapel, was the bell that
once sounded for the matins and vespers of the monks.
"What! monks? Did monks really once live here? Oh, how I should have
liked to have seen it then!"
"Ah, but you couldn't, you know. They never allowed ladies inside the
gates."
"How silly!"
"Yes," Craik said, smiling, "wasn't it silly?"
They walked with slow steps around the shadowed cloisters, and Miss Lamb
talked idly of the party. It was such a pretty party, so amusing. Did he
often go to garden parties? No! How odd! She did--to ever so many, in
America, in London, and now in Oxford. The Oxford parties were the best
though. Then suddenly she cried in a changed voice, "But how frivolous I
am, Mr. Craik! I can see that you are quite shocked."
"Shocked! oh no, not at all."
"Well, then, you ought to be! Imagine being so frivolous in a solemn
place like this. Tell me, you study philosophy, don't you? It must be
splendid; I do envy you so! When I am in a place like Oxford I feel so
frivolous, somehow, and ignorant. Why, I feel afraid--" Then after a
moment's charming hesitation, "Yes, quite afraid to talk to clever
people. You mustn't mind what I say, will you?"
"But I'm not clever!" he exclaimed. "Why--"
"Oh, but Mr. Craik! Why, you've written a book!"
"But that's nothing. And it's only a sort of study, nothing really."
"I wish I could read it."
"Oh no! don't try; it's a stupid thing, only meant for students."
Miss Lamb paused, and, turning her eyes to Craik with a look full of
reproach, she said: "Ah! you are like the others, you don't think I am
serious; you think I would not understand it!"
"Oh no, not that!" Craik urged in quick distress. "You would understand
it, of course, what there is to understand. I only meant," he
stammered, "I only meant that it was not well written, not
interesting--not really worth reading, I mean."
"Oh, I'm sure it is worth reading, and I hear it's so clever. It is
about Asia Minor, isn't it. Asia Minor is so interesting; I wish you
would tell me something about it, and about your work. Do you like it
here? Of course you do. Have you been in Oxford long?"
For a third time they passed round the cloister square, loitering with
slow footsteps, through the old arches and past the epitaphs of the
ancient celibate Fellows, and Craik, talking with an unreserve that was
intimate and sudden, and yet somehow seemed quite natural to him, told
about his work, and the writing of his book. Then, in answer to a
question of Miss Lamb's, he described his quiet bringing up in an
obsolete old town where his parents were tradespeople; his early
schooling, how he had come to Oxford on a scholarship, and how he had
stayed there ever since, living in the same College, his parents having
died, and the Logic tutorship being offered to him just when he had
taken his degree. So he seemed to have lived a long while there, in that
sleepy old College, within its high walls and buildings: as an
undergraduate first, busy and almost solitary, save for a few friends
similar to himself; then as a tutor, still more busy with his work, and
still more solitary; and above all, during the last few years, when all
his thought and leisure had been given to his book on Ionic
philosophers. How many years was it altogether? Eight; no, ten. And
then, as she seemed to be really interested, he gave a sketch, half
humorous and half serious, of his life in College, his amusements, his
walks with Ranken. A bare, monastic life it seemed to himself when he
came to describe it. So little to tell of in so many years; and how long
ago it seemed!
"But dear me!" Craik exclaimed at last, with a blush, "I don't think I
have ever talked so much of myself before. It sounds rather dull, I'm
afraid."
Miss Lamb stopped for a moment.
"Dull, Mr. Craik," she cried, "oh no, I think it is noble! To have
achieved so much already. You don't know how I have been interested!
Only it is so--I mean it makes me seem so--so--. I suppose you hate
women."
"Oh no--_no_!"
"I mean look down on them, despise them."
"No! why I--"
"I'm afraid you really do, only you're too polite to say so. You don't
think, do you, that they could understand philosophy?"
"Of course they could, quite as well as we do, if they would only try."
"Do you think it would be any use my trying? Really, do you really? I
should so love to, if it would be of any use. You know, I have always
wanted to understand about it, and there is hardly anyone in the world I
admire so much as the philosophers. They are the real leaders of the
world--Socrates, and Emerson, and Herbert Spencer. And a frivolous life
like mine seems sometimes so--; But then people will never believe I am
in earnest, and they all make fun of me and discourage me so. Perhaps
they are right; but I have never had any one to help me."
"Oh, I am sure they are wrong!" Craik cried. "If you would only try. Do
you think I could--could help you?"
"Oh, you are too kind! And perhaps, if you wouldn't mind coming to see
me some afternoon to talk to me about it. And maybe you would bring
your book; I should so love to see it! And then if you would let me look
at one or two of your lectures, those you have for just the stupidest of
your pupils. No! don't tell me I'm not stupid, for I am, I assure you.
And I have no right to ask you to come; you are so busy."
"Oh, but I should be only too delighted! If I may; if you don't think I
should be a--with ladies, you know, I am always so afraid of being a
bore."
She smiled at him.
"Ah, you do yourself injustice, Mr. Craik. Indeed you do! But come," she
added suddenly, "we must be going back to the garden. How I hate to
leave this dear old cloister!"
"Must we really go?"
"Yes, we really must. Isn't it horrid, when you have had such an
interesting talk, to have to go back and say stupid and silly things to
stupid and silly people?"
They left the cloisters and, crossing the quadrangle, they stopped for a
moment, and looked at the blue picture set in an archway of grey walls,
the blue picture of the afternoon light and air in the depth and
distance of the garden.
"How pretty! It's like,--what is it like?"
"Like standing in the past, and looking into the present?" Craik
romantically suggested.
"Yes, it's like that. But I mean the people, the way they look so far
off and blue, as if they were under water. There's something else it
reminds me of."
"A tank at an aquarium, when you look through the plate glass?"
"Yes, it _is_ like that, really!"
"With Professors and Heads of Houses swimming about like old fat carp."
"Oh, Mr. Craik, how can you? For shame!"
She paused again when she got through the archway.
"Tell me, Mr. Craik," she said, "is this the tower you live in? And
the gargoyle you told me about? I should so like to see him. He
must be charming. That face up there, peering over the roof? Oh yes,
I see. How too delightful! My! isn't that quaint? Just think, he
looks back on the past, and on the present, and on the town; and it
symbolizes--symbolizes--Life, doesn't it?"
"Yes,--perhaps it does," Craik said rather dubiously.
"He hasn't exactly a kind expression," said Miss Lamb, looking up
again.
"No," Craik answered, looking up himself and laughing. "That's his way.
Then to-day he's shocked at seeing so many ladies here. He doesn't like
ladies, you know."
"How horrid of him! Why, what harm can we do here?"
"Harm! Why, Miss Lamb," Craik said with quaint politeness, "your visits
are our greatest blessings!"
Craik knew the old garden well, he thought, and he had certainly been in
it in all weathers. But to-day it came over him that he had never seen
the place before looking so oddly green and shining. Certainly, when he
and Ranken had walked there--poor Ranken! Craik smiled a little.
"What are you smiling at?" Miss Lamb asked.
"Smiling?" Craik said in embarrassment. "Why, was I smiling?"
"Certainly you were. It is strange, really it is, how much you are like
a friend of mine in America. The way you smile reminds me so much of
him. Really it is quite funny, the resemblance. But perhaps you don't
like to be told you look like other people?"
"Oh yes, I do." Then he added, after a pause, with desperate and awkward
courage, "if they are friends of yours."
Miss Lamb did not seem to notice either his compliment or his blush.
"How odd you should know Mr. Ranken," she said musingly. "I've not seen
him lately. Is he as sentimental as ever?"
"Ranken of St. Thomas'! Why, he's not sentimental. It must be someone
else."
"He used to be then; I'm sure it is Mr. Ranken of St. Thomas'. I met him
last summer at Dieppe. We went on picnics. But, Mr. Craik," she added,
laughing, "really this garden is like Paradise! The undergraduates must
fancy they have got back into the Garden of Eden."
"Indeed you would think so," said Craik, "from the way they avoid the
tree of knowledge! They are so much cleverer than Adam."
They were in the midst of the party now, and Craik was proud, though
somewhat embarrassed, with the attention they attracted, and Mrs.
Cotton's smiles of obvious encouragement. Indeed he was almost glad when
Cobbe joined them and, planting himself in front of Miss Lamb,
exclaimed, "Well, Miss Lamb, well! Here I've been waiting half-an-hour
with this ice, it's melted into soup."
"I'm so sorry," Miss Lamb cried. "Come, let's get another." Then she
turned her eyes to Craik and said, giving him her hand in her friendly
manner, "Good-bye, Mr. Craik, good-bye; you won't forget? To-morrow,
isn't it?"
III.
Craik took off his hat; wiped his forehead; tried to get rid of some of
the dust on his boots, and then he rang the bell.
"Is Miss Lamb at home?"
"Yes, sir; Miss Lamb is in the garden."
Entering, Craik saw a number of hats and sticks in the hall. Miss Lamb,
he thought, must have several brothers. He put down his stick, and the
book with it, after a moment's hesitation; that was better, he would
leave it there and would come and fetch it when the conversation turned
that way. Then, buttoning up his black coat over the lecture notes that
filled his pocket, he followed the servant through the house out into
the little garden. It was full of strong sunlight, and there were
several undergraduates there. One was up in a tree; Cobbe lay in a
hammock smoking, and another of Craik's pupils lay on the grass at Miss
Lamb's feet, rolling lemons. He stopped for a moment.
"Oh Mr. Corn--Mr. Craik, I mean," Miss Lamb called out in a friendly
voice, "I am so glad to see you."
Craik advanced with an awkward smile, and Miss Lamb reached out her
right hand most cordially. In her left hand she held a lemon-squeezer.
"How good of you to come! And isn't it hot? Exactly like America, I've
been saying. We've just come out into the garden without our hats. Won't
you sit down on that rug, if you don't mind? Oh, I nearly forgot; let me
introduce you to my aunt, Mrs. Stacey. I guess you know everybody else."
Craik shook hands with a lady who was sitting and knitting in an arbour,
nodded to the undergraduates, and then settled down on a rug in the
sunshine. How he wished that he had not decided at the last moment to
wear a tall hat and a long coat! The undergraduates were all in
flannels.
Miss Lamb spoke of the garden party.
"Your lovely college! It is _too_ ideal; it is like a dream. And the
cloisters too! You don't know how solemn it made me feel. Now, you
needn't laugh, Mr. Cobbe, I really did feel solemn--more solemn, I
guess, than you have ever been. Gracious, it _is_ hot!" she added, with
a sudden change of subject. "Mr. Craik, let me give you some of this
lemon squash; I made it myself."
"Thanks! I shall be most pleased to have some." Craik's voice seemed to
himself to be formal, and his phrase pedantic.
"Oh, but what was I saying?" Miss Lamb went on, looking at the company
generally.
"You were telling us how solemn you were," Cobbe suggested. "Wasn't it
rather a new experience?"
"Now, Mr. Cobbe, what a horrid thing to say," she replied, with great
good-nature. "You're his tutor, Mr. Craik, aren't you? Well, next time
you have a chance, I hope you'll set him some real horrid work to do.
I'm sure he needs it."
Miss Lamb said this casually, with a pleasant laugh, as she fanned
herself. No one answered; Craik, and even Cobbe coloured, and the
undergraduate in the tree suppressed a titter.
But Mrs. Stacey at this moment asked by happy chance some question of
Craik, addressing him as "Professor Craik," in her high American voice,
and he hastened to answer her with effusion.
"Oh, I say," one of the undergraduates exclaimed, "that was a splendid
score of yours, Miss Lamb, off the Warden. Perhaps you've not heard it,
Mr. Craik, the joke about the Garden of Eden?" he said, turning to
Craik, who had come to an end of his conversation with Mrs. Stacey. "The
Warden was showing Miss Lamb the garden, when she said to him, 'Why it
is like the Garden of Eden here, Mr. Warden; only I suppose you are
wiser than Adam, and don't disturb the Tree of Knowledge.'"
"My dear," Mrs. Stacey cried, "you didn't really speak so to the sweet
old Warden?"
"But, I say," Cobbe exclaimed, "how's this, Miss Lamb? Long and Maple
Fetters tell that story as having been got off them, and they seemed to
think that they rather scored off you."
"They didn't a bit; they were only silly!"
"Then you did get it off on them?"
"No, I didn't."
"Oh, now, that explains," another undergraduate interposed, "that
explains the story Mrs. Cotton was trying to tell. It seemed, as she
told it, to have no point at all. 'Mr. Warden,' she made you say, 'Mr.
Warden, you have a lovely garden here, but I am told you never pick the
fruit.' 'The Warden, you know, is so particular about his figs,' Mrs.
Cotton added, 'it is quite a joke with all the Fellows.'"
Miss Lamb was silent. After a little while, however, when a few other
anecdotes of Mrs. Cotton had been told, and they came to the well-known
story of that lady and the cow in St. Giles's, she began to smile, and
before long was quite consumed with merriment, for a siphon of
soda-water, fizzing off by mistake in the hands of one of the
undergraduates, had sprinkled itself over Cobbe.
"You did that on purpose, Galpin, I know you did," he cried, jumping out
of the hammock and shaking himself.
"Oh, no, he didn't!" Miss Lamb said, shaking with laughter. "Indeed, I'm
sure he wouldn't for worlds!"
Her attention was then taken by the youth up in the tree, who had been
throwing down leaves and bits of sticks on the heads of the party below.
A piece of bark falling into the jug of lemon squash, Miss Lamb feigned
great wrath and indignation.
"I wanted to give Mr. Craik some more; but oh, you haven't drunk what
you have! Isn't it sweet enough for you?"
"It is just right, thank you," he said, and he took up the glass, tepid
now from standing in the sun, and was just going to drink it, when the
young lady cried: "Oh, wait a moment, please; there's a poor little
insect tumbled into it. Dear little thing! Do take it out--oh, be
careful! I can't bear to see anything suffer."
Craik fished the insect out of the lemonade with a blade of grass, and
Miss Lamb, putting it down on the ground, poked it tenderly in aid of
its moist attempts to crawl away. Ultimately Craik rose from his
uncomfortable posture on the ground. It was a long while, it seemed to
him, that he had been sitting there, smiling and solemn in the sunshine,
and casting about in his mind for an excuse to go; while the others he
envied so--the youth perched up in the tree, Miss Lamb fanning herself
and squeezing lemons, Cobbe smoking and slowly swinging in the hammock,
laughed and lazily talked, as if their life was one afternoon of endless
Arcadian leisure. But Craik had a morbid sense that his shadow, which he
glanced at now and then, had been growing, almost as if he were
swelling, he and his top hat, and casting a larger shade on the little
garden.
"Well, I must be going! We college tutors, you know," he said, feeling
pretty stiff in body and mind, but attempting nevertheless a little
jauntiness of air.
"Oh, but, Mr. Craik, you mustn't go now!" Miss Lamb cried, "really you
mustn't. Why, we're all going up the river to have late tea at Godstow,
and come home by moonlight; and I'm going to take my banjo. I hoped you
would come with us!"
"I'm sorry, but I must be back."
"Well, I'm really sorry, too; I am, indeed. You must come again." She
held his hand in hers for a second, and there was something appealing in
her manner. "Now you will come again, won't you? It's--it's rather hot
just to-day for philosophy, isn't it?" she added, her face brightening
with a friendly and apologetic smile.
Craik found his hat and stick, but not his book, in the hall.
"I've left a book here," he said to the maid.
"Oh, I beg your pardon, sir, I thought it was for Miss Lamb, so I put it
on the shelf where she puts the other university gentlemen's books that
they sends. I'll go and bring it, sir."
"Is this it?" she called from a neighbouring room--"'Elements of
Pishcology?'"
"No," said Craik, hurriedly; "it's about Asia Minor. 'Life and Thought
in--'"
"'In Hearly Asia Minor,' sir?"
"Yes, that's mine," Craik answered, in a voice that was not without a
touch of melancholy.
_Buller Intervening_
As Vaughan was walking towards the underground station one of those
bleak mornings last winter, he saw, coming the same way, a man who had
been at College in his time--one Buller by name; and Buller, when he
caught sight of Vaughan, began to smile, but when they met, he
exclaimed, in a mock mournful voice, "I say, have you heard about poor
Crabbe?"
"You mean his political speech, when his spectacles were smashed, and he
had to take to the woods?" asked Vaughan, beating his hands and
stamping, for the cold was bitter.
"Oh no, that's ancient. I mean"--and Buller's voice broke with
laughter--"I mean his engagement!"
"Crabbe! oh, nonsense!"
"Gospel fact, I'll take my oath on it. Fancy Crabbe!" and again his
laughter froze into white puffs of breath about his head. They went into
the station together, and bought their tickets. Crabbe engaged! Vaughan
tried to picture him as an accepted lover. Poor Crabbe! They had all
hoped that his Fellowship and his work on the metres of Catullus would
keep him out of mischief. But they might have known--those prize
fellows, with so much time on their hands; and Crabbe above all, with
his fixed idea that he was cut out for a man of action!
"But tell me about Crabbe," Vaughan said, as they waited on the
platform; "have you seen him?"
"Oh yes. The other day I ran up to have a look at the 'Torpid.' It's all
right now."
"The Torpid?"
"No; I mean about Crabbe."
"You think it's a good match, then?"
"Good match! No, I mean that I went and talked to him myself."
"And he was engaged?"
"He _was_," said Buller, laughing; "poor old beast!" The train drew in,
and when they had taken their seats, Buller leaned over, and, with a low
voice, went on telling his story in Vaughan's ear. "You see, I went up
to Oxford, and down at the barge Blunt tells me about old Crabbe; and
when I go into College the first person I meet is the Dean, looking as
chirpy as ever. How those old parsons do keep it up!
"'Well, sir,' says I, 'and what do you think of Crabbe's engagement?'
"'Perfect rot,' says the Dean. 'The girl had no money; how were they
going to live? Crabbe would have to chuck his Catullus--everything.'
"'How did it happen?' I asked. 'Crabbe never used to be sweet on the
ladies.' 'No; but in reading Catullus, Crabbe had got some ideas,' the
Dean said, with a kind of wink."
Here Vaughan could not help interrupting the story. "Come, Buller," he
whispered, "it must have been Blunt who said that. The old Dean couldn't
talk in that way."
But Buller felt sure it was the Dean. "You see, you don't know the old
boy; he's quite another person with me. Anyhow, that's the way Crabbe
got into it. And he went on, the Dean said, to read all sorts of other
poetry, especially that man--what you may call him? They had a
society--"
"Browning?"
"Yes, that's the man. Well, Crabbe thought it all very fine and
exciting, the Dean said; he used to read them Browning in the Common
Room, and there was one thing he seemed specially taken with--Browning's
theory of love."
"What was that?" Vaughan asked, for it was a joy to hear Buller talking
of literature.
"Well," Buller whispered, "you see this man Browning hates all your
shilly-shallying about; he thinks that when you fall in love, you ought
to go your whole pile, even if you come a cropper after. It's all rot,
of course, the Dean said; but poor Crabbe thought it was real, and went
and proposed to a young woman he had met once or twice. So there he
was, engaged! And he seemed to think himself the hell of a duke, the
Dean said; but everyone else in Oxford thought he was making a bl--"
"Oh, Buller," Vaughan interposed, "really, you mustn't put such words
into the Dean's mouth!"
"Well, I don't quite remember the old boy's lingo, but, at any rate, the
Dean thought Crabbe was making a fool of himself. 'I think I can settle
it,' says I to the Dean. 'I wish you would,' said the Dean; so off I go
to Crabbe's rooms. He came in just as I got there; I wish you could have
seen him--a frock-coat, top-hat, flower in his button-hole, his hair
plastered down. And only last year, it was, that he got up as a
Socialist, with a red silk handkerchief in his hat! But now he shook
hands with me up in the air; was most affable and condescending; assured
me he was glad to see his old pals--especially friends from London.
Oxford people were very well in their way, but narrow, and rather
donnish. Didn't I notice it in coming from London?
"Well, this was almost too much from Crabbe, but I thought it would be
more sport to draw him out a bit. So we got to talking; I didn't let on
I knew he was engaged, but after a bit I began to talk about marriage
and love and all that in a general sort of way. Old Crabbe swallows it
all, talks a lot of literary stuff. 'Fall in love, Buller,' says he,
'fall in love, and live! Let me read you what thing-a-majig says,' and
he gets down a book--who did you say he was? Browning, yes, that's the
man--he gets down a book of Browning's and begins to read--you ought to
have seen him, his face got pink; and at the end he says, with a proud
smile, as if the poem was all about him, 'Isn't that ripping, Buller,
isn't that brave, isn't that the way to take life!'
"'Do you mind if I smoke?' said I.
"'Smoke? Oh, do certainly,' and Crabbe sits down looking rather foolish.
But after a moment, he says in an easy sort of way, 'Ah, I meant to ask
you about all the chaps in London--getting on all right? any of them
married?'
"'Married!' says I, 'O Lord, no; _they_ don't want to dish themselves.'
"'Dish themselves,' says Crabbe, 'why, what do you mean?'
"'I mean what I say; if you get married without any money, you're
dished, that's all--I mean practical people, who want to get on.'
"Then Crabbe began to talk big; one shouldn't care only for success--it
might be practical, perhaps, but he did not mean to sacrifice the
greatest thing in life for money.
"'The greatest thing in life--what's that?'"
Buller laughed so loudly at this part of his story, that the other
people in the carriage began to stare at him and Vaughan. So he went on
in a lower whisper. "'What's that?' says I.
"'I mean,' says Crabbe, 'why, what I have been talking about.'
"'Well, what is it?'
"'What I was saying a little while ago.'
"'But you talked too fast--I couldn't catch it; give us the tip, out
with it.'
"'I mean love, passion,' says he.
"'What? say it again.'
"'Well, I mean--and it's always said that love--the poets--'
"'The who?'
"'The poets.'" Again Buller laughed out loud.
"'Oh, poets!' says I, 'I thought you said porters. Poets! so you've
been reading poets, have you? but you oughtn't to believe all that--why,
they don't mean it themselves; they write it because they're expected
to, but it's all faked up--I know how it's done.'
"Old Crabbe begins to talk in his big way. I let him go on for a while,
but then I said, 'See here, Crabbe, it's all very well to read that
literary stuff, and I suppose it's what you're paid for doing. But don't
go and think it's all true, because it isn't, and the sooner you know it
the better.' 'There was a man I knew once,' says I, 'who got fearfully
let in by just this sort of thing; Oxford don too, Fellow of Queen's
named Peake; took to reading poetry; he went to Brighton in the Long,
with his head full of it all. Wild sea waves, the moon and all the rest
of it; and back comes Peake married; had to turn out of his College
rooms, went to live at the other end of nowhere, stuffy little house,
full of babies, had to work like a nigger, beastly work too; coached me
for Smalls, that's how I know him; no time for moon and sea waves now;
and it all came from reading poetry.'
"Old Crabbe begins to sit up at this. 'But I don't see,' he says, 'I
don't see why--didn't he have his Fellowship money?'
"'But you don't suppose that's going to support a wife and a lot of
children.'
"'Oh, if he had children,' says Crabbe, and the old boy begins to blush
and says, 'I don't see the need.'
"'Much you know about it, Crabbe,' says I, and I couldn't help laughing,
he looked such an idiot.
"'Well, anyhow,' he says, 'your friend may have been unfortunate, but I
respect him all the same; he was bold, he lived.'
"'What does all that mean?--he didn't die, of course!'
"'I mean he loved--he had that.'
"'Oh yes, he had, but I rather think he wished he hadn't. He said it
didn't come to much--and even when he was engaged she used to bore him
sometimes.'
"'Really!' says old Crabbe, 'that's odd now,' and then he goes on, as if
he was talking to himself, 'I wonder if everyone feels like that?'
"'Of course they do! But after you're married, just think of it--never
quiet, never alone; Peake said it nearly drove him wild. And to think he
was tied up like that for the rest of his life!'
"'Yes, it is a long time.' Crabbe began to look rather green. 'Your
friend--his name was Peake, I think you said--I suppose he couldn't have
broken off the engagement?' and he smiled in a sort of sea-sick way.
"'Of course he could,' says I, as I got up to go. 'Perfect ass not
to--but good-bye, Crabbe, you've got jolly rooms here.'
"'Yes, they are nice,' says Crabbe in a kind of sinking voice.
"So, a day or two after, I meet the Dean; the old boy seems very much
pleased. 'Well Buller, I think you've done the biz,' says he; 'I don't
believe old Crabbe will do it after all.'"
When he had finished his story, Buller leaned comfortably back. "I felt
sure he would get out of it somehow," he said aloud, "I think that story
finished him." "You know what I mean," he added, nodding significantly,
"that story of Peake."
"I don't believe Peake ever existed!" Vaughan answered, as low as he
could.
Buller leaned forward again, he was almost bursting with laughter. "Of
course he didn't!" he hissed in Vaughan's ear. "But wasn't Crabbe in a
blue funk though!"
"Oh, I don't believe Crabbe minded you a bit. I'm sure he won't break it
off," Vaughan whispered indignantly. "And what right had you to talk
that way? I never heard of such impertinent meddling!"
"Bet you three to one he does," Buller whispered back. "Come, man, make
it a bet!" The train drew into the Temple station and Vaughan got up.
"I won't bet on anything of the kind," he said, as he stood at the door.
"And what do you know about love anyhow, Buller? Then think of the poor
girl, she probably believes that Crabbe is a hero, a god--"
"Well, she won't for long," Buller chuckled.
_The Optimist_
What was he doing there? why didn't he ride on? Mrs. Ross wondered, as
she watched with some astonishment the tall young man who was staring in
at the gate. But in a moment her husband left the hedge he was trimming,
and waved his shears at the stranger, who thereupon came in, pushing his
bicycle with him along the drive. When the two young men met, they
seemed to greet each other like old acquaintances. Probably he was one
of George's Oxford friends, she thought, beginning to feel a little shy,
as they walked towards her across the grass. The bicyclist was thin and
very tall; his shadow, in the late sunshine, seemed to stretch endlessly
over the grass. His face was bathed in perspiration; he was grey with
dust, and altogether he looked very shabby by the side of her
good-looking husband.
"Mary, I want to introduce my friend, Mr. Allen, to you." Mrs. Ross was
always a little afraid of her husband's friends; then Allen was a don at
Oxford, and she knew he was considered extremely clever. However she
greeted him in her friendly, charming way. He would have tea, of course?
Allen gripped her hand, smiling awkwardly. No, he wouldn't have tea, and
he was afraid it was very late for calling; he must apologize; indeed,
when he got to the gate, he had hesitated about coming in.
Oh, no! it wasn't late, she assured him; and her husband declared he
must stay to dinner. He had never seen the Grange before and, of course,
they must show him everything.
"Oh, I don't think I can stay to dinner," Allen murmured, looking
through his spectacles at his dusty clothes. But at last he consented
though doubtfully; he was staying at Sunbridge, he explained, and it was
rather a long ride over.
Ross took him to the house; soon he reappeared, well brushed, his pale
and thoughtful face pink with scrubbing. They walked with him about the
gardens, then they went to their little farm, showing him the cows and
horses, and the new-built hayrick.
George Ross was a young land agent who, not long after leaving Oxford,
had had the luck to get a good appointment; and for more than a year he
and his young wife had been living here in the most absurdly happy way.
Now and then his Oxford friends would come to visit him, and it filled
Ross with delight and pride to show them over his new domain.
As they came back from the farm through the garden, Ross stopped a
moment. "Doesn't the house look well from here!" he said to Allen. The
roofs, gables, and trees stood out dark against the golden west; the
garden, with its old red walls, sweet peas, and roses, was filled with
mellow light.
Allen gazed at the view through his spectacles, and expressed a proper
admiration. But of himself he seemed to notice nothing, and Mrs. Ross
was rather hurt by the way he went past her borders of flowers without
ever looking at them.
"You see it's just the kind of life that suits me--suits both of us,"
Ross explained; "I don't see how I could have found anything better. Of
course," he added modestly, "of course some men might not think much of
work like this. But I consider myself tremendously fortunate--I didn't
really deserve such luck."
"Quite so," Allen assented in a way that Mrs. Ross thought rather odd,
till she decided that it was merely absent-mindedness. Every now and
then she would look at Allen--the tall, thin, threadbare young man
puzzled her a little; he seemed so extremely dull and embarrassed; and
yet there was a thoughtful, kind look in his eyes that she liked. And
anyhow he was George's friend; so, as they walked rather silently and
awkwardly about, waiting for dinner, she tried to talk to him, making
remarks in her eager way, and glancing sometimes at her husband for fear
he might be laughing at her. Such subjects as bicycling, the roads, the
weather, and life in Oxford, were started, and they both talked to their
guest with the exaggerated politeness of newly married people, who would
much rather be talking to each other. Yes, the road over was very
pretty, Allen agreed. But was there a river? He remembered noticing how
pretty the road was, but he had not noticed that it ran by any river.
And all their questions he answered with a certain eagerness, but in a
way that somehow made the subject drop.
"Well, I finished the hedge," Ross said at last, turning to his wife.
"You said I wouldn't."
"Oh, but wait till I see it for myself!"
The young man looked at her gloomily. "You see how it is, Allen, she
doesn't believe her husband's word!"
"Oh, hush, George," she said, and they both began to laugh like
children. Then they turned to Allen again. Was he comfortable where he
was staying? she asked.
Well no, honestly, it wasn't very comfortable, Allen replied. To tell
the truth, he was rather disappointed in the place. He had gone there
after hearing some undergraduates describe it, and tell how amusing they
had found the people. But, somehow, he had not found the people
different from people anywhere else. But then he had only made the
acquaintance of one man--
"Well, didn't he turn out to be an old poacher, or a gipsy, or something
romantic?" asked Mrs. Ross.
"No, not at all--he was a Methodist Calvinist deacon, who gave me a lift
one wet afternoon, and lectured me all the way about Temperance. And, of
course," Allen added, with rather a comic smile, "and, of course, I was
already a total abstainer." They all laughed at this.
What was he working at over there? Ross asked him a few minutes
afterwards. He was writing a paper, Allen replied; but what it was about
Mrs. Ross did not understand. She hoped her husband would ask something
more, but he merely said, "I see," without much interest, adding that he
had not read any philosophy for years.
When they sat down to dinner, the lady's evening dress, the silver and
flowers on the table, seemed to make Allen all the more awkward and
conscious of his appearance. However, he plainly meant to do his best to
talk, and, after a moment's silence, he remarked that he supposed the
theory of farming was very interesting.
"Yes, it is," said Mrs. Ross, "and it's such fun ploughing in the
autumn, and in the spring seeing the young green things come up."
"I suppose the climate is a great factor in the problem."
"Oh, of course, everything depends on that; suppose it comes on to rain
just when you've cut your hay!"
Ross began to laugh. "I believe my wife thinks of nothing but hay now."
"You farm yourself, don't you?" Allen asked, looking at her rather
timidly.
"Oh, a little; I always say I manage our little farm, and I'm going to
learn to plough. And I keep chickens--this is one of mine--poor little
thing!" she added.
"She pretends to be sorry now, but when she has a chance to sell her
chickens I never saw anyone so bloodthirsty."
"Oh, George, how can you say such things? Don't believe him, Mr. Allen.
And anyhow," she added (it seemed a platitude, but platitudes were
better than absolute silence), "anyhow, I suppose it is what the
chickens are meant for."
To her surprise this mild remark led to an animated argument. For Allen,
in agreeing with her, said something about "the general scheme of
things." Ross began to laugh at this, and asked Allen if he still held
to that old system of his. Allen answered this question so earnestly,
that the lady looked at him with wonder.
Yes! he held to it more firmly than ever; he was sure it could be
maintained! Indeed, seriously he had come to feel more and more that you
must accept something of the kind. Ross dissented in a joking way, but
Allen would not be put off; he began talking rapidly and eagerly, almost
forgetting his dinner as he argued. He drank a great deal of cold water,
and his thin face grew quite flushed with excitement.
Mrs. Ross looked from one to the other with puzzled eyes; probably that
was the way they had been used to talk at Oxford, but what it was about
she could not understand. She only felt sorry for Allen, he evidently
cared so much, was as anxious to prove his point as if his whole life
depended on it, while her husband seemed to treat the whole thing rather
as a joke.
Soon she gave up trying to listen, and though the sound of their voices
was in her ears, her mind wandered out into the garden, to the farm and
meadows. But Allen's voice, appealing to her, called her suddenly back.
"I'm sure you agree with me, Mrs. Ross," he said, without the least
shyness. He plainly looked on her now as nothing but a mind which might
agree or disagree. "I'm sure you must regard it as existing for rational
ends."
"But what do you mean by 'It,' Mr. Allen?" she asked, very much puzzled.
"Why, the universe, of course."
"Oh, I don't know," she said, shaking her head and laughing. "It makes
me dizzy to think of it. As for George, I wouldn't mind what he says,
Mr. Allen; he believes all sorts of dreadful things, and he's always
making fun--look how he's laughing at me now. George, will you have your
coffee in here, or in the drawing-room?"
"Oh, in the drawing-room--we'll come in a minute, when we've settled the
universe." As she went out, she heard them still arguing.
And they had not ended it when they came into the drawing-room a little
later.
"But I deny that pain is an evil. I appeal to you," Allen said, turning
to Mrs. Ross; "don't you think that pain is necessary?"
"But necessary for what, Mr. Allen?"
"Why, if we want to be really happy, I mean," he went on, trying to make
himself quite clear, "I mean, suppose we lived as they do in the
Tropics, sitting under trees all day."
Ross also turned to her, "Well, Mary, tell us what you think?"
Mrs. Ross laughed. "I'm afraid I'm not a fair judge, Mr. Allen, I'm so
fond of sitting under trees, and I must say I think it sounds rather
nice. Do you have sugar in your coffee?"
"No sugar, thanks. But surely," he went on as if he had an argument now
that would be certain to convince a lady. "Surely a certain amount of
discomfort is an advantage! Now, take a child for instance, to educate
it you have to make it suffer."
"Oh, indeed you don't, Mr. Allen," she said so promptly, and in such a
voice, that Allen seemed a little disconcerted.
Ross begged for a little music. She sat down to the piano and began to
play--with a little emotion at first, which soon died out of the quiet
sounds. The window was open on the lawn; the faint light, the odours of
the garden, mingled with the soft music.
They sat in silence for a moment. At last Allen rose; he must be going,
he said, he had his paper to finish.
"But it is nice here," he added, with half a sigh, as if vaguely aware,
for a moment, of the romantic happiness about him. Then his mind seemed
to revert to the argument; if Ross would only read Hegel's _Logic_--
"Well, we might read it aloud in the evenings perhaps," the young man
answered, laughing. "Have you got a lamp on your machine?" "Yes, I think
there is." They went out to the gate and, lighting his lamp, they sent
him off into the twilight. Then they walked slowly back towards the
house. A few stars were kindled above the dim trees; the air was
fragrant with the scent of the hay, and through the stillness the faint
noise of life came across the meadows--a woman singing, the voices of
children, and sleepy sounds of cattle.
"How good it is!" the young man said, drawing his companion closer to
him. "But people are always coming, aren't they? It's dreadful! we never
do seem to see anything of each other."
"No, do we! But he's a nice man, Mr. Allen. I liked him."
"Oh, old Allen's a good sort."
"What does he do--how does he live in Oxford?"
"He teaches philosophy, and lives on bread and tea in little lodgings."
"It sounds awfully dreary--"
"Well, it is rather dreary for him, poor man. I wouldn't be there for a
good deal."
"But, tell me, what was that he was arguing about?"
"Oh, that's his philosophy; he's always arguing about it. He believes in
a kind of Hegelianism."
"What is that?"
"Oh, it's a view of things; he's what you call an Optimist."
"But I thought an Optimist was a person who was very happy?"
"No; it only means a man who believes that you ought to be happy, that
you are meant to enjoy life--that the world is good."
"But you don't mean that he was trying to _prove_ that?"
"Why, yes, you heard him; he's always at it when you give him a chance.
He thinks it must be so, that you can deduce it from the first
principles of things."
But Mrs. Ross could not be made to understand it. To her it seemed that
either you were happy or you weren't. "And, then, fancy trying to prove
it to us!" she kept saying.
At last she took her husband's arm to go in; but still stood for a
moment in silence thinking it over. "That poor Mr. Allen!" she exclaimed
at last, "an Optimist, you said he was?"
Glasgow: Printed at the University Press by Robert MacLehose & Co.
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