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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dc9258a --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #68242 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/68242) diff --git a/old/68242-0.txt b/old/68242-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index b920b43..0000000 --- a/old/68242-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4458 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Commentary, by John Galsworthy - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: A Commentary - -Author: John Galsworthy - -Release Date: June 5, 2022 [eBook #68242] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Emmanuel Ackerman, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by The - Internet Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A COMMENTARY *** - - - - - - A COMMENTARY - - _THE WORKS OF - JOHN GALSWORTHY_ - - - _NOVELS_ - - VILLA RUBEIN: AND OTHER STORIES - THE ISLAND PHARISEES - THE MAN OF PROPERTY - THE COUNTRY HOUSE - FRATERNITY - THE PATRICIAN - THE DARK FLOWER - THE FREELANDS - BEYOND - FIVE TALES - SAINT’S PROGRESS - IN CHANCERY - TO LET - THE BURNING SPEAR - THE WHITE MONKEY - THE SILVER SPOON - SWAN SONG - - * * * * * - - THE FORSYTE SAGA - A MODERN COMEDY - - - _SHORT STORIES AND STUDIES_ - - A COMMENTARY - A MOTLEY - THE INN OF TRANQUILLITY - THE LITTLE MAN - A SHEAF - ANOTHER SHEAF - TATTERDEMALION - CAPTURES - CASTLES IN SPAIN AND OTHER SCREEDS - TWO FORSYTE INTERLUDES - - * * * * * - - CARAVAN - - * * * * * - - VERSES NEW AND OLD - - * * * * * - - MEMORIES (ILLUSTRATED) - AWAKENING (ILLUSTRATED) - ADDRESSES IN AMERICA - - - _PLAYS_ - - FIRST SERIES: THE SILVER BOX - JOY - STRIFE - - SECOND SERIES: THE ELDEST SON - THE LITTLE DREAM - JUSTICE - - THIRD SERIES: THE FUGITIVE - THE PIGEON - THE MOB - - FOURTH SERIES: A BIT O’ LOVE - FOUNDATIONS - THE SKIN GAME - - FIFTH SERIES: A FAMILY MAN - LOYALTIES - WINDOWS - - SIXTH SERIES: THE FOREST - OLD ENGLISH - THE SHOW - - ESCAPE - - - _The above Plays issued separately_ - - SIX SHORT PLAYS: - - THE FIRST AND THE LAST - THE LITTLE MAN - HALL-MARKED - DEFEAT - THE SUN - PUNCH AND GO - - PLAYS BY JOHN GALSWORTHY--1 VOL. - - - _THE GROVE EDITION_ - -_The Novels, Stories, and Studies of John Galsworthy in small volumes_ - - - - - A COMMENTARY - - BY - JOHN GALSWORTHY - - NEW YORK - CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS - - Printed in the United States of America - - [Illustration] - - “JUSTICE” APPEARED IN THE _Albany Review_ (LONDON); - “POWER” IN THE _New Age_; ALL THE OTHER SKETCHES - IN THIS VOLUME HAVE APPEARED IN _The Nation_ - (LONDON). THE AUTHOR THANKS THE EDITORS - OF THESE REVIEWS - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - -A COMMENTARY 3 - -I. THE LOST DOG 19 - -II. DEMOS 31 - -III. OLD AGE 45 - -IV. THE CAREFUL MAN 59 - -V. FEAR 73 - -VI. FASHION 85 - -VII. SPORT 95 - -VIII. MONEY 107 - -IX. PROGRESS 127 - -X. HOLIDAY 139 - -XI. FACTS 149 - -XII. POWER 165 - -XIII. THE HOUSE OF SILENCE 177 - -XIV. ORDER 191 - -XV. THE MOTHER 203 - -XVI. COMFORT 215 - -XVII. A CHILD 231 - -XVIII. JUSTICE 241 - -XIX. HOPE 255 - - - - -A COMMENTARY - - -The old man whose call in life was to warn the public against the -dangers of the steam-roller held a small red flag in his remaining hand, -for he had lost one arm. His brown face, through whose leathery skin -white bristles showed, had a certain dignity; so had his square -upstanding figure. And his light grey eyes, with tiny pupils, gazed with -a queer intentness, as if he saw beyond you. His clothes were old, -respectable, and stained with grease; his smile shrewd and rather sweet, -and his voice--of one who loved to talk, but whose profession kept him -silent--was deliberate and sonorous, with a whistling lisp in it, -because he had not many teeth. - -“What’s your opinion?” he said one summer morning. “I’ll tell you _my_ -experience: a lot o’ them that’s workin’ on road jobs like this are -fellers that the Vestries takes on, makin’ o’ work for them--the lowest -o’ the low. You can’t do nothing with them; here to-day and gone -to-morrow. Lost dogs I call ’em. Most of them goes on the drink the -moment they gets a chance, and the language that they’ll use--oh dear! -But you can’t blame them’s far as I can see--they’re born tired. They -ain’t up to what’s wanted of ’em nowadays. You might just as well put -their ’eads under this steam-roller and ’ave done with it.” - -Then lowering his voice as though imparting information of a certain -value: “And that’s just what I think’s ’appened to them already; that -great thing”--he pointed to the roller--“that great thing goes on, and -on, and on--it’s gone over them! Life nowadays has got no more feelin’ -for a man than for a beetle. See the way the poor live--like pigs, -crowded all together; to any one who knows, it’s awful! An’ -morals--something dreadful! How can you have morals when you’ve got to -live like that--let alone humanity? You can’t, it stands to reason. -Talk about democracy--government by the people? There’s no sense in it; -the people’s kept like pigs; all they’ve got’s like pig-wash thrown ’em. -They know there’s no hope for them. Why, when all’s done, a working-man -can’t save enough to keep ’imself in his old age. Look at me! I’ve lost -my arm, all my savin’s was spent when I was gettin’ well; I’ve got this -job now, an’ very glad to get it--but the time ’ll come when I’ll be too -old to stand about all weathers; what ’ll happen? I’ll either ’ave to -starve or go into the ’Ouse--well, that’s a miserable ending for a man. -But then you say, what can you do? That’s just it--what _can_ you do? -Where’s the money to come from? People say Parliament ought to find it, -but I’ve not much ’opes of them; they’re very slow. All my life I’ve -noticed that. Very slow! Them fellers in Parliament, they’ve got their -positions and one thing and another to consider, the same as any other -people; they’re bound to be cautious, they don’t want to take no risks, -it stands to reason. Well, that’s all against reforms, I think. All -they do, why it’s no more than following after this ’ere roller, -treadin’ in the stones.” - -He paused, looking dubiously at the roller, now close at hand. “See what -a lot o’ things the money’s wanted for. It’s not only old-age pensions, -there’s illness! When I lost my arm, and lay there in the ’orspital, it -worried me to think what I should do when I got out--put me in such a -stew; well, there’s thousands like that--people with consumption, people -with bad blood--’undreds an’ thousands, that’s got nothin’ to fall back -on; they’re in fear all their time.” - -He came closer, and his voice seemed to whistle more than ever. “It’s a -dreadful thing, is fear. I thought that I’d come out a log, an’ just -’ave to rot away. I’ve got no family--but them fellers in consumption -with families an’ all, it’s an awful thing for them. Here’s a -carriage--I mustn’t get to talking!” - -He moved forward to the barrier, and stood there holding up his flag. A -barouche and pair came sweeping up; the sun shone on its panels, on the -horses’ coats, the buttons of the coachman, and the egrets in two -ladies’ hats. It swerved at sight of the red flag, and swung round the -corner to the left. - -The old man stood looking after it, and the silence was broken only by -the crunching of the roller. Rousing himself from reverie, he said: -“Fashion! D’you know, I can’t tell what them sort of people think of all -day long. It puzzles me. Sometimes I fancy they don’t think at all. -Thinking’s all done for them!” And again he seemed to lapse into his -reverie. “If you told them that they’d stare at you. Why, they fancy -they’re doin’ an awful lot, what with their bazaars an’ one thing an’ -another. Them sort of people, they don’t mean any ’arm, but they ’aven’t -got the mind. You can’t expect it of them, livin’ their lives; you want -a lot o’ mind to think of other people.” - -Suddenly his eyes brightened. “Why, take them street-walkers you see -about at night; now what d’you think ladies in their carriages thinks -of them--dirt! But them women ’alf the time’s no worse than what the -ladies are. They took their bit o’ sport, as you may call it--same as -lots o’ ladies take it. That’s where money comes in--they ’adn’t the -money to keep off the streets. But what are you to do? You can’t have -the creatures about.” A frown came on his brow, as though this question -had long been troubling him. “The rich,” he went on, “are able for to -educate their daughters, and look after them; I don’t blame them--it’s -human nature to do the best you can for your own family; but you’ve got -to think of others that haven’t got your money--you’ve got to be human -about it. The mischief is, when a man’s got money, it’s like a wall -between ’im an’ ’is fellows. That’s what I’ve found. What’s your -opinion? Look here! My father was a farm labourer, at eight shillin’s a -week, an’ brought up six of us. And ’owever ’e managed it I don’t know; -but I don’t think things are any better than they were then--I don’t--I -think they’re worse. This progress, or what do they call it, is -destroyin’ of us. You can’t keep it back, no more than you could keep -back that there roller if you pushed against it; all you can do’s to -keep ahead of it, I suppose. But talk about people’s increasin’ in the -milk of human kindness--I don’t see it, nor intelligence. Look at the -way they spend their ’olidays--it gives you stomach-ache to see them. -All a lot o’ rowdy fellers, never still a minute, that’s lost all -religion--a lot o’ town-bred monkeys. This ’ere modern life, it’s -hollowed of ’em out, that’s what it’s done, in my opinion. People’s got -so restless; they keep on tryin’ first one thing and then another; -anything so long as they can be doing something on their own. That’s a -fact. It’s like a man workin’ on a job like this road-mendin’; he just -sees the stones he’s puttin’ down himself, and he don’t see nothing -else. That’s what everybody’s doin’. But I don’t see how you can prevent -it; it looks as if ’twas in the blood. They talk about this Socialism; -well, but I’m not very sweet on it--it’s mostly all a-lookin’ after your -neighbour, ’s far’s I can see.” - -He paused, staring hard, as though trying to see further. “Well,” he -went on suddenly; “that won’t work! Look at the police--never met such -meddlesome creatures; very nice men in themselves, I dare say, but just -because they’ve got a little power--! And they’re as thick as thieves -together. Take these fellers that they send to prison; they talk about -reformin’ of them, but when they get them there it’s all like that -roller, crushin’ the life out--awful, I call it. Them fellers come out -dead, with their minds squashed out o’ them; an’ all done with the best -intentions, so they tell me. I tell you what I think, there’s only one -man in a ’undred fit to ’ave power over other men put in his ’ands. Look -at the workhouses--why ain’t they popular? It’s all because you’ve got -to live by rule. I don’t find no fault with rules so long as you don’t -order people about; what you want to do’s to get people to keep rules of -their own accord--that’s what I think. But people don’t look at it that -way, ’s far ’s I can see. What’s your opinion? Mind ye,” he went on -suddenly, “I’m not saying as there isn’t lots o’ things Government might -do, that you’d call Socialism, I dare say. See the women in them -slums--poor things, they can’t hardly drag themselves along, and yet -they breed like rabbits. I don’t blame them, they don’t know no better. -But look ’ere!” and thrusting the handle of the flag into his pocket, he -took a button of his listener’s coat between his finger and his thumb; -“I’d pass a law, I would, to stop ’em. That’s going too far, you say! -Well, but what’s to be done? There’s no other way, in my opinion. Then, -of course, if you stop ’em, you won’t ’ave none o’ this cheap low-class -labour. That won’t please people. It’s a difficult matter!” - -He sank his voice to a sort of whistling whisper. “’Alf the children in -them slums is brought about under the influence of drink. What d’ you -make of that? And that’s only the beginning--they feed them poor little -things on all sorts o’ mucky stuff--an’ lots o’ them ’alf fed at that. -Pretty state o’ things for a country like this--it’d disgrace the -savages, I think. I’d ’ave every child full-fed by law. I’d make it a -crime, I would, to ’ave half-starved children about the streets or -schools, or anywhere. I’d begin at the beginning. But then you say -that’s pauperising of the parents. That’s what they said when they began -this ’ere free education--nobody ain’t been pauperised by that. A -country that can’t keep its children fed ain’t fit to ’ave them, that’s -what I think; ’t isn’t fair to them little things. But then you say -that’d cost a mint o’ money--millions! Of course it would! Well, look at -the ’ouses in this road, look at them big flats--’undreds an’ thousands -of streets an’ ’ouses like that all over England. They say that sixpence -on the rates would feed the children, but they won’t put it on--of -course they won’t, it’s too much off their comfort. People don’t like -parting; that’s a fact, as you know yourself. But what’s the good of -raisin’ millions of these ’ere dry-rotted people--they’re so expensive, -you can’t do nothing with them----” He broke off to intercept a cart. -“But I dare say,” he said, returning, “they’d call that Socialism. -What’s your opinion? Shall I tell you what I think about it? These -Socialists are like men that keep a shop, an’ some one walks in an’ -says: ‘How much for the coat there?’ he says. ‘Ten bob!’ they say. ‘I’ll -give you five,’ he says. ‘No, we wants ten,’ they say. ‘No,’ ’e says, -‘five!’ And both of them knows all the time they’re goin’ to do a deal -at seven an’ six!” - -He sank his voice, as though imparting a State secret: “It wouldn’t -never do for them to say seven an’ six straight off; then ’e’d only give -’em six an’ three. See? If you want to get a proper price you’ve got to -keep hollerin’ for more--that’s human nature.” - -Then, waving his flag towards the block of flats, he said: “Look at all -this class of comfortable people. They don’t see things the same as I -do, an’ I don’t know why they should. They’re comfortable themselves. It -stands to reason they’re not goin’ to think about such things. They’ve -been brought up to believe the world was made for them. They never see -no other people but their own sort; same as workin’ people never see no -other but workin’ people. That’s what makes the classes, in my opinion. -All these fellers here,” and he waved his hand towards the figures -working at the road, “talk very big about betterin’ their position, but -as soon as it comes to standin’ by each other it’s every man for -himself. It’s only what you can expect--if you don’t look out for -yourself, nobody else will, that’s as sure as eggs. They say, in England -all men’s equal under the law; well, but then you’ve only got to look -around--that isn’t true, how can it be? You’ve got to pay for law same -as you’ve got to pay for everything. That’s where it is! They talk about -Justice in the country, the same for rich and poor; that’s all very -fine, but there’s a ’undred ways where a man that’s poor has to suffer -for it, because he can’t pull the lawyers’ tails and make ’em jump.” - -And with these words he tried to raise both arms, but he had only one. -“You haven’t told me what you think?” he said: “I’ll tell you my -opinion,” and his voice dropped to an emphatic whisper: “_There’s things -that want improvin’, and there’s things that stand in the way of things -improvin’_. But I’ve noticed one thing; it don’t matter how low people -get, they’re always proud of something, even if it’s only of their -troubles. There must be some good in human nature, or we’d never keep -ahead of that great thing at all;” he stretched his arm out to the -roller, approaching with its slow crunching sound like the sound of Life -crunching the bones of men; “we’d let it go right over us.” And nodding -his grey head twice, he stood holding up his red flag as still as stone, -with his eyes fixed intently on a coming milk-cart. - - - - -THE LOST DOG - -I - -THE LOST DOG - - -It was the first October frost. Outside a half-built house, before a -board on which was written, “Jolly Bros., Builders,” I saw a man, whose -eyes seemed saying: “In the winter building will stop; if I am homeless -and workless now, what shall I be in two months’ time?” Turning to me he -said: “Can you give me a job, sir? I don’t mind what I do.” - -His face was in mourning for a shave, his clothes were very ragged, and -he was so thin that there seemed hardly any man behind those ragged -clothes. He smelt, not indeed of whiskey, but as though bereaved of it; -and his blue and watery eyes were like those of a lost dog. - -We looked at each other, and this conversation passed between our eyes: - -“What are you? Where did you work last? How did you get into this -condition? Are you married? How many children? Why don’t you apply to -the proper authorities? I have money, and you have none; it is my right -to ask these questions.” - -“I am a lost dog.” - -“But I have no work for you; if you are really hungry I can give you -sixpence; I can also refer you to a Society who will examine your -affairs, but if they find you a man for whom life has been too much, -they will tell me so, and warn me not to help you. Is that what you -want?” - -“I am a lost dog.” - -“I dare say; but what can I do? I can’t make work! I know nothing about -you, I daren’t recommend you to my friends. No man gets into the -condition you are in without the aid of his own folly. You say you fell -ill; yes, but you all say that. Why couldn’t you look ahead and save -some money? You see now that you ought to have? And yet you come to me! -I have a great many calls--societies, old people, and the sick; the -rates are very high--you know that--partly on your account!” - -“I am a lost dog.” - -“Ah! but I am told daily by the just, the orderly, the practical, who -have never been lost or hungry, that I must not give to casuals. You -know yourself it would be pure sentiment; you know yourself it would be -mere luxury. I wonder you can ask me!” - -“I am a lost dog.” - -“You have said that before. It’s not as if I didn’t know you! I have -seen and talked with you--with dozens of you. I have found you asleep on -the Thames Embankment. I have given you sixpence when you were shambling -empty away after running a mile behind a cab. One night, don’t you -remember, in the Cromwell Road--well, not you, but your twin brother--we -talked together in the rain, and the wind blew your story against the -shuttered windows of the tall, closed houses. Once you were with me -quite six weeks, cutting up a dead tree in my garden. Day after day you -sat there, working very slowly to keep the tree from coming to an end, -and showing me in gratitude each morning your waistbelt filling out. -With the saw in your hand and your weak smile you would look at me, and -your eyes would say, ‘You don’t know what a rest it is for me to come -here and cut up wood all day.’ At all events, you _must_ remember how -you kept yourself from whiskey until I went away, and how you excused -yourself when I returned and found you speaking thickly in the morning: -‘I can’t _help_ rememberin’ things!’ It was not you, you say? No; it was -your double.” - -“I am a lost dog.” - -“Yes, yes, yes! You are one of those men that our customs breed. You had -no business to be born--or at any rate you should have seen to it that -you were born in the upper classes. What right had you to imagine you -could ever tackle the working-man’s existence--up to the mark all day -and every day? You, a man with a soft spot? You knew, or your parents -ought to have known, that you couldn’t stand more than a certain -pressure from life. You are diseased, if not physically, then in your -disposition. Am I to excuse you because of that? Most probably I should -be the same if life pressed hard enough. Am I to excuse myself because -of that? Never--until it happens! Being what you are you chose -deliberately--or was it chosen for you--to run the risks of being born; -and now you complain of the consequences, and come to me for help? To -me--who may myself at some time be in need, if not of physical, of moral -bread? Is it right, or reasonable?” - -“I am a lost dog.” - -“You are getting on my nerves! Your chin is weak--I can see that through -your beard; your eyes are wistful, not like the professional beggar’s -pebbly eyes; you have a shuffling walk, due perhaps a little to the -nature of your boots; yes, there are all the marks of amiability about -you. Can you look me in the face and say it would be the slightest use -to put you on your legs and thrust you again, equipped, into the ranks -of battle? Can you now? Ah! if you could only get some food in you, and -some clothes on you, and some work to do! But don’t you know that, three -weeks hence, that work would be lost, those clothes in pawn, and you be -on the drink? Why should I waste my charity on _you_--‘the deserving’ -are so many! There’s ‘something against you’ too? Oh! nothing -much--you’re not the sort that makes a criminal; if you were you would -not be in such a state. You would be glad enough to do your fellows a -good turn if ever you could do a good turn to yourself; and you are not -ungrateful, you would attach yourself to any one who showed you -kindness. But you are hopeless, hopeless, hopeless--aren’t you now?” - -“I am a lost dog.” - -“You know our methods with lost dogs? Have you never heard of the lethal -chamber? A real tramp, living from hand to mouth in sun and rain and -dirt and rags, enjoys his life. But _you_ don’t enjoy the state you’re -in. You’re afraid of the days when you’ve nothing to eat, afraid of the -nights when you’ve nowhere to sleep, afraid of crime, afraid even of -this begging; twice since we’ve been standing here I’ve seen you looking -round. If you knew you’d be afraid like this, what made you first desert -‘the narrow path’? Something came over you? How could you let it come -like that? It still comes over you? You were tired, you wanted something -new--something a little new. We all want that something, friend, and get -it if we can; but we can’t recognise that _your_ sort of human creature -is entitled, for you see what’s come of it?” - -“I am a lost dog.” - -“You say that as if you thought there was one law for the rich and -another for the poor. You are making a mistake. If I am had up for -begging as well as you, we shall both of us go to prison. The fact that -I have no need to steal or beg, can pay for getting drunk and taking -holidays, is hardly to the point--you must see that! Do not be led away -by sentimental talk; if we appear before a judge, we both must suffer -punishment. I am not so likely to appear as you perhaps, but that’s an -accident. No, please don’t say that dreadful thing again! I wish to help -you. There is Canada, but they don’t want you. I would send you anywhere -to stop your eyes from haunting me, but they don’t want you. Where do -they want you? Tell me, and you shall go.” - -“I am a lost dog.” - -“You remind me of that white shadow with little liver spots that my -spaniel dog and I picked up one night when we were going home. - -“‘Master,’ he said, ‘there’s such an amusing cur out there in the middle -of the road.’ - -“‘Behave yourself! Don’t pick up with anything you come across like -this!’ - -“‘Master, I know it is a thin and dirty cur, but the creature follows -me.’ - -“‘Keep to heel! The poor dog will get lost if you entice him far from -home.’ - -“‘Oh, master! that’s just what’s so amusing. He hasn’t any.’ - -“And like a little ghost the white dog crept along behind. We looked to -read his collar; it was gone. We took him home--and how he ate, and how -he drank! But my spaniel said to me: - -“‘Master, what is the use of bringing in a dog like this? Can’t you see -what he is like? He has eaten all my meat, drunk my bowl dry, and he is -now sleeping in my bed.’ - -“I said to him: ‘My dear, you ought to like to give this up to this poor -dog.’ - -“And he said to me: ‘Master, I _don’t_! He is no good, this dog; I am -cleaner and fatter than he. And don’t you know there’s a place on the -other side of the water for all this class of dog? When are we going to -take him there?’ - -“And I said to him: ‘My dear, don’t ask me; _I don’t know_.’ - -“And you are like that dog, standing there with those eyes of yours and -that weak chin and those weak knees, before this half-built house with -the winter coming on. And I am like my spaniel, who knows there is a -proper place for all your kind of creature. Man! what shall I do with -you?” - -“I am a lost dog.” - - - - -DEMOS - -II - -DEMOS - - -“Well, she’s my wife, ain’t she?” He put his hands on the handles of his -barrow as though to take it away from one who could not see his point of -view, wheeled it two yards, and stopped. - -“It’s no matter what I done to her. Look ’ere!” He turned his fish-white -face, and his dead eyes came suddenly to life, with a murky, yellow -glare, as though letting escape the fumes within his soul. “I ought to -ha’ put her to bed with a shovel long ago; and I will, too, first chance -I get.” - -“You are talking like a madman.” - -“Look ’ere, ’as a man a right to his own wife an’ children?” His thick -loose lower lip trembled. “You tell me that!” - -“It depends on how he behaves himself. If you knock her about, you -can’t expect her to stay with you.” - -“I never done no more to her than what she deserved. I never gave her -the ’alf o’ what she ought to ’ave.” - -“I’ve seen her several times with your marks on her face.” - -“Yes, an’ I’ll mark ’er again, I will.” - -“So you have just said.” - -“Because a man ’its ’is wife when he’s got a drop o’ liquor in ’im, that -don’t give ’er the right to go off like this and take a man’s children -from ’im, do it?” - -“I think it does.” - -“When I find her----” - -“I hope you will not find her.” - -He thrust his head forward, and the yellow in the whites of his eyes -deepened and spread till his whole face seemed suffused with it. - -“Look ’ere, man an’ wife is man an’ wife, and don’t you or any one come -between ’em, or it’ll be the worse for you.” - -“I have told you my opinion.” - -“You think I don’t know the law; the law says his children belongs to a -man, not to a woman.” - -“We needn’t go into that.” - -“Needn’t we? You think, becos I’m not a torf, I got no rights. I know -what the law says. A man owns ’is wife, an’ ’e owns ’is children.” - -“Do you deny that you drink?” - -“You’d drink if you ’ad my life; d’you think I like this goin’ about all -day with a barrer?” - -“Do you deny that you’ve often struck your wife?” - -“What’s it to you or any one else, what I do to ’er in private? Why -don’t you come down to my place an’ order me about?” - -“But I suppose you know your wife can get a separation order if she goes -down to the Court?” - -On his face a grin stole up. - -“Separation order! Do ’er a lot o’ good, that would! D’you think that’d -keep my ’ands off ’er afterwards? She knows what I’d do to ’er if she -went against me.” - -“What _would_ you do?” - -“She wouldn’t want to arsk for any more separation orders.” - -“You would be locked up if you molested her afterwards.” - -“Should I? _She_ wouldn’t be there to speak against me.” - -“I understand.” - -“She knows what I’d do to ’er.” - -“You’ve scared her so that she daren’t go to the Court--she daren’t stay -with you; what can she do but leave you?” - -“I don’t want _’er_, let ’er go; I want the children.” - -“Do you really mean that you don’t want her?” - -“I never ’ad a woman keep _me_.” - -“You know that her earnings have kept you all.” - -“I tell you I never ’ad a woman keep me.” - -“Can you support the children?” - -“If I could get a proper job----” - -“But can you get a proper job?” - -“Well, ’oo’s fault is that; it’s not my fault, is it?” - -“You’ve had plenty of chances.” - -“‘Oo cares if I ’ave! I’ve always been a good father to my children. -I’ve worked for ’em, an’ begged for ’em, an’ stole for ’em; I’m well -known to be a good father all about where I live.” - -“But that won’t keep them off the parish, will it?” - -“You let the parish alone! If I ’aven’t got money, I’ve got honour; -that’s better than all the money. I don’t want no money to tell me -what’s right and what isn’t.” - -“Come, come!” - -“The children’s mine--every one o’ them. Takin’ children away from their -father! that’s a fine thing to be backin’ up like this!” - -His eyes moved from side to side, like the eyes of an animal in pain, -and his voice was hoarse as though a lump had risen in his throat. - -“Look ’ere! I’m fonder of them children than what people might think. -I’ll never sleep again till I know where they are.” - -“How can I tell you where they are without telling you where their -mother is?” - -“They’re mine--the law gives ’em to me. ’Oo are you to go against the -law?” - -“We went over that just now.” - -“When she married me she took me for better or worse, didn’t she? Man -an’ wife should settle their own affairs. They don’t want no one else to -interfere with them!” - -“You want her back so that you can do what you like to her. Do you -expect other people to help you to that?” - -“Look ’ere! D’you think it’s pleasant for me when I go into the pub to -’ave ’em talk about _my wife_ goin’ off on ’er own? D’you think I -’aven’t got enough to bear without that?” - -“You ought to have thought of that before you drove her to it.” - -“‘Oo says I drove ’er? Noos-bearin’, talkin’ about ’er, like what they -are? She’s lost ’er honour; d’you think that’s pleasant for _me_?” - -“No.” - -“Well, then!” He came from between the handles of his barrow and stood -on the edge of the pavement, and the movement of his shoulders was like -the movement of a bull that is about to charge. “Look ’ere! She’s mine -to do what I like with. I never injured any one that didn’t injure me; -but any one that injures me’ll ’ave a funny piece o’ cake to cut, what -’e’ll never be able to swaller.” - -“Who is injuring you?” - -“An’ don’t you think I’m afraid o’ the police. Not all the police in the -world won’t stop _me_!” - -“Well?” - -“You only listens to one side; if I was to tell you all I’d got against -’er----” - -“You beat her--and you ask me to help you find her?” - -“I’m arskin’ you the whereabouts o’ my children.” - -“It’s the same thing. Can’t you see that no decent man would tell you?” - -He plucked at his throat and stood silent, with a groping movement like -a man suddenly realising that the darkness before him is not going to -lift. - -“It’s all like a Secret Society to me! If I can’t get ’em back, I can’t -bear meself.” - -“How can it be otherwise?” - -“You’re all on ’er side. She’s a disgrace, that’s what _she_ is, takin’ -’em away from their ’ome, takin’ ’em away from their father.” - -“She brought them into the world.” - -“When I find ’er, I’ll make _’er_ sorry she was ever brought into the -world ’erself. I’ll let ’er know ’oo’s ’er master! She sha’n’t forget a -second time! She’s mine, and the children’s mine!” - -“Well, I can’t help you.” - -“I stands on the law. The law gives ’em to me, and I’ll keep ’em. She -knows better than to go to the Court against me--it means ’er last -sleep.” - -“Good-morning!” - -He plucked at his neck again and ground the sole of his boot on the -pavement, and the movement of his eyes was pitiful to see. - -“I’m ’alf out o’ meself, that’s what I am; I’ll never sleep until I find -’em. Look ’ere! _Tell_ me where they are, sir?” - -“I am sorry, I cannot.” - -In the unmoving fish-white face his dead eyes, straining in their -sockets, began to glow again with that queer yellow glare, as though -alive with the spirit that dwells where light has never come; the spirit -that possesses those dim multitudes who know no influence but that of -force, no reason, and no gentleness, since these have never come their -way; who know only that they must keep that little which they have, -since that which they have not is so great and so desirable; the dim -multitudes who, since the world began, have lived from hand to mouth, -like dogs crouched over their stale bones, snarling at such as would -take those poor bones from them. - -“I’m ’er ’usband, an’ I mean to ’ave ’er, alive or dead.” - -And I saw that this was not a man who spoke, but the very self of the -brute beast that lurks beneath the surface of our State; the very self -of the chained monster whom Nature tortures with the instinct for -possession, and man with whips drives from attainment. And behind his -figure in the broad flowery road I seemed to see the countless masses of -his fellows filing out of their dark streets, out of their alleys and -foul lodgings, in a never-ending river of half-human flesh, with their -faces set one way. They covered the whole road, and every inlet was -alive with them; and all the air was full of the dull surging of -thousands more. Of every age, in every sort of rags; on all their faces -the look that said: “All my life I have been given that which will keep -me alive, that, and no more. What I have got I have got; no one shall -wrench it from my teeth! I live as the dogs; as the dogs shall my -actions be! I am the brute beast; have I the time, the chance, the money -to learn gentleness and decency? Let me be! Touch not my gnawed bones!” - -They stood there--a great dark sea stretching out to the farther limits -of the sight; no sound came from their lips, but all their eyes glowed -with that yellow glare, and I saw that if I took my glance off them they -would spring at me. - -“You defy me, Guv’nor?” - -“I am obliged to.” - -“One day I’ll meet yer, then, for all your money, and I’ll let yer -know!” - -He took up the handles of his barrow, and slowly, with a sullen lurch, -wheeled it away, looking neither to his right nor left. And behind him, -down the road with its gardens and tall houses, moved the millions of -his fellows; and, as they passed in silence, each seemed to say: - -“One day I’ll meet you, and--I’ll let you know!” - -The road lay empty again beneath the sun; nursemaids wheeled their -perambulators, the lilac-trees dropped blossom, the policemen at the -corners wrote idly in their little books. - -There was no sign of what had passed. - - - - -OLD AGE - -III - -OLD AGE - - -He came running out of the darkness, and spoke at once: “Go an’ see my -poor mother, gentleman; go and see my poor father an’ mother!” - -It was a snowy midnight; by the light of the street lamp he who made -this strange request looked ragged and distraught. - -“They lives in Gold Street, 22; go an’ see ’em, gentleman. Mrs. James -White--my poor mother starvin’.” - -In England no one starves. - -“Go an’ see ’em, gentleman; it’s the book o’ truth I’m tellin’ you. -They’re old; they got no food, they got nothin’.” - -“Very well, I will.” - -He thrust out his face to see whether he might trust his ears, then -without warning turned and ran on down the road. His shape vanished -into darkness, whence it came.... - -Gold Street with its small grey houses whose doors are always open, and -its garbage-littered gutters, where children are at play. - -“Mr. and Mrs. James White?” - -“First floor back. Mr. White--wanted!” - -My dog sniffed at the passage wall, that smelled unlike the walls -belonging to him, and presently an old man came. He looked at us -distrustfully, and we looked back distrustfully at him. - -“Mr. James White?” - -“Yes.” - -“Last night some one calling himself your son asked me to come up and -see you.” - -“Come up, sir.” - -The room was unpapered, and not more than ten feet square; it contained -a double bed, over whose dirty mattress was stretched a black-brown rag; -a fireplace and no fire; a saucepan, but nothing in it; two cups, a tin -or two, no carpet, a knife and spoon, a basin, some photographs, and -rags of clothing; all blackish and discoloured. - -On a wooden chair before the hearth was sitting an old woman whose -brown-skinned face was crowsfooted all over. Her hair was white, and she -had little bright grey eyes and a wart on one nostril. A dirty shawl was -pinned across her chest; this, with an old skirt and vest, seemed all -her clothing. The third finger of her left hand was encircled by a broad -gold ring. There were two chairs, and the old man placed the other one -for me, having rubbed it with his sleeve. My dog lay with his chin -pressed to the ground, for the sights and scents of poverty displeased -him. - -“I’m afraid you’re down on your luck.” - -“Yes, sir, we are down.” - -Seated on the border of the bed, he was seen to be a man with features -coloured greyish-dun by lack of food; his weak hair and fringe of beard -were touched with grey; a dumb, long-suffering man from whom -discouragement and want had planed away expression. - -“How have you got into this state?” - -“The winter an’ my not gettin’ work.” - -A whisper came from the old lady by the hearth: - -“Father can work, sir; oh! ’e can work!” - -“Yes, I can work; I’m good for a day’s work at any time.” - -“I’m afraid you don’t look it!” - -His hand was shaking violently, and he tried to stop its movement. - -“It’s a bit chilly; I feels well enough in meself.” - -More confidential came the old lady’s whisper: - -“Father’s very good ’ealth, sir; oh! ’e can work. It’s not ’avin’ any -breakfast that makes ’im go like that this weather.” - -“But how old are you?” - -“Father’s seventy-one, sir, and I’m the same. Born within two months of -each other--wasn’t we, Father?” - -“Forgive my saying so, Mr. White, but, with all this competition, is -there much chance of your getting work at that age? What _are_ you?” - -“Painter I am, sir; take any work--I’m not particular. Mr. Williams -gives me a bit when times are good, but the winter----” - -“Father can work, sir; oh! ’e can work!” - -“Thirty-three years I worked for one firm--thirty-three years.” - -“What firm was that?” - -“Thirty-three years--till they gave up business----” - -“But what firm----” - -“Answer the gentleman’s question. Father’s very slow, sir.” - -“Scotter’s, of John Street, that was--thirty-three years. Now they’ve -given up.” - -“How long since they gave up?” - -“Three years.” - -“And how have you managed since?” - -“Just managed along--get some jobs in the summer--just managed along.” - -“You mustn’t mind Father, sir. Why don’t you tell the gentleman? Just -managed along, as you see, sir--everything’s gone now.” - -She passed her hand over her mouth, and the sound of her whisper was -more intimate than ever: - -“Dreadful things we’ve suffered in this room, sir; dreadful! I don’t -like to speak of ’em, if you’ll believe me.” - -And, with that almost soundless whisper, that stealthy movement of her -hand before her mouth, all those things she spoke of seemed to be -happening in their deadly privacy to those two old people behind their -close-shut door. - -There was a silence; my dog spoke with his eyes: “Master, we have been -here long enough; I smell no food; there is no fire!” - -“You must feel the cold dreadfully this weather?” - -“We stays in bed as long as we can, sir--to keep warm, you know--to keep -warm.” - -The old man nodded from the black ruin of a bed. - -“But I see you have no blankets.” - -“All gone, sir--all gone.” - -“Had you no savings out of that thirty-three years?” - -“Family, sir--family; four sons an’ two daughters; never more than -thirty shillin’s a week. He always gave me his wages--Father always gave -me his wages.” - -“I never was one to drink.” - -“Sober man, Father; an’ now he’s old. But ’e can work, sir; ’e can -work.” - -“But can’t your sons help you?” - -“One’s dead, sir; died of fever. And one”--her withered finger touched -her forehead--“not quite--you know, not quite----” - -“The one I saw last night, I suppose?” - -“Not quite--not since he was in the Army. A bit--” Again she touched her -forehead. - -“And the other two?” - -“Good sons, sir; but large families, you know. Not able----” - -“And the daughters?” - -“One’s dead, sir; the other’s married--away.” - -“Haven’t you any one to fall back on?” - -The old man interrupted heavily: - -“No, sir; we haven’t.” - -“Father doesn’t put things right, sir--let me speak to the gentleman! -Tell you the truth, never ’ad the habit, sir; not accustomed to ask for -things; never done it--couldn’t!” - -The old man spoke again: - -“The Society looked into our case; ’ere’s their letter. Owin’ to my not -’avin’ any savin’s, we weren’t thought fit for bein’ ’elped, so they -says ’ere. All my savin’s is gone this year or more; what could I save, -with six children?” - -“Father couldn’t save; ’e did ’is duty by them--’e couldn’t save. We’ve -not been in the ’abit of askin’ people, sir; wouldn’t do such a -thing--couldn’t!” - -“Well! You see they’ve made a start with old-age pensions?” - -The old man slowly answered: - -“I ’eard something--I don’t trouble about politics.” - -“Father never was one for the public-’ouse, sir; never.” - -“But you used to have a vote, of course?” - -A smile came on his lips, and faded; and in that smile, not even -ironical, he passed judgment on the centuries that had left him where he -was. - -“I never bothered about them. I let that alone!” - -And again he smiled. “I’ll be dead long before they reach _me_, I know -that.” - -“The winter’s only half over. What are you going to do?” - -“Well, sir, I don’t know _what_ we’re goin’ to do.” - -“Don’t you think that, all things considered, you’d be better off in -the--in the Infirmary?” - -Silence. - -“You know they--they’re quite comfortable, and----” - -Silence. - -“It’s not as if there were any--any disgrace, or----” - -Silence. - -“Well?” - -He rose and crossed over to the hearth, and my dog, disturbed, sniffed -at his trousers. “You are worn out,” he seemed to say; “go where you -ought to go, then my master will not have to visit you, and waste the -time he owes to me.” And he, too, rose and came and put his snout on my -knee; “When I am old, master, you will still take care of me--that is -understood between us. But this man has no one to take care of him. Let -us go!” - -The old man spoke at last: - -“No, sir. I don’t want to go there; I can work. I don’t want to go -there.” - -Beyond him the whisper rose: - -“Father can work, sir; ’e can work. So long as we get a crust of bread, -we’d rather stay ’ere.” - -“I’ve got _this_, but I can’t bring meself to use it. I can work; I’ve -always worked.” He took out a piece of paper. It was an order admitting -James White, aged 71, and Eliza White his wife, aged 71, into the local -Workhouse; if used for purposes of begging to be destroyed. - -“Father can work, sir; ’e can work. We seen dreadful times in this -room, believe, me, sir, before we came to getting that. We don’t want -to go. I tell Father I’d rather die out ’ere.” - -“But you’d be so much more comfortable, Mrs. White; you must know that.” - -“Yes, sir; but there it is--I don’t want to, and Father don’t want to.” - -“I can work; I can go about with a barrer, or anything.” - -“But can you _live_?” - -“Well, sir, so long as we’re alive. After that, I can’t tell--they’ll -get us then, I suppose.” - -And the whisper came: - -“We can’t ’elp it after that. As you see, sir--there’s nothin’ left, -there’s nothin’ left.” - -She raised her hand and pointed to the bed; and the sun, that had been -hidden all the morning, broke through and glittered on her wedding -ring. - - - - -THE CAREFUL MAN - -IV - -THE CAREFUL MAN - - -He came on one side of farmer stock who had married farmer stock since -the invasion of the Saxons, and on the other side of county families who -had married county families since the Norman conquest. He was born where -the town ended and country life began, educated at a public school, and -his father was a judge. - -Being designed for a profession he had adopted it, keeping himself in -hand, so as not to be unpleasantly professional. For since the time when -he was wheeled in perambulators he had never wanted to do anything too -much. He had so completely seen the other side of being wheeled in -perambulators that he had ever afterwards been loth to put himself in a -position which made it needful for him to act with all his heart. His -organs were in fact remarkably adjusted. He had not too much head nor -too much heart. He had not too much appetite, but he had appetite -enough. When asked at lunch of which sweet he would partake, he would -answer: “A little of both, thanks”; for nothing seemed to him in life so -great a pity as to take one thing to the exclusion of another. The -instinct was so founded in the very roots of him that he knew nothing of -it; and it was this unconsciousness which lent a simple strength to what -might otherwise have seemed an undecided character. - -His attitude to women was a guarded one. It was repugnant to him to have -too much wife, and yet, not wife enough was also very painful; and so he -had devised a way out of his embarrassment by saying to himself: “We two -are only married to the extent that we desire to be; we will do exactly -as we like.” And he found that by thinking this, and getting his wife, -who was a clever woman, to say she thought it too, he remained -extremely faithful. With regard to children, it had no doubt been -difficult, for--after a year or two--to have children and not to have -them had been found impossible. In this dilemma he had considered very -seriously what course he should adopt, and having carefully weighed the -pro’s and con’s had discovered them to be so very equal that he could -come to no conclusion. In consequence of this he had two children; after -which he found no difficulty in not wanting to have more. - -The question of his residence had occasioned him some pain; for, -supposing that he lived in town he missed the country, and supposing -that he resided in the country he missed the town. He therefore lived a -little in both town and country; so regulating things that when in -London he wanted to be out, and when out of London he wanted to be in, -which kept him healthy. - -A moderate meat diet gave him a hankering after other diets, making him -a vegetarian in theory, so that he was in accord with either school. He -drank wine at times; at times he drank no wine; he smoked one cigar -after every meal--no more, because more made him sick. - -His feeling about money was that he ought to have enough, in order to -have no feeling about money; and, to attain this vacuum, he mechanically -restrained his wants, still more his wife’s--for, not being so -beautifully adjusted as himself, when she wanted things, she _wanted_ -them. - -In matters of religion he would not commit himself to any definite -opinions. If asked whether he thought there were a future life, he would -say: “I see no reason to believe there is; on the other hand, I see no -object in believing that there isn’t; there may be, or there may not be; -or, again, there may be a future life for some, no future life for -others--a little of both, perhaps.” - -Dogma of any sort, of course, he found offensive--you were committed by -it, and to be committed was both repulsive and absurd. - -Once or twice only in his life had he seriously felt careless, and -these were on occasions when he found his carelessness was threatened by -some person or event that tried to tie him down. - -There was in him a sort of terror of being bound to anything; and when -he was returned to Parliament, which happened after he was forty, he -felt a natural uneasiness. Was he committed; if so, what was he -committed to? Could he still get down on either side; and suppose he did -get down, could he at once get up again? And he was happy when he found -he could. - -_It was remarkable how national he was._ - -Yet he was not entirely conscious of his importance to the State, not -recognising perhaps sufficiently how many other men were like him in -every walk of life--not recognising that he was, in truth, the solid -centre of the nation’s pudding. - -There was a word that he had early learnt to spell; it started with a C, -the second letter was an O, the third an M, the fourth a P, the fifth an -R, the sixth an O, the seventh M, the eighth an I, the ninth an S, the -last an E. Once learnt, soon after he escaped from perambulators, that -word was never more forgot. He took it to his office, he took it to his -church, he took it into bed with him at nights. And now that he had -become a public man he took it to the House. But, having a regard, a -veneration, for the figure of John Bull--that myth who never modified -his views, but held on fast to his ideals in spite of all the dogs of -war--he preferred, whenever he was forced to act, to _say_ that he had -acted on his principles--and so, in truth, he had, for the deepest of -his principles was the intimate belief that there was no such thing as -principle. - -This it was that gave him his pre-eminence in politics, for, seated in -the very centre of the seesaw, being the first to feel and answer to, he -was the least affected by, its motion. By shifting just a little, and -instinctively, he kept the whole machine together, having all the time a -quiet contempt for the two ends that would keep swinging to the skies or -bumping on the ground. Nothing could be done without him in that House, -because he was so plentiful; and very little with him. - -He had a sense of humour, and devoted it to seeing all the fun there was -in “cranks,” and in extravagance of every kind. Never was he more amused -than when he saw a person really give himself to anything; he would sit, -sometimes with his hat on and sometimes with it off, watching with a -quiet smile to see the fellow bump; and the bigger the bump was, the -funnier he found it! But for such as smiled at careful men he had a -feeling that you could not take them seriously; it was their little -joke, and not a very good one; and especially he wondered how people -could be found foolish enough to place these persons in an Institution -where care was of the essence of the atmosphere. Confident, however, -that their want of care would soon undo them, he did not trouble much. - -Phrases such as “There is no middle policy” sometimes carried him away -for quite five minutes; but he invariably came back in time to find -there was. It had, in fact, long been a fixed and firm belief with him -that he could make omelettes without breaking eggs, and though he -clearly made no omelettes, on the other hand he broke no eggs. Nor did -he ever fracture his belief that he was just about to make an omelette. -And after all, an omelette, even if you made it, what did it amount to? -There it was! You ate it, and had to make another! Better far to fix an -omelette in your mind, and keep it there unmade. But discussion on the -omelette’s composition he was always ready to encourage; and, sitting -with his eye cocked at the ingredients, he would talk them over very -carefully, and now and then break off a sprig of parsley, so that the -omelette really did advance--but not too fast. Sometimes he was even -known to contemplate the omelette all the night, but this he only did -because he was so very much afraid that if he left it somebody would -cook the thing; and he would go home in the early morning to his wife, -complaining rather bitterly that with a little care all this excessive -cooking in the House might be avoided. - -Take him for all in all, he was not original in mind, and yet he was no -flunkey, serving mortal masters; he served a nobler one than they--the -great god Opportunity. But it was not safe to tell him this, for though -there was no reason in the world why he should dislike its being known -that he acted in accordance with his nature, somehow he did not like it. -This was, no doubt, an instance of his care. - -Hardly any social measure could be brought to his attention with which -he did not feel a certain meed of sympathy. If, for instance, somebody -proposed a scheme of Old-Age Pensions, he would give a careful nod, and -wait, because he knew that when somebody got up and said that this was -dangerous, he should agree with him; or, again, if it were suggested -that children should be made less hungry out of the public rates, he -approved, but not too much, because he felt that to approve too much -would interfere with his approval of the plan that they should not be -fed out of the public rates. “A little bit of both,” would be his -thought, and by this masterly decision, which was often called his -commonsense, he infallibly secured possession to the children of a -little bit of neither; but, as he very justly said, to grant the first -was too progressive; to grant the second, retrograde. And so with every -other measure. - -His leaders on both sides had learned from long experience the -daintiness of his digestion; how very sensitive it was to motion; how, -if jolted, it revolted; and so they did not try too hard to jolt it now, -for they naturally hated to be cast into the air. They appreciated, too, -his sterling worth--without him they felt the country would improve too -fast. - -And those leaders of his would look at him. With his eyelids lowered, -but his eyes a little anxious, with his lips pinched in, and yet -half-smiling, in an overcoat of medium weight, put on or taken off -according to the weather, he sat, not very often opening his mouth. -Behind his grey and unobtrusive figure they saw the masses of grey, -unobtrusive, careful men, and a little shiver would run down their -spines. - -Too often had they awakened from their dreams and seen him sitting -there, under a tall grey tower with a clock that faced all ways, bench -upon bench, row after row, by day, by night, one eye of him on one side, -and one eye on the other, and his nose between them in the middle. - - - - -FEAR - -V - -FEAR - - -I saw him first on a spring day--one of those days when the limbs are -lazy with delicious tiredness, the air soft and warm against the face, -the heart full of a queer longing to know the hearts of other men. - -He was quite a little man, with broad, high shoulders, and hardly any -neck; and what was noticeable in his square, wooden-looking figure, -dressed in light, shabby tweed, and patched, yellow boots, was that he -seemed to have no chest. He was flat--from his white face, with its -sandy hair, moustache, and eyebrows, under an old, narrow-brimmed straw -hat, right down to his feet. It was as though life had planed him. His -face, too, seemed to have lost all but its bones and skin of -yellow-white; there were no eyelashes to his reddish-brown round eyes; -there was no colour in his thin lips, compressed as though to keep the -secret of a mortal fear. Save for the wheeze and rustle of his -breathing, he stood very still, nervously rubbing his claw-like hands up -and down his trouser-legs. His voice was hoarse and faint. - -“Yes, I was a baker,” he said. “They tell me as how that’s where I’ve -done myself the harm. But I never learnt another trade; I was afraid -that if I give it up I wouldn’t get no other work. Bakin’s not good -for----” - -He laid his thin, yellow fingers where there was so little left to lay -them on. - -“There’s my wife and child,” he went on in his matter-of-fact voice; -“I’m fair frightened. If I could give up thinking of what’s coming to -them, I believe that I’d feel better. But what am I to do? All my -savin’s have gone now; I’m selling off my things, an’ when I’m through -with that--there we shall be.” - -His unlovely little face, with its hard-bitten lips and lashless eyes, -quivered all over suddenly, as though within him all his fear had risen -up, seized on his features, and set them to a dance of agony; but they -were soon still again. Stillness was the only possible condition for a -face covering such thoughts as he had had. - -“I don’t sleep for thinkin’ of it--that’s against me!” - -Yes--that was against him, considering the condition of his health. Any -doctor would have told him to sleep well; that sleep, in fact, was quite -essential. And I seemed to see him lying on his back, staring at the -darkness, with those lashless, red-rimmed eyes, trying to find in its -black depths something that was not there--the wan glow of a livelihood -of some kind for his wife and child. - -“I gets in such a muck o’ sweat, worrying about what’s going to come to -them with me like this; it quite exhausts me, it does really. You -wouldn’t believe how weak I was!” - -And one could not help reminding him that he ought not to worry--it was -very bad for him. - -“Yes, I know that; I don’t think I can last long at this rate.” - -“If you could give up worrying, you would get well much quicker!” - -He answered by a look of such humble and unconscious irony as one may -see on the faces of the dead before their last wonder at the end has -faded from them. - -“They tells me up at the hospital to eat well!” - -And, looking at this meagre little man, it seemed that the advice was -sound. Good food, and plenty of it! - -“I’ve been doing the best I can, of course.” He made this statement -without sarcasm, in a voice that seemed to say: “This world I live in -is, of course, a funny world; the sort of fun it likes may be -first-rate, but if I were once to begin to laugh at it, where could I -stop--I ask you--where?” - -“Plenty of milk they tell me is the best thing I can take, but the child -she’s bound to have as much as we can manage to buy. At her age, you -see, she needs it. Of course, if I could get a job!--I’d take -anything--I’d drive a baker’s cart!” - -He lifted his little pipes of arms, and let them fall again, and God -knows what he meant by such a motion, unless it were to show his -strength. - -“Of course, some days,” he said, “I can hardly get my breath at all, and -that’s against me.” - -It would be, as he said, against him; and, encouraged by a look, he -added: - -“I know I kep’ on too long with my profession; but you know what it -is--when you’ve been brought up to a job you get to depend on it; to -give it up is like chuckin’ of yourself away. And that’s what I’ve -found--people don’t want such as I am now.” - -And for a full half-minute we stood looking at each other; his bitten, -discoloured lips twitched twice, and a faint pink warmed the paper -whiteness of his cheeks. - -“Up at the hospital they don’t seem to take no interest in my case any -more; seems as if they thought it ’opeless.” - -Unconscious that he had gone beneath the depths of human nature, shown -up the human passion for definite success, illustrated human worship of -the idol strength, and human scorn for what is weak--he said these -simple words in an almost injured tone. Recovery might be impossible, -people did not want such as he was now; but he was still interested in -himself, still loth to find himself a useless bee ejected from the hive. -His lashless eyes seemed saying: “I believe I could get well--I do -believe I could!” - -Yet he was not unreasonable, for he went on: - -“When I first went there they took a lot of interest in me--but that’s a -year ago. Perhaps I’ve disappointed them!” - -Perhaps he had! - -“They kept on telling me to take plenty of fresh air. Where I live, of -course, there’s not so very much about, but I take all I can. Not bein’ -able to get a job, I’ve been sitting in the Park. I take the child--they -tell me not to have her too near me in the house.” - -And I had a vision of this man of leisure sitting in the Park, rubbing -his hand stealthily to keep them dry, and watching with red eyes the -other men of leisure; too preoccupied to wonder even why his leisure was -not like theirs. - -“Days like this,” he said, “it’s warm enough; but I can’t enjoy them for -thinking of what’s coming.” - -His glance wandered to the pear-trees in the garden--they were all in -blossom, and lighted by the sun; he looked down again a little hastily. -A blackbird sang beyond the further wall. The little baker passed his -tongue over his lips. - -“I’m a countryman by birth,” he said: “it’s like the country here. If I -could get a job down in the country I should pick up, perhaps. Last time -I was in the country I put on ’alf a stone. But who’d take me?” - -Again he raised his little pipes of arms; this time it was clearly not -to show his strength. No--he seemed to say: “No one would take me! I -have found that out--I have found out all there is to know. I am done -for!” - -“That’s about where it is,” he said; “and I wouldn’t care so much, but -for the baby and my wife. I don’t see what I could ha’ done, other than -what I have done. God knows I kept on at it till I couldn’t keep on no -longer.” - -And as though he knew that he was again near that point when a hundred -times he had broken into private agony, seen by no creature but himself, -he stared hard at me, and his red moustache bristled over his sunken, -indrawn lips. - -A pigeon flew across; settling on a tree in the next garden it began to -call its mate; and suddenly there came into my mind the memory of a -thrush that, some months before, had come to the garden bed where we -were standing, and all day long would hide and hop there, avoiding other -birds, with its feathers all staring and puffed out. I remembered how it -would let us take it up, and the film that kept falling on its eyes, and -its sick heart beating so faintly beneath our hands; no bird of all the -other birds came near it--knowing that it could no longer peck its -living, and was going to die. - -One day we could not find it; the next day we found it under a bush, -dead. - -“I suppose it’s human nature not to take me on, seein’ the state I’m -in,” the little baker said. “I don’t want to be a trouble to no one, I’m -sure; I’ve always kept myself, ever since I was that high,” he put his -hand out level with his waist; “and now I can’t keep myself, let alone -the wife and child. It’s the coming to the end of everything--it’s the -seeing of it coming. Fear--that’s what it is! But I suppose I’m not the -only one.” - -And for that moment he seemed comforted by this thought that there were -thousands of other working creatures, on whose shoulders sat the -grinning cat of mortal illness, all staring with him at utter -emptiness--thousands of other working creatures who were dying because -fear had made them work too long. His face brightened ever so little, as -though the sun had found a way to him. But suddenly that wooden look, -the only safe and perfect look, came back to his features. One could -have sworn that fear had never touched him, so expressionless, so still -was he! - - - - -FASHION - -VI - -FASHION - - -I have watched you this ten minutes, while your carriage has been -standing still, and have seen your smiling face change twice, as though -you were about to say; “I am not accustomed to be stopped like this”; -but what I have chiefly noticed is that you have not looked at anything -except the persons sitting opposite and the backs of your flunkeys on -the box. Clearly nothing has distracted you from following your thought: -“There is pleasure before me, I am told!” Yours is the three-hundredth -carriage in this row that blocks the road for half a mile. In the two -hundred and ninety-nine that come before it, and the four hundred that -come after, you are sitting too--with your face before you, and your -unseeing eyes. - -Resented while you gathered being; brought into the world with the most -distinguished skill; remembered by your mother when the whim came to -her; taught to believe that life consists in caring for your clean, -well-nourished body, and your manner that nothing usual can disturb; -taught to regard Society as the little ring of men and women that you -see, and to feel your only business is to know the next thing that you -want and get it given you--_You have never had a chance!_ - -You take commands from no other creature; your heart gives you your -commands, forms your desires, your wishes, your opinions, and passes -them between your lips. From your heart well-up the springs that feed -the river of your conduct; but your heart is a stagnant pool that has -never seen the sun. Each year when April comes, and the earth smells -new, you have an odd aching underneath your corsets. What is it for? You -have a husband, or a lover, or both, or neither, whichever suits you -best; you have children, or could have them if you wished for them; you -are fed at stated intervals with food and wine; you have all you want of -country life and country sports; you have the theatre and the opera, -books, music, and religion! From the top of the plume, torn from a dying -bird, or the flowers, made at an insufficient wage, that decorate your -head, to the sole of the shoe that cramps your foot, you are decked out -with solemn care; a year of labour has been sewn into your garments and -forged into your rings--you are a breathing triumph! - -You live in the centre of the centre of the world; if you wish you can -have access to everything that has been thought since the world of -thought began; if you wish you can see everything that has ever been -produced, for you can travel where you like; you are within reach of -Nature’s grandest forms and the most perfect works of art. You can hear -the last word that is said on everything, if you wish. When you do wish, -the latest tastes are servants of your palate, the latest scents attend -your nose--_You have never had a chance!_ - -For, sitting there in your seven hundred carriages, you are blind--in -heart, and soul, and voice, and walk; the blindest creature in the -world. Never for one minute of your life have you thought, or done, or -spoken for yourself. You have been prevented; and so wonderful is this -plot to keep you blind that you have not a notion it exists. To yourself -your sight seems good, such is your pleasant thought. Since you cannot -even see this hedge around you, how can there be anything the other -side? The ache beneath your corsets in the spring is all you are ever to -know of what there is beyond. And no one is to blame for this--you least -of all. - -It was settled, long before the well-fed dullard’s kiss from which you -sprang. Forces have worked, in dim, inexorable progress, from the -remotest time till they have bred you, little blind creature, to be the -masterpiece of their creation. With the wondrous subtlety of Fate’s -selection, they have paired and paired all that most narrowly approaches -to the mean, all that by nature shirks the risks of living, all that by -essence clings to custom, till they have secured a state of things which -has assured your coming, in your perfection of nonentity. They have -planted you apart in your expensive mould, and still they are at -work--these gardeners never idle--pruning and tying night and day to -prevent your running wild. The Forces are proud of you--their waxen, -scentless flower! - -The sun beats down, and still your carriage does not move; and this -delay is getting on your nerves. You cannot imagine what is blocking-up -your way! Do you ever imagine anything? If all those goodly coverings -that contain you could be taken off, what should we find within the last -and inmost shell--a little soul that has lost its power of speculation. -A soul that was born in you a bird and has become a creeping thing; -wings gone, eyes gone, groping, and clawing with its tentacles what is -given it. - -You stand up, speaking to your coachman! And you are charming, standing -there, to us who, like your footman, cannot see the label “Blind.” The -cut of your gown is perfect, the dressing of your hair the latest, the -trimming of your hat is later still; your trick of speech the very -thing; you droop your eyelids to the life; you have not too much powder; -it is a lesson in grace to see you hold your parasol. The doll of -Nature! So, since you were born; so, until you die! And, with his -turned, clean-shaven face, your footman seems to say: “Madam, how you -have come to be it is not my province to inquire. You are! I am myself -dependent on you!” You are the heroine of the farce, but no one smiles -at you, for you are tragic, the most tragic figure in the world. No -fault of yours that ears and eyes and heart and voice are atrophied so -that you have no longer spirit of your own! - -Fashion brought you forth, and she has seen to it that you are the image -of your mother, knowing that if she made you by a hair’s-breadth -different, you would see what she is like and judge her. You are -Fashion, Fashion herself, blind, fear-full Fashion! You do what you do -because others do it; think what you think because others think it; feel -what you feel because others feel it. You are the Figure without eyes. - -And no one can reach you, no one can alter you, poor little bundle of -others’ thoughts; for there is nothing left to reach. - -In your seven hundred carriages, you pass; and the road is bright with -you. Above that road, below it, and on either hand, are the million -things and beings that you cannot see; all that is organic in the world, -all that is living and creating, all that is striving to be free. You -pass, glittering, on your round, the sightless captive of your own -triumph; and the eyes of the hollow-chested work-girls on the pavement -fix on you a thousand eager looks, for you are strange to them. Many of -their hearts are sore with envy; they do not know that you are as dead -as snow around a crater; they cannot tell you for the nothing that you -are--Fashion! The Figure without eyes! - - - - -SPORT - -VII - -SPORT - - -Often in the ride of some Scotch wood I used to stand, clutching my gun, -with eyes moving from right to left, from left to right. Every nerve and -fibre of my body would receive and answer to the slightest movements, -the smallest noises, the faintest scents. The acrid sweetness of the -spruce-trees in the mist, the bite of innumerable midges, the feel of -the deep, wet, mossy heather underfoot, the brown-grey twilight of the -wood, the stillness--these were poignant as they never will be again. -And slowly, back of that stillness, the noises of the beaters would -begin. Gentle and regular, at first--like the ending of a symphony -rather than its birth--they would swell, then drop and fade away -completely. In that unexpected silence a squirrel scurried out along a -branch, sat a moment looking, and scurried back; or, with its soft, -blunt flight, an owl would fly across. - -Then, with a shrill, far “Mar-r-rk!” the beaters’ chorus would rise -again, drowned for an instant by the crack of the keepers’ guns; louder -and louder it came, rhythmically, inexorably nearer. In the ride little -shivers of wind shook the drops of warm mist off the needles of the -spruce, and a half-veiled sun faintly warmed and coloured everything. -Stealing through heather and fern would come a rabbit, confiding in the -space before him and the ride where he was wont to sun himself. At a -shot he flung his mortal somersault, or disappeared into a burrow, -reached too soon. To see him lie there dead in the brown-grey twilight -of the trees would give one a strange pleasure--a feeling such as some -casual love affair will give a man, the pleasure of a primitive virility -expressed--but to watch him disappear into the earth would irritate, for -he had got his death, and, dead within the earth, he would not do one -any sort of credit. Nor was it nice to think that he was dying slowly, -so one forbore to think. - -Sometimes we did not shoot at such small stuff, but waited for the -roedeer. These dun familiars of the wood were very shy, clinging to the -deepest thickets, treading with gentle steps, invisible as spirits, and -ever trying to break back. Now and then, leaping forward with -hindquarters higher than its shoulders, one of them would face the line -of beaters, and then would arise the strangest noises above the -customary sounds and tappings--cries of fierce resentment that such fine -“game” should thus escape the guns. When the creature crossed the line -these cries swelled into a long, continuous, excited shriek; and, as the -yells died out in muttering, I used to feel a hollow sense of -disappointment. - -When the beat was over they would collect the birds and beasts which had -fulfilled their destiny, and place them all together. Half hidden by the -bracken or deep heather the little bodies lay abandoned to the ground -with the wonderful strange limpness of dead things. We stood looking at -them in the misty air, acrid with the fragrance of the spruce-trees; and -each of us would feel a vague strange thirst, a longing to be again -standing in the rides with the cries of the beaters in our ears, and -creatures coming closer, closer to our guns. - - * * * * * - -Often in the police-courts I have sat, while they drove another kind of -“game.” - -It would be quiet in there but for the whisperings and shufflings -peculiar to all courts of law. Through the high-placed windows a grey -light fell impartially, and in it everything looked hard and shabby. The -air smelled of old clothes, and now and then, when the women were -brought in, of the corpse of some sweet scent. - -Through a door on the left-hand side they would drive these women, one -by one, often five or six, even a dozen, in one morning. Some of them -would come shuffling forward to the dock with their heads down; others -walked boldly; some looked as if they must faint; some were hard and -stoical as stone. They would be dressed in black, quite neatly; or in -cheap, rumpled finery; or in skimped, mud-stained garments. Their faces -were of every type--dark and short, with high cheek-bones; blowsy from -drink; long, worn, and raddled; one here and there like a wild fruit; -and many bestially insensible, devoid of any sort of beauty. - -They stood, as in southern countries, one may see many mules or asses, -harnessed to too-heavy loads of wood or stone, stand, utterly unmoving, -with a mute submissive viciousness. Now and then a girl would turn half -round towards the public, her lips smiling defiantly, but her eyes never -resting for a moment, as though knowing well enough there was no place -where they _could_ rest. The next to her would seem smitten with a sort -of deathlike shame, but there were not many of this kind, for they were -those whom the beaters had driven in for the first time. Sometimes they -refused to speak. As a rule they gave their answers in hard voices, -their sullen eyes lowered; then, having received the meed of justice, -went shuffling or flaunting out. - -They were used to being driven, it was their common lot; a little piece -of sport growing more frequent with each year that intervened between -their present and that moment when some sportsman first caught sight of -them and started out to bring them down. From most of them that day was -now distant by many thousand miles of pavement, so far off that it was -hard work to remember it. What sport they had afforded since! Yet not -one of all their faces seemed to show that they saw the fun that lay in -their being driven in like this. They were perhaps still grateful, some -of them, at the bottom of their hearts for that first moment when they -came shyly towards the hunter, who stood holding his breath for fear -they should not come; unable from their natures to believe that it was -not their business to attract and afford them sport. But suddenly in a -pair of greenish eyes and full lips sharpened at their corners, behind -the fading paint and powder on a face, one could see the huntress--the -soul as of a stealing cat, waiting to flesh its claws in what it could, -driven by some deep, insatiable instinct. This one too had known sport; -she had loved to spring and bring down the prey just as we who brought -her here had loved to hunt her. Nature had put sport into her heart and -into ours; and behind that bold or cringing face there seemed to lurk -this question: “I only did what you do--what nearly every man of you has -done a little, in your time. I only wanted a bit of sport, like you: -that’s human nature, isn’t it? Why do you bring me here, when you don’t -bring yourselves! Why do you allow me in certain bounds to give you -sport, and trap me outside those bounds like vermin? When I was -beautiful--and I _was_ beautiful--it was you who begged of me! I gave -until my looks were gone. Now that my looks are gone, I have to beg you -to come to me, or I must starve; and when I beg, you bring me here. -That’s funny isn’t it, d----d funny! I’d laugh, if laughter earned my -living; but I can’t afford to laugh, my fellow-sportsmen--the more there -are of you the better for me until I’m done for!” - -Silently we men would watch--as one may watch rats let out of a cage to -be pounced upon by a terrier--their frightened, restless eyes cowed by -coming death; their short, frantic rush, soon ended; their tossed, limp -bodies! On some of our faces was a jeering curiosity, as though we were -saying: “Ah! we thought that you would come to this.” A few faces--not -used to such a show--were darkened with a kind of pity. The most were -fixed and hard and dull, as of men looking at hurtful things they own -and cannot do without. But in all our unmoving eyes could be seen that -tightening of fibre, that tenseness, which is the mark of sport. The -beaters had well done their work; the game was driven to the gun! - -It was but the finish of the hunt, the hunt that we had started, one or -other of us, some fine day, the sun shining and the blood hot, wishing -no harm to any one, but just a little sport. - - - - -MONEY - -VIII - -MONEY - - -Every night between the hours of two and four he would wake, and lie -sleepless, and all his monetary ghosts would come and visit him. If, for -instance, he had just bought a house and paid for it, any doubt he had -conceived at any time about its antecedents or its future would suddenly -appear, squatting on the foot-rail of his bed, staring in his face. -There it would grow, until it seemed to fill the room; and terror would -grip his heart. The words: “I shall lose my money,” would leap to his -lips; but in the dark it seemed ridiculous to speak them. Presently -beside that doubt more doubts would squat. Doubts about his other -houses, about his shares; misgivings as to Water Boards; terrors over -Yankee Rails. They took, fantastically, the shape of owls, clinging in -a line and swaying, while from their wide black gaps of mouth would come -the silent chorus: “Money, money, you’ll lose all your money!” His heart -would start thumping and fluttering; he would turn his old white head, -bury his whisker in the pillow, shut his eyes, and con over such -investments as he really could not lose. Then, beside his head -half-hidden in the pillow, there would come and perch the spectral bird -of some unlikely liability, such as a lawsuit that might drive him into -bankruptcy; while, on the other side, touching his silver hair, would -squat the yellow fowl of Socialism. Between these two he would lie -unmoving, save for that hammering of his heart, till at last would come -a drowsiness, and he would fall asleep.... - -At such times it was always of his money and his children’s and -grandchildren’s money that he thought. It was useless to tell himself -how few his own wants were, or that it might be better for his children -to have to make their way. Such thoughts gave him no relief. His fears -went deeper than mere facts; they were religious, as it were, and -founded in an innermost belief that, by money only, Nature could be held -at bay. - -Of this, from the moment when he first made money, his senses had -informed him, and slowly, surely, gone on doing so, till his very being -was soaked through with the conviction. He might be told on Sundays that -money was not everything, but he knew better. Seated in the left-hand -aisle, he seemed lost in reverence--a grandchild on either hand, his old -knees in quiet trousers, crossed, his white-fringed face a little turned -towards the preacher, one neat-gloved hand reposing on his thigh, the -other keeping warm a tiny hand thrust into it. But his old brain was far -away, busy amongst the Tables of Commandment, telling him how much to -spend to get his five per cent. and money back; his old heart was busy -with the little hand tucked into his. There was nothing in such sermons, -therefore, that could quarrel with his own religion, for he did not -hear them; and even had he heard them, they would not have quarrelled, -his own creed of money being but the natural modern form of a religion -that his fathers had interpreted as the laying-up of treasure in the -life to come. He was only able nowadays to _say_ that he believed in any -life to come, so that his commercialism had been forced to find another -outlet, and advance a step, in accordance with the march of knowledge. - -His religious feeling about money did not make him selfish, or niggardly -in any way--it merely urged him to preserve himself--not to take risks -that he could reasonably avoid, either in his mode of life, his work, or -in the propagation of his children. He had not married until he had a -position to offer to the latter, sufficiently secure from changes and -chances in this mortal life, and even then he had not been too -precipitate, confining the number to three boys, and one welcome girl, -in accordance with the increase of his income. In the circles where he -moved, his course of action was so normal that no one had observed the -mathematical connection between increasing income and the production and -education of his family. Still less had any one remarked the deep and -silent process by which there passed from him to them the simple -elements of faith. - -His children, subtly, and under cover of the manner of a generation -which did not mention money in so many words, had sucked in their -father’s firm religious instinct, his quiet knowledge of the value of -the individual life, his steady and unconscious worship of the means of -keeping it alive. Calmly they had sucked it in, and a thing or two -besides. So long as he was there they knew they could afford to make a -little free with what must come to them by virtue of his creed. When -quite small children, they had listened, rather bored, to his simple -statements about money and the things it bought; presently that -instinct--shared by the very young with dogs and other animals--for -having of the best and consorting with their betters, had helped them -to see the real sense of what he said. As time went on, they found -gentility insisting more and more that this instinct should be -concealed; and they began unconsciously to perfect their father’s creed, -draping its formal tenets in the undress of an apparent disregard. For -the dogma, “Not worth the money!” they would use the words, “Not good -enough!” The teaching, “Business first,” they formulated, “Not more -pleasure than your income can afford, your health can stand, or your -reputation can assimilate.” There was money waiting for them, and they -did not feel it necessary to undertake even those “safe” risks which -their father had been obliged to take, to make that money. But they were -quite to be depended on. In the choosing of their friends, their sports, -their clubs, and occupations, a religious feeling guided them. They knew -precisely just how much their income was, and took care neither to spend -more nor less. And so devoutly did they act up to their principles, -that, whether in the restaurant or country house, whether in the -saleroom of a curio shop, whether in their regiments or their offices, -they could always feel the presence of the godhead blessing their -discreet and comfortable worship. In one respect, indeed, they were more -religious than their father, who still preserved the habit of falling on -his knees at night, to name with Tibetan regularity a strange god; they -did not speak to him about this habit, but they wished he would not do -it, being fond of their old father, who continued them into the past. -They had gently laughed him out of talking about money, they had gently -laughed at him for thinking of it still; but they loved him, and it -worried them in secret that he should do this thing, which seemed to -them dishonest. - -With their wives and husband--in course of time they had all -married--they very often came to see him, bringing their children. To -the old man these little visitors were worth more than all hydropathy; -to help in playing with the toys that he himself had given them, to -stroke his grandsons’ yellow heads, and ride them on his knee; to press -his silver whiskers to their ruddy cheeks, pinching their little legs to -feel how much there was of them, and loving them the more, the more -there was to love--this made his heart feel warm. The dearest moments, -he knew now, the consolation of his age, were those he spent reflecting -how--of the young things he loved, who seemed to love him too a -little--not one would have secured to him or her less than twelve or -thirteen hundred pounds a year; more, if he could manage to hold on a -little longer. For fifty years at least the flesh and blood he left -behind would be secure. His eye and mind, quick to notice things like -that, had soon perceived the difference of the younger generation’s -standards from his own; his children had perhaps a deeper veneration for -the means of living while they were alive, but certainly less faith in -keeping up their incomes after they were in their graves. And so, -unconsciously, his speculation passed them by, and travelled to his -grandchildren, telling itself that these small creatures who nestled up -against him, and sometimes took him walks, would, when they came to be -grown men and women, have his simpler faith, and save the money that he -left them, for their own grandchildren. Thus, and thus only, would he -live, not fifty years, but a hundred, after he was dead. But he was -rendered very anxious by the law, which refused to let him tie his money -up in perpetuity. - -Firm in his determination to secure himself against the future, he -opposed this strenuous piety to those temptations which beset the -individual, refusing numberless appeals, often much against his -instincts of compassion; opposing with his vote and all his influence -movements to increase the rates or income-tax for such purposes as the -raising of funds to enable aged people without means to die more slowly. -He himself, who laid up yearly more and more for the greater safety of -his family, felt, no doubt--though cynicism shocked him--that these old -persons were only an encumbrance to _their_ families, and should be -urged to dwindle gently out. In such private cases as he came across, -feeling how hard it was, he prayed for strength to keep his hand out of -his pocket, and strength was often given him. So with many other -invitations to depart from virtue. He fixed a certain sum a year--a -hundred pounds--with half-a-crown in the velvet bag on Sundays--to be -offered as libations to all strange gods, so that they might leave him -undisturbed to worship the true god of money. This was effectual; the -strange gods, finding him a man of strong religious principle, yet no -crank--his name appeared in twenty charitable lists, five pounds -apiece--soon let him be, for fear of wasting postage stamps and the -under parts of boots. - -After his wife’s death, which came about when he was seventy, he -continued to reside alone in the house that he had lived in since his -marriage, though it was now too large for him. Every autumn he resolved -to make a change next spring; but when spring came, he could not bring -himself to tear his old roots up, and put it off till the spring -following, with the hope, perhaps, that he might then feel more -inclined. - -All through the years that he was living there alone, he suffered more -and more from those nightly visitations, of monetary doubts. They -seemed, indeed, to grow more concrete and insistent with every thousand -pounds he put between himself and their reality. They became more -owl-like, more numerous, with each fresh investment; they stayed longer -at a time. And he grew thinner, frailer, every year; pouches came -beneath his eyes. - -When he was eighty, his daughter, with her husband and children, came to -live with him. This seemed to give him a fresh lease of life. He never -missed, if he could help it, a visit to the nursery at five o’clock. -There, surrounded by toy bricks, he would remain an hour or more, -building--banks or houses, ships or churches, sometimes -police-stations, sometimes cemeteries, but generally banks. And when -the edifice approached completion, in the glory of its long white -bricks, he waited with a sort of secret ecstasy to feel a small warm -body climb his back, and hear a small voice say in his ear: “What shall -we put in the bank to-day, Granddy?” - -The first time this was asked, he had hesitated long before he answered. -During the thirty years that had elapsed since he built banks for his -own children, he had learned that one did not talk of money now, -especially before the young. One used a euphemism for it. The proper -euphemism had been slow to spring into his mind, but it had sprung at -last; and they had placed it in the bank. It was a very little china -dog. They placed it in the entrance hall. - -The small voice said: “What is it guarding?” - -He had answered: “The bank, my darling.” - -The small voice murmured: “But nobody could steal the bank.” - -Looking at the little euphemism, he had frowned. It lacked completeness -as a symbol. For a moment he had a wild desire to put a sixpence down, -and end the matter. Two small knees wriggled against his back, arms -tightened round his neck, a chin rubbed itself impatiently against his -whisker. He muttered hastily: - -“But they could steal the papers.” - -“What papers?” - -“The wills, and deeds, and--and cheques.” - -“Where are they?” - -“In the bank.” - -“I don’t see them.” - -“They’re in a cupboard.” - -“What are they for?” - -“For--for grown-up people.” - -“Are they to play with?” - -“NO!” - -“Why is he guarding them?” - -“So that--so that everybody can always have enough to eat.” - -“Everybody?” - -“Everybody.” - -“Me, too?” - -“Yes, my darling; you, of course.” - -Locked in each other’s arms they looked down sidelong at the little -euphemism. The small voice said: - -“Now that _he’s_ there, they’re safe, aren’t they?” - -“Quite safe.” - -He had given up attending to his business, but almost every morning, at -nearly the same hour, he would walk down to his club, not looking very -much at things about the streets, partly because his thoughts were -otherwise engaged, partly because he had found it from the first a -deleterious habit, tending to the overcultivation of the social -instincts. Arriving, he would take the _Times_ and the _Financial News_, -and go to his pet armchair; here he would stay till lunch-time, reading -all that bore in any way on his affairs, and taking a grave view of -every situation. But at lunch a longing to express himself would come, -and he would tell his neighbours tales of his little grandsons, of the -extraordinary things they did, and of the future he was laying up for -them. In the pleasant warmth of mid-day, over his light but satisfying -lunch, surrounded by familiar faces, he would recount these tales in -cheerful tones, and his old grey eyes would twinkle; between him and his -struggle with those nightly apparitions, there were many hours of -daylight, there was his visit to the nursery. But, suddenly, looking up -fixedly with strained eyes, he would put a question such as this: “Do -you ever wake up in the night?” If the answer were affirmative, he would -say: “Do you ever find things worry you then out of--out of all -proportion?” And, if they did, he would clearly be relieved to hear it. -On one occasion, when he had elicited an emphatic statement of the -discomfort of such waking hours, he blurted out: “You don’t ever see a -lot of great owls sitting on your bed, I suppose?” Then, seemingly -ashamed of what he had just asked, he rose, and left his lunch -unfinished. - -His fellow-members, though nearly all much younger than himself, had no -unkindly feeling for him. He seemed to them, perhaps, to overrate their -interest in his grandsons and the state of his investments; but they -knew he could not help preoccupation with these subjects; and when he -left them, usually at three o’clock, saying almost tremulously: “I must -be off; my grandsons will be looking out for me!” they would exchange -looks as though remarking: “The old chap thinks of nothing but his -grandchildren.” And they would sit down to “bridge,” taking care to play -within the means their fathers had endowed them with. - -But the “old chap” would step into a hansom, and his spirit, looking -through his eyes beneath the brim of his tall hat, would travel home -before him. Yet, for all his hurry, he would find the time to stop and -buy a toy or something on the way. - -One morning, at the end of a cold March, they found him dead in bed, -propped on his pillows, with his eyes wide open. Doctors, hastily called -in, decided that he had died from failure of heart action, and fixed -the hour of death at anything from two to four; by the appearance of his -staring pupils they judged that something must have frightened him. No -one had heard a noise, no one could find a sign of anything alarming; so -no one could explain why he, who seemed so well preserved, should thus -have suddenly collapsed. To his own family he had never told the fact, -that every night he woke between the hours of two and four, to meet a -row of owls squatting on the foot-rail of his bed--he was, no doubt, -ashamed of it. He had revealed much of his religious feeling, but not -the real depth of it; not the way his deity of money had seized on his -imagination; not his nightly struggles with the terrors of his spirit, -nor the hours of anguish spent, when vitality was low, trying to escape -the company of doubts. No one had heard the fluttering of his heart, -which, beginning many years ago, just as a sort of pleasant habit to -occupy his wakeful minutes in the dark, had grown to be like the beating -of a hammer on soft flesh. No one had guessed, he least of all, the -stroke of irony that Nature had prepared to avenge the desecration of -her law of balance. She had watched his worship from afar, and quietly -arranged that by his worship he should be destroyed; careless, indeed, -what god he served, knowing only that he served too much. - -They brought the eldest of his little grandsons in. He stood a long time -looking, then asked if he might touch the cheek. Being permitted, he -kissed his little finger-tip and laid it on the old man’s whisker. When -he was led away and the door closed, he asked if “Granddy” were “quite -safe”; and twice again that evening he asked this question. - -In the early light next morning, before the house was up, the -under-housemaid saw a white thing on the mat before the old man’s door. -She went, and stooping down, examined it. It was the little china dog. - - - - -PROGRESS - -IX - -PROGRESS - - -Motor cars were crossing the Downs to Goodwood Races. Slowly they -mounted, sending forth an oily reek, a jerky grinding sound; and a cloud -of dust hung over the white road. Since ten o’clock they had been -mounting, one by one, freighted with the pale conquerors of time and -space. None paused on the top of the green heights, but with a -convulsive shaking leaped, and glided swiftly down; and the tooting of -their valves and the whirring of their wheels spread on either hand -along the hills. - -But from the clump of beech-trees on the very top nothing of their -progress could be heard, and nothing seen; only a haze of dust trailing -behind them like a hurried ghost. - -Amongst the smooth grey beech-stems of that grove were the pallid forms -of sheep, and it was cool and still as in a temple. Outside, the day was -bright, and a hundred yards away in the hot sun the shepherd, a bent old -man in an aged coat, was leaning on his stick. His brown face wrinkled -like a walnut, was fringed round with a stubble of grey beard. He stood -very still, and waited to be spoken to. - -“A fine day?” - -“Aye, fine enough; a little sun won’t do no harm. ’Twon’t last!” - -“How can you tell that?” - -“I been upon the Downs for sixty year!” - -“You must have seen some changes?” - -“Changes in men--an’ sheep!” - -“An’ wages, too, I suppose. What were they when you were twenty?” - -“Eight shillin’ a week.” - -“But living was surely more expensive?” - -“So ’twas; the bread was mortial dear, I know, an’ the flour black! An’ -piecrust, why, ’twas hard as wood!” - -“And what are wages now?” - -“There’s not a man about the Downs don’t get his sixteen shillin’; some -get a pound, some more.... There they go! Sha’n’t get ’em out now till -tew o’clock!” His sheep were slipping one by one into the grove of -beech-trees where, in the pale light, no flies tormented them. The -shepherd’s little dark-grey eyes seemed to rebuke his flock because they -would not feed the whole day long. - -“It’s cool in there. Some say that sheep is silly. ’Tain’t so very much -that they don’t know.” - -“So you think the times have changed?” - -“Well! There’s a deal more money in the country.” - -“And education?” - -“Ah! Ejucation? They spend all day about it. Look at the railways too, -an’ telegraphs! See! That’s bound to make a difference.” - -“So, things are better, on the whole?” - -He smiled. - -“I was married at twenty, on eight shillin’ a week; you won’t find them -doing such a thing as that these days--they want their comforts now. -There’s not the spirit of content about of forty or fifty years agone. -All’s for movin’ away an’ goin’ to the towns; an’ when they get there, -from what I’ve heard, they wish as they was back; but they don’t never -come.” - -There was no complaining in his voice; rather, a matter-of-fact and -slightly mocking tolerance. - -“You’ll see none now that live their lives up on the Downs an’ never -want to change. The more they get the more they want. They smell the -money these millioneers is spendin’--seems to make ’em think they can do -just anythin’ ’s long as they get some of it themselves. Times past, a -man would do his job, an’ never think because his master was rich that -he could cheat him; he gave a value for his wages, to keep well with -himself. Now, a man thinks because he’s poor he ought to ha’ been rich, -and goes about complainin’, doin’ just as little as he can. It’s my -belief they get their notions from the daily papers--hear too much of -all that’s goin’ on--it onsettles them; they read about this Sawcialism, -an’ these millioneers; it makes a pudden’ in their heads. Look at the -beer that’s drunk about it. For one gallon that was drunk when I was -young there’s twenty gallon now. The very sheep ha’ changed since I -remember; not one o’ them ewes you see before you there, that isn’t -pedigree--and the care that’s taken o’ them! They’d have me think that -men’s improvin’, too; richer they may be, but what’s the use o’ riches -if your wants are bigger than your purse? A man’s riches is the things -he does without an’ never misses.” - -And crouching on his knee, he added: - -“Ther’ goes the last o’ them; sha’n’t get ’em out now till tew o’clock. -One gone--all go!” - -Then squatting down, as though responsibility were at an end, he leaned -one elbow on the grass, his eyes screwed up against the sun. And in his -old brown face, with its myriad wrinkles and square chin, there was a -queer contentment, as though approving the perversity of sheep. - -“So riches don’t consist in man’s possessions, but in what he doesn’t -want? You are an enemy of progress?” - -“These Downs don’t change--’tis only man that changes; what good’s he -doin’, that’s what I ask meself--he’s makin’ wants as fast as ever he -makes riches.” - -“Surely a time must come when he will see that to be really rich his -supply must be in excess of his demand? When he sees that, he will go on -making riches, but control his wants.” - -He paused to see if there were any meaning in such words, then answered: - -“On these Downs I been, man an’ boy, for sixty year.” - -“And are you happy?” - -He wrinkled up his brows and smiled. - -“What age d’ you think I am? Seventy-six!” - -“You look as if you’d live to be a hundred.” - -“Can’t expect it! My health’s good though, ’cept for these.” - -Like wind-bent boughs all the fingers of both his hands from the top -joint to the tip were warped towards the thumb. - -“Looks funny! But I don’t feel ’em. What you don’t feel don’t trouble -you.” - -“What caused it?” - -“Rheumatiz! I don’t make nothin’ of it. Where there’s doctors there’s -disease.” - -“Then you think we make our ailments, too, as fast as we make remedies?” - -He slowly passed his gnarled hand over the short grass. - -“My missus ’ad the doctor when she died.... See that dust? That’s -motorcars bringin’ folks to Goodwood Races. Wonderful quick-travellin’ -things.” - -“Ah! That was a fine invention, surely?” - -“There’s some believes in them. But if they folk weren’t doin’ -everything and goin’ everywhere at once, there’d be no need for them -rampagin’ motors.” - -“Have you ever been in one yourself?” - -His eyes began to twinkle mockingly. - -“I’d like to get one here on a snowy winter’s day, when ye’ve to find -your way by sound and smell; there’s things up here they wouldn’t make -so free with. They say from London ye can get to anywhere. But there’s -things no man can ride away from. Downs ’ll be left when they’re all -gone.... Never been off the Downs meself.” - -“Don’t you ever feel you’d like to go?” - -“There isn’t not hardly one as knows what these Downs are. I see the -young men growin’ up, but they won’t stay on ’em; I see folk comin’ -down, same as yourself, to look at ’em.” - -“What _are_ they, then--these Downs?” - -His little eyes, that saw so vastly better than my eyes, deepened in his -walnut-coloured face. Fixed on those grey-green Downs, that reigned -serene above the country spread below in all its little fields, and -woods, and villages, they answered for him. It was long before he spoke. - -“Healthiest spot in England!... Talkin’ you was of progress; but look at -bacon--four times the price now that ever it was when I were young. And -families--thirteen we had, my missus and meself; nowadays if they have -three or four it’s as much as ever they’ll put up with. The country’s -changed.” - -“Does that surprise you? When you came up here this morning the sun was -just behind that clump of beech--it’s travelled on since then.” - -He looked at it. - -“There’s no puttin’ of it back, I guess, if that’s your meaning? It were -risin’ then, an’ now it’s gone past noon.” - -“Joshua made the sun stand still; it was a great achievement!” - -“May well say that; won’t never be done again, I’m thinkin’. And as to -knowin’ o’ the time o’ day, them ewes they know it better than ever -humans do; at tew o’clock exact you’ll see them comin’ out again to -feed.” - -“Ah! well--I must be getting on. Good-bye!” - -His little eyes began to twinkle with a sort of friendly mockery. - -“Ye’re like the country, all for movin’ on your way! Well, keep on, -along the tops--ye can’t make no mistake!” - -He gave me his old gnarled hand, whose finger-tips were so strangely -warped. Then, leaning on his stick, he fixed his eyes upon the beech -grove, where his ewes were lying in the cool. - -Beyond him in the sun the hazy line of dust trailed across the -grey-green Downs, and on the rising breeze came the far-off music of the -cars. - - - - -HOLIDAY - -X - -HOLIDAY - - -The curtain whose colour changes from dawn to noon, from night to -dawn--the curtain which never lifts, is fastened to the dark horizon. - -On the black beach, beneath a black sky with its few stars, the sea wind -blows a troubling savour from the west, as it did when man was not yet -on the earth. It sings the same troubling song as when the first man -heard it. And by this black beach man is collected in his hundreds, -trying with all his might to take his holiday. Here he has built a -theatre within the theatre of the night, and hung a canvas curtain to -draw up and down, and round about lit lights to show him as many as may -be of himself, and nothing of the encircling dark. Here he has brought -singers, and put a band, armed with pipes of noise, to drown the -troubling murmur of the wind. And behind his theatre he has made a fire -whose smoke has qualified the troubling savour of the sea. - -Male and female, from all the houses where he sleeps, he has herded to -this music as close as he can herd. The lights fall on his faces, -attentive, white, and still--as wonderfully blank as bits of wood cut -out in round, with pencil marks for eyes. And every time the noises -cease, he claps his hands as though to say: “Begin again, you noises; do -not leave me lonely to the silence and the sighing of the night.” - -Round the ring he circles, and each small group of him seems saying: -“Talk--laugh--this is my holiday!” - -This is his holiday, his rest from the incessant round of toil that -fills his hours; to this he has looked forward all the year; to this he -will look back until it comes again. He walks and talks and laughs, -around this pavilion by the beach; he casts no glances at the pavilion -of the night, where Nature is playing her wind-music for the stars to -dance. Long ago he found he could not bear his mother Nature’s -inscrutable, ironic face, bending above him in the dark, and with a moan -he drew the clothes over his head. In Her who gave him being he has -perceived the only thing he cannot brave. And since there is courage and -pride in the feeblest of his hearts, he has made a compact with himself: -“Nature! There is no Nature! For what I cannot understand I cannot face, -and what I cannot face I will not think of, and what I will not think of -does not exist for me; thus, there is nothing that I cannot face. -And--deny it as I may--this is why I herd in my pavilion under my -lights, and make these noises against the sighing and the silence and -the blackness of the night.” - -Back from the dark sea, across a grassy space, is his row of houses with -lighted windows; and behind it, stretching inland, a thousand more, -huddled, closer and closer, round the lighted railway shed, where, like -spider’s threads, the rails run in from the expanse of sleeping fields -and marshes and dim hills; of dark trees and moon-pale water fringed -with reeds. All over the land these rails have run, chaining his houses -into one great web so that he need never be alone. - -For nothing is so dreadful to this man as solitude. In solitude he hears -the voice of Her he cannot understand: “Ah! the baby that you are, my -baby man!” And he sees Her smile, the ironic smile of evening over land -and sea. In solitude he feels so small, so very small; for solitude is -silence and silence irony, and irony he cannot bear, not even that of -Her who gave him birth. - -And so he is neither careful of his beauty nor of his strength; not -careful to be clean or to be fine; his only care is not to be alone. To -all his young, from the first day, he teaches the same lesson: Dread -Her! Avoid Her! Look not on Her! Towns! more towns! There you can talk -and listen to your fellows’ talk! Crowd into the towns; the eyes in your -whitened faces need never see Her there! Fill every cranny of your -houses so that no moment of silence or of solitude can come to any one -of you. And if, by unhappy chance, in their parks you find yourself -alone, lie neither on your back, for then you will see the quiet -sunlight on the leaves, the quiet clouds, and birds with solitude within -their wings; nor on your face, or you will catch the savour of the -earth, and a faint hum, and for a minute live the life of tiny things -that straddle in the trodden grasses. Fly from such sights and scents -and sounds, for fear lest terror for your fate should visit you; fly to -the streets; fly to your neighbours’ houses; talk, and be brave! Or if, -and such times will come, your feet and brain and tongue are tired, then -sleep! For, next to the drug of fellowship is the anodyne of slumber! -And when it is your holiday, and time is all your own, be warned! The -lot of those few left among you who are forced to live alone--on the -sea, with the sheep of the green hills, guarding the trim wildness of -your woods, turning the lonely soil--may for a moment seem desirable. -Be sure it is not; the thought has come to you from books! Go to a spot -where, though the nights are clear and the sun burns hot, the sea wind -smells of salt, and the land wind smells of hay, you can avoid Her, -huddled in your throngs! Dread Her! Fly from Her! Hide from Her smile, -that seems to say: “Once, when you lived with me, you were a little -gentleman. You looked in my eyes and learned a measure of repose, -learned not to whimper at the dark, giggle, and jeer, and chatter -through your nose, learned to hold yourself up, to think your own -thoughts, and be content. And now you have gone from me to be a little -cockney man. But for all your airs of courage and your fear of me--I -shall get you back!” Dread Her! Avoid Her! Towns, more towns! - -Such is the lesson man teaches, from the very birth, to every child of -his unstinted breeding. And well he teaches it. Of all his thousands -here to-night, drawn from his crowded, evil-smelling towns, not one has -gone apart on this black beach to spend a single minute with his shadow -and the wind and stars. His laughter fills the air, his ceaseless -chatter, songs, and fiddling, the clapping of his hands; so will it be -throughout his holiday. - -And who so foolish as to say it is not good that man should talk and -laugh and clap his hands; who so blind as not to see that these are -antidotes to evils that his one great fear has brought to him? This ring -of him with vacant faces and staring eyes round that anæmic singer with -the worn-out voice, or the stout singer with the voice of brass, is but -an instance of Her irony: “This, then, is the medicine you have mixed, -my little man, to cure the pain of your fevered souls. Well done! But if -you had not left me you would have had no fever! There is none in the -wind and the stars and the rhythm of the sea; there is none in green -growth or fallen leaves; in my million courses it is not found. Fever is -fear--to you alone, my restless mannikin, has fever come, and this is -why, even in your holiday, you stand in your sick crowds gulping down -your little homœopathic draughts!” - -The show is over. The pipes of noise are still, the lights fall dark, -and man is left by the black beach with nothing to look on but the sky, -or hear but the beat of wave-wings flighting on the sea. And suddenly in -threes and fours he scurries home, lest for one second he should see Her -face whose smile he cannot bear. - - - - -FACTS - -XI - -FACTS - - -Each morning a noise of poured-out water revived him from that state in -which his thoughts were occasionally irregular. Raising his face, with -its regular nose above a regular moustache just going grey, he asked the -time. Each morning he received the same answer, and would greet it with -a yawn. Without this opening to his day he would not have known for -certain that it had begun. Assured of the fact, he would leap from his -bed into his bath, and sponge himself with cold, clear water. “Straight -out of bed--never lose heat!” Such was his saying; and he would maintain -it against every other theory of the morning tub. It was his own -discovery--a fact on which, as on all facts, he set much store; and -every morning he kept his mind fixed on its value. Then, in that -underclothing, of which he said, “Never wear any other--lets the skin -act!” he would take his stand in a chosen light before a glass, dipping -in boiling water a razor on which was written the day’s name, and -without vanity inspect his face to see that it preserved its shade of -faintly mottled red against the encroachments of the town. Then, with a -slanting edge--“Always shave slanting”--he would remove such hairs as -seemed to him unnecessary. If he caught himself thinking, he would go to -a bottle on the washstand and pour out a little bitter water, which he -would drink; then, seizing a pair of Indian clubs, he would wave them. -“I believe in Indian clubs!” he often said. Tying his tie at the angle -he had tied it for nearly thirty years, and placing lavender water--the -only scent he ever used--about his handkerchief, he would open his -wife’s door, and say, “How are you, my dear?” Without waiting for an -answer he would shut it, and go down. - -His correspondence was set out on his writing-table, and as he was not -a stupid man he soon disposed of it; then, with his daily paper--which -he had long selected out of every other--he would stand before the -hearth, reading, and believing that the news he read was of a definite -importance. He took care that this reading should not stimulate his -thoughts. He wanted facts, and the fact that the day’s facts were -swallowed by the morrow’s did not disturb him, for the more facts he -read the better he was pleased. - -After his breakfast--eaten opposite his wife, and ended with some -marmalade--he would go forth at ten o’clock, and walk the two miles to -the Temple. He believed in walking, wet or fine, for, as he said: “It -keeps your liver acting!” - -On his way he would think of many things, such as: Whether to lay down -Gruaud La Rose, 1900, or Château Margaux, 1899? And, though alive to its -importance, he would soon decide this question, since indecision was -repugnant to his nature. He walked by way of the Green Park and Thames -Embankment, expanding his chest quietly, and feeling inward -satisfaction. To the crossing-sweeper nearest to Big Ben he gave on -every day, save Saturdays, a nod, and on Saturdays sixpence; and, -because he thus assisted him, he believed the man to be worthy of -assistance. He passed all other crossing-sweepers without being -conscious of their presence; and if they had asked for pennies would -have put them down as lazy persons making an illicit living. They did -not ask, however, accepting his attitude towards them as correct, from -the vigour of its regularity. He walked always at the same pace, neither -fast nor slow, his head erect, looking before him with an air of: I am -getting there; this is salubrious! - -And on getting there he looked at his watch--not because he did not know -what it would tell him, but to satisfy his craving for the ascertainment -of a fact. It took, he knew, thirty-two minutes between door and door. - -Up the stone staircase he would pause half-way and glance through the -window at a certain tree. A magpie had once built there. It had been -gone now fifteen years, but the peculiar fact remained. Meeting his -clerk in the dark narrow passage beyond the oaken door, he would address -the young man thus: “Mornin’, Dyson. Anything fresh?” and pass on into -his light and airy room, with its faint scent of Law Reports. Here, in -an old Norfolk jacket, a meerschaum pipe, rarely alight, between his -teeth, he would remain seated before papers of all sorts, working hard, -and placing facts in order, ready for the conclusions of his chief, a -man of genius, but devoid of regularity. - -At one o’clock he would go out and walk some little way to lunch. When -tempted to go elsewhere he would say, “No, no! Come with me; better grub -at Sim’s!” He knew this for a fact--no novelty of any kind could alter -it. Cigar in mouth, he would then walk for twenty minutes in the Temple -Gardens, his hands behind his back, alone or with some friend, and his -good-humoured laugh would frequently be heard--the laugh of a fat man; -for though by careful weighing he kept his body thin, he could not weigh -his soul, and having thus no facts to go by, could never check its bulk. - -From two to four he would continue the arrangement of his facts, and on -the rising of the Courts place them before his chief. Strong in his -power of seeing them as facts with no disturbing relevance to other -things, he would show a shade of patronage to that disorderly -distinguished man. Then, washing with Pears’ soap, and saying to his -clerk, “Evenin’, Dyson; nothing that won’t keep,” he would take his -umbrella and walk west. And again he would reflect on many things, such -as: Whether to use the iron or cleek for the approach to that last hole? -and would soon decide on one or on the other. - -Passing the portals of his Club, of which he used to say, “I’ve belonged -here twenty years; that shows you!” he would hang his hat upon a -certain peg and go into the card-room, where, for small stakes that -never varied, he played the game of Bridge till seven o’clock. Then in a -hansom cab he would go home resting body and brain, and looking straight -before him at the backs of cabs in front. Entering his drawing-room he -would go over to his wife, kiss her, and remark: “Well, old girl, what -have you been doing?” and at once relate what he himself had done, -finishing thus: “Time to dress for dinner! I’ve got a twist!” In a white -tie and swallow-tail if they were dining out, a black tie and tail-less -coat if they were dining in--for these were the proved facts of -suitability--he would go to his wife’s room, take up one of her toilet -bottles, examine the stamp on it, and tell her his programme for the -morrow. - -His habits in dining out were marked by regularity. A sweet or ice he -never touched for fear of gout, of which he had felt twinges. He drank -brandy with his coffee, not for fear of sleeplessness, which he had -never had, but because he found it adjusted preceding facts more nicely -than liqueurs; after champagne he would consume a glass or two of port. -Some men drank claret, believing that it did less harm, but he would -say: “Port after champagne--proved it a dozen times.” For, though it was -really not important to his body which he drank, it concerned his soul -to make the choice, and place importance on it. When the ladies had -withdrawn, he would talk on the facts of politics and guns, of stocks -and women; and, chiefly in the form of stories--facts about facts. To -any one who linked these facts to an idea he would remark at once: -“Exactly!” and, staring slightly, restore order with another fact. At -last he would go home, and in the cab would touch his wife to see that -she was there. - -On Sundays he played golf--a game in which, armed with a fact, he hit a -little fact long distances until he lodged it in a hole, when he would -pick it out again and place it on a little fact and hit it off once -more. And this was good for him. Returning in the train with other -players of the game, he would sit silently reviewing the details of the -business, and a particularly good and pleasant look would come upon his -face, with its blue eyes, red cheeks, and fair moustache just going -grey. And suddenly he would begin speaking to his neighbour, and tell -him how at certain moments he had hit the little fact with an unwonted -force, or an unusual gentleness. - -Two days before the 12th of August he would take his guns and wife to -Scotland, where he rented annually a piece of ground inhabited by -grouse. - -On arriving he would have a bath, then go out with his keeper and a -ferret to “get his eye in”; and his first remark was always this: “Well, -McNab, and how are you? Afraid I’m a bit above myself!” And his old -keeper would answer thus: “Aye, I’m no saying but ye’ll be as well for a -day on the hill.” - -Each evening on returning from the moors he would cause the dead facts -to be turned out of the pony’s paniers and laid in rows before him, -and, touching them with the end of a stick so as to make sure, he would -count them up; and the more there were of them the better he was -pleased. Then, when they were removed and hung, he would enter their -numbers in a book. And as these numbers grew, he compared them day by -day and week by week with the numbers of each former year; thus, -according to whether they were more or less, he could tell at any moment -how much he was enjoying life. - -On his return to London he would say: “First-class year--five hundred -brace.” Or, shake his head and murmur: “Two hundred and thirty brace--a -wretched year!” - -Any particularly fine creature that he shot he would have stuffed, so -that the fact might be remarked for ever. - -Once, or perhaps twice, each year, _malaise_ would come on him, a -feeling that his life was not quite all he wished, a desire for -something that he could not shape in words, a conviction that there -were facts which he was missing. At these times he was almost irritable, -and would say: “Mistake for a man to marry, depend on it--narrows his -life.” And suddenly one day he would know what he wanted, and, under -pretext perhaps of two days’ sport, would go to Paris. The fact -accomplished, of irregularity, that he would not have committed in -England for the world--was of advantage to his soul, and he would -return, more regular than ever. - -For he was a man who must be doing, who respected only the thing done. -He had no use for schemes of life, theories, dreams, or fancies. Ideas -were “six a penny,” he would say. And the fact that facts without ideas -were “six a ha’penny” was perhaps the only fact that he did not -appreciate. He was made, in fact, for laying trains of little facts, in -almost perfect order, in almost all directions. Forced by his nature to -start laying without considering where they led to, he neither knew nor -cared when or what they would blow up; and when in fact they blew up -something unexpected, or led into a _cul de sac_, he would start at once -laying them again in the first direction that seemed open. Thus actively -employed, he kept from brooding, thinking, and nonsense of all kinds, so -busy that he had no time to look ahead and see where he was going; and -since, if he had got there he would not have known it, this was just as -well. - -Beyond everything, he believed in freedom; he never saw the things that -his way of acting prevented him from doing, and so believed his life to -be the freest in the world. - -Nothing occasioned him a more unfeigned surprise than to tell him his -ways were typical of the country where he lived. He answered with a -stare, knowing well enough that no such likeness could be shown him as a -fact. It was not his habit to be conscious; he was neither conscious of -himself nor of his country, and this enabled him to be the man he was. - -When he met himself about the town (which hourly happened) he had no -knowledge that it was himself; on the contrary he looked on himself as -specially designed, finding most other people “rather funny.” - -An attempt to designate him as belonging to a type or class he -mistrusted as some kind of Socialism. And yet he ate with himself in -restaurants and private houses, travelled with himself in trains, read -the speeches of himself in Parliament, and the accounts of how he had -been surrounded by persons of Dutch origin, or on some frontier punished -a tribe whose manners were not quite his own. He played golf with -himself, and shot with his very images. Nor was he confined to his own -class; but frequently drove himself home in cabs, watched himself -drilling in the barrack squares, or, walking up and down in blue, -protected his own house at night from burglars. If he required to send a -message from his Club, he sent himself; he sold himself his waistcoats, -and even laid the pavements of the streets that he trod daily in his -pilgrimage. From his neighbourhood Imagination stretched its wings and -flitted further on. Patron of precedent, pattern of order, upholder of -the law, where he dwelt an orderly disorder reigned. He was for ever -doing things, and out of everything he did there sprang up two more -things that wanted to be done, and these things he would do--in time! -Believing no real harm of others or himself, he kept young and green! -Oh! very green and young! - -And in old age, past doing things, seated in the Club smoking-room, he -will recount behind his comely grey moustache that day’s shooting and -that day’s run; the marriage of that fine girl; the death of that dear -old chap; the details of that first-rate joke, or that bad dinner; and -dwelling with love on these isolated facts, his old blue eyes will -twinkle. Presently, when it is late and he is left alone, he will put -his old tired feet up on the sofa, remove the cigar from his old lips, -and, holding it a foot from off his eyes, look closely at the ash; -finding this fact a little yellow, he will frown. - - - - -POWER - -XII - -POWER - - -When he rose every morning, the first thing he would do was to fall on -his knees beside his bed. His figure in its white garment--for he wore a -nightshirt--was rather long and lean, and looked its longest thus bent -from the loins. His thick fair hair, little disturbed by sleep, together -with a glimpse of sanguine neck and cheek, was all that could be seen -above that figure, for his face was buried in the counterpane. Here he -would commune with the deity he had constructed for himself out of his -secret aspirations and desires, out of his most private consciousness. -In the long and subtle processes of contemplation this deity had come to -be a big white-clothed figure, whose face and head were shrouded from -his gaze in frosty dimness, but whose hands--great hands, a little -red--were always clearly visible, reposing motionless on knees parted -beneath the white and flowing garment. The figure appeared in his -imagination seated as it were on air ten or fifteen feet above the floor -of a white, wide, marble corridor, and its great hands seemed to be -pressing down and stilling all that came before them. So oddly concrete -was this image that sometimes he addressed no prayers to it, but knelt, -simply feeling that it was sitting there above him; and when at last he -raised his head, a strange aspiring look had come into his strained -eyes, and face suffused with blood. When he did pray, he himself hardly -knew for what he prayed, unless it were to be made like his deity, that -sat so quiet, above the marble corridor. - -For, after all, this deity of his, like the deity of every other man, -was but his temperament exaggerated beyond life-size and put in perfect -order--it was but the concretion of his constant feeling that nothing -could be trusted to behave, freed from the still, cold hands of Power. -He had never trusted himself to act save under the authority of this -peculiar deity, much less, then, could he feel that others could be -trusted. This lack of trust--which was only, perhaps, a natural desire -for putting everything and everybody in their proper places--had made -him from a child eligible for almost any post of trust. And Nature, -recognising this, had used him a hundred thousand times, weeding him out -from among his more irregular and trustful fellows, and piling him in -layers, one on another, till she had built out of him in every division -of the State, temples of Power. Two qualifications alone had she -exacted; that he should not be trustful, and that he should be content -to lie beneath the layer above him, until he should come in time to be -that upper layer himself. She had marked him down as quite a tiny boy, -walking with his governess, chopping the heads off thistles with his -stick, and ordering his brothers’ games precisely, so that they should -all know what they were playing at. She had seen him take his dog, and, -squatting on the floor, hold it close to the biscuit that it did not -want to eat; and she had marked the expression in his grey eyes, fixed -on that little white fox-terrier, trying so hard to back out through her -collar. She saw at once that he did not trust the little creature to -know whether it required to eat the biscuit; it was her proper time for -eating it, and even though by holding her nose close he could not make -her eat it, he could put her in the corner for not eating it. And having -in due course seen him do so, Nature had felt ever since that he would -keep himself apart, year by year and step by step, till he was safely -serving in the cold, still corridors of Power. She watched him, then, -with interest, throughout his school and university career, considering -what division of the State she had best build with him, though whether -he should work at feeding soldiers, at supervising education, or -organizing the incarceration of his fellows, did not seem to her to -matter much. In all these things order was essential, and the love of -placing the hand kindly but firmly on the public head, desirable; -further, these were all things that must be done, and with her unerring -instinct for economy, Nature saw that he should do them. - -He had accordingly entered the State’s service at a proper age, and had -remained there, rising. - -Well aware that his was an occupation tending to the constriction of the -mind, he had early made a practice of keeping it elastic by reading, -argument, and a habit of presenting every case in every light, before -pronouncing judgment; indeed, he would often take another person’s point -of view, and, having improved on it, show that it was not really what -the person thought it. Only when he was contradicted did a somewhat ugly -look come into his eyes, and a peculiar smile contract his straight lips -between his little fair moustache and his little, carefully kept, fair -beard. At such moments he would raise his hands--red, and shapely, -though rather large--as though about to press them on the head or -shoulders of the presumptuous person. For, certain as he was that he -always took all points of view before deciding any matter, he knew he -must be right. But he was careful not to domineer in any way, -recognising that to domineer was peculiarly unbecoming in a bureaucrat. - -Keeping his mind elastic, he was always ready to welcome any sort of -progress; the word indeed was often on his lips, and he regarded the -thing itself as essential to the well-being of any modern State; it was -only when some particular kind of progress happened to be mentioned that -he felt any doubt. Then, caressing his beard slowly, and, if possible, -taking up a pen, he would point out the difficulties. These were, it -seemed, more numerous than the lay mind had imagined. - -In the first place one must clearly understand what was meant by this -word progress; he would personally not admit that it meant advancing -backwards. If this were established as a premise, it became imperative -to ask whether the public were in a fit condition to assimilate this -measure of so-called reform. Personally he had grave doubts; he was open -to conviction, but his doubts were grave. And a very little smile would -part his lips, seeming to say: “Yes, yes, my dear sir; progress--you use -the word most glibly, and we all of us admit that it is necessary; but -if you suppose that we are going to progress by trusting human -nature--well, pardon me, but is there any precedent? One could trust -oneself, no doubt, because of one’s sense of duty to one’s deity, -but--men at large! If you think a minute you will see that they have -practically no sense of duty or responsibility at all. You say you wish -to foster it, but, my dear sir, if we foster it, what becomes -of--Government? Depend on it, a sense of duty is only the possession of -a few who have been trained to have it; and I cannot think it wise to -take the slightest risk in a matter of this gravity. The bonds that -keep us all together, and me on the top--in my place, the machinery of -morals and the State, are being daily loosened by disintegrating forces, -and considering that I am here--by natural selection, not by -accident--to keep the ship together, I am not exactly likely to help -another wave to knock the ship to pieces. ‘It is,’ you say, ‘a question -of degree.’ I consider that a very dangerous saying. I have little doubt -that all so-called reforms at all times have been ushered in by the use -of that expression. You make the fundamental error of overtrusting human -nature. Believe me, if you lived here, and saw the machinery of things -as closely as I see it, and worked, as I do, in this powerful -atmosphere, and knew the worry and the difficulty of changing anything, -and the thanklessness of the public that one works for, you would soon -get a very different notion of the necessity of what you call reform. -You must bear in mind the fact that the State has carefully considered -what is best for all, and that I am only an official of the State. And -now I have three hours at least before I can get away, of important -details (which you, no doubt, despise), connected with the business of -the State, and which it is my duty and my pride to transact efficiently; -so that you will forgive me if I drop a subject, on which of course I am -still open to conviction. Progress, we must all admit, is necessary, -but, I assure you, in this case you are making a mistake.” - -The little smile died off his lips, and preceding the intruder to the -door, he politely opened it. Then, in the marble corridor, he raised his -eyes above his visitor’s retiring back. There, with its great red hands -on the knees parted beneath a white and flowing robe, sat Power--his -deity; and a silent prayer, far too instinctive and inevitable to be -expressed in words, rose through the stagnant, dusty atmosphere: - -“O great image that put me here, knowing as thou must the failings of -my fellow-beings, give me power to see that they do right; let me -provide for them the moral and the social diet they require. For, since -I have been here, I have daily, hourly, humbly felt more certain of what -it is they really want; more assured that, through thy help, I am the -person who can give it them. O great image, before thou didst put me -here I was not quite certain about anything, but now, thanks be to thee, -everything is daily clearer and more definite; and I am less and less -harassed by my spirit. Let this go on, great image, till my spirit is -utterly at rest, and I am cold and still and changeless as this marble -corridor.” - - - - -THE HOUSE OF SILENCE - -XIII - -THE HOUSE OF SILENCE - - -Within the circle of the high grey wall is silence. - -Under a square of sky cut by high grey buildings nothing is to be seen -of Nature but the prisoners themselves, the men who guard the prisoners, -and a cat who eats the prison mice. - -This house of perfect silence is in perfect order, as though God Himself -had been at work--no dirt, no hurry, no lingering, no laughter. It is -all like a well-oiled engine that goes--without a notion why. And each -human thing that moves within this circle goes, day after day, year -after year--as he has been set to go. The sun rises and the sun goes -down--so says tradition in the House of Silence. - -In yellow clothing marked with arrows the inhabitants are working. Each -when he came in here was measured, weighed, and sounded; and, according -to the entries made against his number, he received his silent task, and -the proper quantity of food to keep his body able to fulfil it. He -resumes this silent task each day, and if his work be sedentary, paces -for an hour the speckless gravel yard from a number painted on the wall -to a number painted on a wall. Every morning, and on Sundays twice, he -marches in silence to the chapel, and, in the voice that he has nearly -lost, praises the silent God of prisoners; this is his debauch of -speech. Then, on his avid ears the words of the preacher fall; and -motionless, row on row he sits, in the sensual pleasure of this sound. -But the words are void of sense, for the music of speech has drugged his -hearing. - -Before he was admitted to this House of Silence he had endured his six -months’ utter solitude, and now, in the small white-washed space, with a -black floor whence he has cleaned all dirt, he spends only fourteen -hours out of the twenty-four alone, except on Sundays, when he spends -twenty-one, because it is God’s day. He spends them walking up and down, -muttering to himself, listening for sound, with his eyes on the little -peephole in the door, through which he can be seen but cannot see. Above -his mug and plate of shining tin, his stiff, black-bristled brush and a -piece of soap, is raised a little pyramid of godly books; no sound or -scent, no living thing, no spider even, only his sense of humour comes -between him and his God. But nothing whatever comes between him and his -walking up and down, his listening for sound, his lying with his face -pressed to the floor; till darkness falls, that he may stare at it, and -beg for sleep, the only friend of prisoners, to touch him with her -wings. And so, from day to day, from week to week, and year to year, -according to the number of the years set opposite the name that once was -his. - -The workshops of the House of Silence hear no sound but that of work; -the men in yellow, with arrows marked on them, are busy with a fearful -zest. Their hands and feet and eyes move all the time; their lips are -still. And on these lips, from mouth to mouth is seen no smile--so -perfect is the order. - -And their faces have one look, as though they said: We care for -nothing--nothing; we hope for nothing--nothing; we work like this for -fear of horror! Their quick dull stare fastens on him who comes to watch -their silence; and all their eyes, curious, resentful, furtive, have in -the depths of them the same defiant meaning, as though they saw in their -visitor the world out of which they have been thrown, the millions of -the free, the millions not alone all day and every day, the millions who -can _talk_; as though they saw Society, which bred them, nurtured them, -and forced their steps to that exactly fitting point of physical or -mental stress, out of which they found no way but the crime rewarded -with these years of silence; as though they heard in the footsteps and -the muttered questions of this casual intruder the whole pronouncement -of man’s justice: - -“You were dangerous! Your souls, born undersized, were dwarfed by Life -to the commission point of crime. For our protection, therefore, we have -placed you under lock and key. There you shall work--seeing, hearing, -feeling nothing, without responsibility, without initiative, bereft of -human contact with your kind. We shall see that you are clean, and have -a bare sufficiency to eat, we shall inspect and weigh your bodies, and -clothe them with a bare sufficiency of clothes by day and night; divine -service you shall have; your work shall be apportioned to your strength. -Corporal punishment we shall very seldom use. Lest you should give us -trouble, and contaminate each other, you shall be silent, and, as far as -possible, alone. You sinned against Society; your minds were bad; it -were better if in our process you should lose those minds! For some -reason which we cannot tell, you had but little social instinct at the -start; that little social instinct soon decayed. Therefore, through -bitter brooding and eternal silence, through horror of your lonely -cells, and certainty that you are lost--no good, no mortal good to man -or thing--_you shall emerge cleansed of all social instinct_. We are -humane and scientific, we have outgrown the barbarous theories of -old-fashioned law. We act for our protection and for your good. We -believe in reformation. We are no torturers. Through loneliness and -silence we will destroy your minds that we may form fresh minds within -the bodies of which we take such care. In silence and in solitude is no -real suffering--so we believe, for we ourselves have never passed one -single silent day, one single day alone!” - -This, by the expression of their eyes, is what the men in yellow seem to -hear, and this, by the expression of their eyes, is what they seem to -answer: - -“Guv’nor! You tell me I did wrong to get in here, brought up like what I -was--born in the purple--Brick Street, ’Ammersmith. My father was never -up against the police; epileptic fits is what he went in for--I oughtn’t -to have had him for a father; I oughtn’t to have had a mother that -liked her drop o’ trouble, leavin’ me what you might call violent from a -child. That’s where the little difficulty was, you see. The bloke that -came about my girl knows that, seein’ he laid two years upon his back -after I’d done with ’im. That set ’em on reformin’ me. To do the -business proper, guv’nor, they gave me six months solitary to start on. -All them six months I asks meself: ‘If I were out again, an’ he came -hangin’ round my girl--what would I do?’ And I answers: ‘Hit ’im like I -done!’ You tell me I oughtn’t to been thinkin’ that; guv’nor, I ’adn’t -nothin’ else to think on. Only that, an’ what was goin’ on outside, with -me there buried-up alive. You tell me that ther’ solitude ought to ha’ -done a lot for me, an’ so it did. I ain’t never been the same man since. -Well, when I came out I made a big mistake, I find, to have that -sentence up against me, in the earnin’ of me livin’ honest, like as -though I’d never been in prison. I oughtn’t to ’ave been a carpenter, I -guess, or anythin’ where people ’as to trust yer, not likin’ them about -their houses ’as has been in quod; I ought to ha’ had a trade that -didn’t need no dealings with my fellow-creatures. You tell me what I -wanted was to love me neighbour? But guv’nor, after I come out, I go -regular wasted on _that_ job. When you get wasted, guv’nor, you take to -drink; your stomach feels a funny shiverin’; what it wants is warmth, a -bit of fire--so, when you gets a sixpence, you lays it out in warmth. -That’s wrong, you say. But, lucky guv’nor, drink puts heart into a man -as has to get his livin’ out of lovin’ of his neighbour.... Soon after -that I got another little lot, with six months’ solitude again, to put -me straight. When you eat your heart out for want o’ somethin’ else to -do, when your mind rots for the need of ever such a little bit to chew -on, when you feel all day and every day like a poor dumb varmint of a -caged-up rat--like as not you hit a warder, guv’nor. When you hit a -warder, it’s the cat. This time I ought to ha’ come out p’raps a -different man--an’ so I did. I ought to ha’ had a different mind, bein’ -chastened and taught the love o’ God; but, seein’, guv’nor, that when I -come to think it over, which was all day and every day, I couldn’t -really find out what I had done which in my case any other man would ha’ -stopped short o’ doin’--bein’, _not any other man, but me_--I come out -that time meanin’ to go upon my own. And on my own I went, and ever -since I’ve been--an out-an’-outer, as you can see with lookin’ at me -now. An’ if you ask me what I think of all o’ you outside, I can’t -reply, seein’ I’m not allowed to speak.” - -This is the answer that they seem to make, their lips move, but no sound -comes. - -The warder watches these moving lips, his eyes, the eyes of a keeper of -wild beasts, are saying: “Pass on, sir, please, and don’t excite the -convicts--you have seen all there is to see!” - -And so the visitor goes out into the prison yard. - -On to the grey old buildings a new grey block is being built; it runs up -high already towards the square of sky; and on the pale scaffolding are -prisoners cementing in the stones. A hundred feet up, they move with -silent zest, helping to make the little whitewashed spaces safe, to -hold--themselves; helping to make thick the walls, that they may hear -nothing, and their own moaning may be smothered; helping to join stone -to stone, and fill the cracks between, that no creature, however small, -may come to share their solitude; helping to make the window-spaces high -above their reach, that from them they shall look at--nothing; helping -to hide themselves away out of the minds of all who have not sinned -against man’s justice; for, to forget them in their silence and their -solitude is good for man, and to remember them, unpleasant. The sky is -grey above them, they are grey against the sky; no sound comes down but -the smothered tapping of their tools. - -The visitor goes out towards the prison gate; and, meeting him, come -three convicts marching in--the tallest in the centre, an old man with -active step and grey bristles on his weather-darkened face. Light darts -into his eyes fixed on the visitor; he bares his yellow teeth and -smiles. His lips move, and out of them come words. So, when skies have -been dark all day, the sun gleams through, to prove the beauty of the -Earthly Scheme. These words--the precious evidence of purifying -solitude, the only words that have been spoken in the House of Silence, -come faintly on the prison air: “Ye ---- ----!” - - - - -ORDER - -XIV - -ORDER - - -Coming from where they cooked their food, we passed down a passage. The -old warder in the dark blue uniform and a cap whose peak hung over his -level iron-grey eyebrows, stopped. - -“This,” he said, “is the jewel room;” and, taking a key that hung below -his belt, he opened an iron door. A convict with a yellow face, in -yellow clothing marked with arrows, and in his yellow hand a piece of -yellow leather, darted a look at us, dropped his glance, and with a -dreadful, silent, swift obsequiousness passed us and went out. We stood -alone amongst the jewels, that he had evidently been polishing. - -“We call it the jewel room for fun,” the old warder said, and a smile, -the first of the morning, visited his face, but quickly left his eyes -again to that strange mournful look, which some eyes have in the depths -of them--a look, as if in strict attention to the outer things of life, -their owner had parted with his soul. He took one of the jewels from the -wall, and held it out. It was a light steel bangle joined by a light -steel chain to another light steel bangle. - -“That’s what they wear now when it’s necessary to put them on.” - -One may see in harness rooms, bits, and chains, and stirrups glisten, -but never was harness room so garnished as this little chamber. The four -walls were bright as diamonds to the very ceiling with jewels of every -kind; light and heavy bangles, long chains, short chains, thin chains, -and very thick iron chains. - -“Those are old-fashioned,” said the warder; “we don’t use them now.” - -“And this?” - -It stood quite close, made of three very bright steel bars, joined at -the top, wide asunder at the bottom, and clamped together by cross bars -in the middle. - -“That’s the triangles,” he said a little hurriedly. - -“Do you flog much?” - -He stared. You are lacking--he seemed to say--in delicacy. - -“Very little,” he answered, “only when it’s necessary.” And unconscious -that he had proclaimed the spirit of the system that he served, the -spirit of all systems, he drew his heels together, as though saluting -discipline. - -To his old figure standing there, tall, upright, and so orderly, and to -his grave and not unkindly face, it was impossible to feel aversion. But -in this little room there seemed to come and stand in line with him, and -at his back, in an ever-growing pyramid, shaped to an apex like the very -triangles themselves, the countless figures of officialdom. They stood -there, upright, and orderly, with the words: “Only when it’s necessary,” -coming from their mouths. And as one looked, one saw how chiselled in -its form, how smooth and slippery in surface, how impermeable in -structure, was that pyramid. Wedged in perfect symmetry, bound together -man to man by something common to their souls, this phalanx stood by the -force of its own shape, like dead masonry; stone on stone, each resting -on the other, solid and immovable, in terrifying stillness. And in the -eyes of all that phalanx--blue eyes, brown eyes, grey eyes, and mournful -hazel eyes, converging on one point--there was the same look: “Stand -away, please--don’t touch the pyramid!” - -Turning his back on the triangles, the old warder said again: - -“Only when it’s necessary.” - -“And when is it necessary?” - -“The rules decide that.” - -“Of course. But who makes them?” - -His smile faded. “The system,” he replied. - -“And do you know how the system has come about?” - -He frowned--a strange question, this, to ask him! - -“That,” he said with slight impatience in his voice, “is not for me to -say.” And he jerked his neck, as though continuing: - -“Ask that of him behind me!” - -Involuntarily I looked, but there was no one there, behind him; only the -triangles, beautifully bright. Then, with the same uncanny suddenness -there sprang up again a vision of that solid pyramid of men, and the -head of each seemed turned over his shoulder, saying: - -“Ask that of him behind me.” - -With a sort of eagerness I tried to see the apex of that pyramid. It was -too far away. - -“We’ve got to maintain order,” he said suddenly, as though repelling a -subtle onslaught on his point of view. - -“Of course; everything in this room, I suppose, is for that purpose?” - -“Everything--that’s in use.” - -“Ah, yes! I think you said there are some things that are not used now?” - -“Those big iron chains, and these weights here--they weighted the -prisoner down with those; that’s all out of date.” - -“They look rather queer and barbarous, certainly.” - -He smiled. - -“You may say that,” he said. - -“And can you tell me how they came to be disused?” - -He seemed again to check the action of turning his head round. - -“No,” he said, “I couldn’t tell you that. They found they weren’t -necessary, I suppose.” - -“When they were used, I take it the authorities believed in them?” - -“No doubt,” he answered, “or they wouldn’t have used them.” - -“They never thought that we should be looking at these things, and -calling them barbarous, like this!” - -He stared at the great manacles. - -“They used them,” he said, “and never thought about it, I dare say.” - -“They must have considered them necessary for discipline.” - -“Just that.” - -“And was discipline any better then than it is now?” - -“Oh, no! Worse! They had a lot more trouble with the prisoners than we -have, from what I hear.” - -“If any one had told the authorities then that those heavy things did no -good they’d have laughed at him.” - -He answered with a smile: “Little doubt of that.” - -“I wonder whether, a few years hence, people will be standing here and -saying the same thing about those triangles, and all these other jewels, -and calling us barbarians for using them. It would be interesting to -know.” - -His brows contracted: “Not likely,” he said; “you can’t do without -_them_.” - -“You think it would not be possible?” - -Again he seemed to check his eyes from looking round. - -“No,” he repeated stolidly, “you can’t do without them.” - -“It would be dangerous to try?” - -He shook his close-cropped head under the peaked cap. - -“I shouldn’t like to see it tried. We must keep order.” - -“At the time they left off using those heavy chains, they must have -thought they ran a risk?” - -He answered coldly: “I don’t know anything about that.” - -“The present state of things is final, then?” - -He put the bangles back upon their nail, and turning rather suddenly, as -though fearing to be attacked behind, said: - -“We don’t trouble about such things; we’re here to administer the system -as we find it. We don’t use these, except when it’s necessary.” - -“Have you not begged the question?” - -He said with dignity: “That is not my business,” laying his hand upon -the triangles. And as he did so there seemed to spring up once more that -solid phalanx, man linked to man, all with the same schoolmaster’s -eyes--a living pyramid, turned to stone by the force of its own shape. -And a sound came forth from them as though they were assenting, but it -was only the scraping of the triangles, as the old warder pushed them a -little farther back. - -He went to the door and opened it; and going out in answer to this -invitation, I looked back at the jewels. They hung in perfect -brightness, round about the triangles; and suddenly, with that same -dreadful, silent, swift obsequiousness, the man in yellow clothing -marked with arrows, with the yellow face, and the yellow leather in his -hand, passed us and went in. The iron door closed on him with a clang; -but before it closed, I saw him at work already, polishing those shining -jewels. - -In dreams I have seen him since, alone with those emblems of a perfect -order, working without sound! And in dreams too, guiding me away, I see -the old warder with his regular, grave face, and his eyes mourning for -something he has lost. - - - - -THE MOTHER - -XV - -THE MOTHER - - -She walked as though pressed for time, slipping like a shadow along the -railings of the houses. With her skimpy figure, in its shabby, wispy -black, she hardly looked as if she had borne six sons. She had beneath -her arm a little bundle which she always carried to and fro from the -houses where she worked. Her face, with tired brown eyes, and hair as -black and fine as silk under a black sailor hat, was skimpy too; creased -and angled like her figure, it seemed to deny that life had ever left -her strength for bearing children. - -Though not yet nine o’clock, she had already done the work of her two -rooms, lighted the fire, washed the youngest boys, given the four at -home their breakfast, swept, made one bed--in the other her husband was -still lying--and to that husband she had served his tea. She had cut -the mid-day ration of the two eldest boys, and, wrapping it in paper, -had placed it on the window-sill in readiness for them to take to -school; had portioned out the firing for the day, given the eldest boy -the pence to buy the daily screws of tea and sugar, washed some ragged -cloths, mended a little pair of trousers, put on her hat without -consulting the cracked looking-glass, and hurried forth. And, since a -penny was important to her, she had walked. - -Having taken off the black straw hat, and changed the black and scanty -dress for a blue linen frock which nearly hid her broken boots, worn to -the thickness of brown paper, she was deemed ready to begin her labours. -And while on her knees she scrubbed and polished, a certain sense of -pleasurable rest would come to her; gazing into the depths of brass that -she had made to shine, she thought of nothing. On some mornings she -worked a little stiffly. This was when her husband, returning from late -discussion at his public-house, had struck her with his belt, to show -he was her master. On such mornings she was longer polishing the brass, -often forced to clean it twice, having put her eyes too close to it. And -she would think, over and over again: “He didn’t ought to hit me, he -didn’t ought to treat me like he does, and me the mother of his -children.” Thus far her thoughts would carry her, but--she was a simple -soul--they carried her no further; nor did it ever penetrate her mind -that her sons, born to and brought up by a drunken father, would some -day carry on the glorious traditions of his life. But soon, because -these things had happened to her many times, she would stop brooding, -and over the mirroring brass, that gave a queer breadth and roundness to -her face, would once more think of nothing. - -Down in the kitchen, where she had her dinner, she never mentioned such -unpleasant incidents, fearing they might harm her reputation. She -talked, in fact, but little, not having much to talk of that would do -her good in a social way of speaking. But every now and then something -would break within her, and she would pour out a monotonous epic on her -sons; as though, in spite of everything, she felt that to have borne -them was a credit. In consequence of these outpourings, which came not -less than once a week, it was usual to regard her as an incorrigible -talker. - -In the afternoon, though she no longer polished brass, she polished -other things. She left at six o’clock. Then, in the dusk, once more -dressed in black, she slipped along the railings of the houses, still -hurrying, of course, and more like a shadow even than before. In one of -her reddened hands--hands of which, holding them out before some -fellow-woman whose soft, ringed fingers she admired, she would say, -apologetically: “I’ve such dreadful ’ands, m’m”--in one of those red, -roughened hands she grasped some little extra wrapped in newspaper, in -the other the money she had earned. - -She would cross the High Street, and, diving down a dim and narrow -alley, make a purchase at a shop, and hurry on. Entering her door, she -would pause, trying to tell by listening whether her husband had -returned; this she always did, although in fact it made no difference to -her going up, since in any case her sons were there, waiting to be fed. -Silently passing up the narrow stairs, whose noticeable odour she never -noticed, she would enter the front room. Here her four sons, their eyes -fixed on the door, would be sitting or sprawling on the bed, teasing -each other angrily, like young birds waiting for a meal. Taking off her -hat, she would sit down to rest. But seeing her thus sitting, doing -nothing, her sons would try to rouse her to activity, pulling her by the -sleeve, jogging her chair, and the youngest, perhaps, kissing her with -his little dirty mouth. Rising, she would begin to peel potatoes. She -peeled them fast, working the upturned knife-blade close to her thin -bosom, and round her the boys, affecting not to care now that they saw -her working, resumed their restless teasing of each other, casting -impatient glances at the busy knife-blade, the falling yellow slips of -peel. At short intervals, when she was not too deadly tired, she would -snap at them a little, but her power of speech was limited; the things -she said had all been said before--her sons did not attend to them too -much. Yet, they were good to her according to their lights, preferring -her company to their father’s. - -Presently her knife would stay suspended, the voices of her sons would -cease; the footsteps of their father had been heard. - -He would come in, in an old green overcoat, a muffler, and heavy boots; -on his heavy face the look that says: My ways are what my life has made -them--the proper ways for me to go! And according to his mood, sometimes -jocular and sometimes sullen, there would be talk or silence, and -through those silences the clipping of the knife at the potatoes would -be heard, the sounds of cooking, and of washing, and of the making up -of beds, and latest of all, the tiny sound of stitching. - -But on Saturdays it would be different, for on Saturdays her man would -not return until he was compelled by the closing of his public-house. On -these evenings her heart would begin to beat at eight o’clock, and it -would go on beating louder and louder as the hours went by, till, as she -would have expressed it, she felt “fit to drop.” And yet, all those -hours, while her sons were sleeping, there was at work a strange poison -in her soul, a dull fever of revolt, in preparation for the blows that -would be given her if he came in drunk--a sort of perverse spirit, -vouchsafed by Providence, bringing those blows nearer, almost inviting -them, yet keeping her alive beneath them. At the midnight striking of -the nearest clock her heart would give a sickening leap under the -malodorous and blackened quilt, and she would lie, trying to pretend to -sleep. So old was that device, so useless--yet she never gave it up, for -her brain was not a fertile one. Soon after would begin his footsteps, -slow, wavering, coming up and up, with pauses, with mutterings, with now -and then a heavy stumble. Her breath would come in gasps, and her eyes, -just opening, would glue themselves to where the door showed dimly by -the sputtering candlelight. Slowly that door would open, and he would -enter. Through her slits of eyes she would look at him as he stood -swaying there. And suddenly the angry thought that there he was--the sot -that had drunken up her earnings and his own--would give her a dull -buzzing in her head; and all fear left her. Not though he might tear -away the blackened quilt, pull her out of bed, and shower blows, was -there anything within her but a dull, shrill, waspish anger, shooting -from her tongue and eyes. Only when he had finished, and rolled on to -the bed to sleep like a dead man, did she feel the pains that he had -given her. Then, dragging her feet slowly, she would creep back beneath -the quilt, and cover up her face. - -But some Saturdays he would come back before the clock had struck -twelve; and, standing by the door, with the light falling on his face, -would look at her, swaying but slightly with his lower lip hanging very -loose. Over his face, as he stood there, would spread a leering smile, -and he would call her by her name. - -Then in her dingy bed she would know that she still had work to do. And -with no smile on her tired face, no joy in her thin body, no thought of -anything in her starved brain, not even of the countless children she -had borne in her dim alleys to this half-drunken man, nor of the -countless children she had still to bear--she would lie waiting. - - - - -COMFORT - -XVI - -COMFORT - - -They lived in a flat on the fifth floor, facing a park on one side, and, -on the other, through the branches of an elm tree, another block of -flats as lofty as their own. It was very pleasant living up so high, -where they were not disturbed by noises, scents, or the sight of other -people--except such people as themselves. For, quite unconsciously, they -had long found out that it was best not to be obliged to see, or hear, -or smell anything that made them feel uncomfortable. In this respect -they were not remarkable; nor was their adoption of such an attitude to -life unnatural. So will little Arctic animals grow fur that is very -thick and white, or pigeons have heads so small and breast feathers so -absurdly thick that sportsmen in despair have been known to shoot them -in the tail. They were indeed, in some respects not unlike pigeons, a -well-covered and personable couple. In one respect they differed from -these birds--not having wings, they never soared. But they were kindly -folk, good to each other, very healthy, doing their duty in the station -to which they had been called, and their three children, a boy and two -little daughters, were everything that could be wished for. And had the -world been made up entirely of themselves, their like, and progeny, it -would--one felt--have been Utopia. - -At eight o’clock each morning, lying in their beds with a little pot of -tea between them, they read their letters, selecting first--by that -mysterious instinct which makes men keep what is best until the -end--those which looked as if they indicated the existence of another -side of life. Having glanced at these, they would remark that -Such-and-such seemed a deserving sort of charity; that So-and-so, they -were afraid, was hopeless; and it was only yesterday that this -subscription had been paid. These evidences of an outer world were not -too numerous; for, living in a flat, they had not the worry of rates, -with their perpetual reminder of social duties, even to the education of -other people’s children; the hall porter, too, would not let beggars use -the lift; and they had set their faces against belonging to societies, -of which they felt that there were far too many. They would pass on from -letters such as these to read how their boy at school was “well and -happy”; how Lady Bugloss would be so glad if they would dine on such a -day; and of the truly awful weather Netta had experienced in the south -of France. - -Having dispersed, he to the bathroom, she to see if the children had -slept well, they would meet again at breakfast, and divide the -newspaper. They took a journal which, having studied the art of making -people comfortable, when compelled to notice things that had been -happening in a cosmic, not a classic sort of way, did so in a manner to -inspire a certain confidence, as who should say: “We, as an organ of -free thought and speech, invite you, gentle reader, to observe these -little matters with your usual classic eye. That they are always there, -we know; but as with meat, the well-done is well-done, and the -under-done is under-done--for one to lie too closely by the other would -be subversive of the natural order of the joint. This is why, although -we print this matter, we print it in a way that will enable you to read -it in a classic, not a cosmic, spirit.” - -Having run their eyes over such pieces of intelligence, they turned to -things of more immediate interest, the speeches of an Opposition -statesman, which showed the man was probably a knave, and certainly a -fool; the advertisements of motorcars, for they were seriously thinking -of buying one; and a column on that international subject, the cricket -match between Australia and the Mother Country. The reviews of books and -plays they also read, noting carefully such as promised well, and those -that were likely to make them feel uncomfortable. “I think we might go -to that, dear; it seems nice,” she would say; and he would answer: “Yes! -And look here, don’t put this novel on the list, I’m not going to read -that.” Then they would sit silent once again, holding the journal’s -pages up before their breasts, as though sheltering their hearts. If, by -any chance the journal recommended books which, when read, gave them -pain--causing them to see that the world held people who were short of -comfort--they were more grieved than angry, for some little time not -speaking much, then suddenly asseverating that they did not see the use -of making yourself miserable over dismal matters; it was sad, but -everybody had their troubles, and if one looked into things, one almost -always found that the sufferings of others were really their own fault. -But their journal seldom failed them, and they seldom failed their -journal; and whether they had made it what it was, or it had made them -what they were, was one of those things no man knows. - -They sat at right angles at the breakfast table, and when they glanced -up at each other’s cheeks their looks were kindly and affectionate. “You -are a comfort to me, my dear, and I am a comfort to you,” those glances -said. - -Her cheek, in fact, was firm, and round, and fresh, and its strong -cheekbone mounted almost to the little dark niche of her grey eye. Her -hair, which had a sheen as though the sun were always falling on it, -seemed to caress the top curve of her clean pink ear. There was just the -suspicion of a chin beneath her rounded jaw. His cheek was not so strong -and moulded; it was flat, and coloured reddish brown, with a small patch -of special shaving just below the side growth of his hair, clipped close -in to the top lobe of the ear. The bristly wing of his moustache showed -sandy-brown above the corner of his lips, whose fullness was compressed. -About that sideview of his face there was the faint suggestion that his -appetites might some day get the better of his comfort. - -Having finished breakfast they would separate; he to his vocation, she -to her shopping and her calls. Their pursuit of these was marked by a -direct and grave simplicity, a sort of genius for deciding what they -should avoid, a real knowledge of what they wanted, and a certain power -of getting it. They met again at dinner, and would recount all they had -done throughout that busy day: What risks he had taken at Lloyd’s, where -he was an underwriter; how she had ordered a skirt, been to a -picture-gallery, and seen a royal personage; how he had looked in at -Tattersall’s about the boy’s pony for the holidays; how she had -interviewed three cooks without result. It was a pleasant thing to hear -that talk, with its comfortable, home-like flavour, and its reliance on -a real sympathy and understanding of each other. - -Every now and then they would come home indignant or distressed, having -seen a lost dog, or a horse dead from heat or overwork. They were -peculiarly affected by the sufferings of animals; and covering her pink -ears, she would cry: “Oh, Dick! how horrible!” or he would say: “Damn! -don’t rub it in, old girl!” If they had seen any human being in -distress, they rarely mentioned, or indeed remembered it, partly because -it was such a common sight, partly because their instincts reasoned -thus: “If I once begin to see what is happening before my eyes all day -and every day, I shall either feel uncomfortable and be compelled to -give time and sympathy and money, and do harm into the bargain, -destroying people’s independence; or I shall become cynical, which is -repulsive. But, if I stay in my own garden--as it were--and never look -outside, I shall not see what is happening, and if I do not see, it will -be as if there were nothing there to see!” Deeper than this, no doubt, -they had an instinctive knowledge that they were the fittest persons in -the State. They did not follow out this feeling in terms of reasoning, -but they dimly understood that it was because their fathers, -themselves, and children, had all lived in comfort, and that if they -once began diminishing that comfort they would become nervous, and -deteriorate. This deep instinct, for which Nature was responsible, made -them feel that it was no real use to concern themselves with anything -that did not help to preserve their comfort, and the comfort of all such -as they were likely to be breeding from, to a degree that would ensure -their nerves and their perceptions being coated, so that they literally -_could_ not see. It made them feel--with a splendid subtlety which kept -them quite unconscious--that this was their duty to Nature, to -themselves, and to the State. - -Seated at dinner, they were more than ever like two pigeons, when those -comfortable home-like birds are seen close together on a lawn, looking -at each other between the movements of their necks towards the food -before them. And suddenly, pausing with sweetbread on his fork, he would -fix his round light eyes on the bowl of flowers in front of him, and -say: “I saw Helen to-day, looking as thin as a lath; she simply works -herself to death down there!” - -When they had finished eating they would go down-stairs, and, summoning -a cab, be driven to the play. On the way, they looked straight before -them, digesting their food. In the streets the lamplight whitened the -wet pavements, and the wind blew impartially on starved faces, and faces -like their own. Without turning to him, she would murmur: “I can’t make -up my mind, dear, whether to get the children’s summer suits at once, or -wait till after Easter.” When he had answered, there would again be -silence. And as the cab turned into a by-street, some woman, with a -shawl over her head and a baby in her arms, would pass before the -horse’s nose, and, turning her deathly face, mutter an imprecation. -Throwing out the end of his cigar, he would say quietly: “Look here, if -we’re not going abroad this year, it’s time I looked out for a fishing -up in Skye.” Then, recovering the main thoroughfare, they would reach -their destination. - -The theatre had for them a strange attraction. They experienced beneath -its roof a peculiar sense of rest, like some man-at-arms would feel in -the old days when, putting off his armour, he stretched his feet out in -the evening to the fire. It was a double process that produced in them -this feeling of repose. They must have had a dim suspicion that they had -been going about all day in armour; here, and here alone, they would be -safe against gaunt realities, and naked truths; nothing here could -assail their comfort, since the commercial value of the piece depended -on its pleasing them. Everything would therefore be presented in a -classic--not a cosmic--spirit, suitable to people of their status. But -this was only half the process which wrought in them the sense of ease. -For, seated side by side, their attentive eyes fixed on the stage, the -thrill of “seeing life” would come; and this “life”--that was so far -removed from life--seemed to bring to them a blessed absolution from -all need to look on it in other forms. - -They would come out, subtly inspired, secretly strengthened. And whether -the play had made them what they were, or they had made the play, was -another of those things that no man knows. Their spiritual exaltation -would take them to their mansions, and elevate them till they reached -their floor. - -But when--seldom, luckily--their journal was at fault, and they found -themselves confronted with a play subversive of their comfort, their -faces, at first attentive, would grow a little puzzled, then hurt, and -lastly angry; and they would turn to each other, as though by exchanging -anger they could minimize the harm that they were suffering. She would -say in a loud whisper: “I think it’s a perfectly disgusting play!” and -he would answer: “So dull--that’s what I complain of!” - -After a play like this they talked a good deal in the cab on the way -home, of anything except the play, as though sending it to Coventry; -but every now and then a queer silence would fall between them. He would -break it by clucking his tongue against his palate, remarking: “Confound -that beastly play!” And she, with her arms folded on her breast, would -give herself a little hug of comfort. They felt how unfairly this play -had taken them to see it. - -On evenings such as this, before going to their room, they would steal -into the nursery--she in advance, he following, as if it were queer of -him--and, standing side by side, watch their little daughters sleeping. -The pallid radiance of the nightlight fell on the little beds, and on -those small forms so confidently quiet; it fell too, on their own -watching faces, and showed the faintly smiling look about her lips, over -the feathered collar of her cloak; showed his face, above the whiteness -of his shirt-front, ruddy, almost shining, craning forward with a little -puzzled grin, which seemed to say: “They’re rather sweet; how the devil -did I come to have them?” - -So, often, must two pigeons have stood, looking at their round, soft, -grey-white young! They would touch each other’s arms, and point out a -tiny hand crumpled together on the pillow, or a little mouth pouting at -sleep, and steal away on tiptoe. - -In their own room, standing a minute at the window, they inhaled the -fresh night air, with a reviving sense of comfort. Out there, the -moonlight silvered the ragged branches of the elm tree, the dark block -of mansions opposite--what else it silvered in the town, they -fortunately could not see! - - - - -A CHILD - -XVII - -A CHILD - - -In Kensington Gardens, that February day, it was very still. Trees, -stripped of every leaf, raised their bare clean twigs towards a sky so -grey and so unstirring that there might never have been wind or sun. And -on those branches pigeons sat, silent, as though they understood that -there was no new life as yet; they seemed waiting, loth to spread their -wings lest they should miss the coming of the Spring. - -Down in the grass the tiniest green flames were burning, a sign of the -fire of flowers that would leap up if the sun would feed them. - -And on a seat there sat a child. - -He sat between his father and his mother, looking straight before him. -It was plain that the reason why he looked so straight before him was -that he really had not strength to care to look to right or left--so -white his face was, so puny were his limbs. His clothes had evidently -been designed for others, and this was fortunate, for they prevented the -actual size of him from being seen. He was not, however, what is called -neglected; his face was clean, and the utmost of protection that Fate -and the condition of his parents had vouchsafed was evidently lavished -on him, for round his neck there was a little bit of draggled fur which -should have been round the neck of her against whose thin and shabby -side he leaned. This mother of his was looking at the ground; and from -the expression of her face she seemed to think that looking at the -ground was all life had to offer. - -The father sat with his eyes shut. He had shabby clothes, a grey face, -and a grey collar that had once been white. Above the collar his thin -cheeks had evidently just been shaved--for it was Saturday, and by the -colour of those cheeks, and by his boots, whose soles, hardly thicker -than a paper sheet, still intervened between him and the ground, he was -seen not to be a tramp or outdoor person, but an indoor worker of some -sort, and very likely out of work, who had come out to rest in the -company of his wife and family. His eyes being shut, he sat without the -pain of looking at a single thing, moving his jaw at intervals from side -to side, as though he had a toothache. - -And between this man who had begotten, and this woman who had borne him, -the child sat, very still, evidently on good terms with them, not -realising that they had brought him out of a warm darkness where he had -been happy, out of a sweet nothingness, into which, and soon perhaps, he -would pass again--not realising that they had so neglected to keep pace -with things, or that things had so omitted to keep pace with them, that -he himself had eaten in his time about one half the food he should have -eaten, and that of the wrong sort. By the expression of his face, that -pale small ghost had evidently grasped the truth that things were as -they had to be. He seemed to sit there reviewing his own life, and -taking for granted that it must be what it was, from hour to hour, and -day to day, and year to year. - -And before me, too, the incidents of his small journey passed; I saw -him, in the morning, getting off the family bed, where it was sometimes -warm, and chewing at a crust of bread before he set off to school in -company with other children, some of whom were stouter than himself; saw -him carrying in his small fist the remnants of his feast, and dropping -it, or swopping it away for peppermints, because it tired him to consume -it, having no juices to speak of in his little stomach. I seemed to -understand that, accustomed as he was to eating little, he almost always -wanted to eat less, not because he had any wish to die--nothing so -extravagant--but simply that he nearly always felt a little sick; I felt -that his pale, despondent mother was always urging him to eat, when -there were things to eat, and that this bored him, since they did not -strike him as worth all that trouble with his jaws. She must have found -it difficult indeed to persuade him that there was any point at all in -eating; for, from his looks, he could manifestly not now enjoy anything -but peppermints and kippered herrings. I seemed to see him in his -school, not learning, not wanting to learn, anything, nor knowing why -this should be so, ignorant of the dispensations of a Providence -who--after hesitating long to educate him lest this should make his -parents paupers--now compelled his education, having first destroyed his -stomach that he might be incapable of taking in what he was taught. That -small white creature could not as yet have grasped the notion that the -welfare of the future lay, not with the future, but with the past. He -only knew that every day he went to school with little in his stomach, -and every day came back from school with less. - -All this he seemed to be reviewing as he sat there, but not in thought; -his knowledge was too deep for words; he was simply feeling, as a child -that looked as he looked would naturally be feeling, on that bench -between his parents. He opened his little mouth at times, as a small -bird will open its small beak, without apparent purpose; and his lips -seemed murmuring: - -“My stomach feels as if there were a mouse inside it; my legs are -aching; it’s all quite natural, no doubt!” - -To reconcile this apathy of his with recollections of his unresting, -mirthless energy down alleys and on doorsteps, it was needful to -remember Human Nature, and its exhaustless cruse of courage. For, though -he might not care to live, yet, while he was alive he would keep his end -up, because he must--there was no other way. And why exhaust himself in -vain regrets and dreams of things he could not see, and hopes of being -what he could not be! That he had no resentment against anything was -certain from his patient eyes--not even against those two who sat, one -on either side of him--unaware that he was what he was, in order that -they who against his will had brought him into being, might be forced by -law to keep a self-respect they had already lost, and have the unsought -pride of giving him an insufficiency of things he could not eat. For he -had as yet no knowledge of political economy. He evidently did not view -his case in any petty, or in any party, spirit; he did not seem to look -on himself as just a half-starved child that should have cried its eyes -out till it was fed at least as well as the dogs that passed him; he -seemed to look on himself as that impersonal, imperial thing--the Future -of the Race. - -So profound his apathy! - -And, as I looked, the “Future of the Race” turned to his father: - -“‘Ark at that b----y bird!” he said. - -It was a pigeon, who high upon a tree, had suddenly begun to croon. One -could see his head outlined against the grey, unstirring sky, first -bending back, then down into his breast, then back again; and that soft -song of his filled all the air, like an invocation of fertility. - -“The Future of the Race” watched him for a minute without moving, and -suddenly he laughed. That laugh was a little hard noise like the -clapping of two boards--there was not a single drop of blood in it, nor -the faintest sound of music; so might a marionette have laughed--a -figure made of wood and wire! - -And in that laugh I seemed to hear innumerable laughter, the laughter in -a million homes of the myriad unfed. - -So laughed the Future of the richest and the freest and the proudest -race that had ever lived on earth, that February afternoon, with the -little green flames lighted in the grass, under a sky that knew not wind -or sun--so he laughed at the pigeon that was calling for the Spring. - - - - -JUSTICE - -XVIII - -JUSTICE - - -Thinking of him as he had looked, sitting there in his worn clothes, a -cloth cap crumpled in his hand, leaning a little forward, and staring at -the wall with those eyes of his that looked like fire behind steel bars; -remembering his words: “She’s dead to me--I’ll never think of her again -where I’m going!” I wrote this letter: - -“Dear ----, - -“From something you said yesterday, I feel that I ought to tell you that -when you get to Canada you will not be free to marry again. - -“I was present, as you know, when you told your story in the Police -Court--a story very often told there. I know that you were not to blame, -and that all you said was true. Owing to no fault of yours, your wife -has left you for a life of vice. Through this misfortune you have lost -your home, your children, and your work; and you are going to Canada as -a last resource. You and she will pass the rest of your lives in -different hemispheres. You are still a young man, strong, accustomed to -married life; you are going where married men are wanted, to a country -of great spaces and great loneliness, where your homestead may be miles -from any other. - -“This is all true enough; nevertheless you are as closely bound to this -wife who has left you for a life of public shame as if she were the -truest wife and mother in this city. - -“If, where you are going, you meet some girl that you would like to -marry, you must not, or you will be a bigamist--a criminal. If this girl -come to you unmarried, she will, of course, lose her good name. Your -children, if you have any, will be born in what is called a state of -shame; that they have had no voice in the matter of their birth won’t -help them, as you will find. If she refuses to come to you -unmarried--and you can hardly blame her--you will probably be driven, -like most men in your position, to get what comfort you can from women -who are like your wife. Society, of course, condemns these women, men of -heart regard them with compassion, men of science with dismay. They -breed canker in the nation; but as you cannot marry again, you will, I -fear, be driven to their company. - -“There is nothing special in your case--thousands in this country are in -a similar position; you are all governed by an impartial Law. - -“That Law is this: A woman can divorce a man who is faithless and treats -her with cruelty or deserts her. A man can divorce a woman who is -faithless. You could have divorced your wife! Why didn’t you? Let us -see! - -“You were first a soldier, and then a working man. They paid you as a -soldier, I believe, one shilling and twopence a day; suppose you saved -the pence, allowing for your wife not being on your hands, and your -children living on air? Fourteenpence a week--three pounds and -eightpence a year, if you were lucky. As a workman your wages were -thirty shillings a week? With four children you could save perhaps your -subscription to the _Hearts of Oak_, and, say, twopence a day besides? -Three pounds and eightpence every year. A divorce in the High Court of -Justice, for to that you were undoubtedly entitled by the Law, would -have cost you from sixty to a hundred pounds. So, if you could have -arranged to keep your witnesses alive, you might, with strict economy, -have been granted your decree, if not yourself already dead, in, say, -twenty years. - -“In this delay there is nothing peculiar or unjust. The Law, for rich or -poor, artisan or peer, is, as you know, identical. The Courts make no -distinction in favour of the wealthy over a man earning his seventy-odd -pounds a year, with five pounds in the Savings Bank--a decree for -millionaire, or clerk, or working man, costs just about the same. - -“To this rule, however, there is one exception; it is of course in -favour of the poor. One who can prove that he is not worth the sum of -five-and-twenty pounds is entitled to the name of pauper, and can sue -for divorce _in formâ pauperis_. This does not indeed apply to working -men or clerks in work; but you, who, knocked out of time by the conduct -of your wife, had lost your work, and were sleeping in the parks at -night or in a common lodging house, not knowing where to turn, could not -have proved your worth at five-and-twenty pence. You could have sued _in -formâ pauperis_. This was a great privilege! You should have found a -lawyer who would undertake your case on no security, obtained your -evidence without the payment of a penny, got your witnesses to come to -the Court and give their time for nothing (when every idle hour meant -bread out of their mouths); you should have achieved these triumphs over -Nature, and you might have been divorced for anything from seven to -fifteen pounds. True, you had not seven to fifteen pence, but--you had -the privilege! - -“It is admitted that you were a good husband to your wife, as good a -husband as a man could be; it is admitted that the fault was hers -entirely. It is admitted that you were entitled to relief. By the Law, -which is the same for all, however, this was not enough. - -“For this is what I want you to fully understand: _A man of means_ may -drive his wife to loathe him, provided he stop short of certain definite -things--for the Law does not allow him to be ‘cruel’ to her; he may -entertain himself with other women provided that she does not know, for -the Law does not allow him to be ‘faithless’; he may be, in fact, at -heart a ruffian or a rascal, but--_having means_--if she leave him for -another, he can, unless he has bad luck, be sure of his decree. Thus, it -did not really matter whether you were false to her, so long as she did -not know; it was almost superfluous to be so kind; what really mattered -was that, either, as a working man with thirty shillings a week, you had -sixty to a hundred pounds--or, as a penniless pauper, you had seven to -fifteen. - -“The Law of Divorce, like all our laws, is made without fear or favour, -for the protection and safety of us all; it is founded in justice and -equity, that grievances may be redressed, and all who are wrong may have -their remedy. It does not concern itself whether a man is rich or poor, -but administers its simple principles, requiring those who are not -destitute to pay for their decrees at a price that is the same for all, -whatever their means may be; requiring those who are destitute to pay -for their decrees at a price beyond their means. - -“I seem to hear you asking: ‘Could I not have been granted a remedy at a -price proportioned to my means? Must I, and every working man whose wife -leaves him as mine did, to drink in public houses, and walk the streets -at night, be condemned for ever after to live alone, or to live in -immorality?’ - -“The answer is a simple one: ‘If all the clerks and working men, and all -those wives of clerks and working men--to whom, like you, divorce was -due by almost general consent, and was indeed by almost general consent -deemed of a desperate importance--were enabled to obtain it at a price -within their means, several thousand more divorces would each year be -granted in this country. This would have a disastrous effect upon the -statistics of the marriage tie. Public Opinion, formed, you must -remember, exclusively amongst your betters (for on such subjects working -men are, and always have been, dumb), formed exclusively by such as can -afford to pay for their decrees--this great Public Opinion would feel -that a backward step was being taken on the path of moral rectitude. It -would feel that, in granting what you, the People, in your dumbness and -short sight might be tempted to think was common justice, it would be -sacrificing the substance of morals to the shadow. The immorality to -which you and your like under the present law are, and ever will be, -forced, need never lie open to the light of day, never become a matter -of statistics, and offend the Public Eye. What is not a matter of -statistics can do no damage to the country’s morals or the country’s -name. Public Opinion is itself secure in the enjoyment of the rights and -privileges granted by the law, and it has decided by a simple sacrifice -to conserve the moral fame of all. There must--it reasons--be a -sacrifice; then let us sacrifice those without the means to pay! It is -an accident that they, in their thousands, are not included in -ourselves; some must suffer that we may all be moral!’ - -“This is the answer. It is too much, perhaps, to ask you, from the marsh -of suffering, with your low personal point of view, to appreciate the -heights of impersonality reached in this vicarious sacrifice. But you -may possibly respect its depths of common sense. Can you blame the -practical wisdom of this Public Opinion, in which you have no part? If -you had a part in it, would you not yourself endorse it? If _you_ were a -man of means, that is of means sufficient to enjoy the privileges of the -Law, would you seriously offer to exert yourself to upset your -conception of your country’s moral worth, and lose secretly a little of -your self-esteem, that you might extend those privileges to such of your -fellow-citizens as could not pay for them? Would you not rather feel: My -own position is secure; this idea is only sentiment, mere _abstract_ -justice! If they want it they must pay for it! - -“By no means think that this great principle of payment is confined -merely to divorce; it underlies all justice in a greater or a less -degree. It is ‘money makes the mare to go!’ It is money that dictates -the measure of justice and its methods. But this is so mingled with the -essence of our lives that we do not even notice it. Why, you could -hardly find a man who, if you went to him in private and put your case, -would not say at once that you were hardly used! To the Law you cannot -go privately; and the Law is the guardian of all justice. - -“I have told you the requirements of the Law. You have not fulfilled -them. And, having made this error, you must, evidently, now go forth, -either to enjoy your own society for the remainder of your days, or, as -Nature drives you, to consort with those who at each touch will remind -you of what your wife has now become; and in this journey of enjoyment, -whichever of the two journeys it may be, you will be sustained, no -doubt, by the consciousness that you are serving the morality of your -country, and strengthening the esteem in which the marriage tie is held. -You will be inspired by the knowledge that you are sharing this voyage -of pleasure and of privilege with thousands of other men and women, as -decent and as kind as you. And you will feel, year by year, prouder and -prouder of your country that has reached these heights of justice....” - - - - -HOPE - -XIX - -HOPE - - -Wet or fine, hot or cold, nothing was more certain than that the lame -man would pass, leaning on his twisted oaken stick, his wicker basket -slung on his shoulder. In that basket, covered by a bit of sacking, was -groundsel, and rarely, in the season, a few mushrooms kept carefully -apart in a piece of newspaper. - -His blunt, wholesome, weather-beaten face with its full brown beard, now -going grey, was lined and sad because his leg continually gave him pain. -That leg had shrivelled through an accident, and being now two inches -shorter than it should have been, did little save remind him of -mortality. He had a respectable, though not an affluent, appearance, for -his old blue overcoat, his trousers, waistcoat, hat, were ragged from -long use and stained by weather. He had been a deep-sea fisherman -before his accident, but now he made his living by standing on the -pavement at a certain spot, in Bayswater, from ten o’clock to seven in -the evening. And any one who wished to give her bird a luxury would stop -before his basket, and buy a pennyworth of groundsel. - -Often--as he said--he had “a job to get it,” rising at five o’clock, and -going out of London by an early tram to the happy hunting grounds of -those who live on the appetites of caged canaries. Here, dragging his -injured limb with difficulty through ground that the heavens seldom -troubled to keep dry for him, he would stoop and toilfully amass the -small green plant with its close yellow-centred heads, though often--as -he mentioned--“there don’t seem no life like in the stuff, the frosts -ha’ spiled it!” Having collected all that Fate permitted him, he would -take the tram back home, and start out for his day’s adventure. - -Now and again, when things had not gone well, his figure would be seen -stumping home through darkness as late as nine or ten o’clock at night. -On such occasions his grey-blue eyes, which had never quite lost their -look of gazing through sea-mists, would reflect the bottom of his soul, -where the very bird of weariness lay with its clipped wings, for ever -trying to regain the air. - -In fact--as he had no need to tell you--he was a “trier” from year’s end -to year’s end, but he had no illusions concerning his profession--there -was “nothing in it”; though it was better on the whole than flowers, -where there was less than nothing. And, after all, having got accustomed -to the struggles of that bird of weariness within his soul, he would -even perhaps have missed it, had it at last succeeded in rising from the -ground and taking flight. - -“An ’ard life!” he had been heard to say when groundsel was scarce, -customers scarcer, and the damp had struck up into his shrivelled leg. -This, stated as a matter of fact, was the extent of his general -complaint, though he would not unwillingly descant on the failings of -his groundsel, his customers, and leg, to the few who could appreciate -such things. But, as a rule, he stood or sat, silent, watching the world -go by, as in old days he had watched the waves drift against his -anchored fishing-smack; and the look of those blurred-blue, far-gazing -eyes of his, in their extraordinary patience, was like a constant -declaration of the simple and unconscious creed of man: “I hold on till -I drop.” - -What he thought about while he stood there it was difficult to -say--possibly of old days round the Goodwins, of the yellow buttons of -his groundsel that refused to open properly, of his leg, and dogs that -would come sniffing at his basket and showing their contempt, of his -wife’s gouty rheumatism, and herrings for his tea, of his arrears of -rent, of how few people seemed to want his groundsel, and once more of -his leg. - -Practically no one stopped to look at him, unless she wanted a -pennyworth of groundsel for her pale bird. And when they did look at -him they saw--nothing symbolic--simply a brown-bearded man, with deep -furrows in his face, and a lame leg, whose groundsel was often of a -quality that they did not dare to offer their canaries. They would tell -him so, adding that the weather was cold; to which, knowing a little -more about it than themselves, he would reply: “Yes, m’m--you wouldn’t -believe how I feel it in my leg.” In this remark he was extremely -accurate, but they would look away, and pass on rather hastily, doubting -whether a man should mention a lame leg--it looked too much as if he -wanted to make something out of it. In truth he had the delicacy of a -deep-sea fisherman, but he had owned his leg so long that it had got on -his nerves; it was too intimate a part of all his life, and speak of it -he must. And sometimes, but generally on warm and genial days, when his -groundsel was properly in bloom and he had less need of adventitious -help, his customers would let their feelings get the better of them and -give him pennies, when ha’pennies would have been enough. This, -unconsciously, had served to strengthen his habit of alluding to his -leg. - -He had, of course, no holidays, but occasionally he was absent from his -stand. This was when his leg, feeling that he was taking it too much as -a matter of course, became what he would call “a mass o’ pain.” Such -occasions threw him behindhand with his rent; but, as he said: “If you -can’t get out, you can’t--can you?” After these vacations he would make -special efforts, going far afield for groundsel, and remaining on his -stand until he felt that if he did not get off it then, he never would. - -Christmas was his festival, for at Christmas people were more indulgent -to their birds, and his regular customers gave him sixpence. This was -just as well, for, whether owing to high living, or merely to the cold, -he was nearly always laid up about that time. After this annual bout of -“brownchitis,” as he called it, his weather-beaten face looked strangely -pale, his blue eyes seemed to have in them the mist of many watches--so -might the drowned ghost of a deep-sea fisherman have looked; and his -pale roughened hand would tremble, hovering over the groundsel that had -so little bloom, trying to find something that a bird need not despise. - -“You wouldn’t believe the job I had to find even this little lot,” he -would say. “Sometimes I thought I’d leave me leg be’ind, I was that weak -I couldn’ seem to drag it through the mud at all. An’ my wife, she’s got -the gouty rheumatiz. You’ll think that I’m all trouble!” And, summoning -God-knows-what spirit of hilarity, he smiled. Then, looking at the leg -he had nearly left behind, he added somewhat boastfully: “You see, it’s -got no strength in it at all--there’s not a bit o’ muscle left.... Very -few people,” his eyes and voice seemed proudly saying, “have got a leg -like this!” - -To the dispassionate observer of his existence it was a little difficult -to understand what attraction life could have for him; a little -difficult to penetrate down through the blackness of his continual toil -and pains, to the still living eyes of that bird of weariness, lying -within his soul, moving always, if but slightly, its wounded stumps of -wings. It seemed, on the whole, unreasonable of this man to cling to -life, since he was without prospect of anything but what was worse in -this life; and, in the matter of a life to come, would dubiously remark: -“My wife’s always a-tellin’ me we can’t be no worse off where we’re -a-goin’. An’ she’s right, no doubt, if so be as we’re goin’ anywhere!” - -And yet, so far as could be seen, the thought: “Why do I continue -living?” never came to him. It almost seemed as if it must be giving him -a secret joy to measure himself against his troubles. And this was -fortunate, for in a day’s march one could not come across a better omen -for the future of mankind. - -In the crowded highway, beside his basket, he stood, leaning on his -twisted stick, with his tired, steadfast face--a ragged statue to the -great, unconscious human virtue, the most hopeful and inspiring of all -things on earth: Courage without Hope! - - -END. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A COMMENTARY *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: A Commentary</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: John Galsworthy</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: June 5, 2022 [eBook #68242]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Emmanuel Ackerman, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A COMMENTARY ***</div> -<hr class="full" /> - -<div class="c"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" height="500" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="c">A COMMENTARY</p> - -<div class="bbox"> -<p class="c"><i>THE WORKS OF<br /> -JOHN GALSWORTHY</i></p> - -<p class="c"><i>NOVELS</i></p> - -<p class="nind"> -VILLA RUBEIN: AND OTHER STORIES<br /> -THE ISLAND PHARISEES<br /> -THE MAN OF PROPERTY<br /> -THE COUNTRY HOUSE<br /> -FRATERNITY<br /> -THE PATRICIAN<br /> -THE DARK FLOWER<br /> -THE FREELANDS<br /> -BEYOND<br /> -FIVE TALES<br /> -SAINT’S PROGRESS<br /> -IN CHANCERY<br /> -TO LET<br /> -THE BURNING SPEAR<br /> -THE WHITE MONKEY<br /> -THE SILVER SPOON<br /> -SWAN SONG<br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<br /> -THE FORSYTE SAGA<br /> -A MODERN COMEDY<br /> -</p> - -<p class="c"><i>SHORT STORIES AND STUDIES</i></p> - -<p class="nind"> -A COMMENTARY<br /> -A MOTLEY<br /> -THE INN OF TRANQUILLITY<br /> -THE LITTLE MAN<br /> -A SHEAF<br /> -ANOTHER SHEAF<br /> -TATTERDEMALION<br /> -CAPTURES<br /> -CASTLES IN SPAIN AND OTHER SCREEDS<br /> -TWO FORSYTE INTERLUDES<br /> -<br /></p> -<hr /> - -<p class="nind"> -CARAVAN -</p> - -<hr /> - -<p class="nind"> -<br /> -VERSES NEW AND OLD<br /> -</p> - -<hr /> -<p class="nind"> -MEMORIES (<span class="smcap">Illustrated</span>)<br /> -AWAKENING (<span class="smcap">Illustrated</span>)<br /> -ADDRESSES IN AMERICA<br /> -</p> -<hr /> - -<p class="c"><i>PLAYS</i></p> - -<table> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">First Series</span>:</td><td> <span class="smcap">The Silver Box</span></td></tr> -<tr><td> </td><td><span class="smcap">Joy</span></td></tr> -<tr><td> </td><td><span class="smcap">Strife</span></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Second Series</span>: </td><td><span class="smcap">The Eldest Son</span></td></tr> -<tr><td> </td><td><span class="smcap">The Little Dream</span></td></tr> -<tr><td> </td><td><span class="smcap">Justice</span></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Third Series</span>: </td><td><span class="smcap">The Fugitive</span></td></tr> -<tr><td> </td><td><span class="smcap">The Pigeon</span></td></tr> -<tr><td> </td><td><span class="smcap">The Mob</span></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Fourth Series</span>:</td><td> <span class="smcap">A Bit o’ Love</span></td></tr> -<tr><td> </td><td><span class="smcap">Foundations</span></td></tr> -<tr><td> </td><td><span class="smcap">The Skin Game</span></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Fifth Series</span>: </td><td><span class="smcap">A Family Man</span></td></tr> -<tr><td> </td><td><span class="smcap">Loyalties</span></td></tr> -<tr><td> </td><td><span class="smcap">Windows</span></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Sixth Series</span>:</td><td> <span class="smcap">The Forest</span></td></tr> -<tr><td> </td><td><span class="smcap">Old English</span></td></tr> -<tr><td> </td><td><span class="smcap">The Show</span></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Escape</span></td><td> </td></tr> -</table> - -<p class="c"><i>The above Plays issued separately</i></p> - -<table> -<tr><td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Six Short Plays</span>:</td></tr> -<tr><td> -<span class="smcap">  The First and the Last</span>    <br /> -<span class="smcap">  The Little Man</span><br /> -<span class="smcap">  Hall-Marked</span><br /></td><td> -<span class="smcap">Defeat</span><br /> -<span class="smcap">The Sun</span><br /> -<span class="smcap">Punch and Go</span></td></tr> -</table> - -<p>PLAYS BY JOHN GALSWORTHY—1 VOL.</p> - -<p class="c"><i>THE GROVE EDITION</i></p> - -<p class="c"><i>The Novels, Stories, and Studies of John Galsworthy in small volumes</i></p> -</div> - -<h1> -A COMMENTARY</h1> - -<p class="c">BY<br /> -JOHN GALSWORTHY<br /> -<br /><br /><br /> -NEW YORK<br /> -CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS<br /> -<br /><br /><small>Printed in the United States of America</small><br /><br /> -<img src="images/colophon.png" -width="80" -alt="" /><br /><br /><br /> -<span class="lineh"> -<span class="smcap">“JUSTICE” APPEARED IN THE</span> <i>Albany Review</i> <span class="smcap">(LONDON);<br /> -“POWER” IN THE</span> <i>New Age</i>; <span class="smcap">ALL THE OTHER SKETCHES<br /> -IN THIS VOLUME HAVE APPEARED IN</span> <i>The Nation</i><br /> -<span class="smcap">(LONDON). THE AUTHOR THANKS THE EDITORS<br /> -OF THESE REVIEWS</span><br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_v">{v}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> - -<table> - -<tr><td colspan="2"> </td><td class="rt"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> -<tr><td>  </td><td class="pdd"> <span class="smcap"><a href="#A_COMMENTARY">A Commentary</a></span></td><td class="rtb"><a href="#page_3">3</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#I">I.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#I"><span class="smcap">The Lost Dog</span></a></td><td class="rtb"><a href="#page_19">19</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#II">II.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#II"><span class="smcap">Demos</span></a></td><td class="rtb"><a href="#page_31">31</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#III">III.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#III"><span class="smcap">Old Age</span></a></td><td class="rtb"><a href="#page_45">45</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#IV">IV.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#IV"><span class="smcap">The Careful Man</span></a></td><td class="rtb"><a href="#page_59">59</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#V">V.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#V"><span class="smcap">Fear</span></a></td><td class="rtb"><a href="#page_73">73</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#VI">VI.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#VI"><span class="smcap">Fashion</span></a></td><td class="rtb"><a href="#page_85">85</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#VII">VII.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#VII"><span class="smcap">Sport</span></a></td><td class="rtb"><a href="#page_95">95</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#VIII">VIII.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#VIII"><span class="smcap">Money</span></a></td><td class="rtb"><a href="#page_107">107</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#IX">IX.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#IX"><span class="smcap">Progress</span></a></td><td class="rtb"><a href="#page_127">127</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#X">X.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#X"><span class="smcap">Holiday</span></a></td><td class="rtb"><a href="#page_139">139</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XI">XI.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#XI"><span class="smcap">Facts</span></a></td><td class="rtb"><a href="#page_149">149</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XII">XII.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#XII"><span class="smcap">Power</span></a></td><td class="rtb"><a href="#page_165">165</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XIII">XIII.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#XIII"><span class="smcap">The House of Silence</span></a></td><td class="rtb"><a href="#page_177">177</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XIV">XIV.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#XIV"><span class="smcap">Order</span></a></td><td class="rtb"><a href="#page_191">191</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XV">XV.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#XV"><span class="smcap">The Mother</span></a></td><td class="rtb"><a href="#page_203">203</a><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_vi">{vi}</a></span></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XVI">XVI.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#XVI"><span class="smcap">Comfort</span></a></td><td class="rtb"><a href="#page_215">215</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XVII">XVII.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#XVII"><span class="smcap">A Child</span></a></td><td class="rtb"><a href="#page_231">231</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XVIII">XVIII.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#XVIII"><span class="smcap">Justice</span></a></td><td class="rtb"><a href="#page_241">241</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#XIX">XIX.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#XIX"><span class="smcap">Hope</span></a></td><td class="rtb"><a href="#page_255">255</a></td></tr> -</table> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_1">{1}</a></span>  </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_2">{2}</a></span>  </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_3">{3}</a></span>  </p> - -<h2><a id="A_COMMENTARY"></a>A COMMENTARY</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">The</span> old man whose call in life was to warn the public against the -dangers of the steam-roller held a small red flag in his remaining hand, -for he had lost one arm. His brown face, through whose leathery skin -white bristles showed, had a certain dignity; so had his square -upstanding figure. And his light grey eyes, with tiny pupils, gazed with -a queer intentness, as if he saw beyond you. His clothes were old, -respectable, and stained with grease; his smile shrewd and rather sweet, -and his voice—of one who loved to talk, but whose profession kept him -silent—was deliberate and sonorous, with a whistling lisp in it, -because he had not many teeth.</p> - -<p>“What’s your opinion?” he said one summer morning. “I’ll tell you <i>my</i> -experience: a lot o’ them that’s workin’ on road jobs like this are -fellers that the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_4">{4}</a></span> Vestries takes on, makin’ o’ work for them—the lowest -o’ the low. You can’t do nothing with them; here to-day and gone -to-morrow. Lost dogs I call ’em. Most of them goes on the drink the -moment they gets a chance, and the language that they’ll use—oh dear! -But you can’t blame them’s far as I can see—they’re born tired. They -ain’t up to what’s wanted of ’em nowadays. You might just as well put -their ’eads under this steam-roller and ’ave done with it.”</p> - -<p>Then lowering his voice as though imparting information of a certain -value: “And that’s just what I think’s ’appened to them already; that -great thing”—he pointed to the roller—“that great thing goes on, and -on, and on—it’s gone over them! Life nowadays has got no more feelin’ -for a man than for a beetle. See the way the poor live—like pigs, -crowded all together; to any one who knows, it’s awful! An’ -morals—something dreadful! How can you have morals when you’ve got to -live like that—let alone humanity? You can’t, it stands<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_5">{5}</a></span> to reason. -Talk about democracy—government by the people? There’s no sense in it; -the people’s kept like pigs; all they’ve got’s like pig-wash thrown ’em. -They know there’s no hope for them. Why, when all’s done, a working-man -can’t save enough to keep ’imself in his old age. Look at me! I’ve lost -my arm, all my savin’s was spent when I was gettin’ well; I’ve got this -job now, an’ very glad to get it—but the time ’ll come when I’ll be too -old to stand about all weathers; what ’ll happen? I’ll either ’ave to -starve or go into the ’Ouse—well, that’s a miserable ending for a man. -But then you say, what can you do? That’s just it—what <i>can</i> you do? -Where’s the money to come from? People say Parliament ought to find it, -but I’ve not much ’opes of them; they’re very slow. All my life I’ve -noticed that. Very slow! Them fellers in Parliament, they’ve got their -positions and one thing and another to consider, the same as any other -people; they’re bound to be cautious, they don’t want to take no risks, -it stands to reason.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_6">{6}</a></span> Well, that’s all against reforms, I think. All -they do, why it’s no more than following after this ’ere roller, -treadin’ in the stones.”</p> - -<p>He paused, looking dubiously at the roller, now close at hand. “See what -a lot o’ things the money’s wanted for. It’s not only old-age pensions, -there’s illness! When I lost my arm, and lay there in the ’orspital, it -worried me to think what I should do when I got out—put me in such a -stew; well, there’s thousands like that—people with consumption, people -with bad blood—’undreds an’ thousands, that’s got nothin’ to fall back -on; they’re in fear all their time.”</p> - -<p>He came closer, and his voice seemed to whistle more than ever. “It’s a -dreadful thing, is fear. I thought that I’d come out a log, an’ just -’ave to rot away. I’ve got no family—but them fellers in consumption -with families an’ all, it’s an awful thing for them. Here’s a -carriage—I mustn’t get to talking!”</p> - -<p>He moved forward to the barrier, and stood there holding up his flag. A -ba<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_7">{7}</a></span>rouche and pair came sweeping up; the sun shone on its panels, on the -horses’ coats, the buttons of the coachman, and the egrets in two -ladies’ hats. It swerved at sight of the red flag, and swung round the -corner to the left.</p> - -<p>The old man stood looking after it, and the silence was broken only by -the crunching of the roller. Rousing himself from reverie, he said: -“Fashion! D’you know, I can’t tell what them sort of people think of all -day long. It puzzles me. Sometimes I fancy they don’t think at all. -Thinking’s all done for them!” And again he seemed to lapse into his -reverie. “If you told them that they’d stare at you. Why, they fancy -they’re doin’ an awful lot, what with their bazaars an’ one thing an’ -another. Them sort of people, they don’t mean any ’arm, but they ’aven’t -got the mind. You can’t expect it of them, livin’ their lives; you want -a lot o’ mind to think of other people.”</p> - -<p>Suddenly his eyes brightened. “Why, take them street-walkers you see -about<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_8">{8}</a></span> at night; now what d’you think ladies in their carriages thinks -of them—dirt! But them women ’alf the time’s no worse than what the -ladies are. They took their bit o’ sport, as you may call it—same as -lots o’ ladies take it. That’s where money comes in—they ’adn’t the -money to keep off the streets. But what are you to do? You can’t have -the creatures about.” A frown came on his brow, as though this question -had long been troubling him. “The rich,” he went on, “are able for to -educate their daughters, and look after them; I don’t blame them—it’s -human nature to do the best you can for your own family; but you’ve got -to think of others that haven’t got your money—you’ve got to be human -about it. The mischief is, when a man’s got money, it’s like a wall -between ’im an’ ’is fellows. That’s what I’ve found. What’s your -opinion? Look here! My father was a farm labourer, at eight shillin’s a -week, an’ brought up six of us. And ’owever ’e managed it I don’t know; -but I don’t think things are any better than<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_9">{9}</a></span> they were then—I don’t—I -think they’re worse. This progress, or what do they call it, is -destroyin’ of us. You can’t keep it back, no more than you could keep -back that there roller if you pushed against it; all you can do’s to -keep ahead of it, I suppose. But talk about people’s increasin’ in the -milk of human kindness—I don’t see it, nor intelligence. Look at the -way they spend their ’olidays—it gives you stomach-ache to see them. -All a lot o’ rowdy fellers, never still a minute, that’s lost all -religion—a lot o’ town-bred monkeys. This ’ere modern life, it’s -hollowed of ’em out, that’s what it’s done, in my opinion. People’s got -so restless; they keep on tryin’ first one thing and then another; -anything so long as they can be doing something on their own. That’s a -fact. It’s like a man workin’ on a job like this road-mendin’; he just -sees the stones he’s puttin’ down himself, and he don’t see nothing -else. That’s what everybody’s doin’. But I don’t see how you can prevent -it; it looks as if ’twas in the blood. They talk about<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_10">{10}</a></span> this Socialism; -well, but I’m not very sweet on it—it’s mostly all a-lookin’ after your -neighbour, ’s far’s I can see.”</p> - -<p>He paused, staring hard, as though trying to see further. “Well,” he -went on suddenly; “that won’t work! Look at the police—never met such -meddlesome creatures; very nice men in themselves, I dare say, but just -because they’ve got a little power—! And they’re as thick as thieves -together. Take these fellers that they send to prison; they talk about -reformin’ of them, but when they get them there it’s all like that -roller, crushin’ the life out—awful, I call it. Them fellers come out -dead, with their minds squashed out o’ them; an’ all done with the best -intentions, so they tell me. I tell you what I think, there’s only one -man in a ’undred fit to ’ave power over other men put in his ’ands. Look -at the workhouses—why ain’t they popular? It’s all because you’ve got -to live by rule. I don’t find no fault with rules so long as you don’t -order people about; what you want to do’s to get people to keep rules of -their<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_11">{11}</a></span> own accord—that’s what I think. But people don’t look at it that -way, ’s far ’s I can see. What’s your opinion? Mind ye,” he went on -suddenly, “I’m not saying as there isn’t lots o’ things Government might -do, that you’d call Socialism, I dare say. See the women in them -slums—poor things, they can’t hardly drag themselves along, and yet -they breed like rabbits. I don’t blame them, they don’t know no better. -But look ’ere!” and thrusting the handle of the flag into his pocket, he -took a button of his listener’s coat between his finger and his thumb; -“I’d pass a law, I would, to stop ’em. That’s going too far, you say! -Well, but what’s to be done? There’s no other way, in my opinion. Then, -of course, if you stop ’em, you won’t ’ave none o’ this cheap low-class -labour. That won’t please people. It’s a difficult matter!”</p> - -<p>He sank his voice to a sort of whistling whisper. “<span class="lftspc">’</span>Alf the children in -them slums is brought about under the influence of drink. What d’ you -make of that? And that’s only the beginning—they feed<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_12">{12}</a></span> them poor little -things on all sorts o’ mucky stuff—an’ lots o’ them ’alf fed at that. -Pretty state o’ things for a country like this—it’d disgrace the -savages, I think. I’d ’ave every child full-fed by law. I’d make it a -crime, I would, to ’ave half-starved children about the streets or -schools, or anywhere. I’d begin at the beginning. But then you say -that’s pauperising of the parents. That’s what they said when they began -this ’ere free education—nobody ain’t been pauperised by that. A -country that can’t keep its children fed ain’t fit to ’ave them, that’s -what I think; ’t isn’t fair to them little things. But then you say -that’d cost a mint o’ money—millions! Of course it would! Well, look at -the ’ouses in this road, look at them big flats—’undreds an’ thousands -of streets an’ ’ouses like that all over England. They say that sixpence -on the rates would feed the children, but they won’t put it on—of -course they won’t, it’s too much off their comfort. People don’t like -parting; that’s a fact, as you know yourself.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_13">{13}</a></span> But what’s the good of -raisin’ millions of these ’ere dry-rotted people—they’re so expensive, -you can’t do nothing with them——” He broke off to intercept a cart. -“But I dare say,” he said, returning, “they’d call that Socialism. -What’s your opinion? Shall I tell you what I think about it? These -Socialists are like men that keep a shop, an’ some one walks in an’ -says: ‘How much for the coat there?’ he says. ‘Ten bob!’ they say. ‘I’ll -give you five,’ he says. ‘No, we wants ten,’ they say. ‘No,’ ’e says, -‘five!’ And both of them knows all the time they’re goin’ to do a deal -at seven an’ six!”</p> - -<p>He sank his voice, as though imparting a State secret: “It wouldn’t -never do for them to say seven an’ six straight off; then ’e’d only give -’em six an’ three. See? If you want to get a proper price you’ve got to -keep hollerin’ for more—that’s human nature.”</p> - -<p>Then, waving his flag towards the block of flats, he said: “Look at all -this class of comfortable people. They do<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_14">{14}</a></span>n’t see things the same as I -do, an’ I don’t know why they should. They’re comfortable themselves. It -stands to reason they’re not goin’ to think about such things. They’ve -been brought up to believe the world was made for them. They never see -no other people but their own sort; same as workin’ people never see no -other but workin’ people. That’s what makes the classes, in my opinion. -All these fellers here,” and he waved his hand towards the figures -working at the road, “talk very big about betterin’ their position, but -as soon as it comes to standin’ by each other it’s every man for -himself. It’s only what you can expect—if you don’t look out for -yourself, nobody else will, that’s as sure as eggs. They say, in England -all men’s equal under the law; well, but then you’ve only got to look -around—that isn’t true, how can it be? You’ve got to pay for law same -as you’ve got to pay for everything. That’s where it is! They talk about -Justice in the country, the same for rich and poor; that’s all very -fine, but there’s a ’undred<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_15">{15}</a></span> ways where a man that’s poor has to suffer -for it, because he can’t pull the lawyers’ tails and make ’em jump.”</p> - -<p>And with these words he tried to raise both arms, but he had only one. -“You haven’t told me what you think?” he said: “I’ll tell you my -opinion,” and his voice dropped to an emphatic whisper: “<i>There’s things -that want improvin’, and there’s things that stand in the way of things -improvin’</i>. But I’ve noticed one thing; it don’t matter how low people -get, they’re always proud of something, even if it’s only of their -troubles. There must be some good in human nature, or we’d never keep -ahead of that great thing at all;” he stretched his arm out to the -roller, approaching with its slow crunching sound like the sound of Life -crunching the bones of men; “we’d let it go right over us.” And nodding -his grey head twice, he stood holding up his red flag as still as stone, -with his eyes fixed intently on a coming milk-cart.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_17">{17}</a></span><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_16">{16}</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_18">{18}</a></span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_19">{19}</a></span></p> -<h2><a id="THE_LOST_DOG"></a>THE LOST DOG<br /><br /> -<a id="I"></a>I<br /><br /> -<span class="smcap">The Lost Dog</span></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">It</span> was the first October frost. Outside a half-built house, before a -board on which was written, “Jolly Bros., Builders,” I saw a man, whose -eyes seemed saying: “In the winter building will stop; if I am homeless -and workless now, what shall I be in two months’ time?” Turning to me he -said: “Can you give me a job, sir? I don’t mind what I do.”</p> - -<p>His face was in mourning for a shave, his clothes were very ragged, and -he was so thin that there seemed hardly any man behind those ragged -clothes. He smelt, not indeed of whiskey, but as though bereaved of it; -and his blue and watery eyes were like those of a lost dog.</p> - -<p>We looked at each other, and this conversation passed between our eyes:</p> - -<p>“What are you? Where did you work<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_20">{20}</a></span> last? How did you get into this -condition? Are you married? How many children? Why don’t you apply to -the proper authorities? I have money, and you have none; it is my right -to ask these questions.”</p> - -<p>“I am a lost dog.”</p> - -<p>“But I have no work for you; if you are really hungry I can give you -sixpence; I can also refer you to a Society who will examine your -affairs, but if they find you a man for whom life has been too much, -they will tell me so, and warn me not to help you. Is that what you -want?”</p> - -<p>“I am a lost dog.”</p> - -<p>“I dare say; but what can I do? I can’t make work! I know nothing about -you, I daren’t recommend you to my friends. No man gets into the -condition you are in without the aid of his own folly. You say you fell -ill; yes, but you all say that. Why couldn’t you look ahead and save -some money? You see now that you ought to have? And yet you come to me! -I have a great many calls—societies, old people, and the sick;<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_21">{21}</a></span> the -rates are very high—you know that—partly on your account!”</p> - -<p>“I am a lost dog.”</p> - -<p>“Ah! but I am told daily by the just, the orderly, the practical, who -have never been lost or hungry, that I must not give to casuals. You -know yourself it would be pure sentiment; you know yourself it would be -mere luxury. I wonder you can ask me!”</p> - -<p>“I am a lost dog.”</p> - -<p>“You have said that before. It’s not as if I didn’t know you! I have -seen and talked with you—with dozens of you. I have found you asleep on -the Thames Embankment. I have given you sixpence when you were shambling -empty away after running a mile behind a cab. One night, don’t you -remember, in the Cromwell Road—well, not you, but your twin brother—we -talked together in the rain, and the wind blew your story against the -shuttered windows of the tall, closed houses. Once you were with me -quite six weeks, cutting up a dead tree in my garden. Day after day you -sat there,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_22">{22}</a></span> working very slowly to keep the tree from coming to an end, -and showing me in gratitude each morning your waistbelt filling out. -With the saw in your hand and your weak smile you would look at me, and -your eyes would say, ‘You don’t know what a rest it is for me to come -here and cut up wood all day.’ At all events, you <i>must</i> remember how -you kept yourself from whiskey until I went away, and how you excused -yourself when I returned and found you speaking thickly in the morning: -‘I can’t <i>help</i> rememberin’ things!’ It was not you, you say? No; it was -your double.”</p> - -<p>“I am a lost dog.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes, yes! You are one of those men that our customs breed. You had -no business to be born—or at any rate you should have seen to it that -you were born in the upper classes. What right had you to imagine you -could ever tackle the working-man’s existence—up to the mark all day -and every day? You, a man with a soft spot? You knew, or your parents -ought to have known, that<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_23">{23}</a></span> you couldn’t stand more than a certain -pressure from life. You are diseased, if not physically, then in your -disposition. Am I to excuse you because of that? Most probably I should -be the same if life pressed hard enough. Am I to excuse myself because -of that? Never—until it happens! Being what you are you chose -deliberately—or was it chosen for you—to run the risks of being born; -and now you complain of the consequences, and come to me for help? To -me—who may myself at some time be in need, if not of physical, of moral -bread? Is it right, or reasonable?”</p> - -<p>“I am a lost dog.”</p> - -<p>“You are getting on my nerves! Your chin is weak—I can see that through -your beard; your eyes are wistful, not like the professional beggar’s -pebbly eyes; you have a shuffling walk, due perhaps a little to the -nature of your boots; yes, there are all the marks of amiability about -you. Can you look me in the face and say it would be the slightest use -to put you on your legs and thrust you again, equipped,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_24">{24}</a></span> into the ranks -of battle? Can you now? Ah! if you could only get some food in you, and -some clothes on you, and some work to do! But don’t you know that, three -weeks hence, that work would be lost, those clothes in pawn, and you be -on the drink? Why should I waste my charity on <i>you</i>—‘the deserving’ -are so many! There’s ‘something against you’ too? Oh! nothing -much—you’re not the sort that makes a criminal; if you were you would -not be in such a state. You would be glad enough to do your fellows a -good turn if ever you could do a good turn to yourself; and you are not -ungrateful, you would attach yourself to any one who showed you -kindness. But you are hopeless, hopeless, hopeless—aren’t you now?”</p> - -<p>“I am a lost dog.”</p> - -<p>“You know our methods with lost dogs? Have you never heard of the lethal -chamber? A real tramp, living from hand to mouth in sun and rain and -dirt and rags, enjoys his life. But <i>you</i> don’t enjoy the state you’re -in. You’re<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_25">{25}</a></span> afraid of the days when you’ve nothing to eat, afraid of the -nights when you’ve nowhere to sleep, afraid of crime, afraid even of -this begging; twice since we’ve been standing here I’ve seen you looking -round. If you knew you’d be afraid like this, what made you first desert -‘the narrow path’? Something came over you? How could you let it come -like that? It still comes over you? You were tired, you wanted something -new—something a little new. We all want that something, friend, and get -it if we can; but we can’t recognise that <i>your</i> sort of human creature -is entitled, for you see what’s come of it?”</p> - -<p>“I am a lost dog.”</p> - -<p>“You say that as if you thought there was one law for the rich and -another for the poor. You are making a mistake. If I am had up for -begging as well as you, we shall both of us go to prison. The fact that -I have no need to steal or beg, can pay for getting drunk and taking -holidays, is hardly to the point—you must see that! Do not be led away -by senti<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_26">{26}</a></span>mental talk; if we appear before a judge, we both must suffer -punishment. I am not so likely to appear as you perhaps, but that’s an -accident. No, please don’t say that dreadful thing again! I wish to help -you. There is Canada, but they don’t want you. I would send you anywhere -to stop your eyes from haunting me, but they don’t want you. Where do -they want you? Tell me, and you shall go.”</p> - -<p>“I am a lost dog.”</p> - -<p>“You remind me of that white shadow with little liver spots that my -spaniel dog and I picked up one night when we were going home.</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Master,’ he said, ‘there’s such an amusing cur out there in the middle -of the road.’</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Behave yourself! Don’t pick up with anything you come across like -this!’</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Master, I know it is a thin and dirty cur, but the creature follows -me.’</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Keep to heel! The poor dog will get lost if you entice him far from -home.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_27">{27}</a></span>’</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Oh, master! that’s just what’s so amusing. He hasn’t any.’</p> - -<p>“And like a little ghost the white dog crept along behind. We looked to -read his collar; it was gone. We took him home—and how he ate, and how -he drank! But my spaniel said to me:</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Master, what is the use of bringing in a dog like this? Can’t you see -what he is like? He has eaten all my meat, drunk my bowl dry, and he is -now sleeping in my bed.’</p> - -<p>“I said to him: ‘My dear, you ought to like to give this up to this poor -dog.’</p> - -<p>“And he said to me: ‘Master, I <i>don’t</i>! He is no good, this dog; I am -cleaner and fatter than he. And don’t you know there’s a place on the -other side of the water for all this class of dog? When are we going to -take him there?’</p> - -<p>“And I said to him: ‘My dear, don’t ask me; <i>I don’t know</i>.’</p> - -<p>“And you are like that dog, standing there with those eyes of yours and -that weak chin and those weak knees, before this half-built house with -the winter<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_28">{28}</a></span> coming on. And I am like my spaniel, who knows there is a -proper place for all your kind of creature. Man! what shall I do with -you?”</p> - -<p>“I am a lost dog.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_29">{29}</a></span>”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_30">{30}</a></span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_31">{31}</a></span></p> -<h2><a id="DEMOS"></a>DEMOS<br /><br /> -<a id="II"></a>II<br /><br /> -<span class="smcap">Demos</span></h2> - -<p>“Well, she’s my wife, ain’t she?” He put his hands on the handles of his -barrow as though to take it away from one who could not see his point of -view, wheeled it two yards, and stopped.</p> - -<p>“It’s no matter what I done to her. Look ’ere!” He turned his fish-white -face, and his dead eyes came suddenly to life, with a murky, yellow -glare, as though letting escape the fumes within his soul. “I ought to -ha’ put her to bed with a shovel long ago; and I will, too, first chance -I get.”</p> - -<p>“You are talking like a madman.”</p> - -<p>“Look ’ere, ’as a man a right to his own wife an’ children?” His thick -loose lower lip trembled. “You tell me that!”</p> - -<p>“It depends on how he behaves himself.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_32">{32}</a></span> If you knock her about, you -can’t expect her to stay with you.”</p> - -<p>“I never done no more to her than what she deserved. I never gave her -the ’alf o’ what she ought to ’ave.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve seen her several times with your marks on her face.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, an’ I’ll mark ’er again, I will.”</p> - -<p>“So you have just said.”</p> - -<p>“Because a man ’its ’is wife when he’s got a drop o’ liquor in ’im, that -don’t give ’er the right to go off like this and take a man’s children -from ’im, do it?”</p> - -<p>“I think it does.”</p> - -<p>“When I find her——”</p> - -<p>“I hope you will not find her.”</p> - -<p>He thrust his head forward, and the yellow in the whites of his eyes -deepened and spread till his whole face seemed suffused with it.</p> - -<p>“Look ’ere, man an’ wife is man an’ wife, and don’t you or any one come -between ’em, or it’ll be the worse for you.”</p> - -<p>“I have told you my opinion.”</p> - -<p>“You think I don’t know the law; the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_33">{33}</a></span> law says his children belongs to a -man, not to a woman.”</p> - -<p>“We needn’t go into that.”</p> - -<p>“Needn’t we? You think, becos I’m not a torf, I got no rights. I know -what the law says. A man owns ’is wife, an’ ’e owns ’is children.”</p> - -<p>“Do you deny that you drink?”</p> - -<p>“You’d drink if you ’ad my life; d’you think I like this goin’ about all -day with a barrer?”</p> - -<p>“Do you deny that you’ve often struck your wife?”</p> - -<p>“What’s it to you or any one else, what I do to ’er in private? Why -don’t you come down to my place an’ order me about?”</p> - -<p>“But I suppose you know your wife can get a separation order if she goes -down to the Court?”</p> - -<p>On his face a grin stole up.</p> - -<p>“Separation order! Do ’er a lot o’ good, that would! D’you think that’d -keep my ’ands off ’er afterwards? She knows what I’d do to ’er if she -went against me.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_34">{34}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“What <i>would</i> you do?”</p> - -<p>“She wouldn’t want to arsk for any more separation orders.”</p> - -<p>“You would be locked up if you molested her afterwards.”</p> - -<p>“Should I? <i>She</i> wouldn’t be there to speak against me.”</p> - -<p>“I understand.”</p> - -<p>“She knows what I’d do to ’er.”</p> - -<p>“You’ve scared her so that she daren’t go to the Court—she daren’t stay -with you; what can she do but leave you?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t want <i>’er</i>, let ’er go; I want the children.”</p> - -<p>“Do you really mean that you don’t want her?”</p> - -<p>“I never ’ad a woman keep <i>me</i>.”</p> - -<p>“You know that her earnings have kept you all.”</p> - -<p>“I tell you I never ’ad a woman keep me.”</p> - -<p>“Can you support the children?”</p> - -<p>“If I could get a proper job——”</p> - -<p>“But can you get a proper job?”</p> - -<p>“Well, ’oo’s fault is that; it’s not my fault, is it?<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_35">{35}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“You’ve had plenty of chances.”</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">’</span>Oo cares if I ’ave! I’ve always been a good father to my children. -I’ve worked for ’em, an’ begged for ’em, an’ stole for ’em; I’m well -known to be a good father all about where I live.”</p> - -<p>“But that won’t keep them off the parish, will it?”</p> - -<p>“You let the parish alone! If I ’aven’t got money, I’ve got honour; -that’s better than all the money. I don’t want no money to tell me -what’s right and what isn’t.”</p> - -<p>“Come, come!”</p> - -<p>“The children’s mine—every one o’ them. Takin’ children away from their -father! that’s a fine thing to be backin’ up like this!”</p> - -<p>His eyes moved from side to side, like the eyes of an animal in pain, -and his voice was hoarse as though a lump had risen in his throat.</p> - -<p>“Look ’ere! I’m fonder of them children than what people might think. -I’ll never sleep again till I know where they are.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_36">{36}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“How can I tell you where they are without telling you where their -mother is?”</p> - -<p>“They’re mine—the law gives ’em to me. ’Oo are you to go against the -law?”</p> - -<p>“We went over that just now.”</p> - -<p>“When she married me she took me for better or worse, didn’t she? Man -an’ wife should settle their own affairs. They don’t want no one else to -interfere with them!”</p> - -<p>“You want her back so that you can do what you like to her. Do you -expect other people to help you to that?”</p> - -<p>“Look ’ere! D’you think it’s pleasant for me when I go into the pub to -’ave ’em talk about <i>my wife</i> goin’ off on ’er own? D’you think I -’aven’t got enough to bear without that?”</p> - -<p>“You ought to have thought of that before you drove her to it.”</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">’</span>Oo says I drove ’er? Noos-bearin’, talkin’ about ’er, like what they -are? She’s lost ’er honour; d’you think that’s pleasant for <i>me</i>?”</p> - -<p>“No.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_37">{37}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Well, then!” He came from between the handles of his barrow and stood -on the edge of the pavement, and the movement of his shoulders was like -the movement of a bull that is about to charge. “Look ’ere! She’s mine -to do what I like with. I never injured any one that didn’t injure me; -but any one that injures me’ll ’ave a funny piece o’ cake to cut, what -’e’ll never be able to swaller.”</p> - -<p>“Who is injuring you?”</p> - -<p>“An’ don’t you think I’m afraid o’ the police. Not all the police in the -world won’t stop <i>me</i>!”</p> - -<p>“Well?”</p> - -<p>“You only listens to one side; if I was to tell you all I’d got against -’er——”</p> - -<p>“You beat her—and you ask me to help you find her?”</p> - -<p>“I’m arskin’ you the whereabouts o’ my children.”</p> - -<p>“It’s the same thing. Can’t you see that no decent man would tell you?”</p> - -<p>He plucked at his throat and stood silent, with a groping movement like -a<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_38">{38}</a></span> man suddenly realising that the darkness before him is not going to -lift.</p> - -<p>“It’s all like a Secret Society to me! If I can’t get ’em back, I can’t -bear meself.”</p> - -<p>“How can it be otherwise?”</p> - -<p>“You’re all on ’er side. She’s a disgrace, that’s what <i>she</i> is, takin’ -’em away from their ’ome, takin’ ’em away from their father.”</p> - -<p>“She brought them into the world.”</p> - -<p>“When I find ’er, I’ll make <i>’er</i> sorry she was ever brought into the -world ’erself. I’ll let ’er know ’oo’s ’er master! She sha’n’t forget a -second time! She’s mine, and the children’s mine!”</p> - -<p>“Well, I can’t help you.”</p> - -<p>“I stands on the law. The law gives ’em to me, and I’ll keep ’em. She -knows better than to go to the Court against me—it means ’er last -sleep.”</p> - -<p>“Good-morning!”</p> - -<p>He plucked at his neck again and ground the sole of his boot on the -pavement, and the movement of his eyes was pitiful to see.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_39">{39}</a></span></p> - -<p>“I’m ’alf out o’ meself, that’s what I am; I’ll never sleep until I find -’em. Look ’ere! <i>Tell</i> me where they are, sir?”</p> - -<p>“I am sorry, I cannot.”</p> - -<p>In the unmoving fish-white face his dead eyes, straining in their -sockets, began to glow again with that queer yellow glare, as though -alive with the spirit that dwells where light has never come; the spirit -that possesses those dim multitudes who know no influence but that of -force, no reason, and no gentleness, since these have never come their -way; who know only that they must keep that little which they have, -since that which they have not is so great and so desirable; the dim -multitudes who, since the world began, have lived from hand to mouth, -like dogs crouched over their stale bones, snarling at such as would -take those poor bones from them.</p> - -<p>“I’m ’er ’usband, an’ I mean to ’ave ’er, alive or dead.”</p> - -<p>And I saw that this was not a man who spoke, but the very self of the -brute beast that lurks beneath the surface of<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_40">{40}</a></span> our State; the very self -of the chained monster whom Nature tortures with the instinct for -possession, and man with whips drives from attainment. And behind his -figure in the broad flowery road I seemed to see the countless masses of -his fellows filing out of their dark streets, out of their alleys and -foul lodgings, in a never-ending river of half-human flesh, with their -faces set one way. They covered the whole road, and every inlet was -alive with them; and all the air was full of the dull surging of -thousands more. Of every age, in every sort of rags; on all their faces -the look that said: “All my life I have been given that which will keep -me alive, that, and no more. What I have got I have got; no one shall -wrench it from my teeth! I live as the dogs; as the dogs shall my -actions be! I am the brute beast; have I the time, the chance, the money -to learn gentleness and decency? Let me be! Touch not my gnawed bones!”</p> - -<p>They stood there—a great dark sea stretching out to the farther limits -of the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_41">{41}</a></span> sight; no sound came from their lips, but all their eyes glowed -with that yellow glare, and I saw that if I took my glance off them they -would spring at me.</p> - -<p>“You defy me, Guv’nor?”</p> - -<p>“I am obliged to.”</p> - -<p>“One day I’ll meet yer, then, for all your money, and I’ll let yer -know!”</p> - -<p>He took up the handles of his barrow, and slowly, with a sullen lurch, -wheeled it away, looking neither to his right nor left. And behind him, -down the road with its gardens and tall houses, moved the millions of -his fellows; and, as they passed in silence, each seemed to say:</p> - -<p>“One day I’ll meet you, and—I’ll let you know!”</p> - -<p>The road lay empty again beneath the sun; nursemaids wheeled their -perambulators, the lilac-trees dropped blossom, the policemen at the -corners wrote idly in their little books.</p> - -<p>There was no sign of what had passed.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_43">{43}</a></span><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_42">{42}</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_44">{44}</a></span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_45">{45}</a></span></p> -<h2><a id="OLD_AGE"></a>OLD AGE<br /><br /> -<a id="III"></a>III<br /><br /> -<span class="smcap">Old Age</span></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">He</span> came running out of the darkness, and spoke at once: “Go an’ see my -poor mother, gentleman; go and see my poor father an’ mother!”</p> - -<p>It was a snowy midnight; by the light of the street lamp he who made -this strange request looked ragged and distraught.</p> - -<p>“They lives in Gold Street, 22; go an’ see ’em, gentleman. Mrs. James -White—my poor mother starvin’.”</p> - -<p>In England no one starves.</p> - -<p>“Go an’ see ’em, gentleman; it’s the book o’ truth I’m tellin’ you. -They’re old; they got no food, they got nothin’.”</p> - -<p>“Very well, I will.”</p> - -<p>He thrust out his face to see whether he might trust his ears, then -without warning turned and ran on down the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_46">{46}</a></span> road. His shape vanished -into darkness, whence it came....</p> - -<p>Gold Street with its small grey houses whose doors are always open, and -its garbage-littered gutters, where children are at play.</p> - -<p>“Mr. and Mrs. James White?”</p> - -<p>“First floor back. Mr. White—wanted!”</p> - -<p>My dog sniffed at the passage wall, that smelled unlike the walls -belonging to him, and presently an old man came. He looked at us -distrustfully, and we looked back distrustfully at him.</p> - -<p>“Mr. James White?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Last night some one calling himself your son asked me to come up and -see you.”</p> - -<p>“Come up, sir.”</p> - -<p>The room was unpapered, and not more than ten feet square; it contained -a double bed, over whose dirty mattress was stretched a black-brown rag; -a fireplace and no fire; a saucepan, but nothing in it; two cups, a tin -or two, no carpet, a knife<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_47">{47}</a></span> and spoon, a basin, some photographs, and -rags of clothing; all blackish and discoloured.</p> - -<p>On a wooden chair before the hearth was sitting an old woman whose -brown-skinned face was crowsfooted all over. Her hair was white, and she -had little bright grey eyes and a wart on one nostril. A dirty shawl was -pinned across her chest; this, with an old skirt and vest, seemed all -her clothing. The third finger of her left hand was encircled by a broad -gold ring. There were two chairs, and the old man placed the other one -for me, having rubbed it with his sleeve. My dog lay with his chin -pressed to the ground, for the sights and scents of poverty displeased -him.</p> - -<p>“I’m afraid you’re down on your luck.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir, we are down.”</p> - -<p>Seated on the border of the bed, he was seen to be a man with features -coloured greyish-dun by lack of food; his weak hair and fringe of beard -were touched with grey; a dumb, long-suffering<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_48">{48}</a></span> man from whom -discouragement and want had planed away expression.</p> - -<p>“How have you got into this state?”</p> - -<p>“The winter an’ my not gettin’ work.”</p> - -<p>A whisper came from the old lady by the hearth:</p> - -<p>“Father can work, sir; oh! ’e can work!”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I can work; I’m good for a day’s work at any time.”</p> - -<p>“I’m afraid you don’t look it!”</p> - -<p>His hand was shaking violently, and he tried to stop its movement.</p> - -<p>“It’s a bit chilly; I feels well enough in meself.”</p> - -<p>More confidential came the old lady’s whisper:</p> - -<p>“Father’s very good ’ealth, sir; oh! ’e can work. It’s not ’avin’ any -breakfast that makes ’im go like that this weather.”</p> - -<p>“But how old are you?”</p> - -<p>“Father’s seventy-one, sir, and I’m the same. Born within two months of -each other—wasn’t we, Father?”</p> - -<p>“Forgive my saying so, Mr. White, but, with all this competition, is -there much<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_49">{49}</a></span> chance of your getting work at that age? What <i>are</i> you?”</p> - -<p>“Painter I am, sir; take any work—I’m not particular. Mr. Williams -gives me a bit when times are good, but the winter——”</p> - -<p>“Father can work, sir; oh! ’e can work!”</p> - -<p>“Thirty-three years I worked for one firm—thirty-three years.”</p> - -<p>“What firm was that?”</p> - -<p>“Thirty-three years—till they gave up business——”</p> - -<p>“But what firm——”</p> - -<p>“Answer the gentleman’s question. Father’s very slow, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Scotter’s, of John Street, that was—thirty-three years. Now they’ve -given up.”</p> - -<p>“How long since they gave up?”</p> - -<p>“Three years.”</p> - -<p>“And how have you managed since?”</p> - -<p>“Just managed along—get some jobs in the summer—just managed along.”</p> - -<p>“You mustn’t mind Father, sir. Why don’t you tell the gentleman? Just<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_50">{50}</a></span> -managed along, as you see, sir—everything’s gone now.”</p> - -<p>She passed her hand over her mouth, and the sound of her whisper was -more intimate than ever:</p> - -<p>“Dreadful things we’ve suffered in this room, sir; dreadful! I don’t -like to speak of ’em, if you’ll believe me.”</p> - -<p>And, with that almost soundless whisper, that stealthy movement of her -hand before her mouth, all those things she spoke of seemed to be -happening in their deadly privacy to those two old people behind their -close-shut door.</p> - -<p>There was a silence; my dog spoke with his eyes: “Master, we have been -here long enough; I smell no food; there is no fire!”</p> - -<p>“You must feel the cold dreadfully this weather?”</p> - -<p>“We stays in bed as long as we can, sir—to keep warm, you know—to keep -warm.”</p> - -<p>The old man nodded from the black ruin of a bed.</p> - -<p>“But I see you have no blankets.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_51">{51}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“All gone, sir—all gone.”</p> - -<p>“Had you no savings out of that thirty-three years?”</p> - -<p>“Family, sir—family; four sons an’ two daughters; never more than -thirty shillin’s a week. He always gave me his wages—Father always gave -me his wages.”</p> - -<p>“I never was one to drink.”</p> - -<p>“Sober man, Father; an’ now he’s old. But ’e can work, sir; ’e can -work.”</p> - -<p>“But can’t your sons help you?”</p> - -<p>“One’s dead, sir; died of fever. And one”—her withered finger touched -her forehead—“not quite—you know, not quite——”</p> - -<p>“The one I saw last night, I suppose?”</p> - -<p>“Not quite—not since he was in the Army. A bit—” Again she touched her -forehead.</p> - -<p>“And the other two?”</p> - -<p>“Good sons, sir; but large families, you know. Not able——”</p> - -<p>“And the daughters?”</p> - -<p>“One’s dead, sir; the other’s married—away.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_52">{52}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Haven’t you any one to fall back on?”</p> - -<p>The old man interrupted heavily:</p> - -<p>“No, sir; we haven’t.”</p> - -<p>“Father doesn’t put things right, sir—let me speak to the gentleman! -Tell you the truth, never ’ad the habit, sir; not accustomed to ask for -things; never done it—couldn’t!”</p> - -<p>The old man spoke again:</p> - -<p>“The Society looked into our case; ’ere’s their letter. Owin’ to my not -’avin’ any savin’s, we weren’t thought fit for bein’ ’elped, so they -says ’ere. All my savin’s is gone this year or more; what could I save, -with six children?”</p> - -<p>“Father couldn’t save; ’e did ’is duty by them—’e couldn’t save. We’ve -not been in the ’abit of askin’ people, sir; wouldn’t do such a -thing—couldn’t!”</p> - -<p>“Well! You see they’ve made a start with old-age pensions?”</p> - -<p>The old man slowly answered:</p> - -<p>“I ’eard something—I don’t trouble about politics.”</p> - -<p>“Father never was one for the public-’ouse, sir; never.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_53">{53}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“But you used to have a vote, of course?”</p> - -<p>A smile came on his lips, and faded; and in that smile, not even -ironical, he passed judgment on the centuries that had left him where he -was.</p> - -<p>“I never bothered about them. I let that alone!”</p> - -<p>And again he smiled. “I’ll be dead long before they reach <i>me</i>, I know -that.”</p> - -<p>“The winter’s only half over. What are you going to do?”</p> - -<p>“Well, sir, I don’t know <i>what</i> we’re goin’ to do.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you think that, all things considered, you’d be better off in -the—in the Infirmary?”</p> - -<p>Silence.</p> - -<p>“You know they—they’re quite comfortable, and——”</p> - -<p>Silence.</p> - -<p>“It’s not as if there were any—any disgrace, or——”</p> - -<p>Silence.</p> - -<p>“Well?”</p> - -<p>He rose and crossed over to the hearth,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_54">{54}</a></span> and my dog, disturbed, sniffed -at his trousers. “You are worn out,” he seemed to say; “go where you -ought to go, then my master will not have to visit you, and waste the -time he owes to me.” And he, too, rose and came and put his snout on my -knee; “When I am old, master, you will still take care of me—that is -understood between us. But this man has no one to take care of him. Let -us go!”</p> - -<p>The old man spoke at last:</p> - -<p>“No, sir. I don’t want to go there; I can work. I don’t want to go -there.”</p> - -<p>Beyond him the whisper rose:</p> - -<p>“Father can work, sir; ’e can work. So long as we get a crust of bread, -we’d rather stay ’ere.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve got <i>this</i>, but I can’t bring meself to use it. I can work; I’ve -always worked.” He took out a piece of paper. It was an order admitting -James White, aged 71, and Eliza White his wife, aged 71, into the local -Workhouse; if used for purposes of begging to be destroyed.</p> - -<p>“Father can work, sir; ’e can work. We seen dreadful times in this -room,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_55">{55}</a></span> believe, me, sir, before we came to getting that. We don’t want -to go. I tell Father I’d rather die out ’ere.”</p> - -<p>“But you’d be so much more comfortable, Mrs. White; you must know that.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir; but there it is—I don’t want to, and Father don’t want to.”</p> - -<p>“I can work; I can go about with a barrer, or anything.”</p> - -<p>“But can you <i>live</i>?”</p> - -<p>“Well, sir, so long as we’re alive. After that, I can’t tell—they’ll -get us then, I suppose.”</p> - -<p>And the whisper came:</p> - -<p>“We can’t ’elp it after that. As you see, sir—there’s nothin’ left, -there’s nothin’ left.”</p> - -<p>She raised her hand and pointed to the bed; and the sun, that had been -hidden all the morning, broke through and glittered on her wedding -ring.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_57">{57}</a></span><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_56">{56}</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_58">{58}</a></span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_59">{59}</a></span></p> -<h2><a id="THE_CAREFUL_MAN"></a>THE CAREFUL MAN<br /><br /> -<a id="IV"></a>IV<br /><br /> -<span class="smcap">The Careful Man</span></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">He</span> came on one side of farmer stock who had married farmer stock since -the invasion of the Saxons, and on the other side of county families who -had married county families since the Norman conquest. He was born where -the town ended and country life began, educated at a public school, and -his father was a judge.</p> - -<p>Being designed for a profession he had adopted it, keeping himself in -hand, so as not to be unpleasantly professional. For since the time when -he was wheeled in perambulators he had never wanted to do anything too -much. He had so completely seen the other side of being wheeled in -perambulators that he had ever afterwards been loth to put himself in a -position which made it needful for<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_60">{60}</a></span> him to act with all his heart. His -organs were in fact remarkably adjusted. He had not too much head nor -too much heart. He had not too much appetite, but he had appetite -enough. When asked at lunch of which sweet he would partake, he would -answer: “A little of both, thanks”; for nothing seemed to him in life so -great a pity as to take one thing to the exclusion of another. The -instinct was so founded in the very roots of him that he knew nothing of -it; and it was this unconsciousness which lent a simple strength to what -might otherwise have seemed an undecided character.</p> - -<p>His attitude to women was a guarded one. It was repugnant to him to have -too much wife, and yet, not wife enough was also very painful; and so he -had devised a way out of his embarrassment by saying to himself: “We two -are only married to the extent that we desire to be; we will do exactly -as we like.” And he found that by thinking this, and getting his wife, -who was a clever woman, to say she thought it too, he remained -extremely<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_61">{61}</a></span> faithful. With regard to children, it had no doubt been -difficult, for—after a year or two—to have children and not to have -them had been found impossible. In this dilemma he had considered very -seriously what course he should adopt, and having carefully weighed the -pro’s and con’s had discovered them to be so very equal that he could -come to no conclusion. In consequence of this he had two children; after -which he found no difficulty in not wanting to have more.</p> - -<p>The question of his residence had occasioned him some pain; for, -supposing that he lived in town he missed the country, and supposing -that he resided in the country he missed the town. He therefore lived a -little in both town and country; so regulating things that when in -London he wanted to be out, and when out of London he wanted to be in, -which kept him healthy.</p> - -<p>A moderate meat diet gave him a hankering after other diets, making him -a vegetarian in theory, so that he was in accord with either school. He -drank<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_62">{62}</a></span> wine at times; at times he drank no wine; he smoked one cigar -after every meal—no more, because more made him sick.</p> - -<p>His feeling about money was that he ought to have enough, in order to -have no feeling about money; and, to attain this vacuum, he mechanically -restrained his wants, still more his wife’s—for, not being so -beautifully adjusted as himself, when she wanted things, she <i>wanted</i> -them.</p> - -<p>In matters of religion he would not commit himself to any definite -opinions. If asked whether he thought there were a future life, he would -say: “I see no reason to believe there is; on the other hand, I see no -object in believing that there isn’t; there may be, or there may not be; -or, again, there may be a future life for some, no future life for -others—a little of both, perhaps.”</p> - -<p>Dogma of any sort, of course, he found offensive—you were committed by -it, and to be committed was both repulsive and absurd.</p> - -<p>Once or twice only in his life had he<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_63">{63}</a></span> seriously felt careless, and -these were on occasions when he found his carelessness was threatened by -some person or event that tried to tie him down.</p> - -<p>There was in him a sort of terror of being bound to anything; and when -he was returned to Parliament, which happened after he was forty, he -felt a natural uneasiness. Was he committed; if so, what was he -committed to? Could he still get down on either side; and suppose he did -get down, could he at once get up again? And he was happy when he found -he could.</p> - -<p><i>It was remarkable how national he was.</i></p> - -<p>Yet he was not entirely conscious of his importance to the State, not -recognising perhaps sufficiently how many other men were like him in -every walk of life—not recognising that he was, in truth, the solid -centre of the nation’s pudding.</p> - -<p>There was a word that he had early learnt to spell; it started with a C, -the second letter was an O, the third an M, the fourth a P, the fifth an -R, the sixth<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_64">{64}</a></span> an O, the seventh M, the eighth an I, the ninth an S, the -last an E. Once learnt, soon after he escaped from perambulators, that -word was never more forgot. He took it to his office, he took it to his -church, he took it into bed with him at nights. And now that he had -become a public man he took it to the House. But, having a regard, a -veneration, for the figure of John Bull—that myth who never modified -his views, but held on fast to his ideals in spite of all the dogs of -war—he preferred, whenever he was forced to act, to <i>say</i> that he had -acted on his principles—and so, in truth, he had, for the deepest of -his principles was the intimate belief that there was no such thing as -principle.</p> - -<p>This it was that gave him his pre-eminence in politics, for, seated in -the very centre of the seesaw, being the first to feel and answer to, he -was the least affected by, its motion. By shifting just a little, and -instinctively, he kept the whole machine together, having all the time a -quiet contempt for the two ends that would keep swinging to the skies or -bumping<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_65">{65}</a></span> on the ground. Nothing could be done without him in that House, -because he was so plentiful; and very little with him.</p> - -<p>He had a sense of humour, and devoted it to seeing all the fun there was -in “cranks,” and in extravagance of every kind. Never was he more amused -than when he saw a person really give himself to anything; he would sit, -sometimes with his hat on and sometimes with it off, watching with a -quiet smile to see the fellow bump; and the bigger the bump was, the -funnier he found it! But for such as smiled at careful men he had a -feeling that you could not take them seriously; it was their little -joke, and not a very good one; and especially he wondered how people -could be found foolish enough to place these persons in an Institution -where care was of the essence of the atmosphere. Confident, however, -that their want of care would soon undo them, he did not trouble much.</p> - -<p>Phrases such as “There is no middle policy” sometimes carried him away -for quite five minutes; but he invariably<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_66">{66}</a></span> came back in time to find -there was. It had, in fact, long been a fixed and firm belief with him -that he could make omelettes without breaking eggs, and though he -clearly made no omelettes, on the other hand he broke no eggs. Nor did -he ever fracture his belief that he was just about to make an omelette. -And after all, an omelette, even if you made it, what did it amount to? -There it was! You ate it, and had to make another! Better far to fix an -omelette in your mind, and keep it there unmade. But discussion on the -omelette’s composition he was always ready to encourage; and, sitting -with his eye cocked at the ingredients, he would talk them over very -carefully, and now and then break off a sprig of parsley, so that the -omelette really did advance—but not too fast. Sometimes he was even -known to contemplate the omelette all the night, but this he only did -because he was so very much afraid that if he left it somebody would -cook the thing; and he would go home in the early morning to his wife, -complaining<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_67">{67}</a></span> rather bitterly that with a little care all this excessive -cooking in the House might be avoided.</p> - -<p>Take him for all in all, he was not original in mind, and yet he was no -flunkey, serving mortal masters; he served a nobler one than they—the -great god Opportunity. But it was not safe to tell him this, for though -there was no reason in the world why he should dislike its being known -that he acted in accordance with his nature, somehow he did not like it. -This was, no doubt, an instance of his care.</p> - -<p>Hardly any social measure could be brought to his attention with which -he did not feel a certain meed of sympathy. If, for instance, somebody -proposed a scheme of Old-Age Pensions, he would give a careful nod, and -wait, because he knew that when somebody got up and said that this was -dangerous, he should agree with him; or, again, if it were suggested -that children should be made less hungry out of the public rates, he -approved, but not too much, because he<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_68">{68}</a></span> felt that to approve too much -would interfere with his approval of the plan that they should not be -fed out of the public rates. “A little bit of both,” would be his -thought, and by this masterly decision, which was often called his -commonsense, he infallibly secured possession to the children of a -little bit of neither; but, as he very justly said, to grant the first -was too progressive; to grant the second, retrograde. And so with every -other measure.</p> - -<p>His leaders on both sides had learned from long experience the -daintiness of his digestion; how very sensitive it was to motion; how, -if jolted, it revolted; and so they did not try too hard to jolt it now, -for they naturally hated to be cast into the air. They appreciated, too, -his sterling worth—without him they felt the country would improve too -fast.</p> - -<p>And those leaders of his would look at him. With his eyelids lowered, -but his eyes a little anxious, with his lips pinched in, and yet -half-smiling, in an<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_69">{69}</a></span> overcoat of medium weight, put on or taken off -according to the weather, he sat, not very often opening his mouth. -Behind his grey and unobtrusive figure they saw the masses of grey, -unobtrusive, careful men, and a little shiver would run down their -spines.</p> - -<p>Too often had they awakened from their dreams and seen him sitting -there, under a tall grey tower with a clock that faced all ways, bench -upon bench, row after row, by day, by night, one eye of him on one side, -and one eye on the other, and his nose between them in the middle.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_71">{71}</a></span><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_70">{70}</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_72">{72}</a></span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_73">{73}</a></span></p> -<h2><a id="FEAR"></a>FEAR<br /><br /> -<a id="V"></a>V<br /><br /> -<span class="smcap">Fear</span></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">I saw</span> him first on a spring day—one of those days when the limbs are -lazy with delicious tiredness, the air soft and warm against the face, -the heart full of a queer longing to know the hearts of other men.</p> - -<p>He was quite a little man, with broad, high shoulders, and hardly any -neck; and what was noticeable in his square, wooden-looking figure, -dressed in light, shabby tweed, and patched, yellow boots, was that he -seemed to have no chest. He was flat—from his white face, with its -sandy hair, moustache, and eyebrows, under an old, narrow-brimmed straw -hat, right down to his feet. It was as though life had planed him. His -face, too, seemed to have lost all but its bones and skin of -yellow-white; there were no eyelashes to his reddish-brown round eyes;<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_74">{74}</a></span> -there was no colour in his thin lips, compressed as though to keep the -secret of a mortal fear. Save for the wheeze and rustle of his -breathing, he stood very still, nervously rubbing his claw-like hands up -and down his trouser-legs. His voice was hoarse and faint.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I was a baker,” he said. “They tell me as how that’s where I’ve -done myself the harm. But I never learnt another trade; I was afraid -that if I give it up I wouldn’t get no other work. Bakin’s not good -for——”</p> - -<p>He laid his thin, yellow fingers where there was so little left to lay -them on.</p> - -<p>“There’s my wife and child,” he went on in his matter-of-fact voice; -“I’m fair frightened. If I could give up thinking of what’s coming to -them, I believe that I’d feel better. But what am I to do? All my -savin’s have gone now; I’m selling off my things, an’ when I’m through -with that—there we shall be.”</p> - -<p>His unlovely little face, with its hard-bitten lips and lashless eyes, -quivered all over suddenly, as though within him all<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_75">{75}</a></span> his fear had risen -up, seized on his features, and set them to a dance of agony; but they -were soon still again. Stillness was the only possible condition for a -face covering such thoughts as he had had.</p> - -<p>“I don’t sleep for thinkin’ of it—that’s against me!”</p> - -<p>Yes—that was against him, considering the condition of his health. Any -doctor would have told him to sleep well; that sleep, in fact, was quite -essential. And I seemed to see him lying on his back, staring at the -darkness, with those lashless, red-rimmed eyes, trying to find in its -black depths something that was not there—the wan glow of a livelihood -of some kind for his wife and child.</p> - -<p>“I gets in such a muck o’ sweat, worrying about what’s going to come to -them with me like this; it quite exhausts me, it does really. You -wouldn’t believe how weak I was!”</p> - -<p>And one could not help reminding him that he ought not to worry—it was -very bad for him.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_76">{76}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Yes, I know that; I don’t think I can last long at this rate.”</p> - -<p>“If you could give up worrying, you would get well much quicker!”</p> - -<p>He answered by a look of such humble and unconscious irony as one may -see on the faces of the dead before their last wonder at the end has -faded from them.</p> - -<p>“They tells me up at the hospital to eat well!”</p> - -<p>And, looking at this meagre little man, it seemed that the advice was -sound. Good food, and plenty of it!</p> - -<p>“I’ve been doing the best I can, of course.” He made this statement -without sarcasm, in a voice that seemed to say: “This world I live in -is, of course, a funny world; the sort of fun it likes may be -first-rate, but if I were once to begin to laugh at it, where could I -stop—I ask you—where?”</p> - -<p>“Plenty of milk they tell me is the best thing I can take, but the child -she’s bound to have as much as we can manage to buy. At her age, you -see, she needs it. Of course, if I could get a job<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_77">{77}</a></span>!—I’d take -anything—I’d drive a baker’s cart!”</p> - -<p>He lifted his little pipes of arms, and let them fall again, and God -knows what he meant by such a motion, unless it were to show his -strength.</p> - -<p>“Of course, some days,” he said, “I can hardly get my breath at all, and -that’s against me.”</p> - -<p>It would be, as he said, against him; and, encouraged by a look, he -added:</p> - -<p>“I know I kep’ on too long with my profession; but you know what it -is—when you’ve been brought up to a job you get to depend on it; to -give it up is like chuckin’ of yourself away. And that’s what I’ve -found—people don’t want such as I am now.”</p> - -<p>And for a full half-minute we stood looking at each other; his bitten, -discoloured lips twitched twice, and a faint pink warmed the paper -whiteness of his cheeks.</p> - -<p>“Up at the hospital they don’t seem to take no interest in my case any -more; seems as if they thought it ’opeless.”</p> - -<p>Unconscious that he had gone beneath<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_78">{78}</a></span> the depths of human nature, shown -up the human passion for definite success, illustrated human worship of -the idol strength, and human scorn for what is weak—he said these -simple words in an almost injured tone. Recovery might be impossible, -people did not want such as he was now; but he was still interested in -himself, still loth to find himself a useless bee ejected from the hive. -His lashless eyes seemed saying: “I believe I could get well—I do -believe I could!”</p> - -<p>Yet he was not unreasonable, for he went on:</p> - -<p>“When I first went there they took a lot of interest in me—but that’s a -year ago. Perhaps I’ve disappointed them!”</p> - -<p>Perhaps he had!</p> - -<p>“They kept on telling me to take plenty of fresh air. Where I live, of -course, there’s not so very much about, but I take all I can. Not bein’ -able to get a job, I’ve been sitting in the Park. I take the child—they -tell me not to have her too near me in the house.”</p> - -<p>And I had a vision of this man of leis<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_79">{79}</a></span>ure sitting in the Park, rubbing -his hand stealthily to keep them dry, and watching with red eyes the -other men of leisure; too preoccupied to wonder even why his leisure was -not like theirs.</p> - -<p>“Days like this,” he said, “it’s warm enough; but I can’t enjoy them for -thinking of what’s coming.”</p> - -<p>His glance wandered to the pear-trees in the garden—they were all in -blossom, and lighted by the sun; he looked down again a little hastily. -A blackbird sang beyond the further wall. The little baker passed his -tongue over his lips.</p> - -<p>“I’m a countryman by birth,” he said: “it’s like the country here. If I -could get a job down in the country I should pick up, perhaps. Last time -I was in the country I put on ’alf a stone. But who’d take me?”</p> - -<p>Again he raised his little pipes of arms; this time it was clearly not -to show his strength. No—he seemed to say: “No one would take me! I -have found that out—I have found out all there is to know. I am done -for!<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_80">{80}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“That’s about where it is,” he said; “and I wouldn’t care so much, but -for the baby and my wife. I don’t see what I could ha’ done, other than -what I have done. God knows I kept on at it till I couldn’t keep on no -longer.”</p> - -<p>And as though he knew that he was again near that point when a hundred -times he had broken into private agony, seen by no creature but himself, -he stared hard at me, and his red moustache bristled over his sunken, -indrawn lips.</p> - -<p>A pigeon flew across; settling on a tree in the next garden it began to -call its mate; and suddenly there came into my mind the memory of a -thrush that, some months before, had come to the garden bed where we -were standing, and all day long would hide and hop there, avoiding other -birds, with its feathers all staring and puffed out. I remembered how it -would let us take it up, and the film that kept falling on its eyes, and -its sick heart beating so faintly beneath our hands; no bird of all the -other birds came near<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_81">{81}</a></span> it—knowing that it could no longer peck its -living, and was going to die.</p> - -<p>One day we could not find it; the next day we found it under a bush, -dead.</p> - -<p>“I suppose it’s human nature not to take me on, seein’ the state I’m -in,” the little baker said. “I don’t want to be a trouble to no one, I’m -sure; I’ve always kept myself, ever since I was that high,” he put his -hand out level with his waist; “and now I can’t keep myself, let alone -the wife and child. It’s the coming to the end of everything—it’s the -seeing of it coming. Fear—that’s what it is! But I suppose I’m not the -only one.”</p> - -<p>And for that moment he seemed comforted by this thought that there were -thousands of other working creatures, on whose shoulders sat the -grinning cat of mortal illness, all staring with him at utter -emptiness—thousands of other working creatures who were dying because -fear had made them work too long. His face brightened ever so little, as -though the sun had found a way to him. But suddenly that wooden look, -the only<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_82">{82}</a></span> safe and perfect look, came back to his features. One could -have sworn that fear had never touched him, so expressionless, so still -was he!<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_83">{83}</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_84">{84}</a></span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_85">{85}</a></span></p> -<h2><a id="FASHION"></a>FASHION<br /><br /> -<a id="VI"></a>VI<br /><br /> -<span class="smcap">Fashion</span></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">I have</span> watched you this ten minutes, while your carriage has been -standing still, and have seen your smiling face change twice, as though -you were about to say; “I am not accustomed to be stopped like this”; -but what I have chiefly noticed is that you have not looked at anything -except the persons sitting opposite and the backs of your flunkeys on -the box. Clearly nothing has distracted you from following your thought: -“There is pleasure before me, I am told!” Yours is the three-hundredth -carriage in this row that blocks the road for half a mile. In the two -hundred and ninety-nine that come before it, and the four hundred that -come after, you are sitting too—with your face before you, and your -unseeing eyes.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_86">{86}</a></span></p> - -<p>Resented while you gathered being; brought into the world with the most -distinguished skill; remembered by your mother when the whim came to -her; taught to believe that life consists in caring for your clean, -well-nourished body, and your manner that nothing usual can disturb; -taught to regard Society as the little ring of men and women that you -see, and to feel your only business is to know the next thing that you -want and get it given you—<i>You have never had a chance!</i></p> - -<p>You take commands from no other creature; your heart gives you your -commands, forms your desires, your wishes, your opinions, and passes -them between your lips. From your heart well-up the springs that feed -the river of your conduct; but your heart is a stagnant pool that has -never seen the sun. Each year when April comes, and the earth smells -new, you have an odd aching underneath your corsets. What is it for? You -have a husband, or a lover, or both, or neither, whichever suits you -best; you have chil<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_87">{87}</a></span>dren, or could have them if you wished for them; you -are fed at stated intervals with food and wine; you have all you want of -country life and country sports; you have the theatre and the opera, -books, music, and religion! From the top of the plume, torn from a dying -bird, or the flowers, made at an insufficient wage, that decorate your -head, to the sole of the shoe that cramps your foot, you are decked out -with solemn care; a year of labour has been sewn into your garments and -forged into your rings—you are a breathing triumph!</p> - -<p>You live in the centre of the centre of the world; if you wish you can -have access to everything that has been thought since the world of -thought began; if you wish you can see everything that has ever been -produced, for you can travel where you like; you are within reach of -Nature’s grandest forms and the most perfect works of art. You can hear -the last word that is said on everything, if you wish. When you do wish, -the latest tastes are servants of your palate, the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_88">{88}</a></span> latest scents attend -your nose—<i>You have never had a chance!</i></p> - -<p>For, sitting there in your seven hundred carriages, you are blind—in -heart, and soul, and voice, and walk; the blindest creature in the -world. Never for one minute of your life have you thought, or done, or -spoken for yourself. You have been prevented; and so wonderful is this -plot to keep you blind that you have not a notion it exists. To yourself -your sight seems good, such is your pleasant thought. Since you cannot -even see this hedge around you, how can there be anything the other -side? The ache beneath your corsets in the spring is all you are ever to -know of what there is beyond. And no one is to blame for this—you least -of all.</p> - -<p>It was settled, long before the well-fed dullard’s kiss from which you -sprang. Forces have worked, in dim, inexorable progress, from the -remotest time till they have bred you, little blind creature, to be the -masterpiece of their creation. With the wondrous subtlety of Fat<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_89">{89}</a></span>e’s -selection, they have paired and paired all that most narrowly approaches -to the mean, all that by nature shirks the risks of living, all that by -essence clings to custom, till they have secured a state of things which -has assured your coming, in your perfection of nonentity. They have -planted you apart in your expensive mould, and still they are at -work—these gardeners never idle—pruning and tying night and day to -prevent your running wild. The Forces are proud of you—their waxen, -scentless flower!</p> - -<p>The sun beats down, and still your carriage does not move; and this -delay is getting on your nerves. You cannot imagine what is blocking-up -your way! Do you ever imagine anything? If all those goodly coverings -that contain you could be taken off, what should we find within the last -and inmost shell—a little soul that has lost its power of speculation. -A soul that was born in you a bird and has become a creeping thing; -wings gone, eyes gone, groping, and clawing with its tentacles what is -given it.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_90">{90}</a></span></p> - -<p>You stand up, speaking to your coachman! And you are charming, standing -there, to us who, like your footman, cannot see the label “Blind.” The -cut of your gown is perfect, the dressing of your hair the latest, the -trimming of your hat is later still; your trick of speech the very -thing; you droop your eyelids to the life; you have not too much powder; -it is a lesson in grace to see you hold your parasol. The doll of -Nature! So, since you were born; so, until you die! And, with his -turned, clean-shaven face, your footman seems to say: “Madam, how you -have come to be it is not my province to inquire. You are! I am myself -dependent on you!” You are the heroine of the farce, but no one smiles -at you, for you are tragic, the most tragic figure in the world. No -fault of yours that ears and eyes and heart and voice are atrophied so -that you have no longer spirit of your own!</p> - -<p>Fashion brought you forth, and she has seen to it that you are the image -of your mother, knowing that if she made<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_91">{91}</a></span> you by a hair’s-breadth -different, you would see what she is like and judge her. You are -Fashion, Fashion herself, blind, fear-full Fashion! You do what you do -because others do it; think what you think because others think it; feel -what you feel because others feel it. You are the Figure without eyes.</p> - -<p>And no one can reach you, no one can alter you, poor little bundle of -others’ thoughts; for there is nothing left to reach.</p> - -<p>In your seven hundred carriages, you pass; and the road is bright with -you. Above that road, below it, and on either hand, are the million -things and beings that you cannot see; all that is organic in the world, -all that is living and creating, all that is striving to be free. You -pass, glittering, on your round, the sightless captive of your own -triumph; and the eyes of the hollow-chested work-girls on the pavement -fix on you a thousand eager looks, for you are strange to them. Many of -their hearts are sore with envy; they<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_92">{92}</a></span> do not know that you are as dead -as snow around a crater; they cannot tell you for the nothing that you -are—Fashion! The Figure without eyes!<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_93">{93}</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_94">{94}</a></span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_95">{95}</a></span></p> -<h2><a id="SPORT"></a>SPORT<br /><br /> -<a id="VII"></a>VII<br /><br /> -<span class="smcap">Sport</span></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">Often</span> in the ride of some Scotch wood I used to stand, clutching my gun, -with eyes moving from right to left, from left to right. Every nerve and -fibre of my body would receive and answer to the slightest movements, -the smallest noises, the faintest scents. The acrid sweetness of the -spruce-trees in the mist, the bite of innumerable midges, the feel of -the deep, wet, mossy heather underfoot, the brown-grey twilight of the -wood, the stillness—these were poignant as they never will be again. -And slowly, back of that stillness, the noises of the beaters would -begin. Gentle and regular, at first—like the ending of a symphony -rather than its birth—they would swell, then drop and fade away -completely. In that unexpected silence a squirrel scurried out<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_96">{96}</a></span> along a -branch, sat a moment looking, and scurried back; or, with its soft, -blunt flight, an owl would fly across.</p> - -<p>Then, with a shrill, far “Mar-r-rk!” the beaters’ chorus would rise -again, drowned for an instant by the crack of the keepers’ guns; louder -and louder it came, rhythmically, inexorably nearer. In the ride little -shivers of wind shook the drops of warm mist off the needles of the -spruce, and a half-veiled sun faintly warmed and coloured everything. -Stealing through heather and fern would come a rabbit, confiding in the -space before him and the ride where he was wont to sun himself. At a -shot he flung his mortal somersault, or disappeared into a burrow, -reached too soon. To see him lie there dead in the brown-grey twilight -of the trees would give one a strange pleasure—a feeling such as some -casual love affair will give a man, the pleasure of a primitive virility -expressed—but to watch him disappear into the earth would irritate, for -he had got his death, and, dead within the earth, he would not do one -any sort of credit.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_97">{97}</a></span> Nor was it nice to think that he was dying slowly, -so one forbore to think.</p> - -<p>Sometimes we did not shoot at such small stuff, but waited for the -roedeer. These dun familiars of the wood were very shy, clinging to the -deepest thickets, treading with gentle steps, invisible as spirits, and -ever trying to break back. Now and then, leaping forward with -hindquarters higher than its shoulders, one of them would face the line -of beaters, and then would arise the strangest noises above the -customary sounds and tappings—cries of fierce resentment that such fine -“game” should thus escape the guns. When the creature crossed the line -these cries swelled into a long, continuous, excited shriek; and, as the -yells died out in muttering, I used to feel a hollow sense of -disappointment.</p> - -<p>When the beat was over they would collect the birds and beasts which had -fulfilled their destiny, and place them all together. Half hidden by the -bracken or deep heather the little bodies lay abandoned to the ground -with the wonderful<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_98">{98}</a></span> strange limpness of dead things. We stood looking at -them in the misty air, acrid with the fragrance of the spruce-trees; and -each of us would feel a vague strange thirst, a longing to be again -standing in the rides with the cries of the beaters in our ears, and -creatures coming closer, closer to our guns.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p>Often in the police-courts I have sat, while they drove another kind of -“game.”</p> - -<p>It would be quiet in there but for the whisperings and shufflings -peculiar to all courts of law. Through the high-placed windows a grey -light fell impartially, and in it everything looked hard and shabby. The -air smelled of old clothes, and now and then, when the women were -brought in, of the corpse of some sweet scent.</p> - -<p>Through a door on the left-hand side they would drive these women, one -by one, often five or six, even a dozen, in one morning. Some of them -would come shuffling forward to the dock with their heads down; others -walked boldly; some<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_99">{99}</a></span> looked as if they must faint; some were hard and -stoical as stone. They would be dressed in black, quite neatly; or in -cheap, rumpled finery; or in skimped, mud-stained garments. Their faces -were of every type—dark and short, with high cheek-bones; blowsy from -drink; long, worn, and raddled; one here and there like a wild fruit; -and many bestially insensible, devoid of any sort of beauty.</p> - -<p>They stood, as in southern countries, one may see many mules or asses, -harnessed to too-heavy loads of wood or stone, stand, utterly unmoving, -with a mute submissive viciousness. Now and then a girl would turn half -round towards the public, her lips smiling defiantly, but her eyes never -resting for a moment, as though knowing well enough there was no place -where they <i>could</i> rest. The next to her would seem smitten with a sort -of deathlike shame, but there were not many of this kind, for they were -those whom the beaters had driven in for the first time. Sometimes they -refused to<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_100">{100}</a></span> speak. As a rule they gave their answers in hard voices, -their sullen eyes lowered; then, having received the meed of justice, -went shuffling or flaunting out.</p> - -<p>They were used to being driven, it was their common lot; a little piece -of sport growing more frequent with each year that intervened between -their present and that moment when some sportsman first caught sight of -them and started out to bring them down. From most of them that day was -now distant by many thousand miles of pavement, so far off that it was -hard work to remember it. What sport they had afforded since! Yet not -one of all their faces seemed to show that they saw the fun that lay in -their being driven in like this. They were perhaps still grateful, some -of them, at the bottom of their hearts for that first moment when they -came shyly towards the hunter, who stood holding his breath for fear -they should not come; unable from their natures to believe that it was -not their business to attract and afford them sport. But suddenly in a -pair of greenish eyes<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_101">{101}</a></span> and full lips sharpened at their corners, behind -the fading paint and powder on a face, one could see the huntress—the -soul as of a stealing cat, waiting to flesh its claws in what it could, -driven by some deep, insatiable instinct. This one too had known sport; -she had loved to spring and bring down the prey just as we who brought -her here had loved to hunt her. Nature had put sport into her heart and -into ours; and behind that bold or cringing face there seemed to lurk -this question: “I only did what you do—what nearly every man of you has -done a little, in your time. I only wanted a bit of sport, like you: -that’s human nature, isn’t it? Why do you bring me here, when you don’t -bring yourselves! Why do you allow me in certain bounds to give you -sport, and trap me outside those bounds like vermin? When I was -beautiful—and I <i>was</i> beautiful—it was you who begged of me! I gave -until my looks were gone. Now that my looks are gone, I have to beg you -to come to me, or I must starve; and when I beg, you bring<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_102">{102}</a></span> me here. -That’s funny isn’t it, d——d funny! I’d laugh, if laughter earned my -living; but I can’t afford to laugh, my fellow-sportsmen—the more there -are of you the better for me until I’m done for!”</p> - -<p>Silently we men would watch—as one may watch rats let out of a cage to -be pounced upon by a terrier—their frightened, restless eyes cowed by -coming death; their short, frantic rush, soon ended; their tossed, limp -bodies! On some of our faces was a jeering curiosity, as though we were -saying: “Ah! we thought that you would come to this.” A few faces—not -used to such a show—were darkened with a kind of pity. The most were -fixed and hard and dull, as of men looking at hurtful things they own -and cannot do without. But in all our unmoving eyes could be seen that -tightening of fibre, that tenseness, which is the mark of sport. The -beaters had well done their work; the game was driven to the gun!</p> - -<p>It was but the finish of the hunt, the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_103">{103}</a></span> hunt that we had started, one or -other of us, some fine day, the sun shining and the blood hot, wishing -no harm to any one, but just a little sport.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_105">{105}</a></span><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_104">{104}</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_106">{106}</a></span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_107">{107}</a></span></p> -<h2><a id="MONEY"></a>MONEY<br /><br /> -<a id="VIII"></a>VIII<br /><br /> -<span class="smcap">Money</span></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">Every</span> night between the hours of two and four he would wake, and lie -sleepless, and all his monetary ghosts would come and visit him. If, for -instance, he had just bought a house and paid for it, any doubt he had -conceived at any time about its antecedents or its future would suddenly -appear, squatting on the foot-rail of his bed, staring in his face. -There it would grow, until it seemed to fill the room; and terror would -grip his heart. The words: “I shall lose my money,” would leap to his -lips; but in the dark it seemed ridiculous to speak them. Presently -beside that doubt more doubts would squat. Doubts about his other -houses, about his shares; misgivings as to Water Boards; terrors over -Yankee Rails. They took, fantastically, the shape<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_108">{108}</a></span> of owls, clinging in -a line and swaying, while from their wide black gaps of mouth would come -the silent chorus: “Money, money, you’ll lose all your money!” His heart -would start thumping and fluttering; he would turn his old white head, -bury his whisker in the pillow, shut his eyes, and con over such -investments as he really could not lose. Then, beside his head -half-hidden in the pillow, there would come and perch the spectral bird -of some unlikely liability, such as a lawsuit that might drive him into -bankruptcy; while, on the other side, touching his silver hair, would -squat the yellow fowl of Socialism. Between these two he would lie -unmoving, save for that hammering of his heart, till at last would come -a drowsiness, and he would fall asleep....</p> - -<p>At such times it was always of his money and his children’s and -grandchildren’s money that he thought. It was useless to tell himself -how few his own wants were, or that it might be better for his children -to have to make their way.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_109">{109}</a></span> Such thoughts gave him no relief. His fears -went deeper than mere facts; they were religious, as it were, and -founded in an innermost belief that, by money only, Nature could be held -at bay.</p> - -<p>Of this, from the moment when he first made money, his senses had -informed him, and slowly, surely, gone on doing so, till his very being -was soaked through with the conviction. He might be told on Sundays that -money was not everything, but he knew better. Seated in the left-hand -aisle, he seemed lost in reverence—a grandchild on either hand, his old -knees in quiet trousers, crossed, his white-fringed face a little turned -towards the preacher, one neat-gloved hand reposing on his thigh, the -other keeping warm a tiny hand thrust into it. But his old brain was far -away, busy amongst the Tables of Commandment, telling him how much to -spend to get his five per cent. and money back; his old heart was busy -with the little hand tucked into his. There was nothing in such sermons, -therefore, that could quarrel with his own<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_110">{110}</a></span> religion, for he did not -hear them; and even had he heard them, they would not have quarrelled, -his own creed of money being but the natural modern form of a religion -that his fathers had interpreted as the laying-up of treasure in the -life to come. He was only able nowadays to <i>say</i> that he believed in any -life to come, so that his commercialism had been forced to find another -outlet, and advance a step, in accordance with the march of knowledge.</p> - -<p>His religious feeling about money did not make him selfish, or niggardly -in any way—it merely urged him to preserve himself—not to take risks -that he could reasonably avoid, either in his mode of life, his work, or -in the propagation of his children. He had not married until he had a -position to offer to the latter, sufficiently secure from changes and -chances in this mortal life, and even then he had not been too -precipitate, confining the number to three boys, and one welcome girl, -in accordance with the increase of his income. In the circles where he<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_111">{111}</a></span> -moved, his course of action was so normal that no one had observed the -mathematical connection between increasing income and the production and -education of his family. Still less had any one remarked the deep and -silent process by which there passed from him to them the simple -elements of faith.</p> - -<p>His children, subtly, and under cover of the manner of a generation -which did not mention money in so many words, had sucked in their -father’s firm religious instinct, his quiet knowledge of the value of -the individual life, his steady and unconscious worship of the means of -keeping it alive. Calmly they had sucked it in, and a thing or two -besides. So long as he was there they knew they could afford to make a -little free with what must come to them by virtue of his creed. When -quite small children, they had listened, rather bored, to his simple -statements about money and the things it bought; presently that -instinct—shared by the very young with dogs and other animals—for -having of the best and con<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_112">{112}</a></span>sorting with their betters, had helped them -to see the real sense of what he said. As time went on, they found -gentility insisting more and more that this instinct should be -concealed; and they began unconsciously to perfect their father’s creed, -draping its formal tenets in the undress of an apparent disregard. For -the dogma, “Not worth the money!” they would use the words, “Not good -enough!” The teaching, “Business first,” they formulated, “Not more -pleasure than your income can afford, your health can stand, or your -reputation can assimilate.” There was money waiting for them, and they -did not feel it necessary to undertake even those “safe” risks which -their father had been obliged to take, to make that money. But they were -quite to be depended on. In the choosing of their friends, their sports, -their clubs, and occupations, a religious feeling guided them. They knew -precisely just how much their income was, and took care neither to spend -more nor less. And so devoutly did they act up to their principles, -that, whether<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_113">{113}</a></span> in the restaurant or country house, whether in the -saleroom of a curio shop, whether in their regiments or their offices, -they could always feel the presence of the godhead blessing their -discreet and comfortable worship. In one respect, indeed, they were more -religious than their father, who still preserved the habit of falling on -his knees at night, to name with Tibetan regularity a strange god; they -did not speak to him about this habit, but they wished he would not do -it, being fond of their old father, who continued them into the past. -They had gently laughed him out of talking about money, they had gently -laughed at him for thinking of it still; but they loved him, and it -worried them in secret that he should do this thing, which seemed to -them dishonest.</p> - -<p>With their wives and husband—in course of time they had all -married—they very often came to see him, bringing their children. To -the old man these little visitors were worth more than all hydropathy; -to help in playing with the toys<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_114">{114}</a></span> that he himself had given them, to -stroke his grandsons’ yellow heads, and ride them on his knee; to press -his silver whiskers to their ruddy cheeks, pinching their little legs to -feel how much there was of them, and loving them the more, the more -there was to love—this made his heart feel warm. The dearest moments, -he knew now, the consolation of his age, were those he spent reflecting -how—of the young things he loved, who seemed to love him too a -little—not one would have secured to him or her less than twelve or -thirteen hundred pounds a year; more, if he could manage to hold on a -little longer. For fifty years at least the flesh and blood he left -behind would be secure. His eye and mind, quick to notice things like -that, had soon perceived the difference of the younger generation’s -standards from his own; his children had perhaps a deeper veneration for -the means of living while they were alive, but certainly less faith in -keeping up their incomes after they were in their graves. And so, -unconsciously, his speculation<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_115">{115}</a></span> passed them by, and travelled to his -grandchildren, telling itself that these small creatures who nestled up -against him, and sometimes took him walks, would, when they came to be -grown men and women, have his simpler faith, and save the money that he -left them, for their own grandchildren. Thus, and thus only, would he -live, not fifty years, but a hundred, after he was dead. But he was -rendered very anxious by the law, which refused to let him tie his money -up in perpetuity.</p> - -<p>Firm in his determination to secure himself against the future, he -opposed this strenuous piety to those temptations which beset the -individual, refusing numberless appeals, often much against his -instincts of compassion; opposing with his vote and all his influence -movements to increase the rates or income-tax for such purposes as the -raising of funds to enable aged people without means to die more slowly. -He himself, who laid up yearly more and more for the greater safety of -his family, felt, no doubt<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_116">{116}</a></span>—though cynicism shocked him—that these old -persons were only an encumbrance to <i>their</i> families, and should be -urged to dwindle gently out. In such private cases as he came across, -feeling how hard it was, he prayed for strength to keep his hand out of -his pocket, and strength was often given him. So with many other -invitations to depart from virtue. He fixed a certain sum a year—a -hundred pounds—with half-a-crown in the velvet bag on Sundays—to be -offered as libations to all strange gods, so that they might leave him -undisturbed to worship the true god of money. This was effectual; the -strange gods, finding him a man of strong religious principle, yet no -crank—his name appeared in twenty charitable lists, five pounds -apiece—soon let him be, for fear of wasting postage stamps and the -under parts of boots.</p> - -<p>After his wife’s death, which came about when he was seventy, he -continued to reside alone in the house that he had lived in since his -marriage, though it was now too large for him. Every autumn<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_117">{117}</a></span> he resolved -to make a change next spring; but when spring came, he could not bring -himself to tear his old roots up, and put it off till the spring -following, with the hope, perhaps, that he might then feel more -inclined.</p> - -<p>All through the years that he was living there alone, he suffered more -and more from those nightly visitations, of monetary doubts. They -seemed, indeed, to grow more concrete and insistent with every thousand -pounds he put between himself and their reality. They became more -owl-like, more numerous, with each fresh investment; they stayed longer -at a time. And he grew thinner, frailer, every year; pouches came -beneath his eyes.</p> - -<p>When he was eighty, his daughter, with her husband and children, came to -live with him. This seemed to give him a fresh lease of life. He never -missed, if he could help it, a visit to the nursery at five o’clock. -There, surrounded by toy bricks, he would remain an hour or more, -building—banks or houses, ships or churches, sometimes -police-stations,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_118">{118}</a></span> sometimes cemeteries, but generally banks. And when -the edifice approached completion, in the glory of its long white -bricks, he waited with a sort of secret ecstasy to feel a small warm -body climb his back, and hear a small voice say in his ear: “What shall -we put in the bank to-day, Granddy?”</p> - -<p>The first time this was asked, he had hesitated long before he answered. -During the thirty years that had elapsed since he built banks for his -own children, he had learned that one did not talk of money now, -especially before the young. One used a euphemism for it. The proper -euphemism had been slow to spring into his mind, but it had sprung at -last; and they had placed it in the bank. It was a very little china -dog. They placed it in the entrance hall.</p> - -<p>The small voice said: “What is it guarding?”</p> - -<p>He had answered: “The bank, my darling.”</p> - -<p>The small voice murmured: “But nobody could steal the bank.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_119">{119}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Looking at the little euphemism, he had frowned. It lacked completeness -as a symbol. For a moment he had a wild desire to put a sixpence down, -and end the matter. Two small knees wriggled against his back, arms -tightened round his neck, a chin rubbed itself impatiently against his -whisker. He muttered hastily:</p> - -<p>“But they could steal the papers.”</p> - -<p>“What papers?”</p> - -<p>“The wills, and deeds, and—and cheques.”</p> - -<p>“Where are they?”</p> - -<p>“In the bank.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t see them.”</p> - -<p>“They’re in a cupboard.”</p> - -<p>“What are they for?”</p> - -<p>“For—for grown-up people.”</p> - -<p>“Are they to play with?”</p> - -<p>“NO!”</p> - -<p>“Why is he guarding them?”</p> - -<p>“So that—so that everybody can always have enough to eat.”</p> - -<p>“Everybody?”</p> - -<p>“Everybody.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_120">{120}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Me, too?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, my darling; you, of course.”</p> - -<p>Locked in each other’s arms they looked down sidelong at the little -euphemism. The small voice said:</p> - -<p>“Now that <i>he’s</i> there, they’re safe, aren’t they?”</p> - -<p>“Quite safe.”</p> - -<p>He had given up attending to his business, but almost every morning, at -nearly the same hour, he would walk down to his club, not looking very -much at things about the streets, partly because his thoughts were -otherwise engaged, partly because he had found it from the first a -deleterious habit, tending to the overcultivation of the social -instincts. Arriving, he would take the <i>Times</i> and the <i>Financial News</i>, -and go to his pet armchair; here he would stay till lunch-time, reading -all that bore in any way on his affairs, and taking a grave view of -every situation. But at lunch a longing to express himself would come, -and he would tell his neighbours tales of his little grandsons, of the -extraordinary things they did,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_121">{121}</a></span> and of the future he was laying up for -them. In the pleasant warmth of mid-day, over his light but satisfying -lunch, surrounded by familiar faces, he would recount these tales in -cheerful tones, and his old grey eyes would twinkle; between him and his -struggle with those nightly apparitions, there were many hours of -daylight, there was his visit to the nursery. But, suddenly, looking up -fixedly with strained eyes, he would put a question such as this: “Do -you ever wake up in the night?” If the answer were affirmative, he would -say: “Do you ever find things worry you then out of—out of all -proportion?” And, if they did, he would clearly be relieved to hear it. -On one occasion, when he had elicited an emphatic statement of the -discomfort of such waking hours, he blurted out: “You don’t ever see a -lot of great owls sitting on your bed, I suppose?” Then, seemingly -ashamed of what he had just asked, he rose, and left his lunch -unfinished.</p> - -<p>His fellow-members, though nearly all much younger than himself, had no -un<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_122">{122}</a></span>kindly feeling for him. He seemed to them, perhaps, to overrate their -interest in his grandsons and the state of his investments; but they -knew he could not help preoccupation with these subjects; and when he -left them, usually at three o’clock, saying almost tremulously: “I must -be off; my grandsons will be looking out for me!” they would exchange -looks as though remarking: “The old chap thinks of nothing but his -grandchildren.” And they would sit down to “bridge,” taking care to play -within the means their fathers had endowed them with.</p> - -<p>But the “old chap” would step into a hansom, and his spirit, looking -through his eyes beneath the brim of his tall hat, would travel home -before him. Yet, for all his hurry, he would find the time to stop and -buy a toy or something on the way.</p> - -<p>One morning, at the end of a cold March, they found him dead in bed, -propped on his pillows, with his eyes wide open. Doctors, hastily called -in, decided that he had died from failure of<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_123">{123}</a></span> heart action, and fixed -the hour of death at anything from two to four; by the appearance of his -staring pupils they judged that something must have frightened him. No -one had heard a noise, no one could find a sign of anything alarming; so -no one could explain why he, who seemed so well preserved, should thus -have suddenly collapsed. To his own family he had never told the fact, -that every night he woke between the hours of two and four, to meet a -row of owls squatting on the foot-rail of his bed—he was, no doubt, -ashamed of it. He had revealed much of his religious feeling, but not -the real depth of it; not the way his deity of money had seized on his -imagination; not his nightly struggles with the terrors of his spirit, -nor the hours of anguish spent, when vitality was low, trying to escape -the company of doubts. No one had heard the fluttering of his heart, -which, beginning many years ago, just as a sort of pleasant habit to -occupy his wakeful minutes in the dark, had grown to be like the beating -of a hammer<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_124">{124}</a></span> on soft flesh. No one had guessed, he least of all, the -stroke of irony that Nature had prepared to avenge the desecration of -her law of balance. She had watched his worship from afar, and quietly -arranged that by his worship he should be destroyed; careless, indeed, -what god he served, knowing only that he served too much.</p> - -<p>They brought the eldest of his little grandsons in. He stood a long time -looking, then asked if he might touch the cheek. Being permitted, he -kissed his little finger-tip and laid it on the old man’s whisker. When -he was led away and the door closed, he asked if “Granddy” were “quite -safe”; and twice again that evening he asked this question.</p> - -<p>In the early light next morning, before the house was up, the -under-housemaid saw a white thing on the mat before the old man’s door. -She went, and stooping down, examined it. It was the little china dog.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_125">{125}</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_126">{126}</a></span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_127">{127}</a></span></p> -<h2><a id="PROGRESS"></a>PROGRESS<br /><br /> -<a id="IX"></a>IX<br /><br /> -<span class="smcap">Progress</span></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">Motor</span> cars were crossing the Downs to Goodwood Races. Slowly they -mounted, sending forth an oily reek, a jerky grinding sound; and a cloud -of dust hung over the white road. Since ten o’clock they had been -mounting, one by one, freighted with the pale conquerors of time and -space. None paused on the top of the green heights, but with a -convulsive shaking leaped, and glided swiftly down; and the tooting of -their valves and the whirring of their wheels spread on either hand -along the hills.</p> - -<p>But from the clump of beech-trees on the very top nothing of their -progress could be heard, and nothing seen; only a haze of dust trailing -behind them like a hurried ghost.</p> - -<p>Amongst the smooth grey beech-stems<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_128">{128}</a></span> of that grove were the pallid forms -of sheep, and it was cool and still as in a temple. Outside, the day was -bright, and a hundred yards away in the hot sun the shepherd, a bent old -man in an aged coat, was leaning on his stick. His brown face wrinkled -like a walnut, was fringed round with a stubble of grey beard. He stood -very still, and waited to be spoken to.</p> - -<p>“A fine day?”</p> - -<p>“Aye, fine enough; a little sun won’t do no harm. ’Twon’t last!”</p> - -<p>“How can you tell that?”</p> - -<p>“I been upon the Downs for sixty year!”</p> - -<p>“You must have seen some changes?”</p> - -<p>“Changes in men—an’ sheep!”</p> - -<p>“An’ wages, too, I suppose. What were they when you were twenty?”</p> - -<p>“Eight shillin’ a week.”</p> - -<p>“But living was surely more expensive?”</p> - -<p>“So ’twas; the bread was mortial dear, I know, an’ the flour black! An’ -piecrust, why, ’twas hard as wood!”</p> - -<p>“And what are wages now?<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_129">{129}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“There’s not a man about the Downs don’t get his sixteen shillin’; some -get a pound, some more.... There they go! Sha’n’t get ’em out now till -tew o’clock!” His sheep were slipping one by one into the grove of -beech-trees where, in the pale light, no flies tormented them. The -shepherd’s little dark-grey eyes seemed to rebuke his flock because they -would not feed the whole day long.</p> - -<p>“It’s cool in there. Some say that sheep is silly. ’Tain’t so very much -that they don’t know.”</p> - -<p>“So you think the times have changed?”</p> - -<p>“Well! There’s a deal more money in the country.”</p> - -<p>“And education?”</p> - -<p>“Ah! Ejucation? They spend all day about it. Look at the railways too, -an’ telegraphs! See! That’s bound to make a difference.”</p> - -<p>“So, things are better, on the whole?”</p> - -<p>He smiled.</p> - -<p>“I was married at twenty, on eight shillin’ a week; you won’t find them -doing such a thing as that these days—they<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_130">{130}</a></span> want their comforts now. -There’s not the spirit of content about of forty or fifty years agone. -All’s for movin’ away an’ goin’ to the towns; an’ when they get there, -from what I’ve heard, they wish as they was back; but they don’t never -come.”</p> - -<p>There was no complaining in his voice; rather, a matter-of-fact and -slightly mocking tolerance.</p> - -<p>“You’ll see none now that live their lives up on the Downs an’ never -want to change. The more they get the more they want. They smell the -money these millioneers is spendin’—seems to make ’em think they can do -just anythin’ ’s long as they get some of it themselves. Times past, a -man would do his job, an’ never think because his master was rich that -he could cheat him; he gave a value for his wages, to keep well with -himself. Now, a man thinks because he’s poor he ought to ha’ been rich, -and goes about complainin’, doin’ just as little as he can. It’s my -belief they get their notions from the daily papers—hear too much<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_131">{131}</a></span> of -all that’s goin’ on—it onsettles them; they read about this Sawcialism, -an’ these millioneers; it makes a pudden’ in their heads. Look at the -beer that’s drunk about it. For one gallon that was drunk when I was -young there’s twenty gallon now. The very sheep ha’ changed since I -remember; not one o’ them ewes you see before you there, that isn’t -pedigree—and the care that’s taken o’ them! They’d have me think that -men’s improvin’, too; richer they may be, but what’s the use o’ riches -if your wants are bigger than your purse? A man’s riches is the things -he does without an’ never misses.”</p> - -<p>And crouching on his knee, he added:</p> - -<p>“Ther’ goes the last o’ them; sha’n’t get ’em out now till tew o’clock. -One gone—all go!”</p> - -<p>Then squatting down, as though responsibility were at an end, he leaned -one elbow on the grass, his eyes screwed up against the sun. And in his -old brown face, with its myriad wrinkles and square chin, there was a -queer content<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_132">{132}</a></span>ment, as though approving the perversity of sheep.</p> - -<p>“So riches don’t consist in man’s possessions, but in what he doesn’t -want? You are an enemy of progress?”</p> - -<p>“These Downs don’t change—’tis only man that changes; what good’s he -doin’, that’s what I ask meself—he’s makin’ wants as fast as ever he -makes riches.”</p> - -<p>“Surely a time must come when he will see that to be really rich his -supply must be in excess of his demand? When he sees that, he will go on -making riches, but control his wants.”</p> - -<p>He paused to see if there were any meaning in such words, then answered:</p> - -<p>“On these Downs I been, man an’ boy, for sixty year.”</p> - -<p>“And are you happy?”</p> - -<p>He wrinkled up his brows and smiled.</p> - -<p>“What age d’ you think I am? Seventy-six!”</p> - -<p>“You look as if you’d live to be a hundred.”</p> - -<p>“Can’t expect it! My health’s good though, ’cept for these.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_133">{133}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Like wind-bent boughs all the fingers of both his hands from the top -joint to the tip were warped towards the thumb.</p> - -<p>“Looks funny! But I don’t feel ’em. What you don’t feel don’t trouble -you.”</p> - -<p>“What caused it?”</p> - -<p>“Rheumatiz! I don’t make nothin’ of it. Where there’s doctors there’s -disease.”</p> - -<p>“Then you think we make our ailments, too, as fast as we make remedies?”</p> - -<p>He slowly passed his gnarled hand over the short grass.</p> - -<p>“My missus ’ad the doctor when she died.... See that dust? That’s -motorcars bringin’ folks to Goodwood Races. Wonderful quick-travellin’ -things.”</p> - -<p>“Ah! That was a fine invention, surely?”</p> - -<p>“There’s some believes in them. But if they folk weren’t doin’ -everything and goin’ everywhere at once, there’d be no need for them -rampagin’ motors.”</p> - -<p>“Have you ever been in one yourself?”</p> - -<p>His eyes began to twinkle mockingly.</p> - -<p>“I’d like to get one here on a snowy<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_134">{134}</a></span> winter’s day, when ye’ve to find -your way by sound and smell; there’s things up here they wouldn’t make -so free with. They say from London ye can get to anywhere. But there’s -things no man can ride away from. Downs ’ll be left when they’re all -gone.... Never been off the Downs meself.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you ever feel you’d like to go?”</p> - -<p>“There isn’t not hardly one as knows what these Downs are. I see the -young men growin’ up, but they won’t stay on ’em; I see folk comin’ -down, same as yourself, to look at ’em.”</p> - -<p>“What <i>are</i> they, then—these Downs?”</p> - -<p>His little eyes, that saw so vastly better than my eyes, deepened in his -walnut-coloured face. Fixed on those grey-green Downs, that reigned -serene above the country spread below in all its little fields, and -woods, and villages, they answered for him. It was long before he spoke.</p> - -<p>“Healthiest spot in England!... Talkin’ you was of progress; but look at -bacon—four times the price now that<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_135">{135}</a></span> ever it was when I were young. And -families—thirteen we had, my missus and meself; nowadays if they have -three or four it’s as much as ever they’ll put up with. The country’s -changed.”</p> - -<p>“Does that surprise you? When you came up here this morning the sun was -just behind that clump of beech—it’s travelled on since then.”</p> - -<p>He looked at it.</p> - -<p>“There’s no puttin’ of it back, I guess, if that’s your meaning? It were -risin’ then, an’ now it’s gone past noon.”</p> - -<p>“Joshua made the sun stand still; it was a great achievement!”</p> - -<p>“May well say that; won’t never be done again, I’m thinkin’. And as to -knowin’ o’ the time o’ day, them ewes they know it better than ever -humans do; at tew o’clock exact you’ll see them comin’ out again to -feed.”</p> - -<p>“Ah! well—I must be getting on. Good-bye!”</p> - -<p>His little eyes began to twinkle with a sort of friendly mockery.</p> - -<p>“Ye’re like the country, all for movin<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_136">{136}</a></span>’ on your way! Well, keep on, -along the tops—ye can’t make no mistake!”</p> - -<p>He gave me his old gnarled hand, whose finger-tips were so strangely -warped. Then, leaning on his stick, he fixed his eyes upon the beech -grove, where his ewes were lying in the cool.</p> - -<p>Beyond him in the sun the hazy line of dust trailed across the -grey-green Downs, and on the rising breeze came the far-off music of the -cars.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_137">{137}</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_138">{138}</a></span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_139">{139}</a></span></p> -<h2><a id="HOLIDAY"></a>HOLIDAY<br /><br /> -<a id="X"></a>X<br /><br /> -<span class="smcap">Holiday</span></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">The</span> curtain whose colour changes from dawn to noon, from night to -dawn—the curtain which never lifts, is fastened to the dark horizon.</p> - -<p>On the black beach, beneath a black sky with its few stars, the sea wind -blows a troubling savour from the west, as it did when man was not yet -on the earth. It sings the same troubling song as when the first man -heard it. And by this black beach man is collected in his hundreds, -trying with all his might to take his holiday. Here he has built a -theatre within the theatre of the night, and hung a canvas curtain to -draw up and down, and round about lit lights to show him as many as may -be of himself, and nothing of the encircling dark. Here he has brought -singers, and put a band,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_140">{140}</a></span> armed with pipes of noise, to drown the -troubling murmur of the wind. And behind his theatre he has made a fire -whose smoke has qualified the troubling savour of the sea.</p> - -<p>Male and female, from all the houses where he sleeps, he has herded to -this music as close as he can herd. The lights fall on his faces, -attentive, white, and still—as wonderfully blank as bits of wood cut -out in round, with pencil marks for eyes. And every time the noises -cease, he claps his hands as though to say: “Begin again, you noises; do -not leave me lonely to the silence and the sighing of the night.”</p> - -<p>Round the ring he circles, and each small group of him seems saying: -“Talk—laugh—this is my holiday!”</p> - -<p>This is his holiday, his rest from the incessant round of toil that -fills his hours; to this he has looked forward all the year; to this he -will look back until it comes again. He walks and talks and laughs, -around this pavilion by the beach; he casts no glances at the pavilion -of the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_141">{141}</a></span> night, where Nature is playing her wind-music for the stars to -dance. Long ago he found he could not bear his mother Nature’s -inscrutable, ironic face, bending above him in the dark, and with a moan -he drew the clothes over his head. In Her who gave him being he has -perceived the only thing he cannot brave. And since there is courage and -pride in the feeblest of his hearts, he has made a compact with himself: -“Nature! There is no Nature! For what I cannot understand I cannot face, -and what I cannot face I will not think of, and what I will not think of -does not exist for me; thus, there is nothing that I cannot face. -And—deny it as I may—this is why I herd in my pavilion under my -lights, and make these noises against the sighing and the silence and -the blackness of the night.”</p> - -<p>Back from the dark sea, across a grassy space, is his row of houses with -lighted windows; and behind it, stretching inland, a thousand more, -huddled, closer and closer, round the lighted railway shed, where, like -spider’s threads, the rails<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_142">{142}</a></span> run in from the expanse of sleeping fields -and marshes and dim hills; of dark trees and moon-pale water fringed -with reeds. All over the land these rails have run, chaining his houses -into one great web so that he need never be alone.</p> - -<p>For nothing is so dreadful to this man as solitude. In solitude he hears -the voice of Her he cannot understand: “Ah! the baby that you are, my -baby man!” And he sees Her smile, the ironic smile of evening over land -and sea. In solitude he feels so small, so very small; for solitude is -silence and silence irony, and irony he cannot bear, not even that of -Her who gave him birth.</p> - -<p>And so he is neither careful of his beauty nor of his strength; not -careful to be clean or to be fine; his only care is not to be alone. To -all his young, from the first day, he teaches the same lesson: Dread -Her! Avoid Her! Look not on Her! Towns! more towns! There you can talk -and listen to your fellows’ talk! Crowd into the towns; the eyes in your -whitened faces need never see Her there!<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_143">{143}</a></span> Fill every cranny of your -houses so that no moment of silence or of solitude can come to any one -of you. And if, by unhappy chance, in their parks you find yourself -alone, lie neither on your back, for then you will see the quiet -sunlight on the leaves, the quiet clouds, and birds with solitude within -their wings; nor on your face, or you will catch the savour of the -earth, and a faint hum, and for a minute live the life of tiny things -that straddle in the trodden grasses. Fly from such sights and scents -and sounds, for fear lest terror for your fate should visit you; fly to -the streets; fly to your neighbours’ houses; talk, and be brave! Or if, -and such times will come, your feet and brain and tongue are tired, then -sleep! For, next to the drug of fellowship is the anodyne of slumber! -And when it is your holiday, and time is all your own, be warned! The -lot of those few left among you who are forced to live alone—on the -sea, with the sheep of the green hills, guarding the trim wildness of -your woods, turning the lonely soil<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_144">{144}</a></span>—may for a moment seem desirable. -Be sure it is not; the thought has come to you from books! Go to a spot -where, though the nights are clear and the sun burns hot, the sea wind -smells of salt, and the land wind smells of hay, you can avoid Her, -huddled in your throngs! Dread Her! Fly from Her! Hide from Her smile, -that seems to say: “Once, when you lived with me, you were a little -gentleman. You looked in my eyes and learned a measure of repose, -learned not to whimper at the dark, giggle, and jeer, and chatter -through your nose, learned to hold yourself up, to think your own -thoughts, and be content. And now you have gone from me to be a little -cockney man. But for all your airs of courage and your fear of me—I -shall get you back!” Dread Her! Avoid Her! Towns, more towns!</p> - -<p>Such is the lesson man teaches, from the very birth, to every child of -his unstinted breeding. And well he teaches it. Of all his thousands -here to-night, drawn from his crowded, evil-smelling<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_145">{145}</a></span> towns, not one has -gone apart on this black beach to spend a single minute with his shadow -and the wind and stars. His laughter fills the air, his ceaseless -chatter, songs, and fiddling, the clapping of his hands; so will it be -throughout his holiday.</p> - -<p>And who so foolish as to say it is not good that man should talk and -laugh and clap his hands; who so blind as not to see that these are -antidotes to evils that his one great fear has brought to him? This ring -of him with vacant faces and staring eyes round that anæmic singer with -the worn-out voice, or the stout singer with the voice of brass, is but -an instance of Her irony: “This, then, is the medicine you have mixed, -my little man, to cure the pain of your fevered souls. Well done! But if -you had not left me you would have had no fever! There is none in the -wind and the stars and the rhythm of the sea; there is none in green -growth or fallen leaves; in my million courses it is not found. Fever is -fear—to you alone, my restless mannikin, has fever come, and this is -why, even in your<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_146">{146}</a></span> holiday, you stand in your sick crowds gulping down -your little homœopathic draughts!”</p> - -<p>The show is over. The pipes of noise are still, the lights fall dark, -and man is left by the black beach with nothing to look on but the sky, -or hear but the beat of wave-wings flighting on the sea. And suddenly in -threes and fours he scurries home, lest for one second he should see Her -face whose smile he cannot bear.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_147">{147}</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_148">{148}</a></span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_149">{149}</a></span></p> -<h2><a id="FACTS"></a>FACTS<br /><br /> -<a id="XI"></a>XI<br /><br /> -<span class="smcap">Facts</span></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">Each</span> morning a noise of poured-out water revived him from that state in -which his thoughts were occasionally irregular. Raising his face, with -its regular nose above a regular moustache just going grey, he asked the -time. Each morning he received the same answer, and would greet it with -a yawn. Without this opening to his day he would not have known for -certain that it had begun. Assured of the fact, he would leap from his -bed into his bath, and sponge himself with cold, clear water. “Straight -out of bed—never lose heat!” Such was his saying; and he would maintain -it against every other theory of the morning tub. It was his own -discovery—a fact on which, as on all facts, he set much store; and -every morning he kept his mind fixed on<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_150">{150}</a></span> its value. Then, in that -underclothing, of which he said, “Never wear any other—lets the skin -act!” he would take his stand in a chosen light before a glass, dipping -in boiling water a razor on which was written the day’s name, and -without vanity inspect his face to see that it preserved its shade of -faintly mottled red against the encroachments of the town. Then, with a -slanting edge—“Always shave slanting”—he would remove such hairs as -seemed to him unnecessary. If he caught himself thinking, he would go to -a bottle on the washstand and pour out a little bitter water, which he -would drink; then, seizing a pair of Indian clubs, he would wave them. -“I believe in Indian clubs!” he often said. Tying his tie at the angle -he had tied it for nearly thirty years, and placing lavender water—the -only scent he ever used—about his handkerchief, he would open his -wife’s door, and say, “How are you, my dear?” Without waiting for an -answer he would shut it, and go down.</p> - -<p>His correspondence was set out on his<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_151">{151}</a></span> writing-table, and as he was not -a stupid man he soon disposed of it; then, with his daily paper—which -he had long selected out of every other—he would stand before the -hearth, reading, and believing that the news he read was of a definite -importance. He took care that this reading should not stimulate his -thoughts. He wanted facts, and the fact that the day’s facts were -swallowed by the morrow’s did not disturb him, for the more facts he -read the better he was pleased.</p> - -<p>After his breakfast—eaten opposite his wife, and ended with some -marmalade—he would go forth at ten o’clock, and walk the two miles to -the Temple. He believed in walking, wet or fine, for, as he said: “It -keeps your liver acting!”</p> - -<p>On his way he would think of many things, such as: Whether to lay down -Gruaud La Rose, 1900, or Château Margaux, 1899? And, though alive to its -importance, he would soon decide this question, since indecision was -repugnant to his nature. He walked by way of the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_152">{152}</a></span> Green Park and Thames -Embankment, expanding his chest quietly, and feeling inward -satisfaction. To the crossing-sweeper nearest to Big Ben he gave on -every day, save Saturdays, a nod, and on Saturdays sixpence; and, -because he thus assisted him, he believed the man to be worthy of -assistance. He passed all other crossing-sweepers without being -conscious of their presence; and if they had asked for pennies would -have put them down as lazy persons making an illicit living. They did -not ask, however, accepting his attitude towards them as correct, from -the vigour of its regularity. He walked always at the same pace, neither -fast nor slow, his head erect, looking before him with an air of: I am -getting there; this is salubrious!</p> - -<p>And on getting there he looked at his watch—not because he did not know -what it would tell him, but to satisfy his craving for the ascertainment -of a fact. It took, he knew, thirty-two minutes between door and door.</p> - -<p>Up the stone staircase he would pause<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_153">{153}</a></span> half-way and glance through the -window at a certain tree. A magpie had once built there. It had been -gone now fifteen years, but the peculiar fact remained. Meeting his -clerk in the dark narrow passage beyond the oaken door, he would address -the young man thus: “Mornin’, Dyson. Anything fresh?” and pass on into -his light and airy room, with its faint scent of Law Reports. Here, in -an old Norfolk jacket, a meerschaum pipe, rarely alight, between his -teeth, he would remain seated before papers of all sorts, working hard, -and placing facts in order, ready for the conclusions of his chief, a -man of genius, but devoid of regularity.</p> - -<p>At one o’clock he would go out and walk some little way to lunch. When -tempted to go elsewhere he would say, “No, no! Come with me; better grub -at Sim’s!” He knew this for a fact—no novelty of any kind could alter -it. Cigar in mouth, he would then walk for twenty minutes in the Temple -Gardens, his hands behind his back, alone or with<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_154">{154}</a></span> some friend, and his -good-humoured laugh would frequently be heard—the laugh of a fat man; -for though by careful weighing he kept his body thin, he could not weigh -his soul, and having thus no facts to go by, could never check its bulk.</p> - -<p>From two to four he would continue the arrangement of his facts, and on -the rising of the Courts place them before his chief. Strong in his -power of seeing them as facts with no disturbing relevance to other -things, he would show a shade of patronage to that disorderly -distinguished man. Then, washing with Pears’ soap, and saying to his -clerk, “Evenin’, Dyson; nothing that won’t keep,” he would take his -umbrella and walk west. And again he would reflect on many things, such -as: Whether to use the iron or cleek for the approach to that last hole? -and would soon decide on one or on the other.</p> - -<p>Passing the portals of his Club, of which he used to say, “I’ve belonged -here twenty years; that shows you!” he<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_155">{155}</a></span> would hang his hat upon a -certain peg and go into the card-room, where, for small stakes that -never varied, he played the game of Bridge till seven o’clock. Then in a -hansom cab he would go home resting body and brain, and looking straight -before him at the backs of cabs in front. Entering his drawing-room he -would go over to his wife, kiss her, and remark: “Well, old girl, what -have you been doing?” and at once relate what he himself had done, -finishing thus: “Time to dress for dinner! I’ve got a twist!” In a white -tie and swallow-tail if they were dining out, a black tie and tail-less -coat if they were dining in—for these were the proved facts of -suitability—he would go to his wife’s room, take up one of her toilet -bottles, examine the stamp on it, and tell her his programme for the -morrow.</p> - -<p>His habits in dining out were marked by regularity. A sweet or ice he -never touched for fear of gout, of which he had felt twinges. He drank -brandy with his coffee, not for fear of sleeplessness, which<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_156">{156}</a></span> he had -never had, but because he found it adjusted preceding facts more nicely -than liqueurs; after champagne he would consume a glass or two of port. -Some men drank claret, believing that it did less harm, but he would -say: “Port after champagne—proved it a dozen times.” For, though it was -really not important to his body which he drank, it concerned his soul -to make the choice, and place importance on it. When the ladies had -withdrawn, he would talk on the facts of politics and guns, of stocks -and women; and, chiefly in the form of stories—facts about facts. To -any one who linked these facts to an idea he would remark at once: -“Exactly!” and, staring slightly, restore order with another fact. At -last he would go home, and in the cab would touch his wife to see that -she was there.</p> - -<p>On Sundays he played golf—a game in which, armed with a fact, he hit a -little fact long distances until he lodged it in a hole, when he would -pick it out again and place it on a little fact and hit it off once<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_157">{157}</a></span> -more. And this was good for him. Returning in the train with other -players of the game, he would sit silently reviewing the details of the -business, and a particularly good and pleasant look would come upon his -face, with its blue eyes, red cheeks, and fair moustache just going -grey. And suddenly he would begin speaking to his neighbour, and tell -him how at certain moments he had hit the little fact with an unwonted -force, or an unusual gentleness.</p> - -<p>Two days before the 12th of August he would take his guns and wife to -Scotland, where he rented annually a piece of ground inhabited by -grouse.</p> - -<p>On arriving he would have a bath, then go out with his keeper and a -ferret to “get his eye in”; and his first remark was always this: “Well, -McNab, and how are you? Afraid I’m a bit above myself!” And his old -keeper would answer thus: “Aye, I’m no saying but ye’ll be as well for a -day on the hill.”</p> - -<p>Each evening on returning from the moors he would cause the dead facts -to be<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_158">{158}</a></span> turned out of the pony’s paniers and laid in rows before him, -and, touching them with the end of a stick so as to make sure, he would -count them up; and the more there were of them the better he was -pleased. Then, when they were removed and hung, he would enter their -numbers in a book. And as these numbers grew, he compared them day by -day and week by week with the numbers of each former year; thus, -according to whether they were more or less, he could tell at any moment -how much he was enjoying life.</p> - -<p>On his return to London he would say: “First-class year—five hundred -brace.” Or, shake his head and murmur: “Two hundred and thirty brace—a -wretched year!”</p> - -<p>Any particularly fine creature that he shot he would have stuffed, so -that the fact might be remarked for ever.</p> - -<p>Once, or perhaps twice, each year, <i>malaise</i> would come on him, a -feeling that his life was not quite all he wished, a desire for -something that he could not<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_159">{159}</a></span> shape in words, a conviction that there -were facts which he was missing. At these times he was almost irritable, -and would say: “Mistake for a man to marry, depend on it—narrows his -life.” And suddenly one day he would know what he wanted, and, under -pretext perhaps of two days’ sport, would go to Paris. The fact -accomplished, of irregularity, that he would not have committed in -England for the world—was of advantage to his soul, and he would -return, more regular than ever.</p> - -<p>For he was a man who must be doing, who respected only the thing done. -He had no use for schemes of life, theories, dreams, or fancies. Ideas -were “six a penny,” he would say. And the fact that facts without ideas -were “six a ha’penny” was perhaps the only fact that he did not -appreciate. He was made, in fact, for laying trains of little facts, in -almost perfect order, in almost all directions. Forced by his nature to -start laying without considering where they led to, he neither knew nor -cared when<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_160">{160}</a></span> or what they would blow up; and when in fact they blew up -something unexpected, or led into a <i>cul de sac</i>, he would start at once -laying them again in the first direction that seemed open. Thus actively -employed, he kept from brooding, thinking, and nonsense of all kinds, so -busy that he had no time to look ahead and see where he was going; and -since, if he had got there he would not have known it, this was just as -well.</p> - -<p>Beyond everything, he believed in freedom; he never saw the things that -his way of acting prevented him from doing, and so believed his life to -be the freest in the world.</p> - -<p>Nothing occasioned him a more unfeigned surprise than to tell him his -ways were typical of the country where he lived. He answered with a -stare, knowing well enough that no such likeness could be shown him as a -fact. It was not his habit to be conscious; he was neither conscious of -himself nor of his country, and this enabled him to be the man he was.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_161">{161}</a></span></p> - -<p>When he met himself about the town (which hourly happened) he had no -knowledge that it was himself; on the contrary he looked on himself as -specially designed, finding most other people “rather funny.”</p> - -<p>An attempt to designate him as belonging to a type or class he -mistrusted as some kind of Socialism. And yet he ate with himself in -restaurants and private houses, travelled with himself in trains, read -the speeches of himself in Parliament, and the accounts of how he had -been surrounded by persons of Dutch origin, or on some frontier punished -a tribe whose manners were not quite his own. He played golf with -himself, and shot with his very images. Nor was he confined to his own -class; but frequently drove himself home in cabs, watched himself -drilling in the barrack squares, or, walking up and down in blue, -protected his own house at night from burglars. If he required to send a -message from his Club, he sent himself; he sold himself his waistcoats, -and even laid the pavements of the streets that he trod daily in his -pilgrimage.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_162">{162}</a></span> From his neighbourhood Imagination stretched its wings and -flitted further on. Patron of precedent, pattern of order, upholder of -the law, where he dwelt an orderly disorder reigned. He was for ever -doing things, and out of everything he did there sprang up two more -things that wanted to be done, and these things he would do—in time! -Believing no real harm of others or himself, he kept young and green! -Oh! very green and young!</p> - -<p>And in old age, past doing things, seated in the Club smoking-room, he -will recount behind his comely grey moustache that day’s shooting and -that day’s run; the marriage of that fine girl; the death of that dear -old chap; the details of that first-rate joke, or that bad dinner; and -dwelling with love on these isolated facts, his old blue eyes will -twinkle. Presently, when it is late and he is left alone, he will put -his old tired feet up on the sofa, remove the cigar from his old lips, -and, holding it a foot from off his eyes, look closely at the ash; -finding this fact a little yellow, he will frown.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_163">{163}</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_164">{164}</a></span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_165">{165}</a></span></p> -<h2><a id="POWER"></a>POWER<br /><br /> -<a id="XII"></a>XII<br /><br /> -<span class="smcap">Power</span></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">When</span> he rose every morning, the first thing he would do was to fall on -his knees beside his bed. His figure in its white garment—for he wore a -nightshirt—was rather long and lean, and looked its longest thus bent -from the loins. His thick fair hair, little disturbed by sleep, together -with a glimpse of sanguine neck and cheek, was all that could be seen -above that figure, for his face was buried in the counterpane. Here he -would commune with the deity he had constructed for himself out of his -secret aspirations and desires, out of his most private consciousness. -In the long and subtle processes of contemplation this deity had come to -be a big white-clothed figure, whose face and head were shrouded from -his gaze in frosty dimness, but whose<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_166">{166}</a></span> hands—great hands, a little -red—were always clearly visible, reposing motionless on knees parted -beneath the white and flowing garment. The figure appeared in his -imagination seated as it were on air ten or fifteen feet above the floor -of a white, wide, marble corridor, and its great hands seemed to be -pressing down and stilling all that came before them. So oddly concrete -was this image that sometimes he addressed no prayers to it, but knelt, -simply feeling that it was sitting there above him; and when at last he -raised his head, a strange aspiring look had come into his strained -eyes, and face suffused with blood. When he did pray, he himself hardly -knew for what he prayed, unless it were to be made like his deity, that -sat so quiet, above the marble corridor.</p> - -<p>For, after all, this deity of his, like the deity of every other man, -was but his temperament exaggerated beyond life-size and put in perfect -order—it was but the concretion of his constant feeling that nothing -could be trusted to behave,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_167">{167}</a></span> freed from the still, cold hands of Power. -He had never trusted himself to act save under the authority of this -peculiar deity, much less, then, could he feel that others could be -trusted. This lack of trust—which was only, perhaps, a natural desire -for putting everything and everybody in their proper places—had made -him from a child eligible for almost any post of trust. And Nature, -recognising this, had used him a hundred thousand times, weeding him out -from among his more irregular and trustful fellows, and piling him in -layers, one on another, till she had built out of him in every division -of the State, temples of Power. Two qualifications alone had she -exacted; that he should not be trustful, and that he should be content -to lie beneath the layer above him, until he should come in time to be -that upper layer himself. She had marked him down as quite a tiny boy, -walking with his governess, chopping the heads off thistles with his -stick, and ordering his brothers’ games precisely, so that they should -all know what they<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_168">{168}</a></span> were playing at. She had seen him take his dog, and, -squatting on the floor, hold it close to the biscuit that it did not -want to eat; and she had marked the expression in his grey eyes, fixed -on that little white fox-terrier, trying so hard to back out through her -collar. She saw at once that he did not trust the little creature to -know whether it required to eat the biscuit; it was her proper time for -eating it, and even though by holding her nose close he could not make -her eat it, he could put her in the corner for not eating it. And having -in due course seen him do so, Nature had felt ever since that he would -keep himself apart, year by year and step by step, till he was safely -serving in the cold, still corridors of Power. She watched him, then, -with interest, throughout his school and university career, considering -what division of the State she had best build with him, though whether -he should work at feeding soldiers, at supervising education, or -organizing the incarceration of his fellows, did not seem to her<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_169">{169}</a></span> to -matter much. In all these things order was essential, and the love of -placing the hand kindly but firmly on the public head, desirable; -further, these were all things that must be done, and with her unerring -instinct for economy, Nature saw that he should do them.</p> - -<p>He had accordingly entered the State’s service at a proper age, and had -remained there, rising.</p> - -<p>Well aware that his was an occupation tending to the constriction of the -mind, he had early made a practice of keeping it elastic by reading, -argument, and a habit of presenting every case in every light, before -pronouncing judgment; indeed, he would often take another person’s point -of view, and, having improved on it, show that it was not really what -the person thought it. Only when he was contradicted did a somewhat ugly -look come into his eyes, and a peculiar smile contract his straight lips -between his little fair moustache and his little, carefully kept, fair -beard. At such moments he would raise his hands—red, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_170">{170}</a></span> shapely, -though rather large—as though about to press them on the head or -shoulders of the presumptuous person. For, certain as he was that he -always took all points of view before deciding any matter, he knew he -must be right. But he was careful not to domineer in any way, -recognising that to domineer was peculiarly unbecoming in a bureaucrat.</p> - -<p>Keeping his mind elastic, he was always ready to welcome any sort of -progress; the word indeed was often on his lips, and he regarded the -thing itself as essential to the well-being of any modern State; it was -only when some particular kind of progress happened to be mentioned that -he felt any doubt. Then, caressing his beard slowly, and, if possible, -taking up a pen, he would point out the difficulties. These were, it -seemed, more numerous than the lay mind had imagined.</p> - -<p>In the first place one must clearly understand what was meant by this -word progress; he would personally not admit<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_171">{171}</a></span> that it meant advancing -backwards. If this were established as a premise, it became imperative -to ask whether the public were in a fit condition to assimilate this -measure of so-called reform. Personally he had grave doubts; he was open -to conviction, but his doubts were grave. And a very little smile would -part his lips, seeming to say: “Yes, yes, my dear sir; progress—you use -the word most glibly, and we all of us admit that it is necessary; but -if you suppose that we are going to progress by trusting human -nature—well, pardon me, but is there any precedent? One could trust -oneself, no doubt, because of one’s sense of duty to one’s deity, -but—men at large! If you think a minute you will see that they have -practically no sense of duty or responsibility at all. You say you wish -to foster it, but, my dear sir, if we foster it, what becomes -of—Government? Depend on it, a sense of duty is only the possession of -a few who have been trained to have it; and I cannot think it wise to -take the slightest<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_172">{172}</a></span> risk in a matter of this gravity. The bonds that -keep us all together, and me on the top—in my place, the machinery of -morals and the State, are being daily loosened by disintegrating forces, -and considering that I am here—by natural selection, not by -accident—to keep the ship together, I am not exactly likely to help -another wave to knock the ship to pieces. ‘It is,’ you say, ‘a question -of degree.’ I consider that a very dangerous saying. I have little doubt -that all so-called reforms at all times have been ushered in by the use -of that expression. You make the fundamental error of overtrusting human -nature. Believe me, if you lived here, and saw the machinery of things -as closely as I see it, and worked, as I do, in this powerful -atmosphere, and knew the worry and the difficulty of changing anything, -and the thanklessness of the public that one works for, you would soon -get a very different notion of the necessity of what you call reform. -You must bear in mind the fact that the State has carefully<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_173">{173}</a></span> considered -what is best for all, and that I am only an official of the State. And -now I have three hours at least before I can get away, of important -details (which you, no doubt, despise), connected with the business of -the State, and which it is my duty and my pride to transact efficiently; -so that you will forgive me if I drop a subject, on which of course I am -still open to conviction. Progress, we must all admit, is necessary, -but, I assure you, in this case you are making a mistake.”</p> - -<p>The little smile died off his lips, and preceding the intruder to the -door, he politely opened it. Then, in the marble corridor, he raised his -eyes above his visitor’s retiring back. There, with its great red hands -on the knees parted beneath a white and flowing robe, sat Power—his -deity; and a silent prayer, far too instinctive and inevitable to be -expressed in words, rose through the stagnant, dusty atmosphere:</p> - -<p>“O great image that put me here, knowing as thou must the failings of -my<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_174">{174}</a></span> fellow-beings, give me power to see that they do right; let me -provide for them the moral and the social diet they require. For, since -I have been here, I have daily, hourly, humbly felt more certain of what -it is they really want; more assured that, through thy help, I am the -person who can give it them. O great image, before thou didst put me -here I was not quite certain about anything, but now, thanks be to thee, -everything is daily clearer and more definite; and I am less and less -harassed by my spirit. Let this go on, great image, till my spirit is -utterly at rest, and I am cold and still and changeless as this marble -corridor.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_175">{175}</a></span>”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_176">{176}</a></span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_177">{177}</a></span></p> -<h2><a id="THE_HOUSE_OF_SILENCE"></a>THE HOUSE OF SILENCE<br /><br /> -<a id="XIII"></a>XIII<br /><br /> -<span class="smcap">The House of Silence</span></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">Within</span> the circle of the high grey wall is silence.</p> - -<p>Under a square of sky cut by high grey buildings nothing is to be seen -of Nature but the prisoners themselves, the men who guard the prisoners, -and a cat who eats the prison mice.</p> - -<p>This house of perfect silence is in perfect order, as though God Himself -had been at work—no dirt, no hurry, no lingering, no laughter. It is -all like a well-oiled engine that goes—without a notion why. And each -human thing that moves within this circle goes, day after day, year -after year—as he has been set to go. The sun rises and the sun goes -down—so says tradition in the House of Silence.</p> - -<p>In yellow clothing marked with arrows the inhabitants are working. Each -when<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_178">{178}</a></span> he came in here was measured, weighed, and sounded; and, according -to the entries made against his number, he received his silent task, and -the proper quantity of food to keep his body able to fulfil it. He -resumes this silent task each day, and if his work be sedentary, paces -for an hour the speckless gravel yard from a number painted on the wall -to a number painted on a wall. Every morning, and on Sundays twice, he -marches in silence to the chapel, and, in the voice that he has nearly -lost, praises the silent God of prisoners; this is his debauch of -speech. Then, on his avid ears the words of the preacher fall; and -motionless, row on row he sits, in the sensual pleasure of this sound. -But the words are void of sense, for the music of speech has drugged his -hearing.</p> - -<p>Before he was admitted to this House of Silence he had endured his six -months’ utter solitude, and now, in the small white-washed space, with a -black floor whence he has cleaned all dirt, he spends only fourteen -hours out of the twenty-four alone, except on Sundays, when he<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_179">{179}</a></span> spends -twenty-one, because it is God’s day. He spends them walking up and down, -muttering to himself, listening for sound, with his eyes on the little -peephole in the door, through which he can be seen but cannot see. Above -his mug and plate of shining tin, his stiff, black-bristled brush and a -piece of soap, is raised a little pyramid of godly books; no sound or -scent, no living thing, no spider even, only his sense of humour comes -between him and his God. But nothing whatever comes between him and his -walking up and down, his listening for sound, his lying with his face -pressed to the floor; till darkness falls, that he may stare at it, and -beg for sleep, the only friend of prisoners, to touch him with her -wings. And so, from day to day, from week to week, and year to year, -according to the number of the years set opposite the name that once was -his.</p> - -<p>The workshops of the House of Silence hear no sound but that of work; -the men in yellow, with arrows marked on them, are busy with a fearful -zest. Their hands<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_180">{180}</a></span> and feet and eyes move all the time; their lips are -still. And on these lips, from mouth to mouth is seen no smile—so -perfect is the order.</p> - -<p>And their faces have one look, as though they said: We care for -nothing—nothing; we hope for nothing—nothing; we work like this for -fear of horror! Their quick dull stare fastens on him who comes to watch -their silence; and all their eyes, curious, resentful, furtive, have in -the depths of them the same defiant meaning, as though they saw in their -visitor the world out of which they have been thrown, the millions of -the free, the millions not alone all day and every day, the millions who -can <i>talk</i>; as though they saw Society, which bred them, nurtured them, -and forced their steps to that exactly fitting point of physical or -mental stress, out of which they found no way but the crime rewarded -with these years of silence; as though they heard in the footsteps and -the muttered questions of this casual intruder the whole pronouncement -of man’s justice:<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_181">{181}</a></span></p> - -<p>“You were dangerous! Your souls, born undersized, were dwarfed by Life -to the commission point of crime. For our protection, therefore, we have -placed you under lock and key. There you shall work—seeing, hearing, -feeling nothing, without responsibility, without initiative, bereft of -human contact with your kind. We shall see that you are clean, and have -a bare sufficiency to eat, we shall inspect and weigh your bodies, and -clothe them with a bare sufficiency of clothes by day and night; divine -service you shall have; your work shall be apportioned to your strength. -Corporal punishment we shall very seldom use. Lest you should give us -trouble, and contaminate each other, you shall be silent, and, as far as -possible, alone. You sinned against Society; your minds were bad; it -were better if in our process you should lose those minds! For some -reason which we cannot tell, you had but little social instinct at the -start; that little social instinct soon decayed. Therefore, through -bitter brooding and eternal silence, through horror of<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_182">{182}</a></span> your lonely -cells, and certainty that you are lost—no good, no mortal good to man -or thing—<i>you shall emerge cleansed of all social instinct</i>. We are -humane and scientific, we have outgrown the barbarous theories of -old-fashioned law. We act for our protection and for your good. We -believe in reformation. We are no torturers. Through loneliness and -silence we will destroy your minds that we may form fresh minds within -the bodies of which we take such care. In silence and in solitude is no -real suffering—so we believe, for we ourselves have never passed one -single silent day, one single day alone!”</p> - -<p>This, by the expression of their eyes, is what the men in yellow seem to -hear, and this, by the expression of their eyes, is what they seem to -answer:</p> - -<p>“Guv’nor! You tell me I did wrong to get in here, brought up like what I -was—born in the purple—Brick Street, ’Ammersmith. My father was never -up against the police; epileptic fits is what he went in for—I oughtn’t -to have had him<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_183">{183}</a></span> for a father; I oughtn’t to have had a mother that -liked her drop o’ trouble, leavin’ me what you might call violent from a -child. That’s where the little difficulty was, you see. The bloke that -came about my girl knows that, seein’ he laid two years upon his back -after I’d done with ’im. That set ’em on reformin’ me. To do the -business proper, guv’nor, they gave me six months solitary to start on. -All them six months I asks meself: ‘If I were out again, an’ he came -hangin’ round my girl—what would I do?’ And I answers: ‘Hit ’im like I -done!’ You tell me I oughtn’t to been thinkin’ that; guv’nor, I ’adn’t -nothin’ else to think on. Only that, an’ what was goin’ on outside, with -me there buried-up alive. You tell me that ther’ solitude ought to ha’ -done a lot for me, an’ so it did. I ain’t never been the same man since. -Well, when I came out I made a big mistake, I find, to have that -sentence up against me, in the earnin’ of me livin’ honest, like as -though I’d never been in prison. I oughtn’t to ’ave been a carpenter, I<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_184">{184}</a></span> -guess, or anythin’ where people ’as to trust yer, not likin’ them about -their houses ’as has been in quod; I ought to ha’ had a trade that -didn’t need no dealings with my fellow-creatures. You tell me what I -wanted was to love me neighbour? But guv’nor, after I come out, I go -regular wasted on <i>that</i> job. When you get wasted, guv’nor, you take to -drink; your stomach feels a funny shiverin’; what it wants is warmth, a -bit of fire—so, when you gets a sixpence, you lays it out in warmth. -That’s wrong, you say. But, lucky guv’nor, drink puts heart into a man -as has to get his livin’ out of lovin’ of his neighbour.... Soon after -that I got another little lot, with six months’ solitude again, to put -me straight. When you eat your heart out for want o’ somethin’ else to -do, when your mind rots for the need of ever such a little bit to chew -on, when you feel all day and every day like a poor dumb varmint of a -caged-up rat—like as not you hit a warder, guv’nor. When you hit a -warder, it’s the cat. This time I ought to ha’ come out p’raps<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_185">{185}</a></span> a -different man—an’ so I did. I ought to ha’ had a different mind, bein’ -chastened and taught the love o’ God; but, seein’, guv’nor, that when I -come to think it over, which was all day and every day, I couldn’t -really find out what I had done which in my case any other man would ha’ -stopped short o’ doin’—bein’, <i>not any other man, but me</i>—I come out -that time meanin’ to go upon my own. And on my own I went, and ever -since I’ve been—an out-an’-outer, as you can see with lookin’ at me -now. An’ if you ask me what I think of all o’ you outside, I can’t -reply, seein’ I’m not allowed to speak.”</p> - -<p>This is the answer that they seem to make, their lips move, but no sound -comes.</p> - -<p>The warder watches these moving lips, his eyes, the eyes of a keeper of -wild beasts, are saying: “Pass on, sir, please, and don’t excite the -convicts—you have seen all there is to see!”</p> - -<p>And so the visitor goes out into the prison yard.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_186">{186}</a></span></p> - -<p>On to the grey old buildings a new grey block is being built; it runs up -high already towards the square of sky; and on the pale scaffolding are -prisoners cementing in the stones. A hundred feet up, they move with -silent zest, helping to make the little whitewashed spaces safe, to -hold—themselves; helping to make thick the walls, that they may hear -nothing, and their own moaning may be smothered; helping to join stone -to stone, and fill the cracks between, that no creature, however small, -may come to share their solitude; helping to make the window-spaces high -above their reach, that from them they shall look at—nothing; helping -to hide themselves away out of the minds of all who have not sinned -against man’s justice; for, to forget them in their silence and their -solitude is good for man, and to remember them, unpleasant. The sky is -grey above them, they are grey against the sky; no sound comes down but -the smothered tapping of their tools.</p> - -<p>The visitor goes out towards the prison<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_187">{187}</a></span> gate; and, meeting him, come -three convicts marching in—the tallest in the centre, an old man with -active step and grey bristles on his weather-darkened face. Light darts -into his eyes fixed on the visitor; he bares his yellow teeth and -smiles. His lips move, and out of them come words. So, when skies have -been dark all day, the sun gleams through, to prove the beauty of the -Earthly Scheme. These words—the precious evidence of purifying -solitude, the only words that have been spoken in the House of Silence, -come faintly on the prison air:<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_189">{189}</a></span><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_188">{188}</a></span> “Ye —— ——!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_190">{190}</a></span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_191">{191}</a></span></p> -<h2><a id="ORDER"></a>ORDER<br /><br /> -<a id="XIV"></a>XIV<br /><br /> -<span class="smcap">Order</span></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">Coming</span> from where they cooked their food, we passed down a passage. The -old warder in the dark blue uniform and a cap whose peak hung over his -level iron-grey eyebrows, stopped.</p> - -<p>“This,” he said, “is the jewel room;” and, taking a key that hung below -his belt, he opened an iron door. A convict with a yellow face, in -yellow clothing marked with arrows, and in his yellow hand a piece of -yellow leather, darted a look at us, dropped his glance, and with a -dreadful, silent, swift obsequiousness passed us and went out. We stood -alone amongst the jewels, that he had evidently been polishing.</p> - -<p>“We call it the jewel room for fun,” the old warder said, and a smile, -the first of the morning, visited his face, but<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_192">{192}</a></span> quickly left his eyes -again to that strange mournful look, which some eyes have in the depths -of them—a look, as if in strict attention to the outer things of life, -their owner had parted with his soul. He took one of the jewels from the -wall, and held it out. It was a light steel bangle joined by a light -steel chain to another light steel bangle.</p> - -<p>“That’s what they wear now when it’s necessary to put them on.”</p> - -<p>One may see in harness rooms, bits, and chains, and stirrups glisten, -but never was harness room so garnished as this little chamber. The four -walls were bright as diamonds to the very ceiling with jewels of every -kind; light and heavy bangles, long chains, short chains, thin chains, -and very thick iron chains.</p> - -<p>“Those are old-fashioned,” said the warder; “we don’t use them now.”</p> - -<p>“And this?”</p> - -<p>It stood quite close, made of three very bright steel bars, joined at -the top, wide asunder at the bottom, and clamped together by cross bars -in the middle.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_193">{193}</a></span></p> - -<p>“That’s the triangles,” he said a little hurriedly.</p> - -<p>“Do you flog much?”</p> - -<p>He stared. You are lacking—he seemed to say—in delicacy.</p> - -<p>“Very little,” he answered, “only when it’s necessary.” And unconscious -that he had proclaimed the spirit of the system that he served, the -spirit of all systems, he drew his heels together, as though saluting -discipline.</p> - -<p>To his old figure standing there, tall, upright, and so orderly, and to -his grave and not unkindly face, it was impossible to feel aversion. But -in this little room there seemed to come and stand in line with him, and -at his back, in an ever-growing pyramid, shaped to an apex like the very -triangles themselves, the countless figures of officialdom. They stood -there, upright, and orderly, with the words: “Only when it’s necessary,” -coming from their mouths. And as one looked, one saw how chiselled in -its form, how smooth and slippery in surface, how impermeable in -structure, was that pyra<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_194">{194}</a></span>mid. Wedged in perfect symmetry, bound together -man to man by something common to their souls, this phalanx stood by the -force of its own shape, like dead masonry; stone on stone, each resting -on the other, solid and immovable, in terrifying stillness. And in the -eyes of all that phalanx—blue eyes, brown eyes, grey eyes, and mournful -hazel eyes, converging on one point—there was the same look: “Stand -away, please—don’t touch the pyramid!”</p> - -<p>Turning his back on the triangles, the old warder said again:</p> - -<p>“Only when it’s necessary.”</p> - -<p>“And when is it necessary?”</p> - -<p>“The rules decide that.”</p> - -<p>“Of course. But who makes them?”</p> - -<p>His smile faded. “The system,” he replied.</p> - -<p>“And do you know how the system has come about?”</p> - -<p>He frowned—a strange question, this, to ask him!</p> - -<p>“That,” he said with slight impatience in his voice, “is not for me to<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_195">{195}</a></span> -say.” And he jerked his neck, as though continuing:</p> - -<p>“Ask that of him behind me!”</p> - -<p>Involuntarily I looked, but there was no one there, behind him; only the -triangles, beautifully bright. Then, with the same uncanny suddenness -there sprang up again a vision of that solid pyramid of men, and the -head of each seemed turned over his shoulder, saying:</p> - -<p>“Ask that of him behind me.”</p> - -<p>With a sort of eagerness I tried to see the apex of that pyramid. It was -too far away.</p> - -<p>“We’ve got to maintain order,” he said suddenly, as though repelling a -subtle onslaught on his point of view.</p> - -<p>“Of course; everything in this room, I suppose, is for that purpose?”</p> - -<p>“Everything—that’s in use.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, yes! I think you said there are some things that are not used now?”</p> - -<p>“Those big iron chains, and these weights here—they weighted the -prisoner down with those; that’s all out of date.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_196">{196}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“They look rather queer and barbarous, certainly.”</p> - -<p>He smiled.</p> - -<p>“You may say that,” he said.</p> - -<p>“And can you tell me how they came to be disused?”</p> - -<p>He seemed again to check the action of turning his head round.</p> - -<p>“No,” he said, “I couldn’t tell you that. They found they weren’t -necessary, I suppose.”</p> - -<p>“When they were used, I take it the authorities believed in them?”</p> - -<p>“No doubt,” he answered, “or they wouldn’t have used them.”</p> - -<p>“They never thought that we should be looking at these things, and -calling them barbarous, like this!”</p> - -<p>He stared at the great manacles.</p> - -<p>“They used them,” he said, “and never thought about it, I dare say.”</p> - -<p>“They must have considered them necessary for discipline.”</p> - -<p>“Just that.”</p> - -<p>“And was discipline any better then than it is now?<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_197">{197}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no! Worse! They had a lot more trouble with the prisoners than we -have, from what I hear.”</p> - -<p>“If any one had told the authorities then that those heavy things did no -good they’d have laughed at him.”</p> - -<p>He answered with a smile: “Little doubt of that.”</p> - -<p>“I wonder whether, a few years hence, people will be standing here and -saying the same thing about those triangles, and all these other jewels, -and calling us barbarians for using them. It would be interesting to -know.”</p> - -<p>His brows contracted: “Not likely,” he said; “you can’t do without -<i>them</i>.”</p> - -<p>“You think it would not be possible?”</p> - -<p>Again he seemed to check his eyes from looking round.</p> - -<p>“No,” he repeated stolidly, “you can’t do without them.”</p> - -<p>“It would be dangerous to try?”</p> - -<p>He shook his close-cropped head under the peaked cap.</p> - -<p>“I shouldn’t like to see it tried. We must keep order.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_198">{198}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“At the time they left off using those heavy chains, they must have -thought they ran a risk?”</p> - -<p>He answered coldly: “I don’t know anything about that.”</p> - -<p>“The present state of things is final, then?”</p> - -<p>He put the bangles back upon their nail, and turning rather suddenly, as -though fearing to be attacked behind, said:</p> - -<p>“We don’t trouble about such things; we’re here to administer the system -as we find it. We don’t use these, except when it’s necessary.”</p> - -<p>“Have you not begged the question?”</p> - -<p>He said with dignity: “That is not my business,” laying his hand upon -the triangles. And as he did so there seemed to spring up once more that -solid phalanx, man linked to man, all with the same schoolmaster’s -eyes—a living pyramid, turned to stone by the force of its own shape. -And a sound came forth from them as though they were assenting, but it -was only the scraping of the triangles,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_199">{199}</a></span> as the old warder pushed them a -little farther back.</p> - -<p>He went to the door and opened it; and going out in answer to this -invitation, I looked back at the jewels. They hung in perfect -brightness, round about the triangles; and suddenly, with that same -dreadful, silent, swift obsequiousness, the man in yellow clothing -marked with arrows, with the yellow face, and the yellow leather in his -hand, passed us and went in. The iron door closed on him with a clang; -but before it closed, I saw him at work already, polishing those shining -jewels.</p> - -<p>In dreams I have seen him since, alone with those emblems of a perfect -order, working without sound! And in dreams too, guiding me away, I see -the old warder with his regular, grave face, and his eyes mourning for -something he has lost.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_201">{201}</a></span><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_200">{200}</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_202">{202}</a></span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_203">{203}</a></span></p> -<h2><a id="THE_MOTHER"></a>THE MOTHER<br /><br /> -<a id="XV"></a>XV<br /><br /> -<span class="smcap">The Mother</span></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">She</span> walked as though pressed for time, slipping like a shadow along the -railings of the houses. With her skimpy figure, in its shabby, wispy -black, she hardly looked as if she had borne six sons. She had beneath -her arm a little bundle which she always carried to and fro from the -houses where she worked. Her face, with tired brown eyes, and hair as -black and fine as silk under a black sailor hat, was skimpy too; creased -and angled like her figure, it seemed to deny that life had ever left -her strength for bearing children.</p> - -<p>Though not yet nine o’clock, she had already done the work of her two -rooms, lighted the fire, washed the youngest boys, given the four at -home their breakfast, swept, made one bed—in the other her husband was -still lying—and to that<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_204">{204}</a></span> husband she had served his tea. She had cut -the mid-day ration of the two eldest boys, and, wrapping it in paper, -had placed it on the window-sill in readiness for them to take to -school; had portioned out the firing for the day, given the eldest boy -the pence to buy the daily screws of tea and sugar, washed some ragged -cloths, mended a little pair of trousers, put on her hat without -consulting the cracked looking-glass, and hurried forth. And, since a -penny was important to her, she had walked.</p> - -<p>Having taken off the black straw hat, and changed the black and scanty -dress for a blue linen frock which nearly hid her broken boots, worn to -the thickness of brown paper, she was deemed ready to begin her labours. -And while on her knees she scrubbed and polished, a certain sense of -pleasurable rest would come to her; gazing into the depths of brass that -she had made to shine, she thought of nothing. On some mornings she -worked a little stiffly. This was when her husband, returning from late -dis<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_205">{205}</a></span>cussion at his public-house, had struck her with his belt, to show -he was her master. On such mornings she was longer polishing the brass, -often forced to clean it twice, having put her eyes too close to it. And -she would think, over and over again: “He didn’t ought to hit me, he -didn’t ought to treat me like he does, and me the mother of his -children.” Thus far her thoughts would carry her, but—she was a simple -soul—they carried her no further; nor did it ever penetrate her mind -that her sons, born to and brought up by a drunken father, would some -day carry on the glorious traditions of his life. But soon, because -these things had happened to her many times, she would stop brooding, -and over the mirroring brass, that gave a queer breadth and roundness to -her face, would once more think of nothing.</p> - -<p>Down in the kitchen, where she had her dinner, she never mentioned such -unpleasant incidents, fearing they might harm her reputation. She -talked, in fact, but little, not having much to talk<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_206">{206}</a></span> of that would do -her good in a social way of speaking. But every now and then something -would break within her, and she would pour out a monotonous epic on her -sons; as though, in spite of everything, she felt that to have borne -them was a credit. In consequence of these outpourings, which came not -less than once a week, it was usual to regard her as an incorrigible -talker.</p> - -<p>In the afternoon, though she no longer polished brass, she polished -other things. She left at six o’clock. Then, in the dusk, once more -dressed in black, she slipped along the railings of the houses, still -hurrying, of course, and more like a shadow even than before. In one of -her reddened hands—hands of which, holding them out before some -fellow-woman whose soft, ringed fingers she admired, she would say, -apologetically: “I’ve such dreadful ’ands, m’m”—in one of those red, -roughened hands she grasped some little extra wrapped in newspaper, in -the other the money she had earned.</p> - -<p>She would cross the High Street, and,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_207">{207}</a></span> diving down a dim and narrow -alley, make a purchase at a shop, and hurry on. Entering her door, she -would pause, trying to tell by listening whether her husband had -returned; this she always did, although in fact it made no difference to -her going up, since in any case her sons were there, waiting to be fed. -Silently passing up the narrow stairs, whose noticeable odour she never -noticed, she would enter the front room. Here her four sons, their eyes -fixed on the door, would be sitting or sprawling on the bed, teasing -each other angrily, like young birds waiting for a meal. Taking off her -hat, she would sit down to rest. But seeing her thus sitting, doing -nothing, her sons would try to rouse her to activity, pulling her by the -sleeve, jogging her chair, and the youngest, perhaps, kissing her with -his little dirty mouth. Rising, she would begin to peel potatoes. She -peeled them fast, working the upturned knife-blade close to her thin -bosom, and round her the boys, affecting not to care now that they saw -her working, resumed<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_208">{208}</a></span> their restless teasing of each other, casting -impatient glances at the busy knife-blade, the falling yellow slips of -peel. At short intervals, when she was not too deadly tired, she would -snap at them a little, but her power of speech was limited; the things -she said had all been said before—her sons did not attend to them too -much. Yet, they were good to her according to their lights, preferring -her company to their father’s.</p> - -<p>Presently her knife would stay suspended, the voices of her sons would -cease; the footsteps of their father had been heard.</p> - -<p>He would come in, in an old green overcoat, a muffler, and heavy boots; -on his heavy face the look that says: My ways are what my life has made -them—the proper ways for me to go! And according to his mood, sometimes -jocular and sometimes sullen, there would be talk or silence, and -through those silences the clipping of the knife at the potatoes would -be heard, the sounds of cooking, and of washing, and of the making up -of<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_209">{209}</a></span> beds, and latest of all, the tiny sound of stitching.</p> - -<p>But on Saturdays it would be different, for on Saturdays her man would -not return until he was compelled by the closing of his public-house. On -these evenings her heart would begin to beat at eight o’clock, and it -would go on beating louder and louder as the hours went by, till, as she -would have expressed it, she felt “fit to drop.” And yet, all those -hours, while her sons were sleeping, there was at work a strange poison -in her soul, a dull fever of revolt, in preparation for the blows that -would be given her if he came in drunk—a sort of perverse spirit, -vouchsafed by Providence, bringing those blows nearer, almost inviting -them, yet keeping her alive beneath them. At the midnight striking of -the nearest clock her heart would give a sickening leap under the -malodorous and blackened quilt, and she would lie, trying to pretend to -sleep. So old was that device, so useless—yet she never gave it up, for -her brain was not a fertile one. Soon after would begin his<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_210">{210}</a></span> footsteps, -slow, wavering, coming up and up, with pauses, with mutterings, with now -and then a heavy stumble. Her breath would come in gasps, and her eyes, -just opening, would glue themselves to where the door showed dimly by -the sputtering candlelight. Slowly that door would open, and he would -enter. Through her slits of eyes she would look at him as he stood -swaying there. And suddenly the angry thought that there he was—the sot -that had drunken up her earnings and his own—would give her a dull -buzzing in her head; and all fear left her. Not though he might tear -away the blackened quilt, pull her out of bed, and shower blows, was -there anything within her but a dull, shrill, waspish anger, shooting -from her tongue and eyes. Only when he had finished, and rolled on to -the bed to sleep like a dead man, did she feel the pains that he had -given her. Then, dragging her feet slowly, she would creep back beneath -the quilt, and cover up her face.</p> - -<p>But some Saturdays he would come<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_211">{211}</a></span> back before the clock had struck -twelve; and, standing by the door, with the light falling on his face, -would look at her, swaying but slightly with his lower lip hanging very -loose. Over his face, as he stood there, would spread a leering smile, -and he would call her by her name.</p> - -<p>Then in her dingy bed she would know that she still had work to do. And -with no smile on her tired face, no joy in her thin body, no thought of -anything in her starved brain, not even of the countless children she -had borne in her dim alleys to this half-drunken man, nor of the -countless children she had still to bear—she would lie waiting.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_213">{213}</a></span><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_212">{212}</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_214">{214}</a></span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_215">{215}</a></span></p> -<h2><a id="COMFORT"></a>COMFORT<br /><br /> -<a id="XVI"></a>XVI<br /><br /> -<span class="smcap">Comfort</span></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">They</span> lived in a flat on the fifth floor, facing a park on one side, and, -on the other, through the branches of an elm tree, another block of -flats as lofty as their own. It was very pleasant living up so high, -where they were not disturbed by noises, scents, or the sight of other -people—except such people as themselves. For, quite unconsciously, they -had long found out that it was best not to be obliged to see, or hear, -or smell anything that made them feel uncomfortable. In this respect -they were not remarkable; nor was their adoption of such an attitude to -life unnatural. So will little Arctic animals grow fur that is very -thick and white, or pigeons have heads so small and breast feathers so -absurdly thick that sportsmen in despair<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_216">{216}</a></span> have been known to shoot them -in the tail. They were indeed, in some respects not unlike pigeons, a -well-covered and personable couple. In one respect they differed from -these birds—not having wings, they never soared. But they were kindly -folk, good to each other, very healthy, doing their duty in the station -to which they had been called, and their three children, a boy and two -little daughters, were everything that could be wished for. And had the -world been made up entirely of themselves, their like, and progeny, it -would—one felt—have been Utopia.</p> - -<p>At eight o’clock each morning, lying in their beds with a little pot of -tea between them, they read their letters, selecting first—by that -mysterious instinct which makes men keep what is best until the -end—those which looked as if they indicated the existence of another -side of life. Having glanced at these, they would remark that -Such-and-such seemed a deserving sort of charity; that So-and-so, they -were afraid, was hopeless; and it<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_217">{217}</a></span> was only yesterday that this -subscription had been paid. These evidences of an outer world were not -too numerous; for, living in a flat, they had not the worry of rates, -with their perpetual reminder of social duties, even to the education of -other people’s children; the hall porter, too, would not let beggars use -the lift; and they had set their faces against belonging to societies, -of which they felt that there were far too many. They would pass on from -letters such as these to read how their boy at school was “well and -happy”; how Lady Bugloss would be so glad if they would dine on such a -day; and of the truly awful weather Netta had experienced in the south -of France.</p> - -<p>Having dispersed, he to the bathroom, she to see if the children had -slept well, they would meet again at breakfast, and divide the -newspaper. They took a journal which, having studied the art of making -people comfortable, when compelled to notice things that had been -happening in a cosmic, not a classic sort<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_218">{218}</a></span> of way, did so in a manner to -inspire a certain confidence, as who should say: “We, as an organ of -free thought and speech, invite you, gentle reader, to observe these -little matters with your usual classic eye. That they are always there, -we know; but as with meat, the well-done is well-done, and the -under-done is under-done—for one to lie too closely by the other would -be subversive of the natural order of the joint. This is why, although -we print this matter, we print it in a way that will enable you to read -it in a classic, not a cosmic, spirit.”</p> - -<p>Having run their eyes over such pieces of intelligence, they turned to -things of more immediate interest, the speeches of an Opposition -statesman, which showed the man was probably a knave, and certainly a -fool; the advertisements of motorcars, for they were seriously thinking -of buying one; and a column on that international subject, the cricket -match between Australia and the Mother Country. The reviews of books and -plays they also<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_219">{219}</a></span> read, noting carefully such as promised well, and those -that were likely to make them feel uncomfortable. “I think we might go -to that, dear; it seems nice,” she would say; and he would answer: “Yes! -And look here, don’t put this novel on the list, I’m not going to read -that.” Then they would sit silent once again, holding the journal’s -pages up before their breasts, as though sheltering their hearts. If, by -any chance the journal recommended books which, when read, gave them -pain—causing them to see that the world held people who were short of -comfort—they were more grieved than angry, for some little time not -speaking much, then suddenly asseverating that they did not see the use -of making yourself miserable over dismal matters; it was sad, but -everybody had their troubles, and if one looked into things, one almost -always found that the sufferings of others were really their own fault. -But their journal seldom failed them, and they seldom failed their -journal; and whether they had made it what it was, or it had made them<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_220">{220}</a></span> -what they were, was one of those things no man knows.</p> - -<p>They sat at right angles at the breakfast table, and when they glanced -up at each other’s cheeks their looks were kindly and affectionate. “You -are a comfort to me, my dear, and I am a comfort to you,” those glances -said.</p> - -<p>Her cheek, in fact, was firm, and round, and fresh, and its strong -cheekbone mounted almost to the little dark niche of her grey eye. Her -hair, which had a sheen as though the sun were always falling on it, -seemed to caress the top curve of her clean pink ear. There was just the -suspicion of a chin beneath her rounded jaw. His cheek was not so strong -and moulded; it was flat, and coloured reddish brown, with a small patch -of special shaving just below the side growth of his hair, clipped close -in to the top lobe of the ear. The bristly wing of his moustache showed -sandy-brown above the corner of his lips, whose fullness was compressed. -About that sideview of his face there was the faint<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_221">{221}</a></span> suggestion that his -appetites might some day get the better of his comfort.</p> - -<p>Having finished breakfast they would separate; he to his vocation, she -to her shopping and her calls. Their pursuit of these was marked by a -direct and grave simplicity, a sort of genius for deciding what they -should avoid, a real knowledge of what they wanted, and a certain power -of getting it. They met again at dinner, and would recount all they had -done throughout that busy day: What risks he had taken at Lloyd’s, where -he was an underwriter; how she had ordered a skirt, been to a -picture-gallery, and seen a royal personage; how he had looked in at -Tattersall’s about the boy’s pony for the holidays; how she had -interviewed three cooks without result. It was a pleasant thing to hear -that talk, with its comfortable, home-like flavour, and its reliance on -a real sympathy and understanding of each other.</p> - -<p>Every now and then they would come home indignant or distressed, having -seen a lost dog, or a horse dead from heat<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_222">{222}</a></span> or overwork. They were -peculiarly affected by the sufferings of animals; and covering her pink -ears, she would cry: “Oh, Dick! how horrible!” or he would say: “Damn! -don’t rub it in, old girl!” If they had seen any human being in -distress, they rarely mentioned, or indeed remembered it, partly because -it was such a common sight, partly because their instincts reasoned -thus: “If I once begin to see what is happening before my eyes all day -and every day, I shall either feel uncomfortable and be compelled to -give time and sympathy and money, and do harm into the bargain, -destroying people’s independence; or I shall become cynical, which is -repulsive. But, if I stay in my own garden—as it were—and never look -outside, I shall not see what is happening, and if I do not see, it will -be as if there were nothing there to see!” Deeper than this, no doubt, -they had an instinctive knowledge that they were the fittest persons in -the State. They did not follow out this feeling in terms of reasoning, -but they dimly understood that it was be<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_223">{223}</a></span>cause their fathers, -themselves, and children, had all lived in comfort, and that if they -once began diminishing that comfort they would become nervous, and -deteriorate. This deep instinct, for which Nature was responsible, made -them feel that it was no real use to concern themselves with anything -that did not help to preserve their comfort, and the comfort of all such -as they were likely to be breeding from, to a degree that would ensure -their nerves and their perceptions being coated, so that they literally -<i>could</i> not see. It made them feel—with a splendid subtlety which kept -them quite unconscious—that this was their duty to Nature, to -themselves, and to the State.</p> - -<p>Seated at dinner, they were more than ever like two pigeons, when those -comfortable home-like birds are seen close together on a lawn, looking -at each other between the movements of their necks towards the food -before them. And suddenly, pausing with sweetbread on his fork, he would -fix his round light eyes on<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_224">{224}</a></span> the bowl of flowers in front of him, and -say: “I saw Helen to-day, looking as thin as a lath; she simply works -herself to death down there!”</p> - -<p>When they had finished eating they would go down-stairs, and, summoning -a cab, be driven to the play. On the way, they looked straight before -them, digesting their food. In the streets the lamplight whitened the -wet pavements, and the wind blew impartially on starved faces, and faces -like their own. Without turning to him, she would murmur: “I can’t make -up my mind, dear, whether to get the children’s summer suits at once, or -wait till after Easter.” When he had answered, there would again be -silence. And as the cab turned into a by-street, some woman, with a -shawl over her head and a baby in her arms, would pass before the -horse’s nose, and, turning her deathly face, mutter an imprecation. -Throwing out the end of his cigar, he would say quietly: “Look here, if -we’re not going abroad this year, it’s time I looked out for a fishing -up in Skye.” Then, recovering<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_225">{225}</a></span> the main thoroughfare, they would reach -their destination.</p> - -<p>The theatre had for them a strange attraction. They experienced beneath -its roof a peculiar sense of rest, like some man-at-arms would feel in -the old days when, putting off his armour, he stretched his feet out in -the evening to the fire. It was a double process that produced in them -this feeling of repose. They must have had a dim suspicion that they had -been going about all day in armour; here, and here alone, they would be -safe against gaunt realities, and naked truths; nothing here could -assail their comfort, since the commercial value of the piece depended -on its pleasing them. Everything would therefore be presented in a -classic—not a cosmic—spirit, suitable to people of their status. But -this was only half the process which wrought in them the sense of ease. -For, seated side by side, their attentive eyes fixed on the stage, the -thrill of “seeing life” would come; and this “life”—that was so far -removed from life—seemed to bring to them a blessed<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_226">{226}</a></span> absolution from -all need to look on it in other forms.</p> - -<p>They would come out, subtly inspired, secretly strengthened. And whether -the play had made them what they were, or they had made the play, was -another of those things that no man knows. Their spiritual exaltation -would take them to their mansions, and elevate them till they reached -their floor.</p> - -<p>But when—seldom, luckily—their journal was at fault, and they found -themselves confronted with a play subversive of their comfort, their -faces, at first attentive, would grow a little puzzled, then hurt, and -lastly angry; and they would turn to each other, as though by exchanging -anger they could minimize the harm that they were suffering. She would -say in a loud whisper: “I think it’s a perfectly disgusting play!” and -he would answer: “So dull—that’s what I complain of!”</p> - -<p>After a play like this they talked a good deal in the cab on the way -home, of anything except the play, as though send<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_227">{227}</a></span>ing it to Coventry; -but every now and then a queer silence would fall between them. He would -break it by clucking his tongue against his palate, remarking: “Confound -that beastly play!” And she, with her arms folded on her breast, would -give herself a little hug of comfort. They felt how unfairly this play -had taken them to see it.</p> - -<p>On evenings such as this, before going to their room, they would steal -into the nursery—she in advance, he following, as if it were queer of -him—and, standing side by side, watch their little daughters sleeping. -The pallid radiance of the nightlight fell on the little beds, and on -those small forms so confidently quiet; it fell too, on their own -watching faces, and showed the faintly smiling look about her lips, over -the feathered collar of her cloak; showed his face, above the whiteness -of his shirt-front, ruddy, almost shining, craning forward with a little -puzzled grin, which seemed to say: “They’re rather sweet; how the devil -did I come to have them?<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_228">{228}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>So, often, must two pigeons have stood, looking at their round, soft, -grey-white young! They would touch each other’s arms, and point out a -tiny hand crumpled together on the pillow, or a little mouth pouting at -sleep, and steal away on tiptoe.</p> - -<p>In their own room, standing a minute at the window, they inhaled the -fresh night air, with a reviving sense of comfort. Out there, the -moonlight silvered the ragged branches of the elm tree, the dark block -of mansions opposite—what else it silvered in the town, they -fortunately could not see!<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_229">{229}</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_230">{230}</a></span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_231">{231}</a></span></p> -<h2><a id="A_CHILD"></a>A CHILD<br /><br /> -<a id="XVII"></a>XVII<br /><br /> -<span class="smcap">A Child</span></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">In</span> Kensington Gardens, that February day, it was very still. Trees, -stripped of every leaf, raised their bare clean twigs towards a sky so -grey and so unstirring that there might never have been wind or sun. And -on those branches pigeons sat, silent, as though they understood that -there was no new life as yet; they seemed waiting, loth to spread their -wings lest they should miss the coming of the Spring.</p> - -<p>Down in the grass the tiniest green flames were burning, a sign of the -fire of flowers that would leap up if the sun would feed them.</p> - -<p>And on a seat there sat a child.</p> - -<p>He sat between his father and his mother, looking straight before him. -It was plain that the reason why he looked<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_232">{232}</a></span> so straight before him was -that he really had not strength to care to look to right or left—so -white his face was, so puny were his limbs. His clothes had evidently -been designed for others, and this was fortunate, for they prevented the -actual size of him from being seen. He was not, however, what is called -neglected; his face was clean, and the utmost of protection that Fate -and the condition of his parents had vouchsafed was evidently lavished -on him, for round his neck there was a little bit of draggled fur which -should have been round the neck of her against whose thin and shabby -side he leaned. This mother of his was looking at the ground; and from -the expression of her face she seemed to think that looking at the -ground was all life had to offer.</p> - -<p>The father sat with his eyes shut. He had shabby clothes, a grey face, -and a grey collar that had once been white. Above the collar his thin -cheeks had evidently just been shaved—for it was Saturday, and by the -colour of those<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_233">{233}</a></span> cheeks, and by his boots, whose soles, hardly thicker -than a paper sheet, still intervened between him and the ground, he was -seen not to be a tramp or outdoor person, but an indoor worker of some -sort, and very likely out of work, who had come out to rest in the -company of his wife and family. His eyes being shut, he sat without the -pain of looking at a single thing, moving his jaw at intervals from side -to side, as though he had a toothache.</p> - -<p>And between this man who had begotten, and this woman who had borne him, -the child sat, very still, evidently on good terms with them, not -realising that they had brought him out of a warm darkness where he had -been happy, out of a sweet nothingness, into which, and soon perhaps, he -would pass again—not realising that they had so neglected to keep pace -with things, or that things had so omitted to keep pace with them, that -he himself had eaten in his time about one half the food he should have -eaten, and that of the wrong sort. By the ex<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_234">{234}</a></span>pression of his face, that -pale small ghost had evidently grasped the truth that things were as -they had to be. He seemed to sit there reviewing his own life, and -taking for granted that it must be what it was, from hour to hour, and -day to day, and year to year.</p> - -<p>And before me, too, the incidents of his small journey passed; I saw -him, in the morning, getting off the family bed, where it was sometimes -warm, and chewing at a crust of bread before he set off to school in -company with other children, some of whom were stouter than himself; saw -him carrying in his small fist the remnants of his feast, and dropping -it, or swopping it away for peppermints, because it tired him to consume -it, having no juices to speak of in his little stomach. I seemed to -understand that, accustomed as he was to eating little, he almost always -wanted to eat less, not because he had any wish to die—nothing so -extravagant—but simply that he nearly always felt a little sick; I felt -that his pale, despondent mother was always<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_235">{235}</a></span> urging him to eat, when -there were things to eat, and that this bored him, since they did not -strike him as worth all that trouble with his jaws. She must have found -it difficult indeed to persuade him that there was any point at all in -eating; for, from his looks, he could manifestly not now enjoy anything -but peppermints and kippered herrings. I seemed to see him in his -school, not learning, not wanting to learn, anything, nor knowing why -this should be so, ignorant of the dispensations of a Providence -who—after hesitating long to educate him lest this should make his -parents paupers—now compelled his education, having first destroyed his -stomach that he might be incapable of taking in what he was taught. That -small white creature could not as yet have grasped the notion that the -welfare of the future lay, not with the future, but with the past. He -only knew that every day he went to school with little in his stomach, -and every day came back from school with less.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_236">{236}</a></span></p> - -<p>All this he seemed to be reviewing as he sat there, but not in thought; -his knowledge was too deep for words; he was simply feeling, as a child -that looked as he looked would naturally be feeling, on that bench -between his parents. He opened his little mouth at times, as a small -bird will open its small beak, without apparent purpose; and his lips -seemed murmuring:</p> - -<p>“My stomach feels as if there were a mouse inside it; my legs are -aching; it’s all quite natural, no doubt!”</p> - -<p>To reconcile this apathy of his with recollections of his unresting, -mirthless energy down alleys and on doorsteps, it was needful to -remember Human Nature, and its exhaustless cruse of courage. For, though -he might not care to live, yet, while he was alive he would keep his end -up, because he must—there was no other way. And why exhaust himself in -vain regrets and dreams of things he could not see, and hopes of being -what he could not be! That he had no resentment against anything was -certain from his<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_237">{237}</a></span> patient eyes—not even against those two who sat, one -on either side of him—unaware that he was what he was, in order that -they who against his will had brought him into being, might be forced by -law to keep a self-respect they had already lost, and have the unsought -pride of giving him an insufficiency of things he could not eat. For he -had as yet no knowledge of political economy. He evidently did not view -his case in any petty, or in any party, spirit; he did not seem to look -on himself as just a half-starved child that should have cried its eyes -out till it was fed at least as well as the dogs that passed him; he -seemed to look on himself as that impersonal, imperial thing—the Future -of the Race.</p> - -<p>So profound his apathy!</p> - -<p>And, as I looked, the “Future of the Race” turned to his father:</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">’</span>Ark at that b——y bird!” he said.</p> - -<p>It was a pigeon, who high upon a tree, had suddenly begun to croon. One -could see his head outlined against the grey, unstirring sky, first -bending back, then<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_238">{238}</a></span> down into his breast, then back again; and that soft -song of his filled all the air, like an invocation of fertility.</p> - -<p>“The Future of the Race” watched him for a minute without moving, and -suddenly he laughed. That laugh was a little hard noise like the -clapping of two boards—there was not a single drop of blood in it, nor -the faintest sound of music; so might a marionette have laughed—a -figure made of wood and wire!</p> - -<p>And in that laugh I seemed to hear innumerable laughter, the laughter in -a million homes of the myriad unfed.</p> - -<p>So laughed the Future of the richest and the freest and the proudest -race that had ever lived on earth, that February afternoon, with the -little green flames lighted in the grass, under a sky that knew not wind -or sun—so he laughed at the pigeon that was calling for the Spring.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_239">{239}</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_240">{240}</a></span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_241">{241}</a></span></p> -<h2><a id="JUSTICE"></a>JUSTICE<br /><br /> -<a id="XVIII"></a>XVIII<br /><br /> -<span class="smcap">Justice</span></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">Thinking</span> of him as he had looked, sitting there in his worn clothes, a -cloth cap crumpled in his hand, leaning a little forward, and staring at -the wall with those eyes of his that looked like fire behind steel bars; -remembering his words: “She’s dead to me—I’ll never think of her again -where I’m going!” I wrote this letter:</p> - -<p class="nind"> -“Dear ——,<br /> -</p> - -<p>“From something you said yesterday, I feel that I ought to tell you that -when you get to Canada you will not be free to marry again.</p> - -<p>“I was present, as you know, when you told your story in the Police -Court—a story very often told there. I know that you were not to blame, -and that all you said was true. Owing to no fault of<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_242">{242}</a></span> yours, your wife -has left you for a life of vice. Through this misfortune you have lost -your home, your children, and your work; and you are going to Canada as -a last resource. You and she will pass the rest of your lives in -different hemispheres. You are still a young man, strong, accustomed to -married life; you are going where married men are wanted, to a country -of great spaces and great loneliness, where your homestead may be miles -from any other.</p> - -<p>“This is all true enough; nevertheless you are as closely bound to this -wife who has left you for a life of public shame as if she were the -truest wife and mother in this city.</p> - -<p>“If, where you are going, you meet some girl that you would like to -marry, you must not, or you will be a bigamist—a criminal. If this girl -come to you unmarried, she will, of course, lose her good name. Your -children, if you have any, will be born in what is called a state of -shame; that they have had no voice in the matter of their birth won’t -help them,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_243">{243}</a></span> as you will find. If she refuses to come to you -unmarried—and you can hardly blame her—you will probably be driven, -like most men in your position, to get what comfort you can from women -who are like your wife. Society, of course, condemns these women, men of -heart regard them with compassion, men of science with dismay. They -breed canker in the nation; but as you cannot marry again, you will, I -fear, be driven to their company.</p> - -<p>“There is nothing special in your case—thousands in this country are in -a similar position; you are all governed by an impartial Law.</p> - -<p>“That Law is this: A woman can divorce a man who is faithless and treats -her with cruelty or deserts her. A man can divorce a woman who is -faithless. You could have divorced your wife! Why didn’t you? Let us -see!</p> - -<p>“You were first a soldier, and then a working man. They paid you as a -soldier, I believe, one shilling and twopence a day; suppose you saved -the pence,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_244">{244}</a></span> allowing for your wife not being on your hands, and your -children living on air? Fourteenpence a week—three pounds and -eightpence a year, if you were lucky. As a workman your wages were -thirty shillings a week? With four children you could save perhaps your -subscription to the <i>Hearts of Oak</i>, and, say, twopence a day besides? -Three pounds and eightpence every year. A divorce in the High Court of -Justice, for to that you were undoubtedly entitled by the Law, would -have cost you from sixty to a hundred pounds. So, if you could have -arranged to keep your witnesses alive, you might, with strict economy, -have been granted your decree, if not yourself already dead, in, say, -twenty years.</p> - -<p>“In this delay there is nothing peculiar or unjust. The Law, for rich or -poor, artisan or peer, is, as you know, identical. The Courts make no -distinction in favour of the wealthy over a man earning his seventy-odd -pounds a year, with five pounds in the Savings Bank—a decree for -millionaire, or clerk, or<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_245">{245}</a></span> working man, costs just about the same.</p> - -<p>“To this rule, however, there is one exception; it is of course in -favour of the poor. One who can prove that he is not worth the sum of -five-and-twenty pounds is entitled to the name of pauper, and can sue -for divorce <i>in formâ pauperis</i>. This does not indeed apply to working -men or clerks in work; but you, who, knocked out of time by the conduct -of your wife, had lost your work, and were sleeping in the parks at -night or in a common lodging house, not knowing where to turn, could not -have proved your worth at five-and-twenty pence. You could have sued <i>in -formâ pauperis</i>. This was a great privilege! You should have found a -lawyer who would undertake your case on no security, obtained your -evidence without the payment of a penny, got your witnesses to come to -the Court and give their time for nothing (when every idle hour meant -bread out of their mouths); you should have achieved these triumphs over -Nature, and you might have been di<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_246">{246}</a></span>vorced for anything from seven to -fifteen pounds. True, you had not seven to fifteen pence, but—you had -the privilege!</p> - -<p>“It is admitted that you were a good husband to your wife, as good a -husband as a man could be; it is admitted that the fault was hers -entirely. It is admitted that you were entitled to relief. By the Law, -which is the same for all, however, this was not enough.</p> - -<p>“For this is what I want you to fully understand: <i>A man of means</i> may -drive his wife to loathe him, provided he stop short of certain definite -things—for the Law does not allow him to be ‘cruel’ to her; he may -entertain himself with other women provided that she does not know, for -the Law does not allow him to be ‘faithless’; he may be, in fact, at -heart a ruffian or a rascal, but—<i>having means</i>—if she leave him for -another, he can, unless he has bad luck, be sure of his decree. Thus, it -did not really matter whether you were false to her, so long as she did -not know; it was almost superfluous to be so kind; what really mattered<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_247">{247}</a></span> -was that, either, as a working man with thirty shillings a week, you had -sixty to a hundred pounds—or, as a penniless pauper, you had seven to -fifteen.</p> - -<p>“The Law of Divorce, like all our laws, is made without fear or favour, -for the protection and safety of us all; it is founded in justice and -equity, that grievances may be redressed, and all who are wrong may have -their remedy. It does not concern itself whether a man is rich or poor, -but administers its simple principles, requiring those who are not -destitute to pay for their decrees at a price that is the same for all, -whatever their means may be; requiring those who are destitute to pay -for their decrees at a price beyond their means.</p> - -<p>“I seem to hear you asking: ‘Could I not have been granted a remedy at a -price proportioned to my means? Must I, and every working man whose wife -leaves him as mine did, to drink in public houses, and walk the streets -at night, be condemned for ever after to live alone, or to live in -immorality?<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_248">{248}</a></span>’</p> - -<p>“The answer is a simple one: ‘If all the clerks and working men, and all -those wives of clerks and working men—to whom, like you, divorce was -due by almost general consent, and was indeed by almost general consent -deemed of a desperate importance—were enabled to obtain it at a price -within their means, several thousand more divorces would each year be -granted in this country. This would have a disastrous effect upon the -statistics of the marriage tie. Public Opinion, formed, you must -remember, exclusively amongst your betters (for on such subjects working -men are, and always have been, dumb), formed exclusively by such as can -afford to pay for their decrees—this great Public Opinion would feel -that a backward step was being taken on the path of moral rectitude. It -would feel that, in granting what you, the People, in your dumbness and -short sight might be tempted to think was common justice, it would be -sacrificing the substance of morals to the shadow. The immorality to -which you and your like<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_249">{249}</a></span> under the present law are, and ever will be, -forced, need never lie open to the light of day, never become a matter -of statistics, and offend the Public Eye. What is not a matter of -statistics can do no damage to the country’s morals or the country’s -name. Public Opinion is itself secure in the enjoyment of the rights and -privileges granted by the law, and it has decided by a simple sacrifice -to conserve the moral fame of all. There must—it reasons—be a -sacrifice; then let us sacrifice those without the means to pay! It is -an accident that they, in their thousands, are not included in -ourselves; some must suffer that we may all be moral!’</p> - -<p>“This is the answer. It is too much, perhaps, to ask you, from the marsh -of suffering, with your low personal point of view, to appreciate the -heights of impersonality reached in this vicarious sacrifice. But you -may possibly respect its depths of common sense. Can you blame the -practical wisdom of this Public Opinion, in which you have no part? If<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_250">{250}</a></span> -you had a part in it, would you not yourself endorse it? If <i>you</i> were a -man of means, that is of means sufficient to enjoy the privileges of the -Law, would you seriously offer to exert yourself to upset your -conception of your country’s moral worth, and lose secretly a little of -your self-esteem, that you might extend those privileges to such of your -fellow-citizens as could not pay for them? Would you not rather feel: My -own position is secure; this idea is only sentiment, mere <i>abstract</i> -justice! If they want it they must pay for it!</p> - -<p>“By no means think that this great principle of payment is confined -merely to divorce; it underlies all justice in a greater or a less -degree. It is ‘money makes the mare to go!’ It is money that dictates -the measure of justice and its methods. But this is so mingled with the -essence of our lives that we do not even notice it. Why, you could -hardly find a man who, if you went to him in private and put your case, -would not say at once that you were hardly used! To<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_251">{251}</a></span> the Law you cannot -go privately; and the Law is the guardian of all justice.</p> - -<p>“I have told you the requirements of the Law. You have not fulfilled -them. And, having made this error, you must, evidently, now go forth, -either to enjoy your own society for the remainder of your days, or, as -Nature drives you, to consort with those who at each touch will remind -you of what your wife has now become; and in this journey of enjoyment, -whichever of the two journeys it may be, you will be sustained, no -doubt, by the consciousness that you are serving the morality of your -country, and strengthening the esteem in which the marriage tie is held. -You will be inspired by the knowledge that you are sharing this voyage -of pleasure and of privilege with thousands of other men and women, as -decent and as kind as you. And you will feel, year by year, prouder and -prouder of your country that has reached these heights of justice....<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_253">{253}</a></span><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_252">{252}</a></span>”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_254">{254}</a></span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_255">{255}</a></span></p> -<h2><a id="HOPE"></a>HOPE<br /><br /> -<a id="XIX"></a>XIX<br /><br /> -<span class="smcap">Hope</span></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">Wet</span> or fine, hot or cold, nothing was more certain than that the lame -man would pass, leaning on his twisted oaken stick, his wicker basket -slung on his shoulder. In that basket, covered by a bit of sacking, was -groundsel, and rarely, in the season, a few mushrooms kept carefully -apart in a piece of newspaper.</p> - -<p>His blunt, wholesome, weather-beaten face with its full brown beard, now -going grey, was lined and sad because his leg continually gave him pain. -That leg had shrivelled through an accident, and being now two inches -shorter than it should have been, did little save remind him of -mortality. He had a respectable, though not an affluent, appearance, for -his old blue overcoat, his trousers, waistcoat, hat, were ragged from -long use and stained by<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_256">{256}</a></span> weather. He had been a deep-sea fisherman -before his accident, but now he made his living by standing on the -pavement at a certain spot, in Bayswater, from ten o’clock to seven in -the evening. And any one who wished to give her bird a luxury would stop -before his basket, and buy a pennyworth of groundsel.</p> - -<p>Often—as he said—he had “a job to get it,” rising at five o’clock, and -going out of London by an early tram to the happy hunting grounds of -those who live on the appetites of caged canaries. Here, dragging his -injured limb with difficulty through ground that the heavens seldom -troubled to keep dry for him, he would stoop and toilfully amass the -small green plant with its close yellow-centred heads, though often—as -he mentioned—“there don’t seem no life like in the stuff, the frosts -ha’ spiled it!” Having collected all that Fate permitted him, he would -take the tram back home, and start out for his day’s adventure.</p> - -<p>Now and again, when things had not gone well, his figure would be seen -stump<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_257">{257}</a></span>ing home through darkness as late as nine or ten o’clock at night. -On such occasions his grey-blue eyes, which had never quite lost their -look of gazing through sea-mists, would reflect the bottom of his soul, -where the very bird of weariness lay with its clipped wings, for ever -trying to regain the air.</p> - -<p>In fact—as he had no need to tell you—he was a “trier” from year’s end -to year’s end, but he had no illusions concerning his profession—there -was “nothing in it”; though it was better on the whole than flowers, -where there was less than nothing. And, after all, having got accustomed -to the struggles of that bird of weariness within his soul, he would -even perhaps have missed it, had it at last succeeded in rising from the -ground and taking flight.</p> - -<p>“An ’ard life!” he had been heard to say when groundsel was scarce, -customers scarcer, and the damp had struck up into his shrivelled leg. -This, stated as a matter of fact, was the extent of his general -complaint, though he would not<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_258">{258}</a></span> unwillingly descant on the failings of -his groundsel, his customers, and leg, to the few who could appreciate -such things. But, as a rule, he stood or sat, silent, watching the world -go by, as in old days he had watched the waves drift against his -anchored fishing-smack; and the look of those blurred-blue, far-gazing -eyes of his, in their extraordinary patience, was like a constant -declaration of the simple and unconscious creed of man: “I hold on till -I drop.”</p> - -<p>What he thought about while he stood there it was difficult to -say—possibly of old days round the Goodwins, of the yellow buttons of -his groundsel that refused to open properly, of his leg, and dogs that -would come sniffing at his basket and showing their contempt, of his -wife’s gouty rheumatism, and herrings for his tea, of his arrears of -rent, of how few people seemed to want his groundsel, and once more of -his leg.</p> - -<p>Practically no one stopped to look at him, unless she wanted a -pennyworth of groundsel for her pale bird. And when<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_259">{259}</a></span> they did look at -him they saw—nothing symbolic—simply a brown-bearded man, with deep -furrows in his face, and a lame leg, whose groundsel was often of a -quality that they did not dare to offer their canaries. They would tell -him so, adding that the weather was cold; to which, knowing a little -more about it than themselves, he would reply: “Yes, m’m—you wouldn’t -believe how I feel it in my leg.” In this remark he was extremely -accurate, but they would look away, and pass on rather hastily, doubting -whether a man should mention a lame leg—it looked too much as if he -wanted to make something out of it. In truth he had the delicacy of a -deep-sea fisherman, but he had owned his leg so long that it had got on -his nerves; it was too intimate a part of all his life, and speak of it -he must. And sometimes, but generally on warm and genial days, when his -groundsel was properly in bloom and he had less need of adventitious -help, his customers would let their feelings get the better of them and -give him pennies, when ha’pennies<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_260">{260}</a></span> would have been enough. This, -unconsciously, had served to strengthen his habit of alluding to his -leg.</p> - -<p>He had, of course, no holidays, but occasionally he was absent from his -stand. This was when his leg, feeling that he was taking it too much as -a matter of course, became what he would call “a mass o’ pain.” Such -occasions threw him behindhand with his rent; but, as he said: “If you -can’t get out, you can’t—can you?” After these vacations he would make -special efforts, going far afield for groundsel, and remaining on his -stand until he felt that if he did not get off it then, he never would.</p> - -<p>Christmas was his festival, for at Christmas people were more indulgent -to their birds, and his regular customers gave him sixpence. This was -just as well, for, whether owing to high living, or merely to the cold, -he was nearly always laid up about that time. After this annual bout of -“brownchitis,” as he called it, his weather-beaten face looked strangely -pale, his blue eyes seemed to<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_261">{261}</a></span> have in them the mist of many watches—so -might the drowned ghost of a deep-sea fisherman have looked; and his -pale roughened hand would tremble, hovering over the groundsel that had -so little bloom, trying to find something that a bird need not despise.</p> - -<p>“You wouldn’t believe the job I had to find even this little lot,” he -would say. “Sometimes I thought I’d leave me leg be’ind, I was that weak -I couldn’ seem to drag it through the mud at all. An’ my wife, she’s got -the gouty rheumatiz. You’ll think that I’m all trouble!” And, summoning -God-knows-what spirit of hilarity, he smiled. Then, looking at the leg -he had nearly left behind, he added somewhat boastfully: “You see, it’s -got no strength in it at all—there’s not a bit o’ muscle left.... Very -few people,” his eyes and voice seemed proudly saying, “have got a leg -like this!”</p> - -<p>To the dispassionate observer of his existence it was a little difficult -to understand what attraction life could have for<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_262">{262}</a></span> him; a little -difficult to penetrate down through the blackness of his continual toil -and pains, to the still living eyes of that bird of weariness, lying -within his soul, moving always, if but slightly, its wounded stumps of -wings. It seemed, on the whole, unreasonable of this man to cling to -life, since he was without prospect of anything but what was worse in -this life; and, in the matter of a life to come, would dubiously remark: -“My wife’s always a-tellin’ me we can’t be no worse off where we’re -a-goin’. An’ she’s right, no doubt, if so be as we’re goin’ anywhere!”</p> - -<p>And yet, so far as could be seen, the thought: “Why do I continue -living?” never came to him. It almost seemed as if it must be giving him -a secret joy to measure himself against his troubles. And this was -fortunate, for in a day’s march one could not come across a better omen -for the future of mankind.</p> - -<p>In the crowded highway, beside his basket, he stood, leaning on his -twisted stick, with his tired, steadfast face—a<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_263">{263}</a></span> ragged statue to the -great, unconscious human virtue, the most hopeful and inspiring of all -things on earth: Courage without Hope!</p> - -<p class="fint"><span class="smcap">End.</span></p> - -<div class="c"> -<img src="images/back.jpg" height="550" alt="" /> -</div> - -<hr class="full" /> -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A COMMENTARY ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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