Mr. Temple celebrated the return of his son by a great dinner, at
which a number of distinguished persons were present; later in the
evening his mother held a reception. The evening before the party
Arthur was sitting with his parents looking over the list of guests,
and he could not help being struck with their quality. Nearly every
man invited was a man of mark in the land--politicians, lawyers, a few
whose chief merit was their wealth, and some few also of the foremost
workers in the ranks of art and literature. Arthur was pleased at the
opportunity of becoming personally acquainted with these shining
lights.
"You will regard this as your first introduction into society," said
Mr. Temple to his son. "I shall be glad to see you form friendships,
which will bring you both pleasure and profit."
It was unfortunate that, despite his affection for his son, Mr. Temple
could never avoid introducing into their conversations chance words
and phrases which grated upon the sensitive mind of the younger man.
The word "profit" was one of these. Arthur, however, made no comment
upon this, and the rebellious expression which overcast his features
for an instant was not observed by his father.
"You have much to speak of," continued Mr. Temple, "that will be new
and interesting to many of our friends, and I need not say that as my
son you will be heartily welcomed."
"That, of course, sir," said Arthur; "it will not be, I am afraid, for
my own deservings."
"That cannot come, Arthur, until you are personally known, and then I
trust it will be for your sake as well as for mine that friends will
attach themselves to you. But indeed I have no doubt that such will be
the case."
"You are more confident than I am, sir," said Arthur seriously. "I
have my fears as to whether I shall feel at home in this new and
polished atmosphere, after my experiences of the last two years."
"You have no need to fear, Arthur; I am satisfied with you. I think I
shall not make you vain when I tell you that your manners are fitted
for any circle."
Arthur's mother gazed fondly upon him as he replied, "It is an
inheritance, sir, as are honour and truth, which I owe equally to
you."
"I must confess that it was not with entire confidence I saw you
depart for your travels, but you have returned improved, if anything.
Contact with the world has already improved you, and has opened your
mind to the value of the requirements of society."
"Whether it be so," said Arthur, with seriousness, "has yet to be
proved. In the New World, with its rougher manners, I have seen much
to admire--more, indeed, than in these more civilised surroundings. It
is not whether they are fitted for me--it is whether I am fitted for
them."
"There is plenty of romance to be found in these more sober scenes; it
will come to you, Arthur, as it has come to others."
"In what shape, sir? And have you met with yours?"
Mr. Temple coloured slightly, and devoted himself more closely to his
paper, which he was perusing in the intervals of the conversation.
Mrs. Temple sighed and looked away. Arthur had inadvertently touched a
chord which vibrated keenly in the breasts of his parents. He did not
know, and had never heard, that his father had married for money and
position, had married without love, but it was no less a fact. A fact
of which his mother was not aware until after marriage. It was not a
sudden discovery on her part; it was a gradual awakening, made more
bitter by the womanly suspicion of another face, fairer perhaps than
hers, and better loved in the past. In this she invested Mr. Temple
with qualities which he did not possess, and fashioned a hero--not
hers, but another woman's--out of very common clay. There had never
been any bickerings between her and her husband; she had not
distressed him with any outburst of jealously; and he gave her no
cause for complaint that the world would have recognised and
sympathised with. He was an exemplary husband, faithful and attentive,
and was held up as a model by other wives. Mrs. Temple, before her
marriage, had had her romance in her love for her husband; a romance
carefully fed by him at that time, for he played the lover skillfully.
But shortly after they became man and wife her dreams faded slowly and
surely away. She saw that he had no heart for her, and it was most
natural in her to be positive that, with his attractive person and the
soft blandishments of speech of which she had had experience when he
wooed her, he had bestowed his heart elsewhere. She kept her secret
well, and he was ignorant of it. Had she led him to suspect that she
believed herself to be betrayed, it would have caused him much
amazement. In the early years of her married life she was not
regardless of his movements, but she made no discovery to confirm her
jealousy. She was in the habit of watching his expressions when he
opened his letters, and of listening with agonised attention to the
murmurings in his sleep; but she learnt nothing. Had there been
anything to discover she would not have discovered it; she was no
match for him in subtlety. Slowly she accepted her fate, with no
outward repining, and they lived that calm passionless life which to
some souls is worse than death, and which with some highly nervous
organisations occasionally leads to violent terminations and tragic
results.
"You were saying, Arthur," said Mr. Temple, with a direct evasion of
Arthur's light question, "that you saw much to admire in the rough
manners of the men among whom you travelled."
"Very much, sir. The proper assertion of a proper independence, for
instance. The kingliness of manhood has no such exemplification in
this city of unrest as it has in the free air of the New World, where
men and women are not unhealthfully crowded together in small spaces.
I see here, among the lower classes of society, no such free step, no
such blithe spirits, as I have been accustomed to see among men in the
same position at the other end of the world."
"There are grades even there, Arthur."
"Surely, sir; and human beings, wherever they cluster, must be
dependent upon each other; but there, all grades express in their tone
and bearing their obligation to each other, as equally from those
above to those below, as from those below to those above. It is
mutual, and there is no shame in it. Now, such dependence as I see
here is ingrained in either real or assumed humiliation. Where it is
real, it is pitiable and unnatural; where it is assumed, it is
detestable. Either way it is bad and degrading."
"Admitting all this--which I do not--to what do you attribute this
worse condition of affairs?"
"If you will pardon me," replied Arthur with modesty, "I have not
gone as far as that. I have my thoughts, but I must see more before I
should consider myself justified in accusing. I merely record what
present themselves as clear pictures to my mind."
"When you see more, and are able from positive experience and
observation to form just conclusions, you will admit that we must
accept the world as we find it, and that the only wise course is to
make use of it to our advantage."
"To turn its foibles to our advantage, sir?"
"Most certainly."
"Its shipwrecks and calamities--you know what I mean, sir--to turn
even those to our advantage?"
"It is always a difficult thing to argue with an enthusiast,
especially with an enthusiast whom one loves as I love you."
"I know you love me, sir," interrupted Arthur, warmly, "but I do not
like the idea you have expressed. I think you would scarcely uphold it
in its fulness."
"It is not difficult for a skilful disputant to turn his adversary's
words against himself, and so to colour them as to make them bear a
stronger and therefore different interpretation. Logic is an excellent
weapon, Arthur, but it may be much abused."
"Admitted, sir. But it seems to me that it would be more noble and
honourable to turn the experience we gained of the world to the
world's advantage instead of to our own."
"The two aims may go together; but it is an absolute necessity that we
should never lose sight of ourselves."
"And of our own aggrandisement?" interrupted Arthur.
"Yes, if you put it that way, though there are pleasanter ways of
expressing it."
"More polished ways, sir?"
"Yes."
"But not more truthful."
"Probably not," said Mr. Temple, with no show of irritation, though he
was secretly annoyed. "Remember that self-preservation is Nature's
first law."
"Which does not mean," said Arthur, flying off at a tangent, as is the
way with most impulsive natures, "that we should be continually
stabbing our comrades in the race, or grudging to others honours
worthily won--such as yours, sir--or withholding from others a true
meed of admiration because our own merits--which, of course in our own
estimation, are very great--have not been so generally recognised."
"These are common phrases, Arthur. Let me warn you to beware of
platitudes. No platitudinarian ever rose in the world, or made for
himself more than a mediocre reputation."
"That is flying away from the argument, sir," said Arthur vivaciously.
"Very well, then. I understand you to express that you should deem
yourself as fortunate if you were unsuccessful in an ambition as if
you had accomplished it."
"Not quite that, sir, but in some small way I can imagine
circumstances in which I should deem defeat a victory."
"Do not imagine, Arthur--or, at all events, imagine as little as you
can. Action is what the world calls for, is what the world demands of
its leaders. And if you can act in such a way as not to oppose an
established order of things, success is all the more sure."
"There is much to admire in souls which, animated by high desires,
suffer from opposing an established order of things, and are
consequently not prosperous."
"You have hit a nail, Arthur," said Mr. Temple, with emphasis;
"'_consequently_ not prosperous.'"
"Exactly so, sir; you take my meaning. I see in these unprosperous men
much more to admire than in successful time-servers. And remember,
sir," said Arthur, who frequently showed much pertinaciousness in
argument, "that the very carrying out in its integrity of the axiom
that preservation is Nature's first law would rob history of its most
noble and heroic examples. I hope you do not mind my expressing myself
thus plainly and, as I perceive, antagonistically to your views."
"Not at all. It is better that you should speak plainly to me what is
in your mind than that you should needlessly betray yourself to
strangers, who would not understand you." (Arthur was about to say
here that he should not be deterred from expressing himself clearly in
any society, but his father anticipated the declaration, and gave him
no opportunity of expressing it.) "It does one good to be able to
relieve himself in confidence of the vapours that oppress him. The air
becomes clearer afterwards. Notwithstanding our seeming difference, I
trust that our sympathies are in common----"
"I trust so, sir."
"We speak and judge from different standpoints; I from a long and
varied experience of human nature, you from the threshold of life.
When you are my age, you will think exactly as I do, and will be
perhaps endeavouring, as I am endeavouring now, to check in your own
children the enthusiasm which blinds one with excess of light, and
which almost invariably leads to false and unpractical conclusions."
Arthur pondered over these words in silence, as he sat and glanced at
a newspaper, as his father was doing. The calm judicial air which Mr.
Temple assumed in these arguments enabled him generally to obtain an
apparent victory, but it was seldom that either of the disputants was
satisfied with the result. Purposely cultivating the intimacy between
himself and Arthur, so that he might counteract the enthusiasm which
he feared might step in the worldly way of his son, Mr. Temple was
conscious that he effected but little good, and he could not but
acknowledge to himself with inward trepidation that Arthur never
failed to advocate the nobler side. This acknowledgment brought to his
soul a sense of deep reproach--reproach which had he not loved his
son, and based all his hopes upon him, might have caused an
estrangement between them. For it was Arthur's words which awoke, not
exactly his conscience, but his intellectual judgment, which compelled
him to admit within the recesses of his own heart that he always
played the meaner and the baser part in their arguments. Sometimes he
asked himself if the lad was sincere; he subjected his own life as a
young man to a critical analysis, to discover whether he had been led
away in his estimate of men and things as he feared Arthur was being
led away. It was characteristic of the man that at this period of his
life--whatever he may have done in his more youthful days--he did not
juggle with himself. In his solitary musings and communings with his
inner nature he admitted the truth--but the glowing and delicate
promptings never passed his lips, never found utterance. So now, on
looking back, he saw at a single mental glance the wide barrier which
divided his passions and his enthusiasms from those of his son. This
barrier may be expressed in one word: selfishness. It was this
sentiment that had ruled his life, that had made him blind to the
consequences he might inflict upon others by his acts. Whether it were
a voluntary or involuntary guiding, by this sentiment had he been led
step by step up the ladder, casting no look at the despair which lay
behind him. It was otherwise with Arthur; his father recognised that
his son's promptings were generous and noble, and that there was no
atom of selfishness in his judgment of this and that. And when he came
to this point a smile played about his lips, and a world of meaning
found expression in his unuttered thought: "Arthur has not yet begun
to live."
The lad thought also; he did not pause to ask himself whether his
convictions were right or wrong--to those he was fixed by an unerring
instinct. But he tried, with little success, to bring his views into
harmony with his father's worldly wisdom. The only consolation he
derived was in the reflection that there was more than one fair road
to a goal. As to throwing a doubt upon his father's rectitude and
honour, no shadow of such a thought crossed his mind. He felt, as his
father did, that there was a barrier between them, and he mentally
resolved to endeavour to break it down. He glanced at his father's
immovable face and tightly-closed lips, and saw that he was occupied
by musings that distressed him. "It is I," thought Arthur, "who have
given him pain. He is disappointed in me. Surely it is only because we
cannot arrive at an understanding." How to commence to break down this
barrier? The first means were in his hands--a newspaper, the epitome
of life in all its large and small aspects, from the deposing of an
emperor to the celebration of a new style in bonnets, from the
horrible massacre of thousands of human beings in the East of Europe
to the mild kicking of his wife by a costermonger in the East of
London.
He commenced in a trembling voice--for the lad was the soul of
ingenuousness, and could not play a part, however small, without
betraying himself--by an introductory comment on a political question
of the day. Mr. Temple instantly aroused himself, and replied, without
observing Arthur's agitation. Gaining confidence, Arthur proceeded,
and an animated conversation ensued. Their views were again
antagonistic, but there was nothing personally painful in their
dissent. With the skill of long experience Mr. Temple drew Arthur out
upon the theme, and the lad became eloquent, as earnestness generally
is--but this eloquence, combined with this earnestness, was of a
standard so high, and the language and periods in which Arthur
illustrated his points were at once so powerful and polished, that Mr.
Temple thrilled with exultation, and he thought, "All is well." His
face cleared, his manner was almost joyous, and when the subject was
exhausted he said:
"Arthur, you have afforded me great delight. I cannot express my pride
and pleasure. You are an orator."
Arthur blushed and stammered; the praise unnerved him, and brought him
back to sober earth.
"Yes," continued Mr. Temple, "you are an orator, and you will fall
into your proper groove in life---- Nay, do not interrupt me; you will
verify my prediction. When a great, a noble gift is given to a man,
and he knows that it is his, and when opportunity is given to him as
it will be given to you, it is impossible for him to neglect it. God
has given you the gift of eloquence, and you will fail in your duty if
you do not properly use it. You are far in advance of me; I am
accounted a good speaker, but I confess to you that I never lose
myself in my words; if I did, I should become incoherent. I know
beforehand what I am about to say; your words are unstudied, and are
conveyed with a fire which cannot but stir your listeners to
enthusiasm. That your political views differ from mine hurts me but
little." Arthur raised his face to his father's in quick, affectionate
response. "I am a Conservative; if your views do not undergo change,
you will become a Liberal; and in this you will but march with the
times. The fields are equally honourable. You will become a champion,
a leader of your party. My dear boy, my fondest hopes will be realised
in you."
From politics they passed to other themes, drawn from the columns of
the newspaper, and then silence reigned for a little while. Mrs.
Temple had left the room, and Arthur was now engaged in a column which
appeared to interest him more than politics, foreign complications or
the state of the money market, all of which matters had formed subject
of conversation.
Presently he spoke.
"It is a great pleasure to me to be able to speak openly to you, sir,
and to feel that, though you do not always agree with me, I can say
exactly what is in my mind."
"Unhappily, Arthur, this kind of confidence is too rarely cultivated.
It needs no cultivation in us. It already exists."
As he spoke his arm stole about Arthur's shoulder, and fondly rested
there.
"You have so directed my thoughts to myself and the career before me
that as I read I find myself almost unconsciously examining the
relative impressions produced upon me by current events."
"An intellectual sign, Arthur."
"Pray, sir, do not flatter me too much," said Arthur, seriously; "it
produces in me a sensation which is not entirely agreeable."
"You must make allowance, Arthur, for a father's pride in his son."
"Forgive me for my remark; I forgot myself for a moment. I doubt
whether I deserve the love you bestow upon me."
"You more than deserve it, my dear boy, by returning it."
"Which I do sir, heartily, sincerely. Well then, I was about to say
that I find myself much more affected by the domestic and social
incidents in the newspapers than by the larger historical records. For
instance, neither the political crisis nor the war produces within me
so strong an impression as the sad history comprised in this short
paragraph."
Mr. Temple turned his head towards the paper, and glanced at the
paragraph pointed out by Arthur, making no attempt to read it.
"Concerning any public person, Arthur?"
"No, sir. Concerning one whose name might never have been known but
for her misfortunes."
"_Her_ misfortunes! A woman, then?"
"A poor girl, found drowned in the river."
"Murdered?"
"She met her death by her own hands. On the river bank she had
placed her child, a mere infant three or four months old. The poor
girl--scarcely my age, and well-looking, the account says--must have
drowned herself in the night when it was dark. First she stripped
herself of her warm underclothing, and wrapped her baby in it to
protect it from the cold, hoping, no doubt, that it would fall into
humane hands soon after she walked to her doom. But the night passed,
and the child was not discovered. By a strange fatality, within a few
hours after the girl-mother was drowned, the waves washed her body on
to the river's bank near to the form of her child, and when the sun
shone, its light fell upon the dead mother and her living child lying
side by side. There was nothing about her to prove her identity; even
the initials on her clothes had been carefully removed. But a paper
was found, on which was written, evidently by one of fair education:
'By my sinful act I remove myself and my shame from the eyes of a
cruel world. I die in despair, unconsoled by the belief that
retribution will fall upon the head of him who betrayed and deserted
me.' On the head of him who betrayed her! Is it possible that such a
man, after reading this record of his guilt--as perhaps he may be
doing at this very moment--can enjoy a moment's happiness? Is it
possible that he can sleep? Though by this dead girl's generosity his
secret is safe, retribution will fall upon him--as surely as there is
a heaven above us! If I discovered that ever in my life I had clasped
the hand of such a man, I should be tempted to cut mine from its wrist
to rid myself of the shameful contamination of his touch! What is the
matter, sir? You are ill!"
"A sudden faintness, Arthur--nothing more. I have been working hard
lately, and I need rest. Goodnight."
As Mr. Temple rose to leave the room, he turned from Arthur's anxious
gaze a face that was like the face of a ghost.