He was given that way almost from his nursery days, for he could not
even dress without racing his little brother in the doing up of little
buttons, and being upset if he got one little button behind. At the age
of eight he climbed all the trees of his father’s garden and, arriving
at their tops, felt a pang because the creatures left off so abruptly
that he could not get any higher. He wrestled with anybody who did
not mind rolling on the floor; and stayed awake once all night because
he heard that one of his cousins was coming next day and was a year
older than himself. It was not that he desired to see this cousin, to
welcome, or give him a good time; he simply designed to race him in the
kitchen-garden, and to wrestle with him afterward. It would be grand,
he thought, to bump the head of some one a year older than himself. The
cousin, however, was “scratched” at the last moment. It was a blow. At
the age of ten he cut his head open against a swing, and so far forgot
himself as to cry when he saw the blood flowing. To have missed such
an opportunity of being superior to other small boys made an indelible
mark on his soul, for, though he had not cried from pain, he had from
fright, and felt he might have beaten both emotions, if only he had had
proper warning.
His first term at school he came out top, after a terrific struggle;
there was one other boy in the class. And term after term he went on
coming out top, or very near it. He never knew what he was learning,
but he knew that he beat other boys. He ran all the races he could, and
played all the games; not because he enjoyed them, but because unless
you did you could not win. He was considered almost a prize specimen.
He went to college in an exhausted condition, and for two years
devoted himself to dandyism, designing to be the coolest, slackest,
best-dressed man up. He almost was. But as that day approached when
one must either beat or be beaten in learning by one’s contemporaries,
a fearful feeling beset him, and he rushed off to a crammer. For a
whole year he poured the crammer’s notes into his memory. What they
were all about he had no notion, but his memory retained them just
over that hot week when he sat writing for his life, twice a day. He
would have received a First, had not an examiner who did not understand
that examinations are simply held to determine who can beat whom,
asked him in the living voice a question, to answer which required a
knowledge of why there was an answer. He came down exhausted, and ate
his dinners for the Bar. It was an occupation at which he could achieve
no distinction save that of eating them faster than any other student;
and for two whole years he merely devoted himself to trying to be the
best amateur actor and the best shot in the land. His method of acting
was based on nothing so flat as identification with the character he
personified, but on the amount of laughter and applause that he could
get in excess of that bestowed on any other member of the company. Nor
did he shoot birds because he loved them, like a true sportsman, but
because it was a pleasure to him to feel each day that he had shot or
was going to shoot more than any one else who was shooting with him.
The time had now come for him to embrace his profession, and he did
so like a true Briton, with his eye ever on the future. He perceived
from the first that this particular race was longer than any race
he had ever started for, and he began slowly, with a pebble in his
mouth, husbanding his wind. The whole thing was extremely dry and
extremely boring, but of course one had to get there before all those
other fellows. And round and round he ran, increasing his speed almost
imperceptibly, soon beginning to have his eye on the half-dozen who
seemed dangerously likely to get there before him if he did not mind
that eye. It cannot be said that he enjoyed his work, or cared for
the money it brought him, for, what with getting through his day,
and thinking of those other fellows who might be forging ahead of
him, he had no time to spend money, or even to give it away. And so
it began rolling up. One day, however, perceiving that he had quite a
lot, the thought came to him that he ought to do something with it.
And happening soon after to go into a picture-gallery, he bought a
picture. He had not had it long before it seemed to him better than the
picture of a friend who rather went in for them; and he thought, “I
could easily beat him if I gave myself to it a little.” And he did. It
was fascinating to perceive, each time he bought, that his taste had
improved, and was getting steadily ahead of his friend’s taste; and,
indeed, not only of his friend’s, but of that of other people. He felt
that soon he would have better taste than anybody, and he bought and
bought. It was not that he cared for the pictures, for he really had
not time or mind to give to them--set as he was on reaching eminence;
but he dreamed of leaving them to the National Gallery as a monument
to his taste, and final proof of superiority to his friend, after they
were both gone.
About this time he took silk, sacrificing nearly half of his income.
He would have preferred to wait longer, had he not perceived that if
he did wait, his friends ---- and ---- and ---- ---- would be taking
silk before him. And, since he meant to be a judge first, this must
naturally be guarded against. The prospective loss of so much income
made him for a moment restful and expansive, as if he felt that he had
been pushed almost too far by his competitive genius; and so he found
time to marry--it being the commencement of the long vacation. For six
weeks he hardly thought of his friends ---- and ---- and ---- ----,
but near the end of September he was shocked back into a more normal
frame of mind by the news that they also had been offered and had taken
silk. It behoved him, he felt, to put his wife behind him and go back
into harness. It would be just like those fellows to get ahead of him,
if they could; and he curtailed his honeymoon by quite three weeks.
Not two years, however, elapsed before it became clear to him that to
keep his place he must enter Parliament. And against his own natural
feelings, against even the inclinations of his country, he secured a
seat at the general election and began sitting. What, then, was his
chagrin to find that his friend ----, and his friend ----, and even
his friend ---- ----, had also secured seats, and were sitting when he
got there! What with the courts, and what with ‘the House,’ he became
lean and very yellow; and his wife complained. He determined to give
her a child every year to keep her quiet; for he felt that he must
have perfect peace in his home surroundings if he were to maintain
his position in the great life race for which he had started, knowing
that his friends ---- and ---- and ---- ---- would never hesitate to
avail themselves of his ill health, to beat him. None of those wretched
fellows were having so many children. He did not find his work in
Parliament congenial; it seemed to him unreal. For he could not get
his mind--firmly fixed on himself and the horizon--to believe that all
those little measures which he was continually passing would benefit
people with whose lives he really had not time or inclination to be
familiar. When one had got up, prepared two cases, had breakfasted,
walk down to the courts, sat there from half-past ten to four, walked
to ‘the House,’ sat there a little longer than his friend ---- ----
(the worst of them), spoken if his friend ---- had spoken, or if he
thought his friend ---- were going to speak, had dinner, prepared two
cases, kissed his wife, mentally compared his last picture with that
last one of his friend’s, had a glass of barley-water, and gone to
bed--when one had done all this, there really was not time for living
his own life, much less any one else’s. He sometimes thought he would
have to give up doing so much; but that, of course, was out of the
question, seeing that his friends would at once shoot ahead. He took
“Vitogen” instead. They used his photograph, with the words, “It does
wonders with me,” coming out of his mouth, and on the opposite page
they used a photograph of his friend ---- ----, with the words, “I take
a glass a day, and revel in it,” coming out of his. On discovering this
he increased the amount at some risk to two glasses, determined not to
be outdone by that fellow.
He sometimes wondered whether, in the army, the church, the stock
exchange, or in literature, he would not have had a more restful life;
for he would by no means have admitted that he carried within himself
the microbe of his own fate.
His natural love of beauty, for instance, inspired him when he saw a
sunset, or a mountain, or even a sea, with the thought: How jolly it
would be to look at it! But he had gradually become so reconciled to
knowing he had not time for this that he never did. But if he had heard
by any chance that his friend ---- ---- did find time to contemplate
such natural beauties, he would certainly have contrived somehow to
contemplate them too.
As the time approached for being made a judge he compared himself more
and more carefully with his friends ---- and ---- ----. If they were
appointed before him, it would be very serious for his prospects of
ultimate pre-eminence. And it was with a certain relief, tempered with
sorrow, that he heard one summer morning that his friend ---- had
fallen seriously ill, and was not expected to recover. He was assiduous
in the expression of an anxiety that was quite genuine. His friend ----
died as the courts rose. And all through that long vacation he thought
continually of poor ----, and of his career cut so prematurely short.
It was then that the idea came to him of capping his efforts by writing
a book. He chose for subject, “The Evils of Competition in the Modern
State,” and devoted to it every minute he could spare during autumn
months, fortunately bereft of Parliamentary duties. It would just,
he felt make the difference between himself and his friends ---- and
---- ----, to a government essentially favourable to literary men. He
finished it at Christmas, and arranged for a prompt publication. It was
with a certain natural impatience that he read, two days later, of the
approaching issue of a book by his friend ---- ----, entitled, “Joy of
Life, or the Cult of the Moment.” What on earth the fellow was about to
rush into print and on such a subject he was at a loss to understand!
The book came out a week before his own. He read the reviews rather
feverishly, for they were favourable. What to do now to recover his
lead he hardly knew. If he had not been married it might have been
possible to arrange something in that line with the daughter of an
important personage; as it was, there was nothing for it but to part
with his pictures to the National Gallery by way of a loan. And this
he did, to the chagrin of his wife, about the middle of May. On the
1st of June he read in his Sunday paper that his friend ---- ---- had
given his library outright to the British Museum. Some relief to the
strain of his anxiety, however, was afforded in July by the unexpected
accession of his friend ---- to a peerage, through the death of a
cousin. The estate attached was considerable. He felt that this friend
at all events would not continue to struggle; he would surely recognise
that he was removed from active life. His premonition was correct; and
his friend ---- ---- and himself were left to fight it out alone.
That judge who had so long been expected to quit his judgeship did so
for another world in the fourth week of the long vacation.
He hastened back to town at once. This was one of the most crucial
moments of a crucial career. If appointed, he would be the youngest
judge. But his friend ---- ---- was of the same age, the same politics,
the same calibre in every way, and more robust. During those weeks of
waiting, therefore, he grew perceptibly greyer. His joy knew only the
bonds of a careful concealment, when, at the beginning of October,
he was appointed a judge of the High Court; for it was not till the
following morning that he learned that his friend ---- ---- had also
been appointed, the Government having decided to add one to the number
of His Majesty’s judges. Which of them had been made the extra judge
he neither dared nor cared to inquire; but, setting his teeth, entered
forthwith on his duties.
It cannot be pretended that he liked them; to like them one would have
to take a profound, and, as it were, amateurish interest in equity and
the lives of one’s fellow-men. For this, of course, he had not time,
having to devote all his energies to not having his judgments reversed,
and watching the judgments of his friend ---- ----. In the first year
that fellow was upset in the Court of Appeal three times oftener than
himself, and it came as a blow when the House of Lords so restored
him that they came out equal. In other respects, of course, the life
was something of a rest after that which he had led hitherto, and he
watched himself carefully lest he might deteriorate, and be tempted
to enjoy himself, steadily resisting every effort on the part of his
friends and family to draw him into recreations other than those of
dining out, playing golf, and improving his acquaintanceship with that
Law of which he would require a perfect knowledge when he became Lord
Chancellor. He never could quite make up his mind whether to be glad
or sorry that his friend ---- ---- did not confine himself entirely to
this curriculum.
At about this epoch he became so extremely moderate in his politics
that neither party knew to which of them he belonged. It was a period
of uncertainty when no man could say in whose hands power would be in,
say, five or ten years’ time, and instinctively he felt that he must
look ahead. A moderate man stood perhaps the greater chance of steady
and perpetual preferment, and he felt moderate, now that the spur of
a necessary political activity was removed. It was a constant source
of uneasiness to him that his friend ---- ---- had become so dark a
horse that one could find out nothing about his political convictions;
people, indeed, went so far as to say that the beggar had none.
He had not been a judge four years when an epidemic of influenza
swept off three of His Majesty’s judges, and sent one mad; and almost
imperceptibly he found himself sitting with his friend ---- ---- in the
Court of Appeal. Having the fellow there under his eye day by day, he
was able to study him, and noted with satisfaction that, though more
robust, he was certainly of full and choleric temperament, and not
too careful of himself. At once he began taking extra care of his own
health, giving up wine, tobacco, and any other pleasure that he had
left. For three years they sat there side by side, almost mechanically
differing in their judgments; and then one morning the Prime Minister
went and made his friend ---- ---- Lord Chief Justice, and himself
only Master of the Rolls. The shock was very great. After a week’s
indisposition, he reset his teeth and decided to struggle on; his
friend ---- ---- was not Lord Chancellor yet! Two more years passed,
during which he unwillingly undermined his health by dining constantly
in the highest social and political circles, and delivering longer and
weightier judgments every day. His wife and children, who still had
access to him at times, watched him with anxiety.
One morning they found him pacing up and down the dining-room with _The
Times_ newspaper in his hand, and every mark of cerebral excitement.
His friend ---- ---- had made a speech at a certain banquet, in which
he had hit the Government a nasty knock. It was now, of course, only a
question of whether they would retain office till the Lord Chancellor,
who was very shaky, dropped off. He dropped off in June, and they
buried him in Westminster Abbey; his friend ---- ---- and himself
being chief mourners. In the same week the Government was defeated.
The state of his mind can now not well be imagined. In one week he
lost five pounds that could not be spared. He stopped losing weight
when the Government decided to hang on till the end of the session. On
the 15th of July the Prime Minister sent for him, and offered him the
Chancellorship. He accepted it, after first drawing attention to the
superior claims of his friend ---- ----. That evening, in the bosom of
his family, he sat silent. A little smile played three times on his
worn lips, and now and again his thin hand smoothed the parallel folds
in his cheeks. His youngest daughter, moving to the bell behind his
revered and beloved presence, heard him suddenly mutter, and bending
hastily caught the precious words: “Pipped him on the post, by gum!”
He took up his final honours with the utmost ceremony. From that moment
it was almost too noticeable how his powers declined. It was as if he
had felt that, having won the race, he had nothing left to live for.
Indeed, he only waited till his friend ---- ---- had received a slight
stroke before, under doctor’s orders, he laid down office. He dragged
on for several years, writing his memoirs, but without interest in
life; till one day, being drawn in his Bath-chair down the esplanade at
Margate, he was brought to a standstill by another chair being drawn in
the opposite direction. Letting his eye rest wearily on the occupant,
he recognised his friend ---- ----. How the fellow had changed; but not
in nature, for he quavered out at once: “Hallo! It’s you! By George!
You look jolly bad!” Hearing those words, seeing that paralytic smile,
a fire seemed suddenly relit within him. Compressing his lips, he
answered nothing, and dug his Bath-chair man in the back. From that
moment he regained his interest in life. If he could not outlive his
friend ---- ---- it would be odd! And he set himself to do it, thinking
of nothing else by day or night, and sending daily to inquire how his
friend ---- ---- was. The fellow lived till New Year’s Day, and died
at two in the morning. They brought him the news at nine. A smile
lighted up his parched and withered face; his old hands, clenched on
the feeding-cup, relaxed; he fell back--dead. The shock of his old
friend’s death, they said, had been too much for him.