Here are portions of two letters written by Bernard Kingcote to
correspondents in London. The first is to his friend Gabriel, the
artist.
“.... There is no doubt about its being a mistake, but what step that
I have hitherto taken in my life of nine-and-twenty years has been
anything else? Whether I act on impulse or after grave deliberation, is
all one. You prophesied that I should be miserable in three months;
it was a generous limit. I have been here three months, and have
been miserable already for two. The idea of this kind of life for
a permanency was as absurd as most other ideas which I embrace in
splenetic moods. The serious thing is that circumstances seem conspiring
to keep me here; I am considerably poorer than when I came, and the
possibility of returning to live in London grows dubious. And why should
I return? I have as little business there as here.
“I believe I had a thought in coming to this cottage, something more
definite than the mere revolt of weariness with old conditions. It ran
in my head something like this: If I was such a superlatively bilious
and contumacious being, if life refused to present to me any feature by
which I might clutch it, if eating my heart out appeared to be the sole
occupation which I pursued unremittingly, surely there must be some
discoverable reason of all this, must be some explanation of myself to
be got at by diligent search. It struck me that in absolute solitude, in
the remoteness of a corner of the world such as this, I might perchance
have it out with myself, grip myself by the throat as it were, and force
a confession of my own secret. There in London I was too closely guarded
by habits, occupations, prejudices, conventional modes of thought; the
truth would not be uncovered. Perhaps an utter change of conditions
would make me clearer-brained, more capable of discerning the powers at
work in me, of discovering whether there was not some compromise with
life still possible. This was not unreasonable, it seems to me, and
indeed I persuade myself that one or two points have come out where
before was nothing but darkness. Unfortunately, to formulate my needs is
not the same thing as to satisfy them, and satisfaction being as remote
as ever, I fear I am not much advanced.
“I pass my days in a dream, which too often becomes a nightmare. It is
very likely you are right, and that with every day thus spent I
only grow more incapable of activity, instead of making advance by a
perception of what I could and ought to do. I find myself regarding with
a sort of dull amazement every species of active and creative work. A
childish wonder at the commonest things besets me. For example, I fall
a-thinking on this cottage in which I live, speculating as to who may
have originally built it; and then it strikes me as curious that I dwell
beneath its roof, waking and sleeping, with such complete confidence,
taking for granted that the workmanship was good, the material sound,
no flaw here or there which will some day bring the timbers down upon
my head. It leads me on to architecture in general; I ponder on huge
edifices, and stand aghast before the skill and energy embodied in them.
In them, and in all the results of the world’s work. The sum of human
endeavour weighs upon me, something monstrous, inexplicable. I try to
realise the motive force which can have brought about such results, and
come only to the despairing conclusion that I am not as other men,
that I lack the primal energies of human life. You and your ceaseless
striving come before me: I marvel. What is it that drives you on? What
oestrus possesses you? What keeps your brain resolute and your hand
firm?
“I buy a newspaper now and then. You cannot imagine how strangely those
world-echoes impress me. The sage gravity of leading articles, the
momentousness of this or that piece of news, the precision of reports,
the advertisements,--is it I who am moonstruck, or the living puppets
that play in this astonishing comedy? Once or twice I have been so
overcome with a perception of ludicrousness as to fall back in my chair
and make the roof ring with laughter.... A favourite walk is up to the
old entrenchments on the Downs, six or seven miles away. They are of
præ-Saxon times, I am told, points of desperate resistance by the
aboriginal people against vaguely-named invaders, scenes of battle
whereof no spear-clang echoes in the pages of history. I like to lie on
the ground and dream myself into realisation of those old struggles, to
make the fight a present fact, and hear the cries of victory and death.
_They_ were in earnest! If one could have lived in such times, when the
conditions of life were frankly bestial, and every man’s work was clear
before him, not a doubt to begin with, so no regret in the end! One
would have been dead so long since, resting so long.
“.... I delight in the conditions of rustic life as it exists here about
me. At times I talk with a farm-labourer, for my solace; to do so I have
to divest myself of the last rag of civilisation, to strip my mind to
its very kernel. Were oxen suddenly endowed with speech they would utter
themselves even as these peasants do, so and no otherwise. The absence
of any hint of townish Radicalism is a joy to me; I had not expected
to find the old order so undisturbed. Squire and parson are still the
objects of unshaken reverence. It is not beautiful, but how wholesome!
If only the schoolmaster could be kept away; if only progress would
work its evil will on the children of the slums, and leave these worthy
clodhoppers in their ancient peace! They are happy; they look neither
before nor after, for them the world has no history, the morrow no
futile aspirations; their county is the cosmos, and around it still flow
the streams of ocean. Local charity abounds; in the cottages there is
no hunger, no lack of clothing. Oh, leave them alone, leave them
alone! Would I had been born one of these, and had never learned the
halfknowledge which turns life sour!
“But I have news for you. I have lunched at Knightswell, and in a
manner have made acquaintance with Mrs. Clarendon. She astonished me by
presenting herself at my cottage door, holding in her hand a book which
I had left by chance out in a field, and which had been shown her by the
finder. Here was condescension! However, she spoke to me with extreme
friendliness, seemed anxious to know more of me, asked me at once to
lunch. I went, and was alone for a couple of hours with her and Miss
Warren. The latter is as cold and hard as I expected to find her;
intellectual, I should fancy, but in the way one does not desire in
a woman. She says disagreeably sharp things in precisely the most
disagreeable manner. It puzzles me to imagine the kind of life those two
lead together, or what may be the explanation of their living together
at all. I fancy the Vissians know all about it, but their loyalty to
the Lady of Knightswell is magnificent. I am sure they would not feel
justified in uttering a word about her private concerns, in however
harmless a fashion.
“Mrs. Clarendon is to me a new type of woman--new, that is, in actual
observation.
“She is a woman of the world; perhaps even a worldly woman. I was never
before on terms of friendly intercourse with her like, and she interests
me extremely. She is beautiful, and has every external grace, I should
think, wherewith woman can be endowed; but I am disposed to think her
cold. I mean she does not seem to me capable of passion; probably she
never loved any one. About her husband--dead for twelve years--I can
learn nothing; her marriage with him was most likely one of convenience.
At all events she lives in joyous widowhood; enough to show--all things
considered--that her nature is very placid. The kind of woman, no doubt,
who appreciates this freedom and realises no disadvantages attendant
upon it. Another conclusion I have arrived at is, that her charm has
gained in the course of years; she is more delightful now than she
was in her girlhood, it may be, even more beautiful. This is mere
assumption, of course; but warrantable, I think, It may come of my
distaste for young girls. I never met one who did not seem to me
artificial, shallow, illiberal, frivolous, radically selfish. A
girl’s ignorance of the world is portentous, the natural result of her
education; and it is only with knowledge of the world that sweetness and
charity and steadfastness develop. Heaven preserve me from falling in
love with a young girl who still has her first man’s heart to break!
“Her charm is, I think, largely unconscious. I mean, though she must
know that she is charming--how many must have told her so!--she does not
appear to use the quality as another would. What strikes one from the
first is her frankness, her exquisite openness. She seems to speak to
you from her heart, to conceal nothing. Of course it may very well be
that there is nothing to conceal, that her life is on the surface,
that she displays at once the whole of a being which has no complexity.
Still, I do not rate her so poorly. Though she is anything but
intellectual, her mind has delicacy and activity; her judgments of
people are probably not wide of the mark. Then her tenderness, she shows
it in every glance; and her bright, free gladness. A woman to the
tips of her fingers, a womanly woman--everything that Miss Warren, for
instance, is not. In fact, the latter’s presence throws Mrs. Clarendon’s
womanliness into relief. Mrs. Clarendon will henceforth be to me the
type of perfectly sweet womanhood.
“Of course, her interest in me is a mere freak. She is at a loss for
entertainment now and then at Knightswell--for, alas! she does not
read--and the discovery of a curious creature like myself is a source of
amusement. I do not flatter myself that anything like friendship between
us is possible; social distance would hinder that, if nothing else. She
was kind in her manner, kinder than I can at all convey to you, and,
I am sure, with complete sincerity; it is her nature to let her light
shine on all, to be sweet and gracious to every one with whom she comes
in contact. If, indeed, I thought friendship were attainable, I would
pursue it as the main end of my existence. Her presence refreshes me,
her talk is like the ripple of cool waters, her smile makes its healing
way to all the hidden wounds of my wretched being. But I dare not hope
for more than she gives to hundreds of others, calling them friends. She
will exhaust my novelty, she will find my talk wearisome--great heavens!
is it worse than that she listens to in her drawing-room in London?--she
will pass on her way and leave me with a memory as of a cool, delicious
summer day.
“Why should she enjoy life as she does? Why is there given to her this
calm, this happy grace, the freedom from apprehension, regret, desire? I
have written thus praisingly of her, and yet I could unpack my heart of
a whole burden of fierce, and injurious, and reproachful words when I
compare her existence with mine. Could not I, too, be gently gracious to
all and sundry if I had wherewith to keep my soul from the bitterness
of hunger? How easy to cultivate a charm of manner when every need is so
waited upon with fruition! How easy to be sweetly placid when nature has
spared you the abiding of a furious passion in your heart of hearts! I
shall see as little of her as may be. She breaks my sleepy habit, and
reminds me of things I want to forget.
“.... Oh! I am weary of this solitude, this daily sameness of empty
life. My books are no comfort; I can no longer interest myself in what
is really so precious to me; the chiming of sweet words is a burden to
my ear. I have no will; mere whims make a plaything of me. When I
have dragged my chain to the limit of the day, I lie down in miserable
anticipation of what waits me on the morrow, whether I shall rise to an
hour or two of resigned quiet, or in dull wretchedness, which makes me
curse the return of the sun; the fate which tortures me will choose. If
I had but something to distract my thoughts! What I would give for the
feeblest novel in red or blue back which lies to-day on the library
counter, smelling sweet from the press. Anything, so that it were new,
so that it spoke to me of men and women who are at this moment looking
into the eyes of destiny, even as I am. Those old writers, who have so
long ago solved the problem and gone to their rest, burden me with their
unconscious gravity; their time-tested wisdom goads me to peevishness.
What to them the present anguish which makes my life a disease? Nay,
what to any one, what to you, long-enduring friend, who go your way to
join hands with the immortals?”
The other letter, written on the same day, is to his sister, Mrs.
Jalland.
“I suffer in your distress, dear Mary, and would that I could do more
to help you. We have drifted so far from each other that it is difficult
for me to try to comfort you with words; to my own ear they sound
inefficient, and to you they would come much like mockery. In truth, no
one of us poor mortals has it in his power to heal another’s wounds; in
our suffering we can only look forward to the end of all things.
“I cannot grieve with you at your husband’s ill-health, that you know;
but neither shall I speak words of him that would pain you. I hold no
man responsible for his deeds in this world; we all act and refrain from
acting as fate will have it, and to rail against fate will not, I fear,
avail us much. It’s good, however, that the children are well and happy;
they, I doubt not, are often a solace to you. I suppose they are much
grown and changed since I saw them. Do not grieve, dear sister, that you
are unable to give them the kind of education you would desire. Of no
greater unkindness can parents be guilty than to train as if for a life
of leisure children whose lot will inevitably be to earn a livelihood
by day-long toil. It is to sow in them the seeds of despair. Do not heed
the folly of those who say that culture is always a blessing; the
truth is that, save under circumstances favourable to its enjoyment and
extension, it is an unmitigated curse. Had I children, I would have them
taught just enough to aid them in such craft or trade as a man without
means could put them to. It is no reason for lament that you have not
books to put into their hands, rather be glad that they are thus saved
from drinking of a well which for them would be poisoned. I give you
this counsel in saddest sincerity. What seems to you now cruelty, will
hereafter prove to have been the best.
“And now for the only way in which I can aid you. I have written to
R--------, asking him to sell for me, as soon as possible, a certain
number of my shares, and this money I will gladly send you as soon as it
is in my hands. I suppose it is necessary to speak of the matter to your
husband, though I wish that could be avoided. It will help you out of
immediate embarrassments, and leave you at peace for a little while.
But---- well, why should I hesitate to tell you frankly, Mary? I shall
henceforth have an income of something less than sixty pounds a year.
I do not mean that this involves hardship; for me, nothing of the kind.
But I do not well see how I can draw further upon the principal and
still be able to live. It is less probable than ever that I shall find
a way of earning my own living, unless I bring myself to the point of
abandoning civilisation, and going to work with my hands in some other
part of the world. I have no doubt that would be the very best thing
for me, the gulf once crossed. Yet it would be a hard thing to leave you
alone, struggling in that inferno; in truth, I could not bring myself to
do that. Imagine you left with your children, and not a friend to turn
to! Poor girl! that would be more than I could bear to think of.
“I write to the address you have given me. Do you fear to receive my
letters at home?”