Before the inquiry was resumed, all the poor wretches in custody had been
released on suspicion that they were innocent; there was not a single
case even for a magistrate. Clues, which at such seasons are gathered by
the police like blackberries off the hedges, were scanty and unripe.
Inferior specimens were offered them by bushels, but there was not a
good one among the lot. The police could not even manufacture a clue.
Arthur Constant's death was already the theme of every hearth,
railway-carriage, and public-house. The dead idealist had points
of contact with so many spheres. The East-end and the West-end alike
were moved and excited, the Democratic Leagues and the Churches, the
Doss-houses and the Universities. The pity of it! And then the
impenetrable mystery of it!
The evidence given in the concluding portion of the investigation was
necessarily less sensational. There were no more witnesses to bring the
scent of blood over the coroner's table; those who had yet to be heard
were merely relatives and friends of the deceased, who spoke of him as he
had been in life. His parents were dead, perhaps happily for them; his
relatives had seen little of him, and had scarce heard as much about him
as the outside world. No man is a prophet in his own country, and, even
if he migrates, it is advisable for him to leave his family at home. His
friends were a motley crew; friends of the same friend are not
necessarily friends of one another. But their diversity only made the
congruity of the tale they had to tell more striking. It was the tale of
a man who had never made an enemy even by benefiting him, nor lost a
friend even by refusing his favours; the tale of a man whose heart
overflowed with peace and goodwill to all men all the year round; of a
man to whom Christmas came not once, but three hundred and sixty-five
times a year; it was the tale of a brilliant intellect, who gave up to
mankind what was meant for himself, and worked as a labourer in the
vineyard of humanity, never crying that the grapes were sour; of a man
uniformly cheerful and of good courage, living in that forgetfulness of
self which is the truest antidote to despair. And yet there was not quite
wanting the note of pain to jar the harmony and make it human. Richard
Elton, his chum from boyhood, and vicar of Somerton, in Midlandshire,
handed to the coroner a letter received from the deceased about ten
days before his death, containing some passages which the coroner read
aloud:--"Do you know anything of Schopenhauer? I mean anything beyond the
current misconceptions? I have been making his acquaintance lately. He is
an agreeable rattle of a pessimist; his essay on 'The Misery of Mankind'
is quite lively reading. At first his assimilation of Christianity and
Pessimism (it occurs in his essay on 'Suicide') dazzled me as an
audacious paradox. But there is truth in it. Verily the whole creation
groaneth and travaileth, and man is a degraded monster, and sin is over
all. Ah, my friend, I have shed many of my illusions since I came to this
seething hive of misery and wrongdoing. What shall one man's life--a
million men's lives--avail against the corruption, the vulgarity, and the
squalor of civilisation? Sometimes I feel like a farthing rushlight in
the Hall of Eblis. Selfishness is so long and life so short. And the
worst of it is that everybody is so beastly contented. The poor no more
desire comfort than the rich culture. The woman, to whom a penny school
fee for her child represents an appreciable slice of her income, is
satisfied that the rich we shall always have with us.
"The real old Tories are the paupers in the Workhouse. The radical
working men are jealous of their own leaders, and the leaders are jealous
of one another. Schopenhauer must have organised a Labour Party in his
salad days. And yet one can't help feeling that he committed suicide as a
philosopher by not committing it as a man. He claims kinship with Buddha,
too; though Esoteric Buddhism at least seems spheres removed from the
philosophy of 'the Will and the Idea.' What a wonderful woman Madame
Blavatsky must be! I can't say I follow her, for she is up in the clouds
nearly all the time, and I haven't as yet developed an astral body. Shall
I send you on her book? It is fascinating.... I am becoming quite a
fluent orator. One soon gets into the way of it. The horrible thing is
that you catch yourself saying things to lead up to 'Cheers' instead of
sticking to the plain realities of the business. Lucy is still doing the
galleries in Italy. It used to pain me sometimes to think of my darling's
happiness when I came across a flat-chested factory-girl. Now I feel her
happiness is as important as a factory-girl's."
Lucy, the witness explained, was Lucy Brent, the betrothed of the
deceased. The poor girl had been telegraphed for, and had started for
England. The witness stated that the outburst of despondency in this
letter was almost a solitary one, most of the letters in his possession
being bright, buoyant, and hopeful. Even this letter ended with a
humorous statement of the writer's manifold plans and projects for the
New Year. The deceased was a good Churchman.
CORONER: Was there any private trouble in his own life to account for the
temporary despondency?
WITNESS: Not so far as I am aware. His financial position was
exceptionally favourable.
CORONER: There had been no quarrel with Miss Brent?
WITNESS: I have the best authority for saying that no shadow of
difference had ever come between them.
CORONER: Was the deceased left-handed?
WITNESS: Certainly not. He was not even ambidexter.
A JURYMAN: Isn't Shoppinhour one of the infidel writers, published by the
Freethought Publication Society?
WITNESS: I do not know who publishes his books.
The JURYMAN (a small grocer and big raw-boned Scotchman, rejoicing in the
name of Sandy Sanderson and the dignities of deaconry and membership of
the committee of the Bow Conservative Association): No equeevocation,
sir. Is he not a secularist, who has lectured at the Hall of Science?
WITNESS: No, he is a foreign writer--(Mr. Sanderson was heard to thank
heaven for this small mercy)--who believes that life is not worth living.
The JURYMAN: Were you not shocked to find the friend of a meenister
reading such impure leeterature?
WITNESS: The deceased read everything. Schopenhauer is the author of a
system of philosophy, and not what you seem to imagine. Perhaps you
would like to inspect the book? (Laughter.)
The JURYMAN: I would na' touch it with a pitchfork. Such books should be
burnt. And this Madame Blavatsky's book--what is that? Is that also
pheelosophy?