II

A rotten business. It happened when Michael was twenty-two, and he

expected never to be happy again. The sound of his own voice shouting

as he was carried out, the doctor's voice saying, "I consider you

responsible," the coming of Harold's parents, the voice of the curate

summarizing Harold's relations with the unseen--all these things

affected him so deeply that he supposed they would affect him for

ever. They did not, because he lived to be over seventy, and with the

best will in the world, it is impossible to remember clearly for so

long. The mind, however sensitive and affectionate, is coated with new

experiences daily; it cannot clear itself of the steady accretion,

and is forced either to forget the past or to distort it. So it was

with Michael. In time only the more dramatic incidents survived.

He remembered Harold's final gesture (one hand grasping his own,

the other plunged deep into the sea), because there was a certain

æsthetic quality about it, not because it was the last of his friend.

He remembered the final words for the same reason. "Don't you see the

point of it? Well, you will some day." The phrase struck his fancy, and

passed into his own stock; after thirty or forty years he forgot its

origin. He is not to blame; the business of life snowed him under.

There is also this to say: he and Harold had nothing in common except

youth. No spiritual bond could survive. They had never discussed

theology or social reform, or any of the problems that were thronging

Michael's brain, and consequently, though they had been intimate

enough, there was nothing to remember. Harold melted the more one

thought of him. Robbed of his body, he was so shadowy. Nor could one

imagine him as a departed spirit, for the world beyond death is surely

august. Neither in heaven nor hell is there place for athletics and

aimless good temper, and if these were taken from Harold, what was

left? Even if the unseen life should prove an archetype of this, even

if it should contain a sun and stars of its own, the sunburn of earth

must fade off our faces as we look at it, the muscles of earth must

wither before we can go rowing on its infinite sea. Michael sadly

resigned his friend to God's mercy. He himself could do nothing, for

men can only immortalize those who leave behind them some strong

impression of poetry or wisdom.

For himself he expected another fate. With all humility, he knew that

he was not as Harold. It was no merit of his own, but he had been born

of a more intellectual stock, and had inherited powers that rendered

him worthier of life, and of whatever may come after it. He cared for

the universe, for the tiny tangle in it that we call civilisation,

for his fellow-men who had made the tangle and who transcended it.

Love, the love of humanity, warmed him; and even when he was thinking

of other matters, was looking at Orion perhaps in the cold winter

evenings, a pang of joy, too sweet for description, would thrill him,

and he would feel sure that our highest impulses have some eternal

value, and will be completed hereafter. So full a nature could not

brood over death.

To summarize his career.

Soon after the tragedy, when he in his turn was recruiting, he met the

woman who was to become his helpmate through life. He had met her once

before, and had not liked her; she had seemed uncharitable and hard.

Now he saw that her hardness sprang from a morality that he himself

lacked. If he believed in love, Janet believed in truth. She tested all

men and all things. She had no patience with the sentimentalist who

shelters from the world's rough and tumble. Engaged at that time to

another man, she spoke more freely to Michael than she would otherwise

have done, and told him that it is not enough to feel good and to

feel that others are good; one's business is to make others better,

and she urged him to adopt a profession. The beauty of honest work

dawned upon the youth as she spoke. Mentally and physically, he came to

full manhood, and, after due preparation, he entered the Home Civil

Service--the British Museum.

Here began a career that was rather notable, and wholly beneficial

to humanity. With his ideals of conduct and culture, Michael was not

content with the official routine. He desired to help others, and,

since he was gifted with tact, they consented to the operation. Before

long he became a conciliatory force in his department. He could mollify

his superiors, encourage his inferiors, soothe foreign scholars, and

show that there is something to be said for all sides. Janet, who

watched his rise, taxed him again with instability. But now she was

wrong. The young man was not a mere opportunist. He always had a

sincere opinion of his own, or he could not have retained the respect

of his colleagues. It was really the inherent sweetness of his nature

at work, turned by a woman's influence towards fruitful ends.

At the end of a ten years' acquaintance the two married. In the

interval Janet had suffered much pain, for the man to whom she had been

engaged had proved unworthy of her. Her character was set when she

came to Michael, and, as he knew, strongly contrasted with his own;

and perhaps they had already interchanged all the good they could. But

the marriage proved durable and sufficiently happy. He, in particular,

made endless allowances, for toleration and sympathy were becoming the

cardinal points of his nature. If his wife was unfair to the official

mind, or if his brother-in-law, an atheist, denounced religion, he

would say to himself, "They cannot help it; they are made thus, and

have the qualities of their defects. Let me rather think of my own, and

strive for a wider outlook ceaselessly." He grew sweeter every day.

It was partly this desire for a wider outlook that turned him to

literature. As he was crossing the forties it occurred to him to write

a few essays, somewhat retrospective in tone, and thoughtful rather

than profound in content. They had some success. Their good taste,

their lucid style, the tempered Christianity of their ethics, whetted

the half-educated public, and made it think and feel. They were not,

and were not intended to be, great literature, but they opened the

doors to it, and were indubitably a power for good. The first volume

was followed by "The Confessions of a Middle-aged Man." In it Michael

paid melodious tribute to youth, but showed that ripeness is all.

Experience, he taught, is the only humanizer; sympathy, balance and

many-sidedness cannot come to a man until he is elderly. It is always

pleasant to be told that the best is yet to be, and the sale of the

book was large. Perhaps he would have become a popular author, but

his wife's influence restrained him from writing anything that he did

not sincerely feel. She had borne him three children by now--Henry,

Catherine, and Adam. On the whole they were a happy family. Henry never

gave any trouble. Catherine took after her mother. Adam, who was wild

and uncouth, caused his father some anxiety. He could not understand

him, in spite of careful observation, and they never became real

friends. Still, it was but a little cloud in a large horizon. At home,

as in his work, Michael was more successful than most men.

Thus he slipped into the fifties. On the death of his father he

inherited a house in the Surrey hills, and Janet, whose real interests

were horticultural, settled down there. After all, she had not proved

an intellectual woman. Her fierce manner had misled him and perhaps

herself into believing it. She was efficient enough in London society,

but it bored her, for she lacked her husband's pliancy, and aged more

rapidly than he did. Nor did the country suit her. She grew querulous,

disputing with other ladies about the names of flowers. And, of course,

the years were not without their effect on him, too. By now he was

somewhat of a valetudinarian. He had given up all outdoor sports, and,

though his health remained good, grew bald, and rather stout and timid.

He was against late hours, violent exercise, night walks, swimming when

hot, muddling about in open boats, and he often had to check himself

from fidgeting the children. Henry, a charming sympathetic lad, would

squeeze his hand and say, "All right, father." But Catherine and Adam

sometimes frowned. He thought of the children more and more. Now that

his wife was declining, they were the future, and he was determined to

keep in touch with them, remembering how his own father had failed with

him. He believed in gentleness, and often stood between them and their

mother. When the boys grew up he let them choose their own friends.

When Catherine, at the age of nineteen, asked if she might go away and

earn some money as a lady gardener, he let her go. In this case he had

his reward, for Catherine, having killed the flowers, returned. She

was a restless, scowling young woman, a trial to her mother, who could

not imagine what girls were coming to. Then she married and improved

greatly; indeed, she proved his chief support in the coming years.

For, soon after her marriage, a great trouble fell on him. Janet became

bedridden, and, after a protracted illness, passed into the unknown.

Sir Michael--for he had been knighted--declared that he should not

survive her. They were so accustomed to each other, so mutually

necessary, that he fully expected to pass away after her. In this he

was mistaken. She died when he was sixty, and he lived to be over

seventy. His character had passed beyond the clutch of circumstance and

he still retained his old interests and his unconquerable benignity.

A second trouble followed hard on the first. It transpired that Adam

was devoted to his mother, and had only tolerated home life for her

sake. After a brutal scene he left. He wrote from the Argentine that he

was sorry, but wanted to start for himself. "I don't see the point of

it," quavered Sir Michael. "Have I ever stopped him or any of you from

starting?" Henry and Catherine agreed with him. Yet he felt that they

understood their brother better than he did. "I have given him freedom

all his life," he continued. "I have given him freedom, what more does

he want?" Henry, after hesitation, said, "There are some people who

feel that freedom cannot be given. At least I have heard so. Perhaps

Adam is like that. Unless he took freedom he might not feel free." Sir

Michael disagreed. "I have now studied adolescence for many years," he

replied, "and your conclusions, my dear boy, are ridiculous."

The two rallied to their father gallantly; and, after all, he spent a

dignified old age. Having retired from the British Museum, he produced

a little aftermath of literature. The great public had forgotten him,

but the courtliness of his "Musings of a Pensioner" procured him

some circulation among elderly and educated audiences. And he found

a new spiritual consolation. _Anima naturaliter Anglicana_, he had

never been hostile to the Established Church; and, when he criticized

her worldliness and occasional inhumanity, had spoken as one who

was outside her rather than against her. After his wife's death and

the flight of his son he lost any lingering taste for speculation.

The experience of years disposed him to accept the experience of

centuries, and to merge his feeble personal note in the great voice of

tradition. Yes; a serene and dignified old age. Few grudged it to him.

Of course, he had enemies, who professed to see through him, and said

that Adam had seen through him too; but no impartial observer agreed.

No ulterior motive had ever biased Sir Michael. The purity of his

record was not due to luck, but to purity within, and his conciliatory

manner sprang from a conciliated soul. He could look back on failures

and mistakes, and he had not carried out the ideals of his youth. Who

has? But he had succeeded better than most men in modifying those

ideals to fit the world of facts, and if love had been modified into

sympathy and sympathy into compromise, let one of his contemporaries

cast the first stone.

One fact remained--the fact of death. Hitherto, Sir Michael had never

died, and at times he was bestially afraid. But more often death

appeared as a prolongation of his present career. He saw himself

quietly and tactfully organizing some corner in infinity with his

wife's assistance; Janet would be greatly improved. He saw himself

passing from a sphere in which he had been efficient into a sphere

which combined the familiar with the eternal, and in which he would

be equally efficient--passing into it with dignity and without pain.

This life is a preparation for the next. Those who live longest are

consequently the best prepared. Experience is the great teacher;

blessed are the experienced, for they need not further modify their

ideals.

The manner of his death was as follows. He, too, met with an accident.

He was walking from his town house to Catherine's by a short cut

through a slum; some women were quarrelling about a fish, and as he

passed they appealed to him. Always courteous, the old man stopped,

said that he had not sufficient data to judge on, and advised them to

lay the fish aside for twenty-four hours. This chanced to annoy them,

and they grew more angry with him than with one another. They accused

him of "doing them," of "getting round them," and one, who was the

worse for drink, said, "See if he gets round that," and slapped him

with the fish in the face. He fell. When he came to himself he was

lying in bed with one of his headaches.

He could hear Catherine's voice. She annoyed him. If he did not open

his eyes, it was only because he did not choose.

"He has been like this for nearly two years," said Henry's voice.

It was, at the most, ten minutes since he had fallen in the slum. But

he did not choose to argue.

"Yes, he's pretty well played out," said a third voice--actually the

voice of Adam; how and when had Adam returned? "But, then, he's been

that for the last thirty years."

"Gently, old boy," said Henry.

"Well, he has," said Adam. "I don't believe in cant. He never did

anything since Mother died, and damned little before. They've forgotten

his books because they aren't first-hand; they're rearranging the cases

he arranged in the British Museum. That's the lot. What else has he

done except tell people to dress warmly, but not too warm?"

"Adam, you really mustn't----"

"It's because nobody speaks up that men of the old man's type

get famous. It's a sign of your sloppy civilisation. You're all

afraid--afraid of originality, afraid of work, afraid of hurting

one another's feelings. You let any one come to the top who doesn't

frighten you, and as soon as he dies you forget him and knight some

other figurehead instead."

An unknown voice said, "Shocking, Mr. Adam, shocking. Such a dear old

man, and quite celebrated, too."

"You'll soon get used to me, nurse."

The nurse laughed.

"Adam, it is a relief to have you," said Catherine after a pause. "I

want you and your boy to help me with mine." Her voice sounded dimmer;

she had turned from her father without a word of farewell. "One must

profit by the mistakes of others ... after all, more heroism.... I am

determined to keep in touch with my boy----"

"Larrup him," said Adam. "That's the secret." He followed his sister

out of the room.

Then Henry's delightful laugh sounded for the last time. "You make us

all feel twenty years younger," he said; "more like when----"

The door shut.

Sir Michael grew cold with rage. This was life, this was what the

younger generation had been thinking. Adam he ignored, but at the

recollection of Henry and Catherine he determined to die. If he chose,

he could have risen from bed and driven the whole pack into the

street. But he did not choose. He chose rather to leave this shoddy

and ungrateful world. The immense and super-human cynicism that is

latent in all of us came at last to the top and transformed him. He saw

the absurdity of love, and the vision so tickled him that he began to

laugh. The nurse, who had called him a dear old man, bent over him, and

at the same moment two boys came into the sick-room.

"How's grandpapa?" asked one of them--Catherine's boy.

"Not so well," the nurse answered.