Upon three occasions only, in five times that number of years, did I
meet Cynthia--Cynthia Barthrop; and those meetings, I need hardly say,
were accidental.
The promise of Cynthia's youth was to all outward seeming amply
fulfilled. As a matron she would have been notable in any company, by
reason of her sedate beauty, and the dignity of her presence. But her
manner suggested to me that her life had certainly not brought content
to Cynthia; and I gathered from her brother Ernest that the radiant
brightness of nature which had characterised her youth had not
survived her assumption of wifely and maternal cares. Others might
regard this change as part of a natural and inevitable process. In my
eyes also it was inevitable and natural, but not as the result of the
passage of time. For me it was the inevitable outcome of a marriage of
convenience, which was not, for Cynthia, a natural mating. The key to
the changed expression of her beautiful face, and, in particular, of
her eloquent eyes, as I saw it, lay in the fact that she was
unsatisfied; her life, so rich in bloom, had never reached fruition.
One letter I had written to Cynthia, within a few days of her
marriage. And there had been no other communication between us. I
trust that forgetfulness came more easily to her than to me.
My withdrawal from political work I connect with the death of Queen
Victoria, the Coronation of King Edward, and the end of the South
African War. From the same period--a time of the inception of radical,
far-reaching change in England--I date also my final emergence from
that phase of one's existence in which one is still thought of, by
some people at all events, as a young man. The phase has a longer
duration in our time, I think, than in previous generations, because
we have done so much in the direction of abolishing middle age. Grey
hairs were fairly plentiful with me well before the admitted end of
this phase.
Those last years of the young man, the author and journalist of
'promise,' who was a 'coming man,' and, too, the maturer years which
followed, ought, upon all material counts, to have been the happiest
and most contented in my life; since, during this time, my position
was an assured one, and I went scatheless as regards anxiety about
ways and means--the burden which lines the foreheads of eight
Londoners in ten, I think. Yes, by all the signs, these should have
been my best and most contented years. As a fact, I do not think I
touched content in a single hour of all that period.
What then was lacking in my life? It certainly lacked leisure. But the
average modern man would say that this commonplace fact could hardly
rob one of content. My income did not fall below from seven hundred to
a thousand pounds in any year. In all this period, therefore, there
was never a hint of the bitter, wolfish struggle for mere food and
shelter which ruled my first years in London; neither was I ever
obliged to live in squalid quarters. On the contrary, I lived
comfortably, and had a good deal more of the sort of social
intercourse which dining out furnishes than I desired. And, withal,
though I knew much of keen effort, the stress of unremitting work,
and, at times, considerable responsibility, I do not think I tasted
content in one hour of all those long, crowded, respectable, and
apparently prosperous years.
If one comes to that, could I honestly assert that in the years
preceding these I had ever known content? I fear not. Elation, the
sense of more or less successful striving, occasional triumphs--all
these good things I had known. But content, peace, secure and restful
satisfaction-- No, I could not truly say I had ever experienced these.
Perhaps they have been rare among all the educated peoples of the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; particularly, it may be,
among those who, like myself, have been more or less freely admitted
prospectors in the home territories of various classes of the
community, without ever becoming a fully accredited and recognised
member of any one among them.
I would like very much to comprehend fairly the reason of the
barrenness, the failure to attain content or satisfaction, in all
those years of my London life. And, for that reason, I linger over my
review of them, I state the case as fully as I can. But do I explain
it to myself? I fear not. Doubtless, some good people would tell me
the secret lay in the apparent absence of definitely dogmatic
religious influence in my life. Ah, well, there is that, of course.
But it does not give me the explanation. Others would tell me the
explanation could be given in one word--egoism; that there has been
always too much ego in my cosmos. Yes, there is doubtless a great deal
in that. And yet, goodness knows, mine has not been a self-indulgent
life.
As I see it, there was a period in which I urgently desired to secure
a safe foothold in London's literary and journalistic life. Material
needs being moderately satisfied I happened, pretty blindly, into my
marriage. That effectually shut out any possibility of content while
it lasted, and added very materially to the inroads made by the
previous struggling period upon my health. Later, came my strongest
literary ambitions: a striving for achievement and success, and I
suppose for fame, as author. And then the brief, tremendous struggle
to win Cynthia for my wife. So far, naturally enough, there had been
no content.
After the collapse of my attempt to win a mate, it seems to me that I
became definitely middle-aged; though any outside observer of my life
would probably have dated the serious beginnings of my career--the
'young man of undoubted promise,' etc.--from that time, since it was
from then on that my position became more important. I directed the
energies of others, was a leading editor's right hand man, initiated
and controlled new departures, and commanded far more attention for my
writings than ever before.
But--and here, it seems to me, lies the crux of the matter--in all
this period the present moment of living never appealed to me in the
least. I derived no suggestion of satisfaction or enjoyment from it. I
was for ever striving, restlessly, uneasily, and to weariness, for
something to be attained later on. And for what did I strive? Well, I
know that the old ambitions in the direction of world-wide recognition
as a literary master did not survive my return to Fleet Street, the
landmark for me of Cynthia's marriage. Equally certain am I that I
cherished no plan or desire to accumulate money and become rich. I had
no desire to become a politician, or to obtain such a post as
Arncliffe's. The desires of my youth were dead; the energies of my
youth were dulled; the health and physical standard of my early
manhood was greatly and for ever lowered. The enthusiasms of my youth
had given place not to cynicism but to weary sadness. It was perhaps
unfortunate for myself that I had no cynicism.
Very well. In other words, a disinterested observer might say: You
became middle-aged--the common lot--and dyspeptic: the usual penalty
of sedentary life. But there is a difference. If middle age brings to
most, as no doubt it does, some failure of health and a notable
attenuation of aims, desires, ambitions, and zest, does it not also
bring some satisfaction in the present? I think so; at all events,
where, as in my case, it brings the outward and material essentials of
a moderate success in life. Now in my case, though the definite aims,
the plans for the future, the desired goals, had merely ceased to
exist, the present was Dead Sea fruit--null and void, a thing of
nought. Just where does my poor personal equation enter in, and how
far, I wonder, is all this typical of twentieth-century human
experience, for us, the heirs of all the ages, with our wonderful
enlightenment and progress? I wonder!
This, at all events, I think, is as near as I can come to explanation.
Yet how very far short it falls of explaining, of furnishing me with
the key which the making of this record was to provide!
However, the task shall not be shirked. At least, some matters have
been made clearer. I will complete my record--if I can.