THE CYNIC SPEAKS IN PARABLES
"What makes you call me the Cynic?" he inquired.
It was Rose's fault; she is really incorrigible, and absolutely
heedless of consequences! If I had dreamed that she would have done
such a thing I would never have told her, but that is the worst of
blanket confidences. I call them "blanket" confidences because it was
after we had gone to bed, when it was quite dark and Rose was inclined
to be reasonable, that I had explained to her calmly and quite
seriously that I had not mentioned the Cynic in my letters because
there had been no reason to do so; and Rose had accepted the
explanation, like a good girl, and kissed me to show her penitence.
Then I told her of the nickname I had given him, which she thought very
appropriate. But I would have held my tongue between my teeth if I had
contemplated the possibility of her revealing the secret; and here she
had blurted it out with a laugh, to my utter and dire confusion.
We had had a glorious day, and I must admit that the Cynic had added
not a little to our enjoyment. He said he would have felt like a fool
to be walking out in black West of Englands, so he had called at the
Hall and got the butler to find up an old shooting jacket of the
squire's, which was much too large for him, but in which he appeared
quite unconcernedly a full ten minutes before the time appointed.
"It isn't a good fit," he remarked with a laugh, "but the other toggery
was impossible for the moors."
Under his guidance we had gone farther than we should otherwise have
ventured, and he had pointed out a hundred beauties and wonders our
untrained eyes would never have seen. He had interpreted the varying
cries of the curlew, and shown us how intently the gamekeeper listened
to them, so that he might know whether man or beast or bird was
attracting the watcher's notice. He had pointed out the trustful
little twite, which I should have mistaken for a linnet, and followed
it to its abode, where he told us we should find a single feather stuck
conspicuously in the edge of the nest; and it had been even so. Our
botanical knowledge would have been greatly increased if we had
remembered all he told us, but though we did not do so we were deeply
interested, for he had none of the air of the schoolmaster, and he did
not expect us to take our lessons very seriously.
And now the day was spent, and our energy, though not our spirits, had
flagged considerably. We were sitting on the edge of the moor, a mile
or so away from home, and the flush of evening spread over the valley
and the distant hills, turning the landscape into mystery. The lamp of
the setting sun was flickering out in the west, but the handmaidens of
the night had lit their tiny torches here and there, and they shone
faintly behind the veil of twilight, giving promise of greater radiance
when the time should come for them to go forth to meet the crescent
bride who tarried in her coming.
I was gazing on it dreamily, and breathing out peace and goodwill
towards men when Rose dropped her bomb, and shattered my complacency.
"What makes you call me the Cynic?" He turned his eyes upon me and
awaited my answer with evident curiosity.
I looked at him in my turn. He had been bareheaded all day, for he had
left his hat at the Hall, and he was now leaning back against a rock,
his hands clasped behind his head, and the mischievous look I have so
often noticed sparkling in his eyes. He really is rather a fine man,
and he has certainly a good strong face. I replied, calmly enough to
outward seeming:
"Because it has seemed to me an apt description."
"I hope not," he replied. "Cynicism is the small change of shallow
minds. All the same, it is interesting to be criticised. I did not
know when I offered to analyse your character that I was being
subjected to the same test."
"Indeed you were not," I protested; "it was an appellation that came to
me spontaneously whilst you were discoursing so luminously on woman a
few months ago, and it is not to be taken seriously. It was wicked of
Rose to tell you."
Rose laughed and put an arm around me. "Never mind, old girl," she
said, "I'm going back to-morrow, so you must forgive me."
"I'm afraid you have not distinguished with sufficient care, Miss
Holden, between satire and cynicism. I daresay there is a strain of
satire in my composition, but I do not plead guilty to cynicism. A
cynic is a surly, misanthropical man, with a disordered liver and a
contempt for the good things of life."
"Oh, Grace!" murmured Rose in pathetic tones, "how could you!"
"Nonsense!" I said, "I am not going to allow you to pretend to take me
seriously. Do you think I subjected the word to subtle analysis before
I adopted it? I tell you it came to me as an inspiration, heaven-born,
doubtless, but if you don't like it pray forget it; and for your
comfort I will add that I have never attached to the word the meaning
you read into it. I know you have no contempt for art and poetry and
the good things of life. Now tell us what you see before you?"
I wished to change the subject, and referred simply to the view, as
anyone might have known. Night was dropping her blue curtain as
gently, as silently, as the nurse spreads the coverlet over the
sleeping babe; but the stupid man professed to misunderstand me.
"I see before me," he replied, "two interesting specimens of the sex
which ruins the peace and creates the paradise of the bulk of mankind.
I would call them charming but for the fear that my candour might be
mistaken for cajolery, which my soul abhorreth."
"Oh, please stop this!" I pleaded, but Rose said: "Let him ramble on,"
and he continued:
"The one whom I judge to be the elder is tall and well proportioned.
She has a fairly deep brow which indicates some intellectual power, but
whether this is modified or intensified by cranial depressions and
protuberances, a mass of dark hair, arranged in a fashion that beggars
my feeble powers of description, hides from my eyes.
"Her mouth is firm, and set above a determined chin, which would lead
me to conclude that she has a will of her own and is accustomed to
exercise it; but her eyes are tender and pleading, and so near the
reservoir of her emotions that the waters readily overflow, and this in
some measure counteracts the qualities of the chin. She has a pretty
wit and a ready tongue--usually--and has lived long enough to be
convinced of her own powers; rather masterful with the world at large,
but not mistress of herself."
"Thank you!" I interrupted. He bowed.
"She dresses with taste and has tidy and methodical habits; is ever
ready with sympathy, but would never care deeply for anybody who did
not show her a heap of affection."
"Do I cross your hand with silver?" I inquired.
He ignored my interruption and turned his whimsical gaze upon Rose.
"Her companion, whom I have had fewer opportunities of observing, is
slight, fair, and small of stature. I should say she might be
scheduled as 'dangerous,' for she flashes most unexpectedly. She is
rather proud of her self-possession, and delights in appearing cool and
unemotional, but in reality she is neither. She has simply cultivated
repression for the sake of effect. She is intense in her likes and
dislikes and quite capable of hating those whom she regards with
aversion, whilst she would apotheosise anyone for whom she really
cared. Her wit is more brilliant but also more superficial than that
of her friend, and her mental outlook is clearer and consequently more
optimistic. She prides herself on unconventionality, and is at heart
the slave of conventionalism. In a word she is a paradox, but a very
agreeable and fascinating one."
"I had much rather be a paradox than a paragon," said Rose; "but after
your very inadequate delineation of my character I am trying to
determine in which pigeon-hole of my carefully concealed emotions I am
to docket you."
"Is that quite true, Miss Fleming?" inquired the Cynic, looking at her
keenly. "I should have said you made up your mind on that point last
evening."
The tan upon her cheeks and the cloak of twilight covered Rose's
blushes to a large extent, but I am sure the colour deepened, and I am
convinced the Cynic saw it.
He rose and gathered up the wraps. "It is getting chilly," he
observed; "shall we be moving?"
I turned the conversation into another channel. "You are going to town
this week-end. Is most of your time spent there?"
"Yes," he replied, "my work lies in London, though Broadbeck is my
home, and I ran down very often, merely, I believe, to breathe the
murky air and refresh my soul with the Yorkshire burr. I go back
refreshed without knowing why. I have no relatives here now, and few
friends, but the few I have, though they do not guess it, are my
greatest comfort."
"Comfort!" ejaculated Rose; "what can you know of the need of comfort?
You, at any rate, are self-centred and self-possessed. You have
evidently a sufficient income and lots of the good things of life; you
are entirely your own master, and on the high-road to fame; what more
can you want?"
"Much," he replied simply; "and chiefly the sympathy which understands
without explanations, and I get that only amongst my own folk. Do you
know what that means? I have all the things you speak of: an
increasing practice, an adequate income, good health, work that brings
its own pleasure, an appreciation of life, consequent, no doubt, upon
all these things, and an ardent longing for the relief which only real
sympathy affords."
"I don't understand," said Rose, "notwithstanding my clear outlook on
life."
"Do you?" The Cynic turned to me.
"Partially," I replied. "I can understand that none of these things
satisfies in itself, and that you may have 'all things and abound,' and
yet crave something you cannot work for and earn. But I should have
thought your profession would have left you little time for sentiment,
even if it afforded scope for it."
"You know, then, what my profession is?"
"You are a barrister, and, as Rose says, on the high-road to fame."
"Well," he replied, "I suppose that is true. I have as much work as I
can undertake and I am well paid for it. Success, in that sense, has
come, though slowly, and I am considered by many a lucky fellow. My
future is said to be full of promise. I have, in the sense in which
you spoke, 'all things and abound,' and when I step into the arena of
conflict I am conscious of this, and of this only. In the heat of the
fray the joy of battle comes upon me, and I am oblivious to all else.
"Then comes the after-thought, when the fray is ended and the arena has
been swept clean for the next encounter. 'What lack I yet?' In the
process of gaining the whole world am I going to lose myself? And the
throng presses upon me and slaps my back and shakes my hand and shouts,
'Lucky dog!' into my ear, and I smile and look pleased--am
pleased--until my Good Spirit drives me north, where the air is not
soft, but biting, and men speak their minds without circumlocution and
talk to you without deference, and give you a rough but kindly thrust
if they think you need it. And there I find vision and comfort."
"You are utterly beyond me," said Rose. "You are soaring in the clouds
miles above my head, and I cannot yet understand why you need comfort."
"Do you remember the young ruler who went away sorrowful?" he replied.
He was looking straight ahead, with a sad, fixed look in his eyes such
as I had not seen there before. "I wonder if he went north and found a
friend who understood, and from him gained comfort. You see, he _knew_
that something was lacking, but could not make up his mind to pay the
price of the remedy, and even the Great Physician, whilst He gave the
unwelcome prescription, pitied and loved him. The world called him a
lucky dog, and he called himself one--with a reservation. And he
wanted comfort; not the comfort which simply says, 'Buck-up, old man!'
but that which says, 'Brace-up, old man! If to sell all is the summum
bonum, go, see the broker now and have done with it.' I wonder if he
went eventually."
This was a new mood, and I glanced at the Cynic curiously. What had
become of his cynicism? He was speaking quietly, contemplatively, and
I felt sure there was meaning behind his words.
I said nothing, but Rose shook her head and muttered: "You speak in
parables."
"Let me give you a parable," he continued. "Once upon a time a certain
boy on leaving school left also a large number of marbles. These were
claimed by two of his companions, and one of the two took possession of
them. Then arose a great outcry on the part of him who would have
taken them if he could, and he dragged his fellow before a council of
their peers. The monitor was judge, and two sharp young fellows who
were good in debate and of ready tongue acted as counsel for the
claimant and his foe respectively.
"In the end judgment was given for the claimant, who carried off
triumphantly the spoils of battle. And this judgment was given, not
because the defendant had no right to the marbles, but because the lad
who championed his cause was not so glib of speech nor so ready in
argument as the fellow on the other side. Now it came to pass that the
lad who won the case for his friend discovered soon after, what he had
suspected all along--that the latter had no real claim to the marbles
at all, and that they had been taken unjustly from the lad to whom they
rightfully belonged. Yet the judgment of the court could not be upset.
What was he to do?"
"Nothing," replied Rose promptly.
"Why?" inquired the Cynic.
"It was the fortune of war," she answered; "the case was properly tried
by an impartial court, and the defendant should have taken care to
secure the services of the smarter advocate. It would be a lesson to
him for the future. The world would never get on if everyone worried
about things of that sort."
"And you?" he said, turning to me.
"Was there no chance of reversing the judgment?" I inquired.
"None: it was irrevocable."
"Had the plaintiff's counsel reason to suspect, did you say, that his
client's cause was unjust before the verdict was given?"
"He became practically convinced of it as the case proceeded, but not
absolutely certain. Yet he fought for his client with might and main."
"Had the plaintiff's counsel any marbles of his own?" I continued.
"He had. Quite a fair store."
"Sufficient to pay back the lad who had suffered the unjust judgment?"
"About sufficient; no more."
My heart thumped painfully, but I did not hesitate to answer: "I think
he ought to have parted with his own marbles, and so redressed the
wrong and saved his soul."
There was silence for a moment before the Cynic spoke: "I think so,
too." Then, irrelevantly: "There is something about this northern air
that is very bracing."