Pages from a Journal with Other Papers Part 12

n.o.body is more willing to admit it than I am. It is so disappointing in talking to myself or to others to stop short of generalisation and to be obliged to confess that SOMETIMES IT IS AND SOMETIMES IT IS NOT. I bless my stars that I am not a politician or a newspaper writer. When I was young these great matters, at least in our village, were not such common property as they are now. A man, even if he was a scholar, thought he had done his duty by living an honest and peaceable life. He was justified if he was kind to his neighbours and amused himself with his bees and flowers. He had no desire to be remembered for any achievement, and was content to be buried with a few tears and then to be forgotten. All Mrs. Lindsay's folk want to do something outside their own houses or parishes which shall make their names immortal. . .

. I was interrupted by a tremendous thunderstorm and hail. That wonderful rose-bush which, you will recollect, stood on the left-hand side of the garden door, has been stripped just as if it had been scourged with whips. If you have done, quite done with the Orelli you borrowed about two years ago, please let me have it. Why could you not bring it? Mrs. Lindsay was saying only the other day how glad she should be if you would stay with her for a fortnight before you return to town.

Your affectionate G.o.dfather, G. L.

My Dear G.o.dfather,--I have sent back the Orelli. How I should love to come and to wander about the meadows with you by the river or sit in the boat with you under the willows. But I cannot, for I have promised to speak at a Woman's Temperance Meeting next week, and in the week following I am going to read a paper called "An Educational Experiment,"

before our Ethical Society. This, I think, will be interesting. I have placed my pupils in difficult historical positions, and have made them tell me what they would have done, giving the reasons. I am thus enabled to detect any weakness and to strengthen character on that side.

Most of the girls are embarra.s.sed by the conflict of motives, and I have to impress upon them the necessity in life of disregarding those which are of less importance and of prompt action on the stronger. I have cla.s.sified my results in tables, so that it may be seen at a glance what impulses are most generally operative.

But to go back to your letter. I will not have you shuffle. You can say so much if you like. Talk to me just as you did when we last sat under the cedar-tree. I MUST know your mind about theology and metaphysics.

Your affectionate G.o.dchild, HERMIONE.

My Dear Hermione,--I am sorry you could not come. I am sorry that what people call a "cause" should have kept you away. If any of your friends had been ill; if it had been a dog or a cat, I should not have cared so much. You are dreadful! Theology and metaphysics! I do not understand what they are as formal sciences. Everything seems to me theological and metaphysical. What Shakespeare says now and then carries me further than anything I have read in the system-books into which I have looked.

I cannot take up a few propositions, bind them into f.a.ggots, and say, "This is theology, and that is metaphysics." There is much "discourse of G.o.d" in a May blossom, and my admiration of it is "beyond nature,"

but I am not sure upon this latter point, for I do not know in the least what f?s?? or Nature is. We love justice and generosity, and hate injustice and meanness, but the origin of virtue, the life of the soul, is as much beyond me as the origin of life in a plant or animal, and I do not bother myself with trying to find it out. I do feel, however, that justice and generosity have somehow a higher authority than I or any human being can give them, and if I had children of my own this is what I should try, not exactly to teach them, but to breathe into them.

I really, my dear child, dare not attempt an essay on the influence which priests and professors have had upon the world, nor am I quite clear that "shadowy" and "uncertain" mean the same thing. All ultimate facts in a sense are shadowy, but they are not uncertain. When you try to pinch them between your fingers they seem unsubstantial, but they are very real. Are you sure that you yourself stand on solid granite?

Your affectionate G.o.dfather, G. L.

My Dear G.o.dfather,--You are most disappointing and evasive. I gave up the discussion on Latin and Greek, but I did and do want your reply to a most simple question. If you had to teach children--you surely can imagine yourself in such a position--would you teach them WHAT ARE GENERALLY KNOWN AS THEOLOGY AND METAPHYSICS?--excuse the emphasis. You have an answer, I am certain, and you may just as well give it me. I know that you had rather, or affect you had rather, talk about Catullus, but I also know that you think upon serious subjects sometimes. These matters cannot now be put aside. We live in a world in which certain problems are forced upon us and we are compelled to come to some conclusion upon them. I cannot shut myself up and determine that I will have no opinion upon Education or Socialism or Women's Rights. The fact that these questions are here is plain proof that it is my duty not to ignore them. You hate large generalisations, but how can we exist without them? They may never be entirely true, but they are indispensable, and, if you never commit yourself to any, you are much more likely to be practically wrong than if you use them.

Take, for example, the Local Veto. I admitted in my speech that there is much to be urged against it. It might act harshly, and it is quite true that poor men in large towns cannot spend their evenings in their filthy homes; but I MUST be for it or against it, and I am enthusiastically for it, because on the whole it will do good. So with Socialism. The evils of Capitalism are so monstrous that any remedy is better than none. Socialism may not be the direct course: it may be a tremendously awkward tack, but it is only by tacking that we get along.

So with positive education, but I have enlarged upon this already. What a sermon to my dear G.o.dfather! Forgive me, but you will have to take sides, and do, please, be a little more definite about my book.

Your affectionate G.o.dchild, HERMIONE.

My Dear Hermione,--I haven't written for some time, for I was unwell for nearly a month. The doctor has given me physic, but my age is really the mischief, and it is incurable. I caught cold through sitting out of doors after dinner with the rector, a good fellow if he would not smoke on my port. To smoke on good port is a sin. He knows my infirmity, that I cannot sit still long, and he excuses my attendance at church.

Would you believe it? When I was very bad, and thought I might die, I read Horace again, whom you detest. I often wonder what he really thought upon many things when he looked out on the

taciturna noctis signa."

Justice is not often done to him. He saw a long way, but he did not make believe he saw beyond his limit, and was content with it. A rare virtue is intellectual content!

"Tu ne quaesieris, scire nefas, quem mihi, quem tibi Finem di dederint, Leuconoe, nec Babylonios Tentaris numeros."

The rector was telling me about Tom Pavenham's wedding. He has married Margaret Loxley, as you may perhaps have seen in the paper I sent you.

Mrs. Loxley, her mother, was a Barfield, and old Pavenham, when he was a youth, fell in love with her. She was also in love with him. He was well-to-do, and farmed about seven hundred acres, but he was not thought good enough by the elder Barfields, who lived in what was called a park.

They would not hear of the match. She was sent to France, and he went to Buenos Ayres. After some years had pa.s.sed he married out there, and she married. His wife died when her first child, a boy, was born.

Loxley also died, leaving his wife with an only daughter. Pavenham retired from business in South America, and came back with his son to his native village, where he meant to spend the rest of his days. Tom and Margaret were at once desperately smitten with one another. The father and mother have kept their own flame alive, and I believe it is as bright as it ever was. It is delightful to see them together. They called on me with the children after the betrothal. He was so courteous and attentive to her, and she seemed to bask in his obvious affection.

I noticed how they looked at one another and smiled happily as the boy and girl wandered off together towards the filbert walk. The rector told me that he was talking to old Pavenham one evening, and said to him: "Jem, aren't you sometimes sad when you think of what ought to have happened?" His voice shook a bit as he replied gently: "G.o.d be thanked for what we have! Besides, it has all come to pa.s.s in Tom and Margaret."

You must not be angry with me if I say nothing more about Positive Education. It is a great strain on me to talk upon such matters, and when I do I always feel afterwards that I have said much which is mere words. That is a sure test; I must obey my daemon. I wish I could give you what you want for what you have given me; but when do we get what we want in exchange for what we give? Our trafficking is a clumsy barter.

A man sells me a sheep, and I pay him in return with my grandfather's old s.e.xtant. This is not quite true for you and me. Love is given and love is returned. A Dieu--not adieu. Remember that the world is very big, and that there may be room in it for a few creatures like

Your affectionate G.o.dfather, G. L.

MRS. FAIRFAX

The town of Langborough in 1839 had not been much disturbed since the beginning of the preceding century. The new houses were nearly all of them built to replace others which had fallen into decay; there were no drains; the drinking-water came from pumps; the low fever killed thirty or forty people every autumn; the Moot Hall still stood in the middle of the High Street; the newspaper came but once a week; n.o.body read any books; and the Sat.u.r.day market and the annual fair were the only events in public local history. Langborough, being seventy miles from London and eight from the main coach-road, had but little communication with the outside world. Its inhabitants intermarried without crossing from other stocks, and men determined their choice mainly by equality of fortune and rank. The shape of the nose and lips and colour of the eyes may have had some influence in masculine selection, but not much: the doctor took the lawyer's daughter, the draper took the grocer's, and the carpenter took the blacksmith's. Husbands and wives, as a rule, lived comfortably with one another; there was no reason why they should quarrel. The air of the place was sleepy; the men attended to their business, and the women were entirely apart, minding their household affairs and taking tea with one another. In Langborough, dozing as it had dozed since the days of Queen Anne, it was almost impossible that any woman should differ so much from another that she could be the cause of pa.s.sionate preference.

One day in the spring of 1839 Langborough was stirred to its depths. No such excitement had been felt in the town since the run upon the bank in 1825, when one of the partners went up to London, brought down ten thousand pounds in gold with him by the mail, and was met at Thaxton cross-roads by a post-chaise, which was guarded into Langborough by three men with pistols. A circular printed in London was received on that spring day in 1839 by all the respectable ladies in the town stating that a Mrs. Fairfax was about to begin business in Ferry Street as a dressmaker. She had taken the only house to be let in Ferry Street. It was a cottage with a front and back sitting-room, and belonged to an old lady in Lincoln, who inherited it from her brother, who once lived in it but had been dead forty years. Before a week had gone by four-fifths of the population of Langborough had re-inspected it. The front room was the shop, and in the window was a lay-figure attired in an evening robe of rose-coloured silk, the like of which for style and fit no native lady had ever seen. Underneath it was a card-- "Mrs. Fairfax, Milliner and Dressmaker." The circular stated that Mrs.

Fairfax could provide materials or would make up those brought to her by her customers.

Great was the debate which followed this unexpected apparition. Who Mrs. Fairfax was could not be discovered. Her furniture and the lay- figure had come by the waggon, and the only information the driver could give was that he was directed at the "George and Blue Boar" in Holborn to fetch them from Great Ormond Street. After much discussion it was agreed that Mrs. Bingham, the wife of the wine merchant, should call on Mrs. Fairfax and inquire the price of a gown. Mrs. Bingham was at the head of society in Langborough, and had the reputation of being very clever. It was hoped, and indeed fully expected, that she would be able to penetrate the mystery. She went, opened the door, a little bell sounded, and Mrs. Fairfax presented herself. Mrs. Bingham's eyes fell at once upon Mrs. Fairfax's dress. It was black, with no ornament, and constructed with an accuracy and grace which proved at once to Mrs.

Bingham that its maker was mistress of her art. Mrs. Bingham, although she could not entirely desert the linendraper's wife, whose husband was a good customer for brandy, had some of her clothes made in London when she stayed with her sister in town, and, to use her own phrase, "knew what was what."

"Mrs. Fairfax?"

A bow.

"Will you please tell me what a gown would cost made somewhat like that in the window?"

"For yourself, madam?"

"Yes."

"Pardon me; I am afraid that colour would not suit you."

Mrs. Bingham was a stout woman with a ruddy complexion.

"One colour costs no more than another?"

"No, madam: twelve guineas; that silk is expensive. Will you not take a seat?"

"I am afraid you will find twelve guineas too much for anybody here.

Have you nothing cheaper?"

Mrs. Fairfax produced some patterns and fashion-plates.

"I suppose the gown in the window is your own make?"

"My own make and design."

"Then you are not beginning business?"

"I hope I may say that I thoroughly understand it."