ONE Volume . 
 r TWO Volumes 
 or THREB 
 FOUR 
 SIX 
 "VBLVE ,.
 
 The Grey World
 
 ' I know . . . of no other Gospel than the 
 liberty both of body and mind to exercise the 
 Divine Arts of Imagination : Imagination, the real 
 and eternal World of which this Vegetable Uni- 
 verse is but a faint shadow, and in which we shall 
 live in our Eternal or Imaginative Bodies when 
 these Vegetable Mortal Bodies are no more.' 
 WILLIAM BLAKE. 
 
 1 Let us go forth, the tellers of tales, and seize 
 whatever prey the heart long for, and have no 
 fear. Everything exists, everything is true, and 
 the earth is only a little dust under our feet. ' 
 W. B. YEATS.
 
 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 BY 
 
 EVELYN UNDERHILL
 
 This Edition enjoys copyright in 
 all countries signatory to the Berne 
 Treaty, and is not to be imported 
 into the United States of A merica
 
 TO 
 
 ALICE HERBERT 
 
 A SMALL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF A GREAT DEBT
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. OVER THE BORDER I 
 
 II. THE EXILE - 7 
 
 III. THE RETURN TO THE ROAD - 1 8 
 
 IV. A LITTLE WAYFARER IS BEWILDERED - ' 3 2 
 V. A DOWN-HILL STRETCH - 45 
 
 VI. STAFF AND SCRIP - 54 
 
 VII. MARSHLAND AND WICKET - 64 
 
 VIII. THE FIRST SIGNPOST - 80 
 
 IX. A FELLOW-TRAVELLER - - 95 
 
 X. ROAD-MAKING - - III 
 
 XI. A BREEZY UPLAND - 121 
 
 XII. MAPS ARE CONSULTED - - 133 
 
 XIII. MR. WILLIE HOPKINSON TRIES A SHORT CUT - 146 
 
 XIV. BUT THE ROAD BECOMES MUDDY - - 159 
 XV. A WAYSIDE SHRINE - - 175 
 
 XVI. DIFFICULT PATHS - 1 88 
 
 XVII. A SHARP CORNER - 199 
 
 XVIII. INCIPIT VITA NOVA - 2IO 
 
 vii
 
 viii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XIX. THE DELECTABLE MOUNTAINS - -222 
 
 XX. THE RIVER - ' 2 39 
 
 XXI. WILLIE TRIES TO LEND A HAND - 249 
 
 XXII. CROSS-ROADS - - 266 
 
 XXIII. THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION- - 278 
 
 XXIV. THE PATH RUNS TO THE WOODS - 293 
 XXV. COMMENTARIES- - 309
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 OVER THE BORDER 
 
 ' Death . . . snatches us 
 As a cross nurse might do a wayward child 
 From all our toys and baubles. 3 
 
 Old Play. 
 
 A CHILDREN'S hospital is not a bad place to die in : 
 failing forest or hilltop, perhaps, one may not easily 
 find a better. It is clean and airy, and there are 
 few opportunities for the hysterical confusion of 
 leave-taking which gives a touch of horror and 
 bewilderment to the greater dignities of a private 
 decease. The Author of the Human Comedy, one 
 fancies, did not pay much attention to our exits 
 and our entrances. They seldom strike the imagi- 
 nation ; yet, from the spectator's point of view, they 
 are not the least strange or important details of 
 the play. 
 
 On October the i5th in the year 1878, a small 
 boy lay in the Princess Ward of S. Nicholas' 
 Infirmary, dying of typhoid fever. He was a 
 crumpled-up bit of slum-reared humanity, a sharp 
 mind set in a starved frame ; and being but mildly 
 
 I
 
 2 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 interested in his own sensations, he found the 
 proceeding infinitely tiresome. The bare white- 
 ness of the place, its uncomfortable cleanliness, 
 and a certain martinet method of kindness, were 
 not pleasing to a taste that had been formed amidst 
 the homely squalor of Netting Dale. Being too 
 weak to make noises for himself, he would have 
 liked someone else to take on this agreeable duty ; 
 but that never happened, and the silence and good 
 behaviour were harder to bear than all the pains 
 of his illness. 
 
 Happily, however, there were occasional oases 
 to be found even in this desert of hygienic 
 decorum. They were called visiting days, and 
 they happened twice a week. At these times 
 his mother came to see him, bringing with her 
 local perfumes and phrases which roused his 
 dormant nostalgia to the pitch of acute desire. 
 Her homely figure, formed of misplaced curves, 
 and the drooping assurance of her hat, cheered 
 his spirits as they entered the ward, and, to the 
 manifest disapproval of the nurses, gravitated 
 to the side of his cot. Sometimes a sticky brother 
 or sister was with her, and spoke to him in the 
 beloved dialect of home, infinitely refreshing to the 
 ear after the frosty official English of the hospital. 
 ' Jimmy Rogers 'as bin 'ad up agin,' his mother 
 would say, or, ' Yer pa came 'ome tight larst night, 
 and I 'it 'im. Low brute !' 
 
 The child nodded approvingly, as well as his weak-
 
 OVER THE BORDER 3 
 
 ness would let him, and longed for a quick return 
 to those glorious spheres of action. In the hospital 
 no one was ever had up, or came home tight, and 
 this extreme respectability depressed him. Some 
 temperaments can never be reconciled to a passive 
 world, however virtuous its repose. 
 
 But after some weeks of luxurious boredom, and 
 when he was supposed to have commenced a normal 
 and satisfactory convalescence, his mother yielded 
 to a maternal impulse, and involuntarily set going 
 the scene-shifting machinery of death. The special 
 lever which she selected took the form of a currant 
 bun, secretly administered in response to his 
 clamouring insistence on hunger. The results were 
 to be foreseen relapse, wrath of doctors and nurses, 
 the gradual sinking, and finally death, of the victim. 
 These are a fairly constant feature of hospital 
 experience. But in this case, for some obscure 
 reason, these things composed not merely the finale 
 of the comedy, but rather the curtain-raiser of a 
 drama of more than fashionable length. What 
 the apple eaten in the garden was to Eve, that 
 currant bun was to the small boy who gulped it 
 hastily down under the friendly cover of the sheet. 
 To feel it between his teeth was a wholly satisfying 
 delight ; but it shut him out from the paradise of 
 ignorance, and that, for so short an ecstasy, was 
 a rather heavy price. 
 
 It was on the next day that he died. Coming 
 from a class in which funerals were the chief and 
 
 i 2
 
 4 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 perhaps the only innocent festivities, the idea of 
 death was familiar to him, and not disturbing. 
 It was an ornamental and not always unfortunate 
 incident which happened to the neighbours now 
 and then. 
 
 But his own extinction, his sudden departure 
 from surroundings so real, solid, and inimical to 
 all mystery, was a very different matter. He 
 found it utterly incredible, even whilst it was 
 taking place. He was not more than ten years 
 old, and his natural wits had already been dimmed 
 by the beginnings of a Board School education. 
 His scepticism was foolish and unreasoning, but 
 he shared it with many reputable persons of mature 
 age and apparent intelligence. That was a truthful 
 if unpopular prophet who said, that the deaths of 
 many populations do nothing to prepare us for our 
 own. 
 
 He was distinctly conscious of the early stages 
 of his gradual withdrawal from life. He felt pleased 
 when the professional annoyance of the nurses 
 became tempered with pity at the sight of his 
 growing weakness. Then came an hour of wild 
 struggles to retain consciousness of all that went 
 on round him, when he felt that this alone could 
 save him from the black and shapeless gulf which 
 had suddenly and silently become the primary 
 fact of existence. A sense of hopeless battle and 
 slow fatality sapped his courage. He was fighting 
 hard, but he knew that he should not win. He
 
 OVER THE BORDER 5 
 
 could have wept, but he had no strength to waste 
 on tears. All was very misty round him ; only 
 he had fixed his eyes on the bright brass knob 
 which finished one corner of his cot, and he clung 
 to the knowledge of its existence with a desperate 
 cunning, as if that were the last bond that held 
 him to life. 
 
 Small street-boys of ten are not very easily 
 frightened as a rule, but so far as he was conscious 
 of anything, he felt now a cold terror of the grey 
 unknown state on the verge of which he choked 
 and trembled ; and whilst the rest of the ward 
 grew dim and wavering, he lay staring with deter- 
 mination at the brass knob until its swollen and 
 shining form was burnt on to his brain. It grew 
 very difficult to breathe after a time, but he did 
 not mind that much. People were round him, 
 touching him and doing things, but he hardly 
 noticed them. The sense of touch had gone to 
 sleep already ; but in the midst of a creeping 
 somnolence his eyes were still awake, and his ears. 
 
 * He's going now, poor little chap,' said the house- 
 surgeon, and his voice sounded faint and distant. 
 
 ' No better than murder, I call it,' answered the 
 nurse who had been most indignant over the 
 catastrophe ; and another toneless echo replied : 
 ' It was hopeless from the first, of course.' 
 
 The brass knob was getting very hazy ; it seemed 
 to float uncertainly in the air. If only it would 
 not go away ! He knew that as long as he saw that
 
 6 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 knob he was alive ; it and he were alive together 
 in a world that was all their own. For one short 
 instant he had an awful imchildlike vision of his 
 loneliness, lying there and struggling with his fancies 
 amongst people who could not help, or enter in, 
 or understand. He wanted to ask one of them 
 to catch his knob for him before it was lost, but 
 words had gone from him long ago. Then he saw 
 that it was very close to him, after all, and shining 
 brightly. 
 
 It seemed to smile at him, and though a thousand 
 bells were ringing in his ears, he made an effort and 
 smiled too. 
 
 He stretched out his hand and grasped it. ...
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE EXILE 
 
 ' The soul, when it departs from the body, needeth not to go 
 far ; for where the body dies, there is heaven and hell.' 
 JACOB BEHME|(. 
 
 A LITTLE ghost adrift in a strange world, from which 
 all colour had been withdrawn. He had never 
 heard of the Greek Hades, or it is probable that he 
 would have thought himself there. So new and 
 uncanny was the aspect of things that it was some 
 time before he realized how very little had happened 
 to him after all. He was still in the hospital ward 
 amongst the old surroundings, but he perceived 
 them now with the vagueness of assent that we 
 accord to suggestions, not with the assured grasp 
 that one reserves for indubitable facts. He had 
 slipped into a new plane of existence, and saw 
 the world in a new perspective a thin, grey, 
 unsubstantial world, like a badly-focussed photo- 
 graph. Yet it was not a legendary land of shadows, 
 but the solid ordinary earth, on which he had passed 
 ten years of aggressively material life. 
 
 7
 
 8 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 The soul of a small boy, I think, is always un- 
 comfortable unless it is unconscious, for the human 
 spirit takes a long time to get accustomed to its 
 own queerness. Consciousness seemed now to be 
 thrust upon this one as greatness upon Malvolio ; 
 and, taking rapid stock of the situation, he found 
 himself deeply dissatisfied with the prospect. A 
 learned spinster suddenly deposited in the midst 
 of a Cockney beanfeast could not feel more 
 thoroughly out of place than he in this new dimen- 
 sion. He was one of those brisk, sharp-witted 
 children of the streets, whose every interest is an 
 appetite, and whose world of joy and sorrow is 
 bounded at either end by the Crystal Palace and 
 the police courts. Now, without understanding 
 the how or why of the matter, he was summarily 
 divorced from the lean and active body which had 
 interpreted all his pleasures, and found himself 
 converted into a pure spirit to whom the material 
 universe was no more actual than the air and 
 other invisible gases are to living men. He knew 
 that it was there, but it could no longer count for 
 much in the scheme of things. It did not dominate 
 the landscape. 
 
 As he got more used to the dimness and greyness, 
 he saw his body lying in the cot where it had died, 
 and the nurses standing round it. He knew that 
 it was going to be taken away to the mortuary, as 
 had happened to other children who had died 
 whilst he was there. He felt horribly miserable
 
 THE EXILE 9 
 
 then, lost and chilly ; and he tried to get back to it, 
 but some strange repulsive force threw him back 
 every time that he drew near. Then he tried to 
 cry out, but a queer hoarse muttering was the only 
 sound that he made, and none of the grey people 
 in the photograph-world took the slightest notice 
 of it. But it brought another unpleasant point 
 into prominence. When he heard this sound of 
 his own cry, he suddenly realized how very quiet 
 everything else was. In the ward there had always 
 been a certain clink and chatter, the hurry of 
 nurses and the play of convalescent children : now, 
 nothing. The earthly ear had gone the way of 
 the earthly eye ; and the pleasant noises, as well 
 as the colour of life, had left him. 
 
 The prospect was very dreary, but he was not 
 disheartened yet. His spirit, after all, was only 
 the essence of his boyhood ; he had taken nothing 
 into death but those qualities which he had managed 
 to elaborate during his little life. So it was that his 
 natural endowment of irreverence and curiosity 
 remained unimpaired ; and these spurred him to 
 exploration, and encouraged him with cheerful 
 thoughts. He had heard many ghost stories, some 
 exceedingly horrid, and none without a certain 
 fearful joy : and now he perceived, with a sudden 
 shock of excitement, that he too had become a 
 ghost. Visions of haunted alleys, of carefully 
 planned practical jokes which should make the 
 ward untenable by nervous nurses, came to him ;
 
 io THE GREY WORLD 
 
 and he felt greatly comforted as he sketched for 
 himself a career as full of illicit delight as any 
 embryo Hooligan could wish. 
 
 But he had no idea how to set about it, and 
 moreover his thoughts were all very confused and 
 weak ; so that he hovered vaguely to and fro, unable 
 to settle upon anything. Almost unconsciously he 
 drifted out of the hospital, and got entangled in 
 and amongst a whole network of houses, endless 
 walls dividing up neat rooms ; all much the same, 
 like mazes built out of mist. Nothing stopped his 
 progress, for all the things that he was accustomed 
 to call hard had lost their hardness and resistance, 
 and he passed through them as easily as a bird 
 might pass through clouds upon the hills. Often 
 there were people in the rooms, and by fixing his 
 attention very hard he found out that they were 
 talking or eating or working, all in the same heavy 
 silence. Yet, though he was amongst them, touch- 
 ing them, passing through them even, there was a 
 sense of great remoteness about it all. He seemed 
 to be looking at dim pictures of unfamiliar things . 
 
 As for haunting, if he was not doing it now, 
 what was he doing ? Yet no one noticed his 
 presence ; though he blundered through shut 
 doors they did not creak for him, and dogs lying 
 on the hearth-rugs refused to whine because he 
 was there. 
 
 The solitude of the new-made ghost, especially 
 the ghost of the child, or indeed of any other being
 
 THE EXILE ii 
 
 that has depended wholly on the body for its joys, 
 is perhaps the most terrible form of loneliness that 
 exists. It is the real Hell, and more dreadful than 
 any maker of religions has dared to dream of. It 
 resembles the sick helplessness of a traveller who 
 finds himself, tired and alone, in the streets of a 
 foreign city. An existence is going on around him, 
 but he has no share in it, cannot even understand 
 it. He wanders about, and it does not at all 
 matter where he wanders. Nothing that he sees 
 or feels is related to him or to his desires ; nothing 
 needs him. So this dead child felt as he drifted 
 through these comfortable little homes, past fires 
 that did not warm him, through people who did 
 not see him ; yet to whom he longed to talk, just 
 to escape from his terrifying loneliness. He had 
 left off trying to cry out to them, because the sound 
 of his own cry, echoing in the silence which he 
 knew was not really a silence, frightened him more 
 than anything else. 
 
 In some of the rooms were shadowy grey children, 
 playing with impalpable toys ; and he tried once 
 or twice to grab their dolls and knock their soldiers 
 down, before he remembered that it was useless. 
 And it was with a horrible ghostly hunger, which 
 hurt more than real hunger had ever done, that he 
 fled from one nursery where they were having bread 
 and jam for tea. 
 
 It was not until this desultory wandering had 
 lasted for some time that a knowledge came to him
 
 12 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 of other presences in the soundless fog which formed 
 his universe. At first he had been too dazed to do 
 more than hang desperately on to the last fringes 
 of life. He was no philosopher, and his discovery 
 of the unsubstantial nature of material things had 
 thoroughly bewildered him. He had the unde- 
 veloped but eminently cock-sure spirit of the 
 Cockney child, and it revolted him that such 
 signposts of reality as walls, roofs, furniture, 
 should become a colourless sponge through which 
 he could pass without hitting himself, and against 
 which his most determined push accomplished 
 nothing. He could not get used to anything so 
 flagrantly impossible, and settled down at last on 
 the explanation that the whole thing must be an 
 uneasy dream, dimly connected with the currant 
 bun. He left off trying to keep count of his sur- 
 roundings, and relaxed the strain of attention 
 which had kept him aware of the last faint re- 
 mainders of his old world. It went from him like 
 a cloud ; and as it went, a new sense came in its 
 place. 
 
 He knew, suddenly and quite distinctly, that he 
 was not alone. The horrible silence was gone, 
 and he heard vaguely at first, and then with over- 
 powering insistence a crying and twittering, rest- 
 less and very sad. In later days, the sound of sea- 
 birds crying amongst solitary rocks on the edge 
 where the land joins the sea always reminded 
 him of that crying on the edge between life and
 
 THE EXILE 13 
 
 death : the borderlands of things have much in 
 common. 
 
 Then he realized that he was in a crowd of other 
 beings like himself. They passed by him in great 
 companies, pushing, moving in an endless stream ; 
 he heard the rustling sound of their movement as 
 a sort of undercurrent to their queer, unhappy 
 cries. They were in and through the intangible 
 country of life, but they did not seem to notice 
 it at all. He thought at first that they would 
 notice him, and that his loneliness was over ; but 
 as he drifted a little, first with one stream and then 
 with another, or lingered in the vortex rings made 
 by circling processions, and was jostled by imma- 
 terial crowds, the isolation of a spirit wandering 
 amongst the living faded into insignificance beside 
 the frightful solitude of a spirit alone amongst the 
 dead. He came to the not unnatural conclusion 
 that these were the souls of grown-up people, 
 probably toffs, who would not associate with 
 common kids ; yet many kids, he reflected, died in 
 hospitals and elsewhere, and their souls must be 
 somewhere about. It was probable that they would 
 be companionable, or at any rate would not show 
 the same lordly indifference to his presence ; and he 
 set out with renewed cheerfulness to hunt for them. 
 
 Then it was that he discovered that this moving 
 mass of spirits was hunting too ; wearily searching 
 for company, interests, something that had been 
 made necessary to them in life, now summarily
 
 14 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 taken away. They went on, hopelessly, endlessly : 
 the noise that he heard was the complaint which 
 they made to the enveloping greyness because 
 of the hardness of their quest. So he joined one 
 of the streams, though he knew nothing of the 
 direction in which it was going, for there was no 
 more upness or downness for him, no boundary, 
 and no horizon point to make for : and they travelled 
 between other lines of searchers, each crying in 
 his loneliness, and no one apparently caring what 
 his neighbour cried for all held together, like a 
 Democratic Association, by their common rest- 
 lessness. 
 
 But when they had gone like this for a little while, 
 a sort of agreeable warmth, that nice gregarious 
 feeling which even a strange crowd can impart, 
 came over him, and renewed his failing self-respect. 
 He was proud, in a vague way, of being one of the 
 dead, just as he might have been proud of being a 
 Londoner without getting any special benefit from 
 his citizenship. He began, too, to feel something 
 of the reasons that moved these spirits to sweep 
 backwards and forwards for ever over the world. 
 A mysterious telepathy seemed to be established, 
 and he read deeper and deeper into the unhappy 
 minds that were travelling beside him. 
 
 The first discovery that he made was that his soul 
 was curiously in harmony with the general point of 
 view. He had despised himself because he was only a 
 child, but these people, too, were spiritually childish.
 
 THE EXILE 15 
 
 They were regretting Earth and its pleasures as 
 keenly as he was ; not, perhaps, its bread and jam, 
 but other things which were now equally wanting 
 in substance. All their interests were there appar- 
 ently in money, friends, games, ambitions, dis- 
 coveries ; all the things that go to make up the 
 fulness of life. Now this life that they had so 
 reluctantly left was seen to be only a grey, uncertain 
 shadow, all its beauty gone, all its realities decep- 
 tive ; but still they could not kill their desire for it. 
 They had nothing else ; it was all in all to them, and 
 their desires chained them down to it, and kept 
 them in it though they could not be of it, and 
 drove them in herds on the hopeless quest of a 
 solution through all the scenes they had cared for 
 once and now could scarcely recognise. 
 
 The child, with a mysterious but incontrovertible 
 knowledge, knew that he too was bound to that 
 dreary trail and that aimless search, because he was 
 incapable of realizing any other environment ; and 
 the prospect had that horror of dulness which was 
 associated in his mind with the stories that old 
 paupers used to tell on Sunday afternoons about 
 the workhouse. He, then, was a spiritual pauper, 
 shut out from the pretty heaven which the nurses 
 had often described to him, and unable to enjoy 
 the strange changed earth that he was tied to. 
 
 He looked back now with longing to the hospital 
 ward that he had found so monotonous and chilly. 
 Its little incidents were full of the delicious homely
 
 16 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 savour of life ; and the slow noise of London used to 
 come softly through its windows, and remind him 
 of the great world where existence had been quick 
 and busy, prone to those sudden variations of luck 
 which leave no room for boredom. Now London 
 was dead and silent, and he alive in the empty 
 twilight. 
 
 Then, with the desire for her, came back the 
 knowledge that he was still in her streets ; and he 
 turned all his strength resolutely earthwards, and 
 saw that he was in the great broad road which ran 
 westward to Uxbridge, and passed close to his 
 home. A silent, ghostlike traffic filled it : carriages 
 and omnibuses, big waggons, and the tradesmen's 
 carts that he had loved to run behind. He saw 
 them through the veil of rushing spirits, trotting 
 past him in two placid streams. It seemed 
 horribly unjust to be deprived of all this inexpen- 
 sive amusement and get absolutely nothing in 
 exchange. 
 
 And at that moment a man on a high bicycle 
 flew past him down the ghostly hill. He was 
 leaning back in a lordly manner ; he had put his 
 feet up. With that agreeable vision all his old 
 instincts returned to him violently : it had never 
 been his custom to let bicycles go by without a 
 greeting, and he started in pursuit, and tried, 
 thoughtlessly, to put his fingers in his mouth to 
 give tone to his favourite whistle of contempt. 
 The resulting failure was the last drop in his cup
 
 THE EXILE 17 
 
 of misery ; the faint crying of the souls about him 
 drove him mad with loathing ; and he flung out 
 the whole force of his poor little spirit in a prayer 
 to some Force which he dreaded but knew not, 
 for a return, at any price, to the excitements and 
 uncertainties of life.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 ' C'e'tait un petit etre si tranquille, si timide et si silencieux. . . . 
 C'e'tait un pauvre petit etre myste"rieux, comme tout le monde.' 
 MAETERLINCK. 
 
 THE stucco of a western suburb received him back 
 into life ; and he next looked out on the world from 
 the barred windows of a fourth-floor nursery, set in 
 a wide brown street of reputable gloom. 
 
 It must be allowed that he had improved his posi- 
 tion. The atmosphere of this new home was English 
 and domestic : conventional therefore. Its tidy boun- 
 daries were rigid, but set in a smiling curve. It was 
 permeated by a cheerful fuss. Its mistress was a 
 Martha who did not allow herself to be troubled by 
 the fact that her sister Mary an indifferent wife 
 and a wretched manager had drifted into another 
 set. The family existence rippled through a life of 
 happy half-tones, carefully shaded from the agitat- 
 ing sunlight of truth. It drew up its blinds suffi- 
 ciently high for convenience, but always let a foot 
 or so of lace-edged propriety show against the upper 
 
 18
 
 THE RETURN TO THE ROAD 19 
 
 panes. In these days of horrid publicity and bold 
 smartness, one must make it obvious that one pos- 
 sesses blinds. 
 
 The force of one strenuous wish had thrown the 
 child back amongst "the living ; but the niche thus 
 hastily found for him was not, perhaps, well chosen. 
 He and his new family suited one another but in- 
 differently. They were of a class which is always 
 trivially active : he came to them overshadowed 
 by an inconceivable past, queer and dreamy a 
 fact which his mother attributed to an imperfect 
 digestion. Health loomed large in the assets of 
 the Hopkinson family, and it was Mrs. Hopkinson 
 who kept the books and carefully assessed the 
 individual dividend. Very probably he was not 
 healthy : very certainly his marked divergence 
 from the family type cried for some explanation. 
 His legs were not fat enough, nor his hair thick 
 enough, to please the parental eye; and genius or 
 disease seemed the only plausible hypotheses. 
 
 He soon took up his normal position in the house- 
 hold that of a fearful joy to his mother, who 
 thought that he would be a poet if she could rear 
 him ; a constant if unacknowledged irritant to his 
 father ; and an insolvable but amusing enigma in 
 the otherwise transparent outlook of his sister 
 Pauline. It was a pity, perhaps, that the sexes 
 had so arranged themselves. Mr. Hopkinson could 
 have cherished an invalid daughter ; he only de- 
 spised a sickly son : and Pauline, who would have 
 
 2 2
 
 20 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 been admirable as a boy, swamped her brother's 
 weak efforts towards self-assertion in her own 
 excess of vitality. 
 
 She was a normally wholesome child of the middle 
 class, a girl of whom any healthy-minded parent 
 might be proud. Born a Materialist, her High School 
 education had concerned itself chiefly with the crea- 
 tion of those angles which it was afterwards to 
 smooth away. Her opinions were positive ; com- 
 promise she never understood. A rather unelastic 
 intelligence did not permit her more than one point 
 of view, and the one which she selected placed her 
 brother Willie in a light which was vivid enough, 
 but scarcely sympathetic or explanatory. 
 
 As he emerged from babyhood into a puzzled 
 self -consciousness, in which present realities were 
 always tempered by the memory of a confused but 
 unforgettable past, Pauline, three years his senior, 
 took upon herself the character of a well-meaning 
 bogey. She was at once alarming, overpowering, 
 and affectionate. It is difficult for a healthy animal 
 and an immortal, if undeveloped, spirit to inhabit 
 the same nursery in peace ; and Master Hopkinson 
 did not find his sister's disposition accommodating. 
 Her attitude was so uncertain. He acquired, and 
 never entirely lost, the habit of looking up at her 
 quickly whenever he made a remark, because he 
 was never sure how she would take it. 
 
 Constancy of environment is a necessity of happy 
 childhood. It is only when we are old enough to
 
 THE RETURN TO THE ROAD 21 
 
 perceive their absurdity that the inconsistencies of 
 our elders cease to be distressing ; and Pauline's 
 indignant denial of imagination caused her brother 
 many shocks, and some hours of troubled meditation. 
 
 He was a trustful little boy, naturally candid. 
 Silence frightened him, and he was eagerly willing 
 to converse with the whole world if he might. It 
 was some time before he found out that his robust 
 sister was not exactly the person to whom he might 
 best confide his dreams and bewilderments ; or the 
 queer thoughts that came to him when he lay awake 
 at night, and wondered where he was, and if he were 
 alive, and if he were really a little boy as everybody 
 seemed to think, or only some sort of tiny insect. 
 
 He sometimes had the feeling that he did not 
 belong to the home-life at all ; that he was outside 
 of it, looking on at it, and that all the things which 
 seemed to be happening were not happening really. 
 This sensation he never succeeded in explaining to 
 anyone, which was perhaps fortunate : but it con- 
 tinued to oppress him. He had as yet no idea that 
 the domain of his pains and pleasures was different 
 from that of the average child ; for there was no 
 one to whom he could apply for information, or talk 
 out his puzzled little soul with out misunderstandings. 
 
 Pauline's sensible outlook reflected the family 
 conscience only too well. She was implacable 
 towards fancies, and did not encourage revela- 
 tions. Her brisk, ' What nonsense, Willie ! Don't 
 be such a silly little boy,' was always to be felt,
 
 22 
 
 like a Greek chorus, the spectator's comment on his 
 comedy of life. 
 
 Not till he was about eleven years old. and, as 
 Mrs. Hopkinson was fond of saying, ' Just a little 
 anaemic, like so many London boys,' did the full 
 weight of Pauline's temperament begin to make 
 itself felt. Willie had brought back with him into 
 life a keen and uncomfortable realization of the 
 Grey World of the dead on which he had once been 
 cast, and of its restless populations. As he grew 
 older, and evolved his own plan of the world out of 
 the uncertain country full of strange shapes and 
 noises where a baby dwells, he was apt to have 
 sudden returns to the knowledge of that dimension : 
 vivid and uncontrollable visions in which he saw 
 his solid surroundings fade into a sort of shadowy 
 jelly, and heard the dreadful cry of the souls on 
 their endless quest. Perhaps a little bit of his soul 
 may have lagged behind there when he made his 
 hurried re-entry into life. 
 
 Yet, in spite of these transcendental perceptions, 
 which he hated but could not escape, he had all the 
 practical matter-of-factness of the average urban 
 child. His experiences had never seemed to him 
 to be in any way odd, and it certainly never struck 
 him that they were not shared by the rest of the 
 family. He was so used to it all, it was so much a 
 part of normal experience, that no doubt or ques- 
 tion ever entered his head. Of course, no one ever 
 talked to him about the Grey World, or acted in a
 
 THE RETURN TO THE ROAD 23 
 
 way which suggested the slightest doubt about the 
 reality of the tables and chairs or the actuality of 
 food. He had never once heard anyone mention 
 the strange way these things had of becoming sud- 
 denly unsubstantial and remote. This, however, 
 he put down to that difficult science of politeness, 
 which, according to Mrs. Hopkinson, forbade many 
 subjects of conversation to sensible children. 
 
 He had already noticed that most of the curious 
 and interesting things which happened every day 
 were never spoken of at all, or apparently noticed. 
 The bit of sky which he saw out of the nursery 
 window, for instance, would fill itself with the 
 loveliest cloud palaces, and knock them all down 
 and replace them with little ships or snow moun- 
 tains or flocks of sheep all very remarkable to 
 Master Hopkinson, and quite on the same plane of 
 mystery as his constant neighbours the ghosts ; for 
 the joys as well as the terrors of the visionary were 
 his. But no one took the least interest in such 
 things, or said anything about them. When a very 
 wonderful cloud came by, sometimes he showed it 
 to Pauline ; but she only said ' Silly little boy !' 
 and went back to the concoction of crinkled paper 
 lamp-shades and tidies her favourite occupation. 
 
 So the cloud - world and the ghost - world were 
 classed together in his view of the universe as sub- 
 jects which were not spoken of by well-mannered 
 persons, and were too unimportant to be noticed by 
 those grown-up people whose lives, to eleven years
 
 24 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 old, seem compounded of the incomprehensible and 
 the romantic. And it was really quite accidentally 
 that he at last broke through this self-imposed 
 barrier of etiquette, and delivered up his secret to 
 the unsuitable custody of Pauline. 
 
 He had always a private terror of his involuntary 
 returns to the invisible side of existence ; it was 
 lonely, it was upsetting, it took the zest out of 
 daily amusements. He would so much have liked 
 to forget all about it. But as he was generally 
 alone when its presence overcame him, and his 
 English blood had given him a certain shame of 
 his fright, he had managed to pass through these 
 moments of panic unperceived ; and any unusual 
 paleness or silence afterwards was laid to the account 
 of too much chocolate or too little exercise. 
 
 But one evening after tea, as he sat with Pauline 
 by the nursery fire before the lights had been 
 switched on, both very amiable and lazy, the thing 
 happened suddenly and without warning. His 
 helpless little soul slipped its leash, the walls of 
 sense trembled and melted, and he was back again 
 in the horrible country of silence and mist. The 
 old desolate feeling returned to him ; he was alone 
 in the crowd of hurrying spirits, and saw the pale 
 grey image of the nursery fire, and the vague spectre 
 of Pauline sitting beside it, many worlds away. He 
 longed to hear her speak, even if it were only to 
 snap at him ; but he was in another dimension, and 
 could not reach her. He thought, as he always did
 
 THE RETURN TO THE ROAD 25 
 
 on these occasions, that he was dead, and all hope 
 of respite over ; and at that and the shock of so 
 quick an ending, his courage fled from him in a wild 
 yell of fright. It seems probable that the accent of 
 that scream was not entirely earthly, for its terror 
 infected even the stolidly unemotional Pauline, and 
 she clutched her brother's leg, which happened to 
 be close to her, and shrieked : ' Whatever is the 
 matter, Willie ?' in shrill and distinctly nervous 
 tones. 
 
 The genuine appeal of her voice penetrated to the 
 dim place where he wandered, and called him back 
 to solid life again, a little breathless, and very grate- 
 ful for such prompt deliverance. 
 
 ' How I hate that noise !' he said with emphasis. 
 
 Miss Hopkinson, still rather shaken, opened large 
 eyes of amazement upon her brother and continued 
 her firm grasp of his leg. 
 
 ' What noise ?' she demanded sharply. 
 
 She was fourteen years old, and disliked being 
 startled : her voice had a ring of semiparental 
 authority. 
 
 But Willie was quite sure of his ground, and 
 answered without hesitation. 
 
 ' Why, the noise the ghosts make, stupid !' he said. 
 
 ' The ghosts ?' 
 
 Master Hopkinson was so surprised by his sister's 
 denseness that he ventured for the first time in his 
 life to address her in a tone of condescension. 
 
 ' You know,' he said. ' All the dreadful dead
 
 26 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 people what you hear when everything gets soft 
 and misty.' 
 
 She stared. 
 
 ' Like when we were dead before we got alive 
 again,' he concluded lucidly. 
 
 Pauline's manner now expressed cold disapproba- 
 tion, and also a certain ill-temper the natural re- 
 action from her short attack of credulity. 
 
 ' Willie,' she said severely, ' you are making 
 things up ; and you know quite well that mother 
 doesn't allow it.' 
 
 Allegations of this kind are trying even to the 
 least worldly temper, and Master Hopkinson's 
 reply was delivered in a distinctly unamiable tone. 
 
 ' Of course I'm not making it up,' he said. ' Why, 
 I'm always seeing them. They're quite real, you 
 know they are : just as real as we are. What for 
 should I make up anything so nasty ? They're 
 here now, all about us crowds of grey people that 
 never stop still.' 
 
 This was outrageous, and the wrathful sincerity 
 with which it was said roused Pauline's intolerant 
 common-sense to fighting pitch. 
 
 ' Be quiet this minute, Willie !' she cried. ' And 
 don't tell such wicked stories, or I shall go to mother 
 at once.' 
 
 But between his sister's extraordinary obtuseness 
 and the undeniable truth of his own perceptions, 
 Willie was now hopelessly confused and almost 
 hysterical. He felt her attitude to be insulting ;
 
 THE RETURN TO THE ROAD 27 
 
 and her final threat, deeply mortifying to the pride 
 of eleven years old, destroyed his last remnant of 
 self-control. He began to stamp and whimper in a 
 very disagreeable but -reassuring way. 
 
 ' I shall ! I shall ! I shall !' he said. ' Go and 
 speak to mother, nasty tell-tale scratch-cat ! She'll 
 know it's true. It's you that tell stories ; and I 
 shall tell mother you were frightened 'cause I yelled!' 
 
 Five minutes later Master and Miss Hopkinson 
 effected a hurried entrance into the drawing-room, 
 where their mother sat silky and erect pouring out 
 tea for several other matrons. It was her At Home 
 day, and the air was heavy with the perfume of 
 warm sealskin and white-rose scent. 
 
 Mrs. Hopkinson's most valued friend, the rich but 
 homely Mrs. Steinmann, was sitting near the door. 
 This lady had been badly translated from the 
 German in early life, and all traces of Teutonic 
 idiom had not yet been eradicated. For her, life 
 held but one thing the domestic interior. This 
 she really understood, and into its least tempting 
 recesses she penetrated with garrulous joy. She 
 was one of those worthy but socially embarrassing 
 women who are apt to change the conversation 
 abruptly when the gentlemen come into the room. 
 
 Mrs. Steinmann, then, saw the children at once, 
 and welcomed so congenial a reason for removing 
 her attention from Mrs. Alcock and Mrs. Frere 
 superior persons who professed to know nothing of 
 the duties of a tweeny-maid, and insisted on speak-
 
 28 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 ing of politics. Mrs. Steinmann was aware that 
 their remarks were merely an epitome of the opinions 
 of Mr. Alcock and Mr. Frere, both of whom obtained 
 their dogma direct from the Daily Telegraph. 
 
 ' Why, here are the dear little ones !' she said. 
 ' How big Pauline is getting ! And Willie too ; 
 quite a man ! Come and kiss me, my dears.' 
 
 But the usually placid Pauline was shaken from 
 her well-trained calm, and a strong sense of duty 
 impelled her, with Willie held firmly in her wake, 
 direct to her mother's chair. 
 
 ' Pauline ! What a dirty pinafore !' said Mrs. 
 Hopkinson, all her senses tuned to the level of her 
 best tea-set. 
 
 Pauline barely noticed this accusation, which was 
 sufficiently well founded. 
 
 ' Mother,' she replied in an awful voice, ' Willie's 
 been telling horrible stories. He says the nursery 
 is full of ghosts, and he saw them, but he was sitting 
 on the hearth-rug all the time ; and he gave the 
 awfullest scream !' 
 
 There was a slight sensation in the drawing-room. 
 Little Mrs. Alcock, who detested children but 
 thought it polite to show her appreciation of them 
 by giggling whenever they spoke, began to laugh : 
 and somehow her empty laughter, coming so soon 
 after his peep into the sorrowful place, outraged 
 Master Hopkinson even more than his sister's 
 scepticism had done. His puzzled little mind was 
 in revolt, and he turned on her quite fiercely.
 
 THE RETURN TO THE ROAD 29 
 
 ' You won't laugh when you're dead !' he observed 
 with chilling sincerity ; and Mrs. Alcock ceased to 
 be amused. 
 
 ' What a very peculiar little boy 1* she said, and 
 relapsed into uneasy silence. 
 
 The other ladies eyed him, some with nervousness, 
 others with obvious disapprobation. Eccentricity 
 is only tolerable when it is ridiculous, and they 
 found the situation more uncomfortable than absurd. 
 There was an uncanny feeling in the air. Several 
 began to button their cloaks and get out their card- 
 cases. But before they could say good-bye, the 
 child, who was recovering himself, followed up his 
 first advantage and arrested the general attention. 
 
 ' Isn't it silly, mother ?' he said. ' Pauline wants 
 to make out that there isn't a Grey World, or ghosts 
 in it, or anything. Why, I suppose you get into it 
 often, don't you, just like I do ? And anyhow, 
 when we were dead we were there for ever so long. 
 At least, I was, and I hated it, because of there 
 being nothing to do. And now Pauline says I tell 
 stories.' 
 
 The spectacle of a small boy in overalls standing 
 in the middle of the drawing-room floor and referring 
 casually to the time when he inhabited the unseen 
 world is not often seen in suburban circles ; and 
 Mrs. Hopkinson, who hated anything unusual to 
 happen on her At Home days, felt awkward and 
 annoyed. 
 
 * Willie dear,' she said rather flurriedly, ' you've
 
 30 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 been reading some horrid ghost stories, haven't you, 
 and got frightened ?' 
 
 And she nodded to the explosive Pauline per- 
 emptory injunctions to hold her tongue. 
 
 ' Oh no, mother,' answered Willie. ' The ghost 
 stories are all wrong, you know, not a bit like the 
 real thing ; and I wasn't at all frightened. Only I 
 got in amongst them all of a sudden, and it is so 
 horrible ; and I gave a yell, and then Pauline 
 wouldn't believe I'd been there.' 
 
 ' Pauline,' said Mrs. Hopkinson suddenly, ' what 
 did Willie have for his tea ?' 
 
 ' Well, he did have one bit of cake,' replied 
 Pauline. 
 
 The other ladies looked at each other significantly, 
 and nodded. To those practical maternal minds the 
 explanation was simple enough. 
 
 ' You may say what you like,' observed Mrs. 
 Steinmann, ' but with some children cake is never 
 assimilated. I've often seen the same thing with 
 my grandchildren. And a nervous boy like that! 
 But put him to bed with a dose of calomel, and he'll 
 be all right in the morning.' 
 
 * Yes,' said Mrs. Hopkinson, relieved by this con- 
 genial suggestion. ' You're not very well, Willie 
 dear ; that's what it is. Go upstairs with Pauline, 
 and don't think any more about it. It's all imagina- 
 tion, you know.' 
 
 What did an Early Christian feel like when his 
 sceptical relations treated him with contemptuous
 
 THE RETURN TO THE ROAD 31 
 
 kindness, and ascribed his spiritual perceptions to 
 dyspepsia ? One hopes that he found the lions a 
 less painful form of martyrdom. Master Willie 
 Hopkinson, torn by disgust, astonishment, and per- 
 plexity, knew that he preferred anything and every- 
 thing to Pauline, the agent of his humiliation. But 
 whilst he was still speechless in his misery, she 
 hurried him out of the room.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 A LITTLE WAYFARER IS BEWILDERED 
 
 ' Dreams were to him the true realities : externals he accepted 
 as other people accepted dreams.' GEORGE MOORE. 
 
 THE adventure of the At Home day was painful to 
 Willie's pride, but it taught him several valuable 
 things. It developed a wariness and precocious dis- 
 cretion which he had not possessed before ; and it 
 made him specially careful in his choice of conversa- 
 tion with the family. 
 
 It was a long time before he lost the shadow 
 which was cast by his painful efforts to review the 
 situation and understand the intricacies of his ex- 
 perience ; but whilst this still puzzled him, he saw 
 that any reticence must be good which saved him 
 from misunderstanding and humiliation, and he 
 laid his small plans for the future very deliberately. 
 
 Most children of the normal type have their 
 moments of mysticism, when their spirit first stirs 
 and they wonder what they really are, puzzling over 
 memory and consciousness and other things which 
 elude their rudimentary language, but which they 
 
 32
 
 A LITTLE WAYFARER IS BEWILDERED 33 
 
 take it for granted that their elders know all about. 
 Master Hopkinson, always acutely conscious of 
 two worlds equally near to him, pondered perhaps 
 less on these things, because to him they were so 
 obvious, objectionable, and distinct. In later and 
 more articulate years he was accustomed to say, 
 that he came to his infancy trailing clouds which 
 had no elements of glory. The phrase was accurate, 
 and he did not find its literary associations dis- 
 agreeable. 
 
 The Grey World was the warp on which the 
 bright threads of his sensuous existence were 
 spread a strange and tiresome plan, perhaps ; but 
 to him profoundly natural, because it was the only 
 one that he had ever known. But this sudden dis- 
 covery that the rest of the family did not share his 
 knowledge, live the same dual life, or frequent the 
 same dim country, startled and distressed him. 
 He had taken it for granted that he was as all other 
 little boys ; now it seemed clear that he had made 
 a huge mistake. Instead of sharing with the others 
 an experience as ordinary and inevitable as a cold 
 in the head or a dose of powder, he was quite alone 
 in his visits to the crowded country, and even in his 
 memories of the time when he was one of its inhabi- 
 tants. He had seen quite plainly that the Hopkin- 
 son family and its friends knew nothing of these 
 things. Even his mother, that monument of infalli- 
 bility, had seemed deeply astonished by what he 
 himself regarded as his extremely ordinary remarks, 
 
 3
 
 34 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 It was very bewildering, for he could really see no 
 reason why he should be different from everybody 
 else. He felt something of the helpless disgust of 
 the seasoned traveller who comes home to find his 
 truthful narrative received with sardonic smiles ; or 
 of the long-suffering chemist who tries to demon- 
 strate radium before the hostile grins of a canny but 
 uneducated audience. 
 
 At the same time, the human element in him was 
 rather ashamed, and frightened by its temerity, and 
 struggled to assure him that grown-up people must 
 know everything ; and the conviction grew that it 
 was best to endure the slur on his veracity in silence, 
 and only be careful in his own interests to steer clear 
 of these complications in the future. After all, if 
 for some inconceivable reason the rest of his ac- 
 quaintances inhabited one world only, did not know 
 where they had come from, and never dreamed of 
 troubling about it, it was not to be expected that 
 on the testimony of one small boy they should 
 believe in truths which were to them both imper- 
 ceptible and offensive. 
 
 And the Grey World was so monstrous, so impos- 
 sible unless one had been there, that often when he 
 was boat-sailing in Kensington Gardens, or when 
 the jam-roly at dinner was particularly solid and 
 good, Willie found it very hard to believe in it him- 
 self. That all the bright colours he loved : the nice 
 flat blue poppies with yellowy-brown leaves which 
 sprawled over the drawing-room paper, the scarlet
 
 A LITTLE WAYFARER IS BEWILDERED 35 
 
 of the local omnibus, and all the loveliness of sun- 
 shine and gaslight : should be shams which hid the 
 horrible place of unending nothingness that lay in 
 and through the streets and houses, and filled the 
 air he breathed with melancholy ghosts this would 
 have been quite ridiculous if it had not happened 
 to be true. So he excused Mrs. Hopkinson and her 
 callers for their ignorance ; and, half in a fit of out- 
 raged dignity, and half because he dreaded the 
 naturalistic standpoint of Pauline, he decided to 
 avoid all references to his own thoughts and experi- 
 ences until he was quite sure that the rest of the 
 world was likely to believe in them. 
 
 As the double life that he led rather detached 
 Master Hopkinson from a vivid interest in ordinary 
 boy-pleasures, and made him visionary and given to 
 quiet delights ; and as Mr. and Mrs. Hopkinson 
 strenuously upheld the policy of only talking to 
 the children about things that children should and 
 could understand, this resulted in his becoming an 
 unpleasantly silent little boy. For the grip of the 
 Unseen on his soul enlarged as he grew older, and 
 with it his terror of betraying himself. 
 
 So he lived for the next year or two a cautious, 
 artificial life, and all remembrance of the At Home 
 day episode gradually faded from the family mind. 
 They said that he was a queer child, and hoped he 
 was going to be clever ; and as Pauline outgrew the 
 nursery, he was left a good deal to himself. 
 
 He was certainly odd in his ways ; given to long 
 
 32
 
 36 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 hours of brooding and sudden flashes of conviction. 
 Dream was seldom absent from his eyes, but fortu- 
 nately Mrs. Hopkinson did not recognise it under that 
 name. He loved to read the old romances and tales 
 of King Arthur's knights, for a peculiar inarticulate 
 joy that they gave him : but when he tried to find 
 out the source of his fascination, he could not. 
 Specially the story of the Holy Graal attracted him. 
 Though his reason told him that it and the others 
 were as untrue, as shadowy, as the rest of life, his 
 soul found in them some secret element which 
 nourished it and gave it peace. 
 
 He got the habit of looking into every book that 
 he could find, for he had somehow acquired the idea 
 that books were real, though people, he knew, were 
 not. One day, he found a thin volume of verse, 
 left probably by some chance visitor Mr. Hopkin- 
 son discouraged, without difficulty, the reading of 
 poetry by his household ; he thought it dangerous 
 stuff. This book Willie opened, and read, 
 amongst much unintelligible loveliness, the follow- 
 ing quatrain : 
 
 ' We are no other than a moving row 
 Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go 
 
 Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held 
 In Midnight by the Master of the Show ; ' 
 
 ' Then there is someone else who knows !' he 
 thought ; and went away companioned and less 
 lonely for that knowledge. He had a constant 
 longing to fathom the depths of the gulf which
 
 A LITTLE WAYFARER IS BEWILDERED 37 
 
 divided him from other people, though he dared 
 not venture further confidences to discover if he 
 really stood alone. d 
 
 Sometimes he wondered if there were not other 
 children in. the same unhappy position ; but he 
 dreaded being laughed at, and the small boys at his 
 day-school did not strike him as promising subjects 
 for inquiry. 
 
 The solid trust in appearances which the ' grown- 
 ups ' showed, and specially his father's attitude 
 towards life, bothered him more and more. To 
 live in the midst of superior and authoritative 
 persons who persistently grasp the shadow and assert 
 that it is the substance, is aggravating to an apostle 
 but appalling to a nervous child. Mr. Hopkinson 
 was thought by his neighbours to be an alarmingly 
 clever man : modern science was his god, and 
 Huxley the high-priest of his temple, but he had a 
 way with heretics which savoured more of theology 
 than of reason. 
 
 Whilst Willie was still very young, he began to 
 ' interest him,' as he said, by popular lecturettes at 
 meal times or on Sunday afternoons, about things 
 that the child loved to dream over, and whose 
 beauties gave him an inexplicable delight. Perhaps 
 it was the ugliness of his calling Mr. Hopkinson 
 was a wholesale tailor ; Hopkinson, Vowles and Co., 
 of Bermondsey which developed his peculiar gift 
 of seeing only the mechanical and ordinary in the 
 universe, and reducing to formal hideousness the
 
 38 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 loveliest manifestations of life. But when he dis- 
 sected daisies, and showed his son pictures of his 
 own inside, and ' proved ' that the magical clouds 
 which Willie worshipped were nothing but steam 
 and dust, and then said informingly, ' Force and 
 Matter again ! Force and Matter ! That's the 
 whole bag of tricks, Willie my boy !' Master Hop- 
 kinson found the mingled results of his father's 
 ignorance and authority very bewildering. 
 
 He was disturbed, lonely and unhappy, and some- 
 times it even happened that he wished himself back 
 in his old existence in Notting Dale, where life 
 was always amusing and adventurous, and no one 
 worried about turning pretty dreams into what he 
 secretly looked upon as ugly lies. 
 
 But he kept these criticisms to himself with the 
 rest, and listened with a blank face which his father 
 put down to stupidity, whilst that enthusiast 
 gloated over atoms and molecules and the physical 
 basis of Life ; and even, when his wife was out of 
 hearing, took sideway trips into the theory of 
 evolution. Mr. Hopkinson was fond of comparing 
 the Universe to his own factory and himself to the 
 Ruler thereof ; and it struck him as eminently 
 reasonable that the Almighty should secure effi- 
 ciency by sacking the incompetent hands. He 
 waited for Willie's remarks the sharp remarks 
 beloved of the educational parent but they did 
 not come ; for Master Hopkinson dared not speak 
 of the truth as he knew it, and this same knowledge
 
 A LITTLE WAYFARER IS BEWILDERED 39 
 
 shut him out from any comprehension of his father's 
 point of view. 
 
 Pauline, on the contrary, took these things in 
 very readily. They taught science at the High 
 School once a week, and sometimes she argued with 
 Mr. Hopkinson about it, which pleased him. Her 
 questions and contentions were just sufficiently 
 intelligent to give a fallacious air of brilliance to his 
 own replies. She had grown into a tall, thick- 
 ankled girl, all muscle and loud opinions ; but her 
 brother still kept pale and puny, because, said his 
 mother, his brain was growing too fast. 
 
 ' Whatever it is that keeps him back,' replied her 
 husband, stroking the admirably-grown moustache 
 which did not seem likely to survive his generation, 
 ' it isn't his brain, because he hasn't got one. Not 
 one boy in a thousand has had his opportunities of 
 getting a thorough working knowledge of the scien- 
 tific standpoint. But the lad's a regular milksop, 
 unhealthy in mind and body, and takes no intelli- 
 gent interest whatever. Goodness knows what will 
 become of him when he gets into the City.' 
 
 It was at this propitious period that Master Hop- 
 kinson chose, for the second time, to lift the veil 
 which hung over the realities of his life. As her 
 children outgrew the nursery, and left more leisure 
 at her disposal, Mrs. Hopkinson had begun to 
 temper her household ministrations with a wider 
 charity ; and she was specially interested in a 
 society for taking boys from the Franciscan liberty
 
 40 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 of the slums and immuring them in an institution 
 where their morals were edited to a positively 
 insulting extent. Willie remembered well how the 
 young inhabitants of Netting Dale had looked upon 
 those societies, and he did not feel very interested 
 in the sum total of subscriptions which she some- 
 times announced to Mr. Hopkinson over the break- 
 fast-table. His own collecting-card lay with the 
 ' Boy's Own Microscope ' and ' Hints on Bird- 
 stuffing,' in a dark corner of the schoolroom cup- 
 board. 
 
 A day dawned, however, when Mrs. Hopkinson's 
 energies could no longer be confined to begging or 
 secretarial work. She had always had a passion 
 for commerce ; and she now perceived that it was 
 her duty, and incidentally the privilege of her com- 
 mittee, to undertake a bazaar. The remnant sales 
 were about to begin ; she had the flair of the born 
 bargain-hunter. She would buy scraps and odd- 
 ments offered at alarming sacrifices, confection 
 them into sachets, baby's pinafores, and garments 
 for the poor, and sell them to other philanthropic 
 economists at a profit of 50 per cent. The more 
 she thought of this idea, the more she liked it. 
 The house was soon filled with the sound of sewing- 
 machines and the smell of AspinalPs enamel ; and 
 Fraud, decked with the aureole of Good Intentions, 
 became its tutelary saint. 
 
 A working-party met twice a week, and discussed a 
 dubious morality amidst much snipping and stitching.
 
 A LITTLE WAYFARER IS BEWILDERED 41 
 
 ' Yes, dear ; put that lace on it. It will do quite 
 well. It was only three-three, but no one will 
 notice it isn't real torchon.' 
 
 ' No, I wouldn't line it with silk ; the lining won't 
 show.' 
 
 ' Oh, is that doll's leg broken, Mrs. Steinmann ? 
 What a bother ! You must give it a longer skirt to 
 hide the join.' 
 
 These and other sidelights on ethics came to 
 Master Hopkinson as he helped his sister to hand 
 tea, or dived under the dining-room table to search 
 for missing thimbles and pins. They were very 
 ugly in their earthiness, those afternoons, and were 
 somehow connected vaguely in his memory with a 
 plaid flannel blouse an unfortunate arrangement in 
 brown and heliotrope that his mother used to 
 wear. Just as in art some harmony of colour or 
 line may often suggest a link with music or with 
 poetry, so one form of hideousness often correlates 
 curiously with another, and stands as its eternal 
 emblem in our consciousness. 
 
 The bazaar and all its belongings, therefore, fussed 
 Master Hopkinson, disturbed his dreamy existence 
 and tried his nerves. Mrs. Hopkinson thought that 
 children should be made to interest themselves in 
 the poor, and he was never allowed to forget that 
 the preparations for enslaving the free-born sons of 
 Notting Dale were going on. Having now arrived 
 at a stage in which he remembered the days that he 
 had spent amongst them as the only entirely happy
 
 42 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 ones he had ever known, he looked on as a rather 
 morose cherub might have done whilst a party of 
 elderly angels planned out Purgatory. This atti- 
 tude could scarcely escape the committee, and their 
 exalted philanthropy judged it to be wholly evil. 
 Their little boys were chipping wood, and their little 
 girls working laborious doyleys for the charity ; but 
 Willie had not yet come forward with any contribu- 
 tion. 
 
 Amongst mothers, sidelong censure of other 
 people's children is always dangerous, but seldom 
 resistible ; and probably his deliberate languors 
 were very irritating. At last the strain broke. 
 
 ' Aren't you very glad, Willie dear,' said Mrs. 
 Steinmann to him suddenly, ' to think of those poor 
 little boys being taken out of the streets and put 
 into a comfortable home ?' 
 
 Passive disapprobation does not sit well on small 
 boys, and the committee had not been alone in 
 its growing exasperation. Master Hopkinson was 
 pleased to have an opening for his opinion. 
 
 ' No : I'm sorry for them,' he answered promptly. 
 
 A matronly chorus cried, ' My dear Willie !' and 
 looked at each other, but not at Mrs. Hopkinson, 
 who affected not to have heard her son's remark. 
 
 Willie felt that he was placed on the defensive, and 
 a wild longing to shock someone seized him. Long- 
 nourished rancours against local ideas overflowed, 
 and abruptly demolished all his careful vows of 
 discretion. In fact, he lost his temper and his head.
 
 A LITTLE WAYFARER IS BEWILDERED 43 
 
 * When I was a poor little boy/ he said, ' I liked 
 it. It was jolly. I didn't have to be clean then. 
 And there was lots more to do than there is here 
 and fewer lessons, and. I never heard ghosts. And 
 you talk a lot about their drunken fathers, and all 
 that ; but drunken fathers aren't so bad. I 
 thought mine rather amusing. I used to help get 
 him upstairs at night. Sometimes he was awfully 
 funny ' 
 
 Here Mrs. Steinmann's shiny dark eyes, trained 
 to plumb the souls of her scullery-maids, began to 
 have their effect on him. He stopped suddenly. 
 It is never pleasant to realize that one has confided 
 in the wrong person. Willie now perceived that he 
 had confided in a crowd of wrong persons. Some- 
 one said, ' How remarkable !' and someone else, 
 ' He really must have quite a vivid imagination !' 
 His mother dropped three pins from her mouth, 
 but found no words to fill the vacancy ; and Master 
 Hopkinson, with hot face and short breath, walked 
 out of the room as quickly as he considered proper. 
 
 This was Willie's last serious indiscretion ; and so 
 useless and astonishing had been his fall that he 
 never clearly understood how it came about. His 
 wild words had left no sharp impression behind 
 them ; but they revived unfortunate memories and 
 prejudices amongst the Hopkinson set, and confirmed 
 the belief that he was a ' difficult child.' Some felt 
 bound to call him clever, but all preferred to think 
 that he was untruthful.
 
 44 
 
 This he expected, and with indifference ; but he 
 was surprised in his ignorance when his mother sud- 
 denly deserted her post of family ameliorator and 
 concealer of crime, and took the history of his out- 
 burst to Mr. Hopkinson's ears. He learnt later that 
 Good Works rank, like etiquette and imperialism, 
 amongst the most solemn games of mankind, and 
 are not lightly to be smiled at. A mild irony at the 
 expense of her pet charity will turn the most loving 
 woman against her children, but the first time that 
 it happens the shock is rather severe. 
 
 So Willie stood before his father feeling sick and 
 shaky, whilst he italicized the most unpleasant as- 
 pects of the incident, and asked his son sarcastically 
 what he meant by it. Master Hopkinson's soul, 
 which was so familiar with the real terrors, hated 
 his body for this ridiculous fright. He had no words, 
 but his father had plenty the acid reaction of his 
 unappreciated lectures poisoned his discourse, and 
 burnt where it fell. Willie bit his tongue hard for 
 fear he should be tempted to speak the truth ; the 
 longing to be understood dies so slowly. 
 
 But he had learnt once for all the first rule of 
 wisdom never to emerge from the veil which your 
 neighbour is accustomed to mistake for yourself.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 A DOWN-HILL STRETCH 
 ' Education begins the gentleman.' LOCKE. 
 
 MR. HOPKINSON, even when he was not actively 
 annoyed by his son, felt him to be a blot upon his 
 theory of family life ; and now, disguising an act 
 of self-indulgence in the decent mantle of parental 
 duty, he seized the opportunity of sending Willie 
 away to school. They were strangers to each other, 
 these two ; and worse than strangers, because 
 mutually repellent. But Master Hopkinson was 
 an only son, and his father could not conscientiously 
 get rid of the British necessity of having him 
 ' licked into shape.' 
 
 The boy was sent to a Norfolk village, where 
 bracing air, large meals, and an athletic house- 
 master left little chance for meditation. Uncon- 
 genial surroundings are not always unfortunate. 
 He was at an age when the body, if it is ever to be an 
 efficient vehicle of mind, is bound to assert itself 
 at the expense of the soul : and in his case lone- 
 liness, long hours spent in vague dreamy attempts 
 
 45
 
 46 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 to unravel the meaning of things above all, the 
 heavy bewilderments of a spirit that lived alone with 
 occult realities which sapped it of all joy had worn 
 the body rather thin. Nature was ready for her 
 revenge. School, to which he went as to a peni- 
 tentiary, became his sanatorium ; the place where 
 he lost his life to find it lost that isolated existence 
 which had crushed him into savourless endurance, 
 and found the sprightly illusions natural to his 
 race and age. The change was sudden, drastic ; 
 and the shock enhanced its value. At Hazefield 
 both cricket and Latin prose were serious things ; 
 but the soul was only mentioned on Sundays, and 
 then in a purely official manner. The result was 
 to be foreseen. At the end of six months Willie 
 had hardened his muscles, enlarged his vocabulary, 
 and begun to take an interest in the question of 
 wearing his cap at the correct angle. 
 
 The slow and steady action of environment had 
 worn away all his own convictions, and the ready- 
 made beliefs which flourished around him slipped 
 unnoticed into their place. He was still conscious 
 of the shadow-side of the world, and liable to sudden 
 moments of withdrawal when he heard its horrid 
 noises, and lost hold of the comfortable playthings 
 of earth. But these moments seemed to him now 
 to be dreams and interludes ; the time had gone 
 by when he could accept them, with a faith which 
 often verged on agony, as a part of normal experi- 
 ence. He did not any longer grasp them with the
 
 A DOWN-HILL STRETCH 47 
 
 painful fervours of the past ; there was always a 
 mist between. Also the trend of public opinion 
 made him rather ashamed of his visions. School- 
 boys despise what they do not understand ; and 
 shame (with the young) is a great inducement to 
 forgetfulness. 
 
 There followed a time when his attitude to these 
 things was that of an Evangelical clergyman who 
 has inadvertently read the ' Origin of Species,' and 
 would like to forget it. He knew that the orthodox 
 position of his schoolfellows was untenable for him ; 
 he knew that their whole idea of life was false ; 
 that the truth the amazing, and as they would say 
 the unnatural truth of existence lay in his hand. 
 But he refused to think about it : it was unpleasant, 
 and did not fit in. 
 
 He preferred his lying senses to his inconvenient 
 perceptions, and became sedulous in the cricket 
 field and wholesomely casual in class. On the day 
 when Master Hopkinson learnt the ' Psalm of Life ' 
 as an imposition, and repeated with smiling sin- 
 cerity and unconcern ,- 
 
 1 Life is real ! Life is earnest 1 
 And the grave is not its goal ; ' 
 
 he was very nearly a normal boy. Education was 
 doing its work. To take everything for granted, to 
 grasp fringes and avoid fundamentals, to think only 
 of the obvious, and to refuse to consider the unim- 
 portant incident called Death these arts, in which 
 our youngsters are so carefully instructed, Willie
 
 48 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 at last acquired, though perhaps less easily than 
 his fellows. 
 
 At home during the holidays, his large appetite 
 and slangy speech pleased his parents, astonished 
 their acquaintances, and made Pauline jealous. 
 He ' rotted ' her and her friends in the most correct 
 manner, was ostentatiously noisy, deliberately 
 tyrannical, and generally displayed all the tire- 
 someness of the healthy male. Everyone remarked 
 on the improvement ; and even Mr. Hopkinson 
 became comparatively genial, and began to hope 
 that his son might be good for something after all. 
 
 ' I always knew it was his health that made him 
 so queer,' said Mrs. Hopkinson. ' Poorness of the 
 blood that's what I put it down to ; and the 
 bracing air of Norfolk was just what was wanted 
 to set him right.' 
 
 Mrs. vSteinmann, to whom these remarks were 
 offered, agreed, though in rather an ungracious 
 manner. 
 
 ' Willie wanted a bit of school-life to knock the 
 nonsense out of him,' she said. ' Tristram was 
 just the same moody and rather unwholesome ; 
 so different from Geraint, who was always a thorough 
 boy.' 
 
 Mrs. Steinmann's grandsons, surnamed Levi, did 
 not incainate the Arthurian legend to the extent 
 that their cultured mother had hoped. 
 
 ' I often thought, you know, Mrs. Hopkinson,' 
 she added, ' that you left Willie to go his own way
 
 A DOWN-HILL STRETCH 49 
 
 too much ; but of course one doesn't like to interfere. 
 And really, considering his curious disposition, I'm 
 thankful that the consequences have been no worse.' 
 
 The good fortune of her neighbours was a per- 
 petual source of marvel to Mrs. Steinmann ; she 
 was always expecting Providence to punish them 
 for the lack of that oleaginous sagacity which over- 
 flowed in her own character, and which she mistook 
 for commonsense. Disappointment had embittered 
 her comfortable bosom, and too often lent an 
 acrid tone to her congratulations. She had found 
 her daughter, the mother of Tristram and Geraint, 
 less of a treasure than her principles had led her 
 to expect. 
 
 This lady, whom Mrs. Hopkinson regarded with 
 the contemptuous awe which good house-wives 
 reserve for the intellectual of their sex, inherited 
 from her parent a shining black fringe, a sallow 
 complexion, but few domestic virtues. She came 
 to maturity during the Browning period, and 
 though carefully trained in all the ritual of 
 Teutonic womanhood * could never be persuaded 
 to reverence the family linen chest, or remember 
 which was the right day to have the drawing-room 
 turned out. Her marriage, which took place at 
 the earliest possible moment, was more important 
 to her as a rupture from home than as a union with 
 Mr. Levi ; an elderly widower, whose sandy hair 
 might, she hoped, counteract her own unfortunately 
 Oriental appearance. In this she was mistaken ; 
 
 4
 
 50 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 and it was her painful fate to see her sons, in spite 
 of romantic names and picturesque dresses, become 
 more uncompromisingly Hebraic day by day. 
 Their long necks, restless black eyes, and ferret-like 
 expressions, offended an aesthetic sense which was 
 nourished on Raphael and Sir Joshua Reynolds. 
 She was best pleased when they were least in evi- 
 dence, and invariably affected a refined ignorance 
 of the less lovely details of their toilets. 
 
 It was Mrs. Steinmann at once expert and 
 amateur of the nursery who, having accidentally 
 discovered that her grandsons did not wear flannel 
 next the skin, expressed her horror and disgust with 
 homely directness, and took all that concerned 
 them into her own hands. Henceforth she saw that 
 they had their hair cut regularly, and took them 
 to the dentist every six months. She was happier, 
 and they were healthier, for the change ; and they 
 gave her, what she had lacked before, a criterion 
 by which to disparage other people's children. 
 
 The little Levis, therefore, were looked upon in 
 Mrs. Hopkinson's set as Mrs. Steinmann's peculiar 
 property. She held them, so to speak, on a repairing 
 lease : worshipped their unlovely bodies, quoted 
 their uninteresting remarks, and was only successful 
 in concealing her idolatrous state from the unsus- 
 pecting objects of her adoration. Geraint Levi, 
 described by candid acquaintances as a born bounder, 
 was detested by Mrs. Hopkinson for a habit he 
 had of making love to Pauline, two years his senior.
 
 A DOWN-HILL STRETCH 51 
 
 Tristram's manners were less characteristic ; his 
 air of good breeding was a frequent source of un- 
 happiness to his grandmother, who mistook it for 
 ill-health. 
 
 But no Englishwoman can be expected to tolerate 
 the comparison of her children with those of another 
 race ; and only a respect for Mrs. Steinmann's 
 diamonds and knowledge of cookery bridled Mrs. 
 Hopkinson's tongue when she heard her Willie 
 bracketed with Tristram as lucky examples of the 
 benefits of school. 
 
 ' Willie was such an imaginative child,' she said. 
 ( Always fancying things, and using his brain. He 
 reminds me of my father, who would have written 
 something, I'm sure, if he'd had the time, but he 
 was always so much occupied in the er with 
 commerce. Mr. Hopkinson thinks that what Willie 
 really requires is balance, and we are going to put 
 him on the modern side next term. A sound 
 scientific training, that is Mr. Hopkinson's idea ; 
 and modern languages, which will be so useful in 
 the business.' 
 
 Master Hopkinson went to the modern side, ; 
 and it did its work well. All his old poetic fancies 
 and love of the beautiful were eradicated, and a 
 taste for things strange and ingenious took their 
 place. At this period all that tickled his curiosity 
 and gave interest to the concrete appealed to him 
 strongly : he took in magazines which had a ' corner 
 for curiosities,' and became keen on acrostics, 
 
 42
 
 52 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 The wonderful skies, cold tones, and quiet planes 
 of the Norfolk landscape had nothing to say to him ; 
 for the message of the clouds was bound up with 
 horrid memories of the visions of infancy, and he 
 carried to excess the usual revolt of the adolescent 
 from the tastes and ideals of his childhood. He 
 grew up to be a thin, freckled youth, mediocre in 
 talent, manners, and physical powers : moderately 
 liked by the boys, but too indifferent to make any 
 great friends. He did moderately well, too, in class, 
 but scored no successes. His masters, who saw 
 promise in the remote expression of his eyes, were 
 disappointed by his work, which was correct but 
 heartless. It was inevitably so. In spite of deli- 
 berate efforts to fall into line, he did not entirely 
 * mix in.' 
 
 At seventeen, it seemed that Willie had no decided 
 bent in any direction, and Mr. Hopkinson formed 
 the idea of removing this promising material to 
 his office as soon as possible. He wished that the 
 City might seal him with her symbolic beast before 
 contact with a wider world had the chance of 
 causing some inconvenient bias. There is no room 
 for the embryo scholar or musician in the wholesale 
 tailoring trade. 
 
 To the ideal spectator, that unemotional angel 
 who criticises the wanderings of man, this may 
 well have seemed the oddest, most unexpected of 
 the stages through which Master Hopkinson passed. 
 Here was he, an immortal spirit, and knowing
 
 A DOWN-HTLL STRETCH 53 
 
 himself so to be aware of that place whence he 
 had come, and not without a shuddering fore- 
 knowledge of his future fate steadily refusing 
 his attention to all true aspects of life. He had 
 become more animal than the animals whom he 
 lived amongst, shared the least durable of their 
 pleasures, was passionately credulous of the reality 
 of their gods. He liked silly jokes and comic 
 songs, because of the sense of comradeship that 
 hung about them ; when he was shouting a chorus 
 with a dozen others he felt for the moment that he 
 was one of themselves. He was redeeming his 
 years of loneliness ; and with them did his best 
 to get rid of all that distinguished him from the 
 other foolish, boisterous, bumptious, or otherwise 
 wholesome young fellows who pass from school to 
 commerce with little diminution of spirits or as- 
 sumption of responsibility. 
 
 Many pass through this evolution, though few, 
 perhaps, commence where he did. An accident 
 checked the process as it reached its final position ; 
 he reverted to his old state of helpless perception ; 
 and the Power, fiend or angel, who had him in 
 charge caught him once more in the fine meshes of 
 its net.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 STAFF AND SCRIP 
 
 ' These things I do, 
 These other things I see, 
 Shape not for me 
 Aught that I dare name true. 
 
 Rather they seem to be 
 Hard riddles that, with sloth and pain, 
 I must again 
 
 Undo.' 
 
 LAURENCE HOUSMAN. 
 
 WHEN he was eighteen years old Master Hopkinson 
 caught scarlet fever ; and the outward disease was 
 the harbinger of a spiritual crisis. His childhood, 
 though sickly, had contrived to withstand bodily 
 stress, and it was years since he had known an 
 illness. The psychological side of ill-health, at all 
 events, was new to him ; and as he sickened it aston- 
 ished him to perceive how he withdrew into himself, 
 and watched with timid curiosity the proportions 
 of his environment gradually change. He wondered 
 dreamily what .was the matter, and swung between 
 interest and dismay till at last the meaning of the 
 thing was obvious, and he was declared to be ill. 
 
 54
 
 STAFF AND SCRIP 55 
 
 He was the only victim, and had the school 
 sanatorium to himself. This seemed to promise 
 dulness, for he loved company now as much as 
 he had once disliked it ; and the pink-washed 
 walls, bare boards, and row of iron beds, looking 
 in their stripped and pillowless state like the skele- 
 tons of some nightmare quadruped, were not exactly 
 cheering. Yet curiously enough they did not give 
 him the desolate shock that he looked for ; they 
 were friendly, as the worst furniture can be if it 
 likes. He lay and looked at them, and wondered 
 of what they reminded him. Above all, the faint 
 scent of carbolic acid stirred a vague memory 
 which he could not catch. He was interested, 
 puzzled. As yet, you see, he was not very ill, but 
 was quite equal to a certain amount of hazy medi- 
 tation. It was a change, and he enjoyed it. 
 
 But the surprises of circumstance were not over. 
 Staring about him, he recognised one after another 
 of the ideas and sensations that came slowly to the 
 surface of his spirit, as one may greet old acquaint- 
 ances whose names and business all, in fact, but 
 their unforgettable faces have gone to oblivion. 
 He found that he knew in advance all the ritual 
 of sickness ; the change of all human relations, 
 even the forbidding automatonism which a nurse 
 brings with her, did not astonish him. It was 
 evident that he had been there befdre ; and he 
 roamed feverishly back through his past, hunting 
 for the clue. But it eluded him.
 
 56 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 Only in the middle of the third night, as he lay 
 alone, hot, uncomfortable, and very forlorn, filled 
 with the self -pitying miseries of the sick, did he find 
 what he had been looking for. It was a discovery 
 which amazed, but failed to please him. He dis- 
 turbed from a sleep which had lasted for several 
 years the distasteful and unwelcome memory of his 
 old existences, reminding him with a shock that 
 he was not as other boys. He had hidden them 
 deep in that corner of his mind which we all keep 
 for humiliating incidents, old religions, and ideals 
 too spotless to be lived with : a corner we seldom 
 traverse, and then with light footsteps, for fear of 
 disturbing those inconvenient sleepers. 
 
 What he found, then, in this Bluebeard chamber 
 of his consciousness was knowledge, accurate and 
 indelible, of the days when he lay in S. Nicholas In- 
 firmary another child, sick of another fever ; yet a 
 real child, and one in spirit with the lanky schoolboy 
 which his Ego now claimed as its home. He lived 
 there againj and so vividly that he found it difficult 
 to disentangle memory from reality, and to assure 
 himself that he was not still in that narrow cot, 
 that he was not any longer that child of the slums, 
 that all his subsequent experience was not a dream of 
 that illness. 
 
 Time is sequence of ideas, but when we run 
 back upon the trail and recommence an old series, 
 is not the interval annihilated ? It all puzzled 
 him horribly, as his mind turned from one place
 
 STAFF AND SCRIP 57 
 
 to the other, and groped for the landmarks and 
 boundaries denied him by a Destiny which he now 
 felt to be both imminent and awful. 
 
 But the Past which he had despised and neglected 
 was waiting with a crueller revenge. When the 
 fever reached an acute stage, and he was seriously 
 ill, another and more disagreeable side of the subject 
 was presented to Willie's mind. It occurred to 
 him that, for the second time within his memory, 
 he was very near indeed to the point of death. 
 
 For the last five or six years he had lived the 
 god-like life of the average man, whose imagination 
 assures him that he is immortal, although his reason 
 tells him that he is not. Now Death became a 
 fact, and a very disquieting fact. Its nearness 
 annihilated the pretty draperies with which educa- 
 tion conceals the ugly bogeys of mankind, and he 
 saw it with primeval clearness, horrible and distinct. 
 
 It meant more to him, too, than it might do to 
 others. He could not believe in the poetic fictions 
 with which orthodox persons are accustomed to veil 
 the open door. It meant a return, perhaps a perma- 
 nent one, to the shadowy terrors of his childhood ; an 
 existence of crowded isolation, of hurried idleness, 
 which might stretch into eternity or terminate with 
 another experimental re-entry into life. Either 
 alternative was unpleasant. Master Hopkinson was 
 of a contented disposition, his artistic and adven- 
 turous tastes had not as yet begun to give trouble, 
 and he felt that the prospects of his present life
 
 58 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 were tolerable. He preferred that the years should 
 be punctuated with commas rather than full-stops. 
 
 He looked in vision on to a bright and varied world, 
 a world full of energy and surprises and Boy's Own 
 Paper pageantry. It is true that so far he had not 
 seen much of this aspect of life, but provided that 
 he could remain alive he might escape into it at 
 any moment. Death offered no such allurements. 
 
 There followed on this hour of awakening a period 
 when he was no longer capable of thought : when 
 he battled with death, and shook the nerves of his 
 nurses by his cries, his terrors, his entreaties. 
 Time after time he felt as a stifling weight the 
 perception of the shadow-land ; time after time 
 lost his grasp of solidity, slipped from the noises 
 of earth, and heard the call of the spirits who were 
 drawing him back to their ranks. For days he 
 hung doubtful on the borders, and proclaimed his 
 agony of soul. They said that he was delirious, but 
 it is more probable that he was intoxicated with 
 fright. 
 
 When the tide turned, the fever left him, and he 
 knew that Horror no longer stood close by him, but 
 had retreated to its normal place, Willie lay limp 
 on his bed in an ecstasy of thankfulness his poor 
 frame as greatly shaken by the returning flood of 
 life as it had been by the violence of its ebb. He 
 was too weak for coherent thought at first : he 
 was satisfied to rest in a sense of safety and well- 
 being : and the sharpest memories of his ordeal
 
 STAFF AND SCRIP 59 
 
 wore off during this somnolence. So that at 
 some three weeks after the crisis, he woke to a 
 detached and placid consideration of events. 
 
 It must not be held a reproach to Master Hop- 
 kinson that he felt himself to be at this moment 
 the centre of his own universe. Could others have 
 seen him as he really was, they must, had they 
 been by temperament philosophers, have held him 
 more than usually qualified for the position. The 
 invalid is a licensed egoist, the visionary an inevit- 
 able one ; and only those who vainly desired such 
 consolation for themselves could have grudged 
 him his silent self-importance. 
 
 The scarlet fever convalescent has ample oppor- 
 tunity for thought ; and this exercise, so difficult to 
 a childhood fresh from the perceptive state, had been 
 rendered possible to Willie by the strictly logical trend 
 of his education. He began, therefore, gradually, 
 slowly, and luxuriously, to think of what had hap- 
 pened. He thought about it in relation to the past, 
 and, more seriously, in relation to the future. It was 
 plain that he had been a bit of a fool. Had he 
 died in his fever, the eighteen years of grace which 
 he had won of life since his death in S. Nicholas 
 Infirmary would have seemed inconsiderable enough 
 against an eternity of boredom ; and he had a clearer 
 idea than many theologians of the black vacancy 
 which the word ' eternal ' hides. Yet this, he had 
 no doubt, was what he had escaped from, and 
 to this, unless he could discover some pass in the
 
 60 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 secret barrier, he was bound eventually to return. 
 The prospect was very ghastly. He felt that he 
 could never bear to see a funeral again. It was 
 too evil, too ominous. 
 
 Then it occurred to him that perhaps there was 
 some way out ; that the hereafter as he knew it 
 was curiously cruel, and, if applied universally, 
 rather unjust. It was also at variance with the 
 optimistic creed whose catch-words he had casually 
 acquired, but this consideration did not affect 
 him much. 
 
 This, then, was his problem an acrostic of deadly 
 import, to which he held few of the lights. This 
 was his only chance, this earthly life to which his 
 soul was still attached, of finding salvation from 
 the dreary Hades that lay so near to his gates. 
 
 He had a little knowledge now of astronomy and 
 physics, and these mingled themselves strangely 
 with his meditations, and seemed to make the finding 
 of a clue more hopeless than if he had only his 
 own memories and fancies to draw on. Yet as he 
 pondered, as he strove to link this world with that 
 other, the conviction grew on him that some did find 
 that salvation. In every variety of experience he had 
 hitherto found some division into classes : people, 
 he was told, were good and bad ; events, he knew, 
 were nasty or nice ; it seemed inconceivable that 
 amongst the dead there should not also be a few 
 who were happy to balance the miseries of the rest. 
 
 In the black hours of his illness an unmistakable
 
 STAFF AND SCRIP 61 
 
 instinct had told him that he would not be one of 
 those happy ones ; that he was still bound to the 
 trail with his old comrades,- the hunters of the air. 
 But some were not so. He was sure of it. He 
 wondered and puzzled, and sent his soul questing for 
 the answer ; but the only result was to make him 
 tired and restless, and his nurse cut short the hour 
 of meditation with a sleeping draught. 
 
 Then, in a clearer hour, the truth came to him. 
 He perceived suddenly, illogically, irrefutably, that 
 within his own soul the solution was to be found. 
 
 ' And by and by my Soul return'd to me, 
 And answer'd " I myself am Heav'n and Hell." ' 
 
 The governing mood, that was the governing fate. 
 He saw in his mind's eye the long agony of the Dead ; 
 but saw it no longer as an unreasonable torture, rather 
 as the inevitable result of their mental attitude. 
 Their heaven had been the earth ; they had no true 
 existence apart from it ; and thus, once parted from 
 the body, they found no other song than a lament 
 for its pleasures, no other environment than the 
 shadowy outline of their once enduring homes. 
 It was plain that one could take nothing into death 
 but that which one had learnt during life ; and a 
 passion for some person, possession, or pursuit, 
 such as formed the equipment of most sensible 
 people, could not be regarded as a valuable spiritual 
 asset once one was permanently separated from 
 the senses and their joys.
 
 62 
 
 Yet Willie had now given several years to the 
 careful cultivation of these material interests. He 
 shivered as he realized the narrowness of his escape. 
 He saw his Grey World now at a new angle not as 
 the inevitable home of the soul, but as one amongst 
 many convolutions of the spiritual envelope. When 
 he reflected how various an aspect the material world 
 assumed towards different temperaments, and even 
 towards the same temperament when under the 
 dominion of shifting moods, he could not doubt 
 that subjective reality was the only one which had 
 any meaning for the individual soul. 
 
 He perceived that the Hell of the worldly might 
 be the Heaven of those who had nothing to regret ; 
 that those who looked up must find a different 
 landscape from their neighbours who looked down. 
 They, in the place of those intangible relics of life 
 which had haunted his own wanderings, might find 
 another outlook, and dwell before a Beatific Vision. 
 He seemed to see the Universe unfolding dimension 
 on dimension to the joyous eyes of some questing 
 soul as it cast off the shackles of life and drew 
 outwards toward the Beyond. 
 
 He looked firmly on the future, and made resolu- 
 tions which had little bearing on Mr. Hopkinson's 
 careful plans for his son's career. Earth, that 
 dusty magnet, should no longer fetter his spirit. 
 He was determined upon that. The claims of this 
 world were illusory. He had always known it, 
 but these later years, for expediency's sake, he had
 
 STAFF AND SCRIP 63 
 
 deliberately turned from the truth. He would 
 learn to hold pleasure and sorrow alike with a 
 light hand, remembering that Real Life was but 
 one of many dimensions. He would no longer try 
 to assume to himself that the game was a serious 
 matter. He would refuse to care who lost or won, 
 to concern himself about the chances of wealth 
 or fame : would form no ties, make no terms with 
 the enemy. 
 
 He saw Life spread out before him in gay pageant, 
 as one may see the * coloured counties ' from the 
 top of a hill. A pretty show he judged it to be, but 
 dangerous. One must preserve detachment. The 
 household at home, with its intimate cares, the 
 wholesale tailoring business, the comments and criti- 
 cisms of interested friends, vanished. One does not 
 notice the ugliness of individual buildings when one 
 stands on the top of a hill. And his eye was so firmly 
 fixed on the Eternal now, that he came down to the 
 realities of jelly and beef-tea with a start. For his 
 body, of course, they were realities. He acknow- 
 ledged that : he wished to be fair to his body. But 
 he intended for the future to ride it on the curb. 
 
 Nor did it occur to Master Hopkinson that his 
 point of view was open to the charge of selfishness. 
 To the young, selfishness seems the least imminent 
 of all the vices. It is their normal condition.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 MARSHLAND AND WICKET 
 ' We be all Souls upon the way.' KIPLING. 
 
 AT the end of the infectious period, Willie was re- 
 turned to his family, a weedy and uninteresting 
 convalescent. To himself, he appeared more worthy 
 of notice than at any previous stage of his existence ; 
 but unfortunately the fact that he had realized the 
 illusory nature of life did not mitigate the distress- 
 ing angles of his figure. Only a burning faith can 
 distinguish the philosopher under the veil of the 
 hobbledehoy ; the founders of new religions have 
 generally been over twenty-one. 
 
 His mother met him at the station with a four- 
 wheeler and a large rug. Her solicitude was rather 
 irritating to a fastidious youth who knew his body 
 to be a phantasm. He could find no comfort in the 
 thought that the four-wheeler was a phantasm too : 
 it placed his soul at a disadvantage. His Ego de- 
 clined to assert itself in such surroundings. Master 
 Hopkinson felt cross. 
 
 He had been looking forward to a return after 
 64
 
 MARSHLAND AND WICKET 65 
 
 sickness to the pretty pageant of life. He had 
 meant to play the game, since it was but a game, 
 gaily and with a light hand ; forming no bonds with 
 Earth, but hoarding amusing memories against the 
 chances of the After-time. There were secrets, too, 
 concerning that After-time ; and it was in his inten- 
 tion that he would adventure to discover them. 
 
 For one who cherishes these pleasant and pagan 
 ideals a London terminus is not an inspiriting point 
 of departure. The cab rattled, and Mrs. Hopkin- 
 son busied herself with the windows, and asked her 
 son how many carbolic baths he had had, because 
 of Pauline, who was very susceptible. She added 
 that they were very busy at home over a Cafe 
 Chantant in aid of the ' Dartmoor Holiday Camps 
 for Costers' Donkeys.' 
 
 * It's such a good idea, darling,' she said. * Finan- 
 cially good, I mean ; and that's everything in a 
 work of charity. You must help at it. A man 
 and you're quite old enough to count as a man 
 is such an advantage. You'll be feeling stronger by 
 then, and it will amuse you. And we've only got 
 to get enough money for railway expenses, because 
 land on Dartmoor is free, and of course the dear 
 things will eat grass.' 
 
 She continued talking amiably on homely topics, 
 but the conversation was rather one-sided. A slow 
 spirit of weary disgust was creeping over Master 
 Hopkinson. They were nearing home, and the 
 peculiar bleakness of the London residential street 
 
 5
 
 66 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 struck him with a desolating force. He was born 
 subject to that elusive emotion which hangs about 
 the Spirit of Place an evil gift for one who dwells 
 in a modern city. The ugliness and arrogance of 
 the houses, the pale and dreary desert of the road 
 which lay between them, combined to obliterate 
 that street-sense compounded of adventure and 
 inclusion which narrower and less pretentious by- 
 ways keep between their cuddled homes. 
 
 It is the narrow, winding street, with its social 
 suggestion, its doubtful destination, which contains 
 all the poetry of town life. Where attic whispers to 
 attic, and pavements run friendlily beneath the 
 walls, there is a sacrament present of the Brother- 
 hood of Man. But the isolated villas of our wide, 
 chill thoroughfares have nothing in common but 
 a mutual exclusiveness. When Willie, descending 
 from his cab, looked down the road with its rows 
 of gray stucco boxes, wherein blameless families 
 dwelt without remorse or discontent ; its legions of 
 painted railings whose tendency now was ' to reti- 
 cence rather than greenness '; its windows without 
 recess ; and the evil pilasters about its gates; a 
 spirit of rebellion was born in him. He had the 
 feeling that few things were more significant, more 
 foolish, to the visionary more depressing, than this 
 way which society has of disposing of its homes. 
 
 Within, the impression was continued with cruel 
 completeness. Mrs. Hopkinson had had the hall 
 done up, and the Moorish electric-light lantern now
 
 MARSHLAND AND WICKET 67 
 
 depended from a ceiling whose Lincrusta covering 
 simulated Renaissance plaster- work. On the walls 
 a paper which the short-sighted might have mis- 
 taken for inferior tapestry, displayed a riot of inver- 
 tebrate forms thrown together in defiance of every 
 known rule of ornament. 
 
 Willie escaped from this, and from a minute and 
 unpleasant inspection of his appearance conducted 
 in concert by his mother, Pauline, and the cook, and 
 climbed up to his own little bedroom, where he 
 opened the window and looked out on a twilit sky. 
 It was the magic moment when blue fades by green 
 into grey. He watched that heavenly transforma- 
 tion, and it soothed his fretted nerves. The sky, 
 he found, had reassumed that secret power which 
 it had for him in childhood. He had won back the 
 world of vision in turning from the world of sense. 
 He stood there dreaming till Mrs. Hopkinson bustled 
 into the room to close the window, and spoke in 
 anxious tones of the fact that the tea was standing, 
 and night air notoriously unwholesome. 
 
 That broke the spell. He went downstairs pos- 
 sessed by the gnawing discomfort which a home- 
 coming is apt to induce. Everything looked as it 
 used to do, and no one seemed to notice his own 
 inward change. Yet how different things were 
 from their appearances : and how different he from 
 the being whom his garrulous mother and sister 
 thought that they were feeding with weak tea and 
 home-made cake ! These reflections pleased Master 
 
 5
 
 68 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 Hopkinson, and helped him to endure with good 
 temper the minor trials of the evening, during which 
 his father explained to him in detail the germ theory 
 of infectious disease. 
 
 ' So nice and homelike,' said Mrs. Hopkinson. 
 * All united once more round our own hearth !' 
 
 Willie arose next morning to a sense of struggle 
 and depression such as had long been absent from 
 his spirit. His sensitive nerves felt the weight of 
 coming events those small, tedious, hollow events 
 which were going to make up the day. Things did 
 not seem promising for his projected Game of Life : 
 the pieces were rather shabby, and the board incon- 
 veniently arranged. He foresaw the eight o'clock 
 breakfast, prefaced by a discussion as to what he 
 had better eat, accompanied by annotated extracts 
 from the morning paper, which Mr. Hopkinson was 
 accustomed to supply for his family's mental nourish- 
 ment. After breakfast there might perhaps be a 
 tranquil interval, and later on he would be ex- 
 pected to go for a walk with Pauline. 
 
 For the present, in fact, Pauline seemed likely to 
 be his chief companion. She was now twenty-one ; 
 liked a good time in the local acceptation of the 
 phrase and saw that she got it ; made her own 
 blouses, held her own opinions, could talk with 
 technical accuracy about cricket, politics, and the 
 drama ; and was generally in the front rank of 
 Young Suburbia. But as a companion, a sister, 
 she had her limitations. She was apt to forget that
 
 MARSHLAND AND WICKET 69 
 
 the attitude of superiority which Twelve Years Old 
 may lawfully assume towards Nine is less suitable 
 when the respective ages of the protagonists are 
 eighteen and one-arid-twenty. Willie knew that 
 should he attempt to be candid, or ask for sympathy 
 with his own view of life, she would still regard him 
 as a silly little boy. 
 
 So it did not look well on the whole for the pros- 
 pects of a pleasant life held lightly ; a perpetual 
 realization of illusion ; a mind always ready to con- 
 sider the spiritual aspect of things. Willie's mind 
 was young, crude, intolerant. It seemed to him 
 that the life of the Hopkinson family entirely lacked 
 a spiritual aspect. Certainly, if it had one, they did 
 not think about it. Earth for them was the one 
 actuality ; long life thereon the chief desire ; quick 
 interest therein the one duty. He saw in them 
 potential members of the Shadowy World, and 
 feared their slow, stultifying influence. How, in 
 such an atmosphere, keep his own armour bright ? 
 As well try to study astronomy in a fog-bound 
 city. 
 
 He found a way. The Fates are often kind to 
 those who expect nothing ; and six months after 
 his home-coming they suddenly pointed out to him 
 a road to adventure, if not to discovery. The dul- 
 ness had become very desperate by this time. He 
 did not find that the possession of special powers 
 added anything to the gaiety of existence ; on the 
 contrary, they enlarged in an unwelcome manner a
 
 70 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 horizon which was in its dreariness already suffi- 
 ciently vast. The World of the Dead in its feature- 
 less monotony is not very unlike the world of the 
 suburbs. 
 
 He was too well assured of the illusory nature of 
 life and the futility of its occupations. He could 
 take no interest beyond a gentle amusement in work, 
 play, politics, or the acquisition of knowledge. 
 They were games, and curiously stupid ones. It 
 never occurred to him that he had a part to play 
 in them : duty becomes unreal when its object is 
 known to be impermanent. But turning his eyes 
 resolutely from Earth, he found himself confronted 
 by a dismal nothingness. If Earth was illusion, 
 Heaven was emptiness. So he was driven to his 
 dreams, in default of more actual possessions, and 
 to certain visionary books he had met with Blake 
 and Swedenborg and the Dutch mystics. These 
 were congenial, if unintelligible, to him ; and with 
 them he lived moped drifted. 
 
 It became his habit to stroll of an afternoon 
 through the dingy by-roads of the neighbourhood, 
 wondering at their peculiar quality of squalor, 
 which was neither poor enough to be excusable, nor 
 extreme enough to be interesting. In this way he 
 found one day a little street : a very ordinary, un- 
 lovable little street, one of those grey alley-ways 
 which run between the cells of the human hive. 
 There was a public-house at one corner the Purple 
 Elephant and mews behind. One side of the road
 
 MARSHLAND AND WICKET 71 
 
 was bordered by a high blank wall, which cloistered 
 the shy gardens of some villas in the next street. 
 On the other side, a depressed terrace of yellow 
 brick houses with unpleasant areas gave itself out 
 as the residence of- dressmakers, lodgers, and in- 
 numerable cats. 
 
 But half-way down there were shops : a pawn- 
 broker's, a dubious dairy, a plumber's and decorator's. 
 This last, a small tranquil establishment, was the 
 cleanest of the three ; it had drain-pipes in one 
 window and wall-papers in the other a symbolic 
 display, in fact. At one side a private door, grained 
 to imitate some rare and gaudy species of oak, led 
 to the upper story ; and by the door a repousse 
 copper plate bore, in vague Gothic letters, the words, 
 ' Searchers of the Soul. Ring and walk upstairs.' 
 
 Willie stopped and looked at this inscription, with 
 the instinct of the solitary pedestrian to look at 
 everything that he has not seen before. It struck 
 him rather pleasantly. He was sufficiently sophis- 
 ticated to find it astonishing, sufficiently desperate 
 to be tempted towards any promising investigation. 
 A bad cold had left him in a nervous condition which 
 renewed many of his worst terrors. He was like a 
 rudderless ship, in sight of a haven which he did not 
 know how to attain, and fearing a storm which 
 might wreck him before he could reach it. So he 
 did not feel justified in neglecting a chance which 
 might lead, not only to companionship with other 
 spiritual beings, but also to more security than he
 
 72 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 now possessed concerning his after-existences. More- 
 over, he urgently required an antidote to the 
 materializing dangers of home. He looked at the 
 copper plate, and hesitated. Then he walked on. 
 Presently he returned, and glanced up and down 
 the street. There was only a dust-cart in sight. He 
 rang, and entered. 
 
 The stairs within were steep, narrow, and ill- 
 scrubbed : three flights of them. There was time 
 during the ascent for meditation ; and Mr. Willie 
 Hopkinson, somewhat elated on his first entrance, felt 
 his joyous anticipations undergo a certain transfor- 
 mation as he clambered, accompanied by perfumes of 
 varnish and putty from the shop below. In fact, his 
 heart sank as his body rose ; and it was in a state of 
 peculiar nervousness that he finally knocked at the 
 shabby door with ground-glass panels which he found 
 at the top of the third flight. 
 
 The young woman who opened to him cured his 
 timidity ^but did not raise his spirits much. Willie 
 had a sister, and neither feared girls nor admired 
 them ; and even a slave of the sex would scarcely 
 have been tempted to emotion by her flat face, black 
 sailor hat, and crumpled cotton shirt. It will be 
 acknowledged that the Searchers of the Soul had 
 not used discrimination in their choice of a janitor. 
 
 She received him with that curious effusion, at 
 once servile and supercilious, which the secretaries 
 of small but earnest associations keep for possible 
 converts. Willie did not quite know what he had
 
 MARSHLAND AND WICKET 73 
 
 come for, but Miss Toyson had no doubts about 
 that. 
 
 * You wish to join us, perhaps ?' she said. ' The 
 movement is becoming, as of course you know, one 
 of great importance. We are on the eve of a 
 Spiritual Era. One feels that. It is in the air ; 
 and our Society will not be the least of its heralds. 
 The Soul,' continued Miss Toyson, whose ready- 
 made appearance lent a touch of unexpectedness 
 to her lyrical speech ' what can be more important 
 to each one of us ? And the Search for it what is 
 more beautiful ? The paths to Truth are so many ; 
 and the Society is quite non-sectarian.' 
 
 * Really ?' said Willie, who repressed with diffi- 
 culty a strong desire to fidget. 
 
 Miss Toyson's words might be fresh from the 
 Gospel of Truth, but her speech displeased him. It 
 was like hearing the Apocalypse read aloud by a 
 stammering curate. 
 
 ' Oh yes, quite. We make a great point of that ; 
 our only aim is the finding of spiritual reality. The 
 Thing-in-Itself, you know, as er as a great philo- 
 sopher said. Our vice-president is a believer in 
 Shintoism worships his ancestors, you know and 
 we have several Buddhists.' 
 
 Willie did not feel attracted by the faith of the 
 vice-president. Yet, in some curious way, Miss 
 Toyson and her Society fascinated whilst they 
 repelled him. He was quite sure that they knew 
 nothing about it ; but their name had a glamour
 
 74 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 which he could not resist. The subscription was 
 seven and six ; he paid it. His monthly allowance 
 was ten shillings. The meetings, said Miss Toyson, 
 were frequent. They encouraged free discussion. 
 It was worth something to have found a haven, 
 however shabby, where one might dare to speak 
 one's mind. 
 
 He went home with a lighter heart, and spoke in 
 a deceptively prosaic manner of the afternoon's 
 adventure. A little debating society, he said ; an 
 amusing sort of place, which would give him the 
 opportunity of meeting other fellows. 
 
 ' How nice !' said Mrs. Hopkinson. ' I'm so glad, 
 Willie dear. Such a good plan for you to have some 
 interests of your own. But I am sorry the meetings 
 are in the evening, dearie. Coming out into the 
 night air from a hot room is so very risky.' 
 
 She looked at him with an eager, half -desperate 
 smile ; hesitating as a swimmer may amongst diffi- 
 cult currents, yet feeling cheerfulness, however in- 
 appropriate, to be a duty to the last. There was an 
 obscure sadness buried deep beneath Mrs. Hopkin- 
 son's stuff bodice. She found it very hard to adapt 
 her homely love to her son's peculiar ideas and many 
 intolerances. She was never quite sure how he 
 would take things, and, remembering the lawful 
 intimacies of his babyhood, she sometimes ventured 
 a humiliating familiarity, with disastrous results. 
 Willie was too young, as yet, to understand un- 
 decorative pathos.
 
 MARSHLAND AND WICKET 75 
 
 In her baffled motherhood, she could only turn 
 to her daughter for consolation : but Pauline, whose 
 even life had never caused her to feel the need of 
 sympathy, was entirely incapable of giving it. So 
 it happened that Mrs. Hopkinson's existence was 
 lonely in spite of her garrulity, and she was happiest 
 when she was expending on a misplaced charity the 
 ardours which her children preferred to do without. 
 
 Mr. Willie Hopkinson could scarcely expect to 
 find the Searchers of the Soul an interest, in his 
 mother's meaning of the word ; but he did extract 
 from this connection a certain feeling of indepen- 
 dence, which is, after all, the chief object of youthful 
 hobbies and pursuits. A good many young men 
 and maidens join societies more deleterious in order 
 to differentiate themselves from their elders. 
 
 The first meeting astonished, the second disgusted 
 him. There was in the atmosphere a banality, a 
 childish affectation of occult knowledge, which he 
 found more stifling to the spirit than the candid 
 futilities of the home circle. But he persevered ; he 
 was not the son of a business man for nothing, and 
 he meant to receive full value for his seven and 
 six. He therefore went a third time, and was 
 rewarded ; for on this occasion he perceived the 
 existence of Stephen Miller. 
 
 Mr. Miller's personality distinguished him easily 
 from the majority of his fellow-members, whom 
 Willie early divided into two classes the long- 
 haired and the beefy. He was vivid, highly-
 
 76 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 strung, physically compact. The obsession of the 
 Aerated Bread Shop was not upon him yet. A care- 
 ful observer would have perceived that this was a 
 man who sought dreams deliberately, as an artist ; 
 did not follow them blindly, as a fool. 
 
 When he first came under the eye of Mr. Willie 
 Hopkinson, Stephen was striving to assimilate the 
 frothy periods of Mr. Verrian Spate, the expounder 
 in minute detail of a new doctrine of reincarna- 
 tion, elaborated by himself. Novel theories of the 
 Future State were a speciality of the Society. 
 Willie, who had grown accustomed to apathy, here 
 found himself plunged into a world of wild conjec- 
 ture. He listened with growing amazement whilst 
 Mr. Spate he was the President of the year, and 
 belonged to the beefy class vigorously defended 
 the dogma of Successive Incarnations, and turned 
 a battery of heavy facetiousness on his opponent, 
 exploiting the rich resources of the subject as a 
 fountain of personal abuse. Nor was he less aston- 
 ished when Mr. Spate's remarks, which had been 
 received with great favour, were succeeded by a 
 convincing exposition, by his anaemic vis-a-vis, Mr. 
 Norman Dawes, of the hypothesis that the human 
 spirit must of necessity return to its Mother the Sea 
 after death. 
 
 A genial tolerance of anything that was improb- 
 able seemed to be the distinguishing characteristic 
 of the Searchers of the Soul ; yet as Willie looked 
 round the ring of faces weak, wistful, or dogmatic
 
 MARSHLAND AND WICKET 77 
 
 lit to cold pallor by the incandescent gas, he knew 
 himself farther from spiritual progress than he had 
 been for many months. With knowledge lying so 
 close to their doors ; with the emblems around them 
 of an unstable, impermanent world, which he knew 
 to be ready to rock and dissolve at the first blow 
 dealt upon the portals of sense; with phrases on 
 their lips which constantly touched edges of the 
 Truth ; it seemed incredible that these people could 
 continue so profoundly earthly, so desperately dense, 
 making game in their happy ignorance with the 
 secret beyond the veil. He felt that annoyed 
 astonishment which is often induced in persons 
 having the sentiment of Religion or Art when they 
 are confronted by the immutable limitations of the 
 Philistine or the Atheist. He knew that should 
 he rise to relate his own experiences, his fellow- 
 members would be pleasantly excited by his origin- 
 ality, and ask him to go on the committee. But 
 they would not believe in him, because that would 
 prevent them from believing in all the others, and 
 so rob the Society of half its charm. 
 
 But Stephen Miller was different. To Stephen 
 the objects of the Society were no pretence, though 
 its methods might be. His sincerity was manifest 
 in his disillusion. Willie looked at him, and in the 
 infallible knowledge with which spirit meets spirit 
 in the invisible place, knew that if that virile brain 
 once perceived the truth of his story, his years of 
 loneliness were over, and he had found a friend.
 
 78 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 He woke from his meditation to find that Mr. 
 Dawes' remarks were drawing to a close. 
 
 ' Yes !' he was saying, as his voice penetrated to 
 Mr. Hopkinson's consciousness ' yes, in the beauti- 
 ful words of Browning, it is our aim when we meet 
 together here 
 
 ' " To bring the Invisible full into play! 
 
 Let the visible go to the dogs what matters ?" 
 
 That is our desire, that is the ideal we set before us ! 
 And if each can contribute a little quota to the 
 grand total of Truth, we shall indeed be amply 
 rewarded !' 
 
 He subsided amidst murmurs of admiration, and 
 at the same moment Mr. Miller rose abruptly and 
 left the meeting. Pleasure had died from his face 
 and been succeeded by a tired disappointment as 
 the speaker slowly dragged his theory from the 
 heights of poetic speculation, and forced it into the 
 sticky by-paths of suburban argument. Mr. Willie 
 Hopkinson also had ceased to be interested or even 
 amused, so he went out after Mr. Miller, following 
 him without thought, as a needle after a magnet, and 
 they spoke together on the door-mat. 
 
 They were very young under twenty an age 
 when the founding of a friendship seems always the 
 first page of a romance. They looked at each other, 
 and the miracle was done. It was a case of love at 
 first sight, a phenomenon rather absurdly supposed 
 to occur only between persons of opposite sex.
 
 MARSHLAND AND WICKET 79 
 
 They were both excited. The horrid gulf which 
 yawned between the title and transactions of their 
 Society had disgusted but not yet discouraged them. 
 They saw each other, and through each other the 
 trend of the event, hopefully, with the air of ex- 
 plorers who have found the justification of their 
 journeyings. The seal was loosened upon Willie's 
 lips, and even at that early moment he held back 
 confidence with an uncertain hand. Stephen, who 
 had the quickness of a spirit sensible of mystery, 
 that longs to look in the face of the unknown, per- 
 ceived some secret behind the strangeness of their 
 attitude. To one of his temperament, that was 
 more than enough. Each went home that night 
 the richer for a friend, though less than a dozen 
 words had passed as yet between them. Willie had 
 at last made one step forward.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE FIRST SIGNPOST 
 
 ' Nous nous sommes dit bien peu de choses. Mais nous 
 avons pu voir que nos deux vies avaient le meme but. . . .' 
 MAETERLINCK. 
 
 IT was Mrs. Hopkinson's dearest hope that her son 
 should become a cultured person. Culture had 
 made strides in their suburb since the days when 
 studious tastes were considered effeminate in a man 
 and immodest in a woman. Girls now read transla- 
 tions of Russian novelists in the intervals of home 
 dressmaking, and sneered at their parents : and 
 these commented caustically in reply on the head- 
 aches which visited the victims of unaccustomed 
 learning. They had not yet reached the depths 
 at which a local Debating Society becomes impera- 
 tive. A little further westwards, where the omnibus 
 gave place to the tram, that came as a matter of 
 course ; but the district which was served by the 
 Inner Circle accepted membership of the London 
 Library as a certificate of intellect. 
 
 Mrs. Hopkinson, therefore, felt that as Willie 
 80
 
 THE FIRST SIGNPOST 81 
 
 did not seem likely to develop into either a useful 
 or a popular young man, it was desirable that he 
 should be known as a clever one : and, looking about 
 her for an acquaintance who would start him in the 
 right direction, and turn his indolent attention 
 towards fashionable fields of knowledge, she sud- 
 denly perceived the peculiar merits of Mrs. Hermann 
 Levi. 
 
 Elsa Levi, as has already been remarked, was 
 the only child of Mrs. Steinmann. Her garments 
 which they considered to be indecently suggestive 
 of a dressing-gown gave scandal to her mother's 
 friends, and kept them, to her delight, at a sufficient 
 distance. They sometimes brought their country 
 cousins to call on her, thus bridging the gap between 
 the attractions of the Zoo and South Kensington 
 Museum ; but such visits were based more on 
 curiosity than approval. On these occasions Mrs. 
 Levi, who was too self-conscious to dislike admira- 
 tion, however strange its form, received her visitors 
 cordially, and made a point of saying something a 
 little bit shocking before they left. It was expected 
 of her, and she could not neglect so obvious a duty. 
 
 She was at this time a slender and alluring person 
 of thirty-eight ; and the uncomfortable tendencies 
 of her soul made her liable to brief joys and long 
 periods of boredom. She had a superficial know- 
 ledge of many things and a great respect for 
 efficiency ; her friends thought that she was 
 artistic, her enemies said she was soulful. In 
 
 6
 
 82 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 reality she was a woman who lived, by predilection, 
 close to the tree of knowledge, but was not quite 
 tall enough to reach the apple which she ardently 
 desired for her own. 
 
 When she first married Mr. Levi, Elsa had sug- 
 gested that he should change his name to Darcy. 
 Mr. Levi refused ; what was worse, he did so in 
 an intolerably good-humoured manner, and thus 
 convinced his wife, even sooner than she had 
 expected, that he was utterly incapable of appre- 
 ciating either her talents, her aspirations, or her 
 soul. 
 
 'Mr. Levi,' she would say, 'is a Materialist. 
 He does not perceive the beautiful part which 
 Symbolism plays in the lives of the spiritually 
 intelligent.' 
 
 The curtain now lifts to disclose Willie Hopkinson 
 taking tea in the drawing-room of Mrs. Hermann 
 Levi. They were alone. She had arranged, with- 
 out ostentation, that this should be the case. For 
 two people, the room seemed empty. There was 
 an absence of small tables, and the walls, except 
 for a boldly designed frieze by Walter Crane, were 
 barely coloured. There were only two pictures. 
 One was a small and evilly-restored Madonna, which 
 Mrs. Levi in her more sanguine moments attributed 
 to Perugino ; the other a grubby and obvious Degas. 
 She had friends amongst the extreme right as well 
 as the extreme left of the artistic parliament, and 
 each by turns dictated her always admirable taste.
 
 THE FIRST SIGNPOST 83 
 
 This arrangement had only one disadvantage 
 Elsa never finally decided which picture she really 
 liked best. But with two such works of art, a 
 little fumed oak, and the poems of Emile Verhaeren 
 in a Niger morocco "binding, any room, she con- 
 sidered, was adequately furnished. 
 
 She leaned back now in the corner of the settle, 
 and carefully placed her dark head against a 
 cushion of violet silk. She wore a soft dress of 
 subdued and cloudy blue, and Willie, who was in 
 a happy and impressionable mood, thought of the 
 Bride of Lebanon. Mrs. Levi also was contented 
 with the atmosphere and the hour. It was her 
 hobby to act the Sybil to interesting young men. 
 and the fact that Willie's family found him difficult 
 to deal with inclined her to place him in this class. 
 
 He was shy, but his hostess was experienced. A 
 less subtle woman would have tried to make him 
 talk about himself, and failed lamentably. Elsa, 
 on the contrary, assumed towards him a confi- 
 dential air which was at once flattering and 
 instructive. She said little beyond generalities, 
 but her manner gave the impression that she was 
 baring her soul to his gaze. Under its influence 
 his petals uncurled rapidly. He looked into her 
 eyes, which were brown and pathetic, and knew for 
 the first time that other persons beside himself had 
 spiritual griefs. 
 
 They talked of Art, a subject which young Mr. 
 Hopkinson had seldom heard mentioned. Though 
 
 6 2
 
 84 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 his father, he knew, disliked it a fact clearly in 
 its favour it conveyed to him no more than a 
 suggestion of strange cretonnes and bound volumes 
 of Academy Notes. But Art, he now gathered, 
 was an important thing ; a secret and mysterious 
 power, and also a pleasing one. It was spelt with 
 a capital letter. From the vague and reverential 
 way in which Mrs. Levi spoke of it, he inferred 
 that it stood somewhat on the same plane as 
 religion. 
 
 - Where should we be,' she had said, ' if it were 
 not for the Arts ? In the Neolithic cave, perhaps, 
 or even the ancestral tree. It is this which raises 
 us from the market-place, and leads us to the skies. 
 I am sure we think alike on these subjects, do we 
 not?' 
 
 Willie prudently remained silent, but his expres- 
 sion was rapidly becoming one of adoration, and 
 his hostess did not, like Mark Antony, pause for a 
 reply. 
 
 ' Yes,' she said, ' Art is the real language of the 
 soul. I am convinced of it. How else can we 
 explain its existence ? It is the link with the 
 Beyond.' 
 
 At this point Willie, whose attention had wan- 
 dered from Mrs. Levi's words and fixed itself on 
 the fascinations of her person, suddenly became 
 interested. The matter seemed to have some 
 personal application. His alert but puzzled air 
 attracted her.
 
 THE FIRST SIGNPOST 85 
 
 * Have you never felt the spell of Ultimate 
 Beauty ?' she murmured. 
 
 He had not, but it was obvious that he would 
 like to ; and she saw prospects of conversion ahead. 
 Your convert is alw'ays the best disciple. Elsa 
 liked her followers to be tame and appreciative? 
 and she warmed to her work. 
 
 ' Beauty,' she said, ' is the only thing really 
 worth having. You will know that when you 
 have found it. Beauty in poetry, Beauty in form, 
 Beauty in life.' 
 
 ' But ' 
 
 She would not hear him. 
 
 ' I tell you,' she said, bending forward and 
 looking exactly like Rossetti's ' Astarte Syriaca ' 
 ' I tell you that all the banners of Empire and 
 powders of the merchant weigh as nothing in the 
 scales of Eternity against Durham Cathedral or 
 the Samothracian Nike.' 
 
 These words suggested little to Mr. Willie Hop- 
 kinson beyond a sense of welcome change from 
 the atmosphere in which he daily dwelt. But his 
 eye, though untrained, was sensitive. He recog- 
 nised an essential peace in the simple graces of 
 Mrs. Levi's decoration which was lacking amongst 
 the photograph frames and antimacassars of home. 
 He saw himself, a creature of infinite capabilities, 
 evidently able to interest so brilliant a woman 
 as this, placed by Fate amongst cruelly inappropriate 
 surroundings. He remembered his old dreams of a
 
 86 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 delicious, free, unconventional ; life, saw that some 
 people at least might realize these bright ideals ; 
 and felt very sorry for himself. 
 
 ' My father,' he remarked bitterly, ' thinks that 
 nothing is of serious importance that has not some 
 bearing on practical affairs.' 
 
 ' You must not blame your father,' answered 
 Mrs. Levi, and the gentle pathos of her tone was 
 itself a delight. * It is not his fault that he is 
 born a Materialist. You and I have windows 
 that look out on Eternity, but his are turned towards 
 the earth. It is sad for him, poor man! though 
 he does not know it. My husband is just the same. 
 He thinks Titian's " Flora " a fine woman, but he 
 has never got further than that. Of the life-en- 
 hancing qualities of Art he knows nothing 
 nothing.' 
 
 In this particular Willie was in much the same 
 position as Mr. Levi, but he did not say so. The 
 conversation languished ; both were thoughtful, 
 he gazing dreamily at his hostess, and trying to 
 piece together the chief elements of the gospel 
 which he was sure that her scattered remarks 
 must contain. 
 
 ' Do have another cup of tea !' she said presently. 
 
 Willie drank in new courage with his tea. He 
 was certainly having an exciting, astonishing, 
 ever-to-be-remembered afternoon. The Searchers 
 of the Soul had shaken his belief in spiritual possi- 
 bilities ; but Mrs. Levi had revived his faith, and
 
 THE FIRST SIGNPOST 87 
 
 even augmented its strength. It is a curiosity 
 of youth that those who turn a blank wall of reti- 
 cence towards their families are often most ready 
 to confide in the first sympathetic nature that 
 they meet. Elsa's dexterous use of conversational 
 opportunities convinced him, as more open flattery 
 could not have done, that for once he was really 
 understood. He longed to tell her all, but refrained, 
 which was prudent. 
 
 She, on her side, saw a neurotic, perhaps a clever, 
 boy ; awkward and ill-educated, full of fancies, 
 rather absurd in the little airs of equality which 
 her careful encouragement was leading him to 
 assume. It would be amusing, she thought, to 
 detach him from those horrible Hopkinsons, and 
 show him something of the ideals which she loved, 
 or thought that she loved. She pined for intelligent 
 admiration ; and to train up one's own admirer 
 is one way to success. She perceived possibilities in 
 Willie. She was sure that he thought her hand- 
 some, and felt her to be sympathetic. He was a 
 nice lad. 
 
 The conversation revived, and took a more 
 intimate turn. 
 
 ' The beautiful in life,' said Mrs. Levi * that 
 is what we must look for, and refuse to see the 
 uglinesses in our path.' 
 
 ' It is so difficult.' 
 
 ' One must persevere.' 
 
 ' The uglinesses discourage,'
 
 88 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 ' Even though one has a friend to help one ?' 
 asked Elsa softly. 
 
 Willie searched for a suitable reply to this intoxi- 
 cating utterance, but the cool deliberation with which 
 he was apt to regulate dialogue in the home circle 
 completely forsook him. He could only look at her, 
 and encouraged by the expression which he thought 
 that he saw in her eyes, ventured at last to press 
 her hand that soft and manicured hand with its 
 strange rings of olivine, chrysoprase, and enamels. 
 He experienced in the act a new sensation, com- 
 pounded of terror and daring, which assured him 
 that he had yet much to learn. 
 
 And whilst he still held it, the goddess spoke again. 
 
 ' Life is really very beautiful !' she said. 
 
 They had not heard the hall-door bang loudly 
 beneath them, or subsequent feet upon the stairs ; 
 so that when the electric lights were switched on 
 in a sudden click both started in astonishment, 
 and stared at each other with dazzled eyes which 
 had grown accustomed to the discreet shadows 
 thrown by firelight on a dusky room. Mrs. Levi, 
 who had been growing curiously younger during 
 the past hour, immediately resumed her rightful 
 years. Willie drew back, feeling dreamy and 
 insecure. Before he had recovered himself, the 
 door opened with unnecessary amplitude and 
 fuss, and Mr. Geraint Levi, red-tied and frock- 
 coated, entered noisily. 
 
 ' What ho, mater !' said he ; ' been sitting in the
 
 THE FIRST SIGNPOST 89 
 
 murky ? I've just got back from the shop. Lively 
 day at the House. Lollies are softening ; makes 
 the boss feel quite sick. Lollies and Babas are 
 his principal nutriment at present.' 
 
 Mrs. Levi offered no remark. Willie, horrified 
 by this too natural climax to their idyllic afternoon, 
 also remained silent. Geraint, unconscious of 
 offence, retained control of the conversation. 
 
 ' Saw your governor, Hopkinson,' he said. ' Had 
 a chat with him going down in the Underground. 
 Same old bun, Science and Sewing.' He paused, 
 and showed some amusement at his own epigram. 
 ' I suppose they'll be setting you on to the trouser- 
 stitching soon. What a lark !' He helped himself 
 to a cup of stale tea, grumbled at it, drank it ; 
 ate four pieces of thin bread-and-butter in two 
 mouthfuls, kissed his mother suddenly on the 
 nose, missed entirely her glance of candid dislike, 
 and went out of the room as noisily as he had 
 entered. ' I'm just going out to get this week's 
 Tuppenny Tips,'' he shouted from half-way down 
 the staircase. 
 
 There seemed to be a chill in the air after Geraint's 
 departure. Elsa, whom he always irritated, was 
 particularly vexed that so disastrous an illustration 
 of her precepts should have been brought to Willie's 
 notice at this early stage of their acquaintance. 
 She felt herself a partner in his vulgarity, and 
 knew that it imperilled her influence. He was 
 as bad as a poor relation.
 
 go THE GREY WORLD 
 
 Willie, whose point of view was vague, but 
 already very serious where Elsa was concerned, 
 feared to intrude on what was certainly an annoy- 
 ance and probably a sacred grief. But he reflected 
 that a father like Mr. Hopkinson was almost 
 as great a trial to a spiritually-minded young 
 man as a son like Geraint could be to Mrs. Levi. 
 It was a bond between them. His assurance 
 returned, and he would have taken her hand 
 again, but she gave him no opportunity. Even 
 in moments of sentiment, she managed to steer 
 clear of bathos. 
 
 Presently she remarked in a new tone : 
 
 ' I suppose your father means to take you into 
 the business ? Shall you like that ?' 
 
 He had nothing to say. He only looked at her, 
 felt a new power clutch at his throat, and wished 
 that he could go away without more words. He 
 had been having tea in Paradise, and now she 
 was helping him back to earth. But she was 
 merciful. She saw that he did not possess the 
 agility which allowed her to drop to fresh con- 
 versational planes without shock or disaster. 
 
 ' You are sad,' she said. ' Geraint has spoilt 
 the moment for you. You must not mind ; in 
 life things always happen like that. Beauty, 
 you see, presupposes ugliness, and would hardly 
 be noticeable without it.' 
 
 ' Oh, but why is life so horrid ?' said Willie. 
 ' And why are all the real things mixed up with
 
 THE FIRST SIGNPOST 91 
 
 hideous shams ? If only I could know what life 
 meant ! But it is so difficult.' 
 
 Mrs. Levi smiled at him, and nodded apprecia- 
 tively. 
 
 ' I think sometimes,' she said, ' that perhaps 
 this world is a sort of pantomime for the angels. 
 If one can only get far enough away it is really 
 very amusing. And after one of the great tragedies 
 of the universe, when a splendid star has burnt 
 itself out to a dark cinder, or gives up its life in 
 fragments to the planets that are its sons, it must 
 do them good to laugh at us for a little.' 
 
 She forgot Willie's presence for a moment, and 
 laughed herself, but not very mirthfully. * Oh, 
 but it's all very ridiculous !' she said. 
 
 He was charmed. Here at last was a person 
 who put his own ideals into practice, and held life 
 with a light hand. He was sure that Mrs. Levi 
 perceived their essential sympathy, and found 
 him attractive. He did not know that the attrac- 
 tion consisted in his own ignorance and fundamental 
 simplicity. He was an empty and rather well- 
 shaped vessel into which she could pour the ferment 
 of her restless thoughts ; but he imagined himself 
 to be the wine as well as the pitcher. He went 
 away feeling that, with two such friends as Stephen 
 Miller and Elsa Levi, the future, which had once 
 seemed repellent in its nakedness, was amply 
 draped. How happy she, he thought, in such 
 surroundings ; lovelinesses springing up about her
 
 92 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 at her will ! No doubt she knew hundreds of 
 interesting spiritual people ; for he had learnt that 
 afternoon that such people existed, and might even 
 be more interesting than he was. 
 
 He forgot what she had said about her husband ; 
 he found it impossible to remember that Geraint 
 was her son. 
 
 Mr. Willie Hopkinson reached home in a flushed 
 and excited condition ; happier than he had been 
 for months, and less tolerant of his environment. 
 Life was a charming game, and Mrs. Levi the most 
 accomplished of players. But there was beef- 
 steak with onions for dinner ; his father was a 
 hearty eater, and his spirits fell. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Elsa was a woman who found conversation, 
 even with uncongenial persons, a necessity of exist- 
 ence. There is a certain luxury in laying pearls 
 before swine ; and she was never more appreciative 
 of her own jewels of speech than when spreading 
 them at her husband's feet. The process was sooth- 
 ing and self-explanatory, and there was seldom any 
 fear that his replies would eclipse the brilliance 
 of her own remarks. 
 
 ' That boy of the Hopkinsons',' she said to 
 Mr. Levi during dinner, ' has been here this after- 
 noon. He affects me curiously. I detect a strange 
 element in him. I must have him to tea again.' 
 
 ' He's an odd chap, certainly,' replied Hermann, 
 half occupied by an excellent omelette. ' Do
 
 THE FIRST SIGNPOST 93 
 
 well with music or the stage, I should think. Fancy 
 he's an annoyance to Hopkinson, who expected 
 him to turn out differently. That fellow seems to 
 think that he can breed boys like puppies, with 
 any points he likes: But kids are queer ; you 
 can't depend on 'em ! Look at Connie !' 
 
 Mrs. Levi did look at Connie, whose portrait 
 hung near the fireplace ; and she sighed. She 
 would have given much for a share in that form of 
 queerness. It was beautiful and Bohemian ; attri- 
 butes specially dear to her ill-fed emotions. 
 
 Connie had brought with her into life one valuable 
 asset an exquisite skin, moulded on to a form 
 of Grecian purity. Her swarthy but extremely 
 respectable family looked on the matter as one 
 of no moment, they only wondered whom she 
 took after ; but at fifteen Connie, already con- 
 scious of her charms, chanced upon Browning's 
 * Lady and the Painter.' The life it pointed out 
 was easy, lucrative, and adventurous ; and in her 
 case, curiously enough, it remained reputable. 
 She is famous in many studios, vainly desired in 
 many palaces, and her portrait adorns the galleries 
 of both worlds. 
 
 * Yes,' admitted Elsa, after a brief reflection on 
 Connie's career, ' kids are queer ! But I don't 
 think Willie Hopkinson will be an actor, dear ; 
 he's too thoughtful. I fancy he will develop into 
 a mystic ; he has that point of view.' 
 
 ' No good,' said Mr. Levi decisively ; ' no money
 
 94 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 in that. Hopkinson wouldn't stand it. All right 
 as a hobby, of course. But a lad must have some 
 serious employment.' 
 
 ' And is not the search for Ultimate Truth a 
 serious employment ?' asked Mrs. Levi rather 
 warmly. Her controversial manner was apt to be 
 feverish, the temperature rising without warning 
 in sudden spasms. 
 
 ' Of course it's not,' said her husband, ' except 
 for the nincompoops who can't do anything else ! 
 Very pretty and all that, but it don't pay. It's 
 no use glaring, Elsa my dear, or sitting on your 
 chair as if it was a pin-cushion. I never saw the 
 mystic yet who could pay your dressmaker's bill.' 
 
 He carefully lighted a large cigar ; and Mrs. Levi. 
 who found it convenient to dislike tobacco, fled 
 to her boudoir, where she smoked cigarettes in 
 solitude for two hours, and thought of Willie 
 Hopkinson in a mood which she wrongly imagined 
 to be maternal.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 A FELLOW-TRAVELLER 
 
 ' Those obstinate questionings 
 Of sense and outward things, 
 Fallings from us, vanishings ; 
 Blank misgivings of a creature 
 Moving about in worlds not realized.' 
 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 THE influence of Mrs. Levi on her disciple was soon 
 perceptible. She raised his standard of taste, with- 
 out conferring a corresponding benefit on his morals. 
 The result was of doubtful advantage to a person 
 who still lacked the power of omitting ugly externals 
 from his visionary field. In effect, Mr. Willie Hop- 
 kinson became more dreamy, and even less agreeable 
 to his neighbours than of old. 
 
 His mind had passed from the condition of bore- 
 dom to that of unrest. It hungered for Elsa's 
 society, and for the stimulus of her disturbing 
 ideals ; excluding her from the verdict of hollow- 
 ness which it passed on the rest of creation. She 
 was the one fixed point of his universe, and wander- 
 ing from that he felt lost. He cherished her occa- 
 
 95
 
 96 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 sional letters, and valued the touch of her hand, 
 with an inconsistent materialism which he realized 
 but was unable to kill. He forsook the old dull 
 poise of disillusion, but found no new one. 
 
 He began to grow, too, with a spiritual growth, 
 painful and spasmodic ; for his soul, though always 
 conscious, had developed little since the childish 
 times when it first woke to its own existence. Its 
 powers, beyond those of mere panic, were immature. 
 It perceived, but could not co-ordinate. It was still 
 the baby spirit, the troublesome precocious child, 
 which takes notice easily but holds nothing in a com- 
 prehensive grasp. Its little fits of fear, its glimpses 
 of the Veil, and shuddering acknowledgments of the 
 Grey Country where the Dead search the fields of 
 life for something to love, were cast in petty lines. 
 Lacking as yet the Great Companion, Willie walked 
 only with the dim reflection of his own mean little 
 soul. 
 
 It was under the direction of his Egeria that he 
 now began to brood upon artistic problems, to read 
 the Studio and the Artist, and to pay secret visits to 
 the National Gallery. From these he returned ill- 
 tempered and disconsolate, tired out by uninstructed 
 efforts to appreciate Medieval Art. He found little 
 which accorded with his preconceived idea of the 
 Beautiful. Mrs. Levi, perhaps overestimating his 
 intelligence, had directed his attention to Memlinck 
 and to Gherard David, to Duccio and to Botticelli ; 
 and he spent puzzled hours before masterpieces as
 
 A FELLOW-TRAVELLER 97 
 
 far beyond his apprehension as he was beyond that 
 of his relations. Only the quiet of the place pleased 
 him and compelled his respect ; speaking as silence 
 will of the Idea which lies beyond appearance. He 
 had been in other years with his mother and Pauline 
 to the Academy ; and he remembered the discord 
 with which the pictures seemed to shout from the 
 walls. Here there was the peace of mutual courtesy. 
 So. coming for Art, he stayed for Serenity ; and 
 still influences began their slow civilizing work upon 
 his soul. 
 
 Stephen Miller, in another direction, gave a 
 helping hand to the extrication of his spirit from 
 the marshlands of vegetative life. Their friendship 
 grew, slowly and carefully. Both youths suffered 
 from family criticism ; they had been led to think 
 their most ordinary actions eccentric ; and this gave 
 a coyness to their early advances. Even immortal 
 spirits dislike being laughed at. The emotion con- 
 ceived on the dim stairway of the Searchers of the 
 Soul could not at first endure a cold and unbecoming 
 daylight. 
 
 Not, indeed, till he had been introduced into 
 Stephen's family circle, did Willie discover how 
 valuable were the peculiar qualities of his friend. 
 They seemed to have been prepared for one another 
 by a good-natured and discriminating Providence. 
 Stephen had been reared, like himself, in an atmo- 
 sphere of overpowering solidity. But his home was 
 opulent : there were wide passages, and two foot- 
 
 7
 
 g8 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 men. Circumstances were easier for him than they 
 had been for Mr. Willie Hopkinson, though scarcely 
 more inspiring. His father was a thin, radiant old 
 gentleman, who seldom gave himself the trouble of 
 rebuking his son : who read Punch through care- 
 fully every Tuesday night, and the Referee on 
 Sundays, smiling silently at every joke. He re- 
 fused to give any serious attention to the eccen- 
 tricities of the young. 
 
 ' Stephen,' he said to Willie in the course of his 
 first visit, ' has run through all the religions, and 
 now he's reduced to the freaks.' 
 
 This, as Willie later discovered, was an exaggera- 
 tion. Mr. Stephen Miller had retained the fra- 
 grance, if not the dogma, of the cults by which he 
 had passed ; and morsels culled from the Upani- 
 shads, the Book of the Dead, and the Acta Sanc- 
 torum, embellished his view of the world. Each 
 new religion, he said, gave him the sight of a fresh 
 angle in the polygon of Truth ; a figure of which 
 old Mr. Miller, safely established in the pawky 
 materialism of middle age, probably doubted the 
 existence. 
 
 Stephen and Willie, however, were little bound 
 by the limitations of their elders. Each obtained 
 early, if vague, assurance of the other's interest in 
 spiritual things, and bridges were soon established 
 between them. Superior young persons often pride 
 themselves on isolation whilst they pine for com- 
 radeship. The flattering comprehension of an elder
 
 A FELLOW-TRAVELLER 99 
 
 woman still leaves gaps to be filled. Willie had 
 room for Stephen ; and Stephen, whose spiritual 
 life was dominated by a lively and eclectic curi- 
 osity, eagerly desired the exploration of his friend's 
 soul. 
 
 But Mr. Willie Hopkinson preserved a certain 
 reticence. Stephen, he saw, followed every occult 
 clue, however bizarre the colours of the thread ; 
 and seldom refused his hand to an unproved pro- 
 position. He did not wish his own story to take 
 rank with these experiments. Stephen's spirit, 
 greedy for truth and sensible of its nearness, looked 
 towards him hopefully ; but though it seemed sad 
 that so intelligent a person should share the delu- 
 sions of the rest of the world, he avoided its con- 
 tact. 
 
 Stephen argued his way toward the light by 
 intellectual effort ; did not perceive as Willie did f 
 naturally and irrationally, the Grey World folded 
 in the shadow- world of sense. One could not con- 
 ceive of his giving to spiritual presences the same 
 cool assent that he accorded to the tables and chairs. 
 Yet as realities they were equally substantial. His 
 universe was still a concrete affair ; his diligent 
 dreams no more than the expression of an aesthetic 
 unsatisfied mind. He wished to know the Beyond 
 as children wish to see fairies ; because he believed 
 it to be strange, beautiful, exciting. 
 
 They went together fairly regularly to the meet- 
 ings of the Searchers of the Soul. Each had a secret 
 
 72
 
 ioo THE GREY WORLD 
 
 hope that the absurdities of that Society might one 
 day draw from the other an indignant protest, and 
 incidentally confession of faith. It seemed a flint 
 on which, at any moment, one might strike out the 
 spark of truth. And it was, finally, in some such 
 way that they did actually come to understand 
 each other. 
 
 It was an evening in which the tone of the meet- 
 ing had been one of great intellectual, as well as 
 atmospheric, stuffiness. The dogmatism of the 
 Dark Ages, wedded to the unbridled speculation of 
 the present, had exalted the imagination, and para- 
 lyzed the intelligence, of the Society ' The heirs of 
 all the ages in the foremost ranks of time ' as Mr. 
 Vincent Dawes had happily observed in his eloquent 
 speech. Table-turning, astrology, and divination 
 by coffee-grounds, had all been called in to provide 
 a facile solution to the great conundrum. Willie 
 and Stephen, escaping at last from the fumes of 
 gas and the sounds of aerated oratory, stepped 
 from that squalid stairway, with its suggestion of 
 putty and cheap lodgings, straight into the austere 
 pageant of the night. 
 
 They stood upon the threshold, amazed and com- 
 forted by the purity which the west wind blows from 
 a dark sky. It was such an abrupt change as Dante 
 felt when he came out from Hell ' a rivedcr le stelle.' 
 The moon rode high above London. Little clouds, 
 hurrying across the heavens, became opalescent 
 poems as they approached her faded to grey prose
 
 A FELLOW-TRAVELLER 101 
 
 as they rushed away. Bathed in that milky radi- 
 ance the town, coiled in massy folds of black and of 
 ashy grey, hid its shameful outlines as well as it 
 might. In the great west road, electric lamps 
 blazed with an angry blue fire, trying to put out 
 the splendours of the sky : but the moon looked 
 down on them serenely and was not afraid. Under 
 that heaven, so secret and so white, one seemed to 
 imagine wide spaces of quiet and happy country at 
 rest ; and the black shadow of London man's ugly 
 attempt to build himself a world lying like a blot 
 in the midst, yet sharing in the same merciful dis- 
 pensation of darkness and light. The spirit of 
 London was awed, too, by the guardianship of this 
 cold and gracious moon, as never by the brightness 
 of the sun. Even the traffic went with a muffled 
 tread. Cities dream on a moonlit night ; and in their 
 dream they smile and become beautiful. 
 
 ' On a night like this,' said Stephen, * so magical 
 and still, one is almost tempted to wonder if any- 
 thing is real. These streets are not the same streets 
 now their essence isn't the same as in daytime. 
 And who's to say which is the Real street ?' 
 
 ' It's we who are different,' said Willie. ' And so 
 we see another world.' 
 
 ' I wonder ? Do you think the other Searchers 
 of the Soul will see what we see now ?' 
 
 Willie laughed. 
 
 ' Quaint persons, those,' he observed. 
 
 ' Quaint ? Horrible ! They make me ill !
 
 102 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 Alwaj^s making a pretence of wanting to know, talk- 
 ing of the powers of the spirit and all that words 
 they don't even know the fringe of. Want to know ! 
 I want to know you want to know. We're in 
 earnest. But they only want to gabble.' 
 
 ' They used to disgust me at first,' answered 
 Willie, ' because I had expected them to be genuine. 
 Don't you understand ? One's always hoping for 
 companionship ; it seems incredible that everyone 
 should be blind. But now they rather amuse me. 
 Most burlesque is built on the ashes of tragedy. I 
 like to sit and listen, and wonder what would happen 
 if one got up and told them the truth.' 
 
 ' They would say that they couldn't accept it 
 without investigation, and that the Vice-president's 
 hypothesis was more in accordance with their 
 spiritual intuitions.' 
 
 ' Probably it is.' 
 
 ' Oh,' said Stephen suddenly and violently, 
 ' look ! look at the wonder and the mystery of it 
 all ! The great stars and the darkness ; and the 
 strange, careless, cruel earth. It must be different 
 really ; more ordered, more sane. Will one ever 
 find the thing itself ?' 
 
 ' Better not. You're happiest in the searching.' 
 
 ' How can you tell ? Think ! somewhere, per- 
 haps, there's an inconceivable glory, if only our 
 eyes were clear.' 
 
 ' Yes ; but in searching for that you may find the 
 horror.'
 
 A FELLOW-TRAVELLER 103 
 
 ' The horror ?' . 
 
 ' Yes : that comes first. It's not so difficult to 
 find it. But the other the real secret is hidden, 
 if it exists.' 
 
 Stephen looked at Willie rather oddly. 
 
 ' Don't you begin to talk rot, Hopkinson,' he 
 said. ' I've always felt that you were very different 
 from those chattering fools we've just left. I 
 believe you're as keen to find the truth as I am ; 
 but it's not to be done by telling each other fairy- 
 tales.' 
 
 ' Fairy-tales ! Good heavens ! A moment ago 
 you knew yourself, for a minute, that all this funny 
 dazzling bewildering world is nothing but a fairy- 
 tale. What could be queerer than the things our 
 senses show us ? Things that simply don't exist 
 in the forms under which we see them.' 
 
 ' But do you know that ?' said Stephen. * If I 
 knew that much, it would be something.' 
 
 ' Something ?' answered Willie * something ! 
 It would be Hell ! If only I didn't know ! Igno- 
 rance is the real happiness, after all.' 
 
 He stopped. He was astonished at himself. He 
 wished that he had not spoken with such picturesque 
 force. 
 
 Stephen was looking at him through half-closed 
 eyelids, with a strange, concentrated expression. 
 His hand, it seemed, was on the latch ; and he leaned 
 forward, directing all his will towards the words 
 which hovered between them.
 
 104 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 Then Willie began to speak ; quite slowly, in a 
 curiously level voice. He had always known that 
 he would tell Stephen the truth about his life : it 
 seemed only fair to do so, where the knowledge would 
 quiet a searching mind. But he did not specially 
 desire the moment. Their superficial comradeship 
 had not ceased to satisfy. Now some hand touched 
 a spring that was not of his adjusting. He was 
 impelled to candour. 
 
 He spoke about his life in the slums as he remem- 
 bered it, and of his death in the hospital. His 
 manner was rather matter-of-fact ; not interesting. 
 He described this in a lower key, for it was still a 
 present dread the Grey World, and what he had 
 endured whilst it held his spirit. His account was 
 circumstantial, full of small detail ; he spoke in the 
 present tense. Stephen gradually realized that he 
 was describing something which he saw, and which 
 only his own imperfect vision prevented him also 
 from seeing. He quietly demolished the hedge- 
 rows of conventional experience, and exposed the 
 desolate uncharted country through which life runs, 
 a faint and wavering path. But the subject, in his 
 hands, seemed insusceptible of glamour. It was 
 coldly real ; as real as a dried flower, and as unim- 
 pressive. 
 
 Stephen, on his side, remained quite quiet. It 
 seemed to him that he was hearing a very ordinary 
 tale ; an addition, merely, to the sordid aspects of 
 life. It corresponded more or less with other 
 
 /
 
 A FELLOW-TRAVELLER 105 
 
 theories that he had heard of, and had dismissed 
 for their sterile quality, which did not please his 
 active synthetic mind. He did not realize the 
 tremendous significance it possessed, as belonging 
 to the World of Fact, "and not the World o! Idea. 
 Those solid pavements on which they walked ; the 
 scuttling hansoms ; the hoardings with their insis- 
 tent presentation of food, tobacco, and amusement 
 as the real interests of life ; dulled his imagination, 
 and he was not conscious of the transformation of 
 his universe which Willie's slow sentences involved. 
 
 Mr. Willie Hopkinson felt disappointed. He was 
 making the great revelation of his life ; chiefly, he 
 thought, out of kindness to Stephen ; and he did 
 not appear to have produced much effect. He had 
 hoped to see a friendly spirit start to life at the 
 touch of truth to communicate some of the wonder 
 and the fear, and find a companion on the lonely 
 road. But Stephen was impassive, unexcited ; he 
 seemed to be brooding. To Willie, now, the atmo- 
 sphere was full of dreadfulness : by force of his own 
 words he was turned towards the dark, and had lost 
 himself in the hateful desert of infinity. He forgot 
 the great blurring shadow which life casts for the 
 living. He was alone in space with Stephen, and 
 Stephen gave him no comfort. He saw no star. 
 Friendship had been a false beacon. The glow of 
 narration died, fright came instead ; his story 
 dwindled and ceased. 
 
 Then Stephen spoke.
 
 io6 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 ' Is it true ?' he said. 
 
 Willie only looked at him. 
 
 ' You know,' continued Stephen in the same 
 placid, even tones, ' I don't want it to be true. It's 
 too ugly. If it isn't true if the other country isn't 
 here, at the back of appearance, as you say I may 
 forget it, and go back to my beautiful lies. Of 
 course they're silly and deceptive, but each new 
 one makes me hope I am going to find the Real. If 
 this is the Real ' 
 
 ' It's my Real,' said Willie. 
 
 He spoke sulkily, but with decision. Stephen, by 
 contrast, seemed to falter. Now that the strain of 
 listening was over, dim ideas were beginning to 
 surge, up in his mind and constrict his utterance. 
 
 ' You and I, as we look to each other now, aren't 
 real,' continued Willie. ' All this city that you see 
 isn't real ; colour isn't real, or sound. There's 
 only space and silence, really ; and the living who 
 have one dream, and the Dead who have another. 
 What we call reality is only a sensation that we 
 throw outside ourselves. Don't you see that ? 
 We each make our own universe or let other 
 people make it. But I've made myself a world 
 in four dimensions, and that's why I can never rest 
 in three.' 
 
 ' It's wonderful !' said Stephen slowly. The 
 thing had filtered into his consciousness at last. 
 He fidgeted uneasily. ' And no one else has 
 it ! Just you ! Why can't we all know, if
 
 A FELLOW-TRAVELLER 107 
 
 know ? If it's true, one ought to find it ; but no 
 one has.' 
 
 'I've thought sometimes,' said Willie, ' that 
 perhaps I am the first of a new regime. A trial 
 piece, you know; an 'experiment. It's about time 
 something new was evolved from the race, isn't it ? 
 And isolated specimens aren't usual in nature. 
 Which is lucky ; it's not nice to be one. That 
 mixture of fatigue and foolishness which the first 
 man who stood upright must have felt, when he 
 limped and stumbled amongst the four-footed 
 things, is just what I feel now. That want of incen- 
 tive for tree-climbing, weakness and lostness in 
 forests made for creeping and leaping creatures, 
 which he must have had shame for his state 
 mixed with secret knowledge of his new powers 
 all that is just a parable of my life, going with new 
 perceptions amongst people who instinctively resent 
 the light.' 
 
 * But is your world the True ?' answered Stephen. 
 ' It can't be. It must only be another illusion 
 wrapped inside this one. This can't be all can't 
 be the end this Grey Horror that you talk of. It's 
 too mad, too evil, too unjust.' 
 
 ' I have that feeling, too, sometimes,' said Willie. 
 They had reached the inner core of his mind now, 
 and he was impelled to confess it. 'I seem to know, 
 then, that there is a better country hidden away for 
 people who are not tied to the earth-side of dream. 
 But I can't find it yet. The other is the beginning
 
 io8 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 anyhow. Always here always there and for most, 
 it's the end : I've proved that.' 
 
 Stephen shivered. He felt lonely without the 
 pretty, iridescent dreams which he had woven for 
 himself from varied psychic material. Willie's 
 cloud - land descended as a fog, and choked 
 him. 
 
 ' Oh, but I will find a way back to beautiful 
 thoughts !' he said. 
 
 He parted from W T illie on the doorstep, and went 
 into the house. Mr. and Mrs. Miller were dining 
 out, and the drawing-room felt cold and lonely. 
 Stephen went up to his own den, turned up the 
 lights, tried to remember the words that Willie 
 had said to him. But he could not think very 
 clearly : the house was so horribly still. 
 
 Presently he found himself looking nervously 
 about the room. In spite of the stillness, the air 
 seemed full of inaudible sounds. He stood up, sent 
 quick glances towards the door. He thought he 
 would like to go downstairs again, and find com- 
 panionship : he felt cold, breathless. Solitude 
 ceased to be a fact, and became a dreadful person 
 robed in chilly winds, who stood close to him. He 
 had still sufficient self-control to wonder at himself, 
 to ask his muddled brain the meaning of its frenzy ; 
 but it could not answer him. It referred him to a 
 more cloistered inhabitant to that Dweller in the
 
 A FELLOW-TRAVELLER 109 
 
 Innermost whose calm vigil he seldom disturbed ; 
 for Stephen's activities were largely intellectual, 
 though he loved to give them spiritual names. 
 
 It was, then, the tremor of his soul whose reflec- 
 tion he now felt in physical wretchedness. Whilst 
 his reason doubted and argued, setting its teeth in 
 the framework of Willie's vision, it had perceived. 
 It had been roused by familiar accents, and now 
 reminded him of the dark places in which he stood. 
 It had pushed out suddenly into the transcendental 
 world, dragging his weak consciousness in its wake. 
 He could not hold it back. 
 
 Material life is only made possible by material 
 faith : by a childlike acceptance of appearances. 
 Stephen's belief in appearances had been rudely 
 shaken. The texture of his world had become thin, 
 unsubstantial : he thought that he could see 
 through it the shadowy outline of another landscape. 
 Old landmarks slipped from him. He grabbed sud- 
 denly and nervously at the nearest chair, longing 
 for solidity ; but his senses turned against him, and 
 he could not assure himself that it was hard and 
 durable to his touch. He was not even clear about 
 the floor that he stood upon. The brightness of 
 the electric light terrified him ; it seemed to be 
 veiling awful darks. 
 
 He had lost the sense of bodily existence, of 
 visual reality. He was 
 
 ' Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng 
 Whose sails are never to the tempest given '
 
 no THE GREY WORLD 
 
 alone and immaterial in an illusory and immaterial 
 world. No sound, no sight, no Real, between him 
 and grey nothingness. He stood and shivered, 
 choking with horror, and powerless to move, because 
 he had lost the sense of space. 
 
 Suddenly he heard a distant cry, a rustling 
 sound. 
 
 Then blind terror brought its own relief. He 
 fainted.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 ROAD-MAKING 
 
 1 Indentures and Apprenticeships for our irrational young ; 
 whereby, in due season, the vague Universality of a Man shall 
 find himself ready - moulded into a specific Craftsman.' 
 THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 MRS. STEINMANN was giving a little dinner. It was 
 at her own house : at restaurants, she said, one 
 never knew what one was eating. Margarine, she 
 felt sure, was used freely ; whereas in her own 
 kitchen she could rely on honest dripping and clari- 
 fied fat. 
 
 Both dinner and conversation were solid, but 
 easy of digestion. There were no insidious entrees 
 in either department. This was a comfort to Mrs. 
 Hopkinson, whose husband had lately suffered from 
 dyspepsia, and still required diplomatic supervision 
 at his meals. She had sent a note to her hostess in 
 the morning, asking that he might be given toast 
 instead of bread, and some weak whisky-and-soda 
 in a champagne glass. Mr. Hopkinson, when he 
 discovered these attentions, revenged himself on 
 
 in
 
 H2 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 Fate by taking two helpings of fried potatoes, and 
 avoided the supplicating glance which his wife 
 directed towards him from the other side of the 
 table. He was sitting next to Mrs. Alcock, who 
 had developed with years a childish, appealing 
 manner, which made her popular with the husbands 
 of other women, and now impelled Mr. Hopkinson 
 to give her carefully diluted information on several 
 subjects with which she was already acquainted. 
 
 Elsa Levi, judiciously dressed for her mother's 
 eye in a tight-fitting frock of modest ugliness, sur- 
 veyed him from the opposite seat, and compared 
 him as she always did all suitable specimens with 
 her own husband. Mr. Hopkinson was of the 
 military - commercial type ; a thick moustache, 
 square shoulders, an assertive shirt-front. He 
 appeared to have been created to show off his own 
 manufactures. Mr. Levi, whose sandy hairs fringed 
 a bald pink dome, and who insisted on retaining the 
 whiskers of his early youth, seemed to find evening- 
 dress less chic but more comfortable. Elsa con- 
 cluded that there was little to choose between them ; 
 Hermann ate his soup less noisily, but Mr. Hopkin- 
 son's complexion did not become shiny as the even- 
 ing advanced. She balanced these advantages of 
 sight and sound for a little while, but could come to 
 no practical decision. 
 
 A sideway glance at Mrs. Hopkinson's uninspired 
 profile set her wondering how Willie came to be 
 mingled with this strangely unsuitable family. She
 
 ROAD-MAKING 113 
 
 had seen a good deal of him ; and discovered that 
 though he tended more towards weak amativeness 
 than she considered desirable, he was capable of 
 amusing, even of interesting her. His rather effusive 
 gratitude made her feel unselfish, which was pleasant. 
 She was naturally self-indulgent, and knew it ; but 
 she liked to foster the illusion of altruism. Also, 
 the vacuous state of his mind in respect of fashionable 
 culture gave scope for her ideals of education : and 
 there was never any fear that he would think her 
 ridiculous. 
 
 When the ladies returned to the drawing-room, 
 she sat down near Mrs. Hopkinson and talked to 
 her in a gentle, rather pathetic voice. It was her 
 policy to make friends of the parents of her dis- 
 ciples. 
 
 ' I love to be loved by the loved ones of those 
 whom I love,' she had said one day. 
 
 ' I am so interested in your boy,' she now ob- 
 served. ' He is rather like you, is he not ?' 
 
 ' Well,' said Mrs. Hopkinson, ' I've always thought 
 so, though it's never been noticed. My dear father, 
 you know, had a vivid imagination ; I've often 
 heard mother say that he would wake up in the 
 middle of the night screaming with terror though 
 he always dined early, and never took meat at 
 supper, only savoury eggs, or fish cakes or some- 
 thing light like that and I dare say that's where 
 Willie gets it from.' 
 
 * No doubt,' said Elsa. ' Heredity is so wonderful, 
 
 8
 
 H4 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 isn't it ? But your son, I think, has great gifts. 
 With a little training in the right direction, he ought 
 to do well.' 
 
 Mrs. Hopkinson was pleased. One may think 
 one's own duckling ugly and ill-tempered, but it 
 is not disagreeable to hear other people call it a 
 swan. 
 
 ' Mr. Hopkinson thinks,' she answered, ' that 
 Willie might start at the Factory at the beginning 
 of the year. He's had a long holiday, and is quite 
 strong now ; and training is just what he will get 
 there, being kept constantly under a father's eye.' 
 
 ' I fancy, do you know?' said Elsa, ' from little 
 things he has let drop now and again not that I 
 should think of encouraging him in any ideas of 
 that kind that business does not attract him alto- 
 gether. It seems a pity, doesn't it ?' 
 
 ' Oh, Willie's full of high-flown fancies,' replied 
 Mrs. Hopkinson. ' He has got into rather idle 
 ways, I'm afraid, these last few months ; always 
 staring at pictures and mooning over books. You 
 see, he's clever. But his health has got thoroughly 
 established, which is the main thing, and now he 
 must begin to learn what life really is.' 
 
 ' Ah ! which of us knows that, dear Mrs. Hopkin- 
 son ?' answered Elsa softly. ' And do you think 
 Willie is likely to find the solution in Bermondsey ?' 
 
 ' And then, by the time he's ready to marry and 
 settle down,' continued Mrs. Hopkinson, busy with 
 her own idea, ' he can be taken into partnership.'
 
 ROAD-MAKING 115 
 
 ' And that is to be his future ?' 
 
 ' Yes : such a comfort, isn't it, to feel that he's 
 so well provided for ? It's getting quite difficult to 
 find any opening for boys. If only he takes to the 
 business! But he's easily unsettled. That young 
 Stephen Miller, I'm afraid, does him no good.' 
 
 ' Stephen Miller ?' said Mr. Hopkinson, who, 
 being bored by Mrs. Alcock's mechanically recep- 
 tive manner, had arrived in the hope of detaching 
 Elsa from his wife's neighbourhood and demon- 
 strating to her that the art of flirtation was not con- 
 fined to aesthetes. ' An idle, loafing sort of lad. 
 He often comes in of an evening ; eyes Pauline and 
 talks gibberish to Willie. I sometimes wish him 
 further. But they're well connected people, the 
 Millers. Miller's Sapoline, you know a very old- 
 established firm.' 
 
 Elsa did not know much of Stephen, but such 
 details as she had heard from Willie did not please 
 her. Spiritualism was out of date ; besides, he was 
 a possible rival, and she hated strangers in her own 
 line of business. 
 
 c I'm afraid he's rather a foolish youth.' she said. 
 
 ' Glad you agree with me,' replied Mr. Hopkin- 
 son. She had only done her duty, but he liked to 
 be kind to women. 
 
 He sat down by her on the sofa, and intimated 
 that he was willing to converse. He thought her a 
 fool, she called him an animal ; but they were not 
 too narrow-minded to find amusement in each other's 
 
 82
 
 n6 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 deficiencies. She had a small waist a thing he 
 seldom saw at home and her husband's financial 
 position lent a golden glow even to her most irritat- 
 ing follies. Mr. Hopkinson's claim to tolerance was, 
 perhaps, less obvious ; but he was a man as well as 
 a materialist, his eye was appreciative. Amongst 
 Mrs. Steinmann's commercially solid and mentally 
 woolly friends, he shone as the least polished tin 
 will do when surrounded by duller metals. 
 
 They warmed to one another perceptibly. 
 
 ' So you are going to put Willie in the business ?' 
 said Elsa. She was really good-natured, and wished 
 to deliver the boy from the dragon which awaited 
 him ; seeing herself in the position of a strong-minded 
 princess, coming to the rescue of some helpless and 
 neurotic S. George. ' It seems difficult to believe 
 that he is old enough !' 
 
 She looked at Mr. Hopkinson a look which sug- 
 gested both incredulity and admiration, and pleased 
 him. 
 
 ' Why, goodness, yes !' said he. ' The boy's close 
 on twenty a year younger than your Geraint, if I 
 remember right. You mustn't judge age by your 
 own appearance, Mrs. Levi.' 
 
 Elsa sighed. 
 
 ' I'm getting an old woman,' she answered, ' and 
 beginning to take an old woman's interest in young 
 people.' 
 
 Mr. Hopkinson gave a laugh composed of polite 
 scepticism and quite honest embarrassment. He
 
 ROAD-MAKING 117 
 
 began to perceive that the conversation had some 
 more serious aim than after-dinner dalliance ; and 
 he distrusted and disliked Elsa's serious edges. 
 
 * How's your second boy getting on in Paris ?' 
 he said. 
 
 ' Tristram ?' said Elsa. ' He is perfectly happy. 
 The life of an art-student, I think, is an ideal one for 
 a young man. Technique and aspiration hand in 
 hand. I feel that he is learning to love familiar 
 beauties.' 
 
 ' Very probably,' replied Mr. Hopkinson. He had 
 some knowledge of underground Paris. 
 
 * It seems so sad,' continued Elsa, ' so unjust, 
 does it not ? that all who feel the spell of loveliness 
 should not be able to tread the higher paths. Now 
 your Willie ' 
 
 ' Willie's path leads to the Factory,' said Mr. Hop- 
 kinson, ' and I hope the influence of environment 
 will soon knock the nonsense out of him, when he 
 gets there.' 
 
 * It may do, of course. A young soul is so easily 
 
 blunted by contact with earth ' She slid a little 
 
 farther back on the sofa : its pink and grey damask 
 covering gave sharp contrast to the lines of her 
 figure, and she knew that Mr. Hopkinson was secretly 
 enjoying her pose. ' But I don't think he will ever 
 be a successful business man,' she added. 
 
 ' Don't you indeed ?' said Willie's father, with- 
 out demonstration of astonishment. 
 
 He had no illusions about his son, and looked for-
 
 n8 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 ward with mixed feelings to the prospect of Willie's 
 daily presence in his office. A long experience had 
 taught him the signs which distinguish an efficient 
 clerk from a useless one. 
 
 ' No,' said Elsa. ' And all his faculties ; those 
 which make him so different from the ordinary 
 young man of his class how wasted they will be, 
 will they not ? His imagination, for instance.' 
 
 ' Not at all,' replied Mr. Hopkinson. ' He can 
 design the new models. There's a great deal to be 
 done in that way ; and more to be made out of it 
 than most of these artists make out of their pictures, 
 I can tell you. Something the public wears, and 
 something it wears out that's the thing to make 
 money by. Now, pictures must always be a fancy 
 article, and jolly lasting too : some of these Old 
 Masters, I understand, have been going for hundreds 
 of years, and are still quite fresh. But clothes we 
 must have 'em ; and as long as men are born naked, 
 there'll be a living to be made out of trousers and 
 coats.' 
 
 ' I do not think,' answered Elsa, ' that Willie will 
 make it. He does not seem to have inherited your 
 talent for practical matters.' 
 
 ' Well, there it is,' said Mr. Hopkinson, modestly 
 evading the compliment. ' The place is ready-made 
 for him, and what can we do but put him in it ?' 
 
 ' I think,' replied Mrs. Levi, ' that he has rather 
 a fancy for one of the artistic trades.' 
 
 She had, which came to the same thing. Tea and
 
 ROAD-MAKING 119 
 
 twilight would secure Willie's acquiescence. But 
 Mr. Hopkinson looked at her with surprise and some 
 resentment. 
 
 ' What ! retail ?' he said. 
 
 ' Oh, no !' explained Elsa hurriedly. ' I don't 
 mean that at all. I ought to have said handicraft, 
 not trade.' 
 
 * Thought you meant Art Furnishing.' 
 
 ' No, bookbinding, you know, or jewellery, or 
 metal- work something of that kind. The creation 
 of really beautiful things, as the medieval craftsmen 
 used to do. That's so very delightful ; and all the 
 most cultivated people are taking to it. It's pay- 
 ing, too, I believe. They get enormous prices for 
 these things.' 
 
 ' Do they indeed ?' said Mr. Hopkinson. He 
 seemed more interested. 
 
 ' Yes. I know several girls who have gone in for 
 enamelling and bookbinding and so on ' 
 
 ' Oh, girls ! That's very different.' He employed 
 female labour, and did not wish to see its value in 
 the market increase. 
 
 'Not really,' answered Elsa. ' And Willie is just a 
 little effeminate, is he not ? And surely, what a 
 woman can do well, a man is sure to do better ?' 
 
 She smiled at Mr. Hopkinson. He temporarily 
 forgot that she was only an ingenious compound 
 of molecules, and owed her sinuous charms to Pre- 
 Glacial ancestors. 
 
 ' You have interested me very much,' he said
 
 120 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 kindly. ' I shall think of what you have been 
 saying. Of course, I saw long ago that Willie 
 would never make a smart man of business.' 
 
 ' I'm sure he'd fail at it,' answered Elsa. ' And 
 that would be such a pity.' 
 
 ' Oh, we'll hope he wouldn't quite come to that,' 
 said Mr. Hopkinson. ' I'm proud to think that so 
 far no member of my family has ever had to file 
 his petition. There's plenty of capital to fall 
 back on.' 
 
 He bade Elsa good-night with elephantine gal- 
 lantry ; and on the way home, having lowered both 
 windows of the four-wheeler for fear of infection, he 
 gave his shivering wife a summary of their conversa- 
 tion. From this she easily gathered that such 
 original features as it possessed had been entirely 
 of his creation.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 A BREEZY UPLAND 
 ' All kinds of skill are gifts of the Holy Ghost.' TAULER. 
 
 IT is a disability of the hurried children of Time 
 that make as they may an illusion of the hours 
 the boundary of each moment is for them firmly 
 set. The Angels, whose day is timeless, do not feel 
 this. Theirs is the delicious leisure of eternity, and 
 that is why they sometimes judge our omissions 
 rather harshly. They cannot understand that 
 time given to the outer, is taken from the inner 
 life ; that to earn one's living it is often necessary 
 to pauperize one's soul. They would laugh were 
 they told that in modern life, no hour has been left 
 for revery : that it has been given, perhaps, to 
 physical culture, or chip-carving, or local politics. 
 Rational religion, the Broad Church, and other 
 expressions of our spiritual state, do not claim 
 rights for meditation. It is hustled out of sight 
 to make room for more useful hobbies, and the 
 eye of the soul becomes dim in consequence. So 
 the spirit is drowned in the luxuries that the 
 
 121
 
 122 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 restless brain and dominant body have earned it, as 
 the Duke of Clarence in the butt of Malmsey wine. 
 
 These matters occurred vaguely to Mr. Willie 
 Hopkinson during the ensuing days, when his 
 future career came to the family bar and was kept 
 waiting for judgment. They suggested to him 
 reasons why the wholesale tailoring trade should 
 not be allowed to swallow up his existence. As 
 opinion leant towards a career which would bind all 
 his hours to the City, he felt the Grey World grow 
 more immediate. Fifty years of moderate affluence 
 would ill prepare him for the eternal penury of 
 that dimension. He longed to say, ' These 
 careers that you speak of are all Maya, illusion. 
 The necessity is that my body shall be placed in 
 surroundings which will help, and not stunt, the 
 soul, which is real.' 
 
 He could not think Bermondsey consistent with 
 the transcendental life. There would be no intervals 
 for readjustment. It seemed impossible that its 
 enervating atmosphere could do other than weaken 
 his grip of the Unseen. He would fall back into 
 the power of the crowded country a citizenship 
 both he and Stephen Miller had sworn to escape. 
 
 He had lived nearly twenty years in the know- 
 ledge of a dreary and apparently inevitable Hell, yet 
 had taken no valid step toward his own salvation. 
 Once immersed in a business life, hope would be over ; 
 he would be held for ever in the general stream. 
 
 Considerations of this kind, though unintelligible
 
 A BREEZY UPLAND 123 
 
 to the rest of the family^ were to him a great means 
 of resistance. The fear of material illusion which 
 they induced strengthened him for the struggle 
 which Mrs. Levi had ingeniously set on foot. So 
 it was that after hours" of stagnant opposition, when 
 parental authority met youthful determination in 
 drawn battle ; after long chilly days of silent dis- 
 approval on one hand and stubborn indifference 
 on the other ; after scornful counsel from his father, 
 and the tearful administration of Bovril and good 
 advice by his mother, his first conflict with the 
 powers of the earth was won. 
 
 It was decided that he was not to follow the 
 wholesale tailoring trade. Elsa's secret encourage- 
 ments, his own detestation of commerce, a carefully 
 fostered idea that the professions vaguely known 
 as Arts and Crafts approach the higher life, had 
 armed him for a triumphant charge against preju- 
 dice and family inertia. Hopkinson, Vowles and Co. 
 would look elsewhere for their junior partner. It 
 even seemed possible that Mr. Geraint Levi might 
 one day occupy that position. Elsa thought that 
 the exchange would be excellent, and her opinion 
 was, for the moment, in power. 
 
 But matters went less smoothly when she was 
 not present. Tradition is not upset in a moment, 
 and Mr. Hopkinson had fierce reversions to his 
 original point of view. The sacrifice of prospects 
 was what struck him most. Willie would never 
 earn more than a bare competence, he expected,
 
 124 THF - GREY WORLD 
 
 at bookbinding the craft he had chosen whilst 
 the Factory was always good for a solid two or 
 three thousand a year. But the boy, who had no 
 ambition towards clothing his fellow-beings, adored 
 books for a permanence of thought which they 
 possessed ; and extended his love of literature with 
 odd inconsequence to the leather which dressed it : 
 as young and ardent lovers will sometimes confuse 
 chiffons and soul. As to the money, it did not 
 trouble him. Having scarcely in all his life wished 
 to buy anything, he did not understand the pleasure 
 or importance of wealth. Few of the things that 
 he loved were offered for sale in earthly markets ; 
 for the stuff that dreams are made of is not sold 
 by the yard. 
 
 It was Elsa, proud of her triumph but fearful 
 of a sudden sally from the enemy, who found the 
 bindery where he should begin his career. She 
 persuaded Mr. Hopkinson to pay the fees for a 
 twelve months' training in advance, representing 
 this course in its economical aspect. Mrs. Hop- 
 kinson whose meek comments were now seldom 
 audible by her husband thought that she perceived 
 a certain rashness in the proceeding. If the work 
 did not suit Willie's health, or he caught cold going 
 to and fro in the winter, it would be very awkward. 
 But knowing that women always make mistakes 
 when they speak of business matters to their 
 husbands, she went to bed for two days with a 
 headachej and said nothing.
 
 A BREEZY UPLAND 125 
 
 An artist of the newest school, whose output 
 included pictures, altar-plate, and bedroom furni- 
 ture, had told Mrs. Levi that the work of the bindery 
 was beautiful and individual ; and was patronized 
 by several wealthy book-collectors, who paid 
 with a cheerfulness unknown in husbands high 
 prices for the luxurious dresses of their pets. 
 
 It was situated at Turner's Heath ; that new, 
 well-named, artistic suburb of the north-west. It 
 did not call itself a bindery ; that would have been 
 too obvious. Reticence is the note of the artistic 
 crafts. Above the doorway, a sign swung on 
 wrought-iron hinges. It bore two pierced hearts, 
 and said, in Kelmscott-Gothic characters, ' Atte 
 ye Signe of ye Presse and Ploughe.' Underneath, 
 in case the public might not understand this cryptic 
 phrase, there was added in English type the infor- 
 mation, ' Books bound Artistically and Inexpen- 
 sively.' On each side of the entrance a strip of 
 tired grass was kept within bounds by primitive 
 oak palings. Within, a vestibule, whose grey 
 canvas walls were relieved by pleasant but ordinary 
 Japanese prints, led to the workshop. This long, 
 well-lit building of galvanized iron was sharply 
 corrective of the feeble asstheticism of the front 
 door. Benches and presses were its furniture ; but 
 at one end a ' show-case ' held specimens of the 
 best work the bindery had yet turned out. On 
 the walls, racks of tools, shelves piled with folded 
 leather, designs for future work, studies of plants,
 
 126 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 of lettering, of curves and scrolls, gave a strangely 
 combined impression of industry and ' artiness.' 
 The floor was not clean ; but numerous snippings 
 of paper, leather, and cloth, took the edge off its 
 griminess. 
 
 Willie made his first entrance to the workshop 
 to the cheerful sound of many hammers. Mr. 
 Tiddy, the superintendent, was trying to teach 
 his two apprentices, Miss Brent and Miss Vivien, 
 to ' back ' a book. From the other end of the room 
 an elderly workman glanced at them occasionally, 
 in the intervals of removing superfluous glue from 
 the backs of a pressful of books. He seemed to be 
 amused, but not pleased. His name was Carter ; 
 and he was the real instructor and mainstay of 
 the bindery, though this position officially belonged 
 to Mr. Tiddy. 
 
 Mr. Tiddy was short and dark : his razor was 
 scarcely efficient. A complexion like that of an 
 Old Master before it has been restored was not 
 enhanced by the collarless shirts of coarse blue 
 linen which the example of more celebrated crafts- 
 men compelled him to wear. Yet such is the power 
 of sex, that in spite of these disabilities the girl 
 apprentices were obviously pleased should he happen 
 to speak a word to them in passing, and were in- 
 capable of looking unconscious when he leaned over 
 them to criticise their work. He and Mr. Carter, 
 neither of them gifted with a talent for conciliation 
 or an appreciation of tact, often created for them-
 
 A BREEZY UPLAND 127 
 
 selves situations of some difficulty ; which alarmed, 
 when they did not amuse, the apprentices. But 
 the position of each depending to some extent on 
 the approbation of the other, they relapsed, after 
 abortive explosions of mutual contempt, into a 
 condition of armed neutrality. 
 
 Willie, arriving for his first lesson, stood in the 
 midst of the workshop uncertain what to do. He 
 was nervous, confused, slightly disappointed. He 
 perceived much noise and muddle, but few signs 
 of that higher life which Mrs. Levi had led him to 
 expect. There was tension in the atmosphere, 
 and no one noticed him. He looked at the girls 
 and their teacher. The book upon which Mr. 
 Tiddy was operating slipped several times during 
 his attempt to put it in the press, and he became 
 annoyed. He gave the unhappy volume a vicious 
 blow with the hammer. Old Carter at the other 
 press was watching him carefully. 
 
 * That'll do, Mr. Tiddy,' he said presently. 
 ' Remember it's a book you're 'itting.' 
 
 There was a silent interval, but Carter was a 
 power in the bindery. Tiddy removed his book 
 from the laying-press, and carried it away. Carter 
 cast a look of disgust after him. 
 
 ' Mr. Tiddy is a gentleman and all that,' he 
 observed to the shop in general, and the two girls 
 in particular, ' but he don't know much about 
 backin'. I've bin learning how to back books for 
 forty year, and I haven't finished yet. But Mr.
 
 128 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 Tiddy, he took a six-months' course, and now he 
 starts on at the teachin'. When I was a lad,' 
 continued Mr. Carter slowly, ' 'twas seven years' 
 apprenticeship, and learnin' all your life. I don't 
 like to see you young gents and ladies as come 
 'ere, hurryin' and scurryin' and hurtin' of the 
 books like you does.' 
 
 He fitted a fresh knife to his plough, and turned 
 silently back towards the cutting-press. 
 
 Willie was early drawn to Mr. Carter, whose 
 illusions seemed to him less noisome than those 
 of the persons amongst whom he had been reared. 
 A dwindling memory of the time when he also was 
 a child of labour helped him to understand the 
 limitations of his class, and placed him easily on 
 the footing of friendship. 
 
 This was the first happy and honest workman 
 whom he had met the first who extracted the soul 
 of labour from its outer shell by his attitude of 
 steady reverence towards his craft. The relation 
 of a City man to his ledger, of a factory hand to 
 his machine, is not lovely : but there was a sincere 
 and beautiful connection between Carter and his 
 work. With him it* was a manual religion, faith- 
 fully followed without any sordid thought. He 
 felt slovenly work to be a sin towards his material, 
 as well as towards the master who paid him. He 
 hated the showily-finished bindings of cheap 
 polished leather and facile tooling which visitors 
 to the bindery thought so very artistic.
 
 A BREEZY7UPLAND 129 
 
 ' Fancy stationers' stuff,' he said contemptuously* 
 
 Carter liked Willie Hopkinson because he worked 
 without excitement and did not hurry. He waited 
 quietly whilst glue dried, and did not spoil a promis- 
 ing piece of work by a sudden hour of impatience. 
 Possessing the deliberation of the idealist who looks 
 to process not to completion for his pleasure, and 
 knows reality to consist in anything rather than 
 material results, he found each stage of the work 
 as important as its end. The girls were always 
 straining towards the finishing-point, incurring 
 Mr. Carter's wrath by their indifference to the more 
 solid portions of the craft'; and Mr. Tiddy only ceased 
 to be languid when construction gave place to orna- 
 ment. But Willie saw a symbolism even in the 
 paste-pot, and Carter began to hope that he would 
 train one master-binder before he died. 
 
 They conversed much together in the intervals 
 of work, and the reaction of homely intuition on 
 convinced idealism made them mutually interesting. 
 Willie would describe books that he had read, and 
 quote bits that pleased him, receiving earnest and 
 unexpected criticisms in exchange. 
 
 ' I read somewhere the other day,' he said one 
 morning, as he worked by Carter's side at the 
 finishing-bench, * a bit that would make a nice 
 motto for a bindery. It was this " We are each 
 of us a book in ourselves, but we only see the 
 bindings of each other." Rather true, isn't it ?' 
 
 * 'Tis,' replied Carter sententiously, * but it's not 
 
 9
 
 130 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 always the best readin' that's put up in polished 
 levant, Mr. Hopkinson.' lie moistened his finger, 
 tested the heat of his tool, and continued : ' I've 
 known the works of Samuel Smiles, or the " Pilgrim's 
 Progress," or fine writings such as that, brought in 
 'ere, and all that's asked for is half-roan sprinkled 
 edges. And then people comes and orders inlay 
 and best tooling and all, for books of poetry as to 
 my mind it's barely decent to leave lyin' on the 
 table.' 
 
 ' Yes, I suppose that is so,' answered Willie 
 doubtfully. He had begun to feel the technical 
 obsession which weighs so heavily on craftsmanship, 
 and found it difficult to believe that any book could 
 be more important than its binding. Minor poetry, 
 printed on Japanese vellum and morocco bound, 
 seemed to him as desirable as pocket classics in 
 plain cloth. 
 
 ' Of course that's so,' said Carter. ' Insides and 
 outsides all to match that 'ud be one of God 
 Almighty's own bindings ; and even He don't often 
 manage it. Take care with your toolin', Mr. 
 Hopkinson. You haven't done that last line very 
 nice.' 
 
 Willie rubbed the superfluous gold-leaf from his 
 book-cover, and looked with blind pride at the 
 rather uncertain pattern of hearts and lilies which 
 he had impressed upon it. 
 
 ' It's effective,' he said. 
 
 ' But 'taint effect you're 'ere for, Mr. Hopkinson,'
 
 A BREEZY UPLAND 131 
 
 answered Carter. ' It's good toolin'. And that 
 work's not solid. Look at them corners : you 
 haven't mitred them neat. You don't want to 
 do your fmishin' shop-window style ; you wants 
 to do it so as it looks right when it's held in the 'and 
 after it's bought.' 
 
 ' Oh, I can't do it over again !' said Willie. 
 
 ' Then you ain't no workman, Mr. Hopkinson,' 
 answered Carter. 
 
 In spite, or perhaps because, of this tonic discip- 
 line, Willie found his daily life so happy that he 
 was not often tempted to impatience or haste. 
 He wished to savour each moment of his day, and 
 felt sad when the time came for leaving the quiet 
 bindery, and going out into the windy world. 
 There was a flavour of past ages about the work- 
 shop ; and the tram which took him home, took 
 him also into another and less peaceful century. 
 He learnt here for the first time in his life the 
 meaning of his hands, and discovered their use. 
 They gave his soul a new and inexplicable pleasure. 
 Regular manual occupation steadied him, drawing 
 off his earth energies and leaving his spirit clearer. 
 
 As he sat at the sewing-press, or mechanically 
 pared the edges of leather for the covers of his 
 books, he meditated. Busy hands and dreaming 
 soul balanced one another, and he felt sane, alive,- 
 untrammelled. Though the future was still blank 
 to him and the outer world an unsubstantial chaos * 
 he caught the fringes of a larger hope. The symbolic 
 
 92
 
 132 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 Tightness of quiet work justified to him the existence 
 of his body, and sometimes allowed him a glimpse 
 of the gateway which leads to the Heaven of the 
 Industrious. 
 
 Behind labour, he felt, there was Something a 
 spirit or power which blessed. The misty disease 
 of unreality and confusing presence of the Grey 
 Dimension, never attacked him when he had a 
 tool in his hand. That forced him to singleness of 
 outlook. And persons who did their work lovingly 
 and honestly, for Tightness, not for profit, might 
 hope for a happier eternity, he fancied, than the 
 earth-bound populations of the Sorrowful Country 
 whose presence still shadowed his daily life. He 
 told some of these thoughts, but not all, to Elsa, 
 who approved them. 
 
 * He has quite the Medieval tone of mind,' she 
 said. 
 
 But Miss Mildred Brent and Miss Janet Vivien, 
 the apprentices, who had felt the arrival of a young 
 man in the bindery to be a possibly significant 
 incident in their lives, were disappointed. They 
 perceived with acid astonishment that he saw them 
 as Persons, not as Girls ; and decided that he was 
 very odd.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 MAPS ARE CONSULTED 
 
 ' Then the Divine Vision like a silent Sun appeared above 
 Albion's dark rocks : setting behind the Gardens of Kensington 
 On Tyburn's River.' BLAKE. 
 
 THE grief of knowledge is the gain of sympathy. 
 From the moment when Stephen shared Willie's 
 vision, a link, stronger than that of friendship, was 
 forged. Each now held by the other for support, 
 and found the immaterial world which bathed 
 existence less awful for the presence of his friend. 
 To each, the other was a rest and a point of reference 
 in the difficulties of his conflict with experience and 
 with fact. 
 
 There came a day, however, when divergent 
 ideals strained this invisible fetter, and each of 
 its prisoners drew away from the other as far as 
 he might. There was surprise on both hands, and 
 some sadness, but temperament the bond-breaker 
 had its way. It was impossible that the ethereal 
 roads on which Willie was destined to travel should 
 suffice for Stephen's more human and adventurous 
 tread.
 
 134 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 There is a path in Kensington Gardens which, 
 running north and south, is good to walk along at 
 sunset-time. Its western boundary shows trees 
 and sky in nice proportion, and a glint of water 
 to the right. On a seat arranged for the enjoyment 
 of this landscape Mr. Willie Hopkinson and Mr. 
 Stephen Miller were sitting about four o'clock of 
 a November afternoon. There were few people 
 about. It was still too light for lovers, and most 
 of the babies had gone home to tea. 
 
 There had already been a change in their relation. 
 Since Willie entered the bindery, he had become 
 more patient, less assertive towards existence. 
 But Stephen, his eyes once opened upon the un- 
 charted country, could not think of it peacefully. 
 Willie, learning slowly almost unconsciously to 
 treat his work as a sacrament which bore some 
 mystic relation to truth, lost the constant itch 
 to step from his path, and hunt for solutions to 
 the Great Conundrum. He had an inner content, 
 equally removed from piety and despair, which 
 anaesthetized his spirit. 
 
 Stephen had recently been placed in the office 
 of an architect, whose terra-cotta palaces, majolica 
 fa9ades, and miracles of plate glass and iron girders, 
 had done something toward the introduction of 
 humour to the City streets. He found little nourish- 
 ment for his imagination in the details of plan, 
 measurement, and material, there placed before 
 him. Thus he turned naturally and vehemently
 
 MAPS ARE CONSULTED 135 
 
 from the atmosphere of the drawing office to that 
 of the transcendental world searching, with a fever 
 that was the index of his helplessness, for some clue 
 to the tangle, and some escape from the dread, to 
 which Willie had introduced him. Each time they 
 met he had some new theory to offer ; but Willie, 
 braced by the tonic society of Mr. Carter, often 
 gave him an attention more repressive than 
 enthusiastic. 
 
 Sitting now in Kensington Gardens, feeling very 
 near him the delicious contours of the trees and 
 sorcery of the sky, he listened rather languidly to 
 Stephen's talk. He felt dreamy, disinclined to 
 occult discussion. He began to discover that a 
 disciple can be very boring. Mr. Stephen Miller 
 had been thinking hard, he said, about Appearance 
 as distinguished from Reality. His black hour had 
 passed ; he was in a cheerfully credulous mood, 
 treating the shadow-side of the universe as a fluid 
 medium in which he could swim and splash at will. 
 He hinted at results which might interest Mr. Willie 
 Hopkinson. 
 
 Willie was not pleased. It seemed to him 
 inappropriate that Stephen, groping in the dark 
 and only aware of the darkness through his friend's 
 magnanimity, should take upon himself the pro- 
 pounding of theories and hopeful exploration of 
 the Unknown. He was unique a consoling fact. 
 He did not desire a partner. He was very willing 
 to save Stephen, should a way of salvation ever
 
 136 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 appear to him ; but he found his behaviour in work- 
 ing his own way towards the light ungracious and 
 objectionable. It constituted a failure in the duties 
 of comradeship. Friendship had done nothing to 
 disturb his cold, deliberate egoism. He liked his 
 friend ; he liked more the sense of power which 
 affection gives to its object. His flattering inter- 
 course with Mrs. Levi did not offer this. But 
 vStephen cared more for him than he for Stephen 
 a desperate condition. 
 
 The spirit of Mr. Stephen Miller was exalted. 
 He fidgeted ; his eyes flashed ; his phrases, though 
 meaningless, possessed a Celtic glamour. Willie, 
 to whom work and his own personality now appeared 
 as two fixed lights in the midst of a shifting illu- 
 sion, was irritated by this contradictory optimism. 
 He judged it, as he judged everything he disagreed 
 with, to be materialistic. He suggested to Stephen, 
 in crisp sentences devoid of charm, his own industrial 
 standpoint. 
 
 ' Work,' he said, ' is the thing. Any kind of work^ 
 so long as you do it thoroughly. Nothing else gives 
 the same satisfied feeling. Only, of course, one must 
 not forget that work is only part of one's dream.' 
 
 ' But,' said Stephen, ' there must be something 
 that isn't only part of the dream that is a per- 
 sistent element right through the real and the 
 illusion. Learn to know that, and you will learn 
 the secret of existence.' 
 
 ' How is one to learn it ?' answered Willie. He
 
 MAPS ARE CONSULTED 137 
 
 was cross, but he could never resist an argument. 
 ' To learn anything that really matters seems 
 impossible ; everyone is so busy teaching games. 
 But one can learn to work, and that has a meaning, 
 however useless the material work may seem in 
 itself. Sometimes I know there is something behind 
 a world far more lovely, which saves from the 
 colourless place. But we have not got the key.' 
 
 ' We have,' said Stephen, ' and I have found it.' 
 
 Willie was excessively surprised. 
 
 ' What is it ?' he asked rather brusquely. 
 
 He was not prepared for Stephen's reply. 
 
 ' It is love.' 
 
 * Rubbish !' 
 
 ' Oh, I don't expect you to believe me,' answered 
 Stephen. He appeared confused, though his tone 
 was dogmatic. ' But I have found it out lately, 
 and I know it's the truth. Someone has shown 
 me but I needn't go into that. When you know 
 what love is, you will have found out everything 
 you want to know. It is beautiful, which is enough 
 for me ; but it is more than that. It is the only 
 thing that lights up the Real behind the dream. 
 Oh, Willie, that will save you from the horror of 
 the afterwards. It is the people who have never 
 known love who cannot escape the Grey World. 
 They are held there hunting for the best part of 
 themselves.' 
 
 * That,' said Willie, ' is nonsense. Life means 
 more than getting fond of a girl.'
 
 138 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 4 So does love.' 
 
 'Oh!' 
 
 ' It does. It means everything. One finds one's 
 soul in a woman. I have found mine, so I am sure. 
 That is what we are here for to find ourselves in 
 loving one another. Those who don't, are lost.' 
 
 Willie was filled with a helpless disgust. The 
 contempt which the passionless person feels for 
 love is of an acrid kind. To him, it appeared a 
 sickly and unpleasant thing : he did not know that 
 it existed apart from kisses and engagements. In 
 the Hopkinson family it was not referred to in a 
 manner which left room for reverence. Elsa 
 avoided the subject ; prudence was born in her 
 when she approached the frontier of genuine feeling, 
 and thanks to her tact he had never analyzed the 
 vague sensations which moved him when he touched 
 her hand or came unexpectedly into her presence. 
 
 It followed that to make Love the pivot of the 
 Universe was a monstrous and revolting proposition. 
 Stephen had said, when truth first laid siege to his 
 dreamland, ' I will find a way back to beautiful 
 thoughts !' This utterance had remained with 
 Mr. Willie Hopkinson, and inspired a happy vision 
 in which he and Stephen won their way by transcen- 
 dental paths to the high cold splendour of some 
 Ineffable Reality. But it seemed that a Lover's 
 Lane was the path Stephen had chosen ; and Willie, 
 astonished and disappointed, declined to believe 
 that it led to the top of the hill.
 
 MAPS ARE CONSULTED 139 
 
 Stephen, meanwhile, was speaking sketchily of 
 the miracle which he believed to have occurred to 
 him. It was not a common love affair : it was a 
 spiritual experience peculiar to himself. He was 
 certain of that. The greater part of the ecstasy 
 seemed to have taken place in his own heart, without 
 other incentive than that supplied by his busy 
 imagination. But it was none the less life- 
 enhancing. 
 
 ' Even to know her,' he said, ' is enough. I don't 
 ask more than that.' 
 
 There is a Maeterlinckian flavour which steals 
 over Kensington Gardens as the sun goes down a 
 sense of secrets hidden in the trees. The white 
 walks become magic pathways which converge on 
 the Ivory Gate ; the Round Pond a haunted pool, 
 where Melisande might lose her crown. As Stephen 
 spoke, therefore, Willie looked at the dreamy scene 
 before him ; and his mind being occupied with 
 what he was hearing, it did not intrude itself on 
 the simple vision of his eyes. He saw the row of 
 trees which were near him, very black to the last 
 filmy twig stretched out from the earth. They were 
 exquisite in their delicate strength. And in the 
 sky behind the shining, mystic sky of autumn 
 after rain a faint pink cloud, just visible, threw 
 one tree into fresh tone-relations with the rest. On 
 the horizon, distant trees were blue. Behind all, 
 that sky, strangely transparent like a face whose 
 apparent candour veils an unfathomable soul.
 
 140 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 The magic of this vision removed him many 
 worlds from Stephen's sentimental commentary 
 on life, and led him to think dreamily and luxuri- 
 ously of the Beautiful. He thought of the pro- 
 ducts of the bindery, praised with strange adjec- 
 tives by Mr. Tiddy and appreciative visitors; of 
 the performances of other craftsmen which he had 
 been bidden to admire angular furniture set with 
 strange ornament, clumsy metal-work, deliberately 
 barbaric jewels. The effortless masterpiece of 
 nature now before him revealed these things as 
 ugly and unskilful. All the nobility they possessed 
 came from the industry which created them ; the 
 hours spent without impatience on the slow journey 
 towards a craftsman's ideal. 
 
 ' The Grey World,' he said abruptly, ' is the 
 Purgatory of the inefficient.' 
 
 ' Oh yes, that's just what I meant,' replied 
 Stephen happily. ' And it is love that helps us 
 to climb and struggle and perfect ourselves.' 
 
 This was not at all what Willie had meant. But 
 he perceived that argument was useless, and waited 
 with a patience born of the sunset whilst Stephen 
 extracted, with some diffidence, a messy manuscript 
 from his coat-pocket. 
 
 ' I have written a little thing about it,' he said. 
 
 Willie knew that his friend practised literature in 
 secret, having sometimes helped to buy stamps 
 for the return postage of his ineligible efforts a 
 matter of several pounds in the course of the year.
 
 MAPS ARE CONSULTED 141 
 
 ' Where are you going to send it ?' he asked, 
 as he noticed the action, and the extreme slimness 
 of the work produced. 
 
 ' This is not for publication. I have written it 
 for a friend, and because I think it is true. One 
 should write down a bit of truth when one finds it ; 
 it helps one to remember. But I don't care to 
 pour out my soul on paper for a lot of idle women 
 to flick over between a muffin and a yawn.' 
 
 He was pleased with this sentence, and looked 
 toward his friend for appreciation. But Willie was 
 again entranced by the sky. It was fading to dim 
 silver and transparent grey, making him feel melan- 
 choly and very quiet. Allegories of his own vivid 
 ideal of life, which time was changing to greyer 
 tints, occurred to him. He enjoyed the sadness 
 of these sensations, taking them to be the hall- 
 mark of a superior soul. 
 
 He suddenly woke from his revery to find that 
 Stephen had commenced the reading of his story. 
 The opening paragraphs had already gone by, and 
 he took up the thread in the midst of a sentence. 
 
 '" . . . So Pan left the happy nymphs and the 
 little dancing fauns ; and he sat down alone by the 
 waters of Lethe, and took some red earth from the 
 river-brink to play with. And whilst he played 
 the clay began to take shape beneath his fingers, 
 until at last a rough red image lay in his hands. 
 
 ' " Then Pan took his pipes and blew on them softly* 
 and the image moved and stood upright on its feet.
 
 142 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 * " ' See !' he cried, ' I have made a man.' 
 
 ' " But his Master looked down from the mountain 
 and said : 
 
 ' " ' Nay, friend, not so fast. More than red clay 
 and wild music go to the making of Man.' And 
 his breath, coming gently over the river, fell on 
 the figure, which opened its mouth and spoke. 
 
 ' " ' This is a fine toy we have made,' said Pan. 
 
 ' " ' It must be made better yet,' his Master 
 replied. 
 
 ' " Pan was annoyed : he had been proud of 
 his skill. 
 
 ' " ' It is good enough,' he said. ' I can carve 
 it no finer, for I have no tools. Also, the clay is 
 fragile, and easily crumbles away.' 
 
 ' " But the Master answered : ' It needs no tools ; 
 from the weakness of the earth and the virtue of 
 my breath shall come its beauty. A day of toil 
 and a night of rest, and Man will be perfected.' 
 
 ' " Then he set the image on a very dreary hill- 
 side, and he marked a rough path before its feet ; 
 and Pan and his Master sat down to watch their 
 toy. Some time they watched him, but he did not 
 move he stood on the hill where the Master had 
 placed him, a helpless figure of inanimate earth. 
 
 * " ' We must urge him on,' said Pan ; and he took 
 up his pipes again. The air he played was fierce 
 and plaintive, and at its sound the Man started 
 forward, savage eagerness and cunning on his face. 
 Pan laughed as he laid down the pipes.
 
 MAPS ARE CONSULTED 143 
 
 ' " * It is a mighty march,' he said. ' I do not 
 know a better ! Hunger is the tune that moves 
 the world !' 
 
 ' " Searching for food, and struggling with the 
 beasts whom he hunted, the Man moved upwards 
 slowly; for his limbs were feeble and his eyesight 
 dim. He stumbled very pitifully on the stony road, 
 and often missed his way. 
 
 1 " ' Poor wretch !' cried Pan ; ' he cannot see. 
 We must give him better eyes.' 
 
 * " But the Master said : * No : if he saw what 
 was before him he would have no courage to climb. 
 Truth is for the gods alone.' 
 
 * " So Pan refrained, and the toy was left in his 
 blindness. But presently dark clouds came up 
 from the mountains and hid the sun, and a bitter 
 wind blew across the river and made sad sounds 
 amongst the rocks. Then heavy shadows fell on 
 the pilgrim's path, his steps flagged, his energy 
 diminished ; and at last he bowed his head in 
 complete despair. 
 
 ' " ' We have tried him too hard,' said the 
 Master. * He is only red clay after all : he needs 
 to be companioned on his way.' 
 
 ' " His hand caressed the rock which edged 
 the pathway ; and suddenly a figure of mist and 
 sunlight stood by the lonely traveller, and shed a 
 radiance on the darkened road. But Pan, who 
 cannot love an ethereal essence, viewed the new- 
 comer with great disdain.
 
 144 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 * " ' What use is a creature like that ?' he growled. 
 ' He cannot hew wood or hunt game. At most 
 he will only draw foolish pictures, or tell lying tales.' 
 
 ' " ' What of that, if he make the hills seem 
 shorter ?' said the Master. ' It is more than you 
 could ever do.' 
 
 ' " So Art was born. 
 
 ' " Now the Man stepped out more bravely, and 
 always his comrade was by his side to whisper 
 sweet stories, and point out new beauties in sky 
 or earth ; so that his search for food grew languid, 
 the pleasures of Art absorbed him more and more, 
 and he lost the strength of body born of his arduous 
 life. 
 
 ' " ' Aha !' cried Pan, ' you have spoilt your toy ; 
 he grows soft and idle. We must find him a better 
 friend than this dreamy fellow a mate, for whom he 
 will work.' And taking red earth, he made another 
 image, smaller and softer than the first, and placed 
 it at Man's side. But he looked without joy at 
 the Woman thus committed to his care, and heeded 
 her not. 
 
 ' " Then the Master said : ' Oh, Pan, thou foolish 
 god ! will earth strive for earth, or clay suffer for 
 clay ?' and he turned the brightness of his face 
 toward the Man and Woman, so that they shrank 
 back, dazed and awed. But they saw each other, in 
 that bewildering moment, illuminated by the light 
 of Love. 
 
 ' " So side by side they started up the path,
 
 MAPS ARE CONSULTED 145 
 
 falling amongst stones, in the sun and the rain, 
 each helping the other and working for the common 
 good. And presently, as they climbed, evening fell, 
 and the summit was nearly reached. 
 
 ' " ' Courage,; dear heart !' the Man whispered, 
 as he bore the Woman up the last steep slope. 
 ' Night comes, we shall sleep !' 
 
 ' " ' It has been a long day,' said Pan, ' and the 
 clay wore well. The hardships of the way have 
 even improved its form. What reward shall we 
 give our toys after all their toil ?' 
 
 ' " But his only answer was the sigh of the 
 night-wind, as it cried upon the hills 
 
 ' " ' Oblivion !' " ' 
 
 Stephen folded the manuscript with elaborate 
 carelessness, and stuffed it untidily into the outside 
 pocket of his overcoat. Then he waited ; rather 
 proud and very expectant. 
 
 ' It's a bit high-flown,' said Mr. Willie Hopkinson. 
 
 Stephen blushed, but did not answer. 
 
 ' Rather pretty, though,' added Willie. He had 
 been, to his surprise and annoyance, uncomfortably 
 touched by the concluding phrases. It was no part 
 of his programme to permit himself to be weighted 
 by these earthy emotions. 
 
 * Pauline thought it beautiful !' said Stephen. 
 
 But Willie did not hear him. The spell of narra- 
 tive was broken, the cold magic of the sky had 
 called him back, and he missed the astounding 
 information which Stephen's last words conveyed. 
 
 10
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 MR. WILLIE HOPKINSON TRIES A SHORT CUT 
 
 'A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere.' 
 EMERSON. 
 
 THE things which are called little are oftenest those 
 which put persons in the disposition to act. They 
 spur the emotions gently but sufficiently : the 
 great event presses too heavily upon the soul, and 
 results in inertia. 
 
 The story of Pan and his Master left an impres- 
 sion on Willie's mind. Like most boys who possess 
 sisters and lead a sequestered life, he did not tend 
 easily towards love. Pauline, who had provided 
 Stephen's inspiration, was to him no more signifi- 
 cant than the other furnishings of his home. But 
 a natural ear for literature had been struck by the 
 note of sad sincerity in the conclusion of Stephen's 
 clumsy parable, and now inclined him to look upon 
 girls in a manner strange to him, if normal to man- 
 kind. It seemed to him that work, in its spiritual 
 aspect, might gain an added value, were it linked 
 with a friendship more equable than the fevered 
 service which he offered Elsa, more romantic than 
 
 146
 
 WILLIE TRIES A SHORT CUT 147 
 
 the affection he now felt for his fellow-traveller 
 Stephen. He had no thought of marriage, only 
 of an idyllic comradeship. Matrimony, he supposed, 
 was a purely utilitarian measure. 
 
 These ideas crystallized in his consciousness as 
 he strolled one morning from the tram to the 
 bindery, and perceived Mildred Brent, the less sig- 
 nificant of the lady apprentices, walking before him. 
 
 She was a small, neat, mouse-like person ; and, by 
 the fact of her unsuggestive face, seemed the living 
 negation of her own temperament. Hair turned 
 smoothly back from a forehead of ordinary mould, 
 brown eyes of a certain intelligence carefully veiled, 
 ready-made clothes and a London accent these 
 tell no tales. But a fire and a coldness lived side by 
 side in her heart : a fire for the future, a coldness for 
 the present. She hated grey walls and monotony, 
 and the mingled art and commerce of the bindery. 
 She longed to escape to those higher circles of handi- 
 craft which are celebrated in the art magazines. 
 Yet a sense of humour, running on disastrously 
 commonplace lines, kept her from the appearance 
 of sestheticism which would have best expressed her 
 inner state. Picturesque dress was only possible 
 to her in the best materials. She had two ambi- 
 tions to become a member of the Arts and Crafts 
 Society, and buy her clothes at Liberty's. These 
 seemed unattainable. She was content that they 
 should be so. But she would not offer herself the 
 consolation of a cheaper success. 
 
 10 2
 
 148 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 She had her secret pleasures. As she walked now 
 in front of Willie, she noticed with appreciation the 
 white glitter of some raindrops caught on the bare 
 twigs of a plane-tree ; and was glad to find herself 
 capable of these artistic enjoyments. Mr. Willie 
 Hopkinson perceived the touch of assurance which 
 this sudden contentment gave to her pose, sil- 
 houetted for him against a red-brick villa still in 
 the flamboyant stage of architectural infancy. It 
 pleased him. He knew that she had seen some 
 unobtrusive loveliness ; and to him also landscape 
 could impart a peculiar ecstasy. The lights of 
 London, her crown of topaz and opal, flashed into 
 instant existence on a wintry afternoon, or the sudden 
 vision of trees folded in blue mist, revived a fever 
 latent in his blood. Still young enough to hope 
 that one taste held in common might presuppose a 
 universal sympathy, he was drawn to a careful 
 examination of Mildred's outline. 
 
 She had now that mysterious significance which 
 anything may acquire if we look at it with sufficient 
 intention. It distinguished her, as an aureole might, 
 from all other persons afoot. It became impera- 
 tive that he should watch her actions. He liked to 
 feel that she was walking in front of him, uncon- 
 scious of his attention ; but presently she entered 
 a little shop, and he was left to digest the slightly 
 heightened picture of her personality which fancy 
 offered him. 
 
 He saw her as he passed the door, buying tracing-
 
 WILLIE TRIES A SHORT CUT 149 
 
 paper and an H.B. pencil. The shop dealt also in 
 firewood, soda, and other sordid necessities of the 
 household. But Mildred thought that she detected 
 a look of relief on the face of the proprietor when 
 he turned from these things to the sale of ' artists' 
 materials '; and feeling this to be a sign of grace, 
 she endured smells of soap and tallow, and en- 
 couraged him. 
 
 Miss Brent was aware, without turning her head, 
 of Willie Hopkinson's attentive glance. In women 
 not yet possessed of a lover, this faculty of perceiv- 
 ing rearward admiration is often highly developed. 
 She thus entered the bindery with his image plea- 
 santly fixed in her mind, and spoke of him to Janet 
 Vivien in phrases which a grammarian might have 
 parsed as Conditionally Possessive. 
 
 Miss Vivien, however, was not sympathetic. She 
 detested Willie. She had the cold virtues of the 
 Vestal, and liked to exhibit them ; but he had given 
 her no opportunity. Few attitudes are more fatiguing 
 than that of defence against an attack which never 
 comes. Because he did not make advances for 
 which she would certainly have snubbed him, she 
 considered him to be an excessively ill-mannered 
 young man. 
 
 Her father was a clergyman of uninteresting 
 orthodoxy ; she had been reared amongst grey 
 proprieties. She knew that her hair was particu- 
 larly nice soft, and warmly flaxen, with a fas- 
 cinating twist in it. The elder Mr. Hopkinson, on
 
 150 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 his preliminary visit to the ' Presse and Ploughe,' 
 had looked at her first judicially, and finally with 
 approval. He liked girls of the deep-bosomed, slow- 
 moving type ; they made good wives and mothers. 
 For these reasons Janet thought that she, rather 
 than Mildred, should have wakened Willie's dormant 
 manliness. Mildred's hair was sepia-colour, a lank 
 and unpoetic mass. Her accent frequently annoyed 
 Miss Vivien, whose own intonation was correct, even 
 ecclesiastical. 
 
 ' I should doubt,' she said, ' if that young Hop- 
 kinson meant anything by staring at you. It was 
 probably absence of mind unless it was imperti- 
 nence.' 
 
 * It wasn't either the one or the other. In 
 fact, now I come to think of it, I've noticed 
 before ' 
 
 ' You're always noticing things !' 
 
 ' Oh, so would you,' said Mildred violently, ' if 
 you felt like me ! Anything to avoid noticing 
 what's always under one's nose !' 
 
 ' It's no use to be discontented.' 
 
 ' Discontented ? I'm starved ! Is it discon- 
 tented to be hungry ? People who've got plenty 
 seem to think it is. Don't you see that this place 
 and all its pretences don't satisfy you if you want 
 to live ? It's like those patent foods that don't 
 feed you it keeps an ache alive. Oh, I would 
 notice anything if it would make me forget to notice 
 that ! But I'll escape ! I'll get to know the bright
 
 WILLIE TRIES A SHORT CUT 151 
 
 clever people, who know the difference between 
 emotion and strawberry jam !' 
 
 ' D'you think young Hopkinson does ?' 
 
 ' Well, he's not like us.' 
 
 'That's true. He's awfully queer.' Sometimes 
 he doesn't look altogether like a human being. Mr. 
 Tiddy thinks he isn't quite right in his mind, and 
 that's why his people have put him to bookbinding.' 
 
 ' Nice compliment to us !' 
 
 ' Isn't it ? But there's something in it. It 
 makes me feel positively creepy to be left alone 
 with that youth I keep expecting him to do some- 
 thing uncanny.' 
 
 ' I'd rather feel creepy than feel nothing,' said 
 Mildred slowly. ' But I know what you mean ; it 
 is the air he has of always looking at something that 
 we can't see. Have you ever noticed his eyes ? 
 They are so strange a queer pale blue, the colour 
 that you see in the deeps of a moonstone, and black 
 round the outer edge.' 
 
 Janet laughed sarcastically. 
 
 ' You're half gone already,' she said. 
 
 During this and the succeeding days, she offered 
 Mildred the insolent attentions which unimagina- 
 tive propriety is so ready to bestow on more cour- 
 ageous, less conventional natures. Miss Brent was 
 not happy. She knew her attitude to be superior 
 to Janet's, and her understanding greater ; but Miss 
 Vivien possessed the knack of creating the opposite 
 impression.
 
 152 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 It is always exasperating to feel like a fool ; and 
 specially so when you know that you are not one. 
 Before a week was over, the atmosphere of the work- 
 shop had become inimical to Mildred. She lived 
 with the knowledge that two pairs of eyes for Mr. 
 Tiddy, jealous of his supremacy, had early caught 
 the meaning of Janet's censorious glance hourly 
 accused her of desiring a flirtation with Willie. But 
 she set her teeth, and deliberately sought his com- 
 panionship. Being ignorant of love, she despised it : 
 she had been known to say that it spoiled a good 
 artist. She refused to sacrifice a friendship because 
 others held more vulgar views. 
 
 The charm which drew her to Mr. Willie Hopkin- 
 son was no physical fascination. She was suffi- 
 ciently perceptive to know that he was abnormal, 
 but still too conventional to like it. His queerness 
 lacked colour. He did not talk of it a defect. 
 But she felt the spell of his detachment, and looked 
 to him, as a prisoner to S. Leonard, for the freeing 
 hand which should hit off the fetters from her soul. 
 
 At this time, when Janet's point of view was 
 painfully obvious and Willie's attitude as yet 
 indefinite, Mildred sought refuge in her work, and 
 chained her attention to the creation of a wonderful 
 book-cover for a Christmas play, called by its 
 writer ' A Masque of Marye's Childinge.' One 
 copy for the author had been printed on large 
 paper ; and this she dressed in cloudy blue leather, 
 whereon inlaid wash-leather sheep were kept by 
 grey morocco shepherds.
 
 WILLIE TRIES A SHORT CUT 153 
 
 Willie admired this work, and complimented Miss 
 Brent upon it very kindly : he was acquiring some 
 of his father's condescension towards women. 
 
 ' Have you read the book ?' she said. 
 
 She was quick to seize opportunities for congenial 
 conversation. 
 
 ' No ; but I've heard it well spoken of.' 
 
 'Ah, by Intelligent Catholics, I expect. He is 
 quite the poet of that movement.' 
 
 ' What do you think of it ?' 
 
 Mildred read the Academy and the Outlook at the 
 Free Library every week, and knew what to reply. 
 
 ' There is a great deal of spiritual feeling in it,' 
 she said. ' And, I think, that combination of 
 paganism and pageantry is very attractive. After 
 all, few people are more truly and artistically Christ- 
 like than the heathen.' 
 
 These remarks impressed Willie, already struck 
 by Mildred's original methods of work the despair 
 of the bindery and the solace of her own spirit. 
 
 Bookbinding is the most conservative of the 
 crafts, and originality in its apprentices is apt to 
 be considered as a vice. It irritates the tender 
 vanity of superiors. Mildred's wash-leather sheep 
 hurt Carter's feelings and ruffled the temper of Mr. 
 Tiddy. The idea had never occurred to them, and 
 they were sure that it was wrong. Yet she was 
 modest in respect of her performance, being easily 
 deceived by the apparent excellencies of self- 
 advertising craftsmen.
 
 154 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 She worked hard ; partly because her mother was 
 poor, and she had never questioned the necessity of 
 wage-earning, partly because of her smouldering 
 ambition, which pointed to industry as a possible 
 way of escape. But she found no peace. Heredity 
 was disastrous to her happiness. Romanticism in 
 her was crossed by a strain of obtuse convention. 
 Her father, a brilliant and unpleasant man, early 
 perceived that he could never hope to find a woman 
 who was his intellectual equal. He therefore 
 decided, with a denseness peculiar to the super- 
 cilious, that his best chance of serenity lay in 
 marriage with a domesticated fool. He chose a 
 type at once amiable and irritating. Mrs. Brent 
 never learned that repetition does not add point to 
 an argument, or that it is useless for the naturally 
 dull to attempt to shine. Too stupid for intel- 
 lectual joys, yet not quite stupid enough for uncon- 
 scious content, she became a miserable compromise 
 between parrot-house and parlour. 
 
 Her husband had said to her, whilst their married 
 life was still young, ' My dear, you will never be 
 wise. Pray God you may become more foolish.' 
 
 But she did not. She remained dimly percep- 
 tive, and was always wretchedly aware of her own 
 denseness when she failed to see one of her daughter's 
 infrequent jokes. 
 
 Mildred, blending the characteristics of both 
 parents, often missed the best pathways in life for 
 want of the mental agility needed to perceive them ;
 
 WILLIE TRIES A SHORT CUT 155 
 
 as she spoilt the flavour of her friendships by lack 
 of conversational sweetness. Subjective stupidity 
 and objective cynicism do not make an attractive 
 blend. To Willie, however, they suggested that 
 aloofness from worldly interests which is so difficult 
 and desirable. He thought that Mildred might 
 possibly possess a soul. As the weeks went by he 
 began to take notice of her, criticised her designs, 
 and recommended books, and found this new 
 patronage pleasant. She seemed grateful when he 
 spoke to her, and never resented her own failure to 
 understand his remarks. As a fact, she preferred 
 that he should sometimes be incomprehensible. 
 The higher he was above her now, the greater his 
 power of leverage should he choose to exert it. 
 She was not yet of the incorrigible company of 
 dreamers, but knew that in that direction lay her 
 hope. 
 
 This gentle and appreciative attitude won its 
 way with Willie, so that he began to connect the 
 bindery with the sugar of Mildred's smile, not any 
 more with the salt of Carter's discourse. He was 
 not in love with her. He imagined that she would 
 resent and despise soft tendencies even as he did. 
 He ranked her with Stephen and Elsa, as a person 
 of intelligence whose society pleased him. 
 
 Gradually he discovered that he was more com- 
 fortable in her presence than in that of Mrs. Levi ; 
 more certain of his own identity. To Elsa, he would 
 never venture to speak of his vision of the universe :
 
 156 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 he sometimes thought that she did not take him 
 quite seriously, she baffled and distressed him, 
 though he could not escape her net. Stephen, who 
 shared his outlook, disputed its interpretation at 
 every turn. Willie now desired a friend at once 
 intelligent and subservient, to whom he could point 
 out the hollowness of the scenery which they had 
 learnt to call actual ; the ridiculous seriousness of 
 the society of men, gravely concerned with details 
 of station and appearance on its little moment of 
 respite between two deaths. Such a companion 
 could be taught to share his moods, respect his 
 knowledge ; would help, not hinder, the real busi- 
 ness of life the journey of his soul toward truth. 
 Mildred could be trusted to understand enough, 
 but not too much. His dignity would be safe 
 with her : he was sure that she would never laugh 
 at him. 
 
 So two restless spirits drew toward one another ' 
 one craving for a wider, the other for a more peopled 
 world. In each, the dominant motive was an 
 egoism. Willie desired that the grey infinity in 
 which he existed should contain at least one other 
 being by whom he was admired and understood. 
 Mildred saw Willie as a person from the outer world, 
 who had stepped into the narrow circle which 
 hemmed her in : and clung to his hand in the hope 
 that he would drag her beyond its 'boundaries into 
 an ideally interesting society where her work would 
 be appreciated, her intellectual longings fed, and
 
 WILLIE TRIES A SHORT CUT 157 
 
 she could come to the growth which lack of nourish- 
 ment now denied her. 
 
 But whilst Willie the dreamer saw no need to 
 exchange these silent fancies for the awkward 
 paraphrase of speech, Mildred became anxious and 
 insecure. She believed herself to be possessed of 
 intuition, but was actually unable to assure herself 
 of any but concrete facts. She wanted a sign from 
 this elusive and desired companion. Her imagina- 
 tion was only skin-deep ; it beguiled, but did not 
 convince her. 
 
 The word came ; but, being long awaited, did not 
 satisfy. They were walking together to the tram 
 after a day spent in dreary forwarding. Willie's per- 
 formance had not pleased Mr. Carter, who had 
 expressed his opinion with unusual tartness. 
 
 ' It's extraordinary how slip-slop a young chap 
 gets once 'e starts on courtin',' he had said. 
 
 This speech had been very distasteful to Willie, 
 and an occasion of confusion to Mildred. He said 
 very coldly to Carter : 
 
 ' I think I shall go now ; I can't do any more 
 to-day. I'm waiting for the green morocco to cover 
 those books.' 
 
 But before he could get out of ear-shot, Mr. 
 Carter's sarcastic gloss reached him. 
 
 'Ah, it's somethin' softer than morocco that's 
 hinderin' you, Mr. Hopkinson !' he said. 
 
 As he walked down Titian Road toward the H igh 
 Street with Mildred by his side, Willie felt upset,
 
 158 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 depressed, and lonely. He knew some explana- 
 tion to be imperative. He glanced at her : she 
 was looking straight before her, and holding her 
 skirt with one badly-gloved hand. A sudden shy- 
 ness had him by the throat. It choked him. He 
 could not speak to her. 
 
 But presently an omnibus passed close to the 
 curb. It was a day of liquid mud : he was obliged 
 to draw back hastily from the ensuing splashes. In 
 doing so, he touched Mildred's arm, and at once felt 
 more at his ease. 
 
 ' I am lonely !' he said abruptly. ' I want your 
 friendship ! We are in sympathy, I know. But 
 there are things that I must tell you. I am not 
 quite like other people.' 
 
 'Of course,' answered Mildred, ' I always saw that.' 
 
 She ceased on the expectant note, and Willie 
 knew that his next words must be definite. 
 
 ' Yes,' he said, * I am ' 
 
 He stopped. It was absurd, but he did not know 
 how to go on. He could not say, ' I am an im- 
 mortal spirit,' and his condition as yet lacked other 
 substantive. He thought a little, and then added : 
 
 ' I live in two worlds.' 
 
 The phrase came to Mildred as a spark in dark- 
 ness. It startled, but did not illuminate. She did 
 not perceive that this was their moment of com- 
 munion : she was a person who needed explana- 
 tory titles to the chapters of her Book of Life. 
 
 ' How interesting !' she said.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 1 How could he see what is hid 
 If it were not so, the lover ? 
 How could he say, " She alone and no other"? 
 Maya, illusion !' 
 
 ALICE HERBERT. 
 
 MR. WILLIE HOPKINSON did not again offer his 
 confidence to Miss Brent : his desire for sympathy 
 was held in check by a wholesome fear of appearing 
 ridiculous. He established her, very suitably, in 
 the suburbs of his spirit, where she soon assumed 
 a commanding position. 
 
 New factors were bringing unwelcome complica- 
 tions to his view of the universe. Each step of 
 his road was now disputed by the varied powers 
 within him by a restless, poetic imagination, as 
 yet scarcely conscious of itself; by a confused 
 and unhappy soul fearful of all entanglements ; 
 by a body which age was ripening for assertion. 
 Stephen's influence, which he distrusted but could 
 not escape, urged love upon him as the sacrament 
 of a spiritual reality. The unromantically robust 
 
 159
 
 160 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 Pauline, still unconscious of her conquest, main- 
 tained her inexplicable ascendancy over Mr. Miller's 
 heart ; and Willie was compelled to unwilling atten- 
 tion whilst Stephen described his sister's merits, 
 and laid bare to him the very human transports 
 which he mistook for illumination of the soul. 
 
 Stephen had a way of calling to spend the 
 evening with Mr. Willie Hopkinson, thus placing 
 himself, as he said, in Pauline's aura if not in her 
 presence. As a matter of fact, like many tactful 
 people, she did the wrong thing in a spirit of pure 
 kindliness, and made a point of leaving the two 
 youths together in the dining-room whilst she retired 
 to do needlework in another part of the house. It 
 was then that Willie's acid comments on Stephen's 
 ardours would lure his friend on to explanation 
 and defence. 
 
 ' Can't you understand ?' he said one day when 
 the controversy had been specially embittered. 
 ' It seems so odd, because you never lost the light ; 
 you have intuitions which ought to help. You're 
 a mystic if you are anything, and yet you deny 
 Love; and Love's the only mysticism that's any use.' 
 
 ' Perhaps so, when two souls are created for each 
 other. But Pauline !' 
 
 ' You don't think, do you ?' said Stephen, ' when 
 I idealize Pauline ; when I make her the whole type 
 for me of woman in the world ; that I imagine my 
 own words to be actual and literal think her other 
 than a human girl ?'
 
 THE ROAD BECOMES MUDDY 161 
 
 * No,' replied Willie ; * but you will before you've 
 done.' 
 
 ' I shan't. I shall always know that it is just 
 because she is my girl that she means so much. 
 Every man must find his Madonna in a woman 
 perhaps every woman may find her Christ once in a 
 man. Can't you see that there's a sort of perfection, 
 a nobility, in loving the imperfect ? In giving your- 
 self to something that can't really help you, that 
 can only give itself to you ?' 
 
 ' No,' said Willie, ' I can't see it. It's a chain, 
 a tie to earth.' 
 
 ' No, it's a way through really ; an escape. The 
 power of your love, you see, is not exhausted by the 
 earth-object, because that's partly illusion. But 
 the love is real, and goes on far beyond : and in 
 the end, perhaps, it finds the True Beauty.' 
 
 His known taste for literature obliged Stephen 
 to speak like a book. He stopped now, feeling 
 rather tired, and began carefully stroking Pauline's 
 black Persian, which, feeling equal to a little con- 
 versation, had jumped upon his knee, and now sat 
 purring with the assured condescension of an 
 obliging archangel. Bertie Anthracite Hopkinson 
 was a cat of intelligence and charm. His names, 
 emblematic first of softness, secondly of blackness, 
 thirdly of his position as a son of the house, excluded 
 further description. Stephen, so alert in his 
 sympathies toward all that was alive, had culti- 
 vated a mesmeric touch which made Bertie 
 
 ii
 
 162 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 Anthracite his friend. They held long conversa- 
 tions, which irritated Willie as much as they pleased 
 his sister; and went through dignified and ceremonial 
 games together with a footstool and a ball of string. 
 
 This attitude of Mr. Miller in the house an 
 attitude at once amorous and homely stirred 
 dormant forces in Willie's subconscious self. It 
 introduced into his attitude towards Mildred an 
 element which he did not in his cooler hours desire. 
 Stephen's exalted phrases stood like stained glass 
 between him and the world. They affected his 
 outlook, and at times he dreamed that an ideal love 
 might indeed be the Graal of his quest. Mildred's 
 ardent mind and clever fingers pleased him ; he 
 imagined her always beside him, sharing his fears, 
 his discoveries, his success. The idea had charm. 
 He played with it. Then a sense of the Grey 
 Dimension rushed back. He dreaded the chain of 
 earthly interests ; and came hastily to his old 
 attitude of determined detachment. 
 
 But he could no longer look on Miss Brent as 
 a Person rather than a Girl. His environment 
 warred against this happy neutrality, and steadily 
 pressed frank comradeship into more sordid paths. 
 Mr. Carter, to Willie's disgust, still took the issue 
 of the situation for granted. He watched his pupil's 
 progress with a benevolent smile, and by persistent 
 presentation of Mildred in the light of normal 
 courtship, dimmed the idea of Platonic love which 
 Willie struggled to keep in mind.
 
 THE ROAD BECOMES MUDDY 163 
 
 ' You might do worse, Mr. Hopkinson,' he said. 
 * Miss Brent, she has ideas as I don't altogether 'old 
 by as to design and such ; but she's a rare 'and at 
 the sewin' press, which is what you'll find useful 
 in the future, and I'll allow 'er toolin's very nice.' 
 
 In Mildred's presence, however, Willie retained 
 his remote, therefore interesting, attitude. His 
 attentions were meaningless ; he seemed content 
 to drift without thought in the delicious tides which 
 ebb and flow between friendship and passion. 
 
 ' Young Hopkinson doesn't seem much inclined 
 to come to the point,' said Janet ; she had become 
 more sweet-tempered since Mr. Tiddy's interest 
 was concentrated on herself, and pitied Mildred's 
 equivocal position. 
 
 * What a vulgar idea !' answered Mildred coldly. 
 ' Can't you realize that friendship is possible without 
 flirtation ? Between cultivated people, sympathy 
 is quite sufficient.' 
 
 She was happy. After all, a slight improvement, 
 if it be unexpected, is enough to turn Earth into 
 Heaven. She liked to think that her friendship 
 was an intellectual one, and had nothing in common 
 with an ordinary entanglement. It meant much 
 that she should be preferred before Janet, whose 
 fascinating hair was enhanced by a good com- 
 plexion. Willie's self-control did not annoy her- 
 He appreciated her, and she him. He lived in 
 town, and brought the air of a larger world to the 
 workshop. She, coming every day from her cheap 
 
 II 2
 
 164 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 and hideous home on the edge of a newly-developed 
 building estate, envied and admired him. Much 
 of Elsa's philosophy was now repeated for Mildred's 
 benefit, and increased her respect for Willie's 
 cultivated mind. 
 
 There came a morning, however, when a well- 
 defined feeling of discomfort was noticeable in the 
 bindery. Its happy atmosphere of security had 
 gone, and the air was full of fretfulness. It was 
 known, vaguely but universally, that Mr. Tiddy 
 and Miss Vivien had been ' carrying on.' The 
 fall of Propriety is generally more sudden than 
 elegant. Janet's descent amused even Mr. Carter, 
 a Puritan at heart. A less virtuous, more experi- 
 enced maiden might have repelled Mr. Tiddy's 
 onslaught with success ; but she had allowed him to 
 kiss her behind the door of the dressing-room, not 
 knowing that her mother was waiting for her within. 
 
 Now Miss Vivien applied gold-leaf to her book- 
 cover with a trembling hand ; she was leaving next 
 week. And Bertram Tiddy, at the opposite end 
 of the workshop, made end-papers with sullen 
 energy. Both were suffering from loss of dignity, 
 and beside this the decline from virtue seemed 
 insignificant. 
 
 These events reacted on Miss Brent and Mr. 
 Willie Hopkinson, and caused them to realize their 
 sex with some acuteness. Mildred, who was more 
 receptive than perceptive, and found every passing 
 emotion an amusement or a grief, suddenly felt
 
 THE ROAD BECOMES MUDDY 165 
 
 it as an injury that Willie showed no disposition 
 towards inconvenient passions. She forgot the 
 superiority of ideal affections, and longed to be 
 kissed. It was a demonstration in little of the 
 psychology of the crowd. Willie was uncom- 
 fortable, depressed. He could not understand 
 himself ; an irritating condition. He had felt 
 uneasy lately when away from Mildred, yet dis- 
 satisfied when he was with her ; and his mind, 
 which despised this weakness, could not control it. 
 
 For some weeks, his bad appetite had alarmed 
 his mother, who was afraid that the gas stoves 
 used for heating the workshop dried the air too 
 much, and lowered his vitality. The only remedy 
 for this, she knew, was good food ; and, with a well- 
 founded distrust of the local confectioner, she 
 supplied him with lunches of meat-pie and home- 
 made cake, and a patent medicated cocoa which 
 nourished the brain without upsetting the liver. 
 
 At one o'clock Mr. Carter retired to the Sun in 
 Splendour for a cut off the joint and a pint of half- 
 and-half, and Mr. Tiddy and Miss Vivien vanished 
 towards secret places where they fed. Then 
 Mildred, who took her poor lunch of buns and apples 
 at the bindery, did illicit cookery upon the finishing 
 stove, and shared Willie's cocoa in a spirit of pure 
 comradeship. These picnics, when they sat 
 together on the table and talked of Literature and 
 Art, had developed a familiarity both innocent and 
 delightful. Once or twice he had called her his
 
 166 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 little sister, and she had pretended to like it. It 
 made Mrs. Hopkinson very happy to find that her 
 son got through a quarter-pound tin of cocoa 
 every week. 
 
 But on this day they were nervous, shy of each 
 other. A possibility to which neither desired an 
 introduction had been forced upon them. Mildred's 
 manner was slightly frosty ; there was an unusual 
 formality in Willie's phrases. It was a grey day 
 in February ; he was miserable. Weather affected 
 his outlook, and he felt earth-bound and hopeless. 
 It seemed that their happy friendship was in danger, 
 and he suddenly realized all that it had meant to 
 him. 
 
 ' Aren't you happy ?' said Mildred abruptly. He 
 had only eaten half a mutton-pie and one piece of 
 cake. 
 
 ' No,' he said. 
 
 ' Anything wrong ?' 
 
 ' Nothing's wrong, but I'm wretched. Every- 
 thing is so medium. When I try and look into the 
 future, I see such a foolish, meaningless life ahead 
 of me no truth, no sincerity ; everything sordid, 
 earthy. I dread it.' 
 
 ' I think, if I had your life to live, I should be 
 happy. You have clever friends, you're in the 
 movement, you can develop your powers. You 
 haven't got to be always thinking about what sort 
 of work pays best. Suppose you had to live down 
 here, with nothing beautiful to see, no cultivated
 
 THE ROAD BECOMES MUDDY 167 
 
 people to talk to, no one to understand you, no 
 hope of escape ?' 
 
 ' If I did,' said Willie, ' where would be the differ- 
 ence ? Only in externals, after all. You think I 
 have more chance of finding myself than you have, 
 a better environment, more freedom. I haven't 
 really. We're both struggling in chains, you and 
 I silly, soft chains we can't break. My existence 
 is quite as ugly, quite as dead as yours, if you only 
 knew it. I sometimes wonder whether there are 
 any real existences, any real meanings in life. I 
 muddle along through a world of spectral nothings, 
 and never leave them behind. I'm lost in them, 
 they shut the light out, and yet they're unreal.' 
 
 ' Oh, but I've often felt that too that feeling 
 that one is missing the real things. It's only in 
 dreams I come near them perhaps it's in dreams 
 I live best. But it's horrible when one thinks that 
 one has only one life, and it's going going all the 
 time.' 
 
 A passionate discontent shook in her voice. It 
 did not occur to Willie that her idea of reality and 
 of life might not correspond with his own. She 
 was dissatisfied ; she desired the real things. He 
 looked at her with new interest, a kindness from 
 which condescension had gone. 
 
 'Oh, do you feel that ?' he said. ' I've been 
 lonely all my life because I could never find anyone 
 who felt just as I did about it. All the people 
 I live with are so busy with the detail of existence,
 
 1 68 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 that it never occurs to them to look at its shape 
 as a whole.' 
 
 His tone was sincere, agitated ; a subtle flattery. 
 It roused the woman in Mildred to the wounding 
 of the artist, and prompted her to an effective and 
 fatal utterance. At heart an actress, she could 
 not bear to miss her cue. 
 
 * I've always been lonely too,' she answered. 
 * No one has really understood me, because my 
 outside doesn't match my soul. It's horrid to look 
 ordinary and not to be it. I seem to have been 
 waiting and waiting, for the person who could help 
 me to live my own life.' 
 
 A sudden vision of completed existence flashed 
 upon Willie's inner eye. For one happy instant 
 he thought of Mildred as a soul which shared his 
 restlessness and his hopes. He was standing very 
 near to her ; and now he saw her radiant, trans- 
 formed, the focus of his inarticulate craving. 
 
 He took one step nearer. It seemed to Mildred 
 that he was staring at her with a curious intensity. 
 Really, he saw nothing but a coloured blur before 
 him. Then the connection between mind and 
 action snapped. He became an automaton in the 
 hands of a strong emotion, and words came to him 
 so quickly that he could not arrange them in order, 
 as he might have done in a quieter hour. 
 
 ' Oh, don't wait !' he said. ' I want you ! I 
 want you ! What does it matter about dreams of 
 the future ? That's nothing. I'm here, and you're
 
 THE ROAD BECOMES MUDDY 169 
 
 here, and we can't do without one another. That's 
 all that matters. Dearest ! I'll make you live. I 
 know you understand me. We shall find the 
 meaning of it all if we look together. The heart 
 speaks sometimes, and then one knows the truth.' 
 
 He took her in his arms and kissed her a timid, 
 inexperienced kiss. But Mildred, in spite of her 
 rather mean ideals, was essentially virginal. The 
 thing, coming with the violence of an accident, 
 appalled her. She hated crude emotions. A 
 natural horror crossed her triumph, and she drew 
 away from him. 
 
 ' Oh, what's happened ?' she said. There was 
 pain as well as amazement in her voice. 
 
 Willie could not answer her. The hot phrases 
 which he had so suddenly let loose had lowered his 
 temperature in their passage. He felt, compara- 
 tively, cold. Astonished reflection trod close on 
 the heels of impulse : he had strongly the 
 mysterious sense of being a stranger to his own 
 actions ; of standing aside and watching that 
 ingenious machine, his body, perform a series of 
 evolutions in whose direction he had no share. 
 
 In a mood of entire detachment, he looked on, 
 amused, critical, almost interested. He began to 
 wonder what strange being had spoken by his lips. 
 He noticed that his body was curiously excited by 
 the attitude it had taken up. Its pulses raced, it 
 trembled helplessly, its agitations almost disgusted 
 him he, the spiritual Willie Hopkinson, who had
 
 170 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 thought to find something very different from this 
 in love. He wanted Mildred : he was pleased to 
 have won her for now she was passive in his arms, 
 and he knew that she was won he could not dis- 
 associate himself altogether from his sex. But 
 he was secretly troubled and disappointed by the 
 quality of his emotion. ' Is this all ? Is this 
 all ?' the feverish soul in him cried out, whilst 
 some other and irresistible impulse drew his 
 trembling lips to Mildred's cool and steady ones, 
 and found him the caressing words which the situa- 
 tion obviously required. 
 
 And Mildred, the idealist, had only one coherent 
 thought. 
 
 * How awfully astonished Janet will be !' she 
 said to herself. 
 
 At the end of an afternoon spent in simulating 
 an elaborate unconcern, Miss Brent and Mr. Hop- 
 kinson parted with such emotional display as the 
 publicity of Titian Road allowed. Each, for 
 different reasons, was anxious to be very modern 
 and collected. But they could not help feeling 
 agitated, even upset, by what had occurred. 
 
 Mildred, always verbally cynical in matters relat- 
 ing to love, came from her first encounter with it 
 surprised and rather sad. Her official views had 
 been unconsciously modified by the softer imagi- 
 nations of her favourite novelists. These now 
 invited comparison with immediate experience, 
 and the vivid tints of the ideal brought out the
 
 THE ROAD BECOMES MUDDY 171 
 
 greyer tones of the fact. The heart seldom wakes 
 at the first touch. Mildred's had only stirred 
 sufficiently to feel a drowsy disappointment in 
 its own sensations. Hers was that spurious love 
 founded on light fiction, which debases the currency. 
 
 The thorough training she had received in all 
 branches of Ornamental Design made her capable, 
 however, of appreciating the artistic possibilities 
 of the situation. She felt that Willie's proposal 
 should have been arranged with due regard to the 
 laws of composition. He was the most abnormal 
 young man she had ever met. He affected her like a 
 Voysey wall-paper, and this alone proved how suit- 
 able he was to become the background of her life. 
 
 But his wooing, coming as the last term 
 of an intellectual friendship, should have com- 
 bined the emotional atmosphere of ' Wuthering 
 Heights ' with the spiritual platitudes of ' Middle- 
 march.' Mildred was very well read. Willie's 
 hurried onslaught had been on a different level 
 from the passionate epigrams of her dreams. It 
 was breathless and ungrammatical ; its phrases 
 were objectionably homely. She decided that it 
 lacked the lyrical impulse. Considering the matter 
 on her way home, she told herself with growing 
 bitterness that she was not satisfied. She had 
 been too hasty. The whole incident now struck 
 her as tame : and its memory annoyed her the more 
 when she remembered that for a moment it had 
 contrived to make her lose her self-control.
 
 172 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 She wondered now what blind impulse had forced 
 her to return Willie's nervous kisses, and could 
 find no answer to the question. She felt hot with 
 shame as she thought of the wild moments when 
 she had trembled in his arms and their sudden, 
 inelegant separation when they heard Carter's step 
 in the corridor. He had entered with a specially 
 benevolent grin, and had gone promptly to work 
 cutting the edges of a large atlas, leaving them 
 together at the finishing bench. Probably he had 
 suspected. A sudden loathing of love and its vulgar 
 accessories overcame her. It seemed to her that 
 it was very like bookbinding full of poetic charm 
 when seen from outside ; but made up, for those 
 who chose to investigate its technique, of ordinary, 
 sticky, even unpleasant materials. 
 
 But just as she reached home, a sense of comfort 
 relieved her burning eyes, and softened the curve 
 of her firm thin lips. She was Engaged ; and only 
 an emancipated woman can savour the full joy of 
 that astounding knowledge. 
 
 The homeward soliloquy of Mr. Willie Hopkinson 
 was not much more cheerful than that of Miss Brent. 
 He too had suffered a certain disillusion, though 
 the more romantic disposition of the amorous male 
 kept him from the depths of his fiancee's cynicism. 
 It had seemed to him in the moment before he kissed 
 Mildred that a great light was about to break upon 
 his life ; that its local colour was going to be of an 
 indefinite golden tint, instead of the disagreeable
 
 THE ROAD BECOMES MUDDY 173 
 
 brown of the past. More than mere passion 
 the longing for an- unknown beauty had driven 
 him to love. He could not tell himself that these 
 hopes had been fulfilled. The afternoon's experi- 
 ences toned in with the rest of his existence in an 
 artistic but depressing manner : he would have 
 preferred a more violent contrast. Grey World 
 and brown earth were still with him, but the golden 
 light refused to come. Willie had a pretty taste 
 in metaphor. He told himself as he strolled away 
 that he had thought to fit a key to the lock which 
 shut him from a Burne- Jones country, and it had 
 only opened upon a Dutch interior after all. 
 
 The engagement caused some stir, but little 
 enthusiasm. Mr. Hopkinson said that it was in- 
 fernal nonsense. Willie was only one-and- twenty, 
 and juvenile marriages were bad for the race. 
 Mrs. Hopkinson only hoped that Mildred was a 
 thoroughly nice girl ; but her inflection was sceptical. 
 Fiction and France together have contrived to 
 discredit the art-student, and Willie's friends were 
 usually peculiar. 
 
 But Mrs. Levi, at whose altar he had so long 
 offered a romantic incense, felt it as a personal grief. 
 
 ' I had hoped,' she remarked to her husband, ' that 
 he would have too much sensibility for this. Love 
 is the most beautiful of the passions : but only when 
 it has no ulterior object can it really minister to 
 the higher life.' 
 
 She reflected on the superior habits of the Middle
 
 174 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 Ages, when young men were content to worship at the 
 feet of married beauty without any hope of reward. 
 ' In those days,' she said, ' life was really beautiful. 
 An engagement, I think, is almost indelicate.' 
 
 She had some justification for annoyance. Hers 
 had been the first hand extended to help Willie 
 to escape the stagnation of family life. Now, 
 with the callous ingratitude of intelligent youth, 
 he left her on one side and deliberately framed 
 his own career. She had taught him too well. 
 He had learnt to appreciate women, and desired 
 to possess one. He told her all about Mildred, 
 sitting at her feet in the old confiding way, and 
 holding her hand. He described her with some 
 rapture, for he wished to assure himself that he 
 was very much in love. Elsa felt that she was 
 being treated as a favourite aunt. 
 
 Yet she still busied herself with his well-being, 
 and appeared interested in the engagement. She 
 even allowed him to bring Mildred to tea with her ; 
 endured her accent, her awkward manners, and 
 her pretentious aestheticism ; and told Mrs. Hop- 
 kinson that she seemed a sensible girl. She was 
 absurdly kind-hearted for so handsome a woman ; 
 it seemed unnecessary, and Willie did not really 
 appreciate it. But in matters of sentiment Mrs. Levi 
 was an expert diplomatist. She had early divined 
 the true state of his emotions ; and, believing in the 
 value of contrast, she hoped that the advantages of 
 the connection might not all be on Mildred's side.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 A WAYSIDE SHRINE 
 
 ' Now soone from sleepe, 
 A Starre shall leap ; 
 And soon arrive both King and Hinde. 
 
 Amen, Amen ; 
 But O the Place co'd I but finde !' 
 
 L. I. GUINEY. 
 
 IT was no impulse of inquisitive piety which drove 
 Willie to enter the church of Our Lady of Pity. He 
 had a love for London, his true mother, greater than 
 that which he found for any human being. Child, 
 first of her slums, and secondly of her suburbs, she 
 held him tenderly but relentlessly in her great, grimy, 
 yet strangely poetic hand. He found in her streets 
 the mystical place-spirit which is seldom permitted 
 to enter her houses ; and it fed his soul. Seeing her 
 as a dream-town set over against the city that has 
 foundations, he felt that in her entity she knew 
 herself so to be. 
 
 Now that his working hours were linked with 
 Mildred, and so robbed of the quiet inward happi- 
 ness they had possessed, an oldjcraving for solitude 
 
 J75
 
 176 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 returned to him. Miss Brent retained her power 
 over his senses, and compelled a lover-like de- 
 meanour which he found wearisome, and she 
 lacking in enthusiasm. This killed the peculiar 
 fascination of the workshop, for the religion of labour 
 is austere, cloistral ; it may tolerate a high passion, 
 but it hates an entanglement. That gate was shut : 
 he was driven to look for some other resting-place. 
 
 Holiday afternoons, therefore, he spent alone 
 when he could ; on the pavements, or in museums 
 looking at beautiful things which pleased him. He 
 discovered that a bit of Limoges enamel, or a 
 casket of old French ivory, may be the best of com- 
 panions to those who can concentrate their atten- 
 tion and hear its thin faded voice. Education now 
 helped him to appreciate exquisite handiwork ; and 
 the immortality of works of art, which, once created, 
 outlive their fragile makers and take their place 
 amongst eternal things, struck his imagination. 
 
 On one such day, when suggestions of blue in the 
 sky and a dancing breeze in the west kept him out 
 of doors, he first noticed, in a wide street of osten- 
 tatious shop-fronts veiling squalid tenements, a 
 dark passage between the dingy houses. It was 
 not a thoroughfare ; a swing-door under an arch 
 closed its farther end. Willie had a curiosity for 
 doors ; the never-extinguished hope of the adven- 
 turous that they may hide something worthy of 
 discovery. This one seemed oddly placed. He was 
 interested walked down the passage. Then he
 
 A WAYSIDE SHRINE 177 
 
 saw that it was a church door, and paused. Churches 
 had never attracted him. 
 
 But at that moment it opened, and a young man 
 came out. He had a clever face, the thin, nervous 
 hands of an artist, ardent eyes which shone with 
 grave rapture, as of one who has been about a happy 
 business. Willie had not imagined it possible that 
 men should enter a church on a week-day. He 
 was greatly astonished. Almost mechanically, he 
 caught the door as it swung to, and went in. 
 
 It was a large church, with wide aisles, a high 
 vault, transepts : but being ignorant of architec- 
 ture he was not impressed by its plan. The first 
 thing that he noticed was a faint aromatic smeU 
 which soothed his senses. He was nervous, not 
 knowing the meaning of the things he saw, or what 
 his own right of admittance ; so that his percep- 
 tions were rather exalted, and he felt that there were 
 mysteries very near. An influence, real though 
 elusive, imposed quietness and respect. He had 
 been of course in Protestant churches, but they 
 had left no mark on his spirit, and gave him no clue 
 to this experience to the hush, the awe, the weight 
 of a new form of life. The idea of a religious build- 
 ing as provocative of emotion was strange to him. 
 
 The place was so still, so remote from ordinary 
 existence, that it seemed incredible that fifty yards 
 away newsboys were offering the latest details of 
 the Bootle Horror, and omnibuses full of cheerful 
 persons were hurrying eastwards to matinees and 
 
 12
 
 178 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 exhibitions. He did not know what to make of 
 this dim hall, and these quiet people who passed 
 him. He had been accustomed to live with the 
 sense of aloofness ; but here his want of compre- 
 hension came from inferiority, not detachment. He 
 had suddenly come upon a new country. He re- 
 membered old stories of people who had found an 
 open door, and walked through it into fairyland ; 
 and realized that the door which shut silently 
 behind him had cut him off as a prison gate might 
 have done from his daily world. 
 
 He looked down the long aisles. They were 
 misty, half lighted by coloured windows in the 
 south. Far away, he saw lights burning, and 
 persons who knelt by them. It all seemed to him 
 profoundly unnatural. He felt as if he had pene- 
 trated to the home of a race of beings not entirely 
 human an unsuspected world within the world. 
 
 A woman passed by him. In the street, he would 
 have known her for a very ordinary, well-behaving 
 person, not to be suspected of vivid emotions. 
 Here she was remote, magical ; caught up by the 
 strong love of the initiate. He watched her as 
 she made the sign of the Cross, and knelt very 
 simply and without shame before an altar. It 
 seemed to him that she stayed there a long time : 
 he dared not move, because of the tension of her 
 attitude. Presently she kissed the feet of a statue 
 that stood there, and came away. Her face as she 
 passed Willie was serious but very contented. No
 
 A WAYSIDE SHRINE 
 
 179 
 
 doubt she would go out into the foggy sunshine and 
 take a hansom or the omnibus and go home : but 
 her real life had been in the moment when she kissed 
 the image with a convinced sincerity which did not 
 belong to Suburbia and its gods. It was evident 
 that great matters happened in this building. 
 
 He had wandered now as far as the northern tran- 
 sept. The little chapel which opened from it was 
 empty of worshippers. Its altar had a plainer look 
 than others which he had passed the shrines of 
 S. Joseph and S. Anthony, crowded with votive 
 gifts. Willie looked up, and his eye was caught by 
 a mysterious invocation words, written in tall gold 
 letters above the altar Veni, Creator Spiritus ! He 
 did not recognise its relation to the commonplace 
 English hymn, the clumsily-phrased ' Come, Holy 
 Ghost.' It seemed a strange, majestic utterance. 
 He felt the full weight of its tremendous appeal. 
 
 Veni, Creator Spiritus ! this, after all, was what 
 he had been asking all his life. People, then, came 
 to this place to find an answer to his own tormenting 
 questions ; to gain an attitude, an interest, above 
 the petty illusions of visible life. They were living 
 in an air he could not breathe, amongst realities 
 which he could not apprehend. 
 
 He looked back down the aisles. Everyone else 
 was kneeling. Evidently, it was right to do this. 
 Willie, naturally aesthetic, valued ceremonial and 
 symbol. He also knelt. He disliked the sensation : 
 it is not easy for an Englishman to kneel in a public 
 
 122
 
 i8o THE GREY WORLD 
 
 place. He felt sure, as he bent his knees, that he was 
 being observed ; and felt hot, ashamed, desperately 
 foolish. But with the deliberate humility, there came 
 a new sense of peace. He felt a power near him ; a 
 touch, new and purifying as the Angel's wing which 
 fanned Dante's forehead on the mount. I think that 
 he was purged of the sin of pride in that moment. 
 
 He rose with a knowledge of his ignorance such 
 as he had never yet possessed : aware that he, the 
 unworldly person whose unique perceptions showed 
 him the blindness of his neighbours, the hollowness 
 of life, was himself without understanding, blind 
 and speechless, when ushered suddenly into the 
 presence of one of the spiritual secrets of the world. 
 But he divined the beauty which he could not com- 
 prehend : it quieted him, gave him new hope. As 
 he went out, and down the grey squalid passage to 
 the street, he passed a little shop-window where 
 statues and rosaries were for sale. There were 
 some books, too. He noticed the name upon one 
 of them ' The Garden of the Soul.' 
 
 ' Why, that is what this place should be called !' 
 he said. 
 
 He came back to the church again and again : 
 fascinated, puzzled, always without comprehension 
 of the charm which drew him there. Once he heard 
 a High Mass sung, and was disappointed. It was 
 ornate, dazzling, but it did not impress. He loved 
 best the quiet moments of devotion, when the place 
 was a home, not a court. When love outweighed
 
 A WAYSIDE SHRINE 181 
 
 ceremonial respect, and showed itself in a familiar 
 simplicity, tears came to his eyes, and sorrow for 
 his dumbness to his heart. He knew then that a 
 beautiful reality wrapped him round and helped 
 him ; that this place, where invocation of the In- 
 visible never ceased, had an existence in Eternity 
 not granted to the hurrying City streets. But the 
 music and the incense were no part of that vision ; 
 they confused the image and frightened it away. 
 
 A curious change was worked in Willie by this 
 quaint access of piety. He came back now to 
 books read in the past, and found in himself a new 
 spirit of evocation. Phrases long familiar raised 
 unsuspected veils and permitted him to look into 
 their eyes, and there read messages and prophecy. 
 These were old friends, loved for their verbal magic, 
 now understood. From a prayer for admittance at 
 another gate, he turned to find this door held open. 
 
 But Mildred had no share in his new radiance. 
 Her eccentricity, cool, well-balanced, deliberately 
 fostered, was at the opposite pole of idealism from 
 Willie's dim intuition of beauty and holiness. The 
 sun which lit his newly discovered country plunged 
 her into a winter of shade. Caught up by the grave 
 fascination of the sanctuary, he thought contemptu- 
 ously of Stephen's remarks on the spiritual nature 
 of love, and wondered what would be left of his 
 passion for Mildred when once he had thrown off 
 the shackles of sense. Already, he felt a change in 
 the quality of his affection when she put off her
 
 182 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 working overall and came to meet him in all the 
 fatiguing fluffiness of dressy blouse and home- 
 trimmed hat. It was the fellow-worker, the com- 
 rade, that he loved ; not the flesh-and-blood girl 
 whom custom compelled him to kiss. 
 
 He realized that his old state of isolation had been 
 very dear to him, and that now he had lost it. 
 Stephen had made a fatal mistake. This was not 
 the Companion who would lead him up the hill. 
 He must climb that path alone ; and Mildred, in 
 the valley, would always be a drag upon his steps. 
 
 Divergent ideals soon became apparent. He told 
 her of his religious intuitions, and she was vexed. 
 Catholicism was fashionable, but had many incon- 
 veniences. She wondered how many more fads 
 Willie would develop. As persons professionally 
 connected with wall-papers end by decking their 
 own rooms in whitewash, so Mildred's association 
 with Willie induced in her a love of normal things. 
 Engagement necessarily involved some readjust- 
 ment of her point of view. Originality in a friend 
 is often eccentricity in a husband. She was deter- 
 mined to manage Willie : she wished him to get on. 
 There was in Mildred that strain of meanness which 
 often goes with a sharp, shallow intelligence. She 
 could sacrifice nothing of her hopes, nor weigh 
 Willie's love and happiness against her own rebel, 
 lious ambitions. Love, pleasant as an entree, could 
 never form the staple of her life. 
 
 But when she attacked him for his dreamy out-
 
 A WAYSIDE SHRINE 183 
 
 look, she met an obstinacy which she did not 
 expect. 
 
 * What I want you to do, Willie, dear,' she said, 
 ' is to take a more reasonable view of things. You 
 get on so much better if you treat things as if they 
 were important, even if they're not. And surely 
 that isn't difficult.' 
 
 * Oh, of course not ! Nothing's easier. All you 
 want is that I should banish my sense of propor- 
 tion ; and after all most people manage to do that 
 very early in life. Anything can be profoundly 
 important so long as one is careful to look at nothing 
 else. But once glance at the stars, once open the 
 books of the mystics, and the game is up the 
 panorama can never deceive us again.' 
 
 ' Yes, well. That's all very well, but it isn't the 
 way to get on.' 
 
 ' Get on ! Who wants to get on ? What does it 
 matter about succeeding here ? It's the afterwards 
 that counts.' 
 
 ' Oh, I never could get up any interest in religion.' 
 
 ' Religion ? It isn't religion : it's reality. What- 
 ever you believe or don't believe, life's only a tiny 
 snippet of existence ; and it's not worth counting 
 against the afterwards.' 
 
 ' Well, you may think that, but you don't know 
 it. I'd rather make the most of what I've got, not 
 invest all my capital in a dream.' 
 
 ' See here, Mildred,' said Willie abruptly ; * un- 
 fortunately for me, I do know it. You always say
 
 184 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 you understand me, but I see now that it was only 
 a fancy of your own that you understood. You 
 bathe your mind in a froth of mysticism because it 
 amuses you and makes you feel clever, but you 
 don't believe in it one bit. I don't have to believe 
 it, because I know. It isn't a case of intuition or 
 anything like that, it's a case of what has happened. 
 I wasn't always Willie Hopkinson. I lived once 
 a street boy in the slums. I died once. I was ten 
 years old then, and my view of life was rather like 
 yours. But I passed over into the horrible country 
 where the Dead, who made the most of life, as you 
 wish to do, live for ever in empty loneliness because 
 they took with them out of this existence nothing 
 that could subsist when the body had died. I'll not 
 risk that Hell again. I saw the world you and I 
 live in now, as the shadow and the dream it really 
 is : yet I longed to get back into touch with it 
 back to the old pretences, the colour and light. It's 
 not much, but it's all you have to hope for if you 
 chain your ideals to earth-interests and earth- 
 success. I've got back : but I've never lost that 
 knowledge. The Grey World is with me all the 
 time, and the voices of the miserable dead ; who 
 spent all their energies, all their opportunities, for 
 the sake of a few years of " getting on." 
 
 Mildred shivered. 
 
 ' Oh, don't be so horrible !' she said. ' Your 
 imagination is positively morbid.' 
 
 ' People with a sense of proportion a sense of
 
 A WAYSIDE SHRINE 185 
 
 background generally are morbid. Most prophets 
 and truth-tellers have been called that or some- 
 thing similar at one time or another.' 
 
 ' And quite right too. Prophets and truth- 
 tellers, as you call them, are usually only dreamers 
 who let their little fancies stand for facts.' 
 
 * Oh, no !' said Willie. ' Some are : but the real 
 thing isn't to be mistaken. One or two have seen 
 truth, and those who know can recognise that 
 element in their vision, however they may wrap 
 it up. Of course, the ordinary human creeping 
 thing who never looks at the sky, is bound to think 
 everything above his own head a morbid fancy. 
 I've no doubt that if a blackbeetle ever conceived 
 of human beings as they really are, all the other 
 blackbeetles would lock him up, as a sufferer from 
 dangerous delusions.' 
 
 ' Perhaps you'll mention some others who had 
 this knowledge that you boast of ?' 
 
 ' Well, look at the mystics, for instance. Look 
 at Plotinus, Blake, Swedenborg, the Indian philo- 
 sophers contemplatives all over the world who 
 have looked beyond the shadow of earth and seen 
 another Reality, some as a dim reflection, some as a 
 perfect truth. Look at Dante, at the poets. They 
 all speak a different language, but what they are 
 trying to say is substantially the same. It's an 
 ineffable news, not to be put down in human 
 symbols. I've only seen the dark side yet, but 
 I'll find sunshine and safety before I die.'
 
 186 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 * It's ridiculous,' said Mildred, ' to bring in Dante 
 and people like that. They were artists, poets who 
 tried to invent something beautiful. And it seems 
 to me that's what you're aiming at.' 
 
 ' Poets see further than most people. They don't 
 get the dust of daily life in their eyes, as practical 
 persons do. And as for Dante, you read him now, 
 and call him a fine poet he has no actuality for 
 you : he lived too long ago. But suppose that any 
 person came to you now, and said, " I I, who stand 
 here, have been over that frontier. I have passed 
 out from this solid, ordinary, modern world, the 
 world of comfortable mahogany-furnished dining- 
 rooms, and motor-cars, and milliners' shops and 
 I have wandered with the Dead in another dimen- 
 sion, which is near you now, if you would only 
 believe it. And I have returned, holding fast by 
 my knowledge." That has actuality, hasn't it ? 
 That is real ? And Dante's dream must have been 
 as real as that to his neighbours.' 
 
 ' And a nice mess he made of his life !' 
 
 ' No one who finds the Ideal as early as he did, 
 and holds it all his life, can have the inner misery,* 
 said Willie. ' It's uncertainty, not knowing what 
 to aim at, helpless groping in dark places, which 
 brings that.' 
 
 ' It's all a dream.' 
 
 ' You said once,' answered Willie rather sadly, 
 ' that it was in dreams that you lived best.' 
 
 ' Oh yes, in the pretty airy ones that made one
 
 A WAYSIDE SHRINE 187 
 
 happy not in this. You may be right or not 
 how am I to know ? If you're wrong, you've 
 made life a horrible nightmare for nothing. It's 
 awful to have to think about death really think 
 about it, not take it for granted and forget. And 
 if you're right, you've got knowledge that we are 
 not meant to have.' 
 
 ' Meant to have ? But I can't help knowing.' 
 
 ' Well, I can help it, and I won't know ! I won't 
 have air my hopes and my ambitions poisoned, and 
 made to seem not worth while. I've only one life 
 as far as I know, and I claim it as a right to order it 
 as I think best. I can't live it on your lines. You 
 terrify me. I don't think you're quite alive in the 
 human sense of the word.' 
 
 ' Oh, Mildred,' replied Willie, * if only you knew ! 
 If only I could make you see ! It seems incredible 
 that you shouldn't believe me. Can't you see that 
 I'm speaking the truth ?' 
 
 He went towards her in a sudden access of com- 
 passionate tenderness. 
 
 ' Oh, poor little dim-eyed girl !' he said, ' don't 
 be lost in the shadows ! Why should the truth be 
 dreadful ? Can't you trust me ? Can't you feel 
 the Invisible Things ?' 
 
 But Mildred drew back from him. 
 
 ' No, no ! don't kiss me !' she said quickly. 
 
 From her tone, one might almost have thought 
 that she was frightened.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 DIFFICULT PATHS 
 
 ' The singing of the office . . . was like a stream of water 
 crossing unexpectedly a dusty way Mirabilia Testimonia tua! 
 WALTER PATER. 
 
 IT was at this time that the heart of Miss Pauline 
 Hopkinson, long besieged, opened its gates to Mr. 
 Stephen Miller. It was not to be expected that she 
 could resist a lover at once so ardent and so unsuit- 
 able. At first disposed to despise him because of 
 his friendship for her brother, she was caught at last 
 by his freshness and sincerity. To a person of her 
 temperament, his courtship was full of surprises. 
 The ecstasy with which he kissed her well-developed 
 fingers administered a shock to her theory of life. 
 Even her fringe, waved twice daily and confined by 
 a net, had its poetic element for him. In the in- 
 tervals of playing hockey and making blouses, she 
 found herself thinking of this odd, intelligent boy. 
 His dark face, his fervent anxious eyes, haunted 
 her. She was impressed by his writings. They were 
 obscure, and seemed to her remarkable. 
 
 Pauline was a wholesome English girl a good- 
 188
 
 DIFFICULT PATHS 189 
 
 tempered, self-reliant animal Stephen told her that 
 she made him think of the Valkyrs and of Juno. His 
 flaming imagination, turning from transcendental 
 things, fused sentiment and fancy in the crucible of 
 desire. Finally, Pauline was trapped in the meshes 
 of his passion, and for the first time in her life 
 obsessed by an interest which was neither a game, a 
 fashion, nor a food. 
 
 As was right in so muscular and well-educated a 
 woman, she was ashamed of her emotion. She took 
 to wearing veils, lest anyone should notice the new 
 radiance of her smile. She walked in a delicious 
 dream, and told herself hourly that she was an idiot. 
 But the Hopkinson family, who found in this engage- 
 ment an antidote to the annoyance of Willie's 
 entanglement, saw other grounds than those of 
 sentiment for hearty congratulation. Pauline was 
 marrying well. She was a sensible girl, and had 
 sufficient savoir faire to keep this fact well in the 
 foreground. It veiled the unreasoning pride which 
 she felt in her vivid, picturesque, and dreamy lover. 
 Mr. Hopkinson, not suspecting his daughter's 
 secret aberration, was pleased with her. To him, 
 Stephen was a repulsive young fool, but he gave his 
 consent with astonishing cordiality. Mr. Miller's 
 extreme youth was no impediment. The best of 
 theories becomes untenable when opposed by an 
 advantageous fact. The race had to take care of 
 itself when an alliance with Miller's Sapoline was in 
 question.
 
 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 One may pity Mr. Willie Hopkinson, hemmed in 
 by lovers, yet in other than the Biblical sense 
 very sick of love. Universally accepted as a member 
 of that happy fellowship, he suffered, as only a 
 sensitive spirit can suffer in a distasteful environ- 
 ment. In the midst of the confusion to which- he 
 had now reduced his life, two spots alone remained 
 where he might hope for peace. In the church of 
 Our Lady of Pity his constant refuge his best, 
 humblest, most hopeful self trimmed its lamp and 
 patiently waited for the day. In Mrs. Levi's 
 drawing-room, where a flattering sympathy awaited 
 him, his meaner personality plumed its ruffled 
 feathers and regained its self-esteem. 
 
 His position was ridiculous. He should have lived 
 with eyes wide opened on the ugly illusion which 
 his fellow-men had made of life : indifferent to its 
 claims, its little vexations and silly excitements. He 
 remembered the hour when he first saw that Heaven 
 and Hell were equally near his grasp that all de- 
 pended on the attitude his soul took up : when he 
 knew that wonderful worlds, more real than the 
 dusty earth, were his if he could but see them. 
 
 The attitude his soul had taken up was com- 
 pounded of fractiousness and despondency. He had 
 done nothing with his knowledge and his chances. 
 True, he had tried to open the eyes of two persons to 
 the true meaning and real dangers of life ; but the 
 experiment had scarcely been successful. One he 
 had estranged, for Mildred's altered manner was
 
 DIFFICULT PATHS 191 
 
 unmistakable the other he had kept, but less as a 
 friend than as a prospective brother-in-law. 
 
 It was Mrs. Levies peculiar merit that, knowing 
 nothing of these things, she did not perceive the dis- 
 comforts and inconsistencies of his situation. She 
 spoke pleasantly of Mildred at every opportunity, 
 admiring her artistic taste, her intelligence. Miss 
 Brent had recently decorated Willie's sanctum with 
 a stencilled frieze of may- trees blown by the wind. 
 Mrs. Hopkinson thought that the design made the 
 room feel draughty, and had put up thick curtains 
 of crimson serge. But Elsa admired it. 
 
 ' Such a beautiful symbolism,' she said ' the 
 blossom of life blown to your feet by the zephyrs of 
 Love. Dear Willie ! I'm sure you'll be happy 
 together. You are both so very artistic.' 
 
 Willie listened to her rather gloomily. His 
 dignity was comforted, but his irritation hourly 
 increased. Mildred often snubbed him now, treating 
 his fads as follies, not as the natural accompani- 
 ments of talent. She took her work to Bertram 
 Tiddy for correction and encouragement, and only 
 accepted from Willie those useful attentions and 
 ceremonial gifts which ameliorate even the most 
 tedious engagement. 
 
 Mr. Tiddy, who had suffered an eclipse since 
 Janet's departure and Mildred's betrothal, began, 
 under these circumstances, to recover his normal 
 air of omniscience. He was lonely. The girls, in 
 their earlier and simpler developments, had been
 
 192 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 much to him. More had been the consciousness 
 that he was much to them. Miss Vivien was now 
 placed beyond his reach. He met her occasionally 
 in the public gardens, walking with a sister of repel- 
 lent propriety. It was rumoured that she intended 
 to train as a children's nurse. Miss Brent, whom he 
 had once thought available but unattractive, was 
 the acknowledged property of Willie Hopkinson. 
 Mr. Tiddy, left without an admirer, watched them 
 working together under Carter's benignant eye, and 
 longed for the advent of some new apprentice on 
 whom he could impose his view of Art. 
 
 So it was that when Mildred bored, disappointed, 
 pining for any excitement again turned to him for 
 appreciation, she met with an almost abject response. 
 Mr. Tiddy came to her side stroking his bristly chin 
 regretfully, and smoothing the soft collar of his 
 canvas shirt. He had an inner conviction that he 
 was a fine craftsman ; its sacramental result, as 
 expressed in his manner, reminded his enemies of an 
 insolent shop-walker. 
 
 Willie was absent : Carter was selecting materials 
 in the store-room. Bertram, smiling pleasantly, 
 leaned over Mildred as she sat before her work. He 
 missed the nervous flutter with which she had 
 been accustomed, involuntarily, to acknowledge his 
 presence. Mildred had known deeper emotions, and 
 mere propinquity no longer moved her. 
 
 He considered her work with a flattering but 
 critical attention. She was decorating the insides
 
 DIFFICULT PATHS 193 
 
 of a book-cover with a pretty fretful pattern of fish 
 and sea-birds, painted in faint colours upon the 
 vellum doublure. 
 
 ' Very nice !' he said ' very nice indeed ! So 
 quaint and original. You are developing quite a 
 style of your own, Miss Brent ; it's New-Arty, and 
 yet it's individual.' 
 
 ' I'm sick of the old traditional patterns all the 
 borders and panels and dot-work.' 
 
 ' So's the public, I believe. We want freshness in 
 design, a return to nature, imagination.' 
 
 ' Carter doesn't approve of that a bit ; he says that 
 my ideas aren't workmanlike.' 
 
 ' Ah, yes ! Carter ! He's an excellent forwarder, 
 of course ; but one can't expect him to understand 
 the artist's point of view.' 
 
 * He's so horribly particular about neatness and 
 all that.' 
 
 * Absurdly so, in my opinion. After all, Art 
 doesn't consist in minute finish, which is all Carter 
 cares about. Look at the Impressionists ! We're 
 here to produce beautiful things, not abnormally 
 strong ones. You want to be practical, not perfect, 
 if you're going to succeed with Arts and Crafts. 
 And I think, you know, that's where Hopkinson 
 makes such a mistake that is, if he wants to get 
 on ' 
 
 Mildred moved nervously ; she did not feel 
 capable of conducting Willie's defence. But Mr. 
 Tiddy left his sentence incomplete. Carter had 
 
 13
 
 194 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 come back to the next press, carrying a roll of cloth 
 and the shears. He looked at Mildred's animated 
 face, and noted Bertram's position. 
 
 ' Beg your pardon, Mr. Tiddy,' he remarked, ' but 
 your glue-pot will boil over in a minute, and then 
 there'll be a mess.' 
 
 Bertram retreated. 
 
 ' Get on ! He'll never get on not at what you 
 might call a good class o' bindin',' said Mr. Carter. 
 * Very different from Mr. 'Opkinson, 'e is : always 
 slip-sloppin' and chatterin', thinking about prettiness 
 instead of mindin' his work. 'E calls them things 
 he does Art ; / calls 'em whited sepulchres, all 
 messy within. Now your young gentleman, Miss, 
 with all his little ways, he do know how to 'old a 
 paste-brush or a paring-knife proper. Mr. Tiddy 
 cuts 'oles in the leather, and then 'e makes another 
 'ole in his manners with the language as he lets out.' 
 
 Carter collected his tools quietly around him, and 
 remained on guard near the indignant Mildred for 
 the rest of the afternoon. He felt it his duty later 
 to caution Willie against Mr. Tiddy's encroachments, 
 which recurred at every opportunity. But though 
 he hinted as well as he dared at the dangers of the 
 situation, his remarks made little impression. Mr. 
 Hopkinson was neither alarmed, angry, nor in- 
 credulous. Distracted between the difficulties of 
 his outer and his inner life, he forgot, as thoroughly 
 and often as he might, the nature of the chain which 
 bound him to Mildred Brent. He lived in a state
 
 DIFFICULT PATHS 195 
 
 of dream, neglecting his work, often leaving the 
 bindery early to enjoy an hour of meditation in 
 Our Lady of Pity before submitting to the stifling 
 influences of an evening at home. 
 
 The secret of the sanctuary still eluded him. He 
 knelt before an Unknown God, and his prayer for 
 light received no acknowledgment. Yet that the 
 light was there he never doubted : and one day a 
 sign renewed his hope and gave to him some measure 
 of serenity. 
 
 He came into the church as a procession left the 
 altar to carry the Host between the ranks of the 
 kneeling congregation. Choir-children walked before 
 the canopy with great baskets of flowers all of the 
 simple, homelier sort ; as daffodils, narcissus, violet. 
 They took out the blossoms one by one, and kissed 
 them with the affectionate importance of solemn 
 babies before casting them under the feet of the 
 priest. He, a real and eternal Christopher, bowed 
 down almost with awe of the monstrance he carried, 
 trod carelessly enough upon that exquisite carpet. 
 It seemed so small a sacrifice in the presence of the 
 mightiest offering in the world. Willie felt all the 
 majesty of that progress : that prostration of the 
 loveliest in Nature before the humblest of the servants 
 of God. He picked up a poor crushed violet, and 
 placed it between the leaves of his book : it seemed 
 a shield, an amulet, wrapped round with the peculiar 
 powers of any natural object that has touched the 
 fringe of another universe. But still, the passion with 
 
 13-2
 
 ig6 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 which he kissed its leaves was idle. His will refused 
 to consent to his longing : he could not believe. 
 
 He left the church more than usually troubled. 
 Outside, the street was dark with fog. He was tired 
 out by his own sick sensations of spiritual aridity, 
 his sight confused by long gazing at the glory of a 
 painted saint. He blundered in the doorway and 
 collided with some person also going hastily out : 
 and they found themselves together on the threshold. 
 
 Willie looked up, apologized, and was ready to 
 pass on : but the tall bent figure, the clever sen- 
 sitive face which he saw, seemed familiar. He 
 looked again, and met an answering recognition. It 
 was the young man who, coming out with a convinced 
 and happy expression, had determined his first visit 
 to the church. 
 
 He looked now at Willie's pale despondent face, 
 and smiled at him. His smile was illuminative. 
 Behind his spectacles, one saw grey eyes of an extra- 
 ordinary clearness and charity. 
 
 ' I've seen you here before,' he said, ' haven't I ? 
 But I don't think you're a Catholic ?' 
 
 'No.' 
 
 ' I thought not. You have that anxious look of 
 a person who is not quite sure of his road. But 
 you will be.' 
 
 ' I come here because it is so quiet, and one seems 
 to feel the real thing near one.' 
 
 ' If you've found that, you're on the way already.' 
 
 ' Isn't it odd ?' said Willie suddenly. ' I've often
 
 DIFFICULT PATHS 197 
 
 been in Protestant churches, and they never feel like 
 this. They have the same atmosphere as the rest 
 of the world ; but here one's feet are not any more 
 on earth.' 
 
 'Ah, no! this is a joint in the armour of the 
 material world. Where there is a shrine set apart, 
 you know, the other world presses through into this. 
 The curtain of separation is torn : one may get a 
 glimpse of the Vision. That atmosphere which you 
 notice is faith ecstasy the knowledge of spiritual 
 things, which overflows in the soul and affects every- 
 thing which is near it. Catholic sanctuaries are 
 charged with a kind of holy magic. They are so 
 old, so venerable ; their very walls are saturate 
 with God. " Raise the stone, and there thou shalt find 
 Me : cleave the wood, and there am /." But Protes- 
 tants discourage ecstasy. Theirs is the religion of 
 common-sense. They turn their enthusiasm towards 
 work, not towards faith. You will find their 
 churches empty except at the hours of service.' 
 
 ' Yes, I know.' 
 
 ' Even then, you won't find any intimate sense of 
 joy in the congregation. It seems natural to the 
 Englishman to behave coldly and correctly to his 
 God.' 
 
 ' In this church,' said Willie, ' people seem to 
 forget their bodies. They slip away from the grey, 
 ordinary earth, and find an answer to everything 
 in some heaven that's close to them though it's shut 
 to me.'
 
 ig8 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 ' Yes, that's a secret the Church has never lost, 
 even in these blind centuries. But the reformed 
 religions knocked all the poetry out of Christianity. 
 Extraordinary ! One hopes that in the closet of 
 the believer the prayer of passion is still raised and 
 the rapt accomplished : but I'm afraid it's an axiom 
 of the Puritan to be dour, even with the Deity.' 
 
 He looked at Willie carefully and slowly. 
 
 ' But you'll find faith,' he said : ' one can see 
 that. It's there, you know. And your soul is set 
 at an angle which will catch the light, once you're 
 strong enough to tear the Veil away.' 
 
 He smiled at him again as they parted a very 
 friendly smile of sympathy and comfort. Then he 
 turned down a neighbouring street and walked away 
 quickly. Mr. Willie Hopkinson watched the tall, 
 thin figure and bent shoulders till they were out of 
 sight. Then he realized that a new element of con- 
 solation had come to him : that a certainty had been 
 added to his hope. His friend had spoken to him of 
 faith with the quiet balanced conviction with which 
 one accepts the ordinary and indisputable in life. 
 To him it was not less real than sunshine or his 
 bodily raiment and food. In his soul, lit up by an 
 inner light, Willie saw for the first time a reflection 
 of the Beautiful God. 
 
 They never met again ; but he was stronger and 
 happier all his life because of that instant of com- 
 munion.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 A SHARP CORNER 
 
 ' Romance . . . depends on the Soul and not on Upholstery.' 
 JOHN OLIVER HOBBES. 
 
 ' THOSE clever little fingers/ said Mr. Tiddy, ' were 
 made for success.' 
 
 Mildred smiled, and continued to glair the letters 
 upon the back of her book with a steady hand. She 
 wished that she knew how to blush. She found Mr. 
 Tiddy 's vulgarity restful. His slovenly work made 
 her own seem exquisite : his attentions restored the 
 feeling of power which Willie had rudely disturbed. 
 Bertram now shaved three times weekly, and wore 
 his hair short a concession to prejudice which did 
 not suit his style. But his conversation remained 
 on Mildred's level, making Mr. Hopkinson's fre- 
 quent absences from the bindery so many holidays 
 for his fiancee. She could then, as she said, devote 
 herself entirely to her art. 
 
 Mildred despised Willie, and she feared him. She 
 could not forget the horrible confidences which he 
 had made to her, although she had refused to believe 
 
 199
 
 200 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 them. His dreaming eyes, which she once had 
 proudly described as ' not altogether human,' now 
 filled her with terror. But he was her affianced 
 husband ; young men were scarce in Turner's 
 Heath ; she had not sufficient trust in a kindly 
 Providence to bring her engagement to an end. 
 
 Mr. Tiddy, who possessed something of the cun- 
 ning of an experienced fox-terrier, knew how to 
 extract a double advantage from this state of things. 
 He flattered Mildred. He spoke with vague 
 grandeur of his theories of art, and hopes of their 
 future success. Incidentally, he cast an unbecom- 
 ing light on Willie Hopkinson, first as a man and 
 secondly as an artist. Mildred, still at that stage 
 of culture in which it seems clever to be contemp- 
 tuous, was not disgusted by Bertram's hints. They 
 amplified and excused her own thoughts, which 
 were more critical than kindly. 
 
 Her attitude now suggested that she was willing 
 to talk to Mr. Tiddy whilst waiting for her glair to 
 dry. She was a girl who never wasted her time. 
 
 ' I wonder,' she said, ' if I ever shall succeed. It 
 seems so difficult to get one's work well known, 
 doesn't it ? Of course, advertising is horrid. But 
 I've always longed to develop a style of my own, 
 like Sidney Henders, or Miss Delmere, or the Little 
 Gidding people ; so that everyone could recognise 
 my things, you know, and I could exhibit at the 
 Arts and Crafts.' 
 
 ' I bet you anything I'd make your work succeed
 
 A SHARP CORNER 201 
 
 There's a tremendous opening for artistic novelties 
 chic, original, Japanesy things with plenty of 
 colour. All the swell craftsmen are hampered by 
 tradition ; they're afraid of being eccentric. But 
 the public expects artistic things to be eccentric ; 
 it don't understand expensive simplicity. If they 
 have their books bound by artists, people want the 
 price to be moderate, and the design not too artistic 
 to be understood.' 
 
 ' I suppose good work always succeeds in the long- 
 run.' 
 
 ' Not it ! Quaint work does. And that's your 
 line and mine too, for that matter. In these 
 days, one must look at things in a practical light. 
 Dress artistic ; talk artistic. That's all to the good, 
 it impresses people. But don't you get taken in 
 with all that stuff about the beauty of labour and 
 reticence in design. After all, it's the public we've 
 got to look to, and it's our business as artists to 
 make the public take to Art. That's a good enough 
 ideal for me ; and the way to do it is to give people 
 something a bit better than they would have 
 thought of for themselves, not something so 
 artistic that it won't live in a middle-class drawing- 
 room.' 
 
 ' I wish I could get Willie to see it like that so 
 much more sensible, when we've got to live.' 
 
 * You won't. Hopkinson's a different type from 
 you altogether. You're a born craftswoman, Miss 
 Brent. You'll do well if you get a chance. But
 
 202 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 he's got no push : clever, of course, only not in that 
 way. I sized him up directly he came here : one of 
 those dreaming impractical chaps, always worrying 
 about perfection. He's a cross between Carter and 
 a minor poet.' 
 
 ' I'm afraid he doesn't realize how important it is 
 to succeed.' 
 
 ' No,' said Bertram ; ' it's a pity. Seems such a 
 waste. What I feel is, you ought to be in your own 
 little bindery, don't you know ? Somewhere West 
 Kensington way to start with, moving into Blooms- 
 bury when we I mean, when you had got a bit of a 
 connection together. There's hundreds a year in 
 those ideas of yours, your inlay and designing and 
 so on, if the thing was run on a business footing. 
 But I doubt if you'll ever get Hopkinson to consent 
 to it.' 
 
 ' Oh, I can't let him ride rough-shod over all my 
 chances. I'm ambitious. I must develop myself. 
 Because I'm going to marry him, it doesn't follow 
 we think alike.' 
 
 ' Ah, but you wouldn't be able to manage it alone. 
 You wouldn't like to be worried with all the com- 
 mercial details. You want a man to look after you 
 and take all that off your hands. My idea of a 
 small business like that would be, just an artistic 
 industrious fellow and his wife working together, 
 don't you know, with one apprentice perhaps. And 
 no flexible sewing, or revival of antique methods, or 
 any rot like that. I know the swell binders talk a
 
 A SHARP CORNER 203 
 
 lot about it when they're lecturing to amateurs, but 
 it's all bunkum. We'd get all the foreign art 
 magazines, and introduce the new French and 
 German fashions before they got common. That's 
 the way to run a successful bindery you must be 
 arty, and you must be up to date.' 
 
 Mildred sighed. Mr. Tiddy had never appeared 
 to her in a more attractive light. She forgot his 
 sticky hands and her own high ideals, and remem- 
 bered only the agreeable picture suggested by his 
 words. A spray of almond-blossom tapping against 
 the window-pane reminded her that she had now 
 been engaged to Willie for more than a year. She 
 looked back, recollecting her hopes. She looked for- 
 ward, and saw no chance of their fulfilment. She 
 desired admittance to an appreciative, artistic 
 society. But Mr. Hopkinson's very ordinary 
 family treated her with condescension his irritat- 
 ing unworldliness forbade her to expect any con- 
 siderable improvement. 
 
 ' It sounds lovely,' she said to Bertram ; ' and 
 once one got known, I dare say one would get to 
 know Sidney Renders, and the Battersea Press 
 people, and even the Little Gidding Guild. It 
 would be so nice, I think, to be in touch with other 
 artists. In a congenial atmosphere, one develops 
 one's highest powers. But I shall never get Willie 
 to see that : I don't believe he cares a bit whether 
 he's an outsider or in the swim.' 
 
 ' Ah,' replied Bertram, ' I often think, if you won't
 
 204 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 mind my being candid, that it's a pity in some ways 
 that you're engaged to Hopkinson. Best for you, 
 no doubt, but one hates to see a good artist sacri- 
 ficed. I used to fancy once, you know, that you 
 and I might have done some good work together if 
 we'd gone into partnership.' 
 
 ' I'm afraid that would be impossible.' 
 
 ' I know. I'm too late just my luck. I was 
 wrapped up in my work, never saw. But I can't 
 help wondering, if Hopkinson hadn't spoken 
 first ' 
 
 Mr. Tiddy leaned towards Mildred, and looked at 
 her with anxious eyes. She had seen the same 
 expression in those of a well-fed dog who hankers 
 for yet another bone. But she remembered Janet. 
 She could not be sure of his intentions. She drew 
 back. 
 
 Bertram, however, was in earnest. Miss Vivien's 
 enchanting hair might invite to dalliance : Mildred's 
 talents made her desirable as a wife. He would 
 not be rebuffed. He placed a questioning hand 
 upon her arm. 
 
 It is interesting to notice how small are the 
 instruments by which Providence often contrives 
 to effect its ends. Mildred did not intend to behave 
 treacherously towards Willie. She was in the act of 
 telling herself that she had really gone far enough. 
 But the draught caused by Mr. Tiddy's abrupt 
 movement caught the sheet of uncut gold-leaf 
 which lay upon her gilding-cushion, and sent it in
 
 A SHARP CORNER 205 
 
 a fluttering dance across the workshop floor. The 
 traditions of the ' Presse and Ploughe ' were econo- 
 mical. Bertram and Mildred, from force of habit, 
 started in pursuit : he eager to be of use, she proudly 
 unconscious of his assistance. Gold-leaf is a subtle, 
 human, very aggravating thing. It has moods, it 
 is nervous. This sheet, after settling upon a back- 
 ing-board, where it seemed quietly to await capture, 
 rose suddenly in the air as Miss Brent approached 
 it, and fled to the cutting-press, under which it lay 
 perdu for some minutes. But presently its edge, 
 shining amongst the snippings of mill-board and 
 paper, caught her eye. She rushed towards it, a 
 large dab of cotton-wool in her hand, not noticing 
 Mr. Tiddy's simultaneous approach from the oppo- 
 site side of the room. He saw the gold-leaf, bent 
 down, and stretched a long arm tentatively towards 
 it. She stooped, dived under the cutting-press, and 
 found herself on her hands and knees within a few 
 inches of his face. 
 
 Miss Brent's natural fear of knocking her head 
 against the press made quick retreat impossible to 
 her. Her position was too cramped to permit her 
 much liberty of action. There was a slight scuffle. 
 Then she rose from the floor ; flushed, confused, and 
 without the gold-leaf. But she was not disgusted. 
 She was a woman who admired promptitude and 
 resource. Mr. Tiddy had vindicated his man- 
 hood. 
 
 ' Give me another, Millie,' he said.
 
 206 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 Mildred smoothed her hair and looked at him 
 seriously. 
 
 ' Oh, Bertram,' she answered, ' are you sure that 
 it is right ? I can't bear to be cruel to poor Willie. 
 But it's very difficult to know what to do when one's 
 duties conflict. After all, we aren't really suited to 
 one another, are we ? And I feel I ought to think 
 of poor mamma.' 
 
 ***** 
 
 Miss Brent found no difficulty in making Mr. 
 Willie Hopkinson aware that their marriage would 
 not take place. Her love of delicacy in outline had 
 not helped her to appreciate the same quality in 
 human affairs. The luncheon interval seemed to 
 her a fitting moment in which to reveal to him her 
 change of plans. Her sense of design was satisfied 
 by the idea that their engagement would begin and 
 end under the same conditions of background and 
 boundary. It was like a half-drop repeat pattern : 
 circumstances had compelled her to lower herself a 
 little, but otherwise her attitude was unchanged. 
 
 She glowed with womanly virtue as she made his 
 cocoa, and saw that he had his lunch comfortably 
 before dealing a blow which would certainly have 
 destroyed his appetite. She arranged her tools 
 ready for the afternoon's work, took away the cups 
 and washed them. Finally, as he lighted his second 
 cigarette, she came to the point. 
 
 'There's something I've got to tell you, Willie,' 
 she said. ' But I'm afraid you won't like it.'
 
 A SHARP CORNER 207 
 
 Willie started nervously. His father, in a sudden 
 spasm of generosity, had that morning offered him 
 an allowance which would enable him to marry im- 
 mediately. Willie had not yet found a reason at once 
 valid and diplomatic for refusing this inconvenient 
 gift. It did not seem possible that any annoyance 
 emanating from Mildred could equal this. He 
 answered her rather indifferently. 
 
 ' Yes, dear ? What is it ?' 
 
 ' I think perhaps it's better to put it plainly 
 kinder to you. You see, Willie, I've seen for a long 
 time that we weren't really suited to one another. 
 I'm sure you must have noticed it too. And I have 
 my profession to think of and, the fact is, I've 
 decided to marry Bertram Tiddy.' 
 
 * Tiddy ?' said Mr. Hopkinson. 
 
 He had controlled with difficulty a spontaneous 
 movement of relief and surprise when he perceived 
 the origin of Mildred's embarrassment. His first 
 feeling was gratitude to his deliverer ; but this was 
 overwhelmed by a natural disgust caused by 
 Mildred's want of proper feeling. He thought that 
 he could have trusted her to realize that his sup- 
 planter must, at any rate, be a gentleman. 
 
 ' Oh, I know he's common and he can't draw. I 
 shall have to put up with that. There's always 
 something to put up with. But, you see, he's 
 human. Your kisses make my blood run cold, they 
 seem to come from such a long way off.' 
 
 ' I quite understand.'
 
 208 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 ' Oh, do you ? I hope you do. I wouldn't like 
 you to think I had behaved meanly. You see, 
 Bertram really requires me. He says I do him 
 good. When I'm with you, you do all the im- 
 proving, and that bores me. I didn't think it 
 would, but that was my want of experience. Now 
 I do feel that I shall be improving Bertram all the 
 time, and as he's given me the opportunity it is no 
 more than my duty to do it.' 
 
 ' From your point of view, I dare say you're 
 right.' 
 
 ' Yes, well, my point of view, after all, is what 
 I've got to go by. And when one recognises one 
 has made a mistake, it's more honest to say so, 
 isn't it ? My temperament isn't like yours, and 
 however much I might care for you, I feel we should 
 never get on. I'm not a gentle doormat sort of 
 woman. I must express myself. Art's what I 
 care for really Art and life. And I feel if I only 
 get my opportunity I could do something at that, 
 and so does Bertram. There's a great future in 
 Arts and Crafts, but one must look at it from a 
 practical point of view. And I've got poor mamma 
 to consider. And, of course, I always saw that 
 your people didn't really like me, and I have some 
 pride ' 
 
 Willie was not listening. He was released with 
 honour from an unendurable situation, and his one 
 desire was for active flight. He stretched out eager 
 hands towards air, light, freedom : towards re-
 
 A SHARP CORNER 209 
 
 admission to the privacies of his own soul. Mil- 
 dred's companionship had always entailed a certain 
 spiritual stuffiness. 
 
 Miss Brent, watching his face, admired his courage. 
 She was sure that he adored her : was surprised that 
 he concealed his sorrow so well. She did not wish 
 to be unkind, and attributing to him her own love 
 of emotional garnishings, she touched him gently 
 on the arm. 
 
 * Would you like to kiss me good-bye ?' she 
 said. 
 
 He started. He had been thinking of other 
 things. 
 
 * No, thanks ' he answered shortly, and walked 
 out of the place. 
 
 ' Poor Willie !' murmured Mildred.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 INCIPIT VITA NOVA 
 
 ' The Beautiful is essentially the Spiritual making itself known 
 sensuously.' HEGEL. 
 
 ALL things have their price. Mr. Willie Hopkinson 
 paid in mortification for his freedom. Everyone 
 pitied him an insufferable thing. Sometimes, how- 
 ever, he pitied himself, for Mildred had preferred 
 Mr. Tiddy before him, and this was a humiliating 
 thought. 
 
 It had been his conviction that he was superior 
 to his surroundings. They were impermanent ; 
 deceiving and deceived. His soul was eternal. 
 Few of his friends appreciated the distinction ; but 
 that he attributed to the ignorance in which he 
 chose to keep them. And though experience now 
 compelled him to acknowledge the existence of 
 forces, even in the time-process, which were greater 
 than himself, these had formed no part of his relation 
 with Mildred Brent. He had been superior to her, 
 and he knew it. He had admired his own constancy, 
 sometimes regretted it. She, in discarding him, 
 
 210
 
 INCIPIT VITA NOVA 211 
 
 had released him from a strain which he had long 
 known to be unpleasant even inimical to his 
 spiritual growth : but approving the end, he found 
 it difficult to justify means so wounding to his 
 vanity. 
 
 Stephen and Pauline offered him a tactless and 
 heartfelt commiseration which inflamed his already 
 tender self-respect. They hid as well as they might 
 their own raptures, not wishing to suggest painful 
 parallels with his immediate past. Pauline, for the 
 first time in her life, felt able to understand her 
 brother. A broken engagement appealed to her 
 as a solid and reasonable ground for mental distress. 
 
 ' Poor old Will !' she said. ' It is hard luck ! 
 And you were so devoted to her. I can't think 
 how a girl can be such a beast.' 
 
 Stephen, with real unselfishness, deprived himself 
 of Pauline's society, and took his friend for long 
 walks, encouraging him to talk of his grief. But 
 Willie's very actual miseries were not those which 
 Mr. Miller could best comprehend. His chief 
 torments arose from a humiliating inability to grasp 
 the principle which guided his devious career. 
 Life seemed to lay traps for his spirit. One after 
 another, hopeful paths failed him, and he came 
 wearily back to the endless road. Elsa Mildred 
 Stephen each name brought the memory of 
 fresh discouragements. These had offered com- 
 prehension and companionship, but they had failed. 
 
 To Stephen, perhaps, the Real World had some 
 
 14 2
 
 212 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 actuality. His love for Pauline raised him in some 
 mysterious way above the sordid scamper after 
 material success. He looked out on a dreamy 
 earth with contented eyes, and breathed a serene 
 and satisfying air. But the others only toyed with 
 the symbols of transcendent truth, and their careless 
 agnosticism clouded Willie's perceptions. 
 
 He had travelled far from the child who had 
 prayed for a return at any price to the adventure of 
 life : from the boy who had looked out on existence 
 as a game to be played lightly, a pageant to be 
 watched. The dark night of his soul was upon 
 him. He felt spiritual realities slipping away, 
 yet the pleasures of life seemed savourless and dull. 
 All was unreal ; nothing was worth effort. Even 
 in the holy places he found no peace. He remem- 
 bered the words of the young man of Our Lady of 
 Pity, but told himself that faith was only one 
 illusion the more. 
 
 It was to Elsa, long-suffering and secretly joyful, 
 that he now poured out his mixed emotions. She 
 had got her boy back again. She cared nothing 
 for the twisted paths by which he had come. He 
 was relieved jealous despondent. Her attitude 
 towards each angle was correct. This was a part 
 which she played to perfection, and she was delighted 
 to have the opportunity. 
 
 ' There is,' she said, ' such an exquisite pleasure 
 in pain ! Many of our greatest poets have noticed 
 that. I could almost envy you your suffering.
 
 INCIPIT VITA NOVA 213 
 
 To suffer for love ! Oh, believe me, dear Willie, 
 this is much better than to marry for it. Yours is 
 indeed the more beautiful part.' 
 
 ' I'm so confused,' said Willie, ' so wretched ! I 
 don't know what's beautiful or what's real. It 
 isn't love that makes me unhappy it's the weary 
 not knowing what to do. There must be some aim 
 in life that's genuine, some experience that won't 
 fail when one tries it.' 
 
 Elsa had one restful characteristic. She never 
 asked for explanations. She accepted Willie's 
 words as evidence of his abundant imagination, 
 stroked his hair, and sent him to the National 
 Gallery her one prescription for agitations of the 
 soul. 
 
 A subtle sense of the fitness of things had kept 
 him from seeking the consolations of religion ; 
 Elsa's suggestion was a compromise which pleased 
 him. He had a grateful recollection of those very 
 silent rooms, watched by brooding Madonnas, by 
 still gods, dream-portraits of personalities long ago 
 released from the fret of life. 
 
 He went there melancholy, feverish, impatient. 
 He hurried through the turnstile, up the stairs, pushed 
 open the door which leads to the great Tuscan room. 
 But as it closed behind him, the healing process 
 began. Something arrested him on the threshold 
 a restraining touch, a feeling that he was seeking 
 with ungracious intention admittance to a company 
 of friends. The quiet festival of colour on the
 
 214 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 walls seemed an invitation to some serious kind 
 of happiness for which he was unprepared. The 
 influence of beauty imposed its peace on him, as 
 great communities always impose their etiquette : 
 he felt that in such society one could not grumble 
 of one's petty griefs. The place was full of the 
 calmness, the ineffable hush, which belongs to 
 transcendental things. It filled him with a grave 
 delight. No sound of voices, no sense of human 
 fellowship : only the repeated echo of footsteps 
 upon the wide spaces of the polished floor. 
 
 There were other persons in the gallery, I think. 
 A superior woman leading a meek, tired friend, 
 and murmuring of L'Amico di Sandro and the 
 Early Sienese. A curate, polite to the Madonnas, 
 but coldly observant of the lesser saints. A pair 
 of happy foreigners, for whom the place had all the 
 glamour which the Uffizi and the Louvre keep for 
 us. It did not matter. A great wall shut them 
 from Mr. Willie Hopkinson. Only the pictures 
 broke his solitude. 
 
 He sat down presently before that very lovely 
 panel which is called ' The Madonna adoring the 
 Infant Christ.' Its ceremonious beauty caught 
 his eye ; the ardour of its emotion held him fast. 
 The peculiar fascinations of Florentine piety, at 
 once so mystical, reasonable, and austere, come 
 together in this picture in its joyous purity of 
 line, the intimate holiness of its atmosphere, the 
 strange majesty of the rapt Madonna, who sits with
 
 INCIPIT VITA NOVA 215 
 
 hands folded in prayer and looks silently down 
 on her Son. The wistful angels who lean against 
 the sides of her throne are hushed by her intense 
 stillness. They are spiritual persons, who cannot 
 understand the earthly love which blends Mother 
 and worshipper in one. One turns a dreamy face 
 to her, asking explanation of the mystery : but she, 
 in an ecstasy of contemplation, scarcely knows of 
 their presence. She dreams above her child, lying 
 very helplessly and gladly upon its mother's knee 
 as all that is holy in us lies upon the lap of Perfect 
 Beauty. 
 
 Willie sat opposite this picture for a very long 
 time, and looked ; steadily, intently, without con- 
 scious thought. In the face of Our Lady was infinite 
 promise, infinite peace. As he watched her, some- 
 thing unearthly, something remote from life, laid 
 its quieting hand upon him. These things had 
 not been conceived in the petty agitations of ordinary 
 life. The Beyond had been at their birth, and left 
 token of its presence. A door seemed to open : an 
 unspeakable sensation warned him that he was 
 lifted up past the boundary of grey illusion. 
 
 * Donna, se' tanto grande e tanto vali, 
 
 Che qual vuol grazia, ed a te non ricorre, 
 Sua disianza vuol volar senz' ali.' 
 
 These words recurred to Mr. Willie Hopkinson, 
 and brought with them new, undreamed significance. 
 A master-key, it seems, may unlock the gates of 
 many mansions. Those who have once prostrated
 
 216 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 themselves before Invisible Powers have gained a 
 perception which is never lost. For the first time, 
 he detected a truth behind the absurdity of Elsa's 
 dictum that prie-dieux ought to be placed before 
 the master-pieces of devotional art. The National 
 Gallery, she said, always made her want to say 
 her prayers. To Willie, now, there came that 
 sensation of real worlds and unknown splendours 
 very near, which had descended on him when he 
 knelt before the Altar of the Holy Spirit. He 
 discovered, as he had done when he wandered in 
 the Grey Dimension, that one has only to turn 
 one's eyes resolutely from Earth to lose its obsessing 
 influence. It is the downward glance that anchors 
 us to the world of sense. 
 
 Mrs. Levi's favourite catch-words came back to 
 him ' Ultimate Beauty,' * life-enhancing qualities 
 of art,' * spiritual significance of Italian Painting ' 
 phrases to which he had never attached definite 
 meaning. But this face, this picture which had 
 worked a miracle in his tormented spirit, gave to 
 them a sudden vitality. He saw, wondering at 
 his past blindness, that it was above all things 
 strange and significant that things should be 
 beautiful at all. The ecstasy induced in him by 
 loveliness had no relation to the necessities of human 
 life. It was inexplicable. The ritual of light and 
 colour veiled, as it adorned, inconceivable secrets. 
 
 He asked himself what indeed could be the spirit 
 of loveliness if it were not a penetration of the
 
 INCIPIT VITA NOVA 217 
 
 Visible by the Real : the link between Truth and 
 Idea for which he had been groping all his life. 
 This thought he naturally imagined to be as original 
 as it was profound, and pride of invention modified 
 the crushing power of its truth. Beauty seemed to 
 offer him an assurance of exquisite realities, to be 
 given to those who desired them in faith and in love. 
 
 He looked at the quiet pictures at the angels 
 in their mystical dance before the manger ; at 
 the gentle faun who knelt by Procris, weeping 
 that so much loveliness should have been taken 
 from life. They seemed to him so many windows 
 built towards heaven. He had a new vision of 
 the world. He saw it as a shadow cast by Divine 
 Beauty a loveliness of which material beauty was 
 the sacrament, the faint image thrown by God on 
 the mirror of sense. In the Madonna he found 
 the symbol of a reconciling principle, looking lovingly 
 upon humanity, which it cherished and fed. Her 
 manifestation was earthly enough : an illusion built 
 up of paint and panel by some man held, as he 
 was held, a prisoner in Time and Space. But her 
 powers stretched into the Invisible. He wondered 
 whence the vision had come which inspired the 
 secret of her picture. 
 
 Then it occurred to him that the soul, in him 
 conscious and perceptive, must exist in all men : 
 obscure, mysterious, withdrawn from the squalid 
 battle. Beyond the threshold of consciousness 
 that unsuspected visitor sits, looking with steady
 
 218 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 eyes upon the eternal light. That light shone in 
 these pictures. It seemed possible that in their 
 creation the soul, which saw beyond the illusions 
 of Time, had guided the artist's hand to some great 
 purpose. Their message was the message of the 
 churches, translated to a language which he could 
 understand. He had found a religion. He recog- 
 nised that the inarticulate ecstasy which came to 
 him in the presence of all beautiful things was the 
 same in essence as that emotion which he felt in 
 Our Lady of Pity another way of approach to 
 the same God. 
 
 There are few more compelling confessors than 
 a great work of art. Willie looked still at the 
 Madonna, and the small details which obscure the 
 issues of life fell away from him. He regained the 
 power, long lost, of detecting fact in the midst of 
 illusion. He looked back down the years, and 
 was annoyed to find little in them that was worth 
 notice. It was a petty record a matter of drifting 
 and discontent. That, too, had been the note of 
 the Grey World : it seemed that his pretension 
 of knowledge had not enabled him to escape its 
 grasp. He remembered how he had broken the 
 spell of that Dimension the intensity of desire 
 which had thrown him back again on life. 
 
 The will which had done that miracle was still with 
 him. He asked himself how it was that he did not 
 exert it, did not set it to the realization of reality, 
 instead of stopping every moment to consider the
 
 INCIPIT VITA NOVA 219 
 
 chances of the road. He was twenty- three years 
 old ; a fully developed being. Yet he had allowed 
 every influence to have power over his actions, had 
 no dominant motive, no hope in his life. 
 
 There had been places, he knew, at which he 
 had seen the faint outlines of happy countries, 
 had caught a glimpse of the Delectable Mountains 
 shining in the sun. For their sake he had set out 
 upon his pilgrimage a pilgrimage which might 
 have offered him visions of beautiful landscape, 
 and the bow of promise in the clouds, had he given 
 his attention to the horizon instead of to the dust 
 under his feet. He gathered up and compared 
 the fragments of his knowledge. In the fret of 
 work and passion, the old true outlines had grown 
 dim. In the early years, terror of the after-death, 
 of an eternity spent in the languid miseries of the 
 Grey World, had driven him to search for truth. 
 Now he fancied that Love might have been a 
 worthier motive than fear, a better companion for 
 the quest. There had been a certain meanness 
 in his scramble after personal salvation, which 
 sufficiently explained its non-success. 
 
 The adorable face of Our Lady shone as a favour- 
 able light at the end of a dark road. The reality 
 at the back of the picture was speaking to him ; 
 telling him of exquisite places of the spirit to 
 which he might aspire. He asked himself how 
 he stood in relation to this universe, which strove 
 towards Beauty as the realization of itself. In a
 
 220 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 spasm of self-knowledge, he saw his years in their 
 petty ugliness, saw that he had done nothing 
 with them, had not raised himself above the hope- 
 less herd. He had stayed on the level, sneering 
 at his equals. Now, with the clear sight of the 
 newly-converted, he perceived how great had been 
 his spiritual stupidity. He was disgusted with 
 himself. The mountain road had been close to 
 him all the time, and above him the austere majesty 
 of the hill-tops. 
 
 ' Oh, to climb !' he cried. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 Mrs. Hopkinson heard him that night sobbing 
 in his room very bitterly. She told Mrs. Levi 
 about it. 
 
 ' Quite hysterical !' she said. ' I nearly went 
 in to him with the sal volatile, but I thought perhaps 
 he wouldn't like to think I'd heard him boys are 
 so absurdly sensitive about those things. That 
 horrid girl has evidently upset his nerves more 
 than he'd allow.' 
 
 ' A thorough change of scene,' said Elsa, ' is 
 what he really wants. In contemplating the 
 Beautiful, we forget our earthly griefs. And he 
 can't go back to the bindery whilst that creature 
 is there.' 
 
 ' No, indeed,' replied Mrs. Hopkinson. ' Poor 
 boy ! I'm only thankful he found her out in time. 
 She would have made him a wretched wife ; full 
 of modern ideas, and absolutely undomesticated.
 
 INCIPIT VITA NOVA 221 
 
 It's quite pulled him down, one can see that. I 
 think we must really try if we can't send him away 
 for a little change : all the doctors are recommending 
 sunshine and fresh air for the nerves.' 
 
 It was Elsa who discovered the method of his 
 pilgrimage a personally conducted tour for pro- 
 fessional men and others, ' A Fortnight with Saint 
 Francis for 13 ios.' Taking its charges as far as 
 Perugia, it there allowed them to wander at will. 
 
 * Nothing could be better for him than that,' 
 said Mrs. Levi. ' Italy has such a wonderful 
 effect upon the soul. Exquisite climate ; and then 
 the associations ! Francis and Claire, and the 
 beautiful wicked Baglione ! And Perugino, of 
 course. Florence is so hackneyed : and Rome 
 well, Rome is Rome.' 
 
 ' Yes, you can't do Rome under 25,' said Mr. 
 Hopkinson. 
 
 It was thus that Willie found Umbria.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE DELECTABLE MOUNTAINS 
 
 ' What more beautiful image of the Divine could there be 
 than this world, except the world yonder ? PLOTINUS. 
 
 IN Umbria, where little hills reach up towards the 
 kiss of God, bearing her small white cities nearer 
 heaven : in Umbria, clothed with olive-woods where 
 Francis walked, and crowned by turrets of the 
 Ghibelline, there is a Peace of God eternally estab- 
 lished. In this country, long beloved of the dreamy 
 arts, spirits wearied by dark journey ings may still 
 feel the quieting touch of Immanent Peace. Yet the 
 soul of Umbria is as the soul of a very melancholy 
 queen. The nostalgia of the distant descends on the 
 hearts of her lovers, giving them a delicate sadness 
 not easily to be effaced. Her very breezes seem to 
 come from far off, charged with the murmur of dim 
 memories. But the joy of a wonderful passion 
 transfigures her regret. In her, the image of the 
 Delectable Country, in whose likeness Earth was once 
 made, is still to be apprehended. 
 
 On the walls of the city of Spello, high up on the 
 222
 
 THE DELECTABLE MOUNTAINS 223 
 
 hill between Foligno and Assisi, Mr. Willie Hopkin- 
 son sat, dreamed, and contemplated the world from 
 a new standpoint. He looked down into the mar- 
 vellous valley which has known the footsteps of so 
 many saints. He enjoyed, with a vague but very 
 serious delight, its exquisite cadences of blue and 
 green, the magical light that hangs over it, the old 
 dim roads that pattern its fields and vineyards into 
 the semblance of some faded tessellated work. 
 
 Three hundred feet below him, the little Roman 
 amphitheatre was a round shadow on the grass. 
 Young and happy verdures had buried its ancient 
 cruelties in the secret earth. The Etruscan blocks 
 that he sat upon had been in their position perhaps 
 two thousand years. They had remained for de- 
 fence, as their dark-eyed, voluptuous builders had 
 left them : had seen the Romans come and go, had 
 watched the Northern emperors on their march to 
 Rome, the Popes going up to Perugia. Finally, 
 they had seen the patriot come, and the poetry of 
 Italy fade under his fingers. In their old age they 
 were very stately. Man, creeping under their 
 shadow or perched upon their height, seemed some 
 ephemeral insect. 
 
 Yet, under that vivid sky, in an atmosphere where 
 all things are fresh and definite and the air sings the 
 hymn of Brother Sun, Willie could not believe in 
 antiquity. He felt that he looked out on a world 
 which always had existed, always would exist, and 
 he with it : for the only real existence was in Beauty,
 
 224 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 and Beauty was eternal. He had quite forgotten 
 Mildred Elsa his home the slow grey life he 
 must return to when this happy fortnight was done. 
 These things had never had a very real importance for 
 him ; but whilst he knew them to be illusion, he had 
 not been able to shake them off. He had felt them 
 as a shadowy net, confusing and confining. In the 
 sunshine of Italy they seemed tedious accidents. 
 She was real, potent. She completed for him the 
 vision of life first dimly seen in Our Lady of Pity, 
 intensely felt in the National Gallery when the 
 Tuscan Madonna spoke to him of peace. 
 
 The Umbrian landscape is essentially religious. It 
 fulfils the message of the Church, the revelation of 
 the painters. He knew that it had symbolic import, 
 some bearing on the transcendental life : that 
 atheism and despair were impossible in its presence. 
 
 He looked back down the path towards the town 
 and saw, through the little Roman arch which spans 
 the road, a group of people coming up to him. He 
 was sorry. He had enjoyed his solitary hour. But 
 Mr. and Mrs. Finchley supposed that he was sight- 
 seeing. They felt that it was their duty to miss 
 nothing of interest, and they had followed him. 
 
 They headed a procession representative of the 
 population of Spello : several unpleasant beggars ; 
 many children ; a woman bearing a jar on her 
 head, whose face, poise, figure suggested a Tanagra 
 statuette. Mrs. Finchley was trying to photograph 
 her ; but an old man with no nose, and hands in an
 
 THE DELECTABLE MOUNTAINS 225 
 
 advanced state of decomposition, insisted on placing 
 himself in the foreground. 
 
 The Rev. John Finchley, who had a fussy manner 
 and no Italian, seemed unhappy. 
 
 ' Horrible place, this,' he said to Willie as soon as 
 he came within earshot ' a disgrace to the authori- 
 ties ! We found the frescoes, but they weren't up 
 to much : and they were cleaning the floor of the 
 church, which was most unpleasant. I'm afraid my 
 wife's got her feet damp.' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Mrs. Finchley. ' But still, I liked 
 them better than those things at Montefalco 
 they were Bible incidents, not those everlasting 
 saints.' 
 
 ' Saints seem natural here,' said Willie. 
 
 ' Yes, I suppose they are ; one must expect that 
 in Roman Catholic countries. But I can never get 
 really used to them : they seem to me such wicked 
 creatures ! It's the way I was brought up, I sup- 
 pose. And to think of praying to them !' 
 
 ' It's a great pity,' said her husband, ' that the 
 Protestant religion hasn't produced any great 
 artists. They would have painted the truths of 
 Evangelical Christianity, and prevented Popish 
 art attracting so much attention. These Romanist 
 subjects are harmful to weak minds ; they promote 
 idolatry. Of course, the reason is that our great 
 thinkers have been engaged with the higher aspects 
 of things, and had no attention left for outward 
 display.' 
 
 15
 
 226 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 ' A spiritual religion scarcely needs pictures, does 
 it, dear ?' said Mrs. Finchley. 
 
 Willie sighed, looked at her figure short skirt and 
 Panama hat clearly outlined against the delicate 
 Perugino landscape and supposed his happy day 
 was at an end. He had suffered a good deal from 
 the Finchleys since leaving England in their com- 
 pany nine days before. 
 
 Now they would drive back to Perugia, Mr. Finchley 
 speaking of the political condition of the country, 
 his wife much occupied by the private history of her 
 fellow-tourists at the hotel. He wanted so much 
 another hour of solitude, of secret conversation with 
 the spirit which Umbria had knit up for him out of 
 loveliness and antiquity. 
 
 Mr. Finchley looked at his watch. 
 
 ' Half-past two !' he said. ' And you wanted to 
 photograph Rivo Torto on the way back, didn't you, 
 dear ? and I promised to hold a little service in the 
 hotel drawing-room at six. We must be starting 
 back. Perhaps, Mr. Hopkinson, you wouldn't mind 
 telling the coachman to whip up the horse a bit more 
 than he did coming : in Italian, of course. It 
 walked up all the hills.' 
 
 It was at this moment that Willie discovered that 
 an afternoon spent in the society of the Finchleys 
 was impossible to him. 
 
 ' I think, if you don't mind,' he said, * I shall walk 
 back. It's under ten miles, and you will go quicker 
 with only two in the carriage.'
 
 THE DELECTABLE MOUNTAINS 227 
 
 ' Oh, do you think you ought, Mr. Hopkinson ?' 
 answered Mrs. Finchley. ' You look tired already, 
 I'm afraid you do too much ; and your mother 
 warned me that you weren't very strong. It's no 
 use over-exerting one's self, is it ? and the mental 
 strain of seeing so many new things is dreadfully 
 exhausting.' 
 
 She was a thin, active little woman, like a brown 
 grasshopper ; very good-natured, and devoted to her 
 husband and her camera. She and Mrs. Hopkinson 
 had been schoolfellows, and both thought the co- 
 incidence which enabled her to take charge of Willie 
 a fortunate one. But a week of travel had given a 
 touch of decision to Mr. Willie Hopkinson's rather 
 fluid character. He was polite but firm with Mrs. 
 Finchley. These days were sudden jewels set in the 
 dull circlet of his life. He dared not waste them. The 
 white roads, the lanes that went between the olives, 
 were sending him a mystic invitation. He would 
 tramp with the Lady Poverty, as S. Francis did. 
 
 From the ancient market-place, where a twelfth- 
 century Madonna stands above the Roman gate 
 to bless her citizens, he saw the carriage start. 
 Its occupants had no farewell to offer Spello ; they 
 were carefully shielding the camera from dust and 
 sun. He looked back gratefully to the grey walls, 
 the friendly clambering streets with their Gothic 
 houses, and went down alone into the valley of the 
 Tiber. 
 
 ' The broad road that stretches ' took him to its 
 
 152
 
 228 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 bosom. The symbolic attitude of the traveller on 
 the highway set the tune of his thoughts. He 
 walked firmly, steadily, with a growing exhilaration. 
 Blue sky, white blossoming trees, were as wine to 
 his heightened perceptions. He smiled happily as 
 he caught sight of Assisi, folded pale against her 
 hill like an angel at rest. He felt himself to be, not 
 any more the man in the world, but the pilgrim soul 
 footing it between the stars. He was walking alone, 
 sturdily self-dependent, through exquisite landscape 
 towards an appointed goal. That, surely, should be 
 his life. That was life a journey upon the great 
 highway of the world towards an abiding city : a 
 journey to be taken joyfully and in gratitude because 
 of the beauty of the road. 
 
 He conceived now of the world, of the body, as 
 momentary conditions in the infinite progress of the 
 spirit. Used rightly, a discipline, an initiation ; 
 used wrongly, a peril whose deeps he had once 
 known. His idealism had come to this ; to a 
 guarded, tolerant acquiescence in the queer dis- 
 torting medium of his senses, a willingness within 
 limits to accept their reports. But it was the 
 holy, the beautiful aspect of things that he asked 
 them to show him. That was significant, true. 
 No illusion of time and space, but an eternal thing 
 which it was the very business of matter to shadow 
 forth, the duty of that pilgrim soul in him to appre- 
 hend. One must not arrive at the Continuing City 
 deaf and blind to the music and radiance, obsessed
 
 THE DELECTABLE MOUNTAINS 229 
 
 by the incident worries of life. That was to have 
 passed through the Great University in vain. 
 
 Willie was beginning to recover from the disease 
 of spiritual self-seeking which had crippled his first 
 years. He had seen at last the face of the Great 
 Companion. He knew what he wanted ; the con- 
 stant presence of that mysterious guide, the constant 
 assurance of a strange but enduring amity. He had 
 come to the second, or illuminative, stage of the 
 journey : for his way, after all, had been the old 
 mystic's way. There is no other practicable path 
 for those who are determined on reality, who have 
 found out the gigantic deception we accept as the 
 visible world, the gigantic foolishness of our comfort- 
 able common-sense. 
 
 The old formula came back to his mind : 
 ' Purgation, Illumination, Contemplation ' the 
 three stages of the Via Mystica, acknowledged by 
 all the masters who had trod it, the explorers 
 who had left notes of its geography behind. This 
 trinity of experience seemed to co-relate in some 
 way with the triune vision of reality ' The triple 
 star of Goodness, Truth, and Beauty ' promised 
 to those who attained its highest stage. In his 
 wanderings, apparently so devious, he had followed 
 the old lines very exactly. He looked back on 
 his feverish years : his poor efforts to grasp some 
 detail of the shadow show as it passed him, and make 
 it real for himself. He remembered his terrified 
 search for safety, the Mildred episode and its humilia-
 
 230 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 tions, the hope that his first meeting with Stephen 
 had brought : lastly, the quest of security amongst 
 the Mysteries of Catholic belief. He recognised in 
 the slow abasement of his spirit, the gradual re- 
 nunciation of pride involved in each failure, a 
 purging of the eye of the soul that it might look with 
 understanding on a clearer prospect. 
 
 All, it was evident, could not tread the same road. 
 The idealizing power of his love for Pauline had made 
 a breach for Stephen in the ' flaming rampart of the 
 world ' : the Secret of the Altar offered a sure and 
 certain hope to its initiates. But tor Willie the 
 shadow of an Everlasting No was across those paths. 
 His way of escape lay through another gateway. 
 
 Climbing the steep lane between the olive groves 
 in the silent heat of an Italian afternoon, everything 
 seemed rather supernatural in its loveliness. He 
 came to a shrine, where a faint Umbrian Madonna 
 held out her Child to the traveller : and stopped to 
 thank the Unknown God who had framed for his joy 
 this wonderful Rose of the World. Each moment 
 brought its miracle, in the further opening of those 
 mystic petals. He had glimpses of all the worlds, 
 the holy, elfish, dark, and terrible countries which 
 are folded together to form the bewildering appear- 
 ance which civilized persons call solid fact. Some 
 resolving power in him separated these aspects of 
 things, and set his feet in a magical place where all he 
 saw and felt had the glamour of a fairy land in- 
 extricably entwined in this. So that he was not very
 
 THE DELECTABLE MOUNTAINS 231 
 
 surprised when, at a bend of the road, he came pre- 
 sently on a wayfarer of another century, left behind 
 by the ebbing tide of poetic faith. 
 
 A brown-frocked Franciscan trod the path very 
 soberly before him, unconscious of the road and of 
 company upon it. His eyes were on the open book 
 he carried : it was evident that his thoughts were 
 far away from the dust and the sun. Willie, easily 
 touched by the subtle charm of the religious habit, 
 said ' Buona sera ' very pleasantly as he passed. 
 
 ' Grazie, signore ; e buon passeggio,' replied the 
 friar mechanically. 
 
 He continued reading, his lips moving busily as if 
 in voiceless prayer. But as Willie's shadow fell 
 across his book, he raised a brown, ill-shaven face, 
 and looked at him. His eye took in the contours of 
 Mr. Hopkinson's strictly patriotic dress, and rested 
 approvingly on his hat. It seemed that, like most 
 persons who lived a cloistered life, he was interested 
 in small detail. 
 
 1 Teh ! un' Inglese /' he said joyfully. ' If the 
 signore would have the goodness to assist me a little 
 in the pronunciation ?' 
 
 He held out his book. It was perfumed with 
 garlic, and in general want of repair. Mr. Hopkin- 
 son, expecting a Breviary, observed the title with 
 surprise, ' La Lingua Inglese in tre Mesi Gram- 
 matica, Vocabolario, Idiomi? 
 
 The little friar placed an odorous and insinuating 
 head close to Willie's shoulder, and fell into step with
 
 232 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 him. He pointed to a tired-looking page of charac- 
 teristic English puzzles * Bough,' 'cough,' 'bought,' 
 'enough.' Escape was impossible. Willie, half an- 
 noyed, half captivated by the oddness of the thing, 
 said the words over slowly ; and this queer little son 
 of S. Francis, twisting his tongue into strange posi- 
 tions, parodied him as well as he could. He also 
 offered for criticism several obscure sentences, 
 recognisable with care as British forms of speech. 
 Anxious not to lose an instant of this precious 
 opportunity, he grew very hot and breathless in the 
 effort to combine hill-climbing with irregular verbs. 
 It was evident that he was much in earnest. 
 
 To Willie, the situation seemed a paradox ; absurd 
 enough, yet with a certain irony at its heart. This 
 friar, marked with the ensigns of a religious life, was 
 living there in the cradle of his Order an existence 
 which could scarcely avoid the fringe of Invisible 
 Things. Yet all his heart was put in a struggle to 
 acquire the language of a people so far behind his 
 spiritual ancestors in all that. The very life he led 
 that temperate, ordered life of the Franciscan 
 Observant must place him on a hill which was not 
 very far from heaven. But his most ambitious 
 dream was of a scrambling down from that quiet 
 altitude into the busy, noisy valley of the world. 
 
 ' Is it by command of your Order that you learn 
 English ?' said Willie presently. 
 
 ' No, signore. I learn it because I wish to live to 
 improve myself for the glory of the blessed S.
 
 THE DELECTABLE MOUNTAINS 233 
 
 Francis. But in the convent there are indiscreet 
 ones, who would say " Fra Agostino wishes to make 
 himself wiser than his brothers." So it is only when 
 I go into Spello to get a newspaper for the Father 
 Superior that I can study a little of the grammatica 
 on the road.' 
 
 ' I can't think why you should want to learn it. 
 It isn't beautiful, like Italian I would forget it if 
 I could.' 
 
 ' Ah, signor mio? said Fra Agostino, ' one must 
 study the world the good God has given us, must one 
 not ? And to know all the excellencies He has given 
 it, one must truly know the English, for it is from 
 England that now all the new things come. The 
 more one knows, the more one will love ; and 
 S. Francis laid on us the duty of loving all things. 
 So, to study the English language is a true opera 
 di devozione. It is that I may daily thank the good 
 God for all the interesting things he has placed in the 
 world. The English are so strong, so modern. In 
 Italia, all is old, nothing moves.' 
 
 'Oh,' said Willie, ' we may be modern, but we 
 don't understand things ; we haven't religion, and 
 the sense of beautiful living, innate in us as you must 
 have here. We have to come to Italy to find the 
 real loveliness, the old spirit left over from the happy 
 days of the world.' 
 
 ' If the signore were Italian he would not speak 
 thus,' said Fra Agostino. He was trotting steadily 
 by Willie's side, a moist forefinger carefully keeping
 
 234 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 his place in the grammar-book. ' In Italy is only 
 the old things, the remnant : in England is fertility, 
 growth ; and liberty even for the religious. The 
 signore is like the English signora who was here two 
 years back. She loved our Italy. In Italy, she said, 
 the soul lives. She was surprised, too, that I should 
 wish to learn the English. She called it turning my 
 back on heaven. She came here for beautiful 
 thoughts, being an artist ; for it is true that Italy is 
 the mother of artists. In England, she said, she 
 had no inspiration. But veda, signore, she returned 
 home, and she has sent an Ancona for our chapel. 
 She painted it, altogether in the ancient manner, in 
 her cell in England. She lives there alone ; she is 
 an anchoress. In Italy, there is none who could have 
 painted that picture. The English are great artists, 
 a great people also. I will show the signore, and he 
 can judge.' 
 
 They had come now to the gate of the convent. 
 They crossed the courtyard, went into the little 
 church. It was very bare truly a mendicant sanc- 
 tuary. Crude coloured statues of S. Francis and 
 S. Anthony contrasted painfully with the white- 
 washed brickwork, the rough wooden stalls of the 
 choir. The cheap ornaments and artificial flowers 
 of the altar, jarred senses which had come straight 
 from the exquisite shrine of the earth where Nature 
 offers her sacrifice. Fra Agostino walked up the 
 only aisle, and Willie after him. The place seemed 
 dark after the sunshine, and they were at the altar-
 
 THE DELECTABLE MOUNTAINS 235 
 
 step before he saw the picture that was behind the 
 Holy Table. 
 
 It was not, as he had vaguely expected, a stigma- 
 tized S. Francis, or an Anthony of Padua dreaming 
 on the Infant Christ. What he saw was a woman's 
 figure ; spare, simple, ugly almost, in its short torn 
 canvas dress that showed the bare feet worn by long 
 travelling. Behind her was the dim green Umbrian 
 landscape, as it stretches out from S. Mary of the 
 Angels. Round her head, a cloud of wheeling birds 
 made a halo ; and within the halo a vision of the 
 Cross. But what struck him most was a reticence 
 of handling, which suggested behind the plain lines 
 of the picture an ineffable peace, the secret of a 
 complete inward happiness. This woman held out 
 thin delicate hands in a sort of compelling welcome 
 to her lovers. Her personality was the climax, the 
 essential charm, of the place : so that it really seemed 
 as if all who approached that altar must come to her 
 arms. 
 
 Fra Agostino saw Willie's bewildered movement 
 of admiration. 
 
 ' It is the Lady Poverty, whom the Blessed S. 
 Francis loved as a bride,' he explained. ' He left 
 her to the care of his sons. They lost her, some say, 
 after his death : but the Government has given her 
 back to us. It was a beautiful idea of the English 
 signora that she should be placed above our altar. 
 A fine painting, is it not ? I show it to all the 
 English, for we are very proud of it in the convent.'
 
 236 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 * What is this signora's name ?' said Willie. 
 
 ' The signore may read it at the bottom of the 
 picture.' 
 
 There, on a little scroll, were words indeed, in clear 
 black letters. ' Hester Waring painted this Picture 
 in the fear of God and for love of S. Francis. At her 
 cell of S. Mary-le-Street, in the year of the Lord 1900.' 
 
 * Is this signora in religion ?' 
 
 * No, signore. She has not taken the habit. But 
 she is a visionaria, a solitary ; she spends much time 
 in contemplation. It is curious : there is a look in 
 your eyes, signore, which reminds one of her. It is 
 not often seen : it is the look of the ecstatic. The 
 signore also has had experiences.' 
 
 They went out presently from the church ; 
 Willie much possessed by the personality of this 
 unknown painter who also had seen the Secret 
 behind the Veil. The image of this woman, living 
 happy in her solitude, placidly translating her vision 
 of things into material beauty, fascinated him. He 
 had an irrational conviction that she was his friend. 
 He said over to himself her name and designation : 
 ' Hester Waring, in her cell of S. Mary-le-Street.' 
 From far off, her example beckoned him. 
 
 He thought of her still, when he stood in the 
 garden of the convent, walled in on the brow of 
 the hill and looking down on great, peaceful spaces. 
 The austere silence of the place, its attitude of ex- 
 pectation, helped his dream. Leaning over the wall 
 at the end of the little orchard, he looked out on a
 
 237 
 
 sky and hills which seemed to him to be bathed in 
 holiness, and wondered how much of what he felt 
 was Earth, and how much Heaven. 
 
 ' The Father Superior,' said Fra Agostino pre- 
 sently, ' comes much to the garden for holy medita- 
 tion, as the Blessed S. Claire used to do.' 
 
 ' But are not the Franciscans vowed to works 
 rather than contemplation ?' said Willie. ' Does 
 not the Father Superior have to occupy himself with 
 useful things ?' 
 
 * Ah, signer mio? answered Fra Agostino quietly, 
 ' there is only one rule for the good Franciscan to 
 live in S. Francis' spirit as well as he can. The 
 signore will remember that it was not when he was 
 about useful things that S. Francis received the great 
 favour of the Stigmata ; it was when he meditated 
 amongst the hills. The good God gives us useful 
 things for seventy years only ; but to His lovers He 
 gives beautiful things for ever. It would be a pity, 
 would it not, if we were not able to recognise them ?' 
 
 But at the gateway the little friar's mood changed 
 suddenly. The approach to the road drew his 
 thoughts from the charm of the cloister to the drama 
 of the great world. 
 
 ' If the signore desires to do a good action,' he said 
 softly, as Willie bade him good-bye, ' perhaps he 
 would send me an illustrated post-card occasionally, 
 when he has returned to his family in England. 
 Views of the great cities of England, and of the 
 streets. The beautiful ladies also. If the signore
 
 238 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 will do this I will send him Italian post-cards ; and, 
 if he desire it, I will remember him in my prayers.' 
 
 Mr. Willie Hopkinson reached Perugia at the 
 moment of sunset, when a radiant sky shut blue hills 
 and white cities in a warm embrace. He felt alive, 
 exalted, intimately joyful. It was the ecstasy which 
 comes with first knowledge of the secret of Being, 
 with the first dim apprehension of the Shadowy 
 Friend. But the atmosphere of the hotel, so warm, 
 British and respectable, checked the raptures of the 
 road. In the corridor he heard the ungracious tones 
 of a harmonium. Mr. Finchley's little service was 
 evidently in progress. Twelve travelling spinsters 
 and a tired schoolmaster were singing the last hymn. 
 
 Willie stood to listen as he passed the door. The 
 tune, it seemed, was ' Lead, Kindly Light,' but the 
 words were new to him 
 
 ' Too long we followed that misguiding light 
 
 Which points to Rome : 
 Now Luther's torch illumes the Church's night 
 
 And leads us home. 
 
 Far from Confession, Incense, Feast and Fast, 
 Till in the Gospel we repose at last.' 
 
 These lines had been added to Cardinal Newman's 
 poem by the orthodox muse of Mr. Finchley, who 
 considered that they made the hymn peculiarly 
 suitable for use in Roman Catholic countries. 
 Mrs. Finchley's wiry voice could be heard leading the 
 congregation : she sang the last line in an acrid cres- 
 cendo. This was her favourite verse. ' It breathes,' 
 she said, ' such a thoroughly Christian spirit.'
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE RIVER 
 
 ' The afternoon draws quiet breath 
 
 At pause between the eve and morn, 
 And from the sacred place of Death 
 The holy thoughts of Life are born.' 
 
 ISRAEL ZANGWILL 
 
 MRS. HOPKINSON was ill so ill, that she almost 
 seemed interesting. It had begun with a cold, 
 which she would have nursed carefully in others 
 but naturally neglected in herself. Her family 
 were accustomed to leave matters of health entirely 
 in her keeping : they had therefore nothing to 
 offer neither sympathy, patent medicines, nor 
 advice. It seemed so unlikely that she should be 
 seriously ill ; it would be too inconvenient. 
 
 But when Mrs. Hopkinson began to let the hours 
 slip by without concern ; when the news that the 
 butcher had called for orders did not stimulate her 
 sleepy brain ; Pauline, in whom Stephen's love had 
 opened the gates of sympathy, became frightened. 
 She sent for the doctor, and telegraphed for Willie, 
 who hurried from Milan to find the household in 
 
 239
 
 240 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 disorder, dominated by a shadowy but very awful 
 presence. 
 
 Curiously, in all his brooding on the quick flitting 
 of life he had never contemplated the deaths of his 
 family ; the unpreventable obliteration of faces 
 which made up the actual landscape of home. 
 And quite suddenly, without any of the solemn 
 preparation which mankind never ceases to expect 
 before a crisis, this shifting of the scenes had come. 
 
 The certainty of impending death was written 
 up : a helpless feeling, the consciousness of a Destiny 
 not to be evaded, had abruptly replaced the whole- 
 some bustling atmosphere which was natural to the 
 house. He felt the strange hush, as of fear, with 
 which the unsubstantial side of Being waits for 
 the great change. All the cheerful, indeterminate 
 sounds of the home-life seemed muffled. A sharp 
 noise struck on the tense waiting nerves with a kind 
 of horror. Already, as it seemed to him, the Grey 
 People of the Sorrowful Country were gathering, 
 expecting a new mourner to be added to their com- 
 panies. They jostled him in the passages. In 
 silent moments, he thought that he heard their 
 faint cry as they circled about his mother's bed. 
 
 Meanwhile, though there was invalid cookery in 
 the kitchen, and a dark whisper in the air of heart 
 failure and want of recuperative power, no one but 
 himself quite realized that Mrs. Hopkinson was in 
 danger ; that few inches remained of the skein of 
 grey wool dull, but warranted to wash which the
 
 THE RIVER 241 
 
 Fates had apportioned to her homely life. Mr. Hop- 
 kinson could not believe that she was no longer able 
 to take a personal interest in the airing of his linen 
 on Saturday night. The thing fell so far outside 
 the daily routine as to seem almost like a miracle : 
 and Pauline and her father did not countenance 
 miracles, even domestic ones. 
 
 All through her life, Mrs. Hopkinson had possessed 
 the knack of doing things in an unimpressive way. 
 Her remarks fell flat ; her unselfish actions passed 
 without notice. There is a slightly squalid way of 
 handling the profound and essential things in exist- 
 ence, which is peculiarly British. It was this method, 
 this secret, which had depoetized Mrs. Hopkinson's 
 life. She had brought forth her children amongst 
 flannel and stuffiness ; now she was slipping from 
 existence surrounded by the uninspiring perfumes 
 of eucalyptus and camphorated oil. 
 
 For Willie, however, the illness had a certainty of 
 issue, and that certainty a horror, which kept all 
 his thoughts chained to the sick-bed. In its last 
 stages of purgation, his spirit had dropped many of 
 the petty arrogances and intolerances which had 
 made him in the past a thorny if intelligent neigh- 
 bour. He now vaguely saw a beauty in those un- 
 decorative virtues which before had only irritated 
 his hyperaesthetic mind. Believing that all things 
 exist because of the loveliness that exists in them, 
 he discerned with a certain sad and tender love 
 some beautiful meaning hidden under his mother's 
 
 16
 
 242 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 garrulous kindness ; as a majesty lurks behind the 
 homely features of a Rembrandt portrait. 
 
 Yet he could not doubt that she was destined to 
 the Grey World ; to an eternal, useless flitting to and 
 fro on the edges of life, which would be torture to her 
 busy spirit. By a horrible irony, those very qualities 
 for which he might have been grateful were her ruin. 
 That intimate carefulness for home, that selfless 
 preoccupation with her children's external comfort, 
 which had been fostered by education, approved by 
 convention, by religion even ; these combined to tie 
 her spirit to earth. She was an admirable animal, 
 but she had built no immaterial heaven for her- 
 self. W T here should she go, who had never in all 
 her life longed for anything but the health and 
 success of herself, her husband, and her family ? 
 It is very clear that the Eternal and Imaginative 
 world is for those with eyes to see and hearts to 
 desire it. 
 
 Willie knelt by her bedside ; held her hand ; 
 watched her face. The whole scene had a horrible 
 fascination for him. The brightly lighted bedroom, 
 with its white enamelled furniture, pink striped walls, 
 cretonne hangings, made the idea of imminent death 
 incredible. All seemed orderly, earthly, actual. 
 The fire had been made up, and burned cheerfully. 
 There was a table near it with the remains of beef- 
 tea, and a novel, ' Lily the Cheiromant,' which only 
 two days ago Mrs. Hopkinson had been reading with 
 great interest. Yet now she lay on the bed, as he
 
 THE RIVER 243 
 
 once had lain, and struggled, half unconscious of her 
 extremity, to retain her hold upon life. 
 
 Two worlds, two powers, were fused in that little 
 room, and she was the link between them. Body 
 and soul had entered on the last assault of their long 
 tournament. He remembered, with a shock almost 
 of fear, that in this same place he had made his 
 second entry into the visible world. ' The houses 
 of death and of birth ' the terminals of the time- 
 process came together here and showed to him 
 the sameness of their secret. 
 
 He wondered whether she felt, as he had done, 
 the dreadful isolation of the dying. It suddenly 
 occurred to him that he, of his experience, should 
 be able to help her in this passage as no other could 
 possibly do. They were alone together. Pauline 
 had thought the patient better, and had gone for a 
 walk. Willie, with an indefinable knowledge that 
 the time had almost come, that the last chains were 
 loosed, felt that no interest would be served by 
 candour. There is a horror in vociferous grief. He 
 let his sister go. He would be with his mother, to 
 help her take an atmosphere of serenity as near the 
 boundary as she might. 
 
 For more than half an hour she had lain quite 
 quiet. Everything suggested a drowsy calm ; but 
 it was the stillness of an armistice, not of a peace. 
 The April sunshine, coming through the muslin 
 curtain of the window, cast warm lights on her 
 shapeless homely face, on the faded shawl about 
 
 16 2
 
 244 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 her shoulders, the crumpled long-cloth nightdress 
 underneath. The bright light and the silence, 
 things so opposite in their tendency, strained 
 Willie's nerves, made him sensible of the strange- 
 ness, the awful quality in the appearance of things. 
 
 There was on one hand the feeling of inclusion, of 
 safety, bound up in the walls of a home. On the 
 other, there was the knowledge that all this, this 
 haven, was a shadow, a dissolving view ; that one 
 of those whom it now seemed to hold so securely 
 would presently pass out of its boundaries, un- 
 hindered by its walls, unhelped by all its comforts. 
 She lay on the bed she, for whom in a few moments 
 nothing should be warm or durable any more know- 
 ing nothing of all this ; adventuring ignorantly into 
 the darkness. 
 
 Then he looked at her, and saw that a change had 
 already come. There was a new tension in her 
 hand as it clutched the sheet, a hunted look in her 
 eyes. Willie felt sorry for her ; he knew that she 
 had reached the first stage of the terror. She was 
 cut off now from the rest of humanity. She could 
 not speak to him. She was afraid that he would go 
 away and leave her alone on the brink. He moved 
 the pillow to help her struggling anxious breath ; 
 moistened her lips, which were dry and parched ; 
 bathed her temples, where the skin was already 
 curiously drawn. He wondered whether any know- 
 ledge of his presence could force its way to the inner 
 place where her spirit was fighting for life ; whether
 
 THE RIVER 245 
 
 he had power to galvanize the sleepy senses and 
 send her assurance that she was not alone. Re- 
 membering the agony of loneliness he had passed 
 through, he felt very pitiful. He would have wished 
 his mother's death to be a more beautiful thing. 
 
 Another barrier fell before the enemy. It seemed 
 that her comfortable trust in the solid earth and its 
 furnishings went. She sat up suddenly in the bed, 
 reaching out terrified hands to grasp something 
 which should reassure her by its reality and firm- 
 ness. Willie took the poor hands in his own, and 
 held them tightly ; trying with all the force of his 
 will to fight the horror now so strong in her spirit. 
 It was the convulsed, uncontrollable terror of a 
 frightened child ; horrible to see on that sane 
 elderly face, never since his knowledge of it given 
 over to other than tepid emotions. Our decorously 
 insipid way of living makes the great terrors and 
 joys of the human soul seem almost indecent. 
 Willie shuddered and felt sick before the agony of 
 his mother's first look upon death. He knew him- 
 self in some degree guilty of her torment ; felt that 
 perhaps the cares of his nurture had been for some- 
 thing in the maiming of her soul. To their parents, 
 children must always be either wings or weights : 
 he could not remember that he had ever helped his 
 mother to rise. 
 
 Presently her lips moved ; she was trying to 
 speak to him. He leaned to her, but the words 
 were difficult to hear. Two only he caught an
 
 246 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 intense and bitter whisper ' Help me !' an appeal 
 as it were from behind the barrier to some potent 
 but negligent saviour still on the remembered shore. 
 She was on the edge now : had seen something of 
 the grey and empty places towards which her spirit 
 was hurrying fast. 
 
 That cry, almost inarticulate, raised a passion of 
 sorrowful love in Willie's heart. Always till now a 
 solitary, living in a self-contained universe which 
 only in externals touched the lives of his fellow-men, 
 in this moment he suddenly felt the inter-depen- 
 dence of all human things in their time of discipline. 
 He perceived the impossibility of any perfect happi- 
 ness for himself in the face of this torture of another 
 spirit. He longed, as he had never longed for any- 
 thing in his life, for the release of Mrs. Hopkinson 
 from the Sorrowful Country. He was ready for a 
 supreme sacrifice, forgetting altogether his cher- 
 ished safety. His own future peace seemed a 
 small price to pay for some surety of his mother's 
 salvation. 
 
 ' Mother,' he said, ' be comforted ! I'll find a 
 way, I'll save you ! There's a heaven here quite 
 close, ii.only you would see it, only look at that.' 
 
 But it was too late ; his words could not reach 
 her. In her twisted lips, the fixed gaze of her stony 
 eyes, he could see signs that the agony of the pas- 
 sage had begun. The sensual world had gone from 
 her. The other, in its dreary monotony, momen- 
 tarily became clearer. But as he watched, her face
 
 THE RIVER 247 
 
 relaxed abruptly. A little hint of some glad sur- 
 prise crept into her expression. Some mystical 
 sixth sense was added to her endowment, and gave 
 her a glimpse of unexpected things. She looked at 
 Willie, and smiled. It was a mother's smile ; the 
 radiance of a quite unselfish happiness. 
 
 * You'll be all right, dearie,' she said joyfully. 
 
 The stress passed from her face then ; it did not 
 seem that she was frightened any more. In another 
 moment, the hand that he held became limp in his 
 grasp. The empty body fell back on the pillows. 
 Mrs. Hopkinson had passed over. 
 
 ***** 
 
 It was done ; but so quickly, with so little fuss, 
 that it seemed hardly credible. Willie, versed in 
 the fictions of Maeterlinck, the poetry of static fear, 
 had somehow expected that the visible side of 
 things would show a certain sympathy, a knowledge 
 of the soul's crisis. Impossible, he thought, that so 
 irrevocable a thing could come so simply. 
 
 But nothing happened. There was no knocking 
 on the door of life, no sudden gust of wind, no 
 vaguely symbolic bird fluttering at the window. 
 It was difficult to realize that the routine of exist- 
 ence had been sharply broken. 
 
 The fire crackled as before. A tradesman's van 
 went down the street. Someone at the next house 
 whistled for a hansom. W T illie heard all these things 
 quite clearly, noting them as he sat gazing stupidly 
 at the corpse upon the bed. The hansom came and
 
 248 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 went. After that, silence. In another moment, he 
 knew, he must go out from the room and tell the 
 news to the household ; start the useless and elabo- 
 rate machinery of grief. But suddenly a harsh 
 clang broke the stillness. The abruptness of the 
 sound drew a sob that was almost of fear from him ; 
 but its origin was normal enough. Only a piano- 
 organ, very new and insistent, which had stopped 
 before the door and struck up the ' Old Hun- 
 dredth ' 
 
 1 All people that on Earth do dwell 
 
 Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice ; 
 Him serve with fear, His praise forth tell, 
 Come ye before Him and rejoice! 
 
 It was London's dirge for her citizen.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 WILLIE TRIES TO LEND A HAND 
 
 'Be not the slave of Words : is not the Distant, the Dead, 
 while I love it, and long for it, and mourn for it, Here, in the 
 genuine sense, as truly as the floor I stand on?' THOMAS 
 CARLYLE. 
 
 IN the days of studied and slightly hypocritical 
 gloom which followed Mrs. Hopkinson's death, 
 Willie sank back into himself, rearranged the 
 disturbed images which filled his House of Life. 
 
 A new duty had come to the footlights, jostling 
 the dreamy hopes that he loved. Himself so certain 
 of his road, though hardly yet in sight of the Peaceful 
 City, the state of those blind adventurers who 
 blundered thoughtlessly through their moment of 
 life seemed to have become his responsibility, not 
 any more his amusement. ' Save me from my 
 friends,' cries the Egoist. * Save me from the con- 
 viction that I ought to save my friends,' were a 
 better prayer for the Dreamer. 
 
 His secrecy, his aloofness, took on for him now 
 a character almost murderous. How different, he 
 thought, might his mother's death have been, 
 
 249
 
 250 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 had he always spoken candidly and with insistence 
 of the world as he knew it to be ! Some criminal 
 cynicism had paralyzed his sympathies, made him 
 profoundly unconscious of the duties that belong 
 to knowledge. The stifling, ostentatiously dismal 
 air of the house ; the days spent behind closed 
 blinds ; the honours, to him so ridiculous, which 
 were paid to the decaying corpse ; these gave to 
 his remorse an acid tendency. It bit into his soul, 
 driving out the guiding lines which he had traced 
 there in the careful hours of peace. 
 
 The life of a bereaved household is always full 
 of petty discomforts. To everyone but himself, 
 this state of things seemed natural a fitting 
 tribute to the memory of an excellent housewife. 
 The fact that the tea had been made with luke- 
 warm water, that there was a feeling in the air 
 of charwomen and spring-cleaning of a specially 
 lugubrious kind, only drew their thoughts more 
 tenderly to the virtues of the deceased. Mrs. 
 Hopkinson had been of so little account during 
 her life, that the peculiarly unpleasant emptiness 
 she left behind her came almost as an agreeable 
 surprise. 
 
 The family sat in the dining-room, vaguely aware 
 that its odours and inconveniences were more 
 suited to their state than gipsy tables and brocaded 
 chairs. Pauline, red-eyed, worried by her own 
 incomprehensible sense of desolation, was trying 
 to find some interest in the choosing of blouse
 
 WILLIE TRIES TO LEND A HAND 251 
 
 materials from a box of patterns. Her head was 
 heavy with tears, but she attached no real meaning 
 to her miseries. Grief had become automatic 
 a reflex action. 
 
 Bertie Anthracite sat on her knee, a sharp con- 
 trast to her fatigued wretchedness. The outline 
 of her lap suited his figure, and he had condensed 
 into a compact mound of purring happiness. His 
 society gave to Pauline a certain comfort. At 
 meal-times he was fussily affectionate, as Mrs. 
 Hopkinson used to be ; and his intense blackness 
 he had no white hairs had its own mournful 
 suitability. 
 
 Mrs. Steinmann, who had come in to see if she 
 could be of use and had remained because no one 
 worried her to do anything, sat in the largest 
 armchair with her hands before her. Her thick 
 and bead-trimmed dress looked dusty in the April 
 sunlight, and seemed to Willie like a woolly epigram 
 which epitomized the mental atmosphere of the 
 room. Opposite to her, Mr. Hopkinson, balancing 
 his weight on the edge of the sofa, stared moodily 
 at the fireplace. He wanted to read the new 
 number of Science Gossip, and wondered whether 
 anyone would think it an act of disrespect. Always 
 more sensuous than emotional, an abstract grief 
 bored him : but he stood in awe of Mrs. Steinmann, 
 who was expert in the etiquette of death ; he was 
 anxious to do the right thing. 
 
 Willie, near Pauline, watched her idly, focussing
 
 252 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 his gaze upon the table-cloth on which she had 
 spread her bits of voile and silk. Its red surface, 
 covered with a pattern as black and shapeless as 
 the nether world, had an air of hateful actuality 
 which seemed to involve its owners in a small and 
 satisfied materialism. He wondered what was at 
 the root of this subtle antagonism between crimson 
 felt and the spiritual world. 
 
 In a little while, Pauline gave up her attempt at 
 occupation, pushed the box away, looked wearily 
 at the clock. It was only half-past three. Mr. 
 Hopkinson shifted his position slightly and began 
 to clean his nails with a tooth-pick. The life of the 
 room was stagnant, airless. The boredom of sorrow 
 was weighing heavily on it that attitude of weary 
 unconcern towards life which lingers in the neigh- 
 bourhood of death. Mr. Hopkinson and his 
 daughter felt it the more because they were not 
 sufficiently intelligent to understand it. Mrs. 
 Steinmann felt it too, but it did not trouble her 
 nerves. She recognised it as a normal accessory 
 of bereavement. 
 
 Willie also was oppressed : drawn in spite of 
 himself very near to the borderland of unsub- 
 stantial things. He could not remember Italy, or 
 call back the knowledge of reconciliation that had 
 come to him there. A cloud lay across the Beautiful 
 Land. In that happy place, all the world had 
 seemed strange and symbolical, the medium of 
 adorable secrets. But beyond that, in the Dreadful
 
 WILLIE TRIES TO LEND A HAND 253 
 
 Country, the shadowy side of the circle of life, it 
 showed itself to be emptiness and illusion. To 
 this plane of perception some force was drawing 
 him now. He felt that unless the strong silence 
 of the room were broken, the activities of daily 
 life brought back, he should step over into the 
 Grey World, and renew all the old vanquished fears. 
 
 Looking so closely at death had put the vision 
 called Reality out of focus. He seemed to see 
 the world-process as a great pendulum, swinging 
 silently and incessantly through the seen and the 
 unseen spheres. Always, on its journey and return, 
 it carried the helpless, semi-conscious human soul. 
 How casual and trivial, after all, was his short 
 tenancy of the body : no more than the moment 
 of rest before the return swing began ! The magne- 
 tism of the Dead fought with him, as if demanding 
 an interpreter in this deserter from their ranks. 
 His mother was having her revenge. 
 
 He got up abruptly, went to the window, looked 
 out between the slats of the closed Venetian 
 blinds. In the presence of dearth, he still turned 
 instinctively for relief to the poor little assurances 
 of diurnal existence. But even the street gave 
 back an inert image to him. There was something 
 monstrous in the impassive stare of the houses. 
 The sky, his great refuge, was vacant ; it seemed 
 immovable, as if the Earth had ceased to dance 
 on its way through the heavens. He received the 
 impression that the whole world was dead, and
 
 254 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 life itself a rare and confusing accident. He saw 
 that the souls which filled the Grey World were 
 really dead had in fact never lived ; and that 
 this deeper and more terrible death, of which the 
 extinction of the body is a symbol, was the source 
 of all their miseries. 
 
 ' Can't we do something ?' he said suddenly. The 
 sense of suspended life was becoming unbearable. 
 
 Mr. Hopkinson looked at him dully. ' One 
 must respect the dead, my boy ; it's customary,' he 
 answered. 
 
 ' This sort of thing isn't respect of anything,' 
 said Willie. ' It's awful. We might almost as 
 well be dead ourselves !' 
 
 ' I wish I was !' murmured Pauline. ' I shall 
 never be happy again. Poor mother !' The sound 
 of her own words reminded her how wretched 
 she was ; she began to cry. 
 
 Mrs. Steinmann got up. ' You're a little bit 
 overwrought, Pauline,' she said. ' It's not to be 
 wondered at. I'll just get you the salts off your 
 poor mother's dressing-table ammonia and eau- 
 de-Cologne I noticed them when I was arranging 
 the wreaths. They'll do you a world of good.' 
 
 She went out of the room. Pauline choked, 
 swallowed her sobs, but could not control herself. 
 Willie looked gravely at his sister. Her outcry 
 had startled him, for he had a superstitious feeling 
 that standing so near to the edge of things, even 
 the spoken word was dangerous.
 
 WILLIE TRIES TO LEND A HAND 255 
 
 ' Oh, hush !' he said. ' You shouldn't speak so. 
 Never ask for death. Life, even if it's lonely, is 
 less terrible than that.' 
 
 ' Perhaps mother's lonely now. Perhaps she 
 wants us !' wailed Pauline. Her tears fell on 
 Bertie Anthracite's head and ran down his ruffj 
 making damp and unbecoming streaks upon the 
 fur. Bertie got up, sniffing reproachfully, and 
 went to look for drier quarters on the sofa. 
 
 ' My dear Pauline !' said Mr. Hopkinson very 
 kindly, * you are distressing yourself without cause. 
 The dead cannot be lonely. It is impossible for 
 emotion to survive the destruction of the brain- 
 cortex. To the biologist, remember, consciousness 
 is inconceivable without protoplasm. You know 
 that quite well, but you are rather upset. Calm 
 yourself. Death is a most distressing phenomenon, 
 but unfortunately it's the rule of creation. No 
 getting out of it, you know. We must resign 
 ourselves. Mustn't expect Nature to preserve 
 outworn material.' 
 
 Mr. Hopkinson blew his nose, and seemed more 
 cheerful for his own explanation. ' Let us be 
 thankful,' he added, ' that we live in a scientific 
 age ; and don't let us confuse ourselves with any 
 mediae val nonsense about future states.' 
 
 Willie, to his own surprise, began to speak eagerly 
 and imperatively. 
 
 ' Oh, but it's Pauline who's right,' he said, * and 
 it's we who talk nonsense, not the old wise peoples
 
 256 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 who made allegories of Heaven and Hell. The 
 dead are lonely, when they die as mother has died, 
 without seeing the real meaning of life. Listen, 
 father ! Oh, you shall listen because it's the 
 truth. Why will you take the shadow for the real, 
 and the veil for the limit like this ? Can't you 
 see, on your theory, what a senseless, unreasonable 
 performance existence is ? Isn't it arrogance to 
 think that there's nothing more beyond the little 
 scale of vibrations your senses and your instru- 
 ments can pick up ? That's what your view seems 
 to lead to ; and on the face of it, it looks a silly lie.' 
 
 ' My dear lad !' replied Mr. Hopkinson, still 
 preserving an admirable good temper, ' conclusions 
 founded on Causation and Experience cannot lie. 
 Modern science is as sure of its results as double 
 entry. No room there for chance and fancy. 
 What's put down on one page is bound to turn up 
 finally on the other.' 
 
 ' Oh, yes !' answered Willie. ' But not as you 
 think, father. It's the invisible things, all the 
 unnoticed forces, and the real critical events of 
 life : they turn up again in death and make the 
 future. All the steps the soul has taken, and all 
 the loves and hates it has those are the causes 
 which have effects that count. I must tell you. 
 You must listen. You're wasting your life on 
 meaningless acts, living in great danger every 
 minute. You've got to die, and you never think 
 of that, never notice the real proportions of things.'
 
 WILLIE TRIES TO LEND A HAND 257 
 
 Mr. Hopkinson became annoyed. He felt that 
 his son's remarks were in bad taste. He could not 
 conceive where such silly notions came from. He 
 was listening anxiously, too, for Mrs. Steinmann's 
 returning footsteps. But he could not sneer as he 
 wished. Willie was in earnest ; and real earnest- 
 ness, though it is generally grotesque, always 
 shames its tepid audience into attention. 
 
 This it was, together with a complete uncertainty 
 as to what he ought to do, which set Mr. Hopkin- 
 son's teeth on edge. He was in the state of wrath- 
 ful discomfort to which any polite person may 
 be reduced when an earnest missionary suddenly 
 suggests a word of prayer in the drawing-room. 
 
 Willie noticed the expression of respectable 
 disgust which came over the dull pink oval of his 
 father's face. It did not astonish him. He went on. 
 
 ' This world you think so important and 
 trustworthy,' he said, ' is only a shadow, an imper- 
 fect way of seeing something that is very different 
 in itself. Everyone seems to hate that thought > 
 but why should they ? When it fades for you to 
 a colourless mist, as it has for me ; when the dead 
 become more real than the living, and Time and 
 Space only empty words, modern science won't be 
 much good. You're'disgusted, of course : you think 
 I'm mad : but I daren't let you die without saying 
 the truth. Mother's gone, lost, and I never helped 
 her. I'll not easily forgive myself for that ' 
 
 At this point, Pauline cried out quickly, 'How 
 
 17
 
 258 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 can you be so wicked, Willie ? How dare you say 
 mother's in Hell ?' But he went on. 
 
 ' Listen ! your senses only know one world, and 
 that the cheapest and most obvious ; but there's 
 world after world, and mode after mode of percep- 
 tion, wrapped behind it : only you will look down 
 all the time, not up, to where the real things 
 are written. And what will be the use, when earth's 
 gone from you, of all the earth-powers you fuss 
 about so much ? It's the strong soul you will 
 want then ; and your soul isn't any further now 
 than when you were a baby. All you will do, if 
 you die like this, will be to hang about on the 
 fringe of the old earth-life, just out of reach of 
 everything you care for. That's the real Hell, 
 and it's kept for those who have never been born 
 in the spirit.' 
 
 He left off speaking, and no one answered. But 
 Bertie Anthracite, awake, somehow conscious of a 
 strangeness in the room, raised a black nose from 
 between folded paws and looked at him solemnly. 
 ^ There was a remote and dreamy fellowship in his 
 great amber eyes. 
 
 Otherwise, Willie's attempt to the breaking of 
 barriers had resulted only in a stronger isolation. 
 Mr. Hopkinson felt insulted always the first re- 
 action of a mean soul in the presence of truth. 
 He had the comforting conviction that the boy 
 was either off his head or playing the fool, but 
 he did not know what to do. He missed his
 
 WILLIE TRIES TO LEND A HAND 259 
 
 wife, who would doubtless have removed Willie 
 on some convenient if undignified pretext. To 
 Pauline, the whole scene seemed a puzzling aggrava- 
 tion of the general wretchedness of things. Only 
 to Mr. Willie Hopkinson were his own words sharp 
 and pregnant. 
 
 His speech, indeed, had been rather an incanta- 
 tion than a confession ; for of his actual intention 
 his father and sister had understood nothing at all. 
 They were left with the impression that he was 
 uncomfortably queer, and that his remarks had an 
 obscure and undesirable bearing on religion. But 
 his words fell back on himself, and the Gates of 
 Horn, for him always on the latch, swung open. He 
 lost the visible and the obvious, and won back his old 
 sense of the extreme naturalness of unseen things. 
 
 The Grey World, in fact, rushed back on Willie, 
 and he met it almost gladly as a relief from the 
 suffocating limits of his home. It brought with 
 it the colourless landscape of infinite space, and 
 space was what he needed as an antidote to the 
 littleness of life. He did not feel any more the 
 terrors which it had used to hold for him. The 
 crying of the dead filled him now only with a 
 purging sadness. Their Hell had become his 
 Heaven a place of great clarity and peace. 
 Beyond them, he saw all things reconciled and made 
 good. Knowledge gave him faith ; he looked out 
 on the desert of death very steadily. 
 
 He knew now of nothing at all but the grey 
 
 172
 
 260 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 endless fields of that other Dimension. There, 
 among the crowd and confusion of its populations, 
 he was aware of the spirit of Mrs. Hopkinson, lonely 
 and anxious, struggling to communicate with her 
 children in the world. It seemed that his own 
 spirit was being dragged back from visible life by 
 her imperative longing, and met her on some 
 intermediate plane. Her soul sank into his. She 
 spoke to him ; not coherently at first, but with 
 the inarticulate hurry of a garrulous person who 
 has been deprived of opportunity for chatter. 
 There was nothing, it seemed, to be said. Their 
 planes of being were too far separate. Only she 
 rushed with relief on this unexpected gap in the 
 barrier, took up the homely intercourse which had 
 been the whole life of her soul. 
 
 She was overflowing with all the old, human 
 sympathies which he had despised until she had 
 taken them from him. She was still one with her 
 children, and in some sense vicariously happy 
 through them. He missed the note of boredom 
 and despair which was his one sharp memory of 
 the Other Side. Otherwise, he felt her presence to 
 be absolutely natural. He lost with it the sense 
 of something missing in the household which had 
 worried him since her death. This force in the 
 Grey World, loving him and leaning out to him, 
 gave him a new feeling of unity and content. 
 
 ' Dear mother !' he said suddenly. His voice 
 was low but very penetrating, as if it had come
 
 WILLIE TRIES TO LEND A HAND 261 
 
 from a great way off. It was not, in fact, his voice 
 at all ; but like that of a stranger using his lips. 
 It caught Mr. Hopkinson 's attention. 
 
 ' Eh ? What ?' he said. 
 
 Willie, all his attention turned to another dimen- 
 sion, saw the sensual world uncertainly, through a 
 distorting haze. No doubt he had a vague know- 
 ledge of the room, and of people in it, but their 
 personalities did not affect him. He answered his 
 father automatically, as one may answer questions 
 given in a dream. 
 
 ' Mother's here,' he said, ' watching us. Of course 
 one knew she must be, but it's nice to feel it. And 
 she's not so very unhappy ; aren't you glad ? 
 She wants to get back to us, of course ; but she'll 
 find out presently that it's impossible.' 
 
 ' Don't be such an infernal fool, Willie,' said 
 Mr. Hopkinson very sharply. ' We've heard 
 enough of your morbid fancies for one day. Besides, 
 this is no time for ghost stories ; you're upsetting 
 your sister.' 
 
 Pauline, in fact, had turned very white. As 
 Willie paused, she burst into loud harsh sobs of 
 terror. But her brother was now beyond the 
 reach of hysterics or reproofs : he did not hear or 
 see anything of what was happening in the room. 
 Mr. Hopkinson, as he realized this fact, was seized 
 by an uncontrollable fear which he knew to be un- 
 reasonable, and which made him feel a great dislike 
 for his son. He attributed it to the religious views
 
 262 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 of his semi-human ancestors ; but this did not 
 mend his damaged pride. 
 
 Willie had slipped from the visible world as com- 
 pletely as in the first years of his childhood, before 
 his communications with the earth-life were solid 
 and complete. He was now established on the 
 other plane ; recognised its misty landscape, the 
 texture of its life. He was puzzled. His mother 
 seemed to be happy incomprehensibly happy for 
 that empty and desolate place. She had so long 
 been accustomed, it seemed, to find contentment in 
 the well-being of her children, that now their exist- 
 ence on earth made a little Heaven for her soul. 
 
 Love that was not love of self appeared to bring 
 ts own reward an arrangement which struck 
 Willie as extremely odd. It was in this that 
 Mrs. Hopkinson lived, secure from the loneliness of 
 the self-centred dead who hunt forever for their 
 lost happiness. But her life was not firmly estab- 
 lished. She was uneasy. As his spirit was driven 
 against hers by the tide of his thought, or drawn 
 back by the drag of the world, he knew that all 
 was not secure with her, that there was something 
 she had to tell him. He remembered what a friendly 
 listener would have meant to him when he was 
 amongst the Dead, and turned his whole will towards 
 the understanding of her message. 
 
 ' Mother, what is it ?' he said. ' I'm here. I 
 know. I can speak for you.' 
 
 The answer came like a voice within his own
 
 WILLIE TRIES TO LEND A HAND 263 
 
 mind. He knew at the moment of speaking what 
 it was that she wanted. She was afraid. Not 
 afraid of the place where she was, but of being 
 forgotten, seeing her place filled, her memory in the 
 world overlaid with living interests. When that 
 happened, he saw, she would be quite alone, would 
 have lost her anchorage to earth. Love gave her 
 a part still in the home that she had cared for, but 
 it was a reciprocal love, a magnetism in which the 
 living had to do their part. Only in their remem- 
 brance she retained her hold upon visible things. 
 The forgotten die, as the loveless die : except those 
 happy dreamers who have found the Heart of the 
 Rose, and pass from the Earth-sphere to the 
 Absolute. He saw suddenly and unforgettably the 
 one great duty of the living, in the loving com- 
 memoration of the dead. 
 
 ' It's all right, mother dearest,' he said. ' We 
 shall never forget you. You shan't be forsaken. 
 We love you, and there's no barrier. You'll 
 always be with us now.' 
 
 He felt then her personality enfolding him the 
 affectionate, deprecating being whose constant 
 timid questions ' Anything you want, dearie ? 
 Are you sure you're feeling quite the thing ?' had 
 filled so great a space in the tissue of his life. Now 
 the irksome guardianship was over, and he, instead, 
 was made the keeper of his mother's happiness. 
 He seized on the new duty gladly. He stood up, 
 held out his arms irrationally, but with an utter
 
 264 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 conviction, as if he were indeed going to hold her 
 to safety. He said nothing. He seemed to have 
 gone past speech to the place of pure thought. 
 
 Mr. Hopkinson, watching him uneasily, decided 
 that he was going to faint. As a matter of fact, 
 he was acutely but narrowly conscious ; blind to 
 the sensual world, but with eyes wide open to an 
 inner secret, the holiest that he had known. 
 
 His mother was his to care for, and he was her 
 son. He knew, for the first time, that he loved 
 
 her. 
 
 ***** 
 
 He came back with a violent sense of physical 
 shock to a roomful of startled persons : Pauline 
 in hysterics on the sofa, Bertie Anthracite standing 
 fascinated and rigid at his feet, ears forward and 
 fluffy coat nervously erect. Mr. Hopkinson, red- 
 faced, awkward and angry, patted his daughter 
 with a helpless hand. Only Mrs. Steinmann stood 
 triumphantly upon the hearth-rug, undisturbed by 
 anything more exciting than her own promptitude 
 and common-sense. She had just thrown a large 
 glassful of cold water in Willie's face. 
 
 ' Just in time!' she said joyously. ' You'd have 
 been off in another minute. Still feel giddy ? I 
 thought you'd been looking poorly all the afternoon.' 
 
 ' Neurotic young ass,' growled Mr. Hopkinson. 
 His shaking hand reminded him that he had passed 
 through a very creepy ten minutes ; but Mrs. 
 Steinmann's sensible attitude reassured him, and
 
 WILLIE TRIES TO LEND A HAND 265 
 
 he was now only uncertain whether Willie's display 
 meant illness or folly. 
 
 * Nothing like a sharp shock at the right moment !' 
 Mrs. Steinmann continued, as the wrathful Willie, 
 suffering from the insecure sensations of the recently 
 anaesthetized, hastily dried his face, and tried to 
 check the rivers which were running down his back. 
 ' Only over-excitement with a touch of liver in it, 
 most likely. You never can tell what form bile 
 will take. I remember, Willie, you had an attack 
 something like this when you were quite a little 
 boy. It made your poor mother very anxious at 
 the time : she thought it was your brain. I told 
 her she was wrong, I've had so much experience 
 with boys : and as a matter of fact it turned out 
 to be nothing but stomach.' 
 
 Mrs. Steinmann's tone was full of cheerful 
 authority : but she raised her eyebrows in a knowing 
 manner as she glanced at Mr. Hopkinson, and he 
 touched his forehead with one finger and nodded 
 gravely in reply.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 CROSS-ROADS 
 
 'Quand on veut noyer son chien, on dit qu'il a la rage. 1 
 French Proverb. 
 
 STEPHEN, in the double capacity of Willie's friend 
 and Pauline's lover, was forced into a family con- 
 sultation. The situation was serious. Mr. Willie 
 Hopkinson had neither repented nor explained his 
 outburst. Knowing that explanation between the 
 ignorant and initiate must always be a paradox, he 
 had chosen an attitude of smiling unconcern which 
 strained not only his own nerves, but also the under- 
 standing of his relations. It seemed to Mr. Hop- 
 kinson irrefutable evidence that his son's conduct 
 proceeded from disease rather than conviction. But 
 a medically inclined cousin, invited to lunch in order 
 that he might pronounce on Willie's mental state, 
 had been disappointing. He found, he said, nothing 
 organically wrong with the boy. A nervous tem- 
 perament, which wanted taking out of itself. He 
 advised his disgusted host, who longed to discuss 
 the question of neuroses, to give his son a good 
 tonic and let him go to the devil for a bit. 
 
 266
 
 CROSS-ROADS 267 
 
 ' He's wrong,' said Mr. Hopkinson. ' I'm con- 
 vinced of it. Symptoms are everything in these 
 cases, of course, and he couldn't judge in a short 
 interview. But that attack the other day ; the 
 simulated voice, and the hallucination, and all that 
 false excitement distinct traces of a lesion there, 
 to my mind.' 
 
 ' In my opinion,' said Mrs. Steinmann, ' Willie's 
 never been quite the same since his trip abroad. I 
 put it down a good deal to the sudden change. 
 Many constitutions can't stand it. All his usual 
 habits altered ; and then foreign food. That alone 
 was almost bound to upset him. So oily.' 
 
 ' Yes,' replied Mr. Hopkinson. * Your daughter 
 meant kindly when she recommended that trip, but 
 I always thought it a foolish plan myself. I've no 
 belief in these changes. Oxygen's the same all the 
 world over, and after all there are few places where 
 the comforts of life are so well understood as in this 
 dear old England of ours.' 
 
 ' Oh, Elsa's a fool when it comes to questions of 
 health. She seems to think a course of bad hotels 
 and old churches will cure anything. But as I say 
 to her, what on earth's the good of this rushing about 
 Europe nowadays, when you can buy all the same 
 things in London ? It's silly as well as expensive, 
 and I'm afraid it's had a good deal to do with Willie's 
 queerness that, and his mother's death on the top 
 of it.' 
 
 ' I think,' said Stephen, ' one must not expect
 
 268 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 Willie to be quite normal. He has unusual gifts, 
 and his own way of seeing the world ' 
 
 He was wondering, as he uttered these facile 
 phrases, how best to solve the equation of which 
 Willie, Mr. Hopkinson, and his own convenience, 
 were the principal terms. Stephen at this time 
 hung in the balance between solid interests and 
 spiritual hopes. To be engaged to be married to 
 a wholesome young woman, must in the end prove 
 a sobering influence. He was growing older and 
 wiser in the strictly useful sense ; approximating 
 the texture of his dream to the texture of life. His 
 sharp intellect, as little content with the isolation 
 of the mystic as it had been with the gregarious 
 greyness of common life, sought incessantly for 
 compromise. He was not deceived by appearance ; 
 but many of its aspects pleased him, and he refused 
 to give them up. 
 
 Toward Willie, he felt respectful but impatient ; 
 wanted to help him, was irritated because he showed 
 himself so little ready to be helped. His visionary 
 strength, flung into his love and his profession, still 
 gave him a glamour that was not quite of the world. 
 It explained his hold upon Pauline's heart, as his 
 restless, critical mind explained the gulf which 
 broadened between him and her brother. 
 
 Stephen wished to succeed both as the lover of the 
 Ideal and the husband of Miss Pauline Hopkinson. 
 This programme called for a tolerant spirit best de- 
 veloped amongst persons unfamiliar with the flaming
 
 CROSS-ROADS 269 
 
 visions of his youth. Hence, he did not care to be 
 thrown too much in Willie's company. It made him 
 uncomfortable, like living opposite a church that he 
 had ceased to attend. He had now so disciplined 
 his mind, that he had become something of that 
 ideal spectator of life, who is willing to accept every- 
 thing, and even to be credulous when the play 
 demands that exertion. He could turn without 
 any disagreeable emotion from the writing of a 
 sonnet on the Virgin to the designing of a Gothic 
 hall for political meetings. But he knew in his soul 
 that Willie, the tedious fanatic, remained spiritually 
 superior to himself, the intelligent taster of life. 
 
 Gratitude, of course, should have had some place 
 in the matter. This consideration troubled Mr. 
 Stephen Miller in his better moments. Willie had 
 once opened for him a treasure-house at which he 
 had long been knocking. But he had walked 
 through it to another which lay beyond, and now 
 he was sure that the first one had been not a trea- 
 sure-house, but a dream. 
 
 In substance, therefore, Stephen leaned to the 
 view that Mr. Willie Hopkinson's elimination from 
 the family circle was expedient, if not inevitable. 
 He foresaw constant collisions between Willie and 
 his world, only to be avoided by his own permanent 
 employment as buffer. But to succeed as an archi- 
 tect, pose as a Platonist, and manage a commercial 
 father-in-law, seemed vocation enough for Stephen. 
 He told himself that Willie would be happier away
 
 270 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 from home. He knew that everyone else would be 
 happier without Willie, for it is horrible to live in 
 the constant presence of something which you know 
 that you do not understand. Mr. Hopkinson and 
 his daughter had been nervous and irritable since 
 the afternoon when the Unseen World was brought 
 into sudden and confusing proximity with their 
 dining-room furniture. 
 
 Loyalty, however, was expected of him. It was 
 the mere duty of friendship to break the impact 
 between Willie's idealism and his father's well- 
 educated mind. Remembering with terror the 
 unpopularity of his own early beliefs, he entered 
 delicately upon the defence. 
 
 ' I think,' he said, ' you must make allowances. 
 You were startled the other day by Willie's be- 
 haviour, but he has a curious way of putting things 
 always has had. It's quite likely, too, that he 
 sees much that we do not see. You don't believe 
 that, perhaps, Pauline ; but Mr. Hopkinson knows 
 as well as I do that it's a scientific possibility. Our 
 senses are not perfect agents by any means ' 
 
 He looked carefully at Mr. Hopkinson. He 
 desired to confuse, without offending, his future 
 father-in-law. A bold excursion into the enemy's 
 country seemed his only hope. 
 
 ' I don't think,' he continued, ' that because 
 Willie's brain reacts on experience rather differently 
 from yours and mine, Mr. Hopkinson, it's necessary 
 to say that he's insane.'
 
 CROSS-ROADS 271 
 
 ' No no,' replied Mr. Hopkinson. ' Possibly 
 not.' He regretted this admission immediately, 
 and hurried on to get out of sight of it before it 
 could be recognised. ' But he's a deuced nuisance 
 in the house. Transcendentalists, and seers of 
 ghosts, and so on are out of date. He ought to 
 conform to modern notions. It's an atavism 
 about a century behind the times. Reminds me, 
 Stephen, you were rather taken up with the spook 
 business yourself at one time.' 
 
 ' That was before I knew you and Pauline,' said 
 Stephen hastily. 
 
 ' Ah, nothing like a bright, sensible girl for settling 
 a young chap. But the question is, what's to be 
 done with Willie ? Bookbinding no go, thanks to 
 that love-affair ; business no go, he's no head for 
 figures. Can't have him loafing about here all day.' 
 
 * If you like,' said Stephen, ' I'll speak to him.' 
 
 He found Willie in low spirits. The sunshine of 
 Italy had faded. Much of the old misery had come 
 back. Those deeps of experience in which his 
 mother and he had found each other had ill pre- 
 pared him for the squalid questions and strictly 
 pathological sympathy of the following days. 
 
 ' What on earth am I to do ?' he said. ' I can't 
 stay here. They look at me suspiciously. They 
 think I'm mad. Funny, isn't it ? but it doesn't 
 amuse for ever. This life is stifling me. I'm not 
 strong enough to breathe through it. When I'm 
 here, I lose the holy strangeness of the world.'
 
 272 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 ' That's true. You're all out of key here. Some- 
 thing will have to be done.' 
 
 ' Oh yes, I must go. It's no use to stay. I thought 
 it was my duty to tell them the truth, so I tried. 
 They saw I meant it, too, though they'll never 
 acknowledge it. I made them feel for a minute 
 that there is an invisible world, and father won't 
 forgive that ; people are so tenacious of their own 
 little lies. And anyhow I can't stay. I've seen 
 the road, and at the end the Beautiful Gate ; but 
 here I drop back to the grey, I can't follow the 
 star.' He stopped. ' But it seems wrong, waste- 
 ful,' he said slowly. ' I ought to help someone 
 else to see it. Won't anyone ever believe me, 
 don't you think ?' 
 
 ' No,' said Stephen ' never. Haven't you 
 learnt yet, my dear old chap, that no one is con- 
 vinced of anything second-hand ? The idea of it 
 must be in their minds first, or you can't wake it 
 up there. You've had a try, and you see the 
 result. Everyone takes you for a lunatic. Con- 
 form, or clear out. It's the rule of the world, and 
 you'll be happier if you give in to it.' 
 
 ' As you've done,' said Willie. ' And live round 
 the trivial almanac of games when I might be in 
 touch with the Real.' 
 
 ' Well, suppose I have done that ? It's no good 
 to sneer about it. Your way can't be my way ever ; 
 give that idea up. My existence is run on quite 
 other lines than yours, but I think and hope that
 
 CROSS-ROADS 
 
 273 
 
 there's more than one way home. You're too arro- 
 gant ; why should your vision be the only one ? 
 Your knowledge of things is the determining fact 
 for you, but it's not for me. It's I, as I stand in 
 the world, that counts in my own life. If I live 
 purely and with all my might, and react to every 
 object in my world, the simple things, like love 
 and work and home I can't be far wrong.' 
 
 ' I feel that about work,' said Willie. ' I must 
 work, whatever happens. Somehow, this week has 
 made a difference in that seeing a death-bed, and 
 the grave silently filled up. Why, already her 
 memory is beginning to fade ; isn't sharp-edged any 
 more. It's awful to fade out of life like that, as if 
 one were some painting washed from the wall. I 
 feel now, I must leave a mark in the world, some 
 patrin to show that I've passed.' 
 
 ' But don't you see, that's just the root of my 
 life ? The world put its impress on me, I want to 
 leave my impress on the world. It needn't be 
 work ; life will do it. If I only leave children that 
 I've trained behind me, that's something. The 
 fault of your sort of life for me is just its aloofness 
 from things. I hate that detached feeling. I feel 
 now, I've got a poise, adjusted myself to every part 
 of existence. It's a compact, temperate happiness. 
 I've developed my powers all round ' 
 
 ' But you've lost the Vision,' answered Willie. 
 ' Oh, Stephen, and you nearly had it once ! Re- 
 member the old days, how clearly you saw then.' 
 
 18
 
 274 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 ' I persuaded myself that I did, because it was so 
 amusing. No one can get your conviction unless 
 they're born fey.' 
 
 He spoke sharply, remembering a night when he 
 too had been fey, and dropped for an instant his 
 birth-right of belief in the solid earth. 
 
 ' This,' thought the intelligent Stephen, ' is the 
 worst of letting one's self be run away with by other 
 people's ideas. There's nothing like an old belief 
 for making one feel awkward and foolish. One 
 should keep one's creeds upon the literary 
 plane.' 
 
 ' Perhaps,' said Willie, ' I am fey. If so, it's a 
 happy fortune. But not here. The weight of all 
 these people that refuse to see life as it is, presses 
 me into a sort of insincerity. I can't love here ; I 
 can't hope. I must be alone, where there's a space. 
 Here, I always remember the Illusion, but I only see 
 its miserable side.' 
 
 ' Then go,' said Stephen. 
 
 Willie knew that he was glad. He had already 
 hinted to his sister that he would like to leave home, 
 and the suggestion had been well received ; and 
 Pauline, whose engagement took precedence of her 
 intellect, might always be trusted to echo, without 
 editing, Stephen's opinions. It was humiliating, 
 but natural enough. At close quarters, Willie was 
 an element of uncertainty. At a sufficient distance, 
 he might be counted as an asset ' clever, but 
 peculiar.'
 
 CROSS-ROADS 275 
 
 ' If you'll think,' Stephen continued, ' you'll re- 
 member, those who had intuitional truth were 
 always solitaries. It's always been the same ; 
 they never could mix with the rest. You've got 
 your truth in a different way, but it comes out 
 the same in the end. You can't be a citizen when 
 you've ceased to believe in bricks and mortar.' 
 
 ' She is a visionaria, a solitary ; she lives as an 
 anchoress? Willie heard again the voice of Fra 
 Agostino, saying as a very ordinary thing these 
 words. They mixed themselves with Stephen's 
 last remark, ' You can't be a citizen when you've 
 ceased to believe in bricks and mortar.' The idea 
 of that artist, working in her cell, had never gone 
 far from his mind. To think of her was to feel the 
 cool fragrance of the cloister, the quiet yet busy air 
 of some ideal working-place. 
 
 Work, he knew, he must have. Contemplation had 
 brought him peace only whilst his troubles came from 
 within. Now that death the death of friends had 
 become a fact for him, nothing but the anodyne 
 of manual labour would bring him back the poise 
 from which he saw the joyous mystery of things. He 
 began to understand something of the feeling of the 
 hermits, whose refusal of the world, he thought, had 
 been more a development than a denial of self. He 
 too longed passionately for silence, the clean contours 
 of the country. The restless ennui which he felt 
 could only be abated there. For him, impure in- 
 fluences hung round the life of the City. He could 
 
 18 2
 
 276 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 not pray in her churches, remember the holy 
 Dead, work under her sky. Yet he knew himself 
 able to recognise the cadences of the great Song. 
 Should he not go to the place where they were 
 audible ? 
 
 Because many persons liked to herd in cities and 
 bargain with their neighbours, and had grown into 
 the idea that this was of the essence of life, that was 
 no reason why he should do so. It was just as pos- 
 sible now as it ever had been to withdraw from the 
 crowd and live quietly. He was set for a while on 
 a great round world, tumbling through space. It 
 was clearly in his right to choose for himself that 
 part of it where his probation should be passed the 
 place that could offer him the one thing he wanted, 
 that ecstasy of knowledge which he had felt for a 
 moment or two. Not stones and slates, but the 
 intangible world of sordid personalities, shut him 
 in. Their dream must always be unreal to him, 
 therefore useless. Stephen, in spite of his vivid 
 intelligence, was really a groundling. Once he had 
 reached a hand to his friend through a window in 
 the wall of sense ; but now he had drawn back with 
 merely a grudging remembrance of the landscape 
 he had seen. Love has more than one way of 
 anchoring a soul to earth. 
 
 But Hester Waring in her cell : she, it seemed, 
 had built herself a world from the happy difficulties 
 of her art and the silent spaces of the earth. If she 
 could so throw off the clogging habits of the crowd,
 
 CROSS-ROADS 277 
 
 he could too. He longed for freedom. But he was 
 lonely ; wanted flattery, encouragement. Now as 
 ever, at the last resort it was a weakness not a 
 strength that determined him. 
 
 ' I'll go and speak to Mrs. Levi about it,' he 
 said.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION 
 
 ' I have talked once or twice of the Shadowy Companion, but 
 one must not forget that there is the Muddy Companion also.' 
 ARTHUR MACHEN. 
 
 WHEN Willie came in to her, Mrs. Levi was sitting 
 with her back to the window, and in becoming prox- 
 imity to a group of daffodils, arranged in the Japanese 
 manner in a Wedgwood soup-plate. She received 
 him on the plaintively expectant note, which her 
 admirers were intended to mistake for cordiality. 
 He was welcome. Elsa had been dull during his 
 absence. Mr. Levi had recently taken to golf ; it 
 affected his conversation, and the passive contempt 
 which she had always felt for him was rapidly 
 changing to active dislike. One cannot speak, even 
 cryptically, of the high lights and values of life, to 
 a person who replies in terms of tees and niblicks. 
 
 Willie came to her in the mood of a world-worn 
 warrior returning to the kindly nurse of his youth. 
 He wanted advice, practical counsels for the future. 
 He did not know as yet what to do with his new 
 freedom, how to act so that he might not lose the 
 
 278
 
 THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION 279 
 
 light he had gained. Elsa, who pointed so persis- 
 tently the way she did not go, might solve the 
 problem. He longed for an environment in which 
 he could talk truthfully and without fear. This, 
 perhaps, were too much to hope for. But he felt 
 that he had in her a safe and comfortable feather 
 pillow for his weary soul : and his first impression, 
 greeting eyes that were fresh from the schooling of 
 Italy, pleased his taste. In the soft secretive folds 
 of her mauve white and gray tea-gown, she looked 
 like an inky rainbow set for promise in the cloudy 
 skies of his life. 
 
 But he noticed a change in the room. Its atmo- 
 sphere, always very personal, did not any longer 
 agree with the quiet lines of its decoration. There 
 was a sense of insecurity. Elsa had a restless ex- 
 pression, unexpected movements : some unfamiliar 
 attribute had been added to her. 
 
 Mrs. Levi, in fact, was unhappy. At forty years of 
 age, she found herself with a vulgar family, a vanish- 
 ing figure, and few resources beyond her unimpeach- 
 able if shallow taste. A handsome woman dissatisfied 
 with her husband is at best a percussion cap at 
 worst a bomb. Her explosive power, increasing 
 with maturity, varies at last in inverse ratio to her 
 charm. Elsa had passed her perihelion : now she 
 was retreating from the sun. The last stages of her 
 inflorescence had been accomplished with the vio- 
 lence peculiar to her race. With advancing years, 
 the circle of her waist grew larger, and that of her
 
 2 8o THE GREY WORLD 
 
 admirers correspondingly decreased. She became 
 eager, nervous ; lost the assured pose of the divinity 
 and took on the subtleties of the huntress, as Diana 
 when she left Olympus for the woods. 
 
 Willie's engagement to Mildred had been the first 
 check in a career at once virtuous and successful. 
 He had worshipped her, and she had ceased to be 
 enough for him. It was astounding, but so obvious 
 that she was obliged to believe it. But the break- 
 down of his passion had restored her self-esteem. 
 Evidently, it had been a temporary aberration. 
 She allowed herself the pleasure of forgiving him for 
 a crime of which he was unconscious, and supposed 
 that as consolatrix she had regained in full her old 
 power over his mind. 
 
 Now that he returned to her cool, cured and free- 
 she felt that the time had come to drive firmer rivets 
 into the loose chain by which she had bound him. 
 She did not want love. That was often inartistic 
 and always dangerous. She wanted subservience. 
 Her husband had never given it to her, and she still 
 supposed that it was worth having. Willie's deser- 
 tion was a sign, unmistakable if unexpected, that 
 her charm was no longer sufficient to hold all the 
 allegiance of a man. Who shall describe the spectres 
 that wait upon fading beauty ? Elsa saw long 
 dreary years of respectable nonentity ahead, when 
 her title to consideration would be that of wife, not 
 of woman. Even whilst Willie kissed her fingers and 
 called her his only friend, this vision wrecked her
 
 THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION 281 
 
 peace. At all costs, she was bound to forget it ; 
 for her self-respect was hinged on more delicate 
 matters than her knowledge of Italian Art. She 
 knew that ideal loveliness would give her no con- 
 solation in the moment when it became her only 
 hope. 
 
 She set herself now to a careful flattery, a judicious 
 condescension. But she found a change in their 
 relation. Willie was older, more manly. He no 
 longer sat at her feet. This new air of inde- 
 pendence, this assumption of equality, pleased 
 Mrs. Levi. She perceived that her prize, could she 
 secure it, would be something better than the 
 charming, neurotic boy of the past. She was placed 
 on her mettle. This was a man who could, if he 
 chose, dominate her, rather than be possessed. As 
 she looked at him, she felt again the delicious weak- 
 ness, the happy helplessness of sex, which she was 
 afraid that she had lost with her youth. She thanked 
 Providence for this unexpected mercy : it took ten 
 years off her age. 
 
 She leaned to him, held his hand, spoke of their 
 long separation. 
 
 * But it has been good,' she said. ' I find a change 
 in you. You are happier, stronger, are you not ? 
 Oh, I know your trouble. Death is terrible always, 
 and a parting. But your soul, I think, is more 
 quiet ?' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Willie. He spoke meditatively, as if 
 reasoning with himself. * Yes, I think I begin to
 
 282 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 understand. It's not all so simple as one thinks at 
 first ; there's more gradation. Italy helped ; I owe 
 you the thanks for that. I shan't be confused by 
 the ugliness and artifice now. But I've thought 
 lately that Stephen was partly right when he spoke 
 of love as the real key.' 
 
 ' Yes ?' 
 
 ' But only so far as it's a sort of beauty. It must 
 be a mystic unfettered love ; an ardour, not an 
 instinct. An attitude of rapture towards something 
 outside one's self beautiful things, or exquisite 
 emotions.' 
 
 He seemed to be gazing at Elsa, reading her, 
 wanting her. But really he was seeing in a far-away 
 vision Umbria, and the Franciscan chapel, and the 
 picture which had filled his heart with a humble and 
 a passionate desire. Mrs. Levi, however, met and 
 claimed that brooding look, and a pleasant excite- 
 ment possessed her. 
 
 ' Ah,' she said, ' I so thoroughly agree with you. 
 Ultimate Beauty is not to be found in conventional 
 passions, is it ? It is the strange and the obscure in 
 love, the panic rapture, that feeds the soul I think. 
 So few understand that ! Modern love seems always 
 to lead to the altar or the divorce court. In either 
 case, the advertisement is a profanation.' 
 
 She had slid into the dreamy, rhapsodic tone ; the 
 tone that had always held her fascination for him. 
 But he no longer found her entirely convincing. He 
 had made the inevitable progress from a general love
 
 THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION 283 
 
 of the lovely to a passion for simplicity, Tightness, 
 and distinction in Art. Elsa lacked the touch of 
 austerity which was necessary to the satisfaction of 
 his taste. She had developed, too, that dangerous 
 tendency of brilliant women, which leads them to 
 parody, when they intend to accentuate, their own 
 charms. She was tempted to add artifice to art, and 
 the effect was disagreeable. Her languid voice was 
 a little too slow and precious ; the delicate perfume 
 which hung about her possessions was a little too 
 strong. So that a suggestion of the panther crept 
 in to mar Willie's admiration ; he thought of the 
 subtle claws ; and a memory of the mouse-like 
 Mildred rose gratefully before him, as of something 
 brought forth indeed of the earth, but sane and 
 temperate. 
 
 Elsa had intuition ; she saw her influence in the 
 balance ; and an appealing, baffled look, veiled the 
 assured vanity of her beautiful eyes. She wanted 
 his unqualified devotion. It had soothed her as 
 nothing else could do. She could not be aesthetic 
 without an audience. 
 
 ' How lonely we are, you and I !' she said. ' How 
 absolutely lonely ! I sometimes think that because 
 of that there should be more than a common com- 
 munion between us. We felt it from the first, did 
 we not ?' 
 
 ' You were always most kind to me,' said Willie. 
 
 He moved uneasily : Elsa frightened him. It is 
 uncomfortable to owe a debt of gratitude to an
 
 284 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 idol whose clay foundations you have just found 
 out. 
 
 ' If I have been kind, it is because kindness is so 
 easy, so natural, when one spirit is in sympathy with 
 another ' 
 
 She crossed over to the low divan where he was 
 sitting, dropped her voice to a lower and more 
 tremulous key. 
 
 ' You and I,' she said, ' alone amongst all these 
 domesticated animals, these human machines, trying 
 to extract sweetness and light from the comfortable 
 squalor of things ! How could we help turning 
 towards each other ? It's strange, but from the 
 beginning I knew that we should think alike about 
 all that really matters the sadness and the glamour 
 of life. We both look at existence so thoroughly in 
 the Botticelli way.' 
 
 ' It was you who first taught me to do that,' said 
 Willie, rather nervously. Some form of civil thanks- 
 giving seemed safe. 
 
 ' You would have found it for yourself sooner or 
 later : one cannot deny one's temperament. Some- 
 times, I'm almost tempted to wish that one could. 
 There are moments when I long for human inter- 
 course, and the warmth of things. But I'm too 
 fastidious. I cannot care for kisses unless they are 
 the medium of a spiritual embrace. A husband's 
 caress, I fancy, must always be a very desolate thing.' 
 
 ' You're bound to be lonely,' answered Willie, ' if 
 you care for loveliness at all, I think. People don't
 
 THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION 285 
 
 understand it just now, whatever they may have 
 done once. When the soul wakes, it sees that it is 
 really shut off from the others who still sleep, can 
 never communicate with them. One must find one's 
 own happiness, and no one can help anyone else.' 
 
 ' Ah, we are each so truly alone upon the road, are 
 we not ? But now and then, a miracle may happen, 
 as it has between you and me, and two spirits under- 
 stand one another. I often think, as I look at lovers, 
 at husbands and wives perhaps, What use is this 
 appearance of comradeship between your bodies, 
 when your souls can never be companions ? With 
 us, how different ! It is a joy to take the hand of a 
 friend when there is no conventional glove between. 
 There must be something beautiful, something 
 emblematic, I think, in the material touch, the 
 caress perhaps, which is born of a mystical friend- 
 ship.' 
 
 ' Oh no,' said Willie. ' It's the material part of 
 life that spoils everything. You begin by trying to 
 be fair to your body, and it turns round on you and 
 stifles your soul. It's a danger. One must keep it 
 down if one wants to see the Vision.' 
 
 ' But I have felt sometimes,' she said, * have not 
 you ? that material life has a use, perhaps,that is not 
 inimical to the Higher Beauty of things. It should 
 be the symbol that interprets the needs of the soul, 
 its communions and its revulsions. What else, 
 indeed, can it be for ? Our physical acts, in that 
 way, may become the paint upon the canvas of life.'
 
 286 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 ' Perhaps. I'd never thought of it like that. Of 
 course, all sensual things must be the shadows of 
 some great Reality ' 
 
 ' Yes, yes ! That's what I mean. And the outer 
 and visible signs that are enough in themselves to 
 satisfy the lower, denser natures they might become 
 for us the symbols of a transcendental mystery.' 
 
 Very suddenly, and without in any exact manner 
 defining to himself the meaning of her words, Willie 
 felt frightened. Some power on watch within his 
 spirit trembled : he became coldly, numbly afraid, 
 as if he were a small animal waiting for the spring of 
 an evil beast. 
 
 ' We, who have courage, who are independent of 
 all the silly regulations of the world,' said Elsa, ' why 
 should our lives remain incomplete ?' 
 
 He did not answer. He was dazed by his own 
 vivid intuition. A dreadful silence sprang up 
 between them. It was like the slow droppings of 
 cold water. As each second passed, and each drop 
 fell, Willie, knowing that Mrs. Levi watched him 
 carefully, felt her personality come round him like a 
 cloud. At first, he was passive under the influence : 
 then, as the silence took shape, and weighed more 
 heavily on him, he perceived in himself quite sud- 
 denly the birth-struggles of a new individual. 
 
 It seemed to be called into existence by the 
 strained atmosphere, in which he could hear Elsa's 
 quick breath calling to him. Her eyes, wide open, 
 tried to meet his. In her, too, there was a change.
 
 THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION 287 
 
 Both had dropped to some dark, elemental plane of 
 existence. They were dominated by a force much 
 stronger than the tidy conventional Self of daily life. 
 
 The heavy scents that hung about the room dulled 
 Willie's brain. Something tremendous had hap- 
 pened ; he did not quite know what it was. The 
 unknown powers which lie at the back of Silence 
 and constitute its danger and its charm, seized hold 
 of him. He recognised in himself a dark personality, 
 now fully born, of which he had known nothing in the 
 past. It was hideous, yet it had a horrible fascina- 
 tion. It lived, he perceived, in some black and un- 
 suspected world to which he had never penetrated ; 
 yet it was as truly a part of his Ego as the soul that 
 he watched over so carefully. 
 
 Still in silence, he saw a monster rear itself up 
 in Mrs. Levi's spirit, look at him through her eyes 
 with a horrible longing. And the creature that was 
 hidden in him said to him insistently, * Seize your 
 prey. It is yours : why do you wait ?' 
 
 The silence seemed now to have lasted many hours. 
 It was this that had loosed these prisoners upon them. 
 The chatter of daily life shuts down many terrible 
 captives, which struggle to the light in the rare 
 moments when the tongue is still. This silence was 
 strong and dangerous : more dangerous than all the 
 subtleties of speech. There was distilled from it 
 some violent impulse ; morbid, evil, unspeakable. 
 Willie knew now of pleasures more piercing than the 
 common things of sense, and of the obscure tempta-
 
 288 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 tions which come to those who have tried to live 
 altogether in the spirit. 
 
 The inner enemy was creeping upwards. The 
 stillness and that strange glow in Elsa's eyes seemed 
 to be crying ' Shape your dream as you choose. 
 Matter means nothing. It is only the clumsy vehicle 
 of soul.' He began to tremble. She saw it, and 
 her excitement increased. She would not move. 
 She wished to taste the full intoxication ; and for 
 that it was necessary that he should be the captor, 
 not the slave. 
 
 One must suppose that the gods were not on the 
 side of Mrs. Levi ; for it was at this moment that the 
 sun came from behind showery clouds and shone 
 brightly. It foiled the hastily drawn curtains, and 
 laid a beam of strong clean light across the room. 
 It struck Willie's eyes with a sharpness that was 
 almost a sound : he turned to the window and saw 
 blue sky, and the innocent loveliness of a flowering 
 laburnam-tree against the drab stucco of the opposite 
 house. 
 
 The sky stood between the dingy roofs and 
 chimneys the same immaculate purity that had 
 vaulted in the magic of Italy. Below it, the tree 
 tossed its sacrifice of yellow blossoms, in a gay 
 revel of perfection which was piety and daintiness 
 in one. It drew his thoughts abruptly to the 
 ordered and exquisite places unsullied by human 
 grime, where life could be beautiful, temperate, 
 ideal. He looked back at Elsa and the elaborate
 
 THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION 289 
 
 artifice of her setting. The creature whom she had 
 roused in him knew nothing of the heavens, and only 
 the baser secrets of the earth. It shrank back, like 
 a germ of disease, unable to bear the sunlight. The 
 dark magic had vanished. Everything, after all, 
 was sane and normal. 
 
 Mrs. Levi seemed to have faded, become ordinary. 
 He had thought of Lilith : now he saw only Eve. 
 The horrible things that he had learnt in the silence 
 retreated to a great distance. He came back from 
 the dark dimension and looked about him : first 
 with a sick disgust, then in a puzzled, doubtful way. 
 
 As the image grew less distinct, he began to question 
 his own perceptions. Finally, Elsa sank back to her 
 old easy careless attitude, smiled at him with the old 
 assured condescension. Then it came to his mind 
 that he had wronged her : her words could not have 
 carried the weight which his nervous fancy had sup- 
 posed. He had been betrayed into the last meanness 
 of male vanity. He felt hot, ashamed : wondered 
 how much she had read of his thought. He dared 
 not speak. But he withdrew the hand that she had 
 kept between her fingers. Her touch burnt it. 
 
 Elsa, perceiving her mistake, behaved well. To 
 shock Willie would be to humiliate herself : she set 
 herself to the saving of his modesty. Fortunately 
 the conversation had been metaphorical from the 
 first. One dexterous touch from her would be 
 enough to make it entirely unintelligible. 
 
 * The legend of S. Catherine,' she said, ' puts the 
 
 19
 
 2go THE GREY WORLD 
 
 idea of a spiritual union so exquisitely, does it not ? 
 A ring given in a dream ! What symbol could be 
 more appropriate ?' 
 
 Willie's instant and obvious relief was perhaps 
 the greatest of the afternoon's cruelties. Elsa drove 
 back the unbecoming tears from her eyelids, and saw 
 for one hateful instant the gulf which her years of 
 maturity had placed between them. Then she 
 pushed him a little from her and looked at him, 
 almost in her old, kindly, patronizing way. Perhaps 
 there was a new glitter in her eyes had he seen it, but 
 he was glad to avoid them. 
 
 ' Why weren't you my son, Willie ?' she said. ' I 
 often think the fairies must have changed you with 
 Geraint. There is something in you that appeals to 
 me so strangely, makes me feel almost that you are 
 mine.' 
 
 Willie received this idea gratefully, and discussed 
 it in all its bearings : so that the phantom which lay 
 between them was pushed out of sight, seemed 
 unreal, impossible. It is really quite difficult to 
 believe in the evil elemental things, when one is 
 eating thin bread-and-butter in a pretty house 
 rented at 250 a year. The tense expression, the 
 wildness, had gone from Elsa's face. Willie began 
 to wonder whether it had ever been there. 
 
 But as he was leaving, her acting broke abruptly. 
 She caught his arm and looked into his face. He 
 felt the fingers shake upon his sleeve. 
 
 ' I'm a fool !' she said. ' Oh, what a fool ! But
 
 THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION 291 
 
 I thought for a minute that it could have been 
 beautiful : oh, indeed I did. With us, because of 
 the artistry we could have put into it. And all my 
 life, I've wanted something beautiful and secret. 
 Glamour even a wicked glamour. Anything to 
 break this neat, stucco existence ! And there's a 
 strangeness in you, Willie ; a magic. With you, it 
 could never have been the sordid thing.' 
 
 She forgot her pose and her reservations. She 
 came closer to him, showing in her carelessness the 
 loose folds of tired skin on her neck ; the peevish 
 lines of unwilling age about her mouth. Her lips 
 were almost on his cheek : his soul felt suffocated. 
 It was horrible. He broke away, found himself 
 blundering down the stairs, came into the street. 
 
 But once in the air, he had a sudden sense of liberty 
 and exhilaration. It seemed that he had left a part 
 of himself a baser part, unnoticed, none the less 
 existent behind. He knew himself now strong, 
 free, a Man. In her clumsy effort toward binding 
 him, E]sa had loosed the last of his chains. 
 
 Willie had led a white life, kept chaste by the 
 shining quality of his dream. Curious innocencies 
 were mixed with his thoughts about things. That 
 Elsa, for him the first priestess of the Higher Beauty, 
 should actually seek as pleasurable and rare this de- 
 basement of their intercourse this made him rock 
 with the violence of the impact, as it came into col- 
 lision with all his past hopes of the world. For the 
 first time, his light contempts of matter turned to 
 
 19 2
 
 292 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 hatred. He perceived some positive principle of 
 evil venomous and aggressive in the body. It. 
 confirmed in him that latent asceticism which is 
 natural to the contemplative mind. 
 
 He stood on the pavement, outside the door that 
 door where he would never again ask for admittance. 
 All the words of their interview passed across his 
 memory in endless procession ; over and over again, 
 with a firm tread not to be stilled. They made a 
 horrible and tuneless noise. But for them, his mind 
 was silent. Their steady tramp drowned the rushing 
 trebles of the street. It is so hard for a man, if he 
 be of pure life, to realize that there is anything 
 of the animal in his woman-friend. Elsa, clever 
 and absurd, kindly and affected, always restfully 
 appreciative he had felt so safe with her ! Now 
 he should never forget the evil thing which had 
 brought a quick savagery into that placidly artistic 
 drawing-room, and roused with its stealthy touch 
 some unnameable creature latent in him. Half the 
 anger he felt was for this : that he had found an 
 actual temptation where he had thought himself 
 invulnerable. There had been a ' beauty of ugli- 
 ness ' in the morbid forces which Elsa had loosed 
 between them ; and another, unexpected element 
 was added to the tangle of life. 
 
 When the tidy vestments of social intercourse are 
 torn, it is generally that we may see how necessary 
 is their presence : even for our immaculate selves.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 THE PATH RUNS TO THE WOODS 
 
 ' Then he went on till he came to the house of the Interpreter, 
 where he knocked over and over. . . . Then said the Interpreter, 
 Come in ; I will show that which will be profitable to thee.' 
 JOHN BUNYAN. 
 
 LOOKING into the depths of the woods, seeing against 
 white sky strong trunks and wandering branches 
 laced together in a mysterious friendship, nothing 
 is easier than to believe in nymphs, dryads, elemental 
 presences of the forest. They stand shadowy upon 
 the paths ; they laugh and sigh ; and sometimes 
 the soul hears them with a sudden terror. 
 
 Paganism is thrust upon one in the country ; a 
 whole invisible, immemorial population walks upon 
 the lonely heaths and makes the brushwood tremble. 
 It cries, ' You come with your new beliefs ; your 
 religions, dragged from the East and seated in the 
 heavens ; your science, and your blinded common- 
 sense ; and deny us. But we we looked out on 
 Arthur's knights, to us the old Romans came in fear 
 and in secret ; we are of the Earth, all-powerful and 
 intangible. You cannot touch us, and we cannot die. 
 
 293
 
 294 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 All is of the Earth ; the teeming spirit-world is her 
 breath, pervading all and seen of none. You speak 
 to us of a Christ who came from the Heavens. We 
 say no, He came from the Earth. The sum of her 
 pure impulses and poetic forces, her power for a 
 magical righteousness," reached their term in Him. 
 He is the Fair Brother of whom the dark creatures 
 of the forests know dimly ; as Jacob and Esau, so 
 Pan and Christ. Both live. But do not fling back 
 the terrible birth on Earth's bosom, and deny her 
 her Beautiful Son. Look back, and see how many 
 times she has strained toward the ideal which He 
 perfected ; see the Buddha births, the fair god of 
 the Norsemen, Phoebus Apollo, and the rest. The 
 Incarnation was an incarnation of Earth-holiness, 
 which God gave her with the breath of life when 
 she was made.' 
 
 In such a way the voices of the woods spoke to 
 Mr. Willie Hopkinson, as he trod a path between 
 the trees. He gave them a willing attention. He 
 had developed the sense of adventure ; that power 
 which differentiates the romantic from the prosaic 
 world. He felt that everything was possible, and 
 to one who is in this disposition the impossible is 
 sure to come. Want of faith in the improbable is 
 really responsible for all that is deliberately dreary 
 in our lives. Those who go whistling down the 
 road, eyes raised to the sun and hope waiting round 
 the corner, seldom find the excursion of life a dis- 
 appointing one.
 
 THE PATH RUNS TO THE WOODS 295 
 
 Memory of Fra Agostino, his altar-piece and its 
 painter, and the finding on a map of the woody 
 hamlet that is called S. Mary-le-Street, had set 
 him upon these travels. He looked for a happy 
 termination ; for some beautiful surprise, and the 
 discreet discovery of a friend. The whole world 
 seemed smiling, helpful, and unexpected. So that 
 he was not astonished when the turning of a corner, 
 as the trodden path wandered through the pine- 
 wood, brought an abrupt change in the scenery. 
 
 From the moment when he left the open country 
 for the forest, he had felt himself to be in surround- 
 ings that were charged with romance. Now he 
 thought of the background of some old picture 
 stiff, quaint, definite. The trees stood up straight 
 and high on each side of him like sanctuary 
 candles, their upper branches shining where they 
 were caught by the sun. Between the austere ranks 
 of their brown and purple trunks and dark network 
 of their crowns, the sky, very blue, peeped in. But 
 where he stood, trees fell away suddenly for a little 
 glade of vivid mossy grass. It seemed to thread its 
 way far down into the heart of the wood, as if 
 searching for a treasure-house hidden there ; and 
 ended where a small white red-roofed building stood 
 solitary, giving to its surroundings a touch of un- 
 English magic. 
 
 He had strayed into the country of Diirer's 
 etchings, or the legendary landscape of Benozzo 
 Gozzoli. He expected that at any moment he might
 
 296 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 see a white hart flash past him, and follow it till it 
 reached the cave where S. Giles was praying. He 
 wondered which would be the most likely encounter 
 Snow-white and her dwarfs, or the Three Magi 
 with their camels and their gifts. The background 
 demanded pretty miracles, and he did not care 
 whether folk-lore or piety supplied them. 
 
 But the centre of the picture was that little 
 building, delicately withdrawn and gardened 
 amongst the trees. The afternoon sun hit its 
 roof, which flamed rosily against an emerald back- 
 ground. It looked oddly self-conscious in that very 
 sombre solitude. Willie walked towards it ; he was 
 curious. It was like nothing that he had seen in 
 English woods. He did not know what it could be. 
 
 Then he came up to it, where it stood guarded 
 by two great larches. And it was a shrine that 
 he saw a whitewashed shrine, with red-tiled roof 
 deep-eaved to keep it from the rain. There was 
 a picture, painted with direct, affecting simplicity 
 of the primitive masters ; clear flat tints, firm 
 outlines, a minute and loving finish of detail. It 
 was charming and appropriate in this place, where a 
 pretence at realism in art would have declared itself 
 vulgar against the eternal simplicity of the woods. 
 One saw the Madonna, very tall and grave, stand- 
 ing in that forest. Behind her, stone-pine and 
 larch, dark and solemn, like the pillars of a temple 
 against the sky. At her feet was all the population 
 of the wood, come out to welcome and worship her ;
 
 THE PATH RUNS TO THE WOODS 297 
 
 rabbits and weasels, badgers, squirrels, dormice and 
 birds, sitting together in friendship. She raised a 
 veil from her face and smiled at them ; she was the 
 Mother of all simple and delightful things, of natural 
 happiness and pious gaiety. One black-cap had 
 perched on her lifted arm the better to sing his 
 Venite ; two fluffy white rabbits, painted as Pisa- 
 nello might have painted them, were against the 
 hem of her blue dress. 
 
 It was a quiet picture, full of the kindly sorcery 
 of the forest. In front of it, a plain silver lamp 
 was alight ; it gave that suggestion of a mysterious 
 cult which lamps burning in the sunlight carry with 
 them. Two dishes of white violets in moss stood 
 on the red-tiled step ; behind them and beneath the 
 picture, a painted scroll was nailed up. It was 
 there that Willie read these words : ' Of your 
 charity think kindly on the soul of Francis Waring, 
 for whose remembrance this place has been made.'' 
 
 The mystical air of the place was explained to 
 him then. He had come upon a spot set apart for 
 the recollection of the Dead. At such, he knew, 
 one is more than ordinarily near the Eternal Thing. 
 
 He knelt down. Again, as when he saw the Lady 
 Poverty, he felt that some great invitation was being 
 offered to him ; that there was here a new, simple, 
 wholly satisfying reading of life. He found the 
 attitude, if not the words, of prayer ; and with it 
 the solemn happiness which waits for the spirit that 
 has strength to abase itself in the heart of the woods.
 
 298 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 All the natural and delightful sounds which are 
 thwarted by mere active human presence, rush in 
 on its stillness then. It is the saints in their open 
 cells, the artists alone with their work, who know 
 what magic of suggestion goes with the murmuring 
 leaves and delicate movements of the earth. 
 
 All these things came to Willie as he knelt, and 
 raised up in him the Pagan passion of the soil. It was 
 one of those moments, for him so rare and precious, 
 when his dream wrapped him round closely and 
 he could not believe in ugliness. So that he stayed 
 there, not in any serious meditation, but merely 
 enjoying his own visionary idea of the absolute 
 unity of things, till the sound of a footstep amongst 
 crisp pine-needles raised his head and crimsoned 
 his face with the ensign of an entirely common- 
 place shame. 
 
 It was a woman who stood by him ; a woman 
 whose hair ran away from her face in interesting 
 ripples, and twined itself into an umber coronet for 
 her head. Willie's first thought of her was that he 
 had never seen anyone before Who had so much of 
 the thirteenth-century in her look ; and indeed 
 Nature, hesitating between a grotesque and a Gothic 
 Madonna, had given to her a quaintness which was 
 the quintessence of all charm. One almost missed 
 her features delicate and irregular, with a sort of 
 knowing, elfish purity stamped on them because 
 her smile seized the eye first and held it. It was 
 the delightfully naughty smile of a fundamentally
 
 THE PATH RUNS TO THE WOODS 299 
 
 good person ; an angel up to mischief. It was 
 evident that she was the child of humour and holi- 
 ness, a rare and very splendid ancestry. 
 
 She stood beside Willie for some moments. He 
 had conquered the first impulse toward flight, and 
 knelt still on the step of the shrine. Human life, 
 be what it may, seems dream-like and elusive in the 
 forest. He had no very direct sense of her nearness, 
 for two things only were now real to him the 
 picture of Our Lady, and the sombre ecstasy of 
 the pine-trees where they flung their branches to 
 the light. 
 
 But she meant, it appeared, to bring him within 
 her atmosphere. 
 
 * What are you doing ?' she said. 
 
 Willie did not look at her. He wished to keep 
 what he had got, undisturbed by external strange- 
 ness. 
 
 ' I am trying to pray,' he answered. 
 
 ' At any rate,' she said, * you are honest ; and 
 that is the first step toward success.' 
 
 He glanced at her then, and knew her for a friend. 
 
 ' It's hard,' he said. ' Dreadfully difficult. And 
 yet prayer ought to be the easiest thing.' 
 
 ' It's easier in the woods, or should be. There 
 are no discords to interrupt. Perhaps you've come 
 from a city. That's so suffocating. But you'll shake 
 it off ; the whole of life is a sort of prayer in the 
 forest, and a language grows to suit it.' 
 
 Then, for the first time, he thought whom she
 
 300 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 must be, and saw in this quiet meeting in the woods 
 the Event that his spirit had waited for. But he 
 doubted, because she moved with such a gay liberty ; 
 more, he thought, like a pious squirrel than a person 
 vowed to the religious life. There was nothing 
 cloistral in her air. 
 
 ' You cannot,' he said, ' be Hester Waring, who 
 lives here as an Anchoress ?' 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 ' Can't I ?' she answered. ' Why not ? Am I 
 too healthy ? Or perhaps not solemn enough ? 
 But when you've lived alone with the sky and the 
 forest, right away from the squalor of things, you 
 can't be solemn. Everything's right. Life goes 
 
 with a dance * She stopped. ' But it's a 
 
 dance before the Altar,' she added. 
 
 ' But,' said Willie, ' does no one ever find you 
 here ? Have you really freed yourself ?' 
 
 That, he thought, was the great matter. 
 
 ' Yes, really ! It's the loneliest place. One of 
 those bits of solitude that's been waiting for its 
 Crusoe. I'm as unknown now as when I came. 
 The owner doesn't preserve, so there are no keepers ; 
 no other murder is done here than the natural law 
 of the wood. Jays may live as well as pheasants, 
 and sometimes pussy-cat owls look in on me at 
 night. My friend, who possesses all this forest, has 
 never stirred out of Italy since he came into his own. 
 He is one of those happy visionaries whom the 
 North lends to the South.'
 
 THE PATH RUNS TO THE WOODS 301 
 
 ' I've come from Italy to you.' 
 ' Of course you have ! It's where all the mystics 
 come from, first or last. The Holy Land of Europe ! 
 The only place left, I suppose, which is really 
 medicinal to the soul. There is a type of mind, 
 you know, which must go there to find itself.' 
 
 ' I was only there for thirteen days.' 
 
 ' Days ? What are days ? It's the spirit, not 
 the hour, that counts. One may live through a 
 year of experience for every moment that Time 
 sends flying into the Infinite. And specially in 
 Italy. Time's torch burns slower there than in 
 other places.' 
 
 She rubbed her eyes with a little impatient move- 
 ment, as if she wanted to see something beyond the 
 picture that they showed to her mind. Far down 
 in their depths, a sombre angel sat and weighed all 
 that he saw. He was considering very gravely the 
 case of Mr. Willie Hopkinson, whose freckled face 
 and careful clothing scarcely agreed with the atti- 
 tude of his soul. Mrs. Waring loved an adventurer, 
 but hated an affectation. \Vho, she wondered, was 
 this rather second-rate young man, who had thrust 
 himself so suddenly between the tight branches of 
 her home ? He looked less the Fairy Prince than the 
 Commercial Traveller. She said to him brusquely 
 
 ' Why have you come ?' 
 
 * There seemed nowhere else. Fra Agostino told 
 me. He showed me your picture, and I knew that 
 you understood.'
 
 302 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 Willie looked round him. The hush of the woods 
 seemed like an invocation. He felt an intruder, 
 small and mean in the midst of the enduring forest ; 
 but it gathered him up without effort and folded 
 him in the general peace. 
 
 ' Here,' he said, ' one could recollect the Dead.' 
 He looked at the shrine as he spoke. 
 
 Her face lit up with a sudden friendship. 
 
 ' Yes,' she said, ' you can ; and if you've got 
 that, you're never lonely.' She stooped and trimmed 
 the silver lamp. It had flickered. ' When Francis 
 passed over,' she said, ' it seemed that there was 
 only a great darkness left. But I said to myself 
 " Pazienza ! I shall die too. It is a regrettable 
 accident that he should go first, but why be incon- 
 solable for a temporary loneliness ?" And I settled 
 down for the long wait. But I found that other 
 people blurred the image that I had of him. I did 
 not wish that. So I came here, to be alone with the 
 wild clean creatures. I thought that I would like to 
 pass the time as beautifully as I could. It would be a 
 pity if I met him with a sullied spirit ; he went away 
 before life had time to tarnish and finger his soul.' 
 
 ' And you found him ?' asked Willie. 
 
 She looked at him sharply. 
 
 ' How did you know that ?' she said. 
 
 ' I know it,' said Willie, 'just as I know that I 
 shall never be sure of the Secret whilst I live in the 
 crowd. I've got two things to do : to remember 
 the soul of my mother and live the Imaginative Life.
 
 THE PATH RUNS TO THE WOODS 303 
 
 You are on the same road, and you're at peace ; so 
 you must have found him.' 
 
 She considered him very gravely. 
 
 ' I wonder,' she said, ' how far you have got.' 
 
 ' Oh, not far. In Italy, I just began to see. But 
 my life's been passed in ugly places, and I wasn't 
 strong enough to pierce through that.' 
 
 ' It's difficult, isn't it ? It seems so much easier, 
 in these days, to live morally than to live beauti- 
 fully. Lots of us manage to exist for years with- 
 out ever sinning against society, but we sin against 
 loveliness every hour of the day. I don't think the 
 crime is less great. Beauty, after all, is the visual 
 side of goodness : it is Christ immanent in the world ; 
 and its crucifixion still goes on.' 
 
 ' Oh, I've seen that, too,' said Willie. * I've seen 
 Heaven and Hell, and the light at the back of things. 
 But I lose it all so quickly. I daren't live the con- 
 ventional life ; it makes me forget the real things. 
 And it seemed that you'd found a way to live rightly, 
 and do work, without shutting your eyes on reality.' 
 
 ' I think that I have,' she said. ' But it's a very 
 old way, you know. The way of the hermits, and 
 of Blake, and Thoreau : and of all the men who 
 have wished to possess their own souls and be still. 
 It's only a shaking off of the idea that you must live 
 like the rest ; an exchanging of the world Man muti- 
 lated for the world God made.' 
 
 ' It's hard to do, all the same.' 
 
 'Oh no. It's childish to think that. All the
 
 304 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 great things are free, aren't they ? Sun, and water, 
 and air all the everlasting symbols ? Well then, 
 why can't you take them and enjoy them in sim- 
 plicity ? You haven't got them for long, you know. 
 And afterwards, if you've only ugly years to look 
 back on, you'll regret. Here, one can be absolutely 
 happy. I can be a saint or a baby or an artist, just 
 as I wish. Yes, a baby ! Haven't you ever noticed 
 that there's a sort of divine babyishness about people 
 who are really at peace, just as there is about people 
 who are really in love ? They get back to the ele- 
 mental stage, and express themselves through a 
 simplicity that seems childish because children, as a 
 rule, are the only creatures pure enough to have it.' 
 
 She showed him her cottage, of a shining order. 
 He saw her books, her little cooking-stove ; in one 
 corner, a demure work-table, in the other a shelf 
 with her tiny store of china, and a knife, fork, and 
 spoon laid out. Everywhere, the neatness was so 
 satisfying that it verged on actual beauty. There 
 was a cot folded sailor-fashion against the wall, and 
 behind it a cast of Michael Angelo's stern and im- 
 passioned Mary with her Child. Hester caught 
 Willie's look as he saw it. 
 
 ' That goes deeper than a crucifix,' she said. ' It's 
 the essence of the offering.' 
 
 He said to her : ' It's perfect here ; one could 
 live in the right kind of dream. But doesn't the 
 solitude turn evil sometimes, don't the days ever 
 seem tedious ?'
 
 THE PATH RUNS TO THE WOODS 305 
 
 * No, not now ; there's such heaps to do. The 
 painting, and thinking things out, and keeping the 
 cottage and the shrine perfect. And then I've 
 generally some creatures in the infirmary to look 
 after ; and in the winter, when it's stormy, I can 
 always cook, and that never bores me.' 
 
 ' Cook ?' 
 
 ' Oh yes ! there's nothing so absolutely satisfy- 
 ing. It's a sort of triumph of art over the most 
 animal part of us.' 
 
 She opened a cupboard door, and he saw pans 
 and dishes of fire-proof china, moulds, pastry-board, 
 and things to sift and grate with. There were 
 groceries in their little labelled jars. 
 
 ' My toy-cupboard,' said the Anchoress. 
 
 A ladder led to the sky-lit attic where her work 
 was set out : panels and gesso, tempera colours, and 
 all the fine careful apparatus of the water-gilder. 
 Willie, one part craftsman, felt his heart going out 
 to those clean, well- tended tools ; knives, brushes, 
 size, and colour-pots, all disposed with a loving 
 touch which spoke of happy and deliberate labour. 
 He felt himself in the midst of a diurnal piety, 
 which made an anthem of the meanest acts. Outside 
 were the sheltered hutches of her infirmary. Two 
 maimed rabbits, a broken-winged pigeon, a damaged 
 field-mouse, were convalescing very tranquilly. 
 
 ' When I came here,' she said, ' some people 
 talked to me of the selfishness of a secluded life. 
 But is it more selfish, do you think, more recluse, 
 
 20
 
 306 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 to live here with the natural creatures instead of 
 with the distorted human ones ? We are all alive 
 under the sky. The Spirit of God is in the woods 
 as well as in the churches ; He broods over the 
 sheep-folds as well as over the hearts of men.' 
 
 ' I never thought,' said Willie, ' that it was possible 
 to live such a reasonable, unentangled life as this. 
 It's all so right. And because others won't come with 
 you to live in the open, surely that's no reason why 
 you should go back and live in the dark with them.' 
 
 ' That's just what I think. If only one could 
 make them believe how satisfactory this is ! The 
 civilized, scramble-after-illusion people always re- 
 mind me of a harlequinade. They spend all their 
 time in bustle and hitting one another. And the 
 joyous, significant life is so easy to get ! so cheap ! 
 It's only to live beautifully, laboriously, and aus- 
 terely : in the air, with the light and colour to 
 remind you of the hidden Beauty behind. And to 
 work with your mind, soul, and body ; face diffi- 
 culties ; accept the discipline. That's life. Live 
 so, and in the moment when you die you'll flame up 
 towards the other side and live there vividly and 
 eternally in a happiness that's all your own because 
 you will have built your own heaven. But one must 
 be detached, keep clear of the games and the gossip : 
 they glue you to the earth. But I think you've 
 learnt that. What you've not learnt is that only 
 love can give you your liberty.' 
 
 ' Oh, I know all about love.'
 
 THE PATH RUNS TO THE WOODS 307 
 
 She laughed at him. 
 
 ' You delicious infant !' she said. ' You don't 
 think I mean passion, do you ? Oceans of bathos 
 peppered with islands of desire ! That's no use, 
 but Love is. You must love everything, don't you 
 see, because everything in the whole world is being 
 offered to you as a symbol of an adorable Idea that 
 is beyond. It's only when you've entered into 
 loving alliance with the Universe that you are 
 making the most of life. Because flowers and trees 
 live beautifully for you, it's your duty to live beauti- 
 fully for others. That's the only law. You've got 
 your moment of self-expression, and if you use it 
 for ugliness you will die. You know that, and you 
 fear it. But you mustn't be afraid, you must love. 
 You've been hunting all your life for initiation, 
 haven't you ? But initiation and love are all one. 
 And don't worry. Worry's the negation of God.' 
 
 He went away from her ; thinking her wise, 
 charming, enviable. Her manner to him had been 
 so gentle that he never noticed that she was clever 
 too. Yet, with light touches, she had helped his 
 discontent to pass from the sensory to the motor 
 region. She knew very well that he was one of her 
 company : made for quiet journeyings, not for that 
 frenzied rush to catch a hypothetical train which 
 is called the strenuous life. As he left her, she said : 
 
 ' Go back by the right-hand path. It is better 
 for you.' 
 
 The path pushed its way by winding stages from 
 
 20 2
 
 308 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 the old forest to the new : then wandered by open 
 glades where rows of baby spruces stood fresh and 
 prim. Finally, it turned outwards, passed through 
 a gateway, lost its firm outline and became grassy 
 and uncertain of itself. In another moment it was 
 gone ; and Willie checked his stride with a sudden 
 catching of the breath. He seemed to have stepped 
 abruptly to one of the edges of the world. 
 
 He had burst, in fact, from the woods to the 
 downland ; from inclusion to infinite space ; from 
 a home-world to the very far country which stretches 
 to the Hills of Desire. The downs went away from 
 him ; green, grey, mauve on the horizon. One 
 could not conceive that they would ever come to an 
 end. There was something religious in their aus- 
 terity. Far away, on a ridge in those lucent dis- 
 tances, a flock of sheep spread fanwise. He saw 
 no other living thing. But the silence was benevo- 
 lent ; there was at once an entire loneliness and a 
 very intimate sense of consolation. Earth, undis- 
 turbed, took up her maternal rights : showed him, 
 in a flash of vivid insight, the Imaginative Universe 
 shining dimly through the Vegetative World. The 
 mesh of Time had broken. Eternity was here and 
 now : and he, wondrous, immortal, saw through 
 the glassy symbol which is Nature the glory of the 
 spiritual flame. 
 
 Willie flung himself upon the grass and kissed it. 
 Hester had divined him well : he felt like a wanderer 
 come home.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 COMMENTARIES 
 ' I feel for the common chord again.' BROWNING. 
 
 * MY dear,' said Mrs. Steinmann, ' have you heard ?' 
 
 * I hope not,' answered Elsa languidly. ' Judging 
 by your expression, it seems likely to be vulgar.' 
 
 ' On the contrary,' replied Mrs. Steinmann, ' it's 
 more your business than mine. That wretched 
 young Hopkinson, whom you made such an absurd 
 fuss of ' 
 
 ' What, Willie ?' said Elsa with some eagerness. 
 She had heard nothing of Mr. Willie Hopkinson since 
 their last interview. She missed him. His presence 
 might be embarrassing, but his absence was insipid. 
 
 The involuntary propriety of her life, and 
 Mr. Levi's cheerful confidence in her virtue, com- 
 bined to irritate and depress her. There are 
 circumstances in which an unsuspicious husband 
 is an insult as well as a convenience : Elsa longed 
 for a breath of scandal to stir the stagnation of her 
 home. To be interesting and not to look it, is the 
 hard fate of many intelligent women. As Mrs. 
 
 39
 
 3io THE GREY WORLD 
 
 Levi lost her slender outlines, her friends spoke less 
 than they had done of her soul. Their wives 
 began to call on her, and showed by their friendly 
 behaviour that her reign was at an end. Charm 
 is a matter of corsets as well as of culture : it is not 
 picturesque to murmur spiritual secrets into the ear 
 of a stout matron, however well-read. To a small 
 mind, such an occupation may even appear ridicu- 
 lous : and the minds of Elsa's confidants, though 
 perfect in detail and often uncommon in shape, 
 were rather restricted as to size. 
 
 All this made her look back regretfully to the 
 time when the obtuseness of her relations only 
 threw into sharper contrast the intelligent compre- 
 hension of her disciples. Destiny seemed deter- 
 mined to annoy her. Even her children refused to 
 feed her vanity. Geraint she detested. Tristram 
 had written from Paris of his engagement to an 
 American student of voluptuous charm, and she 
 saw the future in a horrid vision. She had longed 
 for a lover, but Providence, it appeared, was 
 inclined to give her a grandchild instead. 
 
 Religion might have provided her with a refuge 
 both natural and artistic ; for she had always been a 
 sentimental Theist, finding God so poetic a back- 
 ground to existence that she was careful not to 
 blot Him out. But now she became impatiently 
 atheistical as the morning sunshine faded. She could 
 not believe in a Deity who was rude enough to permit 
 her to suffer in such an uninteresting way.
 
 COMMENTARIES 311 
 
 Mrs. Steinmann whose dislike of her daughter's 
 anaemic insolence was tempered by her passion 
 for imparting unpleasant information now brought 
 to her the news of Willie's withdrawal from civilized 
 life. It had long been her belief that Elsa had 
 made a fool of him : a work of supererogation not to 
 be classed amongst the duties of a wife and mother. 
 The discomfiture of their erring relations is an act 
 of charity which few good women would willingly 
 neglect. Having noted Mrs. Levi's excitement, 
 Mrs. Steinmann kept her waiting for several minutes, 
 took off her gloves, re-tied the strings of her bonnet, 
 and then condescended to speak. 
 
 ' Well !' she said, ' of course everybody could 
 see that he was bound to do something foolish 
 sooner or later : but no one imagined that it would 
 be anything so idiotic as this. It seems he went 
 off into the country the other day by himself 
 quite suddenly, without a word to Pauline, who 
 went on ordering in his extra milk just as usual. 
 Young men are so selfish ; no consideration for the 
 housekeeper. However, when he came back, he 
 said he'd only come to fetch his things, as he was 
 going to live down in this place in future some 
 little hamlet in Sussex, miles from a railway-station 
 and altogether as inconvenient as you could find : 
 it's called S. Mary-le-Street. He'd seen a cottage 
 on the downs that he liked, and nothing would do 
 but he must live there alone and do bookbinding.' 
 
 The blow was sudden. Elsa, unable to pretend
 
 312 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 gratified interest, leaned back in the shadow and 
 contrived a becoming languor. 
 
 ' How strange !' she said, ' and how courageous ! 
 I am not entirely surprised ; it is the true expression 
 of his temperament, I think. Alone with Nature 
 and Art ! He can scarcely fail to find peace.' 
 
 ' Wait till you've heard the end of the story, 
 my dear. Of course, he's his own master, being 
 over twenty-one ; and Mr. Hopkinson allows him 
 100 a year, so he can't starve. But he's going, 
 if you please, to do his own cooking and everything, 
 just like a common working-man. Think of the 
 discomfort and the mess ! And no one will take any 
 notice of him. You know what County people are 
 they'll think he's a Socialist.' 
 
 ' That,' said Elsa, ' must console him a good 
 deal.' 
 
 ' And what upsets me,' continued Mrs. Steinmann, 
 ' is the risks that he must run. He was always 
 delicate : and out in all weathers, with no one to 
 see that he changes his boots ! Cooking for himself, 
 too ; and one knows what that means chronic 
 dyspepsia for a certainty, if not gastritis. It's 
 really a mercy that his poor mother died before this 
 happened ; it would have killed her, for he was 
 always her favourite. And then, as I said to Pauline, 
 what sort of a place do people of that kind live in ? 
 Some horrible little hovel, I suppose, with windows 
 that won't open at the top : and ten to one the 
 drains have never been inspected.'
 
 COMMENTARIES 313 
 
 ' Nevertheless,' said Elsa, ' I can imagine being 
 happy in such a life. It appeals to all that is best 
 in me.' 
 
 * The risk of typhoid, and the constant society 
 of earwigs, don't appeal to me,' replied her mother. 
 ' Willie doesn't know what it is. If he had con- 
 sulted those older than himself, instead of rushing 
 away so hurriedly, it would have shown more 
 common-sense, as well as being more respectful. 
 What I quite intended to suggest to him was, that 
 he and Geraint should take a little flat together 
 somewhere towards Hammersmith, or Chiswick. 
 That is the right locality for Willie, with his fancy 
 for Arts and Crafts ; and Geraint could have come 
 up by the tram and tube.' 
 
 ' I don't think they would have agreed very well 
 together ; their temperaments are so diverse.' 
 
 ' Oh, but Geraint's such a good-natured fellow > 
 he could have put up with anything. And Willie 
 needs a cheerful companion : he is just the one 
 person who ought never to live alone. I could have 
 found them a nice cook-general, and they would 
 have been very comfortable indeed.' 
 
 ' For a permanency, I should prefer the society 
 of the typhoid bacillus to that of Geraint,' said 
 Geraint's mother pleasantly. 
 
 ' You never appreciated that boy, my dear. He 
 has got more sound, robust common-sense, than all 
 the rest of you put together. Mr. Hopkinson 
 thinks great things of him. Only the other day, he
 
 314 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 said to me " Young Levi will do well ; he knows 
 the smell of money." 
 
 ' What,' said Elsa quickly, ' is Mr. Hopkinson 
 going to do about Willie ?' 
 
 ' Well, he's really behaving most sensibly ; not 
 but what he always was a very reasonable, intelli- 
 gent man. He says that he considers Willie isn't 
 quite right. Such an unbalanced mind must mean 
 organic mischief. If he were a little queerer, he 
 might be a genius ; but as it is, he's only a fool. 
 Of course he isn't dangerous ; but being like that, 
 naturally it isn't any use putting him into business 
 or anything, so he'd just as well be in the country 
 as anywhere else. It's cheap, and not so exciting 
 for him as town life ; and the main thing is to 
 prevent him from making a nuisance of himself. 
 A terrible thing, isn't it ? I can't think where it 
 can come from, for poor Mrs. Hopkinson was quite 
 normal. It's lucky Pauline shows no signs of 
 eccentricity. Mr. Hopkinson says that Willie is a 
 waste product of our civilization.' 
 
 ' Ah, well,' said Elsa, ' from the point of view 
 of material life, he may be so perhaps. But his 
 soul had powers that were not of this age. I shall 
 miss him. The companionship of a mystic is like 
 a pool of water in a sandy land. But I cannot 
 blame his decision. His environment was not 
 congenial, and solitude is better than boredom. 
 As Meister Eckhardt so beautifully said, " A crowd 
 is often more lonely than a wilderness." But
 
 COMMENTARIES 315 
 
 still, I should think he may feel the want of comrade 
 souls, of sympathy, after a time.' 
 
 Mrs. Steinmann laughed. Her daughter, who 
 was trying to feel exalted, thought the noise 
 unpleasant. 
 
 ' I didn't think you were so innocent, Elsa,' she 
 said. ' A woman of your age ! It isn't want of 
 sympathy that Willie will suffer from. I should 
 have thought you might have guessed that there 
 was a young woman at the bottom of this ridiculous 
 plan of his.' 
 
 ' That,' replied Mrs. Levi, ' is most improbable. 
 You do not know him as I do. It was his peculiar 
 charm that he combined the ardours of a mystic 
 with the cold purity of a cloistered life.' 
 
 ' Ah, that was because he hadn't found what 
 he wanted, my dear. He's got it now, and we shan't 
 hear much more about the cold purity phase. An 
 artist, I understand, who lives down there entirely 
 unchaperoned. She gives herself out as a widow, 
 but there's nothing to prove it. Willie's infatu- 
 ated : told Stephen Miller that she had " raised 
 him to the plane of the imaginative life " whatever 
 he means by that.' 
 
 Elsa received the shock with a fortitude which 
 she usually kept for her cold baths. 
 
 ' Ah, I understand so well !' she said. ' It is an 
 illusion, of course, but for the time being it will 
 probably obsess him. It was bound to happen 
 life is so difficult. But still, it is very disappointing
 
 316 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 for those who took an interest in his soul. No 
 doubt, he has been deceived by an ingenious sim- 
 plicity : a picturesque and rustic woman, I expect, 
 who milks a cow and talks of the poetry of mother- 
 hood.' 
 
 ' I hear she has no family,' answered Mrs. Stein- 
 mann, ' and to me that looks all the worse. No 
 means of proving her age, which is the one hope 
 in these cases. Pauline told me all about it, and 
 I said to her, " Well, my dear, of course he thinks 
 that she is immaculate at present ; but in six months 
 time it will be a very different tale." Those moony 
 boys always fall a victim to the first adventuress 
 they come across.' 
 
 Mrs. Levi changed the conversation. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Stephen had been down to visit Willie : an 
 ambassador from the outraged proprieties of home. 
 His mission included an inquiry into the sanitation 
 of the cottage, and the investigation of Willie's 
 flannel shirts, Hester's morals, and the cost of living 
 in S. Mary-le-Street. He came back with a sort 
 of wistfulness in his face. 
 
 ' To see them,' he said to Pauline, when he had 
 tersely mentioned the result of the visit to Mr. 
 Hopkinson ' to see them, is to feel that one has 
 somehow missed fire in life. They have everything, 
 I think, that matters health and innocence and 
 hope. Willie is transformed. He's got a little 
 cottage there in a hollow of the downs, about a mile
 
 COMMENTARIES 317 
 
 from the shrine in the wood. He's set up his presses 
 and his finishing bench, and he works there binding 
 books, as she works at her paintings. It's all so 
 simple and joyous ; whilst one is there, one feels 
 it's the only possible life. Just that one example 
 seems to have taught him what he wanted. It 
 shames me when I think of our drawing-office, and 
 all the inefficiency and ugliness and fuss.' 
 
 ' Oh, but Stephen dear ! you wouldn't like to 
 be a failure, like poor Willie ?' 
 
 * What is a failure ?' said Stephen. His dark 
 intelligent face had a discontented look. ' I couldn't 
 help thinking, when I was with him, that the sort of 
 thing we call a successful life is very paltry after 
 all. Of course, it's amusing : but it's rather the 
 type of amusement supplied by a comic paper. I 
 don't know that providing burlesque for the Deity 
 is a very high destiny for a man.' 
 
 * You are very profane,' said Pauline stiffly. As 
 her marriage-day approached, she began to treat 
 Stephen with the firm common-sense which she 
 usually kept for her relations. ' One has one's 
 duty to consider ; and of course Willie has shirked 
 all his responsibilities and buried what talents he 
 had in the most disgraceful way.' 
 
 ' Well, I don't know. He's responsible for him- 
 self in the first place : and as for talents, he is doing 
 beautiful work. I saw some of the bindings he 
 had finished. They had a sort of distinguished 
 Tightness about them. He's found himself, that's
 
 3i8 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 the truth ; and he's lost that look of grasping after 
 something out of reach. I felt that he couldn't 
 have worked like that in London. It's the great 
 spaces and quiet influences that are turning him 
 into an artist. I asked him if he were sure he'd 
 made a wise choice : and he said " I don't want 
 to be wise. The Wise Men had no peace, they 
 journeyed after their Star ; but my Star is carried 
 and hidden." ' 
 
 ' How perfectly ridiculous,' said Pauline with 
 decision. Much as she believed herself to love 
 even admire Stephen, she felt that it was only 
 right to check him before these objectionable ideas 
 took root. ' I'm sure people who are any good 
 can work just as well in town as they can in the 
 country. I never could bear it myself except for 
 the holidays, and then it had to be a place where 
 the cycling was good.' 
 
 ' Oh, it would never do for us,' answered Stephen 
 
 rather sadly. ' But he and Mrs. Waring ' He 
 
 stopped : Hester had charmed him, and he knew 
 that it would be better not to speak of her. But 
 Pauline was curious. 
 
 ' I hope,' she said vaguely, ' that it is quite all 
 right ? She's fairly young, isn't she ?' 
 
 ' Yes, but she has the active innocence that's 
 invulnerable. And I believe she has Willie's queer 
 ideas about dead people : she loves her husband 
 now in exactly the same way as when he was alive. 
 I noticed that she sometimes looked sad when she
 
 COMMENTARIES 319 
 
 was talking, but her face was always happy in repose. 
 She smiled then at something she saw, which was 
 not visible to other people.' 
 
 ' Still,' said Pauline, carefully balancing herself 
 between purity and knowledge of the world, * it 
 seems a little risky. Willie must admire her, to 
 go and model his whole existence on her like that.' 
 
 ' Yes, but then, they are so exactly suited to 
 each other that it's perfectly safe. Men don't fall 
 in love with their stronger selves ; it would be too 
 appropriate.' 
 
 ' Did Willie talk about her much ?' 
 
 * No. He talked about his work our work 
 making beauty. He seemed as though he still 
 wanted to help me to see what he has seen ; trace 
 out the Divine in the world. As I came away, he 
 said to me, " / think the honest artist is very near to 
 God /" ' 
 
 ' What rubbish !' said Pauline. She was 
 thoroughly exasperated. It was too humiliating 
 that she should have to fight with Willie for the 
 possession of her lover's soul. 
 
 Stephen remained silent. He was thinking out 
 a little poem which had been suggested to him by 
 Willie's words. It should be, he decided, a canzone, 
 and he would call it ' Heaven's Atrium.' His 
 sadness vanished ' few sorrows can outlive a little 
 song.' 
 
 Presently Pauline recovered her temper. She 
 perceived that Stephen's appreciation must have
 
 320 THE GREY WORLD 
 
 been poetic, not personal ; and reflected that remarks 
 which might seem irritatingly foolish if made by a 
 common-place person, are often clever when they 
 come from a literary man. Stephen's vagrant 
 views were sometimes tiresome ; but what did that 
 matter, so long as they were not sincere ? All 
 men, she knew, required management. She took 
 his hand, and rubbed her cheek against it. 
 
 ' Darling !' she said contentedly, ' how nice it 
 is to think that you've never let yourself be taken 
 in by any of those morbid ideas !' 
 
 THE END 
 
 August, 1902 July, 1903. 
 
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