\ 
 
UNPATH'D WATERS 
 
BV THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 ELDER CONKLIN, and other Stories 
 
 MONTES THE MATADOR, and other 
 Stories 
 
 JO J/N LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD 
 
UNPATH'D WATERS 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANK HARRIS 
 
 LONDON: JOHN LANE 
 
 THE BODLEY HEAD 
 
 MCMXIII 
 
H3/¥ 
 
 L/- 
 
 Printed from Electro Plates by 
 Jas. Truicott & Son, Ltd,, London, E.C. 
 
To ISIDORE DE LARA 
 
 I DEDICATE THIS BOOK IN MEMORY OF 
 OUR LONG FRIENDSHIP AND MY PROFOUND 
 ADMIRATION FOR HIS CHARACTER AND GENIUS. 
 
 FRANK HARRIS. 
 
 Nice, 1913. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. THE MIRACLE OF THE STIGMATA . . i 
 
 II. THE HOLY MAN 29 
 
 III. THE KING OF THE JEWS 47 
 
 IV. THE IRONY OF CHANCE 59 
 
 V. AN ENGLISH SAINT 83 
 
 VL MR. JACOB'S PHILOSOPHY 173 
 
 VII. THE RING 193 
 
 VIII. THE SPIDER AND THE FLY 221 
 
 IX. THE MAGIC GLASSES 251 
 
UN PATH 'D WATERS 
 
THE MIRACLE OF THE STIGMATA 
 
THE 
 MIRACLE OF THE STIGMATA 
 
 IT was after the troubles in Jerusalem that 
 a man called Joshua, a carpenter and smith, 
 came to Csesarea. Almost before the neigh- 
 bours were aware of it, he had settled down 
 in a little hut opposite the house of Simon the 
 image-maker, and was working quietly at his 
 trade. He w^as a Jew, to all appearances: a 
 middle-aged Jew, with features sharpened by 
 suffering, or possibly by illness, and yet in many 
 ways he was not like a Jew: he never went 
 near a sjTiagogue, he never argued about religion 
 or anything else, and he took what people gave 
 him for his work without bargaining. 
 
 To his loud, high-coloured, grasping compa- 
 triots he seemed to be rather a poor creature; 
 but a certain liking softened their contempt of 
 him, for his shrinking self-effacement flattered 
 vanity and disposed them in his favour. And 
 yet, now and then, when they talked with most 
 assurance and he lifted his eyes to them, they 
 grew a little uneasy: his look was more one of 
 
4 The Mirc^h of the Stigmata 
 
 pity than of admiration . He was a queer fellow, 
 they decided, and not easy to understand; 
 but, as he was peculiarly retiring and silent, 
 the less agreeable impression wore away, and 
 they finally took the view of him that was most 
 pleasing to themselves, and regarded him as 
 unimportant. 
 
 ''Joshua seemed to accept their indifference 
 with humble gratitude. He hardly ever left 
 his room, and made no friends, except Simon, 
 who modelled in clay and wax the little figures 
 of the Phoenician gods. Simon had the name 
 of a rich man and he was very clever; he used 
 to paint some of his wax gods with rosy cheeks, 
 black hair and gilded lips till they looked alive, 
 and their robes were green and purple and 
 saffron with dark shadows in the folds so that 
 they seemed to move. Simon took a great 
 liking to Joshua from the beginning, and did 
 his best to break down his reserve and make 
 an intimate of him. But even Simon had to 
 content himself with moderate success. Joshua 
 was always sympathetic, and would listen to 
 him for hours at a time; but he spoke very 
 little, and never about himself. Simon, how- 
 ever, used to maintain that Joshua's silence 
 was more stimulating than the speech of other 
 men. 
 
 Simon's wife, Tabitha, did not take to Joshua 
 
The Miracle of the Stigmata 5 
 
 at first; she never felt at ease with him, she 
 said, and his great eyes made her flesh creep. 
 But, as she got to know him, she could not help 
 seeing his industry and his love of home and a 
 quiet life, and, in a month or so, she sent to 
 Joppa for her sister's daughter, Judith, who 
 was twenty-five years old, and still unmarried. 
 It was poverty, Tabitha knev/, and not choice 
 that had kept Judith single. The very first 
 night after the girl reached Csesarea the two 
 had a long talk, and Judith drank in all her 
 aunt had to tell of Joshua and his peculiarities, 
 and accepted the cunning advice of the older 
 woman with complete submission. 
 
 *'The girl is no fool," Tabitha said to herself, 
 and began to take a liking to her pupil; while 
 Judith felt that Tabitha was really clever in 
 managing men, or how could she have contrived 
 to keep her husband's affection, in spite of her 
 age and barrenness, a thing which seemed to 
 the girl wonderful.^ Tabitha's advice to Judith 
 was not to hold off and thus excite Joshua's 
 desire; but to show him that she hked him. 
 
 "He has been disappointed in life," Tabitha 
 said, "and wants comforting. Anyone can see 
 he's soft and affectionate b}^ nature, like a girl: 
 he will be grateful to you for loving him. Trust 
 me, I know the kind of man : there was Jonas 
 when I was young; I might have had him ten 
 
6 The Miracle of the Stigmata 
 
 times over, if I had wanted to; and James as 
 well, the rich tanner of Joppa who married the 
 Levite's daughter. You take my advice, Judith, 
 make up to him, and you'll get him. Joshua 
 has a lot of the woman in him or I'm a fool." 
 
 Tabitha turned out to be right, though 
 Judith did not succeed as quickly as they had 
 expected, for it was hard to persuade Joshua 
 that he was loved by anyone. 
 
 "I am old," he said, "and broken, and my 
 house is empty of hope." 
 
 But the women were patient, and, one after- 
 noon, Simon put in a warm word for Judith, 
 and a little later the wedding took place. 
 
 The marriage was not unhappy; indeed, the 
 union of the two seemed to grow intimate as 
 time went on, and nothing occurred to trouble 
 the peace of the household, except the fact 
 that the marriage of Judith, too, was barren, 
 like the marriage of Tabitha. Now and again 
 Judith took this to heart and blamed her hus- 
 band, but her anger never lasted very long. 
 Joshua had a way of doing kind little things, 
 even while he w^as being scolded, which was 
 hard to resist. Still Judith always felt she 
 would have thought more of him if he had 
 turned on her and mastered her, as she had 
 seen her father master her mother. 
 
 In the third year of the marriage, one Phihp, 
 
The Miracle of the Stigmata 7 
 
 a deacon, came from Jerusalem, and created a 
 good deal of excitement and curiosity in the 
 Jewish community. He talked of miracles and 
 a Messiah; but no one beheved much in him. 
 And, as soon as he had left the town, the effect 
 of his words disappeared, as hot vapour dis- 
 appears in air. A little later, another wander- 
 ing preacher, called Peter, came to Csesarea, 
 and with his coming the new doctrine began 
 to be understood. Peter taught that one Jesus 
 had been born in Bethlehem from the seed of 
 David, and that He was the Messiah foretold 
 by the prophets. But when it became known 
 that this supposed Messiah had been crucified 
 in Jerusalem as a sedition-monger, the more 
 devout among the Jews grew indignant, and 
 Peter often found it difficult to get a hearing. 
 Still, he was a man of such passionate convic- 
 tion that his teaching lent the subject an inter- 
 est which, strangely enough, did not die out or 
 even greatly diminish after he had gone away. 
 From time to time, too, curiosity was excited 
 anew by all sorts of rumours; so when it was 
 told about that another apostle, Paul, had 
 landed at Csesarea and was going to speak, the 
 Jews ran together to hear him. 
 
 Judith had heard the news at Tabitha's. As 
 soon as she had made arrangements to go to 
 the place of meeting, she hurried across to her 
 
8 The Miracle of the Stigmata 
 
 own house to dress and to tell Joshua. Joshua 
 listened to her patiently as usual, but with a 
 troubled brow, and when his wife told him to 
 get ready to accompany them, to her amaze- 
 ment he said that he could not go, and, when 
 she pressed him and insisted, he shook his 
 head. In the years they had lived together, 
 he had hardly refused her anything, and he 
 had never gone against her wishes at any time 
 without explaining and pleading as if he were 
 in fault; so Judith was doubly determined to 
 get her own way now. After asking once more 
 for his reasons, she declared that he must go 
 with her: 
 
 "It's seldom I ask you anything, and it is 
 very dull here. You must come." 
 
 It pained him to refuse her, and, seeing this, 
 she talked about the wretched loneliness of her 
 hfe, and, at last, wept aloud over her poverty 
 and childlessness. Joshua comforted her and 
 wiped her eyes, but did not yield, and, in this 
 plight, Simon and Tabitha found them, much 
 to Judith's annoyance. Simon took in the 
 position at once, and, in his good-humoured 
 way, soon settled the difficulty. 
 
 "Come on, Judith," he said; "you know you 
 would not like him so much if he were not a 
 stay-at-home, and it is not flattering to cry 
 when you have me and Tabitha for company"; 
 
The Miracle of the Stigmata 9 
 
 and without further ado he took the women 
 away with him. 
 
 When they returned that evening, Judith 
 seemed hke a new creature; her cheeks were 
 red and her eyes glowed, and she was excited, 
 as one is excited with the new wine. For hours 
 she talked to Joshua about Paul and all he had 
 said: 
 
 "He is the most wonderful man in the world," 
 she declared; "not big nor handsome; small, 
 indeed, and ordinary-looking, but, as soon as 
 he begins to speak, he seems to grov/ before 
 your eyes. I never heard anyone talk as he 
 talks: you cannot help believing him; he is 
 like one inspired." 
 
 So she went on, while Joshua, from time to 
 time, raised his eyes to her in surprise. In 
 spite of her excitement she answered his mute 
 questioning : 
 
 "If you once heard him, you would have to 
 beUeve him. He began by saying that he came 
 to preach Christ and Him crucified. You 
 know how everyone is ashamed to speak of 
 the crucifixion. Paul began with it; it was the 
 crowning proof, he said (what beautiful words !) 
 that Jesus was indeed the Messiah. For Jesus 
 was crucified, and lay three days in the grave, 
 and then came to life again and was seen of 
 many. This is the chief doctrine of the new 
 
10 The Miracle of the Stigmata 
 
 creed; we shall all have to die with Jesus to 
 the things of the flesh, Paul says, in order to 
 rise again with Him to everlasting life.'* 
 "* She spoke slowly, but with much feeling, 
 and then, clasping her hands, she cried: 
 
 "Oh, it is true; I feel it is all true!" 
 
 "But did Jesus die?" Joshua asked. "I 
 mean," he went on hesitatingly, "did Paul try 
 to prove that.^" 
 
 "No, indeed," replied Judith. "Everyone 
 knows that a man is not crucified by the 
 Romans and allowed to live." 
 
 "But Jesus was not a criminal to the 
 Romans," Joshua remarked quietly; "perhaps 
 they took less care in his case." 
 
 "Oh, that's foolish," Judith retorted. "Of 
 course. He was dead; they don't bury men who 
 are alive." 
 
 "But sometimes," Joshua went on, "men are 
 thought to be dead who have only fainted. 
 Jesus is said to have died on the Cross in a few 
 hours; and that, you know, is very strange; 
 the crucified generally live for two or three 
 days." 
 
 "I've no patience with you!" cried Judith. 
 "All your doubts come from your dislike of 
 religion. If you had more piety, you would 
 not go on like that; and, if you once heard Paul 
 preach, you would know, you would feel in 
 
The Miracle of the Stigmata 11 
 
 your heart, that he was filled with the very 
 Spirit of God. He talks of Jesus beautifully." 
 
 "Did he know Jesus?" asked Joshua. "He 
 was not one of the disciples, was he?" 
 
 "Oh, no," she said. "He made himself 
 famous by persecuting the followers of Jesus. 
 For a long time, he went everywhere, informing 
 against them and throwing them into prison. 
 He told us all about it: it is a wonderful story. 
 He was going up to Damascus once to persecute 
 the Christians — that's what they are called 
 now — when suddenly, in the road, a great 
 light shone upon him, and he fell to the ground, 
 while a voice from heaven cried: 
 
 "*Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?' 
 
 "The voice was the voice of Jesus. Paul 
 was blind for three days in Damascus, and only 
 got his sight again through the prayers of one 
 of the Christians. Isn't it all — beautiful?" 
 
 "It may have been the sun," said Joshua 
 slowly, "the noonday sun; his blindness after- 
 wards seems to show that it was sunstroke." 
 
 "But the voice," said Judith, "the voice 
 which came from heaven, and which the others 
 didn't hear, that wasn't sunstroke, I suppose?" 
 
 "The others didn't hear the voice," repeated 
 Joshua, as if he were speaking to himself; "per- 
 haps then it was the voice of his own soul, 
 wounded by those persecutions." 
 
12 The Miracle of the Stigmata 
 
 "Oh, you're hateful," cried Judith, "with 
 your stupid explanations. I can't see what 
 pleasure you find in them, myself. Besides, 
 they hurt me, for I believe in Paul. Yes, I 
 do," she added passionately; "he is as God to 
 me"; and, after a pause, she said: 
 
 "I'm going with Tabitha to-morrow to see 
 Paul: I want to be baptised and to become a 
 Christian, as Paul is." 
 
 Joshua shook his head and cast doTSTi his eyes 
 in doubt and sorrow, but Judith turned from 
 him: she had said what she wanted to say. 
 
 The next morning, Simon and Tabitha came 
 over early, and they all talked of the effect of 
 Paul's preaching: half the Jews in Caesarea 
 had been converted already, Judith said, and 
 hundreds were going to be baptised at once. 
 Tabitha confirmed this, and hoped that Simon, 
 too, would follow the good example. Simon, 
 however, said that, for his part, he meant to 
 wait: he would hear more, and do nothing 
 rashly; but he did not wonder that the women 
 were persuaded, for Paul was very eloquent. - 
 
 "He's ugly," he went on. ("Oh no!" cried 
 Judith, "he's glorious!") "I think him very 
 ugly," Simon persisted; "but his face gets 
 hold of you: he's nearly bald, with a long 
 beaked nose and thick black beard; but his 
 eyes are wonderful; they blaze and grow soft 
 
The Miracle of the Stigmata 13 
 
 and weep and his voice changes with his eyes 
 till your very soul is taken out of you. His 
 teaching, too, is astonishing." 
 
 "You see," he continued, "Paul's idea that 
 the kingdom promised to us Jews is to be a 
 spiritual kingdom, a kingdom of righteousness, 
 and not a material kingdom, seems to me good. 
 It is practicable at least, and that's something. 
 And this Jesus of whom Paul preaches must 
 have been an extraordinary being, greater than 
 the prophets, greater even than Ehas. He 
 used to say, 'My kingdom is not of this world,' 
 and he went about with the poor and the prosti- 
 tutes and the afflicted. Did you ever happen 
 to see him in Jerusalem?" 
 
 Joshua kept his eyes on the ground, and after 
 a time repHed in a low voice: 
 
 "He wasn't much in Jerusalem." 
 
 Day by day, the agitation spread and spread, 
 like a pool in the rains, till it looked as if there 
 were no hmit to Paul's power of persuading 
 the Jews. Conversion followed conversion; the 
 meetings grew larger and larger, the interest 
 in what he said more and more intense, till, 
 at length, nearly all the Jews in Csesarea had 
 become followers of the Nazarene. The excite- 
 ment caught in the other quarters of the city. 
 
14 The Miracle of the Stigmata 
 
 The Phoenician fishermen and some landsfolk 
 began to come to the meetings, and, every now 
 and then, some Roman soldiers, and here and 
 there a centurion; but these more out of curi- 
 osity than emotion. 
 
 As Tabitha and Judith had been among the 
 earliest converts, it was only natural that their 
 zeal should grow when they found their example 
 followed by the priests and Levites and other 
 leaders of the people. It was natural, too, that 
 Judith should continue to press Joshua to give 
 the new doctrine at least a fair hearing, as 
 Simon had done, to his soul's salvation, but 
 Joshua remained obstinate. One evening, how- 
 ever, Judith's patience was rewarded. They 
 were all talking at Simon's house, and, at length, 
 Judith quoted some words of Paul on Charity: 
 
 "Charity suffereth long, and is kind; is not 
 easily provoked; thinketh no evil . . . beareth 
 all things, belie veth all things, hopeth all things, 
 endureth all things." 
 
 As she paused, Joshua looked at her for a 
 moment and then said, simply: 
 
 "I will go with you to-morrow to hear 
 Paul." 
 
 And they were all glad, and gave thanks 
 unto God. 
 
 On the morrow, when they drew near the 
 meeting-place, they found themselves in a 
 
The Miracle of the Stigmata 15 
 
 great crowd of Jews, for the doors of the build- 
 ing had been closed by reason of the multitude. 
 Everyone was talking about the new doctrine. 
 
 "I like Paul," said one, "because he is a 
 Hebrew of the Hebrews, and aforetime a 
 Pharisee." 
 
 "Ah!" cried another. "Do you remember 
 that splendid thing he said yesterday, *If thine 
 enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him 
 drink, for so thou shalt heap coals of fire on 
 his head.' Ha! ha! ha! Toalsof fire'! That 
 was great, eh?" 
 
 "And true, too!" exclaimed a friend. 
 
 "And new!" cried another. 
 
 And the men embraced each other, while 
 their faces shone with conquering enthusiasm. 
 Joshua plucked Simon by the garment: 
 
 "Do you hear .^" 
 
 "Yes," said Simon impatiently, for the pre- 
 vaiHng excitement was exciting him, and he 
 didn't like the interruption; "of course, I 
 hear." 
 
 Then a red Jew, with head of flame and 
 beard of gold, started forward, and, uplifting 
 his hand, cried: 
 
 "What I liked best in his last speech was 
 what he said against backshders and those who 
 excite doubt by vain disputations; and, above 
 all, that great word of the Messiah: 'He that 
 
16 The Miracle of the Stigmata 
 
 is not with me is against me, and he that 
 gathered not with me, scattereth abroad/" ^ 
 
 The man thundered out the words as if he 
 were defying the world. 
 
 Again Joshua plucked Simon by the garment, 
 and, when Simon turned to him, he saw that 
 the carpenter's face was pale, and tears stood 
 in his eyes. 
 
 "What is it, Joshua?" he asked. 
 
 Joshua tried to speak, but could not for a 
 moment, and, when at length he had drawn 
 Simon a little apart, all that he was able to 
 say was: 
 
 "Do you hear what they say.'^" 
 
 "Of course, I hear," said Simon crossly, for 
 he had enjoyed the vivid, impassioned talk; 
 "but what of that? What is the matter with 
 you?" 
 
 And Joshua asked: 
 
 "Are these men true witnesses? Does Paul 
 indeed teach these things?" 
 
 Simon answered shortly: 
 
 * * Yes : I suppose so . " 
 
 Joshua looked at him regretfully, and said: 
 
 "I must go, Simon; I could not hsten to 
 Paul. He does not speak as Jesus spoke; I 
 must go." 
 
 But Simon was impatient. 
 
 1 Matthew xii. SO. 
 
The Miracle of the Stigmata 17 
 
 "Nonsense," he cried; "what do you know of 
 Jesus that you should contradict His apostle? " 
 
 And Joshua made answer : 
 
 "I know what Jesus taught; and this is not 
 his teaching. I remember his very words once: 
 *He that is not against us is on our part.* ^ 
 He always preached love, Simon; and this man 
 1 must go!" 
 
 Simon shrugged his shoulders and threw out 
 by way of warning: 
 
 ** Judith will be very angry!" 
 
 But, at that moment, the doors were opened, 
 and, as Joshua turned to go, he saw Simon 
 carried away by the rush of the human tide 
 that swept past and in a moment filled the 
 building. 
 
 From that day on, Judith took no pains to 
 hide her coolness toward her husband. And 
 even to Simon, Joshua seemed unreasonable; 
 he would not listen now to any talk about Paul; 
 the mere mention of Paul's name seemed to 
 pain and distress him; and, as Judith went 
 oftener and oftener to Paul's preaching, the 
 rift between her and her husband widened 
 from day to day. 
 
 At last the disagreement came to speech. 
 
 1 Mark ix. 40. 
 
18 The Miracle of the Stigmata 
 
 One afternoon, after sitting still for a long time 
 watching her husband at work fashioning a 
 cattle-yoke, Judith said: 
 
 "I want to speak to you; I must speak to 
 you." 'c 
 
 Joshua leant on the tool he was using and 
 paused to hear what she had to say, and she 
 began: 
 
 "It is very hard for me to say it, but I must. 
 You are the only Jew in Caesarea who has 
 hardened his heart and refused even to listen 
 to the teaching of Jesus, and that has hurt me. 
 Now Paul is going away, and — and — he 
 asked us before he left to write down any ques- 
 tion we wished to have answered; so that his 
 absence might not be so much felt." 
 
 She paused here, and seemed to grow a little 
 confused, but, gathering courage, went on: 
 
 "I — I asked him something. I asked him," 
 and she lifted her eyes to her husband boldly, 
 "I asked him whether it was right to live with 
 an unbeliever, one who would not even listen to 
 the truth or hear it; and he answered me " 
 
 She paused, looking down, and Joshua gazed 
 at her with wistful eyes, but said nothing, and 
 at length she began again : 
 '."He answered me yesterday, and I remem- 
 ber every word he said : * Be ye not unequally 
 yoked together with unbelievers, for what 
 
The Miracle of the Stigmata 10 
 
 fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteous- 
 ness, and what commimion hath light with 
 darkness '" 
 
 She recited the words with a certain exalta- 
 tion, and, as her voice rose defiantly over the 
 last syllables, she looked up at her husband as 
 if she expected to meet his anger; but she 
 was mistaken. His eyes were full of unshed 
 tears, and, resenting his want of spirit, she 
 rang out: 
 
 "* and what concord hath Christ with 
 
 Belial?'" 
 
 After a long pause, Joshua spoke: 
 
 "Can this indeed be Paul,'' he asked, with 
 a sort of sorrowful wonder, "who calls himself 
 the follower of Jesus; yet denies his teaching? 
 
 "*Be ye not unequally yoked together with 
 unbelievers,' Paul says; but Jesus would have 
 said, *Be ye unequally yoked together with 
 unbelievers,' for faith is stronger than doubt, 
 as Hght is stronger than darkness." 
 
 "Oh, no," cried Judith, starting up; "it is 
 not true. Paul says, *Be ye separate and touch 
 not the unclean thing, and I will receive you.'" 
 
 As she spoke, Joshua stretched out his hands 
 to her beseechingly. 
 
 "Ah, Judith, that is not the teaching of love; 
 and Jesus came into the world to teach love, 
 and nothing else. Paul has made doctrines of 
 
20 The Miracle of the Stigmata 
 
 belief and rules of conduct; but Jesus wanted 
 nothing but love: love that is more than right- 
 eousness. ... He may have been mistaken," 
 he went on in a voice broken by extreme emo- 
 tion; "He trusted God, cried to Him in his 
 extremity, hoping for instant help — in vain. 
 . . . He was forsaken, cruelly forsaken, and 
 all his life's work undone. But he was not 
 wrong, surely, in preaching love to men — 
 love that is the life of the soul.*' 
 
 He spoke with an impassioned tenderness; 
 but Judith broke in, her eyes narrowing with 
 question and suspicion: 
 
 "What do you know of Jesus and what He 
 said.f^ You never spoke to me about Him be- 
 fore. Did you know Him in Jerusalem?" 
 
 Joshua hesitated, and his eyes fell; then he 
 said: 
 
 "I know his teaching," and he went on 
 hurriedly: "But all this is only words, isn't it, 
 Judith? Surely," and his voice trembled, "you 
 would not leave me after all these years of 
 happiness for what a stranger says?" 
 
 "What Paul says is always right," she re- 
 torted coolly. 
 
 Joshua stretched out his hands to her in 
 hopeless appeal: "Ah, Judith, why give pain; 
 why add to that mist of human tears that 
 already veils the beauty of the world?" 
 
The Miracle of the Stigmata 21 
 
 Judith replied solemnly: "Paul says that 
 we only come to peace by leaving the lower for 
 the higher way; no earthly ties should fetter 
 us who are called to the service of the divine 
 Master: I shall find a nobler satisfaction in 
 the new life." 
 
 As she spoke, Joshua's face grew drawn and 
 pale, and in alarm she cried: 
 
 "What is it? Are you ill?" 
 
 "No," he replied, "I am not ill." 
 
 But he sat down and covered his face with 
 his hands. After a while she touched him, 
 and he looked up with unutterable sadness in 
 his eyes. 
 
 "How can I blame you — how?" and he 
 sighed deeply. "I, too, left my mother and 
 my brethren, in obedience to what I thought 
 was the higher bidding; but, oh, Judith, if I 
 had my life to Hve over again, I don't think 
 I should act in the same way. I must have 
 hurt my mother, and it seems to me now that 
 the higher love ought to include the lower and 
 not exclude it. I should be more " 
 
 Again she interrupted him: 
 
 "Paul says hesitation is itself a fault; but 
 I had no idea that you felt so much or cared 
 for me so much." 
 
 Her tone was gentler, and he replied, with a 
 brave attempt at smiling: 
 
^2 The Miracle of the Stigmata 
 
 "I have had no life, Judith, so peaceful and 
 happy as my life here with you.'* 
 
 Judith answered: 
 
 "You never say anything, so it is hard to 
 believe you feel much." 
 
 This brought the talk to i^mpathy and 
 intimacy, and, for a while, there was peace 
 between them. 
 
 A little later, Paul held his last meeting. 
 Before taking ship, he preached once in the 
 open air, on the foreshore where water and land 
 meet; and, of course, Judith was by his side. 
 He spoke with heavy sadness of the parting, 
 and with pride of those, his brothers and sisters, 
 who would, he knew, remain faithful until the 
 present coming of Christ. His words moved 
 the people to tears and new resolutions; for 
 they all sorrowed bitterly, fearing to lose him 
 for ever. . . . 
 
 *• The next day, when Joshua got up in the 
 morning, Judith was nowhere to be found. He 
 called her, but she did not answer; she was not 
 in the house; he went across to Tabitha, and 
 Tabitha could only tell him that Judith had 
 resolved not to live with him any more and 
 that she had gone back for a time to Joppa. 
 
 Joshua returned to his empty house and as 
 
The Miracle of the Stigmata 23 
 
 soon as he had closed the door his loneliness 
 and misery came over him in a flood and he 
 stretched forth his hands crying in bitterness 
 of soul: 
 "But why this cup, oh, Lord? why?'' 
 
 Months passed. Judith returned to Caesarea 
 and dwelt again with Tabitha; but, in spite 
 of the reproaches of Simon, she refused to cross 
 the road to see Joshua, and, as Joshua scarcely 
 ever left his house, some time elapsed before 
 they met. One morning, however, as Joshua 
 was returning home from the market, Judith 
 hurried out of Simon's house on her way to a 
 meeting, and the two came face to face. They 
 both stopped for a moment, and then Joshua, 
 in divine pity and tenderness, forgiving every- 
 thing, went toward his wife with outstretched 
 hands; but Judith put her hands before her 
 face, and turned her head aside, as if she didn't 
 want to see him; and, when he still came 
 towards her, she hastened back into the house 
 without a word. After waiting a while in the 
 road, Joshua went slowly into his house with 
 downcast eyes. Neither of them then knew 
 that they had seen each other in life for the 
 last time. 
 
24 The Miracle of the Stigmata 
 
 After many days, Paul came again to Caesarea, 
 on his way to Jerusalem; and, once again, all 
 Csesarea thronged to hear the man whom every- 
 one now recognised as the greatest of the 
 apostles. As before, both Tabitha and Judith 
 were diligent at the meetings, and Judith in 
 especial was treated by Paul with great tender- 
 ness, as one who had suffered much for the faith. 
 
 One morning, Simon came in and told the 
 women to go and see what had happened to 
 Joshua; for he had not opened his door for 
 two days, and was probably ill. The women 
 went across and found Joshua. He had fallen 
 by his bench, and was already cold; they could 
 not Hft him, and they came back to Simon, 
 crying. Simon was angry with them, and said 
 to Judith: 
 
 "He was too good for you, and so you left 
 him. Paul says: *Our faithful Judith,' and 
 that's enough for you. Pish!" 
 
 Simon was too rich, Judith felt, ever to be 
 a good Christian; but this time she bore his 
 rebuke, for she needed his assistance. Simon 
 went over with them, and helped to lift Joshua 
 and lay him out straight on his bed, and there 
 he left him to the care of the women. 
 
 Tabitha and Judith got clean Hnen and be- 
 gan to wash the body. Suddenly, Tabitha cried 
 out: 
 
The Miracle of the Stigmata 25 
 
 "Judith, look! What are these marks on 
 his hands?" 
 
 And she turned the palm of the right hand to 
 Judith, and the whole palm was drawn together 
 to a puckered white cicatrix in the middle. 
 
 "Oh, that is nothing," Judith replied; "an 
 accident that happened to him in Jerusalem." 
 
 Tabitha repeated : 
 
 * * An accident ? How strange ! ' ' 
 
 A moment later, she cried again: 
 
 "Judith! The same marks are in his feet." 
 
 Judith started. 
 
 "Feet.?" And then: "I never knew that. 
 They used not to be there, I am sure, or — 
 oh!" she cried, as a new thought struck her, 
 "perhaps they were covered by the sandal- 
 strap; he never could walk far, you know." 
 
 As she spoke, staring and puzzled, Tabitha 
 snatched the sheet from the body, and, point- 
 ing, said: 
 
 "Look! in his side as well," and then, in 
 an awed whisper: "the Stigmata — the Holy 
 Stigmata!" 
 
 Judith's Ups framed the words, too, but she 
 was unable to speak. When she came to her- 
 self, she said : 
 
 "Oh, Tabitha, let us go and tell Paul," and 
 they hurried to the house where Paul dwelt, 
 and, in a few words, told him the whole matter; 
 
26 The Miracle of the Stigmata 
 
 and at once Paul set off, with all those who 
 were with him, to the house of Joshua. 
 
 When he had come to the house and had 
 entered in, and had seen the marks on Joshua's 
 hands and in his feet and in his side, Paul 
 turned swiftly to those standing by, and, 
 holding up his hands, cried: 
 
 "Lo, a great work has been wrought to-day 
 in Israel!" 
 
 And all who were with him shouted: 
 
 " A miracle ! A miracle ! " 
 
 And Paul began to speak, and, while he spoke, 
 the Jews in Caesarea gathered about the house, 
 and convinced themselves of the miracle that 
 had been wrought on their behalf. And Paul 
 went on preaching as one filled with the Spirit 
 and with triumph in his voice, and soon the 
 news spread to the port, and the Phoenician 
 fishermen came and saw the wonder, and the 
 Roman soldiers, and all Hstened now to Paul's 
 words and were converted by him. For every- 
 one knew that this Joshua, though a Jew, had 
 not followed the new teaching, and that he 
 had been as Paul said he was, the last unbehever 
 in Csesarea, and because of his unbehef, as Paul 
 declared, and for a sign to the whole world, 
 the Stigmata of Jesus the Crucified had been 
 put upon him, and, indeed, the Stigmata were 
 there, plain to be seen by everyone, in his hands 
 
The Miracle of the Stigmata 27 
 
 and feet and side. And all the inhabitants of 
 Caesarea, and of the parts round about, were 
 converted and turned to the Lord through the 
 preaching of Paul, and through the miracle of 
 the Stigmata that had been wrought on the 
 body of the last unbeliever in Csesarea. 
 
THE HOLY MAN 
 
THE HOLY MAN 
 
 (After Tolstoi) 
 
 PAUL, the eldest son of Count Stroganoff, 
 was only thirty-two when he was made 
 a Bishop : he was the youngest dignitary 
 in the Greek Church, yet his diocese was among 
 the largest: it extended for hundreds of miles 
 along the shore of the Caspian. Even as a 
 youth Paul had astonished people by his sin- 
 cerity and gentleness, and the honours paid to 
 him seemed to increase his lovable qualities. 
 
 Shortly after his induction he set out to visit 
 his whole diocese in order to learn the needs 
 of the people. On this pastoral tour he took 
 with him two older priests in the hope that he 
 might profit by their experience. After many 
 disappointments he was forced to admit that 
 they could only be used as aids to memory, or 
 as secretaries; for they could not even under- 
 stand his passionate enthusiasm. The life of 
 Christ was the model the young Bishop set 
 before himself, and he took joy in whatever 
 pain or fatigue his ideal involved. His two 
 priests thought it unbecoming in a Bishop to 
 
32 The Holy Man 
 
 work so hard and to be so careless of "dignity 
 and state," by which they meant ease and 
 good living. At first they grumbled a good 
 deal at the work, and with apparent reason, 
 for, indeed, the Bishop forgot himself in his 
 mission, and as the tour went on his body 
 seemed to waste away in the fire of his 
 zeal. 
 
 After he had come to the extreme southern 
 point of his diocese he took ship and began to 
 work his way north along the coast, in order 
 to visit all the fishing villages. 
 
 One afternoon, after a hard morning's work, 
 he was seated on deck resting. The Httle ship 
 lay becalmed a long way from the shore, for 
 the water was shallow and the breeze had died 
 down in the heat of the day. 
 
 There had been rain-clouds over the land, 
 but suddenly the sun came out hotly and the 
 Bishop caught sight of some roofs gHstening 
 rosy-pink in the sunshine a long way off. 
 
 "What place is that?" he asked the 
 Captain. 
 
 "Krasnavodsk, I think it is called," replied 
 the Captain after some hesitation, "a little nest 
 between the mountains and the sea; a hundred 
 souls perhaps in all." 
 
 (Men are commonly called "souls" in Russia 
 as they are called "hands" in England.) 
 
The Holy Man 33 
 
 "One hundred souls," repeated the Bishop, 
 "shut away from the world; I must visit Kras- 
 navodsk." 
 
 The priests shrugged their shoulders but 
 said nothing; they knew it was no use object- 
 ing or complaining. But this time the Captain 
 came to their aid. 
 
 "It's twenty-five versts away," he said, "and 
 the sailors are done up. You'll be able to get 
 in easily enough but coming out again against 
 the sea-breeze will take hard rowing." 
 
 "To-morrow is Sunday," rejoined the Bishop, 
 "and the sailors will be able to rest all day. 
 Please, Captain, tell them to get out the boat. 
 I wouldn't ask for myself," he added in a low 
 voice. 
 
 The Captain understood; the boat was got 
 out, and under her little lug-sail reached the 
 shore in a couple of hours. 
 
 Lermontoff, the big helmsman, stepped at 
 once into the shallow water, and carried the 
 Bishop on his back up the beach, so that he 
 shouldn't get wet. The two priests got to 
 land as best they could. 
 
 At the first cottage the Bishop asked an old 
 man, who was cutting sticks, where the church 
 was. 
 
 "Church," repeated the peasant, "there isn't 
 one. 
 
34 The Holy Man 
 
 "Haven't you any pope, any priest here?" 
 enquired the Bishop. 
 
 ** What's that?" 
 
 "Surely," replied the Bishop, "you have 
 some one here who visits the dying and prays 
 with them, some one who attends to the sick 
 — women and children?" 
 
 "Oh, yes," cried the old man, straightening 
 himself; "we have a holy man." 
 
 "Holy man?" repeated the Bishop, "who 
 is he?" 
 
 "Oh, a good man, a saint," replied the old 
 peasant, "he does everything for anyone in 
 need." 
 
 "Is he a Christian?" 
 
 "I don't think so," the old man rejoined, 
 shaking his head, "I've never heard that name." 
 
 "Do you pay him for his services?" asked 
 the Bishop. 
 
 "No, no," was the reply, "he would not 
 take anything." 
 
 "How does he live?" the Bishop probed 
 further. 
 
 "Like the rest of us, he works in his Httle 
 garden." 
 
 "Show me where he lives: will you?" said 
 the Bishop gently, and at once the old man 
 put down his axe and led the way among the 
 scattered huts. 
 
The Holy Man 35 
 
 In a few moments they came to the cottage 
 standing in a square of cabbages. It was just 
 like the other cottages in the village, poverty- 
 stricken and weather-worn, wearing its patches 
 without thought of concealment. 
 
 The old man opened the door: 
 
 "Some visitors for you, Ivanushka," he said, 
 standing aside to let the Bishop and his priests 
 pass in. 
 
 The Bishop saw before him a broad, thin 
 man of about sixty, dressed half like a peasant, 
 half like a fisherman; he wore the usual sheep- 
 skin and high fisherman's boots. The orlrj 
 noticeable thing in his appearance was the 
 way his silver hair and beard contrasted with 
 the dark tan of his skin; his eyes were clearj 
 blue and steady. 
 
 "Come in. Excellency," he said, "come ir/* 
 and he hastily dusted a stool with his sleer? 
 for the Bishop and placed it for him with t 
 low bow. 
 
 "Thank you," said the Bishop, taking the 
 seat, "I am somewhat tired, and the rest will 
 be grateful. But be seated, too," he added, 
 for the "holy man" was standing before him 
 bowed in an attitude of respectful attention. 
 Without a word Ivan drew up a stool and sat 
 down. 
 
 "I was surprised," the Bishop began, "to 
 
36 The Holy Man 
 
 find you have no church here, and no priest; 
 the peasant who showed us the way did not 
 even know what 'Christian' meant." ^^ 
 
 The holy man looked at him with his patient 
 eyes, but said nothing, so the Bishop went on: 
 
 "You're a Christian: are you not?" 
 
 "I have not heard that name before," said 
 the holy man. 
 
 The Bishop Hfted his eyebrows in surprise. 
 
 "Why then do you attend to the poor and 
 ailing in their need?" he argued; "why do 
 you help them?" 
 
 The holy man looked at him for a moment, 
 and then replied quietly: 
 
 "I was helped when I was young and needed 
 it." 
 
 "But what religion have you?" asked the 
 Bishop. 
 
 "Religion," the old man repeated, wonder- 
 ingly, "what is religion?" 
 
 "We call ourselves Christians," the Bishop 
 began, "because Jesus, the founder of our 
 faith, was called Christ. Jesus was the Son of 
 God, and came down from heaven with the 
 Gospel of Good Tidings; He taught men that 
 they were the children of God, and that God 
 is love." 
 
 The face of the old man lighted up and he 
 leaned forward eagerly: 
 
Tlie Holy Man 37 
 
 "Tell me about Him, please." 
 
 The Bishop told him the story of Jesus, 
 and when he came to the end the old man 
 cried : 
 
 "What a beautiful story! I've never heard 
 or imagined such a story." 
 
 "I intend," said the Bishop, "as soon as I 
 get home again, to send you a priest, and he 
 will establish a church here where you can 
 worship God, and he will teach you the whole 
 story of the suffering and death of the divine 
 Master." 
 
 "That will be good of you," cried the old 
 man, warmly, "we shall be very glad to wel- 
 come him." 
 
 The Bishop w^as touched by the evident 
 sincerity of his listener. 
 
 "Before I go," he said, "and I shall have to 
 go soon, because it will take us some hours to 
 get out to the ship again, I should Uke to tell 
 you the prayer that Jesus taught His disciples." 
 
 "I should like very much to hear it," the old 
 man said quietly. 
 
 "Let us kneel down then," said the Bishop, 
 "as a sign of reverence, and repeat it after me, 
 for we are all brethren together in the love of 
 the Master"; and saying this he knelt down, 
 and the old man immediately knelt down beside 
 him and clasped his hands as the Bishop clasped 
 
38 The Holy Man 
 
 his and repeated the sentences as they dropped 
 from the Bishop's lips. 
 
 **Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed 
 be thy name.'* 
 
 When the old man had repeated the words, 
 the Bishop went on: 
 
 "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in 
 earth as it is in heaven." 
 
 The fervour with which the old man recited 
 the words "Thy will be done in earth, as it is 
 in heaven" was really touching. 
 
 The Bishop continued: 
 
 "Give us this day our daily bread. And 
 forgive us our debts,^ as we forgive our 
 debtors. 
 
 "Give . . . give ," repeated the old 
 
 man, having apparently forgotten the words. 
 
 "Give us this day our daily bread," repeated 
 the Bishop, "and forgive us our debts as we 
 forgive our debtors." 
 
 "Give and forgive," said the old man at 
 length. . . . "Give and forgive," and the 
 Bishop seeing that his memory was weak took 
 up the prayer again : 
 
 "And lead us not into temptation, but 
 deliver us from evil." 
 
 Again the old man repeated the words with an 
 
 *This form of the Lord's Prayer is evidently taken from 
 Matthew. 
 
The Holy Man 39 
 
 astonishing fervour, "And lead us not into 
 temptation, but deliver us from evil." 
 
 And the Bishop concluded: 
 
 "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, 
 and the glory, for ever. Amen." 
 
 The old man's voice had an accent of loving 
 and passionate sincerity as he said "For thine 
 is the kingdom, and the power, and the beauty, 
 for ever and ever. Amen." 
 
 The Bishop rose to his feet and his host 
 followed his example, and when he held out 
 his hand the old man clasped it in both his, 
 saying: 
 
 "How can I ever thank you for telling me 
 that beautiful story of Christ; how can I ever 
 thank you enough for teaching me His prayer? " 
 
 As one in an ecstacy he repeated the words: 
 "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in 
 earth as it is in heaven. ..." 
 
 Touched by his reverent, heartfelt sincerity, 
 the Bishop treated him with great kindness; he 
 put his hand on his shoulder and said: 
 
 "As soon as I get back I will send you a 
 priest, who will teach you more, much more 
 than I have had time to teach you; he will 
 indeed tell you all you want to know of our 
 religion — the love by which we hve, the hope 
 in which we die." Before he could stop him 
 the old man had bent his head and kissed the 
 
40 The Holy Man 
 
 Bishop's hand; and tears stood in his eyes as 
 he did him reverence. 
 
 He accompanied the Bishop to the water's 
 edge, and, seeing the Bishop hesitate on the 
 brink waiting for the steersman to carry him 
 to the boat, the "holy man" stooped and took 
 the Bishop in his arms and strode with him 
 through the water and put him gently on the 
 cushioned seat in the sternsheets as if he had 
 been a little child, much to the surprise of the 
 Bishop and of Lermontoff, who said as if to 
 himself : 
 
 "That fellow's as strong as a young man." 
 
 For a long time after the boat had left the 
 shore the old man stood on the beach waving 
 his hands to the Bishop and his companions; 
 but when they were well out to sea, on the sec- 
 ond tack, he turned and went up to his cottage 
 and disappeared from their sight. 
 
 A little later the Bishop, turning to his 
 priests, said: 
 
 "What an interesting experience! ^Miat a 
 wonderful old man! Didn't you notice how 
 fervently he said the Lord's Prayer.?" 
 
 "Yes," replied the younger priest indiffer- 
 ently, "he was trying to show off, I thought." 
 
 "No, no," cried the Bishop. "His sincerity 
 
TJie Holy Man 41 
 
 was manifest and his goodness too. Did you 
 notice that he said *give and forgive' instead 
 of just repeating the words? And if you think 
 of it, *give us this day our daily bread and for- 
 give us our debts as we forgive our debtors' 
 seems a little like a bargain. I'm not sure that 
 the simple word 'give and forgive' is not better, 
 more in the spirit of Jesus?" 
 
 The younger priest shrugged his shoulders as 
 if the question had no interest for him. 
 
 "Perhaps that's what the old man meant?" 
 questioned the Bishop after a pause. 
 
 But as neither of the priests answered him, 
 he went on, as if thinking aloud : 
 
 "At the end again he used the word * beauty' 
 for * glory.' I wonder was that unconscious? 
 In any case an extraordinary man and good, 
 I am sure, out of sheer kindness and sweet- 
 ness of nature, as many men are good in 
 Russia. No wonder our moujiks call it *Holy 
 Russia'; no wonder, when you can find men 
 like that." 
 
 "They are as ignorant as pigs," cried the 
 other priest, "not a soul in the village can either 
 read or write: they are heathens, barbarians. 
 They've never even heard of Christ and don't 
 know what religion means." 
 
 The Bishop looked at him and said nothing; 
 seemingly he preferred his own thoughts. 
 
42 The Holy Man 
 
 It was black night when they came to the 
 ship, and at once they all went to their cabins 
 to sleep; for the day had been very tiring. 
 
 The Bishop had been asleep perhaps a couple 
 of hours when he was awakened by the younger 
 priest shaking him and saying: 
 
 "Come on deck quickly, quickly, Excellency, 
 something extraordinary's happening, a light on 
 the sea and no one can make out what it is ! " 
 
 "A light," exclaimed the Bishop, getting out 
 of bed and beginning to draw on his clothes. 
 
 **Yes, a light on the water,'* repeated the 
 priest; "but come quickly, please; the Captain 
 sent me for you." 
 
 When the Bishop reached the deck, the Cap- 
 tain was standing with his night-glass to his 
 eyes, looking over the waste of water to lee- 
 ward, where, indeed, a light could be seen 
 flickering close to the surface of the sea; it 
 appeared to be a hundred yards or so away. 
 
 "What is it?" cried the Bishop, astonished 
 by the fact that all the sailors had crowded 
 round and were staring at the light. 
 
 "What is it?" repeated the Captain grufl3y, 
 for he was greatly moved; "it's a man with a 
 grey beard; he has a lantern in his right hand, 
 and he's walking on the water." 
 
 "But no one can walk on the water," said 
 
The Holy Man 43 
 
 the Bishop gentl3\ "It would be a miracle," 
 he added, in a tone of remonstrance. 
 
 "Miracle or not,'' retorted the Captain, 
 taking the glass from his eyes, "that's what I 
 see, and the man'Il be here soon, for he's com- 
 ing towards us. Look, you," and he handed 
 the glass to one of the sailors as he spoke. 
 
 The light still went on swaying about as if 
 indeed it were being carried in the hand of a 
 man. The sailor had hardly put the night- 
 glass to his eyes, when he cried out: 
 
 "That's what it is! — a man walking on the 
 water . . . it's the 'holy man' who carried 
 your Excellency on board the boat this after- 
 noon." 
 
 "God help us!" cried the priests, crossing 
 themselves. 
 
 "He'll be here in a mom^ent or two," added 
 the sailor, "he's coming quickly," and, indeed, 
 almost at once the old man came to them from 
 the water and stepped over the low bulwark 
 on to the deck. 
 
 At this the priests went down on their knees, 
 thinking it was some miracle, and the sailors, 
 including the Captain, followed their example, 
 leaving the Bishop standing awe-stricken and 
 imcertain in their midst. 
 
 The "holy man" came forward, and, stretch- 
 ing out his hands, said: 
 
44 The Holy Man 
 
 "I'm afraid I've disturbed you, Excellency: 
 but soon after you left me, I found I had 
 forgotten part of that beautiful prayer, and I 
 could not bear you to go away and think me 
 careless of all you had taught me, and so I 
 came to ask you to help my memory just once 
 more. . . . 
 
 "I remember the first part of the prayer and 
 the last words as if I had been hearing it all 
 my life and knew it in my soul, but the middle 
 has escaped me. . . . 
 
 "I remember *Our Father, which art in 
 heaven. Hallowed be thy name. Thy king- 
 dom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is 
 in heaven,' and then all I can remember is, 
 *Give and forgive,' and the end, *And lead us 
 not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. 
 For thine is the kingdom, and the power and 
 the beauty for ever and ever. Amen.' 
 
 "But I've forgotten some words in the 
 middle: won't you tell me the middle again.?" 
 
 "How did you come to us.?" asked the 
 Bishop in awed wonderment. "How did you 
 walk on the water?" 
 
 "Oh, that's easy," replied the old man, "any- 
 one can do that; whatever you love and trust 
 in this world loves you in return. We love the 
 water that makes everything pure and sweet 
 for us, and is never tired of cleansing, and the 
 
The Holy Man 45 
 
 water loves us in return; anyone can walk on 
 it; but won't you teach me that beautiful 
 prayer, the prayer Jesus taught His disciples?" 
 
 The Bishop shook his head, and in a low 
 voice, as if to himself, said: 
 
 "I don't think I can teach you anything 
 about Jesus the Christ. You know a great 
 deal already. I only wish " 
 
 London, Christmas, 1911-12 
 
THE KING OF THE JEWS 
 
THE KING OF THE JEWS 
 
 THE PERSONS 
 
 HusHH^i. A woman of tlie tribe of Benjamin; 
 
 wife of Simon and mother of his two sons, 
 
 Alexander and Rufus, 
 Simon. Of Cyrene, who owns a field in the 
 
 country outside Jerusalem, on the way to 
 
 Bethel 
 
 The Scene Jerusalem : 
 
 Time: The First Hour on the day of Preparation. 
 
 HusHiM. Now you know what to do, don't 
 you? You must go to the Temple by the second 
 hour and wait for Joad. When he comes 
 he'll take you to the High Priest. You'll 
 know Joad, he'll be dressed as a priest. Tell 
 Joad he's the handsomest man you've ever 
 seen; he's small, you know, and likes to think 
 he's captivating. CompHment the High Priest 
 on his sense of justice; say it is the finest in 
 the world; say anything. . . . Don't be afraid 
 of overdoing it; men love flattery. 
 
 Simon [nods his head], I'll do my best. 
 
50 The King of the J exes 
 
 - HusHiM. If I've not heard from you by the 
 fourth hour I'll send Alexander to you to know 
 the result, for I shall be very anxious. And 
 the boy'll find out, he's so sharp. Don't spare 
 compliments. You must be doorkeeper in the 
 Temple, and flattery is like honey, the less 
 you deserve it, the more you like it. 
 
 Simon [going], I'll try to do what you say, 
 Hushim. 
 
 The Eleventh Hour on the day of Preparation 
 
 Hushim. Well? Have you got the post.^* 
 You have been a time. Are you the door- 
 keeper of the Temple; have we the house in the 
 Inner Court .'^ 
 
 Simon [passing his hand over his forehead], 
 I don't know. 
 
 Hushim. Don't know; you must know. 
 Was Joad there? He promised to speak for 
 you. Did you see him? 
 
 Simon. I didn't see him. [Sits doion 
 wearily. 
 
 Hushim. Didn't see him! Wasn't he there? 
 My uncle's brother, too, and he promised me: 
 the Har. What did you do? 
 
 Simon. I did nothing. I'm tired, Hushim. 
 
 Hushim. Tired! What's happened? Why 
 don't you speak? What's the matter with you? 
 Are you dumb or ill? 
 
The King of the Jews 51 
 
 Simon. I'm not ill, I'm only tired. 
 
 HusHiM. Tired, you great hulk. Where 
 have you been? What have you been doing? 
 What's the matter with you.^ Can't you speak? 
 
 Simon. If you knew 
 
 HusHiM. If I knew what? Oh, you make 
 me mad. What is it? [She takes him by the 
 shoulder and shakes him.] What's happened? 
 Oh, you brute! Can't you speak? 
 
 Simon. You've no cause for anger, wife. 
 
 HusHiM. No cause! Have you got the 
 place? "WTiat did the High Priest say? You 
 must know that. 
 
 Simon. I don't know. 
 
 HusHiM. You don't know. You must be 
 mad. This comes of marrying a foreigner, a 
 fool, a great brute. They all said I'd repent 
 it. Oh! Oh! Oh! 
 
 Simon. Don't cry, Hushim. I'll tell you 
 everything. 
 
 Hushim [drying her eyes]. Tell me, did they 
 make you doorkeeper? That's what I want 
 to know. Tell me that. You promised you'd 
 be in the Temple at the second hour and here 
 it is the eleventh. "Where have you been all 
 day? Wnbere? 
 
 Simon. I'm sorry, wife; I forgot. 
 
 Hushim. Forgot, sorry ! What do you mean? 
 Joad promised me to get you the place if the 
 
5i The King of the Jews 
 
 High Priest liked you. Did you get it? What 
 did they say? Talk, man. 
 
 Simon. I'm so sorry. I forgot all about it. 
 I have not been to the Temple. 
 
 HusHiM. You've not been to the Temple. 
 And why not? Where were you? Don't say 
 that Eli got the post. Don't say it or I'll 
 strike you. 
 
 Simon. I'm very sorry. I forgot. I don't 
 know who got it. I wasn't there. 
 
 HusHiM [sitting down]. Oh! Oh! Oh! He 
 wasn't there! Oh! Oh! Oh! Where have you 
 been all these hours? What have you been 
 doing? Where did you go? Where did you 
 eat? 
 
 Simon. I've not eaten. I've 
 
 HusHiM. Not eaten! Why not? What 
 happened? Oh, why won't you speak! Talk, 
 tell me! 
 
 Simon. I'll tell you everything; but I'm 
 very tired. 
 
 HusHiM. Tell me first, who got the post? 
 You must have heard. 
 
 Simon. I don't know. I've not heard. 
 
 HusHiM. At the fourth hour I sent Alex- 
 ander to the Temple to find out whether you 
 were chosen or not; when it got so dark I sent 
 Rufus to my sister-in-law, Hoshed. I could 
 not bear the suspense. They've both come 
 
The King of the Jews 53 
 
 back without news. You must know who got 
 the post. 
 
 Simon. No, I don't know. I didn't ask, 
 but 
 
 HusHiM. You didn't ask? 
 
 Simon. I'm thirsty. 
 
 HusHiM [giving him wine]. There! Now tell 
 me everything. You went out to the field .'^ 
 
 Simon [nods while drinking the wine]. I was 
 at the field till nearly the second hour working, 
 then I came into the city. When I reached 
 the street which leads from the Temple to 
 Golgotha I could not get across it, there was 
 such a crowd. They had all come to see some 
 prisoners who were going to be crucified. 
 
 HusHiM. But didn't you push through.^ 
 
 Simon. I got through to the first file, but 
 there soldiers kept the passage. I had to 
 wait. No one was allowed to cross. . . . 
 They told me there were three criminals. The 
 people were talking about them. Two were 
 thieves and one a rebel from the north, who 
 had tried to make himself king. It was to see 
 him the people had rim together. Some said 
 he was a prophet of God. . . . 
 ^ After a little while the prisoners came by. 
 The two thieves first, and then slowly the 
 man, whom they called a prophet. He looked 
 very ill. . . . [After a long pause.] They had 
 
54 The King of the Jews 
 
 platted a crown of thorns and pushed it down 
 on his head, and the thorns had torn the flesh 
 and the blood ran down his face. When he 
 came opposite to me he fell and lay like a dead 
 man; the Cross was heavy. . . . The Cen- 
 turion ordered some of the Roman soldiers to 
 lift the [Cross from him and he got up. He 
 seemed very weak and faint: he could hardly 
 stand. . . . The Centurion came across to me 
 and pulled me out, and pointed to the Cross 
 and told me to shoulder it and get on. . . . 
 
 HusHiM. But why you? 
 
 Simon. I suppose because I looked big and 
 strong. 
 
 HusHiM. Didn't you tell him you had to be 
 at the Temple? 
 
 Simon. Of course I told him, but he thrust 
 me forward and warned me if I didn't do as 
 I was told, I'd have to go the Temple without 
 feet. 
 
 HusHiM. Oh, what bad luck! No one ever 
 had such bad luck as you. No one. Why 
 didn't you run away.^ 
 
 Simon. I didn't think 
 
 HusHiM. Well, you carried the Cross .^ And 
 then 
 
 Simon. I went to hft the Cross; it seemed 
 as if I were helping to punish the man. While 
 I stood hesitating, he looked at me, Hushim. 
 
The King of the Jews 55 
 
 I never saw such eyes or such a look. Some- 
 how or other I knew he wished me to do it. 
 I Hfted the Cross up and got my shoulder under 
 it and walked on. I did not seem to notice 
 the weight of it, I was thinking of his look, 
 and so we went through the crowd past Gol- 
 gotha to the Hill of Calvary. On the top I 
 put down the Cross. 
 
 HusHiM. When was that.^ It must have 
 been about the third hour. Why didn't 
 you go to the Temple then? You see, it 
 was all your fault. I knew it was! But 
 go on, go on. 
 
 Simon. I forgot all about the Temple, I 
 could think of nothing but the man. He 
 stood there so quiet while the priests and 
 people jeered at him. . . . WTien the others 
 were hung up, they shrieked and screamed 
 and cursed. It was dreadful. . . . 
 
 When they were getting ready to nail him 
 to the Cross I went over to him and said, "O 
 Master," and he turned to me, "forgive me, 
 Master, for doing what your enemies wished." 
 And he looked at me again, and my heart 
 turned to w^ater, and the tears streamed from 
 my eyes, I don't know why. . . . 
 
 He put his hands on my shoulders and 
 said, "Friend, friend, there is nothing to for- 
 give. . . " [Lays his head on his arms and sobs — ] 
 
56 The King of the Jeios 
 
 HusHiM. Don't cry, Simon, don't cry. He 
 must have been a prophet! 
 
 Simon. If you had seen him. If you had 
 seen his eyes. . . . 
 
 HusHiM [beginning to cry]. I know, I know. 
 What else did he say.'^ 
 
 Simon. He thanked me, and though I was 
 a foreigner and a stranger to him, and quite 
 rough and common, he took me in his arms 
 and kissed me. ... I was all broken before 
 him. . . . 
 
 He was wonderful. When they nailed him 
 to the Cross he did not even groan — not a 
 sound. And when they lifted the Cross up — 
 the worst torture of all — he just grew white, 
 white. . . . All the priests about and the people 
 mocked him and asked if he could save others 
 why couldn't he save himself? But he answered 
 not a word. ... I could have killed them, the 
 brutes! He prayed to God to forgive them, 
 and he comforted one of the thieves who was 
 sobbing in pain. . . . 
 
 Oh, he was wonderful. Even in his anguish 
 he could think of others, and yet he was the 
 weakest of all. . . . 
 
 And then the storm burst, and I stood there 
 for hours and hours in the darkness. I could 
 not leave him, I waited. . . . Later some of 
 his own people came about the Cross, weeping, 
 
The King of the Jews 57 
 
 his mother and his followers, and took him 
 down, and they called him Master and Lord, as 
 I had called him. They all loved him. No 
 one could help loving him, no one. . . . 
 
 Above his head on the Cross, they had writ- 
 ten, "King of the Jews." You Jews have no 
 king, I know; they did it to mock him. But 
 he was a king, king of the hearts of men. 
 
 HusHiM. And with all that we've lost the 
 place! What was his name.^* 
 
 Simon. Jesus of Nazareth. 
 
 HusHiM. What was it he said to you.^ I 
 want to remember it to tell Hoshed. 
 
 Simon. He called me "Blessed, for that I a 
 stranger, who did not even know him, was the 
 only man in the world who had ever helped to 
 bear his biu'den." 
 
THE IRONY OF CHANCE 
 
THE IRONY OF CHANCE 
 
 (After 0. W.) 
 
 MORTIMER was always rather peculiar. 
 He and I were at Winchester together 
 and about the same age; we took 
 our removes regularly and so saw a good 
 deal of each other. He was unlike other 
 boys — strangely proud and sensitive. I re- 
 member the occasion when his curious tempera- 
 ment first came to notice and gave his life a 
 bias. He was very quick at mathematics and 
 things generally, but he had a poor memory 
 for words and wrote shocking verses. One day 
 
 — we had just got into the Lower Fifth, I 
 remember, and were doing some hexameters 
 
 — the Form master spoke to him contemp- 
 tuously. Mortimer flushed and frowned, and, 
 as the master ceased, closed his book sharply 
 and never opened it again. He would not be 
 schooled any longer, he said, by an ill-bred 
 bully, and from that day on he did no more 
 Form work. 
 
 As he never went in much for games, the 
 
62 The Irony of Chance 
 
 time soon hung heavy on his hands, and, to 
 my surprise, he began to take up chemistry 
 and was always in and out of the laboratory. 
 Our science master at Winchester was a red- 
 headed Irishman, called Moriarty, lusty and 
 strong to all appearance; but of the most 
 nervous and timid disposition. Inordinately 
 proud of having secured a willing student, he 
 humoured Mortimer a good deal, and the two 
 became inseparable. As I soon passed into 
 the Upper Fifth and then into the Sixth, I 
 met Mortimer only at intervals. But our 
 friendship continued; for, with all his pride, 
 he was gentle and affectionate, and I always 
 liked him greatly: I hardly know why. He 
 was nice-looking in his own way: a clean, 
 mouse-coloured English boy, with appealing 
 gray eyes. 
 
 In October, 1882, I went to Balliol, and Mor- 
 timer came up to Oxford in the following May. 
 My two terms' seniority, the demands of the 
 river on my leisure, and the fact that I was 
 reading for Honour Mods, and afterwards for 
 Greats and a Fellowship, while he stuck to his 
 chemistry, prevented me from seeing much 
 of him. Later, too, he kept a good deal to 
 himself and went in for abstruse, visionary 
 studies: interesting, if you like, but vague 
 and unprofitable. Yet I envied him the money 
 
The Irony of Chance 63 
 
 which made it possible for him to follow his 
 bent and read what he liked: liberty is always 
 seductive to the young. But, though we fell 
 apart, whenever we did meet, the old liking 
 showed itself as strong as ever. Sometimes 
 he would look me up and have a talk. Now 
 and again he spoke of his ambitions, or rather, 
 of his hopes: when you come to deal with the 
 mysteries, hopes are as much as you can have. 
 One day he fairly startled me. I had been 
 talking to him of my w^ork, and had mentioned, 
 casually, a Greek manuscript, recently dis- 
 covered, of part of the Bacchae, a palimpsest, 
 when I noticed that Mortimer was gazing into 
 space as if he were not listening. I shut up 
 rather huffed; but he turned to me at once, 
 in his charming, eager way, and begged me not 
 to be offended. 
 
 "Your mention of a palimpsest," he said, 
 "led me to think of what the scientific equiv- 
 alent of a palimpsest would be, and I came 
 on rather an interesting idea. Suppose strong 
 sunshine beating on a rock. Every shadow of 
 man or beast cast on the rock modifies the 
 sun's influence, and so leaves an imprint, how- 
 ever faint, on the stone. Fancy if, in time 
 to come, we were able to read such a palimp- 
 sest, and print off for you photographs of 
 Plato and Sophocles from some rock on Colonus. 
 
64 The Irony of Chance 
 
 Wait a little, my friend, science will yet de- 
 cipher palimpsests a great deal more interest- 
 ing than your sheepskin puzzles." 
 
 The idea was curious, and Mortimer was in 
 earnest, I saw; but, of course, the thing was 
 impossible. 
 
 In due time, I took my First, and afterwards 
 was lucky enough to get a Fellowship at All 
 Souls. Then I came to London, and was 
 called to the Bar. I lost sight of Mortimer 
 completely, and for years scarcely heard of him. 
 I knew, however, in a vague way, that he had 
 gone down to his people in Wales, and had been 
 a great disappointment to them. He would not 
 enter any of the professions, nor marry, nor 
 take on himself any of the accepted and usual 
 burdens of life. He grew more and more soli- 
 tary, and at last went and built a cottage and 
 laboratory on the coast of Cardigan Bay, with 
 money left to him by his mother, and there 
 spent some of the best years of his life, more 
 like a hermit than a reasonable human being. 
 
 Years passed: I had just taken silk, indeed, 
 when I heard of Mortimer again. He was 
 lecturing in London and the provinces, and 
 scraps of his talk came to me from time to 
 time, filtered through the daily papers. One 
 or two phrases that had escaped the mangling 
 of the reporters interested me: 
 
 / 
 
The Irony of Chance 65 
 
 "Laws of nature and ideas in the mind are 
 correlatives, and suppose each other as eyes 
 suppose Hght." 
 
 Again : 
 
 ** Spiritual forces are only mechanical forces 
 raised to a higher power, and will yet be found 
 more efficient — even in industries.*' 
 
 These, and other such cryptic utterances, 
 rather attracted me. 
 
 People thought Mortimer a little mad; he 
 pretended to be able to work miracles, they 
 said, and told wild stories about him which I 
 had neither the time nor the inclination to in- 
 vestigate. Mortimer was the last person in 
 the world, I thought, to play thaumaturge or to 
 try to impose on anyone. I was dumbfounded 
 when the news came of the scandal at Bir- 
 mingham. Mortimer accused of cheating and 
 swindling! Impossible! In my indignation 
 I tore up the paper that held the news, and 
 pitched it out of the brougham window. I 
 was on my way down to chambers when I read 
 the account. That very afternoon Mortimer 
 came into my office. 
 
 He had changed greatly. The light-brown 
 hair was gray; the slight figure had lost its 
 spring; the hands twined nervously; the 
 patient, appealing eyes even seemed to have 
 lost their candour. 
 
66 The Irony of Chance 
 
 "Can I have a talk with you?" he asked, 
 as our hands met. 
 
 "Surely," I replied. "I am glad you came 
 to me." 
 
 He threw himself into my armchair with 
 a sigh, and ran his hands through his hair; 
 then suddenly jumped up in the old abrupt 
 way. 
 
 "Pack them all oiff," he said, speaking quickly, 
 " your clerk and everybody, and let us have a 
 talk. I want your judgment of me and no 
 one else's." 
 
 He was so nervous and excited that I hu- 
 moured him. I gave my clerk three or four 
 messages for solicitors and sent him away, and 
 then went outside and "sported my oak." I 
 was surprised at myself. In spite of all I had 
 to do, and a dozen engagements, I was as eager 
 as a girl to hear Mortimer's story. When I 
 came back to him, I filled my pipe, drew up 
 another chair, crossed my legs on it, and said: 
 
 "Fire away! the court is with you." ^ 
 
 He seemed to find it hard to begin. He took 
 out his handkerchief and drew it backwards 
 and forwards through his nervous fingers, a 
 gesture I remembered from the old days at 
 Winchester. At length, with a troubled sort 
 of face: 
 
 "I must go back to the beginning," he said. 
 
The Irony of Chance 67 
 
 half defiantly, half apologetically. I nodded 
 encouragement, and he went on : 
 
 **You know I worked at science at Winches- 
 ter. I did a good deal there with Moriarty; 
 he was a painstaking teacher, and I got a fair 
 idea of inorganic chemistry from him. At 
 Oxford I did a lot of gas analysis and some 
 physics; and then I went to Heidelberg and 
 spent four or five years with Bunsen in his 
 laboratory." 
 
 "Did you really?" I broke in, wondering 
 how he had found the time. "It must have 
 been interesting." 
 
 4» "More than interesting," he rejoined. 
 "Bunsen, you know, was the man who dis- 
 covered the spectroscope. Curious, wasn't it? 
 About 1850, Comte declared that there were 
 two things which would never be found out as 
 long as the world lasted; two secrets of which 
 the keys would never be entrusted to man: 
 one was the origin of life, and the other, the 
 chemical composition of the stars. Within 
 ten years of the day he made the prediction, 
 Bunsen used the spectroscope and showed the 
 chemical composition of the stars. I was two 
 years with Bunsen as an assistant; he paid 
 me for the last year and a half; so I suppose 
 I was of some use to him. I could not persuade 
 him, the last of the great analysts, that the 
 
68 The Irony of Chance 
 
 day of synthetic chemistry had come; but 
 I was assured of it myself, and, when I went 
 down to Wales and started a chemical labo- 
 ratory, it was in order to practise synthetic 
 chemistry, and not analytic. My family was 
 bothering me to settle down, as they called 
 it; but I had other things to do: more impor- 
 tant things, I thought. That problem of the 
 origin of life was always in my head: a sort of 
 tantalizing mirage, and I had ideas that seemed 
 to lead to it — fascinating glimpses of the light. 
 Plato talks about the unity and universality 
 of life; but Plato had no idea that plants are 
 as much alive as men and women. Long be- 
 fore I had read any botany, I knew that there 
 must be plants which lived by eating: plants 
 which could nourish themselves on meat and 
 insects; plants which could move from place 
 to place; plants in which the sap pulsed like 
 blood: one life, one law, one plan, throughout 
 creation. And, just as there is no gap between 
 vegetable and animal life, so there is no gap 
 between organic and inorganic existence; the 
 being of stones and gases and metals must be 
 subject to the same law, swayed by the same 
 force, moving to the same end; a thought in 
 the mind of man is a law in the furthest star." 
 He paused for a while, and when he began 
 again it was with a half -humorous smile: 
 
The Irony of Chance 69 
 
 "Curious, isn't it, Jack? Knowledge used 
 to bring scepticism; to-day it brings belief. 
 Modern scientists have found that * vibrations 
 pass through space which cannot be propa- 
 gated by matter/ They have therefore had 
 to invent ether; the materialists themselves 
 compelled to give matter a companion soul — 
 extraordinary discovery, eh? But, long before 
 tliis undefined * ether' was invented, I had 
 made matter and spirit my starting points. . . . 
 
 "How much I did, I don't know, I don't 
 intend to talk about it; I want to come to the 
 heart of the matter. I made some curious dis- 
 coveries: I found very soon that one can fuse 
 and mix bodies without regard for their dif- 
 ferent atomic weights. You understand, don't 
 
 you?" 
 
 "No," I answered, shaking my head; "I 
 have no scientific knowledge at all." 
 
 "Well," he said, "let me make it as simple as 
 possible: oxygen has a certain atomic weight 
 and hydrogen also, and, in order to mix them, 
 you must put two volumes of hydrogen with 
 one volume of oxygen. You see, the greater 
 and the meaner do not unite easily in gases any 
 more than in human beings." 
 
 I looked at him in amazement, but he went 
 on quite seriously, with his head propped on 
 his hand: 
 
70 The Irony of Chance 
 
 "And if the gases refuse to mix, you heat 
 them, or pass an electric spark through them, 
 and they unite at once — an electric spark," 
 he repeated; "we call it love: don't we?" he 
 added. 
 
 'After a pause, he began again, almost as if 
 he were lecturing, I thought: 
 
 "So-called inanimate bodies will unite for 
 all sorts of reasons, or, if you like the scientific 
 jargon better, they will unite under various 
 conditions: for instance, put gold and lead 
 together at a certain temperature — say, 18 
 degrees Celsius — and you will find that the 
 gold will slowly interpenetrate the lead, and 
 in time make one with it. This simply means 
 that the atoms of both metals are in a constant 
 state of motion or vibration: there is no such 
 thing in nature as stillness or death.'* 
 
 He broke off and turned to me abruptly: 
 
 "You remember a story in the Bible how a 
 woman touched the hem of Jesus' garment 
 and he turned round to see who it was, for 
 he felt that virtue had gone out of him. I 
 always knew that was true, literally true. . . . 
 Well, just as electricity helps us to mix gases, 
 so I found that electricity helped me to fuse 
 metals and mix them, and, when I had no 
 electricity, I could mix them by personal 
 magnetism, if virtue sufficient were in me. 
 
The Irony of Chance 71 
 
 Again you shrug your shoulders and don't 
 beheve me: I suppose you are right not to: 
 but it is true, nevertheless. 
 
 "At length, I resolved to do something that 
 would convince you sceptics, and I set to work 
 with a sort of moral idea before me. If I can 
 prove this unity and universality of life, I said 
 to myself, surely men will grow more pitiful 
 and more kindly to all forms of being; more 
 gentle, too, in humility of kinship. Even 
 now we are careful of horses and dogs, birds 
 and flowers that subserve our pleasures; but 
 very cruel to animals and snakes and insects 
 that can hurt us, and utterly heedless of stones 
 and metals which seem to us without sensation. 
 I hoped to make a larger sympathy potent and 
 effectual." 
 
 "But you don't really believe," I inter- 
 rupted, "that stones and metals can feel.'* 
 You might almost as well say that they can 
 think." 
 
 "Have you ever considered," Mortimer 
 replied, "why it is that you can pass quickly 
 over thin ice which would break if you stood 
 still upon it.^ No: eh? Well, it is simply be- 
 cause ice wishes to remain ice: tries to resist 
 strain. You show disbelief in your face," 
 he cried; "but will you believe Haeckel, of 
 Jena, perhaps the first scientific authority in 
 
72 The Irony of Chance 
 
 the world? Here are his words: * Matter and 
 ether are not dead, and moved only by extrinsic 
 force; they are endowed with sensation and 
 will; they experience an inclination for con- 
 densation, a dislike for strain.' Now are you 
 satisfied? The life of stones and metals may 
 be simpler than your life: they may have fewer 
 sensations than you, but they also live, if 
 motion and feeling and will are proofs of life. 
 It was this truth that I divined and resolved 
 to establish. I sought a proof simple and 
 suflScient beyond denial or doubt. 
 
 **I determined to fuse metals together in 
 such a way that they would do my bidding: 
 that the mass would come when I asked it to 
 come, go when I told it to go, stand still when 
 I bade it stand still, and so prove that the 
 spirit of man is that of God, and rules through- 
 out creation." 
 
 He looked up suddenly; but I was listening 
 enthralled: his enthusiasm had infected me. 
 He continued: 
 
 "I went to work to fuse my metals, and first 
 of all I fused three metals, I don't know why; 
 mere superstition, I'm afraid; though I have 
 found that most superstitions are fragments 
 of forgotten knowledge; and then I fused nine 
 metals, because, as you know, the figure nine 
 shows curious properties in multiplication and 
 
The Irony of Chance 73 
 
 division. Still I failed absolutely. At length, 
 I fused seven metals into a great ball, probably 
 because seven was a sacred number in the past, 
 but there it would take too long to tell you 
 about my experiments, particularly as it was 
 chance which put me on the right track after 
 all. One morning I found my ball, wobbling 
 and imperfect indeed, instead of the perfect 
 sphere I had hoped for, but still a ball. At first 
 I was almost in despair, and then — puzzled. 
 The colour of the thing was superb : it had the 
 play and light on it of steel, and the glow of 
 gold, and was beautiful exceedingly. But it 
 was not round. While I looked at it. Jack," 
 and, as Mortimer spoke, he put his hand 
 on mine, "the truth came to me in a flash: of 
 a sudden I saw that it was the shape of the earth, 
 the sphere flattened at both Poles, and bulged 
 at the Equator, a perfect model of our earth. 
 Jack," and he sprang to his feet, "the laws that 
 made the world had made my sphere, and, in 
 my exultation, I knew I had succeeded," and 
 he began to pace up and down the office, "for 
 I called the ball, and it rolled and wobbled 
 towards me, and I sent it away, and it rolled 
 away, and I told it to stop, and it stood still: 
 I was as God. 
 
 "All this," he said, as he came back to the 
 chair again after a long pause, "may have little 
 
74 The Irony of Chance 
 
 interest for you, but it drove me nearly mad: 
 for the curious part of the matter is that, 
 though I went to sleep that night with the magic 
 ball by my bedside, exultant and content, and 
 awoke refreshed and happy; yet in the morn- 
 ing I had lost my power. It was heart-break- 
 ing: I spoke to the ball, and it did not respond; 
 and after the one gorgeous moment of power 
 and accomplishment, I had weeks of dull 
 disappointment and failure and doubt — yes, 
 doubt: for, in time, I even came to doubt 
 whether my success had not been a hallucina- 
 tion, a deception of fevered senses. At length, 
 I put the ball out of mind, and took up some 
 other work; and suddenly, one day, I perceived 
 that I had regained my power over the ball, 
 and could make it do whatever I wanted, and 
 as proof to myself, I called it up the stairs after 
 me, and then out upon the beach — I could 
 have knelt and kissed the ^ark it left on the 
 powdery sand. 
 
 "Months passed, and years, and I got no 
 further. Sometimes for days I had control 
 of the ball, and then of a sudden the power 
 would leave me, and I was plunged into hell. 
 It seemed to me often as if the fault were not 
 in me, but in the ball itself. That makes you 
 start," he cried; "but think: how did the ball 
 hear without ears, and move without force? 
 
The Irony of Chance 75 
 
 Surely, it must have had mind and will; at 
 any rate, that's my belief. But whether the 
 fault was in me or in the ball, the result was 
 the same. For weeks despair would lie on me, 
 crushing me; and then a change would come, 
 and I was master again, and king. One thing 
 upheld me: it seemed to me that, gradually, 
 I was getting more and more control over my 
 strange companion; the periods in which the 
 ball disobeyed me grew shorter and shorter, 
 and my mastery over it became more and more 
 complete. 
 
 "But the imperfect tortured me, and the 
 alternations of hope and fear broke down my 
 health. I got nervous and fanciful; and, in 
 my loneliness, weaker and weaker. I found 
 out then, Jack, that, just as there is no limit 
 between what is possible and what is impos- 
 sible, so there is no line between sanity and 
 insanity. Curious, isn't it? As soon as we 
 think of our bodies, we are unwell; and as 
 soon as we think of our minds we are on the 
 verge of madness. I grew afraid of myself, 
 and determined to change my mode of life. 
 Besides, I had become very weak, and did not 
 dare to wait any longer, lest my secret should 
 perish with me. True, my discoveries were 
 not so important as I had once hoped they 
 would be; but it was better, I reflected, to 
 
76 The Irony of Chance 
 
 tell a little than to let all be lost : for there were 
 myriads of generations coming after me who 
 would do that which I had failed to do, and 
 bring to fulfilment that which I had only begun. 
 With this thought in my head, I came up to 
 London and began to lecture. The change 
 did my health good, and I got to love the work: 
 though, of course, it was elementary. I de- 
 lighted to show by a hundred analogies that the 
 laws of physics were laws of thought; that 
 there is a positive and negative in the electric 
 current corresponding to the sex-division in 
 man and woman; that our notion of expediency 
 is the law of least resistance; and that the 
 passion of love is the law of gravitation, and 
 moves stars and suns as easily as boys and 
 girls. 
 
 "And when I told them from the platform 
 that I would give them a proof of all this, and 
 described to them how I had fused and mixed 
 the seven metals, and how, after many dis- 
 appointments, the great ball had taken the 
 shape of the earth, and how it would hear and 
 obey me, come to me when I told it to come, 
 go away when I told it to go away, and stand 
 still at my command, people believed me who 
 would not otherwise have believed my teaching, 
 nor even have cared to listen to it. Like chil- 
 dren, they were pleased with the puzzle, and 
 
The Irony of Chance 77 
 
 nothing more. The secret of Hfe which I had 
 discovered hardly interested them, and the 
 mysterious kinship of man, not only with the 
 other animals, but with that world of inor- 
 ganic elements which seems to our dull senses 
 motionless and dead, left them utterly indif- 
 erent. It was the miracle, Jack, which they 
 had come out to see. 
 
 "One night, I was tired, and the ball re- 
 sponded badly, scarcely moved at all, in fact, 
 and the people laughed and hooted, and some 
 wanted their money returned. They sickened 
 me with disappointment, and, afterwards, that 
 impression grew upon me, and, the more I 
 thought of it, the more frightened I became. 
 You can understand, can't you.^^ The whole 
 of my teaching endangered, because the visi- 
 ble proof was not always with me. The dull 
 generation that wanted a sign was not easily 
 satisfied." 
 
 As he spoke, he rose, and paced up and down 
 the office. When he began again, he spoke 
 slowly and with long pauses, as if he were tired : 
 
 "And so. Jack, temptation came to me. It 
 was a story of Edgar Allan Poe that gave me 
 the idea. I cut an opening in the ball, and got 
 a little boy who could enter it and move it as 
 he liked from the inside. It took me only a 
 week or so to construct the mechanism. You 
 
78 The Irony of Chance 
 
 disapprove, I see," he said, turning to me. 
 **But, think; after all, it was only making cer- 
 tain what was usual and ordinary. 
 
 *' Besides, I hardly ever employed the boy — 
 my word of honour — he was not necessary. 
 His mere presence gave me confidence, and I 
 went on for weeks successfully. I lectured 
 here in London and then in Leeds and Liverpool 
 and all through Scotland, without using the 
 boy at all. 
 
 "It was at Manchester, on my return South, 
 that I first noticed a man in the audience: a 
 man with an evil face. He sat there sneering 
 disbelief at me while I talked. I could see 
 envy and hatred in his eyes, and I grew afraid 
 of him. His influence was evil, and my second 
 night at Manchester I put Walter in the ball: 
 I had lost confidence. . . . Evil affects us even 
 when we resist it; sometimes I think it affects us 
 more when we resist it than when we yield to 
 it. . . . From that day on, I used the boy 
 occasionally; for the evil face followed me all 
 over the country, the same face in every 
 audience, till I came to loathe it. 
 a "I was lecturing at Birmingham, on the 
 Monday night, I remember, and, as soon as I 
 began to speak, I noticed that man before me 
 in the fifth row as usual, and I grew cold with 
 fear. But I soon pulled myself together, and 
 
The Irony of Chance 79 
 
 went on with my lecture. The people were 
 very enthusiastic, and enthusiasm is catching; 
 and, somehow or other, I was filled with the 
 sense of victory. And when at the end I told 
 the ball to come to me, and it came, and to go 
 away from me, and it went, I was quite confident 
 and happy; and I put my hand on the ball and 
 said : * I think if I told it to spin round, it would 
 spin with the motion of the earth on its axis,' 
 and, as I spoke, the ball began to spin; and, 
 when I looked out over the audience in triumph, 
 I noticed the man with the evil face had got 
 up in his place to watch the ball. In half a 
 minute, he sat dowoi again with a grin, as if he 
 had solved the riddle: the poor fool. 
 
 "The next afternoon, my boy — he was a 
 nice little fellow — came to me, and asked me 
 for the evening off; his mother, it appeared, 
 lived at Edgbaston, and he wanted to go and 
 see her. But I said: 
 
 "*No, Walter; I am not quite well, and I 
 should be nervous without you.' 
 
 "He looked at me a little sullenly, I thought, 
 as he replied: 
 
 "*You don't need me, professor; you know 
 the ball goes just as well without me: it always 
 starts before I even put my weight on the 
 lever.' 
 
 "But I cried: 
 
80 The Irony of Chance 
 
 ***No, no, Walter; the excitement of last 
 night has tired me. I cannot let you go. 
 Without you I should be afraid/ 
 
 "So I opened my second lecture at Birming- 
 ham with the boy in the sphere. The hall was 
 crowded, and the people more enthusiastic 
 than ever; but when, at the end of my lecture, 
 I called the ball to me, it would scarcely move, 
 and when I sent it away it responded very 
 feebly, and I trembled, fearing that Walter 
 was disobedient. In the audience there were 
 murmurs of discontent. Suddenly, the man 
 with the evil face rose and said: 
 
 *'* Ladies and gentlemen, I've followed these 
 lectures for weeks. That man on the platform 
 is an impostor. I can prove it; his trick is a 
 swindle and a cheat.' The next moment he 
 had come up beside me on the stage. He 
 declared that there must be a young boy 
 or girl in the ball to move it, and he dared 
 me to let him examine the ball and show what 
 he called the fact. I looked at him and said: 
 
 "*What does the fact prove.^ Doesn't the 
 lesson remain whether the ball stands still or 
 moves .^^ ' 
 
 *'He laughed in my face. 
 
 "'Who cares for your lesson.'^' he cried; *the 
 one thing we want to know is whether you can 
 make dead metal move; you can take your 
 
The Irony of Chance 81 
 
 teaching where you like; is there anyone inside 
 that ball or not? That's what we want to know/ 
 
 "A good idea came to me in my extremity, 
 and I said: *You are absurd. How could a 
 person inside the ball make it spin?' 
 
 "And he replied: *I don't know, but I'll 
 soon find out when I see the mechanism. If 
 there is anyone inside the ball, you are a 
 cheat!' 
 
 "And I answered: *I am not a cheat: what 
 do I cheat you of, if there were some one inside 
 the ball?' but, as I spoke, all the others shouted, 
 and he cried: 
 
 "*Let me test the ball,' and I said: 
 
 "*You shall not,' and he said: 
 
 "'I will.' 
 
 "Even as I withstood him, I noticed that all 
 were on his side and against me, and then 
 hatred of them overcame me and contempt, 
 and I said: 
 
 "*What if there is a boy in the ball? What 
 will you do then?' and he shouted in triumph, 
 turning to them: 
 
 "*I knew it was a boy: he has confessed.' 
 
 "I can't tell all they said and did in their 
 rage" — Mortimer was now speaking feebly, 
 as if exhausted — "but, at last, they gave me 
 a pen and ink and told me to write the ad- 
 mission that there was a boy inside the ball 
 
82 The Irony of Chance 
 
 and that I had cheated them, or else they would 
 break open the ball and see for themselves. 
 
 "I was tired to death, and my soul was filled 
 with contempt of them and loathing; and, at 
 last, I signed the paper, admitting that I was 
 a cheat, and they jeered at me and spat upon 
 the ground, and crowed that Birmingham was 
 too wise to be taken in by my tricks, and de- 
 manded their money back, and went away 
 sneering and triumphant. 
 
 "I sat on the platform deserted and alone, 
 shamed to the soul: my life in ruins about 
 me. . . . 
 
 "Suddenly a door at the right of the stage 
 opened and little Walter came in. When he 
 saw me, he hesitated: 
 
 "*I am sorry. Professor,' he said, hanging 
 his head; *very sorry. I did so want to see 
 my mother and I went to Edgbaston; but the 
 ball moved didn't it, just the same?' 
 
 "I started to my feet: 
 
 "*You were not in the ball then, Walter?' 
 I cried; and he answered, looking at me in 
 astonishment : 
 
 "*No, Professor, I was not in the ball. I 
 have only just come back.'" 
 
 September, 1901 
 
AN ENGLISH SAINT 
 
AN ENGLISH SAINT 
 
 MR. LAWRENCE had brought tailor- 
 ing to an art: he had reconciled con- 
 tradictions; his clothes fitted the 
 individual, yet preserved a distinctive class- 
 fashion and dignity. His own manners were 
 of similar elegance: he met everyone politely 
 from whom he had anything to gain, and yet 
 by subtle gradations of deference proclaimed 
 differences of position. In excellent harmony 
 with his surroundings, he had made money 
 easily and saved a considerable sum; he had 
 no vices so-called, save vanity, and had placed 
 all his hopes in his only son Gerald. He had 
 got Gerald into Harrow, had hoped for years 
 to make an officer of him; the boy's handsome 
 face and figure he thought would be best set off 
 by gold-laced uniform and a mess jacket. But 
 a certain delicacy of constitution, which ap- 
 peared to have grown with the lad's growth, 
 defeated his hope, and nothing was left for 
 Gerald, in his father's opinion, but the Church; 
 to be a gentleman was the goal of Mr. Law- 
 
86 An English Saint 
 
 rence's ambition. He was ashamed of the 
 shop — "a cut above it" he felt — and would 
 have sought another career for himself had he 
 had the necessary education. He was deter- 
 mined that his son should enjoy all possible 
 advantages of teaching and training. 
 
 At first Gerald did not seem to profit by his 
 opportunities. He learned with difficulty, his 
 memory was weak, and his mind flaccid. His 
 father consoled himself with the fact that the 
 boy was growing too fast. "There's no hurry 
 for a year or two," he used to say to himself. 
 So he kept his son at home in his large villa 
 on Putney Hill, and fed him. up as a prepa- 
 ration for Oxford. The youth took all that 
 was done for him as a matter of course. He was 
 content to go to Oxford, which seemed to him 
 more aristocratic than Cambridge. He had 
 been taught by bitter experience at the pre- 
 paratory school that the shop in Bond Street 
 was something to be put behind one and for- 
 gotten; and at Harrow his pallor and frailty, 
 something wistful and unearthly in his large 
 eyes, had won sympathy and blunted the 
 mahce of boyish curiosity. Gerald had in- 
 herited his father's qualities of docility and 
 good humour; but his father's tough resolu- 
 tion to get rich and get on was transmuted in 
 him into a desire to please rather than to rise. 
 
An English Saint 87 
 
 His extraordinary beauty made this ambition 
 appear amiable. Gerald was tall and slight, 
 and his face had the refined regularity of an 
 ascetic Hermes. His father, while proud of 
 his own good features and silver hair, had 
 always regretted a tendency to stoutness and 
 high colour, and his boy's slim figure and pallor 
 appealed to him intensely. "It gives him an 
 air," he said to himself. 
 
 Gerald had a good deal of difficulty in get- 
 ting into Lincoln. His father preferred that 
 college to any other: the name had a stately 
 quietude about it which pleased him, and 
 everybody knew that the Master was a famous 
 scholar, whose mere approval conferred dignity. 
 But though the entrance examination is not 
 supposed to be difficult, it proved almost 
 insurmountable to Gerald. Still, thanks to 
 the clever coaching of an eminent, but poor, 
 scholar, who consented to stay at Putney with 
 them for six months, the difficulty was at length 
 overcome, and Gerald entered Lincoln. 
 
 The rooms allotted to him there had formerly 
 been inhabited by a sporting nobleman whose 
 tastes wavered between the photos of Gaiety 
 chorus girls and coloured prints of renowned 
 pugilists. Gerald had to take over the furni- 
 ture, and, with his usual acquiescence, he 
 occupied the rooms without disturbing either 
 
88 An English Saint 
 
 the rosy biceps of Tom Belcher and Jim Mace 
 or the black legs of the reigning beauties. 
 
 Gerald settled down in Oxford easily and 
 quickly. He rather liked rules, and kept them 
 without diflSculty; he was never late even for 
 morning chapel. His distinguished appearance 
 and ingratiating manners won him numbers of 
 acquaintances; everyone wanted to know him, 
 and before his first term was at an end he was 
 friendly with nine men out of ten in the college, 
 and on good terms with half the 'Varsity. Yet 
 there were a few bitter drops in his cup. Young 
 Lord Woodstock had shown himself very 
 friendly for a little while and then drawn away 
 coldly. Luke Rattison, too, the Master, had 
 made much of him at first; asked him to lunch 
 and dinner and then left him severely alone. 
 "An amiable idiot" was the bitter- tongued 
 judge's harsh verdict. On the whole, Gerald's 
 first term at Lincoln was rather a success in 
 spite of Lord Woodstock's defection and the 
 Master's disdain. • 
 
 When he returned home his father was de- 
 lighted with him; told him he had let it be 
 known in business circles that he wanted to 
 sell the shop, adding that when he got the price 
 he wanted for it the boy should have the income 
 of a Bishop to spend as he liked. Gerald was 
 suitably grateful, though he scarcely realised 
 
An English Saint 89 
 
 the abyss that lies between poverty and riches. 
 He had always had what he wanted, and his 
 desires had never been sharpened by denial. 
 
 Watching him closely his father noticed that 
 his son had taken a liking to fancy waistcoats 
 and coloured ties; he wondered if the boy had 
 fallen in love; and, to tell the truth, there was 
 a barmaid at a village inn on the river above 
 Oxford who had half captivated the youth's 
 fancy. But luckily, or unluckily, Gerald was 
 destined to fall into more skilful hands. Early 
 in his second term he met some one who stopped 
 his drifting and brought him to new bearings. 
 He had been walking along the towing-path, 
 watching the boats on the river, when he was 
 hailed by Lord Woodstock. He went across 
 to him eagerly (Gerald seldom bore malice), 
 and was presented to a Mrs. Leigh ton. 
 
 "I want you to take Mrs. Leigh ton home," 
 said Lord Woodstock. "It's going to rain, 
 I'm sure, and you've an umbrella. I am due 
 to go out in the 'night.'" 
 
 Gerald Lawrence bowed, accepting the trust. 
 He had a sort of vision of a lady about middle 
 height, with steady brown eyes, and a smile 
 that caught his breath. Mrs. Leigh ton lived 
 about half-a-mile on the other side of Oxford, 
 and on their way through the High he reaHsed 
 that she seemed to know a good deal about 
 
90 An English Saint 
 
 him, though he did not understand that most 
 of her conversation was directed to the increas- 
 ing of her knowledge. The truth is Mrs. 
 Leighton had been struck with the extraordi- 
 nary beauty of his face, and had managed to 
 get Lord Woodstock to introduce her with- 
 out arousing that sharp young gentleman's 
 suspicions. 
 
 Mrs. Leighton usually succeeded in whatever 
 she undertook. She was a woman of thirty odd 
 who admitted to twenty -seven or twenty-eight. 
 She had been married very young to an Indian 
 judge some twenty years her senior. He had 
 caught dysentery and died, and had left his 
 widow very well provided for. A house and 
 some three acres of ground on the outskirts 
 of Oxford formed part of his legacy to her. 
 Mrs. Leighton had settled do\\Ti at Oxford, 
 meaning to occupy her leisure with flirtations 
 if she could get nothing more serious. She 
 had already had two or three little affairs; 
 the one with Woodstock had left a smart 
 of disappointment. She had begun to realise 
 that the extreme youth which appealed to 
 her so intensely had corresponding drawbacks 
 and shortcomings. The fever of it ran high, 
 but it was all embarrassing idealism, adoration 
 even, and mad, unreasoning jealousy, or else 
 it had no enduring continuance. Besides, Mrs. 
 
An English Saint 91 
 
 Leighton was intelligent and loved power even 
 more than pleasure; she desired above every- 
 thing to play a part in life. The sight of 
 Gerald LawTence made her catch her breath 
 with admiration; she realised with a thrill 
 that she had never imagined anyone so hand- 
 some or with such distinction. Struck with 
 his expression, she had asked Lord Woodstock : 
 "Who is the priest.^^" and had added something 
 about not caring for willowy men to allay 
 possible jealousy. But now on her way home 
 she realised with a certain apprehension that 
 Gerald's mere appearance had moved her 
 mind and body. The frail pallor of his face 
 stirred her pity, and the great eyes set her 
 throbbing. "Violet eyes," she said to herself; 
 "who w^ould have guessed that eyes could 
 thrill.?" 
 
 From that day on life assumed a new pur- 
 pose for Gerald Lawrence. On parting Mrs. 
 Leighton had said to him, "I hope you will 
 come and see me soon." He replied that he'd 
 be happy; but that was not enough for her. 
 
 "When, then?" she rejoined, laughing. 
 "You know we women like to prepare a little; 
 we hate to be taken unawares. Come to lunch 
 — what day.f^" 
 
 Gerald hesitated; should he say to-morrow? 
 Instead he questioned, "This week, may I?" 
 
92 An English Saint 
 
 "Of course," she replied. "To-day is Tues- 
 day; shall we say Friday at 1.30?" 
 
 And on the Friday he appeared. The house 
 made an extraordinary impression on him; 
 there seemed to him to be pictures everywhere; 
 he had been accustomed to wealth and com- 
 fort, but not to rejfinement and beauty. He was 
 astonished by the profusion of flowers and books 
 and papers, by a sense of lettered and artistic 
 understanding. Mrs. Leighton soon set him 
 at ease and drew him out to talk about himself. 
 After lunch they went into the drawing-room 
 to take coffee, and he informed her that he 
 thought of going into the Church. She en- 
 couraged him, and when he went on to confess 
 how the Master and Lord Woodstock had 
 treated him, she salved his hurt vanity and 
 made light of the impHed criticism. "The 
 Master," she said, "is a pedantic old bear, 
 and Woodstock was jealous of your good looks." 
 
 Gerald had never enjoyed himself so much. 
 He went away promising to come again on the 
 following Monday. Mrs. Leighton found words 
 for her impression: "Innocent," she said to 
 
 herself, and a little gauche, but " and 
 
 she thought of his eyes and fine features and 
 white skin, "but sure to make a sensation as a 
 curate — an unholy sensation," and she smiled 
 comprehendingly. 
 
An English Saint 93 
 
 In a little while the pair became famil- 
 iar. Gerald used to drop in to tea and sit 
 at Mrs. Leigh ton's feet. While in that posi- 
 tion one day she flattered him outrageously, 
 for she wanted to correct his somewhat 
 pronounced taste for light waistcoats and 
 gaudy ties. 
 
 "All your clothes," she said, "should be 
 dark and quiet. You must really begin, Gerald, 
 to see how fine your face is. If you were a 
 woman you would have known it long ago, 
 and tried to live up to it. A woman always 
 lives up to her face if it is pretty. That's 
 why pretty women are so much nicer than ugly 
 ones. With your face a woman would be 
 simply angelic. The Church is the very place 
 for you." 
 
 "I'm glad you like me," he replied, shyly 
 taking her hand. She drew him to her a little 
 and gave him her lips. 
 
 "You must have seen I like you, Gerald," 
 she said. 
 
 "And I like you," he replied, vaguely aware 
 of the challenge; "who could help liking you.^* 
 It is more than hking"; but he omitted to 
 prove his words. 
 
 Vaguely disappointed, she went on flattering 
 him. "Through vanity to the heart" was her 
 unconscious thought. 
 
94 An English Saint 
 
 As they stood together one day at the door 
 of the drawing-room, she said: 
 
 "I don't like to let you go, Gerald"; and 
 as he bent down to her she slipped her arms 
 round his neck. 
 
 "You never kiss me," she said in a childish 
 whisper, pouting. 
 
 He kissed her. "You know I will if you like," 
 he answered. 
 
 "If I like," she repeated, chilled and hurt; 
 "don't you want to.^^" 
 
 "Of course I do," was the reply; but the 
 kissing seemed rather to embarrass him. 
 
 She laughed aloud to change the current of 
 feeling, and accompanied him to the door. 
 But she had learned her lesson. "He's not 
 like a young man," she said to herself, "there 
 is no passion in him . . . he's merely decora- 
 tive," she added a little bitterly. But Gerald 
 meant much to her, and in spite of herself she 
 took a lively and continuous interest in him. 
 She was ambitious for him, and gave point and 
 meaning to his vague aspirations by playing on 
 his vanity. 
 
 "You will have a great success in the pulpit," 
 she said to him once; "you must be a prince 
 of the Church." The mere words flushed him 
 with pleasure. 
 
 "I shouldn't know what to say," he objected. 
 
An English Saint 95 
 
 "That will come," she insisted; "you must 
 read the right books and get into the spirit of 
 the thing"; and there and then made up her 
 mind to advise and encourage him. He was 
 very docile, very amenable to such silken 
 guidance. 
 
 In subtler ways, too, she managed to mould 
 and develop him. With a little trouble she 
 got herself invited by the Master's wife, and 
 chaperoned by that emphatic lady, took after- 
 noon tea once in Gerald's rooms. The results 
 of the visit were far-reaching. She was even 
 more horrified by the prints of pugilists than 
 by the photographs of the actresses. She soon 
 induced Gerald to get rid of them all, to pack 
 them all away with the fancy waistcoats and 
 flaming ties. 
 
 Before long she had persuaded him to buy 
 a French prie-dieu of the fourteenth century 
 and a Byzantine crucifix of the sixth with an 
 angular figure on it in ivory of an astonishingly 
 emaciated Christ. It was IVIi's. Leigh ton who 
 taught Gerald the aesthetic value of austerity; 
 she stripped his rooms of ornament and even of 
 comfort till their bareness began to affect him. 
 All the while she was assiduous to encourage in 
 him the vanity of his personal distinction. 
 
 "I love your honey-coloured hair," she said 
 to him one day, "but I wish it were silver. It 
 
96 An English Saint 
 
 would suit you so much better. You will be 
 adorable at fifty. You must let it grow longer, 
 Gerald, not too long, but long enough to be 
 singular. Singularity is the next best thing to 
 beauty. ..." 
 
 "Do you really think me good-looking.?" he 
 asked nervously, eager for more sweet. 
 
 "Good-looking," she replied gravely, "isn't 
 the word. If you ever are as good as your 
 looks, you'll convert the world. You have 
 only to live up to your face, Gerald, and women 
 will go on their knees to you." 
 
 One evening at dinner Gerald had rather a 
 trying time which gave her a great opportunity. 
 Luke Rattison was the host, and he seemed to 
 take an unholy delight in asldng Gerald ques- 
 tions and forcing him to display his mental 
 poverty. Again and again Gerald fell into the 
 trap; again and again Mrs. Leigh ton sailed in 
 to the rescue gallantly; she was thankful when 
 dinner was over, though she held her owti to 
 the end. "" 
 
 "To be as clever as you," she said to her host 
 when rising, "is really a sort of disease"; 
 and to Mrs. Rattison, in the drawing-room, she 
 remarked: "All high art consists in concealing 
 art, they say; I suppose learning's different." 
 Mrs. Leigh ton believed in revenging herself on 
 her enemy. 
 
An English Saint 97 
 
 But afterwards she took Gerald seriously to 
 task. 
 
 "Wliy talk?" she said. '*Why let yourself 
 be made a fool of?" 
 
 "What was I to do?" asked Gerald. "I 
 had to try to answer his stupid questions." 
 
 "No, no, you hadn't," she said quickly. 
 "Why not have smiled at him in an abstracted 
 kind of way and refused to be drawn out? 
 The less you say the better," she added out of 
 her disappointment. "No one can know what's 
 in you if you don't talk. It's a great deal 
 easier to look wise than to talk wisely. Be- 
 sides, my dear Gerald, it is your role to say 
 nothing. When you have beauty to speak for 
 you, why talk? Silence alone is magnetic." 
 
 The dinner had frightened her thoroughly and 
 she set herself at once to strengthen her protSgS's 
 weak points. She read the Gospels with him, 
 and made him learn some of the great phrases 
 by heart, and begged him to use them in and 
 out of season. 
 
 "You have no idea how effective they are," 
 she said; "they never seem out of place in a 
 man who is going to be a clergyman, and they 
 always call up childish associations in all of us 
 and high emotions. We all thrill to them. ..." 
 
 "How clever you are, Amy," he sighed. 
 "If only I had half your brains!" 
 
98 An English Saint 
 
 She pouted and shrugged her shoulders; 
 she was beginning to think that less than half 
 would profit him, but out of loyalty to her 
 affection she put the thought away. 
 
 All this while Gerald was not merely passive. 
 Very early in their acquaintance he realised 
 that Mrs. Leighton's advice was excellent. 
 He noticed that since he had taken to dress 
 as she wished, everyone showed greater eager- 
 ness to know him, everyone made up to him. 
 A little while after his rooms were swept and 
 garnished, a senior student of Christ Church, 
 who had visited him, declared that there was 
 no man in the college so interesting, no rooms 
 so characteristic. A little later, too, Gerald 
 conquered the flippant unconcern of Lord 
 Woodstock, who came up to his rooms by chance 
 and was astonished beyond measure at the 
 change in them. He fell in love with the Welsh 
 dresser and the old oak refectory table; but the 
 prie-dieu and the great Byzantine cross pleased 
 him still more. Gerald explained the change 
 
 cleverly. "You see, I took over Lord S 's 
 
 rooms, and I didn't like to alter them at once; 
 it would have looked " and he stopped. 
 
 "Some of the fellows call you the * Saint,'" 
 Woodstock exclaimed, "and I half -believe you 
 deserve it. You don't go on the river now, 
 do you?" 
 
An English Saint 99 
 
 "No," said Gerald, recalling at once Mrs. 
 Leigh ton's advice, and adding in an undertone 
 as if to himself something about "my Master's 
 business," and then flushed with doubt of his 
 own daring. 
 
 The quotation and flush were not lost on Lord 
 Woodstock. He instantly became serious: 
 
 "You must not mind my chaff, old fellow. 
 At the very first, you know, I took to you, and 
 first thoughts are always best, I'm beginning 
 to believe. You must not take my ragging 
 seriously. I chaff a bit, but there's no harm 
 in me, at least so the dear old mater says." 
 
 Gerald just nodded, smiling a little. He was 
 wise enough not to say anything more, and Lord 
 Woodstock went away genuinely impressed. 
 
 Gerald began to see that an undreamed-of 
 success was possible to him, and his vanity 
 was on fire to realise it. Mrs. Leigh ton had 
 put a new spirit into him; set an ideal before 
 him which he felt he might reach, and which 
 brought him honour and satisfaction at every 
 step. He began resolutely to try to model 
 himself on her favourite St. Francis, and very 
 soon his progress became astonishing. He had 
 learnt to smoke, as most young men do, but he 
 had never cared for it very much. The truth 
 was, any Httle excess of any sort shook his weak- 
 ness at once; an extra cigar or an hour or 
 
100 An English Saint 
 
 so spent in a smoke-laden atmosphere made 
 him dizzy and unwell. Mrs. Leigh ton advised 
 him to drop it. "Saints shouldn't smoke," she 
 said; and he gave up the practice and felt 
 better for it. Renunciation is a pleasure to 
 the weak. One day at lunch, too, with Mrs. 
 Leighton, he noticed that the coffee and liqueur 
 had flushed his face. He asked her whether 
 she had remarked it. 
 
 "Since you ask me, Gerald," she confessed, 
 "I must say I have, and I don't like it in you. 
 It does not matter much," she went on smilingly, 
 "but you ought not to care for any worldly 
 pleasures; you ought not to look hot and 
 healthy. If you were robust or strong you 
 would lose half your distinctive character. You 
 appeal to the pity in one, and pity is the most 
 direct approach to the heart. You should be 
 very pale and hold yourself aloof. Your face 
 is saintly, you must really resolve to grow 
 worthy of it." 
 
 He was willing enough to accept the hint; 
 he left off using coffee and liqueurs and a little 
 later began to deny himself meat as well; his 
 vanity ruled him, and whatever increased the 
 spiritual beauty of his face was easy to him. 
 Mrs. Leighton helped him dexterously: she 
 gradually elaborated a rule of conduct, founded 
 on abstemiousness, with the sole object of 
 
An English Saint 101 
 
 etherealising his expression, and her advice did 
 not stop at externals. 
 
 "If people talk commonplaces to you, don't 
 answer them," she counselled. "Take no part 
 in worldly conversation. The heavenly world 
 is your kingdom." 
 
 On this road they made discovery on dis- 
 covery, though Mrs. Leigh ton was nearly 
 always the quicker to draw the true lesson 
 from every incident. A lady of great position 
 had been talking to Gerald in Mrs. Leigh ton's 
 drawing-room. She had been completely won, 
 partly by his appearance, partly by the thought- 
 ful reticence of his attitude; she was just asking 
 
 him to come down to C to dine and stay 
 
 the night when he rose smiling, shook his head, 
 and moved away. 
 
 Lady L did not know whether to be 
 
 angry or not, but when she saw that Gerald 
 had not left her for anyone else, but was simply 
 staring out of the window, she decided that the 
 rebuff was due to some mistake of her own, or 
 some unimagined greatness in him, and accord- 
 ingly she made it her business to tell Mrs. 
 Leighton how much she admired him, and to 
 beg her to intercede so that the "Saint" might 
 honour her with a visit. 
 
 "I'm afraid," Mrs. Leighton answered, "that 
 Mr. Lawrence will not go, he hates visiting"; 
 
102 An English Saint 
 
 but she hastened to add, "he always says he 
 should like to live in a desert, for the spirit 
 has need of solitude." 
 
 The great lady was even more impressed; 
 and afterwards Mrs. Leighton told Gerald of 
 the astonishing success of his rudeness and 
 what she had said in excuse. 
 
 "Never be afraid of being rude," she said. 
 "Women know their own un worth, and ad- 
 mire everyone who treats them with disdain. 
 Don't be afraid of standing aloof. It is famil- 
 iarity which cheapens. You are very tall: make 
 everyone look up to you, dear. I told her you 
 were like a monk of the Thebaid: your spirit 
 had need of solitude." 
 
 Gerald's success soon began to surprise even 
 his mentor. Someone, probably Lord Wood- 
 stock, insisted on calling him the "Saint," 
 and the name "caught on." It became the 
 fashion for the best men to spend half-an-hour 
 nearly every day in the "Saint's" rooms or 
 in his company. Gerald talked less and less, 
 but the asceticism of the rooms and the old- 
 world furniture appealed to all the finer spirits 
 much in the same way as his own personal dis- 
 tinction and reserve appealed to them. He 
 was learning wisdom, too, and when a man 
 once asked him his opinion on some knotty 
 point, he answered: 
 
An English Saint 103 
 
 "I have no opinions." The phrase met with 
 such success that it made him think about it 
 and set him on to find out and elaborate the 
 hidden significance of it. 
 
 "I have no opinions," he said a little later; 
 "I have only feelings, and to transplant feelings 
 into words is to make them common, deprive 
 them of colour." 
 
 His mind grew under the disciphne; every 
 step upwards widened his horizon, forced him 
 to further thought. The books he read helped 
 him, too, as they help weak minds. He read 
 the Gospels over and over again, steeped him- 
 self in them, and in the "Imitation." He 
 learned by heart hymns of Herbert, Keble and 
 Faber. The very fact that his mind had no 
 furniture of its own left the chambers of it 
 empty and prepared for the Christian equip- 
 ment. His weakness of constitution made 
 meekness and gentleness very easy to him. 
 Every assertion of what one might call his 
 femininity of nature pleased him and delighted 
 his friends. Once a man was a little rude to 
 him. 
 
 "Forgive me," said Gerald, "I must have 
 offended you unconsciously; I'm sorry." The 
 man stammered apologies, and afterwards took 
 pains to be deferential. 
 
 The habit of silence, too, which Gerald 
 
104 An English Saint 
 
 cultivated, and which had grown on him, 
 brought its own reward. He began to notice 
 very soon that what other people said and did 
 made a much deeper impression on him when 
 he was merely listening. His own reticence 
 enabled him to understand other people better, 
 to comprehend them more clearly, and as they 
 felt no self -assertion- in him, their own egotism 
 expanded in his company, and he got to know 
 them astonishingly well. He was observant, if 
 not far-seeing. 
 
 Every step forward in the new path brought 
 him encouragement and honour. His sayings 
 began to be repeated in the college. No one 
 ever knew who first attributed wasdom to him, 
 but the attribution was successful. Young 
 men in particular were inclined to accord both 
 virtue and power to a man of such extraor- 
 dinary personal distinction, and still more ex- 
 traordinary reserve. Excusing himself once for 
 having "sported his oak," Gerald flowered 
 into the phrase learned unconsciously from 
 Mrs. Leighton, "The soul grows in sohtude." 
 The word spread through Oxford as perfume 
 spreads through a room. Gerald was con- 
 tinually profiting by the fact that he was in 
 intimate harmony with his surroundings. 
 
 A sort of legend began to form itself about 
 him in his own college. The Master's wife. 
 
An English Saint 105 
 
 of course, knew many undergraduates, and the 
 Gerald legend soon came to her ears. Her 
 little mind had been made up about him, and 
 for some time she did not trouble her husband 
 with the ridiculous rumours. But when the 
 elder fellows and students began to talk in the 
 same way her feminine curiosity was excited, 
 and she spoke to the Master. 
 
 "I want to invite that Gerald Lawrence to 
 our garden-party," she said. *' You know they 
 call him the * Saint' now, and some even say 
 he's clever." 
 
 "What!" exclaimed her husband, "that 
 nullity! It's impossible. There are many 
 undergraduates who have microscopically small 
 minds, but that man has no mind at all — a 
 magnificent head and nothing in it. He forces 
 me to beheve there is truth in the German 
 saying: 
 
 Grosse Stirn 
 Wenig Gehim 
 
 "Everyone can't be mistaken," replied his 
 wife tartly, "and Lawrence has hundreds of 
 admirers. Let's ask him to our garden-party, 
 but without that woman, that Mrs. Leigh ton — 
 she's a cat." 
 
 The Master was indifferent. 
 
 "As you like," he said, "one more or less 
 in the garden makes no difference; but Law- 
 
106 A7i English Saint 
 
 rence is a round ought, and never ^ill be 
 anything more." 
 
 The invitation surprised Gerald a little, and 
 luckily for him he took it to Mrs. Leighton. 
 Yvlien she read it she clapped her hands. 
 
 "A proof of your success, Gerald," she cried, 
 "a double-proof. She asks you and she doesn't 
 ask me. I stuck up for you last time; she 
 therefore revenges herself by not asking me. 
 Yet she is compelled by your reputation to 
 ask you. She has not done it willingly. You 
 must refuse, but how.^ Can't we think of 
 something that will whet her curiosity! Let's 
 compose a letter together. But first of all 
 let's have lunch: thoughts only come to me 
 with the coffee." 
 
 "Eating drives my thoughts away," said 
 Gerald meditatively. 
 
 After lunch Mrs. Leighton rose to the 
 occasion : 
 
 "Dear Mrs. Rattison," she began, "I dare 
 not accept your kind invitation" ("the truth," 
 she said to herself as she wrote, "the truth's 
 always original"). "Now how can I tell her 
 the faults of her own house?" she mused, and 
 scrawled two or three lines hastily, then ran 
 her pen througli what she had written. "No; 
 that won't do," she said, "won't do at all. 
 It's rude and not witty. Ah! I've got it. 
 
An English Saint 107 
 
 1, 
 I'll blot all that out. This is the letter, 
 Gerald." And she read aloud: 
 
 "Dear Mrs. Rattison, — I dare not accept 
 your invitation. Your garden is charming; 
 but I'm a little frightened of gardeners. They 
 divide all creation into flowers and weeds, and 
 I'm only a weed. You will forgive me, won't 
 you.f^ and let me come and drink tea with you 
 some afternoon? 
 
 "Yours in all service, 
 
 "Gerald Lawrence." 
 
 "That last sentence is a masterpiece," cried 
 Mrs. Leighton, "for it divides them and gets 
 the woman on your side. She'll begin to admit 
 her husband's faults and take your side against 
 him, and that new ending's good. It's only a 
 woman who could write like that," and she 
 sighed. 
 
 "I think it very clever of you, Amy," said 
 Gerald while stooping over her to sign. As he 
 drew himself up again he put his left hand 
 on her shoulder, and, being pleased with her 
 success and his praise, she looked up at him. 
 The invitation in her regard affected him: he 
 bent and kissed her forehead. She drew his 
 lips down to hers. Wlien he stood up again she 
 felt he was a little rigid and aloof. 
 
 "He has no passion in him," she said to 
 
108 An English Saint 
 
 herself afterwards, "not a spark, yet he tempts 
 one. ^Nhy?" 
 
 She consoled herself very easily. It was a 
 distinction now to be seen with Gerald Law- 
 rence. Everyone stared at them when they 
 passed in the street. She could read envy in 
 the sneers of the older women, and admiration 
 in the girls' eyes. Everyone remarked him. 
 "It's like going about with a great person- 
 age," she said to herself. Moreover, his beauty 
 always kept its fascination for her. "They 
 say beauty's only skin deep," she used to say, 
 "but ugliness goes to the bone." 
 
 Gerald's letter had a success. Mrs. Rattison 
 brought it to the Master, who pursed his lips 
 over it. 
 
 "H'm, h'm! rather rude." 
 
 "It's very clever," said Mrs. Rattison. "I 
 wonder if he wrote it himself or whether that 
 cat helped him." She determined to leave 
 the letter unanswered. 
 
 But the rising tide of Gerald's reputation 
 forced her hand. Mrs. Rattison resolved not 
 to fail again; she wrote inviting Gerald to 
 dinner, and giving him a couple of weeks' 
 notice; she assured him, with a touch of irony, 
 that he should be treated like a flower. At the 
 same time she wrote to Mrs. Leigh ton asking 
 her as well. 
 
An English Saint 109 
 
 This move brought about a long talk between 
 the two confederates. 
 
 "If you feel strong enough," said Mrs. 
 Leighton, "we'll accept, but this time you 
 must make no mistake. If the Master tries 
 to draw you out, profess ignorance; if he dares 
 to poke fun at you, smile at him kindly and 
 don't answer him: forgive him — that's it!" 
 she exclaimed, "forgive him, and so bring him 
 into your domain; don't go into his on any 
 account." 
 
 The words came from her heart, and Gerald 
 at once felt their force and had a presentiment 
 of their efficacy. He knew that he had grown 
 wiser since he had last dined at Mrs. Rattison's 
 and he determined now to bring the Master 
 into his domain if possible. 
 
 The dinner was a memorable one, epoch- 
 making indeed in Gerald's spiritual life. One 
 or two of the fellows were very deferential to 
 him, and tried to draw him out. Mrs. Rattison 
 spoke of him as the "Saint" to his face; he 
 only smiled, shaking his head in gentle depre- 
 cation. 
 
 This by -play passed unnoticed by the Master. 
 He talked on in his usual way, picking up one 
 topic after another and making each in turn 
 his own, with a certain robust commonsense 
 buttressed by an extraordinary reading. Gerald 
 
110 An English Saint 
 
 scarcely spoke at all, and because the Master 
 talked too much, Gerald became a sort of second 
 centre of gravity, radiating a higher influence. 
 
 Towards the end of the dinner the Master 
 got on one of his favourite topics, the Roman 
 Church and its influence. 
 
 "Its discipline and elaborate hierarchy," 
 he said, "afford proof positive of the furious 
 opposition which the Christian doctrine en- 
 countered. The Church has the organisation 
 of an army; it's an instrument forged in ten 
 thousand conflicts, a tremendous weapon; the 
 Pope is merely general-in-chief." 
 
 At the first pause in the little lecture, one 
 of the fellows who had heard a great deal of 
 such talk turned to Gerald: 
 
 "What do you think, Lawrence, do you agree 
 with the Master?" 
 
 "I know nothing about it," said Gerald, 
 "but I listen with delight." 
 
 "It is a plain proposition," said the Master 
 pompously, "and incontrovertible, I think. 
 Christianity owes its success to the militant 
 organisation of the Roman Church; without 
 that it must have perished." 
 
 Every face was turned to Gerald, everyone 
 expected of him some new word, or rather 
 everyone felt that the time had come for him 
 to give expression to their inarticulate disagree- 
 
An English Saint 111 
 
 ment with the Master's shallow and preten- 
 tious dogmatism. Suddenly Gerald, thinking 
 of St. Francis, found the word expected of him; 
 his long habit of silence allowed him time to 
 prepare it. 
 
 "I distrust organisations," he began, "the 
 spirit's more than the body." 
 
 He paused. "* Forgive them for they know 
 not what they do' has not yet been organised, 
 or there would be no prisons," he added. 
 
 The Master stared; his natural acuteness, 
 his memory of great thoughts, just enabled 
 him to see that what Gerald said was true, 
 and he admitted to himself reluctantly, '*A 
 new truth." 
 
 "That view," he retorted gruffly, "is the 
 view a saint would take. I hear they call you 
 a * Saint,'" he barked at Gerald not unkindly. 
 
 Gerald looked at him completely at a loss. 
 The Master's acquiescence had confounded 
 him, but his usual habit of mind came to his 
 aid: 
 
 "I'm sorry," he said, "so sorry," looking 
 full at his tormentor as he spoke. The un- 
 expected submission was the coup-de-grdce; 
 everyone felt that Gerald had won; and with 
 a little thrill he, too, inferred from the looks 
 of those about him that his victory was con- 
 clusive, and he improved it during the rest of 
 
112 An English Saint 
 
 the evening by his silence and deferent courtesy. 
 As he handed Mrs. Leighton into her brougham, 
 she exclaimed: 
 
 "Come to see me, to-morrow: you've tri- 
 umphed, dear! I'm so glad, so glad!" 
 
 From that evening Gerald began to see his 
 way clearly. Next day Mrs. Leighton con- 
 firmed him in his opinion. 
 
 "You did not merely conquer, you wiped 
 the floor with him," she cried. "He's a great 
 burly, commonplace person, and you towered 
 above him. I do not know how you got the 
 words!" she exclaimed. "But they were the 
 very words needed, an inspiration. To for- 
 give ignorance is unthinkable to Luke Rattison. 
 I'm glad Lord Woodstock was at the dinner. 
 What you said had a tremendous effect on him, 
 and he has a great influence in Oxford. Till 
 last night he doubted you. He told me so 
 himself once, and I could not defend you 
 or he'd have suspected there was something 
 between us. Now he believes in you. It's 
 strange how everyone likes to go on their knees 
 before someone else. We women wallow, but 
 men are nearly as bad. Woodstock told me 
 last night that you were the best influence 
 in the University. The thing he liked Oxford 
 best for was that he had met you." 
 
 "You think he's important?" he asked. 
 
An English Saint 113 
 
 "Yes, indeed," she replied. "He's much 
 abler than anyone imagines. He'll come to 
 great place and power yet, and he'll not be 
 afraid of helping you — the really able man 
 never is afraid to back his opinion." 
 
 A little later his fellow students began to go 
 out of their way to show their admiration for 
 Gerald. At first they used to send him flowers, 
 and occasionally books. Then comparative 
 strangers took to sending him pictures, thir- 
 teenth century saints in wood from convents 
 in France, triptychs from Italy and South 
 Germany. The son of the British Ambassa- 
 dor in Russia sent him a Russian primitive of 
 the fourteenth century, a panel picture, that 
 might have been of the school of Cimabue. 
 The heads of six saints were painted on a gilded 
 background round the figure of the Saviour. 
 Each head was cunningly differenced by the 
 artist who had yet naively put the name on 
 one side of it, and on the other an appropriate 
 text. The picture was a remarkable mixture 
 of artistic power and saintly piety. The 
 youth despatched it to Gerald with a letter 
 hoping that he would accept it as a token of 
 his gratitude; he would be very proud, he 
 said, to imagine it hanging between the two 
 windows in Gerald's sitting-room, and there 
 Gerald placed it. But oftener the gifts were 
 
114 All English Saint 
 
 anonymous. Curiously enough, ever since the 
 dinner, Mrs. Leigh ton herself had got into the 
 habit of deferring a little to Gerald. Success 
 impresses even the keen -sigh ted. 
 
 The praise and admiration which hung about 
 Gerald did not smooth his way through the 
 schools. He was a wretched scholar; even 
 the childish Greek of the New Testament was 
 dijQScult to him. But he was helped through 
 by his acquaintance with the English text. The 
 other subjects were even harder to master. 
 The catechism, articles, and rubrics of the 
 Church were utterly beyond him. Often he 
 could scarcely understand them, and he was 
 never able to recall or use them. But he had 
 grown cleverer in the knowledge of such phrases 
 as appealed to his temperament, and the ex- 
 aminers were not so pedantic or so obHvious 
 of public opinion as to plough the "Saint" 
 for ignorance of the letter: Gerald scraped 
 through with a "pass" degree. 
 
 Long before the end of his time at Oxford 
 he was asked to read lessons in this or that 
 church, and these readings increased his repu- 
 tation enormously. With his vanity went a 
 good deal of the actor's temperament, and 
 this induced him to seek singularity at all 
 costs. As soon as he began to read in public 
 he found that his voice was weak and almost 
 
An English Saint 115 
 
 toneless; he determined at once to make a 
 merit of his failing, a distinction of his defect. 
 Other people talked, or spoke, or ranted in 
 the pulpit; he alone used a slow, unaccented, 
 monotonous deHvery which seemed to lend 
 each word pecuhar significance. Perhaps in 
 any other man this custom would have palled; 
 but there was about Gerald the magic of per- 
 sonality, and his pale face, lighted up by the 
 great eyes, was so singularly beautiful that it 
 seemed of itself to add weight and interest to 
 the simplest words. One thing was certain — 
 no one could deny the originality of his method 
 of reading, or mistake his effects for those of 
 any other man. 
 
 All Gerald's shortcomings of mind, no less 
 than his gifts, including even his nickname 
 the "Saint," seemed to lead him back to the 
 old Catholic church. He loved, as we have 
 said, all observances and rules like a woman 
 loves corsets, and perhaps for similar reasons; 
 he felt grateful for their support, and was pro- 
 foundly influenced by their decorative value. 
 Almost insensibly he began to refer everything 
 to the Early Church and early Christian 
 practice. 
 
 St. Francis d'Assisi, as we have seen, was 
 his special pattern, and the three vows of the 
 saint were often in his mind. Curiously enough 
 
116 An English Saint 
 
 the first custom he took up of the mediaeval 
 Church had an enduring effect on his Hfe. In- 
 spired by Mrs. Leighton with the necessity of 
 keeping his distinctive pallor, he had begun 
 to practise partial fasting on Wednesdays and 
 Fridays; he soon found that such abstinence 
 not only increased the spirituality of his ex- 
 pression, but also quickened his intellect in 
 the most unexpected way. WTiile the body 
 was empty he seemed to understand more 
 clearly everything he read. His thoughts, 
 indeed, ran quicker than the text. After an 
 hour or so, it is true, he felt tired, and his mind 
 began to dance about and beat time instead of 
 moving forward. But at first, while fresh, he 
 was conscious of a peculiar lucidity and ease 
 of mental vision. The fact so encouraged him 
 that he gradually changed from partial fasting to 
 a complete fast, and contented himself on such 
 days with an occasional cup of tea. The con- 
 sequences were important. His face grew^ even 
 more refined and impressive; his skin became 
 almost transparent. The features sharpened, 
 the eyes seemed larger as the face grew thinner. 
 There could be no doubt that the spirituality 
 of his appearance was intensified. His intellect, 
 too, expanded rapidly; his reading became 
 more and more fruitful to him. The chambers 
 of his mind were gradually being furnished in 
 
All English Saint 117 
 
 the style of the Middle Ages, and when he was 
 moved, his speech took on the quaint simplicity 
 and child-like directness of mediaeval teachers; 
 he began to be impregnated with the finest 
 perfume, so to speak, of the Christian spirit. 
 
 In all his after-life he regarded the habit of 
 self-denial, which began by leaving off smoking 
 and drinking, and culminated in regular and 
 long fasting, as his initiation into the spiritual 
 life. His first complete fast he always regarded 
 as his "conversion," so to speak, to the Chris- 
 tian faith. 
 
 The habit of fasting was a blessing to him 
 in many ways, but he gradually became con- 
 scious that it had one unexpected and peculiar 
 drawback. He had never been troubled, as 
 stronger youths are troubled, v/ith sensuous 
 desires which spring into being almost without 
 cause, and make every waking hour a tempta- 
 tion and a plague, while breaking in on sleep 
 even with the irresistible seduction of dreams. 
 But fasting excited the animal nature in Gerald; 
 threatened life put forth all its reproductive 
 vigour, and at first he was completely at a loss 
 whether to fight the new foe or yield. His 
 training in self-denial taught him to resist, 
 and during the day he found it easy to change 
 the current of his thoughts or sensations by 
 long walks. But at night he was powerless. 
 
118 An English Saint 
 
 He began to suffer from insomnia. He fought 
 the dreams by reading and by increasing his 
 walks in the day-time, so that the tired body 
 might fall into dreamless slumber. The long 
 walks and sleeplessness combined reacted on 
 his appearance and increased his attractiveness. 
 He grew stronger, too, as he grew thinner. It 
 was Mrs. Leighton's idea that he should go to 
 a fancy dress ball at a house near Oxford 
 dressed as a Franciscan. His appearance was 
 a sort of event. The monk's dress suited him 
 peculiarly, set off the refined spirituality of 
 his face, so that everj^one was struck by it. 
 From that night on Oxford counted him 
 among its illustrations. 
 
 Shortly before he "went down" he received 
 a letter offering him a vicarage in Surrey, with 
 an income of £600 a year, as soon as he was 
 ordained. He took the letter to Mrs. Leighton, 
 and she soon discovered that the man in whose 
 gift the advowson lay was a friend and pohtical 
 supporter of Lord Woodstock, who had left 
 Oxford the term before. It was probable that 
 he had instigated the offer. Gerald, however, 
 told Mrs. Leighton that he had resolved to go 
 to the East End of London for a couple of 
 years, at least, before taking any cure of souls, 
 and she approved of his intention. He there- 
 fore wrote thanking his would-be benefactor. 
 
An English Saint 119 
 
 and telling him of his purpose. The gentleman 
 replied that he quite imderstood; but would, 
 nevertheless, keep the living open for Mr. 
 Lawrence. 
 
 In fact, just as people sent him gifts to adorn 
 his rooms, so his path upward in life was made 
 plain for him; everyone seemed eager to put 
 their cloaks down to help liim over the muddy 
 places — another proof of how intensely his 
 pecuhar gifts and graces appealed to his 
 contemporaries. 
 
 The relations between Gerald and Mrs. 
 Leighton during the Oxford time had become 
 very intimate without ever going beyond the 
 limits of platonic friendship. She made up 
 her mind very soon that he was not passionate; 
 and she took such an interest in his success 
 and mental growth, and had so many motherly 
 fears for his health, that this somewhat un- 
 natural relation managed to subsist. So long 
 as Lord Woodstock was at Oxford and came 
 from time to time to see her, she was fairly 
 content, but after he had left, and Gerald 
 had gone to the East End, Mrs. Leighton soon 
 found life in Oxford intolerable. The absence of 
 Gerald had revealed to her her own loneliness 
 in an extraordinary way. In a week solitude 
 became a sort of disease to her. She did not 
 know what to do with herself, and could hardly 
 
120 An English Saint 
 
 find energy enough to get up and dress or order 
 meals, the eating of which was a plague and 
 weariness. She missed the walks and talks 
 with Gerald, and above all she missed the 
 someone to think of and make plans for; her 
 life was without a purpose. She put her house 
 in the hands of an agent to sell, and deter- 
 mined that when it was sold she would move 
 to London. The house quickly found a pur- 
 chaser, and she soon discovered a house in 
 Wilton Place, near Albert Gate, that would 
 suit her. In a few months she transferred her 
 belongings and her own charming personality 
 to London, where she would be near Gerald, 
 and where, too, Woodstock would be able to 
 come to see her from time to time. She 
 would be much more likely, she said to her- 
 self, to meet someone who would marry her 
 in London than in Oxford. 
 
 She nestled down cosily in Wilton Place before 
 the decorations were finished. She simply had 
 to have Gerald come and see her. She had 
 written him letters every day, and heralded 
 her first free evening in London by a long tel- 
 egram telling him to come and dine with her 
 at eight o'clock. 
 
 They had only been parted a few short 
 months, and yet as soon as he entered the room 
 she was conscious of a change in him — a 
 
An English Saint 121 
 
 surprising change. She felt at once that some 
 unknown influence had come between them. 
 Her heart contracted violently as under a pain- 
 ful grasp. What had happened.'^ Could he 
 have fallen in love? She put the thought out 
 of her mind. It was impossible, she decided. 
 But he had changed, he was more virile; the 
 clasp of his hand was stronger, he moved more 
 lightly. What can it be? Who can it be? she 
 asked herself, resolved to find out. 
 
 The truth was as simple as the truth usually 
 is. Although Gerald had learned a great deal 
 at Oxford, when he came to London he was 
 still hardly more than a boy. His vanity and 
 Mrs. Leigh ton's teaching had given him an 
 ideal in life; but it was London and its temp- 
 tations which first discovered his individual 
 soul. He had had success after success at 
 Oxford, now he was brought to defeat on 
 defeat. At first he had been stunned by Lon- 
 don, and had immersed himself in the work 
 and visiting of the Toynbee Settlement; but 
 fasting and loneliness brought the sensual 
 thoughts, thoughts which had now grown 
 stronger and would not be subdued. When 
 the impulses of the body threatened to conquer, 
 he got into the habit of going to stay with his 
 father on Putney Hill, thinking that the change 
 might help him in the conflict. And at first 
 
122 An English Saint 
 
 > 
 
 it seemed to help him. But the table at Put- 
 ney Hill was very generous, and his father, 
 alarmed by his pallor and fragility, insisted 
 on his taking wine and feeding up. The 
 result on his hardened body accustomed to 
 ascetic living was immediate: sensual imagin- 
 ings ruled him, he began to be obsessed by 
 them; in vain he fought; the Nessus shirt 
 clung stinging; all he could do was to betake 
 himself to the East End again and read, visit 
 and pray so assiduously as to leave no time 
 for thought. In this condition temptation was 
 irresistible. 
 
 The men at the Settlement had got up a 
 concert, and among others the Sisters Weldon 
 had been engaged to dance and sing. They 
 were local celebrities, a pair of girls about 
 twenty who had made a reputation in Hackney 
 and the neighbourhood. They were mother- 
 less orphans, very pretty and clever, and every- 
 one took an interest in them. Doris, the elder, 
 was perhaps the prettier of the two according 
 to the conventional standard, but Chrissie 
 was a finer performer and a more self-willed 
 and stronger nature. When they came out 
 and danced before him in their short skirts, 
 Gerald, who was on the platform and could have 
 touched them, felt as if he must choke. The 
 elder girl he thought pretty, very pretty even; 
 
A71 English Saint 123 
 
 but the younger, the dark sister, as he called 
 her to himself, took possession of him body 
 and soul. She danced, he saw, with infinitely 
 more expression than her sister, and her figure 
 was more attractive. He could not help 
 studying it as she swayed and curtsied before 
 him. When they stopped, and the storm of 
 clapping subsided, Gerald turned to his neigh- 
 bour with a question, but found he could 
 not speak without betraying his emotion; his 
 mouth was parched as with fever. He looked 
 down and studied his card, and when he found 
 that the sisters were to appear again he drew 
 a long breath of relief. 
 
 He never knew what happened till they came 
 on again and passed him going down to the 
 footlights. This time they were both dressed 
 like soldiers, something like Hungarian hussars, 
 in close-fitting, dark-blue breeches, high boots 
 and spurs, and short scarlet jackets which set 
 off the shapely roundness of the younger girl's 
 hips. Gerald felt his face flushing in spite of 
 himself. He was a little annoyed and frightened 
 lest others seeing her should fall in love with 
 her, for he could not help admiring her mutinous 
 dark face, her gay vivacity, her lovely form. 
 Her sister merely danced, but brave little 
 Chrissie threw abandon into her steps and a 
 hint of passion; every movement of her body 
 
124 An English Saint 
 
 to him was provocative. To save his life he 
 could not help absorbing and studying every 
 contour of the swaying figure. It was the 
 first time he had ever noticed the subtle, hesi- 
 tating line of a woman's torso, and he gave 
 himself up to the enchantment. 
 
 This dance of the Weldons closed the pro- 
 gramme for the evening. With the other men 
 of the Settlement Gerald passed behind the 
 scenes and was introduced to the artists in 
 order to congratulate and thank them. As the 
 sisters prepared to go the courage of despair 
 came to Gerald, and he told the elder sister 
 he should like to call on them. She noticed 
 that while he spoke he looked at Chrissie, but 
 she was flattered by the attention and asked 
 him to come the next day, and so the fateful 
 acquaintance began. 
 
 They lived, he found, in a couple of rooms 
 in Mare Street, Hackney; the thoroughfare 
 was noisy and vulgar, relentless in its sordid 
 squalor. The sitting-room shocked Gerald; it 
 all seemed common, ugly, he said to himself, 
 but Chrissie shone in the mean room like a 
 diamond shines on black paper. She treated 
 him as he had never been treated before, with 
 perfect frankness. Evidently she had neither 
 admiration for him nor fear of him. When 
 he refused the cake and bread and butter she 
 
An English Saint 125 
 
 took an extra mouthful of cake herself and 
 said : 
 
 '•'You don't know what you're missing," and 
 laughed saucily. The careless word seemed to 
 Gerald extraordinarily significant. 
 
 "Perhaps I don't know what I'm missing," 
 he said; "I'll take some cake, if you please," 
 and he did. 
 
 His desire to please made him tactful; he 
 talked about their dancing. The elder sister, 
 Doris, admitted that they were trying to get 
 an engagement at the Palace Theatre. Chrissie 
 declared, with her mouth full, that she was 
 going to-morrow to see old Norton, and that it 
 would be hard lines if he did not engage them ! 
 
 "Hard lines, indeed!" thought Gerald, with 
 a pang of fear for the rivalry of unseen com- 
 petitors. 
 
 All this while he was wondering how he could 
 get to know the sisters better, become intimate 
 with them as he had become intimate with Mrs. 
 Leighton. He could have touched Mrs. Leigh- 
 ton, he felt, if he had wanted to; but he had 
 never wanted to. Now every movement of 
 Chrissie Weldon made him want to put his 
 hands on her. After they had finished tea 
 she sat in a chair opposite him and crossed her 
 legs; the blood began to beat in his temples. 
 A thought came to him; 
 
126 An English Saint 
 
 "How are you going to the Palace?" he 
 asked. 
 
 "On these, of course," she replied, thrust- 
 ing forward her little feet. "Shanks's mare, 
 eh, Doris.^" 
 
 "Suppose I get a carriage and drive you 
 there, and afterwards take you round the 
 park.?" 
 
 "Oh, glory, glory," cried Chrissie, springing 
 to her feet, "a landau with two horses, eh? 
 Fancy, Doris, w^e'll be going like queens," and 
 she seized her sister and danced her round 
 and round. 
 
 Suddenly she stopped, pouting. "I forgot; 
 I've only my old hat, and it's shabby, shabby!" 
 
 "\Miy not buy a new one?" suggested clever 
 Gerald. 
 
 She looked at him eagerly. He pleased her, 
 and had begun to interest her. But the elder 
 sister broke in at once: 
 
 "We don't accept presents from gentlemen," 
 she said primly, "although we think it very 
 kind of you, Mr. Lawrence, all the same, and 
 we'll accept your offer of the carriage with 
 pleasure." 
 
 He felt depressed, wondered vaguely where 
 middle-class morality began and where it 
 ended. But nothing could subdue Chrissie's 
 high spirits for long. The thought of the 
 
All English Saint 127 
 
 carriage intoxicated her, and again she flung 
 her arms round her sister and whirled her 
 round the room, singing: 
 
 " A carriage and pair in London town, in London town, in Lon- 
 don town, 
 Only to earn an honest brown, an honest brown, an honest 
 brown," 
 
 while laughing over her shoulder coquettishly 
 at Gerald. 
 
 Next day they had their drive. Doris made 
 him wait with the carriage at the corner of a 
 neighbouring street, where they would not be 
 known, and all through Hackney they drove 
 with the carriage closed, but as soon as they got 
 out of their own neighbourhood the carriage 
 was throwTi open and the girls gave themselves 
 over to the rare enjoyment. 
 
 At the Palace, too, they succeeded in getting 
 an engagement. Chrissie's spirits were irresist- 
 ible. She came out of the theatre like a little 
 mad -thing, with flushed face and sparkling 
 dark eyes, excited, as she said, to "the limit," 
 and away they drove through the parks like 
 grand ladies. Towards sunset Gerald proposed 
 dinner, and swept away all opposition, and they 
 had dinner together in the only place he knew 
 — the East Room of the Criterion, where, how- 
 ever, the appointments and service were good 
 enough to strike the sisters dumb^with admi- 
 
128 An English Saint 
 
 ration. Driving home they both thanked him 
 again and again. AMien he put them down 
 near Mare Street, Gerald hfted Chrissie from 
 the carriage in his arms — an unforgettable 
 sensation. 
 
 He dismissed the carriage hastily; he wanted 
 to be alone with his thoughts. He seemed to 
 walk on air. Life had taken on a new colour 
 for him, a new significance. His heart was 
 beating as it had never beaten before; his 
 blood all rhythmic — she was the loveliest 
 creature in the world, the gayest, the sweetest, 
 the most enchanting, the most desirable. He 
 must win her, he felt, or lose the pearl of life. 
 
 After that long, first day the intimacy with 
 Chrissie grew by leaps and bounds. Gerald 
 could never remember the ebbing and flowing 
 of the tide of passion that seemed to reach flood 
 in an hour, and swept him away like a straw; 
 but the moments of it were epochs in his life. 
 One such moment occurred just before the first 
 appearance of the sisters on the stage of the 
 Palace Theatre. The manager had been taken 
 by their dancing in soldiers' dress and had 
 ordered them new tights of the same sort, only 
 more striking in colour, and, of course, better 
 made. When Gerald called one afternoon he 
 
An English Saint 129 
 
 found Chrissie alone. The girls had been 
 trying on Chrissie's new costume; and Doris 
 had had to run out for a few minutes to buy 
 some tape. Chrissie talked to him through 
 the half-open door. 
 
 "Do come in here," he pleaded; "I can't 
 see you, and I want to." 
 
 She shook her head. "Doris wouldn't like 
 it. You must wait." 
 
 "Please," he persisted, "do let me just see 
 you. You are so beautiful. I'm sure the 
 dress is perfect. Do come out." 
 
 The mischievous laughing face appeared at 
 the half -open door. "You must v>'ait," she 
 repeated, as if undecided. He went to the 
 door and pushed it nearly open. 
 
 "Come in," he begged; "Chrissie, come in," 
 and she yielded to his desire. 
 
 The traitor dress clothed her like a skin. 
 Again his mouth parched and his temples beat 
 as they did the first night he watched her on 
 the stage. As he didn't speak, she grew a 
 little piqued: 
 
 "You don't like it?" she asked a little anx- 
 iously, turning round as if to show it all to him. 
 
 The movement threw the fine of her waist 
 and the bold curve of the hips into relief: she 
 was adorable; his hands went out of themselves; 
 he caught her and drew her to him passionately. 
 
130 An English Saint 
 
 She turned her head over her shoulder and 
 repeated archly: 
 
 "You don't like it?" 
 
 His hands came up from her waist to her 
 breast, and he bent down to her face: 
 
 "Of course, I like it," and he kissed her red 
 lips; "who could help liking it? Chrissie, I 
 love you, dear! Do you care for me?" 
 
 "Now, would I let you kiss me if I didn't?" 
 she pouted. "You are too sweet to us. But 
 tell me: do you like the dress?" 
 
 "It's charming," he said. "You do care, 
 then, a little for me?" 
 
 She turned to him and put her arms round 
 his neck like a child, and drew his head down 
 and kissed him as innocently as a child kisses 
 on the lips. 
 
 "I do like you," she said. "You're so kind, 
 and I like your height and big eyes; but," 
 she added gravely, "you must get stronger, 
 you know. Doris thinks you're consumptive. 
 You're not, are you?" 
 
 "No, no," he laughed. "I never was so well 
 in my life, nor so strong." He stooped down 
 and put his arms round her hips, and lifted her 
 from the ground. She crowed with delight: 
 "Oh, oh, oh!" 
 
 "You must put me down," she laughed 
 delightedly. "If Doris came in she would be 
 
An English Saint 131 
 
 very cross. Quick! quick!" and she wriggled 
 in his arms. 
 
 That fleeting instant and its poignant emo- 
 tion remained with Gerald all his life. At any 
 moment he could close his eyes and see again 
 the mutinous gay, laughing face, the silky dark 
 ringlets of hair, and the saucy challenging eyes, 
 and could feel the round firmness of the limbs 
 he was holding against him. His hands and 
 body bore the imprint of her form; it seemed 
 to him as if the outline had been burned into 
 his flesh. 
 
 He let her slide down slowly, for he was 
 loth to part from her. As soon as she touched 
 ground she shook herself to put her clothes 
 straight, and ran laughing from the room. 
 
 He did all he could to get her to come out 
 again; he even threatened to come in and fetch 
 her. She cried out in mock alarm: 
 
 "No, no; you mustn't." 
 
 He knew the fear was only put on, and was 
 about to go in when Doris opened the sitting- 
 room door. 
 
 Why was it, he wondered later, that such 
 magic moments in life are so fleeting-transitory? 
 
 The next incident that counted with Gerald 
 was of a very different nature; it occurred 
 
132 An English Saint 
 
 on the first appearance of the sisters at the 
 Palace Theatre. A week before that event 
 Mrs. Leigh ton came up to London, and every- 
 thing was changed for him. Mrs. Leighton, 
 contrary to her custom, was very exigent. She 
 pressed him to come with her to choose furni- 
 ture and curtains and a dozen other things; 
 she insisted on being introduced to his father 
 and invited him to hmch and dine with her. 
 Gerald thought it strange that the two should 
 strike up a friendship; for his father, though 
 distinguished-looking, dropped his "h's," very 
 often and always showed in his speech that he 
 belonged rather to the lower than to the upper 
 middle-class. These little failings grated on 
 Gerald sometimes, in spite of his love for his 
 father; but Mrs. Leighton never seemed to 
 notice them. She managed to engross Gerald 
 so completely, what with luncheons and dinners 
 and visits to Putney, that he could not spend 
 half as much time with Chrissie as he desired. 
 This annoyed him, and he began to show a 
 certain coldness to Mrs. Leighton. 
 
 He did not know that his Httle impatiences 
 were revealing his secret to that observant lady 
 just as clearly as if he had told her the whole 
 truth. He did his best not to betray himself, 
 for he felt instinctively that Mrs. Leighton 
 would not like the sisters, and would dislike 
 
An English Saint 133 
 
 Chrissie in particular, and he cared for Chrissie 
 so intensely that he could not bear the idea of 
 her being criticised or looked at coldly. Accord- 
 ingly he kept his love to himself, and reproached 
 himself daily for not tearing himself free from 
 Mrs. Leigh ton's importunities. 
 
 If he had only known it, no tactics could have 
 served him better wdth Chrissie. He had 
 brought an atmosphere of pleasure, and ease, 
 and enjoyment into her life, and thrown over 
 it the magic of love as well; but it all seemed 
 so easy and natural to her that at first she 
 rather underrated his devotion. But now that 
 he stayed away for whole days, Chrissie missed 
 him, as she complained to her sister, "at every 
 hand's turn." She even began to fear that she 
 might lose him altogether. She could not help 
 dreading lest some of the ladies in the park 
 might get him. She thought about him every 
 hour, wondering where he was, what he was 
 doing, why he stayed away, and when he would 
 be back. Love's arrow's barbed, and the more 
 it's disturbed the deeper it pierces. In a fort- 
 night Chrissie's affection was intensified to love. 
 Her time from eleven to four was taken up 
 by rehearsals; but the evenings when Gerald 
 stayed away were cruelly dull and empty. 
 Gerald's days, too, were all filled by Mrs. 
 Leighton, and he had continually to struggle 
 
134 An English Saint 
 
 to get free in the evening. But still the lovers 
 met very often, and with every meeting their 
 affection seemed to put forth fresh flowers. 
 
 By this time Mrs. Leighton knew that Gerald 
 was in love with a singer; knew, too, that she 
 would appear at the Palace Theatre on the 
 Monday night. On Tuesday or Wednesday 
 the week before, Chrissie had given Gerald a 
 playbill in which the sisters were announced 
 to appear. He had crumpled it up and thrust 
 it into his pocket, but somehow or other Mrs. 
 Leighton had got hold of it, and as soon as 
 she saw The Sisters Weldon, she felt that one 
 of them had come between her and Gerald. 
 She took a box on the grand tier for the Mon- 
 day evening. As soon as she entered the box 
 she saw Gerald in the front row of the stalls. 
 When the sisters came on she picked out the 
 younger sister, Chrissie, at once. "A vulgar, 
 common little thing," she said to herself, 
 "light-hearted, light-footed — light in every 
 way. What fools men are! AVliat fools!" 
 
 She hardly looked at Gerald; yet she knew 
 that his glasses were glued to his eyes. She 
 knew, too, that after the theatre he would take 
 "the little gutter-sparrow" home. She felt 
 certain that the sisters lived somewhere in the 
 East End. A storm of clapping broke in upon 
 her thoughts, the sisters were being recalled 
 
An English Saint 135 
 
 again and again; they had "caught on" the 
 very first night. Mrs. Leighton was rather 
 glad of their success; perhaps they would need 
 Gerald less now. 
 
 When the sisters came on again in obedience 
 to the demands of the house, she noticed that 
 the younger sister exchanged glances with 
 Gerald and danced for him, "at him," she said 
 to herself viciously. Evidently the girl had 
 been nervous at first; but now, having gained 
 self-possession, was dancing for the man she 
 loved. In spite of herself Mrs. Leighton felt 
 Chrissie's charm, her sauciness, her exquisite 
 girlish figure, the attraction of her childish 
 passionate appeal; but the feeling made her 
 cold with hate and resolution. 
 
 "We shall see, my girl," she said to herself, 
 "who will win," and she closed her opera- 
 glasses and went home. 
 
 When the sisters' second turn was over, 
 Gerald went round to the stage-door to wait 
 for them. He had hired a carriage to take them 
 home. The commissionaire told him they 
 would be out in a few minutes. He nodded 
 and waited, promising himself some amuse- 
 ment in the sights of the strange place. Sud- 
 denly he became aware that he had formidable 
 rivals. There was a young, slim, good-looking 
 fellow, whom he took to be an oflScer, who sent 
 
136 An English Saint 
 
 in two bouquets to the sisters, together with a 
 card on which he had written a request that 
 they would have supper with him. Gerald 
 grew white with anger at the cool assumption 
 of the man and the airy self-confidence of his 
 manner. But he could not help admiring the 
 young fellow when he took out half a sovereign 
 and gave it to the commissionaire, with the 
 request that he should hand the bouquets to 
 the elder sister and the note to the younger. 
 
 A few minutes later Gerald was face to face 
 with another aspirant, a stout, over-dressed 
 Jew of about forty, to whom the commissionaire 
 was very polite. He wanted to know if the 
 stage-manager was in, and when the commis- 
 sionaire said he was, he laughed loudly: 
 
 "I'll go and see him, Williams," he said, 
 "I w^ant to loiow those Weldons, that's their 
 name — isn't it.^^ Eh.^ I'll just go in and see 
 'em." 
 
 To Gerald's rage he pushed through the 
 stage-door as if the place belonged to him. 
 
 The moments of waiting seemed to age 
 Gerald; in five minutes he was whirled through 
 a thousand emotions, and had made a hundred 
 resolutions. 
 
 "If they speak to that cad, I'll never speak 
 to them again," he vowed to himself. The 
 next moment he wanted to choke the "foul 
 
An English Saint 137 
 
 brute," or beat his fat face into a pulp. The 
 soldier, too, who whistled there nonchalantly, 
 came in for a share of Gerald's rage and con- 
 tempt. He hated him as much as he loathed 
 the vulgarian. He determined to go away and 
 leave Chrissie to her friends. Perhaps she 
 had already given them some encouragement; 
 perhaps even she had already smiled on the 
 fat man. His very soul sickened at the thought 
 of any connection between them; she seemed 
 to him dirtied by the man's desire. He would 
 go away and leave them, and he turned towards 
 the street. Just at that moment the swinging 
 door was thrown open and the sisters came out, 
 Chrissie first, as usual, carrying the officer's 
 bouquet, as Gerald noticed at once. In a 
 second the officer had come forward, and taking 
 off his hat had begun to speak. Gerald sud- 
 denly felt that he, too, ought to have sent 
 Chrissie a bouquet, and he was disgusted with 
 himself for not thinking of it sooner. His 
 anger with Chrissie had fled at the mere sight 
 of her. 
 
 "My name's Vincent," said the officer. "I 
 see you have my flowers. Miss Weldon. I do 
 hope it's a sign that you and your sister will 
 forgive the informahty of the introduction and 
 be my guests to-night at the Savoy.?" 
 
 "Oh, thank you," said Chrissie prettily, "but 
 
138 An English Saint 
 
 we cannot come," and she passed straight on 
 to Gerald. 
 
 "I saw you in front," she said to him, and in 
 a whisper added: "I danced for you, sir!'* 
 
 No one could resist her; yet Gerald heard 
 himself answer in a strange, hard voice: 
 
 "Why did you speak to him?" 
 
 He noticed that the young fellow was talk- 
 ing to Doris. Even Doris was smiling at him, 
 though she, too, refused his invitation. 
 
 The next moment Gerald had the sisters 
 in the carriage and was driving away, the 
 officer taking off his hat in gay salute, which 
 filled the cup of Gerald's ill-humour to the 
 brim. 
 
 "What's the matter, dear.?" cried Chrissie. 
 
 "Nothing," replied Gerald angrily; "but 
 why did you speak to him?" 
 
 "How could I help it?" said Chrissie laugh- 
 ing, pleased with his manifest jealousy. "I 
 had his flowers in my hand, and he was quite 
 polite." 
 
 "PoHte," repeated Gerald bitterly. "Did 
 you see the old fat Jew?" 
 
 '*The stage-manager introduced Mr. Graham 
 to us," she replied proudly. "He's a stock- 
 broker and the chief shareholder in the 
 theatre; even Doris was polite to him, weren't 
 you, Doris? " 
 
An English Saint 139 
 
 "I didn't want to supper with him," replied 
 Doris, "but I thought we had better." 
 
 Gerald felt strangled. Was this what his 
 love had brought him, this unworthy com- 
 petition, this vile rivalry.^ He saw, as with 
 second sight, that the "guinea-pig," as he 
 called him, was a more formidable competitor 
 even than the good-looking young officer. 
 
 "Are all women venal.?" he asked himself 
 bitterly, for both the girls spoke of Graham 
 with awed respect. 
 
 "He's very rich," said Chrissie. 
 
 "And knows everyone," echoed Doris. 
 
 "Their very souls," he thought to himself, 
 "are servile to riches and success." 
 
 But in a few minutes the reaction came. 
 He would give Chrissie up to none of them. 
 Why should he? He had good looks as well 
 as the officer, and money to spend as freely 
 as the City man. He triumphed to himself. 
 Wliy should he not win.? Why should he not 
 take them to supper.? At once, without ask- 
 ing, he put his head out of the window and 
 told the coachman to drive to the Savoy. 
 
 "I'm going to take you to the Savoy to 
 supper," he said. 
 
 "You dear!" cried Chrissie, clapping his 
 face with her hands. 
 
 "Chrissie, Chrissie," cried Doris reprovingly. 
 
140 An English Saint 
 
 "It's very kind of you, Mr. Lawrence," she 
 added; "but we're not dressed for the Savoy." 
 ' "Any dress will do," he said in his ignorance 
 (the officer had said the Savoy), and overbore 
 their opposition. But when the sisters entered 
 the restaurant and saw the girls and ladies 
 elegantly gowned crowding into the supper- 
 room, both Doris and Chrissie shrank back 
 declaring that it was impossible for them to 
 go in; but he insisted, and carried the matter 
 off with a high hand. When they were seated, 
 however, he was annoyed to find that dress 
 does make a difference to women, for both the 
 girls were ill at ease. 
 
 "Why should you not let me give you 
 frocks?" he said, as soon as he realised their 
 discomfort. "Eat your supper and drink your 
 champagne, and to-morrow you shall have two 
 white evening gowns, and we'll come again. 
 After all," he added, glancing round, "you're 
 the two prettiest girls in the room." 
 
 And, indeed, the little dark dresses and 
 unwonted hats seemed to set off the charm 
 of the girls' youthful beauty. Many of the 
 men as they passed out looked down at them 
 with frank admiration. It seemed to Gerald 
 as if the world were in a conspiracy to put 
 him in a secondary place. 
 
 "But, after all," he said to himself, "I know 
 
An English Saint 141 
 
 Chrissie does care for me, and it will be my own 
 fault if anyone else gets her," and he redoubled 
 his attentions. 
 
 'VMiile driving back he managed to take 
 Chrissie's hand in the dark; it nestled into his 
 all the way home, and gave him renewed cour- 
 age and joy. With this support he wrung from 
 Doris a half-promise that they would accept 
 evening dresses from him. When they got 
 inside the house, Chrissie made some excuse 
 to turn back in the passage and speak to him 
 at the street door. She gave him her lips at 
 once. "Good-night, dear," she said. "It's 
 been a treat," and she sighed contentedly. 
 
 When alone with his thoughts and able to 
 analyse his impressions and emotions, Gerald 
 realised that the poetry of his love, the idyllic 
 beauty of it, had vanished with the sense of 
 combat. Chrissie was no longer angehc, she 
 had become a little dancer, and he had to win 
 her and keep her. His love had been trans- 
 muted by jealousy into passion, just as loneli- 
 ness and disquieting doubts had deepened 
 Chrissie's affection into love. 
 ^ After leaving the theatre Mrs. Leighton sat 
 down and thought the matter over. "I need 
 help," she confessed to herself. Her instinct 
 had been right, she felt, in getting to know 
 Gerald's father. She could reckon on the 
 
142 An English Saint 
 
 old man now, and use him. Early next morn- 
 ing she drove out to Putney, and while walking 
 in the garden confided to old Mr. Lawrence all 
 she knew about Gerald's "unhappy entangle- 
 ment." She thought it her duty to tell him, 
 she said. He must never let Gerald know 
 where he had learned it. He must go to the 
 Palace Theatre to see for himself. She drew 
 a shocking caricature of Chrissie as "a vulgar, 
 little dancing-girl," who showed her "body 
 more than half -naked on the stage." Her 
 appeal to the old man's prudery was decisive; 
 in an hour she had worked him up to a passion- 
 ate resolution. By lunch-time she had assured 
 herself that he knew just what he ought to say 
 to Gerald. 
 
 The result was much what she anticipated. 
 Stuttering with indignation, Mr. Lawrence 
 went off to see Gerald next morning. He told 
 him he was mad, that he must think of his 
 career, and of decency, and so forth in the 
 customary strain, and then returned to tell 
 Mrs. Leighton all that he had said, leaving 
 out the fact that he had asked Gerald why he 
 didn't marry Mrs. Leighton, who was a lady 
 of position and wealth, and beautiful to boot. 
 
 The suggestion startled Gerald as much as 
 it angered him. He had never thought of such 
 a thing, he said; besides, Mrs. Leighton was 
 
An English Saint 143 
 
 too old. But his father's unsparing condemna- 
 tion of Chrissie had had a certain effect on him. 
 The old man's scorn for the girl who could show 
 off her figure in tights really lit unworthy 
 jealous suspicions in Gerald which bore evil 
 fruits later. He was compact of English pre- 
 judices; he began to doubt the girl's purity, 
 which was as obvious as sunlight, because of 
 the way she danced and dressed. 
 
 A few hours after his father had given Mrs. 
 Leighton his version of the lecture he had 
 administered to his son, Gerald betook himself 
 to Wilton Place, too, for sympathy and advice. 
 Mrs. Leighton began by soothing and flatter- 
 ing him. Of course, true love was beautiful, 
 she said, the ideal; but he had a great career 
 before him, and he should consider his father's 
 feelings. Gerald ought to be a prince of the 
 Church: princes only married common girls 
 when they were born princes, but when they 
 had to make themselves princes they could not 
 afford to marry beneath them, and so forth. 
 
 "Don't you see, Chrissie's a miracle.^" he 
 asked glowering; "there's no one like her." 
 
 Mrs. Leighton admitted that she was very 
 pretty, but added that he really must not ideal- 
 ise her out of all likeness to humanity; she was 
 illiterate, of course, and vain, glad to accept 
 anyone's attentions — both sisters were of the 
 
144 An English Saint 
 
 lower middle-class. She saw at once that she 
 was on the right track. "Do you really care 
 for her, really?" she asked. 
 
 He nodded, his face rigid with pain. 
 
 "Your father thinks you'll take her to 
 Paris," she remarked casually, playing her 
 trump boldly. Gerald, she felt, would soon 
 tire of Chrissie in Paris. 
 
 He started to his feet. " Oh ! He — you — " 
 
 She faced him bravely. "It would be the 
 best thing you could do. (He glared at her.) 
 Why should you quarrel with me, because 
 I'd give you everything you want in life, I'd 
 give you the moon if I could," and then she 
 found the supreme word: "If you don't take 
 her, Gerald, someone else will." 
 
 It struck him to the very heart. Yes, if he 
 didn't take her Graham would, and Doris 
 would not help her to resist; she certainly was 
 lower middle-class, prim at once, and servile. 
 And Chrissie, sweet though she was, was vain. 
 Wliat should he do.'^ 
 
 His jealousy of Graham discoloured the 
 world for him; "someone else" rankled. 
 
 He left Mrs. Leighton in a whirl of jealousy, 
 desire and wounded vanity. 
 
 Was he really making an angel, as she had 
 said, of a little dancing-girl; trj^ing to see a 
 London sparrow as a bird of paradise? How 
 
An English Saint 145 
 
 her words stung! They stung, he reflected, 
 because of the truth in them. The picture of 
 greasy, bald-headed Graham, Hke some obscene 
 bird of prey, kept thrusting itself before his 
 mind. 
 
 He could not rest in the Settlement. He 
 went off to Mare Street to take them out. 
 They were not in. The landlady confided to 
 him that a gentleman had taken them out for 
 the evening. 
 
 "What was he like.^" Gerald asked, smiling 
 to conceal his misery and rage. J 
 
 "Oh, he was quite a gentleman — a foreign 
 gentleman, I thought, a little elderly, but — 
 he had brought fur \\Taps for both of them, real 
 sable, Russian sable ..." The landlady was 
 voluble in the giver's praise. Gerald's heart 
 throbbed; it was Graham. He turned from 
 the door thanking her. But he was called 
 back. In her eagerness to help, the landlady 
 called out to him that she had heard the gentle- 
 man say they would take supper at the Savoy. 
 
 Gerald went to the Savoy, and there they were 
 in the restaurant. He waited about for more 
 than an hour to see them come out: Chrissie, 
 flushed with excitement, talking sixteen to the 
 dozen, as usual. His heart sank. As they 
 reached the door he saw Graham put his hand 
 on her bare arm to keep her back and let Doris 
 
146 An English Saint 
 
 go out first, and then he saw him, on the pretext 
 of arranging her fur, touch her bare neck with 
 his hand. Chrissie did not thrust him back, 
 or shrink from his touch; she smiled at him, 
 in fact, as she passed out. 
 
 Gerald was lost in jealous rage, dazed in 
 agonies of doubt and fear. He was brought 
 to himself by the porter tapping him on the 
 arm: 
 
 "We must close, sir, if you please." 
 
 The restaurant was shrouded, dark; only 
 the lights over the desk threw uncertain gleams; 
 the carriages had all rolled away. He went 
 out into the empty street. 
 
 All through the night he stormed; but as 
 hour after hour went on, one thing became clear 
 to him — he would have her; he would not 
 leave her to that foul beast, that old Jew satyr. 
 He would take her away at once. He must 
 make no mistake. He would go first to Mrs. 
 Leighton and ask her advice. He was at her 
 house by eight o'clock in the morning, and she 
 saw him at half -past in her peignoir, and was 
 all sympathy. 
 
 "You poor boy," she cried as she caught 
 sight of him, "how ill you look!" 
 
 In spite of himself he told her everything — liis 
 doubts of Chrissie, his suspicions, everything — 
 he raved to her, and then broke down and cried 
 
An English Saint 147 
 
 Kke a child with his head on her knees, sobbing 
 hysterically. He alarmed her; she feared for 
 his reason; she had never before understood 
 how weak he was. There was nothing for it, 
 she felt, but to give the child his toy. v. With 
 this purpose she spoke, encouraging him. Of 
 course, Chrissie loved him, but she was shallow 
 and vain. He must be always with her, never 
 leave her alone, he must take her to the theatre 
 and back again, to dinner and to supper. If 
 the other gave them furs, Gerald must give 
 them dresses and hats. If the other recom- 
 mended them to stage-managers, Gerald should 
 take the stage-managers out to supper with 
 them. 
 
 She concluded: "If Graham gets them a rise 
 in salary, you must give them bracelets and 
 brooches. Play the man," she cried at him 
 finally, "and not the mouse." 
 
 Before she had half-finished, all the man in 
 him had responded to her. He kissed her hands 
 and caught her to him, and kissed her face, and 
 hurried off to carry out her instructions, and 
 to tread the primrose path to his desire. 
 
 In twenty-four hours he had reason to con- 
 gratulate himself. In a week he had won 
 Chrissie so that she had no thought or wish 
 beyond him. The dresses he gave her and the 
 jewels, forced even Doris to agree with the land- 
 
148 An English Saint 
 
 lady that he was madly in love; but still he 
 could not induce Chrissie to take the irrevocable 
 step and leave London. He wanted to get her 
 away from Graham and his vile attentions; 
 but to Chrissie leaving London meant leaving 
 Doris and success on the stage. The girFs 
 loyalty to her sister was invincible. He wxnt 
 again to Mrs. Leighton. Her advice was 
 veiled, but decisive. 
 
 "Win her," she said, "and the girl will 
 follow you." 
 
 "But how.'^ What do you mean?" he asked. 
 "Do help me!" 
 
 Mrs. Leighton looked at him. Could any 
 man be so inconceivably ignorant. 
 
 "Take her for a long drive," she said at 
 length, "up the river, or out to Hampstead, 
 or to Richmond. Take a private room in 
 some hotel — the Star and Garter if you like 
 — and lunch and dine together; make up your 
 mind and you are sure to win her"; with 
 feminine malice she added, "she's only waiting 
 to be persuaded." 
 
 Gerald went from her in a fever, resolute 
 but still self -deceiving; he would not look 
 facts in the face. But still, there could be 
 no harm, he said to himself, in taking Chrissie 
 out, and he engaged a private room and 
 induced Chrissie to come with him alone. 
 
An English Saint 149 
 
 They lunched together — he in a fever of 
 excitement, Chrissie a little subdued and not 
 quite at ease, but intensely happy. There 
 was something thrilling to both of them in 
 being alone together. He took delight in 
 helping her to this and that, and then the joy 
 of jumping up and kissing her while the waiter 
 was out of the room; and afterwards, when 
 the waiter had cleared away and left them, 
 she kissed him, too, bravely, again and again, 
 and Gerald took his love in his arms and they 
 sat together for hours, almost without speaking, 
 shut off from the world in the divine intimacy 
 of passion. Gradually the dusky shadows crept 
 in and filled the room and hid them from 
 sight or sound, they two together, mouth on 
 mouth, till the girl, too, gave herself wholly 
 to love, and the dark eyes fluttered and lost 
 themselves. . . . 
 
 A week later they were in Paris. 
 
 Although she expected the news, Mrs. Leigh- 
 ton took it badly; she spent the day given over 
 to all the torments of jealousy: she cried with 
 rage, and dried her tears in hot contempt of 
 her rival; she burned and throbbed with desire, 
 and cooled to frigid resolve and hate; at 
 dinner she could not eat, complaining still of 
 headache — it was heartache she felt, pain that 
 gripped her heart and almost choked her. 
 
150 An English Saint 
 
 That he should prefer that vulgar, shallow 
 little slut to her; that he was kissing her now 
 and happy with her! — Good God! ... ^ 
 
 Next morning she went off to find Doris, 
 determined to win her as she had won Gerald's 
 father. "With the two highest trumps in my 
 hand," she thought, "I can do as I like." 
 
 She found Doris horrified and indignant, but 
 she soon calmed her down, persuading her 
 gradually that nothing need get about — "No 
 one need know if we don't tell." 
 
 In a few days she had overcome all Doris's 
 suspiciousness. She was not in a hurry. There 
 was time enough. Gerald should have his 
 honeymoon. She would not be surprised, she 
 said to herself, if the honeymoon was quite 
 long enough for him. She knew men pretty 
 well, and her understanding of Gerald v/as 
 uncanny. Meanwhile she had Doris to lunch 
 and Doris to dinner, and bit by bit won the 
 girl's -,» complete confidence. When she told 
 Doris she was much prettier than her sister, 
 and must make a really sensible marriage with 
 a good, steady man, Doris felt that at last she 
 had met a real friend. Doris quickly came 
 to admire Mrs. Leighton as a sort of model, 
 for the two had a good deal in common. Mrs. 
 Leighton knew the very moment when Doris 
 turned from doubt of her to admiration, and 
 
An English Saint 151 
 
 then it was an easy matter to persuade her that 
 it was her duty to go to Paris and put an end 
 to the scandal by getting her sister to leave 
 Gerald. By this time, too, Mrs. Leighton had 
 worked up old Mr. Lawrence to go with her 
 and help to bring the runaways to reason. 
 Naturally she kept Mr. Lawrence and Doris 
 steadily apart. It would never do to let them 
 know each other, she felt; they were both of 
 the same class, and like might recognise like. 
 Besides, by keeping them apart she could use 
 Doris as a whip to old Mr. LawTence, and Mr. 
 Lawrence as a bogey with which to frighten 
 Doris. She really played her game with con- 
 siderable ingenuity, served by jealous feminine 
 instinct and by an unveiled understanding of 
 both the physical and spiritual sides of the 
 problem. 
 
 Li a month, as Mrs. Leighton had foreseen, 
 Gerald's passion had died of satiety; long before 
 the month had come to an end, indeed, his 
 physical weakness and Chrissie's natural ten- 
 derness had brought him almost to illness, his 
 worn-out nerves vibrating between exliaustion 
 and exasperation. In this state every little 
 common phrase of Chrissie's jarred on him, 
 her childishness seemed silly, her longings for 
 her sister sentimental drivel. He soon felt 
 that Mrs. Leighton had read the girl aright: 
 
152 An English Saint 
 
 she was shallow and ill-regulated — all in ex- 
 tremes. The truth was, his physical weakness 
 rendered him incapable of making any allow- 
 ance for Chrissie after the first few days, and 
 he had no idea how lonely and disconsolate, 
 how homesick and heartsick, she became in 
 the foreign capital. Chrissie was hardly more 
 than a child — a gregarious, ingenuous, vain, 
 charming little creature who lived on praise 
 and hopes of pleasure. Wlien her sister didn't 
 want to talk, she talked to the landlady or to 
 the servant; there was constant companion- 
 ship for her in Hackney. Here in Paris there 
 was no one to talk to, no one to admire her, 
 nothing on earth to do. In three days she 
 began to be bored, and every effort she made 
 to win Gerald seemed to result in failure. After 
 the first week he hardly wanted to speak to 
 her; she had no understanding of him at all; 
 she was hurt, and then indignant. She began 
 to notice his faults and became increasingly 
 dissatisfied: he was always polite, but he did 
 nothing but read and read, and whenever they 
 went out he took her to churches and picture 
 galleries and museums where she could only 
 see old frumps and fogeys. She was like a 
 young bird used to sunshine and gay, quick 
 flirts of flight and snatches of song, thrust to 
 solitary quiet in a gloomy cage; for to her the 
 
An English Saint 153 
 
 vast hotel was a cage or a prison. If that was 
 love she hated it. All the little differences of 
 sex and temperament brought her to tears. 
 Gerald seemed to get tired of her petting and 
 caressing and loving; she could only believe 
 he was getting tired of her. When she thought 
 of a new way of amusing him by coming behind 
 him in a new dress and blindfolding him, he 
 got cross and cold, and never noticed the dress. 
 From the beginning she had regretted yielding 
 to him without marriage, and every day she 
 regretted it more; it seemed wrong to her to 
 be living with him. She hadn't wanted to 
 leave her sister, and now she wanted to see her 
 more and more till she ached with the longing. 
 
 One afternoon Doris walked into her bed- 
 room, and Chrissie threw herself into her arms 
 and burst into inarticulate sobbings of regret 
 and relief. For over an hour Doris could do 
 nothing but kiss and comfort her: "Everything 
 would come right, everything; she must be 
 sure of that. She would not leave her again 
 . . ." for Chrissie seemed heartbroken, and 
 clung to her as if afraid. She never even 
 noticed Gerald's absence, never knew that he 
 had gone to call on Mrs. Leigh ton in answer 
 to a telegram; Doris was everything to her. 
 
 Doris's rage against Gerald, which uncon- 
 sciously had a tincture of sex jealousy in it. 
 
154 An English Saint 
 
 grew to cold hatred as she realised how unhappy 
 her little sister had been. She had always been 
 a little envious of Chrissie, for Chrissie had 
 outshone her as a dancer by dint of a little 
 more courage in displaying her feelings, and 
 now she realised with a certain satisfaction 
 that it was this thoughtless courage which had 
 brought Chrissie to grief. But the recognition 
 of her own superiority of nature only made her 
 more pitiful to her little sister. So she com- 
 forted Chrissie, assured her that everything 
 would be all right; she mustn't worry, every- 
 thing would be arranged. 
 
 "He's not been unkind to you, has he?" 
 she asked. 
 
 "No," sobbed Chrissie, "not exactly unkind, 
 but men are so different from what I thought, 
 so different. He's all the time reading and 
 teaching me, and I don't want to be improved. 
 He didn't want me to write to you till I could 
 write without making mistakes, as if that mat- 
 tered. He's nice, but he's a fool." "Prig" 
 was probably the word she would have used if 
 she had known it. Her little vanity had 
 resented the teacher's attitude which Gerald 
 assumed all too easily. Her resentment seemed 
 inexplicable even to herself; for at bottom she 
 was loyal. 
 
 "He's good, you know," she explained, "and 
 
An English Saint 155 
 
 I think, perhaps, he loves me in his way; but 
 men are so different from us, so different," 
 and she clung to her sister in an April storm 
 of smiling and sobbing — heart at ease, at last, 
 in that custom of affection which means so 
 much to women. While comforting her sister, 
 Doris did not lose sight of her mission. 
 
 "You must leave him, Chrissie," she said at 
 length; "it's wrong to live like this without 
 being married." 
 
 "He'll marry me," replied Chrissie in aston- 
 ishment, drawing away, "he said he would." 
 
 "How can he without money ! " replied Doris, 
 coached by Mrs. Leighton. "His father is 
 furious, and won't give him a penny unless he 
 leaves you." 
 
 "But he can't leave me," cried Chrissie, 
 horror-stricken; "he promised, and where 
 could I go? I could never show my face again. 
 Oh!" and she blanched with a thousand fears. 
 
 "We'll make it all right, dear," comforted 
 Doris, "no one need ever know, and I'll never 
 leave you again, and you must never leave me, 
 you naughty, naughty, little sis to run away 
 and never say a word." 
 
 "He wouldn't let me tell you. I wanted 
 to," cried Chrissie, always repentant on this 
 score. "I really wanted to; you must beheve 
 me. 
 
156 An English Saint 
 
 And Doris did believe her, and soon managed 
 to find out that there was no new reason why 
 her sister should not leave Gerald. As soon 
 as she was assured of this, she immediately 
 adopted Mrs. Leighton's view that five pounds 
 a week for life was a very good substitute indeed 
 for a man who would always be ashamed of 
 one, and who had been unkind even on the 
 honeymoon. Besides, Mrs. Leighton was right. 
 Chrissie was too young to be married; the 
 elder sister should marry first. 
 
 Doris returned to Mrs. Leighton to tell her 
 that Gerald had "behaved shameful " to Chrissie 
 and that if she could have her sister to herself 
 for a day or two, she'd get Chrissie reconciled 
 to leaving him. Mrs. Leighton must keep 
 Gerald away for a little while. 
 
 Gerald found Mrs. Leighton in an attitude 
 of resigned sorrow; she even blamed him a 
 little: 
 
 "You've hurt your father, Gerald," she said, 
 "and I think you ought to be kind to him." 
 
 In some confusion, for he was not prepared 
 for this condemnation from his confederate, 
 Gerald promised to be nice, but 
 
 Mrs. Leighton left the room, and his father 
 came to him. Mr. Lawrence had been well 
 schooled; he acted the heavy father to the life. 
 "Enough of this fooling," was about all he 
 
An English Saint 157 
 
 could find to say. "You've had your fling, 
 and now it's all over. You look shocking bad, 
 Gerald," he added in his natural kindly way. 
 
 "I'm going to marry Chrissie," said Gerald 
 with quiet firmness. 
 
 "You're mad; you'd never be such a fool," 
 roared the old man, his real opinions breaking 
 through the veneer of custom. "What can 
 the girl do for you.^" And then, bethinking 
 himself of the argument supplied to him: "If 
 you do marry her, you'll not get a penny of my 
 money, I can tell you. I won't be a party to 
 such folly. You must be a softie to talk such 
 nonsense. I've no patience with you." 
 
 Mrs. Leighton had to appear to prevent 
 them quarrelling, but his father's angry out- 
 burst had its effect on Gerald. Mrs. Leighton 
 managed to persuade him not to go back to 
 his hotel that night. "You'll only meet Doris," 
 she said, "and she's furious with you. There'll 
 be a scene if you two meet." 
 
 But, in spite of Gerald's hatred of a scene, 
 he utterly refused to leave Paris without first 
 seeing Chrissie, and getting his dismissal from 
 her own lips. 
 
 , "If Chrissie doesn't want me, I'll do what- 
 ever you like," was his final word. 
 
 Underneath his disillusion and weakness 
 there was a small fount of passionate tender- 
 
158 An English Saint 
 
 ness. If Chrissie was, indeed, tired of him, he'd 
 go; otherwise nothing would induce him to 
 leave her. His father might do what he pleased 
 with his money. Mrs. Leigh ton was astonished 
 at his obstinacy. 'Twas Doris saved the situa- 
 tion. She told Mrs. Leigh ton that in another 
 twenty-four hours she'd answer for Chrissie, 
 and she got the time she wanted. 
 
 The pair met in the presence of Mrs. Leigh- 
 ton and Doris. 
 
 "Do you want to leave me, Chrissie?" cried 
 Gerald, holding out his hands to her. 
 
 "What can I do?" she repHed. "Your father 
 won't give you anything, and he hates me and 
 you — you — " and she burst into tears and 
 fell into her sister's arms. 
 
 "Don't you think you've done her enough 
 harm?" barked Doris savagely, and in despair 
 Gerald obeyed Mrs. Leighton's gesture and 
 left the room. 
 
 "He never even kissed me," wept Chrissie. 
 
 "We're well rid of him," snapped Doris 
 viciously; "he cares for no one much, not even 
 for himself." 
 
 And so Mrs. Leigh ton had her way, and took 
 a very sulky, hurt and subdued Gerald back 
 to London with his father, while the sisters 
 Weldon drifted out again into their own world 
 under improved conditions. For despite what 
 
An English Saint 159 
 
 romantic authors may say, such wounds as 
 Chrissie's heal quickly in healthy flesh. 
 
 But though Mrs. Leighton had got her way, 
 she was far too clever to try to reap the reward 
 at once. Besides she was a little annoyed and 
 hurt with Gerald for the struggle he had cost 
 her and the trouble he had put her to. She 
 shut herself up in her house in Wilton Place, 
 and gave out that she was not well enough to 
 receive. But the separation was short. Gerald 
 was more unable than ever to endure loneliness; 
 he needed sympathy and praise; in fact, he 
 missed Mrs. Leighton now from morning till 
 night, he simply could not do without her. 
 And she could not resist his importunity. 
 
 For a long time he seemed emptied of ambi- 
 tion, the spring of life broken in him. Mrs. 
 Leighton soon noticed the listlessness, but 
 hoped to bring him back quickly to his old 
 self. For some months, however, her hopes 
 were in vain, and the reason lay beyond her 
 fathoming. The truth is, whenever he got a 
 little strength, thoughts of Chrissie came to 
 him; tender memories of their life together in 
 Paris — that life which had seemed so full of 
 disappointments at the time, but which now 
 had become charming and beautiful to him in 
 retrospect. All the little disagreements and 
 pains dropped out of his mind, and he only 
 
160 An English Saint 
 
 remembered the exquisite moments of joy and 
 tenderness. At such times his whole being 
 was given over to love of Chrissie, and to regret 
 that he had ever left her. Since she had faded 
 out of his life, he realised that no one would 
 ever delight him as she had delighted him. 
 Existence seemed dull and futile, stale to loath- 
 ing. In vain he fasted; in vain he read for 
 twelve or fourteen hours a day; he could only 
 tire himself; and as soon as he was rested, the 
 memory of Chrissie came back to him to tor- 
 ment him, and to make of all the best moments 
 of his life one passionate regret. During the 
 day he could at least struggle with the obsession, 
 or even forget it over a book, or in talk; but 
 at night he was defenceless, and memories of 
 her child-love and pretty caresses broke his 
 sleep. As he was unable to banish the vivid 
 dreams by any effort of will, he held himself 
 guiltless in regard to them, and, with the 
 casuistry of desire, soon went further. He 
 accustomed himself to think of Chrissie just 
 before going to sleep, a habit which he soon 
 found made dreaming of her almost a certainty. 
 The self-indulgence soon began to tell on his 
 health, and so, as time went on, he did not get 
 stronger, but weaker. His father could not 
 make out what was the matter with him; he 
 lost all patience with his moping as he called it. 
 
An English Saint 161 
 
 Mrs. Leighton, with her feminine intuition, 
 had a clearer idea of Gerald's suffering and the 
 necessary remedy. 
 
 One day Mr. Lawrence had been complain- 
 ing that Gerald seemed to be growing weaker, 
 and Mrs. Leighton told him plainly that Gerald 
 was killing himself, and that there was only 
 one way to save him. He understood her, 
 and begged her to take Gerald in hand without 
 delay. A little w^hile after they were engaged, 
 and Mrs. Leighton set herself to fight the mem- 
 ory of Chrissie as she had fought and beaten 
 Chrissie herself. But she found the memory 
 and aura of the girl formidable antagonists. 
 Still she struggled on with tenacity and ability. 
 
 She got Gerald ordained as a priest with 
 great ceremony. She arranged an invitation 
 for him to preach his first sermon in one of 
 the most important London churches, and she 
 took care that the church should be filled with 
 a very select audience. She advised him about 
 his sermon, and made him rehearse it again 
 and again to her till every effect was perfect. 
 His first appearance in London as a preacher 
 was a social event. He had brought with him 
 from Oxford a great reputation, and the couple 
 of years in which people had lost sight of him 
 only added to their eagerness to see whether 
 he had fulfilled his youthful promise. 
 
162 An English Saint 
 
 In the interval, too, Lord Woodstock had 
 become a prominent pohtician, and already a 
 good many Conservatives looked upon him as 
 the coming leader of the party. Woodstock's 
 high opinion of the "Saint" was of itself suffi- 
 cient to have filled the church, but there were 
 other influences at work. 
 
 Gerald was what is called "High Church." 
 In all cases of doubt he turned to the practices 
 of the early Christians, and accordingly was 
 supported by this militant section of the 
 Church. 
 
 He chose his text from the Epistle of Paul 
 to the Philippians. He read the sentences 
 out in the toneless, impressive way already 
 described: ''The enemies of the cross of Christ: 
 whose end is destruction . . . whose God is their 
 belly . . . who mind earthly things ..." 
 
 Again and again he repeated the text: "The 
 enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is 
 destruction . . . whose God is their belly . . . 
 who mind earthly things ..." 
 
 The most original thing in the sermon was 
 the way he dwelt on the necessity of fasting, 
 and the benefits to be derived from it. "Fast- 
 ing," he said, "had gradually grown into a rule 
 and become a part of the discipline of the 
 Catholic Church. Why? Because of the vir- 
 tue in it: because of its good effects. . . . The 
 
An English Saint 163 
 
 whole world was being ransacked to-day to 
 satisfy the desires of the rich of our great cities. 
 Birds were brought from Asia, meat from New 
 Zealand, fish from the northern oceans, fruits 
 from the uttermost parts of the earth, wines 
 were grown with such care that every leaf was 
 cleansed and cherished, and yet Paul asserted 
 that those 'whose God is their belly . . . who 
 mind earthly things , , . are the enemies of the 
 cross . . . doomed to destruction . . .'" 
 
 The earthly custom was to pamper the 
 appetite, the Christian rule was abstinence. 
 He declared that those who had not under- 
 gone the discipline were incapable of the highest 
 thought — they were enemies of perfection. 
 Perfect health, he asserted, could only be 
 found by fasting regularly. It was one of the 
 means to perfectness. ... 
 
 This contradiction between the earthly cus- 
 tom and the heavenly rule offered an easy test 
 of the truth of the Christian doctrine. No 
 doctor would ever tell you to fast. He would 
 tell you to eat and drink moderately. That 
 was the Pagan idea of virtue — Aristotle's idea. 
 The wise of this world would regard fasting as 
 an extreme, as they regarded gluttony as an 
 extreme; virtue was in moderation. This was 
 as far as the wisdom of the world went, but the 
 wisdom of the Cross went further — it went to 
 
164 An English Saint 
 
 an extreme, it promised a more perfect health 
 to those who denied themselves and fasted. 
 
 **It is within the reach of everyone to find 
 out for himself or for herself," he said, "whether 
 the discipline of the Church is good or bad. It 
 is an easy thing to fast for one day. Everyone 
 in this church, everyone now listening to me, 
 should fast this coming Friday, and on Satur- 
 day you will all know whether the words of my 
 text come from God or not. You will then 
 find out whether those who 'mind earthly 
 things' are indeed vowed to success, as most 
 people imagine; or to 'destruction,' as St. 
 Paul asserted ..." 
 
 The sermon was an unexpected success even 
 among men who cared little for the spiritual- 
 ity of the preacher's appearance. Was fasting, 
 indeed, a means of perfection, they wondered. 
 It was a new idea to them. Here Gerald had 
 really preached new words, for he had new 
 knowledge, new personal experience to back 
 him. 
 
 After the sermon Woodstock accompanied 
 Gerald to lunch at Mrs. Leighton's. He called 
 Gerald the "Saint"; told him he must be care- 
 ful not to fast too much; admitted that he 
 himself was beginning to get stout since he had 
 dropped all exercise. "In fact, I'm going to 
 try Gerald's remedy," he added laughingly. 
 
An English Saint 165 
 
 At the end of the meal he told Gerald very 
 quietly that he would do anything to help him 
 at any time. 
 
 "I don't want to be included among the 
 enemies," he added, "even if I do mind earthly 
 things." 
 
 Though Mrs. Leighton took care that Gerald 
 should hear all the praise his sermon called 
 forth, his success did not inspire the preacher 
 as she had hoped. He soon dropped back into 
 listless regret, into a sort of melancholy brood- 
 ing. Mrs. Leighton realised that something 
 would have to be done at once — she married 
 him. . . . 
 
 At first the experiment seemed to be an utter 
 failure. Gerald got worse instead of better; 
 he began to cough, and alarmed her about his 
 health. She took him to the Riviera without 
 result. The gaiety and distractions of Nice 
 and Monte Carlo only left him more and more 
 listless and tired. After a great deal of thought 
 she resolved to take him to the Holy Land. 
 
 It says much for her unselfishness and real 
 kindness of nature that she passed two years 
 with him in Palestine and the Near East with- 
 out complaining of the many hardships, or 
 even regretting London society, and at length 
 she had her reward, such as it was. 
 
 In the course of the first winter spent in 
 
166 An Eyiglish Saint 
 
 Palestine, Gerald began to get interested in 
 the spirit of Christianity. The creed had 
 something in it which suited his nature; its 
 lessons of humihty and loving sympathy 
 appealed to him, just as the self-renuncia- 
 tions of the Church had appealed to him. He 
 encouraged himself in the belief that he, too, 
 had been "called and chosen." 
 
 While living in Jersualem, and visiting Bethle- 
 hem, and Capernaum, and Gennesaret, and 
 all the other sacred places, and steeping himself 
 in the Epistles, Gerald began to feel the stirrings 
 of a new ambition; might not he, too, "con- 
 quer through his own weakness.^^" as St. Paul 
 had done. 
 
 After he had exhausted the Holy Land, he 
 determined to follow the journeyings of St. 
 Paul in a small saihng ship; he even stopped 
 at all the places where the great Apostle had 
 stopped, and thus, after many experiences, 
 came in spring-time by way of Naples to 
 Rome. 
 
 His spiritual history all the while was inti- 
 mately affected by his bodily health. As 
 ambition awoke in him and his life grew more 
 attractive, he dreamed less, and as the spirit- 
 ual ideal grew stronger, the image of Chrissie 
 gradually d wined away. For the first couple 
 of years of married life his relations with his 
 
 j 
 
An English Saint 167 
 
 wife had been platonic. He now began to be 
 troubled about his behavioiu* to her; perhaps 
 he had done wrong. 
 
 In the great church dedicated to St. Peter 
 and St. Paul, outside the walls of Rome, he was 
 vouchsafed new spiritual guidance, and under- 
 went what he always afterwards regarded as 
 his "consecration." 
 
 To him the place was sacred; the very road 
 beyond the walls was the road trodden by the 
 indomitable missionary — *' persecuted but not 
 forsaken; cast doion hut not destroyed J" He 
 walked along it as he imagined the two Apostles 
 had walked together; he stopped where tra- 
 dition says they stopped, and in the great 
 church at eventide he knelt and prayed. Sud- 
 denly he realised that the past was past, that 
 he must begin a new life. The vision of "what 
 is perfect" overpowered him, and the relief 
 he felt in the new decision was evidence to 
 him of heavenly interposition and leading. 
 
 He went back to his wife in the hotel, and 
 took her in his arms and kissed her: "'I was 
 blind, and now I see,' dear," he said to her, 
 and she was content to take it at that. 
 
 When they returned to England Gerald felt 
 his path straight before him; the taproots of 
 his success would be his own personal experi- 
 ences. The passion which had almost wrecked 
 
168 An English Saint 
 
 his life, which had brought him to misery, he 
 would preach against, as St. Paul had preached 
 against it. Fasting had given him new ideas 
 and renewed health, had taught him that 
 renunciation was a step to perfection, and it 
 never occurred to him that what was evil to 
 him might be good to a stronger man. He 
 would advocate two of St. Francis' three vows 
 — poverty, which really meant fasting and 
 chastity. 
 
 In the brutal materialism and mawkish 
 sentimentality of London his preaching had 
 an extraordinary effect. His special knowledge 
 of the Holy Land helped him to vivify every 
 sermon. He was made a Canon of West- 
 minster, and as he only preached three or four 
 times a year on account of weak health, his 
 sermons soon became social functions. 
 
 Ten years later he was made a bishop, and 
 Woodstock brought half a dozen of his col- 
 leagues, with the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 to hear his first sermon. 
 
 Ever since his return to England Gerald had 
 led a life of persistent self-denial by night and 
 by day; for years he had eaten no meat, and 
 drunk nothing but water; he had tried to 
 reach the Christian ideal. He had been helped 
 by his weaknesses rather than by his endow- 
 ments; as far as he could go, he had gone. He 
 
An English Saint 169 
 
 had aged twenty years in the last ten, and at 
 thirty-six was already an old man. His hair 
 was silver-white, the flame of life burned low 
 in him, his self-denying asceticism had brought 
 him to the edge of things where one looks into 
 the void and shudders at the ghostly air. All 
 tliis spiritualised his appearance and intensified 
 the power of his preaching. Our souls get 
 subdued to the stuff we work in, and Gerald's 
 whole nature now for years and years had been 
 steeped in self-renunciation, gentleness and 
 spiritual aspiration. 
 
 The great abbey was full of distinguished 
 people; such an audience had rarely been 
 brought together. As usual, Gerald had pre- 
 pared every word. He had chosen his text 
 with extreme care. He had taken it from St. 
 Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians: "// / must 
 needs glory, I ivill glory of the things which 
 concern mine infirmities" 
 
 The Archbishop, a stout, healthy, thrusting 
 prelate and man of the world, had a good- 
 natured contempt for Gerald, and had come to 
 the service in a spirit of utter disbelief in his 
 saintliness; but he could not prevent a thrill 
 of emotion and wonderment as Gerald rose in 
 the pulpit and looked out over the congregation. 
 His silver hair, refined, thin features and great 
 eyes had their accustomed effect: his voice 
 
170 An English Saint 
 
 was so toneless that it had no individuahty, it 
 seemed superhuman, so to speak, in its imper- 
 sonal monotony: 
 
 "// 1 must needs glory , I will glory of the things 
 which concern mine infirmities'' — again and 
 again Gerald let the text sink in. 
 
 The long pauses were partly due to physical 
 weakness, partly to the fact that on this day 
 of days he was resolved to follow the example 
 of Paul himself, and to glory in the confession of 
 his own shortcomings. He told how he used 
 to eat and drink and mind earthly things, and 
 how fasting had led him to the upward path. 
 He told, too, with many breaks in his utterance 
 of the temptations of passion, the humilia- 
 tions it entailed, its bitter disappointments; 
 he spoke with a dying fall in his voice of its 
 transitoriness, its fleeting summer, its haunting 
 remorse; the only consolation was that it 
 pointed to higher things, as shadows all point 
 to the sun. 
 
 The latter part of the sermon had no sequence 
 in it. Gerald had yielded to his emotion while 
 controlling its expression, and the effort had 
 exhausted him. In the hush of reverent sym- 
 pathy fragments of loved texts fell from his 
 lips. He desired, he said, to look not at the 
 things which are seen, but the things icliich are 
 not seen; for the things which are seen are tern- 
 
An English Saint 171 
 
 poral: but the things which are not seen are 
 eternal.'' 
 
 After another pause, the slow words fell one 
 by one on the breathless silence: 
 
 *'I will very gladly spend and be spent for you,'* 
 and then the voice died away and the preacher's 
 head drooped forward on the desk — he had 
 fainted. 
 
 The effect on the audience was extraordinary; 
 women sobbed aloud, and men unused to weep- 
 ing had to sniff and cough. 
 
 They carried Gerald to the sacristy. The 
 Archbishop and Woodstock stood about while 
 his wife tended him. As soon as he was able 
 to sit up he was full of apologies. 
 
 "I am so sorry,'* he said. "I am afraid I 
 should not have attempted it; my weakness 
 is too great." 
 
 They encouraged him, but his eyes closed in 
 another syncope. At his wife's suggestion the 
 two went away leaving him to her. 
 
 "I think I was right," said Woodstock to the 
 Archbishop, "to speak of Gerald Lawrence as 
 a saint." 
 
 The Archbishop sniffed; though there was 
 not much thought in him there was a con- 
 siderable knowledge of life and a very rank 
 scepticism : 
 
 "Humph! H'm!" he grunted. "His spirit- 
 
172 An English Saint 
 
 uality seemed to me to be of fasting and not of 
 faith; but I daresay he's a good man"; and 
 then, thinking of Gerald's pathetic attempt to 
 smile in the sacristy, he added: "Perhaps he's 
 as near a saint as we're likely to see." 
 
MR. JACOB'S PHILOSOPHY 
 
MR. JACOB'S PHILOSOPHY 
 
 THE first time I met him was in the train 
 going from the Riviera to Paris. He 
 got in at Avignon and was put into my 
 coup6. As it v/as a large one with four berths 
 I didn't much mind, but when I saw he was a 
 Jew I felt inclined to curse. Not that I have 
 any reason to dislike Jews; but they generally 
 look greasy, and I have an idea that they don't 
 like cold water. Still, this one was fairly pre- 
 sentable: a short, stout, little man, some- 
 where in the fifties, I should say, with the heavy 
 beaked nose and pendulous jowl of his tribe. 
 He was well dressed in dark blue serge, though 
 the pearl watch-chain was perhaps a little 
 loud, and the diamond ring went badly with 
 finger-nails in mourning. 
 
 I saw at once that he wanted to talk, and as 
 I had read till my eyes ached and become some- 
 what bored with my own company and the 
 enforced idleness, I rather encouraged him at 
 first, and in a Httle while took a certain interest 
 in the man and his talk. He had scarcely 
 settled himself in his seat before he began: 
 
176 Mr. Jacob's Philosophy 
 
 his name, he told me, was Jacob, Israel Jacob, 
 and he was born in Lemburg : he need not have 
 been so precise; his accent was unmistakable. 
 He had spent a night in Avignon — "a stupid 
 hole" he thought it, where he usually broke 
 his journey to Paris; and at length, warmed by 
 the sound of his own voice, he plucked up cour- 
 age enough to ask where I had come from, and 
 when I answered "Nice," he confided to me 
 that "Monte," as he called it, was the only 
 place on the Riviera he cared for. 
 
 "A shplendid hotel de 'Paris' — de best in 
 all Europe," and he smacked his thick lips, 
 while his eyes shone with delighted memories. 
 Mr. Jacob enjoyed the good things of this 
 world, it appeared, and knew a good deal about 
 them too; for when I praised his cigars, more 
 for something to say than for any other reason, 
 he insisted that I should try one, and I found 
 it about the best I had ever smoked. 
 
 "De '96 crop," he said, "but ach, only pritty 
 goot; derc is no cigars now like vot dere vos 
 dirty years ago; dey shpoiled tobacco in Cuba 
 by manuring the ground, and dey haf nefer 
 had any fine shtuff since." 
 
 The old fellow amused me : he was apparently 
 a competent judge of some things and intensely 
 cock-sure; but his self-indulgence had not im- 
 paired his brains or his health to all seeming; 
 
Mr, Jacob's Philosophy 177 
 
 for though stout he was not fat, and evidently 
 varied the fleshpots of France with the waters 
 of Carlsbad. 
 
 As he tall<:ed of Monte Carlo he soon showed 
 that he knew, at least by sight, the most notori- 
 ous inhabitants and visitors. I say "notori- 
 ous," because he said but little of the men of 
 rank or position. At first that puzzled me, till 
 I came to understand that he judged all men 
 by the money they possessed. His admiration 
 for Arthur Rothschild was only equalled by 
 his reverence for Camille Blanc, and a cursory 
 view of Mr. Alfred Beit going into the rooms 
 seemed to have become a precious and abiding 
 memory to him. One often hears that a Jew 
 loves money, but I always thought that meant 
 that he loves what money buys, till I met Mr. 
 Jacob. I had no conception that money could 
 be loved for itself alone — adored as a sort of 
 deity; yet no one ever spoke of his god with 
 more sincere reverence than Mr. Jacob spoke 
 of a million. I don't think he meant to show 
 this impersonal passion for money; it simply 
 leaked out of him unconsciously, and I 
 humoured him a little, for he had begun to 
 interest me as a new type. 
 
 The only time he showed any irritation was 
 when I made some mistake in my estimate of 
 a man's wealth. In answer to something he 
 
178 Mr. Jacob's Philosophy . 
 
 had said, I had remarked carelessly that I 
 supposed Baron Hirsch was the richest man in 
 London; but he would not have it at all. 
 
 "Vot, him!" he cried, starting bolt upright 
 on his seat, "he hadn't ten millions: Beit 
 has got twenty, and Astor, dirty, perhaps more: 
 all Jews, dank Himmel!" 
 
 "But surely Astor is an American?" 
 
 "American," he retorted, "as much Ameri- 
 can as I am. Yacob was de grandfatter's 
 name who made de money, a German Jew, 
 from Hesse-Cassel. Dat's vy dey got de 
 money; dat's vy dey've kept it." 
 
 "But is Rockefeller," I asked, "also a 
 Jew?" 
 
 "Of course," replied Mr. Jacob; "no one 
 gets dirty, forty, hundert milHon who isn't a 
 Jew." 
 
 "How extraordinary," I exclaimed, "that 
 all the richest men in the world should be Jews. 
 How do you explain it?" 
 
 "Veil," he said, after a pause, "some explain 
 it in von vay and some in anoder. Generally 
 ve zay dat de Jew haf de best brains in de 
 vorld." 
 
 "But if they are so clever," I rephed, "surely 
 they would show their genius in other depart- 
 ments of life." 
 
 "Dey do," he said; "take acting: Irving is 
 
Mr, Jacob's Philosophy 179 
 
 a Jew, Beerbohm Tree a Jew, Alexander a Jew, 
 Lewis Waller a Jew — all Jews." 
 
 "Perhaps that is why," I interjected, "the 
 stage in England is in such a wretched condi- 
 tion." But he did not heed or even hear the 
 Vbe. 
 
 "Same ting in Germany," he went on; "all 
 de great artists are Jews." 
 
 "But, after all," I objected, "acting is only 
 half an art." 
 
 "And music, dat is an art," he cried, "eh.^^ 
 and all de musicians are Jews: Beethoven, 
 Mozart, Mendelssohn — Rubenstein." 
 
 "Really," I questioned, "I never heard that 
 Von Beethoven and Mozart were Jews." 
 
 "Yes, Jews," he retorted, "all Jews, and 
 Liszt, too." 
 
 "I'll admit," I replied, "that there are a 
 good many actors and musicians Jews, but it 
 is in getting riches that they shine, and I can't 
 see why they should have the monopoly of that 
 talent." 
 
 "Veil," remarked Mr. Jacob, meditatively, 
 "Jews say dat dey vere kept under for cen- 
 turies, treated like dogs, and not allowed to 
 enter de professions, and so dey became money- 
 lenders; but I don't believe dat: dey haf 
 alvays been de same, from Jacob de patriarch 
 in de Bible to me; dey alvays loved money, 
 
180 Mr. Jacob's Philosophy 
 
 and alvays vere hated because dey got it. 
 But in de past, de oder peoples used brute 
 force against 'em, and robbed 'em; while to- 
 day, in de reign of law, you can't do dat and 
 so de Jew haf become master; he makes war 
 and peace; governments and kings bow down 
 to him. Rothschild and Beit in London, 
 Rothschild in Paris and Frankfort, Bleichroeder 
 in Berlin, Astor and Rockefeller in New York 
 — every vere de Jew is master. And in anoder 
 hundert years you vill see vonders: you vill 
 all be serf ants of de Jew, or his slaves. Alretty 
 he own all de papers: in Berlin all; in Paris 
 all; in London most of 'em. You vait and see. 
 Who made de war in Sout Africa; de papers 
 in Johannesburg and Cape Town, eh? all 
 owned by Jews, all. Ach, you vait. Who 
 make dis war? De Jew, eh? He hate de 
 Russian. Ach, you vait and see." 
 
 With his bald pate and beaked nose he looked 
 more like an old bird of prey than ever, as he 
 pecked and flapped about in his excitement. 
 
 "That may all be," I yawned; "but what 
 puzzles me is, how the Jews make all the 
 money." 
 
 "Make," he cried, "de Jews don't make 
 money, my frient; dey get it; vot you tink?" 
 and he leered significantly. 
 
 About this time we were called to dinner 
 
Mr, Jacob's Philosophy 181 
 
 and I was rather glad of it. Mr. Jacob tired 
 me a little; he saw Jews everywhere; and his 
 eulogy of their wealth and power bored me. 
 Still his last phrase stuck in my memory, I 
 don't know why, and I often recalled it later: 
 "Jews don't make money: they get it." 
 
 After dinner we returned to the coupS, and 
 again Mr. Jacob would have me smoke one of 
 his excellent cigars, and again I had to yield, 
 for he would take no denial; but I was not 
 inclined to talk any more, and so I moved 
 about the corridor, and got out at every station 
 in order to stretch myself a little before bed- 
 time. When I returned finally Mr. Jacob was 
 sleeping, and I soon followed his example. 
 
 The next time I met him was in a Pullman 
 going from Brighton to London, a couple of 
 years later. He appeared overjoyed at seeing 
 me, shook my hand warmly, produced an im- 
 mense cigar and pressed it upon me, and insisted 
 that I should come to lunch with him in his 
 bachelor "tiggings." For once in a way I 
 had no engagement, and had thought of lunch- 
 ing at the club, and so I found myself accepting 
 Mr. Jacob's invitation. We got out at Victoria 
 and drove to Piccadilly, where he had a flat 
 on the first floor opposite the Green Park. I 
 
182 Mr, Jacob's Philosophy 
 
 had always understood that Mr. Jacob was 
 rich, though he did not brag about it; I felt 
 sure, too, that he knew what good food was; but 
 I was not prepared for the curiously fine taste 
 shown in his apartments. In the drawing-room 
 overlooking the Park all the furniture was old 
 French, and the pieces looked like show-pieces, 
 and were from the hands of the masters, I felt 
 sure. The only fault I could find was that a 
 table and a cabinet were too large for the room, 
 and seemed to dwarf it. The pictures were 
 magnificent — Israels, Daubignys, and Manets 
 that must have cost a pretty penny, and a fine 
 Ziem lit up a dark corner with the opal water- 
 ways and magic amber lights of a sunset in 
 Venice. But the pictures were not the only 
 things which stirred my envy and wonder. 
 Two Chippendale vases were on brackets by 
 the windows, as beautiful in outline as the best 
 Greek work, and there were early Italian bronzes 
 scattered all over the place, which showed the 
 art from root to flower. The room was more 
 like a museum than an ordinary living room, 
 and when we went into the dining-room at the 
 back I was even more astonished. It was 
 panelled in squares of old oak set diamond- 
 wise with finely carved heads at all the points, 
 and every panel was chosen for its flower; he 
 had got it from a manor house in Suffolk, he 
 
Mr. Jacob's Philosophy 183 
 
 said carelessly; and he had set off the dark 
 wood with old German brasses and Chinese 
 vases of hawthorn and powdered blue, so that 
 the colour-scheme sang to the eye. Over the 
 mantel-piece was a carved oak altar-screen of 
 the fifteenth century, decidedly out of place, 
 I thought, but in itself superb and full of 
 interest. The table was a long, narrow. Re- 
 nascence table, and all the silver on it was of 
 the time of Queen Anne. Clearly my friend, 
 Mr. Jacob, had an uncommon knowledge of 
 many arts, and knew exactly what to buy. He 
 gave me an excellent lunch and followed it up 
 with such coffee and cognac as one seldom gets 
 in this imperfect world. 
 
 I had lunched so well and felt so comfort- 
 able, that my gratitude awoke, and I thought 
 the least I could do was to humour my 
 host's foible, and so, when we returned to 
 the big room overlooking the Green Park, I 
 began : 
 
 "Do you remember, when we first met, 
 telling me that Jews get money, and do not 
 make it? That phrase of yours stuck in my 
 head, and I often thought that if we ever met 
 again I'd ask you just what you meant by it." 
 
 His eyes narrowed in a cautious cunning 
 way as I spoke, but vanity and volubility 
 conquered. 
 
184 Mr, Jacob's Philosophy 
 
 "Money takes too long to make/' he replied, 
 "it's easier to get: see?" 
 
 I confessed that I did not quite see. 
 
 "Haf you never dought," he began, "who 
 it is vins most pritty girls in life? Not the 
 handsomest man, eh? nor the strongest; nor 
 even the richest; but de man who goes after 
 'em most, who desires 'em most, eh? no?" 
 
 "By Jove!" I cried, "perhaps you're 
 right." 
 
 "Of course I'm right," he went on, "and it 
 is de same ting mit money. It is not de man 
 mit de best brains, nor de man mit de greatest 
 resolution, vat you call character, but de man 
 who most desires it who gets money — de 
 greediest man. Haf you never noticed dat de 
 millionare hate to pay for a cab or a dinner: 
 he loves de touch of gold: he hates * parting. ' 
 Dat is vy," he remarked to himself, "dat 
 cheques are so bad: it is easy to write a cheque: 
 one does not feel de money," and he rubbed his 
 thumb and finger together as if he were han- 
 dling a coin, while his eyes gleamed with a 
 pleasure and passion that were sensuous in 
 intensity. 
 
 "The Jew, then, makes money," I said, 
 lazily sipping my Mocha, "because he wants 
 it more than other men, is greedier than they 
 
 are." 
 
Mr, Jacob's Philosophy 185 
 
 "Makes!" exclaimed Jacob, "makes nodings; 
 one can make a million; but not ten, twenty 
 millions; de Jew gets money, I tell you, gets 
 it from oders; you, me, anyone. Only de 
 fool makes money." 
 
 "I remember," I cried, "how stupid of me, 
 of course he does not make it. But now you 
 have told me why the Jew gets money, but not 
 how he gets it." 
 
 "Dat is anoder matter," smiled Jacob, "but 
 vays and means come from de desire. Haf 
 you efer dought, my frient, vy de Jew sells 
 old clo's, old umbrellas, eh.^^ He alvays begin 
 by selling old tings, not new vuns. Vy.^ I 
 tell you. Because de new tings have a price. 
 Vun knows vot a new umbrella costs, eh? If 
 it is cotton, so much, silk, so much, eh.^ Say 
 a silk umbrella cost ten shilUng, you cannot 
 ask more dan fifteen for it, can you.^^ or a pound 
 at most. De value is too well known: de 
 same mit a suit of new clo'es. If it is new, it 
 costs two or tree poun' ; you can sell it for tree 
 or four, no more": and he spread his hands in 
 contempt. "De value is too veil known. 
 
 "But ven it is old clo's," he resumed, "you 
 may buy de suit for two shillin', and may sell 
 it for two, tree poun': not.^ * 
 
 "De Jew always buy vot haf no settled value; 
 he begin mit old clo's, because dey's cheap; or 
 
186 Mr. Jacob's Philosophy 
 
 old umbrellas, very little money needed; and 
 he sell 'em to de need of de customer. He 
 make profit, not twenty or dirty per cent., as 
 he would make with new clo's, but hunderts, 
 tousends per cent.; dat is how he get rich; 
 vot you tink; eh.'^" and his eyes glistened. 
 
 I noticed that as he warmed up and got 
 excited his accent became worse and worse, and 
 his speech more ungrammatical. 
 
 "Den de Jew gets on and deals in old furni- 
 ture, vorks of art, pictures, china, bronzes, 
 tapestry, curtains, brasses, marbles — every- 
 ting vot is old : alvays vot has no settled value. 
 He haf got a clock dere, eh.'^ Made about 1770 
 or 1780. He buy it at a sale in de country; no 
 bidders, he pay for it perhaps tw^o poun'; mit 
 his railway fare and commission, it cost him 
 tree about: veil, he keep it, people admire it 
 much: he vait . . . 
 
 "Von day some one come in who knows, 
 and say: *Fine clock dat, might have belonged 
 to Marie Antoinette; I gif you ten poun' for it.' 
 He say 'No tank you.' Anoder day he haf 
 goot customer, who admire ze clock; *Vot 
 will you take for it, Yacob.^ ' 
 
 "He say, 'I don't know; dat belong to 
 Marie Antoinette, dat clock; it is perfect 
 specimen; look at it, beautiful clock, historical 
 clock.' 
 
Mr. Jacob's Philosophy 187 
 
 "'Yes, Yacob,' say de customer, *but vot 
 do you vant for it?' 
 
 "I say, *I don't like to part mit it, beautiful 
 clock; it please me so to see it dere; it's vort 
 hunderts of poun',' and I vatch him. If he 
 say noding I know I may go up still more; 
 *But dere, I am too poor to haf such a clock, 
 cannot afford it — from you I would take, 
 say, eight mal hundert poun' — it is noding; 
 it is gifen avay.' 
 
 "He say, 'Oh, Yacob, dat is too much.' 
 
 "'Veil,' I say, 'make me an offer; it is 
 priceless, dat clock of Marie Antoinette — 
 historical clock'; and at last I sell it to him for, 
 perhaps, sefen hundert and fifty poun'. Cost 
 me tree poun' dat clock. 'Eh? vot you tink? 
 
 "No one make dat profit mit a new clock. 
 De same ting mit pictures, mit everyting dat 
 is old, dat haf no settled value, except de desire 
 of de customer." 
 
 In his excitement the Jew had mimicked the 
 scene with astonishing veracity. No one could 
 have reproduced real hfe with such fidelity if 
 he hadn't been painting from memory. In his 
 time Mr. Jacob had sold old furniture and 
 works of art, or I was very much mistaken, and 
 that explained the beautiful things in his rooms. 
 But I wanted to hear more, and so, when he 
 paused, I tried to work him up again. 
 
188 Mr, Jacob's Philosophy 
 
 "But after all, Mr. Jacob," I said, "aU 
 Jews don't deal in old umbrellas or old clothes, 
 or old furniture and works of art." 
 
 "No," he said, as if to himself, "dey begin 
 mit de old clo's and den dey come to de old 
 furniture and vorks of art: all tings dat haf 
 no settled value, and den — " and his voice 
 grew deep with reverence, "and den, perhaps, 
 dey come to the greatest ting of all, dey come 
 to deal mit money itself, dat has no price: den 
 de Jew begin to get rich — but rich, rich!" 
 and he pursed his hps and nodded his head in 
 ecstasy. 
 
 "De nobleman come in; he must haf tousan' 
 poun' at once; he can't vait: he haf promised 
 a necklace to Miss Dolly Price of de Gaiety, 
 and find he haf no money in de bank. Comes 
 to de Jew for de money. De Jew say, 'I haf 
 no such sum, a tousan' poun'; vot you tink! 
 Dat cannot be foun' in a minute, oh no! But 
 by dis evening I might get it; you come back 
 in an hour and see me, I try to get it for you; 
 I do my best.' 
 
 "Ven he go avay I find out all about him; 
 who he is, his family, frients, every ting: if 
 he is able to pay, or his family able to pay, if 
 he is goot or not. If he is goot, ven he come 
 back I say, *Vell, I can get dat money, but I 
 am afrait it will be tear; times is very hart. 
 
Mr, Jacob's Philosophy 189 
 
 If I len' you dat money for six monts, it is 
 vort five hundert poun'/ 'Goot Got!' he say, 
 *a hundred per cent.' I say, 'It is tear, very 
 tear; my lord, you had petter not take it: you 
 don't need to take it, you know; I would rather 
 len' it you for tree mont for tree hundert 
 poun*.' 
 
 "Dat seem less to him; he take it for tree 
 mont for tree hundert: I smile. He go avay 
 and forget all about it. At de end of tree 
 monts I say, 'Pay, please.' 
 
 "He say, *I cannot pay.' I say, 'Oh!' 
 den I make him pay hundert per cent, a month; 
 eh; vot.^ I didn't ask him to borrow — eh? 
 not true.^ He owe it me; 'tis my money." 
 
 He spoke as if in defiance, and then suddenly 
 his mood changed to savage exultation. 
 
 "Oh, it is a great game, I tell you, de best 
 game in de vorld — to play mit a man for his 
 soul, for his money, and vin it. Ah, vot a 
 game, and de fools go hunting and shooting all 
 ofer de vorld; and I sit in my office, here, quiet, 
 and haf sport, such sport — all kinds of game, 
 little and big, and sport — ach!" and he sighed 
 with memory of exquisite pleasures. 
 
 "A voman come in, a lady, she vant money 
 — hundert poun's; her daughter is so pritty: 
 she make good marridge, later; only a little 
 money vanted for dresses and parties. I 
 
190 Mr. Jacob's Philosophy 
 
 sympatize: I understan'. She haf goot house, 
 but small ingome: Florrie is so sweet. Vont 
 I help her? Of gourse I vill. A little bill of 
 sale on de furniture; no fuss; no trouble; 
 and I len' de hundert poun', at fifty per cent. 
 She very gradeful, and tank me, tank me. 
 Ven de time come, she can't pay; but vill pay 
 interest. Out of good nature, I consent, but 
 de interest go up. Next time she can't pay. 
 I am gompelled to be more severe. I vant my 
 money: de interest goes up. Interest always 
 goes up. She pay someting on account. I 
 make perhaps couple of hundert a year out of 
 her. Vot is it.? Noding — eh? But leetle 
 fishes are sveet"; and he rubbed his tongue over 
 his red lips and pursed out his mouth, and 
 smiled; I began to understand. 
 
 "Or a young man come in. He is in a bank; 
 he tremble and is ill: I soon fint out: he haf 
 taken a little from de cash; he must haf hundert 
 poun' dat night to safe himself from prison. 
 Veil, I am very kind. I am sorry for him. I 
 vill do my best; he must tell me who his fader 
 is, and his uncle, all his relations. I vill see vot I 
 can do : money very tight : he should come back 
 in de afternoon. He come back. But I haf not 
 been able to fint it yet. He must gif me more 
 time. Ven he come back at night he is excited, 
 pale. I say he must sign bill for hundert and 
 
Mr, Jacob's Philosophy 191 
 
 fifty poun': I haf got de money from a frient 
 cheap for him; but my frient must have two 
 names; his fader or his imcle's vill do. Den 
 he get mad; I haf kept him too late; he can't 
 get name now; he haf no time: de poor fool, 
 as if I am dere to give him time. I shrug 
 shoulder: am sorry; vot can I do? Den he 
 cry and look bad. Den I say, 'You vill pay 
 it when it is due, eh?' And he swear he vill. 
 *Den,' I say, 'if de name of your uncle is on de 
 bill ven I come back, I gif you de money, and 
 I lock de bill in my safe till it is due. Den, 
 if you pay, it is all right, and no one efer know.' 
 I leaf de room, and when I come back, in fife 
 minutes, de uncle's name is on de bill, eh? vot 
 you tink? Den de Jew enjoy his little self; he 
 haf ingome for life; if de man or his relations 
 any goot — " and he smiled. 
 
 And as he smiled the room seemed to my 
 excited imagination to fill with ghosts, unhappy 
 spectres, with frightened eyes and quivering 
 white lips, and behind them frenzied shapes of 
 anguish and despair, cursing. ... To shake 
 off the horror I got up quickly; but Mr. Jacob 
 had forgotten my presence even, for he went 
 on, walking about and occasionally puffing at 
 his cigar. 
 
 "Oh yes, 'tis goot to be a money-lender, but 
 better still a banker or a financier. Oh, de 
 
192 Mr. Jacob's Philosophy 
 
 banker; dat is fine; he lend to everyone; he 
 get great profit; and fools lend him deir money 
 for nodings: *on deposit/ eh? Oh, a bank is 
 goot, very goot." And he mused before he 
 concluded: *'De Jew is alvays vise; he alvays 
 buy vot haf no settled value, and sell to his 
 customer's need: dat is vy he get rich." 
 
 "But when he is rich," I said, knocking off 
 the ash from my cigar, "what does he get out 
 of it? He has spent all his life in getting money, 
 and when he has got it, what then?" 
 
 "Vot den?" he repeated, looking at me, "vot 
 den?" and he swelled in his pride, "Vy den he 
 haf every ding in the vorlt dat a man can vant. 
 He lif as he like and vere he hke, mitout care 
 or fear; he buy beautiful tings — pictures 
 and silver, and everyone make up to him, every- 
 one praise him, everyone glat to see him : states- 
 men gonsult mit him; great ladies ask his 
 advice: pretty girls smile, and are kind to him, 
 eh?" and Mr. Jacob leered again abominably: 
 "Ach, my frient, I tell you; he is among men 
 a king, a God. ..." 
 
THE RING 
 
THE RING 
 
 IN my morning paper there was a paragraph 
 stating that a Chippendale chair at Christy's, 
 had fetched £1,250; the purchaser being 
 Mr. Lewis the well-known dealer of St. James's 
 Street, whom I happened to know. Another 
 paragraph announced that the gem of the 
 famous Salter collection, a Chinese vase of 
 exceptional beauty had fallen to the same 
 bidder for five thousand guineas. To increase 
 the Vv^onder the reporter added that the vase 
 was only eight inches in height and a little 
 chipped. 
 
 A day or two later, I happened to be walking 
 down King Street when the awed comments 
 of the journalist came into my head and in- 
 stinctively I followed some people who were 
 going up the steps into Christy's. 
 
 It was an ordinary day in the rooms, and 
 there was the ordinary assembly of forty or 
 fifty rather listless people, and over all, the 
 peculiarly English air of quiet decorum and 
 respectability. It was easy to resolve the 
 crowd into its elements: the majority of the 
 
196 The Ring 
 
 visitors had evident!}' wandered in out of mere 
 curiosity without any intention of buying; 
 the Httle knot of dealers held together, Jews 
 for the most part, of ordinary types; but all 
 quietly dressed, and in spite of a somewhat 
 aggressive bearing, quiet in manner, the place 
 evidently exercising a certain restraint. Sitting 
 a little apart and with her back to me was a 
 lady in black, with a boy of five or six by her 
 side. There was something familiar to me in 
 her appearance; but it was difficult to get a 
 view of her face without obtruding myself on 
 her notice and so I stayed where I was. Among 
 the dealers I soon noticed Lewis: indeed his 
 bold hawk features, fine height and powerful 
 figure, would have made him conspicuous in 
 almost any company. He nodded to me as 
 soon as he saw me, with a friendly smile on 
 the handsome challenging face. His hair was 
 getting thin I noticed, gummy-bags too were 
 showing under the large brown eyes; the chin 
 and jowl had lost their firm outline — "Lewis 
 is ageing," I said to myself, "suffering from too 
 much prosperity " 
 
 Meanwhile the sale went on in the quiet 
 casual way that the English have made the 
 accepted manner of gentlefolk throughout the 
 world. 
 
 A beautiful Chippendale tray in mahogany 
 
The Ring 197 
 
 with a wavy border raised on little pillars, a 
 very beautiful homely thing, at once useful 
 and decorative, delicate yet strong, had just 
 been put up. 
 
 "A Chippendale tray," said the auctioneer, 
 **will some one give me a bid to begin with; 
 say, £5? " 
 
 "Five shillin'," retorted a voice with a strong 
 German accent. 
 
 I noticed that the lady drew the child closer 
 to her as she heard the harsh voice. 
 
 "Five shillings; seven; ten; ten shilhngs," 
 repeated the auctioneer, and then paused. 
 
 Instinctively I looked at the lady in black; 
 but she gave no sign. 
 
 The auctioneer swept the room with his 
 *eyes : 
 
 "Only ten shillings: ten shillings for this 
 genuine Chippendale tray"; then (resignedly), 
 "going at ten shillings, going, gone," and the 
 hammer fell. ^ 
 
 The lady's head seemed to bend a Httle. In 
 spite of myself I had begun to be interested. 
 The subdued air, the tone of quiet good man- 
 ners, the smooth rapidity w^ith which object 
 succeeded object did not deceive me: beneath 
 the surface there was a throbbing of hope and 
 fear, a breathless interest; in fact the strain of 
 life itself caught me, and before I knew it my 
 
198 The Ring 
 
 heart was beating in excitement and I was all 
 ears, all eyes. . . . 
 
 One thing struck me immediately. None 
 of the rich dealers ever asked to have the things 
 shown to them. When a vase was passed from 
 hand to hand, they never glanced at it. Evi- 
 dently they knew all about the various lots; 
 they had examined them beforehand carefully. 
 I remembered that there is always a prelimi- 
 nary day or two set aside for such examination. 
 It is only the amateur, who wants to look at 
 something at the very moment of the sale, 
 and naturally such a casual person is at a con- 
 siderable disadvantage. 
 
 A good many things like this had become 
 clear to me, when two very beautiful powdered 
 blue vases were put up. I had alread}^ noticed 
 that the best things in the collection were 
 Chinese works of art. 
 
 I asked for a catalogue, and found that the 
 sale was that of Sir Robert Winthrop. Of 
 course the lady in black was Lady Winthrop 
 whom I had known years before as Mrs. Win- 
 throp. W^inthrop, I guessed, had died recently. 
 He had spent twenty or thirty years of his life 
 in China and was supposed to have known a 
 great deal about Chinese art and Chinese 
 customs. I had never been intimate ^^th 
 the Winthrops: one only saw them at long 
 
The Ring 199 
 
 intervals when they visited London on leave; 
 but Mrs. Winthrop had interested me. In 
 the stagnant leisure of her Chinese life she 
 had given herself to reading English and 
 had a really astonishing knowledge of English 
 literature and in especial of English poetry. 
 I wondered vaguely what she had been read- 
 ing lately; whether she had been left well 
 off or not, and then what those vases would 
 fetch. . . . 
 
 "Thirty pounds, guineas: thirty guineas; 
 no bid beyond thirty guineas, going at thirty 
 guineas; at thirty guineas going, going, gone." 
 
 The tap seemed to be a groan. Lady Win- 
 throp half rose; turned and looked a little 
 wildly round the room and then sat down again. 
 
 I felt oppressed. "Thirty guineas" for such 
 a pair of vases was absurd. I resolved to bid 
 rather than let the next set go at such an absurd 
 price. 
 
 The next lot happened to be another pair of 
 powdered blue vases just as fine as the first 
 pair: they seemed to light up the dull room 
 vnth a supernal joyous radiance. 
 
 "Two beautiful vases," said the auctioneer 
 slowly, "powdered blue, supposed to be unique, 
 gentlemen; you must really begin to bid; what 
 price shall we say, will you give me a lead?" — 
 he seemed to look at Lewis, I thought. 
 
200 The Ring 
 
 I expected the first bid to be something 
 decent: to my astonishment it was "five 
 pounds." Even the auctioneer seemed loath 
 to begin at such a figure: 
 
 "Five pounds is bid," he said, "will no one 
 say fifty pounds?" 
 
 The dealers looked boredom at each other: 
 one yawned openly. 
 
 "Say fifty," said the auctioneer, but there 
 was no response. 
 
 "Five pounds then," he began. 
 
 "Fifty," said a gentleman suddenly. 
 
 Lady Winthrop, I noticed, half turned her 
 head, as if to see who had spoken. 
 
 "Fifty," repeated the auctioneer dispassion- 
 ately, then more rapidly : 
 
 "Sixty; seventy; seventy -five." 
 
 "A hundred," interjected the gentleman- 
 bidder. 
 
 Lewis who had not seemed interested in the 
 bidding now looked up at the auctioneer. 
 
 "Guineas," said the auctioneer in response. 
 "A hundred guineas." 
 
 "A hundred and fifty," said the gentleman. 
 At this I noticed that Mr. Lamb the famous 
 dealer of Bond Street, looked at Lewis and 
 nodded; then he detached himself from the 
 group of dealers and moved away as if to leave. 
 In a moment the atmosphere of the room had 
 
The Ring 201 
 
 reached fever heat: the gentleman was evi- 
 dently a competitor of importance. When 
 the bidding reached two hundred, he said 
 "three": he was the stoker, so to speak; every 
 big rise was due to him. 
 
 At five hundred pounds there was a pause, 
 then a glance of understanding passed between 
 Lewis and the auctioneer, and the price again 
 was guineas: Five hundred and twenty -five. 
 The gentleman made it six hundred, seven 
 hundred again was his bid. 
 
 From the beginning the bidding had been 
 irregular, the gentleman jumping to round 
 figures, while Lewis seemed to go up reluctantly 
 by fives. It was a duel between them. 
 
 **A thousand pounds," was bid by the gentle- 
 man. Again Lewis's eyelids just dropped and 
 the auctioneer immediately said, "One thou- 
 sand guineas." Without hesitation the gentle- 
 man rephed with "One thousand one hundred," 
 and in a few minutes the bidding had reached 
 One thousand five hundred, "and five" — was 
 due I was sure, to Lewis. 
 
 "Two thousand," said the auctioneer a Httle 
 later, rolling the thousand unctuously under 
 his tongue: "two thousand," and there was 
 silence in the room. "Two thousand guineas, " 
 he went on; it was the gentleman's last bid. 
 Lewis looked up — two thousand one hundred 
 
202 The Ring 
 
 and five. "Going at two thousand one hun- 
 dred and five," repeated the auctioneer: "will 
 no one make it two thousand two hundred? 
 No advance on two thousand one hundred and 
 five? Going at two thousand one hundred 
 and five; going, going, gone." 
 
 Without a word the next lot was put up, but 
 to my astonishment most of the dealers drew 
 nearer while both Lewis and Lamb prepared 
 to leave. 
 
 The scene had interested me intensely. I 
 w^anted to see Lady Winthrop, but I could visit 
 her later. The first thing to do was to try to 
 understand the extraordinary discrepancy in the 
 auction price of things. A pair of powdered 
 blue vases had fetched thirty guineas, while 
 another pair hardly to be distinguished from 
 them had fetched two thousand one hundred 
 and five pounds : seventy times as much — 
 the mere fact filled me with wonder, sharpened 
 my curiosity. What could be the explanation 
 of this extravagant difference? I took pains 
 to meet Lewis in the doorway. His greeting 
 was full-voiced and even more cordial than 
 usual. 
 
 "Haven't seen you for some time," he said, 
 and he threw to his rival, Lamb, a cheery 
 "Good-day" and a quick glance of under- 
 standing. We went down the steps together. 
 
The Ring 203 
 
 "Won't you come and have a drink," I 
 said, "and explain the auction to me?" 
 
 "Not a drink, my boy," he replied. "I'm 
 getting a little stout. My doctor tells me to 
 stop drink. It does me no good in the morning 
 and afternoon. You see I do myself pretty 
 well at lunch and dinner, and don't get as much 
 exercise as I used to." 
 
 "Don't you ride in the park, now.^^" I cried, 
 drawing the bow at a venture. 
 
 "No time for it," he said. "I'm beginning 
 to make a little bit now." 
 
 I laughed. "Your little bit must be some- 
 thing enormous, for ever since I have known 
 you, and it's twenty years now, you have been 
 making more than a bit." 
 
 "I've done pretty well, thank you," he 
 replied, fubbing his hands together. "But I 
 wish I did not get so stout. I've bought a 
 little place in the country and taken up golf. 
 You must come down and see us one day. The 
 Missis would like you to come. She says you 
 play good Bridge. I've enough to do playing 
 in the shop. I like a bit of a stroll when I'm 
 at home." 
 
 "Do you go out there everj'' evening.^" I 
 asked, 
 
 "No, no," he replied, "I'm at Hampstead 
 every evening. I go down to Chobham from 
 
204 The Ring 
 
 Friday to Monday in the motor. I start about 
 noon, if there's no big sale on. The big 'uns 
 seldom begin before noon." All this while we 
 were walking do^vn towards the famous shop 
 in St. James's Street. When we had come to 
 the door he said: 
 
 "Won't you come in and look round .^ I've 
 got some rather good things since you were 
 here last — miniatures, snuff-boxes? You don't 
 care for miniatures.^ " 
 
 I shook my head. "Was it you," I ques- 
 tioned, "who bought that — Chippendale tray? 
 I should like that." 
 
 "Tray?" he said, as if not remembering at 
 once. 
 
 "Yes, that pretty Chippendale tray." 
 
 "Oh yes," he said, "you can have it if you 
 like, I'll send it to you when I know what it 
 costs." 
 
 "It cost you ten shillings," I said 
 
 He stopped and looked at me quickly, and 
 then a smile spread over his face and he shook 
 his head: 
 
 "That tray is certain to cost me between 
 five and ten pounds and cheap at the price." 
 
 "IIow do you make that out?" I cried. 
 "You got it for ten shillings. I saw you nod 
 to the auctioneer, and yours was the last bid." 
 
 "Well, I can only tell you that you shall 
 
The Ring 205 
 
 have it for what it costs me, if you want it. 
 You can't expect to get it cheaper than that, 
 can you?" 
 
 ''Certainly not,'* I answered, "I only want 
 a fair price. And what about that pair of 
 powdered blue vases you got for thirty guineas ; 
 I felt very much inclined to bid myself, but 
 I did not want to bid against you." 
 
 "It would have done you no good, if you 
 had, nor me any harm," and he laughed loudly. 
 
 "What do you mean.^" I probed further. 
 "I should like that pair of blue vases, but I 
 suppose they would be beyond my purse?" 
 I added questioning. 
 
 "\Miat do you think they're worth?" he 
 asked turning to me. 
 
 "I know nothing of the market-value," I 
 replied; "but I thought them a beautiful pair 
 of vases and I'd have given £100 for them 
 very willingly." 
 
 "You ought to be in our business," he re- 
 marked drily. "I reckon those vases will cost 
 £300 anyway and they'd be cheap at double 
 that price. '^ 
 
 "My goodness," I exclaimed, "what profit 
 you'll make. Fancy buying them for thirty 
 guineas!" 
 
 "No, no, no," he cried impatiently. " I told 
 you they would cost me £300 not £30 and 
 
206 The Ring 
 
 probably more than £300. I should not be 
 surprised if they cost me £500 or even £600 
 if I wanted them, but I don't. They will go 
 to Brown of Bond Street." 
 
 "I am entirely at sea," I said. "If a tray 
 wliich is knocked down to you at ten shillings, 
 costs you five or ten pounds, and a pair of blue 
 vases knocked down to you at thirty guineas 
 are sure to cost you from £300 to £500 and are 
 worth at least £700, I'm at a loss. I do not 
 know what it all means." 
 
 "That's just it," he remarked indulgently. 
 "You don't, but if you had these vases at £500 
 you'd have a bargain. But when are you 
 coming out to Chobham.? The little place 
 I've got is just beyond the village." 
 
 "I'd be delighted to come next Saturday," 
 I said, "if I may till Monday." 
 
 "Come on Friday," he replied cordially, "and 
 I'll motor you down; be here at four o'clock. 
 Then I'll let you know what the tray'll cost 
 you, and the vases too, if you want 'em. I 
 haven't seen as fine a pair these five years. I 
 liked 'em better than the next pair that fetched 
 two thousand odd." 
 
 "Wonder on wonder!" I cried. "You must 
 explain it all to me at Chobham." 
 
 "Alright," he replied cheerfully, "don't be 
 late." 
 
The Ring 207 
 
 We parted in all kindliness. I have more 
 than respect for Lewis. I like and admire 
 him greatly. Again and again he has given 
 me good advice about the value of things, and 
 he has gone through life as a conqueror. We 
 are friends in the modern meaning of the word 
 and have been ever since we first met. I came 
 across him first in a P and O boat from Aus- 
 tralia to London. He was a young man in 
 the steerage. I was struck with his face and 
 resolute cheery manner and got into conversa- 
 tion with him. As a young man he was very 
 handsome. Five feet nine or ten in height, 
 broad shouldered, with eagle nose and bold 
 hazel eyes, and a good-humoured, frank expres- 
 sion of countenance. 
 
 Five years later I met him in a little shop in 
 Wardour Street. He had been a cabman, he 
 told me, and had saved a little money and had 
 married a girl he had fallen in love with, and 
 a very pretty girl she was. With her "tocher" 
 he had taken the little shop in Wardour Street, 
 and already he knew more about English furni- 
 ture of the latter part of the eighteenth century, 
 which was then coming into vogue, and more 
 about Chinese porcelain too, than anyone I've 
 ever met. He had learnt it all, he told me, in 
 the British Museum. He spent all his spare 
 time there and in South Kensington. He 
 
208 The Ring 
 
 wanted to know all there was to be known about 
 his hobby. 
 
 His next translation was to the great shop 
 in St. James's Street and he explained the jump 
 to me in the most natural manner. 
 
 "I heard," he said, "that the Thomasson col- 
 lection was for sale. I got in to see it. Never 
 mind how, but I meant getting in and I suc- 
 ceeded, and I saw every piece of it, and priced 
 them at their lowest. The collection was worth 
 about £80,000 I estimated, and would fetch 
 that under the hammer. Besides it contained 
 the finest Hawthorne vase that had ever been 
 seen in Europe and half-a-dozen other match- 
 less pieces. I had a good customer, ]Mr. 
 
 Alfred R , one of the great banking house. 
 
 I went to him and told him about the collec- 
 tion, said I thought a bid of £40,000 would buy 
 it. I intended to offer £25,000 if he would let 
 me have the monej- at five per cent., and if so 
 (and this was the bait) he should have the 
 Hawthorne vase for nothing, and two or three 
 other fine pieces. He told me at once that he 
 would let me have the money. After I had 
 arranged with his law^^er as to the way it should 
 be repaid (of course he was to have full posses- 
 sion of the things till the whole amount of 
 principal and interest was paid off), I went 
 to work. I managed to buy the Thomasson 
 
The Ring 209 
 
 collection for £27,000 and moved to this shop 
 on the strength of it. I got thirty-five thou- 
 sand pounds for half the collection within the 
 year, and have never looked back since. I've 
 brought all my brothers up to the trade and 
 set 'em all up in it, and they're all doing well." 
 The practical ability of the man was mani- 
 fest — his energy, special knowledge and good- 
 humoured determination, above all his intuitive 
 understanding of men and their desires. I 
 guessed that I should get from Lewis a very 
 complete insight into what had puzzled me at 
 Christy's. 
 
 I met him on the Friday afternoon and he 
 took me in his big Renault through the Surrey 
 lanes to Chobham. I was not surprised to 
 find his place an exceedingly picturesque old 
 English manor house set in some five hundred 
 acres of beautiful park. And the inside of 
 the house surpassed the outside. Every piece 
 of furniture was picked with expert knowledge 
 and taste and every ornament as well. The 
 pictures were few, but good. Yet the house 
 was cosy and nest-like. Mrs. Lewis had grown 
 a little stouter but was still pretty and even 
 more intelligent seemingly than when a girl. 
 The pair had no children, but their mutual 
 
210 The Ring 
 
 understanding was perfect, their happiness 
 manifest, or at least their self-content. After 
 an excellent dinner I got Lewis by himself in 
 his "den" and brought him to book about the 
 sale. 
 
 "I want to know all about it," I said, "and 
 how you explain thirty guineas for one pair of 
 vases and two thousand for another, certainly 
 no better." 
 
 "It's the 'Ring,'" he replied, "and I've got 
 into it — that's all!" 
 
 "Now what may you mean exactly by the 
 *Ring'?"I persisted. 
 
 "Well," he replied, "it simply means I was 
 rich enough and resolute enough to force my 
 way in. Of course they didn't want me at 
 first: but they had to have me," and he 
 laughed. 
 
 "You forget," I cried, "I don't know what 
 the 'Ring' is. Tell me about it: how it came 
 to be and what it does, and then tell me how 
 you got into it." 
 
 "The *Ring' is made up of a dozen or more 
 of the biggest London dealers," he explained. 
 "They bid for all the big things, and sometimes 
 for the little things too; in fact, for whatever 
 they want; but chiefly for the best things. 
 
 "If any outsider bids against them, they run 
 the article up to about the shop price of it, 
 
The Ring 211 
 
 and if he goes to the top price or a bit above it, 
 they let him have it. Generally of course, 
 he is choked off mid- way; the dealers then buy 
 it in. For example Brown or I would have 
 given up to two thousand pounds for the first 
 pair of vases rather than let any outsider have 
 'em. As no one bid seriously for 'em they 
 were knocked down at thirty guineas, but that's 
 not the price of 'em or the value of 'em even 
 to us." 
 
 "What do you mean by the value to you?" 
 I insisted. " Explain yourself." 
 
 "Surely it must be clear to you now," he 
 replied. "No.^ Well. After the sale we dealers 
 meet together and have an auction of our own. 
 For instance the first pair of vases was put up 
 again among ourselves in the *Ring.' I told 
 you they might fetch anything between three 
 and five hundred pounds. As a matter of fact 
 they fetched six hundred in the *Ring.' Brown 
 bought them; he first paid me my thirty guineas 
 and then we divided the other five hundred and 
 sixty odd pounds between ourselves in the 
 *Ring.' BroTvn has got the vases to sell: they 
 cost him six hundred pounds minus his share of 
 the five hundred and sixty as a member of the 
 *Ring.' If you want 'em I can get 'em from 
 him at a decent advance, say for seven hundred 
 and fifty or eight hundred pounds, telling him 
 
212 The Ring 
 
 they are for a special friend of mine. Then 
 they'd be cheap, dirt cheap." 
 s>"Good Godl" I exclaimed, "the owner then 
 only gets thirty guineas for something which 
 is absolutely worth seven hundred at the 
 lowest." 
 
 He nodded smiling. 
 
 "But suppose you run it up too high in 
 competition with some amateur: what do 
 you do then.'^" 
 
 "The proceeding is just the same," he replied. 
 "We dealers get together and bid for the thing, 
 and if it fetches less than I paid for it the 
 *Ring' makes it up to me. As a matter of 
 fact the other pair was taken by Lamb at 
 fifteen hundred and the *Ring' had to make 
 up a cheque to me for six hundred and five 
 pounds." 
 
 "I see," I cried, "I see: — restricted com- 
 petition among yourselves and a common 
 interest. Do you know, my dear Lewis, your 
 *Ring' is a sort of ideal society, and if there 
 were any statesmen in England, and not a 
 ghastly crew of self-seeking politicians, your 
 'Ring' might give the idea of a working model 
 of society in the future. If one could get a 
 sense of the common good into Mr. Balfour's 
 head and a sense of the value of strictly limited 
 competition into Mr. Asquith's, one might 
 
The Ring 213 
 
 begin to have some hope for the future of 
 England." 
 
 "You had better teil 'em that,'* laughed 
 Lewis. "We find the 'Ring* works alright, 
 thank you." 
 
 "But what difference in money does it make 
 to you to be in the *Ring' ?" 
 
 "It fluctuates," he answered; "one can't 
 say. I have had some years before I got into 
 the *Ring' nearly as profitable as the present 
 ones, but now my income is fairly regular — 
 about £40,000 a year, I suppose." 
 
 "But being in the *Ring' has made a differ- 
 ence to you.^" I persisted. 
 
 "Oh yes," he replied, "an enormous differ- 
 ence in comfort and security. You see the 
 *Ring' does away with the evils of competition 
 — waste, risk and anxiety." 
 
 "How true!" I cried. "What a statesman 
 you are!" 
 
 "I was not the inventor of it," he answered 
 frankly, "but I know what it is to be up against 
 it, and what it is to be inside it." 
 
 "How did you get inside?" I queried. 
 
 "Hovv do you get anything in this world," 
 he cried, "but by fighting for it, eh.^^ You 
 have to fight for everything worth having, 
 and if it does not cost a fight, it is not worth 
 much." 
 
214 The Ring 
 
 '''Tout se paie' as Napoleon used to say/' I 
 answered, "everything has to be paid for." 
 
 "That's it," he cried, the fine eagle eyes 
 lighting up, 'everything': that's it exactly." 
 
 "Now tell me how you got into the *Ring'": 
 I said stretching myself in the armchair. 
 
 "I just made it hot for them," he answered 
 simply. "Of course I knew Lamb and Levine 
 were the heads of the business, and one day I 
 told them I wanted to be in with them. They 
 smiled at me and pretended not to understand 
 what I meant. 
 
 "*Dere vos no "Ring,"' said Levine; 'I vos 
 jokin.' 
 
 "I told them I would try and make the joke 
 clear to them in the auction room, and I did 
 make it clear to them, over and over again, " 
 and he laughed heartily. 
 
 "But how, how?" I asked. 
 
 "Surely you understand.'^" he wondered. 
 
 "No; I want the 'i's' dotted, and the *t's' 
 crossed." 
 
 "Well you see, I knew Levine's business and 
 Lamb's business too, pretty well, knew the 
 sort of things that they had commissions to 
 buy, what they really wanted, and I took care 
 that they paid top price for them. For in- 
 stance I knew to-day that Lamb wanted that 
 pair of powdered blue vases; before he made 
 
The Ring 215 
 
 a sign to me. I could guess where they are 
 going: he will get three thousand sovereigns 
 
 for them from Sir V. M Well, then if 
 
 I had still been outside the *Ring,' I should 
 have run them up to three thousand pounds 
 and then bowed to him and let him have 'em. 
 As it is he can make a thousand pounds clear 
 without any trouble. But if I had run 'em 
 up against him, he would have had to be con- 
 tent probably with the difference between 
 pounds and guineas. He could hardly ask 
 his client four thousand for them, that would 
 be a bit too thick. Well, whenever there was 
 a pet piece he wanted, I made him and Levine 
 go all the way to get it, and sometimes a bit 
 further." And again the eagle eyes lit up with 
 the fire of combat and victory. 
 
 "But surely fighting like that," I objected, 
 "you must have got hit sometimes. Now and 
 then they must have scored and made you pay 
 high for some things you did not want.^" 
 
 "Of course," he rejoined, laughing outright, 
 "of course they did and oftener than I care 
 to remember. You see they are pretty able 
 men both of 'em, with very long purses to 
 boot. . . . 
 
 "In the six months the fight went on, I lost 
 something like ten thousand pounds, but each 
 of them lost a bit more than I did, and the 
 
216 The Ring 
 
 richer a man is, the more he hates to lose any 
 of it. See?*' and he twinkled. 
 
 "How did the fight come to an end?" I 
 asked. 
 
 "One morning,** he replied, "I got 'em both, 
 right and left: caught 'em napping; went off 
 cheap with the pieces they wanted. At first 
 I was thinkin' how to rub it in; when suddenly 
 it came to me that that was not my game. 
 When I reached the shop I sat down and sent 
 Levine the one piece and Lamb the other, with 
 a little note, saying they had cost me so much, 
 and I thought it was more sensible for us to 
 work together than to fight. That afternoon 
 I got notes from both, thanking me and an 
 invitation from Levine to come and dine with 
 him. I went and there I found Lamb and the 
 rest of the 'Ring.' They said I had knocked 
 so loudly at the door, and so often, that they 
 thought I wanted to come in. 
 
 "I told 'em that once inside I'd try and 
 behave myself, which seemed to please 'em, 
 and now we're all good friends. You see we 
 all know each other — and I think they're 
 beginning to like me," he added thoughtfully 
 — "I don't mind goin' to a bit of trouble to 
 please 'cm and I'm not greedy. ..." 
 
 "I don't quite follow you," I remarked. "I 
 thought there was no sentiment in business." 
 
The Ring 217 
 
 "Sometimes sentiment pays better than 
 selfishness," he replied, and his eyes held mine. 
 
 "You see I'm about every day: they're 
 both very rich men and don't work so hard as 
 they used to. Anything I see that's likely to 
 suit them, I just buy it and send it along with 
 my card and the price that it has cost me. 
 I've fallen right a good many times and they're 
 beginning to like m.e. ..." 
 
 "Suppose you went wrong," I said; "they'd 
 send the piece back to you.^" 
 
 "They did that pretty often at first," he 
 said, "but they know now I'm generally 
 right, and so they keep the things. I'm 
 always quite willing to have 'em back; for 
 at the price I give an idiot couldn't lose 
 over them ..." 
 
 The strong clear voice emphasised the ex- 
 pression of the hard-beaked nose and naked 
 eyes. 
 
 I had rather a good time at Lewis'. With 
 the large generosity which is a part of him, he 
 insisted that I must take away with me a terra 
 cotta bust of a Venetian nobleman of the six- 
 teenth century that I had admired in his smok- 
 ing-room. When I told him I could only take 
 it by paying for it, he said: 
 
218 The Ring 
 
 "Send twenty pounds to the Jewish Schools: 
 that'll pay me." ' 
 
 "But you never got that bust for twenty 
 pounds," I persisted. "It*s worth two hun- 
 dred." 
 
 "It did not cost me quite twenty pounds 
 transport, interest and all," he retorted. "I 
 must not cheat the charity," he added laugh- 
 ing. . . . 
 
 A week or two later I called on Lady Win- 
 throp. I found the house in disorder, they 
 were evidently moving. When she came into 
 the room I noticed that she, too, had aged in 
 the last five years, aged greatly. Her hair 
 was getting grey and her eyes were not as 
 bright as they used to be, but they were still 
 patient and thoughtful, perhaps more resigned 
 in expression than they had been. Life tames 
 all of us, but she was not afraid of seeing life 
 as it is, this little woman, and of playing her 
 gentle part in it. 
 
 "I had no idea you were back," I began, 
 "or of anything that has happened to you: I, 
 too, have been abroad. I just dropped in at 
 Christy's the other day, by chance, and saw 
 you." 
 
 "Yes," she said sympathetically, "a strange 
 sale, wasn't it? Some of the things fetched 
 thousands, more even than Robert ever thought 
 
The Ring 219 
 
 they*d fetch, though he was a wonderful judge. 
 But some of them went for shameful, absurd 
 prices. There ought to have been a reserve 
 put on them, I'm told now. Still, I did my 
 best and the man at Christy's seemed kind." 
 
 "I'm afraid a reserve would not have helped 
 you much," I said. "You ought to have got 
 a few friends to have gone to the sale and bid 
 for you — But it's hard to know what do do: 
 the *Ring' is so strong." 
 
 "The *Ring.^'" she questioned, and as I 
 didn't reply, she added a little eagerly, "a 
 friend of ours brought the great amateur Lord 
 
 L to bid for some of the things. He sent 
 
 a pair of vases up to two thousand one hundred 
 and five pounds, though another pair had gone 
 just before for thirty guineas, which George 
 
 said were better. But for Lord L I don't 
 
 know what we should have done," and she 
 shivered a little. "Even now — but I don't 
 see why I should trouble you with my worries," 
 and she smiled bravely. 
 
 "What are the worries.?" I asked. "Tell 
 me: I may be able to help you. Sometimes 
 even to talk about our troubles makes them 
 easier to face." 
 
 She nodded gratefully. 
 
 "You see we have to leave this house: it is 
 too dear for us now, and Vernon, my eldest 
 
220 The Ring 
 
 boy, will have to change into an Indian regi- 
 ment, and give up Polo and my eldest girl, 
 Lena, talks of going on the stage — Oh ! I had 
 hoped out of Robert's collection to have had 
 at least fifteen thousand or twenty thousand 
 pounds and have kept all my children with 
 me . . . " her lips quivered. 
 
 "How much did you get?" 
 
 "About ten thousand pounds," she sighed, 
 "when all the commissions are paid." 
 
 "Dreadful, dreadful," I could not help say- 
 ing, for I knew that the collection should have 
 brought thirty thousand pounds easily enough. 
 
 It all seemed dreadful to me, the Juggernaut 
 of Life, and this helpless lovable woman vic- 
 tim. . . . 
 
 The ideal society, I felt, would have to take 
 thought for the INlrs. Winthrops too, as well 
 as for the "Ring." Half-remembered texts 
 came into my mind and then this: ^^ Where 
 ike body is, there shall ilie eagles he gathered 
 together'* 
 
THE SPIDER AND THE FLY 
 
THE SPIDER AND THE FLY 
 
 CHARACTERS 
 
 The Duke of B. A dapper person about sixty , 
 alert youthful figure^ pleasant manners, 
 regular features, grey moustache, thiyi grey 
 hair and fresh colour; a light weight, 
 
 Mr. Arthur Levit. A German Jew about Jive 
 feet four in height, with large bald round 
 head, a small dark moustache, which he has 
 a trick of trying to twist without touching. 
 He is stoutish, bow-legged, flat-footed, re- 
 markable in that he is not loud, but quiet in 
 speech, in manners and in dress. Has only 
 a very slight Jeivish accent. 
 
 Place: Palatial Office in Bishopsgate Street, City 
 and later 
 An old house in St. Jameses Square 
 
 Time: 1900 or thereabouts 
 
 Duke of B. [sitting down in Mr. Levies office], 
 I thought I'd drop in and have a talk, Mr. 
 Levit. The truth is I don't Hke the look of 
 things. Our shares in Deep Mines have fallen 
 from thirty-five to thirty-two. They say there's 
 
224 The Spider mid the Fly 
 
 going to be war between America and Spain, 
 and if there's war everything will tumble 
 down. ... I think I'll tell my broker to sell 
 my holding — the speculative things I mean : 
 I hope you agree? 
 
 Mr. Levit. I'd do nothing hasty. When 
 everybody sells, wise men buy; when every- 
 body buys, wise men sell. War! They always 
 say there'll be war. [Shrugs his shoulders.] Will 
 you smoke? 
 
 Duke of B. [ivaives the cigar aside], 01 1! I 
 hope you don't think I'd talk idle rumour. I 
 have it on good authority that war's certain. 
 Of course, I don't know exactly how war will 
 affect our market — that I expect you to tell 
 me. I have implicit confidence in your knowl- 
 edge and flair. I think flair's the word for — 
 financial genius — H'm ! 
 
 Mr. Levitt. If war is certain, when will it 
 come? That's the question: soon? If one 
 knew that 
 
 Duke of B. I'm told the declaration may 
 be made any day. W'hen the Maine was blown 
 up, the United States Government resolved 
 on war as soon as their navy should be ready. 
 
 Mr. Levit. You're sure? Nothing's worse 
 than doubtful information, you know. 
 
 Duke of B. Oh, I'm quite convinced. [A 
 little pompously] You can take it from me. 
 
The Spider and the Fly 225 
 
 Mr. Levit. Well, let us suppose war: It 
 will hardly hurt us or our mines. They will 
 go on producing gold and gold is wanted in 
 war-times: especially in war-times, eh? [He 
 laughs a little discreetly.] 
 
 Duke of B. Yes. [Doubtfully] But surely 
 everything goes down when there's war. My 
 nephew who's in the City : you know, in Hirsch's 
 office.'' [Smiling.] Of course you know, you 
 got him in. He says people sell out the best 
 things in war-time — Ordinary shares being 
 hard to realise, they sell those stocks — I have 
 it — which fall least. Consols and Govern- 
 ment things. But the weak holders, and 
 Johnny says, all holders of speculative se- 
 curities like mines are weak holders, have to 
 dump their stuff on the market whenever 
 there's bad weather and so mines'll go 
 down — flop. That's his word: he has rather 
 frightened me. 
 
 Mr. Levit [with irresponsive eyes that drink 
 in the little man]. Our mines won't go flop! I 
 can assure you of that. Mr. Hempstead is 
 still a little young in the City. 
 
 Duke of B. Of course, I didn't mean that. 
 Your mines, dear Mr. Levit, even Johnny says, 
 are the pick of the bunch, but he was cock-sure 
 all mines would go down, all. The proper 
 thing to do, he said, was to sell now and buy in 
 
226 The Spider and the Fly 
 
 during the war when everything had reached 
 bed-rock, as he called it. And really I think 
 there's something in what he says. You see 
 I'm sure there'll be war. 
 
 Mr. Levit. Did you tell ^Ir. Hempstead 
 that.' . 
 
 Duke of B. [rather embarrassed]. Not posi- 
 tively: I didn't put it positively. I didn't 
 know then — I mean I wasn't so sure. I only 
 put the case 
 
 Mr. Levit. Ah, and Mr. Hempstead advised 
 you to sell out. Wise boy. He'll get his 
 commission on all you sell: won't he? So he 
 stands to win: and when you buy back later 
 he'll get another commission, won't he.^ Sell- 
 ing and buying suit him, but will it suit you? 
 That's the question? 
 
 Duke of B. [nervously]. As you say, dear 
 Mr. Levit, that's the question. Of course, 
 Johnny '11 make his commission, the young 
 rascal. I never thought of that. He's very 
 clever is Johnny, always was. When he was 
 a boy at Eton, he tried to get my old cane — 
 I often tell the story — he bought me a new 
 one: suited me better; had a better handle: 
 gold-mounted loo like the old one: he wanted 
 to exchange: but I would not part with the 
 old cane. It had been my father's. Johnny 
 tried to get it and at last I found out why. 
 
The Spider and the Fly %%1 
 
 The old cane was worth £200: it had belonged 
 to the Regent and Johnny could have sold it. 
 The new cane only cost him a "fiver.** Very 
 clever of Master Johnny. 
 
 Mr. Levit. Very clever: too clever, by 
 half, I'm afraid. You see your interests and 
 his are not identical. You don't make a com- 
 mission by selhng and another by buying. 
 You lose the jobber's turn and the brokerage 
 both times so it is just twice as much your 
 interest not to sell and buy as it is Mr. Hemp- 
 stead's to get you to chop and change. That's 
 plain: isn't it.^ 
 
 Duke of B. Of course it is, my dear Mr. 
 Levit, of course it is, and I had never 
 thought of it in that light, never. It's really 
 very good of you, taking all this trouble to 
 explain things to me. I've no head for busi- 
 ness. So Johnny's after my old cane again: 
 is he.^ The young rascal! Well, he shan't 
 have it. . . . What would you advise then.? 
 Should I buy or sell.'^ I want to make a 
 little, if I can. My Irish property's going 
 from bad to worse and my sons get more ex- 
 pensive the older they grow all except George: 
 He's got the business head of the family: 
 takes after his grandfather: he's just like 
 him, I often say, same sort of hooked nose; 
 like a — H'm! 
 
«28 The Spider and the Fly 
 
 Mr. Levit. Well, Deep Mines have dropped 
 a little; they were thirty-five - six : they're 
 now thirty-two. How many do you hold? 
 
 Duke or B. I've five thousand; haven't I? 
 
 Mr. Levit. H'm! Why not average.^ That's 
 how money's made. [His eyes watch his visitor'' s 
 face.] Let us take it that the Mines are worth 
 thirty-five: You could have got that for them 
 before this little scare, thirty-five. Now if 
 you bought five thousand more: the lot would 
 only have cost you thirty-three and a half, so 
 that when they reach the normal again you'd 
 have won £15,000 and if they go above thirty- 
 five as we all know they will, or you'd not have 
 bought at thirty-five, you'll reap that extra 
 profit as well. You might net forty or fifty 
 thousand pounds over the deal. 
 
 Duke of B. Of course I should, of course. 
 How clear you make everything. I think I'll 
 buy five thousand more; or should I wait a little 
 and watch the market, as Johnny advises. The 
 worst of it is the market doesn't tell me any- 
 thing. It's for all the world like watching the 
 waves: you can't tell whether they're coming 
 in or going out unless you know whether the 
 tide's ebbing or flowing. 
 
 ' Mr. Levit. An excellent illustration, ex- 
 cellent. Well, I'm here to tell you that the 
 tide, our African golden tide, is flowing, flowing 
 
Tlw Spicier and the Fly 229 
 
 very strong. I've a wire here [tossing over some 
 papers as if seeking for the telegram which lies 
 under his nose] — Ah, here it is ! — saying Deep 
 Mines'll pay a dividend of one hundred per 
 cent., very shortly. Of course that will only 
 mean a yield of a little over three per cent, at 
 present prices. But it is a beginning and when 
 once they begin to pay they'll go on paying 
 more and more. 
 
 Duke of B. Oh, that's quite different, isn't 
 it, a dividend paying stock is quite different. 
 They're sure to go up in price when they pay 
 a dividend, and after all it's as much as one 
 gets in consols. 
 
 Mr. Levit. The true price of Deep Mines 
 with their holdings and prospects is at least 
 forty pounds. That's what I call a mid- water 
 level. You may be sure they'll approximate 
 to that price, fluctuating a little now below" and 
 now above it. 
 
 Duke of B. Dear me, dear me! then I 
 should make at least £50,000, shouldn't I? 
 Dear me! I think I'll take 5,000 more shares 
 as you advise. [Pauses and fidgets in his chair.] 
 But suppose they go dowTi? My dear Mr. 
 Levit, every point they go down '11 make 
 £10,000 difference to me: won't it, and that's 
 a consideration. It T\dll cripple me to have to 
 pay £10,000 out in one account, and perhaps 
 
230 The Spider and the Fly 
 
 even more. Oh, I'm afraid I bad better wait. 
 [He looks distressed.] 
 
 ■' Mr. Levit. Just as you like, of course. But 
 I think you know we stand by our friends 
 always. If Deeps run down, as you say, all 
 you would have to do would be to come to me, 
 and I would go halves with you over the loss. 
 
 Duke of B. Very handsome of you indeed, 
 but I don't know how I can accept, ^\hy 
 should you bear half my loss? It really looks 
 as if you were playing heads I win, tails you 
 lose with me, as we used to say at school. 
 Very generous of you, I'm sure: very hand- 
 some. 
 
 Mr. Levit. The offer is made to our best 
 supporter. You have helped us and we stand 
 by you. It is only natural. Think it all over 
 and make up your mind. 
 
 Duke of B. [in a flutter]. Then I stand to 
 win all and only to lose half. Most favourable 
 terms, I'm sure I don't know how to thanlv you. 
 Of course I won't hesitate. I will take the 
 5,000 shares if indeed you can afford to make 
 your offer .^ 
 
 Mr. Levit. Oh, we can afford it, j^our Grace, 
 and we are glad to stand by you. 
 
 Duke of B. Then it's settled, my dear Mr. 
 Levit, and I am very grateful indeed. 
 
 Mr. Levit. Not a word, not a word. The 
 
The Spider and the Fly 231 
 
 order will be made out and sent to you this 
 evening. All you have to do is to fill it in and 
 send it back to us signed. But don't mention 
 our little compact for the present, at least, 
 will you? 
 
 [Levit rises and ike Duke stands up and 
 
 goes towards him with a little burst of 
 
 confidence.] 
 Duke of B. Of course not, of course not. 
 You know I would not speak of it to anyone. 
 ... By the bye I think I ought to tell you 
 something. I'm not guessing when I say 
 there'll be war. I've means of knowing. Our 
 Ambassador at Washington has sent a despatch 
 to the Home Government and it is definite, 
 most definite: war '11 be declared within a 
 month! We're on the eve! Of course you 
 will tell no one. 
 
 Mr. Levit [smiling]. Of course, of course. 
 H'm — you are better informed than we are : 
 h'm, well. It's kind of you: h'm. Good-day, 
 good-day. 
 
 [The Duke goes out. As soon as he leaves ^ 
 Mr. Levit rings his hell.] 
 
 Ask Mr. Silber to come to me. 
 
 [In a few minutes enters his partner Mr. 
 Silber.] 
 Mr. Silber. Duke's been here, hasn't he? 
 
232 The Spider and the Fly 
 
 Mr. Levit [nodding]. Yes, and he tells me 
 there's going to be war between America and 
 Spain within a month. 
 
 Mr. Silber. War, eh? I heard that too, 
 from Frankfort; but it may or may not be 
 certain. 
 
 Mr. Levit. I tell you it's certain. The 
 English Ambassador at Washington has written 
 it home : the Duke has a nephew in the Foreign 
 oflSce, that's good enough for us, eh? [Silber 
 noda reflectively.] America's bound to win, 
 isn't she? Probably will win from the begin- 
 ning to the end: at any rate is sure to win in 
 the long run. Spain will lose Cuba and per- 
 haps have to pay a heavy indemnity as well. 
 We must sell Spanish stock, eh? It has scarcely 
 gone down at all yet, because Paris is the holder 
 but as soon as the French get the information, 
 the bottom 'ill fall out. 
 
 Mr. Silber. We could sell small to begin 
 with so as not to be remarked, eh? 
 
 Mr. Levit. Heavily and at once. What's 
 the risk? The fear of war will shake the stocks 
 down some points. Suppose we sell five mil- 
 lions: we could do a bit more later; the mere 
 declaration of war would give us half a million 
 at least. 
 
 Mr. Silber [whistles]. Whew! that's heavy. 
 Still if you're sure there's going to be war and 
 
The Spider and the Fly 233 
 
 soon, within the month, perhaps within this 
 account, Mein Gott I'd put it out at once be- 
 tween three or four brokers. [He stutters in his 
 excitement,] 
 
 Mr. Levit. By the way, Silber, see that 
 WilHams sends an order to the Duke asking 
 us to buy 5,000 more Deeps on his account. 
 
 Mr. Silber [turning round with astonish- 
 ment]. Buy, you mean sell.? 
 
 Mr. Levit. No, I mean buy. 
 
 Mr. Silber. Mein Gott, Mein Gott! 
 
 Mr. Levit. No, no, Silber. You must not 
 be so frank : you must not be surprised at any- 
 thing in England. The Duke's a very impor- 
 tant personage, not perhaps a financial genius; 
 but 
 
 Mr. Silber. [grinning] You vill kill me, Levit, 
 finance-genius — Oh, Mein Gott, Mein Gott ! 
 
 Mr. Levit [busy with some papers]. I told 
 him if the shares went down, w^e would stand 
 by him as he has stood by us. 
 
 Mr. Silber. Mein Gott, Mein Gott! You're 
 a blooming wonder! [Goes out chuckling.] 
 
 Time: Four months later during the war 
 
 Place: The offices in Bishopsgate Street again 
 
 Duke of B. [entering]. I'll wait for Mr. Levit. 
 Mr. Levit. [Enters after some time.] [Speaks 
 quietly.] Good day, Duke. 
 
234 The Spider and the Fly 
 
 Duke of B. [abruptly]. Good day, Mr. Levit. 
 I've had to come round again. Tlie truth is, 
 I scarcely exist; this terrible anxiety is killing 
 me. Deep Mines have gone down another 
 point and they are now at twenty-six. I've 
 lost something like £100,000 and it has crippled 
 me, Mr. Levit. Instead of winning fifty or 
 sixty thousand at least as you pre-pre-pre- 
 dicted, I've lost something like that and I've 
 obligations. It's most unpleasant for me. My 
 bankers are troublesome. I — I don't know how 
 to turn or what to do. ... Of course I know 
 it's not your fault; but it is most unfortunate. 
 And really, I would not bother you, but I am 
 at my wit's ends, yes, at my wit's ends, to know 
 what to do. 
 
 Mr. Levit [resignedly]. When you go out to 
 gamble, Duke, you must take the ups with the 
 downs. 
 
 Duke of B. But it's all down, down, dowTi, 
 Mr. Levit. I wanted to sell at the beginning, 
 when I knew there was going to be war. I 
 came here determined to sell. I had made up 
 my mind; I had talked it over with Mr. Hemp- 
 stead, and was quite decided about it. You 
 persuaded me to buy more. You were very 
 convincing. I had 5,000 and then I bought 
 another 5,000, to average, as you said; but the 
 averaging has landed me in a hole, Mr. Levit. 
 
The Spider and the Fly 235 
 
 ... I was never in such a painful position 
 in my life. It's humiliating at my age and, 
 in my position, insupportable. . . . My bankers 
 don't like it. I don't think it quite fair of you, 
 because you must have knovv^n what was going 
 to happen, you must have known. 
 
 Mr. Levit [taking in the other's excitement 
 with calm brown eyes]. If we knew what would 
 happen, Duke, we should all be rich men, very 
 rich. We have always done what we have 
 promised, haven't we? I told you as the shares 
 went down I would meet half your loss every 
 account. I have done so, haven't I.^^ Without 
 a word.'* 
 
 Duke of B. Yes, you have, but I didn't 
 begin with the first account to ask you for 
 help, as I should have done. I only came to 
 you when I had to. And now if Deep Mines 
 drop another point, Mr. Levit, I shall be — I 
 don't know where to turn. I am ashamed to 
 ask my boy George. Such a risk was not for 
 me. Risks don't suit my years or my position. 
 Everyone sees how harassed I am, and you 
 said you would stand by me: didn't you? ^> 
 
 Mr. Levit [in the same impassive, even voice], 
 I always meant to stand by you. Will it help 
 you if I take the loss of the next account wholly 
 on my shoulders? I don't want you to be 
 anxious. 
 
236 The Spider and the Fly 
 
 Duke of B. [with tears in his eyes and a broken 
 voice. Covers his face with hU hands]. That's 
 very kind of you, my dear Levit, very kind of 
 you indeed. I — I won't forget it. I can promise 
 you. Very good of you indeed. 
 
 Mr. Levit. Well then, Duke, that is settled. 
 Just send me your account and I will send you 
 my cheque for it. I don't want you to be 
 bothered. But I thought you told me those 
 London houses of yours were free. If your 
 bankers bother you, you could easily deposit 
 the title deeds of those houses with them. I 
 only tell you this to give you a hint. We some- 
 times forget our resources in time of need. 
 
 Duke of B. Oh, my bankers made me 
 deposit those title deeds with them a month 
 ago; indeed I mortgaged them to them. No, 
 no, I have thought of everything. I am really 
 pinched. 
 
 Mr. Levit. If a few thousands would make 
 it easier for you, don't hesitate to ask. We 
 are in the same boat, are we not.^^ 
 
 Duke of B. IMy dear Levit, it's very good 
 of you. But thanks, no, I don't want any- 
 thing. I only want the anxiety lifted, that 
 desperate struggle and the hea\n,^ loss every fort- 
 night. I had no idea that fortnights could 
 come round so quickly. One thanlvs God for 
 an account of nineteen days. [Mr. Lent smiles 
 
The Spider and the Fly 237 
 
 a little.] By the way, I had something else to 
 ask you, but your kindness, my dear Levit, 
 has driven it out of my head, dear me. One's 
 memory gets so bad. Oh, yes, of course; will 
 you come on Wednesday week and meet the 
 Prime Minister at dinner? I think you'll like 
 him. He's got such charming manners, modern 
 manners, of course, a little familiar and sans 
 gene, but with great charm and tact, wonderful 
 tact — wonderful, I mean, in one so young. 
 
 Mr. Levit. I shall be delighted, Duke, 
 delighted. 
 
 Duke of B. You must not call me Duke you 
 know. My dear Levit, call me by my name as 
 I call you by yours. You've been too good 
 to me for me to be formal. [In a burst of 
 confidence] They used to call me "Squib" 
 at Eton because when I got angry I went off 
 fizz and bang! like those Fifth of November 
 things. Squib Townsend. You must call me 
 Townsend. [The Duke lays his hands on Levit' s 
 shoulders.] I insist upon it. [Levit smiles 
 discreetly.] Well, then, that's settled. The 
 little dinner will be at half past eight at my 
 house, and I'm sure you'll like the Prime 
 Minister. I've told him already that you 
 should be among the Privy Councillors, and 
 it will come in time [a little pompously]. It 
 will come, I'm sure. 
 
238 The Spider and the Fly 
 
 Mr. Levit [bowijig], I want nothing, Duke, 
 nothing. 
 
 DuKT:: OF B. [turning to go]. You send me 
 away in a very different humour, I feel ten years 
 younger. Alright then, till Wednesday next. 
 
 Me. Levit. Good day, Duke, till Wednes- 
 day. [As the door closes Levit sits down with a 
 pencil and in a few minutes Silber enters.] 
 
 Mr. Silber. Still going down; ^5^ now. 
 Isaacs and Barney have been selling thousands, 
 though they promised not to; but I am sure 
 it's them. 
 
 Mr. Levit. Get the names on the transfers; 
 that'll tell the tale. I'm rather glad they're 
 selling. 
 
 Mr. Silber [in astonishment]. Glad! 
 
 Mr. Levit. Yes, I'll get back on Barney 
 some day, and I want to be able to say that 
 he hit first. 
 
 Mr. Silber. But what are we to do.? 
 They're offering thousands. 
 
 Mr. Levit. Buy at 25 all they offer. 
 
 Mr. Silber. But they have already offered 
 10,000. 
 
 Mr. Levit. Buy at 25. 
 
 Mr. Silber. But suppose they offer 20,000 
 more? 
 
 Mr. Levit. Suppose.? Have they got 'em? 
 Barney'll not risk his neck against me. 
 
The Spider and the Fly 239 
 
 Mr. Silber. You don't think they can. 
 Mein Gott, you take it coolly. Another point 
 or two and we'll have to use our reserve, and 
 God knows how long this damned war will last. 
 
 Mr. Levit. We've nearly touched the bot- 
 tom, Silber. I can feel the ship lift as if we 
 had touched. Now you know why I sold 
 those ten million Spanish stocks before the 
 declaration of war. I wanted a million or so 
 to support our own shares with. 
 
 Mr. Silber. Of course I see; it was very 
 bold; but the miUion has all gone now and 
 we're not out of the wood yet. 
 
 Mr. Levit. It will all come back and more. 
 We've got it on a string, Silber. The string's 
 elastic and may stretch a little; but it will 
 come back all the quicker. 
 
 Mr. Silber. Well, I'm glad you're confident. 
 It's making me shiver. These English banks 
 are not to be reckoned on for help in bad times 
 like the German ones. 
 
 Mr. Levit [contemptuously]. There's no 
 reckoning on anyone in bad times, except 
 yourself. I do not think our winnings will 
 be quite run off. Till Deep Mines go below 
 twenty -five we have still a margin, and I am 
 inclined to think that this next account will 
 be the last on the down grade. Spain cannot 
 fight any longer; her last ships have been 
 
240 The Spider and the Fly 
 
 destroyed. She must make peace. We're 
 really on bedrock. Tm inclined to buy five 
 millions Spanish. 
 
 Mr. Silber. Mein Gott, mein Gott! You 
 frighten me. 
 
 Mr. Levit. We will leave it for a couple of 
 days if you like; but watch and you'll see I 
 am right. We've touched bottom. 
 
 Mr. Silber. You say that, though Deep 
 IMines have fallen another haK point this 
 morning. 
 
 Mr. Levit. You've told me the reason, too! 
 Barney and Isaacs are selling. They know 
 when to hit so as to hurt; it's the last stone 
 kills, not the first. But they've made a mis- 
 take. You've not told me that Spanish stocks 
 have fallen, or that Consols have fallen, or 
 French Rentes. Between now and the next 
 two or three days you'll find Government stocks 
 hardening. The great bankers must know the 
 storm is over; the Bleichroeders know and 
 the Rothschilds know. Watch and you'll see 
 National stocks hardening, and then you'll 
 know I'm right, and we'll buy Spanish. 
 
 Mr. Silber. WTiat of Deep^,? Won't you 
 buy zem? 
 
 Mr. Levit. Deeps .^ Deeps will go up of 
 themselves. The Duke'll buy again, and his 
 friends. 
 
The Spider and the Fly Ml 
 
 Mr. Silber. Mein Gott, mein Gott, vot a 
 man you are, Levit, vot a man, vot a head 
 for finance. . . . 
 
 Time: Five years later 
 Place: The Duke of B.'s town house in St. Jameses 
 Square 
 [The Duke seated in an armchair in his 
 study; his son, Lord Frederick Toumsend, 
 standing by the fireplace, sniokhig a 
 cigarette.] 
 Duke of B. [a letter in his hand]. I cannot 
 understand it. It's too annoying. 
 
 Lord F. Townsend. What's troubhng you, 
 Sir.? 
 
 Duke of B. I asked the Prime JMinister to 
 put Levit in the Privy Council. I owe Levit 
 a great deal, as you know. He's been very 
 good to me, and I thinlc he should be in the 
 Privy Council. Such riches as his deserve to 
 be recognised. Balsquith puts me off; says 
 he'll see about it. But underneath his courtesy 
 and really charming manner I feel a sort of 
 disinclination. 
 
 Lord F. Townsend. I'd drop it. You 
 mentioned it, did what you could, and really 
 those Jews are beginning to infect London. 
 You meet 'em everywhere. 
 
24^ The Spider and the Fly 
 
 Duke of B. But I've promised Levit. 
 And it's the first time in my life I've ever asked 
 a favour of the Government. I think they owe 
 me some consider cition. 
 
 Lord F. Townsend. Levit is rich, of course, 
 but Jews are a shady lot. 
 
 Duke of B. Levit's not shady. He's one 
 of the best fellows in the world. He's quite 
 straight and he stood by me during the Spanish- 
 American War like a brick. 
 
 Lord F. Townsend. I know you think so, 
 Sir, but that's scarcely a public service which 
 the Prime Minister should recognise. 
 
 Duke of B. Public service. Levit's con- 
 tribution to the income tax alone is a public 
 service. And do I count for nothing? Public 
 service, indeed. You talk nonsense, Freddy. 
 
 Lord F. Townsend. Well you know. Sir, 
 Johnny Hempstead will have it that Levit 
 gave you bad advice even in the Spanish- 
 American affair and 
 
 Duke of B. Johnny, indeed! What can 
 Johnny know about it? 
 
 Lord F. Townsend. Johnny's as smart as 
 they n\ake 'em. He just came in to talk to 
 me as you sent for me. I wish you'd hear him. 
 He's all there — no flies on Johnny — and he's 
 made a pot of money, a pot; and if that isn't 
 proof of ability, I don't know one. 
 
The Spider and the Fly 243 
 
 Duke of B. I don't mind hearing him, but 
 he knovv^s nothing. 
 
 [Footman enters] 
 Lord F. Townsend. Ask Mr. Hempstead 
 to come here; the Duke wishes to see him. 
 
 [A minute or so later Mr, Hempstead 
 comes in, smiling, and shakes hands with 
 the Duke.] 
 
 Duke of B. I hear you're making a lot 
 of money, Johnny, and I'm very glad to 
 hear it. 
 
 Mr. Hempstead. Oh, no, Sir, not a lot; just 
 a few thousands; enough to pay for cigarettes 
 and 
 
 Duke of B. I hope not chorus girls, Johnny? 
 
 Mr. Hempstead. Oh, no, Sir, my salad days 
 are over; I'm in the brown and sear now, indeed 
 very serious! 
 
 Lord F. Townsend. I can't get the Duke to 
 take our view of Levit, Johnny. He says he 
 owes Levit real gratitude for all he did during 
 the Spanish-American War. Levit to him's 
 a sort of providence. I want you to convince 
 him he's mistaken 
 
 Dltce of B. Don't exaggerate, Freddy. I 
 say Levit's a very good fellow. Of course he's 
 common and has no "air," but that's not to 
 be expected. God knows who his father and 
 
244 The Sjrider and the Fly 
 
 mother were. But he stood by me during the 
 Spanish-American War and I'm grateful to 
 him. "Why do you smile, Johnny? It irritates 
 me to see you smiling in that superior way! , 
 
 Mr. Hempstead. I was smiling, Sir, be- 
 cause that's not Levit's reputation in the City, 
 and you get to know men when you do business 
 with them. Levit's as hard as nails. 
 
 Duke of B. I don't know anything about 
 his reputation: he may treat other people 
 harshly. I don't know and I don't much care. 
 He treated me well. 
 
 Mr. Hempstead. Of course he'd treat you 
 well; as well as he could treat anyone, that is. 
 You were his ace of trumps. 
 
 Duke of B. I'm not quite a fool, Johnny, 
 even though I don't live in the City and don't 
 know the difference between stocks and shares, 
 as you courteously pointed out to me once. 
 I only say I think Lcvit a generous and kindly 
 man according to modern standards, or I 
 would not have him at my house and at my 
 table. 
 
 Mr. Hempstead. You were always a little 
 bit of a Don Quixote, weren't you, Uncle. ^ You 
 never would say what Levit did for you in the 
 Spanish-American War, and I'm curious to 
 find out. You always said he was generous, 
 but I know a cfood deal about Levit and his 
 
The Spider and the Fly 245 
 
 methods, and I've always thought you were 
 mistaken. I wish you'd tell us in confidence 
 exactly what he did do for you. 
 
 Duke of B. He stood by me as a friend 
 stands by a friend, and I'll stand by him when 
 he needs it. 
 
 Mr. Hempstead. Yes, you've often told 
 us that; but what did he do exactly? I re- 
 member quite well before the Spanish- American 
 War you and I had a long talk. You told me 
 that you held some thousands of Deep Mines 
 which you had bought on Mr. Levit's advice 
 at 35 or 30. They were then at 33, I think, or 
 34. At any rate, they had begun to go down. 
 I advised you to cut your loss and sell. You 
 hinted to me that you thought there'd be war, 
 and thinldng you spoke with knowledge, I 
 told you to sell. Levit didn't tell you to sell, 
 did he.? 
 
 Duke of B. [reluctantly]. No, he didn't. 
 He advised me to buy and average, and I've 
 done pretty well by it. 
 
 Mr. Hempstead. Did you tell Levit there 
 was going to be war.? 
 
 Duke of B. No, No! [hesitatingly] I may 
 have hinted at something of the sort. But 
 [aiigrily] I don't see what that's got to do with 
 the matter. 
 
 Mr. Hempstead. Surely you see now that 
 
246 The Spider arid the Fly 
 
 Levit advised you badly? He ought to have 
 advised you to sell Deep Mines. 
 
 Duke of B. He ought to have done nothing 
 of the sort. 
 
 Mr. Hempstead. He knew Deep Mines 
 would go down when war was declared, and 
 you'd have made money by selling; he knew 
 that, yet he got you into the fight to help him 
 by buying more. 
 
 Duke of B. How could that help him? 
 
 Mr. Hempstead. It was all over London 
 that the Duke of B. was buying Levit's stock. 
 It was madness on your part, quixotic madness 
 and nothing else. 
 
 Duke of B. It was not madness. I had 
 not any liking for Levit then; it was what he 
 did after that made me like him. 
 
 Mr. Hempstead. There it is again. 'What 
 did he do but give you bad advice out of a self- 
 interested motive? 
 
 Duke of B. [sniffingly]. Self-interested 
 indeed ! 
 
 liORD F. Townsend I think Johnny's right, 
 Father. He did give you jolly bad advice, and 
 the motive must have been self-interest. 
 
 Duke of B. [hotly]. Well if you want to 
 know what he did, I'll tell you. He paid half 
 my losses on Deep Mines as they went down, 
 paid to the tune of something like £60,000 
 
The Spider and the Fly 247 
 
 with me. He sent me his cheque on each ac- 
 count, and so enabled me to keep my Deep 
 Mines until the war was over and they began 
 to jump up. That, Sir [turning to Johnny 
 Hempstead], is what I call standing by a man: 
 and I won't forget it. 
 
 Mr. Hempstead [bursting out laughing and 
 twisting about]. Oh, my God, you'll kill me. 
 Uncle. You'll kill me dead. 
 Duke of B. 1 ( Are you mad? 
 
 Lord F. > [together] < What d'ye mean, 
 TowNSEND ) i Johnny? 
 
 Mr. Hejnipstead [wiping his eyes]. Oh, it's 
 too funny. This world is too comic for me, 
 that a man should be grateful to another for 
 stealing from him, just as a girl is grateful 
 to you sometimes in like circumstances. My 
 God! it's too funny. 
 
 Lord F. Tow^nsend. But what do you mean? 
 
 Mr. Hempstead. Surely you see? [Turning 
 to Lord Frederick Townsend.] No, well it's 
 clear as sunlight. The Duke was backing up 
 Levit to the tune of perhaps three quarters of 
 a million and giving him the influence of his 
 name and position to boot. It was Levit who 
 should be grateful and not the Duke. Surely 
 you see that? 
 
 Duke of B. You don't know what you are 
 talking about. I tell you he paid half my 
 
248 The Spider and the Fly 
 
 losses and the whole of the loss on the last 
 account — explain that if you can. 
 
 IVIr. Hempstead [turning to the Duke seri- 
 ously]. Please, Sir, do follow me. First of 
 all you were supporting Levit, weren't you.'^ 
 He sent you his cheque, but you paid the 
 brokers. You were responsible for the twenty 
 or twenty-five thousand Deep Mines you were 
 carrying; weren't you? 
 
 Duke of B. I suppose so, but he helped 
 me to carry 'em. 
 
 Mr. Hempstead. After getting you in, he 
 did not let you sink, that's clear, but your 
 money went into Levit's pocket all the while. 
 
 Duke of B. I don't believe a word of it. 
 
 Mr. Hempstead. But where else did it go? 
 Deep Mines belong to Levit: they are his 
 shares. He held the bulk of them in his office. 
 Probably towards the end of the war he held 
 nearly all of 'em or else they'd have dropped 
 far below twenty-five. Whatever money you 
 paid, whatever responsibility you took, was 
 simply helping Levit, and I only hope he was 
 duly grateful, 
 
 Duke of B. Dear me, dear me! 
 
 Mr. Hempstead [modestly]. You see I know 
 Levit. Now, Uncle, let me ask you something. 
 When the shares began to go up did Mr. Levit 
 play fair? 
 
The Spider and the Fly 240 
 
 Duke of B. Goodness gracious, you dis- 
 tress me [mopping his brow], 
 
 Mr. Hempstead. Now did he? Tell us 
 honestly, Uncle. 
 
 Duke of B. [hesitatingly]. Well he did 
 request me to pay him back first. I think he 
 might have waited and shared equally with 
 me. When the shares went from twenty-five 
 to twenty-seven in one account, he wanted 
 the whole profit for himself. I thought it rather 
 unfair, but as he had paid the whole drop from 
 twenty-six down, I supposed it was alright. 
 
 Mr. Hempstead. Good God, and that's 
 the man you call generous, a man who could 
 put you into such a rotten game, w^ho gets all 
 your information and power and money to 
 support him and then makes you pay him 
 back first. My God, what meanness! Only 
 Levit would have had the impudence. 
 
 Duke of B. At any rate, I followed Deep 
 Mines up till they came near forty. I made 
 more than £100,000 over them and I have 
 made a good deal more since. I don't think 
 I did badly. 
 
 Lord F. Towxsend. No, that's true. But 
 I don't know how far you were justified in 
 risking all you risked. Dufferin came to grief, 
 you know, in the city and a good many others. 
 It was very risky. 
 
250 The Slider and the Fly 
 
 Mr. Hempstead. Risky? I should think 
 it was; worse than risky. They say Levit 
 came very near the edge during that war. 
 Probably it was the Duke who saved him, 
 tided him over, and now it's the Duke is grate- 
 ful and not Levit. It's a comic world, Freddy, 
 very comic. Jehovah has a keen sense of 
 humour. 
 
 Duke of B. At any rate, Levit stood by me 
 when the pinch came. You won't get that out 
 of my head, Master Johnny, clever as you are. 
 
 Mr. Hempstead. Don Quixote's not in it 
 with you. Uncle. But there, take it from me, 
 you owe Levit nothing, a good deal less than 
 nothing. 
 
 Duke of B. [obstinately]. He stood by me. 
 
 Mr. Hempstead. Yes, as the financier 
 usually stands by the Duke: a man must 
 stand by you when he has his hand in your 
 pocket. 
 
THE MAGIC GLASSES 
 
THE MAGIC GLASSES 
 
 ONE raw November morning, I left my 
 rooms near the British Museum and 
 walked along Oxford Street. It was 
 cold and misty: the air like shredded cotton- 
 wool. Before I reached the Quadrant, the mist 
 thickened to fog, with the colour of muddied 
 water, and walking became difficult. As I had 
 no particular object in view, I got into talk with 
 a policeman, and, by his advice, went into the 
 Vine Street Police Court, to pass an hour or two 
 before lunch. Inside the court, the atmosphere 
 was comparatively clear, and I took my seat on 
 one of the oak benches with a feeling of vague 
 curiosity. There was a case going on as I en- 
 tered: an old man, who pretended to be an 
 optician, had been taken up by the police for 
 obstructing the traffic by selling glasses. His 
 green tray, with leathern shoulder-straps, was 
 on the solicitors' table. The charge of obstruc- 
 tion could not be sustained; the old man had 
 moved on as soon as the police told him to, and 
 the inspector had substituted a charge of fraud, 
 on the complaint of a workman and a shop- 
 
254 The Magic Glasses 
 
 keeper. A constable had just finished his evi- 
 dence when I came into the court. He left the 
 box with a self-satisfied air and the muttered 
 remark that the culprit was "a rare bad 'un." 
 
 I glanced about for the supposed criminal 
 and found that he was seated near me on a 
 cross-bench in the charge of a sturdy police- 
 man. He did not look like a criminal: he was 
 tall, thin and badly dressed in a suit of rusty 
 black, which seemed to float about his meagre 
 person; his complexion was tallowy-white, 
 like the sprouts of potatoes which have been 
 kept a long time in a dark cellar; he seemed 
 about sixty years old. But he had none of 
 the furtive glances of the criminal; none of the 
 uneasiness: his eye rested on mine and passed 
 aside with calm indifference, contemplative and 
 not alarmed. 
 
 The workman who was produced by the 
 police in support of the charge of fraud amused 
 me. He was a young man, about middle 
 height, and dressed in corduroys with a rough 
 jacket of dark tweed. He was a bad witness: 
 he hesitated, stopped and corrected himself, 
 as if he didn't know the meaning of any words 
 except the commonest phrases of everyday 
 use. But he was evidently honest: his brown 
 eyes looked out on the world fairly enough. 
 His faltering came from the fact that he was 
 
The Magic Glasses ^55 
 
 only half articulate. Disentangled from the 
 mist of inappropriate words, his meaning was 
 sufficiently clear. 
 
 He had been asked by the accused, whom he 
 persisted in caUing "the old gentleman," to 
 buy a pair of spectacles: they would show him 
 things truer-like than he could see 'em; and so 
 he "went a bob on 'em." Questioned by the 
 magistrate as to whether he could see things 
 more plainly through the glasses, he shook his 
 head: 
 
 "No; about the same." 
 
 Then came the question: Had he been de- 
 ceived? Apparently he didn't know the mean- 
 ing of the word "deceived." 
 
 "Cheated," the magistrate substituted. 
 
 "No; he hadn't been cheated." 
 
 "Well, disappointed then.?" 
 
 "No; he couldn't say that." 
 
 "Would he spend another shilling on a similar 
 pair of glasses.?" 
 
 "No," he would not; "one bob was enough 
 to lose." V 
 
 When told he might go, he shuffied out of 
 the witness-box, and on his way to the door 
 attempted more than once to nod to the accused. 
 Evidently there was no malice in him. 
 
 The second police witness had fluency and 
 self-possession enough for a lawyer: a middle- 
 
256 The Magic Glasses 
 
 aged man, tall, florid and inclined to be stout; 
 he was over-dressed, like a spruce shopman, 
 in black frock-coat, grey trousers and light- 
 coloured tie. He talked volubly, with a hot 
 indignation wliich seemed to match his full 
 red cheeks. If the workman was an undecided 
 and weak witness, Mr. Hallett, of High Hol- 
 born, was a most convinced and determined 
 witness. He had been induced to buy the 
 glasses, he declared, by the "old party," who 
 told him that they would show him things 
 exactly as they were — the truth of everything. 
 You'd only have to look through 'em at a man 
 to see whether he was trying to "do" you or 
 not. That was why he bought them. He 
 was not asked a shilling for them, but a sovereign 
 and he gave it — twenty shillings. When he 
 put the glasses on, he could see nothing with 
 them, nothing at all; it was a "plant": and 
 so he wanted the "old party" to take 'em back 
 and return his sovereign; that might have 
 caused the obstruction that the policeman had 
 objected to. The "old man" refused to give 
 him his money back; said he had not cheated 
 him; had the impudence to pretend that he 
 (Hallett) had no eyes for truth, and, therefore, 
 could see nothing with the glasses. "A blamed 
 lie," he called it, and a "do," and the "old 
 man" ought to get six months for it. 
 
The Magic Glasses 257 
 
 Once or twice, the magistrate had to direct 
 the stream of emphatic words. But the accu- 
 sation was formal and precise. The question 
 now was: How would the magistrate deal with 
 the case? At first sight, Mr. Brown, the 
 magistrate, made a good impression on me. 
 He was getting on in life: the dark hair was 
 growing thin on top and a little grey at the 
 sides. The head was well-shaped; the fore- 
 head notably broad; the chin and jaw firm. 
 The only unpleasant feature in the face was the 
 hard line of mouth, with thin, unsympathetic 
 lips. Mr. Brown was reputed to be a great 
 scholar, and was just the type of man who 
 would have made a pedant; a man of good 
 intellect and thin blood, who would find books 
 and words more interesting than men and deeds. 
 
 At first, Mr. Brown had seemed to be on the 
 side of the accused: he tried to soften Mr. 
 Hallett's anger. One or two of his questions, 
 indeed, were pointed and sensible: 
 
 "You wouldn't take goods back after you 
 had sold them, would you, Mr. Hallett?" he 
 asked. . 
 
 "Of course I would," repHed Mr. Hallett 
 stoutly; "I'd take any of my stock back at a 
 twenty per cent, reduction; my goods are 
 honest goods: prices marked plain on 'em. 
 But 'e would not give me fifteen shillings back 
 
258 The Magic Glasses 
 
 out of my sovereign; not 'e; 'e meant stickin* 
 to it all." 
 
 The magistrate looked into the body of the 
 court and, addressing the accused, said: 
 
 "Will you reserve your defence, Mr. Henry .^'* 
 
 "Penry, your worship: Matthew Penry,*' 
 corrected the old man in a quiet, low-pitched 
 voice, as he rose to his feet. "If I may say so: 
 the charge of fraud is absurd. Mr. Hallett 
 seems to be angry because I sold one pair of 
 glasses for a shilling and another pair to him 
 for a sovereign. But they were not the same 
 glasses and, if they had been, I am surely allowed 
 to ask for my wares what I please." 
 
 "That is true," interrupted the magistrate; 
 "but he says that you told him he would see 
 the truth through them. I suppose you meant 
 that he would see more truly through them 
 than with his own eyes?" 
 
 "Yes," repHed Mr. Penry, with a certain 
 hesitation. 
 
 "But he did not see more truly through 
 them," continued the magistrate, "or he would 
 not have wanted you to take them back." 
 .."No," Mr. Penry acknowledged; "but that 
 is his fault, not the fault of the glasses. They 
 would show the truth, if he had any faculty 
 for seeing it: glasses are no good to the blind." 
 
 "Come, come," said the magistrate; "now 
 
The Magic Glasses 259 
 
 you are beginning to confuse me. You don't 
 really pretend that your glasses will show 
 the truth of things, the reality; you mean 
 that they will improve one's sight, don't 
 you?" 
 
 "Yes," replied Mr. Penry, "one's sight for 
 truth, for reality." 
 
 "Well," retorted the magistrate smiling, 
 "that seems rather metaphysical than practical, 
 doesn't it? If your spectacles enable one to 
 discern the truth, I'd buy a pair myself: they 
 might be useful in this court sometimes," and 
 he looked about him with a smile, as if expecting 
 applause. 
 
 With eager haste, the old man took him at 
 his word, threw open his case, selected a pair 
 of glasses and passed them to the clerk, who 
 handed them up to Mr. Brown. 
 
 The magistrate put the glasses on; looked 
 round the court for a minute or two, and then 
 broke out: 
 
 "Dear me! Dear me! How extraordinary! 
 These glasses alter everyone in the court. It's 
 really astonishing. They don't improve the 
 looks of people; on the contrary, a more villain- 
 ous set of countenances it would be difficult to 
 imagine. If these glasses are to be trusted, 
 men are more like wild animals than human 
 beings, and the worst of all are the solicitors; 
 
260 The Magic Glasses 
 
 really a terrible set of faces. But this may be 
 the truth of things; these spectacles do show 
 one more than one's ordinary eyes can perceive. 
 Dear me! Dear me! It is most astonishing; 
 but I feel incHned to accept Mr. Penry's state- 
 ment about them," and he peered over the 
 spectacles at the court. 
 
 " Would you like to look in a glass, your wor- 
 ship.^" asked one of the solicitors drily, rising, 
 however, to his feet with an attitude of respect 
 at the same time; "perhaps that would be the 
 best test." 
 
 Mr. Brown appeared to be a little surprised, 
 but replied : 
 
 "If I had a glass, I would wilHngly." 
 
 Before the words were out of his mouth, his 
 clerk had tripped round the bench, gone into 
 the magistrate's private room, and returned 
 with a small looking-glass, which he handed 
 up to his worship. 
 
 As Mr. BrowTi looked in the glass, the smile 
 of expectancy left his face. In a moment or 
 two, he put down the glass gravely, took off 
 the spectacles and handed them to the clerk, 
 who returned them to Mr. Penry. After a 
 pause, he said shortly: 
 
 *'Il is well, perhaps, to leave all these matters 
 of fact to a jury. I will accept a small bail, 
 Mr. Penry," he went on; "but I think you 
 
The Magic Glasses 261 
 
 must be bound over to answer this charge at 
 the sessions." 
 
 I caught the words, **£50 apiece in two 
 sureties and his own recognisances in £100," 
 and then Mr. Penry was told by the pohceman 
 to go and wait in the body of the court till the 
 required sureties were forthcoming. By chance, 
 the old man came and sat beside me and I was 
 able to examine him closely. His moustache 
 and beard must have been auburn at one time, 
 but now the reddish tinge seemed only to dis- 
 colour the grey. The beard was thin and long 
 and unkempt, and added to the forlorn untidi- 
 ness of his appearance. He carried his head 
 bent forward, as if the neck were too weak to 
 support it. He seemed feeble and old and 
 neglected. He caught me looking at him, and 
 I noticed that his eyes were a clear blue, as if 
 he were younger than I had thought. His 
 gentle, scholarly manner and refined voice had 
 won my sympathy; and, when our eyes met, I 
 introduced myself and told him I should be 
 glad to be one of his sureties, if that would save 
 him time or trouble. He thanked me with a 
 sort of detached courtesy: he would gladly 
 accept my offer. 
 
 "You stated yoiu* case," I remarked, "so 
 that you confused the magistrate. You almost 
 said that your glasses were — magic glasses," 
 
262 The Magic Glasses 
 
 I went on, smiling and hesitating, because I 
 did not wish to offend him, and yet hardly knew 
 how to convey the impression his words had 
 left upon me. 
 
 "Magic glasses," he repeated gravely, as 
 if weighing the words; "yes, you might call 
 them magic glasses." 
 
 To say that I was astonished only gives a 
 faint idea of my surprise and wonder: 
 
 "Surely, you don't mean that they show 
 things as they are," I asked: "the truth of 
 things?" 
 
 "That is what I mean," he repHed quietly. 
 
 "Then they are not ordinary glasses.'^" I 
 remarked inanely. 
 
 "No," he repeated gravely; "not ordinary 
 glasses." 
 
 He had a curious trick, I noticed, of peering 
 at one very intently with narrowed eyes and 
 then blinking rapidly several times in succession 
 as if the strain were too great to be borne. 
 
 He had made me extremely curious, and yet 
 I did not like to ask outright to be allowed to 
 try a pair of his glasses; so I went on with my 
 questions : 
 
 "But, if they show truth, how was it that 
 Mr. Hallett could see nothing through them?" 
 
 "Simply because he has no sense of reality; 
 he has killed the innate faculty for truth. It 
 
The Magic Glasses 263 
 
 was probably at no time very great,*' went on 
 this strange merchant, smiling; "but his trader's 
 habits have utterly destroyed it; he has so 
 steeped himself in lies that he is now blind 
 to the truth, incapable of perceiving it. The 
 workman, you remember, could see fairly well 
 through his spectacles." 
 
 "Yes," I replied laughing; "and the magis- 
 trate evidently sav/ a good deal more through 
 his than he cared to acknowledge." 
 
 The old man laughed, too, in an ingenuous, 
 youthful way that I found charming. 
 
 At last I got to the Rubicon. 
 
 "Would you let me buy a pair of your 
 glasses?" I asked. 
 
 "I shall be delighted to give you a pair, if 
 you will accept them," he replied, with eager 
 courtesy; "m.y surety ought certainly to have 
 a pair"; and then he peered at me in his curi- 
 ous, intent way. A moment later, he turned 
 round, and, opening his tray, picked out a pair 
 of spectacles and handed them to me. 
 
 I put them on with trembling eagerness and 
 stared about me. The magistrate had told 
 the truth; they altered everything: the people 
 were the same and yet not the same; this face 
 was coarsened past all description; that face 
 sharpened and made hideous with greed; while 
 another was brutahsed with lust. One recognised, 
 
264 The Magic Glasses 
 
 so to speak, the dominant passion in each per- 
 son. Something moved me to turn my glasses 
 on the merchant; if I was astounded before, 
 I was now lost in wonder: the glasses trans- 
 figured him. The grey beard was tinged with 
 gold, the blue eyes luminous with intelligence; 
 all the features ennobled; the countenance 
 irradiated sincerity and kindliness. I pulled 
 off the glasses hastily and the vision passed 
 away. Mr. Penry was looking at me with a 
 curious little pleased smile of anticipation: 
 involuntarily, I put out my hand to him with 
 a sort of reverence : 
 
 "Wonderful," I exclaimed; "your face is 
 wonderful and all the others grotesque and 
 hideous. TVTiat does it mean? Tell me! 
 Won't you.?" 
 
 "You must come with me to my room," 
 he said, "where we can talk freely, and I 
 think you will not regret having helped 
 me. I should like to explain everything to 
 you. There are so few men," he added, 
 "who proflFer help to another man in diffi- 
 culty. I should like to show you that I 
 am grateful." 
 
 "There is no cause for gratitude," I said 
 hastily; "I have done nothing." 
 
 His voice now seemed to me to be curiously 
 refined and impressive, and recalled to me the 
 
The Magic Glasses %Q5 
 
 vision of his face, made beautiful by the strange 
 glasses. . . . 
 
 I have been particular to put down how Mr. 
 Penry first appeared to me, because after I had 
 once seen him through his spectacles, I never 
 saw him again as I had seen him at first. Re- 
 membering my earliest impressions of him, I 
 used to wonder how I could have been so mis- 
 taken. His face had refinement and gentleness 
 in every line; a certain courage, too, that was 
 wholly spiritual. Already I was keenly inter- 
 ested in Mr. Penry; eager to know more about 
 him; to help him, if that were possible, in any 
 and every way. 
 
 Some time elapsed before the formalities for 
 his bail were arranged, and then I persuaded 
 him to come out with me to lunch. He got 
 up quietly, put the leathern straps over his 
 shoulders, tucked the big case under his arm 
 and walked into the street with perfect self- 
 possession; and I was not nov/ in any way 
 ashamed of his appearance, as I should have 
 been an hour or two before: I was too excited 
 even to feel pride; I was simply glad and 
 curious. 
 
 And this favourable impression grew with 
 everything Mr. Penry said and did, till at last 
 nothing but service would content me; so, after 
 lunch, I put him into a cab and drove him off 
 
266 The Magic Glasses 
 
 to my OTVTi solicitor. I found Mr. Morris, of 
 Messrs. Morris, Coote and Co., quite willing 
 to take up his case at the sessions; willing, too, 
 to believe that the charge was "trumped up" 
 by the police and without serious foundation. 
 But, when I drew Mr. Morris aside and tried 
 to persuade him that his new client was a man 
 of extraordinary powers, he smiled incredu- 
 lously. 
 
 "You are enthusiastic, Mr. Winter," he said 
 half reproachfully; "but we solicitors are com- 
 pelled to see things in the cold light of reason. 
 Why should you undertake to defend this Mr. 
 Penry? Of course if you have made up your 
 mind," he went on, passing over my interrup- 
 tion, "I shall do my best for him; but if I were 
 you, I'd keep my eyes open and do nothing 
 rashly." 
 
 In order to impress him, I put on a similar 
 cold tone and declared that Mr. Penry was a 
 friend of mine and that he must leave no stone 
 unturned to vindicate his honesty. And with 
 this I went back to Mr. Penry, and we left the 
 office together. 
 
 Mr. Penry 's lodging disappointed me; my 
 expectations, I am afraid, were now tuned far 
 above the ordinary. It was in Chelsea, high 
 up, in a rickety old house overlooking a dingy 
 road and barges drawn up on the slimy, fetid 
 
The Magic Glasses ^67 
 
 mud-banks. And yet, even here, romance was 
 present for the romantic; the fog- wreaths curlhig 
 over the river clothed the houses opposite in 
 soft mystery, as if they had been draped in blue 
 samite, and through the water-laden air the 
 sun glowed round and red as a fiery wheel of 
 Phaeton's chariot. The room was very bare; 
 by the broad low window stood a large deal 
 table crowded with instruments and glasses; 
 strong electric lamps on the right and left testi- 
 fied to the prolonged labours of the optician. 
 The roof of the garret ran up towards the centre, 
 and by the wall there was a low truckle-bed, 
 fenced off by a cheap Japanese paper-screen. 
 The whole of the wall between the bed and the 
 window was furnished with plain pine-shelves, 
 filled with books; everything was neat, but the 
 room seemed friendless and cold in the thick, 
 damp air. 
 
 There we sat and talked together, till the sun 
 slid out of sight and the fog thickened and night 
 came on: there our acquaintance, so strangely 
 begun, grew to friendship. Before we went to 
 dinner, the old man had shown me the portraits 
 of his two daughters and a little miniature of 
 his wife, who had died fifteen years before. 
 
 It was the first of many talks in that room, 
 the first of many confidences. Bit by bit, I 
 heard the whole of Mr. Penry's history. It 
 
268 The Magic Glasses 
 
 was told to me piecemeal and inconsequently, 
 as a friend talks to a friend in growing intimacy; 
 and, if I now let Mr. Penry tell his tale in regular 
 sequence and at one stretch, it is mainly in 
 order to spare the reader the tedium of inter- 
 rupted narration and needless repetitions. 
 
 "My father was an optician," Mr. Penry 
 began, "and a maker of spectacles in Chelsea. 
 We lived over the shop in the King's Road, and 
 my childhood was happy enough, but not in 
 any way peculiar. Like other healthy children, 
 I liked play much better than lessons; but my 
 school-days were too uneventful, too empty of 
 love to be happy. My mother died when I was 
 too young to know or regret her; my father 
 was kind, in spite of his precise, puritanical 
 ways. I was the only boy, which perhaps made 
 him kinder to me, and very much younger than 
 my two sisters, who were grown up when I was 
 in short clothes and who married and left my 
 father's house before I had got to know them, 
 or to feel much affection for them. 
 
 "When I was about sixteen, my father took 
 me from school and began teaching me his own 
 trade. He had been an admirable workman 
 in his time, of the old English sort — careful 
 and capable, though somewhat slow. The 
 
The Magic Glasses 269 
 
 desire was always present in him to grind and 
 polish each glass as well as he could, and this 
 practice had given him a certain repute with a 
 circle of good customers. He taught me every 
 part of his craft as he had learnt it; and, in 
 the next five or six years, imbued me with his 
 own wish to do each piece of work as perfectly 
 as possible. But this period of initiation did 
 not last long. Before I reached manhood, I 
 began to draw apart from my father, to live 
 my own life and to show a love of reading and 
 thinking foreign to his habit. It was religion 
 which separated us. At school I had learnt 
 some French and German, and in both languages 
 I came across sceptical opinions v/hich slowly 
 grew in my mind, and in time led me to discard 
 and almost to dislike the religion of my father. 
 I mention this simply because any little origi- 
 nality in me seemed to spring from this inquiry 
 and from the mental struggle that convulsed 
 three or four years of my youth. For months 
 and months I read feverishly to conquer my 
 doubts, and then I read almost as eagerly to 
 confirm my scepticism. 
 
 **I still remember the glow of surprise and 
 hope which came over me the first time I read 
 that Spinoza, one of the heroes of my thought, 
 had also made his living by polishing glasses. 
 He was the best workman of his time, it appeared. 
 
270 TJie Magic Glasses 
 
 and I determined to become the best work- 
 man of my time; from that moment, I took to 
 my trade seriously, strenuously. 
 
 "I learned everything I could about glass, 
 and began to make my o^mi material, after the 
 best recipes. I got books on optics, too, and 
 studied them, and so, bit by bit, mastered the 
 science of my craft. 
 
 "I was not more than nineteen or twenty 
 when my father found out that I was a much 
 better workman than his assistant Thompson. 
 Some glasses had been sent to us from a great 
 oculist in Harley Street, with a multitude of 
 minute directions. They had been made by 
 Thompson, and were brought back to us one 
 afternoon by a very fidgety old gentleman who 
 declared that they did not suit him at all. The 
 letter which he showed from Sir William Creigh- 
 ton, the oculist, hinted that the glasses were 
 not carefully made. My father was out and, 
 in his absence, I opened the letter. As soon as 
 I had looked at the glasses, I saw that the com- 
 plaint was justified, and I told the old gen- 
 tleman so. He turned out to be the famous 
 parliamentary speaker, Lord B. He said to 
 me testily: 
 
 " * All right, young man; you make my glasses 
 correctly and I shall be satisfied; but not till 
 then; you understand, not till then.' 
 
The Magic Glasses 271 
 
 **I smiled at him and told him I would do 
 the work myself, and he went out of the shop 
 muttering, as if only half reassured by my 
 promises. Then I determined to show what I 
 could do. Wlien my father returned, I told 
 him what had happened, and asked him to 
 leave the work to me. He consented, and I 
 went off at once to the little workshop I had 
 made in our back-yard and settled down to the 
 task. I made my glass and polished it, and then 
 ground the spectacles according to the direc- 
 tions. When I had finished, I sent them to Sir 
 William Creighton with a note, and a few days 
 afterwards we had another visit from Lord B., 
 who told my father that he had never had 
 such glasses and that I was a * perfect treasure.' 
 Like many very crochety people, he was hard 
 to satisfy, but once satisfied he was as lavish 
 in praise as in blame. Lord B. made my repu- 
 tation as a maker of spectacles and for years 
 I was content with this little triumph. . . . 
 
 "I married when I was about two or three- 
 and-twenty and seven or eight years afterwards 
 my father died. The gap caused by his death, 
 the void of loss and loneliness, was more than 
 filled up by my young cliildren. I had tv/o 
 little girls who, at this time, were a source of 
 perpetual interest to me. How one grows to 
 love the little creatures, with their laughter 
 
272 The Magic Glasses 
 
 and tears, their hopes and questions and make- 
 believe! And how one's love for them is in- 
 tensified by all the trouble one takes to win 
 their love and by all the plans one weaves for 
 their future! But all this is common human 
 experience and will only bore you. A man's 
 happiness is not interesting to other people, 
 and I don't know that much happiness is good 
 for a man himself; at any rate, dming the ten 
 or fifteen years in which I was happiest, I did 
 least; made least progress, I mean, as a work- 
 man and the least intellectual advance as a 
 man. But when my girls began to grow up 
 and detach themselves from me and the home, 
 my intellectual nature began to stir again. One 
 must have some interests in life, and, if the 
 heart is empty, the head becomes busier, I 
 often think. 
 
 "One day I had a notable visit. A man came 
 in to get a pair of spectacles made: a remark- 
 able man. He was young, gay and enthusi- 
 astic, with an astonishing flow of words, an 
 astonishing brightness of speech and manner. 
 He seemed to light up the dingy old shop with 
 his vivacity and happy frankness. He wanted 
 spectacles to correct a slight dissimilarity be- 
 tween his right eye and his left, and he had 
 been advised to come to me by Sir William 
 Creighton, as the glasses would have to be par- 
 
The Magic Glasses 273 
 
 ticularly well made. I promised to work at 
 them myself, and on that he burst out: 
 
 ***I shall be very curious to see whether 
 perfect eyes help or hurt my art. You know 
 I am a painter,' he went on, throwing his hair 
 back from his forehead, *and each of us painters 
 sees life in his own way, and beauty with certain 
 pecuHarities. It would be curious, wouldn't 
 it.? if talent came from a difference between 
 one's eyes!' 
 
 "I smiled at his eagerness, and took down his 
 name, then altogether unknown to me; but 
 soon to become known and memorable above 
 all other names: Dante Gabriel Rossetti. I 
 made the glasses and he was enthusiastic about 
 them, and brought me a little painting of him- 
 self by way of gratitude. 
 
 "There it is," said Penry, pointing to a little 
 panel that hung by his bedside; "the likeness 
 of an extraordinary man — a genius, if ever 
 there was one. I don't know why he took to 
 me, except that I admired him intensely; my 
 shop, too, was near his house in Chelsea, and 
 he used often to drop in and pass an hour in 
 my back parlour and talk — such talk as I had 
 never heard before and have never heard since. 
 His words were food and drink to me, and more 
 than that. Either his thoughts or the magic 
 of his personality supplied my mind with the 
 
J74 The Magic Glasses 
 
 essence of growth and vigour which had hitherto 
 been lacking to it; in a very real sense, Rossetti 
 became my spiritual father. He taught me 
 things about art that I had never imagined; 
 opened to me a new heaven and a new earth 
 and, above all, showed me that my craft, too, 
 had artistic possibilities in it that I had never 
 dreamed of before. 
 
 "I shall never forget the moment when he 
 first planted the seed in me that has since grown 
 and grown till it has filled my life. It was in 
 my parlour behind the shop. He had been 
 talking in his eager, vivid way, pouring out 
 truths and thoughts, epigrams and poetry, as 
 a great jeweller sometimes pours gems from 
 hand to hand. I had sat listening open- 
 mouthed, trying to remember as much as I 
 could, to assimilate some small part of all that 
 word-wealth. He suddenly stopped, and we 
 smoked on for a few minutes in silence; then 
 he broke out again : 
 
 ***Do you know, my solemn friend,' he said 
 abruptly, Hhat I struck an idea the other day 
 which might suit you. I was reading one of 
 Walter Scott's novels: that romantic stuff of 
 his amuses me, you know, though it isn't as 
 deep as the sea. Well, I found out that, about 
 a hundred years ago, a man like you made 
 what they called Claude-glasses. I suppose 
 
Tlie Magic Glasses £75 
 
 they were merely rose-tinted,' he laughed, *but 
 at any rate, they were supposed to make every- 
 thing beautiful in a Claude-like way. Now, 
 why shouldn't you make such glasces? It 
 would do Englishmen a lot of good to see things 
 rose-tinted for a while. Then, too, you might 
 make Rossetti-glasses,' he went on laughingly, 
 'and, if these dull Saxons could only get a 
 glimpse of the passion that possesses him, it 
 would wake them up, I know. Why not 
 go to work, my friend, at something worth 
 doing .f^ Do you know,' he continued seri- 
 ously, 'there might be something in it. I 
 don't believe, if I had had your glasses at 
 the beginning, I should ever have been the 
 artist I am. I mean,' he said, talking half 
 to himself, *if my eyes had been all right 
 from the beginning, I might perhaps have 
 been contented vrith what I saw. But as my 
 eyes were imperfect I tried to see things as my 
 soul saw them, and so invented looks and 
 gestures that the real world could never give.' 
 "I scarcely understood what he meant," said 
 IVIr. Penry, **but his words dwelt with me: the 
 ground had been prepared for them; he had 
 prepared it; and at once they took root in me 
 and began to grow. I could not get the idea 
 of the Claude-glasses and the Rossetti-glasses 
 out of my head, and at last I advertised for a 
 
276 The Magic Glasses 
 
 pair of those old Claude-glasses, and in a month 
 or so a pair turned up. 
 
 "You may imagine that, while I was waiting, 
 time hung heavy on my hands. I longed to 
 be at work; I wanted to realise the idea that 
 had come to me while Rossetti was talking. 
 During my acquaintance with him, I had been 
 to his studio a dozen times, and had got to 
 know and admire that type of woman's beauty 
 which is now connected with his name; the 
 woman, I mean, with sw^anlike throat, lan- 
 guid air and heavy-lidded eyes, who conveys 
 to all of us now something of Rossetti's insa- 
 tiable desire. But, while I was studying his 
 work and going about steeped in the emotion 
 of it, I noticed one day a lovely girl whom 
 Rossetti could have taken as a model. I had 
 begun, in fact, to see the world as Rossetti saw 
 it; and this talk of his about the Claude-glasses 
 put the idea into my head that I might, indeed, 
 be able to make a pair of spectacles which would 
 enable people to see the world as Rossetti saw 
 it and as I saw it when Rossetti's influence had 
 entire possession of me. This would be a great 
 deal easier to do, I said to myself, than to make 
 a pair of Claude-glasses; for, after all, I did 
 not know what Claude's eyes were really like 
 and I did know the peculiarity of Rossetti's 
 eyes. I accordingly began to study the dis- 
 
The Magic Glasses 277 
 
 parate quality in Rossetti's eyes and, after 
 making a pair of spectacles that made my eyes 
 see unequally to the same degree, I found that 
 the Rossettian vision of things was sharpened 
 and intensified to me. From that moment on, 
 my task was easy. I had only to study any 
 given pair of eyes and then to alter them so 
 that they possessed the disparity of Rossetti's 
 eyes and the work was half done. I found, too, 
 that I could increase this disparity a little and, 
 in proportion as I increased it, I increased also 
 the peculiarity of what I called the Rossettian 
 view of things; but, if I made the disparity 
 too great, everything became blurred again. 
 
 "My researches had reached this point, when 
 the pair of old Claude-glasses came into my 
 hands. I saw at a glance that the optician of 
 the eighteenth century had no knowledge of 
 my work. He had contented himself, as Ros- 
 setti had guessed, with colouring the glasses 
 very delicately and in several tints; in fact, 
 he had studied the colour peculiarities of the 
 eye as I had studied its form -peculiarities. With 
 this hint, I completed my w^ork. It took me 
 only a few days to learn that Rossetti's view of 
 colour was just as limited, or, I should say, 
 just as peculiar, as his view of form; and, when 
 I once understood the peculiarities of his colour- 
 sight, I could reproduce them as easily as I could 
 
278 The Magic Glasses 
 
 reproduce the peculiarities of his vision of form. 
 I then set to work to get both these peculit rities 
 into half-a-dozen different sets of glasses. 
 
 "The work took me some six or eight months; 
 and, when I had done my best, I sent a Kttle 
 note round to Rossetti and awaited his coming 
 with painful eagerness, hope and fear swaying 
 me in turn. AMien he came, I gave him a pair 
 of the spectacles; and, when he put them on 
 and looked out into the street, I watched him. 
 He was surprised — that I could see — and 
 more than a little puzzled. \Miile he sat think- 
 ing, I explained to him w^hat the old Claude- 
 glasses were like and how I had developed his 
 suggestion into this present discovery. 
 
 "*You are an artist, my friend,' he cried at 
 last, *and a new kind of artist. If you can 
 make people see the world as Claude saw it and 
 as I see it, you can go on to make them see it 
 as Rembrandt saw it and Velasquez. You can 
 make the dullards understand life as the greatest 
 have understood it. But that is impossible,' 
 he added, his face falling: 'that is only a dream. 
 You have got my real eyes, therefore you can 
 force others to see as I sec; but you have not 
 the real eyes of Rembrandt, or Velasquez, or 
 Titian; you have not the physical key to the 
 souls of the great masters of the past; and so 
 your work can only apply to the present and 
 
The Magic Glasses 279 
 
 to the future. But that is enough, and more 
 than enough,' he added quickly. *Go on: 
 there are Whistler's eyes to get; and Corot's 
 in France, and half-a-dozen others; and glad 
 I shall be to put you on the scent. You will 
 do wonderful things, my friend, wonderful 
 things.' 
 
 **I was mightily uplifted by his praise and 
 heart-glad, too, in my own way; but resolved 
 at the same time not to give up the idea of mak- 
 ing Velasquez-glasses and Rembrandt-glasses; 
 for I had come to know and to admire these 
 masters through Rossetti's talk. He was always 
 referring to them, quoting them, so to say; and, 
 for a long time past, I had accustomed myself 
 to spend a couple of afternoons each week in 
 our National Gallery, in order to get some 
 knowledge of the men who were the companions 
 of his spirit. 
 
 "For nearly a year after this, I spent every 
 hour of my spare time studying in the National; 
 and at last it seemed to me that I had got 
 Titian's range of colour quite as exactly as the 
 old glasses had got Claude's. But it was 
 extraordinarily difficult to get his vision of 
 form. However, I was determined to succeed; 
 and, with infinite patience and after numberless 
 attempts, success began slowly to come to me. 
 To cut a long story short, I was able, in eight 
 
280 Tlie Magic Glasses 
 
 or ten years, to construct these four or five 
 different sorts of glasses. Claude-glasses and 
 Rossetti-glasses, of course; and also Titian- 
 glasses, Velasquez-glasses and Rembrandt- 
 glasses; and again my mind came to anchor in 
 the work accomplished. Not that I stopped 
 thinking altogether; but that for some time 
 my thoughts took no new flight, but hovered 
 round and about the laiown. As soon as I had 
 made the first pair of Rossetti-glasses, I began 
 to teach my assistant, Williams, how to make 
 them too, in order to put them before the public. 
 We soon got a large sale for them. Chelsea, 
 you know — old Chelsea, I mean — is almost 
 peopled with artists, and many of them came 
 about me and began to make my shop a ren- 
 dezvous, where they met and brought their 
 friends and talked; for Rossetti had a certain 
 following, even in his own lifetime. But my 
 real success came with the Titian-glasses. The 
 great Venetian's romantic view of life and beauty 
 seemed to exercise an irresistible seduction upon 
 everyone, and the trade in his glasses soon 
 became important. 
 
 "My home life at this time was not as happy 
 as it had been. In those long years of endless 
 experiment, my daughters had grown up and 
 married, and my wife, I suppose, widowed of 
 her children, wanted more of my time and atten- 
 
The Magic Glasses 281 
 
 tion, just when I was taken away by my new 
 work and began to give her less. She used to 
 complain at first; but, when she saw that com- 
 plaints did not alter me, she retired into herself, 
 as it were; and I saw less and less of her. And 
 then, when my work was done and my new 
 trade established, my shop, as I have told you, 
 became the rendezvous for artists, and I grew 
 interested in the frank, bright faces and the 
 youthful, eager voices, and renewed my youth 
 in the company of the young painters and 
 writers who used to seek me out. Suddenly, 
 I awoke to the fact that my wife was ill, very 
 ill, and, almost before I had fully realised how 
 weak she was, she died. The loss was greater 
 than I would have believed possible. She was 
 gentle and kind, and I missed her every day 
 and every hour. I think that was the begin- 
 ning of my dislike for the shop, the shop that 
 had made me neglect her. The associations of 
 it reminded me of my fault; the daily require- 
 ments of it grew irksome to me. 
 
 "About this time, too, I began to miss Ros- 
 setti and the vivifying influences of his mind 
 and talk. He went into the country a great 
 deal and for long periods I did not see him, and, 
 when at length we met, I found that the virtue 
 was going out of him: he had become moody 
 and irritable, a neuropath. Of course, the 
 
£82 The Magic Glasses 
 
 intellectual richness in him could not be hidden 
 altogether: now and then, he would break out 
 and talk in the old magical way : 
 
 And conjure wonder out of emptiness. 
 Till mean things put on beauty like a dress 
 And all the world was an enchanted place. 
 
 But, more often, he was gloomy and harassed, 
 and it saddened and oppressed me to meet him. 
 The young artists who came to my shop did 
 not fill his place; they chattered gaily enough, 
 but none of them was a magician as he had 
 been, and I began to realise that genius such 
 as his is one of the rarest gifts in the world. 
 
 "I am trying, with all brevity, to explain 
 to you the causes of my melancholy and my 
 dissatisfaction: but I don't think I have done 
 it very convincingly; and yet, about this time, 
 I had grown dissatisfied, ill at ease, restless. 
 And once again my heart-emptiness drove me 
 to work and think. The next step forward 
 came inevitably from the last one I had taken. 
 
 "While studying the great painters, I had 
 begun to notice that there was a certain quality 
 common to all of them, a certain power they all 
 possessed when working at highest pressure: 
 the power of seeing things as they are — the 
 vital and essential truth of things. I don't 
 mean to say that all of them possessed this 
 faculty to the same degree. Far from it. The 
 
The Magic Glasses 283 
 
 truth of things to Titian is overlaid with 
 romance: he is memorable mainly for his 
 magic of colour and beauty; while Holbein is 
 just as memorable for his grasp of reality. But 
 compare Titian with Giorgione or Tintoretto, 
 and you will see that his apprehension of the 
 reality of things is much greater than theirs. 
 It is that which distinguishes him from the 
 other great colourists of Venice. And, as my 
 OTVTi view of life grew sadder and clearer, it 
 cam-e to me gradually as a purpose that I should 
 try to make glasses that would show the reality, 
 the essential truth of things, as all the great 
 masters had seen it; and so I set to work again 
 on a new quest. 
 
 "About this time, I found out that, though 
 I had many more customers in my shop, I had 
 not made money out of my artistic enterprises. 
 My old trade as a spectacle-maker was really 
 the most profitable branch of my business. The 
 sale of the Rossetti-glasses and the Titian- 
 glasses, which at first had been very great, fell 
 off quickly as the novelty passed away, and it 
 was soon apparent that I had lost more than I 
 had gained by my artistic inventions. But 
 whether I made £1,500 a year, or £1,000 a 
 year, was a matter of indifference to me. I 
 had doubled that cape of forty which to me 
 marks the end of youth in a man, and my 
 
£84 The Magic Glasses 
 
 desires were shrinking as my years increased. 
 As long as I bad enough to satisfy my wants, 
 I was not greedy of money. 
 
 "This new-born desire of mine to make 
 glasses which would show the vital truth of 
 things soon began to possess me; and, gradu- 
 ally, I left the shop to take care of itself, left 
 it in the hands of my assistant, Williams, and 
 spent more and more time in the little work- 
 shop at the back, which had been the theatre 
 of all my achievements. I could not tell you 
 how long I worked at the problem; I only know 
 that it cost me years and years, and that, as 
 I gave more time and labour to it and more 
 and more of the passion of my soul, so I came 
 to love it more intensely and to think less of 
 the ordinary business of life. At length, I 
 began to live in a sort of dream, possessed by 
 the one purpose. I used to get up at night and 
 go on with the work and rest in the day. For 
 months together, I scarcely ate anything, in 
 the hope that hunger might sharpen my facul- 
 ties; at another time, I lived almost wholly 
 on coffee, hoping that this would have the same 
 effect; and, at length, bit by bit, and slowly, 
 I got nearer to tlie goal of my desire. But, 
 when I reached it, when I had constructed 
 glasses that would reveal the naked truth, show 
 things as they arc and men and women as 
 
The Magic Glasses 285 
 
 they are, I found that circumstances about 
 me had changed lamentably. 
 
 "In the midst of my work, I had known 
 without realising it that Wilhams had left me 
 and started a shop opposite, with the object 
 of selling the artistic glasses, of which he de- 
 clared himself the inventor; but I paid no 
 attention to this at the time, and when, two 
 or three years afterwards, I woke again to 
 the ordinary facts of life, I found that my 
 business had almost deserted me. I am not 
 sure, but I think it was a notice to pay some 
 debt which I hadn't the money to pay, that 
 first recalled me completely to the realities of 
 everyday life. What irony there is in the 
 world! Here was I, who had been labouring 
 for years and years with the one object of 
 making men see things as they are and men 
 and women as they are, persecuted now and 
 undone by the same reality which I was trying 
 to reveal. 
 
 "My latest invention, too, was a commercial 
 failure: the new glasses did not sell at all. 
 Nine people out of ten in England are truth- 
 blind, and could make nothing of the glasses; 
 and the small minority, who have the sense of 
 real things, kept complaining that the view 
 of life which my glasses showed them, was not 
 pleasant: as if that were any fault of mine. 
 
286 The Magic Glasses 
 
 Williams, too, my former assistant, did me a 
 great deal of harm. He devoted himself merely 
 to selling my spectacles; and the tradesman suc- 
 ceeded where the artist and thinker starved. 
 As soon as he found out what my new glasses 
 were, he began to treat me contemptuously; 
 talked of me at times as a sort of half-madman, 
 whose brain was turned by the importance 
 given to his inventions, and at other times 
 declared that I had never invented anything 
 at all, for the idea of the artistic glasses had 
 been suggested by Rossetti. The young painters 
 who frequented his shop took pleasure in spread- 
 ing this legend and attributing to Rossetti what 
 Rossetti would have been the first to disclaim. 
 I found myself abandoned, and hours used to 
 pass without anyone coming into my shop. 
 The worst of it was that, when chance gave me 
 a customer, I soon lost him: the new glasses 
 pleased no one. 
 
 "At this point, I suppose, if I had been gifted 
 with ordinary prudence, I should have begun 
 to retrace my steps; but either we grow more 
 obstinate as we grow older, or else the souFs 
 passion grows by the sacrifices we make for it. 
 ^Vhatcver the motives of my obstinacy may 
 have been, the disappointment, the humiliation 
 I went through seemed only to nerve me to a 
 higher resolution. I knew I had done good 
 
The Magic Glasses 287 
 
 work, and the disdain shown to me drove me 
 in upon myself and my own thoughts." 
 
 So much I learned from Mr. Penry in the 
 first few days of our acquaintance, and then 
 for weeks and weeks he did not tell me any 
 more. He seemed to regard the rest of his 
 story as too fantastic and improbable for be- 
 lief, and he was nervously apprehensive lest he 
 should turn me against him by telling it. Again 
 and again, however, he hinted at further 
 knowledge, more difficult experiments, a more 
 arduous seeking, till my curiosity was all aflame, 
 and I pressed him, perhaps unduly, for the 
 whole truth. 
 
 In those weeks of constant companionship, 
 our friendship had grown with almost every 
 meeting. It was impossible to escape the 
 charm of Penry's personality! He was so 
 absorbed in his work, so heedless of the ordinary 
 vanities and greeds of men, so simple and 
 kindly and sympathetic, that I grew to love 
 him. He had his little faults, of course, his 
 little peculiarities; surface irritabilities of tem- 
 per; moments of undue depression, in which 
 he depreciated himself and his work; moments 
 of undue elation, in which he over-estimated 
 the importance of what he had done. He would 
 
288 The Magic Glasses 
 
 have struck most people as a little flighty and 
 uncertain, I think; but his passionate devotion 
 to his work lifted the soul and his faults were, 
 after all, insignificant in comparison with his 
 noble and rare qualities. I had met no one in 
 life who aroused the higher impulses in me as 
 he did. It seemed probable that his latest 
 experiments would be the most daring and the 
 most instructive, and, accordingly, I pressed 
 him to tell me about them with some insistence, 
 and, after a time, he consented: 
 
 "I don't know how it came about," he began, 
 "but the contempt of men for my researches 
 exercised a certain influence on me, and at 
 length I took myself seriously to task: was 
 there any reason for their disdain and dislike? 
 Did these glasses of mine really show things 
 as they are, or was I offering but a new cari- 
 cature of truth, which people were justified in 
 rejecting as unpleasant.? I took up again my 
 books on optics and studied the whole subject 
 anew from the beginning. Even as I worked, 
 a fear grew upon me: I felt that there was 
 another height before me to climb, and that 
 the last bit of road would probably be the 
 steepest of all. ... In the Gospels," he went 
 on, in a low, reverent voice, "many things arc 
 symbolic and of universal application, and it 
 always seemed to me significant that the Hill 
 
The Magic Glasses 289 
 
 of Calvary came at the end of the long journey. 
 I shrank from another prolonged effort; I said 
 to myself I couldn't face another task like the 
 last. But, all the while, I had a sort of uncom- 
 fortable prescience that the hardest part of 
 my life's work lay before me. 
 
 "One day, a casual statement stirred me pro- 
 foundly. The primary colours, you know, are 
 red, yellow and blue. The colours shown in 
 the rainbow vary from red to blue and violet; 
 and the vibrations, or lengths, of the light- 
 waves that give us violet grow shorter and 
 shorter and, at length, give us red. These 
 vibrations can be measured. One day, quite 
 by chance, I came across the statement that 
 there were innumerable light-waves longer 
 than those which give violet. At once the 
 question sprang: were these longer waves 
 represented by colours which we don't see, 
 colours for which we have no name, colours 
 of which we can form no conception.'^ And 
 was the same thing true of the waves which, 
 growing shorter and shorter, give us the sensa- 
 tion of red.f^ There is room, of course, for 
 myriads of colours beyond this other extremity 
 of our vision. A little study convinced me 
 that my guess was right; for all the colours 
 which we see are represented to our sense of 
 feeling in degrees of heat: that is, blue shows 
 
290 The Magic Glasses 
 
 one reading on the thermometer and red a 
 higher reading; and, by means of this new 
 standard, I discovered that man's range of 
 vision is not even placed in the middle of the 
 register of heat, but occupies a little space far 
 up towards the warmer extremity of it. There 
 are thousands of degrees of cold lower than 
 blue and hundreds of degrees of heat above red. 
 All these gradations are doubtless represented 
 by colours which no human eye can perceive, 
 no human mind imagine. It is with sight as 
 with hearmg. There are noises louder than 
 thunder which we cannot hear, the roar that 
 lies on the other side of silence. We men are 
 poor restless prisoners, hemmed in by our 
 senses as by the walls of a cell, hearing only a 
 part of nature's orchestra and that part im- 
 perfectly; seeing only a thousandth part of 
 the colour marvels about us and seeing that 
 infinitesimal part incorrectly and partially. 
 Here was new knowledge with a vengeance! 
 Knowledge that altered all my work! How 
 was I to make glasses to show all tliis.'^ Glasses 
 that would reveal things as they are and must 
 be to higher beings — the ultimate reality. 
 At once, the new quest became the object of 
 my life, and, somehow or other I knew before 
 I began the work that the little scraps of com- 
 fort or of happiness which I had preserved up 
 
The Magic Glasses 291 
 
 to this time, I should now forfeit. I reahsed 
 with shrinking and fear, that this new enquiry 
 would still further remove me from the sym- 
 pathy of my fellows. 
 
 "My prevision was justified. I had hardly 
 got well to work — that is, I had only spent 
 a couple of years in vain and torturing experi- 
 ments — when I was one day arrested for 
 debt. I had paid no attention to the writ; 
 the day of trial came and went without my 
 knowing anything about it; and there was a 
 man in possession of my few belongings before 
 I understood what was going on. Then I 
 was taught by experience that to owe money 
 is the one unforgivable sin in the nation of 
 shopkeepers. My goods were sold up and I 
 was brought to utter destitution" — the old 
 man paused — "and then sent to prison because 
 I could not pay." 
 
 "But," I asked, "did your daughters do 
 nothing? Surely, they could have come to 
 your help!" 
 
 "Oh! they were more than kind," he replied 
 simply, "the eldest especially, perhaps because 
 she was childless herself. I called her Ga- 
 brielle," he added, lingering over the name; 
 "she was very good to me. As soon as she 
 heard the news, she paid my debt and set me 
 free. She bought things, too, and fitted out 
 
292 The Magic Glasses 
 
 two nice rooms for me and arranged every- 
 thing again quite comfortably; but you see," 
 he went on with a timid, deprecating smile, 
 **I tired out even her patience: I could not 
 work at anything that brought in money and 
 I was continually spending money for my 
 researches. The nice furniture went jSrst; the 
 pretty tables and chairs and then the bed. I 
 should have wearied an angel. Again and 
 again Gabrielle bought me furniture and made 
 me tidy and comfortable, as she said, and again 
 and again, like a spendthrift boy, I threw it all 
 away. How could I think of tables and chairs, 
 when I was giving my life to my work.?^ Besides, 
 I always felt that the more I w^as plagued and 
 punished, the more certain I was to get out the 
 best in me: solitude and want are the twin 
 nurses of the soul." 
 
 "But didn't you wish to get any recognition, 
 any praise .f^" I broke in. 
 
 "I knew by this time," he answered, "that, 
 in proportion as my work was excellent, I 
 should find fewer to understand it. How many 
 had I seen come to praise and honour while 
 Rossetti fell to nerve-disease and madness; 
 and yet his work endures and will endure, while 
 theirs is already forgotten. The tree that 
 grows to a great height wins to solitude even 
 in a forest: its highest outshoots find no com- 
 
The Magic Glasses 293 
 
 panions save the winds and stars. I tried to 
 console myself with such similes as this," he 
 went on, with a deprecatory smile, "for the 
 years passed and I seemed to come no nearer 
 to success. At last, the way opened for me a 
 little, and, after eight or ten years of incessant 
 experiment, I found that partial success was 
 all I should ever accomplish. Listen! There 
 is not one pair of eyes in a million that could 
 ever see what I had taught myself to see, for 
 the passion of the soul brings with it its own 
 reward. After caring for nothing but truth 
 for twenty years, thinking of nothing but 
 truth, and wearying after it, I could see it 
 more clearly than other men: get closer to 
 it than they could. So the best part of my 
 labour — I mean the highest result of it — 
 became personal, entirely personal, and this 
 disappointed me. If I could do no good to 
 others by it, what was my labour but a 
 selfish gratification? And what was that to 
 me — at my age! I seemed to lose heart, 
 to lose zest. . . . Perhaps it was that old 
 age had come upon me, that the original 
 sum of energy in me had been spent, that my 
 bolt was shot. It may be so. 
 
 "The fact remains that I lost the desire to 
 go on, and, when I had lost that, I woke up, 
 of course, to the ordinary facts of life once again. 
 
294 The Magic Glasses 
 
 I had no money; I was weak from semi-star- 
 vation and long vigils, prematurely old and 
 decrepit. Once more, Gabrielle came to my 
 assistance. She fitted up this room, and then 
 I went out to sell niy glasses, as a pedlar. I 
 bought the tray and made specimens of all 
 the spectacles I had made, and hawked them 
 about the streets. Why shouldn't I? No work 
 is degrading to the spirit, none, and I could 
 not be a burden to the one I loved, now I knew 
 that my best efforts would not benefit others. 
 I did not get along well: the world seemed 
 strange to me, and men a little rough and hard. 
 Besides, the police seemed to hate me; I don't 
 know why. Perhaps, because I was poor, 
 and yet unlike the poor they knew. They 
 persecuted me, and the magistrates before whom 
 they brought me always believed them and 
 never believed me. I have been punished 
 times without number for obstruction, though 
 I never annoyed anyone. The police never 
 pretended that I had cheated or stolen from 
 anyone before; but, after all, this latest charge 
 of theirs brought me to know you and gave me 
 your friendship; and so I feel that all the 
 shame lias been more than made up to me." 
 
 My heart burned within mc as he spoke so 
 gently of his unmerited sufferings. I told him 
 I was proud of being able to help him. He 
 
The Magic Glasses 295 
 
 put his hand on mine with a little smile of 
 comprehension. 
 
 A day or two later curiosity awoke in me 
 again, and I asked him to let me see a pair of 
 the new glasses, those that show the ultimate 
 truth of things. 
 
 "Perhaps, some day," he answered quietly. 
 I suppose my face fell, for, after a while, he 
 went on meditatively: "There are faults in 
 them, you see, shortcomings and faults in you, 
 too, my friend. Believe me, if I were sure that 
 they would cheer or help you in life, I would 
 let you use them quickly enough; but I am 
 beginning to doubt their efficacy. Perhaps the 
 truth of things is not for man." 
 
 \Mien we entered the court on the day of 
 Penry's trial, Morris and myself were of 
 opinion that the case would not last long and 
 that it would certainly be decided in our 
 favour. The only person who seemed at all 
 doubtful of the issue was Penry himself. He 
 smiled at me, half pit3dngly, w^hen I told him 
 that in an hour we should be on our way home. 
 The waiting seemed interminable, but at length 
 the case was called. The counsel for the prose- 
 cution got up and talked perfunctorily for five 
 minutes, with a sort of careless unconcern that 
 
296 The Magic Glasses 
 
 seemed to me callous and unfeeling. Then 
 he began to call his witnesses. The workman, 
 I noticed, was not in the court. His evidence 
 had been rather in favour of the accused, and 
 the prosecution, on that account, left it out. 
 But Mr. 'Allett, as he called himself, of 'igh 
 'Olborn, was even more voluble and vindictive 
 than he had been at the police-court. He had 
 had time to strengthen his evidence, too, to 
 make it more bitter and more telling, and he 
 had used his leisure malignantly. It seemed to 
 me that everyone should have seen his spite 
 and understood the vileness of his motives. 
 But no; again and again, the judge emphasised 
 those parts of his story which seemed to tell 
 most against the accused. The judge v/as 
 evidently determined that the jury should not 
 miss any detail of the accusation, and his bias 
 appeared to me iniquitous. But there was a 
 worse surprise in store for us. After Hallett, 
 the prosecution called a canon of Westminster, 
 a stout man, with heavy jowl and loose, suasive 
 lips, Canon Bay ton. He told us how he had 
 grown interested in Penry and in his work, 
 and how he had bought all his earlier glasses, 
 the Rossetti-glasses, as he called them. The 
 canon declared that these artistic glasses threw 
 a very valuable light on things, redeemed the 
 coarseness and commonness of life and made 
 
The Magic Glasses 297 
 
 reality beautiful and charming. He was not 
 afraid to say that he regarded them as instru- 
 ments for good; but the truth-reveahng glasses 
 seemed to excite his utmost hatred and indigna- 
 tion. He could not find a good word to say 
 for them: they only showed, he said, what was 
 terrible and brutal in life. When looking 
 through them, all beauty vanished, the charm- 
 ing flesh-covering fell away and you saw the 
 death's-head grinning at you. Instead of 
 parental affection, you found personal vanity; 
 instead of the tenderness of the husband for 
 the wife, gross and common sensuality. All 
 high motives withered, and, instead of the 
 flowers of life, you were compelled to look at 
 the wormlike roots and the clinging dirt. He 
 concluded his evidence by assuring the jury 
 that they would be doing a good thing if they 
 put an end to the sale of such glasses. The 
 commerce was worse than fraudulent, he 
 declared; it was a blasphemy against God and 
 an outrage on human nature. The unctuous 
 canon seemed to me worse than all the rest; 
 but the effect he had on the jury was unmis- 
 takable, and our barrister, Symonds, refused 
 to cross-examine him. To do so, he said, 
 would only strengthen the case for the prosecu- 
 tion, and I have no doubt that he was right, 
 for Morris agreed with him. 
 
«98 The Magic Glasses 
 
 But even the prosecuting witnesses did not 
 hurt us more than the witnesses for the defence. 
 Mr. Penry had been advised by Mr. Morris 
 to call witnesses to his character, and he had 
 called half-a-dozen of the most respectable 
 tradesmen of his acquaintance. One and all 
 did him harm rather than good; they all spoke 
 of having known him twenty years before, 
 when he was well-to-do and respectable. They 
 laid stress upon what they called his "fall in 
 life." They all seemed to think that he had 
 neglected his business and come to ruin by his 
 own fault. No one of them had the faintest un- 
 derstanding of the man, or of his work. It was 
 manifest from the beginning that these witnesses 
 damaged our case, and this was apparently the 
 view of the prosecuting barrister, for he scarcely 
 took the trouble to cross-examine them. 
 
 It was with a sigh of relief that I saw Mr. 
 Penry go into the box to give evidence on his 
 own behalf. Now, I thought, the truth will 
 come to light. He stated everything with the 
 utmost clearness and precision; but no one 
 seemed to believe him. The wish to under- 
 stand him was manifestly w\anting in the jury, 
 and from the beginning the judge took sides 
 against him. From time to time, he interrupted 
 him just to bring out what he regarded as the 
 manifest falseness of his testimony. 
 
The Magic Glasses 299 
 
 "You say that these glasses show truth," 
 he said. "\Vlio wants to see truth?" 
 
 "Very fev/," was Penry's reply. 
 
 "Why, then, did you make the glasses," 
 went on the judge, *'ii you knew that they 
 would disappoint people?" 
 
 "I thought it my duty to," replied Penry. 
 
 "Your duty to disappoint and anger people?" 
 retorted the judge; "a strange view to take of 
 duty. And you got money for this unpleasant 
 duty, didn't you?" 
 
 "A little," was Penry's reply. 
 
 "Yes; but still you got money," persisted 
 the judge. "You persuaded people to buy 
 your glasses, knowing that they would be 
 disappointed m them, and you induced them 
 to give you 'money for the disappoint- 
 ment. Have you anything else to urge in 
 your defence?" 
 
 I was at my wit's end; I scarcely laiew how 
 to keep quiet in my seat. It seemed to me so 
 easy to see the truth. But even Penry appeared 
 indifferent to the result, indifferent to a degree 
 that I could scarcely explain or excuse. This 
 last question, however, of the judge aroused 
 him. As the harsh, contemptuous words fell 
 upon the ear, he leaned forward, and, selecting 
 a pair of spectacles, put them on and peered 
 round the court. I noticed that he was slightly 
 
300 The Magic Glasses 
 
 flushed. In a moment or two, he took the 
 glasses off and turned to the judge: 
 
 "My lord," he said, *'you seem determined 
 to condemn me, but, if you do condemn me, 
 I want you to do it with some understanding 
 of the facts. I have told you that there are 
 very few persons in this countiy who have any 
 faculty for truth, and that the few^ who have, 
 usually have ruined their power before they 
 reach manhood. You scoff and sneer at what 
 I say, but still it remains the simple truth. I 
 looked round the court just now to see if there 
 was anyone here young enough, ingenuous 
 enough, honest enough, to give evidence on my 
 behalf. I find that there is no one in the court 
 to whom I can appeal w^ith any hope of success. 
 But, my lord, in the room behind this court 
 there is a child sitting, a girl with fair hair, 
 probably your lordship's daughter. xVllow me 
 to call her as a witness, allow her to test the 
 glasses and say what she sees through them, 
 and then you will find that these glasses do 
 alter and change things in a surprising way 
 to those who can use them." 
 
 "I don't know how you knew it," broke in 
 the judge, "but my daughter is in my room 
 w^aiting for me, and what you say seems to 
 have some sense in it. But it is quite unusual 
 to call a child, and I don't know that I have 
 
The Magic Glasses 301 
 
 any right to allow it. Still, I don't want you 
 to feel that you have not had every oppor- 
 tunity of clearing yourself; therefore, if the 
 jury consent, I am quite willing that they 
 should hear what this new witness may have 
 to say." 
 
 "We are wilHng to hear the witness," said 
 the foreman, "but really, your lordship, our 
 minds are made up about the case." 
 
 The next moment, the child came into the 
 court — a girl of thirteen or fourteen, with a 
 bright, intelligent face, a sort of shy fear 
 troubling the directness of her approach. 
 
 **I want you to look through a pair of spec- 
 tacles, my child," said Penry to her, "and tell 
 us just what you see through them," and, as 
 he spoke, he peered at her in his strange way, 
 as if judging her eyes. 
 
 He then selected a pair of glasses and handed 
 them to her. The child put them on and 
 looked round the court, and then cried out 
 suddenly : 
 
 "Oh, what strange people; and how ugly 
 they all are. All ugly, except you who gave 
 me the glasses; you are beautiful." Turning 
 hastily round, she looked at her father and 
 added, "Oh, papa, you are — Oh!" and she 
 took off the glasses quickly, while a burning 
 flush spread over her face. 
 
302 The Magic Glasses 
 
 "I don't like those glasses," she said indig- 
 nantly, laying them do^n. *'They are horrid! 
 My father doesn't look like that." 
 
 "My child," said Penry, very gently, "will 
 you look through another pair of glasses? You 
 see so much that perhaps you can see what is 
 to be, as well as what is. Perhaps you can 
 catch some glimpse even of the future." 
 
 He selected another pair and handed them 
 to the child. There was a hush of expectancy 
 in the court; people who had scoffed at Penry 
 before and smiled contempt, now leaned for- 
 ward to hear, as if something extraordinary 
 were about to happen. All eyes were riveted 
 on the little girl's face; all ears strained to 
 hear what she would say. Round and round 
 the court she looked through the strange glasses 
 and then began to speak in a sort of frightened 
 monotone : 
 
 "I see nothing," she said. "I mean there 
 is no court and no people, only great white 
 blocks, a sort of bluey-white powdered as with 
 sugar. Is it ice? There are no trees, no ani- 
 mals; all is cold and white. It is ice. There 
 is no living creature, no grass, no flowers, 
 nothing moves. It is all cold, all dead." In 
 a frightened voice she added: "Is that the 
 future of the world?" 
 
 Penry leaned towards her eagerly: 
 
The Magic Glasses 303 
 
 "Look at the light, child," he said; "follow 
 the light up and tell us what you see." 
 
 Again a strange hush; I heard my heart 
 thumping while the child looked about her. 
 Then, pulling off the glasses, she said peevishly: 
 
 "I can't see anything more: the light hurts 
 my eyes." 
 
 Death in Prison 
 
 "Matthew Penry, whose trial for fraud and 
 condemnation will probably still be remembered 
 by our readers because of the very impressive 
 evidence for the prosecution given by Canon 
 Bayton, of Westminster, died, we understand, 
 in Wandsworth Prison yesterday morning from 
 syncope." — Extract from the Times, January 
 3rd, 1900. 
 
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