Overmuch crowded with such events, the inner self is p.r.o.ne to shrivel, to fade beneath lack of nutriment; and it may happen that in time the unnatural self will take its place, will become our very self.
That is gravely to our disadvantage. Overmuch in action, the man of affairs may win the admiration of a surface-seeing world; may capture the benefits of strong purpose, of wealth, and of position. But he is in danger of utterly losing the fruits that only by the inner, the original, and true self can be garnered.
Life presents for our pursuit two sets of treasures. The one may be had by the labours of the hands; the other by exercise of the intellect--the true self. And at once this may be said: that the treasures heaped by the hands soil the hands, and the stain sinks deep. The stain enters the blood and, thence oozing, pigments every part of the being--the face, the voice, the mind, the thoughts. For we cannot labour overlong in the fields without besweating the brow; and certainly we cannot ceaselessly toil after the material treasures of life without gathering the traces of that labour upon our souls. It stains, and the stain is ugly.
Coming to treasures stored by exercise of the intellect, the true self, these also put their mark upon the possessor; but the action is different and the results are different. Here the pigment that colours the life does not come from without but distils from within. Man does not stoop to rend these treasures from the earth; he rises to them.
They do not bow; they uplift. They are not wrenched in trampling struggle from the sties where men battle for the troughs; they are absorbed from the truths of life that are as breezes upon the little hills. They are in the face of Nature and in Nature"s heart; they are in the written thoughts of men whose thoughts rushed upward like flames, not dropped like plummet-stones--soared after truth and struck it to our understanding, not made soundings for earthy possessions showing how these might be gained.
Yet it is not to be urged that the quest of material treasures is to be despised, or that life properly lived is life solely dreaming among truths. The writer who made the story of the Israelites sickening of manna, wrapped in legend the precept that man to live must work for life. We are not living if we are not working. We cannot have strength but we win meat to make strength.
No; my protest is against the heaping of material treasure to the neglect of treasure stored by the true self. Material treasure is not ours. We but have the enjoyment of it while we can defend it from the forces that constantly threaten it. Misfortune, sorrow, sickness-- these are ever in leash against us; may at any moment be slipped.
Misfortune may whirl our material treasures from us; sorrow or sickness may canker them, turn them to ashes in the mouth. They are not ours; we hold them upon sufferance. But the treasures of the intellect, the gift of being upon nodding terms with truth, these are treasures that are our impregnable own. Nothing can filch them, nothing canker them: they are our own--imperishable, inexhaustible; never wanting when called upon; balm to heal the blows of adversity, specific against all things malign. Cultivate the perception of beauty, the knowledge of truth; learn to distinguish between the realities of life and the dross of life; and you have a great shield of fort.i.tude of which certainly man cannot rob you, and against which sickness, sorrow, or misfortune may strike tremendous blows without so much as bruising the real you.
And it is in the life that is called uneventful that there is the most opportunity for storing these treasures of the intellect. Perhaps there is also the greater necessity. In the dull round of things we are thrown in upon ourselves, and by every lightest thought and deed either are strengthening that inner self or are sapping it. Either we are reading the thoughts of men whose thoughts heap a priceless store within us, or we are reading that which--though we are unaware-- vitiates and puts further and further beyond our grasp the truths of life; either we are watching our lives and schooling them to feed upon thoughts and deeds that will uplift them, or we are neglecting them, and allowing them to browse where they will upon the rank weeds of petty spites, petty jealousies, petty gossipings and petty deeds. In action we may have no time to waste over this poisonous herbage; but in dulness most certainly we do have the temptation--and as we resist or succ.u.mb so shall we conduct ourselves when the larger events of life call us into the lists.
CHAPTER II
Margaret Fishes; Mary Prays.
I.
Mary"s first month at Herons" Holt was uneventful: need not be recorded. We are following the pa.s.sage of the love "twixt her and George; and within the radius of Mr. Marrapit"s eye love durst not creep. She saw little of her George. They were most carefully circ.u.mspect in their att.i.tude one to another, and conscience made their circ.u.mspection trebly stiff. There are politenesses to be observed between the inmates of a house, but my Mary and my George, in terror lest even these should be misconstrued, studiously neglected them.
The aloofness troubled Margaret. This girl wrapped her sentiment about Mary; delighting in one who, so pretty, so young, so gentle-voiced, must face life in an alien home. The girls came naturally together, and it was not long before Margaret bubbled out her vocation.
The talk was upon books. Margaret turned away her head; said in the voice of one hurrying over a commonplace: "I write, you know."
She tingled for the "Do you?" from her companion, but it did not come, and this was very disappointing.
She stole a glance at Mary, sitting with a far-away expression in her eyes (the ridiculous girl had heard an engine whistle; knew it to be the train that was taking her George to London). Margaret stole a glance at Mary; repeated louder: "I write, you know."
It fetched the delicious response. Mary started: "Do you?"
Margaret said hurriedly: "Oh, nothing worth speaking of."
Mary said: "Oh!"; gave her thoughts again to the train.
It was wretched of her. "Poems," said Margaret, and stressed the word "_Poems_."
Mary came flying back from the train. "Oh, how interesting that is!"
At once Margaret drew away. "Oh, it is nothing," she said, "nothing."
She put her eyes upon the far clouds; breathed "Nothing" in a long sigh.
From this it was not a far step to reading, with terrible reluctance, her poems to Mary; nor from this again was it other than an obvious step to telling of Bill. Her pretty verses were so clearly written at some heart which throbbed responsive, that Mary must needs put the question. It came after a full hour"s reading--the poet sitting upon her bed in a litter of ma.n.u.scripts, Mary in a low chair before her.
In a tremulous voice the poet concluded the refrain of an exquisite verse:
"Beat for beat, your heart, my darling, Beats with mine.
Skylarks carol, quick responsive, Love divine."
The poet gave a little gulp; laid down her paper.
Mary also gulped. From both their pretty persons emotion welled in a great flood that filled the room.
"I"m sure that is written _to_ somebody," Mary breathed.
Margaret nodded. This girl was too ravished with the grip of the thing to be capable of words.
Mary implored: "Oh, do tell me!"
Then Margaret told the story of Bill--with intimate details and in the beautiful phrases of the poet mind she told it, and the flooding emotion piled upwards to the very roof.
Love has rightly been pictured as a naked babe. Men together will examine a baby--if they must--with a bashful diffidence that pulls down the clothes each time the infant kicks; women dote upon each inch of its chubby person. And so with love. Men will discuss their love-- if they must--with the most prudish decorum; women undress it.
It becomes essential, therefore, that what Margaret said to Mary must not be discovered.
When she had ceased she put out a hand for the price of her confidence: "And have you--are you--I know practically nothing about you, Mary, dear. _Do_ tell me, are _you_ in love?"
Bang went the gates of Mary"s emotion. Here was awful danger. She laughed. "Oh, I"ve no time to fall in love, have I?"
Margaret sighed her sympathy; then gazed at Mary.
Mary read the gaze aright. These were women, and they read one another by knowledge of s.e.x. Mary knew Margaret"s gaze to be that of an archer sighting at his mark, estimating the chances of a hit. She saw the arrow that was to come speeding at her breast; gathered her emotions so that she should not flinch at the wound.
Margaret tw.a.n.ged the bow-string. "No time to fall in love?" she murmured. She fitted the shaft; let fly. "Do you like George, dear?"
Mary stooped to her shoe-laces. Despite her preparations the arrow had pierced, and she hid her face to hide the blood.
"George?" said she, head to floor.
"Yes, George. Do you like George?"
My Mary sat up, brazen. "George? Oh, you mean your cousin? I daresay he"s very nice. Practically I"ve never even spoken to him since I"ve been here."
"I know. Of course he"s very busy just now. Do you think you would like him if you did know him?"
It was murderous work. Mary was beginning to quiver beneath the arrows; was in terror lest she should betray the secret. A desperate kick was necessary. She wildly searched for a foothold; found it; kicked:
"I"m sure I shouldn"t like him."
The poet softly protested: "Oh why, Mary?"