第 七十三 章 · 第73章

. Ellen and he got on capitally, all the better, perhaps, because the

disparity between them was so great, that neither did Ellen want to be

elevated, nor did Ernest want to elevate her. He was very fond of her,

and very kind to her; they had interests which they could serve in

common; they had antecedents with a good part of which each was

familiar; they had each of them excellent tempers, and this was enough.

Ellen did not seem jealous at Ernest’s preferring to sit the greater

part of his time after the day’s work was done in the first floor front

where I occasionally visited him. She might have come and sat with him

if she had liked, but, somehow or other, she generally found enough to

occupy her down below. She had the tact also to encourage him to go out

of an evening whenever he had a mind, without in the least caring that

he should take her too—and this suited Ernest very well. He was, I

should say, much happier in his married life than people generally are.

At first it had been very painful to him to meet any of his old

friends, as he sometimes accidentally did, but this soon passed; either

they cut him, or he cut them; it was not nice being cut for the first

time or two, but after that, it became rather pleasant than not, and

when he began to see that he was going ahead, he cared very little what

people might say about his antecedents. The ordeal is a painful one,

but if a man’s moral and intellectual constitution are naturally sound,

there is nothing which will give him so much strength of character as

having been well cut.

It was easy for him to keep his expenditure down, for his tastes were

not luxurious. He liked theatres, outings into the country on a Sunday,

and tobacco, but he did not care for much else, except writing and

music. As for the usual run of concerts, he hated them. He worshipped

Handel; he liked Offenbach, and the airs that went about the streets,

but he cared for nothing between these two extremes. Music, therefore,

cost him little. As for theatres, I got him and Ellen as many orders as

they liked, so these cost them nothing. The Sunday outings were a small

item; for a shilling or two he could get a return ticket to some place

far enough out of town to give him a good walk and a thorough change

for the day. Ellen went with him the first few times, but she said she

found it too much for her, there were a few of her old friends whom she

should sometimes like to see, and they and he, she said, would not hit

it off perhaps too well, so it would be better for him to go alone.

This seemed so sensible, and suited Ernest so exactly that he readily

fell into it, nor did he suspect dangers which were apparent enough to

me when I heard how she had treated the matter. I kept silence,

however, and for a time all continued to go well. As I have said, one

of his chief pleasures was in writing. If a man carries with him a

little sketch book and is continually jotting down sketches, he has the

artistic instinct; a hundred things may hinder his due development, but

the instinct is there. The literary instinct may be known by a man’s

keeping a small note-book in his waistcoat pocket, into which he jots

down anything that strikes him, or any good thing that he hears said,

or a reference to any passage which he thinks will come in useful to

him. Ernest had such a note-book always with him. Even when he was at

Cambridge he had begun the practice without anyone’s having suggested

it to him. These notes he copied out from time to time into a book,

which as they accumulated, he was driven into indexing approximately,

as he went along. When I found out this, I knew that he had the

literary instinct, and when I saw his notes I began to hope great

things of him.

For a long time I was disappointed. He was kept back by the nature of

the subjects he chose—which were generally metaphysical. In vain I

tried to get him away from these to matters which had a greater

interest for the general public. When I begged him to try his hand at

some pretty, graceful, little story which should be full of whatever

people knew and liked best, he would immediately set to work upon a

treatise to show the grounds on which all belief rested.

“You are stirring mud,” said I, “or poking at a sleeping dog. You are

trying to make people resume consciousness about things, which, with

sensible men, have already passed into the unconscious stage. The men

whom you would disturb are in front of you, and not, as you fancy,

behind you; it is you who are the lagger, not they.”

He could not see it. He said he was engaged on an essay upon the famous

_quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus_ of St Vincent de Lerins.

This was the more provoking because he showed himself able to do better

things if he had liked.

I was then at work upon my burlesque “The Impatient Griselda,” and was

sometimes at my wits’ end for a piece of business or a situation; he

gave me many suggestions, all of which were marked by excellent good

sense. Nevertheless I could not prevail with him to put philosophy on

one side, and was obliged to leave him to himself.

For a long time, as I have said, his choice of subjects continued to be

such as I could not approve. He was continually studying scientific and

metaphysical writers, in the hope of either finding or making for

himself a philosopher’s stone in the shape of a system which should go

on all fours under all circumstances, instead of being liable to be

upset at every touch and turn, as every system yet promulgated has

turned out to be.

He kept to the pursuit of this will-o’-the-wisp so long that I gave up

hope, and set him down as another fly that had been caught, as it were,

by a piece of paper daubed over with some sticky stuff that had not

even the merit of being sweet, but to my surprise he at last declared

that he was satisfied, and had found what he wanted.

I supposed that he had only hit upon some new “Lo, here!” when to my

relief, he told me that he had concluded that no system which should go

perfectly upon all fours was possible, inasmuch as no one could get

behind Bishop Berkeley, and therefore no absolutely incontrovertible

first premise could ever be laid. Having found this he was just as well

pleased as if he had found the most perfect system imaginable. All he

wanted he said, was to know which way it was to be—that is to say

whether a system was possible or not, and if possible then what the

system was to be. Having found out that no system based on absolute

certainty was possible he was contented.

I had only a very vague idea who Bishop Berkeley was, but was thankful

to him for having defended us from an incontrovertible first premise. I

am afraid I said a few words implying that after a great deal of

trouble he had arrived at the conclusion which sensible people reach

without bothering their brains so much.

He said: “Yes, but I was not born sensible. A child of ordinary powers

learns to walk at a year or two old without knowing much about it;

failing ordinary powers he had better learn laboriously than never

learn at all. I am sorry I was not stronger, but to do as I did was my

only chance.”

He looked so meek that I was vexed with myself for having said what I

had, more especially when I remembered his bringing-up, which had

doubtless done much to impair his power of taking a common-sense view

of things. He continued—

“I see it all now. The people like Towneley are the only ones who know

anything that is worth knowing, and like that of course I can never be.

But to make Towneleys possible there must be hewers of wood and drawers

of water—men in fact through whom conscious knowledge must pass before

it can reach those who can apply it gracefully and instinctively as the

Towneleys can. I am a hewer of wood, but if I accept the position

frankly and do not set up to be a Towneley, it does not matter.”

He still, therefore, stuck to science instead of turning to literature

proper as I hoped he would have done, but he confined himself

henceforth to enquiries on specific subjects concerning which an

increase of our knowledge—as he said—was possible. Having in fact,

after infinite vexation of spirit, arrived at a conclusion which cut at

the roots of all knowledge, he settled contentedly down to the pursuit

of knowledge, and has pursued it ever since in spite of occasional

excursions into the regions of literature proper.

But this is anticipating, and may perhaps also convey a wrong

impression, for from the outset he did occasionally turn his attention

to work which must be more properly called literary than either

scientific or metaphysical.