The eternal moment, and other stories
downwards, exploding as it went, rending gallery after gallery with its
wings of steel. For a moment they saw the nations of the dead, and,
before they joined them, scraps of the untainted sky.
THE POINT OF IT
I
"I don't see the point of it," said Micky, through much imbecile
laughter.
Harold went on rowing. They had spent too long on the sand-dunes,
and now the tide was running out of the estuary strongly. The sun
was setting, the fields on the opposite bank shone bright, and the
farm-house where they were stopping glowed from its upper windows as
though filled to the brim with fire.
"We're going to be carried out to sea," Micky continued. "You'll never
win unless you bust yourself a bit, and you a poor invalid, too. I back
the sea."
They were reaching the central channel, the backbone, as it were,
of the retreating waters. Once past it, the force of the tide would
slacken, and they would have easy going until they beached under the
farm. It was a glorious evening. It had been a most glorious day. They
had rowed out to the dunes at the slack, bathed, raced, eaten, slept,
bathed and raced and eaten again. Micky was in roaring spirits. God had
never thwarted him hitherto, and he could not suppose that they would
really be made late for supper by an ebbing tide. When they came to
the channel, and the boat, which had been slowly edging upstream, hung
motionless among the moving waters, he lost all semblance of sanity,
and shouted:
"It may be that the gulfs will wash us down,
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew."
Harold, who did not care for poetry, only shouted. His spirits also
were roaring, and he neither looked nor felt a poor invalid. Science
had talked to him seriously of late, shaking her head at his sunburnt
body. What should Science know? She had sent him down to the sea to
recruit, and Micky to see that he did not tire himself. Micky had been
a nuisance at first, but common sense had prevailed, as it always does
among the young. A fortnight ago, he would not let the patient handle
an oar. Now he bid him "bust" himself, and Harold took him at his word
and did so. He made himself all will and muscle. He began not to know
where he was. The thrill of the stretcher against his feet, and of the
tide up his arms, merged with his friend's voice towards one nameless
sensation; he was approaching the mystic state that is the athlete's
true though unacknowledged goal: he was beginning to be.
Micky chanted, "One, two--one, two," and tried to help by twitching the
rudder. But Micky had imagination. He looked at the flaming windows and
fancied that the farm was a star and the boat its attendant satellite.
Then the tide was the rushing ether stream of the universe, the
interstellar surge that beats for ever. How jolly! He did not formulate
his joys, after the weary fashion of older people. He was far too happy
to be thankful. "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth,"
are the words of one who has left his youth behind, and all that Micky
sang was "One, two."
Harold laughed without hearing. Sweat poured off his forehead. He put
on a spurt, as did the tide.
"Wish the doctor could see you," cried Micky.
No answer. Setting his teeth, he went berserk. His ancestors called to
him that it was better to die than to be beaten by the sea. He rowed
with gasps and angry little cries, while the voice of the helmsman
lashed him to fury.
"That's right--one, two--plug it in harder.... Oh, I say, this is a bit
stiff, though. Let's give it up, old man, perhaps."
The gulls were about them now. Some wheeled overhead, others bobbed
past on the furrowed waters. The song of a lark came faintly from the
land, and Micky saw the doctor's trap driving along the road that led
to the farm. He felt ashamed.
"Look here, Harold, you oughtn't to--I oughtn't to have let you. I--I
don't see the point of it."
"Don't you?" said Harold with curious distinctness. "Well, you will
some day," and so saying dropped both oars. The boat spun round at
this, the farm, the trap, the song of the lark vanished, and he fell
heavily against the rowlock. Micky caught at him. He had strained his
heart. Half in the boat and half out of it, he died, a rotten business.
II
A rotten business. It happened when Michael was twenty-two, and he
expected never to be happy again. The sound of his own voice shouting
as he was carried out, the doctor's voice saying, "I consider you
responsible," the coming of Harold's parents, the voice of the curate
summarizing Harold's relations with the unseen--all these things
affected him so deeply that he supposed they would affect him for
ever. They did not, because he lived to be over seventy, and with the
best will in the world, it is impossible to remember clearly for so
long. The mind, however sensitive and affectionate, is coated with new
experiences daily; it cannot clear itself of the steady accretion,
and is forced either to forget the past or to distort it. So it was
with Michael. In time only the more dramatic incidents survived.
He remembered Harold's final gesture (one hand grasping his own,
the other plunged deep into the sea), because there was a certain
æsthetic quality about it, not because it was the last of his friend.
He remembered the final words for the same reason. "Don't you see the
point of it? Well, you will some day." The phrase struck his fancy, and
passed into his own stock; after thirty or forty years he forgot its
origin. He is not to blame; the business of life snowed him under.
There is also this to say: he and Harold had nothing in common except
youth. No spiritual bond could survive. They had never discussed
theology or social reform, or any of the problems that were thronging
Michael's brain, and consequently, though they had been intimate
enough, there was nothing to remember. Harold melted the more one
thought of him. Robbed of his body, he was so shadowy. Nor could one
imagine him as a departed spirit, for the world beyond death is surely
august. Neither in heaven nor hell is there place for athletics and
aimless good temper, and if these were taken from Harold, what was
left? Even if the unseen life should prove an archetype of this, even
if it should contain a sun and stars of its own, the sunburn of earth
must fade off our faces as we look at it, the muscles of earth must
wither before we can go rowing on its infinite sea. Michael sadly
resigned his friend to God's mercy. He himself could do nothing, for
men can only immortalize those who leave behind them some strong
impression of poetry or wisdom.
For himself he expected another fate. With all humility, he knew that
he was not as Harold. It was no merit of his own, but he had been born
of a more intellectual stock, and had inherited powers that rendered
him worthier of life, and of whatever may come after it. He cared for
the universe, for the tiny tangle in it that we call civilisation,
for his fellow-men who had made the tangle and who transcended it.
Love, the love of humanity, warmed him; and even when he was thinking
of other matters, was looking at Orion perhaps in the cold winter
evenings, a pang of joy, too sweet for description, would thrill him,
and he would feel sure that our highest impulses have some eternal
value, and will be completed hereafter. So full a nature could not
brood over death.
To summarize his career.
Soon after the tragedy, when he in his turn was recruiting, he met the
woman who was to become his helpmate through life. He had met her once
before, and had not liked her; she had seemed uncharitable and hard.
Now he saw that her hardness sprang from a morality that he himself
lacked. If he believed in love, Janet believed in truth. She tested all
men and all things. She had no patience with the sentimentalist who
shelters from the world's rough and tumble. Engaged at that time to
another man, she spoke more freely to Michael than she would otherwise
have done, and told him that it is not enough to feel good and to
feel that others are good; one's business is to make others better,
and she urged him to adopt a profession. The beauty of honest work
dawned upon the youth as she spoke. Mentally and physically, he came to
full manhood, and, after due preparation, he entered the Home Civil
Service--the British Museum.
Here began a career that was rather notable, and wholly beneficial
to humanity. With his ideals of conduct and culture, Michael was not
content with the official routine. He desired to help others, and,
since he was gifted with tact, they consented to the operation. Before
long he became a conciliatory force in his department. He could mollify
his superiors, encourage his inferiors, soothe foreign scholars, and
show that there is something to be said for all sides. Janet, who
watched his rise, taxed him again with instability. But now she was
wrong. The young man was not a mere opportunist. He always had a
sincere opinion of his own, or he could not have retained the respect
of his colleagues. It was really the inherent sweetness of his nature
at work, turned by a woman's influence towards fruitful ends.
At the end of a ten years' acquaintance the two married. In the
interval Janet had suffered much pain, for the man to whom she had been
engaged had proved unworthy of her. Her character was set when she
came to Michael, and, as he knew, strongly contrasted with his own;
and perhaps they had already interchanged all the good they could. But
the marriage proved durable and sufficiently happy. He, in particular,
made endless allowances, for toleration and sympathy were becoming the
cardinal points of his nature. If his wife was unfair to the official
mind, or if his brother-in-law, an atheist, denounced religion, he
would say to himself, "They cannot help it; they are made thus, and
have the qualities of their defects. Let me rather think of my own, and
strive for a wider outlook ceaselessly." He grew sweeter every day.
It was partly this desire for a wider outlook that turned him to
literature. As he was crossing the forties it occurred to him to write
a few essays, somewhat retrospective in tone, and thoughtful rather
than profound in content. They had some success. Their good taste,
their lucid style, the tempered Christianity of their ethics, whetted
the half-educated public, and made it think and feel. They were not,
and were not intended to be, great literature, but they opened the
doors to it, and were indubitably a power for good. The first volume
was followed by "The Confessions of a Middle-aged Man." In it Michael
paid melodious tribute to youth, but showed that ripeness is all.
Experience, he taught, is the only humanizer; sympathy, balance and
many-sidedness cannot come to a man until he is elderly. It is always
pleasant to be told that the best is yet to be, and the sale of the
book was large. Perhaps he would have become a popular author, but
his wife's influence restrained him from writing anything that he did
not sincerely feel. She had borne him three children by now--Henry,
Catherine, and Adam. On the whole they were a happy family. Henry never
gave any trouble. Catherine took after her mother. Adam, who was wild
and uncouth, caused his father some anxiety. He could not understand
him, in spite of careful observation, and they never became real
friends. Still, it was but a little cloud in a large horizon. At home,
as in his work, Michael was more successful than most men.
Thus he slipped into the fifties. On the death of his father he
inherited a house in the Surrey hills, and Janet, whose real interests