Part 9

The time had now come for him to embrace his profession, and he did so like a true Briton, with his eye ever on the future. He perceived from the first that this particular race was longer than any race he had ever started for, and he began slowly, with a pebble in his mouth, husbanding his wind. The whole thing was extremely dry and extremely boring, but of course one had to get there before all those other fellows. And round and round he ran, increasing his speed almost imperceptibly, soon beginning to have his eye on the half-dozen who seemed dangerously likely to get there before him if he did not mind that eye. It cannot be said that he enjoyed his work, or cared for the money it brought him, for, what with getting through his day, and thinking of those other fellows who might be forging ahead of him, he had no time to spend money, or even to give it away. And so it began rolling up. One day, however, perceiving that he had quite a lot, the thought came to him that he ought to do something with it. And happening soon after to go into a picture-gallery, he bought a picture. He had not had it long before it seemed to him better than the picture of a friend who rather went in for them; and he thought, “I could easily beat him if I gave myself to it a little.” And he did. It was fascinating to perceive, each time he bought, that his taste had improved, and was getting steadily ahead of his friend’s taste; and, indeed, not only of his friend’s, but of that of other people. He felt that soon he would have better taste than anybody, and he bought and bought. It was not that he cared for the pictures, for he really had not time or mind to give to them--set as he was on reaching eminence; but he dreamed of leaving them to the National Gallery as a monument to his taste, and final proof of superiority to his friend, after they were both gone.

About this time he took silk, sacrificing nearly half of his income. He would have preferred to wait longer, had he not perceived that if he did wait, his friends ---- and ---- and ---- ---- would be taking silk before him. And, since he meant to be a judge first, this must naturally be guarded against. The prospective loss of so much income made him for a moment restful and expansive, as if he felt that he had been pushed almost too far by his competitive genius; and so he found time to marry--it being the commencement of the long vacation. For six weeks he hardly thought of his friends ---- and ---- and ---- ----, but near the end of September he was shocked back into a more normal frame of mind by the news that they also had been offered and had taken silk. It behoved him, he felt, to put his wife behind him and go back into harness. It would be just like those fellows to get ahead of him, if they could; and he curtailed his honeymoon by quite three weeks. Not two years, however, elapsed before it became clear to him that to keep his place he must enter Parliament. And against his own natural feelings, against even the inclinations of his country, he secured a seat at the general election and began sitting. What, then, was his chagrin to find that his friend ----, and his friend ----, and even his friend ---- ----, had also secured seats, and were sitting when he got there! What with the courts, and what with ‘the House,’ he became lean and very yellow; and his wife complained. He determined to give her a child every year to keep her quiet; for he felt that he must have perfect peace in his home surroundings if he were to maintain his position in the great life race for which he had started, knowing that his friends ---- and ---- and ---- ---- would never hesitate to avail themselves of his ill health, to beat him. None of those wretched fellows were having so many children. He did not find his work in Parliament congenial; it seemed to him unreal. For he could not get his mind--firmly fixed on himself and the horizon--to believe that all those little measures which he was continually passing would benefit people with whose lives he really had not time or inclination to be familiar. When one had got up, prepared two cases, had breakfasted, walk down to the courts, sat there from half-past ten to four, walked to ‘the House,’ sat there a little longer than his friend ---- ---- (the worst of them), spoken if his friend ---- had spoken, or if he thought his friend ---- were going to speak, had dinner, prepared two cases, kissed his wife, mentally compared his last picture with that last one of his friend’s, had a glass of barley-water, and gone to bed--when one had done all this, there really was not time for living his own life, much less any one else’s. He sometimes thought he would have to give up doing so much; but that, of course, was out of the question, seeing that his friends would at once shoot ahead. He took “Vitogen” instead. They used his photograph, with the words, “It does wonders with me,” coming out of his mouth, and on the opposite page they used a photograph of his friend ---- ----, with the words, “I take a glass a day, and revel in it,” coming out of his. On discovering this he increased the amount at some risk to two glasses, determined not to be outdone by that fellow.

He sometimes wondered whether, in the army, the church, the stock exchange, or in literature, he would not have had a more restful life; for he would by no means have admitted that he carried within himself the microbe of his own fate.

His natural love of beauty, for instance, inspired him when he saw a sunset, or a mountain, or even a sea, with the thought: How jolly it would be to look at it! But he had gradually become so reconciled to knowing he had not time for this that he never did. But if he had heard by any chance that his friend ---- ---- did find time to contemplate such natural beauties, he would certainly have contrived somehow to contemplate them too.

As the time approached for being made a judge he compared himself more and more carefully with his friends ---- and ---- ----. If they were appointed before him, it would be very serious for his prospects of ultimate pre-eminence. And it was with a certain relief, tempered with sorrow, that he heard one summer morning that his friend ---- had fallen seriously ill, and was not expected to recover. He was assiduous in the expression of an anxiety that was quite genuine. His friend ---- died as the courts rose. And all through that long vacation he thought continually of poor ----, and of his career cut so prematurely short. It was then that the idea came to him of capping his efforts by writing a book. He chose for subject, “The Evils of Competition in the Modern State,” and devoted to it every minute he could spare during autumn months, fortunately bereft of Parliamentary duties. It would just, he felt make the difference between himself and his friends ---- and ---- ----, to a government essentially favourable to literary men. He finished it at Christmas, and arranged for a prompt publication. It was with a certain natural impatience that he read, two days later, of the approaching issue of a book by his friend ---- ----, entitled, “Joy of Life, or the Cult of the Moment.” What on earth the fellow was about to rush into print and on such a subject he was at a loss to understand! The book came out a week before his own. He read the reviews rather feverishly, for they were favourable. What to do now to recover his lead he hardly knew. If he had not been married it might have been possible to arrange something in that line with the daughter of an important personage; as it was, there was nothing for it but to part with his pictures to the National Gallery by way of a loan. And this he did, to the chagrin of his wife, about the middle of May. On the 1st of June he read in his Sunday paper that his friend ---- ---- had given his library outright to the British Museum. Some relief to the strain of his anxiety, however, was afforded in July by the unexpected accession of his friend ---- to a peerage, through the death of a cousin. The estate attached was considerable. He felt that this friend at all events would not continue to struggle; he would surely recognise that he was removed from active life. His premonition was correct; and his friend ---- ---- and himself were left to fight it out alone.

That judge who had so long been expected to quit his judgeship did so for another world in the fourth week of the long vacation.

He hastened back to town at once. This was one of the most crucial moments of a crucial career. If appointed, he would be the youngest judge. But his friend ---- ---- was of the same age, the same politics, the same calibre in every way, and more robust. During those weeks of waiting, therefore, he grew perceptibly greyer. His joy knew only the bonds of a careful concealment, when, at the beginning of October, he was appointed a judge of the High Court; for it was not till the following morning that he learned that his friend ---- ---- had also been appointed, the Government having decided to add one to the number of His Majesty’s judges. Which of them had been made the extra judge he neither dared nor cared to inquire; but, setting his teeth, entered forthwith on his duties.

It cannot be pretended that he liked them; to like them one would have to take a profound, and, as it were, amateurish interest in equity and the lives of one’s fellow-men. For this, of course, he had not time, having to devote all his energies to not having his judgments reversed, and watching the judgments of his friend ---- ----. In the first year that fellow was upset in the Court of Appeal three times oftener than himself, and it came as a blow when the House of Lords so restored him that they came out equal. In other respects, of course, the life was something of a rest after that which he had led hitherto, and he watched himself carefully lest he might deteriorate, and be tempted to enjoy himself, steadily resisting every effort on the part of his friends and family to draw him into recreations other than those of dining out, playing golf, and improving his acquaintanceship with that Law of which he would require a perfect knowledge when he became Lord Chancellor. He never could quite make up his mind whether to be glad or sorry that his friend ---- ---- did not confine himself entirely to this curriculum.

At about this epoch he became so extremely moderate in his politics that neither party knew to which of them he belonged. It was a period of uncertainty when no man could say in whose hands power would be in, say, five or ten years’ time, and instinctively he felt that he must look ahead. A moderate man stood perhaps the greater chance of steady and perpetual preferment, and he felt moderate, now that the spur of a necessary political activity was removed. It was a constant source of uneasiness to him that his friend ---- ---- had become so dark a horse that one could find out nothing about his political convictions; people, indeed, went so far as to say that the beggar had none.

He had not been a judge four years when an epidemic of influenza swept off three of His Majesty’s judges, and sent one mad; and almost imperceptibly he found himself sitting with his friend ---- ---- in the Court of Appeal. Having the fellow there under his eye day by day, he was able to study him, and noted with satisfaction that, though more robust, he was certainly of full and choleric temperament, and not too careful of himself. At once he began taking extra care of his own health, giving up wine, tobacco, and any other pleasure that he had left. For three years they sat there side by side, almost mechanically differing in their judgments; and then one morning the Prime Minister went and made his friend ---- ---- Lord Chief Justice, and himself only Master of the Rolls. The shock was very great. After a week’s indisposition, he reset his teeth and decided to struggle on; his friend ---- ---- was not Lord Chancellor yet! Two more years passed, during which he unwillingly undermined his health by dining constantly in the highest social and political circles, and delivering longer and weightier judgments every day. His wife and children, who still had access to him at times, watched him with anxiety.

One morning they found him pacing up and down the dining-room with _The Times_ newspaper in his hand, and every mark of cerebral excitement. His friend ---- ---- had made a speech at a certain banquet, in which he had hit the Government a nasty knock. It was now, of course, only a question of whether they would retain office till the Lord Chancellor, who was very shaky, dropped off. He dropped off in June, and they buried him in Westminster Abbey; his friend ---- ---- and himself being chief mourners. In the same week the Government was defeated. The state of his mind can now not well be imagined. In one week he lost five pounds that could not be spared. He stopped losing weight when the Government decided to hang on till the end of the session. On the 15th of July the Prime Minister sent for him, and offered him the Chancellorship. He accepted it, after first drawing attention to the superior claims of his friend ---- ----. That evening, in the bosom of his family, he sat silent. A little smile played three times on his worn lips, and now and again his thin hand smoothed the parallel folds in his cheeks. His youngest daughter, moving to the bell behind his revered and beloved presence, heard him suddenly mutter, and bending hastily caught the precious words: “Pipped him on the post, by gum!”

He took up his final honours with the utmost ceremony. From that moment it was almost too noticeable how his powers declined. It was as if he had felt that, having won the race, he had nothing left to live for. Indeed, he only waited till his friend ---- ---- had received a slight stroke before, under doctor’s orders, he laid down office. He dragged on for several years, writing his memoirs, but without interest in life; till one day, being drawn in his Bath-chair down the esplanade at Margate, he was brought to a standstill by another chair being drawn in the opposite direction. Letting his eye rest wearily on the occupant, he recognised his friend ---- ----. How the fellow had changed; but not in nature, for he quavered out at once: “Hallo! It’s you! By George! You look jolly bad!” Hearing those words, seeing that paralytic smile, a fire seemed suddenly relit within him. Compressing his lips, he answered nothing, and dug his Bath-chair man in the back. From that moment he regained his interest in life. If he could not outlive his friend ---- ---- it would be odd! And he set himself to do it, thinking of nothing else by day or night, and sending daily to inquire how his friend ---- ---- was. The fellow lived till New Year’s Day, and died at two in the morning. They brought him the news at nine. A smile lighted up his parched and withered face; his old hands, clenched on the feeding-cup, relaxed; he fell back--dead. The shock of his old friend’s death, they said, had been too much for him.

FOR LOVE OF BEASTS

§ 1.

We had left my rooms, and were walking briskly down the street towards the river, when my friend stopped before the window of a small shop and said:

“Gold-fish!”

I[1] looked at him very doubtfully; one had known him so long that one never looked at him in any other way.

“Can you imagine,” he went on, “how any sane person can find pleasure in the sight of those swift things swimming for ever and ever in a bowl about twice the length of their own tails?”

“No,” I said, “I cannot--though, of course, they’re very pretty.”

“That is, no doubt, the reason why they are kept in misery.”

Again I looked at him; there is nothing in the world I distrust so much as irony.

“People don’t think about these things,” I said.

“You are right,” he answered, “they do not. Let me give you some evidence of that.... I was travelling last spring in a far country, and made an expedition to a certain woodland spot. Outside the little forest inn I noticed a ring of people and dogs gathered round a grey animal rather larger than a cat. It had a sharp-nosed head too small for its body, and bright black eyes, and was moving restlessly round and round a pole to which it was tethered by a chain. If a dog came near, it hunched its bushy back and made a rush at him. Except for that it seemed a shy-souled, timid little thing. In fact, by its eyes, and the way it shrank into itself, you could tell it was scared of everything around. Now, there was a small, thin-faced man in a white jacket holding up a tub on end and explaining to the people that this was the little creature’s habitat, and that it wanted to get back underneath; and, sure enough, when he held the tub within its reach, the little animal stood up at once on its hind legs and pawed, evidently trying to get the tub to fall down and cover it. The people all laughed at this; the man laughed too, and the little creature went on pawing. At last the man said: ‘Mind your back-legs, Patsy!’ and let the tub fall. The show was over. But presently another lot came up; the white-coated man lifted the tub, and it began all over again.

“‘What is that animal?’ I asked him.

“‘A ’coon.’

“‘How old?’

“‘Three years--too old to tame.’

“‘Where did you catch it?’

“‘In the forest--lots of ’coons in the forest.’

“‘Do they live in the open, or in holes?’

“‘Up in the trees, sure; they only gits in the hollows when it rains.’

“‘Oh! they live in the open? Then isn’t it queer she should be so fond of her tub?’

“‘Oh,’ he said, ‘she do that to git away from people!’ and he laughed--a genial little man. ‘She not like people and dogs. She too old to tame. She know _me_, though.’

“‘I see,’ I said. ‘You take the tub off her, and show her to the people, and put it back again. Yes, she _would_ know you!’

“‘Yes,’ he repeated, rather proudly, ‘she know me--Patsy, Patsy! Presently, you bet, we catch lot more, and make a cage, and put them in.’

“He was gazing very kindly at the little creature, who on her grey hind legs was anxiously begging for the tub to come down and hide her, and I said: ‘But isn’t it rather a miserable life for this poor little devil?’

“He gave me a very queer look. ‘There’s lots of people,’ he said--and his voice sounded as if I’d hurt him--‘never gits a chance to see a ’coon’--and he dropped the tub over the racoon....

“Well! Can you conceive anything more pitiful than that poor little wild creature of the open, begging and begging for a tub to fall over it and shut out all the _light and air_? Doesn’t it show what misery caged things have to go through?”

“But, surely,” I said, “those other people would feel the same as you. The little white-coated man was only a servant.”

He seemed to run them over in his memory. “Not one!” he answered slowly. “Not a single one! I am sure it never even occurred to them--why should it? They were there to enjoy themselves.”

We walked in silence till I said:

“I can’t help feeling that your little white-coated man was acting good-heartedly according to his lights.”

“Quite! And after all what are the sufferings of a racoon compared with the enlargement of the human mind?”

“Don’t be extravagant! You know he didn’t mean to be cruel.”

“Does a man ever mean to be cruel? He merely makes or keeps his living; but to make or keep his living he will do anything that does not absolutely prick to his heart through the skin of his indolence or his obtuseness.”

“I think,” I said, “that you might have expressed that less cynically, even if it’s true.”

“Nothing that’s true is cynical, and nothing that is cynical is true. Indifference to the suffering of beasts always comes from over-absorption in our own comfort.”

“Absorption, not over-absorption, perhaps.”

“Ha! Let us see that! Very soon after seeing the racoon I was staying at the most celebrated health resort of that country, and, walking in its grounds, I came on an aviary. In the upper cages were canaries, and in the lower cage a splendid hawk. It was as large as our buzzard hawk, brown-backed and winged, light underneath, and with the finest dark-brown eyes of any bird I ever saw. The cage was quite ten feet each way--a noble allowance for the very soul of freedom! The bird had every luxury. There was water, and a large piece of raw meat that hadn’t been touched. Yet it was never still for a moment, flying from perch to perch, and dropping to the ground again and again so lightly, to run, literally run, up to the bars to see if perhaps--they were not there. Its face was as intelligent as any dog’s----”

My friend muttered something I couldn’t catch, and then went on:

“That afternoon I took the drive for which one visits that hotel, and it occurred to me to ask my chauffeur what kind of hawk it was. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I ain’t just too sure what it is they’ve got caged up now; they changes ’em so often.’

“‘Do you mean,’ I said, ‘that they die in captivity?’

“‘Yes,’ he answered, ‘them big birds soon gits moulty and go off.’ Well, when I paid my bill I went up to the semblance of proprietor--it was one of these establishments where the only creature responsible is ‘Co.’--and I said:

“‘I see you keep a hawk out there?’

“‘Yes. Fine bird. Quite an attraction!’

“‘People like to look at it?’

“‘Just so. They’re uncommon--that sort.’

“‘Well,’ I said ‘I call it cruel to keep a hawk shut up like that.’

“‘Cruel? Why? What’s a hawk, anyway--cruel devils enough!’

“‘My dear sir,’ I said, ‘they earn their living just like men, without caring for other creatures’ sufferings. You are not shut up, apparently, for doing that. Good-bye.’”

As he said this, my friend looked at me, and added:

“You think that was a lapse of taste. What would _you_ have said to a man who cloaked the cruelty of his commercial instincts by blaming a hawk for being what Nature had made him?”

There was such feeling in his voice that I hesitated long before answering.

“Well,” I said, at last, “in England, anyway, we only keep such creatures in captivity for scientific purposes. I doubt if you could find a single instance nowadays of its being done just as a commercial attraction.”

He stared at me.

“Yes,” he said, “we do it publicly and scientifically, to enlarge the mind. But let me put to you this question. Which do you consider has the larger mind--the man who has satisfied his idle curiosity by staring at all the caged animals of the earth, or the man who has been brought up to feel that to keep such indomitable creatures as hawks and eagles, wolves and panthers, shut up, to gratify mere curiosity, is a dreadful thing?”

To that singular question I knew not what to answer. At last I said:

“I think you underrate the pleasure they give. We English are so awfully fond of animals!”

§ 2.

We had entered Battersea Park by now, and since my remark about our love of beasts we had not spoken. A wood-pigeon which had been strutting before us just then flew up into a tree and began puffing out its breast. Seeking to break the silence, I said:

“Pigeons are so complacent.”

My friend smiled in his dubious way, and answered:

“Do you know the ‘blue rock?’”

“No.”