Born in Exile Part 17

Peak saw with surprise that the telegram far exceeded familiar dimensions. 'Unspeakably grieved,' it began. 'Cannot possibly with you.

At moment's notice undertaken escort two poor girls Rouen. Not even time look in apologise. Go via Dieppe and leave Victoria few minutes.

Hope be back Thursday. Express sincerest regret Mr. Peak. Lament appearance discourtesy. Will apologise personally. Common humanity constrains go Rouen. Will explain Thursday. No time add another word.

Rush tickets train.'

'There you have the man!' cried Earwaker. 'How do you cla.s.s such a mind as that? Ten to one this is some Quixotic obligation he has laid upon himself, and probably he has gone without even a handbag.'

'Vocally delivered,' said Peak, 'this would represent a certain stage of drunkenness. I suppose it isn't open to such an explanation?'

'Malkin never was intoxicated, save with his own vivacity.'

They discussed the singular being with good-natured mirth, then turned by degrees to other topics.

'I have just come across a pa.s.sage that will delight you,' said Earwaker, taking up a book. 'Perhaps you know it.'

He read from Sir Thomas Brown's _Pscudodoxia Epidemica_. '"Men's names should not only distinguish them. A man should be something that all men are not, and individual in somewhat beside his proper name. Thus, while it exceeds not the bound of reason and modesty, we cannot condemn singularity. _Nos numerus sumus_ is the motto of the mult.i.tude, and for that reason are they fools."'

Peak laughed his approval.

'It astonishes me,' he said, lighting his pipe, 'that you can go on writing for this Sunday rag, when you have just as little sympathy with its aims as I have. Do get into some less offensive connection.'

'What paper would you recommend?' asked the other, with his significant smile.

'Why need you journalise at all?'

'On the whole, I like it. And remember, to admit that the mult.i.tude are fools is not the same thing as to deny the possibility of progress.'

'Do you really believe yourself a democrat, Earwaker?'

'M--m--m! Well, yes, I believe the democratic spirit is stronger in me than any other.'

Peak mused for a minute, then suddenly looked up.

'And what am I?'

'I am glad nothing much depends on my successfully defining you.'

They laughed together.

'I suppose,' said G.o.dwin, 'you can't call a man a democrat who recognises in his heart and soul a true distinction of social cla.s.ses.

Social, mark. The division I instinctively support is by no means intellectual. The well-born fool is very often more sure of my respect than the working man who struggles to a fair measure of education.'

Earwaker would have liked to comment on this with remarks personal to the speaker, but he feared to do so. His silence, however, was eloquent to Peak, who resumed brusquely.

'I am not myself well-born,--though if my parents could have come into wealth early in their lives, perhaps I might reasonably have called myself so. All sorts of arguments can be brought against my prejudice, but the prejudice is ineradicable. I respect hereditary social standing, independently of the individual's qualities. There's nothing of the flunkey in this, or I greatly deceive myself. Birth in a sphere of refinement is desirable and respectable; it saves one, absolutely, from many forms of coa.r.s.eness. The ma.s.ses are not only fools, but very near the brutes. Yes, they can send forth fine individuals--but remain base. I don't deny the possibility of social advance; I only say that at present the lower cla.s.ses are always disagreeable, often repulsive, sometimes hateful.'

'I could apply that to the cla.s.ses above them.'

'Well, I can't. But I am quite ready to admit that there are all sorts of inconsistencies in me. Now, the other day I was reading Burns, and I couldn't describe what exaltation all at once possessed me in the thought that a ploughman had so glorified a servant-girl that together they s.h.i.+ne in the highest heaven, far above all the monarchs of earth.

This came upon me with a rush--a very rare emotion. Wasn't that democratic?'

He inquired dubiously, and Earwaker for a moment had no reply but his familiar 'M--m--m!'

'No, it was not democratic,' the journalist decided at length; 'it was pride of intellect.'

'Think so? Then look here. If it happens that a whining wretch stops me in the street to beg, what do you suppose is my feeling? I am ashamed in the sense of my own prosperity. I can't look him in the face. If I yielded to my natural impulse, I should cry out, "Strike me! spit at me! show you hate me!--anything but that terrible humiliation of yourself before me!" That's how I feel. The abas.e.m.e.nt of which _he_ isn't sensible affects _me_ on his behalf. I give money with what delicacy I can. If I am obliged to refuse, I mutter apologies and hurry away with burning cheeks. What does that mean?'

Earwaker regarded him curiously.

'That is mere fineness of humanity.'

'Perhaps moral weakness?'

'I don't care for the scalpel of the pessimist. Let us give it the better name.'

Peak had never been so communicative. His progress in composition these last evenings seemed to have raised his spirits and spurred the activity of his mind. With a look of pleasure he pursued his self-a.n.a.lysis.

'Special antipathies--sometimes explicable enough--influence me very widely. Now, I by no means hate all orders of uneducated people. A hedger, a fisherman, a country mason,--people of that kind I rather like to talk with. I could live a good deal with them. But the London vulgar I abominate, root and branch. The mere sound of their voices nauseates me; their vilely grotesque accent and p.r.o.nunciation--bah! I could write a paper to show that they are essentially the basest of English mortals. Unhappily, I know so much about them. If I saw the probability of my dying in a London lodging-house, I would go out into the sweet-scented fields and there kill myself.'

Earwaker understood much by this avowal, and wondered whether his friend desired him so to do.

'Well, I can't say that I have any affection for the race,' he replied.

'I certainly believe that, socially and politically, there is less hope of them than of the lower orders in any other part of England.'

'They are d.a.m.ned by the beastly conditions of their life!' cried G.o.dwin, excitedly. 'I don't mean only the slum-denizens. All, all Hammersmith as much as St. George's-in-the-East. I must write about this; I must indeed.'

'Do by all means. Nothing would benefit you more than to get your soul into print.'

Peak delayed a little, then:

'Well, I am doing something at last.'

And he gave an account of his projected essay. By this time his hands trembled with nervous agitation, and occasionally a dryness of the palate half choked his voice.

'This may do very well,' opined Earwaker. 'I suppose you will try _The Critical_?'

'Yes. But have I any chance? Can a perfectly unknown man hope to get in?'

They debated this aspect of the matter. Seeing Peak had laid down his pipe, the journalist offered him tobacco.

'Thanks; I can't smoke just yet. It's my misfortune that I can't talk earnestly without throwing my body into disorder.'

'How stolid I am in comparison!' said Earwaker.

'That book of M'Naughten's,' resumed the other, going back to his subject. 'I suppose the clergy accept it?'

'Largely, I believe.'

Peak mused.