 65 As he lay on his bed, day after day, slowly recovering, he woke up to the fact which most men arrive at sooner or later. I mean that very few care too straws about truth, or have any confidence that it is righter and better to believe what is true than what is untrue, even though belief in the untruth may seem at first sight most expedient. Yet it is only these few who can be said to believe anything at all. The rest are simply unbelievers in Perhaps, after all, these last are right. They have numbers and prosperity on their side. They have all which the rationalist appeals to as his tests of right and wrong. Right, according to him, is what seems right to the majority of sensible, well-to-do people. We know of no safer criterion than this, but what does the decision thus arrived at involve? Simply this, that a conspiracy of silence about things whose truth would be immediately apparent to disinterested inquirers is not only tolerable, but righteous on the part of those who profess to be, and take money for, being par excellence guardians and teachers of truth. Ernest saw no logical escape from this conclusion. He saw that belief on the part of the early Christians in the miraculous nature of Christ's resurrection was explicable without any supposition of miracle. The explanation lay under the eyes of anyone who chose to take a moderate degree of trouble. It had been put before the world again and again and there had been no serious attempt to refute it. How was it that Dean Alford, for example, who made the New Testament his specialty, could not or would not see what was so obvious to Ernest himself? Could it be for any other reason than he did not want to see it? And if so, was he not a traitor to the cause of truth? Yes, but was he not also a respectable and successful man, and were not the vast majority of respectable and successful men, such, for all the bishops and archbishops? Doing exactly as Dean Alford did. And did not this make their action right? No matter though it had been cannibalism or infanticide, or even habitual untruthfulness of mind. Monstrous, odious, falsehood, Ernest's feeble pulse quickened and his pale face flushed as this hateful view of life presented itself to him in all its logical consistency. It was not the fact of most men being liars that shocked him. That was all right enough. But even the momentary doubt whether the few who were not liars ought not to become liars too. There was no hope left if this were so. If this were so, let him die the sooner the better. Lord, he exclaimed inwardly, I don't believe one word of it. Strengthen thou and confirm my disbelief. It seemed to him that he could never henceforth see a bishop going to consecration without saying to himself, there but for the grace of God went Ernest Pontifex. It was no doing of his. He could not boast. If he had lived in the time of Christ he might himself have been an early Christian, or even an apostle for ought he knew, on the whole he felt that he had much to be thankful for. The conclusion then that it might be better to believe error than truth should be ordered out of court at once, no matter by how clear a logic it had been arrived at. But what was the alternative? It was this, that our criterion of truth, i.e. that truth is what commends itself to the great majority of sensible and successful people, is not infallible. The rule is sound and covers by far the greater number of cases, but it has its exceptions. He asked himself, what were they? Ah, that was a difficult matter. There were so many and the rules which govern them were sometimes so subtle, that mistakes always had and always would be made. It was just this that made it impossible to reduce life to an exact science. There was a rough and ready rule of thumb test of truth, and a number of rules as regards exceptions which could be mastered without much trouble. Yet there was a residue of cases in which decision was difficult, so difficult, that a man had better follow his instinct than attempt to decide them by any process of reasoning. Instinct, then, is the ultimate court of appeal. And what is instinct? It is a mode of faith in the evidence of things not actually seen. And so my hero returned almost to the point from which he had originally started, namely that the just shall live by faith. And this is what the just, that is to say reasonable people, do as regards those daily affairs of life which most concern them. They settle smaller matters by the exercise of their own deliberation. More important ones such as the cure of their own bodies and the bodies of those whom they love, the investment of their money, the extrication of their affairs from any serious mess. These things they generally entrust to others of whose capacity they know little save from general report. They act therefore on the strength of faith, not of knowledge. So the English nation entrusts the welfare of its fleet and naval defenses to a first lord of the admiralty, who, not being a sailor, can know nothing about these matters except by acts of faith. There can be no doubt about faith and not reason being the ultimate ratio. Even Euclid, who has laid himself as little open to the charge of credulity as any writer who ever lived, cannot get beyond this. He has no demonstratable first premise. He requires postulates and axioms which transcend demonstration and without which he can do nothing. His superstructure indeed is demonstration but his ground is faith. Nor again can he get further than telling a man he is a fool if he persists in differing from him. He says which is absurd and declines to discuss the matter further. Faith and authority therefore prove to be as necessary for him as for anyone else. By faith in what, then, asked Ernest of himself, shall a man endeavour to live at this present time? He answered to himself, at any rate, not by faith in the supernatural element of the Christian religion. And how best should he persuade his fellow countrymen to leave off believing in this supernatural element? Looking at the matter from a practical point of view, he thought the Archbishop of Canterbury afforded the most promising key to the situation. It lay between him and the Pope. The Pope was perhaps best in theory but in practice the Archbishop of Canterbury would do sufficiently well. If he could only manage to sprinkle a pinch of salt as it were on the Archbishop's tail, he might convert the whole church of England to free thought by a coup-domain. There must be an amount of cogency which even an Archbishop, an Archbishop whose perceptions had never been quickened by imprisonment for assault, would not be able to withstand. When brought face to face with the facts as he, Ernest, could arrange them, his grace would have no resource but to admit them. Being an honorable man he would at once resign his Archbishopric and Christianity would become extinct in England within a few months' time. This at any rate was how things ought to be. But all the time Ernest had no confidence in the Archbishop's not hopping off just as the pinch was about to fall on him, and this seems so unfair that his blood boiled at the thought of it. If this was to be so, he must try if he could not fix him by the judicious use of bird-lime or a snare or throw the salt on his tail from an ambuscade. To do him justice it was not himself that he greatly cared about. He knew he had been humbugged and he knew also that the greater part of the ills which had afflicted him were due indirectly in chief measure to the influence of Christian teaching. Still, if the mischief had ended with himself he should have thought little about it. But there was his sister and his brother Joey and the hundreds and thousands of young people throughout England whose lives were being blighted through the lies told them by people whose business it was to know better, but who scamped their work and shirked difficulties instead of facing them. It was this which made him think it worthwhile to be angry and to consider whether he could not at least do something toward saving others from such years of waste and misery as he had had to pass himself. If there was no truth in the miraculous accounts of Christ's death and resurrection, the whole of the religion founded upon the historic truth of those events tumbled to the ground. My, he exclaimed, with all the arrogance of youth. They put a gypsy or fortune teller into prison for getting money out of silly people who think they have supernatural power. Why should they not put a clergyman in prison for pretending that he could absolve sins or turn bread and wine into the flesh and blood of one who died two thousand years ago? What, he asked himself, could be more pure, hanky-panky than that a bishop should lay his hands upon a young man and pretend to convey to him the spiritual power to work this miracle? It was all very well to talk about toleration. Toleration, like everything else, had its limits. Besides, if it was to include the bishop, let it include the fortune teller too. He would explain all this to the archbishop of Canterbury by and by, but as he could not get hold of him just now, it occurred to him that he might experimentalize advantageously upon the vile soul of the prison chaplain. It was only those who took the first and most obvious step in their power who ever did great things in the end. So one day, when Mr. Hughes, for this was the chaplain's name, was talking with him, Ernest introduced the question of Christian evidences, and tried to raise a discussion upon them. Mr. Hughes had been very kind to him, but he was more than twice my hero's age, and had long taken the measure of such objections as Ernest tried to put before him. I do not suppose he believed in the actual objective truth of the stories about Christ's resurrection and ascension any more than Ernest did, but he knew that this was a small matter, and that the real issue lay much deeper than this. Mr. Hughes was a man who had been in authority for many years, and he brushed Ernest on one side as if he had been a fly. He did it so well that my hero never ventured to tackle him again, and confined his conversation with him for the future to such matters as what he had better do when he got out of prison. And here Mr. Hughes was ever ready to listen to him with sympathy and kindness. Ernest was now so far convalescent as to be able to sit up for the greater part of the day. He had been three months in prison, and though not strong enough to leave the infirmary, was beyond all fear of a relapse. He was talking one day with Mr. Hughes about his future, and again expressed his intention of immigrating to Australia or New Zealand with the money he should recover from prior. Whenever he spoke of this, he noticed that Mr. Hughes looked grave and was silent. He had thought that perhaps the chaplain wanted him to return to his profession, and disapproved of his evident anxiety to turn to something else. Now, however, he asked Mr. Hughes point blank why it was that he disapproved of his idea of emigrating. Mr. Hughes endeavored to evade him, but Ernest was not to be put off. There was something in the chaplain's manner which suggested that he knew more than Ernest did, but did not like to say it. This alarmed him so much that he begged him not to keep him in suspense. After a little hesitation, Mr. Hughes, thinking him now strong enough to stand it, broke the news as gently as he could that the whole of Ernest's money had disappeared. The day after my return from Battersby I called on my solicitor and was told that he had written to Prior, requiring him to refund the monies for which he had given his IOUs. Prior replied that he had given orders to his broker to close his operations, which unfortunately had resulted so far in heavy losses, and that the balance should be paid to my solicitor on the following settling day, then about a week distant. When the time came, we heard nothing from Prior, and going to his lodgings, found that he had left with his few effects on that very day after he had heard from us, and had not been seen since. I had heard from Ernest the name of the broker who had been employed, and when at once to see him. He told me Prior had closed all his accounts for cash on the day that Ernest had been sentenced, and had received two thousand three hundred and fifteen pounds, which was all that remained of Ernest's original five thousand pounds. With this he had decamped, nor had we enough clue as to his whereabouts to be able to take any steps to recover the money. There was in fact nothing to be done but to consider the whole as lost. I may say here that neither I nor Ernest ever heard of Prior again, nor have any idea what became of him. This placed me in a difficult position. I knew, of course, that in a few years Ernest would have many times over as much money as he had lost, but I knew also that he did not know this, and feared that the supposed loss of all that he had in the world might be more than he could stand when coupled with his other misfortunes. The prison authorities had found Theobald's address from a letter in Ernest's pocket, and had communicated with him more than once concerning his son's illness. But Theobald had not written to me, and I supposed my godson to be in good health. He would be just twenty-four years old when he left prison, and if I followed out his aunt's instructions, would have to battle with fortune for another four years as well as he could. The question before me was whether it was right to let him run so much risk, or whether I should not to some extent transgress my instructions, which there was nothing to prevent my doing if I thought Miss Pontifex would have wished it, and let him have the same sum that he would have recovered from prior. If my godson had been an older man, and more fixed in any definite groove, this is what I should have done. He was still very young, and more than commonly unformed for his age. If, again, I had known of his illness, I should not have dared to lay any heavier burden on his back than he had to bear already. But not being uneasy about his health, I thought a few years of roughing it and of experience concerning the importance of not playing tricks with money would do him no harm. So I decided to keep a sharp eye upon him as soon as he came out of prison, and to let him splash about in deep water as best he could, till I saw whether he was able to swim, or was about to sink. In the first case I would let him go on swimming till he was nearly eight and twenty, when I would prepare him gradually for the good fortune that awaited him. In the second I would hurry up to the rescue. So I wrote to say that prior had absconded, and that he could have one hundred pounds from his father when he came out of prison. I then waited to see what effect these tidings would have, not expecting to receive an answer for three months, for I had been told on inquiry that no letter would be received by a prisoner till after he had been three months in jail. I also wrote to Theobald and told him of prior's disappearance. As a matter of fact when my letter arrived, the governor of the jail read it, and in a case of such importance would have relaxed the rules if Ernest State had allowed it. His illness prevented this, and the governor left it to the chaplain and the doctor to break the news to him when they thought him strong enough to bear it. Which was now the case. In the meantime I received a formal official document saying that my letter had been received and would be communicated to the prisoner in due course. I believe it was simply through a mistake on the part of a clerk that I was not informed of Ernest's illness, but I heard nothing of it till I saw him by his own desire a few days after the chaplain had broken to him the substance of what I had written. Ernest was terribly shocked when he heard of the loss of his money, but his ignorance of the world prevented him from seeing the full extent of the mischief. He had never been in serious want of money yet and did not know what it meant. In reality money losses are the hardest to bear by any of those who are old enough to comprehend them. A man can stand being told that he must submit to a severe surgical operation or that he has some disease which will shortly kill him or that he will be a cripple or blind for the rest of his life. Dreadful as such tidings must be, we do not find that they unnerve the greater number of mankind. Most men indeed go coolly enough even to be hanged, but the strongest quell before financial ruin and the better men they are, the more complete as a general rule is their prostration. Suicide is a common consequence of money losses. It is rarely sought as a means of escape from bodily suffering. If we feel that we have a competence at our backs so that we can die warm and quietly in our beds with no need to worry about expense, we live our lives out to the dregs no matter how excruciating our torments. Job probably felt the loss of his flocks and herds more than that of his wife and family, for he could enjoy his flocks and herds without his family, but not his family, not for long, if he had lost all his money. Loss of money indeed is not only the worst pain in itself, but it is the parent of all others. Let a man have been brought up to a moderate competence and have no specialty. Then let his money be suddenly taken from him and how long is his health likely to survive the change in all his little ways which loss of money will entail? How long again is the esteem and sympathy of friends likely to survive ruin? People may be very sorry for us, but their attitude towards us hitherto has been based upon the supposition that we were situated thus or thus in money matters. When this breaks down, there must be a restatement of the social problems so far as we are concerned. We have been obtaining esteem under false pretenses. Granted, then, that the three most serious losses which a man can suffer are those affecting money, health, and reputation. Loss of money is far the worst. Then comes ill health and then loss of reputation. Loss of reputation is a bad third, for if a man keeps health and money unimpaired, it will generally be found that his loss of reputation is due to breaches of parvenu conventions only and not to violations of those older, better-established cannons whose authority is unquestionable. In this case a man may grow a new reputation as easily as a lobster grows a new claw, or, if he have health and money, may thrive in great peace of mind without any reputation at all. The only chance for a man who has lost his money is that he shall still be young enough to stand uprooting and transplanting without more than temporary derangement. And this, I believed, my godson still to be. By the prison rules he might receive and send a letter after he had been in jail three months and might also receive one visit from a friend. When he received my letter he at once asked me to come and see him, which of course I did. I found him very much changed and still so feeble that the exertion of coming from the infirmary to the cell in which I was allowed to see him and the agitation of seeing me were too much for him. At first he quite broke down and I was so pained at the state in which I found him that I was on the point of breaking my instructions then and there. I contented myself, however, for the time with reassuring him that I would help him as soon as he came out of prison and that when he had made up his mind about what he would do he was to come to me for what money might be necessary if he could not get it from his father. To make it easier for him I told him that his aunt on her deathbed had desired me to do something of this sort should an emergency arise so that he would only be taking what his aunt had left him. Then said he, I will not take the hundred pounds from my father and I will never see him or my mother again. I said, take the hundred pounds, Ernest, and as much more as you could get and then do not see them again if you do not like. This Ernest would not do. If he took money from them he could not cut them and he wanted to cut them. I thought my godson would get on a great deal better if he would only have the firmness to do as he proposed as regards breaking completely with his father and mother and said so. Then don't you like them? said he with a look of surprise. Like them? said I. I think they're horrid. Oh, that's the kindest thing of all you have done for me, he exclaimed. I thought all middle-aged people liked my father and mother. He had been about to call me old but I was only fifty-seven and was not going to have this so I made a face when I saw him hesitating which drove him into middle-aged. If you like it, I said I will say all your family are horrid except yourself and your Aunt Alethea. The greater part of every family is always odious. If there are one or two good ones in a very large family it is as much as can be expected. Thank you, he replied gratefully. I think I can now stand almost anything. I will come and see you as soon as I come out of jail. Goodbye. For the water had told us that the time allowed for our interview was at an end. End of Chapter 66 Recording by Rhonda Federman Chapter 67 If he had been going abroad he could have kept up relations with them for they would have been too far off to interfere with him. He knew his father and mother would object to being cut. They would wish to appear kind and forgiving. They would also dislike having no further power to plague him. But he knew also very well that so long as he and they ran and harnessed together they would be always pulling one way and he another. He wanted to drop the gentleman and go down into the ranks beginning on the lowest rung of the ladder where no one would know of his disgrace or minded if he did know. His father and mother on the other hand would wish him to clutch on to the fag end of gentility at a starvation salary and with no prospect of advancement. Ernest had seen enough of Ash Pit Place to know that a tailor who he did not drink and attend to his business could earn more money than a clerk or a curate while much less expense by way of show was required of him. The tailor also had more liberty and a better chance of rising. Ernest resolved at once as he had fallen so far to fall still lower. Promptly, gracefully and with the idea of rising again rather than cling to the skirts of respectability which would permit him to exist on sufferance only and make him pay an utterly extortionate price for an article which he could do better without. He had arrived at this result more quickly than he might otherwise have done through remembering something he had once heard his aunts say about kissing the soil. This had impressed him and stuck by him perhaps by reason of its brevity. When later on he came to know the story of Hercules and Anteus he found it one of the very few ancient fables which had a hold over him his chiefest debt to classical literature. His aunt had wanted him to learn carpentering as a means of kissing the soil should his Hercules ever throw him. It was too late for this now or he thought it was but the mode of carrying out his aunt's idea was a detail. There were a hundred ways of kissing the soil besides becoming a carpenter. He had told me this during our interview and I had encouraged him to the utmost of my power. He showed so much more good sense than I had given him credit for that I became comparatively easy about him and determined to let him play his own game being always however ready to hand in case things went too far wrong. It was not simply because he disliked his father and mother that he wanted to have no more to do with them. If it had been only this he would have put up with them but a warning voice within told him distinctly enough that if he was clean cut away from them he might still have a chance at success whereas if they had anything whatever to do with him or even knew where he was they would hamper him and in the end ruin him. Absolute independence he believed to be his only chance of very life itself. Over and above this if this were not enough Ernest had a faith in his own destiny such as most young men I suppose feel but the grounds of which were not apparent to anyone but himself. Rightly or wrongly in a quiet way he believed he possessed a strength which if he were only free to use it in his own way might do great things someday. He did not know when nor where nor how his opportunity was to come but he never doubted that it would come in spite of all that had happened and above all else he cherished the hope that he might know how to seize it if it came for whatever it was as it would be something that no one else could do so well as he could. People said there were no dragons and giants for adventurous men to fight with nowadays it was beginning to dawn upon him that there were just as many now as at any past time. Monstra says such a faith may seem in one who was qualifying himself for a high mission by a term of imprisonment he could no more help it than he could help breathing it was innate in him it was even more with a view to this than for other reasons that he wished to sever the connection between himself and his parents for he knew that if ever the day came in which it should appear that before him too there was a race set in which it might be an honor to have run among the foremost his father and mother would be the first to let him and hinder him in running it they had been the first to say that he ought to run such a race they would also be the first to trip him up if he took them at their word and then afterwards up braid him for not having won achievement of any kind would be impossible for him unless he was free from those who would be forever dragging him back into the conventional the conventional had been tried already and had been found wanting he had an opportunity now if he chose to take it of escaping once for all from those who at once tormented him and would hold him earthward should a chance of soaring open before him he should never have had it but for his imprisonment but for this the force of habit and routine would have been too strong for him he should hardly have had it if he had not lost all his money the gap would not have been so wide but that he might have been inclined to throw a plank across it he rejoiced now therefore over his loss of money as well as over his imprisonment which had made it more easy for him to follow his truest and most lasting interests at times he wavered when he thought of how his mother who in her way as he thought had loved him would weep and think sadly over him or how perhaps she might even fall ill and die and how the blame would rest with him at these times his resolution was near breaking but when he found I applauded his design the voice within which bade him see his father's and mother's faces no more grew louder and more persistent if he could not cut himself adrift from those who he knew would hamper him when so small an effort was wanted his dream of a destiny was idle what was the prospect of a hundred pounds from his father in comparison with jeopardy to this he still felt deeply the pain his disgrace had inflicted upon his father and mother but he was getting stronger and reflected that as he had run his chance with them for parents so they must run theirs with him for a son he had nearly settled down to this conclusion when he received a letter from his father which made his decision final if the prison rules had been interpreted strictly he would not have been allowed to have this letter for another three months as he had already heard from me but the governor took a lenient view and considered the letter from me to be a business communication hardly coming under the category of a letter from friends Theobald's letter therefore was given to his son it ran as follows my dear Ernest my object in writing is not to abrade you with the disgrace and shame you have inflicted upon your mother and myself but to say nothing of your brother Joey and your sister suffer of course we must but we know to whom to look in our affliction and are filled with anxiety rather on your behalf than our own your mother is wonderful she is pretty well in health and desires me to send you her love have you considered your prospects on leaving prison that you have lost the legacy which your grandfather left you together with all the interest that accrued during your minority in the course of speculation upon the stock exchange if you have indeed been guilty of such appalling folly it is difficult to see what you can turn your hand to and I suppose you will try to find a clerkship in an office your salary will doubtless be low at first but you have made your bed and must not complain if you have to lie upon it if you take pains to please your employers they will not be backward in promoting you when I first heard from Mr. Overton of the unspeakable calamity which had befallen your mother and myself I had resolved to not see you again I am unwilling however to have recourse to a measure which would deprive you of your last connecting link with respectable people your mother and I will see you as soon as you come out of prison not at Battersby we do not wish you to come down here at present but somewhere else probably in London you need not shrink from seeing us we will not reproach you we will then decide about your future at present our impression is that you will find a fairer start probably in Australia or New Zealand than here and I am prepared to find you 75 pounds or even if necessary so far as 100 pounds to pay your passage money once in the colony you must be dependent upon your own exertions may heaven prosper them and you and restore you to us years hence a respectable member of society your affectionate father T. Pontifex then there was a post script in Christina's writing my darling darling boy pray with me daily and hourly that we may yet again become a happy united God fearing family as we were before this horrible pain fell upon us your sorrowing but ever loving mother C. P. this letter did not produce the effect on Ernest that it would have done before his imprisonment began his father and mother thought they could take him up as they had left him off they forgot the rapidity with which development follows misfortune if the sufferer is young and of a sound temperament Ernest made no reply to his father's letter but his desire for a total break developed into something like a passion there are orphanages he exclaimed to himself for children who have lost their parents oh why why why are there no harbors of refuge for grown men who have not yet lost them and he brooded over the bliss of Melchizedek who had been born an orphan without father without mother and without descent Chapter 68 when I think over all that Ernest told me about his prison meditations and the conclusions he was drawn to it occurs to me that in reality he was wanting to do the very last thing which it would have entered into his head to think of wanting I mean that he was trying to give up father and mother for Christ's sake he would have said he was giving them up because he thought they hindered him in the pursuit of his truest and most lasting happiness granted but what is this if it is not Christ what is Christ if he is not this he who takes the highest and most self-respecting view of his own welfare which it is in his power to conceive and adheres to it in spite of conventionality is a Christian whether he knows it and calls himself one or whether he does not arose is not the less arose because it does not know its own name what if circumstance had made his duty more easy for him than it would be to most men that was his luck as much as it is other people's luck to have other duties made easy for them by accident of birth surely if people are born rich or handsome they have a right to their good fortune some I know will say that one man has no right to be born with a better constitution than another others again will say that luck is the only righteous object of human veneration both I dare say can make out a very good case but whichever may be right surely Ernest had as much right to the good luck of finding a duty made easier as he had had to the bad fortune of falling into the scrape which had got him into prison a man is not to be sneered at for having a trump card in his hand he is only to be sneered at if he plays his trump card badly indeed I question whether it is ever much harder for anyone to give up father and mother for Christ's sake than it was for Ernest the relations between the parties will have almost always been severely strained before it comes to this I doubt whether anyone was ever yet required to give up those to whom he was tenderly attached for a mere matter of conscience he will have ceased to be tenderly attached to them long before he is called upon to break with them for differences of opinion concerning any manner of vital importance spring from differences of constitution and these will already have led to so much other disagreement that the giving up when it comes is like giving up an aching but very loose and hollow tooth it is the loss of those whom we are not required to give up for Christ's sake which is really painful to us then there is a wrench in Ernest happily no matter how light the task that is demanded from us it is enough if we do it we reap our reward much as though it were a herculean labor but to return the conclusion Ernest came to was that he would be a tailor he talked the matter over with the chaplain who told him there was no reason why he should not be able to earn his six or seven shillings a day by the time he came out of prison if he chose to learn the trade during the remainder of his term not quite three months the doctor said he was strong enough for this and that it was about the only thing he was yet fit for so he left the infirmary sooner than he would otherwise have done and entered the tailor's shop overjoyed at the thoughts of seeing his way again and confident of rising some day if he could get a firm foothold to start from everyone whom he had to do with saw that he did not belong to what are called the criminal classes and finding him eager to learn and to save trouble always treated him kindly and almost respectfully he did not find the work irksome it was far more pleasant than making Latin and Greek verses at Ruffborough he felt that he would rather be here in prison than at Ruffborough again or even at Cambridge itself the only trouble he was ever in danger of getting into was through exchanging words or looks with the more decent looking of his fellow prisoners this was forbidden but he never missed a chance of breaking the rules in this respect any man of his ability who was at the same time anxious to learn would of course make rapid progress and before he left prison the warder said he was as good a tailor with his three months apprenticeship as many a man was with twelve Ernest had never before been so much praised by any of his teachers each day as he grew stronger in health and more accustomed to his surroundings he saw some fresh advantage in his position an advantage which he had not aimed at but which had come almost in spite of himself he marveled at his own good fortune which had ordered things so greatly better for him than he could have ordered them for himself his having lived six months in Ash Pit Place was a case in point things were possible to him which to others like him would be impossible if such a man as townally were told he must live henceforth in a house like those in Ash Pit Place Ernest could not have stood it himself if he had gone to live there of compulsion through want of money it was only because he had felt himself able to run away at any minute that he had not wanted to do so now however that he had become familiar with life in Ash Pit Place he no longer minded it and could live gladly in lower parts of London than that so long as he could pay his way it is from no prudence or forethought that he had served this apprenticeship to life among the poor he had been trying in a feeble way to be thorough in his work he had not been thorough the whole thing had been a fiasco but he had made a little puny effort in the direction of being genuine and behold in his hour of need it had been returned to him with a reward far richer than he deserved he could not have faced becoming one of the very poor unless he had had such a bridge to conduct him over to them as he had found unwittingly in Ash Pit Place true there had been drawbacks in this particular house he had chosen but he need not live in a house where there was a Mr. Holt and he should no longer be tied to the profession which he so much hated if there were neither screams nor scripture readings he could be happy in a garret at three shillings a week such as Miss Maitland lived in as he thought further he remembered that all things work together for good to them that love God was it possible he asked himself that he too, however imperfectly had been trying to love him he dared not answer yes but he would try hard that it should be so then there came into his mind that noble heir of Handel's great God who yet but darkly known and he felt it as he had never felt it before he had lost his faith in Christianity but his faith in something he knew not what but that there was something as yet but darkly known which made right right and wrong wrong his faith in this grew stronger and stronger daily again there crossed his mind thoughts of the power which he felt to be in him and of how and where it was to find its vent the same instinct which had led him to live among the poor because it was the nearest thing to him which he could lay hold of with any clearness came to his assistance here too he thought of the Australian gold and how those who lived among it had never seen it though it abounded all around them there is gold everywhere he exclaimed inwardly to those who look for it might not his opportunity be close upon him if he looked carefully enough at his immediate surroundings what was his position he had lost all could he not turn his having lost all into an opportunity might he not if he sought the strength of the Lord find like St. Paul that it was perfected in weakness he had nothing more to lose money, friends, character all were gone for a very long time if not forever but there was something else also that had taken its flight along with these I mean the fear of that which man could do unto him Cantabile Vakis who could hurt him more than he had been hurt already let him but be able to earn his bread and he knew of nothing which he dared not venture if it would make the world a happier place for those who were young and lovable herein he found so much comfort that he almost wished he had lost his reputation even more completely for he saw that it was like a man's life which may be found of them that lose it and lost of them that would find it he should not have had the courage to give up all for Christ's sake but now Christ had mercifully taken all and lo it seemed as though all were found as the days went slowly by he came to see that Christianity and the denial of Christianity after all met as much as any other extremes do it was a fight about names not about things practically the church of Rome the church of England and the free thinker have the same ideal standard and meet in the gentleman for he is the most perfect saint who is the most perfect gentleman then he saw also that it matters little what profession whether of religion or irreligion a man may make provided only he follows it out with charitable inconsistency and without insisting on it to the bitter end it is in the uncompromisingness with which dogma is held and not in the dogma or want of dogma that the danger lies this was the crowning point of the edifice when he got here he no longer wished to molest even the pope the archbishop of Canterbury might have hopped about all round him and even picked crumbs out of his hand without running risk of getting a sly sprinkle of salt that wary prelate himself might perhaps have been of a different opinion but the robins and thrushes that hop about our lawns are not more needlessly distrustful of the hand that throws them out crumbs of bread in winter than the archbishop would have been of my hero perhaps he was helped to arrive at the foregoing conclusion by an event which almost thrust inconsistency upon him a few days after he left the infirmary the chaplain came to his cell and told him that the prisoner who played the organ in chapel had just finished his sentence and was leaving the prison he therefore offered the post to Ernest who he already knew played the organ Ernest was at first in doubt whether it would be right for him to assist at religious services more than he was actually compelled to do but the pleasure of playing the organ and the privileges which the post involved made him see excellent reasons for not riding consistency to death having then once introduced an element of inconsistency into his system he was far too consistent to be inconsistent consistently and he lapsed air along into an amiable indifferentism which to outward appearance differed but little from the indifferentism from which Mr. Hawke had aroused him by becoming organist he was saved from the treadmill for which the doctor had said he was unfit as yet but which he would probably have been put to in due course as soon as he was stronger he might have escaped the tailor's shop all together and done only the comparatively light work of attending to the chaplain's rooms if he had liked but he wanted to learn as much tailoring as he could and did not therefore take advantage of this offer he was allowed however two hours a day in the afternoon for practice from that moment his prison life ceased to be monotonous and the remaining two months of his sentence slipped by almost as rapidly as they would have done if he had been free what with music, books, learning his trade and conversation with the chaplain who was just the kindly sensible person that Ernest wanted in order to steady him a little the days went by so pleasantly that when the time came for him to leave prison he did so or thought he did so not without regret End of Chapter 68 Recording by Rhonda Fetterman Chapter 69 of The Way of All Flesh This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Rhonda Fetterman The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler Chapter 69 In coming to the conclusion that he would sever the connection between himself and his family once for all Ernest had reckoned without his family Theobald wanted to be rid of his son it is true insofar as he wished him to be no nearer at any rate than the antipodes but he had no idea of entirely breaking with him he knew his son well enough to have a pretty shrewd idea that this was what Ernest would wish himself and perhaps as much for this reason as for any other he was determined to keep up the connection provided it did not involve Ernest coming to Battersby nor any recurring outlay when the time approached for him to leave prison his father and mother consulted as to what course they should adopt we must never leave him to himself said Theobald impressively we can neither of us wish that oh no no dearest Theobald exclaimed Christina whoever else deserts him and however distant he may be from us he must still feel that he has parents whose hearts beat with affection for him no matter how cruelly he has pained them he has been his own worst enemy said Theobald he has never loved us as we deserved and now he will be withheld by false shame from wishing to see us he will avoid us if he can then we must go to him ourselves said Christina whether he likes it or not we must be at his side to support him as he enters again upon the world if we do not want him to give us the slip we must catch him as he leaves prison we will we will our faces shall be the first to gladden his eyes as he comes out and our voices the first to exhort him to return to the paths of virtue I think said Theobald if he sees us in the street he will turn round and run away from us he is intensely selfish then we must get leave to go inside the prison and see him before he gets outside after a good deal of discussion this was the plan they decided on adopting and having so decided Theobald wrote to the governor of the jail asking whether he could be admitted inside the jail to receive Ernest when his sentence had expired he received an answer in the affirmative and the pair left Battersby the day before Ernest was to come out of prison Ernest had not reckoned on this and was rather surprised on being told a few minutes before nine that he was to go into the receiving room before he left the prison as there were visitors waiting to see him his heart fell for he guessed who they were but he screwed up his courage and hastened to the receiving room there sure enough standing at the end of the table nearest the door were the two people whom he regarded as the most dangerous enemies he had in all the world his father and mother he could not fly but he knew that if he wavered he was lost his mother was crying but she sprang forward to meet him and clasped him in her arms oh my boy, my boy she sobbed and she could say no more Ernest was as white as a sheet his heart beat so that he could hardly breathe he let his mother embrace him and then with drawing himself stood silently before her with the tears falling from his eyes at first he could not speak for a minute or so the silence on all sides was complete then gathering strength he said in a low voice mother it was the first time he had called her anything but mama we must part on this turning to the water he said I believe I am free to leave the prison if I wish to do so you cannot compel me to remain here longer please take me to the gates Theobald stepped forward Ernest, you must not shall not leave us in this way do not speak to me said Ernest his eyes flashing with a fire that was unwanted in them another water then came up and took Theobald aside while the first conducted Ernest to the gates tell them said Ernest from me that they must think of me as one dead for I am dead to them say that my greatest pain is the thought of the disgrace I have inflicted upon them and that above all things else I will study to avoid painting them hereafter but say also that if they write to me I will return their letters unopened and that if they come and see me I will protect myself in whatever way I can by this time he was at the prison gate and in another moment was at liberty after he had got a few steps out he turned his face to the prison wall leaned against it for support and wept as though his heart would break giving up father and mother for Christ's sake was not such an easy matter after all if a man has been possessed by devils for long enough they will rend him as they leave him however imperatively they may have been cast out Ernest did not stay long where he was for he feared each moment that his father and mother would come out he pulled himself together and turned into the labyrinth of small streets which opened out in front of him he had crossed his Rubicon not perhaps very heroically or dramatically but then it is only in dramas that people act dramatically at any rate by hook or by crook he had scrambled over and was out upon the other side already he thought of much which he would gladly have said and blamed his want of presence of mind but after all it mattered very little inclined though he was to make very great allowances for his father and mother he was indignant at their having thrust themselves upon him without warning at a moment when the excitement of leaving prison was already as much as he was fit for it was a mean advantage to have taken over him but he was glad they had taken it for it made him realize more fully than ever that his one chance lay in separating himself completely from them the morning was gray and the first signs of winter fog were beginning to show themselves for it was now the 30th of September Ernest wore the clothes in which he had entered prison and was therefore dressed as a clergyman no one who looked at him would have seen any difference between his present appearance and his appearance six months previously indeed as he walked slowly through the dingy crowded lane called Air Street Hill which he well knew for he had clerical friends in that neighborhood the months he had passed in prison seemed to drop out of his life and so powerfully did association carry him away that finding himself in his old dress and in his old surroundings he felt dragged back into his old self as though his six months in prison life had been a dream from which he was now waking to take things up as he had left them this was the effect of unchanged surroundings upon the unchanged part of him but there was a changed part and the effect of unchanged surroundings upon this was to make everything seem almost as strange as though he had never had any life but his prison one and was now born into a new world all our lives long every day and every hour we are engaged in the process of accommodating our changed and unchanged selves to changed and unchanged surroundings living in fact in nothing else than this process of accommodation when we fail in it a little we are stupid when we fail flagrantly we are mad when we suspend it temporarily we sleep when we give up the attempt altogether we die in quiet uneventful lives the changes internal and external are so small that there is little or no strain in the process of fusion and accommodation in other lives there is great strain but there is also great fusing and accommodating power in others great strain with little accommodating power a life will be successful or not according as the power of accommodation is equal to or unequal to the strain of fusing and adjusting internal and external changes the trouble is that in the end we shall be driven to admit the unity of the universe so completely as to be compelled to deny that there is either an external or an internal but must see everything both as external and internal at one and the same time subject and object, external and internal being unified as much as everything else this will knock our whole system over but then every system has got to be knocked over by something much the best way out of this difficulty is to go in for separation between internal and external subject and object when we find this convenient and unity between the same when we find unity convenient this is illogical but extremes are alone logical and they are always absurd the mean is alone practicable and it is always illogical it is faith and not logic which is the supreme arbiter they say all roads lead to Rome and all philosophies that I have ever seen lead ultimately either to some gross absurdity or else to the conclusion already more than once insisted on in these pages that the just shall live by faith that is to say that sensible people will get through life by rule of thumb as they may interpret it most conveniently without asking too many questions for conscience's sake take any fact and reason upon it to the bitter end and it will air long lead to this as the only refuge from some palpable folly but to return to my story when Ernest got to the top of the street and looked back he saw the grimy sullen walls of his prison filling up the end of it he paused for a minute or two there he said to himself I was hemmed in by bolts which I could see and touch here I am barred by others which are nonetheless real poverty and ignorance of the world it was no part of my business to try to break the material bolts of iron and escape from prison but now that I am free I must surely seek to break these others he had read somewhere of a prisoner who had made his escape by cutting up his bedstead with an iron spoon he admired and marveled at the man's mind but cannot even try to imitate him in the presence of immaterial barriers however he was not so easily daunted and felt as though even if the bed were iron and the spoon a wooden one he could find some means of making the wood cut the iron sooner or later he turned his back upon Air Street Hill and walked down Leather Lane to Holborn each step he took each face or object that he knew helped at once to link him on to the life he had led before his imprisonment and at the same time to make him feel how completely that imprisonment had cut his life into two parts the one of which could bear no resemblance to the other he passed down Fetter Lane into Fleet Street and so to the temple to which I had just returned from my summer holiday it was about half past nine and I was having my breakfast when I heard a timid knock at the door and opened it to find Ernest Chapter 70 I had begun to like him on the night Townley had sent for me and on the following day I thought he had shaped well I had liked him also during our interview in prison and wanted to see more of him so that I might make up my mind about him I had lived long enough to know that some men who do great things in the end are not very wise when they are young knowing that he would leave prison on the thirtieth I had expected him and as I had a spare bedroom pressed him to stay with me till he could make up his mind what he would do being so much older than he was I anticipated no trouble in getting my own way but he would not hear of it the utmost he would ascend to was that he should be my guest till he could find a room for himself which he would set about doing at once he was still much agitated better as he ate a breakfast not of prison fare and in a comfortable room it pleased me to see the delight he took in all about him the fireplace with the fire in it the easy chairs, the times my cat, the red geraniums in the window to say nothing of coffee, bread and butter sausages, marmalade, etc everything was pregnant with the most exquisite pleasure to him the plain trees were full of leafs still he kept rising from the breakfast table to admire them never till now he said had he known what the enjoyment of these things really was he ate, looked, laughed and cried by turns with an emotion which I can neither forget nor describe he told me how his father and mother had lain and wait for him as he was about to leave prison I was furious and applauded him heartily for what he had done he was very grateful to me for this other people he said would tell him he ought to think of his father and mother rather than of himself and it was such a comfort to find someone who saw things as he saw them himself even if I had differed from him I should not have said so but I was of his opinion and was almost as much obliged to him for seeing things as I saw them as he to me for doing the same kind office by himself cordially as I disliked Theobald and Christina I was in such a hopeless minority in the opinion I had formed concerning them that it was pleasant to find someone who agreed with me then there came an awful moment for both of us a knock as of a visitor and not a postman was heard at my door goodness gracious I exclaimed why didn't we sport the oak perhaps it is your father but surely he would hardly come at this time of day go at once into my bedroom I went to the door and sure enough there were both Theobald and Christina I could not refuse to let them in and was obliged to listen to their version of the story which agreed substantially with Ernest Christina cried bitterly Theobald stormed after about ten minutes during which I assured them that I had not the faintest conception where their son was I dismissed them both I saw they look suspiciously upon the manifest signs that someone was breakfasting with me and parted from me more or less defiantly but I got rid of them and poor Ernest came out again looking white, frightened and upset he had heard voices but no more and did not feel sure that the enemy might not be gaining over me we sported the oak now and before long he began to recover after breakfast we discussed the situation I had taken away his wardrobe and books for Mrs. Jupp's but had left his furniture, pictures and piano giving Mrs. Jupp the use of these so that she might let her room furnished in lieu of charge for taking care of the furniture as soon as Ernest heard that his wardrobe was at hand he got out a suit of clothes he had had before he had been ordained he put it on it once much as I thought to the improvement of his personal appearance then we went into the subject of his finances he had had ten pounds from prior only a day or two before he was apprehended of which between seven and eight were in his purse when he entered the prison this money was restored to him on leaving he had always paid cash for whatever he bought so that there was nothing to be deducted for debts besides this he had his clothes, books and furniture he could, as I have said, had the hundred pounds from his father if he had chosen to emigrate but this both Ernest and I for he brought me round to his opinion agreed it would be better to decline this was all he knew of as belonging to him he said he proposed at once taking an unfurnished top-back attic in as quiet a house as he could find say it three or four shillings a week and look out for work as a tailor I did not think it much mattered what he began with for I felt pretty sure he would air long find his way to something that suited him if he could get a start with anything at all the difficulty was how to get him started it was not enough that he should be able to cut out and make clothes that he should have the organs, so to speak, of a tailor he must be put into a tailor's shop and guided for a little while by someone who knew how and where to help him the rest of the day he spent looking for a room which he soon found end in familiarizing himself with liberty in the evening I took him to the Olympic Bobson was then acting in a burlesque on McBeth Mrs. Kealy, if I remember rightly taking the part of Lady McBeth in the scene before the murder McBeth had said he could not kill Duncan when he saw his boots upon the landing Lady McBeth put a stop to her husband's hesitation by whipping him up under her arm and carrying him off the stage kicking and screaming Ernest left till he cried what rot Shakespeare is after this he exclaimed involuntarily I remembered his essay on the Greek tragedians and was more I as spree with him than ever next day he said about looking for employment and I did not see him until about five o'clock when he came and said that he had had no success the same thing happened the next day and the day after that wherever he went he was invariably refused and often ordered point blank out of the shop I could see by the expression of his face though he said nothing that he was getting frightened and began to think I should have come to the rescue he said he had made a great many inquiries and had always been told the same story he found that it was easy to keep on in an old line but very hard to strike out in a new one he talked to the fishmonger in Leather Lane where he went to buy a bloater for his tea casually as though from curiosity and without any interested motive sell said the master of the shop why nobody wouldn't believe what can be sold by penorths or two penorths if you go the right way to work look at welks for instance me and my little Emma here we sold seven pounds worth of welks between eight and half past eleven o'clock and almost all in penorths and two penorths a few half-orths but not many it was the steam that did it we kept a boiling of them hot and hot and whenever the steam came strong up from the cellar on to the pavement the people bought but whenever the steam went down they left off buying so we boiled them over and over again till they was all sold that's just where it is if you know your business you can sell if you don't you'll soon make a mess of it why but for the steam I should not have sold ten shillings worth of welks all the night through this and many another yarn of kindred substance which he heard from other people determined earnest more than ever to stake on tailoring as the one trade about which he knew anything at all nevertheless here were three or four days gone by and employment seemed as far off as ever I now did what I ought to have done before that is to say I called on my own tailor whom I had dealt with for over a quarter of a century and asked his advice he declared earnest plan to be hopeless if, sit Mr. Larkins for this was my teller's name he had begun at fourteen it might have done but no man of twenty-four could stand being turned to work into a workshop full of tellers he would not get on with the men nor the men with him you could not expect him to be how fellow well met with them and you could not expect his fellow workmen to like him if he was not the man must have sunk low through drink or natural taste for low company before he could get on with those who have had such a different training from his own Mr. Larkins said a great deal more and wound up by taking me to see the place where his own men worked this is a paradise he said compared to most workshops what gentleman could stand this air, thank you for a fortnight I was glad enough to get out of the hot fetid atmosphere in five minutes and saw that there was no brick of earnest prison to be loosened by going and working among tellers in a workshop Mr. Larkins wound up by saying that even if my protege were a much better workman than he probably was no master would give him employment for fear of creating a bother among the men I left feeling that I ought to have thought of all this myself and was more than ever perplexed as to whether I had not better let my young friend have a few thousand pounds and send him out to the colonies when, on my return home at about five o'clock I found him waiting for me radiant and declaring that he had found all he wanted End of Chapter 70 Recording by Rhonda Fetterman