Chapter V: Part II: I—odd Volumes (1)

We have had a kind of wedding in my study this morning. The bride arrived by post. It happened in this wise. Twenty years ago I attended an auction sale at Mosgiel. A valuable library was under the hammer and the chance was too good to be missed. The books were all tied up in bundles and laid out on tables. I took a note of the numbers of those lots that contained works that I wanted. When, on the arrival of the carrier's cart, I proudly inspected my purchases, I found among them an odd volume. It was the first part of _Foster's Life and Correspondence_. The book was bound up with a number of others, and I could not buy _them_ without becoming responsible for _it_. My first inclination was to throw it away; and the temptation recurred when I left Mosgiel for Hobart, and again when I left Hobart for Armadale. Of what use was an odd volume? In packing up at Hobart I actually tossed it to the heap of rubbish that was to be left behind; but an aching void in the last case led to its ultimate rescue. This is the first part of our little romance.

Last week I was visiting a country minister. In the ordinary course of things, I glanced over his book-shelves. I was just turning away, when, among some dusty volumes away on the topmost shelf, my eye caught the words _Foster's Life and Correspondence_. It, too, was an odd volume. On hearing of my own experience, the good man urged me to transfer the volume to my portmanteau and say no more about it. It was, he said, of no use to him.

'But, my dear fellow,' I replied, 'I might just as well say that _mine_ is of no use to _me_. We must leave the matter in the meantime. It is so long since I looked at the volume on my shelves that I cannot be sure that they are companions. They may be duplicates. Yours, I see, is _Volume Two_. If, on my return, I find that mine is _Volume One_, we will come to some arrangement. If not, neither of us can help the other.'

My Mosgiel purchase turned out to be the _first_ volume. I posted my friend a copy of _Bleak House_, which, as I happened to know, he had never read, and he forwarded the _Foster_ by return of post. And this morning I took the odd volume from the lumber on the top shelf, introduced it to its mate, and now the two stand proudly side by side among my biographies. They make a handsome pair: no bride and bridegroom could look more perfectly matched. I do not suppose that they had ever met before; but that circumstance in itself presents no lawful impediment to their being united in a lifelong partnership.

The mating of books is a very mechanical affair. At a big publishing house you may see two huge cases side by side, just as they have come from the printer's. The one is packed with copies of _Volume One_; the other contains copies of _Volume Two_. An assistant, asked by a customer for a copy of the complete work, takes a book from the one box and a book from the other; claps them together with a bang; and they are mated for all time to come. There is no question of selection, and no question of consent. There is no '_Wilt thou have..._' and no _'I will_.' The volume in the top right-hand corner of the one box is unable to steal a shy and furtive glance at the book lying in a corresponding position in the other box. His destined partner may be a little plumper or a little thinner than himself; she may be neatly attired in a pretty cover that sets off her charms to perfection, or she may be dressed in an ill-fitting wrapper that is smudged or torn; he cannot tell. He can only wait, and she can only wait, until they are unceremoniously snatched from their respective corners, banged together, and thus, for richer for poorer, for better for worse, made partners in a bond that is indissoluble. There is no question of sexual selection such as Darwin, Wallace, and the great biologists like to portray. The books in the one box do not strut and parade and show off their beauties in order to win the admiration of the books in the other box. That may be because they are conscious that they are all so much alike; they feel that there is little to pick and choose between them; or, on the other hand, it may be because they suspect that the books in the other box are all much of a muchness, and that it matters very little which bride each bridegroom has. But, whatever the reason, there it is! There is no element of selection such as we find in the fields and the forests; there is no lovemaking and courtship such as we mortals know; the volumes are arbitrarily paired off, and the thing is done.

And, strangely enough, they appear to belong to each other from that very moment. One would feel that he was conniving at a kind of literary adultery if he were to take the second volume of _this_ set and the second volume of _that_ set and deliberately transpose them. I call the earth and the heavens to witness that, in my procedure this morning, I have been guilty of no such enormity. We are living in a rough world. With some books, as with some people, things go hardly. In the course of years a volume may be cruelly deserted by its companion; or its partner may come to an untimely end. The law of the land provides that in such sad cases, a second marriage is no shame. One does not like to think of my first volume of _Foster_ spending all its days among the lumber on _my_ top shelf, and of my friend's second volume spending all its days in the dust and neglect of _his_ top shelf. I do not often take my stand on my ministerial dignity; but I maintain that, being a minister, I have at least as good a right as any publisher's assistant to take those two sad and lonely volumes—the one from my top shelf in the city, and the other from my friend's top shelf in the country—and to unite them in the holy bond of matrimony. And as they stand before me side by side—never to perch upon a top shelf any more—I feel that I have done myself, my friend and them good service by having taken pity on their loneliness and launched them on a united career of happiness and usefulness. As things stood, neither was of any use to anybody; their union has made it possible for each to fulfill its destiny.

Let it be distinctly understood that I am not writing of _single_ volumes. A single volume is not an _odd_ volume. As I sit here at my desk and survey my shelves, I see at a glance that many of the books are complete in one volume. It would be the height of absurdity for me to take one such book, say _Pilgrim's Progress_, and another such book, say _Pickwick Papers_, and declare them _Volumes One_ and _Two_ for the mere sake of pairing them off. Neither the publisher's assistant nor the minister is vested with authority to mate the books after so arbitrary a fashion. The _Pilgrim's Progress_ is a single volume, and the _Pickwick Papers_ is a single volume; and it is better for them to do the work that they were sent into the world to do as single volumes, rather than to enter into an alliance that will make them each ridiculous and stultify them both. I am not arguing for the celibacy of the clergy or for the celibacy of the laity; how could I consistently adopt such a line of reasoning immediately after having celebrated the marriage of the _Fosters_? I am simply telling all the single volumes in my study—who are looking a little downcast and unhappy now that the excitement of the wedding is past—that _single_ volumes are not _odd_ volumes. It is very nice, of course, to be happily mated; but it is quite possible for a solitary life to be a very useful one. Robert Louis Stevenson would have gone further. In his _Virginibus Puerisque_ he as good as says that no man can be a hero after he is married. The fact that he has a home of his own, and is surrounded by love and tenderness and thoughtful care, militates against the culture of the sterner virtues. 'If comfortable,' Stevenson says, 'marriage is not heroic. It inevitably narrows and damps the spirit of generous men. In marriage a man becomes stark and selfish, and undergoes a fatty degeneration of his moral being. The air of the fireside withers up all the fine wildings of the husband's heart. He is so comfortable and happy that he begins to prefer comfort and happiness to anything else on earth, his wife included. Yesterday he would have shared his last shilling; to-day his first duty is to his family,' and is fulfilled in large measure by laying down vintages and husbanding the health of an invaluable parent. Twenty years ago this man was equally capable of crime or heroism; now he is fit for neither. His soul is asleep, and you may speak without restraint; for you will not waken him.

In his references to women, Stevenson does not speak quite so confidently. 'It is true,' he says, 'that some of the merriest and most genuine of women are old maids, and that those old maids, and wives who are unhappily married, have often most of the motherly touch. And this would seem to show, even for women, the same narrowing influence in comfortable married life.' Yet, on the other hand, he feels that marriage affects a woman differently. It makes greater demands upon her. The very comfort which is the husband's peril is largely the fruit of her thoughtfulness, her industry and her unselfishness. With wifehood, too, comes motherhood; and motherhood, side by side with felicities that only mothers know, inflicts a ceaseless discipline of suffering and self-denial. 'For women,' Stevenson admits, 'there is less danger. Marriage is of so much use to a woman, opens out so much more in life, and puts her in the way of so much freedom and usefulness that, whether she marry ill or well, she can hardly miss the benefit.' And he sums up by advising you, 'If you wish the pick of men and women, take a good bachelor and a good wife.' Since, however, if all women became good wives, all men could not remain good bachelors, it is obvious that Stevenson is crying for the moon. But he has said enough to dispel the gloomy and downcast looks that disfigured the countenances of all my single volumes immediately after the wedding. Single volumes are certainly not odd volumes; they are complete in themselves; and we are all very glad of them.

But there are odd volumes. Charles Wagner says that 'in certain shelters for old people, where husbands and wives may pass a tranquil old age together, a very expressive term is used to designate one who is left alone. The bereft solitary is called _an odd volume_. How appropriate—like a book astray from its companion tome! Odd volumes indeed, those who have hitherto been one of two inseparables! They celebrated their silver and golden weddings, and suddenly find themselves desolate. They seem like guests left behind at the end of the feast or the play; the lights are out, the curtain is down; they wander about in the emptiness like souls in torment, possessed with the idea of continually searching for something they have lost. They hardly refrain from asking "Have you seen my husband?" "Where shall I find my wife?" Odd volumes, these!' And you may find them in palaces as well as in almshouses. Did we not all hear the cry that rang through the halls of Windsor on the day on which the Prince Consort passed away? 'I have no one now to call me "Victoria"!' And there are others. They knew no golden wedding, no silver wedding, no wedding at all; and yet felt themselves mated. Some, like Evangeline and Gabriel—and like my two _Fosters_—are separated by distance and ignorance of each other's whereabouts. Some, like Drumsheugh and Marget Howe, are separated by the iron hand of circumstance; some are kept apart by cruel misunderstandings and mistaken judgments; and some—

Women there are on earth, most sweet and high,
Who lose their own, and walk bereft and lonely,
Loving that one lost heart until they die
Loving it only.

And so they never see beside them grow
Children, whose coming is like breath of flowers;
Consoled by subtler loves than angels know
Through childless hours.

Faithful in life, and faithful unto death,
Such souls, in sooth, illume with lustre splendid
That glimpsed, glad land wherein, the Vision saith,
Earth's wrongs are ended.

The purest spirit that ever walked this earth of ours was—I say it reverently—an odd volume. I do not mean that He was a single volume: I mean far more than that. He felt that He was not single: He was not complete in Himself. In some wonderful and mystical way, Deity and Humanity were odd volumes; volumes that were intended to supplement and complete each other; volumes that had become alienated and torn asunder. The amazing thing about the Scriptures is that, in both Testaments, they employ the very phraseology of mating and marriage. The quest that led to the Cross is the quest of the lover for His betrothed; and the consummation of all things is to be a marriage supper—the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. And it may be that, in the larger, the lesser is included. It may be that when Deity and Humanity, so long estranged, are at length perfectly united, other odd volumes will find their mates and the isolations of this life be swallowed up in the glad reunions of the life everlasting.

II—O'ER CRAG AND TORRENT

I

Lexie Drummond had a place of her own in the hearts of the Mosgiel people. To begin with, she was lonely; and lonely folk have a remarkable way of exacting secret homage. Lexie worked at a loom in the woollen factory, and lived by herself in one of the factory cottages near by. I wish you could have seen it. The door invariably stood open, even when Lexie was away at her work. Everything was faultlessly natty and clean. An enormous tabby cat, 'Matey,' purred on the mat, while a golden canary sang bravely from his cage in the creeper just outside the door. Lexie had a trim little garden, in which she grew lavender and mignonette, roses and carnations. Lexie's white carnations always took the prize at our local Flower Show. Lexie mothered Mosgiel. If anybody was in trouble, she would be sure to drop in; and, in cases of serious sickness, she would often stay the night. Some people would deny that Lexie was beautiful; yet she had a loveliness peculiar to herself. She was tall, finely-built, and wonderfully strong. When Roger Gunton, the heaviest man on the plain, was seized with sudden illness, and his body was racked with excruciating pain, Lexie alone could turn him from side to side, and he would allow nobody else to touch him. If her face lacked the vivacity and sparkle of more voluptuous beauties, it possessed, nevertheless, a quiet gravity, a serious winsomeness, that rendered it extremely attractive. The furrows in her face, and the strands of grey in her hair, made her look older than she really was. Everybody knew Lexie's age; her name was a perpetual reminder of the number of her years. For, in an unguarded moment, she had once revealed the circumstance that she was born on the day on which the Princess of Wales—afterwards Queen Alexandra—was married, and she was named after the royal bride. Mosgiel never forgot personal details of that kind. In addition to all this, Mosgiel vaguely suspected that Lexie carried a secret in her breast. She came to Mosgiel only a few years before I did; and everybody felt that her previous history was involved in tantalizing mystery.

II

It was Friday night. In the dining-room at the Mosgiel manse we were enjoying a quiet evening by the fire. I was lounging in an armchair with a novel. I could afford to be restful, for, that week, I had but one sermon to prepare. On the approaching Sunday, the anniversary of the Sunday school was to be celebrated; in the morning John Broadbanks and I were exchanging pulpits in honor of the occasion; and, availing myself of a minister's immemorial prerogative, I had decided to preach an old sermon at Silverstream. All at once we were startled by the ringing of the front door bell. It was the Sunday school superintendent.

'We are in an awful hole,' he exclaimed, after having discussed the weather, the health of our respective families, and a few other inevitable preliminaries. 'Lexie Drummond has been taken ill, and the doctor won't hear of her leaving the house for a week or two. She has been preparing the children for their part-songs, and has the whole programme at her fingers' ends; I don't know how on earth we are going to manage without her.'

I promised to run down and see Lexie about it first thing in the morning; and did so. Lexie was confined to her bed, and old Janet Davidson was nursing her. 'Matey' was curled up close to his mistress's feet, while the canary was singing blithely from his cage near the open window. I saw at a glance that Lexie had been crying, and I attributed her grief to anxiety and disappointment in connection with the anniversary. She quickly undeceived me.

'You'll never notice that I'm not there,' she said, with a watery smile. 'The children know their parts thoroughly, and Bella Christie, who has been helping me, is as familiar with the program as I am.'

I assured her that we should miss her sadly; but expressed my relief that everything had been so well arranged.

'And now, Lexie,' I said, as I took her hand in parting, 'you must worry no more about it; we will do our very best to make it pass off well.'

'Oh,' she replied, quickly, recognizing in my words a reference to her tell-tale eyes, 'it wasn't the anniversary that I was worrying about; indeed, it was silly of me to cry at all!' And, to show how extremely silly it was, she broke, with womanish perversity, into a fresh outburst of tears.

'She has something she wants to tell you,' Janet interposed, 'but she doesn't like to.'

Lexie pretended to look vexed at the old lady's garrulity; but I fancied that I detected, behind the frown, a look of real relief.

'Some other time,' she said. 'Good-bye, I shall think of you all to-morrow!' Janet opened the door and I left her.

III

The anniversary passed off happily; Lexie was soon herself again; and, a fortnight later, I saw her in her old place at church. We knew that she would insist on taking her class in the afternoon; so, to save her the long walk home, we took her to the manse to dinner.

'Several of the teachers have been telling me of the address that you gave on the evening of the Sunday school anniversary,' she said, on our way to the manse. 'I wish you would let me see the manuscript.'

'I can do better than that,' I replied. 'The address was printed in yesterday's _Taieri Advocate_. I have several copies to spare if you care to have one.'

On arrival at the manse she insisted on going round the garden and admiring the flowers before composing herself on the sofa in the dining-room. I gave her the paper I had promised her, and hurried away to prepare for dinner. When I returned a few minutes later the paper was lying on the floor beside her, and she was crying as if her heart would break. By a supreme effort she regained her self-possession, promised to explain in the afternoon, and, in obedience to the summons, took her place at table.

During dinner I mentally reviewed the address which had so strangely reopened the fountains of her grief. It was the address which, under the title 'The Little Palace Beautiful,' appears in _The Golden Milestone_. It begins: 'There are only four children in the wide, wide world, and each of us is the parent of at least one of them.' The first of the four is _The Little Child that Never Was_. 'He is,' the address says, 'an exquisitely beautiful child. He is the child of all lonely men and lonely women, the child of their dreams and their fancies, the child that will never be born. He is the son of the solitary.' And the address goes on to quote from Ada Cambridge's _Virgin Martyrs_:

Every wild she-bird has nest and mate in the warm April weather,
But a captive woman, made for love, no mate, no nest, has she.
In the spring of young desire, young men and maids are wed together,
And the happy mothers flaunt their bliss for all the world to see;
Nature's sacramental feast for them—an empty board for me.

Time, that heals so many sorrows, keeps mine ever freshly aching,
Though my face is growing furrowed and my brown hair turning white.
Still I mourn my irremediable loss, asleep or waking;
Still I hear my son's voice calling 'Mother' in the dead of night,
And am haunted by my girl's eyes that will never see the light.

As the address came back to me, I began to understand. I remembered what the gossips said about the mystery in Lexie's life. What was it, I wondered, that she meant to tell me after dinner?

IV

'You don't know me!' she cried passionately, when, once more, we found ourselves alone together. 'You treat me as if I were a good woman; you let me work at the church, and you bring me into your home; but you don't know me; really, really, you don't! I have committed a great sin, a very great sin; and I am suffering for it; and others are suffering for it.' She paused, as if wondering how to begin her story, and then started afresh.

'I was brought up in the country,' she said, 'not far from Hokitui. My parents both died when I was a little girl; my guardians followed them a few years ago; so that now I am quite alone. At school I became very fond of Davie Bannerman, and he made no secret of his partiality for me. He used to bring me something—an apple or a cake or a picture or some sweets—every day. When I was nineteen we became engaged and were both very happy about it. Everybody in the Hokitui district loved Davie; he was handsome and good-natured; I used to think his laugh the grandest music I had ever heard. But I was proud, terribly proud. And, being proud, I was selfish. And, being selfish, I was jealous. Davie was good to everybody; yet I could not bear to see him paying attention to anybody but myself. He was a member of the Hokitui church, and used to spend a good deal of time there. I had no interest in such things in those days, and I was angry with him for neglecting me. But most of all was I jealous of Sadie McKay. Sadie was his cousin; she was one of the church girls; and I hated to think, when he was not with _me_, that he was with _her_. Davie always took my scoldings merrily, and quickly coaxed me into a better mind. And I dare say that all would have gone well but for the accident that spoiled everything.

'Sadie was riding in from the farm one morning when, on the outskirts of Hokitui, she met a traction engine. Her horse bolted, and was soon out of control. As luck would have it, Davie was standing at a shop door near the township corner, and saw the horse galloping madly towards him. He rushed into the road and managed to check the animal before Sadie was thrown; but, in doing so, he was hurled to the ground, and the horse trod on his right arm, crushing it. He lay in the hospital for nearly two months; but I never went near him. When he left the hospital he wrote to me. It was a pitiful scrawl, written with his left hand; his right was amputated. "I have had a heavy loss," he said, "and I do not know how I can manage without my arm; but now I must suffer a still heavier loss, and I do not know how I can live without _you_. But it would not be right for me to burden you, and you must find somebody else, Lexie, who can care for you better than I can." I returned the engagement ring, and that was the end of it. If he had lost his arm in any other way I could have endured life-long poverty with him; but to have lost his arm for Sadie!' She paused and seemed to be looking out of the window, but I knew that her story was not finished.

'A few months later I took a situation in Ashburton. There I met, at a party, a young Englishman—Horace Latchford—who took a fancy to me. He was visiting New Zealand for the sake of his health. He told me that he owned a large estate in Devonshire, and would make me a perfect queen. During his stay—a period of about four months—life was one long frolic. Six months later he sent for me to go to him; and I went. But my eyes were soon opened. There was no estate in Devonshire; Horace was often intoxicated when he came to see me; and, instead of getting married, I returned to New Zealand in disgust. I came to Mosgiel, partly because I knew that I could get good work in the factory, and partly because I knew that nobody here would know me. Since I returned from England, ten years ago, I have only met one person who knew me in the old days at Hokitui. I was spending a holiday at Moeraki, and she was staying at the same boarding-house. I did not tell her that I had settled at Mosgiel; but she told me that none of the Bannermans were now living at Hokitui. Davie, she said, was the first to leave. He went to one of the cities to learn a profession that did not imperatively demand the use of two hands.' She paused again, and I waited.

'When I came to Mosgiel,' she went on, 'I got in the way of coming to the church. I became deeply impressed, and you received me into membership. And, every day since, as I have done little things, and taken little duties, in connection with the work, I have come to understand Davie as I never understood him in the old days. I hated his fondness for the church. And, every day now, my sin seems to be more and more terrible. Just lately it has been with me night and day. And when I read your address my punishment seemed greater than I could bear. I have prayed thousands of times that the dreadful tangle might be unravelled. I have not prayed selfishly; I could be perfectly contented if only I knew that Davie is happy, and that his faith in God and womanhood has not been shaken by my wickedness. We sang _Lead, Kindly Light_ in church this morning. Do you think that God really guides us? Does He put us right even when we have done wrong? Will He straighten things out? I would give anything to be quite sure! I seem to be in a maze, and can find no way out of it!'

V

It seemed an infinite relief to Lexie to have told me her story. She was much more often at the manse after that; a new bond seemed to have sprung up between us. I fancied that there came into Lexie's face a deeper peace and a greater content. The peace was, however, rudely broken. About two years after Lexie had unburdened her soul to me, I opened the paper one morning and confronted a startling announcement. The personal paragraphs contained the statement that '_Mr. David Bannerman, the brilliant Auckland solicitor, has been appointed Lecturer in Common Law at the Otago University._' There followed a brief outline of the new professor's career which left no shadow of doubt as to his identity. I particularly noticed that there was no reference to his marriage. What, if anything, was to be done? The Otago University was in Dunedin, only ten miles from Mosgiel. Ought I to allow these two people to drift on, perhaps for years, eating their hearts out within a few miles of each other? Was it not due to Davie that he should know that Lexie was at Mosgiel? He might desire to _seek_ her; or he might desire to _avoid_ her; in either case the information would be of value. I stated the position in this way to Lexie, but she would not hear of my taking any action. After a while, however, she agreed to my writing, telling the professor-elect that I knew of her whereabouts. I added that she was universally loved and honored for her fine work in the church and in the district. I enclosed a copy of 'The Little Palace Beautiful,' and mentioned the fact that I had once caught her weeping bitterly as she read it. It took four days for a mail from Mosgiel to reach Auckland. After a long talk with Lexie, I posted my letter on a Sunday evening. On Friday afternoon I received a reply-paid telegram: '_Wire lady's address immediately._'

The new professor was married three months after entering upon the duties of his chair at the University; and, when I last saw her, Lexie was enthroned in the center of a charming little circle. I received a letter from her yesterday—the letter that suggested this record. She tells me, with pardonable pride, that her eldest boy has matriculated and also joined the church.

'I am getting to be an old woman now,' she says, 'and I spend a lot of time in looking backward. Isn't it wonderful? It all came right after all! But for the accident, Davie would never have been a professor; and, if we had been married in the old days, I should only have been a drag and a hindrance. As it is, we have passed o'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent; but the Kindly Light that I once doubted has led us all the way!'

III—THE PRETENDER

I

'_Let's pretend!_' cried Jean.

They were enjoying a romp after tea; but the game had been suddenly interrupted.

'How can we drown him when there's no water?' asked Ernest, looking wonderfully wise.

'Oh, let's pretend the lawn's the water!' replied Jean, brushing aside with impatience so trifling a difficulty.

_Let's pretend!_ I used to wonder why Bonnie Prince Charlie was called the Pretender, as though he enjoyed some monopoly in that regard. We are all pretenders. Some, perhaps, are more skilful than others. Jean was especially clever. One day a lady called and gave her a beautiful bunch of flowers. Ernest was particularly fond of flowers, and thought that he could capture them by guile.

'I say, Jean,' he cried, 'let's have a game! We'll 'tend the flowers are mine!'

'All right,' Jean replied, with a sly twinkle, 'and you 'tend you've got 'em!'

Precisely! There is no end to the possibilities of pretending. It is the one game of which we never grow tired. We learn to play it as soon as we are out of the cradle and it still fascinates us as we totter on the brink of the grave. Indeed, as H. C. Bunner shows, childhood and age often play the game together. Look at this!

It was an old, old, old, old lady,
And a boy who was half-past three;
And the way that they played together
Was beautiful to see.

She couldn't go running and jumping,
And the boy no more could he,
For he was a pale little fellow,
With a thin, little twisted knee.

They sat in the yellow sunlight,
Out under the maple tree;
And the game that they played I'll tell you,
Just as it was told to me.

It was Hide-and-Seek they were playing,
Though you'd never have known it to be—
With an old, old, old, old lady,
And a boy with a twisted knee.

The boy would bend down his face, close his eyes, and guess where she was hiding. He was allowed three guesses. She was in the china-closet! Wrong! Well, she was in the chest in Papa's bedroom—the chest with the queer old key! Wrong again; but warmer! Well, then, she was in the clothes-press! It was his third guess, and it was right. In the clothes-press she was! It was his turn to hide and Granny's turn to guess!

Then she covered her face with her fingers,
Which were wrinkled and white and wee;
And she guessed where the boy was hiding,
With a one and a two and a three.

And they never had stirred from their places
Right under the maple tree,
This old, old, old, old lady
And the boy with the lame little knee.
This dear, dear, dear, old lady
And the boy who was half-past three.

It is the oldest game in the world; it was played—just as it is played to-day—before any other game was dreamed of, and the children of to-morrow will be playing it when the games of to-day are all forgotten. It is the most universal game in the world; it is played in Pekin just as it is played in London; it is played in Mysore just as it is played in New York; it is played in Timbuctoo just as we play it here in Melbourne. The rules of the game never alter with the period or change with the place. It is equally popular in all grades of society. The royal children play it in the palace-grounds and the street urchins play it in the alleys and the slums. For the beauty of it is, that it needs no paraphernalia or tackle or gear; you have not to buy a bat or a ball, a racket or a net; you do not require special grounds or courts or links. The 'old, old, old, old lady,' and 'the boy with the twisted knee' take it into their heads to have a game; and, then and there, without moving an inch or getting a thing, they set to work and play it! Jean cries, 'Let's pretend!' and straightway everybody is pretending!

'Let's pretend!' cried Jean. There was nothing original in the suggestion. If the words are not actually a quotation from Shakespeare, it is perfectly certain that Shakespeare uttered them. They voice the very spirit of the drama. The play and the pantomime are all a matter of pretending. It happened last evening that I had an appointment in the city. I had promised to meet a friend on the Town Hall steps at half-past seven. I was early; it was a delicious summer's evening, and I enjoyed watching the crowd. The crowd is always worth watching, but at that hour the crowd is at its best. The strain of the day is over and the weariness of night has not yet come. The crowd is fresh, vivacious, light-hearted. As I stood upon the steps, I saw young men and maidens keeping their trysts with each other; they were making no effort to conceal their joy in each other's society; as they tripped off together, they were laughingly anticipating the entertainment to which they were hastening. Gentlemen in evening dress, accompanied by handsome women, beautifully gowned, swept by in sumptuous cars that were brightly lit and daintily adorned with choicest flowers. Here and there, in this unbroken tide of traffic, I caught a glimpse of features more quaint and of garments more fantastic. I saw a troubadour, a viking, a knight-errant, a pierrot and a Spanish cavalier. I saw a gipsy queen, a geisha-girl, a milkmaid, an Egyptian princess, and a lady of the court of Louis the Fourteenth. They were on their way to a fancy dress ball at Government House. I stood entranced as this pageant of pleasure swept past me, and a strange thought seized my fancy. I reminded myself that, in any one of ten thousand cities, I might witness, at this same hour, an identically similar spectacle. If I could have taken my stand in the Strand in London, or in Princes Street, Edinburgh, or in Sackville Street, Dublin, or in Broadway, New York, or in the main thoroughfare of any city in Christendom, I should have gazed upon a scene which would have seemed like a mere reflection of this one. And then I asked myself for an interpretation of it all. What did it all mean—this throng of happy pedestrians laughing and chatting as they surged along the pavements; this ceaseless procession of gay vehicles in the brilliantly-illumined roadway?

II

It is a tribute to our human passion for pretending. His Excellency stands in the reception hall at Government House and laughingly welcomes his guests. They are pretenders, every one. The troubadour is no troubadour; the viking, no viking; the gipsy, no gipsy; and the milkmaid, no milkmaid. They are just pretending and they have gone to all this trouble and to all this expense that the full-orbed joy of pretending may be for one crowded hour their own. And the other people—the gentlemen in evening dress; the ladies richly begowned and bejewelled; the surging crowd upon the path. They are making their way to the theatres. They are going to see the great actors and actresses pretend. One actor will pretend to be a cripple and another will pretend to be a king; one actress will pretend to be an empress and one will pretend to be a slave; and the better the actors and the actresses pretend the better these people will like it.

For the people love pretending; that is how the theatre came to be. Like Topsy, it had no father and no mother. It sprang from our insatiable fondness for make-believe. In his _Short History of the English People_ John Richard Green says that 'it was the people itself that created the stage'; and he graphically describes their initial ventures. 'The theatre,' he says, 'was the courtyard of an inn or a mere booth such as is still seen at a country fair; the bulk of the audience sat beneath the open sky; a few covered seats accommodated the wealthier spectators while patrons and nobles sprawled upon the actual boards.' In those days the audience had to do its part of the pretending. If the spectators saw a few flowers they accepted the hint and imagined that the play was being enacted in a beautiful garden. In a battle scene the arrival of an army was represented by a stampede across the stage of a dozen clumsy sceneshifters brandishing swords and bucklers. In order to assist the audience to muster appropriate emotions, the stage was draped with black when a tragedy was about to be presented and with blue when the performance was to portray life in some lighter vein. What is this but a group of children playing at charades, at dressing-up, at 'just pretending?' Children pretend in order that they may escape from the limitations of reality into the infinitudes of romance. Once they begin to pretend all life is open to them. They have uttered the magic 'Sesame' and every gate unbars. Their seniors invade the same realm for the same reason. This is the significance of those crowded streets last night.

III

Now this brings me to a very interesting point. Is it wrong to pretend? In the greatest sermon ever preached—the Sermon on the Mount—Jesus called certain people hypocrites. But, did He, by doing so, condemn all forms of hypocrisy? If so, the people upon whom I looked last night were all of them earning for themselves His malediction. And so were the people gathered in the quaint old English courtyard. And so was Jean when she called to her playmates: 'Let's pretend!' And so was 'the old, old, old, old lady' and 'the boy with the twisted knee.' For a hypocrite—as the very word suggests—is simply a pretender. A hypocrite is one who colors his face, or dresses up or acts a part. Does it follow, therefore, because Jesus condemned the Pharisees and called them hypocrites, that all pretenders fall beneath His frown? To ask the question is to answer it. Fancy Jesus frowning at Jean! Fancy Jesus frowning at 'the old, old, old, old lady' and 'the boy with the twisted knee!' Why Jesus Himself _pretended_ on occasions. He behaved towards the Syro-Phœnician woman as though He had no sympathy with her in her distress. He saw the disciples in trouble on the lake; and, walking on the water, He made as though He would have passed them by. When, after journeying with two of His disciples to Emmaus, He reached the door of their home, He made as though He would have gone further! 'He made as though!' 'He made as though!' 'He made as though!' The feints of Deity!

Let a man but keep his eyes wide open and he will see some very lovable hypocrites, some very amiable pretenders, in the course of a day's march. I have been reading _The Butterfly Man_. And here in the early part of the book is a scene in which a child and a criminal take part. Mary Virginia shows John Flint a pasteboard box. It contains a dark-colored and rather ugly grey moth with his wings turned down.

'You wouldn't think him pretty, would you?' asked the child.

'No,' replied John Flint disappointedly, 'I shouldn't!'

Mary Virginia smiled, and, picking up the little moth, held his body, very gently, between her finger tips. He fluttered, spreading out his grey wings; and then John saw the beautiful pansy-like underwings, and the glorious lower pair of scarlet velvet, barred and bordered with black.

'I got to thinking,' said the girl, thoughtfully, lifting her clear and candid eyes to John Flint's, 'I got to thinking, when he threw aside his plain grey cloak and showed me his lovely underwings, that he's like some people. You couldn't be expected to know what was underneath, could you? So you pass them by, thinking how ordinary and uninteresting and ugly they are, and you feel rather sorry for them—because you don't know. But if you once get close enough to touch them—why, then you find out! You only think of the dust-colored outside, and all the while the underwings are right there, waiting for you to find them! Isn't it wonderful and beautiful? And the best of it all is, it's true!'

In these artless sentences, tripping, so easily from a child's tongue, Marie Oemler sums up the burden of her book. The incident is a parable. For John Flint was _himself_ the drab and ugly moth. In the opening chapters of the story, he is a horrible object—coarse, brutal, loathsome, revolting. But there were underwings. And gradually, beneath the touch of gentle influences, those underwings became visible; and, in the later stages of the story, all men admired and revered and loved the beautiful nobleness of the Butterfly Man.

IV

There are people, I suppose, who trick themselves out to make themselves appear much prettier or much nicer or—worse still—much holier than they really are. 'Let's pretend!' they cry; and there is something sinister in their pretending. It is against these people—and against them only—that the anathemas of the Sermon on the Mount are directed.

Again, there are people who, like Ian Maclaren's Drumtochty folk, go through life dreading lest their underwings should be seen, their virtues exposed, their goodness discovered. They bear themselves distantly and give an impression of aloofness; you would never dream, unless you got to know them, that their dispositions were so sweet, their characters so strong, their souls so saintly.

I am told that a great actor achieves his triumphs through contemplating so closely the character that he impersonates. His own individuality becomes, for the time being, absorbed in another. Henry Irving forgets that he is Henry Irving and believes himself to be Macbeth. I have read of One who, seeming to possess no form nor comeliness, nor any beauty that men should desire Him, was nevertheless the chiefest among ten thousand and the altogether lovely. It may be that these amiable pretenders of whom we are all so fond have contemplated so closely _His_ character that they have unconsciously caught His spirit and acquired His ways. They cleverly conceal the rainbow-tinted underwings, beneath a coat of drab; but, having once caught a glimpse of their glory, we ever after feel it shining through the grey.

IV—ACHMED'S INVESTMENT

I

Gilt-edged securities are all very well; but men do not make their fortunes out of gilt-edged securities. Gilt-edged securities may suit those whose circumstances compel them to husband jealously their meagre savings; but the big dividends are made out of the risky speculations. There are investments in which a man cannot, by any possibility, lose his treasure, and in which he must, with mathematical certainty, reap a modest margin of profit. And, on the other hand, there are investments in which a man may, quite easily, lose every penny that he hazards, but in which he may, quite conceivably, make a perfectly golden haul. An Eastern sage with a well-established reputation for wisdom urges us to venture fearlessly at times upon these more perilous but more profitable ventures, '_Cast thy bread_,' he says, '_upon the waters._' The man who believes in gilt-edged securities will prefer to cast it upon _the land_. The land is a fixture. The land does not float away or fly away or fade away. You find it where you left it. It is stable, substantial, secure. Because of its fixity, men trust it. For thousands of years it was the bank of the nations. Men hid their treasures in fields, as many a lucky finder afterwards discovered to his delight. But the waters! _Cast thy bread upon the waters!_ The waters are the very emblem of all that is fickle, variable and inconstant. They ebb and they flow; they rise and they fall; they are restless, unstable, fluctuating. They suck down into their dark depths the treasures confided to their care and leave no trace upon the surface of the hiding-place in which the booty lies concealed. The waters! _Cast thy bread upon the waters!_ The man who believes only in gilt-edged securities shakes his head. This is no investment for him. But the man who can afford to take desperate hazards pricks up his ears.

'The waters!' he exclaims. 'He tells me to cast my bread upon the waters! It is the last place in the world to which I should have thought of casting it! But I shall venture!'

And he becomes immensely rich in consequence.

II

Achmed Ali is a young Egyptian farmer. His lands are in the Nile Valley, and, in the flood-time, two thirds of his property is under water. But flood-time is also sowing-time, and what is he to do? He can, of course, sow that portion of his land that stands above the waterline. And he does. This is his gilt-edged security. He is practically certain of getting back in the late summer the grain that he sows in the spring, with a fair proportion of increase in addition. But on that narrow margin of profit Achmed Ali cannot support wife and children and pay all the expenses of his farm. He turns wistfully towards the river. He surveys the section of his farm over which the waters are sluggishly drifting. Sometimes they recede, leaving a broad strip of shining, gurgling mud. He is tempted to scatter his seed over that belt of ooze at once. He waits a few hours, however, hoping that the retreat of the waters will continue, and that, in a few days, he will be able to carry his seed-basket over the whole area that is now submerged. But his hopes are soon shattered. The swaying waters come welling in again and even lick the edges of the land he has already sown. If only he could get at those inundated fields! The land is soft and moist! It has been enriched and fertilized by the action of the flood-waters. Saturated by the moisture in the soil, and warmed by the rays of the tropical sun, the seed would germinate and spring up as if by magic; and the harvest would beggar that of the land that the river has never touched! But these are castles in the air. The flood is there. It shows no sign of withdrawing. He knows that, after it has gone, it will be a day or two before he can cross the soft, sticky, slimy soil with his basket. And by that time the season may have passed. It will be too late to sow.

It is to Achmed Ali that our Eastern sage is speaking. 'Why wait for the flood?' he asks. '_Cast thy bread upon the waters!_ Much good grain—grain that thou canst ill afford to lose—will float away and never more be seen. Much of it will be greedily devoured by fish and water-fowl. But what of that? Much of it will drift about on the shallow waters, and be deposited, as they recede, on the soft warm mud from which they ebb. With thy heavy feet and clumsy form and weighty basket thou couldst not cross the soil till long after the waters leave it. Let the waters do their work for thee! Turn thy foe into a friend! Make of the tyrant a slave! _Cast thy bread upon the waters!_'

It is no gilt-edged security; but Achmed Ali resolves to take the risk.

Among the reeds round the bend of the river his flat-bottomed boat is moored. He hurries up to the barn for his basket of seed. He gazes almost fondly, upon the precious grain that he is about to invest in such a precarious speculation. He bears it down to the boat and pushes out on to the shallow waters. A tall ibis, stalking with stately stride along the edge of the stream, is startled by the commotion and flies away, flapping its wings with slow and measured beat. Achmed is now well out upon the river. The flood that had defied him now supports him. He feels as the Philistines must have felt when they harnessed Samson to their mill. He paddles up to one end of his property and works his way down to the other, scattering the seed broadcast as he goes. Then, having disposed of every grain, he paddles back to his starting-point and ties up his boat. He stands for a moment on the bank watching the seed floating hither and thither upon the eddying waters. In some places it is still strewn evenly upon the tide; in others it has drifted into snakelike formations that curl and straighten themselves out again on the surface of the flood. It seems an awful waste. But is it?

In a day or two the waters recede, leaving the saturated seed strewn over the oozy soil. It sinks in of its own weight and is quickly lost to view. And then Achmed sees the wisdom of the counsel he has followed. And in the summer, when he garners a rich harvest from the very lands over which his boat had drifted, he blesses that Eastern sage for those wise words.

III