Chapter VIII: Part III: I—we Are Seven! (1)

Tall, bronzed and bearded, Bruce Sinclair was a typical New Zealand farmer. He was born in Fifeshire, it is true, but his parents had emigrated when he was so young that he seemed to belong to the land of his adoption. They had come out on the _John Macintyre_—one of the first ships to bring settlers to these shores. I never saw the old people. By the time I reached New Zealand, Bruce had laid them to rest in the little God's-acre on the crest, and was himself farming the lands on which they had originally settled. The homestead was up among the foothills near Otokia—about nine miles south of Mosgiel—and Bruce usually rode over on Sundays. One felt that something was missing, if, on going round to the vestry door, 'Oscar,' Bruce's chestnut pony, was not to be seen in the yard. Bruce was quiet and reserved: he seldom spoke unless he was spoken to: but he gave an impression of depth and stability. In his light blue eyes—eyes that seemed paler than they really were by contrast with his sunburned and weatherbeaten countenance—there was a subtle suggestion of secret struggle and secret suffering. You somehow felt that the calm of his sturdy personality was the peace that comes when mighty forces have been vanquished, and fierce storms stilled. I had heard it whispered that in the early colonial days—the days of his youth—Bruce had chafed under the restraints of home and had for some years gone his own way; but except that I fancied that I saw a look of pain in his face when he first directed my attention to the framed portraits of his parents as they hung on either side of the fireplace at Otokia, he had given me no hint of anything of the kind.

One Sunday morning I missed the chestnut pony. During the week Mrs. Sinclair called at the manse to tell me that Bruce was ill.

'But don't trouble to come,' she said. 'He couldn't see you even if you did; and it's a long way to come for nothing. I'll let you know when he's able to see you.'

True to her word, she at length gave me permission. But, as it happened, I was just setting out for a distant part of the colony—a journey of a thousand miles—and it was nearly a month before I was able to turn my face towards the farm at Otokia. But the day to which I had so long looked forward dawned at last. The dwelling that served Bruce as a homestead was a plain, white box-like little cottage, nestling among the hills about a quarter of a mile back from the road. Seated at the open window, he had seen me enter the big gate at the farm-entrance and drive up the track from the road to the door. Bowed, and leaning heavily upon two sticks, he came to the doorway to greet me, a wan smile lighting up a countenance that seemed strangely pale. I saw at a glance that he had been very ill.

'But there, I'm better now,' he said, cheerfully, 'and shall soon be all right again. Sit down!' and he pointed to a lounge-chair on the verandah.

We sat there chatting for awhile, and then Mrs. Sinclair brought out the afternoon tea. As soon as the cups had been removed, I rose as if to go.

'Oh, don't be in a hurry!' he said. 'Sit down! I want to tell you of a strange experience I've had.' I resumed my seat.

'You see,' he went on, 'I had a birthday—my fiftieth—just as my illness was at its worst. I had intended having a few very old friends here to celebrate the occasion; but that, of course, was out of the question. The idea had, however, fastened itself so firmly upon my mind that, in my delirium, I thought I was sending out the invitations.' He laughed; but I could see that there was a good deal of seriousness behind it.

'You know how at such times, things get mixed up in your brain,' he went on, 'well, my birthday invitations and the other thoughts that had come to me in the earlier stages of my sickness got hopelessly confused. I was in great distress because I could only think of three people whom I wanted to invite. I wrote out invitations to _The Man I Used to Be_, _The Man I Might Have Been_, and _The Man I Shall Be_. I remember thinking that these were strange people to ask; and I was surprised that the number was so small. But the odd part is to come. For, in the same dream or in another—I cannot be sure—I thought that I was welcoming my guests. I had set the table for the four of us—my three visitors and myself—but, to my amazement, twice as many people came as I had invited! I had invited _The Man I Used to Be_; but two men arrived, each of them claiming to be the personage indicated by that description. Exactly the same thing happened in the case of _The Man I Might Have Been_, and again in the case of _The Man I Shall Be_. I was at first very bewildered and confused by the arrival of so many guests; but, excusing myself, I added three chairs to the number at the table, making seven in all. Then, when all was ready, I ushered them in and showed them to their places. And there we sat—the seven of us.

1. _The Man I Am_—at the head of the table.
2. _The Man I Used To Be_, No. 1 }
3. _The Man I Used To Be_, No. 2 } facing me.
4. _The Man I Might Have Been_, No. 1 }
5. _The Man I Might Have Been_, No. 2 } on my left.
6. _The Man I Shall Be_, No. 1 }
7. _The Man I Shall Be_, No. 2 } on my right.

'The first thing that struck me as I surveyed the six faces about me was that, although they seemed arranged in pairs, no two of the same name bore much resemblance to each other. The couples were contrasts rather than duplicates.' Mrs. Sinclair appeared, bringing her husband's medicine; he drank it quickly and continued his story.

'I can't help laughing as I think of it now,' he went on, 'it seems so very fantastic and absurd; but it was a grimly serious business at the time; and I am afraid that, considered as a birthday frolic, it was scarcely a success. There I sat at the head of the table, my six selves around me. In each of them I could see something of the features that I regularly behold in the mirror; but in each case the general impression was either disfigured or idealized. Let me describe them two by two.

'To begin with, there was _The Man I Used To Be_—the first of that name. He was my guest, and I tried to be civil, but in my heart I could not welcome him. I sat there wondering—you know how such things happen in dreams—by what strange impulse I had invited him to my table. For, truth to tell, I have always dreaded his return. Have you read Grant Allen's story, _The Reverend John Creedy_? I have it inside there: I will ask Mrs. Sinclair to bring it out before you go, and you shall take it with you. I read it a few weeks before my illness, and it made a great impression upon me. It is the story of an African boy, taken from the hold of a slaver on the Gold Coast and carried away to England. He is committed to a Christian home; is most carefully trained and educated; and is denied nothing that can add to his culture and refinement. He goes to Oxford; becomes a Bachelor of Arts; is ordained, and is designated to return as a missionary to his native land. Before leaving, he marries Miss Ethel Berry, a gently nurtured English lady; and, amidst the good wishes of a great host of admiring friends, the two sail from Southampton for Central Africa. For awhile all goes well; they are very happy and very useful. But, amidst the old environment, the old feelings are stirred. His blood leaps to the sound of the toms-toms; the native feasts and dances have a singular fascination for him; he learns to love once more the native foods and drinks. It is too much for him; his old self masters his new self. He abandons the work; leaves his wife to die; tears up his English clothes; and goes back to savagery. And to-day—so Grant Allen concludes the story—to-day, the old half-caste Portuguese rum-dealer at Butabue, can point out to any English pioneer who comes up the river, which one, among a crowd of dilapidated negroes who lie basking in the soft dust outside his hut, was once the Rev. John Creedy, B.A., of Magdalen College, Oxford. This story, so recently read, may have helped to shape my dream. At any rate, I remember sitting at the head of the table looking into the face of _The Man I Used To Be_. "It is bad enough," I thought to myself, "when the old life comes rushing resistlessly back upon one as it rushed back upon John Creedy, no bolts or bars being strong enough to keep it out; but by what folly had I _invited_ my old self back and seated him at my table?" I felt, as I gazed into his face, as though I had committed the unpardonable sin.

'And there, sitting beside him, was his namesake! You can imagine no more striking contrast. For this second edition of _The Man I Used to Be_ appeared to be not only a better man than the other, but a better man than _The Man I Am_. I have never told you much about the past—one does not make a song of such things—but I can tell you that it was a wonderful experience when, nearly thirty years ago, I renounced the old life, entered the kingdom of heaven, and joined a Christian church. As I have said, I would not go back to the old life for anything on earth. And yet, looking back, I can see that, in those early days, I had a few fine qualities that are not mine to-day. I love money more now than I did then. I love comfort more now than I did then. In those days, wayward as I was, I would gladly have given the last coin that I possessed to help a chum. I remember once drawing every penny of my balance at the savings bank to get a comrade out of trouble. I would have faced any discomfort, privation, or even death itself, in an enterprise in which we fellows were engaged together. I am afraid that I am now too smug to be heroic and too self-centred to be really generous. And, strange as it may seem, as I looked across the table at _The Man I Used To Be_—the second one—I felt heartily ashamed of _The Man I Am_. I was reading in a book of George Eliot's that there are only two kinds of religious people—the people who are the better for their religion and the people who are the worse for it. I am not sure, I know that, on the whole, I am the better for my faith; but I know, too, that before my conversion I had some good points that I have since lost.

'I need not describe my other guests in such detail. If the contrast between the two who answered to the name of _The Man I Used To Be_ was great, the contrast between the two who described themselves as _The Man I Might Have Been_ was greater still. I was ashamed to admit the first of them to the house, and I could see that several of my guests felt extremely uncomfortable in his presence. This is the man that I should have been to-day had that radiant experience of nearly thirty years ago never visited me. I saw, as I gazed into the repulsive face of this guest, that, had I continued the career in which, until then, I had delighted, the heroic qualities of my waywardness would soon have vanished, and the sordid elements of that lawless life would have become dominant and supreme. The chivalry of those early days would, in time, have died out of my soul, just as it died out of King Arthur's Court, and the shame and the squalor would have become more pronounced with the years.' Even sitting on the verandah, Bruce Sinclair shuddered as he recalled this aspect of his dream.

'The companion picture—the other edition of _The Man I Might Have Been_—was,' he continued, 'as different as different could be. It seemed ridiculous that they bore the same name. As I looked upon the _first_ of this pair I felt thankful that I am as I am; but, when I turned to the _second_, that feeling completely forsook me. For I saw, as I gazed into that face—the face on my immediate left—what I should have been if, jealously retaining all the magnanimous and open-hearted qualities of my early days, I had added to them all the graces and excellences which Christian experience and the membership of the church have made possible to me. But I have done neither the one nor the other. I have lost the high-spirited virtues of my youth, and, like a man who has been walking among diamonds, but has been too indolent to pick them up, I have failed to acquire the ripe devoutness which these later years should have brought. It seems strange now, but on the very last Sunday morning on which I came to church, you were preaching on _The Additions of Grace_: "Add to your faith, virtue: and to virtue, knowledge." Do you remember? You were saying that the art of life lies in adding virtue to virtue as a mason adds tier to tier or as a tree adds ring to ring. I thought a good deal about it afterwards, and it may have woven itself into my dream. At any rate, I looked into the face beside me; I saw the man that I should have been if only I had added to the generous sentiments of youth the nobler attainments that Christian experience and service offered me; and it was like turning from a masterpiece to a daub when I once more contemplated _The Man I Am_.

'The third pair did not present so strong a contrast. They might easily have passed for brothers, one of whom had enjoyed greater advantages, and moved in better society than the other. The first of those who presented himself as _The Man I Shall Be_ strongly resembled, except that he was older, _The Man I Am_. The fact is, I suppose, that, of late years, I have been content to take life, at least on its religious side, pretty much as I found it. I have become complacent, easy-going, readily-satisfied, willing to follow the drift. There was a time, twenty years ago or more, when I used to submit myself to periodical examinations. I tested myself; tried to ascertain whether or not I was growing in grace; felt anxious as to whether the spirit was gaining upon the flesh or the flesh upon the spirit. But of late years I have taken things less seriously, and, now that I have time to think about such matters, I can see that I have settled down to a condition that is perilously like stagnation. Going on at the same sluggish rate for a few more years, I cannot expect that I shall at last differ essentially—except in age—from _The Man I Am_; and _that_, I suppose, is why the _first_ of these two seems in some respects to resemble so closely the man that I see each day in the mirror.

'The _second_—the guest on my immediate right—was a much finer man. He, too, was old; but there was a grace and a sweetness and a charm about his age that was quite absent from the person of his companion. Indeed, but for the association of ideas suggested by the circumstances under which we met, I should never have recognized myself in him. But he has taught me—and I feel that life has been inestimably enriched by the lesson—that, if I set myself to recapture the better qualities that I have lost, and begin diligently to cultivate the graces that I have neglected, I may yet make something of life, and stand, not altogether confused and ashamed, before my Lord at the last.

'I am not sure,' my old friend concluded, 'I am not sure that all this occurred to me in the course of my dream. Much of it has probably suggested itself in my subsequent reflections. In time of sickness and of convalescence a man sees life from a new angle. He is able to do a little stocktaking. And I feel that, in my case, the operation—perhaps because it was particularly necessary—has been particularly profitable.'

Mrs. Sinclair came out to ask if he was feeling chilly. The afternoon sun was certainly sinking; and I am afraid that I had allowed my friend to tire himself in telling me his tale. He made an excellent recovery, however, and, in the years that followed, was at church more frequently than ever. And it may have been a fond illusion of my own, but somehow I fancied that, as time went on, he became more and more like that nobler, lovelier, kindlier self that he had so graphically described to me.

II—THE FISH-PENS

I was holiday-making at Lake King. As a matter of fact, Lake King is no lake at all. It used to be; and, like the Church at Sardis, and like so many of us, it bears the name that it once earned but no longer deserves. In former days, a picturesque rampart of sand hummocks, richly draped in native verdure, intervened between the fresh waters of the land-locked lake and the heaving tides of the Southern Ocean. Then the engineers arrived; and when the engineers take off their coats no man can tell what is likely to happen next. At Panama they split a continent in two. At Lake King they wedded the lake to the ocean. Through the range of sand-dunes they cut a broad, deep channel by which the big ships could pass in and out, and, as an inevitable consequence, Lake King is a lake no longer. But it was not the big ships that interested me. It was the trawlers. I liked to see the fishing-boats come in from the ocean and liberate their shining spoil at the pens. On the shores of the lake the fishermen have fenced off a sheet of water, a quarter of an acre or so in area; and into this sheltered reserve they discharge their daily catch. I never tired of visiting the fish-pens. As I looked down into their clear waters they seemed to be one moving mass of beautiful fish. Never in my life had I seen so congested an aquarium. There were thousands upon thousands, tons upon tons, of them.

'You should row across in the early morning,' one of the fishermen was good enough to say. 'You would see us dragging the pens and filling the boats with the fish that we were about to pack for the market.'

I took the hint, and shall never forget the animated spectacle that I then witnessed. The waters that had previously seemed so tranquil were a seething tumult of commotion. The men were wading up to their thighs dragging the nets through the crowded pens. Thousands upon thousands of splendid fish were fighting for dear life, excitedly darting and flapping and leaping and diving and splashing in a hopeless attempt to escape the enmeshment of the enfolding toils. Netful after netful was emptied into the boats. In half an hour the boats themselves were filled to the brim with the poor stiffened creatures from which all life and beauty had departed.

'And do the fish keep good in the pens for an indefinite period?' I asked my fisherman friend—the man who had invited me across.

'Oh, dear, no,' he replied, 'that's the trouble. If we could keep them here until the market suited us, we should quickly make our fortunes. But they soon get slack and soft and flabby. The life in the pens isn't a natural one. They haven't to work for their living and they are in no danger of attack. The palings and wire-netting that keep them in keep their natural enemies _out_. In the ocean they have to be active and vigilant and spry. But here they lie at their ease; they move to and fro sluggishly for the mere fun of the thing; and they soon go to pieces in consequence.'

Away on the Dogger Bank the fishermen cherish a tradition which, on suitable occasions, they recite with infinite relish. It belongs to the heroic age that enfolded land and sea before the day of the steam-trawler had dawned. In those unhurried times, the fishing-boats spread their tawny sails, and, to the accompaniment of chanties and choruses such as sailors love, crept slowly out to sea. In sleepy little fishing-villages along the English coast, you may still see craft of this romantic—and historic—build. One little hamlet of the sort I often visit in my dreams. Years ago I knew every pebble on its beach. Winds and waves have scooped out a kind of alcove in the massive cliffs. High up, pressing closely against the rugged wall of chalk, stands a cluster of weather-beaten cottages. In front of them the fishing-boats are drawn up. Nets are spread out on the beach to dry, coils of rope lie about, and piles of tackle are everywhere. If you are as fortunate as I should like you to be, you will see, moving to and fro between his cottage and his boat, a tall bronzed figure in a blue jersey and a sou'wester. He is the most popular fisherman in the place. He was born here; and, save for two years of which he does not like to think, has spent all his days on this beach. Just once he wandered. He joined the fleet on the Dogger Bank. He worked on the trawler that raced out and raced round and raced back. He saw the cutters darting to and fro between the fleet and the market. And, the more he saw of this side of life, the less he liked it. He returned to the quiet little cove among the cliffs. If, some day, you can catch him in one of his leisure hours, and in one of his garrulous moods, he may be beguiled into telling you of the tales he heard told on the Dogger. For, out there where they fish by machinery, and use tackle of which the little hamlet never dreams, the men like to poke fun at the old-fashioned craft on the beach. And, when they speak of the old days and the old ways, they remind each other that, years ago, each fishing-boat was fitted with a tank or well, constructed with perforated sides so that the water it contained was part and parcel of the sea through which the boat was sailing. Into these wells the fish were transferred from the nets immediately upon their arrival from the deep. In this new environment the graceful creatures gave no evidence of discontent or resentment. They would live indefinitely in their floating homes. But the fishermen found that, like the fish in these Australian pens, the fish in the wells waxed limp and listless. They lost their flavor and sweetness. This, according to the tradition, happened to all the fishing-boats save one.

One fisherman, and one only, brought his fish to market in excellent condition. He landed them at Billingsgate as healthy and brisk and firm as though he had caught them ten minutes earlier under London Bridge. The dealers soon learned to distinguish between the fish from his boat and the fish from all the others. His fish brought the highest prices on the market, and the happy fisherman rejoiced in his abounding prosperity. His comrades marvelled at his success and vainly endeavored to cajole his secret from him. He was not to be drawn. The matter remained an inscrutable mystery until the day of the old fisherman's death. Then, acting upon her father's instructions, his daughter unfolded the secret. Her father, she said, made it a rule to keep a catfish in the well of his boat. The catfish kept the other fish in a ferment of agitation and alarm. They were never at rest. And, because a catfish compelled them to live in the well under conditions that were approximately normal, they came to market in as wholesome a state as though they had just been dragged from the deep.

I often take myself into a quiet corner and remind myself of my visit to the fish-pens or repeat to myself the famous tradition of the catfish. I find myself at times in a rebellious mood. Why is life so troubled, so agitated, so disturbed? If only I could be left alone! Why may I not fold my hands and be quiet? I am hunted up hill and down dale; I am driven from pillar to post. I have to work for my living—an irksome necessity. I often have to go out when I would rather stay in, and have to stay in when I would rather go out. I am the prey of antagonisms of many kinds. Life is full of irritations, annoyances, mortifications, and disappointments. I am not my own master. Like Paul, _I find a law that, when I would do good, evil is present with me; the good that I would I do not and the evil which I would not that I do_. Paul found it extremely exasperating, and so do I. If only I could live without work and without worry and without any of my present vexations! Why, oh why, must there always be a catfish in my well?

A catfish is an animated compliment. I do not suppose that a _Dictionary of Oceanography_ or a _Cyclopædia of Pisciculture_ would define a catfish precisely in that way. But I prefer my own definition to that of the encyclopædia; it is more brief and it is quite as accurate. A catfish, I repeat, is an animated compliment. It is because the fisherman values his fish that he puts the catfish into the well to annoy them. 'I remember,' says Dr. James Stalker, 'I remember hearing a celebrated naturalist describe a species of jellyfish, which, he said, lives fixed to a rock from which it never stirs. It does not require to go in search of food, because in the decayed tissues of its own organism there grows a kind of seaweed on which it subsists. I thought I had never heard of any creature so comfortable. But the eminent naturalist who was describing it went on to say that it is one of the very lowest forms of animal life, and the extreme comfort which it enjoys is the badge of its degraded position.' Now this seems to throw a little light on my own discontent. No fisherman would take any pains to preserve such worthless things. When the fisherman drops the hideous catfish into the well, it is his way of telling the shiny creatures that are already there of the high esteem in which he holds them.

This leads me to Robinson Crusoe. Robinson Crusoe caught a glimpse of this doctrine of the catfish, and it dispelled some of his most acute perplexities. The pity of it is that, later on, when he found himself confronted by the gravest and most baffling bewilderment of all, he failed to apply to it the same vital principle. He saw the law at work among his _minor_ difficulties; it did not occur to him that it might also operate among the _major_ ones.

A day came on which Crusoe discovered that he was not, as he had fancied, the monarch of all he surveyed. His sovereignty was disputed. Everybody remembers the haunting passage about the footprint on the sand. 'It happened one day, about noon, going towards my boat, I was exceedingly surprised with the print of a man's foot on the shore. How it came thither I knew not, nor could I in the least imagine; but after innumerable fluttering thoughts, like a man perfectly confused and out of myself, I came home to my fortification, not feeling, as we say, the ground I trod upon, but terrified to the last degree, looking behind me at every two or three steps, mistaking every bush and tree, and fancying every stump to be a man. Nor is it possible to describe how many various shapes my affrighted imagination represented things to me in, how many wild ideas were found every moment in my fancy, and what strange, unaccountable whimseys came into my thoughts by the way.' Now this story of Crusoe and the cannibals is simply the story of the cod and the catfish in another form. The cod would have liked the well all to itself: it is horrified at discovering that it must share it with a catfish!

Yet, as we have seen, the cod were the better for the catfish; and, as Crusoe afterwards recognized, the island was enriched by the coming of the cannibals. _Robinson Crusoe_ is essentially a story with a moral; and Crusoe leaves you in no doubt as to the moral. He is most explicit in that regard. 'For,' he tells us, 'I began to be very well contented with the life that I was leading, if only I could have been secured from the dread of the savages.' How little he thought that, so far from hurting a single hair of his head, the savages would provide him, in the person of his man Friday, with the most devoted servant and most constant friend that any man could possibly possess! '_Wherefore_,' he says, in formulating the moral to be deduced from his sensational experience, '_wherefore it may not be amiss for all people who shall read this story of mine to learn from it that very frequently the evil which we seek most to shun, and which, when we are fallen into, is the most dreadful to us, is oftentimes the very means or door of our deliverance, by which alone we can be raised again from the affliction into which we have fallen_.'

Now this was the _minor_ perplexity; the _major_ one came later. And the extraordinary thing is that, confronted by that larger perplexity, Crusoe's own maxim does not seem to have recurred to him. Crusoe has met the cannibals; they have come and gone; and they have left Friday behind them. Crusoe has taught Friday to speak English, and is doing his best to store his mind with the highest knowledge of all. 'One day,' so runs his narrative, 'I had been teaching him that the devil was God's enemy in the hearts of men, and used all his malice and skill to defeat the good designs of Providence, and to ruin the kingdom of Christ in the world. "Well," replies Friday, in broken English, "but you say God is so strong, so great; is he not much strong, much mighty as the devil?" "Yes, yes, Friday," I replied, "God is stronger than the devil; God is above the devil, and therefore we pray to God to tread him down under our feet and enable us to resist his temptations and quench his fiery darts." "But," says he again, "if God much stronger, much mighty as the wicked devil, _why God no kill the devil_, so make him no more do wicked?" I was strangely surprised at this question; and, after all, though I was now an old man, yet I could not tell what to say, so I pretended not to hear him. But Friday kept repeating his question in the same broken words: "_Why God no kill the devil?_" I therefore diverted the discourse by rising up hastily and sending him for something a long way off.' It was the greatest humiliation that Robinson Crusoe sustained during his long sojourn on the island.

'_Why God no kill the devil?_' asked Friday. It sometimes happens that the best way of answering one question is to ask a few more. Let us try. '_Why God no kill the devil?_' Why did the shrewd old fisherman not kill the catfish in the well of his boat? Why did the fish in the pens grow slack and soft and flabby as soon as the palings and wire-netting cut them off from the assaults of their natural enemies? 'In the Louvre,' says Professor William James, in his _Varieties of Religious Experience_, 'in the Louvre there is a picture by Guido Reni of St. Michael with his foot on Satan's neck. The richness of the picture is in large part due to the fiend's figure being there. The richness of its allegorical meaning also is due to his being there. The world, that is to say, is _all the richer for having a devil in it_, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.'

It is an old story. It is the tree that is buffeted by the wind that develops the strongest roots and the sturdiest fibre. It is in the carcase of the lion with which he fought for his life that Samson finds the honey. 'I did not learn to preach all at once,' says Martin Luther, in a delightful burst of confidence. 'It was my temptations and my corruptions that best prepared me for my pulpit. The devil has been my best professor of exegetical and experimental divinity. Before that great schoolmaster took me in hand, I was a sucking child and not a grown man. It was my combats with sin and with Satan that made me a true minister of the New Testament. It is always a great grace to me, and to my people, for me to be able to say to them, "I _know_ this text to be true! I know it _for certain_!" Without incessant combat and pain and sweat and blood, no ignorant stripling of a student ever yet became a powerful preacher.' That is the lesson that I learned at the fish-pens. That is the secret that the wise old fisherman, of catfish fame, bequeathed to his mystified companions. That is what Robinson Crusoe learned in the course of his long and lonely exile. And, in the rough and tumble of common life, there is scarcely any lesson of greater value to be learned.

III—EDGED TOOLS

I was motoring among the semi-tropical landscapes of Queensland. We swept past gardens that were gay with scarlet flame trees, brilliant creepers, bright-red corals, and bougainvilleas of many gorgeous hues. Spread out in endless panorama about us were orange groves, vineyards, sugar plantations, and fields in which the pineapple, the banana, the paw-paw, the mango, and the breadfruit luxuriated. And then we burst into the bush, which only differed from the bush to which I was more accustomed in that it was sprinkled with enormous anthills and dotted with green clumps of prickly pear.

After several hours spent in this delightful way, the car unexpectedly stopped, and my host and hostess prepared to alight. I peered about me for some explanation of their behavior, but could nowhere discover one. There was no house to be seen nor any sign of civilization or of settlement. My first impulse was to remain in the car with the driver.

'We are going a little way into the bush,' my host explained, addressing me; 'if you care to come with us, we shall be very pleased.'

I joined them instantly, and we were soon out of sight of the car. We picked our way through the thick undergrowth for about a quarter of a mile, then emerged upon a little plot carefully fenced off from the surrounding wilderness. It was a cemetery only a few feet square; and it contained three graves! It was evidently to the central one that our pilgrimage had been made. My companions stood in silence for a moment beside it, and then seated themselves on the grass near by.

'In our early days,' my host explained, 'we used to live not very far from here. It was a lonely place and a hard life; and it had joys and sorrows of its own. The greatest of its joys was the birth of Don, our firstborn; and the greatest of our sorrows was his death. He was only five when we buried him.'

'Yes,' added his wife, brushing a tear from her eye, 'and we buried him with a broken penknife in his hand. A swagman who had sheltered for the night in one of the out-buildings had given it to him before leaving in the morning, and Don thought it the most wonderful thing he had ever possessed. He was working away with it from morning to night. He would not trust it out of his sight. He had it in his hand when, a few days afterwards, he was taken ill. He clung to it all through his sickness. If he dropped it in his sleep, he asked for it as soon as he woke. He raved about it in his delirium. And it was firmly clasped in his hand when he died. We had not the heart to take it from him, and so he went down to his grave still holding it.'

Often since I have thought of that burial in the bush, not merely because the incident was so touching, but because it was so intensely characteristic. A boy's infatuation for his first pocket knife! It may have a rusty handle and a broken blade; the edge may be as jagged as the edge of a saw and the spring may have vanished with the days of long ago; it makes no difference. With a knife in his hand a boy feels that he is monarch of all he surveys. With a knife in his hand he feels himself every inch a man. A boy's first consciousness of power, of dominion, of authority comes to him on the day on which he grasps his first knife. It is by means of a knife that he carves his way to destiny.

Civilization may be said to have dawned on the day on which the first man in the world held in his hand the first knife in the world. It was made of stone, like the knives of all savage and primitive peoples. It came into his possession almost by chance. He was gathering together some huge stones, and building for himself a wall. Presently one heavy stone slipped from his hands, fell with a crash upon another, and broke. But it was not a clean break. There lay at that first man's feet two large fragments of stone and a multitude of splinters. He picked up the largest of the splinters and found that it had a keen, sharp edge. He cut his finger as he stroked it, and the blood crimsoned the stone. He dropped it as he would have dropped a snake that had bitten him. But, as he nursed his smarting hand, he saw the possibilities that the sharp-edged splinter opened to him. He remembered the toil with which he had torn down branches of trees and shaped them to his use. The splinter would simplify his task. He forgot his lacerated finger. He seized another stone, dashed it against its neighbor, and, by repeating the process, soon secured for himself a more shapely splinter—a splinter with which he could cut down the branches less laboriously. He tried it. He laughed as he found that, armed with the splinter, he could hack the yielding timber to his will. He was more excited than he had ever been before. Here was the first man with his first knife—the pioneer man with the pioneer knife! For that first man was the father of men of many colors, and that first knife was the father of blades of many kinds. From it sprang the sickle and the scythe, the chisel and the saw, the spade and the tomahawk, the rapier and the dagger, the scalpel and the poniard, the razor and the sword.

The joy that the boy feels as he looks lovingly on his first knife is the joy of shaping things. The world about him has suddenly become plastic. It is a block of marble and he is the sculptor. He may make of it what he will. Until he possessed a knife, the hard inanimate substances about him defied him. He was the bird and they were the bars. But now _he_ defies _them_. The knife makes all the difference. The knife is his sceptre. He is a king and all things are subject to him.

He may, of course, abuse his power. He probably will. A boy with a knife is very liable to carve his name in the polished walnut of the piano or to cut notches out of the neatly-turned legs of the dining-room table. From all parts of the world people go on pilgrimage to Westminster Abbey. And, at the Abbey, they are shown the Coronation Chair. Seated in it, all our English sovereigns have been crowned, and it is encrusted with traditions that go back to the days of the patriarchs. But a boy with a knife feels no reverence for antiquity. On the night of July 5, 1800, a Westminster schoolboy got locked in the Abbey. He curled himself up in the Coronation Chair and made it his resting-place until morning. And, in the morning, he thought of his pocket-knife. And, as the dawn came streaming through the storied eastern windows, he carved deeply into the solid oak of the seat of the chair, the notable inscription: _P. Abbot slept in this chair, July 5, 1800._ Thus he buried his blade in one of the noblest of our great historic treasures. It was enough to make the illustrious dead, by whom he was everywhere surrounded, turn in their ancient graves. George the Fourth and all his successors have since been crowned in a Chair that bears that impertinent record! Yet, as the chips flew, the boy felt no compunction. And, in his stolid calm, he is the type and representative of all who abuse the authority with which they are invested. He feels, as he wields the knife, that all things are at his mercy; he can shape them to his liking. He forgets that power carries its attendant obligations, and that, foremost among those obligations, is the obligation to restraint. A boy with a knife in his hand is merely a miniature edition of a man with a sword in his hand. And a man with a sword in his hand is often tempted to bury his blade in that which is even more precious than the oak of a Coronation Chair. Piano-frames and table-legs are not the only things that cry aloud for protection. The greatest lesson that the world has learned in our time is that the power of the sword involves its possessor in a responsibility that is simply frightful. The blood of brave men, the tears of good women, and the hard-earned wealth of nations must never be frivolously or lightheartedly outpoured.

From the moment at which, with sparkling eyes, that first man seized that first sharp splinter, the knife has steadily grown upon the imaginations of men. It took a thousand generations to discover its potentialities. Indeed, our own generation is only just beginning to realize the possibilities that it unfolds. Think of the marvels—I had almost said the miracles—of modern surgery.

'Let nothing share your heart with your knife!' said Dr. Ferguson to Barney Boyle, in _The Doctor of Crow's Nest_. The old doctor had just fallen in love with Barney. He liked his looks, he liked his temperament, and he liked his hands.

'You must be a surgeon, Barney! You've got the fingers and the nerves! A surgeon, sir! That's the only thing worth while. The physician can't see further below the skin than any one else. He guesses and experiments, treats symptoms; tries one drug and then another. But the knife, my boy!' The doctor rose and paced the floor in his enthusiasm. 'The knife, boy! There's no guess in the knifepoint. The knife lays bare the evil, fights it, eradicates it! The knife at the proper moment saves a man's life. A slight incision an inch or two long, the removal of the diseased part, a few stitches, and, in a couple of weeks, the patient's well! Ah, boy, God knows I'd give my life to be a great surgeon. But he didn't give me the fingers. Look at these!' and he held up a coarse, heavy hand. 'I haven't the touch. But you have! You have the nerve and the fingers and the mechanical ingenuity; you can be a great surgeon. You shall have all my time and all my books and all my money; I'll put you through! You must think, dream, sleep, eat, drink bones and muscles and sinews and nerves! Push everything else aside!' he cried, waving his great hands excitedly. 'And remember!'—here his voice took a solemn tone—'_let nothing share your heart with your knife!_'

Let nothing share your heart with your knife! That is always the knife's appeal. It is a plea for concentration. I was talking to an old gardener the other day. He was pruning his trees. The gleaming blade was in his hand and the path was littered with the wreckage of the branches. He seemed to be working a shocking havoc, and I told him so. He laughed.

'Oh, they're well-meaning things, are trees!' he exclaimed. 'They are anxious to do their best for you, but they attempt too much, far too much. Just look at this one!' and he laughed again. 'It thought it could cover all these branches with roses; and, if we left it alone, it would try. But what sort of roses would they be, I should like to know? No, no, no; it is better for them to produce fewer blossoms but to produce good ones. We mustn't let them attempt too much!'

'Let nothing share your heart with your knife!' said old Dr. Ferguson, as he urged Barney to do just one thing and to do that one thing well.

'We mustn't let the rose-trees attempt too much,' said the old gardener, as he lopped off the branches with his pruning-knife.

That seems to be the lesson that the knife is always teaching. I remember going one bright afternoon to see Gregor Fawcett of Mosgiel. Gregor was passing through a troublous and trying time. Hard on top of heavy business losses had come the collapse of his health. To my delight, however, I found him in a particularly cheerful mood.

'I've been reading aboot the knife, d'ye ken?' he explained. 'It's a bonny passage!' He took the open Bible from the table beside the bed and pointed me to the fifteenth of John. '_Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit, he cutteth away; and every branch that beareth fruit, he pruneth it that it may bring forth more fruit._'

'It brought me a power o' comfort,' Gregor explained. 'For it says, ye ken, that there are only two sorts o' wood on the tree—the _dead_ wood and the _live_ wood. He cuts away the _dead_ wood for the sake of the live wood that he leaves; and he cuts the _live_ wood that bears fruit so that it may bear still more and still better fruit. Well, I thocht o' all the losses I've had lately. I dinna ken whether the things that have been taken were _dead_ things or _live_ things, but it doesna matter. If they were _dead_ things, I'm better without them. And, if they were _live_ things, they were only cut away because my life is like a tree that bears fruit and that may yet bear more. And, in either case, the best remains. The tree is the richer and not the poorer for the pruning. The pruning only shows that the gardener cares. Ay, it's a bonny passage that!' and Gregor laid the open Bible lovingly on the pillow beside him. 'After you've gone,' he said, 'I shall go over it again!'

And, from the frequency with which he quoted the words to buffeted spirits in the days that followed, I could see that, on that further inspection, Gregor had kissed the husbandman's knife even more reverently and rapturously than before.

IV—OLD PHOTOGRAPHS

We badly need an Asylum for Antiquated Portraiture—a pleasant and hospitable refuge in which all our old photographs could be carefully preserved and reverently handled. For lack of such an institution we are all in difficulties. People come into our lives; we become attached to them and value their friendship; we exchange photographs; and, as soon as we have done so, the inevitable happens. The photographs get hopelessly out of date. Friends come and go; we come and go; but the photographs remain. Or, if the friends themselves abide, they change; fashions change; and, in a few years, the photographs look singularly archaic if not positively ridiculous. They go away into a drawer or a box. Once or twice a year a spring-cleaning or other volcanic upheaval reminds us of their existence. 'We must really sort these out and destroy a lot of them!' we say; but we never do it. Everybody knows why. It seems a betrayal of old confidences, an outrage upon sentiment, a heartless sacrilege. There should be an asylum for obsolete portraiture, or, if that is out of the question, we should do with the photographs what Nansen and Johansen, the Polar explorers, did with their dogs. Neither had the heart to shoot his own; so, amid the ice and snow of the far north, they exchanged their canine companions, and each went sadly and silently away and shot the other's!

Such a course must, however, be regarded as a makeshift and a subterfuge. The asylum is the thing. I am opposed, tooth and nail, to the destruction of old photographs under any conditions. I spent an hour yesterday afternoon down by the lake reading some of the love-letters that Mozart wrote to his wife nearly two centuries ago. Poor Johann and poor Stanzerl! They were so pitifully penniless that when, one bitter winter's morning, a kindly neighbor fought his way through the deep snow to see how the young couple were getting on, he found them dancing a waltz on the bare boards of their narrow room. They could not afford a fire, and this was their device for keeping warm. And now Johann is away on a business trip. In our time a husband so situated would send his wife a telegram to say that he had arrived safely, or, perhaps, buy her a picture-postcard of the view from his hotel window. But Mozart wrote the prettiest love-letters. 'Dear little wife,' he says, 'if I only had a letter from you! If I were to tell you all that I do with your dear likeness, how you would laugh! For instance, when I take it out of its case, I say "God greet thee, Stanzerl, God greet thee, thou rascal, shuttlecock, pointy-nose, nicknack, bit and sup!" And, when I put it back, I let it slip in very slowly, saying, with each little push, "Now—now—now!" and at the last, quickly—"Good-night, little mouse, sleep well!"' Where is that portrait now? I dread to hazard a conjecture! There was, alas, no asylum to which it could be fondly and reverently entrusted. Photographs, like fashions, are capable of strange revivals. One never knows when crinolines or hobble skirts will reappear; and in the same way, one never knows the moment at which some quaint old faded photograph will acquire new and absorbing interest.

'Why, bless me,' you exclaim, as you lay down the newspaper, 'here's Charlie Brown become famous! You remember Charlie; he was the second son of the Browns who lived opposite us at Kensington! Why, I have a photograph of him, taken when he was a little boy; I'll run and get it!' But alas, it has been destroyed. Or the regret may be even more poignant.