Over two years passed,and the Schlegel household continued to lead its life of cultured but not ignoble ease,still swimming gracefully on the grey tides of London.Concerts and plays swept past them,money had been spent and renewed,reputations won and lost,and the city herself,emblematic of their lives,rose and fell in a continual flux,while her shallows washed more widely against the hills of Surrey and over the fields of Hertfordshire.This famous building had arisen,that was doomed.
Today Whitehall had been transformed:it would be the turn of Regent Street tomorrow.And month by month the roads smelt more strongly of petrol,and were more difficult to cross,and human beings heard each other speak with greater difficulty,breathed less of the air,and saw less of the sky.Nature withdrew:the leaves were falling by midsummer;the sun shone through dirt with an admired obscurity.
To speak against London is no longer fashionable.
The Earth as an artistic cult has had its day,and the literature of the near future will probably ignore the country and seek inspiration from the town.One can understand the reaction.Of Pan and the elemental forces,the public has heard a little too much--they seem Victorian,while London is Georgian--and those who care for the earth with sincerity may wait long ere the pendulum swings back to her again.Certainly London fascinates.One visualizes it as a tract of quivering grey,intelligent without purpose,and excitable without love;as a spirit that has altered before it can be chronicled;as a heart that certainly beats,but with no pulsation of humanity.It lies beyond everything:Nature,with all her cruelty,comes nearer to us than do these crowds of men.
A friend explains himself:the earth is explicable--from her we came,and we must return to her.But who can explain Westminster Bridge Road or Liverpool Street in the morning--the city inhaling--or the same thoroughfares in the evening--the city exhaling her exhausted air?We reach in desperation beyond the fog,beyond the very stars,the voids of the universe are ransacked to justify the monster,and stamped with a human face.
London is religion's opportunity--not the decorous religion of theologians,but anthropomorphic,crude.Yes,the continuous flow would be tolerable if a man of our own sort--not anyone pompous or tearful--were caring for us up in the sky.
The Londoner seldom understands his city until it sweeps him,too,away from his moorings,and Margaret's eyes were not opened until the lease of Wickham Place expired.She had always known that it must expire,but the knowledge only became vivid about nine months before the event.Then the house was suddenly ringed with pathos.
It had seen so much happiness.Why had it to be swept away?
In the streets of the city she noted for the first time the architecture of hurry,and heard the language of hurry on the mouths of its inhabitants--clipped words,formless sentences,potted expressions of approval or disgust.
Month by month things were stepping livelier,but to what goal?The population still rose,but what was the quality of the men born?
The particular millionaire who owned the freehold of Wickham Place,and desired to erect Babylonian flats upon it--what right had he to stir so large a portion of the quivering jelly?He was not a fool--she had heard him expose Socialism--but true insight began just where his intelligence ended,and one gathered that this was the case with most millionaires.
What right had such men--But Margaret checked herself.That way lies madness.Thank goodness she,too,had some money,and could purchase a new home.
Tibby,now in his second year at Oxford,was down for the Easter vacation,and Margaret took the opportunity of having a serious talk with him.Did he at all know where he wanted to live?
Tibby didn't know that he did know.Did he at all know what he wanted to do?He was equally uncertain,but when pressed remarked that he should prefer to be quite free of any profession.Margaret was not shocked,but went on sewing for a few minutes before she replied:
"I was thinking of Mr.Vyse.He never strikes me as particularly happy.""Ye-es,"said Tibby,and then held his mouth open in a curious quiver,as if he,too,had thoughts of Mr.Vyse,had seen round,through,over,and beyond Mr.Vyse,had weighed Mr.Vyse,grouped him,and finally dismissed him as having no possible bearing on the subject under discussion.That bleat of Tibby's infuriated Helen.But Helen was now down in the dining-room preparing a speech about political economy.At times her voice could be heard declaiming through the floor.
"But Mr.Vyse is rather a wretched,weedy man,don't you think?Then there's Guy.That was a pitiful business.
Besides"--shifting to the general--"every one is the better for some regular work."Groans.
"I shall stick to it,"she continued,smiling.
"I am not saying it to educate you;it is what I really think.Ibelieve that in the last century men have developed the desire for work,and they must not starve it.It's a new desire.It goes with a great deal that's bad,but in itself it's good,and I hope that for women,too,'not to work'will soon become as shocking as 'not to be married'
was a hundred years ago."
"I have no experience of this profound desire to which you allude,"enunciated Tibby.
"Then we'll leave the subject till you do.
I'm not going to rattle you round.Take your time.Only do think over the lives of the men you like most,and see how they've arranged them.""I like Guy and Mr.Vyse most,"said Tibby faintly,and leant so far back in his chair that he extended in a horizontal line from knees to throat.
"And don't think I'm not serious because I don't use the traditional arguments--making money,a sphere awaiting you,and so on--all of which are,for various reasons,cant."She sewed on.
"I'm only your sister.I haven't any authority over you,and I don't want to have any.Just to put before you what I think the truth.
