He sat for some time with the book before him, and then another thought came into his head. Why should he not write to her, just a few words to let her know that what she had written had gone home to his heart, and that amongst all her critics there was not one who understood her better than he? He was entitled to do this; it was almost due to himself to do it. He would take care not to make a fool of himself this time, as he had done in his first letter to her.
So he took a pen and wrote:
"I have read your book. You would not expect to find me amongst the critics: I only write to thank you for the pleasure and the courage it has given me. Some parts have fitted my case so exactly that I have applied them and made use of them, as any chance comer is permitted to do with any work of art.
"This is a great work you have produced, and I always knew that you would do great things. Count me not last of those who praise you, and who look to see your future triumphs. Alan Walcott."
He put the letter in an envelope, sealed and addressed it. Then he leaned back in his chair, and began to muse again.
What a failure his life had been! He had told himself so a hundred times of late, but the truth of the verdict was more and more vivid every day. Surely he had set out from the beginning with good intentions, with high motives, with an honorable ambition. No man ever had a more just father, a more devoted mother, a happier home, a more careful and conscientious training. He had never seen a flaw in either of his parents, and it had been his single purpose to imitate their devotion to duty, their piety, their gentle consideration for all with whom they had to deal. It had struck him sometimes as almost strange (he had suspected once that it was a trifle unpoetical) that he had rather sought out than shunned his humbler relatives in the little shop at Thorley, taking the utmost care that their feelings should never be hurt by his more refined education and tastes. Of these three friends of his youth who were dead he could honestly say (but he did not say all this), that he had been dutiful to them, and that he had not wilfully brought sorrow upon any one of them.
Where had he gone so far astray as to merit, or even to bring about, the anguish which had fallen upon him? True, he had given himself to pleasure for the few years which succeeded his father's death. He had traveled, he had enjoyed the society of men and women, he had lived an idle life—except inasmuch as he aspired to be a poet, and wrote two or three volumes which the world had accepted and thanked him for, but the standard of his boyhood had never been rejected—he had been considerate of the feelings of every man and woman (Lettice alone, perhaps, having the right to deny it), and had not permitted himself one pleasure, or action, or relaxation, which might give pain to another. That had been his rule of life. Was it not enough?
He had teased himself, as thoughtful men and women often have done, and more often will do, about the problem of human morals. It had not occurred to him that the morals which have no conscious basis are likely to be more sound and permanent than those which are consciously built up; and, as a matter of fact, his own were of that kind, though he had his rule and considered himself to be guided by it. "That which gives no pain to another, and does not deteriorate another, or oneself, or any sentient being, cannot be immoral, though circumstances may make it inexpedient." He had written that sentence in his diary before he was twenty, at an age when the expanding soul craves for talismans and golden maxims, and he had clung to it ever since. For what violation of the law did he suffer now?
This was not Lettice's way of looking at it. The hero of her story was an urn in the hands of a divine artist, and a sterner stress was necessary for the consummate work. But he, Alan, was no hero. Horace' verse was nearer the mark with him.
Amphoræ coepit
Institui; currente rota cur urceus exit?