At first I undertook one of the modern novels which had been recommended by my bookseller, but I found myself unable to get on with it, and standing before my shelves took down one volume after another of philosophers who once were wont to comfort me—men with brains, thinking men who had done something in the world beside buying yachts and country houses. My eye caught a page which earlier I had turned down, and I read again:
“Trust thyself; every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the Divine Providence has found for you—the society of friends, the connexion of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age.... And we now are men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not pinched in a corner nor cowards fleeing before a revolution, but redeemers, and benefactors, pious aspirants to be noble clay, under the Almighty effort let us advance on Chaos and the Dark.”
I read the mystic, involved, subjective words again, as most of the Concord Sage’s words require, and reflected how well they jumped with the note of my heathen Epictetus, who had said, “Be natural and noble”. And, so thinking, I began to wonder whether, after all, my father, whose ruthless ways I betimes had explored, whose ruthless sins I had betimes atoned, had not been, perhaps, a better man than sometimes I had credited him with being. He, in accordance with his lights, had accepted the part given him by the Poet of the Play. He had confided himself childlike to the genius of his age, roaring, fighting, scrambling, getting and sometimes giving. He had trusted himself; and in the end, a bold man, he had advanced bravely on Chaos and the Dark. After a life of war and sometimes of rapine, done under the genius of his day, he had struck boldly the last chord on an iron string. Dear old Governor! I did not regret the million of his money I had spent to restore his memory clean in my own mind: for after all, it had all been in open war—that time when he unloaded a worthless mine on his friend, Dan Emory—Helena’s father, Daniel Emory, who was, at first, said to have left his family penniless; until a shrewd lawyer in some miraculous way had managed to sell at a good price a box full of worthless mining stock to some innocent victim.
Helena Emory never knew of that sale, nor did her guardian aunt. I did know of it, for the very good reason that I was both the shrewd lawyer and the innocent purchaser. It was the last act of my professional career; and it was this which caused the general report that I had made a bad mining venture, had lost my father’s fortune, and retired from my career a ruined man. A few friends knew otherwise: and I blessed the rumor which cost me certain friends who thought me poor and so forsook me. Perhaps, my father would have called me quixotic had he known. Now, as I read and pondered, I neither blamed him for his own course in fair business war with old Dan Emory, nor did I censure myself for my own hidden act of restitution. Let the world wag its head if it liked, and remain ignorant of other millions given to me before my father’s death, unprobated, secret, after the fashion of my pirate parent who buried his treasures and told none but his kin how they might be found.
Of course, in time, it all might come out. In time, Helena would know that this yacht which she supposed to be Davidson’s was my own, that the farm I was supposed to have rented really was a handsome estate that I owned, that many covert deeds in finance had been my own—it was only my silence and my absence in many parts of the world which had prevented her, also much a traveler, from knowing the truth about me long ago. And the truth was, I was not a poor man, but a rich one.
Yet he who had stolen my purse would indeed have stolen trash this day. Rich in one way, I was poor, indeed, in others. I cared nothing for old Dan Emory’s money, but very, very much for old Dan Emory’s daughter; and her I might not have, even after all my efforts.... No, the waters would leave no trail; and once more, after I had restored old Dan Emory’s daughter to her home and friends, I would travel the wide world again, and the gossipers might guess what causes had ended a professional career, apparently ended a great fortune, and actually had ended a life.... For, I thought—using some philosophy of my own making—it is not wealth, but usefulness, contentment and independence which a man should hold as his most desired success. These achieved, little is left to gain. Any one of these last, and nothing remains worth gaining.
I took up another book, at another marked page: “Let us learn to be content with what we have. Let us get rid of our false estimates, set up all the higher ideals—a quiet home, vines of our own planting; a few books full of the inspiration of genius; a few friends worthy of being loved; a hundred innocent pleasures that bring no pain or remorse; a devotion to the right that will never swerve; a simple religion empty of all bigotry, full of trust and hope and love—and to such a philosophy, this world will give up all the empty joy it has.”
I meditated over this also, applying these tests to my own life.... Ah! now I saw why my foot was ever restless, why I sought always new scenes.... Where was my quiet home, the vines of my own planting? Would I flee from that to every corner of the world? Not if it held the woman of my choice. Would she thus roam restless, if she held the heart of her chosen and if they had a home?... I began to see the Plan unfold. Yes, and saw myself outside the Plan.... Because of a devotion to the right that would not swerve. Because of a fanaticism, an “oddness”, a nonconformity—ah! so I said bitterly to myself, because, after all, I was unattuned to my age, because I was unfit to survive before a man’s own judge.... It is Portia judges this world. The case of every man comes before a woman for decision. I, who rarely had lost a case at law where I could use my own trained mind, had lost my first and only case at the bar of Love....
So—and I sighed as I shut the books and returned them to their shelves—contentment never could be mine, nor that quiet home where only life is lived that is worth living; nor usefulness; nor independence.
I did not hear Jimmy when he came in, and when he spoke I jumped, startled.