Master Anthony, you’ve got it the wrong way about. A tree depends on wind and weather, but a man has rule and law inside of him.
Anthony.
Do you think so? Ah, we old men owe a lot to death, for letting us knock about so long among you young fellows and giving us the chance to get educated. Once upon a time the world was foolish enough to believe that the father was there to educate the son. Now, it’s the other way. The son has to put the finishing touches on his father, lest the old simpleton should disgrace himself in the grave before the worms. Thank God, I’ve an excellent teacher in this boy, Karl, of mine; he wages ruthless war upon my prejudices, and doesn’t spoil the old fellow with too much indulgence. Only this morning, for instance, he’s taught me two new lessons. And very skilfully too, without so much as opening his mouth, without even showing himself; in fact, just by not doing so. In the first place, he has shown me that you don’t need to keep your word; secondly, that it’s unnecessary to go to church and freshen up your memory of God’s commandments. Last night he promised me he’d go, and I counted on it, for I thought, “He’ll surely want to thank the Creator for sparing his mother’s life.” But he wasn’t there, and I was quite comfortable in my pew, which indeed is a bit small for two. I wonder how he’d like it, if I were to act on this new lesson of his at once, and break my word to him? I promised him a new suit on his birthday, and so I have a good chance of seeing what pleasure he would take in a ready pupil. But—prejudice, prejudice! I shan’t do it.
Leonard.
Perhaps he wasn’t well——
Anthony.
That may be. I only need to ask my wife. She’ll be sure to tell me he’s sick. She tells me the truth about everything on earth except that boy. And even if he isn’t sick—there you young men have the pull over us old folks again. You can do your devotions anywhere; you can say your prayers when you’re out bird-snaring, or taking a walk, or even in a public-house. “‘Our father, which art in Heaven’—Good-morning, Peter, coming to the dance to-night?—‘Hallowed be Thy Name’—Yes, you may smile, Katherine, but you’ll see—‘Thy will be done’—By God, I’m not shaved yet,”—and so on to the end, when you pronounce your own blessing, since you’re just as much a man as the parson, and there’s as much virtue in a blue coat as in a black. I’ve nothing against it. If you want to insert seven drinks between the seven petitions, what does it matter? I can’t prove to any one that beer and religion don’t go together. Perhaps it will get into the prayer-book some day, as a new way of taking communion. But I, old sinner that I am, am not strong enough to follow the fashion. I can’t catch devotion in the street, as if it were a cock-chafer. The twittering of sparrows and swallows cannot take the place of the organ for me. If my heart is to be uplifted, I must first hear the heavy iron church-doors clang behind me, and imagine they are the gates of the world. The high walls with their narrow windows, that only let the bright bold light of the world filter dimly through, must close in upon me, and in the distance I must see the dead-house with the walled-in skull. Well—better is better.
Leonard.
You take it too seriously.
Anthony.