‘If he had only trusted me a little more—if I had only doubted him a little less, how sweet it would have been to have gone down this hillside hand in hand together.’
‘If I could only have persuaded him not to make that last journey,’ murmurs the widow.
‘If my son had been spared,’ moans the childless.
‘If I had known his falsehood,’ bitterly exclaims the betrayed.
‘I wish the guv’nor’s cash had not gone so fast,’ mutters the spendthrift, ‘and it might have lasted long enough to have made this an easy slide, if I had only thought about it. Now I suppose it will be a regular plunge.’
‘If I had only left off play before my luck turned,’ growls the gambler.
‘If I had left those shares alone I would have been all right,’ says the bankrupt.
‘Looking back, sir, is seldom pleasant,’ says the successful man with a complacent smile and with a wave of his hand patronising the whole past, ‘but to me it is agreeable enough. The struggle was hard, sir, hard; and if it had not been for untiring energy on my part—well, I should not be where I am. But if I had it all to do over again, why, I could double my fortune.’
But he is content enough to go gently down the slope in his carriage, whilst others are tumbling or creeping down the same course bearing that burden ‘If.’ The miserable ones know that their state would have been more gracious if they could have seen the way more clearly; but they have no wish to go back; they crawl voiceless over the hilltop, in haste to reach the end of the journey.