“And the dull stupidity of it just chokes me, so that I pant for the fresh air. I want to sail in ships, and battle with hurricane and storm; I want to go far away among men who actually do things—to new countries, Canada and Australia, where they fight hand to hand with primitive nature; I desire the seething scum of great cities, where there’s no confounded policeman to keep you virtuous. My whole soul aches for the East, for Egypt and India and Japan; I want to know the corrupt, eager life of the Malays and the violent adventures of South Sea Islands, I may not get an answer to the riddle of life out in the open world, but I shall get nearer to it than here; I can get nothing more out of books and civilization. I want to see life and death, and the passions, the virtues and vices, of men face to face, uncovered; I want really to live my life while there’s time; I want to have something to look back on in my old age.”
“That’s all very fine and romantic,” replied Miss Ley; “but where are you going to get the money?”
“I don’t want money; I’ll earn my living as I go, I’ll ship before the mast to America, and there I’ll work as a navvy; and I’ll tramp from end to end picking up odd jobs. And when I know that, I’ll get another ship to take me East. I’m sick to death of your upper classes; I want to work with those who really know life at the bottom, with its hunger and toil, its primitive love and hate.”
“That’s nonsense, my dear. Poverty is a more exacting master than all the conventions of society put together, I dare say one voyage before the mast would be interesting, and would certainly teach you the advantage of ample means and the comfort of useless luxuries. But remember that as soon as anything becomes a routine it ceases to be true.”
“That sounds epigrammatic,” interrupted Frank; “but does it by any chance mean something?”
Miss Ley, uncertain that it did, went on quickly.
“I assure you that no one can be free who isn’t delivered from the care of getting money. For myself, I have always thought the philosophers talk sheer silliness when they praise the freedom of a man content with little; a man with no ear for music will willingly go without his stall at the opera, but an obtuseness of sense is no proof of wisdom. No one can really be free, no one can even begin to get the full value out of life, on a smaller income than five hundred a year.”
Frank looked straight in front of him, without answering; his quick mind still thrilled with the prospect his imagination offered. Miss Ley continued reflectively.
“On the other hand, it seems to me proof of great dulness that a person of ample fortune should devote himself to any lucrative occupation, and I have no patience with the man of means who from sheer habit or in poverty of spirit pursues a monotonous and sordid industry. I know a millionaire who makes his only son work ten hours a day in a bank, and thinks he gives him a useful training! Now, I would have the rich leave the earning of money to such as must make their daily bread, and devote their own energies exclusively to the spending thereof. I should like a class, leisured and opulent, with time for the arts and graces, in which urbanity and wit and comeliness of manner might be cultivated; I would have it attempt curious experiments in life, and like the Court of Louis XV., offer a frivolous, amiable contrast to the dark strenuousness in which of necessity the world in general must exist. A deal of nonsense is now talked about the dignity of labour, but I wonder that preachers and suchlike have ever had the temerity to tell a factory hand there is anything exalting in his dreary toil. I suppose it is praised usually because it takes men out of themselves, and the stupid are bored when they have nothing to do. Work with the vast majority is merely a refuge from ennui, but surely it is absurd to call it noble on that account; on the contrary, there is probably far more nobility in indolence, which requires many talents, much cultivation, and a mind of singular and delicate constitution.”
“And now for the application of your harangue,” suggested Frank, smiling.