Your affectionate godfather,
G. L.
My dear Godfather,—You are most disappointing and evasive. I gave up the discussion on Latin and Greek, but I did and do want your reply to a most simple question. If you had to teach children—you surely can imagine yourself in such a position—would you teach them what are generally known as theology and metaphysics?—excuse the emphasis. You have an answer, I am certain, and you may just as well give it me. I know that you had rather, or affect you had rather, talk about Catullus, but I also know that you think upon serious subjects sometimes. These matters cannot now be put aside. We live in a world in which certain problems are forced upon us and we are compelled to come to some conclusion upon them. I cannot shut myself up and determine that I will have no opinion upon Education or Socialism or Women’s Rights. The fact that these questions are here is plain proof that it is my duty not to ignore them. You hate large generalisations, but how can we exist without them? They may never be entirely true, but they are indispensable, and, if you never commit yourself to any, you are much more likely to be practically wrong than if you use them.
Take, for example, the Local Veto. I admitted in my speech that there is much to be urged against it. It might act harshly, and it is quite true that poor men in large towns cannot spend their evenings in their filthy homes; but I must be for it or against it, and I am enthusiastically for it, because on the whole it will do good. So with Socialism. The evils of Capitalism are so monstrous that any remedy is better than none. Socialism may not be the direct course: it may be a tremendously awkward tack, but it is only by tacking that we get along. So with positive education, but I have enlarged upon this already. What a sermon to my dear godfather! Forgive me, but you will have to take sides, and do, please, be a little more definite about my book.
Your affectionate godchild,
Hermione.
My dear Hermione,—I haven’t written for some time, for I was unwell for nearly a month. The doctor has given me physic, but my age is really the mischief, and it is incurable. I caught cold through sitting out of doors after dinner with the rector, a good fellow if he would not smoke on my port. To smoke on good port is a sin. He knows my infirmity, that I cannot sit still long, and he excuses my attendance at church. Would you believe it? When I was very bad, and thought I might die, I read Horace again, whom you detest. I often wonder what he really thought upon many things when he looked out on the
“taciturna noctis
signa.”
Justice is not often done to him. He saw a long way, but he did not make believe he saw beyond his limit, and was content with it. A rare virtue is intellectual content!
“Tu ne quæsieris, scire nefas, quem mihi, quem tibi
Finem dî dederint, Leuconoe, nec Babylonios
Tentaris numeros.”
The rector was telling me about Tom Pavenham’s wedding. He has married Margaret Loxley, as you may perhaps have seen in the paper I sent you. Mrs. Loxley, her mother, was a Barfield, and old Pavenham, when he was a youth, fell in love with her. She was also in love with him. He was well-to-do, and farmed about seven hundred acres, but he was not thought good enough by the elder Barfields, who lived in what was called a park. They would not hear of the match. She was sent to France, and he went to Buenos Ayres. After some years had passed he married out there, and she married. His wife died when her first child, a boy, was born. Loxley also died, leaving his wife with an only daughter. Pavenham retired from business in South America, and came back with his son to his native village, where he meant to spend the rest of his days. Tom and Margaret were at once desperately smitten with one another. The father and mother have kept their own flame alive, and I believe it is as bright as it ever was. It is delightful to see them together. They called on me with the children after the betrothal. He was so courteous and attentive to her, and she seemed to bask in his obvious affection. I noticed how they looked at one another and smiled happily as the boy and girl wandered off together towards the filbert walk. The rector told me that he was talking to old Pavenham one evening, and said to him: “Jem, aren’t you sometimes sad when you think of what ought to have happened?” His voice shook a bit as he replied gently: “God be thanked for what we have! Besides, it has all come to pass in Tom and Margaret.”
You must not be angry with me if I say nothing more about Positive Education. It is a great strain on me to talk upon such matters, and when I do I always feel afterwards that I have said much which is mere words. That is a sure test; I must obey my dæmon. I wish I could give you what you want for what you have given me; but when do we get what we want in exchange for what we give? Our trafficking is a clumsy barter. A man sells me a sheep, and I pay him in return with my grandfather’s old sextant. This is not quite true for you and me. Love is given and love is returned. À Dieu—not adieu. Remember that the world is very big, and that there may be room in it for a few creatures like