Chapter: On our way to town Ernest broached his plans for spending the next year
or two.  I wanted him to try and get more into society again, but he
brushed this aside at once as the very last thing he had a fancy for.  For
society indeed of all sorts, except of course that of a few intimate
friends, he had an unconquerable aversion.  "I always did hate those
people," he said, "and they always have hated and always will hate me.  I
am an Ishmael by instinct as much as by accident of circumstances, but if
I keep out of society I shall be less vulnerable than Ishmaels generally
are.  The moment a man goes into society, he becomes vulnerable all
round."

I was very sorry to hear him talk in this way; for whatever strength a
man may have he should surely be able to make more of it if he act in
concert than alone.  I said this.

"I don't care," he answered, "whether I make the most of my strength or
not; I don't know whether I have any strength, but if I have I dare say
it will find some way of exerting itself.  I will live as I like living,
not as other people would like me to live; thanks to my aunt and you I
can afford the luxury of a quiet unobtrusive life of self-indulgence,"
said he laughing, "and I mean to have it.  You know I like writing," he
added after a pause of some minutes, "I have been a scribbler for years.
If I am to come to the fore at all it must be by writing."

I had already long since come to that conclusion myself.

"Well," he continued, "there are a lot of things that want saying which
no one dares to say, a lot of shams which want attacking, and yet no one
attacks them.  It seems to me that I can say things which not another man
in England except myself will venture to say, and yet which are crying to
be said."

I said: "But who will listen?  If you say things which nobody else would
dare to say is not this much the same as saying what everyone except
yourself knows to be better left unsaid just now?"

"Perhaps," said he, "but I don't know it; I am bursting with these
things, and it is my fate to say them."

I knew there would be no stopping him, so I gave in and asked what
question he felt a special desire to burn his fingers with in the first
instance.

"Marriage," he rejoined promptly, "and the power of disposing of his
property after a man is dead.  The question of Christianity is virtually
settled, or if not settled there is no lack of those engaged in settling
it.  The question of the day now is marriage and the family system."

"That," said I drily, "is a hornet's nest indeed."

"Yes," said he no less drily, "but hornet's nests are exactly what I
happen to like.  Before, however, I begin to stir up this particular one
I propose to travel for a few years, with the especial object of finding
out what nations now existing are the best, comeliest and most lovable,
and also what nations have been so in times past.  I want to find out how
these people live, and have lived, and what their customs are.

"I have very vague notions upon the subject as yet, but the general
impression I have formed is that, putting ourselves on one side, the most
vigorous and amiable of known nations are the modern Italians, the old
Greeks and Romans, and the South Sea Islanders.  I believe that these
nice peoples have not as a general rule been purists, but I want to see
those of them who can yet be seen; they are the practical authorities on
the question--What is best for man? and I should like to see them and
find out what they do.  Let us settle the fact first and fight about the
moral tendencies afterwards."

"In fact," said I laughingly, "you mean to have high old times."

"Neither higher nor lower," was the answer, "than those people whom I can
find to have been the best in all ages.  But let us change the subject."
He put his hand into his pocket and brought out a letter.  "My father,"
he said, "gave me this letter this morning with the seal already broken."
He passed it over to me, and I found it to be the one which Christina had
written before the birth of her last child, and which I have given in an
earlier chapter.

"And you do not find this letter," said I, "affect the conclusion which
you have just told me you have come to concerning your present plans?"

He smiled, and answered: "No.  But if you do what you have sometimes
talked about and turn the adventures of my unworthy self into a novel,
mind you print this letter."

"Why so?" said I, feeling as though such a letter as this should have
been held sacred from the public gaze.

"Because my mother would have wished it published; if she had known you
were writing about me and had this letter in your possession, she would
above all things have desired that you should publish it.  Therefore
publish it if you write at all."

This is why I have done so.

Within a month Ernest carried his intention into effect, and having made
all the arrangements necessary for his children's welfare left England
before Christmas.

I heard from him now and again and learnt that he was visiting almost all
parts of the world, but only staying in those places where he found the
inhabitants unusually good-looking and agreeable.  He said he had filled
an immense quantity of note-books, and I have no doubt he had.  At last
in the spring of 1867 he returned, his luggage stained with the variation
of each hotel advertisement 'twixt here and Japan.  He looked very brown
and strong, and so well favoured that it almost seemed as if he must have
caught some good looks from the people among whom he had been living.  He
came back to his old rooms in the Temple, and settled down as easily as
if he had never been away a day.

One of the first things we did was to go and see the children; we took
the train to Gravesend, and walked thence for a few miles along the
riverside till we came to the solitary house where the good people lived
with whom Ernest had placed them.  It was a lovely April morning, but
with a fresh air blowing from off the sea; the tide was high, and the
river was alive with shipping coming up with wind and tide.  Sea-gulls
wheeled around us overhead, sea-weed clung everywhere to the banks which
the advancing tide had not yet covered, everything was of the sea sea-ey,
and the fine bracing air which blew over the water made me feel more
hungry than I had done for many a day; I did not see how children could
live in a better physical atmosphere than this, and applauded the
selection which Ernest had made on behalf of his youngsters.

While we were still a quarter of a mile off we heard shouts and
children's laughter, and could see a lot of boys and girls romping
together and running after one another.  We could not distinguish our own
two, but when we got near they were soon made out, for the other children
were blue-eyed, flaxen-pated little folks, whereas ours were dark and
straight-haired.

We had written to say that we were coming, but had desired that nothing
should be said to the children, so these paid no more attention to us
than they would have done to any other stranger, who happened to visit a
spot so unfrequented except by sea-faring folk, which we plainly were
not.  The interest, however, in us was much quickened when it was
discovered that we had got our pockets full of oranges and sweeties, to
an extent greater than it had entered into their small imaginations to
conceive as possible.  At first we had great difficulty in making them
come near us.  They were like a lot of wild young colts, very
inquisitive, but very coy and not to be cajoled easily.  The children
were nine in all--five boys and two girls belonging to Mr and Mrs
Rollings, and two to Ernest.  I never saw a finer lot of children than
the young Rollings, the boys were hardy, robust, fearless little fellows
with eyes as clear as hawks; the elder girl was exquisitely pretty, but
the younger one was a mere baby.  I felt as I looked at them, that if I
had had children of my own I could have wished no better home for them,
nor better companions.

Georgie and Alice, Ernest's two children, were evidently quite as one
family with the others, and called Mr and Mrs Rollings uncle and aunt.
They had been so young when they were first brought to the house that
they had been looked upon in the light of new babies who had been born
into the family.  They knew nothing about Mr and Mrs Rollings being paid
so much a week to look after them.  Ernest asked them all what they
wanted to be.  They had only one idea; one and all, Georgie among the
rest, wanted to be bargemen.  Young ducks could hardly have a more
evident hankering after the water.

"And what do you want, Alice?" said Ernest.

"Oh," she said, "I'm going to marry Jack here, and be a bargeman's wife."

Jack was the eldest boy, now nearly twelve, a sturdy little fellow, the
image of what Mr Rollings must have been at his age.  As we looked at
him, so straight and well grown and well done all round, I could see it
was in Ernest's mind as much as in mine that she could hardly do much
better.

"Come here, Jack, my boy," said Ernest, "here's a shilling for you."  The
boy blushed and could hardly be got to come in spite of our previous
blandishments; he had had pennies given him before, but shillings never.
His father caught him good-naturedly by the ear and lugged him to us.

"He's a good boy, Jack is," said Ernest to Mr Rollings, "I'm sure of
that."

"Yes," said Mr Rollings, "he's a werry good boy, only that I can't get
him to learn his reading and writing.  He don't like going to school,
that's the only complaint I have against him.  I don't know what's the
matter with all my children, and yours, Mr Pontifex, is just as bad, but
they none of 'em likes book learning, though they learn anything else
fast enough.  Why, as for Jack here, he's almost as good a bargeman as I
am."  And he looked fondly and patronisingly towards his offspring.

"I think," said Ernest to Mr Rollings, "if he wants to marry Alice when
he gets older he had better do so, and he shall have as many barges as he
likes.  In the meantime, Mr Rollings, say in what way money can be of use
to you, and whatever you can make useful is at your disposal."

I need hardly say that Ernest made matters easy for this good couple; one
stipulation, however, he insisted on, namely, there was to be no more
smuggling, and that the young people were to be kept out of this; for a
little bird had told Ernest that smuggling in a quiet way was one of the
resources of the Rollings family.  Mr Rollings was not sorry to assent to
this, and I believe it is now many years since the coastguard people have
suspected any of the Rollings family as offenders against the revenue
law.

"Why should I take them from where they are," said Ernest to me in the
train as we went home, "to send them to schools where they will not be
one half so happy, and where their illegitimacy will very likely be a
worry to them?  Georgie wants to be a bargeman, let him begin as one, the
sooner the better; he may as well begin with this as with anything else;
then if he shows developments I can be on the look-out to encourage them
and make things easy for him; while if he shows no desire to go ahead,
what on earth is the good of trying to shove him forward?"

Ernest, I believe, went on with a homily upon education generally, and
upon the way in which young people should go through the embryonic stages
with their money as much as with their limbs, beginning life in a much
lower social position than that in which their parents were, and a lot
more, which he has since published; but I was getting on in years, and
the walk and the bracing air had made me sleepy, so ere we had got past
Greenhithe Station on our return journey I had sunk into a refreshing
sleep.





Ernest being about two and thirty years old and having had his fling for
the last three or four years, now settled down in London, and began to
write steadily.  Up to this time he had given abundant promise, but had
produced nothing, nor indeed did he come before the public for another
three or four years yet.

He lived as I have said very quietly, seeing hardly anyone but myself,
and the three or four old friends with whom I had been intimate for
years.  Ernest and we formed our little set, and outside of this my
godson was hardly known at all.

His main expense was travelling, which he indulged in at frequent
intervals, but for short times only.  Do what he would he could not get
through more than about fifteen hundred a year; the rest of his income he
gave away if he happened to find a case where he thought money would be
well bestowed, or put by until some opportunity arose of getting rid of
it with advantage.

I knew he was writing, but we had had so many little differences of
opinion upon this head that by a tacit understanding the subject was
seldom referred to between us, and I did not know that he was actually
publishing till one day he brought me a book and told me flat it was his
own.  I opened it and found it to be a series of semi-theological, semi-
social essays, purporting to have been written by six or seven different
people, and viewing the same class of subjects from different
standpoints.

People had not yet forgotten the famous "Essays and Reviews," and Ernest
had wickedly given a few touches to at least two of the essays which
suggested vaguely that they had been written by a bishop.  The essays
were all of them in support of the Church of England, and appeared both
by internal suggestion, and their prima facie purport to be the work of
some half-dozen men of experience and high position who had determined to
face the difficult questions of the day no less boldly from within the
bosom of the Church than the Church's enemies had faced them from without
her pale.

There was an essay on the external evidences of the Resurrection; another
on the marriage laws of the most eminent nations of the world in times
past and present; another was devoted to a consideration of the many
questions which must be reopened and reconsidered on their merits if the
teaching of the Church of England were to cease to carry moral authority
with it; another dealt with the more purely social subject of middle
class destitution; another with the authenticity or rather the
unauthenticity of the fourth gospel--another was headed "Irrational
Rationalism," and there were two or three more.

They were all written vigorously and fearlessly as though by people used
to authority; all granted that the Church professed to enjoin belief in
much which no one could accept who had been accustomed to weigh evidence;
but it was contended that so much valuable truth had got so closely mixed
up with these mistakes, that the mistakes had better not be meddled with.
To lay great stress on these was like cavilling at the Queen's right to
reign, on the ground that William the Conqueror was illegitimate.

One article maintained that though it would be inconvenient to change the
words of our prayer book and articles, it would not be inconvenient to
change in a quiet way the meanings which we put upon those words.  This,
it was argued, was what was actually done in the case of law; this had
been the law's mode of growth and adaptation, and had in all ages been
found a righteous and convenient method of effecting change.  It was
suggested that the Church should adopt it.

In another essay it was boldly denied that the Church rested upon reason.
It was proved incontestably that its ultimate foundation was and ought to
be faith, there being indeed no other ultimate foundation than this for
any of man's beliefs.  If so, the writer claimed that the Church could
not be upset by reason.  It was founded, like everything else, on initial
assumptions, that is to say on faith, and if it was to be upset it was to
be upset by faith, by the faith of those who in their lives appeared more
graceful, more lovable, better bred, in fact, and better able to overcome
difficulties.  Any sect which showed its superiority in these respects
might carry all before it, but none other would make much headway for
long together.  Christianity was true in so far as it had fostered
beauty, and it had fostered much beauty.  It was false in so far as it
fostered ugliness, and it had fostered much ugliness.  It was therefore
not a little true and not a little false; on the whole one might go
farther and fare worse; the wisest course would be to live with it, and
make the best and not the worst of it.  The writer urged that we become
persecutors as a matter of course as soon as we begin to feel very
strongly upon any subject; we ought not therefore to do this; we ought
not to feel very strongly--even upon that institution which was dearer to
the writer than any other--the Church of England.  We should be
churchmen, but somewhat lukewarm churchmen, inasmuch as those who care
very much about either religion or irreligion are seldom observed to be
very well bred or agreeable people.  The Church herself should approach
as nearly to that of Laodicea as was compatible with her continuing to be
a Church at all, and each individual member should only be hot in
striving to be as lukewarm as possible.

The book rang with the courage alike of conviction and of an entire
absence of conviction; it appeared to be the work of men who had a rule-
of-thumb way of steering between iconoclasm on the one hand and credulity
on the other; who cut Gordian knots as a matter of course when it suited
their convenience; who shrank from no conclusion in theory, nor from any
want of logic in practice so long as they were illogical of malice
prepense, and for what they held to be sufficient reason.  The
conclusions were conservative, quietistic, comforting.  The arguments by
which they were reached were taken from the most advanced writers of the
day.  All that these people contended for was granted them, but the
fruits of victory were for the most part handed over to those already in
possession.

Perhaps the passage which attracted most attention in the book was one
from the essay on the various marriage systems of the world.  It ran:--

"If people require us to construct," exclaimed the writer, "we set good
breeding as the corner-stone of our edifice.  We would have it ever
present consciously or unconsciously in the minds of all as the central
faith in which they should live and move and have their being, as the
touchstone of all things whereby they may be known as good or evil
according as they make for good breeding or against it."

"That a man should have been bred well and breed others well; that his
figure, head, hands, feet, voice, manner and clothes should carry
conviction upon this point, so that no one can look at him without seeing
that he has come of good stock and is likely to throw good stock himself,
this is the _desiderandum_.  And the same with a woman.  The greatest
number of these well-bred men and women, and the greatest happiness of
these well-bred men and women, this is the highest good; towards this all
government, all social conventions, all art, literature and science
should directly or indirectly tend.  Holy men and holy women are those
who keep this unconsciously in view at all times whether of work or
pastime."

If Ernest had published this work in his own name I should think it would
have fallen stillborn from the press, but the form he had chosen was
calculated at that time to arouse curiosity, and as I have said he had
wickedly dropped a few hints which the reviewers did not think anyone
would have been impudent enough to do if he were not a bishop, or at any
rate some one in authority.  A well-known judge was spoken of as being
another of the writers, and the idea spread ere long that six or seven of
the leading bishops and judges had laid their heads together to produce a
volume, which should at once outbid "Essays and Reviews" and counteract
the influence of that then still famous work.

Reviewers are men of like passions with ourselves, and with them as with
everyone else _omne ignotum pro magnifico_.  The book was really an able
one and abounded with humour, just satire, and good sense.  It struck a
new note and the speculation which for some time was rife concerning its
authorship made many turn to it who would never have looked at it
otherwise.  One of the most gushing weeklies had a fit over it, and
declared it to be the finest thing that had been done since the
"Provincial Letters" of Pascal.  Once a month or so that weekly always
found some picture which was the finest that had been done since the old
masters, or some satire that was the finest that had appeared since Swift
or some something which was incomparably the finest that had appeared
since something else.  If Ernest had put his name to the book, and the
writer had known that it was by a nobody, he would doubtless have written
in a very different strain.  Reviewers like to think that for aught they
know they are patting a Duke or even a Prince of the blood upon the back,
and lay it on thick till they find they have been only praising Brown,
Jones or Robinson.  Then they are disappointed, and as a general rule
will pay Brown, Jones or Robinson out.

Ernest was not so much up to the ropes of the literary world as I was,
and I am afraid his head was a little turned when he woke up one morning
to find himself famous.  He was Christina's son, and perhaps would not
have been able to do what he had done if he was not capable of occasional
undue elation.  Ere long, however, he found out all about it, and settled
quietly down to write a series of books, in which he insisted on saying
things which no one else would say even if they could, or could even if
they would.

He has got himself a bad literary character.  I said to him laughingly
one day that he was like the man in the last century of whom it was said
that nothing but such a character could keep down such parts.

He laughed and said he would rather be like that than like a modern
writer or two whom he could name, whose parts were so poor that they
could be kept up by nothing but by such a character.

I remember soon after one of these books was published I happened to meet
Mrs Jupp to whom, by the way, Ernest made a small weekly allowance.  It
was at Ernest's chambers, and for some reason we were left alone for a
few minutes.  I said to her: "Mr Pontifex has written another book, Mrs
Jupp."

"Lor' now," said she, "has he really?  Dear gentleman!  Is it about
love?"  And the old sinner threw up a wicked sheep's eye glance at me
from under her aged eyelids.  I forget what there was in my reply which
provoked it--probably nothing--but she went rattling on at full speed to
the effect that Bell had given her a ticket for the opera, "So, of
course," she said, "I went.  I didn't understand one word of it, for it
was all French, but I saw their legs.  Oh dear, oh dear!  I'm afraid I
shan't be here much longer, and when dear Mr Pontifex sees me in my
coffin he'll say, 'Poor old Jupp, she'll never talk broad any more'; but
bless you I'm not so old as all that, and I'm taking lessons in dancing."

At this moment Ernest came in and the conversation was changed.  Mrs Jupp
asked if he was still going on writing more books now that this one was
done.  "Of course I am," he answered, "I'm always writing books; here is
the manuscript of my next;" and he showed her a heap of paper.

"Well now," she exclaimed, "dear, dear me, and is that manuscript?  I've
often heard talk about manuscripts, but I never thought I should live to
see some myself.  Well! well!  So that is really manuscript?"

There were a few geraniums in the window and they did not look well.
Ernest asked Mrs Jupp if she understood flowers.  "I understand the
language of flowers," she said, with one of her most bewitching leers,
and on this we sent her off till she should choose to honour us with
another visit, which she knows she is privileged from time to time to do,
for Ernest likes her.





And now I must bring my story to a close.

The preceding chapter was written soon after the events it records--that
is to say in the spring of 1867.  By that time my story had been written
up to this point; but it has been altered here and there from time to
time occasionally.  It is now the autumn of 1882, and if I am to say more
I should do so quickly, for I am eighty years old and though well in
health cannot conceal from myself that I am no longer young.  Ernest
himself is forty-seven, though he hardly looks it.

He is richer than ever, for he has never married and his London and North-
Western shares have nearly doubled themselves.  Through sheer inability
to spend his income he has been obliged to hoard in self-defence.  He
still lives in the Temple in the same rooms I took for him when he gave
up his shop, for no one has been able to induce him to take a house.  His
house, he says, is wherever there is a good hotel.  When he is in town he
likes to work and to be quiet.  When out of town he feels that he has
left little behind him that can go wrong, and he would not like to be
tied to a single locality.  "I know no exception," he says, "to the rule
that it is cheaper to buy milk than to keep a cow."

As I have mentioned Mrs Jupp, I may as well say here the little that
remains to be said about her.  She is a very old woman now, but no one
now living, as she says triumphantly, can say how old, for the woman in
the Old Kent Road is dead, and presumably has carried her secret to the
grave.  Old, however, though she is, she lives in the same house, and
finds it hard work to make the two ends meet, but I do not know that she
minds this very much, and it has prevented her from getting more to drink
than would be good for her.  It is no use trying to do anything for her
beyond paying her allowance weekly, and absolutely refusing to let her
anticipate it.  She pawns her flat iron every Saturday for 4d., and takes
it out every Monday morning for 4.5d. when she gets her allowance, and
has done this for the last ten years as regularly as the week comes
round.  As long as she does not let the flat iron actually go we know
that she can still worry out her financial problems in her own hugger-
mugger way and had better be left to do so.  If the flat iron were to go
beyond redemption, we should know that it was time to interfere.  I do
not know why, but there is something about her which always reminds me of
a woman who was as unlike her as one person can be to another--I mean
Ernest's mother.

The last time I had a long gossip with her was about two years ago when
she came to me instead of to Ernest.  She said she had seen a cab drive
up just as she was going to enter the staircase, and had seen Mr
Pontifex's pa put his Beelzebub old head out of the window, so she had
come on to me, for she hadn't greased her sides for no curtsey, not for
the likes of him.  She professed to be very much down on her luck.  Her
lodgers did use her so dreadful, going away without paying and leaving
not so much as a stick behind, but to-day she was as pleased as a penny
carrot.  She had had such a lovely dinner--a cushion of ham and green
peas.  She had had a good cry over it, but then she was so silly, she
was.

"And there's that Bell," she continued, though I could not detect any
appearance of connection, "it's enough to give anyone the hump to see him
now that he's taken to chapel-going, and his mother's prepared to meet
Jesus and all that to me, and now she ain't a-going to die, and drinks
half a bottle of champagne a day, and then Grigg, him as preaches, you
know, asked Bell if I really was too gay, not but what when I was young
I'd snap my fingers at any 'fly by night' in Holborn, and if I was togged
out and had my teeth I'd do it now.  I lost my poor dear Watkins, but of
course that couldn't be helped, and then I lost my dear Rose.  Silly
faggot to go and ride on a cart and catch the bronchitics.  I never
thought when I kissed my dear Rose in Pullen's Passage and she gave me
the chop, that I should never see her again, and her gentleman friend was
fond of her too, though he was a married man.  I daresay she's gone to
bits by now.  If she could rise and see me with my bad finger, she would
cry, and I should say, 'Never mind, ducky, I'm all right.'  Oh! dear,
it's coming on to rain.  I do hate a wet Saturday night--poor women with
their nice white stockings and their living to get," etc., etc.

And yet age does not wither this godless old sinner, as people would say
it ought to do.  Whatever life she has led, it has agreed with her very
sufficiently.  At times she gives us to understand that she is still much
solicited; at others she takes quite a different tone.  She has not
allowed even Joe King so much as to put his lips to hers this ten years.
She would rather have a mutton chop any day.  "But ah! you should have
seen me when I was sweet seventeen.  I was the very moral of my poor dear
mother, and she was a pretty woman, though I say it that shouldn't.  She
had such a splendid mouth of teeth.  It was a sin to bury her in her
teeth."

I only knew of one thing at which she professes to be shocked.  It is
that her son Tom and his wife Topsy are teaching the baby to swear.  "Oh!
it's too dreadful awful," she exclaimed, "I don't know the meaning of the
words, but I tell him he's a drunken sot."  I believe the old woman in
reality rather likes it.

"But surely, Mrs Jupp," said I, "Tom's wife used not to be Topsy.  You
used to speak of her as Pheeb."

"Ah! yes," she answered, "but Pheeb behaved bad, and it's Topsy now."

Ernest's daughter Alice married the boy who had been her playmate more
than a year ago.  Ernest gave them all they said they wanted and a good
deal more.  They have already presented him with a grandson, and I doubt
not, will do so with many more.  Georgie though only twenty-one is owner
of a fine steamer which his father has bought for him.  He began when
about thirteen going with old Rollings and Jack in the barge from
Rochester to the upper Thames with bricks; then his father bought him and
Jack barges of their own, and then he bought them both ships, and then
steamers.  I do not exactly know how people make money by having a
steamer, but he does whatever is usual, and from all I can gather makes
it pay extremely well.  He is a good deal like his father in the face,
but without a spark--so far as I have been able to observe--any literary
ability; he has a fair sense of humour and abundance of common sense, but
his instinct is clearly a practical one.  I am not sure that he does not
put me in mind almost more of what Theobald would have been if he had
been a sailor, than of Ernest.  Ernest used to go down to Battersby and
stay with his father for a few days twice a year until Theobald's death,
and the pair continued on excellent terms, in spite of what the
neighbouring clergy call "the atrocious books which Mr Ernest Pontifex"
has written.  Perhaps the harmony, or rather absence of discord which
subsisted between the pair was due to the fact that Theobald had never
looked into the inside of one of his son's works, and Ernest, of course,
never alluded to them in his father's presence.  The pair, as I have
said, got on excellently, but it was doubtless as well that Ernest's
visits were short and not too frequent.  Once Theobald wanted Ernest to
bring his children, but Ernest knew they would not like it, so this was
not done.

Sometimes Theobald came up to town on small business matters and paid a
visit to Ernest's chambers; he generally brought with him a couple of
lettuces, or a cabbage, or half-a-dozen turnips done up in a piece of
brown paper, and told Ernest that he knew fresh vegetables were rather
hard to get in London, and he had brought him some.  Ernest had often
explained to him that the vegetables were of no use to him, and that he
had rather he would not bring them; but Theobald persisted, I believe
through sheer love of doing something which his son did not like, but
which was too small to take notice of.

He lived until about twelve months ago, when he was found dead in his bed
on the morning after having written the following letter to his son:--

   "Dear Ernest,--I've nothing particular to write about, but your letter
   has been lying for some days in the limbo of unanswered letters, to
   wit my pocket, and it's time it was answered.

   "I keep wonderfully well and am able to walk my five or six miles with
   comfort, but at my age there's no knowing how long it will last, and
   time flies quickly.  I have been busy potting plants all the morning,
   but this afternoon is wet.

   "What is this horrid Government going to do with Ireland?  I don't
   exactly wish they'd blow up Mr Gladstone, but if a mad bull would
   chivy him there, and he would never come back any more, I should not
   be sorry.  Lord Hartington is not exactly the man I should like to set
   in his place, but he would be immeasurably better than Gladstone.

   "I miss your sister Charlotte more than I can express.  She kept my
   household accounts, and I could pour out to her all little worries,
   and now that Joey is married too, I don't know what I should do if one
   or other of them did not come sometimes and take care of me.  My only
   comfort is that Charlotte will make her husband happy, and that he is
   as nearly worthy of her as a husband can well be.--Believe me, Your
   affectionate father,

   "THEOBALD PONTIFEX."

I may say in passing that though Theobald speaks of Charlotte's marriage
as though it were recent, it had really taken place some six years
previously, she being then about thirty-eight years old, and her husband
about seven years younger.

There was no doubt that Theobald passed peacefully away during his sleep.
Can a man who died thus be said to have died at all?  He has presented
the phenomena of death to other people, but in respect of himself he has
not only not died, but has not even thought that he was going to die.
This is not more than half dying, but then neither was his life more than
half living.  He presented so many of the phenomena of living that I
suppose on the whole it would be less trouble to think of him as having
been alive than as never having been born at all, but this is only
possible because association does not stick to the strict letter of its
bond.

This, however, was not the general verdict concerning him, and the
general verdict is often the truest.

Ernest was overwhelmed with expressions of condolence and respect for his
father's memory.  "He never," said Dr Martin, the old doctor who brought
Ernest into the world, "spoke an ill word against anyone.  He was not
only liked, he was beloved by all who had anything to do with him."

"A more perfectly just and righteously dealing man," said the family
solicitor, "I have never had anything to do with--nor one more punctual
in the discharge of every business obligation."

"We shall miss him sadly," the bishop wrote to Joey in the very warmest
terms.  The poor were in consternation.  "The well's never missed," said
one old woman, "till it's dry," and she only said what everyone else
felt.  Ernest knew that the general regret was unaffected as for a loss
which could not be easily repaired.  He felt that there were only three
people in the world who joined insincerely in the tribute of applause,
and these were the very three who could least show their want of
sympathy.  I mean Joey, Charlotte, and himself.  He felt bitter against
himself for being of a mind with either Joey or Charlotte upon any
subject, and thankful that he must conceal his being so as far as
possible, not because of anything his father had done to him--these
grievances were too old to be remembered now--but because he would never
allow him to feel towards him as he was always trying to feel.  As long
as communication was confined to the merest commonplace all went well,
but if these were departed from ever such a little he invariably felt
that his father's instincts showed themselves in immediate opposition to
his own.  When he was attacked his father laid whatever stress was
possible on everything which his opponents said.  If he met with any
check his father was clearly pleased.  What the old doctor had said about
Theobald's speaking ill of no man was perfectly true as regards others
than himself, but he knew very well that no one had injured his
reputation in a quiet way, so far as he dared to do, more than his own
father.  This is a very common case and a very natural one.  It often
happens that if the son is right, the father is wrong, and the father is
not going to have this if he can help it.

It was very hard, however, to say what was the true root of the mischief
in the present case.  It was not Ernest's having been imprisoned.
Theobald forgot all about that much sooner than nine fathers out of ten
would have done.  Partly, no doubt, it was due to incompatibility of
temperament, but I believe the main ground of complaint lay in the fact
that he had been so independent and so rich while still very young, and
that thus the old gentleman had been robbed of his power to tease and
scratch in the way which he felt he was entitled to do.  The love of
teasing in a small way when he felt safe in doing so had remained part of
his nature from the days when he told his nurse that he would keep her on
purpose to torment her.  I suppose it is so with all of us.  At any rate
I am sure that most fathers, especially if they are clergymen, are like
Theobald.

He did not in reality, I am convinced, like Joey or Charlotte one whit
better than he liked Ernest.  He did not like anyone or anything, or if
he liked anyone at all it was his butler, who looked after him when he
was not well, and took great care of him and believed him to be the best
and ablest man in the whole world.  Whether this faithful and attached
servant continued to think this after Theobald's will was opened and it
was found what kind of legacy had been left him I know not.  Of his
children, the baby who had died at a day old was the only one whom he
held to have treated him quite filially.  As for Christina he hardly ever
pretended to miss her and never mentioned her name; but this was taken as
a proof that he felt her loss too keenly to be able ever to speak of her.
It may have been so, but I do not think it.

Theobald's effects were sold by auction, and among them the Harmony of
the Old and New Testaments which he had compiled during many years with
such exquisite neatness and a huge collection of MS. sermons--being all
in fact that he had ever written.  These and the Harmony fetched
ninepence a barrow load.  I was surprised to hear that Joey had not given
the three or four shillings which would have bought the whole lot, but
Ernest tells me that Joey was far fiercer in his dislike of his father
than ever he had been himself, and wished to get rid of everything that
reminded him of him.

It has already appeared that both Joey and Charlotte are married.  Joey
has a family, but he and Ernest very rarely have any intercourse.  Of
course, Ernest took nothing under his father's will; this had long been
understood, so that the other two are both well provided for.

Charlotte is as clever as ever, and sometimes asks Ernest to come and
stay with her and her husband near Dover, I suppose because she knows
that the invitation will not be agreeable to him.  There is a _de haut en
bas_ tone in all her letters; it is rather hard to lay one's finger upon
it but Ernest never gets a letter from her without feeling that he is
being written to by one who has had direct communication with an angel.
"What an awful creature," he once said to me, "that angel must have been
if it had anything to do with making Charlotte what she is."

"Could you like," she wrote to him not long ago, "the thoughts of a
little sea change here?  The top of the cliffs will soon be bright with
heather: the gorse must be out already, and the heather I should think
begun, to judge by the state of the hill at Ewell, and heather or no
heather--the cliffs are always beautiful, and if you come your room shall
be cosy so that you may have a resting corner to yourself.  Nineteen and
sixpence is the price of a return-ticket which covers a month.  Would you
decide just as you would yourself like, only if you come we would hope to
try and make it bright for you; but you must not feel it a burden on your
mind if you feel disinclined to come in this direction."

"When I have a bad nightmare," said Ernest to me, laughing as he showed
me this letter, "I dream that I have got to stay with Charlotte."

Her letters are supposed to be unusually well written, and I believe it
is said among the family that Charlotte has far more real literary power
than Ernest has.  Sometimes we think that she is writing at him as much
as to say, "There now--don't you think you are the only one of us who can
write; read this!  And if you want a telling bit of descriptive writing
for your next book, you can make what use of it you like."  I daresay she
writes very well, but she has fallen under the dominion of the words
"hope," "think," "feel," "try," "bright," and "little," and can hardly
write a page without introducing all these words and some of them more
than once.  All this has the effect of making her style monotonous.

Ernest is as fond of music as ever, perhaps more so, and of late years
has added musical composition to the other irons in his fire.  He finds
it still a little difficult, and is in constant trouble through getting
into the key of C sharp after beginning in the key of C and being unable
to get back again.

"Getting into the key of C sharp," he said, "is like an unprotected
female travelling on the Metropolitan Railway, and finding herself at
Shepherd's Bush, without quite knowing where she wants to go to.  How is
she ever to get safe back to Clapham Junction?  And Clapham Junction
won't quite do either, for Clapham Junction is like the diminished
seventh--susceptible of such enharmonic change, that you can resolve it
into all the possible termini of music."

Talking of music reminds me of a little passage that took place between
Ernest and Miss Skinner, Dr Skinner's eldest daughter, not so very long
ago.  Dr Skinner had long left Roughborough, and had become Dean of a
Cathedral in one of our Midland counties--a position which exactly suited
him.  Finding himself once in the neighbourhood Ernest called, for old
acquaintance sake, and was hospitably entertained at lunch.

Thirty years had whitened the Doctor's bushy eyebrows--his hair they
could not whiten.  I believe that but for that wig he would have been
made a bishop.

His voice and manner were unchanged, and when Ernest remarking upon a
plan of Rome which hung in the hall, spoke inadvertently of the Quirinal,
he replied with all his wonted pomp: "Yes, the QuirInal--or as I myself
prefer to call it, the QuirInal."  After this triumph he inhaled a long
breath through the corners of his mouth, and flung it back again into the
face of Heaven, as in his finest form during his head-mastership.  At
lunch he did indeed once say, "next to impossible to think of anything
else," but he immediately corrected himself and substituted the words,
"next to impossible to entertain irrelevant ideas," after which he seemed
to feel a good deal more comfortable.  Ernest saw the familiar volumes of
Dr Skinner's works upon the bookshelves in the Deanery dining-room, but
he saw no copy of "Rome or the Bible--Which?"

"And are you still as fond of music as ever, Mr Pontifex?" said Miss
Skinner to Ernest during the course of lunch.

"Of some kinds of music, yes, Miss Skinner, but you know I never did like
modern music."

"Isn't that rather dreadful?--Don't you think you rather"--she was going
to have added, "ought to?" but she left it unsaid, feeling doubtless that
she had sufficiently conveyed her meaning.

"I would like modern music, if I could; I have been trying all my life to
like it, but I succeed less and less the older I grow."

"And pray, where do you consider modern music to begin?"

"With Sebastian Bach."

"And don't you like Beethoven?"

"No, I used to think I did, when I was younger, but I know now that I
never really liked him."

"Ah! how can you say so?  You cannot understand him, you never could say
this if you understood him.  For me a simple chord of Beethoven is
enough.  This is happiness."

Ernest was amused at her strong family likeness to her father--a likeness
which had grown upon her as she had become older, and which extended even
to voice and manner of speaking.  He remembered how he had heard me
describe the game of chess I had played with the doctor in days gone by,
and with his mind's ear seemed to hear Miss Skinner saying, as though it
were an epitaph:--

   "Stay:
   I may presently take
   A simple chord of Beethoven,
   Or a small semiquaver
   From one of Mendelssohn's Songs without Words."

After luncheon when Ernest was left alone for half an hour or so with the
Dean he plied him so well with compliments that the old gentleman was
pleased and flattered beyond his wont.  He rose and bowed.  "These
expressions," he said, _voce sua_, "are very valuable to me."  "They are
but a small part, Sir," rejoined Ernest, "of what anyone of your old
pupils must feel towards you," and the pair danced as it were a minuet at
the end of the dining-room table in front of the old bay window that
looked upon the smooth shaven lawn.  On this Ernest departed; but a few
days afterwards, the Doctor wrote him a letter and told him that his
critics were a [Greek text], and at the same time [Greek text].  Ernest
remembered [Greek text], and knew that the other words were something of
like nature, so it was all right.  A month or two afterwards, Dr Skinner
was gathered to his fathers.

"He was an old fool, Ernest," said I, "and you should not relent towards
him."

"I could not help it," he replied, "he was so old that it was almost like
playing with a child."

Sometimes, like all whose minds are active, Ernest overworks himself, and
then occasionally he has fierce and reproachful encounters with Dr
Skinner or Theobald in his sleep--but beyond this neither of these two
worthies can now molest him further.

To myself he has been a son and more than a son; at times I am half
afraid--as for example when I talk to him about his books--that I may
have been to him more like a father than I ought; if I have, I trust he
has forgiven me.  His books are the only bone of contention between us.  I
want him to write like other people, and not to offend so many of his
readers; he says he can no more change his manner of writing than the
colour of his hair, and that he must write as he does or not at all.

With the public generally he is not a favourite.  He is admitted to have
talent, but it is considered generally to be of a queer unpractical kind,
and no matter how serious he is, he is always accused of being in jest.
His first book was a success for reasons which I have already explained,
but none of his others have been more than creditable failures.  He is
one of those unfortunate men, each one of whose books is sneered at by
literary critics as soon as it comes out, but becomes "excellent reading"
as soon as it has been followed by a later work which may in its turn be
condemned.

He never asked a reviewer to dinner in his life.  I have told him over
and over again that this is madness, and find that this is the only thing
I can say to him which makes him angry with me.

"What can it matter to me," he says, "whether people read my books or
not?  It may matter to them--but I have too much money to want more, and
if the books have any stuff in them it will work by-and-by.  I do not
know nor greatly care whether they are good or not.  What opinion can any
sane man form about his own work?  Some people must write stupid books
just as there must be junior ops and third class poll men.  Why should I
complain of being among the mediocrities?  If a man is not absolutely
below mediocrity let him be thankful--besides, the books will have to
stand by themselves some day, so the sooner they begin the better."

I spoke to his publisher about him not long since.  "Mr Pontifex," he
said, "is a _homo unius libri_, but it doesn't do to tell him so."

I could see the publisher, who ought to know, had lost all faith in
Ernest's literary position, and looked upon him as a man whose failure
was all the more hopeless for the fact of his having once made a _coup_.
"He is in a very solitary position, Mr Overton," continued the publisher.
"He has formed no alliances, and has made enemies not only of the
religious world but of the literary and scientific brotherhood as well.
This will not do nowadays.  If a man wishes to get on he must belong to a
set, and Mr Pontifex belongs to no set--not even to a club."

I replied, "Mr Pontifex is the exact likeness of Othello, but with a
difference--he hates not wisely but too well.  He would dislike the
literary and scientific swells if he were to come to know them and they
him; there is no natural solidarity between him and them, and if he were
brought into contact with them his last state would be worse than his
first.  His instinct tells him this, so he keeps clear of them, and
attacks them whenever he thinks they deserve it--in the hope, perhaps,
that a younger generation will listen to him more willingly than the
present."

"Can anything,"' said the publisher, "be conceived more impracticable and
imprudent?"

To all this Ernest replies with one word only--"Wait."

Such is my friend's latest development.  He would not, it is true, run
much chance at present of trying to found a College of Spiritual
Pathology, but I must leave the reader to determine whether there is not
a strong family likeness between the Ernest of the College of Spiritual
Pathology and the Ernest who will insist on addressing the next
generation rather than his own.  He says he trusts that there is not, and
takes the sacrament duly once a year as a sop to Nemesis lest he should
again feel strongly upon any subject.  It rather fatigues him, but "no
man's opinions," he sometimes says, "can be worth holding unless he knows
how to deny them easily and gracefully upon occasion in the cause of
charity."  In politics he is a Conservative so far as his vote and
interest are concerned.  In all other respects he is an advanced Radical.
His father and grandfather could probably no more understand his state of
mind than they could understand Chinese, but those who know him
intimately do not know that they wish him greatly different from what he
actually is.

 Upon returning to London from Battersby, Ernest decides to go abroad in search of those societies which have the "best, comeliest and most lovable" people. At the end of three years of globetrotting, he resumes life in England well supplied with notes from which to fuel his literary ambitions. His first book is a collection of essays on a variety of topics, ostensibly written by separate authors and published anonymously. The subject matter and ironical nature of these essays are reminiscent of Butler's own earlier literary efforts. The book is received well by the public and critics alike, and when the name of the author is made known, Ernest becomes famous overnight. Unfortunately, however, his subsequent writings meet with much less success because of their controversial nature. When Theobald dies at an advanced age, a surprising number of people express their sorrow, an emotion not shared by his children. Ernest's own children, Georgie and Alice, prosper from being placed with foster parents who treat them as their own. They grow up to be handsome, healthy, and responsible adults unencumbered by a formal education. Mrs. Jupp produces strong evidence that Ernest may have sired a third child by another union, but Overton refrains from asking Ernest to confirm or deny this possibility. Even when Overton has passed his eightieth birthday, however, he continues to urge his godson to write with the general public in mind, but Ernest, like the author whom he resembles, goes his own way, heedless of others' opinions in the belief that a later generation of readers will give him the readership he lacks during his own lifetime.

