imagination--his friends--the girl--alwaysthe girl--wondering why, and why, and why. Think of the days andmonths without seeing one of your own kind. He had to have books; hiswild garden had to blossom. That man wasn't "coddling" his soul--hewas ripping and tearing it into shreds and then pounding it togetheragain with a hammer and with nails. All alone. That's the hardest, Isuppose. And then, when it was all done and the worst of the pain andthe torment passed, away up there in the forests, RobertHalarkenden--it _is_ true, isn't it?--he rose from the dead, and beingrisen, he took a hand in the big business of the world. And his latestjob is you. Has that occurred to you? I don't mean to say that hewent through all that just to be a help to you. But I do say that ifhe hadn't gone through it he wouldn't have been a help to anybody. Hedid it. You needed to find out about it. He told you. It gotthrough. Things sometimes do.
Suppose he hadn't come down from the mountains that day--that they'dfound him there--that he hadn't had the nerve to face it? Who wouldhave cured the tuberculosis lad--who would have sent the childrensouth--who would have brushed through your uncle's garden hedge inForest Gate, Illinois, and told you what you needed to be told? If_you_ should turn out not to have the nerve--if, some day you--? Thenwhat about _your_ job? Nobody can ever do another person's real work,and, if it isn't done, I think it's likely we'll have to keep companywith our undone, unattempted jobs forever. Mostly rather little jobsthey are, too--so much the more shame for having dodged them. You saythat you haven't got one. Maybe not, just now. But how do you know itisn't right around the corner? Did Halarkenden have you in mind thoseyears he fought with beasts? No--not you--it was the girl back inScotland. But here you are, getting the benefit of it. It's a smallplace, the world, and we're tied and tangled together--it won't do tocut loose. That spoils things, and it's all to come right at the last,if we'll only let it.
Possibly you'll think it's silly or childish, but I believe maybe thislife with its queer tasks and happenings is just the great, typicalFairy Story, with Heaven at the last. They're true--that's whyunspoiled children love fairy stories. They begin, they march withincident, best of all, one finds always at the end that "'They' livedhappily ever afterward." "They," is you, and I hope it's me. Thetrouble with people mainly is that they're too grown up. Who knowswhat children see and hear in the summer twilights, on the way homefrom play? There's the big, round moon, tangled in the tree-tops--oneremembers that--and there's the night wind, idling down the dustystreet. Surely, though, more than that, but we've forgotten. Isn'tgrowing up largely a process of forgetting, rather than of getting,knowledge? Of course there's cube-root and partial payments and fearand pain and love--one does acquire that sort of thing--but doesn't itmaybe cost the losing of the right point of view? And that's tooexpensive. Naturally, or, perhaps, unnaturally, we can't afford to becaught sailing wash-tub boats across the troubled seas of orchardgrass, or watching for fairies in the moonlight, but can't we somehowcontinue to want to give ourselves to similar adventure? There's agood deal of difference, first and last, between childishness andchildlikeness--enough to make the one plain foolishness, and the otherthe qualification for entrance into the Kingdom of God. I'd ratherhave let cube-root go and have kept more of my imagination. The otherday, in the middle of a catechism I was holding in the parish school, asmall youngster rose to his feet and solemnly assured the companypresent that "the pickshers of God in the church" were "all wrong."Naturally we argued, which was a mistake. He got me. "God," said he,"is a Spirit, and spirits don't look like those colored pickshers inthe windows." You see, he knew. He still remembers. But the highermathematics and a few brisk sins will assist him to forget. Too bad.Still, when we get back home again surely it will all "come back" likea forgotten language.
Meantime there are two hundred dollar frocks to consider, as well asmiracles in gardens. And that's all right, so long as the frocks areworthy the background, which I venture to suppose, of course, they are.The subject of clothes interests me a good deal just now, as I'mengaged in living on my salary. It's all a question of what one canafford, financially and spiritually. I gather you're not a bankrupteither way. I don't recall anything in Holy Writ that seems to requiredowdiness as necessary to salvation. If one's got money it'sfortunate--if money's got one--that's different. Which is myplatitudinous way of agreeing with the last postscript of your letter.I know you're getting to look at things properly again. To lose one'slife certainly does not mean to kill it, and to give it away oneneedn't fling it to the dogs. And when you do connect with your jobyou'll recognize it and you'll know how to do it. I'd like to watchyou. Once get your imagination going properly again and the days arerose and gold. Oh, not all of them--but a good many--enough.
I nearly forgot about Theodore. There's humor for you--Theodore, "TheGift of God"--that's the name they gave him sixteen good years agosomewhere over in Scotland as you'd have guessed from the rest of it,which is Alan McGregor. He is an orphan, is Theodore, but he doesn'twear the uniform of the Orphans' Home--far from it! He wears softraiment and lives in kings' houses, or what amounts to the same thing.I am engaged in exorcising the devil out of him and in teaching himenough Latin to get into a decent school at the earliest instant. TheLatin goes well--three nights a week from eight to half-past nine. Butthe devil takes advantage of every one of those nine points of lawwhich possession is said to give, and doesn't go at all. I am the onlyliving person who knows how to define "charm." Charm is the mostconspicuous attribute of the devil, and young McGregor has got it.Likewise other qualities, the ones, for instance, which make his nameso rather awfully funny. You'd have to know Theodore to appreciatejust how funny.
It was the rector who "wished" him on to me. The rector is one of hisguardians, and being Theodore's guardian is a business which requiresat least one undersecretary, and I'm that. Theodore and hot water havethe strongest affinity known to psychological chemistry. So I'm keptbusy. But it's all the keenest sport you can imagine, and it's goingto be tremendously worth while if I can make a success of it. He's theright kind of bad, and he's getting ready to grow into a great, big,straight out-and-outer, with a mind like lightning and a heart like oneof the sons of God. But that kind is always the worst risk. He hasthe weapons to get him through the fight with splendor, only they'reevery one two-edged, and you have to be careful with swords that cutboth ways. His father was an inventor genius and there are bales ofmoney and already it has begun to press down on him a little. Still,that may be the exact right thing. He has talked about it once ortwice as a nice boy would. There's a place on the other side whichcomes to him, with factories and such things. He wanted to knowwouldn't it be his business to see that the working people wereproperly looked after; I gathered he's been reading books, trying tofind out. And then he got suddenly shy and very bright red as to theface, and cleared out. So far, so good, but it isn't far enough. Notyet.
That's my present job. You'll get yours.
Wasn't it wonderful--I mean Halarkenden! When I think of him and thenof myself it gives me a good deal of a jounce. It surprises me that Iever had the conceit to think I could handle this parson proposition.Lately I've not been over-cheerful about it. That's one reason whyyour letter did me good.
I hear the Gift of God coming up the stairs, and I've neglected to lookup the Future Periphrastic Conjugation and that ticklish differencebetween the Gerund and the Gerundive, which is vital.
One thing more--your second postscript. You didn't suppose that Idon't, did you? Only, not like me!
GEOFFREY McBIRNEY.
The man took the letter down the three flights to the post-box at theentrance of the Parish House and dropped it, with a certaindeliberation, as if he were speaking to someone whom he cared for, witha certain hesitation, as if he were not sure that he had spoken well,into the box. As he mounted the stairs again his springing gait wasslower than usual. It was very late, but he drew a long chair closeand poked the hard-coal fire till it glowed to him like
a bed ofjewels, all alive and stirred to their hot hearts; opals and topazesand rubies and cairngorms and the souls of blue sapphires and purpleamethysts playing ghostly over the rest. He dropped into the chair andthe tall, black-clothed figure fell into lax lines; his long fingers,the fingers of an artist, a musician, lay on the arms of the chairlimply as if disconnected from any central power; there was surelydespair, hopelessness, in the man's attitude. His gray eyes glowedfrom under the straight black brows with much of