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The Elect Lady, a novel by George MacDonald |
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Chapter 12. The Crawfords |
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_ CHAPTER XII. THE CRAWFORDS Through strong striving to secure his life, Mr. Crawford lost it--both in God's sense of loss and his own. He narrowly escaped being put in prison, died instead, and was put into God's prison to pay the uttermost farthing. But he had been such a good Christian that his fellow-Christians mourned over his failure and his death, not over his dishonesty! For did they not know that if, by more dishonesty, he could have managed to recover his footing, he would have paid everything? One injunction only he obeyed--he provided for his own; of all the widows concerned in his bank, his widow alone was secured from want; and she, like a dutiful wife, took care that his righteous intention should be righteously carried out; not a penny would she give up to the paupers her husband had made. The downfall of the house of cards took place a few months after George's return to its business. Not initiated to the mysteries of his father's transactions, ignorant of what had long been threatening, it was a terrible blow to him. But he was a man of action, and at once looked to America; at home he could not hold up his head. He had often been to Potlurg, and had been advancing in intimacy with Alexa; but he would not show himself there until he could appear as a man of decision--until he was on the point of departure. She would be the more willing to believe his innocence of complicity in the deceptions that had led to his ruin! He would thus also manifest self-denial and avoid the charge of interested motives! he could not face the suspicion of being a suitor with nothing to offer! George had always taken the grand role--that of superior, benefactor, bestower. He was powerful in condescension! Not, therefore, until the night before he sailed did he go to Potlurg. Alexa received him with a shade of displeasure. "I am going away," he said, abruptly, the moment they were seated. Her heart gave a painful throb in her throat, but she did not lose her self-possession. "Where are you going?" she asked. "To New York," he replied. "I have got a situation there--in a not unimportant house. _There_ at least I am taken for an honest man. From your heaven I have fallen." "No one falls from any heaven but has himself to blame," rejoined Alexa. "Where have I been to blame? I was not in my father's confidence. I knew nothing, positively nothing, of what was going on." "Why then did you not come to see me?" "A man who is neither beggar nor thief is not willing to look either." "You would have come if you had trusted me," she said. "You must pardon pride in a ruined man," he answered. "Now that I am starting to-morrow, I do not feel the same dread of being misunderstood!" "It was not kind of you, George. Knowing yourself fit to be trusted, why did you not think me capable of trusting?" "But, Alexa!--a man's own father!" For a moment he showed signs of an emotion he had seldom had to repress. "I beg your pardon, George!" cried Alexa. "I am both stupid and selfish! Are you really going so far?" Her voice trembled. "I am--but to return, I hope, in a very different position!" "You would have me understand--" "That I shall then be able to hold up my head." "Why should an innocent man ever do otherwise?" "He can not help seeing himself in other people's thoughts!" "If we are in the right ought we to mind what people think of us?" said Alexa. "Perhaps not. But I will make them think of me as I choose." "How?" "By compelling their respect." "You mean to make a fortune?" "Yes." "Then it will be the fortune they respect! You will not be more worthy!" "I shall not." "Is such respect worth having?" "Not in itself." "In what then? Why lay yourself out for it?" "Believe me, Alexa, even the real respect of such people would be worthless to me. I only want to bring them to their marrow-bones!" The truth was, Alexa prized social position so dearly that she did not relish his regarding it as a thing at the command of money. Let George be as rich as a Jew or an American, Alexa would never regard him as her equal! George worshiped money; Alexa worshiped birth and land. Our own way of being wrong is all right in our own eyes; our neighbor's way of being wrong is offensive to all that is good in us. We are anxious therefore, kindly anxious, to pull the mote out of his eye, never thinking of the big beam in the way of the operation. Jesus labored to show us that our immediate business is to be right ourselves. Until we are, even our righteous indignation is waste. While he spoke, George's eyes were on the ground. His grand resolve did not give his innocence strength to look in the face of the woman he loved; he felt, without knowing why, that she was not satisfied with him. Of the paltriness of his ambition, he had no inward hint. The high resolves of a puny nature must be a laughter to the angels--the bad ones. "If a man has no ambition," he resumed, feeling after her objection, "how is he to fulfill the end of his being! No sluggard ever made his mark! How would the world advance but for the men who have to make their fortunes! If a man find his father has not made money for him, what is he to do but make it for himself? You would not have me all my life a clerk! If I had but known, I should by this time have been well ahead!" Alexa had nothing to answer; it all sounded very reasonable! Were not Scots boys everywhere taught it was the business of life to rise? In whatever position they were, was it not their part to get out of it? She did not see that it is in the kingdom of heaven only we are bound to rise. We are born into the world not to rise in the kingdom of Satan, but out of it And the only way to rise in the kingdom of heaven is to do the work given us to do. Whatever be intended for us, this is the only way to it We have not to promote ourselves, but to do our work. It is the master of the feast who says: "Go up." If a man go up of himself, he will find he has mistaken the head of the table. More talk followed, but neither cast any light; neither saw the true question. George took his leave. Alexa said she would be glad to hear from him. Alexa did not like the form of George's ambition--to gain money, and so compel the respect of persons he did not himself respect But was she clear of the money disease herself? Would she have married a poor man, to go on as hitherto? Would she not have been ashamed to have George know how she had supplied his needs while he lay in the house--that it was with the poor gains of her poultry-yard she fed him? Did it improve her moral position toward money that she regarded commerce with contempt--a rudiment of the time when nobles treated merchants as a cottager his bees? George's situation was a subordinate one in a house of large dealings in Wall Street. _ |
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