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_ Ellen and he got on capitally, all the better, perhaps, because the
disparity between them was so great, that neither did Ellen want to
be elevated, nor did Ernest want to elevate her. He was very fond
of her, and very kind to her; they had interests which they could
serve in common; they had antecedents with a good part of which each
was familiar; they had each of them excellent tempers, and this was
enough. Ellen did not seem jealous at Ernest's preferring to sit
the greater part of his time after the day's work was done in the
first floor front where I occasionally visited him. She might have
come and sat with him if she had liked, but, somehow or other, she
generally found enough to occupy her down below. She had the tact
also to encourage him to go out of an evening whenever he had a
mind, without in the least caring that he should take her too--and
this suited Ernest very well. He was, I should say, much happier in
his married life than people generally are.
At first it had been very painful to him to meet any of his old
friends, as he sometimes accidentally did, but this soon passed;
either they cut him, or he cut them; it was not nice being cut for
the first time or two, but after that, it became rather pleasant
than not, and when he began to see that he was going ahead, he cared
very little what people might say about his antecedents. The ordeal
is a painful one, but if a man's moral and intellectual constitution
are naturally sound, there is nothing which will give him so much
strength of character as having been well cut.
It was easy for him to keep his expenditure down, for his tastes
were not luxurious. He liked theatres, outings into the country on
a Sunday, and tobacco, but he did not care for much else, except
writing and music. As for the usual run of concerts, he hated them.
He worshipped Handel; he liked Offenbach, and the airs that went
about the streets, but he cared for nothing between these two
extremes. Music, therefore, cost him little. As for theatres, I
got him and Ellen as many orders as they liked, so these cost them
nothing. The Sunday outings were a small item; for a shilling or
two he could get a return ticket to some place far enough out of
town to give him a good walk and a thorough change for the day.
Ellen went with him the first few times, but she said she found it
too much for her, there were a few of her old friends whom she
should sometimes like to see, and they and he, she said, would not
hit it off perhaps too well, so it would be better for him to go
alone. This seemed so sensible, and suited Ernest so exactly that
he readily fell into it, nor did he suspect dangers which were
apparent enough to me when I heard how she had treated the matter.
I kept silence, however, and for a time all continued to go well.
As I have said, one of his chief pleasures was in writing. If a man
carries with him a little sketch book and is continually jotting
down sketches, he has the artistic instinct; a hundred things may
hinder his due development, but the instinct is there. The literary
instinct may be known by a man's keeping a small note-book in his
waistcoat pocket, into which he jots down anything that strikes him,
or any good thing that he hears said, or a reference to any passage
which he thinks will come in useful to him. Ernest had such a note-
book always with him. Even when he was at Cambridge he had begun
the practice without anyone's having suggested it to him. These
notes he copied out from time to time into a book, which as they
accumulated, he was driven into indexing approximately, as he went
along. When I found out this, I knew that he had the literary
instinct, and when I saw his notes I began to hope great things of
him.
For a long time I was disappointed. He was kept back by the nature
of the subjects he chose--which were generally metaphysical. In
vain I tried to get him away from these to matters which had a
greater interest for the general public. When I begged him to try
his hand at some pretty, graceful, little story which should be full
of whatever people knew and liked best, he would immediately set to
work upon a treatise to show the grounds on which all belief rested.
"You are stirring mud," said I, "or poking at a sleeping dog. You
are trying to make people resume consciousness about things, which,
with sensible men, have already passed into the unconscious stage.
The men whom you would disturb are in front of you, and not, as you
fancy, behind you; it is you who are the lagger, not they."
He could not see it. He said he was engaged on an essay upon the
famous quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus of St Vincent de
Lerins. This was the more provoking because he showed himself able
to do better things if he had liked.
I was then at work upon my burlesque "The Impatient Griselda," and
was sometimes at my wits' end for a piece of business or a
situation; he gave me many suggestions, all of which were marked by
excellent good sense. Nevertheless I could not prevail with him to
put philosophy on one side, and was obliged to leave him to himself.
For a long time, as I have said, his choice of subjects continued to
be such as I could not approve. He was continually studying
scientific and metaphysical writers, in the hope of either finding
or making for himself a philosopher's stone in the shape of a system
which should go on all fours under all circumstances, instead of
being liable to be upset at every touch and turn, as every system
yet promulgated has turned out to be.
He kept to the pursuit of this will-o'-the-wisp so long that I gave
up hope, and set him down as another fly that had been caught, as it
were, by a piece of paper daubed over with some sticky stuff that
had not even the merit of being sweet, but to my surprise he at last
declared that he was satisfied, and had found what he wanted.
I supposed that he had only hit upon some new "Lo, here!" when to my
relief, he told me that he had concluded that no system which should
go perfectly upon all fours was possible, inasmuch as no one could
get behind Bishop Berkeley, and therefore no absolutely
incontrovertible first premise could ever be laid. Having found
this he was just as well pleased as if he had found the most perfect
system imaginable. All he wanted he said, was to know which way it
was to be--that is to say whether a system was possible or not, and
if possible then what the system was to be. Having found out that
no system based on absolute certainty was possible he was contented.
I had only a very vague idea who Bishop Berkeley was, but was
thankful to him for having defended us from an incontrovertible
first premise. I am afraid I said a few words implying that after a
great deal of trouble he had arrived at the conclusion which
sensible people reach without bothering their brains so much.
He said: "Yes, but I was not born sensible. A child of ordinary
powers learns to walk at a year or two old without knowing much
about it; failing ordinary powers he had better learn laboriously
than never learn at all. I am sorry I was not stronger, but to do
as I did was my only chance."
He looked so meek that I was vexed with myself for having said what
I had, more especially when I remembered his bringing-up, which had
doubtless done much to impair his power of taking a common-sense
view of things. He continued -
"I see it all now. The people like Towneley are the only ones who
know anything that is worth knowing, and like that of course I can
never be. But to make Towneleys possible there must be hewers of
wood and drawers of water--men in fact through whom conscious
knowledge must pass before it can reach those who can apply it
gracefully and instinctively as the Towneleys can. I am a hewer of
wood, but if I accept the position frankly and do not set up to be a
Towneley, it does not matter."
He still, therefore, stuck to science instead of turning to
literature proper as I hoped he would have done, but he confined
himself henceforth to enquiries on specific subjects concerning
which an increase of our knowledge--as he said--was possible.
Having in fact, after infinite vexation of spirit, arrived at a
conclusion which cut at the roots of all knowledge, he settled
contentedly down to the pursuit of knowledge, and has pursued it
ever since in spite of occasional excursions into the regions of
literature proper.
But this is anticipating, and may perhaps also convey a wrong
impression, for from the outset he did occasionally turn his
attention to work which must be more properly called literary than
either scientific or metaphysical. _
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