But with failure in the nightly lists, Ballinasloe soon became intolerable to me. I had long ago exhausted all the beauties of the neighbourhood and had come to the conclusion that outside love, the place was as devoid of intellectual interest as a town in western America. The clergyman I couldn't talk to, the lawyers and doctors were all tenth-rate. Some of the younger men were eager to learn and came to the inn in the evening to hear me talk, but I, too, had to be about my Father's business. I went for a trip to Londonderry to study the citadel of Irish Protestantism and to make the final parting with Molly easier. When I returned, I didn't ask her to come to me at night: what was the good? But the night before I went to Belfast she came and I explored with her some of the side-paths of affection and confessed, with all frankness, that since I met Smith I was all ambition-under a vow, so to speak, to develop every faculty I had at any cost. "I am not ambitious, Molly, of place or power or riches, but of knowledge and wisdom I'm the lover and priest, resolved to let nothing stand in the way."
I explained to her that that was the reason why I had come to Ireland, just as the same desire of knowledge had driven me years before round the world, and would no doubt drive me again. "I don't want happiness even, Molly, nor comfort, though I'll take all I can get of both, but they're not my aim or purpose. I'm wedded to the one quest like a knight of the Holy Grail and my whole life will go to the achievement. Don't ask me why, I don't know. I only know that Smith, my friend and professor in Lawrence, Kansas, lit the sacred fire in me and I'll go on till death. You must not think I don't care for you; I do with all my heart. You're a great woman, heart and soul and body, but my work calls me and I must go."
"I've always felt it," she said quietly, "always felt that you would not stay here or marry anyone here. I understand and I only hope your ambition may make you happy, for without happiness, without love, is there anything worth having in life? I can't believe it, but then I'm only a girl. If you ever thought of coming back, write first. To see you suddenly would stop my heart with joy."
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CHAPTER VIII
Now my Lehrjahre (student years) were ended, London drew me irresistibly; I hardly know why. It impressed me much more than New York: besides, I feared a return of malaria if I went back to the States; then, too, I had a letter of introduction to Froude from Carlyle. Why not present it and see what would come of it? My boyish resolution to do every piece of work with all my heart, as well as I could do it, still held, I was sure, its conquering magic. I'd find it as easy to open the oyster of success in London as in New York; easier, I had no doubt. I crossed from Paris to London, took a room in the Grosvenor Hotel, and next morning called in Onslow Gardens. Mr. Froude, I found, was spending the summer at Salcombe in South Devon and was not expected in London for a month or more. I wanted to take his exact address.
Accordingly, the servant asked me into the dining-room and brought me writing paper. The furnishing of the room, the pictures here and in the hall made an impression on me of well-to-do comfort and refinement of taste much beyond any impression left on me in New York. I began to feel the truth of what Emerson had said a score of years before: "The Englishman's lot is still the best in the world."
The forty years that have elapsed since, and especially the great war, have changed all this. Life in New York today strikes one as more luxurious than that of London, though still inferior in taste and refinement.
London itself taught me a great deal about the Englishman. It is immense: no limit to its energy: healthy, too, in spite of its wretched climate; well-drained and clean: but it never rises high. One thinks of the East-End, how mean and coarse and grovelling, the narrow streets and cluttering hovels, and the West-End, now comfortable, now pretentious, now primly vulgar-clothed in stucco as in broadcloth. But there are grassy parks and open spaces where one has a glimpse of nature, and here and there too a noble house or fine pointing spire or bold adventurous bridge.
The worst of it is, there is no plan, no general idea directing this indefatigable activity. It is built by beavers and not by men; industry everywhere and not intelligence. It depresses the spirit, therefore; its smoke and grime too, are characteristic: no generous ideaclass="underline" let us all live in fog so long as we eat well and sleep softly. But there is no unnecessary noise; London is the quietest of cities and the methods of transport are excellent and cheap. The industry is efficient, though not artistic.
After the great fire, Wren made out a plan of a new London. His great cathedral, set in a noble space and open to the Thames, was to be the centre.
Three great boulevards were to run from St. Paul's westward, parallel to the river, each of them 150 feet wide near the cathedral and growing narrower as they passed into the country; every half a mile or so a parish church was to stand in its park-like square of grassy circle; and so the Embankment, the Strand, and Oxford Street could have been developed to high purpose, but no! The builders preferred to build as their fathers had builded, without plan or design, and we have the wretched result: narrow winding streets in the heart of the city, no thought, no soul. London is the meanest of great capitals, with the solitary exception of Berlin; yet, if the English had followed Wren, it might easily have been the noblest.
I went back to the Grosvenor, wondering whether I ought to go to Salcombe or try to get work in London. An accident determined me.
I was in the smoking-room after lunch when a couple of gentlemen drew my attention. The afternoon was wet and they were passing the time by betting on the flies crawling up the window panes. I heard one say, "I'll bet five hundred this one gets higher in two minutes," and then the other: "Done with you and I'll bet a thou mine reaches the top first."
The younger man was nearly drunk, and I soon saw that his older companion sought to confuse him by running three or four different bets at the same time. This idea caused me to watch more carefully, and it soon became clear to me that the older man was cheating the younger. Suddenly, to my surprise I heard him, after a brief dispute, say, "That makes ten thou you owe me- quite enough, too, for such an idiotic game."
The younger man pulled himself together and remarked with the portentous gravity of intoxication: "Five thou, Gerald, at most, and I don't believe you reckoned in the thou I gained with my bluebottle."
"Oh yes, I did," replied the sharper. "Don't you remember: it was at the very outset when I owed you a couple of thousand."
"You're d… d clever, Gerald," retorted the other, as if hesitating, and then with a sudden decision, "I'll give you an I.O.U. this evening." His friend nodded,
"All right, old man!"
As the two were leaving the room I called over the waiter. "Who are those gentlemen?" I asked. "The young one, Sir, is Lord C-, son of the Earl of D-; the other isn't staying here. He's a friend and his name's Costello, I believe.
Lord C-, Sir, can drink; he's not often drunk like that."
I don't know why, but Lord C- had made so pleasant an impression on me that I resolved to open his eyes, if I could, to the fact that he had won and not lost and ought not to pay?. 5000, or indeed anything at all.
Accordingly, I sat down, then and there, and wrote an exact accounting of what I had noticed and sent it to Lord C-'s apartment. Next morning I got a note from him, thanking me warmly and asking me to meet him in the smoking-room. We met and I found him curiously generous, willing even to make all sorts of allowances for the so-called friend who had plainly cheated him. On the other hand, I was indignant and advised him to send my letter just as it was to his friend. I was willing to stand by every word. "Very kind of you, I'm sure," said Lord C-. "I think I'll do that. Are you going to stay in London? Would you lunch with me to-day?" I consented and in the course of lunch told him I wanted to go to Salcombe to see Froude. He knew Salcombe and spoke with admiration of the beauties of the Devon coast and indeed of the whole county. "You ought to drive down," he told me. "That is the best way to see our English scenery."