The Master Craftsman

‘Now, George, what have you got to tell me?’

Lady Frances, daughter of the famous Earl of Clovelly, once, twice, three times Premier, and of the even more illustrious Countess, the last of our great political ladies, was also the young widow of that distinguished statesman, old Sir Chantrey Bohun, who died in harness as Secretary of State for India. She was a year older than myself, a difference which, when we were children together, and next-door country neighbours, gave her a certain superiority over me. She married, for political reasons, at the age of eighteen; her friends were all political friends. It was generally understood that, after a decent interval of two or three years’ widowhood, she would marry a second time, and play over again the rôle so admirably enacted by her mother. For the moment she closed her town house, and when she was not in the country lived quietly in a flat, seeing few people.

She was sitting beside the window, into which poured a flood of vaporous sunshine from the west, for it was a day in early April, when the sun sets about seven. The warm, soft light wrapped her as in a cloud, under which her lace was soft and luminous. Truly, a most lovely woman, but to me not a woman who inspired love. These brotherly affections sometimes interfere with things that might have been.

‘Sit down, George, and tell me exactly all about it.’

‘I would rather stand. Well, to begin: I told you, Frances, about that astounding father of mine—how he secretly gambled and speculated and lost money on the Stock Exchange.’

‘Yes; you told me, and it was the most amazing thing that I ever heard. Your father, of all men! The quietest man in the world—meek, even, if one may suggest such a quality in a man. Yes, decidedly meek. Whenever I hear of meekness my thoughts will now turn to your father rather than to Moses. And yet a speculator!’

‘It is, as you say, the most amazing thing. However, one would not have minded this curious discrepancy between appearance and reality if he had only lost a few thousands. He had a quarter of a million to go upon—a few thousands might have been allowed him. But, Frances, he has lost everything—actually every penny.’

‘Every penny, George?’

‘Every penny. He began, I say, with a fortune of nearly a quarter of a million when he was forty, and when he died the other day at fifty he had nothing—nothing at all. Had he lived six months longer he would have been a bankrupt. He has lost everything. The way of it is all shown in a bundle of papers. Perhaps some day I shall be curious enough to read them.’

‘Oh, George! nothing left? Why, it is impossible!’

‘Unfortunately, it is quite possible. I am a pauper, Frances, except for a few scraps and crumbs.’

‘My poor George!’ Frances held out both her hands. ‘I am so sorry—so very sorry. But people like us don’t become absolute paupers. There is always a something left after the most terrible catastrophe. You spoke of scraps and crumbs.’

‘The fragments that remain amount to about three thousand pounds, I understand—an income of ninety pounds a year. That is what I meant by the scraps and crumbs.’

‘It does not seem much, does it? But, then, money is the most elastic thing in the world. My sovereigns are all sixpences. I know some people whose sixpences are all sovereigns. Of course, you have not begun to make any plans for the future?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Now, George, it is the strangest thing—you will never believe it; I have no fancy for ghostliness—but yesterday evening I certainly had a presentiment. I was sitting alone, and the thought suddenly flashed across my brain: Suppose that George, by any accident, was to find himself without any money at all! And, behold, you come this morning and tell me that your fortune is gone!’

‘A strange presentiment, Frances!’

‘Then I thought it over. I could not arrive at any conclusion, because, you see, there is always the uncertainty of what a man will do. With a woman it would be easy. The problem divided itself into three questions: What effect would poverty produce on George? How would George bear it? and, What would George do with poverty? I could find no satisfactory answer to any of these questions. And now you will actually answer them yourself.’

‘As for the first question, I don’t know what the effect will be—I may become a sandwich-man. We shall see. As for the second, I mean to bear it as philosophically as I can. For the moment that is tolerably easy. The important question, however, is, “How will he bear it in a twelvemonth or so, when the pressure is really felt?”’

‘No, that is part of the third question: “What will he do with his poverty?” You see, George, poverty is a possession, just like wealth. It has its responsibilities and its duties. In a better world than this we should have the nobler spirits all working their hardest, and striving with each other to assume poverty, even with its responsibilities. Benedict and Bernard and Francis of Assisi all understood what poverty might mean, and the question is, What will you do with it, George?’

‘It is only an hour or two since the truth was sprung upon me. I am trying to think it over. I shall sell my horses and furniture, to begin with. I shall then move into a garret somewhere. Once in my garret, I shall begin to think away, like another Darwin.’

‘Sit down, George, in my chair.’ It was the lowest, longest, and most luxurious chair in the room. Sitting or lying in it, one looked completely under the control of anyone standing over the chair. Frances got up to make room for me. ‘So, obedient boy! Now let me talk.’

‘I listen, Frances. I still have ears.’

‘The first duty of poverty—call it rather responsibility—the lower kind call it the privilege of poverty—is to accept the—the—sympathy and friendly advice—and——’

‘The sympathy and the advice, Frances, by all means.’

She became very grave. ‘George, we have known each other so long that I can talk to you freely and openly. How long have we been friends?’

‘About twenty-two years. Ever since we were able to run about.’

‘That is a long time, is it not? And always friends.’

‘Always friends—always the best of friends.’

‘And we have always talked to each other freely, have we not?’

‘Quite freely and openly. You have been the greatest happiness of my life, Frances.’

‘And you of mine. So that we owe each other a quantity of things: gratitude, friendship, even—even, if necessary, a little sacrifice of—not principle or self-respect—say of pride.’

I knew very well what was coming. Anybody might have guessed.

‘The greatest happiness of poverty—that which ought to make it the most coveted of all possessions—is that it constantly commands proof of the affection and interest felt towards one. That is a great thing, is it not?’

‘I feel it already, Frances, and I am much touched by it.’

‘Very well. So that poverty is already working for good in your heart.’

‘Nay. Even when I was disgustingly rich I never doubted your interest in me.’

‘The next thing about poverty is that it must make men work, and may develop all that is best in them. Some men never find themselves—their own power—their lives are ruined—because they are never forced to work. That has been, so far, your case.’

‘No, Frances. I should have done no good if I had worked like the busy bee.’

‘All my life, George, much as I regard you, I have been thinking how much better you might have been. Oh! I don’t mind telling you. You have never done any work at all. You went to school, and you idled away your time there; you went to Cambridge, and, of course, you idled away your time there. There has been no necessity. You have never worked because you must. Oh! I wonder that rich men ever achieve anything, seeing that no one teaches them the duty of work. I wish I had a school of rich boys. I would make them work harder than the poor boys. They should learn to work because they ought.’

‘I am not clever, Frances. Work of the kind you mean is impossible for me. I was designed by nature for nothing better than a cabinet-maker. I believe I shall turn cabinet-maker, and so develop my higher nature and make you proud of me at last.’

‘Not clever! Nonsense! You have never found out your own abilities; you are so ignorant in consequence of your abominable laziness that you do not know even what you can do.’

‘I can turn boxes. They come out, sometimes, quite pretty boxes.’

‘All the time, George, I have been growing up side by side with you—the incomplete or undeveloped George—and with the complete George, a nobler creature; working when you remain idle; filled with ambition while you are content with obscurity. He is such a splendid man, George—and so like you, only better-looking.’

‘That may very well be. If I were to find myself as you call it, I should find a very dull and plodding fellow not half so pleasant as the incomplete other—the undeveloped fellow who had not found himself.’

‘Not dull at all. You have never done even common justice to yourself. Few men have such good natural abilities as yourself. Why, you show it in everything you do. If you have to make a speech it is full of wit; if you write a letter, it is running over with observation and humour; whether you ride, or shoot, or play games, or work at your lathe, you do it better than anybody else. Believe me, George, I know you better than you know yourself, better than anyone else knows you, because we have been friends so long.’

‘Well, Frances, if it please you—and if it goes no farther; for this is not a thing to be bruited abroad—I will accept all the attributes of genius.’

‘Then we come back to the question, what will you do with your poverty?’

‘And again I reply that I cannot yet, for the life of me, imagine. My lawyer has been advising me to go into the City as a Guinea-pig—that is, to lend my name to bogus companies at a guinea a sitting. It seems that if a man with a title will sell his name, people can be swindled with much greater ease. That does not look a promising line, does it?’

Frances shuddered. ‘George, you are a gentleman!’

‘Or I might use my small capital to qualify for a profession—there is my grandfather’s line; but even allowing for those great abilities with which you credit me, I really could not read law.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Oh yes. Some men, it appears, buy a partnership in the City; some become stockbrokers.’

‘I don’t think that would suit you.’

‘And some go out to California, fruit-farming. And that, Frances, seems the most hopeful line, so far.’

‘Is that all that you can think of? Very well. Now let me suggest something for you—a much better line than any of these. You know what has always been my hope for you.’

‘I know that you have sometimes dreamed of the impossible.’

‘Yes—and—now—now that you will have no other distractions, now that you can begin and keep before you the goal—now, George, is the time for you to realize this dream of mine. Make yourself a career in politics.’

‘My dear Frances, I could more easily make myself a career in mathematics.’

‘Nonsense! You have the capacity; you want nothing but the will—the ambition. George, cannot I make you ambitious? Think—ask yourself—can there be anything nobler, more worthy of ambition, than to guide the destinies of a nation?—to make the history that will have to be written?’

‘Put in that way, it certainly sounds very well.’

‘Oh! They talk about poets and writers. What are the men who write about things compared with the men who do things? For my own part, I would rather be Bismarck than Shakespeare: no poet can render service to his country that can compare with the statesman who makes it great and powerful. There is no honour to compare with the honour, the gratitude, the immortality, which we confer upon such a man. No poet is to be named in the same breath with such a man.’

‘I have long since made up my mind, Frances, that I will not become a poet. Whether, in consequence, I shall become a Bismarck—I doubt.’

She paid no attention to this remark.

‘I have thought it all out. The thing is perfectly easy—for a man like yourself. You must belong to a party: you let them know that you want to enter the House on their side; you are a likely man and a promising man; they will find you a borough; you will contest that borough; you will win. Once in the House, you will work your way quickly or slowly, and command the attention and respect of the House and the recognition of your party, and so, by gradual steps, achieve a place even in the Cabinet. Why, my dear George, it is the experience of every day.’

I got out of the low and luxurious chair with some difficulty. One cannot be serious lying on one’s back. And now I felt very serious. ‘You see your statesman at the end of his career,’ I said, ‘distinguished if not respected. You do not understand how he has worked his way upwards, by what a tortuous path he has climbed. Moreover, you only see the greatest man, the leader. Now, my child, the kind of statesman I think of is the ordinary person who becomes towards the end of his career a Cabinet Minister. That person does not strike me as a noble character at all. Indeed, there cannot be much nobility left in a man, so far as I can see, after twenty years’ service of party. Think of the slavery of it; think of the dirt he has had to eat; think of the lies he has had to tell; think of the coat he has had to turn; think of the tricks he has had to practise; all to get votes—all to get votes!’

‘You exaggerate, George.’

‘No, I do not. However, it matters nothing what I think. The House is quite out of the question. I cannot afford it. You forget, Frances, that I have no money.’

She blushed crimson, she dropped her eyes, she trembled. ‘George,’ she said, with hesitation and embarrassment, ‘again—do not be proud. It is the privilege of friendship—it is your privilege to let me find that—the means—you must accept of me.’

This was the great temptation. All that I had to do at that moment—I knew it would come—I was waiting for it—I was prepared for it—all that was wanted—of course I could not take the money she was offering—all that was wanted was to speak vaguely about ambition, to fall in with her hopes and dreams—one can always accept a dream or offer a dream—and the woman and her fortune and everything would be mine. Because I knew very well—a thousand indications had told me—that she loved that nobler and more complete George of her imagination—not myself at all. I had only to pretend to be that nobler person, as full of ambition, as resolute for distinction. As for being in love, why, if you are always from childhood in the company of a girl, the passion called love, if it is awakened at all, is weak and puny compared with that which deals with the mystery of the unknown and strange. Still, there was the beautiful woman, my old friend, who only wanted to believe that I was strong and ambitious, and I only had to pretend. It was like the temptation of the Christian martyr—only a little pinch of incense—just one—and life and freedom, the enjoyment of the sunshine, were granted to me.

I took her hand and raised it to my lips. ’Twas the refusal of the Christian martyr. ‘Not that way, Frances,’ I said. ‘Any way but that. I am going out of the world—up or down, I know not which. But, up or down, it cannot be by any such help as that.’