E.M.FORSTER: A Room with a View, Howards End, Where Angels Fear to Tread & The Longest Journey. E.M. Forster
were the themes on which Mr. Pembroke discoursed to Rickie’s civil ear. He showed him the school, and the library, and the subterranean hall where the day-boys might leave their coats and caps, and where, on festal occasions, they supped. He showed him Mr. Jackson’s pretty house, and whispered, “Were it not for his brilliant intellect, it would be a case of Ouickmarch!” He showed him the racquet-court, happily completed, and the chapel, unhappily still in need of funds. Rickie was impressed, but then he was impressed by everything. Of course a House of day-boys seemed a little shadowy after Agnes and Gerald, but he imparted some reality even to that.
“The racquet-court,” said Mr. Pembroke, “is most gratifying. We never expected to manage it this year. But before the Easter holidays every boy received a subscription card, and was given to understand that he must collect thirty shillings. You will scarcely believe me, but they nearly all responded. Next term there was a dinner in the great school, and all who had collected, not thirty shillings, but as much as a pound, were invited to it—for naturally one was not precise for a few shillings, the response being the really valuable thing. Practically the whole school had to come.”
“They must enjoy the court tremendously.”
“Ah, it isn’t used very much. Racquets, as I daresay you know, is rather an expensive game. Only the wealthier boys play—and I’m sorry to say that it is not of our wealthier boys that we are always the proudest. But the point is that no public school can be called first-class until it has one. They are building them right and left.”
“And now you must finish the chapel?”
“Now we must complete the chapel.” He paused reverently, and said, “And here is a fragment of the original building.” Rickie at once had a rush of sympathy. He, too, looked with reverence at the morsel of Jacobean brickwork, ruddy and beautiful amidst the machine-squared stones of the modern apse. The two men, who had so little in common, were thrilled with patriotism. They rejoiced that their country was great, noble, and old.
“Thank God I’m English,” said Rickie suddenly.
“Thank Him indeed,” said Mr. Pembroke, laying a hand on his back.
“We’ve been nearly as great as the Greeks, I do believe. Greater, I’m sure, than the Italians, though they did get closer to beauty. Greater than the French, though we do take all their ideas. I can’t help thinking that England is immense. English literature certainly.”
Mr. Pembroke removed his hand. He found such patriotism somewhat craven. Genuine patriotism comes only from the heart. It knows no parleying with reason. English ladies will declare abroad that there are no fogs in London, and Mr. Pembroke, though he would not go to this, was only restrained by the certainty of being found out. On this occasion he remarked that the Greeks lacked spiritual insight, and had a low conception of woman.
“As to women—oh! there they were dreadful,” said Rickie, leaning his hand on the chapel. “I realize that more and more. But as to spiritual insight, I don’t quite like to say; and I find Plato too difficult, but I know men who don’t, and I fancy they mightn’t agree with you.”
“Far be it from me to disparage Plato. And for philosophy as a whole I have the greatest respect. But it is the crown of a man’s education, not the foundation. Myself, I read it with the utmost profit, but I have known endless trouble result from boys who attempt it too soon, before they were set.”
“But if those boys had died first,” cried Rickie with sudden vehemence, “without knowing what there is to know—”
“Or isn’t to know!” said Mr. Pembroke sarcastically.
“Or what there isn’t to know. Exactly. That’s it.”
“My dear Rickie, what do you mean? If an old friend may be frank, you are talking great rubbish.” And, with a few well-worn formulae, he propped up the young man’s orthodoxy. The props were unnecessary. Rickie had his own equilibrium. Neither the Revivalism that assails a boy at about the age of fifteen, nor the scepticism that meets him five years later, could sway him from his allegiance to the church into which he had been born. But his equilibrium was personal, and the secret of it useless to others. He desired that each man should find his own.
“What does philosophy do?” the propper continued. “Does it make a man happier in life? Does it make him die more peacefully? I fancy that in the long-run Herbert Spencer will get no further than the rest of us. Ah, Rickie! I wish you could move among the school boys, and see their healthy contempt for all they cannot touch!” Here he was going too far, and had to add, “Their spiritual capacities, of course, are another matter.” Then he remembered the Greeks, and said, “Which proves my original statement.”
Submissive signs, as of one propped, appeared in Rickie’s face. Mr. Pembroke then questioned him about the men who found Plato not difficult. But here he kept silence, patting the school chapel gently, and presently the conversation turned to topics with which they were both more competent to deal.
“Does Agnes take much interest in the school?”
“Not as much as she did. It is the result of her engagement. If our naughty soldier had not carried her off, she might have made an ideal schoolmaster’s wife. I often chaff him about it, for he a little despises the intellectual professions. Natural, perfectly natural. How can a man who faces death feel as we do towards mensa or tupto?”
“Perfectly true. Absolutely true.”
Mr. Pembroke remarked to himself that Frederick was improving.
“If a man shoots straight and hits straight and speaks straight, if his heart is in the right place, if he has the instincts of a Christian and a gentleman—then I, at all events, ask no better husband for my sister.”
“How could you get a better?” he cried. “Do you remember the thing in ’The Clouds’?” And he quoted, as well as he could, from the invitation of the Dikaios Logos, the description of the young Athenian, perfect in body, placid in mind, who neglects his work at the Bar and trains all day among the woods and meadows, with a garland on his head and a friend to set the pace; the scent of new leaves is upon them; they rejoice in the freshness of spring; over their heads the plane-tree whispers to the elm, perhaps the most glorious invitation to the brainless life that has ever been given.
“Yes, yes,” said Mr. Pembroke, who did not want a brother-in-law out of Aristophanes. Nor had he got one, for Mr. Dawes would not have bothered over the garland or noticed the spring, and would have complained that the friend ran too slowly or too fast.
“And as for her—!” But he could think of no classical parallel for Agnes. She slipped between examples. A kindly Medea, a Cleopatra with a sense of duty—these suggested her a little. She was not born in Greece, but came overseas to it—a dark, intelligent princess. With all her splendour, there were hints of splendour still hidden—hints of an older, richer, and more mysterious land. He smiled at the idea of her being “not there.” Ansell, clever as he was, had made a bad blunder. She had more reality than any other woman in the world.
Mr. Pembroke looked pleased at this boyish enthusiasm. He was fond of his sister, though he knew her to be full of faults. “Yes, I envy her,” he said. “She has found a worthy helpmeet for life’s journey, I do believe. And though they chafe at the long engagement, it is a blessing in disguise. They learn to know each other thoroughly before contracting more intimate ties.”
Rickie did not assent. The length of the engagement seemed to him unspeakably cruel. Here were two people who loved each other, and they could not marry for years because they had no beastly money. Not all Herbert’s pious skill could make this out a blessing. It was bad enough being “so rich” at the Silts; here he was more ashamed of it than ever. In a few weeks he would come of age and his money be his own. What a pity things were so crookedly arranged. He did not want money, or at all events he did not want so much.
“Suppose,” he meditated, for he became much worried over this,— “suppose I had a hundred pounds a year less than I shall have. Well, I should still have enough. I don’t want anything but food, lodging,