One result was easily foreseen. His mind grew busy with literary projects, many that he had long contemplated and some that were new. Once more he aimed at contributing to the 'advanced' reviews, and sketched out several papers of sociological tenor. None of these were written. As soon as he sat down to deliberate composition, a sense of his deficiencies embarrassed him. Godwin's self-confidence had nothing in common with the conceit which rests on imaginary strength. Power there was in him; of that he could not but be conscious: its true direction he had not yet learned. Defect of knowledge, lack of pen-practice, confusion and contradictoriness of aims, instability of conviction,--these faults he recognised in himself at every moment of inward scrutiny.
On his table this evening lay a library volume which he had of late been reading, a book which had sprung into enormous popularity. It was called _Spiritual Aspects of Evolution_, and undertook, with confidence characteristic of its kind, to reconcile the latest results of science with the dogmas of Oriental religion. This work was in his mind when he spoke so vehemently at Moxey's; already he had trembled with an impulse to write something on the subject, and during his journey home a possible essay had begun to shape itself. Late as was the hour he could not prepare for sleep. His brain throbbed with a congestion of thought; he struggled to make clear the lines on which his satire might direct itself. By two o'clock he had flung down on paper a conglomerate of burning ideas, and thus relieved he at length went to bed.
Two days later came a note from Staple Inn, inviting him to meet Malkin the next evening. By this time he had made a beginning of his critical essay, and the exordium so far satisfied him that he was tempted to take it for Earwaker's judgment. But no; better his friend should see the thing when it was complete.
About eight o'clock he reached the journalist's chambers. Malkin had not yet arrived. Peak amused himself with examining certain tropical products which the traveller had recently cast pell-mell into his friend's sitting-room. Then sounded a knock at the door, but it was not such as would have heralded the expected man.
'A telegram,' observed Earwaker, and went to take it in.
He returned with hoarse sounds of mirth.
'Our friend excuses himself. Read this characteristic despatch.'
Peak saw with surprise that the telegram far exceeded familiar dimensions. 'Unspeakably grieved,' it began. 'Cannot possibly with you. At moment's notice undertaken escort two poor girls Rouen. Not even time look in apologise. Go via Dieppe and leave Victoria few minutes. Hope be back Thursday. Express sincerest regret Mr. Peak. Lament appearance discourtesy. Will apologise personally. Common humanity constrains go Rouen. Will explain Thursday. No time add another word. Rush tickets train.'
'There you have the man!' cried Earwaker. 'How do you class such a mind as that? Ten to one this is some Quixotic obligation he has laid upon himself, and probably he has gone without even a handbag.'
'Vocally delivered,' said Peak, 'this would represent a certain stage of drunkenness. I suppose it isn't open to such an explanation?'
'Malkin never was intoxicated, save with his own vivacity.'
They discussed the singular being with good-natured mirth, then turned by degrees to other topics.
'I have just come across a passage that will delight you,' said Earwaker, taking up a book. 'Perhaps you know it.'
He read from Sir Thomas Brown's _Pscudodoxia Epidemica_. '"Men's names should not only distinguish them. A man should be something that all men are not, and individual in somewhat beside his proper name. Thus, while it exceeds not the bound of reason and modesty, we cannot condemn singularity. _Nos numerus sumus_ is the motto of the multitude, and for that reason are they fools."'
Peak laughed his approval.
'It astonishes me,' he said, lighting his pipe, 'that you can go on writing for this Sunday rag, when you have just as little sympathy with its aims as I have. Do get into some less offensive connection.'
'What paper would you recommend?' asked the other, with his significant smile.
'Why need you journalise at all?'
'On the whole, I like it. And remember, to admit that the multitude are fools is not the same thing as to deny the possibility of progress.'
'Do you really believe yourself a democrat, Earwaker?'
'M--m--m! Well, yes, I believe the democratic spirit is stronger in me than any other.'
Peak mused for a minute, then suddenly looked up.
'And what am I?'
'I am glad nothing much depends on my successfully defining you.'
They laughed together.
'I suppose,' said Godwin, 'you can't call a man a democrat who recognises in his heart and soul a true distinction of social classes. Social, mark. The division I instinctively support is by no means intellectual. The well-born fool is very often more sure of my respect than the working man who struggles to a fair measure of education.'
Earwaker would have liked to comment on this with remarks personal to the speaker, but he feared to do so. His silence, however, was eloquent to Peak, who resumed brusquely.
'I am not myself well-born,--though if my parents could have come into wealth early in their lives, perhaps I might reasonably have called myself so. All sorts of arguments can be brought against my prejudice, but the prejudice is ineradicable. I respect hereditary social standing, independently of the individual's qualities. There's nothing of the flunkey in this, or I greatly deceive myself. Birth in a sphere of refinement is desirable and respectable; it saves one, absolutely, from many forms of coarseness. The masses are not only fools, but very near the brutes. Yes, they can send forth fine individuals--but remain base. I don't deny the possibility of social advance; I only say that at present the lower classes are always disagreeable, often repulsive, sometimes hateful.'
'I could apply that to the classes above them.'
'Well, I can't. But I am quite ready to admit that there are all sorts of inconsistencies in me. Now, the other day I was reading Burns, and I couldn't describe what exaltation all at once possessed me in the thought that a ploughman had so glorified a servant-girl that together they shine in the highest heaven, far above all the monarchs of earth. This came upon me with a rush--a very rare emotion. Wasn't that democratic?'
He inquired dubiously, and Earwaker for a moment had no reply but his familiar 'M--m--m!'
'No, it was not democratic,' the journalist decided at length; 'it was pride of intellect.'
'Think so? Then look here. If it happens that a whining wretch stops me in the street to beg, what do you suppose is my feeling? I am ashamed in the sense of my own prosperity. I can't look him in the face. If I yielded to my natural impulse, I should cry out, "Strike me! spit at me! show you hate me!--anything but that terrible humiliation of yourself before me!" That's how I feel. The abasement of which _he_ isn't sensible affects _me_ on his behalf. I give money with what delicacy I can. If I am obliged to refuse, I mutter apologies and hurry away with burning cheeks. What does that mean?'
Earwaker regarded him curiously.
'That is mere fineness of humanity.'
'Perhaps moral weakness?'
'I don't care for the scalpel of the pessimist. Let us give it the better name.'
Peak had never been so communicative. His progress in composition these last evenings seemed to have raised his spirits and spurred the activity of his mind. With a look of pleasure he pursued his self-analysis.
'Special antipathies--sometimes explicable enough--influence me very widely. Now, I by no means hate all orders of uneducated people. A hedger, a