‘I’ve always observed,’ said Harry Oswald, ‘that Providence is supposed to have ordained the existing order for the time being, whatever it may be, but not the order that is at that exact moment endeavouring to supplant it. If I were to visit Central Africa, I should confidently expect to be told by the rain-doctors that Providence had ordained the absolute power of the chief, and the custom of massacring his wives and slaves at his open grave side. I believe in Russia it’s usually allowed that Providence has placed the orthodox Czar at the head of the nation, and that any attempt to obtain a constitution from him is simply flat rebellion and flying in the face of Providence. In England we had a King John once, and we extracted a constitution out of him and sundry other kings by main force; and here, it’s acquiescence in the present limited aristocratic government that makes up obedience to the Providential arrangement of things apparently. But how about America? eh, Mrs. Martindale? Did Providence ordain that George Washington was to rebel against his most sacred majesty King George III., or did it not? And did it ordain that George Washington was to knock his most sacred majesty’s troops into a cocked hat, or did it not? And did it ordain that Abraham Lincoln was to free the slaves, or did it not? What I want to know is this: can it be said that Providence has ordained every class distinction in the whole world, from Dahomey to San Francisco? And has it ordained every Government, past and present, from the Chinese Empire to the French Convention? Did it ordain, for example, the revolution of ’89? That’s the question I should like to have answered.’
‘Dear me, Mr. Oswald,’ said the old lady meekly, taken aback by Harry’s voluble vehemence: ‘I suppose Providence permits some things and ordains others.’
‘And does it permit American democracy or ordain it?’ asked the merciless Harry.
‘Don’t you see, Mrs. Martindale,’ put in Berkeley, coming gently to her rescue, ‘your principle amounts in effect to saying that whatever is, is right.’
‘Exactly,’ said the old lady, forgetting at once all about Dahomey or the Convention, and coming back mentally to her squires and rectors. ‘The existing order is wisely arranged by Providence, and we mustn’t try to set ourselves up against it.’
‘But if whatever is, is right,’ Edie said, laughing, ‘then Mr. Le Breton’s socialism must be right too, you see, because it exists in him no doubt for some wise purpose of Providence; and if he and those who think with him can succeed in changing things generally according to their own pattern, then the new system that they introduce will be the one that Providence has shown by the result to be the favoured one.’
‘In short,’ said Ernest, musingly, ‘Mrs. Martindale’s principle sanctifies success. It’s the old theory of “treason never prospers—what’s the reason? Because whene’er it prospers ’tis not treason.” If we could only introduce a socialist republic, then it would be the reactionaries who would be setting themselves up against constituted authority, and so flying in the face of Providence.’
‘Fancy lecturing a recalcitrant archbishop and a remonstrant ci-devant duchess,’ cried Berkeley, lightly, ‘upon the moral guilt and religious sinfulness of rebellion against the constituted authority of a communist phalanstery. It would be simply charming. I can imagine myself composing a dignified exhortation to deliver to his grace, entirely compiled out of his own printed pastorals, on the duty of submission and the danger of harbouring an insubordinate spirit. Do make me chaplain-in-ordinary to your house of correction for irreclaimable aristocrats, Le Breton, as soon as you once get your coming socialist republic fairly under way.’
‘Luncheon is on the table, sir,’ said the scout, breaking in unceremoniously upon their discussion.
If Arthur Berkeley lunched by himself upon a solitary commons of cold beef, he certainly did not treat his friends and guests in corresponding fashion. His little entertainment was of the daintiest and airiest character, so airy that, as Edie herself observed afterwards to Harry, it took away all the sense of meat and drink altogether, and left one only a pleased consciousness of full artistic gratification. Even Ernest, though he had his scruples about the aspic jelly, might eat the famous Magdalen chicken cutlets, his brother said, ‘with a distinct feeling of exalted gratitude to the arduous culinary evolution of collective humanity.’
‘Consider,’ said Herbert, balancing neatly a little pyramid of whip cream and apricot jam upon his fork, ‘consider what ages of slow endeavour must have gone to the development of such a complex mixture as this, Ernest, and thank your stars that you were born in this nineteenth century of Soyer and Francatelli, instead of being condemned to devour a Homeric feast with the unsophisticated aid of your own five fingers.’
‘But do tell me, Mr. Le Breton,’ asked Edie, with one of her pretty smiles, ‘what will this socialist republic of yours be like when it actually comes about? I’m dying to know all about it.’
‘Really, Miss Oswald,’ Ernest answered, in a half-embarrassed tone, ‘I don’t quite know how to reply to such a very wide and indefinite question. I haven’t got any cut-and-dried constitutional scheme of my own for reorganising the whole system of society, any distinct panacea to cure all the ills that collective flesh is heir to. I leave the details of the future order to your brother Harry. The thing that troubles me is not so much how to reform the world at large as how to shape one’s own individual course aright in the actual midst of it. As a single unit of the whole, I want rather guidance for my private conduct than a scheme for redressing the universal dislocation of things in general. It seems to me, every man’s first duty is to see that he himself is in the right attitude towards society, and afterwards he may proceed to enquire whether society is in the right attitude towards him and all its other members. But if we were all to begin by redressing ourselves, there would be nothing left to redress, I imagine, when we turned to attack the second half of our problem. The great difficulty I myself experience is this, that I can’t discover any adequate social justification for my own personal existence. But I really oughtn’t to bore other people with my private embarrassments upon that head.’
‘You see,’ said Herbert Le Breton, carelessly, ‘my brother represents the ethical element in the socialist movement, Miss Oswald, while Harry represents the political element. Each is valuable in its way; but Oswald’s is the more practical. You can move great masses into demanding their rights; you can’t so easily move them into cordially recognising their duties. Hammer, hammer, hammer at the most obvious abuses; that’s the way all the political victories are finally won. If I were a radical at all, I should go with you, Oswald. But happily I’m not one; I prefer the calm philosophic attitude of perfectly objective neutrality.’
‘And if I were a radical,’ said Berkeley, with a tinge of sadness in his voice as he poured himself out a glass of hock, ‘I should go with Le Breton. But unfortunately I’m not one, Miss Oswald, I’m only a parson.’
CHAPTER IV. — A LITTLE MUSIC.
After lunch, Herbert Le Breton went off for his afternoon ride—a grave social misdemeanour, Ernest thought it—and Arthur Berkeley took Edie round to show her about the college and the shady gardens. Ernest would have liked to walk with her himself, for there was something in her that began to interest him somewhat; and besides, she was so pretty, and so graceful, and so sympathetic: but he felt he must not take her away from her host for the time being, who had a sort of proprietary right in the pleasing duty of acting as showman to her over his own college. So he dropped behind with Harry Oswald and old Mrs. Martindale, and endeavoured to simulate a polite interest in the old lady’s scraps of conversation upon the heads of houses, their wives and families.
‘This is Addison’s Walk, Miss Oswald,’ said Berkeley, taking her through the gate into the wooded path beside the Cherwell; ‘so called because the ingenious Mr. Addison is said to have specially patronised it. As he was an undergraduate of this college, and a singularly lazy person, it’s very probable that he