August First Read online

time to do an irrevocable thing. You mustwait till you see things calmly, at least. Taking your own life is nota thing to decide on as you might decide on going to a ball. How doyou know that you will not be bitterly sorry to-morrow if you do thatto-night? It's throwing away the one chance a person has to make theworld better and happier. That's what you're here for--not to enjoyyourself."

  She put a quiet sentence, in that oddly buoyant voice, into the streamof his words. "Still, you don't say I'd go to hell forever," shecommented.

  "Is that your only thought?" he demanded indignantly. "Can't you thinkof what's brave and worth while--of what's decent for a big thing likea soul? A soul that's going on living to eternity--do you want toblacken that at the start? Can't you forget your little moods and yourdespair of the moment?"

  "No, I can't." The roses bobbed as she shook her head. The man, inhis heart, knew how it was, and did not wonder. But he must somehowstop this determination which he had--she said--helped to form. Athought came to him; he hesitated a moment, and then broke outimpetuously: "Let me do this--let me write to you; I'm not sayingthings straight. It's hard. I think I could write more clearly. Andit's unfair not to give me a hearing. Will you promise only this, notto do it till you've read my letter?"

  Slowly the youth, the indomitable brightness in the girl forged to thefront. She looked at him with the dawn of a smile in her eyes, and hesaw all at once, with a passing vision, that her eyes were very blueand that her hair was bright and light--a face vivid and responsive.

  "Why, yes. There's no particular reason for to-night. I can wait.But I'm going home to-morrow, to my uncle's place at Forest Gate. I'llnever be here again. The people I'm with are going away to live nextmonth. I'll never see you again. You don't know my name." Sheconsidered a moment. "I'd rather not have you know it. You may writeto--" She laughed. "I said I was just a date--you may write to AugustFirst, Forest Gate, Illinois. Say care of, care of--" Again shelaughed. "Oh, well, care of Robert Halarkenden. That will reach me."

  Quite gravely the man wrote down the fantastic address. "Thank you. Iwill write at once. You promised?"

  "Yes." She put out her hand. "You've been very good to me. I shallnever see you again. Good-by."

  "Good-by," he said, and the room was suddenly so still, so empty, sodark that it oppressed him.

  WARCHESTER, St. Andrew's Parish House, August 5th.

  This is to redeem my promise. When we talked that afternoon, it seemedto me that I should be able to write the words I could not say. Everyday since then I have said "Tomorrow I shall be able to tell herclearly." The clearness has not come--that's why I have put it off.It hasn't yet come. Sometimes--twice, I think--I have seen it allplainly. Just for a second--in a sort of flash. And then it droppedback into this confusion.

  I won't insult you by attempting to discount your difficulties. Youhave worked out for yourself a calculation made, at one time oranother, by many more people than you would imagine. And your answeris wrong. I know that. You know it too. When you say that you areafraid of what may come after, you admit that what you intend to do isimpossible. If you were not convinced of something after, you would goon and do what you propose. Which shows that there is an error in yourmathematics. Do you at all know what I mean?

  I must make you understand. I can see why you find the prospectunendurable. You don't look far enough, that is all. Why do peopleshut themselves up in the air-tight box of a possible three score yearsand ten, and call it life? How can you, who are so alive, do so? Itseems that you have fallen into the strangely popular error of thinkingthat clocks measure life. That is not what they are for. A clock isthe contrivance of springs and wheels whereby the ambitious, early of asummer's day when sane people are asleep or hunting flowers on thehill-side, keep tally of the sun. Those early on the hill-side see thegray lighten and watch it flush to rose--the advent of theday-spring--and go on picking flowers. They of the clocks are one dayolder--these have seen a sunrise. There is the difference.

  If you really thought that all there is to life is that part of it wehave here in this world--if you believed that--then what youcontemplate doing would be nothing worse than unsportsmanlike. But youdo not believe that. You are afraid of what might come--after. Youcame to me--or you came to the rector--in the hope of being assuredthat your fear was groundless. You had a human desire for the adviceof a "professional." You still wish that assurance--that is why youpromised to wait for this letter. You told me your case; you wantedexpert testimony. Here it is: You need not be afraid. God will not beangry--God will not punish you. You said that you did not know muchabout God. Surely you know this much--anger can never be one of Hisattributes. God is never angry. Men would be angry if they weretreated as they treat Him--that is all. In mathematics, certainletters represent certain unknown quantities. So words are only thesymbols for imperfectly realized ideas. If by "hell" you understandwhat that word means to me--the endlessness of life with nothing in itthat makes life worth while--then, if you still want my opinion, Ithink that you will most certainly go there. God will not be angry.God will not send you there, you will have sent yourself--it will notbe God's punishment laid on you, it will be your punishment laid by youon yourself. But it is not in you to let that come to pass.

  All of the "philosophies of life," as they are called, are, I think,varieties of two. I suppose Materialism and Idealism cover them.Those who hold with the first are in the air-tight box of years andcall it life. The others are in the box, too, but they call it time.And they know that, after all, the box is really not air-tight; each ofthem remembers the day when he first discovered that there were cracksin the box, and the day he learned that one could best see throughthose narrow openings by coming up resolutely to the hard necessarywalls that hold one in. Then came the astounding enlightenment thatonly a shred of reality was within the cramped prison of the box--justa darkened, dusty bit--that all the beautiful rest of it lay outside.These are the ones who, pressing up against the rough walls of the box,see, through their chinks, the splendor of what lies outside--see itand know that, one day, they shall have it.

  The others, the Materialists, never come near the walls of the box,except to bang their heads. Their reality is inside. These call lifea thing. The Idealists know that it is a process, and there is not atree or a flower or a blade of grass or a road-side weed but provesthem right. It is a process, and the end of it is perfection--nothingless. The perfection of the physical is approximated to here in thisworld, and, after that, the tired hands are folded, and the worn-outbody laid away. But even the very saints of God barely touch, here,the edges of the possible perfection of the soul. Why, it is that thatlifts us--that possibility of going on and on--out of imaginablebounds, into glory after glory--until the wisdom of the ages isfoolishness and time has no meaning where, in the reaches of eternity,the climbing soul thinks with the mind of God.

  You were going to cut yourself off from that! At the very start, youwere going to fling away your single glorious chance--you, who told methat in less than ten of these littlenesses called "years" you might beallowed to go out into a larger place. Remember, you can't kill yoursoul. But, because you have been trusted with personality you can, ifyou wish, show an unforgiveable contempt for your beginning life. But,if you do that--if you treat your single opportunity like that--can youbelieve that another will be given you?

  You cannot do this thing. I say to you that there are openings in thebox. Find a fissure in the rough wall. Then, look! This isn'tlife--only the smallest bit of it. The rest is outside. It is not aquestion of God--it is not a question of punishment. It is this--whatare _you_ going to do with your soul?

  I wonder if you have read as far as this. I wonder if I have been atall intelligible?

  Will Robert Halarkenden see that you get this thick letter? There isonly one way by which I can know that it found you.

  I know that I have been hopelessly inadequate--perhap
s grotesque. Tosee it and be unable to tell you--imagine the awfulness! Give meanother chance. I was not going to ask that, but I must. Can't yousee I've got to show you? I mean--about another chance--will you notrenew that promise? Will you not send a word in answer to this letter,and promise once more not to do anything decisive until you have heardfrom me again? I am

  Sincerely yours, GEOFFREY McBIRNEY.

  FOREST GATE, August 8th.

  MY DEAR MR. McBIRNEY--

  Robert Halarkenden saw that I got it. You don't know who RobertHalarkenden is, do you? He's interesting, and likely you never willknow about him--but it doesn't matter. Your letter left me with acurious feeling, a feeling