ALL MEN ARE LIARS.

Evening Star, Issue 9833, 23 October 1895, Page 1

ALL MEN ARE LIARS.

BY JOSEPH HOCKING (Author of ‘The Story of Andrew Fairfax, ‘ labmael Pengelly : An Outcast,’ and * The Monk of Mar Saba’).

SYNOPSIS: Part I. Chapter I. Luke Edgcumbe, of Edgcumbe Hall, unburdens his mind on education and discusses family history with Asher Roberts, his Chapter ll.—Uncle and nephew have a meeting with Roberts, who is also the family solicitor, and discuss plans for that nephew’s (Stephen) future. Stephen Edgcumbe early figures as a Chapter lll.—Stephen Edgcumbe and Daniel Roberts become fast friends, and exchange confidences. They map out their futures, and Edgcumbe betakes himself to the Tempest mansion, where he meets his " fate.” Chapter IV.—Stephen has a good tijne at the Tempests, and falls over , head and ears in love with Isabella Tempest. Chapter V.—Stephen and his uncle pray in the church of the Tempests, and the cynic gives his views on religion. Chapter Vl.—Ralph Hussey employs the village bully to castigate Stephen Edgcumbe, but the plot only partially succeeds. Chapter Vll.—Uncle Luke gives his nephew a cynic’s views of the learned professions. Chapter Vlll.—Stephen is introduced to his tutor and coach at Owens College, Manchester. Chapter IX.—The cynic discusses the marriage question. Part 11.

Stephen rapidly becomes.disillusioUised, and is parted from his wife owing to his uncle’s failure and his own ideal of commercial morality. Stephen goes “ a-slumming. He also attends a number of religious services at the East End." The Colonel takes an intensely worldly view of the situation, and proposes a reconciliation between husband and wife “ on terms.”

PART lI.—ORDEAL. CHAPTER XIII. THE MARCH OF EVENTS. When the heart sinks, the ship sinks.

The next day Stephen did not stir out of the house. Hour after hour he sat brooding. I had, of course, to go out for several hours; but my landlady told me, on my return, that he had never left the room in which I had left him. He brightened up a little when I came home to dinner, but seemed to take very little interest in anything. I discovered that he had sent out for a large number of the daily papers, and these be had bought in order to discover farther particulars of the trial in which he was so terribly connected. Beyond these Ido not think he bad read anything. After dinner a man called' to see me, and Stephen would have left the room, but I prevailed on him to stay. I thought my visitor’s conversation might cause him some diversion. “ What did you say he was called ?” asked Stephen, when I told the servant to show him up. “ Amos Collet. He is a leading light among some Plymouth Brethren over in Chelsea.” *

“Collet! then I’ve met the man; but surely you’ve nothing to say to him. He’s nothing in your way.” Before I could reply, Amos Collet entered. He was what might be called a smooth man. His hands were soft, so was his face. His sandy hair was brushed smoothly down, while there is no word that I know of which can describe his voice so well as “ smooth.” And yet there was an air of dogged persistency about him, while he possessed a kind of conceited assurance that was somewhat aggra : vating. His business was of no importance. A small matter not worth mentioning; indeed, I am pretty sure that his ostensible business was only used as a means to carry out his real purpose. Still, when the questions he first asked were answered, he seemed a little at a loss how to proceed. “I suppose you are pretty busy over at Chelsea just now,” I remarked. “Very busy; always busy. The work is very great, and much effort is required,” he replied. “ These elections always require much labor.”

“Elections ! I have nothing to do with elections. My time is filled up preparing for one GREAT election. ’’ “ Ah, voslries and school boards are nothing to you. You will work for nothing less than a parliamentary election. To whioh party do you belong ?” ,-i No party.” “ No party?” “ No; my kingdom is not of this world.” “ What great election do you mean, then ?” “ Second Peter i., 10,” was the reply. I stared at him for a moment, scarcely understanding him. “ You are never wrong when you quote the Word, young man. What does 2nd Peter i., 10 say? ‘Give diligenoe to make your calling and election sure.’ That is the great business of life- I give all my time to it ; X am constantly trying to prepare others for this great election.” , I did not answer him ; I did not think it best.

He spoke to Stephen. “ Have you turned vour attention to this ?” he asked. “ I have turned my attention to many things,” replied Stephen. “ What does Acts xvii., 21 say ?” “ I don’t know.” “ My friend, you want the Word, and you want grace.” “No doubt,” Stephen answered a little bitterly, “ You do. Excuse me, my brother, for speaking plainly; but your case has been pressing heavily upon me. Of course I’ve heard about it, and I’ve come to try and pluck a brand from the burning.” “ Thank you, but you may spare yourself the trouble. Besides', you would burn your fingers.” “What does James v., 20 say ?” “ I’m sure I don’t know.” “ But you need instruction. You need to know the Word. Psalm cxix., 2.”

“ Dan,” said Stephen, rising, “ you’ll not want me any longer, so I’ll go into another room.”

“No ; I forbid you to leave. I forbid you. It is at your peril that you go. Mr Edgcumbe, you are young, but you are lost. Broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, but narrow the way that leads to life. Thai way I’ve come to tell you about. It was at my peril if I refused to come to you ; it is at your peril if you refuse to listen to me.”

“ Ah,” said Stephen, “and I suppose you think it honest to pretend to come here on business with my friend, while you really wish to insult me. ” “ My reply again is James v., 20. It is also Amos i., 2, and Jeremiah iii,, 8. 1 also bid you remember vi, Galatians, 7 and 8, and Matthew xxv., 46.” “ And my reply is that you are an insolent fellow.” “I am willing to be reviled. I glory m it. I remember Matthew v., 11. and 12. Stephen Edgcumbe, you are an adulterer, an outcast. The papers to-day tell of your sin. Think of Revelation xxii., 15, aqd repent.” “ Mr Collet,” I said, “ do you think you are acting like a gentleman in coming here in this way ? ” “In my zeal for the great election, I care nothing for the world’s ideas. Your friend is at the mouth of hell. I can almost smell the brimstone on his clothes. Revelation xvii., 5. I come to save him from doom, by giving him the Word, and only the Word.” , , I started up angrily and opened the door. “ Mr Collet, this is unbearable,” I said. “I don’t wish to interfere with your religious notions, but I do object to your coming here and insulting my friend. “ Don’t bother, Dan,” said Stephen, with a sneering look at Collet; “let the maniac rave. He’s a part of the make up of the

race. I’m getting too hardened to care much ; let him go on with his drivel’' “Maniac! Drivel!” he cried. “I’m a leading man among the exclusive Brethren, while you are full of wounds, bruises, and putrefying sores. - You are a moral leper; disease is bursting out at every pore of your moral skin. Leviticus xxiv., 7. You are an adulterer, you have ruined your wife by your sin; if ever man needed salvation, ’tis you. I’ve come to invite you to hear a converted prize-fighter. He’s a beautiful case.. Once ho was, as bad as ’ .you, or nearly so. Come and see what we’ve done lor him, and what can be done for you.”

I could withhold myself no longer, so I caught him by the arm and in no gentle way led him to the landing. “Mary,” I said to the servant, “show this man out.” “How dare you treat a messenger of the Word so?” he criedp angrily. Then he controlled himself, and became “ smooth again. “I forgive you,” he continued blandly, and in preaching tones, “and I wash my garments of the blood of Stephen Edgcumbe. I have been faithful Revelation xiv., 10 and 11. And although the devil holds him fast, I shall have my reward. I shall ‘ shine as the stars for ever and ever.’ ”

He walked into the hall, and then, seeming to have remembered something, stopped, and, putting his hand in his pocket, cook out some tracts. “ I forgive you,” he said, “ and I leave these with you. They contain the gospel as set forth by our brethren, the only true gospel. There are only a few of ns who have grasped it, according to the Scriptures —Luke xiii., 24; but in this we rejoice, it shows the preciousness of our faith. Again I bid you beware. Read Isaiah xxxiv., 10; Revelation xix., 3; Psalm Ixxv., 3, and remember that I am innocent of your blood.” I could riot help laughing as he went away, and yet, as I saw the lines of bitterness and pain on my friend’s face, I repented *that I should have allowed such a scene.

“ I have heard that some of these people act like this,” I said, “ but I did not really believe it.”

“ I can believe anything that’s contemptible—now,” said Stephen; “but let the matter drop—l don’t feel like talking about it. Anyhow, I’d rather take my chance with —but never mind.”

As it happened, our attention was turned from Mr Collet’s visit by the knock of the postman, who brought a letter which deepened the lines of pain on my friend’s face. When he had finished reading it he threw it to me. It contained news that was closely connected with the trial, the thought of which seemed to break his heart-strings. “ I can’t stay here any longer, Dan !” he gasped. “I must get away. I must be alone. I want to forget. I think I’ll go and have another look at those hells I saw last night. Don’t come with me; I can’t bear company. Very well, then, I will not go to the city. I’ll stay in Battersea.” He spoke like one demented, looking at me all the time in a dazed sort of way. A minute later he had slammed the front door, and I heard bis quick step in the street outside. When he came in, two hours afterwards, he was to all appearances calm and self-possessed. For the next two or three weeks he did no work. The novel about which he had spoken so hopefully while we were in Wales he did not touch. He spent his time in a listless, hopeless sort of way. I tried to rally him, but it was no use.

“ What’s the use ?” he would reply. “ I've paid the costs,” and I have a few pounds left. What’s gained by effort, by struggle ? Let things drift. The whole business of life isn’t worth troubling about.” About a month after the trial I tried to rouse in him an interest in his novel. “ Steve,” I said, “ that’s a fine idea of yours. Why don’t you work it out ?” He shrugged his shoulders. “ Such a novel would bring you fame and fortune, and do a world of good.” He laughed bitterly. “ Come, old man, finish it; lam anxious to read it.”

“ I couldn’t finish it, Dan.” “Why?” “Because, first of all, I don’t want to; second, it’s not worth while making any sort of effort; and third, I’ve a feeling that -there’s enough misery in the world without me adding my quota to it.” “I don’t understand, Steve. Such an idea as you were telling me about would do a world of good, and is worthy of the pen of Victor Hugo or Walter Scott.” “ Stop that, Dan. I don’t feel up to laying bare the miserable dirt of life. I feel its hollowness, its vulgarity, its rottenness too much to write about it.” “ But, Steve ”

“ Old man, if I wrote a novel, I suppose I should want it read. Well, what is the kind of novel read to-day ? People who subscribe to the circulating libraries ask for what’s vulgar and dirty. Either the heroines must swear, smoke cigarettes, be immoral and vulgar, or they must be cold, heartless, and bitter. As Ilford said, the rage is for realism, which means dirt, prurient suggestions, and coarseness, which is called wit. Well, I feel the fact of evil and deceit too keenly to describe it. f

should feel as though I were dipping my pen into my own—but there. I won’t talk about it.”

“ But, Steve, that wasn’t your idea. You told me about concluding your book with the thought that those views of life seen through the eyes of innocence were only true.” “ Dan, that’s all gone. It was an illusion that has passed away. I’ve gone through mud since then. If I write what I believe to 'be true to life I couldn’t put stickingplasters on the sores of life by society small talk. Besides, why should I? It isn’t worth while.”

“ Not if by writing you could lead your readers to have nobler conceptions of life and duty ? ” “ Man, before you can make people believe in anything, you must first believe yourself. I believe in nothing that will help. I’ve thought out afresh. the novel I begun to write, during the last fortnight, and it can end only in gloom and misery. I have no hope in life, so why should I seek to disillusionise anybody? The only happy people in the world are those who don’t see the ghastly truth of life, just as it is ; well, I will not destroy their false happiness by letting them see it. The subject of my novel was disillusionment; well, disillusionment to me means opening one’s eyes to the fact that this life is a misery. That goodness and virtue, and all that kind of thing, are only seeming, and that at bottom lies and corruption reign. There, Dan, old man, it’s no use talking.” “ Then you believe that all virtue ” “Can be bought with a price,” he said. “I’ve seen it again and again. Men and women are alike—all goes if the necessary price is offered. It sounds like blasphemy, Dan, doesn’t it ? but it is true, terribly true.” I had heard his Uncle Luke and Richard Ilford talk like this; but with them everything was flippant They pretended to believe in life’s mockery and evil, but entered all they could into life’s enjoyments. Their pessimism was little more than talk, but to Stephen all was real. The iron had entered his soul.

“My loss of faith has destroyed desire; it has destroyed motive power, Dan,” he went on ; “ nothing is worth while—nothing. What’s the use of anything ? Do the thing that’s easiest, that’s best. And so, Dan, 1 can’t write; and even if I could I would not add another wail to life’s misery, for that is all my novel would be, even as (hat is the sum and substance of life.”

The next day, as if to prove his po«t*on r Amos Collet, the Plymouth Brother who had made it his business to seek to convert Stephen by means of _ quoting text*, waofound' guilty of obtaining vast sums .of • money from a rich young man whom Amos had converted to Plymouth • Brethrewsm. This young man was intellect, «d that worthy bad frightened him .into giving to “ the cause, ,r in the name of Amos Collet, nearly the whole of his fortune. The young man’s relations had interested (hem in the case; and the trial resulted is Amos, who'had quoted much Scripture during his evidence, suffering a severe penalty. Thus the “brother” discovered that, although faith .was counted for righteousness among the “brethren,” in an English law court it counted for very little. Neither did the judge relent when Mr Collet declared that “his zeal in the cause had eaten him up.” While one always has a sense of pleasure in knowing that a hypocrite is unmasked, I could not help feeling sorry when I saw the effect it all had upon Stephen. A spiri£ of utter abandonment seemed to possess him ; he appeared perfectly indifferent to what in the past had great interest for him, while he expressed an utter want >of faith in everything. The words of his Unde Lake and those of his old tutor were often on bis Bps, while the shallow and flippant cynicism of the novels which were and are still the order of the day was frequently quoted. I grieved, too, to see how eagerly he devoured the so-called realistic literature of the time. He seemed to revel in writers who regarded virtue and parity as mere matters of accident, or as something that would be gladly given np for a sufficient price. To me, who had known him when his conceptions of life were so noble and his tastes so pure, it was terrible to discover that to him the saered and the beautiful were rapidly vanishing. I remember one day especially, we were riding together in a bus, when a bright young girl about eighteen or nineteen came and sat not far from us. Few, I think, could watch her without seeing on her the impress of innocence, and freedom from contamination with the mire of life. Her manner, as she spoke to a lady who was evidently her mother, was free from affectation, while her every movement proclaimed her a true child of Nature. Not that she was ignorant of the sin of life ; rather she was apparently able to come into contact with it, to fight it, and yet remain pure. “ What a beautiful, bright, winsome girl! ” I remarked when she left the bus. He shrugged his shoulders. “ Most likely she is on a par with the rest of her sex.” “ She seems to me one of those who command trust,” I remarked, without noticing his sneer.

“Look here, Dan, old man, don’t you go and be taken in. Take warning from me.” “I don’t know about being taken in,” I replied ; “ but certainly, to look at her face, and to hear her laugh, is to drive away all thoughts of wrong.” “ Dan,” he replied, “if she is pure it’s because no sufficient price has been offered to purchase her purity. Her beauty, or what you call beauty, and her virtue, if she has any, have their price. When someone comes along who will pay that price yonr saint will become like the rest. Bah! hundreds of girls who walk the streets tonight were a few years ago as good as she.” 1 will not repeat our conversation further; I have said enough to show the bent of my friend’s mind. Ido not profess to be -better than the rest of my sex; and yet, daring the remainder of our ride, I could not help thinking of the bright, gladsome face of the young girl; and where he saw vulgarity and corruption, I saw truth and purity. I could perceive, too, that Stephen had lost all motive power for action. When I asked him to do something, his reply, with a shrug of his shoulders, was “ Why should IHe wrote for two or three papers, and earned enough to keep him in bread and cheese, and beyond that he cared nothing. Indeed, at times he seemed indifferent about life at all. “If I weren’t a coward I should end up the whole matter. Nothing in this life is worth while.”

In this way about fonr months passed. Stephen still regarded my lodgings as all the home be had, although he spent more and more of his time in the city. Then two events took place which I cannot help regarding as having a tragic effect upon my friend’s life.

(To he continued next Wedtwsday.)