CHAPTER XV.

Angus Grey.

He proved that Hope was all a lie, And Faith a form of bigotry, And Love a snare that caught him; Then thought to comfort human tears By sundry ill-considered sneers At things his mother taught him.

Early in the year following Isabel's cruel treatment of Paul, a novel was published which made some little stir. It was called _Shams and Shadows_, and was by an unknown author, Angus Grey.

It was not what is generally known as a bad book; yet, nevertheless, it was very far from being good. Its cleverness was undeniable; but, on the other hand, its style was flippant, its teaching mischievous, and its philosophy cynical in the extreme. The aim of the book was to prove that the fashionable world is rotten at the core, and that the religious world is no better; and that in all Churches and sects there are little side-chapels dedicated to Mammon, where the majority of the worshippers are to be found.

Angus Grey was apparently a man who had eaten of apples of Sodom, and had found them turn to ashes in his mouth; and he was anxious to share his meal with the rest of mankind, and to exclude no one from partaking of his bitter hospitality. Evidently he was a disappointed man, and his disappointment had not improved him. With a crude and cheap cynicism, he set forth that the ideals of youth are a dream, and the professions of later life a delusion; and he sneered alike at the follies of the young and the pretences of the middle-aged.

To Angus Grey there was nothing sacred, nothing holy; and he pointed his morals and adorned his tale with caricatures of personages well known in society.

To the initiated, some of the characters in _Shams and Shadows_ were portraits but thinly disguised. It was easy to recognize Lord Wrexham, Bobby Thistletown, and Mr. Madderley; but the best drawn character in the book was the heroine, who was the counterfeit presentment of Isabel Carnaby; yet not Isabel as she really was, and as Nature had meant her to be; but Isabel as she appeared to outward seeming, when the worldly and frivolous side of her character was upper-most. She had all Isabel's fun and sparkle and good-humour; but underneath them lay a cold and shallow selfishness, which disgusted the readers she had at first charmed.

At first everybody was asking who Angus Grey could be, as it was evident that he was some one well versed in the ways of this particular set; but gradually it was whispered about that the author of __Shams and Shadows__ was "that young Seaton whom Isabel Carnaby threw over last season". Lady Farley was not surprised to hear this; she had long suspected it; but she took it upon herself to break the news to Isabel, as she did not know how her niece would take it.

"By the way," she said to Isabel one day, "it has come out at last who Angus Grey really is; it is the _nom de plume_ of Paul Seaton."

Isabel started up, her face very white. "Who told you so? It isn't true. I won't believe it!"

"But you must believe it, my dear. It is an open secret. Everybody knows."

"How can people be so unjust? Paul would never have written a horrid book like that; I know him too well to believe such a thing."

"I grant you that it is not a nice book," said Lady Farley, "nor one that a gentleman would have written. But that he did write it, there is no doubt; for Bobby Thistletown met him and asked him straight out if he had adopted the name of Angus Grey, and Mr. Seaton confessed that he had. You know how Bobby goes straight to the point, and how there is no hoodwinking him when he wants to find out anything."

Isabel looked dumfounded. "Do you mean that Paul actually told Bobby that he was Angus Grey?"

"I have told you exactly what Bobby told me, so, you see, I come straight from head-quarters."

"What else did Bobby say to Paul?" asked Isabel.

"Oh, he congratulated him on the success of his book, and Mr. Seaton thanked him and said it had already had a great sale. But the fact is that Bobby was so disgusted with the personal tone of the book that he did not care to be on friendly terms with the author, so he cut the conversation somewhat short."

"Do you think it is such a horrid book, Aunt Caroline?"

"It isn't an improving book--no one pretends that it is; but it is very smart. And I cannot see that you, of all people, have any right to blame Paul Seaton for writing it. If it amuses you to break men's hearts, my dear, by all means do it; but do not cry out if the smash makes more dust and noise than you expected. Breakages are often noisy, from tea-things upwards."

"But Paul never was flippant or cynical," persisted Isabel.

"Of course he was not till you made him so. As you know, I never liked Paul Seaton; but I am a just woman, and in this matter I cannot help saying that I consider you are more culpable than he. I am not blaming you, my dear child, for I should probably have done the same thing at your age; but if you have your fling you must be content to pay the bill."

Isabel sighed, and her aunt continued: "You deliberately broke the young man's heart and destroyed all his ideals; yet you are surprised when, in return, he tries to prove to the world that love is a fable and idealism a folly. It is simply the natural outcome of your action."

"Oh! Aunt Caroline, what shall I do?"

"Nothing. There is nothing to be done; it would have been more dignified, perhaps, had the man not cried out when he was hurt; still it is very human to cry out when our pain seems more than we can endure, and I feel I cannot blame him much. If any one had treated me as you have treated Paul Seaton, I think it is in me to write quite as bitter a book as _Shams and Shadows_, and probably I should have done so."

"But Paul was different."

Lady Farley smiled. "Different from me, you mean! My dear, you must remember that he was your lover and I am only your aunt, and you look at us through differently tinted spectacles. But human nature is pretty much the same in everybody, and when human nature is hit too hard, human nature hits back, either at its fellows, or at Providence, or at both. I admit that it was somewhat ill-bred of Mr. Seaton to abuse our hospitality by making 'copy' of our faults. Still if you objected to seeing the real nature of the Tartar, you should not have scratched the Russian so hard. Disappointment shows what stuff men are made of."

"I suppose it does," Isabel acquiesced.

"There is no doubt, my dear Isabel, that you behaved very badly to Paul Seaton; and it was a natural enough revenge, I think, to show to the world--in the person of his heroine--how heartless a fashionable woman can be. I really cannot see that you have any just ground for complaint, though perhaps some others of his characters have."

Then Isabel went to her own room, and cried as if her heart would break. She understood, as no one else could, the subtlety of Paul's revenge; and just at first she felt that her punishment was almost greater than she could bear.

After the secret of Angus Grey's identity leaked out, Paul Seaton sent the following letter to the minister:--

"MY DEAR FATHER,

"I should be grieved for you to learn from any third person that I have adopted the pseudonym of Angus Grey. I know that _Shams and Shadows_ is not a book that you will like--perhaps I do not like it myself--but I would remind you, before you pass judgment upon it, that people who are sorely disappointed do not preach gospels of peace and goodwill. I also wish to tell you that--however bitterly I may have been disappointed in other people--the reverence I have always felt for your religion and my mother's will abide with me to my dying day. Do not let anything that you may read in the pages of _Shams and Shadows_ ever lead you to doubt this.

"Your affectionate son, "PAUL SEATON."

Mrs. Seaton cried over _Shams and Shadows_ in secret, and longed to comfort the sore heart that could have written such a story; Joanna disapproved of the teaching of the book, but could not help thinking it clever; and the minister dealt justly with the matter, and felt that sorrow was a reason for bitterness but not an excuse.

As he and Joanna were going for a long country walk one Monday afternoon, the latter said: "I am sadly disappointed that the book Paul has been going to write all his life has turned out to be such a book as _Shams and Shadows_; he ought to have done something so different; but all the same I do not blame Paul as much as I blame Isabel. Though Paul has actually written the book, it was Isabel's cruelty to him that made him capable of writing it; for I am certain that she was cruel, though Paul has never said so."

"My child," said Mr. Seaton, "I cannot see that any unkindness on the part of Isabel can justify Paul's action in this matter. No one does wrong without some sort of temptation or excuse; yet we are none of us tempted above what we are able to bear, and it is our duty to avail ourselves of the way of escape provided for us."

"But, father, think how our Paul must have changed before he could write a bitter, cynical book like that! And I cannot yet forgive the woman who has altered him so."

The minister shook his head. "A man is not justified in letting any woman, however dear, come between his own soul and God. His happiness may depend upon the woman he loves, I admit; but his religion should be independent of her, and of everybody except himself."

"But supposing he cannot help it."

"He must help it, Joanna; it is a man's first duty to be religious; a man who is not religious is not a whole man. He may have a fine literary style and be an accomplished scholar--but he is not made in the image of God."

"But would you call Paul's book irreligious?" asked Joanna.

Her father thought for a moment. "I am afraid I should. It is not, of course, atheistic or immoral; I do not mean that; but it is cynical and flippant; and 'he that is not with Me is against Me'."

Joanna sighed. "It is sometimes difficult to be religious."

"It ought not to be. Religion is not a bill of pains and penalties, but a charter of happiness. But, understand me, I do not condemn Paul's book because it does not preach any special tenet or uphold any peculiar creed; for the older I grow the more catholic do I become."

"I am not like that," said Joanna, "as I grow older, the more fondly do I cling to my own 'ism'--not because it is an 'ism,' but because it is my own."

"You are still a great deal younger than I am. Our division lines are far too strong. The Church began in catholicity and must end in catholicity, and I would avoid all peculiar garbs or shibboleths. Anything which connects godliness with a grey gown or a close bonnet is not religion at all, but sectarianism. Therefore I do not blame my son for not preaching Methodism; I only blame him for not preaching Christ."

"Yet you love Methodism as much as I do, don't you, father?"

The minister's face glowed. "Yes, I love it--of course I love it; but I do not condemn those who do not love it as I do. As long as there are different types of character, there must be different forms of worship; yet nothing appeals to me like the good old Methodist fashion of bringing religion into the common experiences of everyday life, and treating it as a familiar thing. To a Ritualist this might seem irreverent; to a Broad Churchman, oppressive; but I always feel it may be said of the Methodists, as of the Israelites of old, 'They did eat and drink, and saw God'."

"The thing that grieves me in Paul's book is its want of idealism and its disbelief in the underlying goodness of human nature," remarked Joanna, as they turned into Chayford Wood.

"I do not agree with you there. Human nature, apart from God, is not a fine thing, and I have no sympathy whatever in the modern worship of Humanity with a capital H. Human nature is our disease--Christ is our cure; and a physician who diagnoses any complaint without suggesting the remedy, may be an able scientist, but he is a sorry doctor. I cannot quarrel with Paul for showing us that human nature is bad; but I do quarrel with him for trying to show us that religion is not much better."

"Still we must do Paul justice," said Joanna loyally; "and one cannot deny that _Shams and Shadows_ is a brilliantly clever book."

"So be it; yet it is character--not intellect--that governs this world and inherits the next."

"Yet, father, if Paul were really in such dreadful trouble and bitterness of spirit, he could not write a book and keep himself, and therefore his sorrow, out of it."

"Perhaps not," replied Mr. Seaton, "then why write a book at all? Our fathers doubtless sorrowed as we sorrow now, yet they locked their grief up in their own breasts, while we proclaim it on the housetops. I cannot approve the modern custom of telling out all we know and feel."

"Don't you think people ought to write books?" asked Joanna.

"Not unless they have a message to deliver; and, moreover, a message which will make for good and not for evil. Now every boy who learns a lesson or loves a woman must needs write a book about it, till we feel inclined to ask, like the Egyptian of old: 'Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us?'"

"That is quite true!"

"People are too anxious to make a stir in the world," continued her father, "the doctrine of to-day is that it is disgraceful to be unknown. The souls of modern men need all their wings to enable them to fly as quickly as their fellows, and they have none left wherewith to cover their faces and their feet."

"But, father, it is natural for men to long for fame."

"Natural, doubtless, my child, but not spiritual. Why will not men be content to love Christ and live contentedly as failures, remembering that--humanly speaking--His religion is a failure in the world to-day?"

"Still people have to make a living," argued Joanna the practical, "and if they can do it better by writing books than in any other way, I do not see why they shouldn't."

"If making a living be all we think of, we had better have been cows or horses," said Mr. Seaton, "in the present day, money and amusement are the only things people really care about, and poor things they are wherewith to satisfy immortal souls. But a writer is in a measure a preacher, and takes responsibilities upon himself towards others which he is bound to fulfil."

"Yes, father dear, I see what you mean."

"Every writer is an evangelist of some sort. Homer preached the gospel of war, and Virgil taught the ancients the blessedness of a peasant's lot; Horace pointed out the inherent meanness of human nature, and in Milton's hands we may say of the epic, as of the sonnet, that 'the thing became a trumpet' to proclaim the religious tenets of the Puritans. And I would rather that my son had followed in the steps of Virgil or of Milton than of Homer or Horace."

And then Mr. Seaton went on to expound to his daughter the messages and the methods of the ancient schools of poetry, and let Paul and his doings alone.

Not long after this, Paul Seaton came home for a short visit; but his holiday did not prove a success. His family carefully refrained from saying anything derogatory of _Shams and Shadows_; but Paul was so much afraid of their doing so that he was on the defensive all the time, and consequently decidedly disagreeable. Moreover, he was still very unhappy, and unhappiness does not tend to social charm. He appreciated his parents' forbearance about _Shams and Shadows_ more than they had any idea of; but, as yet, he was too sore and too deeply wounded to be able to say pleasant things to anybody; therefore he unjustly got the credit of not feeling them. Altogether life was passing but roughly for Paul at that particular time.

Just before he went back to town, Edgar said to him: "You won't be vexed with me, will you, old fellow, if I speak to you as a friend about matters which do not concern me?"

"Well, what is it?" asked Paul ungraciously.

"I want you to write another book to counteract the influence of _Shams and Shadows_. No one understands better than I do the feelings which influenced you when you wrote it; but feelings pass away, and a man is not always the same man. The talent displayed in the pages of your book might have a decided influence for good if used in a right direction; and I want you so to use it, and to rise to higher things on the stepping-stone of the dead self that wrote _Shams and Shadows_."

Paul smoked in silence, and Edgar went on: "And there is another argument I would use, if I were sure you would forgive me for using it, and not think me interfering or impertinent."

"Go on," said Paul, "it is all right.".

"You see," said Edgar, "if we do anything as the result of a state of mind which has been brought on by the action of another person, that person is, in a measure, responsible for our action."

Paul nodded, and Edgar continued: "If we had ever loved that person, I do not think we should like to feel that they--through us--had wrought lasting evil; this conviction would be a source of endless remorse to us, for the old love's sake, even long after that love was a thing of the past. We might be content to bear the consequences of our own share of ill-doing; but we could not endure the idea that we ourselves had increased the responsibility of any one who had once been dear to us, however thoroughly they might have forfeited our affection. I won't say any more, old man; it is very good of you to have listened to me so far; and I think you will understand what I mean."

"Look here," replied Paul, "you have spoken very kindly to me, and I appreciate what you have said and, perhaps still more, what you have left unsaid; and I will confess to you what I have confessed to no other living soul, namely, that I regret with all my heart that _Shams and Shadows_ was ever written. I would gladly give twenty years of my life to unwrite it if I could; but that, unfortunately, is impossible."

"You cannot unwrite it, I know," said Edgar, "but you can write a new book that will prove its antidote; and, by your new book's superior depth and power, you can make men forget that _Shams and Shadows_ was ever written." And he laid a brotherly hand on his friend's shoulder.

Paul rose from his chair and stood with one elbow on the chimney-piece. "That is what I have been intending to do for some time. I mean to devote all my powers to writing a book in my right mind and in my right name, and I will endeavour to teach men that what is good is good, and what is bad is bad, which is, after all, the end of human wisdom. And people shall see that the cynicism of _Shams and Shadows_ was the crying of an unhappy and wayward child rather than the knowledge and experience of a full-grown man."

"What will be the name of the new book?" asked Edgar.

Paul thought for a moment. "I think I shall call it _Some Better Thing_," he said.