From One Generation to Another | Page 2

wore top-boots and breeches as if of
daily habit--but a racial defect handed down like the nasal brand from
remote progenitors. He looked at letter and newspaper as they lay side
by side--not with the doubtfulness of warfare between conscience and
temptation, but with a calculating thoughtfulness. He was not
wondering what was best to do, but what the most expedient.
Those were troublesome times in India, for the Mutiny was not quelled,
and each mail took home a list of killed, slowly compiled from news
that dribbled in from outlying stations, forts, and towns. Those were
days when men's lives were made or lost in the Eastern Empire, for it
seems to be in Fortune's balance that great danger weighs against great
gain. No large wealth has ever been acquired without proportionate risk
of life or happiness. To the tame and timorous city clerk comes small
remuneration and a nameless grave, while to more adventurous spirits
larger stakes bring vaster rewards. The clerk, pure and simple, has,
within these later years, found his way to India, sitting side by side with
the Baboo, and consequently it is as easy to make a fortune in London
as in Calcutta and Madras. The clerk has carried his sordid civilisation
and his love of personal safety with him, sapping at the glorious
uncertainty from which the earlier pioneers of a hardier commerce
wrested quick-founded fortunes.
Seymour Michael had come into all this with the red coat of a soldier
and the keen, ambitious heart of a Jew, at the very nick of time. He saw
at once the enormous possibilities hidden in the near future for a man
who took this country at its proper value, handling what he secured

with coolness and foresight. He know that he only possessed one thing
to risk, namely, his life; and true to his racial instinct, he valued this
very highly, looking for an extortionate usury on his stake.
At this moment he was like Aladdin in the cave of jewels: he did not
know which way to turn, which treasure to seize first.
Anna--dearest Anna--to whom this half-completed letter was addressed,
was a person for whom he had not the slightest affection. At the outset
of his career he had paused, decided in haste, and had resolved to make
use of the passing opportunity. Anna Hethbridge had therefore been
annexed en passant. In person she was youthful and rather
handsome--her fortune was extremely handsome. So Seymour Michael
went out to India engaged to be married to this girl who was
unfortunate enough to love him.
In India two things happened. Firstly, Seymour Michael met a second
young lady with a fortune twice as large as that of Miss Anna
Hethbridge. Secondly, the Mutiny broke out, and India lay before the
ambitious young officer a very land of Ophir. He promptly decided to
cut the first string of his bow. Anna Hethbridge was now useless--nay,
more, she was a burthen. Hence the letter which lay half-written on the
table of his bungalow.
He paused before this wrong to a blameless woman, and contemplated
the perpetration of a greater. He weighed pro and con--carefully
withholding from the balance the casting weight of Right against
Wrong. Then he took up the letter and slowly tore it to small pieces. He
had decided to leave the report of his death uncontradicted. It was
morally certain that five weeks before that day Anna Hethbridge had
read the news in the printed column lying before him. He resolved to
leave her in ignorance of its falseness. Seymour Michael was not,
however, a selfish man. All that he did at this time, and later in life--all
the lives that he ruined--the hearts he broke--the men he sacrificed were
not offered upon the altar of Self (though the distinction may appear
subtle), but sold to his career. Career was this man's god. He wanted to
be great, and rich, and powerful; and yet he was conscious of having no
definite use for greatness, or riches, or power when acquired.

Here again was the taint of the blood that ran in his veins. The curse
had reached him--in addition to the long, sad nose and the bandy legs.
The sense of enjoyment was never to be his. The greed of gain--gain of
any sort--filled his heart, and ennui secretly nestling in his soul said:
"Thou shalt possess, but not enjoy."
He was conscious of this voice, but did not understand it then. He only
burned to possess; looking to possession to provide enjoyment. In this
he was not quite alone--with him in his error are all men and women.
And so we talk of Love coming after marriage--and so women marry
without Love, believing that it will follow. God help them! That which
comes afterwards