From One Generation to Another | Page 2

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 is not even the ghost of Love, it is only Custom. This was the spirit of Seymour Michael. He had already acquired one or two objects of a vague ambition; and, possessing them, had only learnt to be accustomed to them--not to value them.
There was no elation in the thought that he was freed from the encumbrance of Anna Hethbridge by a chance misprint. Neither