Simon the Jester | Page 6

of the soul, good desires, good actions."
The word /eumoiros/ according to the above definition, tickles my
fancy. I would give a great deal to be eumoirous. What a thing to say:
"I have achieved eumoiriety,"--namely the quintessence of happy-
fatedness dealt unto oneself by a perfect altruism!

I don't think that hitherto my soul has been very evilly inclined, my
desires base, or my actions those of a scoundrel. Still, the negatives do
not qualify one for eumoiriety. One wants something positive. I have
an idea, therefore, of actively dealing unto myself a happy lot or
portion according to the Marcian definition during the rest of the time I
am allowed to breathe the upper air. And this will be fairly easy; for no
matter how excellently a man's soul may be inclined to the performance
of a good action, in ninety cases out of a hundred he is driven away
from it by dread of the consequences. Your moral teachers seldom
think of this--that the consequences of a good action are often more
disastrous than those of an evil one. But if a man is going to die, he can
do good with impunity. He can simply wallow in practical virtue.
When the boomerang of his beneficence comes back to hit him on the
head--/he won't be there to feel it/. He can thus hoist Destiny with its
own petard, and, besides, being eumoirous, can spend a month or two
in a peculiarly diverting manner. The more I think of the idea the more
am I in love with it. I am going to have a seraph of a time. I am going
to play the archangel.
I shall always have pleasant memories of Murglebed. Such an idea
could not have germinated in any other atmosphere. In the scented
groves of sunny lands there would have been sown Seeds of Regret,
which would have blossomed eventually into Flowers of Despair. I
should have gone about the world, a modern Admetus, snivelling at my
accursed luck, without even the chance of persuading a soft-hearted
Alcestis to die for me. I should have been a dismal nuisance to society.
"Bless you," I cried this afternoon, waving, as I leaned against a post,
my hand to the ambient mud, "Renniker was wrong! You are not a
God-forsaken place. You are impregnated with divine inspiration."
A muddy man in a blue jersey and filthy beard who occupied the next
post looked at me and spat contemptuously. I laughed.
"If you were Marcus Aurelius," said I, "I would make a joke--a short
life and an eumoiry one--and he would have looked as pained as you."
"What?" he bawled. He was to windward of me.

I knew that if I repeated my observation he would offer to fight me. I
approached him suavely.
"I was wondering," I said, "as it's impossible to strike a match in this
wind, whether you would let me light my pipe from yours."
"It's empty," he growled.
"Take a fill from my pouch," said I.
The mud-turtle loaded his pipe, handed me my pouch without
acknowledgment, stuck his pipe in his breeches pocket, spat again, and,
deliberately turning his back, on me, lounged off to another post on a
remoter and less lunatic-ridden portion of the shore. Again I laughed,
feeling, as the poet did with the daffodils, that one could not but be gay
in such a jocund company.
There are no amenities or urbanities of life in Murglebed to choke the
growth of the Idea. This evening it flourishes so exceedingly that I
think it safe to transplant it in the alien soil of Q 3, The Albany, where
the good Rogers must be leading an idle existence peculiarly
deleterious to his morals.
This gives one furiously to think. One of the responsibilities of
eumoiriety must be the encouragement and development of virtue in
my manservant.
Also in my young friend and secretary, Dale Kynnersley. He is more to
me than Rogers. I may confess that, so long as Rogers is a sober,
honest, me-fearing valet, in my heart of hearts I don't care a hang about
Rogers's morals. But about those of Dale Kynnersley I do. I care a great
deal for his career and happiness. I have a notion that he is erring after
strange goddesses and neglecting the little girl who is in love with him.
He must be delivered. He must marry Maisie Ellerton, and the two of
them must bring lots of capable, clear-eyed Kynnersleys into the world.
I long to be their ghostly godfather.
Then there's Eleanor Faversham--but if I begin to draw up a

programme I shall lose that spontaneity of effort which, I take it, is one
of the chief charms of dealing unto oneself a happy lot and portion. No;
my