The Stark Munro Letters | Page 8

reason to accept the dogmas
of any one of them. Their ethics are usually excellent. So are the ethics
of the common law of England. But the scheme of creation upon which
those ethics are built! Well, it really is to me the most astonishing thing
that I have seen in my short earthly pilgrimage, that so many able men,
deep philosophers, astute lawyers, and clear-headed men of the world
should accept such an explanation of the facts of life. In the face of
their apparent concurrence my own poor little opinion would not dare
to do more than lurk at the back of my soul, were it not that I take
courage when I reflect that the equally eminent lawyers and
philosophers of Rome and Greece were all agreed that Jupiter had
numerous wives and was fond of a glass of good wine.
Mind, my dear Bertie, I do not wish to run down your view or that of
any other man. We who claim toleration should be the first to extend it
to others. I am only indicating my own position, as I have often done
before. And I know your reply so well. Can't I hear your grave voice
saying "Have faith!" Your conscience allows you to. Well, mine won't
allow me. I see so clearly that faith is not a virtue, but a vice. It is a
goat which has been herded with the sheep. If a man deliberately shut
his physical eyes and refused to use them, you would be as quick as
any one in seeing that it was immoral and a treason to Nature. And yet
you would counsel a man to shut that far more precious gift, the reason,
and to refuse to use it in the most intimate question of life.
"The reason cannot help in such a matter," you reply. I answer that to
say so is to give up a battle before it is fought. My reason SHALL help
me, and when it can help no longer I shall do without help.
It's late, Bertie, and the fire's out, and I'm shivering; and you, I'm very
sure, are heartily weary of my gossip and my heresies, so adieu until
my next.

II.
HOME, 10th April, 1881.
Well, my dear Bertie, here I am again in your postbox. It's not a
fortnight since I wrote you that great long letter, and yet you see I have
news enough to make another formidable budget. They say that the art
of letter-writing has been lost; but if quantity may atone for quality,
you must confess that (for your sins) you have a friend who has
retained it.
When I wrote to you last I was on the eve of going down to join the
Cullingworths at Avonmouth, with every hope that he had found some
opening for me. I must tell you at some length the particulars of that
expedition.
I travelled down part of the way with young Leslie Duncan, whom I
think you know. He was gracious enough to consider that a third-class
carriage and my company were to be preferred to a first class with
solitude. You know that he came into his uncle's money a little time
ago, and after a first delirious outbreak, he has now relapsed into that
dead heavy state of despair which is caused by having everything
which one can wish for. How absurd are the ambitions of life when I
think that I, who am fairly happy and as keen as a razor edge, should be
struggling for that which I can see has brought neither profit nor
happiness to him! And yet, if I can read my own nature, it is not the
accumulation of money which is my real aim, but only that I may
acquire so much as will relieve my mind of sordid cares and enable me
to develop any gifts which I may have, undisturbed. My tastes are so
simple that I cannot imagine any advantage which wealth can
give--save indeed the exquisite pleasure of helping a good man or a
good cause. Why should people ever take credit for charity when they
must know that they cannot gain as much pleasure out of their guineas
in any other fashion? I gave my watch to a broken schoolmaster the
other day (having no change in my pocket), and the mater could not
quite determine whether it was a trait of madness or of nobility. I could
have told her with absolute confidence that it was neither the one nor
the other, but a sort of epicurean selfishness with perhaps a little dash
of swagger away down at the bottom of it. What had I ever had from
my chronometer like the quiet thrill of satisfaction when the fellow

brought me