Masterman

“ He has moreover all the gifts of a very persuasive writer, and his style, always easy and attractive, rises sometimes to heights of a real eloquence. Mr. Masterman’s defects are the defects of his qualities.”
* “Nobility of temper; catholicity of personal; literary, and religious, though hardly of political appreciation; and frequently a striking felicity of phrase are among the notes of Mr. Masterman’s essays.”
Matarazzo, Francisco. Chronicles of the city of Perugia, 1492-1503, tr. ”

“ Masterman represents, we are sure, multitudes who could add proof to his words from frequent experience; he speaks, also, for many more who, because of similar experience, come no more to the house of the Lord. ”

“ But I do know that my father buys land for speculative building, and puts up houses that are built of the rottenest material, and sells them to ignorant people."
"Aye, laddie, your father's like the man in the parable, 'an austere man, gathering where he has not strawed.' But he's a strong man, is your father. There's few stronger men than Archibold Masterman. ”

“ How true it is that man plans in vain; and that it is only by the Almighty will and pleasure that he can obtain his ends!"
Chapter XLV But although they resolved as stated in the last chapter, nothing was done. Finally, one morning at sunrise, as they were looking round with the telescope, close to the turtle-pond, Masterman Ready said to Mr. Seagrave, "Indeed, sir, we must no longer remain in this state of idleness; I have been thinking a great deal of our present position and prospects; as to the vessel coming back, we must, at present, give up all hopes of it. ”

“ So in the first week of August the Masterman household accomplished its annual exodus, and Arthur found himself one of five hundred tenants in a vast hotel at Brighton. Brighton is not precisely a pleasant place in August—"a sea without a ship, and a shore without a tree"—but undeniably it has at all seasons a certain strong glitter of life, and its shipless sea is an inexhaustible reservoir of tonic breezes. But poetry does not breathe in the air of Brighton, and Arthur's heart was at the stage when poetry is indispensable to happiness. ”

“ Having seen William safe to the cabin door, the old seaman returned to the deck, for it was his watch.
Masterman Ready, for such was his name, had been more than fifty years at sea, having been bound apprentice to a collier which sailed from South Shields, when he was only ten years old. His face was browned from long exposure, and there were deep furrows on his cheeks, but he was still a hale and active man. ”

“ I who sat apart, criticising the world, am the sham hero. He who endured the crucifixion of the world is the real hero. Suffering does not necessarily ennoble men; but to suffer bravely is always noble. Ah, Arthur! when I think of that lonely grave which lies behind us, I say, not 'what bitterness is hidden there!' but 'what fortitude!' With all its faults, the life hidden in that grave may teach us all a lesson."
And that was the epitaph of Archibold Masterman. ”

“ Poverty sees itself reduplicated at every turn; it looks into its own face, and sees no other. A district no man chooses; into which he may be thrust by dire misfortune, in which he may dwell with resentment, with a heart swollen with regret, with a mind embittered; but which excites in him no respect and no affection. London, with its glories and adventures, shines afar; it shines splendid and contemptuous. For here there are no adventures; memories, but no prospects; life without ardour; struggle without hope; toil without release.
It was in this district that Masterman had chosen to live. ”

“ All these Masterman had eminently displayed, and here he was, ab agendo, at seventy-three; while Joseph, barely two years younger, and in the most excellent preservation, had disgraced himself through life by idleness and eccentricity. Embarked in the leather trade, he had early wearied of business, for which he was supposed to have small parts. A taste for general information, not promptly checked, had soon begun to sap his manhood. There is no passion more debilitating to the mind, unless, perhaps, it be that itch of public speaking which it not infrequently accompanies or begets. ”

“ I pity the poor dumb creatures as much as you do, Master Willy; it is kindness to ourselves and them too, which makes me refuse it to them. However, if you like, we will take a walk first, and see if we can find any water. ”

“ It was scarcely apathy; no eyes could be as bright as hers if the heart were apathetic. It seemed rather to be a resolved incuriousness about things around her, a turning away of the face from life, as from something dreadful, that had only pain to offer her. Could one imagine a human creature, with "a bright, sunshiny day after shipwreck," sitting beside an empty sea, willing to think of nothing that came before or after, but just to breathe, and watch, and wait—that was the kind of impression Mrs. Masterman made upon the mind. Arthur was always delicately tender with her. ”

“ He glared at Kipps, his face flushed deep, his sunken eyes glowing with passion, and then suddenly he changed altogether.
There was a sound of tea things rattling upon a tray outside the door, and Sid rose to open it.
"All of which amounts to this," said Masterman, suddenly quiet and again talking against time. "The world is out of joint, and there isn't a soul alive who isn't half waste or more. You'll find it the same with you in the end, wherever your luck may take you.... I suppose you won't mind my having another cigarette?" ”

“ I believe Uncle Masterman's dead.'
'I must put a stop to this nonsense,' said Michael, 'and that for ever. You say too near the truth. In one sense your uncle is dead, and has been so long; but not in the sense of the tontine, which it is even on the cards he may yet live to win. Uncle Joseph saw him this morning; he will tell you he still lives, but his mind is in abeyance.'
'He did not know me,' said Joseph; to do him justice, not without emotion.
'So you're out again there, Morris,' said John. 'My eye! ”

“ But it was precisely because he already guessed too accurately what that truth was, that he refused to hear it uttered. It is easy enough to walk with boldness in the dark, ghost-haunted room, if you undoubtedly believe there is no ghost. But if you do—if you have heard the rattling chain and stealthy sigh, and have felt your blood stiffen at the moving shadow—then what? The easiest plan is the child's old game of make-believe. You will invent some fantastic reason why you should look no closer. And that is what Masterman was doing. ”

“ His easy grace of manner, and the recklessness of his spending, due not to extravagance, but to the family tradition which spoke loud in him, made him a general favourite, and he was no mean athlete, which in the glorious days of the varsity, counts for more than brains or money.
In his third year he was occupying a position which perhaps never comes again to a man. In the little kingdom of his college he was a small god. In after life men hold great positions, but then disillusionment has come and the freshness of youth has gone. ”

“ I've lived long enough to know how much can be done by regularity and discipline. Why, sir, there is more work got out of men in a well-conducted man-of-war than there can in the merchant service in double the time. And why so? Because everything is in its place, and there is a place for everything."
"I agree with you," said Mrs. Seagrave; "method is everything. While one careless little girl is looking for her thimble, another will have finished her work." ”

“ This became evident a moment later, when the literary agent, following the suggestion opened up by the inability of the British colleges to impart the art of smart writing, gave some reminiscences of his own career in that spirit of innocent boastfulness which is common among men who have miraculously achieved positions for which nature never intended them. ”

“ The young man to whom he spoke, and into whose eyes he had turned to look, lowered his lids as if abashed or aggrieved, and just perceptibly shrugged his shoulders.
“Master,” he said, presuming on the Master’s tolerance, “is it not the mystery of original sin in them which baffles you? And where on this earth are eyes to lack that riddle? You are too old, Master, by near fifteen hundred years to find the model you seek. There was never but one in all the world.” ”

“ In such a life as that of William Morris there is the suggestion of a possibility of progress, more satisfying and at the same time more hopeful than Mill’s refuge in transcendental poetry. It is an advance on Jefferies because more determined and alive: more positive in its proclamation of life’s good things. ”

“ The more robust of them became soldiers. From the remainder the employers continually and methodically selected out the enterprising and talented, leaving alone “labourers who were incapable of defending their rights, but were yet intelligent enough to perform their toil, which highly perfected machines rendered extremely simple.” “In a word, these miserable employees were plunged in a gloomy [297] apathy that nothing enlightened and nothing exasperated. ”

“ Every observer, in this and its hundred similar fellows, can see family affection, endurance, kindliness, and patience beyond all praise; a resistance (even in the last extremity) to the triumphant powers of darkness. What is more difficult to show is any interpretation of the whole business, an ideal which can illuminate the present disability, or a vision in which to-day’s efforts will appear intelligible in the light of an end. Lacking such vision, the verdict of a nineteenth-century prophet still sounds mournful over much of industrial England that abides unchanged. ”

“ Other writers can justify an opulent and leisured class above, for the provision of clever and energetic persons who will cultivate the tradition of statesmanship, or encourage disinterested experiment in advancement of knowledge or the service of humanity. But the actual rulers of Empire, the men of science, the great soldiers, the great artists and writers, as a matter of fact very rarely appear as the children of, or are rewarded by the qualifications for entrance into, the governing classes. ”

“ At the meetings of the Trusts an observer would have noticed their smooth and puffy faces, their lantern cheeks, their sunken eyes and wrinkled brows.... Denying themselves all happiness, all pleasure, and all rest, they spent their miserable lives in rooms without light or air, furnished only with electrical apparatus, living on eggs and milk, and sleeping on camp beds. ”

“ For the first time he caught a vital glimpse of the primeval life of man, and recognised its self-sufficing dignity. For the first time he realised that the essence of all true living lay in daring. It was a truth which neither London nor Oxford had imparted to him. He had not even learned it through his own father, whom he knew conventionally rather than really. ”

“ But in their excellences as in their defects they stand sharply distinct from the excellences and defects of the average English artisan. They care for things he cares nothing for: he cares for things which seem to them trivial and childish. ”

“ But, sir, if we cannot help feeling as we do, it is our duty to check the feeling, so that it does not get the mastery over us. We can do no more."
"Very true, Ready," said Mr. Seagrave, rising up; "it is not only useless, but even sinful to indulge in them, as they only can lead to our repining at the decrees of heaven. Let us now examine the rocks, and see if anything has been thrown up that may be of use to us."
They walked round, but, with the exception of spars and a barrel or two of tar, they could find nothing of value. ”

“ Divorced from the ancient sanities of manual or skilful labour, of exercise in the open air, absorbed for the bulk of his day in crowded offices adding sums or writing letters, each a unit in a crowd which has drifted away from the realities of life in a complex, artificial city civilisation, he comes to see no other universe than this—the rejoicing over hired sportsmen who play before him, the ingenuities of sedentary guessing competitions, the huge frivolity and ignorance of the world of the music hall and the Yellow newspaper. ”

“ At least the most hostile critics will acknowledge in these regions a clean and virile life: forming, when criticism has done its worst, in conjunction with the artisan class below, from which it is so sharply cut off in interest and ideas, the healthiest and most hopeful promise for the future of modern England. ”

“ In all these faces, common as they were, there was a look of proud efficiency. In every sight and sound was the vindication of human toil. These men, each in his several way, had solved the problem of life. Each had learned to do something which the world wanted done. ”

“ He went back to his college a changed man. The old gaiety had gone, and a bitter self-scorn had come which brought out something of the old Reckavile spirit. Women he shunned with horror, as the image of the one perfect woman he had known made the others seem hollow, and talkative beyond measure. ”

“ That night, the eighth Lord Reckavile was born, with the mocking voice of the storm fiends wailing round the old castle, and the very foundations shaking with the fury of the tempest, while in the Bay, gallant men were bringing half drowned Frenchmen safe ashore from the wreck of the vessel, and below a still form was lying with a smile of devilish satisfaction on the dead lips. ”

“ When this respect and confidence had once become fully established, every thing went on so smoothly under his vigilant auspices, that it was those only who chanced to be placed near the scene, who could perceive the extent, or appreciate the importance, of the public good which he was silently dispensing – as in a well-steered ship, a stranger is unconscious how much he owes to the operation of the helm, or how much merit belongs to the hand which, unseen, guides the motions of the whole. ”