No More Learning

"Well? Why am I wrong in trying to get a little success? "

"Just because you try. Don't you understand, darling? Good work has
nothing to do with--doesn't belong to--the person who does it. It's put
into him or her from outside. "

"But how does that affect----"

"Wait a minute. All we can do is to learn how to do our work, to be
masters of our materials instead of servants, and never to be afraid of
anything. "

"I understand that. "

"Everything else comes from outside ourselves. Very good. If we sit down
quietly to work out notions that are sent to us, we may or we may not
do something that isn't bad. A great deal depends on being master of the
bricks and mortar of the trade. But the instant we begin to think
about success and the effect of our work--to play with one eye on the
gallery--we lose power and touch and everything else. At least that's
how I have found it. Instead of being quiet and giving every power
you possess to your work, you're fretting over something which you can
neither help no hinder by a minute. See? "

"It's so easy for you to talk in that way. People like what you do.
Don't you ever think about the gallery? "

"Much too often; but I'm always punished for it by loss of power. It's
as simple as the Rule of Three. If we make light of our work by using
it for our own ends, our work will make light of us, and, as we're the
weaker, we shall suffer. "

"I don't treat my work lightly. You know that it's everything to me. "

"Of course; but, whether you realise it or not, you give two strokes
for yourself to one for your work. It isn't your fault, darling. I do
exactly the same thing, and know that I'm doing it. Most of the French
schools, and all the schools here, drive the students to work for their
own credit, and for the sake of their pride. I was told that all
the world was interested in my work, and everybody at Kami's talked
turpentine, and I honestly believed that the world needed elevating and
influencing, and all manner of impertinences, by my brushes. By Jove, I
actually believed that! When my little head was bursting with a notion
that I couldn't handle because I hadn't sufficient knowledge of my
craft, I used to run about wondering at my own magnificence and getting
ready to astonish the world. "

"But surely one can do that sometimes? "

"Very seldom with malice aforethought, darling. And when it's done it's
such a tiny thing, and the world's so big, and all but a millionth part
of it doesn't care. Maisie, come with me and I'll show you something of
the size of the world. One can no more avoid working than eating,--that
goes on by itself,--but try to see what you are working for. I know such
little heavens that I could take you to,--islands tucked away under the
Line. You sight them after weeks of crashing through water as black as
black marble because it's so deep, and you sit in the fore-chains
day after day and see the sun rise almost afraid because the sea's so
lonely. "

"Who is afraid? --you, or the sun? "

"The sun, of course. And there are noises under the sea, and sounds
overhead in a clear sky. Then you find your island alive with hot moist
orchids that make mouths at you and can do everything except talk.
There's a waterfall in it three hundred feet high, just like a sliver of
green jade laced with silver; and millions of wild bees live up in the
rocks; and you can hear the fat cocoanuts falling from the palms; and
you order an ivory-white servant to sling you a long yellow hammock with
tassels on it like ripe maize, and you put up your feet and hear the
bees hum and the water fall till you go to sleep. "

"Can one work there? "

"Certainly. One must do something always. You hang your canvas up in a
palm tree and let the parrots criticise. When the scuffle you heave a
ripe custard-apple at them, and it bursts in a lather of cream. There
are hundreds of places. Come and see them. "

"I don't quite like that place. It sounds lazy. Tell me another. "

"What do you think of a big, red, dead city built of red sandstone,
with raw green aloes growing between the stones, lying out neglected on
honey-coloured sands? There are forty dead kings there, Maisie, each in
a gorgeous tomb finer than all the others. You look at the palaces and
streets and shops and tanks, and think that men must live there,
till you find a wee gray squirrel rubbing its nose all alone in the
market-place, and a jewelled peacock struts out of a carved doorway and
spreads its tail against a marble screen as fine pierced as point-lace.
Then a monkey--a little black monkey--walks through the main square to
get a drink from a tank forty feet deep. He slides down the creepers to
the water's edge, and a friend holds him by the tail, in case he should
fall in. "

"Is that all true? "

"I have been there and seen. Then evening comes, and the lights change
till it's just as though you stood in the heart of a king-opal. A little
before sundown, as punctually as clockwork, a big bristly wild boar,
with all his family following, trots through the city gate, churning the
foam on his tusks. You climb on the shoulder of a blind black stone god
and watch that pig choose himself a palace for the night and stump in
wagging his tail. Then the night-wind gets up, and the sands move, and
you hear the desert outside the city singing, 'Now I lay me down to
sleep,' and everything is dark till the moon rises. Maisie, darling,
come with me and see what the world is really like. It's very lovely,
and it's very horrible,--but I won't let you see anything horrid,--and
it doesn't care your life or mine for pictures or anything else except
doing its own work and making love. Come, and I'll show you how to brew
sangaree, and sling a hammock, and--oh, thousands of things, and you'll
see for yourself what colour means, and we'll find out together what
love means, and then, maybe, we shall be allowed to do some good work.
Come away! "

"Why? " said Maisie.

"How can you do anything until you have seen everything, or as much as
you can? And besides, darling, I love you. Come along with me. You
have no business here; you don't belong to this place; you're half a
gipsy,--your face tells that; and I--even the smell of open water makes
me restless. Come across the sea and be happy! "

He had risen to his feet, and stood in the shadow of the gun, looking
down at the girl. The very short winter afternoon had worn away, and,
before they knew, the winter moon was walking the untroubled sea. Long
ruled lines of silver showed where a ripple of the rising tide was
turning over the mud-banks. The wind had dropped, and in the intense
stillness they could hear a donkey cropping the frosty grass many yards
away. A faint beating, like that of a muffled drum, came out of the
moon-haze.

"What's that? " said Maisie, quickly. "It sounds like a heart beating.
Where is it? "

Dick was so angry at this sudden wrench to his pleadings that he could
not trust himself to speak, and in this silence caught the sound. Maisie
from her seat under the gun watched him with a certain amount of fear.

She wished so much that he would be sensible and cease to worry her with
over-sea emotion that she both could and could not understand. She was
not prepared, however, for the change in his face as he listened.

"It's a steamer," he said,--"a twin-screw steamer, by the beat. I can't
make her out, but she must be standing very close inshore. Ah! " as the
red of a rocket streaked the haze, "she's standing in to signal before
she clears the Channel. "

"Is it a wreck? " said Maisie, to whom these words were as Greek.

Dick's eyes were turned to the sea. "Wreck! What nonsense! She's only
reporting herself. Red rocket forward--there's a green light aft now,
and two red rockets from the bridge. "

"What does that mean? "

"It's the signal of the Cross Keys Line running to Australia. I wonder
which steamer it is. " The note of his voice had changed; he seemed to
be talking to himself, and Maisie did not approve of it. The moonlight
broke the haze for a moment, touching the black sides of a long steamer
working down Channel. "Four masts and three funnels--she's in deep
draught, too. That must be the Barralong, or the Bhutia. No, the Bhutia
has a clipper bow. It's the Barralong, to Australia. She'll lift the
Southern Cross in a week,--lucky old tub! --oh, lucky old tub! "

He stared intently, and moved up the slope of the fort to get a better
view, but the mist on the sea thickened again, and the beating of the
screws grew fainter. Maisie called to him a little angrily, and he
returned, still keeping his eyes to seaward. "Have you ever seen the
Southern Cross blazing right over your head? " he asked. "It's superb! "

"No," she said shortly, "and I don't want to. If you think it's so
lovely, why don't you go and see it yourself? "

She raised her face from the soft blackness of the marten skins about
her throat, and her eyes shone like diamonds. The moonlight on the gray
kangaroo fur turned it to frosted silver of the coldest.

"By Jove, Maisie, you look like a little heathen idol tucked up there. "
The eyes showed that they did not appreciate the compliment. "I'm
sorry," he continued. "The Southern Cross isn't worth looking at unless
someone helps you to see. That steamer's out of hearing. "

"Dick," she said quietly, "suppose I were to come to you now,--be quiet
a minute,--just as I am, and caring for you just as much as I do. "

"Not as a brother, though. You said you didn't--in the Park. "

"I never had a brother. Suppose I said, 'Take me to those places, and in
time, perhaps, I might really care for you,' what would you do? "

"Send you straight back to where you came from, in a cab. No, I
wouldn't; I'd let you walk. But you couldn't do it, dear. And I wouldn't
run the risk. You're worth waiting for till you can come without
reservation. "

"Do you honestly believe that? "

"I have a hazy sort of idea that I do. Has it never struck you in that
light? "

"Ye--es. I feel so wicked about it. "

"Wickeder than usual? "

"You don't know all I think. It's almost too awful to tell. "

"Never mind. You promised to tell me the truth--at least. "

"It's so ungrateful of me, but--but, though I know you care for me, and
I like to have you with me, I'd--I'd even sacrifice you, if that would
bring me what I want. "

"My poor little darling! I know that state of mind. It doesn't lead to
good work. "

"You aren't angry? Remember, I do despise myself. "

"I'm not exactly flattered,--I had guessed as much before,--but I'm not
angry. I'm sorry for you. Surely you ought to have left a littleness
like that behind you, years ago. "

"You've no right to patronise me! I only want what I have worked for so
long. It came to you without any trouble, and--and I don't think it's
fair. "

"What can I do? I'd give ten years of my life to get you what you want.
But I can't help you; even I can't help. "

A murmur of dissent from Maisie. He went on--"And I know by what you
have just said that you're on the wrong road to success. It isn't got
at by sacrificing other people,--I've had that much knocked into me;
you must sacrifice yourself, and live under orders, and never think for
yourself, and never have real satisfaction in your work except just at
the beginning, when you're reaching out after a notion. "

"How can you believe all that? "

"There's no question of belief or disbelief. That's the law, and you
take it or refuse it as you please. I try to obey, but I can't, and
then my work turns bad on my hands. Under any circumstances, remember,
four-fifths of everybody's work must be bad. But the remnant is worth
the trouble for its own sake. "

"Isn't it nice to get credit even for bad work? "

"It's much too nice. But----May I tell you something? It isn't a pretty
tale, but you're so like a man that I forget when I'm talking to you. "

"Tell me. "

"Once when I was out in the Soudan I went over some ground that we had
been fighting on for three days. There were twelve hundred dead; and we
hadn't time to bury them. "

"How ghastly! "

"I had been at work on a big double-sheet sketch, and I was wondering
what people would think of it at home. The sight of that field taught
me a good deal. It looked just like a bed of horrible toadstools in all
colours, and--I'd never seen men in bulk go back to their beginnings
before. So I began to understand that men and women were only material
to work with, and that what they said or did was of no consequence.
See? Strictly speaking, you might just as well put your ear down to the
palette to catch what your colours are saying. "

"Dick, that's disgraceful! "

"Wait a minute. I said, strictly speaking. Unfortunately, everybody must
be either a man or a woman. "

"I'm glad you allow that much. "

"In your case I don't. You aren't a woman. But ordinary people, Maisie,
must behave and work as such. That's what makes me so savage. " He hurled
a pebble towards the sea as he spoke. "I know that it is outside my
business to care what people say; I can see that it spoils my output
if I listen to 'em; and yet, confound it all,"--another pebble flew
seaward,--"I can't help purring when I'm rubbed the right way. Even when
I can see on a man's forehead that he is lying his way through a clump
of pretty speeches, those lies make me happy and play the mischief with
my hand. "

"And when he doesn't say pretty things? "

"Then, belovedest,"--Dick grinned,--"I forget that I am the steward of
these gifts, and I want to make that man love and appreciate my work
with a thick stick. It's too humiliating altogether; but I suppose even
if one were an angel and painted humans altogether from outside, one
would lose in touch what one gained in grip. "

Maisie laughed at the idea of Dick as an angel.
"But you seem to think," she said, "that everything nice spoils your
hand. "

"I don't think. It's the law,--just the same as it was at Mrs.
Jennett's. Everything that is nice does spoil your hand. I'm glad you
see so clearly. "

"I don't like the view. "

"Nor I. But--have got orders: what can do? Are you strong enough to face
it alone? "

"I suppose I must. "

"Let me help, darling. We can hold each other very tight and try to
walk straight. We shall blunder horribly, but it will be better than
stumbling apart. Maisie, can't you see reason? "

"I don't think we should get on together. We should be two of a trade,
so we should never agree. "

"How I should like to meet the man who made that proverb! He lived in a
cave and ate raw bear, I fancy. I'd make him chew his own arrow-heads.
Well? "

"I should be only half married to you. I should worry and fuss about my
work, as I do now. Four days out of the seven I'm not fit to speak to. "

"You talk as if no one else in the world had ever used a brush.
D'you suppose that I don't know the feeling of worry and bother and
can't-get-at-ness? You're lucky if you only have it four days out of the
seven. What difference would that make? "

"A great deal--if you had it too. "

"Yes, but I could respect it. Another man might not. He might laugh at
you. But there's no use talking about it. If you can think in that way
you can't care for me--yet. "

The tide had nearly covered the mud-banks and twenty little ripples
broke on the beach before Maisie chose to speak.

"Dick," she said slowly, "I believe very much that you are better than I
am. "

"This doesn't seem to bear on the argument--but in what way? "

"I don't quite know, but in what you said about work and things; and
then you're so patient. Yes, you're better than I am. "

Dick considered rapidly the murkiness of an average man's life. There
was nothing in the review to fill him with a sense of virtue. He lifted
the hem of the cloak to his lips.

"Why," said Maisie, making as though she had not noticed, "can you see
things that I can't? I don't believe what you believe; but you're right,
I believe. "

"If I've seen anything, God knows I couldn't have seen it but for you,
and I know that I couldn't have said it except to you. You seemed to
make everything clear for a minute; but I don't practice what I preach.
You would help me. . . There are only us two in the world for all
purposes, and--and you like to have me with you? "

"Of course I do. I wonder if you can realise how utterly lonely I am! "

"Darling, I think I can. "

"Two years ago, when I first took the little house, I used to walk up
and down the back-garden trying to cry. I never can cry. Can you? "

"It's some time since I tried. What was the trouble? Overwork? "

"I don't know; but I used to dream that I had broken down, and had no
money, and was starving in London. I thought about it all day, and it
frightened me--oh, how it frightened me! "

"I know that fear. It's the most terrible of all. It wakes me up in the
night sometimes. You oughtn't to know anything about it. "

"How do you know? "

"Never mind. Is your three hundred a year safe? "

"It's in Consols. "

"Very well. If any one comes to you and recommends a better
investment,--even if I should come to you,--don't you listen. Never
shift the money for a minute, and never lend a penny of it,--even to the
red-haired girl. "

"Don't scold me so! I'm not likely to be foolish. "

"The earth is full of men who'd sell their souls for three hundred a
year; and women come and talk, and borrow a five-pound note here and
a ten-pound note there; and a woman has no conscience in a money debt.
Stick to your money, Maisie, for there's nothing more ghastly in the
world than poverty in London. It's scared me. By Jove, it put the fear
into me! And one oughtn't to be afraid of anything. "

To each man is appointed his particular dread,--the terror that, if he
does not fight against it, must cow him even to the loss of his manhood.
Dick's experience of the sordid misery of want had entered into the
deeps of him, and, lest he might find virtue too easy, that memory stood
behind him, tempting to shame, when dealers came to buy his wares. As
the Nilghai quaked against his will at the still green water of a lake
or a mill-dam, as Torpenhow flinched before any white arm that could cut
or stab and loathed himself for flinching, Dick feared the poverty he
had once tasted half in jest. His burden was heavier than the burdens of
his companions.

Maisie watched the face working in the moonlight.

"You've plenty of pennies now," she said soothingly.

"I shall never have enough," he began, with vicious emphasis. Then,
laughing, "I shall always be three-pence short in my accounts. "

"Why threepence? "

"I carried a man's bag once from Liverpool Street Station to
Blackfriar's Bridge. It was a sixpenny job,--you needn't laugh; indeed
it was,--and I wanted the money desperately. He only gave me threepence;
and he hadn't even the decency to pay in silver. Whatever money I make,
I shall never get that odd threepence out of the world. "

This was not language befitting the man who had preached of the sanctity
of work. It jarred on Maisie, who preferred her payment in applause,
which, since all men desire it, must be of the right. She hunted for her
little purse and gravely took out a threepenny bit.

"There it is," she said. "I'll pay you, Dickie; and don't worry any
more; it isn't worth while. Are you paid? "

"I am," said the very human apostle of fair craft, taking the coin. "I'm
paid a thousand times, and we'll close that account. It shall live on my
watch-chain; and you're an angel, Maisie. "

"I'm very cramped, and I'm feeling a little cold. Good gracious! the
cloak is all white, and so is your moustache! I never knew it was so
chilly. "

A light frost lay white on the shoulder of Dick's ulster. He, too, had
forgotten the state of the weather. They laughed together, and with that
laugh ended all serious discourse.

They ran inland across the waste to warm themselves, then turned to look
at the glory of the full tide under the moonlight and the intense black
shadows of the furze bushes. It was an additional joy to Dick that
Maisie could see colour even as he saw it,--could see the blue in the
white of the mist, the violet that is in gray palings, and all things
else as they are,--not of one hue, but a thousand. And the moonlight
came into Maisie's soul, so that she, usually reserved, chattered of
herself and of the things she took interest in,--of Kami, wisest of
teachers, and of the girls in the studio,--of the Poles, who will kill
themselves with overwork if they are not checked; of the French, who
talk at great length of much more than they will ever accomplish; of
the slovenly English, who toil hopelessly and cannot understand that
inclination does not imply power; of the Americans, whose rasping
voices in the hush of a hot afternoon strain tense-drawn nerves to
breaking-point, and whose suppers lead to indigestion; of tempestuous
Russians, neither to hold nor to bind, who tell the girls ghost-stories
till the girls shriek; of stolid Germans, who come to learn one thing,
and, having mastered that much, stolidly go away and copy pictures for
evermore. Dick listened enraptured because it was Maisie who spoke. He
knew the old life.

"It hasn't changed much," he said. "Do they still steal colours at
lunch-time? "

"Not steal. Attract is the word. Of course they do. I'm good--I only
attract ultramarine; but there are students who'd attract flake-white. "

"I've done it myself. You can't help it when the palettes are hung up.
Every colour is common property once it runs down,--even though you
do start it with a drop of oil. It teaches people not to waste their
tubes. "

"I should like to attract some of your colours, Dick. Perhaps I might
catch your success with them. "

"I mustn't say a bad word, but I should like to. What in the world,
which you've just missed a lovely chance of seeing, does success or want
of success, or a three-storied success, matter compared with----No, I
won't open that question again. It's time to go back to town. "

"I'm sorry, Dick, but----"

"You're much more interested in that than you are in me. "

"I don't know, I don't think I am. "

"What will you give me if I tell you a sure short-cut to everything you
want,--the trouble and the fuss and the tangle and all the rest? Will
you promise to obey me? "

"Of course. "

"In the first place, you must never forget a meal because you happen
to be at work. You forgot your lunch twice last week," said Dick, at a
venture, for he knew with whom he was dealing.

"No, no,--only once, really. "

"That's bad enough. And you mustn't take a cup of tea and a biscuit in
place of a regular dinner, because dinner happens to be a trouble. "

"You're making fun of me! "

"I never was more in earnest in my life. Oh, my love, my love, hasn't
it dawned on you yet what you are to me? Here's the whole earth in a
conspiracy to give you a chill, or run over you, or drench you to the
skin, or cheat you out of your money, or let you die of overwork and
underfeeding, and I haven't the mere right to look after you. Why, I
don't even know if you have sense enough to put on warm things when the
weather's cold. "

"Dick, you're the most awful boy to talk to--really! How do you suppose
I managed when you were away? "

"I wasn't here, and I didn't know. But now I'm back I'd give everything
I have for the right of telling you to come in out of the rain. "

"Your success too? "

This time it cost Dick a severe struggle to refrain from bad words.

"As Mrs. Jennett used to say, you're a trial, Maisie! You've been cooped
up in the schools too long, and you think every one is looking at you.
There aren't twelve hundred people in the world who understand pictures.
The others pretend and don't care. Remember, I've seen twelve hundred
men dead in toadstool-beds. It's only the voice of the tiniest little
fraction of people that makes success. The real world doesn't care a
tinker's--doesn't care a bit. For aught you or I know, every man in the
world may be arguing with a Maisie of his own. "

"Poor Maisie! "

"Poor Dick, I think. Do you believe while he's fighting for what's
dearer than his life he wants to look at a picture? And even if he did,
and if all the world did, and a thousand million people rose up and
shouted hymns to my honour and glory, would that make up to me for the
knowledge that you were out shopping in the Edgware Road on a rainy day
without an umbrella? Now we'll go to the station. "

"But you said on the beach----" persisted Maisie, with a certain fear.

Dick groaned aloud: "Yes, I know what I said. My work is everything I
have, or am, or hope to be, to me, and I believe I've learnt the law
that governs it; but I've some lingering sense of fun left,--though
you've nearly knocked it out of me. I can just see that it isn't
everything to all the world. Do what I say, and not what I do. "

Maisie was careful not to reopen debatable matters, and they returned to
London joyously. The terminus stopped Dick in the midst of an eloquent
harangue on the beauties of exercise. He would buy Maisie a horse,--such
a horse as never yet bowed head to bit,--would stable it, with a
companion, some twenty miles from London, and Maisie, solely for her
health's sake should ride with him twice or thrice a week.

"That's absurd," said she. "It wouldn't be proper. "

"Now, who in all London tonight would have sufficient interest or
audacity to call us two to account for anything we chose to do? "

Maisie looked at the lamps, the fog, and the hideous turmoil. Dick was
right; but horseflesh did not make for Art as she understood it.

"You're very nice sometimes, but you're very foolish more times. I'm not
going to let you give me horses, or take you out of your way tonight.
I'll go home by myself. Only I want you to promise me something. You
won't think any more about that extra threepence, will you? Remember,
you've been paid; and I won't allow you to be spiteful and do bad work
for a little thing like that. You can be so big that you mustn't be
tiny. "

This was turning the tables with a vengeance. There remained only to put
Maisie into her hansom.

"Goodbye," she said simply. "You'll come on Sunday. It has been a
beautiful day, Dick. Why can't it be like this always? "

"Because love's like line-work: you must go forward or backward; you
can't stand still. By the way, go on with your line-work. Good night,
and, for my--for my sake, take care of yourself. "

He turned to walk home, meditating. The day had brought him nothing that
he hoped for, but--surely this was worth many days--it had brought him
nearer to Maisie. The end was only a question of time now, and the prize
well worth the waiting. By instinct, once more, he turned to the river.

"And she understood at once," he said, looking at the water. "She found
out my pet besetting sin on the spot, and paid it off. My God, how she
understood! And she said I was better than she was! Better than she
was!