An extremely reserved man, few knew that Frank
Hurrell's deliberate placidity of expression masked a very emotional
temperament. In this he recognised a weakness and had schooled his face
carefully to betray no feeling; but the feeling all the same was there,
turbulent and overwhelming, and he profoundly mistrusted his judgement, which
could be drawn so easily from the narrow path of reason. He kept over himself
an unceasing watch, as though a dangerous prisoner were in his heart ever on
the alert to break his chains. He felt himself a slave of a vivid imagination,
and realised it stood again the enjoyment of life which his philosophy told him
was the only end of existence. Yet his passions were of the mind rather than of
the body, and his spirit urged his flesh constantly to courses wherein it found
nothing but disillusion. His chief endeavour was the search for truth, and he
strove after certainty with an eagerness which other men reserve for love or
fame or opulence. But all his studies were directed at last to another end;
convinced that the present life is final, he sought to make the complete use of
its every moment; and yet it seemed preposterous that so much effort, such vast
time and strange concurrence of events, the world and man, should tend toward
nothing. He could not but think that somewhere a meaning must be discernible,
and to find this examined science and philosophy with an anxious passion that
to his colleagues in St Luke's, worthy craftsmen who saw no further than the
slide on their microscopes, would have seemed extraordinary and almost insane.
Rising from his chair, Frank walked restlessly up and
down the room. On a sudden he stopped short in front of Miss Ley.
'D'you remember your friend Mr Farley telling us the
other day that pain ennobles a man? I should like to conduct him through the
wards of a hospital.'
'I have no doubt that when he has a tooth drawn Mr
Farley takes care that the gas should be properly administered.'
'I suppose divines can only justify pain by ascribing
to it elevation of character,' cried Frank savagely. 'If they weren't so
ignorant they'd know it requires no justification. You might as well assert
that a danger-signal elevates a train; for, after all, pain is nothing more
than an indication by the nerves that the organism is in circumstances hurtful
to it.'
'Don't lecture me, Frank, there's a dear!' murmured
Miss Ley mildly.
'But if that man had seen as much pain as I have he'd
know that it doesn't refine; it brutalizes. It makes people self-absorbed and
selfish - you can't imagine the frightful egoism of physical suffering -
querulous, impatient, unjust, greedy, I could name a score of petty vices that
it engenders, but not a single virtue. ... Oh, Miss Ley, when I look at all the
misery of the world I am so thankful I don't believe in God.'
[...]
'For years I've toiled night and day to distinguish
truth from falsehood; I want to be clear about my actions, I want to walk with
sure feet; but I find myself in a labyrinth of quicksands. I can see no meaning
in the world, and sometimes I despair; it seems as senseless as a madman's
dream. After all, what does it tend to, the effort and the struggle, hope,
love, success, failure, birth, death? Man emerged from savagery merely because
he was fiercer than the tiger and more cunning than the ape; and nothing seems
to me less probable than that humanity advances to any ideal condition. We
believe in progress, but progress is nothing but change!'
[...]
'Where is the use of it? For all my labour I haven't
the shadow of an answer. And even yet I don't know what is good and what is
evil, what is high and what is low; I don't even know if the words have any
sense in them. Sometimes men seem to me cripples ever seeking to hide their
deformity, huddled in a stuffy room, lit by one smoky taper; and they crowd
together to keep warm, and they tremble at every unexpected sound. And d'you
think in the course of evolution it was the best and noblest who survived to
propagate their species? It was merely the shrewd, the hard, and the strong.'
I was certain then that no God existed; but now I
make a point of being certain of nothing: it saves trouble. Besides, each time
you make up your mind you rob yourself of a subject for cogitation. But
theoretically I cannot help thinking that for a quite reasonable view of life
it is necessary to be convinced that no immortality of the soul exists.
[...]
When man is assured that the insignificant planet on
which he lives, and the time, are everything so far as he is individually
concerned, he can look about him and order himself according to the
surroundings. He is a chess-player with his definite number of pieces, capable
of definite moves; and none asks why the castle must run straight, but the
bishop obliquely. These things are to be accepted, and with these rules,
careless of what may befall when the game is finished, the wise man plays - not
to win, for that is impossible, but to make a good fight of it. And if he is
wise indeed he will never forget that, after all, it is but a game, and
therefore not to be taken too seriously.
[...]
I think the most valuable thing I have learnt in my
life is that there is so much to say on both sides of every question that there
is little to choose between them. It has made me tolerant... [...] My art and
science is to live. It is an argument of weak men to say that all things are
vanity because the pleasure of them is ephemeral: it may console the beggar to
look upon the tomb of kings, but then he must be a fool as well. The pleasures
of life are illusion, but when pessimists complain that human delights are
negligible because they are unreal, they talk absurdly; for reality none knows,
and few care about: our only interest is with illusion. How foolish is it to
say that the mirage in the desert is not beautiful merely because it is an
atmospheric effect!'
[...]
I aimed at happiness, and I think, on the whole, I've
found it. I lived according to my instincts, and sought every emotion my senses
offered; I turned away deliberately from what was ugly and tedious, fixing my eyes
with all my soul on Beauty - seen, I hope, with a discreet appreciation of the
Ridiculous. I never troubled myself with current notions of good and evil, for
I knew they were merely relative, but strove always to order my life so that to
my eyes at least it should form a graceful pattern on the dark inane.
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