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THE CONVALESCENT

WE were strolling through the Art Gallery at Geelong, a friend and I, when Mr. Louis Pomey’s picture, ‘The Convalescent,’ captivated our attention. It represents a young wife who, evidently after a long and dangerous illness, has been able to return to the sitting-room for the first time. The face is wan and pale; her limbs are supported by hassocks and cushions; but the joy of emancipation is written upon every feature of her countenance. Her husband stands proudly beside her, happy and thankful. And the members of the household, gathered about the room, are sharing the general gladness. It is an exhilarating picture; and one that makes you feel on the best of terms with a world in which such things can happen. And it reminded me of a pair of experiences that came to me the other day. 

In the afternoon, as I was returning from a round of visitation, I witnessed a scene that struck me as very beautiful and very pathetic I was passing a private hospital. Outside, a motor-car was waiting, the chauffeur standing on the pavement beside it, holding the door wide open. I glanced in the direction in which he was gazing, and just inside the gate, coming slowly down the gravel walk, I saw a frail young girl being assisted from the verandah to the car by a trim little nurse on one side, and a lady — evidently the patient’s mother — on the other. I have seen many happy faces in my time, but I never saw a countenance more suffused with delight than was that of this frail young girl. Her eyes sparkled; her cheeks were flushed with excitement; and, although she could only walk by leaning hard on nurse and mother, her feet were trying to run in spite of her for very joy of going home. Had I but Mr. Pomey’s skill, I could have painted a second picture bearing the same title. 

In the evening of the same day I heard the Rev. Charles Winterton, of St. Mark’s, inveighing heavily against half-and-half things. He was preaching on the lukewarm church at Laodicea, and he soundly rated all things that are betwixt and between. He poured out the vials of his indignation on all half-hearted people, on all statesmen who adopt half-measures, on all men who find refuge in compromise. But he was too sweeping, as people who indulge in denunciation usually are. There is a place in this world for half-things. I am sure that Mr. Winterton would not have gazed upon Mr. Forney’s picture at Geelong, or on the scene that I witnessed outside the private hospital, without recognizing that there are periods of transition that are in themselves more delightful than either the state that lies behind or the state that lies before. Convalescence is infinitely more enjoyable than health. The delicious consciousness of having turned the corner and of being on the high-road to recovery is one of the most intoxicating experiences that ever come to us. Health is commonplace ; and it is proverbial that we do not appreciate it when we possess it. But, so far from being commonplace, convalescence is sensational. The long and dangerous sickness is past; the issue no longer hangs in the balance; the patient can once more enjoy ordinary fare; he can again breathe the rich, fresh air; he can indulge in conversation and laughter with his friends. Each day he can do things that were the day before impossible to him ; and he exults in the sense of his returning powers. To be sure, he is not yet strong; a child could easily overthrow him. But, on the other hand, he is no longer ill. His high summer-time of pulsing life and bounding vigour has yet to come ; but the languishing winter of his suffering is behind him, and every hour brings him nearer to the good time coming. He is discovering that there are periods of transition that are immensely more enjoyable than either the phase behind or the phase before. 

Are half things really as bad as Mr. Winterton represented ? Surely not ! What about half-crowns ? If the love of money is the root of all evil, I am afraid that I must be wicked above all men on the face of the earth. For I confess that I am passionately fond of half-crowns, although I have yet to discover that I have contracted any harm in consequence of that devotion. I regard the half-crown as a really noble coin. There is something exhilarating in feeling a few of them jingling together in your pocket. I fancy myself immensely richer with four half-crowns than with a ten-shilling note. Compared with the half-crown, a two-shilling piece is quite a poor relation, a second-class passenger. I rarely walk the streets with my hand in my pocket; but if a few half-crowns lie concealed there, the temptation is sometimes too much for me. They are fine things to feel. I should think twice about buying a thing if the purchase would involve me in the surrender of the last half-crown I had about me. Yet a whole crown is an abomination. A five-shilling piece is about as awkward, as clumsy, as unattractive a coin as one need wish to handle. Every attempt to popularize the five-shilling piece has failed, failed ignominiously, and failed deservedly. Half-a-crown is a lovable coin, but a whole crown is a detestable contrivance. Let Mr. Winterton think this over very carefully before he again lashes out against half-and-half things. Let him have a good look at every half-crown that comes into his possession. If he looks at it, he will fall in love with it; and if he has once become fond of it, he will attack it no more. He will probably go to the other extreme and preach a sermon in defence of it. I shall stroll into St. Mark’s some fine evening; and Mr. Winterton will announce as his text the wise man’s prayer: ‘Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me,’ and he will preach an eloquent sermon on moderation. He will point out that there are innumerable half-and-half things that are much more admirable than things more decided and pronounced. Are not spring and autumn — the betwixt and between seasons — at least as beautiful as either midwinter or midsummer? And certainly any pair of lovers would tell Mr. Winterton that the dusk, the twilight, and the gloaming are infinitely more delicious than either the glare of midday or the blackness of midnight. 

I knew a man in New Zealand who, through no fault of his own, lost every penny that he owned. The loss fell upon him in the heat and burden of life’s day. His domestic responsibilities were at their heaviest, and it looked very unlikely that he would be able to retrieve his fallen fortunes. Then came years of grim and desperate struggle, out of which he finally emerged triumphantly. But he afterwards told me that the great and memorable hour in that tremendous fight with fate was not the day on which his friends congratulated him on his success, but the day on which he himself saw that his task would be achieved. There were no applauding voices. To every eye but his that day was exactly like the day before. But it was on that day that it came to him that he had broken the back of his undertaking. He had turned the corner. It was not yet summer-time; but the winter was past and gone. The flowers were not yet blooming, and the birds were not yet singing ; yet that day brought to him a joy greater than any that he knew in the after-days when he again found himself revelling in an established prosperity. 

In that new sermon that I hope to hear him preach Mr. Winterton will belaud many of those half-and-half things that, in his earlier diatribe, he so roundly denounced. There is room for just such a sermon, a sermon in praise of mediocrity. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes divided men into two classes. There are, he said, men of the cat class and men of the squirrel class. A squirrel is, for awhile, an engaging companion. It is full of life, overflowing with exuberance and vitality; it is nimble, brisk, and sprightly, leaping over everything and climbing everywhere; it is full of surprises, and astonishes you every second by its agility and its curious antics. But it soon tires you, and you are glad to see it safely restored to its cage. Similarly, according to the ‘Autocrat,’ there are people with nimble minds. They are lively, jerky, and smart. Their thoughts do not run in the natural order of sequence. They say bright things on all possible subjects, but their zigzags rack you to death. ‘After a jolting half-hour with one of these jerky companions, talking with a dull friend affords great relief. It is like taking the cat in your lap after holding a squirrel. A ground-glass shade over a gas-lamp does not bring more solace to our dazzled eyes than such a one to our minds.’ Again and again in the course of his breakfast-table conversations the ‘Autocrat’ takes occasion to express his appreciation of the services rendered to their kind by people who are by no means brilliant. 

This reminds me of Walter Bagehot. I doubt very much whether Bagehot ever saw the ‘Autocrat.’ But he would certainly have argued that for the ideal specimen of the cat class of men you have only to look at the average Englishman, whilst for the ideal specimen of the squirrel class you have but to visit France. ‘I need not say,’ he writes, ‘that in real sound stupidity the English are unrivalled. You will hear more wit, and better wit, in an Irish street row than would keep the British Parliament in humour for five weeks. Whom so soporific as the average Englishman? His talk is of crops and bullocks; his head replete with rustic visions of mutton and turnips. Notwithstanding, he is the salt of the earth. The world holds nothing worthy to be compared with him,’ Against all this Bagehot sets your vivacious but evanescent Frenchman, but he cuts a poor figure in the contrast. The pity of it is, exclaims Bagehot, that a Frenchman cannot be dull. He belongs essentially to the squirrel class. He is gay, vivacious, full of animation. Dullness is to him the sin unpardonable. He hates nothing so much as ennui; he dreads becoming blasé. Every phase of life must glitter and sparkle, or it bores him beyond endurance. But you have only to glance at a map of the world to see which is the more successful — catdom or squirreldom. Bagehot maintains that the Frenchman is too clever by half. By half, mark you! Let Mr. Winterton make a note of that. He will find it very useful when he is preparing his new sermon in praise of half-and-half things. Obviously, the person who aims at perpetual brilliance must leave undone many common-place things that are really well worth doing, and must say and do many smart things that can compass no practical end. Mr. Winterton will be surprised at discovering how much there is to be said in praise of just ordinary people. He will fall in love with mediocrity. He will grow as fond as I am of half-crowns. 

I do not know how Mr. Winterton will bring his new sermon to a close. Perhaps Cowper’s Cottager will furnish him with a fitting climax: 

Yon cottager who weaves at her own door,
Pillow and bobbins all her little store,
Content though mean, and cheerful, if not gay.
Shuffling her threads about the livelong day,
Just earns a scanty pittance, and at night
Lies down secure, her heart and pocket light; 

She for her humble sphere by nature fit,
Has little understanding and no wit,
Receives no praise, but (though her lot be such,
Toilsome and indigent), she renders much; 

Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true,
A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew,
And in that charter reads with sparkling eyes
Her title to a treasure in the skies. 

The notable thing about this good lady, be it observed, is her mediocrity. She is neither ignorant nor scholarly; neither very rich nor very poor; neither gloomy nor gay. She must be ranked among the half-and-half things. And ranked with those half-and-half things, she is in excellent company. For she is in the company of the spring and the autumn, the dawn and the twilight, the girl at the hospital gates, Mr. Pomey’s ‘Convalescent’ — and my half-crowns. 

FWB