ONE:He had begun to know that moment which few men of fifty, and those the luckiest of all, are unaware of. He wanted a companion, somebody who satisfied his human, not his corporal needs. While we are young, the youthful vital force feeds itself by its own excursions, satisfies itself with the fact of its travel and explorations. It is enough to go on, to lead the gipsy life and make the supper hot under the hedge-side, and sleep sound in the knowledge that next day there will be more travel and fresh horizons, and a dawn that shines on new valleys and hillsides. But when the plateau of life is reached, those are the fortunate ones who have their home already made. For thirty years he had had his own fireside and his wife, and his growing children. But never had he found his home: some spirit of the secret garden had inspired him, and now he felt mateless and all his money was dust and ashes in his mouth. Two things he wanted, one to be{121} different in breed from that which he was, the other to find a companion. The shadow of a companion lurked in his room, where were the piles of his books. Somewhere in that direction lay the lodestone."You can hardly have dreamed of the beautiful things we found in Canton cut out of ivory. There were combs and brooches so delicate that it seemed as if they could be blown to pieces by a breath; and there were boxes and card-cases with representations of landscapes, and men and animals on them so small that we needed a microscope to see them distinctly. In one shop we saw the whole tusk of an elephant carved from one end to the other so closely that you could hardly put a pin on it without hitting some part of the work. They told us that the tusk had been sent there by the gentleman who killed the elephant in India, and he was having it carved to keep as a trophy. The carving had cost six hundred[Pg 419] dollars; and if it had been done in America, it would have cost nearer six thousand. Skilled labor is cheap in China, just as unskilled labor is, and it is astonishing for how little a man can be employed on the kind of work that would bring a high price in Europe or America.
ONE:It was comforting to remember that, and Alice saw wonder and wistful pensiveness steal into the reflection of her face. There was the girl who would upset all his convictions about a celibate clergy; indeed, he had said that he did not think it morally wrong for them to marry. It was a case of the thin end of the wedge again, not this time of the Pope, but of Benedick, the married man.
ONE:Yes, sir. Its published at 25, isnt it, Norah?
