Noble in Reason (35 page)

I see also that my writings, though I still think them good and am proud to have produced them, are not the epoch-making, breath-taking works of genius I once believed.

So there are moments, now, near the close of my life, when as I look at my life, it seems a failure; in nothing have I been as noble as I intended.

But there are other moments when I feel more cheerful, I consider Nick beginning to make his way as a barrister; Chrissie joyously married to one of those new-fangled atomic engineers—I can't understand a word he says when he begins to talk about his work, but he seems a nice lad and is certainly devoted to my daughter; Rie safely through her G.R.C.M.; Hermia beautiful and calm after many years of happiness at my side. I look across the room to the shelf which holds my novels, dip mentally into one here and there, and occasionally strike a theme of some originality or a character not too badly expressed. Then I cast my mind back to the frightened, wretched, twisted little boy I once was, and feel, as I say, cheered; perhaps I have not done so badly after all; I have perhaps contrived—after what agonizing struggles!—to play a not altogether unworthy part in my own place and time. In one of these good moments I smile quietly to myself.

“What are you smiling about, father?” inquires Nick, who is here for the weekend—decidedly that attack on Friday must have been severe! —as he rearranges the eiderdown across my bed. Like Hermia, he is gentle and deft in all his movements.

“Did you ever read my books as I instructed you, Nick?”

“Certainly I read them. I'll judge each of them when I reach the age you were when you wrote it.”

“Fair enough,” said I, nodding.

“You're growing very mellow these days, father,” says Nick, smiling down at me.

This is a two-edged compliment, implying a certain lack of mellowness in my earlier years. I accept it as such and when my son hands me the paper and pencil for which I ask, we exchange what Rie called “a Jarmayne look,” that is, one
of somewhat sardonic though affectionate understanding. I ponder this look, think of many happy incidents in Nick's childhood and try to remember moments of temper on my part which may have lived on in his memory.

For whether my moments of vision are glad or sad, at least I still try to see, to understand.
What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason!
says Hamlet. I shall try to justify this description of mankind as long as there is breath in my body; I hope that my last conscious moments will be occupied by this attempt rationally to comprehend, lovingly to compassionate, human destiny. Farewell!

This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader

Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP

Copyright © Phyllis Bentley

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ISBN: 9781448203949
eISBN: 9781448203352

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