Harper's Weekly/The Perfect One

by John Galsworthy

 

The Perfect One

By JOHN GALSWORTHY

Illustrated by by Guy Pene Du Bois

SOME of us call him a good sport. Mr. Galsworthy calls him "The Perfect One." The things that he is interested in are indeed numerous. The things that he does not see—well, read Mr. Galsworthy

WHEN you had seen him you knew that there was really nothing to be said. Idealism, humanity, culture, philosophy, the religious and aesthetic senses—after all, where did all that lead? Not to him! What led to him was beef and whisky, exercise, wine, strong cigars, and open air. What led to him was any thing that ministered to the coatings of the stomach and the thickness of the skin. In seeing him you also saw how progress, civilization, and refinement simply meant attrition of those cuticles which made him what he was. And what was he? Well, perfect! Perfect for that high, that supreme Purpose—the enjoyment of life as it was. And, aware of his perfection—oh, well aware!—with a certain blind astuteness that refused reflection on the subject—not caring what anybody said or thought, just enjoying himself, taking all that came his way, and making no bones about it; unconscious indeed that there were any to be made. He must have known by instinct that thought, feeling, sympathy, only made a man chickeny. for he avoided them in an almost sacred way. To be "hard" was his ambition, and he moved through life hitting things, especially balls—whether they reposed on little inverted tubs of sand, or moved swiftly towards him, he almost always hit them, and told people how he did it afterwards. He hit things, too, at a distance through a tube with a certain noise, and a pleasant swelling-up under his fifth rib every time he saw them tumble, feeling that they had swollen up still more under their fifth ribs and would not require to be hit again. He tried to hit things in the middle distance with little hooks which he flung out in front of him. and when they caught on, and he pulled out the result, he fell better. He was a sportsman, and not only in the field. He hit any one who disagreed with him. and was very angry if they hit him back. He hit the money-market with his judgment when he could, and when he couldn't, he hit it with his tongue. And all the time he hit the government. It was a perpetual comfort to him in those shaky times to have that government to hit. Whatever turned out wrong, whatever turned out right—there it was! To give it one—two—three, and watch it crawl away, was wonderfully soothing. Of a summer evening, sitting in the window of his Club, having hit balls or "bookies" hard all day, how pleasant still to have that fellow Dash and that fellow Blank and all the beastly crew to hit still harder. He hit women, not of course with his fists, but with his philosophy. Women were made for the perfection of men; they had produced, nourished, and nursed him, and he now felt the necessity for them to comfort and satisfy him. When they had done that he felt no further responsibility in regard to them; to feel further responsibility was to be effeminate. The idea, for instance, that a spiritual feeling must underlie the physical, was extravagant; and when a woman took another view, he took—if not actually, then metaphorically—a stick.

He was almost Teutonic in that way. Not that he liked Germans. Next to the government, he liked hitting them better than almost anything. Indeed, you could not miss them; what with their beer-drinking and general expansion, they loomed larger to him than haystacks. Right and left he hit them all the time. He had a rooted conviction that some day they would hit him back, and this naturally exasperated him. It was not as if he could stop hitting them. If a man could not hit Germans in these days—what could he do? In the midst of danger to the Game Laws, of Socialism, and the Woman's Movement, the only hope, almost the only comfort, lay in hitting Germans. For Socialists were getting so near that he could only hit them now in Clubs, Music Halls, and other quite safe places; and the Woman's Movement might be trusted implicitly to hit itself. Thus in the world arena there was nothing left but those godsends, the government, and Germans. Always a fair man, and of thoroughly good heart, he gave them credit for just the amount of generosity and goodwill that he felt present in his own composition. There was no extravagance in that; and any man who gave them more he deemed an ass.

HE had heard of "the people," and indeed at times had seen and smelt them; it had sufficed. Some persons, he knew, were concerned about their condition and all that, but what good it would do him to share that concern, he could not see. Fellows spoke of them as "poor devils" and so forth; to his mind they were "pretty good rotters," most of them—especially the British workman, who wanted something for nothing all the time, and grumbled when he got it. The more you gave the more they wanted, and if he were this government, instead of coddling them up he would hit them one, and have done with it. Insurance indeed; pensions; land reform; minimum wage—it was a bit too thick! They would "soon be putting the blighters into glass cases, and labelling them 'This side up.'"

Sometimes he dreamed of the time when he would have to ride for God and the King. But he strongly repelled of course any suggestion that he had been brought up to a belief in "caste." At his school he hod once kicked a scion of the Royal family; this heroic action had dispersed in his mind once for all any notion that he was a snob. "Caste" indeed! There was no such thing in England nowadays—had he not sung "The Leather Bottel" to an audience of dirty people in his school mission hall, and—rather enjoyed it. It was not his fault that Labor was not satisfied. It was all those professional agitators, confound them! He himself was opposed to setting class against class. It was, however, ridiculous to imagine that he was going to hobnob with or take interest in people who weren't clean, who wore dollies with a disagreeable smell, people, moreover, who, in the most blatant way, showed him continually that they wanted what he had got. No, no! there were limits. Cleanliness at all events cost nothing—and it was the sine quâ non. What with clothes, a man to look after them, baths and so on, he himself spent at least two hundred a year on being clean; and even took risks with the thickness of his skin, from the way he rubbed and scrubbed it. A man could not be hard and healthy if he wasn't clean, and health and hardness were his little gods.

One could see him perhaps to the best advantage in lands like India or Egypt, striding in the early morn over the purlieus of the desert with his loping, strenuous step, scurried after by what looked like little dark and anxious women, carrying his clubs; his eyes, with their look of outfacing Death, fixed on the ball that he had just hit so hard, intent on overtaking it, and hitting it even harder next time. Did he at these times of worship ever pause to contemplate that vast and ancient plain, where in the distance Pyramids, these creatures of eternity, seemed to tremble in the sun haze? Did he ever feel an ecstatic wonder at the strange cries of immemorial peoples far travelling the desert air; or look and marvel at those dark and anxious little children of old civilizations who pattered after him? Did he ever feel the majesty of those vast, lonely sands, and that vast, lonely sky? Not he! He d—d well hit the hall, until his skin began to act; then, going in, took a bath and rubbed himself. At such moments he felt perhaps more truly religious than at any other, for one naturally could not feel so fit and good on Sundays, with the necessity it imposed for extra eating, smoking, kneeling, and other sedentary occupations. Indeed, he had become perhaps a little distracted in religious matters. There seemed to be things in the Bible about turning the other check, and lilies of the field, about rich men and camels, and the poor in spirit, which did not go altogether with his religion. Still, of course, one remained in the English Church, hit things, and hoped for the best.

ONCE his convictions nearly took a toss. It was on a ship, not as English as it might have been, so that he was compelled to talk to people that he would not otherwise perhaps have noticed. Amongst such was a Briton with a short beard, coming from Morocco. This person was lean and brown, his eyes were extremely clear; he held himself very straight, and looked fit to jump over the moon. It seemed obvious that he hit a lot of things. One questioned him therefore with some interest as to what he had been hitting. The fellow had been hitting nothing, absolutely nothing. How on earth, then, did he keep himself so fit? Walking, riding, fasting, swimming, climbing mountains, writing books; hitting neither the government nor Germans! Never to hit anything; write books, tolerate the government, and look like that! It was not done. And the odd thing was, the fellow didn't seem to know or care whether he was fit or not. All the four days that the voyage lasted, with this infernal, healthy fellow under his very nose, he suffered. There was nothing to hit on board, the ship being German, and he himself not feeling very fit. However on reaching Southampton and losing sight of his traveling acquaintance, he soon regained his equanimity.

He often wondered what he would do when he passed the age of fifty; and felt more and more that he would either have to go into Parliament or take up the duties of a county magistrate. After that age there were certain kinds of balls and beasts that could no longer be hit with impunity, and if one was at all of an active turn of mind one must have substitutes. Marriage, no doubt, would do something for him, but not enough; his was a strenuous nature, and he intended to remain "hard" unto the end. To combine that with service to his country, especially if, incidentally, he could hit Socialism, and poachers, Germans, loafers, and the income tax—this seemed to him an ideal well worthy of his philosophy and life, so far. And with this in mind he lived on. His skin thickening, growing ever more and more perfect, more and more impervious to thought, and feeling, to aestheticism, sympathy and all the elements destructive of perfection. And thus—when his time has come, there is every hope that he may die.