So, then, unhoping hopefulness, and resigned acceptance; patient fatality, and unflagging effort and unflinching will. Has no hope, really, for the end, the whole amount of things; has hope incessant for the individual things themselves. Knows we lose out all along the line, but won’t give in. Knows how and when we win, too, and never gives up trying for a victory. Considers it disgraceful to stop trying—will try everything—will lay subtle, ramified, and deep-delved plans to save people from avertible defeat; a man of talent drowning in his own despair, some strong and vital force exploding without purpose, some precious, misused thing gone wickedly to ruin. These things can be helped, they must be helped and saved, to see them lost, to see them thrown away, is not to be endured—Fox will move mountains to prevent them. But gone? Lost? Destroyed? Irretrievably thrown away? The grave face will be touched with sadness, the sea-pale eyes filled with regret, the low voice hoarse and indignant:
“It was a shame! A shame! Everything would have come out all right…he had it in his grasp…and he just let it go! He just gave in!”
Yes, for failure such as this, a deep, indignant sadness, a profound regret. But for other things foreordained and inevitable, not savable by any means, then a little sadness—“Too bad”—but in the end a tranquil fatality of calm acceptance: the thing had to be, it couldn’t be helped.
Is therefore like Ecclesiastes: has the tragic sense of life, knows that the day of birth is man’s misfortune—but, knowing this, will then “lay hold”. Has never, like the Fool, folded his hands together and consumed his flesh, but, seeing work to be done, has taken hold with all his might and done it. Knows that the end of all is vanity, but says: “Don’t whine, and don’t repine, but get work done.”
Is, therefore, not afraid to die; does not court death, but knows death is a friend. Does not hate life, is rather passionately involved with life, yet does not hug it like a lover—it would not be torn bitterly from reluctant fingers. There is no desperate hug of mortality in Fox—rather, the sense of mystery and strangeness in the hearts of men, the thrilling interest of the human adventure, the unending fascination of the whole tangled, grieved, vexed, and unfathomed pattern. As he reads the Times now, he sniffs sharply, shakes his head, smiles, scans the crowded columns of the earth, and whispers to himself:
“What a world! And what a life! Will we ever get to the bottom of it all?...And what a time we live in! I don’t dare go to sleep at night without the paper. I cannot wait until the next one has come out—things change so fast, the whole world’s in such a state of flux, the course of history may change from one edition to another. The whole thing’s so fascinating, I wish I could live a hundred years to see what’s going to happen! If it weren’t for that—and for the children----”
A slow perplexity deepens in his eyes. What will become of them? Five tender lambs to be turned loose out of the fold into the howling tumults of this dangerous and changeful earth. Five fledglings to be sent forth, bewildered and defenceless, to meet the storms of fury, peril, adversity, and savage violence that beat across the whole vexed surface of the earth—unsheltered, ignorant, unprepared, and----
“Women.” Scorn, touched now deeply with compassion; trouble, with a tender care.
Is there a way out, then? Yes, if only he can live to see each of them married to—to—to a good husband (the sense of trouble deepens in the sea-pale eyes—the world in printed columns there before him seethes with torment—no easy business)...But to find good husbands, foxes all of them—to see his fleecelings safely folded, shielded from the storms—each—each with fleecelings of her own—yeslthat’s the thing! Fox clears his throat and rattles the pages with decision. That’s the thing for----
—Women!
—To be folded, sheltered, guarded, kept from all the danger, violence, and savagery, the grimed pollution of this earth’s coarse thumb, each to ply her needle, learn to keep her house, do a woman’s work, be wifely, and—and—“lead the sort of life a woman ought to lead,” Fox whispers to himself—“the kind of life she was intended for.”
Which is to say, produce more fleecelings for the fold, Fox? Who will, in turn, find “good” husbands, and a fold, learn sewing, housewifery, and “lead the sort of life a woman ought to lead,” produce still other fleecelings, and so on, ad infinitum, to world’s end for ever, or until----
—The day of wrath, the huge storm howling through the earth again—again the Terror and Jemappes I—again November and Moscow!—the whole flood broke through, the mighty river re-arisen, the dark tide flowing in the hearts of men, and a great wind howling through the earth, good Fox, that tears off roof-tops like a sheet of paper, bends the strongest oak-trees to the ground, knocks down the walls, and levels the warmest, strongest, and most solid folds that ever sheltered fleecelings in security—leaving fleecelings where?
O Fox, is there no answer?
Leaving fleecelings there to knit a pattern of fine needlework on the hurricane? Leaving fleecelings there to ply housewifery on the flood? Leaving fleecelings to temper the bleak storms of misery to the perfumed tenderness of fleeceling hides? To find “good” husbands in the maelstrom’s whirl? To produce more fleecelings in order to be secure, protected, in doing a woman’s work, in leading “the kind of life she was intended for”----
Oh, where, Fox, where?