There are no amenities or urbanities of life in Murglebed to choke the
growth of the Idea. This evening it flourishes so exceedingly that I
think it safe to transplant it in the alien soil of Q 3, The Albany,
where the good Rogers must be leading an idle existence peculiarly
deleterious to his morals.
This gives one furiously to think. One of the responsibilities of
eumoiriety must be the encouragement and development of virtue in my
manservant.
Also in my young friend and secretary, Dale Kynnersley. He is more to me
than Rogers. I may confess that, so long as Rogers is a sober, honest,
me-fearing valet, in my heart of hearts I don't care a hang about
Rogers's morals. But about those of Dale Kynnersley I do. I care a great
deal for his career and happiness. I have a notion that he is erring
after strange goddesses and neglecting the little girl who is in love
with him. He must be delivered. He must marry Maisie Ellerton, and the
two of them must bring lots of capable, clear-eyed Kynnersleys into the
world. I long to be their ghostly godfather.
Then there's Eleanor Faversham--but if I begin to draw up a programme
I shall lose that spontaneity of effort which, I take it, is one of the
chief charms of dealing unto oneself a happy lot and portion. No; my
soul abhors tabulation. It would make even six months' life as jocular
as Bradshaw's Railway Guide or the dietary of a prison. I prefer to look
on what is before me as a high adventure, and with that prospect in view
I propose to jot down my experiences from time to time, so that when I
am wandering, a pale shade by Acheron, young Dale Kynnersley may have
not only documentary evidence wherewith to convince my friends and
relations that my latter actions were not those of a lunatic, but also,
at the same time, an up-to-date version of Jeremy Taylor's edifying
though humour-lacking treatise on the act of dying, which I am sorely
tempted to label “The Rule and Example of Eumoiriety.” I shall resist
the temptation, however. Dale Kynnersley--such is the ignorance of the
new generation--would have no sense of the allusion. He would shake his
head and say, “Dotty, poor old chap, dotty!” I can hear him. And if, in
order to prepare him, I gave him a copy of the “Meditations,” he
would fling the book across the room and qualify Marcus Aurelius as a
“rotter.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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