The way of all flesh - Samuel Butler [197]
Sometimes Theobald came up to town on small business matters and paid a visit to Ernest’s chambers; he generally brought with him a couple of lettuces, or a cabbage, or half-a-dozen turnips done up in a piece of brown paper, and told Ernest that he knew fresh vegetables were rather hard to get in London, and he had brought him some. Ernest had often explained to him that the vegetables were of no use to him, and that he had rather he would not bring them; but Theobald persisted, I believe through sheer love of doing something which his son did not like, but which was too small to take notice of.
He lived until about twelve months ago, when he was found dead in his bed on the morning after having written the following letter to his son:—
“Dear Ernest,—I’ve nothing particular to write about, but your letter has been lying for some days in the limbo of unanswered letters, to wit my pocket, and it’s time it was answered.
“I keep wonderfully well and am able to walk my five or six miles with comfort, but at my age there’s no knowing how long it will last, and time flies quickly. I have been busy potting plants all the morning, but this afternoon is wet.
“What is this horrid Government going to do with Ireland? I don’t exactly wish they’d blow up Mr Gladstone, but if a mad bull would chivy him there, and he would never come back any more, I should not be sorry. Lord Hartington is not exactly the man I should like to set in his place, but he would be immeasurably better than Gladstone.
“I miss your sister Charlotte more than I can express. She kept my household accounts, and I could pour out to her all little worries, and now that Joey is married too, I don’t know what I should do if one or other of them did not come sometimes and take care of me. My only comfort is that Charlotte will make her husband happy, and that he is as nearly worthy of her as a husband can well be.—Believe me, Your affectionate father,
“THEOBALD PONTIFEX.”
I may say in passing that though Theobald speaks of Charlotte’s marriage as though it were recent, it had really taken place some six years previously, she being then about thirty-eight years old, and her husband about seven years younger.
There was no doubt that Theobald passed peacefully away during his sleep. Can a man who died thus be said to have died at all? He has presented the phenomena of death to other people, but in respect of himself he has not only not died, but has not even thought that he was going to die. This is not more than half dying, but then neither was his life more than half living. He presented so many of the phenomena of living that I suppose on the whole it would be less trouble to think of him as having been alive than as never having been born at all, but this is only possible because association does not stick to the strict letter of its bond.
This, however, was not the general verdict concerning him, and the general verdict is often the truest.
Ernest was overwhelmed with expressions of condolence and respect for his father’s memory. “He never,” said Dr Martin, the old doctor who brought Ernest into the world, “spoke an ill word against anyone. He was not only liked, he was beloved by all who had anything to do with him.”
“A more perfectly just and righteously dealing man,” said the family solicitor, “I have never had anything to do with—nor one more punctual in the discharge of every business obligation.