“An awful lot of hokum is talked about love, you know.
An importance is ascribed to it that is entirely at variance with fact.
People talk as though it were self-evidently the greatest of human values.
Nothing is less self-evident.
Until Plato dressed his sentimental sensuality in a captivating literary form the ancient world laid no more stress on it than was sensible; the healthy realism of the Muslims has never looked upon it as anything but a physical need; it was Christianity, buttressing its emotional claims with neo-Platonism, that made it into the end an aim, the reason, the justification of life.
But Christianity was the religion of slaves.
It offered the weary and the heavy-laden heaven to compensate them in the future for their misery in this world and the opiate of love to enable them to bear it in the present.
And like every drug it enervated and destroyed those who became subject to it.
For two thousand years it’s suffocated us.
It’s weakened our wills and lessened our courage.
In this modern world we live in we know that almost everything is more important to us than love, we know that only the soft and the stupid allow it to affect their actions, and yet we pay it a foolish lip-service.
In books, on the stage, in the pulpit, on the platform the same old sentimental rubbish is talked that was used to hoodwink the slaves of Alexandria.”
“But, Simon, the slave population of the ancient world was just the proletariat of to-day.”
Simon’s lips trembled with a smile and the look he fixed on Charley made him feel that he had said a silly thing.
“I know,” said Simon quietly.
For a while his restless eyes were still, but though he looked at Charley his gaze seemed fixed on something in the far distance.
Charley did not know of what he thought, but he was conscious of a faint malaise.
“It may be that the habit of two thousand years has made love a human necessity and in that case it must be taken into account.
But if dope must be administered the best person to do so is surely not a dope-fiend.
If love can be put to some useful purpose it can only be by someone who is himself immune to it.”
“You don’t seem to want to tell me what end you expect to attain by denying yourself everything that makes life pleasant.
I wonder if any end can be worth it.”
“What have you been doing with yourself for the last year, Charley?”
The sudden question seemed inconsequent, but he answered it with his usual modest frankness.
“Nothing very much, I’m afraid.
I’ve been going to the office pretty well every day; I’ve spent a certain amount of time on the Estate getting to know the properties and all that sort of thing: I’ve played golf with father.
He likes to get in a round two or three days a week.
And I’ve kept up with my piano-playing.
I’ve been to a good many concerts.
I’ve seen most of the picture shows.
I’ve been to the opera a bit and seen a certain number of plays.”
“You’ve had a thoroughly good time?”
“Not bad.
I’ve enjoyed myself.”
“And what d’you expect to do next year?”
“More or less the same, I should think.”
“And the year after, and the year after that?”
“I suppose in a few years I shall get married and then my father will retire and hand over his job to me.
It brings in a thousand a year, not so bad in these days, and of course eventually I shall get my half of my father’s share in the Mason Estate.”
“And then you’ll lead the sort of life your father has led before you?”
“Unless the Labour party confiscate the Mason Estate.
Then of course I shall be in the cart.
But until then I’m quite prepared to do my little job and have as much fun as I can on the income I’ve got.”
“And when you die will it have mattered a damn whether you ever lived or not?”
For a moment the unexpected question disconcerted Charley and he flushed.
“I don’t suppose it will.”
“Are you satisfied with that?”
“To tell you the truth I’ve never thought about it.
But if you ask me point-blank, I think I should be a fool if I weren’t.
I could never have become a great artist.