He knows that if I am not
very quick or brilliant I am fairly steady and reliable.
So that's what I've been working up to all along, Bertie,
that to-morrow I go to join Cullingworth, and that it
looks as if there was to be an opening for me at last.
I gave you a sketch of him and his ways, so that you may
take an interest in the development of my fortune, which
you could not do if you did not know something of the man
who is holding out his hand to me.
Yesterday was my birthday, and I was two and twenty
years of age. For two and twenty years have I swung
around the sun. And in all seriousness, without a touch
of levity, and from the bottom of my soul, I assure you
that I have at the present moment the very vaguest idea
as to whence I have come from, whither I am going, or
what I am here for. It is not for want of inquiry, or
from indifference. I have mastered the principles of
several religions. They have all shocked me by the
violence which I should have to do to my reason to accept
the dogmas of any one of them. Their ethics are usually
excellent. So are the ethics of the common law of
England. But the scheme of creation upon which those
ethics are built! Well, it really is to me the most
astonishing thing that I have seen in my short earthly
pilgrimage, that so many able men, deep philosophers,
astute lawyers, and clear-headed men of the world should
accept such an explanation of the facts of life.
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