Review of Reviews, IjS/OG. 



in the Days of the Gomet. 



203 



this ill-conditioned, squallidly-bred lad of whom 1 

 have been reading ?" 



He smiled. " There intervenes a certain Change," 

 he said. " Have I not hinted at that ?" 



I hesitated upon a question, then saw the second 

 fascicle at hand and picked it up.) 



CHAPTER THE SECOND NETTIE. 



I. 



I cannot now remember, the story resumed, what 

 inter\al separated that evening on which Parload 

 first showed me the comet — I think I only pretended 

 to see it then — and the Sunday afternoon I spent at 

 Checkshill. 



Between the two there was time enough for me to 

 give notice and leave Rawdon's, to seek for some 

 other situation very strenuously in vain, to think and 

 say many hard and violent things to my mother and 

 to Parload, and to pass through some phases of very 

 profound wretchedness. , There must have been a 

 passionate correspondence with Nettie, but all the 

 froth and fury of that. has faded now out of my 

 memory. All I have clear now is that I wrote one 

 magnificent farewell to her, casting her off for ever, 

 and getting in reply a prim little note to say that 

 even if there was to be an end to everything, that 

 was no excuse for writing such things as I had done ; 

 and then, I think, I wrote again in a vein I con- 

 sidered satirical. To this she did not reply. That 

 interval was at least three weeks, and probably four, 

 because the comet which had been on the first occa- 

 sion only a dubious sperk in the sky, certainly visible 

 only when it was magnified, was now a great white 

 presence, brighter than Jupiter, and casting a 

 shadow on its own accoimt. It was now actively 

 present in the world of human thought, everyone 

 was talking about it, everyone was looking for its 

 waxing splendour as the sun went down ; the papers, 

 the music-halls, the hoardings, echoed it. 



Yes, the comet was already dominant before I 

 went over to make everything clear to Nettie. And 

 Parload bad spent two hoarded pounds in buying 

 himself a spectroscope, so that he could see for him- 

 self, night after night, that mysterious, that stimu- 

 lating line — the unknown line in the green. How 

 manv times, I wonder, did I look at the smudgy, 

 quivering svmbol of the unknown things that were 

 rushing upon us out of the inhuman void, before I 

 rebelled ? But at last T could stand it no longer, 

 and I reproached Parload verv bitterly for wasting 

 his time as an " astronomical dilettante." 



"Here," said I, "we're on the verge of the big- 

 gest lockout in the history of this countryside ; here's 

 distress and hunger coming, here's all the capitalistic 

 competitive system like a wound inflamed, and you 

 spend your time gaping at that damned silly streak 

 of nothintr in the sky !" 



Parload stared at me. "Yes, T do," he said, 

 slo\Wy. .IS though it was a new idea. " Don't T ? 

 . . . T wonder why." 



" / want to start meetings of an evening on How- 

 den's Waste." 



" You think they'd listen ?" 



" They'd listen fast enough now." 



" They didn't before," said Parload, looking at his 

 pet instrument. 



" There was a demonstration of unemployed at 

 Swathinglea on Sunday. Thev got to stone-throw- 

 ing." 



Parload said nothing for a little while, and I said 

 several things. He seemed to be considering some- 

 thing. 



" But, after all," he said at last, with an awk- 

 ward movement toward his spectroscope, " that does 

 signify something." 



" The comet ?" 



"Yes." • 



"What can it signify? You don't want me to 

 believe in astrology. What does it matter what 

 flames in the heavens— when men are starving on 

 earth ?" 



" It's — it's science." 



" Science ! What we want now is socialism — not 

 science." 



He still seemed reluctant to give up his comet. 



" Socialism's all right," he said, " but if that thing 

 up there it^'ere to hit the earth, it might matter." 



" Nothing matters but human beings." 



" Suppose it killed them all." 



" Oh !" said I, " that's rot." 



" I wonder," said Parload, dreadfully divided in 

 his allegiance. 



He looked at the comet. He seemed on the verge 

 of repeating his growing information about the near- 

 ness of the paths of earth and comet, and all that 

 might ensue from that. So I cut in with something 

 I had got out of a now forgotten writer called Rus- 

 kin, a volcano of beautiful language and nonsensical, 

 suggestions, who prevailed very greatly with elo- 

 quent, e-Kcitable young men in those days. Some- 

 thing it was about the insignificance of science and 

 the supreme importance of life. Parload stood 

 listening, half turned toward the sky, with the tips 

 of his fingers on his spectroscope. He seemed to 

 come to a sudden decision. 



" No. I don't agree with you, Leadford," he said. 

 " You don't understand about science." 



Parload rarely argued with that bluntness of op- 

 position. I was so used to entire possession of our 

 talk that his brief contradiction struck me like a 

 blow. " Don't agree with me ?" I repeated. 



"No." said Parload. 



" But how ?" 



"I believe science is of more importance than 

 socialism," he said. "Socialism's a theory. Science 

 — science is something more." 



We embarked upon one of those queer arguments 

 illiterate young men used always to find so heating. 



