Page:Zangwill-King of schnorrers.djvu/277

263 AN ODD LIFE. 263

months later. It was then that she first conceived the thought that has changed my life. It came to her in a moment of tears, as she sat over the ashes of her happiness. From that moment the thought never left her."

There was a wild look in the baby's eyes. I began to suspect him of premature insanity.

"What was this thought?" I murmured.

" I am coming to it. There came into her head suddenly the refrain of a song she had learnt at school : ' Life like a river with constant motion.' ' The river of life ! The stream of life ! How true it is ! ' she mused. ' How much more than mere metaphors these phrases are ! Verily, one's life flows on towards the dark ocean of death, irresistibly, un- restingly, willy-nilly — whether swift or slow, whether long or short — whether it flows through pleasant champaigns or dreary marshes, past romantic castled crags, or by bleak quarries. What is the use of experience, of knowledge of past bits of the route, when no two bits are ever really alike, when the future course is hidden and is always a pano- rama of surprises, when no life-stream knows what awaits it round the corner every time it turns, when the scenery of the source avails one nothing in one's resistless progress towards the scenery of the mouth ? What is life but a series of mistakes, whose fruit is wisdom, maybe, but wisdom over- ripe? We do not pluck the fruit till it will no longer serve our appetites. Nothing repeats itself on the stage of existence — always new situations and new follies. Experi- entia docet. Experience teaches, indeed ; but her lesson is that nothing can be learnt.' "

The baby paused, and reached out his wasted hand for the glass. His pinafore and his tiny shoes on the chest of drawers caught my eye, and moistened it with the thought he would never don them again.