The Secret Places of the Heart

tio

r them. It mattered nothing to her that the gentleman was asking for Dr. Martineau as if he was asking for something with an unpleasant taste. Almost imperceptibly sh

ding it reluctantly with its distasteful t

istinguished specialist. A bowl of daffodils, a handsome bookcase containing bound Victorian magazines and antiquated medical works, some paintings of Scotch scenery, three big armchairs, a buhl clock, and a bronz

and limp as an empty jacket on its peg,

to come here," he s

t of the

ven my n

ent pretended not to hear. Then he turned round

said the doctor. "Peop

nd and pink and cheerfully wistful, a little suggestive of the full moon, of what the full moon might be if it could get fresh air and exercise. Either his tailor had made his trousers too short or he had braced them to

h his hands in his trouser pockets, seemed intent only on disavowals. "People com

o understands a little

damnably...o

atigue stops that. A man can work--good straightforward work, without internal resist

rinding to death.... And it's so DAMNED importan

raised clenched hand. "My temper's in rags. I explode at any little thing. I

"is familiar. Sir Richmond Har

ue

n. Stupid of me! We certainly

afford to have me absen

hnical kn

and limitations are canvassed and schemed about, long before a single member is appointed. Old Cassidy worked the whole thing with the prime minister. I can see that now as plain as daylight. I might have seen it at first.... Three experts who'd been got at; they thought _I_'d been got at;

could take all sorts of liberties. But all this is altered. We're living in a different world. The public won't stand things it used to stand. It's a new public. It's--wild. It'll smash up the show if they go too far. Everything short and running shorter--food, fuel, material. But these people go on. T

here may be

at night, thi

ial sm

Social. Yes

ty. All sorts of people I find think that," said the

f my damned Co

awake too," he said and seemed to reflect. But he

is," said Sir Richmond, and

the doctor, and considered swiftly

tio

it was abnormal--a phase of neurasthenia. Now it is almost the normal state with whole classes of intelligent people. Intelligent, I say. The others al

said Sir

and ideas acquired in the days of our as

dful sense of responsibility for the universe. Accompanied by

my bit. And if only I could hold myself at it, I could beat those fellows. But that's where the devil of it comes in. Never have I been s

of me? I used to work well enough. It's as if my will had come untwisted and was ravelling out into sep

it's fatigue. It's mental and moral fatigue. Too much effort. On too high a level. And too austere. One strains and fags. F

"M'm." But this only made Sir Richmond raise his voice and quicken his speech. "I want," he said, "a good tonic. A pick-me-up, a stimulating har

e use of drugs,"

g and condemn it! Everything is a drug. Everything that affects you. Food stimulates or tranquillizes. Drink. Noise is a stimulant and quiet an opiate. What is life but respo

how to use drugs,"

ought t

w sill on the opposite side of Harley Street. His

of energy by their help, suspend fatigue, put off sleep during long spells of exertion. At some sudden crisis for example. When we shall know enough to know just how far to go with this, that or the other stuff. And how to wash out its after e

little things already. E

you by the way. Has it done you any good--any N

in to his patient and looke

r of structure or material. You are--worried--ill in your mind, and otherwise perfectly sound. It's the current of your thoughts, fermenting. If the trouble is in the mental sphere, why go out of the mental sphere for a treatment? Talk and thought; these

Fuel Co

sitti

itsuntide. But there's h

this is my one chanc

lation. "Three weeks.... It's

regimen of carefully pla

a little holiday for myself. But I'd like to see you through this. And if I am to see you

o his thought. "I'm

e a man of your

wo

ow,--after all the rain we have had. I have a little two-seater. I d

wo very comfortable little

t be more

fer my o

hat do

eripatetic

y the wayside. We might make the beginnings of a treatment. ..

s drive

tio

do not feel in the slightest degree responsible. They hide all their troubles from the road. Their backyards are tucked away out of sight, they show a brave face; there's none of the nasty se

dow now. "I want the h

Have you noted how fagged and unstable EVERYBO

fernally wo

Everybod

going on in

htful strain to get into a

such a definable catastrophe in 1914 was, after all, only the first loud crack and smash of the collapse. The war is over and--nothing is over. This peace is a farce, reconstruction an exploded phrase. The slide goes on,--it goes, if anything, faster, without a sign of stopping

d towards the bo

up in peace. There was talk of wars. There were wars--little wars--that altered nothing material.... Consols used to be at 112 and you fed your household on ten shillings a head a week. You could run over all Europe, barring Turkey and Russia, without even a passport. You could get to Italy in a day. Never were life and comfort so safe--fo

g chapters of a book that was intended to make a great splash in

father left me a decent independence. I developed my position; I have lived between here and the hospital, doing good work, enormously interested, prosperous, mildly di

said Sir Rich

the doctor went on. "Nobody had ev

ized th

e back of the healthy mind, human or animal, has been this persuasion: 'This is all right. This will go on.

on like that!" s

s dead. The war--and th

no more capable of living out of that atmosphere of assurance than a tadpole is of living out of water. His mental existence may be conditional on that. Depr

tations are destroyed. We fit together no longer. We are--loose. We don't know where we are nor what to do. The p

tio

cience and plan have to replace custom and tradition in human affairs. Soon. Very soon. Granted. Granted. We used to say all that. Even before the war. Now we mean it. We've muddled about in the old ways overlong. Some new sort of world, planned and scientific, has to be got going. Civilization renewed. Rebuilding civilization--while the premises are still occupied and busy. It's an immense enterprise, but it is the only thing to be done. In some ways it's an enormously attractive enterprise. Inspiring. It grips my imagination. I

act

ited faith in our present tremendous necessity--for work--for devotion; I believe my share, the work I

the ape, his ancestor. Not ten thousand. And that ape again, not a score of thousands from the monkey, his forebear. A man's body, his bodily powers, are just the body and powers of an ape, a little improved, a little adapted to novel needs. That brings me to my point. CAN HIS MIND AND WILL BE

raw them," sai

ppointed and perplexed people to the realities of their own nature. Which they have been accustomed to ignore and forget. They come to us with high ambitions or lovely illusions about themselves, torn, shredded, spoilt. They are mor

" Sir Richmond repeated, l

s--that makes you and me care indeed for the fate and welfare of all this round world, was latent in the body of some little lurking beast that crawled and hid among the branches of vanished and forgotten Mesozoic trees? A petty egg-laying, bristle-covered beast it was, with no more of the rudiments of a soul than bare hunger, we

hmond. "Have I been

play the part of

see the whole s

doctor, before he co

s attempting is above him--that he is just a hairy

e gets something done by not attempting everything. ... And it clears him up. We get him to look into himself, to see direct

osis. That's

s. To analyze a mental

until the Commission meets, in thinking

about you it makes clear, the rest is still the old darkness--of millions of intense and narrow animal generations.... You are like someone who awakens out of an immemorial sleep to find himself in a vast chamber, in a great and ancient house, a great and ancient house high amidst frozen and lifeless mountains--in a sunless universe. You are not alone in it. You are not lord of all you survey. Your leadership is disputed. The darkness even of the room you are in is full of ancient and discarded but quite unsubju

m his unpublished book the advanta

rs and smiled. "And you propose a

in his own house. He has to tak

s of self v

th yourself. As an opening.... It will take longe

onsiderabl

t

from simple th

ge--without a

hing ever done anyo

dreds back to sani

me.... We'll try it. We'll try it.... And so for this journey into the west of England.... And