rgot in the
daytime, and how in consequence the cows from the glebe farm got into
the garden and ate Mrs. Britling's carnations.

Time after time he had promised to see to that gate-post....

The organ _motif_ battled its way to complete predominance. The lesser
themes were drowned or absorbed. Mr. Britling returned from the role of
an incompetent automobilist to the role of a soul naked in space and
time wrestling with giant questions. These cosmic solicitudes, it may
be, are the last penalty of irreligion. Was Huxley right, and was all
humanity, even as Mr. Britling, a careless, fitful thing, playing a
tragically hopeless game, thinking too slightly, moving too quickly,
against a relentless antagonist?

Or is the whole thing just witless, accidentally cruel perhaps, but not
malignant? Or is it wise, and merely refusing to pamper us? Is there
somewhere in the immensities some responsive kindliness, some faint hope
of toleration and assistance, something sensibly on our side against
death and mechanical cruelty? If so, it certainly refuses to pamper
us.... But if the whole thing is cruel, perhaps also it is witless and
will-less? One cannot imagine the ruler of everything a devil--that
would be silly. So if at the worst it is inanimate then anyhow we have
our poor wills and our poor wits to pit against it. And manifestly then,
the good of life, the significance of any life that is not mere
receptivity, lies in the disciplined and clarified will and the
sharpened and tempered mind. And what for the last twenty years--for all
his lectures and writings--had he been doing to marshal the will and
harden the mind which were his weapons against the Dark? He was ready
enough to blame others--dons, politicians, public apathy, but what was
he himself doing?

What was he doing now?

Lying in bed!

His son was drifting to ruin, his country was going to the devil, the
house was a hospital of people wounded by his carelessness, the country
roads choked with his smashed (and uninsured) automobiles, the cows were
probably lined up along the borders and munching Edith's carnations at
this very moment, his pocketbook and bureau were stuffed with venomous
insults about her--and he was just lying in bed!

Suddenly Mr. Britling threw back his bedclothes and felt for the matches
on his bedside table.

Indeed this was by no means the first time that his brain had become a
whirring torment in his skull. Previous experiences had led t