d
then had the audacity to challenge the world to say that they were not
better, more human, and more lovable for the disaster in which they were
inevitably overwhelmed. And, though it is hard to say 'Yes' to his
challenge, it is harder still to say 'No.'

In the case of Ernest Pontifex, however, we do not care to respond to
the challenge at all. The experiment is faked and proves nothing. It is
mere humbug to declare that a man has been thrown into the waters of
life to sink or swim, when there is an anxious but cool-headed friend on
the bank with a L70,000 life-belt to throw after him the moment his head
goes under. That is neither danger nor experience. Even if Ernest
Pontifex knew nothing of the future awaiting him (as we are assured he
did not) it makes no difference. _We_ know he cannot sink; he is a lay
figure with a pneumatic body. Whether he became a lay figure for Butler
also we cannot say; we can merely register the fact that the book breaks
down after Ernest's misadventure with Miss Maitland, a deplorably
unsubstantial episode to be the crisis of a piece of writing so firm in
texture and solid in values as the preceding chapters. Ernest as a man
has an intense non-existence.

After all, as far as the positive side of _The Way of all Flesh_' is
concerned, Butler's eggs are all in one basket. If the adult Ernest does
not materialise, the book hangs in empty air. Whatever it may be instead
it is not a great novel, nor even a good one. So much established, we
may begin to collect the good things. Christina is the best of them. She
is, by any standard, a remarkable creation. Butler was 'all round'
Christina. Both by analysis and synthesis she is wholly his. He can
produce her in either way. She lives as flesh and blood and has not a
little of our affection; she is also constructed by definition, 'If it
were not too awful a thing to say of anybody, she meant well'--the whole
phrase gives exactly Christina's stature. Alethea Pontifex is really a
bluff; but the bluff succeeds, largely because, having experience of
Christina, we dare not call it. Mrs Jupp is triumphantly complete; there
are even moments when she seems as great as Mrs Quickly. The novels that
contain three such women (or two if we reckon the uncertain Alethea, who
is really only a vehicle for Butler's very best sayings, as cancelled by
the non-existent Ellen) can be counted, we suppose, on our ten fingers.

Of the men, Theobald is well worked out (i