I pointed out to Laider one of the Australian letters that had especially pleased me in the current issue. It was from "A Melbourne Man," and was of the abrupt kind which declares that "all your correspondents have been groping in the dark" and then settles the whole matter in one short sharp flash. The flash in this instance was "Reason is faith, faith reason--that is all we know on earth and all we need to know." The writer then inclosed his card and was, etc., "A Melbourne Man." I said to Laider how very restful it was, after influenza, to read anything that meant nothing whatsoever. Laider was inclined to take the letter more seriously than I, and to be mildly metaphysical. I said that for me faith and reason were two separate things, and as I am no good at metaphysics, however mild, I offered a definite example, to coax the talk on to ground where I should be safer.
"Palmistry, for example," I said. "Deep down in my heart I believe in palmistry."Laider turned in his chair. "You believe in palmistry?" I hesitated.
"Yes, somehow I do. Why? I haven't the slightest notion. I can give myself all sorts of reasons for laughing it to scorn. My common sense utterly rejects it. Of course the shape of the hand means something, is more or less an index of character. But the idea that my past and future are neatly mapped out on my palms--" I shrugged my shoulders.
"You don't like that idea?" asked Laider in his gentle, rather academic voice.
"I only say it's a grotesque idea." "Yet you do believe in it?""I've a grotesque belief in it, yes."
"Are you sure your reason for calling this idea 'grotesque' isn't merely that you dislike it?""Well," I said, with the thrilling hope that he was a companion in absurdity, "doesn't it seem grotesque to you?""It seems strange." "You believe in it?" "Oh, absolutely." "Hurrah!"He smiled at my pleasure, and I, at the risk of reentanglement in metaphysics, claimed him as standing shoulder to shoulder with me against "A Melbourne Man." This claim he gently disputed.
"You may think me very prosaic," he said, "but I can't believe without evidence.""Well, I'm equally prosaic and equally at a disadvantage: I can't take my own belief as evidence, and I've no other evidence to go on."He asked me if I had ever made a study of palmistry. I said I had read one of Desbarolles's books years ago, and one of Heron-Allen's. But, he asked, had I tried to test them by the lines on my own hands or on the hands of my friends? I confessed that my actual practice in palmistry had been of a merely passive kind--the prompt extension of my palm to any one who would be so good as to "read" it and truckle for a few minutes to my egoism. (I hoped Laider might do this.)"Then I almost wonder," he said, with his sad smile, "that you haven't lost your belief, after all the nonsense you must have heard. There are so many young girls who go in for palmistry. I am sure all the five foolish virgins were 'awfully keen on it' and used to say, 'You can be led, but not driven,' and, 'You are likely to have a serious illness between the ages of forty and forty-five,' and, 'You are by nature rather lazy, but can be very energetic by fits and starts.' And most of the professionals, I'm told, are as silly as the young girls."For the honor of the profession, I named three practitioners whom I had found really good at reading character. He asked whether any of them had been right about past events. I confessed that, as a matter of fact, all three of them had been right in the main. This seemed to amuse him. He asked whether any of them had predicted anything which had since come true. I confessed that all three had predicted that I should do several thingswhich I had since done rather unexpectedly. He asked if I didn't accept this as, at any rate, a scrap of evidence. I said I could only regard it as a fluke-- a rather remarkable fluke.
The superiority of his sad smile was beginning to get on my nerves. I wanted him to see that he was as absurd as I.
"Suppose," I said--"suppose, for the sake of argument, that you and I are nothing but helpless automata created to do just this and that, and to have just that and this done to us. Suppose, in fact, we HAVEN'T any free will whatsoever. Is it likely or conceivable that the Power which fashioned us would take the trouble to jot down in cipher on our hands just what was in store for us?"Laider did not answer this question; he did but annoyingly ask me another.
"You believe in free will?"
"Yes, of course. I'll be hanged if I'm an automaton.""And you believe in free will just as in palmistry--without any reason?""Oh, no. Everything points to our having free will." "Everything? What, for instance?"This rather cornered me. I dodged out, as lightly as I could, by saying: "I suppose YOU would say it's written in my hand that I should be abeliever in free will."
"Ah, I've no doubt it is."
I held out my palms. But, to my great disappointment, he looked quickly away from them. He had ceased to smile. There was agitation in his voice as he explained that he never looked at people's hands now. "Never now--never again." He shook his head as though to beat off some memory.
I was much embarrassed by my indiscretion. I hastened to tide over the awkward moment by saying that if _I_ could read hands I wouldn't, for fear of the awful things I might see there.
"Awful things, yes," he whispered, nodding at the fire.
"Not," I said in self-defense, "that there's anything very awful, so far as I know, to be read in MY hands."He turned his gaze from the fire to me. "You aren't a murderer, for example?" "Oh, no," I replied, with a nervous laugh. "_I_ am."This was a more than awkward, it was a painful, moment for me; and I am afraid I must have started or winced, for he instantly begged my pardon.
"I don't know," he exclaimed, "why I said it. I'm usually a very reticent man. But sometimes--" He pressed his brow. "What you must think of me!"I begged him to dismiss the matter from his mind.
