my friend
Reuben told me the other day his marriage was an accident. The more I
think about accidents, the less do I believe in them. By chance he had
an invitation to go to Shott Woods one afternoon, and there he saw the
girl who afterwards became his wife and the mother of children with a
certain stamp upon them. They in turn will have other children, all of
them moulded after a fashion which would have been different if his wife
had been another woman. Nay, _these_ children would not have existed if
this particular marriage had not taken place. Thus the whole course of
history is altered, because of that little note and a casual encounter.
But, putting aside the theory of a God who ordains results absolutely
inevitable, although to us it seems as if they might have been different,
it may be observed that the attraction which drew Reuben to his dear
Camilla was not quite fortuitous. What decided her to go? It was
perfect autumn weather; it was just the time of year she most loved;
there would be no crowding or confusion, for many people had gone away to
the seaside, and so she was delighted at the thought of the picnic. What
decided him to go? The very same reasons. They had both been to Shott
during the season, and he had talked and laughed there with some
delightful creatures before she crossed his path and held him for ever.
Why had he waited? Why had she waited? We have discarded Providence as
our forefathers believed in it; but nevertheless there is a providence
without the big P, if we choose so to spell it, and yet surely deserving
it as much as the Providence of theology, a non-theological Providence
which watches over us and leads us. It appears as instinct prompting us
to do this and not to do that, to decide this way or that way when we
have no consciously rational ground for decision, to cleave to this
person and shun the other, almost before knowing anything of either: it
has been recognised in all ages under various forms as Demon, Fate, or
presiding Genius. But still further. Suppose they both went to Shott
Woods idly; suppose--which was not the case--they had never heard of one
another before, is it not possible that they were brought together by a
law as unevadable as gravity? There would be nothing more miraculous in
such attraction than there is in that thread which the minutest atom of
gas in the Orion nebula extends across billions of miles to the minutest
atom of dust on the road u