The Rainbow

No highest good of the community, however, would give him the

vital fulfilment of his soul. He knew this. But he did not

consider the soul of the individual sufficiently important. He

believed a man was important in so far as he represented all

humanity.

He could not see, it was not born in him to see, that the

highest good of the community as it stands is no longer the

highest good of even the average individual. He thought that,

because the community represents millions of people, therefore

it must be millions of times more important than any individual,

forgetting that the community is an abstraction from the many,

and is not the many themselves. Now when the statement of the

abstract good for the community has become a formula lacking in

all inspiration or value to the average intelligence, then the

"common good" becomes a general nuisance, representing the

vulgar, conservative materialism at a low level.

And by the highest good of the greatest number is chiefly

meant the material prosperity of all classes. Skrebensky did not

really care about his own material prosperity. If he had been

penniless--well, he would have taken his chances. Therefore

how could he find his highest good in giving up his life for the

material prosperity of everybody else! What he considered an

unimportant thing for himself he could not think worthy of every

sacrifice on behalf of other people. And that which he would

consider of the deepest importance to himself as an

individual--oh, he said, you mustn't consider the community

from that standpoint. No--no--we know what the

community wants; it wants something solid, it wants good wages,

equal opportunities, good conditions of living, that's what the

community wants. It doesn't want anything subtle or difficult.

Duty is very plain-keep in mind the material, the immediate

welfare of every man, that's all.

So there came over Skrebensky a sort of nullity, which more

and more terrified Ursula. She felt there was something hopeless

which she had to submit to. She felt a great sense of disaster

impending. Day after day was made inert with a sense of

disaster. She became morbidly sensitive, depressed,

apprehensive. It was anguish to her when she saw one rook slowly

flapping in the sky. That was a sign of ill-omen. And the

foreboding became so black and so powerful in her, that she was

almost extinguished.

Yet what was the matter? At the worst he was only going away.

Why did she mind, what was it she feared? She did not know. Only

she had a black dread possessing her. When she went at night and

saw the big, flashing stars they seemed terrible, by day she was

always expecting some charge to be made against her.

He wrote in March to say that he was going to South Africa in

a short time, but before he went, he would snatch a day at the

Marsh.