{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_20423/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_20423","id":"gutenberg_20423","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20423","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Essays"],"text":"Produced by R. Cedron, Diane Monico, and the Project\nGutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team at\nhttp://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nJOYOUS GARD\n\n\nARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON\n\n\nLONDON\n\nJOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.\n\n1913\n\n\n\n\nTO\nALL MY FRIENDS\nKNOWN AND UNKNOWN\nI DEDICATE THIS BOOK\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\n_It is a harder thing than it ought to be to write openly and frankly\nof things private and sacred. \"Secretum meum mihi!\"--\"My secret is my\nown!\"--cried St. Francis in a harrowed moment. But I believe that the\ninstinct to guard and hoard the inner life is one that ought to be\nresisted. Secrecy seems to me now a very uncivilised kind of virtue,\nafter all! We have all of us, or most of us, a quiet current of\nintimate thought, which flows on, gently and resistlessly, in the\nbackground of our lives, the volume and spring of which we cannot\nalter or diminish, because it rises far away at some unseen source,\nlike a stream which flows through grassy pastures, and is fed by rain\nwhich falls on unknown hills from the clouds of heaven. This inner\nthought is hardly affected by the busy incidents of life--our work,\nour engagements, our public intercourse; but because it represents the\nself which we are always alone with, it makes up the greater part of\nour life, and is much more our real and true life than the life which\nwe lead in public. It contains the things which we feel and hope,\nrather than what we say; and the fact that we do not speak our inner\nthoughts is what more than anything else keeps us apart from each\nother.\n\nIn this book I have said, or tried to say, just what I thought, and as\nI thought it; and since it is a book which recommends a studied\nquietness and a cheerful serenity of life, I have put my feelings to a\nvigorous test, by writing it, not when I was at ease and in leisure,\nbut in the very thickest and fullest of my work. I thought that if the\nkind of quiet that I recommended had any force or weight at all, it\nshould be the sort of quiet which I still could realise and value in a\nlife full of engagements and duties and business, and that if it could\nbe developed on a background of that kind, it might have a worth which\nit could not have if it were gently conceived in peaceful days and\nuntroubled hours.\n\nSo it has all been written in spaces of hard-driven work, when the day\nnever seemed long enough for all I had to do, between interruptions\nand interviews and teaching and meetings. But the sight and scent that\nI shall always connect with it, is that of a great lilac-bush which\nstands just outside my study window, and which day by day in this\nbright and chilly spring has held up its purple clusters, overtopping\nthe dense, rich, pale foliage, against a blue and cloudless sky; and\nwhen the wind has been in the North, as it has often been, has filled\nmy room with the scent of breaking buds. How often, as I wrote, have I\ncast a sidelong look at the lilac-bush! How often has it appeared to\nbeckon me away from my papers to a freer and more fragrant air\noutside! But it seemed to me that I was perhaps obeying the call of\nthe lilac best--though how far away from its freshness and\nsweetness!--if I tried to make my own busy life, which I do not\npretend not to enjoy, break into such flower as it could, and give out\nwhat the old books call its 'spicery,' such as it is.\n\nBecause the bloom, the colour, the scent, are all there, if I could\nbut express them. That is the truth! I do not claim to make them, to\ncause them, to create them, any more than the lilac could engender the\nscent of roses or of violets. Nor do I profess to do faithfully all\nthat I say in my book that it is well to do. That is the worst, and\nyet perhaps it is the best, of books, that one presents in them one's\nhopes, dreams, desires, visions; more than one's dull and mean\nperformances. 'Als ich kann!' That is the best one can do and say.\n\nIt is our own fault, and not the fault of our visions, that we cannot\nalways say what we think in talk, even to our best friends. We begin\nto do so, perhaps, and we see a shadow gather. Either the friend does\nnot understand, or he does not care, or he thinks it all unreal and\naffected; and then there falls on us a foolish shyness, and we become\nnot what we are, but what we think the friend would like to think us;\nand so he 'gets to know' as he calls it, not what is really there, but\nwhat he chooses should be there.\n\nBut with pen in hand, and the blessed white paper before one, there is\nno need to be anything in the world but what one is. Our dignity must\nlook after itself, and the dignity that we claim is worth nothing,\nespecially if it is falsely claimed. But even the meanest flower that\nblows may claim to blossom as it can, and as indeed it must. In the\ndemocracy of flowers, even the dandelion has a right to a place, if it\ncan find one, and to a vote, if it can get one; and even if it cannot,\nthe wind is kind to it, and floats its arrowy down far afield, by wood\nand meadow, and into the unclaimed waste at last._\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nCHAPTER                                           PAGE\n\nI. JOYOUS GARD, PRELUDE                             1\n\nII. IDEAS                                           7\n\nIII. POETRY                                        10\n\nIV. POETRY AND LIFE                                15\n\nV. ART                                             22\n\nVI. ART AND MORALITY                               35\n\nVII. INTERPRETATION                                46\n\nVIII. EDUCATION                                    54\n\nIX. KNOWLEDGE                                      59\n\nX. GROWTH                                          69\n\nXI. EMOTION                                        77\n\nXII. MEMORY                                        86\n\nXIII. RETROSPECT                                   98\n\nXIV. HUMOUR                                       107\n\nXV. VISIONS                                       119\n\nXVI. THOUGHT                                      126\n\nXVII. ACCESSIBILITY                               136\n\nXVIII. SYMPATHY                                   148\n\nXIX. SCIENCE                                      157\n\nXX. WORK                                          166\n\nXXI. HOPE                                         173\n\nXXII. EXPERIENCE                                  184\n\nXXIII. FAITH                                      193\n\nXXIV. PROGRESS                                    204\n\nXXV. THE SENSE OF BEAUTY                          212\n\nXXVI. THE PRINCIPLE OF BEAUTY                     220\n\nXXVII. LIFE                                       228\n\n\n\n\nJOYOUS GARD\n\nI\n\nPRELUDE\n\n\nThe Castle of _Joyous Gard_ in the _Morte D'Arthur_ was Sir Lancelot's\nown castle, that he had won with his own hands. It was full of\nvictual, and all manner of mirth and disport. It was hither that the\nwounded knight rode as fast as his horse might run, to tell Sir\nLancelot of the misuse and capture of Sir Palamedes; and hence\nLancelot often issued forth, to rescue those that were oppressed, and\nto do knightly deeds.\n\nIt was true that Lancelot afterwards named it _Dolorous Gard_, but\nthat was because he had used it unworthily, and was cast out from it;\nbut it recovered its old name again when they conveyed his body\nthither, after he had purged his fault by death. It was on the\nmorning of the day when they set out, that the Bishop who had been\nwith him when he died, and had given him all the rites that a\nChristian man ought to have, was displeased when they woke him out of\nhis sleep, because, as he said, he was so merry and well at ease. And\nwhen they inquired the reason of his mirth, the Bishop said, \"Here was\nLancelot with me, with more angels than ever I saw men upon one day.\"\nSo it was well with that great knight at the last!\n\nI have called this book of mine by the name of _Joyous Gard_, because\nit speaks of a stronghold that we can win with our own hands, where we\ncan abide in great content, so long as we are not careful to linger\nthere in sloth and idleness, but are ready to ride abroad at the call\nfor help. The only time in his life when Lancelot was deaf to that\ncall, was when he shut himself up in the castle to enjoy the love that\nwas his single sin. And it was that sin that cost him so dear, and\nlost the Castle its old and beautiful name. But when the angels made\nglad over the sinner who repented, as it is their constant use to do,\nand when it was only remembered of Lancelot that he had been a\npeerless knight, the name came back to the Castle; and that name is\ndoubtless hidden now under some name of commoner use, whatever and\nwherever it may be.\n\nIn the _Pilgrim's Progress_ we read how willing Mr. Interpreter was,\nin the House that was full of so many devices and surprises, to\nexplain to the pilgrims the meaning of all the fantastic emblems and\ncomfortable sights that he showed them. And I do not think it spoils a\nparable, but rather improves it, that it should have its secret\nmeaning made plain.\n\nThe Castle of _Joyous Gard_ then, which each of us can use, if we\ndesire it, is the fortress of beauty and joy. We cannot walk into it\nby right, but must win it; and in a world like this, where there is\nmuch that is anxious and troublesome, we ought, if we can, to gain\nsuch a place, and provide it with all that we need, where we may have\nour seasons of rest and refreshment. It must not be idle and selfish\njoyance that we take there; it must be the interlude to toil and fight\nand painful deeds, and we must be ready to sally out in a moment when\nit is demanded of us. Now, if the winning of such a fortress of\nthought is hard, it is also dangerous when won, because it tempts us\nto immure ourselves in peace, and only observe from afar the plain of\nlife, which lies all about the Castle, gazing down through the high\nwindows; to shut out the wind and the rain, as well as the cries and\nprayers of those who have been hurt and dismayed by wrongful usage. If\nwe do that, the day will come when we shall be besieged in our Castle,\nand ride away vanquished and disgraced, to do what we have neglected\nand forgotten.\n\nBut it is not only right, it is natural and wise, that we should have\na stronghold in our minds, where we should frequent courteous and\ngentle and knightly company--the company of all who have loved beauty\nwisely and purely, such as poets and artists. Because we make a very\ngreat mistake if we allow the common course and use of the world to\nengulph us wholly. We must not be too dainty for the work of the\nworld, but we may thankfully believe that it is only a mortal\ndiscipline, and that our true life is elsewhere, hid with God. If we\ngrow to believe that life and its cares and business are all, we lose\nthe freshness of life, just as we lose the strength of life if we\nreject its toil. But if we go at times to our _Joyous Gard_, we can\nbring back into common life something of the grace and seemliness and\ncourtesy of the place. For the end of life is that we should do humble\nand common things in a fine and courteous manner, and mix with simple\naffairs, not condescendingly or disdainfully, but with all the\neagerness and modesty of the true knight.\n\nThis little book then is an account, as far as I can give it, of what\nwe may do to help ourselves in the matter, by feeding and nurturing\nthe finer and sweeter thought, which, like all delicate things, often\nperishes from indifference and inattention. Those of us who are\nsensitive and imaginative and faint-hearted often miss our chance of\nbetter things by not forming plans and designs for our peace. We\nlament that we are hurried and pressed and occupied, and we cry,\n\n    _\"Yet, oh, the place could I but find!\"_\n\nBut that is because we expect to be conducted thither, without the\ntrouble of the journey! Yet we can, like the wise King of Troy, build\nthe walls of our castle to music, if we will, and see to the fit\nproviding of the place; it only needs that we should set about it in\nearnest; and as I have often gratefully found that a single word of\nanother can fall into the mind like a seed, and quicken to life while\none sleeps, breaking unexpectedly into bloom, I will here say what\ncomes into my mind to say, and point out the towers that I think I\ndiscern rising above the tangled forest, and glimmering tall and\nshapely and secure at the end of many an open avenue.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nIDEAS\n\n\nThere are certain great ideas which, if we have any intelligence and\nthoughtfulness at all, we cannot help coming across the track of, just\nas when we walk far into the deep country, in the time of the\nblossoming of flowers, we step for a moment into a waft of fragrance,\ncast upon the air from orchard or thicket or scented field of bloom.\n\nThese ideas are very various in quality; some of them deliciously\nhaunting and transporting, some grave and solemn, some painfully sad\nand strong. Some of them seem to hint at unseen beauty and joy, some\nhave to do with problems of conduct and duty, some with the relation\nin which we wish to stand or are forced to stand with other human\nbeings; some are questionings born of grief and pain, what the\nmeaning of sorrow is, whether pain has a further intention, whether\nthe spirit survives the life which is all that we can remember of\nexistence; but the strange thing about all these ideas is that we find\nthem suddenly in the mind and soul; we do not seem to invent them,\nthough we cannot trace them; and even if we find them in books that we\nread or words that we hear, they do not seem wholly new to us; we\nrecognise them as things that we have dimly felt and perceived, and\nthe reason why they often have so mysterious an effect upon us is that\nthey seem to take us outside of ourselves, further back than we can\nrecollect, beyond the faint horizon, into something as wide and great\nas the illimitable sea or the depths of sunset sky.\n\nSome of these ideas have to do with the constitution of society, the\ncombined and artificial peace in which human beings live, and then\nthey are political ideas; or they deal with such things as numbers,\ncurves, classes of animals and plants, the soil of the earth, the\nchanges of the seasons, the laws of weight and mass, and then they are\nscientific ideas; some have to do with right and wrong conduct,\nactions and qualities, and then they are religious or ethical ideas.\nBut there is a class of thoughts which belong precisely to none of\nthese things, but which are concerned with the perception of beauty,\nin forms and colours, musical sounds, human faces and limbs, words\nmajestic or sweet; and this sense of beauty may go further, and may be\ndiscerned in qualities, regarded not from the point of view of their\nrightness and justice, but according as they are fine and noble,\nevoking our admiration and our desire; and these are poetical ideas.\n\nIt is not of course possible exactly to classify ideas, because there\nis a great overlapping of them and a wide interchange. The thought of\nthe slow progress of man from something rude and beastlike, the\nstatement of the astronomer about the swarms of worlds swimming in\nspace, may awaken the sense of poetry which is in its essence the\nsense of wonder. I shall not attempt in these few pages to limit and\ndefine the sense of poetry. I shall merely attempt to describe the\nkind of effect it has or may have in life, what our relation is or may\nbe to it, what claim it may be said to have upon us, whether we can\npractise it, and whether we ought to do so.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nPOETRY\n\n\nI was reading the other day a volume of lectures delivered by Mr.\nMackail at Oxford, as Professor of Poetry there. Mr. Mackail began by\nbeing a poet himself; he married the daughter of a great and poetical\nartist, Sir Edward Burne-Jones; he has written the _Life of William\nMorris_, which I think is one of the best biographies in the language,\nin its fine proportion, its seriousness, its vividness; and indeed all\nhis writing has the true poetical quality. I hope he even contrives to\ncommunicate it to his departmental work in the Board of Education!\n\nHe says in the preface to his lectures, \"Poetry is the controller of\nsullen care and frantic passion; it is the companion in youth of\ndesire and love; it is the power which in later years dispels the ills\nof life--labour, penury, pain, disease, sorrow, death itself; it is\nthe inspiration, from youth to age, and in all times and lands, of the\nnoblest human motives and ardours, of glory, of generous shame, of\nfreedom and the unconquerable mind.\"\n\nIn these fine sentences it will be seen that Mr. Mackail makes a very\nhigh and majestic claim indeed for poetry: no less than the claim of\nart, chivalry, patriotism, love, and religion all rolled into one! If\nthat claim could be substantiated, no one in the world could be\nexcused for not putting everything else aside and pursuing poetry,\nbecause it would seem to be both the cure for all the ills of life,\nand the inspirer of all high-hearted effort. It would be indeed the\none thing needful!\n\nBut what I do not think Mr. Mackail makes quite clear is whether he\nmeans by poetry the expression in verse of all these great ideas, or\nwhether he means a spirit much larger and mightier than what is\ncommonly called poetry; which indeed only appears in verse at a single\nglowing point, as the electric spark leaps bright and hot between the\ncoils of dark and cold wire.\n\nI think it is a little confusing that he does not state more\ndefinitely what he means by poetry. Let us take another interesting\nand suggestive definition. It was Coleridge who said, \"The opposite of\npoetry is not prose but science; the opposite of prose is not poetry\nbut verse.\" That seems to me an even more fertile statement. It means\nthat poetry is a certain sort of emotion, which may be gentle or\nvehement, but can be found both in verse and prose; and that its\nopposite is the unemotional classification of phenomena, the accurate\nstatement of material laws; and that poetry is by no means the\nrhythmical and metrical expression of emotion, but emotion itself,\nwhether it be expressed or not.\n\nI do not wholly demur to Mr. Mackail's statement, if it may be held to\nmean that poetry is the expression of a sort of rapturous emotion,\nevoked by beauty, whether that beauty is seen in the forms and colours\nof earth, its gardens, fields, woods, hills, seas, its sky-spaces and\nsunset glories; or in the beauty of human faces and movements; or in\nnoble endurance or generous action. For that is the one essential\nquality of poetry, that the thing or thought, whatever it is, should\nstrike the mind as beautiful, and arouse in it that strange and\nwistful longing which beautiful things arouse. It is hard to define\nthat longing, but it is essentially a desire, a claim to draw near to\nsomething desirable, to possess it, to be thrilled by it, to continue\nin it; the same emotion which made the apostle say at the sight of his\nLord transfigured in glory, \"Master, it is good for us to be here!\"\n\nIndeed we know very well what beauty is, or rather we have all within\nus a standard by which we can instinctively test the beauty of a sight\nor a sound; but it is not that we all agree about the beauty of\ndifferent things. Some see a great deal more than others, and some\neyes and ears are delighted and pleased by what to more trained and\nfastidious senses seems coarse and shocking and vulgar. But that makes\nlittle difference; the point is that we have within us an apprehension\nof a quality which gives us a peculiar kind of delight; and even if it\ndoes not give us that delight when we are dull or anxious or\nmiserable, we still know that the quality is there. I remember how\nwhen I had a long and dreary illness, with much mental depression, one\nof my greatest tortures was to be for ever seeing the beauty in\nthings, but not to be able to enjoy it. The part of the brain that\nenjoyed was sick and uneasy; but I was never in any doubt that beauty\nwas there, and had power to please the soul, if only the physical\nmachinery were not out of gear, so that the pain of transmission\novercame the sense of delight.\n\nPoetry is then in its essence the discerning of beauty; and that\nbeauty is not only the beauty of things heard and seen, but may dwell\nvery deep in the mind and soul, and be stirred by visions which seem\nto have no connection with outside things at all.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nPOETRY AND LIFE\n\n\nNow I will try to say how poetry enters into life for most of us; and\nthis is not an easy thing to express, because one can only look into\nthe treasure of one's own experience, wander through the corridors and\nhalls of memory, and see the faded tapestries, the pictures, and,\nabove all, the portraits which hang upon the walls. I suppose that\nthere are many people into whose spirits poetry only enters in the\nform of love, when they suddenly see a face that they have beheld\nperhaps often before, and have vaguely liked, and realise that it has\nsuddenly put on some new and delicate charm, some curve of cheek or\nfloating tress; or there is something in the glance that was surely\nnever there before, some consciousness of a secret that may be shared,\nsome signal of half-alarmed interest, something that shows that the\ntwo lives, the two hearts, have some joyful significance for each\nother; and then there grows up that marvellous mood which men call\nlove, which loses itself in hopes of meeting, in fears of coldness, in\ndesperate desires to please, to impress; and there arise too all sorts\nof tremulous affectations, which seem so petty, so absurd, and even so\nirritating, to the spectators of the awakening passion; desires to\npunish for the pleasure of forgiving, to withdraw for the joy of being\nrecalled; a wild elated drama in which the whole world recedes into\nthe background, and all life is merged for the lover in the\nhalf-sweet, half-fearful consciousness of one other soul,\n\n    Whose lightest whisper moves him more\n    Than all the ranged reasons of the world.\n\nAnd in this mood it is curious to note how inadequate common speech\nand ordinary language appear, to meet the needs of expression. Even\nyoung people with no literary turn, no gift of style, find their\nmemory supplying for them all sorts of broken echoes and rhetorical\nphrases, picked out of half-forgotten romances; speech must be\n_soigneux_ now, must be dignified, to meet so uplifting an experience.\nHow oddly like a book the young lover talks, using so naturally the\nloud inflated phrases that seem so divorced from common-sense and\nexperience! How common it is to see in law-reports, in cases which\ndeal with broken engagements of marriage, to find in the excited\nletters which are read and quoted an irresistible tendency to drop\ninto doggerel verse! It all seems to the sane reader such a grotesque\nkind of intoxication. Yet it is as natural as the airs and graces of\nthe singing canary, the unfurling of the peacock's fan, the held\nbreath and hampered strut of the turkey--a tendency to assume a\ngreatness and a nobility that one does not possess, to seem\nimpressive, tremendous, desirable. Ordinary talk will not do; it must\nrhyme, it must march, it must glitter, it must be stuck full of gems;\naccomplishments must be paraded, powers must be hinted at. The victor\nmust advance to triumph with blown trumpets and beaten drums; and in\nsolitude there must follow the reaction of despair, the fear that one\nhas disgraced oneself, seemed clumsy and dull, done ignobly. Every\nsensitive emotion is awake; and even the most serene and modest\nnatures, in the grip of passion, can become suspicious and\nself-absorbed, because the passion which consumes them is so fierce\nthat it shrivels all social restraints, and leaves the soul naked, and\nbent upon the most uncontrolled self-emphasis.\n\nBut apart from this urgent passion, there are many quieter ways in\nwhich the same spirit, the same emotion, which is nothing but a sense\nof self-significance, comes into the soul. Some are so inspired by\nmusic, the combinations of melodies, the intricate conspiracy of\nchords and ordered vibrations, when the orchestra is at work, the\ngreat droning horns with their hollow reluctant voices sustaining the\nshiver and ripple of the strings; or by sweeter, simpler cadences\nplayed at evening, when the garden scents wafted out of the fragrant\ndusk, the shaded lamps, the listening figures, all weave themselves\ntogether into a mysterious tapestry of the sense, till we wonder what\nstrange and beautiful scene is being enacted, and wherever we turn,\ncatch hints and echoes of some bewildering and gracious secret, just\nnot revealed!\n\nSome find it in pictures and statues, the mellow liquid pageant of\nsome old master-hand, a stretch of windspent moor, with its leaning\ngrasses and rifted crags, a dark water among glimmering trees at\ntwilight, a rich plain running to the foot of haze-hung mountains, the\nsharp-cut billows of a racing sea; or a statue with its shapely limbs\nand its veiled smile, or of the suspended strength of some struggling\nTitan: all these hold the same inexplicable appeal to the senses,\nindicating the efforts of spirits who have seen, and loved, and\nadmired, and hoped, and desired, striving to leave some record of the\njoy that thrilled and haunted, and almost tortured them; and to many\npeople the emotion comes most directly through the words and songs of\npoetry, that tell of joys lived through, and sorrows endured, of hopes\nthat could not be satisfied, of desires that could not know\nfulfilment; pictures, painted in words, of scenes such as we ourselves\nhave moved through in old moods of delight, scenes from which the\nmarvellous alchemy of memory has abstracted all the base and dark\nelements, leaving only the pure gold of remembered happiness--the wide\nupland with the far-off plain, the garden flooded with sun, the\ngrasses crisped with frost, the snow-laden trees, the flaming autumn\nwoods, the sombre forest at shut of day, when the dusk creeps\nstealthily along the glimmering aisles, the stream passing clear among\nlarge-leaved water-plants and spires of bloom; and the mood goes\ndeeper still, for it echoes the marching music of the heart, its\nglowing hopes, its longing for strength and purity and peace, its\ndelight in the nearness of other hearts, its wisdom, its nobility.\n\nBut the end and aim of all these various influences is the same; their\npower lies in the fact that they quicken in the spirit the sense of\nthe energy, the delight, the greatness of life, the share that we can\nclaim in them, the largeness of our own individual hope and destiny;\nand that is the real work of all the thoughts that may be roughly\ncalled poetical; that they reveal to us something permanent and strong\nand beautiful, something which has an irrepressible energy, and which\noutlines itself clearly upon the dark background of days, a spirit\nwith which we can join hands and hold deep communication, which we\ninstinctively feel is the greatest reality of the world. In such\nmoments we perceive that the times when we descend into the meaner\nand duller and drearier businesses of life are interludes in our real\nbeing, into which we have to descend, not because of the actual worth\nof the baser tasks, but that we may practise the courage and the hope\nwe ought to bring away from the heavenly vision. The more that men\nhave this thirst for beauty, for serene energy, for fulness of life,\nthe higher they are in the scale, and the less will they quarrel with\nthe obscurity and humility of their lives, because they are\nconfidently waiting for a purer, higher, more untroubled life, to\nwhich we are all on our way, whether we realise it or no!\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nART\n\n\nIt is not uncommon for me to receive letters from young aspirants,\ncontaining poems, and asking me for an opinion on their merits. Such a\nletter generally says that the writer feels it hardly worth while to\ngo on writing poetry unless he or she is assured that the poems are\nworth something. In such cases I reply that the answer lies there!\nUnless it seems worth while, unless indeed poetry is the outcome of an\nirrepressible desire to express something, it is certainly not worth\nwhile writing. On the other hand, if the desire is there, it is just\nas well worth practising as any other form of artistic expression. A\nman who liked sketching in water-colours would not be restrained from\ndoing so by the fear that he might not become an Academician, a person\nwho liked picking out tunes on a piano need not desist because there\nis no prospect of his earning money by playing in public!\n\nPoetry is of all forms of literary expression the least likely to\nbring a man credit or cash. Most intelligent people with a little gift\nof writing have a fair prospect of getting prose articles published.\nBut no one wants third-rate poetry; editors fight shy of it, and\nvolumes of it are unsaleable.\n\nI have myself written so much poetry, have published so many volumes\nof verse, that I can speak sympathetically on the subject. I worked\nvery hard indeed at poetry for seven or eight years, wrote little\nelse, and the published volumes form only a small part of my output,\nwhich exists in many manuscript volumes. I achieved no particular\nsuccess. My little books were fairly well received, and I sold a few\nhundred copies; I have even had a few pieces inserted in anthologies.\nBut though I have wholly deserted the practice of poetry, and though I\ncan by no means claim to be reckoned a poet, I do not in the least\nregret the years I gave to it. In the first place it was an intense\npleasure to write. The cadences, the metres, the language, the\nrhymes, all gave me a rapturous delight. It trained minute\nobservation--my poems were mostly nature-poems--and helped me to\ndisentangle the salient points and beauties of landscapes, hills,\ntrees, flowers, and even insects. Then too it is a very real training\nin the use of words; it teaches one what words are musical, sonorous,\neffective; while the necessity of having to fit words to metre\nincreases one's stock of words and one's power of applying them. When\nI came back to writing prose, I found that I had a far larger and more\nflexible vocabulary than I had previously possessed; and though the\nlanguage of poetry is by no means the same as that of prose--it is a\npity that the two kinds of diction are so different in English,\nbecause it is not always so in other languages--yet it made the\nwriting of ornamental and elaborate prose an easier matter; it gave\none too a sense of form; a poem must have a certain balance and\nproportion; so that when one who has written verse comes to write\nprose, a subject falls easily into divisions, and takes upon itself a\ncertain order of course and climax.\n\nBut these are only consequences and resulting advantages. The main\nreason for writing poetry is and must be the delight of doing it, the\nrapture of perceiving a beautiful subject, and the pleasure of\nexpressing it as finely and delicately as one can. I have given it up\nbecause, as William Morris once said of himself, \"to make poetry just\nfor the sake of making it is a crime for a man of my age and\nexperience!\"\n\n    One's feelings lose poetic flow\n    Soon after twenty-seven or so!\n\nOne begins to think of experience in a different sort of way, not as a\nseries of glowing points and pictures, which outline themselves\nradiantly upon a duller background, but as a rich full thing, like a\ngreat tapestry, all of which is important, if it is not all beautiful.\nIt is not that the marvel and wonder of life is less; but it is more\nequable, more intricate, more mysterious. It does not rise at times,\nlike a sea, into great crested breakers, but it comes marching in\nevenly, roller after roller, as far as the eye can reach.\n\nAnd then too poetry becomes cramped and confined for all that one\ndesires to say. One lived life, as a young man, rather for the sake\nof the emotions which occasionally transfigured it, with a priestly\nsense of its occasional splendour; there was not time to be leisurely,\nhumorous, gently interested. But as we grow older, we perceive that\npoetical emotion is but one of many forces, and our sympathy grows and\nextends itself in more directions. One had but little patience in the\nold days for quiet, prosaic, unemotional people; but now it becomes\nclear that a great many persons live life on very simple and direct\nlines; one wants to understand their point of view better, one is\nconscious of the merits of plainer stuff; and so the taste broadens\nand deepens, and becomes like a brimming river rather than a leaping\ncrystal fount. Life receives a hundred affluents, and is tinged with\nmany new substances; and one begins to see that if poetry is the\nfinest and sweetest interpretation of life, it is not always the\ncompletest or even the largest.\n\nIf we examine the lives of poets, we too often see how their\ninspiration flagged and failed. Milton indeed wrote his noblest verse\nin middle-age, after a life immersed in affairs. Wordsworth went on\nwriting to the end, but all his best poetry was written in about five\nearly years. Tennyson went on to a patriarchal age, but there is\nlittle of his later work that bears comparison with what he wrote\nbefore he was forty. Browning produced volume after volume, but, with\nthe exception of an occasional fine lyric, his later work is hardly\nmore than an illustration of his faults of writing. Coleridge deserted\npoetry very early; Byron, Shelley, Keats, all died comparatively\nyoung.\n\nThe Letters of Keats give perhaps a more vivid and actual view of the\nmind and soul of a poet than any other existing document. One sees\nthere, naively and nobly expressed, the very essence of the poetical\nnature, the very soil out of which poetry flowers. It is wonderful,\nbecause it is so wholly sane, simple, and unaffected. It is usual to\nsay that the Letters give one a picture of rather a second-rate and\nsuburban young man, with vulgar friends and _banal_ associations, with\none prodigious and matchless faculty. But it is that very background\nthat constitutes the supreme force of the appeal. Keats accepted his\ncircumstances, his friends, his duties with a singular modesty. He was\nnot for ever complaining that he was unappreciated and underestimated.\nHis commonplaceness, when it appears, is not a defect of quality, but\nan eager human interest in the personalities among whom his lot was\ncast. But every now and then there swells up a poignant sense of\npassion and beauty, a sacred, haunting, devouring fire of inspiration,\nwhich leaps high and clear upon the homely altar.\n\nThus he writes: \"This morning poetry has conquered--I have relapsed\ninto those abstractions which are my only life--I feel escaped from a\nnew, strange, and threatening sorrow.... There is an awful warmth\nabout my heart, like a load of immortality.\" Or again: \"I feel more\nand more every day, as my imagination strengthens, that I do not live\nin this world alone, but in a thousand worlds.\" And again: \"I have\nloved the principle of beauty in all things.\"\n\nOne sees in these passages that there not only is a difference of\nforce and passion, but an added quality of some kind in the mind of a\npoet, a combination of fine perception and emotion, which\ninstantaneously and instinctively translates itself into words.\n\nFor it must never be forgotten how essential a part of the poet is the\nknack of words. I do not doubt that there are hundreds of people who\nare haunted and penetrated by a lively sense of beauty, whose emotions\nare fiery and sweet, but who have not just the intellectual store of\nwords, which must drip like honey from an overflowing jar. It is a\ngift as definite as that of the sculptor or the musician, an exuberant\nfertility and swiftness of brain, that does not slowly and painfully\nfit a word into its place, but which breathes thought direct into\nmusic.\n\nThe most subtle account of this that I know is given in a passage in\nShelley's _Defence of Poetry_. He says: \"A man cannot say 'I will\ncompose poetry'--the greatest poet even cannot say it; for the mind in\ncreation is like a fading coal, which some invisible influence, like\nan inconstant wind, awakes to transitory brightness. The power arises\nfrom within, like the colour of a flower which fades and changes as it\nis developed, and the conscious portions of our nature are unprophetic\neither of its approach or its departure. When composition begins,\ninspiration is already on the decline.\"\n\nThat I believe is as true as it is beautiful. The best poetry is\nwritten in a sudden rapture, and probably needs but little\nreconsideration or retouching. One knows for instance how the _Ode to\nthe Nightingale_ was scribbled by Keats on a spring morning, in an\norchard at Hampstead, and so little regarded that it was rescued by a\nfriend from the volume into which he had crammed the slips of\nmanuscript. Of course poets vary greatly in their method; but one may\nbe sure of this, that no poem which was not a great poem in its first\ntranscript, ever becomes a great poem by subsequent handling. There\nare poets indeed like Rossetti and FitzGerald who made a worse poem\nout of a better by scrupulous correction; and the first drafts of\ngreat poems are generally the finest poems of all. A poem has\nsometimes been improved by excision, notably in the case of Tennyson,\nwhose abandoned stanzas, printed in his Life, show how strong his\ninstinct was for what was best and purest. A great poet, for instance,\nnever, like a lesser poet, keeps an unsatisfactory stanza for the sake\nof a good line. Tennyson, in a fine homely image, said that a poem\nmust have a certain curve of its own, like the curve of the rind of a\npared apple thrown on the floor. It must have a perfect evolution and\nprogress, and this can sometimes be best arrived at by the omission\nof stanzas in which the inconstant or flagging mind turned aside from\nits design.\n\nBut it is certain that if the poet gets so much into the habit of\nwriting poetry, that even when he has no sense of inspiration he must\nstill write to satisfy a craving, the result will be worthless, as it\ntoo often was in the case of Wordsworth. Because such poems become\nliterary instead of poetical; and literary poetry has no\njustification.\n\nIf we take a book like Rossetti's _House of Life_, we shall find that\ncertain sonnets stand out with a peculiar freshness and brightness, as\nin the golden sunlight of an autumn morning; while many of the sonnets\ngive us the sense of slow and gorgeous evolution, as if contrived by\nsome poetical machine. I was interested to find, in studying the\n_House of Life_ carefully, that all the finest poems are early work;\nand when I came to look at the manuscripts, I was rather horrified to\nsee what an immense amount of alternatives had been produced. There\nwould be, for instance, no less than eight or nine of those great\nslowly moving words, like 'incommunicable' or 'importunate' written\ndown, not so much to express an inevitable idea as to fill an\ninevitable space; and thus the poems seem to lose their pungency by\nthe slow absorption of painfully sought agglutinations of syllables,\nwith a stately music of their own, of course, but garnered rather than\nengendered. Rossetti's great dictum about the prime necessity for\npoetry being 'fundamental brainwork' led him here into error. The\nbrainwork must be fundamental and instinctive; it must all have been\ndone before the poem is conceived; and very often a poet acquires his\npower through sacrificing elaborate compositions which have taught him\ncertainty of touch, but are not in themselves great poetry. Subsequent\nbrainwork often merely clouds the effect, and it was that on which\nRossetti spent himself in vain.\n\nThe view which Keats took of his own _Endymion_ is a far larger and\nbolder one. \"I will write independently,\" he said. \"I have written\nindependently _without judgment_. I may write independently and _with\njudgment_ hereafter. The genius of poetry must work out its own\nsalvation in a man. It cannot be matured by law and precept, but by\nsensation and watchfulness in itself.\"\n\nOf course, fine craftsmanship is an absolute necessity; but it is\ncraftsmanship which is not only acquired by practice, but which is\nactually there from the first, just as Mozart, as a child of eight,\ncould play passages which would tax the skill of the most accomplished\nvirtuoso. It was not learnt by practice, that swift correspondence of\neye and hand, any more than the little swallow learns to fly; it knows\nit all already, and is merely finding out what it knows.\n\nAnd therefore there is no doubt that a man cannot become a poet by\ntaking thought. He can perhaps compose impressive verse, but that is\nall. Poetry is, as Plato says, a divine sort of experience, some\nstrange blending of inherited characteristics, perhaps the fierce\nemotion of some dumb ancestress combining with the verbal skill of\nsome unpoetical forefather. The receipt is unknown, not necessarily\nunknowable.\n\nOf course if one has poetry in one's soul, it is a tremendous\ntemptation to desire its expression, because the human race, with its\npoignant desire for transfiguring visions, strews the path of the\ngreat poet with bays, and remembers him as it remembers no other human\nbeings. What would one not give to interpret life thus, to flash the\nloveliness of perception into desirous minds, to set love and hope\nand yearning to music, to inspire anxious hearts with the sense that\nthere is something immensely large, tender, and significant behind it\nall! That is what we need to be assured of--our own significance, our\nown share in the inheritance of joy; and a poet can teach us to wait,\nto expect, to arise, to adore, when the circumstances of our lives are\nwrapped in mist and soaked with dripping rain. Perhaps that is the\ngreatest thing which poetry does for us, to reassure us, to enlighten\nus, to send us singing on our way, to bid us trust in God even though\nHe is concealed behind calamity and disaster, behind grief and\nheaviness, misinterpreted to us by philosophers and priests, and\nhorribly belied by the wrongful dealings of men.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nART AND MORALITY\n\n\nThere is a perpetual debate going on--one of those moulting\nshuttlecocks that serve to make one's battledore give out a merry\nsound--about the relation of art to morals, and whether the artist or\nthe poet ought to attempt to _teach_ anything. It makes a good kind of\ndebate, because it is conducted in large terms, to which the\ndisputants attach private meanings. The answer is a very simple one.\nIt is that art and morality are only beauty realised in different\nregions; and as to whether the artist ought to attempt to teach\nanything, that may be summarily answered by the simple dictum that no\nartist ought ever to attempt to teach anything, with which must be\ncombined the fact that no one who is serious about anything can\npossibly help teaching, whether he wishes or no!\n\nHigh art and high morality are closely akin, because they are both but\nan eager following of the law of beauty; but the artist follows it in\nvisible and tangible things, and the moralist follows it in the\nconduct and relations of life. Artists and moralists must be for ever\ncondemned to misunderstand each other, because the votary of any art\ncannot help feeling that it is the one thing worth doing in the world;\nand the artist whose soul is set upon fine hues and forms thinks that\nconduct must take care of itself, and that it is a tiresome business\nto analyse and formulate it; while the moralist who loves the beauty\nof virtue passionately, will think of the artist as a child who plays\nwith his toys, and lets the real emotions of life go streaming past.\n\nThis is a subject upon which it is as well to hear the Greeks, because\nthe Greeks were of all people who ever lived the most absorbingly\ninterested in the problems of life, and judged everything by a\nstandard of beauty. The Jews, of course, at least in their early\nhistory, had the same fiery interest in questions of conduct; but it\nwould be as absurd to deny to Plato an interest in morals as to\nwithhold the title of artist from Isaiah and the author of the Book\nof Job!\n\nPlato, as is well known, took a somewhat whimsical view of the work of\nthe poet. He said that he must exclude the poets from his ideal State,\nbecause they were the prophets of unreality. But he was thinking of a\nkind of man very different from the men whom we call poets. He thought\nof the poet as a man who served a patron, and tried to gloze over his\npatron's tyranny and baseness, under false terms of glory and majesty;\nor else he thought of dramatists, and considered them to be men who\nfor the sake of credit and money played skilfully upon the sentimental\nemotions of ordinary people; and he fought shy of the writers who used\ntragic passions for the amusement of a theatre. Aristotle disagreed\nwith Plato about this, and held that poetry was not exactly moral\nteaching, but that it disposed the mind to consider moral problems as\ninteresting. He said that in looking on at a play, a spectator\nsuffered, so to speak, by deputy, but all the same learned directly,\nif unconsciously, the beauty of virtue. When we come to our own\nElizabethans, there is no evidence that in their plays and poetry they\nthought about morals at all. No one has any idea whether Shakespeare\nhad any religion, or what it was; and he above all great writers that\never lived seems to have taken an absolutely impersonal view of the\nsins and affections of men and women. No one is scouted or censured or\ncondemned in Shakespeare; one sees and feels the point of view of his\nvillains and rogues; one feels with them that they somehow could\nhardly have done otherwise than they did; and to effect that is\nperhaps the crown of art.\n\nBut nowadays the poet, with whom one may include some few novelists,\nis really a very independent person. I am not now speaking of those\nwho write basely and crudely, to please a popular taste. They have\ntheir reward; and after all they are little more than mountebanks, the\nend of whose show is to gather up pence in the ring.\n\nBut the poet in verse is listened to by few people, unless he is very\ngreat indeed; and even so his reward is apt to be intangible and\nscanty; while to be deliberately a lesser poet is perhaps the most\nunworldly thing that a man can do, because he thus courts derision;\nindeed, if there is a bad sign of the world's temper just now, it is\nthat men will listen to politicians, scientists, men of commerce, and\njournalists, because these can arouse a sensation, or even confer\nmaterial benefits; but men will not listen to poets, because they have\nso little use for the small and joyful thoughts that make up some of\nthe best pleasures of life.\n\nIt is quite true, as I have said, that no artist ought ever\ndeliberately to try to teach people, because that is not his business,\nand one can only be a good artist by minding one's business, which is\nto produce beautiful things; and the moment one begins to try to\nproduce improving things, one goes off the line. But in England there\nhas been of late a remarkable fusion of morality and art. Ruskin and\nBrowning are clear enough proof that it is possible to be passionately\ninterested in moral problems in an artistic way; while at the same\ntime it is true, as I have said, that if any man cares eagerly for\nbeauty, and does his best to present it, he cannot help teaching all\nthose who are searching for beauty, and only require to be shown the\nway.\n\nThe work of all real teachers is to make great and arduous things seem\nsimple and desirable and beautiful. A teacher is not a person who\nprovides short-cuts to knowledge, or who only drills a character out\nof slovenly intellectual faults. The essence of all real teaching is a\nsort of inspiration. Take the case of a great teacher, like Arnold or\nJowett; Arnold lit in his pupils' minds a kind of fire, which was\nmoral rather than intellectual; Jowett had a power of putting a\nsuggestive brilliancy into dull words and stale phrases, showing that\nthey were but the crystallised formulas of ideas, which men had found\nwonderful or beautiful. The secret of such teaching is quite\nincommunicable, but it is a very high sort of art. There are many men\nwho feel the inspiration of knowledge very deeply, and follow it\npassionately, who yet cannot in the least communicate the glow to\nothers. But just as the great artist can paint a homely scene, such as\nwe have seen a hundred times, and throw into it something mysterious,\nwhich reaches out hands of desire far beyond the visible horizon, so\ncan a great teacher show that ideas are living things all bound up\nwith the high emotions of men.\n\nAnd thus the true poet, whether he writes verses or novels, is the\ngreatest of teachers, not because he trains and drills the mind, but\nbecause he makes the thing he speaks of appear so beautiful and\ndesirable that we are willing to undergo the training and drilling\nthat are necessary to be made free of the secret. He brings out, as\nPlato beautifully said, \"the beauty which meets the spirit like a\nbreeze, and imperceptibly draws the soul, even in childhood, into\nharmony with the beauty of reason.\" The work of the poet then is \"to\nelicit the simplest principles of life, to clear away complexity, by\ngiving a glowing and flashing motive to live nobly and generously, to\nrenew the unspoiled growth of the world, to reveal the secret hope\nsilently hidden in the heart of man.\"\n\n_Renovabitur ut aquila juventus tua_--thy youth shall be renewed as an\neagle--that is what we all desire! Indeed it would seem at first sight\nthat, to gain happiness, the best way would be, if one could, to\nprolong the untroubled zest of childhood, when everything was\ninteresting and exciting, full of novelty and delight. Some few people\nby their vitality can retain that freshness of spirit all their life\nlong. I remember how a friend of R. L. Stevenson told me, that\nStevenson, when alone in London, desperately ill, and on the eve of a\nsolitary voyage, came to see him; he himself was going to start on a\njourney the following day, and had to visit the lumber-room to get out\nhis trunks; Stevenson begged to be allowed to accompany him, and,\nsitting on a broken chair, evolved out of the drifted accumulations of\nthe place a wonderful romance. But that sort of eager freshness we\nmost of us find to be impossible as we grow older; and we are\nconfronted with the problem of how to keep care and dreariness away,\nhow to avoid becoming mere trudging wayfarers, dully obsessed by all\nwe have to do and bear. Can we not find some medicine to revive the\nfading emotion, to renew the same sort of delight in new thoughts and\nproblems which we found in childhood in all unfamiliar things, to\nbattle with the dreariness, the daily use, the staleness of life?\n\nThe answer is that it is possible, but only possible if we take the\nsame pains about it that we take to provide ourselves with comforts,\nto save money, to guard ourselves from poverty. Emotional poverty is\nwhat we most of us have to dread, and we must make investments if we\nwish for revenues. We are many of us hampered, as I have said, by the\ndreariness and dulness of the education we receive. But even that is\nno excuse for sinking into melancholy bankruptcy, and going about the\nworld full of the earnest capacity for woe, disheartened and\ndisheartening.\n\nA great teacher has the extraordinary power, not only of evoking the\nfinest capacities from the finest minds, but of actually giving to\nsecond-rate minds a belief that knowledge is interesting and worth\nattention. What we have to do, if we have missed coming under the\ninfluence of a great teacher, is resolutely to put ourselves in touch\nwith great minds. We shall not burst into flame at once perhaps, and\nthe process may seem but the rubbing of one dry stick against another;\none cannot prescribe a path, because we must advance upon the slender\nline of our own interests; but we can surely find some one writer who\nrevives us and inspires us; and if we persevere, we find the path\nslowly broadening into a road, while the landscape takes shape and\ndesign around us. The one thing fortunately of which there is enough\nand to spare in the world is good advice, and if we find ourselves\nhelpless, we can consult some one who seems to have a view of finer\nthings, whose delight is fresh and eager, whose handling of life\nseems gracious and generous. It is as possible to do this, as to\nconsult a doctor if we find ourselves out of health; and here we stiff\nand solitary Anglo-Saxons are often to blame, because we cannot bring\nourselves to speak freely of these things, to be importunate, to ask\nfor help; it seems to us at once impertinent and undignified; but it\nis this sort of dreary consideration, which is nothing but distorted\nvanity, and this still drearier dignity, which withholds from us so\nmuch that is beautiful.\n\nThe one thing then that I wish to urge is that we should take up the\npursuit in an entirely practical way; as Emerson said, with a splendid\nmixture of common sense and idealism, \"hitch our waggon to a star.\" It\nis easy enough to lose ourselves in a vague sentimentalism, and to\nbelieve that only our cramped conditions have hindered us from\ndeveloping into something very wonderful. It is easy too to drift into\nhelpless materialism, and to believe that dulness is the natural lot\nof man. But the realm of thought is a very free citizenship, and a\nhundred doors will open to us if we only knock at them. Moreover, that\nrealm is not like an over-populated country; it is infinitely large,\nand virgin soil; and we have only to stake out our claim; and then, if\nwe persevere, we shall find that our _Joyous Gard_ is really rising\ninto the air about us--where else should we build our castles?--with\nall the glory of tower and gable, of curtain-wall and battlement,\nterrace and pleasaunce, hall and corridor; our own self-built\nparadise; and then perhaps the knight, riding lonely from the sunset\nwoods, will turn in to keep us company, and the wandering minstrel\nwill bring his harp; and we may even receive other visitors, like the\nthree that stood beside the tent of Abraham in the evening, in the\nplain of Mamre, of whom no one asked the name or lineage, because the\nanswer was too great for mortal ears to hear.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nINTERPRETATION\n\n\nIs the secret of life then a sort of literary rapture, a princely\nthing, only possible through costly outlay and jealously selected\nhours, like a concert of stringed instruments, whose players are\nunknown, bursting on the ear across the terraces and foliaged walls of\nsome enchanted garden? By no means! That is the shadow of the artistic\nnature, that the rare occasions of life, where sound and scent and\nweather and sweet companionship conspire together, are so exquisite,\nso adorable, that the votary of such mystical raptures begins to plan\nand scheme and hunger for these occasions, and lives in discontent\nbecause they arrive so seldom.\n\nNo art, no literature, are worth anything at all unless they send one\nback to life with a renewed desire to taste it and to live it.\nSometimes as I sit on a sunny day writing in my chair beside the\nwindow, a picture of the box-hedge, the tall sycamores, the\nstone-tiled roof of the chapel, with the blue sky behind, globes\nitself in the lense of my spectacles, so entrancingly beautiful, that\nit is almost a disappointment to look out on the real scene. We like\nto see things mirrored thus and framed, we strangely made creatures of\nlife; why, I know not, except that our finite little natures love to\nselect and isolate experiences from the mass, and contemplate them so.\nBut we must learn to avoid this, and to realise that if a particle of\nlife, thus ordered and restricted, is beautiful, the thing itself is\nmore beautiful still. But we must not depend helplessly upon the\ninterpretations, the skilled reflections, of finer minds than our own.\nIf we learn from a wise interpreter or poet the quality and worth of a\nfraction of life, it is that we may gain from him the power to do the\nsame for ourselves elsewhere; we must learn to walk alone, not crave,\nlike a helpless child, to be for ever led and carried in kindly arms.\nThe danger of culture, as it is unpleasantly called, is that we get to\nlove things because poets have loved them, and as they loved them;\nand there we must not stay; because we thus grow to fear and mistrust\nthe strong flavours and sounds of life, the joys of toil and\nadventure, the desire of begetting, giving life, drawing a soul from\nthe unknown; we come to linger in a half-lit place, where things reach\nus faintly mellowed, as in a vision, through enfolding trees and at\nthe ends of enchanted glades. This book of mine lays no claim to be a\npageant of all life's joys; it leaves many things untouched and\nuntold; but it is a plea for this; that those who have to endure the\ncommon lot of life, who cannot go where they would, whose leisure is\nbut a fraction of the day, before the morning's toil and after the\ntask is done, whose temptation it is to put everything else away\nexcept food and sleep and work and anxiety, not liking life so but\nfinding it so;--it is a plea that such as these should learn how\nexperience, even under cramped conditions, may be finely and\nbeautifully interpreted, and made rich by renewed intention. Because\nthe secret lies hid in this, that we must observe life intently,\ngrapple with it eagerly; and if we have a hundred lives before us, we\ncan never conquer life till we have learned to ride above it, not\nwelter helplessly below it. And the cramped and restricted life is all\nthe grander for this, that it gives us a nobler chance of conquest\nthan the free, liberal, wealthy, unrestrained life.\n\nIn the _Romaunt of the Rose_ a little square garden is described, with\nits beds of flowers, its orchard-trees. The beauty of the place lies\npartly in its smallness, but more still in its running waters, its\nshadowy wells, wherein, as the writer says quaintly enough, are \"_no\nfrogs_,\" and the conduit-pipes that make a \"noise full-liking.\" And\nagain in that beautiful poem of Tennyson's, one of his earliest, with\nthe dew of the morning upon it, he describes _The Poet's Mind_ as a\ngarden:\n\n      In the middle leaps a fountain\n        Like sheet lightning,\n        Ever brightening\n      With a low melodious thunder;\n    All day and all night it is ever drawn\n      From the brain of the purple mountain\n      Which stands in the distance yonder: ...\n    And the mountain draws it from Heaven above,\n    And it sings a song of undying love.\n\nThat is a power which we all have, in some degree, to draw into our\nsouls, or to set running through them, the streams of Heaven--for\nlike water they will run in the dullest and darkest place if only they\nbe led thither; and the lower the place, the stronger the stream! I am\ncareful not to prescribe the source too narrowly, for it must be to\nour own liking, and to our own need. And so I will not say \"love this\nand that picture, read this and that poet!\" because it is just thus,\nby following direction too slavishly, that we lose our own particular\ninspiration. Indeed I care very little about fineness of taste,\nfastidious critical rejections, scoffs and sneers at particular\nfashions and details. One knows the epicure of life, the man who\nwithdraws himself more and more from the throng, cannot bear to find\nhimself in dull company, reads fewer and fewer books, can hardly eat\nand drink unless all is exactly what he approves; till it becomes\nalmost wearisome to be with him, because it is such anxious and\nscheming work to lay out everything to please him, and because he will\nnever take his chance of anything, nor bestir himself to make anything\nout of a situation which has the least commonness or dulness in it. Of\ncourse only with the command of wealth is such life possible; but the\nmore delicate such a man grows, the larger and finer his maxims\nbecome, and the more he casts away from his philosophy the need of\npractising anything. One must think, such men say, clearly and finely,\none must disapprove freely, one must live only with those whom one can\nadmire and love; till they become at last like one of those sad\nascetics, who spent their time on the top of pillars, and for ever\ndrew up stones from below to make the pillar higher yet.\n\nOne is at liberty to mistrust whatever makes one isolated and\nsuperior; not of course that one's life need be spent in a sort of\ndiffuse sociability; but one must practise an ease that is never\nembarrassed, a frankness that is never fastidious, a simplicity that\nis never abashed; and behind it all must spring the living waters,\nwith the clearness of the sky and the cleanness of the hill about\nthem, running still swiftly and purely in our narrow garden-ground,\nand meeting the kindred streams that flow softly in many other glad\nand desirous hearts.\n\nIn the beautiful old English poem, _The Pearl_, where the dreamer\nseems to be instructed by his dead daughter Marjory in the heavenly\nwisdom, she tells him that \"all the souls of the blest are equal in\nhappiness--that they are all kings and queens.\"[1] That is a heavenly\nkind of kingship, when there are none to be ruled or chidden, none to\nlabour and serve; but it means the fine frankness and serenity of mind\nwhich comes of kingship, the perfect ease and dignity which springs\nfrom not having to think of dignity or pre-eminence at all.\n\nLong ago I remember how I was sent for to talk with Queen Victoria in\nher age, and how much I dreaded being led up to her by a majestic\nlord-in-waiting; she sate there, a little quiet lady, so plainly\ndressed, so simple, with her hands crossed on her lap, her sanguine\ncomplexion, her silvery hair, yet so crowned with dim history and\ntradition, so great as to be beyond all pomp or ceremony, yet wearing\nthe awe and majesty of race and fame as she wore her plain dress. She\ngave me a little nod and smile, and began at once to talk in the sweet\nclear voice that was like the voice of a child. Then came my\nastonishment. She knew, it seemed, all about me and my doings, and\nthe doings of my relations and friends--not as if she had wished to be\nprepared to surprise me; but because her motherly heart had wanted to\nknow, and had been unable to forget. The essence of that charm, which\nflooded all one's mind with love and loyalty, was not that she was\ngreat, but that she was entirely simple and kind; because she loved,\nnot her great part in life, but life itself.\n\nThat kingship and queenship is surely not out of the reach of any of\nus; it depends upon two things: one, that we keep our minds and souls\nfresh with the love of life, which is the very dew of heaven; and the\nother that we claim not rights but duties, our share in life, not a\ncontrol over it; if all that we claim is not to rule others, but to be\ninterested in them, if we will not be shut out from love and care,\nthen the sovereignty is in sight, and the nearer it comes the less\nshall we recognise it; for the only dignity worth the name is that\nwhich we do not know to be there.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 1: See Professor W. P. Ker's _English Literature, Mediaeval_,\np. 194.]\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nEDUCATION\n\n\nIt is clear that the progress of the individual and the world alike\ndepends upon the quickening of ideas. All civilisation, all law, all\norder, all controlled and purposeful life, will be seen to depend on\nthese ideas and emotions. The growing conception of the right of every\nindividual to live in some degree of comfort and security is nothing\nbut the taking shape of these ideas and emotions; for the end of all\ncivilisation is to ensure that there shall be freedom for all from\ndebasing and degrading conditions, and that is perhaps as far as we\nhave hitherto advanced; but the further end in sight is to set all men\nand women free to some extent from hopeless drudgery, to give them\nleisure, to provide them with tastes and interests; and further still,\nto contrive, if possible, that human beings shall not be born into\nthe world of tainted parentage, and thus to stamp out the tyranny of\ndisease and imbecility and criminal instinct. More and more does it\nbecome clear that all the off-scourings and failures of civilisation\nare the outcome of diseased brains and nerves, and that self-control\nand vigour are the results of nature rather than nurture. All this is\nnow steadily in sight. The aim is personal freedom, the freedom which\nshall end where another's freedom begins; but we recognise now that it\nis no use legislating for social and political freedom, if we allow\nthe morally deficient to beget offspring for whom moral freedom is an\nimpossibility. And perhaps the best hope of the race lies in firmly\nfacing this problem.\n\nBut, as I say, we have hardly entered upon this stage. We have to deal\nwith things as they are, with many natures tainted by moral\nfeebleness, by obliquity of vision, by lack of proportion. The hope at\npresent lies in the endeavour to find some source of inspiration, in a\ndetermination not to let men and women grow up with fine emotions\natrophied; and here the whole system of education is at fault. It is\nall on the lines of an intellectual gymnastic; little or nothing is\ndone to cultivate imagination, to feed the sense of beauty, to arouse\ninterest, to awaken the sleeping sense of delight. There is no doubt\nthat all these emotions are dormant in many people. One has only to\nreflect on the influence of association, to know how children who grow\nup in a home atmosphere which is fragrant with beautiful influences,\ngenerally carry on those tastes and habits into later life. But our\neducation tends neither to make men and women efficient for the simple\nduties of life, nor to-arouse the gentler energies of the spirit. \"You\nmust remember you are translating poetry,\" said a conscientious master\nto a boy who was construing Virgil. \"It's not poetry when I translate\nit!\" said the boy. I look back at my own schooldays, and remember the\nbare, stately class-rooms, the dry wind of intellect, the dull murmur\nof work, neither enjoyed nor understood; and I reflect how small a\npart any fanciful or beautiful or leisurely interpretation ever played\nin our mental exercises; the first and last condition of any fine sort\nof labour--that it should be enjoyed--was put resolutely out of sight,\nnot so much as an impossible adjunct, as a thing positively\nenervating and contemptible. Yet if one subtracts the idea of\nenjoyment from labour, there is no beauty-loving spirit which does not\ninstantly and rightly rebel. There must be labour, of course,\neffective, vigorous, brisk labour, overcoming difficulties, mastering\nuncongenial details; but the end should be enjoyment; and it should be\nmade clear that the greater the mastery, the richer the enjoyment; and\nthat if one cannot enjoy a thing without mastering it, neither can one\never really master it without enjoying it.\n\nWhat we need, in education, is some sense of far horizons and\nbeautiful prospects, some consciousness of the largeness and mystery\nand wonder of life. To take a simple instance, in my own education. I\nread the great books of Greece and Rome; but I knew hardly anything of\nthe atmosphere, the social life, the human activity out of which they\nproceeded. One did not think of the literature of the Greeks as of a\nfountain of eager beauty springing impulsively and instinctively out\nof the most ardent, gracious, sensitive life that any nation has ever\nlived. One knew little of the stern, businesslike, orderly, grasping\nRoman temperament, in which poetry flowered so rarely, and the arts\nnot at all, until the national fibre began to weaken and grow\ndissolute. One studied history in those days, as if one was mastering\nstatute-books, blue-books, gazettes, office-files; one never grasped\nthe clash of individualities, or the real interests and tastes of the\nnations that fought and made laws and treaties. It was all a dealing\nwith records and monuments, just the things that happened to survive\ndecay--as though one's study of primitive man were to begin and end\nwith sharpened flints!\n\nWhat we have now to do, in this next generation, is not to leave\neducation a dry conspectus of facts and processes, but to try rather\nthat children should learn something of the temper and texture of the\nworld at certain vivid points of its history; and above all perceive\nsomething of the nature of the world as it now is, its countries, its\nnationalities, its hopes, its problems. That is the aim, that we\nshould realise what kind of a thing life is, how bright and yet how\nnarrow a flame, how bounded by darkness and mystery, and yet how vivid\nand active within its little space of sun.\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\nKNOWLEDGE\n\n\n\"Knowledge is power,\" says the old adage; and yet so meaningless now,\nin many respects, do the words sound, that it is hard even to\nrecapture the mental outlook from which it emanated. I imagine that it\ndates from a time when knowledge meant an imagined acquaintance with\nmagical secrets, short cuts to wealth, health, influence, fame. Even\nnow the application of science to the practical needs of man has some\nsemblance of power about it; the telephone, wireless telegraphy, steam\nengines, anaesthetics--these are powerful things. But no man is\nprofited by his discoveries; he cannot keep them to himself, and use\nthem for his own private ends. The most he can do is to make a large\nfortune out of them. And as to other kinds of knowledge, erudition,\nlearning, how do they profit the possessor? \"No one knows anything\nnowadays,\" said an eminent man to me the other day; \"it is not worth\nwhile! The most learned man is the man who knows best where to find\nthings.\" There still appears, in works of fiction, with pathetic\npersistence, a belief that learning still lingers at Oxford and\nCambridge; those marvellous Dons, who appear in the pages of novels,\nmen who read folios all the morning and drink port all the evening,\nwhere are they in reality? Not at Cambridge, certainly. I would travel\nmany miles, I would travel to Oxford, if I thought I could find such\nan adorable figure. But the Don is now a brisk and efficient man of\nbusiness, a paterfamilias with provision to make for his family. He\nhas no time for folios and no inclination for port. Examination papers\nin the morning, and a glass of lemonade at dinner, are the notes of\nhis leisure days. The belief in uncommercial knowledge has indeed died\nout of England. Eton, as Mr. Birrell said, can hardly be described as\na place of education; and to what extent can Oxford and Cambridge be\ndescribed as places of literary research? A learned man is apt to be\nconsidered a bore, and the highest compliment that can be paid him is\nthat one would not suspect him of being learned.\n\nThere is, indeed, a land in which knowledge is respected, and that is\nAmerica. If we do not take care, the high culture will desert our\nshores, like Astraea's flying hem, and take her way Westward, with the\ncourse of Empire.\n\nA friend of mine once told me that he struggled up a church-tower in\nFlorence, a great lean, pale brick minaret, designed, I suppose, to be\nlaminated with marble, but cheerfully abandoned to bareness; he came\nout on to one of those high balustraded balconies, which in mediaeval\npictures seem to have been always crowded with fantastically dressed\npersons, and are now only visited by tourists. The silvery city lay\noutspread beneath him, with the rapid mud-stained river passing to the\nplain, the hill-side crowded with villas embowered in green gardens,\nand the sad-coloured hills behind. While he was gazing, two other\ntourists, young Americans, came quietly out on to the balcony, a\nbrother and sister, he thought. They looked out for a time in silence,\nleaning on the parapet; and then the brother said softly, \"How much\nwe should enjoy all this, if we were not so ignorant!\" Like all\nAmericans, they wanted to know! It was not enough for them to see the\nhigh houses, the fantastic towers, the great blind blocks of mediaeval\npalaces, thrust so grimly out above the house-tops. It all meant life\nand history, strife and sorrow, it all needed interpreting and\ntransfiguring and re-peopling; without that it was dumb and silent,\nvague and bewildering. One does not know whether to admire or to sigh!\nOught one not to be able to take beauty as it comes? What if one does\nnot want to know these things, as Shelley said to his lean and\nembarrassed tutor at Oxford? If knowledge makes the scene glow and\nlive, enriches it, illuminates it, it is well. And perhaps in England\nwe learn to live so incuriously and naturally among historical things\nthat we forget the existence of tradition, and draw it in with the air\nwe breathe, just realising it as a pleasant background and not caring\nto investigate it or master it. It is hard to say what we lose by\nignorance, is hard to say what we should gain by knowledge. Perhaps to\nwant to know would be a sign of intellectual and emotional activity;\nbut it could not be done as a matter of duty--only as a matter of\nenthusiasm.\n\nThe poet Clough once said, \"It makes a great difference to me that\nMagna Charta was signed at Runnymede, but it does not make much\ndifference to me to know that it was signed.\" The fact that it was so\nsigned affects our liberties, the knowledge only affects us, if it\ninspires us to fresh desire of liberty, whatever liberty may be. It is\neven more important to be interested in life than to be interested in\npast lives. It was Scott, I think, who asked indignantly,\n\n    Lives there the man with soul so dead,\n    Who never to himself hath said\n    This is my own, my native land?\n\nI do not know how it may be in Scotland! Dr. Johnson once said rudely\nthat the finest prospect a Scotchman ever saw was the high road that\nmight take him to England; but I should think that if Scott's is a\nfair test of deadness of soul, there must be a good many people in\nEngland who are as dead as door-nails! The Englishman is not very\nimaginative; and a farmer who was accustomed to kneel down like\nAntaeus, and kiss the soil of his orchard, would be thought an\neccentric!\n\nShall we then draw a cynical conclusion from all this, and say that\nknowledge is a useless burden; or if we think so, why do we think it?\nI have very little doubt in my own mind that why so many young men\ndespise and even deride knowledge is because knowledge has been\npresented to them in so arid a form, so little connected with anything\nthat concerns them in the remotest degree. We ought, I think, to wind\nour way slowly back into the past from the present; we ought to start\nwith modern problems and modern ideas, and show people how they came\ninto being; we ought to learn about the world, as it is, first, and\nclimb the hill slowly. But what we do is to take the history of the\npast, Athens and Rome and Judaea, three glowing and shining realms, I\nreadily admit; but we leave the gaps all unbridged, so that it seems\nremote, abstruse, and incomprehensible that men should ever have lived\nand thought so.\n\nThen we deluge children with the old languages, not teaching them to\nread, but to construe, and cramming the little memories with hideous\ngrammatical forms. So the whole process of education becomes a dreary\nwrestling with the uninteresting and the unattainable; and when we\nhave broken the neck of infantile curiosity with these uncouth\nburdens, we wonder that life becomes a place where the only aim is to\nget a good appointment, and play as many games as possible.\n\nYet learning need not be so cumbrously carried after all! I was\nreading a few days ago a little book by Professor Ker, on mediaeval\nEnglish, and reading it with a species of rapture. It all came so\nfreshly and pungently out of a full mind, penetrated with zest and\nenjoyment. One followed the little rill of literary craftsmanship so\neasily out of the plain to its high source among the hills, till I\nwondered why on earth I had not been told some of these delightful\nthings long ago, that I might have seen how our great literature took\nshape. Such scraps of knowledge as I possess fell into shape, and I\nsaw the whole as in a map outspread.\n\nAnd then I realised that knowledge, if it was only rightly directed,\ncould be a beautiful and attractive thing, not a mere fuss about\nnothing, dull facts reluctantly acquired, readily forgotten.\n\nAll children begin by wanting to know, but they are often told not to\nbe tiresome, which generally means that the elder person has no answer\nto give, and does not like to appear ignorant. And then the time comes\nfor Latin Grammar, and Cicero de Senectute, and Caesar's Commentaries,\nand the bewildered stripling privately resolves to have no more than\nhe can help to do with these antique horrors. The marvellous thing\nseems to him to be that men of flesh and blood could have found it\nworth their while to compose such things.\n\nErudition, great is thy sin! It is not that one wants to deprive the\nsavant of his knowledge; one only wants a little common-sense and\nimaginative sympathy. How can a little boy guess that some of the most\nbeautiful stories in the world lie hid among a mass of wriggling\nconsonants, or what a garden lurks behind the iron gate, with [Greek:\nblosko] and [Greek: moloumai] to guard the threshold?\n\nI am not going here to discuss the old curriculum. \"Let 'em 'ave it!\"\nas the parent said to the schoolmaster, under the impression that it\nwas some instrument of flagellation--as indeed it is, I look round my\nbook-lined shelves, and reflect how much of interest and pleasure\nthose parallel rows have meant to me, and how I struggled into the use\nof them outside of and not because of my so-called education; and how\nmuch they might mean to others if they had not been so conscientiously\nbumped into paths of peace.\n\n\"Nothing,\" said Pater, speaking of art in one of his finest passages,\n\"nothing which has ever engaged the great and eager affections of men\nand women can ever wholly lose its charm.\" Not to the initiated,\nperhaps! But I sometimes wonder if anything which has been taught with\ndictionary and grammar, with parsing and construing, with detention\nand imposition, can ever wholly regain its charm. I am afraid that we\nmust make a clean sweep of the old processes, if we have any intention\nof interesting our youth in the beauty of human ideas and their\nexpression. But while we do not care about beauty and interest in\nlife, while we conscientiously believe, in spite of a cataract of\nhelpless facts, in the virtues of the old grammar-grind, so long shall\nwe remain an uncivilised nation. Civilisation does not consist in\ncommercial prosperity, or even in a fine service of express trains.\nIt resides in quick apprehension, lively interest, eager sympathy ...\nat least I suspect so.\n\n\"Like a crane or a swallow, so did I chatter!\" said the rueful\nprophet. I do not write as a pessimist, hardly as a critic; still less\nas a censor; to waste time in deriding others' theories of life is a\nvery poor substitute for enjoying it! I think we do very fairly well\nas we are; only do not let us indulge in the cant in which educators\nso freely indulge, the claim that we are interested in ideas\nintellectual or artistic, and that we are trying to educate our youth\nin these things. We do produce some intellectual athletes, and we\nknock a few hardy minds more or less into shape; but meanwhile a great\nriver of opportunities, curiosity, intelligence, taste, interest,\npleasure, goes idly weltering, through mud-flats and lean promontories\nand bare islands to the sea. It is the loss, the waste, the folly, of\nit that I deplore.\n\n\n\n\nX\n\nGROWTH\n\n\nAs the years go on, what one begins to perceive about so many\npeople--though one tries hard to believe it is not so--is that somehow\nor other the mind does not grow, the view does not alter; life ceases\nto be a pilgrimage, and becomes a journey, such as a horse takes in a\nfarm-cart. He is pulling something, he has got to pull it, he does not\ncare much what it is--turnips, hay, manure! If he thinks at all, he\nthinks of the stable and the manger. The middle-aged do not try\nexperiments, they lose all sense of adventure. They make the usual\nkind of fortification for themselves, pile up a shelter out of\nprejudices and stony opinions. It is out of the wind and rain, and the\nprospect is safely excluded. The landscape is so familiar that the\nentrenched spirit does not even think about it, or care what lies\nbehind the hill or across the river.\n\nNow of course I do not mean that people can or should play fast and\nloose with life, throw up a task or a position the moment they are\nbored with it, be at the mercy of moods. I am speaking here solely of\nthe possible adventures of mind and soul; it is good, wholesome,\ninvigorating, to be tied to a work in life, to have to discharge it\nwhether one likes it or no, through indolence and disinclination,\nthrough depression and restlessness. But we ought not to be immured\namong conventions and received opinions. We ought to ask ourselves why\nwe believe what we take for granted, and even if we do really believe\nit at all. We ought not to condemn people who do not move along the\nsame lines of thought; we ought to change our minds a good deal, not\nout of mere levity, but because of experience. We ought not to think\ntoo much of the importance of what we are doing, and still less of the\nimportance of what we have done; we ought to find a common ground on\nwhich to meet distasteful people; we ought to labour hard against\nself-pity as well as against self-applause; we ought to feel that if\nwe have missed chances, it is out of our own heedlessness and\nstupidity. Self-applause is a more subtle thing even than self-pity,\nbecause, if one rejects the sense of credit, one is apt to\ncongratulate oneself on being the kind of person who does reject it,\nwhereas we ought to avoid it as instinctively as we avoid a bad smell.\nAbove all, we ought to believe that we can do something to change\nourselves, if we only try; that we can anchor our conscience to a\nresponsibility or a personality, can perceive that the society of\ncertain people, the reading of certain books, does affect us, make our\nmind grow and germinate, give us a sense of something fine and\nsignificant in life. The thing is to say, as the prim governess says\nin Shirley, \"You acknowledge the inestimable worth of principle?\"--it\nis possible to get and to hold a clear view, as opposed to a muddled\nview, of life and its issues; and the blessing is that one can do this\nin any circle, under any circumstances, in the midst of any kind of\nwork. That is the wonderful thing about thought, that it is like a\ncaptive balloon which is anchored in one's garden. It is possible to\nclimb into it and to cast adrift; but so many people, as I have said,\nseem to end by pulling the balloon in, letting out the gas, and\npacking the whole away in a shed. Of course the power of doing all\nthis varies very much in different temperaments; but I am sure that\nthere are many people who, looking back at their youth, are conscious\nthat they had something stirring and throbbing within them which they\nhave somehow lost; some vision, some hope, some faint and radiant\nideal. Why do they lose it, why do they settle down on the lees of\nlife, why do they snuggle down among comfortable opinions? Mostly, I\nam sure, out of a kind of indolence. There are a good many people who\nsay to themselves, \"After all, what really matters is a solid defined\nposition in the world; I must make that for myself, and meanwhile I\nmust not indulge myself in any fancies; it will be time to do that\nwhen I have earned my pension and settled my children in life.\" And\nthen when the time arrives, the frail and unsubstantial things are all\ndead and cannot be recovered; for happiness cannot be achieved along\nthese cautious and heavy lines.\n\nAnd so I say that we must deliberately aim at something different\nfrom the first. We must not block up the further views and wider\nprospects; we must keep the horizon open. What I here suggest has\nnothing whatever that is unpractical about it; it is only a deeper\nforesight, a more prudent wisdom. We must say to ourselves that\nwhatever happens, the soul shall not be atrophied; and we should be as\nanxious about it, if we find that it is losing its zest and freedom,\nas we should be if we found that the body were losing its appetite!\n\nIt is no metaphor then, but sober earnest, when I say that when we\ntake our place in the working world, we ought to lay the foundations\nof that other larger stronghold of the soul, _Joyous Gard_. All that\nmatters is that we should choose a fair site for it in free air and\nbeside still waters; and that we should plan it for ourselves, set out\ngardens and plantations, with as large a scheme as we can make for it,\nexpecting the grace and greenery that shall be, and the increase which\nGod gives. It may be that we shall have to build it slowly, and we may\nhave to change the design many times; but it will be all built out of\nour own mind and hope, as the nautilus evolves its shell.\n\nI am not speaking of a scheme of self-improvement, of culture followed\nthat it may react on our profession or bring us in touch with useful\npeople, of mental discipline, of correct information. The _Gard_ is\nnot to be a factory or an hotel; it must be frankly built _for our\ndelight_. It is delight that we must follow, everything that brims the\nchannel of life, stimulates, freshens, enlivens, tantalises, attracts.\nIt must at all costs be beautiful. It must embrace that part of\nreligion that glows for us, the thing which we find beautiful in other\nsouls, the art, the poetry, the tradition, the love of nature, the\ncraft, the interests we hanker after. It need not contain all these\nthings, because we can often do better by checking diffuseness, and by\nresolute self-limitation. It is not by believing in particular books,\npictures, tunes, tastes, that we can do it. That ends often as a mere\nprison to the thought; it is rather by meeting the larger spirit that\nlies behind life, recognising the impulse which meets us in a thousand\nforms, which forces us not to be content with narrow and petty things,\nbut emerges as the energy, whatever it is, that pushes through the\ncrust of life, as the flower pushes through the mould. Our dulness,\nour acquiescence in monotonous ways, arise from our not realising how\ninfinitely important that force is, how much it has done for man, how\nbarren life is without it. Here in England many of us have a dark\nsuspicion of all that is joyful, inherited perhaps from our Puritan\nancestry, a fear of yielding ourselves to its influence, a terror of\nbeing grimly repaid for indulgence, an old superstitious dread of\nsomehow incurring the wrath of God, if we aim at happiness at all. We\nmust know, many of us, that strange shadow which falls upon us when we\nsay, \"I feel so happy to-day that some evil must be going to befal\nme!\" It is true that afflictions must come, but they are not to spoil\nour joy; they are rather to refine it and strengthen it. And those who\nhave yielded themselves to joy are often best equipped to get the best\nout of sorrow.\n\nWe must aim then at fulness of life; not at husbanding our resources\nwith meagre economy, but at spending generously and fearlessly,\ngrasping experience firmly, nurturing zest and hope. The frame of mind\nwe must be beware of, which is but a stingy vanity, is that which\nmakes us say, \"I am sure I should not like that person, that book,\nthat place!\" It is that closing-in of our own possibilities that we\nmust avoid.\n\nThere is a verse in the Book of Proverbs that often comes into my\nmind; it is spoken of a reprobate, whose delights indeed are not those\nthat the soul should pursue; but the temper in which he is made to\ncling to the pleasure which he mistakes for joy, is the temper, I am\nsure, in which one should approach life. He cries, \"_They have\nstricken me, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it\nnot. When shall I awake? I will seek it yet again._\"\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\nEMOTION\n\n\nWe are a curious nation, we English! Stendhal says that our two most\npatent vices are bashfulness and cant. That is to say, we are afraid\nto say what we think, and when we have gained the courage to speak, we\nsay more than we think. We are really an emotional nation at heart,\neasily moved and liking to be moved; we are largely swayed by feeling,\nand much stirred by anything that is picturesque. But we are strangely\nashamed of anything that seems like sentiment; and so far from being\nbluff and unaffected about it, we are full of the affectation, the\npretence of not being swayed by our emotions. We have developed a\ncurious idea of what men and women ought to be; and one of our\npretences is that men should affect not to understand sentiment, and\nto leave, as we rudely say, \"all that sort of thing to the women.\" Yet\nwe are much at the mercy of clap-trap and mawkish phrases, and we like\nrhetoric partly because we are too shy to practise it. The result of\nit is that we believe ourselves to be a frank, outspoken, good-natured\nrace; but we produce an unpleasant effect of stiffness, angularity,\ndiscourtesy, and self-centredness upon more genial nations. We defend\nour bluffness by believing that we hold emotion to be too rare and\nsacred a quality to be talked about, though I always have a suspicion\nthat if a man says that a subject is too sacred to discuss, he\nprobably also finds it too sacred to think about very much either; yet\nif one can get a sensible Englishman to talk frankly and unaffectedly\nabout his feelings, it is often surprising to find how delicate they\nare.\n\nOne of our chief faults is our love of property, and the consequence\nof that is our admiration for what we call \"businesslike\" qualities.\nIt is really from the struggle between the instinct of possession and\nthe emotional instinct that our bashfulness arises; we are afraid of\ngiving ourselves away, and of being taken advantage of; we value\nposition and status and respectability very high; we like to know who\na man is, what he stands for, what his influence amounts to, what he\nis worth; and all this is very injurious to our simplicity, because we\nestimate people so much not by their real merits but by their\naccumulated influence. I do not believe that we shall ever rise to\ntrue greatness as a nation until we learn not to take property so\nseriously. It is true that we prosper in the world at present, we keep\norder, we make money, we spread a bourgeois sort of civilisation, but\nit is not a particularly fine or fruitful civilisation, because it\ndeals so exclusively with material things. I do not wish to decry the\nrace, because it has force, toughness, and fine working qualities; but\nwe do not know what to do with our prosperity when we have got it; we\ncan make very little use of leisure; and our idea of success is to\nhave a well-appointed house, expensive amusements, and to distribute a\ndull and costly hospitality, which ministers more to our own\nsatisfaction than to the pleasure of the recipients.\n\nThere really can be few countries where men are so contented to be\ndull! There is little speculation or animation or intelligence or\ninterest among us, and people who desire such an atmosphere are held\nto be fanciful, eccentric, and artistic. It was not always so with our\nrace. In Elizabethan times we had all the inventiveness, the love of\nadventure, the pride of dominance that we have now; but there was then\na great interest in things of the mind as well, a lively taste for\nideas, a love of beautiful things and thoughts. The Puritan uprising\nknocked all that on the head, but Puritanism was at least preoccupied\nwith moral ideas, and developed an excitement about sin which was at\nall events a sign of intellectual ferment. And then we did indeed\ndecline into a comfortable sort of security, into a stale classical\ntradition, with pompous and sonorous writing on the one hand, and with\nneatness, literary finish, and wit rather than humour on the other.\nThat was a dull, stolid, dignified time; and it was focussed into a\ngreat figure of high genius, filled with the combative common-sense\nwhich Englishmen admire, the figure of Dr. Johnson. His influence, his\ntemperament, portrayed in his matchless biography, did indeed dominate\nliterary England to its hurt; because the essence of Johnson was his\nfreshness, and in his hands the great rolling Palladian sentences\ncontrived to bite and penetrate; but his imitators did not see that\nfreshness was the one requisite; and so for a generation the pompous\nrotund tradition flooded English prose; but for all that, England was\nsaved in literature from mere stateliness by the sudden fierce\ninterest in life and its problems which burst out like a spring in\neighteenth-century fiction; and so we come to the Victorian era, when\nwe were partially submerged by prosperity, scientific invention,\ncommerce, colonisation. But the great figures of the century arose and\nhad their say--Carlyle, Tennyson, Browning, Ruskin, William Morris; it\nwas there all the time, that spirit of fierce hope and discontent and\nemotion, that deep longing to penetrate the issues and the\nsignificance of life.\n\nIt may be that the immense activity of science somewhat damped our\ninterest in beauty; but that is probably a temporary thing. The\ninfluence exerted by the early scientists was in the direction of\nfacile promises to solve all mysteries, to analyse everything into\nelements, to classify, to track out natural laws; and it was believed\nthat the methods and processes of life would be divested of their\nsecrecy and their irresponsibility; but the effect of further\ninvestigation is to reveal that life is infinitely more complex than\nwas supposed, and that the end is as dim as ever; though science did\nfor a while make havoc of the stereotyped imaginative systems of faith\nand belief, so that men supposed that beauty was but an accidental\nemphasis of law, and that the love of it could be traced to very\nmaterial preferences.\n\nThe artist was for a time dismayed, at being confronted by the chemist\nwho held that he had explained emotion because he had analysed the\nsubstance of tears; and for a time the scientific spirit drove the\nspirit of art into cliques and coteries, so that artists were hidden,\nlike the Lord's prophets, by fifties in caves, and fed upon bread and\nwater.\n\nWhat mostly I would believe now injures and overshadows art, is that\nartists are affected by the false standard of prosperous life, are not\ncontent to work in poverty and simplicity, but are anxious, as all\nambitious natures who love applause must be, to share in the spoils\nof the Philistines. There are, I know, craftsmen who care nothing at\nall for these things, but work in silence and even in obscurity at\nwhat seems to them engrossing and beautiful; but they are rare; and\nwhen there is so much experience and pleasure and comfort abroad, and\nwhen security and deference so much depend upon wealth, the artist\ndesires wealth, more for the sake of experience and pleasure than for\nthe sake of accumulation.\n\nBut the spirit which one desires to see spring up is the Athenian\nspirit, which finds its satisfaction in ideas and thoughts and\nbeautiful emotions, in mental exploration and artistic expression; and\nis so absorbed, so intent upon these things that it can afford to let\nprosperity flow past like a muddy stream. Unfortunately, however, the\nEnglish spirit is solitary rather than social, and the artistic spirit\nis jealous rather than inclusive; and so it comes about that instead\nof artists and men of ideas consorting together and living a free and\nsimple life, they tend to dwell in lonely fortresses and paradises,\ncostly to create, costly to maintain. The English spirit is against\ncommunities. If it were not so, how easy it would be for people to\nlive in groups and circles, with common interests and tastes, to\nencourage each other to believe in beautiful things, and to practise\nardent thoughts and generous dreams. But this cannot be done\nartificially, and the only people who ever try to do it are artists,\nwho do occasionally congregate in a place, and make no secret to each\nother of what they are pursuing. I have sometimes touched the fringe\nof a community like that, and have been charmed by the sense of a more\neager happiness, a more unaffected intercourse of spirits than I have\nfound elsewhere. But the world intervenes! domestic ties, pecuniary\ninterests, civic claims disintegrate the group. It is sad to think how\npossible such intercourse is in youth, and in youth only, as one sees\nit displayed in that fine and moving book _Trilby_, which does\ncontrive to reflect the joy of the buoyant companionship of art. But\nthe flush dies down, the insouciance departs, and with it the ardent\ngenerosity of life. Some day perhaps, when life has become simpler and\nwealth more equalised, when work is more distributed, when there is\nless production of unnecessary things, these groups will form\nthemselves, and the frank, eager, vivid spirit of youth will last on\ninto middle-age, and even into age itself. I do not think that this is\nwholly a dream; but we must first get rid of much of the pompous\nnonsense about money and position, which now spoils so many lives; and\nif we could be more genuinely interested in the beauty and complex\ncharm and joy of life, we should think less and less of material\nthings, be content with shelter, warmth, and food, and grudge the time\nwe waste in providing things for which we have no real use, simply in\norder that, like the rich fool, we may congratulate ourselves on\nhaving much goods laid up for many years, when the end was hard at\nhand!\n\n\n\n\nXII\n\nMEMORY\n\n\nMemory is for many people the only form of poetry which they indulge.\nIf a soul turns to the future for consolation in a sad or wearied or\ndisappointed present, it is in religion that hope and strength are\nsometimes found; but if it is a retrospective nature--and the poetical\nnature is generally retrospective, because poetry is concerned with\nthe beauty of actual experience and actual things, rather than with\nthe possible and the unknown--then it finds its medicine for the\ndreariness of life in memory. Of course there are many simple and\nhealthy natures which do not concern themselves with visions at\nall--the little businesses, the daily pleasures, are quietly and even\neagerly enjoyed. But the poetical nature is the nature that is not\neasily contented, because it tends to idealisation, to the thought\nthat the present might easily be so much happier, brighter, more\nbeautiful, than it is.\n\n    An eager soul that looks beyond\n    And shivers in the midst of bliss,\n    That cries, \"I should not need despond,\n    If this were otherwise, and this!\"\n\nAnd so the soul that has seen much and enjoyed much and endured much,\nand whose whole life has been not spoiled, of course, but a little\nshadowed by the thought that the elements of happiness have never been\nquite as pure as it would have wished, turns back in thought to the\nold scenes of love and companionship, and evokes from the dark, as\nfrom the pages of some volume of photographs and records, the pictures\nof the past, retouching them, it is true, and adapting them, by deftly\nremoving all the broken lights and intrusive anxieties, not into what\nthey actually were, but into what they might have been. Carlyle laid\nhis finger upon the truth of this power, when he said that the reason\nwhy the pictures of the past were always so golden in tone, so\ndelicate in outline, was because the quality of fear was taken from\nthem. It is the fear of what may be and what must be that overshadows\npresent happiness; and if fear is taken from us we are happy. The\nstrange thing is that we cannot learn not to be afraid, even though\nall the darkest and saddest of our experiences have left us unscathed;\nand if we could but find a reason for the mingling of fear with our\nlives, we should have gone far towards solving the riddle of the\nworld.\n\nThis indulgence of memory is not necessarily a weakening or an\nenervating thing, so long as it does not come to us too early, or\ndisengage us from needful activities. It is often not accompanied by\nany shadow of loss or bitterness. I remember once sitting with my\nbeloved old nurse, when she was near her ninetieth year, in her little\nroom, in which was gathered much of the old nursery furniture, the\ntiny chairs of the children, the store-cupboard with the farmyard\npictures on the panel, the stuffed pet-birds--all the homely wrack of\nlife; and we had been recalling many of the old childish incidents\nwith laughter and smiles. When I rose to go, she sate still for a\nminute, and her eyes filled with quiet tears, \"Ah, those were happy\ndays!\" she said. But there was no repining about it, no sense that it\nwas better to forget old joys--rather a quiet pleasure that so much\nthat was beautiful and tender was laid away in memory, and could\nneither be altered nor taken away. And one does not find in old\npeople, whose memory of the past is clear, while their recollection of\nthe present grows dim, any sense of pathos, but rather of pride and\neagerness about recalling the minutest details of the vanished days.\nTo feel the pathos of the past, as Tennyson expressed it in that\nwonderful and moving lyric, _Tears, idle tears_, is much more\ncharacteristic of youth. There is rather in serene old age a sense of\npleasant triumph at having safely weathered the storms of fate, and\nleft the tragedies of life behind. The aged would not as a rule live\nlife over again, if they could. They are not disappointed in life.\nThey have had, on the whole, what they hoped and desired. As Goethe\nsaid, in that deep and large maxim, \"Of that which a man desires in\nhis youth, he shall have enough in his age.\" That is one of the most\nsingular things in life--at least this is my experience--how the\nthings which one really desired, not the things which one ought to\nhave desired, are showered upon one. I have been amazed and even\nstupefied sometimes to consider how my own little petty, foolish,\nwhimsical desires have been faithfully and literally granted me. We\nmost of us do really translate into fact what we desire, and as a rule\nwe only fail to get the things which we have not desired enough. It is\ntrue indeed that we often find that what we desired was not worth\ngetting; and we ought to be more afraid of our desires, not because we\nshall not get them, but because we shall almost certainly have them\nfulfilled. For myself I can only think with shame how closely my\npresent conditions do resemble my young desires, in all their petty\nrange, their trivial particularity. I suppose I have unconsciously\npursued them, chosen them, grasped at them; and the shame of it is\nthat if I had desired better things, I should assuredly have been\ngiven them. I see, or seem to see, the same thing in the lives of many\nthat I know. What a man sows he shall reap! That is taken generally to\nmean that if he sows pleasure, he shall reap disaster; but it has a\nmuch truer and more terrible meaning than that--namely, that if a man\nsows the seed of small, trivial, foolish joys, the grain that he\nreaps is small, trivial, and foolish too. God is indeed in many ways\nan indulgent Father, like the Father in the parable of the Prodigal\nSon; and the best rebuke that He gives, if we have the wisdom to see\nit, is that He so often does hand us, with a smile, the very thing we\nhave desired. And thus it is well to pray that He should put into our\nminds good desires, and that we should use our wills to keep ourselves\nfrom dwelling too much upon small and pitiful desires, for the fear is\nthat they will be abundantly gratified.\n\nAnd thus when the time comes for recollection, it is a very wonderful\nthing to look back over life, and see how eagerly gracious God has\nbeen to us. He knows very well that we cannot learn the paltry value\nof the things we desire, if they are withheld from us, but only if\nthey are granted to us; and thus we have no reason to doubt His\nfatherly intention, because He does so much dispose life to please us.\nAnd we need not take it for granted that He will lead us by harsh and\nprovocative discipline, though when He grants our desire, He sometimes\nsends leanness withal into our soul. Yet one of the things that\nstrikes one most forcibly, as one grows older and learns something of\nthe secrets of other lives, is how lightly and serenely men and women\ndo often bear what might seem to be intolerable calamities. How\nuniversal an experience it is to find that when the expected calamity\ndoes come, it is an easier affair than we thought it, so that we say\nunder the blow, \"Is that really all?\" In that wonderful book, the\nDiary of Sir Walter Scott, when his bankruptcy fell upon him, and all\nthe schemes and designs that he had been carrying out, with the joyful\nzest of a child--his toy-castle, his feudal circle, his wide\nestate--were suddenly suspended, he wrote with an almost amused\nsurprise that he found how little he really cared, and that the people\nwho spoke tenderly and sympathetically to him, as though he must be\nreeling under the catastrophe, would themselves be amazed to find that\nhe found himself as cheerful and undaunted as ever. Life is apt, for\nall vivid people, to be a species of high-hearted game: it is such fun\nto play it as eagerly as one can, and to persuade oneself that one\nreally cares about the applause, the money, the fine house, the\ncomforts, the deference, the convenience of it all. And yet, if there\nis anything noble in a man or woman, when the game is suddenly\ninterrupted and the toys swept aside, they find that there is\nsomething exciting and stimulating in having to do without, in\nadapting themselves with zest to the new conditions. It was a good\ngame enough, but the new game is better! The failure is to take it all\nheavily and seriously, to be solemn about it; for then failure is\ndisconcerting indeed. But if one is interested in experience, but yet\nhas the vitality to see how detached one really is from material\nthings, how little they really affect us, then the change is almost\ngrateful. It is the spirit of the game, the activity, the energy, that\ndelights us, not the particular toy. And so the looking back on life\nought never to be a mournful thing; it ought to be light-hearted,\nhigh-spirited, amusing. The spirit survives, and there is yet much\nexperience ahead of us. We waste our sense of pathos very strangely\nover inanimate things. We get to feel about the things that surround\nus, our houses, our very chairs and tables, as if they were somehow\nthings that were actually attached to us. We feel, when the old house\nthat has belonged to our family passes into other hands, as though\nthe rooms resented the intruders; as though our sofas and cabinets\ncould not be at ease in other hands, as if they would almost prefer\nshabby and dusty inaction in our own lumber-room, to cheerful use in\nsome other circle. This is a delusion of which we must make haste to\nget rid. It is the weakest sort of sentiment, and yet it is treasured\nby many natures as if it were something refined and noble. To yield to\nit, is to fetter our life with self-imposed and fantastic chains.\nThere is no sort of reason why we should not love to live among\nfamiliar things; but to break our hearts over the loss of them is a\nreal debasing of ourselves. We must learn to use the things of life\nvery lightly and detachedly; and to entrench ourselves in trivial\nassociations is simply to court dreariness and to fall into a stupor\nof the spirit.\n\nAnd thus even our old memories must be treated with the same lightness\nand unaffectedness. We must do all we can to forget grief and\ndisaster. We must not consecrate a shrine to sorrow and make the\nvotive altar, as Dido did, into a _causa doloris_, an excuse for\nlamentation. We must not think it an honourable and chivalrous and\nnoble thing to spend our time in broken-hearted solemnity in the\nvaults of perished joys. Or if we do it, we must frankly confess it to\nbe a weakness and a languor of spirit, not believe it to be a thing\nwhich others ought to admire and respect. It was one of the base\nsentimentalities of the last century, a real sign of the decadence of\nlife, that people felt it to be a fine thing to cherish grief, and to\nlive resolutely with sighs and tears. The helpless widow of\nnineteenth-century fiction, shrouded in crape, and bursting into tears\nat the smallest sign of gaiety, was a wholly unlovely, affected,\ndramatic affair. And one of the surest signs of our present vitality\nis that this attitude has become not only unusual, but frankly absurd\nand unfashionable. There is an intense and gallant pathos about a\nnature broken by sorrow, making desperate attempts to be cheerful and\nactive, and not to cast a shadow of grief upon others. There is no\npathos at all in the sight of a person bent on emphasising his or her\ngrief, on using it to make others uncomfortable, on extracting a\nrecognition of its loyalty and fidelity and emotional fervour.\n\nOf course there are some memories and experiences that must grave a\ndeep and terrible mark upon the heart, the shock of which has been so\nsevere, that the current of life must necessarily be altered by them.\nBut even then it is better as far as possible to forget them and to\nput them away from us--at all events, not to indulge them or dwell in\nthem. To yield is simply to delay the pilgrimage, to fall exhausted in\nsome unhappy arbour by the road. The road has to be travelled, every\ninch of it, and it is better to struggle on in feebleness than to\ncollapse in despair.\n\nMrs. Charles Kingsley, in her widowhood, once said to a friend,\n\"Whenever I find myself thinking too much about Charles, I simply\nforce myself to read the most exciting novel I can. He is there, he is\nwaiting for me; and hearts were made to love with, not to break.\"\n\nAnd as the years go on, even the most terrible memories grow to have\nthe grace and beauty which nature lavishes on all the relics of\nextinct forces and spent agonies. They become like the old grey broken\ncastle, with the grasses on its ledges, and the crows nesting in its\nparapets, rising blind and dumb on its green mound, with the hamlet\nat its feet; or like the craggy islet, severed by the raging sea from\nthe towering headland, where the samphire sprouts in the rift, and the\nsea-birds roost, at whose foot the surges lap, and over whose head the\nlandward wind blows swiftly all the day.\n\n\n\n\nXIII\n\nRETROSPECT\n\n\nBut one must not forget that after all memory has another side, too\noften a rueful side, and that it often seems to turn sour and\npoisonous in the sharp decline of fading life; and this ought not to\nbe. I would like to describe a little experience of my own which came\nto me as a surprise, but showed me clearly enough what memory can be\nand what it rightly is, if it is to feed the spirit at all.\n\nNot very long ago I visited Lincoln, where my father was Canon and\nChancellor from 1872 to 1877. I had only been there once since then,\nand that was twenty-four years ago. When we lived there I was a small\nEton boy, so that it was always holiday time there, and a place which\nrecalls nothing but school holidays has perhaps an unfair advantage.\nMoreover it was a period quite unaccompanied, in our family life, by\nany sort of trouble, illness, or calamity. The Chancery of Lincoln is\nconnected in my mind with no tragic or even sorrowful event whatever,\nand suggests no painful reminiscence. How many people, I wonder, can\nsay that of any home that has sheltered them for so long?\n\nOf course Lincoln itself, quite apart from any memories or\nassociations, is a place to kindle much emotion. It was a fine sunny\nday there, and the colour of the whole place was amazing--the rich\nwarm hue of the stone of which the Minster is built, which takes on a\nfine ochre-brown tinge where it is weathered, gives it a look of\nhomely comfort, apart from the matchless dignity of clustered transept\nand soaring towers. Then the glowing and mellow brick of Lincoln, its\nscarlet roof tiles--what could be more satisfying for instance than\nthe dash of vivid red in the tiling of the old Palace as you see it on\nthe slope among its gardens from the opposite upland?--its\nsmoke-blackened facades, the abundance, all over the hill, of old\nembowered gardens, full of trees and thickets and greenery, its grassy\nspaces, its creeper-clad houses; the whole effect is one of\nextraordinary richness of hue, of age vividly exuberant, splendidly\nadorned.\n\nI wandered transported about Cathedral and close, and became aware\nthen of how strangely unadventurous in the matter of exploration one\nhad always been as a boy. It was true that we children had scampered\nwith my father's master-key from end to end of the Cathedral--wet\nmornings used constantly to be spent there--so that I know every\nstaircase, gallery, clerestory, parapet, triforium, and roof-vault of\nthe building--but I found in the close itself many houses, alleys,\nlittle streets, which I had actually never seen, or even suspected\ntheir existence.\n\nIt was all full of little ghosts, and a tiny vignette shaped itself in\nmemory at every corner, of some passing figure--a good-natured Canon,\na youthful friend, Levite or Nethinim, or some deadly enemy, the son\nperhaps of some old-established denizen of the close, with whom for\nsome unknown reason the Chancery schoolroom proclaimed an inflexible\nfeud.\n\nBut when I came to see the old house itself--so little changed, so\ndistinctly recollected--then I was indeed amazed at the torrent of\nlittle happy fragrant memories which seemed to pour from every doorway\nand window--the games, the meals, the plays, the literary projects,\nthe readings, the telling of stories, the endless, pointless,\nenchanting wanderings with some breathless object in view, forgotten\nor transformed before it was ever attained or executed, of which\nchildren alone hold the secret.\n\nBest of all do I recollect long summer afternoons spent in the great\nsecluded high-walled garden at the back, with its orchard, its mound\ncovered with thickets, and the old tower of the city wall, which made\na noble fortress in games of prowess or adventure. I can see the\nfigure of my father in his cassock, holding a little book, walking up\nand down among the gooseberry-beds half the morning, as he developed\none of his unwritten sermons for the Minster on the following day.\n\nI do not remember that very affectionate relations existed between us\nchildren; it was a society, based on good-humoured tolerance and a\ncertain democratic respect for liberty, that nursery group; it had its\ncliques, its sections, its political emphasis, its diplomacies; but it\nwas cordial rather than emotional, and bound together by common\ninterests rather than by mutual devotion.\n\nThis, for instance, was one of the ludicrous incidents which came back\nto me. There was an odd little mediaeval room on the ground-floor,\ngiven up as a sort of study, in the school sense, to my elder brother\nand myself. My younger brother, aged almost eight, to show his power,\nI suppose, or to protest against some probably quite real grievance or\ntangible indignity, came there secretly one morning in our absence,\ntook a shovelful of red-hot coals from the fire, laid them on the\nhearth-rug, and departed. The conflagration was discovered in time,\nthe author of the crime detected, and even the most tolerant of\nsupporters of nursery anarchy could find nothing to criticise or\ncondemn in the punishment justly meted out to the offender.\n\nBut here was the extraordinary part of it all. I am myself somewhat\nafraid of emotional retrospect, which seems to me as a rule to have a\npeculiarly pungent and unbearable smart about it. I do not as a rule\nlike revisiting places which I have loved and where I have been happy;\nit is simply incurring quite unnecessary pain, and quite fruitless\npain, deliberately to unearth buried memories of happiness.\n\nNow at Lincoln the other day I found, to my wonder and relief, that\nthere was not the least touch of regret, no sense of sorrow or loss in\nthe air. I did not want it all back again, nor would I have lived\nthrough it again, even if I could have done so. The thought of\nreturning to it seemed puerile; it was charming, delightful, all full\nof golden prospects and sunny mornings, but an experience which had\nyielded up its sweetness as a summer cloud yields its cooling rain,\nand passes over. Yet it was all a perfectly true, real, and actual\npart of my life, something of which I could never lose hold and for\nwhich I could always be frankly grateful. Life has been by no means a\nscene of untroubled happiness since then; but there came to me that\nday, walking along the fragrant garden-paths, very clearly and\ndistinctly, the knowledge that one would not wish one's life to have\nbeen untroubled! Halcyon calm, heedless innocence, childish joy, was\nnot after all the point--pretty things enough, but only as a change\nand a relief, or perhaps rather as a prelude to more serious business!\nI was, as a boy, afraid of life, hated its noise and scent, suspected\nit of cruelty and coarseness, wanted to keep it at arm's length. I\nfeel very differently about life now; it's a boisterous business\nenough, but does not molest one unduly; and a very little courage goes\na long way in dealing with it!\n\nTrue, on looking back, the evolution was dim and obscure; there seemed\nmany blind alleys and passages, many unnecessary winds and turns in\nthe road; but for all that the trend was clear enough, at all events,\nto show that there was some great and not unkindly conspiracy about me\nand my concerns, involving every one else's concerns as well, some\ngood-humoured mystery, with a dash of shadow and sorrow across it\nperhaps, which would be soon cleared up; some secret withheld as from\na child, the very withholder of which seems to struggle with\ngood-tempered laughter, partly at one's dulness in not being able to\nguess, partly at the pleasure in store.\n\nI think it is our impatience, our claim to have everything\nquestionable made instantly and perfectly plain to us, which does the\nmischief--that, and the imagination which never can forecast any\nrelief or surcease of pain, and pays no heed whatever to the\nastounding brevity, the unutterable rapidity of human life.\n\nSo, as I walked in the old garden, I simply rejoiced that I had a\nshare in the place which could not be gainsaid; and that, even if the\nhigh towers themselves, with their melodious bells, should crumble\ninto dust, I still had my dear memory of it all: the old life, the old\nvoices, looks, embraces, came back in little glimpses; yet it was far\naway, long past, and I did not wish it back; the present seemed a\nperfectly natural and beautiful sequence, and that past life an old\nsweet chapter of some happy book, which needs no rewriting.\n\nSo I looked back in joy and tenderness--and even with a sort of\ncompassion; the child whom I saw sauntering along the grass paths of\nthe garden, shaking the globed rain out of the poppy's head, gathering\nthe waxen apples from the orchard grass, he was myself in very\ntruth--there was no doubting that; I hardly felt different. But I had\ngained something which he had not got, some opening of eye and heart;\nand he had yet to bear, to experience, to pass through, the days which\nI had done with, and which, in spite of their much sweetness, had yet\na bitterness, as of a healing drug, underneath them, and which I did\nnot wish to taste again. No, I desired no renewal of old things, only\nthe power of interpreting the things that were new, and through which\neven now one was passing swiftly and carelessly, as the boy ran among\nthe fruit-trees of the garden; but it was not the golden fragrant husk\nof happiness that one wanted, but the seed hidden within\nit--experience was made sweet just that one might be tempted to live!\nYet the end of it all was not the pleasure or the joy that came and\npassed, the gaiety, even the innocence of childhood, but something\nstern and strong, which hardly showed at all at first, but at last\nseemed like the slow work of the graver of gems brushing away the\nglittering crystalline dust from the intaglio.\n\n\n\n\nXIV\n\nHUMOUR\n\n\nThe Castle of _Joyous Gard_ was always full of laughter; not the wild\ngiggling, I think, of reckless people, which the writer of Proverbs\nsaid was like the crackling of thorns under a pot; that is a wearisome\nand even an ugly thing, because it does not mean that people are\nhonestly amused, but have some basely exciting thing in their minds.\nLaughter must be light-hearted, not light-minded. Still less was it\nthe dismal tittering of ill-natured people over mean gossip, which is\nanother of the ugly sounds of life. No, I think it was rather the\nlaughter of cheerful people, glad to be amused, who hardly knew that\nthey were laughing; that is a wholesome exercise enough. It was the\nlaughter of men and women, with heavy enough business behind them and\nbefore them, but yet able in leisurely hours to find life full of\nmerriment--the voice of joy and health! And I am sure too that it was\nnot the guarded condescending laughter of saints who do not want to be\nout of sympathy with their neighbours, and laugh as precisely and\npunctually as they might respond to a liturgy, if they discover that\nthey are meant to be amused!\n\nHumour is one of the characteristics of _Joyous Gard_, not humour\nresolutely cultivated, but the humour which comes from a sane and\nhealthy sense of proportion; and is a sign of light-heartedness rather\nthan a thing aimed at; a thing which flows naturally into the easy\nspaces of life, because it finds the oddities of life, the\npeculiarities of people, the incongruities of thought and speech, both\ncharming and delightful.\n\nIt is a great misfortune that so many people think it a mark of\nsaintliness to be easily shocked, whereas the greatest saints of all\nare the people who are never shocked; they may be distressed, they may\nwish things different; but to be shocked is often nothing but a mark\nof vanity, a self-conscious desire that others should know how high\none's standard, how sensitive one's conscience is. I do not of course\nmean that one is bound to join in laughter, however coarse a jest may\nbe; but the best-bred and finest-tempered people steer past such\nmoments with a delicate tact; contrive to show that an ugly jest is\nnot so much a thing to be disapproved of and rebuked, as a sign that\nthe jester is not recognising the rights of his company, and\noutstepping the laws of civility and decency.\n\nIt is a very difficult thing to say what humour is, and probably it is\na thing that is not worth trying to define. It resides in the\nincongruity of speech and behaviour with the surrounding\ncircumstances.\n\nI remember once seeing two tramps disputing by the roadside, with the\ngravity which is given to human beings by being slightly overcome with\ndrink. I suppose that one ought not to be amused by the effects of\ndrunkenness, but after all one does not wish people to be drunk that\none may be amused. The two tramps in question were ragged and\ninfinitely disreputable. Just as I came up, the more tattered of the\ntwo flung his hat on the ground, with a lofty gesture like that of a\nking abdicating, and said, \"I'll go no further with you!\" The other\nsaid, \"Why do you say that? Why will you go no further with me?\" The\nfirst replied, \"No, I'll go no further with you!\" The other said, \"I\nmust know why you will go no further with me--you must tell me that!\"\nThe first replied, with great dignity, \"Well, I will tell you that! It\nlowers my self-respect to be seen with a man like you!\"\n\nThat is the sort of incongruity I mean. The tragic solemnity of a man\nwho might have changed clothes with the nearest scarecrow without a\nperceptible difference, and whose life was evidently not ordered by\nany excessive self-respect, falling back on the dignity of human\nnature in order to be rid of a companion as disreputable as himself,\nis what makes the scene so grotesque, and yet in a sense so\nimpressive, because it shows a lurking standard of conduct which no\npitiableness of degradation could obliterate. I think that is a good\nillustration of what I mean by humour, because in the presence of such\na scene it is possible to have three perfectly distinct emotions. One\nmay be sorry with all one's heart that men should fall to such\nconditions, and feel that it is a stigma on our social machinery that\nit should be so. Those two melancholy figures were a sad blot upon\nthe wholesome countryside! Yet one may also discern a hope in the mere\npossibility of framing an ideal under such discouraging circumstances,\nwhich will be, I have no sort of doubt, a seed of good in the upward\nprogress of the poor soul which grasped it; because indeed I have no\ndoubt that the miserable creature _is_ on an upward path, and that\neven if there is no prospect for him in this life of anything but a\ndismal stumbling down into disease and want, yet I do not in the least\nbelieve that that is the end of his horizon or his pilgrimage; and\nthirdly, one may be genuinely and not in the least evilly amused at\nthe contrast between the disreputable squalor of the scene and the\nlofty claim advanced. The three emotions are not at all inconsistent.\nThe pessimistic moralist might say that it was all very shocking, the\noptimistic moralist might say that it was hopeful, the unreflective\nhumourist might simply be transported by the absurdity; yet not to be\namused at such a scene would appear to me to be both dull and\npriggish. It seems to me to be a false solemnity to be shocked at any\nlapses from perfection; a man might as well be shocked at the\nexistence of a poisonous snake or a ravening tiger. One must \"see life\nsteadily and see it whole,\" and though we may and must hope that we\nshall struggle upwards out of the mess, we may still be amused at the\ndolorous figures we cut in the mire.\n\nI was once in the company of a grave, decorous, and well-dressed\nperson who fell helplessly into a stream off a stepping-stone. I had\nno wish that he should fall, and I was perfectly conscious of intense\nsympathy with his discomfort; but I found the scene quite\ninexpressibly diverting, and I still simmer with laughter at the\nrecollection of the disappearance of the trim figure, and his furious\nemergence, like an oozy water-god, from the pool. It is not in the\nleast an ill-natured laughter. I did not desire the catastrophe, and I\nwould have prevented it if I could; but it was dreadfully funny for\nall that; and if a similar thing had happened to myself, I should not\nresent the enjoyment of the scene by a spectator, so long as I was\nhelped and sympathised with, and the merriment decently repressed\nbefore me.\n\nI think that what is called practical joking, which aims at\ndeliberately producing such situations, is a wholly detestable thing.\nBut it is one thing to sacrifice another person's comfort to one's\nlaughter, and quite another to be amused at what a fire-insurance\npolicy calls the act of God.\n\nAnd I am very sure of this, that the sane, healthy, well-balanced\nnature must have a fund of wholesome laughter in him, and that so far\nfrom trying to repress a sense of humour, as an unkind, unworthy,\ninhuman thing, there is no capacity of human nature which makes life\nso frank and pleasant a business. There are no companions so\ndelightful as the people for whom one treasures up jests and\nreminiscences, because one is sure that they will respond to them and\nenjoy them; and indeed I have found that the power of being\nirresponsibly amused has come to my aid in the middle of really tragic\nand awful circumstances, and has relieved the strain more than\nanything else could have done.\n\nI do not say that humour is a thing to be endlessly indulged and\nsought after; but to be genuinely amused is a sign of courage and\namiability, and a sign too that a man is not self-conscious and\nself-absorbed. It ought not to be a settled pre-occupation. Nothing\nis more wearisome than the habitual jester, because that signifies\nthat a man is careless and unobservant of the moods of others. But it\nis a thing which should be generously and freely mingled with life;\nand the more sides that a man can see to any situation, the more rich\nand full his nature is sure to be.\n\nAfter all, our power of taking a light-hearted view of life is\nproportional to our interest in it, our belief in it, our hopes of it.\nOf course, if we conclude from our little piece of remembered\nexperience, that life is a woeful thing, we shall be apt to do as the\nold poets thought the nightingale did, to lean our breast against a\nthorn, that we may suffer the pain which we propose to utter in liquid\nnotes. But that seems to me a false sentiment and an artificial mode\nof life, to luxuriate in sorrow; even that is better than being\ncrushed by it; but we may be sure that if we wilfully allow ourselves\nto be one-sided, it is a delaying of our progress. All experience\ncomes to us that we may not be one-sided; and if we learn to weep with\nthose that weep, we must remember that it is no less our business to\nrejoice with those that rejoice. We are helped beyond measure by\nthose who can tell us and convince us, as poets can, that there is\nsomething beautiful in sorrow and loss and severed ties; by those who\nshow us the splendour of courage and patience and endurance; but the\ntrue faith is to believe that the end is joy; and we therefore owe\nperhaps the largest debt of all to those who encourage us to enjoy, to\nlaugh, to smile, to be amused.\n\nAnd so we must not retire into our fortress simply for lonely visions,\nsweet contemplation, gentle imagination; there are rooms in our castle\nfit for that, the little book-lined cell, facing the sunset, the high\nparlour, where the gay, brisk music comes tripping down from the\nminstrels' gallery, the dim chapel for prayer, and the chamber called\n_Peace_--where the pilgrim slept till break of day, \"and then he awoke\nand sang\"; but there is also the well-lighted hall, with cheerful\ncompany coming and going; where we must put our secluded, wistful,\nsorrowful thought aside, and mingle briskly with the pleasant throng,\nnot steeling ourselves to mirth and movement, but simply glad and\ngrateful to be there.\n\nIt was while I was writing these pages that a friend told me that he\nhad recently met a man, a merchant, I think, who did me the honour to\ndiscuss my writings at a party and to pronounce an opinion upon them.\nHe said that I wrote many things which I did not believe, and then\nstood aside, and was amused in a humorous mood to see that other\npeople believed them. It would be absurd to be, or even to feel,\nindignant at such a travesty of my purpose as this, and indeed I think\nthat one is never very indignant at misrepresentation unless one's\nmind accuses itself of its being true or partially true.\n\nIt is indeed true that I have said things about which I have since\nchanged my mind, as indeed I hope I shall continue to change it, and\nas swiftly as possible, if I see that the former opinions are not\njustified. To be thus criticised is, I think, the perfectly natural\npenalty of having tried to be serious without being also solemn; there\nare many people, and many of them very worthy people, like our friend\nthe merchant, who cannot believe one is in earnest if one is not also\nheavy-handed. Earnestness is mixed up in their minds with bawling and\nsweating; and indeed it is quite true that most people who are willing\nto bawl and sweat in public, feel earnestly about the subjects to\nwhich they thus address themselves. But I do not see that earnestness\nis in the least incompatible with lightness of touch and even with\nhumour, though I have sometimes been accused of displaying none.\nSocrates was in earnest about his ideas, but the penalty he paid for\ntreating them lightly was that he was put to death for being so\nsceptical. I should not at all like the idea of being put to death for\nmy ideas; but I am wholly in earnest about them, and have never\nconsciously said anything in which I did not believe.\n\nBut I will go one step further and say that I think that many earnest\nmen do great harm to the causes they advocate, because they treat\nideas so heavily, and divest them of their charm. One of the reasons\nwhy virtue and goodness are not more attractive is because they get\ninto the hands of people without lightness or humour, and even without\ncourtesy; and thus the pursuit of virtue seems not only to the young,\nbut to many older people, to be a boring occupation, and to be\nconducted in an atmosphere heavy with disapproval, with dreariness and\ndulness and tiresomeness hemming the neophyte in, like fat bulls of\nBashan. It is because I should like to rescue goodness, which is the\nbest thing in the world, next to love, from these growing influences,\nthat I have written as I have done; but there is no lurking cynicism\nin my books at all, and the worst thing I can accuse myself of is a\nsense of humour, perhaps whimsical and childish, which seems to me to\nmake a pleasant and refreshing companion, as one passes on pilgrimage\nin search of what I believe to be very high and heavenly things\nindeed.\n\n\n\n\nXV\n\nVISIONS\n\n\nI used as a child to pore over the Apocalypse, which I thought by far\nthe most beautiful and absorbing of all the books of the Bible; it\nseemed full of rich and dim pictures, things which I could not\ninterpret and did not wish to interpret, the shining of clear gem-like\nwalls, lonely riders, amazing monsters, sealed books, all of which\ntook perfectly definite shape in the childish imagination. The\nconsequence is that I can no more criticise it than I could criticise\nold tapestries or pictures familiar from infancy. They are there, just\nso, and any difference of form is inconceivable.\n\nIn one point, however, the strange visions have come to hold for me an\nincreased grandeur; I used to think of much of it as a sort of\ndramatic performance, self-consciously enacted for the benefit of the\nspectator; but now I think of it as an awful and spontaneous energy of\nspiritual life going on, of which the prophet was enabled to catch a\nglimpse. Those 'voices crying day and night' 'the new song that was\nsung before the throne,' the cry of \"Come and see\"--these were but\npart of a vast and urgent business, which the prophet was allowed to\noverhear. It is not a silent place, that highest heaven, of indolence\nand placid peace, but a scene of fierce activity and the clamour of\nmighty voices.\n\nAnd it is the same too of another strange scene--the Transfiguration;\nnot an impressive spectacle arranged for the apostles, but a peep into\nthe awful background behind life. Let me use a simple parable: imagine\na man who had a friend whom he greatly admired and loved, and suppose\nhim to be talking with his friend, who suddenly excuses himself on the\nplea of an engagement and goes out; and the other follows him, out of\ncuriosity, and sees him meet another man and talk intently with him,\nnot deferentially or humbly, but as a man talks with an equal. And\nthen drawing nearer he might suddenly see that the man his friend has\ngone out to meet, and with whom he is talking so intently, is some\nhigh minister of State, or even the King himself!\n\nThat is a simple comparison, to make clear what the apostles might\nhave felt. They had gone into the mountain expecting to hear their\nMaster speak quietly to them or betake himself to silent prayer; and\nthen they find him robed in light and holding converse with the\nspirits of the air, telling his plans, so to speak, to two great\nprophets of the ancient world.\n\nIf this had been but a pageant enacted for their benefit to dazzle and\nbewilder them, it would have been a poor and self-conscious affair;\nbut it becomes a scene of portentous mystery, if one thinks of them as\nbeing permitted to have a glimpse of the high, urgent, and terrifying\nthings that were going on all the time in the unseen background of the\nSaviour's mind. The essence of the greatness of the scene is that it\nwas _overheard_. And thus I think that wonder and beauty, those two\nmighty forces, take on a very different value for us when we can come\nto realise that they are small hints given us, tiny glimpses conceded\nto us, of some very great and mysterious thing that is pressingly and\nspeedily proceeding, every day and every hour, in the vast background\nof life; and we ought to realise that it is not only human life as we\nsee it which is the active, busy, forceful thing; that the world with\nall its noisy cities, its movements and its bustle, is not a burning\npoint hung in darkness and silence, but that it is just a little\nfretful affair with infinitely larger, louder, fiercer, stronger\npowers, working, moving, pressing onwards, thundering in the\nbackground; and that the huge forces, laws, activities, behind the\nworld, are not perceived by us any more than we perceive the vast\nmotion of great winds, except in so far as we see the face of the\nwaters rippled by them, or the trees bowed all one way in their\npassage.\n\nIt is very easy to be so taken up with the little absorbing\nbusinesses, the froth and ripple of life, that we forget what great\nand secret influences they must be that cause them; we must not forget\nthat we are only like children playing in the nursery of a palace,\nwhile in the Council-room beneath us a debate may be going on which is\nto affect the lives and happiness of thousands of households.\n\nAnd therefore the more that we make up our little beliefs and ideas,\nas a man folds up a little packet of food which he is to eat on a\njourney, and think in so doing that we have got a satisfactory\nexplanation of all our aims and problems, the more utterly we are\nfailing to take in the significance of what is happening. We must\nnever allow ourselves to make up our minds, and to get our theories\ncomfortably settled, because then experience is at an end for us, and\nwe shall see no more than we expect to see. We ought rather to be\namazed and astonished, day by day, at all the wonderful and beautiful\nthings we encounter, the marvellous hints of loveliness which we see\nin faces, woods, hills, gardens, all showing some tremendous force at\nwork, often thwarted, often spoiled, but still working, with an\ninfinity of tender patience, to make the world exquisite and fine.\nThere are ugly, coarse, disgusting things at work too--we cannot help\nseeing that; but even many of them seem to be destroying, in\ncorruption and evil odour, something that ought not to be there, and\nstriving to be clean and pure again.\n\nI often wonder whose was the mind that conceived the visions of the\nApocalypse; if we can trust tradition, it was a confined and exiled\nChristian in a lonely island, whose spirit reached out beyond the\nlittle crags and the beating seas of his prison, and in the seeming\nsilent heaven detected the gathering of monsters, the war of\nrelentless forces--and beyond it all the radiant energies of saints,\nglad to be together and unanimous, in a place where light and beauty\nat last could reign triumphant.\n\nI know no literature more ineffably dreary than the parcelling out of\nthese wild and glorious visions, the attaching of them to this and\nthat petty human fulfilment. That is not the secret of the Apocalypse!\nIt is rather as a painter may draw a picture of two lovers sitting\ntogether at evening in a latticed chamber, holding each other's hands,\ngazing in each other's eyes. He is not thinking of particular persons\nin an actual house; it is rather a hint of love making itself\nmanifest, recognising itself to be met with an answering rapture. And\nwhat I think that the prophet meant was rather to show that we must\nnot be deceived by cares and anxieties and daily business; but that\nbehind the little simmering of the world was a tumult of vast forces,\nvoices crying and answering, thunder, fire, infinite music. It is all\na command to recognise unseen greatness, to take every least\nexperience we can, and crush from it all its savour; not to be afraid\nof the great emotions of the world, love and sorrow and loss; but only\nto be afraid of what is petty and sordid and mean. And then perhaps,\nas in that other vision, we may ascend once into a mountain, and there\nin weariness and drowsiness, dumbly bewildered by the night and the\ncold and the discomforts of the unkindly air, life may be for a moment\ntransfigured into a radiant figure, still familiar though so\nglorified; and we may see it for once touch hands and exchange words\nwith old and wise spirits; and all this not only to excite us and\nbewilder us, but so that by the drawing of the veil aside, we may see\nfor a moment that there is some high and splendid secret, some\ncelestial business proceeding with solemn patience and strange\nmomentousness, a rite which if we cannot share, we may at least know\nis there, and waiting for us, the moment that we are strong enough to\ntake our part!\n\n\n\n\nXVI\n\nTHOUGHT\n\n\nA friend of mine had once a strange dream; he seemed to himself to be\nwalking in a day of high summer on a grassy moorland leading up to\nsome fantastically piled granite crags. He made his way slowly\nthither; it was terribly hot there among the sun-warmed rocks, and he\nfound a little natural cave, among the great boulders, fringed with\nfern. There he sate for a long time while the sun passed over, and a\nlittle breeze came wandering up the moor. Opposite him as he sate was\nthe face of a great pile of rocks, and while his eye dwelt upon it it\nsuddenly began to wink and glisten with little moving points, dots so\nminute that he could hardly distinguish them. Suddenly, as if at a\nsignal, the little points dropped from the rock, and the whole surface\nseemed alive with gossamer threads, as if a silken, silvery curtain\nhad been let down; presently the little dots reached the grass and\nbegan to crawl over it; and then he saw that each of them was attached\nto one of the fine threads; and he thought that they were a colony of\nminute spiders, living on the face of the rocks. He got up to see this\nwonder close at hand, but the moment he moved, the whole curtain was\ndrawn up with incredible swiftness, as if the threads were highly\nelastic; and when he reached the rock, it was as hard and solid as\nbefore, nor could he discover any sign of the little creatures. \"Ah,\"\nhe said to himself in the dream, \"that is the meaning of the _living_\nrock!\" and he became aware, he thought, that all rocks and stones on\nthe surface of the earth must be thus endowed with life, and that the\nrocks were, so to speak, but the shell that contained these\ninnumerable little creatures, incredibly minute, living, silken\nthreads, with a small head, like boring worms, inhabiting burrows\nwhich went far into the heart of the granite, and each with a strong\nretractile power.\n\nI told this dream to a geologist the other day, who laughed, \"An\ningenious idea,\" he said, \"and there may even be something in it! It\nis not by any means certain that stones do not have a certain obscure\nlife of their own; I have sometimes thought that their marvellous\ncohesion may be a sign of life, and that if life were withdrawn, a\nmountain might in a moment become a heap of sliding sand.\"\n\nMy friend said that the dream made such an impression upon him that\nfor a time he found it hard to believe that stones and rocks had not\nthis strange and secret life lurking in their recesses; and indeed it\nhas since stood to me as a symbol of life, haunting and penetrating\nall the very hardest and driest things. It seems to me that just as\nthere are almost certainly more colours than our eyes can perceive,\nand sounds either too acute or too deliberate for our ears to hear, so\nthe domain of life may be much further extended in the earth, the air,\nthe waters, than we can tangibly detect.\n\nIt seems too to show me that it is our business to try ceaselessly to\ndiscover the secret life of thought in the world; not to conclude that\nthere is no vitality in thought unless we can ourselves at once\nperceive it. This is particularly the case with books. Sometimes, in\nour College Library, I take down an old folio from the shelves, and\nas I turn the crackling, stained, irregular pages--it may be a volume\nof controversial divinity or outworn philosophy--it seems impossible\nto imagine that it can ever have been woven out of the live brain of\nman, or that any one can ever have been found to follow those old,\nvehement, insecure arguments, starting from unproved data, and leading\nto erroneous and fanciful conclusions. The whole thing seems so faded,\nso dreary, so remote from reality, that one cannot even dimly imagine\nthe frame of mind which originated it, and still less the mood which\nfed upon such things.\n\nYet I very much doubt if the aims, ideas, hopes of man, have altered\nvery much since the time of the earliest records. When one comes to\nrealise that geologists reckon a period of thirty million years at\nleast, while the Triassic rocks, that is the lowest stratum that shows\nsigns of life, were being laid down; and that all recorded history is\nbut an infinitesimal drop in the ocean of unrecorded time, one sees at\nleast that the force behind the world, by whatever name we call it, is\na force that cannot by any means be hurried, but that it works with a\nleisureliness which we with our brief and hasty span of life cannot\nreally in any sense conceive. Still it seems to have a plan! Those\nstrange horned, humped, armoured beasts of prehistoric rocks are all\nbewilderingly like ourselves so far as physical construction goes;\nthey had heart, brain, eyes, lungs, legs, a similarly planned\nskeleton; it seems as if the creative spirit was working by a\nwell-conceived pattern, was trying to make a very definite kind of\nthing; there is not by any means an infinite variety, when one\nconsiders the sort of creatures that even a man could devise and\ninvent, if he tried.\n\nThere is the same sort of continuity and unity in thought The\npreoccupations of man are the same in all ages--to provide for his\nmaterial needs, and to speculate what can possibly happen to his\nspirit, when the body, broken by accident or disease or decay, can no\nlonger contain his soul. The best thought of man has always been\ncentred on trying to devise some sort of future hope which could\nencourage him to live eagerly, to endure patiently, to act rightly. As\nscience opens her vast volume before us, we naturally become more and\nmore impatient of the hasty guesses of man, in religion and\nphilosophy, to define what we cannot yet know; but we ought to be very\ntender of the old passionate beliefs, the intense desire to credit\nnoble and lofty spirits, such as Buddha and Mahomet, with some source\nof divinely given knowledge. Yet of course there is an inevitable\nsadness when we find the old certainties dissolving in mist; and we\nmust be very careful to substitute for them, if they slip from our\ngrasp, some sort of principle which will give us freshness and\ncourage. To me, I confess, the tiny certainties of science are far\nmore inspiring than the most ardent reveries of imaginative men. The\nknowledge that there is in the world an inflexible order, and that we\nshall see what we shall see, and not what we would like to believe, is\ninfinitely refreshing and sustaining. I feel that I am journeying\nonwards into what is unknown to me, but into something which is\ninevitably there, and not to be altered by my own hopes and fancies.\nIt is like taking a voyage, the pleasure of which is that the sights\nin store are unexpected and novel; for a voyage would be a very poor\nthing if we knew exactly what lay ahead, and poorer still if we could\ndetermine beforehand what we meant to see, and could only behold the\npictures of our own imaginations. That is the charm and the use of\nexperience, that it is not at all what we expect or hope. It is in\nsome ways sadder and darker; but it is in most ways far more rich and\nwonderful and radiant than we had dreamed.\n\nWhat I grow impatient of are the censures of rigid people, who desire\nto limit the hopes and possibilities of others by the little foot-rule\nwhich they have made for themselves. That is a very petty and even a\nvery wicked thing to do, that old persecuting instinct which says, \"I\nwill make it as unpleasant for you as I can, if you will not consent\nat all events to pretend to believe what I think it right to believe.\"\nA man of science does not want to persecute a child who says\npetulantly that he will not believe the law of gravity. He merely\nsmiles and goes on his way. The law of gravity can look after itself!\nPersecution is as often as not an attempt to reassure oneself about\none's own beliefs; it is not a sign of an untroubled faith.\n\nWe must not allow ourselves to be shaken by any attempt to dictate to\nus what we should believe. We need not always protest against it,\nunless we feel it a duty to do so; we may simply regard another's\ncertainties as things which are not and cannot be proved. Argument on\nsuch subjects is merely a waste of time; but at the same time we ought\nto recognise the vitality which lies behind such tenacious beliefs,\nand be glad that it is there, even if we think it to be mistaken.\n\nAnd this brings me back to my first point, which is that it is good\nfor us to try to realise the hidden life of the world, and to rejoice\nin it even though it has no truth for us. We must never disbelieve in\nlife, even though in sickness and sorrow and age it may seem to ebb\nfrom us; and we must try at all costs to recognise it, to sympathise\nwith it, to put ourselves in touch with it, even though it takes forms\nunintelligible and even repugnant to ourselves.\n\nLet me try to translate this into very practical matters. We many of\nus find ourselves in a fixed relation to a certain circle of people.\nWe cannot break with them or abandon them. Perhaps our livelihood\ndepends upon them, or theirs upon us. Yet we may find them harsh,\nunsympathetic, unkind, objectionable. What are we to do? Many people\nlet the whole tangle go, and just creep along, doing what they do not\nlike, feeling unappreciated and misunderstood, just hoping to avoid\nactive collisions and unpleasant scenes. That is a very spiritless\nbusiness! What we ought to do is to find points of contact, even at\nthe cost of some repression of our own views and aims. And we ought\ntoo to nourish a fine life of our own, to look into the lives of other\npeople, which can be done perhaps best in large books, fine\nbiographies, great works of imagination and fiction. We must not\ndrowse and brood in our own sombre corner, when life is flowing free\nand full outside, as in some flashing river. However little chance we\nmay seem to have of _doing_ anything, we can at least determine to\n_be_ something; not to let our life be filled, like some base vessel,\nwith the offscourings and rinsings of other spirits, but to remember\nthat the water of life is given freely to all who come. That is the\nworst of our dull view of the great Gospel of Christ. We think--I do\nnot say this profanely but seriously--of that water of life as a\nseries of propositions like the Athanasian Creed!\n\nChrist meant something very different by the water of life. He meant\nthat the soul that was athirst could receive a draught of a spring of\ncool refreshment and living joy. He did not mean a set of doctrines;\ndoctrines are to life what parchments and title-deeds are to an estate\nwith woods and waters, fields and gardens, houses and cottages, and\nlive people moving to and fro. It is of no use to possess the\ntitle-deed if one does not visit one's estate. Doctrines are an\nattempt to state, in bare and precise language, ideas and thoughts\ndear and fresh to the heart. It is in qualities, hopes, and affections\nthat we live; and if our eyes are opened, we can see, as my friend\ndreamed he saw, the surface of the hard rock full of moving points,\nand shimmering with threads of swift life, when the sun has fallen\nfrom the height, and the wind comes cool across the moor from the open\ngates of the evening.\n\n\n\n\nXVII\n\nACCESSIBILITY\n\n\nI was greatly interested the other day by seeing a photograph, in his\nold age, of Henry Phillpotts, the redoubtable Bishop of Exeter, who\nlost more money in lawsuits with clergymen than any Bishop, I suppose,\nwho ever lived. He sate, the old man, in his clumsily fitting gaiters,\nbowed or crouched in an arm-chair, reading a letter. His face was\nturned to the spectator; with his stiff, upstanding hair, his\nout-thrust lip, his corrugated brow, and the deep pouched lines\nbeneath his eyes, he looked like a terrible old lion, who could no\nlonger spring, but who had not forgotten how to roar. His face was\nfull of displeasure and anger. I remembered that a clergyman once told\nme how he had been sitting next the Bishop at a dinner of parsons, and\na young curate, sitting on the other side of the Bishop, affronted\nhim by believing him to be deaf, and by speaking very loudly and\ndistinctly to him. The Bishop at last turned to him, with a furious\nvisage, and said, \"I would have you to understand, sir, that I am not\ndeaf!\" This disconcerted the young man so much that he could neither\nspeak nor eat. The old Bishop turned to my friend, and said, in a\nheavy tone, \"I'm not fit for society!\" Indeed he was not, if he could\nunchain so fierce a beast on such slight provocation.\n\nAnd there are many other stories of the bitter things he said, and how\nhis displeasure could brood like a cloud over a whole company. He was\na gallant old figure, it is true, very energetic, very able,\ndetermined to do what he thought right, and infinitely courageous. I\nmused over the portrait, thought how lifelike and picturesque it was,\nand how utterly unlike one's idea of an aged Christian or a chief\nshepherd. In his beautiful villa by the sea, with its hanging woods\nand gardens, ruling with diligence, he seemed to me more like a\nstoical Roman Emperor, or a tempestuous Sadducee, the spirit of the\nworld incarnate. One wondered what it could have been that had drawn\nhim to Christ, or what part he would have taken if he had been on the\nSanhedrin that judged Him!\n\nIt seems to me that one of the first characteristics which one ought\nto do one's best to cast out of one's life is that of formidableness.\nYet to tell a man that he is formidable is not an accusation that is\noften resented. He may indulgently deprecate it, but it seems to most\npeople a sort of testimonial to their force and weight and influence,\na penalty that they have to pay for being effective, a matter of\nprestige and honour. Of course, an old, famous, dignified man who has\nplayed a great part on the stage of life must necessarily be\napproached by the young with a certain awe. But there is no charm in\nthe world more beautiful than the charm which can permeate dignity,\ngive confidence, awake affection, dissipate dread. But if a man of\nthat sort indulges his moods, says what he thinks bluntly and\nfiercely, has no mercy on feebleness or ignorance, he can be a very\ndreadful personage indeed!\n\nAccessibility is one of the first of Christian virtues; but it is not\nalways easy to practise, because a man of force and ability, who is\nmodest and shy, forgets as life goes on how much more his influence is\nfelt. He himself does not feel at all different from what he was when\nhe was young, when he was snubbed and silenced and set down in\nargument. Perhaps he feels that the world is a kinder and an easier\nplace, as he grows into deference and esteem, but it is the surest\nsign of a noble and beautiful character if the greater he becomes the\nmore simple and tender he also becomes.\n\nI was greatly interested the other day in attending a meeting at\nwhich, among other speakers, two well-known men spoke. The first was a\nman of great renown and prestige, and he made a very beautiful, lofty,\nand tender discourse; but, from some shyness or gravity of nature, he\nnever smiled nor looked at his audience; and thus, fine though his\nspeech was, he never got into touch with us at all. The second speech\nwas far more obvious and commonplace, but the speaker, on beginning,\ncast a friendly look round and smiled on the audience; and he did the\nsame all the time, so that one had at once a friendly sense of contact\nand geniality, and I felt that every word was addressed to me\npersonally. That is what it is to be accessible!\n\nOne of the best ways in which we can keep the spirit of poetry--by\nwhich I mean the higher, sweeter, purer influences of thought--alive\nin one's heart, is by accessibility--by determining to speak freely of\nwhat one admires and loves, what moves and touches one, what keeps\none's mind upon the inner and finer life. It is not always possible or\nindeed convenient for younger people to do this, for reasons which are\nnot wholly bad reasons. Young people ought not to be too eager to take\nthe lead in talk, nor ought they to be too openly impatient of the\nmore sedate and prosaic discourse of their elders; and then, too,\nthere is a time for all things; one cannot keep the mind always on the\nstrain; and the best and most beautiful things are apt to come in\nglimpses and hints, and are not always arrived at by discussion and\nargument.\n\nThere is a story of a great artist full of sympathy and kindness, to\nwhom in a single day three several people came to confide sad troubles\nand trials. The artist told the story to his wife in the evening. He\nsaid that he was afraid that the third of the visitors thought him\nstrangely indifferent and even unkind. \"The fact was,\" he said, \"that\nmy capacity for sympathy was really exhausted. I had suffered so much\nfrom the first two recitals that I could not be sorry any more. I\n_said_ I was sorry, and I _was_ sorry far down in my mind, but I could\nnot _feel_ sorry. I had given all the sympathy I had, and it was no\nuse going again to the well when there was no more water.\" This shows\nthat one cannot command emotion, and that one must not force even\nthoughts of beauty upon others. We must bide our time, we must adapt\nourselves, and we must not be instant in season and out of season. Yet\nneither must we be wholly at the mercy of moods. In religion, the\ntheory of liturgical worship is an attempt to realise that we ought to\npractise religious emotion with regularity. We do not always feel we\nare miserable sinners when we say so, and we sometimes feel that we\nare when we do not say it; but it is better to confess what we know to\nbe true, even if at that moment we do not feel it to be true.\n\nWe ought not then always, out of modesty, to abstain from talking\nabout the things for which we care. A foolish shyness will sometimes\nkeep two sympathetic people from ever talking freely together of their\nreal hopes and interests. We are terribly afraid in England of what we\ncall priggishness. It is on the whole a wholesome tendency, but it is\nthe result of a lack of flexibility of mind. What we ought to be\nafraid of is not seriousness and earnestness, but of solemnity and\npomposity. We ought to be ready to vary our mood swiftly, and even to\nsee the humorous side of sacred and beautiful things. The\noppressiveness of people who hold a great many things sacred, and\ncannot bear that they should be jested about, is very great. There is\nnothing that takes all naturalness out of intercourse more quickly\nthan the habit which some people have of begging that a subject may\nnot be pursued \"because it is one on which I feel very deeply.\" That\nis the essence of priggishness, to feel that our reasons are better,\nour motives purer, than the reasons of other people, and that we have\nthe privilege of setting a standard. Conscious superiority is the note\nof the prig; and we have the right to dread it.\n\nBut the Gospel again is full of precepts in favour of frankness,\noutspokenness, letting light shine out, speaking sincerely; only it\nmust not be done provokingly, condescendingly, solemnly. It is well\nfor every one to have a friend or friends with whom he can talk quite\nunaffectedly about what he cares for and values; and he ought to be\nable to say to such a friend, \"I cannot talk about these things now; I\nam in a dusty, prosaic, grubby mood, and I want to make mud-pies\"; the\npoint is to be natural, and yet to keep a watch upon nature; not to\nforce her into cramped postures, and yet not to indulge her in rude,\ncareless, and vulgar postures. It is a bad sign in friendship, if\nintimacy seems to a man to give him the right to be rude, coarse,\nboisterous, censorious, if he will. He may sometimes be betrayed into\neach and all of these things, and be glad of a safety-valve for his\nill-humours, knowing that he will not be permanently misunderstood by\na sympathetic friend. But there must be a discipline in all these\nthings, and nature must often give way and be broken in; frankness\nmust not degenerate into boorishness, and liberty must not be the\npower of interfering with the liberty of the friend. One must force\noneself to be courteous, interested, sweet-tempered, when one feels\njust the contrary; one must keep in sight the principle, and if\nviolence must be done, it must not be done to the better nature. Least\nof all must one deliberately take up the role of exercising influence.\nThat is a sad snare to many fine natures. One sees a weak, attractive\ncharacter, and it seems so tempting to train it up a stick, to fortify\nit, to mould it. If one is a professed teacher, one has to try this\nsometimes; but even then, the temptation to drive rather than lead\nmust be strenuously resisted.\n\nI have always a very dark suspicion of people who talk of spheres of\ninfluence, and who enjoy consciously affecting other lives. If this is\ndone professionally, as a joyful sort of exercise, it is deadly. The\nonly excuse for it is that one really cares for people and longs to be\nof use; one cannot pump one's own tastes and character into others.\nThe only hope is that they should develop their own qualities. Other\npeople ought not to be 'problems' to us; they may be mysteries, but\nthat is quite another thing. To love people, if one can, is the only\nway. To find out what is lovable in them and not to try to discover\nwhat is malleable in them is the secret. A wise and witty lady, who\nknows that she is tempted to try to direct other lives, told me that\none of her friends once remonstrated with her by saying that she ought\nto leave something for God to do!\n\nI know a very terrible and well-meaning person, who once spoke\nseverely to me for treating a matter with levity. I lost my temper,\nand said, \"You may make me ashamed of it, if you can, but you shall\nnot bully me into treating a matter seriously which I think is wholly\nabsurd.\" He said, \"You do not enough consider the grave issues which\nmay be involved.\" I replied that to be for ever considering graver\nissues seemed to me to make life stuffy and unwholesome. My censor\nsighed and shook his head.\n\nWe cannot coerce any one into anything good. We may salve our own\nconscience by trying to do so, we may even level an immediate\ndifficulty; but a free and generous desire to be different is the only\nhope of vital change. The detestable Puritan fibre that exists in many\nof us, which is the most utterly unchristian thing I know, tempts us\nto feel that no discipline is worth anything unless it is dark and\ngloomy; but that is the discipline of the law-court and the prison,\nand has never remedied anything since the world began. Wickedness is\nnearly always, perhaps always, a moral invalidism, and we shall see\nsome day that to punish men for crime by being cruel to them is like\ncondemning a man to the treadmill for having typhoid fever. I can only\nsay that the more I have known of human beings, and the older I grow,\nthe more lovable, gentle, sweet-tempered I have found them to be.\n\nThe life of Carlyle seems to me to be one of the most terrible and\nconvincing documents in the world in proof of what I have been saying.\nThe old man was so bent on battering and bumping people into\nrighteousness, so in love with spluttering and vituperating and\nthundering all over the place, that he missed the truest and sweetest\nministry of love. He broke his wife's heart, and it is idle to pretend\nhe did not. Mrs. Carlyle was a sharp-edged woman too, and hurt her own\nlife by her bitter trenchancy. But there was enough true love and\nloyalty and chivalry in the pair to furnish out a hundred marriages.\nYet one sees Carlyle stamping and cursing through life, and never\nseeing what lay close to his hand. I admire his life not because it\nwas a triumph, but because it was such a colossal failure, and so\nfinely atoned for by the noble and great-minded repentance of a man\nwho recognised at last that it was of no use to begin by trying to be\nruler over ten cities, unless he was first faithful in a few things.\n\n\n\n\nXVIII\n\nSYMPATHY\n\n\nBut there is one thing which we must constantly bear in mind, and\nwhich all enthusiastic people must particularly recollect, namely,\nthat our delight and interest in life must be large, tolerant, and\nsympathetic, and that we must not only admit but welcome an immense\nvariety of interest. We must above all things be just, and we must be\nready to be both interested and amused by people whom we do not like.\nThe point is that minds should be fresh and clear, rather than\nstagnant and lustreless. Enthusiastic people, who feel very strongly\nand eagerly the beauty of one particular kind of delight, are sadly\napt to wish to impose their own preferences upon other minds, and not\nto believe in the worth of others' preferences. Thus the men who feel\nvery ardently the beauty of the Greek Classics are apt to insist that\nall boys shall be brought up upon them; and the same thing happens in\nother matters. We must not make a moral law out of our own tastes and\npreferences, and we must be content that others should feel the appeal\nof other sorts of beauty; that was the mistake which dogged the\nradiant path of Ruskin from first to last, that he could not bear that\nother people should have their own preferences, but considered that\nany dissidence from his own standards was of the nature of sin. If we\ninsist on all agreeing with ourselves it is sterile enough; but if we\nbegin to call other people hard names, and suspecting or vituperating\ntheir motives for disagreeing with us, we sin both against Love and\nLight. It was that spirit which called forth from Christ the sternest\ndenunciation which ever fell from his lips. The Pharisees tried to\ndiscredit His work by representing Him as in league with the powers of\nevil; and this sin, which is the imputing of evil motives to actions\nand beliefs that appear to be good, because our own beliefs are too\nnarrow to include them, is the sin which Christ said could find no\nforgiveness.\n\nI had a personal instance of this the other day which illustrates so\nclearly what I mean that I will quote it. I wrote a book called _The\nChild of the Dawn_, the point of which was to represent, in an\nallegory, my sincere belief that the after-life of man must be a life\nof effort, and experience, and growth. A lady wrote me a very\ndiscourteous letter to say that she believed the after-life to be one\nof Rest, and that she held what she believed to be my view to be\nunchristian and untrue. The notion that ardent, loving, eager spirits\nshould be required to spend eternity in a sort of lazy contentment,\nforbidden to stir a finger for love and truth and right, is surely an\ninsupportable one! What would be the joy of heaven to a soul full of\nenergy and love, condemned to such luxurious apathy, forced to drowse\nthrough the ages in epicurean ease? If heaven has any meaning at all,\nit must satisfy our best and most active aspirations; and a paradise\nof utter and eternal indolence would be purgatory or hell to all noble\nnatures. But this poor creature, tired no doubt by life and its\nanxieties, overcome by dreariness and sorrow, was not only desirous of\nsolitary and profound repose, but determined to impose her own theory\nupon all the world as well. I blame no one for desiring rest; but to\nwish, as she made no secret that she wished, to crush and confound one\nwho thought and hoped otherwise, does seem to me a very mean and\nwretched point of view. That, alas, is what many people mean when they\nsay that they _believe_ a thing, namely that they would be personally\nannoyed if it turned out to be different from what they hoped.\n\nI am sure that we ought rather to welcome with all our might any\nevidence of strength and energy and joy, even if they seem to spring\nfrom principles entirely opposite to our own. The more we know of men\nand women, the more we ought to perceive that half the trouble in the\nworld comes from our calling the same principles by different names.\nWe are not called upon to give up our own principles, but we must\nbeware of trying to meddle with the principles of other people.\n\nAnd therefore we must never be disturbed and still less annoyed by\nother people finding fault with our tastes and principles, calling\nthem fantastic and sentimental, weak and affected, so long as they do\nnot seek to impose their own beliefs upon us. That they should do so\nis of course a mistake; but we must recognise that it comes either\nfrom the stupidity which is the result of a lack of sympathy, or else\nfrom the nobler error of holding an opinion strongly and earnestly. We\nmust never be betrayed into making the same mistake; we may try to\npersuade, and it is better done by example than by argument, but we\nmust never allow ourselves to scoff and deride, and still less to\nabuse and vilify. We must rather do our best to understand the other\npoint of view, and to acquiesce in the possibility of its being held,\neven if we cannot understand it. We must take for granted that every\none whose life shows evidence of energy, unselfishness, joyfulness,\nardour, peacefulness, is truly inspired by the spirit of good. We must\nbelieve that they have a vision of beauty and delight, born of the\nspirit. We must rejoice if they are making plain to other minds any\ninterpretation of life, any enrichment of motive, any protest against\nthings coarse and low and mean. We may wish--and we may try to\npersuade them--that their hopes and aims were wider, more bountiful,\nand more inclusive, but if we seek to exclude those hopes and aims,\nhowever inconsistent they may be with our own, that moment the shadow\ninvolves our own hopes, because our desire must be that the world may\nsomehow become happier, fuller, more joyful, even if it is not on the\nlines which we ourselves approve.\n\nI know so many good people who are anxious to increase happiness, but\nonly on their own conditions; they feel that they estimate exactly\nwhat the quantity and quality of joy ought to be, and they treat the\njoy which they do not themselves feel as an offence against truth. It\nis from these beliefs, I have often thought, that much of the\nunhappiness of family circles arises, the elders not realising how the\nworld moves on, how new ideas come to the front, how the old hopes\nfade or are transmuted. They see their children liking different\nthoughts, different occupations, new books, new pleasures; and instead\nof trying to enter into these things, to believe in their innocence\nand their naturalness, they try to crush and thwart them, with the\nresult that the boys and girls just hide their feelings and desires,\nand if they are not shamed out of them, which sometimes happens, they\nhold them secretly and half sullenly, and plan how to escape as soon\nas they can from the tender and anxious constraint into a real world\nof their own. And the saddest part of all is that the younger\ngeneration learn no experience thus; but when they form a circle of\ntheir own and the same expansion happens, they do as their parents\ndid, saying to themselves, \"My parents lost my confidence by insisting\non what was not really important; but _my_ objections are reasonable\nand justifiable, and my children must trust me to know what is right.\"\n\nWe must realise then that elasticity and sympathy are the first of\nduties, and that if we embark upon the crusade of joy, we must do it\nexpecting to find many kinds of joy at work in the world, and some\nwhich we cannot understand. We may of course mistrust destructive joy,\nthe joy of selfish pleasure, rough combativeness, foolish\nwastefulness, ugly riot--all the joys that are evidently dogged by\nsorrow and pain; but if we see any joy that leads to self-restraint\nand energy and usefulness and activity, we must recognise it as\ndivine.\n\nWe may have then our private fancies, our happy pursuits, our sweet\ndelights; we may practise them, sure that the best proof of their\nenergy is that they obviously and plainly increase and multiply our\nown happiness. But if we direct others at all, it must be as a\nsignpost, pointing to a parting of roads and making the choice clear,\nand not as a policeman enforcing the majesty of our self-invented\nlaws.\n\nEverything that helps us, invigorates us, comforts us, sustains us,\ngives us life, is right for us; of that we need never be in any doubt,\nprovided always that our delight is not won at the expense of others;\nand we must allow and encourage exactly the same liberty in others to\nchoose their own rest, their own pleasure, their own refreshment. What\nwould one think of a host, whose one object was to make his guests eat\nand drink and do exactly what he himself enjoyed? And yet that is\nprecisely what many of the most conscientious people are doing all day\nlong, in other regions of the soul and mind.\n\nThe one thing which we have to fear, in all this, is of lapsing into\nindolence and solitary enjoyment, guarding and hoarding our own\nhappiness. We must measure the effectiveness of our enjoyment by one\nthing and one thing alone--our increase of affection and sympathy,\nour interest in other minds and lives. If we only end by desiring to\nbe apart from it all, to gnaw the meat we have torn from life in a\nsecret cave of our devising, to gain serenity by indifference, then we\nmust put our desires aside; but if it sends us into the world with\nhope and energy and interest and above all affection, then we need\nhave no anxiety; we may enter like the pilgrims into comfortable\nhouses of refreshment, where we can look with interest at pictures and\nspiders and poultry and all the pleasant wonders of the place; we may\nhalt in wayside arbours to taste cordials and confections, and enjoy\nfrom the breezy hill-top the pleasant vale of Beulah, with the\ncelestial mountains rising blue and still upon the far horizon.\n\n\n\n\nXIX\n\nSCIENCE\n\n\nI read the other day a very downright book, with a kind of dry\ninsolence about it, by a man who was concerned with stating what he\ncalled the _mechanistic_ theory of the universe. The worlds, it\nseemed, were like a sandy desert, with a wind that whirled the sands\nabout; and indeed I seemed, as I looked out on the world through the\nwriter's eyes, to see nothing but wind and sand! One of his points was\nthat every thought that passed through the mind was preceded by a\nchange in the particles of the brain; so that philosophy, and\nreligion, and life itself were nothing but a shifting of the sand by\nthe impalpable wind--matter and motion, that was all! Again and again\nhe said, in his dry way, that no theory was of any use that was not\nsupported by facts; and that though there was left a little corner of\nthought, which was still unexplained, we should soon have some more\nfacts, and the last mystery would be hunted down.\n\nBut it seemed to me, as I read it, that the thoughts of man were just\nas much facts as any other facts, and that when a man had a vision of\nbeauty, or when a hope came to him in a bitter sorrow, it was just as\nreal a thing as the little particle of the brain which stirred and\ncrept nearer to another particle. I do not say that all theories of\nreligion and philosophy are necessarily true, but they are real\nenough; they have existed, they exist, they cannot die. Of course, in\nmaking out a theory, we must not neglect one set of facts and depend\nwholly on another set of facts; but I believe that the intense and\npathetic desire of humanity to know why they are here, why they feel\nas they do, why they suffer and rejoice, what awaits them, are facts\njust as significant as the blood that drips from the wound, or the\nleaf that unfolds in the sun. The comforting and uplifting conclusion\nwhich the writer came to was that we were just a set of animated\npuppets, spun out of the drift of sand and dew by the thing that he\ncalled force. But if that is so, why are we not all perfectly\ncomplacent and contented, why do we love and grieve and wish to be\ndifferent? I do still believe that there is a spirit that mingles with\nour hopes and dreams, something personal, beautiful, fatherly, pure,\nsomething which is unwillingly tied to earth and would be free if it\ncould. The sense that we are ourselves wholly separate and distinct,\nwith experience behind us and experience before us, seems to me a fact\nbeside which all other facts pale into insignificance. And next in\nstrength to that seems the fact that we can recognise, and draw near\nto, and be amazingly desirous of, as well as no less strangely hostile\nto, other similar selves; that our thought can mingle with theirs,\npass into theirs, as theirs into ours, forging a bond which no\naccident of matter can dissolve.\n\nDoes it really satisfy the lover, when he knows that his love is\nanswered, to realise that it is all the result of some preceding\nmolecular action of the brain? That does not seem to me so much a\ntruculent statement as a foolish statement, shirking, like a glib and\nsilly child, the most significant of data. And I think we shall do\nwell to say to our scientist, as courteously as Sir Lancelot said to\nthe officious knight, who proffered unnecessary service, that we have\nno need for him at this time.\n\nNow, I am not saying, in all this, that the investigation of science\nis wrong or futile. It is exactly the reverse; the message of God is\nhidden in all the minutest material things that lie about us; and it\nis a very natural and even noble work to explore it; but it is wrong\nif it leads us to draw any conclusions at present beyond what we can\nreasonably and justly draw. It is the inference that what explains the\nvisible scheme of things can also explain the invisible. That is\nwrong!\n\nLet me here quote a noble sentence, which has often given me\nmuch-needed help, and served to remind me that thought is after all as\nreal a thing as matter, when I have been tempted to feel otherwise. It\nwas written by a very wise and tender philosopher, William James, who\nwas never betrayed by his own severe standard of truth and reality\ninto despising the common dreams and aspirations of simpler men. He\nwrote:\n\n     \"I find it preposterous to suppose that if there be a\n     feeling of unseen reality, shared by numbers of the best\n     men in their best moments, responded to by other men in\n     their deep moments, good to live by, strength-giving--I find\n     it preposterous, I say, to suppose that the goodness of that\n     feeling for living purposes should be held to carry no\n     objective significance, and especially preposterous if it\n     combines harmoniously with an otherwise grounded philosophy\n     of objective truth.\"\n\nThat is a very large and tolerant utterance, both in its suspension of\nimpatient certainties and in its beautiful sympathy with all ardent\nvisions that cannot clearly and convincingly find logical utterance.\n\nWhat I am trying to say in this little book is not addressed to\nprofessional philosophers or men of science, who are concerned with\nintellectual investigation, but to those who have to live life as it\nis, as the vast majority of men must always be. What I rather beg of\nthem is not to be alarmed and bewildered by the statements either of\nscientific or religious dogmatists. No doubt we should like to know\neverything, to have all our perplexities resolved; but we have reached\nthat point neither in religion nor in philosophy, nor even in science.\nWe must be content not to know. But because we do not know, we need\nnot therefore refuse to feel; there is no excuse for us to thrust the\nwhole tangle away and out of sight, and just to do as far as possible\nwhat we like. We may admire and hope and love, and it is our business\nto do all three. The thing that seems to me--and I am here only\nstating a personal view--both possible and desirable, is to live as\nfar as we can by the law of beauty, not to submit to anything by which\nour soul is shamed and insulted, not to be drawn into strife, not to\nfall into miserable fault-finding, not to allow ourselves to be\nfretted and fussed and agitated by the cares of life; but to say\nclearly to ourselves, \"that is a petty, base, mean thought, and I will\nnot entertain it; this is a generous and kind and gracious thought,\nand I will welcome it and obey it.\"\n\nOne of the clearly discernible laws of life is that we can both check\nand contract habits; and when we begin our day, we can begin it if we\nwill by prayer and aspiration and resolution, as much as we can begin\nit with bath and toilet. We can say, \"I will live resolutely to-day in\njoy and good-humour and energy and kindliness.\" Those powers and\npossibilities are all there; and even if we are overshadowed by\ndisappointment and anxiety and pain, we can say to ourselves that we\nwill behave as if it were not so; because there is undoubtedly a very\nreal and noble pleasure in putting off shadows and troubles, and not\nletting them fall in showers on those about us. We need not be stoical\nor affectedly bright; we often cannot give those who love us greater\njoy than to tell them of our troubles and let them comfort us. And we\ncan be practical too in our outlook, because much of the grittiest\nirritation of life is caused by indulging indolence when we ought not,\nand being hurried when we might be leisurely. It is astonishing how a\nlittle planning will help us in all this, and how soon a habit is set\nup. We do not, it is true, know the limits of our power of choice. But\nthe illusion, if it be an illusion, that we have a power of choice, is\nan infinitely more real fact to most of us than the molecular motion\nof the brain particles.\n\nAnd then too there is another fact, which is becoming more and more\nclear, namely, what is called the power of suggestion. That if we can\nput a thought into our mind, not into our reason, but into our inner\nmind of instinct and force, whether it be a base thought or a noble\nthought, it seems to soak unconsciously into the very stuff of the\nmind, and keep reproducing itself even when we seem to have forgotten\nall about it. And this is, I believe, one of the uses of prayer, that\nwe put a thought into the mind, which can abide with us, secretly it\nmay be, all the day; and that thus it is not a mere pious habit or\ntradition to have a quiet period at the beginning of the day, in which\nwe can nurture some joyful and generous hope, but as real a source of\nstrength to the spirit as the morning meal is to the body. I have\nmyself found that it is well, if one can, to read a fragment of some\nfine, generous, beautiful, or noble-minded book at such an hour.\n\nThere is in many people who work hard with their brains a curious and\nunreal mood of sadness which hangs about the waking hour, which I have\nthought to be a sort of hunger of the mind, craving to be fed; and\nthis is accompanied, at least in me, by a very swift, clear, and\nhopeful apprehension, so that a beautiful thought comes to me as a\ndraught of water to a thirsty man. So I make haste, as often as may\nbe, just to drop such a thought at those times into the mind; it falls\nto the depths, as one may see a bright coin go gleaming and shifting\ndown to the depths of a pool; or to use a homelier similitude, like\nsugar that drops to the bottom of a cup, sweetening the draught.\n\nThese are little homely things; but it is through simple use and not\nthrough large theory that one can best practise joy.\n\n\n\n\nXX\n\nWORK\n\n\nI came out of the low-arched door with a sense of relief and passed\ninto the sunshine; the meeting had broken up, and we went our ways. We\nhad sate there an hour or two in the old panelled room, a dozen\nfull-blooded friendly men discussing a small matter with wonderful\ningenuity and zest; and I had spoken neither least nor most mildly,\nand had found it all pleasant enough. Then I mounted my bicycle and\nrode out into the fragrant country alone, with all its nearer green\nand further blue; there in that little belt of space, between the thin\nair above and the dense-dark earth beneath, was the pageant of\nconscious life enacting itself so visibly and eagerly. In the sunlit\nsky the winds raced gaily enough, with the void silence of moveless\nspace above it; below my feet what depths of cold stone, with the\nsecret springs; below that perhaps a core of molten heat and\nimprisoned fire!\n\nWhat was it all about? What were we all doing there? What was the\nsignificance of the little business that had been engaging our minds\nand tongues? What part did it play in the mighty universe?\n\nThe thorn-tree thick with bloom, pouring out its homely spicy\nsmell--it was doing too, beautifully enough, what we had been doing\nclumsily. It was living, intent on its own conscious life, the sap\nhurrying, the scent flowing, the bud waxing. The yellow-hammer poising\nand darting along the hedge, the sparrow twittering round the rick,\nthe cock picking and crowing, were all intent on life, proclaiming\nthat they were alive and busy. Something vivid, alert, impassioned was\ngoing forward everywhere, something being effected, something\nuttered--and yet the cause how utterly hidden from me and from every\nliving thing!\n\nThe memory of old poetry began to flicker in my mind like summer\nlightning. In the orchard, crammed with bloom, two unseen children\nwere calling to each other; a sunburned, careless, graceful boy,\nwhose rough clothes could not conceal his shapely limbs and easy\nmovements, came driving some cows along the lane. He asked me the time\nin Dorian speech. The shepherds piping together on the Sicilian\nheadland could not have made a fairer picture; and yet the boy and I\ncould hardly have had a thought in common!\n\nAll the poets that ever sang in the pleasant springtime can hardly\nhave felt the joyful onrush of the season more sweetly than I felt it\nthat day; and yet no philosopher or priest could have given me a hint\nof what the mystery was, why so ceaselessly renewed; but it was clear\nto me at least that the mind behind it was joyful enough, and wished\nme to share its joy.\n\nAnd then an hour later I was doing for no reason but that it was my\nbusiness the dullest of tasks--no less than revising a whole sheaf of\nthe driest of examination papers. Elaborate questions to elicit\nknowledge of facts arid and meaningless, which it was worth no human\nbeing's while to know, unless he could fill out the bare outlines with\nsome of the stuff of life. Hundreds of boys, I dare say, in crowded\nschoolrooms all over the country were having those facts drummed into\nthem, with no aim in sight but the answering of the questions which I\nwas manipulating. That was a bewildering business, that we should\ninsist on that sort of drilling becoming a part of life. Was that a\nrelation it was well to establish? As the fine old, shrewd, indolent\nDr. Johnson said, he for his part, while he lived, never again desired\neven to hear of the Punic War! And again he said, \"You teach your\ndaughters the diameters of the planets, and wonder, when you have\ndone, why they do not desire your company.\"\n\nCannot we somehow learn to simplify life? Must we continue to think\nthat we can inspire children in rows? Is it not possible for us to be\na little less important and pompous and elaborate about it all, to aim\nat more direct relations, to say more what we feel, to do more what\nnature bids us do?\n\nThe heart sickens at the thought of how we keep to the grim highways\nof life, and leave the pleasant spaces of wood and field unvisited!\nAnd all because we want more than we need, and because we cannot be\ncontent unless we can be envied and admired.\n\nThe cure for all this, it seems to me, is a resolute avoidance of\ncomplications and intricacies, a determination to live life more on\nour own terms, and to open our eyes to the simpler pleasures which lie\nwaiting in our way on every side.\n\nI do not believe in the elaborate organisation of life; and yet I\nthink it is possible to live in the midst of it, and yet not to be\ninvolved in it. I do not believe in fierce rebellion, but I do believe\nin quiet transformation; and here comes in the faith that I have in\n_Joyous Gard_. I believe that day by day we should clear a space to\nlive with minds that have felt, and hoped, and enjoyed. That is the\nfirst duty of all; and then that we should live in touch with the\nnatural beauty of the earth, and let the sweetness of it enter into\nour minds and hearts; for then we come out renewed, to find the beauty\nand the fulness of life in the hearts and minds of those about us.\nLife is complicated, not because its issues are not simple enough, but\nbecause we are most of us so afraid of a phantom which we create--the\ncriticism of other human beings.\n\nIf one reads the old books of chivalry, there seems an endless waste\nof combat and fighting among men who had the same cause at heart, and\nwho yet for the pettiest occasions of dispute must need try to inflict\ndeath on each other, each doing his best to shatter out of the world\nanother human being who loved life as well. Two doughty knights, Sir\nLamorak and Sir Meliagraunce, must needs hew pieces off each other's\narmour, break each other's bones, spill each other's blood, to prove\nwhich of two ladies is the fairer; and when it is all over, nothing\nwhatever is proved about the ladies, nothing but which of the two\nknights is the stronger! And yet we seem to be doing the same thing to\nthis day, except that we now try to wound the heart and mind, to make\na fellow-man afraid and suspicious, to take the light out of his day\nand the energy out of his work. For the last few weeks a handful of\nearnest clergymen have been endeavouring in a Church paper, with\nfloods of pious Billingsgate, to make me ridiculous about a technical\nquestion of archaeological interest, and all because my opinion differs\nfrom their own! I thankfully confess that as I get older, I care not\nat all for such foolish controversy, and the only qualms I have are\nthe qualms I feel at finding human beings so childish and so fretful.\n\nWell, it is all very curious, and not without its delight too! What I\nearnestly desire is that men and women should not thus waste precious\ntime and pleasant life, but go straight to reality, to hope. There are\na hundred paths that can be trodden; only let us be sure that we are\ntreading our own path, not feebly shifting from track to track, not\nfollowing too much the bidding of others, but knowing what interests\nus, what draws us, what we love and desire; and above all keeping in\nmind that it is our business to understand and admire and conciliate\neach other, whether we do it in a panelled room, with pens and paper\non the table, and the committee in full cry; or out on the quiet road,\nwith one whom we trust entirely, where the horizon runs, field by\nfield and holt by holt, to meet the soft verge of encircling sky.\n\n\n\n\nXXI\n\nHOPE\n\n\nThe other day I took up idly some magazine or other, one of those\ngreat lemon-coloured, salmon-hued, slaty paper volumes which lie in\nrows on the tables of my club. I will not stop now to enquire why\nEnglish taste demands covers which show every mean stain, every soiled\nfinger-print; but these volumes are always a reproach to me, because\nthey show me, alas! how many subjects, how many methods of presenting\nsubjects, are wholly uninteresting and unattractive to my trivial\nmind. This time, however, my eye fell upon a poem full of light and\nbeauty, and of that subtle grace which seems so incomprehensible, so\nuncreated--a lyric by Mr. Alfred Noyes. It was like a spell which\nbanished for an instant the weariness born of a long, hot, tedious\ncommittee, the oppression which always falls on me at the sight and\nsound of the cataract of human beings and vehicles, running so\nfiercely in the paved channels of London. A beautiful poem, but how\nimmeasurably sad, an invocation to the memory and to the spirit of\nRobert Browning, not speaking of him in an elegiac strain as of a\ngreat poet who had lived his life to the full and struck his\nclear-toned harp, solemnly, sweetly, and whimsically too, year after\nyear; but as of something great and noble wholly lost and separated\nfrom the living world.\n\nThis was a little part of it:\n\n    Singer of hope for all the world,\n      Is it still morning where thou art,\n    Or are the clouds that hide thee furled\n      Around a dark and silent heart?\n\n    The sacred chords thy hand could wake\n      Are fallen on utter silence here,\n    And hearts too little even to break\n      Have made an idol of despair.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n    Come back to England, where thy May\n      Returns, but not that rapturous light;\n    God is not in His heaven to-day,\n      And with thy country nought is right.\n\nI think that almost magically beautiful! But is it true? I hope not\nand I think not. The poet went on to say that Paradox had destroyed\nthe sanctity of Truth, and that Science had done nothing more than\nstrip the skeleton of the flesh and blood that vested it, and crown\nthe anatomy with glory. One cannot speak more severely, more gloomily,\nof an age than to say that it is deceived by analysis and paradox, and\ncares nothing for nobler and finer things. It seems to me to be a\nsorrowful view of life that, to have very little faith or prospect\nabout it. It is true indeed that the paradox-maker is popular now; but\nthat is because men are interested in interpretations of life; and it\nis true too that we are a little impatient now of fancy and\nimagination, and want to get at facts, because we feel that fancy and\nimagination, which are not built on facts, are very tricksy guides to\nlife. But the view seems to me both depressed and morbid which cannot\nlook beyond, and see that the world is passing on in its own great\nunflinching, steady manner. It is like the view of a child who,\nconfronted with a pain, a disagreeable incident, a tedious day of\ndrudgery, wails that it can never be happy again.\n\nThe poem ends with a fine apostrophe to Browning as one \"who stormed\nthrough death, and laid hold of Eternity.\" Did he indeed do that? I\nwish I felt it! He had, of course, an unconquerable optimism, which\nargued promise from failure and perfection from incompleteness. But I\ncannot take such hopes on the word of another, however gallant and\nnoble he may be. I do not want hopes which are only within the reach\nof the vivid and high-hearted; the crippled, drudging slave cannot\nrejoice because he sees his warrior-lord gay, heroic, and strong. I\nmust build my creed on my own hopes and possibilities, not on the\nstrength and cheerfulness of another.\n\nAnd then my eye fell on a sentence opposite, out of an article on our\nsocial problems; and this was what I read:\n\n     \"... the tears of a hunger-bitten philosophy, which is so\n     appalled by the common doom of man--that he must eat his\n     bread by the sweat of his brow--that it can talk, write, and\n     think of nothing else.\"\n\nI think there is more promise in that, rough and even rude as the\nstatement is, because it opens up a real hope for something that is\ncoming, and is not a mere lamentation over a star that is set.\n\n\"A hunger-bitten philosophy\"--is it not rather that there is creeping\ninto the world an uneasy sense that we must, if we are to be happy,\n_share_ our happiness? It is not that the philosopher is hungry, it is\nthat he cannot bear to think of all the other people who are condemned\nto hunger; and why it occupies his tongue and his pen, is that it\nclouds his serenity to know that others cannot now be serene. All this\nunrest, this grasping at the comfort of life on the one hand, and the\npatience, the justice, the tolerance, with which such claims are\nviewed by many possessors on the other, is because there is a spirit\nof sympathy growing up, which has not yet become self-sacrifice, but\nis on its way to become so.\n\nThen we must ask ourselves what our duty is. Not, I think, with all\nour comforts about us, to chant loud odes about its being all right\nwith the world, but to see what we can do to make it all right, to\nequalise, to share, to give.\n\nThe finest thing, of course, would be if those who are set in the\nmidst of comfort could come calmly out of it, and live simpler,\nkinder, more direct lives; but apart from that, what can we do? Is it\nour duty, in the face of all that, to surrender every species of\nenjoyment and delight, to live meanly and anxiously because others\nhave to live so? I am not at all sure that it would not prove our\ngreatness if the thought of all the helpless pain and drudgery of the\nworld, the drift of falling tears, were so intolerable to us that we\nsimply could not endure the thought; but I think that would end in\nquixotism and pessimism of the worst kind, if one would not eat or\ndrink, because men starve in Russia or India, if one would not sleep\nbecause sufferers toss through the night in pain. That seems a morbid\nand self-sought suffering.\n\nNo, I believe that we must share our joy as far as we can, and that it\nis our duty rather to have joy to share, and to guard the quality of\nit, make it pure and true. We do best if we can so refine our\nhappiness as to make it a thing which is not dependent upon wealth or\nease; and the more natural our life is, the more can we be of use by\nthe example which is not self-conscious but contagious, by showing\nthat joy does not depend upon excitement and stimulus, but upon vivid\nusing of the very stuff of life.\n\nWhere we fail, many of us, is in the elaborateness of our pleasures,\nin the fact that we learn to be connoisseurs rather than viveurs, in\nlosing our taste for the ancient wholesome activities and delights.\n\nI had caught an hour, that very day, to visit the Academy; it was a\ndoubtful pleasure, though if I could have had the great rooms to\nmyself it would have been a delightful thing enough; but to be crushed\nand elbowed by such numbers of people who seemed intent not on looking\nat anything, but on trying to see if they could recognise any of their\nfriends! It was a curious collection certainly! So many pictures of\nold disgraceful men, whose faces seemed like the faces of toads or\nmagpies; dull, blinking, malign, or with the pert brightness of\nacquisition. There were pictures too of human life so-called, silly,\nromantic, insincerely posed; some fatuous allegorical things, like\nill-staged melodramas; but the strength of English art came out for\nall that in the lovely landscapes, rich fields, summer streams,\nfar-off woodlands, beating seas; and I felt in looking at it all that\nthe pictures which moved one most were those which gave one a sudden\nhunger for the joy and beauty of earth, not ill-imagined fantastic\nplaces, but scenes that one has looked upon a hundred times with love\nand contentment, the corn-field, the mill with its brimming leat, the\nbathing-place among quiet pastures, the lake set deep in water-plants,\nthe old house in the twilight garden--all the things consecrated\nthroughout long ages by use and life and joy.\n\nAnd then I strayed into the sculpture gallery; and I cannot describe\nthe thrill which half a dozen of the busts there gave me--faces into\nwhich the wonder and the love and the pain of life seemed to have\npassed, and which gave me a sudden sense of that strange desire to\nclaim a share in the past and present and future of the form and face\nin which one suddenly saw so much to love. One seemed to feel hands\nheld out; hearts crying for understanding and affection, breath on\none's cheek, words in one's ears; and thus the whole gallery melted\ninto a great throng of signalling and beckoning presences, the air\ndense with the voices of spirits calling to me, pressing upon me;\noffering and claiming love, all bound upon one mysterious pilgrimage,\nnone able to linger or to stay, and yet willing to clasp one close by\nthe roadside, in wonder at the marvellous inscrutable power behind it\nall, which at the same moment seemed to say, \"Rest here, love, be\nloved, enjoy,\" and at the same moment cried, \"Go forward, experience,\nendure, lament, come to an end.\"\n\nThere again opened before one the awful mystery of the beauty and the\ngrief of life, the double strain which we must somehow learn to\ncombine, the craving for continuance, side by side with the knowledge\nof interruption and silence. If one is real, the other cannot be real!\nAnd I for one have no doubt of which reality I hold to. Death and\nsilence may deceive us; life and joy cannot. There may be something\nhidden beneath the seeming termination of mortal experience; indeed, I\nfully believe that there is; but even if it were not so, nothing could\nmake love and joy unreal, or destroy the consciousness of what says\nwithin us, \"This Is I.\" Our one hope then is not to be deceived or\nbeguiled or bewildered by the complexity and intricacy of life; the\npath of each of us lies clear and direct through the tangle.\n\nAnd thus, as I have said, our task is not to be defrauded of our\ninterior peace. No power that we know can do more than dissolve and\ntransmute our mortal frame; it can melt into the earth, it can be\ncarried into the depths of the sea, but it cannot be annihilated; and\nthis is infinitely more true of our spirits; they may undergo a\nthousand transformations and transmutations, but they must be\neternally there.\n\nSo let us claim our experience bravely and accept it firmly, never\ndaunted by it, never utterly despairing, leaping back into life and\nhappiness as swiftly as we can, never doubting that it is assured to\nus. The time that we waste is that which is spent in anxious, trivial,\nconventional things. We have to bear them in our burdens, many of us,\nbut do not let us be for ever examining them, weighing them in our\nhands, wishing them away, whining over them; we must not let them\nbeguile us of the better part. If the despairing part of us cries out\nthat it is frightened, wearied, anxious, we must not heed it; we must\nagain and again assure ourselves that the peace is there, and that we\nmiss it by our own fault. Above all let us not make pitiable excuses\nfor ourselves. We must be like the woman in the parable who, when she\nlost the coin, did not sit down to bewail her ill-luck, but swept the\nhouse diligently until she found it. There is no such thing as loss in\nthe world; what we lose is merely withheld until we have earned the\nright to find it again. We must not cultivate repentance, we must not\nyield to remorse. The only thing worth having is a wholesome sorrow\nfor not having done better; but it is ignoble to remember, if our\nremembrance has anything hopeless about it; and we do best utterly to\nforget our failures and lapses, because of this we may be wholly sure,\nthat joys are restored to us, that strength returns, and that peace\nbeyond measure is waiting for us; and not only waiting for us, but as\nnear us as a closed door in the room in which we sit. We can rise up,\nwe can turn thither, we can enter if we will and when we will.\n\n\n\n\nXXII\n\nEXPERIENCE\n\n\nIt is very strange to contemplate the steady plunge of good advice,\nlike a cataract of ice-cold water, into the brimming and dancing pool\nof youth and life, the maxims of moralists and sages, the epigrams of\ncynics, the sermons of priests, the good-humoured warnings of sensible\nmen, all crying out that nothing is really worth the winning, that\nfame brings weariness and anxiety, that love is a fitful fever, that\nwealth is a heavy burden, that ambition is a hectic dream; to all of\nwhich ejaculations youth does not listen and cannot listen, but just\ngoes on its eager way, trying its own experiments, believing in the\ndelight of triumph and success, determined, at all events, to test all\nfor itself. All this confession of disillusionment and disappointment\nis true, but only partially true. The struggle, the effort, the\nperseverance, does bring fine things with it--things finer by far than\nthe shining crown and the loud trumpets that attend it.\n\nThe explanation of it seems to be that men require to be tempted to\neffort, by the dream of fame and wealth and leisure and imagined\nsatisfaction. It is the experience that we need, though we do not know\nit; and experience, by itself, seems such a tedious, dowdy, tattered\nthing, like a flag burnt by sun, bedraggled by rain, torn by the\nonset, that it cannot by itself prove attractive. Men are heavily\npreoccupied with ends and aims, and the recognised values of the\nobjects of desire and hope are often false and distorted values. So\nsingularly constituted are we, that the hope of idleness is alluring,\nand some people are early deceived into habits of idleness, because\nthey cannot know what it is that lies on the further side of work. Of\ncourse the bodily life has to be supplied, but when a man has all that\nhe needs--let us say food and drink, a quiet shelter, a garden and a\nrow of trees, a grassy meadow with a flowing stream, a congenial task,\na household of his own--it seems not enough! Let us suppose all that\ngranted to a man: he must consider next what kind of life he has\ngained; he has the cup in his hands; with what liquor is it to be\nfilled? That is the point at which the imagination of man seems to\nfail; he cannot set himself to vigorous, wholesome life for its own\nsake. He has to be ever looking past it and beyond it for something to\nyield him an added joy.\n\nNow, what we all have to do, if we can, is to regard life steadily and\ngenerously, to see that life, experience, emotion, are the real gifts;\nnot things to be hurried through, thrust aside, disregarded, as a man\nmakes a hasty meal before some occasion that excites him. One must not\nuse life like the passover feast, to be eaten with loins girded and\nstaff in hand. It is there to be lived, and what we have to do is to\nmake the quality of it as fine as we can.\n\nWe must provide then, if we can, a certain setting for life, a\nsufficiency of work and sustenance, and even leisure; and then we must\ngive that no further thought. How many men do I not know, whose\nthought seems to be \"when I have made enough money, when I have found\nmy place, when I have arranged the apparatus of life about me, then I\nwill live as I should wish to live.\" But the stream of desires\nbroadens and thickens, and the leisure hour never comes!\n\nWe must not thus deceive ourselves. What we have to do is to make\nlife, instantly and without delay, worthy to be lived. We must try to\nenjoy all that we have to do, and take care that we do not do what we\ndo not enjoy, unless the hard task we set ourselves is sure to bring\nus something that we really need. It is useless thus to elaborate the\ncup of life, if we find when we have made it, that the wine which\nshould have filled it has long ago evaporated.\n\nCan I say what I believe the wine of life to be? I believe that it is\na certain energy and richness of spirit, in which both mind and heart\nfind full expression. We ought to rise day by day with a certain zest,\na clear intention, a design to make the most out of every hour; not to\nlet the busy hours shoulder each other, tread on each other's heels,\nbut to force every action to give up its strength and sweetness. There\nis work to be done, and there are empty hours to be filled as well.\nIt is happiest of all, for man and woman, if those hours can be\nfilled, not as a duty but as a pleasure, by pleasing those whom we\nlove and whose nearness is at once a delight. We ought to make time\nfor that most of all. And then there ought to be some occupation, not\nenforced, to which we naturally wish to return. Exercise, gardening,\nhandicraft, writing, even if it be only leisurely letters, music,\nreading--something to occupy the restless brain and hand; for there is\nno doubt that both physically and mentally we are not fit to be\nunoccupied.\n\nBut most of all, there must be something to quicken, enliven, practise\nthe soul. We must not force this upon ourselves, or it will be\nfruitless and dreary; but neither must we let it lapse out of mere\nindolence. We must follow some law of beauty, in whatever way beauty\nappeals to us and calls us. We must not think that appeal a selfish\nthing, because it is upon that and that alone that our power of\nincreasing peace and hope and vital energy belongs.\n\nI have a man in mind who has a simple taste for books. He has a\nsingularly pure and fine power of selecting and loving what is best\nin books. There is no self-consciousness about him, no critical\ncontempt of the fancies of others; but his own love for what is\nbeautiful is so modest, so perfectly natural and unaffected, that it\nis impossible to hear him speak of the things that he loves without a\ndesire rising up in one's mind to taste a pleasure which brings so\nmuch happiness to the owner. I have often talked with him about books\nthat I had thought tiresome and dull; but he disentangles so deftly\nthe underlying idea of the book, the thought that one must be on the\nlook-out for the motive of the whole, that he has again and again sent\nme back to a book which I had thrown aside, with an added interest and\nperception. But the really notable thing is the effect on his own\nimmediate circle. I do not think his family are naturally people of\nvery high intelligence or ability. But his mind and heart seem to have\npermeated theirs, so that I know no group of persons who seem to have\nimbibed so simply, without strain or effort, a delight in what is good\nand profound. There is no sort of dryness about the atmosphere. It is\nnot that they keep talk resolutely on their own subjects; it is merely\nthat their outlook is so fresh and quick that everything seems alive\nand significant. One comes away from the house with a horizon\nstrangely extended, and a sense that the world is full of live ideas\nand wonderful affairs.\n\nI despair of describing an effect so subtle, so contagious. It is not\nin the least that everything becomes intellectual; that would be a\nrueful consequence; there is no parade of knowledge, but knowledge\nitself becomes an exciting and entertaining thing, like a varied\nlandscape. The wonder is, when one is with these people, that one did\nnot see all the fine things that were staring one in the face all the\ntime, the clues, the connections, the links. The best of it is that it\nis not a transient effect; it is rather like the implanting of a seed\nof fire, which spreads and glows, and burns unaided.\n\nIt is this sacred fire of which we ought all to be in search. Fire is\nsurely the most wonderful symbol in the world! We sit in our quiet\nrooms, feeling safe, serene, even chilly, yet everywhere about us,\npeacefully confined in all our furniture and belongings, is a mass of\ninflammability, stored with gases, which at a touch are capable of\nleaping into flame. I remember once being in a house in which a pile\nof wood in a cellar had caught fire; there was a short delay, while\nthe hose was got out, and before an aperture into the burning room\ncould be made. I went into a peaceful dining-room, which was just\nabove the fire, and it was strangely appalling to see little puffs of\nsmoke fly off from the kindled floor, while we tore the carpets up and\nflew to take the pictures down, and to know the room was all crammed\nwith vehement cells, ready to burst into vapour at the fierce touch of\nthe consuming element.\n\nI saw once a vast bonfire of wood kindled on a grassy hill-top; it was\ncuriously affecting to see the great trunks melt into flame, and the\nred cataract pouring so softly, so unapproachably into the air. It is\nso with the minds of men; the material is all there, compressed,\nwelded, inflammable; and if the fire can but leap into our spirits\nfrom some other burning heart, we may be amazed at the prodigal force\nand heat that can burst forth, the silent energy, the possibility of\nconsumption.\n\nI hold it to be of supreme value to each of us to try to introduce\nthis fire of the heart into our spirits. It is not like mortal fire,\na consuming, dangerous, truculent element. It is rather like the\nfurnace of the engine, which can convert water into steam--the\nsoftest, feeblest, purest element into irresistible and irrepressible\nforce. The materials are all at hand in many a spirit that has never\nfelt the glowing contact; and it is our business first to see that the\nelements are there, and then to receive with awe the fiery touch. It\nmust be restrained, controlled, guarded, that fierce conflagration;\nbut our joy cannot only consist of pure, clear, lambent, quiescent\nelements. It must have a heart of flame.\n\n\n\n\nXXIII\n\nFAITH\n\n\nWe ought to learn to cultivate, train, regulate emotion, just as we\ntrain other faculties. The world has hardly reached this point yet.\nFirst man trains his body that he may be strong, when strength is\nsupreme. When almost the only argument is force, the man who is drawn\nto play a fine part in the world must above everything be strong,\ncourageous, gallant, so that he may go to combat joyful and serene,\nlike a man inspired. Then when the world becomes civilised, when\nweakness combines against strength, when men do not settle differences\nof feeling by combat and war, but by peaceable devices like votes and\narbitrations, the intellect comes to the front, and strength of body\nfalls into the background as a pleasant enough thing, a matter of\namusement or health, and intellect becomes the dominant force. But we\nshall advance beyond even that, and indeed we have begun to advance.\nBuddhism and the Stoic philosophy were movements dictated more by\nreason than by emotion, which recognised the elements of pain and\nsorrow as inseparable from human life, and suggested to man that the\nonly way to conquer evils such as these was by turning the back upon\nthem, cultivating indifference to them, and repressing the desires\nwhich issued in disappointment. Christianity was the first attempt of\nthe human spirit to achieve a nobler conquest still; it taught men to\nabandon the idea of conquest altogether; the Christian was meant to\nabjure ambition, not to resist oppression, not to meet violence by\nviolence, but to yield rather than to fight.\n\nThe metaphor of the Christian soldier is wholly alien to the spirit of\nthe Gospel, and the attempt to establish a combative ideal of\nChristian life was one of the many concessions that Christianity in\nthe hands of its later exponents made to the instincts of men. The\nconception of the Christian in the Gospel was that of a simple,\nuncomplicated, uncalculating being, who was to be so absorbed in\ncaring for others that the sense of his own rights and desires and\naims was to fall wholly into the background. He is not represented as\nmeant to have any intellectual, political, or artistic pursuits at\nall. He is to accept his place in the world as he finds it; he is to\nhave no use for money or comforts or accumulated resources. He is not\nto scheme for dignity or influence, nor even much to regard earthly\nties. Sorrow, loss, pain, evil, are simply to be as shadows through\nwhich he passes, and if they have any meaning at all for him, they are\nto be opportunities for testing the strength of his emotions. But the\nwhole spirit of the Christian revelation is that no terms should be\nmade with the world at all. The world must treat the Christian as it\nwill, and there are to be no reprisals; neither is there the least\ntouch of opportunism about it. The Christian is not to do the best he\ncan, but the best; he is frankly to aim at perfection.\n\nHow then is this faith to be sustained? It is to be nourished by a\nsense of direct and frank converse with a God and Father. The\nChristian is never to have any doubt that the intention of the Father\ntowards him is absolutely, kind and good. He attempts no explanation\nof the existence of sin and pain; he simply endures them; and he looks\nforward with serene certainty to the continued existence of the soul.\nThere is no hint given of the conditions under which the soul is to\ncontinue its further life, of its desires or occupations; the\nintention obviously is that a Christian should live life freely and\nfully; but love, and interest in human relations are to supersede all\nother aims and desires.\n\nIt has been often said that if the world were to accept the teaching\nof the Sermon on the Mount literally, the social fabric of the world\nwould be dissolved in a month. It is true; but it is not generally\nadded that it would be because there would be no need of the social\nfabric. The reason why the social fabric would be dissolved is because\nthere would doubtless be a minority which would not accept these\nprinciples, and would seize upon the things which the world agrees to\nconsider desirable. The Christian majority would become the slaves of\nthe unchristian minority, and would be at their mercy. Christianity,\nin so far as it is a social system at all, is the purest kind of\nsocialism, a socialism not of compulsion but of disinterestedness. It\nis easy, of course, to scoff at the possibility of so far\ndisintegrating the vast and complex organisation of society, as to\narrange life on the simpler lines; but the fact remains that the very\nfew people in the world's history, like St. Francis of Assisi, for\ninstance, who have ever dared to live literally in the Christian\nmanner, have had an immeasurable effect upon the hearts and\nimaginations of the world. The truth is not that life cannot be so\nlived, but that humanity dares not take the plunge; and that is what\nChrist meant when He said that few would find the narrow way. The\nreally amazing thing is that such immense numbers of people have\naccepted Christianity in the world, and profess themselves Christians\nwithout the slightest doubt of their sincerity, who never regard the\nChristian principles at all. The chief aim, it would seem, of the\nChurch, has been not to preserve the original revelation, but to\naccommodate it to human instincts and desires. It seems to me to\nresemble the very quaint and simple old Breton legend, which relates\nhow the Saviour sent the Apostles out to sell stale fish as fresh;\nand when they returned unsuccessful, He was angry with them, and\nsaid, \"How shall I make you into fishers of men, if you cannot even\npersuade simple people to buy stale fish for fresh?\" That is a very\ntrenchant little allegory of ecclesiastical methods! And perhaps it is\neven so that it has come to pass that Christianity is in a sense a\nfailure, or rather an unfulfilled hope, because it has made terms with\nthe world, has become pompous and respectable and mundane and\ninfluential and combative, and has deliberately exalted civic duty\nabove love.\n\nIt seems to me that it is the business of all serious Christians\ndeliberately to face this fact; and equally it is not their business\nto try to destroy the social organisation of what is miscalled\nChristianity. That is as much a part of the world now as the Roman\nEmpire was a part of the world when Christ came; but we must not\nmistake it for Christianity. Christianity is not a doctrine, or an\norganisation, or a ceremonial, or a society, but an atmosphere and a\nlife. The essence of it is to train emotion, to believe and to\npractise the belief that all human beings have in them something\ninteresting, lovable, beautiful, pathetic; and to make the\nrecognition of that fact, the establishment of simple and kind\nrelations with every single person with whom one is brought into\ncontact, the one engrossing aim of life. Thus the essence of\nChristianity is in a sense artistic, because it depends upon freely\nrecognising the beauty both of the natural world and the human spirit.\nThere are enough hints of this in the Gospel, in the tender\nobservation of Christ, His love of flowers, birds, children, the fact\nthat He noted and reproduced in His stories the beauty of the homely\nbusiness of life, the processes of husbandry in field and vineyard,\nthe care of the sheepfold, the movement of the street, the games of\nboys and girls, the little festivals of life, the wedding and the\nparty; all these things appear in His talk, and if more of it were\nrecorded, there would undoubtedly be more of such things. It is true\nthat as opposition and strife gathered about Him, there falls a darker\nand sadder spirit upon the page, and the anxieties and ambitions of\nHis followers reflect themselves in the record of denunciations and\ncensures. But we must not be misled by this into thinking that the\nmessage is thus obscured.\n\nWhat then we have to do, if we would follow the pure Gospel, is to\nlead quiet lives, refresh the spirit of joy within us by feeding our\neyes and minds with the beautiful sounds and sights of nature, the\nbirds' song, the opening faces of flowers, the spring woods, the\nwinter sunset; we must enter simply and freely into the life about us,\nnot seeking to take a lead, to impress our views, to emphasise our own\nsubjects; we must not get absorbed in toil or business, and still less\nin plans and intrigues; we must not protest against these things, but\nsimply not care for them; we must not be burdensome to others in any\nway; we must not be shocked or offended or disgusted, but tolerate,\nforgive, welcome, share. We must treat life in an eager, light-hearted\nway, not ruefully or drearily or solemnly. The old language in which\nthe Gospel comes to us, the formality of the antique phrasing, the\nnatural tendency to make it dignified and hieratic, disguise from us\nhow utterly natural and simple it all is. I do not think that\nreverence and tradition and awe have done us any more grievous injury\nthan the fact that we have made the Saviour into a figure with whom\nfrank communication, eager, impulsive talk, would seem to be\nimpossible. One thinks of Him, from pictures and from books, as grave,\nabstracted, chiding, precise, mournfully kind, solemnly considerate. I\nbelieve it in my heart to have been wholly otherwise, and I think of\nHim as one with whom any simple and affectionate person, man, woman,\nor child, would have been entirely and instantly at ease. Like all\nidealistic and poetical natures, he had little use, I think, for\nlaughter; those who are deeply interested in life and its issues care\nmore for the beauty than the humour of life. But one sees a flash of\nhumour here and there, as in the story of the unjust judge, and of the\nchildren in the market-place; and that He was disconcerting or cast a\nshadow upon natural talk and merriment I do not for an instant\nbelieve.\n\nAnd thus I think that the Christian has no right to be ashamed of\nlight-heartedness; indeed I believe that he ought to cultivate and\nfeed it in every possible way. He ought to be so unaffected, that he\ncan change without the least incongruity from laughter to tears,\nsympathising with, entering into, developing the moods of those about\nhim. The moment that the Christian feels himself to be out of place\nand affronted by scenes of common resort--the market, the bar, the\nsmoking-room--that moment his love of humanity fails him. He must be\ncharming, attractive, genial, everywhere; for the severance of\ngoodness and charm is a most wretched matter; if he affects his\ncompany at all, it must be as innocent and beautiful girlhood affects\na circle, by its guilelessness, its sweetness, its appeal. I have\nknown Christians like this, wise, beloved, simple, gentle people,\nwhose presence did not bring constraint but rather a perfect ease, and\nwas an evocation of all that was best and finest in those near them. I\nam not recommending a kind of silly mildness, interested only in\nimproving conversation, but rather a zest, a shrewdness, a bonhomie,\nnot finding natural interests common and unclean, but passionately\ndevoted to human nature--so impulsive, frail, unequal, irritable,\npleasure-loving, but yet with that generous, sweet, wholesome fibre\nbelow, that seems to be evoked in crisis and trial from the most\napparently worthless human beings. The outcasts of society, the\nsinful, the ill-regulated, would never have so congregated about our\nSaviour if they had felt Him to be shocked or indignant at sin. What\nthey must rather have felt was that He understood them, loved them,\ndesired their love, and drew out all the true and fine and eager and\nlovable part of them, because he knew it to be there, wished it to\nemerge. \"He was such a comfortable person!\" as a simple man once said\nto me of one of the best of Christians: \"if you had gone wrong, he did\nnot find fault, but tried to see the way out; and if you were in pain\nor trouble, he said very little; you only felt it was all right when\nhe was by.\"\n\n\n\n\nXXIV\n\nPROGRESS\n\n\nWe must always hopefully and gladly remember that the great movements,\ndoctrines, thoughts, which have affected the life of the world most\ndeeply, are those which are most truly based upon the best and truest\nneeds of humanity. We need never be afraid of a new theory or a new\ndoctrine, because such things are never imposed upon an unwilling\nworld, but owe their strength to the closeness with which they\ninterpret the aims and wants of human beings. Still more hopeful is\nthe knowledge which one gains from looking back at the history of the\nworld, that no selfish, cruel, sensual, or wicked interpretation of\nlife has ever established a vital hold upon men. The selfish and the\ncruel elements of humanity have never been able to band themselves\ntogether against the power of good for very long, for the simple\nreason that those who are selfish and evil have a natural suspicion of\nother selfish and evil people; and no combination of men can ever be\nbased upon anything but mutual trust and affection. And thus good has\nalways a power of combination, while evil is naturally solitary and\ndisjunctive.\n\nTake such an attempt as that of Nietzsche to establish a new theory of\nlife. His theory of the superman is simply this, that the future of\nthe world was in the hands of strong, combative, powerful, predatory\npeople. Those are the supermen, a natural aristocracy of force and\nunscrupulousness and vigour. But such individuals carry with them the\nseed of their own failure, because even if Nietzsche's view that the\nweak and broken elements of humanity were doomed to perish, and ought\neven to be helped to perish, were a true view, even if his supermen at\nlast survived, they must ultimately be matched one against another in\nsome monstrous and unflinching combat.\n\nNietzsche held that the Christian doctrine of renunciation was but a\ntranslating into terms of a theory the discontent, the disappointment,\nthe failure of the weak and diseased element of humanity, the slavish\nherd. He thought that Christianity was a glorification, a consecration\nof man's weakness and not of his strength. But he misjudged it wholly.\nIt is based in reality upon the noble element in humanity, the power\nof love and trust and unselfishness which rises superior to the ills\nof life; and the force of Christianity lies in the fact that it\nreveals to men the greatness of which they are capable, and the fact\nthat no squalor or wretchedness of circumstances can bind the thought\nof man, if it is set upon what is high and pure. The man or woman who\nsees the beauty of inner purity cannot ever be very deeply tainted by\ncorruption either of body or of soul.\n\nRenunciation is not a wholly passive thing; it is not a mere suspicion\nof all that is joyful, a dull abnegation of happiness. It is not that\nself-sacrifice means a frame of mind too despondent to enjoy, so\nfearful of every kind of pleasure that it has not the heart to take\npart in it. It is rather a vigorous discrimination between pleasure\nand joy, an austerity which is not deceived by selfish, obvious,\napparent pleasure, but sees what sort of pleasure is innocent,\nnatural, social, and what sort of pleasure is corroding, barren, and\nunreal.\n\nIn the Christianity of the Gospel there is very little trace of\nasceticism. The delight in life is clearly indicated, and the only\nsort of self-denial that is taught is the self-denial that ends in\nsimplicity of life, and in the joyful and courageous shouldering of\ninevitable burdens. Self-denial was not to be practised in a\nspiritless and timid way, but rather as a man accepts the fatigues and\ndangers of an expedition, in a vigorous and adventurous mood. One does\nnot think of the men who go on some Arctic exploration, with all the\nrestrictions of diet that they have to practise, all the uncomfortable\nrules of life they have to obey, as renouncing the joys of life; they\ndo so naturally, in order that they may follow a livelier inspiration.\nIt is clear from the accounts of primitive Christians that they\nimpressed their heathen neighbours not as timid, anxious, and\ndespondent people, but as men and women with some secret overflowing\nsense of joy and energy, and with a curious radiance and brightness\nabout them which was not an affected pose, but the redundant happiness\nof those who have some glad knowledge in heart and mind which they\ncannot repress.\n\nLet us suppose the case of a man gifted by nature with a great\nvitality, with a keen perception of all that is beautiful in life, all\nthat is humorous, all that is delightful. Imagine him extremely\nsensitive to nature, art, human charm, human pleasure, doing\neverything with zest, interest, amusement, excitement. Imagine him,\ntoo, deeply sensitive to affection, loving to be loved, grateful,\nkindly, fond of children and animals, a fervent lover, a romantic\nfriend, alive to all fine human qualities. Suppose, too, that he is\nambitious, desirous of fame, liking to play an active part in life,\nfond of work, wishing to sway opinion, eager that others should care\nfor the things for which he cares. Well, he must make a certain\nchoice, no doubt; he cannot gratify all these things; his ambition may\nget in the way of his pleasure, his affections may interrupt his\nambitions. What is his renunciation to be? It obviously will not be an\nabnegation of everything. He will not feel himself bound to crush all\nenjoyment, to refuse to love and be loved, to enter tamely and\npassively into life. He will inevitably choose what is dearest to his\nheart, whatever that may be, and he will no doubt instinctively\neliminate from his life the joys which are most clouded by\ndissatisfaction. If he sets affection aside for the sake of ambition,\nand then finds that the thought of the love he has slighted or\ndisregarded wounds and pains him, he will retrace his steps; if he\nsees that his ambitions leave him no time for his enjoyment of art or\nnature, and finds his success embittered by the loss of those other\nenjoyments, he will curb his ambition; but in all this he will not act\nanxiously and wretchedly. He will be rather like a man who has two\nsimultaneous pleasures offered him, one of which must exclude the\nother. He will not spoil both, but take what he desires most, and\nthink no more of what he rejects.\n\nThe more that such a man loves life, the less is he likely to be\ndeceived by the shows of life; the more wisely will he judge what part\nof it is worth keeping, and the less will he be tempted by anything\nwhich distracts him from life itself. It is fulness of life, after\nall, that he is aiming at, and not vacuity; and thus renunciation\nbecomes not a feeble withdrawal from life, but a vigorous affirmation\nof the worth of it.\n\nBut of course we cannot all expect to deal with life on this\nhigh-handed scale. The question is what most of us, who feel ourselves\nsadly limited, incomplete, fractious, discontented, fitful, unequal to\nthe claims upon us, should do. If we have no sense of eager adventure,\nbut are afraid of life, overshadowed by doubts and anxieties, with no\ngreat spring of pleasure, no passionate emotions, no very definite\nambitions, what are we then to do?\n\nOr perhaps our case is even worse than that; we are meanly desirous of\ncomfort, of untroubled ease, we have a secret love of low pleasures, a\ndesire to gain rather than to deserve admiration and respect, a\ntemptation to fortify ourselves against life by accumulating all sorts\nof resources, with no particular wish to share anything, but aiming to\nbe left alone in a circle which we can bend to our will and make\nuseful to us; that is the hard case of many men and women; and even if\nby glimpses we see that there is a finer and a freer life outside, we\nmay not be conscious of any real desire to issue from our stuffy\nparlour.\n\nIn either case our duty and our one hope is clear; that we have got\nsomehow, at all costs and hazards, to find our way into the light of\nday. It is such as these, the anxious and the fearful on the one hand,\nthe gross and sensual on the other, who need most of all a _Joyous\nGard_ of their own. Because we are coming to the light, as Walt\nWhitman so splendidly says:--\"The Lord advances and yet advances ...\nalways the shadow in front, always the reach'd hand bringing up the\nlaggards.\"\n\nOur business, if we know that we are laggards, if we only dimly\nsuspect it, is not to fear the shadow, but to seize the outstretched\nhands. We must grasp the smallest clue that leads out of the dark, the\nresolute fight with some slovenly and ugly habit, the telling of our\nmean troubles to some one whose energy we admire and whose disapproval\nwe dread; we must try the experiment, make the plunge; all at once we\nrealise that the foundations are laid, that the wall is beginning to\nrise above the rubbish and the debris; we must build a home for the\nnew-found joy, even if as yet it only sings drowsily and faintly\nwithin our hearts, like the awaking bird in the dewy thicket, when the\nfingers of the dawn begin to raise the curtain of the night.\n\n\n\n\nXXV\n\nTHE SENSE OF BEAUTY\n\n\nThere is one difficulty which stands at the threshold of dealing with\nthe sense of beauty so as to give it due importance and preponderance,\nand that is that it seems with many people to be so frail a thing, and\nto visit the mind only as the last grace of a mood of perfect serenity\nand well-being. Many people, and those not the least thoughtful and\nintelligent, find by experience that it is almost the first thing to\ndisappear in moments of stress and pressure. Physical pain, grief,\npre-occupation, business, anxiety, all seem to have the power of\nquenching it instantaneously, until one is apt to feel that it is a\nthing of infinite delicacy and tenderness, and can only co-exist with\na tranquillity which it is hard in life to secure. The result of this\nno doubt is that many active-minded and forcible people are ready to\nthink little of it, and just regard it as a mood that may accompany a\nwell-earned holiday, and even so to be sparingly indulged.\n\nIt is also undoubtedly true that in many robust and energetic people\nthe sense of what is beautiful is so far atrophied that it can only be\naroused by scenes and places of almost melodramatic picturesqueness,\nby ancient buildings clustered on craggy eminences, great valleys with\nthe frozen horns of mountains, wind-ravaged and snow-streaked, peering\nover forest edges, the thunder and splendour of great sea-breakers\nplunging landward under rugged headlands and cliff-fronts. But all\nthis pursuit of sensational beauty is to mistake its quality; the\nmoment it is thus pursued it ceases to be the milk and honey of life,\nand it becomes a kind of stimulant which excites rather than\ntranquillises. I do not mean that one should of set purpose avoid the\nsight of wonderful prospects and treasure-houses of art, or act as the\npoet Gray did when he was travelling with Horace Walpole in the Alps,\nwhen they drew up the blinds of their carriage to exclude the sight of\nsuch prodigious and unmanning horrors!\n\nStill I think that if one is on the right track, and if beauty has its\ndue place and value in life, there will be less and less impulse to go\nfar afield for it, in search of something to thrill the dull\nperception and quicken it into life. I believe that people ought to be\ncontent to live most of their lives in the same place, and to grow to\nlove familiar scenes. Familiarity with a scene ought not to result in\nthe obliteration of all consciousness of it: one ought rather to find\nin use and affection an increased power of subtle interpretation, a\ncloser and finer understanding of the qualities which underlie the\nvery simplest of English landscapes. I live, myself, for most of the\nyear in a countryside that is often spoken of by its inhabitants as\ndull, tame, and featureless; yet I cannot say with what daily renewal\nof delight I wander in the pastoral Cambridge landscape, with its long\nlow lines of wold, its whitewalled, straw-thatched villages embowered\nin orchards and elms, its slow willow-bound streams, its level\nfenland, with the far-seen cloud-banks looming overhead: or again in\nthe high-ridged, well-wooded land of Sussex, where I often live, the\npure lines of the distant downs seen over the richly coloured\nintervening weald grow daily more dear and intimate, and appeal more\nand more closely to the deepest secrets of sweetness and delight. For\nas we train ourselves to the perception of beauty, we become more and\nmore alive to a fine simplicity of effect; we find the lavish\naccumulation of rich and magnificent glories bewildering and\ndistracting.\n\nAnd this is the same with other arts; we no longer crave to be dazzled\nand flooded by passionate and exciting sensation, we care less and\nless for studied mosaics of word and thought, and more and more for\nclearness and form and economy and austerity. Restless exuberance\nbecomes unwelcome, complexity and intricacy weary us; we begin to\nperceive the beauty of what Fitzgerald called the 'great still books.'\nWe do not desire a kaleidoscopic pageant of blending and colliding\nemotions, but crave for something distinctly seen, entirely grasped,\nperfectly developed. Because we are no longer in search of something\nstimulating and exciting, something to make us glide and dart among\nthe surge and spray of life, but what we crave for is rather a calm\nand reposeful absorption in a thought which can yield us all its\nbeauty, and assure us of the existence of a principle in which we can\nrest and abide. As life goes on, we ought not to find relief from\ntedium only in a swift interchange and multiplication of sensations;\nwe ought rather to attain a simple and sustained joyfulness which can\nfind nurture in homely and familiar things.\n\nIf again the sense of beauty is so frail a thing that it is at the\nmercy of all intruding and jarring elements, it is also one of the\nmost patient and persistent of quiet forces. Like the darting fly\nwhich we scare from us, it returns again and again to settle on the\nspot which it has chosen. There are, it is true, troubled and anxious\nhours when the beauty round us seems a cruel and intrusive thing,\nmocking us with a peace which we cannot realise, and torturing us with\nthe reminder of the joy we have lost. There are days when the only way\nto forget our misery is to absorb ourselves in some practical energy;\nbut that is because we have not learned to love beauty in the right\nway. If we have only thought of it as a pleasant ingredient in our cup\nof joy, as a thing which we can just use as we can use wine, to give\nus an added flush of unreasonable content, then it will fail us when\nwe need it most. When a man is under the shadow of a bereavement, he\ncan test for himself how he has used love. If he finds that the loving\nlooks and words and caresses of those that are left to him are a mere\ntorture to him, then he has used love wrongly, just as a selfish and\nagreeable delight; but if he finds strength and comfort in the\nyearning sympathy of friend and beloved, reassurance in the strength\nof the love that is left him, and confidence in the indestructibility\nof affection, then he has used love wisely and purely, loving it for\nitself, for its beauty and holiness, and not only for the warmth and\ncomfort it has brought him.\n\nSo, if we have loved beauty well, have seen in it a promise of\nultimate joy, a sign of a deliberate intention, a message from a power\nthat does not send sorrow and anxiety wantonly, cruelly and\nindifferently, an assurance of something that waits to welcome and\nbless us, then beauty is not a mere torturing menace, a heartless and\nunkind parading of joy which we cannot feel, but a faithful pledge of\nsomething secure and everlasting, which will return to us again and\nagain in ever fuller measure, even if the flow of it be sometimes\nsuspended.\n\nWe ought then to train and practise our sense of beauty, not selfishly\nand luxuriously, but so that when the dark hour comes it may help us\nto realise that all is not lost, may alleviate our pain by giving us\nthe knowledge that the darkness is the interruption, but that the joy\nis permanent and deep and certain.\n\nThus beauty, instead of being for us but as the melody swiftly played\nwhen our hearts are high, a mere momentary ray, a happy accident that\nbefalls us, may become to us a deep and vital spring of love and hope,\nof which we may say that it is there waiting for us, like the home\nthat awaits the traveller over the weary upland at the foot of the\nfar-looming hill. It may come to us as a perpetual sign that we are\nnot forgotten, and that the joy of which it makes mention survives all\ninterludes of strife and uneasiness. It is easy to slight and overlook\nit, but if we do that, we are deluded by the passing storm into\nbelieving that confusion and not peace is the end. As George Meredith\nnobly wrote, during the tragic and fatal illness of his wife, \"Here I\nam in the very pits of tragic life.... Happily for me, I have learnt\nto live much in the spirit, and see brightness on the other side of\nlife, otherwise this running of my poor doe with the inextricable\narrow in her flanks would pull me down too.\" The spirit, the\nbrightness of the other side, that is the secret which beauty can\ncommunicate, and the message which she bears upon her radiant wings.\n\n\n\n\nXXVI\n\nTHE PRINCIPLE OF BEAUTY\n\n\n\"I have loved,\" said Keats, \"the _principle_ of beauty in all things.\"\nIt is that to which all I have said has been leading, as many roads\nunite in one. We must try to use discrimination, not to be so\noptimistic that we see beauty if it is not there, not to overwhelm\nevery fling that every craftsman has at beauty with gush and\npanegyric; not to praise beauty in all companies, or to go off like a\nripe broom-pod, at a touch. When Walter Pater was confronted with\nsomething which courtesy demanded that he should seem to admire, he\nused to say in that soft voice of his, which lingered over emphatic\nsyllables, \"Very costly, no doubt!\"\n\nBut we must be generous to all beautiful intention, and quick to see\nany faintest beckoning of the divine quality; and indeed I would not\nhave most people aim at too critical an attitude, for I believe it is\nmore important to enjoy than to appraise; still we must keep the\nprinciple in sight, and not degenerate into mere collectors of\nbeautiful impressions. If we simply try to wallow in beauty, we are\nusing it sensually; while if on the other hand we aim at correctness\nof taste, which is but the faculty of sincere concurrence with the\nartistic standards of the day, we come to a sterile connoisseurship\nwhich has no living inspiration about it. It is the temperate use of\nbeauty which we must aim at, and a certain candour of observation,\nlooking at all things, neither that we may condemn if we can, nor that\nwe may luxuriously abandon ourselves to sensation, but that we may\ndraw from contemplation something of the inner light of life.\n\nI have not here said much about the arts--music, sculpture, painting,\narchitecture--because I do not want to recommend any specialisation in\nbeauty. I know, indeed, several high-minded people, diligent,\nunoriginal, faithful, who have begun by recognising in a philosophical\nway the worth and force of beauty, but who, having no direct instinct\nfor it, have bemused themselves by conventional and conscientious\nstudy, into the belief that they are on the track of beauty in art,\nwhen they have no real appreciation of it at all, no appetite for it,\nbut are only bent on perfecting temperament, and whose unconscious\nmotive has been but a fear of not being in sympathy with men whose\nardour they admire, but whose love of beauty they do not really share.\nSuch people tend to gravitate to early Italian painting, because of\nits historical associations, and because it can be categorically\nstudied. They become what is called 'purists,' which means little more\nthan a learned submissiveness. In literature they are found to admire\nCarlyle, Ruskin, and Browning, not because of their method of treating\nthought, but because of the ethical maxims imbedded--as though one\nwere to love a conserve of plums for the sake of the stones!\n\nOne should love great writers and great artists not because of their\ngreat thoughts--there are plenty of inferior writers who traffic in\ngreat thoughts--but because great artists and writers are the people\nwho can irradiate with a heavenly sort of light common thoughts and\nmotives, so as to show the beauty which underlies them and the\nsplendour that breaks from them. It is possible to treat fine thoughts\nin a heavy way so as to deprive them of all their rarity and\ninspiration. The Gospel contains some of the most beautiful thoughts\nin the world, beautiful because they are common thoughts which every\none recognises to be true, yet set in a certain light, just as the\nsunset with its level, golden, remote glow has the power of\ntransfiguring a familiar scene with a glory of mystery and desire. But\none has but to turn over a volume of dull sermons, or the pages of a\ndreary commentary, to find the thoughts of the Gospel transformed into\nsomething that seems commonplace and uninspiring. The beauty of\nordinary things depends upon the angle at which you see them and the\nlight which falls upon them; and the work of the great artist and the\ngreat writer is to show things at the right angle, and to shut off the\nconfusing muddled cross-lights which conceal the quality of the thing\nseen.\n\nThe recognition of the principle of beauty lies in the assurance that\nmany things have beauty, if rightly viewed, and in the determination\nto see things in the true light. Thus the soul that desires to see\nbeauty must begin by believing it to be there, must expect to see it,\nmust watch for it, must not be discouraged by those who do not see it,\nand least of all give heed to those who would forbid one to discern it\nexcept in definite and approved forms. The worst of aesthetic prophets\nis that, like the Scribes, they make a fence about the law, and try to\nconvert the search for principle into the accumulation of detailed\ntenets.\n\nLet us then never attempt to limit beauty to definite artistic lines;\nthat is the mistake of the superstitious formalist who limits divine\ninfluences to certain sanctuaries and fixed ceremonials. The use of\nthe sanctuary and the ceremonial is only to concentrate at one fiery\npoint the wide current of impulsive ardour. The true lover of beauty\nwill await it everywhere, will see it in the town, with its rising\nroofs and its bleached and blackened steeples, in the seaport with its\nquaint crowded shipping, in the clustered hamlet with its\norchard-closes and high-roofed barns, in the remote country with its\nwide fields and its converging lines, in the beating of the sea on\nshingle-bank and promontory; and then if he sees it there, he will see\nit concentrated and emphasised in pictures of these things, the\nbeauty of which lies so often in the sense of the loving apprehension\nof the mystery of lights and hues; and then he will trace the same\nsubtle spirit in the forms and gestures and expressions of those among\nwhom he lives, and will go deeper yet and trace the same spirit in\nconduct and behaviour, in the free and gallant handling of life, in\nthe suppression of mean personal desires, in doing dull and\ndisagreeable things with a fine end in view, in the noble affection of\nthe simplest people; until he becomes aware that it is a quality which\nruns through everything he sees or hears or feels, and that the\neternal difference is whether one views things dully and stupidly,\nregarding the moment hungrily and greedily, as a dog regards a\nplateful of food, or whether one looks at it all as a process which\nhas some fine and distant end in view, and sees that all experience,\nwhether it be of things tangible and visible, or of things\nintellectual and spiritual, is only precious because it carries one\nforward, forms, moulds, and changes one with a hope of some high and\npure resurrection out of things base and hurried into things noble and\nserene.\n\nThe need, the absolute need for all and each of us, is to find\nsomething strong and great to rest and repose upon. Otherwise one\nsimply falls back on the fact that one exists and on the whole enjoys\nexisting, while one shuns the pain and darkness of ceasing to exist.\nAs life goes on, there comes such an impulse to say, \"Life is\nattractive and might be pleasant, but there is always something\nshadowing it, spoiling it, gnawing at it, a worm in the bud, of which\none cannot be rid.\" And so one sinks into a despairing apathy.\n\nWhat then is one born for? Just to live and forget, to be hurt and\nhealed, to be strong and grow weak? That as the spirit falls into\nfaintness, the body should curdle into worse than dust? To give each a\nmemory of things sharp and sweet, that no one else remembers, and then\nto destroy that?\n\nNo, that is not the end! The end is rather to live fully and ardently,\nto recognise the indestructibility of the spirit, to strip off from it\nall that wounds and disables it, not by drearily toiling against\nhaunting faults, but by rising as often as we can into serene ardour\nand deep hopefulness. That is the principle of beauty, to feel that\nthere is something transforming and ennobling us, which we can lay\nhold of if we wish, and that every time we see the great spirit at\nwork and clasp it close to our feeble will, we soar a step higher and\nsee all things with a wider and a clearer vision.\n\n\n\n\nXXVII\n\nLIFE\n\n\nBut in all this, and indeed beyond all this, we must not dare to\nforget one thing; that it is life with which we are confronted, and\nthat our business is to live it, and to live it in our own way; and\nhere we may thankfully rejoice that there is less and less tendency in\nthe world for people to dictate modes of life to us; the tyrant and\nthe despot are not only out of date--they are out of fashion, which is\na far more disabling thing! There is of course a type of person in the\nworld who loves to call himself robust and even virile--heaven help us\nto break down that bestial ideal of manhood!--who is of the stuff that\nall bullies have been made since the world began, a compound of\ncourage, stupidity, and complacency; to whom the word 'living' has no\nmeaning, unless it implies the disturbing and disquieting of other\npeople. We are gradually putting him in his right place, and the\nkindlier future will have little need of him; because a sense is\ngradually shaping itself in the world that life is best lived on\npeaceful and orderly lines.\n\nBut if the robust _viveur_ is on the wrong tack, so long as he grabs\nand uses, and neither gives nor is used, so too the more peaceable and\npoetical nature makes a very similar mistake, if his whole heart is\nbent upon receiving and enjoying; for he too is filching and conveying\naway pleasure out of life, though he may do it more timidly and\nunobtrusively. Such a man or woman is apt to make too much out of the\noccasions and excitements of life, to over-value the aesthetic kind of\nsuccess, which is the delicate impressing of other people, claiming\ntheir admiration and applause, and being ill-content if one is not\nnoticed and praised. Such an one is apt to overlook the common stuff\nand use of life--the toil, the endurance, the discipline of it; to\nflutter abroad only on sunshiny days, and to sit sullenly with folded\nwing when the sky breaks into rain and chilly winds are blowing. The\nman who lives thus, is in danger of over-valuing the raptures and\nthrills of life, of being fitful and moody and fretful; what he has to\ndo is to spread serenity over his days, and above all to be ready to\ncombine, to minister, to sympathise, to serve. _Joyous Gard_ is a very\nperilous place, if we grow too indolent to leave it; the essence of it\nis refreshment and not continuance. There are two conditions attached\nto the use of it; one is that we should have our own wholesome work in\nthe world, and the second that we should not grow too wholly absorbed\nin labour.\n\nNo great moral leaders and inspirers of men have ever laid stress on\nexcessive labour. They have accepted work as one of the normal\nconditions of life, but their whole effort has been to teach men to\nlook away from work, to find leisure to be happy and good. There is no\nessential merit in work, apart from its necessity. Of course men may\nfind themselves in positions where it seems hard to avoid a fierce\nabsorption in work. It is said by legislators that the House of\nCommons, for instance, is a place where one can neither work nor rest!\nAnd I have heard busy men in high administrative office, deplore\nrhetorically the fact that they have no time to read or think. It is\nalmost as unwholesome never to read or think as it is to be always\nreading and thinking, because the light and the inspiration fade out\nof life, and leave one a gaunt and wolfish lobbyist, who goes about\nseeking whom he may indoctrinate. But I have little doubt that when\nthe world is organised on simpler lines, we shall look back to this\nera, as an era when men's heads were turned by work, and when more\nunnecessary things were made and done and said than has ever been the\ncase since the world began.\n\nThe essence of happy living is never to find life dull, never to feel\nthe ugly weariness which comes of overstrain; to be fresh, cheerful,\nleisurely, sociable, unhurried, well-balanced. It seems to me that it\nis impossible to be these things unless we have time to consider life\na little, to deliberate, to select, to abstain. We must not help\nourselves either to work or to joy as if we were helping ourselves to\npotatoes! If life ought not to be perpetual drudgery, neither can it\nbe a perpetual feast. What I believe we ought to aim at is to put\ninterest and zest into the simplest acts, words, and relations of\nlife, to discern the quality of work and people alike. We must not\nturn our whole minds and hearts to literature or art or work, or even\nto religion; but we must go deeper, and look close at life itself,\nwhich these interpret and out of which they flow. For indeed life is\nnobler and richer than any one interpretation of it. Let us take for a\nmoment one of the great interpreters of life, Robert Browning, who was\nso intensely interested above all things in personality. The charm of\nhis writing is that he contrives, by some fine instinct, to get behind\nand within the people of whom he writes, sees with their eyes, hears\nwith their ears, though he speaks with his own lips. But one must\nobserve that the judgment of none of his characters is a final\njudgment; the artist, the lover, the cynic, the charlatan, the sage,\nthe priest--they none of them provide a solution to life; they set out\non their quest, they make their guesses, they reveal their aims, but\nthey never penetrate the inner secret. It is all inference and hope;\nBrowning himself seems to believe in life, not because of the reasons\nwhich his characters give for believing in it, but in spite of all\ntheir reasons. Like little boats, the reasons seem to strand, one by\none, some sooner, some later, on the sands beneath the shallow sea;\nand then the great serene large faith of the poet comes flooding in,\nand bears them on their way.\n\nIt is somewhat thus that we must deal with life; it is no good making\nup a philosophy which just keeps us gay when all is serene and\nprosperous. Unpleasant, tedious, vexing, humiliating, painful,\nshattering things befall us all by the way. That is the test of our\nbelief in life, if nothing daunts us, if nothing really mars our\nserenity of mood.\n\nAnd so what this little book of mine tries to recommend is that we\nshould bestir ourselves to design, plan, use, practise life; not drift\nhelplessly on its current, shouting for joy when all is bright,\nhelplessly bemoaning ourselves when all is dark; and that we should do\nthis by guarding ourselves from impulse and whim, by feeding our minds\nand hearts on all the great words, high examples, patient endurances,\nsplendid acts, of those whom we recognise to have been the finer sort\nof men. One of the greatest blessings of our time is that we can do\nthat so easily. In the dullest, most monotonous life we can stay\nourselves upon this heavenly manna, if we have the mind. We need not\nfeel alone or misunderstood or unappreciated, even if we are\nsurrounded by harsh, foolish, dry, discontented, mournful persons. The\nworld is fuller now than it ever was of brave and kindly people who\nwill help us if we ask for help. Of course if we choose to perish\nwithout a struggle, we can do that. And my last word of advice to\npeople into whose hands this book may fall, who are suffering from a\nsense of dim failure, timid bewilderment, with a vague desire in the\nbackground to make something finer and stronger out of life, is to\nturn to some one whom they can trust--not intending to depend\nconstantly and helplessly upon them--and to get set in the right road.\n\nOf course, as I have said, care and sorrow, heaviness and\nsadness--even disillusionment--must come; but the reason of that is\nbecause we must not settle too close to the sweet and kindly earth,\nbut be ready to unfurl our wings for the passage over sea; and to what\nnew country of God, what unknown troops and societies of human\nspirits, what gracious reality of dwelling-place, of which our beloved\nfields and woods and streams are nothing but the gentle and sweet\nsymbols, our flight may bear us, I cannot tell; but that we are all in\nthe mind of God, and that we cannot wander beyond the reach of His\nhand or the love of His heart, of this I am more sure than I am of\nanything else in this world where familiarity and mystery are so\nstrangely entwined.","title":"Joyous Gard","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":46680}