{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_4611/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_4611","id":"gutenberg_4611","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4611","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Psychiatry/Psychology","Fear"],"text":"Produced by Don Lainson and Charles Aldarondo. HTML version\nby Al Haines.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWHERE NO FEAR WAS\n\n\nA BOOK ABOUT FEAR\n\n\n\nBy\n\nARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON\n\n\n1914\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n     I.  THE SHADOW\n    II.  SHAPES OF FEAR\n   III.  THE DARKEST DOUBT\n    IV.  VULNERABILITY\n     V.  THE USE OF FEAR\n    VI.  FEARS OF CHILDHOOD\n   VII.  FEARS OF BOYHOOD\n  VIII.  FEARS OF YOUTH\n    IX.  FEARS OF MIDDLE AGE\n     X.  FEARS OF AGE\n    XI.  DR. JOHNSON\n   XII.  TENNYSON, RUSKIN, CARLYLE\n  XIII.  CHARLOTTE BRONTE\n   XIV.  JOHN STERLING\n    XV.  INSTINCTIVE FEAR\n   XVI.  FEAR OF LIFE\n  XVII.  SIMPLICITY\n XVIII.  AFFECTION\n   XIX.  SIN\n    XX.  SERENITY\n\n\n\n\n\n\"Thus they went on till they came to about the middle of the Valley,\nand then Christiana said, 'Methinks I see something yonder on the road\nbefore us, a thing of such a shape such as I have not seen.' Then said\nJoseph, 'Mother, what is it?' 'An ugly thing, Child, an ugly thing,'\nsaid she. 'But, Mother, what is it like?' said he. ''Tis like I cannot\ntell what,' said she. And now it was but a little way off. Then said\nshe, 'It is nigh.'\"\n\n\"Pilgrim's Progress,\" Part II.\n\n\n\n\n\nWhere No Fear Was\n\n\n\nI\n\nTHE SHADOW\n\n\nThere surely may come a time for each of us, if we have lived with any\nanimation or interest, if we have had any constant or even fitful\ndesire to penetrate and grasp the significance of the strange adventure\nof life, a time, I say, when we may look back a little, not\nsentimentally or with any hope of making out an impressive case for\nourselves, and interrogate the memory as to what have been the most\nreal, vivid, and intense things that have befallen us by the way. We\nmay try to separate the momentous from the trivial, and the important\nfrom the unimportant; to discern where and how and when we might have\nacted differently; to see and to say what has really mattered, what has\nmade a deep mark on our spirit; what has hampered or wounded or maimed\nus. Because one of the strangest things about life seems to be our\nincapacity to decide beforehand, or even at the time, where the real\nand fruitful joys, and where the dark dangers and distresses lie. The\nthings that at certain times filled all one's mind, kindled hope and\naim, seemed so infinitely desirable, so necessary to happiness, have\nfaded, many of them, into the lightest and most worthless of husks and\nphantoms, like the withered flowers that we find sometimes shut in the\npages of our old books, and cannot even remember of what glowing and\nemotional moment they were the record!\n\nHow impossible it is ever to learn anything by being told it! How\nnecessary it is to pay the full price for any knowledge worth having!\nThe anxious father, the tearful mother, may warn the little boy before\nhe goes to school of the dangers that await him. He does not\nunderstand, he does not attend, he is looking at the pattern of the\ncarpet, and wondering for the hundredth time whether the oddly-shaped\nblue thing which appears and reappears at intervals is a bird or a\nflower--yes, it is certainly meant for a bird perched on a bough! He\nwishes the talk were over, he looks at the little scar on his father's\nhand, and remembers that he has been told that he cut it in a\ncucumber-frame when he was a boy. And then, long afterwards perhaps,\nwhen he has made a mistake and is suffering for it, he sees that it was\nTHAT of which they spoke, and wonders that they could not have\nexplained it better.\n\nAnd this is so all along! We cannot recognise the dark tower, to which\nin the story Childe Roland came, by any description. We must go there\nourselves; and not till we feel the teeth of the trap biting into us,\ndo we see that it was exactly in such a place that we had been warned\nthat it would be laid.\n\nThere is an episode in that strange and beautiful book Phantastes, by\nGeorge Macdonald, which comes often to my mind. The boy is wandering in\nthe enchanted forest, and he is told to avoid the house where the\nDaughter of the Ogre lives. His morose young guide shows him where the\npaths divide, and he takes the one indicated to him with a sense of\nmisgiving.\n\nA little while before he had been deceived by the Alder-maiden, and had\ngiven her his love in error. This has taken some of the old joy out of\nhis heart, but he has made his escape from her, and thinks he has\nlearned his lesson.\n\nBut he comes at last to the long low house in the clearing; he finds\nwithin it an ancient woman reading out of an old volume; he enters, he\nexamines the room in which she sits, and yielding to curiosity, he\nopens the door of the great cupboard in the corner, in spite of a\nmuttered warning. He thinks, on first opening it, that it is just a\ndark cupboard; but he sees with a shock of surprise that he is looking\ninto a long dark passage, which leads out, far away from where he\nstands, into the starlit night. Then a figure, which seems to have been\nrunning from a long distance, turns the corner, and comes speeding down\ntowards him. He has not time to close the door, but stands aside to let\nit pass; it passes, and slips behind him; and soon he sees that it is a\nshadow of himself, which has fallen on the floor at his feet. He asks\nwhat has happened, and then the old woman says that he has found his\nshadow, a thing which happens to many people; and then for the first\ntime she raises her head and looks at him, and he sees that her mouth\nis full of long white teeth; he knows where he is at last, and stumbles\nout, with the dark shadow at his heels, which is to haunt him so\nmiserably for many a sad day.\n\nThat is a very fine and true similitude of what befalls many men and\nwomen. They go astray, they give up some precious thing--their\ninnocence perhaps--to a deluding temptation. They are delivered for a\ntime; and then a little while after they find their shadow, which no\ntears or anguish of regret can take away, till the healing of life and\nwork and purpose annuls it. Neither is it always annulled, even in\nlength of days.\n\nBut it is a paltry and inglorious mistake to let the shadow have its\ndisheartening will of us. It is only a shadow, after all! And if we\ncapitulate after our first disastrous encounter, it does not mean that\nwe shall be for ever vanquished, though it means perhaps a long and\ndreary waste of shame-stained days. That is what we must try to\navoid--any WASTE of time and strength. For if anything is certain, it\nis that we have all to fight until we conquer, and the sooner we take\nup the dropped sword again the better.\n\nAnd we have also to learn that no one can help us except ourselves.\nOther people can sympathise and console, try to soothe our injured\nvanity, try to persuade us that the dangers and disasters ahead are not\nso dreadful as they appear to be, and that the mistakes we have made\nare not irreparable. But no one can remove danger or regret from us, or\nrelieve us of the necessity of facing our own troubles; the most that\nthey can do, indeed, is to encourage us to try again.\n\nBut we cannot hope to change the conditions of life; and one of its\nconditions is, as I have said, that we cannot foresee dangers. No\nmatter how vividly they are described to us, no matter how eagerly\nthose who love us try to warn us of peril, we cannot escape. For that\nis the essence of life--experience; and though we cannot rejoice when\nwe are in the grip of it, and when we cannot see what the end will be,\nwe can at least say to ourselves again and again, \"this is at all\nevents reality--this is business!\" for it is the moments of endurance\nand energy and action which after all justify us in living, and not the\npleasant spaces where we saunter among flowers and sunlit woods. Those\nare conceded to us, to tempt us to live, to make us desire to remain in\nthe world; and we need not be afraid to take them, to use them, to\nenjoy them; because all things alike help to make us what we are.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nSHAPES OF FEAR\n\n\nNow as I look back a little, I see that some of my worst experiences\nhave not hurt or injured me at all. I do not claim more than my share\nof troubles, but \"I have had trouble enough for one,\" as Browning\nsays,--bereavements, disappointments, the illness of those I have\nloved, illness of my own, quarrels, misunderstandings, enmities,\nangers, disapprovals, losses; I have made bad mistakes, I have failed\nin my duty, I have done many things that I regret, I have been\nunreasonable, unkind, selfish. Many of these things have hurt and\nwounded me, have brought me into sorrow, and even into despair. But I\ndo not feel that any of them have really injured me, and some of them\nhave already benefited me. I have learned to be a little more patient\nand diligent, and I have discovered that there are certain things that\nI must at all costs avoid.\n\nBut there is one thing which seems to me to have always and invariably\nhampered and maimed me, whenever I have yielded to it, and I have often\nyielded to it; and that is Fear. It can be called by many names, and\nall of them ugly names--anxiety, timidity, moral cowardice. I can never\ntrace the smallest good in having given way to it. It has been from my\nearliest days the Shadow; and I think it is the shadow in the lives of\nmany men and women. I want in this book to track it, if I can, to its\nlair, to see what it is, where its awful power lies, and what, if\nanything, one can do to resist it. It seems the most unreal thing in\nthe world, when one is on the other side of it; and yet face to face\nwith it, it has a strength, a poignancy, a paralysing power, which\nmakes it seem like a personal and specific ill-will, issuing in a sort\nof dreadful enchantment or spell, which renders it impossible to\nwithstand. Yet, strange to say, it has not exercised its power in the\nfew occasions in my life when it would seem to have been really\njustified. Let me quote an instance or two which will illustrate what I\nmean.\n\nI was confronted once with the necessity of a small surgical operation,\nquite unexpectedly. If I had known beforehand that it was to be done, I\nshould have depicted every incident with horror and misery. But the\nmoment arrived, and I found myself marching to my bedroom with a\nsurgeon and a nurse, with a sense almost of amusement at the adventure.\n\nI was called upon once in Switzerland to assist with two guides in the\nrescue of an unfortunate woman who had fallen from a precipice, and had\nto be brought down, dead or alive. We hurried up through the\npine-forest with a chair, and found the poor creature alive indeed, but\nwith horrible injuries--an eye knocked out, an arm and a thigh broken,\nher ulster torn to ribbons, and with more blood about the place in\npools than I should have thought a human body could contain. She was\nconscious; she had to be lifted into the chair, and we had to discover\nwhere she belonged; she fainted away in the middle of it, and I had to\ngo on and break the news to her relations. If I had been told\nbeforehand what would have had to be done, I do not think I could have\nfaced it; but it was there to do, and I found myself entirely capable\nof taking part, and even of wondering all the time that it was possible\nto act.\n\nAgain, I was once engulfed in a crevasse, hanging from the ice-ledge\nwith a portentous gulf below, and a glacier-stream roaring in the\ndarkness. I could get no hold for foot or hand, my companions could not\nreach me or extract me; and as I sank into unconsciousness, hearing my\nown expiring breath, I knew that I was doomed; but I can only say,\nquite honestly and humbly, that I had no fear at all, and only dimly\nwondered what arrangements would be made at Eton, where I was then a\nmaster, to accommodate the boys of my house and my pupils. It was not\ndone by an effort, nor did I brace myself to the situation: fear simply\ndid not come near to me.\n\nOnce again I found myself confronted, not so long ago, with an\nincredibly painful and distressing interview. That indeed did oppress\nme with almost intolerable dread beforehand. I was to go to a certain\nhouse in London, and there was just a chance that the interview might\nnot take place after all. As I drove there, I suddenly found myself\nwondering whether the interview could REALLY be going to take\nplace--how often had I rehearsed it beforehand with anguish--and then\nas suddenly became aware that I should in some strange way be\ndisappointed if it did not take place. I wanted on the whole to go\nthrough with it, and to see what it would be like. A deep-seated\ncuriosity came to my aid. It did take place, and it was very bad--worse\nthan I could have imagined; but it was not terrible!\n\nThese are just four instances which come into my mind. I should be glad\nto feel that the courage which undoubtedly came had been the creation\nof my will; but it was not so. In three cases, the events came\nunexpectedly; but in the fourth case I had long anticipated the moment\nwith extreme dread. Yet in that last case the fear suddenly slipped\naway, without the smallest effort on my part; and in all four cases\nsome strange gusto of experience, some sense of heightened life and\nadventure, rose in the mind like a fountain--so that even in the\ncrevasse I said to myself, not excitedly but serenely, \"So this is what\nit feels like to await death!\"\n\nIt was this particular experience which gave me an inkling into that\nwhich in so many tragic histories seems incredible--that men often do\npass to death, by scaffold and by stake, at the last moment, in\nserenity and even in joy. I do not doubt for a moment that it is the\nimmortal principle in man, the sense of deathlessness, which comes to\nhis aid. It is the instinct which, in spite of all knowledge and\nexperience, says suddenly, in a moment like that, \"Well, what then?\"\nThat instinct is a far truer thing than any expectation or imagination.\nIt sees things, in supreme moments, in a true proportion. It asserts\nthat when the rope jerks, or the flames leap up, or the benumbing blow\nfalls, there is something there which cannot possibly be injured, and\nwhich indeed is rather freed from the body of our humiliation. It is\nbut an incident, after all, in a much longer and more momentous voyage.\nIt means only the closing of one chapter of experience and the\nbeginning of another. The base element in it is the fear which dreads\nthe opening of the door, and the quitting of what is familiar. And I\nfeel assured of this, that the one universal and inevitable experience,\nknown to us as death, must in reality be a very simple and even a\nnatural affair, and that when we can look back upon it, it will seem to\nus amazing that we can ever have regarded it as so momentous and\nappalling a thing.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE DARKEST DOUBT\n\n\nNow we can make no real advance in the things of the spirit until we\nhave seen what lies on the other side of fear; fear cannot help us to\ngrow, at best it can only teach us to be prudent; it does not of itself\ndestroy the desire to offend--only shame can do that; if our wish to be\ndifferent comes merely from our being afraid to transgress, then, if\nthe fear of punishment were to be removed, we should go back with a\nlight heart to our old sins. We may obey irresponsible power, because\nwe know that it can hurt us if we disobey; but unless we can perceive\nthe reason why this and that is forbidden, we cannot concur with law.\nWe learn as children that flame has power to hurt us, but we only dread\nthe fire because it can injure us, not because we admire the reason\nwhich it has for burning. So long as we do not sin simply because we\nknow the laws of life which punish sin, we have not learned any hatred\nof sin; it is only because we hate the punishment more than we love the\nsin, that we abstain.\n\nSocrates once said, in one of his wise paradoxes, that it was better to\nsin knowingly than ignorantly. That is a hard saying, but it means that\nat least if we sin knowingly, there is some purpose, some courage in\nthe soul. We take a risk with our eyes open, and our purpose may\nperhaps be changed; whereas if we sin ignorantly, we do so out of a\nmere base instinct, and there is no purpose that may be educated.\nAnyone who has ever had the task of teaching boys or young men to write\nwill know how much easier it is to teach those who write volubly and\nexuberantly, and desire to express themselves, even if they do it with\nmany faults and lapses of taste; taste and method may be corrected, if\nonly the instinct of expression is there. But the young man who has no\nimpulse to write, who says that he could think of nothing to say, it is\nimpossible to teach him much, because one cannot communicate the desire\nfor expression.\n\nAnd the same holds good of life. Those who have strong vital impulses\ncan learn restraint and choice; but the people who have no particular\nimpulses and preferences, who just live out of mere impetus and habit,\nwho plod along, doing in a dispirited way just what they find to do,\nand lapsing into indolence and indifference the moment that prescribed\nwork ceases, those are the spirits that afford the real problem,\nbecause they despise activity, and think energy a mere exhibition of\nfussy diffuseness.\n\nBut the generous, eager, wilful nature, who has always some aim in\nsight, who makes mistakes perhaps, gives offence, collides\nhigh-heartedly with others, makes both friends and enemies, loves and\nhates, is anxious, jealous, self-absorbed, resentful, intolerant--there\nis always hope for such an one, for he is quick to despair, capable of\nshame, swift to repent, and even when he is worsted and wounded, rises\nto fight again. Such a nature, through pain and love, can learn to\nchasten his base desires, and to choose the nobler and worthier way.\n\nBut what does really differentiate men and women is not their power of\nfearing and suffering, but their power of caring and admiring. The only\nreal and vital force in the world is the force which attracts, the\nbeauty which is so desirable that one must imitate it if one can, the\nwisdom which is so calm and serene that one must possess it if one may.\n\nAnd thus all depends upon our discerning in the world a loving\nintention of some kind, which holds us in view, and draws us to itself.\nIf we merely think of God and nature as an inflexible system of laws,\nand that our only chance of happiness is to slip in and out of them, as\na man might pick his way among red-hot ploughshares, thankful if he can\nescape burning, then we can make no sort of advance, because we can\nhave neither faith nor trust. The thing from which one merely flees can\nhave no real power over our spirit; but if we know God as a fatherly\nHeart behind nature, who is leading us on our way, then indeed we can\nwalk joyfully in happiness, and undismayed in trouble; because troubles\nthen become only the wearisome incidents of the upward ascent, the\nfatigue, the failing breath, the strained muscles, the discomfort which\nis actually taking us higher, and cannot by any means be avoided.\n\nBut fear is the opposite of all this; it is the dread of the unknown,\nthe ghastly doubt as to whether there is any goal before us or not;\nwhen we fear, we are like the butterfly that flutters anxiously away\nfrom the boy who pursues it, who means out of mere wantonness to strike\nit down tattered and bruised among the grass-stems.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nVULNERABILITY\n\n\nThere have been many attempts in the history of mankind to escape from\nthe dominion of fear; the essence of fear, that which prompts it, is\nthe consciousness of our vulnerability. What we all dread is the\ndisease or the accident that may disable us, the loss of money or\ncredit, the death of those whom we love and whose love makes the\nsunshine of our life, the anger and hostility and displeasure and scorn\nand ill-usage of those about us. These are the definite things which\nthe anxious mind forecasts, and upon which it mournfully dwells.\n\nThe object then in the minds of the philosophers or teachers who would\nfain relieve the unhappiness of the world, has been always to suggest\nways in which this vulnerability may be lessened; and thus their object\nhas been to disengage as far as possible the hopes and affections of\nmen from things which must always be fleeting. That is the principle\nwhich lies behind all asceticism, that, if one can be indifferent to\nwealth and comfort and popularity, one has a better chance of serenity.\nThe essence of that teaching is not that pleasant things are not\ndesirable, but that one is more miserable if one loses them than if one\nnever cares for them at all. The ascetic trains himself to be\nindifferent about food and drink and the apparatus of life; he aims at\ncelibacy partly because love itself is an overmastering passion, and\npartly because he cannot bear to engage himself with human affections,\nthe loss of which may give him pain. There is, of course, a deeper\nstrain in asceticism than this, which is a suspicious mistrust of all\nphysical joys and a sense of their baseness; but that is in itself an\nartistic preference of mental and spiritual joys, and a defiance to\neverything which may impair or invade them.\n\nThe Stoic imperturbability is an attempt to take a further step; not to\nfly from life, but to mingle with it, and yet to grow to be not\ndependent on it. The Stoic ideal was a high one, to cultivate a\nfirmness of mind that was on the one hand not to be dismayed by pain or\nsuffering, and on the other to use life so temperately and judiciously\nas not to form habits of indulgence which it would be painful to\ndiscontinue. The weakness of Stoicism was that it despised human\nrelations; and the strength of primitive Christianity was that, while\nit recommended a Stoical simplicity of life, it taught men not to be\nafraid of love, but to use and lavish love freely, as being the one\nthing which would survive death and not be cut short by it. The\nChristian teaching came to this, that the world was meant to be a\nschool of love, and that love was to be an outward-rippling ring of\naffection extending from the family outwards to the tribe, the nation,\nthe world, and on to God Himself. It laid all its emphasis on the truth\nthat love is the one immortal thing, that all the joys and triumphs of\nthe world pass away with the decay of its material framework, but that\nlove passes boldly on, with linked hands, into the darkness of the\nunknown.\n\nThe one loss that Christianity recognised was the loss of love; the one\npunishment it dreaded was the withholding of love.\n\nAs Christianity soaked into the world, it became vitiated, and drew\ninto itself many elements of human weakness. It became a social force,\nit learned to depend on property, it fulminated a code of criminality,\nand accepted human standards of prosperity and wealth. It lost its\nsimplicity and became sophisticated. It is hard to say that men of the\nworld should not, if they wish, claim to be Christians, but the whole\nessence of Christianity is obscured if it is forgotten that its vital\nattributes are its indifference to material conveniences, and its\nemphatic acceptance of sympathy as the one supreme virtue.\n\nThis is but another way of expressing that our troubles and our terrors\nalike are based on selfishness, and that if we are really concerned\nwith the welfare of others we shall not be much concerned with our own.\n\nThe difficulty in adopting the Christian theory is that God does not\napparently intend to cure the world by creating all men unselfish.\nPeople are born selfish, and the laws of nature and heredity seem to\nordain that it shall be so. Indeed a certain selfishness seems to be\ninseparable from any desire to live. The force of asceticism and of\nStoicism is that they both appeal to selfishness as a motive. They\nfrankly say, \"Happiness is your aim, personal happiness; but instead of\ngrasping at pleasure whenever it offers, you will find it more prudent\nin the end not to care too much about such things.\" It is true that\npopular Christianity makes the same sort of appeal. It says, or seems\nto say, \"If you grasp at happiness in this world, you may secure a\ngreat deal of it successfully; but it will be worse for you eventually.\"\n\nThe theory of life as taught and enforced, for instance, in such a work\nas Dante's great poem is based upon this crudity of thought. Dante, by\nhis Hell and his Purgatory, expressed plainly that the chief motive of\nman to practise morality must be his fear of ultimate punishment. His\nwas an attempt to draw away the curtain which hides this world from the\nnext, and to horrify men into living purely and kindly. But the mind\nonly revolts against the dastardly injustice of a God, who allows men\nto be born into the world so corrupt, with so many incentives to sin,\nand deliberately hides from them the ghastly sight of the eternal\ntorments, which might have saved them from recklessness of life. No one\nwho had trod the dark caverns of Hell or the flinty ridges of\nPurgatory, as Dante represented himself doing, who had seen the awful\nsights and heard the heart-broken words of the place, could have\nreturned to the world as a light-hearted sinner! Whatever we may\nbelieve of God, we must not for an instant allow ourselves to believe\nthat life can be so brief and finite, so small and hampered an\nopportunity, and that punishment could be so demoniacal and so\ninfinite. A God who could design such a scheme must be essentially evil\nand malignant. We may menace wicked men with punishment for wanton\nmisdeeds, but it must be with just punishment. What could we say of a\nhuman father who exposed a child to temptation without explaining the\nconsequences, and then condemned him to lifelong penalties for failing\nto make the right choice? We must firmly believe that if offences are\nfinite, punishment must be finite too; that it must be remedial and not\nmechanical. We must believe that if we deserve punishment, it will be\nbecause we can hope for restoration. Hell is a monstrous and\ninsupportable fiction, and the idea of it is simply inconsistent with\nany belief in the goodness of God. It is easy to quote texts to support\nit, but we must not allow any text, any record in the world, however\nsacred, to shatter our belief in the Love and Justice of God. And I say\nas frankly and directly as I can that until we can get rid of this\nintolerable terror, we can make no advance at all.\n\nThe old, fierce Saints, who went into the darkness exulting in the\nthought of the eternal damnation of the wicked, had not spelt the first\nletter of the Christian creed, and I doubt not have discovered their\nmistake long ago! Yet there are pious people in the world who will\nneither think nor speak frankly of the subject, for fear of weakening\nthe motives for human virtue. I will at least speak frankly, and though\nI believe with all my heart in a life beyond the grave, in which\nsuffering enough may exist for the cure of those who by wilful sin have\nsunk into sloth and hopelessness and despair, and even into cruelty and\nbrutality, I do not for an instant believe that the conduct of the\nvilest human being who ever set foot on the earth can deserve more than\na term of punishment, or that such punishment will have anything that\nis vindictive about it.\n\nIt may be said that I am here only combating an old-fashioned idea, and\nthat no one believes in the old theory of eternal punishment, or that\nif they believe that the possibility exists, they do not believe that\nany human being can incur it. But I feel little doubt that the belief\ndoes exist, and that it is more widespread than one cares to believe.\nTo believe it is to yield to the darkest and basest temptation of fear,\nand keeps all who hold it back from the truth of God.\n\nWhat then are we to believe about the punishment of our sins? I look\nback upon my own life, and I see numberless occasions--they rise up\nbefore me, a long perspective of failures--when I have acted cruelly,\nselfishly, self-indulgently, basely, knowing perfectly well that I was\nso behaving. What was wrong with me? Why did I so behave? Because I\npreferred the baser course, and thought at the time that it gave me\npleasure.\n\nWell then, what do I wish about all that? I wish it had not happened\nso, I wish I had been kinder, more just, more self-restrained, more\nstrong. I am ashamed, because I condemn myself, and because I know that\nthose whom I love and honour would condemn me, if they knew all. But I\ndo not, therefore, lose all hope of myself, nor do I think that God\nwill not show me how to be different. If it can only be done by\nsuffering, I dread the suffering, but I am ready to suffer if I can\nbecome what I should wish to be. But I do not for a moment think that\nGod will cast me off or turn His face away from me because I have\nsinned; and I can pray that He will lead me into light and strength.\n\nAnd thus it is not my vulnerability that I dread; I rather welcome it\nas a sign that I may learn the truth so. And I will not look upon my\ndesire for pleasant things as a proof that I am evil, but rather as a\nproof that God is showing me where happiness lies, and teaching me by\nmy mistakes to discern and value it. He could make me perfect if He\nwould, in a single instant. But the fact that He does not, is a sign\nthat He has something better in store for me than a mere mechanical\nperfection.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nTHE USE OF FEAR\n\n\nThe advantages of the fearful temperament, if it is not a mere\nunmanning and desolating dread, are not to be overlooked. Fear is the\nshadow of the imaginative, the resourceful, the inventive temperament,\nbut it multiplies resource and invention a hundredfold. Everyone knows\nthe superstition which is deeply rooted in humanity, that a time of\nexaltation and excitement and unusual success is held to be often the\nprelude to some disaster, just as the sense of excitement and buoyant\nhealth, when it is very consciously perceived, is thought to herald the\napproach of illness. \"I felt so happy,\" people say, \"that I was sure\nthat some misfortune was going to befall me--it is not lucky to feel so\nsecure as that!\" This represented itself to the Greeks as part of the\ndivine government of the world; they thought that the heedless and\nself-confident man was beguiled by success into what they called ubris,\nthe insolence of prosperity; and that then atae, that is, disaster,\nfollowed. They believed that the over-prosperous man incurred the envy\nand jealousy of the gods. We see this in the old legend of Polycrates\nof Samos, whose schemes all succeeded, and whose ventures all turned\nout well. He consulted a soothsayer about his alarming prosperity, who\nadvised him to inflict some deliberate loss or sacrifice upon himself;\nso Polycrates drew from his finger and flung into the sea a signet-ring\nwhich he possessed, with a jewel of great rarity and beauty in it. Soon\nafterwards a fish was caught by the royal fisherman, and was served up\nat the king's table--there, inside the body of the fish, was the ring;\nand when Polycrates saw that, he felt that the gods had restored him\nhis gift, and that his destruction was determined upon; which came\ntrue, for he was caught by pirates at sea, and crucified upon a rocky\nheadland.\n\nNo nation, and least of all the Greeks, would have arrived at this\ntheory of life and fate, if they had not felt that it was supported by\nactual instances. It was of the nature of an inference from the facts\nof life; and the explanation undoubtedly is that men do get betrayed,\nby a constant experience of good fortune, into rashness and\nheedlessness, because they trust to their luck and depend upon their\nfortunate star.\n\nBut the man who is of an energetic and active type, if he is haunted by\nanxiety, if his imagination paints the possibilities of disaster, takes\nevery means in his power to foresee contingencies, and to deal\ncautiously and thoroughly with the situation which causes him anxiety.\nIf he is a man of keen sensibilities, the pressure of such care is so\ninsupportable that he takes prompt and effective measures to remove it;\nand his fear thus becomes an element in his success, because it urges\nhim to action, and at the same time teaches him the need of due\nprecaution. As Horace wrote:\n\n     \"Sperat infestis, metuit secundis\n      Alteram sortem.\"\n\n\n\"He hopes for a change of fortune when things are menacing, he fears a\nreverse when things are prosperous.\" And if we look at the facts of\nlife, we see that it is not by any means the confident and optimistic\npeople who succeed best in their designs. It is rather the man of eager\nand ambitious temperament, who dreads a repulse and anticipates it, and\ntakes all possible measures beforehand to avoid it.\n\nWe see the same principle underlying the scientific doctrine of\nevolution. People often think loosely that the idea of evolution, in\nthe case, let us say, of a bird like a heron, with his immobility, his\nlong legs, his pointed beak, his muscular neck, is that such\ncharacteristics have been evolved through long ages by birds that have\nhad to get their food in swamps and shallow lakes, and were thus\ngradually equipped for food-getting through long ages of practice. But\nof course no particular bird is thus modified by circumstances. A\npigeon transferred to a fen would not develop the characteristics of\nthe heron; it would simply die for lack of food. It is rather that\ncertain minute variations take place, for unknown reasons, in every\nspecies; and the bird which happened to be hatched out in a fenland\nwith a rather sharper beak or rather longer legs than his fellows,\nwould have his power of obtaining food slightly increased, and would\nthus be more likely to perpetuate in his offspring that particular\nadvantage of form. This principle working through endless centuries\nwould tend slowly to develop the stock that was better equipped for\nlife under such circumstances, and to eliminate those less suited to\nthe locality; and thus the fittest would tend to survive. But it does\nnot indicate any design on the part of the birds themselves, nor any\ndeliberate attempt to develop those characteristics; it is rather that\nsuch characteristics, once started by natural variation, tend to\nemphasize themselves in the lapse of time.\n\nNo doubt fear has played an enormous part in the progress of the human\nrace itself. The savage whose imagination was stronger than that of\nother savages, and who could forecast the possibilities of disaster,\nwould wander through the forest with more precaution against wild\nbeasts, and would make his dwelling more secure against assault; so\nthat the more timid and imaginative type would tend to survive longest\nand to multiply their stock. Man in his physical characteristics is a\nvery weak, frail, and helpless animal, exposed to all kinds of dangers;\nhis infancy is protracted and singularly defenceless; his pace is slow,\nhis strength is insignificant; it is his imagination that has put him\nat the top of creation, and has enabled him both to evade dangers and\nto use natural forces for his greater security. Though he is the\nyoungest of all created forms, and by no means the best equipped for\nlife, he has been able to go ahead in a way denied to all other\nanimals; his inventiveness has been largely developed by his terrors;\nand the result has been that whereas all other animals still preserve,\nas a condition of life, their ceaseless attitude of suspicion and fear,\nman has been enabled by organisation to establish communities in which\nfear of disaster plays but little part. If one watches a bird feeding\non a lawn, it is strange to observe its ceaseless vigilance. It takes a\nhurried mouthful, and then looks round in an agitated manner to see\nthat it is in no danger of attack. Yet it is clear that the terror in\nwhich all wild animals seem to live, and without which\nself-preservation would be impossible, does not in the least militate\nagainst their physical welfare. A man who had to live his life under\nthe same sort of risks that a bird in a garden has to endure from cats\nand other foes, would lose his senses from the awful pressure of\nterror; he would lie under the constant shadow of assassination.\n\nBut the singular thing in Nature is that she preserves characteristics\nlong after they have ceased to be needed; and so, though a man in a\ncivilised community has very little to dread, he is still haunted by an\nirrational sense of insecurity and precariousness. And thus many of our\nfears arise from old inheritance, and represent nothing rational or\nreal at all, but only an old and savage need of vigilance and wariness.\n\nOne can see this exemplified in a curious way in level tracts of\ncountry. Everyone who has traversed places like the plain of\nWorcestershire must remember the irritating way in which the roads keep\nascending little eminences, instead of going round at the foot. Now\nthese old country roads no doubt represent very ancient tracks indeed,\ndating from times when much of the land was uncultivated. They get\nstereotyped, partly because they were tracks, and partly because for\nconvenience the first enclosures and tillages were made along the roads\nfor purposes of communication. But the perpetual tendency to ascend\nlittle eminences no doubt dates from a time when it was safer to go up,\nin order to look round and to see ahead, partly in order to be sure of\none's direction, and partly to beware of the manifold dangers of the\nroad.\n\nAnd thus many of the fears by which one is haunted are these old\nsurvivals, these inherited anxieties. Who does not know the frame of\nmind when perhaps for a day, perhaps for days together, the mind is\noppressed and uneasy, scenting danger in the air, forecasting calamity,\nrecounting all the possible directions in which fate or malice may have\npower to wound and hurt us? It is a melancholy inheritance, but it\ncannot be combated by any reason. It is of no use then to imitate\nRobinson Crusoe, and to make a list of one's blessings on a piece of\npaper; that only increases our fear, because it is just the chance of\nforfeiting such blessings of which we are in dread! We must simply\nremind ourselves that we are surrounded by old phantoms, and that we\nderive our weakness from ages far back, in which risks were many and\nsecurity was rare.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nFEARS OF CHILDHOOD\n\n\nIf I look back over my own life, I can discern three distinct stages of\nfear and anxieties, and I expect it is the same with most people. The\nterrors of childhood are very mysterious things, and their horror\nconsists in the child's inability to put the dread into words. I\nremember how one night, when we were living in the Master's Lodge at\nWellington College, I had gone to bed, and waking soon afterwards heard\na voice somewhere outside. I got out of bed, went to the door, and\nlooked out. Close to my door was an archway which looked into the open\ngallery that ran round the big front hall, giving access to the\nbedrooms. At the opposite end of the hall, in the gallery, burnt a\ngaslight: to my horror I observed close to the gas what seemed to me a\ncolossal shrouded statue, made of a black bronze, formless, silent,\nawful. I crept back to my bed, and there shivered in an ecstasy of\nfear, till at last I fell asleep. There was no statue there in the\nmorning! I told my old nurse, after a day or two of dumb dread, what I\nhad seen. She laughed, and told me that a certain Mrs. Holder, an\nelderly widow who was a dressmaker, had been to see her, about some\npiece of work. They had turned out the nursery lights and were going\ndownstairs, when some question arose about the stuff of the frock,\nwhatever it was. Mrs. Holder had mounted on a chair to look close at\nthe stuff by the gaslight; and this was my bogey!\n\nWe had a delightful custom in nursery days, devised by my mother, that\non festival occasions, such as birthdays or at Christmas, our presents\nwere given us in the evening by a fairy called Abracadabra.\n\nThe first time the fairy appeared, we heard, after tea, in the hall,\nthe hoarse notes of a horn. We rushed out in amazement. Down in the\nhall, talking to an aunt of mine who was staying in the house, stood a\nveritable fairy, in a scarlet dress, carrying a wand and a scarlet bag,\nand wearing a high pointed scarlet hat, of the shape of an\nextinguisher. My aunt called us down; and we saw that the fairy had the\nface of a great ape, dark-brown, spectacled, of a good-natured aspect,\nwith a broad grin, and a curious crop of white hair, hanging down\nbehind and on each side. Unfortunately my eldest brother, a very clever\nand imaginative child, was seized with a panic so insupportable at the\nsight of the face, that his present had to be given him hurriedly, and\nhe was led away, blanched and shuddering, to the nursery. After that,\nthe fairy never appeared except when he was at school: but long after,\nwhen I was looking in a lumber-room with my brother for some mislaid\ntoys, I found in a box the mask of Abracadabra and the horn. I put it\nhurriedly on, and blew a blast on the horn, which seemed to be of\ntortoise-shell with metal fittings. To my amazement, he turned\nperfectly white, covered his face with his hands, and burst out with\nthe most dreadful moans. I thought at first that he was making believe\nto be frightened, but I saw in a minute or two that he had quite lost\ncontrol of himself, and the things were hurriedly put away. At the time\nI thought it a silly kind of affectation. But I perceive now that he\nhad had a real shock the first time he had seen the mask; and though he\nwas then a big schoolboy, the terror was indelible. Who can say of what\nold inheritance of fear that horror of the great ape-like countenance\nwas the sign? He had no associations of fear with apes, but it must\nhave been, I think, some dim old primeval terror, dating from some\nancestral encounter with a forest monster. In no other way can I\nexplain it.\n\nAgain, as a child, I was once sitting at dinner with my parents,\nreading an old bound-up Saturday Magazine, looking at the pictures, and\nwaiting for dessert. I turned a page, and saw a picture of a Saint,\nlying on the ground, holding up a cross, and a huge and cloudy fiend\nwith vast bat-like wings bending over him, preparing to clutch him, but\ndeterred by the sacred emblem. That was a really terrible shock. I\nturned the page hastily, and said nothing, though it deprived me of\nspeech and appetite. My father noticed my distress, and asked if I felt\nunwell, but I said \"No.\" I got through dessert somehow; but then I had\nto say good-night, go out into the dimly-lit hall, slip the volume back\ninto the bookcase, and get upstairs. I tore up the staircase, feeling\nthe air full of wings and clutching hands. That was too bad ever to be\nspoken of; and as I did not remember which volume it was, I was never\nable to look at the set of magazines again for fear of encountering it;\nand strange to say some years afterwards, when I was an Eton boy, I\nlooked curiously for the picture, and again experienced the same\noverwhelming horror.\n\nMy youngest brother, too, an imaginative child, could never be\npersuaded by any bribes or entreaties to go into a dark room to fetch\nanything out. Nothing would induce him. I remember that he was\ncatechised at the tea-table as to what he expected to find, to which he\nreplied at once, with a horror-stricken look and a long stammer,\n\"B--b--b--bloodstained corpses!\"\n\nIt seems fantastic and ridiculous enough to older people, but the\nhorror of the dark and of the unknown which some children have is not a\nthing to be laughed at, nor should it be unsympathetically combated.\nOne must remember that experience has not taught a child scepticism; he\nthinks that anything in the world may happen; and all the monsters of\nnursery tales, goblins, witches, evil fairies, dragons, which a child\nin daylight will know to be imaginary, begin, as the dusk draws on, to\nbecome appalling possibilities. They may be somewhere about, lurking in\ncellars and cupboards and lofts and dark entries by day, and at night\nthey may slip out to do what harm they can. For children, not far from\nthe gates of birth, are still strongly the victims of primeval and\ninherited fears, not corrected by the habitual current of life. It is\nnot a reason for depriving children of the joys of the old tales and\nthe exercise of the faculty of wonder; but the tendency should be very\ncarefully guarded and watched, because these sudden shocks may make\nindelible marks, and leave a little weak spot in the mind which may\nprove difficult to heal.\n\nIt is not only these spectral terrors against which children have to be\nguarded. All severity and sharp indignity of punishment, all\nintemperate anger, all roughness of treatment, should be kept in strict\nrestraint. There are noisy, boisterous, healthy children, of course,\nwho do not resent or even dread sharp usage. But it is not always easy\nto discover the sensitive child, because fear of displeasure will\nfreeze him into a stupor of apparent dullness and stubbornness. I am\nalways infuriated by stupid people who regret the disappearance of\nsharp, stern, peremptory punishments, and lament the softness of the\nrising generation. If punishment must be inflicted, it should be done\ngood-naturedly and robustly as a natural tit-for-tat. Anger should be\nreserved for things like spitefulness and dishonesty and cruelty. There\nis nothing more utterly confusing to the childish mind than to have\ntrifling faults treated with wrath and indignation. It is true that, in\nthe world of nature, punishment seems often wholly disproportionate to\noffences. Nature will penalise carelessness in a disastrous fashion,\nand spare the cautious and prudent sinner. But there is no excuse for\nus, if we have any sense of justice and patience at all, for not\nsetting a better example. We ought to show children that there is a\nmoral order which we are endeavouring to administer. If parents and\nschoolmasters, who are both judges and executioners, allow their own\nrule to be fortuitous, indulge their own irritable moods, punish\nseverely a trifling fault, and sentimentalise or condone a serious one,\na child is utterly confused. I know several people who have had their\nlives blighted, have been made suspicious, cynical, crafty, and timid,\nby severe usage and bullying and open contempt in childhood. The thing\nto avoid, for all who are responsible in the smallest degree for the\nnurture of children, is to call in the influence of fear; one may speak\nplainly of consequences, but even there one must not exaggerate, as\nschoolmasters often do, for the best of motives, about moral faults;\none may punish deliberate and repeated disobedience, wanton cruelty,\npersistent and selfish disregard of the rights of others, but one must\nwarn many times, and never try to triumph over a fault by the\ninfliction of a shock of any kind. The shock is the most cruel and\ncowardly sort of punishment, and if we wilfully use it, then we are\nperpetuating the sad tyranny of instinctive fear, and using the\nstrength of a great angel to do the work of a demon, such as I saw long\nago in the old magazine, and felt its tyranny for many days.\n\nAs a child the one thing I was afraid of was the possibility of my\nfather's displeasure. We did not see a great deal of him, because he\nwas a much occupied headmaster; and he was to me a stately and majestic\npresence, before whom the whole created world seemed visibly to bow.\nBut he was deeply anxious about our upbringing, and had a very strong\nsense of his responsibility; and he would sometimes reprove us rather\nsternly for some extremely trifling thing, the way one ate one's food,\nor spoke, or behaved. This descended upon me as a cloud of darkness; I\nattempted no excuses, I did not explain or defend myself; I simply was\ncrushed and confounded. I do not think it was the right method. He\nnever punished us, but we were not at ease with him. I remember the\nagony with which I heard a younger sister once repeat to him some silly\nand profane little jokes which a good-natured and absurd old lady had\ntold us in the nursery. I felt sure he would disapprove, as he did. I\nknew quite well in my childish mind that it was harmless nonsense, and\ndid not give us a taste for ungodly mirth. But I could not intervene or\nexpostulate. I am sure that my father had not the slightest idea how\nweighty and dominant he was; but many of the things he rebuked would\nhave been better not noticed, or if noticed only made fun of, while I\nfeel that he ought to have given us more opportunity of stating our\ncase. He simply frightened me into having a different morality when I\nwas in his presence to what I had elsewhere. But he did not make me\nlove goodness thereby, and only gave me a sense that certain things,\nharmless in themselves, must not be done or said in the presence of\npapa. He did not always remember his own rules, and there was thus an\nelement of injustice in his rebukes, which one merely accepted as part\nof his awful and unaccountable greatness.\n\nWhen I was transferred to a private school, a great big place, very\nwell managed in every way, I lived for a time in atrocious terror of\neverything and everybody. I was conscious of a great code of rules\nwhich I did not know or understand, which I might quite unwittingly\nbreak, and the consequences of which might be fatal. I was never\npunished or caned, nor was I ever bullied. But I simply effaced myself\nas far as possible, and lived in dread of disaster. The thought even\nnow of certain high blank walls with lofty barred windows, the\nremembered smells of certain passages and corners, the tall form and\nflashing eye of our headmaster and the faint fragrance of Havana cigars\nwhich hung about him, the bare corridors with their dark cupboards, the\nstone stairs and iron railings--all this gives me a far-off sense of\ndread. I can give no reason for my unhappiness there; but I can\nrecollect waking in the early summer mornings, hearing the screams of\npeacocks from an adjoining garden, and thinking with a dreadful sense\nof isolation and despair of all the possibilities of disaster that lay\nhid in the day. I am sure it was not a wholesome experience. One need\nnot fear the world more than is necessary--but my only dream of peace\nwas the escape to the delights of home, and the thought of the larger\nworld was only a thing that I shrank from and shuddered at.\n\nNo, it is wrong to say one had no friends, but how few they seemed and\nhow clearly they stand out! I did not make friends among the boys; they\nwere pleasant enough acquaintances, some of them, but not to be trusted\nor confided in; they had to be kept at arm's length, and one's real\nlife guarded and hoarded away from them; because if one told them\nanything about one's home or one's ideas, it might be repeated, and the\nsacred facts shouted in one's ears as taunts and jests. But there was a\nlittle bluff master, a clergyman, with shaggy rippled red-brown hair\nand a face like a pug-dog. He was kind to me, and had me to lunch one\nSunday in a villa out at Barnes--that was a breath of life, to sit in a\nhomelike room and look at old Punches half the afternoon; and there was\nanother young man, a master, rather stout and pale, with whom I shared\nsome little jokes, and who treated me as he might treat a younger\nbrother; he was pledged, I remember, to give me a cake if I won an Eton\nScholarship, and royally he redeemed his promise. He died of heart\ndisease a little while after I left the school. I had promised to write\nto him from Eton and never did so, and I had a little pang about that\nwhen I heard of his death. And then there was the handsome loud-voiced\nmaid of my dormitory, Underwood by name, who was always just and kind,\nand who, even when she rated us, as she did at times, had always\nsomething human beckoning from her handsome eye. I can see her now,\nwith her sleeves tucked up, and her big white muscular arms, washing a\nrefractory little boy who fought shy of soap and water. I had a wild\nidea of giving her a kiss when I went away, and I think she would have\nliked that. She told me I had always been a good boy, and that she was\nsorry that I was going; but I did not dare to embrace her.\n\nAnd then there was dear Louisa, the matron of the little sanatorium on\nthe Mortlake road. She had been a former housemaid of ours; she was a\nstrong sturdy woman, with a deep voice like a man, and when I arrived\nthere ill--I was often ill in those days--she used to hug and kiss me\nand even cry over me; and the happiest days I spent at school were in\nthat poky little house, reading in Louisa's little parlour, while she\nprepared some special dish as a treat for my supper; or sitting hour by\nhour at the window of my room upstairs, watching a grocer opposite set\nout his window. I certainly did love Louisa with all my heart; and it\nwas almost pleasant to be ill, to be welcomed by her and petted and\nmade much of. \"My own dear boy,\" she used to say, and it was music in\nmy ears.\n\nI feel on looking back that, if I had children of my own, I should\nstudy very carefully to avoid any sort of terrorism. Psychologists tell\nus that the nervous shocks of early years are the things that leave\nindelible marks throughout life. I believe that mental specialists\noften make a careful study of the dreams of those whose minds are\nafflicted, because it is held that dreams very often continue to\nreproduce in later life the mental shocks of childhood. Anger,\nintemperate punishment, any attempt to produce instant submission and\ndismay in children, is very apt to hurt the nervous organisation. Of\ncourse it is easy enough to be careful about these things in sheltered\nenvironments, where there is some security and refinement of life. And\nthis opens up a vast problem which cannot be touched on here, because\nit is practically certain that many children in poor and unsatisfactory\nhomes sustain shocks to their mental organisation in early life which\ndamage them irreparably, and which could be avoided if they could be\nbrought up on more wholesome and tender lines.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nFEARS OF BOYHOOD\n\n\nThere is a tendency, I am sure, in books, to shirk the whole subject of\nfear, as though it were a thing disgraceful, shameful, almost\nunmentionable. The coward, the timid person, receives very little\nsympathy; he is rather like one tainted with a shocking disease, of\nwhich the less said the better. He is not viewed with any sympathy or\ncommiseration, but as something almost lower in the scale of humanity.\nTake the literature that deals with school life, for instance. I do not\nthink that there is any province of our literature so inept, so\nconventional, so entirely lacking in reality, as the books which deal\nwith the life of schools. The difficulty of writing them is very great,\nbecause they can only be reconstructed by an effort of memory. The boy\nhimself is quite unable to give expression to his thoughts and\nfeelings; school life is a time of sharp, eager, often rather savage\nemotions, lived by beings who have no sense of proportion, no knowledge\nof life, no idea of what is really going on in the world. The actual\nincidents which occur are very trivial, and yet to the fresh minds and\nspirits of boyhood they seem all charged with an intense significance.\nThen again the talk of schoolboys is wholly immature and shapeless.\nThey cannot express themselves, and moreover there is a very strict and\nperemptory convention which dictates what may be talked about and what\nmay not. No society in the world is under so oppressive a taboo. They\nmust not speak of anything emotional or intellectual, at the cost of\nbeing thought a fool or a prig. They talk about games, they gossip\nabout boys and masters, sometimes their conversation is nasty and\nbestial. But it conceals very real if very fitful emotions; yet it is\nimpossible to recall or to reconstruct; and when older people attempt\nto reconstruct it, they remember the emotions which underlay it, and\nthe eager interests out of which it all sprang; and they make it\nsomething picturesque, epigrammatic, and vernacular which is wholly\nuntrue to life. The fact is that the talk of schoolboys is very trivial\nand almost wholly symbolical; emotion reveals itself in glance and\ngesture, not in word at all. I suppose that most of us remember our\nboyish friendships, ardent and eager personal admirations,\nextraordinary deifications of quite commonplace boys, emotions none of\nwhich were ever put into words at all, hardly even into coherent\nthought, and were yet a swift and vital current of the soul.\n\nNow the most unreal part of the reconstructions of school life is the\ninsistence on the boyish code of honour. Neither as a boy nor as a\nschoolmaster did I ever have much evidence of this. There were certain\nhard and fast rules of conduct, like the rule which prevented any boy\nfrom giving information to a master against another boy. But this was\nnot a conscientious thing. It was part of the tradition, and the social\nostracism which was the penalty of its infraction was too severe to\nrisk incurring. But the boys who cut a schoolfellow for telling tales,\ndid not do it from any high-minded sense of violated honour. It was\nsimply a piece of self-defence, and the basis of the convention was\nmerely this, that, if the rule were broken, it would produce an\nimpossible sense of insecurity and peril. However much boys might on\nthe whole approve of, respect, and even like their masters, still they\ncould not make common cause with them. The school was a perfectly\ndefinite community, inside of which it was often convenient and\npleasant to do things which would be penalised if discovered; and thus\nthe whole stability of that society depended upon a certain secrecy.\nThe masters were not disliked for finding out the infractions of rules,\nif only such infractions were patent and obvious. A master who looked\ntoo closely into things, who practised any sort of espionage, who tried\nto extort confession, was disapproved of as a menace, and it was\nconvenient to label him a sneak and a spy, and to say that he did not\nplay the game fair. But all this was a mere tradition. Boys do not\nreflect much, or look into the reasons of things. It does not occur to\nthem to credit masters with the motive of wishing to protect them\nagainst themselves, to minimise temptation, to shelter them from\nundesirable influences; that perhaps dawns on the minds of sensible and\nhigh-minded prefects, but the ordinary boy just regards the master as\nan opposing power, whom he hoodwinks if he can.\n\nAnd then the boyish ideal of courage is a very incomplete one. He does\nnot recognise it as courage if a sensitive, conscientious, and\nright-minded boy risks unpopularity by telling a master of some evil\npractice which is spreading in a school. He simply regards it as a\ndesire to meddle, a priggish and pragmatical act, and even as a\nsneaking desire to inflict punishment by proxy.\n\nCourage, for the schoolboy, is merely physical courage, aplomb,\nboldness, recklessness, high-handedness. The hero of school life is one\nlike Odysseus, who is strong, inventive, daring, full of resource. The\npoint is to come out on the top. Odysseus yields to sensual delight, he\nis cruel, vindictive, and incredibly deceitful. It is evident that\nsuccessful beguiling, the power of telling an elaborate, plausible, and\nimperturbable lie on occasions, is an heroic quality in the Odyssey.\nOdysseus is not a man who scorns to deceive, or who would rather take\nthe consequences than utter a falsehood. His strength rather lies in\nhis power, when at bay, of flashing into some monstrous fiction,\ndramatising the situation, playing an adopted part, with confidence and\nassurance. One sees traces of the same thing in the Bible. The story of\nJacob deceiving Isaac, and pretending to be Esau in order to secure a\nblessing is not related with disapprobation. Jacob does not forfeit his\nblessing when his deceit is discovered. The whole incident is regarded\nrather as a master-stroke of cunning and inventiveness. Esau is angry\nnot because Jacob has employed such trickery, but because he has\nsucceeded in supplanting him.\n\nI remember, as a boy at Eton, seeing a scene which left a deep\nimpression on me. There was a big unpleasant unscrupulous boy of great\nphysical strength, who was a noted football player. He was extremely\nunpopular in the school, because he was rude, sulky, and overbearing,\nand still more because he took unfair advantages in games. There was a\nhotly contested house-match, in which he tried again and again to evade\nrules, while he was for ever appealing to the umpires against\nviolations of rule by the opposite side. His own house was ultimately\nvictorious, but feeling ran very high indeed, because it was thought\nthat the victory was unfairly won. The crowd of boys who had been\nwatching the match drifted away in a state of great exasperation, and\nfinally collected in front of the house of the unpopular player, hissed\nand hooted him. He took very little notice of the demonstration and\nwalked in, when there arose a babel of howls. He turned round and came\nout again, facing the crowd. I can see him now, all splashed and muddy,\nwith his shirt open at the neck. He was pale, ugly, and sinister; but\nhe surveyed us all with entire effrontery, drew out a pince-nez, being\nvery short-sighted, and then looked calmly round as if surprised. I\nhave certainly never seen such an exhibition of courage in my life. He\nknew that he had not a single friend present, and he did not know that\nhe would not be maltreated--there were indications of a rush being\nmade. He did not look in the least picturesque; he was ugly, scowling,\noffensive. But he did not care a rap, and if he had been attacked, he\nwould have defended himself with a will. It did not occur to me then,\nnor did it, I think, occur to anyone else, what an amazing bit of\nphysical and moral courage it was. No one, then or after, had the\nslightest feeling of admiration for his pluck. \"Did you ever see such a\nbrute as P-- looked?\" was the only sort of comment made.\n\nThis just serves to illustrate my point, that boys have no real\ndiscernment for what is courageous. What they admire is a certain grace\nand spirit, and the hero is not one who constrains himself to do an\nunpopular thing from a sense of duty, not even the boy who, being\nunpopular like P--, does a satanically brave thing. Boys have no\nadmiration for the boy who defies them; what they like to see is the\ndefiance of a common foe. They admire gallant, modest, spirited,\npicturesque behaviour, not the dull and faithful obedience to the sense\nof right.\n\nOf course things have altered for the better. Masters are no longer\nstern, severe, abrupt, formidable, unreasonable. They know that many a\nboy, who would be inclined on the whole to tell the truth, can easily\nbe frightened into telling a lie; but they have not yet contrived to\nput the sense of honour among boys in the right proportion. Such\nstories as that of George Washington--when the children were asked who\nhad cut down the apple-tree, and he rose and said, \"Sir, I cannot tell\na lie; it was I who did it with my little hatchet\"--do not really take\nthe imagination of boys captive. How constantly did worthy preachers at\nEton tell the story of how Bishop Selwyn, as a boy, rose and left the\nroom at a boat-supper because an improper song was sung! That anecdote\nwas regarded with undisguised amusement, and it was simply thought to\nbe a piece of priggishness. I cannot imagine that any boy ever heard\nthe story and went away with a glowing desire to do likewise. The\nincident really belongs to the domain of manners rather than to that of\nmorals.\n\nThe truth is really that boys at school have a code which resembles\nthat of the old chivalry. The hero may be sensual, unscrupulous, cruel,\nselfish, indifferent to the welfare of others. But if he bears himself\ngallantly, if he has a charm of look and manner, if he is a deft\nperformer in the prescribed athletics, he is the object of profound and\ndevoted admiration. It is really physical courage, skill, prowess,\npersonal attractiveness which is envied and praised. A dull, heavy,\npainstaking, conscientious boy with a sturdy sense of duty may be\nrespected, but he is not followed; while the imaginative, sensitive,\nnervous, highly-strung boy, who may have the finest qualities of all\nwithin him, is apt to be the most despised. Such a boy is often no good\nat games, because public performance disconcerts him; he cannot make a\nready answer, he has no aplomb, no cheek, no smartness; and he is\nconsequently thought very little of.\n\nTo what extent this sort of instinctive preference can be altered, I do\nnot know; it certainly cannot be altered by sermons, and still less by\nedicts. Old Dr. Keate said, when he was addressing the school on the\nsubject of fighting, \"I must say that I like to see a boy return a\nblow!\" It seems, if one considers it, to be a curious ideal to start\nlife with, considering how little opportunity civilisation now gives\nfor returning blows! Boys in fact are still educated under a system\nwhich seems to anticipate a combative and disturbed sort of life to\nfollow, in which strength and agility, violence and physical activity,\nwill have a value. Yet, as a matter of fact, such things have very\nlittle substantial value in an ordinary citizen's life at all, except\nin so far as they play their part in the elaborate cult of athletic\nexercises, with which we beguile the instinct which craves for manual\ntoil. All the races, and games, and athletics cultivated so assiduously\nat school seem now to have very little aim in view. It is not important\nfor ordinary life to be able to run a hundred yards, or even three\nmiles, faster than another man; the judgment, the quickness of eye, the\nstrength and swiftness of muscle needed to make a man a good batsman\nwere all well enough in days when a man's life might afterwards depend\non his use of sword and battle-axe. But now it only enables him to play\ngames rather longer than other people, and to a certain extent\nministers to bodily health, although the statistics of rowing would\nseem clearly to prove that it is a pursuit which is rather more apt to\ndamage the vitality of strong boys than to increase the vitality of\nweak ones.\n\nSo, if we look facts fairly in the face, we see that much of the\ntraining of school life, especially in the direction of athletics, is\nreally little more than the maintenance of a thoughtless old tradition,\nand that it is all directed to increase our admiration of prowess and\ngrace and gallantry, rather than to fortify us in usefulness and manual\nskill and soundness of body. A boy at school may be a skilful carver or\ncarpenter; he may have a real gift for engineering or mechanics; he may\neven be a good rider, a first-rate fisherman, an excellent shot. He may\nhave good intellectual abilities, a strong memory, a power of\nexpression; he may be a sound mathematician, a competent scientist; he\nmay have all sorts of excellent moral qualities, be reliable, accurate,\ntruthful, punctual, duty-loving; he may in fact be equipped for life\nand citizenship, able to play his part sturdily and manfully, and to do\nthe world good service; but yet he may never win the smallest\nrecognition or admiration in his school-days, while all the glory and\nhonour and credit is still reserved for the graceful, attractive,\nhigh-spirited athlete, who may have nothing else in the background.\n\nThat is certainly the ideal of the boy, and the disconcerting thing is\nthat it is also the ideal, practically if not theoretically, of the\nparent and the schoolmaster. The school still reserves all its best\ngifts, its sunshine and smiles, for the knightly and the skilful; it\nrewards all the qualities that are their own reward. Why, if it wishes\nto get the right scale adopted, does it not reward the thing which it\nprofesses to uphold as its best result, worth of character namely? It\nclaims to be a training-ground for character first, but it does little\nto encourage secret and unobtrusive virtues. That is, it adds its\nprizes to the things which the natural man values, and it neglects to\ncrown the one thing at which it professes first to aim. In doing this\nit only endorses the verdict of the world, and while it praises moral\neffort, it rewards success.\n\nThe issue of all this is that the sort of courage which it enforces is\nessentially a graceful and showy sort of courage, a lively readiness, a\nhigh-hearted fearlessness--so that timidity and slowness and diffidence\nand unreadiness become base and feeble qualities, when they are not the\nthings of which anyone need be ashamed! Let me say then that moral\ncourage, the patient and unrecognised facing of difficulties, the\ndisregard of popular standards, solidity and steadfastness of purpose,\nthe tranquil performance of tiresome and disagreeable duties, homely\nperseverance, are not the things which are regarded as supreme in the\nideal of the school; so that the fear which is the shadow of sensitive\nand imaginative natures is turned into the wrong channels, and becomes\na mere dread of doing the unpopular and unimpressive thing, or a craven\ndetermination not to be found out. And the dread of being obscure and\nunacceptable is what haunts the minds of boys brought up on these\nambitious and competitive lines, rather than the fear which is the\nbeginning of wisdom.\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nFEARS OF YOUTH\n\n\nThe fears of youth are as a rule just the terrors of self-consciousness\nand shyness. They are a very irrational thing, something purely\ninstinctive and of old inheritance. How irrational they are is best\nproved by the fact that shyness is caused mostly by the presence of\nstrangers; there are many young people who are bashful, awkward, and\ntongue-tied in the presence of strangers, whose tremors wholly\ndisappear in the family circle. If these were rational fears, they\nmight be caused by the consciousness of the inspection and possible\ndisapproval of those among whom one lives, and whose annoyance and\ncriticism might have unpleasant practical effects. Yet they are caused\noften by the presence of those whose disapproval is not of the smallest\nconsequence, those, in fact, whom one is not likely to see again. One\nmust look then for the cause of this, not in the fact that one's\nawkwardness and inefficiency is likely to be blamed by those of one's\nown circle, but simply in the terror of the unknown and the unfamiliar.\nIt is probably therefore an old inherited instinct, coming from a time\nwhen the sight of a stranger might contain in it a menace of some\nhostile usage. If one questions a shy boy or girl as to what it is they\nare afraid of in the presence of strangers, they are quite unable to\nanswer. They are not afraid of anything that will be said or done; and\nyet they will have become intensely conscious of their own appearance\nand movements and dress, and will be quite unable to command\nthemselves. That it is a thing which can be easily cured is obvious\nfrom the fact which I often observed when I was a schoolmaster, that as\na rule the boys who came from houses where there was much entertaining,\nand a constant coming and going of guests, very rarely suffered from\nsuch shyness. They had got used to the fact that strangers could be\ndepended upon to be kind and friendly, and instead of looking upon a\nnew person as a possible foe, they regarded him as a probable friend.\n\nI often think that parents do not take enough trouble in this respect\nto make children used to strangers. What often happens is that parents\nare themselves shy and embarrassed in the presence of strangers, and\nwhen they notice that their children suffer from the same awkwardness,\nthey criticise them afterwards, partly because they are vexed at their\nown clumsy performance; and thus the shyness is increased, because the\nchild, in addition to his sense of shyness before strangers, has in the\nbackground of his mind the feeling that any mauvaise honte that he may\ndisplay may he commented upon afterwards. No exhibition of shyness on\nthe part of a boy or girl should ever be adverted upon by parents. They\nshould take for granted that no one is ever willingly shy, and that it\nis a misery which all would avoid if they could. It is even better to\nallow children considerable freedom of speech with strangers, than to\nrepress and silence them. Of course impertinence and unpleasant\ncomments, such as children will sometimes make on the appearance or\nmanners of strangers, must be checked, but it should be on the grounds\nof the unpleasantness of such remarks, and not on the ground of\nforwardness. On the other hand, all attempts on the part of a child to\nbe friendly and courteous to strangers should be noted and praised; a\nchild should be encouraged to look upon itself as an integral part of a\ncircle, and not as a silent and lumpish auditor.\n\nProbably too there are certain physical and psychological laws, which\nwe do not at all understand, which account for the curious subjective\neffects which certain people have at close quarters; there is something\nhypnotic and mesmeric about the glance of certain eyes; and there is in\nall probability a curious blending of mental currents in an assembly of\npeople, which is not a mere fancy, but a very real physical fact.\nPersonalities radiate very real and unmistakable influences, and\nprobably the undercurrent of thought which happens to be in one's mind\nwhen one is with others has an effect, even if one says or does nothing\nto indicate one's preoccupation. A certain amount of this comes from an\nunconscious inference on the part of the recipients. We often augur,\nwithout any very definite rational process, from the facial\nexpressions, gestures, movements, tones of others, what their frame of\nmind is. But I believe that there is a great deal more than that. We\nmust all know that when we are with friends to whose moods and emotions\nwe are attuned, there takes place a singular degree of\nthought-transference, quite apart from speech. I had once a great\nfriend with whom I was accustomed to spend much time tete-a-tete. We\nused to travel together and spend long periods, day after day, in close\nconjunction, often indeed sharing the same bedroom. It became a matter\nat first of amusement and interest, but afterwards an accepted fact,\nthat we could often realise, even after a long silence, in what\ndirection the other's thought was travelling. \"How did you guess I was\nthinking of that?\" would be asked. To which the reply was, \"I did not\nguess--I knew.\" On the other hand I have an old and familiar friend,\nwhom I know well and regard with great affection, but whose presence,\nand particularly a certain fixity of glance, often, even now, causes me\na curious subjective disturbance which is not wholly pleasant, a sense\nof some odd psychical control which is not entirely agreeable.\n\nI have another friend who is the most delightful and easy company in\nthe world when we are, alone together; but he is a sensitive and\nhighly-strung creature, much affected by personal influences, and when\nI meet him in the company of other people he is often almost\nunrecognisable. His mind becomes critical, combative, acrid; he does\nnot say what he means, he is touched by a vague excitement, and there\npasses over him an unnatural sort of brilliance, of a hard and futile\nkind, which makes him sacrifice consideration and friendliness to the\ninstinctive desire to produce an effect and to score a point. I\nsometimes actually detest him when he is one of a circle. I feel\ninclined to say to him, \"If only you could let your real self appear,\nand drop this tiresome posturing and fencing, you would be as\ndelightful as you are to me when I am alone with you; but this hectic\ntittering and feverish jocosity is not only not your real self, but it\ngives others an impression of a totally unreal and not very agreeable\nperson.\" But, alas, this is just the sort of thing one cannot say to a\nfriend!\n\nAs one goes on in life, this terrible and disconcerting shyness of\nyouth disappears. We begin to realise, with a wholesome loss of vanity\nand conceit, how very little people care or even notice how we are\ndressed, how we look, what we say. We learn that other people are as\nmuch preoccupied with their thoughts and fancies and reflections as we\nare with our own. We realise that if we are anxious to produce an\nagreeable impression, we do so far more by being interested and\nsympathetic, than by attempting a brilliance which we cannot command.\nWe perceive that other people are not particularly interested in our\ncrude views, nor very grateful for the expression of them. We acquire\nthe power of combination and co-operation, in losing the desire for\nsplendour and domination. We see that people value ease and security,\nmore than they admire originality and fantastic contradiction. And so\nwe come to the blessed time when, instead of reflecting after a social\noccasion whether we did ourselves justice, we begin to consider rather\nthe impression we have formed of other personalities.\n\nI believe that we ought to have recourse to very homely remedies indeed\nfor combating shyness. It is of no use to try to console and distract\nourselves with lofty thoughts, and to try to keep eternity and the\nhopes of man in mind. We so become only more self-conscious and\nsuperior than ever. The fact remains that the shyness of youth causes\nagonies both of anticipation and retrospect; if one really wishes to\nget rid of it, the only way is to determine to get used somehow to\nsociety, and not to endeavour to avoid it; and as a practical rule to\nmake up one's mind, if possible, to ask people questions, rather than\nto meditate impressive answers. Asking other people questions about\nthings to which they are likely to know the answers is one of the\nshortest cuts to popularity and esteem. It is wonderful to reflect how\nmuch distress personal bashfulness causes people, how much they would\ngive to be rid of it, and yet how very little trouble they ever take to\nacquiring any method of dealing with the difficulty. I see a good deal\nof undergraduates, and am often aware that they are friendly and\nresponsive, but without any power of giving expression to it. I\nsometimes see them suffering acutely from shyness before my eyes. But a\nyoung man who can bring himself to ask a perfectly simple question\nabout some small matter of common interest is comparatively rare; and\nyet it is generally the simplest way out of the difficulty.\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\nFEARS OF MIDDLE AGE\n\n\nNow with all the tremors, reactions, glooms, shadows, and despairs of\nyouth--it is easy enough to forget them, but they were there--goes a\npower of lifting and lighting up in a moment at a chord of music, a\nglance, a word, the song of a bird, the scent of a flower, a flying\nsunburst, which fills life up like a cup with bubbling and sparkling\nliquor.\n\n\n  \"My soul, be patient! Thou shalt find\n   A little matter mend all this!\"\n\n\nAnd that is the part of youth which we remember, till on looking back\nit seems like a time of wandering with like-hearted comrades down some\nsweet-scented avenue of golden sun and green shade. Our memory plays us\nbeautifully false--splendide mendax--till one wishes sometimes that old\nand wise men, retelling the story of their life, could recall for the\ncomfort of youth some part of its languors and mischances, its bitter\njealousies, its intense and poignant sense of failure.\n\nAnd then in a moment the door of life opens. One day I was an\nirresponsible, pleasure-loving, fantastic youth, and a week later I\nwas, or it seemed to me that I was, a professional man with all the\ncares of a pedagogue upon my back. It filled me at first, I remember,\nwith a gleeful amazement, to find myself in the desk, holding forth,\ninstead of on the form listening. It seemed delicious at first to have\nthe power of correcting and slashing exercises, and placing boys in\norder, instead of being corrected and examined, and competing for a\nplace. It was a solemn game at the outset. Then came the other side of\nthe picture. One's pupils were troublesome, they did badly in\nexaminations, they failed unaccountably; and one had a glimpse too of\nsome of the tragedies of school life. Almost insensibly I became aware\nthat I had a task to perform, that my mistakes involved boys in\ndisaster, that I had the anxious care of other destinies; and thus,\nalmost before I knew it, came a new cloud on the horizon, the cloud of\nanxiety. I could not help seeing that I had mismanaged this boy and\nmisdirected that; that one could not treat them as ingenuous and lively\nplaythings, but that what one said and did set a mark which perhaps\ncould not be effaced. Gradually other doubts and problems made\nthemselves felt. I had to administer a system of education in which I\ndid not wholly believe; I saw little by little that the rigid old\nsystem of education was a machine which, if it made a highly\naccomplished product out of the best material, wasted an enormous\namount of boyish interest and liveliness, and stultified the feebler\nsort of mind. Then came the care of a boarding-house, close relations\nwith parents, a more real knowledge of the infinite levity of boy\nnature. I became mixed up with the politics of the place, the chance of\nmore ambitious positions floated before me; the need for tact,\ndiscretion, judiciousness, moderation, tolerance emphasized itself. I\nam here outlining my own experience, but it is only one of many similar\nexperiences. I became a citizen without knowing it, and my place in the\nworld, my status, success, all became definite things which I had to\nsecure.\n\nThe cares, the fears, the anxieties of middle life lie for most men and\nwomen in this region; if people are healthy and active, they generally\narrive at a considerable degree of equanimity; they do not anticipate\nevil, and they take the problems of life cheerfully enough as they\ncome; but yet come they do, and too many men and women are tempted to\nthrow overboard scornfully and disdainfully the dreams of youth as a\nluxury which they cannot afford to indulge, and to immerse themselves\nin practical cares, month after month, with perhaps the hope of a\nfairly careless and idle holiday at intervals. What I think tends to\ncounteract this for many people is love and marriage, the wonder and\namazement of having children of their own, and all the offices of\ntenderness that grow up naturally beside their path. But this again\nbrings a whole host of fears and anxieties as well--arrangements, ways\nand means, household cares, illnesses, the homely stuff of life, much\nof it enjoyed, much of it cheerfully borne, and often very bravely and\ngallantly endured. It is out of this simple material that life has to\nbe constructed. But there is a twofold danger in all this. There is a\ndanger of cynicism, the frame of mind in which a man comes to face\nlittle worries as one might put up an umbrella in a shower--\"Thou\nknow'st 'tis common!\" Out of that grows up a rude dreariness, a\nphilosophy which has nothing dignified about it, but is merely a\nrecognition of the fact that life is a poor affair, and that one cannot\nhope to have things to one's mind. Or there is a dull frame of mind\nwhich implies a meek resignation, a sense of disappointment about life,\nborne with a mournful patience, a sense of one's sphere having somehow\nfallen short of one's deserts. This produces the grumpy paterfamilias\nwho drowses over a paper or grumbles over a pipe; such a man is\ninimitably depicted by Mr. Wells in Marriage. That sort of ugly\ndisillusionment, that publicity of disappointment, that frank disregard\nof all concerns except one's own, is one of the most hideous features\nof middle-class life, and it is rather characteristically English. It\nsometimes conceals a robust good sense and even kindliness; but it is a\nbase thing at best, and seems to be the shadow of commercial\nprosperity. Yet it at least implies a certain sturdiness of character,\nand a stubborn belief in one's own merits which is quite impervious to\nthe lessons of experience. On sensitive and imaginative people the\nresult of the professional struggle with life, the essence of which is\noften social pretentiousness, is different. It ends in a mournful and\ndistracted kind of fatigue, a tired sort of padding along after life, a\ntimid bewilderment at conditions which one cannot alter, and which yet\nhave no dignity or seemliness.\n\nWhat is there that is wrong with all this? The cause is easy enough to\nanalyse. It is the result of a system which develops conventional,\nshort-sighted, complicated households, averse to effort, fond of\npleasure, and with tastes which are expensive without being refined.\nThe only cure would seem to be that men and women should be born\ndifferent, with simple active generous natures; it is easy to say that!\nBut the worst of the situation is that the sordid banality and ugly\ntragedy of their lot do not dawn on the people concerned. Greedy vanity\nin the more robust, lack of moral courage and firmness in the more\nsensitive, with a social organisation that aims at a surface dignity\nand a cheap showiness, are the ingredients of this devil's cauldron.\nThe worst of it is that it has no fine elements at all. There is a\nnobility about real tragedy which evokes a quality of passionate and\nsincere emotion. There is something essentially exalted about a fierce\nresistance, a desperate failure. But this abject, listless dreariness,\nwhich can hardly be altered or expressed, this miserable floating down\nthe muddy current, where there is no sharp repentance or fiery\nbattling, nothing but a mean abandonment to a meaningless and\nunintelligible destiny, seems to have in it no seed of recovery at all.\n\nThe dark shadow of professional anxiety is that it has no tragic\nquality; it is like ploughing on day by day through endless mud-flats.\nOne does not feel, in the presence of sharp suffering or bitter loss,\nthat they ought not to exist. They are there, stern, implacable,\naugust; stately enemies, great combatants. There is a significance\nabout their very awfulness. One may fall before them, but they pass\nlike a great express train, roaring, flashing, things deliberately and\nintently designed; but these dull failures which seem not the outgrowth\nof anyone's fierce longing or wilful passion, but of everyone's\nlaziness and greediness and stupidity, how is one to face them? It is\nthe helpless death of the quagmire, not the death of the fight or the\nmountain-top. Is there, we ask ourselves, anything in the mind of God\nwhich corresponds to comfort-loving vulgarity, if so strong and yet so\nstagnant a stream can overflow the world? The bourgeois ideal! One\nwould rather have tyranny or savagery than anything so gross and smug.\n\nAnd yet we see high-spirited and ardent husbands drawn into this by\nobstinate and vulgar-minded wives. We see fine-natured and sensitive\nwomen engulfed in it by selfish and ambitious husbands. The tendency is\nawfully and horribly strong, and it wins, not by open combat, but by\nsecret and dull persistence. And one sees too--I have seen it many\ntimes--children of delicate and eager natures, who would have\nflourished and expanded in more generous air, become conventional and\ncommonplace and petty, concerned about knowing the right people and\ndoing the right things, and making the same stupid and paltry show,\nwhich deceives no one.\n\nThere is nothing for it but independence and simplicity and, perhaps\nbest of all, a love of beauty. William Morris asserted passionately\nenough that art was the only cure for all this dreariness--the love of\nbeautiful sounds and sights and words; and I think that is true, if it\nbe further extended to a perception of the quality of beauty in the\nconduct and relations of life. For those are the cheap and reasonable\npleasures of life, accessible to all; and if men and women cared for\nwork first and the decent simplicities of wholesome living, and could\nfurther find their pleasure in art, in whatever form, then I believe\nthat many of these fears and anxieties, so maiming and impairing to all\nthat is fine in life, would vanish quietly out of being. The thing\nseems both beautiful and possible, because one knows of households\nwhere it is so, and where it grows up naturally and easily enough. I\nknow households of both kinds--where on the one hand the standard is\nambitious and mean, where the inmates calculate everything with a view\nto success, or rather to producing an impression of success; and there\nall talk and intercourse is an unreal thing, not the outflow of natural\ninterests and pleasant tastes, but a sham culture and a refinement that\nis only pursued because it is the right sort of surface to present to\nthe world. One submits to it with boredom, one leaves it with relief.\nThey have got the right people together, they have shown that they can\ncommand their attendance; it is all ceremony and waste.\n\nAnd then I know households where one sees in the books, the pictures,\nthe glances, the gestures, the movements of the inmates, a sort of\ngrace and delicacy which comes of really caring about things that are\nbeautiful and fine. Sincere things are simply said, humour bubbles up\nand breaks in laughter; one feels that light is thrown on a hundred\ntopics and facts and personalities. The whole of life then becomes a\ngarden teeming with strange and wonderful secrets, and influences that\nflash and radiate, passing on into some mysterious and fragrant gloom.\nEverything there seems charged with significance and charm; there are\nno pretences--there are preferences, prejudices if you will; but there\nis tolerance and sympathy, and a desire to see the point of view of\nothers. The effect of such an atmosphere is to set one wondering how\none has contrived to miss the sense of so much that is beautiful and\ninteresting in life, and sends one away longing to perceive more, and\ndetermined if possible to interpret life more truly and more graciously.\n\n\n\n\nX\n\nFEARS OF AGE\n\n\nAnd then age creeps on; and that brings fears of its own, and fears\nthat are all the more intolerable because they are not definite fears\nat all, merely a loss of nervous vigour, which attaches itself to the\nmost trivial detail and magnifies it into an insuperable difficulty. A\nfriend of mine who was growing old once confided to me that foreign\ntravel, which used to be such a delight to him, was now getting\nburdensome. \"It is all right when I have once started,\" he said, \"but\nfor days before I am the prey of all kinds of apprehensions.\" \"What\nsort of apprehensions?\" I said. He laughed, and replied, \"Well, it is\nalmost too absurd to mention, but I find myself oppressed with anxiety\nfor weeks beforehand as to whether, when we get to Calais, we shall\nfind places in the train.\" And I remember, too, how a woman friend of\nmine once told me that she called at the house of an elderly couple in\nLondon, people of rank and wealth. Their daughter met her in the\ndrawing-room and said, \"I am glad you are come--you may be able to\ncheer my mother up. We are going down to-morrow to our place in the\ncountry; the servants and the luggage went this morning, and my mother\nand father are to drive down this afternoon--my mother is very low\nabout it.\" \"What is the matter?\" said my friend. The daughter replied,\n\"She is afraid that they will not get there in time!\" \"In time for\nwhat?\" said my friend, thinking that there was some important\nengagement. \"In time for tea!\" said the daughter gravely.\n\nIt is all very well to laugh at such fears, but they are not natural\nfears at all, they just indicate a low vitality; they are the symptoms\nand not the causes of a disease. It is the frame of mind of the\nsluggard in the Bible who says, \"There is a lion in the way.\" Younger\npeople are apt to be irritated by what seems a wilful creating of\napprehensions. They ought rather to be patient and reassuring, and\ncompassionate to the weakness of nerve for which it stands.\n\nWith such fears as these may be classed all the unreal but none the\nless distressing fears about health which beset people all their lives,\nin some cases; it is extremely annoying to healthy people to find a man\nreduced to depression and silence at the possibility of taking cold, or\nat the fear of having eaten something unwholesome. I remember an\nelderly gentleman who had lived a vigorous and unselfish life, and was\nindeed a man of force and character, whose activity was entirely\nsuspended in later years by his fear of catching cold or of over-tiring\nhimself. He was a country clergyman, and used to spend the whole of\nSunday between his services, in solitary seclusion, \"resting,\" and\nretire to bed the moment the evening service was over; moreover his\ndread of taking cold was such that he invariably wore a hat in the\nwinter months to go from the drawing-room to the dining-room for\ndinner, even if there were guests in his house. He used to jest about\nit, and say that it no doubt must look curious; but he added that he\nhad found it a wise precaution, and that we had no idea how disabling\nhis colds were. Even a very healthy friend of my own standing has told\nme that if he ever lies awake at night he is apt to exaggerate the\nsmallest and most trifling sense of discomfort into the symptom of some\ndangerous disease. Let me quote the well-known case of Hans Andersen,\nwhose imagination was morbidly strong. He found one morning when he\nawoke that he had a small pimple under his left eyebrow. He reflected\nwith distress upon the circumstance, and soon came to the rueful\nconclusion that the pimple would probably increase in size, and deprive\nhim of the sight of his left eye. A friend calling upon him in the\ncourse of the morning found him writing, in a mood of solemn\nresignation, with one hand over the eye in question, \"practising,\" as\nhe said, \"how to read and write with the only eye that would soon be\nleft him.\"\n\nOne's first impulse is to treat these self-inflicted sufferings as\nridiculous and almost idiotic. But they are quite apt to beset people\nof effectiveness and ability. To call them irrational does not cure\nthem, because they lie deeper than any rational process, and are in\nfact the superficial symptoms of some deep-seated weakness of nerve,\nwhile their very absurdity, and the fact that the mind cannot throw\nthem off, only proves how strong they are. They are in fact signs of\nsome profound uneasiness of mind; and the rational brain of such\npeople, casting about for some reason to explain the fear with which\nthey are haunted, fixes on some detail which is not worthy of serious\nnotice. It is of course a species of local insanity and monomania, but\nit does not imply any general obscuration of faculties at all. Some of\nthe most intellectual people are most at the mercy of such trials, and\nindeed they are rather characteristic of men and women whose brain is\napt to work at high pressure. One recollects in the life of Shelley,\nhow he used to be haunted by these insupportable fears. He was at one\ntime persuaded that he had contracted leprosy, and he used to\ndisconcert his acquaintances by examining solicitously their wrists and\nnecks to see if he could detect symptoms of the same disease.\n\nThere is very little doubt that as medical knowledge progresses we\nshall know more about the cause of such hallucinations. To call them\nunreal is mere stupidity. Sensible people who suffer from them are\noften perfectly well aware of their unreality, and are profoundly\nhumiliated by them. They are some disease or weakness of the\nimaginative faculty; and a friend of mine who suffered from such things\ntold me that it was extraordinary to him to perceive the incredible\ningenuity with which his brain under such circumstances used to find\nconfirmation for his fears from all sorts of trivial incidents which at\nother times passed quite unnoticed. It is generally quite useless to\nthink of removing the fear by combating the particular fancy; the\naffected centre, whatever it is, only turns feverishly to some other\nsimilar anxiety. Occupation of a quiet kind, exercise, rest, are the\nbest medicine.\n\nSometimes these anxieties take a different form, and betray themselves\nby suspicion of other people's conduct and motives. That is of course\nallied to insanity. In sane and sound health we realise that we are\nnot, as a rule, the objects of the malignity and spitefulness of\nothers. We are perhaps obstacles to the carrying out of other people's\nplans; but men and women as a rule mind their own business, and are not\nmuch concerned to intervene in the designs and activities of others.\nYet a man whose mental equilibrium is unstable is apt to think that if\nhe is disappointed or thwarted it is the result of a deliberate\nconspiracy on the part of other people. If he is a writer, he thinks\nthat other writers are aware of his merits, but are determined to\nprevent them being recognised out of sheer ill-will. A man in robust\nhealth realises that he gets quite as much credit or even more credit\nthan he deserves, and that his claims to attention are generously\nrecognised; one has exactly as much influence and weight as one can\nget, and other people as a rule are much too much occupied in their own\nconcerns to have either the time or the inclination to interfere. But\nas a man grows older, as his work stiffens and weakens, he falls out of\nthe race, and he must be content to do so; and he is well advised if he\nputs his failure down to his own deficiencies, and not to the malice of\nothers. The world is really very much on the look out for anything\nwhich amuses, delights, impresses, moves, or helps it; it is quick and\ngenerous in recognition of originality and force; and if a writer, as\nhe gets older, finds his books neglected and his opinions disdained, he\nmay be fairly sure that he has said his say, and that men are\npreoccupied with new ideas and new personalities. Of course this is a\nmelancholy and disconcerting business, especially if one has been more\nconcerned with personal prominence than with the worth and weight of\none's ideas; mortified vanity is a sore trial. I remember once meeting\nan old author who, some thirty years before the date at which I met\nhim, had produced a book which attracted an extraordinary amount of\nattention, though it has long since been forgotten. The old man had all\nthe airs of solemn greatness, and I have seldom seen a more rueful\nspectacle than when a young and rising author was introduced to him,\nand when it became obvious that the young man had not only never heard\nof the old writer, but did not know the name of his book.\n\nThe question is what we can do to avoid falling under the dominion of\nthese uncanny fears and fancies, as we fall from middle age to age. A\ndreary, dispirited, unhappy, peevish old man or old woman is a very\nmiserable spectacle; while, at the same time, generous, courteous,\npatient, modest, tender old age is one of the most beautiful things in\nthe world. We may of course resolve not to carry our dreariness into\nall circles, and if we find life a poor and dejected business, we can\ndetermine that we will not enlarge upon the theme. But the worst of\ndiscouragement is that it removes even the desire to play a part, or to\nmake the most and best of ourselves. Like Mrs. Gummidge in David\nCopperfield, if we are reminded that other people have their troubles,\nwe are apt to reply that we feel them more. One does not desire that\npeople should unduly indulge themselves in self-dramatisation. There is\nsomething very repugnant in an elderly person who is bent on proving\nhis importance and dignity, in laying claim to force and influence, in\naffecting to play a large part in the world. But there is something\neven more afflicting in the people who drop all decent pretence of\ndignity, and pour the product of an acrid and disappointed spirit into\nall conversations.\n\nAge can establish itself very firmly in the hearts of its circle, if it\nis kind, sympathetic, appreciative, ready to receive confidences,\nwilling to encourage the fitful despondencies of youth. But here again\nwe are met by the perennial difficulty as to how far we can force\nourselves to do things which we do not really want to do, and how far\nagain, if we succeed in forcing ourselves into action, we can give any\naccent of sincerity and genuineness to our comments and questions.\n\nIn this particular matter, that of sympathy, a very little effort does\nundoubtedly go a long way, because there are a great many people in the\nworld eagerly on the look out for any sign of sympathy, and not apt to\nscrutinise too closely the character of the sympathy offered. And the\nbest part of having once forced oneself to exhibit sympathy, at\nwhatever cost of strain and effort, is that one is at least ashamed to\nwithdraw it.\n\nI remember a foolish woman who was very anxious to retain the hold upon\nthe active world which she had once possessed. She very seldom spoke of\nany subject but herself, her performances, her activities, the pressure\nof the claims which she was forced to try to satisfy. I can recall her\nnow, with her sanguine complexion, her high voice, her anxious and\nrestless eye wandering in search of admiration. \"The day's post!\" she\ncried, \"that is one of my worst trials--so many duties to fulfil, so\nmany requests for help, so many irresistible claims come before me in\nthe pile of letters--that high,\" indicating about a foot and a half of\nlinear measurement above the table. \"It is the same story every day--a\nscore of people bringing their little mugs of egotism to be filled at\nmy pump of sympathy!\"\n\nIt was a ridiculous exhibition, because one was practically sure that\nthere was nothing of the kind going on. One was inclined to believe\nthat they were mugs of sympathy filled at the pump of egotism! But if\nthe thing were really being done, it was certainly worth doing!\n\nOne of the causes of the failure of nerve-force in age, which lies\nbehind so much of these miseries, is that people who have lived at all\nactive lives cannot bring themselves to realise their loss of vigour,\nand try to prolong the natural energies of middle age into the twilight\nof elderliness. Men and women cling to activities, not because they\nenjoy them, but to delude themselves into believing that they are still\nyoung. That terrible inability to resign positions, the duties of which\none cannot adequately fulfil, which seems so disgraceful and\nunconscientious a handling of life to the young, is often a pathetic\nclinging to youth. Such veterans do not reflect that the only effect of\nsuch tenacity is partly that other people do their work, and partly\nalso that the critic observes that if a post can be adequately filled\nby so old a man it is a proof that such a post ought not to exist. The\ntendency ought to be met as far as possible by fixing age-limits to all\npositions. Because even if the old and weary do consult their friends\nas to the advisability of retirement, it is very hard for the friends\ncordially to recommend it. A public man once told me that a very aged\nofficial consulted him as to the propriety of resignation. He said in\nhis reply something complimentary about the value of the veteran's\nservices. Whereupon the old man replied that as he set so high an\nestimation upon his work, he would endeavour to hold on a little longer!\n\nThe conscientious thing to do, as we get older and find ourselves\nslower, more timid, more inactive, more anxious, is to consult a candid\nfriend, and to follow his advice rather than our own inclination; a\ncertain fearfulness, an avoidance of unpleasant duty, a dreary\nforeboding, is apt to be characteristic of age. But we must meet it\nphilosophically. We must reflect that we have done our work, and that\nan attempt to galvanise ourselves into activity is sure to result in\ndepression. So we must condense our energies, be content to play a\nlittle, to drowse a little, to watch with interest the game of life in\nwhich we cannot take a hand, until death falls as naturally upon our\nwearied eyes as sleep falls upon the eyes of a child tired with a long\nsummer day of eager pleasure and delight.\n\nBut there is one practical counsel that may here be given to all who\nfind a tendency to dread and anxiety creeping upon them as life\nadvances. I have known very truly and deeply religious people who have\nbeen thus beset, and who make their fears the subject of earnest\nprayer, asking that this particular terror may be spared them, that\nthis cup may be withdrawn from their shuddering lips. I do not believe\nthat this is the right way of meeting the situation. One may pray as\nwhole-heartedly as one will against the tendency to fear; but it is a\ngreat help to realise that the very experiences which seem now so\noverwhelming had little or no effect upon one in youthful and\nhigh-hearted days. It is not really that the quality of events alter;\nit is merely that one is losing vitality, and parting with the\nirresponsible hopefulness that did not allow one to brood, simply\nbecause there were so many other interesting and delightful things\ngoing on.\n\nOne must attack the disease, for it is a disease, at the root; and it\nis of little use to shrink timidly from the particular evil, because\nwhen it is gone, another will take its place. We may pray for courage,\nbut we must practise it; and the best way of meeting particular fears\nis to cultivate interests, distractions, amusements, which may serve to\ndispel them. We cannot begin to do that while we are under the dominion\nof a particular fear, for the strength of fear lies in its dominating\nand nauseating quality, so that it gives us a dreary disrelish for\nlife; but if we really wish to combat it, we must beware of inactivity;\nit may be comfortable, as life goes on, to cultivate a habit of mild\ncontemplation, but it is this very habit of mind which predisposes us\nto anxiety when anxiety comes. Dr. Johnson pointed out how\ncomparatively rare it was for people who had manual labour to perform,\nand whose work lay in the open air, to suffer from hypochondriacal\nterrors. The truth is that we are made for labour, and we have by no\nmeans got rid of the necessity for it. We have to pay a price for the\ncomforts of civilisation, and above all for the pleasures of\ninactivity. It is astonishing how quickly a definite task which one has\nto perform, whether one likes it or not, draws off a cloud of anxiety\nfrom one's spirit. I am myself liable to attacks of depression, not\ncauseless depression, but a despondent exaggeration of small troubles.\nYet in times of full work, when meetings have to be attended, papers\ntackled, engagements kept, I seldom find myself suffering from vague\nanxieties. It is simply astonishing that one cannot learn more common\nsense! I suppose that all people of anxious minds tend to find the\nwaking hour a trying one. The mind, refreshed by sleep, turns\nsorrowfully to the task of surveying the difficulties which lie before\nit. And yet a hundred times have I discovered that life, which seemed\nat dawn nothing but a tangle of intolerable problems, has become at\nnoon a very bearable and even interesting affair; and one should thus\nlearn to appreciate the tonic value of occupation, and set oneself to\ndiscern some pursuit, if we have no compulsory duties, which may set\nthe holy mill revolving, as Dante says; for it is the homely grumble of\nthe gear which distracts us from the other sort of grumbling, the\nself-pitying frame of mind, which is the most fertile seed-plot of fear.\n\n\"How happy I was long ago; how little I guessed my happiness; how\nlittle I knew all that lay before me; how sadly and strangely afflicted\nI am!\" These are the whispers of the evil demon of fearfulness; and\nthey can only be checked by the murmur of wholesome and homely voices.\n\nThe old motto says, \"Orare est laborare,\" \"prayer is work\"--and it is\nno less true that \"laborare est orare,\" \"work is prayer.\" The truth is\nthat we cannot do without both; and when we have prayed for courage,\nand tried to rejoice in our beds, as the saints who are joyful in glory\ndo, we had better spend no time in begging that money may be sent us to\nmeet our particular need, or that health may return to us, or that this\nand that person may behave more kindly and considerately, but go our\nway to some perfectly commonplace bit of work, do it as thoroughly as\nwe can, and simply turn our back upon the hobgoblin whose grimaces fill\nus with such uneasiness. He melts away in the blessed daylight over the\nvolume or the account-book, in the simple talk about arrangements or\naffairs, and above all perhaps in trying to disentangle and relieve\nanother's troubles and anxieties. We cannot get rid of fear by drugs or\ncharms; we have to turn to the work which is the appointed solace of\nman, and which is the reward rather than the penalty of life.\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\nDR. JOHNSON\n\n\nThere is one great and notable instance in our annals which ought once\nand for all to dispose of the idea that there is anything weak or\nunmanly in finding fear a constant temptation, and that is the case of\nDr. Johnson. Dr. Johnson holds his supreme station as the \"figure\" par\nexcellence of English life for a number of reasons. His robustness, his\nwit, his reverence for established things, his secret piety are all\ncontributory causes; but the chief of all causes is that the proportion\nin which these things were mixed is congenial to the British mind. The\nEnglishman likes a man who is deeply serious without being in the least\na prig; a man who is tender-hearted without being sentimental; he likes\na rather combative nature, and enjoys repartee more than he enjoys\nhumour. The Englishman values good sense above almost all qualities; by\na sensible man he means a man with a clear judgment of right and wrong,\na man who is not taken in by pretences nor gulled by rhetoric; a man\nwho can instinctively see what is important and what is unimportant.\nBut of course the chief external reason, apart from the character of\nJohnson himself, for his supremacy of fame, is that his memory is\nenshrined in an incomparable biography. It shows the strange ineptness\nof Englishmen for literary and artistic criticism, their incapacity for\njudging a work of art on its own merits, their singular habit of\nallowing their disapprobation of a man's private character to\ndepreciate his work, that an acknowledged critic like Macaulay could\nwaste time in carefully considering whether Boswell was more fool or\nmore knave, and triumphantly announce that he produced a good book by\naccident. Probably Boswell did not realise how matchless a biographer\nhe was, though he was not disposed to belittle his own performances.\nBut his unbridled interest in the smallest details, his power of\nhero-worship, his amazing style, his perception, his astonishing memory\nand the training he gave it, his superb dramatic faculty, which enabled\nhim to arrange his other characters around the main figure, and to\nsubordinate them all to his central emphasis--all these qualities are\nundeniable. Moreover he was himself the most perfect foil and contrast\nto Johnson that could be imagined, while he possessed in a unique\ndegree the power of both stimulating and provoking his hero to\nanimation and to wrath. Boswell may not have known what an artist he\nwas, but he is probably one of the best literary artists who has ever\nlived.\n\nBut the supreme quality of his great book is this--that his interest in\nevery trait of his hero, large and small, is so strong that he had none\nof that stiff propriety or chilly reserve which mars almost all English\nbiographies. He did not care a straw whether this characteristic or\nthat would redound to Johnson's credit. He saw that Johnson was a\nlarge-minded, large-hearted man, with an astonishing power of\nconversational expression, and an extremely picturesque figure as well.\nHe perceived that he was big enough to be described in full, and that\nthe shadows of his temperament only brought out the finer features into\nprominence.\n\nSince the days of Johnson there are but two Englishmen whose lives we\nknow in anything like the same detail--Ruskin and Carlyle. We know the\nlife of Ruskin mainly from his own power of impassioned autobiography,\nand because he had the same sort of power of exhibiting both his charm\nand his weakness as Boswell had in dealing with Johnson. But Ruskin was\nnot at all a typical Englishman; he had a very feminine side to his\ncharacter, and though he was saved from sentimentality by his extreme\ntrenchancy, and by his irritable temper, yet his whole temperament is\nbeautiful, winning, attractive, rather than salient and picturesque. He\nhad the qualities of a poet, a quixotic ideal, and an exuberant fancy;\nbut though his spell over those who understand him is an almost magical\none, his point of view is bound to be misunderstood by the ordinary man.\n\nCarlyle's case is a different one again. There the evidence is mainly\ndocumentary. We know more about the Carlyle interior than we know of\nthe history of any married pair since the world began. There is little\ndoubt that if Carlyle could have had a Boswell, a biographer who could\nhave rendered the effect of his splendid power of conversation, we\nmight have had a book which could have been put on the same level as\nthe life of Johnson, because Carlyle again was pre-eminently a\n\"figure,\" a man made by nature to hold the enraptured attention of a\ncircle. But it would have been a much more difficult task to represent\nCarlyle's talk than it was to represent Johnson's, because Carlyle was\nan inspired soliloquist, and supplied both objection and repartee out\nof his own mind. I think it probable that Carlyle was a typical\nScotchman; he was more impassioned in his seriousness than Johnson, but\nhe had a grimness which Johnson did not possess, and he had not\nJohnson's good-natured tolerance for foolish and well-meaning people.\nCarlyle himself had a good deal of Boswell's own gift, a power of\nminute and faithful observation, and a memory which treasured and\nreproduced characteristic details. If Carlyle had ever had the time or\nthe taste to admire any human being as Boswell admired Johnson, he\nmight have produced fully as great a book; but Carlyle had a prophetic\nimpulse, an instinct for inverting tubs and preaching from them, a\ndesire for telling the whole human race what to do and how to do it,\nwhich Johnson was too modest to claim.\n\nThere is but one other instance that I know in English literature of a\nman who had the Boswellian gift to the full, but who never had complete\nscope, and that was Hogg. If Hogg could have spent more of his life\nwith Shelley, and had been allowed to complete his book, we might, I\nbelieve, have had a monument of the same kind.\n\nBut in the case of Boswell and Johnson, it is Boswell's magnificent\nscorn of reticence which has done the trick, like the spurt of acid, of\nwhich Browning speaks in one of his best similes. The final stroke of\ngenius which has established the Life of Johnson so securely in the\nhearts of English readers, lies in the fact that Boswell has given us\nsomething to compassionate. As a rule the biographer cannot bear to\nevoke the smallest pity for his hero. The absence of female relatives\nin the case of Johnson was probably a part of his good fortune. No\nbiographer likes, and seldom dares, to torture the sensibilities of a\ngreat man's widow and daughters. And the strength as well as the\nweakness of the feminine point of view is that women have a power not\nso much of not observing, as of actually obliterating the weaknesses of\nthose whom they love. It is sentiment which ruins biographies, the\nsentiment that cannot bear the truth.\n\nBoswell did not shrink from admitting the reader to a sight of\nJohnson's hypochondria, his melancholy fears, his dreary miseries, his\ndread of illness, his terror of death. Johnson's horror of annihilation\nwas insupportable. He so revelled in life, in the contact and company\nof other human beings, that he once said that the idea of an infinity\nof torment was preferable to the thought of annihilation. He wrote, in\nhis last illness, to his old friend Dr. Taylor:\n\n\n\"Oh! my friend, the approach of death is very dreadful. I am afraid to\nthink on that which I know I cannot avoid. It is vain to look round and\nround for that help which cannot be had. Yet we hope and hope, and\nfancy that he who has lived to-day may live to-morrow. But let us learn\nto derive our hope only from God.\n\n\"In the meantime, let us be kind to one another. I have no friend now\nliving but you and Mr. Hector that was the friend of my youth.--Do not\nneglect, sir, yours affectionately, SAM. JOHNSON.\"\n\n\nWas ever the last fear put into such simple and poignant words as in\nthe above letter? It is like that other saying of Johnson's, when all\nsorts of good reasons had been given why men should wish to be released\nfrom their troubles by death, \"After all, it is a sad thing for a man\nto lie down and die.\" There is no more that can be said, and not the\nbest reasons in the world for desiring to depart and have done with\nlife can ever do away with that sadness.\n\nDr. Johnson supplies the clearest proof, if proof were needed, that no\nrobustness of temperament, no genius of common sense, no array of\nrationality, no degree of courage, can save a man from the assaults of\nfear, and even of fear which the sufferer knows to be unreal. Some of\nthe most severe and angry things which Johnson ever said were said to\nBoswell and others who persisted in discussing the question of death.\nYet Johnson had no rational doubt of immortality, and believed with an\nalmost childlike simplicity in the Christian faith. He was not afraid\nof pain, or of the act of dying; it was of the unknown conditions\nbeyond the grave that he was afraid. Probably as a rule very robust\npeople are so much occupied in living that they have little time to\nthink of the future, while men and women who hold to life by a frail\ntenure are not much concerned at quitting a scene which is phantasmal\nand full of pain. But in Johnson we have the two extremes brought\ntogether. He was the most gregarious of men; he loved company so well\nthat he would follow his friends to the very threshold, in the hope, as\nhe once told Boswell, that they might perhaps return. When he was alone\nand undistracted, his melancholy came back upon him like a cloud. He\ntortured himself over the unprofitableness of his life, over his\nfailure to achieve official prominence. He does not seem to have\nbrooded over the favourite subject for Englishmen to lose heart over,\nnamely, his financial position. It is a very significant fact in our\nEnglish life that if at an inquest upon a suicide it can be established\nthat a man has financial difficulties, a verdict of temporary insanity\nis instantly conceded. Loss of property rather than loss of affection\nis the thing which the Englishman thinks is likely to derange a man.\nBut Johnson seems never to have been afraid of poverty, nor to have\never troubled about fame. He was very angry once when it was laughingly\nsuggested to him that if he had gone to the Bar he might have been Lord\nChancellor; and I have no doubt, as I have said, that one of his\nuncomfortable reflections was that he did not seem to himself to be in\na position of influence and authority. But, apart from that, it is\nobvious that Johnson's broodings took the form of lamenting his own\nsinfulness and moral worthlessness: what the faults which troubled him\nwere, it is hard to say. He does not seem to have been repentant about\nthe mortification he caused others by his witty bludgeoning--indeed he\nconsidered himself a polite man! But I believe, from many slight\nindications, that Johnson was distressed by the consciousness of\nsensual impulses, though he held them in severe restraint. His habit of\nejaculatory prayer was, I think, directed against this tendency. The\nagitation with which he once said that corruption had entered into his\nheart by means of a dream seems to me a proof of this. He took a\ntolerant view of the lapses of others, and of course the standard of\nthe age was lax in this respect. But I have little doubt myself that\nhere Johnson found himself often confronted with a sensuous tendency\nwhich he thought degrading, and which he constantly combated.\n\nApart from this, he was not afraid of illness in itself, except as a\nprelude of mortality. Indeed I believe that he took a hypochondriac\npleasure in observing his symptoms minutely, and in dosing himself in\nall sorts of ways. His mysterious preoccupations with dried orange-peel\nhad no doubt a medicinal end in view. But when it came to suffering\npain and even to enduring operations, he had no tremors. His one\nconstant fear was the fear of death. He kept it at arm's length, he\nloved any social amusement that banished it, but it is obvious, in\nseveral of his talks, when the subject was under discussion, that the\ncloud descended upon him suddenly and made him miserable. It was all\nsummed up in this, that life was to his taste, that even when oppressed\nwith gloom and depression, he never desired to escape. I have heard a\ngreat doctor say that he believed that human beings were very sharply\ndivided in this respect, that there were some people in whom any\nextremity of prolonged anguish, bodily or mental, never produced the\nsmallest desire to quit life; while there were others whose attachment\nto life was slight, and that a very little pressure of care or calamity\ndeveloped a suicidal impulse. This is, I suppose, a question of\nvitality, not necessarily of activity of mind and body, but a deep\ninstinctive desire to live; the thought of deliberate suicide was\nwholly unintelligible to Johnson, death was his ultimate fear, and\nhowever much he suffered from disease or depression, his intention to\nlive was always inalienable.\n\nHis fear then was one which no devoutness of faith, no resolute\ntenacity of hope, no array of reasons could ever touch. It was simply\nthe unknown that he feared. Life had not been an easy business for\nJohnson; he had known all the calamities of life, and he was familiar\nwith the worst calamity of all, the causeless melancholy which makes\nlife weary and distasteful without ever removing the certainty that it\nis in itself desirable.\n\nWe may see from all this that to attempt to seek a cure for fear in\nreason is foredoomed to failure, because fear lies in a region that is\nbehind all reason. It exists in the depth of the spirit, as in the\nfallen gloom of the glimmering sea-deeps, and it can be touched by no\nactivity of life and joy and sunlight on the surface, where the\nspeeding sail moves past wind-swept headlands. We must follow it into\nthose depths if we are to deal with it at all, and it must be\nvanquished in the region where it is born, and where it skulks unseen.\n\n\n\n\nXII\n\nTENNYSON, RUSKIN, CARLYLE\n\n\nThere were three great men of the nineteenth century of whom we know\nmore than we know of most men, Carlyle, Ruskin, and Tennyson, in whose\nlives fear was a prominent element.\n\nTennyson has suffered no loss of fame, but he has suffered of late a\ncertain loss of influence, which was bound to come, if simply from the\ntremendous domination which his writings exercised in his lifetime. He\nwas undoubtedly one of the first word-artists who ever lived and wrote,\nbut he was a great deal more than that; he was a great mystic, a man\nwhose mind moved in a shining cloud of inspiration. He had the\nconstitution and the temperament of a big Lincolnshire yeoman, with\nthat simple rusticity that is said to have characterised Vergil. But\nhis spirit dwelt apart, revolving dim and profound thoughts, brooding\nover mysteries; if he is lightly said to be Early Victorian, it is not\nbecause he was typical of his age, but because he contributed so much\nto make it what it was. While Browning lived an eager personal life,\nfull of observation, zest, and passion, Tennyson abode in more\nimpersonal thoughts. In the dawn of science, when there was a danger of\nlife becoming over-materialised, contented with the first steps of\nswiftly apprehended knowledge, and with solutions which were no\nsolutions at all, but only the perception of laws, Tennyson was the man\nof all others who saw that science had a deeply poetical side, and\ncould enforce rather than destroy the religious spirit; he saw that a\nknowledge of processes was not the same thing as an explanation of\nimpulses, and that while it was a little more clear in the light of\nscience what was actually happening in the world, men were no nearer\nthe perception of why it happened so, or why it happened at all.\nTennyson saw clearly the wonders of astronomy and geology, and\ndiscerned that the laws of nature were nothing more than the habits, so\nto speak, of a power that was incredibly dim and vast, a power which\nheld within itself the secrets of motion and rest, of death and life.\nThus he claimed for his disciples not only the average thoughtful men,\nbut the very best and finest minds of his generation who wished to link\nthe past and the present together, and not to break with the old\nsanctities.\n\nTennyson's art suffered from the consciousness of his enormous\nresponsibility, and where he failed was from his dread of unpopularity,\nor his fear of alienating the ordinary man. Browning was interested in\nethical problems; his robust and fortunate temperament allowed him to\nbridge over with a sort of buoyant healthiness the gaps of his\nphilosophy. But Tennyson's ethical failure lay in his desire to improve\nthe occasion, and to rule out all impulses that had not a social and\ncivic value. In the later \"Idylls\" he did his best to represent the\nprig trailing clouds of glory, and to discourage lawlessness in every\nform; but he was more familiar with the darker and grosser sides of\nlife than he allowed to appear in his verse, which suffers from an\nalmost prudish delicacy, which is more akin to respectability than to\nmoral courage.\n\nBut all this was the shadow of a very sensitive and melancholy\ntemperament. Comparatively little is known of the first forty years of\nhis life; it is after that time that the elaborate legend begins. Till\nthe time of his marriage, he must have been a constant anxiety to his\nfriends; his gloom, his inertia, his drifting mooning ways, his\nhypochondria, his incapacity for any settled plan of life, all seemed\nto portend an ultimate failure. But this troubled inertness was the\nsoil of his inspiration; his conceptions took slow and stately shape.\nHe never suffered from the haste, which as Dante says \"mars all decency\nof act.\" After that time he enjoyed a great domestic happiness, and\npractised considerable sociability. His terrifying demeanour, his\namazing personal dignity and majesty, the certainty that he would say\nwhatever came into his head, whether it was profound and solemn, or\ntesty and discourteous, gave him a personal ascendancy that never\ndisappointed a pilgrim.\n\nBut he lived all his life in a perpetual melancholy, feeling the\nsmallest slights acutely, hating at once obscurity and publicity, aware\nof his renown, yet shrinking from the evidences of it. He could be\ndistracted by company, soothed by wine and tobacco; but left to itself,\nhis mind fell helplessly down the dark slope into a sadness and a\ndreariness which deprived life of its savour. It was not that his dread\nwas a definite one; he was strong and tough physically, and he regarded\ndeath with a solemn curiosity; but he had a sense of the profitlessness\nof vacant hours, unthrilled by beauty and delight, and had also a\nmorbid pride, of the nature of vanity, which caused him to resent the\nsmallest criticism of his works from the humblest reader. There are\nmany stories of this, how he declaimed against the lust of gossip,\nwhich he called with rough appositeness \"ripping up a man like a pig,\"\nand thanked God with all his heart and soul that he knew nothing of\nShakespeare's private life; and in the same breath went on to say that\nhe thought that his own fame was suffering from a sort of congestion,\nbecause he had received no letters about his poems for several days.\n\nIn later life he became very pessimistic, and believed that the world\nwas sinking fast into dull materialism, petty selfishness, and moral\nanarchy. He had less opportunity of knowing what was going on in the\nworld than most people, in his sheltered and secluded life, with his\ncourt of friends and worshippers. And indeed it was not a rational\npessimism; it was but the shadow of his fear. And the fact remains that\nin spite of a life of great good fortune, and an undimmed supremacy of\nfame, he spent much of his time in fighting shadows, involved in clouds\nof darkness and dissatisfaction. That was no doubt the price he paid\nfor his exquisite perception of beauty and his power of melodious\nexpression. But we make a great mistake if we merely think of Tennyson\nas a rich and ample nature moving serenely through life. He was\n\"black-blooded,\" he once said, adding, \"like all the Tennysons.\"\nDoubtless he had in his mind his father, a man often deeply in the grip\nof melancholy. And the absurd legend, invented probably by Rossetti,\ncontains a truth in it and may be quoted here. Rossetti said that he\nonce went to dine with a friend in London, and was shown into a dimly\nlit drawing-room with no one to receive him. He went towards the\nfireplace, and suddenly to his surprise discovered an immensely tall\nman in evening dress lying prostrate on the hearthrug, his face\ndownwards, in an attitude of prone despair. While he gazed, the\nstranger rose to his feet, looked fixedly at him, and said, \"I must\nintroduce myself; I am Octavius, the most morbid of the Tennysons.\"\n\nWith Ruskin we have a different case. He was brought up in the most\nsecluded fashion, and though he was sharply enough disciplined into\ndecorous behaviour by his very grim and positive mother, he was guarded\nlike a precious jewel, and as he grew up he was endlessly petted and\nindulged. The Ruskins lived a very comfortable life in a big villa with\nample grounds at Denmark Hill. Whatever the wonderful boy did was\napplauded and even dangerously encouraged, both in the way of drawing\nand of writing. Though he seems to have been often publicly snubbed by\nboth his parents, it was more a family custom than anything else, and\nwas accompanied by undisguised admiration and patent pride. They were\nhis stupefied critics, when he read aloud his works in the family\ncircle, and his father obediently produced large sums of money to\ngratify his brilliant son's artistic desire for the possession of\nTurner's paintings. Ruskin in his morbid moments, in later life, turned\nfiercely and unjustly against his fond and tender father. He accused\nhim with an in temperate bitterness of having lavished everything upon\nhim except the intelligent sympathy of which he stood in need, and his\nfather's gentle and mournful apologies have an extraordinary beauty of\npuzzled and patient dignity about them.\n\nWhen Ruskin went to Oxford, his mother went to reside there too, to\nlook after her darling. One might have supposed that this would have\ninvolved Ruskin in ridicule, but he was petted and indulged by his\nfellow-undergraduates, who found his charm, his swift wit, his\nchildlike waywardness, his freakish humour irresistible. Then he had a\nserious illness, and his first taste of misery; he was afraid of death,\nhe hated the constraints of invalid life and the grim interruption to\nhis boundless energies and plans. Then came his first great book, and\nhe strode full-fledged into fame. His amazing attractiveness, his talk,\nwhich combined incisiveness and fancy and humour and fire and\ngentleness, made him a marked figure from the first. Moreover, he had\nthe command of great wealth, yet no temptation to be idle. The tale of\nRuskin's industry for the next fifty years is one that would be\nincredible if it were not true. His brief and dim experience of married\nlife seems hardly to have affected him. As a critic of art and ethics,\nas the writer of facile magnificent sentences, full of beauty and\nrhythm, as the composer of word-structures, apparently logical in form\nbut deeply prejudiced and inconsequent in thought, he became one of the\ngreat influences of the day, and wielded not only power but real\ndomination. The widespread delusion of the English educated classes,\nthat they are interested in art, was of Ruskin's making. Then something\nvery serious happened to him; a baffled passion of extraordinary\nintensity, a perception of the realities of life, the consciousness\nthat his public indulged and humoured him as his parents had done, and\nadmired his artistic advice without paying the smallest heed to his\nethical principles--all these experiences broke over him, wearied as he\nwas with excessive strain, like a bitter wave. But his pessimism took\nthe noble form of an intense concern with the blindness and\nimpenetrability of the world at large. He made a theory of political\neconomy, which, peremptory and prejudiced as it is, is yet built on\nlarge lines, and has been fruitful in suggestiveness. But he tasted\ndiscouragement and failure in deep draughts. His parents frankly\nexpressed their bewildered disappointment, his public looked upon him\nas a perverse man who was throwing away a beautiful message for the\nsake of a crabbed whim; and he fell into a fierce depression,\nalternating between savage energy and listless despondency, which\nlasted for several years, till at last the overwrought brain and mind\ngave way; and for the rest of his life he was liable to recurrent\nattacks of insanity, which cleared off and left him normal again, or as\nnormal as he ever had been. Wide and eager as Ruskin's tenderness was,\none feels that his heart was never really engaged; he was always far\naway, in a solitude full of fear, out of the reach of affection, always\nsolemnly and mournfully alone. Ruskin was never really allied with any\nother human soul; he knew most of the great men of the day; he baited\nRossetti, he petted Carlyle; he had correspondents like Norton, to whom\nhe poured out his overburdened heart; but he was always the spoiled and\nindulged child of his boyhood, infinitely winning, provoking, wilful.\nHe could not be helped, because he could never get away from himself;\nhe could admire almost frenziedly, but he could not worship; he could\nnot keep himself from criticism even when he adored, and he had a\nbitter superiority of spirit, a terrible perception of the\nimperfections and faults of others, a real despair of humanity.\n\nI do not know exactly what the terrors which Ruskin suffered were--very\nfew people will tell the tale of the valley of hobgoblins, or probably\ncannot! In the Pilgrim's Progress itself, the unreality of the spirits\nof fear, their secrecy and leniency, is very firmly and wittily told.\nThey scream in their dens, sitting together, I have thought, like fowls\nin a roost. They come padding after the pilgrim, they show themselves\nobscurely, swollen by the mist at the corners of the road. They give\nthe sense of being banded together in a numerous ambush, they can\ndeceive eye and ear, and even nose with noisome stenches; but they\ncannot show themselves, and they cannot hurt. If they could be seen,\nthey would be nothing but limp ungainly things that would rouse disdain\nand laughter and even pity, at anything at once so weak and so\nmalevolent. But they are not like the demons of sin that can hamper and\nwound; they are just little gnomes and elves that can make a noise, and\ntheir strength is a spiteful and a puny thing.\n\nRuskin had no sordid or material fears; he had no fear of poverty, for\nhe flung his father's hard-earned wealth profusely away; nor did he\nfear illness; indeed one of the bravest and most gallant things about\nhim was the way in which he talked and wrote about his insane fits,\ndescribed his haunted visions, told, half-ruefully, half-humorously,\nhow he fought and struggled with his nurses, and made fun of the\nmatter. That was a very courageous thing to do, because most people are\nashamed of insanity, no doubt from the old sad ignorant tradition that\nit was the work of demoniacal agencies, and not a mere disease like\nother diseases. Half the tragedy of insanity is that it shocks people,\nand cannot be alluded to or spoken about; but one can take the sting\nout of almost any calamity if one can make fun of it, and this Ruskin\ndid.\n\nBut he was wounded by his fears, as we most of us are, not only through\nhis vanity but through his finest emotions. He felt his impotence and\nhis failure. He had thought of his gift of language as one might think\nof a magic wand which one can wave, and thus compel duller spirits to\ndo one's bidding. Ruskin began by thinking that there was not much\namiss with the world except a sort of pathetic stupidity; and he\nthought that if only people could be told, clearly and loudly enough,\nwhat was right, they would do it gladly; and then it dawned upon him by\nslow degrees that the confusion was far deeper than that, that men\nmostly did not live in motives but in appetites. And so he fell into a\nsort of noble rage with the imperfection of mortal things; and one of\nthe clearest signs, as he himself knew, that he was drifting into one\nof the mind-storms which swept across him, was that in these moods\neverything that people said or wrote had power to arouse his\nirritation, to interrupt his work, to break his sleep, and to show him\nthat he was powerless indeed. What he feared was derision, and the\ngood-natured indifferent stolidity that is worse than any derision, and\nthe knowledge that, with all his powers and perceptions, his\ncommon-sense, which was great, and his sense of responsibility, he was\ntreated by the world like a spoilt child, charming even in his wrath,\nwho had full license to be as vehement as he liked, with the\nunderstanding that no one would act on his advice.\n\nI often go to Brantwood, which is a sacred place indeed, and see with\ndeep emotion the little rooms, with all their beautiful treasures, and\nall the great accumulations of that fierce industry of mind, and\nremember that in that peaceful background a man of exquisite genius\nfought with sinister shadows, and was worsted in the fight, for a time;\nbecause the last ten years of that long life were a time of serene\nwaiting for death, a beguiling by little childish and homely\noccupations the heavy hours: he could uplift his voice no more, often\ncould hardly frame an intelligible thought. But meanwhile his great\nmessage went on rippling out to the world, touching heart after heart\ninto light and hope, and doing, insensibly and graciously, by the\nspirit, the very thing he had failed to do by might and power.\n\nAnd then we come to Carlyle, and here we are on somewhat different\nground. Carlyle had a colossal quarrel with the age, but he thought\nvery little of the message of beauty and peace. His idea of the world\nwas that of a stern combative place, with the one hope a strenuous and\ngrim righteousness; Carlyle thought of the world as a place where\ncheats and liars cozened and beguiled men, for their own advantage,\nwith all sorts of shams and pretences: but he did not really know the\nworld; he put down to individual action and deliberate policy much that\nwas due simply to the prevalence of tradition and system, and to the\ncomplexity of civilisation. He was so fierce an individualist himself\nthat he credited everyone else with purpose and prejudice. He did not\nrealise the vast preponderance of helpless good-nature and muddled\nkindliness. The mistake of much of Carlyle's work is that it is too\npoignantly dramatic, and bristles with intention and significance; and\nhe did not allow sufficiently for the crowd of vague supers who throng\nthe background of the stage. Neither did he ever go about the world\nwith his eyes open for general facts. Wherever he was, he was intensely\nobservant, but he spent his days either in a fierce absorption of work,\nblind even to the sorrow and discomfort of his wife, or taking rapid\ntours to store his mind with the details of historical scenes, or in\nthe big houses of wealthy people, where he kept much to himself, stored\nup irresistibly absurd caricatures of the other guests, and lamented\nhis own inaction. I have never been able to discover exactly why\nCarlyle spent so much time in staying at great houses, deriding and\nsatirising everything he set eyes upon; it was, I believe, vaguely\ngratifying to him to have raised himself unaided into the highest\nsocial stratum; and the old man was after all a tremendous aristocrat\nat heart. Or else he skulked with infinite melancholy in his mother's\nhouse, being waited upon and humoured, and indulging his deep and true\nfamily affection. But he was a solitary man for the most part, and\nmixed with men, involved in a cloud of his own irresistibly fantastic\nand whimsical talk; for his real gift was half-humorous,\nhalf-melancholy improvisation rather than deliberate writing.\n\nBut it is difficult to discern in all this what his endless and\nplangent melancholy was concerned with. He had a very singular physical\nframe, immensely tough and wiry, with an imagination which emphasized\nand particularised every slight touch of bodily disorder. When he was\nat work, he toiled like a demon day after day, entirely and vehemently\nabsorbed. When he was not at work he suffered from dreary reaction. He\nfought out in early days a severe moral combat, and found his way to a\nbelief in God which was very different from his former Calvinism.\nCarlyle can by no stretch of the word be called a Christian, but he was\none of the most thoroughgoing Deists that ever lived. The terror that\nbeset him in that first great conflict was a ghastly fear of his own\ninsignificance, and a horrible suspicion that the world was made on\nfortuitous and indifferent lines. His dread was that of being worsted,\nin spite of all his eager sensibility and immense desire to do a noble\nwork, of being crushed, silenced, thrown ruthlessly on the dust-heap of\nthe world. He learned a fiery sort of Determinism, and a faith in the\nstubborn power of the will, not to achieve anything, but to achieve\nsomething.\n\nYet after this tremendous conflict, described in Sartor Resartus, where\nhe found himself at bay with his back to the wall, he never had any\nultimate doubt again of his own purpose. Still, it brought him no\nserenity; and I suppose there is no writer in the world whose letters\nand diaries are so full of cries of anguish and hopelessness. He was\ncrushed under the sense of the world's immensity; his own observation\nwas so microscopic, his desire to perceive and know so strong, his\nappetite for definiteness so profound, that I feel that Carlyle's\nterror was like that of a mite in an enormous cheese, longing to\nexplore it all, lost in the high-flavoured dusk, and conscious of a\nscale of mystery so vast that it humiliated a brain that wanted to know\nthe truth about everything. In these sad hours--and they were numerous\nand protracted--he felt like a knight worn out by conflict, under a\nlistless enchantment which he could not break. I know few confessions\nthat are so filled with gleams of high poetry and beauty as many of\nthese solitary lamentations. But I believe that the terrors that\nCarlyle had to face were the terrors of a swift, clear-sighted,\nfeverishly active, intuitive brain, prevented by mortal weakness and\nfrailty from dealing as he desired with the dazzling immensity and\nintricacy of the world's life and history.\n\nI feel no real doubt of this, because Carlyle's passion for accurate\nand minute knowledge, his intense interest in temperament and\ncharacter, his almost unequalled power of observation--which is really\nthe surest sign of genius--come out so clearly all through his life,\nthat his finite limitations must have been of the nature of a torture\nto him. One who desired to know the truth about everything so\nvehemently, was crushed and bewildered by the narrow range and limited\nscope of his own insatiable thought. His power of expressing all that\nhe saw and felt, so delicately, so humorously, and at times so\ntenderly, must have beguiled his sadness more than he knew. It was\nRuskin who said that he could never fit the two sides of the puzzle\ntogether--on the one side the awful dejection and despondency which\nCarlyle always claimed to feel in the presence of his work, as a\ndredger in lakes of mud and as a sorter of mountains of rubbish, and on\nthe other side the endless relish for salient traits, and the delighted\napprehension of quality which emerges so clearly in all he wrote.\n\nBut it is clear that Carlyle suffered ceaselessly, though never\nunutterably. He was a matchless artist, with an unequalled gift of\nputting into vivid words everything he experienced; but his sadness was\na disease of the imagination, a fear, not of anything definite--for he\nnever even saw the anxieties that were nearest to him--but a nightmare\ndream of chaos and whirling forces all about him, a dread of slipping\noff his own very fairly comfortable perch into oceans of confusion and\ndismay.\n\n\n\n\nXIII\n\nCHARLOTTE BRONTE\n\n\nI doubt if the records of intimate biography contain a finer\nobject-lesson against fear and all its obsessions than the life of\nCharlotte Bronte. She was of a temperament which in many ways was more\nopen to the assaults of fear than any which could well be devised. She\nwas frail and delicate, liable to acute nervous depression, intensely\nshy and sensitive, and susceptible as well; that is to say that her\nshyness did not isolate her from her kind; she wanted to be loved,\nrespected, even admired. When she did love, she loved with fire and\npassion and desperate loyalty.\n\nHer life was from beginning to end full of sharp and tragic\nexperiences. She was born and brought up in a bleak moorland village,\nclimbing steeply and grimly to the edge of heathery uplands. The bare\nparsonage, with its little dark rooms, looks out on a churchyard paved\nwith graves. Her father was a kindly man, but essentially moody and\nsolitary. He took all his meals alone, walked alone, sate alone. Her\nmother died of cancer, when she was but a child. Then she was sent to\nan ill-managed austere school, and here when she was nine years old her\ntwo elder sisters died. She took service two or three times as a\ngoverness, and endured agonies of misunderstanding, suspicious of her\nemployers, afraid of her pupils, longing for home with an intense\nyearning. Then she went out to a school at Brussels, where under the\nteaching of M. Heger, a gifted professor, her mind and heart awoke, and\nshe formed for him a strange affection, half an intellectual devotion,\nhalf an unconscious passion, which deprived her of her peace of mind.\nHer sad and wistful letters to him, lately published, were disregarded\nby him, partly because his wife was undoubtedly jealous of the\nrelation, partly because he was disconcerted by the emotion he had\naroused. Her brother, a brilliant, wayward, and in some ways attractive\nboy, got into disgrace, and drifted home, where he tried to console\nhimself with drink and opium. After three years of this horrible life,\nhe died, and within twelve months her two surviving sisters, Emily and\nAnne, developed consumption and died. As Robert Browning says, there\nindeed was \"trouble enough for one!\"\n\nNow it must be borne in mind that her temperament was naturally\nhypochondriacal.\n\nLet me quote a passage dealing with the same experience; it is\nundoubtedly autobiographical, though it comes from Villette, into which\nCharlotte Bronte threw the picture of her own solitary experiences in\nBrussels. She is left alone at the pensionnat in the vacation, strained\nby work and anxiety, and tortured by exhaustion, restlessness, and\nsleeplessness:--\n\n\n\"One day, perceiving this growing illusion, I said, 'I really believe\nmy nerves are getting overstretched: my mind has suffered somewhat too\nmuch; a malady is growing upon it--what shall I do? How shall I keep\nwell?'\n\n\"Indeed there was no way to keep well under the circumstances. At last\na day and night of peculiarly agonising depression were succeeded by\nphysical illness; I took perforce to my bed. About this time the Indian\nsummer closed, and the equinoctial storms began; and for nine dark and\nwet days, of which the hours rushed on all turbulent, deaf,\ndishevelled--bewildered with sounding hurricane--I lay in a strange\nfever of the nerves and blood. Sleep went quite away. I used to rise in\nthe night, look round for her, beseech her earnestly to return. A\nrattle of the window, a cry of the blast only replied--Sleep never came!\n\n\"I err. She came once, but in anger. Impatient of my importunity she\nbrought with her an avenging dream. By the clock of St. Jean Baptiste,\nthat dream remained scarce fifteen minutes--a brief space, but\nsufficing to wring my whole frame with unknown anguish; to confer a\nnameless experience that had the hue, the mien, the terror, the very\ntone of a visitation from eternity. Between twelve and one that night a\ncup was forced to my lips, black, strong, strange, drawn from no well,\nbut filled up seething from a bottomless and boundless sea. Suffering,\nbrewed in temporal or calculable measure, and mixed for mortal lips,\ntastes not as this suffering tasted. Having drank [sic] and woke, I\nthought all was over: the end come and passed by. Trembling\nfearfully--as consciousness returned--ready to cry out on some\nfellow-creature to help me, only that I knew no fellow-creature was\nnear enough to catch the wild summons--Goton in her far distant attic\ncould not hear--I rose on my knees in bed. Some fearful hours went over\nme; indescribably was I torn, racked and oppressed in mind. Amidst the\nhorrors of that dream I think the worst lay here. Methought the\nwell-loved dead, who had loved ME well in life, met me elsewhere\nalienated; galled was my inmost spirit with an unutterable sense of\ndespair about the future. Motive there was none why I should try to\nrecover or wish to live; and yet quite unendurable was the pitiless and\nhaughty voice in which Death challenged me to engage his unknown\nterrors. When I tried to pray I could only utter these words:--\n\n\"'From my youth up Thy terrors have I suffered with a troubled mind.'\"\n\n\nThe deep interest of this experience is that it was endured by one who\nwas not only intellectually endowed beyond most women of her time, but\nwhose sanity, reasonableness, and moral force were conspicuously\nstrong. Charlotte Bronte was not one of those impulsive and imaginative\nwomen who are the prey of every fancy. Throughout the whole of her\ncareer, she was for ever compelling her frail and sensitive\ntemperament, with indomitable purpose, to perform whatever she had\nundertaken to do. There never was anyone who lived so sternly by\nprinciple and reason, or who so maintained her self-control in the face\nof sorrow, disaster, unhappiness, and bereavement. She never gave way\nto feeble or morbid self-accusation, and therefore the fact that she\ncould thus have suffered is a sign that this unnamed terror can coexist\nwith a dauntless courage and an essential self-command.\n\nHere again is the cry of a desolate heart! She had been going through\nher sisters' papers not long after their death, and wrote to her great\nfriend:\n\n\n\"I am both angry and surprised at myself for not being in better\nspirits; for not growing accustomed, or at least resigned, to the\nsolitude and isolation of my lot. But my late occupation left a result,\nfor some days and indeed still, very painful. The reading over of\npapers, the renewal of remembrances, brought back the pangs of\nbereavement and occasioned a depression of spirits well-nigh\nintolerable. For one or two nights I hardly knew how to get on till\nmorning; and when morning came I was still haunted by a sense of\nsickening distress. I tell you these things because it is absolutely\nnecessary to me to have SOME relief. You will forgive me and not\ntrouble yourself, or imagine that I am one whit worse than I say. It is\nquite a mental ailment, and I believe and hope is better now. I think\nso, because I can speak about it, which I never can when grief is at\nits worst. I thought to find occupation and interest in writing when\nalone at home, but hitherto my efforts have been in vain: the\ndeficiency of every stimulus is so complete. You will recommend me, I\ndare say, to go from home; but that does no good, even could I again\nleave papa with an easy mind. . . . I cannot describe what a time of it\nI had after my return from London and Scotland. There was a reaction\nthat sank me to the earth, the deadly silence, solitude, depression,\ndesolation were awful; the craving for companionship, the hopelessness\nof relief were what I should dread to feel again.\"\n\n\nOr again, in a somewhat calmer mood, she writes:\n\n\n\"I feel to my deep sorrow, to my humiliation, that it is not in my\npower to bear the canker of constant solitude. I had calculated that\nwhen shut out from every enjoyment, from every stimulus but what could\nbe desired from intellectual exertion, my mind would rouse itself\nperforce. It is not so. Even intellect, even imagination will not\ndispense with the ray of domestic cheerfulness, with the gentle spur of\nfamily discussions. Late in the evening and all through the nights, I\nfall into a condition of mind which turns entirely to the past--to\nmemory, and memory is both sad and relentless. This will never do, and\nwill produce no good. I tell you this that you may check false\nanticipations. You cannot help me, and must not trouble yourself in any\nshape to sympathise with me. It is my cup, and I must drink it as\nothers do theirs.\"\n\n\nIt would be difficult to create a picture of more poignant suffering;\nyet she was at this time a famous writer. She had published Jane Eyre\nand Shirley, and on her visits to London, to her hospitable publisher,\nhad found herself welcomed, honoured, feted. The great lions of the\nliterary world had flocked eagerly to meet her. Even these simple\nfestivities were accompanied by a deadly sense of strain, anxiety, and\nexhaustion. Mrs. Gaskell describes how a little later she met Charlotte\nBronte at a quiet country-house, and how Charlotte was reduced from\ntolerable health to a bad nervous headache by the announcement that\nthey were going to drive over in the afternoon to have tea at a\nneighbour's house--the prospect of meeting strangers was so alarming to\nher.\n\nBut in spite of this agonising susceptibility and vulnerability, there\nis never the least touch either of sentimentality or self-pity about\nCharlotte Bronte. She stuck to her duty and faced life with an infinity\nof patient courage. One of her friends said of her that no one she had\never known had sacrificed more to others, or done it with a fuller\nconsciousness of what she was sacrificing. If duty and affection bade\nher act, no sense of weakness or of inclination had any power over her.\nShe was afraid of life, but she stood up to it; she was never crushed\nor broken. Consider the circumstances under which she began to write\nJane Eyre. She had written her novel The Professor, and it was returned\nto her nine several times, by publisher after publisher. Her father was\nthreatened with blindness. She had taken him to Manchester for an\noperation, installed him in lodgings, and settled down alone to nurse\nhim. The ill-fated Professor came back to her once more with a polite\nrefusal. That very day she wrote the first lines of Jane Eyre. Later on\ntoo, with her brother dying of opium and drink, she had begun Shirley,\nand she finished it after the deaths of her sisters. She was perfectly\nmerciless to herself, saw no reason why she should be spared any sorrow\nor suffering or ill-health, but looked upon it all as a stern but not\nunjust discipline. She had one of the most passionately affectionate\nnatures both in friendship and home relations--\"my hot tenacious\nheart,\" she once says! But there was no touch of softness or\nsentimentality about her; she never feebly condoned weaknesses; her\nobservation of people was minute, her judgment of them severe and even\nsatirical. Her letters abound in pungent humour and acute perception;\nand her idea of charity was not that of mild and muddled tolerance. She\nhad a vein of frank and rather bitter irony when she was indignant, and\nshe could return stroke for stroke.\n\nShe knew well that, whatever life was meant to be, it was not intended\nto be an easy business; but she did not face it stoically or\nindifferently; she had a fierce desire for knowledge, culture, ideas;\nshe was ambitious; and above everything she desired to be loved; yet\nshe did not think of love in the way in which all English romancers had\ntreated it for over a century, as a condescending hand held out by a\nsuperior being, for the glory of which a woman submitted to a more or\nless contented servitude; but as a glowing equality of passion and\nworship, in which two hearts clasped each other close, with a sacred\nconcurrence of soul. And thus it was that she and Robert Browning,\nabove all other writers of the century, put the love of man and woman\nin the true light, as the supreme worth of life; not as a half-sensuous\nexcitement, with lapses and reactions, but as a great and holy mystery\nof devotion and service and mutual help. She too had her little taste\nof love. Mr. Nicholls, her father's curate, a man of deep tenderness\nbehind his quiet homely ways, had proposed to her; she had refused him;\nbut his suffering and bewilderment had touched her deeply, and at last\nshe consented, though she went to her wedding in fear and dread; but\nshe was rewarded, and for a few short months tasted a calm and sweet\nhappiness, the joy of being needed and desired, and at the same time\nguarded and tended well. Her pathetic words, when she knew from his\nlips that she must die, \"God will not part us--we have been so happy,\"\nare full of the deepest tragedy.\n\nI say again that I know of no instance among the most intimate records\nof the human heart, in which life was faced with such splendid courage\nas it was by Charlotte Bronte. It contained so many things which she\ndesired--art, beauty, thought, peace, deep and tender relations, and\nthe supreme crown of love. But she never dreamed of trying to escape or\nshirk her lot. After her first great success with Jane Eyre, she might\nhave lived life on her own lines; her writing meant wealth to one of\nher simple tastes; and as her closest friend said, if she had chosen to\nset up a house of her own, she would have been gratefully thanked for\nany kindness she might have shown to her household, instead of being,\nas she was, ruthlessly employed and even tyrannised over. Consider how\na young authoress, with that splendid success to her credit, would\nnowadays be made much of and tended, begged to consult her own wishes\nand make, her own arrangements. But Charlotte Bronte hated notoriety,\nand took her fame with a shrinking and modest amazement. She never gave\nherself airs, or displayed any affectation, or caught at any flattery.\nShe just went back to her tragic home, and carried the burden of\nhousekeeping on her frail shoulders. The simplicity, the delicacy, the\nhumility of it all is above praise. If ever there was a human being who\nmight have pleaded to be excused from any gallant battling with life\nbecause of her bleak, comfortless, unhappy surroundings, and her own\nsensitive temperament, it was Charlotte Bronte. But instead of that she\nfought silently with disaster and unhappiness, neither pitying herself\nfor her destiny, nor taking the smallest credit for her tough\nresistance. It does not necessarily prove that all can wage so equal a\nfight with fears and sorrows; but it shows at least that an indomitable\nresolution can make a noble thing out of a life from which every\ncircumstance of romance and dignity seems to be purposely withdrawn.\n\nI do not think that there is in literature a more inspiring and\nheartening book than Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Bronte. The book\nwas written with a fine frankness and a daring indiscretion which cost\nMrs. Gaskell very dear. It remains as one of the most matchless and\nsplendid presentments of duty and passion and genius, waging a\nperfectly undaunted fight with life and temperament, and carrying off\nthe spoils not only of undying fame, but the far more supreme crown of\nmoral force. Charlotte Bronte never doubted that she had been set in\nthe forefront of the battle, and that her first concern was with the\nissues of life and sorrow and death. She died at thirty-eight, at a\ntime when many men and women have hardly got a firm hold of life at\nall, or have parted with weak illusions. Yet years before she had said\nsternly to a friend who was meditating a flight from hard conditions of\nlife: \"The right course is that which necessitates the greatest\nsacrifice of self-interest.\" Many people could have said that, but I\nknow no figure who more relentlessly and loyally carried out the\nprinciple than Charlotte Bronte, or who waged a more vigorous and\ntenacious battle with every onset of fear. \"My conscience tells me,\"\nshe once wrote about an anxious decision, \"that it would be the act of\na moral poltroon to let the fear of suffering stand in the way of\nimprovement. But suffer I shall. No matter!\"\n\n\n\n\nXIV\n\nJOHN STERLING\n\n\nI believe that the most affecting, beautiful, and grave message ever\nwritten from a death-bed is John Sterling's last letter to Carlyle. It\nreflects, perhaps, something of Carlyle's own fine manner, but then\nSterling had long been Carlyle's friend and confidant.\n\nBefore I give it, let me add a brief account of Sterling. He was some\nten years Carlyle's junior, the son of the redoubtable Edward Sterling,\nthe leader-writer of the Times, a man who in his day wielded a mighty\ninfluence. Carlyle describes the father's way of life, how he spent the\nday in going about London, rolling into clubs, volubly questioning and\ntalking; then returned home in the evening, and condensed it all into a\nleader, \"and is found,\" said Carlyle, \"to have hit the essential\npurport of the world's immeasurable babblement that day with an\naccuracy above all other men.\"\n\nThe younger Sterling, Carlyle's friend, was at Cambridge for a time,\nbut never took his degree; he became a journalist, wrote a novel,\ntales, plays, endless poems--all of thin and vapid quality. His brief\nlife, for he died at thirty-eight, was a much disquieted one; he\ntravelled about in search of health, for he was early threatened with\nconsumption; for a short time he was a curate in the English Church,\nbut drifted away from that. He lived for a time at Falmouth, and\nafterwards at Ventnor. He must have been a man of extraordinary charm,\nand with quite unequalled powers of conversation. Even Carlyle seems to\nhave heard him gladly, and that is no ordinary compliment, considering\nCarlyle's own volubility, and the agonies, occasionally suppressed but\ngenerally trenchantly expressed, with which Carlyle listened to other\nwell-known talkers like Coleridge and Macaulay.\n\nCarlyle certainly had a very deep affection and admiration for\nSterling; he rains down praises upon him, in that wonderful little\nbiography, which is probably the finest piece of work that Carlyle ever\ndid.\n\nHe speaks of Sterling as \"brilliant, beautiful, cheerful with an\never-flowing wealth of ideas, fancies, imaginations . . . with frank\naffections, inexhaustible hopes, audacities, activities, and general\nradiant vivacity of heart and intelligence, which made the presence of\nhim an illumination and inspiration wherever he went.\"\n\nBut all Carlyle's love and admiration for his friend did not induce him\nto praise Sterling's writings; he looked upon him as a poet, but\nwithout the gift of expression. He says that all Sterling's work was\nspoilt by over-haste, and \"a lack of due inertia.\" The fact is that\nSterling was a sort of improvisatore, and what was beautiful and\nnatural enough when poured out in talk, and with the stimulus of\ncongenial company, grew pale and indistinct when he wrote it down; he\nhad, in fact, no instinct for art or for design, and he failed whenever\nhe tried to mould ideas into form.\n\nThe shadow of illness darkened about him, and he spent long periods in\nprostrate seclusion, tended by his wife and children, unable to write\nor talk or receive his friends. Then a terrible calamity befell him.\nHis mother, to whom he was devotedly attached, died after a long\nillness, Sterling not being allowed to go to her, or to leave his own\nsick-room. He received the news one morning by letter, that all was\nover, went in to tell his wife, who was ill; while they were talking,\nhis wife became faint, and died two hours later. So that within a few\nhours he lost the two human beings whom he most devotedly loved, and on\nwhom he most depended for sympathy and help.\n\nBut in all Sterling's sorrows and illnesses, he never seems to have\nlost his interest in life and thought, in ideas, questions, and\nproblems. Again and again he came back to the surface, with an\nirrepressible zest and freshness, and even gaiety, until at last all\nhope of life was extinguished. He lay dying for many weeks, and it was\nthen that he wrote his last letter to Carlyle, which must be given in\nfull:--\n\n\nHILLSIDE, VENTNOR,\n  10th August 1844.\n\nMY DEAR CARLYLE,--For the first time for many months it seems possible\nto send you a few words; merely, however, for Remembrance and Farewell.\nOn higher matters there is nothing to say. I tread the common road into\nthe great darkness, without any thought of fear, and with very much of\nhope. Certainty indeed I have none. With regard to you and me I cannot\nbegin to write; having nothing for it but to keep shut the lid of those\nsecrets with all the iron weights that are in my power. Towards me it\nis still more true than towards England that no man has been and done\nlike you. Heaven bless you! If I can lend a hand when THERE, that will\nnot be wanting. It is all very strange, but not one hundredth part so\nsad as it seems to the standers-by.\n\nYour Wife knows my mind towards her, and will believe it without\nasseverations.--Yours to the last, JOHN STERLING.\n\n\nThat letter may speak for itself. In its dignity, its nobleness, its\nfearlessness, it is one of the finest human documents I know. But let\nit be remembered that it is not the letter of a mournful and\nheart-broken man, turning his back on life in an ecstasy of despair;\nbut the letter of one who had taken a boundless delight in life, had\nknown upon equal terms most of the finest intellects of the day, and\nhad been frankly recognised by them as a chosen spirit. All Sterling's\ndesigns for life and work had been slowly and surely thwarted by the\npressure of hopeless illness; yet he had never complained or fretted or\nbrooded, or indulged in any bitter recriminations against his destiny.\nThat seems to me a very heroic attitude; while the letter itself, in\nits perfect frankness and courage, without a touch of solemnity or\naffectation, or any trace of craven shrinking from his doom, makes it\nin its noble simplicity one of the finest \"last words\" that I have ever\nread, and finer, I verily believe, than any flight of poetical\nimagination.\n\nA few days later he sent Carlyle some stanzas of verse, \"written,\" says\nCarlyle, \"as if in star-fire and immortal tears; which are among my\nsacred possessions, to be kept for myself alone.\"\n\nA few weeks before he wrote his last letter to Carlyle, Sterling had\nwritten a letter to his son, who was then a boy at school in London. In\nthat he says:\n\n\n\"When I fancy how you are walking in the same streets, and moving along\nthe same river, that I used to watch so intently, as if in a dream,\nwhen younger than you are--I could gladly burst into tears, not of\ngrief, but with a feeling that there is no name for. Everything is so\nwonderful, great and holy, so sad and yet not bitter, so full of Death\nand so bordering on Heaven. Can you understand anything of this? If you\ncan, you will begin to know what a serious matter our Life is; how\nunworthy and stupid it is to trifle it away without heed; what a\nwretched, insignificant, worthless creature anyone comes to be, who\ndoes not as soon as possible bend his whole strength, as in stringing a\nstiff bow, to doing whatever task lies first before him.\"\n\n\nThat again is a noble letter; but over it I think there lies a little\nshadow of regret, a sense that he had himself wasted some of the force\nof life in vague trifling; but even that mood had passed away in the\nnearness of the great impending change, leaving him upborne upon the\ngreatness of God, in deep wonder and hope, knowing nothing more, in his\nweariness and his suffering, but the calmness of the Eternal Will.\n\n\n\n\nXV\n\nINSTINCTIVE FEAR\n\n\nThe fears then from which men suffer, and even the greatest men not\nleast, seem to be strangely complicated by the fact that nature does\nnot seem to work as fast in the physical world as in the mental world.\nThe mosquitoes of South American swamps are all fitted with a perfect\ntool-box of implements for piercing the hides of warm-blooded animals\nand drawing blood, although warm-blooded animals have long ceased to\nexist in those localities. But as the mosquito is one of the few\ncreatures which can propagate its kind without ever partaking of food,\nthe mosquito has therefore not died out; and though for many\ngenerations billions upon billions of mosquitoes have never had a\nchance of doing what they seem born to do, they have not discarded\ntheir apparatus. If mosquitoes could reason and philosophise, the\nprospect of such a meal might remain as a far-off and inspiring ideal\nof life and conduct, a thing which heroes in the past had achieved, and\nwhich might be possible again if they remained true to their highest\ninstincts. So it is with humanity. Many of our fears do not correspond\nto any real danger; they are part of a panoply which we inherit, and\nhave to do with the instinct of self-preservation. We are exposed to\ndangers still, dangers of infection for instance, but we have developed\nno instinctive fear which helps us to recognise the presence of\ninfection. We take rational precautions against it when we recognise\nit, but the vast prevalence and mortality of consumption a generation\nor two ago was due to the fact that men did not recognise consumption\nas infectious; and many fine lives--Keats and Emily Bronte, to name but\ntwo--were sacrificed to careless proximity as well as to devoted\ntendance; but here nature, with all her instinct of self-preservation,\ndid not hang out any danger signal, or provide human beings with any\ninstinctive fear to protect them. Our instinctive fears, such as our\nfear of darkness and solitude, and our suspicion of strangers, seem to\ndate from a time when such conditions were really dangerous, though\nthey are so no longer.\n\nAt the same time the development of the imaginative faculty has brought\nwith it a whole series of new terrors, through our power of\nanticipating and picturing possible calamities; while our increased\nsensitiveness as well as our more sentimental morality expose us to yet\nanother range of fears. Consider the dread which many of us feel at the\nprospect of a painful interview, our avoidance of an unpleasant scene,\nour terror of arousing anger. The basis of all this is the primeval\ndread of personal violence. We are afraid of arousing anger, not\nbecause we expect to be assailed by blows and wounds, but because our\nfar-off ancestors expected anger to end in an actual assault. We may\nknow that we shall emerge from an unpleasant interview unscathed in\nfortune and in limb, but we anticipate it with a quite irrational\nterror, because we are still haunted by fears which date from a time\nwhen injury was the natural outcome of wrath. It may be our duty, and\nwe may recognise it to be our duty, to make a protest of an unpleasant\nkind, or to withstand the action of an irritable person; but though we\nknow well enough that he has no power to injure us, the flashing eye,\nthe distended nostril, the rising pallor, the uplifted voice have a\ndisagreeable effect on our nerves, although we know well that no\nphysical disaster will result from it. Mrs. Browning, for instance,\nthough she had high moral courage and tenacity of purpose, could not\nface an interview with her father, because an exhibition of his anger\ncaused her to faint away on the spot. One does not often experience\nthis whiff of violent anger in middle life; but the other day I had\noccasion to speak to a colleague of mine on a Board of which I am a\nmember, at the conclusion of a piece of business in which I had\nproposed and carried a certain policy. I did not know that he\ndisapproved of the policy in question, but I found on speaking to him\nthat he was in a towering passion at my having opposed the policy which\nhe preferred. He grew pale with rage; the hair on his head seemed to\nbristle, his eyes flashed fire; he slammed down a bundle of papers in\nhis hand on the table, he stamped with passion; and I confess that it\nwas profoundly disturbing and disconcerting. I felt for a moment that\nsickening sense of misgiving with which as a little boy one confronted\nan angry schoolmaster. Though I knew that I had a perfect right to my\nopinion, though I recognised that my sensations were quite irrational,\nI felt myself confronted with something demoniacal and insane, and the\nbasis of it was, I am sure, physical and not moral terror. If I had\nbeen bullied or chastised as a child, I should be able to refer the\ndiscomfort I felt to old associations. But I feel no doubt that my\nemotion was something far more primeval than that, and that the dumb\nand atrophied sense of self-preservation was at work. The fear then\nthat I felt was an instinctive thing, and was experienced in the inner\nnature and not in the rational mind; and the perplexity of the\nsituation arises from the fact that such fear cannot be combated by\nrational considerations. Though no harm whatever resulted or could\nresult from such an interview, yet I am certain that the prospect of\nsuch an outbreak would make me in the future far more cautious in\ndealing with this particular man, more anxious to conciliate him, and\nprobably more disposed to compromise a matter.\n\nSuch an incident makes one unpleasantly aware of the quality of one's\nnature and temperament. It shows one that though one may have a strong\nmoral and intellectual sense of what is the right and sensible course\nto take, one may be sadly hampered in carrying it out, by this secret\nand hidden instinct of which one may be rationally ashamed, but which\nis characteristic of what seems to be the stronger and more vital part\nof one's self.\n\nThe whole of civilisation is a combat between these two forces, a\nstruggle between the rational and the instinctive parts of the mind.\nThe instinctive mind bids one follow profit, need, advantage, the\npleasure of the moment; the rational part of the mind bids one abstain,\nresist, balance contingencies, act in accordance with a moral standard.\nMany such abstentions become a mere matter of habit. If one is hungry\nand thirsty, and meets a child carrying bread or milk, one has no\nimpulse to seize the food and eat it. One does not reflect upon the\npossible outcome of following the impulse of plunder; it simply does\nnot enter one's head so to act. And there is of course a slow process\ngoing on in the world by which this moral restraint is becoming\nhabitual and instinctive; but notably in the case of fear our instinct\nis a belated one, and results in many causeless and baseless anxieties\nwhich our reason in vain assures us are wholly false.\n\nWhat then is our practical way of escape from the dominion of these\nshadows? Not, I am sure, in any resolute attempt to combat them by\nrational weapons; the rational argument, the common-sense consolation,\nonly touches the rational part of the mind; we have got to get behind\nand below that, we have got somehow to fight instinct by instinct, and\nquell the terror in its proper home. By our finite nature we are\ncompelled to attend to one thing at a time, and thus if we use rational\nargument, we are recognising the presence of the irrational fear; it is\nof little use then to array our advantages against our disadvantages,\nour blessings against our sufferings, as Michael Finsbury did with such\nsmall effect in The Wrong Box; our only chance is to turn tail\naltogether, and try to set some other dominant instinct at work; while\nwe remember, we shall continue to suffer; our best chance lies in\nforgetting, and we can only do that by calling some other dominant\nemotion into play.\n\nAnd here comes in the peculiarly paralysing effect of these baser\nemotions. As Victor Hugo once said, in a fine apophthegm, \"Despair\nyawns.\" Fear and anxiety bring with them a particular kind of physical\nfatigue which makes us listless and inert. They lie on the spirit with\na leaden dullness, which takes from us all possibility of energy and\nmotion. Who does not know the instinct, when one is crushed and\ntortured by depression, to escape into solitude and silence, and to let\nthe waves and streams flow over one. That is a universal instinct, and\nit is not wholly to be disregarded; it shows that to torture oneself\ninto rational activity is of little use, or worse than useless.\n\nWhen I was myself a sufferer from long nervous depression, and had to\nface a social gathering, I used out of very shame, and partly I think\nout of a sense of courtesy due to others, to galvanise myself into a\nsort of horrid merriment. The dark tide flowed on beneath in its sore\nand aching channels. It was common enough then for some sympathetic\nfriend to say, \"You seemed better to-night--you were quite yourself;\nthat is what you want; if you would only make the effort and go out\nmore into society, you would soon forget your troubles.\" There is\nsomething in it, because the sick mind must be persuaded if possible\nnot to grave its dolorous course too indelibly in the temperament; but\nno one else could see the acute and intolerable reaction which used to\nfollow such a strain, or how, the excitement over, the suffering\nresumed its sway over the exhausted self with an insupportable agony. I\nam sure that in my long affliction I never suffered more than after\noccasions when I was betrayed by excitement into argument or lively\ntalk, and the worst spasms of melancholy that I ever endured were the\ndirect and immediate results of such efforts.\n\nThe counteracting force in fact must be an emotional and instinctive\none, not a rational and deliberate one; and this must be our next\nendeavour, to see in what direction the counterpoise must lie.\n\nIn depression then, and when causeless fears assail us, we must try to\nput the mind in easier postures, to avoid excess and strain, to live\nmore in company, to do something different. Human beings are happiest\nin monotony and settled ways of life; but these also develop their own\npoisons, like sameness of diet, however wholesome it may be. It is, I\nbelieve, an established fact that most people cannot eat a pigeon a day\nfor fourteen days in succession; a pigeon is not unwholesome, but the\ndigestion cannot stand iteration. There is an old and homely story of a\nman who went to a great doctor suffering from dyspepsia. The doctor\nasked him what he ate, and he said that he always lunched off bread and\ncheese. \"Try a mutton chop,\" said the doctor. He did so with excellent\nresults. A year later he was ill again and went to the same doctor, who\nput him through the same catechism. \"What do you have for luncheon?\"\nsaid the doctor. \"A chop,\" said the patient, conscious of virtuous\nobedience. \"Try bread and cheese,\" said the doctor. \"Why,\" said the\npatient, \"that was the very thing you told me to avoid.\" \"Yes,\" said\nthe doctor, \"and I tell you to avoid a chop now. You, are suffering not\nfrom diet, but from monotony of diet--and you want a change.\"\n\nThe principle holds good of ordinary life; it is humiliating to confess\nit, but these depressions and despondencies which beset us are often\nbest met by very ordinary physical remedies. It is not uncommon for\npeople who suffer from them to examine their consciences, rake up\nforgotten transgressions, and feel themselves to be under the anger of\nGod. I do not mean that such scrutiny of life is wholly undesirable;\ndepression, though it exaggerates our sinfulness, has a wonderful way\nof laying its finger on what is amiss, but we must not wilfully\ncontinue in sadness; and sadness is often a combination of an old\ninstinct with the staleness which comes of civilised life; and a return\nto nature, as it is called, is often a cure, because civilisation has\nthis disadvantage, that it often takes from us the necessity of doing\nmany of the things which it is normal to man by inheritance to\ndo--fighting, hunting, preparing food, working with the hands. We\ncombat these old instincts artificially by games and exercises. It is\nhumiliating again to think that golf is an artificial substitute for\nman's need to hunt and plough, but it is undoubtedly true; and thus to\nbreak with the monotony of civilisation, and to delude the mind into\nbelieving that it is occupied with primal needs is often a great\nrefreshment. Anyone who fishes and shoots knows that the joy of\nsecuring a fish or a partridge is entirely out of proportion to any\nadvantages resulting. A lawyer could make money enough in a single week\nto buy the whole contents of a fishmonger's shop, but this does not\ngive him half the satisfaction which comes from fishing day after day\nfor a whole week, and securing perhaps three salmon. The fact is that\nthe old savage mind, which lies behind the rational and educated mind,\nis having its fling; it believes itself to be staving off starvation by\nits ingenuity and skill, and it unbends like a loosened bow.\n\nWe may be enjoying our work, and we may even take glad refuge in it to\nstave off depression, but we are then often adding fuel to the fire,\nand tiring the very faculty of resistance, which hardly knows that it\nneeds resting.\n\nThe smallest change of scene, of company, of work may effect a\nmiraculous improvement when we are feeling low-spirited and listless.\nIt is not idleness as a rule that we want, but the use of other\nfaculties and powers and muscles.\n\nAnd thus though our anxieties may be a real factor in our success, and\nmay give us the touch of prudence and vigilance we want, it does not do\nto allow ourselves to drift into vague fears and dull depressions, and\nwe must fight them in a practical way. We must remember the case of\nNaaman, who was vexed at being told to go and dip himself in a\nmud-stained stream running violently in rocky places, when he might\nhave washed in Abana and Pharpar, the statelier, purer, fuller streams\nof his native land. It is just the little homely torrent that we need,\nand part of our cares come from being too dignified about them. It is\npleasanter to think oneself the battle-ground for high and tragical\nforces of a spiritual kind, than to realise that some little homely bit\nof common machinery is out of gear. But we must resist the temptation\nto feel that our fears have a dark and great significance. We must\nsimply treat them as little sicknesses and ailments of the soul.\n\nI therefore believe that fears are like those little fugitive gliding\nthings that seem to dart across the field of the eye when it is weak\nand ailing, vague clusters and tangles and spidery webs, that float and\nfly, and can never be fixed and truly seen; and that they are best\ntreated as we learn to treat common ailments, by not concerning\nourselves very much about them, by enduring and evading them and\ndistracting the mind, and not by facing them, because they will not be\nfaced; nor can they be dispelled by reason, because they are not in the\nplane of reason at all, but phantoms gathered by the sick imagination,\ndistorted out of their proper shape, evil nightmares, the horror of\nwhich is gone with the dawn. They are the shadows of our childishness,\nand they show that we have a long journey before us; and they gain\ntheir strength from the fact that we gather them together out of the\nfuture like the bundle of sticks in the fable, when we shall have the\nstrength to snap them singly as they come.\n\nThe real way to fight them is to get together a treasure of interests\nand hopes and beautiful visions and emotions, and above all to have\nsome definite work which lies apart from our daily work, to which we\ncan turn gladly in empty hours; because fears are born of inaction and\nidleness, and melt insensibly away in the warmth of labour and duty.\n\nNothing can really hurt us except our own despair. But the problem\nwhich is difficult is how to practise a real fulness of life, and yet\nto keep a certain detachment, how to realise that what we do is small\nand petty enough, but that the greatness lies in our energy and\nbriskness of action; we should try to be interested in life as we are\ninterested in a game, not believing too much in the importance of it,\nbut yet intensely concerned at the moment in playing it as well and\nskilfully as possible. The happiest people of all are those who can\nshift their interest rapidly from point to point, and throw themselves\ninto the act of the moment, whatever it may be. Of course this is\nlargely at first a matter of temperament, but temperament is not\nunalterable; and self-discipline working along the lines of habit has a\ngreat attractiveness, the moment we feel that life is beginning to\nshape itself upon real lines.\n\n\n\n\nXVI\n\nFEAR OF LIFE\n\n\nLet us divide our fears up into definite divisions, and see how it is\nbest to deal with them. Lowest and worst of all is the shapeless and\nbodiless fear, which is a real disease of brain and nerves. I know no\nmore poignant description of this than in the strange book Lavengro:\n\n\n\"'What ails you, my child,' said a mother to her son, as he lay on a\ncouch under the influence of the dreadful one; 'what ails you? you seem\nafraid!'\n\n\"Boy. And so I am; a dreadful fear is upon me.\n\n\"Mother. But of what? there is no one can harm you; of what are you\napprehensive?\n\n\"Boy. Of nothing that I can express; I know not what I am afraid of,\nbut afraid I am.\n\n\"Mother. Perhaps you see sights and visions; I knew a lady once who was\ncontinually thinking that she saw an armed man threaten her, but it was\nonly an imagination, a phantom of the brain.\n\n\"Boy. No armed man threatens me; and 'tis not a thing that would cause\nme any fear. Did an armed man threaten me, I would get up and fight\nhim; weak as I am, I would wish for nothing better, for then, perhaps,\nI should lose this fear; mine is a dread of I know not what, and there\nthe horror lies.\n\n\"Mother. Your forehead is cool, and your speech collected. Do you know\nwhere you are?\n\n\"Boy. I know where I am, and I see things just as they are; you are\nbeside me, and upon the table there is a book which was written by a\nFlorentine. All this I see, and that there is no ground for being\nafraid. I am, moreover, quite cool, and feel no pain--but--but--\n\n\"And then there was a burst of 'gemiti, sospiri ed alti guai.' Alas,\nalas, poor child of clay! as the sparks fly upward, so wast thou born\nto sorrow--Onward!\"\n\n\nThat is a description of amazing power, but of course we are here\ndealing with a definite brain-malady, in which the emotional centres\nare directly affected. This in a lesser degree no doubt affects more\npeople than one would wish to think; but it may be considered a\nphysical malady of which fear is the symptom and not the cause.\n\nLet us then frankly recognise the physical element in these irrational\nterrors; and when one has once done this, a great burden is taken off\nthe mind, because one sees that such fear may be a real illusion, a\nsort of ghastly mockery, which by directly affecting the delicate\nmachinery through which emotion is translated into act, may produce a\nsymptom of terror which is both causeless and baseless, and which may\nimply neither a lack of courage nor self-control.\n\nAnd, therefore, I feel, as against the Ascetic and the Stoic, that I am\nmeant to live and to taste the fulness of life; and that if I begin by\nchoosing the wrong joys, it is that I may learn their unreality. I have\nlearned already to compromise about many things, to be content with\ngetting much less than I desire, to acquiesce in missing many good\nthings altogether. But asceticism for the sake of prudence seems to me\na wilful error, as though a man practised starvation through uneasy\ndays, because of the chance that he might some day find himself with\nnot enough to eat. The only self-denial worth practising is the\nself-denial that one admires, and that seems to one to be fine and\nbeautiful.\n\nFor we must emphatically remember that the saint is one who lives life\nwith high enjoyment, and with a vital zest; he chooses holiness because\nof its irresistible beauty, and because of the appeal it makes to his\nmind. He does not creep through life ashamed, depressed, anxious,\nletting ordinary delights slip through his nerveless fingers; and if he\ndenies himself common pleasures, it is because, if indulged, they\nthwart and mar his purer and more lively joys.\n\nThe fear of life, the frame of mind which says, \"This attractive and\ncharming thing captivates me, but I will mistrust it and keep it at\narm's length, because if I lose it, I shall experience discomfort,\"\nseems to me a poor and timid handling of life. I would rather say, \"I\nwill use it generously and freely, knowing that it may not endure; but\nit is a sign to me of God's care for me, that He gives me the desire\nand the gratification; and even if He means me to learn that it is only\na small thing, I can learn that only by using it and trying its\nsweetness.\"\n\nThis may be held a dangerous doctrine; but I do not mean that life must\nbe a foolish and ingenuous indulgence of every appetite and whim. One\nmust make choices; and there are many appetites which come hand in hand\nwith their own shadow. I am not here speaking of tampering with sin; I\nthink that most people burn their fingers over that in early life. But\nI am speaking rather of the delights of the body that are in no way\nsinful, food and drink, games and exercise, love itself; and of the\njoys of the mind and the artistic sense; free and open relations with\nmen and women of keen interests and eager fancies; the delights of\nwork, professional success, the doing of pleasant tasks as vigorously\nand as perfectly as one can--all the stir and motion and delight of\nlife.\n\nTo shrink back in terror from all this seems to me a sort of cowardice;\nand it is a cowardice too to go on indulging in things which one does\nnot enjoy for the sake of social tradition. One must not be afraid of\nbreaking with social custom, if one finds that it leads one into dreary\nand useless formalities, stupid and expensive entertainments, tiresome\ngatherings, dull and futile assemblies. I think that men and women\nought gaily and delightedly to choose the things that minister to their\nvigour and joy, and to throw themselves willingly into these things, so\nlong as they do not interfere with plainer and simpler duties.\n\nAnother way of escape from the importunities of fear is to be very\nresolute in fighting against our personal claims to honour and esteem.\nWe are sorely wounded through our ambitions, whether they be petty or\ngreat; and it is astonishing to find how frail a basis often serves for\na sense of dignity. I have known lowly and unimportant people who were\nyet full of pragmatical self-concern, and whose pride took the form not\nso much of exalting their own consequence as of thinking meanly of\nother people. It is easy to restore one's own confidence by dwelling\nwith bitter emphasis on the faults and failings of those about one, by\ncataloguing the deficiencies of those who have achieved success, by\naccustoming oneself to think of one's own lack of success as a sign of\nunworldliness, and by attributing the success of others to a cynical\nand unscrupulous pursuit of reputation. There is nothing in the world\nwhich so differentiates men and women as the tendency to suspect and\nperceive affronts, and to nurture grievances. It is so fatally easy to\nthink that one has been inconsiderately treated, and to mistake\nsusceptibility for courage. Let us boldly face the fact that we get in\nthis world very much what we earn and deserve, and there is no surer\nway of being excluded and left out from whatever is going forward than\na habit of claiming more respect and deference than is due to one. If\nwe are snubbed and humiliated, it is generally because we have put\nourselves forward and taken more than our share. Whereas if we have\nbeen content to bear a hand, to take trouble, and to desire useful work\nrather than credit, our influence grows silently and we become\nindispensable. A man who does not notice petty grumbling, who laughs\naway sharp comments, who does not brood over imagined insults, who\nforgets irritable passages, who makes allowance for impatience and\nfatigue, is singularly invulnerable. The power of forgetting is\ninfinitely more valuable than the power of forgiving, in many\nconjunctions of life. In nine cases out of ten, the wounds which our\nsensibilities receive are the merest pin-pricks, enlarged and fretted\nby our own hands; we work the little thorn about in the puncture till\nit festers, instead of drawing it out and casting it away.\n\nVery few of the prizes of life that we covet are worth winning, if we\nscheme to get them; it is the honour or the task that comes to us\nunexpectedly that we deserve. I have heard discontented men say that\nthey never get the particular work that they desire and for which they\nfeel themselves to be suited; and meanwhile life flies swiftly, while\nwe are picturing ourselves in all sorts of coveted situations, and\nslighting the peaceful happiness, the beautiful joys which lie all\naround us, as we go forward in our greedy reverie.\n\nI have been much surprised, since I began some years ago to receive\nletters from all sorts of unknown people, to realise how many persons\nthere are in the world who think themselves unappreciated. Such are not\ngenerally people who have tried and failed;--an honest failure very\noften brings a wholesome sense of incompetence;--but they are generally\npersons who think that they have never had a chance of showing what is\nin them, speakers who have found their audiences unresponsive, writers\nwho have been discouraged by finding their amateur efforts unsaleable,\nmen who lament the unsuitability of their profession to their\nabilities, women who find themselves living in what they call a\nthoroughly unsympathetic circle. The failure here lies in an incapacity\nto believe in one's own inefficiency, and a sturdy persuasion of the\nmalevolence of others.\n\nHere is a soil in which fears spring up like thorns and briars.\n\"Whatever I do or say, I shall be passed over and slighted, I shall\nalways find people determined to exclude and neglect me!\" I know\nmyself, only too well, how fertile the brain is in discovering almost\nany reason for a failure except what is generally the real reason, that\nthe work was badly done. And the more eager one is for personal\nrecognition and patent success, the more sickened one is by any hint of\ncontempt and derision.\n\nBut it is quite possible, as I also know from personal experience, to\ngo patiently and humbly to work again, to face the reasons for failure,\nto learn to enjoy work, to banish from the mind the uneasy hope of\npersonal distinction. We may try to discern the humour of Providence,\nbecause I am as certain as I can be of anything that we are humorously\ntreated as well as lovingly regarded. Let me relate two small incidents\nwhich did me a great deal of good at a time of self-importance. I was\nonce asked to give a lecture, and it was widely announced. I saw my own\nname in capital letters upon advertisements displayed in the street. On\nthe evening appointed, I went to the place, and met the chairman of the\nmeeting and some of the officials in a room adjoining the hall where I\nwas to speak. We bowed and smiled, paid mutual compliments,\ncongratulated each other on the importance of the occasion. At last the\nchairman consulted his watch and said it was time to be beginning. A\nprocession was formed, a door was majestically thrown open by an\nattendant, and we walked with infinite solemnity on to the platform of\nan entirely empty hall, with rows of benches all wholly unfurnished\nwith guests. I think it was one of the most ludicrous incidents I ever\nremember. The courteous confusion of the chairman, the dismay of the\ncommittee, the colossal nature of the fiasco filled me, I am glad to\nsay, not with mortification, but with an overpowering desire to laugh.\n\nI may add that there had been a mistake about the announcement of the\nhour, and ten minutes later a minute audience did arrive, whom I\nproceeded to address with such spirit as I could muster; but I have\nalways been grateful for the humorous nature of the snub administered\nto me.\n\nAgain on another occasion I had to pay a visit of business to a remote\nhouse in the country. A good-natured friend descanted upon the\nexcitement it would be to the household to entertain a living author,\nand how eagerly my utterances would be listened to. I was received not\nonly without respect but with obvious boredom. In the course of the\nafternoon I discovered that I was supposed to be a solicitor's clerk,\nbut when a little later it transpired what my real occupations were, I\nwas not displeased to find that no member of the party had ever heard\nof my existence, or was aware that I had ever published a book, and\nwhen I was questioned as to what I had written, no one had ever come\nacross anything that I had printed, until at last I soared into some\ntransient distinction by the discovery that my brother was the author\nof Dodo.\n\nI cannot help feeling that there is something gently humorous about\nthis good-humoured indication that the whole civilised world is not\nengaged in the pursuit of literature, and that one's claims to\nconsideration depend upon one's social merits. I do honestly think that\nProvidence was here deliberately poking fun at me, and showing me that\na habit of presenting one's opinions broadcast to the world does not\nnecessarily mean that the world is much aware either of oneself or of\none's opinions.\n\nThe cure then, it seems to me, for personal ambition, is the humorous\nreflection that the stir and hum of one's own particular teetotum is\nconfined to a very small space and range; and that the witty\ndescription of the Greek politician who was said to be well known\nthroughout the whole civilised world and at Lampsacus, or of the\nphilosopher who was announced as the author of many epoch-making\nvolumes and as the second cousin of the Earl of Cork, represents a very\nreal truth,--that reputation is not a thing which is worth bothering\none's head about; that if it comes, it is apt to be quite as\ninconvenient as it is pleasant, while if one grows to depend upon it,\nit is as liable to part with its sparkle as soda-water in an open glass.\n\nAnd then if one comes to consider the commoner claim, the claim to be\nfelt and respected and regarded in one's own little circle, it is\nwholesome and humiliating to observe how generously and easily that\nregard is conceded to affectionateness and kindness, and how little it\nis won by any brilliance or sharpness. Of course irritable,\nquick-tempered, severe, discontented people can win attention easily\nenough, and acquire the kind of consideration which is generally\nconceded to anyone who can be unpleasant. How often families and groups\nare drilled and cautioned by anxious mothers and sisters not to say or\ndo anything which will vex so-and-so! Such irritable people get the\nrooms and the chairs and the food that they like, and the talk in their\npresence is eagerly kept upon subjects on which they can hold forth.\nBut how little such regard lasts, and how welcome a relief it is, when\none that is thus courted and deferred to is absent! Of course if one is\nwholly indifferent whether one is regarded, needed, missed, loved, so\nlong as one can obtain the obedience and the conveniences one likes,\nthere is no more to be said. But I often think of that wonderful poem\nof Christina Rossetti's about the revenant, the spirit that returns to\nthe familiar house, and finds himself unregretted:\n\n  \"'To-morrow' and 'to-day,' they cried;\n     I was of yesterday!\"\n\n\nOne sometimes sees, in the faces of old family servants, in unregarded\nelderly relatives, bachelor uncles, maiden aunts, who are entertained\nas a duty, or given a home in charity, a very beautiful and tender\nlook, indescribable in words but unmistakable, when it seems as if\nself, and personal claims, and pride, and complacency had really passed\nout of the expression, leaving nothing but a hope of being loved, and a\ndesire to do some humble service.\n\nI saw it the other day in the face of a little old lady, who lived in\nthe house of a well-to-do cousin, with rather a bustling and vigorous\nfamily pervading the place. She was a small frail creature, with a\ntired worn face, but with no look of fretfulness or discontent. She had\na little attic as a bedroom, and she was not considered in any way. She\neffaced herself, ate about as much as a bird would eat, seldom spoke,\nuttering little ejaculations of surprise and amusement at what was\nsaid; if there was a place vacant in the carriage, she drove out. If\nthere was not, she stopped at home. She amused herself by going about\nin the village, talking to the old women and the children, who half\nloved and half despised her for being so very unimportant, and for\nhaving nothing she could give away. But I do not think the little lady\never had a thought except of gratitude for her blessings, and\nadmiration for the robustness and efficiency of her relations. She\nclaimed nothing from life and expected nothing. It seemed a little\nfrail and vanquished existence, and there was not an atom of what is\ncalled proper pride about her; but it was fine, for all that! An\ninfinite sweetness looked out of her eyes; she suffered a good deal,\nbut never complained. She was glad to live, found the world a beautiful\nand interesting place, and never quarrelled with her slender share of\nits more potent pleasures. And she will slip silently out of life some\nday in her attic room; and be strangely mourned and missed. I do not\nconsider that a failure in life, and I am not sure that it is not\nsomething much more like a triumph. I know that as I watched her one\nevening knitting in the corner, following what was said with intense\nenjoyment, uttering her little bird-like cries, I thought how few of\nthe things that could afflict me had power to wound her, and how little\nshe had to fear. I do not think she wanted to take flight, but yet I am\nsure she had no dread of death; and when she goes thitherward, leaving\nthe little tired and withered frame behind, it will be just as when the\ncrested lark springs up from the dust of the roadway, and wings his way\ninto the heart of the dewy upland.\n\n\n\n\nXVII\n\nSIMPLICITY\n\n\nIf we are to avoid the dark onset of fear, we must at all costs\nsimplify life, because the more complicated and intricate our life is,\nand the more we multiply our defences, the more gates and posterns\nthere are by which the enemy can creep upon us. Property, comforts,\nhabits, conveniences, these are the vantage-grounds from which fears\ncan organise their invasions. The more that we need excitement,\ndistraction, diversion, the more helpless we become without them. All\nthis is very clearly recognised and stated in the Gospel. Our Saviour\ndoes not seem to regard the abandonment of wealth as a necessary\ncondition of the Christian life, but He does very distinctly say that\nrich men are beset with great difficulties owing to their wealth, and\nHe indicates that a man who trusts complacently in his possessions is\ntempted into a disastrous security. He speaks of laying up treasure in\nheaven as opposed to the treasures which men store up on earth; and He\npoints out that whenever things are put aside unused, in order that the\nowner may comfort himself by the thought that they are there if he\nwants them, decay and corruption begin at once to undermine and destroy\nthem. What exactly the treasure in heaven can be it is hard to define.\nIt cannot be anything quite so sordid as good deeds done for the sake\nof spiritual investment, because our Saviour was very severe on those\nwho, like the Pharisees, sought to acquire righteousness by\nscrupulosity. Nothing that is done just for the sake of one's own\nfuture benefit seems to be regarded in the Gospel as worth doing. The\nessence of Christian giving seems to be real giving, and not a sort of\nusurious loan. There is of course one very puzzling parable, that of\nthe unjust steward, who used his last hours in office, before the news\nof his dismissal could get abroad, in cheating his master, in order to\nwin the favour of the debtors by arbitrarily diminishing the amount of\ntheir debts. It seems strange that our Saviour should have drawn a\nmoral out of so immoral an incident. Perhaps He was using a well-known\nstory, and even making allowances for the admiration with which in the\nEast resourcefulness, even of a fraudulent kind, was undoubtedly\nregarded. But the principle seems clear enough, that if the Christian\nchooses to possess wealth, he runs a great risk, and that it is\ntherefore wiser to disembarrass oneself of it. Property is regarded in\nthe Gospel as an undoubtedly dangerous thing; but so far from our Lord\npreaching a kind of socialism, and bidding men to co-operate anxiously\nfor the sake of equalising wealth, He recommends an individualistic\nfreedom from the burden of wealth altogether. But, as always in the\nGospel, our Lord looks behind practice to motive; and it is clear that\nthe motive for the abandonment of wealth is not to be a desire to act\nwith a selfish prudence, in order to lay an obligation upon God to\nrepay one generously in the future for present sacrifices, but rather\nthe attainment of an individual liberty, which leaves the spirit free\nto deal with the real interests of life. And one must not overlook the\ndefinite promise that if a man seeks virtue first, even at the cost of\nearthly possessions and comforts, he will find that they will be added\nas well.\n\nThose who would discredit the morality of the Gospel would have one\nbelieve that our Saviour in dealing with shrewd, homely, literal folk\nwas careful to promise substantial future rewards for any worldly\nsacrifices they might make; but not so can I read the Gospel. Our\nSaviour does undoubtedly say plainly that we shall find it worth our\nwhile to escape from the burdens and anxieties of wealth, but the\nreward promised seems rather to be a lightness and contentment of\nspirit, and a freedom from heavy and unnecessary bonds.\n\nIn our complicated civilisation it is far more difficult to say what\nsimplicity of life is. It is certainly not that expensive and dramatic\nsimplicity which is sometimes contrived by people of wealth as a\npleasant contrast to elaborate living. I remember the son of a very\nwealthy man, who had a great mansion in the country and a large house\nin London, telling me that his family circle were never so entirely\nhappy as when they were living at close quarters in a small Scotch\nshooting-lodge, where their life was comparatively rough, and luxuries\nunattainable. But I gathered that the main delight of such a period was\nthe sense of laying up a stock of health and freshness for the more\nluxurious life which intervened. The Anglo-Saxon naturally loves a kind\nof feudal dignity; he likes a great house, a crowd of servants and\ndependants, the impression of power and influence which it all gives;\nand the delights of ostentation, of having handsome things which one\ndoes not use and indeed hardly ever sees, of knowing that others are\neating and drinking at one's expense, which is a thing far removed from\nhospitality, are dear to the temperament of our race. We may say at\nonce that this is fatal to any simplicity of life; it may be that we\ncannot expect anyone who is born to such splendours deliberately to\nforego them; but I am sure of this, that a rich man, now and here, who\nspontaneously parted with his wealth, and lived sparely in a small\nhouse, would make perhaps as powerful an appeal to the imagination of\nthe English world as could well be made. If a man had a message to\ndeliver, there could be no better way of emphasizing it. It must not be\na mere flight from the anxiety of worldly life into a more congenial\nseclusion. It should be done as Francis of Assisi did it, by continuing\nto live the life of the world without any of its normal conveniences.\nPatent and visible self-sacrifice, if it be accompanied by a tender\nlove of humanity, will always be the most impressive attitude in the\nworld.\n\nBut if one is not capable of going to such lengths, if indeed one has\nnothing that one can resign, how is it possible to practise simplicity\nof life? It can be done by limiting one's needs, by avoiding luxuries,\nby having nothing in one's house that one cannot use, by being detached\nfrom pretentiousness, by being indifferent to elaborate comforts. There\nare people whom I know who do this, and who, even though they live with\nsome degree of wealth, are yet themselves obviously independent of\ncomfort to an extraordinary degree. There is a Puritanical dislike of\nwaste which is a very different thing, because it often coexists with\nan extreme attachment to the particular standard of comfort that the\nman himself prefers. I know people who believe that a substantial\nmidday meal and a high tea are more righteous than a simple midday meal\nand a substantial dinner. But the right attitude is one of unconcern\nand the absence of uneasy scheming as to the details of life. There is\nno reason why people should not form habits, because method is the\nprimary condition of work; but the moment that habit becomes tyrannous\nand elaborate, then the spirit is at once in bondage to anxiety. The\nreal victory over these little cares is not for ever to have them on\none's mind; or one becomes like the bread-and-butter fly in Through the\nLooking-Glass, whose food was weak tea with cream in it. \"But supposing\nit cannot find any?\" said Alice. \"Then it dies,\" says the gnat, who is\nacting the part of interpreter. \"But that must happen very often?\" said\nAlice. \"It ALWAYS happens!\" says the gnat with sombre emphasis.\n\nSimplicity is, in fact, a difficult thing to lay down rules for,\nbecause the essence of it is that it is free from rules; and those who\ntalk and think most about it, are often the most uneasy and complicated\nnatures. But it is certain that if one finds oneself growing more and\nmore fastidious and particular, more and more easily disconcerted and\nput out and hampered by any variation from the exact scheme of life\nthat one prefers, even if that scheme is an apparently simple one, it\nis certain that simplicity is at an end. The real simplicity is a sense\nof being at home and at ease in any company and mode of living, and a\nquiet equanimity of spirit which cannot be content to waste time over\nthe arrangements of life. Sufficient food and exercise and sleep may be\npostulated; but these are all to be in the background, and the real\noccupations of life are to be work and interests and talk and ideas and\nnatural relations with others. One knows of houses where some trifling\nomission of detail, some failure of service in a meal, will plunge the\nhostess into a dumb and incommunicable despair. The slightest lapse of\nthe conventional order becomes a cloud that intercepts the sun. But the\nright attitude to life, if we desire to set ourselves free from this\nself-created torment, is a resolute avoidance of minute preoccupations,\na light-hearted journeying, with an amused tolerance for the incidents\nof the way. A conventional order of life is useful only in so far as it\nremoves from the mind the necessity of detailed planning, and allows it\nto flow punctually and mechanically in an ordered course. But if we\nexalt that order into something sacred and solemn, then we become\npharisaical and meticulous, and the savour of life is lost.\n\nOne remembers the scene in David Copperfield which makes so fine a\nparable of life; how the merry party who were making the best of an\nill-cooked meal, and grilling the chops over the lodging-house fire,\nwere utterly disconcerted and reduced to miserable dignity by the entry\nof the ceremonious servant with his \"Pray, permit me,\" and how his\ndecorous management of the cheerful affair cast a gloom upon the circle\nwhich could not even be dispelled when he had finished his work and\nleft them to themselves.\n\n\n\n\nXVIII\n\nAFFECTION\n\n\nOne of the ways in which our fears have power to wound us most\ngrievously is through our affections, and here we are confronted with a\nreal and crucial difficulty. Are we to hold ourselves in, to check the\nimpulses of affection, to use self-restraint, not multiply intimacies,\nnot extend sympathies? One sees every now and then lives which have\nentwined themselves with every tendril of passion and love and\ncompanionship and service round some one personality, and have then\nbeen bereaved, with the result that the whole life has been palsied and\nstruck into desolation by the loss. I am thinking now of two instances\nwhich I have known; one was a wife, who was childless, and whose whole\nnature, every motive and every faculty, became centred upon her\nhusband, a man most worthy of love. He died suddenly, and his wife lost\neverything at one blow; not only her lover and comrade, but every\noccupation as well which might have helped to distract her, because her\nwhole life had been entirely devoted to her husband; and even the hours\nwhen he was absent from her had been given to doing anything and\neverything that might save him trouble or vexation. She lived on,\nthough she would willingly have died at any moment, and the whole\nfabric of her life was shattered. Again, I think of a devoted daughter\nwho had done the same office for an old and not very robust father. I\nheard her once say that the sorrow of her mother's death had been\nalmost nullified for her by finding that she could do everything for\nand be everything to her father, whom she almost adored. She had\nrefused an offer of marriage from a man whom she sincerely loved, that\nshe might not leave her father, and she never even told her father of\nthe incident, for fear that he might have felt that he had stood in the\nway of her happiness. When he died, she too found herself utterly\ndesolate, without ties and without occupation, an elderly woman almost\nwithout friends or companions.\n\nOught one to feel that this kind of jealous absorption in a single\nindividual affection is a mistake? It certainly brought both the wife\nand daughter an intense happiness, but in both cases the relation was\nso close and so intimate that it tended gradually to seclude them from\nall other relations. The husband and the father were both reserved and\nshy men, and desired no other companionship. One can see so easily how\nit all came about, and what the inevitable result was bound to be, and\nyet it would have been difficult at any point to say what could have\nbeen done. Of course these great absorbed emotions involve large risks;\nand it may be doubted whether life can be safely lived on these\nintensive lines. These are of course extreme instances, but there are\nmany cases in the world, and especially in the case of women whose life\nis entirely built up on certain emotions like the love and care of\nchildren; and when that is so, a nature becomes liable to the sharpest\nincursions of fear. It is of little use arguing such cases\ntheoretically, because, as the proverb says, as the land lies the water\nflows,--and love makes very light of all prudential considerations.\n\nThe difficulty does not arise with large and generous natures which\ngive love prodigally in many directions, because if one such relation\nis broken by death, love can still exercise itself upon those that\nremain. It is the fierce and jealous sort of love that is so hard to\ndeal with, a love that exults in solitariness of devotion, and cannot\nbear any intrusion of other relations.\n\nYet if one believes, as I for one believe, that the secret of the world\nis somehow hidden in love, and can be interpreted through love alone,\nthen one must run the risks of love, and seek for strength to bear the\ninevitable suffering which love must bring.\n\nBut men and women are very differently made in this respect. Among\ninnumerable minor differences, certain broad divisions are clear. Men,\nin the first place, both by training and temperament, are far less\ndependent upon affection than women. Career and occupation play a much\nlarger part in their thoughts. If one could test and intercept the\nsecret and unoccupied reveries of men, when the mind moves idly among\nthe objects which most concern it, it would be found, I do not doubt,\nthat men's minds occupy themselves much more about definite and\ntangible things--their work, their duties, their ambitions, their\namusements--and centre little upon the thought of other people; an\naffection, an emotional relation, is much more of an incident than a\nsettled preoccupation; and then with men there are two marked types,\nthose who give and lavish affection freely, who are interested and\nattracted by others and wish to attach and secure close friends; and\nthere are others who respond to advances, yet do not go in search of\nfriendship, but only accept it when it comes; and the singular thing is\nthat such natures, which are often cold and self-absorbed, have a power\nof kindling emotion in others which men of generous and eager feeling\nsometimes lack. It is strange that it should be so, but there is some\npsychological law at the back of it; and it is certainly true in my\nexperience that the men who have been most eagerly sought in friendship\nhave not as a rule been the most open-hearted and expansive natures. I\nsuppose that a certain law of pursuit holds good, and that people of\nself-contained temperament, with a sort of baffling charm, who are\ncritical and hard to please, excite a certain ambition in those who\nwould claim their affection.\n\nWomen, I have no doubt, live far more in the thought of others, and\ndesire their intention; they wish to arrive at mutual understanding and\nconfidence, to explore personality, to pierce behind the surface, to\nestablish a definite relation. Yet in the matter of relations with\nothers, women are often, I believe, less sentimental, and even less\ntender-hearted than men, and they have a far swifter and truer\nintuition of character. Though the two sexes can never really\nunderstand each other's point of view, because no imagination can cross\nthe gulf of fundamental difference, yet I am certain that women\nunderstand men far better than men understand women. The whole range of\nmotives is strangely different, and men can never grasp the comparative\nunimportance with which women regard the question of occupation.\nOccupation is for men a definite and isolated part of life, a thing\nimportant and absorbing in itself, quite apart from any motives or\nreasons. To do something, to make something, to produce something--that\ndesire is always there, whatever ebb and flow of emotions there may be;\nit is an end in itself with men, and with many women it is not so; for\nwomen mostly regard work as a necessity, but not an interesting\nnecessity. In a woman's occupation, there is generally someone at the\nend of it, for whom and in connection with whom it is done. This is\nprobably largely the result of training and tradition, and great\nchanges are now going on in the direction of women finding occupations\nfor themselves. But take the case of such a profession as teaching; it\nis quite possible for a man to be an effective and competent teacher,\nwithout feeling any particular interest in the temperaments of his\npupils, except in so far as they react upon the work to be done. But a\nwoman can hardly take this impersonal attitude; and this makes women\nboth more and less effective, because human beings invariably prefer to\nbe dealt with dispassionately; and this is as a rule more difficult for\nwomen; and thus in a complicated matter affecting conduct, a woman as a\nrule forms a sounder judgment on what has actually occurred than a man,\nand is perhaps more likely to take a severe view. The attitude of a\nGalileo is often a useful one for a teacher, because boys and girls\nought in matters that concern themselves to learn how to govern\nthemselves.\n\nThus in situations involving relation with others women are more liable\nto feel anxiety and the pressure of personal responsibility; and the\nquestion is to what extent this ought to be indulged, in what degree\nmen and women ought to assume the direction of other lives, and whether\nit is wholesome for the director to allow a desire for personal\ndominance to be substituted for more spontaneous motives.\n\nIt very often happens that the temperaments which most claim help and\nsupport are actuated by the egotistical desire to find themselves\ninteresting to others, while those who willingly assume the direction\nof other lives are attracted more by the sense of power than by genuine\nsympathy.\n\nBut it is clear that it is in the region of our affections that the\ngreatest risks of all have to be run. By loving, we render ourselves\nliable to the darkest and heaviest fears. Yet here, I believe, we ought\nto have no doubt at all; and the man who says to himself, \"I should\nlike to bestow my affection on this person and on that, but I will keep\nit in restraint, because I am afraid of the suffering which it may\nentail,\"--such a man, I say, is very far from the kingdom of God.\nBecause love is the one quality which, if it reaches a certain height,\ncan altogether despise and triumph over fear. When ambition and delight\nand energy fail, love can accompany us, with hope and confidence, to\nthe dark gate; and thus it is the one thing about which we can hardly\nbe mistaken. If love does not survive death, then life is built upon\nnothingness, and we may be glad to get away; but it is more likely that\nit is the only thing that does survive.\n\n\n\n\nXIX\n\nSIN\n\n\nIt is every one's duty to take himself seriously--that is the right\nmean between taking oneself either solemnly or apologetically. There is\nno merit in being apologetic about oneself. One has a right to be\nthere, wherever one is, a right to an opinion, a right to take some\nkind of a hand in whatever is going on; natural tact is the only thing\nwhich can tell us exactly how far those rights extend; but it is\ninconvenient to be apologetic, because if one insists on explaining how\none comes to be there, or how one comes to have an opinion, other\npeople begin to think that one needs explanation and excuse; but it is\neven worse to be solemn about oneself, because English people are very\ncritical in private, though they are tolerant in public, because they\ndislike a scene, and have not got the art of administering the delicate\nsnub which indicates to a man that his self-confidence is exuberant\nwithout humiliating him; when English people inflict a snub, they do it\nviolently and emphatically, like Dr. Johnson, and it generally means\nthat they are relieving themselves of accumulated disapproval. An\nEnglishman is apt to be deferential, and one of the worst temptations\nof official life is the temptation to be solemn. There is an old story\nabout Scott and Wordsworth, when the latter stayed at Abbotsford;\nScott, during the whole visit, was full of little pleasant and\ncourteous allusions to Wordsworth's poems; and one of the guests\npresent records how at the end of the visit not a single word had ever\npassed Wordsworth's lips which could have indicated that he knew his\nhost to have ever written a line of poetry or prose.\n\nI was sitting the other day at a function next a man of some eminence,\nand I was really amazed at the way in which he discoursed of himself\nand his habits, his diet, his hours of work, and the blank indifference\nwith which he received similar confidences. He merely waited till the\nspeaker had finished, and then resumed his own story.\n\nIt is this sort of solemn egotism which makes us overvalue our\nanxieties quite out of all proportion to their importance, because they\nall appear to us as integral elements of a dignified drama in which we\nenact the hero's part. We press far too heavily on the sense of\nresponsibility; and if we begin by telling boys, as is too often done\nin sermons, that whatever they do or say is of far-reaching\nconsequence, that every lightest word may produce an effect, that any\ncarelessness of speech or example may have disastrous effects upon the\ncharacter of another, we are doing our best to encourage the\nself-emphasis which is the very essence of priggishness.\n\nThere is a curious conflict going on at the present time in English\nlife between light-mindedness and solemnity; there is a great appetite\nfor living, a love of amusement, a tendency to subordinate the\ninterests of the future to the pleasure of the moment, and to think\nthat the one serious evil is boredom; that is a healthy manifestation\nenough in its way, because it stands for interest and delight in life;\nbut there is another strain in our nature, that of a rather heavy\npietism, inherited from our Puritan ancestors. It must not be forgotten\nthat the Puritan got a good deal of interest out of his sense of sin;\nas the old combative elements of feudal ages disappeared, the soldierly\nblood retained the fighting instinct, and turned it into moral regions.\nThe sense of adventure is impelled to satiate itself, and the Pilgrim's\nProgress is a clear enough proof that the old combativeness was all\nthere, revelling in danger, and exulting in the thought that the human\nbeing was in the midst of foes. Sin represented itself to the Puritan\nas a thing out of which he could get a good deal of fun; not the fun of\nyielding to it, but the fun of whipping out his sword and getting in\nsome shrewd blows. When preachers nowadays lament that we have lost the\nsense of sin, what they really mean is that we have lost our\ncombativeness: we no longer believe that we must treat our foes with\nopen and brutal violence, and we perceive that such conduct is only\npitting one sin against another. There is no warrant in the Gospel for\nthe combative idea of the Christian life; all such metaphors and\nsuggestions come from St. Paul and the Apocalypse. The fact is that the\nworld was not ready for the utter peaceableness of the Gospel, and it\nhad to be accommodated to the violence of the world.\n\nNow again the Christian idea is coloured by scientific and medical\nknowledge, and sin, instead of an enemy which we must fight, has become\na disease which we must try to cure.\n\nSins, the ordinary sins of ordinary life, are not as a rule instincts\nwhich are evil in themselves, so much as instincts which are selfishly\npursued to the detriment of others; sin is in its essence the\nselfishness which will not cooperate, and which secures advantages\nunjustly, without any heed to the disadvantage of others. SYMPATHETIC\nIMAGINATION is the real foe of sin, the power of putting oneself in the\nplace of another; and much of the sentiment which is so prevalent\nnowadays is the evidence of the growth of sympathy.\n\nThe old theory of sin lands one in a horrible dilemma, because it\nimplies a treacherous enmity on the part of God, to create man weak and\nunstable, and to pit his weakness against tyrannous desires; to allow\nhis will to do evil to be stronger than his power to do right, is a\nsatanical device. One must not sacrifice the truth to the desire for\nsimplicity and effective statement. The truth is intricate and obscure,\nand to pretend that it is plain and obvious is mere hypocrisy. The\nstrength of Calvinism is its horrible resemblance to a natural\ninference from the facts of life; but if any sort of Calvinism is true,\nthen it is a mere insult to the intelligence to say that God is loving\nor just. The real basis for all deep-seated fear about life is the fear\nthat one will not be dealt with either lovingly or justly. But we have\nto make a simple choice as to what we will believe, and the only hope\nis to believe that immediate harshness and injustice is not ultimately\ninconsistent with Love. No one who knows anything of the world and of\nlife can pretend to think or say that suffering always results from, or\nis at all proportioned to, moral faults; and if we are tempted to\nregard all our disasters as penal consequences, then we are tempted to\nendure them with gloomy and morbid immobility.\n\nIt is far more wholesome and encouraging to look upon many disasters\nthat befall us as opportunities to show a little spirit, to evoke the\ncourage which does not come by indolent prosperity, to increase our\nsympathy, to enlarge our experience, to make things clearer to us, to\ndevelop our mind and heart, to free us from material temptations. Past\nsuffering is not always an evil, it is often an exciting reminiscence.\nIt is good to take life adventurously, like Odysseus of old. What would\none feel about Odysseus if, instead of contriving a way out of the\nCyclops' cave, he had set himself to consider of what forgotten sin his\ndanger was the consequence? Suffering and disaster come to us to\ndevelop our inventiveness and our courage, not to daunt and dismay us;\nand we ought therefore to approach experience with a sense of humour,\nif possible, and with a lively curiosity. I recollect hearing a man the\nother day describing an operation to which he had been subjected. \"My\nword,\" he said, his eyes sparkling with delight at the recollection,\n\"that was awful, when I came into the operating-room, and saw the\nsurgeons in their togs, and the pails and basins all about, and was\ninvited to step up to the table!\" There is nothing so agreeable as the\nremembrance of fears through which we have passed; and we can only\nlearn to despise them by finding out how unbalanced they were.\n\nI do not mean that fears can ever be pleasant at the time, but we do\nthem too much honour if we court them and defer to them. However much\nwe may be tortured by them, there is always something at the back of\nour mind which despises our own susceptibility to them; and it is that\ndeeper instinct which we ought to trust.\n\nBut we cannot even begin to trust it, as long as we allow ourselves to\nbelieve pietistically that the Mind of God is set on punishment. That\nis the ghastly error which humanity tends to make. It has been dinned\ninto us, alas, from our early years, and religious phraseology is\nconstantly polluted by it. Our Saviour lent no countenance to this at\nall; He spoke perfectly plainly against the theory of \"judgments.\" Of\ncourse suffering is sometimes a consequence of sin, but it is not a\nvindictive punishment; it is that we may learn our mistake. But we must\ngive up the revengeful idea of God: that is imported into our scale of\nvalues by the grossest anthropomorphism. Only the weak man, who fears\nthat his safety will be menaced if he does not make an example, deals\nin revenge. He is indignant at anything which mortifies his vanity,\nwhich implies any doubt of his power or any disregard of his wishes.\nRevenge is born of terror, and to think of God as vindictive is to\nthink of Him as subject to fear. Serene and unquestioned strength can\nhave nothing to do with fear. Milton is largely responsible for\nperpetuating this belief. He makes the Almighty say to the Son--\n\n  \"Let us advise, and to this hazard draw\n   With speed what force is left, and all employ\n   In our defence, lest unawares we lose\n   This our high place, our sanctuary, our hill.\"\n\n\nMilton's idea of the Almighty was frankly that of a Power who had\nundertaken more than he could manage, and who had allowed things to go\ntoo far. But it is a puerile conception of God; and to allow ourselves\nto think or speak of God as a Power that has to take precautions, or\nthat has anything to fear from the exercise of human volition, is to\ncloud the whole horizon at once.\n\nBut we ought rather to think of God as a Power which for some reason\nworks through imperfection. The battle of the world is that of force\nagainst inertness: and our fears are the shadow of that combat.\n\nFear should then rather show us that we are being confronted with\nexperience; and that our duty is to disregard it, to march forward\nthrough it, to come out on the other side of it. It is all an\nadventure, in fact! The disaster in which we are involved is not sent\nto show us that the Eternal Power which created us is vexed at our\nfailures, or bent on crushing us. It is exactly the opposite; it is to\nshow us that we are worth testing, worth developing, and that we are to\nhave the glory of going on; the very fear of death is the last test of\nour belief in Love. We are assuredly meant to believe that the coward\nis to learn the beauty of courage, that the laggard is to perceive the\nworth of energy, that the selfish man is to be taught sympathy. If we\nmust take a metaphor, let us rather think of God as the graver of the\ngem than as the child that beats her doll for collapsing instead of\nsitting upright.\n\nIt is our dishonouring thought of God as jealous, suspicious, fond of\nexhibiting power, revengeful, cruel, that does us harm. We must rather\nthink of His Heart as full of courage, energy, and hope; as teeming\nwith joy, lightness, zest, mirth; and then we can begin to think of\nfailures, fears, delays as things small and unimportant, not as\nmalicious ambushes, but as rough bits of road, as obstacles to reveal\nand to develop our strength and gaiety. There is no joy in the world so\ngreat as the joy of finding ourselves stronger than we know; and that\nis what God is bent upon showing us, and not upon proving to us that we\nare vile and base, in the spirit of the old Calvinist who said to his\nown daughter when she was dying of a painful disease, that she must\nremember that all short of Hell was mercy. It is so; but Hell is rather\nwhat we start from, and out of which we have to find our way, than the\nwaste-paper basket of life, the last receptacle for our shattered\npurposes.\n\n\n\n\nXX\n\nSERENITY\n\n\nTo achieve serenity we must have the power of keeping our hearts and\nminds fixed upon something which is beyond and above the passing\nincidents of life, which so disconcert and overshadow us, and which are\nafter all but as clouds in the sky, or islets in a great ocean. Think\nwith what smiling indifference a man would meet indignation and abuse\nand menace, if he were aware that an hour hence he would be\ntriumphantly vindicated and applauded. How calmly would a man sleep in\na condemned cell if he knew that a free pardon were on its way to him!\nOf course the more eagerly and enjoyably we live, so much the more we\nare affected by little incidents, beyond which we can hardly look when\nthey bring us so much pleasure or so much discomfort; and thus it is\nalways the men and women of keen and highly-strung natures, who taste\nthe quality of every moment, in its sweetness and its bitterness, who\nwill most feel the influence of fear. Edward FitzGerald once sadly\nconfessed that, as life went on, days of perfect delight--a beautiful\nscene, a melodious music, the society of those whom he loved\nbest--brought him less and less joy, because he felt that they were\npassing swiftly, and could not be recalled. And of course the\nimaginative nature which lives tremulously in delight will be most apt\nto portend sadness in hours of happiness, and in sorrow to anticipate\nthe continuance of sorrow. That is an inevitable effect of temperament;\nbut we must not give way helplessly to temperament, or allow ourselves\nto drift wherever the mind bears us. Just as the skilled sailor can\ntack up against the wind, and use ingenuity to compel a contrary breeze\nto bring him to the haven of his desire, so we must be wise in trimming\nour sails to the force of circumstance; while there is an eager delight\nin making adverse conditions help us to realise our hopes.\n\nThe timid soul that loves delight is apt to say to itself, \"I am happy\nnow in health and circumstances and friends, but I lean out into the\nfuture, and see that health must fail and friends must drift away;\ndeath must part me from those I love; and beyond all this, I see the\ncloudy gate through which I must myself pass, and I do not know what\nlies beyond it.\" That is true enough! It is like the story of the old\nprince, as told by Herodotus, who said in his sorrowful age that the\nGods gave man only a taste of life, just enough to let him feel that\nlife was sweet, and then took the cup from his lips. But if we look\nfairly at life, at our own life, at other lives, we see that pleasure\nand contentment, even if we hardly realised that it was contentment at\nthe time, have largely predominated over pain and unhappiness; a man\nmust be very rueful and melancholy before he will deliberately say that\nlife has not been worth living, though I suppose that there have\nprobably been hours in the lives of all of us when we have thought and\nsaid and even believed that we would rather not have lived at all than\nsuffer so. Neither must we pass over the fact that every day there are\nmen and women who, under the pressure of calamity and dismay, bring\ntheir lives to a voluntary end.\n\nBut we have to be very dull and thankless and slow of heart not to feel\nthat by being allowed to live, for however short a time, we have been\nallowed to take part in a very beautiful and wonderful thing. The\nloveliness of earth, its colours, its lights, its scents, its savours,\nthe pleasures of activity and health, the sharp joys of love and\nfriendship, these are surely very great and marvellous experiences, and\nthe Mind which planned them must be full of high purpose, eager\nintention, infinite goodwill. And we may go further than that, and see\nthat even our sorrows and failures have often brought something great\nto our view, something which we feel we have learned and apprehended,\nsomething which we would not have missed, and which we cannot do\nwithout. If we will frankly recognise all this, we cannot feebly\ncrumple up at the smallest touch of misery, and say suspiciously and\nvindictively that we wish we had never opened our eyes upon the world;\nand even if we do say that, even if we abandon ourselves to despair, we\nyet cannot hope to escape; we did not enter life by our own will, it is\nnot our own prudence that has kept us there, and even if we end it\nvoluntarily, as Carlyle said, by noose or henbane, we cannot for an\ninstant be sure that we are ending it; every inference in the world, in\nfact, would tend to indicate that we do not end it. We cannot destroy\nmatter, we can only disperse and rearrange it; we cannot generate a\nsingle force, we can only summon it from elsewhere, and concentrate it,\nas we concentrate electricity, at a single glowing point. Force seems\nas indestructible as matter, and there is no reason to think that life\nis destructible either. So that if we are to resign ourselves to any\nbelief at all, it must be to the belief that \"to be, or not to be\" is\nnot a thing which is in our power at all. We may extinguish life, as we\nput out a light; but we do not destroy it, we only rearrange it.\n\nAnd we can thus at least practise and exercise ourselves in the belief\nthat we cannot bring our experiences to an end, however petulantly and\nirritably we desire to do so, because it simply is not in our power to\neffect it. We talk about the power of the will, but no effort of will\ncan obliterate the life that we have lived, or add a cubit to our\nstature; we cannot abrogate any law of nature, or destroy a single atom\nof matter. What it seems that we can do with the will is to make a\ncertain choice, to select a certain line, to combine existing forces,\nto use them within very small limits. We can oblige ourselves to take a\ncertain course, when every other inclination is reluctant to do it; and\neven so the power varies in different people. It is useless then to\ndepend blindly upon the will, because we may suddenly come to the end\nof it, as we may come to the end of our physical forces. But what the\nwill can do is to try certain experiments, and the one province where\nits function seems to be clear, is where it can discover that we have\noften a reserve of unsuspected strength, and more courage and power\nthan we had supposed. We can certainly oppose it to bodily\ninclinations, whether they be seductions of sense or temptations of\nweariness. And in this one respect the will can give us, if not\nserenity, at least a greater serenity than we expect. We can use the\nwill to endure, to wait, to suspend a hasty judgment; and impulse is\nthe thing which menaces our serenity most of all. The will indeed seems\nto be like a little weight which we can throw into either scale. If we\nhave no doubt how we ought to act, we can use the will to enforce our\njudgment, whether it is a question of acting or of abstaining; if we\nare in doubt how to act, we can use our will to enforce a wise delay.\n\nThe truth then about the will is that it is a force which we cannot\nmeasure, and that it is as unreasonable to say that it does not exist\nas to say that it is unlimited. It is foolish to describe it as free;\nit is no more free than a prisoner in a cell is free; but yet he has a\ncertain power to move about within his cell, and to choose among\npossible employments.\n\nAnyone who will deliberately test his will, will find that it is\nstronger than he suspects; what often weakens our use of it is that we\nare so apt to look beyond the immediate difficulty into a long\nperspective of imagined obstacles, and to say within ourselves, \"Yes, I\nmay perhaps achieve this immediate step, but I cannot take step after\nstep--my courage will fail!\" Yet if one does make the immediate effort,\nit is common to find the whole range of obstacles modified by the\nsingle act; and thus the first step towards the attainment of serenity\nof life is to practise cutting off the vista of possible contingencies\nfrom our view, and to create a habit of dealing with a case as it\noccurs.\n\nI am often tempted myself to send my anxious mind far ahead in vague\ndismay; at the beginning of a week crammed with various engagements,\nnumerous tasks, constant labour, little businesses, many of them with\ntheir own attendant anxiety, it is easy to say that there is no time to\ndo anything that one wants to do, and to feel that the matters\nthemselves will be handled amiss and bungled. But if one can only keep\nthe mind off, or distract it by work, or beguile it by a book, a walk,\na talk, how easily the thread spins off the reel, how quietly one comes\nto harbour on the Saturday evening, with everything done and finished!\n\nAgain, I am personally much disposed to dread the opposition and the\ndispleasure of colleagues, and to shrink nervously from anything which\ninvolves dealing with a number of people. I ought to have found out\nbefore now how futile such dread is; other people forget their vexation\nand even grow ashamed of it, much as one does oneself; and looking back\nI can recall no crisis which turned out either as intricate or as\ndifficult as one expected.\n\nLet me admit that I have more than once in life made grave mistakes\nthrough this timidity and indolence, or through an imaginativeness\nwhich could see in a great opportunity nothing but a sea of troubles,\nwhich would, I do not doubt, have melted away as one advanced. But no\none has suffered except myself! Institutions do not depend upon\nindividuals; and I regard such failures now just as the petulant\ncasting away of a chance of experience, as a lesson which I would not\nlearn; but there is nothing irreparable about it; one only comes, more\nslowly and painfully, to the same goal at last. I dare not say that I\nregret it all, for we are all of us, whether small or great, being\ntaught a mighty truth, whether we wish it or know it; and all that we\ncan do to hasten it is to put our will into the right scale. I do not\nthink mistakes and failures ought to trouble one much; at all events\nthere is no fear mingled with them. But I do not here claim to have\nattained any real serenity--my own heart is too impatient, too fond of\npleasure for that!--yet I can see clearly enough that it is there, if I\ncould but grasp it; and I know well enough how it is to be attained, by\nbeing content to wait, and by realising at every instant and moment of\nlife that, in spite of my tremors and indolences, my sharp impatiences,\nmy petulant disgusts, something very real and great is being shown me,\nwhich I shall at last, however dimly, perceive; and that even so the\ngoal of the journey is far beyond any horizon that I can conceive, and\nbuilt up like the celestial city out of unutterable brightness and\nclearness, upon a foundation of peace and joy.\n\nIt is very difficult to determine, by any exercise of the intellect or\nimagination, what fears would remain to us if we were freed from the\ndominion of the body. All material fears and anxieties would come to an\nend; we should no longer have any poverty to dread, or any of the\nlimitations or circumscriptions which the lack of the means of life\ninflicts upon us; we should have no ambitions left, because the\nambitions which centre on influence--that is, upon the desire to direct\nand control the interests of a nation or a group of individuals--have\nno meaning apart from the material framework of civil life. The only\nkind of influence which would survive would be the influence of\nemotion, the direct appeal which one who lives a higher and more\nbeautiful life can make to all unsatisfied souls, who would fain find\nthe way to a greater serenity of mood. Even upon earth we can see a\nfaint foreshadowing of this in the fact that the only personalities who\ncontinue to hold the devotion and admiration of humanity are the\nidealists. Men and women do not make pilgrimages to the graves and\nhouses of eminent jurists and bankers, political economists or\nstatisticians: these have done their work, and have had their reward.\nEven the monuments of statesmen and conquerors have little power to\ntouch the imagination, unless some love for humanity, some desire to\nuplift and benefit the race, have entered into their schemes and\npolicies. No, it is rather the soil which covers the bones of dreamers\nand visionaries that is sacred yet, prophets and poets, artists and\nmusicians, those who have seen through life to beauty, and have lived\nand suffered that they might inspire and tranquillise human hearts. The\nprinces of the earth, popes and emperors, lie in pompous sepulchres,\nand the thoughts of those who regard them, as they stand in metal or\nmarble, dwell most on the vanity of earthly glory. But at the tombs of\nmen like Vergil and Dante, of Shakespeare and Michelangelo, the human\nheart still trembles into tears, and hates the death that parts soul\nfrom soul. So that if, like Dante, we could enter the shadow-land, and\nhold converse with the spirits of the dead, we should seek out to\nconsort with, not those who have subdued and wasted the earth, or have\nterrified men into obedience and service, but those whose hearts were\ntouched by dreams of impossible beauty, and who have taught us to be\nkind and compassionate and tender-hearted, to love God and our\nneighbour, and to detect, however faintly, the hope of peace and joy\nwhich binds us all together.\n\nAnd thus if emotion, by which I mean the power of loving, is the one\nthing which survives, the fears which may remain will be concerned with\nall the thoughts which cloud love, the anger and suspicion that divide\nus; so that perhaps the only fears which will survive at all will be\nthe fears of our own selfishness and coldness, that inner hardness\nwhich has kept us from the love of God and isolated us from our\nneighbour. The pride which kept us from admitting that we were wrong,\nthe jealousy that made us hate those who won the love we could not win,\nthe baseness which made us indifferent to the discomfort of others if\nwe could but secure our own ease, these are the thoughts which may\nstill have the power to torture us; and the hell that we may have to\nfear may be the hell of conscious weakness and the horror of\nretrospect, when we recollect how under these dark skies of earth we\nwent on our way claiming and taking all that we could get, and\ndisregarding love for fear of being taken advantage of. One of the\ngrievous fears of life is the fear of seeing ourselves as we really\nare, in all our baseness and pettiness; yet that will assuredly be\nshown us in no vindictive spirit, but that we may learn to rise and\nsoar.\n\nThere is no hope that death will work an immediate moral change in us;\nit may set us free from some sensual and material temptations, but the\ninnermost motives will indeed survive, that instinct which makes us\nagain and again pursue what we know to be false and unsatisfying.\n\nThe more that we shrink from self-knowledge, the more excuses that we\nmake for ourselves, the more that we tend to attribute our failures to\nour circumstances and to the action of others, the more reason we have\nto fear the revelation of death. And the only way to face that is to\nkeep our minds open to any light, to nurture and encourage the wish to\nbe different, to pray hour by hour that at any cost we may be taught\nthe truth; it is useless to search for happy illusions, to look for\nshort cuts, to hope vaguely that strength and virtue will burst out\nlike a fountain beside our path. We have a long and toilsome way to\ntravel, and we can by no device abbreviate it; but when we suffer and\ngrieve, we are walking more swiftly to our goal; and the hours we spend\nin fear, in sending the mind in weariness along the desolate track, are\nmerely wasted, for we can alter nothing so. We use life best when we\nlive it eagerly, exulting in its fulness and its significance, casting\nourselves into strong relations with others, drinking in beauty, making\nhigh music in our hearts. There is an abundance of awe in the\nexperiences through which we pass, awe at the greatness of the vision,\nat the vastness of the design, as it embraces and enfolds our weakness.\nBut we are inside it all, an integral and indestructible part of it;\nand the shadow of fear falls when we doubt this, when we dread being\noverlooked or disregarded. No such thing can happen to us; our\ninheritance is absolute and certain, and it is fear that keeps us away\nfrom it, and the fear of fearlessness. For we are contending not with\nGod, but with the fear which hides Him from our shrinking eyes; and our\nprayer should be the undaunted prayer of Moses in the clefts of the\nmountain, \"I beseech Thee, show me Thy Glory!\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE END","title":"Where No Fear Was: A Book About Fear","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":44762}