{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_48429/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_48429","id":"gutenberg_48429","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48429","summary":null,"tags":["American essays -- 20th century","Category: British Literature","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: Philosophy & Ethics"],"text":"Note: Images of the original pages are available through\n      Internet Archive. See\n      https://archive.org/details/cu31924014314946\n\n\n\n\n\nSOLILOQUIES IN ENGLAND\n\nAnd Later Soliloquies\n\nby\n\nGEORGE SANTAYANA\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNew York\nCharles Scribner's Sons\n1922\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nMany of these Soliloquies have appeared in _The Athenaeum_ and one or\nmore in _The London Mercury_, _The Nation_, _The New Republic_, _The\nDial_, and _The Journal of Philosophy_. The author's thanks are due to\nthe Editors of all these reviews for permission to reprint the articles.\n\nFor convenience, three Soliloquies on Liberty, written in 1915, have\nbeen placed in the second group; and perhaps it should be added that\nnot a few of the later pieces were written in France, Spain, or Italy,\nalthough still for the most part on English themes and under the\ninfluence of English impressions.\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\nPrologue\n\nSOLILOQUIES IN ENGLAND, 1914-1918\n\n   1. ATMOSPHERE\n   2. GRISAILLE\n   3. PRAISES OF WATER\n   4. THE TWO PARENTS OF VISION\n   5. AVERSION FROM PLATONISM\n   6. CLOUD CASTLES\n   7. CROSS-LIGHTS\n   8. HAMLET'S QUESTION\n   9. THE BRITISH CHARACTER\n  10. SEAFARING\n  11. PRIVACY\n  12. THE LION AND THE UNICORN\n  13. DONS\n  14. APOLOGY FOR SNOBS\n  15. THE HIGHER SNOBBERY\n  16. DISTINCTION IN ENGLISHMEN\n  17. FRIENDSHIPS\n  18. DICKENS\n  19. THE HUMAN SCALE\n  20. ENGLISH ARCHITECTURE\n  21. THE ENGLISH CHURCH\n  22. LEAVING CHURCH\n  23. DEATH-BED MANNERS\n  24. WAR SHRINES\n  25. TIPPERARY\n  26. SKYLARKS\n  27. AT HEAVEN'S GATE\n\nLATER SOLILOQUIES, 1918-1921\n\n  28. SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE\n  29. IMAGINATION\n  30. THE WORLD'S A STAGE\n  31. MASKS\n  32. THE TRAGIC MASK\n  33. THE COMIC MASK\n  34. CARNIVAL\n  35. QUEEN MAB\n  36. A CONTRAST WITH SPANISH DRAMA\n  37. THE CENSOR AND THE POET\n  38. THE MASK OF THE PHILOSOPHER\n  39. THE VOYAGE OF THE SAINT CHRISTOPHER\n  40. CLASSIC LIBERTY\n  41. GERMAN FREEDOM\n  42. LIBERALISM AND CULTURE\n  43. THE IRONY OF LIBERALISM\n  44. JOHN BULL AND HIS PHILOSOPHERS\n  45. OCCAM'S RAZOR\n  46. EMPIRICISM\n  47. THE BRITISH HEGELIANS\n  48. THE PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY\n  49. THE PSYCHE\n  50. REVERSION TO PLATONISM\n  51. IDEAS\n  52. THE MANSIONS OF HELEN\n  53. THE JUDGEMENT OF PARIS\n  54. ON MY FRIENDLY CRITICS\n  55. HERMES THE INTERPRETER\n\n\n\nPROLOGUE\n\n\nThe outbreak of war in the year 1914 found me by chance in England,\nand there I remained, chiefly at Oxford, until the day of the peace.\nDuring those five years, in rambles to Iffley and Sandford, to Godstow\nand Wytham, to the hospitable eminence of Chilswell, to Wood Eaton or\nNuneham or Abingdon or Stanton Harcourt,\n\nCrossing the stripling Thames at Bab-lock-hithe,\n\nthese Soliloquies were composed, or the notes scribbled from which they\nhave been expanded. Often over Port Meadow the whirr of aeroplanes sent\nan iron tremor through these reveries, and the daily casualty list,\nthe constant sight of the wounded, the cadets strangely replacing the\nundergraduates, made the foreground to these distances. Yet nature\nand solitude continued to envelop me in their gentleness, and seemed\nto remain nearer to me than all that was so near. They muffled the\nimportunity of the hour; perhaps its very bitterness and incubus of\nhorror drove my thoughts deeper than they would otherwise have ventured\ninto the maze of reflection and of dreams. It is a single maze, though\nwe traverse it in opposite moods, and distinct threads conduct us; for\nwhen the most dire events have assumed their punctiform places in the\nhistory of our lives, where they will stand eternally, what are they\nbut absurd episodes in a once tormenting dream? And when our despised\nnight-dreams are regarded and respected as they deserve to be (since\nall their troubles are actual and all their tints evident), do they\nprove more arbitrary or less significant than our waking thoughts, or\nthan those more studious daylight fictions which we call history or\nphilosophy? The human mind at best is a sort of song; the music of it\nruns away with the words, and even the words, which pass for the names\nof things, are but poor wild symbols for their unfathomed objects. So\nare these Soliloquies compared with their occasions; and I should be\nthe first to hate their verbiage, if a certain spiritual happiness did\nnot seem to breathe through it, and redeem its irrelevance. Their very\nabstraction from the time in which they were written may commend them\nto a free mind. Spirit refuses to be caught in a vice; it triumphs\nover the existence which begets it. The moving world which feeds it\nis not its adequate theme. Spirit hates its father and its mother. It\nspreads from its burning focus into the infinite, careless whether\nthat focus burns to ashes or not. From its pinnacle of earthly time it\npours its little life into spheres not temporal nor earthly, and half\nin playfulness, half in sacrifice, it finds its joy in the irony of\neternal things, which know nothing of it.\n\nSpirit, however, cannot fly from matter without material wings;\nthe most abstract art is compacted of images, the most mystical\nrenunciation obeys some passion of the heart. Images and passion,\neven if they are not easily recognizable in these Soliloquies as now\ncoldly written down, were not absent from them when inwardly spoken.\nThe images were English images, the passion was the love of England\nand, behind England, of Greece. What I love in Greece and in England\nis contentment in finitude, fair outward ways, manly perfection and\nsimplicity. Admiration for England, of a certain sort, was instilled\ninto me in my youth. My father (who read the language with ease\nalthough he did not speak it) had a profound respect for British polity\nand British power. In this admiration there was no touch of sentiment\nnor even of sympathy; behind it lay something like an ulterior\ncontempt, such as we feel for the strong man exhibiting at a fair. The\nperformance may be astonishing but the achievement is mean. So in the\nmiddle of the nineteenth century an intelligent foreigner, the native\nof a country materially impoverished, could look to England for a model\nof that irresistible energy and public discipline which afterwards\nwere even more conspicuous in Bismarckian Germany and in the United\nStates. It was admiration for material progress, for wealth, for the\ninimitable gift of success; and it was not free, perhaps, from the poor\nman's illusion, who jealously sets his heart on prosperity, and lets\nit blind him to the subtler sources of greatness. We should none of us\nadmire England to-day, if we had to admire it only for its conquering\ncommerce, its pompous noblemen, or its parliamentary government. I\nfeel no great reverence even for the British Navy, which may be in\nthe junk-shop to-morrow; but I heartily like the British sailor, with\nhis clear-cut and dogged way of facing the world. It is health, not\npolicy nor wilfulness, that gives true strength in the moral world,\nas in the animal kingdom; nature and fortune in the end are on the\nside of health. There is, or was, a beautifully healthy England hidden\nfrom most foreigners; the England of the countryside and of the poets,\ndomestic, sporting, gallant, boyish, of a sure and delicate heart,\nwhich it has been mine to feel beating, though not so early in my life\nas I could have wished. In childhood I saw only Cardiff on a Sunday,\nand the docks of Liverpool; but books and prints soon opened to me more\nimportant vistas. I read the poets; and although British painting,\nwhen it tries to idealize human subjects, has always made me laugh, I\nwas quick to discern an ethereal beauty in the landscapes of Turner.\nFurgueson's _Cathedrals of England_, too, and the great mansions in\nthe Italian style depicted in the eighth edition of the _Encyclopaedia\nBritannica_, revealed to me even when a boy the rare charm that can\nenvelop the most conventional things when they are associated with\ntender thoughts or with noble ways of living.\n\nIt was with a premonition of things noble and tender, and yet\nconventional, that after a term at the University of Berlin I went to\nspend my first holidays in England. Those were the great free days of\nmy youth. I had lived familiarly in Spain and in the United States;\nI had had a glimpse of France and of Germany, and French literature\nhad been my daily bread: it had taught me how to think, but had not\ngiven me much to think about. I was not mistaken in surmising that in\nEngland I should find a _tertium quid_, something soberer and juster\nthan anything I yet knew, and at the same time greener and richer.\nI felt at once that here was a distinctive society, a way of living\nfundamentally _foreign_ to me, but deeply attractive. At first all\ngates seemed shut and bristling with incommunication; but soon in\nsome embowered corner I found the stile I might climb over, and the\nancient right of way. Those peaceful parks, and those minds no less\nretired, seemed positively to welcome me; and though I was still\ndivided from them by inevitable partitions, these were in places so\nthin and yielding, that the separation seemed hardly greater than is\nrequisite for union and sympathy between autonomous minds. Indeed, I\nwas soon satisfied that no climate, no manners, no comrades on earth\n(where nothing is perfect) could be more congenial to my complexion.\nNot that I ever had the least desire or tendency to become an\nEnglishman. Nationality and religion are like oar love and loyalty\ntowards women: things too radically intertwined with oar moral essence\nto be changed honourably, and too accidental to the free mind to be\nworth changing. My own origins were living within me; by their light\nI could see clearly that this England was pre-eminently the home of\ndecent happiness and a quiet pleasure in being oneself. I found here\nthe same sort of manliness which I had learned to love in America, yet\nsofter, and not at all obstreperous; a manliness which when refined\na little creates the gentleman, since its instinct is to hide its\nstrength for an adequate occasion and for the service of others. It is\nself-reliant, but with a saving touch of practicality and humour; for\nthere is a becoming self-confidence, based on actual performance, like\nthe confidence of the athlete, and free from any exorbitant estimate of\nwhat that performance is worth. Such modesty in strength is entirely\nabsent from the effusive temperament of the Latin, who is cocky and\npunctilious so long as his conceit holds out, and then utterly humbled\nand easily corrupted; entirely absent also from the doctrinaire of the\nGerman school, in his dense vanity and officiousness, that nothing can\nput to shame. So much had I come to count on this sort of manliness\nin the friends of my youth, that without it the most admirable and\ngifted persons seemed to me hardly _men_: they fell rather into an\nambiguous retinue, the camp followers of man, cleverer but meaner than\nhimself--the priests, politicians, actors, pedagogues, and shopkeepers.\nThe _man_ is he who lives and relies directly on nature, not on the\nneeds or weaknesses of other people. These self-sufficing Englishmen,\nin their reserve and decision, seemed to me truly men, creatures of\nfixed rational habit, people in whose somewhat inarticulate society\none might feel safe and at home. The low pressure at which their minds\nseemed to work showed how little they were alarmed about anything:\nthings would all be managed somehow. They were good company even when\nthey said nothing. Their aspect, their habits, their invincible likes\nand dislikes seemed like an anchor to me in the currents of this\nturbid age. They were a gift of the gods, like the sunshine or the\nfresh air or the memory of the Greeks: they were superior beings, and\nyet more animal than the rest of us, calmer, with a different scale\nof consciousness and a slower pace of thought. There were glints in\nthem sometimes of a mystical oddity; they loved the wilds; and yet\nordinarily they were wonderfully sane and human, and responsive to the\nright touch. Moreover, these semi-divine animals could talk like men\nof the world. If some of them, and not the least charming, said little\nbut \"Oh, really,\" and \"How stupid of me,\" I soon discovered how far\nothers could carry scholarly distinction, rich humour, and refinement\nof diction. I confess, however, that when they were very exquisite or\nsubtle they seemed to me like cut flowers; the finer they were the\nfrailer, and the cleverer the more wrong-headed. Delicacy did not come\nto them, as to Latin minds, as an added ornament, a finer means of\nbeing passionate, a trill in a song that flows full-chested from the\nwhole man; their purity was Puritanism, it came by exclusion of what\nthey thought lower. It impoverished their sympathies, it severed them\nfrom their national roots, it turned to affectation or fanaticism,\nit rendered them acrid and fussy and eccentric and sad. It is truly\nEnglish, in one sense, to fume against England, individuality tearing\nits own nest; and often these frantic poses neutralize one another and\ndo no harm on the whole. Nevertheless it is the full-bodied Englishman\nwho has so far ballasted the ship, he who, like Shakespeare, can wear\ngracefully the fashion of the hour, can play with fancy, and remain a\nman. When he ceases to be sensual and national, adventurous and steady,\nreticent and religious, the Englishman is a mad ghost; and wherever he\nprevails he turns pleasant England, like Greece, into a memory.\n\nThose first holidays of mine, when I was twenty-three years of\nage, laid the foundation of a lifelong attachment--of which these\nSoliloquies are a late fruit--to both Oxford and Cambridge: not so much\nto the learned society of those places as to their picturesque aspects\nand to the possibility of enjoying there in seclusion the intense\ncompanionship of the past and of the beautiful; also the intense\ncompanionship of youth, to which more advanced years in themselves are\nno obstacle, if the soul remains free. I have never liked the taste of\nacademic straw; but there are fat grains and seeds of novelty even at\nuniversities, which the lively young wits that twitter in those shades\npick up like hungry sparrows, yet without unmitigated seriousness; and\nunmitigated seriousness is always out of place in human affairs. Let\nnot the unwary reader think me flippant for saying so; it was Plato,\nin his solemn old age, who said it. He added that our ignominious\ncondition forces us, nevertheless, to be often terribly in earnest.\nWanton and transitory as our existence is, and comic as it must appear\nin the eyes of the happy gods, it is all in all to our mortal nature;\nand whilst intellectually we may judge ourselves somewhat as the gods\nmight judge us, and may commend our lives to the keeping of eternity,\nour poor animal souls are caught inextricably in the toils of time,\nwhich devours us and all our possessions. The artist playing a farce\nfor others suffers a tragedy in himself. When he aspires to shed as\nmuch as possible the delusions of earthly passion, and to look at\nthings joyfully and unselfishly, with the clear eyes of youth, it is\nnot because he feels no weight of affliction, but precisely because he\nfeels its weight to the full, and how final it is. Lest it should seem\ninhuman of me to have been piping soliloquies whilst Rome was burning,\nI will transcribe here some desperate verses extorted from me by events\nduring those same years. I am hardly a poet in the magic sense of the\nword, but when one's thoughts have taken instinctively a metrical form,\nwhy should they be forbidden to wear it? I do not ask the reader to\nadmire these sonnets, but to believe them.\n\n\nA PREMONITION\n\n_Cambridge, October_ 1913\n\nGrey walls, broad fields, fresh voices, rippling weir,\nI know you well: ten faces, for each face\nThat passes smiling, haunt this hallowed place,\nAnd nothing not thrice noted greets me here.\nSoft watery winds, wide twilight skies and clear,\nRefresh my spirit at its founts of grace,\nAnd a strange sorrow masters me, to pace\nThese willowed paths, in this autumnal year.\nSoon, lovely England, soon thy secular dreams,\nThy lisping comrades, shall be thine no more.\nA world's loosed troubles flood thy gated streams\nAnd drown, methinks, thy towers; and the tears start\nAs if an iron hand had clutched my heart,\nAnd knowledge is a pang, like love of yore.\n\n\nTHE UNDERGRADUATE KILLED IN BATTLE\n\n_Oxford_, 1915\n\nSweet as the lawn beneath his sandalled tread,\nOr the scarce rippled stream beneath his oar,\nSo gently buffeted it laughed the more,\nHis life was, and the few blithe words he said.\nOne or two poets read he, and reread;\nOne or two friends with boyish ardour wore\nClose to his heart, incurious of the lore\nDodonian woods might murmur overhead.\nAh, demons of the whirlwind, have a care,\nWhat, trumpeting your triumphs, ye undo!\nThe earth once won, begins your long despair\nThat never, never is his bliss for you.\nHe breathed betimes this clement island air\nAnd in unwitting lordship saw the blue.\n\n\nTHE DARKEST HOUR\n\n_Oxford_, 1917\n\nSmother thy flickering light, the vigil's o'er.\nHope, early wounded, of his wounds is dead.\nMany a night long he smiled, his drooping head\nLaid on thy breast, and that brave smile he wore\nNot yet from his unbreathing lips is fled.\nEnough: on mortal sweetness look no more,\nPent in this charnel-house, fling wide the door\nAnd on the stars that killed him gaze instead.\nThe world's too vast for hope. The unteachable sun\nRises again and will reflood his sphere,\nBlotting with light what yesterday was done;\nBut the unavailing truth, though dead, lives on,\nAnd in eternal night, unkindly clear,\nA cold moon gilds the waves of Acheron.\n\n\n\n\nSOLILOQUIES IN ENGLAND\n\n1914-1918\n\n\n\n1\n\nATMOSPHERE\n\n\nThe stars lie above all countries alike, but the atmosphere that\nintervenes is denser in one place than in another; and even where\nit is purest, if once its atoms catch the sunlight, it cuts off the\nprospect beyond. In some climates the veil of earthly weather is so\nthick and blotted that even the plodder with his eyes on the ground\nfinds its density inconvenient, and misses his way home. The advantage\nof having eyes is neutralized at such moments, and it would be better\nto have retained the power of going on all fours and being guided by\nscent. In fact human beings everywhere are like marine animals and live\nin a congenial watery medium, which like themselves is an emanation\nof mother earth; and they are content for the most part to glide\nthrough it horizontally at their native level. They ignore the third,\nthe vertical dimension; or if they ever get some inkling of empty\nheights or rigid depths where they could not breathe, they dismiss\nthat speculative thought with a shudder, and continue to dart about in\ntheir familiar aquarium, immersed in an opaque fluid that cools their\npassions, protects their intellect from mental dispersion, keeps them\nfrom idle gazing, and screens them from impertinent observation by\nthose who have no business in the premises.\n\nThe stellar universe that silently surrounds them, if while swimming\nthey ever think of it, seems to them something foreign and not quite\ncredibly reported. How should anything exist so unlike home, so out of\nscale with their affairs, so little watery, and so little human? Their\nphilosophers confirm them in that incredulity; and the sea-caves hold\nconclaves of profound thinkers congregated to prove that only fog can\nbe real. The dry, their council decrees, is but a vain abstraction, a\nmere negative which human imagination opposes to the moist, of which\nalone, since life is moist, there can be positive experience.\n\nAs for the stars, these inspired children of the mist have discovered\nthat they are nothing but postulates of astronomy, imagined for a\nmoment to exist, in order that a beautiful human science may be\nconstructed about them. Duller people, born in the same fog, may not\nunderstand so transcendental a philosophy, but they spontaneously\nframe others of their own, not unlike it in principle. In the middle\nof the night, when the starlight best manages to pierce to the lowest\nstrata of the air, these good people are asleep; yet occasionally when\nthey are returning somewhat disappointed from a party, or when illness\nor anxiety or love-hunger keeps them pacing their chamber or tossing\nin their beds, by chance they may catch a glimpse of a star or two\ntwinkling between their curtains. Idle objects, they say to themselves,\nlike dots upon the wall-paper. Why should there be stars at all, and\nwhy so many of them? Certainly they shed a little light and are pretty;\nand they are a convenience sometimes in the country when there is no\nmoon and no lamp-posts; and they are said to be useful in navigation\nand to enable the astronomers to calculate sidereal time in addition\nto solar time, which is doubtless a great satisfaction to them. But\nall this hardly seems to justify such an expense of matter and energy\nas is involved in celestial mechanics. To have so much going on so far\naway, and for such prodigious lengths of time, seems rather futile and\nterrible. Who knows? Astrologers used to foretell people's character\nand destiny by their horoscope; perhaps they may turn out to have been\nmore or less right after all, now that science is coming round to\nsupport more and more what our fathers called superstitions. There may\nbe some meaning in the stars, a sort of code-language such as Bacon put\ninto Shakespeare's sonnets, which would prove to us, if we could only\nread it, not how insignificant, but how very important we are in the\nworld, since the very stars are talking about us.\n\nThe safest thing, however, is to agree with the great idealists, who\nsay there are really no stars at all. Or, if their philosophy seems\ninsecure--and there are rumours that even the professors are hedging\non the subject--we can always take refuge in faith, and think of the\nheavenly bodies as beautiful new homes in which we are to meet and work\ntogether again when we die; and as in time we might grow weary even\nthere, with being every day busier and busier, there must always be\nother stars at hand for us to move to, each happier and busier than the\nlast; and since we wish to live and to progress for ever, the number of\nhabitable planets provided for us has to be infinite. Certainly faith\nis far better than science for explaining everything.\n\nSo the embryonic soul reasons in her shell of vapour; her huddled\nphilosophy is, as it were, pre-natal, and discredits the possibility\nof ever peeping into a cold outer world. Yet in time this shell may\ngrow dangerously thin in places, and a little vague light may filter\nthrough. Strange promptings and premonitions at the same time may visit\nthe imprisoned spirit, as if it might not be impossible nor inglorious\nto venture into a world that was not oneself. At last, willy-nilly, the\nsoul may be actually hatched, and may suddenly find herself horribly\nexposed, cast perhaps on the Arabian desert, or on some high, scorched,\nopen place that resembles it, like the uplands of Castile. There the\nrarefied atmosphere lets the stars down upon her overwhelmingly, like a\nveritable host of heaven. There the barren earth entwines few tentacles\nabout the heart; it stretches away dark and empty beneath our feet, a\nmere footstool for meditation. It is a thing to look away from, too\nindifferent and accidental even to spurn; for after all it supports\nus, and though small and extinguished it is one of the stars. In these\nregions the shepherds first thought of God.\n\n\n\n\n2\n\nGRISAILLE\n\n\nEngland is pre-eminently a land of atmosphere. A luminous haze\npermeates everywhere, softening distances, magnifying perspectives,\ntransfiguring familiar objects, harmonizing the accidental, making\nbeautiful things magical and ugly things picturesque. Road and pavement\nbecome wet mirrors, in which the fragments of this gross world are\nshattered, inverted, and transmuted into jewels, more appealing than\nprecious stones to the poet, because they are insubstantial and must be\nloved without being possessed. Mists prolong the most sentimental and\nsoothing of hours, the twilight, through the long summer evenings and\nthe whole winter's day. In these country-sides so full of habitations\nand these towns so full of verdure, lamplight and twilight cross their\nrays; and the passers-by, mercifully wrapped alike in one crepuscular\nmantle, are reduced to unison and simplicity, as if sketched at one\nstroke by the hand of a master.\n\nEnglish landscape, if we think only of the land and the works of man\nupon it, is seldom on the grand scale. Charming, clement, and eminently\nhabitable, it is almost too domestic, as if only home passions and\ncaged souls could live there. But lift the eyes for a moment above the\nline of roofs or of tree-tops, and there the grandeur you miss on the\nearth is spread gloriously before you. The spirit of the atmosphere\nis not compelled, like the god of pantheism, to descend in order to\nexist, and wholly to diffuse itself amongst earthly objects. It exists\nabsolutely in its own person as well, and enjoys in the sky, like a\ntrue deity, its separate life and being. There the veil of Maya, the\nheavenly Penelope, is being woven and rent perpetually, and the winds\nof destiny are always charmingly defeating their apparent intentions.\nHere is the playground of those early nebulous gods that had the bodies\nof giants and the minds of children.\n\nIn England the classic spectacle of thunderbolts and rainbows appears\nbut seldom; such contrasts are too violent and definite for these\ntender skies. Here the conflict between light and darkness, like\nall other conflicts, ends in a compromise; cataclysms are rare, but\nrevolution is perpetual. Everything lingers on and is modified; all is\nluminous and all is grey.\n\n\n\n\n3\n\nPRAISES OF WATER\n\n\nThe transformation of landscape by moisture is no matter of appearance\nonly, no mere optical illusion or effect of liquid stained glass. It\nis a sort of echo or symbol to our senses of very serious events in\nprehistoric times. Water, which now seems only to lap the earth or to\ncloud it, was the chisel which originally carved its surface. They say\nthat when the planet, recently thrown off from the sun, was still on\nfire, the lighter elements rose in the form of gases around the molten\nmetallic core; and the outer parts of this nucleus in cooling formed\na crust of igneous rock which, as the earth contracted, was crushed\ntogether and wrinkled like the skin of a raisin. These wrinkles are\nour mountain chains, made even more rugged and villainous by belated\neruptions. On that early earth there was no water. All was sheer peaks,\nledges, and chasms, red-hot or coal-black, or of such livid metallic\nhues, crimson, saffron, and purple, as may still be seen on the shores\nof the Dead Sea or in the Grand Canyon of the Colorado--rifts that\nallow us to peep into the infernal regions, happily in those places\nat least without inhabitants. This hellish sort of landscape, which\nwe must now plunge into the depths to find, was the first general\nlandscape of earth.\n\nAs the cooling progressed, however, the steam that was in the upper\natmosphere began to condense and to fall in rain. At first the hot\ndrops no doubt sizzled as they fell and rose again immediately in\nvapour, yet the meteorological cycle was established notwithstanding.\nThe rain that evaporated descended once more, each time colder and\nmore abundant, until it cut channels amongst the crags, ground and\npolished their fragments into boulders and pebbles, formed pools in the\nhollows, and finally covered the earth up to its chin with the oceans.\nMuch detritus meantime was washed down from the rocks; it gathered in\ncrevices and along the pockets and slacker reaches of rivers. This\nsediment was soaked with moisture and mixed with dissolved acids; it\nbecame the first soft layer of earth and finally a fertile soil. Water\nin this way softened the outlines of the mountains, laid the floor of\nthe valleys, and made a leafy and a cloudy place of the planet.\n\nThe sages (and some of them much more recent than Thales) tell us\nthat water not only wears away the rocks, but has a singular power of\ncarrying away their subtler elements in solution, especially carbonic\nacid, of which the atmosphere also is full; and it happens that\nthese elements can combine with the volatile dements of water into\ninnumerable highly complex substances, all of which the atmospheric\ncycle carries with it wherever it goes; and with these complex\nsubstances, which are the requisite materials for living bodies, it\neverywhere fills the sea and impregnates the land.\n\nEven if life, then, is not actually born of the moist element, it is at\nleast suckled by it; the water-laden atmosphere is the wet nurse, if\nnot the mother, of the earth-soul. The earth has its soul outside its\nbody, as many a philosopher would have wished to have his. The winds\nthat play about it are its breath, the water that rains down and rises\nagain in mist is its circulating blood; and the death of the earth will\ncome when some day it sucks in the atmosphere and the sea, gets its\nsoul inside its body again, turns its animating gases back into solids,\nand becomes altogether a skeleton of stone.\n\nNo wonder that living creatures find things that are fluid and immersed\nin moisture friendly to the watery core of their own being. Seeds,\nblood, and tears are liquid; nothing else is so poignant as what passes\nand flows, like music and love; and if this irreparable fluidity is\nsad, anything stark and arrested is still sadder. Life is compelled to\nflow, and things must either flow with it or, like Lot's wife, in the\npetrified gesture of refusal, remain to mock their own hope.\n\n\n\n\n4\n\nTHE TWO PARENTS OF VISION\n\n\nIt would seem that when a heavenly body ceases to shine by its own\nlight, it becomes capable of breeding eyes with which to profit by the\nlight other bodies are shedding; whereas, so long as it was itself\non fire, no part of it could see. Is life a gift which cooling stars\nreceive from those still incandescent, when some ray falls upon a moist\nspot, making it a focus of warmth and luminous energy, and reversing\nat that point the general refrigeration? It is certain, at any rate,\nthat if light did not pour down from the sun no earthly animal would\nhave developed an eye. Yet there was another partner in this business\nof seeing, who would have flatly refused to undertake it, had the sole\nprofit been the possibility of star-gazing.\n\nStar-gazing is an ulterior platonic homage which we pay to our\ncelestial sources, as a sort of pious acknowledgment of their\nmunificence in unconsciously begetting us. But this is an\nacknowledgment which they are far from demanding or noticing, not\nbeing vain or anxious to be admired, like popular gods; and if we\nomitted it, they would continue to perform their offices towards us\nwith the same contemptuous regularity. Star-gazing is, therefore, a\npure waste of time in the estimation of the other partner in vision,\nbesides celestial light--I mean, that clod of moist earth which the\nlight quickens, that plastic home-keeping parent of the mind, whom we\nmight call old mother Psyche, and whose primary care is to keep the\nbody in order and guide it prudently over the earth's surface. For\nsuch a purpose the direct rays of the sun are blinding, and those of\nthe moon and stars fit only to breed lunatics. To mother Psyche it\nseems a blessing that the view of the infinite from the earth is so\noften intercepted; else it might have sunk into her heart (for she has\nwatched through many a night in her long vegetative career), and might\nhave stretched her comfortable industrious sanity into a sort of divine\nmadness or reason, very disconcerting in her business. Indeed, she\nwould never have consented to look or to see at all, except for this\ncircumstance, that the rays coming from heavenly bodies are reflected\nby earthly bodies upon one another; so that by becoming sensitive to\nlight the Psyche could receive a most useful warning of what to seek or\nto avoid. Instead of merely stretching or poking or sniffing through\nthe world, she could now map it at a glance, and turn instinct into\nforesight.\n\nThis was a great turn in her career, wonderful in its tragic\npossibilities, and something like falling in love; for her new art\nbrought her a new pleasure and a new unrest, purer and more continual\nthan those drowsy and terrible ones which she knew before. Reflected\nlight is beautiful. The direct downpour of light through space leaves\nspace wonderfully dark, and it falls on the earth indiscriminately\nupon the wise and the foolish, to warm or to scorch them; but the\nfew rays caught by solid matter or drifting vapour become prismatic,\nsoft, and infinitely varied; not only reporting truly the position and\nmaterial diversity of things, but adding to them an orchestration in\ndesign and colour bewitching to the senses. It was not the stars but\nthe terrestrial atmosphere that the eyes of the flesh were made to\nsee; even mother Psyche can love the light, when it clothes or betrays\nsomething else that matters; and the fleshly-spiritual Goethe said most\ntruly: _Am farbigen Abglanz haben wir das Leben_.\n\n\n\n\n5\n\nAVERSION FROM PLATONISM\n\n\nRepetition is the only form of permanence that nature can achieve,\nand in those Mediterranean regions that nurtured the classic mind,\nby continually repeating the same definite scenes, nature forced it\nto fix its ideas. Every one learned to think that the earth and the\ngods were more permanent than himself; he perused them, he returned to\nthem, he studied them at arm's length, and he recognized their external\ndivinity. But where the Atlantic mists envelop everything, though we\nmust repeatedly use the same names for new-born things, as we continue\nto christen children John and Mary, yet we feel that the facts, like\nthe persons, are never really alike; everything is so fused, merged,\nand continuous, that whatever element we may choose to say is repeated\nseems but a mental abstraction and a creature of language. The weather\nhas got into our bones; there is a fog in the brain; the limits of our\nown being become uncertain to us. Yet what is the harm, if only we\nmove and change inwardly in harmony with the ambient flux? Why this\nmania for naming and measuring and mastering what is carrying us so\nmerrily along? Why shouldn't the intellect be vague while the heart is\ncomfortable?\n\n\n\n\n6\n\nCLOUD CASTLES\n\n\nThe heavens are the most constant thing we know, the skies the most\ninconstant. Even the Olympian expanse, when blue and cloudless, is\nan aspect of terrestrial atmosphere in a holiday mood, a sort of gay\nparasol which the Earth holds up when she walks in the sun, and takes\ndown again when she walks in the shadow; while clouds are veils wrapped\nmore closely about her, and even more friendly to her frailty. Nor are\nthese feminine trappings less lovely for being easily blown about, and\nalways fresh and in the latest fashion. It is a prejudice to suppose\nthat instability must be sad or must be trivial. A new cloud castle is\nprobably well worth an old one; any one of them may equal in beauty\nthe monotonous gold and black vault which it conceals from us, and all\nof them together certainly surpass that tragic decoration in spiritual\nsuggestion. Something in us no doubt regrets that these airy visions\nvanish so quickly and are irrecoverable; but this is a sort of fleshly\nsentimentality of ours and not reasonable. In nature, what disappears\nnever narrows the range of what is yet to be. If we were immortally\nyoung, like the atmosphere, the lapse of things would not grieve us,\nnor would inconstancy be a vice in ourselves. Nobody's future would be\nblighted by his past; and this perhaps explains the morals of the gods.\nChange to us is an omen of death, and only in the timeless can we feel\nsecure; but if we were safe in our plastic existence, like nature and\nthe gods of nature, fidelity to a single love might seem foolish in\nus; being and possessing any one thing would not then be incompatible\nwith sooner or later being and possessing everything else. Nature and\nsubstance are like the absolute actor with an equal affinity for every\npart, and changing sex, age, and station with perfect good grace.\n\nA great principle of charity in morals is not to blame the fishes for\ntheir bad taste in liking to live under water. Yet many philosophers\nseem to have sinned against this reasonable law, since they have blamed\nlife and nature for liking to change, which is as much as to say for\nliking to live. Certainly life and nature, when they produce thought,\nturn from themselves towards the eternal, but it is by a glance, itself\nmomentary, that they turn to it; for if they were themselves converted\ninto something changeless, they could neither live, think, nor turn.\nIn the realm of existence it is not sinful to be fugitive nor in bad\ntaste to be new. Accordingly cloud castles have nothing to blush for;\nif they have a weak hold on existence, so has everything good. We are\nwarned that the day of judgement will be full of surprises: perhaps\none of them may be that in heaven things are even more unstable than\non earth, and that the mansions reserved for us there are not only\nmany but insecure. Cloud castles are hints to us that eternity has\nnothing to do with duration, nor beauty with substantial existence, and\nthat even in heaven our bliss would have to be founded on a smiling\nrenunciation. Did Mohammed, I wonder, misunderstand the archangel\nGabriel in gathering that celestial beauties (unlike the lights and\nvoices of Dante's paradise) could be embraced as well as admired?\nAnd in promising that our heavenly brides would daily recover their\nvirginity, did he simply clothe in a congenial metaphor the fact that\nthey would be different brides every day, and that if we wished to\ndwell in a true paradise, and not in a quarrelsome and sordid harem, we\nmust never dream of seeing any of them a second time?\n\nFidelity is a virtue akin to habit and rooted in the inertia of animal\nlife, which would run amok without trusty allies and familiar signals.\nWe have an inveterate love of _The Same_, because our mortal condition\nobliges us to reconsider facts and to accumulate possessions; by\ninstinct both the heart and the intellect hug everything they touch,\nand to let anything go is a sort of death to them. This spirit of\npathetic fidelity in us would certainly reproach those ethereal visions\nfor being ephemeral, and Cupid for having wings and no heart; but\nmight not the visiting angels in turn reproach us for clownishness in\nwishing to detain them? They are not made of flesh and blood; they are\nnot condemned to bear children. Their smile, their voice, and the joy\nthey bring us are the only life they have. They are fertile only like\nthe clouds, in that by dissolving they give place to some other form,\nno less lovely and elusive than themselves; and perhaps if we took a\nlong view we should not feel that our own passage through existence\nhad a very different quality. We last as a strain of music lasts, and\nwe go where it goes. Is it not enough that matter should illustrate\neach ideal possibility only once and for a moment, and that Caesar or\nShakespeare should figure once in this world? To repeat them would not\nintensify their reality, while it would impoverish and make ridiculous\nthe pageant of time, like a stage army running round behind the scenes\nin order to reappear. To come to an end is a virtue when one has had\none's day, seeing that in the womb of the infinite there are always\nother essences no less deserving of existence.\n\nEven cloud castles, however, have a double lien on permanence. A flash\nof lightning is soon over, yet so long as the earth is wrapped in\nits present atmosphere, flashes will recur from time to time so very\nlike this one that the mind will make the same comment upon them, and\nits pronouncements on its past experience will remain applicable to\nits experience to come. Fleeting things in this way, when they are\nrepeated, survive and are united in the wisdom which they teach us in\ncommon. At the same time they inwardly contain something positively\neternal, since the essences they manifest are immutable in character,\nand from their platonic heaven laugh at this inconstant world, into\nwhich they peep for a moment, when a chance collocation of atoms\nsuggests one or another of them to our minds. To these essences mind\nis constitutionally addressed, and into them it likes to sink in its\nself-forgetfulness. It is only our poor mother Psyche, being justly\nafraid of growing old, who must grudge the exchange of one vision\nfor another. Material life is sluggish and conservative; it would\ngladly drag the whole weary length of its past behind it, like a worm\nafraid of being cut in two in its crawling. It is haunted by a ghostly\nmemory, a wonderful but not successful expedient for calling the dead\nto life, in order, somewhat inconsistently, to mourn over them and be\ncomforted. Why not kiss our successive pleasures good-bye, simply and\nwithout marking our preferences, as we do our children when they file\nto bed? A free mind does not measure the worth of anything by the worth\nof anything else. It is itself at least as plastic as nature and has\nnothing to fear from revolutions. To live in the moment would indeed be\nbrutish and dangerous if we narrowed to a moment the time embraced in\nour field of view, since with the wider scope of thought come serenity\nand dominion; but to live in the moment is the only possible life if\nwe consider the spiritual activity itself. The most protracted life,\nin the actual living, can be nothing but a chain of moments, each\nthe seat of its irrecoverable vision, each a dramatic perspective of\nthe world, seen in the light of a particular passion at a particular\njuncture. But at each moment the wholeness of mind is spiritual and\naesthetic, the wholeness of a meaning or a picture, and no knife can\ndivide it. Its immortality, too, is timeless, like that of the truths\nand forms in which it is absorbed. Therefore apprehension can afford\nto hasten all the more trippingly in its career, touching the facts\nhere and there for a moment, and building its cloud castles out of\nlight and air, movement and irony, to let them lapse again without a\npang. Contemplation, when it frees itself from animal anxiety about\nexistence, ceases to question and castigate its visions, as if they\nwere mere signals of alarm or hints of hidden treasures; and then it\ncannot help seeing what treasures these visions hold within themselves,\neach framing some luminous and divine essence, as a telescope frames a\nstar; and something of their inalienable distinction and firmness seems\nto linger in our minds, though in the exigencies of our hurried life we\nmust turn away from each of them and forget them.\n\n\n\n\n7\n\nCROSS-LIGHTS\n\n\nThey say the sun is a very small star, and the thing is plausible\nenough in itself, without the proofs which presumably the astronomers\ncan give of it. That which nature produces she is apt to produce in\ncrowds; what she does once, if she has her way, she will do often, with\na persistency and monotony which would be intolerable to her if she\nwere endowed with memory; but hers is a life of habit and automatic\nrepetition, varied only when there is some hitch in the clockwork, and\nshe begins hurriedly beating a new tune. Accordingly, what any creature\ncalls the present time, the living interest, the ruling power, or the\ntrue religion is almost always but as one leaf in a tree. The same\nplastic stress which created it creates a million comparable things\naround it. Yet it is easy for each to ignore its neighbours, and to be\nshocked at the notion of loving them as itself; for they all have their\nseparate places or seasons, and bloom on their several stems, so that\nan accident that overwhelms one of them may easily leave the others\nunscathed. But for all that, they are as multitudinous and similar as\nthe waves of the sea. Take any star at random, like our sun, or any\npoet, or any idea, and whilst certainly it will be the nearest and\nwarmest to somebody, it is not at all likely to be the greatest of its\nkind, or even very remarkable.\n\nNevertheless, in a moral perspective, nearness makes all the\ndifference; and for us the sun is a veritable ruling deity and parent\nof light; he is the centre and monarch of our home system. Similarly\neach living being is a sort of sun to itself; this spark within me,\nby whose light I see at all, is a great sun to me; and considering\nhow wide a berth other spiritual luminaries seem to give me, I must\nwarm myself chiefly by my own combustion, and remain singularly\nimportant to myself. This importance belongs to the humour of material\nexistence, visible when I look at my seamy side; it vanishes in so\nfar as my little light actually bums clear, and my intent flies with\nit to whatever objects its rays can reach, no matter how distant or\nalien. Yet this very intelligence and scope in me are functions of my\ninward fire: seeing, too, is burning. An atomic and spark-like form of\nexistence, prevalent in nature, is absolutely essential to spirit; and\nI find it very acceptable. It is a free, happy, and humble condition.\nI welcome the minute bulk, the negligible power, the chance quality\nand oddity of my being, combined as it is with vital independence\nand adequate fuel in my small bunkers for my brief voyage. On a\nvaster scale, I think the sun, for all his littleness, has a splendid\nprerogative, and I honour Phoebus as a happy god. The happiest part\nof his condition and his best claim to deity lie in this: that he can\nirradiate and kindle the frozen or vaporous bodies that swim about him;\nhe can create the moonlight and the earthlight, much more powerful than\nthe moonlight. This earthlight, if we could only get far enough from\nthe earth to see it, would seem strangely brilliant and beautiful; it\nwould show sea-tints and snow-tints and sand-tints; there would be\ngreens and purples in it reflected from summer and winter zones, dotted\nwith cinder scars and smoke-wreaths of cities. Yet all these lights are\nonly sunlight, received and returned with thanks.\n\nNor is this surface shimmer, visible to telescopic observers, the\nonly benefit gained: something is kept back and absorbed; some warmth\nsinks into the substance of the earth and permeates its watery soil,\ninitiating currents in the sea and air, and quickening many a nest of\nparticles into magnetic and explosive and contagious motions. This\nlife which arises in the earth is an obeisance to the sun. The flowers\nturn to the light and the eye follows it, animal bodies imbibe it, and\nsend it forth again in glad looks and keen attention; and when dreams\nand thoughts, even with the eyes shut, play within us like flamelets\namongst the coals, it is still the light of the sun, strangely stored\nand transmuted, that shines in those visions. Certainly intelligence\nin its cognitive intent is radically immaterial, and nothing could be\nmore heterogeneous from vibrations, attractions, or ethereal currents\nthan the power to make assertions that shall be true or false, relevant\nor irrelevant to outlying things; but this so spiritual power is\nprofoundly natural; it plainly exhibits an animal awaking to the\npresence of other bodies that actually surround him, resenting their\ncruelty or warming to their conquest and absorption. Apart from its\nroots in animal predicaments, spirit would be wholly inexplicable in\nits moods and arbitrary in its deliverance. The more ecstatic or the\nmore tragic experience is, the more unmistakably it is the voice of\nmatter. It then obviously retraces and makes incandescent the silent\nrelations of things with things, by which its weal or woe is decided.\nSometimes it simply burns in their midst and moves in their company\nlike the sun amongst the stars he ignores; sometimes it gilds in its\nhighly coloured lights the surface of things turned in its direction.\nWere not the distances between bodies spanned by some universal\ngravitation (which we are now told may be a sort of light), we may be\nsure that sense and fancy, which are profoundly vegetative things,\nwould never leap from their source and discount their images in the\nheroic effort to understand the world. But the fire of life casts\nits passionate illumination on the dead things that control it, and\nraises to aesthetic actuality various poetic symbols of their power.\nDead things possess, of course, in their own right, their material and\nlogical being, but they borrow from the adventitious interest which a\nliving creature must needs take in them their various moral dignities\nand all their part in the conscious world. It is intelligible that\nmoralists and psychologists should be absorbed in those reflections\nof their attention which reach them from things distant or near, and\nthat they should pronounce the whole universe to be nothing but their\nexperience of it, a sort of rainbow or crescent kindly decorating their\npersonal sky. On the same principle the sun (who, being a material\ncreature, would also be subject to egotism) might say that the only\nsubstance in the universe was light, and that the earth and moon were\nnothing but ethereal mirrors palely reflecting his own fire. It would\nseem absurd to him that the earth or its inhabitants should profess to\nhave any bowels. Inextinguishable laughter and self-assurance would\nseize him at the report that any dark places existed, or any invisible\nthoughts. He would never admit that, in all this, he was himself\nthinking; what we should call his thoughts he would maintain (without\nthinking!) were evident meteors moving and shining on their own account.\n\nSuch are the cross-lights of animal persuasion. Things, when seen,\nseem to come and go with our visions; and visions, when we do not know\nwhy they visit us, seem to be things. But this is not the end of the\nstory. Opacity is a great discoverer. It teaches the souls of animals\nthe existence of what is not themselves. Their souls in fact live and\nspread their roots in the darkness, which embosoms and creates the\nlight, though the light does not comprehend it. If sensuous evidence\nflooded the whole sphere with which souls are conversant, they would\nhave no reason for suspecting that there was anything they did not\nsee, and they would live in a fool's paradise of lucidity. Fortunately\nfor their wisdom, if not for their comfort, they come upon mysteries\nand surprises, earthquakes and rumblings in their hidden selves and\nin their undeciphered environment; they live in time, which is a\ndouble abyss of darkness; and the primary and urgent object of their\ncuriosity is that unfathomable engine of nature which from its ambush\ngoverns their fortunes. The proud, who shine by their own light, do\nnot perceive matter, the fuel that feeds and will some day fail them;\nbut the knowledge of it comes to extinct stars in their borrowed light\nand almost mortal coldness, because they need to warm themselves at\na distant fire and to adapt their seasons to its favourable shining.\nWhen we are on the shady side of the earth we can, as a compensation,\nrange in knowledge far beyond our painted atmosphere, and far beyond\nthat little sun who, so long as he shone upon us, seemed to ride at\nthe top of heaven; we can perceive a galaxy of other lights, no less\noriginal than he, to which his glory blinded us; we can even discover\nhow he himself, if his hot head of burning hair would only suffer him\nto notice it, lives subject to their perpetual influence. Beautiful and\nhappy god as Phoebus may be, he is not a just god nor an everlasting\none. He is a lyric singer; he is not responsible save to his own\nheart, and not obliged to know other things. He lives in the eternal,\nand does not need to be perpetual. And he is often beneficent in his\nspontaneity, and many of us have cause to thank and to love him. There\nis an uncovenanted society of spirits, like that of the morning stars\nsinging together, or of all the larks at once in the sky; it is a happy\naccident of freedom and a conspiracy of solitudes. When people _talk\ntogether_, they are at once entangled in a mesh of instrumentalities,\nirrelevance, misunderstanding, vanity, and propaganda; and all to no\npurpose, for why should creatures become alike who are different? But\nwhen minds, being naturally akin and each alone in its own heaven,\n_soliloquize in harmony_, saying compatible things only because their\nhearts are similar, then society is friendship in the spirit; and the\nunison of many thoughts twinkles happily in the night across the void\nof separation.\n\n\n\n\n8\n\nHAMLET'S QUESTION\n\n\nTo be born is painful, and the profit of it so uncertain that we need\nnot wonder if sometimes the mind as well as the body seems to hold\nback. The winds of February are not colder to a featherless chick than\nare the surprises which nature and truth bring to our dreaming egotism.\nIt was warm and safe in the egg; exciting enough, too, to feel a new\norgan throbbing here or a fresh limb growing out there. No suspicion\nvisited the happy creature that these budding domestic functions were\nbut preparations for foreign wars and omens of a disastrous death, to\novertake it sooner or later in a barbarous, militant, incomprehensible\nworld. Of death, and even of birth (its ominous counterpart) the embryo\nhad no idea. It believed simply in the tight spherical universe which\nit knew, and was confident of living in it for ever. It would have\nthought heaven had fallen if its shell had cracked. How should life\nbe possible in a world of uncertain dimensions, where incalculable\nblows might fall upon us at any time from any quarter? What a wild\nphilosophy, to invent objects and dangers of which there was absolutely\nno experience! And yet for us now, accustomed to the buffets and\nambitions of life in the open, that pre-natal vegetative dream seems\nworthless and contemptible, and hardly deserving the name of existence.\n\nCould we have debated Hamlet's question before we were conceived, the\nanswer might well have been doubtful; or rather reason, not serving\nany prior instinct, could have expressed no preference and must have\nleft the decision to chance. Birth and death are the right moments for\nabsolute courage. But when once the die is cast and we exist, so that\nHamlet's question can be put to us, the answer is already given; nature\nin forming us has compelled us to prejudge the case. She has decreed\nthat all the beasts and many a man should propagate without knowing\nwhat they are about; and the infant soul for its part, when once\nbegotten, is constitutionally bent on working out its powers and daring\nthe adventure of life. To have made the great refusal at the beginning,\nfor fear of what shocks and hardships might come, seems to us, now that\nwe are launched, morose and cowardly. Our soul, with its fluttering\nhopes and alarmed curiosity, is made to flee from death, and seems to\nthink, if we judge by its action, that to miss experience altogether is\nworse and sadder than any life, however troubled or short. If nature\nhas fooled us in this, she doubtless saw no harm in doing so, and\nthought it quite compatible with heartily loving us in her rough way.\nShe merely yielded to a tendency to tease which is strangely prevalent\namong nurses. With a sort of tyrannical fondness, to make us show our\npaces, she dangled this exciting and unsatisfactory bauble of life\nbefore us for a moment, only to laugh at us, and kiss us, and presently\nlay our head again on her appeasing breast.\n\nThe fear which children feel at being left in the dark or alone or\namong strangers goes somewhat beyond what a useful instinct would\nrequire; for they are likely to be still pretty well embosomed and\nprotected, not to say smothered. It is as if the happy inmate of\nsome model gad took alarm at the opening of his cell door, thinking\nhe was to be driven out and forced to take his chances again in this\nrough wide world, when, in fact, all was well and he was only being\ninvited to walk in the prison garden. Just so when the young mind\nhears the perilous summons to think, it is usually a false alarm. In\nits philosophical excursions it is likely to remain well blanketed\nfrom the truth and comfortably muffled in its own atmosphere. Groping\nand empirical in its habits, it will continue in the path it happens\nto have turned into; for in a fog how should it otherwise choose\nits direction? Its natural preference is to be guided by touch and\nsmell, but it sometimes finds it convenient to use its eyes and ears\nas a substitute. So long as the reference to the vegetative soul\nand its comforts remains dominant, this substitution is harmless.\nSights and sounds will then be but flowers in the prisoner's garden,\nand intelligence a maze through which at best he will find his way\nhome again. Some danger there always is, even in such an outing; for\nthis walled garden has gates into the fields, which by chance may\nbe left open. Sight and sound, in their useful ministrations, may\ncreate a new interest, and run into sheer music and star-gazing.\nThe life the senses were meant to serve will then be forgotten; the\npsychic atmosphere--which of course is indispensable--will be pierced,\ndiscounted, and used as a pleasant vehicle to things and to truths; and\nthe motherly soul, having unintentionally given birth to the intellect,\nwill grumble at her runaway and thankless child. As for the truant\nhimself, Hamlet's question will lapse from his view altogether, not\nbecause nature has answered it for him beforehand, but because his own\ndisinterestedness and rapture have robbed it of all urgency. Intellect\nis passionate, and natural, and human enough, as singing is; it is all\nthe purer and keener for having emancipated itself, like singing, from\nits uses, if it ever had any, and having become a delight in itself.\nBut it is not concerned with its own organs or their longevity; it\ncannot understand why its mother, the earthly soul, thinks all the good\nand evil things that happen in this world are of no consequence, if\nthey do not happen to her.\n\n\n\n\n9\n\nTHE BRITISH CHARACTER\n\n\nWhat is it that governs the Englishman? Certainly not intelligence;\nseldom passion; hardly self-interest, since what we call self-interest\nis nothing but some dull passion served by a brisk intelligence. The\nEnglishman's heart is perhaps capricious or silent; it is seldom\ndesigning or mean. There are nations where people are always innocently\nexplaining how they have been lying and cheating in small matters,\nto get out of some predicament, or secure some advantage; that seems\nto them a part of the art of living. Such is not the Englishman's\nway: it is easier for him to face or to break opposition than to\ncircumvent it. If we tried to say that what governs him is convention,\nwe should have to ask ourselves how it comes about that England is\nthe paradise of individuality, eccentricity, heresy, anomalies,\nhobbies, and humours. Nowhere do we come oftener upon those two social\nabortions--the affected and the disaffected. Where else would a man\ninform you, with a sort of proud challenge, that he lived on nuts, or\nwas in correspondence through a medium with Sir Joshua Reynolds, or had\nbeen disgustingly housed when last in prison? Where else would a young\nwoman, in dress and manners the close copy of a man, tell you that her\nparents were odious, and that she desired a husband but no children, or\nchildren without a husband? It is true that these novelties soon become\nthe conventions of some narrower circle, or may even have been adopted\n_en bloc_ in emotional desperation, as when people are converted; and\nthe oddest sects demand the strictest self-surrender. Nevertheless,\nwhen people are dissident and supercilious by temperament, they manage\nto wear their uniforms with a difference, turning them by some lordly\nadaptation into a part of their own person.\n\nLet me come to the point boldly; what governs the Englishman is his\ninner atmosphere, the weather in his soul. It is nothing particularly\nspiritual or mysterious. When he has taken his exercise and is drinking\nhis tea or his beer and lighting his pipe; when, in his garden or\nby his fire, he sprawls in an aggressively comfortable chair; when,\nwell-washed and well-brushed, he resolutely turns in church to the east\nand recites the Creed (with genuflexions, if he likes genuflexions)\nwithout in the least implying that he believes one word of it;\nwhen he hears or sings the most crudely sentimental and thinnest\nof popular songs, unmoved but not disgusted; when he makes up his\nmind who is his best friend or his favourite poet; when he adopts a\nparty or a sweetheart; when he is hunting or shooting or boating, or\nstriding through the fields; when he is choosing his clothes or his\nprofession--never is it a precise reason, or purpose, or outer fact\nthat determines him; it is always the atmosphere of his inner man.\n\nTo say that this atmosphere was simply a sense of physical well-being,\nof coursing blood and a prosperous digestion, would be far too gross;\nfor while psychic weather is all that, it is also a witness to some\nsettled disposition, some ripening inclination for this or that, deeply\nrooted in the soul. It gives a sense of direction in life which is\nvirtually a code of ethics, and a religion behind religion. On the\nother hand, to say it was the vision of any ideal or allegiance to\nany principle would be making it far too articulate and abstract.\nThe inner atmosphere, when compelled to condense into words, may\nprecipitate some curt maxim or over-simple theory as a sort of war-cry;\nbut its puerile language does it injustice, because it broods at a\nmuch deeper level than language or even thought. It is a mass of dumb\ninstincts and allegiances, the love of a certain quality of life, to\nbe maintained manfully. It is pregnant with many a stubborn assertion\nand rejection. It fights under its trivial fluttering opinions like\na smoking battleship under its flags and signals; you must consider,\nnot what they are, but why they have been hoisted and will not be\nlowered. One is tempted at times to turn away in despair from the most\ndelightful acquaintance--the picture of manliness, grace, simplicity,\nand honour, apparently rich in knowledge and humour--because of some\nenormous platitude he reverts to, some hopelessly stupid little dogma\nfrom which one knows that nothing can ever liberate him. The reformer\nmust give him up; but why should one wish to reform a person so much\nbetter than oneself? He is like a thoroughbred horse, satisfying to the\ntrained eye, docile to the light touch, and coursing in most wonderful\nunison with you through the open world. What do you care what words he\nuses? Are you impatient with the lark because he sings rather than\ntalks? and if he could talk, would you be irritated by his curious\nopinions? Of course, if any one positively asserts what is contrary to\nfact, there is an error, though the error may be harmless; and most\ndivergencies between men should interest us rather than offend us,\nbecause they are effects of perspective, or of legitimate diversity in\nexperience and interests. Trust the man who hesitates in his speech and\nis quick and steady in action, but beware of long arguments and long\nbeards. Jupiter decided the most intricate questions with a nod, and a\nvery few words and no gestures suffice for the Englishman to make his\ninner mind felt most unequivocably when occasion requires.\n\nInstinctively the Englishman is no missionary, no conqueror. He prefers\nthe country to the town, and home to foreign parts. He is rather\nglad and relieved if only natives will remain natives and strangers\nstrangers, and at a comfortable distance from himself. Yet outwardly\nhe is most hospitable and accepts almost anybody for the time being;\nhe travels and conquers without a settled design, because he has the\ninstinct of exploration. His adventures are all external; they change\nhim so little that he is not afraid of them. He carries his English\nweather in his heart wherever he goes, and it becomes a cool spot in\nthe desert, and a steady and sane oracle amongst all the deliriums of\nmankind. Never since the heroic days of Greece has the world had such a\nsweet, just, boyish master. It will be a black day for the human race\nwhen scientific blackguards, conspirators, churls, and fanatics manage\nto supplant him.\n\n\n\n\n10\n\nSEAFARING\n\n\nAll peoples that dwell by the sea sometimes venture out upon it.\nThe boys are eager to swim and sail, and the men may be turned into\nhabitual navigators by the spirit of enterprise or by necessity. But\nsome races take to the water more kindly than others, either because\nthey love the waves more or the furrow less. We may imagine that\nsheer distress drove the Norse fishermen and pirates into their open\nboats. The ocean they explored was rough and desolate; the fish and the\npillaged foreigner had to compensate them for their privations. They\nquitted their fiords and brackish islands dreaming of happier lands.\nBut with the Greeks and the English the case was somewhat different.\nThere are no happier lands than theirs; and they set forth for the most\npart on summer seas, towards wilder and less populous regions. They\nwent armed, of course, and ready to give battle: they had no scruples\nabout carrying home anything they might purloin or obtain by enormously\nadvantageous barter, but they were not in quest of softer climes or\nforeign models; their home remained their ideal. They were scarcely\nwilling to settle in foreign parts unless they could live their home\nlife there.\n\nThis love of home merged in their minds with the love of liberty; it\nwas a loyalty inwardly grounded and not a mere tribute to habit or\nexternal influences. They could consequently retain their manners\nwherever they went, and could found free colonies, almost as Greek or\nas English as the mother country; for it was not Greece that originally\nformed the Greeks nor England the English, but the other way round; the\nGreeks and the English, wherever they might be, spun their institutions\nabout them like a cocoon. Certainly the geographical environment was\nfavourable; the skies and waters that embosomed them--when in their\nmigrations they had reached those climes--simply met their native\ngenius half-way and allowed it to bloom as it had not elsewhere. But\nthe winds could carry that same seed to fructify in other soils; and\nas there were many Greek cities sprung from one, so there are several\nlocal Englands in Great Britain, and others all over the world. Even\npeople who are not heirs of these nations according to the flesh may\nassimilate their spirit in some measure. All men are Greek in the best\nsense in so far as they are rational, and live and think on the human\nscale; and all are English in so far as their souls are individual,\neach the imperturbably dominant cell in its own organism, each faithful\nto its inner oracle.\n\nLife at sea is very favourable to this empire of personal liberty.\nThe inner man, the hereditary Psyche that breeds the body and its\ndiscursive thoughts, craves to exercise ascendancy; it is essentially a\nformative principle, an organ of government. Mere solitude and monastic\nreverie, such as a hermit or satirist may enjoy even in great cities,\nweary and oppress the Englishman. He wants to do something or else to\nplay at something. His thoughts are not vivid and substantial enough\nfor company; his passions are too nebulous to define their innate\nobjects, until accident offers something that perhaps may serve. At sea\nthere is always something doing: you must mind the helm, the sails, or\nthe engines; you must keep things shipshape; brasses must be always\nbright and eyes sharp; decorum is essential, since discipline is so;\nyou may even dress for dinner and read prayers on Sunday. This routine\ndoes not trespass on the liberty and reserve of your inner man. You can\nexchange a few hearty commonplaces with the other officers and sailors,\nor even with a casual passenger; now and then you may indulge in a long\ntalk, pacing the deck beneath the stars. There is space, there is the\nconstant shadow of danger, the chance of some adventure at sea or on\na strange shore. There is a continual test and tension of character.\nThere are degrees of authority and of competence, but the sailor's art\nis finite; his ship, however complicated and delicate a creature, has\na known structure and known organs; she will not do anything without\na reason; she is not too wayward (as is the course of things on terra\nfirma) for a clear-headed man to understand nor for a firm hand to\nsteer. Maritime fortune in its uncertainty has after all not many forms\nof caprice; its worst tricks are familiar; your life-belt is hanging\nover your bunk, and you are ready.\n\nEvery one grumbles at his lot and at his profession; but what is man\nthat he should ask for more? These buffeting winds, these long hours of\ndeep breathing, these habits of quick decision and sharp movement whet\nyour appetite; you relish your solid plain food, whilst your accustomed\ndrink smooths over the petty worries of the day, and liberates your\nprivate musings; and what a companionable thing your pipe is! The\nwomen--dear, dogmatic, fussy angels--are not here; that is a relief;\nand yet you are counting the weeks before you can return to them at\nhome. And all those tender episodes of a more fugitive sort, how\nmerrily you think them over now! more merrily perhaps than you enacted\nthem, since you need not call to mind the little shabby accompaniments\nand false notes that may have marred them in reality. Your remoter\nfuture, too, is smiling enough for an honest man who believes in God\nand is not a snob in the things of the spirit. You see in your mind's\neye a cottage on some sunny hillside over-looking the sea; near it,\nfrom a signal-post that is a ship's mast, the flags are flapping in\nthe breeze; your children are playing on the beach--except the eldest,\nperhaps, already a sailor. There is a blessed simplicity about the sea,\nwith its vast inhumanity islanding and freeing the humanity of man.\n\n\n\n\n12\n\nPRIVACY\n\n\nThe secret of English mastery is self-mastery. The Englishman\nestablishes a sort of satisfaction and equilibrium in his inner man,\nand from that citadel of rightness he easily measures the value of\neverything that comes within his moral horizon. In what may lie beyond\nhe takes but a feeble interest. Enterprising enough when in a roving\nmood, and fond of collecting outlandish objects and ideas, he seldom\nallows his wanderings and discoveries to unhinge his home loyalties or\nruffle his self-possession; and he remains, after all his adventures,\nintellectually as indolent and secure as in the beginning. As to\nspeculative truth, he instinctively halts short of it, as it looms\nin the distance and threatens to cast a contemptuous and chilling\nshadow across his life. He would be very severe to any who dreaded\ncold water and wouldn't learn to swim; yet in the moral world he is\nhimself subject to illusions of timidity. He does not believe, there,\nin the overwhelming rewards of courage. His chosen life is indeed\nbeautiful--as the shy boy's might be--ill its finitude; all the more\nbeautiful and worth preserving because, like his country, it is an\nisland in the sea. His domestic thermometer and barometer have\nsufficed to guide him to the right hygiene.\n\nHygiene does not require telescopes nor microscopes. It is not\nconcerned, like medicine or psychology, with the profound hidden\nworkings of our bodies or minds, complexities hardly less foreign\nto our discoursing selves than are the mysteries of the great outer\nworld. Hygiene regards only the right regimen of man in his obvious\nenvironment, judged by his conscious well-being. If it goes afield\nat all, it does so in the interests of privacy. All it asks of life\nis that it should be comely, spontaneous, and unimpeded: all it asks\nof the earth is that it should be fit for sport and for habitation.\nMen, to be of the right hygienic sort, must love the earth, and must\nknow how to range in it. This the Englishman knows; and just as, in\nspite of his insularity, he loves this whole terraqueous globe simply\nand genuinely, so the earth, turned into mud by the vain stampings of\nso many garrulous and sickly nations, would doubtless say: Let the\nEnglishman inhabit me, and I shall be green again.\n\nIn matters of hygiene the Englishman's maxims are definite and his\npractice refined. He has discovered what he calls good form, and\nis obstinately conservative about it, not from inertia, but in the\ninterests of pure vitality. Experience has taught him the uses to which\nvitality can be put, so as to preserve and refresh it. He knows the\nright degree of exertion normally required to do things well--to walk\nor to talk, for instance; he does not saunter nor scramble, he does\nnot gesticulate nor scream. In consequence, perhaps, on extraordinary\noccasions he fails at first to exert himself enough; and his eloquence\nis not torrential nor inspired, even at those rare moments when it\nought to be so. But when nothing presses, he shows abundant energy,\nwithout flurry or excess. In manners and morals, too, he has found the\nright mean between anarchy and servitude, and the wholesome measure\nof comfort. What those who dislike him call his hypocrisy is but\ntimeliness in his instincts, and a certain modesty on their part in not\nintruding upon one another. Your prayers are not necessarily insincere\nbecause you pray only in church; you are not concealing a passion if\nfor a time you forget it and slough it off. These alternations are\nphases of the inner man, not masks put on in turn by some insidious\nand calculating knave. All the Englishman's attitudes and habits--his\nout-of-door life, his clubs, his conventicles, his business--when they\nare spontaneous and truly British, are for the sake of his inner man\nin its privacy. Other people, unless the game calls for them, are in\nthe way, and uninteresting. His spirit is like Wordsworth's skylark,\ntrue to the kindred points of heaven and home; and perhaps these points\nseem to him kindred only because they are both functions of himself.\nHome is the centre of his physical and moral comfort, his headquarters\nin the war of life, where lie his spiritual stores. Heaven is a realm\nof friendly inspiring breezes and setting suns, enveloping his rambles\nand his perplexities. The world to him is a theatre for the soliloquy\nof action. There is a comfortable luxuriousness in all his attitudes.\nHe thinks the prize of life worth winning, but not worth snatching. If\nyou snatch it, as Germans, Jews, and Americans seem inclined to do, you\nabdicate the sovereignty of your inner man, you miss delight, dignity,\nand peace; and in that case the prize of life has escaped you.\n\nAs the Englishman disdains to peer and is slow to speculate, so\nhe resents any meddling or intrusion into his own preserves. How\nsedulously he plants out his garden, however tiny, from his neighbours\nand from the public road! If his windows look unmistakably on the\nstreet, at least he fills his window-boxes with the semblance of a\nhedge or a garden, and scarcely allows the dubious light to filter\nthrough his blinds and lace curtains; and the space between them, in\nthe most dingy tenement, is blocked by an artificial plant. He is quite\nwilling not to be able to look out, if only he can prevent other people\nfrom looking in. If they did, what would they see? Nothing shocking,\nsurely; his attitude by his fireside is perfectly seemly. He is not\nthrowing anything at the family; very likely they are not at home. Nor\nhas he introduced any low-class person by the tradesman's entrance,\nin whose company he might blush to be spied. He is not in deshabille;\nif he has changed any part of his street clothes it has not been from\nany inclination to be slovenly in private, but on the contrary to\nvindicate his self-respect and domestic decorum. He does not dress to\nbe seen of men, but of God. His elegance is an expression of comfort,\nand his comfort a consciousness of elegance. The eyes of men disquiet\nhim, eminently presentable though he be, and he thinks it rude of them\nto stare, even in simple admiration. It takes tact and patience in\nstrangers--perhaps at first an ostentatious indifference--to reassure\nhim and persuade him that he would be safe in liking them. His frigid\nexterior is often a cuticle to protect his natural tenderness, which he\nforces himself not to express, lest it should seem misplaced or clumsy.\nThere is a masculine sort of tenderness which is not fondness, but\ncraving and premonition of things untried; and the young Englishman is\nfull of it. His heart is quiet and full; he has not pumped it dry, like\nill-bred children, in tantrums and effusive fancies. On the other hand,\npassions are atrophied if their expression is long suppressed, and we\nsoon have nothing to say if we never say anything. As he grows old the\nEnglishman may come to suspect, not without reason, that he might not\nreward too close a perusal. His social bristles will then protect his\nintellectual weakness, and he will puff himself out to disguise his\nvacuity.\n\nIt is intelligible that a man of deep but inarticulate character\nshould feel more at ease in the fields and woods, at sea or in remote\nenterprises, than in the press of men. In the world he is obliged to\nmaintain stiffly principles which he would prefer should be taken for\ngranted. Therefore when he sits in silence behind his window curtains,\nwith his newspaper, his wife, or his dog, his monumental passivity is\nnot a real indolence. He is busily reinforcing his character, ruffled\nby the day's contact with hostile or indifferent things, and he is\ngathering new strength for the fray. After the concessions imposed\nupon him by necessity or courtesy, he is recovering his natural tone.\nTo-morrow he will issue forth fresh and confident, and exactly the same\nas he was yesterday. His character is like his climate, gentle and\npassing readily from dull to glorious, and back again; variable on the\nsurface, yet perpetually self-restored and invincibly the same.\n\n\n\n\n12\n\nTHE LION AND THE UNICORN\n\n\nEvery one can see why the Lion should be a symbol for the British\nnation. This noble animal loves dignified repose. He haunts by\npreference solitary glades and pastoral landscapes. His movements are\nslow, he yawns a good deal; he has small squinting eyes high up in\nhis head, a long displeased nose, and a prodigious maw. He apparently\nhas some difficulty in making things out at a distance, as if he had\nforgotten his spectacles (for he is getting to be an elderly lion now),\nbut he snaps at the flies when they bother him too much. On the whole,\nhe is a tame lion; he has a cage called the Constitution, and a whole\nparliament of keepers with high wages and a cockney accent; and he\nsubmits to all the rules they make for him, growling only when he is\nshort of raw beef. The younger members of the nobility and gentry may\nride on his back, and he obligingly lets his tail hang out of the bars,\nso that the little Americans and the little Irishmen and the little\nBolshevists, when they come to jeer at him, may twist it. Yet when the\nold fellow goes for a walk, how all the domestic and foreign poultry\nscamper! They know he can spring; his strength when aroused proves\naltogether surprising and unaccountable, he never seems to mind a blow,\nand his courage is terrible. The cattle, seeing there is no safety in\nflight, herd together when he appears on the horizon, and try to look\nunconscious; the hyenas go to snarl at a distance; the eagles and the\nserpents aver afterwards that they were asleep. Even the insects that\nbuzz about his ears, and the very vermin in his skin, know him for the\nking of beasts.\n\nBut why should the other supporter of the British arms be the Unicorn?\nWhat are the mystic implications of having a single horn? This can\nhardly be the monster spoken of in Scripture, into the reason for whose\nexistence, whether he be the rhinoceros of natural history or a slip\nof an inspired pen, it would be blasphemy to inquire. This Unicorn\nis a creature of mediaeval fancy, a horse rampant argent, only with\nsomething queer about his head, as if a croquet-stake had been driven\ninto it, or he wore a very high and attenuated fool's cap. It would be\nfar-fetched to see in this ornament any allusion to deceived husbands,\nas if in England the alleged injury never seemed worth two horns, or\ndivorce and damages soon removed one of them. More plausible is the\nview that, as the Lion obviously expresses the British character, so\nthe Unicorn somewhat more subtly expresses the British intellect.\nWhereas most truths have two faces, and at least half of any solid\nfact escapes any single view of it, the English mind is monocular; the\nodd and the singular have a special charm for it. This love of the\nparticular and the original leads the Englishman far afield in the\nsearch for it; he collects curios, and taking all the nation together,\nthere is perhaps nothing that some Englishman has not seen, thought, or\nknown; but who sees things as a whole, or anything in its right place?\nHe inevitably rides some hobby. He travels through the wide world with\none eye shut, hops all over it on one leg, and plays all his scales\nwith one finger. There is fervour, there is accuracy, there is kindness\nin his gaze, but there is no comprehension. He will defend the silliest\nopinion with a mint of learning, and espouse the worst of causes on\nthe highest principles. It is notorious elsewhere that the world is\nround, that nature has bulk, and three if not four dimensions; it is a\ntruism that things cannot be seen as a whole except in imagination. But\nimagination, if he has it, the Englishman is too scrupulous to trust;\nhe observes the shapes and the colours of things intently, and behold,\nthey are quite flat, and he challenges you to show why, when every\nvisible part of everything is flat, anything should be supposed to be\nround. He is a keen reformer, and certainly the world would be much\nsimpler, right opinion would be much lighter and wrong opinion much\nwronger, if things had no third and no fourth dimension.\n\nAh, why did those early phrenologists, true and typical Englishmen\nas they were, denounce the innocent midwife who by a little timely\npressure on the infant skull compressed, as they said, \"the oval\nof genius into the flatness of boobyism.\" Let us not be cowed by a\nmalicious epithet. What some people choose to call boobyism and\nflatness may be the simplest, the most British, the most scientific\nphilosophy. Your true booby may be only he who, having perforce but\na flat view of a flat world, prates of genius and rotundity. Blessed\nare they whose eye is single. Only when very drunk do we acknowledge\nour double optics; when sober we endeavour to correct and ignore this\nvisual duplicity and to see as respectably as if we had only one\neye. The Unicorn might well say the same thing of two-horned beasts.\nSuch double and crooked weapons are wasteful and absurd. You can use\nonly one horn effectively even if you have two, but in a sidelong\nand cross-eyed fashion; else your prey simply nestles between, where\neye cannot see it nor horn probe it. A single straight horn, on the\ncontrary, is like a lancet; it pierces to the heart of the enemy by a\nsure frontal attack: nothing like it for pricking a bubble, or pointing\nto a fact and scathingly asking the Government if they are aware of it.\nIn music likewise every pure melody passes from single note to note, as\ndo the sweet songs of nature. Away with your demoniac orchestras, and\nyour mad pianist, tossing his mane, and banging with his ten fingers\nand his two feet at once I As to walking on two feet, that also is mere\nwobbling and, as Schopenhauer observed, a fall perpetually arrested.\nIt is an unstable compromise between going on all fours, if you want\nto be safe, and standing on one leg, like the exquisite flamingo, if\nyou aspire to be graceful and spiritually sensitive. There is really no\nbiped in nature except ridiculous man, as if the prancing Unicorn had\nsucceeded in always being rampant; your feathered creatures are bipeds\nonly on occasion and in their off moments; essentially they are winged\nbeings, and their legs serve only to prop them when at rest, like the\nfoot-piece of a motor-cycle which you let down when it stops.\n\nThe Lion is an actual beast, the Unicorn a chimera; and is not England\nin fact always buoyed up on one side by some chimera, as on the other\nby a sense for fact? Illusions are mighty, and must be reckoned with in\nthis world; but it is not necessary to share them or even to understand\nthem from within, because being illusions they do not prophesy the\nprobable consequences of their existence; they are irrelevant in\naspect to what they involve in effect. The dove of peace brings new\nwars, the religion of love instigates crusades and lights faggots,\nmetaphysical idealism in practice is the worship of Mammon, government\nby the people establishes the boss, free trade creates monopolies,\nfondness smothers its pet, assurance precipitates disaster, fury ends\nin smoke and in shaking hands. The shaggy Lion is dimly aware of all\nthis; he is ponderous and taciturn by an instinctive philosophy. Why\nshould he be troubled about the dreams of the Unicorn, more than\nabout those of the nightingale or the spider? He can roughly discount\nthese creatures' habits, in so far as they touch him at all, without\ndeciphering their fantastic minds. That makes the strength of England\nin the world, the leonine fortitude that helps her, through a thousand\nstupidities and blunders, always to pull through. But England is also,\nmore than any other country, the land of poetry and of the inner man.\nHer sunlight and mists, her fields, cliffs, and moors are full of\naerial enchantment; it is a land of tenderness and dreams. The whole\nnation hugs its hallowed shams; there is a real happiness, a sense\nof safety, in agreeing not to acknowledge the obvious; there is a\nuniversal conspiracy of respect for the non-existent. English religion,\nEnglish philosophy, English law, English domesticity could not get on\nwithout this \"tendency to feign.\" And see how admissible, how almost\nnatural this chimera is. A milk-white pony, elegantly Arabian, with a\nmane like sea-foam, and a tail like a little silvery comet, sensitive\nnostrils, eyes alight with recognition, a steed such as Phoebus might\nwell water at those springs that lie in the chalices of flowers, a\nsymbol at once of impetuosity and obedience, a heraldic image for the\ndaintiness of Ariel and the purity of Galahad. If somehow we suspect\nthat the poetical creature is light-witted, the stem Lion opposite\nfinds him nevertheless a sprightly and tender companion, as King Lear\ndid his exquisite Fool. Such a Pegasus cannot be a normal horse; he was\nhatched in a cloud, and at his birth some inexorable ironic deity drove\na croquet-stake into his pate, and set an attenuated crown, very like a\nfool's cap, between his startled ears.\n\n\n\n\n13\n\nDONS\n\n\nDons are picturesque figures. Their fussy ways and their oddities,\npersonal and intellectual, are as becoming to them as black feathers\nto the blackbird. Their minds are all gaunt pinnacles, closed gates,\nand little hidden gardens. A mediaeval tradition survives in their\nnotion of learning and in their manner of life; they are monks flown\nfrom the dovecot, scholastics carrying their punctilious habits into\nthe family circle. In the grander ones there may be some assimilation\nto a prelate, a country gentleman, or a party leader; but the rank and\nfile are modest, industrious pedagogues, sticklers for routine, with a\nsquinting knowledge of old books and of young men. Their politics are\nnarrow and their religion dubious. There was always something slippery\nin the orthodoxy of scholastics, even in the Middle Ages; they are so\neager to define, to correct, and to trace back everything, that they\ntend to cut the cloth on their own bias, and to make some crotchet\nof theirs the fulcrum of the universe. The thoughts of these men are\nlike the Sibylline leaves, profound but lost. I should not call them\npedants, because what they pursue and insist on in little things is\nthe shadow of something great; trifles, as Michael Angelo said, make\nperfection, and perfection is no trifle. Yet dry learning and much\nchewing of the cud take the place amongst them of the two ways men\nhave of really understanding the world--science, which explores it,\nand sound wit, which estimates humanly the value of science and of\neverything else.\n\nThe function of dons is to expound a few classic documents, and to\nhand down as large and as pleasant a store as possible of academic\nhabits, maxims, and anecdotes. They peruse with distrust the new\nbooks published on the subject of their teaching; they refer to them\nsometimes sarcastically, but their teaching remains the same. Their\nconversation with outsiders is painfully amiable for a while; lassitude\nsoon puts the damper on it, unless they can lapse into the academic\nquestion of the day, or take up the circle of their good old stories.\nTheir originality runs to interpreting some old text afresh, wearing\nsome odd garment, or frequenting in the holidays some unfrequented\nspot. When they are bachelors, as properly they should be, their pupils\nare their chief link with the world of affection, with mischievous\nand merry things; and in exchange for this whiff of life, which they\nreceive with each yearly invasion of flowering youth, like the fresh\nscent of hay every summer from the meadows, they furnish those empty\nminds with some humorous memories, and some shreds of knowledge. It\ndoes not matter very much whether what a don says is right or wrong,\nprovided it is quotable; nobody considers his opinions for the matter\nthey convey; the point is that by hearing them the pupils and the\npublic may discover what opinions, and on what subjects, it is possible\nfor mortals to devise. Their maxims are like those of the early\nGreek philosophers, a proper introduction to the good society of the\nintellectual world. So are the general systems to which the dons may\nbe addicted, probably some revision of Christian theology, of Platonic\nmysticism, or of German philosophy. Such foreign doctrines do very well\nfor the dons of successive epochs, native British philosophy not being\nfitted to edify the minds of the young: those vaster constructions\nappeal more to the imagination, and their very artificiality and\nticklish architecture, like that of a house of cards, are part of\ntheir function, calling for paradoxical faith and--what youth loves\nquite as much--for captious and sophistical argument. They lie in the\nfourth dimension of human belief, amongst the epicycles which ingenious\nerror describes about the unknown orbit of truth; for the truth is not\nitself luminous, as wit is; the truth travels silently in the night\nand requires to be caught by the searchlight of wit to become visible.\nMeantime the mind plays innocently with its own phosphorescence, which\nis what we call culture and what dons are created to keep alive.\nWit the dons often have, of an oblique kind, in the midst of their\nmuch-indulged prejudices and foibles; and what with glints of wit and\nscraps of learning, the soul is not sent away empty from their door:\nbetter fed and healthier, indeed, for these rich crumbs from the\nbanquet of antiquity, when thought was fresh, than if it had been\nreared on a stuffy diet of useful knowledge, or on some single dogmatic\nsystem, to which life-slavery is attached. Poor, brusque, comic,\nvenerable dons! You watched over us tenderly once, whilst you blew your\nlong noses at us and scolded; then we thought only of the roses in\nyour garden, of your succulent dinners, or perhaps of your daughters;\nbut now we understand that you had hearts yourselves, that you were\nsong-birds grown old in your cages, having preferred fidelity to\nadventure. We catch again the sweet inflection of your cracked notes,\nand we bless you. You have washed your hands among the innocent; you\nhave loved the beauty of the Lord's house.\n\n\n\n\n14\n\nAPOLOGY FOR SNOBS\n\n\nBritish satirists are very scornful of snobbery; they seem oppressed\nby the thought that wealth, rank, and finery are hideously inane and\nthat they are hideously powerful. Are these moralists really overcome\nby a sense of the vanity of human wishes? It would hardly seem so;\nfor they often breathe a sentimental adoration for romantic love or\nphilanthropy or adventure or mystic piety or good cheer or ruthless\nwill--all of them passions as little likely as any snobbish impulse to\narise without some illusion or to end without some disappointment. Why\nthis exclusive hostility to the vanities dear to the snob? Have birth,\nmoney, and fashion no value whatever? Do they not dazzle the innocent\nand unsophisticated with a distant image of happiness? Are they not\nactually, when enjoyed, very comforting and delightful things in their\nway? What else than this sensitiveness to better social example--which\nwe may call snobbery if we please--lends English life in particular\nits most characteristic excellences--order without constraint, leisure\nwithout apathy, seclusion without solitude, good manners without\npunctilio, emulation without intrigue, splendour without hollowness?\nWhy such bitterness about the harmless absurdities that may fringe\nthis national discipline? Are these moralists in fact only envious\nand sulky? Is it sour grapes? It would sometimes seem as if, in\nEngland, the less representative a man was the more eagerly he took to\nliterature, and thought that by hating his fellow-men and despising\ntheir prevalent feelings he rendered himself eminently fit to be their\nguide and redeemer.\n\nIn fact, there is a philosophical principle implied in snobbery, a\nprinciple which is certainly false if made absolute, but which fairly\nexpresses the moral relations of things in a certain perspective. If\nwe all really stood on different steps in a single ladder of progress,\nthen to admire and imitate those above us and to identify ourselves\nwith them by hook or by crook would be simply to accelerate our natural\ndevelopment, to expand into our higher self, and to avoid fatal abysses\nto the right and to the left of the path marked out for us by our\ninnate vocation. Life would then be like the simple game which children\ncall Follow the Leader; and this scrupulous discipleship would be\nperfect freedom, since the soul of our leader and our own soul that\nchooses him would be the same. This principle is precisely that of\nthe transcendental philosophy where it maintains that there is but\none spirit in all men, and one logical moral evolution for the world.\nIn fact, it is the Germans rather than the English that are solemn,\nconvinced, and universal snobs. If they do not seem so much snobs in\nparticular, it is because they are snobs _\u00fcberhaupt_. It is not only\nfrom the nobility that grateful dews descend on their sensitive hearts,\nas upon open flowers; they yearn also after the professors and the\nartists, and assiduously dress their domestic mind, so far as the cloth\nwill go, in the latest intellectual fashion. Their respect for what\nholds the official stage, and holds it for the moment, is beautiful in\nits completeness. They can change their front without changing their\nformation. And the occasional pricks and heartburnings of snobbery are\nentirely drowned, in their case, in its voluminous vicarious joys.\n\nOn the whole, however, snobbish sentiment and transcendental philosophy\ndo not express the facts of nature. Men and nations do not really march\nin single file, as if they were being shepherded into some Noah's Ark.\nThey have perhaps a common root and similar beginnings, but they\nbranch out at every step into forms of life between which there is\nno further interchange of sap, and no common destiny. Their several\nfruits become incommensurable in beauty and in value, like the poetry\nof different languages, and more disparate the more each is perfected\nafter its kind. The whale is not a first sketch for the butterfly,\nnor its culmination; the mind of an ox is not a fuller expression of\nthat of a rabbit. The poet does not evolve into the general, nor _vice\nversa_; nor does a man, in growing further, become a woman, superior\nas she may be in her own way. That is why snobbery is really a vice:\nit tempts us to neglect and despise our proper virtues in aping those\nof other people. If an angel appeared to me displaying his iridescent\nwings and treble voice and heart fluttering with eternal love, I should\nsay, \"Certainly, I congratulate you, but I do not wish to resemble\nyou.\" Snobbery haunts those who are not reconciled with themselves;\nevolution is the hope of the immature. You cannot be everything. Why\nnot be what you are?\n\nThis contentment with oneself, in its rational mixture of pride with\nhumility, and its infinite indifference to possibilities which to\nus are impossible, is well understood in the great East--which is a\nmoral as well as a geographical climate. There every one feels that\ncircumstances have not made and cannot unmake the soul. Variations of\nfortune do not move a man from his inborn centre of gravity. Whatever\nhappens and whatever people say he puts up with as he would with bad\nweather. He lets them thunder and rage, and continues to sit on his\nheels in his corner, in the shade or in the sun according to the\nseason, munching his crust of bread, meditating on heaven and earth,\nand publishing on occasion to the passers-by, or to the wilderness, the\nrevelations he receives from the spirit; and if these are particularly\nvivid, he will not hesitate to cry, \"So saith the Lord,\" with an equal\ndignity or assurance whether he be sage, king, or beggar. Such firmness\nand independence of character are admirable, so long as the expression\nof them remains merely poetical or moral. It is enough if confessions\nare sincere, and aspirations true to the heart that utters them. In the\nheights and the depths we are all solitary, and we are deceived if we\nthink otherwise, even when people say they agree with us, or form a\nsect under our name. As our radical bodily functions are incorrigibly\nselfish and persistent, so our ultimate ideals, if they are sincere,\nmust for ever deviate from those of others and find their zenith in\na different star. The moral world is round like the heavens, and the\ndirections which life can take are infinitely divergent and unreturning.\n\nBut in the world of circumstances, in matters of politics and business,\ninformation, and thrift, civilized men move together: their interests,\nif not identical, are parallel, and their very conflicts and rivalries\narise out of this contact and relevance in their aims. Eminence in this\nworldly sphere is unmistakable. One fortune in money can be measured\nagainst another and may be increased to equal it; and in government,\nfashion, and notoriety some people are unmistakably at the top of the\ntree, and doubtless deserve to be there, having found the right method\nof climbing. It is only natural that those who wish to climb too should\nstudy and imitate them. Awe and respect for such persons is an honest\nexpression of social idealism: it is an admiration mixed with curiosity\nand with the desire for propinquity, because their achievements are\nin our own line of business and a prospective partnership is not\nout of the question. Their life is the ideal of ours. Yet all such\nconventional values and instrumentalities, in which we are perhaps\nabsorbed, in the end say nothing to the heart. If by chance, in the\nshifts of this world, we pop up near the people whom we distantly\nadmired, and reach the crest of the wave in their company, we discover\nhow great an illusion it was that it would be good or possible for us\nto resemble them; conventional friends, we have no instincts, joys, or\nmemories in common. It is, perhaps, from quite another age or race,\nfrom an utterly different setting of worldly tasks and ambitions,\nthat some hint of true friendship and understanding reaches us in our\nhermitage; and even this hint is probably a hollow reverberation of\nour own soliloquy. In this slippery competitive earth snobbery is not\nunreasonable; but in heaven and hell there are no snobs. There every\ndespised demon hugs his favourite vice for ever, and even the smallest\nof the stars shines with a singular glory.\n\n\n\n\n15\n\nTHE HIGHER SNOBBERY\n\n\nTo call an attitude snobbish, when the great and good recommend it as\nthe only right attitude, would be to condemn it without trial; yet I\ndo not know how else to name the sentiment that happiness of one sort\nis better than happiness of another sort, and that perfection in one\nanimal is more admirable than perfection in another. I wish there was\na word for this arrangement of excellences in higher and lower classes\nwhich did not imply approval or disapproval of such an arrangement. But\nlanguage is terribly moralistic, and I do not blame the logicians for\nwishing to invent another which shall convey nothing to the mind with\nwhich it has any previous acquaintance. The Psyche, who is the mother\nof language as well as of intellect, feels things to be good or evil\nbefore she notices what other qualities they may have: and she never\ngets much beyond the first dichotomy of her feminine logic: wretch and\ndarling, nasty and nice. This is perhaps the true reason why Plato, who\nin some respects had a feminine mind and whose metaphysics follows the\nlines of language, tells us in one place that the good is the highest\nof the Ideas, and the source of both essence and existence. Good and\nbad are certainly the first qualities fixed by words: so that to call a\nman a snob, for instance, is a very vague description but a very clear\ninsult. Suppose we found on examination that the person in question\nhad a retiring and discriminating disposition, that he shunned the\nunwashed, that he resembled persons of distinction, and recognized the\nsuperiority of those who were really his superiors; we should conclude\nwithout hesitation that he was no snob at all, but a respectable,\nright-minded person. If he had been really a snob, he would have looked\nup stupidly to what has no true sublimity, like birth without money,\nwould have imitated what was not becoming to his station, and would\nhave shunned company, such as our own, which though perhaps not the\nmost fashionable is undoubtedly the best. As I can see no scientific\ndifference between this snob and that no-snob, I am constrained in my\nown thoughts to class them together; but in order to remind myself that\nthe same principle may be approved in one case and condemned in the\nother, I call snobbery, when people approve of it, the higher snobbery.\n\nAn interesting advocate of the higher snobbery is Nietzsche. Although\nhis admiring eye is fixed on the superman, who is to supersede our\ncommon or garden humanity, the unique excellence of that future being\ndoes not seem to lie merely in that he is future, or is destined to be\ndominant in his day: after all, everything was once future, everything\nwas once the coming thing, and destined to prevail in its day. It\nis only human to admire and copy the fashion of to-day, whether in\nclothes, or politics, or literature, or speculation; but I have not yet\nheard of any snob so far ahead of his times as to love the fashions\nof doomsday. The worship of evolution, which counts for so much with\nmany higher snobs, does not seem essential in Nietzsche. The superman\nno doubt is coming, but he is not coming to stay, since the world\nrepeats its evolution in perpetual cycles; and whilst he will give\nits highest expression to the love of power, it does not appear that\nhe will care very much about controlling external things, or will be\nable to control them. His superiority is to be intrinsic, and chiefly\ncomposed of freedom. It was freedom, I think, that Nietzsche sighed\nfor in his heart, whilst in his cavalierly speculations he talked of\npower. At least, unless by power he meant power to be oneself, the\nnotion that all nature was animated by the lust of power would lose\nits plausibility; the ambition which we may poetically attribute\nto all animals is rather to appropriate such things as serve their\nuse, perfection, or fancy, and to leave all else alone. There are\nindications that the superman was to be a mystic and a wanderer, like\na god visiting the earth, and that what spell he exercised was to flow\nfrom him almost unawares, whilst he mused about himself and about\nhigher things. So little was his power to involve subjection to what he\nworked upon (which is the counterpart of all material power) that he\nwas to disregard the interests of others in a Spartan mood; he was to\nride ruthlessly through this nether world, half a poet, half a scourge,\nwith his breast uncovered to every treacherous shaft, and his head high\nin the air.\n\nNow I will not say whether such a romantic and Byronic life is worth\nliving in itself; there may be creatures whose only happiness is to\nbe like that, although I suspect that Byron and Nietzsche, Lohengrin\nand Zarathustra, had not mastered the art of Socrates, and did not\nknow what they wanted. In any case, such a Dionysiac career would be\ngood only as the humblest human existence may be so; its excellence\nwould lie in its harmony with the nature of him who follows it,\nnot in its bombast, inflation, or superhumanity. Nietzsche was far\nfrom ungenerous or unsympathetic towards the people. He wished them\n(somewhat contemptuously) to be happy, whilst he and his superman\nremained poetically wretched; he even said sometimes that in their own\nsphere they might be perfect, and added--with that sincerity which,\nin him, redeems so many follies--that nothing could be better than\nsuch perfection. But if this admission is to be taken seriously, the\nsuperman would be no better than the good slave. The whole principle of\nthe higher snobbery would be abandoned, and Nietzsche in the end would\nonly lead us back to Epictetus.\n\nNo, the higher snob will reply, the perfect superman may be no better\nthan the perfect slave, but he is _higher_. What does this word mean?\nFor the zealous evolutionist it seems to mean later, more complicated,\nrequiring a longer incubation and a more special environment. Therefore\nwhat is higher is more expensive, and has a more precarious existence\nthan what is lower; so the lady is higher than the woman, fine art is\nhigher than useful art, and the height of the fashion in fine art is\nthe highest point in it. The higher is the more inclusive, requiring\neverything else to produce it, and itself producing nothing, or\nsomething higher still. Of course the higher is not merely the better;\nbecause the standard of excellence itself changes as we proceed, and\naccording to the standard of the lower morality the higher state which\nabolishes it will be worse. An orchid may not be more beautiful than\na lily, but it is higher; philosophy may not be truer than science,\nnor true at all, but it is higher, because so much more comprehensive;\nfaith may not be more trustworthy than reason, but it is higher;\ninsatiable will may not be more beneficent than contentment in oneself\nand respect for others, but it is higher; war is higher, though more\npainful, than peace; perpetual motion is not more reasonable than\nmovement towards an end, and stilts are not more convenient than shoes,\nbut they are higher. In everything the higher, when not the better,\nmeans what folly or vanity cannot bear to abandon. Higher is a word by\nwhich we defend the indefensible; it is a declaration of impenitence on\nthe part of unreason, a cry to create prejudice in favour of all that\ntyrannizes over mankind. It is the watchword of the higher snob. The\nfirst to use it was Satan, when he declared that he was not satisfied\nto be anything but the highest; whereas the highest thinks it no\nderogation to take the form of the lowest since the lowest, too, has\nits proper perfection, and there is nothing _better_ than that.\n\n\n\n\n16\n\nDISTINCTION IN ENGLISHMEN\n\n\nEngland has been rich in poets, in novelists, in inventors, in\nphilosophers making new beginnings, in intrepid travellers, in learned\nmen whose researches are a hobby and almost a secret. The land was once\nrich in saints, and is still rich in enthusiasts. But the official\nleaders of the English people, the kings, prelates, professors, and\npoliticians, have usually been secondary men; and even they have been\nfar more distinguished in their private capacity than in their official\naction and mind. English genius is anti-professional; its affinities\nare with amateurs, and there is something of the amateur in the best\nEnglish artists, actors, and generals. Delicacy of conscience, mental\nhaze, care not to outrun the impulse of the soul, hold the Englishman\nback midway in his achievements; there is in him a vague respect for\nthe unknown, a tacit diffidence in his own powers, which dissuade him\nfrom venturing on the greatest things or from carrying them out in a\ncomprehensive manner. The truth is the British do not wish to be well\nled. They are all individualistic and aristocratic at heart, and want\nno leaders in ultimate things; the inner man must be his own guide. If\nthey had to live under the shadow of a splendid monarch, or a masterful\nstatesman, or an authoritative religion, or a deified state they would\nnot feel free. They wish to peck at their institutions, and tolerate\nonly such institutions as they can peck at. A certain ineptitude thus\ncomes to be amongst them an aptitude for office: it keeps the official\nfrom acquiring too great an ascendancy. There is a sort of ostracism\nby anticipation, to prevent men who are too good from coming forward\nand upsetting the balance of British liberties; very like the vacuum\nwhich is created in America around distinction, and which keeps the\nnational character there so true to type, so much on one lively level.\nBut in England distinction exists, because it escapes into privacy.\nIt is reserved for his Grace in his library and her Ladyship at her\ntea-table; it fills the nursery with lisping sweetness and intrepid\nsingleness of will; it dwells with the poets in their solitary rambles\nand midnight questionings; it bends with the scholar over immortal\ntexts; it is shut off from the profane by the high barriers of school\nand college and hunting-field, by the sanctity and silence of dubs, by\nthe unspoken secrets of church and home.\n\nThe greatest distinction of English people, however, is one which,\nwhilst quite personal and private in its scope, is widely diffused\nand strikingly characteristic of the better part of the nation;\nI mean, distinction in the way of living. The Englishman does in\na distinguished way the simple things that other men might slur\nover as unimportant or essentially gross or irremediable; he is\ndistinguished--he is disciplined, skilful, and calm--in eating, in\nsport, in public gatherings, in hardship, in danger, in extremities.\nIt is in physical and rudimentary behaviour that the Englishman is\nan artist; he is the ideal sailor, the ideal explorer, the ideal\ncomrade in a tight place; he knows how to be clean without fussiness,\nwell-dressed without show, and pleasure-loving without loudness.\nThis is why, although he is the most disliked of men the world over\n(except where people need some one they can trust) he is also the\nmost imitated. What ferocious Anglophobe, whether a white man or a\nblack man, is not immensely flattered if you pretend to have mistaken\nhim for an Englishman? After all, this imitation of the physical\ndistinction of Englishmen is not absurd; here is something that _can_\nbe imitated: it is really the easiest way of doing easy things, which\nonly bad education and bad habits have made difficult for most people.\nThere is nothing impossible in adopting afternoon tea, football, and\nboy scouts; what is impossible, and if possible very foolish, is to\nadopt English religion, philosophy, or political institutions. But\nwhy should any one wish to adopt them? They have their merits, of\ncourse, and their propriety at home; but they are blind compromises,\nand it is not in their principles that the English are distinguished,\nbut only in their practice. Their accents are more choice than their\nwords, and their words more choice than their ideas. This, which might\nsound like a gibe, is to my mind a ground for great hope and for some\nenvy. Refinement, like charity, should begin at home. First the body\nought to be made fit and decent, then speech and manners, and habits\njustly combining personal initiative with the power of co-operating\nwith others; and then, as this healthy life extends, the world will\nbegin to open out to the mind in the right perspectives: not at first,\nperhaps never, in its total truth and its real proportions, but with\nan ever-enlarging appreciation of what, for us, it can contain. The\nmind of the Englishman, starting in this proud and--humble and profound\nway from the inner man, pierces very often, in single directions, to\nthe limit of human faculty; and it seems to me to add to his humanity,\nwithout injury to his speculation, that he instinctively withdraws\nagain into himself, as he might return home to marry and settle after\ntempting fortune at the antipodes. His curious knowledge and his\npersonal opinions then become, as it were, mementos of his distant\nadventures; but his sterling worth lies in himself. He is at his best\nwhen free impulse or familiar habit takes an unquestioned lead, and\nwhen the mind, not being expected to intervene, beats in easy unison\nwith the scene and the occasion, like a rider at home in the saddle and\none with his galloping horse. Then grace returns to him, so angular\noften in his forced acts and his express tenets; the smile comes\nunaffectedly, and the blithe quick words flow as they should; arm is\nlinked spontaneously in arm, laughter points the bull's-eye of truth,\nthe whole world and its mysteries, not being pressed, become amiable,\nand the soul shines happy, and beautiful, and absolute mistress in her\ncomely house. Nothing in him then is gross; all is harmonized, all is\ntouched with natural life. His simplicity becomes wholeness, and he no\nlonger seems dull in any direction, but in all things sound, sensitive,\ntender, watchful, and brave.\n\n\n\n\n17\n\nFRIENDSHIPS\n\n\nFriendship is almost always the union of a part of one mind with a part\nof another; people are friends in spots. Friendship sometimes rests on\nsharing early memories, as do brothers and schoolfellows, who often,\nbut for that now affectionate familiarity with the same old days, would\ndislike and irritate one another extremely. Sometimes it hangs on\npassing pleasures and amusements, or on special pursuits; sometimes on\nmere convenience and comparative lack of friction in living together.\nOne's friends are that part of the human race with which one can be\nhuman. But there are youthful friendships of quite another quality,\nwhich I seem to have discovered flourishing more often and more frankly\nin England than in other countries; brief echoes, as it were, of that\nlove of comrades so much celebrated in antiquity. I do not refer to the\n\"friendship of virtue\" mentioned by Aristotle, which means, I suppose,\ncommunity in allegiance or in ideals. It may come to that in the end,\nconsidered externally; but community in allegiance or in ideals, if\ngenuine, expresses a common disposition, and its roots are deeper and\nmore physical than itself. The friendship I have in mind is a sense of\nthis initial harmony between two natures, a union of one whole man\nwith another whole man, a sympathy between the centres of their being,\nradiating from those centres on occasion in unanimous thoughts, but\nnot essentially needing to radiate. Trust here is inwardly grounded;\nlikes and dislikes run together without harness, like the steeds of\nAurora; you may take agreement for granted without words; affection\nis generously independent of all tests or external bonds; it can even\nbear not to be mutual, not to be recognized; and in any case it shrinks\nfrom the blatancy of open vows. In such friendships there is a touch of\npassion and of shyness; an understanding which does not need to become\nexplicit or complete. There is wine in the cup; it is not to be spilled\nnor gulped down unrelished, but to be sipped slowly, soberly, in the\nlong summer evening, with the window open to the college garden, and\nthe mind full of all that is sweetest to the mind.\n\nNow there is a mystery here--though it need be no mystery--which some\npeople find strange and distressing and would like to hush up. This\nprofound physical sympathy may sometimes, for a moment, spread to the\nsenses; that is one of its possible radiations, though fugitive; and\nthere is a fashionable psychology at hand to explain all friendship,\nfor that reason, as an aberration of sex. Of course it is such in some\npeople, and in many people it may seem to be such at rare moments;\nbut it would be a plain abuse of language to call a mother's love\nfor her children sexual, even when they are boys, although certainly\nshe could not have that love, nor those children, if she had no sex.\nPerhaps if we had no sex we should be incapable of tenderness of any\nsort; but this fact does not make all forms of affection similar in\nquality nor in tendency. The love of friends is not, like the love of\nwoman, a lyrical prologue to nest--building. Engaging, no doubt, the\nsame radical instincts, in a different environment and at another phase\nof their development, it turns them, whilst still plastic, in other\ndirections. Human nature is still plastic, especially in the region\nof emotion, as is proved by the ever-changing forms of religion and\nart; and it is not a question of right and wrong, nor even, except\nin extreme cases, of health and disease, but only a question of\nalternative development, whether the human capacity to love is absorbed\nin the family cycle, or extends to individual friendships, or to\ncommunion with nature or with God. The love of friends in youth, in the\ncases where it is love rather than friendship, has a mystical tendency.\nIn character, though seldom in intensity, it resembles the dart which,\nin an ecstatic vision, pierced the heart of Saint Theresa, bursting\nthe normal integument by which the blood is kept coursing through\ngeneration after generation, in the closed channel of human existence\nand human slavery. Love then escapes from that round; it is, in one\nsense, wasted and sterilized; but in being diverted from its earthly\nlabours it suffuses the whole universe with light; it casts its glowing\ncolours on the sunset, upon the altar, upon the past, upon the truth.\nThe anguished futility of love corrects its own selfishness, its own\nillusion; gradually the whole world becomes beautiful in its inhuman\nimmensity; our very defeats are transfigured, and we see that it was\ngood for us to have gone up into that mountain.\n\nThat such mystic emotions, whether in religion or in friendship, are\nerotic was well known before the day's of Freud. They have always\nexpressed themselves in erotic language. And why should they not be\nerotic? Sexual passion is itself an incident in the life of the Psyche,\na transitive phase in the great cycle by which life on earth is kept\ngoing. It grows insensibly out of bodily self-love, childish play, and\nlove of sensation; it merges in the end, after its midsummer night's\ndream, into parental and kingly purposes. How casual, how comic, the\npurely erotic impulse is, and how lightly nature plays with it, may be\nseen in the passion of jealousy. Jealousy is inseparable from sexual\nlove, and yet jealousy is not itself erotic either in quality or in\neffect, since it poisons pleasure, turns sympathy into suspicion,\nlove into hate, all in the interests of proprietorship. Why should\nwe be jealous, if we were simply merry? Nature weaves with a wide\nloom, and crosses the threads; and erotic passion may be as easily\nprovoked peripherally by deeper impulses as be itself the root of other\npropensities. Lovers sometimes pretend at first to be only friends,\nand friends have sometimes fancied, at first blush, that they were\nlovers; it is as easy for one habit or sentiment as for the other to\nprove the radical one, and to prevail in the end. As for Englishmen,\nthe last thing they would do would be to disguise some base prompting\nin high-flown language; they would call a spade a spade, if there were\noccasion. They are shy of words, as of all manifestations; and this\nvery shyness, if it proves that there is at bottom a vital instinct\nconcerned, also proves that it is not intrinsically more erotic than\nsocial, nor more social than intellectual. It is each of these things\npotentially, for such faculties are not divided in nature as they are\nin language; it may turn into any one of them if accident leads it that\nway; but it reverts from every casual expression to its central seat,\nwhich is the felt harmony of life with life, and of life with nature,\nwith everything that in the pulses of this world beats our own measure,\nand swells the music of our thoughts.\n\n\n\n\n18\n\nDICKENS\n\n\nIf Christendom should lose everything that is now in the melting-pot,\nhuman life would still remain amiable and quite adequately human. I\ndraw this comforting assurance from the pages of Dickens. Who could\nnot be happy in his world? Yet there is nothing essential to it which\nthe most destructive revolution would be able to destroy. People\nwould still be as different, as absurd, and as charming as are his\ncharacters; the springs of kindness and folly in their lives would\nnot be dried up. Indeed, there is much in Dickens which communism, if\nit came, would only emphasize and render universal. Those schools,\nthose poorhouses, those prisons, with those surviving shreds of family\nlife in them, show us what in the coming age (with some sanitary\nimprovements) would be the nursery and home of everybody. Everybody\nwould be a waif, like Oliver Twist, like Smike, like Pip, and like\nDavid Copperfield; and amongst the agents and underlings of social\ngovernment, to whom all these waifs would be entrusted, there would\nsurely be a goodly sprinkling of Pecksniffs, Squeers's, and Fangs;\nwhilst the Fagins would be everywhere commissioners of the people.\nNor would there fail to be, in high places and in low, the occasional\nsparkle of some Pickwick or Cheeryble Brothers or Sam Weller or\nMark Tapley; and the voluble Flora Finchings would be everywhere in\nevidence, and the strong-minded Betsey Trotwoods in office. There\nwould also be, among the inefficient, many a Dora and Agnes and\nLittle Emily--with her charm but without her tragedy, since this is\none of the things which the promised social reform would happily\nrender impossible; I mean, by removing all the disgrace of it. The\nonly element in the world of Dickens which would become obsolete\nwould be the setting, the atmosphere of material instrumentalities\nand arrangements, as travelling by coach is obsolete; but travelling\nby rail, by motor, or by airship will emotionally be much the same\nthing. It is worth noting how such instrumentalities, which absorb\nmodern life, are admired and enjoyed by Dickens, as they were by Homer.\nThe poets ought not to be afraid of them; they exercise the mind\ncongenially, and can be played with joyfully. Consider the black ships\nand the chariots of Homer, the coaches and river-boats of Dickens,\nand the aeroplanes of to-day; to what would an unspoiled young mind\nturn with more interest? Dickens tells us little of English sports,\nbut he shares the sporting nature of the Englishman, to whom the whole\nmaterial world is a playing--field, the scene giving ample scope to his\nlove of action, legality, and pleasant achievement. His art is to sport\naccording to the rules of the game, and to do things for the sake of\ndoing them, rather than for any ulterior motive.\n\nIt is remarkable, in spite of his ardent simplicity and openness of\nheart, how insensible Dickens was to the greater themes of the human\nimagination--religion, science, politics, art. He was a waif himself,\nand utterly disinherited. For example, the terrible heritage of\ncontentious religions which fills the world seems not to exist for him.\nIn this matter he was like a sensitive child, with a most religious\ndisposition, but no religious ideas. Perhaps, properly speaking, he\nhad no _ideas_ on any subject; what he had was a vast sympathetic\nparticipation in the daily life of mankind; and what he saw of ancient\ninstitutions made him hate them, as needless sources of oppression,\nmisery, selfishness, and rancour. His one political passion was\nphilanthropy, genuine but felt only on its negative, reforming side;\nof positive utopias or enthusiasms we hear nothing. The political\nbackground of Christendom is only, so to speak, an old faded back-drop\nfor his stage; a castle, a frigate, a gallows, and a large female\nangel with white wings standing above an orphan by an open grave--a\ndecoration which has to serve for all the melodramas in his theatre,\nintellectually so provincial and poor. Common life as it is lived was\nvaried and lovable enough for Dickens, if only the pests and cruelties\ncould be removed from it. Suffering wounded him, but not vulgarity;\nwhatever pleased his senses and whatever shocked them filled his mind\nalike with romantic wonder, with the endless delight of observation.\nVulgarity--and what can we relish, if we recoil at vulgarity?--was\ninnocent and amusing; in fact, for the humorist, it was the spice of\nlife. There was more piety in being human than in being pious. In\nreviving Christmas, Dickens transformed it from the celebration of a\nmetaphysical mystery into a feast of overflowing simple kindness and\ngood cheer; the church bells were still there--in the orchestra; and\nthe angels of Bethlehem were still there--painted on the back-curtain.\nChurches, in his novels, are vague, desolate places where one has\nghastly experiences, and where only the pew-opener is human; and such\nreligious and political conflicts as he depicts in _Barnaby Rudge_\nand in _A Tale of Two Cities_ are street brawls and prison scenes and\nconspiracies in taverns, without any indication of the contrasts in\nmind or interests between the opposed parties. Nor had Dickens any\nlively sense for fine art, classical tradition, science, or even the\nmanners and feelings of the upper classes in his own time and country:\nin his novels we may almost say there is no army, no navy, no church,\nno sport, no distant travel, no daring adventure, no feeling for the\nwatery wastes and the motley nations of the planet, and--luckily, with\nhis notion of them--no lords and ladies. Even love of the traditional\nsort is hardly in Dickens's sphere--I mean the soldierly passion\nin which a rather rakish gallantry was sobered by devotion, and\nloyalty rested on pride. In Dickens love is sentimental or benevolent\nor merry or sneaking or canine; in his last book he was going to\ndescribe a love that was passionate and criminal; but love for him\nwas never chivalrous, never poetical. What he paints most tragically\nis a quasi-paternal devotion in the old to the young, the love of Mr.\nPeggotty for Little Emily, or of Solomon Gills for Walter Gay, A series\nof shabby little adventures, such as might absorb the interest of an\naverage youth, were romantic enough for Dickens.\n\nI say he was disinherited, but he inherited the most terrible\nnegations. Religion lay on him like the weight of the atmosphere,\nsixteen pounds to the square inch, yet never noticed nor mentioned. He\nlived and wrote in the shadow of the most awful prohibitions. Hearts\npetrified by legality and falsified by worldliness offered, indeed,\na good subject for a novelist, and Dickens availed himself of it to\nthe extent of always contrasting natural goodness and happiness with\nwhatever is morose; but his morose people were wicked, not virtuous\nin their own way; so that the protest of his temperament against\nhis environment never took a radical form nor went back to first\nprinciples. He needed to feel, in his writing, that he was carrying\nthe sympathies of every man with him. In him conscience was single,\nand he could not conceive how it could ever be divided in other men.\nHe denounced scandals without exposing shams, and conformed willingly\nand scrupulously to the proprieties. Lady Dedlock's secret, for\ninstance, he treats as if it were the sin of Adam, remote, mysterious,\ninexpiable. Mrs. Dombey is not allowed to deceive her husband except by\npretending to deceive him. The seduction of Little Emily is left out\naltogether, with the whole character of Steerforth, the development of\nwhich would have been so important in the moral experience of David\nCopperfield himself. But it is not public prejudice alone that plays\nthe censor over Dickens's art; his own kindness and even weakness\nof heart act sometimes as marplots. The character of Miss Mowcher,\nfor example, so brilliantly introduced, was evidently intended to\nbe shady, and to play a very important part in the story; but its\noriginal in real life, which was recognized, had to be conciliated,\nand the sequel was omitted and patched up with an apology--itself\nadmirable--for the poor dwarf. Such a sacrifice does honour to\nDickens's heart; but artists should meditate on their works in time,\nand it is easy to remove any too great likeness in a portrait by a\nfew touches making it more consistent than real people are apt to be;\nand in this case, if the little creature had been really guilty, how\nmuch more subtle and tragic her apology for herself might have been,\nlike that of the bastard Edmund in _King Lear_! So, too, in _Dombey\nand Son_, Dickens could not bear to let Walter Gay turn out badly,\nas he had been meant to do, and to break his uncle's heart as well\nas the heroine's; he was accordingly transformed into a stage hero\nmiraculously saved from shipwreck, and Florence was not allowed to\nreward the admirable Toots, as she should have done, with her trembling\nhand. But Dickens was no free artist; he had more genius than taste, a\nwarm fancy not aided by a thorough understanding of complex characters.\nHe worked under pressure, for money and applause, and often had to\ncheapen in execution what his inspiration had so vividly conceived.\n\nWhat, then, is there left, if Dickens has all these limitations? In\nour romantic disgust we might be tempted to say, Nothing. But in fact\nalmost everything is left, almost everything that counts in the daily\nlife of mankind, or that by its presence or absence can determine\nwhether life shall be worth living or not; because a simple good life\nis worth-living, and an elaborate bad life is not. There remains in the\nfirst place eating and drinking; relished not bestially, but humanly,\njovially, as the sane and exhilarating basis for everything else. This\nis a sound English beginning; but the immediate sequel, as the England\nof that day presented it to Dickens, is no less delightful. There is\nthe ruddy glow of the hearth; the sparkle of glasses and brasses and\nwell-scrubbed pewter; the savoury fumes of the hot punch, after the\ntingle of the wintry air; the coaching-scenes, the motley figures and\nabsurd incidents of travel; the changing sights and joys of the road.\nAnd then, to balance this, the traffic of ports and cities, the hubbub\nof crowded streets, the luxury of shop-windows and of palaces not to\nbe entered; the procession of the passers-by, shabby or ludicrously\ngenteel; the dingy look and musty smell of their lodgings; the\nlabyrinth of back-alleys, courts, and mews, with their crying children,\nand scolding old women, and listless, half-drunken loiterers. These\nsights, like fables, have a sort of moral in them to which Dickens was\nvery sensitive; the important airs of nobodies on great occasions,\nthe sadness and preoccupation of the great as they hasten by in their\nmourning or on their pressing affairs; the sadly comic characters of\nthe tavern; the diligence of shopkeepers, like squirrels turning in\ntheir cages; the children peeping out everywhere like grass in an\nuntrodden street; the charm of humble things, the nobleness of humble\npeople, the horror of crime, the ghastliness of vice, the deft hand and\nshining face of virtue passing through the midst of it all; and finally\na fresh wind of indifference and change blowing across our troubles and\nclearing the most lurid sky.\n\nI do not know whether it was Christian charity or naturalistic insight,\nor a mixture of both (for they are closely akin) that attracted Dickens\nparticularly to the deformed, the half-witted, the abandoned, or those\nimpeded or misunderstood by virtue of some singular inner consecration.\nThe visible moral of these things, when brutal prejudice does not\nblind us to it, comes very near to true philosophy; one turn of the\nscrew, one flash of reflection, and we have understood nature and human\nmorality and the relation between them.\n\nIn his love of roads and wayfarers, of river-ports and wharves and the\nidle or sinister figures that lounge about them, Dickens was like Walt\nWhitman; and I think a second Dickens may any day appear in America,\nwhen it is possible in that land of hurry to reach the same degree of\nsaturation, the same unquestioning pleasure in the familiar facts.\nThe spirit of Dickens would be better able to do justice to America\nthan was that of Walt Whitman; because America, although it may seem\nnothing but a noisy nebula to the impressionist, is not a nebula but\na concourse of very distinct individual bodies, natural and social,\neach with its definite interests and story. Walt Whitman had a sort of\ntranscendental philosophy which swallowed the universe whole, supposing\nthere was a universal spirit in things identical with the absolute\nspirit that observed them; but Dickens was innocent of any such\nclap-trap, and remained a true spirit in his own person. Kindly and\nclear-sighted, but self-identical and unequivocally human, he glided\nthrough the slums like one of his own little heroes, uncontaminated\nby their squalor and confusion, courageous and firm in his clear\nallegiances amid the flux of things, a pale angel at the Carnival,\nhis heart aflame, his voice always flute-like in its tenderness and\nwarning. This is the true relation of spirit to existence, not the\nother which confuses them; for this earth (I cannot speak for the\nuniverse at large) has no spirit of its own, but brings forth spirits\nonly at certain points, in the hearts and brains of frail living\ncreatures, who like insects flit through it, buzzing and gathering\nwhat sweets they can; and it is the spaces they traverse in this\ncareer, charged with their own moral burden, that they can report on or\ndescribe, not things rolling on to infinity in their vain tides. To be\nhypnotized by that flood would be a heathen idolatry. Accordingly Walt\nWhitman, in his comprehensive democratic vistas, could never see the\ntrees for the wood, and remained incapable, for all his diffuse love\nof the human herd, of ever painting a character or telling a story;\nthe very things in which Dickens was a master. It is this life of the\nindividual, as it may be lived in a given nation, that determines the\nwhole value of that nation to the poet, to the moralist, and to the\njudicious historian. But for the excellence of the typical single life,\nno nation deserves to be remembered more than the sands of the sea; and\nAmerica will not be a success, if every American is a failure.\n\nDickens entered the theatre of this world by the stage door; the shabby\nlittle adventures of the actors in their private capacity replace for\nhim the mock tragedies which they enact before a dreaming public.\nMediocrity of circumstances and mediocrity of soul for ever return to\nthe centre of his stage; a more wretched or a grander existence is\nsometimes broached, but the pendulum soon swings back, and we return,\nwith the relief with which we put on our slippers after the most\nromantic excursion, to a golden mediocrity--to mutton and beer, and to\nlove and babies in a suburban villa with one frowsy maid. Dickens is\nthe poet of those acres of yellow brick streets which the traveller\nsees from the railway viaducts as he approaches London; they need a\npoet, and they deserve one, since a complete human life may very well\nbe lived there. Their little excitements and sorrows, their hopes and\nhumours are like those of the Wooden Midshipman in _Dombey and Son_;\nbut the sea is not far off, and the sky--Dickens never forgets it--is\nabove all those brief troubles. He had a sentiment in the presence\nof this vast flatness of human fates, in spite of their individual\npungency, which I think might well be the dominant sentiment of mankind\nin the future; a sense of happy freedom in littleness, an open-eyed\nreverence and religion without words. This universal human anonymity\nis like a sea, an infinitive democratic desert, chock-full and yet\nthe very image of emptiness, with nothing in it for the mind, except,\nas the Moslems say, the presence of Allah. Awe is the counterpart\nof humility--and this is perhaps religion enough. The atom in the\nuniversal vortex ought to be humble; he ought to see that, materially,\nhe doesn't much matter, and that morally his loves are merely his own,\nwithout authority over the universe. He can admit without obloquy that\nhe is what he is; and he can rejoice in his own being, and in that of\nall other things in so far as he can share it sympathetically. The\napportionment of existence and of fortune is in Other Hands; his own\nportion is contentment, vision, love, and laughter.\n\nHaving humility, that most liberating of sentiments, having a true\nvision of human existence and joy in that vision, Dickens had in a\nsuperlative degree the gift of humour, of mimicry, of unrestrained\nfarce. He was the perfect comedian. When people say Dickens\nexaggerates, it seems to me they can have no eyes and no ears. They\nprobably have only _notions_ of what things and people are; they accept\nthem conventionally, at their diplomatic value. Their minds run on\nin the region of discourse, where there are masks only and no faces,\nideas and no facts; they have little sense for those living grimaces\nthat play from moment to moment upon the countenance of the world. The\nworld is a perpetual caricature of itself; at every moment it is the\nmockery and the contradiction of what it is pretending to be. But as it\nnevertheless intends all the time to be something different and highly\ndignified, at the next moment it corrects and checks and tries to cover\nup the absurd thing it was; so that a conventional world, a world of\nmasks, is superimposed on the reality, and passes in every sphere of\nhuman interest for the reality itself. Humour is the perception of\nthis illusion, the fact allowed to pierce here and there through the\nconvention, whilst the convention continues to be maintained, as if we\nhad not observed its absurdity. Pure comedy is more radical, cruder,\nin a certain sense less human; because comedy throws the convention\nover altogether, revels for a moment in the fact, and brutally says to\nthe notions of mankind, as if it slapped them in the face, There, take\nthat! That's what you really are I At this the polite world pretends\nto laugh, not tolerantly as it does at humour, but a little angrily.\nIt does not like to see itself by chance in the glass, without having\nhad time to compose its features for demure self-contemplation. \"What\na bad mirror,\" it exclaims; \"it must be concave or convex; for surely\nI never looked like that. Mere caricature, farce, and horse play.\nDickens exaggerates; _I_ never was so sentimental as that; _I_ never\nsaw anything so dreadful; _I_ don't believe there were ever any people\nlike Quilp, or Squeers, or Serjeant Buzfuz.\" But the polite world is\nlying; there _are_ such people; we are such people ourselves in our\ntrue moments, in our veritable impulses; but we are careful to stifle\nand to hide those moments from ourselves and from the world; to purse\nand pucker ourselves into the mask of our conventional personality;\nand so simpering, we profess that it is very coarse and inartistic\nof Dickens to undo our life's work for us in an instant, and remind\nus of what we are. And as to other people, though we may allow that\nconsidered superficially they are often absurd, we do not wish to dwell\non their eccentricities, nor to mimic them. On the contrary, it is\ngood manners to look away quickly, to suppress a smile, and to say to\nourselves that the ludicrous figure in the street is not at all comic,\nbut a dull ordinary Christian, and that it is foolish to give any\nimportance to the fact that its hat has blown off, that it has slipped\non an orange-peel and unintentionally sat on the pavement, that it\nhas a pimple on its nose, that its one tooth projects over its lower\nlip, that it is angry with things in general, and that it is looking\neverywhere for the penny which it holds tightly in its hand. That may\nfairly represent the moral condition of most of us at most times; but\nwe do not want to think of it; we do not want to see; we gloss the\nfact over; we console ourselves before we are grieved, and reassert\nour composure before we have laughed. We are afraid, ashamed, anxious\nto be spared. What displeases us in Dickens is that he does not spare\nus; he mimics things to the full; he dilates and exhausts and repeats;\nhe wallows. He is too intent on the passing experience to look over\nhis shoulder, and consider whether we have not already understood, and\nhad enough. He is not thinking of us; he is obeying the impulse of the\npassion, the person, or the story he is enacting. This faculty, which\nrenders him a consummate comedian, is just what alienated from him a\nlater generation in which people of taste were aesthetes and virtuous\npeople were higher snobs; they wanted a mincing art, and he gave them\ncopious improvization, they wanted analysis and development, and he\ngave them absolute comedy. I must confess, though the fault is mine\nand not his, that sometimes his absoluteness is too much for me. When\nI come to the death of Little Nell, or to What the Waves were always\nSaying, or even to the incorrigible perversities of the pretty Dora,\nI skip. I can't take my liquor neat in such draughts, and my inner\nman says to Dickens, Please don't. But then I am a coward in so many\nways! There are so many things in this world that I skip, as I skip\nthe undiluted Dickens! When I reach Dover on a rough day, I wait there\nuntil the Channel is smoother; am I not travelling for pleasure? But\nmy prudence does not blind me to the admirable virtue of the sailors\nthat cross in all weathers, nor even to the automatic determination of\nthe sea-sick ladies, who might so easily have followed my example, if\nthey were not the slaves of their railway tickets and of their labelled\nluggage. They are loyal to their tour, and I to my philosophy. Yet as\nwrapped in my great-coat and sure of a good dinner, I pace the windy\npier and soliloquize, I feel the superiority of the bluff tar, glad of\nbreeze, stretching a firm arm to the unsteady passenger, and watching\nwith a masterful thrill of emotion the home cliffs receding and the\nforeign coasts ahead. It is only courage (which Dickens had without\nknowing it) and universal kindness (which he knew he had) that are\nrequisite to nerve us for a true vision of this world. And as some of\nus are cowards about crossing the Channel, and others about \"crossing\nthe bar,\" so almost everybody is a coward about his own humanity. We do\nnot consent to be absurd, though absurd we are. We have no fundamental\nhumility. We do not wish the moments of our lives to be caught by a\nquick eye in their grotesque initiative, and to be pilloried in this\nway before our own eyes. For that reason we don't like Dickens, and\ndon't like comedy, and don't like the truth. Dickens could don the\ncomic mask with innocent courage; he could wear it with a grace, ease,\nand irresistible vivacity seldom given to men. We must go back for\nanything like it to the very greatest comic poets, to Shakespeare or to\nAristophanes. Who else, for instance, could have penned this:\n\n      \"It was all Mrs. Bumble. She _would_ do it,\" urged Mr.\n      Bumble; first looking found to ascertain that his partner\n      had left the room.\n\n      \"That is no excuse,\" replied Air. Brownlow. \"You were\n      present on the occasion of the destruction of these\n      trinkets, and indeed are the more guilty of the two, in\n      the eye of the law; for the law supposes that your wife\n      acts under your direction.\"\n\n      \"If the law supposes that,\" said Mr. Bumble, squeezing\n      his hat emphatically in both hands, \"the law is a ass,\n      a idiot. If that's the eye of the law, the law is a\n      bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye\n      may be opened by experience--by experience.\"\n\n      Laying great stress on the repetition of these two words,\n      Mr. Bumble fixed his hat on very tight, and putting his\n      hands in his pockets, followed his helpmate downstairs.\n\nThis is high comedy; the irresistible, absurd, intense dream of the\nold fool, personifying the law in order to convince and to punish\nit. I can understand that this sort of thing should not be common in\nEnglish literature, nor much relished; because pure comedy is scornful,\nmerciless, devastating, holding no door open to anything beyond.\nCultivated English feeling winces at this brutality, although the\ncommon people love it in clowns and in puppet shows; and I think they\nare right. Dickens, who surely was tender enough, had so irresistible\na comic genius that it carried him beyond the gentle humour which most\nEnglishmen possess to the absolute grotesque reality. Squeers, for\ninstance, when he sips the wretched dilution which he has prepared for\nhis starved and shivering little pupils, smacks his lips and cries:\n\"Here's richness!\" It is savage comedy; humour would come in if we\nunderstood (what Dickens does not tell us) that the little creatures\nwere duly impressed and thought the thin liquid truly delicious. I\nsuspect that English sensibility prefers the humour and wit of Hamlet\nto the pure comedy of Falstaff; and that even in Aristophanes it seeks\nconsolation in the lyrical poetry for the flaying of human life in\nthe comedy itself. Tastes are free; but we should not deny that in\nmerciless and rollicking comedy life is caught in the act. The most\ngrotesque creatures of Dickens are not exaggerations or mockeries of\nsomething other than themselves; they arise because nature generates\nthem, like toadstools; they exist because they can't help it, as we\nall do. The fact that these perfectly self-justified beings are absurd\nappears only by comparison, and from outside; circumstances, or the\nexpectations of other people, make them ridiculous and force them to\ncontradict themselves; but in nature it is no crime to be exceptional.\nOften, but for the savagery of the average man, it would not even be\na misfortune. The sleepy fat boy in _Pickwick_ looks foolish; but\nin himself he is no more foolish, nor less solidly self-justified,\nthan a pumpkin lying on the ground. Toots seems ridiculous; and we\nlaugh heartily at his incoherence, his beautiful waistcoats, and his\nextreme modesty; but when did anybody more obviously grow into what\nhe is because he couldn't grow otherwise? So with Mr. Pickwick, and\nSam Weller, and Mrs. Gamp, and Micawber, and all the rest of this\nwonderful gallery; they are ridiculous only by accident, and in a\ncontext in which they never intended to appear. If Oedipus and Lear and\nCleopatra do not seem ridiculous, it is only because tragic reflection\nhas taken them out of the context in which, in real life, they would\nhave figured. If we saw them as facts, and not as emanations of a\npoet's dream, we should laugh at them till doomsday; what grotesque\npresumption, what silly whims, what mad contradiction of the simplest\nrealities! Yet we should not laugh at them without feeling how real\ntheir griefs were; as real and terrible as the griefs of children and\nof dreams. But facts, however serious inwardly, are always absurd\noutwardly; and the just critic of life sees both truths at once, as\nCervantes did in _Don Quixote_. A pompous idealist who does not see the\nridiculous in _all_ things is the dupe of his sympathy and abstraction;\nand a clown, who does not see that these ridiculous creatures are\nliving quite in earnest, is the dupe of his egotism. Dickens saw the\nabsurdity, and understood the life; I think he was a good philosopher.\n\nIt is usual to compare Dickens with Thackeray, which is like comparing\nthe grape with the gooseberry; there are obvious points of resemblance,\nand the gooseberry has some superior qualities of its own; but you\ncan't make red wine of it. The wine of Dickens is of the richest,\nthe purest, the sweetest, the most fortifying to the blood; there is\ndistilled in it, with the perfection of comedy, the perfection of\nmorals. I do not mean, of course, that Dickens appreciated all the\nvalues that human life has or might have; that is beyond any man.\nEven the greatest philosophers, such as Aristotle, have not always\nmuch imagination to conceive forms of happiness or folly other than\nthose which their age or their temperament reveals to them; their\ninsight runs only to discovering the _principle_ of happiness, that\nit is spontaneous life of any sort harmonized with circumstances. The\nsympathies and imagination of Dickens, vivid in their sphere, were\nno less limited in range; and of course it was not his business to\nfind philosophic formulas; nevertheless I call his the perfection of\nmorals for two reasons: that he put the distinction between good and\nevil in the right place, and that he felt this distinction intensely.\nA moralist might have excellent judgement, he might see what sort of\nlife is spontaneous in a given being and how far it may be harmonized\nwith circumstances, yet his heart might remain cold, he might not\nsuffer nor rejoice with the suffering or joy he foresaw. Humanitarians\nlike Bentham and Mill, who talked about the greatest happiness of the\ngreatest number, might conceivably be moral prigs in their own persons,\nand they might have been chilled to the bone in their theoretic love\nof mankind, if they had had the wit to imagine in what, as a matter of\nfact, the majority would place their happiness. Even if their theory\nhad been correct (which I think it was in intention, though not in\nstatement) they would then not have been perfect moralists, because\ntheir maxims would not have expressed their hearts. In expressing their\nhearts, they ought to have embraced one of those forms of \"idealism\"\nby which men fortify themselves in their bitter passions or in their\nhelpless commitments; for they do not wish mankind to be happy in\nits own way, but in theirs. Dickens was not one of those moralists\nwho summon every man to do himself the greatest violence so that he\nmay not offend them, nor defeat their ideals. Love of the good of\nothers is something that shines in every page of Dickens with a truly\ncelestial splendour. How entirely limpid is his sympathy with life--a\nsympathy uncontaminated by dogma or pedantry or snobbery or bias of\nany kind! How generous is this keen, light spirit, how pure this open\nheart! And yet, in spite of this extreme sensibility, not the least\nwobbling; no deviation from a just severity of judgement, from an\nuncompromising distinction between white and black. And this happens\nas it ought to happen; sympathy is not checked by a flatly contrary\nprejudice or commandment, by some categorical imperative irrelevant to\nhuman nature; the check, like the cheer, comes by tracing the course\nof spontaneous impulse amid circumstances that inexorably lead it to\nsuccess or to failure. There is a bed to this stream, freely as the\nwater may flow; when it comes to this precipice it must leap, when\nit runs over these pebbles it must sing, and when it spreads into\nthat marsh it must become livid and malarial. The very sympathy with\nhuman impulse quickens in Dickens the sense of danger; his very joy\nin joy makes him stem to what kills it. How admirably drawn are his\nsurly villains! No rhetorical vilification of them, as in a sermon; no\nexaggeration of their qualms or fears; rather a sense of how obvious\nand human all their courses seem from their own point of view; and\nyet no sentimental apology for them, no romantic worship of rebels in\ntheir madness or crime. The pity of it, the waste of it all, are seen\nnot by a second vision but by the same original vision which revealed\nthe lure and the drift of the passion. Vice is a monster here of such\nsorry mien, that the longer we see it the more we deplore it; that\nother sort of vice which Pope found so seductive was perhaps only some\ninnocent impulse artificially suppressed, and called a vice because it\nbroke out inconveniently and displeased the company. True vice is human\nnature strangled by the suicide of attempting the impossible. Those\nso self-justified villains of Dickens never elude their fates. Bill\nSikes is not let off, neither is Nancy; the oddly benevolent Magwitch\ndoes not escape from the net, nor does the unfortunate young Richard\nCarstone, victim of the Circumlocution Office. The horror and ugliness\nof their fall are rendered with the hand of a master; we see here, as\nin the world, that in spite of the romanticists it is not virtue to\nrush enthusiastically along any road. I think Dickens is one of the\nbest friends mankind has ever had. He has held the mirror up to nature,\nand of its reflected fragments has composed a fresh world, where the\nmen and women differ from real people only in that they live in a\nliterary medium, so that all ages and places may know them. And they\nare worth knowing, just as one's neighbours are, for their picturesque\ncharacters and their pathetic fates. Their names should be in every\nchild's mouth; they ought to be adopted members of every household.\nTheir stories cause the merriest and the sweetest chimes to ring in the\nfancy, without confusing our moral judgement or alienating our interest\nfrom the motley commonplaces of daily life. In every English-speaking\nhome, in the four quarters of the globe, parents and children will\ndo well to read Dickens aloud of a winter's evening; they will love\nwinter, and one another, and God the better for it. What a wreath that\nwill be of ever-fresh holly, thick with bright berries, to hang to this\npoet's memory--the very crown he would have chosen!\n\n\n\n\n19\n\nTHE HUMAN SCALE\n\n\nGreat buildings often have great doors; but great doors are heavy to\nswing, and if left open they may let in too much cold or glare; so that\nwe sometimes observe a small postern cut into one leaf of the large\ndoor for more convenient entrance and exit, and it is seldom or never\nthat the monumental gates yawn in their somnolence. Here is the modest\nhuman scale reasserting itself in the midst of a titanic structure, but\nit reasserts itself with an ill grace and in the interests of frailty;\nthe patch it makes seems unintended and ignominious.\n\nYet the human scale is not essentially petty; when it does not slip\nin as a sort of interloper it has nothing to apologize for. Between\nthe infinite and the infinitesimal all sizes are equally central.\nThe Greeks, the Saracens, the English, the Chinese, and Japanese\ninstinctively retain the human scale in all that part of their work\nwhich is most characteristic of them and nearest to their affections.\nA Greek temple or the hall of an English mansion can be spacious and\ndignified enough, but they do not outrun familiar uses, and they lend\ntheir spaciousness and dignity to the mind, instead of crushing it.\nEverything about them has an air of friendliness and sufficiency; their\nelegance is not pompous, and if they are noble they are certainly not\nvast, cold, nor gilded.\n\nThe Saracens, Chinese, and Japanese in their various ways use the\nhuman scale with even greater refinement, for they apply it also in a\nsensuous and psychological direction. Not only is the size of their\nworks moderate by preference, like their brief lyrics, but they exactly\nmeet human sensibility by a great delicacy and concentration in design\nand a fragrant simplicity in workmanship. Everything they make is\neconomical in its beauty and seems to say to us: \"I exist only to be\nenjoyed; there is nothing in me not merely delightful,\" Here the human\nscale is not drawn from the human body so much as from the human soul;\nits faculties are treated with deference--I mean the faculties it\nreally has, not those, like reason, which a flattering philosophy may\nimpute to it.\n\nAn English country house which is a cottage in appearance may turn\nout on examination to be almost a palace in extent and appointments;\nthere is no parade, yet there is great profusion--too much furniture,\ntoo many ornaments, too much food, too many flowers, too many people.\nEverything there is on the human scale except the quantity of things,\nwhich is oppressive. The Orientals are poorer, more voluptuous, and\nmore sensitive to calligraphy; they leave empty spaces about them and\nenjoy one thing at a time and enjoy it longer.\n\nOne reason for this greater subtlety and mercifulness in the art of\nOrientals is perhaps the fiercer assault made on their senses by\nnature. The Englishman lives in a country which is itself on the human\nscale, clement at all seasons, charming with a gently inconstant\natmospheric charm. The rare humanity of nature in his island permeates\nhis being from boyhood up with a delight that is half sentimental,\nhalf physical and sporting. In his fields and moors he grows keen\nand fond of exertion; there too his friendships and his estimates of\nmen are shaped unawares, as if under some silent superior influence.\nThere he imbibes the impressions that make him tender to poetry. He\nmay not require great subtlety in his poets, but he insists that their\nsentiment shall have been felt and their images seen, and while the\nobvious, even the shamelessly obvious, does not irritate him, he hates\ncheap sublimity and false notes. He respects experience and is master\nof it in his own field.\n\nThus the empty spaces with which a delicate art likes to surround\nitself are supplied for the Englishman by his comradeship with nature,\nhis ranging habits, and the reticence of his imagination. There the\nunexpressed dimension, the background of pregnant silence, exists for\nhim in all its power. For the Saracen, on the contrary, nature is an\nabyss: parched deserts, hard mountains, night with its overwhelming\nmoon. Here the human scale is altogether transgressed; nature is cruel,\nalien, excessive, to be fled from with a veiled face. For a relief and\nsolace he builds his house without windows; he makes his life simple,\nhis religion a single phrase, his art exquisite and slight, like the\njet of his fountain. It is sweet and necessary that the works of man\nshould respect the human scale when everything in nature so infinitely\ntranscends it.\n\nWhy the Egyptians loved things colossal I do not know, but the taste\nof the Romans for the grandiose is easier to understand. It seems to\nhave been part and parcel of that yearning for the super-human which\nfilled late antiquity. This yearning took two distinct directions.\nAmong the worldly it fostered imperialism, organization, rhetoric,\nportentous works, belief in the universality and eternity of Rome,\nand actual deification of emperors. Among the spiritually-minded it\nled to a violent abstraction from the world, so that the soul in its\ninward solitude might feel itself inviolate and divine. The Christians\nat first belonged of course to the latter party; they detested the\ninflation of the empire, with its cold veneer of marble and of\noptimism; they were nothing if not humble and dead to the world. Their\ncatacombs were perforce on the human scale, as a coffin is; but even\nwhen they emerged to the surface, they reduced rather than enlarged\nthe temples and basilicas bequeathed to them by the pagans. Apart\nfrom a few imperial structures at Constantinople or Ravenna their\nchurches for a thousand years kept to the human scale; often they were\ndiminutive; when necessary they were spread out to hold multitudes,\nbut remained low and in the nature of avenues to a tomb or a shrine.\nThe centre was some sombre precinct, often subterranean, where the\ninward man might commune with the other world. The sacraments were\nreceived with a bowed head; they did not call for architectural vistas.\nThe sumptuousness that in time encrusted these sanctuaries was that\nof a jewel--the Oriental, interior, concentrated sumptuousness of the\ncloistered arts. Yet the open-air pagan tradition was not dead. Roman\nworks were everywhere, and not all in ruins, and love of display and\nof plastic grandiloquence lay hardly dormant in the breast of many.\nIt required only a little prosperity to dispel the mystical humility\nand detachment which Christianity had brought with it at first; and the\nhuman scale of the Christian Greeks yielded at the first opportunity\nto the gigantic scale of the Romans. Spaces were cleared, vaults were\nraised, arches were made pointed in order that they might be wider and\nbe poised higher, towers and spires were aimed at the clouds, usually\ngetting only half way, porches became immense caverns. Brunelleschi\naccomplished a _tour de force_ in his dome and Michelangelo another in\nhis, even more stupendous. These various strained models, straining in\ndivergent directions, have kept artists uneasy and impotent ever since,\nexcept when under some benign influence they have recovered the human\nscale, and in domestic architecture or portrait painting have forgotten\nto be grand and have become felicitous.\n\nThe same movement is perhaps easier to survey in philosophy than in\narchitecture. Scarcely had Socrates brought investigation down from\nthe heavens and limited it to morals--a realm essentially on the human\nscale--when his pupils hastened to undo his work by projecting their\nmoral system again into the sky, denaturalizing both morals and nature.\nThey imagined a universe circling about man, tempering the light for\nhis eyes and making absolute his childlike wishes and judgements. This\nwas humanism out of scale and out of place, an attempt to cut not the\nworks of man but the universe to human measure. It was the nemesis that\novertook the Greeks for having become too complacently human. Earlier\nthe monstrous had played a great part in their religion; henceforth\nthat surrounding immensity having been falsely humanized, their modest\nhumanity itself had to be made monstrous to fill its place.\n\nHence we see the temples growing larger and larger, the dome\nintroduced, things on the human scale piled on one another to make a\nsublime fabric, like Saint Sophia, triumphal arches on pedestals not\nto be passed through, vain columns like towers, with a statue poised\non the summit like a weathercock, and finally doors so large that they\ncould not be opened and little doors had to be cut in them for men to\nuse. So the human scale turned up again irrepressibly, but for the\nmoment without its native dignity, because it had been stretched to\ncompass a lifeless dignity quite other than its own.\n\n\n\n\n20\n\nENGLISH ARCHITECTURE\n\n\nNests were the first buildings; I suppose the birds built them long\nbefore man ceased to be four-footed or four-handed, and to swing by\nhis tail from trees. The nests of man were coverts, something between\na hole in the ground and an arbour; a retreat easily turned into a\nwig-warn, a hut, or a tent, when once man had begun to flay animals and\nto weave mats. From the tent we can imagine the cart developing--one of\nthe earliest of human habitations--and from the cart the boat: tents,\nboats, and carts (as the Englishman knows so well) are in a manner\nmore human than houses; they are the shelters of freemen. Some men,\nthose destined to higher things, are migratory; they have imagination,\nbeing haunted by absent things, and distance of itself allures them,\neven if dearth or danger does not drive them on; indeed, dearth and\ndanger would not of themselves act as incentives to migration, if some\nsafer and greener paradise were not present to the fancy. Ranging into\nvaried climates, these men feel the need of that portable shelter which\nwe call clothes; and at a slightly greater distance from their skins,\nthey surround themselves with a second integument, also portable, the\ntent, cart, or boat. The first home of man is appropriately without\nfoundations, except in the instincts of his soul; and it is only by a\nslight anchorage to the earth, in some tempting glen or by some flowing\nriver, that the cart, boat, or tent becomes a dwelling-house. Here\nI see the secret of that paradox, that the English people who have\ninvented the word home, should be such travellers and colonists, and\nshould live so largely and so contentedly abroad. Home is essentially\nportable; it has no terrene foundation, like a tomb, a well, or an\naltar; it is an integument of the living man, as the body itself is;\nand as the body is more than the raiment, and determines its form, so\nthe inner man is more than his dwelling, and causes it to mould and\nto harden itself round him like a shell, wherever he may be. Home is\nbuilt round his bed, his cupboard, and his chimney-corner; and such a\nnest, if it fits his habits, is home all the world over, from Hudson's\nBay to Malacca; at least, it becomes home when the inner man, as he is\nprompted inwardly to do, surrounds himself there with a family; for a\nhome is a nest, and somehow incomplete without an egg to sit on.\n\nThis seems to me to be the true genealogy of English architecture,\nin so far as it is English. Strictly speaking, there is no English\narchitecture at all, only foreign architecture adapted and domesticated\nin England. But how thoroughly and admirably domesticated I How\nentirely transmuted inwardly from the classic tragic monumental thing\nit was, into something which, even if in abstract design it seems\nunchanged, has a new expression, a new scale, a new subordination of\npart to part, and as it were a new circulation of the blood within it!\nIt has all been made to bend and to cling like ivy round the inner\nman; it has all been rendered domestic and converted into a home. Far\nother was the character proper to nobler architecture in its foreign\nseats. There it had been essentially military, religious, or civic:\nit had begun perhaps with a slight modification or rearrangement of\ngreat stones lying on the ground, perhaps infinitely rooted in its\ndepths. Its centre was no living person, but some spot with a magic and\ncompulsive influence, or with a communal function; it came to glorify\nthree slabs--the tomb, the hearth, and the altar--and to render them\nmonumental. The tribe or the king had a treasure to be roofed over and\nwalled in; the mound where the dead lay buried was marked with a heap\nof stones; pillars were set up to the right and to the left of the\npresiding deity, to dignify the place where he delivered true oracles,\nand dispensed magic powers. This deity himself was a pillar, scarcely\nhumanized in form, or fantastically named after some animal; and as he\ngrew colossal, and his features took form and colour, his sacred head\nhad to be arched over with more labour and art; and the approach to him\nwas impressively delayed through pylons, courts, narthex, or nave,\ninto the sepulchral darkness of the holy of holies. Similarly defences\ngrew into citadels, and judgement-seats into palaces; and as for\nindividual men, if they did not sleep in the embrasure of some temple\ngate, or under some public stair, they found cubicles in the galleries\nof the king's court, or built themselves huts to breed in under the lee\nof the fortifications.\n\nThis sort of architecture has a tragic character; it dominates the soul\nrather than expresses it, and embodies stabilities and powers far older\nthan any one man, and far more lasting. It confronts each generation\nlike an inexorable deity, like death and war and labour; life is\npassed, thoughtlessly but not happily, under that awful shadow. Of\ncourse, there are acolytes in the temple and pages in the palace that\nscamper all over the most hallowed precincts, tittering and larking;\nand the same retreats may seem luminous and friendly afterwards to\nthe poet, the lover, or the mind bereaved; yet in their essential\nfunction these monuments are arresting, serious, silent, overwhelming;\nthey are a source of terror and compunction, like tragedy; they are\nfavourable to prayer, ecstasy, and meditation. At other times they\nbecome the scene of enormous gatherings, of parades and thrilling\ncelebrations; but always it is a vast affair, like a court ball, in\nwhich one insinuates one's littleness into what corner one can, to see\nand feel the movement of the whole, without playing any great part\nin it. Even the most amiable forms of classic architecture have this\npublic character. There is the theatre and the circus, into which one\nmust squeeze one's person uncomfortably, in order to subject one's\nmind to contagious emotions, and the judgements of the crowd; and even\nthe public fountain, at which the housemaids and water-boys wait for\ntheir turn, plays for ever far above the heads of the people; as if\nthat Neptune and those dolphins were spouting for their own pleasure,\ncooling the sunshine for their own bronze limbs, and never caring\nwhether they soused the passing mortal, or quenched his thirst.\n\nAll these forms and habits are intensely un-English, and yet England\nis full of vestiges of them, not only because its fine arts are\nderived from abroad, but because, however disguised, the same tragic\nthemes must appear everywhere. The tomb, the temple, the fortress are\nobligatory things; but they become properly English in character only\nwhen their public function recedes into the background, and they become\ninteresting to the inner man by virtue of associations or accidents\nwhich harmonize them with his sentimental experience. They grow English\nin growing picturesque. These castles and abbeys were Norman when\nthey were built, they were expressions of domination and fear, hard,\ncrude, practical, and foreign. But now the moat is grass-grown, the\ncloister in ruins, the headless saints are posts for the roses to\ncreep over, the frowning keep has lost its battlements and become a\ncomfortable mansion mantled with ivy; before it the well-dressed young\npeople play croquet on the lawn; and the chapel, whitewashed within,\npolitely furnished with pews, and politely frequented on Sundays, is\nembowered in a pretty garden of a graveyard, which the yew seems to\nsanctify more than the cross, and the flowers to suit better than the\ninscriptions; there is a bench there round the great tree, where the\nold villagers sit of an evening, and its branches, far overtopping the\nchurch spire with its restored sun-dial, seem to dispense a surer grace\nand protection than the church itself: they seem more unequivocally\nthe symbol and the work of God. So everything, in its ruin, seems in\nEngland to live a new life; and it is only this second life, this\ncottage built in the fallen stronghold, that is English.\n\nIf great architecture has a tragic character, it does not exclude, in\nthe execution, a certain play of fancy, a sportive use of the forms\nwhich the needful structure imposes; and these decorative frills or\narbitrary variations of theme might be called comic architecture. This\nis the side of the art which is subject to fashion, and changes under\nthe same influences, with the same swiftness and the same unanimity.\nBut as fashions among peasants sometimes last for ages, so certain\ndecorative themes, although quite arbitrary, sometimes linger on\nbecause of the inertia of the eye, which demands what it is used to,\nor the poverty of invention in the designer. The worst taste and the\nbest taste revel in decoration; but the motive here is play and there\ndisplay. The Englishman deprecates both; he abominates the tawdry, the\ntheatrical, the unnecessarily elaborate; and at the same time he is\nshy of novelty and playfulness; give him comfortable old grey clothes,\ngood for all weathers, and comfortable, pleasing, inconspicuous houses,\nwhere he can live without feeling a fool or being the victim of his\npossessions. The comic poses of architecture, which come to him from\nabroad, together with its tragic structure, he accordingly tones down\nand neutralizes as far as possible. How gently, for instance, how\npleasantly the wave of Italian architecture broke on these grassy\nshores! The classic line, which is tragic in its simple veracity and\nfixity, had already been submerged in attempts to vary it; in England,\nas in France, the Gothic habit of letting each part of a building have\nits own roof and its own symmetry, at once introduced the picturesque\ninto the most \"classic\" designs. The Italian scale, too, was at once\nreduced, and the Italian rhetoric in stone, the baroque and the\nspectacular, was obliterated. How pleasantly the Palladian forms were\nfitted to their English setting; how the windows were widened and\nsubdivided, the show pediments forgotten, the wreathed urns shaved\ninto modest globes, the pilasters sensibly broadened into panels, and\nthe classical detail applied to the native Gothic framework, with\nits gables, chimneys, and high roofs; whence the delightful brood of\nJacobean and Queen Anne houses; and in the next generation the so\ngenteel, so judicious Georgian mansion, with its ruddy brick, its broad\nwindows, and its delicate mouldings and accessories of stone. The\ntragic and the comic were spirited away together, and only the domestic\nremained.\n\nNevertheless, at one of the greatest moments in its history, England\nhad seemed to revel in comic art, and to have made it thoroughly its\nown. Domestic taste had reduced Gothic too, in England, to the human\nscale; prodigies of height and width in vaulting were not attempted,\ndoors remained modest, hooded, perhaps, with an almost rustic porch;\nthe vast spaces were subdivided, they were encrusted with ornament; the\nlines became playful, fan-tracery was invented, and floral pendants\nof stone; the walls became all glass, the ceilings carved bowers,\nand Gothic seemed on the point of smothering its rational skeleton\naltogether in luxurious trappings and the millinery of fashion.\nAll England seemed to become one field of the cloth of gold; rooms\nlooked like gilded palanquins or silken tents, roofs were forests\nof bannerets, pinnacles, and weathercocks; heraldry (a comic art)\noverspread every garment and utensil. Poetry, too, became euphuistic\nand labyrinthine and nevertheless friendly and familiar and full\nof a luscious humour, like the wit of the people. Even prose was a\nmaze of metaphors and conceits, every phrase was embroidered, and\nno self-respecting person could say yea or nay without some artful\ncircumlocution. It was this outburst of universal comedy that made\nShakespeare possible--an exuberant genius in some respects not like\na modern Englishman; he rose on the crest of a somewhat exotic wave\nof passion and vivacity, which at once subsided. Some vestiges of\nthat spirit seem to linger in American manners; but for the most part\npuritanism killed it; and I do not think we need regret its loss. What\ncould England have been but for the triumph of Protestantism there?\nOnly a coarser France, or a cockney Ireland. The puritan stiffening\nwas essential to raise England to its external dignity and greatness;\nand it was needed to fortify the inner man, to sober him, and persuade\nhim to be worthy of himself. As for comic art, there is enough of it\nelsewhere, in the oriental and the French schools, and in painting\nand drawing, if not in architecture, all the younger artists are\nexperimenting with it. The sort of aestheticism which was the fashion\nin London at the end of the nineteenth century tried to be playful,\nand to dote on art for its own sake; but in reality it was full of a\nperverted moralism; the aesthetes were simply Ruskin's pupils running\naway from school; they thought it immensely important to be choice, and\nquite disgraceful to think of morals. The architecture of that time was\ncertainly not comic in my sense of the word, it did not give a free\nrein to exuberant fancy: it was only railway Gothic. But in England the\nmists and the ivy and the green sward and the dark screening trees can\nmake endurable even that abortion of the ethics of Ruskin: and with\nbetter models, and less wilfulness, I see the fresh building of to-day\nrecovering a national charm: the scale small, the detail polyglot, the\narrangement gracious and convenient, the marriage with the green earth\nand the luminous air, foreseen and prepared for. Domestic architecture\nin England follows to the letter the advice of Polonius:\n\nCostly thy garment as thy purse can buy,\nBut not expressed in fancy: rich, not gaudy.\n\n\n\n\n21\n\nTHE ENGLISH CHURCH\n\n\nCompromise is odious to passionate natures because it seems a\nsurrender, and to intellectual natures because it seems a confusion;\nbut to the inner man, to the profound Psyche within us, whose life\nis warm, nebulous, and plastic, compromise seems the path of profit\nand justice. Health has many conditions; life is a resultant of many\nforces. Are there not several impulses in us at every moment? Are there\nnot several sides to every question? Has not every party caught sight\nof something veritably right and good? Is not the greatest practicable\nharmony, or the least dissension, the highest good? And if by the\nword \"truth\" we designate not the actual order of the facts, nor the\nexact description of them, but some inner symbol of reconciliation\nwith reality on our own part, bringing comfort, safety, and assurance,\nthen truth also will lie in compromise: truth will be partly truth to\noneself, partly workable convention and plausibility. A man's life as\nit flows is not a theorem to which there is any one rigid solution.\nIt is composed of many strands and looks to divers issues. There is\nthe love of home and the lure of adventure; there is chastity which is\na good, and there is love which is a good also; work must leave room\nfor sport, science for poetry, and reason for prejudice. Can it be a\nman's duty to annul any of the elements that make up his moral being\nand, because he possesses a religious tradition, shall he refuse the\ngifts of his senses, of his affections, of his country and its history,\nof the ruling science, morality, and taste of his day? Far from it:\nreligion, says the inner man, ought rather to be the highest synthesis\nof our nature, and make room for all these things. It should not\nsuccumb to any dead or foreign authority that ignores or dishonours\nthem. The Englishman finds that he was born a Christian, and therefore\nwishes to remain a Christian; but his Christianity must be his own, no\nless plastic and adaptable than his inner man; and it is an axiom with\nhim that nothing can be obligatory for a Christian which is unpalatable\nto an Englishman.\n\nOnly a few years ago, if a traveller landing in England on a Sunday\nand entering an Anglican church, had been told that the country\nwas Catholic and its church a branch of the Catholic church, his\nastonishment would have been extreme. \"Catholic\" is opposed in the\nfirst place to national and in the second place to Protestant; how\nthen, he would have asked himself, can a church be Catholic that is so\nobviously and dismally Protestant, and so narrowly and primly national?\nWhy then this abuse of language? And why this silly provincialism of\ninsisting on always calling Catholics Roman Catholics, as if there were\nany others, and they were not known by that name all the world over?\nNevertheless, the restoration of an elder Anglicanism in our day has\nsomewhat softened these paradoxes; and when we remember how fondly the\nEnglish screen their instincts in legal fictions and in genteel shams,\nthe paradoxes vanish altogether.\n\nWhat is Protestantism? It is all things to all men, if they are\nProtestants: but I see in it three leading _motifs_: to revert to\nprimitive Christianity, to inspire moral and political reform, and\nto accept the religious witness of the inner man. Now the Church of\nEngland, intensely Protestant as it seemed until the other day, is not\nProtestant in any of these respects. No established national church\ncould possibly be so. The subjection to Parliament which renders the\nEnglish church not Catholic, renders it also not Protestant. To a\nprimitive Christian, to a puritan reformer or to a transcendental\nmystic, a religion established by lay authority is a contradiction in\nterms; a lay government may be more or less inspired by righteousness,\nbut it cannot mediate salvation. A Protestant is essentially a\nnonconformist. Moreover, if we examine the theology of the English\nchurch, we see that whilst incidentally very heretical, it is still\nfundamentally Catholic; it admits only a single deposit of faith and\none apostolic fountain of grace for all mankind. But in its view heresy\nin any branch of the church does not cut it off from the tree. Heresy\nis something to which all churches are liable; the pope of Rome and\nthe patriarch of Constantinople fall into it hardly less often or less\ndesperately than the archbishop of Canterbury himself. Heresy is to be\nconceived as eccentricity within the fold, not as separation from it;\nit is the tacking of the ship on its voyage. Saint Peter or Saint Paul\nor both of them must have been heretical in their little controversies;\nand Christ himself must have had at times, if not always, but a\npartial view of the truth; for instance, in respect to the date and\nthe material nature of his second coming. Accordingly, although it\nmay be a little trying to the nerves, it is no essential scandal that\na curate should be addicted to Mariolatry, or that a dean should be\nunfortunately ambiguous on the subject of the Incarnation: such rapids\nand backwaters in the stream of Christian thought only prove how broad\nand full it is capable of being.\n\nThat many Catholic bodies, if not all, should be constantly schismatic\nor heretical, is therefore no paradox with this conception of the\nchurch; and it is obvious that Rome itself is heretical and schismatic\non this theory, since it has laid an exaggerated weight on the\ntext about Peter and the keys, and has claimed a jurisdiction Over\nthe eastern patriarchates which was certainly not primitive, and\nwhich these patriarchates have never honestly acknowledged. On the\nother hand, the Church of England belonged to the Western Empire\nand its Christianity has always been Latin. It broke away from the\npatriarchate of Rome not at all in sympathy with the claims of\nAntioch or Constantinople, but notoriously in sympathy with German\nProtestantism. This revolt was based on the same anti-Catholic and\ninconsistent motives as the German Reformation--namely, greed and\ndesire for absolute power in princes, zeal in puritan reformers, and\nimpatience of moral and intellectual constraint in the body of the\nclergy and laity. Nationalism, faith, learning, and licence were\ncuriously mingled in those turbid minds, and the Church of England\ninherits all that indescribable spiritual confusion. It is national\nin its morals and manners, mincing in its scholarship, snobbish in\nits sympathies, sentimental in its emotions. Spiritual minds in the\nchurch--of which there are many--suffer under this heredity incubus of\nworldliness; but what can they avail? Some join the socialists; a few\nescape to Rome; there at least the worldliness, however conspicuous,\nis regarded as a vice and not as a virtue. The convert will find\nno dearth of petty passions, machinations, vanities, tricks, and\nshameless disbelief; but all this will be, like debauchery, a crust of\ncorruption, avowedly corrupt. It is dirt on the skin, not cancer at\nthe heart. But then the true Catholic has made the great surrender;\nhe has renounced, or never thought of maintaining, the authority of\nhis inner man. He is a catechumen; his teachers will read for him the\nsymptoms of health or disease visible in his thoughts and dispositions;\nby their discipline--which is an ancient science--they will help him\nto save his soul; a totally different thing from obeying the impulses\nor extending the adventures of the transcendental self. The inner\nman, for the Catholic as for the materialist, is only a pathological\nphenomenon. Therefore the Englishman, as I conceive him, living in\nand by his inner man, can never be really a Catholic, either Anglican\nor Roman; if he likes to call himself by either name, it is equally a\nmasquerade, a fad like a thousand others to which the inner man, so\nseriously playful, is prone to lend itself. He may go over to Rome on a\nspiritual tour, as he might abscond for a year and live in Japan with\na Japanese wife; but if he is converted really, and becomes a Catholic\nat heart, for good, and in all simplicity, then he is no longer the man\nhe was. Words cannot measure the chasm that must henceforth separate\nhim from everything at home. I am not surprised that he recoils from so\ndesperate a step. It is not only the outward coarseness and laxity of\nCatholic manners that offend him; these vices are not universal, and he\nwould not need to share them. But for him, a modern Englishman, with\nfreedom and experiment and reserve in his blood, always nursing within\nhimself the silent love of nature and of rebellion, to go over to Rome\nis an essential suicide: the inner man must succumb first. Such an\nEnglishman might become a saint, but only by becoming a foreigner.\n\nThere is another sense altogether in which the English church might\nbe catholic if it chose. Suppose we lay it down as an axiom that\nwhatever is acceptable to the inner man is good and true, and that\nwhatever is good and true is Christian--Christianity would then be\nopen to every influence which, whilst apparently denaturalizing it,\nmight help to manifest its fulness. It would cast off husk after husk\nof doctrine, developing the living spirit and feeding it with every\nsubstance which it was fitted to absorb. There is nothing new in this\nprocess. Christianity was born of such a marriage between the Jewish\nsoul and the Greek. Greek philosophy was absorbed with magnificent\nresults; the restoration of Pauline theology, and the other insights\nof Protestantism, led to German philosophy, which has been absorbed\ntoo; the sloughing off of monasticism and ecclesiasticism have put\nChristianity in a position to understand and express the modern world;\nthe reduction of revelation, by the higher criticism of the Bible, to\nits true place in human history, will involve a new change of front;\nand the absorption of modern science and of democracy would complete\nthe transformation.\n\nTo justify this method the church might appeal to an archbishop of\nCanterbury who--this was in the old days--was also a saint and a great\nphilosopher. Saint Anselm has a famous proof of the existence of God\nwhich runs as follows: God exists, because God is, by definition, the\nmost real of beings. According to this argument, if it should turn\nout that the most real of beings was matter, it would follow that\nmatter was God. This might be thought a consequence drawn in mockery;\nbut I do not mean to deride Saint Anselm, whom I revere, but on the\ncontrary to lay bare the nerve of his argument which if the age had\ngiven him scope, and he had not been Arch-bishop of Canterbury, he\nmight have followed to its sublime conclusion, as Spinoza did after\nhim. There is a dignity in existence, in fact, in truth which to some\nspeculative and rapt natures absorbs and cancels every other dignity:\nand on this principle the English church might, without any sudden or\ndistressing negation, gradually turn its worship to the most real\nof beings, wheresoever it may be found; and I presume the most real\nof beings will be the whole of what is found everywhere. A narrower\nconception of God might at each step give place to a wider one; and the\nchurch, instead of embodying one particular revelation and striving\nto impose it universally through propaganda, might become hospitable\nto all revelations, and find a place for the inspirations of all ages\nand countries under the aegis of its own progressive traditions. So\nthe religion of ancient Rome domesticated all the gods; and so the\nEnglish language, if it should become the medium of international\nintercourse, might by translation or imitation of other literatures or\nby the infiltration into it of foreign words and styles, really become\na vehicle for all human ideas.\n\nI am not sure whether one party in the English church might not welcome\nsuch a destiny; but at present, so far as I can see, the tenderer\nand more poetical spirits in it take quite another direction. They\nare trying to recover the insights and practices of mediaeval piety;\nthey are archaistic in devotion. There is a certain romance in their\ndecision to believe greatly, to feel mystically, to pray perpetually.\nThey study their attitudes, as they kneel in some correctly restored\nchurch, hearing or intoning some revived early chant, and wondering why\nthey should not choose a divine lady in heaven to be their love and\ntheir advocate, as did the troubadours, or why they should not have\nrecumbent effigies of themselves carved on their tombs, with their\nlegs crossed, like the crusaders. \"_Things_\" cried the rapturous young\npriest who showed me the beautiful chapel of Pusey House, \"what we need\nis _Things_!\"\n\n\n\n22\n\nLEAVING CHURCH\n\n\nProtestant faith does not vanish into the sunlight as Catholic faith\ndoes, but leaves a shadowy ghost haunting the night of the soul. Faith,\nin the two cases, was not faith in the same sense; for the Catholic\nit was belief in a report or an argument; for the Protestant it was\nconfidence in an allegiance. When Catholics leave the church they\ndo so by the south door, into the glare of the market-place, where\ntheir eye is at once attracted by the wares displayed in the booths,\nby the flower-stalls with their bright awnings, by the fountain with\nits baroque Tritons blowing the spray into the air, and the children\nlaughing and playing round it, by the concourse of townspeople and\nstrangers, and by the soldiers, perhaps, marching past; and if they\ncast a look back at the church at all, it is only to admire its antique\narchitecture, that crumbling filigree of stone so poetically surviving\nin its incongruous setting. It is astonishing sometimes with what\ncontempt, with what a complete absence of understanding, unbelievers in\nCatholic countries look back on their religion. For one cultivated mind\nthat sees in that religion a monument to his racial genius, a heritage\nof poetry and aft almost as precious as the classical heritage, which\nindeed it incorporated in a hybrid form, there are twenty ignorant\nradicals who pass it by apologetically, as they might the broken\ntoys or dusty schoolbooks of childhood. Their political animosity,\nlegitimate in itself, blinds their imagination, and renders them even\npolitically foolish; because in their injustice to human nature and\nto their national history they discredit their own cause, and provoke\nreaction.\n\nProtestants, on the contrary, leave the church by the north door, into\nthe damp solitude of a green churchyard, amid yews and weeping willows\nand overgrown mounds and fallen illegible gravestones. They feel a\nterrible chill; the few weedy flowers that may struggle through that\nlong grass do not console them; it was far brighter and warmer and more\ndecent inside. The church--boring as the platitudes and insincerities\nwere which you listened to there for hours--was an edifice, something\nprotective, social, and human; whereas here, in this vague unhomely\nwilderness, nothing seems to await you but discouragement and\nmelancholy. Better the church than the madhouse. And yet the Protestant\ncan hardly go back, as the Catholic does easily on occasion, out of\nhabit, or fatigue, or disappointment in life, or metaphysical delusion,\nor the emotional weakness of the death-bed. No, the Protestant is more\nin earnest, he carries his problem and his religion within him. In\nhis very desolation he will find God. This has often been a cause of\nwonder to me: the Protestant pious economy is so repressive and morose\nand the Catholic so charitable and pagan, that I should have expected\nthe Catholic sometimes to sigh a little for his Virgin and his saints,\nand the Protestant to shout for joy at having got rid of his God. But\nthe trouble is that the poor Protestant can't get rid of his God; for\nhis idea of God is a vague symbol that stands not essentially, as with\nthe Catholic, for a particular legendary or theological personage,\nbut rather for that unfathomable influence which, if it does not\nmake for righteousness, at least has so far made for existence and\nhas imposed it upon us; so that go through what doors you will and\ndiscard what dogmas you choose, God will confront you still whichever\nway you may turn. In this sense the enlightened Catholic, too, in\nleaving the church, has merely rediscovered God, finding him now not\nin the church alone, but in the church only as an expression of human\nfancy, and in human life itself only as in one out of a myriad forms\nof natural existence. But the Protestant is less dear in his gropings,\nthe atmosphere of his inner man is more charged with vapours, and it\ntakes longer for the light dubiously to break through; and often in his\nwintry day the sun sets without shining.\n\n\n\n\n23\n\nDEATHBED MANNERS\n\n\nIn all Protestant countries I have noticed a certain hush about death,\nan uncomfortable secrecy, and a fear as if of blasphemy whenever the\nsubject threatens to come up. Is it that hell is still felt to lie, for\nthe vast majority, immediately behind the curtain? Or is it that people\nhave encouraged themselves to live and love as if they were immortal,\nand to this lifelong bluff of theirs death brings a contradiction which\nthey have not the courage to face? Or is it simply that death is too\npainful, too sacred, or too unseemly for polite ears? That a desire\nto ignore everything unpleasant is at the bottom of this convention\nseems to be confirmed by an opposite attitude towards death which I\nhave observed among English people during this war. Some of them speak\nof death quite glibly, quite cheerfully, as if it were a sort of trip\nto Brighton. \"Oh yes, our two sons went down in the _Black Prince_.\nThey were such nice boys. Never heard a word about them, of course;\nbut probably the magazine blew up and they were all killed quite\n_instantly_, so that we don't mind half so much as if they had had any\nof those bad lingering wounds. They wouldn't have liked it at all being\ncrippled, you know; and we all think it is probably much better as it\nis. Just _blown to atoms_! It is _such_ a blessing!\"\n\nOf course, the poor parents feel their hearts sink within them in\nprivate; but their affectation of cheerfulness has its logic. Death\nis a fact; and we had better accept it as such as we do the weather;\nperhaps, if we pretend not to care, we really shan't care so much. The\nmen in the trenches and hospitals have often been bitterly unreconciled\nand rebellious, and haunted by the cruel futility of their sufferings:\nbut the nursing everywhere has been devoted and heroic: and my\nimpression of the mourning at home is, that it has been philosophical.\n\nEnglish manners are sensible and conducive to comfort even at a\ndeath-bed. No summoning of priests, no great concourse of friends\nand relations, no loud grief, no passionate embraces and poignant\nfarewells; no endless confabulations in the antechamber, no gossip\nabout the symptoms, the remedies, or the doctors' quarrels and\nblunders; no breathless enumeration of distinguished visitors, letters,\nand telegrams; no tearful reconciliation of old family feuds nor\nwhisperings about the division of the property. Instead, either silence\nand closed doors, if there is real sorrow, or more commonly only a\nlittle physical weariness in the mourners, a little sigh or glance\nat one another, as if to say: We are simply waiting for events; the\ndoctors and nurses, are attending to everything, and no doubt, when\nthe end comes, it will be for the best. In the departing soul, too,\nprobably dulness and indifference. No repentance, no anxiety, no\ndefinite hopes or desires either for this life or for the next. Perhaps\nold memories returning, old loves automatically reviving; possibly a\nvision, by anticipation, of some reunion in the other world: but how\npale, how ghostly, how impotent this death-dream is! I seem to overhear\nthe last words, the last thoughts of a mother: \"Dear children, you know\nI love you. Provision has been made. I should be of little use to you\nany longer. How pleasant to look out of that window into the park! Be\nsure they don't forget to give Pup some meat with his dog-biscuit.\" It\nis all very simple, very much repressed, the pattering echo of daily\nwords. Death, it is felt, is not important. What matters is the part\nwe have played in the world, or may still play there by our influence.\nWe are not going to a melodramatic Last Judgement. We are shrinking\ninto ourselves, into the seed we came from, into a long winter's sleep.\nPerhaps in another springtime we may revive and come again to the light\nsomewhere, among those sweet flowers, those dear ones we have lost.\nThat is God's secret. We have tried to do right here. If there is any\nBeyond, we shall try to do right there also.\n\n\n\n\n24\n\nWAR SHRINES\n\n\nIn many an English village there is nowadays a calvary. The novel\nobject merges with wonderful ease into the landscape, and one would\nalmost think it had always been there. The protecting wooden eaves have\nalready lost their rigidity and their varnish; the crucifix no longer\nreminds one of the shop-window from which it came; it does not suggest\npopish aggression nor the affectations of ritualism. Flecks of sunlight\nplay upon it familiarly, as upon the wayside stones, and it casts its\nshadow across the common like any natural tree. The flowers in the\npots before it have withered, they droop half hidden in the ivy that\nhas overgrown them. Even the scroll of names has modified its official\nghastliness--all those newly dead obscure souls starkly ticketed\nand numbered; the tragic page has got somewhat weather-stained and\nillegible, and is curling up at the edges; it has become a dead leaf.\nDecidedly the war-shrine is at home in the scene. It is a portion of\nthat unspoken truth which every one carries about with him, and the\npeople seem again to breathe freely under the shadow of the cross.\n\nWhat does the cross signify? We are told that Christ died to save us,\nand various analogies, legal, sentimental, or chivalrous, are put\nforward to make that notion acceptable. I respect the sentiments of\nduty and devotion which this doctrine of legal redemption can inspire;\nthey express readiness to do well, and in a certain moral sense, as\nHamlet says, the readiness is all; yet it is a conception of religion\nborrowed from ancient lawyers and rhetoricians, a sort of celestial\ndiplomacy. The cross can mean something else; it can symbolize\npoetically a general truth about existence and experience. This truth\nis the same which the Indians express more philosophically by saying\nthat life is an illusion--an expression which is itself figurative\nand poetical. It is certainly not an illusion that I have now the\nexperience of being alive and of finding myself surrounded, at least\nin appearance, by a tolerably tractable world, material and social. It\nis not an illusion that this experience is now filling me with mixed\nand trooping feelings. In calling existence an illusion, the Indian\nsages meant that it is fugitive and treacherous: the images and persons\nthat diversify it are unsubstantial, and myself the most shifting and\nunsubstantial of all. The substance and fine mechanism which I do\nnot doubt underlie this changing apparition are out of scale with my\nimagined units, and (beyond a certain point) out of sympathy with my\ninterests. Life is an illusion if we trust it, but it is a truth if\nwe do not trust it; and this discovery is perhaps better symbolized\nby the cross than by the Indian doctrine of illusion. I will not say\nthat not to exist would not be better; existence may be condemned\nby the very respectable criterion of excellence or \"reality\" which\ndemands in all things permanence and safety; but so long as we exist,\nhowever precariously or \"unreally,\" I think it the part of wisdom to\nfind a way of living well, rather than merely to deprecate living. The\ncross is certainly a most violent image, putting suffering and death\nbefore us with a rude emphasis; and I can understand the preference\nof many for the serene Buddha, lifting the finger of meditation and\nprofound counsel, and freeing the soul by the sheer force of knowledge\nand of sweet reason. Nevertheless, I am not sorry to have been born\na Christian: for the soul cannot be really freed except by ceasing\nto live; and it is whilst we still exist, not after we are dead to\nexistence, that we need counsel It is therefore the crucified spirit,\nnot the liberated spirit, that is our true master.\n\nCertainly the spirit is crucified, first by being incarcerated in the\nflesh at all, and then again, after it has identified itself with\nthe will of the flesh, by being compelled to renounce it. Yet both\nthis painful incarnation and this painful redemption have something\nmarvellously sweet about them. The world which torments us is truly\nbeautiful; indeed, that is one of its ways of tormenting us; and we are\nnot wrong in loving, but only in appropriating it. The surrender of\nthis untenable claim to exist and to possess the beautiful, is in its\nturn beautiful and good. Christ loved the world, in an erotic sense in\nwhich Buddha did not love it: and the world has loved the cross as it\ncan never love the Bo-tree. So that out of the very entanglements of\nthe spirit come marvellous compensations to the spirit, which in its\nliberation leave it still human and friendly to all that it gives up. I\ndo not at all accept the morality of the Indians in so far as it denies\nthe values of illusion; the only evil in illusion is that it deceives;\nthere is beauty in its being. True insight, true mercy, is tender and\nsensitive to the infinite pulsations of ignorance and passion: it is\nnot deceived by the prattle of the child, but is not offended by it.\nThe knowledge that existence can manifest but cannot retain the good\nreconciles us at once to living and to dying. That, I think, is the\nwisdom of the cross.\n\nThere is a folly of the cross also, when the knowledge or\nhalf-knowledge that life must be suffering, until it is cleared of the\nlove of life, erects suffering into an end in itself, which is insane\nand monstrous. I suspect, however, that in asceticism as actually\npreached and practised there is less of this idolatry of suffering than\nthe outsider imagines, who lying amid his cushions severely reproves\nthose who indulge in a penance. There is an asceticism which may be\nloved for its simplicity, its clean poverty and cold water, hygienic\nlike mountain air; but flagellations and blood and night-long wailings\nare not an end in themselves; no saint expects to carry them with him\ninto heaven; at best they are a homoeopathic cure for the lusts of the\nflesh. Their purpose, if not their effect, is freedom and peace. I\nwish Protestants, who find their ascetic discipline in hard work, were\nequally clear about its object. From the worship of instrumentalities,\nwhether penitential or worldly, the cross redeems us: in draining the\ncup of suffering it transcends suffering, and in being raised above the\nearth it lifts us out of it. My instinct is to go and stand under the\ncross, with the monks and the crusaders, far away from these Jews and\nProtestants who adore the world and who govern it.\n\nThere is a mystical folly also among the Indians, when they assign a\npositive bliss to pure Being; this, too, is substance-worship. Identity\nwith substance is deemed blessed because beneath the vicissitudes of\nillusion, substance remains always solid, safe, and real. Certainly\nsubstance, if there is such a thing, must be safe, real, and solid; for\nwe understand by substance whatever is constant in change. Hence the\ndesire to escape from illusion and from suffering hails a return to\nthe indistinction of substance as a positive salvation; remember that\nyou are dust, return to the infinite from which you came, and nothing\nominous can threaten you any more, the dust and the infinite are safe.\nBut changeless substance, being unconscious, cannot be blissful; the\nattribution of divine bliss to it is an illusion of contrast, and,\nlike so much philosophy, mere rhetoric turned into a revelation. What\nverbal mirage is this, to see happiness in fixity? Substance may\nbe conceived logically, and then it means pure Being; or it may be\nconceived psychologically, and then it means absorption in the sense\nof pure Being; or it may be conceived physically as matter, a name\nfor the constant quantities in things that are traceably transformed\ninto one another. Pure Being and the contemplation of pure Being seem\nat first sight very different from matter; but they may be a dramatic\nimpersonation of matter, viewed from the inside, and felt as blind\nintensity and solidified ignorance. No one calls matter blessed when\nviewed externally, although it is then that its best qualities, its\nfertility and order, come into view: yet half mankind have fallen to\nworshipping matter in envy of its internal condition, and to trying to\nfall back into it, because it is the negation (and yet the cause!) of\nall their troubles. The idea of an intense nothing hypnotizes them,\nit is the sovereign anaesthetic; and they forget that this intense\nnothing, by its fruitfulness in the realm of illusion, has generated\nall their desires, including this desperate desire to be nothing, which\nturns that nothingness, by a last illusion, into a good.\n\nIf to be saved were merely to cease, we should all be saved by a\nlittle waiting: and I say this advisedly, without forgetting that\nthe Indians threaten us with reincarnation. It is a myth to which I\nhave no objection, because only selfishness persuades me that if I am\nsafe, all is well. What difference does it make in reality whether\nthe suffering and ignominy of life fall to what I call myself or to\nwhat I call another man? The only trouble is that the moral redemption\nwhich is proposed to us as a means of safety instead of death, touches\nthe individual only, just as death does. Christ and Buddha are called\nsaviours of the world; I think it must be in irony, for the world\nis just as much in need of salvation as ever. Death and insight and\nsalvation are personal. The world springs up unregenerate every morning\nin spite of all the Tabors and Calvaries of yesterday. What can save\nthe world, without destroying it, is self-knowledge on the part of the\nworld, not of course reflective self-knowledge (for the world is not\nan animal that can think) but such a regimen and such a philosophy\nestablished in society as shall recognize truly what the world is, and\nwhat happiness is possible in it. The force that has launched me into\nthis dream of life does not care what turns my dream takes nor how\nlong it troubles me. Nature denies at every moment, not indeed that I\nam troubled and dreaming, but that there are any natural units like\nmy visions, or anything anomalous in what I hate, or final in what I\nlove. Under these circumstances, what is the part of wisdom? To dream\nwith one eye open; to be detached from the world without hostility to\nit; to welcome fugitive beauties and pity fugitive sufferings without\nforgetting for a moment how fugitive they are; and not to lay up\ntreasures, except in heaven.\n\nHow charming is divine philosophy, when it is really divine, when it\ndescends to earth from a higher sphere, and loves the things of earth\nwithout needing or collecting them I What the gay Aristippus said of\nhis mistress: I possess, I am not possessed, every spirit should say\nof an experience that ruffles it like a breeze playing on the summer\nsea. A thousand ships sail over it in vain, and the worst of tempests\nis in a teapot. This once acknowledged and inwardly digested, life and\nhappiness can honestly begin. Nature is innocently fond of puffing\nherself out, spreading her peacock feathers, and saying, What a fine\nbird am I! And so she is; to rave against this vanity would be to\nimitate it. On the contrary, the secret of a merry carnival is that\nLent is at hand. Having virtually renounced our follies, we are for\nthe first time able to enjoy them with a free heart in their ephemeral\npurity. When laughter is humble, when it is not based on self-esteem,\nit is wiser than tears. Conformity is wiser than hot denials, tolerance\nwiser than priggishness and puritanism. It is not what earnest people\nrenounce that makes me pity them, it is what they work for. No possible\nreform will make existence adorable or fundamentally just. Modern\nEngland has worked too hard and cared too much; so much tension is\nhysterical and degrading; nothing is ever gained by it worth half what\nit spoils. Wealth is dismal and poverty cruel unless both are festive.\nThere is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval. The\neasier attitudes which seem more frivolous are at bottom infinitely\nmore spiritual and profound than the tense attitudes; they are nearer\nto understanding and to renunciation; they are nearer to the cross.\nPerhaps if England had remained Catholic it might have remained\nmerry; it might still dare, as Shakespeare dared, to be utterly\ntragic and also frankly and humbly gay. The world has been too much\nwith it; Hebraic religion and German philosophy have confirmed it in\na deliberate and agonized worldliness. They have sanctioned, in the\nhard-working and reforming part of the middle classes, an unqualified\nrespect for prosperity and success; life is judged with all the\nblindness of life itself. There is no moral freedom. In so far as minds\nare absorbed in business or in science they all inevitably circle about\nthe same objects, and take part in the same events, combining their\nthoughts and efforts in the same \"worlds work.\" The world, therefore,\ninvades and dominates them; they lose their independence and almost\ntheir distinction from one another. Their philosophy accordingly only\nexaggerates a little when it maintains that their individual souls are\nall manifestation of a single spirit, the Earth-spirit. They hardly\nhave any souls they can call their own, that may be saved out of the\nworld, or that may see and judge the world from above.\n\nDeath is the background of life much as empty space is that of the\nstars; it is a deeper thing always lying behind, like the black sky\nbehind the blue. In the realm of existence death is indeed nothing;\nonly a word for something negative and merely notional--the fact that\neach life has limits in time and is absent beyond them. But in the\nrealm of truth, as things are eternally, life is a little luminous\nmeteor in an infinite abyss of nothingness, a rocket fired on a dark\nnight; and to see life, and to value it, from the point of view of\ndeath is to see and to value it truly. The foot of the cross--I dare\nnot say the cross itself--is a good station from which to survey\nexistence. In the greatest griefs there is a tragic calm; the fury\nof the will is exhausted, and our thoughts rise to another level; as\nthe shrill delights and the black sorrows of childhood are impossible\nin old age. People sometimes make crosses of flowers or of gold; and\nI like to see the enamelled crucifix richly surrounded with scrolls,\nand encrusted with jewels; without a touch of this pagan instinct the\nreligion of the cross would not be healthy nor just. In the skirts\nof Mount Calvary lies the garden of the resurrection: I do not refer\nto any melodramatic resurrection, such as is pictured in Jewish and\nChristian legend, but to one which actually followed quietly, sweetly,\nin the light of a purer day, in the cloister, in the home, in the\nregenerate mind. After renouncing the world, the soul may find the\nworld more amiable, and may live in it with a smile and a mystic\ndoubt and one foot in eternity. Vanity is innocent when recognized to\nbe vain, and is no longer a disgrace to the spirit. The happiness of\nwisdom may at first seem autumnal, and the shadow of the cross the\nshadow of death; but it is healing slow; and presently, in the hollow\nwhere the cross was set, the scent of violets surprises us, and the\ncrocuses peep out amongst the thorns. The dark background which death\nsupplies brings out the tender colours of life in all their purity.\nFar be it from me to suggest that existence is the better because\nnon-existence precedes and follows it; certainly, if man was immortal\nhis experience could not include tradition, parentage, childhood, love,\nnor old age; nevertheless, from the point of view of both bodily and\nintellectual instincts immortality would be far better. But since, as\na matter of fact, birth and death actually occur, and our brief career\nis surrounded by vacancy, it is far better to live in the light of the\ntragic fact, rather than to forget or deny it, and build everything on\na fundamental lie. Death does not say to life that life is nothing,\nor does not exist, or is an illusion; that would be wild talk, and\nwould show that the inspiration we had drawn from death was as little\ncapable of doing justice to life, as life itself is when mindless, of\ndiscovering death, or learning anything from it. What the environing\npresence of death teaches is merely that life has such and such limits\nand such and such a course, whether it reflects on its course or not,\nwhether it recognizes its limits or ignores them. Death can do nothing\nto our lives except to frame them in, to show them off with a broad\nmargin of darkness and silence; so that to live in the shadow of death\nand of the cross is to spread a large nimbus of peace around our\nlittleness.\n\n\n\n\n25\n\n_TIPPERARY_\n\n\nWhat a strange pleasure there is sometimes in seeing what we expected,\nor hearing what we knew was a fact! The dream then seems really to hold\ntogether and truth to be positively true. The bells that announced the\nArmistice brought me no news; a week sooner or a week later they had to\nring. Certainly if the purpose of the war had been conquest or victory,\nnobody had achieved it; but the purposes of things, and especially of\nwars, are imputed to them rhetorically, the impulses at work being too\ncomplicated and changeful to be easily surveyed; and in this case, for\nthe French and the English, the moving impulse had been defence; they\nhad been sustained through incredible trials by the awful necessity\nof not yielding. That strain had now been relaxed; and as the conduct\nof men is determined by present forces and not by future advantages,\nthey could have no heart to fight on. It seemed enough to them that the\nwanton blow had been parried, that the bully had begged for mercy. It\nwas amusing to hear him now. He said that further bloodshed this time\nwould be horrible; his tender soul longed to get home safely, to call\nit quits, and to take a long breath and plan a new combination before\nthe next bout. His collapse had been evident for days and months;\nyet these bells that confirmed the fact were pleasant to hear. Those\nmean little flags, hung out here and there by private initiative in\nthe streets of Oxford, had almost put on a look of triumph; the very\nsunlight and brisk autumnal air seemed to have heard the tidings, and\nto invite the world to begin to live again at ease. Certainly many a\nsad figure and many a broken soul must slink henceforth on crutches, a\nmere survival; but they, too, will die off gradually. The grass soon\ngrows over a grave.\n\nSo musing, I suddenly heard a once familiar strain, now long despised\nand out of favour, the old tune of _Tipperary_. In a coffee-house\nfrequented at that hour some wounded officers from the hospital at\nSomerville were singing it, standing near the bar; they were breaking\nall rules, both of surgeons and of epicures, and were having champagne\nin the morning. And good reason they had for it. They were reprieved,\nthey should never have to go back to the front, their friends--such as\nwere left--would all come home alive. Instinctively the old grumbling,\ngood-natured, sentimental song, which they used to sing when they\nfirst joined, came again into their minds. It had been indeed a long,\nlong way to Tipperary. But they had trudged on and had come round full\ncircle; they were in Tipperary at last.\n\nI wonder what they think _Tipperary_ means--for this is a mystical\nsong. Probably they are willing to leave it vague, as they do their\nnotions of honour or happiness or heaven. Their soldiering is over;\nthey remember, with a strange proud grief, their comrades who died to\nmake this day possible, hardly believing that it ever would come; they\nare overjoyed, yet half ashamed, to be safe themselves; they forget\ntheir wounds; they see a green vista before them, a jolly, busy,\nsporting, loving life in the old familiar places. Everything will go\non, they fancy, as if nothing had happened.\n\nGood honest unguided creatures! They are hardly out of the fog of war\nwhen they are lost in the fog of peace. If experience could teach\nmankind anything, how different our morals and our politics would\nbe, how clear, how tolerant, how steady I If we knew ourselves, our\nconduct at all times would be absolutely decided and consistent; and a\npervasive sense of vanity and humour would disinfect all our passions,\nif we knew the world. As it is, we live experimentally, moodily, in\nthe dark; each generation breaks its egg-shell with the same haste and\nassurance as the last, pecks at the same indigestible pebbles, dreams\nthe same dreams, or others just as absurd, and if it hears anything of\nwhat former men have learned by experience, it corrects their maxims\nby its first impressions, and rushes down any untrodden path which it\nfinds alluring, to die in its own way, or become wise too late and to\nno purpose. These young men are no rustics, they are no fools; and yet\nthey have passed through the most terrible ordeal, they have seen the\nmad heart of this world riven and unmasked, they have had long vigils\nbefore battle, long nights tossing with pain, in which to meditate on\nthe spectacle; and yet they have learned nothing. The young barbarians\nwant to be again at play. If it were to be only cricket or boating, it\nwould be innocent enough; but they are going to gamble away their lives\nand their country, taking their chances in the lottery of love and of\nbusiness and of politics, with a sporting chance thrown in, perhaps,\nof heaven. They are going to shut out from view everything except their\ntopmost instincts and easy habits, and to trust to luck. Yet the poor\nfellows think they are safe! They think that the war--perhaps the last\nof all wars--is over!\n\nOnly the dead are safe; only the dead have seen the end of war. Not\nthat non-existence deserves to be called peace; it is only by an\nillusion of contrast and a pathetic fallacy that we are tempted to\ncall it so. The church has a poetical and melancholy prayer, that the\nsouls of the faithful departed may rest in peace. If in that sigh there\nlingers any fear that, when a tomb is disturbed, the unhappy ghost is\ndoomed to walk more often abroad, the fear is mad; and if it merely\nexpresses the hope that dead men's troubles are over, the wish is\nsuperfluous; but perhaps we may gloss the old superstition, and read\ninto it the rational aspiration that all souls in other spheres, or in\nthe world to come upon earth, might learn to live at peace with God and\nwith things. That would be something worth praying for, but I am afraid\nit is asking too much. God--I mean the sum of all possible good--is\nimmutable; to make our peace with him it is we, not he, that must\nchange. We should need to discover, and to pursue singly, the happiness\nproper to our nature, including the accidents of race and sex and the\nvery real advantages of growing old and of not living for ever; and we\nshould need to respect without envying all other forms of the good.\nAs to the world of existence, it is certainly fluid, and by judicious\npressure we may coax some parts of it into greater conformity with our\nwills; yet it is so vast, and crawls through such ponderous, insidious\nrevolutions, all so blind and so inimical to one another, that in order\nto live at peace with things we should need to acquire a marvellous\nplasticity, or a splendid indifference. We should have to make peace\nwith the fact of war. It is the stupid obstinacy of our self-love that\nproduces tragedy, and makes us angry with the world. Free life has\nthe spirit of comedy. It rejoices in the seasonable beauty of each\nnew thing, and laughs at its decay, covets no possessions, demands no\nagreement, and strives to sustain nothing in being except a gallant\nspirit of courage and truth, as each fresh adventure may renew it.\n\nThis gallant spirit of courage and truth, you young men had it in\nthose early days when you first sang _Tipperary_; have you it still,\nI wonder, when you repeat the song? Some of you, no doubt. I have\nseen in some of you the smile that makes light of pain, the sturdy\nhumility that accepts mutilation and faces disability without repining\nor shame; armless and legless men are still God's creatures, and even\nif you cannot see the sun you can bask in it, and there is joy on\nearth--perhaps the deepest and most primitive joy--even in that. But\nothers of you, though you were driven to the war by contagious example,\nor by force, are natural cowards; you are perhaps superior persons,\nintellectual snobs, and are indignant at having been interrupted in\nyour important studies and made to do useless work. You are disgusted\nat the stupidity of all the generals, and whatever the Government does\nis an outrage to your moral sense. You were made sick at the thought of\nthe war before you went to it, and you are sicker of it now. You are\npacifists, and you suspect that the Germans, who were not pacifists,\nwere right after all. I notice you are not singing _Tipperary_ this\nmorning; you are too angry to be glad, and you wish it to be understood\nthat you can't endure such a vulgar air. You are willing, however, to\nsip your champagne with the rest; in hospital you seem to have come\nforward a little socially; but you find the wine too dry or too sweet,\nand you are making a wry face at it.\n\nAh, my delicate friends, if the soul of a philosopher may venture\nto address you, let me whisper this counsel in your ears: Reserve a\npart of your wrath; you have not seen the worst yet. You suppose that\nthis war has been a criminal blunder and an exceptional horror; you\nimagine that before long reason will prevail, and all these inferior\npeople that govern the world will be swept aside, and your own party\nwill reform everything and remain always in office. You are mistaken.\nThis war has given you your first glimpse of the ancient, fundamental,\nnormal state of the world, your first taste of reality. It should teach\nyou to dismiss all your philosophies of progress or of a governing\nreason as the babble of dreamers who walk through one world mentally\nbeholding another. I don't mean that you or they are fools; heaven\nforbid. You have too much mind. It is easy to behave very much like\nother people and yet be possessed inwardly by a narcotic dream. I\nam sure the flowers--and you resemble flowers yourselves, though a\nbit wilted--if they speculate at all, construct idealisms which,\nlike your own, express their inner sensibility and their experience\nof the weather, without much resemblance to the world at large.\nTheir thoughts, like yours, are all positings and deductions and\nasseverations of what ought to be, whilst the calm truth is marching\non unheeded outside. No great harm ensues, because the flowers are\nrooted in their places and adjusted to the prevailing climate. It\ndoesn't matter what they think. You, too, in your lodgings in Chelsea,\nquite as in Lhassa or in Mount Athos, may live and die happy in your\npainted cells. It is the primitive and the ultimate office of the mind\nto supply such a sanctuary. But if you are ever driven again into the\nopen, if the course of events should be so rapid, that you could catch\nthe drift of it in your short life (since you despise tradition), then\nyou must prepare for a ruder shock. There is eternal war in nature, a\nwar in which every cause is ultimately lost and every nation destroyed.\nWar is but resisted change; and change must needs be resisted so long\nas the organism it would destroy retains any vitality. Peace itself\nmeans discipline at home and invulnerability abroad--two forms of\npermanent virtual war; peace requires so vigorous an internal regimen\nthat every germ of dissolution or infection shall be repelled before it\nreaches the public soul. This war has been a short one, and its ravages\nslight in comparison with what remains standing: a severe war is one in\nwhich the entire manhood of a nation is destroyed, its cities razed,\nand its women and children driven into slavery. In this instance the\nslaughter has been greater, perhaps, only because modern populations\nare so enormous; the disturbance has been acute only because the modern\nindustrial system is so dangerously complex and unstable; and the\nexpense seems prodigious because we were so extravagantly rich. Our\nsociety was a sleepy glutton who thought himself immortal and squealed\ninexpressibly, like a stuck pig, at the first prick of the sword. An\nancient city would have thought this war, or one relatively as costly,\nonly a normal incident; and certainly the Germans will not regard it\notherwise.\n\nExistence, being a perpetual generation, involves aspiration, and\nits aspiration envelops it in an atmosphere of light, the joy and\nthe beauty of being, which is the living heaven; but for the same\nreason existence, in its texture, involves a perpetual and a living\nhell--the conflict and mutual hatred of its parts, each endeavouring\nto devour its neighbour's substance in the vain effort to live for\never. Now, the greater part of most men's souls dwells in this hell,\nand ends there. One of their chief torments is the desire to live\nwithout dying--continual death being a part of the only possible and\nhappy life. We wish to exist materially, and yet resent the plastic\nstress, the very force of material being, which is daily creating and\ndestroying us. Certainly war is hell, as you, my fair friends, are\nfond of repeating; but so is rebellion against war. To live well you\nmust be victorious. It is with war as with the passion of love, which\nis a war of another kind: war at first against the beloved for favour\nand possession; war afterwards against the rest of the world for the\nbeloved's sake. Often love, too, is a torment and shameful; but it\nhas its laughing triumphs, and the attempt to eliminate it is a worse\ntorture, and more degrading. When was a coward at peace? Homer, who was\na poet of war, did not disguise its horrors nor its havoc, but he knew\nit was the shield of such happiness as is possible on earth. If Hector\nhad not scoured the plain in his chariot, Paris could not have piped\nupon the slopes of Ida, nor sported with his sheep and his goddesses\nupon the green. The merchants of Crete or Phoenicia could not have\ndrawn up their black keels upon the beach, if the high walls of Ilium\nhad not cast their protecting shadow on their bales of merchandise,\ntheir bags of coin, and their noisy bargaining. When Hector was no more\nand the walls were a heap of dust, all the uses of peace vanished also:\nruin and utter meanness came to inhabit that land, and still inhabit\nit. Nor is war, which makes peace possible, without occasions in which\na free spirit, not too much attached to existence, may come into its\nown. Homer shows us how his heroes could gather even from battle a\ncertain harvest of tenderness and nobility, and how above their heads,\nhalf seen through the clouds of dust and of pain, flew the winged\nchariots of the gods, and music mingled with their banquet.\n\nBe sad if you will, there is always reason for sadness, since the good\nwhich the world brings forth is so fugitive and bought at so great a\nprice; but be brave. If you think happiness worth enjoying, think it\nworth defending. Nothing you can lose By dying is half so precious as\nthe readiness to die, which is man's charter of nobility; life would\nnot be worth having without the freedom of soul and the friendship\nwith nature which that readiness brings. The things we know and love\non earth are, and should be, transitory; they are, as were the things\ncelebrated by Homer, at best the song or oracle by which heaven is\nrevealed in our time. We must pass with them into eternity, not in the\nend only but continually, as a phrase passes into its meaning; and\nsince they are part of us and we of them, we should accompany them\nwith a good grace: it would be desolation to survive. The eternal is\nalways present, as the flux of time in one sense never is, since it\nis all either past or future; but this elusive existence in passing\nsets before the spirit essences in which spirit rests, and which can\nnever vary; as a dramatic poet creates a character which many an actor\nafterwards on many a night may try to enact. Of course the flux of\nmatter carries the poets away too; they become old-fashioned, and\nnobody wishes any longer to play their characters; but each age has its\nown gods. Time is like an enterprising manager always bent on staging\nsome new and surprising production, without knowing very well what it\nwill be. Our good mother Psyche, who is a convolution of this material\nflux, breeds us accordingly to mindlessness and anxiety, out of which\nit is hard for our youthful intellect to wean itself to peace, by\nescaping into the essential eternity of everything it sees and loves.\nSo long as the world goes round we shall see Tipperary only, as it\nwere, out of the window of our troop-train. Your heart and mine may\nremain there, but it's a long, long way that the world has to go.\n\n\n\n\n26\n\nSKYLARKS\n\n\nThere is a poet in every nice Englishman; there is a little fund of\nfree vitality deep down in him which the exigencies of his life do\nnot tap and which no art at his command can render articulate. He\nis able to draw upon it, and to drink in the refreshment and joy of\ninner freedom, only in silent or religious moments. He feels he is\nnever so much himself as when he has shed for the time being all his\nordinary preoccupations. That is why his religion is so thin or (as\nhe might say) so pure: it has no relevance to any particular passions\nor events; a featureless background, distant and restful, like a pale\nclear sky. That is why he loves nature, and country life, and hates\ntowns and vulgar people; those he likes he conceives emasculated,\nsentimentalized, and robed in white. The silent poet within him is\nonly a lyric poet. When he returns from those draughts of rare and\nabstract happiness, he would find it hard to reconcile himself to the\nworld, or to himself, did he not view both through a veil of convention\nand make-believe; he could not be honest about himself and retain his\nself-respect; he could not be clear about other people and remain kind.\nYet to be kind to all, and true to his inner man, is his profound\ndesire; because even if life, in its unvarnished truth, is a gross\nmedley and a cruel business, it is redeemed for him, nevertheless, by\nthe perfect beauty of soul that here and there may shine through it.\nHamlet is the classic version of this imprisoned spirit; the skylark\nseems a symbol of what it would be in its freedom.\n\nPoor larks! Is the proportion of dull matter in their bodies, I wonder,\nreally less than in ours? Must they not find food and rear their\nyoung? Must they not in their measure work, watch, and tremble? Cold,\nhunger, and disease probably beset them more often and more bitterly\nthan they do most of us. But we think of them selfishly, as of actors\non the stage, only in the character they wear when they attract our\nattention. As we walk through the fields we stop to watch and to listen\nto them performing in the sky, and never think of their home troubles;\nwhich they, too, seem for the moment to have eluded; at least they\nhave energy and time enough left over from those troubles for all this\nluxury of song. It is this glorious if temporary emancipation, this\nabsolute defiant emphasis laid with so much sweetness on the inner life\nthat the poet in every nice Englishman loves in the lark; it seems to\nreveal a brother-spirit more fortunate than oneself, almost a master\nand a guide.\n\nLarks made even Shelley envious, although no man ever had less\nreason to envy them for their gift, either in its rapture or in its\nabstraction. Even the outer circumstances of Shelley's life were very\nfavourable to inspiration and left him free to warble as much and as\nardently as he chose; but perhaps he was somewhat deceived by the\npathos of distance and fancied that in Nephelococcygia bad birds and\nwicked traditions were less tyrannous than in parliamentary England.\nHe seems to have thought that human nature was not really made for\npuddings and port wine and hunting and elections, nor even for\nrollicking at universities and reading Greek, but only for innocent\nlyrical ecstasies and fiery convictions that nevertheless should\nsomehow not render people covetous or jealous or cruelly disposed,\nnor constrain them to prevent any one from doing anything that any\none might choose to do. Perhaps in truth the cloisters of Oxford and\nthe streets of London are quite as propitious to the flights of which\nhuman nature is really capable as English fields are to the flights of\nlarks; there is food in them for thought. But Shelley was impatient\nof human nature; he was horrified to find that society is a web of\nmerciless ambitions and jealousies, mitigated by a quite subsidiary\nkindness; he forgot that human life is precarious and that its only\nweapon against circumstances, and against rival men, is intelligent\naction, intelligent war. The case is not otherwise with larks, on the\nfundamental earthly side of their existence; yet because their flight\nis bodily, because it is a festive outpouring of animal vitality, not\nof art or reflection, it suggests to us a total freedom of the inner\nman, a freedom which is impossible.\n\nIn the flight of larks, however, by a rare favour of fortune, all seems\nto be spontaneity, courage, and trust, even within this material\nsphere; nothing seems to be adjustment or observation. Their life\nin the air is a sort of intoxication of innocence and happiness in\nthe blind pulses of existence. They are voices of the morning, young\nhearts seeking experience and not remembering it; when they seem to\nsob they are only catching their breath. They spring from the ground\nas impetuously as a rocket or the jet of a fountain, that bursts\ninto a shower of sparks or of dew-drops; they circle as they rise,\nsoaring through veil after veil of luminous air, or dropping from\nlevel to level. Their song is like the gurgling of little rills of\nwater, perpetual through its delicate variations, and throbbing with\na changed volume at every change in the breeze. Their rapture seems\nto us seraphic, not merely because it descends to us invisibly from\na luminous height, straining our eyes and necks--in itself a cheap\nsublimity-v but rather because the lark sings so absolutely for the\nmad sake of singing. He is evidently making high holiday, spending his\nwhole strength on something ultimate and utterly useless, a momentary\nentrancing pleasure which (being useless and ultimate) is very like an\nact of worship or of sacrifice. Sheer life in him has become pure. That\nis what we envy; that is what causes us, as we listen, to draw a deeper\nbreath, and perhaps something like tears to come to our eyes. He seems\nso triumphantly to attain what all our labours end by missing, yet what\nalone would justify them: happiness, selflessness, a moment of life\nlived in the spirit. And we may be tempted to say to ourselves: Ah, if\nI could only forget, if I could cease to look before and after, if the\npale cast of thought did not make a slave of me, as well as a coward!\n\nVital raptures such as the lark's are indeed not unknown even to man,\nand the suggestion of them powerfully allures the Englishman, being\nas he is a youth morally, still impelled to sport, still confident of\ncarrying his whole self forward into some sort of heaven, whether in\nlove, in politics, or in religion, without resigning to nature the\nthings that are nature's nor hiding in God the things that are God's.\nAlas, a sad lesson awaits him, if he ever grows old enough to learn\nit. Vital raptures, unless long training or a miracle of adaptation\nhas antecedently harmonized them with the whole orchestration of\nnature, necessarily come to a bad end. Dancing and singing and love\nand sport and religious enthusiasm are mighty ferments: happy he who\nvents them in their season. But if ever they are turned into duties,\npumped up by force, or made the basis of anything serious, like morals\nor science, they become vicious. The wild breath of inspiration is gone\nwhich hurried them across the soul like a bright cloud. Inspiration,\nas we may read in Plato between the lines, inspiration is animal. It\ncomes from the depths, from that hearth of Hestia, the Earth-Mother,\nwhich conservative pagans could not help venerating as divine. Only\nart and reason, however, are divine in a moral sense, not because\nthey are less natural than inspiration (for the Earth-Mother with her\nseeds and vapours is the root of everything) but because they mount\ntowards the ultimate heaven of order, beauty, intellectual light,\nand the achievement of eternal dignities. In that dimension of being\neven featherless bipeds can soar and sing with a good grace. But\nspace is not their element; airmen, now that we have them, are only\na new sort of sailor. They fly for the sake of danger and of high\nwages; it is a boyish art, with its romantic glamour soon tarnished,\nand only a material reward left for all its skill and hardships. The\nonly sublimity possible to man is intellectual; when he would be\nsublime in any other dimension he is merely fatuous and bombastic. By\nintelligence, so far as he possesses it, a man sees things as they are,\ntranscends his senses and his passions, uproots himself from his casual\nstation in space and time, sees all things future as if they were past,\nand all things past as for ever present, at once condemns and forgives\nhimself, renounces the world and loves it. Having this inner avenue\nopen to divinity, he would be a fool to emulate the larks in their kind\nof ecstasy.\n\nHis wings are his intelligence; not that they bring ultimate success\nto his animal will, which must end in failure, but that they lift his\nfailure itself into an atmosphere of laughter and light, where is his\nproper happiness. He cannot take his fine flight, like the lark, in the\nmorning, in mad youth, in some irresponsible burst of vitality, because\nlife is impatient to begin: that sort of thing is the fluttering of\na caged bird, a rebellion against circumstance and against commonness\nwhich is a sign of spirit, but not spirit in its self-possession, not\nhappiness nor a school of happiness. The thought which crowns life at\nits summit can accompany it throughout its course, and can reconcile us\nto its issue. Intelligence is Homeric in its pervasive light. It traces\nall the business of nature, eluding but not disturbing it, rendering it\nin fact more amiable than it is, and rescuing it from vanity.\n\nSense is like a lively child always at our elbow, saying, Look, look,\nwhat is that? Will is like an orator, indignantly demanding something\ndifferent. History and fiction and religion are like poets, continually\nrecomposing the facts into some tragic unity which is not in them. All\nthese forms of mind are spiritual, and therefore materially superfluous\nand free; but their spirit is pious, it is attentive to its sources,\nand therefore seems to be care-laden and not so gloriously emancipated\nas the music of larks, or even of human musicians; yet thought is pure\nmusic in its essence, and only in its subject-matter retrospective\nand troubled about the facts. It must indeed be troubled about them,\nbecause in man spirit is not a mere truant, as it seems to be in\nthe lark, but is a faithful chronicler of labour and wisdom. Man is\nhard-pressed; long truancies would be fatal to him. He is tempted to\nindulge in them--witness his languages and pyramids and mythologies;\nyet his margin of safety is comparatively narrow, and he cannot afford\nto spend such relatively prodigious amounts of energy in mere play as\nthe lark does with a light heart and in the grand manner. There are\nwords to man's music; he gives names to things; he tries to catch the\nrhythm of his own story, or to imagine it richer and more sublime than\nit is. His festivals are heavy with pathos; they mark the events on\nwhich his existence turns--harvests, funerals, redemptions, wooings,\nand wars. When he disregards all these tiresome things, he becomes a\nfop or a fanatic. There is no worthy transport for him except sane\nphilosophy--a commentary, not a dream. His intelligence is most intense\nand triumphant when there is least waste in his life; for if hard\nthinking sometimes makes the head ache, it is because it comes hard,\nnot because it is thinking; our fuddled brain grates and repeats\nitself in that it _can't_ think. But if your business is in order, it\nrequires no further pains to understand it. Intelligence is the flower\nof war and the flower of love. Both, in the end, are comprehension. How\nmiraculously in our happy moments we understand, how far we jump, what\nmasses of facts we dominate at a glance! There is no labour then, no\nfriction or groping, no anxious jostling against what we do not know,\nbut only joy in this intricate outspread humorous world, intoxication\nas ethereal as the lark's, but more descriptive. If his song is raised\nabove the world for a moment by its wantonness and idle rapture, ours\nis raised above it essentially by its scope. To look before and after\nis human; it would not be sincere nor manly in us not to take thought\nfor the morrow and not to pine for what is not. We must start on that\nbasis, with our human vitality (which is art) substituted for the\nvegetative prayerfulness of the lily, and our human scope (which is\nknowledge of the world) substituted for the outpourings of larks.\n\nOn this other plane we could easily be as happy as the larks, if we\nwere as liberal. Men when they are civilized and at ease are liberal\nenough in their sports, and willing to _desipere in loco_, like\nkittens, but it is strange how barbarous and illiberal, at least in\nmodern times, they have remained about thought. They wish to harness\nthought like a waterfall, or like the blind Samson, to work for\nthem night and day, in the treadmill of their interests or of their\northodoxy. Fie upon their stupidity and upon their slavishness! They do\nnot see that when nature, with much travail, brings something living\nto birth, inevitable thought is there already, and gratis, and cannot\npossibly be there before. The seething of the brain is indeed as\npragmatic as the habit of singing and flying, which in its inception\ndoubtless helped the larks to survive, as even the whiteness of the\nlily may have done through the ministry of insects which it attracted;\nbut even material organs are bound to utility by a very loose tie.\nNature does not shake off her baroque ornaments and her vices until\nthey prove fatal, and she never thinks of the most obvious invention\nor pressing reform, until some complication brings her, she knows\nnot how, to try the experiment. Nature, having no ulterior purpose,\nhas no need of parsimony or haste or simplicity. Much less need she\nbe niggardly of spirit, which lays no tax upon her, and consumes no\nenergy, but laughs aloud, a marvel and a mystery to her, in her very\nheart. All animal functions, whether helpful or wasteful, have this\nfourth dimension in the realm of spirit--the joy, or the pain, or the\nbeauty that may be found in them. Spirit loads with a lyric intensity\nthe flying moment in which it lives. It actually paints the lily\nand casts a perfume on the violet; it turns into vivid presences a\nthousand forms which, until its flame lighted them up, were merged in\nthe passive order and truth of things, like the charms of Lucy by the\nsprings of Dove, before Wordsworth discovered them. The smile of nature\nis not ponderable; and the changing harmonies of nature, out of which\nspirit springs, are like the conjunctions or eclipses of planets, facts\nobvious enough to sense in their specious simplicity, yet materially\nonly momentary positions of transit for wayfarers bound each on his own\nerrand. The songs of larks are like shooting stars that drop downwards\nand vanish; human intelligence is a part of the steadier music of the\nspheres.\n\n\n\n\n27\n\nAT HEAVEN'S GATE\n\n\nSkylarks, if they exist elsewhere, must be homesick for England. They\nneed these kindly mists to hide and to sustain them. Their flexible\nthroats would soon be parched, far from these vaporous meadows and\nhedgerows rich in berries and loam. How should they live in arid\ntablelands, or at merciless altitudes, where there is nothing but\nscorching heat or a freezing blizzard? What space could they find\nfor solitude and freedom in the tangle of tropical forests, amongst\nthe monkeys and parrots? What reserve, what tenderness, what inward\nsprings of happiness could they treasure amid those gross harlot-like\nflowers? No, they are the hermits of this mild atmosphere, fled to\nits wilderness of gentle light. Well may they leave it to eagles to\nrush against the naked sun, as if its round eye challenged them to\nsingle combat: not theirs the stupid ferocity of passion against fact,\nanger against light, swiftness against poise, beak and talons against\nintangible fire. Larks may not be very clever, but they are not so\nfoolish as to be proud, or to scream hoarsely against the nature of\nthings. Having wings and voluble throats they play with them for pure\npleasure; they are little artists and little gentlemen; they disdain\nto employ their faculties for their mere utility, or only in order to\npounce down to the earth, whenever they spy a dainty morsel, or to\nreturn to sulk shivering on some solitary crag, their voracity but half\nappeased, like eagles dreaming of their next victim. Of course, even\nthe most playful songster must eat, and skylarks no doubt keep an eye\nopen for worms, and their nest calls them back to terrene affections;\nbut they are as forgetful of earth as they can be, and insatiable\ncraving does not stamp itself on their bent necks, as if they were\nvultures, nor strain their feathers of iron. No more are they inspired\nby sentimental pangs and love-sick like the nightingale; they do not\nhide in the labyrinthine shade of ilex or cypress, from there to wail\nin the melancholy moonlight, as it were a seductive serenade addressed\nto mortal lovers. No, the trilling of larks is not for mankind. Like\nEnglish poets they sing to themselves of nature, inarticulately happy\nin a bath of light and freedom, sporting for the sake of sport, turning\nwhat doubts they may have into sweetness, not asking to see or to know\nanything ulterior. They must needs drink the dew amongst these English\nfields, peeping into the dark little hearts and flushed petals of\nthese daisies, like the heart and cheeks of an English child, or into\nthese buttercups, yellow like his Saxon hair. They could hardly have\nbuilt their nests far from this maze of little streams, or from these\nnarrow dykes and ditches, arched with the scented tracery of limes and\nwillows. They needed this long, dull, chilly winter in which to gather\ntheir unsuspected fund of yearning and readiness for joy; so that when\nhigh summer comes at last they may mount with virgin confidence and\nardour through these sunlit spaces, to pour their souls out at heaven's\ngate.\n\nAt heaven's gate, but not in heaven. The sky, as these larks rise\nhigher and higher, grows colder and thinner; if they could rise\nhigh enough, it would be a black void. All this fluid and dazzling\natmosphere is but the drapery of earth; this cerulean vault is only\na film round the oceans. As these choristers pass beyond the nether\nveils of air, the sun becomes fierce and comfortless; they freeze\nand are dazzled; they must hurry home again to earth if they would\nlive. They must put fuel in their little engines: after all it was\nflesh and blood in them that were praising the Lord. And accordingly,\ndown they drop to their nests and peck about, anxious and silent; but\ntheir song never comes down. Up there they leave it, in the glittering\ndesert it once ravished, in what we call the past. They bore their\nglad offering to the gate and returned empty; but the gladness of it,\nwhich in their palpitation and hurry they only half guessed, passed\nin and is a part of heaven. In the home of all good, from which their\nfrail souls fetched it for a moment, it is still audible for any ear\nthat ever again can attune itself to that measure. All that was loved\nor beautiful at any time, or that shall be so hereafter, all that\nnever was but that ought to have been, lives in that paradise, in the\nbrilliant treasure-house of the gods.\n\nHow many an English spirit, too modest to be heard here, has now\ncommitted its secret to that same heaven! Caught by the impulse of the\nhour, they rose like larks in the morning, cheerily, rashly, to meet\nthe unforeseen, fatal, congenial adventure, the goal not seen, the air\nnot measured, but the firm heart steady through the fog or blinding\nfire, making the best of what came, trembling but ready for what might\ncome, with a simple courage which was half joy in living and half\nwillingness to die. Their first flight was often their last. What fell\nto earth was only a poor dead body, one of a million; what remained\nabove perhaps nothing to speak of, some boyish sally or wistful fancy,\nless than the song of a lark for God to treasure up in his omniscience\nand eternity. Yet these common brave fools knew as well as the lark\nthe thing that they could do, and did it; and of other gifts and other\nadventures they were not envious. Boys and free men are always a\nlittle inclined to flout what is not the goal of their present desires,\nor is beyond their present scope; spontaneity in them has its ebb-flow\nin mockery. Their tight little selves are too vigorous and too clearly\ndetermined to brood much upon distant things; but they are true to\ntheir own nature, they know and love the sources of their own strength.\nLike the larks, those English boys had drunk here the quintessence of\nmany a sunlit morning; they had rambled through these same fields,\nfringed with hedges and peeping copse and downs purple with heather;\nthese paths and streams had enticed them often; they had been vaguely\nhappy in these quiet, habitable places. It was enough for them to live,\nas for nature to revolve; and fate, in draining in one draught the\nmodest cup of their spirit, spared them the weary dilution and waste of\nit in the world. The length of things is vanity, only their height is\njoy.\n\nOf myself also I would keep nothing but what God may keep of me--some\nlovely essence, mine for a moment in that I beheld it, some object\nof devout love enshrined where all other hearts that have a like\nintelligence of love in their day may worship it; but my loves\nthemselves and my reasonings are but a flutter of feathers weaker than\na lark's, a prattle idler than his warblings, happy enough if they too\nmay fly with him and die with him at the gate of heaven.\n\n\n\n\nLATER SOLILOQUIES\n\n1918-1921\n\n\n\n\n28\n\nSOCIETY AND SOLITUDE\n\n\nO solitudo, sola beatitudo, Saint Bernard said; but might he not\nhave said just as well, _O societas, sola felicitas_? Just as truly,\nI think; because when a man says that the only happiness is this or\nthat, he is like a lover saying that Mary Jane is the one woman in the\nworld. She may be truly the one woman for him, though even that is\nnot probable; but he cannot mean to assert that she is the only woman\nliving, nor to deny that each of the others might be the one woman\nfor somebody. Now, when a Hegelian philosopher, contradicting Saint\nBernard, says that society is his be-all and end-all, that he himself\nis nothing but an invisible point at which relations cross, and that if\nyou removed from him his connection with Hegel, with his university,\nhis church, his wife, and his publishers, there would be nothing left,\nor at best a name and a peg to hang a gown on, far be it from me to\nrevise his own analysis of his nature; society may be the only felicity\nand the only reality for him. But that cannot annul the judgement of\nSaint Bernard. He had a great mind and a great heart, and he knew\nsociety well; at least, he accepted the verdict which antiquity had\npassed on society, after a very long, brilliant, and hearty experience\nof it; and he knew the religious life and solitude as well; and I can't\nhelp thinking that he, too, must have been right in his self-knowledge,\nand that solitude must have been the only happiness for him.\n\nNevertheless, the matter is not limited to this confronting of divers\nhonest judgements, or confessions of moral experience. The natures\nexpressed in these judgements have a long history, and are on different\nlevels; the one may be derived from the other. Thus it is evident\nthat the beatific solitude of Saint Bernard was filled with a kind of\nsociety; he devoted it to communion with the Trinity, or to composing\nfervent compliments to the Virgin Mary. It was only the society to be\nfound in inns and hovels, in castles, sacristies, and refectories, that\nhe thought it happiness to avoid. That the wilderness to which hermits\nflee must be peopled by their fancy, could have been foreseen by any\nobserver of human nature. Tormenting demons or ministering angels\nmust needs appear, because man is rooted in society and his instincts\nare addressed to it; for the first nine months, or even years, of his\nexistence he is a parasite; and scarcely are these parental bonds a\nlittle relaxed, when he instinctively forms other ties, that turn\nhim into a husband and father, and keep him such all his days. If\never he finds happiness in solitude, it can only be by lavishing on\nobjects of his imagination the attentions which his social functions\nrequire that he should lavish on something. Without exercising these\nfaculties somehow his nature would be paralysed; there would be no\nfuel to feed a spiritual flame. All Saint Bernard could mean, then,\nis that happiness lies in this substitution of an ideal for a natural\nsociety, in converse with thoughts rather than with things. Such a\nsubstitution is normal, and a mark of moral vigour; we must not be\nmisled into comparing it with a love of dolls or of lap-dogs. Dolls\nare not impersonal, and lap-dogs are not ideas: they are only less\nrebellious specimens of the genus thing; they are more portable idols.\nTo substitute the society of ideas for that of things is simply to\nlive in the mind; it is to survey the world of existences in its truth\nand beauty rather than in its personal perspectives, or with practical\nurgency. It is the sole path to happiness for the intellectual man,\nbecause the intellectual man cannot be satisfied with a world of\nperpetual change, defeat, and imperfection. It is the path trodden by\nancient philosophers and modern saints or poets; not, of course, by\nmodern writers on philosophy (except Spinoza), because these have not\nbeen philosophers in the vital sense; they have practised no spiritual\ndiscipline, suffered no change of heart, but lived on exactly like\nother professors, and exerted themselves to prove the existence of\na God favourable to their own desires, instead of searching for the\nGod that happens to exist. Certainly this path, in its beginnings,\nis arduous, and leaves the natural man somewhat spare and haggard;\nhe seems to himself to have fasted for forty days and forty nights,\nand the world regards his way of living afterwards as rather ghostly\nand poor. But he usually congratulates himself upon it in the end;\nand of those who persevere some become saints and some poets and some\nphilosophers.\n\nYet why, we may ask, should happiness be found exclusively in this\nideal society where none intrudes? If the intellectual man cannot lay\nup his treasures in a world of change, the natural man can perfectly\nwell satisfy his instincts within it; and why shouldn't the two live\namicably together in a house of two stories?\n\nI can see no essential reason; but historically natural society long\nago proved a moral failure. It could not harmonize nor decently satisfy\neven the instincts on which it rests. Hence the philosophers have felt\nbound not only to build themselves a superstructure but to quit the\nground floor--materially, if possible, by leading a monastic fife,\nreligiously in any case by not expecting to find much except weeping\nand wailing in this vale of tears. We may tax this despair with being\npremature, and call such a flight into an imaginary world a desperate\nexpedient; at any time the attempts of the natural man to live his\ncomic life happily may be renewed, and may succeed. Solitude peopled\nwith ideas might still remain to employ the mind; but it would not be\nthe only beatitude.\n\nYet the insecurity of natural society runs deeper, for natural society\nitself is an expedient and a sort of refuge of despair. It, too, in\nits inception, seemed a sacrifice and a constraint. The primitive soul\nhates order and the happiness founded on order. The barbarous soul\nhates justice and peace. The belly is always rebelling against the\nmembers. The belly was once all in all; it was a single cell floating\ndeliciously in a warm liquid; it had no outer organs; it thought it\ndidn't need them. It vegetated in peace; no noises, no alarms, no\nlusts, no nonsense. Ah, veritably solitude was blessedness then! But\nit was a specious solitude and a precarious blessedness, resting on\nignorance. The warm liquid might cool, or might dry up; it might breed\nall sorts of enemies; presently heaven might crack and the cell be\ncleft in two. Happy the hooded microbe that put forth feelers in time,\nand awoke to its social or unsocial environment! I am not sure that,\nbeneath the love of ideal society, there was not in Saint Bernard a\nlingering love of primeval peace, of seminal slumber; that he did\nnot yearn for the cell bio-logical as well as for the cell monastic.\nLife, mere living, is a profound ideal, pregnant with the memory of a\npossible happiness, the happiness of protoplasm; and the advocate of\nmoral society must not reckon without his host. He has a rebellious\nmaterial in hand; his every atom is instinct with a life of its own\nwhich it may reassert, upsetting his calculations and destroying\nhis organic systems. Only the physical failure of solitude drove\nthe spirit at first into society, as the moral failure of society\nmay drive it later into solitude again. If any one said, then, that\nhappiness lies only in society, his maxim would be no less sincere\nand solid than Saint Bernard's, but it would not be so profound. For\nbeneath natural society, in the heart of each of its members, there is\nalways an intense and jealous solitude, the sleep of elemental life\nwhich can never be wholly broken; and above natural society there is\nalways another solitude--a placid ethereal wilderness, the heaven of\nideas--beckoning the mind.\n\n\n\n\n29\n\nIMAGINATION\n\n\nMen are ruled by imagination: imagination makes them into men, capable\nof madness and of immense labours. We work dreaming. Consider what\ndreams must have dominated the builders of the Pyramids--dreams\ngeometrical, dreams funereal, dreams of resurrection, dreams of\noutdoing the pyramid of some other Pharaoh! What dreams occupy that\nfat man in the street, toddling by under his shabby hat and bedraggled\nrain-coat? Perhaps he is in love; perhaps he is a Catholic, and\nimagines that early this morning he has partaken of the body and\nblood of Christ; perhaps he is a revolutionist, with the millennium\nin his heart and a bomb in his pocket. The spirit bloweth where it\nlisteth; the wind of inspiration carries our dreams before it and\nconstantly refashions them like clouds. Nothing could be madder, more\nirresponsible, more dangerous than this guidance of men by dreams. What\nsaves us is the fact that our imaginations, groundless and chimerical\nas they may seem, are secretly suggested and controlled by shrewd old\ninstincts of our animal nature, and by continual contact with things.\nThe shock of sense, breaking in upon us with a fresh irresistible\nimage, checks wayward imagination and sends it rebounding in a new\ndirection, perhaps more relevant to what is happening in the world\noutside.\n\nWhen I speak of being governed by imagination, of course I am indulging\nin a figure of speech, in an ellipsis; in reality we are governed by\nthat perpetual latent process within us by which imagination itself is\ncreated. Actual imaginings--the cloud-like thoughts drifting by--are\nnot masters over themselves nor over anything else. They are like\nthe sound of chimes in the night; they know nothing of whence they\ncame, how they will fall out, or how long they will ring. There is a\nmechanism in the church tower; there was a theme in the composer's\nhead; there is a beadle who has been winding the thing up. The sound\nwafted to us, muffled by distance and a thousand obstacles, is but the\nlast lost emanation of this magical bell-ringing. Yet in our dream\nit is all in all; it is what first entertains and absorbs the mind.\nImagination, when it chimes within us, apparently of itself, is no less\nelaborately grounded; it is a last symptom, a rolling echo, by which we\ndetect and name the obscure operation that occasions it; and not this\necho in its aesthetic impotence, but the whole operation whose last\nwitness it is, receives in science the name of imagination, and may be\ntruly said to rule the human world.\n\nThis extension of names is inevitable although unfortunate, because\nlanguage and perception are poetical before they become scientific,\nif they ever do; as Aristotle observes that the word anger is used\nindifferently for two different things: dialectically, or as I call\nit, imaginatively, for the desire for revenge, but physically for a\nboiling of the humours. And utterly different as these two things are\nin quality, no great inconvenience results from giving them the same\nname, because historically they are parts of the same event. Nature\nhas many dimensions at once, and whenever we see anything happen, much\nelse is happening there which we cannot see. Whilst dreams entertain\nus, the balance of our character is shifting beneath: we are growing\nwhile we sleep. The young think in one way, the drunken in another, and\nthe dead not at all; and I imagine--for I have imagination myself--that\nthey do not die because they stop thinking, but they stop thinking\nbecause they die. How much veering and luffing before they make that\nport I The brain of man, William James used to say, has a hair-trigger\norganization. His life is terribly experimental. He is perilously\ndependent on the oscillations of a living needle, imagination, that\nnever points to the true north.\n\nThere are books in which the footnotes, or the comments scrawled\nby some reader's hand in the margin, are more interesting than the\ntext. The world is one of these books. The reciprocal interference of\nmagnetic fields (which I understand is the latest conception of matter)\nmay compose a marvellous moving pattern; but the chief interest to\nus of matter lies in its fertility in producing minds and presenting\nrecognizable phenomena to the senses; and the chief interest of any\nscientific notion of its intrinsic nature lies in the fact that, if not\nliterally true, it may liberate us from more misleading conceptions.\nDid we have nothing but electrical physics to think of, the nightmare\nwould soon become intolerable. But a hint of that kind, like a hasty\nglance into the crater of a volcano, sends a wholesome shudder through\nour nerves; we realize how thin is the crust we build on, how mythical\nand remote from the minute and gigantic scale of nature are the bright\nimages we seem to move among, all cut out and fitted to our human\nstature. Yet these bright images are our natural companions, and if\nwe do not worship them idolatrously nor petrify them into substances,\nforgetting the nimble use of them in mental discourse, which is\nwhere they belong, they need not be more misleading to us, even for\nscientific purposes, than are words or any other symbols.\n\nIt is fortunate that the material world, whatever may be its intrinsic\nstructure or substance, falls to our apprehension into such charming\nunits. There is the blue vault of heaven, there are the twinkling\nconstellations, there are the mountains, trees, and rivers, and above\nall those fascinating unstable unities which we call animals and\npersons; magnetic fields I am quite ready to believe them, for such in\na vast vague way I feel them to be, but individual bodies they will\nremain to my sensuous imagination, and dramatic personages to my moral\nsense. They, too, are animate: they, too, compose a running commentary\non things and on one another, adding their salacious footnotes to\nthe dull black letter of the world. Many of them are hardly aware of\ntheir own wit; knowing they are but commentators, they are intent on\nfidelity and unconscious of invention. Yet against their will they\ngloss everything, willy-nilly we are all scholiasts together. Heaven\nforbid that I should depreciate this prodigious tome of nature, or\nquestion in one jot or tittle the absolute authority of its Author;\nbut it is like an encyclopaedia in an infinite number of volumes, or\na directory with the addresses of everybody that ever lived. We may\ndip into it on occasion in search of some pertinent fact, but it is\nnot a book to read; its wealth is infinite, but so is its monotony; it\nis not composed in our style nor in our language, we could not have\nwritten one line of it. Yet the briefest text invites reflection, and\nwe may spin a little homily out of it in the vernacular for our own\nedification.\n\nIn the _Mahabharata_, a learned friend tells me, a young champion\narmed for the combat and about to rush forward between the two armies\ndrawn up in battle array, stops for a moment to receive a word of\ncounsel from his spiritual adviser--and that word occupies the next\neighteen books of the epic; after which the battle is allowed to\nproceed. These Indian poets had spiritual minds, they measured things\nby their importance to the spirit, not to the eye. They despised\nverisimilitude and aesthetic proportion; they despised existence, the\nbeauties of which they felt exquisitely nevertheless, and to which\ntheir imagination made such stupendous additions. I honour their\ncourage in bidding the sun stand still, not that they might thoroughly\nvanquish an earthly enemy, but that they might wholly clarify their own\nsoul. For this better purpose the sun need not stand still materially.\nFor the spirit, time is an elastic thing. Fancy is quick and brings\nthe widest vistas to a focus in a single instant. After the longest\ninterval of oblivion and death, it can light up the same image in all\nthe greenness of youth; and if cut short, as it were at Pompeii, in the\nmidst of a word, it can, ages after, without feeling the break, add the\nlast syllable. Imagination changes the scale of everything, and makes\na thousand patterns of the woof of nature, without disturbing a single\nthread. Or rather--since it is nature itself that imagines--it turns\nto music what was only strain; as if the universal vibration, suddenly\nashamed of having been so long silent and useless, had burst into tears\nand laughter at its own folly, and in so doing had become wise.\n\n\n\n\n30\n\nTHE WORLD'S A STAGE\n\n\nNature, like a theatre, offers a double object to the mind. There is\nin the first place the play presented, the overt spectacle, which is\nsomething specious and ideal; and then there is something material\nand profound lying behind and only symbolically revealed, namely, the\nstage, the actors, and the author. The playful spectacular sort of\nreality we can pretty well dominate and exhaust, if we are attentive;\nindeed the prospect, in its sensuous and poetic essence, is plastic\nto attention, and alters its character according to the spectator's\nstation and faculty; a poetic theme develops as interest in it is\naroused, and offers different beauties and different morals to every\nnew critic. The instrumentalities, on the contrary, which bring\nthis spectacle before us, whether they be material or personal, are\nunfathomable. They are events, not ideas. Even putting together all\nthat carpenters and chemists, biographers and psychologists, might\nlearn about these events, we could never probe them to the bottom.\n\nIn the beginning, as for a child at his first pantomime, the play's\nthe thing; and a human audience can never quite outgrow this initial\nillusion, since this world is a theatre nobody can visit twice. If we\ncould become habitu\u00e9s, old theatre-goers amongst the worlds, we might\ngrow more discriminating; on the whole we might enjoy the performances\njust as much or even more, perhaps; yet less breathlessly. We should\nsee more and believe less. The pleasure of seeing is one, and the\npleasure of believing is quite another; the first liberates our senses\nand fills the present with light; the second directs our conduct\nand relieves our anxiety or doubts about the past and future. When\nthe spectator bethinks himself of destiny as well as of beauty, his\nsensibility becomes tragic, it becomes intelligence. Every picture is\nthen regarded as a sign for the whole situation which has generated it\nor which it forebodes. The given image, for intelligence, expresses\na problematic fact; and intelligence invents various grammatical\nforms and logical categories by which to describe its hidden enemy\nor fascinating prey. So spontaneous and dogmatic is the intellect in\nthis interpretation of the scene that the conceived object (however\nabstractly sketched) is unhesitatingly judged to be, as we say, the\nreal thing: it alone works and acts, whilst the given image is either\ndisregarded altogether or despised as a mere word or phantasm of\nsense, such as only fools would stop to gaze at. And it is very true,\nwhatever desperate efforts empiricism may make to deny it, that every\nfigure crossing the stage of apprehension is a symbol, or may become\na symbol; they all have some occasion and arise out of some deeper\ncommotion in the material world. The womb of nature is full of crowding\nevents, to us invisible; the ballet has machinery behind its vistas and\nits music; the dancers possess a character and fate in the daylight\nquite foreign to these fays and shepherds before the footlights; what\nto us is a pirouette to them is a twitch or a shilling. Shame to the\nimpious egotism that would deny it, and, in order to spare itself the\ntension of faith and the labour of understanding, would pretend to find\nin experience nothing but a shadowy tapestry, a landscape without a\nsubstance. To its invisible substance the spectacle owes not only its\nexistence but its meaning, since our interest in the scene is rooted\nin a hidden life within us, quite as much as the shifts and colours of\nthe scenery are rooted in tricks of the stage. Nevertheless the roots\nof things are properly and decently hidden under ground, and it is as\nchildish to be always pulling them up, to make sure that they exist, as\nit is to deny their existence. The flowers are what chiefly interests\na man of taste; the spectacle is what liberal-minded people have come\nto see. Every image has its specific aspect and aesthetic essence, more\nor less charming in itself; the sensualist, the poet, the chronicler of\nhis passing visions must take them at their face value, and be content\nwith that. Fair masks, like flowers, like sunsets, like melodies wrung\nout of troubled brains and strung wire, cover for us appropriately the\nanatomical face of nature; and words and dogmas are other masks, behind\nwhich we, too, can venture upon the stage; for it is life to give\nexpression to life, transmuting diffused movements into dear images.\nHow blind is the zeal of the iconoclasts, and how profoundly hostile\nto religious impulse! They pour scorn upon eyes that see not and a\nmouth that cannot speak; they despise a work of art or of thought for\nbeing finished and motionless; as if the images of the retina were less\nidols than those of the sculptor, and as if words, of all things, were\nnot conventional signs, grotesque counterfeits, dead messengers, like\nfallen leaves, from the dumb soul. Why should one art be contemptuous\nof the figurative language of another? Jehovah, who would suffer no\nstatues, was himself a metaphor.\n\n\n\n\n31\n\nMASKS\n\n\nWhen we are children we love putting on masks to astonish our elders;\nthere is a lordly pleasure in puzzling those harmless giants who are\nnot in the secret. We ourselves, of course, know that it is only\na disguise; and when presently we pull it off, their surprise at\nrecognizing us is something deliciously comic. Yet, at bottom, this\ncompulsory return to nature is a little sad; our young empiricism\nwould like to take appearances more seriously. To an unsophisticated\nmind every transformation seems as credible as it is interesting; there\nis always danger and hope of anything. Why should people hesitate to\nbelieve something intrinsically so plausible as that Johnny should\nhave acquired a bull's head, or that little Alice should suddenly\ndevelop a red nose and furious mustachios? That is just the sort of\nthing that would happen if this stupid world were only more natural;\nbut the trouble with old people is that their minds have become\nstagnant, dominated as they are by precedent and prejudice; it is\ntoo much of an exertion for them to imagine anything but what they\nhave always seen. Even when they tell us about religion, which is so\nfull of exciting and lovely things that we know _must_ be true, they\nseem to be trying to remember something they have read or heard of,\nand quite spoil the story; they don't seem to understand at all, as\nwe do, why it all happens. They are terrible believers in substance,\nand can hardly lend themselves to the wayward game of experience.\nThis after all wouldn't matter so much; it is not worth while playing\nwith people who don't relish games. The subtlest part of the pleasure\nis being blindfolded on purpose and feeling lost when you know you\nare not lost. Empiricism would be agony if any one was so silly as\nreally to forget his material status and to become the sport of his\npassing ideas. But masks are great fun in themselves, and when you are\nfundamentally sane it is pleasant to play the madman and to yield to\nthe eloquence of an imagined life; and it is intolerable to have the\ngame spoiled by some heavy-footed person who constantly reminds you of\nthe discovered facts and will not lend himself to the spirit of your\nfiction, which is the deepest part of your own spirit. No one would be\nangry with a man for unintentionally making a mistake about a matter\nof fact; but if he perversely insists on spoiling your story in the\ntelling of it, you want to kick him; and this is the reason why every\nphilosopher and theologian is justly vexed with every other. When we\nare children the accident and fatality of having been born human are\nrecent and only half welcome; we still feel a little hurt at being so\narbitrarily confined to one miserable career and forced to remain\nalways consistent; we still see the equal antecedent propriety of being\nanybody or anything else. Masks afford us the pleasing excitement of\nrevising our so accidental birth-certificate and of changing places in\nspirit with some other changeling.\n\nNevertheless the game soon tires. Although children are no believers in\nsubstance, they are substances themselves without knowing it. The mask\nrefuses to grow on to their flesh: it thwarts their rising impulses.\nPlay-acting is seldom worth the commitments it involves; your part,\nafter a few enthusiastic rehearsals, turns out not really to suit you.\nIt seemed at first to open up splendid adventures and give you a chance\nto display your unsuspected passions and powers; but now you begin\nto think your speeches ridiculous and your costume unbecoming. You\nmust pull off the mask to see clearly and to breathe freely; you are\noverheard indulging in asides that are out of character, and swearing\nin the unvarnished vernacular; and when the performance at last is\nover, what a relief to fling away your wig and your false beard, and\nrelapse into your honest self! There is no place like home, although\nthere may be better places; and there is no face like one's own, for\ncomfort to the wearer.\n\nThe Englishman likes to be comfortable, and he hates masks. It is\npleasant to be straightforward, as it is to be clean. Mere fa\u00e7ades\noffend him so much that he actually manages to build houses without\nthem; they have creepers, they have chimneys, they have bow-windows,\nthey have several doors, but they have no front. His Empire, too, for\nall its extent and complexity, presents no imposing fa\u00e7ade to the\nworld; it seems to elude observation and to be everywhere apologizing\nfor its existence. Its enemies, on the contrary, both at home and\nabroad, are blatancy itself, always parading their heroisms and\ntheir ambitions; and one wonders how a power so hated, so hesitant,\nand so involuntary can last at all. But it has a certain plastic\ninvulnerability; you pommel it and trample on it here, and its strength\nturns out to have lain in quite another quarter. It is like the sort\nof man who serves it, a pale languid youth, sprawling on cushions,\nand lisping a little when he cares to take his pipe out of his mouth\nat all; but what is your surprise when, something having happened, he\ngets up and knocks you down. Nothing had prepared you for that; no\nphilosophical eloquence or resounding _coup d'\u00e9tat_: he is perhaps\na little surprised himself at his energy. He blushes if by chance\nany warm gesture or expression has escaped him; he feels that it\nmisrepresents his average sentiment; the echo of it sounds hollow in\nhis ear, and just because it was so spontaneous he detests it as if it\nhad been a lie. The passing grimaces of passion, the masks of life, are\nodious to him; yet he is quite happy to be deceived and to be masked by\na thick atmosphere of convention, if only this atmosphere is temperate\nand sustained. He will be loyal to any nonsense that seems to justify\nhis instincts and that has got a domestic stamp; but elaborate original\nlies are not in his nature; he has no histrionic gift. Intrigue\nrequires a dear perception of the facts, an insight into other people's\nmotives, and a power of sustained simulation; he is not clever at any\nof these things. Masks, wigs, cowls, and stays are too troublesome;\nif you are not always on the watch, the beastly things will fall off.\nHe prefers to dress his personage more constitutionally; the dyes he\nuses must be all indelible, such as religion and education can supply.\nThese, with the habit of his set or profession, are his lifelong\nmake-up and his second nature; his only mask is the unperturbed\nexpression which time and temperance have chiselled in his face.\n\n\n\n\n32\n\nTHE TRAGIC MASK\n\n\nMasks are arrested expressions and admirable echoes of feeling, at once\nfaithful, discreet, and superlative. Living things in contact with\nthe air must acquire a cuticle, and it is not urged against cuticles\nthat they are not hearts; yet some philosophers seem to be angry with\nimages for not being things, and with words for not being feelings.\nWords and images are like shells, no less integral parts of nature\nthan are the substances they cover, but better addressed to the eye and\nmore open to observation. I would not say that substance exists for the\nsake of appearance, or faces for the sake of masks, or the passions\nfor the sake of poetry and virtue. Nothing arises in nature for the\nsake of anything else; all these phases and products are involved\nequally in the round of existence, and it would be sheer wilfulness\nto praise the germinal phase on the ground that it is vital, and to\ndenounce the explicit phase on the ground that it is dead and sterile.\nWe might as justly despise the seed for being merely instrumental,\nand glorify the full-blown flower, or the conventions of art, as the\nhighest achievement and fruition of life. Substance is fluid, and,\nsince it cannot exist without some form, is always ready to exchange\none form for another; but sometimes it falls into a settled rhythm or\nrecognizable vortex, which we call a nature, and which sustains an\ninteresting form for a season. These sustained forms are enshrined in\nmemory and worshipped in moral philosophy, which often assigns to them\na power to create and to reassert themselves which their precarious\nstatus is very far from justifying. But they are all in all to the\nmind: art and happiness lie in pouring and repouring the molten metal\nof existence through some such tenable mould.\n\nMasks are accordingly glorious things; we are instinctively as proud\nof designing and wearing them as we are of inventing and using words.\nThe blackest tragedy is festive; the most pessimistic philosophy is an\nenthusiastic triumph of thought. The life which such expressions seem\nto arrest or to caricature would be incomplete without them; indeed,\nit would be blind and abortive. It is no interruption to experience to\nmaster experience, as tragedy aspires to do; nor is it an interruption\nto sink into its episodes and render them consummate, which is the\ntrick of comedy. On the contrary, without such playful pauses and\nreflective interludes our round of motions and sensations would be\ndeprived of that intellectual dignity which relieves it and renders\nit morally endurable--the dignity of knowing what we are doing, even\nif it be foolish in itself, and with what probable issue. Tragedy,\nthe knowledge of death, raises us to that height. In fancy and for a\nmoment it brings our mortal wills into harmony with our destiny, with\nthe wages of existence, and with the silence beyond. These discoveries\nof reason have fixed the expression of the tragic mask, half horror\nand half sublimity. Such is the countenance of man when turned towards\ndeath and eternity and looking beyond all his endeavours at the Gorgon\nface of the truth. This is not to say that it is less human, or less\nlegitimate, to look in other directions and to make other faces. But\nwhether the visage we assume be a joyful or a sad one, in adopting\nand emphasizing it we define our sovereign temper. Henceforth, so\nlong as we continue under the spell of this self-knowledge, we do not\nmerely live but act; we compose and play our chosen character, we wear\nthe buskin of deliberation, we defend and idealize our passions, we\nencourage ourselves eloquently to be what we are, devoted or scornful\nor careless or austere; we soliloquize (before an imaginary audience)\nand we wrap ourselves gracefully in the mantle of our inalienable part.\nSo draped, we solicit applause and expect to die amid a universal hush.\nWe profess to live up to the fine sentiments we have uttered, as we try\nto believe in the religion we profess. The greater our difficulties\nthe greater our zeal. Under our published principles and plighted\nlanguage we must assiduously hide all the inequalities of our moods and\nconduct, and this without hypocrisy, since our deliberate character\nis more truly ourself than is the flux of our involuntary dreams. The\nportrait we paint in this way and exhibit as our true person may well\nbe in the grand manner, with column and curtain and distant landscape\nand finger pointing to the terrestrial globe or to the Yorick-skull of\nphilosophy; but if this style is native to us and our art is vital, the\nmore it transmutes its model the deeper and truer art it will be. The\nsevere bust of an archaic sculpture, scarcely humanizing the block,\nwill express a spirit far more justly than the man's dull morning looks\nor casual grimaces. Every one who is sure of his mind, or proud of his\noffice, or anxious about his duty assumes a tragic mask. He deputes it\nto be himself and transfers to it almost all his vanity. While still\nalive and subject, like all existing things, to the undermining flux\nof his own substance, he has crystallized his soul into an idea, and\nmore in pride than in sorrow he has offered up his life on the altar\nof the Muses. Self-knowledge, like any art or science, renders its\nsubject-matter in a new medium, the medium of ideas, in which it loses\nits old dimensions and its old pace. Our animal habits are transmuted\nby conscience into loyalties and duties, and we become \"persons\" or\nmasks. Art, truth, and death turn everything to marble.\n\nThat life should be able to reach such expression in the realm of\neternal form is a sublime and wonderful privilege, but it is tragic,\nand for that reason distasteful to the animal in man. A mask is not\nresponsive; you must not speak to it as to a living person, you must\nnot kiss it. If you do, you will find the cold thing repulsive and\nghastly. It is only a husk, empty, eyeless, brittle, and glazed. The\nmore comic its expression the more horrible it will prove, being that\nof a corpse. The animal in man responds to things according to their\nsubstance, edible, helpful, or plastic; his only joy is to push his\nway victoriously through the material world, till a death stops him\nwhich he never thought of and, in a sense, never experiences. He is not\nin the least interested in picturing what he is or what he will have\nbeen; he is intent only on what is happening to him now or may happen\nto him next. But when the passions see themselves in the mirror of\nreflection, what they behold is a tragic mask. This is the escutcheon\nof human nature, in which its experience is emblazoned. In so far as\nmen are men at all, or men of honour, they militate under this standard\nand are true to their colours. Whatever refuses to be idealized in\nthis way, they are obliged to disown and commit to instant oblivion.\nIt will never do for a mind merely to live through its passions or\nits perceptions; it must discern recognizable objects, in which to\ncentre its experience and its desires; it must choose names and signs\nfor them, and these names and symbols, if they are to perform their\nfunction in memory and intercourse, must be tightly conventional. What\ncould be more unseemly than a fault in grammar, or in many a case\nmore laughable and disconcerting? Yet any solecism, if it were once\nstereotyped and made definitely significant, would become an idiom:\nit would become a good verbal mask. What is not covered in this way by\nsome abiding symbol can never be recovered; the dark flood of existence\ncarries it down bodily. Only in some word or conventional image can\nthe secret of one moment be flashed to another moment; and even when\nthere is no one ready to receive the message, or able to decipher it,\nat least the poet in his soliloquy has uttered his mind and raised his\nmonument in his own eyes; and in expressing his life he has found it.\n\n\n\n\n33\n\nTHE COMIC MASK\n\n\nThe down is the primitive comedian. Sometimes in the exuberance of\nanimal life a spirit of riot and frolic comes over a man; he leaps,\nhe dances, he tumbles head over heels, he grins, shouts, or leers,\npossibly he pretends to go to pieces suddenly, and blubbers like a\nchild. A moment later he may look up wreathed in smiles, and hugely\npleased about nothing. All this he does hysterically, without any\nreason, by a sort of mad inspiration and irresistible impulse. He\nmay easily, however, turn his absolute histrionic impulse, his pure\nfooling, into mimicry of anything or anybody that at the moment happens\nto impress his senses; he will crow like a cock, simper like a young\nlady, or reel like a drunkard. Such mimicry is virtual mockery, because\nthe actor is able to revert from those assumed attitudes to his natural\nself; whilst his models, as he thinks, have no natural self save\nthat imitable attitude, and can never disown it; so that the clown\nfeels himself immensely superior, in his r\u00f4le of universal satirist,\nto all actual men, and belabours and rails at them unmercifully. He\nsees everything in caricature, because he sees the surface only, with\nthe lucid innocence of a child; and all these grotesque personages\nstimulate him, not to moral sympathy, nor to any consideration of\ntheir fate, but rather to boisterous sallies, as the rush of a crowd,\nor the hue and cry of a hunt, or the contortions of a jumping-jack\nmight stimulate him. He is not at all amused intellectually; he is\nnot rendered wiser or tenderer by knowing the predicaments into which\npeople inevitably fall; he is merely excited, flushed, and challenged\nby an absurd spectacle. Of course this rush and suasion of mere\nexistence must never fail on the stage, nor in any art; it is to the\ndrama what the hypnotizing stone block is to the statue, or shouts and\nrhythmic breathing to the bard; but such primary magical influences may\nbe qualified by reflection, and then rational and semi-tragic unities\nwill supervene. When this happens the histrionic impulse creates the\nidyl or the tragic chorus; henceforth the muse of reflection follows\nin the train of Dionysus, and the revel or the rude farce passes into\nhumane comedy.\n\nPaganism was full of scruples and superstitions in matters of behaviour\nor of _cultus_, since the _cultus_ too was regarded as a business or a\nmagic craft; but in expression, in reflection, paganism was frank and\neven shameless; it felt itself inspired, and revered this inspiration.\nIt saw nothing impious in inventing or recasting a myth about no matter\nhow sacred a subject. Its inspiration, however, soon fell into classic\nmoulds, because the primary impulses of nature, though intermittent,\nare monotonous and clearly defined, as are the gestures of love and of\nanger. A man who is unaffectedly himself turns out to be uncommonly\nlike other people. Simple sincerity will continually rediscover the old\nright ways of thinking and speaking, and will be perfectly conventional\nwithout suspecting it. This classic iteration comes of nature, it is\nnot the consequence of any revision or censorship imposed by reason.\nReason, not being responsible for any of the facts or passions that\nenter into human life, has no interest in maintaining them as they\nare; any novelty, even the most revolutionary, would merely afford\nreason a fresh occasion for demanding a fresh harmony. But the Old\nAdam is conservative; he repeats himself mechanically in every child\nwho cries and loves sweets and is imitative and jealous. Reason,\nwith its tragic discoveries and restraints, is a far more precarious\nand personal possession than the trite animal experience and the\nancestral grimaces on which it supervenes; and automatically even the\nphilosopher continues to cut his old comic capers, as if no such thing\nas reason existed. The wiseacres too are comic, and their mask is\none of the most harmlessly amusing in the human museum; for reason,\ntaken psychologically, is an old inherited passion like any other, the\npassion for consistency and order; and it is just as prone as the other\npassions to overstep the modesty of nature and to regard its own aims\nas alone important. But this is ridiculous; because importance springs\nfrom the stress of nature, from the cry of life, not from reason and\nits pale prescriptions. Reason cannot stand alone; brute habit and\nblind play are at the bottom of art and morals, and unless irrational\nimpulses and fancies are kept alive, the life of reason collapses for\nsheer emptiness. What tragedy could there be, or what sublime harmonies\nrising out of tragedy, if there were no spontaneous passions to create\nthe issue, no wild voices to be reduced to harmony? Moralists have\nhabitually aimed at suppression, wisely perhaps at first, when they\nwere preaching to men of spirit; but why continue to harp on propriety\nand unselfishness and labour, when we are little but labour-machines\nalready, and have hardly any self or any passions left to indulge?\nPerhaps the time has come to suspend those exhortations, and to\nencourage us to be sometimes a little lively, and see if we can invent\nsomething worth saying or doing. We should then be living in the spirit\nof comedy, and the world would grow young. Every occasion would don\nits comic mask, and make its bold grimace at the world for a moment.\nWe should be constantly original without effort and without shame,\nsomewhat as we are in dreams, and consistent only in sincerity; and we\nshould gloriously emphasize all the poses we fell into, without seeking\nto prolong them.\n\nObjections to the comic mask--to the irresponsible, complete, extreme\nexpression of each moment--cut at the roots of all expression. Pursue\nthis path, and at once you do away with gesture: we must not point,\nwe must not pout, we must not cry, we must not laugh aloud; we must\nnot only avoid attracting attention, but our attention must not be\nobviously attracted; it is silly to gaze, says the nursery-governess,\nand rude to stare. Presently words, too, will be reduced to a\ntelegraphic code. A man in his own country will talk like the laconic\ntourist abroad; his whole vocabulary will be _O\u00f9? Combien? All right!\nDear me!_ Conversation in the quiet home will dispense even with these\nphrases; nothing will be required but a few pragmatic grunts and\nsignals for action. Where the spirit of comedy has departed, company\nbecomes constraint, reserve eats up the spirit, and people fall into\na penurious melancholy in their scruple to be always exact, sane, and\nreasonable, never to mourn, never to glow, never to betray a passion\nor a weakness, nor venture to utter a thought they might not wish to\nharbour for ever.\n\nYet irony pursues these enemies of comedy, and for fear of wearing\na mask for a moment they are hypocrites all their lives. Their very\nreserve becomes a pose, a convention imposed externally, and their\nmincing speech turns to cant. Sometimes this evasion of impulsive\nsentiment fosters a poignant sentimentality beneath. The comedy goes\non silently behind the scenes, until perhaps it gets the upper hand\nand becomes positive madness; or else it breaks out in some shy,\nindirect fashion, as among Americans with their perpetual joking.\nWhere there is no habitual art and no moral liberty, the instinct for\ndirect expression is atrophied for want of exercise; and then slang\nand a humorous perversity of phrase or manner act as safety-valves to\nsanity; and you manage to express yourself in spite of the censor by\nsaying something grotesquely different from what you mean. That is a\nlong way round to sincerity, and an ugly one. What, on the contrary,\ncould be more splendidly sincere than the impulse to play in real life,\nto rise on the rising wave of every feeling and let it burst, if it\nwill, into the foam of exaggeration? Life is not a means, the mind is\nnot a slave nor a photograph: it has a right to enact a pose, to assume\na _panache_, and to create what prodigious allegories it will for the\nmere sport and glory of it. Nor is this art of innocent make-believe\nforbidden in the Decalogue, although Bible-reading Anglo-Saxondom\nmight seem to think so. On the contrary, the Bible and the Decalogue\nare themselves instances of it. To embroider upon experience is not to\nbear false witness against one's neighbour, but to bear true witness\nto oneself. Fancy is playful and may be misleading to those who try\nto take it for literal fact; but literalness is impossible in any\nutterance of spirit, and if it were possible it would be deadly. Why\nshould we quarrel with human nature, with metaphor, with myth, with\nimpersonation? The foolishness of the simple is delightful; only the\nfoolishness of the wise is exasperating.\n\n\n\n\n34\n\nCARNIVAL\n\n\nIn this world we must either institute conventional forms of expression\nor else pretend that we have nothing to express; the choice lies\nbetween a mask and a fig-leaf. Art and discipline render seemly what\nwould be unseemly without them, but hypocrisy hides it ostentatiously\nunder something irrelevant, and the fig-leaf is only a more ignominious\nmask. For the moment it is certainly easier to suppress the wild\nimpulses of our nature than to manifest them fitly, at the right times\nand with the proper fugitive emphasis; yet in the long run suppression\ndoes not solve the problem, and meantime those maimed expressions\nwhich are allowed are infected with a secret misery and falseness. It\nis the charm and safety of virtue that it is more natural than vice,\nbut many moralists do their best to deprive it of this advantage.\nThey seem to think it would lose its value if they lost their office.\nTheir precepts, as distinguished from the spontaneous appreciations\nof men, are framed in the interests of utility, and are curiously out\nof sympathy with the soul. Precept divides the moral world materially\ninto right and wrong things; but nothing concrete is right or wrong\nintrinsically, and every object or event has both good and bad effects\nin the context of nature. Every passion, like life as a whole, has its\nfeet in one moral climate and its head in another. Existence itself is\nnot a good, but only an opportunity. Christians thank God for their\ncreation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life, but life\nis the condition and source of all evil, and the Indians thank Brahma\nor Buddha for lifting them out of it. What metaphysical psychologists\ncall Will is the great original sin, the unaccountable and irrational\ninterest which the spirit takes, when it is incarnate, in one thing\nhappening rather than another; yet this mad interest is the condition\nof generosity and of every virtue. Love is a red devil at one end of\nits spectrum and an ultra-violet angel at the other end.\n\nNor is this amphibious moral quality limited to the passions; all facts\nand objects in nature can take on opposite moral tints. When abstracted\nfrom our own presence and interests, everything that can be found or\nimagined is reduced to a mere essence, an ideal theme picked out of\nthe infinite, something harmless, marvellous, and pure, like a musical\nrhythm or geometrical design. The whole world then becomes a labyrinth\nof forms and motions, a castle in the clouds built without labour and\ndissolved without tears. The moment the animal will reawakes, however,\nthese same things acquire a new dimension; they become substantial,\nnot to be created without effort nor rent without resistance; at the\nsame time they become objects of desire and fear; we are so engrossed\nin existence that every phenomenon becomes questionable and ominous,\nand not so much a free gift and manifestation of its own nature as a\npiece of good or bad news. We are no longer surprised, as a free spirit\nwould be, at the extraordinary interest we take in things turning out\none way rather than another. We are caught in the meshes of time and\nplace and care; and as the things we have set our heart on, whatever\nthey may be, must pass away in the end, either suddenly or by a gentle\ntransformation, we cannot take a long view without finding life sad,\nand all things tragic. This aspect of vanity and self-annihilation,\nwhich existence wears when we consider its destiny, is not to be denied\nor explained away, as is sometimes attempted in cowardly and mincing\nphilosophies. It is a true aspect of existence in one relation and on\na certain view; but to take this long view of existence, and look down\nthe avenues of time from the station and with the emotions of some\nparticular moment, is by no means inevitable, nor is it a fair and\nsympathetic way of viewing existence. Things when they are actual do\nnot lie in that sort of sentimental perspective, but each is centred\nin itself; and in this intrinsic aspect existence is nothing tragic\nor sad, but rather something joyful, hearty, and merry. A buoyant\nand full-blooded soul has quick senses and miscellaneous sympathies:\nit changes with the changing world; and when not too much starved or\nthwarted by circumstances, it finds all things vivid and comic. Life\nis free play fundamentally and would like to be free play altogether.\nIn youth anything is pleasant to see or to do, so long as it is\nspontaneous, and if the conjunction of these things is ridiculous, so\nmuch the better: to be ridiculous is part of the fun.\n\nExistence involves changes and happenings and is comic inherently, like\na pun that begins with one meaning and ends with another. Incongruity\nis a consequence of change; and this incongruity becomes especially\nconspicuous when, as in the flux of nature, change is going on at\ndifferent rates in different strands of being, so that not only does\neach thing surprise itself by what it becomes, but it is continually\nastonished and disconcerted by what other things have turned into\nwithout its leave. The mishaps, the expedients, the merry solutions of\ncomedy, in which everybody acknowledges himself beaten and deceived,\nyet is the happier for the unexpected posture of affairs, belong to\nthe very texture of temporal being; and if people repine at these\nmishaps, or rebel against these solutions, it is only because their\nsouls are less plastic and volatile than the general flux of nature.\nThe individual grows old and lags behind; he remembers his old pain and\nresents it when the world is already on a new tack. In the jumble of\nexistence there must be many a knock and many a grief; people living\nat cross purposes cannot be free from malice, and they must needs be\nfooled by their pretentious passions. But there is no need of taking\nthese evils tragically. At bottom they are gratuitous, and might have\nbeen avoided if people had not pledged their hearts to things beyond\ntheir control and had not entrenched themselves in their illusions.\nAt a sufficient remove every drama seems pathological and makes much\nado about what to other people is nothing. We are interested in those\nvicissitudes, which we might have undergone if placed under the given\ncircumstances; but we are happy to have escaped them. Thus the universe\nchanges its hues like the chameleon, not at random but in a fashion\nwhich moral optics can determine, as it appears in one perspective or\nanother; for everything in nature is lyrical in its ideal essence,\ntragic in its fate, and comic in its existence.\n\nExistence is indeed distinguishable from the platonic essences that\nare embodied in it precisely by being a conjunction of things mutually\nirrelevant, a chapter of accidents, a medley improvised here and now\nfor no reason, to the exclusion of the myriad other farces which, so\nfar as their ideal structure is concerned, might have been performed\njust as well. This world is contingency and absurdity incarnate, the\noddest of possibilities masquerading momentarily as a fact. Custom\nblinds persons who are not naturally speculative to the egregious\ncharacter of the actual, because custom assimilates their expectations\nto the march of existing things and deadens their power to imagine\nanything different. But wherever the routine of a barbaric life is\nbroken by the least acquaintance with larger ways, the arbitrariness\nof the actual begins to be discovered. The traveller will first learn\nthat his native language is not the only one, nor the best possible,\nnor itself constant; then, perhaps, he will understand that the same\nis true of his home religion and government. The naturalist will\nbegin by marvelling at the forms and habits of the lower animals,\nwhile continuing to attribute his own to their obvious propriety;\nlater the heavens and the earth, and all physical laws, will strike\nhim as paradoxically arranged and unintelligible; and ultimately the\nvery elements of existence--time, change, matter, habit, life cooped\nin bodies--will reveal themselves to him in their extreme oddity, so\nthat, unless he has unusual humility and respect for fact, he will\nprobably declare all these actual things to be impossible and therefore\nunreal. The most profound philosophers accordingly deny that any of\nthose things exist which we find existing, and maintain that the only\nreality is changeless, infinite, and indistinguishable into parts; and\nI call them the most profound philosophers in spite of this obvious\nfolly of theirs, because they are led into it by the force of intense\nreflection, which discloses to them that what exists is unintelligible\nand has no reason for existing; and since their moral and religious\nprejudices do not allow them to say that to be irrational and\nunintelligible is the character proper to existence, they are driven to\nthe alternative of saying that existence is illusion and that the only\nreality is something beneath or above existence. That real existence\nshould be radically comic never occurs to these solemn sages; they are\nwithout one ray of humour and are persuaded that the universe too must\nbe without one. Yet there is a capital joke in their own systems, which\nprove that nothing exists so strenuously, that existence laughs aloud\nin their vociferations and drowns the argument. Their conviction is\nthe very ghost which it rises to exorcise; yet the conviction and the\nexorcism remain impressive, because they bear witness to the essential\nstrangeness of existence to the spirit. Like the Ghost in _Hamlet_\nthis apparition, this unthinkable fact, is terribly disturbing and\nemphatic; it cries to us in a hollow voice, \"Swear!\" and when in an\nagony of concern and affection we endeavour to follow it, \"Tis here!\n'Tis here! Tis gone!\" Certainly existence can bewitch us; it can compel\nus to cry as well as to laugh; it can hurt, and that is its chief claim\nto respect. Its cruelty, however, is as casual as its enchantments;\nit is not cruel on purpose but only rough, like thoughtless boys.\nCoarseness--and existence is hopelessly coarse--is not an evil unless\nwe demand refinement. A giggling lass that peeps at us through her\nfingers is well enough in her sphere, but we should not have begun by\ncalling her Dulcinea. Dulcinea is a pure essence, and dwells only in\nthat realm. Existence should be met on its own terms; we may dance a\nround with it, and perhaps steal a kiss; but it tempts only to flout\nus, not being dedicated to any constant love. As if to acknowledge\nhow groundless existence is, everything that arises instantly backs\naway, bowing its excuses, and saying, \"My mistake!\" It suffers from\na sort of original sin or congenital tendency to cease from being.\nThis is what Heraclitus called [Greek: _Dik\u00e8_], or just punishment;\nbecause, as Mephistopheles long afterwards added, _alles was entsteht\nist wert dass es zugrunde geht_--whatsoever arises deserves to perish;\nnot of course because what arises is not often a charming creation,\nbut because it has no prerogative to exist not shared by every\nCinderella-like essence that lies eternally neglected in that limbo to\nwhich all things intrinsically belong--the limbo of unheard melodies\nand uncreated worlds. For anything to emerge from that twilight region\nis inexplicable and comic, like the popping up of Jack-in-the-box; and\nthe shock will amuse us, if our wits are as nimble as nature and as\nquick as time. We too exist; and existence is a joy to the sportive\nside of our nature, itself akin to a shower of sparks and a patter of\nirrevocable adventures. What indeed could be more exhilarating than\nsuch a rout, if only we are not too exacting, and do not demand of\nit irrelevant perfections? The art of life is to keep step with the\ncelestial orchestra that beats the measure of our career, and gives\nthe cue for our exits and our entrances. Why should we willingly miss\nanything, or precipitate anything, or be angry with folly, or in\ndespair at any misadventure? In this world there should be none but\ngentle tears, and fluttering tip-toe loves. It is a great Carnival, and\namongst these lights and shadows of comedy, these roses and vices of\nthe playhouse, there is no abiding.\n\n\n\n\n35\n\nQUEEN MAB\n\n\nNature, which is far more resourceful than logic, has found a way out\nof the contradiction between the human need for expression and the\nBritish distaste for personal outbursts. This way is rambling fiction.\nWhen out of shyness, or because they have shocked each other, the\ninner man and the outer man are not on speaking terms, loud language\nand vehement gestures are incompatible with depth of feeling. What\nlies deep must in such a case remain unexpressed, and will seem\ninexpressible. A man's heart will be revealed, even to himself, only\nin long stretches of constant endeavour and faithful habit: towards\nthe end of his life he may begin to discern his ruling motives. In\nthe meantime, however, his fancy may have played at self-revelation;\nhe may have indulged in day-dreams and romantic transformations of\nhimself, as boys do; and without pledging his real person too much he\nmay have made trial of candour, or, if need be, of extravagance, in\nimaginary substitutes for himself, thus trying the paces of his inner\nman without cheapening his secret feelings or publishing them in common\nand second-hand terms. Such a man will talk little about himself; his\nopinions and preferences will not be very explicit, but he will privily\nnurse and develop them by endless variations played upon them in fancy,\nas he reads or perhaps writes a book of fiction by his chimney corner.\nHe will dream of what Queen Mab makes other people dream.\n\nRomantic fiction is a bypath of expression; it meanders through fields\nof possible experience that stretch harmlessly between the highroads of\nactual lives, far from the precipices of private and public passions.\nThe labyrinth is infinite, but the path chosen in it is always\ntraceable by a sort of Ariadne's thread spun out of the poet's heart.\nHe means to forget himself and to feign some charming monster in some\npicturesque landscape, the more exotic the better; but in doing so he\nobeys the dream-impulses of his own soul, and recasts or corrects the\nimages supplied by his experience. His very extravagances and hectic\nconcentration of fancy betray him; they manifest his impatience, his\naffections, his potentialities; for he paints what he can conceive and\nwhat fascinates him in conceiving it. That which he might have been,\nand was not, comforts him. Such a form of self-expression, indirect,\nbashful, and profoundly humorous, being play rather than art, is\nalone congenial to the British temperament; it is the soul of English\nliterature. Like English politics and religion, it breathes tolerance,\nplasticity, waywardness, infinitude; it is tender and tentative,\nshapeless and guileless. Its straggling march forms a vast national\nsoliloquy, rich in casual touches, in alternatives, in contrasts, in\nsuspended themes; the plot grows out of the episodes, it is always\nbeing remodelled and always to be continued. The facts, though much\ntalked of in detail, are never faced as a whole, nor is the soul ever\ngathered together to pronounce upon them; the whole procedure is a\nsubterfuge, and may be easily disparaged by people with other gifts\nand aspirations. Intelligence certainly does not dominate it; its\nconclusions, when it reaches conclusions, are false, and its methods\ncumbrous; and foreigners who adopt them are catching only the vices of\ntheir model. But its virtues are transcendent; if the mind of England\nis wrapped in mists, it is touched with ethereal colours; and who shall\nmeasure the benign influences, the lights, the manliness, the comforts,\nthe moral sanity that have spread from it through the world? Its very\nincapacities are full of promise; it closes no doors; it is the one\nfountain of kindly liberty on earth. The Englishman's prejudices are so\nobviously prejudices as to be almost innocent, and even amiable; his\nconsecrated formulas (for of course he has them) are frankly inadequate\nand half humorous; he would not have you suppose he has said his\nall, nor his last word. He is jealous of preserving, far from public\nobservation or censure, the free play of his potential sentiments;\nfrom thence he will occasionally fetch some scrap of a word, or let\nslip some hint of emotion; he will only murmur or suggest or smile his\nloves. Everybody dislikes a caricature of himself; and the Englishman\nfeels (I think justly) that any figure a man can cut in other people's\neyes is a caricature. Therefore, if there is anything in him, he fears\nto betray it; and if there is nothing in him, he fears to betray that;\nand in either case he is condemned to diffidence and shyness. He wishes\nyou to let him alone; perhaps if you do he may presently tell you,\nabout quite another imaginary person, some vivid and tender story.\n\nThis story may be a fairy tale or it may be a piece of realistic\nfiction, in which the experiences of sundry characters, as different\nas possible from oneself and from one another, are imagined and lived\nthrough. The author may fairly say that these creations are not masks\nfor his own person; it is expressly not his own feelings that he is\nevoking and developing. He is fancying other feelings; and yet, as\nthis fancy and the magic life it constitutes are necessarily his own,\nhis mind is being secretly agitated and relieved by these fictions;\nand his sensibility, instead of being sublimated into some ultimate\ntragic passion, is diffused over a thousand picturesque figures and\nadventures with which he acknowledges no moral kinship, save such as\nis requisite for a lively interest in them and a minute portrayed. It\nis only by accident that any of his poetic offspring may resemble their\nparent. What cares he what curious eye may note their deformity? _He_\nneed not blush for them. He may even be bent on unmasking and fiercely\ncondemning them, as a scrupulous penitent is bent on ferreting out\nand denouncing his real or fancied sins. In the most searching truth\nof fiction there is accordingly no indiscretion; the author's inmost\nand least avowable feelings may be uttered through it without reserve.\nLike a modest showman behind the curtain of his booth, he manipulates\nhis marionettes and speaks for them in a feigned voice, by a sort of\nventriloquy. Here is no religious tragedy, no distilled philosophy, no\noverarching cosmic myth. The scale is pleasantly small and the tone\nfamiliar, though the sum of the parts may fade into the infinite. We\ndo not find in this complicated dream any life greater than our own\nor less accidental. We do not need to outgrow ourselves in order to\nunderstand it; no one summons us to pause, to recant, to renounce any\npart of our being. On the contrary, we simply unwind our own reel; we\nplay endlessly at living, and in this second visionary life we survive\nall catastrophes, and we exchange one character for another without\ncarrying over any load of memory or habit or fate. We seem still to\nundergo the vicissitudes of a moral world, but without responsibility.\n\nQueen Mab is a naughty sprite, full of idle curiosity and impartial\nlaughter. When she flutters over the roofs of cities, she is no\nangel with a mission, coming to sow there some chosen passion or\npurpose of her own; nor does she gather from those snoring mortals\nany collective sentiment or aspiration, such as a classic muse might\nrender articulate, or such as religion or war or some consecrated\nschool of art might embody. She steals wilily like a stray moonbeam\ninto every crack and dark old corner of the earth. Her deft touch, as\nshe pretends, sets all men dreaming, each after his own heart; but\nlike other magicians, she is a fraud. Those garden fancies about her\nfairy equipage are all a joke to amuse the children; her wings are,\nin reality, far finer than gossamer, and the Equivocation she rides\non is nimbler than any grasshopper. All she professes to spy out or\nprovoke is her own merry invention. Her wand really works no miracle\nand sets no sleeper dreaming; on the contrary, it is rather an electric\nspark from the lover's brain or the parson's nose, as she tickles it,\nthat quickens her own fancy, and hatches there an interminable brood\nof exquisite oddities, each little goblin perfectly ridiculous, each\nquite serious and proud of its little self, each battling bravely for\nits little happiness. Queen Mab is the genius proper to the art of a\nnation whose sensibility is tender, but whose personal life is drab and\npale. To report, however poetically, the events and feelings they have\nactually experienced would be dull, as dull as life; their imagination\ncraves entertainment with something richer, more wayward, more\nexciting. Every one is weary of his own society; the lifelong company\nof so meagre and warped a creature has become insufferable. We see that\nthe passions of Mercutio are potentially deep and vivid; but they have\nbeen crossed by fortune, and on fortune his kindly humour mockingly\ntakes its revenge, by feigning no end of parodies and escapades for\nthe ineffable bright mischiefs lurking in his bosom. Queen Mab is the\nfrail mothlike emanation of such a generous but disappointed mind;\nher magic lies in the ironical visions which, like the dust of the\npoppy, she can call forth there. A Cinderella at home, she becomes a\nseer in her midnight travels. Hence Table Rounds and Ivanhoes; hence\nthree-volume novels about Becky Sharps and David Copperfields. These\nimagined characters are often alive, not only because the scene in\nwhich they move may be well indicated, with romantic absorption in the\npicturesque aspects of human existence, but also because their minds\nare the author's mind dreaming; they skirt the truth of his inner man;\nin their fancifulness or their realism they retain a secret reference\nto the deepest impulses in himself.\n\nEnglish lovers, I believe, seldom practise what in Spain is called\nconjugating the verb; they do not spend hours ringing the changes on I\nlove, you love, we love. This, in their opinion, would be to protest\ntoo much. They prefer the method of Paolo and Francesca: they will\nsit reading out of the same book, and when they come to the kissing,\nshe will say, \"How nice that is!\" and he will reply, \"Isn't it?\" and\nthe story will supply the vicarious eloquence of their love. Fiction\nand poetry, in some supposititious instance, report for the Englishman\nthe bashful truth about himself; and what English life thereby misses\nin vivacity, English literature gains in wealth, in tenderness, in a\nrambling veracity, and in preciousness to the people's heart.\n\n\n\n\n36\n\nA CONTRAST WITH SPANISH DRAMA\n\n\nIn classical Spanish drama the masks are few. The characters hardly\nhave individual names. The lady in Calderon, for instance, if she is\nnot Beatriz will be Leonor, and under either name so superlatively\nbeautiful, young, chaste, eloquent, devoted, and resourceful, as to be\nindistinguishable from her namesakes in the other plays. The hero is\nalways exaggeratedly in love, exaggeratedly chivalrous, and absolutely\nperfect, save for this heroic excess of sensitiveness and honour.\nThe old father is always austere, unyielding, perverse, and sublime.\nAll the maids in attendance possess the same roguishness, the same\ngenius for intrigue and lightning mendacity; whilst the valet, whether\ncalled Crispin or Florin, is always a faithful soul and a coward,\nwith the same quality of rather forced humour. No diversity from play\nto play save the diversity in the fable, in the angle at which the\nstock characters are exhibited and the occasion on which they versify;\nfor they all versify in the same style, with the same inexhaustible\nfacility, abundance, rhetorical finish, and lyric fire.\n\nWhy this monotony? Did Spanish life afford fewer contrasts, less\nindividuality of character and idiom, than did the England of\nShakespeare? Hardly: in Spain the soldier of fortune, the grandee,\npeasant, monk, or prelate, the rogue, beggar, and bandit were surely\nas highly characterized as anything to be then found in England; and\nSpanish women in their natural ardour of affection, in their ready\nspeech and discretion, in their dignity and religious consecration,\nlent themselves rather better, one would think, to the making of\nheroines than did those comparatively cool and boylike young ladies\nwhom Shakespeare transmuted into tragic angels. I think we may go\nfurther and say positively that it was Spain rather than England that\ncould have shown the spectacle of \"every man in his humour.\"\n\nEven in the days before Puritanism English character was English;\nit tended to silent independence and outward reserve, preferring\nto ignore its opposite rather than to challenge it. In pose and\nexpression the Spaniard is naturally more theatrical and pungent; and\nhis individuality itself is stiffen No doubt, in society, he will\nsimulate and dissimulate as an Englishman never would; but he is\nprompted to this un-English habit by the very fixity of his purposes;\nall his courtesy and loyalty are ironical, and inwardly he never yields\nan inch. He likes if possible to be statuesque; he likes to appeal\nto his own principles and character, and to say, \"Sir, whatever you\nmay think of it, that is the sort of man I am.\" He has that curious\nform of self-love which inclines to parade even its defects, as a\nmourner parades his grief. He admits readily that he is a sinner,\nand that he means to remain one; he composes his countenance proudly\non that basis; whereas when English people say they are miserable\nsinners (which happens only in church) they feel perhaps that they are\nimperfect or unlucky, and they may even contemplate being somewhat\ndifferent in future; but it never occurs to them to classify themselves\nas miserable sinners for good, with a certain pride in their class,\ndeliberately putting on the mask of Satan or the cock's feather of\nMephistopheles and saying to all concerned, \"See what a very devil I\nam!\" The Englishman's sins are slips; he feels he was not himself on\nthose occasions, and does not think it fair to be reminded of them.\nThough theology may sometimes have taught him that he is a sinner\nfundamentally, such is not his native conviction; the transcendental\nego in him cannot admit any external standard to which it ought to have\nconformed. The Spaniard is metaphysically humbler, knowing himself\nto be a creature of accident and fate; yet he is dramatically more\nimpudent, and respects himself more than he respects other people. He\nlaughs at kings; and as amongst beggars it is etiquette to whine, and\nostentatiously to call oneself blind, old, poor, crippled, hungry, and\na brother of yours, so amongst avowed sinners it may become a point of\npride to hold, as it were, the record as a liar, a thief, an assassin,\nor a harlot. These r\u00f4les are disgraceful when one is reduced to them\nby force of circumstances or for some mean ulterior motive, but they\nrecover their human dignity when one wears them as a chosen mask in\nthe comedy of life. The pose, at that angle, redeems the folly, and\nthe fa\u00e7ade the building. Nor is this a lapse into sheer immorality;\nthere is many a primitive or animal level of morality beneath the\nconventional code; and often crime and barbarism are as proud of\nthemselves as virtue, and no less punctilious. If there is effrontery\nin such a rebellion, there may be also sincerity, courage, relief,\nprofound truth to one's own nature. Hence the eloquence of romanticism.\nPassion and wilfulness (which romanticists think are above criticism)\ncannot be expected to understand that, if they merged and subsided\ninto a harmony, the life distilled out of their several deaths would\nbe infinitely more living and varied than any of them, and would be\nbeautiful and perfect to boot; whereas the romantic chaos which they\nprolong by their obstinacy is the most hideous of hells. But avowed\nsinners and proud romanticists insist on preserving and on loving hell,\nbecause they insist on loving and preserving themselves.\n\nIt was not, then, moral variety that was lacking in Spain, always a\nromantic country, but only interest in moral variety. This lack of\ninterest was itself an expression of romantic independence, intensity,\nand pride. The gentleman with his hand always on the hilt of his sword,\nlest some whiff from anywhere should wound his vanity, or the monk\nperpetually murmuring _memento mori_, closed his mind to every alien\nvista. Of course he knew that the world was full of motley characters:\nthat was one of his reasons for holding it at arm's length. What were\nthose miscellaneous follies to him but an offence or a danger? Why\nshould he entertain his leisure in depicting or idealizing them? If\nsome psychological zoologist cared to discant on the infinity of\nphenomena, natural or moral, well and good; but how should such things\ncharm a man of honour, a Christian, or a poet? They might indeed be\nreferred to on occasion, as fabulists make the animals speak, with a\nhumorous and satirical intention, as a sort of warning and confirmation\nto us in our chosen path; but an appealing poet, for such tightly\nintegrated minds, must illustrate and enforce their personal feelings.\nMoreover, although in words and under the spell of eloquence the\nSpaniard may often seem credulous and enthusiastic, he is disillusioned\nand cynical at heart; he does not credit the existence of motives or\nfeelings better than those he has observed, or thinks he has observed.\nHis preachers recommend religion chiefly by composing invectives\nagainst the world, and his political writers express sympathy with one\nforeign country only out of hatred for another, or perhaps for their\nown. The sphere of distrust and indifference begins for him very near\nhome; he has little speculative sympathy with life at large; he is\ncruel to animals; he shrugs his shoulders at crime in high places; he\nfeels little responsibility to the public, and has small faith in time\nand in work. This does not mean in the least that his character is weak\nor his morality lax within its natural range; his affections are firm,\nhis sense of obligation deep, his delicacy of feeling often excessive;\nhe is devoted to his family, and will put himself to any inconvenience\nto do a favour to a friend at the public expense. There are definite\nthings to which his sentiments and habits have pledged him: beyond that\nhorizon nothing speaks to his heart.\n\nSuch a people will not go to the play to be vaguely entertained, as\nif they were previously bored. They are not habitually bored; they\nare full to the brim of their characteristic passions and ideas. They\nrequire that the theatre should set forth these passions and ideas as\nbrilliantly and convincingly as possible, in order to be confirmed in\nthem, and to understand and develop them more clearly. Variety of plot\nand landscape they will relish, because nothing is easier for them than\nto imagine themselves born in the purple, or captive, or in love, or in\na difficult dilemma of honour; and they will be deeply moved to see\nsome constant spirit, like their own, buffeted by fortune, but even in\nthe last extremity never shaken. The whole force of their dramatic art\nwill lie in leading them to dream of themselves in a different, perhaps\nmore glorious, position, in which their latent passions might be more\nsplendidly expressed. These passions are intense and exceptionally\ndefinite; and this is the reason, I think, for the monotony of Spanish\nmusic, philosophy, and romantic drama. All eloquence, all issues, all\nsentiments, if they are not to seem vapid and trivial, must be such as\neach man can make his own, with a sense of enhanced vitality and moral\nglory. The lady, if he is to warm to her praises, must not be less\ndivine than the one he loves, or might have loved; the hero must not\nfall short of what, under such circumstances, he himself would have\nwished to be. The language, too, must always be worthy of the theme:\nit cannot be too rapturous and eloquent. Unless his soul can be fired\nby the poet's words, and can sing them, as it were, in chorus, he will\nnot care to listen to them. But he will not tire of the same cadences\nor the same images--stars, foam, feathers, flowers--if these symbols,\nbetter than any others, transport him into the ethereal atmosphere\nwhich it is his pleasure to breathe.\n\nThe Spanish nation boils the same peas for its dinner the whole year\nround; it has only one religion, if it has any; the pious part of it\nrecites the same prayers fifty or one hundred and fifty times daily,\nalmost in one breath; the gay and sentimental part never ceases to\nsing the same _jotas_ and _malague\u00f1as_. Such constancy is admirable.\nIf a dish is cheap, nutritious, and savoury on Monday, it must be so\non Tuesday, too; it was a ridiculous falsehood, though countenanced\nby some philosophers, which pretended that always to feel (or to eat)\nthe same thing was equivalent to never feeling (or eating) anything.\nNor does experience of a genuine good really have any tendency to turn\nit into an evil, or into an indifferent thing; at most, custom may\nlead people to take it for granted, and the thoughtless may forget\nits value, until, perhaps, they lose it. Of course, men and nations\nmay slowly change their nature, and consequently their rational\npreferences; but at any assigned time a man must have some moral\ncomplexion, or if he has none, not much need be said about him.\n\nBut there is another point to be considered. Need human nature's\ndaily food be exclusively the Spanish pea? Might it not just as\nwell be rice, or polenta, or even beef and bacon? Much as I admire\nmy countrymen's stomachs for making a clear choice and for sticking\nto it, I rather pity them for the choice they have made. That hard\nyellow pea is decidedly heavy, flatulent, and indigestible. I am sure\nPythagoras would not have approved of it; possibly it is the very\nbean he abhorred. Against the _jota_ and the _malague\u00f1a_ I can say\nnothing; I find in them I know not what infinite, never-failing thrill\nand inimitable power, the power which perfection of any kind always\nhas; yet what are they in comparison to all the possibilities of human\nmusic? Enjoyment, which some people call criticism, is something\naesthetic, spontaneous, and irresponsible; the aesthetic perfection of\nanything is incommensurable with that of anything else. But there is a\nresponsible sort of criticism which is political and moral, and which\nturns on the human advantage of possessing or loving this or that sort\nof perfection. To cultivate some sorts may be useless or even hostile\nto the possible perfection of human life. Spanish religion, again, is\ncertainly most human and most superhuman; but its mystic virtue to the\ndevotee cannot alter the fact that, on a broad view, it appears to be a\nromantic _tour de force,_ a desperate illusion, fostered by premature\ndespair and by a total misunderstanding of nature and history. Finally,\nthose lyrical ladies and entranced gentlemen of the Spanish drama are\nlike filigree flowers upon golden stems; they belong to a fantastic\nballet, to an exquisite dream, rather than to sane human society.\nThe trouble is not that their types are few and constant, but that\nthese types are eccentric, attenuated, and forced. They would not be\nmonotonous if they were adequate to human nature. How vast, how kindly,\nhow enveloping does the world of Shakespeare seem in comparison! We\nseem to be afloat again on the tide of time, in a young, green world;\nwe are ready to tempt new fortunes, in the hope of reaching better\nthings than we know. And this is the right spirit; because although\nthe best, if it had been attained, would be all-sufficient, the best is\nnot yet.\n\n\n\n\n37\n\nTHE CENSOR AND THE POET\n\n\nThere is an important official of the inner man who in the latest\npsychology is called the Censor; his function is to forbid the\nutterance, in the council chamber within us, of unparliamentary\nsentiments, and to suppress all reports not in the interest of our\nmoral dignity. By relegating half our experience to oblivion and\nlocking up our unseemly passions in solitary dungeons, the Censor\ncomposes a conventional personage that we may decently present to\nthe world. It is he, whilst we are sane and virtuous, that regulates\nour actions. It had occurred to me sometimes that the Censor was\nonly another name for our old friend Reason; but there is a great\ndifference. This is no censor of the noble Roman sort, like Cato\nMajor; he makes no attempt to purify the republic from within; he is\nnot concerned with moral health, honest harmony, and the thorough\nextirpation of hopeless rebels. He is concerned only with appearances\nand diplomatic relations; his old name was not Reason but Vanity or\nSelf-love. He is merely the head of the government propaganda, charged\nwith preventing inconvenient intelligence of our psychological home\npolitics from reaching foreign powers or weakening the _moral_ of our\nfighting force. He is the father of shams. He invents those masterly\nmethods of putting our best foot forward, and sustaining the illusion\nthat we are always actuated by becoming and avowable motives. He it\nis that dictates the polite movements by which we show that we prefer\nthe comfort of others to our own. He causes us to put on mourning\nfor those who have left us legacies. He persuades us that we believe\nin the religion of our ancestors, in the science of the day, in the\nnational cause, and in the party cry. He leads us to admire the\nlatest art, or the most ancient; he enables us to be pleased with\nevery fashion in turn, or perhaps to sigh at its ugliness, if we are\nconscious of being the best-dressed persons in the room. He induces\nus to follow the doings of the royal family with affectionate awe, to\nlove our relations, to prefer Bach to Offenbach, and always to have\nhad a good time when we leave a friend's house. The Censor sends our\nchildren to the best schools, to prove what sacrifices we are willing\nto make for their good, and to relieve us of further responsibility\nin regard to them. He directs that considerations of wealth shall\ncontrol our careers, our friendships, and our manners; and this is\nperhaps the greatest sham of all the shams he has set up: that money\nis an expression of happiness and a means to it. What opens the way to\nhappiness, if our character does not render happiness impossible, is\nfreedom, and some security against want is usually necessary for that;\nbut wealth, and the necessity of being fashionable if one is rich, take\naway freedom. A genuine love for the pleasant surroundings and the\nfacilities which riches afford is often keener in the outsider, who\npeeps in at the gate, than in the master or his children who perhaps,\nif the Censor would let them, would prefer their low acquaintance and\ntheir days afield. But the Censor-ridden inner man cannot break his\nharness. He is groomed and reined in like a pony at the circus: at the\ncrack of the whip the neck must be bent, the tail switched, the trained\nfeet must retrace the circle in the sawdust, or tap the velvet barrier.\nSo we prance to our funeral, the last sham of all, after the Censor\nhas made our wills for us; whereupon somebody else's Censor gives us\nthe finishing touches by praising our character, and nailing down the\ncoffin.\n\nThe untutored passions which the Censor keeps down are themselves\nremarkable dissemblers. That old propensity to allegory, which is now\ncondemned in literature, seems to rule unchecked in dreams. Invention\nin dreams, as in mythology, is far-fetched, yet spontaneous. What it\nsets immediately before us is a third or a fourth transformation of\nthe fundamental fact. It hides the fact, without misrepresenting it;\nthe orchestration of the theme, the alien images in which allegory\ndresses it up, are suggested by some subtle affinity, some instinctive\nchoice, which is perfectly automatic and innocent; the Psyche could\nfind no simpler way of bringing her agitations to consciousness. Just\nas we cannot see a material object more clearly than by seeing exactly\nhow it looks (though that may not be at all how it is), so we cannot\nexpress a feeling more sincerely than by rehearsing all the images, all\nthe metaphors, which it suggests to us. Passion when aroused to speech\nis rich in rhetorical figures. When we assert inaccurately that a man\nis a cur we depart from observation only to register sentiment; we\nexpress truly the niche he fills in our thoughts. Dramatic poetry is an\nexcursus in this direction; it reports the echoes which events produce\nin a voluminous inner sensibility; it throws back our perception of\nwhat is going on into the latent dream which this perception has for\nits background: for a perception, apart from its object, is only one\nfeature in a dream, momentarily more salient than the rest. These\nnatural harlequins, the passions, are perfectly sincere in their\nfalsehoods and indirections: their fancy is their only means of\nexpressing the facts. To be more literal would require training, and\na painful effort; it would require the art of reading and discounting\ndreams, whilst these simple poets have only the gift of dreaming.\nWhen Juliet dreams (it is a desperate poetic little dream created by\nher passion) that she will cut up Romeo into bits and make stars of\nhim, the image is extravagant; yet if the fundamental theme is, as I\nsuppose, that every atom of Romeo is precious, this mad but natural\npassion for the bits, even, of what she loves, is expressed truly. But\nthis sort of sincere fiction, though it may put the Censor to sleep if\nhe does not quite understand what it signifies, is the very opposite\nof his own shams; it is exuberance and these are suppression. If the\nCensor could have got at Juliet in time, she would have expressed\nherself quite differently. Wiping her prospective tears he would have\nsaid, \"What is Romeo's body to me? Our spirits will be reunited in\nheaven!\" This would have been a sham; because we should now not be led\nto understand that Juliet loved the eyes and the hands and the lips\nof Romeo--which was the fact to be expressed--but on the contrary her\nidolatrous infatuation would have been hushed up, and something else,\nan empty convention contradicting her true feeling, would have been\nsubstituted for it.\n\nThe Censor may not be useless to the poet in the end, because the need\nof shamming develops sensitiveness in some directions, as in that,\nfor instance, of self-consciousness. The vigour of art in England may\ndepend on the possibility of using the fineness of perception which\nreticence enhances in order to invent new metaphors and allegories by\nwhich to express the heart. Could a vigorous English art, for instance,\never give expression to the erotic passion which, according to this\nlatest psychology, plays such a great part in the Psyche? The comic\nvein of English writers commonly stops short at the improper. This\nis doubtless a wise modesty on their part, because every artist is a\nmoralist, though he need not preach; like Orpheus he tames the simple\nsoul to his persuasive measures; he insinuates his preferences and his\nprinciples, he teaches us what to love: and to discover what we truly\nlove is the whole of ethics. Now if any passion were sinful and really\nshameful in itself, it ought not to enter at all into human life,\neither through the door of art or through any other door. Conceivably\na perfect expression might still be given to it technically, although\neven this is improbable if the artist had a bad conscience and a\nleering eye; but this expression, good only from an abstracted\npoint of view, would be on the whole an evil experience and an evil\npossession. If the early Christians and the Puritans and a whole cloud\nof mystics and ascetics everywhere have been right in thinking the\nflesh essentially sinful, the Censor must not be allowed to flinch;\non the contrary, he must considerably extend his operations. If you\nrenounce the flesh you must renounce the world; things called indecent\nor obscene are inextricably woven into the texture of human existence;\nthere can be no completely honest comedy without them. Life itself\nwould have to be condemned as sinful; we should deny that anything\nharmonious, merry, or sweet could be made of it, either in the world\nor on the stage. If we made any concession to art at all, on the same\ngrounds as to matrimony, it would be only in favour of tragedy, which\nshould show us that all we think most amiable is an illusion, ending\nin torments and in nothingness. Wedlock itself would be sanctioned\nonly grudgingly, as a concession to human frailty, lest a worse thing\nbe; and we should marry, if at all very sadly, with fear and trembling\nand strictly for the sake of children. Marriage would then not be the\nhappy-go-lucky, tender, faithful, humorous, trying fatality which\nnature has made of it, and which comedy describes.\n\nPerhaps the emancipated plebeians of the future will expect their comic\npoets to play upon sensuality as upon something altogether innocent\nand amiable: comic, too, because all reality is comic, and especially\na phase of it where illusion, jollity, conceit, mishap, and chagrin\nfollow one another in such quick alternation. If this subject could be\npassed by the Censor, and treated judiciously, it would enrich the arts\nand at the same time disinfect the mind in one of its most troubled\nand sullen moods, by giving it a merry expression. In the _Arabian\nNights_ I find something of this kind; but erotic art in Europe, even\nin antiquity, seems to have been almost always constrained and vicious.\nA man who is moralized politically, as Europeans are, rather than\nreligiously or poetically like Orientals, cannot treat natural things\nnaturally. He respects the uttered feelings of others more than his\nown feelings unuttered, and suppresses every manifestation of himself\nwhich a spectator might frown upon, even if behind the Censor's back\neverybody would rejoice in it. So long as this social complication\nlasts public art and the inner life have to flow separately, the one\nremains conventional the other clouded and incoherent. If poets under\nthese circumstances tried to tell the whole truth, they would not only\noffend the public but do a grave injustice to their theme, and fail\nto make it explicit, for want of discipline and grace of expression.\nIt is as well that the Censor, by imposing silence, keeps them from\nattempting the impossible.\n\n\n\n\n38\n\nTHE MASK OF THE PHILOSOPHER\n\n\nAmongst tragic masks may be counted all systems of philosophy and\nreligion. So long as they are still plastic in the mind of their\ncreator, they seem to him to wear the very lineaments of nature. He\ncannot distinguish the comic cast of his own thought; yet inevitably it\nshows the hue and features of his race; it has its curious idiom and\nconstitutional grammar, its quite personal rhetoric, its ridiculous\nignorances and incapacities, and when his work is finished and its\nexpression set, and other people behold it, it becomes under his name\none of the stock masks or _dramatis personae_ of the moral world. In\nit every wrinkle of his soul is eternalized, its old dead passion\npersisted in, its open mouth, always with the same _rictus_, bawling\none deaf thought for ever. Even to himself, if he could have seen his\nmind at a distance, it would have appeared limited and foreign, as\nto an old man the verses of his youth, or like one's own figure seen\nunexpectedly in a mirror and mistaken at first for another person. His\nown system, as much as those of others, would have seemed to him a mask\nfor the truth, partial, over-emphatic, exaggerating one feature and\ndistorting another, and above all severed from the context of nature,\nas a picture in a frame, where much may be shown with a wonderfully\ndistilled beauty, yet without its substance, and without its changeful\nsetting in the moving world. Yet this fate is in part a favour. A\nsystem, like a tell-tale glass, may reveal by a trick of reflection\nmany a fact going on behind one's back. By it the eye of the mind\ntravels where experience cannot penetrate; it turns into a spectacle\nwhat was never open to sight, and it disentangles things seen from the\npersonal accidents of vision. The mask is greater than the man. In\nisolating what was important and pertinent in his thoughts, it rescues\nhis spirit from the contamination of all alien dyes, and bequeaths it\nto posterity such as it would have wished to be.\n\n\n\n\n39\n\nTHE VOYAGE OF THE _SAINT CHRISTOPHER_\n\n\nThe voyage of Peter's Bark in search of another world has been less\nfortunate than that of Columbus. There have been mutinies on board;\nthe other world is not yet found. Soon after this good ship, the\n_Saint Christopher_, was launched from her Phoenician home-port, she\nhad a strange experience very like that which legend attributes to her\nnamesake, the sainted ferryman. Her freight at the beginning seemed\nto be of the lightest--only living Hopes and daily Miracles; and the\ncrossing was to be very brief, the other shore being plainly visible\nat a stone's throw. But that promised land turned out to be a mirage,\nlying across the mouth of the port, which really opened out into a vast\nocean. Meantime the cargo too was strangely transformed; for whilst the\nHopes and Miracles were still reputed to be on board, they were hidden\nfrom sight and smothered in a litter of Possessions. These included a\ngreat load of Books, a heavy fund of Traditions, and a multitude of\nunruly passengers, with their clamorous wives and children, and all\nsorts of provender. So over-weighted, the _Saint Christopher_ sank down\nuntil the waves almost covered her deck; but she was staunch, like the\nwading saint when his light burden grew heavier and heavier, and she\nlaboured on.\n\nNot only was this ship named after a saint--which in so old a ship\nis no wonder--but incredible as it may seem, her captain was a saint\ntoo--Saint Simon or (since these vague roving people often have an\n_alias_) Saint Peter. He had been a fisherman by profession, and had\nonly become a saint late in life; a fact which explained his good\nseamanship and his bad language. Besides, he did not pretend to be\na saint except in his official capacity, as captain, and in matters\nof science and navigation: in his private life he was frankly not\nimpeccable, and deprecated any strict scrutiny of it as not to the\npoint. Not only might there have been some blemishes in his early\ncareer, but even when in command he might have his faults. People enjoy\ndoing what they can do well from long habit; and he was perhaps too\nfond of fishing, of cursing, and of commanding.\n\nThese foibles once brought upon him a serious mutiny. A large part of\nthe crew, imitating his expressive speech, cried, \"Damn the captain!\"\nand took to the boats, saying the ship was rotten and water-logged.\nThey carried away with them most of the Hopes, whilst scrupulously\nleaving the Miracles alone. In their boats and rafts they pulled ahead\nin all directions, covering the sea with specks for a long distance;\nand the captain, after running down and sinking a few of them in his\ntowering rage, got used to their existence, made things shipshape again\non board, and fell to observing them, not without some chucklings of\nhumour, rowing and splashing about, quarrelling and never getting\nanywhere, but often merely drifting and quietly fishing, much in his\nown old maimer.\n\nThe worst mutiny in the _Saint Christopher_, however, was of quite\nanother kind. The remaining crew had no objection to the captain--they\nwere human themselves--and no desire to paddle their own canoes. But\nthey got thoroughly weary of sailing day after day into the same\nsunset, decided that there was no El Dorado, and insisted clamorously\non putting the ship about. But in what direction? Some were for going\nhome; they said all talk of another world was nonsense, that those\nHopes and Miracles were worthless, and that the only thing to do was\nto return to the old country and live there in the old way, making the\nbest of it. But the majority said that such an acknowledgment of defeat\nand error would be ignominious; and that life at home, never really\nhappy, would now be doubly intolerable. They would never have set out\non so problematical an expedition, had they found life possible in\ntheir native seats. But it had been horrible. They remembered with a\nshudder the cruelties and vanities of their ancestral heathenism. They\nwere adventurers and mariners by nature. They might be now bewildered\nfor a moment and discouraged in their explorations, but the impulse to\nhope for the better and to try the unknown was ineradicable in their\nbreast.\n\nIn some of them, indeed, this brave impulse was so vigorous, that\nthey now had a sudden intuition of the romantic principle of life, and\nharangued their companions as follows:\n\n\"What need, O shipmates, to sail for _any_ port? The sailor is not a\nland animal. How we chafed and stifled when we lived on _terra firma_,\npent in those horrible stone dungeons called houses and churches, and\ncompelled to till those inert and filthy clods, year in and year out--a\nmost stupefying existence! Let us sail for the sake of sailing. It was\nnot in putting forth into this infinite sea that we were ill-advised,\nbut only in imagining that we could reach an opposite shore, and that\nthe sea was not infinite but hemmed about by dead land. That was a\ngross illusion. In reality there is no _terra firma_ at all, but only\nships and rafts more or less extensive, covered over with earth and\ntrees, riding on the water. Fancy deceived us, when we supposed that\nour Earth was anchored in some deeper earth. It floats and drifts\nupon a bottomless flood, and will dissolve into it. Do not dream of\nany backward voyage, or of reaching home. You will never find that\nold home again; it exists no longer. But this good ship of ours,\nwith its wind-blown sails, can never sink and can never stop. If the\nbanners and crosses, which we still fly in deference to custom, have\nlost their meaning for us, other symbols will take their place. We\nmust not confuse our infinite task with the illusions that may first\nhave prompted us to undertake it. A brave and an endless life awaits\nus, battling with the storms of winter; in the summer days, leaping\nover the waves with the dolphins and the porpoises; in the watches\nof the night hailing the ever-new constellations which, as we sail\nonward, will rise to greet us, and pass over our heads. For ocean is a\nriver that flows unendingly, and the stars and clouds are exhalations\nattendant upon it; they rise and soar in great circles perpetually\nbefore its course, like loosed doves before the bounding shell of\nGalatea.\"\n\nThese words were not at all relished by the majority of those who\nlistened to them. They were stay-at-homes by temperament, who had\nembarked only in the hope of gain, or of finding peace and plenty in\nsome softer climate. They were alarmed and disgusted at what they had\njust heard, and not being quite sore that it was false, they denied it\nwith some irritation.\n\n\"What folly,\" they cried, \"what nonsense you are talking. Of course it\nis the land that is infinite, since it is much better than the sea;\nand the sea is no river, or its water would be fresh, and you know how\nbrackish and bitter it is: indeed, but for the rain we have collected\nin pans and hogsheads, we should already have died of thirst. This sea\nis nothing but a stagnant lake in the midst of the green earth, one\nof the myriad salt ponds studded all over it; and as for this leaky\nlittle ship, which we were induced to embark in only by fraud, it is\nnot really sea-worthy. The planks and cordage are already rotting, and\nhow shall we replace them, unless we speedily sight land--and God grant\nit may be a civilized country! And look there! Is not that land on the\nhorizon! Through the clearing mists I can discern a lighthouse, quite\ndistinctly; and beyond lies a low shore, overhung with smoke. Something\ntells me this is the New Atlantis described by Bacon. A prosperous\nand populous city, full of docks and factories, where we shall find\neverything needful--warehouses, shops, inns, theatres, baths, even\nchurches and chapels of every sect and denomination. What joy!\"\n\nThis sight was so welcome to those heartsick passengers, that they\ncould not wait for the ship to make fast, though they steered her\nstraight for the coast, but jumped over-board and eagerly swam ashore.\nTheir example was contagious. The other party could not bear to be left\nbehind without experiencing the new life, whatever it might bring. They\nreflected that as the land was really a part of the sea, it was not\nbad seamanship sometimes to run aground, that in leaving the ship they\nwould, in a higher sense, be continuing their voyage, and that they\nwould not be true to the supreme principle of their philosophy, which\nwas absolute free-will, if they did not often change their principles\nin minor matters. The chief point was to experience everything. They\ndid not regret the past, as did their narrow-minded positivistic\nfriends, simply because it had involved hardships and errors. Hardships\nand errors were blessings, if you could only outgrow them; and they,\nin their splendid vitality, knew how to outgrow everything. Sacred\nhistory, classic fable, chivalry, and the cure of one's soul had,\nin that former age, proved absorbing themes for the fancy, and had\nexquisitely modulated the emotions; but the fountain of those emotions\nhad always been their own breast, and since after such dramatic\nadventures their breast remained deeply unsatisfied, it was time to\nlook again narrowly into its depths to discover some newer and truer\nway of expressing it. Why should not the development of material arts\nbe the next phase in their career? They would not be less free amid the\ngusts and the billows of politics than they had been in their marine\nadventure; commerce would offer them glorious opportunities to exercise\ntheir will-power and their invention; infinite vistas, here too, were\nopen before them: cities always more populous, possessions always more\nvaried, instruments always more wonderful, and labour always more\nintense.\n\nThe romantic party accordingly joined the lovers of material progress\nin their new city, called Mechanapolis: but the old opposition in their\ntemperaments remained undiminished. The lovers of adventure wanted\nmachines in order to make war, and the lovers of thrift wanted peace in\norder to make other machines.\n\nMeantime Peter the captain, with much grumbling and shaking of\nhis grey beard, had got the old _Saint Christopher_ afloat again,\nand accompanied still by a faithful boatswain and cook, and some\nnondescript recruits that he had got together, set out again to sea, in\nsearch of that other land beyond the ocean which is called heaven. And\nevery evening with a trembling finger he pointed to it in the setting\nsun, not seeing that heaven was above his head.\n\n\n\n\n40\n\nCLASSIC LIBERTY\n\n\nWhen ancient peoples defended what they called their liberty, the word\nstood for a plain and urgent interest of theirs: that their cities\nshould not be destroyed, their territory pillaged, and they themselves\nsold into slavery. For the Greeks in particular liberty meant even\nmore than this. Perhaps the deepest assumption of classic philosophy\nis that nature and the gods on the one hand and man on the other, both\nhave a fixed character; that there is consequently a necessary piety,\na true philosophy, a standard happiness, a normal art. The Greeks\nbelieved, not without reason, that they had grasped these permanent\nprinciples better than other peoples. They had largely dispelled\nsuperstition, experimented in government, and turned life into a\nrational art. Therefore when they defended their liberty what they\ndefended was not merely freedom to live. It was freedom to live well,\nto live as other nations did not, in the public experimental study of\nthe world and of human nature. This liberty to discover and pursue a\nnatural happiness, this liberty to grow wise and to live in friendship\nwith the gods and with one another, was the liberty vindicated at\nThermopylae by martyrdom and at Salamis by victory.\n\nAs Greek cities stood for liberty in the world, so philosophers stood\nfor liberty in the Greek cities. In both cases it was the same kind\nof liberty, not freedom to wander at hazard or to let things slip,\nbut on the contrary freedom to legislate more precisely, at least for\noneself, and to discover and codify the means to true happiness. Many\nof these pioneers in wisdom were audacious radicals and recoiled from\nno paradox. Some condemned what was most Greek: mythology, athletics,\neven multiplicity and physical motion. In the heart of those thriving,\nloquacious, festive little ant-hills, they preached impassibility and\nabstraction, the unanswerable scepticism of silence. Others practised\na musical and priestly refinement of life, filled with metaphysical\nmysteries, and formed secret societies, not without a tendency to\npolitical domination. The cynics railed at the conventions, making\nthemselves as comfortable as possible in the r\u00f4le of beggars and\nmocking parasites. The conservatives themselves were radical, so\nintelligent were they, and Plato wrote the charter of the most extreme\nmilitarism and communism, for the sake of preserving the free state. It\nwas the swan-song of liberty, a prescription to a diseased old man to\nbecome young again and try a second life of superhuman virtue. The old\nman preferred simply to die.\n\nMany laughed then, as we may be tempted to do, at all those absolute\nphysicians of the soul, each with his panacea. Yet beneath their\nquarrels the wranglers had a common faith. They all believed there was\na single solid natural wisdom to be found, that reason could find it,\nand that mankind, sobered by reason, could put it in practice. Mankind\nhas continued to run wild and like barbarians to place freedom in their\nvery wildness, till we can hardly conceive the classic assumption of\nGreek philosophers and cities, that true liberty is bound up with an\ninstitution, a corporate scientific discipline, necessary to set free\nthe perfect man, or the god, within us.\n\nUpon the dissolution of paganism the Christian church adopted the\nclassic conception of liberty. Of course, the field in which the higher\npolitics had to operate was now conceived differently, and there was\na new experience of the sort of happiness appropriate and possible\nto man; but the assumption remained unchallenged that Providence, as\nwell as the human soul, had a fixed discoverable scope, and that the\nbusiness of education, law, and religion was to bring them to operate\nin harmony. The aim of life, salvation, was involved in the nature of\nthe soul itself, and the means of salvation had been ascertained by a\npositive science which the church was possessed of, partly revealed\nand partly experimental. Salvation was simply what, on a broad view,\nwe should see to be health, and religion was nothing but a sort of\nuniversal hygiene.\n\nThe church, therefore, little as it tolerated heretical liberty, the\nliberty of moral and intellectual dispersion, felt that it had come\ninto the world to set men free, and constantly demanded liberty for\nitself, that it might fulfil this mission. It was divinely commissioned\nto teach, guide, and console all nations and all ages by the self-same\nmeans, and to promote at all costs what it conceived to be human\nperfection. There should be saints and as many saints as possible.\nThe church never admitted, any more than did any sect of ancient\nphilosophers, that its teaching might represent only an eccentric view\nof the world, or that its guidance and consolations might be suitable\nonly at one stage of human development. To waver in the pursuit of the\northodox ideal could only betray frivolity and want of self-knowledge.\nThe truth of things and the happiness of each man could not lie\nelsewhere than where the church, summing up all human experience and\nall divine revelation, had placed it once for all and for everybody.\nThe liberty of the church to fulfil its mission was accordingly hostile\nto any liberty of dispersion, to any radical consecutive independence,\nin the life of individuals or of nations.\n\nWhen it came to full fruition this orthodox freedom was far from gay;\nit was called sanctity. The freedom of pagan philosophers too had\nturned out to be rather a stiff and severe pose; but in the Christian\ndispensation this austerity of true happiness was less to be wondered\nat, since life on earth was reputed to be abnormal from the beginning,\nand infected with hereditary disease. The full beauty and joy of\nrestored liberty could hardly become evident in this life. Nevertheless\na certain beauty and joy did radiate visibly from the saints; and\nwhile we may well think their renunciations and penances misguided or\nexcessive, it is certain that, like the Spartans and the philosophers,\nthey got something for their pains. Their bodies and souls were\ntransfigured, as none now found upon earth. If we admire without\nimitating them we shall perhaps have done their philosophy exact\njustice. Classic liberty was a sort of forced and artificial liberty, a\npoor perfection reserved for an ascetic aristocracy in whom heroism and\nrefinement were touched with perversity and slowly starved themselves\nto death.\n\nSince those days we have discovered how much larger the universe is,\nand we have lost our way in it. Any day it may come over us again\nthat our modern liberty to drift in the dark is the most terrible\nnegation of freedom. Nothing happens to us as we would. We want peace\nand make war. We need science and obey the will to believe, we love\nart and flounder among whimsicalities, we believe in general comfort\nand equality and we strain every nerve to become millionaires. After\nall, antiquity must have been right in thinking that reasonable\nself-direction must rest on having a determinate character and knowing\nwhat it is, and that only the truth about God and happiness, if we\nsomehow found it, could make us free. But the truth is not to be\nfound by guessing at it, as religious prophets and men of genius have\ndone, and then damning every one who does not agree. Human nature,\nfor all its substantial fixity, is a living thing with many varieties\nand variations. All diversity of opinion is therefore not founded on\nignorance; it may express a legitimate change of habit or interest. The\nclassic and Christian synthesis from which we have broken loose was\ncertainly premature, even if the only issue of our liberal experiments\nshould be to lead us back to some such equilibrium. Let us hope at\nleast that the new morality, when it comes, may be more broadly based\nthan the old on knowledge of the world, not so absolute, not so\nmeticulous, and not chanted so much in the monotone of an abstracted\nsage.\n\n\n\n\n41\n\nGERMAN FREEDOM\n\n\nThere is a fine theory of Hegel's that the universe exists in order\nto realize freedom. In Oriental despotisms, he tells us, only one man\nwas free. In ancient republican cities a minority, the aristocracy\nof citizens, obtained freedom. Now at last freedom has extended to\nall; not, however, as we might fondly suppose, in free and casual\nAmerica, but under the perfect organization of the Prussian monarchy.\nFor freedom in the mouth of German philosophers has a very special\nmeaning. It does not refer to any possibility of choice nor to any\nprivate initiative. It means rather that sense of freedom which we\nacquire when we do gladly and well what we should have to do anyhow, as\nwhen in passing from a close room into the open air we say we breathe\nfreely at last. German freedom is like the freedom of the angels in\nheaven who see the face of God and cannot sin. It lies in such a deep\nlove and understanding of what is actually established that you would\nnot have it otherwise; you appropriate and bless it all and feel it to\nbe the providential expression of your own spirit. You are enlarged\nby sympathy with your work, your country, and the universe, until you\nare no longer conscious of the least distinction between the Creator,\nthe state, and yourself. Your compulsory service then becomes perfect\nfreedom.\n\nFor liberal freedom, for individualism, these philosophers have a\ngreat contempt. They say a man is nothing but the sum of his relations\nto other things, and if he should throw off one after another these\nconstitutive bonds, he would find his private residuum of a self to be\na mathematical point and a naked cipher, incapable of willing or of\nchoosing anything. And they further say that a dutiful soul is right in\nfeeling that the world it accepts and co-operates with is its own work;\nfor, according to their metaphysics, the world is only an idea which\neach man makes after his own image, and even as you are, so is the\nworld you imagine you live in. Only a foolish recalcitrant person, who\ndoes not recognize the handiwork of his own spirit about him, rebels\nagainst it, and thereby cancels his natural freedom; for everywhere he\nfinds contradictions and closed doors and irksome necessities, being\ndivided against himself and constantly bidding his left hand undo what\nhis right hand is doing. So that, paradoxical as it may seem, it is\nonly when you conform that you are free, while if you rebel and secede\nyou become a slave. Your spiritual servitude in such a case would only\nbe manifesting itself in a phenomenal form if the government should put\nyou in prison.\n\nThe national expression of this kind of freedom is what the Germans\ncall _Kultur_, a word not well understood in other countries. Every\nnation has certain characteristic institutions, certain representative\nwriters and statesmen, past and present, certain forms of art and\nindustry, a certain type of policy and moral inspiration. These are\nits _Kultur_, its national tradition and equipment. When by education\nthe individual is brought to understand all these things, to share\ntheir spirit and life, and to be able to carry them forward faithfully,\nthen he has absorbed the _Kultur_ in his own person. _Kultur_ is\ntransmitted by systematic education. It is not, like culture, a matter\nof miscellaneous private attainments and refined tastes, but, rather,\nparticipation in a national purpose and in the means of executing it.\nThe adept in this _Kultur_ can live freely the life of his country,\npossessing its secret inspiration, valuing what it pursues and finding\nhis happiness in those successes which he can help it to attain.\n_Kultur_ is a lay religion, which includes ecclesiastical religion and\nassigns to it its due place.\n\nGerman _Kultur_ resembles the polity of ancient cities and of the\nChristian church in that it constitutes a definite, authoritative,\nearnest discipline, a training which is practical and is thought\nto be urgent and momentous. It is a system to be propagated and to\nbe imposed. It is all-inclusive and demands entire devotion from\neverybody. At the same time it has this great advantage over the\nclassic systems, that it admits variations. At Sparta, in Plato's\nRepublic, and in the Catholic church the aims and constitution of\nsociety were expected to remain always the same. The German ideal,\non the contrary, not only admits evolution, but insists upon it.\nLike music, it is essentially a form of movement. According to the\nphilosophers, however, the form of this movement is fixed by the\nabsolute genius of the composer, and prescribes the way in which the\nchanges shall go on. Evolution thus introduces life into this ideal,\nbut does not admit ambiguities. In this sense the German law of\nprogression is as inexorable as the classic model of form.\n\nThe more reasonable theorists of German _Kultur_ introduce another\nqualification, which, if admitted, is of the greatest importance,\nnamely, that German _Kultur_ is not to be extended to other nations.\nSome make a special point of contrasting the universal claims of the\nRoman and Napoleonic empires and of the Catholic church with the\naspirations of German genius, which, they say, is infinite inwardly,\nbeing capable of endless growth and modification by men of Teutonic\nblood, yet is limited externally or in space, in that it is not\ncommunicable to other races. Non-Teutons should never be summoned,\ntherefore, to acquire the German spirit, which they would only pollute.\nTheir proper r\u00f4le is rather to stand by, no doubt overawed and filled\nwith admiration, but left without hope or fear of being assimilated.\nYet as the church could admit that there might be unconscious and\nvirtual Christians among the heathen, who might by exception be\nsaved, so there may be sporadic manifestations of Teutonic genius in\nunforeseen quarters. Shakespeare, Dante, and Christ were virtual and\nunconscious Germans.\n\nThere is, of course, a less indulgent Germanism, which has on its side\nthe authority of Fichte and Hegel, the enthusiasm of the pan-Germans\nand that lust for boundless ascendancy which enterprise and war\nnaturally foster in anybody who has carried them on passionately and\nsuccessfully. According to this stricter view, the whole world is to\nbe subjugated and purified by the German nation, which alone inherits\nthe undefiled language and religion of Eden, and must assign to the\nremaining creole races, descended from savages and ultimately perhaps\nfrom monkeys or devils, such tasks as they are capable of. The masters,\nbeing by nature generous and kind, will allow their slaves, after\ntheir work is done, to bask in despicable happiness, since happiness\nis all that slaves are capable of living for; but they will be proudly\ncommanded by a race of hard, righteous, unhappy, heroic German experts,\nwith blue eyes fixed on the eternal ideal.\n\nThe admission that German _Kultur_ is merely national, which might\nseem to promise peace and goodwill, may be turned in this way into a\nsinister claim to absolute dominion. The ancients and the church had\nsupposed that all men, though endowed with talent and goodness in the\nmost various degrees, had qualitatively the same nature. The same\npassions, the same arts, and the same salvation were proper to them\nall. The servant, in furthering the aims of his betters, served what\nhis own soul potentially loved and was capable of appropriating; there\ncould be religion and love in his subordination. Reciprocally the\nmaster could feel respect and affection for his servants, who were his\nwards and his god-children. The best things in classic life--religion,\npoetry, comradeship, moral sagacity--were shared by the humblest\nclasses and expressed their genius. The temple, the church, the agora,\nthe theatre, Socrates, and the saints were of the people.\n\nGerman _Kultur_, on the contrary, boasts that it is not the expression\nof diffused human nature, but the product of a special and concentrated\nfree will. It is therefore incommunicable, unrepresentative. It is not\nfelt by any one else to realize his ideal, but seems foreign to him,\nforced and unamiable. Every nation loves its idiosyncrasies and, until\nit reflects, thinks its own balance of faculties, like its language,\nmore natural than other people's. But the prophets of Germanism have\nturned this blameless love of home and its sanctities into a deliberate\ndogma that everything German has a divine superiority. This dogma they\nhave foisted on a flattered and trustful nation, with the command to\nfoist it on the rest of the world. The fatuity of this is nothing new,\nmany nations and religions having shared it in their day, and we could\nafford to laugh at it, if by direct and indirect coercion it did not\nthreaten to trespass upon our liberties.\n\nWhat is universally acceptable in German _Kultur_ is what it contains\nthat is not German but human, what with praiseworthy docility it\nhas borrowed from the ancients, from Christianity, from the less\nintentional culture of its modern neighbours. The Teutonic accent which\nthese elements have acquired is often very engaging; it adds to them a\nGothic charm for the lack of which mankind would be the poorer. But the\nGerman manner, in art, in philosophy, in government, is no better--in\nits broad appeal to human nature we may fairly say it is worse--than\nthe classic manner which it hopes to supersede. It is avowedly a\nproduct of will, arbitrary, national, strained; it is not superior\nto what other nations possess or may create but only different, not\nadvanced but eccentric. To study it and use it for a stimulus may be\nprofitable in times and places of spiritual famine or political chaos,\nbut to impose it as normal, not to say as supreme, would be a plain\ninvasion of human liberty.\n\n\n\n\n42\n\nLIBERALISM AND CULTURE\n\n\nModern reformers, religious and political, have usually retained\nthe classic theory of orthodoxy, namely, that there is one right or\ntrue system--democracy and free thought, for instance--which it is\nthe reformer's duty to establish in the place of prevalent abuses.\nCertainly Luther and Calvin and the doctrinaires of the French\nrevolution only meant to substitute one orthodoxy for another, and\nwhat they set forth they regarded as valid for all men and forever.\nNevertheless they had a greater success in discrediting the received\nsystem than in establishing their own, and the general effect of their\nreforms was to introduce the modern conception of liberty, the liberty\nof liberalism.\n\nThis consists in limiting the prescriptions of the law to a few points,\nfor the most part negative, leaving it to the initiative and conscience\nof individuals to order their life and conversation as they like,\nprovided only they do not interfere with the same freedom in others. In\npractice liberal countries have never reached this ideal of peaceful\nanarchy, but have continued to enforce state education, monogamy, the\nvested rights of property, and sometimes military service. But within\nwhatever limits, liberty is understood to lie in the individual being\nleft alone, so that he may express his personal impulses as he pleases\nin word and action.\n\nA philosopher can readily see that this liberal ideal implies a certain\nview about the relations of man in the universe. It implies that the\nultimate environment, divine or natural, is either chaotic in itself or\nundiscoverable by human science, and that human nature, too, is either\nradically various or only determinable in a few essentials, round which\nindividual variations play _ad libitum_. For this reason no normal\nreligion, science, art, or way of happiness can be prescribed. These\nremain always open, even in their foundations, for each man to arrange\nfor himself. The more things are essentially unsettled and optional,\nthe more liberty of this sort there may safely be in the world and the\ndeeper it may run.\n\nMan, however, is a gregarious animal, and much more so in his mind\nthan in his body. He may like to go alone for a walk, but hates to\nstand alone in his opinions. And he is so imitative that what he thinks\nhe most wishes to do is whatever he sees other people doing. Hence\nif compulsory organization disappears a thousand free and private\norganizations at once take its place. Virginal lived in compulsory\nunison, having only one unquestioned religion, one style of art, one\npolitical order, one common spring of laughter and tears. Liberalism\nhas come to remove the strain and the trammels of these traditions\nwithout as yet uprooting the traditions themselves. Most people retain\ntheir preliberal heritage and hardly remember that they are legally\nfree to abandon it and to sample any and every other form of life.\nLiberalism does not go very deep; it is an adventitious principle, a\nmere loosening of an older structure. For that reason it brings to all\nwho felt cramped and ill-suited such comfort and relief. It offers them\nan escape from all sorts of accidental tyrannies. It opens to them that\nsweet, scholarly, tenderly moral, critically superior attitude of mind\nwhich Matthew Arnold called culture.\n\nPrimitive, dragooned, unanimous ages cannot possess culture. What\nthey possess is what the Germans call a _Kultur_, some type or other\nof manners, laws, implements, arts, religion. When these national\npossessions are perused and relished by some individual who does\nnot take them for granted and who understands and judges them as if\nfrom outside, his acquaintance with them becomes an element in his\nculture; and if he is at home in many such forms of life and thought,\nhis culture is the more perfect. It should ideally be culled from\neverywhere. Culture is a triumph of the individual over society. It is\nhis way of profiting intellectually by a world he has not helped to\nmake.\n\nCulture requires liberalism for its foundation, and liberalism requires\nculture for its crown. It is culture that integrates in imagination\nthe activities which liberalism so dangerously disperses in practice.\nOut of the public disarray of beliefs and efforts it gathers its\nprivate collection of curiosities, much as amateurs stock their museums\nwith fragments of ancient works. It possesses a wealth of vicarious\nexperience and historical insight which comforts it for having nothing\nof its own to contribute to history. The man of culture abounds in\ndiscriminating sentiments; he lives under the distant influence\nof exalted minds; his familiar thoughts at breakfast are intimate\nappreciations of poetry and art, and if his culture is really mellow,\nhe sometimes smiles a little at his own culture.\n\nCulture came into the modern world with the renaissance, when personal\nhumours and remote inspiration broke in upon the consecrated mediaeval\nmind. Piety and learning had their intrinsic charms, but, after all,\nthey had been cultivated for the sake of ulterior duties and benefits,\nand in order to appropriate and hand down the revealed wisdom which\nopened the way to heaven. Culture, on the contrary, had no ulterior\npurpose, no forced unity. It was an aroma inhaled by those who walked\nin the evening in the garden of life. Far from being a means to\nreligion, it threw religion also into the context of human experience,\nand touched its mysteries and quarrels with judgement and elegance. It\nliberated the studious mind from obligatory or national discipline,\nand as far as possible from all bonds of time, place, utility, and\nco-operation, kindling sympathies by preference with what was most\nexotic, and compensating the mind for the ignominious necessity of\nhaving to be, in practical matters, local and partisan. Culture was\ncourteous, open, unconscious of self; it was the joy of living every\nlife but one's own. And its moral side--for everything has its moral\nside--lay in the just judgements it fostered, the clear sense it\nawakened of the different qualities and values of things. The scale of\nvalues established by the man of culture might sometimes be fanciful or\nfrivolous, but he was always most scrupulous, according to his lights,\nin distinguishing the better from the worse. This conscientiousness,\nafter all, is the only form of morality that a liberal society can\ninsist upon.\n\nThe days of liberalism are numbered. First the horrors of competition\ndiscredited it, and now the trial of war, which it foolishly thought\nit could elude. The vogue of culture, too, has declined. We see that\nthe man whose success is merely personal--the actor, the sophist,\nthe millionaire, the aesthete--is incurably vulgar. The rightness of\nliberalism is exactly proportional to the diversity of human nature,\nto its vague hold on its ideals. Where this vagueness and play of\nvariation stop, and they stop not far below the surface, the sphere of\npublic organization should begin. It is in the subsoil of uniformity,\nof tradition, of dire necessity that human welfare is rooted, together\nwith wisdom and unaffected art, and the flowers of culture that do not\ndraw their sap from that soil are only paper flowers.\n\n\n\n43\n\nTHE IRONY OF LIBERALISM\n\n\nTo the mind of the ancients, who knew something of such matters,\nliberty and prosperity seemed hardly compatible, yet modern liberalism\nwants them together. Liberals believe that free inquiry, free\ninvention, free association, and free trade are sure to produce\nprosperity. I have no doubt they are right in this; the nineteenth\ncentury, that golden age of liberalism, certainly saw a great increase\nin wealth, in science, and in comforts. What the ancients had before\nthem was a different side of the question; they had no experience of\nliberalism; they expected to be state-ridden in their religion, their\ncustoms, and their military service; even in their personal and family\nmorals they did not begrudge the strictest discipline; their states\nneeded to be intensely unified, being small and in constant danger of\ntotal destruction. Under these circumstances it seemed clear to them\nthat prosperity, however it might have been produced, was dangerous to\nliberty. Prosperity brought power; and when a people exercises control\nover other peoples its government becomes ponderous even at home;\nits elaborate machinery cannot be stopped, and can hardly be mended;\nthe imperial people becomes the slave of its commitments. Moreover,\nprosperity requires inequalities of function and creates inequalities\nof fortune; and both too much work and too much wealth kill liberty\nin the individual. They involve subjection to _things_; and this is\ncontrary to what the ancients, who had the pride of noble animals,\ncalled freedom. Prosperity, both for individuals and for states, means\npossessions; and possessions mean burdens and harness and slavery; and\nslavery for the mind, too, because it is not only the rich man's time\nthat is pre-empted, but his affections, his judgement, and the range of\nhis thoughts.\n\nI often wonder, looking at my rich friends, how far their possessions\nare facilities and how far they are impediments. The telephone, for\ninstance, is a facility if you wish to be in many places at once and\nto attend to anything that may turn up; it is an impediment if you are\nhappy where you are and in what you are doing. Public motor-vehicles,\npublic libraries, and public attendants (such as waiters in hotels,\nwhen they wait) are a convenience, which even the impecunious may\nenjoy; but private automobiles, private collections of books or\npictures, and private servants are, to my thinking, an encumbrance: but\nthen I am an old fogy and almost an ancient philosopher, and I don't\ncount. I prize civilization, being bred in towns and liking to hear and\nto see what new things people are up to. I like to walk about amidst\nthe beautiful things that adorn the world; but private wealth I should\ndecline, or any sort of personal possessions, because they would take\naway my liberty.\n\nPerhaps what liberalism aspires to marry with liberty is not so much\nprosperity as progress. Progress means continued change for the better;\nand it is obvious that liberty will conduce to progress in all those\nthings, such as writing poetry, which a man can pursue without aid\nor interference from others: where aid is requisite and interference\nprobable, as in politics, liberty conduces to progress only in so far\nas people are unanimous, and spontaneously wish to move in the same\ndirection. Now what is the direction of change which seems progress to\nliberals? A pure liberal might reply, The direction of liberty itself:\nthe ideal is that every man should move in whatever direction he\nlikes, with the aid of such as agree with him, and without interfering\nwith those who disagree. Liberty so conceived would be identical with\nhappiness, with spontaneous life, blamelessly and safely lived; and the\nimpulse of liberalism, to give everybody what he wants, in so far as\nthat is possible, would be identical with simple kindness. Benevolence\nwas one of the chief motives in liberalism in the beginning, and\nmany a liberal is still full of kindness in his private capacity;\nbut politically, as a liberal, he is something more than kind. The\ndirection in which many, or even most, people would like to move\nfills him with disgust and indignation; he does not at all wish them\nto be happy, unless they can be happy on his own diet; and being a\nreformer and a philanthropist, he exerts himself to turn all men into\nthe sort of men he likes, so as to be able to like them. It would be\nselfish, he thinks, to let people alone. They must be helped, and not\nmerely helped to what they desire--that might really be very bad for\nthem--but helped onwards, upwards, in the _right_ direction. Progress\ncould not be rightly placed in a smaller population, a simpler economy,\nmore moral diversity between nations, and stricter moral discipline\nin each of them. That would be progress backwards, and if it made\npeople happier, it would not make the liberal so. Progress, if it is\nto please him, must continue in the direction in which the nineteenth\ncentury progressed, towards vast numbers, material complexity, moral\nuniformity, and economic interdependence. The best little boy, for\ninstance, according to the liberal ideal, desires to be washed, to go\nto school, to do Swedish exercises, and to learn everything out of\nbooks. But perhaps the individual little boy (and according to the\nliberal philosophy his individuality is sacred, and the only judge\nof what is good or true for him is his own consciousness) desires to\ngo dirty, to make mud-pies in the street, and to learn everything\nby experience or by report from older boys. When the philanthropist\nruns up to the rescue, this little ingrate snivels at him the very\nprinciple of liberal liberty, \"Let me alone.\" To inform such an urchin\nthat he does not know what is good for him, that he is a slave to bad\nhabits and devilish instincts, that true freedom for him can only\ncome of correcting himself, until he has learned to find happiness in\nvirtue--plainly that would be to abandon liberalism, and to preach\nthe classical doctrine that the good is not liberty but wisdom.\nLiberalism was a protest against just such assumptions of authority. It\nemphatically refused to pursue an eventual stoical freedom, absurdly\nso called, which was to come when we had given up everything we really\nwanted--the mock freedom of service. In the presence of the little boy\nliberal philosophy takes a middle course. It is convinced--though it\nwould not do to tell him so prematurely--that he must be allowed to\ngo dirty for a time, until sufficient experience of filth teaches him\nhow much more comfortable it is to be clean; also that he will go to\nschool of his own accord if the books have pictures enough in them, and\nif the teacher begins by showing him how to make superior mud-pies.\nAs to morals and religion, the boy and his companions will evolve the\nappropriate ones in time out of their own experience, and no others\nwould be genuine.\n\nLiberal philosophy, at this point, ceases to be empirical and British\nin order to become German and transcendental. Moral life, it now\nbelieves, is not the pursuit of liberty and happiness of all sorts by\nall sorts of different creatures; it is the development of a single\nspirit in all life through a series of necessary phases, each higher\nthan the preceding one. No man, accordingly, can really or ultimately\ndesire anything but what the best people desire. This is the principle\nof the higher snobbery; and in fact, all earnest liberals are higher\nsnobs. If you refuse to move in the prescribed direction, you are not\nsimply different, you are arrested and perverse. The savage must not\nremain a savage, nor the nun a nun, and China must not keep its wall.\nIf the animals remain animals it is somehow through a failure of the\nwill in them, and very sad. Classic liberty, though only a name for\nstubborn independence, and obedience to one's own nature, was too\nfree, in one way, for the modern liberal. It accepted all sorts of\nperfections, animal, human, and divine, as final after their kind, each\nthe seat of a sufficient virtue and happiness. It was polytheistic.\nBetween master and slave, between man and woman, it admitted no moral\nadvance or development; they were, or might be, equally perfect.\nInequality was honourable; amongst the humblest there could be dignity\nand sweetness; the higher snobbery would have been absurd, because if\nyou were not content to be what you were now, how could you ever be\ncontent with anything? But the transcendental principle of progress\nis pantheistic. It requires everything to be ill at ease in its own\nhouse; no one can be really free or happy but all must be tossed, like\nherded emigrants, on the same compulsory voyage, to the same unhomely\ndestination. The world came from a nebula, and to a nebula it returns.\nIn the interval, happiness is not to be found in being a fixed star, as\nbright and pure as possible, even if only for a season; happiness is to\nflow and dissolve in sympathy with one's higher destiny.\n\nThe motion of progress is thus merged with that of universal evolution,\ndropping the element of liberty and even of improvement. Nevertheless,\nin the political expression of liberalism, liberty took the first\ninnings. Protestants began by asserting the right of private Judgement\nin interpreting scripture; transcendentalists ended by asserting the\ndivine right of the individual to impose his own spirit on everything\nhe touched. His duty to himself, which was also his deepest instinct,\nwas to suck in from the widest possible field all that was congenial to\nhim, and to reject, down to his very centre, whatever might thwart or\noffend. Sometimes he carried his consistency in egotism to the length\nof denying that anything he could not digest could possibly exist, or\nthat the material world and foreign nations were more than ideal pawns\nin the game he played with himself for his self-development. Even when\nnot initiated into these transcendental mysteries, he was filled with\npractical self-trust, the desire to give himself freedom, and the\nbelief that he deserved it. There was no need of exploring anything\nhe was not tempted to explore; he had an equal right to his opinion,\nwhatever the limits of his knowledge; and he should be coerced as\nlittle as possible in his action. In specific matters, for the sake of\nexpediency, he might be willing to yield to the majority; but only when\nhis vote had been counted, and as a sort of insurance against being\ndisturbed in his residual liberty.\n\nThere was a general conviction behind all these maxims, that tradition\ncorrupts experience. All sensation--which is the test of matters of\nfact--is somebody's sensation; all reasoning is somebody's reasoning,\nand vitally persuasive as it first comes; but when transmitted the\nevidence loses its edge, words drop their full meaning, and inert\nconventions falsify the insights of those who had instituted them.\nTherefore, reform, revision, restatement are perpetually required: any\nindividual, according to this view, who honestly corrected tradition\nwas sure to improve upon it. Whatsoever was not the fresh handiwork\nof the soul and true to its present demand was bad for that soul. A\nman without traditions, if he could only be materially well equipped,\nwould be purer, more rational, more virtuous than if he had been an\nheir to anything. _Weh dir, dass du ein Enkel bist_! Blessed are the\norphans for they shall deserve to have children; blessed the American!\nPhilosophy should be transcendental, history romantic and focussed in\none's own country, politics democratic, and art individual and above\nconvention. Variety in religious dogma would only prove the truth--that\nis, the inwardness--of inspiration.\n\nYet if this transcendental freedom had been the whole of liberalism,\nwould not the animals, such of them at least as are not gregarious,\nhave been the most perfect liberals? Are they not ruled wholly from\nwithin? Do they not enjoy complete freedom of conscience and of\nexpression? Does Mrs. Grundy interfere with their spontaneous actions?\nAre they ever compelled to fight except by their own impulse and in\ntheir private interest? Yet it was not the ideal of liberalism to\nreturn to nature; far from it. It admonished the dogs not to bark and\nbite, even if, in the words of the sacred poet, \"it is their nature\nto.\" Dogs, according to transcendental philosophy, ought to improve\ntheir nature, and to behave better. A chief part of the liberal\ninspiration was the love of peace, safety, comfort, and general\ninformation; it aimed at stable wealth, it insisted on education,\nit venerated culture. It was wholly out of sympathy with the wilder\ninstincts of man, with the love of foraging, of hunting, of fighting,\nof plotting, of carousing, or of doing penance. It had an acute, a\nsickening horror of suffering; to be cruel was devilish and to be\nhardened to pain was brutal. I am afraid liberalism was hopelessly\npre-Nietzschean; it was Victorian; it was tame. In inviting every man\nto be free and autonomous it assumed that, once free, he would wish to\nbe rich, to be educated, and to be demure. How could he possibly fail\nto covet a way of life which, in the eyes of liberals, was so obviously\nthe best? It must have been a painful surprise to them, and most\ninexplicable, that hardly anybody who has had a taste of the liberal\nsystem has ever liked it.\n\nWhat about liberty in love? If there is one ingenuous and winged\ncreature among the immortals, it is Eros; the freer and more innocent\nlove is, the more it will flutter, the farther it will range, and the\nhigher it will soar. But at the touch of matter, of conditions, of\nconsequences, how all its freedom shrivels, or turns into tragedy!\nWhat prohibitions, what hypocrisies, what responsibilities, what\nsorrows! The progress of civilization compels love to respect the\nlimits set to it by earlier vows, by age, sex, class, race, religion,\nblood relationship, and even fictitious relationship; bounds of which\nthe impertinent Eros himself knows nothing. Society smothers the imp\naltogether in the long christening-clothes of domestic affection\nand religious duty. What was once a sensuous intoxication, a mystic\nrapture, an enchanted friendship, becomes all a question of money, of\nhabit, of children. British liberalism has been particularly cruel\nto love; in the Victorian era all its amiable impulses were reputed\nindecent, until a marriage certificate suddenly rendered them godly,\nthough still unmentionable. And what liberty does even the latest\nradicalism offer to the heart? Liberty to be divorced; divorced at\ngreat expense, with shabby perjuries and public scandal, probably in\norder to be at once married again, until the next divorce. Was it not\nfranker and nobler to leave love, as in Spain, to the poets; to let\nthe stripling play the guitar as much as he liked in the moonlight,\nexchange passionate glances, whisper daily at the lattice, and then,\ndressing the bride in black, to dismiss free fancy at the church door,\nsaying: Henceforth let thy names be charity and fidelity and obedience?\n\nIt is not politics that can bring true liberty to the soul; that\nmust be achieved, if at all, by philosophy; but liberalism may\nbring large opportunities for achievement in a man's outward life.\nIt intensifies--because it renders attainable--the lure of public\ndistinction, of luxury, of love surrounded by refined pleasures.\nThe liberal state stimulates the imagination of an ambitious man to\nthe highest degree. Those who have a good start in the universal\ncompetition, or sharp wits, or audacity, will find plenty of prizes\nawaiting them. With the pride of wealth, when it is great, there comes\nthe pride of munificence; in the suburbs of wealth there is culture,\nand in its service there is science. When science can minister to\nwealth and intelligence to dominion, both can be carried on the\nshoulders of the plutocracy which dominates the liberal state; and they\ncan fill it with innumerable comforts and marvellous inventions. At the\nsame time, nothing will hinder the weaker members of rich families from\nbecoming clergymen or even scholars or artists; or they may range over\nthe five continents, hunt whatever wild beasts remain in the jungle,\nand write books about savages.\n\nWhether these prizes offered by liberal society are worth winning, I\ncannot say from experience, never having desired them; but the aspects\nof modern life which any one may observe, and the analytic picture\nof it which the novelists supply, are not very attractive. Wealth is\nalways, even when most secure, full of itch and fear; worry about\nhealth, children, religion, marriage, servants; and the awful question\nof where to live, when one may live anywhere, and yet all seems to\ndepend on the choice. For the politician, politics are less important\nthan his private affairs, and less interesting than bridge; and he has\nalways a party, or a wicked opposition, on which to throw the blame if\nhis careless measures turn out badly. No one in office can be a true\nstatesman, because a true statesman is consistent, and public opinion\nwill never long support any consistent course. What the successful man\nin modern society really most cares about is love; love for him is a\ncurious mixture of sensuality, vanity, and friendship; it lights up\nall the world of his thought and action with its secret and unsteady\nflame. Even when mutual and legal, it seems to be three-quarters\nanxiety and sorrow; for if nothing worse happens to lovers, they grow\nold. I hear no laughter among the rich which is not forced and nervous.\nI find no sense of moral security amongst them, no happy freedom, no\nmastery over anything. Yet this is the very cream of liberal life, the\nbrilliant success for the sake of which Christendom was overturned,\nand the dull peasantry elevated into factory-hands, shopkeepers, and\nchauffeurs. When the lists are open to all, and the one aim of life is\nto live as much as possible like the rich, the majority must needs be\ndiscouraged. The same task is proposed to unequal strengths, and the\ncompetition emphasizes the inequality. There was more encouragement\nfor mediocre people when happiness was set before them in mediocrity,\nor in excellence in some special craft. Now the mass, hopelessly out\nof the running in the race for wealth, falls out and drifts into\nsqualor. Since there is liberty, the listless man will work as little\nand drink as much as he can; he will crawl into whatever tenement he\ncan get cheapest, seek the society in which least effort is demanded\nand least shame is felt, have as many children as improvidence sends\nhim, let himself out, at a pinch, for whatever service and whatever\nwages he can obtain, drift into some syndicated servitude or some great\nmigration, or sink in solitude into the deepest misery. He then becomes\na denizen of those slimy quarters, under the shadow of railway bridges,\nbreweries, and gas-works, where the blear lights of a public-house peer\nthrough the rain at every corner, and offer him the one joy remaining\nin life; for joy is not to be mentioned in the same breath as the\nfemale prowling by the door, hardly less befuddled and bedraggled\nthan the lurching idlers whom she endeavours to entice; but perhaps\nGod does not see all this, because a pall hangs over it perpetually\nof impenetrable smoke. The liberal system, which sought to raise the\nindividual, has degraded the masses; and this on so vast a scale\nand to so pitiable a degree, that the other element in liberalism,\nphilanthropic zeal, has come again to the fore. Liberty go hang, say\nthe new radicals; let us save the people. Liberal legislation, which\nwas to have reduced government to the minimum of police control, now\nhas undertaken public education, social reform, and even the management\nof industry.\n\nThis happy people can read. It supports a press conforming to the\ntastes of the common man, or rather to such tastes as common men can\nhave in common; for the best in each is not diffused enough to be\ncatered for in public. Moreover, this press is audaciously managed\nby some adventitious power, which guides it for its own purposes,\ncommercial or sectarian. Superstitions old and new thrive in\nthis infected atmosphere; they are now all treated with a curious\nrespect, as if nobody could have anything to object to them. It is\nall a scramble of prejudices and rumours; whatever first catches the\near becomes a nucleus for all further presumptions and sympathies.\nAdvertising is the modern substitute for argument, its function is to\nmake the worse appear the better article. A confused competition of\nall propagandas--those insults to human nature--is carried on by the\nmost expert psychological methods, which the art of advertising has\ndiscovered; for instance, by always repeating a lie, when it has been\nexposed, instead of retracting it. The world at large is deafened; but\neach propaganda makes its little knot of proselytes, and inspires them\nwith a new readiness to persecute and to suffer in the sacred cause.\nThe only question is, which propaganda can first materially reach the\ngreatest number of persons, and can most efficaciously quench all\nthe others. At present, it looks as if the German, the Catholic, and\nthe communist propaganda had the best chances; but these three are\ndivergent essentially (though against a common enemy they may work\nfor a while together, as they did during this war), and they appeal\nto different weaknesses of human nature; they are alike, however,\nin being equally illiberal, equally \"_r\u00fccksichtlos_\" and \"_b\u00f6se_\"?\nequally regardless of the harm they may do, and accounting it all an\nadded glory, like baiting the devil. By giving a free rein to such\npropagandas, and by disgusting the people with too much optimism,\ntoleration, and neutrality, liberalism has introduced a new reign of\nunqualified ill-will. Hatred and wilfulness are everywhere; nations\nand classes are called to life on purpose to embody them; they are\nsummoned by their leaders to shake off the lethargy of contentment and\nto become conscious of their existence and of their terrible wrongs.\nThese propagandas have taken shape in the blue sky of liberalism, like\nso many summer clouds; they seem airships sailing under a flag of\ntruce; but they are engines of war, and on the first occasion they will\nhoist their true colours, and break the peace which allowed them to\ncruise over us so leisurely. Each will try to establish its universal\nascendancy by force, in contempt of personal freedom, or the voice\nof majorities. It will rely, against the apathy and vagueness of the\nmillion, on concentrated zeal in its adepts. Minorities everywhere have\ntheir way; and majorities, grown familiar with projects that at first\nshocked them, decide one fine morning that there may be no harm in them\nafter all, and follow like sheep. Every trade, sect, private company,\nand aspiring nation, finding some one to lead it, asserts itself\n\"ruthlessly\" against every other. Incipient formations in the body\npolitic, cutting across and subverting its old constitution, eat one\nanother up, like different species of animals; and the combat can never\ncease except some day, perhaps, for lack of combatants. Liberalism has\nmerely cleared a field in which every soul and every corporate interest\nmay fight with every other for domination. Whoever is victorious in\nthis struggle will make an end of liberalism; and the new order, which\nwill deem itself saved, will have to defend itself in the following age\nagainst a new crop of rebels.\n\nFor myself, even if I could live to see it, I should not be afraid\nof the future domination, whatever it may be. One has to live in\nsome age, under some fashion; I have found, in different times and\nplaces, the liberal, the Catholic, and the German air quite possible\nto breathe; nor, I am sure, would communism be without its advantages\nto a free mind, and its splendid emotions. Fanatics, as Tacitus said\nof the Jews or Christians, are consumed with hatred of the human race,\nwhich offends them; yet they are themselves human; and nature in them\ntakes its revenge, and something reasonable and sweet bubbles up out\nof the very fountain of their madness. Once established in the world\nthe new dispensation forms a ruling caste, a conventional morality,\na standard of honour; safety and happiness soften the heart of the\ntyrant. Aristocracy knows how to kiss the ruddy cheeks of its tenants'\nchildren; and before mounting its thoroughbred horse at the park gates,\nit pats him with a gloved hand, and gives him a lump of sugar; nor does\nit forget to ask the groom, with a kindly interest, when he is setting\nout for the war. Poor flunkey! The demagogues will tell him he is a\nfool, to let himself be dragooned into a regiment, and marched off\nto endure untold privations, death, or ghastly wounds, all for some\nfantastic reason which is nothing to him. It is a hard fate; but can\nthis world promise anybody anything better? For the moment he will have\na smart uniform; beers and lasses will be obtainable; many comrades\nwill march by his side; and he may return, if he is lucky, to work\nagain in his master's stables, lounge at the public-house, and bounce\nhis children on his knee amongst the hollyhocks before his cottage.\nWould the demagogues give him better prospects, or prove better\nmasters? Would he be happier with no masters at all? Consider the\ndemagogues themselves, and their history. They found themselves in the\nextreme of misery; but even this is a sort of distinction, and marks\noff a new species, seizing new weapons in the struggle for existence.\nThe scum of the earth gathers itself together, becomes a criminal or\na revolutionary society, finds some visionary or some cosmopolitan\nagitator to lead it, establishes its own code of ethics, imposes the\ndesperate discipline of outlaws upon its members, and prepares to rend\nthe free society that allowed it to exist. It is astonishing with\nwhat docility masses of Englishmen, supposed to be jealous of their\npersonal liberty, will obey such a revolutionary junta, that taxes and\ncommands them, and decrees when they shall starve and when they shall\nfight. I suspect that the working-people of the towns no longer have\nwhat was called the British character. Their forced unanimity in action\nand passion is like that of the ages of faith; its inspiration, like\nthat of early Christianity, comes from a few apostles, perhaps foreign\nJews, men who in the beginning had visions of some millennium; and the\ncohesion of the faithful is maintained afterwards by preaching, by\ncustom, by persecution, and by murder. Yet it is intelligible that the\nmost earnest liberals, who in so far as they were advocates of liberty\nfostered these conspiracies, in so far as they are philanthropists\nshould applaud them, and feel the need of this new tyranny. They save\nliberal principles by saying that they applaud it only provisionally as\na necessary means of freeing the people. But of freeing the people from\nwhat? From the consequences of freedom.\n\n\n\n\n44\n\nJOHN BULL AND HIS PHILOSOPHERS\n\n\nEngland has been curiously served by her philosophers. Personally and\nin their first intention they have usually been sturdy Britons; but\ntheir scope has seldom been equal to their sagacity in particular\nmatters, they have not divined the ultimate drift of their ideas, and\nthey have often ended by adopting, a little blankly and doggedly, some\nforeign or fantastic system, apparently most inexpressive of John Bull.\nNevertheless the exotic tendency in so many British philosophers, as\nin so many disaffected British poets, is itself a mark of the British\ncharacter. The crust of convention has solidified too soon, and the\nsuppressed fires issue in little erratic streams that seem of an alien\nsubstance. In speculation as in other things the Englishman trusts\nhis inner man; his impulse is to soliloquize even in science. At the\nsame time his inner man dislikes to be too articulate; he is soon at a\nstand in direct self-expression; and as a poet may take to describing\nnature or Italian passions, so a philosopher may pick up some alien\ndoctrine that comes to hand, and that seems friendly to his mind; not\nunderstanding it very well, perhaps, in its native quality, but making\nit a living companion in his own lucubrations, and a symbol for what\nremains hidden but revered in his breast. In this way the Bible or\nPlato may serve him to found sects upon exclusively expressing his own\nfeelings; or remaining a plain Englishman to all practical purposes,\nhe may become, for his greater private satisfaction, a revolutionary\natheist, a spiritualist, a Catholic, or a Buddhist. In such strange\nallegiances something may be due to wayward learning, or to genuine\nplasticity of mind and power to feel as very different souls have felt\nin other climes; but a part is unmistakable helplessness and dire need,\nand a part, perhaps, affectation.\n\nWhen his own resources fail, however, the most obvious easement and\nsupport for the English inner man are the classical and Anglican\ntraditions he has been bred in, when these are not too nicely defined\nnor too slavishly followed. Most characteristic is John Bull the\ntheologian, instinct with heresy and practising compromise; but the\nrationalistic John Bull is very like him in his alternative way of\nsecuring the same supreme object of thinking what he likes to think.\nIn both cases he embraces his opinions much more because they are\nwholesome and important than because they are certain or clear.\nOpinions, he feels, should be summary and safe; they should express the\nlessons of experience.\n\nAs he conceives it at first, experience does not merely exist, it\nteaches. In a sporadic fashion it yields sound satisfactions, clear\nwarnings, plain facts. It admonishes him to trust his senses, the\nreports of reputable travellers and naturalists, Christianity, and\nthe British constitution, all when duly revised; and on the other\nhand to shun popery, scholastic quibbles, absolutism, and revolution.\nBut evidently experience could never teach him these things if his\ninner man did not contribute its decided cravings and aversions.\nHis inner man detests dictation and loves opportunity; in ideas it\nprefers timeliness to finality. Therefore, when his philosophers come\nupon the scene they cannot appeal to him by coercive proofs, nor by\nthe impressive architecture of their systems, nor by disentangling\nand setting clearly before him any ultimate ideal. To win his ear\nthey must rather drive his current convictions home, nearer to their\nsource in himself; they must invite him to concentrate his empiricism.\nFor instance, he trusts his senses; and the philosophers can deeply\ninterest him if they ask him what, precisely, his senses vouch for. Is\nit external things? But can he actually see anything except colours,\nor touch anything except resistances? Can he feel anything except his\nown sensations? By appealing to his honesty, the sophists catch him\nin a trap, and he changes his mind in trying to utter it. It will\nappear presently, as he pursues his inquiry, that he has no knowledge\nof those external things and events which he had been so sure of;\nthey were mere empty notions, and his genuine experience contained\nnothing but the pulses of his inner life, changes in his ideas and\nvital temperature, which an accurate autobiography might record. And\nthe more scrupulously he considers these pulses of his inner life the\nless and less will he find in them. He and his whole experience will\nsoon be reduced to a series of sensations in single file, with nothing\nbehind them. In reality even this is too much. Although the inertia of\npsychological conventions and the romantic habit of self-consciousness\nhave kept him from perceiving it, even to this day, yet the fact that\na sensation is occurring is not revealed by that sensation itself; no\ndate, place, or relation to a mind is included in its deliverance, and\nno relation to anything before or beyond; so that the bare datum of\nsensation is an aesthetic being, not a mental one; an ideal term, not\nan event; a universal essence, not a particular fact; and immersion\nin sense or in absolute immediate experience, when animal faith and\nintelligence are taken away from it, would remove from us every vestige\nof the notion that anything exists or that anything happens. But\nwithout pushing analysis so far, the empirical philosophers left John\nBull, when he listened to them, singularly bereft of those comfortable\nimpedimenta with which he had expected to travel through life--without\na body, without an environment, without a ground, or any natural\nperfection or destiny, for his moral being. He had loved exploration,\nand had looked forward with the flush of confidence to the knowledge\nand power which his discoveries would bring him; but now he saw that\nall discoveries were incalculable, arbitrary, and provisional, since\nthey were not truly discoveries, but only developments.\n\nHere was an odd transformation. The self-educated merchants and\nindignant reformers who, thumping their desks dogmatically, had\nappealed so roundly to the evidence of their senses, little expected\nthat their philosophy was directed to turning them in the end into\ninarticulate sensualists, rapt in omphalic contemplation of their\nstates of mind. Some academic idealists, disliking this result, which\ncast a slur on the pre-eminence of spirituality and learning, and yet\nnot being willing or able to give up the method by which that result\nhad been reached, sought to push the inquiry further, and to come out\nof the wood on quite the other side. My sensations, they said, since\nI can now survey the whole series they form, must all exist together\nin my present apprehension; and as I cannot know them except in this\nsingle and present glance, they never can have existed out of it; so\nthat I am not really a series of sensations, but only the idea that\nI am a series of sensations; in other words, I have become a single\nsensation instead of many. To make this clearer the same philosophers\nadded that this single sensation or thought, which is what I really am,\nis also God. Experience now turned out not to be anything that goes\non or happens or is endured; it is the theme of an immutable divine\ncontemplation and divine satisfaction. I am God in so far as I think\nand approve; but the chequered experience which I supposed myself to be\nundergoing is merely imputed to myself by God and me in our thinking.\n\nThis second conclusion, like the first, has its value for some\ntemperaments. It brings suddenly before us, as if it were an\naccomplished fact, the innate ideal of the intellect: to see the\nchanging aspects of all things from above, in their true eternal\nrelations. But this ideal, too, is utterly disparate from that\npractical experience and prevision which John Bull prizes so highly and\nthinks he possesses; indeed, the sublimity of this view lies precisely\nin its tendency to freeze and submerge all experience, transmuting hard\nfacts and anxious events into painted ships upon a painted ocean, and\nfor our stumbling and unfinished progress substituting a bound volume\nof travels.\n\nWhat false step could bring British philosophy, in its gropings,\nto conclusions so un-English that even those who feel compelled to\npropose them do so shamefacedly, with many euphemisms and convenient\nconfusions, or even fail altogether to understand the tremendous\nparadoxes they are repeating? It was a false step at which Hobbes\nhalted, which Locke took unsuspectingly, and which sent Berkeley and\nHume head over heels: the assumption that facts are known immediately.\nIn reality none of the facts which the sturdy Briton feels that he\nknows--and they are the true facts of nature and of moral life--would\nbe known to him if he were without tentative intelligence and\ninstinctive animal faith; indeed, without these the senses would have\nno virtue and would inform us of nothing; and cows would not see\ngrass nor horses hay, but only green or yellow patches, like rapt\nempirical philosophers. When Hobbes said that no discourse whatsoever\ncan end in absolute knowledge of fact, he uttered a great truth, but\nhe implied a great error, since he implied that sense--meaning the\nsenseless sensations of idiots--could give such knowledge; whereas\nthe absolute datum in sense is just as ideal, and just as little\na fact, as the deliverance of the most theoretical discourse; and\nabsolute knowledge--if we call such apprehension knowledge--can seize\nonly some aesthetic or logical term, without any given date, place,\nor connection in experience. Empiricism in the end must substitute\nthese ideal essences, on the ground that they are the only data, for\nthe facts of nature--facts which animal reactions and the beliefs\nexpressing them are requisite to discover, and which science defines by\nthe cumulative use of reason. In making this substitution empiricism\npasses against its will into sensualism or idealism. Then John Bull\nand his philosophers part company: he sticks manfully to his confused\nconventional opinions, which after all give him a very tolerable\nknowledge of the facts; while they go digging for an absolute knowledge\nof fact, which is impossible, in an intuitive cloudland where there\nare only aesthetic essences. Hence the bankruptcy of their enterprise.\nImmediate data are the counters of experience, but they are the money\nof empiricism.\n\n\n\n\n45\n\nOCCAM'S RAZOR\n\n\nTo many an Englishman the human head seems too luxuriant. With its\nquantities of superfluous words and ideas, it grows periodically hot\nand messy, and needs a thorough cropping and scrubbing. To this end,\nWilliam of Occam long ago invented his razor: _entia non multiplicanda\npraeter necessitatem_; a maxim calculated to shave the British inner\nman clean, and make a roundhead of him, not to say a blockhead. That\neverything is \"nothing but\" something else, probably inferior to it,\nbecame in time a sort of refrain in his politics and philosophy. He\nsaw that reflection was constantly embroidering on the facts; but did\nhe suppose that the pattern of things was really simpler than that of\nideas, or did he feel that, however elaborate things might be, thought\nat least might be simple? At any rate, he aimed instinctively at\neconomy of terms, retrenchment in belief, reduction of theory to the\nirreducible minimum. If theory was not useful, what was the use of it?\nAnd certainly all that can be said for some theories is that perhaps\nthey are useful; and when ideas are merely useful, being worthless in\nthemselves and absorbing human caloric, the less we require of them\nthe better. Thought might then be merely a means to a life without\nthought, and belief a door to a heaven where no beliefs were expected;\nall speech might be like the curt words one says to the waiter, in the\nhope of presently dining in silence; and all looking might be looking\nout, as in crossing a crowded street, ending in the blessed peace of\nnot having to look any more.\n\nOccam's razor has gradually shorn British and German philosophy of the\nnotions of substance and cause, matter and God, truth and the soul.\nSometimes these terms were declared to stand for nothing whatever,\nbecause (as in the case of matter and substance) if I reduced myself to\na state of artificial stupidity I might for a moment stop short of the\nconception of them. More often (as in the case of the soul) the term\nwas declared to stand for something real, which, however, was \"nothing\nbut\" something else. Of course, all words and thoughts stand for\nsomething else; and the question is only whether we can find another\nword or thought that will express the reality better. Thus, if I said\nthat the soul was \"nothing but\" a series of sensations, I should soon\nhave to add that this series, to make up a soul, must arise in the\nsame animal body, and must be capable of being eventually surveyed and\nrecalled together; while I should have to assign to some other obscure\nagency those unconscious vital functions which were formerly attributed\nto the soul in forming and governing the body, and breeding the\npassions; functions without which my series of sensations would hardly\nbe what it is. I am not confident that all this laboured psychology\nmakes things much clearer in the end, or does not multiply entities\nwithout necessity; since where I had simply spoken of the soul, I\nshould now have to speak of sensations, series, possibility, synthesis,\npersonal identity, the transcendental unity of apperception, and the\nunconscious mind. Something is doubtless gained by coining these modern\nand questionable expressions, since they indicate true complexities in\nthe facts, while a poetic term like \"soul\" covers them only by pointing\nthe finger of childish wonder at them, without analysis. Nature is\nfar more complicated than any language or philosophy, and the more\nthese refine, the closer they can fit. The anxiety of the honest Occam\nto stick to the facts, and pare his thoughts to the quick, had this\njustification in it, that sometimes our images and distinctions are\nmisplaced. Grammar, usurping the r\u00f4le of physics, created metaphysics,\nthe trouble with which is not at all that it multiplies entities, since\nno metaphysician can invent anything that did not lie from all eternity\nin the realm of essence, like the plot of unwritten novels, waiting\nfor some one with wit enough to think of it. The trouble is rather\nthat the metaphysician probably gives his favourite essences the wrong\nstatus. These beings may well be absent from the time and place to\nwhich he hastily assigns them; they may even be incongruous altogether\nwith what happens to exist anywhere. What happens to exist is perhaps\nwhat he thinks he is describing, or what, like Occam, he would like to\ndescribe if he could; but he is probably not able. Yet that doesn't\nmatter so much as he imagines. What happens to exist can take very\ngood care of itself, and is quite indifferent to what people think of\nit; and as for us, if we possess such cursory knowledge of the nearer\nparts of existence as is sufficient for our safety, there is no reason\nwhy we should attend to it too minutely: there's metal more attractive\nin discourse and in fiction. Mind, as Hobbes said, is fancy, and it is\nthe things of fancy that greet us first and reward us best. They are\nfar from being more absurd than the facts. In themselves, all things\nare equally unnecessary and equally possible; for their own part, all\nare equally ready to be thought of or even to be born. It is only the\nroutine of nature or the sluggish human imagination that refuses to\nadmit most of them, as country people refuse to admit that foreign\nlanguages or manners might do as well as their own.\n\nIf God or nature had used Occam's razor and had hesitated to multiply\nbeings without necessity, where should _we_ be? Far from practising\neconomy, nature is prevented from overflowing into every sort of\nflourish and excrescence only by the local paucity of matter, or the\npre-emption of it by other forms; because forms, once embodied in\nmatter, acquire all its inertia, and grow dreadfully stubborn and\negotistical. Scrimpy philosophers little know whose stewards they\nare when they complain of lavishness in nature, or her lordly way\nof living; her substance cannot be spent, nor its transformations\nexhausted. In sheer play, and without being able to help it, she will\nsuddenly create organization, or memory, or intelligence, or any of\nthose little vortices called passions, persons, or nations, which\nsustain themselves for a moment, hypostatizing their frail unity into\nsome moral being--an interest or a soul. And as we are superfluous in\nthe midst of nature, so is the best part of ourselves superfluous in\nus. Poetry, music and pictures, inspired and shaded by human emotion,\nare surely better worth having than the inarticulate experience they\nspring from. Even in our apprehension of the material world, the best\npart is the adaptation of it to our position and faculties, since this\nis what introduces boundaries, perspectives, comparison and beauty.\nIt is only what exists materially that exists without excuse, whereas\nwhat the mind creates has some vital justification, and may serve to\njustify the rest. Hence the utility of Occam's razor itself, which may\nhelp us to arrive at a strict and spare account of what the world would\nbe without us: a somewhat ironical speculation which is the subtlest\nproduct and last luxury of the scientific mind. Meantime the sensuous\nand rhetorical trappings of human knowledge, from which exact science\nabstracts, by no means disappear; they remain to enrich the sphere of\nlanguage and fancy, to which judicious people always felt that they\nbelonged; and this intellectual or literary realm is no less actual and\ninteresting than any other, being a part of the moral radiation and\nexuberance of a living world.\n\n\n\n\n46\n\nEMPIRICISM\n\n\nExperience is a fine word, but what does it mean? It seems to carry\nwith it a mixed sense of mastery and disappointment, suggesting\nknowledge of a sort with despair of better knowledge. Is it such\ncontact with events as nobody can avoid, shocks and pressure\nendured from circumstances and from the routine of the world? But a\ncricket-ball has no experience, although it comes in contact with many\nhands, receives hard knocks, and plays its part in the vicissitudes of\na protracted game. There are men in much the same case; they travel,\nthey undergo an illness or a conversion, and after a little everything\nin them is exactly as it was before; [Greek: _pathos_] with them is not\n[Greek: _pathos_]; their natures are so faithful to the _a priori_ and\nso elastic that they rebound from the evidence of sense and the buffets\nof fortune like a rubber bag full of wind; they pass through life with\nround eyes open, and a perpetual instinctive babble, and yet in the\nmoral sense of the word they have no experience, not being mindful\nenough to acquire any. It would seem that to gather anything we must\nfirst pause, and that before we can have experience we must have minds.\n\nYet if we said that experience arose by the operation of mind, would\nnot all the operations of mind be equally experience? Has not a maniac\nprobably more and more vivid experience than a man of the world?\nDoubtless when people call their fancies or thoughts experience,\nthey mean to imply that they have an external source, as \"religious\nexperience\" is assumed to manifest divine intervention, and \"psychical\nexperience\" to prove the self-existence of departed spirits. But\nthese assumptions are not empirical; and evidently the religious or\npsychical experience itself, whatever its cause, is the only empirical\nfact in the case. Those who appeal to the _lessons_ of experience are\nnot empiricists, for these are lessons that only reason can learn.\nExperience, as practical people understand it, is not every sort of\nconsciousness or memory, but only such as is addressed to the facts\nof nature and controlled by the influence of those facts; material\ncontact or derivation is essential to it. Experience is both physical\nand mental, the intellectual fruit of a material intercourse. It\npresupposes animal bodies in contact with things, and it presupposes\nintelligent minds in those bodies, keeping count of the shocks\nreceived, understanding their causes, and expecting their recurrence\nas it will actually take place. To these naturalistic convictions\nall those ought to have clung who valued experience as a witness\nrather than as a sensation; without animals in a natural environment\nexperience, as contrasted with fancy or intuition, can neither be nor\nbe conceived. It means so much of knowledge and readiness as is fetched\nfrom contact with events by a teachable and intelligent creature; it is\na fund of wisdom gathered by living in familiar intercourse with things.\n\nBut such assumptions are an offence to the expert empiricist. The\nmoment he comes upon the scene we feel that all we thought experience\nhad taught us is going to be disproved. \"Do you admit,\" he begins by\nasking, \"that nothing can be more real than experience?\" We do admit\nit. \"And can you ever know anything that is not experience?\" Perhaps\nnot; and yet would experience be very distinct or very significant\nif it was experience of nothing? \"Of nothing, indeed,\" he retorts,\nwithering us with a scornful glance and the consciousness of his\nmasked batteries; \"as if experience itself was nothing! Experience\nis everything; and when you have experience of experience what more\ncould you ask for, even if you were Doctor Faustus in person? What\nspurious little non-empirical particle is this _of_ of yours? And what\nillegitimate ghost is this _something else_ that experience should be\n_of_? Can you, without confessing to an adulterous intercourse with\nwhat is not experience, explain these natural but disreputable members\nof your intellectual family?\" We cannot explain them, and we blush.\nYet why should experience arise at all if there is no occasion for it?\n\"Occasion!\" cries the empiricist; \"another illegal figment, the old\nnotion of cause! Is it not notorious that causation is nothing but the\nhabit which some parts of experience have of following upon others? How\nthen should the whole of it follow upon any part? Experience cannot\nspring from anything, it cannot express anything, and it cannot know\nanything, because experience is all there is.\"\n\nHere is a considerable retrenchment in the scope of our philosophy: no\nmaterial world, no soul, and (in the proper sense of the words) no God\nand no knowledge. Retrenchment, however, is often a sign of wisdom,\nand the retrenching empiricist deserves to be followed, like the\nretrenching hermit, into his psychological wilderness, not with a vow\nnever to return to the world, for that would be precipitate, but in the\nhope of sounding, in one direction, the depths of spiritual discipline\nand disillusion. And the empirical eremite can taste rare pleasures.\nAll things, for him, become the appanage of the inner man; and we need\nnot wonder that the pensive Englishman is ready to be empirical in this\nsense and to become an idealist. The _lessons_ of experience, if he was\nforced to take them seriously, might tend to dethrone his inner man and\nlead him to materialism; but fortunately the lessons of experience,\nfor an empiricist, can be nothing but little epicycles within it, or\ncross-references to its literal text; they cannot spoil its intimate\nand romantic nature, which is to be no end of pulsations and no end of\npictures. How dead would anything external or permanent be, even if we\nthought we could find it! How abstract would be anything common to all\ntimes and places, how terrible a mocking truth that should overarch\nthem for ever!\n\nIt is true that the romantic empiricist is not very radical; he\ncommonly stops short of any doubts on the validity of memory, with\nall the yarns it spins; his past adventures and his growth are too\nfascinating for him to doubt their reality. Sometimes he even trusts\na superstitious prophecy, under the name of logical evolution,\nforetelling what his destiny is somehow compelled to be. At other times\nhe prefers to leave the future ambiguous, so that the next step may\nlead him anywhere, perhaps to heaven, provided it is understood that\nhis career, even there, is always to remain an unfinished voyage in an\nuncharted sea. In strictness, however, he has no right to this fond\ninterest in himself. If he became a perfect empiricist he would trust\nexperience only if it taught him absolutely nothing, even about his\nown past. This is hard for the flesh, and it may not be fair to ask\nan empiricist to be heroic in the interests of logic; but if he could\nscrew his courage up for the plunge, his spirit might find itself\nperfectly at home in the new situation. What he might have been or\nmight have thought, he would dismiss as a dead issue; he would watch\nonly his present life as it flowed, and he would love exclusively what\nhe was becoming. There is a sense of safety in being and not thinking\nwhich probably all the animals know, and there is a mystical happiness\nin accepting existence without understanding it; but the sense of\nsafety does not render the animals really safe, and the price they\npay for living in the moment is that they carry nothing over from one\nmoment to another except bare existence itself. The disadvantage of\nradical empiricism is that it shuts out experience.\n\n\n\n\n47\n\nTHE BRITISH HEGELIANS\n\n\nIt was formerly a matter of some surprise to me that there should be\nso many Hegelians in England, and in such places of influence. I could\nimagine how the system might have taken root in circles where the\nclassic tradition was absent or enfeebled--in America, in Scotland,\namong the Dissenters or Jews in England itself; but how could Oxford\nand Cambridge fail to see in that system the trail of the serpent? How\ncould they mistake it for a Christian or for a spiritual philosophy? It\nis indeed, in form, an encyclopaedic system, and in that sense suitable\nto universities; and it deifies knowledge such as an encyclopaedia can\ngive, turning it into the sum total of reality, so that it flatters\nthe self-sufficiency of pedants, or that of any reflective mind. But\nin Oxford and Cambridge knowledge is not everything; they are more and\nless than universities; the learning they cultivate is selective and\npursued in the service of aristocratic liberty. I should not expect\nthem to care much for a philosophy that was not poetic and devout. I\nsometimes fancy how the genuine Oxonians must have smiled to hear T.\nH. Green, in the early days of transcendentalism, talking about his\nspiritual principle in nature. By spiritual he meant mind-made; he\nthought the world, remaining just as it is, could suddenly be proved to\nbe spiritual if you could show that a mental synthesis was requisite\nto hold it together. But what possible advantage is it to the world to\nbe held together by a mental synthesis, rather than by space or time\nor the truth of its constitution? A synthesis of worthless facts does\nnot render them severally better, nor itself a good. A spirit whose\nessential function was to create relations would be merely a generative\nprinciple, as the spider is to its web; it would be no better than its\nwork, unless perhaps it was spiritual enough to grow weary of that vain\nlabour. Spiritual, for those who retain the language of Christendom,\nsignifies free from the world and from the flesh, and addressed to the\neternal and to the beautiful.\n\nEverything, however, has its explanation, and in the matter of English\nHegelism I think I begin to see it. In the first place, I was rashly\nidentifying England with a figment of my dreams, with which I was\nin love: I saw in my mind's eye a manly and single-minded England,\nfree, candid, poetical, akin to feudal France, beauty-loving like\nold Italy, the Benjamin of the Roman family of nations, adding to\nthe dignity and disinterestedness of the Castilian character only a\ncertain blond charm, a certain infusion of northern purity, and of\nsympathy with the wild and rural voices of nature. In this England,\nin which there was something Spartan and archaically Greek, the men\nwere like Hippolytus and the women like Antigone. Naturally it was\nunintelligible to me that the system of Hegel should take root in such\na nation. Persons with a ripe moral tradition are not attracted by\nsophistry. No argument, however specious, will convince them that the\nexperience of man on earth makes up the whole universe, or the chief\npart of it; much less will they allow fortune, under the pompous name\nof evolution, to dictate to them their moral allegiance. The chief\nforce of the Hegelian system for those who are not metaphysicians lies\nin the criterion of progress which it imposes. This criterion is not\nbeauty in art, nor truth in philosophy, nor justice in society, nor\nhappiness in the individual life: the criterion is simply the direction\nwhich the actual movement happens to be taking. Hegel endeavours to\nshow in what way forms are inevitably passing into one another. Thus\nhis ethics begs defence of history, and his history calls for aid on\nmetaphysics. And what metaphysics? A logic of moral fashions. Now it\nseemed to me axiomatic that eager co-operation with whatever is going\non, or is bound to win, would be repulsive to a man of honour. Nor\ncould I conceive a true Englishman taking kindly even to the grand side\nof this system, which to me personally is rather attractive, I mean\nto its satirical elevation. The English mind is tender and temperate:\nit deprecates scorn. But Hegel, in his scathing moods, is comparable\nto Heraclitus; he mocks every opinion with an opinion which refutes\nit, and every life with another life which kills it. He has the wisdom\nof the serpent; but unlike Heraclitus, whose fabled tears were warm,\nhe has the heart of the serpent too. He despises finitude because it\nis weak, as if an infinity of pervasive weakness were strong, or a\nperpetual flux a victory for anything. Laughing, I can't help thinking,\nup his sleeve, he suggests that this flux itself is a victory for the\nspirit, meaning by spirit the law by which he supposes that this flux\nis controlled. But this is sheer mockery: the only moral victory is\nthat achieved, under favourable conditions, by some living spirit,\nglad to be expressed or to have been expressed in some perfect form.\nThe finite only is good: the infinite tides are worth exactly what\nthey cast up. There is a bitter idolatry of fate in this system which\nmight seem splendid to a barbarian; but how, I asked myself, can it be\nanything but horrible to a cultivated conscience, or to a pupil of the\nGreeks?\n\nIn the real England the character I dreamt of exists, but very much\nmixed, and overbalanced by its contrary. Many have the minds of true\ngentlemen, poetically detached from fortune, and seeing in temporal\nthings only their eternal beauties. Yet if this type of English\ncharacter had been general, England could never have become Puritan,\nnor bred so many prosperous merchants and manufacturers, nor sent such\nshoals of emigrants to the colonies; it would hardly have revelled\nas it does in political debates and elections, and in societies for\nthe prevention and promotion of everything. In the real England there\nis a strong if not dominant admixture of worldliness. How ponderous\nthese Lord Mayors, these pillars of chapels, these bishops, these\npoliticians, these solemn snobs! How tight-shut, how moralistic, how\noverbearing these intellectuals with a mission! All these important\npeople are eaten up with zeal, and given over to rearranging the world,\nand yet without the least idea of what they would change it into in the\nend, or to what purpose. Being so much in earnest, they are convinced\nthat they must be living on the highest principles: what, then, is more\nintelligible than that they should welcome a philosophy which assures\nthem that such is the case? They are well pleased to hear, on the\nhighest metaphysical authority, that the first duty of a rich man is to\ngrow richer, and of a settled man to redouble in loyalty to his wife,\nhis community, his party, and his business. The Protestant reformers\ntold them so formerly in biblical language; the Protestant philosophers\ntell them so now in the language of Hegel.\n\nBesides, on its technical side, the Hegelian system has a great\nstrength, and was most apposite in the predicament in which, fifty\nyears ago, philosophy found itself in England. It supplied three\nillusions which idealism sadly needed if it was to become orthodox and\npopular: the illusions of profundity, of comprehensiveness, and of\nfinality. It was a philosophy of progress--another claim to popularity\nin the nineteenth century--not only progress in the world at large,\nbut especially in philosophy itself; and a philosophy of progress\ncannot ask us to go back, to cry _peccavi_, and reconsider the false\nassumptions on which we may have been reasoning for two hundred or for\ntwo thousand years. It must accept these assumptions and go on building\nupon them, always a higher and a higher structure. Now the principal\nassumption of British philosophy, on which German philosophy itself\nrests, was that nothing can be experienced except experience itself,\nand nothing known except knowledge. But the Germans analysed far more\naccurately than the British had formerly done what the notions of\nexperience and knowledge contain. They demonstrated the unity of glance\nthat is essential to it, and thus refuted (without of course removing)\nthe successive and episodic character of experience, as the honest\nbut unwary empiricists had conceived it. Hume and Mill had remained\nnaturalists in regard to the distribution of those volatile ideas\nto which they pretended to reduce the world. John Stuart Mill had a\ndeeper and a sweeter mind than his critics; there was something in him\nakin to Wordsworth or to Matthew Arnold; but his inherited principles\nwere treacherous, and opened the door to just such a concentration\nof egotism as the Hegelians brought about. Moreover, Hume and Mill\nhad seemed depressing; they perplexed without filling the mind; they\nmade everything that is most familiar and interesting seem strangely\nhypothetical; whereas in Hegel the pageant of nature and history\nappeared to be re-formed and to march round and round the stage of the\nego under the strongest light to the loudest music. There was a sort of\ndeafening optimism about it; and not only was a convenient school-book\nuniverse offered you, warranted complete, but all previous philosophies\nwere succinctly described, refuted, and linked together, in a manner\nmost convenient for tutorial purposes. Of course, the true character\nand eternal plausibility of each great system were falsified in such\na survey; each was attached artificially to what happened to precede\nand to follow it in time, or in the knowledge of the historian; as if\nhistory were a single chain of events, and its march dialectical--a\nfiction which Hegel did not blush to maintain. An inner instability was\nthus attributed to each view which came only from the slippery mind\nof the critic touring amongst them, without the least intention of\nfinding anywhere a home in which to rest. Hegel was not looking for the\ntruth--why dream of truth when you possess learning?--he was writing\nan apology for opinion. He enjoyed understanding and imagining things\nplausibly, and had a great intelligence to pour into his constructions;\nbut this very heat of thought fused everything into the mould of his\nmethod, and he gave out that he had understood every system much better\nthan those who believed in it, and had been carried by its inner\ncontradictions (which its adepts never saw) to the next convenient\nposition in the development of human fancy, and of his own lectures.\n\nAbstraction, such as withdrawal of the mind from worldly affairs, is\ncondemned by this philosophy: you must glut the brain and heart with\neverything that exists. An even worse abstraction, for a philosopher,\nis to detach the object from the subject, and believe it to exist\nindependently. But what is abstraction? Can attention ever render\nthings more discrete than they are in their own nature? Suppose I\nabstract a coin from another man's pocket: it is easily proved by\nHegel's logic that such an abstraction is a mere appearance. Coins\ncannot exist as coins except as pocketed and owned; at the same time\nthey imply an essential tendency to pass into the pockets of other\nmen: for a coin that could not issue from the pocket would be a coin\nin name only, and not in function. When it actually passes from one\nman's pocket into another's, this circumstance, far from justifying us\nin thinking the coin a separable thing, shows that all men's pockets\n(when not empty and therefore, in function, not pockets at all) are\nintrinsically related and, in a higher sense, one and the same purse.\nTherefore, we may conclude, it was not the sly transference of the coin\nfrom my neighbour's pocket into mine that was the wrongful abstraction,\nbut only the false supposition that if the coin was his it was not,\nby right of eminent domain, mine also. A man, in so far as he is the\npossessor of coins, is simply a pocket, and all pockets, in so far as\nthere is transferable coin, in them, are one pocket together. In this\nway we avoid false abstraction by proving that everything is abstract.\n\nNor is this all; for strange as it may seem, Hegel appeals also to one\ntype of religious people, and seems to them to lift religious faith\ntriumphantly above all possible assaults of fact or of science. Are\nnot all facts mere ideas? And must not all ideas be bred in the mind\naccording to its own free principles of life and effort? Is not all\nthis semblance of externality in things a blessed foil to spiritual\nactivity? Does not this universal mutation pay loud homage to eternal\nlaw? Things go by threes: that is the reason why they exist and why\nthey move, and the sovereign good to be attained by their motion. If\nevery truth turns out to be a lie, every lie is a part of some higher\ntruth; if everything becomes unreal, because it passes into something\nelse, this other thing inherits its reality; and if we look at things\nas a whole instead of _seriatim_, and spread out our moving film into a\npanorama, we perceive that everything has implied everything else from\nthe beginning, and formed a part of it; So that only from the point\nof view of ignorance is anything earlier, or better, or truer than\nanything else. Here, in the All, we have rest from our labours.\n\nIn this way even the slaves of the world at last learn to overcome the\nworld; but it is too late. This All, even if it were open to human\nsurvey, would have no value: it defeats each of its constituent lives\nand is itself responsive to no living desire. The indistinction which\nthe vague idea of it produces in the mind may be soothing to the weary;\nbut better than mystical relief at the end would have been moral\nfreedom in the beginning. That a different life will supersede mine is\nnothing against my happiness; that time is swallowing me up is nothing\nagainst my appropriate eternity. How vain the crabbed hand of the miser\nstringing his pearls and never looking at them, counting the drops\nthat trickle into his cup and never emptying it, never feeling the\nintoxication of living now, of telling the truth frankly, and of being\nhappy here I If the devil laughs at me because I am mortal, I laugh at\nhim for imagining that death can trouble me, or any other free spirit,\nso long as I live, or after I am dead.\n\n\n\n\n48\n\nTHE PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY\n\n\nThis war will kill the belief in progress, and it was high time.\nProgress is often a fact: granted a definite end to be achieved, we may\nsometimes observe a continuous approach towards achieving it, as for\ninstance towards cutting off a leg neatly when it has been smashed;\nand such progress is to be desired in all human arts. But _belief_\nin progress, like belief in fate or in the number three, is a sheer\nsuperstition, a mad notion that because some idea--here the idea of\ncontinuous change for the better--has been realized somewhere, that\nidea was a power which realized itself there fatally, and which must\nbe secretly realizing itself everywhere else, even where the facts\ncontradict it. Nor is belief in progress identical with belief in\nProvidence, or even compatible with it. Providence would not have begun\nwrong in order to correct itself; and in works which are essentially\nprogressive, like a story, the beginning is not worse than the end, if\nthe artist is competent.\n\nWhat true progress is, and how it is usually qualified by all sorts\nof backsliding and by incompatible movements in contrary directions,\nis well illustrated by the history of philosophy. There has been\nprogress in it; if we start with the first birth of intelligence and\nassume that the end pursued is to understand the world, the progress\nhas been immense. We do not understand the world yet; but we have\nformed many hypotheses about it corroborated by experience, we are\nin possession of many arts which involve true knowledge, and we have\ncollated and criticized--especially during the last century--a great\nnumber of speculations which, though unverified or unverifiable,\nreveal the problems and the possibilities in the case; so that I think\na philosopher in our day has no excuse for being so utterly deceived\nin various important matters as the best philosophers formerly were\nthrough no fault of theirs, because they were misled by a local\ntradition, and inevitably cut off from the traditions of other ages and\nraces. Nevertheless the progress of philosophy has not been of such a\nsort that the latest philosophers are the best: it is quite the other\nway. Philosophy in this respect is like poetry. There is progress in\nthat new poets arise with new gifts, and the fund of transmitted poetry\nis enriched; but Homer, the first poet amongst the Greeks, was also\nthe best, and so Dante in Italy, and Shakespeare in England. When a\ncivilization and a language take shape they have a wonderful vitality,\nand their first-fruits are some love-child, some incomparable creature\nin whom the whole genius of the young race bursts forth uncontaminated\nand untrammelled. What follows is more valuable in this respect or\nin that; it renders fitly the partial feelings and varying fashions\nof a long decadence; but nothing, so long as that language and that\ntradition last, can ever equal their first exuberance. Philosophy\nis not so tightly bound as poetry is to language and to local\ninspiration, but it has largely shared the same vicissitudes; and in\neach school of philosophy only the inventors and founders are of any\nconsequence; the rest are hacks. Moreover, if we take each school as\na whole, and compare it with the others, I think we may repeat the\nsame observation: the first are the best. Those following have made\nvery real improvements; they have discovered truths and methods before\nunknown; but instead of adding these (as they might have done) to the\nessential wisdom of their predecessors, they have proceeded like poets,\neach a new-born child in a magic world, abandoned to his fancy and his\npersonal experience. Bent on some specific reform or wrapped up in some\nfavourite notion, they have denied the obvious because other people had\npointed it out; and the later we come down in the history of philosophy\nthe less important philosophy becomes, and the less true in fundamental\nmatters.\n\nSuppose I arrange the works of the essential philosophers--leaving\nout secondary and transitional systems--in a bookcase of four shelves;\non the top shelf (out of reach, since I can't read the language) I\nwill place the Indians; on the next the Greek naturalists; and to\nremedy the unfortunate paucity of their remains, I will add here those\nfree inquirers of the renaissance, leading to Spinoza, who after two\nthousand years picked up the thread of scientific speculation; and\nbesides, all modern science: so that this shelf will run over into\na whole library of what is not ordinarily called philosophy. On the\nthird shelf I will put Platonism, including Aristotle, the Fathers,\nthe Scholastics, and all honestly Christian theology; and on the last,\nmodern or subjective philosophy in its entirety. I will leave lying on\nthe table, as of doubtful destination, the works of my contemporaries.\nThere is much life in some of them. I like their water-colour sketches\nof self-consciousness, their rebellious egotisms, their fervid reforms\nof phraseology, their peep-holes through which some very small part of\nthings may be seen very clearly: they have lively wits, but they seem\nto me like children playing blind-man's-buff; they are keenly excited\nat not knowing where they are. They are really here, in the common\nnatural world, where there is nothing in particular to threaten or to\nallure them; and they have only to remove their philosophical bandages\nin order to perceive it.\n\nWhat sort of a world this is--I will not say in itself, but in respect\nto us--can be perceived almost at once by any candid spirit, and the\nIndians readily perceived it. They saw that substance is infinite, out\nof _scale_ with our sensuous images and (except in the little vortex\nthat makes us up) out of sympathy with our endeavours; and that spirit\nin us nevertheless can hold its own, because salvation lies in finding\njoy in the truth, not in rendering fortune propitious, by some miracle,\nto our animal interests. The spirit is at home in the infinite, and\nmorally independent of all the accidents of existence: nothing that\nnature can produce outruns its potential scope, its desire to know the\ntruth; and its disinterestedness renders it free, free especially from\nany concern about its own existence. It does not deem it the part of\npiety to deny the fugitive, impotent, and fantastic nature of human\nlife. It knows that the thoughts of man and his works, however great\nor delightful when measured by the human scale, are but the faintest\nshimmer on the surface of being. On the ruin of humanistic illusions\n(such as make up the religious philosophy of the West) it knows how to\nestablish a tender morality and a sublime religion.\n\nIndian wisdom, intent on the infinity and unity of substance and on the\nvanity of human life, neglected two inquiries which are nevertheless of\nthe greatest interest to the spirit, so long as this vain life endures.\nThe Indians did not study the movement and mechanism of nature: they\nhad no science. Their poets, in a sort of spectacular physics, were\ncontent to paint vividly the images of sense, conscious of their\nfugitive charm, and of their monstrous and delirious diversity.\nThey also neglected the art of rational conduct in this world; the\nrefinements of their moral discipline were all mystical; they were\ndetermined by watching the movement of inner experience, and allowing\nthe fancy to distinguish its objects and its stages. They thought the\nspirit could liberate itself by thinking, as by thinking it seemed\nto have entangled itself in this mesh of dreams. But how could the\nspirit, if it had been free originally, ever have attached its fortunes\nto any lump of clay? Why should it be the sport of time and change\nand the vicissitudes of affairs? From the point of view of the spirit\n(which is that of the Indians) this question is absolutely insoluble;\na fact which drives them to say that this entanglement is not \"real,\"\nbut only an illusion of being entangled. Certainly substance is not\nentangled, but persists and moves according to its nature; and if what\nexists besides substance--its aspects and the spirit in us that notes\nthem--is not \"real\" because not substantial, then the unreal has the\nprivilege, as Democritus pointed out, of existing as well as the real,\nand more obviously. But this subterfuge, of denying that appearance\nexists, because its existence is only the seeming of its objects, was\ninevitable in the Indian system, and dramatically right. The spirit,\nleft to its own fond logic, remains perfectly ignorant of its natural\nancestry and cannot imagine why it finds itself caught in the vice of\nexistence, and hanging like Prometheus on a crag of Caucasus, or like\nChrist on the cross. The myth of reincarnation, whilst it meets certain\nmoral demands, leaves the problem essentially untouched. Why should\nspirit have fallen in the first instance, or made any beginning in sin\nand illusion?\n\nIt would have been better, for the moral and religious purposes of\nthese sages, to have observed and respected the prose facts, and\nadmitted that each little spirit falls for the first time when the\nbody is generated which it is to dwell in. It never, in fact, existed\nbefore; it is the spirit of that body. Its transcendental prerogatives\nand its impersonal aims are by no means inconsistent with that humble\nfact: they seem inconsistent only to those who are ignorant of the\nlife and fertility of nature, which breeds spirit as naturally as the\nlark sings. Aspiration to liberate spirit from absorption in finite\nexistence is in danger of missing its way if it is not enlightened by a\ntrue theory of existence and of spirit; for it is utterly impossible\nto free the spirit materially, since it is the voice of matter, but\nby a proper hygiene it can be freed ideally, so that it ceases to be\ntroubled by its sluggish instrument, or conscious of it. In these\nmatters the Indians were the sport of the wildest fancy. They mistook\ntheir early poetry for a metaphysical revelation, and their philosophy\nwas condemned to turn in the most dreary treadmill of commentaries\nand homilies, without one ray of criticism, or any revision of first\nprinciples. Nevertheless, all their mythology and scholasticism did\nnot invalidate (as they did not in the Catholic church afterwards) the\ninitial spiritual insight on which their system rested. The spirit,\nviewed from within, is omnipresent and timeless, and must be spoken of\nas falling, or coming down, or entering (as Aristotle puts it) through\nthe house-door. Spirit calls itself a stranger, because it finds the\nworld strange; and it finds the world strange because, being the spirit\nof a very high-strung and perilously organized animal, it is sensitive\nto many influences not harmonious with its own impulses, and has to beg\nits daily bread. Yet it is rich in resource; and it gives itself out\nfor a traveller and tells marvellous lies about its supposed native\nland, where it was a prince and an omnipotent poet. These boasts serve\nthe spirit as a declaration of independence, and a claim to immense\nsuperiority above the world. This independence, however, is really only\nthe independence of ignorance, that must think and act at random; and\nthe spirit would add sanity to its spirituality if it recognized the\nnatural, precarious, and exquisite life of which it is the spirit.\n\nSanity, thy name is Greece. The Greek naturalists saw (what it needs\nonly sanity to see) that the infinite substance of things was instinct\nwith a perpetual motion and rhythmic order which were its life, and\nthat the spirit of man was a spark from that universal fire. They made\na magnificent beginning in understanding what the order of nature is,\nand what is the relation of its substance to its spirit. They were much\nnearer in their outlook and their wisdom to the Indians than we are\napt to imagine. The Indians meant to be naturalists too; all serious\nphilosophers must somehow make a naturalism of their chosen elements;\nonly the Indians were carried away by an untutored imagination. The\nGreeks, for their part, also meant to be discerners of substance like\nthe Indians, and sharers in the divine life. The object which they\nbelieved in and studied was precisely the same as that which the\nIndians felt to be breathing deeply around and within them: it was the\ninfinite substance and life of things; all things not as they appear\nbut as they truly are. This is the object which animals envisage in\ntheir perceptions from the beginning. The sciences, and all honest\nspeculation, only substitute more refined ideas for the images of\nsense, to be descriptions of the same objects which the images of sense\nreveal. The notion that the object of sense is the very image created\nin sensation, or is an idea constructed afterwards by the intellect, is\nan aberration of confused psychologists; the intellectual construction,\nlike the sensuous image, is and is meant to be only a symbol for the\nsubstance, whatever it may be, which confronts the living being when\nhe eats or looks or frames a scientific hypothesis. Natural things, in\ntheir undiscovered inner texture, are the only things-in-themselves,\nand the object of every practical perception is the thing-in-itself,\nwhatever its nature may happen to be.\n\nWhen we enlarge our thoughts, and take in the world, as it were, at\na glance, the object does not become more metaphysical than when we\ntake common things singly. The Greeks, too, looked up into the heavens\nand cried, \"The All is one.\" It was just what the Indians had said,\nshutting their eyes and drinking in an infinite draught of nothing;\nbut the outward glance, the docility to fact, in the Greeks made a new\nthought of it, and a true one. What was now discovered was the system\nof nature; the spirit was naturalized in its source; it was set like\na young plant in its appropriate flower-pot, where it might wax and\nbloom. It did grow there, but not to its primeval size. These knowing\nGreeks were not saints and hermits, like the venerable Indians; they\nwere merchants, sniffing travellers, curiosity-hunters, who turned\npebbles over and culled herbs, breeders of animals, or wandering\nsooth-sayers with a monkey on their shoulder; and in naturalizing the\nspirit they stultified it. Why should knowledge of the world make\npeople worldly? It ought to do the exact opposite. The Indians had, in\ntheir way, a most profound and mature knowledge of the world; they knew\nperfectly what it could yield to the spirit, and what it was worth. But\nlost in their inner experience they invented for nature what structure\nthey chose, fantastically attenuating and inflating it as in a dream.\nApparently there is not energy enough in the human intellect to look\nboth ways at once, and to study the world scientifically whilst living\nin it spiritually.\n\nThe Greeks in their sanity discovered not only the natural world but\nthe art of living well in it. Besides physics they founded ethics\nand politics. But here again progress was prevented by the rejection\nor perversion of the greater thing in the interests of the lesser.\nSpeculatively at least some just conception of the world we live\nin, and of our place and destiny there, is more important than the\nchoice of a definite way of life; for animals and man have, quite\nlegitimately, each his own habits and pleasures, but they all crawl\nunder the same heaven, and if they think of it at all, they should\nnot blaspheme against it. The Greek naturalists had conceived nature\nrightly; and their sentiments and maxims, whilst very properly diverse,\nhad all of them a certain noble frankness in the presence of the\ninfinite world, of which they begged no favours. It was precisely these\npersonal sentiments and maxims, and policy in the government of cities,\nthat interested the Greeks most; and the Sophists and Socrates affected\nto care nothing about natural science, unless it could make their pot\nboil. This utilitarianism was humorous in Socrates, and in some of the\nSophists unprincipled; but the habit of treating opinions about nature\nas rhetorical themes, or as more or less edifying myths, had disastrous\nconsequences for philosophy. It created metaphysics. Metaphysics is\nnot merely speculative physics, in which natural science is extended\nimaginatively in congruous ways, anticipating what might some day be\ndiscovered. This is what the naturalists had done, and their theories\nwere simply physical or cosmological. But after Socrates a theory\nconstructed by reasoning, in terms of logic, ethics, and a sort of\npoetic propriety was put in the place of physics; the economy of the\nhuman mind was projected into the universe; and nature, in the works\nof the metaphysicians, held the mirror up to man. Human nature and the\nhuman mind, which were thus made to rule the world, are in reality a\nvery small incident in it; they are proper to one animal; they are\nthings of yesterday and perhaps not of to-morrow. This is nothing\nagainst them in their place, as it is nothing against the daisy that it\nis humble, nor against the spray of the sea that its flight is violent\nand brief. The Platonic, British, and German schools of philosophy\nadvance our knowledge of ourselves; what a pity that they were not\ncontent to cultivate their own gardens, where so many moral fruits and\npsychological flowers might be made to grow, but have insisted that\ntheir domestic vegetables are the signs of the zodiac, and that the\nuniverse was made to illustrate their horticulture!\n\nTaken for what they really are, these humanistic philosophies express\ndifferent sides of human nature. The best (and earliest) is the\nPlatonic, because the side of human nature which it expresses and\nfosters is the spiritual side. Platonic metaphysics projects into\nthe universe the moral progress of the soul. It is like a mountain\nlake, in which the aspirations and passions of a civilized mind are\nreflected upside down; and a certain tremor and intensity is added to\nthem in that narrower frame, which they would hardly have in the upper\nair. This system renders the life of the soul more unified and more\nbeautiful than it would otherwise be. Everything becomes magical, and a\nsort of perpetual miracle of grace; the forms which things wear to the\nhuman mind are deputed to be their substance; the uses of life become\nits protecting gods; the categories of logic and of morals become\ncelestial spheres enclosing the earth. A monstrous dream, if you take\nit for a description of nature; but a suitable allegory by which to\nillustrate the progress of the inner life: because those stages, or\nsomething like them, are really the stages of moral progress for the\nsoul.\n\nThe British and German philosophies belong to an analytic phase of\nreflection, without spiritual discipline, and their value is merely\npsychological. Their subject matter is human knowledge; and the titles\nof many of the chief works of this school confess that this is their\nonly theme. Not moral life, much less the natural world, but simply the\narticulation of knowledge occupies them; and yet, by the hocus-pocus\nof metaphysics, they substitute this human experience for the whole\nuniverse in which it arises. The universe is to be nothing but a\nflux of perceptions, or a will positing an object, or a tendency to\nfeign that there is a world. It would ill become me, a pupil of this\nphilosophy, to deny its profundity. These are the heart-searchings of\n\"a creature moving about in worlds not realized.\" It is a wonderful\nthing to spin out in soliloquy, out of some unfathomed creative\ninstinct, the various phases of one's faith and sensibility, making\nan inventory of one's intellectual possessions, with some notes on\ntheir presumable or reported history. I love the lore of the moral\nantiquary; I love rummaging in the psychological curiosity shop. The\ncharm of modern life is ambiguous; it lies in self-consciousness.\nEgotism has its tender developments; there is a sort of engaging purity\nin its perplexities and faithful labours. The German soul has a great\nvolume, and Hamlet is heroic even in his impotence. When in this little\nglow-worm which we call man there is so much going on, what must not\nall nature contain in its immensity? Yet all these advances in analysis\nand in psychological self-knowledge, far from enriching the modern\nphilosopher and giving him fresh hints for the interpretation of the\ngreat world, have been neutralized, under the guise of scepticism, by\na total intellectual cramp or by a colossal folly. This thoughtful\ndog has dropped the substance he held in his mouth, to snatch at the\nreflection of it which his own mind gave him. It is wonderful with\nwhat a light heart, with what self-satisfaction and even boasts, the\nyoungest children of the philosophical family jettison all their\nheirlooms. Fichte and Nietzsche, in their fervid arrogance, could\nhardly outdo the mental impoverishment of Berkeley and Hume in their\nlevity: it had really been a sight for the gods to see one of these\nundergraduates driving matter out of the universe, whilst the other\ndrove out spirit.\n\n\n\n\n49\n\nTHE PSYCHE\n\n\nEnglish poetry and fiction have expressed the inner man far better\nthan British philosophy has defined him. He is a hidden spring, a\nsource of bubbling half-thoughts and characteristic actions, and the\nphilosophers have called him a series of ideas. Ideas are rather his\nweak point. Idealism, on principle, leaves no room for anything latent;\nbut in a living being, especially in a nice Englishman, what is latent\nis the chief thing. The vital organs are under the skin and far more\ncomplicated, I suspect, than anatomy would lead us to imagine: the case\nis somewhat as if some giant in remote space should examine the surface\nof our earth with a glass, measuring its motion round the sun and\nperhaps round its own axis, but regarding as perfectly inexplicable and\nunmeaning the coursing of ships, the march of armies and migrations,\nthe change of forests into cornfields, and of cornfields into deserts.\nSo, perhaps, far beyond the reach of any microscope, the politic\ncongregation of atoms within us is busy in its curiously organic and\ncuriously aimless way: sustaining on the whole, until disease or\ndeath supervenes, the international peace and commerce of the animal\nbody. How much wireless telegraphy, how many alliances, and how many\ndiplomatic compromises there must be in our system for the human body\nto live at all! But psychological philosophers, like children, think\nthe whole economy of life the simplest thing in the world: experience,\nthey say, just _comes_ as it does come; as the boy, asked where he\nwould get the money necessary for all the fine things he said he\nwould do when he was a man, replied, full of empirical wisdom, \"Out\nof my pocket, like papa!\" Experience is the paternal pocket of these\nphilosophers; they have not discovered the financial system, the life\nof the body, which fills that minute and precarious reservoir.\n\nIt is not only a stronger glass that the remote giant would need to\ndisclose to him the life of the earth; he would need imagination akin\nto the human, which such a giant would probably not possess. For\nsuppose anatomy had done its best or its worst, and had completely\nmapped the machinery of the human automaton; and suppose at the\nsame time the modern dream-readers and diviners had unearthed all a\nman's infant concupiscences and secret thoughts: there would still\nbe something essential undiscovered. I do not mean that behind the\nwhole physical machinery there would be another material agency,\nanother force or set of events; nor that besides the totality of\nmental discourse, remembered or unremembered, there would be more\nthinking elsewhere: the hypothesis is that all that exists in these\nspheres has been surveyed, and assigned to its place in the evolving\nsystem. What has been so far ignored is something on another plane of\nbeing altogether, which this automatic life and this mental discourse\ninvolve, but do not contain. It is the _principle_ of both and of their\nrelation; the system of repetitions, correspondences, developments,\nand ideal unities created by this march of human life in double\ncolumn. For instance, men are mortal; they are born; they are begotten\nby sexual fertilization; they have a childhood; their passions and\nthoughts flow in a certain general order; and there are units in the\nhuman world called persons, nations, interests, purposes. I do not\nrefer to the _ideas_ of these things in the mental discourse of this\nor that man; but to the groups or cycles of facts designated by these\nideas. To perceive these groups or cycles requires a certain type of\nintelligence: but intelligence does not invent them without cause; it\n_finds_ the order which it designates by some word, some metaphor, or\nsome image.\n\nThat this order of human life is something natural, and not a fiction\nof discourse, appears in many ways. The relation of discourse itself\nto physical life is one proof of it. Mental discourse is the inner\nluminosity or speech that accompanies dramatic crises in the fortunes\nof the body; it is not self-generated; it is always the _expression_ of\nanother event, then occurring in the body, as is a cry of pain; and it\nis usually, at the same time, a _report_ of still another event that\nhas already occurred beyond the body, as is a memory or a perception.\nFeeling and thought are perpetually interrupted and perpetually\nrenewed by something not themselves. Their march, logic, and sanity,\nno less than their existence, translate into mental language an order\nproper to material events. A sense of comfort is the symptom of a good\ndigestion; pain expresses a lively discord in the nervous system, and\npleasure a lively harmony. When we can scarcely live, because something\nis stifling us, we hate that thing; and when we breathe more freely\nbecause something approaches, we love it. Spirit everywhere expresses\nthe life of nature, and echoes its endeavours; but the animal life\nwhich prompts these feelings is itself not arbitrary: it passes through\na cycle of changes which are pre-ordained. This predetermined, specific\ndirection of animal life is the key to everything moral; without it\nno external circumstance could be favourable or unfavourable to us;\nand spirit within us would have no reason to welcome, to deplore, or\nto notice anything. What an anomaly it would seem to a free spirit\n(if there could be such a thing) that it should care particularly for\nwhat happens in the body of some animal, or that it should see one set\nof facts rattier than another, and this in so partial and violent a\nperspective! But spirit does, and must, do this; and it is an absurd\nand satanic presumption on its part to profess that it could exist,\nor be a spirit at all, if it were not the spirit of some body, the\nvoice of some animal heart. To have a station in matter, and to have\ninterests in the material world, are essential to spirit, because\nspirit is life become articulate, experience focussed in thought and\ndominated ideally; but experience and life are inconceivable unless\nan organism with specific capacities and needs finds itself in an\nenvironment that stimulates it variously and offers it a conditioned\ncareer.\n\nScience as yet has no answer to this most important of all questions,\nif we wish to understand human nature: namely, How is the body, and how\nare its senses and passions, determined to develop as they do? We may\nreply: Because God wills it so; or Because such is the character of\nthe human species; or Because mechanical causes necessitate it. These\nanswers do not increase our scientific understanding in the least;\nnevertheless they are not wholly vain: for the first tells us that we\nmust be satisfied with ignorance; the second that we must be satisfied\nwith the facts; and the third, which is the most significant, that\nthese facts are analogous in every province of nature. But how dose\nare these analogies? Mechanism is one habit of matter, and life is\nanother habit of matter; the first we can measure mathematically and\nforecast accurately, the second we can only express in moral terms,\nand anticipate vaguely; but that the mechanical habit runs through\nthe vital habit, and conditions it, is made obvious by the dependence\nof life on food, on time, on temperature, by its routine in health\nand by its diseases, by its end, and above all by its origin; for it\nis a habit of matter continuous with other inorganic habits, and (if\nevolution is true) arising out of them. In any case, life comes from a\nseed in which it lies apparently dormant and arrested, and from which\nit is elicited by purely mechanical agencies. On the other hand, the\nseed reacts on those agencies in a manner as yet inexplicable by what\nwe know of its structure; and its development closely repeats (though\nperhaps with some spontaneous variation) the phases proper to the\nspecies.\n\nTo this mysterious but evident predetermination of normal life by\nthe seed the ancients gave the name of soul; but to us the word soul\nsuggests a thinking spirit, or even a disembodied one. It is totally\nincredible that a thinking spirit should exist in the seed, and should\nplan and carry out (by what instruments?) the organization of the\nbody; and if so wise and powerful and independent a spirit lay in us\nfrom the beginning, or rather long before our birth, how superfluous a\nlabour to beget us at all, and how unkind of it to dangle after it, in\naddition to its own intelligence, these poor blundering and troubled\nthoughts of which alone we are aware! Evidently the governing principle\nin seeds is no soul in this modern sense, no thinking moral being; it\nis a mysterious habit in matter. Whether this total habit is reducible\nto minor habits of matter, prevalent in the world at large, is the\nquestion debated between mechanical and vitalist psychologists; but it\nis a stupid controversy. The smallest unit of mechanism is an event as\nvital, as groundless, and as creative as it is possible for an event\nto be; it summons fresh essences into existence, which the character\nof the essences previously embodied in existence by no means implied\ndialectically. On the other hand, the romantic adventure of life, if\nit is not a series of miracles and catastrophes observed _ex post\nfacto_, must be a resultant of simpler habits struggling or conspiring\ntogether. However minute, therefore, or however comprehensive the\nunits by which natural processes are described, they are equally\nvital and equally mechanical, equally free and (for an observer with\na sufficient range of vision) equally predictable. On the human scale\nof observation it is the larger habits of living beings that are most\neasily observed; and the principle of these habits, transmitted by a\nseed, I call the Psyche: it is either a complex of more minute habits\nof matter, or a mastering rhythm imposed upon them by the habit of the\nspecies. Many Greek philosophers taught that the Psyche was material;\nand even Plato, although of course his Psyche might eventually take to\nthinking, regarded it as primarily a principle of motion, growth, and\nunconscious government; so that the associations of the word Psyche are\nnot repugnant, as are those of the word soul, to the meaning I wish to\ngive to it: that habit in matter which forms the human body and the\nhuman mind.[1]\n\nThere is, then, in every man a Psyche, or inherited nucleus of life,\nwhich from its dormant seminal condition expands and awakes anew in\neach generation, becoming the person recognized in history, law, and\nmorals. A man's body is a sort of husk of which his Psyche (itself\nmaterial) is the kernel; and it is out of the predispositions of this\nliving seed, played upon by circumstances, that his character and\nhis mind are formed. The Psyche's first care is to surround itself\nwith outer organs, like a spider with its web; only these organs\nremain subject to her central control, and are the medium by which\nshe acts upon outer things, and receives, in her patient labour, the\nsolicitations and rebuffs of fortune. The Psyche, being essentially\na way of living, a sort of animated code of hygiene and morals, is a\nvery selective principle: she is perpetually distinguishing--in action,\nif not in words--between good and bad, right and wrong. Choice is the\nbreath of her nostrils. All the senses, instincts, and passions are\nher scouts. The further she extends her influence the more she feels\nhow dependent she is on external things, and the more feverishly she\ntries to modify them, so as to render them more harmonious with her own\nimpulses.\n\nAt first, when she was only a vegetative Psyche, she waited in a\ncomparatively peaceful mystical torpor for the rain or the sunshine\nto foster her, or for the cruel winter or barbarous scythe to cut her\ndown; and she never would have survived at all if breeding had not been\nher chief preoccupation; but she distributed herself so multitudinously\nand so fast amongst her children, that she has survived to this day.\nLater, she found a new means of safety and profit in locomotion; and it\nwas then that she began to perceive distinct objects, to think, and to\nplan her actions--accomplishments by no means native to her. Like the\nChinese, she is just as busy by night as by day. Long before sunrise\nshe is at work in her subterranean kitchen over her pots of stewing\nherbs, her looms, and her spindles; and with the first dawn, when the\nfirst ray of intuition falls through some aperture into those dusky\nspaces, what does it light up? The secret springs of her life? The aims\nshe is so faithfully but blindly pursuing? Far from it. Intuition,\nfloods of intuition, have been playing for ages upon human life: poets,\npainters, men of prayer, scrupulous naturalists innumerable, have\nbeen intent on their several visions; yet of the origin and of the\nend of life we know as little as ever. And the reason is this: that\nintuition is not a material organ of the Psyche, like a hand or an\nantenna; it is a miraculous child, far more alive than herself, whose\nonly instinct is play, laughter, and brooding meditation. This strange\nchild--who could have been his father?--is a poet; absolutely useless\nand incomprehensible to his poor mother, and only a new burden on her\nshoulders, because she can't help feeding and loving him. He _sees_;\nwhich to her is a mystery, because although she has always acted as if,\nin some measure, she felt things at a distance, she has never seen and\nnever can see anything. Nor are his senses, for all their vivacity,\nof any use to her. For what do they reveal to him? Always something\nirrelevant: a shaft of dusty light across the rafters, a blue flame\ndancing on the coals, a hum, a babbling of waters, a breath of heat or\nof coolness, a mortal weariness or a groundless joy--all dream-images,\nvisions of a play world, essences painted on air, such as any poet\nmight invent in idleness. Yet the child cares about them immensely: he\nis full of sudden tears and of jealous little loves. \"Hush, my child,\"\nsays good mother Psyche, \"it's all nonsense.\" It is not for those\nfantastic visions that she watches: she knits with her eyes shut, and\nmutters her same old prayers. She has always groped amidst obstacles\nlike a mole pressing on where the earth is softest. She can tell\nfriends from enemies (not always correctly) by a mysterious instinct\nwithin her, and the rhythm, as it were, of their approaching step. She\nis long-suffering and faithful, like Penelope; but when hard-pressed\nand at bay she becomes fierce. She is terribly absolute then, blindly\nbent on vengeance and wild destruction. At other times she can melt\nand be generous; in her beehive she is not only the congregation of\nworkers, but also the queen. Her stubborn old-womanish temper makes her\nordinarily unjust to her best impulses and hypocritical about her worst\nones. She is artful but not intelligent, least of all about herself.\nFor this reason she can never understand how she gave birth to such a\nthankless child. She hardly remembers the warm ray from the sun or from\nsome other celestial source which one day pierced to her heart, and\nbegat there this strange uneasiness, this truant joy, which we call\nthought. Seeing how quick and observant the brat is, she sometimes\nsends him on errands; but he loiters terribly on the way, or loses\nit altogether, forgets what he was sent for, and brings home nothing\nbut strange tales about Long-noses and Helmets-of-gold, whom he says\nhe has encountered. He prefers the poppies to the com, and half the\nmushrooms he picks are of the poisonous variety; he sometimes insists\non setting apart his food for imaginary beings called the dead or the\ngods; and worst of all, he once ravished and married a fairy, whom he\ncalled Truth; and he wished to bring her to live with him at home. At\nthat, good mother Psyche naturally put her foot down. No hussies here!\nYet there are moments when she relents, when her worn old hands rest\nin her lap, when she remembers and wonders, and two cold tears trickle\ndown from her blind eyes. What is the good of all her labour? Has it\nall been, perhaps, for his sake, that he might live and sing and be\nhappy? Even in her green days, in her cool vegetable economy, there\nhad been waste; she had unwittingly put forth flowers she could not\nsee and diffused a fragrance that eluded her. Now her warmer heart has\nbred this wilder, this diviner folly: a wanton sweetness shed by her\nlonger travail and a flower of her old age. But he forgets her in his\nselfishness, and she can never, never understand him.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: I beg the learned to notice that the Psyche, as I use the\nterm, is not a material atom but a material system, stretching over\nboth time and space; it is not a monad; it has not the unity proper to\nconsciousness; nor is it a mass of \"subconscious,\" mental discourse.\nThe Psyche may be called a substance in respect to mental and moral\nphenomena which (I think) are based on modes or processes in matter,\nnot on any material particle taken singly; but the Psyche is not a\nsubstance absolutely, since its own substance is matter in a certain\narrangement--in other words, body. Matter may be called mind-stuff or\npsychic substance inasmuch as it can become on occasion the substance\nof a Psyche, and through the Psyche the basis of mind; but of course\nnot in the sense that matter may be an aggregate of thinking spirits.\nMental events may be called psychic when we consider their origin\nrather than their essence, as certain pleasures are called material,\nalthough pleasures, in being, are all equally spiritual. \"Psychic\nphenomena\" are crudely material, and \"psychical research\" has for its\nobject, not spirits in another world, but the habits of matter that\nproduce apparitions.]\n\n\n\n\n50\n\nREVERSION TO PLATONISM\n\n\nI hear that Oxford is reading Plotinus--a blessed change from Hegel.\nThe pious mind is still in the age of mythology; science has confused\nits own lessons, for want of a philosopher who should understand them;\nand what matters, so long as the age of mythology lasts, is that the\nmyths that occupy the fancy should be wise and beautiful, and should\nteach men to lay up their treasures in heaven. The philosophy of\nPlotinus does this, and does it magnificently. Like that of Plato\nand of Aristotle it is little more than a rhetorical inversion or\nperpetual metaphor, expressing the aim of life under the figure of a\ncosmos which is animate and which has already attained its perfection.\nConsidering the hurried life which we are condemned to lead, and the\nshifting, symbolic ideas to which we are confined, it seems hardly\nworth while to quarrel with such inspired fabulists, or to carp at the\ncosmic dress in which they present their moralities. Gentle, secluded,\nscholastic England does well to platonize. It had never ceased to do\nso. In spite of the restiveness, sometimes, of barbarian blood, in\nspite of Hebraic religion and Germanic philosophy, the great classical\ntradition has always been seated here; and England has shared, even if\nwith a little reserve and mistrust, in the ecclesiastical, courtly,\nmilitary, and artistic heritage of Europe. A genuine child of the past,\nwho is bred to knowledge of the world, and does not plunge into it\ngreedily like a stranger, cannot worship the world; he cannot really be\na snob. Those who have profited by a long life cannot possibly identify\nthe divine life with the human. They will not be satisfied with a\nphilosophy that is fundamentally worldly, that cannot lift up its heart\nexcept pragmatically, because the good things are hanging from above,\nor because the long way round by righteousness and the ten commandments\nmay be the shortest cut to the promised land. Their love of wisdom will\nnot be merely provisional, nor their piety a sort of idyllic interlude,\npenitent but hopeful, comforting itself with the thought that the sour\ngrapes will soon be ripe, and oh, so delicious! They will not remember\nthe flesh-pots of Egypt with an eternal regret, and the flesh-pots of\nBerlin and New York will not revive their appetite.\n\nSpirit is not an instrument but a realization, a fruition. At every\nstage, and wherever it peeps out through the interstices of existence,\nit is a contemplation of eternal things. Eternal things are not other\nmaterial things by miracle existing for ever in another world; eternal\ntilings are the essences of all things here, when we consider what\nthey are in themselves and not what, in the world of fortune, they may\nbring or take away from us personally. That is why piety and prayer\nare spiritual, when they cease to be magic operations or efforts of a\ncelestial diplomacy: they chief works of this school confess that this\nis their only theme. Not moral life, much less the natural world, but\nsimply the articulation of knowledge occupies them; and yet, by the\nhocus-pocus of metaphysics, they substitute this human experience for\nthe whole universe in which it arises. The universe is to be nothing\nbut a flux of perceptions, or a will positing an object, or a tendency\nto feign that there is a world. It would ill become me, a pupil of this\nphilosophy, to deny its profundity. These are the heart-searchings of\n\"a creature moving about in worlds not realized.\" It is a wonderful\nthing to spin out in soliloquy, out of some unfathomed creative\ninstinct, the various phases of one's faith and sensibility, making\nan inventory of one's intellectual possessions, with some notes on\ntheir presumable or reported history. I love the lore of the moral\nantiquary; I love rummaging in the psychological curiosity shop. The\ncharm of modern life is ambiguous; it lies in self-consciousness.\nEgotism has its tender developments; there is a sort of engaging purity\nin its perplexities and faithful labours. The German soul has a great\nvolume, and Hamlet is heroic even in his impotence. When in this little\nglow-worm which we call man there is so much going on, what must not\nall nature contain in its immensity? Yet all these advances in analysis\nand in psychological self-knowledge, far from enriching the modern\nphilosopher and giving him fresh hints for the interpretation of the\ngreat world, have been neutralized, under the guise of scepticism, by\na total intellectual cramp or by a colossal folly. This thoughtful\ndog has dropped the substance he held in his mouth, to snatch at the\nreflection of it which his own mind gave him. It is wonderful with\nwhat a light heart, with what self-satisfaction and even boasts, the\nyoungest children of the philosophical family jettison all their\nheirlooms. Fichte and Nietzsche, in their fervid arrogance, could\nhardly outdo the mental impoverishment of Berkeley and Hume in their\nlevity: it had really been a sight for the gods to see one of these\nundergraduates driving matter out of the universe, whilst the other\ndrove out spirit.\n\n\n\n\n51\n\nIDEAS\n\n\nHow comes it that the word Idea, so redolent of Platonism, has been\nthe fulcrum on which British philosophy has turned in its effort to\ndislodge Platonism from its foundations, and to lay bare the positive\nfacts? The vicissitudes of words are instructive; they show us what\neach age understood or forgot in the wisdom of its predecessors,\nand what new things it discovered to which it gave the old names.\nThe beauty which Plato and the English saw in Ideas was the same\nbeauty; they both found in Ideas the immediate, indubitable object of\nknowledge. And nevertheless, hugging the same certitude, they became\nsure of entirely different things.\n\nThe word Idea ought to mean any theme which attention has lighted\nup, any aesthetic or logical essence, so long as it is observed in\nitself or used to describe some ulterior existence. Amid a thousand\nmetaphysical and psychological abuses of the term this purely ideal\nsignification sometimes reappears in polite speech; for instance when\nAthalie says, in Racine:\n\n    J'ai deux fois, en dormant, revu la m\u00eame id\u00e9e.\n\nHere, perhaps by chance, the word is used with absolute propriety and\nits chief implications are indicated. An Idea is something seen, an\n_immediate_ presence; it is something seen in a dream, or _imaginary_;\nand it is the same Idea when seen a second time, or a _universal_.\nThat universals are present to intuition was the secret of Plato;\nyet it is the homeliest of truths. It comes to seem a paradox, or\neven inconceivable, because people suppose they see what they believe\nthey are looking at, which is some particular thing, the object of\ninvestigation, of desire, and of action; they overlook the terms of\ntheir thought, as they overlook the perspective of the landscape. These\nterms, which are alone immediate, are all universals. Belief--the\nexpectation, fear, or sense of events hidden or imminent--precedes\nclear perception; but it is supposed to be derived from it. Perception\nwithout belief would be mere intuition of Ideas, and no belief in\nthings or ulterior events could ever be based on it. A seraph who\nshould know only Ideas would be incapable of conceiving any fact, or\nnoting any change, or discovering his own spiritual existence; he would\nbe mathematics actualized, a landscape self-composed, and love spread\nlike butter. The human mind, on the contrary, is the expression of an\nanimal life, swimming hard in the sea of matter. It begins by being\nthe darkest belief and the most helpless discomfort, and it proceeds\ngradually to relieve this uneasiness and to tincture this blind faith\nwith more and more luminous Ideas, Ideas, in the discovery of facts,\nare only graphic symbols, the existence and locus of the facts thus\ndescribed being posited in the first place by animal instinct and\nwatchfulness. If we suspend these eager explorations for a moment, and\ncheck our practical haste in understanding the material structure of\nthings and in acting upon them, it becomes perfectly obvious that the\ndata of actual intuition are sounds, figures, movements, landscapes,\nstories--all universal essences appearing, and perhaps reappearing, as\nin a trance.\n\nI think that Plato in his youth must have seen his Ideas with this\nmystical directness, and must have felt the irritation common to\nmystics at being called back out of that poetic ecstasy into the\nsociety of material things. Those essences were like the gods, dear and\nimmortal, however fugitive our vision of them might be; whereas things\nwere in their inmost substance intricate and obscure and treacherously\nchangeable; you could never really know what any of them was, nor\nwhat it might become. The Ideas were our true friends, our natural\ncompanions, and all our safe knowledge was of them; things were only\nvehicles by which Ideas were conveyed to us, as the copies of a book\nare vehicles for its sense.\n\nNevertheless, the happy intuition of pure essences of all sorts, as\nlife vouchsafes it to the free poet or to the logician, could not\nsatisfy the heart of Plato. He felt the burden, the incessant sweet\ntorment, of the flesh; and when age--as I think we may detect in the\nchanged tone of his thoughts--relieved him of this obsession, which\nhad been also his first inspiration, it only reinforced an obsession\nof a different kind, the indignation of an aristocrat and the sorrow\nof a patriot at the doom which hung visibly over his country. The fact\nthat love intervened from the beginning in Plato's vision of the Ideas\nexplains why his Ideas were not the essences actually manifested in\nexperience, as it comes to the cold eye or the mathematical brain. When\nlove looks, the image is idealized; it does their several visions;\nyet of the origin and of the end of life we know as little as ever.\nAnd the reason is this: that intuition is not a material organ of the\nPsyche, like a hand or an antenna; it is a miraculous child, far more\nalive than herself, whose only instinct is play, laughter, and brooding\nmeditation. This strange child--who could have been his father?--is a\npoet; absolutely useless and incomprehensible to his poor mother, and\nonly a new burden on her shoulders, because she can't help feeding and\nloving him. He _sees_; which to her is a mystery, because although she\nhas always acted as if, in some measure, she felt things at a distance,\nshe has never seen and never can see anything. Nor are his senses, for\nall their vivacity, of any use to her. For what do they reveal to him?\nAlways something irrelevant: a shaft of dusty light across the rafters,\na blue flame dancing on the coals, a hum, a babbling of waters, a\nbreath of heat or of coolness, a mortal weariness or a groundless\njoy--all dream-images, visions of a play world, essences painted on\nair, such as any poet might invent in idleness. Yet the child cares\nabout them immensely: he is full of sudden tears and of jealous little\nloves. \"Hush, my child,\" says good mother Psyche, \"it's all nonsense.\"\nIt is not for those fantastic visions that she watches: she knits\nwith her eyes shut, and mutters her same old prayers. She has always\ngroped amidst obstacles like a mole pressing on where the earth is\nsoftest. She can tell friends from enemies (not always correctly) by a\nmysterious instinct within her, and the rhythm, as it were, of their\napproaching step. She is long-suffering and faithful, like Penelope;\nbut when hard-pressed and at bay she becomes fierce. She is terribly\nabsolute then, blindly bent on vengeance and wild destruction. At other\ntimes she can melt and be generous; in her beehive she is not only the\ncongregation of workers, but also the queen. Her stubborn old-womanish\ntemper makes her ordinarily unjust to her best impulses and\nhypocritical about her worst ones. She is artful but not intelligent,\nleast of all about herself. For this reason she can never understand\nhow she gave birth to such a thankless child. She hardly remembers the\nwarm ray from the sun or from some other celestial source which one\nday pierced presents actually will be only a few, and not the most\nwelcome, since this world is a most paradoxical, odd, and picturesque\nobject, and not at all the sort of world which the human mind (being a\nhighly specialized part of it) would have made or can easily believe\nto be real. The Ideas which a philosopher says govern the world are\nnot likely to be its true laws; and, if he has really drawn them from\nobservation, they cannot possibly be all, nor the best, Ideas on\nwhich his free mind would have chosen to dwell. The truth, which is a\nstandard for the naturalist, for the poet is only a stimulus; and in\nmany an idealist the poet debauches the naturalist, and the naturalist\nparalyses the poet. The earth might well upbraid Plato for trying to\nbuild his seven-walled cloud-castle on her back, and to circumscribe\nher in his magic circles. Why should she be forbidden to exhibit any\nother essences than those authorized by this metaphysical Solon? Why\nshould his impoverished Olympian theology be imposed upon her, and all\nher pretty dryads and silly fauns, all her harpies and chimeras, be\nfrowned upon and turned into black devils? How these people who would\nmoralize nature hate nature; and if they loved nature, how sweetly\nand firmly would morality take its human place there without all this\ndelusion and bluster! But I am not concerned so much with the violence\ndone by Plato to nature; nature can take care of herself, and being\nreally the mother even of the most waspish philosopher, with his sting\nand his wings and his buzzing, she can comfortably find room for him\nand his system amongst her swarming children. I wish I knew if the\nreal wasps, too, have a philosophy, and what it is; probably as vital\nand idealistic as that of the Germans. But I am grieved rather at the\nservitude and at the stark aspect imposed on the Platonic Ideas by\ntheir ambition to rule the world. They are like the shorn Samson in the\ntreadmill; they have lost the radiance and the music of Phoebus Apollo.\nSocrates taught that to do wrong is to suffer harm; and his Ideas, in\nestablishing their absurd theocracy over nature, were compelled to bend\ntheir backs to that earth-labour, and to become merely a celestial\nzoology, a celestial grammar, and a celestial ethics. Heaven had\nstooped to rule the earth, and the crooked features of the earth had\ncast their grotesque shadow on heaven.\n\nThis is the first chapter in the sad history of Ideas. Now for the\nsecond.\n\nThe honest Englishman does not care much for Ideas, because in his\nlabour, he is occupied with things and in his leisure with play, or\nwith rest in a haze of emotional indolence: but finding himself, for\nthe most part, deep in the mess of business, he is heartily desirous\nof knowing the facts; and when, in his scrupulous inquiry into the\nfacts, he finds at bottom only Ideas, and is constrained to become a\nphilosopher against his will, he contrives, out of those very Ideas, to\nelicit some knowledge of fact. Ideas are not intrinsically facts, but\nsuppositions; they are descriptions offering themselves officiously as\ntestimonials for facts whose character remains problematical, since, if\nthere were no such facts, the Ideas would still be the same; yet, says\nthe melancholy Jaques to himself, \"Is it not a fact that I have made\nthis dubious supposition? Am I not entertaining this Idea? This sad but\nundeniable experience of mine, not the fact which I sought nor the Idea\nwhich I found, is the actual fact, and the undeniable existence.\" Thus\nthe occurrence of any experience, or the existence of any illusion,\nassumes the names both of fact and of idea in his vocabulary, and the\nexistence of ideas becomes the corner-stone of his philosophy.\n\nThe most candid and delightful of English philosophers (who was an\nIrishman) was Berkeley. In his ardent youth, like Plato, he awoke to\npure intuition: he saw Ideas, or at least he saw that he did not see\nmaterial things; but instead of studying these Ideas for their own sake\nwith a steadier gaze, he took up the disputatious notion of denying\nthat material things existed at all, because he could not _see_ them.\nIt was a great simplification; and if he had not had conventional and\napologetic axes to grind, he might have reached the radical conclusion,\nfamiliar to Indian sages, that nothing could exist at all, least of all\nhimself. Language, however, and the Cartesian philosophy, made it easy\nfor him to assume that of course he existed, since he saw these Ideas;\nand he was led by a malicious demon to add, that the Ideas existed too,\nsince he saw them, so long as they were visible to him. Bat if he\nexisted only in that he saw the Ideas, and the Ideas existed in that\nhe saw them, was there any difference at all between himself seeing\nand the Ideas seen? None, I am afraid: so that he himself, whom he\nhad proudly called a spirit, would be in truth only a series of ideas\n(I spell them now with a small i), and the ideas--in which he had not\nstopped to recognize eternal essences--would be only the pulses of his\nfugitive existence.\n\nHere is substance for an excellent ironical system of the universe,\nsuch as some philosopher in Greece might have espoused; a flux of\nabsolute intensive existences, variously coloured and more or less\nwarm, like the sparks of a rocket. Some scientific philosopher in\nour day or in the future may be tempted to work out this system, and\nit might have been the true one. But I see an objection to it from\nthe point of view of British philosophy, which covets knowledge of\nfact. The philosopher conceiving this system, if the system was true,\nwould be only one of those sparks; he could have no idea except the\nidea which he was; the whole landscape before him would be but the\nfleeting nature of himself. Although, therefore, by an infinitely\nimprobable accident, his philosophy might be true, he could have no\nreason to think it true, and no possibility of not thinking it so. A\ngenuine sceptic might be satisfied with this result, enjoying each\nmoment of his being, and laughing at his own perpetual pretension of\nknowing anything further. And since extremes meet, such a mocking\nsceptic might easily become, like Plato, a lover of pure Ideas. If he\nreally abandons all claims, all hopes, all memory which is more than\nfantasy, and simply enjoys the illusion of the moment, he dwells on\nan Idea, which is all that an illusion can supply. The immediate has\na mystical charm; it unveils some eternal essence, and the extreme of\nrenunciation, like a sacrificial death, brings a supreme security in\nanother sphere. Berkeley and Hume were little more than boys when they\nfell in love with Ideas; perhaps, if we knew their personal history,\nwe should find that they were little children when they first did so,\nand that pure Essence was the Beatrice that had secretly inspired all\ntheir lives. But though they were youths of genius, there was a touch\nin them of the prig; the immediate, dear as it is to fresh and honest\nhearts, was too unconventional for them legally to wed and to take\nhome, as it were, to their worldly relations. In England to love Ideas\nis to sow one's intellectual wild oats. There may be something healthy\nand impetuous in that impulse which is engaging; but it must not go too\nfar, and above all it must not be permanent. The British philosopher\ndips into idealism in order to reform belief, to get rid of dangerous\nshams or uncongenial dogmas, not for the sake of pure intuition or\ninstant assurance. He wishes to remove impediments to action; he hates\ngreat remote objects as he hates popery and policy; imposing things are\nimpositions. Better get rid, if possible, of substance and cause and\nnecessity and abstractions and self and consciousness. The purpose is\nto reduce everything to plain experience of fact, and to rest neither\nin pure intuition nor in external existences. For instance, he has\ntwo arguments against the existence of matter which he finds equally\nsatisfactory: one that matter cannot exist because he can form no idea\nof it, and the other that matter cannot exist because it is merely an\nidea which he forms. He descends to the immediate only for the sake\nof the ulterior, for the immediate in some other place. If he found\nhimself reduced to essences actually given now, he would be terribly\nunhappy, and I am sure would renounce philosophy as a bad business, as\nhe did in the person of Hume, his most profound representative.\n\nThus European speculation, like the Athalie of Racine, has twice in\nits dreams beheld the same Ideas; but like that uneasy heroine it\nhas been troubled by the sight, and has stretched out its arms to\ngrasp the painted shadow. The first time, instead of Ideas, it found\na celestial hierarchy of dominations and powers, a bevy of magic\ninfluences, angels, and demons. The second time, instead of Ideas, it\nfound an irrevocable flux of existing feelings, without sense, purpose,\nconnection, or knowledge. Perhaps if on the third occasion the Ideas\nvisited a less burdened and preoccupied soul, that could look on them\nwithout apprehension, they might be welcomed for their fair aspect and\nfor the messages they convey from things, without being, in their own\npersons, either deified or materialized.\n\n\n\n\n52\n\nTHE MANSIONS OF HELEN\n\n\nConcerning the visions which men have of the gods there is much\nuncertainty. It is written that no man can see God and live; but I\nthink some evil god or evil man must be spoken of, and that they come\nnearer to the truth who say that the vision of God brings perfect\nhappiness. I suspect this is true in a humbler and more familiar sense\nthan is intended in discourses about the state of the soul in heaven;\nfor there is a heaven above every place, and the soul mounts to it in\nall its thoughts and actions, when these are perfect. I incline also\nto another opinion, which would surprise those religious friends of\nmine who call me an atheist; namely, that Whenever we see anything,\nwe have, or might have if we chose, a partial vision of God, and a\nmoment of happiness. For all experience comes to us fatally, from an\nalien source which in physics is called matter, in morals power or\nwill, and in religion God; so that by his power (as I learned when a\nchild in my Spanish catechism) God is present in everything. The same\nauthority added (and how full of meaning that word is to me now!)\nthat he was also present in everything by his essence; since what is\nbrought unimpeachably before us in any vision is some essence which,\nbeing absolutely indestructible, is in that respect divine. It is\nindestructible because, if all trace and memory of it were destroyed,\nit would in that very obscuration vindicate its essential identity,\nsince not _it_, but only things different from _it_, would now exist.\nEvery essence, therefore, lies eternally at the very foundations of\nbeing, and is a part of the divine immutability and necessity; an\nintrinsic feature in that Nous or Logos which theologians tell us is\nthe second hypostasis of the divine nature. Yet to say that we see\nGod when we see him only in part is perhaps hazardous and open to\nobjection, because a part of anything, separated from the rest, becomes\na different being, qualitatively and numerically; and it will be better\nto speak of our visions as visions of angels or messengers or demigods,\nhaving one divine parent and one human. In everything, if we regard it\nas it is in itself, and not selfishly, we may find an incarnation or\nmanifestation of deity.\n\nHow the divinity of our daily visitants shines out at certain moments\nand then again is obscured by our practical haste and inattention, is\nadmirably expressed in the history of Helen. Her birth was miraculous,\nand yet quaintly natural, for her father Zeus, having taken the form\nof a swan when he wooed her mother Leda, she was hatched from a great\nwhite egg; and there was always something swanlike in the movements\nof her neck, in the composure of her carriage, as if borne on still\nwaters, in the scarcely flushed marble of her skin, and in the\nlightness and amplitude of her floating garments. She was hardly of\nthis world, and it seemed almost a desecration to have wedded her to\nany mortal. Yet she offered no resistance to love; it was indifferent\nto her whom she might enamour, or into what nest of robbers she might\nbe carried by force. Was it not violence, she said to herself, to exist\non earth at all? What mattered a shade more or less of violence? If she\nremained in a manner chaste and inviolate, it was only because she was\ntoo beautiful to tempt the lusts of men. Neither of her two husbands\nloved or understood her. Menelaus because he was a dullard, and Paris\nbecause he was a rake, approached her as they would have approached\nany other woman, and they found no great pleasure in her society. Yet\nwherever she appeared, every one stopped talking and was motionless;\nand she was worshipped by all who saw her pass at a distance. Supreme\nbeauty is foreign everywhere, yet everywhere has a right of domicile;\nit opens a window to heaven, and is a cause of suspended animation and,\nas it were, ecstatic suicide in the heart of mortals.\n\nHelen passed her childhood dazed, but with a pleasing wonder, because\nshe loved her brothers, and they, absorbed though they were habitually\nin their violent sports, were tender to her. When they died, how gladly\nwould she have followed them and become the third star with them in\nheaven! But she found herself married to Menelaus the king; and this\nher first mansion at Sparta, the narrowest of citadels, was far from\nhappy. The palace was a great farm-house, and the talk in it was all\nof harvests and cattle and horses and wars. The men were boors, and\ntheir scruples about sacrifices and auguries annoyed her; being half\ndivine, she felt no need for religion. \"What advantage is it,\" she said\nin her thoughts, \"to be a queen when I am a prisoner, or to be called\nbeautiful where nobody looks at me.\"\n\nAccordingly it was with a vague hope and a secret desire for vengeance\nthat she heard of the approach of a brilliant stranger, from a far more\npopulous and flourishing city than Sparta, who came with gifts and a\nglib tongue to view the wonders of the island world. When his eyes fell\non her, his unfeigned surprise filled her with exultation. To be so\ndiscerned, for her, was to be won. Those eyes could recognize divinity.\nNo doubt he was preparing new fetters for her and new sorrows, but for\na moment she would be free, and in following him she would feel herself\nonce more the goddess.\n\nIn fact, so long as they sailed the dark-purple sea, or rested in\ncaves or in island bowers, all was pleasantness between them. Their\nvery galley, with its white sails spread, took on something of Helen's\nbeauty, and seemed a cloud wafted across the Aegean, or the swan, her\nfather, riding on the rippled reaches of the Meander. Paris proved\na candid and light-hearted lover; never vexed, he was all grace and\nmastery in small matters: one of those lordly travellers who can feel\nthe charm of nature and of woman in every dime, however exotic, however\npure, or however impure; and the incomparable Helen seemed indeed\nincomparable to his practised mind. He adored her, but he preferred\nother women. Moreover, she found that at Troy he counted for nothing.\nHe moved amid battles and councils, quite at home in the scene, but\nnever consulted; a prince turned shepherd, a familiar but superfluous\nornament, like a fop or a ballet-dancer that everybody smiled upon and\nnobody respected. It was given him in the end to slay the redoubtable\nAchilles with a chance arrow, Apollo secretly directing the shaft,\nbut he was no warrior. It was a useless triumph, as his abduction of\nHelen had been an innocent crime: both were the work of gods laughing\nat human arrogance. There were doubtless street rhetoricians in Ilium\nwho upbraided Paris and Helen, as there are reasoning philosophers\nand politicians to-day who attribute the ascendancy or decay of\nnations to the ideas that prevail there, forgetting to ask why those\nparticular ideas have been embraced by those peoples, when all ideas,\nin the universal market, are to be had gratis. The wise old Priam\nand his counsellors knew better. They did not disown Paris for his\nescapade, as they might so easily have done, nor did they return\nHelen to her wronged husband, useless as she was at Troy. They knew\nthat the confused battles of earth must be fought over some nominal\nprize; men and animals will always be fighting for something, not\nbecause the thing is necessarily of any value to them, but because\nthey wish to snatch it from one another. Helen had lent her name and\nimage to colour an ancient feud, and make articulate the dull eternal\ncontention between Asia and Europe. It was for existence that each\nparty was fighting; but it added to their courage and self-esteem to\nsay they were fighting for beauty, and that the victory of their side\nwould be a victory for the gods. But the gods were in both camps, and\nin neither, as in her heart was Helen herself. In her isolation, her\nconscience sometimes reproached her, and she wondered that she never\nheard these reproaches from the lips of others. Hector and Priam and\nthe other old men, even the queen and the gossiping women, treated her\nwith deference; but they cared only for Troy and for their own affairs.\nIf less beset than in her strict old home, she was more neglected\nin these spacious palaces, and no less melancholy. Was it a miracle\nof generosity that nobody blamed her, or was it a supreme proof of\nindifference, that standing in the centre of the stage she remained\nunheeded? Was she so much a goddess that they thought her a statue?\nWould she be borne away by the victors like an inert Palladium, to be\nset up elsewhere on a new pedestal? She did not understand that it is\nnot the vision that men have of the gods that works their safety or\nruin, but that fatal maladjustments, or natural vigour in them, in\nshaping their destiny, call that vision down. Nor is it an idle vision;\nfor the sight turns the dreary length of their misery into a tragedy\nflashing with light and tears; and the presence of Helen on those\nbeleaguered walls, which might have irritated the foolish, consoled\nthe wise. She was not the cause of their danger nor of their coming\ndisaster, as she had not been the cause of the harsh virtues of her\nSpartan clan; but as those harsh virtues had created her beauty, so the\nwealth and exuberant civilization of Ilium had recognized it, and made\nit their own; and she was a glory to both nations, for not every city,\nof all the cities that perish, has had a queen like her.\n\nWhen Troy fell at last, when Hector and Paris and Priam were dead, and\nAeneas had escaped just in time, she waited, impassible, at the gate\nof the smoking acropolis, neither glad nor sorry, not ashamed to see\nher first husband again and his shouting friends--for she despised\nthem--nor unwilling to be removed, as it were, into the evening shadow\nof her old queenliness. Something told her that in her second life at\nSparta she would be more feared and more respected; in her advancing\nage and intangible isolation she would be as a priestess whom no\none--not even Menelaus--would dare to approach. Her crime would be her\nprotection; her rebellion, proudly acknowledged and never retracted\nin spirit, would lift her above all mankind. Even while still in this\nworld, she would belong to the other.\n\nThere is an obscure rumour that after the fall of Troy Helen never\nreturned to Sparta but was spirited away to Egypt, whilst a mere\nphantasm resembling her accompanied her dull husband back to his\ndull fastness by the pebbly Eurotas. This turn given to the fable\nhints darkly at the unearthly truth. Helen was a phantom always and\neverywhere; so long as men fought for her, taking her image, as it\nwere, for their banner, she presided over a most veritable and bloody\nbattle; but when the battle ceased of itself, and all those heroes\nthat had seen and idolized her were dead, the cerulean colours of that\nbanner faded from it; the shreds of it rotted indistinguishably in the\nmire, and the hues that had lent it for a moment its terrible magic\nfled back into the ether, where wind and mist, meteors and sunbeams,\nnever cease to weave them. The passing of Helen was the death of\nGreece, but Helen herself is its immortality. Yet why seek to interpret\nthe parable? There is more depth of suggestion in these ancient myths\nthan in any abstract doctrine which we may substitute for them. Homer\nand his companions certainly were not writing intentional allegories;\nbut they had a sense for beauty and a sense for the flux of things,\nand in those two perceptions the whole philosophy of Ideas is latent.\nSight, thought, love arrest essences; and time, perpetually undermining\nthe existence that brings those essences before us, drives them, as\nfast as we can arrest them, like a sort of upward flaw, back into\nheaven.\n\n\n\n\n53\n\nTHE JUDGEMENT OF PARIS\n\n\nI do not conceive the Judgement of Paris as Rubens has painted it:\nan agricultural labourer leering at three fat women of the town who\nhave gone into the country for a lark. This disrobing of goddesses,\nthough there may be some ancient authority for it, does not conform\nto my principles of exegesis, and I pronounce it heretical. Goddesses\ncannot disrobe, because their attributes are their substance. They\nare like the images of the Virgin in Spanish churches; if you are so\nill-advised, you may take off their crown, their veils, and their\nstiffly embroidered conical mantle; but what will remain will not be\nour Lady either of Mercies or of Sorrows, but a pole, with a doll's\nhead and two hands attached. The spell lies in the ornaments, because\nthey alone are symbolical and richly mysterious. Similarly the virtue\nof those pagan goddesses did not he in what each might be in herself,\neither as a conscious spirit or as a beautiful titanic body endowed\nwith free and immortal life; their relevant virtue was tutelary,\nand lay in their patronage of particular crafts or passions in man.\nFor this reason it was not absurd that they should be rivals in\nbeauty. Of course in itself every nature, celestial or even earthly,\nis incomparable and perfect in its own way. But goddesses may well\ncompete for the prize of beauty in the eyes of a mortal; it is not\ntheir persons that he sees or can see, but their herds, born and bred\non the mountain-side, Arcadia is full of dirt, hardship, and poverty;\nsunrise and sunset are heavy to them; they fatten their sheep in order\nto shear and to slaughter them, and they love a green pasture because\nit fattens the sheep. So too the eclogues of town poets, and the toy\nArcadias of Versailles or of the carnival, in their satin slippers\nand gilded crooks, are a forced labour, and tedious; at best a new\nmasquerade in which the jaded may continue to make love. But there\nis a poetic Arcadia none the less, the real Arcadia mirrored in a\ncontemplative mind. Idle vision neither is what it looks at, nor apes\nit: it is infinitely other, yet in looking forgets itself, and lends\nits heart gladly to the spectacle. Paris shirked none of the labours\nor bestialities of the country swain; with a semi-divine tolerance he\nrelished those rough sports and those monotonous pipings: anything\na creature can love, some god finds lovable. He tussled with those\nwenches, and the crude scent of those smoking kettles did not turn\nhis stomach. Had it been less malodorous at court? Was there not more\nfreedom, more laughter, and greater plenty here? If Paris was not a\nhero, at least he was not a snob. He was a truant prince, a fop become\na shepherd, with a body and a mind capable of great things, but doing\neasy things from choice. In his very softness, since it was voluntary,\nthere was a kind of strength, the strength of indifference, and\nfreedom, and universal derision. And his cynicism was voluptuous. Idle\nvision in him gilded alike everything it saw. He had chosen, and would\nnever lose, possession of the Immediate.\n\nAs to Helen, I have not ignored her. The gods called Paris Alexander,\nand a private oracle has revealed to me that they also had another\nname for Helen, which was Doxa or Epiphaneia, that is to say, Glory\nor Evidence or (being otherwise interpreted) Seeming or Phantom. She\nwas not substantial, but a manifestation of something else. Her beauty\nwas her all, and what was her beauty to herself A myriad potential\nappearances wait in the intricate recesses of substance, or in the\nethereal web of lights and motions that vibrates through the infinite,\nready for the quick eye that can discern them. This discernment is at\nonce a birth and a marriage. No sooner is the fair phantom called\ninto existence than she has already leapt, as if carried by destiny,\ninto her lover's arms; for nothing can be more longed for, or more\nrapturously beautiful when it appears, than perfect evidence is to\nthe mind. And the womb of nature, too, in its dark fertility, must be\nrelieved to bring something to light at last. Yet this rare concourse\nof desires, and this blissful marriage, proves in the end most unhappy,\nfor there is sin in it.\n\nAs all desperate lovers, in the absence of their true love, embrace\nwhat best they can find, though a false object, so spirit which, if\nnot entangled in circumstance and heavy with dreams, would embrace the\ntruth, must embrace appearance instead. There is a momentary lyrical\njoy even in that, because appearance has a being of its own; it has\nform, like Helen, and magic comings and goings, like visions of the\ngods: and if spirit were not incarnate and had nothing to fear or\npursue, appearance would be the only reality it would care to dwell on.\nIt was princely of Paris to love only the Immediate, but it was inhuman\nand unwise; and Venus had seduced him not only to his ruin (we must\nall die sooner or later) but to his disgrace and perpetual misery. A\nspirit lodged in time, place, and an animal body needs to be mindful of\nexistence; it needs to respect the past, the hidden, the ulterior. It\nshould be satisfied with what beauties are visible from its station,\nand with such truths as are pertinent to its fate. It should study\nappearance for the sake of substance. But as the joy of a free spirit\nis in perfect evidence, in Doxa or Epiphaneia, it inevitably flouts\nsubstance and embraces appearance instead. The Rape of Helen is this\nadulterous substitution, dazzling but criminal.\n\n\n\n\n54\n\nON MY FRIENDLY CRITICS\n\n\nNow that for some years my body has not been visible in the places it\nused to haunt (my mind, even then, being often elsewhere), my friends\nin America have fallen into the habit of thinking me dead, and with\ncharacteristic haste and kindness, they are writing obituary notices,\nas it were, on my life and works. Some of these reach me in this other\nworld--the friendly ones, which their authors send me--and without\nthe aid of any such stratagem as Swift's, I have the strange pleasure\nof laughing at my own epitaphs. It is not merely the play of vanity\nthat enters into this experience, nor the occasional excuse for being\nunfair in return; there comes with it a genuine discovery of the\ngeneral balance of one's character. A man has unrivalled knowledge\nof the details of his life and feelings, but it is hard for him to\ncompose his personage as it appears in the comedy of the world, or in\nthe eyes of other people. It is not true that contemporaries misjudge\na man. Competent contemporaries judge him perfectly, much better\nthan posterity, which is composed of critics no less egotistical\nand obliged to rely exclusively on documents easily misinterpreted.\nThe contemporary can read more safely between the lines; and if the\ngeneral public often misjudges the men of its own time, the general\npublic hears little of them. It is guided by some party tag or casual\nassociation, by the malignity or delusion of some small coterie that\nhas caught its ear: how otherwise should it judge ideas it has not\ngrasped and people it has not seen? But public opinion is hardly better\ninformed about the past than about the present, and histories are only\nnewspapers published long after the fact.\n\nAs to my person, my critics are very gentle, and I am sensible of the\nkindness, or the diffidence, with which they treat me. I do not mind\nbeing occasionally denounced for atheism, conceit, or detachment. One\nhas to be oneself; and so long as the facts are not misrepresented--and\nI have little to complain of on that score--any judgement based upon\nthem is a two-edged sword: people simply condemn what condemns them. I\ncan always say to myself that my atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true\npiety towards the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in\ntheir own image, to be servants of their human interests; and that even\nin this denial I am no rude iconoclast, but full of secret sympathy\nwith the impulses of idolaters. My detachment from things and persons\nis also affectionate, and simply what the ancients called philosophy:\nI consent that a flowing river should flow; I renounce that which\nbetrays, and cling to that which satisfies, and I relish the irony of\ntruth; but my security in my own happiness is not indifference to that\nof others: I rejoice that every one should have his tastes and his\npleasures. That I am conceited, it would be folly to deny: what artist,\nwhat thinker, what parent does not overestimate his own offspring? Can\nI suppress an irresistible sense of seeing things clearly, and a keen\ndelight in so seeing them? Frankly, I think these attitudes of mine\nare justified by the facts; but I entirely understand how offensive\nthey must be to any one who thinks they are not justified, or who fears\nthat they may be. Let the irritant work. The arrows of anger miss their\nmark. Aimed at some imaginary evil bird in the heavens, they scarcely\nstartle the poet wandering in his dell. He hears them pass over his\nhead and bury their venom far away in the young grass. Far away too his\nfriends are designing his vain cenotaph, and inscribing it with seemly\nwords in large capitals.\n\nOn the other hand, in respect to my impersonal opinions, I notice a\nlittle bewilderment, and some obtuseness. Of course, if people are\nrepelled by the subject or by the manner (which is an integral part\nof the thought) and find it all unintelligible, that is no fault of\ntheirs, nor of mine; but I speak of the initiated and of such as are\nwilling to lend their minds to my sort of lucubration. For instance,\nwhen more than twenty years ago, I wrote some _Interpretations of\nPoetry and Religion_, this is what William James said of them: \"What\na perfection of rottenness ... how fantastic a philosophy!--as if\nthe 'world of values' _were_ independent of existence. It is only as\n_being_ that one thing is better than another. The idea of darkness\nis as good as that of light, as ideas. There is more value in light's\n_being_.\" William James was a \"radical empiricist,\" so that for him\nthe being of light could not have meant anything except its being in\nidea, in experience. The fantastic view must therefore be some other;\napparently that in the realm of unrealized essences, apart from any\nobserver, one essence can be better than another. But how could any one\nattribute such a view to me? The whole contention of my book was that\nthe glow of human emotion lent a value to good poetry which it denied\nto bad, and to one idea of God which it denied to another. My position\nin this matter was that of empirical philosophy, and of William James\nhimself. In his book on Pragmatism he says that the being of atoms is\njust as good as the being of God, if both produce the same effects in\nhuman experience; and I remember once mildly protesting to him on that\npoint, and asking him if, apart from these effects on us, the existence\nof God, assuming God to be conscious, would not have a considerable\nvalue in itself; and he replied, \"Of course; but I was thinking of our\n_idea_.\" This was exactly the attitude of my book; I was thinking of\nour religious and poetic ideas, and reducing their value to what they\nstood for in the elements of our experience, or in our destiny.\n\nI think I see, however, where the trouble lies. The practical intellect\nconceives everything as a source of influence. Whether it be matter or\nother people, or tutelary spirits, that which we envisage in action\nand passion is not our idea of these objects, but their operation\non us, or our operation on them. Now a source of influence cannot\nbe non-existent. Accordingly, what concerns earnest people in their\nreligion is something, they know not what, which is real. They are\nnot interested in forming poetic or dramatic pictures of the gods, as\nthe Greeks did in their mythology, but rather in finding a living God\nto help them, as even the Greeks did in their home cultus and their\noracles. This living God, since he is to operate and to be worked upon,\nmust exist; otherwise the whole practice of religion becomes a farce.\nSo also in love or in science, it would be egotistical and affected to\ngloat on our own ideal, turning our backs on the adorable person or the\nnatural process before us. It is the danger of empirical and critical\nphilosophy, that it turns our attention stubbornly to the subjective:\nlegitimately, I think, if the purpose is merely to study the growth and\nlogic of our beliefs, but illegitimately, if the purpose is malicious,\nand if it is assumed that once we have understood how our beliefs\nare formed we shall abandon them and believe nothing. Empiricism and\nidealism are, as Kant called them, excellent cathartics, but they\nare nasty food; and if we try to build them up into a system of the\nuniverse the effort is not only self-contradictory (because we ought\nthen to possess only ideas without beliefs) but the result is, in the\nwords of William James, fantastic and rotten.\n\nNow, however much I may have studied the human imagination, I have\nnever doubted that even highly imaginative things, like poetry and\nreligion, express real events, if not in the outer world, at least in\nthe inner growth or discipline of life. Like the daily experience of\nthe senses and like the ideas of science, they form _a human language_,\nall the terms of which are poetical and its images dream-images, but\nwhich symbolizes things and events beyond it and is controlled from\noutside. This would be perfectly evident to any other animal who should\ndiscover how men see the world or what they think of it: why should we\nbe less intelligent than any other animal would be about ourselves?\nEnlightenment consists in coming nearer and nearer to the natural\nobjects that lend a practical meaning to our mental discourse; and when\nthe material significance of our dreams is thus discovered, we are lost\nin admiration at the originality, humour, and pictorial grandeur of\nthe imagery in which our experience comes to us, as we might be at the\ndecorative marvels of tapestry or of stained glass: but now without\nillusion. For we can now discriminate the rhythms and colour proper to\nour mental atmosphere from the extrinsic value of discourse as a sign\nfor things and events beyond it. These external things and events make\nup what we call nature. It is nature, or some part of nature, or some\nmovement of nature occurring within us or affecting us, that is the\ntrue existent object of religion, of science, and of love. The rest is\na mere image.\n\nMy naturalism is sometimes taxed with being dogmatic, and if I were\nanxious to avoid that reproach, I might easily reduce my naturalism\nto a definition and say that if experience has any sources whatever,\nthe sum and system of these sources shall be called nature. I know\nwhat speculative difficulties cluster about the notion of cause, which\nin one sense is quite unnecessary to science; but so long as time,\nprocess, and derivation are admitted at all, events may be traced\nback to earlier events which were their sources; and this universal\nflax of events will be called nature. Any existing persons, and any\ngods exercising power, will evidently be parts of nature. But I am not\nconcerned to avoid dogmatism on such a point. Every assertion about\nexistence is hazarded, it rests on animal faith, not on logical proof;\nand every argument to support naturalism, or to rebut it, implies\nnaturalism. To deny that there are any facts (if scepticism can be\ncarried so far) is still to dogmatize, no less than it would be to\npoint to some fact in particular; in either case we descend into the\narena of existence, which may betray our confidence. Any fact is an\nexistence which discourse plays about and regards, but does not create.\nIt is the essence of the practical intellect to prophesy about nature,\nand we must all do it As to the truth of our prophecy, that is always\nproblematical, because nature is whatever nature happens to be; and\nas to our knowledge, starting as it does from a single point, the\npresent position of the thinker, and falling away rapidly in dearness\nand certainty as the perspective recedes, it cannot pretend to draw\nthe outlines of nature _a priori_: yet our knowledge of nature, in our\nneighbourhood and moral climate, is very considerable, since every\nknown fact is a part of nature. It is quite idle to deny, for instance,\nthat human life depends on cosmic and hygienic influences; or that in\nthe end all human operations must run back somehow to the rotation of\nthe earth, to the rays of the sun, to the moisture and fructification\nof the soil, to the ferment there of vegetative and dreaming spirits,\nquickened in animals endowed with locomotion into knowledge of\nsurrounding things: whence the passionate imaginations which we find in\nourselves. I know that things might have been arranged otherwise; and\nsome of those alternative worlds may be minutely thought out in myth\nor in philosophy, in obedience to some dialectical or moral impulse of\nthe human mind; but that all those other worlds are figments of fancy,\ninteresting as poetry is interesting, and that only the natural world,\nthe world of medicine and commerce, is actual, is obvious; so obvious\nto every man in his sane moments, that I have always thought it idle to\nargue the point. Argument is not persuasive to madmen; but they can\nbe won over by gentler courses to a gradual docility to the truth. One\nof these gentler courses is this: to remember that madness is human,\nthat dreams have their springs in the depths of human nature and of\nhuman experience; and that the illusion they cause may be kindly and\neven gloriously dispelled by showing what the solid truth was which\nthey expressed allegorically. Why should one be angry with dreams,\nwith myth, with allegory, with madness? We must not kill the mind, as\nsome rationalists do, in trying to cure it. The life of reason, as I\nconceive it, is simply the dreaming mind becoming coherent, devising\nsymbols and methods, such as languages, by which it may fitly survey\nits own career, and the forces of nature on which that career depends.\nReason thereby raises our vegetative dream into a poetic revelation\nand transcript of the truth. That all this life of expression grows up\nin animals living in the material world is the deliverance of reason\nitself, in our lucid moments; but my books, being descriptive of the\nimagination and having perhaps some touches of imagination in them, may\nnot seem to have expressed my lucid moments alone. They were, however,\nintended to do so; and I ought to have warned my readers more often\nthat such was the case.\n\nI have no metaphysics, and in that sense I am no philosopher, but\na poor ignoramus trusting what he hears from the men of science.\nI rely on them to discover gradually exactly which elements in\ntheir description of nature may be literally true, and which merely\nsymbolical: even if they were all symbolical, they would be true enough\nfor me. My naturalism is not at all afraid of the latest theories of\nspace, time, or matter: what I understand of them, I like, and am ready\nto believe, for I am a follower of Plato in his doctrine that only\nknowledge of ideas (if we call it knowledge) can be literal and exact,\nwhilst practical knowledge is necessarily mythical in form, precisely\nbecause its object exists and is external to us. An arbitrary sign,\nindication, or name can point to something unambiguously, without at\nall fathoming its nature, and _therefore_ can be knowledge of fact:\nwhich an aesthetic or logical elucidation of ideas can never be.\nEvery idea of sense or science is a summary sign, on a different plane\nand scale altogether from the diffuse material facts which it covers:\none unexampled colour for many rays, one indescribable note for many\nvibrations, one picture for many particles of paint, one word for a\nseries of noises or letters. A word is a very Platonic thing: you\ncannot say when it begins, when it ends, how long it lasts, nor where\nit ever is; and yet it is the only unit you mean to utter, or normally\nhear. Platonism is the intuition of essences in the presence of things,\nin order to describe them: it is mind itself.\n\nI am quite happy in this human ignorance mitigated by pictures, for\nit yields practical security and poetic beauty: what more can a sane\nman want? In this respect I think sometimes I am the only philosopher\nliving: I am resigned to being a mind. I have put my hand into the hand\nof nature, and a thrill of sympathy has passed from her into my very\nheart, so that I can instinctively see all things, and see myself, from\nher point of view: a sympathy which emboldens me often to say to her,\n\"Mother, tell me a story.\" Not the fair Sheherazad herself knew half\nthe marvellous tales that nature spins in the brains of her children.\nBut I must not let go her hand in my wonder, or I might be bewitched\nand lost in the maze of her inventions.\n\nA workman must not quarrel with his tools, nor the mind with ideas; and\nI have little patience with those philanthropists who hate everything\nhuman, and would reform away everything that men love or can love.\nYet if we dwell too lovingly on the human quality and poetic play of\nideas, we may forget that they are primarily signs. The practical\nintellect is always on the watch for ambient existences, in order to\nfight or to swallow them: and if by chance its attention is arrested\nat an idea, it will instinctively raise that idea to the throne of\npower which should be occupied only by the thing which it stands for\nand poetically describes. Ideas lend themselves to idolatry. There is\na continual incidental deception into which we are betrayed by the\nfictitious and symbolical terms of our knowledge, in that we suppose\nthese terms to form the whole essence of their objects. I think I have\nnever failed to point out this danger of illusion, and to protest\nagainst idolatry in thought, so much more frequent and dangerous\nthan the worship of stocks and stones; but at the same time, as such\nidolatry is almost inevitable, and as the fictions so deified often\ncover some true force or harmony in nature, I have sometimes been\ntempted in my heart to condone this illusion. In my youth it seemed as\nif a scientific philosophy was unattainable; human life, I thought, was\nat best a dream, and if we were not the dupes of one error, we should\nbe the dupes of another; and whilst of course the critic must make this\nmental reservation in all his assents, it was perhaps too much to ask\nmankind to do so; so that in practice we were condemned to overlook the\ndeceptiveness of fable, because there would be less beauty and no more\ntruth in whatever theory might take its place. I think now that this\ndespair of finding a scientific philosophy was premature, and that the\nnear future may actually produce one: not that its terms will be less\nhuman and symbolical than those to which we are accustomed, but that\nthey may hug more closely the true movement and the calculable order\nof nature. The truth, though it must be expressed in language, is not\nfor that reason a form of error. No doubt the popularizers of science\nwill turn its language into a revelation, and its images into idols;\nbut the abstract character of these symbols will render it easier for\nthe judicious to preserve the distinction between the things to be\ndescribed and the science which describes them.\n\nWas it, I wonder, this touch of sympathy with splendid error, bred in\nme by long familiarity with religion and philosophy, that offended my\nhonest critics? Now that I show less sympathy with it, will they be\nbetter satisfied? I fear the opposite is the case. What they resented\nwas rather that in spite of all my sympathy, and of all my despair\nabout science, it never occurred to me to think those errors true,\nbecause they were splendid, except true to the soul. Did they expect\nthat I should seriously debate whether the Ghost in _Hamlet_ really\ncame out of Purgatorial fires, and whether Athena really descended\nin her chariot from Olympus and pulled Achilles by his yellow hair\nwhen he was in danger of doing something rash? Frankly, I have\nassumed--perhaps prematurely--that such questions are settled. I am not\nable nor willing to write a system of magic cosmology, nor to propose a\nnew religion. I merely endeavour to interpret, as sympathetically and\nimaginatively as I can, the religion and poetry already familiar to us;\nand I interpret them, of course, on their better side, not as childish\nscience, but as subtle creations of hope, tenderness, and ignorance.\n\nSo anxious was I, when younger, to find some rational justification\nfor poetry and religion, and to show that their magic was significant\nof true facts, that I insisted too much, as I now think, on the need\nof relevance to fact even in poetry. Not only did I distinguish good\nreligion from bad by its expression of practical wisdom, and of\nthe moral discipline that makes for happiness in this world, but I\nmaintained that the noblest poetry also must express the moral burden\nof life and must be rich in wisdom. Age has made me less exacting, and\nI can now find quite sufficient perfection in poetry, like that of the\nChinese and Arabians, without much philosophic scope, in mere grace\nand feeling and music and cloud-castles and frolic. I assumed formerly\nthat an idea could have depth and richness only if somehow redolent of\nformer experiences of an overt kind. I had been taught to assign no\nsubstance to the mind, but to conceive it as a system of successive\nideas, the later ones mingling with a survival of the earlier, and\nforming a cumulative experience, like a swelling musical movement.\nNow, without ceasing to conceive mental discourse in that way, I have\nlearned, with the younger generation, to rely more on the substructure,\non the material and psychical machinery that puts this conscious\nshow on the stage, and pulls the wires. Not that I ever denied or\nreally doubted that this substructure existed, but that I thought it\na more prudent and critical method in philosophy not to assume it.\nCertainly it is a vast assumption; but I see now an irony in scepticism\nwhich I did not see when I was more fervid a sceptic; namely, that\nin addressing anybody, or even myself, I have already made that\nassumption; and that if I tried to rescind it, I should only be making\nanother, no less gratuitous, and far more extravagant; I should be\nassuming that the need of making this assumption was a fatal illusion,\nrather than a natural revelation of the existence of an environment\nto a living animal. This environment has been called the unknowable,\nthe unconscious and the subconscious--egotistical and absurd names for\nit, as if its essence was the difficulty we have in approaching it.\nIts proper names are matter, substance, nature, or soul; and I hope\npeople will learn again to call it by those old names. When living\nsubstance is thus restored beneath the surface of experience, there is\nno longer any reason for assuming that the first song of a bird may\nnot be infinitely rich and as deep as heaven, if it utters the vital\nimpulses of that moment with enough completeness. The analogies of this\nutterance with other events, or its outlying suggestions, whilst they\nmay render it more intelligible to a third person, would not add much\nto its inward force and intrinsic beauty. Its lyric adequacy, though of\ncourse not independent of nature, would be independent of wisdom. If\nbesides being an adequate expression of the soul, the song expressed\nthe lessons of a broad experience, which that soul had gathered and\ndigested, this fact certainly would lend a great tragic sublimity to\nthat song; but to be poetical or religious intrinsically, the mystic\ncry is enough.\n\nI notice that men of the world, when they dip into my books, find\nthem consistent, almost oppressively consistent, and to the ladies\neverything is crystal--clear; yet the philosophers say that it is lazy\nand self-indulgent of me not to tell them plainly what I think, if I\nknow myself what it is. Because I describe madness sympathetically,\nbecause I lose myself in the dreaming mind, and see the world from that\ntranscendental point of vantage, while at the same time interpreting\nthat dream by its presumable motives and by its moral tendencies,\nthese quick and intense reasoners suppose that I am vacillating in\nmy own opinions. My own opinions are a minor matter, and there was\nusually no need, for the task in hand, that I should put them forward;\nyet as a matter of fact, since I reached the age of manhood, they\nhave not changed. In my adolescence I thought this earthly life (not\nunintelligibly, considering what I had then seen and heard of it) a\nmost hideous thing, and I was not disinclined to dismiss it as an\nillusion, for which perhaps the Catholic epic might be substituted\nto advantage, as conforming better to the impulses of the soul; and\nlater I liked to regard all systems as alternative illusions for the\nsolipsist; but neither solipsism nor Catholicism were ever anything to\nme but theoretic poses or possibilities; vistas for the imagination,\nnever convictions. I was well aware, as I am still, that any such vista\n_may_ be taken for true, because all dreams are persuasive while they\nlast; and I have not lost, nor do I wish to lose, a certain facility\nand pleasure in taking those points of view at will, and speaking those\nphilosophical languages. But though as a child I regretted the fact and\nnow I hugely enjoy it, I have never been able to elude the recurring,\ninvincible, and ironic conviction that whenever I or any other person\nfeign to be living in any of those non-natural worlds, we are simply\ndreaming awake.\n\nIn general, I think my critics attribute to me more illusions than\nI have. My dogmatism may be a fault of temper or manner, because I\ndislike to stop to qualify or to explain everything; but in principle\nit is raised more diffidently and on a deeper scepticism than most of\nthe systems which are called critical. My \"essences,\" for instance,\nare blamed for being gratuitous inventions or needless abstractions.\nBut essences appear precisely when all inventions are rescinded and\nthe irreducible manifest datum is disclosed. I do not ask any one to\n_believe_ in essences. I ask them to reject every belief, and what they\nwill have on their hands, if they do so, will be some essence. And if,\nbelieving nothing, they could infinitely enlarge their imagination,\nthe whole realm of essence would loom before them. This realm is no\ndiscovery of mine; it has been described, for instance, by Leibniz in\ntwo different ways; once as the collection of all possible worlds, and\nagain as the abyss of non-existence, _le n\u00e9ant_, of which he says: \"The\nnon-existent ... is infinite, it is eternal, it has a great many of the\nattributes of God; it contains an infinity of things, since all those\nthings which do not exist at all are included in the non-existent,\nand those which no longer exist have returned to the non-existent.\"\nIt suffices, therefore, that we deny a thing for us to recognize\nan essence, if we know at all what we are denying. And the essence\nbefore us, whether we assert or deny its existence, is certainly no\nabstraction; for there is no other datum, more individual or more\nobvious, from which the abstraction could be drawn. The difficulty\nin discerning essences is simply the very real difficulty which the\npractical intellect has in abstaining from belief, and from everywhere\nthinking it finds much more than is actually given.\n\nProfound scepticism is favourable to conventions, because it doubts\nthat the criticism of conventions is any truer than they are. Fervent\nbelievers look for some system of philosophy or religion that shall be\n_literally_ true and worthy of superseding the current assumptions of\ndaily life. I look for no such thing. Never for a moment can I bring\nmyself to regard a human system--a piece of mental discourse--as more\nthan a system of notation, sometimes picturesque, sometimes abstract\nand mathematical. Scientific symbols, terms in which calculation is\npossible, may replace poetic symbols, which merely catch echoes of\nthe senses or make up dramatic units out of appearances in the gross.\nBut the most accurate scientific system would still be only a method\nof description, and the actual facts would continue to rejoice in\ntheir own ways of being. The relevance and truth of science, like the\nrelevance and truth of sense, are pragmatic, in that they mark the\nactual relations, march, and distribution of events, in the terms in\nwhich they enter our experience.\n\nIn moral philosophy (which is my chosen subject) I find my\nunsophisticated readers, as I found my pupils formerly, delightfully\nappreciative, warmly sympathetic, and altogether friends of mine in\nthe spirit. It is a joy, like that of true conversation, to look\nand laugh and cry at the world so unfeignedly together. But the\nother philosophers, and those whose religion is of the anxious and\nintolerant sort, are not at all pleased. They think my morality very\nloose: I am a friend of publicans and sinners, not (as they are) in\nzeal to reform them, but because I like them as they are; and indeed\nI am a pagan and a moral sceptic in my naturalism. On the other hand\n(and this seems a contradiction to them), my moral philosophy looks\nstrangely negative and narrow; a philosophy of abstention and distaste\nfor life. What a horrible combination, they say to themselves, of\nmoral licence with moral poverty! They do not see that it is because\nI love life that I wish to keep it sweet, so as to be able to love it\naltogether: and that all I wish for others, or dare to recommend to\nthem, is that they should keep their lives sweet also, not after my\nfashion, but each man in his own way. I talk a great deal about the\ngood and the ideal, having learned from Plato and Aristotle (since the\nliving have never shown me how to live) that, granting a human nature\nto which to appeal, the good and the ideal may be defined with some\naccuracy. Of course, they cannot be defined immutably, because human\nnature is not immutable; and they cannot be defined in such a way as\nto be transferred without change from one race or person to another,\nbecause human nature is various. Yet any reflective and honest man,\nin expressing his hopes and preferences, may expect to find many of\nhis neighbours agreeing with him, and when they agree, they may work\npolitically together. Now I am sometimes blamed for not labouring more\nearnestly to bring down the good of which I prate into the lives of\nother men. My critics suppose, apparently, that I mean by the good\nsome particular way of life or some type of character which is alone\nvirtuous, and which ought to be propagated. Alas, their propagandas!\nHow they have fined this world with hatred, darkness, and blood! How\nthey are still the eternal obstacle, in every home and in every heart,\nto a simple happiness! I have no wish to propagate any particular\ncharacter, least of all my own; my conceit does not take that form.\nI wish individuals, and races, and nations to be themselves, and to\nmultiply the forms of perfection and happiness, as nature prompts them.\nThe only thing which I think might be propagated without injustice to\nthe types thereby suppressed is harmony; enough harmony to prevent\nthe interference of one type with another, and to allow the perfect\ndevelopment of each type. The good, as I conceive it, is happiness,\nhappiness for each man after his own heart, and for each hour according\nto its inspiration. I should dread to transplant my happiness into\nother people; it might die in that soil; and my critics are the\nfirst to tell me that my sort of happiness is a poor thing in their\nestimation. Well and good. I congratulate them on their true loves: but\nhow should I be able to speed them on their course? They do not place\ntheir happiness in the things I have, or can give. No man can set up\nan ideal for another, nor labour to realise it for him, save by his\nleave or as his spokesman, perhaps more ready with the right word. To\nfind the comparatively right word, my critics seem to agree, is my art.\nDo I not practise it for their benefit as best I can? Is it I who am\nindifferent to the being of light? Who loves it more, or basks in it\nmore joyfully? And do I do nothing that the light may come? Is it I who\ntremble lest at its coming it should dissolve the creatures begotten in\ndarkness? Ah, I know why my critics murmur and are dissatisfied. I do\nnot endeavour to deceive myself, nor to deceive them, nor to aid them\nin deceiving themselves. They will never prevail on me to do that. I am\na disciple of Socrates.\n\n\n\n\n55\n\nHERMES THE INTERPRETER\n\n\nA traveller should be devout to Hermes, and I have always loved him\nabove the other gods for that charming union which is found in him of\nyouth with experience, alacrity with prudence, modesty with laughter,\nand a ready tongue with a sound heart. In him the first bubblings of\nmockery subside at once into courtesy and helpfulness. He is the winged\nFigaro of Olympus, willing to yield to others in station and to pretend\nto serve them, but really wiser and happier than any of them. There\nis a certain roguery in him, and the habit of winking at mischief. He\nhas a great gift for dissertation, and his abundant eloquence, always\nunimpeachable in form and in point, does not hug the truth so closely\nas pious people might expect in a god who, as they say sagaciously, can\nhave no motive for lying. But gods do not need motives. The lies of\nHermes are jests; they represent things as they might have been, and\nserve to show what a strange accident the truth is. The reproach which\nVirgil addresses to his Juno, \"Such malignity in minds celestial?\"\ncould never apply to this amiable divinity, who, if he is a rascal at\nall (which I do not admit), is a disinterested rascal. He has given no\npawns to fortune, he is not a householder, he is not pledged against\nhis will to any cause. Homer tells us that Hermes was a thief; but the\nbeauty of mythology is that every poet can recast it according to his\nown insight and sense of propriety; as, in fact, our solemn theologians\ndo also, although they pretend that their theology is a science, and\nare not wide awake enough to notice the dreamful, dramatic impulse\nwhich leads them to construct it. Now, in my vision, the thievery of\nHermes, and the fact that he was the patron of robbers, merchants,\nrhetoricians, and liars, far from being unworthy of his divine nature,\nare a superb and humorous expression of it. He did not steal the\ncattle of Apollo for profit. Apollo himself--a most exquisite young\ngod--did not give a fig for his cattle nor for his rustic employment;\nin adopting it he was doing a kind turn to a friend, or had a love-lorn\nscheme or a wager afoot, or merely wished for the moment to be idyllic.\nIt was a pleasant _scherzo_ (after the _andante_ which he played in the\nheavens, in his capacity of sun-god and inspirer of all prophets) to\nlean gracefully here on his herdsman's staff, or to lie under a tuft of\ntrees on some mossy hillock, in the midst of his pasturing kine, and to\nhold the poor peeping dryads spellbound by the operatic marvels of his\nsinging. In purloining those oxen, Hermes, who was a very little boy at\nthe time, simply wanted to mock these affectations of his long-haired\nelder brother; and Apollo, truly an enraptured artist and not a prig,\nand invulnerable like Hermes in his godlike freedom, did not in the\nleast mind the practical joke, nor the ridicule, but was the first to\njoin in the laugh.\n\nWhen Hermes consents to be the patron of thieves and money-lenders it\nis in the same spirit. Standing, purse in hand, in his little shrine\nabove their dens, he smiles as if to remind them that everything\nis trash which mortals can snatch from one another by thieving or\nbargaining, and that the purpose of all their voyages, and fairs, and\nhigh-way robberies is a bauble, such as the dirty children playing\nin the street set up as a counter in their game. But Hermes is not\nimpatient even of the gutter-snipes, with their cries and their\nshrill quarrels. He laughs at their grimaces; their jests do not seem\nemptier to him than those of their elders; he is not offended at\ntheir rags, but sends sleep to them as they lie huddled under some\narchway or stretched in the sun upon the temple steps. He presides\nno less benignly over thieves' kitchens and over the shipyards and\ncounting-houses of traders; not that he cares at all who makes the\nprofit or who hoards the treasure, but that sagacity and the hum of\nbusiness are delightful to him in themselves. He likes to cull the\npassion and sparkle out of the most sordid life, and the confused\nrumble of civilization is pleasant to his senses, like a sweet vapour\nrising from the evening sacrifice.\n\nHis admirable temper and mastery of soul appear in nothing more clearly\nthan in his love-affair with the beautiful Maia. She is ill-spoken of,\nbut he is very, very fond of her, and deeply happy in her love. It is\na secret relation, although everybody has heard of it; but the nymph\nis a mystery; in fact, although everybody has seen her at one time\nor another, no one has ever known then that it was she. Hermes alone\nrecognizes and loves her in her own person, and calls her by her name;\nbut privately. Sometimes, with that indiscretion and over-familiarity\nwhich the young allow themselves in their cups, his brothers ask him\nwhere he meets her; and he only smiles a little and is silent. She is\nsaid to be a wild unmanageable being, half maenad and half shrew; a\nwaif always appearing and disappearing without any reason, and in her\nfitful temper at once exacting and tedious. Her eyes are sometimes\nblue and sometimes black, like heaven. Empty-headed and too gay, some\npeople think her; but others understand that she is constitutionally\nmelancholy and quite mad. They say she often sits alone, hardly\ndistinguishable in the speckled sunshine of the forest, or else by\nthe sea, spreading her hair to the wind and moaning: and then Hermes\nflies to her and comforts her, for she is an exile everywhere and he\nis everywhere at home. It is rumoured that in the East she has had a\ngreat position, and has been Queen of the Universe; but in Europe she\nhas no settled metaphysical status, and it is not known whether she is\nreally a goddess, mistress over herself, or only a fay or a phantom\nat other people's beck and call; and she has nowhere any temple or\nrustic sanctuary or respectable oracle. Moreover, she has inexpressibly\nshocked the virtuous, who think so much of genealogy, by saying, as\nis reported, that she has no idea who is the father of her children.\nHermes laughs merrily at this, calling it one of her harmless sallies,\nwhich she indulges in simply because they occur to her, and because\nshe likes to show her independence and to flout the sober censors of\nthis world. He is perfectly confident she has never had any wooer but\nhimself, nor would dream of accepting any other. Even with him she\nis always reverting to stubborn refusals and denials and calling him\nnames; but when the spitfire is raging most angrily, he has only to\ngaze at her steadily and throw his arm gaily about her, as much as to\nsay, \"Don't be a fool,\" for her to be instantly mollified and confess\nthat it was all make-believe, but that she couldn't help it. Then it\nis wonderful how reasonable she becomes, how perfectly trustful and\nfrank, so that no companion could be more deeply delightful. She is as\nlight as a feather, then, in his arms. The truth is, she lives only for\nhim; she really has no children, only young sisters who are also more\nor less in love with him and he with them; and she sleeps her whole\nlife long in his absence. In all those strange doings and wanderings\nreported of her she is only walking in her sleep. The approach of\nHermes awakes her and lends her life--the only life she has. Her\ntrue name is Illusion; and it is very characteristic of him, so rich\nin pity, merriment, and shrewdness, to have chosen this poor child,\nIllusion, for his love.\n\nHermes is the great interpreter, the master of riddles. I should not\nhonour him for his skill in riddles if I thought he invented them\nwantonly, because he liked to puzzle himself with them, or to reduce\nother people to a foolish perplexity without cause. I hate enigmas;\nand if I believed that Hermes was the inspirer of those odious persons\nwho are always asking conundrums and making puns I should renounce him\naltogether, break his statue, turn his picture to the wall, and devote\nmyself exclusively to the cult of some sylvan deity, all silence and\nsimple light. But I am sure Hermes loves riddles only because they are\nno riddles to him; he is never caught in the tangle, and he laughs\nto see how unnecessarily poor opinionated mortals befool themselves,\nwilfully following any devious scent once they are on it by chance,\nand missing the obvious for ever. He gives them what sly hints he can\nto break the spell of their blindness; but they are so wedded to their\nfalse preconceptions that they do not understand him, and are only the\nmore perplexed. Sometimes, however, they take the hint, their wit grows\nnimble, their thoughts catch fire, and insight, solving every idle\nriddle, harmonizes the jarring cords of the mind.\n\nThe wand of Hermes has serpents wound about it, but is capped with\nwings, so that at its touch the sting and the coil of care may vanish,\nand that we may be freed from torpor and dull enchantment, and may see,\nas the god does, how foolish we are. All these mysteries that befog\nus are not mysteries really; they are the mother-tongue of nature.\nRustics, and also philosophers, think that any language but theirs\nis gibberish; they are sorry for the stranger who can speak only an\nunintelligible language, and are sure he will be damned unless the\ntruth is preached to him speedily by some impertinent missionary from\ntheir own country. They even argue with nature, trying to convince her\nthat she cannot move, or cannot think, or cannot have more dimensions\nthan those of their understanding. Oh for a touch of the healing wand\nof Hermes the Interpreter, that we might understand the language of the\nbirds and the stars, and, laughing first at what they say of us, might\nthen see our image in the mirror of infinity, and laugh at ourselves!\nHere is a kindly god indeed, humane though superhuman, friendly though\ninviolate, who does not preach, who does not threaten, who does not\nlay new, absurd, or morose commands on our befuddled souls, but who\nunravels, who relieves, who shows us the innocence of the things we\nhated and the clearness of the things we frowned on or denied. He\ninterprets us to the gods, and they accept us; he interprets us to\none another, and we perceive that the foreigner, too, spoke a plain\nlanguage: happy he if he was wise in his own tongue. It is for the\ndivine herald alone to catch the meaning of all, without subduing his\nmerry voice to any dialect of mortals. He mocks our stammerings and\nforgives them; and when we say anything to the purpose, and reach any\ngoal which, however wantonly, we had proposed to ourselves, he applauds\nand immensely enjoys our little achievement; for it is inspired by him\nand like his own. May he be my guide: and not in this world only, in\nwhich the way before me seems to descend gently, quite straight and\nclear, towards an unruffled sea; but at the frontiers of eternity let\nhim receive my spirit, reconciling it, by his gracious greeting, to\nwhat had been its destiny. For he is the friend of the shades also,\nand makes the greatest interpretation of all, that of life into truth,\ntranslating the swift words of time into the painted language of\neternity. That is for the dead; but for living men, whose feet must\nmove forward whilst their eyes see only backward, he interprets the\npast to the future, for its guidance and ornament. Often, too, he bears\nnews to his father and brothers in Olympus, concerning any joyful or\nbeautiful thing that is done on earth, lest they should despise or\nforget it. In that fair inventory and chronicle of happiness let my\nlove of him be remembered.","title":"Soliloquies in England, and Later Soliloquies","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":97880}