{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_6173/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_6173","id":"gutenberg_6173","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6173","summary":null,"tags":["Butler, Samuel, 1835-1902 -- Notebooks, sketchbooks, etc.","Category: Biographies","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics"],"text":"Transcribed from the 1912 A. C. Fifield edition by David Price, email\nccx074@pglaf.org\n\n [Picture: Photograph of Samuel Butler]\n\n\n\n\n\n The Note-Books of\n Samuel Butler\n\n\n Author of \u201cErewhon\u201d\n\n * * * * *\n\n Selections arranged and edited by\n Henry Festing Jones\n\n * * * * *\n\n With photogravure portrait by Emery Walker from a\n photograph taken by Alfred Cathie in 1898\n\n * * * * *\n\n London\n A. C. Fifield, 13 Clifford\u2019s Inn, E.C.\n 1912\n\n * * * * *\n\n WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH\n\n\n\n\n_Preface_\n\n\nEARLY in his life Samuel Butler began to carry a note-book and to write\ndown in it anything he wanted to remember; it might be something he heard\nsome one say, more commonly it was something he said himself. In one of\nthese notes he gives a reason for making them:\n\n\u201cOne\u2019s thoughts fly so fast that one must shoot them; it is no use trying\nto put salt on their tails.\u201d\n\nSo he bagged as many as he could hit and preserved them, re-written on\nloose sheets of paper which constituted a sort of museum stored with the\nwise, beautiful, and strange creatures that were continually winging\ntheir way across the field of his vision. As he became a more expert\nmarksman his collection increased and his museum grew so crowded that he\nwanted a catalogue. In 1874 he started an index, and this led to his\nreconsidering the notes, destroying those that he remembered having used\nin his published books and re-writing the remainder. The re-writing\nshortened some but it lengthened others and suggested so many new ones\nthat the index was soon of little use and there seemed to be no finality\nabout it (\u201cMaking Notes,\u201d pp. 100\u20131 post). In 1891 he attached the\nproblem afresh and made it a rule to spend an hour every morning\nre-editing his notes and keeping his index up to date. At his death, in\n1902, he left five bound volumes, with the contents dated and indexed,\nabout 225 pages of closely written sermon paper to each volume, and more\nthan enough unbound and unindexed sheets to made a sixth volume of equal\nsize.\n\nIn accordance with his own advice to a young writer (p. 363 post), he\nwrote the notes in copying ink and kept a pressed copy with me as a\nprecaution against fire; but during his lifetime, unless he wanted to\nrefer to something while he was in my chambers, I never looked at them.\nAfter his death I took them down and went through them. I knew in a\ngeneral way what I should find, but I was not prepared for such a\nmultitude and variety of thoughts, reflections, conversations, incidents.\nThere are entries about his early life at Langar, Handel, school days at\nShrewsbury, Cambridge, Christianity, literature, New Zealand,\nsheep-farming, philosophy, painting, money, evolution, morality, Italy,\nspeculation, photography, music, natural history, arch\u00e6ology, botany,\nreligion, book-keeping, psychology, metaphysics, the _Iliad_, the\n_Odyssey_, Sicily, architecture, ethics, the _Sonnets_ of Shakespeare. I\nthought of publishing the books just as they stand, but too many of the\nentries are of no general interest and too many are of a kind that must\nwait if they are ever to be published. In addition to these objections\nthe confusion is very great. One would look in the earlier volumes for\nentries about New Zealand and evolution and in the later ones for entries\nabout the _Odyssey_ and the _Sonnets_, but there is no attempt at\narrangement and anywhere one may come upon something about Handel, or a\nphilosophical reflection, between a note giving the name of the best\nhotel in an Italian town and another about Harry Nicholls and Herbert\nCampbell as the Babes in the Wood in the pantomime at the Grecian\nTheatre. This confusion has a charm, but it is a charm that would not, I\nfear, survive in print and, personally, I find that it makes the books\ndistracting for continuous reading. Moreover they were not intended to\nbe published as they stand (\u201cPreface to Vol. II,\u201d p. 215 post), they\nwere intended for his own private use as a quarry from which to take\nmaterial for his writing, and it is remarkable that in practice he\nscarcely ever used them in this way (\u201cThese Notes,\u201d p. 261 post). When\nhe had written and re-written a note and spoken it and repeated it in\nconversation, it became so much a part of him that, if he wanted to\nintroduce it in a book, it was less trouble to re-state it again from\nmemory than to search through his \u201cprecious indexes\u201d for it and copy it\n(\u201cGadshill and Trapani,\u201d p. 194, \u201cAt Piora,\u201d p. 272 post). But he could\nnot have re-stated a note from memory if he had not learnt it by writing\nit, so that it may be said that he did use the notes for his books,\nthough not precisely in the way he originally intended. And the constant\nre-writing and re-considering were useful also by forcing him to settle\nexactly what he thought and to state it as clearly and tersely as\npossible. In this way the making of the notes must have had an influence\non the formation of his style\u2014though here again he had no such idea in\nhis mind when writing them (\u201cStyle,\u201d pp. 186\u20137 post)\n\nIn one of the notes he says:\n\n\u201cA man may make, as it were, cash entries of himself in a day-book, but\nthe entries in the ledger and the balancing of the accounts should be\ndone by others.\u201d\n\nWhen I began to write the Memoir of Butler on which I am still engaged, I\nmarked all the more autobiographical notes and had them copied; again I\nwas struck by the interest, the variety, and the confusion of those I\nleft untouched. It seemed to me that any one who undertook to become\nButler\u2019s accountant and to post his entries upon himself would have to\nsettle first how many and what accounts to open in the ledger, and this\ncould not be done until it had been settled which items were to be\nselected for posting. It was the difficulty of those who dare not go\ninto the water until after they have learnt to swim. I doubt whether I\nshould ever have made the plunge if it had not been for the interest\nwhich Mr. Desmond MacCarthy took in Butler and his writings. He had\noccasionally browsed on my copy of the books, and when he became editor\nof a review, the _New Quarterly_, he asked for some of the notes for\npublication, thus providing a practical and simple way of entering upon\nthe business without any very alarming plunge. I talked his proposal\nover with Mr. R. A. Streatfeild, Butler\u2019s literary executor, and, having\nobtained his approval, set to work. From November 1907 to May 1910,\ninclusive, the _New Quarterly_ published six groups of notes and the long\nnote on \u201cGenius\u201d (pp. 174\u20138 post). The experience gained in selecting,\narranging, and editing these items has been of great use to me and I\nthank the proprietor and editor of the _New Quarterly_ for permission to\nrepublish such of the notes as appeared in their review.\n\nIn preparing this book I began by going through the notes again and\nmarking all that seemed to fall within certain groups roughly indicated\nby the arrangement in the review. I had these selected items copied,\ndistributed them among those which were already in print, shuffled them\nand turned them over, meditating on them, familiarising myself with them\nand tentatively forming new groups. While doing this I was continually\ngleaning from the books more notes which I had overlooked, and making\nsuch verbal alterations as seemed necessary to avoid repetition, to\ncorrect obvious errors and to remove causes of reasonable offence. The\nease with which two or more notes would condense into one was sometimes\nsurprising, but there were cases in which the language had to be varied\nand others in which a few words had to be added to bridge over a gap; as\na rule, however, the necessary words were lying ready in some other note.\nI also reconsidered the titles and provided titles for many notes which\nhad none. In making these verbal alterations I bore in mind Butler\u2019s own\nviews on the subject which I found in a note about editing letters:\n\n\u201cGranted that an editor, like a translator, should keep as religiously\nclose to the original text as he reasonably can, and, in every\nalteration, should consider what the writer would have wished and done if\nhe or she could have been consulted, yet, subject to these limitations,\nhe should be free to alter according to his discretion or indiscretion.\u201d\n\nMy \u201cdiscretion or indiscretion\u201d was less seriously strained in making\ntextual changes than in determining how many, and what, groups to have\nand which notes, in what order, to include in each group. Here is a note\nButler made about classification:\n\n\u201cFighting about words is like fighting about accounts, and all\nclassification is like accounts. Sometimes it is easy to see which way\nthe balance of convenience lies, sometimes it is very hard to know\nwhether an item should be carried to one account or to another.\u201d\n\nExcept in the group headed \u201cHiggledy-Piggledy,\u201d I have endeavoured to\npost each note to a suitable account, but some of Butler\u2019s leading ideas,\nexpressed in different forms, will be found posted to more than one\naccount, and this kind of repetition is in accordance with his habit in\nconversation. It would probably be correct to say that I have heard him\nspeak the substance of every note many times in different contexts. In\nseeking for the most characteristic context, I have shifted and shifted\nthe notes and considered and re-considered them under different aspects,\ntaking hints from the delicate chameleon changes of significance that\ncame over them as they harmonised or discorded with their new\nsurroundings. Presently I caught myself restoring notes to positions\nthey had previously occupied instead of finding new places for them, and\nthe increasing frequency with which difficulties were solved by these\nrestorations at last forced me to the conclusion, which I accepted only\nwith very great regret, that my labours were at an end.\n\nI do not expect every one to approve of the result. If I had been trying\nto please every one, I should have made only a very short and\nunrepresentative selection which Mr. Fifield would have refused to\npublish. I have tried to make suck a book as I believe would have\npleased Butler. That is to say, I have tried to please one who, by\nreason of his intimate knowledge of the subject and of the difficulties,\nwould have looked with indulgence upon the many mistakes which it is now\ntoo late to correct, even if knew how to correct them. Had it been\npossible for him to see what I have done, he would have detected all my\nsins, both of omission and of commission, and I like to imagine that he\nwould have used some such consoling words as these: \u201cWell, never mind;\none cannot have everything; and, after all, \u2018Le mieux est l\u2019ennemi du\nbien.\u2019\u201d\n\nHere will be found much of what he used to say as he talked with one or\ntwo intimate friends in his own chambers or in mine at the close of the\nday, or on a Sunday walk in the country round London, or as we wandered\ntogether through Italy and Sicily; and I would it were possible to charge\nthese pages with some echo of his voice and with some reflection of his\nmanner. But, again; one cannot have everything.\n\n \u201cMen\u2019s work we have,\u201d quoth one, \u201cbut we want them\u2014\n Them palpable to touch and clear to view.\u201d\n Is it so nothing, then, to have the gem\n But we must cry to have the setting too?\n\nIn the _New Quarterly_ each note was headed with a reference to its place\nin the Note-Books. This has not been done here because, on\nconsideration, it seemed useless, and even irritating, to keep on putting\nbefore the reader references which he could not verify. I intend to give\nto the British Museum a copy of this volume wherein each note will show\nwhere the material of which it is composed can be found; thus, if the\noriginal Note-Books are also some day given to the Museum, any one\nsufficiently interested will be able to see exactly what I have done in\nselecting, omitting, editing, condensing and classifying.\n\nSome items are included that are not actually in the Note-Books; the\nlongest of these are the two New Zealand articles \u201cDarwin among the\nMachines\u201d and \u201cLucubratio Ebria\u201d as to which something is said in the\nPrefatory Note to \u201cThe Germs of Erewhon and of _Life and Habit_\u201d (pp.\n39\u201342 post). In that Prefatory Note a Dialogue on Species by Butler and\nan autograph letter from Charles Darwin are mentioned. Since the note\nwas in type I have received from New Zealand a copy of the Weekly Press\nof 19th June, 1912, containing the Dialogue again reprinted and a\nfacsimile reproduction of Darwin\u2019s letter. I thank Mr. W. H. Triggs, the\npresent editor of the Press, Christchurch, New Zealand, also Miss\nColborne-Veel and the members of the staff for their industry and\nperseverance in searching for and identifying Butler\u2019s early\ncontributions to the newspaper.\n\nThe other principal items not actually in the Note-Books, the letter to\nT. W. G. Butler (pp. 53\u20135 post), \u201cA Psalm of Montreal\u201d (pp. 388\u20139 post)\nand \u201cThe Righteous Man\u201d (pp. 390\u20131 post). I suppose Butler kept all\nthese out of his notes because he considered that they had served their\npurpose; but they have not hitherto appeared in a form now accessible to\nthe general reader.\n\nAll the footnotes are mine and so are all those prefatory notes which are\nprinted in italics and the explanatory remarks in square brackets which\noccur occasionally in the text. I have also preserved, in square\nbrackets, the date of a note when anything seemed to turn on it. And I\nhave made the index.\n\nThe Biographical Statement is founded on a skeleton Diary which is in the\nNote-Books. It is intended to show, among other things, how intimately\nthe great variety of subjects touched upon in the notes entered into and\nformed part of Butler\u2019s working life. It does not stop at the 18th of\nJune, 1902, because, as he says (p. 23 post), \u201cDeath is not more the end\nof some than it is the beginning of others\u201d; and, again (p. 13 post), for\nthose who come to the true birth the life we live beyond the grave is our\ntruest life. The Biographical Statement has accordingly been carried on\nto the present time so as to include the principal events that have\noccurred during the opening period of the \u201cgood average three-score years\nand ten of immortality\u201d which he modestly hoped he might inherit in the\nlife of the world to come.\n\n HENRY FESTING JONES.\n\nMount Eryx,\n Trapani, Sicily,\n _August_, 1912.\n\n\n\n\nContents\n\n PAGE\n Biographical Statement 1\n I. Lord, What is Man? 9\n II. Elementary Morality 24\n III. The Germs of Erewhon and of Life and Habit 39\n IV. Memory and Design 56\n V. Vibrations 66\n VI. Mind and Matter 74\n VII. On the Making of Music, Pictures and Books 93\n VIII. Handel and Music 110\n IX. A Painter\u2019s Views on Painting 135\n X. The Position of a Homo Unius Libri 155\n XI. Cash and Credit 168\n XII. The Enfant Terrible of Literature 183\n XIII. Unprofessional Sermons 200\n XIV. Higgledy-Piggledy 215\n XV. Titles and Subjects 229\n XVI. Written Sketches 237\n XVII. Material for a Projected Sequel to Alps and 259\n Sanctuaries\n XVIII. Material for Erewhon Revisited 288\n XIX. Truth and Convenience 297\n XX. First Principles 309\n XXI. Rebelliousness 332\n XXII. Reconciliation 346\n XXIII. Death 353\n XXIV. The Life of the World to Come 360\n XXV. Poems 379\n\n\n\n\nBiographical Statement\n\n1835. Dec. 4. Samuel Butler born at Langar Rectory,\n Nottingham, son of the Rev. Thomas Butler, who was\n the son of Dr. Samuel Butler, Headmaster of\n Shrewsbury School from 1798 to 1836, and\n afterwards Bishop of Lichfield.\n1843\u20134. Spent the winter in Rome and Naples with his\n family.\n1846. Went to school at Allesley, near Coventry.\n1848. Went to school at Shrewsbury under Dr. Kennedy.\n Went to Italy for the second time with his family.\n First heard the music of Handel.\n1854. Entered at St. John\u2019s College, Cambridge.\n1858. Bracketed 12th in the first class of the Classical\n Tripos and took his degree.\n Went to London and began to prepare for\n ordination, living among the poor and doing parish\n work: this led to his doubting the efficacy of\n infant baptism and hence to his declining to take\n orders.\n1859. Sailed for New Zealand and started sheep-farming\n in Canterbury Province: while in the colony he\n wrote much for the _Press_ of Christchurch, N.Z.\n1862. Dec. 20. \u201cDarwin on The Origin of Species. A\n Dialogue,\u201d unsigned but written by Butler,\n appeared in the _Press_ and was followed by\n correspondence to which Butler contributed.\n1863. _A_ _First Year in Canterbury Settlement_: made\n out of his letters home to his family together\n with two articles reprinted from the _Eagle_ (the\n magazine of St. John\u2019s College, Cambridge): MS.\n lost.\n1863. \u201cDarwin among the Machines,\u201d a letter signed\n \u201cCellarius\u201d written by Butler, appeared in the\n _Press_.\n1864. Sold out his sheep run and returned to England in\n company with Charles Paine Pauli, whose\n acquaintance he had made in the colony. He\n brought back enough to enable him to live quietly,\n settled for good at 15 Clifford\u2019s Inn, London, and\n began life as a painter, studying at Cary\u2019s,\n Heatherley\u2019s and the South Kensington Art Schools\n and exhibiting pictures occasionally at the Royal\n Academy and other exhibitions: while studying art\n he made the acquaintance of, among others, Charles\n Gogin, William Ballard and Thomas William Gale\n Butler.\n \u201cFamily Prayers\u201d: a small painting by Butler.\n1865. \u201cLucubratio Ebria,\u201d an article, containing\n variations of the view in \u201cDarwin among the\n Machines,\u201d sent by Butler from England, appeared\n in the _Press_.\n _The Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ\n as contained in the Four Evangelists critically\n examined_: a pamphlet of VIII+48 pp. written in\n New Zealand: the conclusion arrived at is that the\n evidence is insufficient to support the belief\n that Christ died and rose from the dead: MS. lost,\n probably used up in writing _The Fair Haven_.\n1869\u201370. Was in Italy for four months, his health having\n broken down in consequence of over-work.\n1870 or 1871. First meeting with Miss Eliza Mary Ann Savage,\n from whom he drew Alethea in _The Way of All\n Flesh_.\n1872. _Erewhon or Over the Range_: a Work of Satire and\n Imagination: MS. in the British Museum.\n1873. Erewhon translated into Dutch.\n _The Fair Haven_: an ironical work, purporting to\n be \u201cin defence of the miraculous element in our\n Lord\u2019s ministry upon earth, both as against\n rationalistic impugners and certain orthodox\n defenders,\u201d written under the pseudonym of John\n Pickard Owen with a memoir of the supposed author\n by his brother William Bickersteth Owen. This\n book reproduces\u2014the substance of his pamphlet on\n the resurrection: MS. at Christchurch, New\n Zealand.\n1874. \u201cMr. Heatherley\u2019s Holiday,\u201d his most important oil\n painting, exhibited at the Royal Academy\n Exhibition, now in the National Gallery of British\n Art.\n1876. Having invested his money in various companies\n that failed, one of which had its works in Canada,\n and having spent much time during the last few\n years in that country, trying unsuccessfully to\n save part of his capital, he now returned to\n London, and during the next ten years experienced\n serious financial difficulties.\n First meeting with Henry Festing Jones.\n1877. _Life and Habit_: an Essay after a Completer View\n of Evolution: dedicated to Charles Paine Pauli:\n although dated 1878 the book was published on\n Butler\u2019s birthday, 4th December, 1877: MS. at the\n Schools, Shrewsbury.\n1878. \u201cA Psalm of Montreal\u201d in the _Spectator_: There\n are probably many MSS. of this poem in existence\n given by Butler to friends: one, which he gave to\n H. F. Jones, is in the Fitzwilliam Museum,\n Cambridge.\n A Portrait of Butler, painted in this year by\n himself, now at St. John\u2019s College, Cambridge.\n1879. _Evolution Old and New_: A comparison of the\n theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck\n with that of Charles Darwin: MS. in the\n Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.\n _A Clergyman\u2019s Doubts_ and _God the Known and God\n the Unknown_ appeared in the _Examiner_: MS. lost.\n _Erewhon_ translated into German.\n1880. _Unconscious Memory_: A comparison between the\n theory of Dr. Ewald Hering, Professor of\n Physiology in the University of Prague, and the\n _Philosophy of the Unconscious_ of Dr. Edward von\n Hartmann, with translations from both these\n authors and preliminary chapters bearing upon\n _Life and Habit_, _Evolution Old and New_, and\n Charles Darwin\u2019s Edition of Dr. Krause\u2019s _Erasmus\n Darwin_.\n A Portrait of Butler, painted in this year by\n himself, now at the Schools, Shrewsbury. A third\n portrait of Butler, painted by himself about this\n time, is at Christchurch, New Zealand.\n1881. A property at Shrewsbury, in which under his\n grandfather\u2019s will he had a reversionary interest\n contingent on his surviving his father, was\n re-settled so as to make his reversion absolute:\n he mortgaged this reversion and bought small\n property near London: this temporarily alleviated\n his financial embarrassment but added to his work,\n for he spent much time in the management of the\n houses, learnt book-keeping by double-entry and\n kept elaborate accounts.\n _Alps and Sanctuaries_ of Piedmont and the Canton\n Ticino illustrated by the author, Charles Gogin\n and Henry Festing Jones: an account of his holiday\n travels with dissertations on most of the subjects\n that interested him: MS. with H. F. Jones.\n1882. A new edition of _Evolution Old and New_, with a\n short preface alluding to the recent death of\n Charles Darwin, an appendix and an index.\n1883. Began to compose music as nearly as he could in\n the style of Handel.\n1884. _Selections from Previous Works_ with \u201cA Psalm of\n Montreal\u201d and \u201cRemarks on G. J. Romanes\u2019 _Mental\n Evolution in Animals_.\u201d\n1885. Death of Miss Savage.\n _Gavottes_, _Minuets_, _Fugues_ and other short\n pieces for the piano by Samuel Butler and Henry\n Festing Jones: MS. with H. F. Jones.\n1886. Holbein\u2019s _La Danse_: a note on a drawing in the\n Museum at Basel.\n Stood, unsuccessfully, for the Professorship of\n Fine Arts in the University of Cambridge.\n Dec. 29. Death of his father and end of his\n financial embarrassments.\n1887. Engaged Alfred Emery Cathie as clerk and general\n attendant.\n _Luck or Cunning_ as the main means of Organic\n Modification? An attempt to throw additional\n light upon Charles Darwin\u2019s theory of Natural\n Selection.\n Was entertained at dinner by the Municipio of\n Varallo-Sesia on the Sacro Monte.\n1888. Took up photography.\n1888. _Ex Voto_: an account of the Sacro Monte or New\n Jerusalem at Varallo-Sesia, with some notice of\n Tabachetti\u2019s remaining work at Crea and\n illustrations from photographs by the author: MS.\n at Varallo-Sesia.\n _Narcissus_: a Cantata in the Handelian form,\n words and music by Samuel Butler and Henry Festing\n Jones: MS. of the piano score in the British\n Museum. MS. of the orchestral score with H. F.\n Jones.\n In this and the two following years contributed\n some articles to the _Universal Review_, most of\n which were republished after his death as _Essays\n on Life_, _Art_, _and Science_ (1904).\n1890. Began to study counterpoint with William Smith\n Rockstro and continued to do so until Rockstro\u2019s\n death in 1895.\n1892. _The Humour of Homer_. A Lecture delivered at the\n Working Men\u2019s College, Great Ormond Street,\n London, January 30, 1892, reprinted with preface\n and additional matter from the _Eagle_.\n Went to Sicily, the first of many visits, to\n collect evidence in support of his theory\n identifying the Scheria and Ithaca of the\n _Odyssey_ with Trapani and the neighbouring Mount\n Eryx.\n1893. \u201cL\u2019Origine Siciliana dell\u2019 Odissea.\u201d Extracted\n from the _Rassegna della Letteratura Siciliana_.\n \u201cOn the Trapanese Origin of the Odyssey\u201d\n (Translation).\n1894. _Ex Voto_ translated into Italian by Cavaliere\n Angelo Rizzetti.\n \u201cAncora sull\u2019 origine dell\u2019 Odissea.\u201d Extracted\n from the _Rassegna della Letteratura Siciliana_.\n1895. Went to Greece and the Troad to make up his mind\n about the topography of the _Iliad_.\n1896. _The Life and Letters of Dr. Samuel Butler_ (his\n grandfather) in so far as they illustrate the\n scholastic, religious and social life of England\n from 1790\u20131840: MS. at the Shrewsbury Town Library\n or Museum.\n His portrait painted by Charles Gogin, now in the\n National Portrait Gallery.\n1897. _The Authoress of the Odyssey_, where and when she\n wrote, who she was, the use she made of the\n _Iliad_ and how the poem grew under her hands: MS.\n at Trapani.\n1897. Death of Charles Paine Pauli.\n1898. The _Iliad_ rendered into English prose: MS. at\n St. John\u2019s College, Cambridge.\n1899. _Shakespeare\u2019s Sonnets_ reconsidered and in part\n rearranged, with introductory chapters, notes and\n a reprint of the original 1609 edition: MS. with\n R. A. Streatfeild.\n1900. The _Odyssey_ rendered into English prose: MS. at\n Aci-Reale, Sicily.\n1901. _Erewhon Revisited_ twenty years later both by the\n Original Discoverer of the Country and by his Son:\n this was a return not only to _Erewhon_ but also\n to the subject of the pamphlet on the\n resurrection. MS. in the British Museum.\n1902. June, 18. Death of Samuel Butler.\n1902. \u201cSamuel Butler,\u201d an article by Richard Alexander\n Streatfeild in the _Monthly Review_ (September).\n \u201cSamuel Butler,\u201d an obituary notice by Henry\n Festing Jones in the _Eagle_ (December).\n1903. _Samuel Butler Records and Memorials_, a\n collection of obituary notices with a note by R.\n A. Streatfeild, his literary executor, printed for\n private circulation: with reproduction of a\n photograph of Butler taken at Varallo in 1889.\n _The Way of All Flesh_, a novel, written between\n 1872 and 1885, published by R. A. Streatfeild: MS.\n with Mr. R. A. Streatfeild.\n1904. _Seven Sonnets and A Psalm of Montreal_ printed\n for private circulation.\n _Essays on Life_, _Art and Science_, being\n reprints of his _Universal Review_ articles,\n together with two lectures.\n _Ulysses_, an Oratorio: Words and music by Samuel\n Butler and Henry Festing Jones: MS. of the piano\n score in the British Museum, MS. of the orchestral\n score with H. F. Jones.\n \u201cThe Author of Erewhon,\u201d an article by Desmond\n MacCarthy in the _Independent Review_ (September).\n1904. _Diary of a Journey_ through North Italy to Sicily\n (in the spring of 1903, undertaken for the purpose\n of leaving the MSS. of three books by Samuel\n Butler at Varallo-Sesia, Aci-Reale and Trapani) by\n Henry Festing Jones, with reproduction of Gogin\u2019s\n portrait of Butler. Printed for private\n circulation.\n1907. Nov. Between this date and May, 1910, some\n Extracts from _The Note-Books of Samuel Butler_\n appeared in the _New Quarterly Review_ under the\n editorship of Desmond MacCarthy.\n1908. July 16. The first Erewhon dinner at Pagani\u2019s\n Restaurant, Great Portland Street; 32 persons\n present: the day was fixed by Professor Marcus\n Hartog.\n Second Edition of _The Way of All Flesh_.\n1909. _God the Known and God the Unknown_ republished in\n book form from the _Examiner_ (1879) by A. C.\n Fifield, with prefatory note by R. A. Streatfeild.\n July 15. The second Erewhon dinner at Pagani\u2019s;\n 53 present: the day was fixed by Mr. George\n Bernard Shaw.\n1910. Feb. 10. _Samuel Butler Author of Erewhon_, a\n Paper read before the British Association of\n Hom\u0153opathy at 43 Russell Square, W.C., by Henry\n Festing Jones. Some of Butler\u2019s music was\n performed by Miss Grainger Kerr, Mr. R. A.\n Streatfeild, Mr. J. A. Fuller Maitland and Mr. H.\n J. T. Wood, the Secretary of the Association.\nJune. _Unconscious Memory_, a new edition entirely reset\n with a note by R. A. Streatfeild and an\n introduction by Professor Marcus Hartog, M.A.,\n D.Sc., F.L.S., F.R. H.S., Professor of Zoology in\n University College, Cork.\n July 14. The third Erewhon dinner at Pagani\u2019s\n Restaurant; 58 present: the day was fixed by the\n Right Honourable Augustine Birrell, K.C., M.P.\n Nov. 16. _Samuel Butler Author of Erewhon_. A\n paper read before the Historical Society of St.\n John\u2019s College, Cambridge, in the Combination-room\n of the college, by Henry Festing Jones. The\n Master (Mr. R. F. Scott), who was also\n Vice-Chancellor of the University, was in the\n chair and a Vote of Thanks was proposed by\n Professor Bateson, F.R.S.\n1910. Nov. 28. _Life and Habit_, a new edition with a\n preface by R. A. Streatfeild and author\u2019s addenda,\n being three pages containing passages which Butler\n had cut out of the original book or had intended\n to insert in a future edition.\n1911. May 25. The jubilee number of the _Press_, New\n Zealand, contained an account of Butler\u2019s\n connection with the newspaper and reprinted\n \u201cDarwin among the Machines\u201d and \u201cLucubratio\n Ebria.\u201d\n July 15. The fourth Erewhon dinner at Pagani\u2019s\n Restaurant; 75 present: the day was fixed by Sir\n William Phipson Beale, Bart., K.C., M.P.\n Nov. _Charles Darwin and Samuel Butler_: _A Step\n towards Reconciliation_, by Henry Festing Jones.\n A pamphlet giving the substance of a\n correspondence between Mr. Francis Darwin and the\n author and reproducing letters by Charles Darwin\n about the quarrel between himself and Butler\n referred to in Chapter IV of _Unconscious Memory_.\n _Evolution Old and New_, a reprint of the second\n edition (1882) with prefatory note by R. A.\n Streatfeild.\n1912. June 1. Letter from Henry Festing Jones in the\n _Press_, Christchurch, New Zealand, about Butler\u2019s\n Dialogue, which had appeared originally in the\n _Press_ December 20, 1862, and could not be found.\n June 8. \u201cDarwin on the Origin of Species. A\n Dialogue \u201cdiscovered in consequence of the\n foregoing letter and reprinted in the _Press_.\n June 15. The _Press_ reprinted some of the\n correspondence, etc. which followed on the\n original appearance of the Dialogue.\n Some of Butler\u2019s water-colour drawings having been\n given to the British Museum, two were included in\n an exhibition held there during the summer.\n July 12. The Fifth Erewhon Dinner at Pagani\u2019s\n Restaurant; 90 present; the day was fixed by Mr.\n Edmund Gosse, C.B., LL.D.\n\n\n\n\nI\nLord, What is Man?\n\n\nMan\n\n\ni\n\n\nWE are like billiard balls in a game played by unskilful players,\ncontinually being nearly sent into a pocket, but hardly ever getting\nright into one, except by a fluke.\n\n\nii\n\n\nWe are like thistle-down blown about by the wind\u2014up and down, here and\nthere\u2014but not one in a thousand ever getting beyond seed-hood.\n\n\niii\n\n\nA man is a passing mood coming and going in the mind of his country; he\nis the twitching of a nerve, a smile, a frown, a thought of shame or\nhonour, as it may happen.\n\n\niv\n\n\nHow loosely our thoughts must hang together when the whiff of a smell, a\nband playing in the street, a face seen in the fire, or on the gnarled\nstem of a tree, will lead them into such vagaries at a moment\u2019s warning.\n\n\nv\n\n\nWhen I was a boy at school at Shrewsbury, old Mrs. Brown used to keep a\ntray of spoiled tarts which she sold cheaper. They most of them looked\npretty right till you handled them. We are all spoiled tarts.\n\n\nvi\n\n\nHe is a poor creature who does not believe himself to be better than the\nwhole world else. No matter how ill we may be, or how low we may have\nfallen, we would not change identity with any other person. Hence our\nself-conceit sustains and always must sustain us till death takes us and\nour conceit together so that we need no more sustaining.\n\n\nvii\n\n\nMan must always be a consuming fire or be consumed. As for hell, we are\nin a burning fiery furnace all our lives\u2014for what is life but a process\nof combustion?\n\n\n\nLife\n\n\ni\n\n\nWe have got into life by stealth and _petitio principii_, by the free use\nof that contradiction in terms which we declare to be the most outrageous\nviolation of our reason. We have wriggled into it by holding that\neverything is both one and many, both infinite in time and space and yet\nfinite, both like and unlike to the same thing, both itself and not\nitself, both free and yet inexorably fettered, both every adjective in\nthe dictionary and at the same time the flat contradiction of every one\nof them.\n\n\nii\n\n\nThe beginning of life is the beginning of an illusion to the effect that\nthere is such a thing as free will and that there is such another thing\nas necessity\u2014the recognition of the fact that there is an \u201cI can\u201d and an\n\u201cI cannot,\u201d an \u201cI may\u201d and an \u201cI must.\u201d\n\n\niii\n\n\nLife is not so much a riddle to be read as a Gordian knot that will get\ncut sooner or later.\n\n\niv\n\n\nLife is the distribution of an error\u2014or errors.\n\n\nv\n\n\nMurray (the publisher) said that my _Life of Dr. Butler_ was an omnium\ngatherum. Yes, but life is an omnium gatherum.\n\n\nvi\n\n\nLife is a superstition. But superstitions are not without their value.\nThe snail\u2019s shell is a superstition, slugs have no shells and thrive just\nas well. But a snail without a shell would not be a slug unless it had\nalso the slug\u2019s indifference to a shell.\n\n\nvii\n\n\nLife is one long process of getting tired.\n\n\nviii\n\n\nMy days run through me as water through a sieve.\n\n\nix\n\n\nLife is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient\npremises.\n\n\nx\n\n\nLife is eight parts cards and two parts play, the unseen world is made\nmanifest to us in the play.\n\n\nxi\n\n\nLizards generally seem to have lost their tails by the time they reach\nmiddle life. So have most men.\n\n\nxii\n\n\nA sense of humour keen enough to show a man his own absurdities, as well\nas those of other people, will keep him from the commission of all sins,\nor nearly all, save those that are worth committing.\n\n\nxiii\n\n\nLife is like music, it must be composed by ear, feeling and instinct, not\nby rule. Nevertheless one had better know the rules, for they sometimes\nguide in doubtful cases\u2014though not often.\n\n\nxiv\n\n\nThere are two great rules of life, the one general and the other\nparticular. The first is that every one can, in the end, get what he\nwants if he only tries. This is the general rule. The particular rule\nis that every individual is, more or less, an exception to the general\nrule.\n\n\nxv\n\n\nNature is essentially mean, mediocre. You can have schemes for raising\nthe level of this mean, but not for making every one two inches taller\nthan his neighbour, and this is what people really care about.\n\n\nxvi\n\n\nAll progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every\norganism to live beyond its income.\n\n\n\nThe World\n\n\ni\n\n\nThe world is a gambling-table so arranged that all who enter the casino\nmust play and all must lose more or less heavily in the long run, though\nthey win occasionally by the way.\n\n\nii\n\n\nWe play out our days as we play out cards, taking them as they come, not\nknowing what they will be, hoping for a lucky card and sometimes getting\none, often getting just the wrong one.\n\n\niii\n\n\nThe world may not be particularly wise\u2014still, we know of nothing wiser.\n\n\niv\n\n\nThe world will always be governed by self-interest. We should not try to\nstop this, we should try to make the self-interest of cads a little more\ncoincident with that of decent people.\n\n\n\nThe Individual and the World\n\n\nThere is an eternal antagonism of interest between the individual and the\nworld at large. The individual will not so much care how much he may\nsuffer in this world provided he can live in men\u2019s good thoughts long\nafter he has left it. The world at large does not so much care how much\nsuffering the individual may either endure or cause in this life,\nprovided he will take himself clean away out of men\u2019s thoughts, whether\nfor good or ill, when he has left it.\n\n\n\nMy Life\n\n\ni\n\n\nI imagine that life can give nothing much better or much worse than what\nI have myself experienced. I should say I had proved pretty well the\nextremes of mental pleasure and pain; and so I believe each in his own\nway does, almost every man.\n\n\nii\n\n\nI have squandered my life as a schoolboy squanders a tip. But then half,\nor more than half the fun a schoolboy gets out of a tip consists in the\nmere fact of having something to squander. Squandering is in itself\ndelightful, and so I found it with my life in my younger days. I do not\nsquander it now, but I am not sorry that I have squandered a good deal of\nit. What a heap of rubbish there would have been if I had not! Had I\nnot better set about squandering what is left of it?\n\n\n\nThe Life we Live in Others\n\n\nA man should spend his life or, rather, does spend his life in being\nborn. His life is his birth throes. But most men miscarry and never\ncome to the true birth at all and some live but a very short time in a\nvery little world and none are eternal. Still, the life we live beyond\nthe grave is our truest life, and our happiest, for we pass it in the\nprofoundest sleep as though we were children in our cradles. If we are\nwronged it hurts us not; if we wrong others, we do not suffer for it; and\nwhen we die, as even the Handels and Bellinis and Shakespeares sooner or\nlater do, we die easily, know neither fear nor pain and live anew in the\nlives of those who have been begotten of our work and who have for the\ntime come up in our room.\n\nAn immortal like Shakespeare knows nothing of his own immortality about\nwhich we are so keenly conscious. As he knows nothing of it when it is\nin its highest vitality, centuries, it may be, after his apparent death,\nso it is best and happiest if during his bodily life he should think\nlittle or nothing about it and perhaps hardly suspect that he will live\nafter his death at all.\n\nAnd yet I do not know\u2014I could not keep myself going at all if I did not\nbelieve that I was likely to inherit a good average three-score years and\nten of immortality. There are very few workers who are not sustained by\nthis belief, or at least hope, but it may well be doubted whether this is\nnot a sign that they are not going to be immortal\u2014and I am content (or\ntry to be) to fare as my neighbours.\n\n\n\nThe World Made to Enjoy\n\n\nWhen we grumble about the vanity of all human things, inasmuch as even\nthe noblest works are not eternal but must become sooner or later as\nthough they had never been, we should remember that the world, so far as\nwe can see, was made to enjoy rather than to last. Come-and-go pervades\neverything of which we have knowledge, and though great things go more\nslowly, they are built up of small ones and must fare as that which makes\nthem.\n\nAre we to have our enjoyment of Handel and Shakespeare weakened because a\nday will come when there will be no more of either Handel or Shakespeare\nnor yet of ears to hear them? Is it not enough that they should stir\nsuch countless multitudes so profoundly and kindle such intense and\naffectionate admiration for so many ages as they have done and probably\nwill continue to do? The life of a great thing may be so long as\npractically to come to immortality even now, but that is not the point.\nThe point is that if anything was aimed at at all when things began to\nshape or to be shaped, it seems to have been a short life and a merry\none, with an extension of time in certain favoured cases, rather than a\npermanency even of the very best and noblest. And, when one comes to\nthink of it, death and birth are so closely correlated that one could not\ndestroy either without destroying the other at the same time. It is\nextinction that makes creation possible.\n\nIf, however, any work is to have long life it is not enough that it\nshould be good of its kind. Many ephemeral things are perfect in their\nway. It must be of a durable kind as well.\n\n\n\nLiving in Others\n\n\nWe had better live in others as much as we can if only because we thus\nlive more in the race, which God really does seem to care about a good\ndeal, and less in the individual, to whom, so far as I can see, he is\nindifferent. After we are dead it matters not to the life we have led in\nourselves what people may say of us, but it matters much to the life we\nlead in others and this should be our true life.\n\n\n\nKarma\n\n\nWhen I am inclined to complain about having worked so many years and\ntaken nothing but debt, though I feel the want of money so continually\n(much more, doubtless, than I ought to feel it), let me remember that I\ncome in free, gratis, to the work of hundreds and thousands of better men\nthan myself who often were much worse paid than I have been. If a man\u2019s\ntrue self is his karma\u2014the life which his work lives but which he knows\nvery little about and by which he takes nothing\u2014let him remember at least\nthat he can enjoy the karma of others, and this about squares the\naccount\u2014or rather far more than squares it. [1883.]\n\n\n\nBirth and Death\n\n\ni\n\n\nThey are functions one of the other and if you get rid of one you must\nget rid of the other also. There is birth in death and death in birth.\nWe are always dying and being born again.\n\n\nii\n\n\nLife is the gathering of waves to a head, at death they break into a\nmillion fragments each one of which, however, is absorbed at once into\nthe sea of life and helps to form a later generation which comes rolling\non till it too breaks.\n\n\niii\n\n\nWhat happens to you when you die? But what happens to you when you are\nborn? In the one case we are born and in the other we die, but it is not\npossible to get much further.\n\n\niv\n\n\nWe commonly know that we are going to die though we do not know that we\nare going to be born. But are we sure this is so? We may have had the\nmost gloomy forebodings on this head and forgotten all about them. At\nany rate we know no more about the very end of our lives than about the\nvery beginning. We come up unconsciously, and go down unconsciously; and\nwe rarely see either birth or death. We see people, as consciousness,\nbetween the two extremes.\n\n\n\nReproduction\n\n\nIts base must be looked for not in the desire of the parents to reproduce\nbut in the discontent of the germs with their surroundings inside those\nparents, and a desire on their part to have a separate maintenance. {16}\n[1880.]\n\n\n\nThinking almost Identically\n\n\nThe ova, spermatozoa and embryos not only of all human races but of all\nthings that live, whether animal or vegetable, think little, but that\nlittle almost identically on every subject. That \u201calmost\u201d is the little\nrift within the lute which by and by will give such different character\nto the music. [1889.]\n\n\n\nIs Life Worth Living?\n\n\nThis is a question for an embryo, not for a man. [1883.]\n\n\n\nEvacuations\n\n\nThere is a resemblance, greater or less, between the pleasure we derive\nfrom all the evacuations. I believe that in all cases the pleasure\narises from rest\u2014rest, that is to say, from the considerable, though in\nmost cases unconscious labour of retaining that which it is a relief to\nus to be rid of.\n\nIn ordinary cases the effort whereby we retain those things that we would\nget rid of is unperceived by the central government, being, I suppose,\ndepartmentally made; we\u2014as distinguished from the subordinate\npersonalities of which we are composed\u2014know nothing about it, though the\nsubordinates in question doubtless do. But when the desirability of\nremoving is abnormally great, we know about the effort of retaining\nperfectly well, and the gradual increase in our perception of the effort\nsuggests strongly that there has been effort all the time, descending to\nconscious and great through unconscious and normal from unconscious and\nhardly any at all. The relaxation of this effort is what causes the\nsense of refreshment that follows all healthy discharges.\n\nAll our limbs and sensual organs, in fact our whole body and life, are\nbut an accretion round and a fostering of the spermatozoa. They are the\nreal \u201cHe.\u201d A man\u2019s eyes, ears, tongue, nose, legs and arms are but so\nmany organs and tools that minister to the protection, education,\nincreased intelligence and multiplication of the spermatozoa; so that our\nwhole life is in reality a series of complex efforts in respect of these,\nconscious or unconscious according to their comparative commonness. They\nare the central fact in our existence, the point towards which all effort\nis directed. Relaxation of effort here, therefore, is the most complete\nand comprehensive of all relaxations and, as such, the supreme\ngratification\u2014the most complete rest we can have, short of sleep and\ndeath.\n\n\n\nMan and His Organism\n\n\ni\n\n\nMan is but a perambulating tool-box and workshop, or office, fashioned\nfor itself by a piece of very clever slime, as the result of long\nexperience; and truth is but its own most enlarged, general and enduring\nsense of the coming togetherness or convenience of the various\nconventional arrangements which, for some reason or other, it has been\nled to sanction. Hence we speak of man\u2019s body as his \u201ctrunk.\u201d\n\n\nii\n\n\nThe body is but a pair of pincers set over a bellows and a stewpan and\nthe whole fixed upon stilts.\n\n\niii\n\n\nA man should see himself as a kind of tool-box; this is simple enough;\nthe difficulty is that it is the tools themselves that make and work the\ntools. The skill which now guides our organs and us in arts and\ninventions was at one time exercised upon the invention of these very\norgans themselves. Tentative bankruptcy acts afford good illustrations\nof the manner in which organisms have been developed. The ligaments\nwhich bind the tendons of our feet or the valves of our blood vessels are\nthe ingenious enterprises of individual cells who saw a want, felt that\nthey could supply it, and have thus won themselves a position among the\nold aristocracy of the body politic.\n\nThe most incorporate tool\u2014as an eye or a tooth or the fist, when a blow\nis struck with it\u2014has still something of the non-ego about it; and in\nlike manner such a tool as a locomotive engine, apparently entirely\nseparated from the body, must still from time to time, as it were, kiss\nthe soil of the human body and be handled, and thus become incorporate\nwith man, if it is to remain in working order.\n\n\n\nTools\n\n\nA tool is anything whatsoever which is used by an intelligent being for\nrealising its object. The idea of a desired end is inseparable from a\ntool. The very essence of a tool is the being an instrument for the\nachievement of a purpose. We say that a man is the tool of another,\nmeaning that he is being used for the furtherance of that other\u2019s ends,\nand this constitutes him a machine in use. Therefore the word \u201ctool\u201d\nimplies also the existence of a living, intelligent being capable of\ndesiring the end for which the tool is used, for this is involved in the\nidea of a desired end. And as few tools grow naturally fit for use (for\neven a stick or a fuller\u2019s teasel must be cut from their places and\nmodified to some extent before they can be called tools), the word \u201ctool\u201d\nimplies not only a purpose and a purposer, but a purposer who can see in\nwhat manner his purpose can be achieved, and who can contrive (or find\nready-made and fetch and employ) the tool which shall achieve it.\n\nStrictly speaking, nothing is a tool unless during actual use.\nNevertheless, if a thing has been made for the express purpose of being\nused as a tool it is commonly called a tool, whether it is in actual use\nor no. Thus hammers, chisels, etc., are called tools, though lying idle\nin a tool-box. What is meant is that, though not actually being used as\ninstruments at the present moment, they bear the impress of their object,\nand are so often in use that we may speak of them as though they always\nwere so. Strictly, a thing is a tool or not a tool just as it may happen\nto be in use or not. Thus a stone may be picked up and used to hammer a\nnail with, but the stone is not a tool until picked up with an eye to\nuse; it is a tool as soon as this happens, and, if thrown away\nimmediately the nail has been driven home, the stone is a tool no longer.\nWe see, therefore, matter alternating between a toolish or organic state\nand an untoolish or inorganic. Where there is intention it is organic,\nwhere there is no intention it is inorganic. Perhaps, however, the word\n\u201ctool\u201d should cover also the remains of a tool so long as there are\nmanifest signs that the object was a tool once.\n\nThe simplest tool I can think of is a piece of gravel used for making a\nroad. Nothing is done to it, it owes its being a tool simply to the fact\nthat it subserves a purpose. A broken piece of granite used for\nmacadamising a road is a more complex instrument, about the toolishness\nof which no doubt can be entertained. It will, however, I think, be held\nthat even a piece of gravel found in situ and left there untouched,\nprovided it is so left because it was deemed suitable for a road which\nwas designed to pass over the spot, would become a tool in virtue of the\nrecognition of its utility, while a similar piece of gravel a yard off on\neither side the proposed road would not be a tool.\n\nThe essence of a tool, therefore, lies in something outside the tool\nitself. It is not in the head of the hammer, nor in the handle, nor in\nthe combination of the two that the essence of mechanical characteristics\nexists, but in the recognition of its utility and in the forces directed\nthrough it in virtue of this recognition. This appears more plainly when\nwe reflect that a very complex machine, if intended for use by children\nwhose aim is not serious, ceases to rank in our minds as a tool, and\nbecomes a toy. It is seriousness of aim and recognition of suitability\nfor the achievement of that aim, and not anything in the tool itself,\nthat makes the tool.\n\nThe goodness or badness, again, of a tool depends not upon anything\nwithin the tool as regarded without relation to the user, but upon the\nease or difficulty experienced by the person using it in comparison with\nwhat he or others of average capacity would experience if they had used a\ntool of a different kind. Thus the same tool may be good for one man and\nbad for another.\n\nIt seems to me that all tools resolve themselves into the hammer and the\nlever, and that the lever is only an inverted hammer, or the hammer only\nan inverted lever, whichever one wills; so that all the problems of\nmechanics are present to us in the simple stone which may be used as a\nhammer, or in the stick that may be used as a lever, as much as in the\nmost complicated machine. These are the primordial cells of mechanics.\nAnd an organ is only another name for a tool.\n\n\n\nOrgans and Makeshifts\n\n\nI have gone out sketching and forgotten my water-dipper; among my traps I\nalways find something that will do, for example, the top of my tin case\n(for holding pencils). This is how organs come to change their uses and\nhence their forms, or at any rate partly how.\n\n\n\nJoining and Disjoining\nThese are the essence of change.\n\n\nOne of the earliest notes I made, when I began to make notes at all, I\nfound not long ago in an old book, since destroyed, which I had in New\nZealand. It was to the effect that all things are either of the nature\nof a piece of string or a knife. That is, they are either for bringing\nand keeping things together, or for sending and keeping them apart.\nNevertheless each kind contains a little of its opposite and some, as the\nrailway train and the hedge, combine many examples of both. Thus the\ntrain, on the whole, is used for bringing things together, but it is also\nused for sending them apart, and its divisions into classes are alike for\nseparating and keeping together. The hedge is also both for joining\nthings (as a flock of sheep) and for disjoining (as for keeping the sheep\nfrom getting into corn). These are the more immediate ends. The\nulterior ends, both of train and hedge, so far as we are concerned, and\nso far as anything can have an end, are the bringing or helping to bring\nmeat or dairy produce into contact with man\u2019s inside, or wool on to his\nback, or that he may go in comfort somewhere to converse with people and\njoin his soul on to theirs, or please himself by getting something to\ncome within the range of his senses or imagination.\n\nA piece of string is a thing that, in the main, makes for togetheriness;\nwhereas a knife is, in the main, a thing that makes for splitty-uppiness;\nstill, there is an odour of togetheriness hanging about a knife also, for\nit tends to bring potatoes into a man\u2019s stomach.\n\nIn high philosophy one should never look at a knife without considering\nit also as a piece of string, nor at a piece of string without\nconsidering it also as a knife.\n\n\n\nCotton Factories\n\n\nSurely the work done by the body is, in one way, more its true life than\nits limbs and organisation are. Which is the more true life of a great\ncotton factory\u2014the bales of goods which it turns out for the world\u2019s\nwearing or the machinery whereby its ends are achieved? The manufacture\nis only possible by reason of the machinery; it is produced by this. The\nmachinery only exists in virtue of its being capable of producing the\nmanufacture; it is produced for this. The machinery represents the work\ndone by the factory that turned it out.\n\nSomehow or other when we think of a factory we think rather of the fabric\nand mechanism than of the work, and so we think of a man\u2019s life and\nliving body as constituting himself rather than of the work that the life\nand living body turn out. The instinct being as strong as it is, I\nsuppose it sound, but it seems as though the life should be held to be\nquite as much in the work itself as in the tools that produce it\u2014and\nperhaps more.\n\n\n\nOur Trivial Bodies\n\n\ni\n\n\nThough we think so much of our body, it is in reality a small part of us.\nBefore birth we get together our tools, in life we use them, and thus\nfashion our true life which consists not in our tools and tool-box but in\nthe work we have done with our tools. It is Handel\u2019s work, not the body\nwith which he did the work, that pulls us half over London. There is not\nan action of a muscle in a horse\u2019s leg upon a winter\u2019s night as it drags\na carriage to the Albert Hall but is in connection with, and part outcome\nof, the force generated when Handel sat in his room at Gopsall and wrote\nthe _Messiah_. Think of all the forces which that force has controlled,\nand think, also, how small was the amount of molecular disturbance from\nwhich it proceeded. It is as though we saw a conflagration which a spark\nhad kindled. This is the true Handel, who is a more living power among\nus one hundred and twenty-two years after his death than during the time\nhe was amongst us in the body.\n\n\nii\n\n\nThe whole life of some people is a kind of partial death\u2014a long,\nlingering death-bed, so to speak, of stagnation and nonentity on which\ndeath is but the seal, or solemn signing, as the abnegation of all\nfurther act and deed on the part of the signer. Death robs these people\nof even that little strength which they appeared to have and gives them\nnothing but repose.\n\nOn others, again, death confers a more living kind of life than they can\never possibly have enjoyed while to those about them they seemed to be\nalive. Look at Shakespeare; can he be properly said to have lived in\nanything like his real life till a hundred years or so after his death?\nHis physical life was but as a dawn preceding the sunrise of that life of\nthe world to come which he was to enjoy hereafter. True, there was a\nlittle stir\u2014a little abiding of shepherds in the fields, keeping watch\nover their flocks by night\u2014a little buzzing in knots of men waiting to be\nhired before the daybreak\u2014a little stealthy movement as of a burglar or\ntwo here and there\u2014an inchoation of life. But the true life of the man\nwas after death and not before it.\n\nDeath is not more the end of some than it is the beginning of others. So\nhe that loses his soul may find it, and he that finds may lose it.\n\n\n\n\nII\nElementary Morality\n\n\nThe Foundations of Morality\n\n\ni\n\n\nThese are like all other foundations; if you dig too much about them the\nsuperstructure will come tumbling down.\n\n\nii\n\n\nThe foundations which we would dig about and find are within us, like the\nKingdom of Heaven, rather than without.\n\n\niii\n\n\nTo attempt to get at the foundations is to try to recover consciousness\nabout things that have passed into the unconscious stage; it is pretty\nsure to disturb and derange those who try it on too much.\n\n\n\nCounsels of Imperfection\n\n\nIt is all very well for mischievous writers to maintain that we cannot\nserve God and Mammon. Granted that it is not easy, but nothing that is\nworth doing ever is easy. Easy or difficult, possible or impossible, not\nonly has the thing got to be done, but it is exactly in doing it that the\nwhole duty of man consists. And when the righteous man turneth away from\nhis righteousness that he hath committed and doeth that which is neither\nquite lawful nor quite right, he will generally be found to have gained\nin amiability what he has lost in holiness.\n\nIf there are two worlds at all (and that there are I have no doubt) it\nstands to reason that we ought to make the best of both of them, and more\nparticularly of the one with which we are most immediately concerned. It\nis as immoral to be too good as to be too anything else. The Christian\nmorality is just as immoral as any other. It is at once very moral and\nvery immoral. How often do we not see children ruined through the\nvirtues, real or supposed, of their parents? Truly he visiteth the\nvirtues of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth\ngeneration. The most that can be said for virtue is that there is a\nconsiderable balance in its favour, and that it is a good deal better to\nbe for it than against it; but it lets people in very badly sometimes.\n\nIf you wish to understand virtue you must be sub-vicious; for the really\nvirtuous man, who is fully under grace, will be virtuous unconsciously\nand will know nothing about it. Unless a man is out-and-out virtuous he\nis sub-vicious.\n\nVirtue is, as it were, the repose of sleep or death. Vice is the\nawakening to the knowledge of good and evil\u2014without which there is no\nlife worthy of the name. Sleep is, in a way, a happier, more peaceful\nstate than waking and, in a way, death may be said to be better than\nlife, but it is in a very small way. We feel such talk to be blasphemy\nagainst good life and, whatever we may say in death\u2019s favour, so long as\nwe do not blow our brains out we show that we do not mean to be taken\nseriously. To know good, other than as a heavy sleeper, we must know\nvice also. There cannot, as Bacon said, be a \u201cHold fast that which is\ngood\u201d without a \u201cProve all things\u201d going before it. There is no\nknowledge of good without a knowledge of evil also, and this is why all\nnations have devils as well as gods, and regard them with sneaking\nkindness. God without the devil is dead, being alone.\n\n\n\nLucifer\n\n\nWe call him at once the Angel of Light and the Angel of Darkness: is this\nbecause we instinctively feel that no one can know much till he has\nsinned much\u2014or because we feel that extremes meet, or how?\n\n\n\nThe Oracle in _Erewhon_\n\n\nThe answer given by the oracle was originally written concerning any\nvice\u2014say drunkenness, but it applies to many another\u2014and I wrote not\n\u201csins\u201d but \u201cknows\u201d: {26}\n\n He who knows aught\n Knows more than he ought;\n But he who knows nought\n Has much to be taught.\n\n\n\nGod\u2019s Laws\n\n\nThe true laws of God are the laws of our own well-being.\n\n\n\nPhysical Excellence\n\n\nThe question whether such and such a course of conduct does or does not\ndo physical harm is the safest test by which to try the question whether\nit is moral or no. If it does no harm to the body we ought to be very\nchary of calling it immoral, while if it tends towards physical\nexcellence there should be no hesitation in calling it moral. In the\ncase of those who are not forced to over-work themselves\u2014and there are\nmany who work themselves to death from mere inability to restrain the\npassion for work, which masters them as the craving for drink masters a\ndrunkard\u2014over-work in these cases is as immoral as over-eating or\ndrinking. This, so far as the individual is concerned. With regard to\nthe body politic as a whole, it is, no doubt, well that there should be\nsome men and women so built that they cannot be stopped from working\nthemselves to death, just as it is unquestionably well that there should\nbe some who cannot be stopped from drinking themselves to death, if only\nthat they may keep the horror of the habit well in evidence.\n\n\n\nIntellectual Self-Indulgence\n\n\nIntellectual over-indulgence is the most gratuitous and disgraceful form\nwhich excess can take, nor is there any the consequences of which are\nmore disastrous.\n\n\n\nDodging Fatigue\n\n\nWhen fatigued, I find it rests me to write very slowly with attention to\nthe formation of each letter. I am often thus able to go on when I could\nnot otherwise do so.\n\n\n\nVice and Virtue\n\n\ni\n\n\nVirtue is something which it would be impossible to over-rate if it had\nnot been over-rated. The world can ill spare any vice which has obtained\nlong and largely among civilised people. Such a vice must have some good\nalong with its deformities. The question \u201cHow, if every one were to do\nso and so?\u201d may be met with another \u201cHow, if no one were to do it?\u201d We\nare a body corporate as well as a collection of individuals.\n\nAs a matter of private policy I doubt whether the moderately vicious are\nmore unhappy than the moderately virtuous; \u201cVery vicious\u201d is certainly\nless happy than \u201cTolerably virtuous,\u201d but this is about all. What pass\nmuster as the extremes of virtue probably make people quite as unhappy as\nextremes of vice do.\n\nThe truest virtue has ever inclined toward excess rather than asceticism;\nthat she should do this is reasonable as well as observable, for virtue\nshould be as nice a calculator of chances as other people and will make\ndue allowance for the chance of not being found out. Virtue knows that\nit is impossible to get on without compromise, and tunes herself, as it\nwere, a trifle sharp to allow for an inevitable fall in playing. So the\nPsalmist says, \u201cIf thou, Lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is done\namiss: O Lord who may abide it?\u201d and by this he admits that the highest\nconceivable form of virtue still leaves room for some compromise with\nvice. So again Shakespeare writes, \u201cThey say, best men are moulded out\nof faults; And, for the most, become much more the better For being a\nlittle bad.\u201d\n\n\nii\n\n\nThe extremes of vice and virtue are alike detestable; absolute virtue is\nas sure to kill a man as absolute vice is, let alone the dullnesses of it\nand the pomposities of it.\n\n\niii\n\n\nGod does not intend people, and does not like people, to be too good. He\nlikes them neither too good nor too bad, but a little too bad is more\nvenial with him than a little too good.\n\n\niv\n\n\nAs there is less difference than we generally think between the happiness\nof men who seem to differ widely in fortune, so is there also less\nbetween their moral natures; the best are not so much better than the\nworst, nor the worst so much below the best as we suppose; and the bad\nare just as important an element in the general progress as the good, or\nperhaps more so. It is in strife that life lies, and were there no\nopposing forces there would be neither moral nor immoral, neither victory\nnor defeat.\n\n\nv\n\n\nIf virtue had everything her own way she would be as insufferable as\ndominant factions generally are. It is the function of vice to keep\nvirtue within reasonable bounds.\n\n\nvi\n\n\nVirtue has never yet been adequately represented by any who have had any\nclaim to be considered virtuous. It is the sub-vicious who best\nunderstand virtue. Let the virtuous people stick to describing\nvice\u2014which they can do well enough.\n\n\n\nMy Virtuous Life\n\n\nI have led a more virtuous life than I intended, or thought I was\nleading. When I was young I thought I was vicious: now I know that I was\nnot and that my unconscious knowledge was sounder than my conscious. I\nregret some things that I have done, but not many. I regret that so many\nshould think I did much which I never did, and should know of what I did\nin so garbled and distorted a fashion as to have done me much mischief.\nBut if things were known as they actually happened, I believe I should\nhave less to be ashamed of than a good many of my neighbours\u2014and less\nalso to be proud of.\n\n\n\nSin\n\n\nSin is like a mountain with two aspects according to whether it is viewed\nbefore or after it has been reached: yet both aspects are real.\n\n\n\nMorality\n\n\nturns on whether the pleasure precedes or follows the pain. Thus, it is\nimmoral to get drunk because the headache comes after the drinking, but\nif the headache came first, and the drunkenness afterwards, it would be\nmoral to get drunk.\n\n\n\nChange and Immorality\n\n\nEvery discovery and, indeed, every change of any sort is immoral, as\ntending to unsettle men\u2019s minds, and hence their custom and hence their\nmorals, which are the net residuum of their \u201cmores\u201d or customs.\nWherefrom it should follow that there is nothing so absolutely moral as\nstagnation, except for this that, if perfect, it would destroy all mores\nwhatever. So there must always be an immorality in morality and, in like\nmanner, a morality in immorality. For there will be an element of\nhabitual and legitimate custom even in the most unhabitual and detestable\nthings that can be done at all.\n\n\n\nCannibalism\n\n\nMorality is the custom of one\u2019s country and the current feeling of one\u2019s\npeers. Cannibalism is moral in a cannibal country.\n\n\n\nAbnormal Developments\n\n\nIf a man can get no other food it is more natural for him to kill another\nman and eat him than to starve. Our horror is rather at the\ncircumstances that make it natural for the man to do this than at the man\nhimself. So with other things the desire for which is inherited through\ncountless ancestors, it is more natural for men to obtain the nearest\nthing they can to these, even by the most abnormal means if the ordinary\nchannels are closed, than to forego them altogether. The abnormal growth\nshould be regarded as disease but, nevertheless, as showing more health\nand vigour than no growth at all would do. I said this in _Life and\nHabit_ (ch. iii. p. 52) when I wrote \u201cit is more righteous in a man that\nhe should eat strange food and that his cheek so much as lank not, than\nthat he should starve if the strange food be at his command.\u201d {30}\n\n\n\nYoung People\n\n\nWith regard to sexual matters, the best opinion of our best medical men,\nthe practice of those nations which have proved most vigorous and comely,\nthe evils that have followed this or that, the good that has attended\nupon the other should be ascertained by men who, being neither moral nor\nimmoral and not caring two straws what the conclusion arrived at might\nbe, should desire only to get hold of the best available information.\nThe result should be written down with some fulness and put before the\nyoung of both sexes as soon as they are old enough to understand such\nmatters at all. There should be no mystery or reserve. None but the\ncorrupt will wish to corrupt facts; honest people will accept them\neagerly, whatever they may prove to be, and will convey them to others as\naccurately as they can. On what pretext therefore can it be well that\nknowledge should be withheld from the universal gaze upon a matter of\nsuch universal interest? It cannot be pretended that there is nothing to\nbe known on these matters beyond what unaided boys and girls can be left\nwithout risk to find out for themselves. Not one in a hundred who\nremembers his own boyhood will say this. How, then, are they excusable\nwho have the care of young people and yet leave a matter of such vital\nimportance so almost absolutely to take care of itself, although they\nwell know how common error is, how easy to fall into and how disastrous\nin its effects both upon the individual and the race?\n\nNext to sexual matters there are none upon which there is such complete\nreserve between parents and children as on those connected with money.\nThe father keeps his affairs as closely as he can to himself and is most\njealous of letting his children into a knowledge of how he manages his\nmoney. His children are like monks in a monastery as regards money and\nhe calls this training them up with the strictest regard to principle.\nNevertheless he thinks himself ill-used if his son, on entering life,\nfalls a victim to designing persons whose knowledge of how money is made\nand lost is greater than his own.\n\n\n\nThe Family\n\n\ni\n\n\nI believe that more unhappiness comes from this source than from any\nother\u2014I mean from the attempt to prolong family connection unduly and to\nmake people hang together artificially who would never naturally do so.\nThe mischief among the lower classes is not so great, but among the\nmiddle and upper classes it is killing a large number daily. And the old\npeople do not really like it much better than the young.\n\n\nii\n\n\nOn my way down to Shrewsbury some time since I read the Bishop of\nCarlisle\u2019s _Walks in the Regions of Science and Faith_, {31} then just\npublished, and found the following on p. 129 in the essay which is\nentitled \u201cMan\u2019s Place in Nature.\u201d After saying that young sparrows or\nrobins soon lose sight of their fellow-nestlings and leave off caring for\nthem, the bishop continues:\u2014\n\n\u201cWhereas \u2018children of one family\u2019 are constantly found joined together by\na love which only grows with years, and they part for their posts of duty\nin the world with the hope of having joyful meetings from time to time,\nand of meeting in a higher world when their life on earth is finished.\u201d\n\nI am sure my great-grandfather did not look forward to meeting his father\nin heaven\u2014his father had cut him out of his will; nor can I credit my\ngrandfather with any great longing to rejoin my great-grandfather\u2014a\nworthy man enough, but one with whom nothing ever prospered. I am\ncertain my father, after he was 40, did not wish to see my grandfather\nany more\u2014indeed, long before reaching that age he had decided that Dr.\nButler\u2019s life should not be written, though R. W. Evans would have been\nonly too glad to write it. Speaking for myself, I have no wish to see my\nfather again, and I think it likely that the Bishop of Carlisle would not\nbe more eager to see his than I mine.\n\n\n\nUnconscious Humour\n\n\n\u201cWriting to the Hon. Mrs. Watson in 1856, Charles Dickens says: \u2018I have\nalways observed within my experience that _the men who have left home\nvery young_ have, _many long years afterwards_, had the tenderest regard\nfor it. That\u2019s a pleasant thing to think of as one of the wise\nadjustments of this life of ours.\u2019\u201d {32a}\n\n\n\nHomer\u2019s _Odyssey_\n\n\nFrom the description of the meeting between Ulysses and Telemachus it is\nplain that Homer considered it quite as dreadful for relations who had\nlong been separated to come together again as for them to separate in the\nfirst instance. And this is about true. {32b}\n\n\n\nMelchisedec\n\n\nHe was a really happy man. He was without father, without mother and\nwithout descent. He was an incarnate bachelor. He was a born orphan.\n\n\n\nBacon for Breakfast\n\n\nNow [1893] when I am abroad, being older and taking less exercise, I do\nnot want any breakfast beyond coffee and bread and butter, but when this\nnote was written [1880] I liked a modest rasher of bacon in addition, and\nused to notice the jealous indignation with which heads of families who\nenjoyed the privilege of Cephas and the brethren of our Lord regarded it.\nThere were they with three or four elderly unmarried daughters as well as\nold mamma\u2014how could they afford bacon? And there was I, a selfish\nbachelor\u2014. The appetising, savoury smell of my rasher seemed to drive\nthem mad. I used to feel very uncomfortable, very small and quite aware\nhow low it was of me to have bacon for breakfast and no daughters instead\nof daughters and no bacon. But when I consulted the oracles of heaven\nabout it, I was always told to stick to my bacon and not to make a fool\nof myself. I despised myself but have not withered under my own contempt\nso completely as I ought to have done.\n\n\n\nGod and Man\n\n\nTo love God is to have good health, good looks, good sense, experience, a\nkindly nature and a fair balance of cash in hand. \u201cWe know that all\nthings work together for good to them that love God.\u201d To be loved by God\nis the same as to love Him. We love Him because He first loved us.\n\n\n\nThe Homeric Deity and the _Pall Mall Gazette_\n\n\nA writer in the _Pall Mall Gazette_ (I think in 1874 or 1875, and in the\nautumn months, but I cannot now remember) summed up Homer\u2019s conception of\na god as that of a \u201csuperlatively strong, amorous, beautiful, brave and\ncunning man.\u201d This is pretty much what a good working god ought to be,\nbut he should also be kind and have a strong sense of humour, together\nwith a contempt for the vices of meanness and for the meannesses of\nvirtue. After saying what I have quoted above the writer in the _Pall\nMall Gazette_ goes on, \u201cAn impartial critic can judge for himself how\nfar, if at all, this is elevated above the level of mere fetish worship.\u201d\nPerhaps it is that I am not an impartial critic, but, if I am allowed to\nbe so, I should say that the elevation above mere fetish worship was very\nconsiderable.\n\n\n\nGood Breeding the Summum Bonum\n\n\nWhen people ask what faith we would substitute for that which we would\ndestroy, we answer that we destroy no faith and need substitute none. We\nhold the glory of God to be the summum bonum, and so do Christians\ngenerally. It is on the question of what is the glory of God that we\njoin issue. We say it varies with the varying phases of God as made\nmanifest in his works, but that, so far as we are ourselves concerned,\nthe glory of God is best advanced by advancing that of man. If asked\nwhat is the glory of man we answer \u201cGood breeding\u201d\u2014using the words in\ntheir double sense and meaning both the continuance of the race and that\ngrace of manner which the words are more commonly taken to signify. The\ndouble sense of the words is all the more significant for the\nunconsciousness with which it is passed over.\n\n\n\nAdvice to the Young\n\n\nYou will sometimes find your elders laying their heads together and\nsaying what a bad thing it is for young men to come into a little\nmoney\u2014that those always do best who have no expectancy, and the like.\nThey will then quote some drivel from one of the Kingsleys about the\ndeadening effect an income of \u00a3300 a year will have upon a man. Avoid\nany one whom you may hear talk in this way. The fault lies not with the\nlegacy (which would certainly be better if there were more of it) but\nwith those who have so mismanaged our education that we go in even\ngreater danger of losing the money than other people are.\n\n\n\nReligion\n\n\nIs there any religion whose followers can be pointed to as distinctly\nmore amiable and trustworthy than those of any other? If so, this should\nbe enough. I find the nicest and best people generally profess no\nreligion at all, but are ready to like the best men of all religions.\n\n\n\nHeaven and Hell\n\n\nHeaven is the work of the best and kindest men and women. Hell is the\nwork of prigs, pedants and professional truth-tellers. The world is an\nattempt to make the best of both.\n\n\n\nPriggishness\n\n\nThe essence of priggishness is setting up to be better than one\u2019s\nneighbour. Better may mean more virtuous, more clever, more agreeable or\nwhat not. The worst of it is that one cannot do anything outside eating\none\u2019s dinner or taking a walk without setting up to know more than one\u2019s\nneighbours. It was this that made me say in _Life and Habit_ [close of\nch. ii.] that I was among the damned in that I wrote at all. So I am;\nand I am often very sorry that I was never able to reach those more\nsaintly classes who do not set up as instructors of other people. But\none must take one\u2019s lot.\n\n\n\nLohengrin\n\n\nHe was a prig. In the bedroom scene with Elsa he should have said that\nher question put him rather up a tree but that, as she wanted to know who\nhe was, he would tell her and would let the Holy Grail slide.\n\n\n\nSwells\n\n\nPeople ask complainingly what swells have done, or do, for society that\nthey should be able to live without working. The good swell is the\ncreature towards which all nature has been groaning and travailing\ntogether until now. He is an ideal. He shows what may be done in the\nway of good breeding, health, looks, temper and fortune. He realises\nmen\u2019s dreams of themselves, at any rate vicariously. He preaches the\ngospel of grace. The world is like a spoilt child, it has this good\nthing given it at great expense and then says it is useless!\n\n\n\nScience and Religion\n\n\nThese are reconciled in amiable and sensible people but nowhere else.\n\n\n\nGentleman\n\n\nIf we are asked what is the most essential characteristic that underlies\nthis word, the word itself will guide us to gentleness, to absence of\nsuch things as brow-beating, overbearing manners and fuss, and generally\nto consideration for other people.\n\n\n\nThe Finest Men\n\n\nI suppose an Italian peasant or a Breton, Norman or English fisherman, is\nabout the best thing nature does in the way of men\u2014the richer and the\npoorer being alike mistakes.\n\n\n\nOn being a Swell all Round\n\n\nI have never in my life succeeded in being this. Sometimes I get a new\nsuit and am tidy for a while in part, meanwhile the hat, tie, boots,\ngloves and underclothing all clamour for attention and, before I have got\nthem well in hand, the new suit has lost its freshness. Still, if ever I\ndo get any money, I will try and make myself really spruce all round till\nI find out, as I probably shall in about a week, that if I give my\nclothes an inch they will take an ell. [1880.]\n\n\n\nMoney\n\n\nis the last enemy that shall never be subdued. While there is flesh\nthere is money\u2014or the want of money; but money is always on the brain so\nlong as there is a brain in reasonable order.\n\n\n\nA Luxurious Death\n\n\nDeath in anything like luxury is one of the most expensive things a man\ncan indulge himself in. It costs a lot of money to die comfortably,\nunless one goes off pretty quickly.\n\n\n\nMoney, Health and Reputation\n\n\nMoney, if it live at all, that is to say if it be reproductive and put\nout at any interest, however low, is mortal and doomed to be lost one\nday, though it may go on living through many generations of one single\nfamily if it be taken care of. No man is absolutely safe. It may be\nsaid to any man, \u201cThou fool, this night thy money shall be required of\nthee.\u201d And reputation is like money: it may be required of us without\nwarning. The little unsuspected evil on which we trip may swell up in a\nmoment and prove to be the huge, Janus-like mountain of unpardonable sin.\nAnd his health may be required of any fool, any night or any day.\n\nA man will feel loss of money more keenly than loss of bodily health, so\nlong as he can keep his money. Take his money away and deprive him of\nthe means of earning any more, and his health will soon break up; but\nleave him his money and, even though his health breaks up and he dies, he\ndoes not mind it so much as we think. Money losses are the worst, loss\nof health is next worst and loss of reputation comes in a bad third. All\nother things are amusements provided money, health and good name are\nuntouched.\n\n\n\nSolicitors\n\n\nA man must not think he can save himself the trouble of being a sensible\nman and a gentleman by going to his solicitor, any more than he can get\nhimself a sound constitution by going to his doctor; but a solicitor can\ndo more to keep a tolerably well-meaning fool straight than a doctor can\ndo for an invalid. Money is to the solicitor what souls are to the\nparson or life to the physician. He is our money-doctor.\n\n\n\nDoctors\n\n\nGoing to your doctor is having such a row with your cells that you refer\nthem to your solicitor. Sometimes you, as it were, strike against them\nand stop their food, when they go on strike against yourself. Sometimes\nyou file a bill in Chancery against them and go to bed.\n\n\n\nPriests\n\n\nWe may find an argument in favour of priests if we consider whether man\nis capable of doing for himself in respect of his moral and spiritual\nwelfare (than which nothing can be more difficult and intricate) what it\nis so clearly better for him to leave to professional advisers in the\ncase of his money and his body which are comparatively simple and\nunimportant.\n\n\n\n\nIII\nThe Germs of _Erewhon_ and of _Life and Habit_\n\n\nPrefatory Note\n\n\nTHE Origin of Species was published in the autumn of 1859, and Butler\narrived in New Zealand about the same time and read the book soon\nafterwards. In 1880 he wrote in _Unconscious Memory_ (close of Chapter\n1): \u201cAs a member of the general public, at that time residing eighteen\nmiles from the nearest human habitation, and three days\u2019 journey on\nhorseback from a bookseller\u2019s shop, I became one of Mr. Darwin\u2019s many\nenthusiastic admirers, and wrote a philosophic dialogue (the most\noffensive form, except poetry and books of travel into supposed unknown\ncountries, that even literature can assume) upon the _Origin of Species_.\nThis production appeared in the _Press_, Canterbury, New Zealand, in 1861\nor 1862, but I have long lost the only copy I had.\u201d\n\nThe Press was founded by James Edward FitzGerald, the first\nSuperintendent of the Province of Canterbury. Butler was an intimate\nfriend of FitzGerald, was closely associated with the newspaper and\nfrequently wrote for it. The first number appeared 25th May, 1861, and\non 25th May, 1911, the Press celebrated its jubilee with a number which\ncontained particulars of its early life, of its editors, and of Butler;\nit also contained reprints of two of Butler\u2019s contributions, viz. _Darwin\namong the Machines_, which originally appeared in its columns 13 June,\n1863, and _Lucubratio Ebria_, which originally appeared 29 July, 1865.\nThe Dialogue was not reprinted because, although the editor knew of its\nexistence and searched for it, he could not find it. At my request,\nafter the appearance of the jubilee number, a further search was made,\nbut the Dialogue was not found and I gave it up for lost.\n\nIn March, 1912, Mr. R. A. Streatfeild pointed out to me that Mr.\nTregaskis, in Holborn, was advertising for sale an autograph letter by\nCharles Darwin sending to an unknown editor a Dialogue on Species from a\nNew Zealand newspaper, described in the letter as being \u201cremarkable from\nits spirit and from giving so clear and accurate a view of Mr. D.\u2019s\ntheory.\u201d Having no doubt that this referred to Butler\u2019s lost\ncontribution to the _Press_, I bought the autograph letter and sent it to\nNew Zealand, where it now is in the Canterbury Museum, Christchurch.\nWith it I sent a letter to the editor of the _Press_, giving all further\ninformation in my possession about the Dialogue. This letter, which\nappeared 1 June, 1912, together with the presentation of Darwin\u2019s\nautograph, stimulated further search, and in the issue for 20th December,\n1862, the Dialogue was found by Miss Colborne-Veel, whose father was\neditor of the paper at the time Butler was writing for it. The _Press_\nreprinted the Dialogue 8th June, 1912.\n\nWhen the Dialogue first appeared it excited a great deal of discussion in\nthe colony and, to quote Butler\u2019s words in a letter to Darwin (1865),\n\u201ccalled forth a contemptuous rejoinder from (I believe) the Bishop of\nWellington.\u201d This rejoinder was an article headed \u201cBarrel-Organs,\u201d the\nidea being that there was nothing new in Darwin\u2019s book, it was only a\ngrinding out of old tunes with which we were all familiar. Butler\nalludes to this controversy in a note made on a letter from Darwin which\nhe gave to the British Museum. \u201cI remember answering an attack (in the\n_Press_, New Zealand) on me by Bishop Abraham, of Wellington, as though I\nwere someone else, and, to keep up the deception, attacking myself also.\nBut it was all very young and silly.\u201d The bishop\u2019s article and Butler\u2019s\nreply, which was a letter signed A. M. and some of the resulting\ncorrespondence were reprinted in the _Press_, 15th June, 1912.\n\nAt first I thought of including here the Dialogue, and perhaps the letter\nsigned A. M. They are interesting as showing that Butler was among the\nearliest to study closely the _Origin of Species_, and also as showing\nthe state of his mind before he began to think for himself, before he\nwrote _Darwin among the Machines_ from which so much followed; but they\ncan hardly be properly considered as germs of _Erewhon_ and _Life and\nHabit_. They rather show the preparation of the soil in which those\ngerms sprouted and grew; and, remembering his last remark on the subject\nthat \u201cit was all very young and silly,\u201d I decided to omit them. The\nDialogue is no longer lost, and the numbers of the _Press_ containing it\nand the correspondence that ensued can be seen in the British Museum.\n\nButler\u2019s other two contributions to the _Press_ mentioned above do\ncontain the germs of the machine chapters in _Erewhon_, and led him to\nthe theory put forward in _Life and Habit_. In 1901 he wrote in the\npreface to the new and revised edition of _Erewhon_: \u201cThe first part of\n_Erewhon_ written was an article headed _Darwin among the Machines_ and\nsigned \u2018Cellarius.\u2019 It was written in the Upper Rangitata district of\nCanterbury Province (as it then was) of New Zealand, and appeared at\nChristchurch in the _Press_ newspaper, June 13, 1863. A copy of this\narticle is indexed under my books in the British Museum catalogue.\u201d\n\nThe article is in the form of a letter, and the copy spoken of by Butler,\nas indexed under his name in the British Museum, being defective, the\nreprint which appeared in the jubilee number of the _Press_ has been used\nin completing the version which follows.\n\nFurther on in the preface to the 1901 edition of _Erewhon_ he writes: \u201cA\nsecond article on the same subject as the one just referred to appeared\nin the _Press_ shortly after the first, but I have no copy. It treated\nmachines from a different point of view and was the basis of pp. 270\u2013274\nof the present edition of _Erewhon_. This view ultimately led me to the\ntheory I put forward in _Life and Habit_, published in November, 1877.\n{41} I have put a bare outline of this theory (which I believe to be\nquite sound) into the mouth of an Erewhonian professor in Chapter XXVII\nof this book.\u201d\n\nThis second article was _Lucubratio Ebria_, and was sent by Butler from\nEngland to the editor of the _Press_ in 1865, with a letter from which\nthis is an extract:\n\n \u201cI send you an article which you can give to FitzGerald or not, just\n as you think it most expedient\u2014for him. Is not the subject worked\n out, and are not the Canterbury people tired of Darwinism? For me\u2014is\n it an article to my credit? I do not send it to FitzGerald because I\n am sure he would put it into the paper. . . . I know the undue\n lenience which he lends to my performances, and believe you to be the\n sterner critic of the two. That there are some good things in it you\n will, I think, feel; but I am almost sure that considering _usque ad\n nauseam_ etc., you will think it had better not appear. . . . I\n think you and he will like that sentence: \u2018There was a moral\n government of the world before man came into it.\u2019 There is hardly a\n sentence in it written without deliberation; but I need hardly say\n that it was done upon tea, not upon whiskey . . .\n\n \u201cP.S. If you are in any doubt about the expediency of the article\n take it to M.\n\n \u201cP.P.S. Perhaps better take it to him anyhow.\u201d\n\nThe preface to the 1901 edition of Erewhon contains some further\nparticulars of the genesis of that work, and there are still further\nparticulars in _Unconscious Memory_, Chapter II, \u201cHow I wrote _Life and\nHabit_.\u201d\n\nThe first tentative sketch of the _Life and Habit_ theory occurs in the\nletter to Thomas William Gale Butler which is given post. This T. W. G.\nButler was not related to Butler, they met first as art-students at\nHeatherley\u2019s, and Butler used to speak of him as the most brilliant man\nhe had ever known. He died many years ago. He was the writer of the\n\u201cletter from a friend now in New Zealand,\u201d from which a quotation is\ngiven in _Life and Habit_, Chapter V (pp. 83, 84). Butler kept a copy of\nhis letter to T. W. G. Butler, but it was imperfectly pressed; he\nafterwards supplied some of the missing words from memory, and gave it to\nthe British Museum.\n\n\n\nDarwin among the Machines\n\n\n[To the Editor of the _Press_, Christchurch, New Zealand\u201413 June, 1863.]\n\nSir\u2014There are few things of which the present generation is more justly\nproud than of the wonderful improvements which are daily taking place in\nall sorts of mechanical appliances. And indeed it is matter for great\ncongratulation on many grounds. It is unnecessary to mention these here,\nfor they are sufficiently obvious; our present business lies with\nconsiderations which may somewhat tend to humble our pride and to make us\nthink seriously of the future prospects of the human race. If we revert\nto the earliest primordial types of mechanical life, to the lever, the\nwedge, the inclined plane, the screw and the pulley, or (for analogy\nwould lead us one step further) to that one primordial type from which\nall the mechanical kingdom has been developed, we mean to the lever\nitself, and if we then examine the machinery of the _Great Eastern_, we\nfind ourselves almost awestruck at the vast development of the mechanical\nworld, at the gigantic strides with which it has advanced in comparison\nwith the slow progress of the animal and vegetable kingdom. We shall\nfind it impossible to refrain from asking ourselves what the end of this\nmighty movement is to be. In what direction is it tending? What will be\nits upshot? To give a few imperfect hints towards a solution of these\nquestions is the object of the present letter.\n\nWe have used the words \u201cmechanical life,\u201d \u201cthe mechanical kingdom,\u201d \u201cthe\nmechanical world\u201d and so forth, and we have done so advisedly, for as the\nvegetable kingdom was slowly developed from the mineral, and as, in like\nmanner, the animal supervened upon the vegetable, so now, in these last\nfew ages, an entirely new kingdom has sprung up of which we as yet have\nonly seen what will one day be considered the antediluvian prototypes of\nthe race.\n\nWe regret deeply that our knowledge both of natural history and of\nmachinery is too small to enable us to undertake the gigantic task of\nclassifying machines into the genera and sub-genera, species, varieties\nand sub-varieties, and so forth, of tracing the connecting links between\nmachines of widely different characters, of pointing out how subservience\nto the use of man has played that part among machines which natural\nselection has performed in the animal and vegetable kingdom, of pointing\nout rudimentary organs [_see note_] which exist in some few machines,\nfeebly developed and perfectly useless, yet serving to mark descent from\nsome ancestral type which has either perished or been modified into some\nnew phase of mechanical existence. We can only point out this field for\ninvestigation; it must be followed by others whose education and talents\nhave been of a much higher order than any which we can lay claim to.\n\nSome few hints we have determined to venture upon, though we do so with\nthe profoundest diffidence. Firstly we would remark that as some of the\nlowest of the vertebrata attained a far greater size than has descended\nto their more highly organised living representatives, so a diminution in\nthe size of machines has often attended their development and progress.\nTake the watch for instance. Examine the beautiful structure of the\nlittle animal, watch the intelligent play of the minute members which\ncompose it; yet this little creature is but a development of the cumbrous\nclocks of the thirteenth century\u2014it is no deterioration from them. The\nday may come when clocks, which certainly at the present day are not\ndiminishing in bulk, may be entirely superseded by the universal use of\nwatches, in which case clocks will become extinct like the earlier\nsaurians, while the watch (whose tendency has for some years been rather\nto decrease in size than the contrary) will remain the only existing type\nof an extinct race.\n\nThe views of machinery which we are thus feebly indicating will suggest\nthe solution of one of the greatest and most mysterious questions of the\nday. We refer to the question: What sort of creature man\u2019s next\nsuccessor in the supremacy of the earth is likely to be. We have often\nheard this debated; but it appears to us that we are ourselves creating\nour own successors; we are daily adding to the beauty and delicacy of\ntheir physical organisation; we are daily giving them greater power and\nsupplying, by all sorts of ingenious contrivances, that self-regulating,\nself-acting power which will be to them what intellect has been to the\nhuman race. In the course of ages we shall find ourselves the inferior\nrace. Inferior in power, inferior in that moral quality of self-control,\nwe shall look up to them as the acme of all that the best and wisest man\ncan ever dare to aim at. No evil passions, no jealousy, no avarice, no\nimpure desires will disturb the serene might of those glorious creatures.\nSin, shame and sorrow will have no place among them. Their minds will be\nin a state of perpetual calm, the contentment of a spirit that knows no\nwants, is disturbed by no regrets. Ambition will never torture them.\nIngratitude will never cause them the uneasiness of a moment. The guilty\nconscience, the hope deferred, the pains of exile, the insolence of\noffice and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes\u2014these will\nbe entirely unknown to them. If they want \u201cfeeding\u201d (by the use of which\nvery word we betray our recognition of them as living organism) they will\nbe attended by patient slaves whose business and interest it will be to\nsee that they shall want for nothing. If they are out of order they will\nbe promptly attended to by physicians who are thoroughly acquainted with\ntheir constitutions; if they die, for even these glorious animals will\nnot be exempt from that necessary and universal consummation, they will\nimmediately enter into a new phase of existence, for what machine dies\nentirely in every part at one and the same instant?\n\nWe take it that when the state of things shall have arrived which we have\nbeen above attempting to describe, man will have become to the machine\nwhat the horse and the dog are to man. He will continue to exist, nay\neven to improve, and will be probably better off in his state of\ndomestication under the beneficent rule of the machines than he is in his\npresent wild state. We treat our horses, dogs, cattle and sheep, on the\nwhole, with great kindness, we give them whatever experience teaches us\nto be best for them, and there can be no doubt that our use of meat has\nadded to the happiness of the lower animals far more than it has\ndetracted from it; in like manner it is reasonable to suppose that the\nmachines will treat us kindly, for their existence is as dependent upon\nours as ours is upon the lower animals. They cannot kill us and eat us\nas we do sheep, they will not only require our services in the\nparturition of their young (which branch of their economy will remain\nalways in our hands) but also in feeding them, in setting them right if\nthey are sick, and burying their dead or working up their corpses into\nnew machines. It is obvious that if all the animals in Great Britain\nsave man alone were to die, and if at the same time all intercourse with\nforeign countries were by some sudden catastrophe to be rendered\nperfectly impossible, it is obvious that under such circumstances the\nloss of human life would be something fearful to contemplate\u2014in like\nmanner, were mankind to cease, the machines would be as badly off or even\nworse. The fact is that our interests are inseparable from theirs, and\ntheirs from ours. Each race is dependent upon the other for innumerable\nbenefits, and, until the reproductive organs of the machines have been\ndeveloped in a manner which we are hardly yet able to conceive, they are\nentirely dependent upon man for even the continuance of their species.\nIt is true that these organs may be ultimately developed, inasmuch as\nman\u2019s interest lies in that direction; there is nothing which our\ninfatuated race would desire more than to see a fertile union between two\nsteam engines; it is true that machinery is even at this present time\nemployed in begetting machinery, in becoming the parent of machines often\nafter its own kind, but the days of flirtation, courtship and matrimony\nappear to be very remote and indeed can hardly be realised by our feeble\nand imperfect imagination.\n\nDay by day, however, the machines are gaining ground upon us; day by day\nwe are becoming more subservient to them; more men are daily bound down\nas slaves to tend them, more men are daily devoting the energies of their\nwhole lives to the development of mechanical life. The upshot is simply\na question of time, but that the time will come when the machines will\nhold the real supremacy over the world and its inhabitants is what no\nperson of a truly philosophic mind can for a moment question.\n\nOur opinion is that war to the death should be instantly proclaimed\nagainst them. Every machine of every sort should be destroyed by the\nwell-wisher of his species. Let there be no exceptions made, no quarter\nshown; let us at once go back to the primeval condition of the race. If\nit be urged that this is impossible under the present condition of human\naffairs, this at once proves that the mischief is already done, that our\nservitude has commenced in good earnest, that we have raised a race of\nbeings whom it is beyond our power to destroy and that we are not only\nenslaved but are absolutely acquiescent in our bondage.\n\nFor the present we shall leave this subject which we present gratis to\nthe members of the Philosophical Society. Should they consent to avail\nthemselves of the vast field which we have pointed out, we shall\nendeavour to labour in it ourselves at some future and indefinite period.\n\n I am, Sir, &c.,\n CELLARIUS.\n\nNOTE.\u2014We were asked by a learned brother philosopher who saw this article\nin MS. what we meant by alluding to rudimentary organs in machines.\nCould we, he asked, give any example of such organs? We pointed to the\nlittle protuberance at the bottom of the bowl of our tobacco pipe. This\norgan was originally designed for the same purpose as the rim at the\nbottom of a tea-cup, which is but another form of the same function. Its\npurpose was to keep the heat of the pipe from marking the table on which\nit rested. Originally, as we have seen in very early tobacco pipes, this\nprotuberance was of a very different shape to what it is now. It was\nbroad at the bottom and flat, so that while the pipe was being smoked,\nthe bowl might rest upon the table. Use and disuse have here come into\nplay and served to reduce the function to its present rudimentary\ncondition. That these rudimentary organs are rarer in machinery than in\nanimal life is owing to the more prompt action of the human selection as\ncompared with the slower but even surer operation of natural selection.\nMan may make mistakes; in the long run nature never does so. We have\nonly given an imperfect example, but the intelligent reader will supply\nhimself with illustrations.\n\n\n\nLucubratio Ebria\n\n\n [From the _Press_, 29 July, 1865]\n\nThere is a period in the evening, or more generally towards the still\nsmall hours of the morning, in which we so far unbend as to take a single\nglass of hot whisky and water. We will neither defend the practice nor\nexcuse it. We state it as a fact which must be borne in mind by the\nreaders of this article; for we know not how, whether it be the\ninspiration of the drink, or the relief from the harassing work with\nwhich the day has been occupied, or from whatever other cause, yet we are\ncertainly liable about this time to such a prophetic influence as we\nseldom else experience. We are rapt in a dream such as we ourselves know\nto be a dream, and which, like other dreams, we can hardly embody in a\ndistinct utterance. We know that what we see is but a sort of\nintellectual Siamese twins, of which one is substance and the other\nshadow, but we cannot set either free without killing both. We are\nunable to rudely tear away the veil of phantasy in which the truth is\nshrouded, so we present the reader with a draped figure, and his own\njudgment must discriminate between the clothes and the body. A truth\u2019s\nprosperity is like a jest\u2019s, it lies in the ear of him that hears it.\nSome may see our lucubration as we saw it; and others may see nothing but\na drunken dream, or the nightmare of a distempered imagination. To\nourselves it as the speaking with unknown tongues to the early\nCorinthians; we cannot fully understand our own speech, and we fear lest\nthere be not a sufficient number of interpreters present to make our\nutterance edify. But there! (Go on straight to the body of the\narticle.)\n\nThe limbs of the lower animals have never been modified by any act of\ndeliberation and forethought on their own part. Recent researches have\nthrown absolutely no light upon the origin of life\u2014upon the initial force\nwhich introduced a sense of identity, and a deliberate faculty into the\nworld; but they do certainly appear to show very clearly that each\nspecies of the animal and vegetable kingdom has been moulded into its\npresent shape by chances and changes of many millions of years, by\nchances and changes over which the creature modified had no control\nwhatever, and concerning whose aim it was alike unconscious and\nindifferent, by forces which seem insensate to the pain which they\ninflict, but by whose inexorably beneficent cruelty the brave and strong\nkeep coming to the fore, while the weak and bad drop behind and perish.\nThere was a moral government of this world before man came near it\u2014a\nmoral government suited to the capacities of the governed, and which,\nunperceived by them, has laid fast the foundations of courage, endurance\nand cunning. It laid them so fast that they became more and more\nhereditary. Horace says well, _fortes creantur fortibus et bonis_ good\nmen beget good children; the rule held even in the geological period;\ngood ichthyosauri begat good ichthyosauri, and would to our discomfort\nhave gone on doing so to the present time, had not better creatures been\nbegetting better things than ichthyosauri, or famine, or fire, or\nconvulsion put an end to them. Good apes begat good apes, and at last\nwhen human intelligence stole like a late spring upon the mimicry of our\nsemi-simious ancestry, the creature learnt how he could, of his own\nforethought, add extra-corporaneous limbs to the members of his body and\nbecome not only a vertebrate mammal, but a vertebrate machinate mammal\ninto the bargain.\n\nIt was a wise monkey that first learned to carry a stick and a useful\nmonkey that mimicked him. For the race of man has learned to walk\nuprightly much as a child learns the same thing. At first he crawls on\nall fours, then he clambers, laying hold of whatever he can; and lastly\nhe stands upright alone and walks, but for a long time with an unsteady\nstep. So when the human race was in its gorilla-hood it generally\ncarried a stick; from carrying a stick for many million years it became\naccustomed and modified to an upright position. The stick wherewith it\nhad learned to walk would now serve it to beat its younger brothers and\nthen it found out its service as a lever. Man would thus learn that the\nlimbs of his body were not the only limbs that he could command. His\nbody was already the most versatile in existence, but he could render it\nmore versatile still. With the improvement in his body his mind improved\nalso. He learnt to perceive the moral government under which he held the\nfeudal tenure of his life\u2014perceiving it he symbolised it, and to this day\nour poets and prophets still strive to symbolise it more and more\ncompletely.\n\nThe mind grew because the body grew\u2014more things were perceived\u2014more\nthings were handled, and being handled became familiar. But this came\nabout chiefly because there was a hand to handle with; without the hand\nthere would be no handling; and no method of holding and examining is\ncomparable to the human hand. The tail of an opossum is a prehensile\nthing, but it is too far from his eyes\u2014the elephant\u2019s trunk is better,\nand it is probably to their trunks that the elephants owe their sagacity.\nIt is here that the bee in spite of her wings has failed. She has a high\ncivilisation but it is one whose equilibrium appears to have been already\nattained; the appearance is a false one, for the bee changes, though more\nslowly than man can watch her; but the reason of the very gradual nature\nof the change is chiefly because the physical organisation of the insect\nchanges, but slowly also. She is poorly off for hands, and has never\nfairly grasped the notion of tacking on other limbs to the limbs of her\nown body and so, being short-lived to boot, she remains from century to\ncentury to human eyes in _statu quo_. Her body never becomes machinate,\nwhereas this new phase of organism, which has been introduced with man\ninto the mundane economy, has made him a very quicksand for the\nfoundation of an unchanging civilisation; certain fundamental principles\nwill always remain, but every century the change in man\u2019s physical\nstatus, as compared with the elements around him, is greater and greater;\nhe is a shifting basis on which no equilibrium of habit and civilisation\ncan be established; were it not for this constant change in our physical\npowers, which our mechanical limbs have brought about, man would have\nlong since apparently attained his limit of possibility; he would be a\ncreature of as much fixity as the ants and bees\u2014he would still have\nadvanced but no faster than other animals advance. If there were a race\nof men without any mechanical appliances we should see this clearly.\nThere are none, nor have there been, so far as we can tell, for millions\nand millions of years. The lowest Australian savage carries weapons for\nthe fight or the chase, and has his cooking and drinking utensils at\nhome; a race without these things would be completely _ferae naturae_ and\nnot men at all. We are unable to point to any example of a race\nabsolutely devoid of extra-corporaneous limbs, but we can see among the\nChinese that with the failure to invent new limbs, a civilisation becomes\nas much fixed as that of the ants; and among savage tribes we observe\nthat few implements involve a state of things scarcely human at all.\nSuch tribes only advance _pari passu_ with the creatures upon which they\nfeed.\n\nIt is a mistake, then, to take the view adopted by a previous\ncorrespondent of this paper; to consider the machines as identities, to\nanimalise them, and to anticipate their final triumph over mankind. They\nare to be regarded as the mode of development by which human organism is\nmost especially advancing, and every fresh invention is to be considered\nas an additional member of the resources of the human body. Herein lies\nthe fundamental difference between man and his inferiors. As regards his\nflesh and blood, his senses, appetites, and affections, the difference is\none of degree rather than of kind, but in the deliberate invention of\nsuch unity of limbs as is exemplified by the railway train\u2014that\nseven-leagued foot which five hundred may own at once\u2014he stands quite\nalone.\n\nIn confirmation of the views concerning mechanism which we have been\nadvocating above, it must be remembered that men are not merely the\nchildren of their parents, but they are begotten of the institutions of\nthe state of the mechanical sciences under which they are born and bred.\nThese things have made us what we are. We are children of the plough,\nthe spade, and the ship; we are children of the extended liberty and\nknowledge which the printing press has diffused. Our ancestors added\nthese things to their previously existing members; the new limbs were\npreserved by natural selection, and incorporated into human society; they\ndescended with modifications, and hence proceeds the difference between\nour ancestors and ourselves. By the institutions and state of science\nunder which a man is born it is determined whether he shall have the\nlimbs of an Australian savage or those of a nineteenth century\nEnglishman. The former is supplemented with little save a rug and a\njavelin; the latter varies his physique with the changes of the season,\nwith age, and with advancing or decreasing wealth. If it is wet he is\nfurnished with an organ which is called an umbrella and which seems\ndesigned for the purpose of protecting either his clothes or his lungs\nfrom the injurious effects of rain. His watch is of more importance to\nhim than a good deal of his hair, at any rate than of his whiskers;\nbesides this he carries a knife, and generally a pencil case. His memory\ngoes in a pocket book. He grows more complex as he becomes older and he\nwill then be seen with a pair of spectacles, perhaps also with false\nteeth and a wig; but, if he be a really well-developed specimen of the\nrace, he will be furnished with a large box upon wheels, two horses, and\na coachman.\n\nLet the reader ponder over these last remarks, and he will see that the\nprincipal varieties and sub-varieties of the human race are not now to be\nlooked for among the negroes, the Circassians, the Malays, or the\nAmerican aborigines, but among the rich and the poor. The difference in\nphysical organisation between these two species of man is far greater\nthan that between the so-called types of humanity. The rich man can go\nfrom here to England whenever he feels so inclined. The legs of the\nother are by an invisible fatality prevented from carrying him beyond\ncertain narrow limits. Neither rich nor poor as yet see the philosophy\nof the thing, or admit that he who can tack a portion of one of the P. &\nO. boats on to his identity is a much more highly organised being than\none who cannot. Yet the fact is patent enough, if we once think it over,\nfrom the mere consideration of the respect with which we so often treat\nthose who are richer than ourselves. We observe men for the most part\n(admitting however some few abnormal exceptions) to be deeply impressed\nby the superior organisation of those who have money. It is wrong to\nattribute this respect to any unworthy motive, for the feeling is\nstrictly legitimate and springs from some of the very highest impulses of\nour nature. It is the same sort of affectionate reverence which a dog\nfeels for man, and is not infrequently manifested in a similar manner.\n\nWe admit that these last sentences are open to question, and we should\nhardly like to commit ourselves irrecoverably to the sentiments they\nexpress; but we will say this much for certain, namely, that the rich man\nis the true hundred-handed Gyges of the poets. He alone possesses the\nfull complement of limbs who stands at the summit of opulence, and we may\nassert with strictly scientific accuracy that the Rothschilds are the\nmost astonishing organisms that the world has ever yet seen. For to the\nnerves or tissues, or whatever it be that answers to the helm of a rich\nman\u2019s desires, there is a whole army of limbs seen and unseen attachable:\nhe may be reckoned by his horse-power\u2014by the number of foot-pounds which\nhe has money enough to set in motion. Who, then, will deny that a man\nwhose will represents the motive power of a thousand horses is a being\nvery different from the one who is equivalent but to the power of a\nsingle one?\n\nHenceforward, then, instead of saying that a man is hard up, let us say\nthat his organisation is at a low ebb, or, if we wish him well, let us\nhope that he will grow plenty of limbs. It must be remembered that we\nare dealing with physical organisations only. We do not say that the\nthousand-horse man is better than a one-horse man, we only say that he is\nmore highly organised, and should be recognised as being so by the\nscientific leaders of the period. A man\u2019s will, truth, endurance are\npart of him also, and may, as in the case of the late Mr. Cobden, have in\nthemselves a power equivalent to all the horse-power which they can\ninfluence; but were we to go into this part of the question we should\nnever have done, and we are compelled reluctantly to leave our dream in\nits present fragmentary condition.\n\n\n\nLetter to Thomas William Gale Butler\n\n\n _February_ 18_th_, 1876.\n\nMY DEAR NAMESAKE . . .\n\nMy present literary business is a little essay some 25 or 30 pp. long,\nwhich is still all in the rough and I don\u2019t know how it will shape, but\nthe gist of it is somewhat as follows:\u2014\n\n1. Actions which we have acquired with difficulty and now perform almost\nunconsciously\u2014as in playing a difficult piece of music, reading, talking,\nwalking and the multitude of actions which escape our notice inside other\nactions, etc.\u2014all this worked out with some detail, say, four or five\npages.\n\nGeneral deduction that we never do anything in this unconscious or\nsemi-conscious manner unless we know how to do it exceedingly well and\nhave had long practice.\n\nAlso that consciousness is a vanishing quantity and that as soon as we\nknow a thing really well we become unconscious in respect of\nit\u2014consciousness being of attention and attention of uncertainty\u2014and\nhence the paradox comes clear, that as long as we know that we know a\nthing (or do an action knowingly) we do not know it (or do the action\nwith thorough knowledge of our business) and that we only know it when we\ndo not know of our knowledge.\n\n2. Whatever we do in this way is all one and the same in kind\u2014the\ndifference being only in degree. Playing [almost?]\nunconsciously\u2014writing, more unconsciously (as to each letter)\u2014reading,\nvery unconsciously\u2014talking, still more unconsciously (it is almost\nimpossible for us to notice the action of our tongue in every\nletter)\u2014walking, much the same\u2014breathing, still to a certain extent\nwithin our own control\u2014heart\u2019s beating, perceivable but beyond our\ncontrol\u2014digestion, unperceivable and beyond our control, digestion being\nthe oldest of the . . . habits.\n\n3. A baby, therefore, has known how to grow itself in the womb and has\nonly done it because it wanted to, on a balance of considerations, in the\nsame way as a man who goes into the City to buy Great Northern A Shares\n. . . It is only unconscious of these operations because it has done them\na very large number of times already. A man may do a thing by a fluke\nonce, but to say that a foetus can perform so difficult an operation as\nthe growth of a pair of eyes out of pure protoplasm without knowing how\nto do it, and without ever having done it before, is to contradict all\nhuman experience. Ipso facto that it does it, it knows how to do it, and\nipso facto that it knows how to do it, it has done it before. Its\nunconsciousness (or speedy loss of memory) is simply the result of\nover-knowledge, not of under-knowledge. It knows so well and has done it\nso often that its power of self-analysis is gone. If it knew what it was\ndoing, or was conscious of its own act in oxidising its blood after\nbirth, I should suspect that it had not done it so often before; as it is\nI am confident that it must have done it more often\u2014much more often\u2014than\nany act which we perform consciously during our whole lives.\n\n4. When, then, did it do it? Clearly when last it was an impregnate\novum or some still lower form of life which resulted in that impregnate\novum.\n\n5. How is it, then, that it has not gained perceptible experience?\nSimply because a single repetition makes little or no difference; but go\nback 20,000 repetitions and you will find that it has gained in\nexperience and modified its performance very materially.\n\n6. But how about the identity? What is identity? Identity of matter?\nSurely no. There is no identity of matter between me as I now am, and me\nas an impregnate ovum. Continuity of existence? Then there is identity\nbetween me as an impregnate ovum and my father and mother as impregnate\nova. Drop out my father\u2019s and mother\u2019s lives between the dates of their\nbeing impregnate ova and the moment when I became an impregnate ovum.\nSee the ova only and consider the second ovum as the first two ova\u2019s\nmeans not of reproducing themselves but of continuing\nthemselves\u2014repeating themselves\u2014the intermediate lives being nothing but,\nas it were, a long potato shoot from one eye to the place where it will\ngrow its next tuber.\n\n7. Given a single creature capable of reproducing itself and it must go\non reproducing itself for ever, for it would not reproduce itself, unless\nit reproduced a creature that was going to reproduce itself, and so on ad\ninfinitum.\n\nThen comes Descent with Modification. Similarity tempered with\ndissimilarity, and dissimilarity tempered with similarity\u2014a contradiction\nin terms, like almost everything else that is true or useful or indeed\nintelligible at all. In each case of what we call descent, it is still\nthe first reproducing creature identically the same\u2014doing what it has\ndone before\u2014only with such modifications as the struggle for existence\nand natural selection have induced. No matter how highly it has been\ndeveloped, it can never be other than the primordial cell and must always\nbegin as the primordial cell and repeat its last performance most nearly,\nbut also, more or less, all its previous performances.\n\nA begets A\u2032 which is A with the additional experience of a dash. A\u2032\nbegets A\u2033 which is A with the additional experiences of A\u2032 and A\u2033; and so\non to An but you can never eliminate the A.\n\n8. Let An stand for a man. He begins as the primordial cell\u2014being\nverily nothing but the primordial cell which goes on splitting itself up\nfor ever, but gaining continually in experience. Put him in the same\nposition as he was in before and he will do as he did before. First he\nwill do his tadpoles by rote, so to speak, on his head, from long\npractice; then he does his fish trick; then he grows arms and legs, all\nunconsciously from the inveteracy of the habit, till he comes to doing\nhis man, and this lesson he has not yet learnt so thoroughly. Some part\nof it, as the breathing and oxidisation business, he is well up to,\ninasmuch as they form part of previous roles, but the teeth and hair, the\nupright position, the power of speech, though all tolerably familiar,\ngive him more trouble\u2014for he is very stupid\u2014a regular dunce in fact.\nThen comes his newer and more complex environment, and this puzzles\nhim\u2014arrests his attention\u2014whereon consciousness springs into existence,\nas a spark from a horse\u2019s hoof.\n\nTo be continued\u2014I see it will have to be more than 30 pp. It is still\nfoggy in parts, but I must clear it a little. It will go on to show that\nwe are all one animal and that death (which was at first voluntary, and\nhas only come to be disliked because those who did not dislike it\ncommitted suicide too easily) and reproduction are only phases of the\nordinary waste and repair which goes on in our bodies daily.\n\nAlways very truly yours,\n\n S. BUTLER.\n\n\n\n\nIV\nMemory and Design\n\n\nClergymen and Chickens\n\n\n[_Extract from a lecture_ On Memory as a Key to the Phenomena of Heredity\n_delivered by Butler at the Working Men\u2019s College, Great Ormond Street,\non Saturday_, 2_nd_ _December_, 1882.]\n\nWHY, let me ask, should a hen lay an egg which egg can become a chicken\nin about three weeks and a full-grown hen in less than a twelvemonth,\nwhile a clergyman and his wife lay no eggs but give birth to a baby which\nwill take three-and-twenty years before it can become another clergyman?\nWhy should not chickens be born and clergymen be laid and hatched? Or\nwhy, at any rate, should not the clergyman be born full grown and in Holy\nOrders, not to say already beneficed? The present arrangement is not\nconvenient, it is not cheap, it is not free from danger, it is not only\nnot perfect but is so much the reverse that we could hardly find words to\nexpress our sense of its awkwardness if we could look upon it with new\neyes, or as the cuckoo perhaps observes it.\n\nThe explanation usually given is that it is a law of nature that children\nshould be born as they are, but this is like the parched pea which St.\nAnthony set before the devil when he came to supper with him and of which\nthe devil said that it was good as far as it went. We want more; we want\nto know with what familiar set of facts we are to connect the one in\nquestion which, though in our midst, at present dwells apart as a\nmysterious stranger of whose belongings, reason for coming amongst us,\nantecedents, and so forth, we believe ourselves to be ignorant, though we\nknow him by sight and name and have a fair idea what sort of man he is to\ndeal with.\n\nWe say it is a phenomenon of heredity that chickens should be laid as\neggs in the first instance and clergymen born as babies, but, beyond the\nfact that we know heredity extremely well to look at and to do business\nwith, we say that we know nothing about it. I have for some years\nmaintained this to be a mistake and have urged, in company with Professor\nHering, of Prague, and others, that the connection between memory and\nheredity is so close that there is no reason for regarding the two as\ngenerically different, though for convenience sake it may be well to\nspecify them by different names. If I can persuade you that this is so,\nI believe I shall be able to make you understand why it is that chickens\nare hatched as eggs and clergymen born as babies.\n\nWhen I say I can make you understand why this is so, I only mean that I\ncan answer the first \u201cwhy\u201d that any one is likely to ask about it, and\nperhaps a \u201cwhy\u201d or two behind this. Then I must stop. This is all that\nis ever meant by those who say they can tell us why a thing is so and so.\nNo one professes to be able to reach back to the last \u201cwhy\u201d that any one\ncan ask, and to answer it. Fortunately for philosophers, people\ngenerally become fatigued after they have heard the answer to two or\nthree \u201cwhys\u201d and are glad enough to let the matter drop. If, however,\nany one will insist on pushing question behind question long enough, he\nwill compel us to admit that we come to the end of our knowledge which is\nbased ultimately upon ignorance. To get knowledge out of ignorance seems\nalmost as hopeless a task as to get something out of any number of\nnothings, but this in practice is what we have to do and the less fuss we\nmake over it the better.\n\nWhen, therefore, we say that we know \u201cwhy\u201d a thing is so and so, we mean\nthat we know its immediate antecedents and connections, and find them\nfamiliar to us. I say that the immediate antecedent of, and the\nphenomenon most closely connected with, heredity is memory. I do not\nprofess to show why anything can remember at all, I only maintain that\nwhereas, to borrow an illustration from mathematics, life was formerly an\nequation of, say, 100 unknown quantities, it is now one of only, inasmuch\nas memory and heredity have been shown to be one and the same thing.\n\n\n\nMemory\n\n\ni\n\n\nMemory is a kind of way (or weight\u2014whichever it should be) that the mind\nhas got upon it, in virtue of which the sensation excited endures a\nlittle longer than the cause which excited it. There is thus induced a\nstate of things in which mental images, and even physical sensations (if\nthere can be such a thing as a physical sensation) exist by virtue of\nassociation, though the conditions which originally called them into\nexistence no longer continue.\n\nThis is as the echo continuing to reverberate after the sound has ceased.\n\n\nii\n\n\nTo be is to think and to be thinkable. To live is to continue thinking\nand to remember having done so. Memory is to mind as viscosity is to\nprotoplasm, it gives a tenacity to thought\u2014a kind of _pied \u00e0 terre_ from\nwhich it can, and without which it could not, advance.\n\nThought, in fact, and memory seem inseparable; no thought, no memory; and\nno memory, no thought. And, as conscious thought and conscious memory\nare functions one of another, so also are unconscious thought and\nunconscious memory. Memory is, as it were, the body of thought, and it\nis through memory that body and mind are linked together in rhythm or\nvibration; for body is such as it is by reason of the characteristics of\nthe vibrations that are going on in it, and memory is only due to the\nfact that the vibrations are of such characteristics as to catch on to\nand be caught on to by other vibrations that flow into them from\nwithout\u2014no catch, no memory.\n\n\n\nAntitheses\n\n\nMemory and forgetfulness are as life and death to one another. To live\nis to remember and to remember is to live. To die is to forget and to\nforget is to die. Everything is so much involved in and is so much a\nprocess of its opposite that, as it is almost fair to call death a\nprocess of life and life a process of death, so it is to call memory a\nprocess of forgetting and forgetting a process of remembering. There is\nnever either absolute memory or absolute forgetfulness, absolute life or\nabsolute death. So with light and darkness, heat and cold, you never can\nget either all the light, or all the heat, out of anything. So with God\nand the devil; so with everything. Everything is like a door swinging\nbackwards and forwards. Everything has a little of that from which it is\nmost remote and to which it is most opposed and these antitheses serve to\nexplain one another.\n\n\n\nUnconscious Memory\n\n\nA man at the Century Club was falling foul of me the other night for my\nuse of the word \u201cmemory.\u201d There was no such thing, he said, as\n\u201cunconscious memory\u201d\u2014memory was always conscious, and so forth. My\nbusiness is\u2014and I think it can be easily done\u2014to show that they cannot\nbeat me off my unconscious memory without my being able to beat them off\ntheir conscious memory; that they cannot deny the legitimacy of my\nmaintaining the phenomena of heredity to be phenomena of memory without\nmy being able to deny the legitimacy of their maintaining the\nrecollection of what they had for dinner yesterday to be a phenomenon of\nmemory. My theory of the unconscious does not lead to universal\nunconsciousness, but only to pigeon-holing and putting by. We shall\nalways get new things to worry about. If I thought that by learning more\nand more I should ever arrive at the knowledge of absolute truth, I would\nleave off studying. But I believe I am pretty safe.\n\n\n\nReproduction and Memory\n\n\nThere is the reproduction of an idea which has been produced once\nalready, and there is the reproduction of a living form which has been\nproduced once already. The first reproduction is certainly an effort of\nmemory. It should not therefore surprise us if the second reproduction\nshould turn out to be an effort of memory also. Indeed all forms of\nreproduction that we can follow are based directly or indirectly upon\nmemory. It is only the one great act of reproduction that we cannot\nfollow which we disconnect from memory.\n\n\n\nPersonal Identity\n\n\nWe are so far identical with our ancestors and our contemporaries that it\nis very rarely we can see anything that they do not see. It is not\nunjust that the sins of the fathers should be visited upon the children,\nfor the children committed the sins when in the persons of their fathers;\nthey ate the sour grapes before they were born: true, they have forgotten\nthe pleasure now, but so has a man with a sick headache forgotten the\npleasure of getting drunk the night before.\n\n\n\nSensations\n\n\nOur sensations are only distinguishable because we feel them in different\nplaces and at different times. If we feel them at very nearly the same\ntime and place we cannot distinguish them.\n\n\n\nCobwebs in the Dark\n\n\nIf you walk at night and your face comes up against a spider\u2019s web woven\nacross the road, what a shock that thin line gives you! You fristle\nthrough every nerve of your body.\n\n\n\nShocks and Memory\n\n\nMemory is our sense that we are being shocked now as we were shocked\nthen.\n\n\n\nShocks\n\n\nGiven matter conscious in one part of itself of a shock in another part\n(i.e. knowing in what part of itself it is shocked) retaining a memory of\neach shock for a little while afterwards, able to feel whether two shocks\nare simultaneous or in succession, and able to know whether it has been\nshocked much or little\u2014given also that association does not stick to the\nletter of its bond\u2014and the rest will follow.\n\n\n\nDesign\n\n\ni\n\n\nThere is often connection but no design, as when I stamp my foot with\ndesign and shake something down without design, or as when a man runs up\nagainst another in the street and knocks him down without intending it.\nThis is undesign within design.\n\nFancied insults are felt by people who see design in a connection where\nthey should see little connection, and no design.\n\nConnection with design is sometimes hard to distinguish from connection\nwithout design; as when a man treads on another\u2019s corns, it is not always\neasy to say whether he has done so accidentally or on purpose.\n\nMen have been fond in all ages of ascribing connection where there is\nnone. Thus astrology has been believed in. Before last Christmas I said\nI had neglected the feasts of the Church too much, and that I should\nprobably be more prosperous if I paid more attention to them: so I hung\nup three pieces of ivy in my rooms on Xmas Eve. A few months afterwards\nI got the entail cut off my reversion, but I should hardly think there\nwas much connection between the two things. Nevertheless I shall hang\nsome holly up this year.\n\n\nii\n\n\nIt seems also designed, ab extra (though who can say whether this is\nso?), that no one should know anything whatever about the ultimate, or\neven deeper springs of growth and action. If not designed the result is\narrived at as effectually as though it were so.\n\n\n\nAccident, Design and Memory\n\n\nIt is right to say either that heredity and memory are one and the same\nthing, or that heredity is a mode of memory, or that heredity is due to\nmemory, if it is thereby intended that animals can only grow in virtue of\nbeing able to recollect. Memory and heredity are the means of preserving\nexperiences, of building them together, of uniting a mass of often\nconfused detail into homogeneous and consistent mind and matter, but they\ndo not originate. The increment in each generation, at the moment of its\nbeing an increment, has nothing to do with memory or heredity, it is due\nto the chances and changes of this mortal state. Design comes in at the\nmoment that a living being either feels a want and forecasts for its\ngratification, or utilises some waif or stray of accident on the\nprinciple, which underlies all development, that enough is a little more\nthan what one has. It is the business of memory and heredity to conserve\nand to transmit from one generation to another that which has been\nfurnished by design, or by accident designedly turned to account.\n\nIt is therefore not right to say, as some have supposed me to mean, that\nwe can do nothing which we do not remember to have done before. We can\ndo nothing very difficult or complicated which we have not done before,\nunless as by a tour de force, once in a way, under exceptionally\nfavourable circumstances, but our whole conscious life is the performance\nof acts either imperfectly remembered or not remembered at all. There\nare rain-drops of new experiences in every life which are not within the\nhold of our memory or past experience, and, as each one of these\nrain-drops came originally from something outside, the whole river of our\nlife has in its inception nothing to do with memory, though it is only\nthrough memory that the rain-drops of new experience can ever unite to\nform a full flowing river of variously organised life and intelligence.\n\n\n\nMemory and Mistakes\n\n\nMemory vanishes with extremes of resemblance or difference. Things which\nput us in mind of others must be neither too like nor too unlike them.\nIt is our sense that a position is not quite the same which makes us find\nit so nearly the same. We remember by the aid of differences as much as\nby that of samenesses. If there could be no difference there would be no\nmemory, for the two positions would become absolutely one and the same,\nand the universe would repeat itself for ever and ever as between these\ntwo points.\n\nWhen ninety-nine hundredths of one set of phenomena are presented while\nthe hundredth is withdrawn without apparent cause, so that we can no\nlonger do something which according to our past experience we ought to\nfind no difficulty in doing, then we may guess what a bee must feel as it\ngoes flying up and down a window-pane. Then we have doubts thrown upon\nthe fundamental axiom of life, i.e. that like antecedents will be\nfollowed by like consequents. On this we go mad and die in a short time.\n\nMistaken memory may be as potent as genuine recollection, so far as its\neffects go, unless it happens to come more into collision with other and\nnot mistaken memories than it is able to contend against.\n\nMistakes or delusions occur mainly in two ways.\n\nFirst, when the circumstances have changed a little but not enough to\nmake us recognise the fact: this may happen either because of want of\nattention on our part or because of the hidden nature of the alteration,\nor because of its slightness in itself, the importance depending upon its\nrelations to something else which make a very small change have an\nimportance it would not otherwise have: in these cases the memory reverts\nto the old circumstances unmodified, a sufficient number of the\nassociated ideas having been reproduced to make us assume the remainder\nwithout further inspection, and hence follows a want of harmony between\naction and circumstances which results in trouble somewhere.\n\nSecondly, through the memory not reverting in full perfection, though the\ncircumstances are reproduced fully and accurately.\n\n\n\nRemembering\n\n\nWhen asked to remember \u201csomething\u201d indefinitely you cannot: you look\nround at once for something to suggest what you shall try and remember.\nFor thought must be always about some \u201cthing\u201d which thing must either be\na thing by courtesy, as an air of Handel\u2019s, or else a solid, tangible\nobject, as a piano or an organ, but always the thing must be linked on to\nmatter by a longer or shorter chain as the case may be. I was thinking\nof this once while walking by the side of the Serpentine and, looking\nround, saw some ducks alighting on the water; their feet reminded me of\nthe way the sea-birds used to alight when I was going to New Zealand and\nI set to work recalling attendant facts. Without help from outside I\nshould have remembered nothing.\n\n\n\nA Torn Finger-Nail\n\n\nHenry Hoare [a college friend], when a young man of about\nfive-and-twenty, one day tore the quick of his fingernail\u2014I mean he\nseparated the fleshy part of the finger from the nail\u2014and this reminded\nhim that many years previously, while quite a child, he had done the same\nthing. Thereon he fell to thinking of that time which was impressed upon\nhis memory partly because there was a great disturbance in the house\nabout a missing five-pound note and partly because it was while he had\nthe scarlet fever.\n\nFollowing the train of thought aroused by his torn finger, he asked\nhimself how he had torn it, and after a while it came back to him that he\nhad been lying ill in bed as a child of seven at the house of an aunt who\nlived in Hertfordshire. His arms often hung out of the bed and, as his\nhands wandered over the wooden frame, he felt that there was a place\nwhere nut had come out so that he could put his fingers in. One day, in\ntrying to stuff a piece of paper into this hole, he stuffed it in so far\nand so tightly that he tore the quick of nail. The whole thing came back\nvividly and, though he had not thought of it for nearly twenty years, he\ncould see the room in his aunt\u2019s house and remembered how his aunt use to\nsit by his bedside writing at a little table from which he had got the\npiece of paper which he had stuffed into the hole.\n\nSo far so good. But then there flashed upon him an idea that was not so\npleasant. I mean it came upon him with irresistible force that the piece\nof paper, he had stuffed into the hole in the bedstead was the missing\nfive-pound note about which there had been so much disturbance. At that\ntime he was so young that a five-pound note was to him only a piece of\npaper; when he heard that the money was missing, he had thought it was\nfive sovereigns; or perhaps he was too ill to think anything, or to be\nquestioned; I forget what I was told about this\u2014at any rate he had no\nidea of the value of the piece of paper he was stuffing into the hole.\nBut now the matter had recurred to him at all he felt so sure that it was\nthe note that he immediately went down to Hertfordshire, where his aunt\nwas still living, and asked, to the surprise of every one, to be allowed\nto wash his hands in the room he had occupied as a child. He was told\nthat there were friends staying in the house who had the room at present,\nbut, on his saying he had a reason and particularly begging to be allowed\nto remain alone a little while in this room, he was taken upstairs and\nleft there.\n\nHe went to the bed, lifted up the chintz which then covered the frame,\nand found his old friend the hole. A nut had been supplied and he could\nno longer get his finger into it. He rang the bell and when the servant\ncame asked for a bed-key. All this time he was rapidly acquiring the\nreputation of being a lunatic throughout the whole house, but the key was\nbrought, and by the help of it he got the nut off. When he had done so,\nthere, sure enough, by dint of picking with his pocket-knife, he found\nthe missing five-pound note.\n\nSee how the return of a given present brings back the presents that have\nbeen associated with it.\n\n\n\nUnconscious Association\n\n\nOne morning I was whistling to myself the air \u201cIn Sweetest Harmony\u201d from\n_Saul_. Jones heard me and said:\n\n\u201cDo you know why you are whistling that?\u201d\n\nI said I did not.\n\nThen he said: \u201cDid you not hear me, two minutes ago, whistling \u2018Eagles\nwere not so Swift\u2019?\u201d\n\nI had not noticed his doing so, and it was so long since I had played\nthat chorus myself that I doubt whether I should have consciously\nrecognised it. That I did recognise it unconsciously is tolerably clear\nfrom my having gone on with \u201cIn Sweetest Harmony,\u201d which is the air that\nfollows it.\n\n\n\nAssociation\n\n\nIf you say \u201cHallelujah\u201d to a cat, it will excite no fixed set of fibres\nin connection with any other set and the cat will exhibit none of the\nphenomena of consciousness. But if you say \u201cMe-e-at,\u201d the cat will be\nthere in a moment, for the due connection between the sets of fibres has\nbeen established.\n\n\n\nLanguage\n\n\nThe reason why words recall ideas is that the word has been artificially\nintroduced among the associated ideas, and the presence of one idea\nrecalls the others.\n\n\n\n\nV\nVibrations\n\n\nContributions to Evolution\n\n\nTo me it seems that my contributions to the theory of evolution have been\nmainly these:\n\n1. The identification of heredity and memory and the corollaries\nrelating to sports, the reversion to remote ancestors, the phenomena of\nold age, the causes of the sterility of hybrids and the principles\nunderlying longevity\u2014all of which follow as a matter of course. This was\n_Life and Habit_. [1877.]\n\n2. The re-introduction of teleology into organic life which, to me,\nseems hardly (if at all) less important than the _Life and Habit_ theory.\nThis was _Evolution Old and New_. [1879.]\n\n3. An attempt to suggest an explanation of the physics of memory. I was\nalarmed by the suggestion and fathered it upon Professor Hering who\nnever, that I can see, meant to say anything of the kind, but I forced my\nview on him, as it were, by taking hold of a sentence or two in his\nlecture, on _Memory as a Universal Function of Organised Matter_ and thus\nconnected memory with vibrations. This was _Unconscious Memory_.\n[1880.]\n\nWhat I want to do now [1885] is to connect vibrations not only with\nmemory but with the physical constitution of that body in which the\nmemory resides, thus adopting Newland\u2019s law (sometimes called\nMendelejeff\u2019s law) that there is only one substance, and that the\ncharacteristics of the vibrations going on within it at any given time\nwill determine whether it will appear to us as (say) hydrogen, or sodium,\nor chicken doing this, or chicken doing the other. [This touched upon in\nthe concluding chapter of _Luck or Cunning_? 1887.]\n\nI would make not only the mind, but the body of the organism to depend on\nthe characteristics of the vibrations going on within it. The same\nvibrations which remind the chicken that it wants iron for its blood\nactually turn the pre-existing matter in the egg into the required\nmaterial. According to this view the form and characteristics of the\nelements are as much the living expositions of certain vibrations\u2014are as\nmuch our manner of perceiving that the vibrations going on in that part\nof the one universal substance are such and such\u2014as the colour yellow is\nour perception that a substance is being struck by vibrations of light,\nso many to the second, or as the action of a man walking about is our\nmode of perceiving that such and such another combination of vibrations\nis, for the present, going on in the substance which, in consequence, has\nassumed the shape of the particular man.\n\nIt is somewhere in this neighbourhood that I look for the connection\nbetween organic and inorganic.\n\n\n\nThe Universal Substance\n\n\ni\n\n\nWe shall never get straight till we leave off trying to separate mind and\nmatter. Mind is not a thing or, if it be, we know nothing about it; it\nis a function of matter. Matter is not a thing or, if it be, we know\nnothing about it; it is a function of mind.\n\nWe should see an omnipotent, universal substance, sometimes in a\ndynamical and sometimes in a statical condition and, in either condition,\nalways retaining a little of its opposite; and we should see this\nsubstance as at once both material and mental, whether it be in the one\ncondition or in the other. The statical condition represents content,\nthe dynamical, discontent; and both content and discontent, each still\nretaining a little of its opposite, must be carried down to the lowest\natom.\n\nAction is the process whereby thought, which is mental, is materialised\nand whereby substance, which is material, is mentalised. It is like the\npresent, which unites times past and future and which is the only time\nworth thinking of and yet is the only time which has no existence.\n\nI do not say that thought actually passes into substance, or mind into\nmatter, by way of action\u2014I do not know what thought is\u2014but every thought\ninvolves bodily change, i.e. action, and every action involves thought,\nconscious or unconscious. The action is the point of juncture between\nbodily change, visible and otherwise sensible, and mental change which is\ninvisible except as revealed through action. So that action is the\nmaterial symbol of certain states of mind. It translates the thought\ninto a corresponding bodily change.\n\n\nii\n\n\nWhen the universal substance is at rest, that is, not vibrating at all,\nit is absolutely imperceptible whether by itself or anything else. It is\nto all intents and purposes fast asleep or, rather, so completely\nnon-existent that you can walk through it, or it through you, and it\nknows neither time nor space but presents all the appearance of perfect\nvacuum. It is in an absolutely statical state. But when it is not at\nrest, it becomes perceptible both to itself and others; that is to say,\nit assumes material guise such as makes it imperceptible both to itself\nand others. It is then tending towards rest, i.e. in a dynamical state.\nThe not being at rest is the being in a vibratory condition. It is the\ndisturbance of the repose of the universal, invisible and altogether\nimperceptible substance by way of vibration which constitutes matter at\nall; it is the character of the vibrations which constitutes the\nparticular kind of matter. (May we imagine that some vibrations vibrate\nwith a rhythm which has a tendency to recur like the figures in a\nrecurring decimal, and that here we have the origin of the reproductive\nsystem?)\n\nWe should realise that all space is at all times full of a stuff endowed\nwith a mind and that both stuff and mind are immaterial and imperceptible\nso long as they are undisturbed, but the moment they are disturbed the\nstuff becomes material and the mind perceptible. It is not easy to\ndisturb them, for the atmosphere protects them. So long as they are\nundisturbed they transmit light, etc., just as though they were a rigid\nsubstance, for, not being disturbed, they detract nothing from any\nvibration which enters them.\n\nWhat will cause a row will be the hitting upon some plan for waking up\nthe ether. It is here that we must look for the extension of the world\nwhen it has become over-peopled or when, through its gradual cooling\ndown, it becomes less suitable for a habitation. By and by we shall make\nnew worlds.\n\n\n\nMental and Physical\n\n\nA strong hope of \u00a320,000 in the heart of a poor but capable man may\neffect a considerable redistribution of the forces of nature\u2014may even\nremove mountains. The little, unseen impalpable hope sets up a vibrating\nmovement in a messy substance shut in a dark warm place inside the man\u2019s\nskull. The vibrating substance undergoes a change that none can note,\nwhereupon rings of rhythm circle outwards from it as from a stone thrown\ninto a pond, so that the Alps are pierced in consequence.\n\n\n\nVibrations, Memory and Chemical Properties\n\n\nThe quality of every substance depends upon its vibrations, but so does\nthe quality of all thought and action. Quality is only one mode of\naction; the action of developing, the desire to make this or that, and do\nthis or that, and the stuff we make are alike due to the nature and\ncharacteristics of vibrations.\n\nI want to connect the actual manufacture of the things a chicken makes\ninside an egg with the desire and memory of the chickens, so as to show\nthat one and the same set of vibrations at once change the universal\nsubstratum into the particular phase of it required and awaken a\nconsciousness of, and a memory of and a desire towards, this particular\nphase on the part of the molecules which are being vibrated into it. So,\nfor example, that a set of vibrations shall at once turn plain white and\nyolk of egg into the feathers, blood and bones of a chicken and, at the\nsame time, make the mind of the embryo to be such or such as it is.\n\n\n\nProtoplasm and Reproduction\n\n\nThe reason why the offspring of protoplasm progressed, and the offspring\nof nothing else does so, is that the viscid nature of protoplasm allows\nvibrations to last a very long time, and so very old vibrations get\ncarried into any fragment that is broken off; whereas in the case of air\nand water, vibrations get soon effaced and only very recent vibrations\nget carried into the young air and the young water which are, therefore,\nborn fully grown; they cannot grow any more nor can they decay till they\nare killed outright by something decomposing them. If protoplasm was\nmore viscid it would not vibrate easily enough; if less, it would run\naway into the surrounding water.\n\n\n\nGerms within Germs\n\n\nWhen we say that the germ within the hen\u2019s egg remembers having made\nitself into a chicken on past occasions, or that each one of 100,000\nsalmon germs remembers to have made itself into a salmon (male or female)\nin the persons of the single pair of salmon its parents, do we intend\nthat each single one of these germs was a witness of, and a concurring\nagent in, the development of the parent forms from their respective\ngerms, and that each one of them therefore, was shut up within the parent\ngerm, like a small box inside a big one?\n\nIf so, then the parent germ with its millions of brothers and sisters was\nin like manner enclosed within a grand-parental germ, and so on till we\nare driven to admit, after even a very few generations, that each\nancestor has contained more germs than could be expressed by a number\nwritten in small numerals, beginning at St. Paul\u2019s and ending at Charing\nCross. Mr. Darwin\u2019s provisional theory of pangenesis comes to something\nvery like this, so far as it can be understood at all.\n\nTherefore it will save trouble (and we should observe no other\nconsideration) to say that the germs that unite to form any given\nsexually produced individual were not present in the germs, or with the\ngerms, from which the parents sprang, but that they came into the\nparents\u2019 bodies at some later period.\n\nWe may perhaps find it convenient to account for their intimate\nacquaintance with the past history of the body into which they have been\nintroduced by supposing that in virtue of assimilation they have acquired\ncertain periodical rhythms already pre-existing in the parental bodies,\nand that the communication of the characteristics of these rhythms\ndetermines at once the physical and psychical development of the\nindividual in a course as nearly like that of the parents as changed\nsurroundings will allow.\n\nFor, according to my _Life and Habit_ theory, everything in connection\nwith embryonic development is referred to memory, and this involves that\nthe thing remembering should have been present and an actor in the\ndevelopment which it is supposed to remember; but we have just settled\nthat the germs which unite to form any individual, and which when united\nproceed to develop according to what I suppose to be their memory of\ntheir previous developments, were not participators in any previous\ndevelopment and cannot therefore remember it. They cannot remember even\na single development, much less can they remember that infinite series of\ndevelopments the recollection and epitomisation of which is a _sine qua\nnon_ for the unconsciousness which we note in normal development. I see\nno way of getting out of this difficulty so convenient as to say that a\nmemory is the reproduction and recurrence of a rhythm communicated\ndirectly or indirectly from one substance to another, and that where a\ncertain rhythm exists there is a certain stock of memories, whether the\nactual matter in which the rhythm now subsists was present with the\nmatter in which it arose or not.\n\nThere is another little difficulty in the question whether the matter\nthat I suppose introduced into the parents\u2019 bodies during their\nlife-histories, and that goes to form the germs that afterwards become\ntheir offspring, is living or non-living. If living, then it has its own\nmemories and life-histories which must be cancelled and undone before the\nassimilation and the becoming imbued with new rhythms can be complete.\nThat is to say it must become as near non-living as anything can become.\n\nSooner or later, then, we get this introduced matter to be non-living (as\nwe may call it) and the puzzle is how to get it living again. For we\nstrenuously deny equivocal generation. When matter is living we contend\nthat it can only have been begotten of other like living matter; we deny\nthat it can have become living from non-living. Here, however, within\nthe bodies of animals and vegetables we find equivocal generation a\nnecessity; nor do I see any way out of it except by maintaining that\nnothing is ever either quite dead or quite alive, but that a little\nleaven of the one is always left in the other. For it would be as\ndifficult to get the thing dead if it is once all alive, as alive if once\nall dead.\n\nAccording to this view to beget offspring is to communicate to two pieces\nof protoplasm (which afterwards combine) certain rhythmic vibrations\nwhich, though too feeble to generate visible action until they receive\naccession of fresh similar rhythms from exterior objects, yet on receipt\nof such accession set the game of development going and maintain it. It\nwill be observed that the rhythms supposed to be communicated to any\ngerms are such as have been already repeatedly refreshed by rhythms from\nexterior objects in preceding generations, so that a consonance is\nrehearsed and pre-arranged, as it were, between the rhythm in the germ\nand those that in the normal course of its ulterior existence are likely\nto flow into it. If there is too serious a discord between inner and\nouter rhythms the organism dies.\n\n\n\nAtoms and Fixed Laws\n\n\nWhen people talk of atoms obeying fixed laws, they are either ascribing\nsome kind of intelligence and free will to atoms or they are talking\nnonsense. There is no obedience unless there is at any rate a\npotentiality of disobeying.\n\nNo objection can lie to our supposing potential or elementary volition\nand consciousness to exist in atoms, on the score that their action would\nbe less regular or uniform if they had free will than if they had not.\nBy giving them free will we do no more than those who make them bound to\nobey fixed laws. They will be as certain to use their freedom of will\nonly in particular ways as to be driven into those ways by obedience to\nfixed laws.\n\nThe little element of individual caprice (supposing we start with free\nwill), or (supposing we start with necessity) the little element of\nstiffneckedness, both of which elements we find everywhere in nature,\nthese are the things that prevent even the most reliable things from\nbeing absolutely reliable. It is they that form the point of contact\nbetween this universe and something else quite different in which none of\nthose fundamental ideas obtain without which we cannot think at all. So\nwe say that nitrous acid is more reliable than nitric for etching.\n\nAtoms have a mind as much smaller and less complex than ours as their\nbodies are smaller and less complex.\n\nComplex mind involves complex matter and vice versa. On the whole I\nthink it would be most convenient to endow all atoms with a something of\nconsciousness and volition, and to hold them to be _pro tanto_, living.\nWe must suppose them able to remember and forget, i.e. to retain certain\nvibrations that have been once established\u2014gradually to lose them and to\nreceive others instead. We must suppose some more intelligent, versatile\nand of greater associative power than others.\n\n\n\nThinking\n\n\nAll thinking is of disturbance, dynamical, a state of unrest tending\ntowards equilibrium. It is all a mode of classifying and of criticising\nwith a view of knowing whether it gives us, or is likely to give us,\npleasure or no.\n\n\n\nEquilibrium\n\n\nIn the highest consciousness there is still unconsciousness, in the\nlowest unconsciousness there is still consciousness. If there is no\nconsciousness there is no thing, or nothing. To understand perfectly\nwould be to cease to understand at all.\n\nIt is in the essence of heaven that we are not to be thwarted or\nirritated, this involves absolute equilibrium and absolute equilibrium\ninvolves absolute unconsciousness. Christ is equilibrium\u2014the not wanting\nanything, either more or less. Death also is equilibrium. But Christ is\na more living kind of death than death is.\n\n\n\n\nVI\nMind and Matter\n\n\nMotion\n\n\nWE cannot define either motion or matter, but we have certain rough and\nready ideas concerning them which, right or wrong, we must make the best\nof without more words, for the chances are ten to one that attempted\ndefinition will fuzz more than it will clear.\n\nRoughly, matter and motion are functions one of another, as are mind and\nmatter; they are essentially concomitant with one another, and neither\ncan vary but the other varies also. You cannot have a thing \u201cmatter\u201d by\nitself which shall have no motion in it, nor yet a thing \u201cmotion\u201d by\nitself which shall exist apart from matter; you must have both or\nneither. You can have matter moving much, or little, and in all\nconceivable ways; but you cannot have matter without any motion more than\nyou can have motion without any matter that is moving.\n\nIts states, its behaviour under varying circumstances, that is to say the\ncharacteristics of its motions, are all that we can cognise in respect of\nmatter. We recognise certain varying states or conditions of matter and\ngive one state one name, and another another, as though it were a man or\na dog; but it is the state not the matter that we cognise, just as it is\nthe man\u2019s moods and outward semblance that we alone note, while knowing\nnothing of the man. Of matter in its ultimate essence and apart from\nmotion we know nothing whatever. As far as we are concerned there is no\nsuch thing: it has no existence: for _de non apparentibus et non\nexistentibus eadem est ratio_.\n\nIt is a mistake, therefore, to speak about an \u201ceternal unchangeable\nunderlying substance\u201d as I am afraid I did in the last pages of _Luck or\nCunning_? but I am not going to be at the trouble of seeing. For, if the\nsubstance is eternal and unknowable and unchangeable, it is tantamount to\nnothing. Nothing can be nearer non-existence than eternal unknowableness\nand unchangeableness.\n\nIf, on the other hand, the substance changes, then it is not unknowable,\nor uncognisable, for by cognising its changes we cognise it. Changes are\nthe only things that we can cognise. Besides, we cannot have substance\nchanging without condition changing, and if we could we might as well\nignore condition. Does it not seem as though, since the motions or\nstates are all that we cognise, they should be all that we need take\naccount of? Change of condition is change of substance. Then what do we\nwant with substance? Why have two ideas when one will do?\n\nI suppose it has all come about because there are so many tables and\nchairs and stones that appear not to be moving, and this gave us the idea\nof a solid substance without any motion in it.\n\nHow would it be to start with motion approximately patent, and motion\napproximately latent (absolute patency and absolute latency being\nunattainable), and lay down that motion latent as motion becomes patent\nas substance, or matter of chair-and-table order; and that when patent as\nmotion it is latent as matter and substance?\n\nI am only just recovering from severe influenza and have no doubt I have\nbeen writing nonsense.\n\n\n\nMatter and Mind\n\n\ni\n\n\nPeople say we can conceive the existence of matter and the existence of\nmind. I doubt it. I doubt how far we have any definite conception of\nmind or of matter, pure and simple.\n\nWhat is meant by conceiving a thing or understanding it? When we hear of\na piece of matter instinct with mind, as protoplasm, for example, there\ncertainly comes up before our closed eyes an idea, a picture which we\nimagine to bear some resemblance to the thing we are hearing of. But\nwhen we try to think of matter apart from every attribute of matter (and\nthis I suspect comes ultimately to \u201capart from every attribute of mind\u201d)\nwe get no image before our closed eyes\u2014we realise nothing to ourselves.\nPerhaps we surreptitiously introduce some little attribute, and then we\nthink we have conceived of matter pure and simple, but this I think is as\nfar as we can go. The like holds good for mind: we must smuggle in a\nlittle matter before we get any definite idea at all.\n\n\nii\n\n\nMatter and mind are as heat and cold, as life and death, certainty and\nuncertainty, union and separateness. There is no absolute heat, life,\ncertainty, union, nor is there any absolute cold, death, uncertainty or\nseparateness.\n\nWe can conceive of no ultimate limit beyond which a thing cannot become\neither hotter or colder, there is no limit; there are degrees of heat and\ncold, but there is no heat so great that we cannot fancy its becoming a\nlittle hotter, that is we cannot fancy its not having still a few degrees\nof cold in it which can be extracted. Heat and cold are always relative\nto one another, they are never absolute. So with life and death, there\nis neither perfect life nor perfect death, but in the highest life there\nis some death and in the lowest death there is still some life. The\nfraction is so small that in practice it may and must be neglected; it is\nneglected, however, not as of right but as of grace, and the right to\ninsist on it is never finally and indefeasibly waived.\n\n\niii\n\n\nAn energy is a soul\u2014a something working in us.\n\nAs we cannot imagine heat apart from something which is hot, nor motion\nwithout something that is moving, so we cannot imagine an energy, or\nworking power, without matter through which it manifests itself.\n\nOn the other hand, we cannot imagine matter without thinking of it as\ncapable of some kind of working power or energy\u2014we cannot think of matter\nwithout thinking of it as in some way ensouled.\n\n\niv\n\n\nMatter and mind form one another, i.e. they give to one another the form\nin which we see them. They are the helpmeets to one another that cross\neach other and undo each other and, in the undoing, do and, in the doing,\nundo, and so see-saw _ad infinitum_.\n\n\n\nOrganic and Inorganic\n\n\nAnimals and plants cannot understand our business, so we have denied that\nthey can understand their own. What we call inorganic matter cannot\nunderstand the animals\u2019 and plants\u2019 business, we have therefore denied\nthat it can understand anything whatever.\n\nWhat we call inorganic is not so really, but the organisation is too\nsubtle for our senses or for any of those appliances with which we assist\nthem. It is deducible however as a necessity by an exercise of the\nreasoning faculties.\n\nPeople looked at glaciers for thousands of years before they found out\nthat ice was a fluid, so it has taken them and will continue to take them\nnot less before they see that the inorganic is not wholly inorganic.\n\n\n\nThe Power to make Mistakes\n\n\nThis is one of the criteria of life as we commonly think of it. If\noxygen could go wrong and mistake some other gas for hydrogen and thus\nlearn not to mistake it any more, we should say oxygen was alive. The\nolder life is, the more unerring it becomes in respect of things about\nwhich it is conversant\u2014the more like, in fact, it becomes to such a thing\nas the force of gravity, both as regards unerringness and\nunconsciousness.\n\nIs life such a force as gravity in process of formation, and was gravity\nonce\u2014or rather, were things once liable to make mistakes on such a\nsubject as gravity?\n\nIf any one will tell me what life is I will tell him whether the\ninorganic is alive or not.\n\n\n\nThe Omnipresence of Intelligence\n\n\nA little while ago no one would admit that animals had intelligence.\nThis is now conceded. At any rate, then, vegetables had no intelligence.\nThis is being fast disputed. Even Darwin leans towards the view that\nthey have intelligence. At any rate, then, the inorganic world has not\ngot an intelligence. Even this is now being denied. Death is being\ndefeated at all points. No sooner do we think we have got a _bona fide_\nbarrier than it breaks down. The divisions between varieties, species,\ngenus, all gone; between instinct and reason, gone; between animals and\nplants, gone; between man and the lower animals, gone; so, ere long, the\ndivision between organic and inorganic will go and will take with it the\ndivision between mind and matter.\n\n\n\nThe Super-Organic Kingdom\n\n\nAs the solid inorganic kingdom supervened upon the gaseous (vestiges of\nthe old being, nevertheless, carried over into and still persisting in\nthe new) and as the organic kingdom supervened upon the inorganic\n(vestiges of the old being, again, carried over into and still persisting\nin the new) so a third kingdom is now in process of development, the\nsuper-organic, of which we see the germs in the less practical and more\nemotional side of our nature.\n\nMan, for example, is the only creature that interests himself in his own\npast, or forecasts his future to any considerable extent. This tendency\nI would see as the monad of a new regime\u2014a regime that will be no more\ngoverned by the ideas and habits now prevailing among ourselves than we\nare by those still obtaining among stones or water. Nevertheless, if a\nman be shot out of a cannon, or fall from a great height, he is to all\nintents and purposes a mere stone. Place anything in circumstances\nentirely foreign to its immediate antecedents, and those antecedents\nbecome non-existent to it, it returns to what it was before they existed,\nto the last stage that it can recollect as at all analogous to its\npresent.\n\n\n\nFeeling\n\n\nMan is a substance, he knows not what, feeling, he knows not how, a rest\nand unrest that he can only in part distinguish. He is a substance\nfeeling equilibrium or want of equilibrium; that is to say, he is a\nsubstance in a statical or dynamical condition and feeling the passage\nfrom one state into the other.\n\nFeeling is an art and, like any other art, can be acquired by taking\npains. The analogy between feelings and words is very close. Both have\ntheir foundation in volition and deal largely in convention; as we should\nnot be word-ridden so neither should we be feeling-ridden; feelings can\ndeceive us; they can lie; they can be used in a non-natural, artificial\nsense; they can be forced; they can carry us away; they can be\nrestrained.\n\nWhen the surroundings are familiar, we know the right feeling and feel it\naccordingly, or if \u201cwe\u201d (that is the central government of our\npersonality) do not feel it, the subordinate departmental personality,\nwhose business it is, feels it in the usual way and then goes on to\nsomething else. When the surroundings are less familiar and the\ndepartmental personality cannot deal with them, the position is reported\nthrough the nervous system to the central government which is frequently\nat a loss to know what feeling to apply. Sometimes it happens to discern\nthe right feeling and apply it, sometimes it hits upon an inappropriate\none and is thus induced to proceed from solecism to solecism till the\nconsequences lead to a crisis from which we recover and which, then\nbecoming a leading case, forms one of the decisions on which our future\naction is based. Sometimes it applies a feeling that is too\ninappropriate, as when the position is too horribly novel for us to have\nhad any experience that can guide the central government in knowing how\nto feel about it, and this results in a cessation of the effort involved\nin trying to feel. Hence we may hope that the most horrible apparent\nsuffering is not felt beyond a certain point, but is passed through\nunconsciously under a natural, automatic an\u00e6sthetic\u2014the unconsciousness,\nin extreme cases, leading to death.\n\nIt is generally held that animals feel; it will soon be generally held\nthat plants feel; after that it will be held that stones also can feel.\nFor, as no matter is so organic that there is not some of the inorganic\nin it, so, also, no matter is so inorganic that there is not some of the\norganic in it. We know that we have nerves and that we feel, it does not\nfollow that other things do not feel because they have no nerves\u2014it only\nfollows that they do not feel as we do. The difference between the\norganic and the inorganic kingdoms will some day be seen to lie in the\ngreater power of discriminating its feelings which is possessed by the\nformer. Both are made of the same universal substance but, in the case\nof the organic world, this substance is able to feel more fully and\ndiscreetly and to show us that it feels.\n\nAnimals and plants, as they advance in the scale of life differentiate\ntheir feelings more and more highly; they record them better and\nrecognise them more readily. They get to know what they are doing and\nfeeling, not step by step only, nor sentence by sentence, but in long\nflights, forming chapters and whole books of action and sensation. The\ndifference as regards feeling between man and the lower animals is one of\ndegree and not of kind. The inorganic is less expert in differentiating\nits feelings, therefore its memory of them must be less enduring; it\ncannot recognise what it could scarcely cognise. One might as well for\nsome purposes, perhaps, say at once, as indeed people generally do for\nmost purposes, that the inorganic does not feel; nevertheless the\nsomewhat periphrastic way of putting it, by saying that the inorganic\nfeels but does not know, or knows only very slightly, how to\ndifferentiate its feelings, has the advantage of expressing the fact that\nfeeling depends upon differentiation and sense of relation _inter se_ of\nthe things differentiated\u2014a fact which, if never expressed, is apt to be\nlost sight of.\n\nAs, therefore, human discrimination is to that of the lower animals, so\nthe discrimination of the lower animals and plants is to that of\ninorganic things. In each case it is greater discriminating power (and\nthis is mental power) that underlies the differentiation, but in no case\ncan there be a denial of mental power altogether.\n\n\n\nOpinion and Matter\n\n\nMoral force and material force do pass into one another; a conflict of\nopinion often ends in a fight. Putting it the other way, there is no\nmaterial conflict without attendant clash of opinion. Opinion and matter\nact and react as do all things else; they come up hand in hand out of\nsomething which is both and neither, but, so far as we can catch sight of\neither first on our mental horizon, it is opinion that is the prior of\nthe two.\n\n\n\nMoral Influence\n\n\nThe caracal lies on a shelf in its den in the Zoological Gardens quietly\nlicking its fur. I go up and stand near it. It makes a face at me. I\ncome a little nearer. It makes a worse face and raises itself up on its\nhaunches. I stand and look. It jumps down from its shelf and makes as\nif it intended to go for me. I move back. The caracal has exerted a\nmoral influence over me which I have been unable to resist.\n\nMoral influence means persuading another that one can make that other\nmore uncomfortable than that other can make oneself.\n\n\n\nMental and Physical Pabulum\n\n\nWhen we go up to the shelves in the reading-room of the British Museum,\nhow like it is to wasps flying up and down an apricot tree that is\ntrained against a wall, or cattle coming down to drink at a pool!\n\n\n\nEating and Proselytising\n\n\nAll eating is a kind of proselytising\u2014a kind of dogmatising\u2014a maintaining\nthat the eater\u2019s way of looking at things is better than the eatee\u2019s. We\nconvert the food, or try to do so, to our own way of thinking, and, when\nit sticks to its own opinion and refuses to be converted, we say it\ndisagrees with us. An animal that refuses to let another eat it has the\ncourage of its convictions and, if it gets eaten, dies a martyr to them.\nSo we can only proselytise fresh meat, the convictions of putrid meat\nbegin to be too strong for us.\n\nIt is good for a man that he should not be thwarted\u2014that he should have\nhis own way as far, and with as little difficulty, as possible. Cooking\nis good because it makes matters easier by unsettling the meat\u2019s mind and\npreparing it for new ideas. All food must first be prepared for us by\nanimals and plants, or we cannot assimilate it; and so thoughts are more\neasily assimilated that have been already digested by other minds. A man\nshould avoid converse with things that have been stunted or starved, and\nshould not eat such meat as has been overdriven or underfed or afflicted\nwith disease, nor should he touch fruit or vegetables that have not been\nwell grown.\n\nSitting quiet after eating is akin to sitting still during divine service\nso as not to disturb the congregation. We are catechising and converting\nour proselytes, and there should be no row. As we get older we must\ndigest more quietly still, our appetite is less, our gastric juices are\nno longer so eloquent, they have lost that cogent fluency which carried\naway all that came in contact with it. They have become sluggish and\nunconciliatory. This is what happens to any man when he suffers from an\nattack of indigestion.\n\n\n\nSea-Sickness\n\n\nOr, indeed, any other sickness is the inarticulate expression of the pain\nwe feel on seeing a proselyte escape us just as we were on the point of\nconverting it.\n\n\n\nIndigestion\n\n\nThis, as I have said above, may be due to the naughtiness of the\nstiff-necked things that we have eaten, or to the poverty of our own\narguments; but it may also arise from an attempt on the part of the\nstomach to be too damned clever, and to depart from precedent\ninconsiderately. The healthy stomach is nothing if not conservative.\nFew radicals have good digestions.\n\n\n\nAssimilation and Persecution\n\n\nWe cannot get rid of persecution; if we feel at all we must persecute\nsomething; the mere acts of feeding and growing are acts of persecution.\nOur aim should be to persecute nothing but such things as are absolutely\nincapable of resisting us. Man is the only animal that can remain on\nfriendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.\n\n\n\nMatter Infinitely Subdivisible\n\n\nWe must suppose it to be so, but it does not follow that we can know\nanything about it if it is divided into pieces smaller than a certain\nsize; and, if we can know nothing about it when so divided, then, _qua_\nus, it has no existence and therefore matter, _qua_ us, is not infinitely\nsubdivisible.\n\n\n\nDifferences\n\n\nWe often say that things differ in degree but not in kind, as though\nthere were a fixed line at which degree ends and kind begins. There is\nno such line. All differences resolve themselves into differences of\ndegree. Everything can in the end be united with everything by easy\nstages if a way long enough and round-about enough be taken. Hence to\nthe metaphysician everything will become one, being united with\neverything else by degrees so subtle that there is no escape from seeing\nthe universe as a single whole. This in theory; but in practice it would\nget us into such a mess that we had better go on talking about\ndifferences of kind as well as of degree.\n\n\n\nUnion and Separation\n\n\nIn the closest union there is still some separate existence of component\nparts; in the most complete separation there is still a reminiscence of\nunion. When they are most separate, the atoms seem to bear in mind that\nthey may one day have to come together again; when most united, they\nstill remember that they may come to fall out some day and do not give\neach other their full, unreserved confidence.\n\nThe difficulty is how to get unity and separateness at one and the same\ntime. The two main ideas underlying all action are desire for closer\nunity and desire for more separateness. Nature is the puzzled sense of a\nvast number of things which feel they are in an illogical position and\nshould be more either of one thing or the other than they are. So they\nwill first be this and then that, and act and re-act and keep the balance\nas near equal as they can, yet they know all the time that it isn\u2019t right\nand, as they incline one way or the other, they will love or hate.\n\nWhen we love, we draw what we love closer to us; when we hate a thing, we\nfling it away from us. All disruption and dissolution is a mode of\nhating; and all that we call affinity is a mode of loving.\n\nThe puzzle which puzzles every atom is the puzzle which puzzles\nourselves\u2014a conflict of duties\u2014our duty towards ourselves, and our duty\nas members of a body politic. It is swayed by its sense of being a\nseparate thing\u2014of having a life to itself which nothing can share; it is\nalso swayed by the feeling that, in spite of this, it is only part of an\nindividuality which is greater than itself and which absorbs it. Its\naction will vary with the predominance of either of these two states of\nopinion.\n\n\n\nUnity and Multitude\n\n\nWe can no longer separate things as we once could: everything tends\ntowards unity; one thing, one action, in one place, at one time. On the\nother hand, we can no longer unify things as we once could; we are driven\nto ultimate atoms, each one of which is an individuality. So that we\nhave an infinite multitude of things doing an infinite multitude of\nactions in infinite time and space; and yet they are not many things, but\none thing.\n\n\n\nThe Atom\n\n\nThe idea of an indivisible, ultimate atom is inconceivable by the lay\nmind. If we can conceive an idea of the atom at all, we can conceive it\nas capable of being cut in half indeed, we cannot conceive it at all\nunless we so conceive it. The only true atom, the only thing which we\ncannot subdivide and cut in half, is the universe. We cannot cut a bit\noff the universe and put it somewhere else. Therefore, the universe is a\ntrue atom and, indeed, is the smallest piece of indivisible matter which\nour minds can conceive; and they cannot conceive it any more than they\ncan the indivisible, ultimate atom.\n\n\n\nOur Cells\n\n\nA string of young ducklings as they sidle along through grass beside a\nditch\u2014how like they are to a single serpent! I said in _Life and Habit_\nthat a colossal being, looking at the earth through a microscope, would\nprobably think the ants and flies of one year the same as those of the\npreceding year. I should have added:\u2014So we think we are composed of the\nsame cells from year to year, whereas in truth the cells are a succession\nof generations. The most continuous, homogeneous things we know are only\nlike a lot of cow-bells on an alpine pasture.\n\n\n\nNerves and Postmen\n\n\nA letter, so long as it is connected with one set of nerves, is one\nthing; loose it from connection with those nerves\u2014open your fingers and\ndrop it in the opening of a pillar box\u2014and it becomes part and parcel of\nanother nervous system. Letters in transitu contain all manner of varied\nstimuli and shocks, yet to the postman, who is the nerve that conveys\nthem, they are all alike, except as regards mere size and weight. I\nshould think, therefore, that our nerves and ganglia really see no\ndifference in the stimuli that they convey.\n\nAnd yet the postman does see some difference: he knows a business letter\nfrom a valentine at a glance and practice teaches him to know much else\nwhich escapes ourselves. Who, then, shall say what the nerves and\nganglia know and what they do not know? True, to us, as we think of a\npiece of brain inside our own heads, it seems as absurd to consider that\nit knows anything at all as it seems to consider that a hen\u2019s egg knows\nanything; but then if the brain could see us, perhaps the brain might say\nit was absurd to suppose that that thing could know this or that.\nBesides what is the self of which we say that we are self-conscious? No\none can say what it is that we are conscious of. This is one of the\nthings which lie altogether outside the sphere of words.\n\nThe postman can open a letter if he likes and know all about the message\nhe is conveying, but, if he does this, he is diseased _qua_ postman. So,\nmaybe, a nerve might open a stimulus or a shock on the way sometimes, but\nit would not be a good nerve.\n\n\n\nNight-Shirts and Babies\n\n\nOn Hindhead, last Easter, we saw a family wash hung out to dry. There\nwere papa\u2019s two great night-shirts and mamma\u2019s two lesser night-gowns and\nthen the children\u2019s smaller articles of clothing and mamma\u2019s drawers and\nthe girls\u2019 drawers, all full swollen with a strong north-east wind. But\nmamma\u2019s night-gown was not so well pinned on and, instead of being full\nof steady wind like the others, kept blowing up and down as though she\nwere preaching wildly. We stood and laughed for ten minutes. The\nhousewife came to the window and wondered at us, but we could not resist\nthe pleasure of watching the absurdly life-like gestures which the\nnight-gowns made. I should like a _Santa Famiglia_ with clothes drying\nin the background.\n\nA love story might be told in a series of sketches of the clothes of two\nfamilies hanging out to dry in adjacent gardens. Then a gentleman\u2019s\nnight-shirt from one garden, and a lady\u2019s night-gown from the other\nshould be shown hanging in a third garden by themselves. By and by there\nshould be added a little night-shirt.\n\nA philosopher might be tempted, on seeing the little night-shirt, to\nsuppose that the big night-shirts had made it. What we do is much the\nsame, for the body of a baby is not much more made by the two old babies,\nafter whose pattern it has cut itself out, than the little night-shirt is\nmade by the big ones. The thing that makes either the little night-shirt\nor the little baby is something about which we know nothing whatever at\nall.\n\n\n\nOur Organism\n\n\nMan is a walking tool-box, manufactory, workshop and bazaar worked from\nbehind the scenes by someone or something that we never see. We are so\nused to never seeing more than the tools, and these work so smoothly,\nthat we call them the workman himself, making much the same mistake as\nthough we should call the saw the carpenter. The only workman of whom we\nknow anything at all is the one that runs ourselves and even this is not\nperceivable by any of our gross palpable senses.\n\nThe senses seem to be the link between mind and matter\u2014never forgetting\nthat we can never have either mind or matter pure and without alloy of\nthe other.\n\n\n\nBeer and My Cat\n\n\nSpilt beer or water seems sometimes almost human in its uncertainty\nwhether or no it is worth while to get ever such a little nearer to the\nearth\u2019s centre by such and such a slight trickle forward.\n\nI saw my cat undecided in his mind whether he should get up on the table\nand steal the remains of my dinner or not. The chair was some eighteen\ninches away with its back towards the table, so it was a little\ntroublesome for him to get his feet first on the bar and then on the\ntable. He was not at all hungry but he tried, saw it would not be quite\neasy and gave it up; then he thought better of it and tried again, and\nsaw again that it was not all perfectly plain sailing; and so backwards\nand forwards with the first-he-would-and-then-he-wouldn\u2019tism of a mind so\nnearly in equilibrium that a hair\u2019s weight would turn the scale one way\nor the other.\n\nI thought how closely it resembled the action of beer trickling on a\nslightly sloping table.\n\n\n\nThe Union Bank\n\n\nThere is a settlement in the Union Bank building, Chancery Lane, which\nhas made three large cracks in the main door steps. I remember these\ncracks more than twenty years ago, just after the bank was built, as mere\nthin lines and now they must be some half an inch wide and are still\nslowly widening. They have altered very gradually, but not an hour or a\nminute has passed without a groaning and travailing together on the part\nof every stone and piece of timber in the building to settle how a _modus\nvivendi_ should be arrived at. This is why the crack is said to be\ncaused by a settlement\u2014some parts of the building willing this and some\nthat, and the battle going on, as even the steadiest and most unbroken\nbattles must go, by fits and starts which, though to us appearing as an\neven tenor, would, if we could see them under a microscope, prove to be a\nsuccession of bloody engagements between regiments that sometimes lost\nand sometimes won. Sometimes, doubtless, strained relations have got\nsettled by peaceful arbitration and reference to the solicitors of the\ncontending parts without open visible rupture; at other times, again,\ndiscontent has gathered on discontent as the snow upon a sub-alpine\nslope, flake by flake, till the last is one too many and the whole comes\ncrashing down\u2014whereon the cracks have opened some minute fraction of an\ninch wider.\n\nOf this we see nothing. All we note is that a score of years have gone\nby and that the cracks are rather wider. So, doubtless, if the materials\nof which the bank is built could speak, they would say they knew nothing\nof the varied interests that sometimes coalesce and sometimes conflict\nwithin the building. The joys of the rich depositor, the anguish of the\nbankrupt are nothing to them; the stream of people coming in and going\nout is as steady, continuous a thing to them as a blowing wind or a\nrunning river to ourselves; all they know or care about is that they have\na trifle more weight of books and clerks and bullion than they once had,\nand that this hinders them somewhat in their effort after a permanent\nsettlement.\n\n\n\nThe Unity of Nature\n\n\nI meet a melancholy old Savoyard playing on a hurdy-gurdy, grisly,\ndejected, dirty, with a look upon him as though the iron had long since\nentered into his soul. It is a frosty morning but he has very little\nclothing, and there is a dumb despairing look about him which is surely\ngenuine. There passes him a young butcher boy with his tray of meat upon\nhis shoulder. He is ruddy, lusty, full of life and health and spirits,\nand he vents these in a shrill whistle which eclipses the hurdy-gurdy of\nthe Savoyard.\n\nThe like holds good with the horses and cats and dogs which I meet daily,\nwith the flies in window panes and with plants, some are successful,\nother have now passed their prime. Look at the failures _per se_ and\nthey make one very unhappy, but it helps matters to look at them in their\ncapacities as parts of a whole rather than as isolated.\n\nI cannot see things round about me without feeling that they are all\nparts of one whole which is trying to do something; it has not perhaps a\nperfectly clear idea of what it is trying after, but it is doing its\nbest. I see old age, decay and failure as the relaxation, after effort,\nof a muscle in the corporation of things, or as a tentative effort in a\nwrong direction, or as the dropping off of particles of skin from a\nhealthy limb. This dropping off is the death of any given generation of\nour cells as they work their way nearer and nearer to our skins and then\nget rubbed off and go away. It is as though we sent people to live\nnearer and nearer the churchyard the older they grew. As for the skin\nthat is shed, in the first place it has had its turn, in the second it\nstarts anew under fresh auspices, for it can at no time cease to be part\nof the universe, it must always live in one way or another.\n\n\n\nCroesus and His Kitchen-Maid\n\n\nI want people to see either their cells as less parts of themselves than\nthey do, or their servants as more.\n\nCroesus\u2019s kitchen-maid is part of him, bone of his bone and flesh of his\nflesh, for she eats what comes from his table and, being fed of one\nflesh, are they not brother and sister to one another in virtue of\ncommunity of nutriment which is but a thinly veiled travesty of descent?\nWhen she eats peas with her knife, he does so too; there is not a bit of\nbread and butter she puts into her mouth, nor a lump of sugar she drops\ninto her tea, but he knoweth it altogether, though he knows nothing\nwhatever about it. She is en-Croesused and he enscullery-maided so long\nas she remains linked to him by the golden chain which passes from his\npocket to hers, and which is greatest of all unifiers.\n\nTrue, neither party is aware of the connection at all as long as things\ngo smoothly. Croesus no more knows the name of, or feels the existence\nof, his kitchen-maid than a peasant in health knows about his liver;\nnevertheless he is awakened to a dim sense of an undefined something when\nhe pays his grocer or his baker. She is more definitely aware of him\nthan he of her, but it is by way of an overshadowing presence rather than\na clear and intelligent comprehension. And though Croesus does not eat\nhis kitchen-maid\u2019s meals otherwise than vicariously, still to eat\nvicariously is to eat: the meals so eaten by his kitchen-maid nourish the\nbetter ordering of the dinner which nourishes and engenders the better\nordering of Croesus himself. He is fed therefore by the feeding of his\nkitchen-maid.\n\nAnd so with sleep. When she goes to bed he, in part, does so too. When\nshe gets up and lays the fire in the back-kitchen he, in part, does so.\nHe lays it through her and in her, though knowing no more what he is\ndoing than we know when we digest, but still doing it as by what we call\na reflex action. _Qui facit per alium facit per se_, and when the\nback-kitchen fire is lighted on Croesus\u2019s behalf, it is Croesus who\nlights it, though he is all the time fast asleep in bed.\n\nSometimes things do not go smoothly. Suppose the kitchen-maid to be\ntaken with fits just before dinner-time; there will be a reverberating\necho of disturbance throughout the whole organisation of the palace. But\nthe oftener she has fits, the more easily will the household know what it\nis all about when she is taken with them. On the first occasion Lady\nCroesus will send some one rushing down into the kitchen, there will, in\nfact, be a general flow of blood (i.e. household) to the part affected\n(that is to say, to the scullery-maid); the doctor will be sent for and\nall the rest of it. On each repetition of the fits the neighbouring\norgans, reverting to a more primary undifferentiated condition, will\ndischarge duties for which they were not engaged, in a manner for which\nno one would have given them credit, and the disturbance will be less and\nless each time, till by and by, at the sound of the crockery smashing\nbelow, Lady Croesus will just look up to papa and say:\n\n\u201cMy dear, I am afraid Sarah has got another fit.\u201d\n\nAnd papa will say she will probably be better again soon, and will go on\nreading his newspaper.\n\nIn course of time the whole thing will come to be managed automatically\ndownstairs without any reference either to papa, the cerebrum, or to\nmamma, the cerebellum, or even to the medulla oblongata, the housekeeper.\nA precedent or routine will be established, after which everything will\nwork quite smoothly.\n\nBut though papa and mamma are unconscious of the reflex action which has\nbeen going on within their organisation, the kitchen-maid and the cells\nin her immediate vicinity (that is to say her fellow-servants) will know\nall about it. Perhaps the neighbours will think that nobody in the house\nknows, and that because the master and mistress show no sign of\ndisturbance therefore there is no consciousness. They forget that the\nscullery-maid becomes more and more conscious of the fits if they grow\nupon her, as they probably will, and that Croesus and his lady do show\nmore signs of consciousness, if they are watched closely, than can be\ndetected on first inspection. There is not the same violent perturbation\nthat there was on the previous occasions, but the tone of the palace is\nlowered. A dinner party has to be put off; the cooking is more\nhomogeneous and uncertain, it is less highly differentiated than when the\nscullery-maid was well; and there is a grumble when the doctor has to be\npaid and also when the smashed crockery has to be replaced.\n\nIf Croesus discharges his kitchen-maid and gets another, it is as though\nhe cut out a small piece of his finger and replaced it in due course by\ngrowth. But even the slightest cut may lead to blood-poisoning, and so\neven the dismissal of a kitchen-maid may be big with the fate of empires.\nThus the cook, a valued servant, may take the kitchen-maid\u2019s part and go\ntoo. The next cook may spoil the dinner and upset Croesus\u2019s temper, and\nfrom this all manner of consequences may be evolved, even to the\ndethronement and death of the king himself. Nevertheless as a general\nrule an injury to such a low part of a great monarch\u2019s organism as a\nkitchen-maid has no important results. It is only when we are attacked\nin such vital organs as the solicitor or the banker that we need be\nuneasy. A wound in the solicitor is a very serious thing, and many a man\nhas died from failure of his bank\u2019s action.\n\nIt is certain, as we have seen, that when the kitchen-maid lights the\nfire it is really Croesus who is lighting it, but it is less obvious that\nwhen Croesus goes to a ball the scullery-maid goes also. Still this\nshould be held in the same way as it should be also held that she eats\nvicariously when Croesus dines. For he must return the balls and the\ndinner parties and this comes out in his requiring to keep a large\nestablishment whereby the scullery-maid retains her place as part of his\norganism and is nourished and amused also.\n\nOn the other hand, when Croesus dies it does not follow that the\nscullery-maid should die at the same time. She may grow a new Croesus,\nas Croesus, if the maid dies, will probably grow a new kitchen-maid,\nCroesus\u2019s son or successor may take over the kingdom and palace, and the\nkitchen-maid, beyond having to wash up a few extra plates and dishes at\nCoronation time, will know little about the change. It is as though the\nestablishment had had its hair cut and its beard trimmed; it is smartened\nup a little, but there is no other change. If, on the other hand, he\ngoes bankrupt, or his kingdom is taken from him and his whole\nestablishment is broken up and dissipated at the auction mart, then, even\nthough not one of its component cells actually dies, the organism as a\nwhole does so, and it is interesting to see that the lowest, least\nspecialised and least highly differentiate parts of the organism, such as\nthe scullery-maid and the stable-boys, most readily find an entry into\nthe life of some new system, while the more specialised and highly\ndifferentiated parts, such as the steward, the old housekeeper and, still\nmore so, the librarian or the chaplain may never be able to attach\nthemselves to any new combination, and may die in consequence. I heard\nonce of a large builder who retired unexpectedly from business and broke\nup his establishment to the actual death of several of his older\nemploy\u00e9s. So a bit of flesh or even a finger may be taken from one body\nand grafted on to another, but a leg cannot be grafted; if a leg is cut\noff it must die. It may, however, be maintained that the owner dies too,\neven though he recovers, for a man who has lost a leg is not the man he\nwas. {92}\n\n\n\n\nVII\nOn the Making of Music, Pictures and Books\n\n\nThought and Word\n\n\ni\n\n\nTHOUGHT pure and simple is as near to God as we can get; it is through\nthis that we are linked with God. The highest thought is ineffable; it\nmust be felt from one person to another but cannot be articulated. All\nthe most essential and thinking part of thought is done without words or\nconsciousness. It is not till doubt and consciousness enter that words\nbecome possible.\n\nThe moment a thing is written, or even can be written, and reasoned\nabout, it has changed its nature by becoming tangible, and hence finite,\nand hence it will have an end in disintegration. It has entered into\ndeath. And yet till it can be thought about and realised more or less\ndefinitely it has not entered into life. Both life and death are\nnecessary factors of each other. But our profoundest and most important\nconvictions are unspeakable.\n\nSo it is with unwritten and indefinable codes of honour, conventions,\nart-rules\u2014things that can be felt but not explained\u2014these are the most\nimportant, and the less we try to understand them, or even to think about\nthem, the better.\n\n\nii\n\n\nWords are organised thoughts, as living forms are organised actions. How\na thought can find embodiment in words is nearly, though perhaps not\nquite, as mysterious as how an action can find embodiment in form, and\nappears to involve a somewhat analogous transformation and contradiction\nin terms.\n\nThere was a time when language was as rare an accomplishment as writing\nwas in the days when it was first invented. Probably talking was\noriginally confined to a few scholars, as writing was in the middle ages,\nand gradually became general. Even now speech is still growing; poor\nfolks cannot understand the talk of educated people. Perhaps reading and\nwriting will indeed one day come by nature. Analogy points in this\ndirection, and though analogy is often misleading, it is the least\nmisleading thing we have.\n\n\niii\n\n\nCommunications between God and man must always be either above words or\nbelow them; for with words come in translations, and all the interminable\nquestions therewith connected.\n\n\niv\n\n\nThe mere fact that a thought or idea can be expressed articulately in\nwords involves that it is still open to question; and the mere fact that\na difficulty can be definitely conceived involves that it is open to\nsolution.\n\n\nv\n\n\nWe want words to do more than they can. We try to do with them what\ncomes to very much like trying to mend a watch with a pickaxe or to paint\na miniature with a mop; we expect them to help us to grip and dissect\nthat which in ultimate essence is as ungrippable as shadow. Nevertheless\nthere they are; we have got to live with them, and the wise course is to\ntreat them as we do our neighbours, and make the best and not the worst\nof them. But they are parvenu people as compared with thought and\naction. What we should read is not the words but the man whom we feel to\nbe behind the words.\n\n\nvi\n\n\nWords impede and either kill, or are killed by, perfect thought; but they\nare, as a scaffolding, useful, if not indispensable, for the building up\nof imperfect thought and helping to perfect it.\n\n\nvii\n\n\nAll words are juggles. To call a thing a juggle of words is often a\nbigger juggle than the juggle it is intended to complain of. The\nquestion is whether it is a greater juggle than is generally considered\nfair trading.\n\n\nviii\n\n\nWords are like money; there is nothing so useless, unless when in actual\nuse.\n\n\nix\n\n\nGold and silver coins are only the tokens, symbols, outward and visible\nsigns and sacraments of money. When not in actual process of being\napplied in purchase they are no more money than words not in use are\nlanguage. Books are like imprisoned souls until some one takes them down\nfrom a shelf and reads them. The coins are potential money as the words\nare potential language, it is the power and will to apply the counters\nthat make them vibrate with life; when the power and the will are in\nabeyance the counters lie dead as a log.\n\n\n\nThe Law\n\n\nThe written law is binding, but the unwritten law is much more so. You\nmay break the written law at a pinch and on the sly if you can, but the\nunwritten law\u2014which often comprises the written\u2014must not be broken. Not\nbeing written, it is not always easy to know what it is, but this has got\nto be done.\n\n\n\nIdeas\n\n\nThey are like shadows\u2014substantial enough until we try to grasp them.\n\n\n\nExpression\n\n\nThe fact that every mental state is intensified by expression is of a\npiece with the fact that nothing has any existence at all save in its\nexpression.\n\n\n\nDevelopment\n\n\nAll things are like exposed photographic plates that have no visible\nimage on them till they have been developed.\n\n\n\nAcquired Characteristics\n\n\nIf there is any truth in the theory that these are inherited\u2014and who can\ndoubt it?\u2014the eye and the finger are but the aspiration, or word, made\nmanifest in flesh.\n\n\n\nPhysical and Spiritual\n\n\nThe bodies of many abandoned undertakings lie rotting unburied up and\ndown the country and their ghosts haunt the law-courts.\n\n\n\nTrail and Writing\n\n\nBefore the invention of writing the range of one man\u2019s influence over\nanother was limited to the range of sight, sound and scent; besides this\nthere was trail, of many kinds. Trail unintentionally left is, as it\nwere, hidden sight. Left intentionally, it is the unit of literature.\nIt is the first mode of writing, from which grew that power of extending\nmen\u2019s influence over one another by the help of written symbols of all\nkinds without which the development of modern civilisation would have\nbeen impossible.\n\n\n\nConveyancing and the Arts\n\n\nIn conveyancing the ultimately potent thing is not the deed but the\ninvisible intention and desire of the parties to the deed; the written\ndocument itself is only evidence of this intention and desire. So it is\nwith music, the written notes are not the main thing, nor is even the\nheard performance; these are only evidences of an internal invisible\nemotion that can be felt but never fully expressed. And so it is with\nthe words of literature and with the forms and colours of painting.\n\n\n\nThe Rules for Making Literature, Music and Pictures\n\n\nThe arts of the musician, the painter and the writer are essentially the\nsame. In composing a fugue, after you have exposed your subject, which\nmust not be too unwieldly, you introduce an episode or episodes which\nmust arise out of your subject. The great thing is that all shall be\nnew, and yet nothing new, at the same time; the details must minister to\nthe main effect and not obscure it; in other words, you must have a\nsubject, develop it and not wander from it very far. This holds just as\ntrue for literature and painting and for art of all kinds.\n\nNo man should try even to allude to the greater part of what he sees in\nhis subject, and there is hardly a limit to what he may omit. What is\nrequired is that he shall say what he elects to say discreetly; that he\nshall be quick to see the gist of a matter, and give it pithily without\neither prolixity or stint of words.\n\n\n\nRelative Importances\n\n\nIt is the painter\u2019s business to help memory and imagination, not to\nsupersede them. He cannot put the whole before the spectator, nothing\ncan do this short of the thing itself; he should, therefore, not try to\nrealise, and the less he looks as if he were trying to do so the more\nsigns of judgment he will show. His business is to supply those details\nwhich will most readily bring the whole before the mind along with them.\nHe must not give too few, but it is still more imperative on him not to\ngive too many.\n\nSeeing, thought and expression are rendered possible only by the fact\nthat our minds are always ready to compromise and to take the part for\nthe whole. We associate a number of ideas with any given object, and if\na few of the most characteristic of these are put before us we take the\nrest as read, jump to a conclusion and realise the whole. If we did not\nconduct our thought on this principle\u2014simplifying by suppression of\ndetail and breadth of treatment\u2014it would take us a twelvemonth to say\nthat it was a fine morning and another for the hearer to apprehend our\nstatement. Any other principle reduces thought to an absurdity.\n\nAll painting depends upon simplification. All simplification depends\nupon a perception of relative importances. All perception of relative\nimportances depends upon a just appreciation of which letters in\nassociation\u2019s bond association will most readily dispense with. This\ndepends upon the sympathy of the painter both with his subject and with\nhim who is to look at the picture. And this depends upon a man\u2019s common\nsense.\n\nHe therefore tells best in painting, as in literature, who has best\nestimated the relative values or importances of the more special features\ncharacterising his subject: that is to say, who appreciates most\naccurately how much and how fast each one of them will carry, and is at\nmost pains to give those only that will say most in the fewest words or\ntouches. It is here that the most difficult, the most important, and the\nmost generally neglected part of an artist\u2019s business will be found to\nlie.\n\nThe difficulties of doing are serious enough, nevertheless we can most of\nus overcome them with ordinary perseverance for they are small as\ncompared with those of knowing what not to do\u2014with those of learning to\ndisregard the incessant importunity of small nobody-details that persist\nin trying to thrust themselves above their betters. It is less trouble\nto give in to these than to snub them duly and keep them in their proper\nplaces, yet it is precisely here that strength or weakness resides. It\nis success or failure in this respect that constitutes the difference\nbetween the artist who may claim to rank as a statesman and one who can\nrise no higher than a village vestryman.\n\nIt is here, moreover, that effort is most remunerative. For when we feel\nthat a painter has made simplicity and subordination of importances his\nfirst aim, it is surprising how much shortcoming we will condone as\nregards actual execution. Whereas, let the execution be perfect, if the\ndetails given be ill-chosen in respect of relative importance the whole\neffect is lost\u2014it becomes top-heavy, as it were, and collapses. As for\nthe number of details given, this does not matter: a man may give as few\nor as many as he chooses; he may stop at outline, or he may go on to Jean\nVan Eyck; what is essential is that, no matter how far or how small a\ndistance he may go, he should have begun with the most important point\nand added each subsequent feature in due order of importance, so that if\nhe stopped at any moment there should be no detail ungiven more important\nthan another which has been insisted on.\n\nSupposing, by way of illustration, that the details are as grapes in a\nbunch, they should be eaten from the best grape to the next best, and so\non downwards, never eating a worse grape while a better one remains\nuneaten.\n\nPersonally, I think that, as the painter cannot go the whole way, the\nsooner he makes it clear that he has no intention of trying to do so the\nbetter. When we look at a very highly finished picture (so called),\nunless we are in the hands of one who has attended successfully to the\nconsiderations insisted on above, we feel as though we were with a\ntroublesome cicerone who will not let us look at things with our own eyes\nbut keeps intruding himself at every touch and turn and trying to\nexercise that undue influence upon us which generally proves to have been\nthe accompaniment of concealment and fraud. This is exactly what we feel\nwith Van Mieris and, though in a less degree, with Gerard Dow; whereas\nwith Jean Van Eyck and Metsu, no matter how far they may have gone, we\nfind them essentially as impressionist as Rembrandt or Velasquez.\n\nFor impressionism only means that due attention has been paid to the\nrelative importances of the impressions made by the various\ncharacteristics of a given subject, and that they have been presented to\nus in order of precedence.\n\n\n\nEating Grapes Downwards\n\n\nAlways eat grapes downwards\u2014that is, always eat the best grape first; in\nthis way there will be none better left on the bunch, and each grape will\nseem good down to the last. If you eat the other way, you will not have\na good grape in the lot. Besides, you will be tempting Providence to\nkill you before you come to the best. This is why autumn seems better\nthan spring: in the autumn we are eating our days downwards, in the\nspring each day still seems \u201cVery bad.\u201d People should live on this\nprinciple more than they do, but they do live on it a good deal; from the\nage of, say, fifty we eat our days downwards.\n\nIn New Zealand for a long time I had to do the washing-up after each\nmeal. I used to do the knives first, for it might please God to take me\nbefore I came to the forks, and then what a sell it would have been to\nhave done the forks rather than the knives!\n\n\n\nTerseness\n\n\nTalking with Gogin last night, I said that in writing it took more time\nand trouble to get a thing short than long. He said it was the same in\npainting. It was harder not to paint a detail than to paint it, easier\nto put in all that one can see than to judge what may go without saying,\nomit it and range the irreducible minima in due order of precedence.\nHence we all lean towards prolixity.\n\nThe difficulty lies in the nice appreciation of relative importances and\nin the giving each detail neither more nor less than its due. This is\nthe difference between Gerard Dow and Metsu. Gerard Dow gives all he\ncan, but unreflectingly; hence it does not reflect the subject\neffectively into the spectator. We see it, but it does not come home to\nus. Metsu on the other hand omits all he can, but omits intelligently,\nand his reflection excites responsive enthusiasm in ourselves. We are\ncontinually trying to see as much as we can, and to put it down. More\nwisely we should consider how much we can avoid seeing and dispense with.\n\nSo it is also in music. Cherubini says the number of things that can be\ndone in fugue with a very simple subject is endless, but that the trouble\nlies in knowing which to choose from all these infinite possibilities.\n\nAs regards painting, any one can paint anything in the minute manner with\na little practice, but it takes an exceedingly able man to paint so much\nas an egg broadly and simply. Bearing in mind the shortness of life and\nthe complexity of affairs, it stands to reason that we owe most to him\nwho packs our trunks for us, so to speak, most intelligently, neither\nomitting what we are likely to want, nor including what we can dispense\nwith, and who, at the same time, arranges things so that they will travel\nmost safely and be got at most conveniently. So we speak of composition\nand arrangement in all arts.\n\n\n\nMaking Notes\n\n\nMy notes always grow longer if I shorten them. I mean the process of\ncompression makes them more pregnant and they breed new notes. I never\ntry to lengthen them, so I do not know whether they would grow shorter if\nI did. Perhaps that might be a good way of getting them shorter.\n\n\n\nShortening\n\n\nA young author is tempted to leave anything he has written through fear\nof not having enough to say if he goes cutting out too freely. But it is\neasier to be long than short. I have always found compressing, cutting\nout, and tersifying a passage suggests more than anything else does.\nThings pruned off in this way are like the heads of the hydra, two grow\nfor every two that is lopped off.\n\n\n\nOmission\n\n\nIf a writer will go on the principle of stopping everywhere and anywhere\nto put down his notes, as the true painter will stop anywhere and\neverywhere to sketch, he will be able to cut down his works liberally.\nHe will become prodigal not of writing\u2014any fool can be this\u2014but of\nomission. You become brief because you have more things to say than time\nto say them in. One of the chief arts is that of knowing what to neglect\nand the more talk increases the more necessary does this art become.\n\n\n\nBrevity\n\n\nHandel\u2019s jig in the ninth _Suite de Pieces_, in G minor, is very fine but\nit is perhaps a little long. Probably Handel was in a hurry, for it\ntakes much more time to get a thing short than to leave it a little long.\nBrevity is not only the soul of wit, but the soul of making oneself\nagreeable and of getting on with people, and, indeed, of everything that\nmakes life worth living. So precious a thing, however, cannot be got\nwithout more expense and trouble than most of us have the moral wealth to\nlay out.\n\n\n\nDiffuseness\n\n\nThis sometimes helps, as, for instance, when the subject is hard; words\nthat may be, strictly speaking, unnecessary still may make things easier\nfor the reader by giving him more time to master the thought while his\neye is running over the verbiage. So, a little water may prevent a\nstrong drink from burning throat and stomach. A style that is too terse\nis as fatiguing as one that is too diffuse. But when a passage is\nwritten a little long, with consciousness and compunction but still\ndeliberately, as what will probably be most easy for the reader, it can\nhardly be called diffuse.\n\n\n\nDifficulties in Art, Literature and Music\n\n\nThe difficult and the unintelligible are only conceivable at all in\nvirtue of their catching on to something less difficult and less\nunintelligible and, through this, to things easily done and understood.\nIt is at these joints in their armour that difficulties should be\nattacked.\n\nNever tackle a serious difficulty as long as something which must be\ndone, and about which you see your way fairly well, remains undone; the\nsettling of this is sure to throw light upon the way in which the serious\ndifficulty is to be resolved. It is doing the What-you-can that will\nbest help you to do the What-you-cannot.\n\nArrears of small things to be attended to, if allowed to accumulate,\nworry and depress like unpaid debts. The main work should always stand\naside for these, not these for the main work, as large debts should stand\naside for small ones, or truth for common charity and good feeling. If\nwe attend continually and promptly to the little that we can do, we shall\nere long be surprised to find how little remains that we cannot do.\n\n\n\nKnowledge is Power\n\n\nYes, but it must be practical knowledge. There is nothing less powerful\nthan knowledge unattached, and incapable of application. That is why\nwhat little knowledge I have has done myself personally so much harm. I\ndo not know much, but if I knew a good deal less than that little I\nshould be far more powerful. The rule should be never to learn a thing\ntill one is pretty sure one wants it, or that one will want it before\nlong so badly as not to be able to get on without it. This is what\nsensible people do about money, and there is no reason why people should\nthrow away their time and trouble more than their money. There are\nplenty of things that most boys would give their ears to know, these and\nthese only are the proper things for them to sharpen their wits upon.\n\nIf a boy is idle and does not want to learn anything at all, the same\nprinciple should guide those who have the care of him\u2014he should never be\nmade to learn anything till it is pretty obvious that he cannot get on\nwithout it. This will save trouble both to boys and teachers, moreover\nit will be far more likely to increase a boy\u2019s desire to learn. I know\nin my own case no earthly power could make me learn till I had my head\ngiven me; and nothing has been able to stop me from incessant study from\nthat day to this.\n\n\n\nAcademicism\n\n\nHandicapped people sometimes owe their success to the misfortune which\nweights them. They seldom know beforehand how far they are going to\nreach, and this helps them; for if they knew the greatness of the task\nbefore them they would not attempt it. He who knows he is infirm, and\nwould yet climb, does not think of the summit which he believes to be\nbeyond his reach but climbs slowly onwards, taking very short steps,\nlooking below as often as he likes but not above him, never trying his\npowers but seldom stopping, and then, sometimes, behold! he is on the\ntop, which he would never have even aimed at could he have seen it from\nbelow. It is only in novels and sensational biographies that handicapped\npeople, \u201cfired by a knowledge of the difficulties that others have\novercome, resolve to triumph over every obstacle by dint of sheer\ndetermination, and in the end carry everything before them.\u201d In real\nlife the person who starts thus almost invariably fails. This is the\nworst kind of start.\n\nThe greatest secret of good work whether in music, literature or painting\nlies in not attempting too much; if it be asked, \u201cWhat is too much?\u201d the\nanswer is, \u201cAnything that we find difficult or unpleasant.\u201d We should\nnot ask whether others find this same thing difficult or no. If we find\nthe difficulty so great that the overcoming it is a labour and not a\npleasure, we should either change our aim altogether, or aim, at any rate\nfor a time, at some lower point. It must be remembered that no work is\nrequired to be more than right as far as it goes; the greatest work\ncannot get beyond this and the least comes strangely near the greatest if\nthis can be said of it.\n\nThe more I see of academicism the more I distrust it. If I had\napproached painting as I have approached bookwriting and music, that is\nto say by beginning at once to do what I wanted, or as near as I could to\nwhat I could find out of this, and taking pains not by way of solving\nacademic difficulties, in order to provide against practical ones, but by\nwaiting till a difficulty arose in practice and then tackling it, thus\nmaking the arising of each difficulty be the occasion for learning what\nhad to be learnt about it\u2014if I had approached painting in this way I\nshould have been all right. As it is I have been all wrong, and it was\nSouth Kensington and Heatherley\u2019s that set me wrong. I listened to the\nnonsense about how I ought to study before beginning to paint, and about\nnever painting without nature, and the result was that I learned to study\nbut not to paint. Now I have got too much to do and am too old to do\nwhat I might easily have done, and should have done, if I had found out\nearlier what writing _Life and Habit_ was the chief thing to teach me.\n\nSo I painted study after study, as a priest reads his breviary, and at\nthe end of ten years knew no more what the face of nature was like,\nunless I had it immediately before me, than I did at the beginning. I am\nfree to confess that in respect of painting I am a failure. I have spent\nfar more time on painting than I have on anything else, and have failed\nat it more than I have failed in any other respect almost solely for the\nreasons given above. I tried very hard, but I tried the wrong way.\n\nFortunately for me there are no academies for teaching people how to\nwrite books, or I should have fallen into them as I did into those for\npainting and, instead of writing, should have spent my time and money in\nbeing told that I was learning how to write. If I had one thing to say\nto students before I died (I mean, if I had got to die, but might tell\nstudents one thing first) I should say:\u2014\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t learn to do, but learn in doing. Let your falls not be on a\nprepared ground, but let them be bona fide falls in the rough and tumble\nof the world; only, of course, let them be on a small scale in the first\ninstance till you feel your feet safe under you. Act more and rehearse\nless.\u201d\n\nA friend once asked me whether I liked writing books, composing music or\npainting pictures best. I said I did not know. I like them all; but I\nnever find time to paint a picture now and only do small sketches and\nstudies. I know in which I am strongest\u2014writing; I know in which I am\nweakest\u2014painting; I am weakest where I have taken most pains and studied\nmost.\n\n\n\nAgonising\n\n\nIn art, never try to find out anything, or try to learn anything until\nthe not knowing it has come to be a nuisance to you for some time. Then\nyou will remember it, but not otherwise. Let knowledge importune you\nbefore you will hear it. Our schools and universities go on the\nprecisely opposite system.\n\nNever consciously agonise; the race is not to the swift, nor the battle\nto the strong. Moments of extreme issue are unconscious and must be left\nto take care of themselves. During conscious moments take reasonable\npains but no more and, above all, work so slowly as never to get out of\nbreath. Take it easy, in fact, until forced not to do so.\n\nThere is no mystery about art. Do the things that you can see; they will\nshow you those that you cannot see. By doing what you can you will\ngradually get to know what it is that you want to do and cannot do, and\nso to be able to do it.\n\n\n\nThe Choice of Subjects\n\n\nDo not hunt for subjects, let them choose you, not you them. Only do\nthat which insists upon being done and runs right up against you, hitting\nyou in the eye until you do it. This calls you and you had better attend\nto it, and do it as well as you can. But till called in this way do\nnothing.\n\n\n\nImaginary Countries\n\n\nEach man\u2019s mind is an unknown land to himself, so that we need not be at\nsuch pains to frame a mechanism of adventure for getting to undiscovered\ncountries. We have not far to go before we reach them. They are, like\nthe Kingdom of Heaven, within us.\n\n\n\nMy Books\n\n\nI never make them: they grow; they come to me and insist on being\nwritten, and on being such and such. I did not want to write _Erewhon_,\nI wanted to go on painting and found it an abominable nuisance being\ndragged willy-nilly into writing it. So with all my books\u2014the subjects\nwere never of my own choosing; they pressed themselves upon me with more\nforce than I could resist. If I had not liked the subjects I should have\nkicked, and nothing would have got me to do them at all. As I did like\nthe subjects and the books came and said they were to be written, I\ngrumbled a little and wrote them. {106}\n\n\n\nGreat Works\n\n\nThese have always something of the \u201cde profundis\u201d about them.\n\n\n\nNew Ideas\n\n\nEvery new idea has something of the pain and peril of childbirth about\nit; ideas are just as mortal and just as immortal as organised beings\nare.\n\n\n\nBooks and Children\n\n\nIf the literary offspring is not to die young, almost as much trouble\nmust be taken with it as with the bringing up of a physical child.\nStill, the physical child is the harder work of the two.\n\n\n\nThe Life of Books\n\n\nSome writers think about the life of books as some savages think about\nthe life of men\u2014that there are books which never die. They all die\nsooner or later; but that will not hinder an author from trying to give\nhis book as long a life as he can get for it. The fact that it will have\nto die is no valid reason for letting it die sooner than can be helped.\n\n\n\nCriticism\n\n\nCritics generally come to be critics by reason not of their fitness for\nthis but of their unfitness for anything else. Books should be tried by\na judge and jury as though they were crimes, and counsel should be heard\non both sides.\n\n\n\nLe Style c\u2019est l\u2019Homme\n\n\nIt is with books, music, painting and all the arts as with children\u2014only\nthose live that have drained much of their author\u2019s own life into them.\nThe personality of the author is what interests us more than his work.\nWhen we have once got well hold of the personality of the author we care\ncomparatively little about the history of the work or what it means or\neven its technique; we enjoy the work without thinking of more than its\nbeauty, and of how much we like the workman. \u201cLe style c\u2019est\nl\u2019homme\u201d\u2014that style of which, if I may quote from memory, Buffon, again,\nsays that it is like happiness, and \u201cvient de la douceur de l\u2019\u00e2me\u201d\n{107}\u2014and we care more about knowing what kind of person a man was than\nabout knowing of his achievements, no matter how considerable they may\nhave been. If he has made it clear that he was trying to do what we\nlike, and meant what we should like him to have meant, it is enough; but\nif the work does not attract us to the workman, neither does it attract\nus to itself.\n\n\n\nPortraits\n\n\nA great portrait is always more a portrait of the painter than of the\npainted. When we look at a portrait by Holbein or Rembrandt it is of\nHolbein or Rembrandt that we think more than of the subject of their\npicture. Even a portrait of Shakespeare by Holbein or Rembrandt could\ntell us very little about Shakespeare. It would, however, tell us a\ngreat deal about Holbein or Rembrandt.\n\n\n\nA Man\u2019s Style\n\n\nA man\u2019s style in any art should be like his dress\u2014it should attract as\nlittle attention as possible.\n\n\n\nThe Gauntlet of Youth\n\n\nEverything that is to age well must have run the gauntlet of its youth.\nHardly ever does a work of art hold its own against time if it was not\ntreated somewhat savagely at first\u2014I should say \u201cartist\u201d rather than\n\u201cwork of art.\u201d\n\n\n\nGreatness in Art\n\n\nIf a work of art\u2014music, literature or painting\u2014is for all time, it must\nbe independent of the conventions, dialects, costumes and fashions of any\ntime; if not great without help from such unessential accessories, no\nhelp from them can greaten it. A man must wear the dress of his own\ntime, but no dressing can make a strong man of a weak one.\n\n\n\nLiterary Power\n\n\nThey say the test of this is whether a man can write an inscription. I\nsay \u201cCan he name a kitten?\u201d And by this test I am condemned, for I\ncannot.\n\n\n\nSubject and Treatment\n\n\nIt is often said that treatment is more important than subject, but no\ntreatment can make a repulsive subject not repulsive. It can make a\ntrivial, or even a stupid, subject interesting, but a really bad flaw in\na subject cannot be treated out. Happily the man who has sense enough to\ntreat a subject well will generally have sense enough to choose a good\none, so that the case of a really repulsive subject treated in a masterly\nmanner does not often arise. It is often said to have arisen, but in\nnine cases out of ten the treatment will be found to have been\noverpraised.\n\n\n\nPublic Opinion\n\n\nPeople say how strong it is; and indeed it is strong while it is in its\nprime. In its childhood and old age it is as weak as any other organism.\nI try to make my own work belong to the youth of a public opinion. The\nhistory of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty and death of\npublic opinion, as geology is the record of the decay of those bodily\norganisms in which opinions have found material expression.\n\n\n\nA Literary Man\u2019s Test\n\n\nMoli\u00e8re\u2019s reading to his housemaid has, I think, been misunderstood as\nthough he in some way wanted to see the effect upon the housemaid and\nmake her a judge of his work. If she was an unusually clever, smart\ngirl, this might be well enough, but the supposition commonly is that she\nwas a typical housemaid and nothing more.\n\nIf Moli\u00e8re ever did read to her, it was because the mere act of reading\naloud put his work before him in a new light and, by constraining his\nattention to every line, made him judge it more rigorously. I always\nintend to read, and generally do read, what I write aloud to some one;\nany one almost will do, but he should not be so clever that I am afraid\nof him. I feel weak places at once when I read aloud where I thought, as\nlong as I read to myself only, that the passage was all right.\n\n\n\nWhat Audience to Write for\n\n\nPeople between the ages of twenty and thirty read a good deal, after\nthirty their reading drops off and by forty is confined to each person\u2019s\nspecial subject, newspapers and magazines; so that the most important\npart of one\u2019s audience, and that which should be mainly written for,\nconsists of specialists and people between twenty and thirty.\n\n\n\nWriting for a Hundred Years Hence\n\n\nWhen a man is in doubt about this or that in his writing, it will often\nguide him if he asks himself how it will tell a hundred years hence.\n\n\n\n\nVIII\nHandel and Music\n\n\nHandel and Beethoven\n\n\nAS a boy, from 12 years old or so, I always worshipped Handel. Beethoven\nwas a _terra incognita_ to me till I went up to Cambridge; I knew and\nliked a few of his waltzes but did not so much as know that he had\nwritten any sonatas or symphonies. At Cambridge Sykes tried to teach me\nBeethoven but I disliked his music and would go away as soon as Sykes\nbegan with any of his sonatas. After a long while I began to like some\nof the slow movements and then some entire sonatas, several of which I\ncould play once fairly well without notes. I used also to play Bach and\nMendelssohn\u2019s _Songs without Words_ and thought them lovely, but I always\nliked Handel best. Little by little, however, I was talked over into\nplacing Bach and Beethoven on a par as the greatest and I said I did not\nknow which was the best man. I cannot tell now whether I really liked\nBeethoven or found myself carried away by the strength of the Beethoven\ncurrent which surrounded me; at any rate I spent a great deal of time on\nhim, for some ten or a dozen years.\n\nOne night, when I was about 30, I was at an evening party at Mrs.\nLongden\u2019s and met an old West End clergyman of the name of Smalley\n(Rector, I think, of Bayswater). I said I did not know which was\ngreatest Handel, Bach or Beethoven.\n\nHe said: \u201cI am surprised at that; I should have thought you would have\nknown.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhich,\u201d said I, \u201cis the greatest?\u201d\n\n\u201cHandel.\u201d\n\nI knew he was right and have never wavered since. I suppose I was really\nof this opinion already, but it was not till I got a little touch from\noutside that I knew it. From that moment Beethoven began to go back, and\nnow I feel towards him much as I did when I first heard his work, except,\nof course, that I see a gnosis in him of which as a young man I knew\nnothing. But I do not greatly care about gnosis, I want agape; and\nBeethoven\u2019s agape is not the healthy robust tenderness of Handel, it is a\nsickly maudlin thing in comparison. Anyhow I do not like him. I like\nMozart and Haydn better, but not so much better as I should like to like\nthem.\n\n\n\nHandel and Domenico Scarlatti\n\n\nHandel and Domenico Scarlatti were contemporaries almost to a year, both\nas regards birth and death. They knew each other very well in Italy and\nScarlatti never mentioned Handel\u2019s name without crossing himself, but I\nhave not heard that Handel crossed himself at the mention of Scarlatti\u2019s\nname. I know very little of Scarlatti\u2019s music and have not even that\nlittle well enough in my head to write about it; I retain only a\nresiduary impression that it is often very charming and links Haydn with\nBach, moreover that it is distinctly un-Handelian.\n\nHandel must have known and comprehended Scarlatti\u2019s tendencies perfectly\nwell: his rejection, therefore, of the principles that lead to them must\nhave been deliberate. Scarlatti leads to Haydn, Haydn to Mozart and\nhence, through Beethoven, to modern music. That Handel foresaw this I do\nnot doubt, nor yet that he felt, as I do myself, that modern music means\nsomething, I know not what, which is not what I mean by music. It is\nplaying another game and has set itself aims which, no doubt, are\nexcellent but which are not mine.\n\nOf course I know that this may be all wrong: I know how very limited and\nsuperficial my own acquaintance with music is. Still I have a strong\nfeeling as though from John Dunstable, or whoever it may have been, to\nHandel the tide of music was rising, intermittently no doubt but still\nrising, and that since Handel\u2019s time it has been falling. Or, rather\nperhaps I should say that music bifurcated with Handel and Bach\u2014Handel\ndying musically as well as physically childless, while Bach was as\nprolific in respect of musical disciples as he was in that of children.\n\nWhat, then, was it, supposing I am right at all, that Handel distrusted\nin the principles of Scarlatti as deduced from those of Bach? I imagine\nthat he distrusted chiefly the abuse of the appoggiatura, the abuse of\nthe unlimited power of modulation which equal temperament placed at the\nmusician\u2019s disposition and departure from well-marked rhythm, beat or\nmeasured tread. At any rate I believe the music I like best myself to be\nsparing of the appoggiatura, to keep pretty close to tonic and dominant\nand to have a well-marked beat, measure and rhythm.\n\n\n\nHandel and Homer\n\n\nHandel was a greater man than Homer (I mean the author of the _Iliad_);\nbut the very people who are most angry with me for (as they incorrectly\nsuppose) sneering at Homer are generally the ones who never miss an\nopportunity of cheapening and belittling Handel, and, which is very\npainful to myself, they say I was laughing at him in _Narcissus_.\nPerhaps\u2014but surely one can laugh at a person and adore him at the same\ntime.\n\n\n\nHandel and Bach\n\n\ni\n\n\nIf you tie Handel\u2019s hands by debarring him from the rendering of human\nemotion, and if you set Bach\u2019s free by giving him no human emotion to\nrender\u2014if, in fact, you rob Handel of his opportunities and Bach of his\ndifficulties\u2014the two men can fight after a fashion, but Handel will even\nso come off victorious. Otherwise it is absurd to let Bach compete at\nall. Nevertheless the cultured vulgar have at all times preferred\ngymnastics and display to reticence and the healthy, graceful, normal\nmovements of a man of birth and education, and Bach is esteemed a more\nprofound musician than Handel in virtue of his frequent and more involved\ncomplexity of construction. In reality Handel was profound enough to\neschew such wildernesses of counterpoint as Bach instinctively resorted\nto, but he knew also that public opinion would be sure to place Bach on a\nlevel with himself, if not above him, and this probably made him look\naskance at Bach. At any rate he twice went to Germany without being at\nany pains to meet him, and once, if not twice, refused Bach\u2019s invitation.\n\n\nii\n\n\nRockstro says that Handel keeps much more closely to the old Palestrina\nrules of counterpoint than Bach does, and that when Handel takes a\nlicence it is a good bold one taken rarely, whereas Bach is niggling away\nwith small licences from first to last.\n\n\n\nHandel and the British Public\n\n\nPeople say the generous British public supported Handel. It did nothing\nof the kind. On the contrary, for some 30 years it did its best to ruin\nhim, twice drove him to bankruptcy, badgered him till in 1737 he had a\nparalytic seizure which was as near as might be the death of him and, if\nhe had died then, we should have no _Israel_, nor _Messiah_, nor\n_Samson_, nor any of his greatest oratorios. The British public only\nrelented when he had become old and presently blind. Handel, by the way,\nis a rare instance of a man doing his greatest work subsequently to an\nattack of paralysis. What kept Handel up was not the public but the\ncourt. It was the pensions given him by George I and George II that\nenabled him to carry on at all. So that, in point of fact, it is to\nthese two very prosaic kings that we owe the finest musical poems the\nworld knows anything about.\n\n\n\nHandel and Madame Patey\n\n\nRockstro told me that Sir Michael Costa, after his severe paralytic\nstroke, had to conduct at some great performance\u2014I cannot be sure, but I\nthink he said a Birmingham Festival\u2014at any rate he came in looking very\nwhite and feeble and sat down in front of the orchestra to conduct a\nmorning rehearsal. Madame Patey was there, went up to the poor old\ngentleman and kissed his forehead.\n\nIt is a curious thing about this great singer that not only should she\nhave been (as she has always seemed to me) strikingly like Handel in the\nface, and not only should she have been such an incomparable renderer of\nHandel\u2019s music\u2014I cannot think that I shall ever again hear any one who\nseemed to have the spirit of Handel\u2019s music so thoroughly penetrating his\nor her whole being\u2014but that she should have been struck with paralysis\nat, so far as I can remember, the same age that Handel was. Handel was\nstruck in 1737 when he was 53 years old, but happily recovered. I forget\nMadame Patey\u2019s exact age, but it was somewhere about this.\n\n\n\nHandel and Shakespeare\n\n\nJones and I had been listening to Gaetano Meo\u2019s girls playing Handel and\nwere talking about him and Shakespeare, and how those two men can alike\nstir us more than any one else can. Neither were self-conscious in\nproduction, but when the thing had come out Shakespeare looks at it and\nwonders, whereas Handel takes it as a matter of course.\n\n\n\nA Yankee Handelian\n\n\nI only ever met one American who seemed to like and understand Handel.\nHow far he did so in reality I do not know, but _inter alia_ he said that\nHandel \u201cstruck ile with the _Messiah_,\u201d and that \u201cit panned out well, the\n_Messiah_ did.\u201d\n\n\n\nWaste\n\n\nHandel and Shakespeare have left us the best that any have left us; yet,\nin spite of this, how much of their lives was wasted. Fancy Handel\nexpending himself upon the Moabites and Ammonites, or even the Jews\nthemselves, year after year, as he did in the fulness of his power; and\nfancy what we might have had from Shakespeare if he had gossipped to us\nabout himself and his times and the people he met in London and at\nStratford-on-Avon instead of writing some of what he did write.\nNevertheless we have the men, seen through their work notwithstanding\ntheir subjects, who stand and live to us. It is the figure of Handel as\na man, and of Shakespeare as a man, which we value even more than their\nwork. I feel the presence of Handel behind every note of his music.\n\n\n\nHandel a Conservative\n\n\nHe left no school because he was a protest. There were men in his time,\nwhose music he perfectly well knew, who are far more modern than Handel.\nHe was opposed to the musically radical tendencies of his age and, as a\nmusician, was a decided conservative in all essential respects\u2014though\nready, of course, to go any length in any direction if he had a fancy at\nthe moment for doing so.\n\n\n\nHandel and Ernest Pontifex\n\n\nIt cost me a great deal to make Ernest [in _The Way of All Flesh_] play\nBeethoven and Mendelssohn; I did it simply _ad captandum_. As a matter\nof fact he played only the music of Handel and of the early Italian and\nold English composers\u2014but Handel most of all.\n\n\n\nHandel\u2019s Commonplaces\n\n\nIt takes as great a composer as Handel\u2014or rather it would take as great a\ncomposer if he could be found\u2014to be able to be as easily and triumphantly\ncommonplace as Handel often is, just as it takes\u2014or rather would take\u2014as\ngreat a composer as Handel to write another _Hallelujah_ chorus. It is\nonly the man who can do the latter who can do the former as Handel has\ndone it. Handel is so great and so simple that no one but a professional\nmusician is unable to understand him.\n\n\n\nHandel and Dr. Morell\n\n\nAfter all, Dr. Morell suited Handel exactly well\u2014far better than Tennyson\nwould have done. I don\u2019t believe even Handel could have set Tennyson to\nmusic comfortably. What a mercy it is that he did not live in Handel\u2019s\ntime! Even though Handel had set him ever so well he would have spoiled\nthe music, and this Dr. Morell does not in the least do.\n\n\n\nWordsworth\n\n\n And I have been as far as Hull to see\n What clothes he left or other property.\n\nI am told that these lines occur in a poem by Wordsworth. (Think of the\nexpense!) How thankful we ought to be that Wordsworth was only a poet\nand not a musician. Fancy a symphony by Wordsworth! Fancy having to sit\nit out! And fancy what it would have been if he had written fugues!\n\n\n\nSleeping Beauties\n\n\nThere are plenty of them. Take Handel; look at such an air as \u201cLoathsome\nurns, disclose your treasure\u201d or \u201cCome, O Time, and thy broad wings\ndisplaying,\u201d both in _The Triumph of Time and Truth_, or at \u201cConvey me to\nsome peaceful shore,\u201d in _Alexander Balus_, especially when he comes to\n\u201cForgetting and forgot the will of fate.\u201d Who know these? And yet, can\nhuman genius do more?\n\n\n\n\u201cAnd the Glory of the Lord\u201d\n\n\nIt would be hard to find a more satisfactory chorus even in the\n_Messiah_, but I do not think the music was originally intended for these\nwords:\n\n [Picture: Music score: And the glory, the glory of the Lord]\n\nIf Handel had approached these words without having in his head a subject\nthe spirit of which would do, and which he thought the words with a\nlittle management might be made to fit, he would not, I think, have\nrepeated \u201cthe glory\u201d at all, or at any rate not here. If these words had\nbeen measured, as it were, for a new suit instead of being, as I suppose,\nfurnished with a good second-hand one, the word \u201cthe\u201d would not have been\ntacked on to the \u201cglory\u201d which precedes it and made to belong to it\nrather than to the \u201cglory\u201d which follows. It does not matter one straw,\nand if Handel had asked me whether I minded his forcing the words a\nlittle, I should have said, \u201cCertainly not, nor more than a little, if\nyou like.\u201d Nevertheless I think as a matter of fact that there is a\nlittle forcing. I remember that as a boy this always struck me as a\nstrange arrangement of the words, but it was not until I came to write a\nchorus myself that I saw how it came about. I do not suspect any forcing\nwhen it comes to \u201cAnd all flesh shall see it together.\u201d\n\n\n\nHandel and the Speaking Voice\n\n\n [Picture: Music scores: While now without measure we revel in pleasure.\n With their vain mysterios art]\n\nThe former of these two extracts is from the chorus \u201cVenus laughing from\nthe skies\u201d in _Theodora_; the other is from the air \u201cWise men flattering\u201d\nin _Judas Maccab\u00e6us_. I know no better examples of the way Handel\nsometimes derives his melody from the natural intonation of the speaking\nvoice. The \u201cpleasure\u201d (in bar four of the chorus) suggests a man saying\n\u201cwith pleasure\u201d when accepting an invitation to dinner. Of course one\ncan say, \u201cwith pleasure\u201d in a variety of tones, but a sudden exaltation\non the second syllable is very common.\n\nIn the other example, the first bar of the accompaniment puts the\nargument in a most persuasive manner; the second simply re-states it; the\nthird is the clincher, I cannot understand any man\u2019s holding out against\nbar three. The fourth bar re-states the clincher, but at a lower pitch,\nas by one who is quite satisfied that he has convinced his adversary.\n\n\n\nHandel and the Wetterhorn\n\n\nWhen last I saw the Wetterhorn I caught myself involuntarily humming:\u2014\n\n [Picture: Music score: And the government shall be upon his shoulder]\n\nThe big shoulder of the Wetterhorn seemed to fall just like the run on\n\u201cshoulder.\u201d\n\n\n\n\u201cTyrants now no more shall Dread\u201d\n\n\nThe music to this chorus in _Hercules_ is written from the tyrant\u2019s point\nof view. This is plain from the jubilant defiance with which the chorus\nopens, and becomes still plainer when the magnificent strain to which he\nhas set the words \u201cAll fear of punishment, all fear is o\u2019er\u201d bursts upon\nus. Here he flings aside all considerations save that of the gospel of\ndoing whatever we please without having to pay for it. He has, however,\nremembered himself and become almost puritanical over \u201cThe world\u2019s\navenger is no more.\u201d Here he is quite proper.\n\nFrom a dramatic point of view Handel\u2019s treatment of these words must be\ncondemned for reasons in respect of which Handel was very rarely at\nfault. It puzzles the listener who expects the words to be treated from\nthe point of view of the vanquished slaves and not from that of the\ntyrants. There is no pretence that these particular tyrants are not so\nbad as ordinary tyrants, nor these particular vanquished slaves not so\ngood as ordinary vanquished slaves, and, unless this has been made clear\nin some way, it is dramatically _de rigueur_ that the tyrants should come\nto grief, or be about to come to grief. The hearer should know which way\nhis sympathies are expected to go, and here we have the music dragging us\none way and the words another.\n\nNevertheless, we pardon the departure from the strict rules of the game,\npartly because of the welcome nature of good tidings so exultantly\nannounced to us about all fear of punishment being o\u2019er, and partly\nbecause the music is, throughout, so much stronger than the words that we\nlose sight of them almost entirely. Handel probably wrote as he did from\na profound, though perhaps unconscious, perception of the fact that even\nin his day there was a great deal of humanitarian nonsense talked and\nthat, after all, the tyrants were generally quite as good sort of people\nas the vanquished slaves. Having begun on this tack, it was easy to\nthrow morality to the winds when he came to the words about all fear of\npunishment being over.\n\n\n\nHandel and Marriage\n\n\n To man God\u2019s universal law\n Gave power to keep the wife in awe\n\nsings Handel in a comically dogmatic little chorus in _Samson_. But the\nuniversality of the law must be held to have failed in the case of Mr.\nand Mrs. M\u2019Culloch.\n\n\n\nHandel and a Letter to a Solicitor\n\n\nJones showed me a letter that had been received by the solicitor in whose\noffice he was working:\n\n \u201cDear Sir; I enclose the name of the lawyer of the lady I am engaged\n to and her name and address are Miss B. Richmond. His address is W.\n W. Esq. Manchester.\n\n \u201cI remain, Yours truly W. D. C.\u201d\n\nI said it reminded me of the opening bars of \u201cWelcome, welcome, Mighty\nKing\u201d in _Saul_:\n\n [Picture: Music score]\n\n\n\nHandel\u2019s Shower of Rain\n\n\nThe falling shower in the air \u201cAs cheers the sun\u201d in _Joshua_ is, I\nthink, the finest description of a warm sunny refreshing rain that I have\never come across and one of the most wonderfully descriptive pieces of\nmusic that even Handel ever did.\n\n\n\nTheodora and Susanna\n\n\nIn my preface to _Evolution Old and New_ I imply a certain\ndissatisfaction with _Theodora_ and _Susanna_, and imply also that Handel\nhimself was so far dissatisfied that in his next work, _Jephtha_ (which I\nsee I inadvertently called his last), he returned to his earlier manner.\nIt is true that these works are not in Handel\u2019s usual manner; they are\nmore difficult and more in the style of Bach. I am glad that Handel gave\nus these two examples of a slightly (for it is not much) varied manner\nand I am interested to observe that he did not adhere to that manner in\n_Jephtha_, but I should be sorry to convey an impression that I think\n_Theodora_ and _Susanna_ are in any way unworthy of Handel. I prefer\nboth to _Judas Maccab\u00e6us_ which, in spite of the many fine things it\ncontains, I like perhaps the least of all his oratorios. I have played\n_Theodora_ and _Susanna_ all through, and most parts (except the\nrecitatives) many times over, Jones and I have gone through them again\nand again; I have heard _Susanna_ performed once, and _Theodora_ twice,\nand I find no single piece in either work which I do not admire, while\nmany are as good as anything which it is in my power to conceive. I like\nthe chorus \u201cHe saw the lovely youth\u201d the least of anything in _Theodora_\nso far as I remember at this moment, but knowing it to have been a\nfavourite with Handel himself I am sure that I must have missed\nunderstanding it.\n\nHow comes it, I wonder, that the chorale-like air \u201cBlessing, Honour,\nAdoration\u201d is omitted in Novello\u2019s edition? It is given in Clarke\u2019s\nedition and is very beautiful.\n\nJones says of \u201cWith darkness deep\u201d, that in the accompaniment to this air\nthe monotony of dazed grief is just varied now and again with a little\nwrithing passage. Whether Handel meant this or no, the interpretation\nput upon the passage fits the feeling of the air.\n\n\n\nJohn Sebastian Bach\n\n\nIt is imputed to him for righteousness that he goes over the heads of the\ngeneral public and appeals mainly to musicians. But the greatest men do\nnot go over the heads of the masses, they take them rather by the hand.\nThe true musician would not snub so much as a musical critic. His\ninstinct is towards the man in the street rather than the Academy.\nPerhaps I say this as being myself a man in the street musically. I do\nnot know, but I know that Bach does not appeal to me and that I do appeal\nfrom Bach to the man in the street and not to the Academy, because I\nbelieve the first of these to be the sounder.\n\nStill, I own Bach does appeal to me sometimes. In my own poor music I\nhave taken passages from him before now, and have my eye on others which\nI have no doubt will suit me somewhere. Whether Bach would know them\nagain when I have worked my will on them, and much more whether he would\nown them, I neither know nor care. I take or leave as I choose, and\nalter or leave untouched as I choose. I prefer my music to be an\noutgrowth from a germ whose source I know, rather than a waif and stray\nwhich I fancy to be my own child when it was all the time begotten of a\nbarrel organ. It is a wise tune that knows its own father and I like my\nmusic to be the legitimate offspring of respectable parents. Roughly,\nhowever, as I have said over and over again, if I think something that I\nknow and greatly like in music, no matter whose, is appropriate, I\nappropriate it. I should say I was under most obligations to Handel,\nPurcell and Beethoven.\n\nFor example, any one who looked at my song \u201cMan in Vain\u201d in _Ulysses_\nmight think it was taken from \u201cBatti, batti.\u201d I should like to say it\nwas taken from, or suggested by, a few bars in the opening of Beethoven\u2019s\npianoforte sonata op. 78, and a few bars in the accompaniment to the duet\n\u201cHark how the Songsters\u201d in Purcell\u2019s _Timon of Athens_. I am not aware\nof having borrowed more in the song than what follows as natural\ndevelopment of these two passages which run thus:\n\n [Picture: Music score by Beethoven then Purcell]\n\n From the pianoforte arrangement in The Beauties of Purcell by John\n Clarke, Mus. Doc.\n\n\n\nHonesty\n\n\nHonesty consists not in never stealing but in knowing where to stop in\nstealing, and how to make good use of what one does steal. It is only\ngreat proprietors who can steal well and wisely. A good stealer, a good\nuser of what he takes, is _ipso facto_ a good inventor. Two men can\ninvent after a fashion to one who knows how to make the best use of what\nhas been done already.\n\n\n\nMusical Criticism\n\n\nI went to the Bach Choir concert and heard Mozart\u2019s _Requiem_. I did not\nrise warmly to it. Then I heard an extract from _Parsifal_ which I\ndisliked very much. If Bach wriggles, Wagner writhes. Yet next morning\nin the _Times_ I saw this able, heartless failure, compact of gnosis as\nmuch as any one pleases but without one spark of either true pathos or\ntrue humour, called \u201cthe crowning achievement of dramatic music.\u201d The\nwriter continues: \u201cTo the unintelligent, music of this order does not\nappeal\u201d; which only means \u201cI am intelligent and you had better think as I\ntell you.\u201d I am glad that such people should call Handel a thieving\nplagiarist.\n\n\n\nOn Borrowing in Music\n\n\nIn books it is easy to make mention of the forgotten dead to whom we are\nindebted, and to acknowledge an obligation at the same time and place\nthat we incur it. The more original a writer is, the more pleasure will\nhe take in calling attention to the forgotten work of those who have gone\nbefore him. The conventions of painting and music, on the other hand,\nwhile they admit of borrowing no less freely than literature does, do not\nadmit of acknowledgement; it is impossible to interrupt a piece of music,\nor paint some words upon a picture to explain that the composer or\npainter was at such and such a point indebted to such and such a source\nfor his inspiration, but it is not less impossible to avoid occasionally\nborrowing, or rather taking, for there is no need of euphemism, from\nearlier work. Where, then, is the line to be drawn between lawful and\nunlawful adoption of what has been done by others? This question is such\na nice one that there are almost as many opinions upon it as there are\npainters and musicians.\n\nTo leave painting on one side, if a musician wants some forgotten passage\nin an earlier writer, is he, knowing where this sleeping beauty lies, to\nlet it sleep on unknown and unenjoyed, or shall he not rather wake it and\ntake it\u2014as likely enough the earlier master did before him\u2014with, or\nwithout modification? It may be said this should be done by republishing\nthe original work with its composer\u2019s name, giving him his due laurels.\nSo it should, if the work will bear it; but more commonly times will have\nso changed that it will not. A composer may want a bar, or bar and a\nhalf, out of, say, a dozen pages\u2014he may not want even this much without\nmore or less modification\u2014is he to be told that he must republish the ten\nor dozen original pages within which the passage he wants lies buried, as\nthe only righteous way of giving it new life? No one should be allowed\nsuch dog-in-the-manger-like ownership in beauty that because it has once\nbeen revealed to him therefore none for ever after shall enjoy it unless\nhe be their cicerone. If this rule were sanctioned, he who first\nproduced anything beautiful would sign its death warrant for an earlier\nor later date, or at best would tether that which should forthwith begin\nputting girdles round the world.\n\nBeauty lives not for the self-glorification of the priests of any art,\nbut for the enjoyment of priests and laity alike. He is the best\nart-priest who brings most beauty most home to the hearts of most men.\nIf any one tells an artist that part of what he has brought home is not\nhis but another\u2019s, \u201cYea, let him take all,\u201d should be his answer. He\nshould know no self in the matter. He is a fisher of men\u2019s hearts from\nlove of winning them, and baits his hook with what will best take them\nwithout much heed where he gets it from. He can gain nothing by offering\npeople what they know or ought to know already, he will not therefore\ntake from the living or lately dead; for the same reason he will\ninstinctively avoid anything with which his hearers will be familiar,\nexcept as recognised common form, but beyond these limits he should take\nfreely even as he hopes to be one day taken from.\n\nTrue, there is a hidden mocking spirit in things which ensures that he\nalone can take well who can also make well, but it is no less true that\nhe alone makes well who takes well. A man must command all the resources\nof his art, and of these none is greater than knowledge of what has been\ndone by predecessors. What, I wonder, may he take from these\u2014how may he\nbuild himself upon them and grow out of them\u2014if he is to make it his\nchief business to steer clear of them? A safer canon is that the\ndevelopment of a musician should be like that of a fugue or first\nmovement, in which, the subject having been enounced, it is essential\nthat thenceforward everything shall be both new and old at one and the\nsame time\u2014new, but not too new\u2014old, but not too old.\n\nIndeed no musician can be original in respect of any large percentage of\nhis work. For independently of his turning to his own use the past\nlabour involved in musical notation, which he makes his own as of right\nwithout more thanks to those who thought it out than we give to him who\ninvented wheels when we hire a cab, independently of this, it is\nsurprising how large a part even of the most original music consists of\ncommon form scale passages, and closes. _Mutatis mutandis_, the same\nholds good with even the most original book or picture; these passages or\nforms are as light and air, common to all of us; but the principle having\nbeen once admitted that some parts of a man\u2019s work cannot be\noriginal\u2014not, that is to say, if he has descended with only a reasonable\namount of modification\u2014where is the line to be drawn? Where does common\nform begin and end?\n\nThe answer is that it is not mere familiarity that should forbid\nborrowing, but familiarity with a passage as associated with special\nsurroundings. If certain musical progressions are already associated\nwith many different sets of antecedents and consequents, they have no\nspecial association, except in so far as they may be connected with a\nschool or epoch; no one, therefore, is offended at finding them\nassociated with one set the more. Familiarity beyond a certain point\nceases to be familiarity, or at any rate ceases to be open to the\nobjections that lie against that which, though familiar, is still not\nfamiliar as common form. Those on the other hand who hold that a\nmusician should never knowingly borrow will doubtless say that common\nform passages are an obvious and notorious exception to their rule, and\nthe one the limits of which are easily recognised in practice however\nhard it may be to define them neatly on paper.\n\nIt is not suggested that when a musician wants to compose an air or\nchorus he is to cast about for some little-known similar piece and lay it\nunder contribution. This is not to spring from the loins of living\nancestors but to batten on dead men\u2019s bones. He who takes thus will ere\nlong lose even what little power to take he may have ever had. On the\nother hand there is no enjoyable work in any art which is not easily\nrecognised as the affiliated outcome of something that has gone before\nit. This is more especially true of music, whose grammar and stock in\ntrade are so much simpler than those of any other art. He who loves\nmusic will know what the best men have done, and hence will have\nnumberless passages from older writers floating at all times in his mind,\nlike germs in the air, ready to hook themselves on to anything of an\nassociated character. Some of these he will reject at once, as already\ntoo strongly wedded to associations of their own; some are tried and\nfound not so suitable as was thought; some one, however, will probably\nsoon assert itself as either suitable, or easily altered so as to become\nexactly what is wanted; if, indeed, it is the right passage in the right\nman\u2019s mind, it will have modified itself unbidden already. How, then,\nlet me ask again, is the musician to comport himself towards those\nuninvited guests of his thoughts? Is he to give them shelter, cherish\nthem, and be thankful? or is he to shake them rudely off, bid them\nbegone, and go out of his way so as not to fall in with them again?\n\nCan there be a doubt what the answer to this question should be? As it\nis fatal deliberately to steer on to the work of other composers, so it\nis no less fatal deliberately to steer clear of it; music to be of any\nvalue must be a man\u2019s freest and most instinctive expression. Instinct\nin the case of all the greatest artists, whatever their art may be, bids\nthem attach themselves to, and grow out of those predecessors who are\nmost congenial to them. Beethoven grew out of Mozart and Haydn, adding a\nleaven which in the end leavened the whole lump, but in the outset adding\nlittle; Mozart grew out of Haydn, in the outset adding little; Haydn grew\nout of Domenico Scarlatti and Emmanuel Bach, adding, in the outset,\nlittle. These men grew out of John Sebastian Bach, for much as both of\nthem admired Handel I cannot see that they allowed his music to influence\ntheirs. Handel even in his own lifetime was more or less of a survival\nand protest; he saw the rocks on to which music was drifting and steered\nhis own good ship wide of them; as for his musical parentage, he grew out\nof the early Italians and out of Purcell.\n\nThe more original a composer is the more certain is he to have made\nhimself a strong base of operations in the works of earlier men, striking\nhis roots deep into them, so that he, as it were, gets inside them and\nlives in them, they in him, and he in them; then, this firm foothold\nhaving been obtained, he sallies forth as opportunity directs, with the\nresult that his works will reflect at once the experiences of his own\nmusical life and of those musical progenitors to whom a loving instinct\nhas more particularly attached him. The fact that his work is deeply\nimbued with their ideas and little ways, is not due to his deliberately\ntaking from them. He makes their ways his own as children model\nthemselves upon those older persons who are kind to them. He loves them\nbecause he feels they felt as he does, and looked on men and things much\nas he looks upon them himself; he is an outgrowth in the same direction\nas that in which they grew; he is their son, bound by every law of\nheredity to be no less them than himself; the manner, therefore, which\ncame most naturally to them will be the one which comes also most\nnaturally to him as being their descendant. Nevertheless no matter how\nstrong a family likeness may be, (and it is sometimes, as between Handel\nand his forerunners, startlingly close) two men of different generations\nwill never be so much alike that the work of each will not have a\ncharacter of its own\u2014unless indeed the one is masquerading as the other,\nwhich is not tolerable except on rare occasions and on a very small\nscale. No matter how like his father a man may be we can always tell the\ntwo apart; but this once given, so that he has a clear life of his own,\nthen a strong family likeness to some one else is no more to be regretted\nor concealed if it exists than to be affected if it does not.\n\nIt is on these terms alone that attractive music can be written, and it\nis a musician\u2019s business to write attractive music. He is, as it were,\ntenant for life of the estate of and trustee for that school to which he\nbelongs. Normally, that school will be the one which has obtained the\nfirmest hold upon his own countrymen. An Englishman cannot successfully\nwrite like a German or a Hungarian, nor is it desirable that he should\ntry. If, by way of variety, we want German or Hungarian music we shall\nget a more genuine article by going direct to German or Hungarian\ncomposers. For the most part, however, the soundest Englishmen will be\nstay-at-homes, in spite of their being much given to summer flings upon\nthe continent. Whether as writers, therefore, or as listeners,\nEnglishmen should stick chiefly to Purcell, Handel, and Sir Arthur\nSullivan. True, Handel was not an Englishman by birth, but no one was\never more thoroughly English in respect of all the best and most\ndistinguishing features of Englishmen. As a young man, though Italy and\nGermany were open to him, he adopted the country of Purcell, feeling it,\ndoubtless, to be, as far as he was concerned, more Saxon than Saxony\nitself. He chose England; nor can there be a doubt that he chose it\nbecause he believed it to be the country in which his music had the best\nchance of being appreciated. And what does this involve, if not that\nEngland, take it all round, is the most musically minded country in the\nworld? That this is so, that it has produced the finest music the world\nhas known, and is therefore the finest school of music in the world,\ncannot be reasonably disputed.\n\nTo the born musician, it is hardly necessary to say, neither the\nforegoing remarks nor any others about music, except those that may be\nfound in every text book, can be of the smallest use. Handel knew this\nand no man ever said less about his art\u2014or did more in it. There are\nsome semi-apocryphal {128} rules for tuning the harpsichord that pretend,\nwith what truth I know not, to hail from him, but here his theoretical\ncontributions to music begin and end. The rules begin \u201cIn this chord\u201d\n(the tonic major triad) \u201ctune the fifth pretty flat, and the third\nconsiderably too sharp.\u201d There is an absence of fuss about these words\nwhich suggests Handel himself.\n\nThe written and spoken words of great painters or musicians who can talk\nor write is seldom lasting\u2014artists are a dumb inarticulate folk, whose\nspeech is in their hands not in their tongues. They look at us like\nseals, but cannot talk to us. To the musician, therefore, what has been\nsaid above is useless, if not worse; its object will have been attained\nif it aids the uncreative reader to criticise what he hears with more\nintelligence.\n\n\n\nMusic\n\n\nSo far as I can see, this is the least stable of the arts. From the\nearliest records we learn that there were musicians, and people seem to\nhave been just as fond of music as we are ourselves, but, whereas we find\nthe old sculpture, painting (what there is of it) and literature to have\nbeen in all essentials like our own, and not only this but whereas we\nfind them essentially the same in existing nations in Europe, Asia,\nAfrica and America, this is not so as regards music either looking to\nantiquity or to the various existing nations. I believe we should find\nold Greek and Roman music as hideous as we do Persian and Japanese, or as\nPersians and Japanese find our own.\n\nI believe therefore that the charm of music rests on a more unreasoning\nbasis, and is more dependent on what we are accustomed to, than the\npleasure given by the other arts. We now find all the ecclesiastical\nmodes, except the Ionian and the \u00c6olian, unsatisfactory, indeed almost\nintolerable, but I question whether, if we were as much in the habit of\nusing the Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian and Mixo-Lydian modes as we are of\nusing the later \u00c6olian mode (the minor scale), we should not find these\njust as satisfactory. Is it not possible that our indisputable\npreference for the Ionian mode (the major scale) is simply the result of\nits being the one to which we are most accustomed? If another mode were\nto become habitual, might not this scale or mode become first a kind of\nsupplementary moon-like mode (as the \u00c6olian now is) and finally might it\nnot become intolerable to us? Happily it will last my time as it is.\n\n\n\nDiscords\n\n\nFormerly all discords were prepared, and Monteverde\u2019s innovation of\ntaking the dominant seventh unprepared was held to be cataclysmic, but in\nmodern music almost any conceivable discord may be taken unprepared. We\nhave grown so used to this now that we think nothing of it, still,\nwhenever it can be done without sacrificing something more important, I\nthink even a dominant seventh is better prepared.\n\nIt is only the preparation, however, of discords which is now less\nrigorously insisted on; their resolution\u2014generally by the climbing down\nof the offending note\u2014is as necessary as ever if the music is to flow on\nsmoothly.\n\nThis holds good exactly in our daily life. If a discord has to be\nintroduced, it is better to prepare it as a concord, take it on a strong\nbeat, and resolve it downwards on a weak one. The preparation being\noften difficult or impossible may be dispensed with, but the resolution\nis still de rigueur.\n\n\n\nAnachronism\n\n\nIt has been said \u201cThou shalt not masquerade in costumes not of thine own\nperiod,\u201d but the history of art is the history of revivals. Musical\ncriticism, so far as I can see, is the least intelligent of the\ncriticisms on this score. Unless a man writes in the exotic style of\nBrahms, Wagner, Dvo\u0159\u00e1k and I know not what other Slav, Czech, Teuton or\nHebrew, the critics are sure to accuse him of being an anachronism. The\nonly man in England who is permitted to write in a style which is in the\nmain of home growth is the Irish Jew, Sir Arthur Sullivan. If we may go\nto a foreign style why may we not go to one of an earlier period? But\nsurely we may do whatever we like, and the better we like it the better\nwe shall do it. The great thing is to make sure that we like the style\nwe choose better than we like any other, that we engraft on it whatever\nwe hear that we think will be a good addition, and depart from it\nwherever we dislike it. If a man does this he may write in the style of\nthe year one and he will be no anachronism; the musical critics may call\nhim one but they cannot make him one.\n\n\n\nChapters in Music\n\n\nThe analogy between literature, painting and music, so close in so many\nrespects, suggests that the modern custom of making a whole scene, act or\neven drama into a single, unbroken movement without subdivision is like\nmaking a book without chapters, or a picture, like Bernardino Luini\u2019s\ngreat Lugano fresco in which a long subject is treated within the compass\nof a single piece. Better advised, as it seems to me, Gaudenzio Ferrari\nbroke up a space of the same shape and size at Varallo into many\ncompartments, each more or less complete in itself, grouped round a\ncentral scene. The subdivision of books into chapters, each with a more\nor less emphatic full close in its own key, is found to be a help as\ngiving the attention halting places by the way. Everything that is worth\nattending to fatigues as well as delights, much as the climbing of a\nmountain does so. Chapters and short pieces give rests during which the\nattention gathers renewed strength and attacks with fresh ardour a new\nstretch of the ascent. Each bar is, as it were, a step cut in ice and\none does not see, if set pieces are objected to, why phrases and bars\nshould not be attacked next.\n\n\n\nAt the Opera\n\n\nJones and I went last Friday to _Don Giovanni_, Mr. Kemp {131} putting us\nin free. It bored us both, and we like _Narcissus_ better. We admit the\nbeauty of many of the beginnings of the airs, but this beauty is not\nmaintained, in every case the air tails off into something that is much\ntoo near being tiresome. The plot, of course, is stupid to a degree, but\nplot has very little to do with it; what can be more uninteresting than\nthe plot of many of Handel\u2019s oratorios? We both believe the scheme of\nItalian opera to be a bad one; we think that music should never be\ncombined with acting to a greater extent than is done, we will say, in\nthe _Mikado_; that the oratorio form is far more satisfactory than opera;\nand we agreed that we had neither of us ever yet been to an opera (I mean\na Grand Opera) without being bored by it. I am not sorry to remember\nthat Handel never abandoned oratorio after he had once fairly taken to\nit.\n\n\n\nAt a Philharmonic Concert\n\n\nWe went last night to the Philharmonic and sat in the shilling orchestra,\njust behind the drums, so that we could see and hear what each instrument\nwas doing. The concert began with Mozart\u2019s G Minor Symphony. We liked\nthis fairly well, especially the last movement, but we found all the\nmovements too long and, speaking for myself, if I had a tame orchestra\nfor which I might write programmes, I should probably put it down once or\ntwice again, not from any spontaneous wish to hear more of it but as a\nmatter of duty that I might judge it with fuller comprehension\u2014still, if\neach movement had been half as long I should probably have felt cordially\nenough towards it, except of course in so far as that the spirit of the\nmusic is alien to that of the early Italian school with which alone I am\nin genuine sympathy and of which Handel is the climax.\n\nThen came a terribly long-winded recitative by Beethoven and an air with\na good deal of \u201cChe far\u00f2\u201d in it. I do not mind this, and if it had been\n\u201cChe far\u00f2\u201d absolutely I should, I daresay, have liked it better. I never\nwant to hear it again and my orchestra should never play it.\n\nBeethoven\u2019s Concerto for violin and orchestra (op. 61) which followed was\nlonger and more tedious still. I have not a single good word for it. If\nthe subject of the last movement was the tune of one of Arthur Robert\u2019s\ncomic songs, or of any music-hall song, it would do very nicely and I\ndaresay we should often hum it. I do not mean at the opening of the\nmovement but about half way through, where the character is just that of\na common music-hall song and, so far, good.\n\nPart II opened with a suite in F Major for orchestra (op. 39) by\nMoszkowski. This was much more clear and, in every way, interesting than\nthe Beethoven; every now and then there were passages that were pleasing,\nnot to say more. Jones liked it better than I did; still, one could not\nfeel that any of the movements were the mere drivelling show stuff of\nwhich the concerto had been full. But it, like everything else done at\nthese concerts, is too long, cut down one-half it would have been all\nright and we should have liked to hear it twice. As it was, all we could\nsay was that it was much better than we had expected. I did not like the\nlook of the young man who wrote it and who also conducted. He had long\nyellowish hair and kept tossing his head to fling it back on to his\nshoulders, instead of keeping it short as Jones and I keep ours.\n\nThen came Schubert\u2019s \u201cErl K\u00f6nig,\u201d which, I daresay, is very fine but with\nwhich I have absolutely nothing in common.\n\nAnd finally there was a tiresome characteristic overture by Berlioz,\nwhich, if Jones could by any possibility have written anything so dreary,\nI should certainly have begged him not to publish.\n\nThe general impression left upon me by the concert is that all the\nmovements were too long, and that, no matter how clever the development\nmay be, it spoils even the most pleasing and interesting subject if there\nis too much of it. Handel knew when to stop and, when he meant stopping,\nhe stopped much as a horse stops, with little, if any, peroration. Who\ncan doubt that he kept his movements short because he knew that the worst\nmusic within a reasonable compass is better than the best which is made\ntiresome by being spun out unduly? I only know one concerted piece of\nHandel\u2019s which I think too long, I mean the overture to _Saul_, but I\nhave no doubt that if I were to try to cut it down I should find some\nexcellent reason that had made Handel decide on keeping it as it is.\n\n\n\nAt the Wind Concerts\n\n\nThere have been some interesting wind concerts lately; I say interesting,\nbecause they brought home to us the unsatisfactory character of wind\nunsupported by strings. I rather pleased Jones by saying that the\nhautbois was the clarionet with a cold in its head, and the bassoon the\nsame with a cold on its chest.\n\n\n\nAt a Handel Festival\n\n\ni\n\n\nThe large sweeps of sound floated over the orchestra like the wind\nplaying upon a hill-side covered with young heather, and I sat and\nwondered which of the Alpine passes Handel crossed when he went into\nItaly. What time of the year was it? What kind of weather did he have?\nWere the spring flowers out? Did he walk the greater part of the way as\nwe do now? And what did he hear? For he must sometimes have heard music\ninside him\u2014and that, too, as much above what he has written down as what\nhe has written down is above all other music. No man can catch all, or\nalways the best, of what is put for a moment or two within his reach.\nHandel took as much and as near the best, doubtless, as mortal man can\ntake; but he must have had moments and glimpses which were given to him\nalone and which he could tell no man.\n\n\nii\n\n\nI saw the world a great orchestra filled with angels whose instruments\nwere of gold. And I saw the organ on the top of the axis round which all\nshould turn, but nothing turned and nothing moved and the angels stirred\nnot and all was as still as a stone, and I was myself also, like the\nrest, as still as a stone.\n\nThen I saw some huge, cloud-like forms nearing, and behold! it was the\nLord bringing two of his children by the hand.\n\n\u201cO Papa!\u201d said one, \u201cisn\u2019t it pretty?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, my dear,\u201d said the Lord, \u201cand if you drop a penny into the box the\nfigures will work.\u201d\n\nThen I saw that what I had taken for the keyboard of the organ was no\nkeyboard but only a slit, and one of the little Lords dropped a plaque of\nmetal into it. And then the angels played and the world turned round and\nthe organ made a noise and the people began killing one another and the\ntwo little Lords clapped their hands and were delighted.\n\n\n\nHandel and Dickens\n\n\nThey buried Dickens in the very next grave, cheek by jowl with Handel.\nIt does not matter, but it pained me to think that people who could do\nthis could become Deans of Westminster.\n\n\n\n\nIX\nA Painter\u2019s Views on Painting\n\n\nThe Old Masters and Their Pupils\n\n\nTHE old masters taught, not because they liked teaching, nor yet from any\nidea of serving the cause of art, nor yet because they were paid to teach\nby the parents of their pupils. The parents probably paid no money at\nfirst. The masters took pupils and taught them because they had more\nwork to do than they could get through and wanted some one to help them.\nThey sold the pupil\u2019s work as their own, just as people do now who take\napprentices. When people can sell a pupil\u2019s work, they will teach the\npupil all they know and will see he learns it. This is the secret of the\nwhole matter.\n\nThe modern schoolmaster does not aim at learning from his pupils, he\nhardly can, but the old masters did. See how Giovanni Bellini learned\nfrom Titian and Giorgione who both came to him in the same year, as boys,\nwhen Bellini was 63 years old. What a day for painting was that! All\nBellini\u2019s best work was done thenceforward. I know nothing in the\nhistory of art so touching as this. [1883.]\n\nP.S. I have changed my mind about Titian. I don\u2019t like him. [1897.]\n\n\n\nThe Academic System and Repentance\n\n\nThe academic system goes almost on the principle of offering places for\nrepentance, and letting people fall soft, by assuming that they should be\ntaught how to do things before they do them, and not by the doing of\nthem. Good economy requires that there should be little place for\nrepentance, and that when people fall they should fall hard enough to\nremember it.\n\n\n\nThe Jubilee Sixpence\n\n\nWe have spent hundreds of thousands, or more probably of millions, on\nnational art collections, schools of art, preliminary training and\nacademicism, without wanting anything in particular, but when the nation\ndid at last try all it knew to design a sixpence, it failed. {136} The\nother coins are all very well in their way, and so are the stamps\u2014the\nletters get carried, and the money passes; but both stamps and coins\nwould have been just as good, and very likely better, if there had not\nbeen an art-school in the country. [1888.]\n\n\n\nStudying from Nature\n\n\nWhen is a man studying from nature, and when is he only flattering\nhimself that he is doing so because he is painting with a model or\nlay-figure before him? A man may be working his eight or nine hours a\nday from the model and yet not be studying from nature. He is painting\nbut not studying. He is like the man in the Bible who looks at himself\nin a glass and goeth away forgetting what manner of man he was. He will\nknow no more about nature at the end of twenty years than a priest who\nhas been reading his breviary day after day without committing it to\nmemory will know of its contents. Unless he gets what he has seen well\ninto his memory, so as to have it at his fingers\u2019 ends as familiarly as\nthe characters with which he writes a letter, he can be no more held to\nbe familiar with, and to have command over, nature than a man who only\ncopies his signature from a copy kept in his pocket, as I have known\nFrench Canadians do, can be said to be able to write. It is painting\nwithout nature that will give a man this, and not painting directly from\nher. He must do both the one and the other, and the one as much as the\nother.\n\n\n\nThe Model and the Lay-Figure\n\n\nIt may be doubted whether they have not done more harm than good. They\nare an attempt to get a bit of stuffed nature and to study from that\ninstead of studying from the thing itself. Indeed, the man who never has\na model but studies the faces of people as they sit opposite him in an\nomnibus, and goes straight home and puts down what little he can of what\nhe has seen, dragging it out piecemeal from his memory, and going into\nanother omnibus to look again for what he has forgotten as near as he can\nfind it\u2014that man is studying from nature as much as he who has a model\nfour or five hours daily\u2014and probably more. For you may be painting from\nnature as much without nature actually before you as with; and you may\nhave nature before you all the while you are painting and yet not be\npainting from her.\n\n\n\nSketching from Nature\n\n\nIs very like trying to put a pinch of salt on her tail. And yet many\nmanage to do it very nicely.\n\n\n\nGreat Art and Sham Art\n\n\nArt has no end in view save the emphasising and recording in the most\neffective way some strongly felt interest or affection. Where there is\nneither interest nor desire to record with good effect, there is but sham\nart, or none at all: where both these are fully present, no matter how\nrudely and inarticulately, there is great art. Art is at best a dress,\nimportant, yet still nothing in comparison with the wearer, and, as a\ngeneral rule, the less it attracts attention the better.\n\n\n\nInarticulate Touches\n\n\nAn artist\u2019s touches are sometimes no more articulate than the barking of\na dog who would call attention to something without exactly knowing what.\nThis is as it should be, and he is a great artist who can be depended on\nnot to bark at nothing.\n\n\n\nDetail\n\n\nOne reason why it is as well not to give very much detail is that, no\nmatter how much is given, the eye will always want more; it will know\nvery well that it is not being paid in full. On the other hand, no\nmatter how little one gives, the eye will generally compromise by wanting\nonly a little more. In either case the eye will want more, so one may as\nwell stop sooner or later. Sensible painting, like sensible law,\nsensible writing, or sensible anything else, consists as much in knowing\nwhat to omit as what to insist upon. It consists in the tact that tells\nthe painter where to stop.\n\n\n\nPainting and Association\n\n\nPainting is only possible by reason of association\u2019s not sticking to the\nletter of its bond, so that we jump to conclusions.\n\n\n\nThe Credulous Eye\n\n\nPainters should remember that the eye, as a general rule, is a good,\nsimple, credulous organ\u2014very ready to take things on trust if it be told\nthem with any confidence of assertion.\n\n\n\nTruths from Nature\n\n\nWe must take as many as we can, but the difficulty is that it is often so\nhard to know what the truths of nature are.\n\n\n\nAccuracy\n\n\nAfter having spent years striving to be accurate, we must spend as many\nmore in discovering when and how to be inaccurate.\n\n\n\nHerbert Spencer\n\n\nHe is like nature to Fuseli\u2014he puts me out.\n\n\n\nShade Colour and Reputation\n\n\nWhen a thing is near and in light, colour and form are important; when\nfar and in shadow, they are unimportant. Form and colour are like\nreputations which when they become shady are much of a muchness.\n\n\n\nMoney and Technique\n\n\nMoney is very like technique (or vice versa). We see that both musicians\nor painters with great command of technique seldom know what to do with\nit, while those who have little often know how to use what they have.\n\n\n\nAction and Study\n\n\nThese things are antagonistic. The composer is seldom a great theorist;\nthe theorist is never a great composer. Each is equally fatal to and\nessential in the other.\n\n\n\nSacred and Profane Statues\n\n\nI have never seen statues of Jove, Neptune, Apollo or any of the pagan\ngods that are not as great failures as the statues of Christ and the\nApostles.\n\n\n\nSeeing\n\n\nIf a man has not studied painting, or at any rate black and white\ndrawing, his eyes are wild; learning to draw tames them. The first step\ntowards taming the eyes is to teach them not to see too much.\n\nQuickness in seeing as in everything else comes from long sustained\neffort after rightness and comes unsought. It never comes from effort\nafter quickness.\n\n\n\nImprovement in Art\n\n\nPainting depends upon seeing; seeing depends upon looking for this or\nthat, at least in great part it does so.\n\nThink of and look at your work as though it were done by your enemy. If\nyou look at it to admire it you are lost.\n\nAny man, as old Heatherley used to say, will go on improving as long as\nhe is bona fide dissatisfied with his work.\n\nImprovement in one\u2019s painting depends upon how we look at our work. If\nwe look at it to see where it is wrong, we shall see this and make it\nrighter. If we look at it to see where it is right, we shall see this\nand shall not make it righter. We cannot see it both wrong and right at\nthe same time.\n\n\n\nLight and Shade\n\n\nTell the young artist that he wants a black piece here or there, when he\nsees no such black piece in nature, and that he must continue this or\nthat shadow thus, and break this light into this or that other, when in\nnature he sees none of these things, and you will puzzle him very much.\nHe is trying to put down what he sees; he does not care two straws about\ncomposition or light and shade; if he sees two tones of such and such\nrelative intensity in nature, he will give them as near as he can the\nsame relative intensity in his picture, and to tell him that he is\nperhaps exactly to reverse the natural order in deference to some canon\nof the academicians, and that at the same time he is drawing from nature,\nis what he cannot understand.\n\nI am very doubtful how far people do not arrange their light and shade\ntoo much with the result with which we are familiar in drawing-masters\u2019\ncopies; it may be right or it may not, I don\u2019t know\u2014I am afraid I ought\nto know, but I don\u2019t; but I do know that those pictures please me best\nwhich were painted without the slightest regard to any of these rules.\n\nI suppose the justification of those who talk as above lies in the fact\nthat, as we cannot give all nature, we lie by _suppressio veri_ whether\nwe like it or no, and that you sometimes lie less by putting in something\nwhich does not exist at the moment, but which easily might exist and\nwhich gives a lot of facts which you otherwise could not give at all,\nthan by giving so much as you can alone give if you adhere rigidly to the\nfacts. If this is so the young painter would understand the matter, if\nit were thus explained to him, better than he is likely to do if he is\nmerely given it as a canon.\n\nAt the same time, I admit it to be true that one never sees light but it\nhas got dark in it, nor vice versa, and that this comes to saying that if\nyou are to be true to nature you must break your lights into your shadows\nand vice versa; and so usual is this that, if there happens here or there\nto be an exception, the painter had better say nothing about it, for it\nis more true to nature\u2019s general practice not to have it so than to have\nit.\n\nCertainly as regards colour, I never remember to have seen a piece of one\ncolour without finding a bit of a very similar colour not far off, but\nhaving no connection with it. This holds good in such an extraordinary\nway that if it happens to fail the matter should be passed over in\nsilence.\n\n\n\nColour\n\n\nThe expression \u201cseeing colour\u201d used to puzzle me. I was aware that some\npainters made their pictures more pleasing in colour than others and more\nlike the colour of the actual thing as a whole, still there were any\nnumber of bits of brilliant colour in their work which for the life of me\nI could not see in nature. I used to hear people say of a man who got\npleasing and natural colour, \u201cDoes he not see colour well?\u201d and I used to\nsay he did, but, as far as I was concerned, it would have been more true\nto say that he put down colour which he did not see well, or at any rate\nthat he put down colour which I could not see myself.\n\nIn course of time I got to understand that seeing colour does not mean\ninventing colour, or exaggerating it, but being on the look out for it,\nthus seeing it where another will not see it, and giving it the\npreference as among things to be preserved and rendered amid the\nwholesale slaughter of innocents which is inevitable in any painting.\nPainting is only possible as a quasi-hieroglyphic epitomising of nature;\nthis means that the half goes for the whole, whereon the question arises\nwhich half is to be taken and which made to go? The colourist will\ninsist by preference on the coloured half, the man who has no liking for\ncolour, however much else he may sacrifice, will not be careful to\npreserve this and, as a natural consequence, he will not preserve it.\n\nGood, that is to say, pleasing, beautiful, or even pretty colour cannot\nbe got by putting patches of pleasing, beautiful or pretty colour upon\none\u2019s canvas and, which is a harder matter, leaving them when they have\nbeen put. It is said of money that it is more easily made than kept and\nthis is true of many things, such as friendship; and even life itself is\nmore easily got than kept. The same holds good of colour. It is also\ntrue that, as with money, more is made by saving than in any other way,\nand the surest way to lose colour is to play with it inconsiderately, not\nknowing how to leave well alone. A touch of pleasing colour should on no\naccount be stirred without consideration.\n\nThat we can see in a natural object more colour than strikes us at a\nglance, if we look for it attentively, will not be denied by any who have\ntried to look for it. Thus, take a dull, dead, level, grimy old London\nwall: at a first glance we can see no colour in it, nothing but a more or\nless purplish mass, got, perhaps as nearly as in any other way, by a tint\nmixed with black, Indian red and white. If, however, we look for colour\nin this, we shall find here and there a broken brick with a small surface\nof brilliant crimson, hard by there will be another with a warm orange\nhue perceivable through the grime by one who is on the look out for it,\nbut by no one else. Then there may be bits of old advertisement of which\nhere and there a gaily coloured fragment may remain, or a rusty iron hook\nor a bit of bright green moss; few indeed are the old walls, even in the\ngrimiest parts of London, on which no redeeming bits of colour can be\nfound by those who are practised in looking for them. To like colour, to\nwish to find it, and thus to have got naturally into a habit of looking\nfor it, this alone will enable a man to see colour and to make a note of\nit when he has seen it, and this alone will lead him towards a pleasing\nand natural scheme of colour in his work.\n\nGood colour can never be got by putting down colour which is not seen; at\nany rate only a master who has long served accuracy can venture on\noccasional inaccuracy\u2014telling a lie, knowing it to be a lie, and as, _se\nnon vera_, _ben trovata_. The grown man in his art may do this, and\nindeed is not a man at all unless he knows how to do it daily and hourly\nwithout departure from the truth even in his boldest lie; but the child\nin art must stick to what he sees. If he looks harder he will see more,\nand may put more, but till he sees it without being in any doubt about\nit, he must not put it. There is no such sure way of corrupting one\u2019s\ncolour sense as the habitual practice of putting down colour which one\ndoes not see; this and the neglecting to look for it are equal faults.\nThe first error leads to melodramatic vulgarity, the other to torpid\ndullness, and it is hard to say which is worse.\n\nIt may be said that the preservation of all the little episodes of colour\nwhich can be discovered in an object whose general effect is dingy and\nthe suppression of nothing but the uninteresting colourless details\namount to what is really a forcing and exaggeration of nature, differing\nbut little from downright fraud, so far as its effect goes, since it\ngives an undue preference to the colour side of the matter. In equity,\nif the exigencies of the convention under which we are working require a\nsacrifice of a hundred details, the majority of which are uncoloured,\nwhile in the minority colour can be found if looked for, the sacrifice\nshould be made _pro rata_ from coloured and uncoloured alike. If the\nfacts of nature are a hundred, of which ninety are dull in colour and ten\ninteresting, and the painter can only give ten, he must not give the ten\ninteresting bits of colour and neglect the ninety soberly coloured\ndetails. Strictly, he should sacrifice eighty-one sober details and nine\ncoloured ones; he will thus at any rate preserve the balance and relation\nwhich obtain in nature between coloured and uncoloured.\n\nThis, no doubt, is what he ought to do if he leaves the creative, poetic\nand more properly artistic aspect of his own function out of the\nquestion; if he is making himself a mere transcriber, holding the mirror\nup to nature with such entire forgetfulness of self as to be rather\nlooking-glass than man, this is what he must do. But the moment he\napproaches nature in this spirit he ceases to be an artist, and the\nbetter he succeeds as painter of something that might pass for a coloured\nphotograph, the more inevitably must he fail to satisfy, or indeed to\nappeal to us at all as poet\u2014as one whose sympathies with nature extend\nbeyond her superficial aspect, or as one who is so much at home with her\nas to be able readily to dissociate the permanent and essential from the\naccidental which may be here to-day and gone to-morrow. If he is to come\nbefore us as an artist, he must do so as a poet or creator of that which\nis not, as well as a mirror of that which is. True, experience in all\nkinds of poetical work shows that the less a man creates the better, that\nthe more, in fact, he makes, the less is he of a maker; but experience\nalso shows that the course of true nature, like that of true love, never\ndoes run smooth, and that occasional, judicious, slight departures from\nthe actual facts, by one who knows the value of a lie too well to waste\nit, bring nature more vividly and admirably before us than any amount of\nadherence to the letter of strict accuracy. It is the old story, the\nletter killeth but the spirit giveth life.\n\nWith colour, then, he who does not look for it will begin by not seeing\nit unless it is so obtrusive that there is no escaping it; he will\ntherefore, in his rendering of the hundred facts of nature above referred\nto, not see the ten coloured bits at all, supposing them to be, even at\ntheir brightest, somewhat sober, and his work will be colourless or\ndisagreeable in colour. The faithful copyist, who is still a mere\ncopyist, will give nine details of dull uninteresting colour and one of\ninteresting. The artist or poet will find some reason for slightly\nemphasising the coloured details and will scatter here and there a few\nslight, hardly perceptible, allusions to more coloured details than come\nwithin the letter of his bond, but will be careful not to overdo it. The\nvulgar sensational painter will force in his colour everywhere, and of\nall colourists he must be pronounced the worst.\n\nBriefly then, to see colour is simply to have got into a habit of not\noverlooking the patches of colour which are seldom far to seek or hard to\nsee by those who look for them. It is not the making one\u2019s self believe\nthat one sees all manner of colours which are not there, it is only the\ngetting oneself into a mental habit of looking out for episodes of\ncolour, and of giving them a somewhat undue preference in the struggle\nfor rendering, wherever anything like a reasonable pretext can be found\nfor doing so. For if a picture is to be pleasing in colour, pleasing\ncolours must be put upon the canvas, and reasons have got to be found for\nputting them there. [1886.]\n\nP.S.\u2014The foregoing note wants a great deal of reconsideration for which I\ncannot find time just now. Jan. 31, 1898.\n\n\n\nWords and Colour\n\n\nA man cannot be a great colourist unless he is a great deal more. A\ngreat colourist is no better than a great wordist unless the colour is\nwell applied to a subject which at any rate is not repellent.\n\n\n\nAmateurs and Professionals\n\n\nThere is no excuse for amateur work being bad. Amateurs often excuse\ntheir shortcomings on the ground that they are not professionals, the\nprofessional could plead with greater justice that he is not an amateur.\nThe professional has not, he might well say, the leisure and freedom from\nmoney anxieties which will let him devote himself to his art in\nsingleness of heart, telling of things as he sees them without fear of\nwhat man shall say unto him; he must think not of what appears to him\nright and loveable but of what his patrons will think and of what the\ncritics will tell his patrons to say they think; he has got to square\neveryone all round and will assuredly fail to make his way unless he does\nthis; if, then, he betrays his trust he does so under temptation.\nWhereas the amateur who works with no higher aim than that of immediate\nrecognition betrays it from the vanity and wantonness of his spirit. The\none is naughty because he is needy, the other from natural depravity.\nBesides, the amateur can keep his work to himself, whereas the\nprofessional man must exhibit or starve.\n\nThe question is what is the amateur an amateur of? What is he really in\nlove with? Is he in love with other people, thinking he sees something\nwhich he would like to show them, which he feels sure they would enjoy if\nthey could only see it as he does, which he is therefore trying as best\nhe can to put before the few nice people whom he knows? If this is his\nposition he can do no wrong, the spirit in which he works will ensure\nthat his defects will be only as bad spelling or bad grammar in some\npretty saying of a child. If, on the other hand, he is playing for\nsocial success and to get a reputation for being clever, then no matter\nhow dexterous his work may be, it is but another mode of the speaking\nwith the tongues of men and angels without charity; it is as sounding\nbrass or a tinkling cymbal, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.\n\n\n\nThe Ansidei Raffaelle\n\n\nThis picture is inspired by no deeper feeling than a determination to\nadhere to the conventions of the time. These conventions ensure an\neffect of more or less devotional character, and this, coupled with our\nreverence for the name of Raffaelle, the sentiments arising from\nantiquity and foreignness, and the inability of most people to judge of\nthe work on technical grounds, because they can neither paint nor draw,\nprevents us from seeing what a mere business picture it is and how poor\nthe painting is throughout. A master in any art should be first man,\nthen poet, then craftsman; this picture must have been painted by one who\nwas first worldling, then religious-property-manufacturer, then painter\nwith brains not more than average and no heart.\n\nThe Madonna\u2019s head has indeed a certain prettiness of a not very uncommon\nkind; the paint has been sweetened with a soft brush and licked smooth\ntill all texture as of flesh is gone and the head is wooden and tight; I\ncan see no expression in it; the hand upon the open book is as badly\ndrawn as the hand of S. Catharine (also by Raffaelle) in our gallery, or\neven worse; so is the part of the other hand which can be seen; they are\nbetter drawn than the hands in the _Ecce homo_ of Correggio in our\ngallery, for the fingers appear to have the right number of joints, which\nnone of those in the Correggio have, but this is as much as can be said.\n\nThe dress is poorly painted, the gold thread work being of the cheapest,\ncommonest kind, both as regards pattern and the quantity allowed;\nespecially note the meagre allowance and poor pattern of the embroidery\non the virgin\u2019s bosom; it is done as by one who knew she ought to have,\nand must have, a little gold work, but was determined she should have no\nmore than he could help. This is so wherever there is gold thread work\nin the picture. It is so on S. Nicholas\u2019s cloak where a larger space is\ncovered, but the pattern is dull and the smallest quantity of gold is\nmade to go the longest way. The gold cording which binds this is more\nparticularly badly done. Compare the embroidery and gold thread work in\n\u201cThe Virgin adoring the Infant Christ,\u201d ascribed to Andrea Verrocchio,\nNo. 296, Room V; \u201cThe Annunciation\u201d by Carlo Crivelli, No. 739, Room\nVIII; in \u201cThe Angel Raphael accompanies Tobias on his Journey into Media\u201d\nattributed to Botticini, No. 781, Room V; in \u201cPortrait of a Lady,\u201d school\nof Pollaiuolo, No. 585, Room V; in \u201cA Canon of the Church with his Patron\nSaints\u201d by Gheeraert David, No. 1045, Room XI; or indeed the general run\nof the gold embroidery of the period as shown in our gallery. {147}\n\nSo with the jewels; there are examples of jewels in most of the pictures\nnamed above, none of them, perhaps, very first-rate, but all of them\npainted with more care and serious aim than the eighteen-penny trinket\nwhich serves S. Nicholas for a brooch. The jewels in the mitre are\nrather better than this, but much depends upon the kind of day on which\nthe picture is seen; on a clear bright day they, and indeed every part of\nthe picture, look much worse than on a dull one because the badness can\nbe more clearly seen. As for the mitre itself, it is made of the same\nhard unyielding material as the portico behind the saint, whatever this\nmay be, presumably wood.\n\nObserve also the crozier which S. Nicholas is holding; observe the cheap\nstreak of high light exactly the same thickness all the way and only\nbroken in one place; so with the folds in the draperies; all is\nmonotonous, unobservant, unimaginative\u2014the work of a feeble man whose\npains will never extend much beyond those necessary to make him pass as\nstronger than he is; especially the folds in the white linen over S.\nNicholas\u2019s throat, and about his girdle\u2014weaker drapery can hardly be than\nthis, unless, perhaps, that from under which S. Nicholas\u2019s hands come.\nThere is not only no art here to conceal, but there is not even pains to\nconceal the want of art. As for the hands themselves, and indeed all the\nhands and feet throughout the picture, there is not one which is even\ntolerably drawn if judged by the standard which Royal Academicians apply\nto Royal Academy students now.\n\nGranted that this is an early work, nevertheless I submit that the\ndrawing here is not that of one who is going to do better by and by, it\nis that of one who is essentially insincere and who will never aim higher\nthan immediate success. Those who grow to the best work almost always\nbegin by laying great stress on details which are all they as yet have\nstrength for; they cannot do much, but the little they can do they do and\nnever tire of doing; they grow by getting juster notions of proportion\nand subordination of parts to the whole rather than by any greater amount\nof care and patience bestowed upon details. Here there are no bits of\ndetail worked out as by one who was interested in them and enjoyed them.\nWherever a thing can be scamped it is scamped. As the whole is, so are\nthe details, and as the details are, so is the whole; all is tainted with\neye-service and with a vulgarity not the less profound for being veiled\nby a due observance of conventionality.\n\nI shall be told that Raffaelle did come to draw and paint much better\nthan he has done here. I demur to this. He did a little better; he just\ntook so much pains as to prevent him from going down-hill headlong, and,\nwith practice, he gained facility, but he was never very good, either as\na draughtsman or as a painter. His reputation, indeed, rests mainly on\nhis supposed exquisitely pure and tender feeling. His colour is\nadmittedly inferior, his handling is not highly praised by any one, his\ndrawing has been much praised, but it is of a penmanship freehand kind\nwhich is particularly apt to take people in. Of course he could draw in\nsome ways, no one giving all his time to art and living in Raffaelle\u2019s\nsurroundings could, with even ordinary pains, help becoming a facile\ndraughtsman, but it is the expression and sentiment of his pictures which\nare supposed to be so ineffable and to make him the prince of painters.\n\nI do not think this reputation will be maintained much longer. I can see\nno ineffable expression in the Ansidei Madonna\u2019s head, nor yet in that of\nthe Garvagh Madonna in our gallery, nor in the S. Catharine. He has the\nsaint-touch, as some painters have the tree-touch and others the\nwater-touch. I remember the time when I used to think I saw religious\nfeeling in these last two pictures, but each time I see them I wonder\nmore and more how I can have been taken in by them. I hear people admire\nthe head of S. Nicholas in the Ansidei picture. I can see nothing in it\nbeyond the power of a very ordinary painter, and nothing that a painter\nof more than very ordinary power would be satisfied with. When I look at\nthe head of Bellini\u2019s Doge, Loredano Loredani, I can see defects, as\nevery one can see defects in every picture, but the more I see it the\nmore I marvel at it, and the more profoundly I respect the painter. With\nRaffaelle I find exactly the reverse; I am carried away at first, as I\nwas when a young man by Mendelssohn\u2019s _Songs Without Words_, only to be\nvery angry with myself presently on finding that I could have believed\neven for a short time in something that has no real hold upon me. I know\nthe S. Catharine in our gallery has been said by some not to be by\nRaffaelle. No one will doubt its genuineness who compares the drawing,\npainting and feeling of S. Catharine\u2019s eyes and nose with those of the S.\nJohn in the Ansidei picture. The doubts have only been raised owing to\nthe fact that the picture, being hung on a level with the eye, is so\neasily seen to be bad that people think Raffaelle cannot have painted it.\n\nReturning to the S. Nicholas; apart from the expression, or as it seems\nto me want of expression, the modelling of the head is not only poor but\nvery poor. The forehead is formless and boneless, the nose is entirely\nwanting in that play of line and surface which an old man\u2019s nose affords;\nno one ever yet drew or painted a nose absolutely as nature has made it,\nbut he who compares carefully drawn noses, as that in Rembrandt\u2019s younger\nportrait of himself, in his old woman, in the three Van Eycks, in the\nAndrea Solario, in the Loredano Loredani by Bellini, all in our gallery,\nwith the nose of Raffaelle\u2019s S. Nicholas will not be long in finding out\nhow slovenly Raffaelle\u2019s treatment in reality is. Eyes, eyebrows, mouth,\ncheeks and chin are treated with the same weakness, and this not the\nweakness of a child who is taking much pains to do something beyond his\nstrength, and whose intention can be felt through and above the\nimperfections of his performance (as in the case of the two Apostles\u2019\nheads by Giotto in our gallery), but of one who is not even conscious of\nweakness save by way of impatience that his work should cost him time and\ntrouble at all, and who is satisfied if he can turn it out well enough to\ntake in patrons who have themselves never either drawn or painted.\n\nFinally, let the spectator turn to the sky and landscape. It is the\ncheapest kind of sky with no clouds and going down as low as possible, so\nas to save doing more country details than could be helped. As for the\nlittle landscape there is, let the reader compare it with any of the\nexamples by Bellini, Basaiti, or even Cima da Conegliano, which may be\nfound in the same or the adjoining rooms.\n\nHow, then, did Raffaelle get his reputation? It may be answered, How did\nVirgil get his? or Dante? or Bacon? or Plato? or Mendelssohn? or a score\nof others who not only get the public ear but keep it sometimes for\ncenturies? How did Guido, Guercino and Domenichino get their\nreputations? A hundred years ago these men were held as hardly inferior\nto Raffaelle himself. They had a couple of hundred years or so of\ntriumph\u2014why so much? And if so much, why not more? If we begin asking\nquestions, we may ask why anything at all? _Populus vult decipi_ is the\nonly answer, and nine men out of ten will follow on with _et decipiatur_.\nThe immediate question, however, is not how Raffaelle came by his\nreputation but whether, having got it, he will continue to hold it now\nthat we have a fair amount of his work at the National Gallery.\n\nI grant that the general effect of the picture if looked at as a mere\npiece of decoration is agreeable, but I have seen many a picture which\nthough not bearing consideration as a serious work yet looked well from a\npurely decorative standpoint. I believe, however, that at least half of\nthose who sit gazing before this Ansidei Raffaelle by the half-hour at a\ntime do so rather that they may be seen than see; half, again, of the\nremaining half come because they are made to do so, the rest see rather\nwhat they bring with them and put into the picture than what the picture\nputs into them.\n\nAnd then there is the charm of mere age. Any Italian picture of the\nearly part of the sixteenth century, even though by a worse painter than\nRaffaelle, can hardly fail to call up in us a solemn, old-world feeling,\nas though we had stumbled unexpectedly on some holy, peaceful survivors\nof an age long gone by, when the struggle was not so fierce and the world\nwas a sweeter, happier place than we now find it, when men and women were\ncomelier, and we should like to have lived among them, to have been\ngolden-hued as they, to have done as they did; we dream of what might\nhave been if our lines had been cast in more pleasant places\u2014and so on,\nall of it rubbish, but still not wholly unpleasant rubbish so long as it\nis not dwelt upon.\n\nBearing in mind the natural tendency to accept anything which gives us a\npeep as it were into a golden age, real or imaginary, bearing in mind\nalso the way in which this particular picture has been written up by\ncritics, and the prestige of Raffaelle\u2019s name, the wonder is not that so\nmany let themselves be taken in and carried away with it but that there\nshould not be a greater gathering before it than there generally is.\n\n\n\nBuying a Rembrandt\n\n\nAs an example of the evenness of the balance of advantages between the\nprinciples of staying still and taking what comes, and going about to\nlook for things, {151} I might mention my small Rembrandt, \u201cThe Robing of\nJoseph before Pharaoh.\u201d I have wanted a Rembrandt all my life, and I\nhave wanted not to give more than a few shillings for it. I might have\ntravelled all Europe over for no one can say how many years, looking for\na good, well-preserved, forty-shilling Rembrandt (and this was what I\nwanted), but on two occasions of my life cheap Rembrandts have run right\nup against me. The first was a head cut out of a ruined picture that had\nonly in part escaped destruction when Belvoir Castle was burned down at\nthe beginning of this century. I did not see the head but have little\ndoubt it was genuine. It was offered me for a pound; I was not equal to\nthe occasion and did not at once go to see it as I ought, and when I\nattended to it some months later the thing had gone. My only excuse must\nbe that I was very young.\n\nI never got another chance till a few weeks ago when I saw what I took,\nand take, to be an early, but very interesting, work by Rembrandt in the\nwindow of a pawnbroker opposite St. Clement Danes Church in the Strand.\nI very nearly let this slip too. I saw it and was very much struck with\nit, but, knowing that I am a little apt to be too sanguine, distrusted my\njudgment; in the evening I mentioned the picture to Gogin who went and\nlooked at it; finding him not less impressed than I had been with the\nidea that the work was an early one by Rembrandt, I bought it, and the\nmore I look at it the more satisfied I am that we are right.\n\nPeople talk as though the making the best of what comes was such an easy\nmatter, whereas nothing in reality requires more experience and good\nsense. It is only those who know how not to let the luck that runs\nagainst them slip, who will be able to find things, no matter how long\nand how far they go in search of them. [1887.]\n\n\n\nTrying to Buy a Bellini\n\n\nFlushed with triumph in the matter of Rembrandt, a fortnight or so\nafterwards I was at Christie\u2019s and saw two pictures that fired me. One\nwas a Madonna and Child by Giovanni Bellini, I do not doubt genuine, not\nin a very good state, but still not repainted. The Madonna was lovely,\nthe Child very good, the landscape sweet and Belliniesque. I was much\nsmitten and determined to bid up to a hundred pounds; I knew this would\nbe dirt cheap and was not going to buy at all unless I could get good\nvalue. I bid up to a hundred guineas, but there was someone else bent on\nhaving it and when he bid 105 guineas I let him have it, not without\nregret. I saw in the _Times_ that the purchaser\u2019s name was Lesser.\n\nThe other picture I tried to get at the same sale (this day week); it was\na small sketch numbered 72 (I think) and purporting to be by Giorgione\nbut, I fully believe, by Titian. I bid up to \u00a310 and then let it go. It\nwent for \u00a328, and I should say would have been well bought at \u00a340.\n[1887.]\n\n\n\nWatts\n\n\nI was telling Gogin how I had seen at Christie\u2019s some pictures by Watts\nand how much I had disliked them. He said some of them had been\nexhibited in Paris a few years ago and a friend of his led him up to one\nof them and said in a serious, puzzled, injured tone:\n\n\u201cMon cher ami, racontez-moi donc ceci, s\u2019il vous plait,\u201d as though their\nappearance in such a place at all were something that must have an\nexplanation not obvious upon the face of it.\n\n\n\nLombard Portals\n\n\nThe crouching beasts, on whose backs the pillars stand, generally have a\nlittle one beneath them or some animal which they have killed, or\nsomething, in fact, to give them occupation; it was felt that, though an\nanimal by itself was well, an animal doing something was much better.\nThe mere fact of companionship and silent sympathy is enough to interest,\nbut without this, sculptured animals are stupid, as our lions in\nTrafalgar Square\u2014which, among other faults, have that of being much too\nwell done.\n\nSo Jones\u2019s cat, Prince, picked up a little waif in the court and brought\nit home, and the two lay together and were much lovelier than Prince was\nby himself. {153}\n\n\n\nHolbein at Basle\n\n\nHow well he has done Night in his \u201cCrucifixion\u201d! Also he has tried to do\nthe Alps, putting them as background to the city, but he has not done\nthem as we should do them now. I think the tower on the hill behind the\ncity is the tower which we see on leaving Basle on the road for Lucerne,\nI mean I think Holbein had this tower in his head.\n\n\n\nVan Eyck\n\n\nVan Eyck is delightful rather in spite of his high finish than because of\nit. De Hooghe finishes as highly as any one need do. Van Eyck\u2019s finish\nis saved because up to the last he is essentially impressionist, that is,\nhe keeps a just account of relative importances and keeps them in their\ntrue subordination one to another. The only difference between him and\nRembrandt or Velasquez is that these, as a general rule, stay their hand\nat an earlier stage of impressionism.\n\n\n\nGiotto\n\n\nThere are few modern painters who are not greater technically than\nGiotto, but I cannot call to mind a single one whose work impresses me as\nprofoundly as his does. How is it that our so greatly better should be\nso greatly worse\u2014that the farther we go beyond him the higher he stands\nabove us? Time no doubt has much to do with it, for, great as Giotto\nwas, there are painters of to-day not less so, if they only dared express\nthemselves as frankly and unaffectedly as he did.\n\n\n\nEarly Art\n\n\nThe youth of an art is, like the youth of anything else, its most\ninteresting period. When it has come to the knowledge of good and evil\nit is stronger, but we care less about it.\n\n\n\nSincerity\n\n\nIt is not enough that the painter should make the spectator feel what he\nmeant him to feel; he must also make him feel that this feeling was\nshared by the painter himself _bona fide_ and without affectation. Of\nall the lies a painter can tell the worst is saying that he likes what he\ndoes not like. But the poor wretch seldom knows himself; for the art of\nknowing what gives him pleasure has been so neglected that it has been\nlost to all but a very few. The old Italians knew well enough what they\nliked and were as children in saying it.\n\n\n\n\nX\nThe Position of a Homo Unius Libri\n\n\nTr\u00fcbner and Myself\n\n\nWHEN I went back to Tr\u00fcbner, after Bogue had failed, I had a talk with\nhim and his partner. I could see they had lost all faith in my literary\nprospects. Tr\u00fcbner told me I was a _homo unius libri_, meaning\n_Erewhon_. He said I was in a very solitary position. I replied that I\nknew I was, but it suited me. I said:\n\n\u201cI pay my way; when I was with you before, I never owed you money; you\nfind me now not owing my publisher money, but my publisher in debt to me;\nI never owe so much as a tailor\u2019s bill; beyond secured debts, I do not\nowe \u00a35 in the world and never have\u201d (which is quite true). \u201cI get my\nsummer\u2019s holiday in Italy every year; I live very quietly and cheaply,\nbut it suits my health and tastes, and I have no acquaintances but those\nI value. My friends stick by me. If I was to get in with these literary\nand scientific people I should hate them and they me. I should fritter\naway my time and my freedom without getting a _quid pro quo_: as it is, I\nam free and I give the swells every now and then such a facer as they get\nfrom no one else. Of course I don\u2019t expect to get on in a commercial\nsense at present, I do not go the right way to work for this; but I am\ngoing the right way to secure a lasting reputation and this is what I do\ncare for. A man cannot have both, he must make up his mind which he\nmeans going in for. I have gone in for posthumous fame and I see no step\nin my literary career which I do not think calculated to promote my being\nheld in esteem when the heat of passion has subsided.\u201d\n\nTr\u00fcbner shrugged his shoulders. He plainly does not believe that I shall\nsucceed in getting a hearing; he thinks the combination of the religious\nand cultured world too strong for me to stand against.\n\nIf he means that the reviewers will burke me as far as they can, no doubt\nhe is right; but when I am dead there will be other reviewers and I have\nalready done enough to secure that they shall from time to time look me\nup. They won\u2019t bore me then but they will be just like the present ones.\n[1882.]\n\n\n\nCapping a Success\n\n\nWhen I had written _Erewhon_ people wanted me at once to set to work and\nwrite another book like it. How could I? I cannot think how I escaped\nplunging into writing some laboured stupid book. I am very glad I did\nescape. Nothing is so cruel as to try and force a man beyond his natural\npace. If he has got more stuff in him it will come out in its own time\nand its own way: if he has not\u2014let the poor wretch alone; to have done\none decent book should be enough; the very worst way to get another out\nof him is to press him. The more promise a young writer has given, the\nmore his friends should urge him not to over-tax himself.\n\n\n\nA Lady Critic\n\n\nA lady, whom I meet frequently in the British Museum reading-room and\nelsewhere, said to me the other day:\n\n\u201cWhy don\u2019t you write another _Erewhon_?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, my dear lady,\u201d I replied, \u201c_Life and Habit_ was another _Erewhon_.\u201d\n\nThey say these things to me continually to plague me and make out that I\ncould do one good book but never any more. She is the sort of person who\nif she had known Shakespeare would have said to him, when he wrote _Henry\nthe IVth_:\n\n\u201cAh, Mr. Shakespeare, why don\u2019t you write us another _Titus Andronicus_?\nNow that was a sweet play, that was.\u201d\n\nAnd when he had done _Antony and Cleopatra_ she would have told him that\nher favourite plays were the three parts of _King Henry VI_.\n\n\n\nCompensation\n\n\nIf I die prematurely, at any rate I shall be saved from being bored by my\nown success.\n\n\n\nHudibras and Erewhon\n\n\nI was completing the purchase of some small houses at Lewisham and had to\nsign my name. The vendor, merely seeing the name and knowing none of my\nbooks, said to me, rather rudely, but without meaning any mischief:\n\n\u201cHave you written any books like _Hudibras_?\u201d\n\nI said promptly: \u201cCertainly; _Erewhon_ is quite as good a book as\n_Hudibras_.\u201d\n\nThis was coming it too strong for him, so he thought I had not heard and\nrepeated his question. I said again as before, and he shut up. I sent\nhim a copy of _Erewhon_ immediately after we had completed. It was\nrather tall talk on my part, I admit, but he should not have challenged\nme unprovoked.\n\n\n\nLife and Habit and Myself\n\n\nAt the Century Club I was talking with a man who asked me why I did not\npublish the substance of what I had been saying. I believed he knew me\nand said:\n\n\u201cWell, you know, there\u2019s _Life and Habit_.\u201d\n\nHe did not seem to rise at all, so I asked him if he had seen the book.\n\n\u201cSeen it?\u201d he answered. \u201cWhy, I should think every one has seen _Life\nand Habit_: but what\u2019s that got to do with it?\u201d\n\nI said it had taken me so much time lately that I had had none to spare\nfor anything else. Again he did not seem to see the force of the remark\nand a friend, who was close by, said:\n\n\u201cYou know, Butler wrote _Life and Habit_.\u201d\n\nHe would not believe it, and it was only after repeated assurance that he\naccepted it. It was plain he thought a great deal of _Life and Habit_\nand had idealised its author, whom he was disappointed to find so very\ncommonplace a person. Exactly the same thing happened to me with\n_Erewhon_. I was glad to find that _Life and Habit_ had made so deep an\nimpression at any rate upon one person.\n\n\n\nA Disappointing Person\n\n\nI suspect I am rather a disappointing person, for every now and then\nthere is a fuss and I am to meet some one who would very much like to\nmake my acquaintance, or some one writes me a letter and says he has long\nadmired my books, and may he, etc.? Of course I say \u201cYes,\u201d but\nexperience has taught me that it always ends in turning some one who was\nmore or less inclined to run me into one who considers he has a grievance\nagainst me for not being a very different kind of person from what I am.\nThese people however (and this happens on an average once or twice a\nyear) do not come solely to see me, they generally tell me all about\nthemselves and the impression is left upon me that they have really come\nin order to be praised. I am as civil to them as I know how to be but\nenthusiastic I never am, for they have never any of them been nice\npeople, and it is my want of enthusiasm for themselves as much as\nanything else which disappoints them. They seldom come again. Mr.\nAlfred Tylor was the only acquaintance I have ever made through being\nsent for to be looked at, or letting some one come to look at me, who\nturned out a valuable ally; but then he sent for me through mutual\nfriends in the usual way.\n\n\n\nEntertaining Angels\n\n\nI doubt whether any angel would find me very entertaining. As for\nmyself, if ever I do entertain one it will have to be unawares. When\npeople entertain others without an introduction they generally turn out\nmore like devils than angels.\n\n\n\nMyself and My Books\n\n\nThe balance against them is now over \u00a3350. How completely they must have\nbeen squashed unless I had had a little money of my own. Is it not\nlikely that many a better writer than I am is squashed through want of\nmoney? Whatever I do I must not die poor; these examples of ill-requited\nlabour are immoral, they discourage the effort of those who could and\nwould do good things if they did not know that it would ruin themselves\nand their families; moreover, they set people on to pamper a dozen fools\nfor each neglected man of merit, out of compunction. Genius, they say,\nalways wears an invisible cloak; these men wear invisible\ncloaks\u2014therefore they are geniuses; and it flatters them to think that\nthey can see more than their neighbours. The neglect of one such man as\nthe author of _Hudibras_ is compensated for by the petting of a dozen\nothers who would be the first to jump upon the author of _Hudibras_ if he\nwere to come back to life.\n\nHeaven forbid that I should compare myself to the author of _Hudibras_,\nbut still, if my books succeed after my death\u2014which they may or may not,\nI know nothing about it\u2014any way, if they do succeed, let it be understood\nthat they failed during my life for a few very obvious reasons of which I\nwas quite aware, for the effect of which I was prepared before I wrote my\nbooks, and which on consideration I found insufficient to deter me. I\nattacked people who were at once unscrupulous and powerful, and I made no\nalliances. I did this because I did not want to be bored and have my\ntime wasted and my pleasures curtailed. I had money enough to live on,\nand preferred addressing myself to posterity rather than to any except a\nvery few of my own contemporaries. Those few I have always kept well in\nmind. I think of them continually when in doubt about any passage, but\nbeyond those few I will not go. Posterity will give a man a fair\nhearing; his own times will not do so if he is attacking vested\ninterests, and I have attacked two powerful sets of vested interests at\nonce. [The Church and Science.] What is the good of addressing people\nwho will not listen? I have addressed the next generation and have\ntherefore said many things which want time before they become palatable.\nAny man who wishes his work to stand will sacrifice a good deal of his\nimmediate audience for the sake of being attractive to a much larger\nnumber of people later on. He cannot gain this later audience unless he\nhas been fearless and thorough-going, and if he is this he is sure to\nhave to tread on the corns of a great many of those who live at the same\ntime with him, however little he may wish to do so. He must not expect\nthese people to help him on, nor wonder if, for a time, they succeed in\nsnuffing him out. It is part of the swim that it should be so. Only, as\none who believes himself to have practised what he preaches, let me\nassure any one who has money of his own that to write fearlessly for\nposterity and not get paid for it is much better fun than I can imagine\nits being to write like, we will say, George Eliot and make a lot of\nmoney by it. [1883.]\n\n\n\nDragons\n\n\nPeople say that there are neither dragons to be killed nor distressed\nmaidens to be rescued nowadays. I do not know, but I think I have\ndropped across one or two, nor do I feel sure whether the most mortal\nwounds have been inflicted by the dragons or by myself.\n\n\n\nTrying to Know\n\n\nThere are some things which it is madness not to try to know but which it\nis almost as much madness to try to know. Sometimes publishers, hoping\nto buy the Holy Ghost with a price, fee a man to read for them and advise\nthem. This is but as the vain tossing of insomnia. God will not have\nany human being know what will sell, nor when any one is going to die,\nnor anything about the ultimate, or even the deeper, springs of growth\nand action, nor yet such a little thing as whether it is going to rain\nto-morrow. I do not say that the impossibility of being certain about\nthese and similar matters was designed, but it is as complete as though\nit had been not only designed but designed exceedingly well.\n\n\n\nSquaring Accounts\n\n\nWe owe past generations not only for the master discoveries of music,\nscience, literature and art\u2014few of which brought profit to those to whom\nthey were revealed\u2014but also for our organism itself which is an\ninheritance gathered and garnered by those who have gone before us. What\nmoney have we paid not for Handel and Shakespeare only but for our eyes\nand ears?\n\nAnd so with regard to our contemporaries. A man is sometimes tempted to\nexclaim that he does not fare well at the hands of his own generation;\nthat, although he may play pretty assiduously, he is received with more\nhisses than applause; that the public is hard to please, slow to praise,\nand bent on driving as hard a bargain as it can. This, however, is only\nwhat he should expect. No sensible man will suppose himself to be of so\nmuch importance that his contemporaries should be at much pains to get at\nthe truth concerning him. As for my own position, if I say the things I\nwant to say without troubling myself about the public, why should I\ngrumble at the public for not troubling about me? Besides, not being\npaid myself, I can in better conscience use the works of others, as I\ndaily do, without paying for them and without being at the trouble of\npraising or thanking them more than I have a mind to. And, after all,\nhow can I say I am not paid? In addition to all that I inherit from past\ngenerations I receive from my own everything that makes life worth\nliving\u2014London, with its infinite sources of pleasure and amusement, good\ntheatres, concerts, picture galleries, the British Museum Reading-Room,\nnewspapers, a comfortable dwelling, railways and, above all, the society\nof the friends I value.\n\n\n\nCharles Darwin on what Sells a Book\n\n\nI remember when I was at Down we were talking of what it is that sells a\nbook. Mr. Darwin said he did not believe it was reviews or\nadvertisements, but simply \u201cbeing talked about\u201d that sold a book.\n\nI believe he is quite right here, but surely a good flaming review helps\nto get a book talked about. I have often inquired at my publishers\u2019\nafter a review and I never found one that made any perceptible increase\nor decrease of sale, and the same with advertisements. I think, however,\nthat the review of _Erewhon_ in the _Spectator_ did sell a few copies of\n_Erewhon_, but then it was such a very strong one and the anonymousness\nof the book stimulated curiosity. A perception of the value of a review,\nwhether friendly or hostile, is as old as St. Paul\u2019s Epistle to the\nPhilippians. {162}\n\n\n\nHoodwinking the Public\n\n\nSincerity or honesty is a low and very rudimentary form of virtue that is\nonly to be found to any considerable extent among the protozoa. Compare,\nfor example, the integrity, sincerity and absolute refusal either to\ndeceive or be deceived that exists in the germ-cells of any individual,\nwith the instinctive aptitude for lying that is to be observed in the\nfull-grown man. The full-grown man is compacted of lies and shams which\nare to him as the breath of his nostrils. Whereas the germ-cells will\nnot be humbugged; they will tell the truth as near as they can. They\nknow their ancestors meant well and will tend to become even more sincere\nthemselves.\n\nThus, if a painter has not tried hard to paint well and has tried hard to\nhoodwink the public, his offspring is not likely to show hereditary\naptitude for painting, but is likely to have an improved power of\nhoodwinking the public. So it is with music, literature, science or\nanything else. The only thing the public can do against this is to try\nhard to develop a hereditary power of not being hoodwinked. From the\nsmall success it has met with hitherto we may think that the effort on\nits part can have been neither severe nor long sustained. Indeed, all\nages seem to have held that \u201cthe pleasure is as great of being cheated as\nto cheat.\u201d\n\n\n\nThe Public Ear\n\n\nThose who have squatted upon it may be trusted to keep off other\nsquatters if they can. The public ear is like the land which looks\ninfinite but is all parcelled out into fields and private\nownerships\u2014barring, of course, highways and commons. So the universe,\nwhich looks so big, may be supposed as really all parcelled out among the\nstars that stud it.\n\nOr the public ear is like a common; there is not much to be got off it,\nbut that little is for the most part grazed down by geese and donkeys.\n\nThose who wish to gain the public ear should bear in mind that people do\nnot generally want to be made less foolish or less wicked. What they\nwant is to be told that they are not foolish and not wicked. Now it is\nonly a fool or a liar or both who can tell them this; the masses\ntherefore cannot be expected to like any but fools or liars or both. So\nwhen a lady gets photographed, what she wants is not to be made beautiful\nbut to be told that she is beautiful.\n\n\n\nSecular Thinking\n\n\nThe ages do their thinking much as the individual does. When considering\na difficult question, we think alternately for several seconds together\nof details, even the minutest seeming important, and then of broad\ngeneral principles, whereupon even large details become unimportant;\nagain we have bouts during which rules, logic and technicalities engross\nus, followed by others in which the unwritten and unwritable common sense\nof grace defies and over-rides the law. That is to say, we have our\ninductive fits and our deductive fits, our arrangements according to the\nletter and according to the spirit, our conclusions drawn from logic\n_secundum artem_ and from absurdity and the character of the arguer.\nThis heterogeneous mass of considerations forms the mental pabulum with\nwhich we feed our minds. How that pabulum becomes amalgamated, reduced\nto uniformity and turned into the growth of complete opinion we can no\nmore tell than we can say when, how and where food becomes flesh and\nblood. All we can say is that the miracle, stupendous as it is and\ninvolving the stultification of every intelligible principle on which\nthought and action are based, is nevertheless worked a thousand times an\nhour by every one of us.\n\nThe formation of public opinion is as mysterious as that of individual,\nbut, so far as we can form any opinion about that which forms our\nopinions in such large measure, the processes appear to resemble one\nanother much as rain drops resemble one another. There is essential\nagreement in spite of essential difference. So that here, as everywhere\nelse, we no sooner scratch the soil than we come upon the granite of\ncontradiction in terms and can scratch no further.\n\nAs for ourselves, we are passing through an inductive, technical,\nspeculative period and have gone such lengths in this direction that a\nreaction, during which we shall pass to the other extreme, may be\nconfidently predicted.\n\n\n\nThe Art of Propagating Opinion\n\n\nHe who would propagate an opinion must begin by making sure of his ground\nand holding it firmly. There is as little use in trying to breed from\nweak opinion as from other weak stock, animal or vegetable.\n\nThe more securely a man holds an opinion, the more temperate he can\nafford to be, and the more temperate he is, the more weight he will carry\nwith those who are in the long run weightiest. Ideas and opinions, like\nliving organisms, have a normal rate of growth which cannot be either\nchecked or forced beyond a certain point. They can be held in check more\nsafely than they can be hurried. They can also be killed; and one of the\nsurest ways to kill them is to try to hurry them.\n\nThe more unpopular an opinion is, the more necessary is it that the\nholder should be somewhat punctilious in his observance of\nconventionalities generally, and that, if possible, he should get the\nreputation of being well-to-do in the world.\n\nArguments are not so good as assertion. Arguments are like fire-arms\nwhich a man may keep at home but should not carry about with him.\nIndirect assertion, leaving the hearer to point the inference, is, as a\nrule, to be preferred. The one great argument with most people is that\nanother should think this or that. The reasons of the belief are details\nand, in nine cases out of ten, best omitted as confusing and weakening\nthe general impression.\n\nMany, if not most, good ideas die young\u2014mainly from neglect on the part\nof the parents, but sometimes from over-fondness. Once well started, an\nopinion had better be left to shift for itself.\n\nInsist as far as possible on the insignificance of the points of\ndifference as compared with the resemblances to opinions generally\naccepted.\n\n\n\nGladstone as a Financier\n\n\nI said to my tobacconist that Gladstone was not a financier because he\nbought a lot of china at high prices and it fetched very little when it\nwas sold at Christie\u2019s.\n\n\u201cDid he give high prices?\u201d said the tobacconist.\n\n\u201cEnormous prices,\u201d said I emphatically.\n\nNow, to tell the truth, I did not know whether Mr. Gladstone had ever\nbought the china at all, much less what he gave for it, if he did; he may\nhave had it all left him for aught I knew. But I was going to appeal to\nmy tobacconist by arguments that he could understand, and I could see he\nwas much impressed.\n\n\n\nArgument\n\n\nArgument is generally waste of time and trouble. It is better to present\none\u2019s opinion and leave it to stick or no as it may happen. If sound, it\nwill probably in the end stick, and the sticking is the main thing.\n\n\n\nHumour\n\n\nWhat a frightful thing it would be if true humour were more common or,\nrather, more easy to see, for it is more common than those are who can\nsee it. It would block the way of everything. Perhaps this is what\npeople rather feel. It would be like Music in the _Ode for St. Cecilia\u2019s\nDay_, it would \u201cuntune the sky.\u201d\n\nI do not know quite what is meant by untuning the sky and, if I did, I\ncannot think that there is anything to be particularly gained by having\nthe sky untuned; still, if it has got to be untuned at all, I am sure\nmusic is the only thing that can untune it. Rapson, however, whom I used\nto see in the coin room at the British Museum, told me it should be\n\u201centune the sky\u201d and it sounds as though he were right.\n\n\n\nMyself and \u201cUnconscious Humour\u201d\n\n\nThe phrase \u201cunconscious humour\u201d is the one contribution I have made to\nthe current literature of the day. I am continually seeing unconscious\nhumour (without quotation marks) alluded to in _Times_ articles and other\nlike places, but I never remember to have come across it as a synonym for\ndullness till I wrote _Life and Habit_.\n\n\n\nMy Humour\n\n\nThe thing to say about me just now is that my humour is forced. This\nbegan to reach me in connection with my article \u201cQuis Desiderio . . .?\u201d\n[_Universal Review_, 1888] and is now, [1889] I understand, pretty\ngenerally perceived even by those who had not found it out for\nthemselves.\n\nI am not aware of forcing myself to say anything which has not amused me,\nwhich is not apposite and which I do not believe will amuse a neutral\nreader, but I may very well do so without knowing it. As for my humour,\nI am like my father and grandfather, both of whom liked a good thing\nheartily enough if it was told them, but I do not often say a good thing\nmyself. Very likely my humour, what little there is of it, is forced\nenough. I do not care so long as it amuses me and, such as it is, I\nshall vent it in my own way and at my own time.\n\n\n\nMyself and My Publishers\n\n\nI see my publishers are bringing out a new magazine with all the usual\ncontributors. Of course they don\u2019t ask me to write and this shows that\nthey do not think my name would help their magazine. This, I imagine,\nmeans that Andrew Lang has told them that my humour is forced. I should\nnot myself say that Andrew Lang\u2019s humour would lose by a little forcing.\n\nI have seen enough of my publishers to know that they have no ideas of\ntheir own about literature save what they can clutch at as believing it\nto be a straight tip from a business point of view. Heaven forbid that I\nshould blame them for doing exactly what I should do myself in their\nplace, but, things being as they are, they are no use to me. They have\nno confidence in me and they must have this or they will do nothing for\nme beyond keeping my books on their shelves.\n\nPerhaps it is better that I should not have a chance of becoming a\nhack-writer, for I should grasp it at once if it were offered me.\n\n\n\n\nXI\nCash and Credit\n\n\nThe Unseen World\n\n\nI BELIEVE there is an unseen world about which we know nothing as firmly\nas any one can believe it. I see things coming up from it into the\nvisible world and going down again from the seen world to the unseen.\nBut my unseen world is to be bona fide unseen and, in so far as I say I\nknow anything about it, I stultify myself. It should no more be\ndescribed than God should be represented in painting or sculpture. It is\nas the other side of the moon; we know it must be there but we know also\nthat, in the nature of things, we can never see it. Sometimes, some\ntrifle of it may sway into sight and out again, but it is so little that\nit is not worth counting as having been seen.\n\n\n\nThe Kingdom of Heaven\n\n\nThe world admits that there is another world, that there is a kingdom,\nveritable and worth having, which, nevertheless, is invisible and has\nnothing to do with any kingdom such as we now see. It agrees that the\nwisdom of this other kingdom is foolishness here on earth, while the\nwisdom of the world is foolishness in the Kingdom of Heaven. In our\nhearts we know that the Kingdom of Heaven is the higher of the two and\nthe better worth living and dying for, and that, if it is to be won, it\nmust be sought steadfastly and in singleness of heart by those who put\nall else on one side and, shrinking from no sacrifice, are ready to face\nshame, poverty and torture here rather than abandon the hope of the prize\nof their high calling. Nobody who doubts any of this is worth talking\nwith.\n\nThe question is, where is this Heavenly Kingdom, and what way are we to\ntake to find it? Happily the answer is easy, for we are not likely to go\nwrong if in all simplicity, humility and good faith we heartily desire to\nfind it and follow the dictates of ordinary common-sense.\n\n\n\nThe Philosopher\n\n\nHe should have made many mistakes and been saved often by the skin of his\nteeth, for the skin of one\u2019s teeth is the most teaching thing about one.\nHe should have been, or at any rate believed himself, a great fool and a\ngreat criminal. He should have cut himself adrift from society, and yet\nnot be without society. He should have given up all, even Christ\nhimself, for Christ\u2019s sake. He should be above fear or love or hate, and\nyet know them extremely well. He should have lost all save a small\ncompetence and know what a vantage ground it is to be an outcast.\nDestruction and Death say they have heard the fame of Wisdom with their\nears, and the philosopher must have been close up to these if he too\nwould hear it.\n\n\n\nThe Artist and the Shopkeeper\n\n\nMost artists, whether in religion, music, literature, painting, or what\nnot, are shopkeepers in disguise. They hide their shop as much as they\ncan, and keep pretending that it does not exist, but they are essentially\nshopkeepers and nothing else. Why do I try to sell my books and feel\nregret at never seeing them pay their expenses if I am not a shopkeeper?\nOf course I am, only I keep a bad shop\u2014a shop that does not pay.\n\nIn like manner, the professed shopkeeper has generally a taint of the\nartist somewhere about him which he tries to conceal as much as the\nprofessed artist tries to conceal his shopkeeping.\n\nThe business man and the artist are like matter and mind. We can never\nget either pure and without some alloy of the other.\n\n\n\nArt and Trade\n\n\nPeople confound literature and article-dealing because the plant in both\ncases is similar, but no two things can be more distinct. Neither the\nquestion of money nor that of friend or foe can enter into literature\nproper. Here, right feeling\u2014or good taste, if this expression be\npreferred\u2014is alone considered. If a bona fide writer thinks a thing\nwants saying, he will say it as tersely, clearly and elegantly as he can.\nThe question whether it will do him personally good or harm, or how it\nwill affect this or that friend, never enters his head, or, if it does,\nit is instantly ordered out again. The only personal gratifications\nallowed him (apart, of course, from such as are conceded to every one,\nwriter or no) are those of keeping his good name spotless among those\nwhose opinion is alone worth having and of maintaining the highest\ntraditions of a noble calling. If a man lives in fear and trembling lest\nhe should fail in these respects, if he finds these considerations alone\nweigh with him, if he never writes without thinking how he shall best\nserve good causes and damage bad ones, then he is a genuine man of\nletters. If in addition to this he succeeds in making his manner\nattractive, he will become a classic. He knows this. He knows, although\nthe Greeks in their mythology forgot to say so, that Conceit was saved to\nmankind as well as Hope when Pandora clapped the lid on to her box.\n\nWith the article-dealer, on the other hand, money is, and ought to be,\nthe first consideration. Literature is an art; article-writing, when a\nman is paid for it, is a trade and none the worse for that; but\npot-boilers are one thing and genuine pictures are another. People have\nindeed been paid for some of the most genuine pictures ever painted, and\nso with music, and so with literature itself\u2014hard-and-fast lines ever cut\nthe fingers of those who draw them\u2014but, as a general rule, most lasting\nart has been poorly paid, so far as money goes, till the artist was near\nthe end of his time, and, whether money passed or no, we may be sure that\nit was not thought of. Such work is done as a bird sings\u2014for the love of\nthe thing; it is persevered in as long as body and soul can be kept\ntogether, whether there be pay or no, and perhaps better if there be no\npay.\n\nNevertheless, though art disregards money and trade disregards art, the\nartist may stand not a little trade-alloy and be even toughened by it,\nand the tradesmen may be more than half an artist. Art is in the world\nbut not of it; it lives in a kingdom of its own, governed by laws that\nnone but artists can understand. This, at least, is the ideal towards\nwhich an artist tends, though we all very well know we none of us reach\nit. With the trade it is exactly the reverse; this world is, and ought\nto be, everything, and the invisible world is as little to the trade as\nthis visible world is to the artist.\n\nWhen I say the artist tends towards such a world, I mean not that he\ntends consciously and reasoningly but that his instinct to take this\ndirection will be too strong to let him take any other. He is incapable\nof reasoning on the subject; if he could reason he would be lost _qua_\nartist; for, by every test that reason can apply, those who sell\nthemselves for a price are in the right. The artist is guided by a faith\nthat for him transcends all reason. Granted that this faith has been in\ngreat measure founded on reason, that it has grown up along with reason,\nthat if it lose touch with reason it is no longer faith but madness;\ngranted, again, that reason is in great measure founded on faith, that it\nhas grown up along with faith, that if it lose touch with faith it is no\nlonger reason but mechanism; granted, therefore, that faith grows with\nreason as will with power, as demand with supply, as mind with body, each\nstimulating and augmenting the other until an invisible, minute nucleus\nattains colossal growth\u2014nevertheless the difference between the man of\nthe world and the man who lives by faith is that the first is drawn\ntowards the one and the second towards the other of two principles which,\nso far as we can see, are co-extensive and co-equal in importance.\n\n\n\nMoney\n\n\nIt is curious that money, which is the most valuable thing in life,\n_exceptis excipiendis_, should be the most fatal corrupter of music,\nliterature, painting and all the arts. As soon as any art is pursued\nwith a view to money, then farewell, in ninety-nine cases out of a\nhundred, all hope of genuine good work. If a man has money at his back,\nhe may touch these things and do something which will live a long while,\nand he may be very happy in doing it; if he has no money, he may do good\nwork, but the chances are he will be killed in doing it and for having\ndone it; or he may make himself happy by doing bad work and getting money\nout of it, and there is no great harm in this, provided he knows his work\nis done in this spirit and rates it for its commercial value only.\nStill, as a rule, a man should not touch any of the arts as a creator\nunless be has a _discreta posizionina_ behind him.\n\n\n\nModern Simony\n\n\nIt is not the dealing in livings but the thinking they can buy the Holy\nGhost for money which vulgar rich people indulge in when they dabble in\nliterature, music and painting.\n\nNevertheless, on reflection it must be admitted that the Holy Ghost is\nvery hard to come by without money. For the Holy Ghost is only another\nterm for the Fear of the Lord, which is Wisdom. And though Wisdom cannot\nbe gotten for gold, still less can it be gotten without it. Gold, or the\nvalue that is equivalent to gold, lies at the root of Wisdom, and enters\nso largely into the very essence of the Holy Ghost that \u201cNo gold, no Holy\nGhost\u201d may pass as an axiom. This is perhaps why it is not easy to buy\nWisdom by whatever name it be called\u2014I mean, because it is almost\nimpossible to sell it. It is a very unmarketable commodity, as those who\nhave received it truly know to their own great bane and boon.\n\n\n\nMy Grandfather and Myself\n\n\nMy grandfather worked very hard all his life, and was making money all\nthe time until he became a bishop. I have worked very hard all my life,\nbut have never been able to earn money. As usefulness is generally\ncounted, no one can be more useless. This I believe to be largely due to\nthe public-school and university teaching through which my grandfather\nmade his money. Yes, but then if he is largely responsible for that\nwhich has made me useless, has he not also left me the hardly-won money\nwhich makes my uselessness sufficiently agreeable to myself? And would\nnot the poor old gentleman gladly change lots with me, if he could?\n\nI do not know; but I should be sorry to change lots with him or with any\none else, so I need not grumble. I said in _Luck or Cunning_? that the\nonly way (at least I think I said so) in which a teacher can thoroughly\nimbue an unwilling learner with his own opinions is for the teacher to\neat the pupil up and thus assimilate him\u2014if he can, for it is possible\nthat the pupil may continue to disagree with the teacher. And as a\nmatter of fact, school-masters do live upon their pupils, and I, as my\ngrandfather\u2019s grandson, continue to batten upon old pupil.\n\n\n\nArt and Usefulness\n\n\nTedder, the Librarian of the Athen\u00e6um, said to me when I told him (I have\nonly seen him twice) what poor success my books had met with:\n\n\u201cYes, but you have made the great mistake of being useful.\u201d\n\nThis, for the moment, displeased me, for I know that I have always tried\nto make my work useful and should not care about doing it at all unless I\nbelieved it to subserve use more or less directly. Yet when I look at\nthose works which we all hold to be the crowning glories of the world as,\nfor example, the _Iliad_, the _Odyssey_, _Hamlet_, the _Messiah_,\nRembrandt\u2019s portraits, or Holbein\u2019s, or Giovanni Bellini\u2019s, the\nconnection between them and use is, to say the least of it, far from\nobvious. Music, indeed, can hardly be tortured into being useful at all,\nunless to drown the cries of the wounded in battle, or to enable people\nto talk more freely at evening parties. The uses, again, of painting in\nits highest forms are very doubtful\u2014I mean in any material sense; in its\nlower forms, when it becomes more diagrammatic, it is materially useful.\nLiterature may be useful from its lowest forms to nearly its highest, but\nthe highest cannot be put in harness to any but spiritual uses; and the\nfact remains that the \u201cHallelujah Chorus,\u201d the speech of Hamlet to the\nplayers, Bellini\u2019s \u201cDoge\u201d have their only uses in a spiritual world\nwhereto the word \u201cuses\u201d is as alien as bodily flesh is to a choir of\nangels. As it is fatal to the highest art that it should have been done\nfor money, so it seems hardly less fatal that it should be done with a\nview to those uses that tend towards money.\n\nAnd yet, was not the _Iliad_ written mainly with a view to money? Did\nnot Shakespeare make money by his plays, Handel by his music, and the\nnoblest painters by their art? True; but in all these cases, I take it,\nlove of fame and that most potent and, at the same time, unpractical form\nof it, the lust after fame beyond the grave, was the mainspring of the\naction, the money being but a concomitant accident. Money is like the\nwind that bloweth whithersoever it listeth, sometimes it chooses to\nattach itself to high feats of literature and art and music, but more\ncommonly it prefers lower company . . .\n\nI can continue this note no further, for there is no end to it. Briefly,\nthe world resolves itself into two great classes\u2014those who hold that\nhonour after death is better worth having than any honour a man can get\nand know anything about, and those who doubt this; to my mind, those who\nhold it, and hold it firmly, are the only people worth thinking about.\nThey will also hold that, important as the physical world obviously is,\nthe spiritual world, of which we know little beyond its bare existence,\nis more important still.\n\n\n\nGenius\n\n\ni\n\n\nGenius is akin both to madness and inspiration and, as every one is both\nmore or less inspired and more or less mad, every one has more or less\ngenius. When, therefore, we speak of genius we do not mean an absolute\nthing which some men have and others have not, but a small scale-turning\noverweight of a something which we all have but which we cannot either\ndefine or apprehend\u2014the quantum which we all have being allowed to go\nwithout saying.\n\nThis small excess weight has been defined as a supreme capacity for\ntaking trouble, but he who thus defined it can hardly claim genius in\nrespect of his own definition\u2014his capacity for taking trouble does not\nseem to have been abnormal. It might be more fitly described as a\nsupreme capacity for getting its possessors into trouble of all kinds and\nkeeping them therein so long as the genius remains. People who are\ncredited with genius have, indeed, been sometimes very painstaking, but\nthey would often show more signs of genius if they had taken less. \u201cYou\nhave taken too much trouble with your opera,\u201d said Handel to Gluck. It\nis not likely that the \u201cHailstone Chorus\u201d or Mrs. Quickly cost their\ncreators much pains, indeed, we commonly feel the ease with which a\ndifficult feat has been performed to be a more distinctive mark of genius\nthan the fact that the performer took great pains before he could achieve\nit. Pains can serve genius, or even mar it, but they cannot make it.\n\nWe can rarely, however, say what pains have or have not been taken in any\nparticular case, for, over and above the spent pains of a man\u2019s early\nefforts, the force of which may carry him far beyond all trace of\nthemselves, there are the still more remote and invisible ancestral\npains, repeated we know not how often or in what fortunate correlation\nwith pains taken in some other and unseen direction. This points to the\nconclusion that, though it is wrong to suppose the essence of genius to\nlie in a capacity for taking pains, it is right to hold that it must have\nbeen rooted in pains and that it cannot have grown up without them.\n\nGenius, again, might, perhaps almost as well, be defined as a supreme\ncapacity for saving other people from having to take pains, if the\nhighest flights of genius did not seem to know nothing about pains one\nway or the other. What trouble can _Hamlet_ or the _Iliad_ save to any\none? Genius can, and does, save it sometimes; the genius of Newton may\nhave saved a good deal of trouble one way or another, but it has probably\nengendered as much new as it has saved old.\n\nThis, however, is all a matter of chance, for genius never seems to care\nwhether it makes the burden or bears it. The only certain thing is that\nthere will be a burden, for the Holy Ghost has ever tended towards a\nbreach of the peace, and the New Jerusalem, when it comes, will probably\nbe found so far to resemble the old as to stone its prophets freely. The\nworld thy world is a jealous world, and thou shalt have none other worlds\nbut it. Genius points to change, and change is a hankering after another\nworld, so the old world suspects it. Genius disturbs order, it unsettles\n_mores_ and hence it is immoral. On a small scale it is intolerable, but\ngenius will have no small scales; it is even more immoral for a man to be\ntoo far in front than to lag too far behind. The only absolute morality\nis absolute stagnation, but this is unpractical, so a peck of change is\npermitted to every one, but it must be a peck only, whereas genius would\nhave ever so many sacks full. There is a myth among some Eastern nation\nthat at the birth of Genius an unkind fairy marred all the good gifts of\nthe other fairies by depriving it of the power of knowing where to stop.\n\nNor does genius care more about money than about trouble. It is no\nrespecter of time, trouble, money or persons, the four things round which\nhuman affairs turn most persistently. It will not go a hair\u2019s breadth\nfrom its way either to embrace fortune or to avoid her. It is, like\nLove, \u201ctoo young to know the worth of gold.\u201d {176} It knows, indeed,\nboth love and hate, but not as we know them, for it will fly for help to\nits bitterest foe, or attack its dearest friend in the interests of the\nart it serves.\n\nYet this genius, which so despises the world, is the only thing of which\nthe world is permanently enamoured, and the more it flouts the world, the\nmore the world worships it, when it has once well killed it in the flesh.\nWho can understand this eternal crossing in love and contradiction in\nterms which warps the woof of actions and things from the atom to the\nuniverse? The more a man despises time, trouble, money, persons, place\nand everything on which the world insists as most essential to salvation,\nthe more pious will this same world hold him to have been. What a fund\nof universal unconscious scepticism must underlie the world\u2019s opinions!\nFor we are all alike in our worship of genius that has passed through the\nfire. Nor can this universal instinctive consent be explained otherwise\nthan as the welling up of a spring whose sources lie deep in the\nconviction that great as this world is, it masks a greater wherein its\nwisdom is folly and which we know as blind men know where the sun is\nshining, certainly, but not distinctly.\n\nThis should in itself be enough to prove that such a world exists, but\nthere is still another proof in the fact that so many come among us\nshowing instinctive and ineradicable familiarity with a state of things\nwhich has no counterpart here, and cannot, therefore, have been acquired\nhere. From such a world we come, every one of us, but some seem to have\na more living recollection of it than others. Perfect recollection of it\nno man can have, for to put on flesh is to have all one\u2019s other memories\njarred beyond power of conscious recognition. And genius must put on\nflesh, for it is only by the hook and crook of taint and flesh that\ntainted beings like ourselves can apprehend it, only in and through flesh\ncan it be made manifest to us at all. The flesh and the shop will return\nno matter with how many pitchforks we expel them, for we cannot\nconceivably expel them thoroughly; therefore it is better not to be too\nhard upon them. And yet this same flesh cloaks genius at the very time\nthat it reveals it. It seems as though the flesh must have been on and\nmust have gone clean off before genius can be discerned, and also that we\nmust stand a long way from it, for the world grows more and more myopic\nas it grows older. And this brings another trouble, for by the time the\nflesh has gone off it enough, and it is far enough away for us to see it\nwithout glasses, the chances are we shall have forgotten its very\nexistence and lose the wish to see at the very moment of becoming able to\ndo so. Hence there appears to be no remedy for the oft-repeated\ncomplaint that the world knows nothing of its greatest men. How can it\nbe expected to do so? And how can its greatest men be expected to know\nmore than a very little of the world? At any rate, they seldom do, and\nit is just because they cannot and do not that, if they ever happen to be\nfound out at all, they are recognised as the greatest and the world weeps\nand wrings its hands that it cannot know more about them.\n\nLastly, if genius cannot be bought with money, still less can it sell\nwhat it produces. The only price that can be paid for genius is\nsuffering, and this is the only wages it can receive. The only work that\nhas any considerable permanence is written, more or less consciously, in\nthe blood of the writer, or in that of his or her forefathers. Genius is\nlike money, or, again, like crime, every one has a little, if it be only\na half-penny, and he can beg or steal this much if he has not got it; but\nthose who have little are rarely very fond of millionaires. People\ngenerally like and understand best those who are of much about the same\nsocial standing and money status as their own; and so it is for the most\npart as between those who have only the average amount of genius and the\nHomers, Shakespeares and Handels of the race.\n\nAnd yet, so paradoxical is everything connected with genius, that it\nalmost seems as though the nearer people stood to one another in respect\neither of money or genius, the more jealous they become of one another.\nI have read somewhere that Thackeray was one day flattening his nose\nagainst a grocer\u2019s window and saw two bags of sugar, one marked tenpence\nhalfpenny and the other elevenpence (for sugar has come down since\nThackeray\u2019s time). As he left the window he was heard to say, \u201cHow they\nmust hate one another!\u201d So it is in the animal and vegetable worlds.\nThe war of extermination is generally fiercest between the most nearly\nallied species, for these stand most in one another\u2019s light. So here\nagain the same old paradox and contradiction in terms meets us, like a\nstone wall, in the fact that we love best those who are in the main like\nourselves, but when they get too like, we hate them, and, at the same\ntime, we hate most those who are unlike ourselves, but if they become\nunlike enough, we may often be very fond of them.\n\nGenius must make those that have it think apart, and to think apart is to\ntake one\u2019s view of things instead of being, like Poins, a blessed fellow\nto think as every man thinks. A man who thinks for himself knows what\nothers do not, but does not know what others know. Hence the _belli\ncausa_, for he cannot serve two masters, the God of his own inward light\nand the Mammon of common sense, at one and the same time. How can a man\nthink apart and not apart? But if he is a genius this is the riddle he\nmust solve. The uncommon sense of genius and the common sense of the\nrest of the world are thus as husband and wife to one another; they are\nalways quarrelling, and common sense, who must be taken to be the\nhusband, always fancies himself the master\u2014nevertheless genius is\ngenerally admitted to be the better half.\n\nHe who would know more of genius must turn to what he can find in the\npoets, or to whatever other sources he may discover, for I can help him\nno further.\n\n\nii\n\n\nThe destruction of great works of literature and art is as necessary for\nthe continued development of either one or the other as death is for that\nof organic life. We fight against it as long as we can, and often stave\nit off successfully both for ourselves and others, but there is nothing\nso great\u2014not Homer, Shakespeare, Handel, Rembrandt, Giovanni Bellini, De\nHooghe, Velasquez and the goodly company of other great men for whose\nlives we would gladly give our own\u2014but it has got to go sooner or later\nand leave no visible traces, though the invisible ones endure from\neverlasting to everlasting. It is idle to regret this for ourselves or\nothers, our effort should tend towards enjoying and being enjoyed as\nhighly and for as long time as we can, and then chancing the rest.\n\n\niii\n\n\nInspiration is never genuine if it is known as inspiration at the time.\nTrue inspiration always steals on a person; its importance not being\nfully recognised for some time. So men of genius always escape their own\nimmediate belongings, and indeed generally their own age.\n\n\niv\n\n\nDullness is so much stronger than genius because there is so much more of\nit, and it is better organised and more naturally cohesive _inter se_.\nSo the arctic volcano can do no thing against arctic ice.\n\n\nv\n\n\nAmerica will have her geniuses, as every other country has, in fact she\nhas already had one in Walt Whitman, but I do not think America is a good\nplace in which to be a genius. A genius can never expect to have a good\ntime anywhere, if he is a genuine article, but America is about the last\nplace in which life will be endurable at all for an inspired writer of\nany kind.\n\n\n\nGreat Things\n\n\nAll men can do great things, if they know what great things are. So hard\nis this last that even where it exists the knowledge is as much unknown\nas known to them that have it and is more a leaning upon the Lord than a\nwilling of one that willeth. And yet all the leaning on the Lord in\nChristendom fails if there be not a will of him that willeth to back it\nup. God and the man are powerless without one another.\n\n\n\nGenius and Providence\n\n\nAmong all the evidences for the existence of an overruling Providence\nthat I can discover, I see none more convincing than the elaborate and\nfor the most part effectual provision that has been made for the\nsuppression of genius. The more I see of the world, the more necessary I\nsee it to be that by far the greater part of what is written or done\nshould be of so fleeting a character as to take itself away quickly.\nThat is the advantage in the fact that so much of our literature is\njournalism.\n\nSchools and colleges are not intended to foster genius and to bring it\nout. Genius is a nuisance, and it is the duty of schools and colleges to\nabate it by setting genius-traps in its way. They are as the artificial\nobstructions in a hurdle race\u2014tests of skill and endurance, but in\nthemselves useless. Still, so necessary is it that genius and\noriginality should be abated that, did not academies exist, we should\nhave had to invent them.\n\n\n\nThe Art of Covery\n\n\nThis is as important and interesting as Dis-covery. Surely the glory of\nfinally getting rid of and burying a long and troublesome matter should\nbe as great as that of making an important discovery. The trouble is\nthat the coverer is like Samson who perished in the wreck of what he had\ndestroyed; if he gets rid of a thing effectually he gets rid of himself\ntoo.\n\n\n\nWanted\n\n\nWe want a Society for the Suppression of Erudite Research and the Decent\nBurial of the Past. The ghosts of the dead past want quite as much\nlaying as raising.\n\n\n\nEphemeral and Permanent Success\n\n\nThe supposition that the world is ever in league to put a man down is\nchildish. Hardly less childish is it for an author to lay the blame on\nreviewers. A good sturdy author is a match for a hundred reviewers. He,\nI grant, knows nothing of either literature or science who does not know\nthat a _mot d\u2019ordre_ given by a few wire-pullers can, for a time, make or\nmar any man\u2019s success. People neither know what it is they like nor do\nthey want to find out, all they care about is the being supposed to\nderive their likings from the best West-end magazines, so they look to\nthe shop with the largest plate-glass windows and take what the shop-man\ngives them. But no amount of plate-glass can carry off more than a\ncertain amount of false pretences, and there is no _mot d\u2019ordre_ that can\nkeep a man permanently down if he is as intent on winning lasting good\nname as I have been. If I had played for immediate popularity I think I\ncould have won it. Having played for lasting credit I doubt not that it\nwill in the end be given me. A man should not be held to be ill-used for\nnot getting what he has not played for. I am not saying that it is\nbetter or more honourable to play for lasting than for immediate success.\nI know which I myself find pleasanter, but that has nothing to do with\nit.\n\nIt is a nice question whether the light or the heavy armed soldier of\nliterature and art is the more useful. I joined the plodders and have\naimed at permanent good name rather than brilliancy. I have no doubt I\ndid this because instinct told me (for I never thought about it) that\nthis would be the easier and less thorny path. I have more of\nperseverance than of those, perhaps, even more valuable gifts\u2014facility\nand readiness of resource. I hate being hurried. Moreover I am too fond\nof independence to get on with the leaders of literature and science.\nIndependence is essential for permanent but fatal to immediate success.\nBesides, luck enters much more into ephemeral than into permanent success\nand I have always distrusted luck. Those who play a waiting game have\nmatters more in their own hands, time gives them double chances; whereas\nif success does not come at once to the ephemerid he misses it\naltogether.\n\nI know that the ordinary reviewer who either snarls at my work or\nmisrepresents it or ignores it or, again, who pats it sub-contemptuously\non the back is as honourably and usefully employed as I am. In the\nkingdom of literature (as I have just been saying in the _Universal\nReview_ about Science) there are many mansions and what is intolerable in\none is common form in another. It is a case of the division of labour\nand a man will gravitate towards one class of workers or another\naccording as he is built. There is neither higher nor lower about it.\n\nI should like to put it on record that I understand it and am not\ninclined to regret the arrangements that have made me possible.\n\n\n\nMy Birthright\n\n\nI had to steal my own birthright. I stole it and was bitterly punished.\nBut I saved my soul alive.\n\n\n\n\nXII\nThe Enfant Terrible of Literature\n\n\nMyself\n\n\nI AM the _enfant terrible_ of literature and science. If I cannot, and I\nknow I cannot, get the literary and scientific big-wigs to give me a\nshilling, I can, and I know I can, heave bricks into the middle of them.\n\n\n\nBlake, Dante, Virgil and Tennyson\n\n\nTalking it over, we agreed that Blake was no good because he learnt\nItalian at 60 in order to study Dante, and we knew Dante was no good\nbecause he was so fond of Virgil, and Virgil was no good because Tennyson\nran him, and as for Tennyson\u2014well, Tennyson goes without saying.\n\n\n\nMy Father and Shakespeare\n\n\nMy father is one of the few men I know who say they do not like\nShakespeare. I could forgive my father for not liking Shakespeare if it\nwas only because Shakespeare wrote poetry; but this is not the reason.\nHe dislikes Shakespeare because he finds him so very coarse. He also\nsays he likes Tennyson and this seriously aggravates his offence.\n\n\n\nTennyson\n\n\nWe were saying what a delightful dispensation of providence it was that\nprosperous people will write their memoirs. We hoped Tennyson was\nwriting his. [1890.]\n\nP.S.\u2014We think his son has done nearly as well. [1898.]\n\n\n\nWalter Pater and Matthew Arnold\n\n\nMr. Walter Pater\u2019s style is, to me, like the face of some old woman who\nhas been to Madame Rachel and had herself enamelled. The bloom is\nnothing but powder and paint and the odour is cherry-blossom. Mr.\nMatthew Arnold\u2019s odour is as the faint sickliness of hawthorn.\n\n\n\nMy Random Passages\n\n\nAt the Century Club a friend very kindly and hesitatingly ventured to\nsuggest to me that I should get some one to go over my MS. before\nprinting; a judicious editor, he said, would have prevented me from\nprinting many a bit which, it seemed to him, was written too recklessly\nand offhand. The fact is that the more reckless and random a passage\nappears to be, the more carefully it has been submitted to friends and\nconsidered and re-considered; without the support of friends I should\nnever have dared to print one half of what I have printed.\n\nI am not one of those who can repeat the General Confession unreservedly.\nI should say rather:\n\n\u201cI have left unsaid much that I am sorry I did not say, but I have said\nlittle that I am sorry for having said, and I am pretty well on the\nwhole, thank you.\u201d\n\n\n\nMoral Try-Your-Strengths\n\n\nThere are people who, if they only had a slot, might turn a pretty penny\nas moral try-your-strengths, like those we see in railway-stations for\ntelling people their physical strength when they have dropped a penny in\nthe slot. In a way they have a slot, which is their mouths, and people\ndrop pennies in by asking them to dinner, and then they try their\nstrength against them and get snubbed; but this way is roundabout and\nexpensive. We want a good automatic asinometer by which we can tell at a\nmoderate cost how great or how little of a fool we are.\n\n\n\nPopulus Vult\n\n\nIf people like being deceived\u2014and this can hardly be doubted\u2014there can\nrarely have been a time during which they can have had more of the wish\nthan now. The literary, scientific and religious worlds vie with one\nanother in trying to gratify the public.\n\n\n\nMen and Monkeys\n\n\nIn his latest article (Feb. 1892) Prof. Garner says that the chatter of\nmonkeys is not meaningless, but that they are conveying ideas to one\nanother. This seems to me hazardous. The monkeys might with equal\njustice conclude that in our magazine articles, or literary and artistic\ncriticisms, we are not chattering idly but are conveying ideas to one\nanother.\n\n\n\n\u201cOne Touch of Nature\u201d\n\n\n\u201cOne touch of nature makes the whole world kin.\u201d Should it not be\n\u201cmarks,\u201d not \u201cmakes\u201d? There is one touch of nature, or natural feature,\nwhich marks all mankind as of one family.\n\nP.S.\u2014Surely it should be \u201cof ill-nature.\u201d \u201cOne touch of ill-nature\nmarks\u2014or several touches of ill-nature mark the whole world kin.\u201d\n\n\n\nGenuine Feeling\n\n\nIn the _Times_ of to-day, June 4, 1887, there is an obituary notice of a\nRev. Mr. Knight who wrote about 200 songs, among others \u201cShe wore a\nwreath of roses.\u201d The _Times_ says that, though these songs have no\nartistic merit, they are full of genuine feeling, or words to this\neffect; as though a song which was full of genuine feeling could by any\npossibility be without artistic merit.\n\n\n\nGeorge Meredith\n\n\nThe _Times_ in a leading article says (Jany. 3, 1899) \u201ca talker,\u201d as Mr.\nGeorge Meredith has somewhere said, \u201cinvolves the existence of a talkee,\u201d\nor words to this effect.\n\nI said what comes to the same thing as this in _Life and Habit_ in 1877,\nand I repeated it in the preface to my translation of the _Iliad_ in\n1898. I do not believe George Meredith has said anything to the same\neffect, but I have read so very little of that writer, and have so\nutterly rejected what I did read, that he may well have done so without\nmy knowing it. He damned _Erewhon_, as Chapman and Hall\u2019s reader, in\n1871, and, as I am still raw about this after 28 years, (I am afraid\nunless I say something more I shall be taken as writing these words\nseriously) I prefer to assert that the _Times_ writer was quoting from my\npreface to the _Iliad_, published a few weeks earlier, and fathering the\nremark on George Meredith. By the way the _Times_ did not give so much\nas a line to my translation in its \u201cBooks of the Week,\u201d though it was\nduly sent to them.\n\n\n\nFroude and Freeman\n\n\nI think it was last Saturday (Ap. 9) (at any rate it was a day just\nthereabouts) the _Times_ had a leader on Froude\u2019s appointment as Reg.\nProf. of Mod. Hist. at Oxford. It said Froude was perhaps our greatest\nliving master of style, or words to that effect, only that, like Freeman,\nhe was too long: i.e. only he is an habitual offender against the most\nfundamental principles of his art. If then Froude is our greatest master\nof style, what are the rest of us?\n\nThere was a much better article yesterday on Marbot, on which my namesake\nA. J. Butler got a dressing for talking rubbish about style. [1892.]\n\n\n\nStyle\n\n\nIn this day\u2019s _Sunday Times_ there is an article on Mrs. Browning\u2019s\nletters which begins with some remarks about style. \u201cIt is recorded,\u201d\nsays the writer, \u201cof Plato, that in a rough draft of one of his\nDialogues, found after his death, the first paragraph was written in\nseventy different forms. Wordsworth spared no pains to sharpen and\npolish to the utmost the gifts with which nature had endowed him; and\nCardinal Newman, one of the greatest masters of English style, has\nrelated in an amusing essay the pains he took to acquire his style.\u201d\n\nI never knew a writer yet who took the smallest pains with his style and\nwas at the same time readable. Plato\u2019s having had seventy shies at one\nsentence is quite enough to explain to me why I dislike him. A man may,\nand ought to take a great deal of pains to write clearly, tersely and\neuphemistically: he will write many a sentence three or four times\nover\u2014to do much more than this is worse than not rewriting at all: he\nwill be at great pains to see that he does not repeat himself, to arrange\nhis matter in the way that shall best enable the reader to master it, to\ncut out superfluous words and, even more, to eschew irrelevant matter:\nbut in each case he will be thinking not of his own style but of his\nreader\u2019s convenience.\n\nMen like Newman and R. L. Stevenson seem to have taken pains to acquire\nwhat they called a style as a preliminary measure\u2014as something that they\nhad to form before their writings could be of any value. I should like\nto put it on record that I never took the smallest pains with my style,\nhave never thought about it, and do not know or want to know whether it\nis a style at all or whether it is not, as I believe and hope, just\ncommon, simple straightforwardness. I cannot conceive how any man can\ntake thought for his style without loss to himself and his readers.\n\nI have, however, taken all the pains that I had patience to endure in the\nimprovement of my handwriting (which, by the way, has a constant tendency\nto resume feral characteristics) and also with my MS. generally to keep\nit clean and legible. I am having a great tidying just now, in the\ncourse of which the MS. of _Erewhon_ turned up, and I was struck with the\ngreat difference between it and the MS. of _The Authoress of the\nOdyssey_. I have also taken great pains, with what success I know not,\nto correct impatience, irritability and other like faults in my own\ncharacter\u2014and this not because I care two straws about my own character,\nbut because I find the correction of such faults as I have been able to\ncorrect makes life easier and saves me from getting into scrapes, and\nattaches nice people to me more readily. But I suppose this really is\nattending to style after all. [1897.]\n\n\n\nDiderot on Criticism\n\n\n\u201cIl est si difficile de produire une chose m\u00eame m\u00e9diocre; il est si\nfacile de sentir la m\u00e9diocrit\u00e9.\u201d\n\nI have lately seen this quoted as having been said by Diderot. It is\neasy to say we feel the mediocrity when we have heard a good many people\nsay that the work is mediocre, but, unless in matters about which he has\nbeen long conversant, no man can easily form an independent judgment as\nto whether or not a work is mediocre. I know that in the matter of\nbooks, painting and music I constantly find myself unable to form a\nsettled opinion till I have heard what many men of varied tastes have to\nsay, and have also made myself acquainted with details about a man\u2019s\nantecedents and ways of life which are generally held to be irrelevant.\n\nOften, of course, this is unnecessary; a man\u2019s character, if he has left\nmuch work behind him, or if he is not coming before us for the first\ntime, is generally easily discovered without extraneous aid. We want no\none to give us any clues to the nature of such men as Giovanni Bellini,\nor De Hooghe. Hogarth\u2019s character is written upon his work so plainly\nthat he who runs may read it, so is Handel\u2019s upon his, so is Purcell\u2019s,\nso is Corelli\u2019s, so, indeed, are the characters of most men; but often\nwhere only little work has been left, or where a work is by a new hand,\nit is exceedingly difficult \u201csentir la m\u00e9diocrit\u00e9\u201d and, it might be\nadded, \u201cou m\u00eame sentir du tout.\u201d\n\nHow many years, I wonder, was it before I learned to dislike Thackeray\nand Tennyson as cordially as I now do? For how many years did I not\nalmost worship them?\n\n\n\nBunyan and Others\n\n\nI have been reading _The Pilgrim\u2019s Progress_ again\u2014the third part and\nall\u2014and wish that some one would tell one what to think about it.\n\nThe English is racy, vigorous and often very beautiful; but the language\nof any book is nothing except in so far as it reveals the writer. The\nwords in which a man clothes his thoughts are like all other clothes\u2014the\ncut raises presumptions about his thoughts, and these generally turn out\nto be just, but the words are no more the thoughts than a man\u2019s coat is\nhimself. I am not sure, however, that in Bunyan\u2019s case the dress in\nwhich he has clothed his ideas does not reveal him more justly than the\nideas do.\n\n_The Pilgrim\u2019s Progress_ consists mainly of a series of infamous libels\nupon life and things; it is a blasphemy against certain fundamental ideas\nof right and wrong which our consciences most instinctively approve; its\nnotion of heaven is hardly higher than a transformation scene at Drury\nLane; it is essentially infidel. \u201cHold out to me the chance of a golden\ncrown and harp with freedom from all further worries, give me angels to\nflatter me and fetch and carry for me, and I shall think the game worth\nplaying, notwithstanding the great and horrible risk of failure; but no\ncrown, no cross for me. Pay me well and I will wait for payment, but if\nI have to give credit I shall expect to be paid better in the end.\u201d\n\nThere is no conception of the faith that a man should do his duty\ncheerfully with all his might though, as far as he can see, he will never\nbe paid directly or indirectly either here or hereafter. Still less is\nthere any conception that unless a man has this faith he is not worth\nthinking about. There is no sense that as we have received freely so we\nshould give freely and be only too thankful that we have anything to give\nat all. Furthermore there does not appear to be even the remotest\nconception that this honourable, comfortable and sustaining faith is,\nlike all other high faiths, to be brushed aside very peremptorily at the\nbidding of common-sense.\n\nWhat a pity it is that Christian never met Mr. Common-Sense with his\ndaughter, Good-Humour, and her affianced husband, Mr. Hate-Cant; but if\nhe ever saw them in the distance he steered clear of them, probably as\nfeeling that they would be more dangerous than Giant Despair, Vanity Fair\nand Apollyon all together\u2014for they would have stuck to him if he had let\nthem get in with him. Among other things they would have told him that,\nif there was any truth in his opinions, neither man nor woman ought to\nbecome a father or mother at all, inasmuch as their doing so would\nprobably entail eternity of torture on the wretched creature whom they\nwere launching into the world. Life in this world is risk enough to\ninflict on another person who has not been consulted in the matter, but\ndeath will give quittance in full. To weaken our faith in this sure and\ncertain hope of peace eternal (except so far as we have so lived as to\nwin life in others after we are gone) would be a cruel thing, even though\nthe evidence against it were overwhelming, but to rob us of it on no\nevidence worth a moment\u2019s consideration and, apparently, from no other\nmotive than the pecuniary advantage of the robbers themselves is infamy.\nFor the Churches are but institutions for the saving of men\u2019s souls from\nhell.\n\nThis is true enough. Nevertheless it is untrue that in practice any\nChristian minister, knowing what he preaches to be both very false and\nvery cruel, yet insists on it because it is to the advantage of his own\norder. In a way the preachers believe what they preach, but it is as men\nwho have taken a bad \u00a310 note and refuse to look at the evidence that\nmakes for its badness, though, if the note were not theirs, they would\nsee at a glance that it was not a good one. For the man in the street it\nis enough that what the priests teach in respect of a future state is\npalpably both cruel and absurd while, at the same time, they make their\nliving by teaching it and thus prey upon other men\u2019s fears of the\nunknown. If the Churches do not wish to be misunderstood they should not\nallow themselves to remain in such an equivocal position.\n\nBut let this pass. Bunyan, we may be sure, took all that he preached in\nits most literal interpretation; he could never have made his book so\ninteresting had he not done so. The interest of it depends almost\nentirely on the unquestionable good faith of the writer and the strength\nof the impulse that compelled him to speak that which was within him. He\nwas not writing a book which he might sell, he was speaking what was\nborne in upon him from heaven. The message he uttered was, to my\nthinking, both low and false, but it was truth of truths to Bunyan.\n\nNo. This will not do. The Epistles of St. Paul were truth of truths to\nPaul, but they do not attract us to the man who wrote them, and, except\nhere and there, they are very uninteresting. Mere strength of conviction\non a writer\u2019s part is not enough to make his work take permanent rank.\nYet I know that I could read the whole of _The Pilgrim\u2019s Progress_\n(except occasional episodical sermons) without being at all bored by it,\nwhereas, having spent a penny upon Mr. Stead\u2019s abridgement of _Joseph\nAndrews_, I had to give it up as putting me out of all patience. I then\nspent another penny on an abridgement of _Gulliver\u2019s Travels_, and was\nenchanted by it. What is it that makes one book so readable and another\nso unreadable? Swift, from all I can make out, was a far more human and\ngenuine person than he is generally represented, but I do not think I\nshould have liked him, whereas Fielding, I am sure, must have been\ndelightful. Why do the faults of his work overweigh its many great\nexcellences, while the less great excellences of the _Voyage to Lilliput_\noutweigh its more serious defects?\n\nI suppose it is the prolixity of Fielding that fatigues me. Swift is\nterse, he gets through what he has to say on any matter as quickly as he\ncan and takes the reader on to the next, whereas Fielding is not only\nlong, but his length is made still longer by the disconnectedness of the\nepisodes that appear to have been padded into the books\u2014episodes that do\nnot help one forward, and are generally so exaggerated, and often so full\nof horse-play as to put one out of conceit with the parts that are really\nexcellent.\n\nWhatever else Bunyan is he is never long; he takes you quickly on from\nincident to incident and, however little his incidents may appeal to us,\nwe feel that he is never giving us one that is not _bona fide_ so far as\nhe is concerned. His episodes and incidents are introduced not because\nhe wants to make his book longer but because he cannot be satisfied\nwithout these particular ones, even though he may feel that his book is\ngetting longer than he likes.\n\n . . .\n\nAnd here I must break away from this problem, leaving it unsolved.\n[1897.]\n\n\n\nBunyan and the _Odyssey_\n\n\nAnything worse than _The Pilgrim\u2019s Progress_ in the matter of defiance of\nliterary canons can hardly be conceived. The allegory halts continually;\nit professes to be spiritual, but nothing can be more carnal than the\ngolden splendour of the eternal city; the view of life and the world\ngenerally is flat blasphemy against the order of things with which we are\nsurrounded. Yet, like the _Odyssey_, which flatly defies sense and\ncriticism (no, it doesn\u2019t; still, it defies them a good deal), no one can\ndoubt that it must rank among the very greatest books that have ever been\nwritten. How Odyssean it is in its sincerity and downrightness, as well\nas in the marvellous beauty of its language, its freedom from all taint\nof the schools and, not least, in complete victory of genuine internal\nzeal over a scheme initially so faulty as to appear hopeless.\n\nI read that part where Christian passes the lions which he thought were\nfree but which were really chained and it occurred to me that all lions\nare chained until they actually eat us and that, the moment they do this,\nthey chain themselves up again automatically, as far as we are concerned.\nIf one dissects this passage it fares as many a passage in the _Odyssey_\ndoes when we dissect it. Christian did not, after all, venture to pass\nthe lions till he was assured that they were chained. And really it is\nmore excusable to refuse point-blank to pass a couple of lions till one\nknows whether they are chained or not\u2014and the poor wicked people seem to\nhave done nothing more than this,\u2014than it would be to pass them.\nBesides, by being told, Christian fights, as it were, with loaded dice.\n\n\n\nPoetry\n\n\nThe greatest poets never write poetry. The Homers and Shakespeares are\nnot the greatest\u2014they are only the greatest that we can know. And so\nwith Handel among musicians. For the highest poetry, whether in music or\nliterature, is ineffable\u2014it must be felt from one person to another, it\ncannot be articulated.\n\n\n\nVerse\n\n\nVersifying is the lowest form of poetry; and the last thing a great poet\nwill do in these days is to write verses.\n\nI have been trying to read _Venus and Adonis_ and the _Rape of Lucrece_\nbut cannot get on with them. They teem with fine things, but they are\ngot-up fine things. I do not know whether this is quite what I mean but,\ncome what may, I find the poems bore me. Were I a schoolmaster I should\nthink I was setting a boy a very severe punishment if I told him to read\n_Venus and Adonis_ through in three sittings. If, then, the magic of\nShakespeare\u2019s name, let alone the great beauty of occasional passages,\ncannot reconcile us (for I find most people of the same mind) to verse,\nand especially rhymed verse as a medium of sustained expression, what\nchance has any one else? It seems to me that a sonnet is the utmost\nlength to which a rhymed poem should extend.\n\n\n\nVerse, Poetry and Prose\n\n\nThe preface to Bunyan\u2019s _Pilgrim\u2019s Progress_ is verse, but it is not\npoetry. The body of the work is poetry, but it is not verse.\n\n\n\nAncient Work\n\n\nIf a person would understand either the _Odyssey_ or any other ancient\nwork, he must never look at the dead without seeing the living in them,\nnor at the living without thinking of the dead. We are too fond of\nseeing the ancients as one thing and the moderns as another.\n\n\n\nNausicaa and Myself\n\n\nI am elderly, grey-bearded and, according to my clerk, Alfred,\ndisgustingly fat; I wear spectacles and get more and more bronchitic as I\ngrow older. Still no young prince in a fairy story ever found an\ninvisible princess more effectually hidden behind a hedge of dullness or\nmore fast asleep than Nausicaa was when I woke her and hailed her as\nAuthoress of the _Odyssey_. And there was no difficulty about it\neither\u2014all one had to do was to go up to the front door and ring the\nbell.\n\n\n\nTelemachus and Nicholas Nickleby\n\n\nThe virtuous young man defending a virtuous mother against a number of\npowerful enemies is one of the _ignes fatui_ of literature. The scheme\nought to be very interesting, and often is so, but it always fails as\nregards the hero who, from Telemachus to Nicholas Nickleby, is always too\nmuch of the good young man to please.\n\n\n\nGadshill and Trapani\n\n\nWhile getting our lunch one Sunday at the east end of the long room in\nthe Sir John Falstaff Inn, Gadshill, we overheard some waterside-looking\ndwellers in the neighbourhood talking among themselves. I wrote down the\nfollowing:\u2014\n\n_Bill_: Oh, yes. I\u2019ve got a mate that works in my shop; he\u2019s chucked the\nDining Room because they give him too much to eat. He found another\nplace where they gave him four pennyworth of meat and two vegetables and\nit was quite as much as he could put up with.\n\n_George_: You can\u2019t kid me, Bill, that they give you too much to eat, but\nI\u2019ll believe it to oblige you, Bill. Shall I see you to-night?\n\n_Bill_: No, I must go to church.\n\n_George_: Well, so must I; I\u2019ve got to go.\n\nSo at Trapani, I heard two small boys one night on the quay (I am sure I\nhave written this down somewhere, but it is less trouble to write it\nagain than to hunt for it) singing with all their might, with their arms\nround one another\u2019s necks. I should say they were about ten years old,\nnot more.\n\nI asked Ignazio Giacalone: \u201cWhat are they singing?\u201d\n\nHe replied that it was a favourite song among the popolino of Trapani\nabout a girl who did not want to be seen going about with a man. \u201cThe\npeople in this place,\u201d says the song, \u201care very ill-natured, and if they\nsee you and me together, they will talk,\u201d &c.\n\nI do not say that there was any descent here from Nausicaa\u2019s speech to\nUlysses, but I felt as though that speech was still in the air. [_Od.\nVI_. 273.]\n\nI reckon Gadshill and Trapani as perhaps the two most classic grounds\nthat I frequent familiarly, and at each I have seemed to hear echoes of\nthe scenes that have made them famous. Not that what I heard at Gadshill\nis like any particular passage in Shakespeare.\n\n\n\nWaiting to be Hired\n\n\nAt Castelvetrano (about thirty miles from Trapani) I had to start the\nnext morning at 4 a.m. to see the ruins of Selinunte, and slept lightly\nwith my window open. About two o\u2019clock I began to hear a buzz of\nconversation in the piazza outside and it kept me awake, so I got up to\nshut the window and see what it was. I found it came from a long knot of\nmen standing about, two deep, but not strictly marshalled. When I got up\nat half-past three, it was still dark and the men were still there,\nthough perhaps not so many. I enquired and found they were standing to\nbe hired for the day, any one wanting labourers would come there, engage\nas many as he wanted and go off with them, others would come up, and so\non till about four o\u2019clock, after which no one would hire, the day being\nregarded as short in weight after that hour. Being so collected the men\ngossip over their own and other people\u2019s affairs\u2014wonder who was that\nfine-looking stranger going about yesterday with Nausicaa, and so on.\n[_Od. VI_. 273.] This, in fact, is their club and the place where the\npublic opinion of the district is formed.\n\n\n\nIlium and Padua\n\n\nThe story of the Trojan horse is more nearly within possibility than we\nshould readily suppose. In 1848, during the rebellion of the North\nItalians against the Austrians, eight or nine young men, for whom the\nauthorities were hunting, hid themselves inside Donatello\u2019s wooden horse\nin the Salone at Padua and lay there for five days, being fed through the\ntrap door on the back of the horse with the connivance of the custode of\nthe Salone. No doubt they were let out for a time at night. When\npursuit had become less hot, their friends smuggled them away. One of\nthose who had been shut up was still living in 1898 and, on the occasion\nof the jubilee festivities, was carried round the town in triumph.\n\n\n\nEumaeus and Lord Burleigh\n\n\nThe inference which Arthur Platt (_Journal of Philology_, Vol. 24, No.\n47) wishes to draw from Eumaeus being told to bring Ulysses\u2019 bow \u1f00\u03bd\u1f70\n\u03b4\u03ce\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1 (_Od._ XXI. 234) suggests to met to me the difference which some\npeople in future ages may wish to draw between the character of Lord\nBurleigh\u2019s steps in Tennyson\u2019s poem, according as he was walking up or\npacing down. Wherefrom also the critic will argue that the scene of Lord\nBurleigh\u2019s weeping _must_ have been on an inclined plane.\n\n Weeping, weeping late and early,\n Walking up and pacing down,\n Deeply mourned the Lord of Burleigh,\n Burleigh-house by Stamford-town.\n\n\n\nMy Reviewers\u2019 Sense of Need\n\n\nMy reviewers felt no sense of need to understand me\u2014if they had they\nwould have developed the mental organism which would have enabled them to\ndo so. When the time comes that they want to do so they will throw out a\nlittle mental pseudopodium without much difficulty. They threw it out\nwhen they wanted to misunderstand me\u2014with a good deal of the pseudo in\nit, too.\n\n\n\nThe Authoress of the Odyssey\n\n\nThe amount of pains which my reviewers have taken to understand this book\nis not so great as to encourage the belief that they would understand the\n_Odyssey_, however much they studied it. Again, the people who could\nread the _Odyssey_ without coming to much the same conclusions as mine\nare not likely to admit that they ought to have done so.\n\nIf a man tells me that a house in which I have long lived is\ninconvenient, not to say unwholesome, and that I have been very stupid in\nnot finding this out for myself, I should be apt in the first instance to\ntell him that he knew nothing about it, and that I was quite comfortable;\nby and by, I should begin to be aware that I was not so comfortable as I\nthought I was, and in the end I should probably make the suggested\nalterations in my house if, on reflection, I found them sensibly\nconceived. But I should kick hard at first.\n\n\n\nHomer and his Commentators\n\n\nHomeric commentators have been blind so long that nothing will do for\nthem but Homer must be blind too. They have transferred their own\nblindness to the poet.\n\n\n\nThe Iliad\n\n\nIn the _Iliad_, civilisation bursts upon us as a strong stream out of a\nrock. We know that the water has gathered from many a distant vein\nunderground, but we do not see these. Or it is like the drawing up the\ncurtain on the opening of a play\u2014the scene is then first revealed.\n\n\n\nGlacial Periods of Folly\n\n\nThe moraines left by secular glacial periods of folly stretch out over\nmany a plain of our civilisation. So in the _Odyssey_, especially in the\nsecond twelve books, whenever any one eats meat it is called\n\u201csacrificing\u201d it, as though we were descended from a race that did not\neat meat. Then it was said that meat might be eaten if one did not eat\nthe life. What was the life? Clearly the blood, for when you stick a\npig it lives till the blood is gone. You must sacrifice the blood,\ntherefore, to the gods, but so long as you abstain from things strangled\nand from blood, and so long as you call it sacrificing, you may eat as\nmuch meat as you please.\n\nWhat a mountain of lies\u2014what a huge geological formation of falsehood,\nwith displacement of all kinds, and strata twisted every conceivable way,\nmust have accreted before the _Odyssey_ was possible!\n\n\n\nTranslations from Verse into Prose\n\n\nWhenever this is attempted, great licence must be allowed to the\ntranslator in getting rid of all those poetical common forms which are\nforeign to the genius of prose. If the work is to be translated into\nprose, let it be into such prose as we write and speak among ourselves.\nA volume of poetical prose, i.e. affected prose, had better be in verse\noutright at once. Poetical prose is never tolerable for more than a very\nshort bit at a time. And it may be questioned whether poetry itself is\nnot better kept short in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred.\n\n\n\nTranslating the _Odyssey_\n\n\nIf you wish to preserve the spirit of a dead author, you must not skin\nhim, stuff him, and set him up in a case. You must eat him, digest him\nand let him live in you, with such life as you have, for better or worse.\nThe difference between the Andrew Lang manner of translating the\n_Odyssey_ and mine is that between making a mummy and a baby. He tries\nto preserve a corpse (for the _Odyssey_ is a corpse to all who need\nLang\u2019s translation), whereas I try to originate a new life and one that\nis instinct (as far as I can effect this) with the spirit though not the\nform of the original.\n\nThey say no woman could possibly have written the _Odyssey_. To me, on\nthe other hand, it seems even less possible that a man could have done\nso. As for its being by a practised and elderly writer, nothing but\nyouth and inexperience could produce anything so na\u00efve and so lovely.\nThat is where the work will suffer by my translation. I am male,\npractised and elderly, and the trail of sex, age and experience is\ncertain to be over my translation. If the poem is ever to be well\ntranslated, it must be by some high-spirited English girl who has been\nbrought up at Athens and who, therefore, has not been jaded by academic\nstudy of the language.\n\nA translation is at best a dislocation, a translation from verse to prose\nis a double dislocation and corresponding further dislocations are\nnecessary if an effect of deformity is to be avoided.\n\nThe people who, when they read \u201cAthene\u201d translated by \u201cMinerva,\u201d cannot\nbear in mind that every Athene varies more or less with, and takes colour\nfrom, the country and temperament of the writer who is being translated,\nwill not be greatly helped by translating \u201cAthene\u201d and not \u201cMinerva.\u201d\nBesides many readers would pronounce the word as a dissyllable or an\nanap\u00e6st.\n\n\n\nThe _Odyssey_ and a Tomb at Carcassonne\n\n\nThere is a tomb at some place in France, I think at Carcassonne, on which\nthere is some sculpture representing the friends and relations of the\ndeceased in paroxysms of grief with their cheeks all cracked, and crying\nlike Gaudenzio\u2019s angels on the Sacro Monte at Varallo-Sesia. Round the\ncorner, however, just out of sight till one searches, there is a man\nholding both his sides and splitting with laughter. In some parts of the\n_Odyssey_, especially about Ulysses and Penelope, I fancy that laughing\nman as being round the corner. [Oct. 1891.]\n\n\n\nGetting it Wrong\n\n\nZeffirino Carestia, a sculptor, told me we had a great sculptor in\nEngland named Simpson. I demurred, and asked about his work. It seemed\nhe had made a monument to Nelson in Westminster Abbey. Of course I saw\nhe meant Stevens, who had made a monument to Wellington in St. Paul\u2019s. I\ncross-questioned him and found I was right.\n\nSuppose that in some ancient writer I had come upon a similar error about\nwhich I felt no less certain than I did here, ought I to be debarred from\nmy conclusion merely by the accident that I have not the wretched muddler\nat my elbow and cannot ask him personally? People are always getting\nthings wrong. It is the critic\u2019s business to know how and when to\nbelieve on insufficient evidence and to know how far to go in the matter\nof setting people right without going too far; the question of what is\ntoo far and what is sufficient evidence can only be settled by the\nhiggling and haggling of the literary market.\n\nSo I justify my emendation of the \u201cgrotta del toro\u201d at Trapani. [_The\nAuthoress of the Odyssey_, Chap. VIII.] \u201cIl toro macigna un tesoro di\noro.\u201d [The bull is grinding a treasure of gold] in the grotto in which\n(for other reasons) I am convinced Ulysses hid the gifts the Ph\u0153acians\nhad given him. And so the grotto is called \u201cLa grotta del toro\u201d [The\ngrotto of the bull]. I make no doubt it was originally called \u201cLa grotta\ndel tesoro\u201d [The grotto of the treasure], but children got it wrong, and\ncorrupted \u201ctesoro\u201d into \u201ctoro\u201d; then, it being known that the \u201ctesoro\u201d\nwas in it somehow, the \u201ctoro\u201d was made to grind the \u201ctesoro.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nXIII\nUnprofessional Sermons\n\n\nRighteousness\n\n\nACCORDING to Mr. Matthew Arnold, as we find the highest traditions of\ngrace, beauty and the heroic virtues among the Greeks and Romans, so we\nderive our highest ideal of righteousness from Jewish sources.\nRighteousness was to the Jew what strength and beauty were to the Greek\nor fortitude to the Roman.\n\nThis sounds well, but can we think that the Jews taken as a nation were\nreally more righteous than the Greeks and Romans? Could they indeed be\nso if they were less strong, graceful and enduring? In some respects\nthey may have been\u2014every nation has its strong points\u2014but surely there\nhas been a nearly unanimous verdict for many generations that the typical\nGreek or Roman is a higher, nobler person than the typical Jew\u2014and this\nreferring not to the modern Jew, who may perhaps he held to have been\ninjured by centuries of oppression, but to the Hebrew of the time of the\nold prophets and of the most prosperous eras in the history of the\nnation. If three men could be set before us as the most perfect Greek,\nRoman and Jew respectively, and if we could choose which we would have\nour only son most resemble, is it not likely we should find ourselves\npreferring the Greek or Roman to the Jew? And does not this involve that\nwe hold the two former to be the more righteous in a broad sense of the\nword?\n\nI dare not say that we owe no benefits to the Jewish nation, I do not\nfeel sure whether we do or do not, but I can see no good thing that I can\npoint to as a notoriously Hebrew contribution to our moral and\nintellectual well-being as I can point to our law and say that it is\nRoman, or to our fine arts and say that they are based on what the Greeks\nand Italians taught us. On the contrary, if asked what feature of\npost-Christian life we had derived most distinctly from Hebrew sources I\nshould say at once \u201cintolerance\u201d\u2014the desire to dogmatise about matters\nwhereon the Greek and Roman held certainty to be at once unimportant and\nunattainable. This, with all its train of bloodshed and family disunion,\nis chargeable to the Jewish rather than to any other account.\n\nThere is yet another vice which occurs readily to any one who reckons up\nthe characteristics which we derive mainly from the Jews; it is one that\nwe call, after a Jewish sect, \u201cPharisaism.\u201d I do not mean to say that no\nGreek or Roman was ever a sanctimonious hypocrite, still,\nsanctimoniousness does not readily enter into our notions of Greeks and\nRomans and it does so enter into our notions of the old Hebrews. Of\ncourse, we are all of us sanctimonious sometimes; Horace himself is so\nwhen he talks about _aurum irrepertum et sic melius situm_, and as for\nVirgil he was a prig, pure and simple; still, on the whole,\nsanctimoniousness was not a Greek and Roman vice and it was a Hebrew one.\nTrue, they stoned their prophets freely; but these are not the Hebrews to\nwhom Mr. Arnold is referring, they are the ones whom it is the custom to\nleave out of sight and out of mind as far as possible, so that they\nshould hardly count as Hebrews at all, and none of our characteristics\nshould be ascribed to them.\n\nTaking their literature I cannot see that it deserves the praises that\nhave been lavished upon it. The Song of Solomon and the book of Esther\nare the most interesting in the Old Testament, but these are the very\nones that make the smallest pretensions to holiness, and even these are\nneither of them of very transcendent merit. They would stand no chance\nof being accepted by Messrs. Cassell and Co. or by any biblical publisher\nof the present day. Chatto and Windus might take the Song of Solomon,\nbut, with this exception, I doubt if there is a publisher in London who\nwould give a guinea for the pair. Ecclesiastes contains some fine things\nbut is strongly tinged with pessimism, cynicism and affectation. Some of\nthe Proverbs are good, but not many of them are in common use. Job\ncontains some fine passages, and so do some of the Psalms; but the Psalms\ngenerally are poor and, for the most part, querulous, spiteful and\nintrospective into the bargain. Mudie would not take thirteen copies of\nthe lot if they were to appear now for the first time\u2014unless indeed their\nroyal authorship were to arouse an adventitious interest in them, or\nunless the author were a rich man who played his cards judiciously with\nthe reviewers. As for the prophets\u2014we know what appears to have been the\nopinion formed concerning them by those who should have been best\nacquainted with them; I am no judge as to the merits of the controversy\nbetween them and their fellow-countrymen, but I have read their works and\nam of opinion that they will not hold their own against such masterpieces\nof modern literature as, we will say, _The Pilgrim\u2019s Progress_, _Robinson\nCrusoe_, _Gulliver\u2019s Travels_ or _Tom Jones_. \u201cWhether there be\nprophecies,\u201d exclaims the Apostle, \u201cthey shall fail.\u201d On the whole I\nshould say that Isaiah and Jeremiah must be held to have failed.\n\nI would join issue with Mr. Matthew Arnold on yet another point. I\nunderstand him to imply that righteousness should be a man\u2019s highest aim\nin life. I do not like setting up righteousness, nor yet anything else,\nas the highest aim in life; a man should have any number of little aims\nabout which he should be conscious and for which he should have names,\nbut he should have neither name for, nor consciousness concerning the\nmain aim of his life. Whatever we do we must try and do it rightly\u2014this\nis obvious\u2014but righteousness implies something much more than this: it\nconveys to our minds not only the desire to get whatever we have taken in\nhand as nearly right as possible, but also the general reference of our\nlives to the supposed will of an unseen but supreme power. Granted that\nthere is such a power, and granted that we should obey its will, we are\nthe more likely to do this the less we concern ourselves about the matter\nand the more we confine our attention to the things immediately round\nabout us which seem, so to speak, entrusted to us as the natural and\nlegitimate sphere of our activity. I believe a man will get the most\nuseful information on these matters from modern European sources; next to\nthese he will get most from Athens and ancient Rome. Mr. Matthew Arnold\nnotwithstanding, I do not think he will get anything from Jerusalem which\nhe will not find better and more easily elsewhere. [1883.]\n\n\n\nWisdom\n\n\nBut where shall wisdom be found? (Job xxviii. 12).\n\nIf the writer of these words meant exactly what he said, he had so little\nwisdom that he might well seek more. He should have known that wisdom\nspends most of her time crying in the streets and public-houses, and he\nshould have gone thither to look for her. It is written:\n\n\u201cWisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets:\n\n\u201cShe crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the\ngates: in the city she uttereth her words\u201d (Prov. i. 20, 21.)\n\nIf however he meant rather \u201cWhere shall wisdom be regarded?\u201d this, again,\nis not a very sensible question. People have had wisdom before them for\nsome time, and they may be presumed to be the best judges of their own\naffairs, yet they do not generally show much regard for wisdom. We may\nconclude, therefore, that they have found her less profitable than by her\nown estimate she would appear to be. This indeed is what one of the\nwisest men who ever lived\u2014the author of the Book of\nEcclesiastes\u2014definitely concludes to be the case, when he tells his\nreaders that they had better not overdo either their virtue or their\nwisdom. They must not, on the other hand, overdo their wickedness nor,\npresumably, their ignorance, still the writer evidently thinks that error\nis safer on the side of too little than of too much. {203}\n\nReflection will show that this must always have been true, and must\nalways remain so, for this is the side on which error is both least\ndisastrous and offers most place for repentance. He who finds himself\ninconvenienced by knowing too little can go to the British Museum, or to\nthe Working Men\u2019s College, and learn more; but when a thing is once well\nlearnt it is even harder to unlearn it than it was to learn it. Would it\nbe possible to unlearn the art of speech or the arts of reading and\nwriting even if we wished to do so? Wisdom and knowledge are, like a bad\nreputation, more easily won than lost; we got on fairly well without\nknowing that the earth went round the sun; we thought the sun went round\nthe earth until we found it made us uncomfortable to think so any longer,\nthen we altered our opinion; it was not very easy to alter it, but it was\neasier than it would be to alter it back again. _Vestigia nulla\nretrorsum_; the earth itself does not pursue its course more steadily\nthan mind does when it has once committed itself, and if we could see the\nmovements of the stars in slow time we should probably find that there\nwas much more throb and tremor in detail than we can take note of.\n\nHow, I wonder, will it be if in our pursuit of knowledge we stumble upon\nsome awkward fact as disturbing for the human race as an enquiry into the\nstate of his own finances may sometimes prove to the individual? The\npursuit of knowledge can never be anything but a leap in the dark, and a\nleap in the dark is a very uncomfortable thing. I have sometimes thought\nthat if the human race ever loses its ascendancy it will not be through\nplague, famine or cataclysm, but by getting to know some little microbe,\nas it were, of knowledge which shall get into its system and breed there\ntill it makes an end of us. {204} It is well, therefore, that there\nshould be a substratum of mankind who cannot by any inducement be\npersuaded to know anything whatever at all, and who are resolutely\ndetermined to know nothing among us but what the parson tells them, and\nnot to be too sure even about that.\n\nWhence then cometh wisdom and where is the place of understanding? How\ndoes Job solve his problem?\n\n\u201cBehold the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom: and to depart from evil is\nunderstanding.\u201d\n\nThe answer is all very well as far as it goes, but it only amounts to\nsaying that wisdom is wisdom. We know no better what the fear of the\nLord is than what wisdom is, and we often do not depart from evil simply\nbecause we do not know that what we are cleaving to is evil.\n\n\n\nLoving and Hating\n\n\nI have often said that there is no true love short of eating and\nconsequent assimilation; the embryonic processes are but a long course of\neating and assimilation\u2014the sperm and germ cells, or the two elements\nthat go to form the new animal, whatever they should be called, eat one\nanother up, and then the mother assimilates them, more or less, through\nmutual inter-feeding and inter-breeding between her and them. But the\ncurious point is that the more profound our love is the less we are\nconscious of it as love. True, a nurse tells her child that she would\nlike to eat it, but this is only an expression that shows an instinctive\nrecognition of the fact that eating is a mode of, or rather the acme of,\nlove\u2014no nurse loves her child half well enough to want really to eat it;\nput to such proof as this the love of which she is so profoundly, as she\nimagines, sentient proves to be but skin deep. So with our horses and\ndogs: we think we dote upon them, but we do not really love them.\n\nWhat, on the other hand, can awaken less consciousness of warm affection\nthan an oyster? Who would press an oyster to his heart, or pat it and\nwant to kiss it? Yet nothing short of its complete absorption into our\nown being can in the least satisfy us. No merely superficial temporary\ncontact of exterior form to exterior form will serve us. The embrace\nmust be consummate, not achieved by a mocking environment of draped and\nmuffled arms that leaves no lasting trace on organisation or\nconsciousness, but by an enfolding within the bare and warm bosom of an\nopen mouth\u2014a grinding out of all differences of opinion by the sweet\npersuasion of the jaws, and the eloquence of a tongue that now convinces\nall the more powerfully because it is inarticulate and deals but with the\none universal language of agglutination. Then we become made one with\nwhat we love\u2014not heart to heart, but protoplasm to protoplasm, and this\nis far more to the purpose.\n\nThe proof of love, then, like that of any other pleasant pudding, is in\nthe eating, and tested by this proof we see that consciousness of love,\nlike all other consciousness vanishes on becoming intense. While we are\nyet fully aware of it, we do not love as well as we think we do. When we\nreally mean business and are hungry with affection, we do not know that\nwe are in love, but simply go into the love-shop\u2014for so any eating-house\nshould be more fitly called\u2014ask the price, pay our money down, and love\ntill we can either love or pay no longer.\n\nAnd so with hate. When we really hate a thing it makes us sick, and we\nuse this expression to symbolise the utmost hatred of which our nature is\ncapable; but when we know we hate, our hatred is in reality mild and\ninoffensive. I, for example, think I hate all those people whose\nphotographs I see in the shop windows, but I am so conscious of this that\nI am convinced, in reality, nothing would please me better than to be in\nthe shop windows too. So when I see the universities conferring degrees\non any one, or the learned societies moulting the yearly medals as\npeacocks moult their tails, I am so conscious of disapproval as to feel\nsure I should like a degree or a medal too if they would only give me\none, and hence I conclude that my disapproval is grounded in nothing more\nserious than a superficial, transient jealousy.\n\n\n\nThe Roman Empire\n\n\nNothing will ever die so long as it knows what to do under the\ncircumstances, in other words so long as it knows its business. The\nRoman Empire must have died of inexperience of some kind, I should think\nmost likely it was puzzled to death by the Christian religion. But the\nquestion is not so much how the Roman Empire or any other great thing\ncame to an end\u2014everything must come to an end some time, it is only\nscientists who wonder that a state should die\u2014the interesting question is\nhow did the Romans become so great, under what circumstances were they\nborn and bred? We should watch childhood and schooldays rather than old\nage and death-beds.\n\nAs I sit writing on the top of a wild-beast pen of the amphitheatre of\nAosta I may note, for one thing, that the Romans were not squeamish, they\nhad no Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Again, their\nladies did not write in the newspapers. Fancy Miss Cato reviewing\nHorace! They had no Frances Power Cobbes, no . . . s, no . . . s; yet\nthey seem to have got along quite nicely without these powerful moral\nengines. The comeliest and most enjoyable races that we know of were the\nancient Greeks, the Italians and the South Sea Islanders, and they have\nnone of them been purists.\n\n\n\nItalians and Englishmen\n\n\nItalians, and perhaps Frenchmen, consider first whether they like or want\nto do a thing and then whether, on the whole, it will do them any harm.\nEnglishmen, and perhaps Germans, consider first whether they ought to\nlike a thing and often never reach the questions whether they do like it\nand whether it will hurt. There is much to be said for both systems, but\nI suppose it is best to combine them as far as possible.\n\n\n\nOn Knowing what Gives us Pleasure\n\n\ni\n\n\nOne can bring no greater reproach against a man than to say that he does\nnot set sufficient value upon pleasure, and there is no greater sign of a\nfool than the thinking that he can tell at once and easily what it is\nthat pleases him. To know this is not easy, and how to extend our\nknowledge of it is the highest and the most neglected of all arts and\nbranches of education. Indeed, if we could solve the difficulty of\nknowing what gives us pleasure, if we could find its springs, its\ninception and earliest _modus operandi_, we should have discovered the\nsecret of life and development, for the same difficulty has attended the\ndevelopment of every sense from touch onwards, and no new sense was ever\ndeveloped without pains. A man had better stick to known and proved\npleasures, but, if he will venture in quest of new ones, he should not do\nso with a light heart.\n\nOne reason why we find it so hard to know our own likings is because we\nare so little accustomed to try; we have our likings found for us in\nrespect of by far the greater number of the matters that concern us; thus\nwe have grown all our limbs on the strength of the likings of our\nancestors and adopt these without question.\n\nAnother reason is that, except in mere matters of eating and drinking,\npeople do not realise the importance of finding out what it is that gives\nthem pleasure if, that is to say, they would make themselves as\ncomfortable here as they reasonably can. Very few, however, seem to care\ngreatly whether they are comfortable or no. There are some men so\nignorant and careless of what gives them pleasure that they cannot be\nsaid ever to have been really born as living beings at all. They present\nsome of the phenomena of having been born\u2014they reproduce, in fact, so\nmany of the ideas which we associate with having been born that it is\nhard not to think of them as living beings\u2014but in spite of all\nappearances the central idea is wanting. At least one half of the misery\nwhich meets us daily might be removed or, at any rate, greatly\nalleviated, if those who suffer by it would think it worth their while to\nbe at any pains to get rid of it. That they do not so think is proof\nthat they neither know, nor care to know, more than in a very languid\nway, what it is that will relieve them most effectually or, in other\nwords, that the shoe does not really pinch them so hard as we think it\ndoes. For when it really pinches, as when a man is being flogged, he\nwill seek relief by any means in his power. So my great namesake said,\n\u201cSurely the pleasure is as great Of being cheated as to cheat\u201d; and so,\nagain, I remember to have seen a poem many years ago in _Punch_ according\nto which a certain young lady, being discontented at home, went out into\nthe world in quest to \u201cSome burden make or burden bear, But which she did\nnot greatly care\u2014Oh Miseree!\u201d So long as there was discomfort somewhere\nit was all right.\n\nTo those, however, who are desirous of knowing what gives them pleasure\nbut do not quite know how to set about it I have no better advice to give\nthan that they must take the same pains about acquiring this difficult\nart as about any other, and must acquire it in the same way\u2014that is by\nattending to one thing at a time and not being in too great a hurry.\nProficiency is not to be attained here, any more than elsewhere, by short\ncuts or by getting other people to do work that no other than oneself can\ndo. Above all things it is necessary here, as in all other branches of\nstudy, not to think we know a thing before we do know it\u2014to make sure of\nour ground and be quite certain that we really do like a thing before we\nsay we do. When you cannot decide whether you like a thing or not,\nnothing is easier than to say so and to hang it up among the\nuncertainties. Or when you know you do not know and are in such doubt as\nto see no chance of deciding, then you may take one side or the other\nprovisionally and throw yourself into it. This will sometimes make you\nuncomfortable, and you will feel you have taken the wrong side and thus\nlearn that the other was the right one. Sometimes you will feel you have\ndone right. Any way ere long you will know more about it. But there\nmust have been a secret treaty with yourself to the effect that the\ndecision was provisional only. For, after all, the most important first\nprinciple in this matter is the not lightly thinking you know what you\nlike till you have made sure of your ground. I was nearly forty before I\nfelt how stupid it was to pretend to know things that I did not know and\nI still often catch myself doing so. Not one of my school-masters taught\nme this, but altogether otherwise.\n\n\nii\n\n\nI should like to like Schumann\u2019s music better than I do; I dare say I\ncould make myself like it better if I tried; but I do not like having to\ntry to make myself like things; I like things that make me like them at\nonce and no trying at all.\n\n\niii\n\n\nTo know whether you are enjoying a piece of music or not you must see\nwhether you find yourself looking at the advertisements of Pear\u2019s soap at\nthe end of the programme.\n\n\n\nDe Minimis non Curat Lex\n\n\ni\n\n\nYes, but what is a minimum? Sometimes a maximum is a minimum, and\nsometimes the other way about. If you know you know, and if you don\u2019t\nyou don\u2019t.\n\n\nii\n\n\nYes, but what is a minimum? So increased material weight involves\nincreased moral weight, but where does there begin to be any weight at\nall? There is a miracle somewhere. At the point where two very large\nnothings have united to form a very little something.\n\n\niii\n\n\nThere is no such complete assimilation as assimilation of rhythm. In\nfact it is in assimilation of rhythm that what we see as assimilation\nconsists.\n\nWhen two liquid bodies come together with nearly the same rhythms, as,\nsay, two tumblers of water, differing but very slightly, the two\nassimilate rapidly\u2014becoming homogeneous throughout. So with wine and\nwater which assimilate, or at any rate form a new homogeneous substance,\nvery rapidly. Not so with oil and water. Still, I should like to know\nwhether it would not be possible to have so much water and so little oil\nthat the water would in time absorb the oil.\n\nI have not thought about it, but it seems as though the maxim _de minimis\nnon curat lex_\u2014the fact that a wrong, a contradiction in terms, a\nviolation of all our ordinary canons does not matter and should be\nbrushed aside\u2014it seems as though this maxim went very low down in the\nscale of nature, as though it were the one principle rendering\ncombination (integration) and, I suppose, dissolution (disintegration)\nalso, possible. For combination of any kind involves contradiction in\nterms; it involves a self-stultification on the part of one or more\nthings, more or less complete in both of them. For one or both cease to\nbe, and to cease to be is to contradict all one\u2019s fundamental axioms or\nterms.\n\nAnd this is always going on in the mental world as much as in the\nmaterial; everything is always changing and stultifying itself more or\nless completely. There is no permanence of identity so absolute, either\nin the physical world, or in our conception of the word \u201cidentity,\u201d that\nit is not crossed with the notion of perpetual change which, _pro tanto_,\ndestroys identity. Perfect, absolute identity is like perfect, absolute\nanything\u2014as near an approach to nothing, or nonsense, as our minds can\ngrasp. It is, then, in the essence of our conception of identity that\nnothing should maintain a perfect identity; there is an element of\ndisintegration in the only conception of integration that we can form.\n\nWhat is it, then, that makes this conflict not only possible and bearable\nbut even pleasant? What is it that so oils the machinery of our thoughts\nthat things which would otherwise cause intolerable friction and heat\nproduce no jar?\n\nSurely it is the principle that a very overwhelming majority rides\nrough-shod with impunity over a very small minority; that a drop of\nbrandy in a gallon of water is practically no brandy; that a dozen\nmaniacs among a hundred thousand people produce no unsettling effect upon\nour minds; that a well-written i will go as an i even though the dot be\nomitted\u2014it seems to me that it is this principle, which is embodied in\n_de minimis non curat lex_, that makes it possible that there should be\n_majora_ and a _lex_ to care about them. This is saying in another form\nthat association does not stick to the letter of its bond.\n\n\n\nSaints\n\n\nSaints are always grumbling because the world will not take them at their\nown estimate; so they cry out upon this place and upon that, saying it\ndoes not know the things belonging to its peace and that it will be too\nlate soon and that people will be very sorry then that they did not make\nmore of the grumbler, whoever he may be, inasmuch as he will make it hot\nfor them and pay them out generally.\n\nAll this means: \u201cPut me in a better social and financial position than I\nnow occupy; give me more of the good things of this life, if not actual\nmoney yet authority (which is better loved by most men than even money\nitself), to reward me because I am to have such an extraordinary good\nfortune and high position in the world which is to come.\u201d\n\nWhen their contemporaries do not see this and tell them that they cannot\nexpect to have it both ways, they lose their tempers, shake the dust from\ntheir feet and go sulking off into the wilderness.\n\nThis is as regards themselves; to their followers they say: \u201cYou must not\nexpect to be able to make the best of both worlds. The thing is absurd;\nit cannot be done. You must choose which you prefer, go in for it and\nleave the other, for you cannot have both.\u201d\n\nWhen a saint complains that people do not know the things belonging to\ntheir peace, what he really means is that they do not sufficiently care\nabout the things belonging to his own peace.\n\n\n\nPrayer\n\n\ni\n\n\nLord, let me know mine end, and the number of my days: that I may be\ncertified how long I have to live (Ps. xxxix. 5).\n\nOf all prayers this is the insanest. That the one who uttered it should\nhave made and retained a reputation is a strong argument in favour of his\nhaving been surrounded with courtiers. \u201cLord, let me not know mine end\u201d\nwould be better, only it would be praying for what God has already\ngranted us. \u201cLord, let me know A.B.\u2019s end\u201d would be bad enough. Even\nthough A.B. were Mr. Gladstone\u2014we might hear he was not to die yet.\n\u201cLord, stop A.B. from knowing my end\u201d would be reasonable, if there were\nany use in praying that A.B. might not be able to do what he never can\ndo. Or can the prayer refer to the other end of life? \u201cLord, let me\nknow my beginning.\u201d This again would not be always prudent.\n\nThe prayer is a silly piece of petulance and it would have served the\nmaker of it right to have had it granted. \u201cA painful and lingering\ndisease followed by death\u201d or \u201cNinety, a burden to yourself and every one\nelse\u201d\u2014there is not so much to pick and choose between them. Surely, \u201cI\nthank thee, O Lord, that thou hast hidden mine end from me\u201d would be\nbetter. The sting of death is in foreknowledge of the when and the how.\n\nIf again he had prayed that he might be able to make his psalms a little\nmore lively, and be saved from becoming the bore which he has been to so\nmany generations of sick persons and young children\u2014or that he might find\na publisher for them with greater facility\u2014but there is no end to it.\nThe prayer he did pray was about the worst he could have prayed and the\npsalmist, being the psalmist, naturally prayed it\u2014unless I have misquoted\nhim.\n\n\nii\n\n\nPrayers are to men as dolls are to children. They are not without use\nand comfort, but it is not easy to take them very seriously. I dropped\nsaying mine suddenly once for all without malice prepense, on the night\nof the 29th of September, 1859, when I went on board the _Roman Emperor_\nto sail for New Zealand. I had said them the night before and doubted\nnot that I was always going to say them as I always had done hitherto.\nThat night, I suppose, the sense of change was so great that it shook\nthem quietly off. I was not then a sceptic; I had got as far as\ndisbelief in infant baptism but no further. I felt no compunction of\nconscience, however, about leaving off my morning and evening\nprayers\u2014simply I could no longer say them.\n\n\niii\n\n\nLead us not into temptation (Matt. vi. 13).\n\nFor example; I am crossing from Calais to Dover and there is a well-known\npopular preacher on board, say Archdeacon Farrar.\n\nI have my camera in my hand and though the sea is rough the sun is\nbrilliant. I see the archdeacon come on board at Calais and seat himself\nupon the upper deck, looking as though he had just stepped out of a\nband-box. Can I be expected to resist the temptation of snapping him?\nSuppose that in the train for an hour before reaching Calais I had said\nany number of times, \u201cLead us not into temptation,\u201d is it likely that the\narchdeacon would have been made to take some other boat or to stay in\nCalais, or that I myself, by being delayed on my homeward journey, should\nhave been led into some other temptation, though perhaps smaller? Had I\nnot better snap him and have done with it? Is there enough chance of\ngood result to make it worth while to try the experiment? The general\nconsensus of opinion is that there is not.\n\nAnd as for praying for strength to resist temptation\u2014granted that if,\nwhen I saw the archdeacon in the band-box stage, I had immediately prayed\nfor strength I might have been enabled to put the evil thing from me for\na time, how long would this have been likely to last when I saw his face\ngrow saintlier and saintlier? I am an excellent sailor myself, but he is\nnot, and when I see him there, his eyes closed and his head thrown back,\nlike a sleeping St. Joseph in a shovel hat, with a basin beside him, can\nI expect to be saved from snapping him by such a formula as \u201cDeliver us\nfrom evil\u201d?\n\nIs it in photographer\u2019s nature to do so? When David found himself in the\ncave with Saul he cut off one of Saul\u2019s coattails; if he had had a camera\nand there had been enough light he would have photographed him; but would\nit have been in flesh and blood for him neither to cut off his coat-tail\nnor to snap him?\n\nThere is a photographer in every bush, going about like a roaring lion\nseeking whom he may devour.\n\n\niv\n\n\n Teach me to live that I may dread\n The grave as little as my bed.\n\nThis is from the evening hymn which all respectable children are taught.\nIt sounds well, but it is immoral.\n\nOur own death is a premium which we must pay for the far greater benefit\nwe have derived from the fact that so many people have not only lived but\nalso died before us. For if the old ones had not in course of time gone\nthere would have been no progress; all our civilisation is due to the\narrangement whereby no man shall live for ever, and to this huge mass of\nadvantage we must each contribute our mite; that is to say, when our turn\ncomes we too must die. The hardship is that interested persons should be\nable to scare us into thinking the change we call death to be the\ndesperate business which they make it out to be. There is no hardship in\nhaving to suffer that change.\n\nBishop Ken, however, goes too far. Undesirable, of course, death must\nalways be to those who are fairly well off, but it is undesirable that\nany living being should live in habitual indifference to death. The\nindifference should be kept for worthy occasions, and even then, though\ndeath be gladly faced, it is not healthy that it should be faced as\nthough it were a mere undressing and going to bed.\n\n\n\n\nXIV\nHiggledy-Piggledy\n\n\nPreface to Vol. II\n\n\nON indexing this volume, as with Vols. I and IV which are already indexed\nand as, no doubt, will be the case with any that I may live to index\nlater, I am alarmed at the triviality of many of these notes, the\nineptitude of many and the obvious untenableness of many that I should\nhave done much better to destroy.\n\nElmsley, in one of his letters to Dr. Butler, says that an author is the\nworst person to put one of his own works through the press (_Life of Dr.\nButler_, I, 88). It seems to me that he is the worst person also to make\nselections from his own notes or indeed even, in my case, to write them.\nI cannot help it. They grew as, with little disturbance, they now stand;\nthey are not meant for publication; the bad ones serve as bread for the\njam of the good ones; it was less trouble to let them go than to think\nwhether they ought not to be destroyed. The retort, however, is obvious;\nno thinking should have been required in respect of many\u2014a glance should\nhave consigned them to the waste-paper basket. I know it and I know that\nmany a one of those who look over these books\u2014for that they will be\nlooked over by not a few I doubt not\u2014will think me to have been a greater\nfool than I probably was. I cannot help it. I have at any rate the\nconsolation of also knowing that, however much I may have irritated,\ndispleased or disappointed them, they will not be able to tell me so; and\nI think that, to some, such a record of passing moods and thoughts good,\nbad and indifferent will be more valuable as throwing light upon the\nperiod to which it relates than it would have been if it had been edited\nwith greater judgment.\n\nBesides, Vols. I and IV being already bound, I should not have enough to\nform Vols. II and III if I cut out all those that ought to be cut out.\n[June, 1898.]\n\nP.S.\u2014If I had re-read my preface to Vol. IV, I need not have written the\nabove.\n\n\n\nWaste-Paper Baskets\n\n\nEvery one should keep a mental waste-paper basket and the older he grows\nthe more things he will consign to it\u2014torn up to irrecoverable tatters.\n\n\n\nFlies in the Milk-Jug\n\n\nSaving scraps is like picking flies out of the milk-jug. We do not mind\ndoing this, I suppose, because we feel sure the flies will never want to\nborrow money off us. We do not feel so sure about anything much bigger\nthan a fly. If it were a mouse that had got into the milk-jug, we should\ncall the cat at once.\n\n\n\nMy Thoughts\n\n\nThey are like persons met upon a journey; I think them very agreeable at\nfirst but soon find, as a rule, that I am tired of them.\n\n\n\nOur Ideas\n\n\nThey are for the most part like bad sixpences and we spend our lives in\ntrying to pass them on one another.\n\n\n\nCat-Ideas and Mouse-Ideas\n\n\nWe can never get rid of mouse-ideas completely, they keep turning up\nagain and again, and nibble, nibble\u2014no matter how often we drive them\noff. The best way to keep them down is to have a few good strong\ncat-ideas which will embrace them and ensure their not reappearing till\nthey do so in another shape.\n\n\n\nIncoherency of New Ideas\n\n\nAn idea must not be condemned for being a little shy and incoherent; all\nnew ideas are shy when introduced first among our old ones. We should\nhave patience and see whether the incoherency is likely to wear off or to\nwear on, in which latter case the sooner we get rid of them the better.\n\n\n\nAn Apology for the Devil\n\n\nIt must be remembered that we have only heard one side of the case. God\nhas written all the books.\n\n\n\nHallelujah\n\n\nWhen we exclaim so triumphantly \u201cHallelujah! for the Lord God omnipotent\nreigneth\u201d we only mean that we think no small beer of ourselves, that our\nGod is a much greater God than any one else\u2019s God, that he was our\nfather\u2019s God before us, and that it is all right, respectable and as it\nshould be.\n\n\n\nHating\n\n\nIt does not matter much what a man hates provided he hates something.\n\nHamlet, Don Quixote, Mr. Pickwick and others\n\nThe great characters of fiction live as truly as the memories of dead\nmen. For the life after death it is not necessary that a man or woman\nshould have lived.\n\n\n\nReputation\n\n\nThe evil that men do lives after them. Yes, and a good deal of the evil\nthat they never did as well.\n\n\n\nScience and Business\n\n\nThe best class of scientific mind is the same as the best class of\nbusiness mind. The great desideratum in either case is to know how much\nevidence is enough to warrant action. It is as unbusiness-like to want\ntoo much evidence before buying or selling as to be content with too\nlittle. The same kind of qualities are wanted in either case. The\ndifference is that if the business man makes a mistake, he commonly has\nto suffer for it, whereas it is rarely that scientific blundering, so\nlong as it is confined to theory, entails loss on the blunderer. On the\ncontrary it very often brings him fame, money and a pension. Hence the\nbusiness man, if he is a good one, will take greater care not to overdo\nor underdo things than the scientific man can reasonably be expected to\ntake.\n\n\n\nScientists\n\n\nThere are two classes, those who want to know and do not care whether\nothers think they know or not, and those who do not much care about\nknowing but care very greatly about being reputed as knowing.\n\n\n\nScientific Terminology\n\n\nThis is the Scylla\u2019s cave which men of science are preparing for\nthemselves to be able to pounce out upon us from it, and into which we\ncannot penetrate.\n\n\n\nScientists and Drapers\n\n\nWhy should the botanist, geologist or other-ist give himself such airs\nover the draper\u2019s assistant? Is it because he names his plants or\nspecimens with Latin names and divides them into genera and species,\nwhereas the draper does not formulate his classifications, or at any rate\nonly uses his mother tongue when he does? Yet how like the sub-divisions\nof textile life are to those of the animal and vegetable kingdoms! A few\ngreat families\u2014cotton, linen, hempen, woollen, silk, mohair, alpaca\u2014into\nwhat an infinite variety of genera and species do not these great\nfamilies subdivide themselves? And does it take less labour, with less\nintelligence, to master all these and to acquire familiarity with their\nvarious habits, habitats and prices than it does to master the details of\nany other great branch of science? I do not know. But when I think of\nShoolbred\u2019s on the one hand and, say, the ornithological collections of\nthe British Museum upon the other, I feel as though it would take me less\ntrouble to master the second than the first.\n\n\n\nMen of Science\n\n\nIf they are worthy of the name they are indeed about God\u2019s path and about\nhis bed and spying out all his ways.\n\n\n\nSparks\n\n\nEverything matters more than we think it does, and, at the same time,\nnothing matters so much as we think it does. The merest spark may set\nall Europe in a blaze, but though all Europe be set in a blaze twenty\ntimes over, the world will wag itself right again.\n\n\n\nDumb-Bells\n\n\nI regard them with suspicion as academic.\n\n\n\nPurgatory\n\n\nTime is the only true purgatory.\n\n\n\nGreatness\n\n\nHe is greatest who is most often in men\u2019s good thoughts.\n\n\n\nThe Vanity of Human Wishes\n\n\nThere is only one thing vainer and that is the having no wishes.\n\n\n\nJones\u2019s Conscience\n\n\nHe said he had not much conscience, and what little he had was guilty.\n\n\n\nNihilism\n\n\nThe Nihilists do not believe in nothing; they only believe in nothing\nthat does not commend itself to themselves; that is, they will not allow\nthat anything may be beyond their comprehension. As their comprehension\nis not great their creed is, after all, very nearly nihil.\n\n\n\nOn Breaking Habits\n\n\nTo begin knocking off the habit in the evening, then the afternoon as\nwell and, finally, the morning too is better than to begin cutting it off\nin the morning and then go on to the afternoon and evening. I speak from\nexperience as regards smoking and can say that when one comes to within\nan hour or two of smoke-time one begins to be impatient for it, whereas\nthere will be no impatience after the time for knocking off has been\nconfirmed as a habit.\n\n\n\nDogs\n\n\nThe great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with\nhim and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of\nhimself too.\n\n\n\nFuture and Past\n\n\nThe Will-be and the Has-been touch us more nearly than the Is. So we are\nmore tender towards children and old people than to those who are in the\nprime of life.\n\n\n\nNature\n\n\nAs the word is now commonly used it excludes nature\u2019s most interesting\nproductions\u2014the works of man. Nature is usually taken to mean mountains,\nrivers, clouds and undomesticated animals and plants. I am not\nindifferent to this half of nature, but it interests me much less than\nthe other half.\n\n\n\nLucky and Unlucky\n\n\nPeople are lucky and unlucky not according to what they get absolutely,\nbut according to the ratio between what they get and what they have been\nled to expect.\n\n\n\nDefinitions\n\n\ni\n\n\nAs, no matter what cunning system of checks we devise, we must in the end\ntrust some one whom we do not check, but to whom we give unreserved\nconfidence, so there is a point at which the understanding and mental\nprocesses must be taken as understood without further question or\ndefinition in words. And I should say that this point should be fixed\npretty early in the discussion.\n\n\nii\n\n\nThere is one class of mind that loves to lean on rules and definitions,\nand another that discards them as far as possible. A faddist will\ngenerally ask for a definition of faddism, and one who is not a faddist\nwill be impatient of being asked to give one.\n\n\niii\n\n\nA definition is the enclosing a wilderness of idea within a wall of\nwords.\n\n\niv\n\n\nDefinitions are a kind of scratching and generally leave a sore place\nmore sore than it was before.\n\n\nv\n\n\nAs Love is too young to know what conscience is, so Truth and Genius are\ntoo old to know what definition is.\n\n\n\nMoney\n\n\nIt has such an inherent power to run itself clear of taint that human\ningenuity cannot devise the means of making it work permanent mischief,\nany more than means can be found of torturing people beyond what they can\nbear. Even if a man founds a College of Technical Instruction, the\nchances are ten to one that no one will be taught anything and that it\nwill have been practically left to a number of excellent professors who\nwill know very well what to do with it.\n\n\n\nWit\n\n\nThere is no Professor of Wit at either University. Surely they might as\nreasonably have a professor of wit as of poetry.\n\n\n\nOxford and Cambridge\n\n\nThe dons are too busy educating the young men to be able to teach them\nanything.\n\n\n\nCooking\n\n\nThere is a higher average of good cooking at Oxford and Cambridge than\nelsewhere. The cooking is better than the curriculum. But there is no\nChair of Cookery, it is taught by apprenticeship in the kitchens.\n\n\n\nPerseus and St. George\n\n\nThese dragon-slayers did not take lessons in dragon-slaying, nor do\nleaders of forlorn hopes generally rehearse their parts beforehand.\nSmall things may be rehearsed, but the greatest are always do-or-die,\nneck-or-nothing matters.\n\n\n\nSpecialism and Generalism\n\n\nWoe to the specialist who is not a pretty fair generalist, and woe to the\ngeneralist who is not also a bit of a specialist.\n\n\n\nSilence and Tact\n\n\nSilence is not always tact and it is tact that is golden, not silence.\n\n\n\nTruth-tellers\n\n\nProfessional truth-tellers may be trusted to profess that they are\ntelling the truth.\n\n\n\nStreet Preachers\n\n\nThese are the costermongers and barrow men of the religious world.\n\n\n\nProvidence and Othello\n\n\nProvidence, in making the rain fall also upon the sea, was like the man\nwho, when he was to play Othello, must needs black himself all over.\n\n\n\nProvidence and Improvidence\n\n\ni\n\n\nWe should no longer say: Put your trust in Providence, but in\nImprovidence, for this is what we mean.\n\n\nii\n\n\nTo put one\u2019s trust in God is only a longer way of saying that one will\nchance it.\n\n\niii\n\n\nThere is nothing so imprudent or so improvident as over-prudence or\nover-providence.\n\n\n\nEpiphany\n\n\nIf Providence could be seen at all, he would probably turn out to be a\nvery disappointing person\u2014a little wizened old gentleman with a cold in\nhis head, a red nose and a comforter round his neck, whistling o\u2019er the\nfurrow\u2019d land or crooning to himself as he goes aimlessly along the\nstreets, poking his way about and loitering continually at shop-windows\nand second-hand book-stalls.\n\n\n\nFortune\n\n\nLike Wisdom, Fortune crieth in the streets, and no man regardeth. There\nis not an advertisement supplement to the _Times_\u2014nay, hardly a half\nsheet of newspaper that comes into a house wrapping up this or that, but\nit gives information which would make a man\u2019s fortune, if he could only\nspot it and detect the one paragraph that would do this among the 99\nwhich would wreck him if he had anything to do with them.\n\n\n\nGold-Mines\n\n\nGold is not found in quartz alone; its richest lodes are in the eyes and\nears of the public, but these are harder to work and to prospect than any\nquartz vein.\n\n\n\nThings and Purses\n\n\nEverything is like a purse\u2014there may be money in it, and we can generally\nsay by the feel of it whether there is or is not. Sometimes, however, we\nmust turn it inside out before we can be quite sure whether there is\nanything in it or no. When I have turned a proposition inside out, put\nit to stand on its head, and shaken it, I have often been surprised to\nfind how much came out of it.\n\n\n\nSolomon in all his Glory\n\n\nBut, in the first place, the lilies do toil and spin after their own\nfashion, and, in the next, it was not desirable that Solomon should be\ndressed like a lily of the valley.\n\n\n\nDavid\u2019s Teachers\n\n\nDavid said he had more understanding than his teachers. If his teachers\nwere anything like mine this need not imply much understanding on David\u2019s\npart. And if his teachers did not know more than the Psalms\u2014it is\nabsurd. It is merely swagger, like the German Emperor. [1897.]\n\n\n\nS. Michael\n\n\nHe contended with the devil about the body of Moses. Now, I do not\nbelieve that any reasonable person would contend about the body of Moses\nwith the devil or with any one else.\n\n\n\nOne Form of Failure\n\n\nFrom a worldly point of view there is no mistake so great as that of\nbeing always right.\n\n\n\nAndromeda\n\n\nThe dragon was never in better health and spirits than on the morning\nwhen Perseus came down upon him. It is said that Andromeda told Perseus\nshe had been thinking how remarkably well he was looking. He had got up\nquite in his usual health\u2014and so on.\n\nWhen I said this to Ballard [a fellow art-student at Heatherley\u2019s] and\nthat other thing which I said about Andromeda in _Life and Habit_, {225}\nhe remarked that he wished it had been so in the poets.\n\nI looked at him. \u201cBallard,\u201d I said, \u201cI also am \u2018the poets.\u2019\u201d\n\n\n\nSelf-Confidence\n\n\nNothing is ever any good unless it is thwarted with self-distrust though\nin the main self-confident.\n\n\n\nWandering\n\n\nWhen the inclination is not obvious, the mind meanders, or maunders, as a\nstream in a flat meadow.\n\n\n\nPoverty\n\n\nI shun it because I have found it so apt to become contagious; but I\nfancy my constitution is more seasoned against it now than formerly. I\nhope that what I have gone through may have made me immune.\n\n\n\nPedals or Drones\n\n\nThe discords of every age are rendered possible by being taken on a drone\nor pedal of cant, common form and conventionality. This drone is, as it\nwere, the flour and suet of a plum pudding.\n\n\n\nEvasive Nature\n\n\nShe is one long This-way-and-it-isness and, at the same time,\nThat-way-and-it-isn\u2019tness. She flies so like a snipe that she is hard to\nhit.\n\n\n\nFashion\n\n\nFashion is like God, man cannot see it in its holy of holies and live.\nAnd it is, like God, increate, springing out of nothing, yet the maker of\nall things\u2014ever changing yet the same yesterday, to-day and for ever.\n\n\n\nDoctors and Clergymen\n\n\nA physician\u2019s physiology has much the same relation to his power of\nhealing as a cleric\u2019s divinity has to his power of influencing conduct.\n\n\n\nGod is Love\n\n\nI dare say. But what a mischievous devil Love is!\n\n\n\nCommon Chords\n\n\nIf Man is the tonic and God the dominant, the Devil is certainly the\nsub-dominant and Woman is the relative minor.\n\n\n\nGod and the Devil\n\n\nGod and the Devil are an effort after specialisation and division of\nlabour.\n\n\n\nSex\n\n\nThe sexes are the first\u2014or are among the first great experiments in the\nsocial subdivision of labour.\n\n\n\nWomen\n\n\nIf you choose to insist on the analogies and points of resemblance\nbetween men and women, they are so great that the differences seem indeed\nsmall. If, on the other hand, you are in a mood for emphasising the\npoints of difference, you can show that men and women have hardly\nanything in common. And so with anything: if a man wants to make a case\nhe can generally find a way of doing so.\n\n\n\nOffers of Marriage\n\n\nWomen sometimes say that they have had no offers, and only wish that some\none had ever proposed to them. This is not the right way to put it.\nWhat they should say is that though, like all women, they have been\nproposing to men all their lives, yet they grieve to remember that they\nhave been invariably refused.\n\n\n\nMarriage\n\n\ni\n\n\nThe question of marriage or non-marriage is only the question of whether\nit is better to be spoiled one way or another.\n\n\nii\n\n\nIn matrimony, to hesitate is sometimes to be saved.\n\n\niii\n\n\nInoculation, or a hair of the dog that is going to bite you\u2014this\nprinciple should be introduced in respect of marriage and speculation.\n\n\n\nLife and Love\n\n\nTo live is like to love\u2014all reason is against it, and all healthy\ninstinct for it.\n\n\n\nThe Basis of Life\n\n\nWe may say what we will, but Life is, _au fond_, sensual.\n\n\n\nWoman Suffrage\n\n\nI will vote for it when women have left off making a noise in the\nreading-room of the British Museum, when they leave off wearing high\nhead-dresses in the pit of a theatre and when I have seen as many as\ntwelve women in all catch hold of the strap or bar on getting into an\nomnibus.\n\n\n\nManners Makyth Man\n\n\nYes, but they make woman still more.\n\n\n\nWomen and Religion\n\n\nIt has been said that all sensible men are of the same religion and that\nno sensible man ever says what that religion is. So all sensible men are\nof the same opinion about women and no sensible man ever says what that\nopinion is.\n\n\n\nHappiness\n\n\nBehold and see if there be any happiness like unto the happiness of the\ndevils when they found themselves cast out of Mary Magdalene.\n\n\n\nSorrow within Sorrow\n\n\nHe was in reality damned glad; he told people he was sorry he was not\nmore sorry, and here began the first genuine sorrow, for he was really\nsorry that people would not believe he was sorry that he was not more\nsorry.\n\n\n\nGoing Away\n\n\nI can generally bear the separation, but I don\u2019t like the leave-taking.\n\n\n\n\nXV\nTitles and Subjects\n\n\nTitles\n\n\nA GOOD title should aim at making what follows as far as possible\nsuperfluous to those who know anything of the subject.\n\n\n\n\u201cThe Ancient Mariner\u201d\n\n\nThis poem would not have taken so well if it had been called \u201cThe Old\nSailor,\u201d so that Wardour Street has its uses.\n\n\n\nFor Unwritten Articles, Essays, Stories\n\n\nThe Art of Quarrelling.\n\nChristian Death-beds.\n\nThe Book of Babes and Sucklings.\n\nLiterary Struldbrugs.\n\nThe Life of the World to Come.\n\nThe Limits of Good Faith.\n\nArt, Money and Religion.\n\nThe Third Class Excursion Train, or Steam-boat, as the Church of the\nFuture.\n\nThe Utter Speculation involved in much of the good advice that is\ncommonly given\u2014as never to sell a reversion, etc.\n\nTracts for Children, warning them against the virtues of their elders.\n\nMaking Ready for Death as a Means of Prolonging Life. An Essay\nconcerning Human Misunderstanding. So McCulloch [a fellow art-student at\nHeatherley\u2019s, a very fine draughtsman] used to say that he drew a great\nmany lines and saved the best of them. Illusion, mistake, action taken\nin the dark\u2014these are among the main sources of our progress.\n\nThe Elements of Immorality for the Use of Earnest Schoolmasters.\n\nFamily Prayers: A series of perfectly plain and sensible ones asking for\nwhat people really do want without any kind of humbug.\n\nA Penitential Psalm as David would have written it if he had been reading\nHerbert Spencer.\n\nA Few Little Crows which I have to pick with various people.\n\nThe Scylla of Atheism and the Charybdis of Christianity.\n\nThe Battle of the Prigs and Blackguards.\n\nThat Good may Come.\n\nThe Marriage of Inconvenience.\n\nThe Judicious Separation.\n\nFooling Around.\n\nHiggledy-Piggledy.\n\nThe Diseases and Ordinary Causes of Mortality among Friendships.\n\nThe finding a lot of old photographs at Herculaneum or Thebes; and they\nshould turn out to be of no interest.\n\nOn the points of resemblance and difference between the dropping off of\nleaves from a tree and the dropping off of guests from a dinner or a\nconcert.\n\nThe Sense of Touch: An essay showing that all the senses resolve\nthemselves ultimately into a sense of touch, and that eating is touch\ncarried to the bitter end. So there is but one sense\u2014touch\u2014and the am\u0153ba\nhas it. When I look upon the foraminifera I look upon myself.\n\nThe China Shepherdess with Lamb on public-house chimney-pieces in England\nas against the Virgin with Child in Italy.\n\nFor a Medical pamphlet: Cant as a means of Prolonging Life.\n\nFor an Art book: The Complete Pot-boiler; or what to paint and how to\npaint it, with illustrations reproduced from contemporary exhibitions and\nexplanatory notes.\n\nFor a Picture: St. Francis preaching to Silenus. Fra Angelico and Rubens\nmight collaborate to produce this picture.\n\nThe Happy Mistress. Fifteen mistresses apply for three cooks and the\nmistress who thought herself nobody is chosen by the beautiful and\naccomplished cook.\n\nThe Complete Drunkard. He would not give money to sober people, he said\nthey would only eat it and send their children to school with it.\n\nThe Contented Porpoise. It knew it was to be stuffed and set up in a\nglass case after death, and looked forward to this as to a life of\nendless happiness.\n\nThe Flying Balance. The ghost of an old cashier haunts a ledger, so that\nthe books always refuse to balance by the sum of, say, \u00a31.15.11. No\nmatter how many accountants are called in, year after year the same error\nalways turns up; sometimes they think they have it right and it turns out\nthere was a mistake, so the old error reappears. At last a son and heir\nis born, and at some festivities the old cashier\u2019s name is mentioned with\nhonour. This lays his ghost. Next morning the books are found correct\nand remain so.\n\nA Dialogue between Isaac and Ishmael on the night that Isaac came down\nfrom the mountain with his father. The rebellious Ishmael tries to stir\nup Isaac, and that good young man explains the righteousness of the\ntransaction\u2014without much effect.\n\nBad Habits: on the dropping them gradually, as one leaves off requiring\nthem, on the evolution principle.\n\nA Story about a Freethinking Father who has an illegitimate son which he\nconsiders the proper thing; he finds this son taking to immoral ways,\ne.g. he turns Christian, becomes a clergyman and insists on marrying.\n\nFor a Ballad: Two sets of rooms in some alms-houses at Cobham near\nGravesend have an inscription stating that they belong to \u201cthe Hundred of\nHoo in the Isle of Grain.\u201d These words would make a lovely refrain for a\nballad.\n\nA story about a man who suffered from atrophy of the purse, or atrophy of\nthe opinions; but whatever the disease some plausible Latin, or\nimitation-Latin name must be found for it and also some cure.\n\nA Fairy Story modelled on the Ugly Duckling of Hans Andersen about a\nbumptious boy whom all the nice boys hated. He finds out that he was\nreally at last caressed by the Huxleys and Tyndalls as one of themselves.\n\nA Collection of the letters of people who have committed suicide; and\nalso of people who only threaten to do so. The first may be got\nabundantly from reports of coroners\u2019 inquests, the second would be harder\nto come by.\n\nThe Structure and Comparative Anatomy of Fads, Fancies and Theories;\nshowing, moreover, that men and women exist only as the organs and tools\nof the ideas that dominate them; it is the fad that is alone living.\n\nAn Astronomical Speculation: Each fixed star has a separate god whose\nbody is his own particular solar system, and these gods know each other,\nmove about among each other as we do, laugh at each other and criticise\none another\u2019s work. Write some of their discourses with and about one\nanother.\n\n\n\nImaginary Worlds\n\n\nA world exactly, to the minutest detail, a duplicate of our own, but as\nwe shall be five hundred, or from that to twenty thousand, years hence.\nLet there be also another world, a duplicate of what we were five hundred\nto twenty thousand years ago. There should be many worlds of each kind\nat different dates behind us and ahead of us.\n\nI send a visitor from a world ahead of us to a world behind us, after\nwhich he comes to us, and so we learn what happened in the Homeric age.\nMy visitor will not tell me what has happened in his own world since the\ntime corresponding to the present moment in our world, because the\nknowledge of the future would be not only fatal to ourselves but would\nupset the similarity between the two worlds, so they would be no longer\nable to refer to us for information on any point of history from the\nmoment of the introduction of the disturbing element.\n\nWhen they are in doubt about a point in their past history that we have\nnot yet reached they make preparation and forecast its occurrence in our\nworld as we foretell eclipses and transits of Venus, and all their most\naccomplished historians investigate it; but if the conditions for\nobservation have been unfavourable, or if they postpone consideration of\nthe point till the time of its happening here has gone by, then they must\nwait for many years till the same combination occurs in some other world.\nThus they say, \u201cThe next beheading of King Charles I will be in Ald. b.\nx. 231c/d\u201d\u2014or whatever the name of the star may be\u2014\u201con such and such a\nday of such and such a year, and there will not be another in the\nlifetime of any man now living,\u201d or there will, in such and such a star,\nas the case may be.\n\nCommunication with a world twenty thousand years ahead of us might ruin\nthe human race as effectually as if we had fallen into the sun. It would\nbe too wide a cross. The people in my supposed world know this and if,\nfor any reason, they want to kill a civilisation, stuff it and put it\ninto a museum, they tell it something that is too much ahead of its other\nideas, something that travels faster than thought, thus setting an\navalanche of new ideas tumbling in upon it and utterly destroying\neverything. Sometimes they merely introduce a little poisonous microbe\nof thought which the cells in the world where it is introduced do not\nknow how to deal with\u2014some such trifle as that two and two make seven, or\nthat you can weigh time in scales by the pound; a single such microbe of\nknowledge placed in the brain of a fitting subject would breed like wild\nfire and kill all that came in contact with it.\n\nAnd so on.\n\n\n\nAn Idyll\n\n\nI knew a South Italian of the old Greek blood whose sister told him when\nhe was a boy that he had eyes like a cow.\n\nRaging with despair and grief he haunted the fountains and looked into\nthe mirror of their waters. \u201cAre my eyes,\u201d he asked himself with horror,\n\u201care they really like the eyes of a cow?\u201d \u201cAlas!\u201d he was compelled to\nanswer, \u201cthey are only too sadly, sadly like them.\u201d\n\nAnd he asked those of his playmates whom he best knew and trusted whether\nit was indeed true that his eyes were like the eyes of a cow, but he got\nno comfort from any of them, for they one and all laughed at him and said\nthat they were not only like, but very like. Then grief consumed his\nsoul, and he could eat no food, till one day the loveliest girl in the\nplace said to him:\n\n\u201cGaetano, my grandmother is ill and cannot get her firewood; come with me\nto the bosco this evening and help me to bring her a load or two, will\nyou?\u201d\n\nAnd he said he would go.\n\nSo when the sun was well down and the cool night air was sauntering under\nthe chestnuts, the pair sat together cheek to cheek and with their arms\nround each other\u2019s waists.\n\n\u201cO Gaetano,\u201d she exclaimed, \u201cI do love you so very dearly. When you look\nat me your eyes are like\u2014they are like the eyes\u201d\u2014here she faltered a\nlittle\u2014\u201cthe eyes of a cow.\u201d\n\nThenceforward he cared not . . .\n\nAnd so on.\n\n\n\nA Divorce Novelette\n\n\nThe hero and heroine are engaged against their wishes. They like one\nanother very well but each is in love with some one else; nevertheless,\nunder an uncle\u2019s will, they forfeit large property unless they marry one\nanother, so they get married, making no secret to one another that they\ndislike it very much.\n\nOn the evening of their wedding day they broach the subject that has long\nbeen nearest to their hearts\u2014the possibility of being divorced. They\ndiscuss it tearfully, but the obstacles seem insuperable. Nevertheless\nthey agree that faint heart never yet got rid of fair lady, \u201cNone but the\nbrave,\u201d exclaims the husband, \u201cdeserve to lose the fair,\u201d and they plight\ntheir most solemn vows that they will henceforth live but for the object\nof getting divorced from one another.\n\nBut the course of true divorce never did run smooth, and the plot turns\nupon the difficulties that meet them and how they try to overcome them.\nAt one time they seem almost certain of success, but the cup is dashed\nfrom their lips and is farther off than ever.\n\nAt last an opportunity occurs in an unlooked-for manner. They are\ndivorced and live happily apart ever afterwards.\n\n\n\nThe Moral Painter\u2014A Tale of Double Personality\n\n\nOnce upon a time there was a painter who divided his life into two\nhalves; in the one half he painted pot-boilers for the market, setting\nevery consideration aside except that of doing for his master, the\npublic, something for which he could get paid the money on which he\nlived. He was great at floods and never looked at nature except in order\nto see what would make most show with least expense. On the whole he\nfound nothing so cheap to make and easy to sell as veiled heads.\n\nThe other half of his time he studied and painted with the sincerity of\nGiovanni Bellini, Rembrandt, Holbein or De Hooghe. He was then his own\nmaster and thought only of doing his work as well as he could, regardless\nof whether it would bring him anything but debt and abuse or not. He\ngave his best without receiving so much as thanks.\n\nHe avoided the temptation of telling either half about the other.\n\n\n\nTwo Writers\n\n\nOne left little or nothing about himself and the world complained that it\nwas puzzled. Another, mindful of this, left copious details about\nhimself, whereon the world said that it was even more puzzled about him\nthan about the man who had left nothing, till presently it found out that\nit was also bored, and troubled itself no more about either.\n\n\n\nThe Archbishop of Heligoland\n\n\nThe Archbishop of Heligoland believes his faith, and it makes him so\nunhappy that he finds it impossible to advise any one to accept it. He\nsummons the Devil, makes a compact with him and is relieved by being made\nto see that there was nothing in it\u2014whereon he is very good and happy and\nleads a most beneficent life, but is haunted by the thought that on his\ndeath the Devil will claim his bond. This terror grows greater and\ngreater, and he determines to see the Devil again.\n\nThe upshot of it all is that the Devil turns out to have been Christ who\nhas a dual life and appears sometimes as Christ and sometimes as the\nDevil. {235}\n\n\n\n\nXVI\nWritten Sketches\n\n\nLiterary Sketch-Books\n\n\nTHE true writer will stop everywhere and anywhere to put down his notes,\nas the true painter will stop everywhere and anywhere to sketch.\n\nI do not see why an author should not have a sale of literary sketches,\neach one short, slight and capable of being framed and glazed in small\ncompass. They would make excellent library decorations and ought to\nfetch as much as an artist\u2019s sketches. They might be cut up in suitable\nlots, if the fashion were once set, and many a man might be making\nprovision for his family at odd times with his notes as an artist does\nwith his sketches.\n\n\n\nLondon\n\n\nIf I were asked what part of London I was most identified with after\nClifford\u2019s Inn itself, I should say Fetter Lane\u2014every part of it. Just\nby the Record Office is one of the places where I am especially prone to\nget ideas; so also is the other end, about the butcher\u2019s shop near\nHolborn. The reason in both cases is the same, namely, that I have about\nhad time to settle down to reflection after leaving, on the one hand, my\nrooms in Clifford\u2019s Inn and, on the other, Jones\u2019s rooms in Barnard\u2019s Inn\nwhere I usually spend the evening. The subject which has occupied my\nmind during the day being approached anew after an interval and a shake,\nsome fresh idea in connection with it often strikes me. But long before\nI knew Jones, Fetter Lane was always a street which I was more in than\nperhaps any other in London. Leather Lane, the road through Lincoln\u2019s\nInn Fields to the Museum, the Embankment, Fleet Street, the Strand and\nCharing Cross come next.\n\n\n\nA Clifford\u2019s Inn Euphemism\n\n\nPeople when they want to get rid of their cats, and do not like killing\nthem, bring them to the garden of Clifford\u2019s Inn, drop them there and go\naway. In spite of all that is said about cats being able to find their\nway so wonderfully, they seldom do find it, and once in Clifford\u2019s Inn\nthe cat generally remains there. The technical word among the\nlaundresses in the inn for this is, \u201closing\u201d a cat:\n\n\u201cPoor thing, poor thing,\u201d said one old woman to me a few days ago, \u201cit\u2019s\ngot no fur on its head at all, and no doubt that\u2019s why the people she\nlived with lost her.\u201d\n\n\n\nLondon Trees\n\n\nThey are making a great outcry about the ventilators on the Thames\nEmbankment, just as they made a great outcry about the Griffin in Fleet\nStreet. [See _Alps and Sanctuaries_. Introduction.] They say the\nventilators have spoiled the Thames Embankment. They do not spoil it\nhalf so much as the statues do\u2014indeed, I do not see that they spoil it at\nall. The trees that are planted everywhere are, or will be, a more\nserious nuisance. Trees are all very well where there is plenty of room,\notherwise they are a mistake; they keep in the moisture, exclude light\nand air, and their roots disturb foundations; most of our London Squares\nwould look much better if the trees were thinned. I should like to cut\ndown all the plane trees in the garden of Clifford\u2019s Inn and leave only\nthe others.\n\n\n\nWhat I Said to the Milkman\n\n\nOne afternoon I heard a knock at the door and found it was the milkman.\nMrs. Doncaster [his laundress] was not there, so I took in the milk\nmyself. The milkman is a very nice man, and, by way of making himself\npleasant, said, rather complainingly, that the weather kept very dry.\n\nI looked at him significantly and said: \u201cAh, yes, of course for your\nbusiness you must find it very inconvenient,\u201d and laughed.\n\nHe saw he had been caught and laughed too. It was a very old joke, but\nhe had not expected it at that particular moment, and on the top of such\nan innocent remark.\n\n\n\nThe Return of the Jews to Palestine\n\n\nA man called on me last week and proposed gravely that I should write a\nbook upon an idea which had occurred to a friend of his, a Jew living in\nNew Bond Street. It was a plan requiring the co-operation of a brilliant\nwriter and that was why he had come to me. If only I would help, the\nreturn of the Jews to Palestine would be rendered certain and easy.\nThere was no trouble about the poor Jews, he knew how he could get them\nback at any time; the difficulty lay with the Rothschilds, the Oppenheims\nand such; with my assistance, however, the thing could be done.\n\nI am afraid I was rude enough to decline to go into the scheme on the\nground that I did not care twopence whether the Rothschilds and\nOppenheims went back to Palestine or not. This was felt to be an\nobstacle; but then he began to try and make me care, whereupon, of\ncourse, I had to get rid of him. [1883.]\n\n\n\nThe Great Bear\u2019s Barley-Water\n\n\nLast night Jones was walking down with me from Staple Inn to Clifford\u2019s\nInn, about 10 o\u2019clock, and we saw the Great Bear standing upright on the\ntip of his tail which was coming out of a chimney pot. Jones said it\nwanted attending to. I said:\n\n\u201cYes, but to attend to it properly we ought to sit up with it all night,\nand if the Great Bear thinks that I am going to sit by his bed-side and\ngive him a spoonful of barley-water every ten minutes, he will find\nhimself much mistaken.\u201d [1892.]\n\n\n\nThe Cock Tavern\n\n\nI went into Fleet Street one Sunday morning last November [1882] with my\ncamera lucida to see whether I should like to make a sketch of the gap\nmade by the demolition of the Cock Tavern. It was rather pretty, with an\nold roof or two behind and scaffolding about and torn paper hanging to an\nexposed party-wall and old fireplaces and so on, but it was not very much\nout of the way. Still I would have taken it if it had not been the Cock.\nI thought of all the trash that has been written about it and of\nTennyson\u2019s plump head waiter (who by the way used to swear that he did\nnot know Tennyson and that Tennyson never did resort to the Cock) and I\nsaid to myself:\n\n\u201cNo\u2014you may go. I will put out no hand to save you.\u201d\n\n\n\nMyself in Dowie\u2019s Shop\n\n\nI always buy ready-made boots and insist on taking those which the\nshopman says are much too large for me. By this means I keep free from\ncorns, but I have a great deal of trouble generally with the shopman. I\nhad got on a pair once which I thought would do, and the shopman said for\nthe third or fourth time:\n\n\u201cBut really, sir, these boots are much too large for you.\u201d I turned to\nhim and said rather sternly, \u201cNow, you made that remark before.\u201d\n\nThere was nothing in it, but all at once I became aware that I was being\nwatched, and, looking up, saw a middle-aged gentleman eyeing the whole\nproceedings with much amusement. He was quite polite but he was\nobviously exceedingly amused. I can hardly tell why, nor why I should\nput such a trifle down, but somehow or other an impression was made upon\nme by the affair quite out of proportion to that usually produced by so\nsmall a matter.\n\n\n\nMy Dentist\n\n\nMr. Forsyth had been stopping a tooth for me and then talked a little, as\nhe generally does, and asked me if I knew a certain distinguished\nliterary man, or rather journalist. I said No, and that I did not want\nto know him. The paper edited by the gentleman in question was not to my\ntaste. I was a literary Ishmael, and preferred to remain so. It was my\nr\u00f4le.\n\n\u201cIt seems to me,\u201d I continued, \u201cthat if a man will only be careful not to\nwrite about things that he does not understand, if he will use the\ntooth-pick freely and the spirit twice a day, and come to you again in\nOctober, he will get on very well without knowing any of the big-wigs.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe tooth-pick freely\u201d and \u201cthe spirit twice a day\u201d being tags of Mr.\nForsyth\u2019s, he laughed.\n\n\n\nFurber the Violin-Maker\n\n\nFrom what my cousin [Reginald E. Worsley] and Gogin both tell me I am\nsure that Furber is one of the best men we have. My cousin did not like\nto send Hyam to him for a violin: he did not think him worthy to have\none. Furber does not want you to buy a violin unless you can appreciate\nit when you have it. My cousin says of him:\n\n\u201cHe is generally a little tight on a Saturday afternoon. He always\nspeaks the truth, but on Saturday afternoons it comes pouring out more.\u201d\n\n\u201cHis joints [i.e. the joints of the violins he makes] are the closest and\nneatest that were ever made.\u201d\n\n\u201cHe always speaks of the corners of a fiddle; Haweis would call them the\npoints. Haweis calls it the neck of a fiddle. Furber always the\nhandle.\u201d\n\nMy cousin says he would like to take his violins to bed with him.\n\nSpeaking of Strad violins Furber said: \u201cRough, rough linings, but they\nlook as if they grew together.\u201d\n\nOne day my cousin called and Furber, on opening the door, before saying\n\u201cHow do you do?\u201d or any word of greeting, said very quietly:\n\n\u201cThe dog is dead.\u201d\n\nMy cousin, having said what he thought sufficient, took up a violin and\nplayed a few notes. Furber evidently did not like it. Rose, the dog,\nwas still unburied; she was laid out in that very room. My cousin\nstopped. Then Mrs. Furber came in.\n\nR. E. W. \u201cI am very sorry, Mrs. Furber, to hear about Rose.\u201d\n\nMrs. F. \u201cWell, yes sir. But I suppose it is all for the best.\u201d\n\nR. E. W. \u201cI am afraid you will miss her a great deal.\u201d\n\nMrs. F. \u201cNo doubt we shall, sir; but you see she is only gone a little\nwhile before us.\u201d\n\nR. E. W. \u201cOh, Mrs. Furber, I hope a good long while.\u201d\n\nMrs. F. (brightening). \u201cWell, yes sir, I don\u2019t want to go just yet,\nthough Mr. Furber does say it is a happy thing to die.\u201d\n\nMy cousin says that Furber hardly knows any one by their real name. He\nidentifies them by some nickname in connection with the fiddles they buy\nfrom him or get him to repair, or by some personal peculiarity.\n\n\u201cThere is one man,\u201d said my cousin, \u201cwhom he calls \u2018diaphragm\u2019 because he\nwanted a fiddle made with what he called a diaphragm in it. He knows\nDando and Carrodus and Jenny Lind, but hardly any one else.\u201d\n\n\u201cWho is Dando?\u201d said I.\n\n\u201cWhy, Dando? Not know Dando? He was George the Fourth\u2019s music master,\nand is now one of the oldest members of the profession.\u201d\n\n\n\nWindow Cleaning in the British Museum Reading-Room\n\n\nOnce a year or so the figures on the Assyrian bas-reliefs break adrift\nand may be seen, with their scaling ladders and all, cleaning the outside\nof the windows in the dome of the reading-room. It is very pretty to\nwatch them and they would photograph beautifully. If I live to see them\ndo it again I must certainly snapshot them. You can see them smoking and\nsparring, and this year they have left a little hole in the window above\nthe clock.\n\n\n\nThe Electric Light in its Infancy\n\n\nI heard a woman in a \u2019bus boring her lover about the electric light. She\nwanted to know this and that, and the poor lover was helpless. Then she\nsaid she wanted to know how it was regulated. At last she settled down\nby saying that she knew it was in its infancy. The word \u201cinfancy\u201d seemed\nto have a soothing effect upon her, for she said no more but, leaning her\nhead against her lover\u2019s shoulder, composed herself to slumber.\n\n\n\nFire\n\n\nI was at one the other night and heard a man say: \u201cThat corner stack is\nalight now quite nicely.\u201d People\u2019s sympathies seem generally to be with\nthe fire so long as no one is in danger of being burned.\n\n\n\nAdam and Eve\n\n\nA little boy and a little girl were looking at a picture of Adam and Eve.\n\n\u201cWhich is Adam and which is Eve?\u201d said one.\n\n\u201cI do not know,\u201d said the other, \u201cbut I could tell if they had their\nclothes on.\u201d\n\n\n\nDoes Mamma Know?\n\n\nA father was telling his eldest daughter, aged about six, that she had a\nlittle sister, and was explaining to her how nice it all was. The child\nsaid it was delightful and added:\n\n\u201cDoes Mamma know? Let\u2019s go and tell her.\u201d\n\n\n\nMr. Darwin in the Zoological Gardens\n\n\nFrank Darwin told me his father was once standing near the hippopotamus\ncage when a little boy and girl, aged four and five, came up. The\nhippopotamus shut his eyes for a minute.\n\n\u201cThat bird\u2019s dead,\u201d said the little girl; \u201ccome along.\u201d\n\n\n\nTerbourg\n\n\nGogin told me that Berg, an impulsive Swede whom he had known in\nLaurens\u2019s studio in Paris and who painted very well, came to London and\nwas taken by an artist friend [Henry Scott Tuke, A.R.A.] to the National\nGallery where he became very enthusiastic about the Terbourgs. They then\nwent for a walk and, in Kensington Gore, near one of the entrances to\nHyde Park or Kensington Gardens, there was an old Irish apple-woman\nsitting with her feet in a basket, smoking a pipe and selling oranges.\n\n\u201cArranges two a penny, sorr,\u201d said the old woman in a general way.\n\nAnd Berg, turning to her and throwing out his hands appealingly, said:\n\n\u201cO, madame, avez-vous vu les Terbourgs? Allez voir les Terbourgs.\u201d\n\nHe felt that such a big note had been left out of the life of any one who\nhad not seen them.\n\n\n\nAt Doctors\u2019 Commons\n\n\nA woman once stopped me at the entrance to Doctors\u2019 Commons and said:\n\n\u201cIf you please, sir, can you tell me\u2014is this the place that I came to\nbefore?\u201d\n\nNot knowing where she had been before I could not tell her.\n\n\n\nThe Sack of Khartoum\n\n\nAs I was getting out of a \u2019bus the conductor said to me in a confidential\ntone:\n\n\u201cI say, what does that mean? \u2018Sack of Khartoum\u2019? What does \u2018Sack of\nKhartoum\u2019 mean?\u201d\n\n\u201cIt means,\u201d said I, \u201cthat they\u2019ve taken Khartoum and played hell with it\nall round.\u201d\n\nHe understood that and thanked me, whereon we parted.\n\n\n\nMissolonghi\n\n\nBallard [a fellow art-student with Butler at Heatherley\u2019s] told me that\nan old governess, some twenty years since, was teaching some girls modern\ngeography. One of them did not know the name Missolonghi. The old lady\nwrung her hands:\n\n\u201cWhy, me dear,\u201d she exclaimed, \u201cwhen I was your age I could never hear\nthe name mentioned without bursting into tears.\u201d\n\nI should perhaps add that Byron died there.\n\n\n\nMemnon\n\n\nI saw the driver of the Hampstead \u2019bus once, near St. Giles\u2019s Church\u2014an\nold, fat, red-faced man sitting bolt upright on the top of his \u2019bus in a\ndriving storm of snow, fast asleep with a huge waterproof over his\ngreat-coat which descended with sweeping lines on to a tarpaulin. All\nthis rose out of a cloud of steam from the horses. He had a short clay\npipe in his mouth but, for the moment, he looked just like Memnon.\n\n\n\nManzi the Model\n\n\nThey had promised him sittings at the Royal Academy and then refused him\non the ground that his legs were too hairy. He complained to Gogin:\n\n\u201cWhy,\u201d said he, \u201cI sat at the Slade School for the figure only last week,\nand there were five ladies, but not one of them told me my legs were too\nhairy.\u201d\n\n\n\nA Sailor Boy and Some Chickens\n\n\nA pretty girl in the train had some chirping chickens about ten days\u2019 old\nin a box labelled \u201cGerman egg powders. One packet equal to six eggs.\u201d A\nsailor boy got in at Basingstoke, a quiet, reserved youth, well behaved\nand unusually good-looking. By and by the chickens were taken out of the\nbox and fed with biscuit on the carriage seat. This thawed the boy who,\nthough he fought against it for some lime, yielded to irresistible\nfascination and said:\n\n\u201cWhat are they?\u201d\n\n\u201cChickens,\u201d said the girl.\n\n\u201cWill they grow bigger?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes.\u201d\n\nThen the boy said with an expression of infinite wonder: \u201cAnd did you\nhatch them from they powders?\u201d\n\nWe all laughed till the boy blushed and I was very sorry for him. If we\nhad said they had been hatched from the powders he would have certainly\nbelieved us.\n\n\n\nGogin, the Japanese Gentleman and the Dead Dog\n\n\nGogin was one day going down Cleveland Street and saw an old, lean,\ncareworn man crying over the body of his dog which had been just run over\nand killed by the old man\u2019s own cart. I have no doubt it was the dog\u2019s\nfault, for the man was in great distress; as for the dog there it lay all\nswelled and livid where the wheel had gone over it, its eyes protruded\nfrom their sockets and its tongue lolled out, but it was dead. The old\nman gazed on it, helplessly weeping, for some time and then got a large\npiece of brown paper in which he wrapped up the body of his favourite; he\ntied it neatly with a piece of string and, placing it in his cart, went\nhomeward with a heavy heart. The day was dull, the gutters were full of\ncabbage stalks and the air resounded with the cry of costermongers.\n\nOn this a Japanese gentleman, who had watched the scene, lifted up his\nvoice and made the bystanders a set oration. He was very yellow, had\nlong black hair, gold spectacles and a top hat; he was a typical\nJapanese, but he spoke English perfectly. He said the scene they had all\njust witnessed was a very sad one and that it ought not to be passed over\nentirely without comment. He explained that it was very nice of the good\nold man to be so sorry about his dog and to be so careful of its remains\nand that he and all the bystanders must sympathise with him in his grief,\nand as the expression of their sympathy, both with the man and with the\npoor dog, he had thought fit, with all respect, to make them his present\nspeech.\n\nI have not the man\u2019s words but Gogin said they were like a Japanese\ndrawing, that is to say, wonderfully charming, and showing great\nknowledge but not done in the least after the manner in which a European\nwould do them. The bystanders stood open-mouthed and could make nothing\nof it, but they liked it, and the Japanese gentleman liked addressing\nthem. When he left off and went away they followed him with their eyes,\nspeechless.\n\n\n\nSt. Pancras\u2019 Bells\n\n\nGogin lives at 164 Euston Road, just opposite St. Pancras Church, and the\nbells play doleful hymn tunes opposite his window which worries him. My\nSt. Dunstan\u2019s bells near Clifford\u2019s Inn play doleful hymn tunes which\nenter in at my window; I not only do not dislike them, but rather like\nthem; they are so silly and the bells are out of tune. I never yet was\nannoyed by either bells or street music except when a loud piano organ\nstrikes up outside the public-house opposite my bedroom window after I am\nin bed and when I am just going to sleep. However, Jones was at Gogin\u2019s\none summer evening and the bells struck up their dingy old burden as\nusual. The tonic bell on which the tune concluded was the most stuffy\nand out of tune. Gogin said it was like the smell of a bug.\n\n\n\nAt Eynsford\n\n\nI saw a man painting there the other day but passed his work without\nlooking at it and sat down to sketch some hundred of yards off. In\ncourse of time he came strolling round to see what I was doing and I, not\nknowing but what he might paint much better than I, was apologetic and\nsaid I was not a painter by profession.\n\n\u201cWhat are you?\u201d said he.\n\nI said I was a writer.\n\n\u201cDear me,\u201d said he. \u201cWhy that\u2019s my line\u2014I\u2019m a writer.\u201d\n\nI laughed and said I hoped he made it pay better than I did. He said it\npaid very well and asked me where I lived and in what neighbourhood my\nconnection lay. I said I had no connection but only wrote books.\n\n\u201cOh! I see. You mean you are an author. I\u2019m not an author; I didn\u2019t\nmean that. I paint people\u2019s names up over their shops, and that\u2019s what\nwe call being a writer. There isn\u2019t a touch on my work as good as any\ntouch on yours.\u201d\n\nI was gratified by so much modesty and, on my way back to dinner, called\nto see his work. I am afraid that he was not far wrong\u2014it was awful.\n\n_Omne ignotum pro magnifico_ holds with painters perhaps more than\nelsewhere; we never see a man sketching, or even carrying a paint-box,\nwithout rushing to the conclusion that he can paint very well. There is\nno cheaper way of getting a reputation than that of going about with\neasel, paint-box, etc., provided one can ensure one\u2019s work not being\nseen. And the more traps one carries the cleverer people think one.\n\n\n\nMrs. Hicks\n\n\nShe and her husband, an old army sergeant who was all through the Indian\nMutiny, are two very remarkable people; they keep a public-house where we\noften get our beer when out for our Sunday walk. She owns to\nsixty-seven, I should think she was a full seventy-five, and her husband,\nsay, sixty-five. She is a tall, raw-boned Gothic woman with a strong\nfamily likeness to the crooked old crusader who lies in the church\ntransept, and one would expect to find her body scrawled over with dates\nranging from 400 years ago to the present time, just as the marble figure\nitself is. She has a great beard and moustaches and three projecting\nteeth in her lower jaw but no more in any part of her mouth. She moves\nslowly and is always a little in liquor besides being singularly dirty in\nher person. Her husband is like unto her.\n\nFor all this they are hard-working industrious people, keep no servant,\npay cash for everything, are clearly going up rather than down in the\nworld and live well. She always shows us what she is going to have for\ndinner and it is excellent\u2014\u201cAnd I made the stuffing over night and the\ngravy first thing this morning.\u201d Each time we go we find the house a\nlittle more done up. She dotes on Mr. Hicks\u2014we never go there without\nher wedding day being referred to. She has earned her own living ever\nsince she was ten years old, and lived twenty-nine and a half years in\nthe house from which Mr. Hicks married her. \u201cI am as happy,\u201d she said,\n\u201cas the day is long.\u201d She dearly loves a joke and a little flirtation.\nI always say something perhaps a little impudently broad to her and she\nlikes it extremely. Last time she sailed smilingly out of the room,\ndoubtless to tell Mr. Hicks, and came back still smiling.\n\nWhen we come we find her as though she had lien among the pots, but as\nsoon as she has given us our beer, she goes upstairs and puts on a cap\nand a clean apron and washes her face\u2014that is to say, she washes a round\npiece in the middle of her face, leaving a great glory of dirt showing\nall round it. It is plain the pair are respected by the manner in which\nall who come in treat them.\n\nLast time we were there she said she hoped she should not die yet.\n\n\u201cYou see,\u201d she said, \u201cI am beginning now to know how to live.\u201d\n\nThese were her own words and, considering the circumstances under which\nthey were spoken, they are enough to stamp the speaker as a remarkable\nwoman. She has got as much from age and lost as little from youth as\nwoman can well do. Nevertheless, to look at, she is like one of the\nwitches in _Macbeth_.\n\n\n\nNew-Laid Eggs\n\n\nWhen I take my Sunday walks in the country, I try to buy a few really\nnew-laid eggs warm from the nest. At this time of the year (January)\nthey are very hard to come by, and I have long since invented a sick wife\nwho has implored me to get her a few eggs laid not earlier than the\nself-same morning. Of late, as I am getting older, it has become my\ndaughter who has just had a little baby. This will generally draw a\nnew-laid egg, if there is one about the place at all.\n\nAt Harrow Weald it has always been my wife who for years has been a great\nsufferer and finds a really new-laid egg the one thing she can digest in\nthe way of solid food. So I turned her on as movingly as I could not\nlong since, and was at last sold some eggs that were no better than\ncommon shop eggs, if so good. Next time I went I said my poor wife had\nbeen made seriously ill by them; it was no good trying to deceive her;\nshe could tell a new-laid egg from a bad one as well as any woman in\nLondon, and she had such a high temper that it was very unpleasant for me\nwhen she found herself disappointed.\n\n\u201cAh! sir,\u201d said the landlady, \u201cbut you would not like to lose her.\u201d\n\n\u201cMa\u2019am,\u201d I replied, \u201cI must not allow my thoughts to wander in that\ndirection. But it\u2019s no use bringing her stale eggs, anyhow.\u201d\n\n\n\n\u201cThe Egg that Hen Belonged to\u201d\n\n\nI got some new-laid eggs a few Sundays ago. The landlady said they were\nher own, and talked about them a good deal.\n\nShe pointed to one of them and said:\n\n\u201cNow, would you believe it? The egg that hen belonged to laid 53 hens\nrunning and never stopped.\u201d\n\nShe called the egg a hen and the hen an egg. One would have thought she\nhad been reading _Life and Habit_ [p. 134 and passim].\n\n\n\nAt Englefield Green\n\n\nAs an example of how anything can be made out of anything or done with\nanything by those who want to do it (as I said in _Life and Habit_ that a\nbullock can take an eyelash out of its eye with its hind-foot\u2014which I saw\none of my bullocks in New Zealand do), at the Barley Mow, Englefield\nGreen, they have a picture of a horse and dog talking to one another,\nmade entirely of butterflies\u2019 wings, and very well and spiritedly done\ntoo.\n\nThey have another picture, done in the same way, of a greyhound running\nafter a hare, also good but not so good.\n\n\n\nAt Abbey Wood\n\n\nI heard a man say to another: \u201cI went to live there just about the time\nthat beer came down from 5d. to 4d. a pot. That will give you an idea\nwhen it was.\u201d\n\n\n\nAt Ightham Mote\n\n\nWe took Ightham on one of our Sunday walks about a fortnight ago, and\nJones and I wanted to go inside over the house.\n\nMy cousin said, \u201cYou\u2019d much better not, it will only unsettle your\nhistory.\u201d\n\nWe felt, however, that we had so little history to unsettle that we left\nhim outside and went in.\n\n\n\nDr. Mandell Creighton and Mr. W. S. Rockstro\n\n\n\u201c_The Bishop had been reading Mr. Samuel Butler\u2019s enchanting book_ Alps\nand Sanctuaries _and determined to visit some of the places there\ndescribed_. _We divided our time between the Italian lakes and the lower\nslopes of the Alps and explored many mountain sanctuaries_ . . . _As a\nresult of this journey the Bishop got to know Mr. S. Butler_. _He wrote\nto tell him the pleasure his books had given us and asked him to visit\nus_. _After this he came frequently and the Bishop was much attracted by\nhis original mind and stores of out-of-the-way knowledge_.\u201d (The Life\nand Letters of Dr. Mandell Creighton _by his Wife_, _Vol. II_, _p._ 83.)\n\nThe first time that Dr. Creighton asked me to come down to Peterborough\nin 1894 before he became Bishop of London, I was a little doubtful\nwhether to go or not. As usual, I consulted my good clerk, Alfred, who\nsaid:\n\n\u201cLet me have a look at his letter, sir.\u201d I gave him the letter, and he\nsaid:\n\n\u201cI see, sir, there is a crumb of tobacco in it; I think you may go.\u201d\n\nI went and enjoyed myself very much. I should like to add that there are\nvery few men who have ever impressed me so profoundly and so favourably\nas Dr. Creighton. I have often seen him since, both at Peterborough and\nat Fulham, and like and admire him most cordially. {251}\n\nI paid my first visit to Peterborough at a time when that learned\nmusician and incomparable teacher, Mr. W. S. Rockstro, was giving me\nlessons in medieval counterpoint; so I particularly noticed the music at\ndivine service. The hymns were very silly, and of the usual\nGounod-Barnby character. Their numbers were posted up in a frame and I\nsaw there were to be five, so I called the first Farringdon Street, the\nsecond King\u2019s Cross, the third Gower Street, the fourth Portland Road,\nand the fifth Baker Street, those being stations on my way to\nRickmansworth, where I frequently go for a walk in the country.\n\nIn his private chapel at night the bishop began his verse of the psalms\nalways well before we had done the response to the preceding verse. It\nreminded me of what Rockstro had said a few weeks earlier to the effect\nthat a point of imitation was always more effective if introduced before\nthe other voices had finished. I told Rockstro about it and said that\nthe bishop\u2019s instinct had guided him correctly\u2014certainly I found his\nmethod more satisfactory than if he had waited till we had finished.\nRockstro smiled, and knowing that I was at the time forbidden to work,\nsaid:\n\n\u201cSatan finds some mischief still for idle brains to do.\u201d\n\nTalking of Rockstro, he scolded me once and said he wondered how I could\nhave done such a thing as to call Handel \u201cone of the greatest of all\nmusicians,\u201d referring to the great chords in _Erewhon_. I said that if\nhe would look again at the passage he would find I had said not that\nHandel was \u201cone of the greatest\u201d but that he was \u201cthe greatest of all\nmusicians,\u201d on which he apologised.\n\n\n\nPigs\n\n\nWe often walk from Rickmansworth across Moor Park to Pinner. On getting\nout of Moor Park there is a public-house just to the left where we\ngenerally have some shandy-gaff and buy some eggs. The landlord had a\nnoble sow which I photographed for him; some months afterwards I asked\nhow the sow was. She had been sold. The landlord knew she ought to be\nkilled and made into bacon, but he had been intimate with her for three\nyears and some one else must eat her, not he.\n\n\u201cAnd what,\u201d said I, \u201cbecame of her daughter?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, we killed her and ate her. You see we had only known her eighteen\nmonths.\u201d\n\nI wonder how he settled the exact line beyond which intimacy with a pig\nmust not go if the pig is to be eaten.\n\n\n\nMozart\n\n\nAn old Scotchman at Boulogne was holding forth on the beauties of Mozart,\nwhich he exemplified by singing thus:\n\n [Picture: Music score:Dehvieni alla fenestra]\n\nI maliciously assented, but said it was strange how strongly that air\nalways reminded me of \u201cVoi che sapete.\u201d\n\n\n\nDivorce\n\n\nThere was a man in the hotel at Harwich with an ugly disagreeable woman\nwho I supposed was his wife. I did not care about him, but he began to\nmake up to me in the smoking-room.\n\n\u201cThis divorce case,\u201d said he, referring to one that was being reported in\nthe papers, \u201cdoesn\u2019t seem to move very fast.\u201d\n\nI put on my sweetest smile and said: \u201cI have not observed it. I am not\nmarried myself, and naturally take less interest in divorce.\u201d\n\nHe dropped me.\n\n\n\nRavens\n\n\nMr. Latham, the Master of Jones\u2019s College, Trinity Hall, Cambridge, has\ntwo ravens named Agrippa and Agrippina. Mr. Latham throws Agrippa a\npiece of cheese; Agrippa takes it, hides it carefully and then goes away\ncontented; but Agrippina has had her eye upon him and immediately goes\nand steals it, hiding it somewhere else; Agrippa, however, has always one\neye upon Agrippina and no sooner is her back turned than he steals it and\nburies it anew; then it becomes Agrippina\u2019s turn, and thus they pass the\ntime, making believe that they want the cheese though neither of them\nreally wants it. One day Agrippa had a small fight with a spaniel and\ngot rather the worst of it. He immediately flew at Agrippina and gave\nher a beating. Jones said he could almost hear him say, \u201cIt\u2019s all your\nfault.\u201d\n\n\n\nCalais to Dover\n\n\nWhen I got on board the steamer at Calais I saw Lewis Day, who writes\nbooks about decoration, and began to talk with him. Also I saw A. B.,\nEditor of the _X.Y.Z. Review_. I met him some years ago at Phipson\nBeale\u2019s, but we do not speak. Recently I wanted him to let me write an\narticle in his review and he would not, so I was spiteful and, when I saw\nhim come on board, said to Day:\n\n\u201cI see we are to have the Editor of the _X.Y.Z._ on board.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d said Day.\n\n\u201cHe\u2019s an owl,\u201d said I sententiously.\n\n\u201cI wonder,\u201d said Day, \u201chow he got the editorship of his review?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh,\u201d said I, \u201cI suppose he married some one.\u201d\n\nOn this the conversation dropped, and we parted. Later on we met again\nand Day said:\n\n\u201cDo you know who that lady was\u2014the one standing at your elbow when we\nwere talking just now?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d said I.\n\n\u201cThat,\u201d he replied, \u201cwas Mrs. A. B.\u201d\n\nAnd it was so.\n\n\n\nSnapshotting a Bishop\n\n\nI must some day write about how I hunted the late Bishop of Carlisle with\nmy camera, hoping to shoot him when he was sea-sick crossing from Calais\nto Dover, and how St. Somebody protected him and said I might shoot him\nwhen he was well, but not when he was sea-sick. I should like to do it\nin the manner of the _Odyssey_:\n\n. . . And the steward went round and laid them all on the sofas and\nbenches and he set a beautiful basin by each, variegated and adorned with\nflowers, but it contained no water for washing the hands, and Neptune\nsent great waves that washed over the eyelet-holes of the cabin. But\nwhen it was now the middle of the passage and a great roaring arose as of\nbeasts in the Zoological Gardens, and they promised hecatombs to Neptune\nif he would still the raging of the waves . . .\n\nAt any rate I shot him and have him in my snap-shot book, but he was not\nsea-sick. [1892.]\n\n\n\nHomer and the Basins\n\n\nWhen I returned from Calais last December, after spending Christmas at\nBoulogne according to my custom, the sea was rough as I crossed to Dover\nand, having a cold upon me, I went down into the second-class cabin,\ncleared the railway books off one of the tables, spread out my papers and\ncontinued my translation, or rather analysis, of the _Iliad_. Several\npeople of all ages and sexes were on the sofas and they soon began to be\nsea-sick. There was no steward, so I got them each a basin and placed it\nfor them as well as I could; then I sat down again at my table in the\nmiddle and went on with my translation while they were sick all round me.\nI had to get the _Iliad_ well into my head before I began my lecture on\n_The Humour of Homer_ and I could not afford to throw away a couple of\nhours, but I doubt whether Homer was ever before translated under such\ncircumstances. [1892.]\n\n\n\nThe Channel Passage\n\n\nHow holy people look when they are sea-sick! There was a patient Parsee\nnear me who seemed purified once and for ever from all taint of the\nflesh. Buddha was a low, worldly minded, music-hall comic singer in\ncomparison. He sat like this for a long time until . . . and he made a\nnoise like cows coming home to be milked on an April evening.\n\n\n\nThe Two Barristers at Ypres\n\n\nWhen Gogin and I were taking our Easter holiday this year we went, among\nother places, to Ypres. We put up at the H\u00f4tel T\u00eate d\u2019Or and found it\nexquisitely clean, comfortable and cheap, with a charming old-world,\nlast-century feeling. It was Good Friday, and we were to dine _maigre_;\nthis was so clearly _de rigueur_ that we did not venture even the\nfeeblest protest.\n\nWhen we came down to dinner we were told that there were two other\ngentlemen, also English, who were to dine with us, and in due course they\nappeared\u2014the one a man verging towards fifty-eight, a kind of cross\nbetween Cardinal Manning and the late Mr. John Parry, the other some ten\nyears younger, amiable-looking and, I should say, not so shining a light\nin his own sphere as his companion. These two sat on one side of the\ntable and we opposite them. There was an air about them both which said:\n\u201cYou are not to try to get into conversation with us; we shall not let\nyou if you do; we dare say you are very good sort of people, but we have\nnothing in common; so long as you keep quiet we will not hurt you; but if\nyou so much as ask us to pass the melted butter we will shoot you.\u201d We\nsaw this and so, during the first two courses, talked _sotto voce_ to one\nanother, and made no attempt to open up communications.\n\nWith the third course, however, there was a new arrival in the person of\na portly gentleman of about fifty-five, or from that to sixty, who was\ntold to sit at the head of the table, and accordingly did so. This\ngentleman had a decided manner and carried quite as many guns as the two\nbarristers (for barristers they were) who sat opposite to us. He had\nrather a red nose, he dined _maigre_ because he had to, but he did not\nlike it. I do not think he dined _maigre_ often. He had something of\nthe air of a half, if not wholly, broken-down blackguard of a gambler who\nhad seen much but had moved in good society and been accustomed to have\nthings more or less his own way.\n\nThis gentleman, who before he went gave us his card, immediately opened\nup conversation both with us and with our neighbours, addressing his\nremarks alternately and impartially to each. He said he was an Italian\nwho had the profoundest admiration for England. I said at once\u2014\n\n\u201cLei non pu\u00f2 amare l\u2019Inghilterra pi\u00f9 che io amo ed ammiro l\u2019Italia.\u201d\n\nThe Manning-Parry barrister looked up with an air of slightly offended\nsurprise. Conversation was from this point carried on between both\nparties through the Italian who acted, as Gogin said afterwards, like one\nof those stones in times of plague on which people from the country put\ntheir butter and eggs and people from the town their money.\n\nBy and by dealings became more direct between us and at last, I know not\nhow, I found myself in full discussion with the elder barrister as to\nwhether Jean Van Eyck\u2019s picture in the National Gallery commonly called\n\u201cPortrait of John Arnolfini and his Wife\u201d should not properly be held to\nbe a portrait of Van Eyck himself (which, by the way, I suppose there is\nno doubt that it should not, though I have never gone into the evidence\nfor the present inscription). Then they spoke of the tricks of light\npractised by De Hooghe; so we rebelled, and said De Hooghe had no\ntricks\u2014no one less\u2014and that what they called trick was only observation\nand direct rendering of nature. Then they applauded Tintoretto, and so\ndid we, but still as men who were bowing the knee to Baal. We put in a\nword for Gaudenzio Ferrari, but they had never heard of him. Then they\nplayed Raffaelle as a safe card and we said he was a master of line and a\nfacile decorator, but nothing more.\n\nOn this all the fat was in the fire, for they had invested in Raffaelle\nas believing him to be the Three per Cents of artistic securities. Did I\nnot like the \u201cMadonna di S. Sisto\u201d? I said, \u201cNo.\u201d I said the large\nphoto looked well at a distance because the work was so concealed under a\ndark and sloppy glaze that any one might see into it pretty much what one\nchose to bring, while the small photo looked well because it had gained\nso greatly by reduction. I said the Child was all very well as a child\nbut a failure as a Christ, as all infant Christs must be to the end of\ntime. I said the Pope and female saint, whoever she was, were\ncommonplace, as also the angels at the bottom. I admitted the beauty of\nline in the Virgin\u2019s drapery and also that the work was an effective\npiece of decoration, but I said it was not inspired by devotional or\nserious feeling of any kind and for impressiveness could not hold its own\nwith even a very average Madonna by Giovanni Bellini. They appealed to\nthe Italian, but he said there was a great reaction against Raffaelle in\nItaly now and that few of the younger men thought of him as their fathers\nhad done. Gogin, of course, backed me up, so they were in a minority.\nIt was not at all what they expected or were accustomed to. I yielded\nwherever I could and never differed without giving a reason which they\ncould understand. They must have seen that there was no malice prepense,\nbut it always came round to this in the end that we did not agree with\nthem.\n\nThen they played Leonardo Da Vinci. I had not intended saying how\ncordially I dislike him, but presently they became enthusiastic about the\nhead of the Virgin in the \u201cVierge aux Rochers\u201d in our Gallery. I said\nLeonardo had not succeeded with this head; he had succeeded with the\nangel\u2019s head lower down to the right (I think) of the picture, but had\nfailed with the Madonna. They did not like my talking about Leonardo Da\nVinci as now succeeding and now failing, just like other people. I said\nit was perhaps fortunate that we knew the \u201cLast Supper\u201d only by\nengravings and might fancy the original to have been more full of\nindividuality than the engravings are, and I greatly questioned whether I\nshould have liked the work if I had seen it as it was when Leonardo left\nit. As for his caricatures he should not have done them, much less\npreserved them; the fact of his having set store by them was enough to\nshow that there was a screw loose about him somewhere and that he had no\nsense of humour. Still, I admitted that I liked him better than I did\nMichael Angelo.\n\nWhatever we touched upon the same fatality attended us. Fortunately\nneither evolution nor politics came under discussion, nor yet, happily,\nmusic, or they would have praised Beethoven and very likely Mendelssohn\ntoo. They did begin to run Nuremberg and it was on the tip of my tongue\nto say, \u201cYes, but there\u2019s the flavour of _Faust_ and Goethe\u201d; however, I\ndid not. In course of time the s\u00e9ance ended, though not till nearly ten\no\u2019clock, and we all went to bed.\n\nNext morning we saw them at breakfast and they were quite tame. As Gogin\nsaid afterwards:\n\n\u201cThey came and sat on our fingers and ate crumbs out of our hands.\u201d\n[1887.]\n\n\n\nAt Montreuil-sur-Mer\n\n\nJones and I lunched at the H\u00f4tel de France where we found everything very\ngood. As we were going out, the landlady, getting on towards eighty,\nwith a bookish nose, pale blue eyes and a Giovanni Bellini\u2019s Loredano\nLoredani kind of expression, came up to us and said, in sweetly\napologetic accents:\u2014\n\n\u201cAvez-vous donc d\u00e9jeun\u00e9 \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s selon vos id\u00e9es, Messieurs?\u201d\n\nIt would have been too much for her to suppose that she had been able to\ngive us a repast that had fully realised our ideals, still she hoped that\nthese had been, at any rate, adumbrated in the luncheon she had provided.\nDear old thing: of course they had and a great deal more than adumbrated.\n[26 December, 1901.]\n\n\n\n\nXVII\nMaterial for a Projected Sequel to _Alps and Sanctuaries_\n\n\nMrs. Dowe on Alps and Sanctuaries\n\n\nAFTER reading _Alps and Sanctuaries_ Mrs. Dowe said to Ballard: \u201cYou seem\nto hear him talking to you all the time you are reading.\u201d\n\nI don\u2019t think I ever heard a criticism of my books which pleased me\nbetter, especially as Mrs. Dowe is one of the women I have always liked.\n\n\n\nNot to be Omitted\n\n\nI must get in about the people one meets. The man who did not like\nparrots because they were too intelligent. And the man who told me that\nHandel\u2019s _Messiah_ was \u201ctr\u00e8s chic,\u201d and the smell of the cyclamens\n\u201cstupendous.\u201d And the man who said it was hard to think the world was\nnot more than 6000 years old, and we encouraged him by telling him we\nthought it must be even more than 7000. And the English lady who said of\nsome one that \u201cbeing an artist, you know, of course he had a great deal\nof poetical feeling.\u201d And the man who was sketching and said he had a\nvery good eye for colour in the light, but would I be good enough to tell\nhim what colour was best for the shadows.\n\n\u201cAn amateur,\u201d he said, \u201cmight do very decent things in water-colour, but\noils require genius.\u201d\n\nSo I said: \u201cWhat is genius?\u201d\n\n\u201cMillet\u2019s picture of the _Angelus_ sold for 700,000 francs. Now that,\u201d\nhe said, \u201cis genius.\u201d\n\nAfter which I was very civil to him.\n\nAt Bellinzona a man told me that one of the two towers was built by the\nVisconti and the other by Julius C\u00e6sar, a hundred years earlier. So,\npoor old Mrs. Barratt at Langar could conceive no longer time than a\nhundred years. The Trojan war did not last ten years, but ten years was\nas big a lie as Homer knew.\n\nWe went over the Albula Pass to St. Moritz in two diligences and could\nnot settle which was tonic and which was dominant; but the carriage\nbehind us was the relative minor.\n\nThere was a picture in the dining-room but we could not get near enough\nto see it; we thought it must be either Christ disputing with the Doctors\nor Louis XVI saying farewell to his family\u2014or something of that sort.\n\n\n\nThe Sacro Monte at Varese\n\n\nThe Sacro Monte is a kind of ecclesiastical Rosherville Gardens,\neminently the place to spend a happy day.\n\nThe processions were best at the last part of the ascent; there were\npilgrims, all decked out with coloured feathers, and priests and banners\nand music and crimson and gold and white and glittering brass against the\ncloudless blue sky. The old priest sat at his open window to receive the\nofferings of the devout as they passed, but he did not seem to get more\nthan a few bambini modelled in wax. Perhaps he was used to it. And the\nband played the barocco music on the barocco little piazza and we were\nall barocco together. It was as though the clergymen at Ladywell had\ngiven out that, instead of having service as usual, the congregation\nwould go in procession to the Crystal Palace with all their traps, and\nthat the band had been practising \u201cWait till the clouds roll by\u201d for some\ntime, and on Sunday, as a great treat, they should have it.\n\nThe Pope has issued an order saying he will not have masses written like\noperas. It is no use. The Pope can do much, but he will not be able to\nget contrapuntal music into Varese. He will not be able to get anything\nmore solemn than _La Fille de Madame Angot_ into Varese. As for fugues\u2014!\nI would as soon take an English bishop to the Surrey pantomime as to the\nSacro Monte on a festa.\n\nThen the pilgrims went into the shadow of a great rock behind the\nsanctuary, spread themselves out over the grass and dined.\n\n\n\nThe Albergo Grotta Crimea\n\n\nThe entrance to this hotel at Chiavenna is through a covered court-yard;\nsteps lead up to the roof of the court-yard, which is a terrace where one\ndines in fine weather. A great tree grows in the court-yard below, its\ntrunk pierces the floor of the terrace, and its branches shade the\nopen-air dining-room. The walls of the house are painted in fresco, with\na check pattern like the late Lord Brougham\u2019s trousers, and there are\nalso pictures. One represents Mendelssohn. He is not called\nMendelssohn, but I knew him by his legs. He is in the costume of a dandy\nof some five-and-forty years ago, is smoking a cigar and appears to be\nmaking an offer of marriage to his cook. {261} Down below is a fresco of\na man sitting on a barrel with a glass in his hand. A more absolutely\nworldly minded, uncultured individual it would be impossible to conceive.\nWhen I saw these frescoes I knew I should get along all right and not be\nover-charged.\n\n\n\nPublic Opinion\n\n\nThe public buys its opinions as it buys its meat, or takes in its milk,\non the principle that it is cheaper to do this than to keep a cow. So it\nis, but the milk is more likely to be watered.\n\n\n\nThese Notes\n\n\nI make them under the impression that I may use them in my books, but I\nnever do unless I happen to remember them at the right time. When I\nwrote \u201cRamblings in Cheapside\u201d [in the _Universal Review_, reprinted in\n_Essays on Life_, _Art and Science_] the preceding note about Public\nOpinion would have come in admirably; it was in my pocket, in my little\nblack note-book, but I forgot all about it till I came to post my\npocket-book into my note-book.\n\n\n\nThe Wife of Bath\n\n\nThere are Canterbury Pilgrims every Sunday in summer who start from close\nto the old Tabard, only they go by the South-Eastern Railway and come\nback the same day for five shillings. And, what is more, they are just\nthe same sort of people. If they do not go to Canterbury they go by the\n_Clacton Belle_ to Clacton-on-Sea. There is not a Sunday the whole\nsummer through but you may find all Chaucer\u2019s pilgrims, man and woman for\nman and woman, on board the _Lord of the Isles_ or the _Clacton Belle_.\nWhy, I have seen the Wife of Bath on the _Lord of the Isles_ myself. She\nwas eating her luncheon off an _Ally Sloper\u2019s Half-Holiday_, which was\nspread out upon her knees. Whether it was I who had had too much beer or\nshe I cannot tell, God knoweth; and whether or no I was caught up into\nParadise, again I cannot tell; but I certainly did hear unspeakable words\nwhich it is not lawful for a man to utter, and that not above fourteen\nyears ago but the very last Sunday that ever was. The Wife of Bath heard\nthem too, but she never turned a hair. Luckily I had my detective camera\nwith me, so I snapped her there and then. She put her hand up to her\nmouth at that very moment and rather spoiled herself, but not much.\n[1891.]\n\n\n\nHorace at the Post-Office in Rome\n\n\nWhen I was in Rome last summer whom should I meet but Horace.\n\nI did not know him at first, and told him enquiringly that the\npost-office was in the Piazza Venezia?\n\nHe smiled benignly, shrugged his shoulders, said \u201cPrego\u201d and pointed to\nthe post-office itself, which was over the way and, of course, in the\nPiazza S. Silvestro.\n\nThen I knew him. I believe he went straight home and wrote an epistle to\nMec\u00e6nas, or whatever the man\u2019s name was, asking how it comes about that\npeople who travel hundreds of miles to see things can never see what is\nall the time under their noses. In fact, I saw him take out his\nnote-book and begin making notes at once. He need not talk. He was not\na good man of business and I do not believe his books sold much better\nthan my own. But this does not matter to him now, for he has not the\nfaintest idea that he ever wrote any of them and, more likely than not,\nhas never even refreshed his memory by reading them.\n\n\n\nBeethoven at Faido and at Boulogne\n\n\nI have twice seen people so unmistakably like Beethoven (just as Madame\nPatey is unmistakably like Handel and only wants dressing in costume to\nbe the image of him not in features only but in figure and air and\nmanner) that I always think of them as Beethoven.\n\nOnce, at Faido in the Val Leventina, in 1876 or 1877, when the engineers\nwere there surveying for the tunnel, there was among them a rather\nfine-looking young German with wild, ginger hair that rang out to the\nwild sky like the bells in _In Memoriam_, and a strong Edmund Gurney cut,\n{263} who played Wagner and was great upon the overture to _Lohengrin_;\nas for Handel\u2014he was not worth consideration, etc. Well, this young man\nrather took a fancy to me and I did not dislike him, but one day, to\ntease him, I told him that a little insignificant-looking engineer, the\nmost commonplace mortal imaginable, who was sitting at the head of the\ntable, was like Beethoven. He was very like him indeed, and M\u00fcller saw\nit, smiled and flushed at the same time. He was short, getting on in\nyears and was a little thick, though not fat. A few days afterwards he\nwent away and M\u00fcller and I happened to meet his box\u2014an enormous cube of a\ntrunk\u2014coming down the stairs.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s Beethoven\u2019s box,\u201d said M\u00fcller to me.\n\n\u201cOh,\u201d I said, and, looking at it curiously for a moment, asked gravely,\n\u201cAnd is he inside it?\u201d It seemed to fit him and to correspond so\nperfectly with him in every way that one felt as though if he were not\ninside it he ought to be.\n\nThe second time was at Boulogne this spring. There were three Germans at\nthe H\u00f4tel de Paris who sat together, went in and out together, smoked\ntogether and did everything as though they were a unity in trinity and a\ntrinity in unity. We settled that they must be the Heckmann Quartet,\nminus Heckmann: we had not the smallest reason for thinking this but we\nsettled it at once. The middle one of these was like Beethoven also. On\nEaster Sunday, after dinner, when he was a little\u2014well, it was after\ndinner and his hair went rather mad\u2014Jones said to me:\n\n\u201cDo you see that Beethoven has got into the posthumous quartet stage?\u201d\n[1885.]\n\n\n\nSilvio\n\n\n_In the autumn of_ 1884, _Butler spent some time at Promontogno and\nSoglio in the Val Bregaglia_, _sketching and making notes_. _Among the\nchildren of the Italian families in the albergo was Silvio_, _a boy of\nten or twelve_. _He knew a little English and was very fond of poetry_.\n_He could repeat_, \u201c_How doth the little buzzy bee_.\u201d _The poem which\npleased him best_, _however_, _was_:\n\n _Hey diddle diddle_,\n _The Cat and the Fiddle_,\n _The Cow jumped over the Moon_.\n\n_They had nothing_, _he said_, _in Italian literature so good as this_.\n_Silvio used to talk to Butler while he was sketching_.\n\n\u201cAnd you shall read Longfellow much in England?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d I replied, \u201cI don\u2019t think we read him very much.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut how is that? He is a very pretty poet.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh yes, but I don\u2019t greatly like poetry myself.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy don\u2019t you like poetry?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou see, poetry resembles metaphysics, one does not mind one\u2019s own, but\none does not like any one else\u2019s.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh! And what you call metaphysic?\u201d\n\nThis was too much. It was like the lady who attributed the decline of\nthe Italian opera to the fact that singers would no longer \u201cpodge\u201d their\nvoices.\n\n\u201cAnd what, pray, is \u2018podging\u2019?\u201d enquired my informant of the lady.\n\n\u201cWhy, don\u2019t you understand what \u2018podging\u2019 is? Well, I don\u2019t know that I\ncan exactly tell you, but I am sure Edith and Blanche podge beautifully.\u201d\n\nHowever, I said that metaphysics were _la filosofia_ and this quieted\nhim. He left poetry and turned to prose.\n\n\u201cThen you shall like much the works of Washington Irving?\u201d\n\nI was grieved to say that I did not; but I dislike Washington Irving so\ncordially that I determined to chance another \u201cNo.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen you shall like better Fenimore Cooper?\u201d\n\nI was becoming reckless. I could not go on saying \u201cNo\u201d after \u201cNo,\u201d and\nyet to ask me to be ever so little enthusiastic about Fenimore Cooper was\nlaying a burden upon me heavier than I could bear, so I said I did not\nlike him.\n\n\u201cOh, I see,\u201d said the boy; \u201cthen it is _Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin_ that you shall\nlike?\u201d\n\nHere I gave in. More \u201cNoes\u201d I could not say, so, thinking I might as\nwell be hung for a sheep as for a mutton chop, I said that I thought\n_Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin_ one of the most wonderful and beautiful books that\never were written.\n\nHaving got at a writer whom I admired, he was satisfied, but not for\nlong.\n\n\u201cAnd you think very much of the theories of Darwin in England, do you\nnot?\u201d\n\nI groaned inwardly and said we did.\n\n\u201cAnd what are the theories of Darwin?\u201d\n\nImagine what followed!\n\nAfter which:\n\n\u201cWhy do you not like poetry?\u2014You shall have a very good university in\nLondon?\u201d and so on.\n\n\n\nSunday Morning at Soglio\n\n\nThe quarantine men sat on the wall, dangling their legs over the parapet\nand singing the same old tune over and over again and the same old words\nover and over again. \u201cFu tradito, fu tradito da una donna.\u201d To them it\nwas a holiday.\n\nTwo gnomes came along and looked at me. I asked the first how old it\nwas; it said fourteen. They both looked about eight. I said that the\nflies and the fowls ought to be put into quarantine, and the gnomes\ngrinned and showed their teeth till the corners of their mouths met at\nthe backs of their heads.\n\nThe skeleton of a bird was nailed up against a barn, and I said to a man:\n\u201cAquila?\u201d\n\nHe replied: \u201cAquila,\u201d and I passed on.\n\nThe village boys came round me and sighed while they watched me\nsketching. And the women came and exclaimed: \u201cOh! che testa, che testa!\u201d\n\nAnd the bells in the windows of the campanile began, and I turned and\nlooked up at their beautiful lolling and watched their fitful\ntumble-aboutiness. They swung open-mouthed like elephants with uplifted\ntrunks, and I wished I could have fed them with buns. They were not like\nEnglish bells, and yet they rang more all \u2019Inglese than bells mostly do\nin Italy\u2014they had got it, but they had not got it right.\n\nThere used to be two crows, and when one disappeared the other came to\nthe house where it had not been for a month. While I was sketching it\nplayed with a woman who was weeding; it got on her back and tried to bite\nher hat; then it got down and pecked at the nails in her boots and tried\nto steal them. It let her catch it, and then made a little fuss, but it\ndid not fly away when she let it go, it continued playing with her. Then\nit came to exploit me but would not come close up. Signor Scartazzini\nsays it will play with all the women of the place but not with men or\nboys, except with him.\n\nThen there came a monk and passed by me, and I knew I had seen him before\nbut could not think where till, of a sudden, it flashed across me that he\nwas Valoroso XXIV, King of Paphlagonia, no doubt expiating his offences.\n\nAnd I watched the ants that were busy near my feet, and listened to them\nas they talked about me and discussed whether man has instinct.\n\n\u201cWhat is he doing here?\u201d they said; \u201che wasn\u2019t here yesterday. Certainly\nthey have no instinct. They may have a low kind of reason, but nothing\napproaching to instinct. Some of the London houses show signs of\ninstinct\u2014Gower Street, for example, does really seem to suggest instinct;\nbut it is all delusive. It is curious that these cities of theirs should\nalways exist in places where there are no ants. They certainly\nanthropomorphise too freely. Or is it perhaps that we formicomorphise\nmore than we should?\u201d\n\nAnd Silvio came by on his way to church. It was he who taught all the\nboys in Soglio to make a noise. Before he came up there was no sound to\nbe heard in the streets, except the fountains and the bells. I asked him\nwhether the curate was good to him.\n\n\u201cSi,\u201d he replied, \u201c\u00e8 abbastanza buono.\u201d\n\nI should think Auld Robin Gray was \u201cabbastanza buono\u201d to Mrs. Gray.\n\nOne of the little girls told me that Silvio had so many centesimi and she\nhad none. I said at once:\n\n\u201cYou don\u2019t want any centesimi.\u201d\n\nAs soon as these words fell from my lips, I knew I must be getting old.\n\nAnd presently the Devil came up to me. He was a nice, clean old man, but\nhe dropped his h\u2019s, and that was where he spoiled himself\u2014or perhaps it\nwas just this that threw me off my guard, for I had always heard that the\nPrince of Darkness was a perfect gentleman. He whispered to me that in\nthe winter the monks of St. Bernard sometimes say matins overnight.\n\nThe blue of the mountains looks bluer through the chestnuts than through\nthe pines. The river is snowy against the \u201cVerdi prati e selve amene.\u201d\nThe great fat tobacco plant agrees with itself if not with us; I never\nsaw any plant look in better health. The briar knows perfectly well what\nit wants to do and that it does not want to be disturbed; it knows, in\nfact, all that it cares to know. The question is how and why it got to\ncare to know just these things and no others. Two cheeky goats came\ntumbling down upon me and demanded salt, and the man came from the\nsaw-mill and, with his great brown hands, scooped the mud from the dams\nof the rills that watered his meadow, for the hour had come when it was\nhis turn to use the stream.\n\nThere were cow-bells, mountain elder-berries and lots of flowers in the\ngrass. There was the glacier, the roar of the river and a plaintive\nlittle chapel on a green knoll under the great cliff of ice which cut the\nsky. There was a fat, crumby woman making hay. She said:\n\n\u201cBuon giorno.\u201d\n\nAnd the \u201ci o r\u201d of the \u201cgiorno\u201d came out like oil and honey. I saw she\nwanted a gossip. She and her husband tuned their scythes in two-part,\nnote-against-note counterpoint; but I could hear that it was she who was\nthe canto fermo and he who was the counterpoint. I peered down over the\nedge of the steep slippery slope which all had to be mown from top to\nbottom; if hay grew on the dome of St. Paul\u2019s these dreadful traders\nwould gather it in, and presently the autumn crocuses would begin to push\nup their delicate, naked snouts through the closely shaven surface. I\nexpressed my wonder.\n\n\u201cSiamo esatti,\u201d said the fat, crumby woman.\n\nFor what little things will not people risk their lives? So Smith and I\ncrossed the Rangitata. So Esau sold his birthright.\n\nIt was noon, and I was so sheer above the floor of the valley and the sun\nwas so sheer above me that the chestnuts in the meadow of Bondo squatted\nupon their own shadows and the gardens were as though the valley had been\npaved with bricks of various colours. The old grass-grown road ran\nbelow, nearer the river, where many a good man had gone up and down on\nhis journey to that larger road where the reader and the writer shall\nalike join him.\n\n\n\nFascination\n\n\nI know a man, and one whom people generally call a very clever one, who,\nwhen his eye catches mine, if I meet him at an at home or an evening\nparty, beams upon me from afar with the expression of an intellectual\nrattlesnake on having espied an intellectual rabbit. Through any crowd\nthat man will come sidling towards me, ruthless and irresistible as fate;\nwhile I, foreknowing my doom, sidle also him-wards, and flatter myself\nthat no sign of my inward apprehension has escaped me.\n\n\n\nSupreme Occasions\n\n\nMen are seldom more commonplace than on supreme occasions. I knew of an\nold gentleman who insisted on having the original polka played to him as\nhe lay upon his death-bed. In the only well-authenticated words I have\never met with as spoken by a man who knew he was going to be murdered,\nthere is a commonness which may almost be called Shakespearean. There\nhad been many murders on or near some gold-fields in New Zealand about\nthe years 1863 or 1864, I forget where but I think near the Nelson\ngold-fields, and at last the murderers were taken. One was allowed to\nturn Queen\u2019s evidence and gave an account of the circumstances of each\nmurder. One of the victims, it appeared, on being told they were about\nto kill him, said:\n\n\u201cIf you murder me, I shall be foully murdered.\u201d\n\nWhereupon they murdered him and he was foully murdered. It is a mistake\nto expect people to rise to the occasion unless the occasion is only a\nlittle above their ordinary limit. People seldom rise to their greater\noccasions, they almost always fall to them. It is only supreme men who\nare supreme at supreme moments. They differ from the rest of us in this\nthat, when the moment for rising comes, they rise at once and\ninstinctively.\n\n\n\nThe Aurora Borealis\n\n\nI saw one once in the Gulf of the St. Lawrence off the island of\nAnticosti. We were in the middle of it, and seemed to be looking up\nthrough a great cone of light millions and millions of miles into the\nsky. Then we saw it farther off and the pillars of fire stalked up and\ndown the face of heaven like one of Handel\u2019s great basses.\n\nIn front of my room at Montreal there was a verandah from which a rope\nwas stretched across a small yard to a chimney on a stable roof over the\nway. Clothes were hung to dry on this rope. As I lay in bed of a\nmorning I could see the shadows and reflected lights from these clothes\nmoving on the ceiling as the clothes were blown about by the wind. The\nmovement of these shadows and reflected lights was exactly that of the\nrays of an Aurora Borealis, minus colour. I can conceive no resemblance\nmore perfect. They stalked across the ceiling with the same kind of\nmovement absolutely.\n\n\n\nA Tragic Expression\n\n\nThe three occasions when I have seen a really tragic expression upon a\nface were as follows:\u2014\n\n(1) When Mrs. Inglis in my room at Montreal heard my sausages frying, as\nshe thought, too furiously in the kitchen, she left me hurriedly with a\nglance, and the folds of her dress as she swept out of the room were\nNiobean.\n\n(2) Once at dinner I sat opposite a certain lady who had a tureen of\nsoup before her and also a plate of the same to which she had just helped\nherself. There was meat in the soup and I suppose she got a bit she did\nnot like; instead of leaving it, she swiftly, stealthily, picked it up\nfrom her plate when she thought no one was looking and, with an\nexpression which Mrs. Siddons might have studied for a performance of\nClytemnestra, popped it back into the tureen.\n\n(3) There was an alarm of fire on an emigrant ship in mid-ocean when I\nwas going to New Zealand and the women rushed aft with faces as in a\nMassacre of the Innocents.\n\n\n\nThe Wrath to Come\n\n\nOn the Monte Generoso a lady who sat next me at the table-d\u2019h\u00f4te was\ncomplaining of a man in the hotel. She said he was a nuisance because he\npractised on the violin. I excused him by saying that I supposed some\none had warned him to fly from the wrath to come, meaning that he had\nconceptions of an ideal world and was trying to get into it. (I heard a\nman say something like this many years ago and it stuck by me.)\n\n\n\nThe Beauties of Nature\n\n\nA man told me that at some Swiss hotel he had been speaking\nenthusiastically about the beauty of the scenery to a Frenchman who said\nto him:\n\n\u201cAimez-vous donc les beaut\u00e9s de la nature? Pour moi je les abborre.\u201d\n\n\n\nThe Late King Vittorio Emanuele\n\n\nCavaliere Negri, at Casale-Monferrato, told me not long since that when\nhe was a child, during the troubles of 1848 and 1849, the King was\nlunching with his (Cav. Negri\u2019s) father who had provided the best\npossible luncheon in honour of his guest. The King said:\n\n\u201cI can eat no such luncheon in times like these\u2014give me some garlic.\u201d\n\nThe garlic being brought, he ate it along with a great hunch of bread,\nbut would touch nothing else.\n\n\n\nThe Bishop of Chichester at Faido\n\n\nWhen I was at Faido in the Val Leventina last summer there was a lady\nthere who remembered me in New Zealand; she had brought her children to\nSwitzerland for their holiday; good people, all of them. They had\nfriends coming to them, a certain canon and his sister, and there was a\ntalk that the Bishop of Chichester might possibly come too. In course of\ntime the canon and his sister came. At first the sister, who was put to\nsit next me at dinner, was below zero and her brother opposite was hardly\nless freezing; but as dinner wore on they thawed and, from regarding me\nas the monster which in the first instance they clearly did, began to see\nthat I agreed with them in much more than they had thought possible. By\nand by they were reassured, became cordial and proved on acquaintance to\nbe most kind and good. They soon saw that I liked them, and the canon\nlet me take him where I chose. I took him to the place where the\nWoodsias grow and we found some splendid specimens. I took him to\nMairengo and showed him the double chancel. Coming back he said I had\npromised to show him some Alternifolium. I stopped him and said:\n\n\u201cHere is some,\u201d for there happened to be a bit in the wall by the side of\nthe path.\n\nThis quite finished the conquest, and before long I was given to\nunderstand that the bishop really would come and we were to take him\npretty near the Woodsias and not tell him, and he was to find them out\nfor himself. I have no doubt that the bishop had meant coming with the\ncanon, but then the canon had heard from the New Zealand lady that I was\nthere, and this would not do at all for the bishop. Anyhow the canon had\nbetter exploit me by going first and seeing how bad I was. So the canon\ncame, said I was all right and in a couple of days or so the bishop and\nhis daughters arrived.\n\nThe bishop did not speak to me at dinner, but after dinner, in the salon,\nhe made an advance in the matter of the newspaper and, I replying, he\nbegan a conversation which lasted the best part of an hour, and during\nwhich I trust I behaved discreetly. Then I bade him \u201cGood-night\u201d and\nleft the room.\n\nNext morning I saw him eating his breakfast and said \u201cGood-morning\u201d to\nhim. He was quite ready to talk. We discussed the Woodsia Ilvensis and\nagreed that it was a mythical species. It was said in botany books to\ngrow near Guildford. We dismissed this assertion. But he remarked that\nit was extraordinary in what odd places we sometimes do find plants; he\nknew a single plant of Asplenium Trichomanes which had no other within\nthirty miles of it; it was growing on a tombstone which had come from a\nlong distance and from a Trichomanes country. It almost seemed as if the\nseeds and germs were always going about in the air and grew wherever they\nfound a suitable environment. I said it was the same with our thoughts;\nthe germs of all manner of thoughts and ideas are always floating about\nunperceived in our minds and it was astonishing sometimes in what strange\nplaces they found the soil which enabled them to take root and grow into\nperceived thought and action. The bishop looked up from his egg and\nsaid:\n\n\u201cThat is a very striking remark,\u201d and then he went on with his egg as\nthough if I were going to talk like that he should not play any more.\n\nThinking I was not likely to do better than this, I retreated immediately\nand went away down to Claro where there was a confirmation and so on to\nBellinzona.\n\nIn the morning I had asked the waitress how she liked the bishop.\n\n\u201cOh! beaucoup, beaucoup,\u201d she exclaimed, \u201cet je trouve son nez vraiment\nnoble.\u201d [1886.]\n\n\n\nAt Piora\n\n\nI am confident that I have written the following note in one or other of\nthe earlier of these volumes, but I have searched my precious indexes in\nvain to find it. No doubt as soon as I have retold the story I shall\nstumble upon it.\n\nOne day in the autumn of 1886 I walked up to Piora from Airolo, returning\nthe same day. At Piora I met a very nice quiet man whose name I\npresently discovered, and who, I have since learned, is a well-known and\nmost liberal employer of labour somewhere in the north of England. He\ntold me that he had been induced to visit Piora by a book which had made\na great impression upon him. He could not recollect its title, but it\nhad made a great impression upon him; nor yet could he recollect the\nauthor\u2019s name, but the book had made a great impression upon him; he\ncould not remember even what else there was in the book; the only thing\nhe knew was that it had made a great impression upon him.\n\nThis is a good example of what is called a residuary impression. Whether\nor no I told him that the book which had made such a great impression\nupon him was called _Alps and Sanctuaries_ (see Chap. VI), and that it\nhad been written by the person he was addressing, I cannot tell. It\nwould be very like me to have blurted it all out and given him to\nunderstand how fortunate he had been in meeting me; this would be so\nfatally like me that the chances are ten to one that I did it; but I\nhave, thank Heaven, no recollection of sin in this respect, and have\nrather a strong impression that, for once in my life, I smiled to myself\nand said nothing.\n\n\n\nAt Ferentino\n\n\nAfter dinner I ordered a coffee; the landlord, who also had had his\ndinner, asked me to be good enough to defer it for another year and I\nassented. I then asked him which was the best inn at Segni. He replied\nthat it did not matter, that when a man had quattrini one albergo was as\ngood as another. I said, No; that more depended on what kind of blood\nwas running about inside the albergatore than on how many quattrini the\nguest had in his pocket. He smiled and offered me a pinch of the most\ndelicious snuff. His wife came and cleared the table, having done which\nshe shed the water bottle over the floor to keep the dust down. I am\nsure she did it all to all the blessed gods that live in heaven, though\nshe did not say so.\n\n\n\nThe Imperfect Lady\n\n\nThere was one at a country house in Sicily where I was staying. She had\nbeen lent to my host for change of air by his friend the marchese. She\ndined at table with us and we all liked her very much. She was extremely\npretty and not less amiable than pretty. In order to reach the\ndining-room we had to go through her bedroom as also through my host\u2019s.\nWhen the monsignore came, she dined with us just the same, and the old\npriest evidently did not mind at all. In Sicily they do not bring the\nscent of the incense across the dining-room table. And one would hardly\nexpect the attempt to be made by people who use the oath \u201cSanto Diavolo.\u201d\n\n\n\nSiena and S. Gimignano\n\n\nAt Siena last spring, prowling round outside the cathedral, we saw an\nEnglish ecclesiastic in a stringed, sub-shovel hat. He had a young lady\nwith him, presumably a daughter or niece. He eyed us with much the same\nincurious curiosity as that with which we eyed him. We passed them and\nwent inside the duomo. How far less impressive is the interior (indeed I\nhad almost said also the exterior) than that of San Domenico! Nothing\npalls so soon as over-ornamentation.\n\nA few minutes afterwards my Lord and the young lady came in too. It was\nSunday and mass was being celebrated. The pair passed us and, when they\nreached the fringe of the kneeling folk, the bishop knelt down too on the\nbare floor, kneeling bolt upright from the knees, a few feet in front of\nwhere we stood. We saw him and I am sure he knew we were looking at him.\nThe lady seemed to hesitate but, after a minute or so, she knuckled down\nby his side and we left them kneeling bolt upright from the knees on the\nhard floor.\n\nI always cross myself and genuflect when I go into a Roman Catholic\nchurch, as a mark of respect, but Jones and Gogin say that any one can\nsee I am not an old hand at it. How rudimentary is the action of an old\npriest! I saw one once at Venice in the dining-room of the Hotel la Luna\nwho crossed himself by a rapid motion of his fork just before he began to\neat, and Miss Bertha Thomas told me she saw an Italian lady at Varallo at\nthe table-d\u2019h\u00f4te cross herself with her fan. I do not cross myself\nbefore eating nor do I think it incumbent upon me to kneel down on the\nhard floor in church\u2014perhaps because I am not an English bishop. We were\nsorry for this one and for his young lady, but it was their own doing.\n\nWe then went into the Libreria to see the frescoes by Pinturicchio\u2014which\nwe did not like\u2014and spent some little time in attending to them. On\nleaving we were told to sign our names in a book and did so. As we were\ngoing out we met the bishop and his lady coming in; whether they had been\nkneeling all the time, or whether they had got up as soon we were gone\nand had spent the time in looking round I cannot say, but, when they had\nseen the frescoes, they would be told to sign their names and, when they\nsigned, they would see ours and, I flatter myself, know who we were.\n\nOn returning to our hotel we were able to collect enough information to\nsettle in our own minds which particular bishop he was.\n\nA day or two later we went to Poggibonsi, which must have been an\nimportant place once; nothing but the walls remain now, the city within\nthem having been razed by Charles V. At the station we took a carriage,\nand our driver, Ulisse Pogni, was a delightful person, second baritone at\nthe Poggibonsi Opera and principal fly-owner of the town. He drove us up\nto S. Gimignano and told us that the people still hold the figures in\nBenozzo Gozzoli\u2019s frescoes to be portraits of themselves and say: \u201cThat\u2019s\nme,\u201d and \u201cThat\u2019s so and so.\u201d\n\nOf course we went to see the frescoes, and as we were coming down the\nmain street, from the Piazza on which the Municipio stands, who should be\nmounting the incline but our bishop and his lady. The moment he saw us,\nhe looked cross, stood still and began inspecting the tops of the houses\non the other side of the street; so also did the lady. There was nothing\nof the smallest interest in these and we neither of us had the smallest\ndoubt that he was embarrassed at meeting us and was pretending not to\nnotice us. I have seldom seen any like attempt more clumsily and\nfatuously done. Whether he was saying to himself, \u201cGood Lord! that\nwretch will be putting my kneeling down into another _Alps and\nSanctuaries_ or _Ex Voto_\u201d; or whether it was only that we were a couple\nof blackguard atheists who contaminated the air all round us, I cannot\ntell; but on venturing to look back a second or two after we had passed\nthem, the bishop and the lady had got a considerable distance away.\n\nAs we returned our driver took us about 4 kilometres outside Poggibonsi\nto San Lucchese, a church of the 12th or 13th century, greatly decayed,\nbut still very beautiful and containing a few na\u00eff frescoes. He told us\nhe had sung the Sanctus here at the festa on the preceding Sunday. In a\nroom adjoining the church, formerly, we were told, a refectory, there is\na very good fresco representing the \u201cMiraculous Draught of Fishes\u201d by\nGerino da Pistoja (I think, but one forgets these names at once unless\none writes them down then and there). It is dated\u2014I think (again!)\u2014about\n1509, betrays the influence of Perugino but is more lively and\ninteresting than anything I know by that painter, for I cannot call him\nmaster. It is in good preservation and deserves to be better, though\nperhaps not very much better, known than it is. Our driver pointed out\nthat the baskets in which the fishes are being collected are portraits of\nthe baskets still in use in the neighbourhood.\n\nAfter we had returned to London we found, in the Royal Academy\nExhibition, a portrait of our bishop which, though not good, was quite\ngood enough to assure us that we had not been mistaken as to his diocese.\n\n\n\nThe Etruscan Urns at Volterra\n\n\nAs regards the way in which the Etruscan artists kept to a few stock\nsubjects, this has been so in all times and countries.\n\nWhen Christianity convulsed the world and displaced the older mythology,\nshe did but introduce new subjects of her own, to which her artists kept\nas closely as their pagan ancestors had kept to their heathen gods and\ngoddesses. We now make believe to have freed ourselves from these\ntrammels, but the departure is more apparent than real. Our works of art\nfall into a few well-marked groups and the pictures of each group, though\ndiffering in detail, present the same general characters. We have,\nhowever, broken much new ground, whereas until the last three or four\nhundred years it almost seems either as if artists had thought subject a\ndetail beneath their notice, or publics had insisted on being told only\nwhat they knew already.\n\nThe principle of living only to see and to hear some new thing, and the\nother principle of avoiding everything with which we are not perfectly\nfamiliar are equally old, equally universal, equally useful. They are\nthe principles of conservation and accumulation on the one hand, and of\nadventure, speculation and progress on the other, each equally\nindispensable. The money has been, and will probably always be more\npersistently in the hands of the first of these two groups. But, after\nall, is not money an art? Nay, is it not the most difficult on earth and\nthe parent of all? And if life is short and art long, is not money still\nlonger? And are not works of art, for the most part, more or less works\nof money also? In so far as a work of art is a work of money, it must\nnot complain of being bound by the laws of money; in so far as it is a\nwork of art, it has nothing to do with money and, again, cannot complain.\n\nIt is a great help to the spectator to know the subject of a picture and\nnot to be bothered with having to find out all about the story. Subjects\nshould be such as either tell their own story instantly on the face of\nthem, or things with which all spectators may be supposed familiar. It\nmust not be forgotten that a work exposed to public view is addressed to\na great many people and should accordingly consider many people rather\nthan one. I saw an English family not long since looking at a fine\ncollection of the coins of all nations. They hardly pretended even to\ntake a languid interest in the French, German, Dutch and Italian coins,\nbut brightened up at once on being shown a shilling, a florin and a\nhalf-crown. So children do not want new stories; they look for old ones.\n\n\u201cMamma dear, will you please tell us the story of \u2018The Three Bears\u2019?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, my love, not to-day, I have told it you very often lately and I am\nbusy.\u201d\n\n\u201cVery well, Mamma dear, then we will tell you the story of \u2018The Three\nBears.\u2019\u201d\n\nThe _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ are only \u201cThe Three Bears\u201d upon a larger\nscale. Just as the life of a man is only the fission of two am\u0153bas on a\nlarger scale. _Cui non dictus Hylas puer et Latonia Delos_? That was no\nargument against telling it again, but rather for repeating it. So\npeople look out in the newspapers for what they know rather than for what\nthey do not know, and the better they know it the more interested they\nare to see it in print and, as a general rule, unless they get what they\nexpect\u2014or think they know already\u2014they are angry. This tendency of our\nnature culminates in the well-known lines repeated for ever and ever:\n\n The battle of the Nile\n I was there all the while;\n I was there all the while\n At the battle of the Nile.\n The battle of . . .\n\nAnd so on ad lib. Even this will please very young children. As they\ngrow older they want to hear about nothing but \u201cThe Three Bears.\u201d As\nthey mature still further they want the greater invention and freer play\nof fancy manifested by such people as Homer and our west-end\nupholsterers, beyond which there is no liberty, but only eccentricity and\nextravagance.\n\nSo it is with all fashion. Fashions change, but not radically except\nafter convulsion and, even then, the change is more apparent than real,\nthe older fashions continually coming back as new ones.\n\nSo it is not only as regards choice of subject but also as regards\ntreatment of subject within the limits of the work itself, after the\nsubject is chosen. No matter whether the utterance of a man\u2019s inner mind\nis attempted by way of words, painting, or music, the same principle\nunderlies all these three arts and, of course, also those arts that are\nakin to them. In each case a man should have but one subject easily\nrecognisable as the main motive, and in each case he must develop, treat\nand illustrate this by means of episodes and details that are neither so\nalien to the subject as to appear lugged in by the heels, nor yet so\ngermane to it as to be identical. The treatment grows out of the subject\nas the family from the parents and the race from the family\u2014each new-born\nmember being the same and yet not the same with those that have preceded\nhim. So it is with all the arts and all the sciences\u2014they flourish best\nby the addition of but little new at a time in comparison with the old.\n\nAnd so, lastly, it is with the _ars artium_ itself, that art of arts and\nscience of sciences, that guild of arts and crafts which is comprised\nwithin each one of us, I mean our bodies. In the detail they are\nnourished from day to day by food which must not be too alien from past\nfood or from the body itself, nor yet too germane to either; and in the\ngross, that is to say, in the history of the development of a race or\nspecies, the evolution is admittedly for the most part exceedingly\ngradual, by means of many generations, as it were, of episodes that are\nkindred to and yet not identical with the subject.\n\nAnd when we come to think of it, we find in the evolution of bodily form\n(which along with modification involves persistence of type) the\nexplanation why persistence of type in subjects chosen for treatment in\nworks of art should be so universal. It is because we are so averse to\ngreat changes and at the same time so averse to no change at all, that we\nhave a bodily form, in the main, persistent and yet, at the same time,\ncapable of modifications. Without a strong aversion to change its habits\nand, with its habits, the pabulum of its mind, there would be no fixity\nof type in any species and, indeed, there would be no life at all, as we\nare accustomed to think of life, for organs would disappear before they\ncould be developed, and to try to build life on such a shifting\nfoundation would be as hopeless as it would be to try and build a\nmaterial building on an actual quicksand. Hence the habits, cries,\nabodes, food, hopes and fears of each species (and what are these but the\nrealities of which human arts are as the shadow?) tell the same old tales\nin the same old ways from generation to generation, and it is only\nbecause they do so that they appear to us as species at all.\n\nReturning now to the Etruscan cinerary urns\u2014I have no doubt that, perhaps\nthree or four thousand years hence, a collection of the tombstones from\nsome of our suburban cemeteries will be thought exceedingly interesting,\nbut I confess to having found the urns in the Museum at Volterra a little\nmonotonous and, after looking at about three urns, I hurried over the\nremaining 397 as fast as I could. [1889.]\n\n\n\nThe Quick and the Dead\n\n\nThe walls of the houses [in an Italian village] are built of brick and\nthe roofs are covered with stone. They call the stone \u201cvivo.\u201d It is as\nthough they thought bricks were like veal or mutton and stones like bits\nout of the living calf or sheep. {279}\n\n\n\nThe Grape-Filter\n\n\nWhen the water of a place is bad, it is safest to drink none that has not\nbeen filtered through either the berry of a grape, or else a tub of malt.\nThese are the most reliable filters yet invented.\n\n\n\nBertoli and his Bees\n\n\nGiacomo Bertoli of Varallo-Sesia keeps a watch and clock shop in the\nstreet. He is a cheery little old gentleman, though I do not see why I\nshould call him old for I doubt his being so old as I am. He and I have\nbeen very good friends for years and he is always among the first to\nwelcome me when I go to Varallo.\n\nHe is one of the most famous bee-masters in Europe. He keeps some of his\nbees during the winter at Camasco not very far from Varallo, others in\nother places near and moves them up to Alagna, at the head of the Val\nSesia, towards the end of May that they may make their honey from the\nspring flowers\u2014and excellent honey they make.\n\nAbout a fortnight ago I happened to meet him bringing down ten of his\nhives. He was walking in front and was immediately followed by two women\neach with crates on their backs, and each carrying five hives. They\nseemed to me to be ordinary deal boxes, open at the top, but covered over\nwith gauze which would keep the bees in but not exclude air. I asked him\nif the bees minded the journey, and he replied that they were very angry\nand had a great deal to say about it; he was sure to be stung when he let\nthem out. He said it was \u201cun lavoro improbo,\u201d and cost him a great deal\nof anxiety.\n\n\n\n\u201cThe Lost Chord\u201d\n\n\nIt should be \u201cThe Lost Progression,\u201d for the young lady was mistaken in\nsupposing she had ever heard any single chord \u201clike the sound of a great\nAmen.\u201d Unless we are to suppose that she had already found the chord of\nC Major for the final syllable of the word and was seeking the chord for\nthe first syllable; and there she is on the walls of a Milanese\nrestaurant arpeggioing experimental harmonies in a transport of delight\nto advertise Somebody and Someone\u2019s pianos and holding the loud pedal\nsolidly down all the time. Her family had always been unsympathetic\nabout her music. They said it was like a loose bundle of fire-wood which\nyou never can get across the room without dropping sticks; they said she\nwould have been so much better employed doing anything else.\n\nFancy being in the room with her while she was strumming about and\nhunting after her chord! Fancy being in heaven with her when she had\nfound it!\n\n\n\nIntroduction of Foreign Plants\n\n\nI have brought back this year some mountain auriculas and the seed of\nsome salvia and Fusio tiger-lily, and mean to plant the auriculas and to\nsow the seeds in Epping Forest and elsewhere round about London. I wish\npeople would more generally bring back the seeds of pleasing foreign\nplants and introduce them broadcast, sowing them by our waysides and in\nour fields, or in whatever situation is most likely to suit them. It is\ntrue, this would puzzle botanists, but there is no reason why botanists\nshould not be puzzled. A botanist is a person whose aim is to uproot,\nkill and exterminate every plant that is at all remarkable for rarity or\nany special virtue, and the rarer it is the more bitterly he will hunt it\ndown.\n\n\n\nSaint Cosimo and Saint Damiano at Siena\n\n\nSano di Pietro shows us a heartless practical joke played by these two\nvery naughty saints, both medical men, who should be uncanonised\nimmediately. It seems they laid their heads together and for some\nreason, best known to themselves, resolved to cut a leg off a dead negro\nand put it on to a white man. In the one compartment they are seen in\nhigh glee cutting the negro\u2019s leg off. In the next they have gone to the\nwhite man who is in bed, obviously asleep, and are substituting the black\nleg for his own. Then, no doubt, they will stand behind the door and see\nwhat he does when he wakes. They must be saints because they have\nglories on, but it looks as though a glory is not much more to be relied\non than a gig as a test of respectability. [1889.]\n\n\n\nAt Pienza\n\n\nAt Pienza, after having seen the Museum with a custode whom I photoed as\nbeing more like death, though in excellent health and spirits, than any\none I ever saw, I was taken to the leading college for young ladies, the\nConservatorio di S. Carlo, under the direction of Signora (or Signorina,\nI do not know which) Cesira Carletti, to see the wonderful Viale of the\ntwelfth or thirteenth century given to Pienza by Pope \u00c6neas Sylvius\nPiccolomini (Pius II) and stolen a few years since, but recovered.\nSignora Carletti was copying parts of it in needlework, nor can I think\nthat the original was ever better than the parts which she had already\ndone. The work would take weeks or even months to examine with any\nfullness, and volumes to describe. It is as prodigal of labour, design\nand colour as nature herself is. In fact it is one of those things that\nnature has a right to do but not art. It fatigues one to look at it or\nthink upon it and, bathos though it be to say so, it won the first prize\nat the Exhibitions of Ecclesiastical Art Work held a few years ago at\nRome and at Siena. It has taken Signora Carletti months to do even the\nlittle she has done, but that little must be seen to be believed, for no\nwords can do justice to it.\n\nHaving seen the Viale, I was shown round the whole establishment, and can\nimagine nothing better ordered. I was taken over the dormitories\u2014very\nnice and comfortable\u2014and, finally, not without being much abashed, into\nthe room where the young ladies were engaged upon needlework. It\nreminded me of nothing so much as of the Education of the Virgin Chapel\nat Oropa. {282} I was taken to each young lady and did my best to acquit\nmyself properly in praising her beautiful work but, beautiful as the work\nof one and all was, it could not compare with that of Signora Carletti.\nI asked her if she could not get some of the young ladies to help her in\nthe less important parts of her work, but she said she preferred doing it\nall herself. They all looked well and happy and as though they were well\ncared for, as I am sure they are.\n\nThen Signora Carletti took me to the top of the house to show me the\nmeteorological room of which she is superintendent, and which is in\nconnection with the main meteorological observatory at Rome. Again I\nfound everything in admirable order, and left the house not a little\npleased and impressed with everything I had seen. [1889.]\n\n\n\nHomer\u2019s Hot and Cold Springs\n\n\n_The following extract is taken from a memorandum Butler made of a visit\nhe paid to Greece and the Troad in the spring of_ 1895. _In the_ Iliad\n(_xxii._ 145) _Homer mentions hot and cold springs where the Trojan women\nused to wash their clothes_. _There are no such springs near Hissarlik_,\n_where they ought to be_, _but the American Consul at the Dardanelles\ntold Butler there was something of the kind on Mount Ida_, _at the\nsources of the Scamander_, _and he determined to see them after visiting\nHissarlik_. _He was provided with an interpreter_, _Yakoub_, _an\nattendant_, _Ahmed_, _an escort of one soldier and a horse_. _He went\nfirst to the Consul\u2019s farm at Thymbra_, _about five miles from\nHissarlik_, _where he spent the night and found it_ \u201c_all very like a\nfirst-class New Zealand sheep-station_.\u201d _The next day he went to\nHissarlik and saw no reason for disagreeing with the received opinion\nthat it is the site of Troy_. _He then proceeded to Bunarbashi and so to\nBairemitch_, _passing on the way a saw-mill where there was a Government\nofficial with twenty soldiers under him_. _This official was much\ninterested in the traveller and directed his men to take carpets and a\ndish of trout_, _caught that morning in the Scamander_, _and carry them\nup to the hot and cold springs while he himself accompanied Butler_. _So\nthey set off and the official_, _Ismail_, _showed him the way and pointed\nout the springs_, _and there is a long note about the hot and cold\nwater_.\n\nAnd now let me return to Ismail Gusbashi, the excellent Turkish official\nwho, by the way, was with me during all my examination of the springs,\nand whose assurances of their twofold temperature I should have found it\nimpossible to doubt, even though I had not caught one warmer cupful\nmyself. His men, while we were at the springs, had spread a large Turkey\ncarpet on the flower-bespangled grass under the trees, and there were\nthree smaller rugs at three of the corners. On these Ismail and Yakoub\nand I took our places. The other two were cross-legged, but I reclining\nanyhow. The sun shimmered through the spring foliage. I saw two hoopoes\nand many beautiful birds whose names I knew not. Through the trees I\ncould see the snow-fields of Ida far above me, but it was hopeless to\nthink of reaching them. The soldiers and Ahmed cooked the trout and the\neggs all together; then we had boiled eggs, bread and cheese and, of\ncourse, more lamb\u2019s liver done on skewers like cats\u2019 meat. I ate with my\npocket-knife, the others using their fingers in true Homeric fashion.\n\nWhen we had put from us \u201cthe desire of meat and drink,\u201d Ismail began to\ntalk to me. He said he had now for the first time in his life found\nhimself in familiar conversation with Wisdom from the West (that was me),\nand that, as he greatly doubted whether such another opportunity would be\never vouchsafed to him, he should wish to consult me upon a matter which\nhad greatly exercised him. He was now fifty years old and had never\nmarried. Sometimes he thought he had done a wise thing, and sometimes it\nseemed to him that he had been very foolish. Would I kindly tell him\nwhich it was and advise him as to the future? I said he was addressing\none who was in much the same condition as himself, only that I was some\nten years older. We had a saying in England that if a man marries he\nwill regret it, and that if he does not marry he will regret it.\n\n\u201cAh!\u201d said Ismail, who was leaning towards me and trying to catch every\nword I spoke, though he could not understand a syllable till Yakoub\ninterpreted my Italian into Turkish. \u201cAh!\u201d he said, \u201cthat is a true\nword.\u201d\n\nIn my younger days, I said (may Heaven forgive me!), I had been\npassionately in love with a most beautiful young lady, but\u2014and here my\nvoice faltered, and I looked very sad, waiting for Yakoub to interpret\nwhat I had said\u2014but it had been the will of Allah that she should marry\nanother gentleman, and this had broken my heart for many years. After a\ntime, however, I concluded that these things were all settled for us by a\nhigher Power.\n\n\u201cAh! that is a true word.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd so, my dear sir, in your case I should reflect that if Allah\u201d (and I\nraised my hand to Heaven) \u201chad desired your being married, he would have\nsignified his will to you in some way that you could hardly mistake. As\nhe does not appear to have done so, I should recommend you to remain\nsingle until you receive some distinct intimation that you are to marry.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh! that is a true word.\u201d\n\n\u201cBesides,\u201d I continued, \u201csuppose you marry a woman with whom you think\nyou are in love and then find out, after you have been married to her for\nthree months, that you do not like her. This would be a very painful\nsituation.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh, yes, indeed! that is a true word.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd if you had children who were good and dutiful, it would be\ndelightful; but suppose they turned out disobedient and ungrateful\u2014and I\nhave known many such cases\u2014could anything be more distressing to a parent\nin his declining years?\u201d\n\n\u201cAh! that is a true word that you have spoken.\u201d\n\n\u201cWe have a great Imaum,\u201d I continued, \u201cin England; he is called the\nArchbishop of Canterbury and gives answers to people who are in any kind\nof doubt or difficulty. I knew one gentleman who asked his advice upon\nthe very question that you have done me the honour of propounding to\nmyself.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh! and what was his answer?\u201d\n\n\u201cHe told him,\u201d said I, \u201cthat it was cheaper to buy the milk than to keep\na cow.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh! ah! that is a most true word.\u201d\n\nHere I closed the conversation, and we began packing up to make a start.\nWhen we were about to mount, I said to him, hat in hand:\n\n\u201cSir, it occurs to me with great sadness that, though you will, no doubt,\noften revisit this lovely spot, yet it is most certain that I shall never\ndo so. Promise me that when you come here you will sometimes think of\nthe stupid old Englishman who has had the pleasure of lunching with you\nto-day, and I promise that I will often think of you when I am at home\nagain in London.\u201d\n\nHe was much touched, and we started. After we had gone about a mile, I\nsuddenly missed my knife. I knew I should want it badly many a time\nbefore we got to the Dardanelles, and I knew perfectly well where I\nshould find it: so I stopped the cavalcade and said I must ride back for\nit. I did so, found it immediately and returned. Then I said to Ismail:\n\n\u201cSir, I understand now why I was led to leave my knife behind me. I had\nsaid it was certain I should never see that enchanting spot again, but I\nspoke presumptuously, forgetting that if Allah\u201d (and I raised my hand to\nHeaven) \u201cwilled it I should assuredly do so. I am corrected, and with\ngreat leniency.\u201d\n\nIsmail was much affected. The good fellow immediately took off his\nwatch-chain (happily of brass and of no intrinsic value) and gave it me,\nassuring me that it was given him by a very dear friend, that he had worn\nit for many years, and valued it greatly\u2014would I keep it as a memorial of\nhimself? Fortunately I had with me a little silver match-box which\nAlfred had given me and which had my name engraved on it. I gave it to\nhim, but had some difficulty in making him accept it. Then we rode on\ntill we came to the saw-mills. I ordered two lambs for the ten soldiers\nwho had accompanied us, having understood from Yakoub that this would be\nan acceptable present. And so I parted from this most kind and friendly\ngentleman with every warm expression of cordiality on both sides.\n\nI sent him his photograph which I had taken, and I sent his soldiers\ntheir groups also\u2014one for each man\u2014and in due course I received the\nfollowing letter of thanks. Alas! I have never written in answer. I\nknew not how to do it. I knew, however, that I could not keep up a\ncorrespondence, even though I wrote once. But few unanswered letters\nmore often rise up and smite me. How the Post Office people ever read\n\u201cBueter, Ciforzin St.\u201d into \u201cButler, Clifford\u2019s Inn\u201d I cannot tell. What\nsplendid emendators of a corrupt text they ought to make! But I could\nalmost wish that they had failed, for it has pained me not a little that\nI have not replied.\n\nMr. Samuel Bueter,\n No. 15 Ciforzin St. London, England.\n\n Dardanelles,\n August 4/95.\n\nMr. Samuel. England.\n\nMY DEAR FRIEND,\n\nMany thanks for the phothograph you have send me. It was very kind of\nyou to think of me to send me this token of your remembrance. I\ncertainly, appreciate it, and shall think of you whenever I look at it.\nAh My Dear Brother, it is impossible for me to forget you. under\nfavorable circumstance I confess I must prefer you. I have a grate\ndesire to have the beautifull chance to meet you. Ah then with the tears\nof gladness to be the result of the great love of our friendness A my Sir\nwhat pen can describe the meeting that shall be come with your second\nvisit if it please God.\n\nIt is my pray to Our Lord God to protect you and to keep you glad and\nhappy for ever.\n\nThough we are far from each other yet we can speak with letters.\n\nThank God to have your love of friendness with me and mine with your\nnoble person.\n\nHopeing to hear from you,\n\n Yours truly,\n\n ISMAYEL, from\n Byramich hizar memuerue iuse bashi.\n\n\n\n\nXVIII\nMaterial for _Erewhon Revisited_\n\n\nAPOLOGISE for the names in _Erewhon_. I was an unpractised writer and\nhad no idea the names could matter so much.\n\nGive a map showing the geography of Erewhon in so far as the entrance\ninto the country goes, and explain somewhere, if possible, about Butler\u2019s\nstones.\n\nUp as far as the top of the pass, where the statues are, keeps to the\nactual geography of the upper Rangitata district except that I have\ndoubled the gorge. There was no gorge up above my place [Mesopotamia]\nand I wanted one, so I took the gorge some 10 or a dozen miles lower down\nand repeated it and then came upon my own country again, but made it bare\nof grass and useless instead of (as it actually was) excellent country.\nBaker and I went up the last saddle we tried and thought it was a pass to\nthe West Coast, but found it looked down on to the headwaters of the\nRakaia: however we saw a true pass opposite, just as I have described in\n_Erewhon_, only that there were no clouds and we never went straight down\nas I said I did, but took two days going round by Lake Heron. And there\nis no lake at the top of the true pass. This is the pass over which, in\nconsequence of our report, Whitcombe was sent and got drowned on the\nother side. We went up to the top of the pass but found it too rough to\ngo down without more help than we had. I rather think I have told this\nin _A First Year in Canterbury Settlement_, but am so much ashamed of\nthat book that I dare not look to see. I don\u2019t mean to say that the\nlater books are much better; still they are better.\n\nThey show a lot of stones on the Hokitika pass, so Mr. Slade told me,\nwhich they call mine and say I intended them in _Erewhon_ [for the\nstatues]. I never saw them and knew nothing about them.\n\nRefer to the agony and settled melancholy with which unborn children in\nthe womb regard birth as the extinction of their being, and how some\ndeclare that there is a world beyond the womb and others deny this. \u201cWe\nmust all one day be born,\u201d \u201cBirth is certain\u201d and so on, just as we say\nof death. Birth involves with it an original sin. It must be sin, for\nthe wages of sin is death (what else, I should like to know, is the wages\nof virtue?) and assuredly the wages of birth is death.\n\nThey consider \u201cwilful procreation,\u201d as they call it, much as we do murder\nand will not allow it to be a moral ailment at all. Sometimes a jury\nwill recommend to mercy and sometimes they bring in a verdict of\n\u201cjustifiable baby-getting,\u201d but they treat these cases as a rule with\ngreat severity.\n\nEvery baby has a month of heaven and a month of hell before birth, so\nthat it may make its choice with its eyes open.\n\nThe hour of birth should be prayed for in the litany as well as that of\ndeath, and so it would be if we could remember the agony of horror which,\nno doubt, we felt at birth\u2014surpassing, no doubt, the utmost agony of\napprehension that can be felt on death.\n\nLet automata increase in variety and ingenuity till at last they present\nso many of the phenomena of life that the religious world declares they\nwere designed and created by God as an independent species. The\nscientific world, on the other hand, denies that there is any design in\nconnection with them, and holds that if any slight variation happened to\narise by which a fortuitous combination of atoms occurred which was more\nsuitable for advertising purposes (the automata were chiefly used for\nadvertising) it was seized upon and preserved by natural selection.\n\nThey have schools where they teach the arts of forgetting and of not\nseeing. Young ladies are taught the art of proposing. Lists of\nsuccessful matches are advertised with the prospectuses of all the girls\u2019\nschools.\n\nThey have professors of all the languages of the principal beasts and\nbirds. I stayed with the Professor of Feline Languages who had invented\na kind of Ollendorffian system for teaching the Art of Polite\nConversation among cats.\n\nThey have an art-class in which the first thing insisted on is that the\npupils should know the price of all the leading modern pictures that have\nbeen sold during the last twenty years at Christie\u2019s, and the\nfluctuations in their values. Give an examination paper on this subject.\nThe artist being a picture-dealer, the first thing he must do is to know\nhow to sell his pictures, and therefore how to adapt them to the market.\nWhat is the use of being able to paint a picture unless one can sell it\nwhen one has painted it?\n\nAdd that the secret of the success of modern French art lies in its\nrecognition of values.\n\nLet there be monks who have taken vows of modest competency (about \u00a31000\na year, derived from consols), who spurn popularity as medieval monks\nspurned money\u2014and with about as much sincerity. Their great object is to\ntry and find out what they like and then get it. They do not live in one\nbuilding, and there are no vows of celibacy, but, in practice, when any\nmember marries he drifts away from the society. They have no profession\nof faith or articles of association, but, as they who hunted for the Holy\nGrail, so do these hunt in all things, whether of art or science, for\nthat which commends itself to them as comfortable and worthy to be\naccepted. Their liberty of thought and speech and their reasonable\nenjoyment of the good things of this life are what they alone live for.\n\nLet the Erewhonians have Westminster Abbeys of the first, second and\nthird class, and in one of these let them raise monuments to dead\ntheories which were once celebrated.\n\nLet them study those arts whereby the opinions of a minority may be made\nto seem those of a majority.\n\nIntroduce an Erewhonian sermon to the effect that if people are wicked\nthey may perhaps have to go to heaven when they die.\n\nLet them have a Regius Professor of Studied Ambiguity.\n\nLet the Professor of Worldly Wisdom pluck a man for want of sufficient\nvagueness in his saving-clauses paper.\n\nAnother poor fellow may be floored for having written an article on a\nscientific subject without having made free enough use of the words\n\u201cpatiently\u201d and \u201ccarefully,\u201d and for having shown too obvious signs of\nthinking for himself.\n\nLet them attach disgrace to any who do not rapidly become obscure after\ndeath.\n\nLet them have a Professor of Mischief. They found that people always did\nharm when they meant well and that all the professorships founded with an\navowedly laudable object failed, so they aim at mischief in the hope that\nthey may miss the mark here as when they aimed at what they thought\nadvantageous.\n\nThe Professor of Worldly Wisdom plucked a man for buying an egg that had\na date stamped upon it. And another for being too often and too\nseriously in the right. And another for telling people what they did not\nwant to know. He plucked several for insufficient mistrust in printed\nmatter. It appeared that the Professor had written an article teeming\nwith plausible blunders, and had had it inserted in a leading weekly. He\nthen set his paper so that the men were sure to tumble into these\nblunders themselves; then he plucked them. This occasioned a good deal\nof comment at the time.\n\nOne man who entered for the Chancellor\u2019s medal declined to answer any of\nthe questions set. He said he saw they were intended more to show off\nthe ingenuity of the examiner than either to assist or test the judgment\nof the examined. He observed, moreover, that the view taken of his\nanswers would in great measure depend upon what the examiner had had for\ndinner and, since it was not in his power to control this, he was not\ngoing to waste time where the result was, at best, so much a matter of\nchance. Briefly, his view of life was that the longer you lived and the\nless you thought or talked about it the better. He should go pretty\nstraight in the main himself because it saved trouble on the whole, and\nhe should be guided mainly by a sense of humour in deciding when to\ndeviate from the path of technical honesty, and he would take care that\nhis errors, if any, should be rather on the side of excess than of\nasceticism\n\nThis man won the Chancellor\u2019s medal.\n\nThey have a review class in which the pupils are taught not to mind what\nis written in newspapers. As a natural result they grow up more keenly\nsensitive than ever.\n\nRound the margin of the newspapers sentences are printed cautioning the\nreaders against believing the criticisms they see, inasmuch as personal\nmotives will underlie the greater number.\n\nThey defend the universities and academic bodies on the ground that, but\nfor them, good work would be so universal that the world would become\nclogged with masterpieces to an extent that would reduce it to an\nabsurdity. Good sense would rule over all, and merely smart or clever\npeople would be unable to earn a living.\n\nThey assume that truth is best got at by the falling out of thieves.\n\u201cWell then, there must be thieves, or how can they fall out? Our\nbusiness is to produce the raw material from which truth may be\nelicited.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd you succeed, sir,\u201d I replied, \u201cin a way that is beyond all praise,\nand it seems as though there would be no limit to the supply of truth\nthat ought to be available. But, considering the number of your thieves,\nthey show less alacrity in flying at each other\u2019s throats than might have\nbeen expected.\u201d\n\nThey live their lives backwards, beginning, as old men and women, with\nlittle more knowledge of the past than we have of the future, and\nforeseeing the future about as clearly as we see the past, winding up by\nentering into the womb as though being buried. But delicacy forbids me\nto pursue this subject further: the upshot is that it comes to much the\nsame thing, provided one is used to it.\n\nPaying debts is a luxury which we cannot all of us afford.\n\n\u201cIt is not every one, my dear, who can reach such a counsel of perfection\nas murder.\u201d\n\nThere was no more space for the chronicles and, what was worse, there was\nno more space in which anything could happen at all, the whole land had\nbecome one vast cancerous growth of chronicles, chronicles, chronicles,\nnothing but chronicles.\n\nThe catalogue of the Browne medals alone will in time come to occupy\nseveral hundreds of pages in the _University Calendar_.\n\nThere was a professor who was looked upon as such a valuable man because\nhe had done more than any other living person to suppress any kind of\noriginality.\n\n\u201cIt is not our business,\u201d he used to say, \u201cto help students to think for\nthemselves\u2014surely this is the very last thing that one who wishes them\nwell would do by them. Our business to make them think as we do, or at\nany rate as we consider expedient to say we do.\u201d\n\nHe was President of the Society for the Suppression of Useless Knowledge\nand for the Complete Obliteration of the Past.\n\nThey have professional mind-dressers, as we have hair-dressers, and\nbefore going out to dinner or fashionable At-homes, people go and get\nthemselves primed with smart sayings or moral reflections according to\nthe style which they think will be most becoming to them in the kind of\ncompany they expect.\n\nThey deify as God something which I can only translate by a word as\nunderivable as God\u2014I mean Gumption. But it is part of their religion\nthat there should be no temple to Gumption, nor are there priests or\nprofessors of Gumption\u2014Gumption being too ineffable to hit the sense of\nhuman definition and analysis.\n\nThey hold that the function of universities is to make learning repellent\nand thus to prevent its becoming dangerously common. And they discharge\nthis beneficent function all the more efficiently because they do it\nunconsciously and automatically. The professors think they are advancing\nhealthy intellectual assimilation and digestion when they are in reality\nlittle better than cancer on the stomach.\n\nLet them be afflicted by an epidemic of the\nfear-of-giving-themselves-away disease. Enumerate its symptoms. There\nis a new discovery whereby the invisible rays that emanate from the soul\ncan be caught and all the details of a man\u2019s spiritual nature, his\ncharacter, disposition, principles, &c. be photographed on a plate as\neasily as his face or the bones of his hands, but no cure for the f. o.\ng. th. a. disease has yet been discovered.\n\nThey have a company for ameliorating the condition of those who are in a\nfuture state, and for improving the future state itself.\n\nPeople are buried alive for a week before they are married so that their\noffspring may know something about the grave, of which, otherwise,\nheredity could teach it nothing.\n\nIt has long been held that those constitutions are best which promote\nmost effectually the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Now the\ngreatest number are none too wise and none too honest, and to arrange our\nsystems with a view to the greater happiness of sensible straightforward\npeople\u2014indeed to give these people a chance at all if it can be\navoided\u2014is to interfere with the greatest happiness of the greatest\nnumber. Dull, slovenly and arrogant people do not like those who are\nquick, painstaking and unassuming; how can we then consistently with the\nfirst principles of either morality or political economy encourage such\npeople when we can bring sincerity and modesty fairly home to them?\n\nMuch we have to tolerate, partly because we cannot always discover in\ntime who are really insincere and who are only masking sincerity under a\ngarb of flippancy, and partly also because we wish to err on the side of\nletting the guilty escape rather than of punishing the innocent. Thus\nmany people who are perfectly well known to belong to the straightforward\nclass are allowed to remain at large and may even be seen hobnobbing and\non the best of possible terms with the guardians of public immorality.\nWe all feel, as indeed has been said in other nations, that the poor\nabuses of the time want countenance, and this moreover in the interests\nof the uses themselves, for the presence of a small modicum of sincerity\nacts as a wholesome stimulant and irritant to the prevailing spirit of\nacademicism; moreover, we hold it useful to have a certain number of\nmelancholy examples whose notorious failure shall serve as a warning to\nthose who do not cultivate a power of immoral self-control which shall\nprevent them from saying, or indeed even thinking, anything that shall\nnot be to their immediate and palpable advantage with the greatest\nnumber.\n\nIt is a point of good breeding with the Erewhonians to keep their\nopinions as far as possible in the background in all cases where\ncontroversy is even remotely possible, that is to say whenever\nconversation gets beyond the discussion of the weather. It is found\nnecessary, however, to recognise some means of ventilating points on\nwhich differences of opinion may exist, and the convention adopted is\nthat whenever a man finds occasion to speak strongly he should express\nhimself by dwelling as forcibly as he can on the views most opposed to\nhis own; even this, however, is tolerated rather than approved, for it is\ncounted the perfection of scholarship and good breeding not to express,\nand much more not even to have a definite opinion upon any subject\nwhatsoever.\n\nThus their \u201cyea\u201d is \u201cnay\u201d and their \u201cnay,\u201d \u201cyea,\u201d but it comes to the\nsame thing in the end, for it does not matter whether \u201cyea\u201d is called\n\u201cyea\u201d or \u201cnay\u201d so long as it is understood as \u201cyea.\u201d They go a long way\nround only to find themselves at the point from which they started, but\nthere is no accounting for tastes. With us such tactics are\ninconceivable, but so far do the Erewhonians carry them that it is common\nfor them to write whole reviews and articles between the lines of which a\npractised reader will detect a sense exactly contrary to that ostensibly\nput forward; nor is a man held to be more than a tyro in the arts of\npolite society unless he instinctively suspects a hidden sense in every\nproposition that meets him. I was more than once misled by these\nplover-like tactics, and on one occasion was near getting into a serious\nscrape. It happened thus:\u2014\n\nA man of venerable aspect was maintaining that pain was a sad thing and\nshould not be permitted under any circumstances. People ought not even\nto be allowed to suffer for the consequences of their own folly, and\nshould be punished for it severely if they did. If they could only be\nkept from making fools of themselves by the loss of freedom or, if\nnecessary, by some polite and painless method of extinction\u2014which meant\nhanging\u2014then they ought to be extinguished. If permanent improvement can\nonly be won through ages of mistake and suffering, which must be all\nbegun _de novo_ for every fresh improvement, let us be content to forego\nimprovement, and let those who suffer their lawless thoughts to stray in\nthis direction be improved from off the face of the earth as fast as\npossible. No remedy can be too drastic for such a disease as the pain\nfelt by another person. We find we can generally bear the pain ourselves\nwhen we have to do so, but it is intolerable that we should know it is\nbeing borne by any one else. The mere sight of pain unfits people for\nordinary life, the wear and tear of which would be very much reduced if\nwe would be at any trouble to restrain the present almost unbounded\nlicence in the matter of suffering\u2014a licence that people take advantage\nof to make themselves as miserable as they please, without so much as a\nthought for the feelings of others. Hence, he maintained, the practice\nof putting dupes in the same category as the physically diseased or the\nunlucky was founded on the eternal and inherent nature of things, and\ncould no more be interfered with than the revolution of the earth on its\naxis.\n\nHe said a good deal more to the same effect, and I was beginning to\nwonder how much longer he would think it necessary to insist on what was\nso obvious, when his hearers began to differ from him. One dilated on\nthe correlation between pain and pleasure which ensured that neither\ncould be extinguished without the extinguishing along with it of the\nother. Another said that throughout the animal and vegetable worlds\nthere was found what might be counted as a system of rewards and\npunishments; this, he contended, must cease to exist (and hence virtue\nmust cease) if the pain attaching to misconduct were less notoriously\nadvertised. Another maintained that the horror so freely expressed by\nmany at the sight of pain was as much selfish as not\u2014and so on.\n\nLet Erewhon be revisited by the son of the original writer\u2014let him hint\nthat his father used to write the advertisements for Mother Seigel\u2019s\nSyrup. He gradually worked his way up to this from being a mere writer\nof penny tracts. [Dec. 1896.]\n\nOn reaching the country he finds that divine honours are being paid him,\nchurches erected to him, and a copious mythology daily swelling, with\naccounts of the miracles he had worked and all his sayings and doings.\nIf any child got hurt he used to kiss the place and it would get well at\nonce.\n\nEverything has been turned topsy-turvy in consequence of his flight in\nthe balloon being ascribed to miraculous agency.\n\nAmong other things, he had maintained that sermons should be always\npreached by two people, one taking one side and another the opposite,\nwhile a third summed up and the congregation decided by a show of hands.\n\nThis system had been adopted and he goes to hear a sermon On the Growing\nHabit of Careful Patient Investigation as Encouraging Casuistry.\n[October 1897.]\n\n\n\n\nXIX\nTruth and Convenience\n\n\nOpposites\n\n\nYOU may have all growth or nothing growth, just as you may have all\nmechanism or nothing mechanism, all chance or nothing chance, but you\nmust not mix them. Having settled this, you must proceed at once to mix\nthem.\n\n\n\nTwo Points of View\n\n\nEverything must be studied from the point of view of itself, as near as\nwe can get to this, and from the point of view of its relations, as near\nas we can get to them. If we try to see it absolutely in itself,\nunalloyed with relations, we shall find, by and by, that we have, as it\nwere, whittled it away. If we try to see it in its relations to the\nbitter end, we shall find that there is no corner of the universe into\nwhich it does not enter. Either way the thing eludes us if we try to\ngrasp it with the horny hands of language and conscious thought. Either\nway we can think it perfectly well\u2014so long as we don\u2019t think about\nthinking about it. The pale cast of thought sicklies over everything.\n\nPractically everything should be seen as itself pure and simple, so far\nas we can comfortably see it, and at the same time as not itself, so far\nas we can comfortably see it, and then the two views should be combined,\nso far as we can comfortably combine them. If we cannot comfortably\ncombine them, we should think of something else.\n\n\n\nTruth\n\n\ni\n\n\nWe can neither define what we mean by truth nor be in doubt as to our\nmeaning. And this I suppose must be due to the antiquity of the instinct\nthat, on the whole, directs us towards truth. We cannot self-vivisect\nourselves in respect of such a vital function, though we can discharge it\nnormally and easily enough so long as we do not think about it.\n\n\nii\n\n\nThe pursuit of truth is chimerical. That is why it is so hard to say\nwhat truth is. There is no permanent absolute unchangeable truth; what\nwe should pursue is the most convenient arrangement of our ideas.\n\n\niii\n\n\nThere is no such source of error as the pursuit of absolute truth.\n\n\niv\n\n\nA. B. was so impressed with the greatness and certain ultimate victory of\ntruth that he considered it unnecessary to encourage her or do anything\nto defend her.\n\n\nv\n\n\nHe who can best read men best knows all truth that need concern him; for\nit is not what the thing is, apart from man\u2019s thoughts in respect of it,\nbut how to reach the fairest compromise between men\u2019s past and future\nopinions that is the fittest object of consideration; and this we get by\nreading men and women.\n\n\nvi\n\n\nTruth should not be absolutely lost sight of, but it should not be talked\nabout.\n\n\nvii\n\n\nSome men love truth so much that they seem to be in continual fear lest\nshe should catch cold on over-exposure.\n\n\nviii\n\n\nThe firmest line that can be drawn upon the smoothest paper has still\njagged edges if seen through a microscope. This does not matter until\nimportant deductions are made on the supposition that there are no jagged\nedges.\n\n\nix\n\n\nTruth should never be allowed to become extreme; otherwise it will be apt\nto meet and to run into the extreme of falsehood. It should be played\npretty low down\u2014to the pit and gallery rather than the stalls. Pit-truth\nis more true to the stalls than stall-truth to the pit.\n\n\nx\n\n\nAn absolute lie may live\u2014for it is a true lie, and is saved by being\nflecked with a grain of its opposite. Not so absolute truth.\n\n\nxi\n\n\nWhenever we push truth hard she runs to earth in contradiction in terms,\nthat is to say, in falsehood. An essential contradiction in terms meets\nus at the end of every enquiry.\n\n\nxii\n\n\nIn _Alps and Sanctuaries_ (Chapter V) I implied that I was lying when I\ntold the novice that Handel was a Catholic. But I was not lying; Handel\nwas a Catholic, and so am I, and so is every well-disposed person. It\nshows how careful we ought to be when we lie\u2014we can never be sure but\nwhat we may be speaking the truth.\n\n\nxiii\n\n\nPerhaps a little bit of absolute truth on any one question might prove a\ngeneral solvent, and dissipate the universe.\n\n\nxiv\n\n\nTruth generally is kindness, but where the two diverge or collide,\nkindness should override truth.\n\n\n\nFalsehood\n\n\ni\n\n\nTruth consists not in never lying but in knowing when to lie and when not\nto do so. _De minimis non curat veritas_.\n\nYes, but what is a minimum? Sometimes a maximum is a minimum and\nsometimes it is the other way.\n\n\nii\n\n\nLying is like borrowing or appropriating in music. It is only a good,\nsound, truthful person who can lie to any good purpose; if a man is not\nhabitually truthful his very lies will be false to him and betray him.\nThe converse also is true; if a man is not a good, sound, honest, capable\nliar there is no truth in him.\n\n\niii\n\n\nAny fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know\nhow to lie well.\n\n\niv\n\n\nI do not mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy.\n\n\nv\n\n\nA friend who cannot at a pinch remember a thing or two that never\nhappened is as bad as one who does not know how to forget.\n\n\nvi\n\n\nCursed is he that does not know when to shut his mind. An open mind is\nall very well in its way, but it ought not to be so open that there is no\nkeeping anything in or out of it. It should be capable of shutting its\ndoors sometimes, or it may be found a little draughty.\n\n\nvii\n\n\nHe who knows not how to wink knows not how to see; and he who knows not\nhow to lie knows not how to speak the truth. So he who cannot suppress\nhis opinions cannot express them.\n\n\nviii\n\n\nThere can no more be a true statement without falsehood distributed\nthrough it, than a note on a well-tuned piano that is not intentionally\nand deliberately put out of tune to some extent in order to have the\npiano in the most perfect possible tune. Any perfection of tune as\nregards one key can only be got at the expense of all the rest.\n\n\nix\n\n\nLying has a kind of respect and reverence with it. We pay a person the\ncompliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to him.\n\n\nx\n\n\nI seem to see lies crowding and crushing at a narrow gate and working\ntheir way in along with truths into the domain of history.\n\n\n\nNature\u2019s Double Falsehood\n\n\nThat one great lie she told about the earth being flat when she knew it\nwas round all the time! And again how she stuck to it that the sun went\nround us when it was we who were going round the sun! This double\nfalsehood has irretrievably ruined my confidence in her. There is no lie\nwhich she will not tell and stick to like a Gladstonian. How plausibly\nshe told her tale, and how many ages was it before she was so much as\nsuspected! And then when things did begin to look bad for her, how she\nbrazened it out, and what a desperate business it was to bring her shifts\nand prevarications to book!\n\n\n\nConvenience\n\n\ni\n\n\nWe wonder at its being as hard often to discover convenience as it is to\ndiscover truth. But surely convenience is truth.\n\n\nii\n\n\nThe use of truth is like the use of words; both truth and words depend\ngreatly upon custom.\n\n\niii\n\n\nWe do with truth much as we do with God. We create it according to our\nown requirements and then say that it has created us, or requires that we\nshall do or think so and so\u2014whatever we find convenient.\n\n\niv\n\n\n\u201cWhat is Truth?\u201d is often asked, as though it were harder to say what\ntruth is than what anything else is. But what is Justice? What is\nanything? An eternal contradiction in terms meets us at the end of every\nenquiry. We are not required to know what truth is, but to speak the\ntruth, and so with justice.\n\n\nv\n\n\nThe search after truth is like the search after perpetual motion or the\nattempt to square the circle. All we should aim at is the most\nconvenient way of looking at a thing\u2014the way that most sensible people\nare likely to find give them least trouble for some time to come. It is\nnot true that the sun used to go round the earth until Copernicus\u2019s time,\nbut it is true that until Copernicus\u2019s time it was most convenient to us\nto hold this. Still, we had certain ideas which could only fit in\ncomfortably with our other ideas when we came to consider the sun as the\ncentre of the planetary system.\n\nObvious convenience often takes a long time before it is fully recognised\nand acted upon, but there will be a _nisus_ towards it as long and as\nwidely spread as the desire of men to be saved trouble. If truth is not\ntrouble-saving in the long run it is not truth: truth is only that which\nis most largely and permanently trouble-saving. The ultimate triumph,\ntherefore, of truth rests on a very tangible basis\u2014much more so than when\nit is made to depend upon the will of an unseen and unknowable agency.\nIf my views about the _Odyssey_, for example, will, in the long run, save\nstudents from perplexity, the students will be sure to adopt them, and I\nhave no wish that they should adopt them otherwise.\n\nIt does not matter much what the truth is, but our knowing the truth\u2014that\nis to say our hitting on the most permanently convenient arrangement of\nour ideas upon a subject whatever it may be\u2014matters very much; at least\nit matters, or may matter, very much in some relations. And however\nlittle it matters, yet it matters, and however much it matters yet it\ndoes not matter. In the utmost importance there is unimportance, and in\nthe utmost unimportance there is importance. So also it is with\ncertainty, life, matter, necessity, consciousness and, indeed, with\neverything which can form an object of human sensation at all, or of\nthose after-reasonings which spring ultimately from sensations. This is\na round-about way of saying that every question has two sides.\n\n\nvi\n\n\nOur concern is with the views we shall choose to take and to let other\npeople take concerning things, and as to the way of expressing those\nviews which shall give least trouble. If we express ourselves in one way\nwe find our ideas in confusion and our action impotent: if in another our\nideas cohere harmoniously, and our action is edifying. The convenience\nof least disturbing vested ideas, and at the same time rearranging our\nviews in accordance with new facts that come to our knowledge, this is\nour proper care. But it is idle to say we do not know anything about\nthings\u2014perhaps we do, perhaps we don\u2019t\u2014but we at any rate know what sane\npeople think and are likely to think about things, and this to all\nintents and purposes is knowing the things themselves. For the things\nonly are what sensible people agree to say and think they are.\n\n\nvii\n\n\nThe arrangement of our ideas is as much a matter of convenience as the\npacking of goods in a druggist\u2019s or draper\u2019s store and leads to exactly\nthe same kind of difficulties in the matter of classifying them. We all\nadmit the arbitrariness of classifications in a languid way, but we do\nnot think of it more than we can help\u2014I suppose because it is so\ninconvenient to do so. The great advantage of classification is to\nconceal the fact that subdivisions are as arbitrary as they are.\n\n\n\nClassification\n\n\nThere can be no perfect way, for classification presupposes that a thing\nhas absolute limits whereas there is nothing that does not partake of the\nuniversal infinity\u2014nothing whose boundaries do not vary. Everything is\none thing at one time and in some respects, and another at other times\nand in other respects. We want a new mode of measurement altogether; at\npresent we take what gaps we can find, set up milestones, and declare\nthem irremovable. We want a measure which shall express, or at any rate\nrecognise, the harmonics of resemblance that lurk even in the most\nabsolute differences and vice versa.\n\n\n\nAttempts at Classification\n\n\nare like nailing battens of our own flesh and blood upon ourselves as an\ninclined plane that we may walk up ourselves more easily; and yet it\nanswers very sufficiently.\n\n\n\nA Clergyman\u2019s Doubts\n\n\n_Under this heading a correspondence appeared in the_ Examiner, 15_th_\n_February to_ 14_th_ _June_, 1879. _Butler wrote all the letters under\nvarious signatures except one or perhaps two_. _His first letter\npurported to come from_ \u201c_An Earnest Clergyman_\u201d _aged forty-five_, _with\na wife_, _five children_, _a country living worth_ \u00a3400 _a year_, _and a\nhouse_, _but no private means_. _He had ceased to believe in the\ndoctrines he was called upon to teach_. _Ought he to continue to lead a\nlife that was a lie or ought he to throw up his orders and plunge\nhimself_, _his wife and children into poverty_? _The dilemma interested\nButler deeply_: _he might so easily have found himself in it if he had\nnot begun to doubt the efficacy of infant baptism when he did_. _Fifteen\nletters followed_, _signed_ \u201c_Cantab_,\u201d \u201c_Oxoniensis_,\u201d _and so forth_,\n_some recommending one course_, _some another_. _One_, _signed_\n\u201c_X.Y.Z._,\u201d _included_ \u201c_The Righteous Man_\u201d _which will be found in the\nlast group of this volume_, _headed_ \u201c_Poems_.\u201d _From the following\nletter signed_ \u201c_Ethics_\u201d _Butler afterwards took two passages_ (_which I\nhave enclosed_, _one between single asterisks the other between double\nasterisks_), _and used them for the_ \u201c_Dissertation on Lying_\u201d _which is\nin Chapter V of_ Alps and Sanctuaries.\n\nTo the Editor of the _Examiner_.\n\nSir: I am sorry for your correspondent \u201cAn Earnest Clergyman\u201d for, though\nhe may say he has \u201ccome to smile at his troubles,\u201d his smile seems to be\na grim one. We must all of us eat a peck of moral dirt before we die,\nbut some must know more precisely than others when they are eating it;\nsome, again, can bolt it without wry faces in one shape, while they\ncannot endure even the smell of it in another. \u201cAn Earnest Clergyman\u201d\nadmits that he is in the habit of telling people certain things which he\ndoes not believe, but says he has no great fancy for deceiving himself.\n\u201cCantab\u201d must, I fear, deceive himself before he can tolerate the notion\nof deceiving other people. For my own part I prefer to be deceived by\none who does not deceive himself rather than by one who does, for the\nfirst will know better when to stop, and will not commonly deceive me\nmore than he can help. As for the other\u2014if he does not know how to\ninvest his own thoughts safely he will invest mine still worse; he will\nhold God\u2019s most precious gift of falsehood too cheap; he has come by it\ntoo easily; cheaply come, cheaply go will be his maxim. The good liar\nshould be the converse of the poet; he should be made, not born.\n\nIt is not loss of confidence in a man\u2019s strict adherence to the letter of\ntruth that shakes my confidence in him. I know what I do myself and what\nI must lose all social elasticity if I were not to do. * Turning for\nmoral guidance to my cousins the lower animals\u2014whose unsophisticated\ninstinct proclaims what God has taught them with a directness we may\nsometimes study\u2014I find the plover lying when she reads us truly and,\nknowing that we shall hit her if we think her to be down, lures us from\nher young ones under the fiction of a broken wing. Is God angry, think\nyou, with this pretty deviation from the letter of strict accuracy? or\nwas it not He who whispered to her to tell the falsehood, to tell it with\na circumstance, without conscientious scruples, and not once only but to\nmake a practice of it, so as to be an habitual liar for at least six\nweeks in the year? I imagine so. When I was young I used to read in\ngood books that it was God who taught the bird to make her nest, and, if\nso, He probably taught each species the other domestic arrangements which\nshould be best suited to it. Or did the nest-building information come\nfrom God and was there an Evil One among the birds also who taught them\nto steer clear of pedantry? Then there is the spider\u2014an ugly creature,\nbut I suppose God likes it\u2014can anything be meaner than that web which\nnaturalists extol as such a marvel of Providential ingenuity?\n\nIngenuity! The word reeks with lying. Once, on a summer afternoon, in a\ndistant country I met one of those orchids whose main idea consists in\nthe imitation of a fly; this lie they dispose so plausibly upon their\npetals that other flies who would steal their honey leave them\nunmolested. Watching intently and keeping very still, methought I heard\nthis person speaking to the offspring which she felt within her though I\nsaw them not.\n\n\u201cMy children,\u201d she exclaimed, \u201cI must soon leave you; think upon the fly,\nmy loved ones; make it look as terrible as possible; cling to this\nthought in your passage through life, for it is the one thing needful;\nonce lose sight of it and you are lost.\u201d\n\nOver and over again she sang this burden in a small, still voice, and so\nI left her. Then straightway I came upon some butterflies whose\nprofession it was to pretend to believe in all manner of vital truths\nwhich in their inner practice they rejected; thus, pretending to be\ncertain other and hateful butterflies which no bird will eat by reason of\ntheir abominable smell, these cunning ones conceal their own sweetness,\nlive long in the land and see good days. Think of that, O Earnest\nClergyman, my friend! No. Lying is like Nature, you may expel her with\na fork, but she will always come back again. Lying is like the poor, we\nmust have it always with us. The question is, How much, when, where, to\nwhom and under what circumstances is lying right? For, once admit that a\nplover may pretend to have a broken wing and yet be without sin if she\nhave pretended well enough, and the thin edge of the wedge has been\nintroduced so that there is no more saying that we must never lie. *\n\nIt is not, then, the discovery that a man has the power to lie that\nshakes my confidence in him; it is loss of confidence in his mendacity\nthat I find it impossible to get over. I forgive him for telling me\nlies, but I cannot forgive him for not telling me the same lies, or\nnearly so, about the same things. This shows he has a slipshod memory,\nwhich is unpardonable, or else that he tells so many lies that he finds\nit impossible to remember all of them, and this is like having too many\nof the poor always with us. The plover and the spider have each of them\ntheir stock of half a dozen lies or so which we may expect them to tell\nwhen occasion arises; they are plausible and consistent, but we know\nwhere to have them; otherwise, if they were liable, like self-deceivers,\nto spring mines upon us in unexpected places, man would soon make it his\nbusiness to reform them\u2014not from within, but from without.\n\nAnd now it is time I came to the drift of my letter, which is that if \u201cAn\nEarnest Clergyman\u201d has not cheated himself into thinking he is telling\nthe truth, he will do no great harm by stopping where he is. Do not let\nhim make too much fuss about trifles. The solemnity of the truths which\nhe professes to uphold is very doubtful; there is a tacit consent that it\nexists more on paper than in reality. If he is a man of any tact, he can\nsay all he is compelled to say and do all the Church requires of him\u2014like\na gentleman, with neither undue slovenliness nor undue unction\u2014yet it\nshall be perfectly plain to all his parishioners who are worth\nconsidering that he is acting as a mouthpiece and that his words are\nspoken dramatically. As for the unimaginative, they are as children;\nthey cannot and should not be taken into account. Men must live as they\nmust write or act\u2014for a certain average standard which each must guess at\nfor himself as best he can; those who are above this standard he cannot\nreach; those, again, who are below it must be so at their own risk.\n\nPilate did well when he would not stay for an answer to his question,\nWhat is truth? for there is no such thing apart from the sayer and the\nsayee. ** There is that irony in nature which brings it to pass that if\nthe sayer be a man with any stuff in him, provided he tells no lies\nwittingly to himself and is never unkindly, he may lie and lie and lie\nall the day long, and he will no more be false to any man than the sun\nwill shine by night; his lies will become truths as they pass into the\nhearer\u2019s soul. But if a man deceives himself and is unkind, the truth is\nnot in him, it turns to falsehood while yet in his mouth, like the quails\nin the wilderness of Sinai. How this is so or why, I know not, but that\nthe Lord hath mercy on whom He will have mercy and whom He willeth He\nhardeneth, and that the bad man can do no right and the good no wrong. **\n\nA great French writer has said that the mainspring of our existence does\nnot lie in those veins and nerves and arteries which have been described\nwith so much care\u2014these are but its masks and mouthpieces through which\nit acts but behind which it is for ever hidden; so in like manner the\nfaiths and formul\u00e6 of a Church may be as its bones and animal mechanism,\nbut they are not the life of the Church, which is something rather that\ncannot be holden in words, and one should know how to put them off, yet\nput them off gracefully, if they wish to come too prominently forward.\nDo not let \u201cAn Earnest Clergyman\u201d take things too much _au s\u00e9rieux_. He\nseems to be contented where he is; let him take the word of one who is\nold enough to be his father, that if he has a talent for conscientious\nscruples he will find plenty of scope for them in other professions as\nwell as in the Church. I, for aught he knows, may be a doctor and I\nmight tell my own story; or I may be a barrister and have found it my\nduty to win a case which I thought a very poor one, whereby others, whose\ncircumstances were sufficiently pitiable, lost their all; yet doctors and\nbarristers do not write to the newspapers to air their poor consciences\nin broad daylight. Why should An Earnest (I hate the word) Clergyman do\nso? Let me give him a last word or two of fatherly advice.\n\nMen may settle small things for themselves\u2014as what they will have for\ndinner or where they will spend the vacation\u2014but the great ones\u2014such as\nthe choice of a profession, of the part of England they will live in,\nwhether they will marry or no\u2014they had better leave the force of\ncircumstances to settle for them; if they prefer the phraseology, as I do\nmyself, let them leave these matters to God. When He has arranged things\nfor them, do not let them be in too great a hurry to upset His\narrangement in a tiff. If they do not like their present and another\nopening suggests itself easily and naturally, let them take that as a\nsign that they make a change; otherwise, let them see to it that they do\nnot leave the frying-pan for the fire. A man, finding himself in the\nfield of a profession, should do as cows do when they are put into a\nfield of grass. They do not like any field; they like the open prairie\nof their ancestors. They walk, however, all round their new abode,\nsurveying the hedges and gates with much interest. If there is a gap in\nany hedge they will commonly go through it at once, otherwise they will\nresign themselves contentedly enough to the task of feeding.\n\n I am, Sir,\n\n One who thinks he knows a thing or two about\n ETHICS.\n\n\n\n\nXX\nFirst Principles\n\n\nThe Baselessness of Our Ideas\n\n\nTHAT our ideas are baseless, or rotten at the roots, is what few who\nstudy them will deny; but they are rotten in the same way as property is\nrobbery, and property is robbery in the same way as our ideas are rotten\nat the roots, that is to say it is a robbery and it is not. No title to\nproperty, no idea and no living form (which is the embodiment of idea) is\nindefeasible if search be made far enough. Granted that our thoughts are\nbaseless, yet they are so in the same way as the earth itself is both\nbaseless and most firmly based, or again most stable and yet most in\nmotion.\n\nOur ideas, or rather, I should say, our realities, are all of them like\nour Gods, based on superstitious foundations. If man is a microcosm then\nkosmos is a megalanthrope and that is how we come to anthropomorphise the\ndeity. In the eternal pendulum swing of thought we make God in our own\nimage, and then make him make us, and then find it out and cry because we\nhave no God and so on, over and over again as a child has new toys given\nto it, tires of them, breaks them and is disconsolate till it gets new\nones which it will again tire of and break. If the man who first made\nGod in his own image had been a good model, all might have been well; but\nhe was impressed with an undue sense of his own importance and, as a\nnatural consequence, he had no sense of humour. Both these imperfections\nhe has fully and faithfully reproduced in his work and with the result we\nare familiar. All our most solid and tangible realities are but as lies\nthat we have told too often henceforth to question them. But we have to\nquestion them sometimes. It is not the sun that goes round the world but\nwe who go round the sun.\n\nIf any one is for examining and making requisitions on title we can\nsearch too, and can require the title of the state as against any other\nstate, or against the world at large. But suppose we succeed in this, we\nmust search further still and show by what title mankind has ousted the\nlower animals, and by what title we eat them, or they themselves eat\ngrass or one another.\n\nSee what quicksands we fall into if we wade out too far from the _terra\nfirma_ of common consent! The error springs from supposing that there is\nany absolute right or absolute truth, and also from supposing that truth\nand right are any the less real for being not absolute but relative. In\nthe complex of human affairs we should aim not at a supposed absolute\nstandard but at the greatest coming-together-ness or convenience of all\nour ideas and practices; that is to say, at their most harmonious working\nwith one another. Hit ourselves somewhere we are bound to do: no idea\nwill travel far without colliding with some other idea. Thus, if we\npursue one line of probable convenience, we find it convenient to see all\nthings as ultimately one: that is, if we insist rather on the points of\nagreement between things than on those of disagreement. If we insist on\nthe opposite view, namely, on the points of disagreement, we find\nourselves driven to the conclusion that each atom is an individual\nentity, and that the unity between even the most united things is\napparent only. If we did not unduly insist upon\u2014that is to say,\nemphasise and exaggerate\u2014the part which concerns us for the time, we\nshould never get to understand anything; the proper way is to exaggerate\nfirst one view and then the other, and then let the two exaggerations\ncollide, but good-temperedly and according to the laws of civilised\nmental warfare. So we see first all things as one, then all things as\nmany and, in the end, a multitude in unity and a unity in multitude.\nCare must be taken not to accept ideas which though very agreeable at\nfirst disagree with us afterwards, and keep rising on our mental\nstomachs, as garlic does upon our bodily.\n\n\n\nImagination\n\n\ni\n\n\nImagination depends mainly upon memory, but there is a small percentage\nof creation of something out of nothing with it. We can invent a trifle\nmore than can be got at by mere combination of remembered things.\n\n\nii\n\n\nWhen we are impressed by a few only, or perhaps only one of a number of\nideas which are bonded pleasantly together, there is hope; when we see a\ngood many there is expectation; when we have had so many presented to us\nthat we have expected confidently and the remaining ideas have not turned\nup, there is disappointment. So the sailor says in the play:\n\n\u201cHere are my arms, here is my manly bosom, but where\u2019s my Mary?\u201d\n\n\niii\n\n\nWhat tricks imagination plays! Thus, if we expect a person in the street\nwe transform a dozen impossible people into him while they are still too\nfar off to be seen distinctly; and when we expect to hear a footstep on\nthe stairs\u2014as, we will say, the postman\u2019s\u2014we hear footsteps in every\nsound. Imagination will make us see a billiard hall as likely to travel\nfarther than it will travel, if we hope that it will do so. It will make\nus think we feel a train begin to move as soon as the guard has said \u201cAll\nright,\u201d though the train has not yet begun to move if another train\nalongside begins to move exactly at this juncture, there is no man who\nwill not be deceived. And we omit as much as we insert. We often do not\nnotice that a man has grown a beard.\n\n\niv\n\n\nI read once of a man who was cured of a dangerous illness by eating his\ndoctor\u2019s prescription which he understood was the medicine itself. So\nWilliam Sefton Moorhouse [in New Zealand] imagined he was being converted\nto Christianity by reading Burton\u2019s _Anatomy of Melancholy_, which he had\ngot by mistake for Butler\u2019s _Analogy_, on the recommendation of a friend.\nBut it puzzled him a good deal.\n\n\nv\n\n\nAt Ivy Hatch, while we were getting our beer in the inner parlour, there\nwas a confused m\u00eal\u00e9e of voices in the bar, amid which I distinguished a\nvoice saying:\n\n\u201cImagination will do any bloody thing almost.\u201d\n\nI was writing _Life and Habit_ at the time and was much tempted to put\nthis passage in. Nothing truer has ever been said about imagination.\nThen the voice was heard addressing the barman and saying:\n\n\u201cI suppose you wouldn\u2019t trust me with a quart of beer, would you?\u201d\n\n\n\nInexperience\n\n\nKant says that all our knowledge is founded on experience. But each new\nsmall increment of knowledge is not so founded, and our whole knowledge\nis made up of the accumulation of these small new increments not one of\nwhich is founded upon experience. Our knowledge, then, is founded not on\nexperience but on inexperience; for where there is no novelty, that is to\nsay no inexperience, there is no increment in experience. Our knowledge\nis really founded upon something which we do not know, but it is\nconverted into experience by memory.\n\nIt is like species\u2014we do not know the cause of the variations whose\naccumulation results in species and any explanation which leaves this out\nof sight ignores the whole difficulty. We want to know the cause of the\neffect that inexperience produces on us.\n\n\n\nEx Nihilo Nihil Fit\n\n\nWe say that everything has a beginning. This is one side of the matter.\nThere is another according to which everything is without a\nbeginning\u2014beginnings, and endings also, being, but as it were, steps cut\nin a slope of ice without which we could not climb it. They are for\nconvenience and the hardness of the hearts of men who make an idol of\nclassification, but they do not exist apart from our sense of our own\nconvenience.\n\nIt was a favourite saying with William Sefton Moorhouse [in New Zealand]\nthat men cannot get rich by swopping knives. Nevertheless nature does\nseem to go upon this principle. Everybody does eat everybody up. Man\neats birds, birds eat worms and worms eat man again. It is a vicious\ncircle, yet, somehow or other, there is an increment. I begin to doubt\nthe principle _ex nihilo nihil fit_.\n\nWe very much want a way of getting something out of nothing and back into\nit again. Whether or no we ever shall get such a way, we see the clearly\nperceptible arising out of and returning into the absolutely\nimperceptible and, so far as we are concerned, this is much the same\nthing. To assume an unknowable substratum as the source from which all\nthings proceed or are evolved is equivalent to assuming that they come up\nout of nothing; for that which does not exist for us is for us nothing;\nthat which we do not know does not exist _qua_ us, and therefore it does\nnot exist. When I say \u201cwe,\u201d I mean mankind generally, for things may\nexist _qua_ one man and not _qua_ another. And when I say \u201cnothing\u201d I\npostulate something of which we have no experience.\n\nAnd yet we cannot say that a thing does not exist till it is known to\nexist. The planet Neptune existed though, _qua_ us, it did not exist\nbefore Adams and Leverrier discovered it, and we cannot hold that its\ncontinued non-existence to my laundress and her husband makes it any the\nless an entity. We cannot say that it did not exist at all till it was\ndiscovered, that it exists only partially and vaguely to most of us, that\nto many it still does not exist at all, that there are few to whom it\neven exists in any force or fullness and none who can realise more than\nthe broad facts of its existence. Neptune has been disturbing the orbits\nof the planets nearest to him for more centuries than we can reckon, and\nwhether or not he is known to have been doing so has nothing to do with\nthe matter. If A is robbed, he is robbed, whether he knows it or not.\n\nIn one sense, then, we cannot say that the planet Neptune did not exist\ntill he was discovered, but in another we can and ought to do so. _De\nnon apparentibus et non existentibus eadem est ratio_; as long,\ntherefore, as Neptune did not appear he did not exist _qua_ us. The only\nway out of it is through the contradiction in terms of maintaining that a\nthing exists and does not exist at one and the same time. So A may be\nboth robbed, and not robbed.\n\nWe consider, therefore, that things have assumed their present shape by\ncourse of evolution from a something which, _qua_ us, is a nothing, from\na potential something but not an actual, from an actual nothing but a\npotential not-nothing, from a nothing which might become a something to\nus with any modification on our parts but which, till such modification\nhas arisen, does not exist in relation to us, though very conceivably\ndoing so in relation to other entities. But this Protean nothing,\ncapable of appearing as something, is not the absolute, eternal,\nunchangeable nothing that we mean when we say _ex nihilo nihil fit_.\n\nThe alternative is that something should not have come out of nothing,\nand this is saying that something has always existed. But the eternal\nincreateness of matter seems as troublesome to conceive as its having\nbeen created out of nothing. I say \u201cseems,\u201d for I am not sure how far it\nreally is so. We never saw something come out of nothing, that is to\nsay, we never saw a beginning of anything except as the beginning of a\nnew phase of something pre-existent. We ought therefore to find the\nnotion of eternal being familiar, it ought to be the only conception of\nmatter which we are able to form: nevertheless, we are so carried away by\nbeing accustomed to see phases have their beginnings and endings that we\nforget that the matter, of which we see the phase begin and end, did not\nbegin or end with the phase.\n\nEternal matter permeated by eternal mind, matter and mind being functions\nof one another, is the least uncomfortable way of looking at the\nuniverse; but as it is beyond our comprehension, and cannot therefore be\ncomfortable, sensible persons will not look at the universe at all except\nin such details as may concern them.\n\n\n\nContradiction in Terms\n\n\nWe pay higher and higher in proportion to the service rendered till we\nget to the highest services, such as becoming a Member of Parliament, and\nthis must not be paid at all. If a man would go yet higher and found a\nnew and permanent system, or create some new idea or work of art which\nremains to give delight to ages\u2014he must not only not be paid, but he will\nhave to pay very heavily out of his own pocket into the bargain.\n\nAgain, we are to get all men to speak well of us if we can; yet we are to\nbe cursed if all men speak well of us.\n\nSo when the universe has gathered itself into a single ball (which I\ndon\u2019t for a moment believe it ever will, but I don\u2019t care) it will no\nsooner have done so, than the bubble will burst and it will go back to\nits gases again.\n\nContradiction in terms is so omnipresent that we treat it as we treat\ndeath, or free-will, or fate, or air, or God, or the Devil\u2014taking these\nthings so much as matters of course that, though they are visible enough\nif we choose to see them, we neglect them normally altogether, without\nfor a moment intending to deny their existence. This neglect is\nconvenient as preventing repetitions the monotony of which would defeat\ntheir own purpose, but people are tempted nevertheless to forget the\nunderlying omnipresence in the superficial omniabsence. They forget that\nits opposite lurks in everything\u2014that there are harmonics of God in the\nDevil and harmonics of the Devil in God.\n\nContradiction in terms is not only to be excused but there can be no\nproposition which does not more or less involve one.\n\nIt is the fact of there being contradictions in terms, which have to be\nsmoothed away and fused into harmonious acquiescence with their\nsurroundings, that makes life and consciousness possible at all. Unless\nthe unexpected were sprung upon us continually to enliven us we should\npass life, as it were, in sleep. To a living being no \u201cIt is\u201d can be\nabsolute; wherever there is an \u201cIs,\u201d there, among its harmonics, lurks an\n\u201cIs not.\u201d When there is absolute absence of \u201cIs not\u201d the \u201cIs\u201d goes too.\nAnd the \u201cIs not\u201d does not go completely till the \u201cIs\u201d is gone along with\nit. Every proposition has got a skeleton in its cupboard.\n\n\n\nExtremes\n\n\ni\n\n\nIntuition and evidence seem to have something of the same relation that\nfaith and reason, luck and cunning, freewill and necessity and demand and\nsupply have. They grow up hand in hand and no man can say which comes\nfirst. It is the same with life and death, which lurk one within the\nother as do rest and unrest, change and persistence, heat and cold,\npoverty and riches, harmony and counterpoint, night and day, summer and\nwinter.\n\nAnd so with pantheism and atheism; loving everybody is loving nobody, and\nGod everywhere is, practically, God nowhere. I once asked a man if he\nwas a free-thinker; he replied that he did not think he was. And so, I\nhave heard of a man exclaiming \u201cI am an atheist, thank God!\u201d Those who\nsay there is a God are wrong unless they mean at the same time that there\nis no God, and vice versa. The difference is the same as that between\nplus nothing and minus nothing, and it is hard to say which we ought to\nadmire and thank most\u2014the first theist or the first atheist.\nNevertheless, for many reasons, the plus nothing is to be preferred.\n\n\nii\n\n\nTo be poor is to be contemptible, to be very poor is worse still, and so\non; but to be actually at the point of death through poverty is to be\nsublime. So \u201cwhen weakness is utter, honour ceaseth.\u201d [_The Righteous\nMan_, p. 390, _post_.]\n\n\niii\n\n\nThe meeting of extremes is never clearer than in the case of moral and\nintellectual strength and weakness. We may say with Hesiod \u201cHow much the\nhalf is greater than the whole!\u201d or with S. Paul \u201cMy strength is made\nperfect in weakness\u201d; they come to much the same thing. We all know\nstrength so strong as to be weaker than weakness and weakness so great as\nto be stronger than strength.\n\n\niv\n\n\nThe Queen travels as the Countess of Balmoral and would probably be very\nglad, if she could, to travel as plain Mrs. Smith. There is a good deal\nof the Queen lurking in every Mrs. Smith and, conversely, a good deal of\nMrs. Smith lurking in every queen.\n\n\n\nFree-Will and Necessity\n\n\nAs I am tidying up, and the following beginning of a paper on the above\nsubject has been littering about my table since December 1889, which is\nthe date on the top of page i, I will shoot it on to this dust-heap and\nbury it out of my sight. It runs:\n\nThe difficulty has arisen from our forgetting that contradiction in terms\nlies at the foundation of all our thoughts as a condition and _sine qua\nnon_ of our being able to think at all. We imagine that we must either\nhave all free-will and no necessity, or all necessity and no free-will,\nand, it being obvious that our free-will is often overridden by force of\ncircumstances while the evidence that necessity is overridden by\nfree-will is harder to find (if indeed it can be found, for I have not\nfully considered the matter), most people who theorise upon this question\nwill deny in theory that there is any free-will at all, though in\npractice they take care to act as if there was. For if we admit that\nlike causes are followed by like effects (and everything that we do is\nbased upon this hypothesis), it follows that every combination of causes\nmust have some one consequent which can alone follow it and which\nfree-will cannot touch.\n\n(Yes, but it will generally be found that free-will entered into the\noriginal combination and the repetition of the combination will not be\nexact unless a like free-will is repeated along with all the other\nfactors.)\n\nFrom which it follows that free-will is apparent only, and that, as I\nsaid years ago in _Erewhon_, we are not free to choose what seems best on\neach occasion but bound to do so, being fettered to the freedom of our\nwills throughout our lives.\n\nBut to deny free-will is to deny moral responsibility, and we are landed\nin absurdity at once\u2014for there is nothing more patent than that moral\nresponsibility exists. Nevertheless, at first sight, it would seem as\nthough we ought not to hang a man for murder if there was no escape for\nhim but that he must commit one. Of course the answer to one who makes\nthis objection is that our hanging him is as much a matter of necessity\nas his committing the murder.\n\nIf, again, necessity, as involved in the certainty that like combinations\nwill be followed by like consequence, is a basis on which all our actions\nare founded, so also is freewill. This is quite as much a _sine qua non_\nfor action as necessity is; for who would try to act if he did not think\nthat his trying would influence the result?\n\nWe have therefore two apparently incompatible and mutually destructive\nfaiths, each equally and self-evidently demonstrable, each equally\nnecessary for salvation of any kind, and each equally entering into every\nthought and action of our whole lives, yet utterly contradictory and\nirreconcilable.\n\nCan any dilemma seem more hopeless? It is not a case of being able to\nlive happily with either were t\u2019other dear charmer away; it is\nindispensable that we should embrace both, and embrace them with equal\ncordiality at the same time, though each annihilates the other. It is as\nthough it were indispensable to our existence to be equally dead and\nequally alive at one and the same moment.\n\nHere we have an illustration which may help us. For, after all, we are\nboth dead and alive at one and the same moment. There is no life without\na taint of death and no death that is not instinct with a residuum of\npast life and with germs of the new that is to succeed it. Let those who\ndeny this show us an example of pure life and pure death. Any one who\nhas considered these matters will know this to be impossible. And yet in\nspite of this, the cases where we are in doubt whether a thing is to be\nmore fitly called dead or alive are so few that they may be disregarded.\n\nI take it, then, that as, though alive, we are in part dead and, though\ndead, in part alive, so, though bound by necessity, we are in part free,\nand, though free, yet in part bound by necessity. At least I can think\nof no case of such absolute necessity in human affairs as that free-will\nshould have no part in it, nor of such absolute free-will that no part of\nthe action should be limited and controlled by necessity.\n\nThus, when a man walks to the gallows, he is under large necessity, yet\nhe retains much small freedom; when pinioned, he is less free, but he can\nopen his eyes and mouth and pray aloud or no as he pleases; even when the\ndrop has fallen, so long as he is \u201che\u201d at all, he can exercise some,\nthough infinitely small, choice.\n\nIt may be answered that throughout the foregoing chain of actions, the\nfreedom, what little there is of it, is apparent only, and that even in\nthe small freedoms, which are not so obviously controlled by necessity,\nthe necessity is still present as effectually as when the man, though\napparently free to walk to the gallows, is in reality bound to do so.\nFor in respect of the small details of his manner of walking to the\ngallows, which compulsion does not so glaringly reach, what is it that\nthe man is free to do? He is free to do as he likes, but he is not free\nto do as he does not like; and a man\u2019s likings are determined by outside\nthings and by antecedents, pre-natal and post-natal, whose effect is so\npowerful that the individual who makes the choice proves to be only the\nresultant of certain forces which have been brought to bear upon him but\nwhich are not the man. So that it seems there is no detail, no nook or\ncorner of action, into which necessity does not penetrate.\n\nThis seems logical, but it is as logical to follow instinct and common\nsense as to follow logic, and both instinct and common sense assure us\nthat there is no nook or corner of action into which free-will does not\npenetrate, unless it be those into which mind does not enter at all, as\nwhen a man is struck by lightning or is overwhelmed suddenly by an\navalanche.\n\nBesides, those who maintain that action is bound to follow choice, while\nchoice can only follow opinion as to advantage, neglect the very\nconsiderable number of cases in which opinion as to advantage does not\nexist\u2014when, for instance, a man feels, as we all of us sometimes do, that\nhe is utterly incapable of forming any opinion whatever as to his most\nadvantageous course.\n\nBut this again is fallacious. For suppose he decides to toss up and be\nguided by the result, this is still what he has chosen to do, and his\naction, therefore, is following his choice. Or suppose, again, that he\nremains passive and does nothing\u2014his passivity is his choice.\n\nI can see no way out of it unless either frankly to admit that\ncontradiction in terms is the bedrock on which all our thoughts and deeds\nare founded, and to acquiesce cheerfully in the fact that whenever we try\nto go below the surface of any enquiry we find ourselves utterly\nbaffled\u2014or to redefine freedom and necessity, admitting each as a potent\nfactor of the other. And this I do not see my way to doing. I am\ntherefore necessitated to choose freely the admission that our\nunderstanding can burrow but a very small way into the foundations of our\nbeliefs, and can only weaken rather than strengthen them by burrowing at\nall.\n\n\n\nFree-Will otherwise Cunning\n\n\nThe element of free-will, cunning, spontaneity, individuality\u2014so\nomnipresent, so essential, yet so unreasonable, and so inconsistent with\nthe other element not less omnipresent and not less essential, I mean\nnecessity, luck, fate\u2014this element of free-will, which comes from the\nunseen kingdom within which the writs of our thoughts run not, must be\ncarried down to the most tenuous atoms whose action is supposed most\npurely chemical and mechanical; it can never be held as absolutely\neliminated, for if it be so held, there is no getting it back again, and\nthat it exists, even in the lowest forms of life, cannot be disputed.\nIts existence is one of the proofs of the existence of an unseen world,\nand a means whereby we know the little that we do know of that world.\n\n\n\nNecessity otherwise Luck\n\n\nIt is all very well to insist upon the free-will or cunning side of\nliving action, more especially now when it has been so persistently\nignored, but though the fortunes of birth and surroundings have all been\nbuilt up by cunning, yet it is by ancestral, vicarious cunning, and this,\nto each individual, comes to much the same as luck pure and simple; in\nfact, luck is seldom seriously intended to mean a total denial of\ncunning, but is for the most part only an expression whereby we summarise\nand express our sense of a cunning too complex and impalpable for\nconscious following and apprehension.\n\nWhen we consider how little we have to do with our parentage, country and\neducation, or even with our genus and species, how vitally these things\naffect us both in life and death, and how, practically, the cunning in\nconnection with them is so spent as to be no cunning at all, it is plain\nthat the drifts, currents, and storms of what is virtually luck will be\noften more than the little helm of cunning can control. And so with\ndeath. Nothing can affect us less, but at the same time nothing can\naffect us more; and how little can cunning do against it? At the best it\ncan only defer it. Cunning is nine-tenths luck, and luck is nine-tenths\ncunning; but the fact that nine-tenths of cunning is luck leaves still a\ntenth part unaccounted for.\n\n\n\nChoice\n\n\nOur choice is apparently most free, and we are least obviously driven to\ndetermine our course, in those cases where the future is most obscure,\nthat is, when the balance of advantage appears most doubtful.\n\nWhere we have an opinion that assures us promptly which way the balance\nof advantage will incline\u2014whether it be an instinctive, hereditarily\nacquired opinion or one rapidly and decisively formed as the result of\npost-natal experience\u2014then our action is determined at once by that\nopinion, and freedom of choice practically vanishes.\n\n\n\nEgo and Non-Ego\n\n\nYou can have all ego, or all non-ego, but in theory you cannot have half\none and half the other\u2014yet in practice this is exactly what you must\nhave, for everything is both itself and not itself at one and the same\ntime.\n\nA living thing is itself in so far as it has wants and gratifies them.\nIt is not itself in so far as it uses itself as a tool for the gratifying\nof its wants. Thus an am\u0153ba is aware of a piece of meat which it wants\nto eat. It has nothing except its own body to fling at the meat and\ncatch it with. If it had a little hand-net, or even such an organ as our\nown hand, it would use it, but it has only got itself; so it takes itself\nby the scruff of its own neck, as it were, and flings itself at the piece\nof meat, as though it were not itself but something which it is using in\norder to gratify itself. So we make our own bodies into carriages every\ntime we walk. Our body is our tool-box\u2014and our bodily organs are the\nsimplest tools we can catch hold of.\n\nWhen the am\u0153ba has got the piece of meat and has done digesting it, it\nleaves off being not itself and becomes itself again. A thing is only\nitself when it is doing nothing; as long as it is doing something it is\nits own tool and not itself.\n\nOr you may have it that everything is itself in respect of the pleasure\nor pain it is feeling, but not itself in respect of the using of itself\nby itself as a tool with which to work its will. Or perhaps we should\nsay that the ego remains always ego in part; it does not become all\nnon-ego at one and the same time. We throw our fist into a man\u2019s face as\nthough it were a stick we had picked up to beat him with. For the\nmoment, our fist is hardly \u201cus,\u201d but it becomes \u201cus\u201d again as we feel the\nresistance it encounters from the man\u2019s eye. Anyway, we can only chuck\nabout a part of ourselves at a time, we cannot chuck the lot\u2014and yet I do\nnot know this, for we may jump off the ground and fling ourselves on to a\nman.\n\nThe fact that both elements are present and are of such nearly equal\nvalue explains the obstinacy of the conflict between the upholders of\nNecessity and Free-Will which, indeed, are only luck and cunning under\nother names.\n\nFor, on the one hand, the surroundings so obviously and powerfully mould\nus, body and soul, and even the little modifying power which at first we\nseem to have is found, on examination, to spring so completely from\nsurroundings formerly beyond the control of our ancestors, that a logical\nthinker, who starts with these premises, is soon driven to the total\ndenial of free-will, except, of course, as an illusion; in other words,\nhe perceives the connection between ego and non-ego, tries to disunite\nthem so as to know when he is talking about what, and finds to his\nsurprise that he cannot do so without violence to one or both. Being,\nabove all things, a logical thinker, and abhorring the contradiction in\nterms involved in admitting anything to be both itself and something\nother than itself at one and the same time, he makes the manner in which\nthe one is rooted into the other a pretext for merging the ego, as the\nless bulky of the two, in the non-ego; hence practically he declares the\nego to have no further existence, except as a mere appendage and adjunct\nof the non-ego the existence of which he alone recognises (though how he\ncan recognise it without recognising also that he is recognising it as\nsomething foreign to himself it is not easy to see). As for the action\nand interaction that goes on in the non-ego, he refers it to fate,\nfortune, chance, luck, necessity, immutable law, providence (meaning\ngenerally improvidence) or to whatever kindred term he has most fancy\nfor. In other words, he is so much impressed with the connection between\nluck and cunning, and so anxious to avoid contradiction in terms, that he\ntries to abolish cunning, and dwells, as Mr. Darwin did, almost\nexclusively upon the luck side of the matter.\n\nOthers, on the other hand, find the ego no less striking than their\nopponents find the non-ego. Every hour they mould things so considerably\nto their pleasure that, even though they may for argument\u2019s sake admit\nfree-will to be an illusion, they say with reason that no reality can be\nmore real than an illusion which is so strong, so persistent and so\nuniversal; this contention, indeed, cannot be disputed except at the cost\nof invalidating the reality of all even our most assured convictions.\nThey admit that there is an apparent connection between their ego and\nnon-ego, their necessity and free-will, their luck and cunning; they\ngrant that the difference is resolvable into a difference of degree and\nnot of kind; but, on the other hand, they say that in each degree there\nstill lurks a little kind, and that a difference of many degrees makes a\ndifference of kind\u2014there being, in fact, no difference between\ndifferences of degree and those of kind, except that the second are an\naccumulation of the first. The all-powerfulness of the surroundings is\ndeclared by them to be as completely an illusion, if examined closely, as\nthe power of the individual was declared to be by their opponents,\ninasmuch as the antecedents of the non-ego, when examined by them, prove\nto be not less due to the personal individual element everywhere\nrecognisable, than the ego, when examined by their opponents, proved to\nbe mergeable in the universal. They claim, therefore, to be able to\nresolve everything into spontaneity and free-will with no less logical\nconsistency than that with which freewill can be resolved into an outcome\nof necessity.\n\n\n\nTwo Incomprehensibles\n\n\nYou may assume life of some kind omnipresent for ever throughout matter.\nThis is one way. Another way is to assume an act of spontaneous\ngeneration, i.e. a transition somewhere and somewhen from absolutely\nnon-living to absolutely living. You cannot have it both ways. But it\nseems to me that you must have it both ways. You must not begin with\nlife (or potential life) everywhere alone, nor must you begin with a\nsingle spontaneous generation alone, but you must carry your spontaneous\ngeneration (or denial of the continuity of life) down, _ad infinitum_,\njust as you must carry your continuity of life (or denial of spontaneous\ngeneration) down _ad infinitum_ and, compatible or incompatible, you must\nwrite a scientific Athanasian Creed to comprehend these two\nincomprehensibles.\n\nIf, then, it is only an escape from one incomprehensible position to\nanother, _cui bono_ to make a change? Why not stay quietly in the\nAthanasian Creed as we are? And, after all, the Athanasian Creed is\nlight and comprehensible reading in comparison with much that now passes\nfor science.\n\nI can give no answer to this as regards the unintelligible clauses, for\nwhat we come to in the end is just as abhorrent to and inconceivable by\nreason as what they offer us; but as regards what may be called the\nintelligible parts\u2014that Christ was born of a Virgin, died, rose from the\ndead\u2014we say that, if it were not for the prestige that belief in these\nalleged facts has obtained, we should refuse attention to them. Out of\nrespect, however, for the mass of opinion that accepts them we have\nlooked into the matter with care, and we have found the evidence break\ndown. The same reasoning and canons of criticism which convince me that\nChrist was crucified convince me at the same time that he was\ninsufficiently crucified. I can only accept his death and resurrection\nat the cost of rejecting everything that I have been taught to hold most\nstrongly. I can only accept the so-called testimony in support of these\nalleged facts at the cost of rejecting, or at any rate invalidating, all\nthe testimony on which I have based all comfortable assurance of any kind\nwhatsoever.\n\n\n\nGod and the Unknown\n\n\nGod is the unknown, and hence the nothing _qua_ us. He is also the\nensemble of all we know, and hence the everything _qua_ us. So that the\nmost absolute nothing and the most absolute everything are extremes that\nmeet (like all other extremes) in God.\n\nMen think they mean by God something like what Raffaelle and Michael\nAngelo have painted; unless this were so Raffaelle and Michael Angelo\nwould not have painted as they did. But to get at our truer thoughts we\nshould look at our less conscious and deliberate utterances. From these\nit has been gathered that God is our expression for all forces and powers\nwhich we do not understand, or with which we are unfamiliar, and for the\nhighest ideal of wisdom, goodness and power which we can conceive, but\nfor nothing else.\n\nThus God makes the grass grow because we do not understand how the air\nand earth and water near a piece of grass are seized by the grass and\nconverted into more grass; but God does not mow the grass and make hay of\nit. It is Paul and Apollos who plant and water, but God who giveth the\nincrease. We never say that God does anything which we can do ourselves,\nor ask him for anything which we know how to get in any other way. As\nsoon as we understand a thing we remove it from the sphere of God\u2019s\naction.\n\nAs long as there is an unknown there will be a God for all practical\npurposes; the name of God has never yet been given to a known thing\nexcept by way of flattery, as to Roman Emperors, or through the attempt\nto symbolise the unknown generally, as in fetish worship, and then the\npriests had to tell the people that there was something more about the\nfetish than they knew of, or they would soon have ceased to think of it\nas God.\n\nTo understand a thing is to feel as though we could stand under or\nalongside of it in all its parts and form a picture of it in our minds\nthroughout. We understand how a violin is made if our minds can follow\nthe manufacture in all its detail and picture it to ourselves. If we\nfeel that we can identify ourselves with the steam and machinery of a\nsteam engine, so as to travel in imagination with the steam through all\nthe pipes and valves, if we can see the movement of each part of the\npiston, connecting rod, &c., so as to be mentally one with both the steam\nand the mechanism throughout their whole action and construction, then we\nsay we understand the steam engine, and the idea of God never crosses our\nminds in connection with it.\n\nWhen we feel that we can neither do a thing ourselves, nor even learn to\ndo it by reason of its intricacy and difficulty, and that no one else\never can or will, and yet we see the thing none the less done daily and\nhourly all round us, then we are not content to say we do not understand\nhow the thing is done, we go further and ascribe the action to God. As\nsoon as there is felt to be an unknown and apparently unknowable element,\nthen, but not till then, does the idea God present itself to us. So at\ncoroners\u2019 inquests juries never say the deceased died by the visitation\nof God if they know any of the more proximate causes.\n\nIt is not God, therefore, who sows the corn\u2014we could sow corn ourselves,\nwe can see the man with a bag in his hand walking over ploughed fields\nand sowing the corn broadcast\u2014but it is God who made the man who goes\nabout with the bag, and who makes the corn sprout, for we do not follow\nthe processes that take place here.\n\nAs long as we knew nothing about what caused this or that weather we used\nto ascribe it to God\u2019s direct action and pray him to change it according\nto our wants: now that we know more about the weather there is a growing\ndisinclination among clergymen to pray for rain or dry weather, while\nlaymen look to nothing but the barometer. So people do not say God has\nshown them this or that when they have just seen it in the newspapers;\nthey would only say that God had shown it them if it had come into their\nheads suddenly and after they had tried long and vainly to get at this\nparticular point.\n\nTo lament that we cannot be more conscious of God and understand him\nbetter is much like lamenting that we are not more conscious of our\ncirculation and digestion. Provided we live according to familiar laws\nof health, the less we think about circulation and digestion the better;\nand so with the ordinary rules of good conduct, the less we think about\nGod the better.\n\nTo know God better is only to realise more fully how impossible it is\nthat we should ever know him at all. I cannot tell which is the more\nchildish\u2014to deny him, or to attempt to define him.\n\n\n\nScylla and Charybdis\n\n\nThey are everywhere. Just now coming up Great Russell Street I loitered\noutside a print shop. There they were as usual\u2014Hogarth\u2019s Idle and\nVirtuous Apprentices. The idle apprentice is certainly Scylla, but is\nnot the virtuous apprentice just as much Charybdis? Is he so greatly\npreferable? Is not the right thing somewhere between the two? And does\nnot the art of good living consist mainly in a fine perception of when to\nedge towards the idle and when towards the virtuous apprentice?\n\nWhen John Bunyan (or Richard Baxter, or whoever it was) said \u201cThere went\nJohn Bunyan, but for the grace of God\u201d (or whatever he did say), had he a\nright to be so cock-sure that the criminal on whom he was looking was not\nsaying much the same thing as he looked upon John Bunyan? Does any one\nwho knows me doubt that if I were offered my choice between a bishopric\nand a halter, I should choose the halter? I believe half the bishops\nwould choose the halter themselves if they had to do it over again.\n\n\n\nPhilosophy\n\n\nAs a general rule philosophy is like stirring mud or not letting a\nsleeping dog lie. It is an attempt to deny, circumvent or otherwise\nescape from the consequences of the interlacing of the roots of things\nwith one another. It professes to appease our ultimate \u201cWhy?\u201d though in\ntruth it is generally the solution of a _simplex ignotum_ by a _complex\nignotius_. This, at least, is my experience of everything that has been\npresented to me as philosophy. I have often had my \u201cWhy\u201d answered with\nso much mystifying matter that I have left off pressing it through\nfatigue. But this is not having my ultimate \u201cWhy?\u201d appeased. It is\nbeing knocked out of time.\n\n\n\nPhilosophy and Equal Temperament\n\n\nIt is with philosophy as with just intonation on a piano, if you get\neverything quite straight and on all fours in one department, in perfect\ntune, it is delightful so long as you keep well in the middle of the key;\nbut as soon as you modulate you find the new key is out of tune and the\nmore remotely you modulate the more out of tune you get. The only way is\nto distribute your error by equal temperament and leave common sense to\nmake the correction in philosophy which the ear does instantaneously and\ninvoluntarily in music.\n\n\n\nHedging the Cuckoo\n\n\nPeople will still keep trying to find some formula that shall hedge-in\nthe cuckoo of mental phenomena to their satisfaction. Half the\nbooks\u2014nay, all of them that deal with thought and its ways in the\nacademic spirit\u2014are but so many of these hedges in various stages of\ndecay.\n\n\n\nGod and Philosophies\n\n\nAll philosophies, if you ride them home, are nonsense; but some are\ngreater nonsense than others. It is perhaps because God does not set\nmuch store by or wish to encourage them that he has attached such very\nslender rewards to them.\n\n\n\nCommon Sense, Reason and Faith\n\n\nReason is not the ultimate test of truth nor is it the court of first\ninstance.\n\nFor example: A man questions his own existence; he applies first to the\ncourt of mother-wit and is promptly told that he exists; he appeals next\nto reason and, after some wrangling, is told that the matter is very\ndoubtful; he proceeds to the equity of that reasonable faith which\ninspires and transcends reason, and the judgment of the court of first\ninstance is upheld while that of reason is reversed.\n\nNevertheless it is folly to appeal from reason to faith unless one is\npretty sure of a verdict and, in most cases about which we dispute\nseriously, reason is as far as we need go.\n\n\n\nThe Credit System\n\n\nThe whole world is carried on on the credit system; if every one were to\ndemand payment in hard cash, there would be universal bankruptcy. We\nthink as we do mainly because other people think so. But if every one\nstands on every one else, what does the bottom man stand on? Faith is no\nfoundation, for it rests in the end on reason. Reason is no foundation,\nfor it rests upon faith.\n\n\n\nArgument\n\n\nWe are not won by argument, which is like reading and writing and\ndisappears when there is need of such vanity, or like colour that\nvanishes with too much light or shade, or like sound that becomes silence\nin the extremes. Argument is useless when there is either no conviction\nat all or a very strong conviction. It is a means of conviction and as\nsuch belongs to the means of conviction, not to the extremes. We are not\nwon by arguments that we can analyse, but by tone and temper, by the\nmanner which is the man himself.\n\n\n\nLogic and Philosophy\n\n\nWhen you have got all the rules and all the lore of philosophy and logic\nwell into your head, and have spent years in getting to understand at any\nrate what they mean and have them at command, you will know less for\npractical purposes than one who has never studied logic or philosophy.\n\n\n\nScience\n\n\nIf it tends to thicken the crust of ice on which, as it were, we are\nskating, it is all right. If it tries to find, or professes to have\nfound, the solid ground at the bottom of the water, it is all wrong. Our\nbusiness is with the thickening of this crust by extending our knowledge\ndownward from above, as ice gets thicker while the frost lasts; we should\nnot try to freeze upwards from the bottom.\n\n\n\nReligion\n\n\nA religion only means something so certainly posed that nothing can ever\ndisplace it. It is an attempt to settle first principles so\nauthoritatively that no one need so much as even think of ever re-opening\nthem for himself or feel any, even the faintest, misgiving upon the\nmatter. It is an attempt to get an irrefragably safe investment, and\nthis cannot be got, no matter how low the interest, which in the case of\nreligion is about as low as it can be.\n\nAny religion that cannot be founded on half a sheet of note-paper will be\nbottom-heavy, and this, in a matter so essentially of sentiment as\nreligion, is as bad as being top-heavy in a material construction. It\nmust of course catch on to reason, but the less it emphasises the fact\nthe better.\n\n\n\nLogic\n\n\nLogic has no place save with that which can be defined in words. It has\nnothing to do, therefore, with those deeper questions that have got\nbeyond words and consciousness. To apply logic here is as fatuous as to\ndisregard it in cases where it is applicable. The difficulty lies, as it\nalways does, on the border lines between the respective spheres of\ninfluence.\n\n\n\nLogic and Faith\n\n\nLogic is like the sword\u2014those who appeal to it shall perish by it. Faith\nis appealing to the living God, and one may perish by that too, but\nsomehow one would rather perish that way than the other, and one has got\nto perish sooner or later.\n\n\n\nCommon Sense and Philosophy\n\n\nThe voices of common sense and of high philosophy sometimes cross; but\ncommon sense is the unalterable canto fermo and philosophy is the\nvariable counterpoint.\n\n\n\nFirst Principles\n\n\nIt is said we can build no superstructure without a foundation of\nunshakable principles. There are no such principles. Or, if there be\nany, they are beyond our reach\u2014we cannot fathom them; therefore, _qua_\nus, they have no existence, for there is no other \u201cis not\u201d than\ninconceivableness by ourselves. There is one thing certain, namely, that\nwe can have nothing certain; therefore it is not certain that we can have\nnothing certain. We are as men who will insist on looking over the brink\nof a precipice; some few can gaze into the abyss below without losing\ntheir heads, but most men will grow dizzy and fall. The only thing to do\nis to glance at the chaos on which our thoughts are founded, recognise\nthat it is a chaos and that, in the nature of things, no theoretically\nfirm ground is even conceivable, and then to turn aside with the disgust,\nfear and horror of one who has been looking into his own entrails.\n\nEven Euclid cannot lay a demonstrable premise, he requires postulates and\naxioms which transcend demonstration and without which he can do nothing.\nHis superstructure is demonstration, his ground is faith. And so his\n_ultima ratio_ is to tell a man that he is a fool by saying \u201cWhich is\nabsurd.\u201d If his opponent chooses to hold out in spite of this, Euclid\ncan do no more. Faith and authority are as necessary for him as for any\none else. True, he does not want us to believe very much; his yoke is\ntolerably easy, and he will not call a man a fool until he will have\npublic opinion generally on his side; but none the less does he begin\nwith dogmatism and end with persecution.\n\nThere is nothing one cannot wrangle about. Sensible people will agree to\na middle course founded upon a few general axioms and propositions about\nwhich, right or wrong, they will not think it worth while to wrangle for\nsome time, and those who reject these can be put into mad-houses. The\nmiddle way may be as full of hidden rocks as the other ways are of\nmanifest ones, but it is the pleasantest while we can keep to it and the\ndangers, being hidden, are less alarming.\n\nIn practice it is seldom very hard to do one\u2019s duty when one knows what\nit is, but it is sometimes exceedingly difficult to find this out. The\ndifficulty is, however, often reducible into that of knowing what gives\none pleasure, and this, though difficult, is a safer guide and more\neasily distinguished. In all cases of doubt, the promptings of a kindly\ndisposition are more trustworthy than the conclusions of logic, and sense\nis better than science.\n\nWhy I should have been at the pains to write such truisms I know not.\n\n\n\n\nXXI\nRebelliousness\n\n\nGod and Life\n\n\nWE regard these as two distinct things and say that the first made the\nsecond, much as, till lately, we regarded memory and heredity as two\ndistinct things having less connection than even that supposed to exist\nbetween God and life. Now, however, that we know heredity to be only a\nnecessary outcome, development and manifestation of memory\u2014so that, given\nsuch a faculty as memory, the faculty of heredity follows as being\ninherent therein and bound to issue from it\u2014in like manner presently,\ninstead of seeing life as a thing created by God, we shall see God and\nlife as one thing, there being no life without God nor God without life,\nwhere there is life there is God and where there is God there is life.\n\nThey say that God is love, but life and love are co-extensive; for hate\nis but a mode of love, as life and death lurk always in one another; and\n\u201cGod is life\u201d is not far off saying \u201cGod is love.\u201d Again, they say,\n\u201cWhere there is life there is hope,\u201d but hope is of the essence of God,\nfor it is faith and hope that have underlain all evolution.\n\n\n\nGod and Flesh\n\n\nThe course of true God never did run smooth. God to be of any use must\nbe made manifest, and he can only be made manifest in and through flesh.\nAnd flesh to be of any use (except for eating) must be alive, and it can\nonly be alive by being inspired of God. The trouble lies in the getting\nthe flesh and the God together in the right proportions. There is lots\nof God and lots of flesh, but the flesh has always got too much God or\ntoo little, and the God has always too little flesh or too much.\n\n\n\nGods and Prophets\n\n\nIt is the manner of gods and prophets to begin: \u201cThou shalt have none\nother God or Prophet but me.\u201d If I were to start as a god or a prophet,\nI think I should take the line:\n\n\u201cThou shalt not believe in me. Thou shalt not have me for a god. Thou\nshalt worship any damned thing thou likest except me.\u201d This should be my\nfirst and great commandment, and my second should be like unto it. {333}\n\n\n\nFaith and Reason\n\n\nThe instinct towards brushing faith aside and being strictly reasonable\nis strong and natural; so also is the instinct towards brushing logic and\nconsistency on one side if they become troublesome, in other words\u2014so is\nthe instinct towards basing action on a faith which is beyond reason. It\nis because both instincts are so natural that so many accept and so many\nreject Catholicism. The two go along for some time as very good friends\nand then fight; sometimes one beats and sometimes the other, but they\nalways make it up again and jog along as before, for they have a great\nrespect for one another.\n\n\n\nGod and the Devil\n\n\nGod\u2019s merits are so transcendent that it is not surprising his faults\nshould be in reasonable proportion. The faults are, indeed, on such a\nscale that, when looked at without relation to the merits with which they\nare interwoven, they become so appalling that people shrink from\nascribing them to the Deity and have invented the Devil, without seeing\nthat there would be more excuse for God\u2019s killing the Devil, and so\ngetting rid of evil, than there can be for his failing to be everything\nthat he would like to be.\n\nFor God is not so white as he is painted, and he gets on better with the\nDevil than people think. The Devil is too useful for him to wish him ill\nand, in like manner, half the Devil\u2019s trade would be at an end should any\ngreat mishap bring God well down in the world. For all the mouths they\nmake at one another they play into each other\u2019s hands and have got on so\nwell as partners, playing Spenlow and Jorkins to one another, for so many\nyears that there seems no reason why they should cease to do so. The\nconception of them as the one absolutely void of evil and the other of\ngood is a vulgar notion taken from science whose priests have ever sought\nto get every idea and every substance pure of all alloy.\n\nGod and the Devil are about as four to three. There is enough\npreponderance of God to make it far safer to be on his side than on the\nDevil\u2019s, but the excess is not so great as his professional claqueurs\npretend it is. It is like gambling at Monte Carlo; if you play long\nenough you are sure to lose, but now and again you may win a great deal\nof excellent money if you will only cease playing the moment you have won\nit.\n\n\n\nChristianity\n\n\ni\n\n\nAs an instrument of warfare against vice, or as a tool for making virtue,\nChristianity is a mere flint implement.\n\n\nii\n\n\nChristianity is a woman\u2019s religion, invented by women and womanish men\nfor themselves. The Church\u2019s one foundation is not Christ, as is\ncommonly said, it is woman; and calling the Madonna the Queen of Heaven\nis only a poetical way of acknowledging that women are the main support\nof the priests.\n\n\niii\n\n\nIt is not the church in a village that is the source of the mischief, but\nthe rectory. I would not touch a church from one end of England to the\nother.\n\n\niv\n\n\nChristianity is only seriously pretended by some among the idle,\nbourgeois middle-classes. The working classes and the most cultured\nintelligence of the time reach by short cuts what the highways of our\nschools and universities mislead us from by many a winding bout, if they\ndo not prevent our ever reaching it.\n\n\nv\n\n\nIt is not easy to say which is the more obvious, the antecedent\nimprobability of the Christian scheme and miracles, or the breakdown of\nthe evidences on which these are supposed to rest. And yet Christianity\nhas overrun the world.\n\n\nvi\n\n\nIf there is any moral in Christianity, if there is anything to be learned\nfrom it, if the whole story is not profitless from first to last, it\ncomes to this that a man should back his own opinion against the\nworld\u2019s\u2014and this is a very risky and immoral thing to do, but the Lord\nhath mercy on whom he will have mercy.\n\n\nvii\n\n\nChristianity is true in so far as it has fostered beauty and false in so\nfar as it has fostered ugliness. It is therefore not a little true and\nnot a little false.\n\n\nviii\n\n\nChrist said he came not to destroy but to fulfil\u2014but he destroyed more\nthan he fulfilled. Every system that is to live must both destroy and\nfulfil.\n\n\n\nMiracles\n\n\nThey do more to unsettle faith in the existing order than to settle it in\nany other; similarly, missionaries are more valuable as underminers of\nold faiths than as propagators of new. Miracles are not impossible;\nnothing is impossible till we have got an incontrovertible first premise.\nThe question is not \u201cAre the Christian miracles possible?\u201d but \u201cAre they\nconvenient? Do they fit comfortably with our other ideas?\u201d\n\n\n\nWants and Creeds\n\n\nAs in the organic world there is no organ, so in the world of thought\nthere is no thought, which may not be called into existence by long\npersistent effort. If a man wants either to believe or disbelieve the\nChristian miracles he can do so if he tries hard enough; but if he does\nnot care whether he believes or disbelieves and simply wants to find out\nwhich side has the best of it, this he will find a more difficult matter.\nNevertheless he will probably be able to do this too if he tries.\n\n\n\nFaith\n\n\ni\n\n\nThe reason why the early Christians held faith in such account was\nbecause they felt it to be a feat of such superhuman difficulty.\n\n\nii\n\n\nYou can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it.\n\n\niii\n\n\nWe are all agreed that too much faith is as bad as too little, and too\nlittle as bad as too much; but we differ as to what is too much and what\ntoo little.\n\n\niv\n\n\nIt is because both Catholics and myself make faith, not reason, the basis\nof our system that I am able to be easy in mind about not becoming a\nCatholic. Not that I ever wanted to become a Catholic, but I mean I\nbelieve I can beat them with their own weapons.\n\n\nv\n\n\nA man may have faith as a mountain, but he will not be able to say to a\ngrain of mustard seed: \u201cBe thou removed, and be thou cast into the\nsea\u201d\u2014not at least with any effect upon the mustard seed\u2014unless he goes\nthe right way to work by putting the mustard seed into his pocket and\ntaking the train to Brighton.\n\n\nvi\n\n\nThe just live by faith, but they not infrequently also die by it.\n\n\n\nThe Cuckoo and the Moon\n\n\nThe difference between the Christian and the Mahomedan is only as the\ndifference between one who will turn his money when he first hears the\ncuckoo, but thinks it folly to do so on seeing the new moon, and one who\nwill turn it religiously at the new moon, but will scout the notion that\nhe need do so on hearing the cuckoo.\n\n\n\nBuddhism\n\n\nThis seems to be a jumble of Christianity and _Life and Habit_.\n\n\n\nTheist and Atheist\n\n\nThe fight between them is as to whether God shall be called God or shall\nhave some other name.\n\n\n\nThe Peculiar People\n\n\nThe only people in England who really believe in God are the Peculiar\nPeople. Perhaps that is why they are called peculiar. See how belief in\nan anthropomorphic God divides allegiance and disturbs civil order as\nsoon as it becomes vital.\n\n\n\nRenan\n\n\nThere is an article on him in the _Times_, April 30, 1883, of the worst\n_Times_ kind, and that is saying much. It appears he whines about his\nlost faith and professes to wish that he could believe as he believed\nwhen young. No sincere man will regret having attained a truer view\nconcerning anything which he has ever believed. And then he talks about\nthe difficulties of coming to disbelieve the Christian miracles as though\nit were a great intellectual feat. This is very childish. I hope no one\nwill say I was sorry when I found out that there was no reason for\nbelieving in heaven and hell. My contempt for Renan has no limits. (Has\nhe an accent to his name? I despise him too much to find out.)\n\n\n\nThe Spiritual Treadmill\n\n\nThe Church of England has something in her liturgy of the spiritual\ntreadmill. It is a very nice treadmill no doubt, but Sunday after Sunday\nwe keep step with the same old \u201cWe have left undone that which we ought\nto have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have\ndone\u201d without making any progress. With the Church of Rome, I understand\nthat those whose piety is sufficiently approved are told they may\nconsider themselves as a finished article and that, except on some few\nrare festivals, they need no longer keep on going to church and\nconfessing. The picture is completed and may be framed, glazed and hung\nup.\n\n\n\nThe Dim Religious Light\n\n\nA light cannot be religious if it is not dim. Religion belongs to the\ntwilight of our thoughts, just as business of all kinds to their full\ndaylight. So a picture which may be impressive while seen in a dark\nlight will not hold its own in a bright one.\n\nThe Greeks and Romans did not enquire into the evidences on which their\nbelief that Minerva sprang full-armed from the brain of Jupiter was\nbased. If they had written books of evidences to show how certainly it\nall happened, &c.\u2014well, I suppose if they had had an endowed Church with\nsome considerable prizes, they would have found means to hoodwink the\npublic.\n\n\n\nThe Peace that Passeth Understanding\n\n\nYes. But as there is a peace more comfortable than any understanding, so\nalso there is an understanding more covetable than any peace.\n\n\n\nThe New Testament\n\n\nIf it is a testamentary disposition at all, it is so drawn that it has\ngiven rise to incessant litigation during the last nearly two thousand\nyears and seems likely to continue doing so for a good many years longer.\nIt ought never to have been admitted to probate. Either the testator\ndrew it himself, in which case we have another example of the folly of\ntrying to make one\u2019s own will, or if he left it to the authors of the\nseveral books\u2014this is like employing many lawyers to do the work of one.\n\n\n\nChrist and the L. & N.W. Railway\n\n\nAdmitting for the moment that Christ can be said to have died for me in\nany sense, it is only pretended that he did so in the same sort of way as\nthe London and North Western Railway was made for me. Granted that I am\nvery glad the railway was made and use it when I find it convenient, I do\nnot suppose that those who projected and made the line allowed me to\nenter into their thoughts; the debt of my gratitude is divided among so\nmany that the amount due from each one is practically nil.\n\n\n\nThe Jumping Cat\n\n\nGod is only a less jumping kind of jumping cat; and those who worship God\nare still worshippers of the jumping cat all the time. There is no\ngetting away from the jumping cat\u2014if I climb up into heaven, it is there;\nif I go down to hell, it is there also; if I take the wings of the\nmorning and remain in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there, and so\non; it is about my path and about my bed and spieth out all my ways. It\nis the eternal underlying verity or the eternal underlying lie, as people\nmay choose to call it.\n\n\n\nPersonified Science\n\n\nScience is being daily more and more personified and anthropomorphised\ninto a god. By and by they will say that science took our nature upon\nhim, and sent down his only begotten son, Charles Darwin, or Huxley, into\nthe world so that those who believe in him, &c.; and they will burn\npeople for saying that science, after all, is only an expression for our\nignorance of our own ignorance.\n\n\n\nScience and Theology\n\n\nWe should endow neither; we should treat them as we treat conservatism\nand liberalism, encouraging both, so that they may keep watch upon one\nanother, and letting them go in and out of power with the popular vote\nconcerning them.\n\nThe world is better carried on upon the barrister principle of special\npleading upon two sides before an impartial ignorant tribunal, to whom\nthings have got to be explained, than it would be if nobody were to\nmaintain any opinion in which he did not personally believe.\n\nWhat we want is to reconcile both science and theology with sincerity and\ngood breeding, to make our experts understand that they are nothing if\nthey are not single-minded and urbane. Get them to understand this, and\nthere will be no difficulty about reconciling science and theology.\n\n\n\nThe Church and the Supernatural\n\n\nIf we saw the Church wishing to back out of the supernatural and anxious\nto explain it away where possible, we would keep our disbelief in the\nsupernatural in the background, as far as we could, and would explain\naway our rejection of the miracles, as far as was decent; furthermore we\nwould approximate our language to theirs wherever possible, and insist on\nthe points on which we are all agreed, rather than on points of\ndifference; in fact, we would meet them half way and be only too glad to\ndo it. I maintain that in my books I actually do this as much as is\npossible, but I shall try and do it still more. As a matter of fact,\nhowever, the Church clings to the miraculous element of Christianity more\nfondly than ever; she parades it more and more, and shows no sign of\nwishing to give up even the smallest part of it. It is this which makes\nus despair of being able to do anything with her and feel that either she\nor we must go.\n\n\n\nGratitude and Revenge\n\n\nGratitude is as much an evil to be minimised as revenge is. Justice, our\nlaw and our law courts are for the taming and regulating of revenge.\nCurrent prices and markets and commercial regulations are for the taming\nof gratitude and its reduction from a public nuisance to something which\nshall at least be tolerable. Revenge and gratitude are correlative\nterms. Our system of commerce is a protest against the unbridled licence\nof gratitude. Gratitude, in fact, like revenge, is a mistake unless\nunder certain securities.\n\n\n\nCant and Hypocrisy\n\n\nWe should organise a legitimate channel for instincts so profound as\nthese, just as we have found it necessary to do with lust and revenge by\nthe institutions of marriage and the law courts. This is the _raison\nd\u2019\u00eatre_ of the church. You kill a man just as much whether you murder\nhim or hang him after the formalities of a trial. And so with lust and\nmarriage, _mutatis mutandis_. So again with the professions of religion\nand medicine. You swindle a man as much when you sell him a drug of\nwhose action you are ignorant, and tell him it will protect him from\ndisease, as when you give him a bit of bread, which you assure him is the\nbody of Jesus Christ, and then send a plate round for a subscription.\nYou swindle him as much by these acts as if you picked his pocket, or\nobtained money from him under false pretences in any other way; but you\nswindle him according to the rules and in an authorised way.\n\n\n\nReal Blasphemy\n\n\nOn one of our Sunday walks near London we passed a forlorn and\ndilapidated Primitive Methodist Chapel. The windows were a good deal\nbroken and there was a notice up offering 10/- reward to any one who\nshould give such information as should lead to the, &c. Cut in stone\nover the door was this inscription, and we thought it as good an example\nof real blasphemy as we had ever seen:\n\n When God makes up his last account\n Of holy children in his mount,\n \u2019Twill be an honour to appear\n As one new born and nourished here.\n\n\n\nThe English Church Abroad\n\n\nPeople say you must not try to abolish Christianity until you have\nsomething better to put in its place. They might as well say we must not\ntake away turnpikes and corn laws till we have some other hindrances to\nput in their place. Besides no one wants to abolish Christianity\u2014all we\nwant is not to be snubbed and bullied if we reject the miraculous part of\nit for ourselves.\n\nAt Biella an English clergyman asked if I was a Roman Catholic. I said,\nquite civilly, that I was not a Catholic.\n\nHe replied that he had asked me not if I was a Catholic but if I was a\nRoman Catholic. What was I? Was I an Anglican Catholic? So, seeing\nthat he meant to argue, I replied:\n\n\u201cI do not know. I am a Londoner and of the same religion as people\ngenerally are in London.\u201d\n\nThis made him angry. He snorted:\n\n\u201cOh, that\u2019s nothing at all;\u201d and almost immediately left the table.\n\nAs much as possible I keep away from English-frequented hotels in Italy\nand Switzerland because I find that if I do not go to service on Sunday I\nam made uncomfortable. It is this bullying that I want to do away with.\nAs regards Christianity I should hope and think that I am more Christian\nthan not.\n\nPeople ought to be allowed to leave their cards at church, instead of\ngoing inside. I have half a mind to try this next time I am in a foreign\nhotel among English people.\n\n\n\nDrunkenness\n\n\nWhen we were at Shrewsbury the other day, coming up the Abbey Foregate,\nwe met a funeral and debated whether or not to take our hats off. We\nalways do in Italy, that is to say in the country and in villages and\nsmall towns, but we have been told that it is not the custom to do so in\nlarge towns and in cities, which raises a question as to the exact figure\nthat should be reached by the population of a place before one need not\ntake off one\u2019s hat to a funeral in one of its streets. At Shrewsbury\nseeing no one doing it we thought it might look singular and kept ours\non. My friend Mr. Phillips, the tailor, was in one carriage, I did not\nsee him, but he saw me and afterwards told me he had pointed me out to a\nclergyman who was in the carriage with him.\n\n\u201cOh,\u201d said the clergyman, \u201cthen that\u2019s the man who says England owes all\nher greatness to intoxication.\u201d\n\nThis is rather a free translation of what I did say; but it only shows\nhow impossible it is to please those who do not wish to be pleased.\nTennyson may talk about the slow sad hours that bring us all things ill\nand all good things from evil, because this is vague and indefinite; but\nI may not say that, in spite of the terrible consequences of drunkenness,\nman\u2019s intellectual development would not have reached its present stage\nwithout the stimulus of alcohol\u2014which I believe to be both perfectly true\nand pretty generally admitted\u2014because this is definite. I do not think I\nsaid more than this and am sure that no one can detest drunkenness more\nthan I do. {343} It seems to me it will be wiser in me not to try to\nmake headway at Shrewsbury.\n\n\n\nHell-Fire\n\n\nIf Vesuvius does not frighten those who live under it, is it likely that\nHell-fire should frighten any reasonable person?\n\nI met a traveller who had returned from Hades where he had conversed with\nTantalus and with others of the shades. They all agreed that for the\nfirst six, or perhaps twelve, months they disliked their punishment very\nmuch; but after that, it was like shelling peas on a hot afternoon in\nJuly. They began by discovering (no doubt long after the fact had been\napparent enough to every one else) that they had not been noticing what\nthey were doing so much as usual, and that they had been even thinking of\nsomething else. From this moment, the automatic stage of action having\nset in, the progress towards always thinking of something else was rapid\nand they soon forgot that they were undergoing any punishment.\n\nTantalus did get a little something not infrequently; water stuck to the\nhairs of his body and he gathered it up in his hand; he also got many an\napple when the wind was napping as it had to do sometimes. Perhaps he\ncould have done with more, but he got enough to keep him going quite\ncomfortably. His sufferings were nothing as compared with those of a\nneedy heir to a fortune whose father, or whoever it may be, catches a\ndangerous bronchitis every winter but invariably recovers and lives to\n91, while the heir survives him a month having been worn out with long\nexpectation.\n\nSisyphus had never found any pleasure in life comparable to the delight\nof seeing his stone bound down-hill, and in so timing its rush as to\ninflict the greatest possible scare on any unwary shade who might be\nwandering below. He got so great and such varied amusement out of this\nthat his labour had become the automatism of reflex action\u2014which is, I\nunderstand, the name applied by men of science to all actions that are\ndone without reflection. He was a pompous, ponderous old gentleman, very\nirritable and always thinking that the other shades were laughing at him\nor trying to take advantage of him. There were two, however, whom he\nhated with a fury that tormented him far more seriously than anything\nelse ever did. The first of these was Archimedes who had instituted a\nseries of experiments in regard to various questions connected with\nmechanics and had conceived a scheme by which he hoped to utilise the\nmotive power of the stone for the purpose of lighting Hades with\nelectricity. The other was Agamemnon, who took good care to keep out of\nthe stone\u2019s way when it was more than a quarter of the distance up the\nslope, but who delighted in teasing Sisyphus so long as he considered it\nsafe to do so. Many of the other shades took daily pleasure in gathering\ntogether about stone-time to enjoy the fun and to bet on how far the\nstone would roll.\n\nAs for Tityus\u2014what is a bird more or less on a body that covers nine\nacres? He found the vultures a gentle stimulant to the liver without\nwhich it would have become congested.\n\nSir Isaac Newton was intensely interested in the hygrometric and\nbarometric proceedings of the Danaids.\n\n\u201cAt any rate,\u201d said one of them to my informant, \u201cif we really are being\npunished, for goodness\u2019 sake don\u2019t say anything about it or we may be put\nto other work. You see, we must be doing something, and now we know how\nto do this, we don\u2019t want the bother of learning something new. You may\nbe right, but we have not got to make our living by it, and what in the\nname of reason can it matter whether the sieves ever get full or not?\u201d\n\nMy traveller reported much the same with regard to the eternal happiness\non Mount Olympus. Hercules found Hebe a fool and could never get her off\nhis everlasting knee. He would have sold his soul to find another\n\u00c6gisthus.\n\nSo Jove saw all this and it set him thinking.\n\n\u201cIt seems to me,\u201d said he, \u201cthat Olympus and Hades are both failures.\u201d\n\nThen he summoned a council and the whole matter was thoroughly discussed.\nIn the end Jove abdicated, and the gods came down from Olympus and\nassumed mortality. They had some years of very enjoyable Bohemian\nexistence going about as a company of strolling players at French and\nBelgian town fairs; after which they died in the usual way, having\ndiscovered at last that it does not matter how high up or how low down\nyou are, that happiness and misery are not absolute but depend on the\ndirection in which you are tending and consist in a progression towards\nbetter or worse, and that pleasure, like pain and like everything that\ngrows, holds in perfection but a little moment.\n\n\n\n\nXXII\nReconciliation\n\n\nReligion\n\n\nBY religion I mean a living sense that man proposes and God disposes,\nthat we must watch and pray that we enter not into temptation, that he\nwho thinketh he standeth must take heed lest he fall, and the countless\nother like elementary maxims which a man must hold as he holds life\nitself if he is to be a man at all.\n\nIf religion, then, is to be formulated and made tangible to the people,\nit can only be by means of symbols, counters and analogies, more or less\nmisleading, for no man professes to have got to the root of the matter\nand to have seen the eternal underlying verity face to face\u2014and even\nthough he could see it he could not grip it and hold it and convey it to\nanother who has not. Therefore either these feelings must be left\naltogether unexpressed and, if unexpressed, then soon undeveloped and\natrophied, or they must be expressed by the help of images or idols\u2014by\nthe help of something not more actually true than a child\u2019s doll is to a\nchild, but yet helpful to our weakness of understanding, as the doll no\ndoubt gratifies and stimulates the motherly instinct in the child.\n\nTherefore we ought not to cavil at the visible superstition and absurdity\nof much on which religion is made to rest, for the unknown can never be\nsatisfactorily rendered into the known. To get the known from the\nunknown is to get something out of nothing, a thing which, though it is\nbeing done daily in every fraction of every second everywhere, is\nlogically impossible of conception, and we can only think by logic, for\nwhat is not in logic is not in thought. So that the attempt to symbolise\nthe unknown is certain to involve inconsistencies and absurdities of all\nkinds and it is childish to complain of their existence unless one is\nprepared to advocate the stifling of all religious sentiment, and this is\nlike trying to stifle hunger or thirst. To be at all is to be religious\nmore or less. There never was any man who did not feel that behind this\nworld and above it and about it there is an unseen world greater and more\nincomprehensible than anything he can conceive, and this feeling, so\nprofound and so universal, needs expression. If expressed it can only be\nso by the help of inconsistencies and errors. These, then, are not to be\nordered impatiently out of court; they have grown up as the best guesses\nat truth that could be made at any given time, but they must become more\nor less obsolete as our knowledge of truth is enlarged. Things become\nknown which were formerly unknown and, though this brings us no nearer to\nultimate universal truth, yet it shows us that many of our guesses were\nwrong. Everything that catches on to realism and naturalism as much as\nChristianity does must be affected by any profound modification in our\nviews of realism and naturalism.\n\n\n\nGod and Convenience\n\n\nI do not know or care whether the expression \u201cGod\u201d has scientific\naccuracy or no, nor yet whether it has theological value; I know nothing\neither of one or the other, beyond looking upon the recognised exponents\nboth of science and theology with equal distrust; but for convenience, I\nam sure that there is nothing like it\u2014I mean for convenience of getting\nquickly at the right or wrong of a matter. While you are fumbling away\nwith your political economy or your biblical precepts to know whether you\nshall let old Mrs. So-and-so have 5/- or no, another, who has just asked\nhimself which would be most well-pleasing in the sight of God, will be\ntold in a moment that he should give her\u2014or not give her\u2014the 5/-. As a\ngeneral rule she had better have the 5/- at once, but sometimes we must\ngive God to understand that, though we should he very glad to do what he\nwould have of us if we reasonably could, yet the present is one of those\noccasions on which we must decline to do so.\n\n\n\nThe World\n\n\nEven the world, so mondain as it is, still holds instinctively and as a\nmatter of faith unquestionable that those who have died by the altar are\nworthier than those who have lived by it, when to die was duty.\n\n\n\nBlasphemy\n\n\nI begin to understand now what Christ meant when he said that blasphemy\nagainst the Holy Ghost was unforgiveable, while speaking against the Son\nof Man might be forgiven. He must have meant that a man may be pardoned\nfor being unable to believe in the Christian mythology, but that if he\nmade light of that spirit which the common conscience of all men,\nwhatever their particular creed, recognises as divine, there was no hope\nfor him. No more there is.\n\n\n\nGaining One\u2019s Point\n\n\nIt is not he who gains the exact point in dispute who scores most in\ncontroversy, but he who has shown the most forbearance and the better\ntemper.\n\n\n\nThe Voice of Common Sense\n\n\nIt is this, and not the Voice of the Lord, which maketh men to be of one\nmind in an house. But then, the Voice of the Lord is the voice of common\nsense which is shared by all that is.\n\n\n\nAmendes Honorables\n\n\nThere is hardly an offence so great but if it be frankly apologised for\nit is easily both forgiven and forgotten. There is hardly an offence so\nsmall but it rankles if he who has committed it does not express\nproportionate regret. Expressions of regret help genuine regret and\ninduce amendment of life, much as digging a channel helps water to flow,\nthough it does not make the water. If a man refuses to make them and\nhabitually indulges his own selfishness at the expense of what is due to\nother people, he is no better than a drunkard or a debauchee, and I have\nno more respect for him than I have for the others.\n\nWe all like to forgive, and we all love best not those who offend us\nleast, nor those who have done most for us, but those who make it most\neasy for us to forgive them.\n\nSo a man may lose both his legs and live for years in health if the\namputation has been clean and skilful, whereas a pea in his boot may set\nup irritation which must last as long as the pea is there and may in the\nend kill him.\n\n\n\nForgiveness and Retribution\n\n\nIt is no part of the bargain that we are never to commit trespasses. The\nbargain is that if we would be forgiven we must forgive them that\ntrespass against us. Nor again is it part of the bargain that we are to\nlet a man hob-nob with us when we know him to be a thorough blackguard,\nmerely on the plea that unless we do so we shall not be forgiving him his\ntrespasses. No hard and fast rule can be laid down, each case must be\nsettled instinctively as it arises.\n\nAs a sinner I am interested in the principle of forgiveness; as sinned\nagainst, in that of retribution. I have what is to me a considerable\nvested interest in both these principles, but I should say I had more in\nforgiveness than in retribution. And so it probably is with most people\nor we should have had a clause in the Lord\u2019s prayer: \u201cAnd pay out those\nwho have sinned against us as they whom we have sinned against generally\npay us out.\u201d\n\n\n\nInaccuracy\n\n\nI am not sure that I do not begin to like the correction of a mistake,\neven when it involves my having shown much ignorance and stupidity, as\nwell as I like hitting on a new idea. It does comfort one so to be able\nto feel sure that one knows how to tumble and how to retreat promptly and\nwithout chagrin. Being bowled over in inaccuracy, when I have tried to\nverify, makes me careful. But if I have not tried to verify and then\nturn out wrong, this, if I find it out, upsets me very much and I pray\nthat I may be found out whenever I do it.\n\n\n\nJutland and \u201cWaitee\u201d\n\n\nI made a mistake in _The Authoress of the Odyssey_ [in a note on p. 31]\nwhen I said \u201cScheria means Jutland\u2014a piece of land jutting out into the\nsea.\u201d Jutland means the Land of the Jutes.\n\nAnd I made a mistake in _Alps and Sanctuaries_ [Chap. III], speaking of\nthe peasants in the Val Leventina knowing English, when I said \u201cOne\nEnglish word has become universally adopted by the Ticinesi themselves.\nThey say \u2018Waitee\u2019 just as we should say \u2018Wait\u2019 to stop some one from\ngoing away. It is abhorrent to them to end a word with a consonant so\nthey have added \u2018ee,\u2019 but there can be no doubt about the origin of the\nword.\u201d The Avvocato Negri of Casale-Monferrato says that they have a\nword in their dialetto which, if ever written, would appear as \u201cvuaitee,\u201d\nit means \u201cstop\u201d or \u201clook here,\u201d and is used to attract attention. This,\nor something like it, no doubt is what they really say and has no more to\ndo with waiting than Jutland has to do with jutting.\n\n\n\nThe Parables\n\n\nThe people do not act reasonably in a single instance. The sower was a\nbad sower; the shepherd who left his ninety and nine sheep in the\nwilderness was a foolish shepherd; the husbandman who would not have his\ncorn weeded was no farmer\u2014and so on. None of them go nearly on all\nfours, they halt so much as to have neither literary nor moral value to\nany but slipshod thinkers.\n\nGranted, but are we not all slipshod thinkers?\n\n\n\nThe Irreligion of Orthodoxy\n\n\nWe do not fall foul of Christians for their religion, but for what we\nhold to be their want of religion\u2014for the low views they take of God and\nof his glory, and for the unworthiness with which they try to serve him.\n\n\n\nSociety and Christianity\n\n\nThe burden of society is really a very light one. She does not require\nus to believe the Christian religion, she has very vague ideas as to what\nthe Christian religion is, much less does she require us to practise it.\nShe is quite satisfied if we do not obtrude our disbelief in it in an\noffensive manner. Surely this is no very grievous burden.\n\n\n\nSanctified by Faith\n\n\nNo matter how great a fraud a thing may have been or be, if it has passed\nthrough many minds an aroma of life attaches to it and it must be handled\nwith a certain reverence. A thing or a thought becomes hallowed if it\nhas been long and strongly believed in, for veneration, after a time,\nseems to get into the thing venerated. Look at Delphi\u2014fraud of frauds,\nyet sanctified by centuries of hope and fear and faith. If greater\nknowledge shows Christianity to have been founded upon error, still\ngreater knowledge shows that it was aiming at a truth.\n\n\n\nOurselves and the Clergy\n\n\nAs regards the best of the clergy, whether English or foreign, I feel\nthat they and we mean in substance the same thing, and that the\ndifference is only about the way this thing should be put and the\nevidence on which it should be considered to rest.\n\nWe say that they jeopardise the acceptance of the principles which they\nand we alike cordially regard as fundamental by basing them on assertions\nwhich a little investigation shows to be untenable. They reply that by\ndeclaring the assertions to be untenable we jeopardise the principles.\nWe answer that this is not so and that moreover we can find better, safer\nand more obvious assertions on which to base them.\n\n\n\nThe Rules of Life\n\n\nWhether it is right to say that one believes in God and Christianity\nwithout intending what one knows the hearer intends one to intend depends\non how much or how little the hearer can understand. Life is not an\nexact science, it is an art. Just as the contention, excellent so far as\nit goes, that each is to do what is right in his own eyes leads, when\nridden to death, to anarchy and chaos, so the contention that every one\nshould be either self-effacing or truthful to the bitter end reduces life\nto an absurdity. If we seek real rather than technical truth, it is more\ntrue to be considerately untruthful within limits than to be\ninconsiderately truthful without them. What the limits are we generally\nknow but cannot say.\n\nThere is an unbridgeable chasm between thought and words that we must\njump as best we can, and it is just here that the two hitch on to one\nanother. The higher rules of life transcend the sphere of language; they\ncannot be gotten by speech, neither shall logic be weighed for the price\nthereof. They have their being in the fear of the Lord and in the\ndeparting from evil without even knowing in words what the Lord is, nor\nthe fear of the Lord, nor yet evil.\n\nCommon straightforwardness and kindliness are the highest points that man\nor woman can reach, but they should no more be made matters of\nconversation than should the lowest vices. Extremes meet here as\nelsewhere and the extremes of vice and virtue are alike common and\nunmentionable.\n\nThere is nothing for it but a very humble hope that from the Great\nUnknown Source our daily insight and daily strength may be given us with\nour daily bread. And what is this but Christianity, whether we believe\nthat Jesus Christ rose from the dead or not? So that Christianity is\nlike a man\u2019s soul\u2014he who finds may lose it and he who loses may find it.\n\nIf, then, a man may be a Christian while believing himself hostile to all\nthat some consider most essential in Christianity, may he not also be a\nfree-thinker (in the common use of the word) while believing himself\nhostile to free-thought?\n\n\n\n\nXXIII\nDeath\n\n\nFore-knowledge of Death\n\n\nNo one thinks he will escape death, so there is no disappointment and, as\nlong as we know neither the when nor the how, the mere fact that we shall\none day have to go does not much affect us; we do not care, even though\nwe know vaguely that we have not long to live. The serious trouble\nbegins when death becomes definite in time and shape. It is in precise\nfore-knowledge, rather than in sin, that the sting of death is to be\nfound; and such fore-knowledge is generally withheld; though, strangely\nenough, many would have it if they could.\n\n\n\nContinued Identity\n\n\nI do not doubt that a person who will grow out of me as I now am, but of\nwhom I know nothing now and in whom therefore I can take none but the\nvaguest interest, will one day undergo so sudden and complete a change\nthat his friends must notice it and call him dead; but as I have no\ndefinite ideas concerning this person, not knowing whether he will be a\nman of 59 or 79 or any age between these two, so this person will, I am\nsure, have forgotten the very existence of me as I am at this present\nmoment. If it is said that no matter how wide a difference of condition\nmay exist between myself now and myself at the moment of death, or how\ncomplete the forgetfulness of connection on either side may be, yet the\nfact of the one\u2019s having grown out of the other by an infinite series of\ngradations makes the second personally identical with the first, then I\nsay that the difference between the corpse and the till recently living\nbody is not great enough, either in respect of material change or of want\nof memory concerning the earlier existence, to bar personal identity and\nprevent us from seeing the corpse as alive and a continuation of the man\nfrom whom it was developed, though having tastes and other\ncharacteristics very different from those it had while it was a man.\n\nFrom this point of view there is no such thing as death\u2014I mean no such\nthing as the death which we have commonly conceived of hitherto. A man\nis much more alive when he is what we call alive than when he is what we\ncall dead; but no matter how much he is alive, he is still in part dead,\nand no matter how much he is dead, he is still in part alive, and his\ncorpse-hood is connected with his living body-hood by gradations which\neven at the moment of death are ordinarily subtle; and the corpse does\nnot forget the living body more completely than the living body has\nforgotten a thousand or a hundred thousand of its own previous states; so\nthat we should see the corpse as a person, of greatly and abruptly\nchanged habits it is true, but still of habits of some sort, for hair and\nnails continue to grow after death, and with an individuality which is as\nmuch identical with that of the person from whom it has arisen as this\nperson was with himself as an embryo of a week old, or indeed more so.\n\nIf we have identity between the embryo and the octogenarian, we must have\nit also between the octogenarian and the corpse, and do away with death\nexcept as a rather striking change of thought and habit, greater indeed\nin degree than, but still, in kind, substantially the same as any of the\nchanges which we have experienced from moment to moment throughout that\nfragment of existence which we commonly call our life; so that in sober\nseriousness there is no such thing as absolute death, just as there is no\nsuch thing as absolute life.\n\nEither this, or we must keep death at the expense of personal identity,\nand deny identity between any two states which present considerable\ndifferences and neither of which has any fore-knowledge of, or\nrecollection of the other. In this case, if there be death at all, it is\nsome one else who dies and not we, because while we are alive we are not\ndead, and as soon as we are dead we are no longer ourselves.\n\nSo that it comes in the end to this, that either there is no such thing\nas death at all, or else that, if there is, it is some one else who dies\nand not we. We cannot blow hot and cold with the same breath. If we\nwould retain personal identity at all, we must continue it beyond what we\ncall death, in which case death ceases to be what we have hitherto\nthought it, that is to say, the end of our being. We cannot have both\npersonal identity and death too.\n\n\n\nComplete Death\n\n\nTo die completely, a person must not only forget but be forgotten, and he\nwho is not forgotten is not dead. This is as old as _non omnis moriar_\nand a great deal older, but very few people realise it.\n\n\n\nLife and Death\n\n\nWhen I was young I used to think the only certain thing about life was\nthat I should one day die. Now I think the only certain thing about life\nis that there is no such thing as death.\n\n\n\nThe Defeat of Death\n\n\nThere is nothing which at once affects a man so much and so little as his\nown death. It is a case in which the going-to-happen-ness of a thing is\nof greater importance than the actual thing itself which cannot be of\nimportance to the man who dies, for Death cuts his own throat in the\nmatter of hurting people. As a bee that can sting once but in the\nstinging dies, so Death is dead to him who is dead already. While he is\nshaking his wings, there is _brutum fulmen_ but the man goes on living,\nfrightened, perhaps, but unhurt; pain and sickness may hurt him but the\nmoment Death strikes him both he and Death are beyond feeling. It is as\nthough Death were born anew with every man; the two protect one another\nso long as they keep one another at arm\u2019s length, but if they once\nembrace it is all over with both.\n\n\n\nThe Torture of Death\n\n\nThe fabled pains of Tantalus, Sisyphus and all the rest of them show what\nan instinctive longing there is in all men both for end and endlessness\nof both good and ill, but as torture they are the merest mockery when\ncompared with the fruitless chase to which poor Death has been condemned\nfor ever and ever. Does it not seem as though he too must have committed\nsome crime for which his sentence is to be for ever grasping after that\nwhich becomes non-existent the moment he grasps it? But then I suppose\nit would be with him as with the rest of the tortured, he must either die\nhimself, which he has not done, or become used to it and enjoy the\nfrightening as much as the killing. Any pain through which a man can\nlive at all becomes unfelt as soon as it becomes habitual. Pain consists\nnot in that which is now endured but in the strong memory of something\nbetter that is still recent. And so, happiness lies in the memory of a\nrecent worse and the expectation of a better that is to come soon.\n\n\n\nIgnorance of Death\n\n\ni\n\n\nThe fear of death is instinctive because in so many past generations we\nhave feared it. But how did we come to know what death is so that we\nshould fear it? The answer is that we do not know what death is and that\nthis is why we fear it.\n\n\nii\n\n\nIf a man know not life which he hath seen how shall he know death which\nhe hath not seen?\n\n\niii\n\n\nIf a man has sent his teeth and his hair and perhaps two or three limbs\nto the grave before him, the presumption should be that, as he knows\nnothing further of these when they have once left him, so will he know\nnothing of the rest of him when it too is dead. The whole may surely be\nargued from the parts.\n\n\niv\n\n\nTo write about death is to write about that of which we have had little\npractical experience. We can write about conscious life, but we have no\nconsciousness of the deaths we daily die. Besides, we cannot eat our\ncake and have it. We cannot have _tabul\u00e6 ras\u00e6_ and _tabul\u00e6 script\u00e6_ at\nthe same time. We cannot be at once dead enough to be reasonably\nregistered as such, and alive enough to be able to tell people all about\nit.\n\n\nv\n\n\nThere will come a supreme moment in which there will be care neither for\nourselves nor for others, but a complete abandon, a _sans souci_ of\nunspeakable indifference, and this moment will never be taken from us;\ntime cannot rob us of it but, as far as we are concerned, it will last\nfor ever and ever without flying. So that, even for the most wretched\nand most guilty, there is a heaven at last where neither moth nor rust\ndoth corrupt and where thieves do not break through nor steal. To\nhimself every one is an immortal: he may know that he is going to die,\nbut he can never know that he is dead.\n\n\nvi\n\n\nIf life is an illusion, then so is death\u2014the greatest of all illusions.\nIf life must not be taken too seriously\u2014then so neither must death.\n\n\nvii\n\n\nThe dead are often just as living to us as the living are, only we cannot\nget them to believe it. They can come to us, but till we die we cannot\ngo to them. To be dead is to be unable to understand that one is alive.\n\n\n\nDissolution\n\n\nDeath is the dissolving of a partnership, the partners to which survive\nand go elsewhere. It is the corruption or breaking up of that society\nwhich we have called Ourself. The corporation is at an end, both its\nsoul and its body cease as a whole, but the immortal constituents do not\ncease and never will. The souls of some men transmigrate in great part\ninto their children, but there is a large alloy in respect both of body\nand mind through sexual generation; the souls of other men migrate into\nbooks, pictures, music, or what not; and every one\u2019s mind migrates\nsomewhere, whether remembered and admired or the reverse. The living\nsouls of Handel, Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Giovanni Bellini and the other\ngreat ones appear and speak to us in their works with less alloy than\nthey could ever speak through their children; but men\u2019s bodies disappear\nabsolutely on death, except they be in some measure preserved in their\nchildren and in so far as harmonics of all that has been remain.\n\nOn death we do not lose life, we only lose individuality; we live\nhenceforth in others not in ourselves. Our mistake has been in not\nseeing that death is indeed, like birth, a salient feature in the history\nof the individual, but one which wants exploding as the end of the\nindividual, no less than birth wanted exploding as his beginning.\n\nDying is only a mode of forgetting. We shall see this more easily if we\nconsider forgetting to be a mode of dying. So the ancients called their\nRiver of Death, Lethe\u2014the River of Forgetfulness. They ought also to\nhave called their River of Life, Mnemosyne\u2014the River of Memory. We\nshould learn to tune death a good deal flatter than according to received\nnotions.\n\n\n\nThe Dislike of Death\n\n\nWe cannot like both life and death at once; no one can be expected to\nlike two such opposite things at the same time; if we like life we must\ndislike death, and if we leave off disliking death we shall soon die.\nDeath will always be more avoided than sought; for living involves\neffort, perceived or unperceived, central or departmental, and this will\nonly be made by those who dislike the consequences of not making it more\nthan the trouble of making it. A race, therefore, which is to exist at\nall must be a death-disliking race, for it is only at the cost of death\nthat we can rid ourselves of all aversion to the idea of dying, so that\nthe hunt after a philosophy which shall strip death of his terrors is\nlike trying to find the philosopher\u2019s stone which cannot be found and\nwhich, if found, would defeat its own object.\n\nMoreover, as a discovery which should rid us of the fear of death would\nbe the vainest, so also it would be the most immoral of discoveries, for\nthe very essence of morality is involved in the dislike (within\nreasonable limits) of death. Morality aims at a maximum of comfortable\nlife and a minimum of death; if then, a minimum of death and a maximum of\nlife were no longer held worth striving for, the whole fabric of morality\nwould collapse, as indeed we have it on record that it is apt to do among\nclasses that from one cause or another have come to live in disregard and\nexpectation of death.\n\nHowever much we may abuse death for robbing us of our friends\u2014and there\nis no one who is not sooner or later hit hard in this respect\u2014yet time\nheals these wounds sooner than we like to own; if the heyday of grief\ndoes not shortly kill outright, it passes; and I doubt whether most men,\nif they were to search their hearts, would not find that, could they\ncommand death for some single occasion, they would be more likely to bid\nhim take than restore.\n\nMoreover, death does not blight love as the accidents of time and life\ndo. Even the fondest grow apart if parted; they cannot come together\nagain, not in any closeness or for any long time. Can death do worse\nthan this?\n\nThe memory of a love that has been cut short by death remains still\nfragrant though enfeebled, but no recollection of its past can keep sweet\na love that has dried up and withered through accidents of time and life.\n\n\n\n\nXXIV\nThe Life of the World to Come\n\n\nPosthumous Life\n\n\ni\n\n\nTo try to live in posterity is to be like an actor who leaps over the\nfootlights and talks to the orchestra.\n\n\nii\n\n\nHe who wants posthumous fame is as one who would entail land, and tie up\nhis money after his death as tightly and for as long a time as possible.\nStill we each of us in our own small way try to get what little\nposthumous fame we can.\n\n\n\nThe Test of Faith\n\n\nWhy should we be so avid of honourable and affectionate remembrance after\ndeath? Why should we hold this the one thing worth living or dying for?\nWhy should all that we can know or feel seem but a very little thing as\ncompared with that which we never either feel or know? What a reversal\nof all the canons of action which commonly guide mankind is there not\nhere? But however this may be, if we have faith in the life after death\nwe can have little in that which is before it, and if we have faith in\nthis life we can have small faith in any other.\n\nNevertheless there is a deeply rooted conviction, even in many of those\nin whom its existence is least apparent, that honourable and affectionate\nremembrance after death with a full and certain hope that it will be ours\nis the highest prize to which the highest calling can aspire. Few pass\nthrough this world without feeling the vanity of all human ambitions;\ntheir faith may fail them here, but it will not fail them\u2014not for a\nmoment, never\u2014if they possess it as regards posthumous respect and\naffection. The world may prove hollow but a well-earned good fame in\ndeath will never do so. And all men feel this whether they admit it to\nthemselves or no.\n\nFaith in this is easy enough. We are born with it. What is less easy is\nto possess one\u2019s soul in peace and not be shaken in faith and broken in\nspirit on seeing the way in which men crowd themselves, or are crowded,\ninto honourable remembrance when, if the truth concerning them were\nknown, no pit of oblivion should be deep enough for them. See, again,\nhow many who have richly earned esteem never get it either before or\nafter death. It is here that faith comes in. To see that the infinite\ncorruptions of this life penetrate into and infect that which is to come,\nand yet to hold that even infamy after death, with obscure and penurious\nlife before it, is a prize which will bring a man more peace at the last\nthan all the good things of this life put together and joined with an\nimmortality as lasting as Virgil\u2019s, provided the infamy and failure of\nthe one be unmerited, as also the success and immortality of the other.\nHere is the test of faith\u2014will you do your duty with all your might at\nany cost of goods or reputation either in this world or beyond the grave?\nIf you will\u2014well, the chances are 100 to 1 that you will become a\nfaddist, a vegetarian and a teetotaller.\n\nAnd suppose you escape this pit-fall too. Why should you try to be so\nmuch better than your neighbours? Who are you to think you may be worthy\nof so much good fortune? If you do, you may be sure that you do not\ndeserve it.\n\nAnd so on _ad infinitum_. Let us eat and drink neither forgetting nor\nremembering death unduly. The Lord hath mercy on whom he will have mercy\nand the less we think about it the better.\n\n\n\nStarting again ad Infinitum\n\n\nA man from the cradle to the grave is but the embryo of a being that may\nbe born into the world of the dead who still live, or that may die so\nsoon after entering it as to be practically still-born. The greater\nnumber of the seeds shed, whether by plants or animals, never germinate\nand of those that grow few reach maturity, so the greater number of those\nthat reach death are still-born as regards the truest life of all\u2014I mean\nthe life that is lived after death in the thoughts and actions of\nposterity. Moreover of those who are born into and fill great places in\nthis invisible world not one is immortal.\n\nWe should look on the body as the manifesto of the mind and on posterity\nas the manifesto of the dead that live after life. Each is the mechanism\nwhereby the other exists.\n\nLife, then, is not the having been born\u2014it is rather an effort to be\nborn. But why should some succeed in attaining to this future life and\nothers fail? Why should some be born more than others? Why should not\nsome one in a future state taunt Lazarus with having a good time now and\ntell him it will be the turn of Dives in some other and more remote\nhereafter? I must have it that neither are the good rewarded nor the bad\npunished in a future state, but every one must start anew quite\nirrespective of anything they have done here and must try his luck again\nand go on trying it again and again _ad infinitum_. Some of our lives,\nthen, will be lucky and some unlucky and it will resolve itself into one\nlong eternal life during which we shall change so much that we shall not\nremember our antecedents very far back (any more than we remember having\nbeen embryos) nor foresee our future very much, and during which we shall\nhave our ups and downs _ad infinitum_\u2014effecting a transformation scene at\nonce as soon as circumstances become unbearable.\n\nNevertheless, some men\u2019s work does live longer than others. Some achieve\nwhat is very like immortality. Why should they have this piece of good\nfortune more than others? The answer is that it would be very unjust if\nthey knew anything about it, or could enjoy it in any way, but they know\nnothing whatever about it, and you, the complainer, do profit by their\nlabour, so that it is really you, the complainer, who get the fun, not\nthey, and this should stop your mouth. The only thing they got was a\nlittle hope, which buoyed them up often when there was but little else\nthat could do so.\n\n\n\nPreparation for Death\n\n\nThat there is a life after death is as palpable as that there is a life\nbefore death\u2014see the influence that the dead have over us\u2014but this life\nis no more eternal than our present life.\n\nShakespeare and Homer may live long, but they will die some day, that is\nto say, they will become unknown as direct and efficient causes. Even so\nGod himself dies, for to die is to change and to change is to die to what\nhas gone before. If the units change the total must do so also.\n\nAs no one can say which egg or seed shall come to visible life and in its\nturn leave issue, so no one can say which of the millions of now visible\nlives shall enter into the afterlife on death, and which have but so\nlittle life as practically not to count. For most seeds end as seeds or\nas food for some alien being, and so with lives, by far the greater\nnumber are sterile, except in so far as they can be devoured as the food\nof some stronger life. The Handels and Shakespeares are the few seeds\nthat grow\u2014and even these die.\n\nAnd the same uncertainty attaches to posthumous life as to pre-lethal.\nAs no one can say how long another shall live, so no one can say how long\nor how short a time a reputation shall live. The most unpromising\nweakly-looking creatures sometimes live to ninety while strong robust men\nare carried off in their prime. And no one can say what a man shall\nenter into life for having done. Roughly, there is a sort of moral\ngovernment whereby those who have done the best work live most\nenduringly, but it is subject to such exceptions that no one can say\nwhether or no there shall not be an exception in his own case either in\nhis favour or against him.\n\nIn this uncertainty a young writer had better act as though he had a\nreasonable chance of living, not perhaps very long, but still some little\nwhile after his death. Let him leave his notes fairly full and fairly\ntidy in all respects, without spending too much time about them. If they\nare wanted, there they are; if not wanted, there is no harm done. He\nmight as well leave them as anything else. But let him write them in\ncopying ink and have the copies kept in different places.\n\n\n\nThe Vates Sacer\n\n\nJust as the kingdom of heaven cometh not by observation, so neither do\none\u2019s own ideas, nor the good things one hears other people say; they\nfasten on us when we least want or expect them. It is enough if the\nkingdom of heaven be observed when it does come.\n\nI do not read much; I look, listen, think and write. My most intimate\nfriends are men of more insight, quicker wit, more playful fancy and, in\nall ways, abler men than I am, but you will find ten of them for one of\nme. I note what they say, think it over, adapt it and give it permanent\nform. They throw good things off as sparks; I collect them and turn them\ninto warmth. But I could not do this if I did not sometimes throw out a\nspark or two myself.\n\nNot only would Agamemnon be nothing without the _vates sacer_ but there\nare always at least ten good heroes to one good chronicler, just as there\nare ten good authors to one good publisher. Bravery, wit and poetry\nabound in every village. Look at Mrs. Boss [the original of Mrs. Jupp in\n_The Way of All Flesh_] and at Joanna Mills [_Life and Letters of Dr.\nButler_, I, 93]. There is not a village of 500 inhabitants in England\nbut has its Mrs. Quickly and its Tom Jones. These good people never\nunderstand themselves, they go over their own heads, they speak in\nunknown tongues to those around them and the interpreter is the rarer and\nmore important person. The _vates sacer_ is the middleman of mind.\n\nSo rare is he and such spendthrifts are we of good things that people not\nonly will not note what might well be noted but they will not even keep\nwhat others have noted, if they are to be at the pains of pigeon-holing\nit. It is less trouble to throw a brilliant letter into the fire than to\nput it into such form that it can be safely kept, quickly found and\neasily read. To this end a letter should be gummed, with the help of the\nedgings of stamps if necessary, to a strip, say an inch and a quarter\nwide, of stout hand-made paper. Two or three paper fasteners passed\nthrough these strips will bind fifty or sixty letters together, which,\narranged in chronological order, can be quickly found and comfortably\nread. But how few will be at the small weekly trouble of clearing up\ntheir correspondence and leaving it in manageable shape! If we keep our\nletters at all we throw them higgledy-piggledy into a box and have done\nwith them; let some one else arrange them when the owner is dead. The\nsome one else comes and finds the fire an easy method of escaping the\nonus thrown upon him. So on go letters from Tilbrook, Merian, Marmaduke\nLawson {364}\u2014just as we throw our money away if the holding on to it\ninvolves even very moderate exertion.\n\nOn the other hand, if this instinct towards prodigality were not so\ngreat, beauty and wit would be smothered under their own selves. It is\nthrough the waste of wit that wit endures, like money, its main\npreciousness lies in its rarity\u2014the more plentiful it is the cheaper does\nit become.\n\n\n\nThe Dictionary of National Biography\n\n\nWhen I look at the articles on Handel, on Dr. Arnold, or indeed on almost\nany one whom I know anything about, I feel that such a work as the\n_Dictionary of National Biography_ adds more terror to death than death\nof itself could inspire. That is one reason why I let myself go so\nunreservedly in these notes. If the colours in which I paint myself fail\nto please, at any rate I shall have had the laying them on myself.\n\n\n\nThe World\n\n\nThe world will, in the end, follow only those who have despised as well\nas served it.\n\n\n\nAccumulated Dinners\n\n\nThe world and all that has ever been in it will one day be as much\nforgotten as what we ate for dinner forty years ago. Very likely, but\nthe fact that we shall not remember much about a dinner forty years hence\ndoes not make it less agreeable now, and after all it is only the\naccumulation of these forgotten dinners that makes the dinner of forty\nyears hence possible.\n\n\n\nJudging the Dead\n\n\nThe dead should be judged as we judge criminals, impartially, but they\nshould be allowed the benefit of a doubt. When no doubt exists they\nshould be hanged out of hand for about a hundred years. After that time\nthey may come down and move about under a cloud. After about 2000 years\nthey may do what they like. If Nero murdered his mother\u2014well, he\nmurdered his mother and there\u2019s an end. The moral guilt of an action\nvaries inversely as the squares of its distances in time and space,\nsocial, psychological, physiological or topographical, from ourselves.\nNot so its moral merit: this loses no lustre through time and distance.\n\nGood is like gold, it will not rust or tarnish and it is rare, but there\nis some of it everywhere. Evil is like water, it abounds, is cheap, soon\nfouls, but runs itself clear of taint.\n\n\n\nMyself and My Books\n\n\nBodily offspring I do not leave, but mental offspring I do. Well, my\nbooks do not have to be sent to school and college and then insist on\ngoing into the Church or take to drinking or marry their mother\u2019s maid.\n\n\n\nMy Son\n\n\nI have often told my son that he must begin by finding me a wife to\nbecome his mother who shall satisfy both himself and me. But this is\nonly one of the many rocks on which we have hitherto split. We should\nnever have got on together; I should have had to cut him off with a\nshilling either for laughing at Homer, or for refusing to laugh at him,\nor both, or neither, but still cut him off. So I settled the matter long\nago by turning a deaf ear to his importunities and sticking to it that I\nwould not get him at all. Yet his thin ghost visits me at times and,\nthough he knows that it is no use pestering me further, he looks at me so\nwistfully and reproachfully that I am half-inclined to turn tall, take my\nchance about his mother and ask him to let me get him after all. But I\nshould show a clean pair of heels if he said \u201cYes.\u201d\n\nBesides, he would probably be a girl.\n\n\n\nObscurity\n\n\nWhen I am dead, do not let people say of me that I suffered from\nmisrepresentation and neglect. I was neglected and misrepresented; very\nlikely not half as much as I supposed but, nevertheless, to some extent\nneglected and misrepresented. I growl at this sometimes but, if the\nquestion were seriously put to me whether I would go on as I am or become\nfamous in my own lifetime, I have no hesitation about which I should\nprefer. I will willingly pay the few hundreds of pounds which the\nneglect of my works costs me in order to be let alone and not plagued by\nthe people who would come round me if I were known. The probability is\nthat I shall remain after my death as obscure as I am now; if this be so,\nthe obscurity will, no doubt, be merited, and if not, my books will work\nnot only as well without my having been known in my lifetime but a great\ndeal better; my follies and blunders will the better escape notice to the\nenhancing of the value of anything that may be found in my books. The\nonly two things I should greatly care about if I had more money are a few\nmore country outings and a little more varied and better cooked food.\n[1882.]\n\nP.S.\u2014I have long since obtained everything that a reasonable man can wish\nfor. [1895.]\n\n\n\nPosthumous Honours\n\n\nI see Cecil Rhodes has just been saying that he was a lucky man, inasmuch\nas such honours as are now being paid him generally come to a man after\nhis death and not before it. This is all very well for a politician\nwhose profession immerses him in public life, but the older I grow the\nmore satisfied I am that there can be no greater misfortune for a man of\nletters or of contemplation than to be recognised in his own lifetime.\nFortunately the greater man he is, and hence the greater the misfortune\nhe would incur, the less likelihood there is that he will incur it.\n[1897.]\n\n\n\nPosthumous Recognition\n\n\nShall I be remembered after death? I sometimes think and hope so. But I\ntrust I may not be found out (if I ever am found out, and if I ought to\nbe found out at all) before my death. It would bother me very much and I\nshould be much happier and better as I am. [1880.]\n\nP.S.\u2014This note I leave unaltered. I am glad to see that I had so much\nsense thirteen years ago. What I thought then, I think now, only with\ngreater confidence and confirmation. [1893.]\n\n\n\nAnalysis of the Sales of My Books\n\n Copies Sold Cash Profit Cash Loss Total Profit Total loss Value of stock\nErewhon 3843 62 10 10 \u2014 69 3 10 \u2014 6 13 0\nThe Fair Haven 442 \u2014 41 2 2 \u2014 27 18 2 13 4 0\nLife and Habit 640 \u2014 4 17 1\u00bd 7 19 1\u00bd \u2014 12 16 3\nEvolution Old & New 541 \u2014 103 11 10 \u2014 89 13 10 13 18 0\nUnconscious Memory 272 \u2014 38 13 5 \u2014 38 13 5 \u2014\nAlps and Sanctuaries 332 \u2014 113 6 4 \u2014 110 18 4 22 8 0\nSelections from Previous Works 120 \u2014 51 4 10\u00bd \u2014 48 10 10\u00bd 2 14 0\nLuck or Cunning? 284 \u2014 41 6 4 \u2014 13 18 10 27 7 6\nEx Voto 217 \u2014 147 18 0 \u2014 111 8 0 36 10 0\nLife and Letters of Dr. Butler 201 \u2014 216 18 0 \u2014 193 18 0 23 0 0\nThe Authoress of the Odyssey 165 \u2014 81 1 3 \u2014 59 10 3 21 11 0\nThe Iliad in English Prose 157 \u2014 89 4 8 \u2014 77 6 8 11 18 0\nA Holbein Card 6 \u2014 8 1 9 \u2014 8 1 9 \u2014\nA Book of Essays 0 \u2014 3 11 9 \u2014 \u2014 3 11 9\n 62 10 10 960 17 6 77 2 11\u00bd 779 18 1\u00bd 195 11 6\n\nTo this must be added my book on the Sonnets in respect of which I have\nhad no account as yet but am over a hundred pounds out of pocket by it so\nfar\u2014little of which, I fear, is ever likely to come back.\n\nIt will be noted that my public appears to be a declining one; I\nattribute this to the long course of practical boycott to which I have\nbeen subjected for so many years, or, if not boycott, of sneer, snarl and\nmisrepresentation. I cannot help it, nor if the truth were known, am I\nat any pains to try to do so. {369}\n\n\n\nWorth Doing\n\n\nIf I deserve to be remembered, it will be not so much for anything I have\nwritten, or for any new way of looking at old facts which I may have\nsuggested, as for having shown that a man of no special ability, with no\nliterary connections, not particularly laborious, fairly, but not\nsupremely, accurate as far as he goes, and not travelling far either for\nhis facts or from them, may yet, by being perfectly square, sticking to\nhis point, not letting his temper run away with him, and biding his time,\nbe a match for the most powerful literary and scientific coterie that\nEngland has ever known.\n\nI hope it may be said of me that I discomfited an unscrupulous,\nself-seeking clique, and set a more wholesome example myself. To have\ndone this is the best of all discoveries.\n\n\n\nDoubt and Hope\n\n\nI will not say that the more than coldness with which my books are\nreceived does not frighten me and make me distrust myself. It must do\nso. But every now and then I meet with such support as gives me hope\nagain. Still, I know nothing. [1890.]\n\n\n\nUnburying Cities\n\n\nOf course I am jealous of the _\u00e9clat_ that Flinders Petrie, Layard and\nSchliemann get for having unburied cities, but I do not see why I need\nbe; the great thing is to unbury the city, and I believe I have unburied\nScheria as effectually as Schliemann unburied Troy. [_The Authoress of\nthe Odyssey_.] True, Scheria was above ground all the time and only\nwanted a little common sense to find it; nevertheless people have had all\nthe facts before them for over 2500 years and have been looking more or\nless all the time without finding. I do not see why it is more\nmeritorious to uncover physically with a spade than spiritually with a\nlittle of the very commonest common sense.\n\n\n\nApologia\n\n\ni\n\n\nWhen I am dead I would rather people thought me better than I was instead\nof worse; but if they think me worse, I cannot help it and, if it matters\nat all, it will matter more to them than to me. The one reputation I\ndeprecate is that of having been ill-used. I deprecate this because it\nwould tend to depress and discourage others from playing the game that I\nhave played. I will therefore forestall misconception on this head.\n\nAs regards general good-fortune, I am nearly fifty-five years old and for\nthe last thirty years have never been laid up with illness nor had any\nphysical pain that I can remember, not even toothache. Except sometimes,\nwhen a little over-driven, I have had uninterrupted good health ever\nsince I was about five-and-twenty.\n\nOf mental suffering I have had my share\u2014as who has not?\u2014but most of what\nI have suffered has been, though I did not think so at the time, either\nimaginary, or unnecessary and, so far, it has been soon forgotten. It\nhas been much less than it very easily might have been if the luck had\nnot now and again gone with me, and probably I have suffered less than\nmost people, take it all round. Like every one else, however, I have the\nscars of old wounds; very few of these wounds were caused by anything\nwhich was essential in the nature of things; most, if not all of them,\nhave been due to faults of heart and head on my own part and on that of\nothers which, one would have thought, might have been easily avoided if\nin practice it had not turned out otherwise.\n\nFor many years I was in a good deal of money difficulty, but since my\nfather\u2019s death I have had no trouble on this score\u2014greatly otherwise.\nEven when things were at their worst, I never missed my two months\u2019\nsummer Italian trip since 1876, except one year and then I went to Mont\nSt. Michel and enjoyed it very much. It was those Italian trips that\nenabled me to weather the storm. At other times I am engrossed with work\nthat fascinates me. I am surrounded by people to whom I am attached and\nwho like me in return so far as I can judge. In Alfred [his clerk and\nattendant] I have the best body-guard and the most engaging of any man in\nLondon. I live quietly but happily. And if this is being ill-used I\nshould like to know what being well-used is.\n\nI do not deny, however, that I have been ill-used. I have been used\nabominably. The positive amount of good or ill fortune, however, is not\nthe test of either the one or the other; the true measure lies in the\nrelative proportion of each and the way in which they have been\ndistributed, and by this I claim, after deducting all bad luck, to be\nleft with a large balance of good.\n\nSome people think I must be depressed and discouraged because my books do\nnot make more noise; but, after all, whether people read my books or no\nis their affair, not mine. I know by my sales that few read my books.\nIf I write at all, it follows that I want to be read and miss my mark if\nI am not. So also with _Narcissus_. Whatever I do falls dead, and I\nwould rather people let me see that they liked it. To this extent I\ncertainly am disappointed. I am sorry not to have wooed the public more\nsuccessfully. But I have been told that winning and wearing generally\ntake something of the gilt off the wooing, and I am disposed to acquiesce\ncheerfully in not finding myself so received as that I need woo no\nlonger. If I were to succeed I should be bored to death by my success in\na fortnight and so, I am convinced, would my friends. Retirement is to\nme a condition of being able to work at all. I would rather write more\nbooks and music than spend much time over what I have already written;\nnor do I see how I could get retirement if I were not to a certain extent\nunpopular.\n\nIt is this feeling on my own part\u2014omnipresent with me when I am doing my\nbest to please, that is to say, whenever I write\u2014which is the cause why I\ndo not, as people say, \u201cget on.\u201d If I had greatly cared about getting on\nI think I could have done so. I think I could even now write an\nanonymous book that would take the public as much as _Erewhon_ did.\nPerhaps I could not, but I think I could. The reason why I do not try is\nbecause I like doing other things better. What I most enjoy is running\nthe view of evolution set forth in _Life and Habit_ and making things\nless easy for the hacks of literature and science; or perhaps even more I\nenjoy taking snapshots and writing music, though aware that I had better\nnot enquire whether this last is any good or not. In fact there is\nnothing I do that I do not enjoy so keenly that I cannot tear myself away\nfrom it, and people who thus indulge themselves cannot have things both\nways. I am so intent upon pleasing myself that I have no time to cater\nfor the public. Some of them like things in the same way as I do; that\nclass of people I try to please as well as ever I can. With others I\nhave no concern, and they know it so they have no concern with me. I do\nnot believe there is any other explanation of my failure to get on than\nthis, nor do I see that any further explanation is needed. [1890.]\n\n\nii\n\n\nTwo or three people have asked me to return to the subject of my supposed\nfailure and explain it more fully from my own point of view. I have had\nthe subject on my notes for some time and it has bored me so much that it\nhas had a good deal to do with my not having kept my Note-Books posted\nrecently.\n\nBriefly, in order to scotch that snake, my failure has not been so great\nas people say it has. I believe my reputation stands well with the best\npeople. Granted that it makes no noise, but I have not been willing to\ntake the pains necessary to achieve what may be called guinea-pig review\nsuccess, because, although I have been in financial difficulties, I did\nnot seriously need success from a money point of view, and because I\nhated the kind of people I should have had to court and kow-tow to if I\nwent in for that sort of thing. I could never have carried it through,\neven if I had tried, and instinctively declined to try. A man cannot be\nsaid to have failed, because he did not get what he did not try for.\nWhat I did try for I believe I have got as fully as any reasonable man\ncan expect, and I have every hope that I shall get it still more both so\nlong as I live and after I am dead.\n\nIf, however, people mean that I am to explain how it is I have not made\nmore noise in spite of my own indolence in matter, the answer is that\nthose who do not either push the themselves into noise, or give some one\nelse a substantial interest in pushing them, never do get made a noise\nabout. How can they? I was too lazy to go about from publisher to\npublisher and to decline to publish a book myself if I could not find\nsome one to speculate in it. I could take any amount of trouble about\nwriting a book but, so long as I could lay my hand on the money to bring\nit out with, I found publishers\u2019 antechambers so little to my taste that\nI soon tired and fell back on the short and easy method of publishing my\nbook myself. Of course, therefore, it failed to sell. I know more about\nthese things now, and will never publish a book at my own risk again, or\nat any rate I will send somebody else round the antechambers with it for\na good while before I pay for publishing it.\n\nI should have liked notoriety and financial success well enough if they\ncould have been had for the asking, but I was not going to take any\ntrouble about them and, as a natural consequence, I did not get them. If\nI had wanted them with the same passionate longing that has led me to\npursue every enquiry that I ever have pursued, I should have got them\nfast enough. It is very rarely that I have failed to get what I have\nreally tried for and, as a matter of fact, I believe I have been a great\ndeal happier for not trying than I should have been if I had had\nnotoriety thrust upon me.\n\nI confess I should like my books to pay their expenses and put me a\nlittle in pocket besides\u2014because I want to do more for Alfred than I see\nmy way to doing. As a natural consequence of beginning to care I have\nbegun to take pains, and am advising with the Society of Authors as to\nwhat will be my best course. Very likely they can do nothing for me, but\nat any rate I shall have tried.\n\nOne reason, and that the chief, why I have made no noise, is now\nexplained. It remains to add that from first to last I have been\nunorthodox and militant in every book that I have written. I made\nenemies of the parsons once for all with my first two books. [_Erewhon_\nand _The Fair Haven_.] The evolution books made the Darwinians, and\nthrough them the scientific world in general, even more angry than _The\nFair Haven_ had made the clergy so that I had no friends, for the\nclerical and scientific people rule the roast between them.\n\nI have chosen the fighting road rather than the hang-on-to-a-great-man\nroad, and what can a man who does this look for except that people should\ntry to silence him in whatever way they think will be most effectual? In\nmy case they have thought it best to pretend that I am non-existent. It\nis no part of my business to complain of my opponents for choosing their\nown line; my business is to defeat them as best I can upon their own\nline, and I imagine I shall do most towards this by not allowing myself\nto be made unhappy merely because I am not fussed about, and by going on\nwriting more books and adding to my pile.\n\n\n\nMy Work\n\n\nWhy should I write about this as though any one will wish to read what I\nwrite?\n\nPeople sometimes give me to understand that it is a piece of ridiculous\nconceit on my part to jot down so many notes about myself, since it\nimplies a confidence that I shall one day be regarded as an interesting\nperson. I answer that neither I nor they can form any idea as to whether\nI shall be wanted when I am gone or no. The chances are that I shall\nnot. I am quite aware of it. So the chances are that I shall not live\nto be 85; but I have no right to settle it so. If I do as Captain Don\ndid [_Life of Dr. Butler_, I, opening of Chapter VIII], and invest every\npenny I have in an annuity that shall terminate when I am 89, who knows\nbut that I may live on to 96, as he did, and have seven years without any\nincome at all? I prefer the modest insurance of keeping up my notes\nwhich others may burn or no as they please.\n\nI am not one of those who have travelled along a set road towards an end\nthat I have foreseen and desired to reach. I have made a succession of\njaunts or pleasure trips from meadow to meadow, but no long journey\nunless life itself be reckoned so. Nevertheless, I have strayed into no\nfield in which I have not found a flower that was worth the finding, I\nhave gone into no public place in which I have not found sovereigns lying\nabout on the ground which people would not notice and be at the trouble\nof picking up. They have been things which any one else has had\u2014or at\nany rate a very large number of people have had\u2014as good a chance of\npicking up as I had. My finds have none of them come as the result of\nresearch or severe study, though they have generally given me plenty to\ndo in the way of research and study as soon as I had got hold of them. I\ntake it that these are the most interesting\u2014or whatever the least\noffensive word may be:\n\n1. The emphasising the analogies between crime and disease.\n[_Erewhon_.]\n\n2. The emphasising also the analogies between the development of the\norgans of our bodies and of those which are not incorporate with our\nbodies and which we call tools or machines. [_Erewhon_ and _Luck or\nCunning_?]\n\n3. The clearing up the history of the events in connection with the\ndeath, or rather crucifixion, of Jesus Christ; and a reasonable\nexplanation, first, of the belief on the part of the founders of\nChristianity that their master had risen from the dead and, secondly, of\nwhat might follow from belief in a single supposed miracle. [_The\nEvidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ_, _The Fair Haven_ and\n_Erewhon Revisited_.]\n\n4. The perception that personal identity cannot be denied between\nparents and offspring without at the same time denying it as between the\ndifferent ages (and hence moments) in the life of the individual and, as\na corollary on this, the ascription of the phenomena of heredity to the\nsame source as those of memory. [_Life and Habit_.]\n\n5. The tidying up the earlier history of the theory of evolution.\n[_Evolution Old and New_.]\n\n6. The exposure and discomfiture of Charles Darwin and Wallace and their\nfollowers. [_Evolution Old and New_, _Unconscious Memory_, _Luck or\nCunning_? and \u201cThe Deadlock in Darwinism\u201d in the _Universal Review_\nrepublished in _Essays on Life_, _Art and Science_.] {376}\n\n7. The perception of the principle that led organic life to split up\ninto two main divisions, animal and vegetable. [_Alps and Sanctuaries_,\nclose of Chapter XIII: _Luck or Cunning_?]\n\n8. The perception that, if the kinetic theory is held good, our thought\nof a thing, whatever that thing may be, is in reality an exceedingly weak\ndilution of the actual thing itself. [Stated, but not fully developed,\nin _Luck or Cunning_? Chapter XIX, also in some of the foregoing notes.]\n\n9. The restitution to Giovanni and Gentile Bellini of their portraits in\nthe Louvre and the finding of five other portraits of these two painters\nof whom Crowe and Cavalcaselle and Layard maintain that we have no\nportrait. [Letters to the _Athen\u00e6um_, &c.]\n\n10. The restoration to Holbein of the drawing in the Basel Museum called\n_La Danse_. [_Universal Review_, Nov., 1889.]\n\n11. The calling attention to Gaudenzio Ferrari and putting him before\nthe public with something like the emphasis that he deserves. [_Ex\nVoto_.]\n\n12. The discovery of a life-sized statue of Leonardo da Vinci by\nGaudenzio Ferrari. [_Ex Voto_.]\n\n13. The unearthing of the Flemish sculptor Jean de Wespin (called\nTabachetti in Italy) and of Giovanni Antonio Paracca. [_Ex Voto_.]\n\n14. The finding out that the _Odyssey_ was written at Trapani, the\nclearing up of the whole topography of the poem, and the demonstration,\nas it seems to me, that the poem was written by a woman and not by a man.\nIndeed, I may almost claim to have discovered the _Odyssey_, so altered\ndoes it become when my views of it are adopted. And robbing Homer of the\n_Odyssey_ has rendered the _Iliad_ far more intelligible; besides, I have\nset the example of how he should be approached. [_The Authoress of the\nOdyssey_.]\n\n15. The attempt to do justice to my grandfather by writing _The Life and\nLetters of Dr. Butler_ for which, however, I had special facilities.\n\n16. In _Narcissus_ and _Ulysses_ I made an attempt, the failure of which\nhas yet to be shown, to return to the principles of Handel and take them\nup where he left off.\n\n17. The elucidation of Shakespeare\u2019s _Sonnets_. [_Shakespeare\u2019s Sonnets\nReconsidered_.]\n\nI say nothing here about my novel [_The Way of All Flesh_] because it\ncannot be published till after my death; nor about my translations of the\n_Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_. Nevertheless these three books also were a\nkind of picking up of sovereigns, for the novel contains records of\nthings I saw happening rather than imaginary incidents, and the\nprinciples on which the translations are made were obvious to any one\nwilling to take and use them.\n\nThe foregoing is the list of my \u201cmares\u2019-nests,\u201d and it is, I presume,\nthis list which made Mr. Arthur Platt call me the Galileo of Mares\u2019-Nests\nin his diatribe on my _Odyssey_ theory in the _Classical Review_. I am\nnot going to argue here that they are all, as I do not doubt, sound; what\nI want to say is that they are every one of them things that lay on the\nsurface and open to any one else just as much as to me. Not one of them\nrequired any profundity of thought or extensive research; they only\nrequired that he who approached the various subjects with which they have\nto do should keep his eyes open and try to put himself in the position of\nthe various people whom they involve. Above all, it was necessary to\napproach them without any preconceived theory and to be ready to throw\nover any conclusion the moment the evidence pointed against it. The\nreason why I have discarded so few theories that I have put forward\u2014and\nat this moment I cannot recollect one from which there has been any\nserious attempt to dislodge me\u2014is because I never allowed myself to form\na theory at all till I found myself driven on to it whether I would or\nno. As long as it was possible to resist I resisted, and only yielded\nwhen I could not think that an intelligent jury under capable guidance\nwould go with me if I resisted longer. I never went in search of any one\nof my theories; I never knew what it was going to be till I had found it;\nthey came and found me, not I them. Such being my own experience, I\nbegin to be pretty certain that other people have had much the same and\nthat the soundest theories have come unsought and without much effort.\n\nThe conclusion, then, of the whole matter is that scientific and literary\nfortunes are, like money fortunes, made more by saving than in any other\nway\u2014more through the exercise of the common vulgar essentials, such as\nsobriety and straightforwardness, than by the more showy enterprises that\nwhen they happen to succeed are called genius and when they fail, folly.\nThe streets are full of sovereigns crying aloud for some one to come and\npick them up, only the thick veil of our own insincerity and conceit\nhides them from us. He who can most tear this veil from in front of his\neyes will be able to see most and to walk off with them.\n\nI should say that the sooner I stop the better. If on my descent to the\nnether world I were to be met and welcomed by the shades of those to whom\nI have done a good turn while I was here, I should be received by a\nfairly illustrious crowd. There would be Giovanni and Gentile Bellini,\nLeonardo da Vinci, Gaudenzio Ferrari, Holbein, Tabachetti, Paracca and\nD\u2019Enrico; the Authoress of the _Odyssey_ would come and Homer with her;\nDr. Butler would bring with him the many forgotten men and women to whom\nin my memoir I have given fresh life; there would be Buffon, Erasmus\nDarwin and Lamarck; Shakespeare also would be there and Handel. I could\nnot wish to find myself in more congenial company and I shall not take it\ntoo much to heart if the shade of Charles Darwin glides gloomily away\nwhen it sees me coming.\n\n\n\n\nXXV\nPoems\n\n\nPrefatory Note\n\n\ni. _Translation from an Unpublished Work of Herodotus_\n\nii. _The Shield of Achilles_, _with Variations_\n\niii. _The Two Deans_\n\niv. _On the Italian Priesthood_\n\n_Butler wrote these four pieces while he was an undergraduate at St.\nJohn\u2019s College_, _Cambridge_. _He kept no copy of any of them_, _but his\nfriend the Rev. Canon Joseph McCormick_, _D.D._, _Rector of St. James\u2019s_,\n_Piccadilly_, _kept copies in a note-book which he lent me_. _The only\none that has appeared in print is_ \u201c_The Shield of Achilles_,\u201d _which\nCanon McCormick sent to_ The Eagle, _the magazine of St. John\u2019s College_,\n_Cambridge_, _and it was printed in the number for December_ 1902, _about\nsix months after Butler\u2019s death_.\n\n\u201c_On the Italian Priesthood_\u201d _is a rendering of the Italian epigram\naccompanying it which_, _with others under the heading_ \u201c_Astuzia_,\n_Inganno_,\u201d _is given in_ Raccolta di Proverbi Toscani di Giuseppe Giusti\n(_Firenze_, 1853).\n\nv. _A Psalm of Montreal_\n\n_This was written in Canada in_ 1875. _Butler often recited it and gave\ncopies of it to his friends_. _Knowing that Mr. Edward Clodd had had\nsomething to do with its appearance in the_ Spectator _I wrote asking him\nto tell me what he remembered about it_. _He very kindly replied_,\n29_th_ _October_, 1905:\n\n\u201c_The_ \u2018_Psalm_\u2019 _was recited to me at the Century Club by Butler_. _He\ngave me a copy of it which I read to the late Chas. Anderson_, _Vicar of\nS. John\u2019s_, _Limehouse_, _who lent it to Matt. Arnold_ (_when inspecting\nAnderson\u2019s Schools_) _who lent it to Richd. Holt Hutton who_, _with\nButler\u2019s consent_, _printed it in the_ Spectator _of_ 18_th_ _May_,\n1878.\u201d\n\n_The_ \u201c_Psalm of Montreal_\u201d _was included in_ Selections from Previous\nWorks (1884) _and in_ Seven Sonnets, _etc._\n\nvi. _The Righteous Man_\n\n_Butler wrote this in_ 1876; _it has appeared before only in_ 1879 _in\nthe_ Examiner, _where it formed part of the correspondence_ \u201c_A\nClergyman\u2019s Doubts_\u201d _of which the letter signed_ \u201c_Ethics_\u201d _has already\nbeen given in this volume_ (_see p._ 304 _ante_). \u201c_The Righteous Man_\u201d\n_was signed_ \u201c_X.Y.Z._\u201d _and_, _in order to connect it with the\ndiscussion_, _Butler prefaced it with a note comparing it to the last six\ninches of a line of railway_; _there is no part of the road so ugly_, _so\nlittle travelled over_, _or so useless generally_, _but it is the end_,\n_at any rate_, _of a very long thing_.\n\nvii. _To Critics and Others_.\n\n_This was written in_ 1883 _and has not hitherto been published_.\n\nviii. _For Narcissus_\n\n_These are printed for the first time_. _The pianoforte score of_\nNarcissus _was published in_ 1888. _The poem_ (_A_) _was written because\nthere was some discussion then going on in musical circles about\nadditional accompaniments to the_ Messiah _and we did not want any to be\nwritten for_ Narcissus.\n\n_The poem_ (_B_) _shows how Butler originally intended to open Part II\nwith a kind of descriptive programme_, _but he changed his mind and did\nit differently_.\n\nix. _A Translation Attempted in Consequence of a Challenge_\n\n_This translation into Homeric verse of a famous passage from_ Martin\nChuzzlewit _was a by-product of Butler\u2019s work on the_ Odyssey _and the_\nIliad. _It was published in_ The Eagle _in March_, 1894, _and was\nincluded in_ Seven Sonnets.\n\n_I asked Butler who had challenged him to attempt the translation and he\nreplied that he had thought of that and had settled that_, _if any one\nelse were to ask the question_, _he should reply that the challenge came\nfrom me_.\n\nx. _In Memoriam H. R. F._\n\n_This appears in print now for the first time_. _Hans Rudolf Faesch_, _a\nyoung Swiss from Basel_, _came to London in the autumn of_ 1893. _He\nspent much of his time with us until_ 14_th_ _February_, 1895, _when he\nleft for Singapore_. _We saw him off from Holborn Viaduct Station_; _he\nwas not well and it was a stormy night_. _The next day Butler wrote this\npoem and_, _being persuaded that we should never see Hans Faesch again_,\n_called it an In Memoriam_. _Hans did not die on the journey_, _he\narrived safely in Singapore and settled in the East where he carried on\nbusiness_. _We exchanged letters with him frequently_; _he paid two\nvisits to Europe and we saw him on both occasions_. _But he did not live\nlong_. _He died in the autumn of_ 1903 _at Vien Tiane in the Shan\nStates_, _aged_ 32, _having survived Butler by about a year and a half_.\n\nxi. _An Academic Exercise_\n\n_This has never been printed before_. _It is a Farewell_, _and that is\nwhy I have placed it next after the In Memoriam_. _The contrast between\nthe two poems illustrates the contrast pointed out at the close of the\nnote on_ \u201c_The Dislike of Death_\u201d (_ante_, p. 359):\n\n\u201c_The memory of a love that has been cut short by death remains still\nfragrant though enfeebled_, _but no recollection of its past can keep\nsweet a love that has dried up and withered through accidents of time and\nlife_.\u201d\n\n_In the ordinary course Butler would have talked this Sonnet over with me\nat the time he wrote it_, _that is in January_, 1902; _he may even have\ndone so_, _but I think not_. _From_ 2_nd_ _January_, 1902, _until late\nin March_, _when he left London alone for Sicily_, _I was ill with\npneumonia and remember very little of what happened then_. _Between his\nreturn in May and his death in June I am sure he did not mention the\nsubject_. _Knowing the facts that underlie the preceding poem I can tell\nwhy Butler called it an In Memoriam_; _not knowing the facts that\nunderlie this poem I cannot tell why Butler should have called it an\nAcademic Exercise_. _It is his last Sonnet and is dated_ \u201c_Sund. Jan._\n12th 1902,\u201d _within six months of his death_, _at a time when he was\ndepressed physically because his health was failing and mentally because\nhe had been_ \u201c_editing his remains_,\u201d _reading and destroying old letters\nand brooding over the past_. _One of the subjects given in the section_\n\u201c_Titles and Subjects_\u201d _(ante_) _is_ \u201c_The diseases and ordinary causes\nof mortality among friendships_.\u201d _I suppose that he found among his\nletters something which awakened memories of a friendship of his earlier\nlife\u2014a friendship that had suffered from a disease_, _whether it\nrecovered or died would not affect the sincerity of the emotions\nexperienced by Butler at the time he believed the friendship to be\nvirtually dead_. _I suppose the Sonnet to be an In Memoriam upon the\napprehended death of a friendship as the preceding poem is an In Memoriam\nupon the apprehended death of a friend_.\n\n_This may be wrong_, _but something of the kind seems necessary to\nexplain why Butler should have called the Sonnet an Academic Exercise_.\n_No one who has read_ Shakespeare\u2019s Sonnets Reconsidered _will require to\nbe told that he disagreed contemptuously with those critics who believe\nthat Shakespeare composed his Sonnets as academic exercises_. _It is\ncertain that he wrote this_, _as he wrote his other Sonnets_, _in\nimitation of Shakespeare_, _not merely imitating the form but approaching\nthe subject in the spirit in which he believed Shakespeare to have\napproached his subject_. _It follows therefore that he did not write\nthis sonnet as an academic exercise_, _had he done so he would not have\nbeen imitating Shakespeare_. _If we assume that he was presenting his\nstory as he presented the dialogue in_ \u201c_A Psalm of Montreal_\u201d _in a\nform_ \u201c_perhaps true_, _perhaps imaginary_, _perhaps a little of the one\nand a little of the other_,\u201d _it would be quite in the manner of the\nauthor of_ The Fair Haven _to burlesque the methods of the critics by\nignoring the sincerity of the emotions and fixing on the little bit of\ninaccuracy in the facts_. _We may suppose him to be saying out loud to\nthe critics_: \u201c_You think Shakespeare\u2019s Sonnets were composed as academic\nexercises_, _do you_? _Very well then_, _now what do you make of this_?\u201d\n_And adding aside to himself_: \u201c_That will be good enough for them_;\n_they\u2019ll swallow anything_.\u201d\n\nxii. _A Prayer_\n\n_Extract from Butler\u2019s Note-Books under the date of February or March_\n1883:\n\n\u201c\u2018_Cleanse thou me from my secret sins_.\u2019 _ I heard a man moralising on\nthis and shocked him by saying demurely that I did not mind these so\nmuch_, _if I could get rid of those that were obvious to other people_.\u201d\n\n_He wrote the sonnet in_ 1900 _or_ 1901. _In the first quatrain_\n\u201c_spoken_\u201d _does not rhyme with_ \u201c_open_\u201d; _Butler knew this and would\nnot alter it because there are similar assonances in Shakespeare_, _e.g._\n\u201c_open_\u201d _and_ \u201c_broken_\u201d _in Sonnet LXI_.\n\nxiii. _Karma_\n\n_I am responsible for grouping these three sonnets under this heading_.\n_The second one beginning_ \u201c_What is\u2019t to live_\u201d _appears in Butler\u2019s\nNote-Book with the remark_, \u201c_This wants much tinkering_, _but I cannot\ntinker it_\u201d\u2014_meaning that he was too much occupied with other things_.\n_He left the second line of the third of these sonnets thus_:\n\n\u201c_Them palpable to touch and view_.\u201d\n\n_I have_ \u201c_tinkered_\u201d _it by adding the two syllables_ \u201c_and clear_\u201d _to\nmake the line complete_.\n\n_In writing this sonnet Butler was no doubt thinking of a note he made\nin_ 1891:\n\n\u201c_It is often said that there is no bore like a clever bore_. _Clever\npeople are always bores and always must be_. _That is_, _perhaps_, _why\nShakespeare had to leave London\u2014people could not stand him any longer_.\u201d\n\nxiv. _The Life after Death_\n\n_Butler began to write sonnets in_ 1898 _when he was studying those of\nShakespeare on which he published a book in the following year_.\n(Shakespeare\u2019s Sonnets Reconsidered, _&c._) _He had gone to Flushing by\nhimself and on his return wrote to me_:\n\n24 _Aug._ 1898. \u201c_Also at Flushing I wrote one myself_, _a poor innocent\nthing_, _but I was surprised to find how easily it came_; _if you like it\nI may write a few more_.\u201d\n\n_The_ \u201c_poor innocent thing_\u201d _was the sonnet beginning_ \u201c_Not on sad\nStygian shore_,\u201d _the first of those I have grouped under the heading_\n\u201c_The Life after Death_.\u201d _It appears in his notebooks with this\nintroductory sentence_:\n\n\u201c_Having now learned Shakespeare\u2019s Sonnets by heart\u2014and there are very\nfew which I do not find I understand the better for having done this\u2014on\nSaturday night last at the Hotel Zeeland at Flushing_, _finding myself in\na meditative mood_, _I wrote the following with a good deal less trouble\nthan I anticipated when I took pen and paper in hand_. _I hope I may\nimprove it_.\u201d\n\n_Of course I liked the sonnet very much and he did write_ \u201c_a few\nmore_\u201d\u2014_among them the two on Handel which I have put after_ \u201c_Not on sad\nStygian shore_\u201d _because he intended that they should follow it_. _I am\nsure he would have wished this volume to close with these three sonnets_,\n_especially because the last two of them were inspired by Handel_, _who\nwas never absent from his thoughts for long_. _Let me conclude these\nintroductory remarks by reproducing a note made in_ 1883:\n\n\u201c_Of all dead men Handel has had the largest place in my thoughts_. _In\nfact I should say that he and his music have been the central fact in my\nlife ever since I was old enough to know of the existence of either life\nor music_. _All day long\u2014whether I am writing or painting or walking_,\n_but always\u2014I have his music in my head_; _and if I lose sight of it and\nof him for an hour or two_, _as of course I sometimes do_, _this is as\nmuch as I do_. _I believe I am not exaggerating when I say that I have\nnever been a day since I was_ 13 _without having Handel in my mind many\ntimes over_.\u201d\n\n\n\ni\u2014Translation from an Unpublished Work of Herodotus\n\n\nAnd the Johnians practise their tub in the following manner:\u2014They select\n8 of the most serviceable freshmen and put these into a boat and to each\none of them they give an oar; and, having told them to look at the backs\nof the men before them, they make them bend forward as far as they can\nand at the same moment, and, having put the end of the oar into the\nwater, pull it back again in to them about the bottom of the ribs; and,\nif any of them does not do this or looks about him away from the back of\nthe man before him, they curse him in the most terrible manner, but if he\ndoes what he is bidden they immediately cry out:\n\n\u201cWell pulled, number so-and-so.\u201d\n\nFor they do not call them by their names but by certain numbers, each man\nof them having a number allotted to him in accordance with his place in\nthe boat, and the first man they call stroke, but the last man bow; and\nwhen they have done this for about 50 miles they come home again, and the\nrate they travel at is about 25 miles an hour; and let no one think that\nthis is too great a rate for I could say many other wonderful things in\naddition concerning the rowing of the Johnians, but if a man wishes to\nknow these things he must go and examine them himself. But when they\nhave done they contrive some such a device as this, for they make them\nrun many miles along the side of the river in order that they may\naccustom them to great fatigue, and many of them, being distressed in\nthis way, fall down and die, but those who survive become very strong and\nreceive gifts of cups from the others; and after the revolution of a year\nthey have great races with their boats against those of the surrounding\nislanders, but the Johnians, both owing to the carefulness of the\ntraining and a natural disposition for rowing, are always victorious. In\nthis way, then, the Johnians, I say, practise their tub.\n\n\n\nii\u2014The Shield of Achilles\u2014With Variations\n\n\nAnd in it he placed the Fitzwilliam and King\u2019s College Chapel and the\nlofty towered church of the Great Saint Mary, which looketh towards the\nSenate House, and King\u2019s Parade and Trumpington Road and the Pitt Press\nand the divine opening of the Market Square and the beautiful flowing\nfountain which formerly Hobson laboured to make with skilful art; him did\nhis father beget in the many-public-housed Trumpington from a slavey\nmother and taught him blameless works; and he, on the other hand, sprang\nup like a young shoot and many beautifully matched horses did he nourish\nin his stable, which used to convey his rich possessions to London and\nthe various cities of the world; but oftentimes did he let them out to\nothers and whensoever any one was desirous of hiring one of the\nlong-tailed horses he took them in order, so that the labour was equal to\nall, wherefore do men now speak of the choice of the renowned Hobson.\nAnd in it he placed the close of the divine Parker, and many beautiful\nundergraduates were delighting their tender minds upon it playing cricket\nwith one another; and a match was being played and two umpires were\nquarrelling with one another; the one saying that the batsman who was\nplaying was out and the other declaring with all his might that he was\nnot; and while they two were contending, reviling one another with\nabusive language, a ball came and hit one of them on the nose and the\nblood flowed out in a stream and darkness was covering his eyes, but the\nrest were crying out on all sides:\n\n\u201cShy it up.\u201d\n\nAnd he could not; him, then, was his companion addressing with scornful\nwords:\n\n\u201cArnold, why dost thou strive with me since I am much wiser? Did not I\nsee his leg before the wicket and rightly declare him to be out? Thee,\nthen, has Zeus now punished according to thy deserts and I will seek some\nother umpire of the game equally-participated-in-by-both-sides.\u201d\n\nAnd in it he placed the Cam and many boats equally rowed on both sides\nwere going up and down on the bosom of the deep rolling river and the\ncoxswains were cheering on the men, for they were going to enter the\ncontest of the scratchean fours; and three men were rowing together in a\nboat, strong and stout and determined in their hearts that they would\neither first break a blood vessel or earn for themselves the\nelectroplated-Birmingham-manufactured magnificence of a pewter to stand\non their ball tables in memorial of their strength, and from time to time\ndrink from it the exhilarating streams of beer whensoever their dear\nheart should compel them; but the fourth was weak and unequally matched\nwith the others and the coxswain was encouraging him and called him by\nname and spake cheering words:\n\n\u201cSmith, when thou hast begun the contest, be not flurried nor strive too\nhard against thy fate, look at the back of the man before thee and row\nwith as much strength as the Fates spun out for thee on the day when thou\nfellest between the knees of thy mother, neither lose thine oar, but hold\nit tight with thy hands.\u201d\n\n\n\niii\u2014The Two Deans\n\n\n_Scene_: _The Court of St. John\u2019s College_, _Cambridge_. _Enter the two\ndeans on their way to morning chapel_.\n\n JUNIOR DEAN: Brother, I am much pleased with Samuel Butler,\n I have observed him mightily of late;\n Methinks that in his melancholy walk\n And air subdued when\u2019er he meeteth me\n Lurks something more than in most other men.\n\n SENIOR DEAN: It is a good young man. I do bethink me\n That once I walked behind him in the cloister,\n He saw me not, but whispered to his fellow:\n \u201cOf all men who do dwell beneath the moon\n I love and reverence most the senior Dean.\u201d\n\n JUNIOR DEAN: One thing is passing strange, and yet I know not\n How to condemn it; but in one plain brief word\n He never comes to Sunday morning chapel.\n Methinks he teacheth in some Sunday school,\n Feeding the poor and starveling intellect\n With wholesome knowledge, or on the Sabbath morn\n He loves the country and the neighbouring spire\n Of Madingley or Coton, or perchance\n Amid some humble poor he spends the day\n Conversing with them, learning all their cares,\n Comforting them and easing them in sickness.\n Oh \u2019tis a rare young man!\n\n SENIOR DEAN: I will advance him to some public post,\n He shall be chapel clerk, some day a fellow,\n Some day perhaps a Dean, but as thou sayst\n He is indeed an excellent young man\u2014\n\n_Enter Butler suddenly without a coat_, _or anything on his head_,\n_rushing through the cloisters_, _bearing a cup_, _a bottle of cider_,\n_four lemons_, _two nutmegs_, _half a pound of sugar and a nutmeg\ngrater_.\n\n_Curtain falls on the confusion of Butler and the horror-stricken dismay\nof the two deans_.\n\n\n\niv\u2014On the Italian Priesthood\n\n\n (Con arte e con inganno, si vive mezzo l\u2019anno;\n Con inganno e con arte, si vive l\u2019altra parte.)\n\n In knavish art and gathering gear\n They spend the one half of the year;\n In gathering gear and knavish art\n They somehow spend the other part.\n\n\n\nv\u2014A Psalm of Montreal\n\n\nThe City of Montreal is one of the most rising and, in many respects,\nmost agreeable on the American continent, but its inhabitants are as yet\ntoo busy with commerce to care greatly about the masterpieces of old\nGreek Art. In the Montreal Museum of Natural History I came upon two\nplaster casts, one of the Antinous and the other of the Discobolus\u2014not\nthe good one, but in my poem, of course, I intend the good one\u2014banished\nfrom public view to a room where were all manner of skins, plants,\nsnakes, insects, etc., and, in the middle of these, an old man stuffing\nan owl.\n\n\u201cAh,\u201d said I, \u201cso you have some antiques here; why don\u2019t you put them\nwhere people can see them?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, sir,\u201d answered the custodian, \u201cyou see they are rather vulgar.\u201d\n\nHe then talked a great deal and said his brother did all Mr. Spurgeon\u2019s\nprinting.\n\nThe dialogue\u2014perhaps true, perhaps imaginary, perhaps a little of the one\nand a little of the other\u2014between the writer and this old man gave rise\nto the lines that follow:\n\n Stowed away in a Montreal lumber room\n The Discobolus standeth and turneth his face to the wall;\n Dusty, cobweb-covered, maimed and set at naught,\n Beauty crieth in an attic and no man regardeth:\n O God! O Montreal!\n\n Beautiful by night and day, beautiful in summer and winter,\n Whole or maimed, always and alike beautiful\u2014\n He preacheth gospel of grace to the skin of owls\n And to one who seasoneth the skins of Canadian owls:\n O God! O Montreal!\n\n When I saw him I was wroth and I said, \u201cO Discobolus!\n Beautiful Discobolus, a Prince both among gods and men!\n What doest thou here, how camest thou hither, Discobolus,\n Preaching gospel in vain to the skins of owls?\u201d\n O God! O Montreal!\n\n And I turned to the man of skins and said unto him, \u201cO thou man of\n skins,\n Wherefore hast thou done thus to shame the beauty of the Discobolus?\u201d\n But the Lord had hardened the heart of the man of skins\n And he answered, \u201cMy brother-in-law is haberdasher to Mr. Spurgeon.\u201d\n O God! O Montreal!\n\n \u201cThe Discobolus is put here because he is vulgar\u2014\n He has neither vest nor pants with which to cover his limbs;\n I, Sir, am a person of most respectable connections\n My brother-in-law is haberdasher to Mr. Spurgeon.\u201d\n O God! O Montreal!\n\n Then I said, \u201cO brother-in-law to Mr. Spurgeon\u2019s haberdasher,\n Who seasonest also the skins of Canadian owls,\n Thou callest trousers \u2018pants,\u2019 whereas I call them \u2018trousers,\u2019\n Therefore thou art in hell-fire and may the Lord pity thee!\u201d\n O God! O Montreal!\n\n \u201cPreferrest thou the gospel of Montreal to the gospel of Hellas,\n The gospel of thy connection with Mr. Spurgeon\u2019s haberdashery to the\n gospel of the Discobolus?\u201d\n Yet none the less blasphemed he beauty saying, \u201cThe Discobolus hath no\n gospel,\n But my brother-in-law is haberdasher to Mr. Spurgeon.\u201d\n O God! O Montreal!\n\n\n\nvi\u2014The Righteous Man\n\n\n The righteous man will rob none but the defenceless,\n Whatsoever can reckon with him he will neither plunder nor kill;\n He will steal an egg from a hen or a lamb from an ewe,\n For his sheep and his hens cannot reckon with him hereafter\u2014\n They live not in any odour of defencefulness:\n Therefore right is with the righteous man, and he taketh advantage\n righteously,\n Praising God and plundering.\n\n The righteous man will enslave his horse and his dog,\n Making them serve him for their bare keep and for nothing further,\n Shooting them, selling them for vivisection when they can no longer\n profit him,\n Backbiting them and beating them if they fail to please him;\n For his horse and his dog can bring no action for damages,\n Wherefore, then, should he not enslave them, shoot them, sell them for\n vivisection?\n\n But the righteous man will not plunder the defenceful\u2014\n Not if he be alone and unarmed\u2014for his conscience will smite him;\n He will not rob a she-bear of her cubs, nor an eagle of her eaglets\u2014\n Unless he have a rifle to purge him from the fear of sin:\n Then may he shoot rejoicing in innocency\u2014from ambush or a safe\n distance;\n Or he will beguile them, lay poison for them, keep no faith with them;\n For what faith is there with that which cannot reckon hereafter,\n Neither by itself, nor by another, nor by any residuum of ill\n consequences?\n Surely, where weakness is utter, honour ceaseth.\n\n Nay, I will do what is right in the eye of him who can harm me,\n And not in those of him who cannot call me to account.\n Therefore yield me up thy pretty wings, O humming-bird!\n Sing for me in a prison, O lark!\n Pay me thy rent, O widow! for it is mine.\n Where there is reckoning there is sin,\n And where there is no reckoning sin is not.\n\n\n\nvii\u2014To Critics and Others\n\n\n O Critics, cultured Critics!\n Who will praise me after I am dead,\n Who will see in me both more and less than I intended,\n But who will swear that whatever it was it was all perfectly right:\n You will think you are better than the people who, when I was alive,\n swore that whatever I did was wrong\n And damned my books for me as fast as I could write them;\n But you will not be better, you will be just the same, neither better\n nor worse,\n And you will go for some future Butler as your fathers have gone for\n me.\n Oh! How I should have hated you!\n\n But you, Nice People!\n Who will be sick of me because the critics thrust me down your\n throats,\n But who would take me willingly enough if you were not bored about me,\n Or if you could have the cream of me\u2014and surely this should suffice:\n Please remember that, if I were living, I should be upon your side\n And should hate those who imposed me either on myself or others;\n Therefore, I pray you, neglect me, burlesque me, boil me down, do\n whatever you like with me,\n But do not think that, if I were living, I should not aid and abet\n you.\n There is nothing that even Shakespeare would enjoy more than a good\n burlesque of _Hamlet_.\n\n\n\nviii\u2014For _Narcissus_\n\n\n(A)\n\n(To be written in front of the orchestral score.)\n\n May he be damned for evermore\n Who tampers with Narcissus\u2019 score;\n May he by poisonous snakes be bitten\n Who writes more parts than what we\u2019ve written.\n We tried to make our music clear\n For those who sing and those who hear,\n Not lost and muddled up and drowned\n In over-done orchestral sound;\n So kindly leave the work alone\n Or do it as we want it done.\n\n(B)\n\nPart II\n\nSymphony\n\n(During which the audience is requested to think as follows:)\n\n An aged lady taken ill\n Desires to reconstruct her will;\n I see the servants hurrying for\n The family solicitor;\n Post-haste he comes and with him brings\n The usual necessary things.\n With common form and driving quill\n He draws the first part of the will,\n The more sonorous solemn sounds\n Denote a hundred thousand pounds,\n This trifle is the main bequest,\n Old friends and servants take the rest.\n \u2019Tis done! I see her sign her name,\n I see the attestors do the same.\n Who is the happy legatee?\n In the next number you will see.\n\n\n\nix\u2014A Translation\n\n\n(Attempted in consequence of a challenge.)\n\n\u201c\u2018Mrs. Harris,\u2019 I says to her, \u2018dont name the charge, for if I could\nafford to lay all my feller creeturs out for nothink I would gladly do\nit; sich is the love I bear \u2019em. But what I always says to them as has\nthe management of matters, Mrs. Harris,\u2019\u201d\u2014here she kept her eye on Mr.\nPecksniff\u2014\u201c\u2018be they gents or be they ladies\u2014is, Dont ask me whether I\nwont take none, or whether I will, but leave the bottle on the chimley\npiece, and let me put my lips to it when I am so dispoged.\u2019\u201d (_Martin\nChuzzlewit_, Chap. XIX).\n\n \u201c\u03c9\u03c2 \u03b5\u03c6\u03b1\u03c4 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03b1\u03c1 \u03b5y\u03ce \u03bc\u03b9\u03bd \u03b1\u03bc\u03b5\u03b9\u03b2\u03bf\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b7 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03ad\u03b5\u03b9\u03c0\u03bf\u03bd,\n \u2018\u03b4\u03b1\u03b9\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03af\u03b7, \u0386\u03c1\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c3\u03b9\u03b1\u03b4\u03ad\u03c9 \u03b1\u03bb\u03bf\u03c7' \u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9\u03b8\u03ad\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf,\n \u03bc\u03b7 \u03b8\u03b7\u03bd \u03b4\u03b7 \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03af\u03c3\u03b8\u03bf\u03bd \u03b1\u03bd\u03b5\u03af\u03c1\u03b5\u03bf, \u03bc\u03ae\u03b4\u2019 \u03bf\u03bd\u03cc\u03bc\u03b1\u03b6\u03b5\n \u03c4\u03bf\u03af\u03b7 y\u03ac\u03c1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03b9 \u03b5y\u03c9\u03bd \u03b1y\u03b1\u03bd\u03b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b7\u03c0\u03af\u03b7 \u03b5\u03b9\u03bc\u03af,\n \u03b7 \u03ba\u03b5\u03bd \u03bb\u03b1\u03bf\u03bd \u03b1\u03c0\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u2019 \u03b5\u03b9 \u03bc\u03bf\u03b9 \u03b4\u03cd\u03bd\u03b1\u03bc\u03af\u03c2 y\u03b5 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b5\u03af\u03b7,\n \u03c3\u03af\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03c0\u03b7\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b2\u03b9\u03cc\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b8\u2019 \u03b1\u03bb\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b5\u03bd\u03b4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b5\u03cc\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2,\n \u03b1\u03c3\u03c0\u03b1\u03c3\u03af\u03c9\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bc\u03b9\u03c3\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b5\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b1 \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03af\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03bc\u03b9\n [\u03b5\u03bd \u03bb\u03ad\u03ba\u03c4\u03c1\u03c9 \u03bb\u03ad\u03be\u03b1\u03c3\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b1\u03bd\u03b7\u03bb\u03b5y\u03ad\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b1\u03bd\u03ac\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf\n \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03ae, \u03bf\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b5 \u03b8\u03ac\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9 \u03b2\u03c1\u03bf\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03cc\u03c4\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd \u03b5\u03c0\u03af\u03c3\u03c0\u03b7]\n \u03b1\u03bb\u03bb\u2019 \u03b5\u03ba \u03c4\u03bf\u03b9 \u03b5\u03c1\u03ad\u03c9 \u03c3\u03c5 \u03b4\u2019 \u03b5\u03bd\u03b9 \u03c6\u03c1\u03b5\u03c3\u03b9 \u03b2\u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03b5\u03bf \u03c3\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd\u2019\u201d\u2014\n \u03bf\u03c3\u03c3\u03b5 \u03b4\u03ad \u03bf\u03b9 \u03a0\u03b5\u03be\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9\u03c6\u03bf\u03bd \u03b5\u03c3\u03ad\u03b4\u03c1\u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03bd \u03b1\u03c3\u03ba\u03b5\u03bb\u03b5\u03c2 \u03b1\u03b9\u03b5\u03af\u2014\n \u201c\u2018\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd y\u03b1\u03c1 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9 \u03c0\u03b9\u03c6\u03b1\u03c5\u03c3\u03ba\u03bf\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b7 \u03b1y\u03bf\u03c1\u03b5\u03cd\u03c9\n \u03b5\u03b9\u03c4\u2019 \u03b1\u03bd\u03b4\u03bf\u2019 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c4\u03b5 y\u03c5\u03bd\u03b1\u03af\u03c7\u2019 \u03bf\u03c4\u03ad\u03c9 \u03c4\u03ac\u03b4\u03b5 \u03b5\u03c1y\u03b1 \u03bc\u03ad\u03bc\u03b7\u03bb\u03b5\u03bd,\n \u03c9 \u03c6\u03af\u03bb\u03b5, \u03c4\u03af\u03c0\u03c4\u03b5 \u03c3\u03c5 \u03c4\u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03b1 \u03bc\u2019 \u03b1\u03bd\u03b5\u03af\u03c1\u03b5\u03b1\u03b9; \u03bf\u03c5\u03b4\u03ad \u03c4\u03af \u03c3\u03b5 \u03c7\u03c1\u03b7\n \u03b9\u03b4\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b7 \u03b5\u03b8\u03ad\u03bb\u03c9 \u03c0\u03af\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd \u03bc\u03ad\u03b8\u03c5, \u03b7\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf\u03c5\u03c7\u03af\n \u03b5\u03b9 \u03b4\u2019 \u03b1y\u2019 \u03b5\u03c0\u2019 \u03b5\u03c3\u03c7\u03ac\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03b9\u03bd \u03ba\u03ac\u03c4\u03b1\u03b8\u03b5\u03c2 \u03b4\u03ad\u03c0\u03b1\u03c2 \u03b7\u03b4\u03ad\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bf\u03b9\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5,\n \u03bf\u03c6\u03c1\u2019 \u03b5\u03bd \u03c7\u03b5\u03c1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u03b5\u03bb\u03c9 \u03c0\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03ac \u03c4\u03b5 \u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03c0\u03bf\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b7 \u03c4\u03b5,\n \u03c7\u03b5\u03af\u03bb\u03b5\u03ac \u03c4\u03b5 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03b8\u03b5\u03b9\u03c3\u2019 \u03bf\u03c0\u03cc\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd \u03c6\u03af\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd \u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03c1 \u03b1\u03bd\u03cey\u03b7.\u2019\u201d\n\n\n\nx\u2014In Memoriam\n\n\nFeb. 14th, 1895\n\nTo\n\nH. R. F.\n\n Out, out, out into the night,\n With the wind bitter North East and the sea rough;\n You have a racking cough and your lungs are weak,\n But out, out into the night you go,\n So guide you and guard you Heaven and fare you well!\n\n We have been three lights to one another and now we are two,\n For you go far and alone into the darkness;\n But the light in you was stronger and clearer than ours,\n For you came straighter from God and, whereas we had learned,\n You had never forgotten. Three minutes more and then\n Out, out into the night you go,\n So guide you and guard you Heaven and fare you well!\n\n Never a cross look, never a thought,\n Never a word that had better been left unspoken;\n We gave you the best we had, such as it was,\n It pleased you well, for you smiled and nodded your head;\n And now, out, out into the night you go,\n So guide you and guard you Heaven and fare you well!\n\n You said we were a little weak that the three of us wept,\n Are we then weak if we laugh when we are glad?\n When men are under the knife let them roar as they will,\n So that they flinch not.\n Therefore let tears flow on, for so long as we live\n No such second sorrow shall ever draw nigh us,\n Till one of us two leaves the other alone\n And goes out, out, out into the night,\n So guard the one that is left, O God, and fare him well!\n\n Yet for the great bitterness of this grief\n We three, you and he and I,\n May pass into the hearts of like true comrades hereafter,\n In whom we may weep anew and yet comfort them,\n As they too pass out, out, out into the night,\n So guide them and guard them Heaven and fare them well!\n\n . . .\n\n The minutes have flown and he whom we loved is gone,\n The like of whom we never again shall see;\n The wind is heavy with snow and the sea rough,\n He has a racking cough and his lungs are weak.\n Hand in hand we watch the train as it glides\n Out, out, out into the night.\n So take him into thy holy keeping, O Lord,\n And guide him and guard him ever, and fare him well!\n\n\n\nxi\u2014An Academic Exercise\n\n\n We were two lovers standing sadly by\n While our two loves lay dead upon the ground;\n Each love had striven not to be first to die,\n But each was gashed with many a cruel wound.\n Said I: \u201cYour love was false while mine was true.\u201d\n Aflood with tears he cried: \u201cIt was not so,\n \u2019Twas your false love my true love falsely slew\u2014\n For \u2019twas your love that was the first to go.\u201d\n Thus did we stand and said no more for shame\n Till I, seeing his cheek so wan and wet,\n Sobbed thus: \u201cSo be it; my love shall bear the blame;\n Let us inter them honourably.\u201d And yet\n I swear by all truth human and divine\n \u2019Twas his that in its death throes murdered mine.\n\n\n\nxii\u2014A Prayer\n\n\n Searcher of souls, you who in heaven abide,\n To whom the secrets of all hearts are open,\n Though I do lie to all the world beside,\n From me to these no falsehood shall be spoken.\n Cleanse me not, Lord, I say, from secret sin\n But from those faults which he who runs can see,\n \u2019Tis these that torture me, O Lord, begin\n With these and let the hidden vices be;\n If you must cleanse these too, at any rate\n Deal with the seen sins first, \u2019tis only reason,\n They being so gross, to let the others wait\n The leisure of some more convenient season;\n And cleanse not all even then, leave me a few,\n I would not be\u2014not quite\u2014so pure as you.\n\n\n\nxiii\u2014Karma\n\n\n(A)\n\n Who paints a picture, writes a play or book\n Which others read while he\u2019s asleep in bed\n O\u2019 the other side of the world\u2014when they o\u2019erlook\n His page the sleeper might as well be dead;\n What knows he of his distant unfelt life?\n What knows he of the thoughts his thoughts are raising,\n The life his life is giving, or the strife\n Concerning him\u2014some cavilling, some praising?\n Yet which is most alive, he who\u2019s asleep\n Or his quick spirit in some other place,\n Or score of other places, that doth keep\n Attention fixed and sleep from others chase?\n Which is the \u201che\u201d\u2014the \u201che\u201d that sleeps, or \u201che\u201d\n That his own \u201che\u201d can neither feel nor see?\n\n(B)\n\n What is\u2019t to live, if not to pull the strings\n Of thought that pull those grosser strings whereby\n We pull our limbs to pull material things\n Into such shape as in our thoughts doth lie?\n Who pulls the strings that pull an agent\u2019s hand,\n The action\u2019s counted his, so, we being gone,\n The deeds that others do by our command,\n Albeit we know them not, are still our own.\n He lives who does and he who does still lives,\n Whether he wots of his own deeds or no.\n Who knows the beating of his heart, that drives\n Blood to each part, or how his limbs did grow?\n If life be naught but knowing, then each breath\n We draw unheeded must be reckon\u2019d death.\n\n(C)\n\n \u201cMen\u2019s work we have,\u201d quoth one, \u201cbut we want them\u2014\n Them, palpable to touch and clear to view.\u201d\n Is it so nothing, then, to have the gem\n But we must weep to have the setting too?\n Body is a chest wherein the tools abide\n With which the craftsman works as best he can\n And, as the chest the tools within doth hide,\n So doth the body crib and hide the man.\n Nay, though great Shakespeare stood in flesh before us,\n Should heaven on importunity release him,\n Is it so certain that he might not bore us,\n So sure but we ourselves might fail to please him?\n Who prays to have the moon full soon would pray,\n Once it were his, to have it taken away.\n\n\n\nxiv\u2014The Life After Death\n\n\n(A)\n\n\u039c\u03b5\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03b1\n\n Not on sad Stygian shore, nor in clear sheen\n Of far Elysian plain, shall we meet those\n Among the dead whose pupils we have been,\n Nor those great shades whom we have held as foes;\n No meadow of asphodel our feet shall tread,\n Nor shall we look each other in the face\n To love or hate each other being dead,\n Hoping some praise, or fearing some disgrace.\n We shall not argue saying \u201c\u2019Twas thus\u201d or \u201cThus,\u201d\n Our argument\u2019s whole drift we shall forget;\n Who\u2019s right, who\u2019s wrong, \u2019twill be all one to us;\n We shall not even know that we have met.\n Yet meet we shall, and part, and meet again,\n Where dead men meet, on lips of living men.\n\n(B)\n\nHANDEL\n\n There doth great Handel live, imperious still,\n Invisible and impalpable as air,\n But forcing flesh and blood to work his will\n Effectually as though his flesh were there;\n He who gave eyes to ears and showed in sound\n All thoughts and things in earth or heaven above.\n From fire and hailstones running along the ground\n To Galatea grieving for her love;\n He who could show to all unseeing eyes\n Glad shepherds watching o\u2019er their flocks by night,\n Or Iphis angel-wafted to the skies,\n Or Jordan standing as an heap upright\u2014\n He\u2019ll meet both Jones and me and clap or hiss us\n Vicariously for having writ _Narcissus_.\n\n(C)\n\nHANDEL\n\n Father of my poor music\u2014if such small\n Offspring as mine, so born out of due time,\n So scorn\u2019d, can be called fatherful at all,\n Or dare to thy high sonship\u2019s rank to climb\u2014\n Best lov\u2019d of all the dead whom I love best,\n Though I love many another dearly too,\n You in my heart take rank above the rest;\n King of those kings that most control me, you,\n You were about my path, about my bed\n In boyhood always and, where\u2019er I be,\n Whate\u2019er I think or do, you, in my head,\n Ground-bass to all my thoughts, are still with me;\n Methinks the very worms will find some strain\n Of yours still lingering in my wasted brain.\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n\n{16} \u201cThe doctrine preached by Weismann was that to start with the body\nand inquire how its characters got into the germ was to view the sequence\nfrom the wrong end; the proper starting point was the germ, and the real\nquestion was not \u2018How do the characters of the organism get into the\ngerm-cell _which it_ produces?\u2019 but \u2018How are the characters of an\norganism represented in the germ _which produces it_?\u2019 Or, as Samuel\nButler has it, the proper statement of the relation between successive\ngenerations is not to say that a hen produces another hen through the\nmedium of an egg, but to say that a hen is merely an egg\u2019s way of\nproducing another egg.\u201d _Breeding and the Mendelian Discovery_, by A. D.\nDarbishire. Cassell & Co., 1911, p. 187\u20138.\n\n\u201cIt has, I believe, been often remarked that a hen is only an egg\u2019s way\nof making another egg.\u201d _Life and Habit_, Tr\u00fcbner & Co., 1878, chapter\nviii, p. 134.\n\nAnd compare the idea underlying \u201cThe World of the Unborn\u201d in _Erewhon_.\n\n{26} The two chapters entitled \u201cThe Rights of Animals\u201d and \u201cThe Rights\nof Vegetables\u201d appeared first in the new and revised edition of _Erewhon_\n1901 and form part of the additions referred to in the preface to that\nbook.\n\n{30} On the Alps\nIt is reported thou didst eat strange flesh,\nWhich some did die to look on: and all this\u2014\nIt wounds thine honour that I speak it now\u2014\nWas borne so like a soldier, that thy cheek\nSo much as lank\u2019d not.\u2014_Ant. & Cleop._, I. iv. 66\u201371.\n\n{31} _Walks in the Regions of Science and Faith_, by Harvey Goodwin,\nD.D., Lord Bishop of Carlisle. John Murray, 1883.\n\n{32a} This quotation occurs on the title page of _Charles Dickens and\nRochester_ by Robert Langton. Chapman & Hall, 1880. Reprinted with\nadditions from the Papers of the Manchester Literary Club, Vol. VI, 1880.\nBut the italics are Butler\u2019s.\n\n{32b} This is Butler\u2019s note as he left it. He made it just about the\ntime he hit upon the theory that the _Odyssey_ was written by a woman.\nIf it had caught his eye after that theory had become established in his\nmind, he would have edited it so as to avoid speaking of Homer as the\nauthor of the poem.\n\n{41} _Life and Habit_ is dated 1878, but it actually appeared on\nButler\u2019s birthday, 4th December, 1877.\n\n{92} The five notes here amalgamated together into \u201cCroesus and his\nKitchen-Maid\u201d were to have been part of an article for the _Universal\nReview_, but, before Butler wrote it, the review died. I suppose, but I\ndo not now remember, that the article would have been about Mind and\nMatter or Organs and Tools, and, possibly, all the concluding notes of\nthis group, beginning with \u201cOur Cells,\u201d would have been introduced as\nillustrations.\n\n{106} Cf. the note \u201cReproduction,\u201d p. 16 ante.\n\n{107} _Evolution Old & New_, p. 77.\n\n{128} _Twelve Voluntaries and Fugues for the Organ or Harpsichord with\nRules for Tuning_. By the celebrated Mr. Handel. Butler had a copy of\nthis book and gave it to the British Museum (Press Mark, e. 1089). We\nshowed the rules to Rockstro, who said they were very interesting and\nprobably authentic; they would tune the instrument in one of the mean\ntone temperaments.\n\n{131} Mr. Kemp lived in Barnard\u2019s Inn on my staircase. He was in the\nbox-office at Drury Lane Theatre. See a further note about him on p. 133\npost.\n\n{136} If I remember right, the original Jubilee sixpence had to be\naltered because it was so like a half-sovereign that, on being gilded, it\npassed as one.\n\n{147} Raffaelle\u2019s picture \u201cThe Virgin and child attended by S. John the\nBaptist and S. Nicholas of Bari\u201d (commonly known as the \u201cMadonna degli\nAnsidei\u201d), No. 1171, Room VI in the National Gallery, London, was\npurchased in 1885. Butler made this note in the same year; he revised\nthe note in 1897 but, owing to changes in the gallery and in the\nattributions, I have found it necessary to modernise his descriptions of\nthe other pictures with gold thread work so as to make them agree with\nthe descriptions now (1912) on the pictures themselves.\n\n{151} Cf. the passage in _Alps and Sanctuaries_, chapter XIII, beginning\n\u201cThe question whether it is better to abide quiet and take advantages of\nopportunities that come or to go further afield in search of them is one\nof the oldest which living beings have had to deal with. . . . The\nschism still lasts and has resulted in two great sects\u2014animals and\nplants.\u201d\n\n{153} Prince was my cat when I lived in Barnard\u2019s Inn. He used to stray\ninto Mr. Kemp\u2019s rooms on my landing (see p. 131 ante). Mrs. Kemp\u2019s\nsister brought her child to see them, and the child, playing with Prince\none day, made a discovery and exclaimed:\n\n\u201cOh! it\u2019s got pins in its toes.\u201d\n\nButler put this into _The Way of all Flesh_.\n\n{162} Philippians i. 15\u201318:\u2014\n\n Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife; and some also of\n good will:\n\n The one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add\n affliction to my bonds:\n\n But the other of love, knowing that I am set for the defence of the\n gospel.\n\n What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in\n truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will\n rejoice.\n\n{176} _Narcissus_, \u201cShould Riches mate with Love.\u201d\n\n{235} Butler gave this as a subject to Mr. E. P. Larken who made it into\na short story entitled \u201cThe Priest\u2019s Bargain,\u201d which appeared in the\n_Pall Mall Magazine_, May, 1897.\n\n{203} All things have I seen in the days of my vanity: there is a just\nman that perisheth in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man that\nprolongeth his life in his wickedness.\n\nBe not righteous over much; neither make thyself over wise: why shouldest\nthou destroy thyself?\n\nBe not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish: why shouldest thou die\nbefore thy time? (Eccles. vii. 15, 16, 17).\n\n{204} Cf. \u201cImaginary Worlds,\u201d p. 233 post.\n\n{225} \u201cSo, again, it is said that when Andromeda and Perseus had\ntravelled but a little way from the rock where Andromeda had so long been\nchained, she began upbraiding him with the loss of her dragon who, on the\nwhole, she said, had been very good to her. The only things we really\nhate are unfamiliar things.\u201d _Life & Habit_, Chapter viii, p. 138/9.\n\n{251} This note is one of those that appeared in the _New Quarterly\nReview_. The Hon. Mrs. Richard Grosvenor did not see it there, but a few\nyears later I lent her my copy. She wrote to me 31 December, 1911.\n\n \u201cThe notes are delightful. By the way I can add to one. When Mr.\n Butler came to tell me he was going to stay with Dr. Creighton, he\n told me that Alfred had decided he might go on finding the little\n flake of tobacco in the letter. Then he asked me if I would lend him\n a prayer-book as he thought the bishop\u2019s man ought to find one in his\n portmanteau when he unpacked, the visit being from a Saturday to\n Monday. I fetched one and he said:\n\n \u201c\u2018Is it cut?\u2019\u201d\n\n{261} \u201cRamblings in Cheapside\u201d in _Essays on Life_, _Art and Science_.\n\n{263} Edmund Gurney, author of _The Power of Sound_, and Secretary of\nthe Society for Psychical Research.\n\n{279} Cf. Wamba\u2019s explanation of the Saxon swine being converted into\nNorman pork on their death. _Ivanhoe_, Chap. I.\n\n{282} See \u201cA Medieval Girl School\u201d in _Essays on Life_, _Art & Science_.\n\n{333} \u201cAbove all things, let no unwary reader do me the injustice of\nbelieving in _me_. In that I write at all I am among the damned. If he\nmust believe in anything, let him believe in the music of Handel, the\npainting of Giovanni Bellini, and in the thirteenth chapter of St. Paul\u2019s\nFirst Epistle to the Corinthians\u201d (_Life and Habit_, close of chapter\nII).\n\n{343} \u201cNo one can hate drunkenness more than I do, but I am confident\nthe human intellect owes its superiority over that of the lower animals\nin great measure to the stimulus which alcohol has given to\nimagination\u2014imagination being little else than another name for illusion\u201d\n(_Alps and Sanctuaries_, chapter III).\n\n{364} There are letters from these people in _The Life and Letters of\nDr. Samuel Butler_.\n\n{369} Butler made this note in 1899 before the publication of\n_Shakespeare\u2019s Sonnets Reconsidered_, which was published in the same\nyear. _The Odyssey Rendered info English Prose_ appeared in 1900 and\n_Erewhon Revisited_, the last book published in his lifetime, in 1901.\nHe made no analysis of the sales of these three books, nor of the sales\nof _A First Year in Canterbury Settlement_ published in 1863, nor of his\npamphlet _The Evidence for the Resurrection_, published in 1865. _The\nWay of all Flesh_ and _Essays on Life_, _Art_, _and Science_ were not\npublished till after his death. I do not know what he means by _A Book\nof Essays_, unless it may be that he incurred an outlay of \u00a33 11s. 9d. in\nconnection with a projected republication of his articles in the\n_Universal Review_ or of some of his Italian articles about the\n_Odyssey_.\n\n{376} Butler had two separate grounds of complaint against Charles\nDarwin, one scientific, the other personal. With regard to the personal\nquarrel some facts came to light after Butler\u2019s death and the subject is\ndealt with in a pamphlet entitled Charles Darwin and Samuel Butler: A\nStep towards Reconciliation, by Henry Festing Jones (A. C. Fifield,\n1911).","title":"The Note-Books of Samuel Butler","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":142567}