{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_73691/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_73691","id":"gutenberg_73691","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/73691","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","English essays -- 20th century"],"text":"REFLECTIONS\n                                ON THE\n                              DEATH OF A\n                               PORCUPINE\n\n                       [Illustration: colophon]\n\n\n\n\n                          REFLECTIONS ON THE\n                         DEATH OF A PORCUPINE\n                           AND OTHER ESSAYS\n\n                                 _By_\n                            D. H. LAWRENCE\n\n                       [Illustration: colophon]\n\n                           THE CENTAUR PRESS\n                             PHILADELPHIA\n                                 1925\n\n\n\n\n                            COPYRIGHT, 1925\n                           THE CENTAUR PRESS\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                                                   PAGES\n\nTHE CROWN                                                              1\n\nTHE NOVEL                                                            103\n\nHIM WITH HIS TAIL IN HIS MOUTH                                       127\n\nBLESSED ARE THE POWERFUL                                             145\n\n.... LOVE WAS ONCE A LITTLE BOY                                      161\n\nREFLECTIONS ON THE DEATH\nOF A PORCUPINE                                                       193\n\nARISTOCRACY                                                          223\n\n\n\n\nTHE CROWN\n\n\n_NOTE TO THE CROWN_\n\n_The Crown was written in 1915, when the war was already twelve months\nold, and had gone pretty deep. John Middleton Murry said to me: \u201cLet us\ndo something.\u201d_\n\n_The doing consisted in starting a tiny monthly paper, which Murry\ncalled The Signature, and in having weekly meetings somewhere in\nLondon--I have now no idea where it was--up a narrow stair-case over a\ngreen-grocer\u2019s shop: or a cobbler\u2019s shop. The only thing that made any\nimpression on me was the room over the shop, in some old Dickensey part\nof London, and the old man downstairs._\n\n_We scrubbed the room and colour-washed the walls and got a long table\nand some windsor chairs from the Caledonian market. And we used to make\na good warm fire: it was dark autumn, in that unknown bit of London.\nThen on Thursday nights we had meetings of about a dozen people. We\ntalked, but there was absolutely nothing in it. And the meetings didn\u2019t\nlast two months._\n\n_The Signature was printed by some little Jewish printer away in the\neast end. We sold it by subscription, half-a-crown for six copies. I\ndon\u2019t know how many subscriptions there were: perhaps fifty. The\nhelpless little brown magazine appeared three times, then we dropped it.\nThe last three of the Crown essays were never printed._\n\n_To me the venture meant nothing real: a little escapade. I can t\nbelieve in \u201cdoing things\u201d like that. In a great issue like the war,\nthere was nothing to be \u201cdone\u201d, in Murry\u2019s sense. There is still nothing\nto be \u201cdone\u201d. Probably not for many, many years will men start to \u201cdo\u201d\nsomething. And even then, only after they have changed gradually, and\ndeeply._\n\n_I knew then, and I know now, it is no use trying to do anything--I\nspeak only for myself--publicly. It is no use trying merely to modify\npresent forms. The whole great form of our era will have to go. And\nnothing will really send it down but the new shoots of life springing up\nand slowly bursting the foundations. And one can do nothing, but fight\ntooth and nail to defend the new shoots of life from being crushed out,\nand let them grow. We can\u2019t make life. We can but fight for the life\nthat grows in us._\n\n_So that, personally, little magazines mean nothing to me: nor groups,\nnor parties of people. I have no hankering after quick response, nor the\neffusive, semi-intimate back-chat of literary communion. So it was\nridiculous to offer The Crown in a little six-penny pamphlet. I always\nfelt ashamed, at the thought of the few who sent their half-crowns.\nHappily they were few; and they could read Murry. If one publishes in\nthe ordinary way, people are not asked for their sixpences._\n\n_I alter The Crown only a very little. It says what I still believe. But\nit\u2019s no use for a five minutes\u2019 lunch._\n\n\n\n\nTHE CROWN\n\n\nI\n\nTHE LION AND THE UNICORN WERE FIGHTING FOR THE CROWN\n\nWhat is it then, that they want, that they are forever rampant and\nunsatisfied, the king of beasts and the defender of virgins? What is\nthis Crown that hovers between them, unattainable? Does either of them\never hope to get it?\n\nBut think of the king of beasts lying serene with the crown on his head!\nInstantly the unicorn prances from every heart. And at the thought of\nthe lord of chastity with the crown ledged above his golden horn, lying\nin virgin lustre of sanctity, the lion springs out of his lair in every\nsoul, roaring after his prey.\n\nIt is a strange and painful position, the king of beasts and the beast\nof purity, rampant for ever on either side of the crown. Is it to be so\nfor ever?\n\nWho says lion?--who says unicorn? A lion, a lion!! Hi, a unicorn! Now\nthey are at it, they have forgotten all about the crown. It is a\ngreater thing to have an enemy than to have an object. The lion and the\nunicorn were fighting, it is no question any more of the crown. We know\nthis, because when the lion beat the unicorn, he did not take the crown\nand put it on his head, and say, \u201cNow Mr. Purity, I\u2019m king\u201d. He drove\nthe unicorn out of town, expelled him, obliterated him, expurgated him\nfrom the memory, exiled him from the kingdom. Instantly the town was all\nlion, there was no unicorn at all, no scent nor flavour of unicorn.\n\n\u201cUnicorn!\u201d they said in the city. \u201cThat is a mythological beast that\nnever existed.\u201d\n\nThere was no question any more of rivalry. The unicorn was erased from\nthe annals of fact.\n\nWhy did the lion fight the unicorn? Why did the unicorn fight the lion?\nWhy must the one obliterate the other? Was it the _raison d\u2019\u00eatre_ of\neach of them, to obliterate the other?\n\nBut think, if the lion really destroyed, killed the unicorn: not merely\ndrove him out of town, but annihilated him! Would not the lion at once\nexpire, as if he had created a vacuum around himself? Is not the unicorn\nnecessary to the very existence of the lion, is not each opposite kept\nin stable equilibrium by the opposition of the other.\n\nThis is a terrible position: to have for a _raison d\u2019\u00eatre_ a purpose\nwhich, if once fulfilled, would of necessity entail the cessation from\nexistence of both opponents. They would both cease to be, if either of\nthem really won in the fight which is their sole reason for existing.\nThis is a troublesome thought.\n\nIt makes us at once examine our own hearts. What do we find there?--a\nwant, a need, a crying out, a divine discontent. Is it the lion, is it\nthe unicorn?--one, or both? But certainly there is this crying aloud,\nthis infant crying in the night, born into a blind want.\n\nWhat do we find at the core of our hearts?--a want, a void, a hollow\nwant. It is the lion that must needs fight the unicorn, the unicorn that\nmust needs fight the lion. Supposing the lion refuses the obligation of\nhis being, and says, \u201cI won\u2019t fight, I\u2019ll just lie down. I\u2019ll be a lion\ncouchant.\u201d\n\nWhat _then_ is the lion? A void, a hollow ache, a want. \u201cWhat am I?\u201d\nsays the lion, as he lies with his head between his paws, or walks by\nthe river feeding on raspberries, peacefully, like a unicorn. \u201cI am a\nhollow void, my roaring is the resonance of a hollow drum, my strength\nis the power of the vacuum, drawing all things within itself.\u201d\n\nThen he groans with horrible self-consciousness. After all, there is\nnothing for it but to set upon the unicorn, and so forget, forget,\nobtain the precious self-oblivion.\n\nThus are we, then, rounded upon a void, a hollow want, like the lion.\nAnd this want makes us draw all things into ourselves, to fill up the\nvoid. But it is a bottomless pit, this void. If ever it were filled,\nthere would be a great cessation from being, of the whole universe.\n\nThus we portray ourselves in the field of the royal arms. The whole\nhistory is the fight, the whole _raison d\u2019\u00eatre_. For the whole field is\noccupied by the lion and the unicorn. These alone are the living\noccupants of the immortal and mortal field.\n\nWe have forgotten the Crown, which is the keystone of the fight. We are\nlike the lion and the unicorn, we go on fighting underneath the Crown,\nentirely oblivious of its supremacy.\n\nIt is modest common sense for us to acknowledge, all of us, nowadays,\nthat we are built round a void and hollow want which, if satisfied,\nwould imply our collapse, our utter ceasing to be. Therefore we regard\nour craving with complacence, we feel the great aching of the Want, and\nwe say, with conviction, \u201cI know I exist, I know I am I, because I feel\nthe divine discontent which is personal to me, and eternal, and present\nalways in me.\u201d\n\nThat is because we are incomplete, we stand upon one side of the shield,\nor on the other. On the one side we are in darkness, our eyes gleam\nphosphorescent like cat\u2019s eyes. And with these phosphorescent gleaming\neyes we look across at the opposite pure beast, and we say, \u201cYes, I am\na lion, my _raison d\u2019\u00eatre_ is to devour that unicorn, I am moulded upon\nan eternal void, a Want.\u201d Gleaming bright, we see ourselves reflected\nupon the surface of the darkness and we say: \u201cI am the pure unicorn, it\nis for me to oppose and resist for ever that avid lion. If he ceased to\nexist, I should be supreme and unique and perfect. Therefore I will\ndestroy him.\u201d\n\nBut the lion will not be destroyed. If he were, if he were swallowed\ninto the belly of the unicorn, the unicorn would fly asunder into chaos.\n\nThis is like being a creature who walks by night, who says: \u201cMen see by\ndarkness, and in the darkness they have their being.\u201d Or like a creature\nthat walks by day, and says: \u201cMen live by the light.\u201d\n\nWe are enveloped in the darkness, like the lion: or like the unicorn,\nenveloped in the light.\n\nFor the womb is full of darkness, and also flooded with the strange\nwhite light of eternity. And we, the peoples of the world, we are\nenclosed within the womb of our era, we are there begotten and\nconceived, but not brought forth.\n\nA myriad, myriad people, we roam in the belly of our era, seeking,\nseeking, wanting. And we seek and want deliverance. But we say we want\nto overcome the lion that shares with us this universal womb, the walls\nof which are shut, and have no window to inform us that we are in\nprison. We roam within the vast walls of the womb, unnourished now,\nbecause the time of our deliverance is ripe, even overpast, and the body\nof our era is lean and withered because of us, withered and inflexible.\n\nWe roam unnourished, moulded each of us around a core of want, a void.\nWe stand in the darkness of the womb and we say: \u201cBehold, there is the\nlight, the white light of eternity, which we want.\u201d And we make war upon\nthe lion of darkness, annihilate him, so that we may be free in the\neternal light. Or else, suddenly, we admit ourselves the lion, and we\nrush rampant on the unicorn of chastity.\n\nWe stand in the light of Virginity, in the wholeness of our unbroached\nimmortality, and we say: \u201cLo the darkness surrounds us, to envelop us.\nLet us resist the powers of darkness.\u201d Then like the bright and virgin\nunicorn we make war upon the ravening lion. Or we cry: \u201cOurs is the\nstrength and glory of the Creator, who precedes Creation, and all is\nunto us.\u201d So we open a ravening mouth, to swallow back all time has\nbrought forth.\n\nAnd there is no rest, no cessation from the conflict. For we are two\nopposites which exist by virtue of our inter-opposition. Remove the\nopposition and there is collapse, a sudden crumbling into universal\nnothingness.\n\nThe darkness, this has nourished us. The darkness, this is a vast\ninfinite, an origin, a Source. The Beginning, this is the great sphere\nof darkness, the womb wherein the universe is begotten.\n\nBut this universal, infinite darkness conceives of its own opposite. If\nthere is universal, infinite darkness, then there is universal, infinite\nlight, for there cannot exist a specific infinite save by virtue of the\nopposite and equivalent specific infinite. So that if there be\nuniversal, infinite darkness in the beginning, there must be universal,\ninfinite light in the end. And these are two relative halves.\n\nInto the womb of the primary darkness enters the ray of ultimate light,\nand time is begotten, conceived, there is the beginning of the end. We\nare the beginning of the end. And there, within the womb, we ripen upon\nthe beginning, till we become aware of the end.\n\nWe are fruit, we are an integral part of the tree. Till the time comes\nfor us to fall, and we hang in suspense, realising that we are an\nintegral part of the vast beyond, which stretches under us and grasps us\neven before we drop into it.\n\nWe are the beginning, which has conceived us within its womb of\ndarkness, and nourished us to the fulness of our growth. This is ours\nthat we adhere to. This is our God, Jehovah, Zeus, the Father of Heaven,\nthis that has conceived and created us, in the beginning, and brought us\nthe fulness of our strength.\n\nAnd when we have come to the fulness of our strength, like lions which\nhave been fed till they are full grown, then the strange necessity comes\nupon us, we must travel away, roam like falling fruit, fall from the\ninitial darkness of the tree, of the cave which has reared us, into the\neternal light of germination and begetting, the eternal light, shedding\nour darkness like the fruit that rots on the ground.\n\nWe travel across between the two great opposites of the Beginning and\nthe End, the eternal night and everlasting day, and the transit is a\nstride taken, the night gives us up for the day to receive us. And what\nare we between the two?\n\nBut before the transit is accomplished, whilst we are yet like fruit\nheavy and ripe on the trees, we realise the delirious freedom of the\nend, the goal, and we cry: \u201cBehold, I, who am here within the darkness,\nI am the light! I am the light, I am Unicorn, the beam of chastity.\nBehold, the beam of Virginity gleams within my loins, in this\ncircumambient darkness. Behold, I am not the Beginning, I am the End.\nThe End is universal light, the achieving again of infinite unblemished\nbeing, the infinite oneness of the Light, the escape from the infinite\nnot-being of the darkness.\u201d\n\nAll the time, these cries take place within the womb, these are the\nmyriad unborn uttering themselves as they come towards maturity, cry\nafter cry as the darkness develops itself over the sea of Light, and\nflesh is born, and limbs; cry after cry as the light develops within the\ndarkness, and mind is born, and the consciousness of that which is\noutside my own flesh and limbs, and the desire for everlasting life\ngrows more insistent.\n\nThese are the cries of the two adversaries, the two opposites.\n\nFirst of all the flesh develops in splendour and glory out of the\nprolific darkness, begotten by the light it develops to a great triumph,\ntill it dances naked in glory of itself, before the Ark, naked in glory\nof itself in the procession of heroes travelling towards the wise\ngoddess, the white light, the Mind, the light which the vessel of living\ndarkness has caught and captured within itself, and holds in triumph.\nThe flesh of darkness triumphant circles round the treasure of light\nwhich it has enveloped, which it calls Mind, and this is the ecstasy,\nthe dance before the Ark, the Bacchic delirium.\n\nAnd then, within the womb, the light grows stronger and finds voice, it\ncries out: \u201cBehold, I am free, I am not enveloped within this darkness.\nBehold, I am the everlasting light, the Eternity that stretches forward\nfor ever, utterly the opposite of that darkness which departs backward,\nbackward for ever. Come over to me, to the light, to the light that\nstreams into the glorious eternity. For now the darkness is revoked for\never.\u201d\n\nIt is the voice of the unicorn crying in the wilderness, it is the Son\nof Man. And behold, in the fight, the unicorn beats the lion, and drives\nhim out of town.\n\nBut all of this is within the Womb. The darkness builds up the warm\nshadow of the flesh in splendour and triumph, enclosing the light. This\nis the zenith of David and Solomon, and of Assyria and Egypt. Then the\nlight, wrestling within the vessel, throws up a white gleam of universal\nlove, which is St. Francis of Assisi, and Shelley.\n\nThen each has reached its maximum of self-assertion. The flesh is made\nperfect within the womb, the spirit is at last made perfect also, within\nthe womb. They are equally perfect, equally supreme, the one adhering to\nthe infinite darkness of the beginning, the other adhering to the\ninfinite light of the end.\n\nYet, within the womb, they are eternally opposite. Darkness stands over\nagainst light, light stands over against dark. The lion is reared\nagainst the unicorn, the unicorn is reared against the lion. One says,\n\u201cBehold, the darkness which gave us birth is eternal and infinite: this\nwe belong to.\u201d The other says, \u201cWe are of the Light, which is\neverlasting and infinite.\u201d\n\nAnd there is no reconciliation, save in negation. From the present, the\nstream flows in opposite directions, back to the past, on to the future.\nThere are two goals, at opposite ends of time. There is the vast\noriginal dark out of which Creation issued, there is the Eternal light\ninto which all mortality passes. And both are equally infinite, both are\nequally the goal, and both equally the beginning.\n\nAnd we, fully equipped in flesh and spirit, fully built up of darkness,\nperfectly composed out of light, what are we but light and shadow lying\ntogether in opposition, or lion and unicorn fighting, the one to\nvanquish the other. This is our eternal life, in these two eternities\nwhich nullify each other. And we, between them both, what are we but\nnullity?\n\nAnd this is because we see in part, always in part. We are enclosed\nwithin the womb, we are the seed from the loins of the eternal light, or\nwe are the darkness which is enveloped by the body of the past, by our\nera.\n\nUnless the sun were enveloped in the body of darkness, would a cast\nshadow run with me as I walk? Unless the night lay within the embrace of\nlight, would the fish gleam phosphorescent in the sea, would the light\nbreak out of the black coals of the hearth, would the electricity gleam\nout of itself, suddenly declaring an opposite being?\n\nLove and power, light and darkness, these are the temporary conquest of\nthe one infinite by the other. In love, the Christian love, the End\nasserts itself supreme: in power, in strength like the lion\u2019s the\nBeginning re-establishes itself unique. But when the opposition is\ncomplete on either side, then there is perfection. It is the perfect\nopposition of dark and light that brindles the tiger with gold flame and\ndark flame. It is the surcharge of darkness that opens the ravening\nmouth of the tiger, and drives his eyes to points of phosphorescence. It\nis the perfect balance of light and darkness that flickers in the\nstepping of a deer. But it is the conquered darkness that flares and\npalpitates in her eyes.\n\nThere are the two eternities fighting the fight of Creation, the light\nprojecting itself into the darkness, the darkness enveloping herself\nwithin the embrace of light. And then there is the consummation of each\nin the other, the consummation of light in darkness and darkness in\nlight, which is absolute: our bodies cast up like foam of two meeting\nwaves, but foam which is absolute, complete, beyond the limitation of\neither infinity, consummate over both eternities. The direct opposites\nof the Beginning and the End, by their very directness, imply their own\nsupreme relation. And this supreme relation is made absolute in the\nclash and the foam of the meeting waves. And the clash and the foam are\nthe Crown, the Absolute.\n\nThe lion and the unicorn are not fighting for the Crown. They are\nfighting beneath it. And the Crown is upon their fight. If they made\nfriends and lay down side by side, the Crown would fall on them both\nand kill them. If the lion really beat the unicorn, then the Crown\npressing on the head of the king of beasts alone would destroy him.\nWhich it has done and is doing. As it is destroying the unicorn who has\nachieved supremacy in another field.\n\nSo that now, in Europe, both the lion and the unicorn are gone mad, each\nwith a crown tumbled on his bound-in head. And without rhyme or reason\nthey tear themselves and each other, and the fight is no fight, it is a\nfrenzy of blind things dashing themselves and each other to pieces.\n\nNow the unicorn of virtue and virgin spontaneity has got the Crown\nslipped over the eyes, like a circle of utter light, and has gone mad\nwith the extremity of light: whilst the lion of power and splendour, its\nown Crown of supreme night settled down upon it, roars in an agony of\nimprisoned darkness.\n\nNow within the withered body of our era, within the husk of the past,\nthe seed of light has come to supreme self-consciousness and has gone\nmad with the flare of eternal light in its eyes, whilst the fruit of\ndarkness, unable to fall from the tree, has turned round towards the\ntree and is become mad, clinging faster upon the utter night whence it\nshould have dropped away long ago.\n\nFor the stiffened, exhausted, inflexible loins of our era are too dry to\ngive us forth in labour, the tree is withered, we are pent in, fastened,\nand now have turned round, some to the source of darkness, some to the\nsource of light, and gone mad, purely given up to frenzy. For the dark\nhas travelled to the light, and the light towards the dark. But when\nthey reached the bound, neither could leap forth. The fruit could not\nfall from the tree, the lion just full grown could not get out of the\ncave, the unicorn could not enter the illimitable forest, the lily could\nnot leap out of the darkness of her bulb straight into the sun. What\nthen? The road was stopped. Whither then? Backward, back to the known\neternity. There was a great, horrible huddle backwards. The process of\nbirth had been arrested, the inflexible, withered loins of the\nmother-era were too old and set, the past was taut around us all. Then\nbegan chaos, the going asunder, the beginning of nothingness. Then we\nleaped back, by reflex from the bound and limit, back upon ourselves\ninto madness.\n\nThere is a dark beyond the darkness of the womb, there is a light beyond\nthe light of knowledge. There is the darkness of all the heavens for the\nseed of man to invest, and the light of all the heavens for the womb to\nreceive. But we don\u2019t know it. How can the unborn within the womb know\nof the heavens outside; how can they?\n\nHow can they know of the tides beyond? On the one hand murmurs the\nutter, infinite sea of darkness, full of unconceived creation: on the\nother the infinite light stirs with eternal procreation. They are two\nseas which eternally attract and oppose each other, two tides which\neternally advance to repel each other, which foam upon one another, as\nthe ocean foams on the land, and the land rushes down into the sea.\n\nAnd we, in the great movement, are begotten, conceived and brought\nforth, like the waves which meet and clash and burst up into foam,\nsending the foam like light, like shadow, into the zenith of the\nabsolute, beyond the grasp of either eternity.\n\nWe are the foam and the foreshore, that which, between the oceans, is\nnot, but that which supersedes the oceans in utter reality, and gleams\nin absolute Eternity.\n\nThe Beginning is-not, nor the eternity which lies behind us, save in\npart. Partial also is the eternity which lies in front. But that which\nis not partial, but whole, that which is not relative, but absolute, is\nthe clash of the two into one, the foam of being thrown up into\nconsummation.\n\nIt is the music which comes when the cymbals clash one upon the other:\nthis is absolute and timeless. The cymbals swing back in one or the\nother direction of time, towards one or the other relative eternity. But\nabsolute, timeless, beyond time or eternity, beyond space or infinity,\nis the music that was the consummation of the two cymbals in\nopposition.\n\nIt is that which comes when night clashes on day, the rainbow, the\nyellow and rose and blue and purple of dawn and sunset, which leaps out\nof the breaking of light upon darkness, of darkness upon light, absolute\nbeyond day or night; the rainbow, the iridescence which is darkness at\nonce and light, the two-in-one; the crown that binds them both.\n\nIt is the lovely body of foam that walks for ever between the two seas,\nperfect and consummate, the revealed consummation, the oneness that has\ntaken being out of the two.\n\nWe say the foam is evanescent, the wind passes over it and it is\ngone--he who would save his life must lose it.\n\nBut if indeed the foam were-not, if the two seas fell apart, if the sea\nfell departed from the land, and the land from the sea, if the two\nhalves, day and night, were ripped asunder, without attraction or\nopposition, what then? Then there would be between them nothingness,\nutter nothingness. Which is meaningless.\n\nSo that the foam and the iridescence, the music that comes from the\ncymbals, all formed things that come from perfect union in opposition,\nall beauty and all truth and being, all perfection, these are the be-all\nand the end-all, absolute, timeless, beyond time or eternity, beyond the\nLimit or the Infinite.\n\nThis lovely body of foam, this iris between the two floods, this music\nbetween the cymbals, this truth between the surge of facts, this supreme\nreason between conflicting desires, this holy spirit between the\nopposite divinities, this is the Absolute made visible between the two\nInfinities, the Timelessness into which are assumed the two Eternities.\n\nIt is wrong to try to make the lion lie down with the lamb. This is the\nsupreme sin, the unforgivable blasphemy of which Christ spoke. This is\nthe creating of nothingness, the bringing about, or the striving to\nbring about the nihil which is pure meaninglessness.\n\nThe great darkness of the lion must gather into itself the little,\nfeeble darkness of the lamb. The great light of the lamb must absorb\nelsewhere, in the whole world, the small, weak light of the lion. The\nlamb indeed will inherit the world, rather than the lion. It is the\ntriumph of the meek, but the meek, like the merciless, shall perish in\ntheir own triumph. Anything that _triumphs_, perishes. The consummation\ncomes from perfect relatedness. To this a man may _win_. But he who\ntriumphs, perishes.\n\nThe crown is upon the perfect balance of the fight, it is not the fruit\nof either victory. The crown is not prize of either combatant. It is the\n_raison d\u2019\u00eatre_ of both. It is the absolute within the fight.\n\nAnd those alone are evil, who say, \u201cThe lion shall lie down with the\nlamb, the eagle shall mate with the dove, the lion shall munch in the\nstable of the unicorn.\u201d For they blaspheme against the _raison d\u2019\u00eatre_\nof all life, they try to destroy the essential, intrinsic nature of God.\n\nBut it is the fight of opposites which is holy. The fight of like things\nis evil. For if a thing turn round upon itself in blind frenzy of\ndestruction, this is to say: \u201cThe lamb shall roar like the lion, the\ndove strike down her prey like the eagle, and the unicorn shall devour\nthe innocent virgin in her path\u201d. Which is precisely the equivalent\nblasphemy to the blasphemy of universal meekness, or peace.\n\nAnd this, this last, is our blasphemy of the war. We would have the lamb\nroar like the lion, all doves turn into eagles.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nTHE LION BEAT THE UNICORN AND DROVE HIM OUT OF TOWN\n\n\nLife is a travelling to the edge of knowledge, then a leap taken. We\ncannot know beforehand. We are driven from behind, always as over the\nedge of the precipice. It is a leap taken, into the beyond, as a lark\nleaps into the sky, a fragment of earth which travels to be fused out,\nsublimated, in the shining of the heavens.\n\nBut it is not death. Death is neither here nor there. Death is a\ntemporal, relative fact. In the absolute, it means nothing. The lark\nfalls from the sky and goes running back to her nest. This is the ebb of\nthe wave. The wave of earth flung up in spray, a lark, a cloud of larks,\nagainst the white wave of the sun. The spray of earth and the foam of\nheaven are one, consummated, a rainbow mid-way, a song. The larks return\nto earth, the rays go back to heaven. But these are only the shuttles\nthat weave the iris, the song, mid-way, in absoluteness, timelessness.\n\nOut of the dark, original flame issues a tiny green flicker, a weed\ncoming alive. On the edge of the bright, ultimate, spiritual flame of\nthe heavens is revealed a fragment of iris, a touch of green, a weed\ncoming into being. The two flames surge and intermingle, casting up a\ncrest of leaves and stems, their battlefield, their meeting-ground,\ntheir marriage bed, the embrace becomes closer, more unthinkably vivid,\nit leaps to climax, the battle grows fiercer, fiercer, intolerably, till\nthere is the swoon, the climax, the consummation, the little yellow disk\ngleams absolute between heaven and earth, radiant of both eternities,\nframed in the two infinities. Which is a weed, a sow-thistle bursting\ninto blossom. And we, the foreshore in whom the waves of dark and light\nare unequally seething, we can see this perfection, this absolute, as\ntime opens to disclose it for a moment, like the Dove that hovered\nincandescent from heaven, before it is closed again in utter\ntimelessness.\n\n\u201cBut the wind passeth over it and is gone.\u201d\n\nThe wind passes over it and we are gone. It is time which blows in like\na wind, closing up the clouds again upon the perfect gleam. It is the\nwind of time, out of either eternity, a wind which has a source and an\nissue, which swirls past the light of this absolute, like waves past a\nlighted buoy. For the light is not temporal nor eternal, but absolute.\nAnd we, who are temporal and eternal, at moments only we cease from our\ntemporality. In these, our moments, we see the sow-thistle gleaming,\nlight within darkness, darkness within light, consummated, we are with\nthe song and the iris.\n\nAnd then it is we, not the iris, not the song, who are blown away. We\nare blown for a moment against the yellow light of the window, the\nflower, then on again into the dark turmoil.\n\nWe have made a mistake. We are like travellers travelling in a train,\nwho watch the country pass by and pass away; all of us who watch the sun\nsetting, sliding down into extinction, we are mistaken. It is not the\ncountry which passes by and fades, it is not the sun which sinks to\noblivion. Neither is it the flower that withers, nor the song that dies\nout.\n\nIt is we who are carried past in the seethe of mortality. The flower is\ntimeless and beyond condition. It is we who are swept on in the\ncondition of time. So we shall be swept as long as time lasts. Death is\npart of the story. But we have being also in timelessness, we shall\nbecome again absolute, as we have been absolute, as we are absolute.\n\nWe know that we are purely absolute. We know in the last issue we are\nabsolved from all opposition. We know that in the process of life we are\npurely relative. But timelessness is our fate, and time is subordinate\nto our fate. But time is eternal.\n\nAnd the life of man is like a flower that comes into blossom and passes\naway. In the beginning, the light touches the darkness, the darkness\ntouches the light, and the two embrace. They embrace in opposition, only\nin their desire is their unanimity. There are two separate statements,\nthe dark wants the light, and the light wants the dark. But these two\nstatements are contained within the one: \u201cThey want each other.\u201d And\nthis is the condition of absoluteness, this condition of their wanting\neach other, that which makes light and dark consummate even in\nopposition. The interrelation between them, this is constant and\nabsolute, let it be called love or power or what it may. It is all the\nthings that it can be called.\n\nIn the beginning, light touches darkness and darkness touches light.\nThen life has begun. The light enfolds and implicates and involves the\ndark, the dark receives and interpenetrates the light, they come nearer,\nthey are more finely combined, till they burst into the crisis of\noneness, the blossom, the utter being, the transcendent and timeless\nflame of the iris.\n\nThen time passes on. Out of the swoon the waves ebb back, dark towards\nthe dark, light towards the light. They ebb back and away, the leaves\nreturn unto the darkness of the earth, the quivering glimmer of\nsubstance returns into the light, the green of the last wavering iris\ndisappears, the waves ebb apart, further, further, further.\n\nYet they never separate. The whole flood recedes, the tides are going to\nseparate. And they separate entirely, save for one enfolded ripple, the\ntiny, silent, scarce-visible enfolded pools of the seeds. These lie\npotent, the meeting-ground, the well-head wherein the tides will surge\nagain, when the turn comes.\n\nThis is the life of man. In him too the tide sweeps together towards the\nutter consummation, the consummation with the darkness, the consummation\nwith the light, flesh and spirit, one culminating crisis, when man\npasses into timelessness and absoluteness.\n\nThe residue of imperfect fusion and unfulfilled desire remains, the\nchild, the well-head where the tides will flow in again, the seed. The\nabsolute relation is never fully revealed. It leaps to its maximum of\nrevelation in the flower, the mature life. But some of it rolls aside,\nlies potent in the enfolded seed. My desire is fulfilled, I, as\nindividual am become timeless and absolute, perfect. But the whole\ndesire of which I am part remains yet to be consummated. In me the two\nwaves clash to perfect consummation. But immediately upon the clash come\nthe next waves of the tide rippling in, the ripples, forerunners, which\ntinily meet and enfold each other, the seed, the unborn child. For we\nare all waves of the tide. But the tide contains all the waves.\n\nIt may happen that waves which meet and mingle come to no consummation,\nonly a confusion and a swirl and a falling away again. These are the\nmyriad lives of human beings which pass in confusion of nothingness, the\nuncreated lives. There are myriads of human lives that are not absolute\nnor timeless, myriads that just waver and toss temporarily, never become\nmore than relative, never come into being. They have no being, no\nimmortality. There are myriads of plants that never come to flower, but\nwhich perish away for ever, always separated in the fringe of time,\nnever united, never consummated, never brought forth.\n\nI know I am compound of two waves, I, who am temporal and mortal. When I\nam timeless and absolute, all duality has vanished. But whilst I am\ntemporal and mortal, I am framed in the struggle and embrace of the two\nopposite waves of darkness and of light.\n\nThere is the wave of light in me which seeks the darkness, which has for\nits goal the Source and the Beginning, for its God the Almighty Creator\nto Whom is all power and glory. Thither the light of the seed of man\nstruggles and aspires, into the infinite darkness, the womb of all\ncreation.\n\nWhat way is it that leads me on to the Source, to the Beginning? It is\nthe way of the blood, the way of power. Down the road of the blood,\nfurther and further into the darkness, I come to the Almighty God Who\nwas in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. I come to the Source\nof Power. I am received back into the utter darkness of the Creator, I\nam once again with Him.\n\nThis is a consummation, a becoming eternal. This is an arrival into\neternity. But eternity is only relative.\n\nI can become one with God, consummated into eternity, by taking the road\ndown the senses into the utter darkness of power, till I am one with the\ndarkness of initial power, beyond knowledge of any opposite.\n\nIt is thus, seeking consummation in the utter darkness, that I come to\nthe woman in desire. She is the doorway, she is the gate to the dark\neternity of power, the creator\u2019s power. When I put my hand on her, my\nheart beats with a passion of fear and ecstasy, for I touch my own\npassing away, my own ceasing-to-be, I apprehend my own consummation in a\ndarkness which obliterates me in its infinity. My veins rock as if they\nwere being destroyed, the blood takes fire on the edge of oblivion, and\nbeats backward and forward. I resist, yet I am compelled; the woman\nresists, yet she is compelled. And we are the relative parts dominated\nby the strange compulsion of the absolute.\n\nGradually my veins relax their gates, gradually the rocking blood goes\nforward, quivers on the edge of oblivion, then yields itself up, passes\ninto the borderland of oblivion. Oh, and then I would die, I would\nquickly die, to have all power, all life at once, to come instantly to\npure, eternal oblivion, the source of life. But patience is fierce at\nthe bottom of me; fierce, indomitable, abiding patience. So my blood\ngoes forth in shock after shock of delirious passing-away, in shock\nafter shock entering into consummation, till my soul is slipping its\nmoorings, my mind, my will fuses down, I melt out and am gone into the\neternal darkness, the primal creative darkness reigns, and I am not, and\nat last _I am_.\n\nShock after shock of ecstasy and the anguish of ecstasy, death after\ndeath of trespass into the unknown, till I fall down into the flame, I\nlapse into the intolerable flame, a pallid shadow I am transfused into\nthe flux of unendurable darkness, and am gone. No spark nor vestige\nremains within the supreme dark flow of the flame, I am contributed\nagain to the immortal source. I am with the dark Almighty of the\nbeginning.\n\nTill, new-created, I am thrown forth again on the shore of creation,\nwarm and lustrous, goodly, new born from the darkness out of which all\ntime has issued.\n\nAnd then, new-born on the knees of darkness, new-issued from the womb of\ncreation, I open my eyes to the light and know the goal, the end, the\nlight which stands over the end of the journey, the everlasting day, the\noneness of the spirit.\n\nThe new journey, the new life has begun, the travelling to the opposite\neternity, to the infinite light of the Spirit, the consummation in the\nSpirit.\n\nMy source and issue is in two eternities, I am founded in the two\ninfinities. But absolute is the rainbow that goes between; the iris of\nmy very being.\n\nIt may be, however, that the seed of light never propagates within the\ndarkness, that the light in me is sterile, that I am never re-born\nwithin the womb, the Source, to be issued towards the opposite eternity.\n\nIt may be there is a great inequality, disproportion, within me, that I\nam nearly all darkness, like the night, with a few glimmers of cold\nlight, moonlight, like the tiger with white eyes of reflected light\nbrindled in the flame of darkness. Then I shall return again and again\nto the womb of darkness, avid, never satisfied, my spirit will fall\nunfertile into the womb, will never be conceived there, never brought\nforth. I shall know the one consummation, the one direction only, into\nthe darkness. It will be with me for ever the almost, almost, almost, of\nsatisfaction, of fulfilment. I shall know the one eternity, the one\ninfinite, the one immortality, I shall have partial being; but never the\nwhole, never the full. There is an infinite which does not know me. I am\nalways relative, always partial, always, in the last issue,\nunconsummate.\n\nThe barren womb can never be satisfied, if the quick of darkness be\nsterile within it. But neither can the unfertile loins be satisfied, if\nthe seed of light, of the spirit, be dead within them. They will return\nagain and again and again to the womb of darkness, asking, asking, and\nnever satisfied.\n\nThen the unconsummated soul, unsatisfied, uncreated in part, will seek\nto make itself whole by bringing the whole world under its own order,\nwill seek to make itself absolute and timeless by devouring its\nopposite. Adhering to the one eternity of darkness, it will seek to\ndevour the eternity of light. Realising the one infinite of the Source,\nit will endeavour to absorb into its oneness the opposite infinite of\nthe Goal. This is the infinite with its tail in its mouth.\n\nConsummated in one infinite, and one alone, this soul will assert the\noneness of all things, that all things are one in the One Infinite of\nthe Darkness, of the Source. One is one and all alone and ever more\nshall be so. This is the cry of the Soul consummated in one eternity\nonly.\n\nThere is one eternity, one infinite, one God. \u201cThou shalt have no other\ngod before me.\u201d\n\nBut why this Commandment, unless there were in truth another god, at\nleast the equal of Jehovah?\n\nConsummated in the darkness only, having not enough strength in the\nlight, the partial soul cries out in a convulsion of insistence that\nthe darkness alone is infinite and eternal, that all light is from the\nsmall, contained sources, the lamps lighted at will by the desire of the\nCreator, the sun, the moon and stars. These are the lamps and candles of\nthe Almighty, which He blows out at will. These are little portions of\nspecial darkness, darkness transfigured, these lights.\n\nThere is one God, one Creator, one Almighty; there is one infinite and\none eternity, it is the infinite and the eternity of the Source. There\nis One Way: it is the Way of the Law. There is one Life, the Life of\nCreation, there is one Goal, the Beginning, there is one immortality,\nthe immortality of the great I Am. All is God, the One God. Those who\ndeny this are to be stamped out, tortured, tortured for ever.\n\nIt is possible then to deny it?\n\nHaving declared the One God, then the partial soul, fulfilled of the\ndarkness only, proceeds to establish this God on earth, to devour and\nobliterate all else.\n\nRising from the darkness of consummation in the flesh, with the woman,\nit seeks to establish its kingdom over all the world. It strides forth,\nthe lord, the master, strong for mastery. It will dominate all, all, it\nwill bring all under the rules of itself, of the One, the Darkness\nlighted with the lamps of its own choice.\n\nThis is the heroic tyrant, the fabulous king-warrior, like Sardanapolus\nor Caesar, like Saul even. These warrior kings seek to pass beyond all\nrelatedness, to become absolute in might and power. And they fall\ninevitably. Their Judas is a David, a Brutus: the individual who knows\nsomething of both flames, but commits himself to neither. He holds\nhimself, in his own ego, superior either to the creative dark\npower-flame, or the conscious love-flame. And so, he is the small man\nslaying the great. He is virtuous egoistic Brutus, or David: David\nslaying the preposterous Goliath, overthrowing the heroic Saul, taking\nBathsheba and sending Uriah to death: David dancing naked before the\nArk, asserting the oneness, his own oneness, the one infinity,\n_himself_, the egoistic God, I AM. And David never went in unto Michal\nany more, because she jeered at him. So that she was barren all her\nlife.\n\nBut it was David who really was barren. Michal, when she mocked, mocked\nthe sterility of David. For the spirit in him was blasted with\nunfertility; he could not become born again, he could not be conceived\nin the spirit. Michal, the womb of profound darkness, could not conceive\nto the overweak seed of David\u2019s spirit. David\u2019s seed was too impure, too\nfeeble in sheer spirit, too egoistic, it bred and begot preponderant\negoists. The flood of vanity set in after David, the lamps and candles\nbegan to gutter.\n\nPower is sheer flame, and spirit is sheer flame, and between them is the\nclue of the Holy Ghost. But David put a false clue between them: the\nclue of his own ego, cunning and _triumphant_.\n\nIt is unfertility of spirit which sends man raging to the woman, and\nsends him raging away again, unsatisfied. It is not the woman\u2019s\nbarrenness: it is his own. It is sterility in himself which makes a Don\nJuan.\n\nAnd the course of the barren spirit is dogmatically to assert One God,\nOne Way, One Glory, one exclusive salvation. And this One God is indeed\nGod, this one Way is the way, but it is the way of egoism, and the One\nGod is the reflection, inevitably, of the worshipper\u2019s ego.\n\nThis is the sham Crown, which the victorious lion and the victorious\nunicorn alike puts on his own head. When either _triumphs_, the true\ncrown disappears, and the triumphant puts a false crown on his own head:\nthe crown of sterile egoism. The true Crown is above the fight itself,\nand above the embrace itself, not upon the brow of either fighter or\nlover. Or, if you like, in the true fight it shines equally upon the\nbrow of the defeated and the winner. For sometimes, it is blessed to be\nbeaten in a fight.\n\nHe who triumphs, perishes. As Caesar perished, and Napoleon. In the\nfight they were wonderful, and the power was with them. But when they\nwould be supreme, sheer triumphers, exalted in their own ego, then they\nfell. Triumph is a false absolution, the winner salutes his enemy, and\nthe light of victory is on _both_ their brows, since both are\nconsummated.\n\nIn the same way, Jesus triumphant perished. Any individual who will\ntriumph, in love or in war, perishes. There is no triumph. There is but\nconsummation in either case.\n\nSo Shelley also perishes. He wants to be love triumphant, as Napoleon\nwanted to be power triumphant. Both fell.\n\nIn both, there is the spuriousness of the _ego_ trying to seize the\nCrown that belongs only to the consummation.\n\nIn the Roman \u201cTriumph\u201d itself lay the source of Rome\u2019s downfall. And in\nthe arrogance of England\u2019s dispensation of Liberty in the world lies the\ndownfall of England. When Liberty triumphs, as in Russia, where then is\nthe British Empire? Where then is the British Lion, crowned _Fidei\nDefensor_, Defender of the Faith of Liberty and Love? When liberty needs\nno more defending, then the protective lion had better look out.\n\nTake care of asserting any absolute, either of power or love, of empire\nor democracy. The moment power _triumphs_, it becomes spurious with\nsheer egoism, like Caesar and Napoleon. And the moment democracy\ntriumphs, it too becomes hideous with egoism, like Russia now.\n\nEither lion or unicorn, triumphant, turns into a sheer beast of prey.\nFoe it has none: only prey--or victims.\n\nSo we have seen in the world, every time that power has triumphed: every\ntime the lion and the eagle have jammed the crown down on their heads.\nNow it will be given us to see democracy triumphant, the unicorn and the\ndove seizing the crown, and on the instant turning into beasts of prey.\n\nThe true crown is upon the consummation itself, not upon the triumph of\none over another, neither in love nor in power. The ego is the false\nabsolute. And the ego crowned with the crown is the monster and the\ntyrant, whether it represent one man, an Emperor, or a whole mass of\npeople, a Demos. A million egos summed up under a crown are not _better_\nthan one individual crowned ego. They are a million times worse.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE FLUX OF CORRUPTION\n\n\nThe tiger blazed transcendent into immortal darkness. The unique phoenix\nof the desert grew up to maturity and wisdom. Sitting upon her tree, she\nwas the only one of her kind in all creation, supreme, the zenith, the\nperfect aristocrat. She attained to perfection, eagle-like she rose in\nher nest and lifted her wings, surpassing the zenith of mortality; so\nshe was translated into the flame of eternity, she became one with the\nfiery Origin.\n\nIt was not for her to sit tight, and assert her own tight ego. She was\ngone as she came.\n\nIn the nest was a little ash, a little flocculent grey dust wavering\nupon a blue-red, dying coal. The red coal stirred and gathered strength,\ngradually it grew white with heat, it shot forth sharp gold flames. It\nwas the young phoenix within the nest, with curved beak growing hard and\ncrystal, like a scimitar, and talons hardening into pure jewels.\n\nWherein, however, is the immortality, in the constant occupation of the\nnest, the widow\u2019s cruse, or in the surpassing of the phoenix? She goes\ngadding off into flame, into her consummation. In the flame she is\ntimeless. But the ash within the nest lies in the restless hollow of\ntime, shaken on the tall tree of the desert. It will rise to the same\nconsummation, become absolute in flame.\n\nIn a low, shady bush, far off, on the other side of the world, where the\nrains are cold and the mists wrap the leaves in a chillness, the\nring-dove presses low on the bough, while her mate sends forth the last\nru-cuooo of peace. The mist darkens and ebbs-in in waves, the trees are\nmelted away, all things pass into a universal oneness, with the last\nre-echoing dove, peace, all pure peace, ebbing in softer, softer waves\nto a universal stillness.\n\nThe dark blue tranquillity is universal and infinite, the doves are\nasleep in the sleeping boughs, all fruits are fallen and are silent and\ncold, all the leaves melt away into pure mist of darkness.\n\nIt is strange, that away on the other side of the world, the tiger\ngleams through the hot-purple darkness, and where the dawn comes\ncrimson, the phoenix lifts her wings in a yawn like an over-sumptuous\neagle, and passes into flame above the golden palpable fire of the\ndesert.\n\nHere are the opposing hosts of angels, the ruddy choirs, the upright,\nrushing flames, the lofty Cherubim that palpitate about the Presence,\nthe Source; and then the tall, still angels soft and pearly as mist, who\nawait round the Goal, the attendants that hover on the edge of the last\nAssumption.\n\nAnd from the seed two travellers set forth, in opposite directions, the\none concentrating towards the upper, ruddy, blazing sun, the zenith, the\ncreative fire; the other towards the blue, cold silence, dividing itself\nand ever dividing itself till it is infinite in the universal darkness.\n\nAnd at the summit, the zenith, there is a flash, a flame, as the\ntraveller enters into infinite, there is a red splash as the poppy leaps\ninto the upper, fiery eternity. And far below there is unthinkable\nsilence as the roots ramify and divide and pass into the oneness of\nunutterable silence.\n\nThe flame is gone, the flower has leapt away, the fruit ripens and\nfalls. Then dark ebbs back to dark, and light to light, hot to hot, and\ncold to cold. This is death and decay and corruption. And the worm, the\nmaggot, these are the ministers of separation, these are the tiny\nclashing ripples that still ebb together, when the chief tide has set\nback, to flow utterly apart.\n\nThis is the terror and wonder of dark returning to dark, and of light\nreturning to light, the two departing back to their Sources. This we\ncannot bear to think of. It is the temporal flux of corruption, as the\nflux together was the temporal flux of creation. The flux is temporal.\nIt is only the perfect meeting, the perfect interpenetration into\noneness, the kiss, the blow, the two-in-one, that is timeless and\nabsolute.\n\nAnd dark is not willing to return to dark till it has known the light,\nnor light to light till it has known the dark, till the two have been\nconsummated into oneness. But the act of death may itself be a\nconsummation, and life may be a state of negation.\n\nIt may be that our state of life is itself a denial of the consummation,\na prevention, a negation; that this life is our nullification, our\nnot-being.\n\nIt may be that the flower is held from the search of the light, and the\nroots from the dark, like a plant that is pot-bound. It may be that, as\nin the autumnal cabbage, the light and the dark are made prisoners in\nus, their opposition is overcome, the ultimate moving has ceased. We\nhave forgotten our goal and our end. We have enclosed ourselves in our\nexfoliation, there are many little channels that run out into the sand.\n\nThis is evil, when that which is temporal and relative asserts itself\neternal and absolute. This I, which I am, has no being save in\ntimelessness. In my consummation, when that which came from the\nBeginning and that which came from the End are transfused into oneness,\nthen I come into being, I have existence. Till then I am only a part of\nnature; I am not.\n\nBut as part of nature, as part of the flux, I have my instrumental\nidentity, my inferior I, my self-conscious ego.\n\nIf I say that _I am_, this is false and evil. I am not. Among us all,\nhow many have being?--too few. Our ready-made individuality, our\nidentity is no more than an accidental cohesion in the flux of time. The\ncohesion will break down and utterly cease to be. The atoms will return\ninto the flux of the universe. And that unit of cohesion which I was\nwill vanish utterly. Matter is indestructible, spirit is indestructible.\nThis of us remains, in any case, general in the flux. But the soul that\nhas not come into being has no being for ever. The soul does not come\ninto being at birth. The soul comes into being in the midst of life,\njust as the phoenix in her maturity becomes immortal in flame. That is\nnot her perishing: it is her becoming absolute: a blossom of fire. If\nshe did not pass into flame, _she_ would never really exist. It is by\nher translation into fire that she is the phoenix. Otherwise she were\nonly a bird, a transitory cohesion in the flux.\n\nIt is absurd to talk about all men being immortal, all having souls.\nVery few men have being at all. They perish utterly, as individuals.\nTheir endurance afterwards is the endurance of Matter within the flux,\nnon-individual: and spirit within the flux. Most men are just transitory\nnatural phenomena. Whether they live or die does not matter: except in\nso far as every failure in the part is a failure in the whole. Their\ndeath is of no more matter than the cutting of a cabbage in the garden,\nan act utterly apart from grace.\n\nThey assert themselves as important, as absolute mortals. They are just\nliars. When one cuts a fat autumnal cabbage, one cuts off a lie, to boil\nit down in the pot.\n\nThey are all just fat lies, these people, these many people, these\nmortals. They are innumerable cabbages in the regulated cabbage plot.\nAnd our great men are no more than Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch.\n\nThe cabbage is a nice fat lie. That is why we eat it. It is the business\nof the truthful to eat up the lies. A fatted cow is a lie, and a fat pig\nis a lie, and a fatted sheep is a lie, just the same: these sacrificial\nbeasts, these lambs and calves, become fat lies when they are merely\nprotected and fed full.\n\nThe cabbage is a lie because it asserts itself as a permanency, in the\nstate wherein it finds itself. In the swirl of the Beginning and the\nEnd, stalk and leaves take place. But the stalk and leaves are only the\nswirl of the waves. Yet they say, they are absolute, they have achieved\na permanent form. It is a lie. Their universal absolute is only the\nfar-off dawning of the truth, the false dawn which in itself is\nnothing, nothing except in relation to that which comes after.\n\nBut they say, \u201cWe are the consummation and the reality, we are the\nfulfilment.\u201d This is pure amorphousness. Each one becomes a single,\nseparate entity, a single separate nullity. Having started along the way\nto eternity, they say, \u201cWe are there, we have arrived,\u201d and they enclose\nthemselves in the nullity of the falsehood.\n\nAnd this is the state of man, when he falls into self-sufficiency, and\nasserts that his self-conscious ego is It. He falls into the condition\nof fine cabbages.\n\nThen they are wealthy and fat. They go no further, so they become\nwealthy. All that great force which would carry them naked over the edge\nof time, into timelessness, into being, they convert into fatness, into\nhaving. And they are full of self-satisfaction. Having no being, they\nassert their artificial completeness, and the life within them becomes a\nwill-to-have; which is the expression of the will-to-persist, in the\ntemporary unit. Selfishness is the subjugating of all things to a false\nentity, and riches is the great flux over the edge of the bottomless\npit, the falsity, the nullity. For where is the rich man who is not the\nvery bottomless pit? Travel nearer, nearer, nearer to him, and one comes\nto the gap, the hole, the abyss where his soul should be. He is not. And\nto stop up his hollowness, he drags all things unto himself.\n\nAnd what are we all, all of us, collectively, even the poorest, now, in\nthis age? We are only potentially rich men. We are all alike. The\ndistinction between rich and poor is purely accidental. Rich and poor\nalike are only, each one, a pit-head surrounding the bottomless pit. But\nthe rich man, by pouring vast quantities of matter down his void, gives\nhimself a more pleasant illusion of fulfilment than the poor man can\nget: that is all. Yet we would give our lives, every one of us, for this\nillusion.\n\nThere are no rich or poor, there are no masses and middle classes and\naristocrats. There are myriads of framed gaps, people, and a few\ntimeless fountains, men and women. That is all.\n\nMyriads of framed gaps! Myriads of little egos, all wearing the crown of\nlife! Myriads of little Humpty-Dumpties, self-satisfied emptinesses, all\nabout to have a great fall.\n\nThe current ideal is to be a gap with a great heap of matter around it,\nwhich can be sent clattering down. The most sacred thing is to give all\nyour having so that it can be put on the heaps that surround all the\nother bottomless pits. If you give away all your having, even your life,\nthen, you are a bottomless pit with no sides to it. Which is infinite.\nSo that to become infinite, give away all your having, even to your\nlife. So that you will achieve immortality yourself. Like the heroes of\nthe war, you will become the bottomless pit itself; but more than this,\nyou will be contributing to the public good, you will be one of those\nwho make blessed history: which means, you will be heaping goods upon\nthe dwindling heaps of superfluity that surrounds these bottomless lives\nof the myriad people. If we poor can each of us hire a servant, then the\nservant will be like a stone tumbling always ahead of us down the\nbottomless pit. Which creates an almost perfect illusion of having a\nsolid earth beneath us.\n\nLong ago we agreed that we had fulfilled all purpose and that our only\nbusiness was to look after other people. We said; \u201cIt is marvellous, we\nare really complete.\u201d If the regulation cabbage, hide-bound and solid,\ncould walk about on his stalk, he would be very much as we are. He would\nthink of himself as we think of ourselves, he would talk, as we talk, of\nthe public good.\n\nBut inside him, proper and fine, the heart would be knocking and urgent,\nthe heart of the cabbage. Of course for a long time he would not hear\nit. His good, enveloping green leaves outside, the heap round the hole,\nwould have closed upon him very early, like Wordsworth\u2019s \u201cShades of the\nprison house,\u201d very close and complete and gratifying.\n\nBut the heart would beat within him, beat and beat, grow louder and\nlouder, till it was threshing the whole of his inside rotten, threshing\nhim hollow, till his inside began to devour his consciousness.\n\nThen he would say: \u201cI must do something.\u201d Looking round he would see\nlittle dwindly cabbages struggling in the patch, and would say: \u201cSo much\ninjustice, so much suffering and poverty in the world, it cannot be.\u201d\nThen he would set forth to make dwindly cabbages into proper, fine\ncabbages. So he would be a reformer.\n\nHe would kick, kick, kick against the conditions which make some\ncabbages poor and dwindly, most cabbages poorer and more dwindly than\nhimself. He would but be kicking against the pricks.\n\nBut it is very profitable to kick against the pricks. It gives one a\nsensation, and saves one the necessity of bursting. If our reformers had\nnot had the prickly wrongs of the poor to kick, so that they hurt their\ntoe quite sorely, they might long ago have burst outwards from the\nenclosed form in which we have kept secure.\n\nLet no one suffer, they have said. No mouse shall be caught by a cat, no\nmouse. It is a transgression. Every mouse shall become a pet, and every\ncat shall lap milk in peace, from the saucer of utter benevolence.\n\nThis is the millennium, the golden age that is to be, when all shall be\ndomesticated, and the lion and the leopard and the hawk shall come to\nour door to lap milk and to peck the crumbs, and no sound shall be heard\nbut the lowing of fat cows and the baa-ing of fat sheep.\n\nThis is the Green Age that is to be, the age of the perfect cabbage.\nThis was our hope and our fulfilment, for this, in this hope, we lived\nand we died.\n\nSo the virtuous, public-spirited ones have suffered bitterly from the\naspect of their myriad more-or-less blighted neighbors, whom they love\nas themselves. They have lived and died to right the wrong conditions of\nsocial injustice.\n\nMeanwhile the threshing has continued at the core of us, till\nour entrails are threshed rotten. We are a wincing mass of\nself-consciousness and corruption, within our plausible rind. The most\nunselfish, the most humanitarian of us all, he is the hollowest and\nfullest of rottenness. The more rotten we become, the more insistent and\ninsane becomes our desire to ameliorate the conditions of our poorer,\nand maybe healthier neighbours.\n\nFools, vile fools! Why cannot we acknowledge and admit the\nhorrible pulse and thresh of corruption within us. What is this\nself-consciousness that palpitates within us like a disease? What is it\nthat threshes and threshes within us, drives us mad if we see a cat\ncatch a sparrow?\n\nWe dare not know. Oh, we are convulsed with shame long before we come to\nthe point. It is indecent beyond endurance to think of it.\n\nYet here let it be told. It was the living desire for immortality, for\nbeing, which urged us ceaselessly. It was the bud within the cabbage,\nthreshing, threshing, threshing. And now, oh our convulsion of shame,\nwhen we must know this! We would rather die.\n\nYet it shall be made known. It was the struggling of the light and\ndarkness within us, towards consummation, towards absoluteness, towards\nflowering. Oh, we shriek with anger of shame as the truth comes out:\nthat the cabbage is rotten within because it wanted to straddle up into\nweakly fiery flower, wanted to straddle forth in a spire of ragged,\nyellow, inconsequential blossom.\n\nOh God, it is unendurable, this revelation, this disclosure, it is not\nto be borne. Our souls perish in an agony of self-conscious shame, we\nwill not have it.\n\nYet had we listened, the hide-bound cabbage might have burst, might have\nopened apart, for a venturing forth of the tender, timid, ridiculous\ncluster of aspirations, that issue in little yellow tips of flame, the\nflowers naked in eternity, naked above the staring unborn crowd of\namorphous entities, the cabbages: the myriad egos.\n\nBut the crowd of assertive egos, of tough entities, they were too\nstrong, too many. Quickly they extinguished any shoot of tender\nimmortality from among them, violently they adhered to the null rind and\nto the thresh of rottenness within.\n\nStill the living desire beat and threshed at the heart of us,\nrelentlessly. And still the fixed will of the temporal form we have so\nfar attained, the static, mid-way form, triumphed in assertion.\n\nStill the false I, the ego, held down the real, unborn I, which is a\nblossom with all a blossom\u2019s fragility.\n\nYet constantly the rising flower pushed and thrust at the belly and\nheart of us, thrashed and beat relentlessly. If it could not beat its\nway through into being, it must thrash us hollow. Let it do so then, we\nsaid. This also we enjoy, this being threshed rotten inside. This is\nsensationalism, reduction of the complex tissue back through rottenness\nto its elements. And this sensationalism, this reduction back, has\nbecome our very life, our only form of life at all. We enjoy it, it is\nour lust.\n\nIt became at last a collective activity, a war, when, within the great\nrind of virtue we thresh destruction further and further, till our whole\ncivilization is like a great rind full of corruption, of breaking down,\na mere shell threatened with collapse upon itself.\n\nAnd the road of corruption leads back to one eternity. The activity of\nutter going apart has, in eternity, a result equivalent to the result of\nutter coming together. The tiger rises supreme, the last brindled flame\nupon the darkness; the deer melts away, a blood-stained shadow received\ninto the utter pallor of light; each having leapt forward into eternity,\nat opposite extremes. Within the closed shell of the Christian\nconception, we lapse utterly back, through reduction, back to the\nBeginning. It is the triumph of death, of decomposition.\n\nAnd the process is that of the serpent lying prone in the cold, watery\nfire of corruption, flickering with the flowing-apart of the two\nstreams. His belly is white with the light flowing forth from him, his\nback is dark and brindled where the darkness returns to the Source. He\nis the ridge where the two floods flow apart. So in the orange-speckled\nbelly of the newt, the light is taking leave of the darkness, and\nreturning to the light; the imperious, demon-like crest is the flowing\nhome of the darkness. He is the god within the flux of corruption, from\nhim proceeds the great retrogression back to the Beginning and back to\nthe End. These are our gods.\n\nThere are elsewhere the golden angels of the Kiss, the golden, fiery\nangels of strife, those that have being when we come together, as\nopposites, as complements coming to consummation. There is delight and\ntriumph elsewhere, these angels sound their loud trumpets. Then men are\nlike brands that have burst spontaneously into flame, the phoenix, the\ntiger, the glistening dove, the white-burning unicorn.\n\nBut here are only the angels that cleave asunder, terrible and\ninvincible. With cold, irresistible hands they put us apart, they send\nlike unto like, darkness unto darkness. They thrust the seas backward\nfrom embrace, backward from the locked strife. They set the cold\nphosphorescent flame of light flowing back to the light, and cold heavy\ndarkness flowing back to the darkness. They are the absolute angels of\ncorruption, they are the snake, the newt, the water-lily, as reflected\nfrom below.\n\nI cease to be, my darkness lapses into utter, stone darkness, my light\ninto a light that is keen and cold as frost.\n\nThis goes on within the rind. But the rind remains permanent, falsely\nabsolute, my false absolute self, my self-conscious ego. Till the work\nof corruption is finished; then the rind also, the public form, the\ncivilization, the established consciousness of mankind disappears as\nwell in the mouth of the worm, taken unutterably asunder by the hands of\nthe angels of separation. It ceases to be, all the civilization and all\nthe consciousness, it passes utterly away, a temporary cohesion in the\nflux. It was this, this rind, this persistent temporary cohesion, that\nwas evil, this alone was evil. And it destroys us all before itself is\ndestroyed.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nWITHIN THE SEPULCHRE\n\n\nWithin the womb of the established past, the light has entered the\ndarkness, the future is conceived. It is conceived, the beginning of the\nend has taken place. Light is within the grip of darkness, darkness\nwithin the embrace of light, the Beginning and the End are closed upon\none another.\n\nThey come nearer and nearer, till the oneness is full grown within the\nwomb of the past, within the belly of Time, it must move out, must be\nbrought forth, into timelessness.\n\nBut something withholds it. The pregnancy is accomplished, the hour of\nlabour has come. Yet the labour does not begin. The loins of the past\nare withered, the young unborn is shut in.\n\nAll the time, within the womb, light has been travelling to the dark,\nthe interfusion of the two into a oneness has continued. Now that it is\nfulfilled, it meets with some arrest. It is the dry walls of the womb\nwhich cannot relax.\n\nThere is a struggle. Then the darkness, having overcome the light,\nreaching the dead null wall of the womb, reacts into self-consciousness,\nand recoils upon itself. At the same time the light has surpassed its\nlimit, become conscious, and starts in reflex to recoil upon itself.\nThus the false I comes into being: the I which thinks itself supreme and\ninfinite, and which is, in fact, a sick foetus shut up in the walls of\nan unrelaxed womb.\n\nHere, at this moment when the birth pangs should begin, when the great\nopposition between the old and the young should take place, when the\nyoung should beat back the old body that surrounds it, and the old womb\nand loins should expel the young body, there is a deadlock. The two\ncannot fight apart. The walls of the old body are inflexible and\ninsensible, the unborn does not know that there can be any travelling\nforth. It conceives itself as the whole universe, surrounded by dark\nnullity. It does not know that it is in prison. It believes itself to\nhave filled up the whole of the universe, right to the extremes where is\nnothing but blank nullity.\n\nIt is tremendously conceited. It can only react upon itself. And the\nreaction can only take the form of self-consciousness. For the self is\neverything, universal, the surrounding womb is just the outer darkness\nin which that which _is_, exists. Therefore there remains either to die,\nto pass into the outer darkness, or to enter into self-knowledge.\n\nSo the unborn recoils upon itself, dark upon dark, light upon light.\nThis is the horror of corruption begun already within the unborn,\nalready dissolution and corruption set in before birth. And this is the\ntriumph of the ego.\n\nMortality has usurped the Crown. The unborn, reacting upon the null\nwalls of the womb, assumes that it has reached the limit of all space\nand all being. It concludes that its self is fulfilled, that all\nconsummation is achieved. It takes for certain that itself has filled\nthe whole of space and the whole of time.\n\nAnd this is the glory of the ego.\n\nThere is no more fight to be fought, there is no more to be sought and\nembraced. All is fought and overcome, all is embraced and contained. It\nis all concluded, there is nothing remaining but the outer nothingness,\nthe only activity is the reaction against the outer nothingness, into\nthe achieved being of the self, all else is fulfilled and concluded. To\ndie is merely to assume nothingness. The limit of all life is reached.\n\nAnd this is the apotheosis of the ego.\n\nSo there is the great turning round upon the self, dark upon dark, light\nupon light, the flux of separation, corruption within the unborn. The\ntides which are set towards each other swirl back as from a promontory\nwhich intervenes. There has been no consummation. There can be no\nconsummation. The only thing is to return, to go back--that which came\nfrom the Beginning to go back to the Beginning, that which came from the\nEnd to return to the End. In the return lies the fulfilment.\n\nAnd this is the unconscious undoing of the ego.\n\nThat which we _are_ is absolute. There is no adding to it, no\nsuperseding this accomplished self. It is final and universal. All that\nremains is thoroughly to explore it.\n\nThat is, to analyse it. Analysis presupposes a corpse.\n\nIt is at this crisis in the human history that tragic art appears again,\nthat art becomes the only absolute, the only watchword among the people.\nThis achieved self, which we are, is absolute and universal. There is\nnothing beyond. All that remains is to state this self, and the\nreactions upon this self, perfectly. And the perfect statement presumes\nto be art. It is aestheticism.\n\nAt this crisis there is a great cry of loneliness. Every man conceives\nhimself as a complete unit surrounded by nullity. And he cannot bear it.\nYet his pride is in this also. The greatest conceit of all is the cry of\nloneliness.\n\nAt this crisis, emotion turns into sentiment, and sentimentalism takes\nthe place of feeling. The ego has no feeling, it has only sentiments.\nAnd the myriad egos sway in tides of sentimentalism.\n\nBut the _tacit_ utterance of every man, when this state is reached, is\n\u201c_Apr\u00e8s moi le D\u00e9luge_.\u201d And when the deluge begins to set in, there is\nprofound secret satisfaction on every hand. For the ego in a man\nsecretly hates every other ego. In a democracy where every little ego is\ncrowned with the false crown of its own supremacy, every other ego is a\nfalse usurper, and nothing more. We can only tolerate those whose crowns\nare not yet manufactured, because they can\u2019t _afford_ it.\n\nAnd again, the supreme little ego in man hates an unconquered universe.\nWe shall never rest till we have heaped tin cans on the North Pole and\nthe South Pole, and put up barb-wire fences on the moon. Barb-wire\nfences are our sign of conquest. We have wreathed the world with them.\nThe back of creation is broken. We have killed the mysteries and\ndevoured the secrets. It all lies now within our skin, within the ego of\nhumanity.\n\nSo circumscribed within the outer nullity, we give ourselves up to the\nflux of death, to analysis, to introspection, to mechanical war and\ndestruction, to humanitarian absorption in the body politic, the poor,\nthe birth-rate, the mortality of infants, like a man absorbed in his own\nflesh and members, looking for ever at himself. It is the continued\nactivity of disintegration--disintegration, separating, setting apart,\ninvestigation, research, the resolution back to the original void.\n\nAll this goes on within the glassy, insentient, insensible envelope of\nnullity. And within this envelope, like the glassy insects within their\nrind, we imagine we fill the whole cosmos, that we contain within\nourselves the whole of time, which shall tick forth from us as from a\nclock, now everlastingly.\n\nWe are capable of nothing but reduction within the envelope. Our every\nactivity is the activity of disintegration, of corruption, of\ndissolution, whether it be our scientific research, our social\nactivity--(the social activity is largely concerned with reducing all\nthe parts contained within the envelope to an equality, so that there\nshall be no unequal pressure, tending to rupture the envelope, which is\ndivine)--our art, or our anti-social activity, sensuality,\nsensationalism, crime, war. Everything alike contributes to the flux of\ndeath, to corruption, and liberates the static data of the\nconsciousness.\n\nWhatever single act is performed by any man now, in this condition, it\nis an act of reduction, disintegration. The scientist in his laboratory,\nthe artist in his study, the statesman, the artisan, the sensualist\nobtaining keen gratification, every one of these is reducing down that\nwhich is himself to its simpler elements, reducing the compound back to\nits parts. It is the pure process of corruption in all of us. The\nactivity of death is the only activity. It is like the decay of our\nflesh, and every new step in decay liberates a sensation, keen,\nmomentarily gratifying, or a conscious knowledge of the parts that made\na whole; knowledge equally gratifying.\n\nIt is like Dmitri Karamazov, who seeks and experiences sensation after\nsensation, reduction after reduction, till finally he is stripped\nutterly naked before the police, and the quick of him perishes. There\n_is_ no more any physical or integral Dmitri Karamazov. That which is in\nthe hospital, afterwards, is a conglomeration of qualities, strictly an\nidiot, a nullity.\n\nAnd Dostoevsky has shown us perfectly the utter subjection of all human\nlife to the flux of corruption. That is his theme, the theme of\nreduction through sensation after sensation, consciousness after\nconsciousness, until nullity is reached, all complexity is broken down,\nan individual becomes an amorphous heap of elements, qualities.\n\nThere are the two types, the dark Dmitri Karamazov, or Rogozhin; and the\nMyshkin on the other hand. Dmitri Karamazov and Rogozhin will each of\nthem plunge the flesh within the reducing agent, the woman, obtain the\nsensation and the reduction within the flesh, add to the sensual\nexperience, and progress towards utter dark disintegration, to nullity.\nMyshkin on the other hand will react upon the achieved consciousness or\npersonality or ego of every one he meets, disintegrate this\nconsciousness, this ego, and his own as well, obtaining the knowledge of\nthe factors that made up the complexity of the consciousness, the ego,\nin the woman and in himself, reduce further and further back, till\nhimself is a babbling idiot, a vessel full of disintegrated parts, and\nthe woman is reduced to a nullity.\n\nThis is real death. The actual physical fact of death is part of the\nlife-stream. It is an incidental point when the flux of light and dark\nhas flowed sufficiently apart for the conjunction, which we call life,\nto disappear.\n\nWe live with the pure flux of death, it is part of us all the time. But\nour blossoming is transcendent, beyond death and life.\n\nOnly when we fall into egoism do we lose all chance of blossoming, and\nthen the flux of corruption is the breath of our existence. From top to\nbottom, in the whole nation, we are engaged, fundamentally engaged in\nthe process of reduction and dissolution. Our reward is sensational\ngratification in the flesh, or sensational gratification within the\nmind, the utter gratification we experience when we can pull apart the\nwhole into its factors. This is the reward in scientific and\nintrospective knowledge, this is the reward in the pleasure of cheap\nsensuality.\n\nIn each case, the experience remains as it were absolute. It is the\nstatement of what is, or what was. And a statement of what _is_, is the\nabsolute footstep in the progress backward towards the starting place,\nit is the _undoing_ of a complete unit into the factors which previously\nwent to making its oneness. It is the reduction of the iris back into\nits component waves.\n\nThere was the bliss when the iris came into being. There is now the\nbliss when the iris passes out of being, and the whole is torn apart.\nThe secret of the whole is never captured. Certain data are captured.\nThe secret escapes down the sensual, or the sensational, or\nintellectual, thrill of pleasure.\n\nSo there goes on reduction after reduction within the shell. And we, who\nfind our utmost gratification in this process of reduction, this flux of\ncorruption, this retrogression of death, we will preserve with might and\nmain the glassy envelope, the insect rind, the tight-shut shell of the\ncabbage, the withered, null walls of the womb. For by virtue of this\nnull envelope alone do we proceed uninterrupted in this process of\ngratifying reduction.\n\nAnd this is utter evil, this secret, silent worship of the null envelope\nthat preserves us intact for our gratification with the flux of\ncorruption.\n\nIntact within the null envelope, which we have come to worship as the\npreserver of this our life-activity of reduction, we re-act back upon\nwhat we are. We do not seek any more the consummation of union. We seek\nthe consummation of reduction.\n\nWhen a man seeks a woman in love, or in positive desire, he seeks a\nunion, he seeks a consummation of himself with that which is not\nhimself, light with dark, dark with light.\n\nBut within the glassy, null envelope of the enclosure, no union is\nsought, no union is possible; after a certain point, only reduction. Ego\nreacts upon ego only in friction. There are small egos, many small\npeople, who have not reached the limit of the confines which we worship.\nThey may still have small consummation in union. But all those who are\nstrong and have travelled far have met and reacted from the nullity.\n\nAnd then, when a man seeks a woman, he seeks not a consummation in\nunion, but a frictional reduction. He seeks to plunge his compound flesh\ninto the cold acid that will reduce him, in supreme sensual experience,\ndown to his parts. This is Rogozhin seeking Nastasia Filippovna, Dmitri\nhis Grushenka, or D\u2019Annunzio in Fuoco seeking his Foscarina. This is\nmore or less what happens when a soldier, maddened with lust of pure\ndestructiveness, violently rapes the woman of his captivity. It is that\nhe may destroy another being by the very act which is called the act of\ncreation, or procreation. In the brute soldier it is cruelty-lust: as it\nwas in the Red Indian. But when we come to civilized man, it is not so\nsimple. His cruelty-lust is directed almost as much against himself as\nagainst his victim. He is destroying, reducing, breaking down that of\nhimself which is within the envelope. He is immersing himself within a\nkeen, fierce, terrible reducing agent. This is true of the hero in Edgar\nAllan Poe\u2019s tales, _Ligeia_, or the _Fall of the House of Usher_. The\nman seeks his own sensational reduction, but he disintegrates the woman\neven more, in the name of love. In the name of love, what horrors men\nperpetrate, and are applauded!\n\nIt is only in supreme crises that man reaches the supreme pitch of\nannihilation. The difference, however, is only a difference in degree,\nnot in kind. The bank-clerk performs in a mild degree what Poe performed\nintensely and deathlily.\n\nThese are the men in whom the development is rather low, whose souls are\ncoarsely compounded, so that the reduction is coarse, a sort of activity\nof coarse hate.\n\nBut the men of finer sensibility and finer development, sensuous or\nconscious, they must proceed more gradually and subtly and finely in the\nprocess of reduction. It is necessary for a finely compounded nature to\nreduce itself more finely, to know the subtle gratification of its own\nreduction.\n\nA subtle nature like Myshkin\u2019s would find no pleasure of reduction in\nconnection with Grushenka, scarcely any with Nastasia. He must proceed\nmore delicately. He must give up his soul to the reduction. It is his\nmind, his conscious self he wants to reduce. He wants to dissolve it\nback. He wants to become infantile, like a child, to reduce and resolve\nback all the complexity of his consciousness, to the rudimentary\ncondition of childhood. That is his ideal.\n\nSo he seeks mental contacts, mental re-actions. It is in his mental or\nconscious contacts that he seeks to obtain the gratification of\nself-reduction. He reaches his crisis in his monologue of self-analysis,\nself-dissolution, in the drawing-room scene where he falls in a fit.\n\nAnd of course, all this reducing activity is draped in alluring\nsentimentalism. The most evil things in the world, today, are to be\nfound under the chiffon folds of sentimentalism. Sentimentality is the\ngarment of our vice. It covers viciousness as inevitably as greenness\ncovers a bog.\n\nWith all our talk of advance, progress, we are all the time working\nbackwards. Our heroines become younger and younger. In the movies, the\nheroine is becoming more and more childish, and touched with infantile\nidiocy. We cannot bear honest maturity. We want to reduce ourselves\nback, back to the _corruptive_ state of childishness.\n\nNow it is all very well for a child to be a child. But for a grown\nperson to be slimily, pornigraphically reaching out for\nchild-gratifications, is disgusting. The same with the prevalent love of\nboys. It is the desire to be reduced back, reduced back, in our\naccomplished ego: always within the unshattered rind of our completeness\nand complacency, to go backwards, in sentimentalised disintegration, to\nthe states of childhood.\n\nAnd no matter _what_ happens to us, now, we sentimentalise it and use it\nas a means of sensational reduction. Even the great war does not alter\nour civilization one iota, in its total nature. The form, the whole\nform, remains intact. Only inside the complete envelope we writhe with\nsensational experiences of death, hurt, horror, reduction.\n\nThe goodness of anything depends on the direction in which it is moving.\nChildhood, like a bud, striving and growing and struggling towards\nblossoming full maturity, is surely beautiful. But childhood as a\n_goal_, for which grown people aim: childishness futile and sentimental,\nfor which men and women lust, and which always retreats when grasped,\nlike the _ignis fatuus_ of a poisonous marsh of corruption: this is\ndisgusting.\n\nWhile we live, we are balanced between the flux of life and the flux of\ndeath. All the while our bodies are being composed and decomposed. But\nwhile every man fully lives, all the time the two streams keep fusing\ninto the third reality, of real creation. Every new gesture, every\nfresh smile of a child is a new emergence into creative being: a glimpse\nof the Holy Ghost.\n\nBut when grown people start grimacing with childishness, or lusting\nafter child-gratifications, it is corruption pure and simple.\n\nAnd the still clear look on an old face, and the stillness of old,\nwithered hands, which have gathered the long repose of autumn, this is\nthe purity of the two streams consummated, and the bloom, like autumn\ncrocuses, of age.\n\nBut the painted, silly child-face that old women make nowadays: or the\nharpy\u2019s face that many have, lusting for the sensations of youth: the\nhard, voracious, selfish faces of old men, seeking their own ends,\ndevouring the shoots of young life: this is vile.\n\nWhile we live, we are balanced between the flux of life and the flux of\ndeath. But the real clue is the Holy Ghost, that moves us on into the\nstate of blossoming. And each year the blossoming is different: from the\ndelicate blue speedwells of childhood to the equally delicate, frail\nfarewell flowers of old age: through all the poppies and sunflowers:\nyear after year of difference.\n\nWhile we live, we change, and our flowering is a constant change.\n\nBut once we fall into the state of egoism, we cannot change. The ego,\nthe self-conscious ego remains fixed, a final envelope around us. And\nwe are then safe inside the mundane egg of our own self-consciousness\nand self-esteem.\n\nSafe we are! Safe as houses! Shut up like unborn chickens that cannot\nbreak the shell of the egg. That\u2019s how safe we are! And as we can\u2019t be\nborn, we can only rot. That\u2019s how safe we are!\n\nSafe within the everlasting walls of the egg-shell we have not the\ncourage, nor the energy, to crack, we fall, like the shut-up chicken,\ninto a pure flux of corruption, and the worms are our angels.\n\nAnd mankind falls into the state of innumerable little worms bred within\nthe unbroken shell: all clamoring for food, food, food, all feeding on\nthe dead body of creation, all crying peace! peace! universal peace!\nbrotherhood of man! Everything must be \u201cuniversal\u201d, to the conquering\nworm. It is only _life_ which is different.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nTHE NUPTIALS OF DEATH AND THE ATTENDANT VULTURE\n\n\nTo those who are in prison, whose being is prisoner within the walls of\nunliving fact, there are only two forms of triumph: the triumph of\ninertia, or the triumph of the Will. There is no flowering possible.\n\nAnd the experience _en route_ to either triumph, is the experience of\nsensationalism.\n\nStone walls need not a prison make: that is, not an _absolute_ prison.\nIf the great sun has shone into a man\u2019s soul, even prison-walls cannot\nblot it out. Yet prison-walls, unless they be a temporary shelter are\ndeadly things.\n\nSo, if we are imprisoned within walls of accomplished fact, experience,\nor knowledge, we are prisoned indeed. The living sun is shut out\nfinally. A false sun, like a lamp, shines.\n\nAll absolutes are prison-walls. These \u201claws\u201d which science has invented,\nlike conservation of energy, indestructibility of matter, gravitation,\nthe will-to-live, survival of the fittest: and even these absolute\nfacts, like--the earth goes round the sun, or the doubtful atoms,\nelectrons, or ether--they are all prison-walls, unless we realise that\nwe don\u2019t know what they mean. We don\u2019t know what we mean, ultimately, by\n_conservation_, or _indestructibility_. Our atoms, electrons, ether, are\ncaps that fit exceeding badly. And our will-to-live contains a germ of\nsuicide, and our survival-of-the-fittest the germ of degeneracy. As for\nthe earth going round the sun: it goes round as the blood goes round my\nbody, absolutely mysteriously, with the rapidity and hesitation of life.\n\nBut the human ego, in its pettifogging arrogance, sets up these things\nfor you as absolutes, and unless you kick hard and kick in time, they\nare your prison walls forever. Your spirit will be like a dead bee in a\ncell.\n\nOnce you are in prison, you have no experience left, save the experience\nof reduction, destruction going on inwardly. Your sentimentalism is only\nthe smell of your own rottenness.\n\nThis reduction within the self is sensationalism. And sensationalism, of\ncourse, is progressive. You can\u2019t have your cake and eat it. To get a\nsensation, you eat your cake. That is, to get a sensation, you reduce\ndown some part of your complex psyche, physical and psychic. You get a\nflash, as when you strike a match. But a match once struck can never be\nstruck again. It is finished--sensationalism is an exhaustive process.\n\nThe resolving down is progressive. It can apparently go on _ad\ninfinitum_. But in infinity it means what we call utter death, utter\nnothingness, opposites released from opposition, and from conjunction,\ntill there _is_ nothing left at all, only nullity itself.\n\nSensationalism progresses in the individual. This is the doom of it.\nThis is the doom of egoistic sex. Egoistic sex-excitement means the\nreacting of the sexes against one another in a purely reducing activity.\nThe reduction progresses. When I have finally reduced one complexity,\none unit, I must proceed to the next, the lower. It is the progressive\nactivity of dissolution within the soul.\n\nAnd the climax of this progression is in perversity, degradation and\ndeath. But only the very powerful and energetic ego can go through all\nthe phases of its own violent reduction. The ordinary crude soul, after\nhaving enjoyed the brief reduction in the sex, is finished there, blas\u00e9,\nempty. And alcohol is slow and crude, and opium is only for the\nimaginative, the somewhat spiritual nature. Then remain the opium-drugs,\nfor a finisher, a last reducer.\n\nThere remains only the reduction of the contact with death. So that as\nthe sex is exhausted, gradually, a keener desire, the desire for the\ntouch of death follows on, in an intense nature. Then come the fatal\ndrugs. Or else those equally fatal wars and revolutions which really\ncreate nothing at all, but destroy, and leave emptiness.\n\nWhen a man is cleaving like a fly with spread arms upon the face of a\nrock, with infinite space beneath him, and he feels his foothold going,\nand he cries out to the men on the rope, and falls away, dangling into\nendless space, jerked back by the thin rope, then he perishes, he is\nfused in the reducing flame of death. He knows another keen anguish of\nreduction. What matters to that man, afterwards? Does any of the complex\nlife of the world below matter? None. All that is left is the triumph of\nhis will in having gone so far and recovered. And all that lies ahead is\nanother risk, another slip, another agony of the fall, or a demonish\ntriumph of the will. And the _final_ consummation of such a man is the\nlast fall of all, the few horrible seconds whilst he drops, like a\nmeteorite, to extinction. This is his final and utter satisfaction, the\nsmash of extinction at the bottom.\n\nBut even this man is not a pure egoist. This man still has his soul open\nto the mystery of the mountains, he still feels the passion of the\n_contact_ with death.\n\nIf he wins, however, in the contest: if his will triumphs in the test:\nthen there is danger of his falling into final egoism, the more-or-less\ninert complacency of a self-satisfied old man.\n\nThe soul is still alive, while it has passion: any sort of passion, even\nfor the brush with death, or for the final and utter reduction. And in\nthe brush with death it may be released again into positive life. A man\nmay be sufficiently released by a fall on the rope and the dangling for\na few minutes of agony, in space. That may finally reduce his soul to\nits elements, set it free and child-like, and break-down that egoistic\nentity which has developed upon it from the past. The near touch of\ndeath may be a release into life; if only it will break the egoistic\nwill, and release that other flow.\n\nBut if a man, having fallen very near to death, gets up at length and\nsays: \u201cI did it! It\u2019s my triumph! I beat the mountains that\ntime!\u201d--then, of course, his ego has only pulled itself in triumph out\nof the menace, and the individual will go on more egoistic and barrenly\ncomplacent.\n\nIf a man says: \u201cI fell! But the unseen goodness helped me, when I\nstruggled for life, and so I was saved\u201d--then this man will go on in\nlife unimprisoned, the channels of his heart open, and passion still\nflowing through him.\n\nBut if the brush with death only gave the brilliant sensational thrill\nof fear, followed immediately, by the _gamin_ exultance: \u201cYah! I got\nmyself out all right!\u201d--then the ego continues intact, having enjoyed\nthe sensation, and remaining vulgarly triumphant in the power of the\nWill. And it will continue inert and complacent till the next thrill.\n\nSo it is with war. Whoever goes to war in his own might alone, will even\nif he come out victorious, come out barren: a barren triumpher, whose\nstrength is in inertia. A man must do his own utmost: but even then, the\nfinal stroke will be delivered, or the final strength will be given from\nthe unseen, and the man must feel it. If he doesn\u2019t feel it, he will be\nan inert victor, or equally inert vanquished, complacent and sterile in\neither case.\n\nThere must be a certain faith. And that means, an ultimate reliance on\nthat which is beyond our will, and not contained in our ego.\n\nWe have gone to war. For a hundred years we have been piling up safety\nupon safety, we have grown enormously within the shell of our\ncivilization, we have rounded off our own ego and grown almost\ncomplacent about our own triumphs of will. Till we come to a point where\nsex seems exhausted, and passion falls flat. When even criticism and\nanalysis now only fatigue the mind and weary the soul.\n\nThen we gradually, gradually formulate the desire: Oh, give us the brush\nwith death, and let us see if we can win out all right!\n\nWe go into a war like this in order to get once more the final reduction\nunder the touch of death. That the death is so inhuman, cold,\nmechanical, sordid, the giving of the body to the grip of cold,\nstagnant mud and stagnant water, whilst one awaits for some falling\ndeath, the knowledge of the gas clouds that may lacerate and reduce the\nlungs to a heaving mass, this, this sort of self-inflicted Sadism,\nbrings almost a final satisfaction to our civilized and still passionate\nmen.\n\nAlmost! And when it is over, and we have won out, shall we be released\ninto a new lease of life? Or shall we only extend our dreary lease of\negoism and complacency? Shall we know the barren triumph of the\nwill?--or the equally barren triumph inertia, helplessness, barren\nirresponsibility.\n\nAnd still, as far as there is any passion in the war, it is a passion\nfor the embrace with death. The desire to deal death and to take death.\nThe enemy is the bride, whose body we will reduce with rapture of agony\nand wounds. We are the bridegroom, engaged with him in the long,\nvoluptuous embrace, the giving of agony, the rising and rising of the\nslow unwilling transport of misery, the soaking-in of day after day of\nwet mud, in penetration of the heavy, sordid, unendurable cold, on and\non to the climax, the laceration of the blade, like a frost through the\ntissue, blasting it.\n\nThis is the desire and the consummation, this is the war. But at length,\nwe shall be satisfied, at length we shall have consummation. Then the\nwar will end. And what then?\n\nIt is not really a question of victories or defeats. It is a question of\nfulfilment, and release from the old prison-house of a dead form. The\nwar is one bout in the terrific, horrible labour, our civilization\nlaboring in child-birth, and unable to bring forth.\n\nHow will it end? Will there be a release, a relaxation of the horrible\nwalls, and a real issuing, a birth?\n\nOr will it end in nothing, all the agony going to stiffen the old form\ndeader, to enclose the unborn more helplessly and drearily.\n\nIt may easily be. For behind us all, in the war, stand the old and the\nelderly, complacent with egoism, bent on maintaining the old form. Oh,\nthey are the monkey grinning with anxiety and anticipation, behind us,\nwaiting for the burnt young cat to pull the chestnut out of the fire.\nAnd in the end, they will thrill with the triumph of their egoistic\nwill, and harden harder still with vulture-like enertia, rapacious\ninertia.\n\nIn sex, we have plunged the quick of creation deep into the cold flux of\nreduction, corruption, till the quick is extinguished. In war we have\nplunged the whole quick of the living, sentient body into a cold, cold\nflux. Much has died and much will die. But if the whole quick dies, and\nthere remain only the material, mechanical unquickened tissue, acting at\nthe bidding of the mechanical will, and the sterile ego triumphant, then\nit is a poor tale, a barrenly poor tale.\n\nI have seen a soldier at the seaside who was maimed. One leg was only a\nsmall stump, with the trouser folded back on it. He was a handsome man\nof about thirty, finely built. His face was sun-browned, and\nextraordinarily beautiful, still, with a strange placidity, something\nlike perfection, abstract, complete. He had known his consummation. It\nseemed he could never desire corruption or reduction again, he had had\nhis satisfaction of death. He was become almost impersonal, a simple\nabstraction, all his personality loosed and undone. He was now like a\nbabe just born, new to begin life. Yet in a sense, still-born. The\nnewness and candour, like a flower just unloosed, was something strange\nand rare in him. Yet unloosed, curiously, into the light of death.\n\nSo he came forward down the pier, in the sunshine, slowly on his\ncrutches. Behind, the sea was milk-white and vague, as if full of\nghosts, and silent, except when a long white wave plunged to silence out\nof the smooth, milky silence of the sea, coming from very far out of the\nghostly stillness.\n\nThe maimed soldier, strong and handsome, with some of the frail candour\nof a newly-wakened child in his face, came slowly down the pier on his\ncrutches, looking at everybody who looked at him. He was na\u00efve like a\nchild, wondering. The people stared at him with a sort of fascination.\nSo he was rather vain, rather proud, like a vain child.\n\nHe did not know he was maimed, it had not entered his consciousness. His\nsoul, so clean and new and fine, could not conceive of such a thing. He\nwas rather vain and slightly ostentatious, not as a man with a wound, a\ntrophy, more as a child who is conspicuous among envious elders.\n\nThe women particularly were fascinated. They could not look away from\nhim. The strange abstraction of horror and death was so perfect in his\nface, like the horror of birth on a new-born infant, that they were\nalmost hysterical. They gravitated towards him, helplessly, they could\nnot move away from him.\n\nThey wanted him, they wanted him so badly, that they were almost beside\nthemselves. They wanted his consummation, his perfect completeness in\nhorror and death. They too wanted the consummation. They followed him,\nthey made excuses to talk to him. And he, strange, abstract, glowing\nstill from the consummation of destruction and pain and horror, like a\nbridegroom just come from the bride, seemed to glow before the women, to\ngive off a strange, unearthly radiance, which was like an embrace, a\nmost poignant embrace to their souls.\n\nBut still his eyes were looking, looking, looking for someone who was\nnot eager for him, to know him, to devour him, like women round a\nperfect child. He had not realized yet what all the attention meant,\nwhich he received. He was so strong in his new birth. And he was\nlooking for his own kind, for the living, the new-born, round about. But\nhe was surrounded by greedy, voracious people, like birds seeking the\ndeath in him, pecking at the death in him.\n\nIt was horrible, rather sinister, the women round the man, there on the\npier stretched from the still, sunny land over the white sea, noiseless\nand inhuman.\n\nThe spirit of destruction is divine, when it breaks the ego and opens\nthe soul to the wide heavens. In corruption there is divinity. Aphrodite\nis, on one side, the great goddess of destruction in sex, Dionysus in\nthe spirit. Moloch and some gods of Egypt are gods also of the knowledge\nof death. In the soft and shiny voluptuousness of decay, in the marshy\nchill heat of reptiles, there is the sign of the Godhead. It is the\nactivity of departure. And departure is the opposite equivalent of\ncoming together; decay, corruption, destruction, breaking down is the\nopposite equivalent of creation. In infinite going-apart there is\nrevealed again the pure absolute, the absolute relation: this time truly\nas a Ghost: the ghost of what was.\n\nWe who live, we can only live or die. And when, like the maimed soldier\non the pier with the white sea behind, when we have come right back into\nlife, and the wonder of death fades off our faces again, what then?\n\nShall we go on with wide, careless eyes and the faint astonished smile\nwaiting all our lives for the accomplished death? Waiting for death\nfinally? And continuing the sensational reduction process? Or shall we\nfade into a dry empty egoism? Which will the maimed soldier do? He\ncannot remain as he is, clear and peaceful.\n\nAre we really doomed, and smiling with the wonder of doom?\n\nEven if we are, we need not say: \u201cIt is finished.\u201d It is never finished.\nThat is one time when Jesus spoke a fatal half-truth, in his\n_Consummatum Est!_ Death consummates nothing. It can but abruptly close\nthe individual life. But Life itself, and even the forms men have given\nit, will persist and persist. There is no consummation into death. Death\nleaves still further deaths.\n\nLeonardo knew this: he knew the strange endlessness of the flux of\ncorruption. It is Mona Lisa\u2019s ironic smile. Even Michael Angelo knew it.\nIt is in his _Leda and the Swan_. For the swan is one of the symbols of\ndivine corruption with its reptile feet buried in the ooze and mud, its\nvoluptuous form yielding and embracing the ooze of water, its beauty\nwhite and cold and terrifying, like the dead beauty of the moon, like\nthe water-lily, the sacred lotus, its neck and head like the snake, it\nis for us a flame of the cold white fire of flux, the phosphorescence of\ncorruption, the salt, cold burning of the sea which corrodes all it\ntouches, coldly reduces every sun-built form to ash, to the original\nelements. This is the beauty of the swan, the lotus, the snake, this\ncold white salty fire of infinite reduction. And there was some\nsuggestion of this in the Christ of the early Christians, the Christ who\nwas the Fish.\n\nSo that, when Leonardo and Michael Angelo represent Leda in the embrace\nof the swan, they are painting mankind in the clasp of the divine flux\nof corruption, the singing death. Mankind _turned back_, to cold, bygone\nconsummations.\n\nWhen the swan first rose out of the marshes, it was a glory of creation.\nBut when we turn back, to seek its consummation again, it is a fearful\nflower of corruption.\n\nAnd corruption, like growth, is only divine when it is pure, when all is\ngiven up to it. If it be experienced as a controlled activity within an\nintact whole, this is vile. When the cabbage flourishes round a hollow\nrottenness, this is vile. When corruption goes on within the living\nwomb, this is unthinkable. The chicken dead in the egg is an\nabomination. We cannot subject a divine process to a static will, not\nwithout blasphemy and loathsomeness. The static will must be subject to\nthe process of reduction, also. For the pure absolute, the Holy Ghost,\nlies also in the relationship which is made manifest by the departure,\nthe departure _ad infinitum_, of the opposing elements.\n\nCorruption will at last break down for us the deadened forms, and\nrelease us into the infinity. But the static ego, with its\nwill-to-persist, neutralises both life and death, and utterly defies the\nHoly Ghost. The unpardonable sin!\n\nIt is possible for this static will, this vile rind of nothingness, to\ntriumph for a long while over the divine relation in the flux, to assert\nan absolute nullity of static form.\n\nThis we do who preserve intact our complete null concept of life, as an\nenvelope around this flux of destruction, the war. The whole concept and\nform of life remains absolute and static, around the gigantic but\ncontained seething of the fight. It is the rottenness seething within\nthe cabbage, corruption within the old, fixed body. The cabbage does not\nrelax, the body is not broken open. The reduction is sealed and\ncontained.\n\nThat is our attitude now. It is the attitude of the women who flutter\nround and peck at death in us. This is the carrion process set in, the\nprocess of obscenity, the baboon, the vulture in us.\n\nIn so far as we fight to remain ideally intact, in so far as we seek to\ngive and to have the experience of death, so that we may remain\nunchanged in our whole conscious form, may preserve the static entity of\nour conception, around the fight, we are obscene. We are like vultures\nand obscene insects.\n\nWe may give ourselves utterly to destruction. Then our conscious forms\nare destroyed along with us, and something new must arise. But we may\nnot have corruption within ourselves as sensationalism, our skin and\nouter form intact. To destroy life for the preserving of a static, rigid\nform, a shell, a glassy envelope, this is the lugubrious activity of the\nmen who fight to save democracy and to end all fighting. The fight\nitself is divine, the relation betrayed in the fight is absolute. But\nthe glassy envelope of the established concept is only a foul nullity.\n\nDestruction and Creation are the two relative absolutes between the\nopposing infinites. Life is in both. Life may even, for a while be\nalmost entirely in one, or almost entirely in the other. The end of\neither oneness is death. For life is really in the two, the absolute is\nthe pure relation, which is both.\n\nIf we have our fill of destruction, then we shall turn again to\ncreation. We shall need to live again, and live hard, for once our great\ncivilized form is broken, and we are at last born into the open sky, we\nshall have a whole new universe to grow up into, and to find relations\nwith. The future will open its delicate, dawning icons in front of us,\nunfathomable.\n\nBut let us watch that we do not preserve an enveloping falsity around\nour destructive activity, some nullity of virtue and self-righteousness,\nsome conceit of the \u201cgeneral good\u201d and the salvation of the world by\nbringing it all within our own conceived whole form. This is the utter\nlie and obscenity. The ego, like Humpty Dumpty, sitting for ever on the\nwall.\n\nThe vulture was once, perhaps, an eagle. It became a supreme strong\nbird, almost like the phoenix. But at a certain point, it said: \u201cI am\nIt.\u201d And then it proceeded to preserve its own static form crystal about\nthe flux of corruption, fixed, absolute as a crystal, about the horrible\nseethe of corruption. Then the eagle became a vulture.\n\nAnd the dog, through cowardice, arrested itself at a certain point and\nbecame domestic, or a hy\u00e6na, preserving a glassy, fixed form about a\nvoracious seethe of corruption.\n\nAnd the baboon, almost a man, or almost a high beast, arrested himself\nand became obscene, a grey, hoary rind closed upon an activity of strong\ncorruption.\n\nAnd the louse, in its little glassy envelope, brings everything into the\ncorrupting pot of its little belly.\n\nAnd these are all perfectly-arrested egoists, asserting themselves\nstatic and foul, triumphant in inertia and in will.\n\nLet us watch that we do not turn either into carrion or into carrion\neaters. Let us watch that we do not become, in the vulgar triumph of our\nwill, and the obscene inertia of our ego, vultures who feed on\nputrescence. The lust for death, for pain, for torture, is even then\nbetter than this fatal triumph of inertia and the egoistic will.\nAnything is better than that. The Red Indians, full of Sadism and\nself-torture and death, destroyed themselves. But the eagle, when it\ngets stuck and can know no more blossoming turns into a vulture with a\nnaked head, and becomes carrion-foul.\n\nThere must always be some balance between the passion for destruction\nand the passion for creation, in every living activity; for in the race\nto destruction we can utterly destroy the vital quick of our being,\nleave us amorphous, undistinguished, vegetable; and in the race for\ncreation we can lose ourselves in mere production, and pile ourselves\nover with dead null monstrosities of obsolete form. All birth comes with\nthe reduction of old tissue. But the reduction is not the birth. That is\nthe fallacy of all of us, who represent the old tissue now. In this\nfallacy we go careering down the slope in our voluptuousness of death\nand horror, careering into oblivion, like Hippolytus trammelled up and\nborne away in the traces of his maddened horses.\n\nWho says that the spirit of destruction will outrun itself? Not till the\ndriver be annihilated. Then the destructive career will run itself out.\n\nAnd then what?\n\nBut neither destruction nor production is, in itself, evil. The danger\nlies in the fall into egoism, which neutralises both. When destruction\nand production alike are mechanical, meaningless.\n\nThe race of destruction may outrun itself. But still the form may remain\nintact, the old imprisoning laws. Only those who have not travelled to\nthe confines will be left, the mean, the average, the laborers, the\nslaves: all of them little crowned egos.\n\nStill the ancient mummy will have the people within its belly. There\nthey will be slaves: not to the enemy, but to themselves, the concept\nestablished about them: being slaves, they will be happy enclosed within\nthe tomb-like belly of a concept, like goldfish in a bowl, which think\nthemselves the centre of the universe.\n\nThis is like the vultures of the mountains. They have kept the form and\nheight of eagles. But their souls have turned into the souls of slaves\nand carrion eaters. Their size, their strength, their supremacy of the\nmountains, remains intact. But they have become carrion eaters.\n\nThis is the tomb, the whited sepulchre, this very form, this liberty,\nthis ideal for which we are fighting. The Germans are fighting for\nanother sepulchre. Theirs is the sepulchre of the Eagle become vulture,\nours is the sepulchre of the lion become dog: soon to become hy\u00e6na.\n\nBut we would have our own sepulchre, in which we shall dwell secure\nwhen the rage of destruction is over. Let it be the sepulchre of the dog\nor the vulture, the sepulchre of democracy or aristocracy, what does it\nmatter! Inside it, the worms will jig the same jazzy dances, and heave\nand struggle to get hold of vast and vaster stores of carrion, or its\nequivalent, gold.\n\nThe carrion birds, aristocrats, sit up high and remote, on the sterile\nrocks of the old absolute, their obscene heads gripped hard and small,\nlike knots of stone clenched upon themselves forever. The carrion dogs\nand hy\u00e6nas of the old, arid, democratic absolute, prowl among the bare\nstones of the common earth, in numbers, their loins cringing, their\nheads sharpened to stone.\n\nThose who will hold power, afterwards, they will sit on their rocks and\nheights of unutterable morality, which have become foul through the\ncourse of ages, like vultures upon the unchangeable mountain-tops. The\nfixed, existing form will persist forever beneath them, about them, they\nwill have become the spirit incarnate of the fixed form of life. They\nwill eat carrion, having become a static hunger for keen putrescence.\nThis alone will support the incarnation of hoary fixity which they are.\nAnd beside the carrion they will fight the multitudes of hoary, obscene\ndogs, which also persist. It is the mortal form become null and fixed\nand enduring, glassy, horrible, beyond life and death, beyond\nconsummation, the awful, stony nullity. It is timeless, almost as the\nrainbow.\n\nBut it is not utterly timeless. It is only unthinkably slow, static in\nits passing away, perpetuated.\n\nIts very aspect of timelessness is a fraud.\n\nWhat is evil?--not death, nor the blood-devouring Moloch, but this\nspirit of perpetuation and apparent timelessness, this obscenity which\nholds the great carrion birds, and the carrion dogs. The tiger, the\nhawk, the weasel, are beautiful things to me; and as they strike the\ndove and the hare, that is the will of God, it is a consummation, a\nbringing together of two extremes, a making perfect one from the\nduality.\n\nBut the baboon, and the hy\u00e6na, the vulture, the condor, and the carrion\ncrow, these fill me with fear and horror. These are the highly developed\nlife-forms, now arrested, petrified, frozen, falsely, timeless. The\nbaboon was almost as man, the hy\u00e6na as the lion: the vulture and the\ncondor are greater than the eagle, the carrion crow is stronger than the\nhawk. And these obscene beasts are not ashamed. They are stark and\nstatic, they are not mixed. Their will is hoary, ageless. Before us, the\nEgyptians have known them and worshipped them.\n\nThe baboon, with his intelligence and his unthinkable loins, the cunning\nhy\u00e6na with his cringing, stricken loins, these are the static form of\none achieved ego, the egoistic Christian, the democratic, the\nunselfish. The vulture, with her naked neck and naked, small stony\nhead, this is the static form of the other achieved ego, the eagle, the\nSelf, aristocratic, lordly, pagan.\n\nIt is unthinkable and unendurable. Yet we are drawn more and more in\nthis direction. After the supreme intelligence, the baboon, after the\nsupreme pride, the vulture. The millionaire: the international\nfinancier: the bankers of this world. The baboons, the hy\u00e6nas, the\nvultures.\n\nThe snake is the spirit of the great corruptive principle, the festering\ncold of the marsh. This is how he seems, as we look back. We revolt from\nhim, but we share the same life and tide of life as he. He struggles as\nwe struggle, he enjoys the sun, he comes to the water to drink, he curls\nup, hides himself to sleep. And under the low skies of the far past\n\u00e6ons, he emerged a king out of chaos, a long beam of new life. But the\nvulture looms out in sleep like a rock, invincible within the hoary,\nstatic form, invincible against the flux of both eternities.\n\nOne day there was a loud, terrible scream from the garden, tearing the\nsoul. Oh, and it was a snake lying on the warm garden bed, and in his\nteeth the leg of a frog, a frog spread out, screaming with horror. We\nran near. The snake glanced at us sharply, holding fast to the frog,\ntrying to get further hold. In so trying, it let the frog escape, which\nleaped convulsed, away. Then the snake slid noiselessly under cover,\nsullenly, never looking at us again.\n\nWe were all white with fear. But why? In the world of twilight as in the\nworld of light, one beast shall devour another. The world of corruption\nhas its stages, where the lower shall devour the higher, _ad infinitum_.\n\nSo a snake, also, devours the fascinated bird, the little, static bird\nwith its tiny skull. Yet is there no great reptile that shall swallow\nthe vulture?\n\nAs yet, the vulture is beyond life or change. It stands hard, immune\nwithin the principle of corruption, and the principle of creation,\nunbreakable. It is kept static by the fire of putrescence, which makes\nthe void within balance the void without. It is a changeless tomb\nwherein the latter stages of corruption take place, counteracting\nperfectly the action of life. Life devours death to keep the static\nnullity of the form.\n\nSo the ragged, grey-and-black vulture sits hulked, motionless, like a\nhoary, foul piece of living rock, its naked head and neck sunk in, only\nthe curved beak protruding, the naked eyelids lowered. Motionless,\nbeyond life, it sits on the sterile heights.\n\nIt does not sleep, it stays utterly static. When it spreads its great\nwings and floats down the air, still it is static, still this is the\nsleep, a dream-floating. When it rips up carrion and swallows it, it is\nstill the same dream-motion, static, beyond the inglutination. The\nnaked, obscene head is always fast locked, like stone.\n\nIt is this naked, obscene head of a bird, sleep-locked, a petrified knot\nof sleep, that I cannot bear to think of. When I think of it, I neither\nlive nor die, I am petrified into foulness. The knot of volition, the\nwill knotted upon a perpetuated moment, will not now be unloosed for\never. It will remain hoary, unchanging, timeless. Till it disappears,\nsuddenly. Amid all the flux of time, of the two eternities, this head\nremains unbroken in a cold, rivetted sleep. But one day it will be\nbroken.\n\nI am set utterly against this small, naked, stone-clinched head, it is a\nfoul vision I want to wipe away. But I am set utterly also against the\nloathsome, cringing, imprisoned loins of the hy\u00e6na, that cringe down the\nhind legs of the beast with their static weight. Again the static will\nhas knotted into rivetted, endless nullity, but here upon the loins. In\nthe vulture, the head is turned to stone, the fire is in the talons and\nthe beak. In the hoary, glassy hy\u00e6na, the loins are turned to stone,\nheavy, sinking down to earth, almost dragged along, the fire is in the\nwhite eyes, and in the fangs. The hy\u00e6na can scarcely see and hear the\nliving world; it draws back on to the stony fixity of its own loins,\ndraws back upon its own nullity, sightless save for carrion. The\nvulture can neither see nor hear the living world, it is one supreme\nglance, the glance in search of carrion, its own absolute quenching,\nbeyond which is nothing.\n\nThis is the end, and beyond the end. This is beyond the beginning and\nthe end. Here the beginning and the end are revoked. The vulture,\nrevoking the end, the end petrified upon the beginning, is a nullity.\nThe hy\u00e6na, the beginning petrified beneath the end, is a nullity. This\nis beyond the beginning and the end, this is aristocracy gone beyond\naristocracy, the I gone beyond the I; the other is democracy gone beyond\ndemocracy, the not-me surpassed upon itself.\n\nThis is the changelessness of the kingdoms of the earth, null,\nunthinkable.\n\nThis is the last state into which man may fall, in the triumph of will\nand the triumph of inertia, the state of the animated sepulchre.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nTO BE, AND TO BE DIFFERENT\n\n\nBehind me there is time stretching back for ever, on to the unthinkable\nbeginnings, infinitely. And this is eternity. Ahead of me, where I do\nnot know, there is time stretching on infinitely, to eternity. These are\nthe two eternities.\n\nWe cannot say, they are one and the same. They are two and utterly\ndifferent. If I look at the eternity ahead, my back is towards the other\neternity, this latter is forgotten, it _is_ not. Which is the Christian\nattitude. If I look at the eternity behind, back to the source, then\nthere is for me one eternity, one only. And this is the pagan eternity,\nthe eternity of Pan. This is the eternity some of us are veering round\nto, in private life, during the past few years.\n\nThe two eternities are _not_ one eternity. It is only by denying the\nvery meaning of speech itself, that we can argue them into oneness. They\nare two, relative to one another.\n\nThey are only _one_ in their mutual relation, which relation is timeless\nand absolute. The eternities are temporal and relative. But their\nrelation is constant, absolute without mitigation.\n\nThe motion of the eternities is dual: they flow together, and they flow\napart, they flow for ever towards union, they start back forever in\nopposition, to flow for ever back to the issue, back into the\nunthinkable future, back into the unthinkable past.\n\nWe have known both directions. The Pagan, aristocratic, lordly,\nsensuous, has declared the Eternity of the Origin, the Christian,\nhumble, spiritual, unselfish, democratic, has declared the Eternity of\nthe Issue, the End. We have heard both declarations, we have seen each\ngreat ideal fulfilled, as far as is possible, at this time, on earth.\nAnd now we say: \u201cThere is no eternity, there is no infinite, there is no\nGod, there is no immortality.\u201d\n\nAnd all the time we know we are cutting off our nose to spite our face.\nWithout God, without some sort of immortality, not necessarily\nlife-everlasting, but without _something_ absolute, we are nothing. Yet\nnow, in our spitefulness of self-frustration, we would rather be nothing\nthan listen to our own being.\n\nGod is not the one infinite, nor the other, our immortality is not in\nthe original eternity, neither in the ultimate eternity. God is the\nutter relation between the two eternities, He is in the flowing together\nand the flowing apart.\n\nThis utter relation is timeless, absolute and perfect. It is in the\nBeginning and the End, just the same. Whether it be revealed or not, it\nis the same. It is the Unrevealed God: what Jesus called the Holy Ghost.\n\nMy immortality is not from the beginning, in my endless ancestry. Nor is\nit on ahead in life everlasting. My life comes to me from the great\nCreator, the Beginner. And my spirit runs towards the Comforter, the\nGoal far ahead. But I, what am I between?\n\nThese two halves I always am. But I am never _myself_ until they are\nconsummated into a spark of oneness, the gleam of the Holy Ghost. And in\nthis spark is my immortality, my non-mortal being, that which is not\nswept away down either direction of time.\n\nI am not immortal till I have achieved immortality. And immortality is\nnot a question of time, of everlasting life. It is a question of\nconsummate being. Most men die and perish away, unconsummated,\nunachieved. It is not easy to achieve immortality, to win a consummate\nbeing. It is supremely difficult. It means undaunted suffering and\nundaunted enjoyment, both. And when a man has reached his ultimate of\nenjoyment and his ultimate of suffering, _both_, then he knows the two\neternities, then he is made absolute, like the iris, created out of the\ntwo. Then he is immortal. It is not a question of time. It is a question\nof being. It is not a question of submission, submitting to the divine\ngrace: it is a question of submitting to the divine grace, in suffering\nand self-obliteration, and it is a question of conquering by divine\ngrace, as the tiger leaps on the trembling deer, in utter satisfaction\nof the Self, in complete fulfilment of desire. The fulfilment is dual.\nAnd having known the dual fulfilment, then within the fulfilled soul is\nestablished the divine relation, the Holy Spirit dwells there, the soul\nhas achieved immortality, it has attained to absolute being.\n\nSo the body of man is begotten and born in an ecstasy of delight and of\nsuffering. It is a flame kindled between the opposing confluent elements\nof the air. It is the battle-ground and marriage-bed of the two\ninvisible hosts. It flames up to its full strength, and is consummate,\nperfect, absolute, the human body. It is a revelation of God, it is the\nfoam-burst of the two waves, it is the iris of the two eternities. It is\na flame, flapping and travelling in the winds of mortality.\n\nThen the pressure of the dark and the light relaxes, the flame sinks. We\nwatch the slow departure, till only the wick glows. Then there is the\ndead body, cold, rigid, perfect in its absolute form, the revelation of\nthe consummation of the flux, a perfect jet of foam that has fallen and\nis vanishing away. The two waves are fast going asunder, the snow-wreath\nmelts, corruption\u2019s quick fire is burning in the achieved revelation.\n\nWe cannot bear it, that the body should decay. We cover it up, we cannot\nbear it. It is the revelation of God, it is the most holy of all\nrevealed things. And it melts into slow putrescence.\n\nWe cannot bear it. We wish above all to preserve this achieved and\nperfect form, this revelation of God. And despair comes over us when it\npasses away. \u201c_Sic transit_,\u201d we say, in agony.\n\nThe perfect form was not achieved in time, but in timelessness. It does\nnot belong to today or tomorrow, or to eternity. It just _is_.\n\nIt is we who pass away, we and the whole flux of the two eternities,\nthese pass. This is the eternal flux. But the God-quick, which is the\nconstant within the flux, this is neither temporal nor eternal, it is\ntruly timeless. And this perfect body was a revelation of the timeless\nGod, timeless as He. If we, in our mortality are temporal, if we are\npart of the flux of the eternities then we swirl away in our living\nflux, the flesh decomposes and is lost.\n\nBut all the time, whether in the glad warm confluence of creation or in\nthe cold flowing-apart of corruption, the same quick remains absolute\nand timeless, the revelation is in God, timeless. This alone of\nmortality does not belong to the passing away, this consummation, this\nrevelation of God within the body, or within the soul. This revelation\nof God _is_ God. But we who live, we are of the flux, we belong to the\ntwo eternities.\n\nOnly perpetuation is a sin. The perfect relation is perfect. But it is\ntherefore timeless. And we must not think to tie a knot in Time, and\nthus to make the consummation temporal or eternal. The consummation is\ntimeless, and we belong to Time, in our process of living.\n\nOnly Matter is a very slow flux, the waves ebbing slowly apart. So we\nengrave the beloved image on the slow, slow wave. We have the image in\nmarble, or in pictured colour.\n\nThis is art, this transferring to a slow flux the form that was attained\nat the maximum of confluence between the two quick waves. This is art,\nthe revelation of a pure, an absolute relation between the two\neternities.\n\nMatter is a slow, big wave flowing back to the Origin. And Spirit is a\nslow, infinite wave flowing back to the Goal, the ultimate Future. On\nthe slow wave of matter and spirit, on marble or bronze or colour or\nair, and on the consciousness, we imprint a perfect revelation, and this\nis art: whether it reveal the relation in creation or in corruption, it\nis the same, it is a revelation of God: whether it be Piero della\nFrancesca or Leonardo da Vinci, the _gar\u00e7on qui pisse_ or Phidias, or\nChrist or Rabelais. Because the revelation is imprinted on stone or\ngranite, on the slow, last-receding wave, therefore it remains with us\nfor a long, long time, like the sculptures of Egypt. But it is all the\ntime slowly passing away, unhindered, in its own time.\n\nIt passes away, but it is not in any sense lost. Our souls are\nestablished upon all the revelations, upon all the timeless achieved\nrelationships, as the seed contains a convoluted memory of all the\nrevelation in the plant it represents. The flower is the burning of God\nin the bush: the flame of the Holy Ghost: the actual Presence of\naccomplished oneness, accomplished out of twoness. The true God is\n_created_ every time a pure relationship, or a consummation out of\ntwoness into oneness takes place. So that the poppy flower is God come\nred out of the poppy-plant. And a man, if he win to a sheer fusion in\nhimself of all the manifold creation, a pure relation, a sheer gleam of\noneness out of manyness, then this man is God created where before God\nwas uncreate. He is the Holy Ghost in tissue of flame and flesh, whereas\nbefore, the Holy Ghost was but Ghost. It is true of a man as it is true\nof a dandelion or of a tiger or of a dove. Each creature, by some\nmystery, achieved a consummation in itself of all the wandering sky and\nsinking earth, and leaped into the other kingdom, where flowers are, of\nthe gleaming Ghost. So it is for ever. The two waves of Time flow in\nfrom the eternities, towards a meeting, a consummation. And the meeting,\nthe consummation, is heaven, is absolute. All the while, as long as time\nlasts, the shock of the two waves passed into oneness, there is a new\nheaven. All the while, heaven is created from the flux of time, the\ngalaxies between the night. And we too may be heavenly bodies, however\nwe swirl back in the flux. When we have surged into being, when we have\ncaught fire with friction, we are the immortals of heaven, the invisible\nstars that make the galaxy of night, no matter how the skies are tossed\nabout. We can forget, but we cannot cease to be. Life nor death makes\nany difference, once we _are_.\n\nFor ever the kingdom of Heaven is established more perfectly, more\nbeautifully, between the flux of the two eternities.\n\nOne by one, in our consummation, we pass, a new star, into the galaxy\nthat arches between the nightfall and the dawn, one by one, like the\nbushes in the desert, we take fire with God, and burn timelessly: and\nwithin the flame is heaven that has come to pass. Every flower that\ncomes out, every bird that sings, every hawk that drops like a blade on\nher prey, every tiger flashing his paws, every serpent hissing out\npoison, every dove bubbling in the leaves, this is timeless heaven\nestablished from the flood, in this we have our form and our being.\nEvery night new Heaven may ripple into being, every era a new Cycle of\nGod may take place.\n\nBut it is all timeless. The error of errors is to try to keep heaven\nfixed and rocking like a boat anchored within the flux of time. Then\nthere is sure to be shipwreck: \u201c_Die Wellen verschlingen am Ende\nSchiffer und Kahn._\u201d From the flux of time Heaven takes place in\ntimelessness. The flux must go on.\n\nThis is sin, this tying the knot in Time, this anchoring the ark of\neternal truth upon the waters. There is no ark, there is no eternal\nsystem, there is no rock of eternal truth. In Time and in Eternity all\nis flux. Only in the other dimension, which is not the time-space\ndimension, is there Heaven. We can no more _stay_ in this heaven, than\nthe flower can stay on its stem. We come and go.\n\nSo the body that came into being and walked transfigured in heavenliness\nmust lie down and fuse away in the slow fire of corruption. Time swirls\naway, out of sight of the heavenliness. Heaven is not here nor there nor\nanywhere. Heaven is in the other dimension. In the young, in the unborn,\nthis kingdom of Heaven which was revealed and has passed away, is\nestablished; of this Heaven the young and the unborn have their being.\nAnd if in us the Heaven be not revealed, if there be no transfiguration,\nno consummation, then the infants cry in the night, in want, void,\nstrong want.\n\nThis is evil, this desire for constancy, for fixity in the temporal\nworld. This is the denial of the absolute good, the revocation of the\nKingdom of Heaven.\n\nWe cannot know God, in terms of the permanent, temporal world; we\ncannot. We can only know the _revelation_ of God in the physical world.\nAnd the revelation of God is God. But it vanishes as the rainbow. The\nrevelation is a condition in the whole flux of time. When this condition\nhas passed away, the revelation is no more revealed. It has gone. And\nthen God is gone, except to memory, a remembering of a critical moment\nwithin the flux. But there is no revelation of God in memory. Memory is\nnot truth. Memory is persistence, perpetuation of a momentary cohesion\nin the flux. God is gone, until next time. But the next time will come.\nAnd then again we shall _see_ God, and once more, it will be different.\nIt is always different.\n\nAnd we are all, now, living on the stale memory of a revelation of God.\nWhich is purely a repetitive and temporal thing. But it contains us, it\nis our prison.\n\nWhereas, there is nothing for a man to do but to behold God, and to\nbecome God. It is no good living on memory. When the flower opens, see\nhim, don\u2019t remember him. When the sun shines, be him, and then cease\nagain.\n\nSo we seek war, death, to kill this memory within us. We hate this\nimprisoning memory so much, we will kill the whole world rather than\nremain in prison to it. But why do we not create a new revelation of\nGod, instead of seeking merely the destruction of the old revelations?\nWe do this, because we are cowards. We say \u201cThe great revelation cannot\nbe destroyed, but I, who am a failure, I can be destroyed\u201d. So we\ndestroy the individual stones rather than decide to pull down the whole\nedifice. The edifice must stand, but the individual bricks must\nsacrifice themselves. So carefully we remove single lives from the\nedifice, and we destroy these single lives, carefully supporting the\nedifice in the weakened place.\n\nAnd the soldier says: \u201cI die for my God and my Country\u201d. When, as a\nmatter of fact, in his death his God and his country are so much\ndestroyed.\n\nBut we must always lie, always convert our action to a lie. We know that\nwe are living in a state of falsity, that all our social and religious\nform is dead, a crystallised lie. Yet we say: \u201cWe will die for our\nsocial and religious form\u201d.\n\nIn truth, we proceed to die because the whole frame of our life is a\nfalsity, and we know that, if we die sufficiently, the whole frame and\nform and edifice will collapse upon itself. But it were much better to\npull it down and have a great clear space, than to have it collapse on\ntop of us. For we shall be like Samson, buried among the ruins.\n\nAnd moreover, if we are like Samson, trying to pull the temple down, we\nmust remember that the next generation will be none the less slaves,\nsightless, in Gaza, at the mill. And they will be by no means eager to\ncommit suicide by bringing more temple beams down with a bang on their\nheads. They will say: \u201cIt is a very nice temple, quite weather-tight.\nWhat\u2019s wrong with it?\u201d They will be near enough to extinction to be very\ncanny and cautious about imperilling themselves.\n\nNo, if we are to break through, it must be in the strength of life\nbubbling inside us. The chicken does not break the shell out of\nanimosity against the shell. It bursts out in its blind desire to move\nunder a greater heavens.\n\nAnd so must we. We must burst out, and move under a greater heavens. As\nthe chicken bursts out, and has a whole new universe to get into\nrelationship with.\n\nOur universe is not much more than a mannerism with us now. If we break\nthrough, we shall find, that man is not man, as he seems to be, nor\nwoman woman. The present seeming is a ridiculous travesty. And even the\nsun is not the sun as it appears to be. It is something tingling with\nmagnificence.\n\nAnd then starts the one glorious activity of man: the getting himself\ninto a new relationship with a new heaven and a new earth. Oh, if we\nknew, the earth is everything and the sun is everything that we have\nmissed knowing. But if we persist in our attitude of parasites on the\nbody of earth and sun, the earth and the sun will be mere victims on\nwhich we feed our louse-like complacency for a long time yet: we, a\nmyriad myriad little egos, five billion feeding like one.\n\nThe thing in itself! Why I never yet met a man who was anything but what\nhe had been _told_ to be. Let a man be a man-in-himself, and then he can\nbegin to talk about the _Ding an Sich_. Men may be utterly different\nfrom the things they now seem. And then they will behold, to their\nastonishment, that the sun is absolutely different from the thing they\nnow see, and that they call \u201csun\u201d.\n\n\n\n\nTHE NOVEL\n\n\n\n\nTHE NOVEL\n\n\nSomebody says the novel is doomed. Somebody else says it is the green\nbay tree getting greener. Everybody says something, so why shouldn\u2019t I!\n\nMr. Santayana sees the modern novel expiring because it is getting so\nthin; which means, Mr. Santayana is bored.\n\nI am rather bored myself. It becomes harder and harder to read the\n_whole_ of any modern novel. One reads a bit, and knows the rest; or\nelse one doesn\u2019t want to know any more.\n\nThis is sad. But again, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s the novel\u2019s fault. Rather the\nnovelists\u2019.\n\nYou can put anything you like in a novel. So why do people _always_ go\non putting the same thing? Why is the _vol au vent_ always chicken!\nChicken _vol au vents_ may be the rage. But who sickens first shouts\nfirst for something else.\n\nThe novel is a great discovery: far greater than Galileo\u2019s telescope or\nsomebody else\u2019s wireless. The novel is the highest form of human\nexpression so far attained. Why? Because it is so incapable of the\nabsolute.\n\nIn a novel, everything is relative to everything else, if that novel is\nart at all. There may be didactic bits, but they aren\u2019t the novel. And\nthe author may have a didactic \u201cpurpose\u201d up his sleeve. Indeed most\ngreat novelists have, as Tolstoi had his Christian-socialism, and Hardy\nhis pessimism, and Flaubert his intellectual desperation. But even a\ndidactic purpose so wicked as Tolstoi\u2019s or Flaubert\u2019s cannot put to\ndeath the novel.\n\nYou can tell me, Flaubert had a \u201cphilosophy\u201d, not a \u201cpurpose\u201d. But what\nis a novelist\u2019s philosophy but a purpose on a rather higher level? And\nsince every novelist who amounts to anything has a philosophy--even\nBalzac--any novel of importance has a purpose. If only the \u201cpurpose\u201d be\nlarge enough, and not at outs with the passional inspiration.\n\nVronsky sinned, did he? But also the sinning was a consummation devoutly\nto be wished. The novel makes that obvious: in spite of old Leo Tolstoi.\nAnd the would-be-pious Prince in _Resurrection_ is a muff, with his\npiety that nobody wants or believes in.\n\nThere you have the greatness of the novel itself. It won\u2019t _let_ you\ntell didactic lies, and put them over. Nobody in the world is anything\nbut delighted when Vronsky gets Anna Kar\u00e9nina. Then what about the\nsin?--Why, when you look at it, all the tragedy comes from Vronsky\u2019s\nand Anna\u2019s fear of _society_. The monster was social, not phallic at\nall. They couldn\u2019t live in the pride of their sincere passion, and spit\nin Mother Grundy\u2019s eye. And that, that cowardice, was the real \u201csin\u201d.\nThe novel makes it obvious, and knocks all old Leo\u2019s teeth out. \u201cAs an\nofficer I am still useful. But as a man, I am a ruin,\u201d says Vronsky--or\nwords to that effect. Well what a skunk, collapsing as a man and a male,\nand remaining merely as a social instrument; an \u201cofficer\u201d, God love\nus!--merely because people at the opera turn backs on him! As if\npeople\u2019s backs weren\u2019t preferable to their faces, anyhow!\n\nAnd old Leo tries to make out, it was all because of the phallic sin.\nOld liar! Because where would any of Leo\u2019s books be, without the phallic\nsplendour? And then to blame the column of blood, which really gave him\nall his life riches! The Judas! Cringe to a mangy, bloodless Society,\nand try to dress up that dirty old Mother Grundy in a new bonnet and\nface-powder of Christian-Socialism. Brothers indeed! Sons of a castrated\nFather!\n\nThe novel itself gives Vronsky a kick in the behind, and knocks old\nLeo\u2019s teeth out, and leaves us to learn.\n\nIt is such a bore that nearly all great novelists have a didactic\npurpose, otherwise a philosophy, directly opposite to their passional\ninspiration. In their passional inspiration, they are all phallic\nworshippers. From Balzac to Hardy, it is so. Nay, from Apuleius to E. M.\nForster. Yet all of them, when it comes to their philosophy, or what\nthey think-they-are, they are all crucified Jesuses. What a bore! And\nwhat a burden for the novel to carry!\n\nBut the novel has carried it. Several thousands of thousands of\nlamentable crucifixions of self-heroes and self-heroines. Even the silly\nduplicity of _Resurrection_, and the wickeder duplicity of Salammb\u00f4,\nwith that flayed phallic Matho, tortured upon the Cross of a gilt\nPrincess.\n\nYou can\u2019t fool the novel. Even with man crucified upon a woman: his\n\u201cdear cross\u201d. The novel will show you how dear she was: dear at any\nprice. And it will leave you with a bad taste of disgust against these\nheroes who _turn_ their women into a \u201cdear cross\u201d, and _ask_ for their\nown crucifixion.\n\nYou can fool pretty nearly every other medium. You can make a poem\npietistic, and still it will be a poem. You can write _Hamlet_ in drama:\nif you wrote him in a novel, he\u2019d be half comic, or a trifle suspicious:\na suspicious character, like Dostoevsky\u2019s Idiot. Somehow, you sweep the\nground a bit too clear in the poem or the drama, and you let the human\nWord fly a bit too freely. Now in a novel there\u2019s always a tom-cat, a\nblack tom-cat that pounces on the white dove of the Word, if the dove\ndoesn\u2019t watch it; and there is a banana-skin to trip on; and you know\nthere is a water-closet on the premises. All these things help to keep\nthe balance.\n\nIf, in Plato\u2019s _Dialogues_, somebody had suddenly stood on his head and\ngiven smooth Plato a kick in the wind, and set the whole school in an\nuproar, then Plato would have been put into a much truer relation to the\nuniverse. Or if, in the midst of the Timaeus, Plato had only paused to\nsay: \u201cAnd now, my dear Cleon--(or whoever it was)--I have a bellyache,\nand must retreat to the privy: this too is part of the Eternal Idea of\nman\u201d, then we never need have fallen so low as Freud.\n\nAnd if, when Jesus told the rich man to take all he had and give it to\nthe poor, the rich man had replied: \u201c_All right, old sport! You are\npoor, aren\u2019t you? Come on, I\u2019ll give you a fortune. Come on!_\u201d Then a\ngreat deal of snivelling and mistakenness would have been spared us all,\nand we might never have produced a Marx and a Lenin. If only Jesus had\n_accepted_ the fortune!\n\nYes, it\u2019s a pity of pities that Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John didn\u2019t\nwrite straight novels. They did write novels; but a bit crooked. The\n_Evangels_ are wonderful novels, by authors \u201cwith a purpose.\u201d Pity\nthere\u2019s so much Sermon-on-the-Mounting.\n\n    \u201cMathew, Mark, Luke, and John\n    Went to bed with their breeches on!\u201d--\n\nas every child knows. Ah, if only they\u2019d taken them off!\n\nGreater novels, to my mind, are the books of the Old Testament, Genesis,\nExodus, Samuel, Kings, by authors whose purpose was so big, it didn\u2019t\nquarrel with their passionate inspiration. The purpose and the\ninspiration were almost one. Why, in the name of everything bad, the two\never should have got separated, is a mystery! But in the modern novel\nthey are hopelessly divorced. When there _is_ any inspiration there, to\nbe divorced from.\n\nThis, then, is what is the matter with the modern novel. The modern\nnovelist is possessed, hag-ridden, by such a stale old \u201cpurpose\u201d, or\nidea-of-himself, that his inspiration succumbs. Of course he denies\nhaving any didactic purpose at all: because a purpose is supposed to be\nlike catarrh, something to be ashamed of. But he\u2019s got it. They\u2019ve all\ngot it: the same snivelling purpose.\n\nThey\u2019re all little Jesuses in their own eyes, and their \u201cpurpose\u201d is to\nprove it. Oh Lord!--_Lord Jim!_ _Sylvestre Bonnard!_ _If Winter Comes!_\n_Main Street!_ _Ulysses!_ _Pan!_ They are all pathetic or sympathetic or\nantipathetic little Jesuses _accomplis_ or _manqu\u00e9s_. And there is a\nheroine who is always \u201cpure\u201d, usually, nowadays, on the muck-heap! Like\nthe Green Hatted Woman. She is all the time at the feet of Jesus, though\nher behaviour there may be misleading. Heaven knows what the Saviour\nreally makes of it: whether she\u2019s a Green Hat or a Constant Nymph\n(eighteen months of constancy, and her heart failed), or any of the rest\nof \u2019em. They are all, heroes and heroines, novelists and she-novelists,\nlittle Jesuses or Jesusesses. They may be wallowing in the mire: but\nthen didn\u2019t Jesus harrow Hell! _A la bonne heure!_\n\nOh, they are all novelists with an idea of themselves! Which is a\n\u201cpurpose\u201d, with a vengeance! For what a weary, false, sickening idea it\nis nowadays! The novel gives them away. They can\u2019t fool the novel.\n\nNow really, it\u2019s time we left _off_ insulting the novel any further. If\nyour purpose is to prove your own Jesus qualifications, and the thin\nstream of your inspiration is \u201csin\u201d, then dry up, for the interest is\ndead. _Life as it is!_ What\u2019s the good of pretending that the lives of a\nset of tuppenny Green Hats and Constant Nymphs is Life-as-it-is, when\nthe novel itself proves that all it amounts to is life as it is isn\u2019t\nlife, but a sort of everlasting and intricate and boring habit: of Jesus\npeccant and _Jesusa peccante_.\n\nThese wearisome sickening little personal novels! After all, they aren\u2019t\nnovels at all. In every great novel, who is the hero all the time? Not\nany of the characters, but some unnamed and nameless flame behind them\nall. Just as God is the pivotal interest in the books of the _Old\nTestament_. But just a trifle too intimate, too _fr\u00e9re et cochon_,\nthere. In the great novel, the felt but unknown flame stands behind all\nthe characters, and in their words and gestures there is a flicker of\nthe presence. If you are _too personal, too human_, the flicker fades\nout, leaving you with something awfully lifelike, and as lifeless as\nmost people are.\n\nWe have to choose between the quick and the dead. The quick is\nGod-flame, in everything. And the dead is dead. In this room where I\nwrite, there is a little table that is dead: it doesn\u2019t even weakly\nexist. And there is a ridiculous little iron stove, which for some\nunknown reason is quick. And there is an iron wardrobe trunk, which for\nsome still more mysterious reason is quick. And there are several books,\nwhose mere corpus is dead, utterly dead and non-existent. And there is a\nsleeping cat, very quick. And a glass lamp, that, alas, is dead.\n\nWhat makes the difference? _Quien sabe!_ But difference there is. And I\n_know_ it.\n\nAnd the sum and source of all quickness, we will call God. And the sum\nand total of all deadness we may call human.\n\nAnd if one tries to find out, wherein the quickness of the quick lies,\nit is in a certain weird relationship between that which is quick and--I\ndon\u2019t know; perhaps all the rest of things. It seems to consist in an\nodd sort of fluid, changing, grotesque or beautiful relatedness. That\nsilly iron stove somehow _belongs_. Whereas this thin-shanked table\ndoesn\u2019t belong. It is a mere disconnected lump, like a cut-off finger.\n\nAnd now we see the great, great merits of the novel. It can\u2019t exist\nwithout being \u201cquick\u201d. The ordinary unquick novel, even if it be a best\nseller, disappears into absolute nothingness, the dead burying their\ndead with surprising speed. For even the dead like to be tickled. But\nthe next minute, they\u2019ve forgotten both the tickling and the tickler.\n\nSecondly, the novel contains no didactive absolute. All that is quick,\nand all that is said and done by the quick, is, in some way godly. So\nthat Vronsky\u2019s taking Anna Kar\u00e9nina we must count godly, since it is\nquick. And that Prince in _Resurrection_, following the convict girl, we\nmust count dead. The convict train is quick and alive. But that\nwould-be-expiatory Prince is as dead as lumber.\n\nThe novel itself lays down these laws for us, and we spend our time\nevading them. The man in the novel must be \u201cquick\u201d. And this means one\nthing, among a host of unknown meaning: it means he must have a quick\nrelatedness to all the other things in the novel: snow, bed-bugs,\nsunshine, the phallus, trains, silk-hats, cats, sorrow, people, food,\ndiphtheria, fuchsias, stars, ideas, God, tooth-paste, lightning, and\ntoilet-paper. He must be in quick relation to all these things. What he\nsays and does must be relative to them all.\n\nAnd this is why Pierre, for example, in _War and Peace_, is more dull\nand less quick than Prince Andr\u00e9. Pierre is quite nicely related to\nideas, tooth-paste, God, people, foods, trains, silk-hats, sorrow,\ndiphtheria, stars. But his relation to snow and sunshine, cats,\nlightning and the phallus, fuchsias and toilet-paper, is sluggish and\nmussy. He\u2019s not quick enough.\n\nThe really quick, Tolstoi loved to kill them off or muss them over. Like\na true Bolshevist. One can\u2019t help feeling Natasha is rather mussy and\nunfresh, married to that Pierre.\n\nPierre was what we call, \u201cso human\u201d. Which means, \u201cso limited\u201d. Men\nclotting together into social masses in order to limit their individual\nliabilities: this is humanity. And this is Pierre. And this is Tolstoi,\nthe philosopher with a very nauseating Christian-brotherhood idea of\nhimself. Why limit man to a Christian-brotherhood? I myself, I could\nbelong to the sweetest Christian-brotherhood one day, and ride after\nAttila with a raw beefsteak for my saddle-cloth, to see the red cock\ncrow in flame over all Christendom, next day.\n\nAnd that is man! That, really, was Tolstoi. That, even, was Lenin, God\nin the machine of Christian-brotherhood, that hashes men up into social\nsausage-meat.\n\nDamn all absolutes. Oh damn, damn, damn all absolutes! I tell you, no\nabsolute is going to make the lion lie down with the lamb: unless, like\nthe limerick, the lamb is inside.\n\n    \u201cThey returned from the ride\n    With lamb Leo inside\n    And a smile on the face of the tiger!\n    Sing fol-di-lol-lol!\n    Fol-di-lol-lol!\n    Fol-di-lol-ol-di-lol-olly!\u201d\n\nFor man, there is neither absolute nor absolution. Such things should be\nleft to monsters like the right-angled triangle, which does only exist\nin the ideal consciousness. A man can\u2019t have a square on his hypotenuse,\nlet him try as he may.\n\nAy! Ay! Ay!--Man handing out absolutes to man, as if we were all books\nof geometry with axioms, postulates and definitions in front. God with a\npair of compasses! Moses with a set square! Man a geometric bifurcation,\nnot even a radish!\n\nHoly Moses!\n\n\u201cHonour thy father and thy mother!\u201d That\u2019s awfully cute! But supposing\nthey are not honorable? How then, Moses?\n\nVoice of thunder from Sinai: \u201c_Pretend to honour them!_\u201d\n\n\u201cLove thy neighbour as thyself.\u201d\n\nAlas, my neighbour happens to be mean and detestable.\n\nVoice of the lambent Dove, cooing: \u201c_Put it over him, that you love\nhim._\u201d\n\nTalk about the cunning of serpents! I never saw even a serpent kissing\nhis instinctive enemy.\n\nPfui! I wouldn\u2019t blacken my mouth, kissing my neighbour, who, I repeat,\nto me is mean and detestable.\n\nDove, go home!\n\nThe Goat and Compasses, indeed!\n\nEverything is relative. Every Commandment that ever issued out of the\nmouth of God or man, is strictly relative: adhering to the particular\ntime, place and circumstance.\n\nAnd this is the beauty of the novel; everything is true in its own\nrelationship, and no further.\n\nFor the relatedness and interrelatedness of all things flows and changes\nand trembles like a stream, and like a fish in the stream the characters\nin the novel swim and drift and float and turn belly-up when they\u2019re\ndead.\n\nSo, if a character in a novel wants two wives--or three--or thirty:\nwell, that is true of that man, at that time, in that circumstance. It\nmay be true of other men, elsewhere and elsewhen. But to infer that all\nmen at all times want two, three, or thirty wives; or that the novelist\nhimself is advocating furious polygamy; is just imbecility.\n\nIt has been just as imbecile to infer that, because Dante worshipped a\nremote Beatrice, every man, all men, should go worshipping remote\nBeatrices.\n\nAnd that wouldn\u2019t have been so bad, if Dante had put the thing in its\ntrue light. Why do we slur over the actual fact that Dante had a cosy\nbifurcated wife in his bed, and a family of lusty little Dantinos?\nPetrarch, with his Laura in the distance, had _twelve_ little legitimate\nPetrarchs of his own, between his knees. Yet all we hear is _Laura!\nLaura! Beatrice! Beatrice! Distance! Distance!_\n\nWhat bunk! Why didn\u2019t Dante and Petrarch chant in chorus:\n\nOh be my spiritual concubine\n\n    Beatrice!  }\n    Laura!     }\n\nMy old girl\u2019s got several babies that are mine, But _thou_ be my\nspiritual concubine,\n\n    Beatrice!  }\n    Laura!     }\n\nThen there would have been an honest relation between all the bunch.\nNobody grudges the gents their spiritual concubines. But keeping a wife\nand family--twelve children--up one\u2019s sleeve, has always been recognised\nas a dirty trick.\n\nWhich reveals how _immoral_ the absolute is! Invariably keeping some\nvital fact dark! Dishonorable!\n\nHere we come upon the third essential quality of the novel. Unlike the\nessay, the poem, the drama, the book of philosophy, or the scientific\ntreatise: all of which may beg the question, when they don\u2019t downright\nfilch it; the novel inherently is and must be:\n\n1. Quick.\n\n2. Interrelated in all its parts, vitally, organically.\n\n3. Honorable.\n\nI call Dante\u2019s _Commedia_ slightly dishonorable, with never a mention of\nthe cosy bifurcated wife, and the kids. And _War and Peace_ I call\ndownright dishonorable, with that fat, diluted Pierre for a hero, stuck\nup as preferable and desirable, when everybody knows that he _wasn\u2019t_\nattractive, even to Tolstoi.\n\nOf course Tolstoi, being a great creative artist, was true to his\ncharacters. But being a man with a philosophy, he wasn\u2019t true to his\n_own character_.\n\nCharacter is a curious thing. It is the flame of a man, which burns\nbrighter or dimmer, bluer or yellower or redder, rising or sinking or\nflaring according to the draughts of circumstance and the changing air\nof life, changing itself continually, yet remaining one single, separate\nflame, flickering in a strange world: unless it be blown out at last by\ntoo much adversity.\n\nIf Tolstoi had looked into the flame of his own belly, he would have\nseen that he didn\u2019t really like the fat, fuzzy Pierre, who was a poor\ntool, after all. But Tolstoi was a personality even more than a\ncharacter. And a personality is a self-conscious _I am_: being all that\nis left in us of a once-almighty Personal God. So being a personality\nand an almighty _I am_, Leo proceeded deliberately to lionise that\nPierre, who was a domestic sort of house-dog.\n\nDoesn\u2019t anybody call that dishonorable on Leo\u2019s part? He might just as\nwell have been true to _himself_! But no! His self-conscious personality\nwas superior to his own belly and knees, so he thought he\u2019d improve on\nhimself, by creeping inside the skin of a lamb; the doddering old lion\nthat he was! Leo! L\u00e9on!\n\nSecretly, Leo worshipped the human male, man as a column of rapacious\nand living blood. He could hardly meet three lusty, roisterous young\nguardsmen in the street, without crying with envy: and ten minutes\nlater, fulminating on them black oblivion and annihilation, utmost moral\nthunder-bolts.\n\nHow boring, in a great man! And how boring, in a great nation like\nRussia, to let its old-Adam manhood be so improved upon by these\nreformers, who all feel themselves short of something, and therefore\nlive by spite, that at last there\u2019s nothing left but a lot of shells of\nmen, improving themselves steadily emptier and emptier, till they rattle\nwith words and formulae, as if they\u2019d swallowed the whole encyclop\u00e6dia\nof socialism.\n\nBut wait! There is life in the Russians. Something new and strange will\nemerge out of their weird transmogrification into Bolshevists.\n\nWhen the lion swallows the lamb, fluff and all, he usually gets a pain,\nand there\u2019s a rumpus. But when the lion tries to force himself down the\nthroat of the huge and popular lamb--a nasty old sheep, really--then\nit\u2019s a phenomenon. Old Leo did it: wedged himself bit by bit down the\nthroat of wooly Russia. And now out of the mouth of the bolshevist\nlambkin still waves an angry, mistaken, tufted leonine tail, like an\nagitated exclamation mark.\n\nMeanwhile it\u2019s a deadlock.\n\nBut what a dishonorable thing for that claw-biting little Leo to do! And\nin his novels you see him at it. So that the papery lips of\n_Resurrection_ whisper: \u201c_Alas! I would have been a novel. But Leo\nspoiled me._\u201d\n\nCount Tolstoi had that last weakness of a great man: he wanted the\nabsolute: the absolute of love, if you like to call it that. Talk about\nthe \u201clast infirmity of noble minds\u201d! It\u2019s a perfect epidemic of\nsenility. He wanted to _be_ absolute: a universal brother. Leo was too\ntight for Tolstoi. He wanted to puff, and puff, and puff, till he became\nUniversal Brotherhood itself, the great gooseberry of our globe.\n\nThen pop went Leo! And from the bits sprang up bolshevists.\n\nIt\u2019s all bunk. No man can be absolute. No man can be absolutely good or\nabsolutely right, nor absolutely lovable, nor absolutely beloved, nor\nabsolutely loving. Even Jesus, the paragon, was only relatively good\nand relatively right. Judas could take him by the nose.\n\nNo god, that men can conceive of, could possibly be absolute or\nabsolutely right. All the gods that men ever discovered are still God:\nand they contradict one another and fly down one another\u2019s throats,\nmarvellously. Yet they are _all_ God: the incalculable Pan.\n\nIt is rather nice, to know what a lot of gods there are; and have been,\nand will be, and that they are all of them God all the while. Each of\nthem utters an absolute: which, in the ears of all the rest of them,\nfalls flat. This makes even eternity lively.\n\nBut man, poor man, bobbing like a cork in the stream of time, must hitch\nhimself to some absolute star of righteousness overhead. So he throws\nout his line, and hooks on. Only to find, after a while, that his star\nis slowly falling: till it drops into the stream of time with a fizzle,\nand there\u2019s _another_ absolute star gone out.\n\nThen we scan the heavens afresh.\n\nAs for the babe of love, we\u2019re simply tired of changing its napkins. Put\nthe brat down, and let it learn to run about, and manage its own little\nbreeches.\n\nBut it\u2019s nice to think that all the gods are God all the while. And if a\ngod only genuinely feels to you like God, then it _is_ God. But if it\ndoesn\u2019t feel quite, quite altogether like God to you, then wait awhile,\nand you\u2019ll hear him fizzle.\n\nThe novel knows all this, irrevocably. \u201cMy dear,\u201d it kindly says, \u201cone\nGod is relative to another god, until he gets into a machine; and then\nit\u2019s a case for the traffic cop!\u201d\n\n\u201cBut what am I to do!\u201d cries the despairing novelist. \u201cFrom Amon and Ra\nto Mrs. Eddy, from Ashtaroth and Jupiter to Annie Besant, I don\u2019t know\nwhere I am.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh yes you do, my dear!\u201d replies the novel. \u201cYou are where you are, so\nyou needn\u2019t hitch yourself on to the skirts either of Ashtaroth or Eddy.\nIf you meet them, say _how-do-you-do!_ to them quite courteously. But\ndon\u2019t hook on, or I shall turn you down.\u201d\n\n\u201cRefrain from hooking on!\u201d says the novel.\n\n\u201cBut be honorable among the host!\u201d he adds.\n\nHonour! Why, the gods are like the rainbow, all colours and shades.\nSince light itself is invisible, a manifestation has got to be pink or\nblack or blue or white or yellow or vermilion, or \u201ctinted\u201d.\n\nYou may be a theosophist, and then you will cry: _Avaunt! Thou dark-red\naura! Away!!!--Oh come! Thou pale-blue or thou primrose aura, come!_\n\nThis you may cry if you are a theosophist. And if you put a theosophist\nin a novel, he or she may cry _avaunt!_ to the heart\u2019s content.\n\nBut a theosophist cannot be a novelist, as a trumpet cannot be a\nregimental band. A theosophist, or a Christian, or a Holy Roller, may be\n_contained_ in a novelist. But a novelist may not put up a fence. The\nwind bloweth where it listeth, and auras will be red when they want to.\n\nAs a matter of fact, only the Holy Ghost knows truly what righteousness\nis. And heaven only knows what the Holy Ghost is! But it sounds all\nright. So the Holy Ghost hovers among the flames, from the red to the\nblue and the black to the yellow, putting brand to brand and flame to\nflame, as the wind changes, and life travels in flame from the unseen to\nthe unseen, men will never know how or why. Only travel it must, and not\ndie down in nasty fumes.\n\nAnd the honour, which the novel demands of you, is only that you shall\nbe true to the flame that leaps in you. When that Prince in\n_Resurrection_ so cruelly betrayed and abandoned the girl, at the\nbeginning of her life, he betrayed and wetted on the flame of his own\nmanhood. When, later, he bullied her with his repentant benevolence, he\nagain betrayed and slobbered upon the flame of his waning manhood, till\nin the end his manhood is extinct, and he\u2019s just a lump of half-alive\nelderly meat.\n\nIt\u2019s the oldest Pan-mystery. God is the flame-life in all the universe;\nmultifarious, multifarious flames, all colours and beauties and pains\nand sombrenesses. Whichever flame flames in your manhood, that is you,\nfor the time being. It is your manhood, don\u2019t make water on it, says the\nnovel. A man\u2019s manhood is to honour the flames in him, and to know that\nnone of them is absolute: even a flame is only relative.\n\nBut see old Leo Tolstoi wetting on the flame. As if even his wet were\nabsolute!\n\nSex is flame, too, the novel announces. Flame burning against every\nabsolute, even against the phallic. For sex is so much more than\nphallic, and so much deeper than functional desire. The flame of sex\nsinges your absolute, and cruelly scorches your ego. What, will you\nassert your ego in the universe? Wait till the flames of sex leap at you\nlike striped tigers.\n\n    \u201cThey returned from the ride\n    With the lady inside,\n    And a smile on the face of the tiger.\u201d\n\nYou will play with sex, will you! You will tickle yourself with sex as\nwith an ice-cold drink from a soda-fountain! You will pet your best\ngirl, will you, and spoon with her, and titillate yourself and her, and\ndo as you like with your sex?\n\nWait! Only wait till the flame you have dribbled on flies back at you,\nlater! Only wait!\n\nSex is a life-flame, a dark one, reserved and mostly invisible. It is a\ndeep reserve in a man, one of the core-flames of his manhood.\n\nWhat, would you play with it? Would you make it cheap and nasty!\n\nBuy a king-cobra, and try playing with that.\n\nSex is even a majestic reserve in the sun.\n\nOh, give me the novel! Let me hear what the novel says.\n\nAs for the novelist, he is usually a dribbling liar.\n\n\n\n\nHIM WITH HIS TAIL IN HIS MOUTH\n\n\n\n\nHIM WITH HIS TAIL IN HIS MOUTH\n\n\nAnswer a fool according to his folly, philosophy ditto.\n\nSolemnity is a sign of fraud.\n\nReligion and philosophy both have the same dual purpose: to get at the\nbeginning of things, and at the goal of things. They have both decided\nthat the serpent has got his tail in his mouth, and that the end is one\nwith the beginning.\n\nIt seems to me time someone gave that serpent of eternity another dummy\nto suck.\n\nThey\u2019ve all decided that the beginning of all things is the life-stream\nitself, energy, ether, libido, not to mention the Sanskrit joys of\nPurusha, Pradhana, Kala.\n\nHaving postulated the serpent of the beginning, now see all the heroes\nfrom Moses and Plato to Bergson, wrestling with him might and main, to\npush his tail into his mouth.\n\nJehovah creates man in his Own Image, according to His Own Will. If man\nbehaves according to the ready-made Will of God, formulated in a bunch\nof somewhat unsavoury commandments, then lucky man will be received\ninto the bosom of Jehovah.\n\nMan isn\u2019t very keen. And that is Sin, original and perpetual.\n\nThen Plato discovers how lovely the intellectual idea is: in fact, the\nonly perfection is ideal.\n\nBut the old dragon of creation, who fathered us all, didn\u2019t have an idea\nin his head.\n\nPlato was prepared. He popped the Logos into the mouth of the dragon,\nand the serpent of eternity was rounded off. The old dragon, ugly and\nvenomous, wore yet the precious jewel of the Platonic idea in his head.\nUnable to find the dragon wholesale, modern philosophy sets up a retail\nshop. You can\u2019t lay salt on the old scoundrel\u2019s tail, because, of\ncourse, he\u2019s got it in his mouth, according to postulate. He doesn\u2019t\nseem to be sprawling in his old lair, across the heavens. In fact, he\nappears to have vamoosed. Perhaps, instead of being one big old boy, he\nis really an infinite number of little tiny boys: atoms, electrons,\nunits of force or energy, tiny little birds all spinning with their\ntails in their beaks. Just the same in detail as in the gross. Nothing\nwill come out of the egg that isn\u2019t in it. Evolution sings away at the\nsame old song. Out of the am\u0153ba, or some such old-fashioned entity, the\ndragon of evolved life stretches himself enormous and more enormous,\nonly, at last, to return each time, and put his tail into his own\nmouth, and be an am\u0153ba once more. The am\u0153ba, or the electron, or\nwhatever it may lately be--the rose would be just as scentless--is the\nconstant, from which all manifest living creation starts out, and to\nwhich it all returns.\n\nThere was a time when man was not, nor monkey, nor cow, not catfish. But\nthe am\u0153ba (or the electron, or the atom, or whatever it is) always was\nand always will be.\n\n    Boom! tiddy-ra-ta! Boom!\n    Boom! tiddy-ra-ta! Boom!\n\nHow do you know? How does anyone know, what always was or wasn\u2019t? Bunk\nof geology, and strata, and all that, biology or evolution.\n\n    \u201cOne, two, three four five,\n    Catch a little fish alive.\n    Six, seven, eight nine ten,\n    I have let him go again....\u201d\n\nBunk of beginnings and of ends, and heads and tails. Why does man always\nwant to know so damned much? Or rather, so damned little? If he can\u2019t\ndraw a ring round creation, and fasten the serpent\u2019s tail into its mouth\nwith the padlock of one final clinching idea, then creation can go to\nhell, as far as man is concerned.\n\nThere is such a thing as life, or life energy. We know, because we\u2019ve\ngot it, or had it. It isn\u2019t a constant. It comes and it goes. But we\n_want_ it.\n\nThis I think is incontestable.\n\nMore than anything else in the world, we want to have life, and\nlife-energy abundant in us. We think if we eat yeast, vitamines and\nproteids, we\u2019re sure of it. We\u2019re had. We diddle ourselves for the\nmillion millionth time.\n\nWhat we want is life, and life-energy inside us. Where it comes from, or\nwhat it is, we don\u2019t know, and never shall. It is the capital X of all\nour knowledge.\n\nBut we want it, we must have it. It is the all in all.\n\nThis we know, now, for good and all: that which is good, and moral, is\nthat which brings into us a stronger, deeper flow of life and\nlife-energy: evil is that which impairs the life-flow.\n\nBut man\u2019s difficulty is, that he can\u2019t have life for the asking. \u201cHe\nasked life of Thee, and Thou gavest it him: even length of days for ever\nand ever.\u201d There\u2019s a pretty motto for the tomb!\n\nIt isn\u2019t length of days for ever and ever that a man wants. It is strong\nlife within himself, while he lives.\n\nBut how to get it? You may be as healthy as a cow, and yet have fear\ninside you, because your life is not enough.\n\nWe know, really, that we can\u2019t have life for the asking, nor find it by\nseeking, nor get it by striving. The river flows into us from behind and\nbelow. We must turn our backs to it, and go ahead. The faster we go\nahead, the stronger the river rushes into us. The moment we turn round\nto embrace the river of life, it ebbs away, and we see nothing but a\nstony fiumara.\n\nWe must go ahead.\n\nBut which way is ahead?\n\nWe don\u2019t know.\n\nWe only know that, continuing in the way we are going, the river of life\nflows feebler and feebler in us, and we lose all sense of vital\ndirection. We begin to talk about vitamines. We become idiotic. We\ncunningly prepare our own suicide.\n\nThis is the philosophic problem: to find the way ahead.\n\n_Allons!_--there is no road before us.\n\nPlato said that ahead, ahead was the perfect Idea, gleaming in the brow\nof the dragon.\n\nWe have pretty well caught up with the perfect Idea, and we find it a\nsort of vast, white, polished tomb-stone.\n\nIf the mouth of the serpent is the open grave, into which the tail\ndisappears, then three cheers for the Logos, and down she goes.\n\nWe children of a later Pa, know that Life is real, Life is earnest, and\nthe Grave is not its Goal.\n\nLet us side-step.\n\nAll goals become graves.\n\nEvery goal is a grave, when you get there.\n\nWell, I came out of an egg-cell, like an am\u0153ba, and I go into the grave.\nI can\u2019t help it. It\u2019s not my fault, and it\u2019s not my business.\n\nI don\u2019t want eternal life, nor length of days for ever and ever. Nothing\nso long drawn out.\n\nI give up all that sort of stuff.\n\nYet while I live, I want to live. Death, no doubt, solves its own\nproblems. Let Life solve the problem of living.\n\n    \u201cTeach me to live that so I may\n    Rise glorious at the Judgment Day.\u201d\n\nI have no desire to rise glorious at any Judgment Day, when the serpent\nfinally chokes himself with his own tail.\n\n    \u201cTeach me to live that I may\n    Go gaily on from day to day.\u201d\n\nNay, in all the world, I feel the life-urge weakening. It may be, there\nare too many people alive. I feel it is, because there is too much\nautomatic consciousness and self-consciousness in the world.\n\nWe can\u2019t live by loving life, alone. Life is like a capricious mistress:\nthe more you woo her the more she despises you. You have to get up and\ngo to something more interesting. Then she\u2019ll pelt after you.\n\nLife is the river, darkly sparkling, that enters into us from behind,\nwhen we set our faces towards the unknown. Towards some goal!!!\n\nBut there is no eternal goal. Every attempt to find an eternal goal puts\nthe tail of the serpent into his mouth again, whereby he chokes himself\nin one more last gasp.\n\nWhat is there then, if there is no eternal goal?\n\nBy itself, the river of life just gets nowhere. It sinks into the sand.\n\nThe river of life follows the living. If the living don\u2019t get anywhere,\nthe river of life doesn\u2019t. The old serpent lays him down and goes into a\ntorpor, instead of dancing at our heels and sending the life-sparks up\nour legs and spine, as we travel.\n\nSo we\u2019ve got to get somewhere.\n\nIs there no goal?\n\n\u201cOh man! on your four legs, your two, and your three, where are you\ngoing?\u201d--says the Sphinx.\n\n\u201cI\u2019m just going to say _How-do-you-do?_ to Susan,\u201d replies the man. And\nhe passes without a scratch.\n\nWhen the cock crows, he says \u201c_How-do-you-do?_\u201d\n\n\u201c_How-do-you-do Peter? How-do-you-do? old liar!_\u201d\n\n\u201c_How-do-you-do, Oh Sun!_\u201d\n\nA challenge and a greeting.\n\nWe live in a multiple universe. I am a chick that absolutely refuses to\nchirp inside the monistic egg. See me walk forth, with a bit of\negg-shell sticking to my tail!\n\nWhen the cuckoo, the cow, and the coffee-plant chipped the Mundane Egg,\nat various points, they stepped out, and immediately set off in\ndifferent directions. Not different directions of space and time, but\ndifferent directions in creation: within the fourth dimension. The\ncuckoo went cuckoo-wards, the cow went cow-wise, and the coffee-plant\nstarted coffing. Three very distinct roads across the fourth dimension.\n\n    The cow was dumb, and the cuckoo too.\n    They went their ways, as creatures do,\n    Till they chanced to meet, in the Lord\u2019s green Zoo.\n\n    The bird gave a cluck, the cow gave a coo,\n    At the sight of each other the pair of them flew\n    Into tantrums, and started their hullabaloo.\n\n    They startled creation; and when they were through\n    Each said to the other: till I came across you\n    I wasn\u2019t aware of the things I could do!\n\n    Cuckoo!\n    Moo!\n    Cuckoo!\n\nAnd this, I hold, is the true history of evolution.\n\nThe Greeks made equilibrium their goal. Equilibrium is hardly a goal to\ntravel towards. Yet it\u2019s something to attain. You travel in the fourth\ndimension, not in yards and miles, like the eternal serpent.\n\nEquilibrium argues either a dualistic or a pluralistic universe. The\nGreeks, being sane, were pantheists and pluralists, and so am I.\n\nCreation is a fourth dimension, and in it there are all sorts of things,\ngods and what-not. That brown hen, scratching with her hind leg in such\ncommon fashion, is a sort of goddess in the creative dimension. Of\ncourse, if you stay outside the fourth dimension, and try to measure\ncreation in length, breadth and height, you\u2019ve set yourself the\ndifficult task of measuring up the Monad, the Mundane Egg. Which is a\ngame, like any other. The solution is, of course (let me whisper): _put\nhis tail in his mouth!_\n\nOnce you realise that, willy nilly, you\u2019re _inside_ the Monad, you give\nit up. You\u2019re inside it and you always will be. Therefore, Jonah, sit\nstill in the whale\u2019s belly, and have a look round. For you\u2019ll never\nmeasure the whale, since you\u2019re inside him.\n\nAnd then you see it\u2019s a fourth dimension, with all sorts of gods and\ngoddesses in it. That brown hen, who, being a Rhode Island Red, is big\nand stuffy like plush-upholstery, is of course, a goddess in her own\nrights. If I myself had to make a poem to her, I should begin:\n\n    Oh my flat-footed plush armchair\n    So commonly scratching in the yard--!\n\nBut this poem would only reveal my own limitations.\n\nBecause Flat-foot is the favourite of the white leghorn cock, and he\nshakes the tid-bit for her with a most wooing noise, and when she lays\nan egg, he bristles like a double white poppy, and rushes to meet her,\nas she flounders down from the chicken-house, and his echo of her\n_I\u2019ve-laid-an-egg_ cackle is rich and resonant. Every pine-tree on the\nmountains hears him:\n\n    She\u2019s} _laid an egg_!\n    I\u2019ve}\n\n    She\u2019s} _laid an egg_!\n    I\u2019ve}\n\nAnd his poem would be:\n\n    \u201cOh you who make me feel so good, when you sit next me on the perch\n    At night! (temporarily, of course!)\n    Oh you who make my feathers bristle with the vanity of life!\n    Oh you whose cackle makes my throat go off like a rocket!\n    Oh you who walk so slowly, and make me feel swifter\n    Than my boss!\n    Oh you who bend your head down, and move in the under\n    Circle, while I prance in the upper!\n    Oh you, come! come! come! for here is a bit of fat from\n    The roast veal; I am shaking it for you.\u201d\n\nIn the fourth dimension, in the creative world, we live in a pluralistic\nuniverse, full of gods and strange gods and unknown gods; a universe\nwhere that Rhode Island Red hen is a goddess in her own right and the\nwhite cock is a god indisputable, with a little red ring on his leg:\nwhich the boss put there.\n\nWhy? Why, I mean, is he a god?\n\nBecause he is something that nothing else is. Certainly he is something\nthat I am not.\n\nAnd she is something that neither he is nor I am.\n\nWhen she scratches and finds a bug in the earth, she seems fairly to\ngobble down the monad of all monads; and when she lays, she certainly\nthinks she\u2019s put the Mundane Egg in the nest.\n\nJust part of her naive nature!\n\nAs for the goal, which doesn\u2019t exist, but which we are always coming\nback to: well, it doesn\u2019t spatially, or temporally, or eternally exist:\nbut in the fourth dimension, it does.\n\nWhat the Greeks called equilibrium: what I call relationship.\nEquilibrium is just a bit mechanical. It became very mechanical with the\nGreeks: an intellectual nail put through it.\n\nI don\u2019t _want_ to be \u201cgood\u201d or \u201crighteous\u201d--and I won\u2019t even be\n\u201cvirtuous\u201d, unless \u201cvir\u201d means a man, and \u201cvis\u201d means the life-river.\n\nBut I _do_ want to be alive. And to be alive, I must have a goal in the\n_creative_, not the _spatial_ universe.\n\nI want, in the Greek sense, an equilibrium between me and the rest of\nthe universe. That is, I want a relationship between me and the brown\nhen.\n\nThe Greek equilibrium took too much for granted. The Greek never asked\nthe brown hen, nor the horse, nor the swan, if it would kindly be\nequilibrated with him. He took it for granted that hen and horse would\nbe only too delighted.\n\nYou can\u2019t take it for granted. That brown hen is extraordinarily callous\nto my god-like presence. She doesn\u2019t even choose to know me to nod to.\nIf I\u2019ve got to strike a balance between us, I\u2019ve got to work at it.\n\nBut that is what I want: that she shall nod to me, with a\n\u201c_Howdy!_\u201d--and I shall nod to her, more politely: \u201c_How-do-you-do,\nFlat-foot?_\u201d And between us there shall exist the third thing, the\n_connaissance_. That is the goal.\n\nI shall not betray myself nor my own life-passion for her. When she\nwalks into my bedroom and makes droppings in my shoes, I shall chase her\nwith disgust, and she will flutter and squawk. And I shall not ask her\nto be human for my sake.\n\nThat is the mistake the Greeks made. They talked about equilibrium, and\nthen, when they wanted to equilibrate themselves with a horse, or an ox,\nor an acanthus, then horse, ox, and acanthus had to become nine-tenths\nhuman, to accommodate them. Call that equilibrium?\n\nAs a matter of fact, we don\u2019t call it equilibrium, we call it\nanthropomorphism. And anthropomorphism is a bore. Too much anthropos\nmakes the world a dull hole.\n\nSo Greek sculpture tends to become a bore. If it\u2019s a horse, it\u2019s an\nanthropomorphised horse. If it\u2019s a Praxiteles _Hermes_, it\u2019s a Hermes so\nPraxitelised, that it begins sugarily to bore us.\n\nEquilibrium, in its very best sense--in the sense the Greeks\n_originally_ meant it--stands for the strange spark that flies between\ntwo creatures, two things that are equilibrated, or in living\nrelationship. It is a goal: to come to that state when the spark will\nfly from me to Flat-foot, the brown hen, and from her to me.\n\nI shall leave off addressing her: \u201c_Oh my flat-footed plush arm-chair!_\u201d\nI realise that is only impertinent anthropomorphism on my part. She\nmight as well address me: \u201c_Oh my skin-flappy split pole!_\u201d Which would\nbe like her impudence. Skin-flappy, of course, would refer to my blue\nshirt and baggy cord trousers. How would _she_ know I don\u2019t grow them\nlike a loose skin!\n\nIn the early Greeks, the spark between man and man, stranger and\nstranger, man and woman, stranger and strangeress, was alive and vivid.\nEven those Doric Apollos.\n\nIn the Egyptians, the spark between man and the living universe remains\nalight for ever in those early, silent, motionless statues of Pharaohs.\nThey say, it is the statue of the soul of the man. But what is the soul\nof a man, except _that_ in him which is himself alone, suspended in\nimmediate relationship to the sum of things? Not isolated or cut off.\nThe Greeks began the cutting apart business. And Rodin\u2019s remerging was\nonly an intellectual tacking on again.\n\nThe serpent hasn\u2019t got his tail in his mouth. He is on the alert, with\nlifted head like a listening, sparky flower. The Egyptians knew.\n\nBut when the oldest Egyptians carve a hawk or a Sekhet-cat, or paint\nbirds or oxen or people: and when the Assyrians carve a she-lion: and\nwhen the cave-men drew the charging bison, or the reindeer, in the caves\nof Altamira: or when the Hindoo paints geese or elephants or lotus in\nthe great caves of India whose name I forget--Ajanta!--then how\nmarvellous it is! How marvellous is the living relationship between man\nand his object! be it man or woman, bird, beast, flower or rock or rain:\nthe exquisite frail moment of pure conjunction, which, in the fourth\ndimension, is timeless. An Egyptian hawk, a Chinese painting of a camel,\nan Assyrian sculpture of a lion, an African fetish idol of a woman\npregnant, an Aztec rattlesnake, an early Greek Apollo, a cave-man\u2019s\npaintings of a Pre-historic mammoth, on and on, how perfect the timeless\nmoments between man and the other Pan-creatures of this earth of ours!\n\nAnd by the way, speaking of cave-men, how did those prognathous\nsemi-apes of Altamira come to depict so delicately, so beautifully, a\nfemale bison charging, with swinging udder, or deer stooping feeding, or\nan antediluvian mammoth deep in contemplation. It is art on a pure, high\nlevel, beautiful as Plato, far, far more \u201ccivilized\u201d than Burne Jones.\nHadn\u2019t somebody better write Mr. Wells\u2019 History backwards, to prove how\nwe\u2019ve degenerated, in our stupid visionlessness, since the cave-men?\n\nThe pictures in the cave represent moments of purity which are the quick\nof civilization. The pure relation between the cave-man and the deer:\nfifty per-cent. man, and fifty per-cent. bison, or mammoth, or deer. It\nis not ninety-nine per-cent. man, and one per-cent. horse: as in a\nRaphael horse. Or hundred per-cent. fool, as when F. G. Watts sculpts a\nbronze horse and calls it Physical Energy.\n\nIf it is to be life, then it is fifty per-cent. me, fifty per-cent.\nthee: and the third thing, the spark, which springs from out of the\nbalance, is timeless. Jesus, who saw it a bit vaguely, called it the\nHoly Ghost.\n\nBetween man and woman, fifty per-cent. man and fifty per-cent. woman:\nthen the pure spark. Either this, or less than nothing.\n\nAs for ideal relationships, and pure love, you might as well start to\nwater tin pansies with carbolic acid (which is pure enough, in the\nantiseptic sense) in order to get the Garden of Paradise.\n\n\n\n\nBLESSED ARE THE POWERFUL\n\n\n\n\nBLESSED ARE THE POWERFUL\n\n\nThe reign of love is passing, and the reign of power is coming again.\n\nThe day of popular democracy is nearly done. Already we are entering the\ntwilight, towards the night that is at hand.\n\nBefore the darkness comes, it is as well to take our directions.\n\nIt is time to enquire into the nature of power, so that we do not\ncrassly blunder into a new era: or fall down the gulf of anarchy, in the\ndark, as we cross the borders.\n\nWe have a confused idea, that _will_ and power are somehow identical. We\nthink we can have a will-to-power.\n\nA will-to-power seems to work out as bullying. And bullying is something\ndespicable and detestable.\n\nTyranny, too, which seems to us the apotheosis of power, is detestable.\n\nIt comes from our mistaken idea of power. It comes from the ancient\nmistake, old as Moses, of confusing power with _will_. The _power_ of\nGod, and the _will_ of God, we have imagined identical. We need only\nthink for a moment, and we can see the vastness of difference between\nthe two.\n\nThe Jews, in Moses\u2019 time, and again particularly in the time of the\nKings, came to look upon Jehovah as the apotheosis of arbitrary _will_.\nThis is the root of a very great deal of evil; an old, old root.\n\nWill is no more than an attribute of the ego. It is, as it were, the\naccelerator of the engine: or the instrument which increases the\npressure. A man may have a strong will, an iron will, as we say, and yet\nbe a stupid mechanical instrument, useful simply as an instrument,\nwithout any _power_ at all.\n\nAn instrument, even an iron one, has no power. The power has to be put\ninto it. This is true of men with iron wills, just the same.\n\nThe Jews made the mistake of deifying Will, the ethical Will of God. The\nGermans again made the mistake of deifying the egoistic Will of Man: the\nwill-to-power.\n\nThere is a certain inherent stupidity in apotheosised Will, and a\nconsequent inevitable inferiority in the devotees thereof. They all have\nan inferiority complex.\n\nBecause power is not in the least like Will. Power comes to us, we know\nnot how, from beyond. Whereas our will is our own.\n\nWhen a man prides himself on something that is just in himself, part of\nhis own ego, he falls into conceit, and conceit carries an inferiority\ncomplex as its shadow.\n\nIf a man, or a race, or a nation is to be anything at all, he must have\nthe generosity to admit that his strength comes to him from beyond. It\nis not his own, self-generated. It comes as electricity comes, out of\nnowhere into somewhere.\n\nIt is no good trying to intellectualise about it. All attempts to argue\nand intellectualise merely strangle the passages of the heart. We wish\nto keep our hearts open. Therefore we brush aside argument and\nintellectual haggling.\n\nThe intellect is one of the most curious instruments of the psyche. But,\nlike the will, it is only an instrument. And it works only under\npressure of the will.\n\nBy willing and by intellectualising we have done all we can, for the\ntime being. We only exhaust ourselves, and lose our lives--that is, our\nlivingness, our power to live--by any further straining of the will and\nthe intellect. It is time to take our hands off the throttle: knowing\nwell enough what we are about, and choosing our course of action with a\nsteady heart.\n\nTo take one\u2019s hand off the throttle is not the same as to let go the\nreins.\n\nMan lives to live, and for no other reason. And life is not mere length\nof days. Many people hang on, and hang on, into a corrupt old age, just\nbecause they have _not_ lived, and therefore cannot let go.\n\nWe must live. And to live, life must be in us. It must come to us, the\npower of life, and we must not try to get a strangle-hold upon it. From\nbeyond comes to us the life, the power to live, and we must wisely keep\nour hearts open.\n\nBut the life will not come _unless_ we live. That is the whole point.\n\u201cTo him that hath shall be given.\u201d To him that hath life shall be given\nlife: on condition, of course, that he lives.\n\nAnd again, life does not mean length of days. Poor old Queen Victoria\nhad length of days. But Emily Bront\u00eb had life. She died of it.\n\nAnd again \u201cliving\u201d doesn\u2019t mean just doing certain things: running after\nwomen, or digging a garden, or working an engine, or becoming a member\nof Parliament. Just because, for Lord Byron, to sleep with a \u201ccrowned\nhead\u201d was life itself, it doesn\u2019t follow that it will be life for _me_\nto sleep with a crowned head, or even a head uncrowned. Sleeping with\nheads is no joke, anyhow. And living won\u2019t even consist in jazzing or\nmotoring or going to Wembley, just because most folks do it. Living\nconsists in doing what you really, vitally want to do: what the _life_\nin you wants to do, not what your ego imagines you want to do. And to\nfind out _how_ the life in you wants to be lived, and to live it, is\nterribly difficult. Somebody has to give us a clue.\n\nAnd this is the real _exercise_ of power.\n\nThat settles two points. First, power is life rushing in to us. Second,\nthe exercise of power is the setting of life in motion.\n\nAnd this is very far from _Will_.\n\nIf you want a dictator, whether it is Lenin, or Mussolini, or Primo de\nRivera, ask, not whether he can set money in circulation, but if he can\nset life in motion, by dictating to his people.\n\nNow, although we hate to admit it, Lenin did set life a good deal in\nmotion, for the Russian proletariat. The Russian proletariat was like a\nchild that had been kept under too much. So it was dying to be free. It\nwas crazy to keep house for itself.\n\nNow, like a child, it is keeping house for itself, without Papa or Mama\nto interfere. And naturally it enjoys it. For the time it\u2019s a game.\n\nBut for us, English or American or French or German people, it would not\nbe a game. We have more or less kept house for ourselves for a long\ntime, and it\u2019s not very thrilling after years of it.\n\nSo a Lenin wouldn\u2019t do us any good. He wouldn\u2019t set any life going in us\nat all.\n\nThe Gallic and Latin blood isn\u2019t thrilled about keeping house, anyhow.\nIt wants Glory, or else Glory. Glory on horse-back, or Glory upset. If\nthere was any Glory to upset, either in France or Italy or Spain, then\ncommunism might flourish. But since there isn\u2019t even a spark of Glory to\nblow out--Alfonso! Victor Emmanuel! Poincar\u00e9!--what\u2019s the good of\nblowing?\n\nSo they set up a little harmless Glory in baggy trousers--Papa\nMussolini--or a bit of fat, self-loving but amiable elder-brother Glory\nin General de Rivera: and they call it power. And the democratic world\nholds up its hands, and moans: \u201c_Dictators! Tyranny!_\u201d While the\nconservative world cheers loudly, and cries: \u201c_The Man! The Man! El\nhombre! L\u2019uomo! L\u2019homme! Hooray!!!_\u201d\n\nBunk!\n\nWe want life. And we want the power of life. We want to feel the power\nof life in ourselves.\n\nWe\u2019re sick of being soft, and amiable, and harmless. We\u2019re sick to death\nof even enjoying ourselves. We\u2019re a bit ashamed of our own existence. Or\nif we aren\u2019t we ought to be.\n\nBut what then? Shall we exclaim, in a fat voice: \u201c_Aha! Power! Glory!\nForce! The Man!_\u201d--and proceed to set up a harmless Mussolini, or a fat\nRivera? Well, let us, if we want to. Only it won\u2019t make the slightest\ndifference to our real living. Except it\u2019s probably a good thing to have\nthe press--the newspaper press--crushed under the up-to-date rubber heel\nof a tyrannous but harmless dictator.\n\nWe won\u2019t speak of poor old Hindenburg. Except, why didn\u2019t they set up\nhis wooden statue with all the nails knocked into it, for a President?\nFor surely they drove _something_ in, with those nails!\n\nWe had a harmless dictator, in Mr. Lloyd George. Better go ahead with\nthe Houses of Representatives, than have another shot in that direction.\n\nPower! How can there be power in politics, when politics is money?\n\nMoney is power, they say. Is it? Money is to power what margarine is to\nbutter: a nasty substitute.\n\nNo, power is something you\u2019ve got to respect, even revere, before you\ncan have it. It isn\u2019t bossing, or bullying, hiring a manservant or\nSalvationising your social inferior, issuing loud orders and getting\nyour own way, doing your opponent down. That isn\u2019t power.\n\nPower is _pouvoir_: to be able to.\n\nMight: the ability to make: to bring about that which may-be.\n\nAnd where are we to get Power, or Might, or Glory, or Honour, or Wisdom?\n\nOut of Lloyd George, or Lenin, or Mussolini, or Rivera, or anything else\npolitical?\n\nBah! It has to be in the people, before it can come out in politics.\n\nDo we _want_ Power, Might, Glory, Honour, and Wisdom?\n\nIf we do, we\u2019d better start to get them, each man for himself.\n\nBut if we don\u2019t, we\u2019d better continue our lick-spittling course of being\nas happy, as happy as Kings.\n\n    \u201cThe world is so full of a number of things\n    We ought all to be happy, as happy as Kings.\u201d\n\nWhich Kings, might we ask? Better be careful!\n\nMyself I want Power. But I don\u2019t want to boss anybody.\n\nI want Honour. But I don\u2019t see any existing nation or government that\ncould give it me.\n\nI want Glory. But heaven save me from mankind.\n\nI want Might. But perhaps I\u2019ve got it.\n\nThe first thing, of course, is to open one\u2019s heart to the source of\nPower, and Might, and Glory, and Honour. It just depends, which gates of\none\u2019s heart one opens. You can open the humble gate, or the proud gate.\nOr you can open both, and see what comes.\n\nBest open both, and take the responsibility. But set a guard at each\ngate, to keep out the liars, the snivellers, the mongrel and the greedy.\n\nHowever smart we be, however rich and clever or loving or charitable or\nspiritual or impeccable, it doesn\u2019t help us at all. The real power comes\nin to us from beyond. Life enters us from behind, where we are\nsightless, and from below, where we do not understand.\n\nAnd unless we yield to the beyond, and take our power and might and\nhonour and glory from the unseen, from the unknown, we shall continue\nempty. We may have length of days. But an empty tin can lasts longer\nthan Alexander lived.\n\nSo, anomalous as it may sound, if we want power, we must put aside our\nown will, and our own conceit, and _accept_ power, from the beyond.\n\nAnd having admitted the power from the beyond into us, we must abide by\nit, and not traduce it. Courage, discipline, inward isolation, these are\nthe conditions upon which power will abide in us.\n\nAnd between brave people there will be the communion of power, prior to\nthe communion of love. The communion of power does not exclude the\ncommunion of love. It includes it. The communion of love is only a part\nof the greater communion of power.\n\nPower is the supreme quality of God and man: the power to cause, the\npower to create, the power to make, the power to do, the power to\ndestroy. And then, between those things which are created or made, love\nis the supreme binding relationship. And between those who, with a\nsingle impulse, set out passionately to destroy what must be destroyed,\njoy flies like electric sparks, within the communion of power.\n\nLove is simply and purely a relationship, and in a pure relationship\nthere can be nothing but equality; or at least equipoise.\n\nBut Power is more than a relationship. It is like electricity, it has\ndifferent degrees. Men are powerful or powerless, more or less: we know\nnot how or why. But it is so. And the communion of power will always be\na communion in inequality.\n\nIn the end, as in the beginning, it is always Power that rules the\nworld! There _must be_ rule. And only Power can rule. Love cannot,\nshould not, does not seek to. The statement that love rules the camp,\nthe court, the grove, is a lie; and the fact that such love has to rhyme\nwith \u201cgrove\u201d, proves it. Power rules and will always rule. Because it\nwas Power that created us all. The act of love itself is an act of\npower, original as original sin. The power is given us.\n\nAs soon as there is an _act_, even in love, it is power. Love itself is\npurely a relationship.\n\nBut in an age that, like ours, has lost the mystery of power, and the\nreverence for power, a false power is substituted: the power of money.\nThis is a power based on the force of human envy and greed, nothing\nmore. So nations naturally become more envious and greedy every day.\nWhile individuals ooze away in a cowardice that they call love. They\ncall it love, and peace, and charity, and benevolence, when it is mere\ncowardice. Collectively they are hideously greedy and envious.\n\nTrue power, as distinct from the spurious power, which is merely the\nforce of certain human vices directed and intensified by the human\nwill: true power never belongs to us. It is given us, from the beyond.\n\nEven the simplest form of power, physical strength, is not our own, to\ndo as we like with. As Samson found.\n\nBut power is given differently, in varying degrees and varying kind to\ndifferent people. It always was so, it always will be so. There will\nnever be equality in power. There will always be unending inequality.\n\nNowadays, when the only power is the power of human greed and envy, the\ngreatest men in the world are men like Mr. Ford, who can satisfy the\nmodern lust, we can call it nothing else, for owning a motorcar: or men\nlike the great financiers, who can soar on wings of greed to uncanny\nheights, and even can spiritualise greed.\n\nThey talk about \u201cequal opportunity\u201d: but it is bunk, ridiculous bunk. It\nis the old fable of the fox asking the stork to dinner. All the food is\nto be served in a shallow dish, levelled to perfect equality, and you\nget what you can.\n\nIf you\u2019re a fox, like the born financier, you get a bellyful and more.\nIf you\u2019re a stork, or a flamingo, or even a _man_, you have the food\ngobbled from under your nose, and you go comparatively empty.\n\nIs the fox, then, or the financier, the highest animal in creation? Bah!\n\nHumanity never bunked itself so thoroughly as with the bunk of\nequality, even qualified down to \u201cequal opportunity\u201d.\n\nIn living life, we are all born with different powers, and different\ndegrees of power: some higher, some lower. The only thing to do is\nhonorably to accept it, and to live in the communion of power. Is it not\nbetter to serve a man in whom power lives, than to clamour for equality\nwith Mr. Motor-car Ford, or Mr. Shady Stinnes? Pfui! to your equality\nwith such men! It gives me gooseflesh.\n\nHow much better it must have been, to be a colonel under Napoleon, than\nto be a Marshal Foch! Oh! how much better it must have been, to live in\nterror of Peter the Great--who was great--than to be a member of the\nproletariat under Comrade Lenin: or even to _be_ Comrade Lenin: though\neven he was greatish, far greater than any extant millionaire.\n\nPower is beyond us. Either it is given us from the unknown, or we have\nnot got it. And better to touch it in another, than never to know it.\nBetter be a Russian and shoot oneself out of sheer terror of Peter the\nGreat\u2019s displeasure, than to live like a well-to-do American, and never\nknow the mystery of Power at all. Live in blank sterility.\n\nFor Power is the first and greatest of all mysteries. It is the mystery\nthat is behind all our being, even behind all our existence. Even the\nPhallic erection is a first blind movement of power. Love is said to\ncall the power into motion: but it is probably the reverse: that the\nslumbering _power_ calls love into being.\n\nPower is manifold. There is physical strength, like Samson\u2019s. There is\nracial power, like David\u2019s or Mahomet\u2019s. There is mental power, like\nthat of Socrates, and ethical power, like that of Moses, and spiritual\npower, like Jesus\u2019 or like Buddha\u2019s, and mechanical power, like that of\nStephenson, or military power, like Napoleon\u2019s, or political power, like\nPitt\u2019s. These are all true manifestations of power, coming out of the\nunknown.\n\nUnlike the millionaire power, which comes out of the known forces of\nhuman greed and envy.\n\nPower puts something new into the world. It may be Edison\u2019s gramaphone,\nor Newton\u2019s Law or C\u00e6sar\u2019s Rome or Jesus\u2019 Christianity, or even Attila\u2019s\ncharred ruins and emptied spaces. Something new displaces something old,\nand sometimes room has to be cleared beforehand.\n\nThen power is obvious. Power is much more obvious in its destructive\nthan in its constructive activity. A tree falls with a crash. It grew\nwithout a sound.\n\nYet true destructive power is power just the same as constructive. Even\nAttila, the Scourge of God, who helped to scourge the Roman world out of\nexistence, was great with power. He was the scourge of _God_: not the\nscourge of the League of Nations, hired and paid in cash.\n\nIf it must be a scourge, let it be a scourge of God. But let it be\npower, the old divine power. The moment the divine power manifests\nitself, it is right: whether it be Attila or Napoleon or George\nWashington. But Lloyd George, and Woodrow Wilson, and Lenin, they never\nhad the right smell. They never even roused real fear: no real passion.\nWhereas a manifestation of real power arouses passion, and always will.\n\nTime it should again.\n\nBlessed are the powerful, for theirs is the kingdom of earth.\n\n\n\n\n... LOVE WAS ONCE A LITTLE BOY\n\n\n\n\n... LOVE WAS ONCE A LITTLE BOY\n\n\nCollapse, as often as not, is the result of persisting in an old\nattitude towards some important relationship, which, in the course of\ntime, has changed its nature.\n\nLove itself is a relationship, which changes as all things change, save\nabstractions. If you want something really more durable than diamonds\nyou must be content with eternal truths like \u201ctwice two are four\u201d.\n\nLove is a relationship between things that live, holding them together\nin a sort of unison. There are other vital relationships. But love is\nthis special one.\n\nIn every living thing there is the desire, for love, or for the\nrelationship of unison with the rest of things. That a tree should\ndesire to develop itself between the power of the sun, and the opposite\npull of the earth\u2019s centre, and to balance itself between the four winds\nof heaven, and to unfold itself between the rain and the shine, to have\nroots and feelers in blue heaven and innermost earth, both, this is a\nmanifestation of love: a knitting together of the diverse cosmos into a\noneness, a tree.\n\nAt the same time, the tree must most powerfully exert itself and defend\nitself, to maintain its own integrity against the rest of things.\n\nSo that love, as a desire, is balanced against the opposite desire, to\nmaintain the integrity of the individual self.\n\nHate is not the opposite of love. The real opposite of love is\nindividuality.\n\nWe live in the age of individuality, we call ourselves the servants of\nlove. That is to say, we enact a perpetual paradox.\n\nTake the love of a man and a woman, today. As sure as you start with a\ncase of \u201ctrue love\u201d between them, you end with a terrific struggle and\nconflict of the two opposing egos or individualities. It is nobody\u2019s\nfault: it is the inevitable result of trying to snatch an intensified\nindividuality out of the mutual flame.\n\nLove, as a relationship of unison, means and must mean, _to some\nextent_, the sinking of the individuality. Woman for centuries was\nexpected to sink her individuality into that of her husband and family.\nNowadays the tendency is to insist that a man shall sink his\nindividuality into his job, or his business, primarily, and secondarily\ninto his wife and family.\n\nAt the same time, education and the public voice urges man and woman\ninto intenser individualism. The sacrifice takes the old symbolic form\nof throwing a few grains of incense on the altar. A certain amount of\ntime, labor, money, emotion are sacrificed on the altar of love, by man\nand woman: especially emotion. But each calculates the sacrifice. And\nman and woman alike, each saves his individual ego, her individual ego,\nintact, as far as possible, in the scrimmage of love. Most of our talk\nabout love is cant, and bunk. The treasure of treasures to man and woman\ntoday is his own, or her own ego. And this ego, each hopes it will\nflourish like a salamander in the flame of love and passion. Which it\nwell may: but for the fact that there are two salamanders in the same\nflame, and they fight till the flame goes out. Then they become grey\ncold lizards of the vulgar ego.\n\nIt is much easier, of course, when there _is_ no flame. Then there is no\nserious fight.\n\nYou can\u2019t worship love and individuality in the same breath. Love is a\nmutual relationship, like a flame between wax and air. If either wax or\nair insists on getting its own way, or getting its own back too much,\nthe flame goes out and the unison disappears. At the same time, if one\nyields itself up to the other entirely, there is a guttering mess. You\nhave to balance love and individuality, and actually sacrifice a portion\nof each.\n\nYou have to have some sort of balance.\n\nThe Greeks said equilibrium. But whereas you can quite nicely balance a\npound of butter against a pound of cheese, it is quite another matter to\nbalance a rose and a ruby. Still more difficult is it to put male man in\none scale and female woman in the other, and equilibrate that little\npair of opposites.\n\nUnless, of course, you abstract them. It\u2019s easy enough to balance a\ncitizen against a citizeness, a Christian against a Christian, a spirit\nagainst a spirit, or a soul against a soul. There\u2019s a formula for each\ncase. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, etc., etc.\n\nBut the moment you put young Tom in one scale, and young Kate in the\nother: why, not God Himself has succeeded as yet in striking a nice\nlevel balance. Probably doesn\u2019t intend to, ever.\n\nProbably it\u2019s one of the things that are most fascinating because they\nare _nearly_ possible, yet absolutely impossible. Still, a miss is\nbetter than a mile. You can at least draw blood.\n\nHow can I equilibrate myself with my black cow Susan? I call her daily\nat six o\u2019clock. And sometimes she comes. But sometimes, again, she\ndoesn\u2019t, and I have to hunt her away among the timber. Possibly she is\nlying peacefully in cowy inertia, like a black Hindu statue, among the\noak-scrub. Then she rises with a sighing heave. My calling was a mere\nnothing against the black stillness of her cowy passivity.\n\nOr possibly she is away down in the bottom corner, lowing _sotto voce_\nand blindly to some far-off, inaccessible bull. Then when I call at her,\nand approach, she screws round her tail and flings her sharp, elastic\nhaunch in the air with a kick and a flick, and plunges off like a buck\nrabbit, or like a black demon among the pine trees, her udder swinging\nlike a chime of bells. Or possibly the coyotes have been howling in the\nnight along the top fence. And then I call in vain. It\u2019s a question of\nsaddling a horse and sifting the bottom timber. And there at last the\nhorse suddenly winces, starts: and with a certain pang of fear I too\ncatch sight of something black and motionless and alive, and terribly\nsilent, among the tree-trunks. It is Susan, her ears apart, standing\nlike some spider suspended motionless by a thread, from the web of the\neternal silence. The strange faculty she has, cow-given, of becoming a\nsuspended ghost, hidden in the very crevices of the atmosphere! It is\nsomething in her _will_. It is her tarnhelm. And then, she doesn\u2019t know\nme. If I am afoot, she knows my voice, but not the advancing me, in a\nblue shirt and cord trousers. She waits, suspended by the thread, till I\ncome close. Then she reaches forward her nose, to smell. She smells my\nhand: gives a little snort, exhaling her breath, with a kind of\ncontempt, turns, and ambles up towards the homestead, perfectly assured.\nIf I am on horse-back, although she knows the grey horse perfectly well,\nat the same time she _doesn\u2019t_ know what it is. She waits till the\nwicked Azul, who is a born cow-punching pony, advances mischievously at\nher. Then round she swings, as if on the blast of some sudden wind, and\nwith her ears back, her head rather down, her black back curved, up she\ngoes, through the timber, with surprising, swimming swiftness. And the\nAzul, snorting with jolly mischief, dashes after her. And when she is\nsafely in her milking place, still she watches with her great black eyes\nas I dismount. And she has to smell my hand before the cowy peace of\nbeing milked enters her blood. Till then, there is something _roaring_\nin the chaos of her universe. When her cowy peace comes, then her\nuniverse is silent, and like the sea with an even tide, without sail or\nsmoke: nothing.\n\nThat is Susan, my black cow.\n\nAnd how am I going to equilibrate myself with her? Or even, if you\nprefer the word, to get in harmony with her?\n\nEquilibrium? Harmony? with that black blossom! Try it!\n\nShe doesn\u2019t even know me. If I put on a pair of white trousers, she\nwheels away as if the devil was on her back. I have to go behind her,\ntalk to her, stroke her, and let her smell my hand; and smell the white\ntrousers. She doesn\u2019t know they are trousers. She doesn\u2019t know that I am\na gentleman on two feet. Not she. Something mysterious happens in her\nblood and her being, when she smells me and my nice white trousers.\n\nYet she knows me, too. She likes to linger, while one talks to her. She\nknows quite well she makes me mad when she swings her tail in my face.\nSo sometimes she swings it, just on purpose: and looks at me out of the\nblack corner of her great, pure-black eye, when I yell at her. And when\nI find her, away down the timber, when she is a ghost, and lost to the\nworld, like a spider dangling in the void of chaos, then she is\nrelieved. She comes to, out of a sort of trance, and is relieved,\ntrotting up home with a queer, jerky cowy gladness. But she is never\n_really_ glad, as the horses are. There is always a certain untouched\nchaos in her.\n\nWhere she is when she\u2019s _in_ the trance, heaven only knows.\n\nThat\u2019s Susan! I have a certain relation to her. But that she and I are\nin equilibrium, or in harmony, I would never guarantee while the world\nstands. As for her individuality being in balance with mine, one can\nonly feel the great blank of the gulf.\n\nYet a relationship there is. She knows my touch and she goes very still\nand peaceful, being milked. I, too, I know her smell and her warmth and\nher feel. And I share some of her cowy silence, when I milk her. There\n_is_ a sort of relation between us. And this relation is part of the\nmystery of love: the individuality on each side, mine and Susan\u2019s,\nsuspended in the relationship.\n\n    Cow Susan by the forest\u2019s rim\n    A black-eyed Susan was to him\n      And nothing more--\n\nOne understands Wordsworth and the primrose and the yokel. The yokel had\nno relation at all--or next to none--with the primrose. Wordsworth\ngathered it into his own bosom and made it part of his own nature. \u201cI,\nWilliam, am also a yellow primrose blossoming on a bank.\u201d This, we must\nassert, is an impertinence on William\u2019s part. He ousts the primrose from\nits own individuality. He doesn\u2019t allow it to call its soul its own. It\nmust be identical with _his_ soul. Because, of course, by begging the\nquestion, there is but One Soul in the universe.\n\nThis is bunk. A primrose has its own peculiar primrosy identity, and all\nthe oversouling in the world won\u2019t melt it into a Williamish oneness.\nNeither will the yokel\u2019s remarking: \u201cNay, boy, that\u2019s nothing. It\u2019s only\na primrose!\u201d--turn the primrose into nothing. The primrose will neither\nbe assimilated nor annihilated, and Boundless Love breaks on the rock of\none more flower. It has its own individuality, which it opens with\nlovely na\u00efvet\u00e9 to sky and wind and William and yokel, bee and beetle\nalike. It _is_ itself. But its very floweriness is a kind of communion\nwith all things: the love unison.\n\nIn this lies the eternal absurdity of Wordsworth\u2019s lines. His own\nbehaviour, primrosely, was as foolish as the yokel\u2019s.\n\n    \u201cA primrose by the river\u2019s brim\n    A yellow primrose was to him\n      And nothing more--\u201d\n\n    A primrose by the river\u2019s brim\n    A yellow primrose was to him\n      And a great deal more--\n\n    A primrose by the river\u2019s brim\n    Lit up its pallid yellow glim\n      Upon the floor--\n\n    And watched old Father William trim\n    His course beside the river\u2019s brim\n      And trembled sore--\n\n    The yokel, going for a swim\n    Had very nearly trod on him\n      An hour before.\n\n    And now the poet\u2019s fingers slim\n    Were reaching out to pluck at him\n      And hurt him more.\n\n    Oh gentlemen, hark to my hymn!\n    To be a primrose is my whim\n      Upon the floor,\n      And nothing more.\n\n    The sky is with me, and the dim\n    Earth clasps my roots. Your shadows skim\n      My face once more....\n      Leave me therefore\n      Upon the floor;\n      Say _au revoir_....\n\nAh William! The \u201csomething more\u201d that the primrose was to you, was\nyourself in the mirror. And if the yokel actually got as far as\nbeholding a \u201cyellow primrose\u201d, he got far enough.\n\nYou see it is not so easy even for a poet to equilibrate himself even\nwith a mere primrose. He didn\u2019t leave it with a soul of its own. It had\nto have his soul. And nature had to be sweet and pure, Williamish.\nSweet-Williamish at that! Anthropomorphised! Anthropomorphism, that\nallows nothing to call its soul its own, save anthropos: and only a\nspecial brand, even of him!\n\nPoetry can tell alluring lies, when we let our feelings, or our ego, run\naway with us.\n\nAnd we must always beware of romance: of people who love nature, or\nflowers, or dogs, or babies, or pure adventure. It means they are\ngetting into a love-swing where everything is easy and nothing opposes\ntheir own egoism. Nature, babies, dogs are so lovable, because they\ncan\u2019t answer back. The primrose, alas! couldn\u2019t pipe up and say: \u201cHey!\nBill! get off the barrow!\u201d\n\nThat\u2019s the best of men and women. There\u2019s bound to be a lot of back\nchat. You can _Lucy Gray_ your woman as hard as you like, one day she\u2019s\nbound to come back at you: \u201cWho are _you_ when you\u2019re at home?\u201d\n\nA man isn\u2019t going to spread his own ego over a woman, as he has done\nover nature and primroses, and dogs, or horses, or babies, or \u201cthe\npeople\u201d, or the proletariat or the poor-and-needy. The old hen takes the\ncock by the beard, and says: \u201c_That\u2019s me, mind you!_\u201d\n\nMan is an individual, and woman is an individual. Which sounds easy.\n\nBut it\u2019s not as easy as it seems. These two individuals are as different\nas chalk and cheese. True, a pound of chalk weighs as much as a pound of\ncheese. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating, not the scales.\n\nThat is to say, you can announce that men and women should be equal and\n_are_ equal. All right. Put them in the scales.\n\nAlas! my wife is about twenty pounds heavier than I am.\n\nNothing to do but to abstract. _L\u2019homme est n\u00e9 libre_: with a napkin\nround his little tail.\n\nNevertheless, I am a citizen, my wife is a citizeness: I can vote, she\ncan vote, I can be sent to prison, she can be sent to prison, I can have\na passport, she can have a passport, I can be an author, she can be an\nauthoress. Ooray! OO-bloomin-ray!\n\nYou see, we are both British subjects. Everybody bow!\n\nSubjects! Subjects! Subjects!\n\n_Madame_ is already shaking herself like a wet hen.\n\nBut yes, my dear! we are both subjects. And as subjects, we enjoy a\nlovely equality, liberty, my dear! Equality! Fraternity or Sorority! my\ndear!\n\nAren\u2019t you pleased?\n\nBut it\u2019s no use talking to a wet hen. That \u201csubject\u201d was a cold douche.\n\nAs subjects, men and women may be equal.\n\nBut as objects, it\u2019s another pair of shoes. Where, I ask you, is the\nequality between an arrow and a horseshoe? or a serpent and a\nsquash-blossom? Find me the equation that equates the cock and the hen.\n\nYou can\u2019t.\n\nAs inhabitants of my backyard, as loyal subjects of my _rancho_, they,\nthe cock and the hen, are equal. When he gets wheat, she gets wheat.\nWhen sour milk is put out, it is as much for him as for her. She is just\nas free to go where she likes, as he is. And if she likes to crow at\nsunrise, she may. There is no law against it. And he can lay an egg, if\nthe fit takes him. Absolutely nothing forbids.\n\nIsn\u2019t that equality? If it isn\u2019t, what is?\n\nEven then, they\u2019re two very different objects.\n\nAs equals, they are just a couple of barnyard fowls, clucking!\ngeneralised!\n\nBut dear me, when he comes prancing up with his red beard shaking, and\nhis eye gleaming, and she comes slowly pottering after, with her nose to\nthe ground, they\u2019re two very different objects. You never think of\nequality: or of inequality, for that matter. They\u2019re a cock and a hen,\nand you accept them as such.\n\nYou don\u2019t think of them as equals, or as unequals. But you think of them\n_together_.\n\nWherein, then, lies the togetherness?\n\nWould you call it love?\n\nI wouldn\u2019t.\n\nTheir two egos are absolutely separate. He\u2019s a cock, she\u2019s a hen. He\nnever thinks of her for a moment, as if she were a cock like himself;\nand she never thinks for a moment that he is a hen like herself. I never\nhear anything in her squawk which would seem to say: \u201c_Aren\u2019t I a fowl\nas much as you are, you brute!_\u201d Whereas I always hear women shrieking\nat their men: \u201cAren\u2019t I a human being as much as you are?\u201d\n\nIt seems beside the point.\n\nI always answer my spouse, with sweet reasonableness: \u201cMy dear, we are\nboth British Subjects. What can I say more, on the score of equality?\nYou are a British Subject as much as I am.\u201d\n\nCuriously, she hates to have it put that way. She wants to be a human\nbeing as much as I am. But absolutely and honestly, I don\u2019t know what a\nhuman-being is. Whereas I do know what a British Subject is. It can be\ndefined.\n\nAnd I can see how a _Civis Romanum_, or a British Subject can be free,\nwhether it\u2019s he or she. The he-ness or the she-ness doesn\u2019t matter. But\nhow a _man_ can consider himself free, I don\u2019t know. Any more than a\ncock-robin or a dandelion.\n\nImagine a dandelion suddenly hissing: \u201c_I am free and I will be free!_\u201d\nThen wriggling on his root like a snake with his tail pegged down!\n\nWhat a horrifying sight!\n\nSo it is when a man, with two legs and a penis, a belly and a mouth\nbegins to shout about being free. One wants to ask: which bit do you\nrefer to?\n\nThere\u2019s a cock and there\u2019s the hen, and their two egos or\nindividualities seem to stay apart without friction. They never coo at\none another, nor hold each other\u2019s hand. I never see her sitting on his\nlap and being petted. True, sometimes he calls for her to come and eat a\ntitbit. And sometimes he dashes at her and walks over her for a moment.\nShe doesn\u2019t seem to mind. I never hear her squawking: \u201c_Don\u2019t you think\nyou can walk over me!_\u201d\n\nYet she\u2019s by no means downtrodden. She\u2019s just herself, and seems to have\na good time: and she doesn\u2019t like it if he is missing.\n\nSo there is this peculiar togetherness about them. You can\u2019t call it\nlove. It would be too ridiculous.\n\nWhat then?\n\nAs far as I can see, it is desire. And the desire has a fluctuating\nintensity, but it is always there. His desire is always towards her,\neven when he has absolutely forgotten her. And by the way she puts her\nfeet down, I can see she always walks in her plumes of desirableness,\neven when she\u2019s going broody.\n\nThe mystery about her, is her strange undying desirableness. You can see\nit in every step she takes. She is desirable. And this is the breath of\nher life.\n\nIt is the same with Susan. The queer cowy mystery of her is her\nchangeless cowy desirableness. She is far, alas, from any bull. She\nnever even remotely dreams of a bull, save at rare and brief periods.\nYet her whole being and motion is that of being desirable: or else\nfractious. It seems to unite her with the very air, and the plants and\ntrees. Even to the sky and the trees and the grass and the running\nstream, she is subtly, delicately and _purely_ desirable, in cowy\ndesirability. It is her cowy mystery. Then her fractiousness is the\nfireworks of her desirableness.\n\nTo me she is fractious, tiresome, and a faggot. Yet the subtle\ndesirableness is in her, for me. As it is in a brown hen, or even a sow.\nIt is like a peculiar charm: the creature\u2019s femaleness, her\ndesirableness. It is her sex, no doubt: but so subtle as to have nothing\nto do with function. It is a mystery, like a delicate flame. It would be\nfalse to call it love, because love complicates the ego. The ego is\nalways concerned in love. But in the frail, subtle desirousness of the\ntrue male, towards everything female, and the equally frail,\nindescribable desirability of every female for every male, lies the real\nclue to the equating, or the _relating_, of things which otherwise are\nincommensurable.\n\nAnd this, this desire, is the reality which is inside love. The ego\nitself plays a false part in it. The individual is like a deep pool, or\ntarn, in the mountains, fed from beneath by unseen springs, and having\nno obvious inlet or outlet. The springs which feed the individual at the\ndepths are sources of power, power from the unknown. But it is not until\nthe stream of desire overflows and goes running downhill into the open\nworld, that the individual has his further, secondary existence.\n\nNow we have imagined love to be something absolute and personal. It is\nneither. In its essence, love is no more than the stream of clear and\nunmuddied, subtle desire which flows from person to person, creature to\ncreature, thing to thing. The moment this stream of delicate but potent\ndesire dries up, the love has dried up, and the joy of life has dried\nup. It\u2019s no good trying to turn on the tap. Desire is either flowing, or\ngone, and the love with it, and the life too.\n\nThis subtle streaming of desire is beyond the control of the ego. The\nego says: \u201cThis is _my_ love, to do as I like with! This is _my_ desire,\ngiven me for my own pleasure.\u201d\n\nBut the ego deceives itself. The individual cannot possess the love\nwhich he himself feels. Neither should he be entirely possessed by it.\nNeither man nor woman should sacrifice individuality to love, nor love\nto individuality.\n\nIf we lose desire out of our life, we become empty vessels. But if we\nbreakout own integrity, we become a squalid mess, like a jar of honey\ndropped and smashed.\n\nThe individual has nothing, really, to do with love. That is, his\nindividuality hasn\u2019t. Out of the deep silence of his individuality runs\nthe stream of desire, into the open squash-blossom of the world. And the\nstream of desire may meet and mingle with the stream from a woman. But\nit is never _himself_ that meets and mingles with _herself_: any more\nthan two lakes, whose waters meet to make one river, in the distance,\nmeet in themselves.\n\nThe two individuals stay apart, for ever and ever. But the two streams\nof desire, like the Blue Nile and the White Nile, from the mountains one\nand from the low hot lake the other, meet and at length mix their\nstrange and alien waters, to make a Nilus Flux.\n\nSee then the childish mistake we have made, about love. We have\n_insisted_ that the two individualities should \u201cfit\u201d. We have insisted\nthat the \u201clove\u201d between man and woman must be \u201cperfect\u201d. What on earth\nthat means, is a mystery. What would a perfect Nilus Flux be?--one that\nnever overflowed its banks? or one that always overflowed its banks? or\none that had exactly the same overflow every year, to a hair\u2019s-breadth?\n\nMy dear, it is absurd. Perfect love is an absurdity. As for casting out\nfear, you\u2019d better be careful. For fear, like curses and chickens, will\nalso come home to roost.\n\nPerfect love, I suppose, means that a married man and woman never\ncontradict one another, and that they both of them always feel the same\nthing at the same moment, and kiss one another on the strength of it.\nWhat blarney! It means, I suppose, that they are absolutely intimate:\nthis precious intimacy that lovers insist on. They tell each other\n_everything_: and if she puts on chiffon knickers, he ties the strings\nfor her: and if he blows his nose, she holds the hanky.\n\nPfui! Is anything so loathsome as intimacy, especially the married sort,\nor the sort that \u201clovers\u201d indulge in!\n\nIt\u2019s a mistake and ends in disaster. Why? Because the individualities\nof men and women are incommensurable, and they will no more meet than\nthe mountains of Abyssinia will meet with Lake Victoria Nyanza. It is\nfar more important to keep them distinct, than to join them. If they are\nto join, they will join in the third land where the two streams of\ndesire meet.\n\nOf course, as citizen and citizeness, as two persons, even as two\nspirits, man and woman can be equal and intimate. But this is their\nouter, more general or common selves. The individual man himself, and\nthe individual woman herself, this is another pair of shoes.\n\nIt is a pity that we have insisted on putting all our eggs in one\nbasket: calling love the basket, and ourselves the eggs. It is a pity we\nhave insisted on being individuals only in the communistic,\nsemi-abstract or generalised sense: as voters, money-owners, \u201cfree\u201d men\nand women: free in so far as we are all alike, and individuals in so far\nas we are commensurable integers.\n\nBy turning ourselves into integers: every man to himself and every woman\nto herself a Number One; an infinite number of Number Ones; we have\ndestroyed ourselves as desirous or desirable individuals, and broken the\ninward sources of our power, and flooded all mankind into one dreary\nmarsh where the rivers of desire lie dead with everything else, except a\nstagnant unity.\n\nIt is a pity of pities women have learned to think like men. Any husband\nwill say, \u201c_they haven\u2019t_.\u201d But they have: they\u2019ve all learned to think\nlike some other beastly man, who is not their husband. Our education\ngoes on and on, on and on, making the sexes alike, destroying the\noriginal individuality of the blood, to substitute for it this dreary\nindividuality of the ego, the Number One. Out of the ego streams neither\nBlue Nile nor White Nile. The infinite number of little human egos makes\na mosquito marsh, where nothing happens except buzzing and biting, ooze\nand degeneration.\n\nAnd they call this marsh, with its poisonous will-o-the-wisps, and its\nclouds of mosquitos, _democracy_, and the reign of love!!\n\nYou can have it.\n\nI am a man, and the Mountains of Abyssinia, and my Blue Nile flows\ntowards the desert. There should be a woman somewhere far South, like a\ngreat lake, sending forth her White Nile towards the desert, too: and\nthe rivers will meet among the Slopes of the World, somewhere.\n\nBut alas, every woman I\u2019ve ever met spends her time saying she\u2019s as good\nas any man, if not better, and she can beat him at his own game. So Lake\nVictoria Nyanza gets up on end, and declares it\u2019s the Mountains of\nAbyssinia, and the Mountains of Abyssinia fall flat and cry: \u201c_You\u2019re\nall that, and more, my dear!_\u201d--and between them, you\u2019re bogged.\n\nI give it up.\n\nBut at any rate it\u2019s nice to know _what\u2019s_ wrong, since wrong it is.\n\nIf we were men, if we were women, our individualities would be lone and\na bit mysterious, like tarns, and fed with power, male power, female\npower, from underneath, invisibly. And from us the streams of desire\nwould flow out in the eternal glimmering adventure, to meet in some\nunknown desert.\n\n_Mais nous avons chang\u00e9 tout cela._\n\nI\u2019ll bet the yokel, even then, was more himself, and the stream of his\ndesire was stronger and more gurgling, than William Wordsworth\u2019s. For a\nlong time the yokel retains his own integrity, and his own real stream\nof desire flows from him. Once you break this, and turn him, who was a\nyokel, into still another Number One, an assertive newspaper-parcel of\nan ego, you\u2019ve done it!\n\nBut don\u2019t, dear, darling reader, when I say \u201cdesire\u201d, immediately\nconclude that I mean a jungleful of rampaging Don Juans and raping buck\nniggers. When I say that a woman should be eternally desirable, _don\u2019t_\nsay that I mean every man should want to sleep with her, the instant he\nsets eyes on her.\n\nOn the contrary. Don Juan was only Don Juan because he _had_ no real\ndesire. He had broken his own integrity, and was a mess to start with.\nNo stream of desire, with a course of its own, flowed from him. He was\na marsh in himself. He mashed and trampled everything up, and desired no\nwoman, so he ran after every one of them, with an itch instead of a\nsteady flame. And tortured by his own itch, he inflamed his itch more\nand more. That\u2019s Don Juan, the man who _couldn\u2019t_ desire a woman. He\nshouldn\u2019t have tried. He should have gone into a monastery at fifteen.\n\nAs for the yokel, his little stream may have flowed out of commonplace\nlittle hills, and been ready to mingle with the streams of any easy,\npuddly little yokeless. But what does it matter! And men are far less\npromiscuous, even then, than we like to pretend. It\u2019s Don Juanery,\nsex-in-the-head, no real desire, which leads to profligacy or squalid\npromiscuity. The yokel usually met desire with desire: which is all\nright: and sufficiently rare to ensure the moral balance.\n\nDesire is a living stream. If we gave free rein, or a free course, to\nour living flow of desire, we shouldn\u2019t go far wrong. It\u2019s quite\ndifferent from giving a free rein to an itching, prurient imagination.\nThat is our vileness.\n\nThe living stream of sexual desire itself does not often, in any man,\nfind its object, its confluent, the stream of desire in a woman into\nwhich it can flow. The two streams flow together, spontaneously, not\noften, in the life of any man or woman. Mostly, men and women alike rush\ninto a sort of prostitution, because our idiotic civilisation has never\nlearned to hold in reverence the true desire-stream. We force our desire\nfrom our ego: and this is deadly.\n\nDesire itself is a pure thing, like sunshine, or fire, or rain. It is\ndesire that makes the whole world living to me, keeps me in the flow\nconnected. It is my flow of desire that makes me move as the birds and\nanimals move through the sunshine and the night, in a kind of\naccomplished innocence, not shut outside of the natural paradise. For\nlife is a kind of Paradise, even to my horse Azul, though he doesn\u2019t get\nhis own way in it, by any means, and is sometimes in a real temper about\nit. Sometimes he even gets a bellyache, with wet alfalfa. But even the\nbellyache is part of the natural paradise. Not like human _ennui_.\n\nSo a man can go forth in desire, even to the primroses. But let him\nrefrain from falling all over the poor blossom, as William did. Or\ntrying to incorporate it in his own ego, which is a sort of lust. Nasty\nanthropomorphic lust.\n\nEverything that exists, even a stone, has two sides to its nature. It\nfiercely maintains its own individuality, its own solidity. And it\nreaches forth from itself in the subtlest flow of desire.\n\nIt fiercely resists all inroads. At the same time it sinks down in the\ncurious weight, or flow, of that desire which we call gravitation. And\nimperceptibly, through the course of ages, it flows into delicate\ncombination with the air and sun and rain.\n\nAt one time, men worshipped stones: symbolically, no doubt, because of\ntheir mysterious durability, their power of hardness, resistance, their\nstrength of remaining unchanged. Yet even then, worshipping man did not\nrest till he had erected the stone into a pillar, a menhir, symbol of\nthe eternal desire, as the phallus itself is but a symbol.\n\nAnd we, men and women, are the same as stones: the powerful resistance\nand cohesiveness of our individuality is countered by the mysterious\nflow of desire, from us and towards us.\n\nIt is the same with the worlds, the stars, the suns. All is alive, in\nits own degree. And the centripetal force of spinning earth is the force\nof earth\u2019s individuality: and the centrifugal force is the force of\ndesire. Earth\u2019s immense centripetal energy, almost passion, balanced\nagainst her furious centrifugal force, holds her suspended between her\nmoon and her sun, in a dynamic equilibrium.\n\nSo instead of the Greek: _Know thyself!_ we shall have to say to every\nman: \u201c_Be Thyself! Be Desirous!_\u201d--and to every woman: \u201c_Be Thyself! Be\nDesirable!_\u201d\n\n_Be Thyself!_ does not mean: _Assert thy ego!_ It means, be true to your\nown integrity, as man, as woman: let your heart stay open, to receive\nthe mysterious inflow of power from the unknown: know that the power\ncomes to you from beyond, it is not generated by your own will:\ntherefore all the time, be watchful, and reverential towards the\nmysterious coming of power into you.\n\n_Be Thyself!_ is the grand cry of individualism. But individualism makes\nthe mistake of considering an individual as a fixed entity: a little\nwindmill that spins without shifting ground or changing its own nature.\nAnd this is nonsense. When power enters us, it does not just move us\nmechanically. It changes us. When the unseen wind blows, it blows upon\nus, and through us. It carries us like a ship on a sea. And it roars to\nflame in us, like a draught in a fierce fire. Or like a dandelion in\nflower.\n\nWhat is the difference between a dandelion and a windmill?\n\nHeap on more wood!\n\nEven the Nirvanists consider man as a fixed entity, a changeless ego,\nwhich is capable of nothing, ultimately, but remerging into the\ninfinite. A little windmill that can turn faster and faster, till it\nbecomes actually invisible, and nothing remains in nothingness, except a\nblur and a faint hum.\n\nI am not a windmill. I am not even an ego. I am a man.\n\nI am myself, and I remain myself only by the grave of the powers that\nenter me, from the unseen, and make me forever newly myself.\n\nAnd I am myself, also, by the grace of the desire that flows from me and\nconsummates me with the other unknown, the invisible, tangible\ncreation.\n\nThe powers that enter me fluctuate and ebb. And the desire that goes\nforth from me waxes and wanes. Sometimes it is weak, and I am almost\nisolated. Sometimes it is strong, and I am almost carried away.\n\nBut supposing the cult of Individualism, Liberty, Freedom, and so forth,\nhas landed me in the state of egoism, the state so prettily and\nnauseously described by Henley in his _Invictus_: which, after all, is\nbut the yelp of a house-dog, a domesticated creature with an inferiority\ncomplex!\n\n    \u201cIt matters not how strait the gate,\n    How charged with punishment the scroll:\n    I am the master of my fate!\n    I am the captain of my soul!\u201d\n\nAre you, old boy? Then why hippety-hop?\n\nHe was a cripple at that!\n\nAs a matter of fact, it is the slave\u2019s bravado! The modern slave is he\nwho does not receive his powers from the unseen, and give reverence, but\nwho thinks he is his own little boss. Only a slave would take the\ntrouble to shout: \u201c_I am free!_\u201d That is to say, to shout it in the face\nof the open heavens. In the face of men, and their institutions and\nprisons. Yes-yes! But in the face of the open heavens I would be ashamed\nto talk about freedom. I have no life, no real power, unless it will\ncome to me. And I accomplish nothing, not even my own fulfilled\nexistence, unless I go forth, delicately, desirous, and find the mating\nof my desire; even if it be only the sky itself, and trees, and the cow\nSusan, and the inexpressible consolation of a statue of an Egyptian\nPharaoh, or the _Old Testament_, or even three rubies. These answer my\ndesire with fulfilment. What bunk then to talk about being master of my\nfate! when my fate depends upon these things:--not to mention the unseen\nreality that sends strength, or life into me, without which I am a gourd\nrattle.\n\nThe ego, the little conscious ego that I am, that doll-like entity, that\nmannikin made in ridiculous likeness of the Adam which I am: am I going\nto allow that that is _all of me_? And shout about it?\n\nOf course, if I am nothing but an ego, and woman is nothing but another\nego, then there is really no vital difference between us. Two little\ndolls of conscious entities, squeaking when you squeeze them. And with a\ntiny bit of an extraneous appendage to mark which is which.\n\n\u201cWoman is just the same as man,\u201d loudly said the political speaker,\n\u201cSave for a very little difference.\u201d\n\n\u201cThree cheers for the very little difference!\u201d says a vulgar voice from\nthe crowd.\n\nBut that\u2019s a chestnut.\n\n    \u201cQuick! Sharp! On the alert!\n    Let every gentleman put on his shirt!\n    And be _quick_ if you please!\n    Let every lady put on her chemise!\u201d\n\nThough nowadays, a lady\u2019s chemise won\u2019t save her face.\n\nIn or out her chemise, however, doesn\u2019t make much difference to the\nmodern woman. She\u2019s a finished-off ego, an assertive conscious entity,\ncut off like a doll from any mystery. And her nudity is about as\ninteresting as a doll\u2019s. If you can _be_ interested in the nudity of a\ndoll, then jazz on, jazz on!\n\nThe same with the men. No matter how they pull their shirts off they\nnever arrive at their own nakedness. They have none. They can only be\nundressed. Naked they cannot be. Without their clothes on, they are like\na dismantled street-car without its advertisements: sort of public\narticle that doesn\u2019t refer to anything.\n\nThe ego! Anthropomorphism! Love! What it works out to in the end is that\neven anthropos disappears, and leaves a sawdust mannikin wondrously\njazzing.\n\n\u201cMy little sisters, the birds!\u201d says Francis of Assisi.\n\n\u201c_Whew!_\u201d goes the blackbird.\n\n\u201cListen to me, my little sisters, you birds!\u201d\n\n\u201c_Whew!_\u201d goes the blackbird. \u201cI\u2019m a cock, mister!\u201d\n\nLove! What\u2019s the good of woman who isn\u2019t desirable, even though she\u2019s as\npretty as paint, and the waves in her hair are as permanent as the\npyramids!\n\nHe buried his face in her permanent wave, and cried: \u201cHelp! Get me\nout!\u201d\n\nIndividualism! Read the advertisements! \u201cJew-jew\u2019s hats give a man that\nindividual touch he so much desires. No man could lack individuality in\nPoppem\u2019s pyjamas.\u201d Poor devil! If he was left to his own skin, where\nwould he be!\n\nPop goes the weasel!\n\n\n\n\nREFLECTIONS ON THE DEATH OF A PORCUPINE\n\n\n\n\nREFLECTIONS ON THE DEATH OF A PORCUPINE\n\n\nThere are many bare places on the little pine trees, towards the top,\nwhere the porcupines have gnawed the bark away and left the white flesh\nshowing. And some trees are dying from the top.\n\nEveryone says, porcupines should be killed; the Indians, Mexicans,\nAmericans all say the same.\n\nAt full moon a month ago, when I went down the long clearing in the\nbrilliant moonlight, through the poor dry herbage a big porcupine began\nto waddle away from me, towards the trees and the darkness. The animal\nhad raised all its hairs and bristles, so that by the light of the moon\nit seemed to have a tall, swaying, moonlit aureole arching its back as\nit went. That seemed curiously fearsome, as if the animal were emitting\nitself demon-like on the air.\n\nIt waddled very slowly, with its white spiky spoon-tail steering flat,\nbehind the round bear-like mound of its back. It had a lumbering,\nbeetle\u2019s, squalid motion, unpleasant. I followed it into the darkness\nof the timber, and there, squat like a great tick, it began scrapily to\ncreep up a pine-trunk. It was very like a great aureoled tick, a bug,\nstruggling up.\n\nI stood near and watched, disliking the presence of the creature. It is\na duty to kill the things. But the dislike of killing him was greater\nthan the dislike of him. So I watched him climb.\n\nAnd he watched me. When he had got nearly the height of a man, all his\nlong hairs swaying with a bristling gleam like an aureole, he hesitated,\nand slithered down. Evidently he had decided, either that I was\nharmless, or else that it was risky to go up any further, when I could\nknock him off so easily with a pole. So he slithered podgily down again,\nand waddled away with the same bestial, stupid motion of that\nwhite-spiky repulsive spoon-tail. He was as big as a middle-sized pig:\nor more like a bear.\n\nI let him go. He was repugnant. He made a certain squalor in the\nmoonlight of the Rocky Mountains. As all savagery has a touch of\nsqualor, that makes one a little sick at the stomach. And anyhow, it\nseemed almost more squalid to pick up a pine-bough and push him over,\nhit him and kill him.\n\nA few days later, on a hot, motionless morning when the pine-trees put\nout their bristles in stealthy, hard assertion; and I was not in a good\ntemper, because Black-eyed Susan, the cow, had disappeared into the\ntimber, and I had had to ride hunting her, so it was nearly nine\no\u2019clock before she was milked: Madame came in suddenly out of the\nsunlight, saying \u201cI got such a shock! There are two strange dogs, and\none of them has got the most awful beard, all round his nose.\u201d\n\nShe was frightened, like a child, at something unnatural.\n\n\u201cBeard! Porcupine quills, probably! He\u2019s been after a porcupine.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh!\u201d she cried in relief. \u201cVery likely! Very likely!\u201d--then with a\nchange of tone; \u201cPoor thing, will they hurt him?\u201d\n\n\u201cThey will. I wonder when he came.\u201d\n\n\u201cI heard dogs bark in the night.\u201d\n\n\u201cDid you? Why didn\u2019t you say so? I should have known Susan was hiding--\u201d\n\nThe ranch is lonely, there is no sound in the night, save the\ninnumerable noises of the night, that you can\u2019t put your finger on;\ncosmic noises in the far deeps of the sky, and of the earth.\n\nI went out. And in the full blaze of sunlight in the field, stood two\ndogs, a black-and-white, and a big, bushy, rather handsome sandy-red\ndog, of the collie type. And sure enough, this latter did look queer and\na bit horrifying, his whole muzzle set round with white spines, like\nsome ghastly growth; like an unnatural beard.\n\nThe black-and-white dog made off as I went through the fence. But the\nred dog whimpered and hesitated, and moved on hot bricks. He was fat and\nin good condition. I thought he might belong to some shepherds herding\nsheep in the forest ranges, among the mountains.\n\nHe waited while I went up to him, wagging his tail and whimpering, and\nducking his head, and dancing. He daren\u2019t rub his nose with his paws any\nmore: it hurt too much. I patted his head and looked at his nose, and he\nwhimpered loudly.\n\nHe must have had thirty quills, or more, sticking out of his nose, all\nthe way round: the white, ugly ends of the quills protruding an inch,\nsometimes more, sometimes less, from his already swollen, blood-puffed\nmuzzle.\n\nThe porcupines here have quills only two or three inches long. But they\nare devilish; and a dog will die if he does not get them pulled out.\nBecause they work further and further in, and will sometimes emerge\nthrough the skin away in some unexpected place.\n\nThen the fun began. I got him in the yard: and he drank up the whole\nhalf-gallon of the chickens\u2019 sour milk. Then I started pulling out the\nquills. He was a big, bushy, handsome dog, but his nerve was gone, and\nevery time I got a quill out, he gave a yelp. Some long quills were\nfairly easy. But the shorter ones, near his lips, were deep in, and hard\nto get hold of, and hard to pull out when you did get hold of them. And\nwith every one that came out, came a little spurt of blood and another\nyelp and writhe.\n\nThe dog wanted the quills out: but his nerve was gone. Every time he saw\nmy hand coming to his nose, he jerked his head away. I quieted him, and\nstealthily managed to jerk out another quill, with the blood all over my\nfingers. But with every one that came out, he grew more tiresome. I\ntried and tried and tried to get hold of another quill, and he jerked\nand jerked, and writhed and whimpered, and ran under the porch floor.\n\nIt was a curiously unpleasant, nerve-trying job. The day was blazing\nhot. The dog came out and I struggled with him again for an hour or\nmore. Then we blindfolded him. But either he smelled my hand approaching\nhis nose, or some weird instinct told him. He jerked his head, this way,\nthat way, up, down, sideways, roundwise, as one\u2019s fingers came slowly,\nslowly, to seize a quill.\n\nThe quills on his lips and chin were deep in, only about a quarter of an\ninch of white stub protruding from the swollen, blood-oozed, festering\nblack skin. It was very difficult to jerk them out.\n\nWe let him lie for an interval, hidden in the quiet cool place under the\nporch floor. After half an hour, he crept out again. We got a rope round\nhis nose, behind the bristles, and one held while the other got the\nstubs with the pliers. But it was too trying. If a quill came out, the\ndog\u2019s yelp startled every nerve. And he was frightened of the pain, it\nwas impossible to hold his head still any longer.\n\nAfter struggling for two hours, and extracting some twenty quills, I\ngave up. It was impossible to quiet the creature, and I had had enough.\nHis nose on the top was clear: a punctured, puffy, blood-darkened mess;\nand his lips were clear. But just on his round little chin, where the\nfew white hairs are, was still a bunch of white quills, eight or nine,\ndeep in.\n\nWe let him go, and he dived under the porch, and there he lay invisible:\nsave for the end of his bushy, foxy tail, which moved when we came near.\nTowards noon he emerged, ate up the chicken-food, and stood with that\ndoggish look of dejection, and fear, and friendliness, and greediness,\nwagging his tail.\n\nBut I had had enough.\n\n\u201cGo home!\u201d I said. \u201cGo home! Go home to your master, and let him finish\nfor you.\u201d\n\nHe would not go. So I led him across the blazing hot clearing, in the\nway I thought he should go. He followed a hundred yards, then stood\nmotionless in the blazing sun. He was not going to leave the place.\n\nAnd I! I simply did not want him.\n\nSo I picked up a stone. He dropped his tail, and swerved towards the\nhouse. I knew what he was going to do. He was going to dive under the\nporch, and there stick, haunting the place.\n\nI dropped my stone, and found a good stick under the cedar tree. Already\nin the heat was that sting-like biting of electricity, the thunder\ngathering in the sheer sunshine, without a cloud, and making one\u2019s whole\nbody feel dislocated.\n\nI could not bear to have that dog around any more. Going quietly to him,\nI suddenly gave him one hard hit with the stick, crying: \u201cGo home!\u201d He\nturned quickly, and the end of the stick caught him on his sore nose.\nWith a fierce yelp, he went off like a wolf, downhill, like a flash,\ngone. And I stood in the field full of pangs of regret, at having hit\nhim, unintentionally, on his sore nose.\n\nBut he was gone.\n\nAnd then the present moon came, and again the night was clear. But in\nthe interval there had been heavy thunder-rains, the ditch was running\nwith bright water across the field, and the night, so fair, had not the\nterrific, mirror-like brilliancy, touched with terror, so startling\nbright, of the moon in the last days of June.\n\nWe were alone on the ranch. Madame went out into the clear night, just\nbefore retiring. The stream ran in a cord of silver across the field, in\nthe straight line where I had taken the irrigation ditch. The pine tree\nin front of the house threw a black shadow. The mountain slope came down\nto the fence, wild and alert.\n\n\u201cCome!\u201d said she excitedly. \u201cThere is a big porcupine drinking at the\nditch. I thought at first it was a bear.\u201d\n\nWhen I got out he had gone. But among the grasses and the coming wild\nsunflowers, under the moon, I saw his greyish halo, like a pallid living\nbush, moving over the field, in the distance, in the moonlit\n_clair-obscur_.\n\nWe got through the fence, and following, soon caught him up. There he\nlumbered, with his white spoon-tail spiked with bristles, steering\nbehind almost as if he were moving backwards, and this was his head. His\nlong, long hairs above the quills quivering with a dim grey gleam, like\na bush.\n\nAnd again I disliked him.\n\n\u201cShould one kill him?\u201d\n\nShe hesitated. Then with a sort of disgust:\n\n\u201cYes!\u201d\n\nI went back to the house, and got the little twenty-two rifle. Now never\nin my life had I shot at any live thing: I never wanted to. I always\nfelt guns very repugnant: sinister, mean. With difficulty I had fired\nonce or twice at a target: but resented doing even so much. Other people\ncould shoot if they wanted to. Myself, individually, it was repugnant to\nme even to try.\n\nBut something slowly hardens in a man\u2019s soul. And I knew now, it had\nhardened in mine. I found the gun, and with rather trembling hands, got\nit loaded. Then I pulled back the trigger and followed the porcupine. It\nwas still lumbering through the grass. Coming near, I aimed.\n\nThe trigger stuck. I pressed the little catch with a safety-pin I found\nin my pocket, and released the trigger. Then we followed the porcupine.\nHe was still lumbering towards the trees. I went sideways on, stood\nquite near to him, and fired, in the clear-dark of the moonlight.\n\nAnd as usual I aimed too high. He turned, went scuttling back whence he\nhad come.\n\nI got another shell in place, and followed. This time I fired full into\nthe mound of his round back, below the glistening grey halo. He seemed\nto stumble on to his hidden nose, and struggled a few strides, ducking\nhis head under like a hedgehog.\n\n\u201cHe\u2019s not dead yet! Oh, fire again!\u201d cried Madame.\n\nI fired, but the gun was empty.\n\nSo I ran quickly, for a cedar pole. The porcupine was lying still, with\nsubsiding halo. He stirred faintly. So I turned him and hit him hard\nover the nose; or where, in the dark, his nose should have been. And it\nwas done. He was dead.\n\nAnd in the moonlight, I looked down on the first creature I had ever\nshot.\n\n\u201cDoes it seem mean?\u201d I asked aloud, doubtful.\n\nAgain Madame hesitated. Then: \u201cNo!\u201d she said resentfully.\n\nAnd I felt she was right. Things like the porcupine, one must be able to\nshoot them, if they get in one\u2019s way.\n\nOne must be able to shoot. I, myself, must be able to shoot, and to\nkill.\n\nFor me, this is a _volta face_. I have always preferred to walk round my\nporcupine, rather than kill it.\n\nNow, I know it\u2019s no good walking \u2019round. One must kill.\n\nI buried him in the adobe hole. But some animal dug down and ate him;\nfor two days later there lay the spines and bones spread out, with the\nlong skeletons of the porcupine-hands.\n\nThe only nice thing about him--or her, for I believe it was a female, by\nthe dugs on her belly--were the feet. They were like longish, alert\nblack hands, paw-hands. That is why a porcupine\u2019s tracks in the snow\nlook almost as if a child had gone by, leaving naked little human\nfoot-prints, like a little boy.\n\nSo, he is gone: or she is gone. But there is another one, bigger and\nblacker-looking, among the west timber. That too is to be shot. It is\npart of the business of ranching: even when it\u2019s only a little\nhalf-abandoned ranch like this one.\n\nWherever man establishes himself, upon the earth, he has to fight for\nhis place, against the lower orders of life. Food, the basis of\nexistence, has to be fought for even by the most idyllic of farmers. You\nplant, and you protect your growing crop with a gun. Food, food, how\nstrangely it relates man with the animal and vegetable world! How\nimportant it is! And how fierce is the fight that goes on around it.\n\nThe same when one skins a rabbit, and takes out the inside, one realises\nwhat an enormous part of the animal, comparatively, is intestinal, what\na big part of him is just for food-apparatus; for _living on_ other\norganisms.\n\nAnd when one watches the horses in the big field, their noses to the\nground, bite-bite-biting at the grass, and stepping absorbedly on, and\nbite-bite-biting without ever lifting their noses, cropping off the\ngrass, the young shoots of alfalfa, the dandelions, with a blind,\nrelentless, unwearied persistence, one\u2019s whole life pauses. One suddenly\nrealises again how all creatures devour, and _must_ devour the lower\nforms of life.\n\nSo Susan, swinging across the field, snatches off the tops of the little\nwild sunflowers as if she were mowing. And down they go, down her black\nthroat. And when she stands in her cowy oblivion chewing her cud, with\nher lower jaw swinging peacefully, and I am milking her, suddenly the\ncamomiley smell of her breath, as she glances round with glaring,\nsmoke-blue eyes, makes me realise it is the sunflowers that are her ball\nof cud. Sunflowers! And they will go to making her glistening black\nhide, and the thick cream on her milk.\n\nAnd the chickens, when they see a great black beetle, that the Mexicans\ncall a _toro_, floating past, they are after it in a rush. And if it\nsettles, instantly the brown hen stabs it with her beak. It is a great\nbeetle two or three inches long: but in a second it is in the crop of\nthe chicken. Gone!\n\nAnd Timsy, the cat, as she spies on the chipmunks, crouches in another\nsort of oblivion, soft, and still. The chipmunks come to drink the milk\nfrom the chickens\u2019 bowl. Two of them met at the bowl. They were little\nsquirrely things with stripes down their backs. They sat up in front of\none another, lifting their inquisitive little noses and humping their\nbacks. Then each put its two little hands on the other\u2019s shoulders, they\nreared up, gazing into each other\u2019s faces; and finally they put their\ntwo little noses together, in a sort of kiss.\n\nBut Miss Timsy can\u2019t stand this. In a soft, white-and-yellow leap she is\nafter them. They skip with the darting jerk of chipmunks, to the\nwood-heap, and with one soft, high-leaping sideways bound Timsy goes\nthrough the air. Her snow-flake of a paw comes down on one of the\nchipmunks. She looks at it for a second. It squirms. Swiftly and\ntriumphantly she puts her two flowery little white paws on it, legs\nstraight out in front of her, back arched, gazing concentratedly yet\nwhimsically. Chipmunk does not stir. She takes it softly in her mouth,\nwhere it dangles softly, like a lady\u2019s tippet. And with a proud,\nprancing motion the Timsy sets off towards the house, her white little\nfeet hardly touching the ground.\n\nBut she gets shooed away. We refuse to loan her the sitting-room any\nmore, for her gladiatorial displays. If the chippy must be \u201cbutchered to\nmake a Timsy holiday\u201d, it shall be outside. Disappointed, but still\nhigh-stepping, the Timsy sets off towards the clay oven by the shed.\n\nThere she lays the chippy gently down, and soft as a little white cloud\nlays one small paw on its striped back. Chippy does not move. Soft as\nthistle-down she raises her paw a tiny, tiny bit, to release him.\n\nAnd all of a sudden, with an elastic jerk, he darts from under the white\nrelease of her paw. And instantly, she is up in the air and down she\ncomes on him, with the forward-thrusting bolts of her white paws. Both\ncreatures are motionless.\n\nThen she takes him softly in her mouth again, and looks round, to see if\nshe can slip into the house. She cannot. So she trots towards the\nwood-pile.\n\nIt is a game, and it is pretty. Chippy escapes into the wood-pile, and\nshe softly, softly reconnoitres among the faggots.\n\nOf all the animals, there is no denying it, the Timsy is the most\npretty, the most fine. It is not her mere _corpus_ that is beautiful; it\nis her bloom of aliveness. Her \u201cinfinite variety\u201d; the soft, snow-flakey\nlightness of her, and at the same time her lean, heavy ferocity. I had\nnever realised the latter, till I was lying in bed one day moving my\ntoe, unconsciously, under the bedclothes. Suddenly a terrific blow\nstruck my foot. The Timsy had sprung out of nowhere, with a hurling,\nsteely force, thud upon the bedclothes where the toe was moving. It was\nas if someone had aimed a sudden blow, vindictive and unerring.\n\n\u201cTimsy!\u201d\n\nShe looked at me with the vacant, feline glare of her hunting eyes. It\nis not even ferocity. It is the dilation of the strange, vacant\narrogance of power. The power is in her.\n\nAnd so it is. Life moves in circles of power and of vividness, and each\ncircle of life only maintains its orbit upon the subjection of some\nlower circle. If the lower cycles of life are not _mastered_, there can\nbe no higher cycle.\n\nIn nature, one creature devours another, and this is an essential part\nof all existence and of all being. It is not something to lament over,\nnor something to try to reform. The Buddhist who refuses to take life is\nreally ridiculous, since if he eats only two grains of rice per day, it\nis two grains of life. We did not make creation, _we_ are not the\nauthors of the universe. And if we see that the whole of creation is\nestablished upon the fact that one life devours another life, one cycle\nof existence can only come into existence through the subjugating of\nanother cycle of existence, then what is the good of trying to pretend\nthat it is not so? The only thing to do is to realise what is higher,\nand what is lower, in the cycles of existence.\n\nIt is nonsense to declare that there _is_ no higher and lower. We know\nfull well that the dandelion belongs to a higher cycle of existence than\nthe hartstongue fern, that the ant\u2019s is a higher form of existence than\nthe dandelion\u2019s, that the thrush is higher than the ant, that Timsy the\ncat, is higher than the thrush, and that I, a man, am higher than Timsy.\n\nWhat do we mean by higher? Strictly, we mean more alive. More vividly\nalive. The ant is more vividly alive than the pine-tree. We know it,\nthere is no trying to refute it. It is all very well saying that they\nare both alive in two different ways, and therefore they are\nincomparable, incommensurable. This is also true.\n\nBut one truth does not displace another. Even apparently contradictory\ntruths do not displace one another. Logic is far too coarse to make the\nsubtle distinctions life demands.\n\nTruly, it is futile to compare an ant with a great pine-tree, in the\nabsolute. Yet as far as _existence_ is concerned, they are not only\nplaced in comparison to one another, they are occasionally pitted\nagainst one another. And if it comes to a contest, the little ant will\ndevour the life of the huge tree. If it comes to a contest.\n\nAnd, in the cycles of _existence_, this is the test. From the lowest\nform of existence, to the highest, the test question is: _Can thy\nneighbour finally overcome thee?_\n\nIf he can, then he belongs to a higher cycle of existence.\n\nThis is the truth behind the survival of the fittest. Every cycle of\nexistence is established upon the overcoming of the lower cycles of\nexistence. The real question is, wherein does _fitness_ lie? Fitness for\nwhat? Fit merely to survive? That which is only fit to survive will\nsurvive only to supply food or contribute in some way to the existence\nof a higher form of life, which is able to do more than survive, which\ncan really _vive_, live.\n\nLife is more vivid in the dandelion than in the green fern, or than in a\npalm tree.\n\nLife is more vivid in a snake than in a butterfly.\n\nLife is more vivid in a wren than in an alligator.\n\nLife is more vivid in a cat than in an ostrich.\n\nLife is more vivid in the Mexican who drives the wagon, than in the two\nhorses in the wagon.\n\nLife is more vivid in me, than in the Mexican who drives the wagon for\nme.\n\nWe are speaking in terms of _existence_: that is, in terms of species,\nrace, or type.\n\nThe dandelion can take hold of the land, the palm tree is driven into a\ncorner, with the fern.\n\nThe snake can devour the fiercest insect.\n\nThe fierce bird can destroy the greatest reptile.\n\nThe great cat can destroy the greatest bird.\n\nThe man can destroy the horse, or any animal.\n\nOne race of man can subjugate and rule another race.\n\nAll this in terms of _existence_. As far as existence goes, that\nlife-species is the highest which can devour, or destroy, or subjugate\nevery other life-species against which it is pitted in contest.\n\nThis is a law. There is no escaping this law. Anyone, or any race,\ntrying to escape it, will fall a victim: will fall into subjugation.\n\nBut let us insist and insist again, we are talking now of existence, of\nspecies, of types, of races, of nations, not of single individuals, nor\nof _beings_. The dandelion in full flower, a little sun bristling with\nsun-rays on the green earth, is a nonpareil, a nonsuch. Foolish,\nfoolish, foolish to compare it to anything else on earth. It is itself\nincomparable and unique.\n\nBut that is the fourth dimension, of _being_. It is in the fourth\ndimension, nowhere else.\n\nBecause, in the time-space dimension, any man may tread on the yellow\nsun-mirror, and it is gone. Any cow may swallow it. Any bunch of ants\nmay annihilate it.\n\nThis brings us to the inexorable law of life.\n\n1. Any creature that attains to its own fullness of being, its own\n_living_ self, becomes unique, a nonpareil. It has its place in the\nfourth dimension, the heaven of existence, and there it is perfect, it\nis beyond comparison.\n\n2. At the same time, every creature exists in time and space. And in\ntime and space it exists relatively to all other existence, and can\nnever be absolved. Its existence impinges on other existences, and is\nitself impinged upon. And in the struggle for existence, if an effort on\nthe part of any one type or species or order of life, can finally\ndestroy the other species, then the destroyer is of a more vital cycle\nof existence than the one destroyed. (When speaking of existence we\nalways speak in types, species, not individuals. Species exist. But even\nan individual dandelion has _being_.)\n\n3. The force which we call _vitality_, and which is the determining\nfactor in the struggle for existence, is, however, derived also from the\nfourth dimension. That is to say, the ultimate source of all vitality is\nin that other dimension, or region, where the dandelion blooms, and\nwhich men have called heaven, and which now they call the fourth\ndimension: which is only a way of saying that it is not to be reckoned\nin terms of space and time.\n\n4. The primary way, in our existence, to get vitality, is to absorb it\nfrom living creatures lower than ourselves. It is thus transformed into\na new and higher creation. (There are many ways of absorbing: devouring\nfood is one way, love is often another. The best way is a pure\nrelationship, which includes the _being_ on each side, and which allows\nthe transfer to take place in a living flow, enhancing the life in both\nbeings.)\n\n5. No creature is fully itself till it is, like the dandelion, opened in\nthe bloom of pure relationship to the sun, the entire living cosmos.\n\nSo we still find ourselves in the tangle of existence and being, a\ntangle which man has never been able to get out of, except by\nsacrificing the one to the other.\n\nSacrifice is useless.\n\nThe clue to all existence is being. But you can\u2019t have being without\nexistence, any more than you can have the dandelion flower without the\nleaves and the long tap root.\n\nBeing is _not_ ideal, as Plato would have it: nor spiritual. It is a\ntranscendant form of existence, and as much material as existence is.\nOnly the matter suddenly enters the fourth dimension.\n\nAll existence is dual, and surging towards a consummation into being. In\nthe seed of the dandelion, as it floats with its little umbrella of\nhairs, sits the Holy Ghost in tiny compass. The Holy Ghost is that which\nholds the light and the dark, the day and the night, the wet and the\nsunny, united in one little clue. There it sits, in the seed of the\ndandelion.\n\nThe seed falls to earth. The Holy Ghost rouses, saying: \u201c_Come!_\u201d And\nout of the sky come the rays of the sun, and out of earth comes dampness\nand dark and the death-stuff. They are called in, like those bidden to a\nfeast. The sun sits down at the hearth, inside the seed; and the dark,\ndamp death-returner sits on the opposite side, with the host between.\nAnd the host says to them: \u201c_Come! Be merry together!_\u201d So the sun looks\nwith desirous curiosity on the dark face of the earth, and the dark damp\none looks with wonder on the bright face of the other, who comes from\nthe sun. And the host says: \u201c_Here you are at home! Lift me up, between\nyou, that I may cease to be a Ghost. For it longs me to look out, it\nlongs me to dance with the dancers._\u201d\n\nSo the sun in the seed, and the earthy one in the seed take hands, and\nlaugh, and begin to dance. And their dancing is like a fire kindled, a\nbonfire with leaping flame. And the treading of their feet is like the\nrunning of little streams, down into the earth. So from the dance of the\nsun-in-the-seed with the earthy death-returner, green little flames of\nleaves shoot up, and hard little trickles of roots strike down. And the\nhost laughs, and says: \u201c_I am being lifted up! Dance harder! Oh wrestle,\nyou two, like wonderful wrestlers, neither of which can win._\u201d So\nsun-in-the-seed and the death-returner, who is earthy, dance faster and\nfaster and the leaves rising greener begin to dance in a ring\nabove-ground, fiercely overwhelming any outsider, in a whirl of swords\nand lions\u2019 teeth. And the earthy one wrestles, wrestles with the\nsun-in-the-seed, so the long roots reach down like arms of a fighter\ngripping the power of earth, and strangles all intruders, strangling any\nintruder mercilessly. Till the two fall in one strange embrace, and from\nthe centre the long flower-stem lifts like a phallus, budded with a bud.\nAnd out of the bud the voice of the Holy Ghost is heard crying: \u201c_I am\nlifted up! Lo! I am lifted up! I am here!_\u201d So the bud opens, and there\nis the flower poised in the very middle of the universe, with a ring of\ngreen swords below, to guard it, and the octopus, arms deep in earth,\ndrinking and threatening. So the Holy Ghost, being a dandelion flower,\nlooks round, and says: \u201c_Lo! I am yellow! I believe the sun has lent me\nhis body! Lo! I am sappy with golden, bitter blood! I believe death out\nof the damp black earth has lent me his blood! I am incarnate! I like my\nincarnation! But this is not all. I will keep this incarnation. It is\ngood! But oh! if I can win to another incarnation, who knows how\nwonderful it will be! This one will have to give place. This one can\nhelp to create the next._\u201d\n\nSo the Holy Ghost leaves the clue of himself behind, in the seed, and\nwanders forth in the comparative chaos of our universe, seeking another\nincarnation.\n\nAnd this will go on for ever. Man, as yet, is less than half grown. Even\nhis flower-stem has not appeared yet. He is all leaves and roots,\nwithout any clue put forth. No sign of bud anywhere.\n\nEither he will have to start budding, or he will be forsaken of the Holy\nGhost: abandoned as a failure in creation, as the ichthyosaurus was\nabandoned. Being abandoned means losing his vitality. The sun and the\nearth-dark will cease rushing together in him. Already it is ceasing. To\nmen, the sun is becoming stale, and the earth sterile. But the sun\nitself will never become stale, nor the earth barren. It is only that\nthe _clue_ is missing inside men. They are like flowerless, seedless fat\ncabbages, nothing inside.\n\nVitality depends upon the clue of the Holy Ghost inside a creature, a\nman, a nation, a race. When the clue goes, the vitality goes. And the\nHoly Ghost seeks for ever a new incarnation, and subordinates the old to\nthe new. You will know that any creature or race is still alive with the\nHoly Ghost, when it can subordinate the lower creatures or races, and\nassimilate them into a new incarnation.\n\nNo man, or creature, or race can have vivid vitality unless it be moving\ntowards a blossoming: and the most powerful is that which moves towards\nthe as-yet-unknown blossom.\n\nBlossoming means the establishing of a pure, _new_ relationship with all\nthe cosmos. This is the state of heaven. And it is the state of a\nflower, a cobra, a jenny-wren in spring, a man when he knows himself\nroyal and crowned with the sun, with his feet gripping the core of the\nearth.\n\nThis too is the fourth dimension: this state, this mysterious other\nreality of things in a perfected relationship. It is into this perfected\nrelationship that every straight line curves, as if to some core,\npassing out of the time-space dimension.\n\nBut any man, creature, or race moving towards blossoming will have to\ndraw immense supplies of vitality from men, or creatures below,\npassionate strength. And he will have to accomplish a perfected relation\nwith all things.\n\nThere will be conquest, always. But the aim of conquest is a perfect\nrelation of conquerors with conquered, for a new blossoming. Freedom is\nillusory. Sacrifice is illusory. Almightyness is illusory. Freedom,\nsacrifice, almightyness, these are all human side-tracks, cul-de-sacs,\nbunk. All that is real is the overwhelmingness of a new inspirational\ncommand, a new relationship with all things.\n\nHeaven is always there. No achieved consummation is lost. Procreation\ngoes on for ever, to support the achieved revelation. But the torch of\nrevelation itself is handed on. And this is all important.\n\nEverything living wants to procreate more living things.\n\nBut more important than this is the fact that every revelation is a\ntorch held out, to kindle new revelations. As the dandelion holds out\nthe sun to me, saying: \u201c_Can you take it!_\u201d\n\nEvery gleam of heaven that is shown--like a dandelion flower, or a green\nbeetle--quivers with strange passion to kindle a new gleam, never yet\nbeheld. This is not self-sacrifice: it is self-contribution: in which\nthe highest happiness lies.\n\nThe torch of existence is handed on, in the womb of procreation.\n\nAnd the torch of revelation is handed on, by every living thing, from\nthe protococcus to a brave man or a beautiful woman, handed to\nwhomsoever can take it. He who can take it, has power beyond all the\nrest.\n\nThe cycle of procreation exists purely for the keeping alight of the\ntorch of perfection, in any species: the torch being the dandelion in\nblossom, the tree in full leaf, the peacock in all his plumage, the\ncobra in all his colour, the frog at full leap, woman in all the mystery\nof her fathomless desirableness, man in the fulness of his power: every\ncreature become its pure self.\n\nOne cycle of perfection urges to kindle another cycle, as yet unknown.\n\nAnd with the kindling from the torch of revelation comes the inrush of\nvitality, and the need to consume and _consummate_ the lower cycles of\nexistence, into a new thing. This consuming and this consummating means\nconquest, and fearless mastery. Freedom lies in the honourable yielding\ntowards the new flame, and the honourable mastery of that which shall\nbe new, over that which must yield. As I must master my horses, which\nare in a lower cycle of existence. And they, they are relieved and\n_happy_ to serve. If I turn them loose into the mountain ranges, to run\nwild till they die, the thrill of real happiness is gone out of their\nlives.\n\nEvery lower order seeks in some measure to serve a higher order: and\nrebels against being conquered.\n\nIt is always conquest, and it always will be conquest. If the conquered\nbe an old, declining race, they will have handed on their torch to the\nconqueror: who will burn his fingers badly, if he is too flippant. And\nif the conquered be a barbaric race, they will consume the fire of the\nconqueror, and leave him flameless, unless he watch it. But it is always\nconquest, conquered and conqueror, for ever. The Kingdom of heaven is\nthe Kingdom of conquerors, who can serve the conquest for ever, after\ntheir own conquest is made.\n\nIn heaven, in the perfected relation, is peace: in the fourth dimension.\nBut there is getting there. And that, for ever, is the process of\nconquest.\n\nWhen the rose blossomed, then the great Conquest was made by the\nVegetable Kingdom. But even this conqueror of conquerors, the rose, had\nto lend himself towards the caterpillar and the butterfly of a later\nconquest. A conqueror, but tributary to the later conquest.\n\nThere is no such thing as equality. In the kingdom of heaven, in the\nfourth dimension, each soul that achieves a perfect relationship with\nthe cosmos, from its own centre, is perfect, and incomparable. It has no\nsuperior. It is a conqueror, and incomparable.\n\nBut every man, in the struggle of conquest towards his own consummation,\nmust master the inferior cycles of life, and never relinquish his\nmastery. Also, if there be men beyond him, moving on to a newer\nconsummation than his own, he must yield to their greater demand, and\nserve their greater mystery, and so be faithful to the kingdom of heaven\nwhich is within him, which is gained by conquest and by loyal service.\n\nAny man who achieves his own being will, like the dandelion or the\nbutterfly, pass into that other dimension which we call the fourth, and\nthe old people called heaven. It is the state of perfected relationship.\nAnd here a man will have his peace for ever: whether he serve or\ncommand, in the process of living.\n\nBut even this entails his faithful allegiance to the kingdom of heaven,\nwhich must be for ever and for ever extended, as creation conquers\nchaos. So that my perfection will but serve a perfection which still\nlies ahead, unrevealed and unconceived, and beyond my own.\n\nWe have tried to build walls round the kingdom of heaven: but it\u2019s no\ngood. It\u2019s only the cabbage rotting inside.\n\nOur last wall is the golden wall of money. This is a fatal wall. It cuts\nus off from life, from vitality, from the alive sun and the alive earth,\nas _nothing_ can. Nothing, not even the most fanatical dogmas of an\niron-bound religion, can insulate us from the inrush of life and\ninspiration, as money can.\n\nWe are losing vitality: losing it rapidly. Unless we seize the torch of\ninspiration, and drop our moneybags, the moneyless will be kindled by\nthe flame of flames, and they will consume us like old rags.\n\nWe are losing vitality, owing to money and money-standards. The torch in\nthe hands of the moneyless will set our house on fire, and burn us to\ndeath, like sheep in a flaming corral.\n\n\n\n\nARISTOCRACY\n\n\n\n\nARISTOCRACY\n\n\nEverything in the world is relative to everything else. And every living\nthing is related to every other living thing.\n\nBut creation moves in cycles, and in degrees. There is higher and lower,\nin the cycles of creation, and greater and less, in the degree of life.\n\nEach thing that attains to purity in its own cycle of existence, is pure\nand is itself, and, in its purity, is beyond compare.\n\nBut in relation to other things, it is either higher or lower, of\ngreater or less degree.\n\nWe have to admit that a daisy is more highly developed than a fern, even\nif it be a tree-fern. The daisy belongs to a higher order of life. That\nis, the daisy is more alive. The fern more torpid.\n\nAnd a bee is more alive than a daisy: of a higher order of life. The\ndaisy, pure as it is in its own being, yet, when compared with the bee,\nis limited in its being.\n\nAnd birds are higher than bees: more alive. And mammals are higher than\nbirds. And man is the highest, most developed, most conscious, most\n_alive_ of the mammals: master of them all.\n\nBut even within the species, there is a difference. The nightingale is\nhigher, purer, even more alive, more subtly, delicately alive, than the\nsparrow. And the parrot is more highly developed, or more alive, than\nthe pigeon.\n\nAmong men, the difference in _being_ is infinite. And it is a difference\nin degree as well as in kind. One man _is_, in himself, more, more\nalive, more of a man, than another. One man has greater being than\nanother, a purer manhood, a more vivid livingness. The difference is\ninfinite.\n\nAnd, seeing that the inferiors are vastly more numerous than the\nsuperiors, when Jesus came, the inferiors, who are no means the meek\nthat they _should_ be, set out to inherit the earth.\n\nJesus, in a world of arrogant Pharisees and egoistic Romans, thought\nthat purity and poverty were one. It was a fatal mistake. Purity is\noften enough poor. But poverty is only too rarely pure. Poverty too\noften is only the result of _natural_ poorness, poorness in courage,\npoorness in living vitality, poorness in manhood: poor life, poor\ncharacter. Now the poor in life are the most impure, the most easily\ndegenerate.\n\nBut the few men rich in life and pure in heart read purity into poverty,\nand Christianity started. \u201cCharity suffereth long, and is kind. Charity\nenvieth not. Charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up.\u201d\n\nThey are the words of a noble manhood.\n\nThere happened what was bound to happen: the men with pure hearts left\nthe scramble for money and power to the impure.\n\nStill the great appeal: \u201cThe Kingdom of Heaven is within you,\u201d acted\npowerfully on the hearts of the poor, who were still full of life. The\nrich were more active, but less alive. The poor still wanted, most of\nall, the Kingdom of Heaven.\n\nUntil the pure men began to mistrust the figurative Kingdom of Heaven:\n\u201cNot much Kingdom of Heaven for a hungry man,\u201d they said.\n\nThis was a mistake, and a fall into impurity. For even if I die of\nhunger, the Kingdom of Heaven is within me, and I am within it, if I\ntruly choose.\n\nBut once the pure man said this: \u201c_Not much Kingdom of Heaven for a\nhungry man_,\u201d the Soul began to die out of men.\n\nBy the old creed, every soul was equal in the sight of God. By the new\ncreed, every body should be equal in the sight of men. And being equal\nmeant, having equal possessions. And possessions were reckoned in terms\nof money.\n\nSo that money became the one absolute. And man figures as a\nmoney-possessor and a money-getter. The absolute, the God, the Kingdom\nof Heaven itself, became money; hard, hard cash. \u201cThe Kingdom of Heaven\nis within you\u201d now means \u201cThe money is in your pocket.\u201d \u201cThen shall thy\npeace be as a river\u201d now means \u201cThen shall thy investments bring thee a\nsafe and ample income.\u201d\n\n\u201c_L\u2019homme est n\u00e9 libre_\u201d means \u201cHe is born without a son.\u201d \u201c_Et on le\ntrouve partout enchain\u00e9_\u201d means \u201cHe wears breeches, and must fill his\npockets.\u201d\n\nSo now there is a new (a new-old) aristocracy, completely unmysterious\nand scientific: the aristocracy of money. Have you a million _gold_?\n(for heaven\u2019s sake, the gold standard!) Then you are a _king_. Have you\nfive hundred thousand? Then you are a lord.\n\n\u201cIn _my_ country, we\u2019re _all_ kings and queens,\u201d as the American lady\nsaid, being a bit sick of certain British snobbery. She was quite right:\nthey are all potential kings and queens. But until they come into their\nkingdom--five hundred thousand dollars minimum--they might just as well\nbe commoners.\n\nYet even still, there is _natural_ aristocracy.\n\nAristocracy of birth is bunk, when a Kaiser Wilhelm and an Emperor\nFranz-Josef and a Czar Nicolas is all that noble birth will do for you.\n\nYet the whole of life is established on a natural aristocracy. And\naristocracy of birth is a _little_ more natural than aristocracy of\nmoney. (Oh, for God\u2019s sake, the gold standard!)\n\nBut a millionaire can do without birth, whereas birth cannot do without\ndollars. So, by the all-prevailing law of pragmatism, the dollar has it.\n\nWhat then does _natural_ aristocracy consist in?\n\nIt\u2019s not just brains! The mind is an instrument, and the _savant_, the\nprofessor, the scientist, has been looked upon since the Ptolemies, as a\nsort of upper servant. And justly. The millionaire has brains too: so\ndoes a modern President or Prime Minister. They all belong to the class\nof upper servants. They serve, forsooth, the public.\n\n    \u201cCa, Ca, Caliban!\n    Get a new master, be a new man.\u201d\n\nWhat does a natural aristocracy consist in? Count Keyserling says: \u201cNot\nin what a man can _do_, but what he _is_.\u201d Unfortunately what a man\n_is_, is measured by what he can do, even in nature. A nightingale,\nbeing a nightingale, can sing: which a sparrow can\u2019t. If you _are_\nsomething you\u2019ll _do_ something, _ipso facto_.\n\nThe question is what _kind_ of thing can a man do? Can he put more life\ninto us, and release in us the fountains of our vitality? Or can he only\nhelp to feed us, and give us money or amusement.\n\nThe providing of food, money, and amusement belongs, truly, to the\nservant class.\n\nThe providing of _life_ belongs to the aristocrat. If a man, whether by\nthought or action, makes _life_, he is an aristocrat. So C\u00e6sar and\nCicero are both strictly aristocrats. Lacking these two, the first\ncentury B.C. would have been far less vital, less vividly alive. And\nAntony, who seemed so much more vital, robust and robustious, was, when\nwe look at it, comparatively unimportant. C\u00e6sar and Cicero lit the\nflame.\n\nHow? It is easier asked than answered.\n\nBut one thing they did, whatever else: they put men into a new relation\nwith the universe. C\u00e6sar opened Gaul, Germany and Britain, and let the\ngleam of ice and snow, the shagginess of the north, the mystery of the\nmenhir and the mistletoe in upon the rather stuffy soul of Rome, and of\nthe Orient. And Cicero was discovering the moral nature of man, as\ncitizen chiefly, and so putting man in new relation to man.\n\nBut C\u00e6sar was greater than Cicero. He put man in new relation to ice and\nsun.\n\nOnly C\u00e6sar was, perhaps, also too much an egoist; he never knew the\nmysteries he moved amongst. But C\u00e6sar was great _beyond_ morality.\n\nMan\u2019s life consists in a connection with all things in the universe.\nWhoever can establish, or initiate a new connection between mankind and\nthe circumambient universe is, in his own degree, a saviour. Because\nmankind is always exhausting its human possibilities, always\ndegenerating into repetition, torpor, _ennui_, lifelessness. When\n_ennui_ sets in, it is a sign that human vitality is waning, and the\nhuman connection with the universe is gone stale.\n\nThen he who comes to make a new revelation, a new connection, whether he\nbe soldier, statesman, poet, philosopher, artist, he is a saviour.\n\nWhen George Stephenson invented the locomotive engine, he provided a\n_means of communication_, but he didn\u2019t alter in the slightest man\u2019s\nvital relation to the universe. But Galileo and Newton, _discoverers_,\nnot inventors, they made a big difference. And the energy released in\nmankind because of them was enormous. The same is true of Peter the\nGreat, Frederick the Great, and Napoleon. The same is true of Voltaire,\nShelley, Wordsworth, Byron, Rousseau. They established a _new_\nconnection between mankind and the universe, and the result was a vast\nrelease of energy. The _sun_ was reborn to man, so was the moon.\n\nTo man, the very sun goes stale, becomes a habit. Comes a saviour, a\nseer, and the very sun dances new in heaven.\n\nThat is because the _sun_ is always _sun beyond sun beyond sun_. The sun\nis every sun that ever has been, Helios or Mithras, the sun of China or\nof Brahma, or of Peru or of Mexico: great gorgeous suns, besides which\nour puny \u201cenvelope of incandescent gas\u201d is a smoky candle-wick.\n\nIt is our fault. When man becomes stale and paltry, his sun is the mere\nstuff that our sun is. When man is great and splendid, the sun of China\nand Mithras blazes over him and gives him, not radiant energy in the\nform of heat and light, but life, life, life!\n\nThe world is to us what we take from it. The sun is to us what we take\nfrom it. And if we are puny, it is because we take punily from the\nsuperb sun.\n\nMan is great according as his relation to the living universe is vast\nand vital.\n\nMen are related to men: including women: and this, of course, is very\nimportant. But one would think it were everything. One would think, to\nread modern books, that the life of any tuppenny bank-clerk was more\nimportant than sun, moon, and stars; and to read the pert drivel of the\ncritics, one would be led to imagine that every three-farthing\nwhipper-snapper who lifts up his voice in approval or censure were the\nthrice-greatest Hermes speaking in judgment out of the mysteries.\n\nThis is the democratic age of cheap clap-trap, and it sits in jackdaw\njudgment on all greatness.\n\nAnd this is the result of making, in our own conceit, man the measure of\nthe universe. Don\u2019t you be taken in. The universe, so vast and profound,\nmeasures man up very accurately, for the yelping mongrel with his tail\nbetween his legs, that he is. And the great sun, and the moon, with a\nsmile will soon start dropping the mongrel down the vast refuse-pit of\noblivion. Oh, the universe has a terrible hole in the middle of it, an\noubliette for all of you, whipper-snappering mongrels.\n\nMan, of course, being measure of the universe, is measured only against\nman. Has, of course, vital relationship only with his own cheap little\nspecies. Hence the cheap little twaddler he has become.\n\nIn the great ages, man had vital relation with man, with woman: and\nbeyond that, with the cow, the lion, the bull, the cat, the eagle, the\nbeetle, the serpent. And beyond these, with narcissus and anemone,\nmistletoe and oak-tree, myrtle, olive, and lotus. And beyond these with\nhumus and slanting water, cloud-towers and rainbow and the sweeping\nsun-limbs. And beyond that, with sun, and moon, the living night and the\nliving day.\n\nDo you imagine the great realities, even the ram of Amon, are only\n_symbols_ of something human? Do you imagine the great symbols, the\ndragon, the snake, the bull, only refer to bits, qualities or attributes\nof little man? It is puerile. The puerilty, the puppyish conceit of\nmodern white humanity is almost funny.\n\nAmon, the great ram, do you think he doesn\u2019t stand alone in the\nuniverse, without your permission, oh cheap little man? Because he\u2019s\nthere, do you think _you_ bred him, out of your own almightiness, you\ncheap-jack?\n\nAmon, the great ram! Mithras, the great bull! The mistletoe on the tree.\nDo you think, you stuffy little human fool sitting in a chair and\nwearing lambs-wool underwear and eating your mutton and beef under the\nChristmas decoration, do you think then that Amon, Mithras, Mistletoe,\nand the whole Tree of Life were just invented to contribute to your\ncomplacency?\n\nYou fool! You dyspeptic fool, with your indigestion tablets! You can eat\nyour mutton and your beef, and by sixpenn\u2019orth of the golden bough, till\nyour belly turns sour, you fool. Do you think, because you keep a fat\ncastrated cat, the moon is upon your knees? Do you think, in your woolen\nunderwear, you are clothed in the might of Amon?\n\nYou idiot! You cheap-jack idiot!\n\nWas not the ram created before you were, you twaddler? Did he not come\nin night out of chaos? And is he not still clothed in might? To you, he\nis mutton. Your wonderful perspicacity relates you to him just that far.\nBut any farther, he is--well, wool.\n\nDon\u2019t you see, idiot and fool, that you have _lost_ the ram out of your\nlife entirely, and it is one great connection gone, one great life-flow\nbroken? Don\u2019t you see you are so much the emptier, mutton-stuffed and\nwool-wadded, but lifeless, lifeless.\n\nAnd the oak-tree, the slow great oak-tree, isn\u2019t he alive? Doesn\u2019t he\nlive where you don\u2019t live, with a vast silence you shall never, never\npenetrate, though you chop him into kindling shred from shred? He is\nalive with life such as you have not got and will never have. And in so\nfar as he is a vast, powerful, silent life, you should worship him.\n\nYou should seek a living relation with him. Didn\u2019t the old Englishman\nhave a living, vital relation to the oak-tree, a _mystic_ relation? Yes,\nmystic! Didn\u2019t the red-faced old Admirals who _made_ England, have a\nliving relation in _sacredness_, with the oak-tree which was their ship,\ntheir ark? The last living vibration and power in pure connection,\nbetween man and tree, coming down from the Druids.\n\nAnd all you can do now is to twiddle-twaddle about golden boughs,\nbecause you are empty, empty, empty, hollow, deficient, and cardboardy.\n\nDo you think the tree is not, now and for ever, sacred and fearsome? The\ntrees have turned against you, fools, and you are running in imbecility\nto your own destruction.\n\nDo you think the bull is at your disposal, you zenith of creation? Why,\nI tell you, the blood of the bull is indeed your poison. Your veins are\nbursting, with beef. You may well turn vegetarian. But even milk is\nbull\u2019s blood: or Hathor\u2019s.\n\nMy cow Susan is at my disposal indeed. But when I see her suddenly\nemerging, jet-black, sliding through the gate of her little corral into\nthe open sun, does not my heart stand still, and cry out, in some\nlong-forgotten tongue, salutation to the fearsome one? Is not even now\nmy life widened and deepened in connection with her life, throbbing with\nthe other pulse, of the bull\u2019s blood?\n\nIs not this my life, this throbbing of the bull\u2019s blood in my blood?\n\nAnd as the white cock calls in the doorway, who calls? Merely a barnyard\nrooster, worth a dollar-and-a-half. But listen! Under the old dawns of\ncreation the Holy Ghost, the Mediator, shouts aloud in the twilight. And\nevery time I hear him, a fountain of vitality gushes up in my body. It\nis life.\n\nSo it is! Degree after degree after degree widens out the relation\nbetween man and his universe, till it reaches the sun, and the night.\n\nThe impulse of existence, of course, is to _devour_ all the lower orders\nof life. So man now looks upon the white cock, the cow, the ram, as good\nto eat.\n\nBut _living_ and having _being_ means the relatedness between me and all\nthings. In so far as I am I, a being who is proud and in place, I have a\nconnection with my circumambient universe, and I know my place. When the\nwhite cock crows, I do not hear myself, or some anthropomorphic conceit,\ncrowing. I hear the not-me, the voice of the Holy Ghost. And when I see\nthe hard, solid, longish green cones thrusting up at blue heaven from\nthe high bluish tips of the balsam pine, I say: \u201cBehold! Look at the\nstrong, fertile silence of the thrusting tree! God is in the bush like a\nclenched dark fist, or a thrust phallus.\u201d\n\nSo it is with every natural thing. It has a vital relation with all\nother natural things. Only the machine is absolved from vital relation.\nIt is based on the mystery of neuters. The neutralising of one great\nnatural force against another, makes mechanical power. Makes the\nengine\u2019s wheels go round.\n\nDoes the earth go round like a wheel, in the same way? No! In the\nliving, balanced, hovering flight of the earth, there is a strange\nleaning, an unstatic equilibrium, a balance that is non-balance. This is\nowing to the relativity of earth, moon, and sun, a vital, even sentient\nrelatedness, never perpendicular: nothing neutral or neuter.\n\nEvery natural thing has its own living relation to every other natural\nthing. So the tiger, striped in gold and black, lies and stretches his\nlimbs in perfection between all that the day is, and all that is night.\nHe has a by-the-way relatedness with trees, soil, water, man, cobras,\ndeer, ants, and of course, the she-tiger. Of all these he is reckless as\nC\u00e6sar was. When he stretches himself superbly, he stretches himself\nbetween the living day and the living night, the vast inexhaustible\nduality of creation. And he is the fanged and brindled Holy Ghost, with\nice-shining whiskers.\n\nThe same with man. His life consists in a relation with all things:\nstone, earth, trees, flowers, water, insects, fishes, birds, creatures,\nsun, rainbow, children, women, other men. But his greatest and final\nrelation is with the sun, the sun of suns: and with the night, which is\nmoon and dark and stars. In the last great connections, he lifts his\nbody speechless to the sun, and, the same body, but so different, to the\nmoon and the stars, and the spaces between the stars.\n\nSun! Yes, the actual sun! That which blazes in the day! Which scientists\ncall a sphere of blazing gas--what a lot of human gas there is, which\nhas never been set ablaze!--and which the Greeks call Helios!\n\nThe sun, I tell you, is alive, and more alive than I am, or a tree is.\nIt may have blazing gas, as I have hair, and a tree has leaves. But I\ntell you, it is the Holy Ghost in full raiment, shaking and walking, and\nalive as a tiger is, only more so, in the sky.\n\nAnd when I can turn my body to the sun, and say: \u201cSun! Sun!\u201d and we\nmeet--then I am come finally into my own. For the universe of day,\nfinally, is the sun. And when the day of the sun is my day too, I am a\nlord of all the world.\n\nAnd at night, when the silence of the moon, and the stars, and the\nspaces between the stars, is the silence of me too, then I am come into\nmy own by night. For night is a vast untellable life, and the Holy Ghost\nstarry, beheld as we only behold night on earth.\n\nIn his ultimate and surpassing relation, man is given only to that which\nhe can never describe or account for; the sun, as it is alive, and the\nliving night.\n\nA man\u2019s supreme moment of active life is when he looks up and is with\nthe sun, and is with the sun as a woman is with child. The actual yellow\nsun of morning.\n\nThis makes man a lord, an aristocrat of life.\n\nAnd the supreme moment of quiescent life is when a man looks up into the\nnight, and is gone into the night, so the night is like a woman with\nchild, bearing him. And this, a man has to himself.\n\nThe true aristocrat is the man who has passed all the relationships and\nhas met the sun, and the sun is with him as a diadem.\n\nC\u00e6sar was like this. He passed through the great relationships, with\nruthlessness, and came to the sun. And he became a sun-man. But he was\ntoo unconscious. He was not aware that the sun for ever was beyond him,\nand that only in his _relation_ to the sun was he deified. He wanted to\nbe God.\n\nAlexander was wiser. He placed himself a god among men. But when blood\nflowed from a wound in him, he said, \u201cLook! It is the blood of a man\nlike other men.\u201d\n\nThe sun makes man a lord: an aristocrat: almost a deity. But in his\nconsummation with night and the moon, man knows for ever his own passing\naway.\n\nBut no man is man in all his splendour till he passes further than\nevery relationship: further than mankind and womankind, in the last leap\nto the sun, to the night. The man who can touch both sun and night, as\nthe woman touched the garment of Jesus, becomes a lord and a saviour, in\nhis own kind. With the sun he has his final and ultimate relationship,\nbeyond man or woman, or anything human or created. And in this final\nrelation is he most intensely alive, surpassing.\n\nEvery creature at its zenith surpasses creation and is alone in the face\nof the sun, and the night: the sun that lives, and the night that lives\nand survives. Then we pass beyond every other relationship, and every\nother relationship, even the intensest passion of love, sinks into\nsubordination and obscurity. Indeed, every relationship, even that of\npurest love, is only an approach nearer and nearer, to a man\u2019s last\nconsummation with the sun, with the moon or night. And in the\nconsummation with the sun, even love is left behind.\n\nHe who has the sun in his face, in his body, he is the pure aristocrat.\nHe who has the sun in his breast, and the moon in his belly, he is the\nfirst: the aristocrat of aristocrats, supreme in the aristocracy of\nlife.\n\nBecause he is _most alive_.\n\nBeing alive constitutes an aristocracy which there is no getting beyond.\nHe who is most alive, intrinsically, is King, whether men admit it or\nnot. In the face of the sun.\n\nLife rises in circles, in degrees. The most living is the highest. And\nthe lower shall serve the higher, if there is to be any life among men.\n\nMore life! More _vivid_ life! Not more safe cabbages, or meaningless\nmasses of people.\n\nPerhaps Dostoevsky was more vividly alive than Plato: culminating a more\nvivid life circle, and giving the clue towards a higher circle still.\nBut the clue _hidden_, as it always is hidden, in every revelation,\nunderneath what is stated.\n\nAll creation contributes, and must contribute to this: towards the\nachieving of a vaster, vivider cycle of life. That is the goal of\nliving. He who gets nearer the sun is leader, the aristocrat of\naristocrats. Or he who, like Dostoevsky, gets nearest the moon of our\nnot-being.\n\nThere is, of course, the power of mere conservatism and inertia. Deserts\nmade the cactus thorny. But the cactus still is a rose of roses.\n\nWhereas a sort of cowardice made the porcupine spiny. There is a\ndifference between the cowardice of inertia, which now governs the\ndemocratic masses, particularly the capitalist masses: and the\nconservative fighting spirit which saved the cactus in the middle of the\ndesert.\n\nThe democratic mass, capitalist and proletariat alike, are a vast,\nsluggish, ghastlily greedy porcupine, lumbering with inertia. Even\nBolshevism is the same porcupine: nothing but greed and inertia.\n\nThe cactus had a rose to fight for. But what has democracy to fight for,\nagainst the living elements, except money, money, money!\n\nThe world is stuck solid inside an achieved form, and bristling with a\nmyriad spines, to protect its hulking body as it feeds: gnawing the bark\nof the young tree of Life, and killing it from the top downwards.\nLeaving its spines to fester and fester in the nose of the gay dog.\n\nThe actual porcupine, in spite of legend, cannot shoot its quills. But\nmankind, the porcupine out-pigging the porcupine, can stick quills into\nthe face of the sun.\n\nBah! Enough of the squalor of democratic humanity. It is time to begin\nto recognize the aristocracy of the sun. The children of the sun shall\nbe lords of the earth.\n\nThere will form a new aristocracy, irrespective of nationality, of men\nwho have reached the sun. Men of the sun, whether Chinese or Hottentot,\nor Nordic, or Hindu, or Esquimo, if they touch the sun in the heavens,\nare lords of the earth. And together they will form the aristocracy of\nthe world. And in the coming era they will rule the world; a\nconfraternity of the living sun, making the embers of financial\ninternationalism and industrial internationalism pale upon the hearth of\nthe earth.\n\n\n                        THE SECOND BOOK OF THE\n                             CENTAUR PRESS\n\n                        THE EDITION IS LIMITED\n                          TO NINE HUNDRED AND\n                        TWENTY-FIVE COPIES FOR\n                          SALE OF WHICH THIS\n                               IS NUMBER","title":"Reflections on the death of a porcupine and other essays","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":52061}