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diff --git a/old/10675.txt b/old/10675.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1ee248f --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10675.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6132 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Pebbles on the Shore +by Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner) + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Pebbles on the Shore + +Author: Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner) + +Release Date: January 11, 2004 [EBook #10675] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEBBLES ON THE SHORE *** + + + + +Produced by Brendan Lane and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + +PEBBLES +ON THE SHORE + + +Alpha of the Plough + + + ... collecting toys +And trifles for choice matters, worth a sponge; +As children gathering pebbles on the shore + + + + + TO + ALL WHO LOVE + THE COTTAGE IN THE + BEECHWOODS + + + + +1916 + + + + +PREFACE + + +These papers were begun as a part of a causerie in _The Star_, the other +contributors to which--men whose names are household words in contemporary +literature--wrote under the pen names of "Aldebaran," "Arcturus" and +"Sirius." But the constellation, formed in the early days of the war, did +not long survive the agitations of that event, and when "Arcturus" left for +the battlefield it was finally dissolved and "Alpha of the Plough" alone +remained to continue the causerie. This selection from his papers is a sort +of informal diary of moods in a time of peril. They are pebbles gathered on +the shore of a wild sea. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +ON CHOOSING A NAME +ON LETTER-WRITING +ON READING IN BED +ON CATS AND DOGS +"W.G." +ON SEEING VISIONS +ON BLACK SHEEP +THE VILLAGE AND THE WAR +ON RUMOUR +ON UMBRELLA MORALS +ON TALKING TO ONE'S SELF +ON BOSWELL AND HIS MIRACLE +ON SEEING OURSELVES +ON THE ENGLISH SPIRIT +ON FALLING IN LOVE +ON A BIT OF SEAWEED +ON LIVING AGAIN +TU-WHIT, TU-WHOO! +ON POINTS OF VIEW +ON BEER AND PORCELAIN +ON A CASE OF CONSCIENCE +ON THE GUINEA STAMP +ON THE DISLIKE OF LAWYERS +ON THE CHEERFULNESS OF THE BLIND +ON TAXING VANITY +ON THOUGHTS AT FIFTY +THE ONE-EYED CAT +ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF HATS +ON SEEING LONDON +ON CATCHING THE TRAIN +IN PRAISE OF CHESS +ON THE DOWNS +ON SHORT LEGS AND LONG LEGS +ON A PAINTED FACE +ON WRITING AN ARTICLE +ON A CITY THAT WAS +ON PLEASANT SOUNDS +ON SLACKENING THE BOW +ON THE INTELLIGENT GOLF BALL +ON A PRISONER OF WAR +ON THE WORLD WE LIVE IN +"I'M TELLING YOU" +ON COURAGE +ON SPENDTHRIFTS +ON A TOP HAT +ON LOSING ONE'S MEMORY +ON WEARING A FUR-LINED COAT +IN PRAISE OF WALKING +ON REWARDS AND RICHES +ON TASTE +ON A HAWTHORN HEDGE + + + + +PEBBLES ON THE SHORE + + + + +ON CHOOSING A NAME + + +"As for your name, I offer you the whole firmament to choose from." In that +prodigal spirit the editor of the _Star_ invites me to join the +constellation that he has summoned from the vasty deeps of Fleet Street. I +am, he says, to shine punctually every Wednesday evening, wet or fine, on +winter nights and summer eves, at home or abroad, until such time as he +cries: "Hold, enough!" and applies the extinguisher that comes to all. + +The invitation reaches me in a tiny village on a spur of a range of beech +clad hills, whither I have fled for a breathing space from the nightmare of +the war and the menacing gloom of the London streets at night. Here the +darkness has no terrors. In the wide arch of the sky our lamps are lit +nightly as the sun sinks down far over the great plain that stretches at +our feet. None of the palpitations of Fleet Street disturb us, and the +rumours of the war come to us like far-off echoes from another world. The +only sensation of our day is when, just after darkness has fallen, the +sound of a whistle in the tiny street of thatched cottages announces that +the postman has called to collect letters. + +In this solitude, where one is thrown entirely upon one's own resources, +one discovers how dependent one is upon men and books for inspiration. It +is hard even to find a name. Not that finding a name is easy in any +circumstances. Every one who lives by his pen knows the difficulty of the +task. I would rather write an article than find a title for it. The +thousand words come easily (sometimes); but the five-words summary of the +thousand, that is to flame at the top like a beacon light, is a gem that +has to be sought in travail, almost in tears. I have written books, but I +have never found a title for one that I have written. That has always come +to me from a friend. + +Even the men of genius suffer from this impoverishment. When Goldsmith had +written the finest English comedy since Shakespeare he did not know what to +call it, and had to leave Johnson to write the label. I like to think that +Shakespeare himself suffered from this sterility--that he, too, sat biting +the feather of his quill in that condition of despair that is so familiar +to smaller men. Indeed, we have proof that it was so in the titles +themselves. Is not the title, _As You Like It_, a confession that he had +bitten his quill until he was tired of the vain search for a name? And what +is _Twelfth Night: or What You Will_ but an evidence that he could not hit +upon any name that would fit the most joyous offspring of his genius? + +What parent does not know the same agony? To name a child, to give him a +sign that shall go with him to his grave, and that shall fit that mystery +of the cradle which time and temptation and trial shall alone reveal--_hoc +opus, hic labor est_. Many fail by starting from false grounds--fashion, +ambition, or momentary interest. Perhaps the little stranger arrives with +the news of a battle, or when a popular novel appears, or at a moment when +you are under the influence of some austere or heroic name. And forgetful +that it is the child that has to bear the burden of your momentary impulse, +you call him Inkerman Jones, or Kitchener Smith, or Milton Spinks. + +And so he is started on his journey, like a little historical memory, or +challenging comparison with some hero of fact or fable. Perhaps Milton +Spinks grows up bow-legged and commonplace--all Spinks and no Milton. As +plain John he would pass through life happy and unnoticed, but the great +name of Milton hangs about him like a jest from which he can never +escape--no, not even in the grave, for it will be continued there until the +lichen has covered the name on the headstone with stealthy and kindly +oblivion. + +It is a good rule, I think, to avoid the fanciful in names. So few of our +children are going to be heroes or sages that we should be careful not to +stamp them with the mark of greatness at the outset of the journey. Horatio +was a happy stroke for Nelson, but how few Horatios win immortality, or +deserve it! And how disastrous if Horatio turns out a knave and a coward! +If young Spinks has any Miltonic fire within him, it will shine through +plain John more naturally and lustrously than through any borrowed +patronymic. You may be as humble as you like, and John will fit you: as +illustrious as you like, and John will blaze as splendid as your deeds, +linking you with that great order of nobility of which John Milton, John +Hampden, and John Bright are types. + +I had written thus far when it occurred to me that I had still my own name +to choose and that soon the whistle of the postman would be heard in the +street. I went out into the orchard to take counsel with the stars. The far +horizon was still stained wine-red with the last embers of the day; +northward over the shoulder of the hill the yellow moon was rising +full-orbed into the night sky and the firmament glittered with a thousand +lamps. + +How near and familiar they seem to one in the solitude of the country! In +the town our vision is limited to the street. We see only the lights of the +pavement and hear only the rattle of the unceasing traffic. The stars seem +infinitely removed from our life. + +But here they are like old neighbours for whom we never look in vain, +intimate though eternal, friendly and companionable though far off. There +is Orion coming over the hill, and there the many-jewelled Pleiades, and +across the great central dome of the sky the vast triangle formed by the +Pole Star, golden Arcturus (not now visible), and ice-blue Vega. But these +are not names for me. Better are those homely sounds that link the pageant +of night with the immemorial life of the fields. Arcturus is Alpha of the +Herdsman. Shall it be that? + +And then my eye roves westward to where the Great Bear hangs head downwards +as if to devour the earth. Great Bear, Charles's Wain, the Plough, the +Dipper, the Chariot of David--with what fancies the human mind through all +the ages has played with that glorious constellation! Let my fancy play +with it too. There at the head of the Plough flames the great star that +points to the pole. I will hitch my little waggon to that sublime image. I +will be Alpha of the Plough. + + + + +ON LETTER-WRITING + + +Two soldiers, evidently brothers, stood at the door of the railway +carriage--one inside the compartment, the other on the platform. + +"Now, you won't forget to write, Bill," said the latter. + +"No," said Bill. "I shall be back at--tonight, and I'll write all round +to-morrow. But, lor, what a job. There's mother and the missus and Bob and +Sarah and Aunt Jane and Uncle Jim, and--well, you know the lot. You've had +to do it, Sam." + +"Yes," said Sam, ruefully; "it's a fair teaser." + +"And if you write to one and miss another they're offended," continued +Bill. "But I always mention all of 'em. I say 'love to Sarah,' and 'hope +Aunt Jane's cold's better,' and that sort of thing, and that fills out a +page. But I'm blowed if I can find anything else to say. I just begin +'hoping this finds you well, as it leaves me at present,' and then I'm +done. What else is there to say?" + +"Nothing," said Sam, mournfully. "I just sit and scratch my head over the +blessed paper, but nothing'll come. Seems as though my head's as empty as a +drum." + +"Same here. 'Tisn't like writing love-letters. When I was up to that game +'twas easy enough. When I got stuck I just put in half a page of crosses, +and that filled up fine. But writing to mother and the missus and Sarah and +Jim and the rest is different. You can't fill up with crosses. It would +look ridiklus." + +"It would," said Sam. + +Then the train began to move, and the soldier in the train sank back on his +seat, took out a cigarette, and began to smoke. I found he had been twice +out at the front, and was now home on sick leave. He had been at the battle +of Mons, through the retreat to the Marne, the advance to the Aisne, the +first battle of Ypres, and the fighting at Festubert. In a word, he had +seen some of the greatest events in the world's history, face to face, and +yet he confessed that when he came to writing a letter, even to his wife, +he could find nothing to say. He was in the position of the lady mentioned +by Horace Walpole, whose letter to her husband began and ended thus: "I +write to you because I have nothing to do: I finish because I have nothing +to say." + +I suppose there has never been so much letter-writing in the world as is +going on to-day, and much of it is good writing, as the papers show. But +the case of my companion in the train is the case of thousands and tens of +thousands of young fellows who for the first time in their lives want to +write and discover that they have no gift of self-expression. It is not +that they are stupid. It is that somehow the act of writing paralyses them. +They cannot condense the atmosphere in which they live to the concrete +word. You have to draw them out. They need a friendly lead. When they have +got that they can talk well enough, but without it they are dumb. + +In the great sense letter-writing is no doubt a lost art. It was killed by +the penny post and modern hurry. When Madame de Sevigny, Cowper, Horace +Walpole, Byron, Lamb, and the Carlyles wrote their immortal letters the +world was a leisurely place where there was time to indulge in the luxury +of writing to your friends. And the cost of franking a letter made that +letter a serious affair. If you could only send a letter once in a month or +six months, and then at heavy expense, it became a matter of first-rate +consequence. The poor, of course, couldn't enjoy the luxury of +letter-writing at all. De Quincey tells us how the dalesmen of Lakeland a +century ago used to dodge the postal charges. The letter that came by stage +coach was received at the door by the poor mother, who glanced at the +superscription, saw from a certain agreed sign on it that Tom or Jim was +well, and handed it back to the carrier unopened. In those days a letter +was an event. + +Now when you can send a letter half round the globe for a penny, and when +the postman calls half a dozen times a day, few of us take letter-writing +seriously. Carlyle saw that the advent of the penny post would kill the +letter by making it cheap. "I shall send a penny letter next time," he +wrote to his mother when the cheap postage was about to come in, and he +foretold that people would not bother to write good letters when they could +send them for next to nothing. He was right, and the telegraph, the +telephone, and the postcard have completed the destruction of the art of +letter-writing. It is the difficulty or the scarcity of a thing that makes +it treasured. If diamonds were as plentiful as pebbles we shouldn't stoop +to pick them up. + +But the case of Bill and Sam and thousands of their comrades to-day is +different. They don't want to write literary letters, but they do want to +tell the folks at home something about their life and the great things of +which they are a part. But the great things are too great for them. They +cannot put them into words. And they ought not to try, for the secret of +letter-writing is intimate triviality. Bill could not have described the +retreat from Mons; but he could have told, as he told me, about the blister +he got on his heel, how he hungered for a smoke, how he marched and marched +until he fell asleep marching, how he lost his pal at Le Cateau, and how +his boot sole dropped off at Meaux. And through such trivialities he would +have given a living picture of the great retreat. + +In short, to write a good letter you must approach the job in the lightest +and most casual way. You must be personal, not abstract. You must not say, +"This is too small a thing to put down." You must say, "This is just the +sort of small thing we talk about at home. If I tell them this they will +see me, as it were, they'll hear my voice, they'll know what I'm about." +That is the purpose of a letter. Keats expresses the idea very well in one +of those voluminous letters which he wrote to his brother George and his +wife in America and in which he poured out the wealth of family affection +which was one of the most amiable features of his character. He has +described how he had been to see his mother, how she had laughed at his bad +jokes, how they went out to tea at Mrs. Millar's, and how in going they +were struck with the light and shade through the gateway at the Horse +Guards. And he goes on: "I intend to write you such volumes that it will be +impossible for me to keep any order or method in what I write; that will +come first which is uppermost in my mind, not that which is uppermost in my +heart--besides I should wish to give you a picture of our lives here +whenever by a touch I can do it; even as you must see by the last sentence +our walk past Whitehall all in good health and spirits--this I am certain +of because I felt so much pleasure from the simple idea of your playing a +game of cricket." + +There is the recipe by one of the masters of the craft. A letter written in +this vein annihilates distance; it continues the personal gossip, the +intimate communion, that has been interrupted by separation; it preserves +one's presence in absence. It cannot be too simple, too commonplace, too +colloquial. Its familiarity is not its weakness, but its supreme virtue. If +it attempts to be orderly and stately and elaborate, it may be a good +essay, but it will certainly be a bad letter. + + + + +ON READING IN BED + + +Among the few legacies that my father left me was a great talent for +sleeping. I think I can say, without boasting, that in a sleeping match I +could do as well as any man. I can sleep long, I can sleep often, and I can +sleep sound. When I put my head on the pillow I pass into a fathomless +peace where no dreams come, and about eight hours later I emerge to +consciousness, as though I have come up from the deeps of infinity. + +That is my normal way, but occasionally I have periods of wakefulness in +the middle of the night. My sleep is then divided into two chapters, and +between the chapters there is a slab of unmitigated dreariness. It is my +hour of pessimism. The tide has ebbed, the water is dead-low, and there is +a vista of endless mud. It is then that this tragi-comedy of life touches +bottom, and I see the heavens all hung with black. I despair of humanity, I +despair of the war, I despair of myself. There is not one gleam of light in +all the sad landscape, and the abyss seems waiting at my feet to swallow me +up with everything that I cherish. It is no use saying to this demon of the +darkness that I know he is a humbug, a mere Dismal Jemmy of the brain, who +sits there croaking like a night owl or a tenth-rate journalist. My Dismal +Jemmy is not to be exorcised by argument. He can only be driven out by a +little sane companionship. + +So I turn on a light and call for one of my bedside friends. They stand +there in noble comradeship, ready to talk, willing to remain silent, only +asking to do my pleasure. Oh, blessed be the name of Gutenberg, the Master +Printer. A German? I care not. Even if he had been a Prussian--which I +rejoice to think he was not--I would still say: "Blessed be the name of +Gutenberg," though Sir Richard Cooper, M.P., sent me to the Tower for it. +For Gutenberg is the Prometheus not of legend but of history. He brought +down the sacred flame and scattered the darkness that lay on the face of +the waters. He gave us the _Daily Owl_, it is true, but he made us also +freemen of time and thought, companions of the saints and the sages, +sharers in the wisdom and the laughter of the ages. Thanks to him I can, +for the expenditure of a few shillings, hear Homer sing and Socrates talk +and Rabelais laugh; I can go chivvying the sheep with Don Quixote and +roaming the hills with Borrow; I can carry the whole universe of +Shakespeare in my pocket, and call up spirits to drive Dismal Jemmy from my +pillow. + +Who are these spirits? In choosing them it is necessary to avoid the +deep-browed argumentative fellows. I do not want Plato or Gibbon or any of +the learned brotherhood by my bedside, nor the poets, nor the novelists, +nor the dramatists, nor even the professional humorists. These are all +capital fellows in their way, but let them stay downstairs. To the intimacy +of the bedside I admit only the kindly fellows who come in their +dressing-gowns and slippers, so to speak, and sit down and just talk to you +as though they had known you ever since you were a little nipper, and your +father and your grandfather before you. Of course, there is old Montaigne. +What a glorious gossip he is! What strange things he has to tell you, what +a noble candour he shows! He turns out his mind as carelessly as a boy +turns out his pockets, and gives you the run of his whole estate. You may +wander everywhere, and never see a board warning you to keep off the grass +or reminding you that you are a trespasser. + +And Bozzy. Who could do without Bozzy by his bedside--dear, garrulous old +Bozzy, most splendid of toadies, most miraculous of reporters? When Bozzy +begins to talk to me, and the old Doctor growls "Sir," all the worries and +anxieties of life fall magically away, and Dismal Jemmy vanishes like the +ghost at cock-crow. I am no longer imprisoned in time and the flesh: I am +of the company of the immortals. I share their triumphant aloofness from +the play that fills our stage and see its place in the scheme of the +unending drama of men. + +That sly rogue Pepys, of course, is there--more thumb-stained than any of +them except Bozzy. What a miracle is this man who lives more vividly in our +eyes than any creature that ever walked the earth! What was the secret of +his magic? Is it not this, that he succeeded in putting down on paper the +real truth about himself? A small thing? Well, you try it. You will find it +the hardest job you have ever tackled. No matter what secrecy you adopt you +will discover that you cannot tell yourself the _whole truth_ about +yourself. Pepys did that. Benvenuto Cellini pretended to do that, but I +refuse to believe the fellow. Benjamin Franklin tried to do it and very +nearly succeeded. St. Augustine was frank enough about his early +wickedness, but it was the overcharged frankness of the subsequent saint. +No, Pepys is the man. He did the thing better than it has ever been done in +this world. + +I like to have the _Paston Letters_ at my bedside, too. Then I go off to +sleep again in the fifteenth century with the voice of old Agnes Paston +sounding in my ears. Dead half a thousand years, yet across the gulf of +time I hear the painful scratching of her quill as she sends "Goddis +blyssyng" to her son in London, and tells him all her motherly gossip and +makes the rough life of far-off Tudor England live for ever. Dear old +Agnes! She little thought as she struggled with her spelling and her pen +that she was writing something that was immortal. If she had known, I don't +think she would have bothered. She was a very matter-of-fact old lady, and +was too full of worries to have much room for vanities. + +I should like to say more about my bedside friends--strapping George Borrow +sitting with Petulengro's sister under the hedge or fighting the Flaming +Tinman; the dear little Boston doctor who talks so chirpily over the +Breakfast Table; the _Compleat Angler_ that takes you out into an eternal +May morning, and Sainte-Beuve whom I have found a first-rate bedside +talker. But I must close. + +There is one word, however, to be added. Your bedside friends should be +dressed in soft leather and printed on thin paper. Then you can talk to +them quite snugly. It is a great nuisance if you have to stick your arms +out of bed and hold your hands rigid. + + + + +ON CATS AND DOGS + + +A friend of mine calling to see me the other day and observing my faithful +Airedale--"Quilp" by name--whose tail was in a state of violent emotion at +the prospect of a walk, remarked that when the new taxes came in I should +have to pay a guinea for the privilege of keeping that dog. I said I hoped +that Mr. McKenna would do nothing so foolish. In fact, I said, I am sure he +will do nothing so foolish. I know him well, and I have always found him a +sensible man. Let him, said I, tax us all fairly according to our incomes, +but why should he interfere with the way in which we spend the money that +he leaves us? Why should he deny the friendship of that most friendly +animal the dog to a poor man and make it the exclusive possession of the +well-to-do? + +The emotion of Quilp's tail kept pace with the fervour of my remarks. He +knew that he was the subject of the conversation, and his large brown eyes +gleamed with intelligence, and his expressive eyebrows were eloquent of +self-pity and appeal. He was satisfied that whatever the issue I was on his +side, and at half a hint he would have given my friend a taste of the rough +side of his tongue. But he is a well-mannered brute, and knows how to +restrain his feelings in company. + +What would be the result of your high tax? I continued with passion. It +would be a blow at the democracy of dogs. It would reduce the whole of +dogdom to a pampered class of degenerates. Is there anything more odious +than the spectacle of a fat woman in furs nursing a lap dog in furs, too? +It is as degrading to the noble family of dogs as a footman in gold buttons +and gold braid is to the human family. But it is just these degenerates +whom a high tax would protect. Honest fellows like Quilp here (more +triumphant tail flourishes), dogs that love you like a brother, that will +run for you, carry for you, bark for you, whose candour is so transparent +and whose faithfulness has been the theme of countless poets--dogs like +these would be taxed out of existence. + +Now cats, I continued--(at the thrilling word Quilp became tense with +excitement), cats are another affair. Personally I don't care two pence if +Mr. McKenna taxes them a guinea a whisker. There is only one moment in the +life of a cat that is tolerable, and that is when it is not a cat but a +kitten. Who was the Frenchman who said that women ought to be born at +seventeen and die at thirty? Cats ought to die when they cease to be +kittens and become cats. + +Cats, said my friend coldly, are the spiritual superiors of dogs. The dog +is a flunkey, a serf, an underling, a creature that is eternally watching +its master. Look at Quilp at this moment. What a spectacle of servility. +You don't see cats making themselves the slaves of men. They like to be +stroked, but they have no affection for the hand that strokes them. They +are not parasites, but independent souls, going their own way, living their +own lives, indifferent to applause, calling no man master. That is why the +French consider them so superior to dogs. + +I do not care what the French think, I said with warmth. + +But they are our Allies, said my friend severely. The Germans, on the other +hand, prefer dogs. I hope you are not a pro-German. + +On the cat-and-dog issue I am, and I don't care who knows it, I said +recklessly. And I hate these attempts to drag in prejudice. Moreover, I +would beg you to observe that it was a great Frenchman, none other than +Pascal, who paid the highest of all tributes to the dog. "The more I see of +men," he said, "the better I like dogs." I challenge you to produce from +any French source such an encomium on the cat. + +No, I continued, the dog is a generous, warmhearted, chivalrous fellow, who +will play with you, mourn for you, or die for you. Why, literature is full +of his heroism. Who has climbed Helvellyn without being haunted by that +shepherd's dog that inspired Scott and Byron? Or the Pass of St. Bernard +without remembering the faithful hounds of the great monastery? But the cat +is a secret and alien creature, selfish and mysterious, a Dr. Jekyll and +Mr. Hyde. See her purring on the hearth-rug in front of the fire, and she +seems the picture of innocence and guileless content. All a blind, my dear +fellow, all a blind. Wait till night comes. Then where is demure Mistress +Puss? Is she at home keeping vigil with the good dog Tray? No, the house +may be in blazes or ransacked by burglars for all she cares. She is out on +the tiles and in back gardens pursuing her unholy ritual--that strange +ritual that seems so Oriental, so sinister, so full of devilish purpose. I +can understand the old association of witchcraft with cats. The sight of +cats almost makes me believe in witchcraft, in spite of myself. I can +believe anything about a cat. She is heartless and mercenary. Her name has +become the synonym of everything that is mean, spiteful, and vicious. "An +old cat" is the unkindest thing you can say about a woman. + +But the dog wears his heart on his sleeve. His life is as open as the day. +He has his indecorums, but he has no secrets. You may see the worst of him +at a glance, but the best of him is inexhaustible. A cat is as remote from +your life as a lizard, but a dog is as intimate as your own thoughts or +your own shadow, and his loyalty is one of the consolations of a disloyal +world. You remember that remark of Charles Reade's: "He was only a man, but +he was as faithful as a dog." It was the highest tribute he could pay to +his hero--that he was as faithful as a dog. And think of his services--see +him drawing his cart in Belgium, rounding up the sheep into the fold on the +Yorkshire fells, tending the cattle by the highway, warning off the night +prowler from the lonely homestead, always alert, always obedient, always +the friend of man, be he never so friendless.... Shall we go for a walk? + +At the joyous word Quilp leapt on me with a frenzied demonstration. "Good +dog," I said. "If Mr. McKenna puts a guinea tax on you I'll never say a +good word for him again." + + + + +"W.G." + + +The worst of spending week-ends in the country in these anxious days is the +difficulty of getting news. About six o'clock on Saturday evening I am +seized with a furious hunger. What has happened on the East front? What on +the West? What in Serbia? Has Greece made up its heroic mind? Is Rumania +still trembling on the brink? What does the French communique say? These +and a hundred other questions descend on me with frightful insistence. +Clearly I can't go to bed without having them answered. But there is not an +evening paper to be got nearer than the little railway station in the +valley two miles away, and there is no way of getting it except by Shanks' +mare. And so, unable to resist the glamour of _The Star_, I start out +across the fields for the station. + +As I stood on the platform last Saturday evening devouring the latest war +news under the dim oil lamp, a voice behind me said, in broad rural accent, +"Bill, I say, W.G. is dead." At the word I turned hastily to another column +and found the news that had stirred him. And even in the midst of +world-shaking events it stirred me too. For a brief moment I forgot the war +and was back in that cheerful world where we used to be happy, where we +greeted the rising sun with light hearts and saw its setting without fear. +In that cheerful world I can hardly recall a time when a big man with a +black beard was not my King. + +I first saw him in the 'seventies. I was a small boy then, and I did him +the honour of playing truant--"playing wag" we called it. I felt that the +occasion demanded it. To have the god of my idolatry in my own little town +and not to pay him my devotions--why, the idea was almost like blasphemy. A +half-dozen, or even a dozen, from my easily infuriated master would be a +small price to pay. I should take the stripes as a homage to the hero. He +would never know, but I should be proud to suffer in his honour. +Unfortunately there was a canvas round the field where the hero played, and +as the mark of the Mint was absent from my pockets I was on the wrong side +of the canvas. But I knew a spot where by lying flat on your stomach and +keeping your head very low you could see under the canvas and get a view of +the wicket. It was not a comfortable position, but I saw the King. I think +I was a little disappointed that there was nothing supernatural about his +appearance and that there were no portents in the heavens to announce his +coming. It didn't seem quite right somehow. In a general way I knew he was +only a man, but I was quite prepared to see something tremendous happen, +the sun to dance or the earth to heave, when he appeared. I never felt the +indifference of Nature to the affairs of men so acutely. + +I saw him many times afterwards, and I suppose I owe more undiluted +happiness to him than to any man that ever lived. For he was the genial +tyrant in a world that was all sunshine. There are other games, no doubt, +which will give you as much exercise and pleasure in playing them as +cricket, but there is no game that fills the mind with such memories and +seems enveloped in such a gracious and kindly atmosphere. If you have once +loved it and played it, you will find talk in it enough "for the wearing +out of six fashions," as Falstaff says. I like a man who has cricket in his +soul. I find I am prejudiced in his favour, and am disposed to disbelieve +any ill about him. I think my affection for Jorkins began with the +discovery that he, like myself, saw that astounding catch with which Ulyett +dismissed Bonnor in the Australian match at Lord's in 1883--or was it 1884? +And when to this mutual and immortal memory we added the discovery that we +were both at the Oval at the memorable match when Crossland rattled Surrey +out like ninepins and the crowd mobbed him, and Key and Roller miraculously +pulled the game out of the fire, our friendship was sealed. + +The fine thing about a wrangle on cricket is that there is no bitterness in +it. When you talk about politicians you are always on the brink of bad +temper. When you disagree about the relative merits of W.B. Yeats or +Francis Thompson you are afflicted with scorn for the other's lack of +perception. But you may quarrel about cricketers and love each other all +the time. For example, I am prepared to stand up in a truly Christian +spirit to the bowling of anybody in defence of my belief that--next to him +of the black beard--Lohmann was the most naturally gifted all-round +cricketer there has ever been. What grace of action he had, what an +instinct for the weak spot of his opponent, what a sense for fitting the +action to the moment, above all, what a gallant spirit he played the game +in! And that, after all, is the real test of the great cricketer. It is the +man who brings the spirit of adventure into the game that I want. Of the +Quaifes and the Scottons and the Barlows I have nothing but dreary +memories. They do not mean cricket to me. And even Shrewsbury and Hayward +left me cold. They were too faultily faultless, too icily regular for my +taste. They played cricket not as though it was a game, but as though it +was a proposition in Euclid. And I don't like Euclid. + +It was the hearty joyousness that "W.G." shed around him that made him so +dear to us youngsters of all ages. I will admit, if you like, that +Ranjitsinhji at his best was more of a magician with the bat, that Johnny +Briggs made you laugh more with his wonderful antics, that A.P. Lucas had +more finish, Palairet more grace, and so on. But it was the abundance of +the old man with the black beard that was so wonderful. You never came to +the end of him. He was like a generous roast of beef--you could cut and +come again, and go on coming. Other men flitted across our sky like +meteors, but he shone on like the sun in the heavens, and like the sun in +the heavens he scattered largesse over the land. He did not seem so much a +man as an institution, a symbol of summer and all its joys, a sort of +Father Christmas clothed in flannels and sunshine. It did you good merely +to look at him. It made you feel happy to see such a huge capacity for +enjoyment, such mighty subtlety, such ponderous gaiety. It was as though +Jove, or Vulcan, or some other god of antiquity had come down to play games +with the mortals. You would not have been much surprised if, when the +shadows lengthened across the greensward and the umpire signalled that the +day's play was done, he had wrapped himself in a cloud of glory and floated +away to Olympus. + +And now he is gone indeed, and it seems as though a part, and that a very +happy part, of my life has gone with him. When sanity returns to the earth, +there will arise other deities of the cricket field, but not for me. Never +again shall I recapture the careless rapture that came with the vision of +the yellow cap flaming above the black beard, of the Herculean frame and +the mighty bared arms, and all the godlike apparition of the master. As I +turned out of the little station and passed through the fields and climbed +the hill I felt that the darkness that has come upon the earth in these +days had taken a deeper shade of gloom, for even the lights of the happy +past were being quenched. + + + + +ON SEEING VISIONS + + +The postman (or rather the postwoman) brought me among other things this +morning a little paper called _The Superman_, which I find is devoted to +the stars, the lines of the hands, and similar mysteries. I gather from it +that "Althea," a normal clairvoyant, and other seers, have visited the +planets--in their astral bodies, of course--to make inquiries on various +aspects of the war. Althea and "the other seers" seem to have had quite a +busy time running about among the stars and talking to the inhabitants +about the trouble in our particular orb. They seem really to have got to +the bottom of things. It appears that there is a row going on between +Lucifer and Arniel. "Lucifer is a fallen planetary god, whose lust for +power has driven him from his seat of authority as ruler of Jupiter. He is +the evil genius overshadowing the Kaiser and is striving to possess this +world so that he may pass it on to Jupiter and eventually blot out the +Solar Logos," etc., etc. + +I do not know who sent me this paper or for what purpose; but let me say +that it is sheer waste of postage stamps and material. I hope I am not +intolerant of the opinions of others, but I confess that when people talk +to me about reading the stars and the lines of the hand and things of that +sort I shut up like an oyster. I do not speak of the humbugs who +deliberately exploit the credulity of fools. I speak of the sincere +believers--people like my dear old friend W.T. Stead, who was the most +extraordinary combination of wisdom and moonshine I have ever known. He +would startle you at one moment by his penetrating handling of the facts of +a great situation, and the next moment would make you speechless with some +staggering story of spirit visitors or starry conspiracies that seemed to +him just as actual as the pavement on which he walked. + +I am not at home in this atmosphere of mysteries. It is not that I do not +share the feeling out of which it is born. I do. Thoreau said he would give +all he possessed for "one true vision," and so long as we are spiritually +alive we must all have some sense of expectancy that the curtain will lift, +and that we shall look out with eyes of wonder on the hidden meaning of +this strange adventure upon which we are embarked. For thousands of years +we have been wandering in this wilderness of the world and speculating +about why we are here, where we are going, and what it is all about. It can +never have been a greater puzzle than now, when we are all busily engaged +in killing each other. And at every stage there have been those who have +cried, "Lo, here!" and "Lo, there!" and have called men to witness that +they have read the riddle and have torn the secret from the heart of the +great mystery. + +And so long as men can feel and think, the quest will go on. We could not +cease that quest if we would, and we would not if we could, for without it +all the meaning would have gone out of life and we should be no more than +the cattle in the fields. Nor is the quest in vain. We follow this trail +and that, catch at this hint of a meaning and that gleam of vision, and +though we find this path ends in a cul-de-sac, and that brings us back to +the place from whence we started, we are learning all the time about the +mysteries of our wilderness. And one day, perhaps--suddenly, it may be, as +that vision of the great white mountains of the Oberland breaks upon the +sight of the traveller--we shall see whither the long adventure leads. "Say +not the struggle naught availeth," said a poet who was not given to +cultivating illusions. And he went on:-- + + For while the tired waves, vainly breaking. + Seem here no painful inch to gain, + Far back, through creeks and inlets making. + Comes silent, flooding in, the main. + +But though I want to see a vision as much as anybody, I am out of touch +with the company of the credulous. I am with Doubting Thomas. I have no +capacity for believing the impossible, and have an entire distrust of dark +rooms and magic. People with bees in their bonnets leave me wondering, but +cold. I know a man--a most excellent man--whose life is a perfect debauch +of visions and revelations. He seems to discover the philosopher's stone +every other day. Sometimes it is brown bread that is the way to salvation. +If you eat brown bread you will never die, or at any rate you will live +until everybody is tired of you. Sometimes it is a new tax or a new sort of +bath that is the secret key to the whole contraption. For one period he +could talk of nothing but dried milk; for another, acetic acid was the +thing. Rub yourself with acetic acid and you would be as invulnerable to +the ills of the body as Achilles was after he had been dipped by Thetis in +the waters of Styx. The stars tell him anything he wishes to believe, and +he can conjure up spirits as easily as another man can order a cab. It is +not that he is a fool. In practical affairs he is astonishingly astute. It +is that he has an illimitable capacity for belief. He is always on the road +to Damascus. + +For my part I am content to wait. I am for Wordsworth's creed of "wise +passiveness." I should as soon think of reading my destiny on the sole of +my boot as in the palm of my hand. The one would be just as illuminating as +the other. It would tell me what I chose to make it tell me. That and no +more. And so with the stars. People who pretend to read the riddle of our +affairs in the pageant of the stars are deceiving themselves or are trying +to deceive others. They are giving their own little fancies the sanction of +the universe. The butterfly that I see flitting about in the sunshine +outside might as well read the European war as a comment on its aimless +little life. The stars do not chatter about us, but they have a balm for us +if we will be silent. The "huge and thoughtful night" speaks a language +simple, august, universal. + +It is one of the smaller consolations of the war that it has given us in +London a chance of hearing that language. The lamps of the street are +blotted out, and the lamps above are visible. Five nights of the week all +the year round I take the last bus that goes northward from the City, and +from the back seat on the top I watch the great procession of the stars. It +is the most astonishing spectacle offered to men. Emerson said that if we +only saw it once in a hundred years we should spend years in preparing for +the vision. It is hung out for us every night, and we hardly give it a +glance. And yet it is well worth glancing at. It is the best corrective for +this agitated little mad-house in which we dwell and quarrel and fight and +die. It gives us a new scale of measurement and a new order of ideas. Even +the war seems only a local affair of some ill-governed asylum in the +presence of this ordered march of illimitable worlds. I do not worry about +the vision; I do not badger the stars to give me their views about the war. +It is enough to see and feel and be silent. + +And now I hope Althea will waste no more postage stamps in sending me her +desecrating gibberish. + + + + +ON BLACK SHEEP + + +When I was in France a few weeks ago I heard much about the relative +qualities of different classes of men as soldiers. And one of the most +frequent themes was the excellence of the "black sheep." It was not merely +that he was brave. That one might expect. It was not even that he was +unselfish. That also did not arouse surprise. The pride in him, I found, +was chiefly due to the fact that he was so good a soldier in the sense of +discipline, enthusiasm, keenness, even intelligence. It is, I believe, a +well-ascertained fact that an unusually high proportion of reformatory boys +and other socially doubtful men have won rewards for exceptional deeds, and +every one knows the case of the man with twenty-seven convictions against +him who won the V.C. for one of the bravest acts of the war. + +It must not be assumed from this that to be a successful soldier you must +be a social failure. On the contrary, nothing has been so conclusively +proved by this war as the widespread prevalence of the soldierly instinct. +Heroes have sprung up from all ranks and all callings--from drapers' shops +and furniture vans, from stools in the city and looms in Lancashire, from +Durham pits and bishops' palaces. Whatever else the war has done, it has +knocked on the head the idea that the cult of militarism is necessary to +preserve the soul of courage and chivalry in a people. We, with a wholly +civic tradition, have shown that in the hour of need we can draw upon an +infinite reservoir of heroism, as splendid as anything in the annals of the +human race. + +But the case of the black sheep has a special significance for us. The war +has discovered the good that is in him, and has released it for useful +service. After all, the black sheep is often only black by the accident of +circumstance, upbringing, or association. He is a misfit. In him, as in all +of us, there is an infinite complexity--good and ill together. No one who +has faithfully examined his own life can doubt how trifling a weight turns +the scales for or against us. An accidental meeting, a casual friendship, a +phrase in a book--and the current of life takes a definite direction this +way or that. There are no doubt people in whom the elements are so +perfectly adjusted that the balance is never in doubt. Their character is +superior to circumstance. But they are rare. They are the stars that dwell +apart from our human struggles. Most of us know what it is to be on the +brink of the precipice--know, if we are quite honest with ourselves, how +narrow a shave we have had from joining the black sheep. Perhaps, if we are +still honest with ourselves, we shall admit that the thing that turned the +balance for us was not a very creditable thing--that we were protected from +ourselves not by any high virtue, but by something mean, a touch of +cowardice, a paltry ambition, a consideration that we should be ashamed to +confess. + +We are so strangely compact that we do not ourselves know what the ordeal +will discover in us. You have no doubt read that incident of the sergeant +who, in a moment of panic, fled, was placed under arrest and sentenced to +be shot. Before the sentence was ratified by the Commander-in-Chief, there +came a moment of extreme peril to the line, when irretrievable disaster was +imminent and every man who could fill a gap was needed. The condemned man +was called out to face the enemy, and, even in the midst of brave men, +fought with a bravery that singled him out for the Victoria Cross. Tell +me--which was the true man? I saw the other day a letter from a famous +doctor dealing with the question of the psychology of war. He was against +shooting a man for cowardice, because cowardice was not necessarily a +quality of character. It was often a temporary collapse due to physical +fatigue, or a passing condition of mind. "Five times," he said, "I have +been at work in circumstances in which my life was in imminent peril. On +four occasions I worked with a curious sense of exaltation. On the fifth +occasion I was seized with a sudden and unreasoning panic that paralysed +me. Perhaps it was a failure of digestion, perhaps a want of sleep. Anyhow, +at that moment I was a coward." + +The truth is that, except for the aforesaid stars who dwell apart, we all +have the potential saint and the potential sinner, the hero and the coward, +the honest man and the dishonest man within us. + +There is a fine poem in _A Shropshire Lad_ that puts the case of the black +sheep as pregnantly as it can be put:-- + + There sleeps in Shrewsbury gaol to-night, + Or wakes, as may betide, + A better lad if things went right + Than most that sleep outside. + +If things went right.... Do not, I pray you, think that in saying this I am +holding the candle to that deadly doctrine of determinism, or that, like +the tragic novelist, I see man only as a pitiful animal caught in the trap +of blind circumstance. If I believed that I should say "Better dead." But +what I do say is that we are so variously composed that circumstance does +play a powerful part in giving rein to this or that element in us and +making the scale go down for good or bad, and that often the best of us +only miss the wrong turning by a hair's breadth. Dirt, it is said, is only +matter in the wrong place. Put it in the right place, and it ceases to be +dirt. Give that man with twenty-seven convictions against him a chance of +revealing the better metal that is in him, and, lo! he is hailed as a hero +and decorated with the V.C. + + + + +THE VILLAGE AND THE WAR + + +"Well, have you heard the news?" + +It was the landlord of the Blue Boar who spoke. He stopped me in the +village street--if you can call a straggling lane with a score of thatched +cottages and half a dozen barns a street--evidently bursting with great +tidings. He is an old soldier himself, and his views on the war are held in +great esteem. I hadn't heard the news, but, whatever it was, I could see +from the landlord's immense smile that there was nothing to fear. + +"Jim has got a commission," said the landlord, and he said it in a tone +that left no doubt that now things would begin to move. For Jim is his son, +a sergeant-major in the artillery, who has been out at the front ever since +Mons. + +The news has created quite a sensation. But we are getting so used to +sensations now that we are becoming _blase_. There has never been such a +year of wonders in the memory of any one living. The other day thousands of +soldiers from the great camp ten miles away descended on our "terrain"--I +think that's the word--and had a tremendous two-days' battle in the hills +about us. They broke through the hedges, and slept in the cornfields, and +ravished the apple-trees in my orchard, and raided the cottagers for tea, +and tramped to and fro in our street and gave us the time of our lives. + +"_I_ never seed such a sight in _my_ life," said old Benjamin to me in the +evening. "Man and boy, I've lived in that there bungalow for eighty-five +year come Michaelmas, and _I_ never seed the like o' _this_ before.... Yes, +eighty-five year come Michaelmas. And my father had that there land on a +peppercorn rent, and the way he lost it was like this--" + +Happily at this moment there was a sudden alarum among the soldiers, and I +was able to dodge the familiar rehearsal of old Benjamin's grievance. + +And who would ever have dreamed that we should live to hear French talked +in our street as a familiar form of speech? But we have. In a little +cottage at the other end of the village is a family of Belgians, a fragment +of the flotsam thrown up by the great inundation of 1914. They have brought +the story of "frightfulness" near to us, for they passed through the terror +of Louvain, hiding in the cellars for nights and days, having two of their +children killed, and escaping to the coast on foot. + +Every Sunday night you will see them very busy carrying their few chairs +and tables into a neighbouring barn, for on Monday mornings mass is +celebrated there. The priest comes up in a country cart from ten miles +away, and the refugees scattered for miles around assemble for worship, +after which there is a tremendous pow-pow in French and Flemish, with much +laughter and gaiety. + +Old Benjamin "don't hold with they priests," and he has grave suspicions +about all foreign tongues, but the Belgians have become quite a part of us, +and their children are learning to lisp in English down at the school in +the valley. + +Much less agreeable is the frame of mind towards the occupants of the +cottage next to the Blue Boar. They are the wife and children of a German +who had worked in this country for many years and is now in America. The +woman is English and amiable, but the proximity of anything so reminiscent +of Germany is painful to the village, and especially to the landlord, whose +views about Germans can hardly be put into words. + +"I should hope there'll be no prisoners took after _this_," he says grimly +whenever he hears of a new outrage. "Vermin--that's what they are," he +says, "and they should be treated according-ly." + +The Germans, in fact, have become the substitute for every term of +execration, even with mild David the labourer. He came into the orchard +last evening staggering under a 15-ft. ladder. We had decided that if we +were going to have the pears before the wasps had spoiled them we must pick +them at once. + +"It's a wunnerful crop," said David. "I've knowed this pear-tree [looking +up at one of them from the foot of his ladder] for twenty-five year, and +I've never seen such a crop on it afore." + +Then he mounted the ladder and began to pick the fruit. + +"Well, I'm blowed," he said, "if they ain't been at 'em a'ready." And he +flung down pear after pear scooped out by the wasps close to the stalk. +"Reg'lar Germans--that's what they are," he said. "Look at 'em round that +hive," he went on. "They'll hev all the honey and them bees will starve and +git the Isle o' Wight--that's what they'll git.... Lor," he added, +reflectively, "I dunno what wospses are made for--wospses _and_ Germans. It +gits over me." + +I said it got over me too. And then from among the branches, while I hung +on to the foot of the ladder to keep it firm, David unbosomed his disquiet +to me about enlisting. + +"Most o' the chaps round here has gone," he said, "an' I don't like staying +be'ind. Seems as though you were hanging back like. 'Taint that I shouldn't +like to go; but it's this way ... (Hullo, I got my hand on a wasp that +time) ... There's such a lot o' women-folk dependent on me. There's my wife +and there's my mother down the village _and_ my aunt; and not a man to do +anything for 'em but me. After my work on th' farm, I keeps all three +gardens going and a patch of allotment down the valley as well." + +"You're growing a lot of good food, and that's military work," I said. + +He seemed cheered by the idea, and asked me if I'd like to see the potatoes +he had dug up that evening--they were "a wunnerful fine lot," he said. + +So after he had stripped the pear-tree he shouldered the ladder, and we +went down the village to David's garden. There I saw his potatoes, some +lying to dry where they had been dug up, others in sacks. Also his marrows +and beans and cabbages and lettuces. A little apologetically, he offered me +some of the largest potatoes--"just as a hobby," he said, meaning thereby +that it was only a trifle he offered. + +As I went away in the gathering dark, with my hands full of potatoes, I met +the landlord of the Blue Boar, his shirt sleeves rolled up as usual above +his brown, muscular arms. + +"Bad news that about Mrs. Lummis," he said, looking towards the cottage on +the other side of the road. + +"What is that?" said I. "Her son?" There had been no news of him for two +months. + +"Yes, poor Jack. She's got news that he was killed near la Bassee in June. +Nice feller--and her only son." + +Then, more cheerfully, he added, "Jim's coming home to-morrow. Going to get +his officer's rig out, you know, and have a rest--the first since he went +out a year ago." + +"You'll be glad to see him," said I. + +"Not half," said he with a vast smile. + + + + +ON RUMOUR + + +I was speaking the other day to a man of cautious mind on a subject of +current rumour. "Well," he said, "if I had been asked whether I believed +such evidence four months ago I should have said 'Certainly.' But after the +great Russian myth I believe nothing that I can't prove. I believed in that +army of ghosts that came from Archangel! There are people who say they +didn't believe in it. Some of them believe they didn't believe in it. But I +say defiantly that I did believe in it. And I say further that there was +never a rumour in the world that seemed based upon more various or more +convincing evidence. And it wasn't true.... Well, I find I'm a changed man. +I find I am no longer a believer: I am a doubter." + +This experience, I suppose, is not uncommon. The man who believes as easily +to-day as he did six months ago is a man on whom lessons are thrown away. +We have lived in a world of gigantic whispers, and most of them have been +false whispers. Even the magic word "Official" leaves one cold. It is not +what I am "officially" told that interests me: it is what I am "officially" +not told that I want to know in order to arrive at the truth. + +You remember that famous answer of the plaintiff in an action against a +London paper years ago. "What did you tell him?" "I told him to tell the +truth." "The whole truth?" "No, _selected truths_." + +What we have to guard against in this matter of rumours is the natural +tendency to believe what we want to believe. Take that case of the reported +victory in Poland in November 1914. There is strong reason to believe that +a large part of Hindenburg's army narrowly escaped being encircled, that +had Rennenkampf come up to time the trick would have been done. But it +wasn't done. Yet nearly every correspondent in Petrograd sent the most +confident news of an overwhelming victory. The _Morning Post_ correspondent +spoke of it as something "terrible but sublime. There has been nothing like +it since Napoleon left the bones of half a million men behind him in +Russia." Even Lord Kitchener, in the House of Lords, said that Russia had +accomplished the greatest achievement of the war. And so, just afterwards, +with the equally empty rumour of Hindenburg's "victory," which sent Berlin +into such a frenzy of rejoicing. It believed without evidence because it +wanted to believe. + +And another fruitful source of rumour is fear. The famous concrete +emplacement at Maubeuge will serve as an instance. We had the most +elaborate details of how the property was acquired by German agents, how in +secret the concrete platform was laid down, and how the great 42-cm. +howitzer shelled Maubeuge from it. And instantly we heard of concrete +emplacements in this country--at Willesden, Edinburgh, and elsewhere. We +began to suspect every one who had a garage or a machine shop with a +concrete foundation of being a German agent. I confess that I shared these +suspicions in regard to a certain factory overlooking London, and could not +wholly argue myself out of them, though I hadn't an atom of evidence beyond +the fact that the building had been owned by Germans and had a commanding +position. I was under the hypnotism of Maubeuge and the fears to which it +gave birth. + +Yet there never was a concrete emplacement at Maubeuge, and no 42-cm. +howitzer was used against that fortress. The property belonged, not to +German agents, but to respectable Frenchmen, and the apology of the _Matin_ +for the libel upon them may be read by anybody who is interested in these +myths of the war. + +I refer to this subject to-day not to recall these historic fables, but to +show what cruel wrong we may do to the innocent by accepting rumours about +our neighbours without examining the facts. Was there ever a more pitiful +story than that told at the inquest on an elderly woman at Henham in +Suffolk? Her husband had been the village schoolmaster for twenty-eight +years. The couple had a son whom they sent to Germany to learn the +language. The average village schoolmaster has not much money for luxuries, +and I can imagine the couple screwing and saving to give their boy a good +start in life. When he had finished his training he set out to seek his +fortune in South America, and there in far Guatemala he became a teacher of +languages. When the war broke out he heard the call of the Motherland to +her children and like thousands of others came back to fight. + +But in the meantime the lying tongue of rumour had been busy with his name +in his native village. It was said that he was an officer in the German +Army, and on the strength of that rumour his parents were ordered by the +Chief Constable to leave the village and not to dwell on the East Coast. It +was a sentence of death on them. The order broke the old man's heart, and +he committed suicide. The son arrived to find his father dead and his +mother distracted by her bereavement. He took her away to the seaside for a +rest, but on their return to the village she, too, committed suicide. And +the jury did not say "Killed by Slander": they said "Suicide while of +unsound mind." Oh, cautious jurymen! + +How do rumours get abroad? There are many ways. Let me illustrate one of +them. In his criticism of the war the other week Mr. Belloc said: + +"The official German communique which appeared in print last Saturday is a +very good example upon which to work. I quote it as it appeared in the +_Westminster Gazette (which has from the beginning of the war, and even +before its outbreak, been remarkable for the volume of its German +information_), and as it was delivered through the Marconi channel." + +Then follows the communique. Now, when I read this I smiled, for I love the +subtleties of the ingenious Mr. Belloc. He quotes a document which appeared +in every paper in the country, but he says he quotes it from the +_Westminster Gazette._ Why, since it appeared everywhere, does he mention +one paper? Obviously in order to make that parenthetical remark which I +have italicised. + +Now the reputation of the _Westminster_ stands too high to be affected by +the suggestion that it is "remarkable"--which it isn't--for its German +information. But suppose you, a mere ordinary citizen, were alleged by some +one to have special intercourse with Germany at this time. You might be as +innocent as that Suffolk schoolmaster, but that would not save you from the +suspicions of your neighbours and, perhaps, the attentions of the Chief +Constable. + +Let me give another little illustration. A friend of mine, who happens to +be a Liberal journalist, went to a private dinner recently to meet M. +Painleve, the French Academician, Senator Lafontaine, of Brussels, and two +other French and Belgian deputies. The next morning he was stated in the +_Daily Express_ (edited by Mr. Blumenfeld) to have dined with "_three or +four foreigners_" for the purpose of discussing peace. And in the next +issue of the _London Mail_ the question was asked, "Who were the foreigners +with whom ------ dined?" You see the insinuation. You see how the idea +grows. He did not reply, because there are some papers that one can afford +to ignore, no matter what they say. But I mention the thing here to show +how a legend is launched. + +And the moral of all this? It is that of my friend whom I have quoted. Let +us suspect all rumours whether about events or persons. When Napoleon's +marshals told him they had won a victory, he said, "Show me your +prisoners." When you are told a rumour do not swallow it like a hungry +pike. Say "Show me your facts." And before you accept them be sure they are +whole facts and not half facts. + + + + +ON UMBRELLA MORALS + + +A sharp shower came on as I walked along the Strand, but I did not put up +my umbrella. The truth is I couldn't put up my umbrella. The frame would +not work for one thing, and if it had worked, I would not have put the +thing up, for I would no more be seen under such a travesty of an umbrella +than Falstaff would be seen marching through Coventry with his regiment of +ragamuffins. The fact is, the umbrella is not my umbrella at all. It is the +umbrella of some person who I hope will read these lines. He has got my +silk umbrella. I have got the cotton one he left in exchange. I imagine him +flaunting along the Strand under my umbrella, and throwing a scornful +glance at the fellow who was carrying his abomination and getting wet into +the bargain. I daresay the rascal chuckled as he eyed the said abomination. +"Ah," he said gaily to himself, "I did you in that time, old boy. I know +that thing. It won't open for nuts. And it folds up like a sack. Now, this +umbrella...." + +But I leave him to his unrighteous communings. He is one of those people +who have what I may call an umbrella conscience. You know the sort of +person I mean. He would never put his hand in another's pocket, or forge a +cheque or rob a till--not even if he had the chance. But he will swop +umbrellas, or forget to return a book, or take a rise out of the railway +company. In fact he is a thoroughly honest man who allows his honesty the +benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he takes your umbrella at random from the +barber's stand. He knows he can't get a worse one than his own. He may get +a better. He doesn't look at it very closely until he is well on his way. +Then, "Dear me! I've taken the wrong umbrella," he says, with an air of +surprise, for he likes really to feel that he has made a mistake. "Ah, +well, it's no use going back now. He'd be gone. _And I've left him mine_!" + +It is thus that we play hide-and-seek with our own conscience. It is not +enough not to be found out by others; we refuse to be found out by +ourselves. Quite impeccable people, people who ordinarily seem unspotted +from the world, are afflicted with umbrella morals. It was a well-known +preacher who was found dead in a first-class railway carriage with a +third-class ticket in his pocket. + +And as for books, who has any morals where they are concerned? I remember +some years ago the library of a famous divine and literary critic, who had +died, being sold. It was a splendid library of rare books, chiefly +concerned with seventeenth-century writers, about whom he was a +distinguished authority. Multitudes of the books had the marks of libraries +all over the country. He had borrowed them and never found a convenient +opportunity of returning them. They clung to him like precedents to law. +Yet he was a holy man and preached admirable sermons, as I can bear +witness. And, if you press me on the point, I shall have to own that it +_is_ hard to part with a book you have come to love. + +Indeed, the only sound rule about books is that adopted by the man who was +asked by a friend to lend him a certain volume. "I'm sorry," he said, "but +I can't." "Haven't you got it?" asked the other. "Yes, I've got it," he +said, "but I make it a rule never to lend books. You see, nobody ever +returns them. I know it is so from my own experience. Here, come with me." +And he led the way to his library. "There," said he, "four thousand +volumes. Every--one--of--'em--borrowed." No, never lend books. You can't +trust your dearest friend there. I know. Where is that _Gil Blas_ gone? Eh? +And that _Silvio Pellico_? And.... But why continue the list.... He knows. +HE KNOWS. + +And hats. There are people who will exchange hats. Now that is +unpardonable. That goes outside that dim borderland of conscience where +honesty and dishonesty dissemble. No one can put a strange hat on without +being aware of the fact. Yet it is done. I once hung a silk hat up in the +smoking-room of the House of Commons. When I wanted it, it was gone. And +there was no silk hat left in its place. I had to go out bareheaded through +Palace Yard and Whitehall to buy another. I have often wondered who was the +gentleman who put my hat on and carried his own in his hand. Was he a Tory? +Was he a Radical? It can't have been a Labour man, for no Labour man could +put a silk hat on in a moment of abstraction. The thing would scorch his +brow. Fancy Will Crooks in a silk hat! One would as soon dare to play with +the fancy of the Archbishop of Canterbury in a bowler--a thought which +seems almost impious. It is possible, of course, that the gentleman who +took my silk umbrella did really make a mistake. Perhaps if he knew the +owner he would return it with his compliments. The thing has been done. Let +me give an illustration. I have myself exchanged umbrellas--often. I hope I +have done it honestly, but one can never be quite sure. Indeed, now I come +to think of it, that silk umbrella itself was not mine. It was one of a +long series of exchanges in which I had sometimes gained and sometimes +lost. My most memorable exchange was at a rich man's house where I had been +invited to dine with some politicians. It was summer-time, and the weather +being dry I had not occasion for some days afterwards to carry an umbrella. +Then one day a sensation reigned in our household. There had been +discovered in the umbrella-stand an umbrella with a gold band and a gold +tassle, and the name of a certain statesman engraved upon it. There had +never been such a super-umbrella in our house before. Before its golden +splendours we were at once humbled and terrified--humbled by its +magnificence, terrified by its presence. I felt as though I had been caught +in the act of stealing the British Empire. I wrote a hasty letter to the +owner, told him I admired his politics, but had never hoped to steal his +umbrella; then hailed a cab, and took the umbrella and the note to the +nearest dispatch office. + +He was very nice about it, and in returning my own umbrella took all the +blame on himself. "What," he said, "between the noble-looking gentleman who +thrust a hat on my head, and the second noble-looking gentleman who handed +me a coat, and the third noble-looking gentleman who put an umbrella in my +hand, and the fourth noble-looking gentleman who flung me into a carriage, +I hadn't the least idea what I was taking. I was too bewildered by all the +noble flunkeys to refuse anything that was offered me." + +Be it observed, it was the name on the umbrella that saved the situation in +this case. That is the way to circumvent the man with an umbrella +conscience. I see him eyeing his exchange with a secret joy; then he +observes the name and address and his solemn conviction that he is an +honest man does the rest. After my experience to-day, I think I will +engrave my name on my umbrella. But not on that baggy thing standing in the +corner. I do not care who relieves me of that. It is anybody's for the +taking. + + + + +ON TALKING TO ONE'S SELF + + +I was at dinner at a well-known restaurant the other evening when I became +aware that some one sitting alone at a table near by was engaged in an +exciting conversation with himself. As he bent over his plate his face was +contorted with emotion, apparently intense anger, and he talked with +furious energy, only pausing briefly in the intervals of actual +mastication. Many glances were turned covertly upon him, but he seemed +wholly unconscious of them, and, so far as I could judge, he was unaware +that he was doing anything abnormal. In repose his face was that of an +ordinary business man, sane and self-controlled, and when he rose to go his +agitation was over, and he looked like a man who had won his point. + +It is probable that this habit of talking to one's self has a less sinister +meaning than it superficially suggests. It may be due simply to the energy +of one's thought and to a concentration of mind that completely shuts out +the external world. In the case I have mentioned it was clear that the man +was temporarily detached from all his surroundings, that he was so absorbed +by his subject that his eyes had ceased to see and his ears to hear. He was +alone with himself, or perhaps with his adversary, and he only came back to +the present with the end of his dinner and the paying of his bill. He was +like a man who had emerged from another state of consciousness, from a +waking sleep filled with tumultuous dreams. Obviously he was unaware that +he had been haranguing the room in quite an audible voice for half an hour, +and I daresay that if he were told that he had the habit of talking to +himself he would deny it as passionately as you (or I) would deny that you +(or I) snore in our sleep. And he would deny it for precisely the same +reason. He doesn't know. + +And here a dreadful thought assails me. What if I talk to myself, too? What +if, like this man, I get so absorbed in the drama of my own mind that I +cannot hear my own tongue going nineteen to the dozen? It is a disquieting +idea. A strong conviction to the contrary, I see, amounts to nothing. This +man, doubtless, had a strong conviction to the contrary--probably expressed +an amused interest in any one talking to himself as he passed him in the +street. And the fact that my friends have never told me of the failing goes +for nothing also. They may think I like to talk to myself. More probably, +they may know that I do not like to hear of my failings. I must watch +myself. But, no, that won't do. I might as well say I would watch my dreams +and keep them in check. How can the conscious state keep an eye on the +unconscious? If I do not know that I am talking how can I stop myself +talking? + +Ah, happy thought. I recall occasions when I have talked to myself, and +have been quite conscious of the sound of my voice. They have been remarks +I have made on the golf links, brief, emphatic remarks dealing with the +perversity of golf clubs and the sullen intractability of golf balls. Those +remarks I have heard distinctly, and at the sound of them I have come to +myself with a shock, and have even looked round to see whether the lady in +the red jacket playing at the next hole was likely to have heard me or +(still worse) to have seen me. + +I think this is evidence conclusive, for the man who talks to himself +habitually never hears himself. His words are only the echo of his +thoughts, and they correspond so perfectly that, like a chord in music, +there is no dissonance. It was thus with the art student I saw copying a +picture at the Tate Gallery. "Ah, a little more blue," he said, as he +turned from the original to his own canvas, and a little later: "Yes, that +line wants better drawing." Several people stood by watching his work and +smiling at his uttered thoughts. He alone was unconscious that he had +spoken. + +There are, it is true, cases in which the conscious and unconscious states +seem to mingle--in which the intentional word and the unintentional come +out almost in the same breath. It was so with Thomas Landseer, the father +of Sir Edwin. He was one day visiting an artist, and inspecting his work. +"Ah, very nice, indeed!" he said to his friend. "Excellent colour; +excellent!" Then, as if all around him had vanished, and he was alone with +himself, he added: "Poor chap, he thinks he can paint!" + +And this instance shows that whether the habit is a mental weakness or only +a physical defect it is capable of extremely awkward consequences, as in +the case of the banker who was ruined by unwittingly revealing his secrets +while walking in the street. How is it possible to keep a secret or conduct +a bargain if your tongue is uncontrollable? What is the use of Jones +explaining to his wife that he has been kept late at the office if his +tongue goes on to say, entirely without his knowledge or consent, that had +he declared "no trumps" in that last hand he would have been in pocket by +his evening at the club? I see horrible visions of domestic complications +and public disaster arising from this not uncommon habit. + +And yet might there not be gain also from a universal practice of uttering +our thoughts aloud? Imagine a world in which nobody had any secrets from +anybody--could have no secrets from anybody. I see the Kaiser, after +consciously declaring that his only purpose is peace, unconsciously +blurting out to the British Ambassador that the ultimatum to Serbia is a +"plant"--that what Germany means is war, that she proposes to attack +Belgium, and so on. And I see the British Ambassador, having explained that +England is entirely free from commitments, adding dreamily, "But if there's +a war we shall be in it." In the same way Jones, after making Smith a firm +offer of L30 for his horse, would say, absentmindedly, "Of course it would +be cheap at L50, and I might spring L55 if he is stiff about it." + +It would be a world in which lies would have no value and deception would +be a waste of time--a world in which truth would no longer be at the bottom +of the well, but on the tip of every man's tongue. We should have all the +rascals in prison and all the dishonest traders in the bankruptcy court. +Secret diplomacy would no longer play with the lives of men, for there +would be no secrets. Those little perverse concealments that wreck so many +lives would vanish. You, sir, who find it so easy to nag at home and so +difficult to say the kind thing that you know to be true, would be +discovered to your great advantage and to the peace of your household. + +Yes, I think the world would go very well if we all had tongues that told +our true thoughts in spite of us. But what a lot of us would be found out. +My own face crimsons at the thought. So, I think, does yours. + + + + +ON BOSWELL AND HIS MIRACLE + + +As I passed along Great Queen Street the other evening, I saw that +Boswell's house, so long threatened, is at last falling a victim to the +housebreaker. The fact is one of the by-products of the war. While the Huns +are abroad in Belgium the Vandals are busy at home. You may see them at +work on every hand. The few precious remains we have of the past are +vanishing like snows before the south wind. + +In the Strand there is a great heap of rubbish where, when the war began, +stood two fine old houses of Charles II.'s London. Their disappearance +would, in normal times, have set all the Press in revolt. But they have +gone without a murmur, so preoccupied are we with more urgent matters. And +so with the Elizabethan houses in Cloth Fair. They have been demolished +without a word of protest. And what devastation is afoot in Lincoln's Inn +among those fine reposeful dwellings, hardly one of which is without some +historic or literary interest! + +In the midst of all this vandalism it was too much perhaps to hope that +Boswell's house would escape. Bozzy was not an Englishman; his residence in +London was casual, and, what is more to the point, he has only a reflected +greatness. Macaulay's judgment of him is now felt to be too harsh, but even +his warmest advocate must admit that his picture of himself is not +engaging. He was gross in his habits, full of little malevolences (observe +the spitefulness of his references to Goldsmith), and his worship of +Johnson was abject to the point of nausea. + +He made himself a sort of doormat for his hero, and treasured the dirt that +came from the great man's heavy boots. No insult levelled at him was too +outrageous to be recorded with pride. "You were drunk last night, you dog," +says Johnson to him one morning during the tour in the Hebrides, and down +goes the remark as if he has received the most gracious of good mornings. +"Have you no better manners?" says Johnson on another occasion. "There is +_your want_." And Boswell goes home and writes down the snub together with +his apologies. And so when he has been expressing his emotions on hearing +music. "Sir," said Johnson, "I should never hear it if it made me such a +fool." + +Once indeed he rebelled. It was when they were dining with a company at Sir +Joshua Reynolds's. Johnson attacked him, he says, with such rudeness that +he kept away from him for a week. His story of the reconciliation is one of +the most delightful things in that astonishing book: + +"After dinner, when Mr. Langton was called out of the room and we were by +ourselves, he drew his chair near to mine and said, in a tone of +conciliatory courtesy, 'Well, how have you done?' Boswell: 'Sir, you have +made me very uneasy by your behaviour to me when we were last at Sir Joshua +Reynolds's. You know, my dear sir, no man has a greater respect or +affection for you, or would sooner go to the end of the world to serve you. +Now, to treat me so--' He insisted that I had interrupted him, which I +assured him was not the case; and proceeded, 'But why treat me so before +people who neither love you nor me?' Johnson: 'Well I am sorry for it. I'll +make it up to you in twenty different ways, as you please.' Boswell: 'I +said to-day to Sir Joshua, when he observed that you _tossed_ me sometimes, +I don't care how often or how high he tosses me when only friends are +present, for then I fall upon soft ground; but I do not like falling upon +stones, which is the case when enemies are present. I think this is a +pretty good image, sir.' Johnson: 'Sir, it is one of the happiest I ever +have heard.'" + +Is there anything more delicious outside Falstaff and Bardolph, or Don +Quixote and Sancho Panza? Indeed, Bardolph's immortal "Would I were with +him wheresoe'er he be, whether in heaven or in hell," is in the very spirit +of Boswell's devotion to his hero. + +It was his failings as much as his talents that enabled him to work the +miracle. His lack of self-respect and humour, his childish egotism, his +love of gossip, his naive bathos, and his vulgarities contributed as much +to the making of his immortal book as his industry, his wonderful verbal +memory, and his doglike fidelity. I have said that his greatness is only +reflected. But that is hardly just. It might even be more true to say that +Johnson owes his immortality to Boswell. What of him would remain to-day +but for the man who took his scourgings so humbly and repaid them by +licking the boot that kicked him? Who now reads _London_, or _The Vanity of +Human Wishes_, or _The Rambler_? I once read _Rasselas_, and found it +pompous and dull. And I have read _The Lives of the Poets_, and though they +are not pompous and dull, they are often singularly poor criticism, and the +essay on Milton is, in some respects, as mean a piece of work as ever came +out of Grub Street. + +But _The Life_! What in all the world of books is there like it? I have +been reading it off and on for more than thirty years, and still find it +inexhaustible. It ripens with the years. It is so intimate that it seems to +be a record of my own experiences. I have dined so often with Johnson at +the Mitre and Sir Joshua's and Langton's and the rest that I know him far +better than the shadows I meet in daily life. I seem to have been present +when he was talking to the King, and when Goldsmith sulked because he had +not shared the honour; when he met Wilkes, and when he insulted Sir Joshua +and for once got silenced; when he "downed" Robertson, and when, for want +of a lodging, he and Savage walked all night round St. James's Square, full +of high spirits and patriotism, inveighing against the Minister and +resolving that "they would _stand by their country_." + +And at the end of it all I feel very much like Mr. Birrell, who, when asked +what he would do when the Government went out of office, replied, "I shall +retire to the country, and really read Boswell." Not "finish Boswell," you +observe. No one could ever finish Boswell. No one would ever want to finish +Boswell. Like a sensible man he will just go on reading him and reading +him, and reading him until the light fails and there is no more reading to +be done. + +What an achievement for this uncouth Scotch lawyer to have accomplished! He +knew he had done a great thing; but even he did not know how great a thing. +Had he known he might have answered as proudly as Dryden answered when some +one said to him that his _Ode to St. Cecilia_ was the finest that had ever +been written. "Or ever will be," said the poet. Dryden's ode has been +eclipsed more than once since it was written; but Boswell's book has never +been approached. It is not only the best thing of its sort in literature: +there is nothing with which one can compare it. + +Boswell's house is falling to dust. No matter! His memorial will last as +long as the English speech is spoken and as long as men love the immortal +things of which it is the vehicle. + + + + +ON SEEING OURSELVES + + +A friend of mine who is intimate enough with me to guess my secrets, said +to me quizzingly the other day: "Do you know 'Alpha of the Plough?'" + +"I have never seen the man," I said promptly and unblushingly. He laughed +and I laughed. + +"What, never?" he said. + +"Never," I said. "What's more, I never shall see him." + +"What, not in the looking-glass?" said he. + +"That's not 'Alpha of the Plough,'" I answered. "That is only his +counterfeit. It may be a good counterfeit, but it's not the man. The man I +shall never see. I can see bits of him--his hands, his feet, his arms, and +so on. By shutting one eye I can see something of the shape of his nose. By +thrusting out the upper lip I can see that the fellow wears a moustache. +But his face, as a whole, is hidden from me. I cannot tell you even with +the help of the counterfeit what impression he makes on the beholder. Now," +I continued, pausing and taking stock of my friend, "I know what you are +like. I take you all in at one glance. You can take me in at a glance. The +only person we can none of us take in at a glance is the person we should +most like to see." + +"It's a mercy," said he. + +I am not sure that he was right. In this matter, as in most things in this +perplexing world, there is much to be said on both sides. It is lucky for +some of us undoubtedly that we are condemned to be eternal strangers to +ourselves, and that not merely to our physical selves. We do not know even +the sound of our own voices. Mr. Pemberton-Billing has never heard the most +sepulchral voice in the House of Commons, and Lord Charles Beresford does +not know how a foghorn sounds when it becomes articulate. I have no idea, +and you have no idea, what sort of impression our manner makes on others. +If we had, how stricken some of us would be! We should hardly survive the +revelation. We should be sorry we had ever been born. + +Imagine, for example, that eminent politician, Mr. Sutherland Bangs, M.P., +meeting himself out at a dinner one evening. Mr. Sutherland Bangs cherishes +a comfortable vision of himself as a handsome, engaging fellow, with a gift +for talk, a breezy manner, a stylish presence, and an elegant accent. And +seated beside himself at dinner he would discover that he was a pretentious +bore, that his talk was windy commonplace, his breezy manner an offence, +his fine accent an unpleasant affectation. He would say that he would never +want to see that fellow again. And, realising that that was Mr. Sutherland +Bangs as he appears to the world, he would return home as humble and abject +as Mr. Tom Lofty in _The Good-Natured Man_ was when his imposture was found +out. "You ought to have your head stuck in a pillory," said Mr. Croaker. +"Stick it where you will," said Mr. Lofty, "for by the lord, it cuts a poor +figure where it sticks at present." Mr. Sutherland Bangs would feel like +that. + +But if making our own acquaintance would give some of us a good deal of +surprise and even pain, it would also do most of us a useful turn as well. +Burns put the case quite clearly in his familiar lines: + + O wad some pow'r the giftie gie us + To see oursels as others see us: + It wad frae monie a blunder free us + An' foolish notion. + +We should all make discoveries to our advantage as well as our +discomfiture. You, sir, might find that the talent for argument on which +you pride yourself is to me only irritating wrong-headedness, and I might +find that the bright wit that I fancy I flash around makes you feel tired. +Jones's eyeglass would drop out of his eye because he would know it only +made him look foolish, Brown would see the ugliness of his cant, and +Robinson would sorry that he had been born a bully and as prickly as a +hedgehog. It would do us all good to get this objective view of ourselves. + +It is not necessarily the right view or the complete view. You remember +that ingenious fancy of Holmes' about John and Thomas. They are talking +together and don't quite hit it off, and Holmes says it is no wonder since +six persons are engaged in the conversation. "Six!" you say, lifting your +eyebrows. Yes, six, says he. There is John's ideal John--that is, John as +he appears to himself; Thomas's ideal John--that is, John as Thomas sees +him; and the real John, known only to his Maker. And so with Thomas, there +are three of him engaged in the talk also. Now John's ideal John is not a +bit like Thomas's ideal John, and neither of them is like the real John, +and so it comes about that John and Thomas--that is, you and I--get at +cross purposes. + +If I (John) could have your (Thomas's) glimpse of myself, my appearance, my +manner, my conduct, and so on, it would serve as a valuable corrective. It +would give that faculty of self-criticism which most of us lack. That +faculty is simply the art of seeing ourselves objectively, as a stranger +sees us who has no interest in us and no prejudice in our favour. Few of us +can do that except in fleeting flashes of illumination. We cannot even do +it in regard to the things we produce. If you paint a picture, or write an +article, or make a joke, you are pretty sure to be a bad judge of its +quality. You only see it subjectively as a part of yourself--that is, you +don't see it at all. Put the thing away for a year, come on it suddenly as +a stranger might, and you will perhaps understand why Thomas seemed so cool +about it. It wasn't because he was jealous or unfriendly, as you supposed: +it was because he _saw_ it and you didn't. + +Even great men have this blindness about their own work. How else can we +account for a case like Wordsworth's? He was one of the three greatest +poets this country has produced, and also an acute critic of poetry, yet he +wrote more flat-footed commonplace than any man of his time. Apparently he +didn't know when he was sublime and when he was merely drivelling. He +didn't know because he never got outside the hypnotism of self. + +I have sometimes felt angry with that phrase, "What do they know of +England, who only England know?" It is the watchword of a shallow +Imperialism. But I felt a certain truth in it once. I was alone in the +Alps, in an immense solitude of peak and glacier, and as I waited for the +return of my guide, who had gone on ahead to prospect, I looked, like +Richard, "towards England." In that moment I seemed to see it +imaginatively, comprehensively, as I had never, never seen it in all the +years of my life in it. I saw its green pastures and moorlands, its +mountains and its lakes, its cities and its people, its splendours and its +squalors as if it was all a vision projected beyond the verge of the +horizon. I saw it with a fresh eye and a new mind, seemed to understand it +as I had never understood it before, certainly loved it as I had never +loved it before. I found that I had left England to discover it. + +That is what we need to do with ourselves occasionally. We need to take a +journey from our self-absorbed centre, and see ourselves with a fresh eye +and an unprejudiced judgment. + + + + +ON THE ENGLISH SPIRIT + + +I have seen no story of the war which, within its limits, has pleased me +more than that which Mr. Alfred Noyes told in the newspapers in his +fascinating description of his visit to the Fleet. It was a story of the +battle of Jutland. "In the very hottest moment of this most stupendous +battle in all history," he says, "two grimy stokers' heads arose for a +breath of fresh air. What domestic drama they were discussing the world may +never know. But the words that were actually heard passing between them, +while the shells whined overhead, were these: 'What I says is, 'e ought to +have married 'er.'" + +If you don't enjoy that story you will never understand the English spirit. +There are some among us who never will understand the English spirit. In +the early days of the war an excellent friend of mine used to find a great +source of despair in "Tipperary." What hope was there for a country whose +soldiers went to battle singing "Tipperary" against a foe who came on +singing "Ein' feste Burg"? Put that way, I was bound to confess that the +case looked black against us. It seemed "all Lombard Street to a China +orange," as the tag of other days would put it. It is true that, for a +music-hall song, "Tipperary" was unusually fresh and original. Contrast it +with the maudlin "Keep the home fires burning," which holds the field +to-day, and it touches great art. I never hear it even now on the street +organ without a certain pleasure--a pleasure mingled with pain, for its +happy lilt comes weighted with the tremendous emotions of those +unforgettable days. It is like a butterfly caught in a tornado, a catch of +song in the throat of death. + +But it was only a music-hall song after all, and to put it in competition +with Luther's mighty hymn would be like putting a pop-gun against a 12-inch +howitzer. The thunder of Luther's hymn has come down through four +centuries, and it will go on echoing through the centuries till the end of +time. It is like the march of the elements to battle, like the heaving of +mountains and the surge of oceans. In nothing else is the sense of Power so +embodied in the pulse of song. And the words are as formidable as the tune. +Carlyle caught their massive, rugged strength in his great translation: + + A safe stronghold our God is still, + A trusty shield and weapon; + He'll help us clear from all the ill + That hath us now o'ertaken.... + +Yes, on the face of it, it seemed a poor lookout for "Tipperary" against +such a foe. But it wasn't, and any one who knew the English temperament +knew it wasn't. I put aside the fact that for practical everyday uses a +cheerful tune is much better than a solemn tune. "Tipperary" quickens the +step and shortens the march. Luther's hymn, so far from lightening the +journey, would become an intolerable burden. The mind would sink under it. +You would either go mad or plunge into some violent excess to recover your +sanity. It is the craziest of philosophy to think that because you are +engaged in a serious business you have to live in a state of exaltation, +that the bow is never to be unstrung, that the top note is never to be +relaxed. You will not do your business better because you wear a long face +all the time; you will do it worse. If you are talking about your high +ideals all day you are not only a nuisance: you are either dishonest or +unbalanced. We are not creatures with wings. We are creatures who walk. We +have to "foot it" even to Mount Pisgah, and the more cheerful and jolly and +ordinary we are on the way the sooner we shall get over the journey. The +noblest Englishman that ever lived, and the most deeply serious, was as +full of innocent mirth as a child and laid his head down on the block with +a jest. Let us keep our course by the stars, by all means, but the +immediate tasks are much nearer than the stars-- + + The charities that soothe and heal and bless + Are scattered all about our feet--like flowers. + +It is just this frightful gravity of the German mind that has made them +mad. They haven't learned to play; they haven't learned to laugh at +themselves. Their sombre religion has passed into a sombre irreligion. They +have grown gross without growing light-hearted. The spiritual battle song +of Luther has become a material battle song, and "the safe stronghold" is +no longer the City of God but the City of Krupp. They have neither the +splendid intellectual sanity of the French, nor the homely humour of the +English. It is this homely humour that has puzzled Europe. It has puzzled +the French as much as the Germans, for the French genius is declamatory and +needs the inspiration of ideas and great passions greatly stated. It was +assumed that, because the British soldier sang "Tipperary," moved in an +atmosphere of homely fun, indulged in no heroics, never talked of "glory," +rarely of patriotism or the Fatherland, and only joked about "the flag," +there was no great passion in him. Some of our frenzied people at home have +the same idea. They still believe we are a nation of "slackers" because we +don't shriek with them. + +The truth, of course, is that the English spirit is distrustful of emotion +and display. It is ashamed of making "a fuss" and hates heroics. The +typical Englishman hides his feelings even from his family, clothes his +affections under a mask of indifference, and cracks a joke to avoid "making +a fool of himself." It is not that he is without great passions, but that +he does not like talking about them. He is too self-conscious to trust his +tongue on such big themes. He might "make an exhibition of himself," and he +dreads that above all things. This habit of reticence has its unlovely +side; but it has great virtues too. It keeps the mind cool and practical +and the atmosphere commonplace and good-humoured. It gives reserves of +strength that people who live on their "top notes" have not got. It goes on +singing "Tipperary" as though it had no care in life and no interest in +ideas or causes. And then the big moment comes and the great passion that +has been kept in such shamefaced secrecy blazes out in deeds as glorious as +any that were done on the plains of windy Troy. Turn to those stories of +the winning of the V.C., and then ask yourself whether the nation whose +sons are capable of this noble heroism deserves to have the whip of Zabern +laid across its shoulders by any jack-in-office who chooses to insult us. + +Those two stokers, putting their heads out for a breath of fresh air in the +midst of the battle, are true to the English type. Death was all about +them, and any moment might be their last. But they were so completely +masters of themselves that in the brief-breathing space allowed them they +could turn their minds to a simple question of everyday conduct. "What I +says is, 'e ought to have married 'er." That is not the stuff of which +heroics are made; but it is the stuff of which heroism is made. + + + + +ON FALLING IN LOVE + + +Do not, if you please, imagine that this title foreshadows some piquant +personal revelation. "Story! God bless you, I have none to tell, sir." I +have not fallen in love for quite a long time, and, looking in the glass +and observing what Holmes calls "Time's visiting cards" on my face and +hair, I come to the conclusion that I shall never enjoy the experience +again. I may say with Mr. Kipling's soldier that + + That's all shuv be'ind me + Long ago and fur away. + +But just as poetry, according to Wordsworth, is emotion recalled in +tranquillity, so it is only when you have left the experience of falling in +love behind that you are really competent to describe it or talk about it +with the necessary philosophic detachment. + +Now of course there is no difficulty about falling in love. Any one can do +that. The difficulty is to know when the symptoms are true or false. So +many people mistake the symptoms, and only discover when it is too late +that they have never really had the true experience. Hence the overtime in +the Divorce Court. Hence, too, the importance of "calf love," which serves +as a sort of apprenticeship to the mystery, and enables you to discriminate +between the substance and the shadow. + +And in "calf love" I do not include the adumbrations of extreme childhood +like those immortalised in _Annabel Lee_:-- + + I was a child and she was a child + In that kingdom by the sea. + + * * * * * + + But we loved with a love that was more than love, + I and my Annabel Lee. + +I know that love. I had it when I was eight. "She" was also eight, and she +had just come from India. She was frightfully plain, but then--well, she +had come from India. She had all the romance of India's coral strand about +her, and it was India's coral strand that I was in love with. Moreover, she +was a soldier's daughter, and to be a soldier's daughter was, next to being +a soldier, the noblest thing in the world. For that was about the time +when, under the inspiration of _The Story of the Hundred Days_, I had set +out with a bag containing a nightshirt and a toothbrush to enlist in the +Black Watch. (It was a forlorn adventure that went no further than the +railway station.) Finally she had given me, as a token of her love, _Poor +Little Gaspard's Drum_, wherein I read of Napoleon and the Egyptian desert, +and, above all, of the Mamelukes. How that word thrilled me! "The +Mamelukes!" What could one do but fall in love with a girl who used such +incantations? + +But this is not the true calf love. That comes with the down upon the lip. +People laugh at "calf love," but one might as well laugh at the wonder of +dawn or the coming of spring. When David Copperfield fell in love with the +eldest Miss Larkins, he was really in love with the opening universe, and +the eldest Miss Larkins happened to be the only available lightning +conductor for his emotion. + +The important thing is that you should contract "calf love" while you are +young. It is like the measles, which is harmless enough in childhood, but +apt to be dangerous when you are grown up. The "calf love" of an elderly +man is always a disaster. Hence the saying, "There's no fool like an old +fool." An elderly man should not _fall_ in love. He should walk into it. He +should survey the ground carefully as Mr. Barkis did. That admirable man +took the business of falling in love seriously: + +"'So she makes,' said Mr. Barkis, after a long interval of reflection, 'all +the apple parsties, and does all the cooking, do she?' + +"I replied that such was the fact. + +"'Well, I'll tell you what,' said Mr. Barkis. 'P'raps you might be writin' +to her?' + +"'I shall certainly write to her,' I rejoined. + +"'Ah!' he said, slowly turning his eyes towards me. 'Well! If you was +writin' to her, p'raps you'd recollect to say that Barkis was willin', +would you?'" + +This is a model of caution in the art of middle-aged love-making. The +mistake of the "Northern Farmer" was that he applied the same middle-aged +caution to youth. "Doaent thou marry for munny; but goae wheer munny is," he +said to his son Sammy, who wanted to marry the poor parson's daughter. And +he held up his own love-making as an inspiration for Sammy: + + And I went wheer munny wor, and thy moother coom to and + Wi' lots o' munny laaeid by, and a nicetish bit o' land. + Maybe she worn'd a beauty: I nivver giv' it a thowt; + But worn'd she as good to cuddle and kiss as a lass as an't nowt? + +I have always hoped that Sammy rejected his father's counsel and stuck to +the poor parson's daughter. + +There is no harm of course in marrying money. George Borrow said that there +were worse ways of making a fortune than marrying one. And perhaps it is +true, though I don't think Borrow's experience was very convincing. I have +known people who "have gone where money was" and have fallen honestly and +rapturously into love, but you have got to be very sure that money in such +a case is not the motive. If it is the penalty never fails to follow. Mr. +Bumble married Mrs. Corney for "six teaspoons, a pair of sugar tongs, and a +milk-pot, with a small quantity of secondhand furniture and twenty pounds +in money." And in two months he regretted his bargain and admitted that he +had gone "dirt cheap." "Only two months to-morrow," he said. "It seems a +age." + +Those who believe in "love at first sight" take the view that marriages are +made in heaven and that we only come to earth to fulfil our destiny. +Johnson, who was an excellent husband to the elderly Mrs. Porter, scoffed +at that view and held that love is only the accident of circumstance. But +though that is the sensible view, there are cases like those of Dante and +Beatrice and Abelard and Heloise, in which the passion does seem to touch +the skies. In those cases, however, it rarely ends happily. A more hum-drum +way of falling in love seems better fitted to earthly conditions. The +method of Sir Thomas More was perhaps the most original on record. He +preferred the second of three sisters and was about to marry her when it +occurred to him--But let me quote the words in which Roper, his son-in-law, +records the incident: + +"And all beit his mynde most served him to the seconde daughter, for that +he thoughte her the fayrest and best favoured, yet when he considered that +it woulde be bothe great griefe and some shame alsoe to the eldest to see +her yonger sister in mariage preferred before her, he then of a certeyn +pittye framed his fancye towardes her, and soon after maryed her." + +It was love to order, yet there was never a more beautiful home life than +that of which this most perfect flower of the English race was the centre. + +In short, there is no formula for falling in love. Each one does it as the +spirit moves. + + + + +ON A BIT OF SEAWEED + + +The postman came just now, and among the letters he brought was one from +North Wales. It was fat and soft and bulgy, and when it was opened we found +it contained a bit of seaweed. The thought that prompted the sender was +friendly, but the momentary effect was to arouse wild longings for the sea, +and to add one more count to the indictment of the Kaiser, who had sent us +for the holidays into the country, where we could obey the duty to +economise, rather than to the seaside, where the temptations to +extravagance could not be dodged. "Oh, how it smells of Sheringham," said +one whose vote is always for the East Coast. "No, there is the smack of +Sidmouth, and Dawlish, and Torquay in its perfume," said another, whose +passion is for the red cliffs of South Devon. And so on, each finding, as +he or she sniffed at the seaweed, the windows of memory opening out on to +the foam of summer seas. And soon the table was enveloped in a rushing tide +of recollection--memories of bathing and boating, of barefooted races on +the sands, of jolly fishermen who always seemed to be looking out seaward +for something that never came, of hunting for shells, and of all the +careless raptures of dawn and noon and sunset by the seashore. All awakened +by the smell of a bit of seaweed. + +It is this magic of reminiscence that makes the world such a storehouse of +intimacies and confidences. There is hardly a bird that sings, or a flower +that blows, or a cloud that sails in the blue that does not bring us some +hint from the past, and set us tingling with remembrance. We open a drawer +by chance, and the smell of lavender issues forth, and with that lingering +perfume the past is unrolled like a scroll, and places long unseen leap to +the inward eye and voices long unheard are speaking to us:-- + + We tread the path their feet have worn. + We sit beneath their orchard trees, + We hear, like them, the hum of bees, + And rustle of the bladed corn. + +Who can see the first daffodils of spring without feeling a sort of +spiritual festival that the beauty of the flower alone cannot explain? The +memory of all the springs of the past is in their dancing plumes, and the +assurance of all the springs to come. They link us up with the pageant of +nature, and with the immortals of our kind--with Wordsworth watching them +in "sprightly dance" by Ullswater, with Herrick finding in them the sweet +image of the beauty and transience of life, with Shakespeare greeting them +"in the sweet o' the year" by Avon's banks long centuries ago. + +And in this sensitiveness of memory to external suggestion there is +infinite variety. It is not a collective memory that is awakened, but a +personal memory. That bit of seaweed opened many windows in us, but they +all looked out on different scenes and reminded us of something individual +and inexplicable, of something which is a part of that ultimate loneliness +that belongs to all of us. Everything speaks a private language to each of +us that we can never translate to others. I do not know what the lilac says +to you; but to me it talks of a garden-gate over which it grew long ago. I +am a child again, standing within the gate, and I see the red-coated +soldiers marching along with jolly jests and snatching the lilac sprays +from the tree as they pass. The emotion of pride that these heroes should +honour our lilac tree by ravishing its blossoms all comes back to me, +together with a flood of memories of the old garden and the old home and +the vanished faces. Why that momentary picture should have fixed itself in +the mind I cannot say; but there it is, as fresh and clear at the end of +nearly fifty years as if it were painted yesterday, and the lilac tree +bursting into blossom always unveils it again. + +It is these multitudinous associations that give life its colour and its +poetry. They are the garnerings of the journey, and unlike material gains +they are no burden to our backs and no anxiety to our mind. "The true +harvest of my life," said Thoreau, "is something as intangible and +indescribable as the tints of morning and evening." It was the summary, the +essence, of all his experience. We are like bees foraging in the garden of +the world, and hoarding the honey in the hive of memory. And no hoard is +like any other hoard that ever was or ever will be. The cuckoo calling over +the valley, the blackbird fluting in the low boughs in the evening, the +solemn majesty of the Abbey, the life of the streets, the ebb and flow of +Father Thames--everything whispers to us some secret that it has for no +other ear, and touches a chord of memory that echoes in no other brain. +Those deeps within us find only a crude expression in the vehicle of words +and actions, and our intercourse with men touches but the surface of +ourselves. The rest is "as intangible and indescribable as the tints of +morning and evening." It was one of the most companionable of men, William +Morris, who said: + + That God has made each one of us as lone + As He Himself sits. + +That is why, in moments of exaltation, our only refuge is silence, and the +world of memory within answers the world of suggestion without. + +"And what does the seaweed remind you of?" said one, as I looked up after +smelling it. "It reminds me," I said, "of all the seas that wash our +shores, and of all the brave sailors who are guarding these seas day and +night, while we sit here secure. It reminds me also that I have an article +to write, and that its title is 'A Bit of Seaweed.'" + + + + +ON LIVING AGAIN + + +A little group of men, all of whom had achieved conspicuous success in +life, were recently talking after dinner round the fire in the smoking-room +of a London club. They included an eminent lawyer, a politician whose name +is a household word, a well-known divine, and a journalist. The talk +traversed many themes, and arrived at that very familiar proposition: If it +were in your power to choose, would you live this life again? With one +exception the answer was a unanimous "No." The exception, I may remark, was +not the divine. He, like the majority, had found one visit to the play +enough. He did not want to see it again. + +The question, I suppose, is as old as humanity. And the answer is old too, +and has always, I fancy, resembled that of our little group round the +smoking-room fire. It is a question that does not present itself until we +are middle-aged, for the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts, and +life then stretches out in such an interminable vista as to raise no +question of its recurrence. It is when you have reached the top of the pass +and are on the downward slope, with the evening shadows falling over the +valley and the church tower and with the end of the journey in view, that +the question rises unbidden to the lips. The answer does not mean that the +journey has not been worth while. It only means that the way has been long +and rough, that we are footsore and tired, and that the thought of rest is +sweet. It is nature's way of reconciling us to our common lot. She has +shown her child all the pageant of life, and now prepares him for his +"patrimony of a little mould"-- + + Thou hast made his mouth + Avid of all dominion and all mightiness, + All sorrow, all delight, all topless grandeurs, + All beauty, and all starry majesties, + And dim transtellar things;--even that it may, + Filled in the ending with a puff of dust, + Confess--"It is enough." + +Yes, it is enough. We accept the verdict of mortality uncomplainingly--nay, +we would not wish it to be reversed, even if that were possible. + +Now this question must not be confounded with that other, rather foolish, +question, "Is Life worth living?" The group round the smoking-room fire +would have answered that question--if they had troubled to answer it at +all--with an instant and scornful "Yes." They had all found life a great +and splendid adventure; they had made good and wholesome use of it; they +would not surrender a moment of its term or a fragment of its many-coloured +experience. And that is the case with all healthy-minded people. We may, +like Job, in moments of depression curse the day when we were born; but the +curse dies on our lips. Swift, it is true, kept his birthday as a day of +mourning; but no man who hates humanity can hope to find life endurable, +for the measure of our sympathies is the measure of our joy in living. + +Even those who take the most hopeless view of life are careful to keep out +of mischief. A friend of mine told me recently of a day he had spent with a +writer famous for the sombre philosophy of his books. In the morning the +writer declared that no day ever passed in which he did not wish that he +had never been born; in the afternoon he had a most excellent opportunity +of being drowned through some trouble with a sailing boat, and he rejected +the chance with almost pathetic eagerness. Yet I daresay he went on +believing that he wished he had never been born. It is not only the +children who live in the world of "Let us make pretend." + +No, we are all glad to have come this way once. It is the thought of a +second journey over the same ground that chills us and gives us pause. +Sometimes you will hear men answer, "Yes, if I could have the experience I +have had in this life." By which they mean, "Yes, if I could come back with +the certainty of making all the short cuts to happiness that I now see I +have missed." But that is to vulgarise the question. It is to ask that life +shall not be a splendid mystery, every day of which is + + an arch wherethrough + Gleams the untravelled world; + +but that it shall be a thoroughly safe three per cent. investment into +which I can put my money with the certainty of having a good time--all +sunshine and no shadows. But life on those terms would be the dreariest +funeral march of the marionettes. Take away the uncertainty of life, and +you take away all its magic. It would be like going to the wicket with the +certainty of making as many runs as you liked. No one would trouble to go +to the wicket on those preposterous terms. It is because I may be out first +ball or stay in and make a hundred runs (not that I ever did any such +heroic thing) that I put on the pads with the feverish sense of adventure. +And it is because every dawn breaks as full of wonder as the first day of +creation that life preserves the enchantment of a tale that is never told. + +Moreover, how would experience help us? It is character which is destiny. +If you came back with that weak chin and flickering eye, not all the +experience of all the ages would save you from futility. + +No, if life is to be lived here again it must be lived on the same unknown +terms in order to be worth living. We must come, as we came before, like +wanderers out of eternity for the brief adventure of time. And, in spite of +all the fascinations of that adventure, the balance of our feeling is +against repeating it. For we know that every thing that makes life dear to +us would have vanished with all the old familiar faces and happy +associations of our former pilgrimage, and there is something disloyal in +the mere thought of coming again to form new attachments and traverse new +ways. Holmes once wrote a poem about being "Homesick in heaven"; but it +would be still harder to be homesick on earth--to be wandering about among +the ghosts of old memories, and trying to recapture the familiar atmosphere +of things. We should make new friends; but they would not be the same. They +might be better; but we should not ask for better friends: we should yearn +for the old ones. + +There is a fine passage in Guido Rey's noble book on the "Matterhorn" which +comes to my mind as a fitting expression of what I think we feel. He was on +his way to climb the mountain, when, on one of its lower slopes, he saw +standing lonely in the evening light the figure of a grey-headed man. It +was Whymper, the conqueror of the Matterhorn--Whymper grown old, standing +there in the evening light and gazing on the mighty rock that he had +vanquished in his prime. His climbing days were done, and he sought no more +victories on the mountains. He had had his day and was content to stand +afar off, alone with his memories, leaving the joy of battle to the young +and the ardent. There was not one of those memories that he would be +without--save, of course, that terrible experience in the hour of his +victory over the Matterhorn. But had you asked him if he was still avid for +those topless grandeurs and starry majesties he would have said, "It is +enough." + + + + +TU-WHIT, TU-WHOO! + + +There are two voices that are most familiar to me on this hillside. One is +the voice of the day, the other of the night. Throughout the day the robin +sings his song with unflagging spirit. It is not a very brilliant song, but +it is indomitably cheerful. Wet or fine, warm or cold, it goes on through +the November day from sunrise to sunset. The little fellow hops about, in +his bright red waistcoat, from tree to tree. He flutters to the fence, and +from the fence to the garden path, and so to the door and into the kitchen. +If you will give him decent encouragement he will come on to your hand and +take his meal with absolute confidence in your good faith. Then he will +trip away and resume his song on the fence. + +There are some people who say hard things about the robin--that he is +selfish and "gey ill to live wi'" and so on--but to me he seems the most +cheerful and constant companion in nature. He is a bringer of good +tidings--a philosopher who insists that we are masters of our fate and that +winter is just the time when there is some sense in being an optimist. +Anybody, he seems to say, can be an optimist when the days are long and the +air is warm and worms are plentiful; but it is just when things are looking +a little black and the other fellows begin to grouse that I put on my +brightest waistcoat, tune up my best whistle, and come and tell you that +the unconquerable soul is greater than circumstance. + +The other voice comes when night has descended and the valley below is +blotted out by the darkness. Then from the copse beyond the orchard there +sounds the mournful threnody of the owl. The day is over, he says, and all +is lost. "Tu-whit, tu-whoo." I only am left to tell the end of all things. +"Tu-whit, tu-whoo." I've told it all before a thousand times, but you +wouldn't believe me. "Tu-whit, tu-whoo." Now, you can't deny it, for the +night is dark and the wind is cold and all the earth is a graveyard. +"Tu-whit, tu-whoo." Where are the songs of spring and the leaves of summer? +"Tu-whit, tu-whoo." Where the red-cheeked apple that hung on the bough and +the butterfly that fluttered in the sunshine? All, all are gone. "Tu-whit, +tu-whoo ... Tu-whit, tu-whoo ... Tu-whit, tu-whoo...." + +A cheerless fellow. Some people find him an intolerable companion. I was +talking at dinner in London a few nights ago to a woman who has a house in +Sussex, and I found that she had not been there for some time. + +"I used to find the owl endurable," said she, "but since the war I have +found him unbearable. He hoots all night and makes me so depressed that I +feel that I shall go mad." + +"And so you come and listen to the owl in London?" I said. + +"The owl in London?" she asked. + +"Yes," I said, "the owl that hoots in Carmelite Street and Printing House +Square." + +"Ah," she said, "but he is such an absurd owl. Now the owl down in the +country is such a solemn creature." + + "He says a very foolish thing + In such a solemn way," + +I murmured. + +"Yes, but in the silence and the darkness there doesn't seem any answer to +him." + +"Madame," I said, "if you will look up at the stars you will find a very +complete answer." + +I confess that I find the owl not only tolerable but stimulating. I like to +hear the pessimist really let himself go. It is the nameless and unformed +fears of the mind that paralyse, but when my owl comes along and states the +position at its blackest I begin to cheer up and feel defiant and +combative. Is this the worst that can be said? Then let us see what the +best is, and set about accomplishing it. "The thing is impossible," said +the pessimist to Cobden. "Indeed," said that great man. "Then the sooner we +set about doing it the better." Oh, oh, say I to my owl, all is lost, is +it? You wait till the dawn comes, and hear what that little chap in the red +waistcoat has to say about it. He's got quite another tale to tell, and +it's a much more likely tale than yours. I shall go to bed and leave you to +Gummidge in the trees until the sun comes up and tells you what a dismal +fraud you are. + +"Tu-whit, tu-whoo," hoots the owl back at me. + +Yes, my dear sir, but you said that last night, and you have been saying it +every night I have known you, and always the sun comes up and the spring +comes round again and the flowers bloom, and the fields are golden with +harvest. + +"Tu-whit, tu-whoo." + +Oh, bother you. You ought to be a _Daily Mail_ placard. + +No doubt the owl is quite happy in his way. Louis XV. expressed the owlish +philosophy when he said, "Let us amuse ourselves by making ourselves +miserable." I have no doubt the wretched creature did amuse himself after +his fashion. I have always thought that, secretly, Mrs. Gummidge had a +roaring time. She really enjoyed being miserable and making everybody about +her miserable. I have known such people, and I daresay you have known them, +too--people who nurse unhappiness with the passion of a miser. They are +having the time of their lives now. They go about saying, "Tu-whit, +tu-whoo! The Russians are beaten again, or if they are not beaten they will +be. Tu-whit, tu-whoo! We're slackers and slouchers and the Germans are too +many for us. Tu-whit, tu-whoo. They're on the way to India and Egypt, and +nothing will stop them. All, all is lost." But I notice that they enjoy a +beef-steak as much as anybody, and do not refuse their soup though they +salt it with their tears. + +I like that story of Stonewall Jackson and the owl. The owl was a general, +and he rushed up to Jackson in the crisis of the first battle of Bull's +Run, crying "All is lost! We're beaten!" "Oh," said Jackson, "if that's so +I'd advise you to keep it to yourself." Half-an-hour later the charge of +Jackson's brigade had won the battle. I do not know what happened to the +owl, but I daresay he went on "Tu-whit-ing" and "Tu-whoo-ing" to the end. +The owl can't help being an owl. + +Ah, there is little red waistcoat singing on the fence. Let us find a worm +for the philosopher.... + + + + +ON POINTS OF VIEW + + +As I sat in the garden just now, with a writing-pad on my knee and my mind +ranging the heavens above and the earth beneath in search of a subject, my +eye fell on a tragedy in progress at my elbow. A small greenfly had got +entangled in a spider's web, and was fluttering its tiny wings violently to +effect an escape. The filaments of the web were so delicate as to be hardly +visible, but they were not too delicate to bear the spider whom I saw +advancing upon his prey with dreadful menace. I forgot my dislike of +greenflies, and was overcome with a fierce antagonism for the fat fellow +who had the game so entirely in his hands. Here, said I, is the Hun +encompassing the ruin of poor little Belgium. What chance has the weak and +the innocent little creature against the cunning of this rascal, who hangs +out his gossamer traps in the breeze and then lies in hiding until his +victim is enmeshed and helpless? What justice is there in nature that +allows this unequal combat? + +By this time the spider had reached the fly and thrown a new filament round +him. Then at frightful speed he raced to the top of his web and disappeared +in the woodwork of the arbour, drawing the new filament tight round the +victim, which continued its flutterings for a little time and then gave up +the ghost. At this moment I was called in to lunch, and at the table I told +the story of the spider and the fly with undisguised hostility to the +spider. "That," said Robert, home from the front--"that is simply a +sentimental point of view. My sympathies as a practical person are all with +the spider. He is the friend of man, the devourer of insects, the scavenger +of the gardens. He helps in the great task of keeping the equilibrium of +nature. Moreover," said he, "I have seen you kill greenflies yourself. You +killed them because you knew they were a nuisance. Why should you object to +the spider doing the same useful work for a living?" + +"Ah," said I weakly, "I suppose it is because he does it for a living. Now +I ..." "Now, you," interrupted the other, "do it for a living, too, because +you want your fruit trees to bear fruit, and your roses to thrive, and your +cabbages to prosper. Who more merciless than you on slugs and other pests +that fly or crawl? No, no, we are all out for a living, you as much as the +spider, the spider as much as the fly." "We are all Huns," said I. "What a +detestable world it is." "Not at all," said he. "It's a very jolly world. I +drink to the health of the spider." + +"And you have no pity for the fly?" I said. "Not a little bit." he replied. +"I am on the side of right." "Whose side is that?" I asked. "Mine," said +he. "We must all act according to our point of view. That's what the +greenfly does. That's what the spider does. We shall never in this world +get all the points of view in accord. We shall go on scrambling for a +living to the end. Sometimes the greenfly will be on top, sometimes the +spider. Look at that cherry-tree in the orchard. A month ago its branches +were laden with fruit. Now there is not a cherry to be seen. The blackbirds +and the starlings have stripped the tree as clean as a bone. Their point of +view is that the cherries are provided for them, and they are right. They +know nothing of the laws of property which man makes for his own +protection. It's no use going out to them and asking them to look at your +title-deeds, and reminding them of the policeman and the laws against +larceny. Our moral code is for us, not for them. + +"We are all creatures of our own point of view," he went on. "Before Jones +next door bought a motor-car he had very bitter feelings about +motorists--used to call them road-hogs, said he would tax these +'land-torpedoes' out of existence, and was full of sympathy and pity for +the poor children coming from school. Now he drives a car as hard as +anybody; blows the hoggiest of horns; and says it's disgraceful the way +parents allow their children to play about in the streets. Nothing has +changed except his point of view. He has shifted round to another position, +and sees things from a new angle of vision. Samuel Butler hit the comedy of +the thing off long ago:-- + + What makes all doctrine plain and clear? + About two hundred pounds a year. + And that which was proved true before + Prove false again? Two hundred more." + +"Are our points of view then all dictated by our selfish motives as those +of your friend the spider, who has probably by this time gobbled my friend +the greenfly?" "No, I do not say that. I think that, comprehending all our +private points of view, there is an absolute motive running through human +society, call it the world spirit, the mind of the race, or what you will, +that is something greater and better than we. The collective motion of +humanity is, except in very rare cases, nobler than its individual +manifestations. I respond and you respond to an abstract justice, an +abstract righteousness, which is purer and better than anything we are +capable of. We are all at the bottom, I think, better than our actions +paint us, better than our limited points of view permit us to be, and in +our illuminated moments we catch a glimpse of that Jacob's ladder that +Francis Thompson saw, with ascending angels, at Charing Cross. Some one +called Shelley 'an ineffectual angel.' I think most of us are ineffectual +angels. Take this tragedy that is filling the world with horror to-day. We +are fighting like tigers for our own points of view, but in our hearts we +are ashamed of the spectacle, and know that humanity is better than its +deeds. One day, perhaps, the ineffectual angel will find his wings and +outsoar the spider point of view.... And, by the way, suppose we go and +see how the spider is getting on." + +We went out into the garden and found the web. But the little green corpse +had gone, and the spider was digesting his meal somewhere out of sight. + +_(Note._--This article should be read in connection with that entitled "On +the Downs.") + + + + +ON BEER AND PORCELAIN + + +I was reading an American journal just now when I came across the remark +that "one would as soon think of drinking beer out of porcelain as of +slapping Nietzsche on the back." Drinking beer out of porcelain! The phrase +amused me, and set me idly wondering why you don't drink beer out of +porcelain. You drink it (assuming that you drink it at all) with great +enjoyment out of a thick earthenware mug or a pewter pot or a vessel of +glass, but out of china, never. If you were offered a drink of beer out of +a china basin or cup you would feel that the liquor had somehow lost its +attraction, just as, if you were offered tea out of a pewter pot, you would +feel that the drink was degraded and unpleasant. The explanation that the +one drink is coarse and the other fine does not meet the case. People drink +beer out of glass, and the finer the glass the better they like it. But +there is something fundamentally discordant between beer and porcelain. + +It is not, I imagine, that porcelain actually affects the taste or quality +of the liquor. It is that some subtle sense of fitness is outraged by the +association. The harmony of things is jangled. Touch and taste are no +longer in sympathy, and we are conscious of a jar to some remote and +inexplicable fibre of our being. It is in the realm of the palate that we +get the miracle of these affinities and antipathies in their most +elementary shape. Who was it who discovered that two such curiously diverse +things as mutton and red-currant jelly make a perfect gastronomic chord? By +what stroke of inspiration or luck did some unknown cook first see that +apple sauce was just the thing to make roast pork sublime? Who was the +Prometheus who brought to earth the tidings that a clove was the lover for +whom the apple pudding had pined through all the ages? + +Seen in the large, this world is just an inexhaustible mine of materials +out of which that singular adventurer, man, is eternally bringing to light +new revelations of harmony. The musician gathers together the vibrations of +the air and discovers the laws of musical agreement, and out of that +discovery emerges the stupendous mystery of song. The poet takes words, and +out of their rhythms finds the harmonious vehicle for ideas. The scientist +sees the apple fall and has the revelation of a universe moving in a +symphony before which the mind stands mute and awestruck. The cook takes +the pig from the stye and the apple from the tree and makes a pretty lyric +for the dinner-table. The Great Adventure, in short, is just this +passionate pursuit of the soul of harmony in things, great and small, +spiritual and material. We are all in the quest and our captains are those +who lead us to the highest peaks of revelation--Bach fashioning that +immortal Concerto for Two Violins that takes us out like unsullied children +into fields of asphodel; Wordsworth looking out over Tintern Abbey and +capturing for us that + + Sense sublime + Of something far more deeply interfused, + Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, + And the round ocean and the living air, + And the blue sky and in the mind of man; + +Botticelli weaving the magic lines of the _Madonna of the Magnificat_ into +a harmony that, once deeply felt, seems to dwell in the heart for ever. And +you and I, though we are not captains in the adventure, all have our +glimpses--glorious moments when the mind sings in tune with circumstance, +when the beauty of the world, or the sense of fellowship with men or the +anthem of incommunicable things seems to open out the vision of something +that we would fain possess and are meant to possess. + +"A mirage," you say, being a cynical person--"a mirage just to keep us +going through the desert--a sort of carrot held before the nose of that +donkey, man." Well, looking at the world to-day, it does rather seem that, +if harmony is the main concern of the adventure, humanity had better give +up the enterprise. In the light of the events in which we live, man is not +merely the most discordant creature on earth: he is also the most ferocious +animal that exists. Dryden's famous lines read like a satire:-- + + From harmony, from heavenly harmony. + This universal frame began; + From harmony to harmony, through all the compass of the + notes it ran, + The diapason closing full in man. + +If Dryden could see Europe to-day he might at least find one flaw in that +ode of which he had so exalted an opinion. + +But the story of man is a long story, and we cannot see its drift from any +episode, however vast and catastrophic. We are still only in the turbulent +childhood of our career, and frightful as our excesses are, there is a +motive behind them that makes them profoundly different from the wars of +old. That motive is the idea of human liberty, the sanctity of public law, +the right of every nation, small or great, to live its life free from the +terrorism of force. When, in the ancient or mediaeval world, was there +fought a war for a world idea like this? Despotism then had it all its own +way. Even the Peace of Rome was only the peace of universal subjugation, +not the peace of universal liberty based on law which the world is fighting +to establish to-day. Never before has embattled democracy challenged the +principle of tyranny for the possession of the world.... + +Ah, I know what you are thinking as you run your mind over the Allies. +Liberty! Does Russia stand for liberty? Yes, in the circumstances of +to-day, even Russia stands for liberty, for do not forget that this is not +a war of the Russian bureaucracy, but a war sustained by the passion of the +Russian people. And, Russia apart or Russia included, who can doubt that +the cause of human freedom is in our hands, and the cause of ancient +tyranny is in the hands of our enemy? May we not see in these baleful fires +the Twilight of the Gods--of those old gods of blood and iron that have +held the world in subjection through the long centuries of its travail? May +we not see even in the midst of this discord and carnage, this hell of +death and destruction, the new birth of humanity--the promise of a world +set free? + +Perhaps in that distant time when the tragedy of to-day is only an old +chapter in the story of the human race it will be seen that Dryden, after +all, was not guilty of a grim jest, but that this mighty discord was the +announcement of that final harmony for which all that is best in us yearns. +It may seem a hard vision to cherish to-day. But we must cherish it, or +accept the hideous alternative that this is, after all, in very truth the +madhouse of the universe. Can you live with that idea? Would it be worth +while living with that idea? If not, then the other holds the field, and it +is for all of us in our several ways, small or great, to work so that it +may possess the field. + +I have wandered somewhat far from the question of the beer and the +porcelain, and yet I think you will find that the sequence is not lacking, +and that the little window commands a large landscape. + + + + +ON A CASE OF CONSCIENCE + + +It was raining when Victor Crummles stepped out into the street. But he did +not notice the fact. True, he put his umbrella up, but that was mere force +of habit. He was not aware that he had put it up. His mind was far too +engaged with the ordeal before him to permit any consciousness of external +things to creep into it. He was "up against it and no mistake," he observed +to himself. There was the paper in his pocket telling him the time and +place at which he was to present himself for medical examination. He put +his hand in his pocket. It was there all right. Kilburn. Twelve o'clock. + +Yes, he was fairly up against it. Not, as he hastened to assure himself, +that he objected.... Not at all.... He had always been a patriot, and +always would be. He'd love to have a smack at the Huns. He'd give them what +for.... He wished he'd been a bit younger--that's what he wished. If he'd +been a bit younger he'd have gone like a shot. That's what he'd have +done--he'd have gone like a shot. No fetching him--if he'd been a bit +younger. But a chap at thirty-eight ... well.... + +Here was the "Golden Crown." Yes, he thought he'd better have "just one." +It would pull him together and give the doctors a chance. He ought to give +them a chance whatever the consequence to himself. A whisky-and-soda would +just put him "in the pink." + +There, that was better. Now he could face anything. Now for Kilburn. How +should he go? It was two miles at least ... a good two miles. There was No. +16--he could take that. And there was the Tube--he could take that. + +Or he could walk. There was plenty of time.... Yes, on the whole he thought +he ought to walk. There was that varicose vein. The doctors ought to know +about that. It wouldn't be fair to them or to the country that they +shouldn't know about it. Varicose veins were very serious affairs indeed. +He knew because he'd looked the subject up in the dictionary. It had made +such a deep impression on him-that he could repeat what it said:-- + +"The dilation and thickening of the veins with lengthening and tortuosity, +and projection of certain points in the form of knots or knobs, in which +the blood coagulates, fibrin is deposited, and in the centre sometimes even +osseous matter; in addition the coats of the veins are diseased." + +There was more about it than that. It looked a very black case indeed. Many +a man had been turned down for varicose veins, and--and--well, the doctors +ought to know about it. That was all.... They ought to know about it.... He +oughtn't to go there and pass himself off under false pretences.... Mind +you, he wanted to fight the Germans all right. He wanted to do his +bit--nobody more so. But was it fair not to let the doctors see what was +the matter with him? He certainly had those knots and knobs when he walked +very hard. Who knew? Perhaps there was "fibrin" and "osseous matter" there. +At any rate, the doctors ought to see his leg under fair conditions.... + +He didn't hold with allowing your patriotism to make you deceive your +country. It wasn't fair to the country to let it spend a heap of money on a +fellow who might "crock up" in the first week or two. It wasn't fair to the +fellow either. Not that he was thinking about himself.... Not at all. It +was the country he was thinking of. A fellow must think about the country +sometimes. It was his duty to put his own feelings, as it were, under the +tap. He wanted to go to the war as much as any man, but he didn't want the +country to lose by him.... + +Yes, it was his duty to walk. It was his duty not to conceal those knots +and knobs. He hoped they wouldn't be a fatal objection. But he was going to +play a straight bat with the country whatever happened.... He was not the +man to palm himself for what he wasn't. He would show the doctor quite +plainly what his varicose vein was like. + +When Victor Crummles entered the room he was feeling a bit tired, but +courageous. He had taken another "stiffener" at the "Spread Eagle" and felt +equal to any fate. There were two doctors in the room--one sitting at a +table, the other standing by the window. + +"Anything the matter with you?" said he at the table. + +"Not that I know," said Victor with the air of a man who meant business. +Then, as if unwillingly dragging the truth out of himself he added, "I have +got a bit of a varicose vein, but it's hardly worth mentioning." + +"Oh, don't worry about that," said the doctor. "We've got past that stage. +Now strip." + +Don't worry about that! Got past that stage! What did it mean?... Well, he +had done his duty.... If there was fibrin and osseous matter in his veins +he had given them fair warning. It was the country that would suffer. These +doctors,... well, there.... + +"Stripped? Now, let's have a look at you." + +The doctor examined him carefully. Perhaps that varicose vein would +surprise him after all. He'd walked two miles and it ought to be ... not +that he wanted it to be; but if it was--well, it was only fair they should +know. + +"What did you say your age was?" + +"Thirty-eight, sir." + +"Thirty-eight! Thirty-eight ... um ... Come here, Jeffkins." + +Jeffkins came from the window and joined his colleague, and together the +two doctors took stock of Victor. They were taking no notice of his leg. +Well, it was their look out. He wouldn't be to blame if he broke down. + +"You can dress." And the two doctors went to the window and consulted in +low tones. + +Then the first came back. + +"Well, my man, it won't do," he said. "We like your spirit.... Very +creditable, very creditable indeed. But (laughing) thirty-eight! Come, +come." + +Light was breaking in on Victor. Was he really being rejected?... And +because he was too old?... Oh, the scandal, the shame.... And he dying to +get at those Huns.... + +"But upon my oath...." He was really in earnest now. + +"There, there, we understand," said the doctor. "You've done your best. And +it's very creditable to you--very. But thirty-eight! Come, come.... Now, +good morning." + +Outside, Victor's anguish and indignation were too bitter to be borne +unaided. He turned into the "Spread Eagle." + + + + +ON THE GUINEA STAMP + + +My eye was caught as I passed along the street just now by an advertisement +on a hoarding which announced that Mr. Martin Harvey was appearing in a new +cinema play entitled _The Hard Way_, which was described as + +A FINE STORY BY A PEER. + +I confess that I took an objection to that play on the spot. It may be a +good play. I don't know. I never shall know, for I shall never see it. But +why should it be assumed that you and I will run off to the pay box to see +a new play "by a peer"? Suppose the anonymous playwright had been a lawyer, +or a journalist, or a pork-butcher, or a grocer. Would the producer have +thought it helpful to announce a new play by a pork-butcher, or a lawyer, +or a grocer, or a journalist? He certainly would not. He would have left +the play to stand or fall on its merits. + +Why, then, does he think that the fact that it is by a peer will bring us +all crowding to his doors? You may, of course, take it as a reflection on +the peerage. You may be supposed to think it such a miraculous thing that a +peer should be able to write a play that you may be expected to go and see +it as you would go to Barnum's to see a two-headed man or a bearded woman? +We may be invited to see it merely as a marvel, much as we used to be +invited to go and see the horse that could count or the monkeys that could +ride bicycles. + +If it were so I should feel it was unjust to the peerage which is certainly +not below the average in intellectual capacity. But it is not so. It is +something much more serious than that. It is not intended to be a +reflection on the peerage. It is an unconscious reflection on the British +public. The idea behind the announcement is not that we shall go to see the +play in a spirit of curiosity, as if it had been written by an +ourang-outang, but that we shall go to see it in a spirit of flunkeyism, as +if it had been written by a demi-god. We are conceived sitting in hushed +wonder that a visitor from realms far above our experience should stoop +down to amuse us. + +I wish I could feel that this was a false estimate of the British public. +It would certainly be a false estimate of the French public. The most +splendid thing, I think, in connection with the French people is their +freedom from flunkeyism. The great wind of the Revolution blew that rubbish +out of their souls for ever. It gave them the sublime conception of +citizenship as the basis of human relationship. It destroyed all the social +fences that feudalism had erected to keep the people out of the common +inheritance of the possibilities of human life. It liberated them from +shams, and made them the one realistic people in Europe. They looked truth +in the face, because they had cleaned its face of the dirty accretions of +the past. They saw, and they are the only people in Europe who as a nation +have seen, that + + The rank is but the guinea stamp: + The man's the gowd, for a' that. + +It is this fact which has made France the standard-bearer of human ideals. +It is this fact which puts her spiritually at the head of all the nations. + +I am afraid it must be admitted that we are still in the flunkey stage. We +are still hypnotised by rank and social caste. I saw a crowd running +excitedly after a carriage near the Gaiety Theatre the other day, and found +it was because Princess So-and-So was passing. Our Press reeks with the +disease, and loves to record this sort of thing:-- + +THE DUKE OF CONNAUGHT IN NEW YORK. + + While strolling down Fifth Avenue the + Duke of Connaught accidentally collided + with a messenger boy carrying a parcel, + whereupon he turned round and begged the + boy's pardon. + +You see the idea behind such banalities. It is that we are stricken with +respectful admiration that people with titles should act like ordinary +decent human beings. It is an insult to them, and it ought to be an insult +to the intelligence of the reader. But the newspaper man knows his public +as well as the cinema producer. He knows we have the souls of flunkeys. I +am no better than the rest. When I knew Mr. Kearley, the grocer, I looked +on him as a man and an equal. When he blossomed into Lord Devonport I felt +that he had taken wings and flown beyond my humble circle. I feel the +flunkey strong in me. I hate him, but I cannot kill him. + +It is not the fact that inferior people get titles which should give us +concern. It is not even that they get them so often by secret gifts, by +impudent touting, by base service. These things are known, and they are no +worse to-day than they have always been. Every honours list makes us gape +and smile. If we see a really distinguished name in it we feel surprise and +a certain sorrow. What is he doing in that galley? I confess I have never +felt the same towards J.M. Barrie since he allowed a tag to be stuck on to +a great name. What did he want with a tag that any tuft hunter in public +life can get? It is only littleness that can gain from titles. Greatness is +always dishonoured by them. Fancy Sir Charles Dickens, or Lord Dickens, or +Lord Darwin, or Lord Carlyle, or Lord Shakespeare, or John Milton +masquerading as the Marquis of Oxfordshire. Yes, Tennyson became a lord and +was the smaller man for the fact. Who does not recall Swinburne's scornful +comment: + + Stoop, Chaucer, stoop; + Keats, Shelley, Burns bow down. + +And who did not share the feeling of Mark Pattison at the pitiful +anti-climax? "There certainly is something about Tennyson," he said, "that +you find in very few poets; in saying what he says in the best words in +which it can be said, he is quite Sophoclean. But this business of the +peerage! It is really so sad that I hardly like to speak of it. Compare +that with Milton's ending and mark the difference." + +But it is the corrupting effect of titles on the national currency that is +their real offence. They falsify our ideals. They set up shams in place of +realities. They turn our minds from the gold to the guinea stamp and make +us worship the false idols of social ambition. Our thinking as a people +can't be right when our symbols are wrong. We can't have the root of +democracy in our souls if the tree flowers into coronets and gee-gaws. +France has the real jewel of democracy and we have only got the paste. Do +not think that this is only a small matter touching the surface of our +national character. It is a poison in the blood that infects us with the +deadly sins of servility and snobbery. And already it is permeating even +the free life of the Colonies. If I were an Australian or a Canadian I +would fight this hateful taint of the old world with all my might. I would +make it a criminal offence for a Colonial to accept a title. As for us, I +know only one remedy. It is to make a title a money transaction. Let us +have a tariff for titles. If American millionaires, like Lord Astor, want +them let them pay for them at the market rate. It would be at least a more +wholesome method than the present system. And it would bring the whole +imposture into contempt. Nobody would have a title when everybody knew what +he had paid for it. It is a poor way of getting rid of the abomination +compared with the French way, but then we are some centuries behind the +French people in these things. + + + + +ON THE DISLIKE OF LAWYERS + + +"I have spent a large part of my life in advising business men how to get +out of their difficulties," said Mr. Asquith the other day. It was a +statement wrung from him by a deputation which was inflicting on him the +familiar talk about lawyers and the need of "business men" to run our +affairs. I suppose there has been no more banal cackle in this war than the +cackle about a "business Government" and the pestilence of lawyers. + +I am not a lawyer, and have no particular affection for lawyers. I keep out +of their professional reach as much as possible. But it is as foolish to +ban them as a class as it would be to assume that a grocer or a tailor is a +great statesman because he is a successful grocer or tailor. Running an +empire is quite a different job from running a grocery establishment, and +it is folly to suppose that because a man has been successful in buying and +selling bacon and butter for his own profit he can _ipso facto_ govern a +nation with wisdom and prudence. Who are the most distinguished grocers of +to-day? They are Lord Devonport and Sir Thomas Lipton. Both excellent men, +I've no doubt. But would you like to hand over the Premiership to either of +them? Now, would you? + +The great statesman has to prove himself a great statesman just as the +great grocer has to prove himself a great grocer. He has to prove it by the +qualities of statesmanship exercised in the full glare of publicity. If the +grocer makes a howler in his trade the world knows nothing about it. If the +statesman makes a howler all the world knows about it. He has to emerge to +the front in the most public of all battles, and you may be sure that no +one comes to eminence without great powers which have passed the test of +the fiercest trials. He does not evade that test because he is a lawyer. +Mr. Asquith had to survive it just as Mr. Chamberlain, who was a maker of +nails, had to survive it, just as Mr. Balfour, who is a landowner, had to +survive it. No one said to Mr. Chamberlain, "Yah! nailmaker," or to Mr. +Balfour, "Yah! landlord," thinking he had disposed of them. Why should you +suppose that when you have said "Yah! lawyer" to Mr. Asquith or Mr. Lloyd +George you have disposed of them? + +Is the idea that lawyers are more selfish than other people--brewers, or +soap boilers, or bankers? I doubt it. They are just the average, and +include good and bad like any other class. Judge Jeffreys was a monster; +but, on the other hand, it was the lawyers of the seventeenth century who +largely saved the liberties of this country. I doubt whether the world has +ever produced a wiser, more unselfish, more heroic figure than Lincoln. And +he was a lawyer. I doubt whether any man in politics to-day has made such +financial sacrifices as Mr. Asquith has made. He had a practice at the Bar +which, I believe, brought him in L10,000 a year, and had he devoted himself +to it instead of to politics, would have brought him in far more, and he +gave it up for a job immeasurably more burdensome that has never brought +him more than L5000. He might have been Lord Chancellor, with a comfortable +seat on the Woolsack and L10,000 a year, and he chose instead to sit in the +House of Commons every day to be the target of every disappointed placeman. +Ah, you say, but look at the glory. Well, look at it. I would, as Danton +said, rather keep sheep on the hillside than meddle with the government of +men. It is the most ungrateful calling on earth. And, whatever other +defects may be attributed to Mr. Asquith, a passion for such an empty thing +as glory is not one of them. You will discover more passion for glory in +Mr. Churchill in five minutes than you will discover in Mr. Asquith in five +years. And Mr. Churchill is not a lawyer. + +But this dislike of lawyers in the abstract has a certain basis. It is an +old dislike. You remember that remark of Johnson's when he was asked on a +certain occasion who was the man who had left the room: "I don't like +saying unpleasant things about a man behind his back; _but I believe he is +an attorney."_ And Carlyle was not much more civil when he described a +barrister as "a loaded blunderbuss "--if you bought him he blew your +opponent's brains out; if your opponent bought him he blew yours out. His +weapon is the law, but his object is not justice. As often as not he aims +at defeating justice, and the more skilful a lawyer he is the more +injustice he succeeds in doing. It is this detachment from the merits of a +case, this deliberate repudiation of conscience in his business relations +that makes him so suspect. Of course he has a very sound reply. "It is my +business to put my client's case, and my opponent's business to put his +client's case. And it is the business of the judge and jury to see that +justice is done as between us." That is true, but it does not get rid of +the suspicion that attaches to a man who fights for the guilty or the +innocent with equal fervour. + +And then he deals in such a tricky article. When Sancho Panza was Governor +of the Island of Barataria he administered justice. If he had been the +Governor of the Island of Britain he would have administered the law, and +his decisions would have been very different. Law has about the same +relation to justice that grammar has to Shakespeare. If Shakespeare were +put in the dock and tried by the grammarians he would be condemned as a +rogue and vagabond, and, similarly, justice is not infrequently hanged by +the lawyers. We must have law just as we must have grammar, but we have no +love for either of them. They are dry, bloodless sciences, and we look +askance at those who practice them. You may be the greatest rascal of your +time, but if you study the law and keep within its letter the strong lance +of justice cannot reach you. No, law which is the servant of justice often +betrays his master. + +But do not let us be unjust. If law to-day is more nearly the instrument of +justice than it has ever been, it is the great lawyers to whom we chiefly +owe the fact. There are Dodsons and Foggs in the law, but there are also +Pyms and Pratts who have upheld the liberties of this country in the teeth +of tyrant kings and servile Parliaments. + + + + +ON THE CHEERFULNESS OF THE BLIND + + +I was coming off a Tube train last evening when some one said to me: "Will +you please give this gentleman an arm to the lift? He is blind." I did so, +and found, as I usually find in the case of the blind, that my companion +was uncommonly talkative and cheerful. This gaiety of the blind is a +perpetual wonder to me. It is as though the outer light being quenched an +inner light of the spirit illuminates the darkness. Outside the night is +black and dread, but inside there is warmth and brightness. The world is +narrowed to the circle of one's own mind, but the very limitation feeds the +flame of the spirit, and makes it leap higher. It was the most famous of +blind Englishmen who in the days of his darkness made the blind Samson +say:-- + + He that hath light within his own clear breast + May sit i' th' centre and enjoy bright day. + +And it has been remarked in many cases in which men have gone blind that +their cheerfulness so far from being diminished has by some miracle gained +a new strength. In no case of which I have had any knowledge has it +apparently had the contrary effect. The zest of living seems heightened. +Not long ago Mr. Galsworthy wrote to the _Times_ a letter in which he spoke +with pity of the unhappiness of the blind, and there promptly descended on +him an avalanche of protest from the blind themselves. I suppose there was +never a man who seemed to have a more intense pleasure in life than the +late Dr. Campbell, the founder of the Normal School for the Blind, who +worked wonders in extending the range of the activities of the blind, and +himself did such apparently impossible things as riding a bicycle and +climbing mountains. + +Nor was the case of Mr. Pulitzer, the famous proprietor of the _New York +World_, less remarkable. Night came down on him with terrible suddenness. +He was watching the sunset from his villa in the Mediterranean one evening +when he said: "How quickly the sun has set." "But it has not set," said his +companion. "Oh, yes, it has; it is quite dark," he answered. In that moment +he had gone stone blind. But I am told by those who knew him that his +vivacity of mind was never greater than in the years of his blindness. + +My friend Mr. G.W.E. Russell has a theory that the advantage of the blind +over the deaf and dumb in this matter of cheerfulness is perhaps more +apparent than real. He points out that it is in company that the blind is +least conscious of his misfortune, and that the deaf and dumb is most +conscious of it. That is certainly the case. In conversation the sightless +are on an equality with the seeing, while the deaf and dumb are shut up in +a terrible isolation. The fact that they see is not their gain but their +loss. They watch the movement of the lips and the signs of laughter, but +this only adds to the bitterness of the prison of soundlessness in which +they dwell. Hence the appearance of gloom. On the other hand, in solitude +the deaf and dumb has the advantage. All the colour and movement of life is +before him, while the blind is not only denied that vision of the outside +world, but has a restriction of movement that the other does not share. Mr. +Russell's conclusion, therefore, is that while the happiest moments of the +blind are those when he is observed, the happiest of the deaf and dumb are +when he is not observed. + +There is some measure of truth in this, but I believe, nevertheless, that +the common impression is right, and that, judged by the test of the +cheerful acceptance of affliction, the loss of sight is less depressing +than the loss of hearing and speech. And this for a very obvious reason. +After all, the main interest in life is in easy, familiar intercourse with +our fellows. I love to watch a golden sunset, to walk in the high beech +woods in spring--or, for that matter, in summer or autumn or winter--to see +the apples reddening on the trees, and the hedgerows thick with +blackberries. But this is the setting of my drama--the scenery of the play, +not the play itself. It is its human contacts that give life its vivacity +and intensity. And it is the ear and tongue that are the channels of the +cheerful interplay of mind with mind. In that interplay the blind man has +full measure and brimming over. His very affliction intensifies his part in +the human comedy and gives him a peculiar delight in homely intercourse. He +is not merely at his ease in the human family: he is the centre of it. He +fulfils Johnson's test of a good fellow: he is "a clubbable man." + +And even in the enjoyment of the external world it may be doubted whether +he does not find as much mental stimulus as the deaf-and-dumb. He cannot +see the sunset, but he hears the shout of the cuckoo, the song of the lark, +"the hum of bees, and rustle of the bladed corn." And if, as usually +happens, he has music in his soul, he has a realm of gold for his +inheritance that makes life a perpetual holiday. Have you heard Mr. William +Wolstenholme, the composer, improvising on the piano? If not, you have no +idea what a jolly world the world of sounds can be to the blind. Of course, +the case of the musician is hardly a fair test. With him, hearing is life +and deafness death. There is no more pathetic story than that of Beethoven +breaking the strings of the piano in his vain efforts to make his immortal +harmonies penetrate his soundless ears. Can we doubt that had he been +afflicted with blindness instead of deafness the tragedy of his life would +have been immeasurably relieved? What peace, could he have heard his Ninth +Symphony, would have slid into his soul. Blind Milton, sitting at his +organ, was a less tragic figure and probably a happier man than Milton with +a useless ear-trumpet would have been. Perhaps without the stimulus of the +organ he could not have fashioned that song which, as Macaulay says in his +grandiloquent way, "would not have misbecome the lips of those ethereal +beings whom he saw with that inner eye, which no calamity could darken, +flinging down on the jasper pavements their crowns of amaranth and gold." + +It is probable that in a material sense blindness is the most terrible +affliction that can befall us; but I am here speaking only of its spiritual +effects, and in this respect the deprivation of hearing and speech seems to +involve a more forlorn state than the deprivation of sight. The one +affliction means spiritual loneliness: the other deepens the spiritual +intimacies of life. It was a man who had gone blind late in life who said: +"I am thankful it is my sight which has gone rather than my hearing. The +one has shut me off from the sun: the other would have shut me off from +life." + + + + +ON TAXING VANITY + + +That quaint idea of Sir Edward Clarke's that, as a revenue expedient in +time of war, we should impose a tax on those who have names as well as +numbers on their garden gates has a principle in it which is capable of +wide extension. It is the principle of taxing us on our vanities. I am not +suggesting that there is not also a practical point in Sir Edward's idea. +There is no doubt that this custom of giving our houses names is the source +of much unnecessary labour and irritation to other people--postmen, +tradesmen, debt collectors, and errand boys. Mr. Smythe--formerly Smith--of +236, Belinda Avenue, is easily discoverable, but what are you to do about +Mr. Smythe, of Chatsworth House, Belinda Avenue, on a dark night? How are +you to find him? There are 350 houses in Belinda Avenue, all as like as two +peas, and though Mr. Smythe has a number, he never admits it. Chatsworth +House is where he lives, and if you want him it's Chatsworth House that you +have to find. + +The other night a friend of mine was called to the door at a late hour. It +was dark and raining and dismal. At the door stood a coal-heaver. "Please, +sir," he said, "can you tell me where Balmoral is? I've got a load of coal +to take there, and I've been up and down this road in the dark twice, and +can't make out where it is." "It's the fourth house from here to the +right," said my friend, and the coal-heaver thanked him and went away. That +illustrates the practical case for a tax on house names. + +But it was not that case which was in Sir Edward's mind. His view is that +we ought to pay for the innocent vanity of living at Chatsworth House +instead of 236, Belinda Avenue. Now if that principle is carried into +effect, I see no end to its operation. I am not sure that Sir Edward +himself would escape. I have often admired his magnificent side-whiskers. I +doubt whether there is a pair of side-whiskers to match them in London. +That he is proud of them goes without saying. Nobody could possibly have +whiskers like them without feeling proud of them. I feel that if I had such +whiskers I should never be away from the looking-glass. And consider the +pleasurable employment they give in idle moments. Satan, it is said, has +mischief still for idle hands to do. But no one with such streamers as Sir +Edward's can ever have idle hands. When you have nothing else to do with +them you stroke your whiskers and purr. Certainly they are worth paying +for. I think they would be dirt cheap at a tax of L1 a side. + +And then there are white spats. I don't know how you regard white spats, +but I never see them without feeling that something ought to be done about +it. I daresay the people who wear them are quite nice people, but I think +they ought to suffer in some way for the jolt they give to the +sensibilities of humbler mortals who could no more wear white spats than +they could stand on their head in the middle of Fleet Street. I am aware +that white spats are often only a sort of business advertisement. I have +known careers founded on a pair of white spats. There is Simpkins, for +example. I remember quite well when he first came to the club in white +spats. We all smiled and said it was like Simpkins. He was pushful, meant +to get on, and had set up white spats as a part of his stock-in-trade. We +knew Simpkins, of course, and discounted the white spats; but they made a +great impression on his clients, and he forged ahead from that day. Now he +wears a fur-lined coat, drives his own motor-car, and has a man in livery +to receive you at the door. But the foundation of his fortunes were the +white spats. He understood that maxim of Rochefoucauld that "to succeed in +the world you must appear to have succeeded already," and the white spats +did the trick. I think he ought to pay for them--L2 a spat is my figure. + +Most of us, too, I think, will agree that, if vanity is to be taxed, the +wearing of an eyeglass cannot be overlooked. It is impossible to dissociate +vanity from the use of the monocle. There are some people, it is true, who +wear an eyeglass naturally and unaffectedly, as though they were really +born with it and had forgotten that it was there. I saw a lady in a bus the +other day who used an eyeglass and yet carried it so well, with such simple +propriety and naturalness, that you could not feel that there was any +vanity in the matter. But that is an exception. Ordinarily the wearing of a +monocle seems like an announcement to the world that you are a person of +consequence. Disraeli knew that. His remark, when Chamberlain made his +first appearance in the House, that "at least he wore his eyeglass like a +gentleman," showed that he knew that, in general, it was an affectation. It +was so in his own case, of course. I hope Sir Edward Clarke will agree that +L5 is a reasonable tariff for an eyeglass. + +There are a thousand other vanities more or less innocent, that will occur +to you in looking round. I should put a very stiff tax on painted cheeks +and hair-dyes. Any lady dyeing her hair once would be taxed L5 for the +privilege. If, growing tired of auburn, she decided to change again to a +raven hue, she would pay L10. The tax, in fact, might be doubled for every +change of colour. If rather than pay the tax Mrs. Fitzgibbons Jones +resolves to wear her hair as nature arranged that she should, life will be +simplified for me. The first time I met Mrs. Fitzgibbons Jones she had +black hair. A year later I met her husband with a lady with chestnut hair. +He introduced me to her as his wife, and she said we had met before. I said +I thought she was mistaken, and it was not until we had parted that I +realised that it was the same lady with another head of hair and another +system of coloration altogether. + +The weak point about Sir Edward's idea as a financial expedient is that so +few of our vanities would survive the attention of the tax-collector. +Personally, I should have the name-plate off my gate at once. Indeed, I'm +not sure I'll not have it off as it is. It was there when I came, and I +have always been a little ashamed of its foppery, and have long used only +the number. Now the name seems rather more absurd than ever. Its +pretentiousness is out of tune with these times. I think many of us are +getting ashamed of our little vanities without the help of the +tax-collector. + + + + +ON THOUGHTS AT FIFTY + + +Stevenson, it will be remembered, once assigned his birthday to a little +girl--or was it a boy?--of his acquaintance. The child was fond of +birthdays, while he had reached a time of life when they had ceased to have +any interest for him. Most of us, if we live long enough, experience that +indifference. The birthday emotion vanishes with the toys that awaken it. I +remember when life was a journey from one birthday to another, the tedium +of which was only relieved by such agreeable incidents as Christmas, +Easter, and the school holidays. But for many years I have stumbled up +against my birthday, as it were, with a shock of surprise, have given it a +nod of recognition as one might greet an ancient acquaintance with whom one +has lost sympathy, and have passed on without a further thought about the +occasion. + +But to-day it is different. One cannot pass over one's fiftieth birthday +without feeling that an event has happened. Fifty! Why, the Psalmist's +limit is only seventy. Fifty from seventy. An easy sum, but what an +impressive answer! Twenty years, and they the years of the sere, the yellow +leaf. Only twenty more times to hear the cuckoo calling over the valley and +see the dark beech woods bursting into tender green. I look back twenty +years, and it seems only a span. And yet how remote fifty seemed in those +days! It was so remote as to be hardly worth thinking about. To be fifty +was to be among the old fellows, to be on the shelf, to have become an +antiquity. + +And now here am I at fifty, and so far from feeling like an antiquity, I +feel as much of a young fellow as at any time of my life. I had feared that +when middle age overtook me I should feel middle-aged and full of sad +longings for the old toys and the old pleasures. How would life be +tolerable when cricket, for example, had ceased to play an important part +in it? Never again to have the ecstasy of a drive along "the carpet" to the +boundary or, with a flash of the arm, snapping an opponent in the slips. +What a dreary desolation life must be, stripped of those joys! And on the +contrary I find that the spirit of youth is no more dependent on cricket +than it is on the taste for lollipops. It consists in the contented +acceptance of the things that are possible to us. Do not suppose, young +fellow, that you are any younger than I am because you can jump five feet +eight and I have ceased to want to jump at all. The feeling of youth is +something much deeper and more enduring than the ability to jump five feet +eight. It may be as vigorous at eighty as it is at eighteen. It is only its +manner of expression which is changed. Holmes never admitted that he had +grown old. "I am eighty-three young to-day," he would say. And Johnson, +with his old age and his infirmities, still insisted that he was "a young +fellow"--as, indeed, he was, for where shall we find such freshness of +spirit, such a defiance of the tooth of Time as in that grand old boy? + +Youth, in fact, is not a physical affair at all, but an affair of the soul. +You may be spiritually bald-headed at twenty-five or a romping young blade +at eighty. Byron was only thirty-four when he wrote:-- + + I am ashes where once I was fire. + And the soul in my bosom is dead; + What I loved I now merely admire, + And my heart is as grey as my head. + +Perhaps there was some affectation in this, for Byron was always +dramatising himself. But that he died an old man at thirty-six is as +indisputable as that Browning died a young man at seventy-seven, with that +triumphant envoi of _Asolando_ as his last expression of the eternal youth +of the soul. + +In thinking of old age, the mistake is to assume that the spirit must decay +with the body. Of course, if the body is maltreated it will react on the +spirit. But the natural decline of the physical powers leaves the healthy +spirit untouched with age, should indeed leave it strengthened--glowing not +with passion but with a steadier fire. When we are young in years our eager +spirit cries for the moon. + + We look before and after, + And pine for what is not. + +But as we get older we learn to be satisfied with something nearer than the +moon. The horizon of our hopes and ambitions narrows, but the sky above is +not less deep, and we make the wonderful discovery that the things that +matter are very near to us. It is the homing of the spirit. We have been +avid of the "topless grandeurs" of life, and we return to find that the +spiritual satisfactions we sought were all the time within very easy reach. +And in cultivating those satisfactions intensively we make another +discovery. We find that this is the true way to the "topless grandeurs" +themselves, for those topless grandeurs are not without us but within. + +But I am afraid I am sermonising, and I do not want to sermonise, though if +ever a man may be allowed to sermonise it is when he is completing his +half-century. Let me as an antidote recall a little story which the present +Bishop of Chester once told me over the dinner table, for it contains a +practical recipe for keeping the heart young. He was in his earlier days +associated with Archdeacon Jones of Liverpool. The Archdeacon, then over +eighty, had been tutor to Gladstone, and one day the future Bishop turned +the conversation into a reminiscent channel, and sought to evoke the +Archdeacon's memories of the long past. Presently the Archdeacon abruptly +changed the subject by asking, "What was the concert of the Philharmonic +like last night?" And then, in answer to the obvious surprise which the +question had aroused, he added, "Although I am an old man, I want to keep +my heart young, and the best way of doing that is not to let one's thoughts +live in the past, but to keep them in tune with the life around one." + +The truth is that every stage of the journey has its own interests. +Probably none is better than another, but my own preference has always been +for that stage which I happen to be doing at the time. When I was twenty I +thought there was no age like twenty, and now I am fifty I have transferred +my enthusiasm to fifty. There is no age like it, I feel, for all-round +enjoyment. And I have a strong conviction that if I have the good fortune +to reach sixty I shall be found declaring that there is no age like sixty. +And why not? It is pleasant to see the sun on the morning hills, but it is +not less pleasant to walk home when the shadows are lengthening and the +cool of the evening has come. + + + + +THE ONE-EYED CAT + + +"There's Peggy with that horrid cat again--the one-eyed cat from over the +fence." I looked out as I heard the ejaculation, and there in truth coming +down the garden path was Peggy bearing affectionately in her arms the +one-eyed cat from over the fence. Peggy likes the animal in spite of its +one eye. I am not sure that she does not like it all the more because of +its one eye. I think she has an idea that if she nurses the cat it forgets +that it has only one eye and recovers its happiness. She has a passion for +all four-legged creatures. I have seen her spend a whole day picking +handfuls of grass in the orchard and running with them to the donkey or the +horse standing patiently in the neighbour's paddock, and when she hasn't +animals to play with she will put a horseshoe on each hand and each foot, +and then you will hear from above the plod-plod-plod of a horse going its +daily round. But while she has a comprehensive affection for all +four-legged things, her most fervent love is reserved for the halt and the +blind. + +It is only among children that we find the quality of charity sufficiently +strong to forgive deformity. The natural instinct is to turn away from any +physical imperfection. It is the instinct of the race for the preservation +of its forms. We call these forms beauty and the departure from them +ugliness, and it is from "beauty's rose," as Shakespeare says, that "we +desire increase." If you shudder at the touch of a withered hand or at the +sight of a one-eyed cat, it is because you feel that they are a menace to +the established forms of life. You are unconsciously playing the part of +policeman for nature. You are the guardian of its traditions when you blush +at the glance of two eyes and shudder at the glance of one. + +And yet it is not impossible to fall in love with the physically defective +and sincerely to believe that they are beautiful. Take that incident +mentioned by Descartes. He said that when he was a child he used to play +with a little girl who had a squint, and that to the end of his days he +liked people who squinted. In this case it was the associations of memory +that gave a glamour to deformity and made it beautiful. The squint brought +back to him the memory of the Golden Age, and through the mist of that +memory it was transmuted into loveliness. + +Nor is it memory alone that will work the miracle. Intellectual sympathy +will do it, too. Wilkes was renowned for his ugliness, but he claimed that, +given half an hour's start, he would win the smiles of any woman against +any competitor. And when one of his lady admirers, engaged in defending +him, was reminded that he squinted badly, she replied: "Of course he does; +but he doesn't squint more than a man of his genius ought to squint." Nor +was it women alone whom the fellow fascinated. Who can forget the scene +when Tom Davies brought him into the company of Dr. Johnson, who hated +Wilkes' Radicalism, and would never willingly have consented to meet him? +For a time Johnson refused to unbend, but at last he could hold out no +longer, and fell a victim to the charm of Wilkes' talk. + +In the same way, Johnson believed his wife to be a woman of perfect beauty. +To the rest of the world she was extraordinarily plain and commonplace, but +to Johnson she was the mirror of beauty. "Pretty creature," he would say +with a sigh in referring to her after her death. + +And there, I fancy, we touch the root of the matter. The sense of beauty is +in one respect an affair of the soul, and only superficially an aesthetic +quality. We start with a common prejudice in favour of certain physical +forms. They are the forms with which nature has made us familiar, and we +seek to perpetuate them. But if the conventionally beautiful form is allied +with spiritual ugliness it ceases to be beautiful to us, and if the +conventionally ugly form is allied with spiritual beauty that beauty +irradiates the physical deficiency. The soul dominates the senses. Francis +Thompson expresses the idea very beautifully when he says:-- + + I cannot tell what beauty is her dole, + Who cannot see her features for her soul. + As birds see not the casement for the sky. + +But there is another sense in which beauty is the most matter-of-fact +thing. I can conceive that if the human family had developed only one eye, +and that planted in the centre of the forehead, the appearance of a person +with two eyes would be as offensive to our sense of beauty as a hand that +consisted not of fingers but of thumbs. We should go to the show to see the +two-eyed man with just the same feelings as we go now to see the bearded +woman. We should not go to admire his two eyes, any more than we go to +admire the beard; we should go to enjoy a pleasant sense of disgust at his +misfortune and a comfortable satisfaction at the fact that we had not been +the victims of such a calamity. We should roll our single eye with a proud +feeling that we were in the true line of beauty, from which the two-eyed +man in front was a hideous and fantastic departure. + +Beauty, in short, is only a tribute which we pay to necessity. In equipping +itself for the struggle for existence humanity has found that it is +convenient to have two eyes and a stereoscopic vision, just as it is +convenient to have four fingers on the hand and one thumb instead of five +thumbs. Our members have been developed in the manner best fitted to enable +us to fight our battle. And the more perfectly they fulfil that supreme +condition the more beautiful we declare them to be. Our ideas of beauty, +therefore, are not absolute; they are conditional. They are the humble +servants of our necessity. Two eyes are necessary for us to get about our +business, and so we fall in love with two eyes, and the more perfect they +are for their work the more we fall in love with them, and the more +beautiful we declare them to be. + +I think that Peggy, nursing her one-eyed cat there in the sun, has not yet +accepted our creed of beauty. She will be as conventional as the rest of us +when her frocks are longer. + + + + +ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF HATS + + +The other day I went into a hatter's to get my hat ironed. It had been +ruffled by the weather, and I had a reason for wishing it to look as new +and glossy as possible. And as I waited and watched the process of +polishing, the hatter talked to me on the subject that really interested +him--that is, the subject of hats and heads. + +"Yes," said he, in reply to some remark I had made; "there's a wonderful +difference in the shape of 'eads _and_ the size. Now your 'ead is what you +may call an ord'nary 'ead. I mean to say," he added, no doubt seeing a +shadow of disappointment pass across my ordinary face, "I mean to say, it +ain't what you would call extry-ord'nary. But there's some 'eads--well, +look at that 'at there. It belongs to a gentleman with a wonderful +funny-shaped 'ead, long and narrer and full of nobbles--'stror'nary 'ead 'e +'as. And as for sizes, it's wonderful what a difference there is. I do a +lot of trade with lawyers, and it's astonishing the size of their 'eads. +You'd be surprised. I suppose it's the amount of thinking they have to do +that makes their 'eads swell. Now that 'at there belongs to Mr. ------ +(mentioning the name of a famous lawyer), wonderful big 'ead 'e +'as--7-1/2--that's what 'e takes, and there's lots of 'em takes over 7. + +"It seems to me," he went on, "that the size of the 'ead is according to +the occupation. Now I used to be in a seaport town, and I used to serve a +lot of ships' captains. 'Stror'nary the 'eads they have. I suppose it's the +anxiety and worry they get, thinking about the tides and the winds and the +icebergs and things...." + +I went out of the shop with my ord'nary 'ead, conscious of the fact that I +had made a poor impression on the hatter. To him I was only a 6-7/8 size, +and consequently a person of no consequence. I should have liked to point +out to him that it is not always the big heads that have the jewel in them. +Of course, it is true that great men often have big heads. Bismarck's size +was 7-1/4, so was Gladstone's, so was Campbell-Bannerman's. But on the +other hand, Byron had a small head, and a very small brain. And didn't +Goethe say that Byron was the finest brain that Europe had produced since +Shakespeare? I should not agree in ordinary circumstances, but as a person +with a smallish head, I am prepared in this connection to take Goethe's +word on the subject. As Holmes points out, it is not the size of the brain +but its convolutions that are important (I think, by the way, that Holmes +had a small head). Now I should have liked to tell the hatter that though +my head was small I had strong reason to believe that the convolutions of +my brain were quite top-hole. + +I did not do so and I only recall the incident now because it shows how we +all get in the way of looking at life through our own particular peep-hole. +Here is a man who sees all the world through the size of its hats. He +reverences Jones because he takes 7-1/2; he dismisses Smith as of no +account because he only takes 6-3/4. In some degree, we all have this +restricted professional vision. The tailor runs his eye over your clothes +and reckons you up according to the cut of your garments and the degree of +shininess they display. You are to him simply a clothes-peg and your merit +is in exact ratio to the clothes you carry. The bootmaker looks at your +boots and takes your intellectual, social and financial measurement from +their quality and condition. If you are down-at-the-heel, the glossy +condition of your hat will not alter his opinion about you. The hat does +not come in his range of vision. It is not a part of his criteria. + +It is so with the dentist. He judges all the world by its teeth. One look +in your mouth and he has settled and immovable convictions about your +character, your habits, your physical condition, your position, and your +mental attributes. He touches a nerve and you wince. "Ah," says he to +himself, "this man takes too much alcohol and tobacco and tea and coffee." +He sees the teeth are irregular. "Poor fellow," he says, "how badly he was +brought up!" He observes that the teeth are neglected. "A careless fellow," +he says. "Spends his money on follies and neglects his family I'll be +bound." And by the time he has finished with you he feels that he could +write your biography simply from the evidence of your teeth. And I daresay +it would be as true as most biographies--and as false. + +In the same way, the business man looks at life through the keyhole of his +counting-house. The world to him is an "emporium," and he judges his +neighbour by the size of his plate glass. And so with the financier. When +one of the Rothschilds heard that a friend of his who had died had left +only a million of money he remarked: "Dear me, dear me! I thought he was +quite well off." His life had been a failure, because he had only put a +million by for a rainy day. Thackeray expresses the idea perfectly in +_Vanity Fair_:-- + +"You see," said old Osborne to George, "what comes of merit and industry +and judicious speculations and that. Look at me and my banker's account. +Look at your poor grandfather Sedley and his failure. And yet he was a +better man than I was, this day twenty years--a better man I should say by +twenty thousand pounds." + +I fancy I, too, have my professional way of looking at things, and am +disposed to judge men, not by what they do but by the skill they have in +the use of words. And I know that when an artist comes into my house he +"sizes me up" from the pictures on the wall, just as when the upholsterer +comes he "places" me according to the style of the chairs and the quality +of the carpet, or as when the gourmet comes he judges by the cooking and +the wine. If you give him champagne he reverences you; if hock he puts you +among the commonplace. + +In short, we all go through life wearing spectacles coloured by our own +tastes, our own calling, and our own prejudices, measuring our neighbours +by our own tape-measure, summing them up according to our own private +arithmetic. We see subjectively, not objectively; what we are capable of +seeing, not what there is to be seen. It is not wonderful that we make so +many bad guesses at that prismatic thing, the truth. + + + + +ON SEEING LONDON + + +I see that the _Spectator_, in reviewing a new book on the Tower, says +that, whilst visitors to London usually visit that historic monument, +Londoners themselves rarely visit it. There is, I suppose, a good deal of +truth in this. I know a man who was born in London, and has spent all his +working life in Fleet Street, who confesses that he has never yet been +inside the Tower. It is not because he is lacking in interest. He has been +to St. Peter's at Rome, and he went to Madrid largely to see the Prado. If +the Tower had been on the other side of Europe, I think he would probably +have made a pilgrimage to it, but it has been within a stone's-throw of him +all his life, and therefore he has never found time to visit it. + +It is so, more or less, with most of us. Apply the test to yourself or to +your friends who live in London, and you will probably be astonished at the +number of precious things that you and they have not seen--not because they +are so distant, but because they are so near. Have you been to the Record +Office, for example? I haven't, although it is within a couple of hundred +yards of where I work and although I know it is rich in priceless +treasures. I am always going, but "never get," as they say in Lancashire. +It is too handy. + +I was talking the other day to a City merchant who lives at Sydenham, and +who has never seen Hampstead Heath. He had been travelling from Sydenham to +the City for a quarter of a century, and has worn the rut so deep that he +cannot get out of it, and has hardly more likelihood of seeing the Northern +Heights than of visiting the mountains of the moon. Yet Hampstead Heath, +which he could see in a morning for the cost of a threepenny ride in the +Tube, is one of the incomparable things of Nature. I doubt whether there is +such a wonderful open space within the limits of any other great city. It +has hints of the seaside and the mountain, the moor and the down in most +exquisite union, and the Spaniards Road is as noble a promenade as you will +find anywhere. + +This incuriousness is not a peculiarity of Londoners only. It is a part of +that temporising habit that afflicts most of us. If a thing can be done at +any time, then that is just the thing that never gets done. If my Fleet +Street friend knew that the Tower was going to be blown to pieces by a +Zeppelin to-morrow he would, I am sure, rush off to see it this afternoon. +But he is conscious that he has a whole lifetime to see it in, and so he +will never see it. We are most of us slackers at the bottom, and need the +discipline of a timetable to keep us on the move. If I could put off +writing this article till to-morrow I should easily convince myself that I +hadn't time to write it to-day. + +The point is very well expressed in that story of the Pope who received +three American visitors in turn. "How long are you staying?" he said to the +first. "Six months, your Holiness," was the reply. "You will be able to see +something of Rome in that time," said the Pope. The second was staying +three months. "You will see a great deal of Rome in three months," said the +Pope. The third was only staying three weeks. "You'll see all there is to +be seen in Rome in three weeks," was the Pope's comment. He was a good +judge of human nature. + +But if we Londoners are no worse than most people we certainly miss more, +for there is no such book of revelation as this which we look at so +differently. I love to walk its streets with those who know its secrets. +Mr. John Burns is such a one. The very stones begin to be eloquent when he +is about. They pour out memories at his invitation as the rock poured out +water at the touch of Moses. The houses tell you who built them and who +lived hi them and where their stone came from. The whole pageant of history +passes before you, and you see the spot where Julius Caesar crossed the +river at Battersea--where else should he cross?--you discover, it may be +for the first time, the exquisite beauty of Waterloo Bridge, and learn what +Canovas said about it. York Gate tells you of the long past when the +Embankment was not, and when great nobles came through that archway to take +the boat for Westminster or the Tower. He makes you dive out of the Strand +to see a beautiful doorway, and out of Fleet Street to admire the Henry +room. Every foot of Whitehall babbles its legends; you see Tyburn as our +forefathers saw it, and George Fox meeting Cromwell there on his return +from Ireland. In Westminster Hall he is at his best. You feel that he knew +Rufus and all the masons who built that glorious fabric. In fact, you +almost feel that he built it himself, so vividly does its story live in his +mind and so strong is his sense of possession. + +If I were a Dictator I would make him the Great Showman of London. I would +have him taking us round and inspiring us with something of his own delight +in our astonishing City. We should no longer look upon London then as if it +were a sort of Bradshaw's Guide: we should find it as fascinating as a +fairy tale, as full of human interest as a Canterbury Pilgrimage. We should +never go to Snow Hill without memories of Fagin, or to Eastcheap without +seeing Falstaff swaggering along its pavements. Bread Street would resound +to us with the tread of young Milton, and Southwark with the echoes of +Shakespeare's voice and the jolly laughter of the Pilgrims at the Tabard. +Hogarth would accompany us about Covent Garden, and out of Bolt Court we +should see the lumbering figure of Johnson emerging into his beloved Fleet +Street. We would sit by the fountain in the Temple with Tom Pinch, and take +a wherry to Westminster with Mr. Pepys. We should see London then as a +great spiritual companionship, in which it is our privilege to have a +fleeting part. + + + + +ON CATCHING THE TRAIN + + +Thank heaven! I have caught it.... I am in a corner seat, the compartment +is not crowded, the train is about to start, and for an hour and a half, +while we rattle towards that haven of solitude on the hill that I have +written of aforetime, I can read, or think, or smoke, or sleep, or talk, or +write as I choose. I think I will write, for I am in the humour for +writing. Do you know what it is to be in the humour for writing--to feel +that there is a head of steam somewhere that must blow off? It isn't so +much that you have something you want to say as that you must say +something. And, after all, what does the subject matter? Any peg will do to +hang your hat on. The hat is the thing. That saying of Rameau fits the idea +to perfection. Some one was asking that great composer if he did not find +difficulty in selecting a subject. "Difficulty? A subject?" said Rameau. +"Not at all. One subject is as good as another. Here, bring me the _Dutch +Gazette_." + +That is how I feel now, as the lights of London fade in our wake and the +fresh air of the country blows in at the window. Subject? Difficulty? Here +bring me the _Dutch Gazette_. But while any subject would serve there is +one of particular interest to me at this moment. It came into my mind as I +ran along the platform just now. It is the really important subject of +catching trains. There are some people who make nothing of catching trains. +They can catch trains with as miraculous an ease as Cinquevalli catches +half-a-dozen billiard-balls. I believe they could catch trains in their +sleep. They are never too early and never too late. They leave home or +office with a quiet certainty of doing the thing that is simply stupefying. +Whether they walk, or take a bus, or call a taxi, it is the same: they do +not hurry, they do not worry, and when they find they are in time and that +there's plenty of room they manifest no surprise. + +I have in mind a man with whom I once went walking among the mountains on +the French-Italian border. He was enormously particular about trains and +arrangements the day or the week before we needed them, and he was +wonderfully efficient at the job. But as the time approached for catching a +train he became exasperatingly calm and leisured. He began to take his time +over everything and to concern himself with the arrangements of the next +day or the next week, as though he had forgotten all about the train that +was imminent, or was careless whether he caught it or not. And when at last +he had got to the train, he began to remember things. He would stroll off +to get a time-table or to buy a book, or to look at the engine--especially +to look at the engine. And the nearer the minute for starting the more +absorbed he became in the mechanism of the thing, and the more animated was +his explanation of the relative merits of the P.L.M. engine and the +North-Western engine. He was always given up as lost, and yet always +stepped in as the train was on the move, his manner aggravatingly +unruffled, his talk pursuing the quiet tenor of his thought about engines +or about what we should do the week after next. + +Now I am different. I have been catching trains all my life, and all my +life I have been afraid I shouldn't catch them. Familiarity with the habits +of trains cannot get rid of a secret conviction that their aim is to give +me the slip if it can be done. No faith in my own watch can affect my +doubts as to the reliability of the watch of the guard or the station clock +or whatever deceitful signal the engine-driver obeys. Moreover, I am +oppressed with the possibilities of delay on the road to the station. They +crowd in on me like the ghosts into the tent of King Richard. There may be +a block in the streets, the bus may break down, the taxi-driver may be +drunk or not know the way, or think I don't know the way, and take me round +and round the squares as Tony Lumpkin drove his mother round and round the +pond, or--in fact, anything may happen, and it is never until I am safely +inside (as I am now) that I feel really happy. + +Now, of course this is a very absurd weakness. I ought to be ashamed to +confess it. I am ashamed to confess it. And that is the advantage of +writing under a pen name. You can confess anything you like, and nobody +thinks any the worse of you. You ease your own conscience, have a gaol +delivery of your failings--look them, so to speak, straight in the face, +and pass sentence on them--and still enjoy the luxury of not being found +out. You have all the advantages of a conviction without the nuisance of +the penalty. Decidedly, this writing under a pen name is a great easement +of the soul. + +It reminds me of an occasion on which I was climbing with a famous rock +climber. I do not mind confessing (over my pen name) that I am not good on +rocks. My companion on the rope kept addressing me at critical moments by +the name of Saunders. My name, I rejoice to say, is not Saunders, and he +knew it was not Saunders, but he had to call me something, and in the +excitement of the moment could think of nothing but Saunders. Whenever I +was slow in finding a handhold or foothold, there would come a stentorian +instruction to Saunders to feel to the right or the left, or higher up or +lower down. And I remember that I found it a great comfort to know that it +was not I who was so slow, but that fellow Saunders. I seemed to see him as +a laborious, futile person who would have been better employed at home +looking after his hens. And so in these articles, I seem again to be +impersonating the ineffable Saunders, of whom I feel at liberty to speak +plainly. I see before me a long vista of self-revelations, the real title +of which ought to be "The Showing Up of Saunders." + +But to return to the subject. This train-fever is, of course, only a +symptom. It proceeds from that apprehensiveness of mind that is so common +and incurable an affliction. The complaint has been very well satirised by +one who suffered from it. "I have had many and severe troubles in my life," +he said, "_but most of them never happened_." That is it. We people who +worry about the trains and similar things live in a world of imaginative +disaster. The heavens are always going to fall on us. We look ahead, like +Christian, and see the lions waiting to devour us, and when we find they +are only poor imitation lions, our timorous imagination is not set at rest, +but invents other lions to scare us out of our wits. + +And yet intellectually we know that these apprehensions are worthless. +Experience has taught us that it is not the things we fear that come to +pass, but the things of which we do not dream. The bolt comes from the +blue. We take elaborate pains to guard our face, and get a thump in the +small of the back. We propose to send the fire-engine to Ulster, and turn +to see Europe in flames. Cowper put the case against all "fearful saints" +(and sinners) when he said: + + The clouds ye so much dread + Are big with mercy, and will break + With blessings on your head. + +It is the clouds you don't dread that swamp you. Cowper knew, for he too +was an apprehensive mortal, and it is only the apprehensive mortal who +really knows the full folly of his apprehensiveness. + +Now, save once, I have never lost a train in my life. The exception was at +Calais when the Brussels express did, in defiance of the time-table, really +give me and others the slip, carrying with it my bag containing my clothes +and the notes of a most illuminating lecture. I chased that bag all through +Northern France and Belgium, inquiring at wayside stations, wiring to +junctions, hunting among the mountains of luggage at Lille. + +It was at Lille that---But the train is slowing down. There is the slope of +the hillside, black against the night sky, and among the trees I see the +glimmer of a light beckoning me as the lonely lamp in Greenhead Ghyll used +to beckon Wordsworth's Michael. The night is full of stars, the landscape +glistens with a late frost: it will be a jolly two miles' tramp to that +beacon on the hill. + + + + +IN PRAISE OF CHESS + + +I sometimes think that growing old must be like the end of a tiring day. +You have worked hard, or played hard, toiled over the mountain under the +burning sun, and now the evening has come and you sit at ease at the inn +and ask for nothing but a pipe, a quiet talk, and so to bed. "And the +morrow's uprising to deeds shall be sweet." You have had your fill of +adventure for the day. The morning's passion for experience and possession +is satisfied, and your ambitions have shrunk to the dimensions of an easy +chair. + +And so I think it is with that other evening when the late blackbird is +fluting its last vesper song and the toys of the long day are put aside, +and the plans of new conquests are waste-paper. I remember hearing Sir +Edward Grey saying once how he looked forward to the time when he would +burn all his Blue-books and mulch his rose-trees with the ashes. And Mr. +Belloc has given us a very jolly picture of the way in which he is going to +spend his evening: + + If I ever become a rich man, + Or if ever I grow to be old, + I will build a house with deep thatch + To shelter me from the cold, + And there shall the Sussex songs be sung + And the story of Sussex told. + I will hold my house in the high woods + Within a walk of the sea, + And the men that were boys when I was a boy + Shall sit and drink with me. + +There is Mr. Birrell, too, who, as I have remarked elsewhere, once said +that when he retired he would take his modest savings into the country "and +really read Boswell." + +These are typical, I suppose, of the dreams that most of us cultivate about +old age. I, too, look forward to a cottage under the high beech woods, to a +well-thumbed Boswell, and to a garden where I shall mulch my rose-trees and +watch the buds coming with as rich a satisfaction as any that the hot +battle of the day has given me. But there is another thing I shall ask for. +On the lower shelf of the bookcase, close to the Boswell, there will have +to be a box of chessmen and a chessboard, and the men who were boys when I +was a boy, and who come and sit with me, will be expected after supper to +set out the chessmen as instinctively as they fill their pipes. And then +for an hour, or it may be two, we shall enter into that rapturous realm +where the knight prances and the bishop lurks with his shining sword and +the rooks come crashing through in double file. The fire will sink and we +shall not stir it, the clock will strike and we shall not hear it, the pipe +will grow cold and we shall forget to relight it. + +Blessed be the memory of him who gave the world this immortal game. For the +price of a taxicab ride or a visit to the cinema, you may, thanks to that +unknown benefactor, possess a world of illimitable adventures. When Alice +passed through the Looking Glass into Wonderland, she did not more +completely leave the common day behind than when you sit down before the +chessboard with a stout foe before you and pass out into this magic realm +of bloodless combat. I have heard unhappy people say that it is "dull." +Dull, my dear sir or madam? Why, there is no excitement on this earth +comparable with this kingly game. I have had moments at Lord's, I admit, +and at the Oval. But here is a game which is all such moments, where you +are up to the eyes in plots and ambuscades all the time, and the fellow in +front of you is up to his eyes in them, too. What agonies as you watch his +glance wandering over the board. Does he suspect that trap? Does he see the +full meaning of that offer of the knight which seems so tempting?... His +hand touches the wrong piece and your heart thumps a Te Deum. Is he?... yes +... no ... he pauses ... he removes his hand from the piece ... oh, +heavens, his eye is wandering back to that critical pawn ... ah, light is +dawning on him ... you see it illuminating his face as he bends over the +board, you hear a murmur of revelation issuing from his lips ... he is +drawing back from the precipice ... your ambuscade is in vain and now you +must start plotting and scheming all over again. + +Nay, say it is anything you like, but do not say it is dull. And do not, +please, suggest that I am talking of it as an old man's game only. I have +played it since I was a boy, forty years ago, and I cannot say at what age +I have loved it best. It is a game for all ages, all seasons, all sexes, +all climates, for summer evenings or winter nights, for land or for sea. It +is the very water of Lethe for sorrow or disappointment, for there is no +oblivion so profound as that which it offers for your solace. And what +satisfaction is there comparable with a well-won "mate"? It is different +from any other joy that games have to offer. There is a swift delight in a +late "cut" or a ball that spread-eagles the other fellow's wicket; there is +a delicate pleasure in a long jenny neatly negotiated, in a drive that +sails straight from the tee towards the flag on the green, in a hard return +that hits the back line of the tennis court. But a perfect "mate" +irradiates the mind with the calm of indisputable things. It has the +absoluteness of mathematics, and it gives you victory ennobled by the sense +of intellectual struggle and stern justice. There are "mates" that linger +in the memory like a sonnet of Keats. + +It is medicine for the sick mind or the anxious spirit. We need a means of +escape from the infinite, from the maze of this incalculable life, from the +burden and the mystery of a world where all things "go contrairy," as Mrs. +Gummidge used to say. Some people find the escape in novels that move +faithfully to that happy ending which the tangled skein of life denies us. +Some find it in hobbies where the mind is at peace in watching processes +that are controllable and results that with patience are assured. But in +the midst of this infinity I know no finite world so complete and +satisfying as that I enter when I take down the chessmen and marshal my +knights and squires on the chequered field. It is then I am truly happy. I +have closed the door on the infinite and inexplicable and have come into a +kingdom where justice reigns, where cause and effect follow "as the night +the day," and where, come victory or come defeat, the sky is always clear +and the joy unsullied. + + + + +ON THE DOWNS + + +We spread our lunch on the crown of one of those great billows of the downs +that stand along the sea. Down in the hollows tiny villages or farmsteads +stood in the midst of clumps of trees, and the cultivated lands looked like +squares of many-coloured carpets, brown carpets and yellow carpets and +green carpets, with the cloud shadows passing over them and moving like +battalions up the gracious slopes of the downs beyond. A gleam of white in +the midst of one of the brown fields caught the eye. It seemed like a patch +of snow that had survived the rigours of the English summer, but suddenly +it rose as if blown by the wind and came towards us in tiny flakes of white +that turned to seagulls. They sailed high above us uttering that querulous +cry that seems to have in it all the unsatisfied hunger of the sea. + +In this splendid spaciousness the familiar forms seem incredibly +diminutive. That little speck moving across one of the brown carpets is a +ploughman and his team. That white stream that looks like milk flowing over +the green carpet is a flock of sheep running before the sheep-dog to +another pasture. And the ear no less than the eye learns to translate the +faint suggestions into known terms. At first it seems that, save for the +larks that spring up here and there with their cascades of song, the whole +of this immense vacancy is soundless. But listen. There is "the wind on the +heath, brother." And below that, and only audible when you have attuned +your ear to the silence, is the low murmur of the sea. + +You begin to grow interested in probing the secrecies of this great +stillness. That? Ah, that was the rumble of some distant railway train +going to Brighton or Eastbourne. But what was that? Through the voices of +the wind and the sea that we have learned to distinguish we catch another +sound, curiously hollow and infinitely remote, not vaguely pervasive like +the murmur of the sea, but round and precise like the beating of a drum +somewhere on the confines of the earth. + +"The guns!" + +Yes, the guns. Across fifty miles of sea and fifty miles of land the sound +is borne to us as we sit in the midst of this great peace of earth and sky. +When once detached, as it were, from the vague murmurs of the breathing air +it becomes curiously insistent. It throbs on the ear almost like the +beating of a pulse--baleful, sepulchral, like the strokes of doom. We begin +counting them, wondering whether they are the guns of the enemy or our own, +speculating as to the course of the battle. + +We have become spectators of the great tragedy, and the throb of the guns +touches the scene with new suggestions. Those cloud shadows drifting across +the valley and up the slopes of the downs on the other side take on the +shapes of massed battalions. The apparent solitude does not destroy the +impression. There is no solitude so complete to the outward eye as that +which broods over the country when the armies face each other in the grips +of death. I have looked from the mountain of Rheims across just such a +valley as this. Twenty miles of battle front lay before me, and in all that +great field of vision there was not a moving thing visible. There were no +cattle in the fields and no ploughmen following their teams. Roads marched +across the landscape, but they were empty roads. It was as though life had +vanished from the earth. Yet I knew that all over that great valley the +earth was crawling with life and full of immense and sinister +secrecies--the galleries of the sappers, the trenches and redoubts, the +hiding-places of great guns, the concealed observations of the watchers. +Yes, it was just such a scene as this. The only difference was that you had +not to put your ear to the ground to catch the thunder of the guns. + +But the voice of war that has broken in upon our peace fades when we are +once more on the move over the downs, and the visions it has brought with +it seem unreal and phantasmal in their serene and sunlit world. The shadows +turn to mere shadows again, and we tread the wild thyme and watch the +spiral of the lark with careless rapture. We dip down into a valley to a +village hidden among the trees, without fear or thought of bomb-proof +shelters and masked batteries, and there in a cottage with the roses over +the porch we take rest and counsel over the teacups. Then once more on to +the downs. The evening shadows are stretching across the valleys, but on +these spacious heights the sunshine still rests. Some one starts singing +that jolly old song, "The Farmer's Boy," and soon the air resounds to the +chorus: + + "To plough and sow, to reap and mow, + And be a farmer's boy-o-o-o-oy, + And be a farmer's boy." + +No one recalls the throbbing of the guns or stops to catch it from amidst +the murmurs of the air. This--this is the reality. That was only an echo +from a bad dream from which we have awakened. + +And when an hour or two later we reach the little village by the sea we +rush for the letters that await us with eager curiosity. There is silence +in the room as each of us devours the budget of news awaiting us. I am +vaguely conscious as I read that some one has left the room with a sense of +haste. I go up to my bedroom, and when I return the sitting-room is empty +save for one figure. I see at a glance that something has happened. + +"Robert has been killed in battle," he says. How near the sound of the guns +had come! + + + + +ON SHORT LEGS AND LONG LEGS + + +A day or two ago a soldier, returned from the front, was loudly inveighing +in a railway carriage against the bumptiousness and harshness of the +captain under whom he had served. "Let me git 'im over 'ere," he said, "and +I'll lay 'im out--see if I don't. I've 'ad enough of 'is bullyin'. It ain't +even as if 'e was a decent figure of a man. 'E don't stand more'n +five-feet-two. I could knock 'im out with one 'and, and I'd 'ave done it +before now only you mustn't out there. If you did you'd get a pound o' lead +pumped into you." + +Now, I dare say little five-feet-two deserved all that was said of him, and +all he will get by way of punishment; but the point about the remark that +interests me is the contempt it revealed for the man of small stature. +There's no doubt that a little man starts with a grievance, with an +aggravating sense of an inferiority that has nothing to do with his real +merits. I know the feeling. For myself, I am just the right height--no +more, no less. I am five-feet-nine-and-a-half, and I wouldn't be a shade +different either way. I dare say that is the general experience. Every one +feels that his own is really the ideal standard. It is so in most things. +Aristotle said that a man ought to marry at thirty-eight. I think he said +it because he himself married at thirty-eight. Now, I married at +twenty-three, and my opinion is that the right age at which to get +married--if you are of the marrying sort--is twenty-three. In short, +whatever we do or whatever we are, we have a deep-rooted conviction that we +are "it." And it is well that it should be so. Without this innocent +self-satisfaction there would be a lot more misery in the world. + +But though I am the perfect height of five-feet-nine-and-a-half, I always +feel depressed and out-classed in the presence of a man, say of +six-feet-two. He may be an ass, but still I have to look up to him in a +physical sense, and the mere act of looking up seems to endow him with a +moral advantage. I feel a grievance at the outrageous length of the fellow, +and find I want to make him fully understand that though I am only +five-feet-nine-and-a-half in stature, my intellectual measurement is about +ten feet, and that I am looking down on him much more than he is looking +down on me. + +It is this irksome self-consciousness that is the permanent affliction of +the physically small man. Indeed, it is the affliction of any one who has +any physical peculiarity--a hare-lip, for example. Byron raged all his life +against his club-foot, and doubtless that malformation was largely the +cause of his savage contempt for a world that went about on two +well-matched feet. I am sure that if I had a strawberry mark on the face I +should never think about anything else. If I talked to any one I should +find him addressing his words to my strawberry mark. I should feel that he +was deliberately and offensively dwelling on my disfigurement, saying to +himself how glad he was he hadn't a strawberry mark and what a miserable +chap I must be with such an article. He would not be doing anything of the +sort, of course. He would probably be doing his best to keep his eyes off +the strawberry mark. But I shouldn't think so, for I should be in that +unhealthy condition of mind in which the whole world would seem to revolve +around my strawberry mark. + +And so with the small man. He lives in perpetual consciousness that the +world is talking over his head, not because there is less sense in his head +than in other heads, but simply because his legs are shorter than the +popular size of legs. He is either overlooked altogether, or he is looked +down upon, and in either case he is miserable. Occasionally his shortage +lays him open to public ridicule. A barrister whom I knew--a man with a +large head, a fair-sized body, and legs not worth mentioning--once rose to +address a judge before whom he had not hitherto appeared. He had hardly +opened his mouth when the judge remarked severely: "It is usual for counsel +to stand in addressing the Court." "My lord," said the barrister, "I am +standing." + +Now can you imagine an agony more bitter than that to a sensitive man? I +daresay he lost his case, for he must certainly have lost his head. You +cannot cross-examine a witness effectively when you are thinking all the +time about your miserable legs. And even if he won his case it probably +gave him no comfort, for he would feel that the jury had given their +verdict out of pity for the "little 'un." It is this self-consciousness +that is the cause of that assertiveness and vanity that are often +characteristic of the little man. He is probably not more assertive or more +vain than the general run of us, but we can keep those defects dark, so to +speak. He, on the other hand, has to go through life on tip-toe, carrying +his head as high as his neck will lift it, and saying, as it were: "Hi! you +long-legged fellows, don't forget me!" And this very reasonable anxiety to +have "a place in the sun" gives him the appearance of being aggressive and +vain. He is only trying to get level with the long-legged people, just as +the short-sighted man tries to get level with the long-sighted man by +wearing spectacles. + +The discomfort of the very tall man is less humiliating than that of the +small man, but it is also very real. He is just as much removed from +contact with the normal world, and he has the added disadvantage of being +horribly conspicuous. He can never forget himself, for all heads look up at +him as he passes. He doesn't fit any doorway; he can't buy ready-made +clothes; if he sleeps in a strange bed he has to leave his feet outside; +and in the railway carriage or a bus he has to tie his legs into +uncomfortable knots to keep them out of the way. In short, he finds himself +a nuisance in a world made for people of five-feet-nine-and-a-half. But he +has one advantage over the small man. He does not have to ask for notice. +The result is that while the little man often seems vain and pushful, the +giant usually is very tame, and modest, and unobtrusive. The little man +wants to be seen: the giant wants not to be seen. + +And so it comes about that our virtues and our failings have more to do +with the length of our legs than we think. + + + + +ON A PAINTED FACE + + +The other day I met in the street a young lady who, but yesterday, seemed +to me a young girl. She had in the interval taken that sudden leap from +youth to maturity which is always so wonderful and perplexing. When I had +seen her last there would have been no impropriety in giving her a kiss in +the street. Now I should as little have thought of offering to kiss her as +of whistling to the Archbishop of Canterbury if I had seen that dignitary +passing on the other side of the road. She had taken wing and flown from +the nest. She was no longer a child: she was a personage. I found myself +trying (a little clumsily) to adapt my conversation to her new status, and +when I left her I raised my hat a trifle more elaborately than is my +custom. + +But the thing that struck me most about her, and the thing that has set me +writing about her, was this: I noticed that her face was painted and +powdered. Now if there is one thing I abominate above all others it is a +painted face. On the stage, of course, it is right and proper. The stage is +a world of make-believe, and it is the business of the lady of sixty to +give you the impression that she is a sweet young thing of seventeen. There +is no affectation in this. It is her vocation to be young, and she follows +it as willingly or unwillingly as you or I follow our respective callings. +At the moment, for example, I would do anything to escape writing this +article, for the sun is shining in the bluest of April skies and the bees +are foraging in the orchard, and everything calls me outside to the woods +and hills. But I must bake my tale of bricks first with as much pretence of +enjoying the job as possible. And in the same way, and perhaps sometimes +with the same distaste, the Juliet of middle age puts on the bloom of the +Juliet of seventeen. + +But that any one, not compelled to do it for a living, should paint the +face or dye the hair is to me unintelligible. It is like attempting to pass +off a counterfeit coin. It is either a confession that one is so ashamed of +one's face that one dare not let it be seen in public, or it is an attempt +to deceive the world into accepting you as something other than you are. It +has the same effect on the observer that those sham oak beams and uprights +that are so popular on the front of suburban houses have. They are not real +beams or uprights. They do not support anything, or fill any useful +function. They are only a thin veneer of oak stuck on to pretend that they +are the real thing. They are a detestable pretence, and I would rather live +in a hovel than in a house tricked out with such vulgar deceits that do not +deceive. + +And in the same way the paint on the face and the dye on the hair never +really achieve their object. If they did they would not cease to be a sham, +but at least they would not be a transparent sham. There are, of course, +degrees of failure. Mrs. Gamp's curls were so obviously false that they +could not be said to be intended to deceive. On the other hand, the great +lady who employs the most scientific face-makers in order to defeat the +encroachments of Time does very nearly succeed. But her failure is really +more tragic than that of Mrs. Gamp. How tragic I realised one day when I +was introduced to a distinguished "society" woman, whose youthful beauty +was popularly supposed to have survived to old age. At a distance she did +indeed seem to be a miracle of girlish loveliness. But when I came close to +her and saw the old, bleared eyes in the midst of that beautifully +enamelled face, the shock had in it something akin to horror. It was as +though Death himself was peeping out triumphantly through the painted mask. +And in that moment I seemed to see all the pitiful years of struggle that +this unhappy woman had devoted to the pretence of never growing older. Her +pink and white cheeks were not a thing of beauty. They were only a grim +jest on herself, on her ambitions, her ideals, her poor little soul. + +Why should we be so much afraid of wrinkles and grey hairs? In their place +they can be as beautiful as the freshest glow on the face of youth. There +is a beauty of the sunrise and a beauty of the sunset. And of the two the +beauty of the sunset is the deeper and more spiritual. There are some faces +that seem to grow in loveliness as the snows fall around them, and the acid +of Time bites the gracious lines deeper. The dimple has become a crease, +but it is none the less beautiful, for in that crease is the epic of a +lifetime. To smooth out the crease, to cover it with the false hue of +youth, is to turn the epic into a satire. + +And if the painted face of age is horrible the painted face of youth is +disgusting. It is artistically bad and spiritually worse. It is the mark of +a debased taste and a shallow mind. It is like painting the lily or adding +a perfume to the violet, and has on one the unpleasant effect that is made +by the heavy odours in which the same type of person drenches herself, so +that to pass her is like passing through a sickly fog. These things are the +symptom of a diseased mind--a mind that has lost the healthy love of truth +and nature, and has taken refuge in falsities and shams. The paint on the +face does not stop at the cheeks. It stains the soul. + + + + +ON WRITING AN ARTICLE + + +I was putting on my boots just now in what the novelists call "a brown +study." There was no urgent reason for putting on my boots. I was not going +out, and my slippers were much more comfortable. But something had to be +done. I wanted a subject for an article. Now if you are accustomed to +writing articles for a living, you will know that sometimes the difficulty +is not writing the article, but choosing a subject. It is not that subjects +are few: it is that they are so many. It is not poverty you suffer from, +but an embarrassment of riches. You are like Buridan's ass. That wretched +creature starved between two bundles of hay, because he could not make up +his mind which bundle to turn to first. And in that he was not unlike many +human beings. There was an eighteenth-century statesman, for example, who +used to find it so difficult to make a choice that he would stand at his +door looking up the street and down the street, and finally go inside +again, because he couldn't decide whether to go up or down. He would stay +indoors all the morning considering whether he should ride out or walk out, +and he would spend all the afternoon regretting that he had done neither +one nor the other. + +I have always had a great deal of sympathy with that personage, for I share +his temperamental indecision. I hate making up my mind. If I go into a shop +to choose a pair of trousers my infirmity of purpose grows with every new +sample that is shown me, and finally I choose the wrong thing in a fit of +desperation. If the question is a place for a holiday, all the artifices of +my family cannot extract from me a decided preference for any place in +particular. Bournemouth? Certainly. How jolly that walk along the sands by +Poole Harbour to Studland and over the hills to Swanage. But think of the +Lake District ... and North Wales ... and Devon ... and Cornwall ... and +... I do not so much make decisions as drift into them or fall into them. I +am what you might call an Eleventh Hour Man. I take a header just as the +clock is about to strike for the last time. + +This common failing of indecision is not necessarily due to intellectual +laziness. It may be due, as in the case of Goschen, to too clear a vision +of all the aspects of a subject. "Goschen," said a famous First Sea Lord, +"was the cleverest man we ever had at the Admiralty, and the worst +administrator. He saw so many sides to a question that we could never get +anything done." A sense of responsibility, too, is a severe check on +action. I doubt whether any one who has dealt with affairs ever made up his +mind with more painful questionings than Lord Morley. I have heard him say +how burdensome he found the India Office, because day by day he had to make +irrevocable decisions. A certain adventurous recklessness is necessary for +the man of affairs. Joseph Chamberlain had that quality. Mr. Churchill has +it to-day. If it is controlled by high motives and a wide vision it is an +incomparable gift. If it is a mere passion for having one's own way it is +only the gift of the gambler. + +But, you ask, what has this to do with putting on my boots? It is a +reasonable question. I will tell you. For an hour I had paced my room in my +slippers in search of a subject. I had looked out of the window over the +sunlit valley, watched the smoke of a distant train vanishing towards the +west, observed the activities of the rooks in a neighbouring elm. I had +pared my nails several times with absent-minded industry, and sharpened +every pencil I had on me with elaborate care. But the more I pared my nails +and the more I sharpened my pencils the more perplexed I grew as to the +theme for an article. Subjects crowded on me, "not single spies, but in +battalions." They jostled each other for preference, they clamoured for +notice as I have seen the dock labourers clamouring for a job at the London +docks. They held out their hands and cried, "Here am I: take me." And, +distracted by their importunities and starving in the midst of plenty, I +fished in my pocket for a pencil I had not sharpened. There wasn't one +left. + +It was at this moment that I remembered my boots. Yes, I would certainly +put on my boots. There was nothing like putting on one's boots for helping +one to make up one's mind. The act of stooping changed the current of the +blood. You saw things in a new light--like the man who looked between his +legs at Bolton Abbey, and cried to his friend: "Oh, look this way; it's +extraordinary what a fresh view you get." So I fetched my boots and sat +down to put them on. + +The thing worked like a charm. For in my preoccupied condition I picked up +my right boot first. Then mechanically I put it down and seized the left +boot. "Now why," said I, "did I do that?" And then the fact flashed on me +that all my life I had been putting on my left boot first. If you had asked +me five minutes before which boot I put on first, I should have said that +there was no first about it; yet now I found I was in the grip of a habit +so fixed that the attempt to put on my right boot first affected me like +the scraping of a harsh pencil on a slate. The thing couldn't be done. The +whole rhythm of habit would be put out of joint. I became interested. How, +I wondered, do I put on my jacket? I rose, took it off, found that my right +arm slipped automatically into its sleeve, tried the reverse process, +discovered that it was as difficult as an unfamiliar gymnastic operation. +Why, said I, I am a mere bundle of little habits of which I am unconscious. +This thing must be looked into. And then came into my mind that fascinating +book of Samuel Butler's on _Life and Habit_. Yes, certainly, here was a +subject that would "go." I dismissed all the importunate beggars who had +been clamouring in my mind, took out a pencil, seized a writing pad, and +sat down to write on "The Force of Habit." + +And here I am. I have got to the end of my article without reaching my +subject. I have looked up and down the street so long that it is time to go +indoors. + + + + +ON A CITY THAT WAS + + +I saw in a newspaper a few days ago some pictures of the ruins of the Cloth +Hall and the Cathedral at Ypres. They were excellent photographs, but the +impression they left on my mind was of the futility even of photography to +convey any real sense of that astonishing scene of desolation which was +once the beautiful city of Ypres. We talk of Ypres as if it were still a +city in being, in which men trade, and children play, and women go about +their household duties. In a vague way we feel that it is so. In a vague +way I felt that it was so myself until I entered it and found myself in the +presence of the ghost of a city. + +How wonderful is the solitude and the silence in the midst of which it +stands like the ruin of some ancient and forgotten civilisation. Far behind +you have left the hurry and tumult of the great armies--every village +seething with a strange and tumultuous life, soldiers bargaining with the +women for potatoes and cabbages in the marketplace, boiling their pots in +the fields, playing football by the way side, mending the roads, marching, +camping, feeding, sleeping; officers flying along the roads on horseback or +in motorcars, vast processions of lorries coiling their way over the +landscape, or standing at rest with their death-dealing burdens while the +men take their mid-day meal; giant "caterpillars" dragging great guns along +the highway. Everywhere the sense of a fearful urgency, everywhere the +feeling of a brooding and awful presence that overshadows the heavens with +a cosmic menace. It is as though you are living on the slopes of some vast +volcano whose eruptions may at any moment submerge all this phantasmal life +in a sea of molten lava. And, hark! through the sounds of the roads and the +streets, the chaffering of the market-place, the rush of motor-cars, the +rhythmic tramp of men, there comes a dull, hollow roar, as from the mouth +of a volcano itself. + +As you advance the scene changes. The movement becomes more feverish, more +intense. The very breath of the volcano seems to fan your cheek, and the +hollow roar has become near and plangent. It is no longer like the breaking +of great seas on a distant shore: it is like thunder rending the sky above +you. A little further, and another subtle change is observable. On either +hand the land has become solitary and unkempt. All the life of the fields +has vanished and the soldiers are in undisputed possession. Then even the +soldiers seem left behind, and you enter the strange solitude where the war +is waged. Before you rises the great mound of Ypres. In the distance it +looks like a living city with quaintly broken skyline, but as you approach +you see that it is only the tomb of a city standing there desolate and +shattered in the midst of a universal desolation. + +It is midday as you pass through its streets, but there is no moving thing +visible amidst the ruins. The very spirit of loneliness is about you--not +the invigorating loneliness of the mountain tops, but the sad loneliness of +the grave. I have stood upon the ruins of Carthage, but even there I did +not feel the same sense of solitude that I felt as I walked the streets of +Ypres. There, at least, the birds were singing above you, and the Arab sat +beside his camel on the grass in the sunshine. Here nature itself seems +blasted by some dreadful flame of death. The streets preserve their +contours, but on either side the houses stand like gaunt skeletons, +roofless and shattered, fronts knocked out, floors smashed through or +hanging in fragments, bedsteads tumbling down through the broken ceiling of +the sitting-room, pictures askew on the tottering walls, household +treasures a forlorn wreckage, hats still hanging on the hat-pegs, the +table-cloth still laid, the fireplace lustreless with the ashes of the last +fire. + +And in the centre of this scene of utter misery the Cathedral and the Cloth +Hall, still towering above the general desolation, sublime even in their +ruin, the roofs gone, the interiors a heap of rubbish--the rubbish of +priceless things--the outer walls battered and broken, but standing as they +have stood for centuries. Most wonderful of all, as I saw it, a single +pinnacle of the Cloth Hall still standing above the wreck, slender and +exquisitely carven, pointing like an accusing finger to the eternal +tribunal. For long the Germans had been shelling that Finger of Ypres. They +shelled it the afternoon I was there and filled the market-place with great +masses of masonry from the walls. But they shelled it in vain, and as I +left Ypres in the twilight, when the thunder of the guns had ceased, and +looked back on the great mound of "the city that was," I saw above the +ruins the finger still pointing heavenward. + +But if the solitude of Ypres is memorable, the silence is terrible. It is +the silence of imminent and breathless things, full of strange secrets, +thrilling with a fearful expectation, broken by sudden and shattering +voices that speak and then are still--voices that seem to come out of the +bowels of the earth near at hand and are answered by voices more distant, +the vicious hiss of the shrapnel, the crisp rattle of the machine-guns, the +roar of "Mother," that sounds like an invisible express train thundering +through the sky above you. The solitude and the silence assume an +oppressive significance. They are only the garment of the mighty mystery +that envelops you. You feel that these dead walls have ears, eyes, and most +potent voices, that you are not in the midst of a great loneliness, but +that all around the earth is full of most tremendous secrets. And then you +realise that the city that is as dead as Nineveh to the outward eye is the +most vital city in the world. + +One day it will rise from its ashes, its streets will resound once more +with jest and laughter, its fires will be relit, and its chimneys will send +forth the cheerful smoke. But its glory throughout all the ages will be the +memory of the days when it stood a mound of ruins on the plain with its +finger pointing in mute appeal to heaven against the infamies of men. + + + + +ON PLEASANT SOUNDS + + +The wind had dropped, and on the hillside one seemed to be in a vast and +soundless universe. Far down in the valley a few lights glimmered in the +general darkness, but apart from these one might have fancied oneself alone +in all the world. Then from some remote farmstead there came the sound of a +dog barking. It rang through the night like the distant shout of a friend. +It seemed to fill the whole arch of heaven with its reverberations and to +flood the valley with the sense of companionship. It brought me news from +the farm. The day's tasks were over, the cattle were settled for the night, +the household were at their evening meal, and the watch-dog had resumed his +nocturnal charge. His bark seemed to have in it the music of immemorial +things--of labour and rest, and all the cheerful routine and comradeship of +the fields. + +It is only in the country that one enjoys the poetry of natural sounds. A +dog barking in a suburban street is merely a disturber of the peace, and I +know of nothing more forlorn than the singing of a caged bird in, let us +say, Tottenham Court Road. Wordsworth's Poor Susan found a note of +enchantment in the song of the thrush that sang at the corner of Wood +Street, off Cheapside. But it was only an enchantment that passed into +deeper sadness as the vision of the green pastures which it summoned up +faded into the drab reality: + + ... they fade, + The mist and the river, the hill and the shade: + The stream will not flow and the hill will not rise, + And the colours have passed away from her eyes. + +There is something in the life of towns which seems to make the voices of +the country alien and sorrowful. They are lost in the tumult, and, if +heard, sound only like a reproach against a fretful world, an echo from +some Eden from which we have been exiled. + +In the large silence of the countryside sounds have a significance and +intimacy that they cannot have where life is crowded with activities and +interests. In a certain sense life here is richer because of its +poverty--because of its freedom from the thousand distractions that exhaust +its emotion and scatter its energies. Because we have little we discover +much in that little. + +Take the sound of church bells. In the city it is hardly more pleasing than +the song of the bird in Tottenham Court Road. It does not raise my spirits, +it only depresses them. But when I heard the sound of the bells come up +from the valley last evening, it seemed like the bringer of a personal +message of good tidings. It had in it the rapture of a thousand +memories--memories of summer eves and snowy landscapes, of vanished faces +and forgotten scenes. It was at once stimulating and calming, and spoke +somehow the language of enduring and incommunicable things. + +It is, I suppose, the associations of sounds rather than their actual +quality which make them pleasant or unpleasant. The twitter of sparrows is, +in itself, as prosaic a sound as there is in nature, but I never hear it on +waking without a feeling of inward peace. It seems to link me with some +incredibly remote and golden morning, and with a child in a cradle waking +for the first time to light and sound and consciousness. + +And so with that engaging ruffian of the feathered world, the rook. It has +no more music in its voice than a tin kettle; but what jollier sound is +there on a late February morning than the splendid hubbub of a rookery when +the slovenly nests are being built in the naked and swaying branches of the +elms? Betsy Trotwood was angry with David Copperfield's father because he +called his house Blunderstone Rookery. "Rookery, indeed!" she said. It is +almost the only point of disagreement I have with that admirable woman. Not +to love a rookery is _prima facie_ evidence against you. I have heard of +men who have bought estates because of the rookery, and I have loved them +for their beautiful extravagance. I am sure I should have liked David +Copperfield's father from that solitary incident recorded of him. He was +not a very practical or business-like man, I fear; but people who love +rookeries rarely are. You cannot expect both the prose and the poetry of +life for your endowment. + +How much the feeling created by sound depends upon the setting may be +illustrated by the bagpipes. The bagpipes in a London street is a thing for +ribald laughter, but the bagpipes in a Highland glen is a thing to stir the +blood, and make the mind thrill to memories of + + Old, unhappy, far off things. + And battles long ago. + +It is so even with the humble concertina. That instrument is to me the last +expression of musical depravity. It is the torture which Dante would +provide for me in the last circle of Hell. But the sound of a concertina on +a country road on a dark night is as cheerful a noise as I want to hear. +But just as Omar loved the sound of a _distant_ drum, so distance is an +essential part of the enchantment of my concertina. + +And of all pleasant sounds what is there to excel the music of the hammer +and the anvil in the smithy at the entrance to the village? No wonder the +children love to stand at the open door and see the burning sparks that fly +and hear the bellows roar. I would stand at the open door myself if I had +the pluck, for I am as much a child as any one when the hammer and the +anvil are playing their primeval music. It is the oldest song of humanity +played with the most ancient instruments. Here we are at the very beginning +of our story--here we stand in the very dawn of things. What lineage so +noble as that of the smith? What task so ancient and so honourable? With +such tools the first smith smote music out of labour, and began the +conquest of things to the accompaniment of joyous sounds. In those sounds I +seem to hear the whole burden of the ages. + +I think I will take another stroll down to the village. It will take me +past the smithy. + + + + +ON SLACKENING THE BOW + + +I was in a company the other evening in which the talk turned upon the +familiar theme of the Government and its fitness for the job in hand. The +principal assailant was what I should call a strenuous person. He seemed to +suggest that if the conduct of the war had been in the hands of +earnest-minded persons--like himself, for example--the business would have +been over long ago. + +"What can you expect," he said, the veins at the side of his forehead +swelling with strenuousness, "from men who only play at war? Why, I was +told by a man who was dining with Asquith not long ago that he was talking +all the time about Georgian poetry, and that apparently he knew more about +the subject than anybody at the table. Fiddling while Rome is burning, I +call it." + +"Did you want him to hold a Cabinet Council over the dinner-table?" I +asked. The strenuous person killed me with a look of scorn. + +But all the same, so far from being shocked to learn that Mr. Asquith can +talk about poetry in these days, the fact, if it be a fact, increases my +confidence in his competence for his task. I should suffer no pain even if +I heard that he took a hand of cards after dinner, and I hope he takes care +to get a game of golf at the week-end. I like men who have great +responsibilities to carry their burdens easily, and to relax the bow as +often as possible. The bigger the job you have in hand the more necessary +it is to cultivate the habit of detachment. You want to walk away from the +subject sometimes, as the artist walks away from his canvas to get a better +view of his work. I never feel sure of an article until I have put it away, +forgotten it, and read it again with a fresh mind, disengaged from the +subject and seeing it objectively rather than subjectively. It is the +affliction of the journalist that he has to face the light before he has +had time to withdraw to a critical distance and to see his work with the +detachment of the public. + +There is nothing more mistaken than the view that because a thing is +serious you must be thinking about it seriously all the time. If you do +that you cease to be the master of your subject: the subject becomes the +master of you. That is what is the matter with the fanatic. He is so +obsessed by his idea that he cannot relate it to other ideas, and loses all +sense of proportion, and often all sense of sanity. I have seen more +unrelieved seriousness in a lunatic asylum than anywhere else. + +The key to success is to come to a task with a fresh mind. That was the +meaning of the very immoral advice given by a don to a friend of mine on +the day before an examination. "What would you advise me to read to-night?" +asked my friend, anxious to make the most of the few remaining hours. "If +I were you," said the don, "I shouldn't read anything. I should get drunk." +He did not mean that the business was so unimportant that it did not matter +what he did. He meant that it was so important that he must forget all +about it, and come to it afresh from the outside. And he used the most +violent illustration he could find to express his meaning. + +It is with the mind as with the soil. If you want to get the best out of +your land you must change the crops, and sometimes even let the land lie +fallow. And if you want to get the best out of your mind on a given theme +you must let it range and have plenty of diversion. And the more remote the +diversion is from the theme the better. I know a very grave man whose days +are spent in the most responsible work, who goes to see Charlie Chaplin +once or twice every week, and laughs like a schoolboy all the time. I +should not trust his work less on that account: I should trust it all the +more. I should know that he did not allow it to get the whip hand of him, +that he kept sane and healthy by running out to play, as it were, +occasionally. + +I think all solemn men ought to take sixpenny-worth of Charlie Chaplin +occasionally. And I'm certain they ought to play more. I believe that the +real disease of Germany is that it has never learned to play. The bow is +stretched all the time, and the nation is afflicted with a dreadful +seriousness that suggests the madhouse by its lack of humour and gaiety. +The oppressiveness of life begins with the child. Germany is one of The two +countries in the world where the suicide of children is a familiar social +fact. Years ago when I was in Cologne I christened it the City of the +Elderly Children, and no one, I think, can have had any experience of +Germany without being struck by the premature gravity of the young. If +Germany had had fewer professors and a decent sprinkling of cricket and +football grounds perhaps things might have been different. I don't +generally agree with copybook maxims, but all work and no play does make +Jack (or, rather, Hans) a dull boy. + +Perhaps it is true that we play too much; but I'm quite sure that the +Germans have played too little, and if there must be a mistake on one side +or the other, let it be on the side of too much play. + + + + +ON THE INTELLIGENT GOLF BALL + + +I read the other day an article by my colleague "Arcturus" which I thought +was a little boastful. It referred to a bull-dog. Now I cannot tell what +there is about a bull-dog that makes people haughty, but it is certain that +I have never known a case in which the companionship of that animal has not +had this effect. The man who keeps a bull-dog becomes after a time only fit +for the company of a bull-dog. He catches the august pride of the animal, +seems to think like a bulldog, to talk in the brief, scornful tones of a +bulldog, and even to look fat and formidable like a bull-dog. That, +however, is not an uncommon phenomenon among those who live with animals. +Go to a fat stock show and look at the men around the cattle pens. Or +recall the pork butchers you have known and tell me----. But possibly you, +sir, who read these lines, are a pork butcher and resent the implication. +Sir, your resentment is just. You are the exception, sir--a most notable +exception. + +But my object here is not merely to warn "Arcturus" of the perilous company +he is keeping. I refer to his bull-dog panegyric also to justify me in +enlarging on my own private vanity. If he is permitted to write to the +extent of a column on a bull-dog, I can at least claim the same latitude in +regard to a sensible subject like golf. And I have this advantage over him, +that I have a real message. I have a hint to offer that will mean money in +pocket to you. + +And first let me say that I have nothing to teach you in the way of play. I +am in that stage of the novitiate that seems sheer imbecility. When I get a +good stroke I stare after it as stout Cortez stared at the Pacific, "with a +wild surmise." But it is because I am a bad player that I feel I can be +useful to you. For most of my time on the links is spent in looking for +lost balls. Now, I do not object to looking for balls. I rather enjoy it. +It is a healthy, open-air occupation that keeps the body exercised and the +mind fallow. There are some people who think the spectacle of a grown-up +man (with a family) looking in an open field for a ball that isn't there is +ridiculous. They are mistaken. It is really, seen from the philosophic +angle, a very noble spectacle. It is the symbol of deathless hope. It is +part of the great discipline of the game. It is that part of the game at +which I do best. There is not a spinney over the whole course that I do not +know by heart. There is not a bit of gorse that I have not probed and been +probed by. I must have spent hours in the ditches, and I have upon me the +scars left by every hedgerow. And the result is that, while I am worthless +as a golfer, I think I may claim to be quite in the first class at finding +lost balls. + +Now all discoveries hinge upon some sudden illumination. I had up to a +certain point been a sad failure in recovering balls. I watched them fall +with the utmost care and was so sure of them that I felt that I could walk +blindfold and pick them up. But when I came to the spot the ball was not +there. This experience became so common that at last the conclusion forced +itself upon me that the golf ball had a sort of impish intelligence that +could only be met by a superior cunning. I suspected that it deliberately +hid itself, and that so long as it was aware that you were hunting for it, +it took a fiendish delight in dodging you. If, said I, one could only let +the thing suppose it was not being looked for it would be taken off its +guard. I put the idea into operation, and I rejoice to say it works like a +charm. + +The method is quite simple. You lose the ball, of course, to begin with. +That is easy enough. Then you search for it, and the longer you search the +deeper grows the mystery of its vanishing. Your companions come and help +you to poke the hedge and stir up the ditch, and you all agree that you +have never known such a perfectly ridiculous thing before. And having +clearly proved that the ball isn't anywhere in the neighbourhood, you take +another out of the bag, and proceed with the game. + +So far everything is quite ordinary. The game is over, the ball is lost, +and you prepare to go. But you decide to go home by a rather roundabout way +that brings you by the spot that you have scoured in vain. You are not +going to search for the ball. That would simply put the creature up to some +new artifice. No, you are just walking round that way accidentally. What so +natural as that you should have your eyes on the ground? And there, sure +enough, lies the ball, taken completely unaware. It is so ridiculously +obvious that to say that it was lying there when you were looking for it so +industriously is absurd. It simply couldn't have been there. You suspect +that if after your search, instead of going on with the play you had hidden +behind the hedge and watched, you would have seen the creature come out +from its hole. + +I do not expect to have my theory that the golf-ball has an intelligence +accepted. The mystery is explicable, I am told, on the doctrine of the +"fresh eye." You look for a thing so hard that you seem to lose the faculty +of vision. Then you forget all about it and find it. The experience applies +to all the operations of the mind. If I get "stuck" in writing an article I +go and do a bit of physical work, ride a bicycle or merely walk round the +garden, and the current flows again. Or you have a knotty problem to +decide. You think furiously about it all day and get more hopelessly +undecided the longer you think. Then you go to bed, and you wake in the +morning with your mind made up. Hence the phrase, "I will sleep on it." It +is this freshness of the vision, this faculty of passive illumination, that +Wordsworth had in mind when he wrote: + + Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum + Of things for ever speaking, + That nothing of itself will come, + But we must still be seeking? + +And yet I cannot quite get rid of my fancy that the golf ball does enjoy +the game. + + + + +ON A PRISONER OF WAR + + +There are still a few apples on the topmost branches of the trees in the +orchard. They are there because David, the labourer, who used to come and +lend us a hand in his odd hours--chiefly when the moon was up--is no longer +available. You may remember how David opened his heart to me about +enlisting when he stood on the ladder picking the pears last year. He did +not like to go and he did not like to stay. All the other chaps had gone, +and he didn't feel comfortable like in being left behind, but there was his +mother and his wife and his Aunt Jane, and not a man to do a hand's turn +for 'em or to dig their gardens if he went. And there was the +allotment--that 'ud run to weeds. And ... + +Well, the allotment has run to weeds. I passed it to-day and looked over +the hedge and saw the chickweed and the thistles in undisputed possession. +For David has gone. "It will take a long time to turn him into a soldier," +we said when we saw him leave his thatched roof last spring to join up, and +watched him shambling down the lane to the valley and the distant station. +"The war will be over before he gets into the trenches," I said cheerfully +to his wife, his mother, and Aunt Jane as they sat later in the day +mingling their tears in the "parlour"--that apartment sacred to Sundays, +funerals, and weddings. "Poor boy, what'll he do without his comfortable +bed?" moaned his mother. + +But by May there came news that David was in France. By June he was in the +trenches, and woe sat heavy on the three women to whom the world without +David was an empty place. + +Then came silence. The postman comes up the lane on his bicycle to our +straggling hamlet on the hillside twice a day, and after David had gone his +visits to the cottages of the three women had been frequent. Sometimes he +put his bicycle at the mother's gate, sometimes at David's gate, less often +at Aunt Jane's gate. For David was an industrious correspondent, even +though his letters were a laborious compromise between crosses and "hoping +you are well as it leaves me at present." + +But in August the postman ceased to call. Long before his hour you could +see the three women watching for his coming. I think the postman got to +dread turning the corner and facing the expectant women with empty hands. +He could not help feeling that somehow he was to blame. At first he would +stop and point out elaborately the reasons for delay in the post. Then, +when this had become thin with time, he adopted the expedient of riding +past the cottages very hard with eyes staring far ahead, as though he was +going to a fire or was the bearer of an important dispatch. + +But at the end of a fortnight or so he came round the corner one morning +more in the old style. The women observed the change and went out to meet +him. But their faces fell as they looked at the letter and saw that the +handwriting was not David's. And the contents were as bad as they could be. +The letter was from a lad in the valley who had "joined up" with David. He +wrote from a hospital asking for news of his comrade, whom he had seen +"knocked over" in the advance in which he himself had been wounded. + +For the rest of the day, it was observed, the cottage doors were never +opened. Nor did any one venture to break in on the misery of the women +inside. The parson's wife came up in her gig from the valley, having heard +the news, but she did not call. She only talked to the neighbours, who had +had the details from the postman. Every one felt the news like a personal +blow, and even the widow Wigley, who lives down in the valley, was full of +sympathy. She had never quite got over her resentment at the funeral of +David's father. Her own husband had been carried to his grave on a +hand-bier, but at the funeral of David's father there was a horse-drawn +hearse and a carriage for the mourners. "They were always _such_ people for +show," said Mrs. Wigley. And the memory had rankled. But now it was buried. + +Next day we saw the mother and the wife set out down the lane for the +village post-office, and thereafter daily they went to await the arrival of +letters, returning each day silent and hopeless. At last, in reply to +inquiries which had been made at the War Office, there came the official +statement that David had been reported "wounded and missing." We learned +that this usually meant that the man was dead, but the women did not know +this. + +And, curiously enough, David's mother, who had been the most despairing of +women, and seemed to regard David as dead even before he started, now +discovered a genius for hopefulness. She had heard of a case from a +neighbouring village of a man who had been reported dead, and who +afterwards wrote from a prison camp in Germany, and she clung to this +precedent with a confident tenacity that we did not try to weaken. It was +foolish, of course, we said. She was pinning her faith to a case in a +thousand; but the hope gave the women something to live for, and the wound +would heal the better for the illusion. + +And, after all, she was right. This morning we saw the postman call at the +cottage. He handed a post card to the wife, and it was evident that +something wonderful and radiant had happened. The women fell on each other +"laughing happy." No more going into the house to shut the door on the +world. They came out to share the great tidings with their neighbours. +"David is alive! David is a prisoner in Germany.... He's wounded.... But +he's going on all right.... He can't write yet.... But he will." + +Yes, there was the post card all right. The English was not very good and +the script was German, but the fact that David was alive in hospital shone +clear and indisputable. + +"It's as though he's raised from the dead," cried the wife through her +tears. + +The joy of the old mother was touched with solemnity. She is a great +chapel-goer, and her utterance is naturally coloured by the Book with which +she is most familiar. + +"My son was dead, and is alive again," she said simply; "he was lost and is +found." + +When I went out into the orchard and saw the red-cheeked apples still +clinging to the topmost branches I thought, "Perhaps David will be able to +lend me a hand with those trees next autumn after all." + + + + +ON THE WORLD WE LIVE IN + + +In one of those charming articles which he writes in _The New Statesman_, +Mr. J. Arthur Thomson tells of the wonderful world of odours to which we +are largely strangers. No doubt in an earlier existence we relied much more +upon our noses for our food, our safety, and all that concerned us, and had +a highly developed faculty of smell which has become more or less +atrophied. + + Fee, fie, fo, fum, + I smell the blood of an Englishman, + +said the Giant in the story. But that was long ago. If we were left to the +testimony of our noses we could not tell an Englishman from a hippopotamus. +To the bee, on the other hand, with its two or three thousand olfactory +pores, the world is primarily a world of smell. If we could question that +wonderful creature we should find that it thought and talked of nothing but +the odours of the field. We should find that it had a range of experience +in that realm beyond our wildest imaginings. We should find that there are +more smells in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy. + +We talk of the world as if our sensations were the sum total of experience. +But the truth is that there is an infinity of worlds outside our +comprehension, worlds of vision and hearing and smell that are beyond our +finite capacity, some so microscopic as to escape us at one end of the +scale, some so vast and intangible as to escape us at the other end. I went +into the garden just now to pick some strawberries. One of them tempted me +forthwith by its ripe and luxuriant beauty. I bit into it and found it +hollowed out in the centre, and in that luscious hollow was a colony of +earwigs. For them that strawberry was the world, and a very jolly world +too--abundance of food, a soft bed to lie on, and a chamber of exquisite +perfumes. What, I wonder, was the thought of the little creatures as their +comfortable world was suddenly shattered by some vast, inexplicable power +beyond the scope of their vision and understanding? I could not help idly +wondering whether the shell of our comfortable world has been broken by +some power without which is as far beyond our apprehension as I was beyond +the apprehension of the happy dwellers in the strawberry. + +And it is not only the worlds which are peculiar to the myriad creatures of +diverse instincts and faculties which are so strangely separate. We +ourselves all dwell in worlds of infinite variety. I do not mean the social +and professional worlds in which we move, though here, too, the world is +not one but many. There is not much in common between the world as it +appears to Sarah Ellen, who "runs" four looms in a Lancashire weaving shed +during fifty-one weeks in the year, and my Lady Broadacres, who suns +herself in Mayfair. + +But I am speaking here of our individual world, the world of our private +thought and emotions. My world is not your world, nor yours mine. We sit +and talk with each other, we work together and play together, we exchange +confidences and share our laughter and our experiences. But ultimately we +can neither of us understand the world of the other--that world which is +the sum of a million factors of unthinkable diversity, trifles light as +air, memories, experiences, physical emotions, the play of light and colour +and sound, attachments and antipathies often so obscure that we cannot even +explain them to ourselves. We may feel a collective emotion under the +impulse of some powerful event or personality. We may ebb and flow as a +tide to the rhythm of a great melody or to the incantation of noble +oratory. The news of a great victory in these days would move us to our +common centre and bring all our separate worlds into a mighty chorus of +thanksgiving. But even in these common emotions there are infinite shades +of difference, and when they have passed we subside again into the world +where we dwell alone. + +Most of us are doomed to go through life without communicating the +mysteries of our experience. + + Alas for those who never sing. + But die with all their music in them. + +It is the privilege of the artist in any medium to enrich the general life +with the consciousness of the world that he alone has experienced. He gives +us new kingdoms for our inheritance, makes us the sharers of his visions, +opens out wider horizons, and floods our life with richer glories. + +I entered such a kingdom the other afternoon. I turned out of the Strand, +which was thronged and throbbing with the news of the great advance,--it +was the first day of the battle of the Somme--and entered the Aldwych +Theatre. As if by magic, I passed from the thrilling drama of the present +into a realm + + Full of sweet dreams and health and quiet breathing-- + +into a sunlit world, where the zephyrs fan your cheek like a benediction +and the brooks tinkle through the gracious landscape and melody is on every +bough and joy and peace are all about you--the idyllic world where the +marvellous child, Mozart, reigns like an enchanter. What though the tale of +_The Magic Flute_ is foolish beyond words. Who cares for the tale? Who +thinks of the tale? It is only the wand in the hand of the magician. Though +it be but a broomstick, it will open all the magic casements of earth and +heaven, it will surround us with the choirs invisible, and send us forth +into green pastures and by the cool water-brooks. + +That was Mozart's vision of the world in his brief but immortal journey +through it. Perhaps it was only a dream world, but what a dream to live +through! And to him it was as real a world as that of Mr. Gradgrind, whose +vision is shut in by what Burns called "the raised edge of a bawbee." We +must not think that our world is the only one. There are worlds outside our +experience. "Call that a sunset?" said the lady to Turner as she stood +before the artist's picture. "I never saw a sunset like that." "No, madam," +said Turner. "Don't you wish you had?" Perhaps your world and mine is only +mean because we are near-sighted. Perhaps we miss the vision not because +the vision is not there, but because we darken the windows with dirty +hangings. + + + + +"I'M TELLING YOU" + + +The other day I went into the Law Courts to hear a case of some interest, +and I soon became more interested in the counsel than in the case. They +offered a curious contrast of method. One was emphatic and dogmatic. "I'm +not asking you," he seemed to say to the judge and jury, "I'm telling you." +The other was winning and conciliatory. He did not thrust his views down +the jury's throats; he seemed to offer them for their consideration, and +leave it at that. He was not there to dictate to them, but to hold his +client's case up to the light, as it were, just as a draper holds a length +of silk up before his customer. Now, as a matter of fact, I think the +dogmatic gentleman had the better case and the stronger argument, but I +noticed next day that the verdict went against him. He won his argument and +lost his case. + +That is what commonly happens with the dogmatic and argumentative man. He +shuts up the mind to reason. He changes the ground from the issue itself to +a matter of personal dignity. You are no longer concerned with whether the +thing is right or wrong. You are concerned about showing your opponent that +you are not to be bullied by him into believing what he wants you to +believe. Even Johnson, who was, perhaps, the most dogmatic person that ever +lived, knew that success in the argument was often fatal to success in the +case. Dr. Taylor once commended a physician to him, and said: "I fight many +battles for him, as many people in the country dislike him." "But you +should consider, sir," replied Johnson, "that by every one of your +victories he is a loser; for every man of whom you get the better will be +very angry, and resolve not to employ him; whereas if people get the better +of you in argument about him, they'll think, 'We'll send for Dr. ----, +nevertheless.'" + +But Johnson fought not to convince, but for love of the argumentative +victory. A great contemporary of his, whom he never met, and whom, if he +had met, he would probably have insulted--Benjamin Franklin, to +wit--preferred winning the case to winning the argument. While still a boy, +he tells us, he was fascinated by the Socratic method, and instead of +expressing opinions asked leading questions. He ceased to use words like +"certainly," "undoubtedly," or anything that gave the air of positiveness +to an opinion, and said "I apprehend," or "I conceive," a thing to be so +and so. + +"This habit," he says, "has been of great advantage to me when I have had +occasion to inculcate my opinions and persuade men into measures that I +have been engaged from time to time in promoting. And as the chief ends of +conversation are to _inform_ or to be _informed_, to _please_ or to +_persuade_, I wish well-meaning and sensible men would not lessen their +power of doing good by a positive assuming manner, that seldom fails to +disgust, tends to create opposition and to defeat most of those purposes +for which speech was given us. In fact, if you wish to instruct others, a +positive dogmatical manner in advancing your sentiments may occasion +opposition and prevent a candid attention. If you desire instruction and +improvement from others, you should not at the same time express yourself +fixed in your present opinions. Modest and sensible men, who do not love +disputation, will leave you undisturbed in the possession of your errors." + +It is really, I suppose, our old friend "compulsion" again. We hate +Prussianism in the realm of thought as much as in the realm of action. If I +tell you you've got to believe so-and-so, your disposition is to refuse to +do anything of the sort. It was the voluntary instinct that breathes in all +of us that made Falstaff refuse to give Prince Hal reasons: "I give thee +reasons? Though reasons were as plenty as blackberries I would not give +thee reasons _on compulsion_--I." + +I was once talking to a member of Parliament, who was lamenting that he had +failed to win the ear of the House. He was puzzled by the failure. He was a +fluent speaker; he knew his subject with great thoroughness, and his +character was irreproachable; and yet when he rose the House went out. He +was like a dinner-bell. He couldn't understand it. Yet everybody else +understood it quite well. It was because he was always "telling you," and +there is nothing the House of Commons dislikes so much as a schoolmaster. +Probably the most successful speaker, judging by results, who ever rose in +the House of Commons was Cobden. He was one of the few men in history who +have changed a decision in Parliament by a speech. He did it because of his +extraordinarily persuasive manner. He kept the minds of his hearers +receptive and disengaged. He did not impress them with the fact that he was +right and they were wrong. They forgot themselves when they saw the subject +in a clear, white light, and were prepared to judge it on its merits rather +than by their prejudices. + +One of the few persuasive speakers I have heard in the House of Commons in +recent years is Mr. Harold Cox. Many of his opinions I detest, but the +engaging way in which he presents them makes you almost angry with yourself +at disagreeing with him. You feel, indeed, that you must be wrong, and that +such open-mindedness and such a friendly conciliatory manner as he shows +must somehow be the evidence of a right view of things. As a matter of +fact, of course, he is really a very dogmatic gentleman at the bottom--none +more so. As indeed Franklin was. But he has the art to conceal the emphasis +of his opinions, and so he makes even those who disagree with him listen to +his case almost with a desire to endorse it. + +It is a great gift. I wish I had got it. + + + + +ON COURAGE + + +I was asked the other day to send to a new magazine a statement as to the +event of the war which had made the deepest impression on me. Without +hesitation I selected the remarkable Christmas demonstrations in Flanders. +Here were men who for weeks and months past had been engaged in the task of +stalking each other and killing each other, and suddenly under the +influence of a common memory, they repudiate the whole gospel of war and +declare the gospel of brotherhood. Next day they began killing each other +again as the obedient instruments of governments they do not control and of +motives they do not understand. But the fact remains. It is a beam of light +in the darkness, rich in meaning and hope. + +But if I were asked to name the instance of individual action which had +most impressed me I should find the task more difficult. Should I select +something that shows how war depraves, or something that shows how it +ennobles? If the latter I think I would choose that beautiful incident of +the sailor on the _Formidable_. + +He had won by ballot a place in one of the boats. The ship was going down, +but he was to be saved. One pictures the scene: The boat is waiting to take +him to the shore and safety. He looks at the old comrades who have lost in +the ballot and who stand there doomed to death. He feels the passion for +life surging within him. He sees the cold, dark sea waiting to engulf its +victims. And in that great moment--the greatest moment that can come to any +man--he makes the triumphant choice. He turns to one of his comrades. +"You've got parents," he says. "I haven't." And with that word--so heroic +in its simplicity--he makes the other take his place in the boat and signs +his own death warrant. + +I see him on the deck among his doomed fellows, watching the disappearing +boat until the final plunge comes and all is over. The sea never took a +braver man to its bosom. "Greater love hath no man than this ..." + +Can you read that story without some tumult within you--without feeling +that humanity itself is ennobled by this great act and that you are, in +some mysterious way, better for the deed? That is the splendid fruit of all +such sublime sacrifice. It enriches the whole human family. It makes us +lift our heads with pride that we are men--that there is in us at our best +this noble gift of valiant unselfishness, this glorious prodigality that +spends life itself for something greater than life. If we had met this +nameless sailor we should have found him perhaps a very ordinary man, with +plenty of failings, doubtless, like the rest of us, and without any idea +that he had in him the priceless jewel beside which crowns and coronets are +empty baubles. He was something greater than he knew. + +How many of us could pass such a test? What should I do? What would you do? +We neither of us know, for we are as great a mystery to ourselves as we are +to our neighbours. Bob Acres said he found that "a man may have a deal of +valour in him without knowing it," and it is equally true that a man may be +more chicken-hearted than he himself suspects. Only the occasion discovers +of what stuff we are made--whether we are heroes or cowards, saints or +sinners. A blustering manner will not reveal the one any more than a long +face will reveal the other. + +The merit of this sailor's heroism was that it was done with +calculation--in cold blood, as it were, with that +"two-o'clock-in-the-morning courage" of which Napoleon spoke as the real +thing. Many of us could do brave things in hot blood, with a sudden rush of +the spirit, who would fail if we had time, as this man had, to pause and +think, to reckon, to doubt, to grow cold and selfish. The merit of his deed +is that it was an act of physical courage based on the higher quality of +moral courage. + +Nor because a man fails in the great moment is he necessarily all a coward. +Mark Twain was once talking to a friend of mine on the subject of courage +in men, and spoke of a man whose name is associated with a book that has +become a classic. "I knew him well," he said, "and I knew him as a brave +man. Yet he once did the most cowardly thing I have ever heard of any man. +He was in a shipwreck, and as the ship was going down he snatched a +lifebelt from a woman passenger and put it on himself. He was saved, and +she was drowned. And in spite of that frightful act I think he was not a +coward. I know there was not a day of his life afterwards when he would not +willingly and in cold blood have given his life to recall that shameful +act." + +In this case the failure was not in moral courage, but in physical courage. +He was demoralised by the peril, and the physical coward came uppermost. If +he had had time to recover his moral balance he would have died an +honourable death. It is no uncommon thing for a man to have in him the +elements both of the hero and the coward. You remember that delightful +remark of Mrs. Disraeli, one of the most characteristic of the many quaint +sayings attributed to that strange woman. "Dizzy," she said, "has wonderful +moral courage, but no physical courage. I always have to pull the string of +his shower bath." It is a capital illustration of that conflict of the +coward and the brave man that takes place in most of us. Dizzy's moral +courage carried him to the bath, but there his physical courage failed him. +He could not pull the string that administered the cold shock. The bathroom +is rich in such secrets, and life teems with them. + +The true hero is he who unites the two qualities. The physical element is +the more plentiful. For one man who will count the cost of sacrifice and, +having counted it, pay the price with unfaltering heart, there are many who +will answer the sudden call to meet peril with swift defiance. The courage +that snatches a comrade from under the guns of the enemy or a child from +the flames is, happily, not uncommon. It is inspired by an impulse that +takes men out of themselves and by a certain spirit of challenge to fate +that every one with a sporting instinct loves to take. But the act of the +sailor of the _Formidable_ was a much bigger thing. Here was no thrill of +gallantry and no sporting risk. He dealt in cold certainties: the boat and +safety; the ship and death; his life or the other's. And he thought of his +comrade's old parents at home and chose death. + +It was a great end. I wonder whether you or I would be capable of it. I +would give much to feel that I could answer in the affirmative--that I +could take my stand on the spiritual plane of that unknown sailor. + + + + +ON SPENDTHRIFTS + + +While every one, I suppose, agrees that Lady Ida Sitwell richly deserves +her three months' imprisonment, there are many who will have a sneaking +pity for her. And that not because she is a woman of family who will suffer +peculiar tortures from prison life. On the contrary, I have no doubt that a +spell of imprisonment is just what she needs. In fact, it is what most of +us need, especially most of those who live a life of luxurious idleness. To +be compelled to get up early, to clean your cell, to wear plain clothes, to +live on plain food, to observe regular hours, and do regular duties--this +is no matter for tears, but for thankfulness. It is the sort of discipline +that we ought to undergo periodically for our spiritual and even bodily +health. + +No, the sympathy that will be felt for Lady Ida is the sympathy which is +commonly felt for the spendthrift--for the person who, no matter what his +income, is congenitally incapable of making ends meet. The miser has no +friends; but the spendthrift has generally too many. We avoid Harpagon as +though he were a leper; but Falstaff, who, like Lady Ida, could "find no +cure for this intolerable consumption of the purse," never lacked friends, +and even Justice Shallow, it will be remembered, lent him a thousand +crowns. There is no record of its having been repaid, though Falstaff was +once surprised, in a moment of bitter humiliation, into admitting the debt. +And Charles Surface and Micawber--who can deny them a certain affection? I +have no doubt that Mrs. Micawber's papa, who "lived to bail Mr. Micawber +out many times until he died lamented by a wide circle of friends," loved +the fellow as you and I love him. I should deem it a privilege to bail out +Micawber. But Elwes, the miser--ugh! the very name chills the blood. + +The difference, I suppose, proceeds from the idea that while the miser is +the soul of selfishness, the spendthrift is at bottom a good-natured fellow +and a lover of his kind. No doubt the vice of the spendthrift has a touch +of generosity, but it is often generosity at other people's expense, and is +not seldom as essentially selfish as the vice of the miser. It is rather +like the generosity of the man who, according to Sydney Smith, was so +touched by a charity sermon that he picked his neighbour's pocket of a +guinea and put it in the plate. I have no doubt that Lady Ida if she had +got Miss Dobbs's money would have scattered it about with a very free hand, +and would have contributed to the collection plate quite handsomely. But +she was selfish none the less. It was her form of selfishness to enjoy the +luxury of spending money she hadn't got, just as it was Elwes's form of +selfishness to enjoy the luxury of saving money that he had got. + +The point was very well stated by a famous miser whose son has since been +in Parliament (I will not say on which side). The old man had accumulated a +vast fortune, but, in the Scotch phrase, would have grudged you "the smoke +off his porridge." (He died, by the way, properly enough, through walking +home in the rain because he was too mean to take a cab.) He was once asked +why he was so anxious to increase his riches, since his son would probably +squander them, and he replied, "If my son gets as much pleasure out of +squandering my money as I have had out of saving it, I shall not mind." +Both the hoarding and the spending, you see, were in his view equally a +matter of mere selfish pleasure. + +But I admit that the uncalculating spirit that lands people in debt is a +more engaging frailty than the calculating spirit of the miser. I know a +delightful man who seems to have no more knowledge of the relation of +income and expenditure than a kitten. If he gets L100 unexpectedly he does +not look at it in relation to his whole needs. He does not remember rent, +rates, taxes, baker, butcher, tailor. No. On the strength of it, he will +order a new piano in the morning, buy his wife a sealskin jacket in the +afternoon, and by the next day be deeper in the mire than ever, and wonder +how he got there. And there is Jones's young wife, a charming woman, who is +dragging her husband into debt with the same kittenish irresponsibility. +She will leave Jones on the pavement with a remark that suggests that she +is going into the shop to buy some pins, and will come out with a request +for L10 for some "perfectly lovely" thing that has caught her eye. And +Jones, being elderly, and still a little astonished at having won the +affection of such a divinity, has not the courage to say "No." + +To the people afflicted with these loose spending habits I would commend +the lesson of a little incident I saw in a tram on the Embankment the other +evening. There entered and sat beside me a working man, carrying his "kit" +in a handkerchief, and wearing a scarf round his neck, a cloth cap, and +corduroy trousers--obviously a labourer earning perhaps 25s. a week. He +paid his fare, and then he took from his pocket a packet tied up in a +handkerchief. He untied the knot, and there came forth a neat pocket-book +with pencil attached. He opened it, and began to write. My curiosity was +too much for my manners. Out of the tail of my eye I watched the motion of +his fingers, and this is what he wrote: "Tram 1-1/2 _d_." In a flash I +seemed to see the whole orderly life of that poor labourer. He had an +anchorage in the tossing seas of this troublesome world. He had got hold of +a lesson that Lady Ida Sitwell ought to try and learn during the next three +months. It is this: Watch your spendings. + +For it is the people who are more concerned about getting money than about +how they spend it who come to grief. A very acute observer once told me +that the principal difference between the Scotch people and the Lancashire +people was that the former thought most about how they spent, and the +latter most about how much they got. And the difference, he said, was the +difference between a thrifty and an unthrifty people. I think that is true. +Nothing is more common than to find people worse off as they get better +off. They have learned the art of getting money and lost the art of +spending it wisely. They pay their way on L200 a year and get hopelessly +into debt on L500. They are safe in a rowing boat, but capsize in a sailing +boat. + +Here is an axiom which I offer to all spendthrifts: We cannot command our +incomings; but we can control outgoings. + + + + +ON A TOP-HAT + + +A few days ago I went to a christening to make vows on behalf of the +offspring of a gallant young officer now at the front. I conceived that the +fitting thing on such an occasion was to wear a silk hat, and accordingly I +took out the article, warmed it before the fire, and rubbed it with a hat +pad until it was nice and shiny, put it on my head, and set out for the +church. But I soon regretted the choice. It had no support from any one +else present, and when later I got out of the Tube and walked down the +Strand I found that I was a conspicuous person, which, above all things, I +hate to be. My hat, I saw, was observed. Eyes were turned towards me with +that mild curiosity with which one remarks any innocent oddity or vanity of +the streets. + +I became self-conscious and looked around for companionship, but as my eye +travelled along the crowded pavement I could see nothing but bowlers and +trilbys and occasional straws. "Ah, here at last," said I, "is one coming." +But a nearer view only completed my discomfiture, for it was one of those +greasy-shiny hats which go with frayed trousers and broken boots, and which +are the symbol of "better days," of hopes that are dead, and "drinks" that +dally, of a social status that has gone and of a suburban villa that has +shrunk to a cubicle in a Rowton lodging-house. I looked at greasy-hat and +greasy-hat looked at me, and in that momentary glance of fellowship we +agreed that we were "out of it." + +I put my silk hat away at night with the firm resolution that nothing short +of an invitation to Buckingham Palace, or some similar incredible disaster, +should make me drag it into the light again. For the truth is that the war +has given the top-hat a knock-out blow. It had been tottering on our brows +for some time. There was a very hot summer a few years ago which began the +revolution. The tyranny of the top-hat became intolerable, and quite +"respectable" people began to be seen in the streets with Panamas and +straws. But these were only concessions to an irresponsible climate, and +the silk hat still held its ancient sway as the crown and glory of our City +civilisation. And now it has toppled down and is on the way, perhaps, to +becoming as much a thing of the past as wigs or knee-breeches. It is almost +as rare in the Strand as it is in Market Street, Manchester. Cabinet +Ministers and other sublime personages still wear it, coachmen still wear +it, and my friend greasy-hat still wears it; but for the rest of us it is a +splendour that is past, a memory of the world before the deluge. + +It may be that it will revive. It would not be the first time that such a +result of a great catastrophe was found to be only temporary. I remember +that Pepys records in his Diary that one result of the Great Plague was +that the wig went out of fashion. People were afraid to wear wigs that +might be made of the hair of those who had died of infection. But the wig +returned again for more than a century, though you may remember that in +_The Rivals_ there is an early hint of its final disappearance. There was +never probably a more crazy fashion, and, like most crazy fashions, it +began, as the "Alexandra limp" of our youth began, in snobbery. Was it not +a fact that a bald-headed King wore a wig to conceal his baldness, which +set all the flunkey-world wearing wigs to conceal their hair? This aping of +the great is always converting some defect or folly into a virtue. When +Lady Percy in _Henry IV._ is lamenting Hotspur she says:-- + + ... he was, indeed, the glass + Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves. + He had no legs that practised not his gait; + And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish, + Became the accents of the valiant; + For those that could speak low and tardily, + Would turn their own perfection to abuse. + To seem like him. + +In the case of the top-hat the disappearance is due to the psychology of +the war. The great tragedy has brought us down to the bed-rock of things +and has made us feel somehow that ornament is out of place, and that the +top-hat is a falsity in a world that has become a battlefield. I don't +think women have shared this feeling to the same extent. I am told there +were never so many sealskin coats to be seen as during last winter. But, +perhaps, the women will say that men have been only too glad to use the war +as an excuse for getting rid of an incubus. And they may be right. We had +better not make too great a virtue of what is, after all, a comfortable +change. Let us enjoy it without boasting. + +Our enjoyment may be short-lived. We must not be surprised if this +incredible hat returns in triumph with peace. It has survived the blasts of +many centuries and infinite changes of fashion. It is, I suppose, the most +ancient survival in the dress that men wear. There is in the Froissart +collection at the British Museum an illumination (dating from the fifteenth +century) showing the expedition of the French and English against the +Barbary corsairs. And there seated in the boats are men clad in armour. +They have put their helmets aside and are wearing top-hats! And it may be +that when Macaulay's New Zealander, centuries hence, takes his seat on that +broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's, he will sit +under the shelter of a top-hat that has out-lasted all our greatness. + +There must be some virtue in a thing that is so immortal. If the doctrine +of the survival of the fittest applies to dress, it is the fittest thing we +have. Trousers are a thing of yesterday with us, but our top-hat carries us +back to the Wars of the Roses and beyond. It is not its beauty that +explains it. I have never heard any one deny that it is ugly, though custom +may have blunted our sense of its ugliness. It is not its utility. I have +never heard any one claim that this strange cylinder had that quality. It +is not its comfort It is stiff, it is heavy, it is unmanageable in a wind +and ruined by a shower of rain. It needs as much attention as a peevish +child or a pet dog. It is not even cheap, and when it is disreputable it is +the most disreputable thing on earth. What is the mystery of its strange +persistence? Is it simply a habit that we cannot throw off or is there a +certain snobbishness about it that appeals to the flunkeyism of men? That +is perhaps the explanation. That is perhaps why it has disappeared when +snobbishness is felt to be inconsistent with the world of stern realities +and bitter sorrows in which we live. We are humble and serious and out of +humour with the pretentious vanity of our top-hat. + + + + +ON LOSING ONE'S MEMORY + + +The case of the soldier in the Keighley Hospital who has lost his memory in +the war and has been identified by rival families as a Scotchman, a +Yorkshireman, and so on is one of the most singular personal incidents of +the war. On the face of it it would seem impossible that a mother should +not know her own son, or a brother his brother. Yet in this case it is +clear that some of the claimants are mistaken. The incident is not, of +course, without precedent. The most notorious case of the sort was that of +Arthur Orton, the impudent Tichborne claimant, whose strongest card in his +imposture was that Lady Tichborne believed him to be her long-lost son. In +that case, no doubt, the maternal passion was the source of a credulity +that blinded the old lady to the flagrant evidence of the fraud. + +But, generally speaking, our memory of other faces is extremely vague and +elusive. I have just come in from a walk with a friend of mine whom I have +known intimately for many years. Yet for the life of me I could not at this +moment tell you the colour of his eyes, nor could I give a reasonable +account of his nose or of the shape of his face. I have a general sense of +his appearance, but no absolute knowledge of the details, and if he were to +meet me to-morrow with a blank stare and a shaven upper lip I should pass +him without a thought of recognition. + +Memory, in fact, is largely reciprocal, and when one of the parties has +lost his power of response the key is gone. If the lock won't yield to the +key, you are satisfied that the key is the wrong one, no matter how much it +looks like the right one. I think I could tell my dog from a thousand other +dogs; but if the creature were to lose his memory and to pass me in the +street without answering my call, I should pass on, simply observing that +he bore a remarkable likeness to my animal. + +Most of us, I suppose, have experienced in a momentary and partial degree a +sudden stoppage of the apparatus of memory. You are asked, let us say, to +spell "parallelogram." In an ordinary way you could do it on your head or +in your sleep; but the sudden demand gives you a mental jerk that makes the +wretched word a hopeless chaos of r's and l's, and the more you try to sort +them out the less convincing do they seem. Or walking with a friend you +meet at a turn in the street that excellent woman, Mrs. Orpington-Smith. +You know her as well as you know your own mother, but the fact that you +have got to introduce her by her name forthwith sends her name flying into +space. The passionate attempt to capture it before it escapes only makes +its escape more certain, and you are reduced to the pitiful expedient of +mumbling something that is inaudible. + +The worst experience of a lapse of memory that ever came to me was in the +midst of a speech which I had to make before a large gathering in a London +hall. I had got to the middle of what I had to say when it seemed to me +that the whole machine of the mind suddenly ceased to work. It was as +though an immense loneliness descended on me. I saw the audience before me, +but apart from vision I seemed bereft of all my faculties. If I had in that +instant been asked for my name I am doubtful whether I could have got +anywhere near it. Happily some one in a front row, thinking I was pausing +for a word, threw out a suggestion. It was like magic. I felt the machine +of memory start again with an almost audible "puff, puff," and I went on to +the end quite comfortably. The pause had seemed terribly long to me, but I +was surprised afterwards to find that it had been so brief as to be +generally unnoticed or regarded as an artful way of emphasising a point. I +let it go at that, but I knew myself that in that moment I had lost my +memory. + +Even distinguished and expert orators have been known to suffer from this +absolute lapse of memory. The Rosebery incident--was it in the Chesterfield +speech?--is perhaps the best known, but I once heard Mr. Redmond, the +calmest and most assured of speakers, come to an _impasse_ in the House of +Commons that held him up literally for minutes. + +We are creatures of memory, and when, as in the Keighley case, memory is +gone personality itself has gone. Nothing is left but the empty envelope. +The more fundamental functions of memory, the habits of respiration, of +walking and physical movement, of mastication, and so on, remain. The +Keighley man still eats and walks with all the knowledge of a lifetime. He +probably preserves his taste for tobacco. But these things have nothing to +do with personality. That is the product of the myriad mental impressions +that you have stored up in your pilgrimage. There is not a moment in your +life that is not charged with the significance of memory. You cannot hear +the blackbird singing in the low bough in the evening without the secret +music of summer eves long past being stirred within you. It is that +response of the inner harp of memory that gives the song its beauty. And so +everything we do and see and hear is touched with a thousand influences +which we cannot catalogue, but which constitute our veritable selves. An +old hymn tune, or an old song, a turn of phrase, a scent in the garden, a +tone of voice, a curve in the path--everything comes to us weighted with +its own treasures of memory, bitter or sweet, but always significant. + +It is a mistake to suppose that memory is merely a capacity to remember +facts. In that respect there is the widest diversity of experience. +Macaulay could recite _Paradise Lost_, while Rossetti was a little doubtful +whether the sun went round the earth or the earth round the sun. I once met +an American elocutionist who could recite ten of Shakespeare's plays, and +he showed me the wonderful system of mnemonics by which he achieved the +miracle. But he was a mere recording machine--a dull fellow. The true +argosy of memory is not facts, but a perfume compounded of all the sunsets +we have ever seen, all the joys and friendships, pleasures and sorrows we +have ever known, all the emotions we have felt, all the brave and mean +things we have done, all the broken hopes we have suffered. To have lost +that argosy is to be dead, no matter how healthy an appetite we retain. + + + + +ON WEARING A FUR-LINED COAT + + +A friend of mine--one of those people who talk about money with an air of +familiarity that suggests that they have got an "out-crop" of the Rand reef +in their back-gardens--said to me the other day that I ought to buy a +fur-lined coat. There never was such a time as this for buying a fur-lined +coat or a sealskin jacket, said he. What with the war, and the "sales," and +the tradesmen's need of cash, they were simply being thrown at you. You +could have them almost for the trouble of carrying them away. A trifle of +fifteen or twenty pounds would buy one a coat that would be cheap at sixty +guineas. And, remember, there was wear for twenty years in it. And think of +the saving in doctor's bills--for you simply can't catch colds if you wear +a fur coat. In short, not to buy a fur coat at this moment was an act of +gross improvidence, a wrong to one's family, a ... a ... And then he +looked, with the cold disapproval of a connoisseur, at the coat I was +wearing. And in the light of that glance I saw for the first time that it +was ... yes ... certainly, it was not what it had been. + +Now I am not going to pretend that I have a soul above fur-lined coats. I +haven't; I love them. And by fur coats I don't mean those adorned with +astrakhan collars, which I abominate. A man in an astrakhan coat is to me a +suspicious character, a stage baron, one who is probably deep in treasons, +stratagems, and spoils. The suspicion is unjust to the gentleman in the +astrakhan coat, of course. Most suspicions are unjust. And if you ask me to +give reasons for this unreasoning hostility to astrakhan, I do not know +that I could find them. Perhaps it is the dislike I have for artificial +curls; perhaps it is that the astrakhan collar reminds me of those unhappy +pet dogs who look as though they had been put in curl papers overnight and +sent out into the streets by their owners as a poor jest. Yes, I think it +must be that sense of artificiality which is at the root of the dislike. No +doubt the curls are natural. No doubt the woolly sheep of Astrakhan do wear +their coats in these little heaven-sent ringlets. But ... well ... "I do +not like thee, Doctor Fell." + +But fur-lined coats, with fine fur collars, are quite another affair. If I +had the "magic nib," I could grow lyrical over them. I could, indeed. In +place-of this article I would write an ode to a fur-lined coat. I would +sing of the Asian wilds from whence it came, of its wondrous lines and its +soft and silken texture, of its generous warmth and its caressing touch. I +would set up such a universal hunger for fur coats that the tradesmen in +Oxford Street and Regent Street would come and offer me a guinea a word to +write advertisements for them. + +And yet I shall not buy a fur-lined coat, and I will tell you why. A fur +coat is not an article of clothing: it is a new way of life. You cannot say +with reckless prodigality, "Here, I will have a fur coat and make an end of +this gnawing passion." The fur coat is not an end: it is a beginning. You +have got to live up to it. You have got to take the fur-coat point of view +of your relations to society. When Chauncey Depew, as a boy, bought a +beautiful spotted dog at a fair and took it home, the rain came down and +the spots began to run into stripes. He took the dog back to the man of +whom he had bought it and demanded an explanation. "But you had an umbrella +with that dog," said the man. "No," said the boy. "Oh!" said the man, +"there's an umbrella goes with that dog." + +And so it is with the fur-lined coat. So many things "go with it." It is in +this respect like that grand piano to which you succumbed in a moment of +paternal weakness--or after a lucky stroke in rubber. The old furniture, +which had seemed so unexceptionable before, suddenly became dowdy in the +presence of this princely affair. You wanted new chairs and rugs and +hangings to make the piano accord with its setting. Even the house fell +under suspicion, and perhaps you date all your difficulties from the day +that you bought that grand piano, and found that it had set you going on a +new way of life just beyond your modest means. + +If I bought a fur-lined coat I know that I should want to buy a motor-car +to keep it company. It is possible, of course, to wear a fur coat in a +motor-bus, but if you do you will assuredly have a sense that you are a +little over-dressed, a trifle conspicuous, that the fellow-passengers are +mentally remarking that such a coat ought to have a carriage of its own. It +would provoke the comment that I heard the other night as two ladies in +evening dress left a bus in a pouring rain. "Well," said one of the other +lady passengers--a little enviously I thought, but still pertinently--"if I +could afford to wear such fine clothes I think I would take a Cab." Yes, +decidedly, the fur-lined coat would not be complete without the motor-car. + +And then consider how it limits your freedom and raises the tariff against +you. The tip that would be gratefully received if you were getting into +that modest coat that you have discarded would be unworthy of the fur-lined +standard that you have deliberately adopted. The recipient would take it +frigidly, with a glance at the luxurious garment into which he had helped +you--a glance that would cut you to the quick. Your friends would have to +be fur-lined, too, and your dinners would no longer be the modest affairs +of old, but would soar to the champagne standard. It would not be possible +to slip unnoticed into your favourite little restaurant in Soho to take +your simple chop, or to go in quest of that wonderful restaurant of Arne's +of which "Aldebaran" keeps the secret. The modesty of Arne's would make you +blush for your fur-lined coat. + +"The genteel thing," said Tony Lumpkin's friend, "is the genteel thing at +any time, if so be that a gentleman bees in a concatenation according-ly." +That is it. The fur-lined coat is a genteel thing; but you have to be "in a +concatenation according-ly." And there's the rub. It is not the coat, but +its trimmings, so to speak, that give us pause. When you put on the coat +you insensibly put off your old way of life. You set up a new standard, and +have got to adapt your comings and goings, your habits and your expenditure +to it. I once knew a man who had a fur-lined coat presented to him. It was +a disaster. He could not live "in a concatenation according-ly." He lost +his old friends without getting new ones. And his end ... Well, his end +confirmed me in the conviction of the unwisdom of wearing a fur-lined coat +before you are able, or disposed, to mould your life to the fur-lined +standard. + + + + +IN PRAISE OF WALKING + + +I started out the other day from Keswick with a rucksack on my back, a +Baddeley in my pocket, and a companion by my side. I like a companion when +I go a-walking. "Give me a companion by the way," said Sterne, "if it be +only to remark how the shadows lengthen as the sun declines." That is about +enough. You do not want a talkative person. Walking is an occupation in +itself. You may give yourself up to chatter at the beginning, but when you +are warmed to the job you are disposed to silence, drop perhaps one behind +the other, and reserve your talk for the inn table and the after-supper +pipe. An occasional joke, an occasional stave of song, a necessary +consultation over the map--that is enough for the way. + +At the head of the Lake we got in a boat and rowed across Derwentwater to +the tiny bay at the foot of Catbells. There we landed, shouldered our +burdens, and set out over the mountains and the passes, and for a week we +enjoyed the richest solitude this country can offer. We followed no +cut-and-dried programme. I love to draw up programmes for a walking tour, +but I love still better to break them. For one of the joys of walking is +the sense of freedom it gives you. You are tied to no time-table, the slave +of no road, the tributary of no man. If you like the road you follow it; if +you choose the pass that is yours also; if your fancy (and your wind) is +for the mountain tops, then over Great Gable and Scawfell, Robinson and +Helvellyn be your way. Every short cut is for you, and every track is the +path of adventure. The stream that tumbles down the mountain side is your +wine cup. You kneel on the boulders, bend your head, and take such draughts +as only the healthy thirst of the mountains can give. And then, on your way +again singing:-- + + Bed in the bush with the stars to see. + Bread I dip in the river-- + There's the life for a man like me. + There's the life for ever. + +What liberty is there like this? You have cut your moorings from the world, +you are far from telegraphs and newspapers and all the frenzies of the life +you have left behind you, you are alone with the lonely hills and the wide +sky and the elemental things that have been from the beginning and will +outlast all the tortured drama of men. The very sounds of life--the whistle +of the curlew, the bleating of the mountain sheep--add to the sense of +primeval solitude. To these sounds the crags have echoed for a thousand and +ten thousand years; to these sounds and to the rushing of the winds and the +waters they will echo ten thousand years hence. It is as though you have +passed out of time into eternity, where a thousand years are as one day. +There is no calendar for this dateless world. The buzzard that you have +startled from its pool in the gully and that circles round with +wide-flapping wings has a lineage as ancient as the hills, and the vision +of the pikes of Langdale that bursts on you as you reach the summit of Esk +hause is the same vision that burst on the first savage who adventured into +these wild fastnesses of the mountains. + +And then as the sun begins to slope to the west you remember that, if you +are among immortal things, you are only a mortal yourself, that you are +getting footsore, and that you need a night's lodging and the comforts of +an inn. Whither shall we turn? The valleys call us on every side. Newlands +wide vale we can reach, or cheerful Borrowdale, or lonely Ennerdale, +or--yes, to-night we will sup at Wastdale, at the jolly old inn that Auld +Will Ritson used to keep, that inn sacred to the cragsman, where on New +Year's Eve the gay company of climbers foregather from their brave deeds on +the mountains and talk of hand-holds and foot-holds and sing the song of +"The rope, the rope," and join in the chorus as the landlord trolls out: + + I'm not a climber, not a climber, + Not a climber now, + My weight is going fourteen stone-- + I'm not a climber now. + +We shall not find Gaspard there to-night--Gaspard, the gay and intrepid +guide from the Dauphine, beloved of all who know the lonely inn at +Wastdale. He is away on the battle-field fighting a sterner foe than the +rocks and precipices of Great Gable and Scawfell. But Old Joe, the +shepherd, will be there--Old Joe, who has never been in a train or seen a +town and whose special glory is that he can pull uglier faces than any man +in Cumberland. He will not pull them for anybody--only when he is in a good +humour and for his cronies in the back parlour. To-night, perchance, we +shall see his eyes roll as he roars out the chorus of "D'ye ken John Peel?" +Yes, Wastdale shall be to-night's halt. And so over Black Sail, and down +the rough mountain side to the inn whose white-washed walls hail us from +afar out of the gathering shadows of the valley. + +To-morrow? Well, to-morrow shall be as to-day. We will shoulder our +rucksacks early, and be early on the mountains, for the first maxim in +going a journey is the early start. Have the whip-hand of the day, and then +you may loiter as you choose. If it is hot, you may bathe in the chill +waters of those tarns that lie bare to the eye of heaven in the hollows of +the hills--tarns with names of beauty and waters of such crystal purity as +Killarney knows not. And at night we will come through the clouds down the +wild course of Rosset Ghyll and sup and sleep in the hotel hard by Dungeon +Ghyll, or, perchance, having the day well in hand, we will push on by Blea +Tarn and Yewdale to Coniston, or by Easedale Tarn to Grasmere, and so to +the Swan at the foot of Dunmail Raise. For we must call at the Swan. Was it +not the Swan that Wordsworth's "Waggoner" so triumphantly passed? Was it +not the Swan to which Sir Walter Scott used to go for his beer when he was +staying with Wordsworth at Rydal Water? And behind the Swan is there not +that fold in the hills where Wordsworth's "Michael" built, or tried to +build, his sheepfold? Yes, we will stay at the Swan whatever befalls. + +And so the jolly days go by, some wet, some fine, some a mixture of both, +but all delightful, and we forget the day of the week, know no news except +the changes in the weather and the track over the mountains, meet none of +our kind except a rare vagabond like ourselves--with rope across his +shoulder if he is a rock-man, with rucksack on back if he is a tourist--and +with no goal save some far-off valley inn where we shall renew our strength +and where the morrow's uprising to deeds shall be sweet. + +I started to write in praise of walking, and I find I have written in +praise of Lakeland. But indeed the two chants of praise are a single +harmony, for I have written in vain if I have not shown that the way to see +the most exquisite cabinet of beauties in this land is by the humble path +of the pedestrian. He who rides through Lakeland knows nothing of its +secrets, has tasted of none of its magic. + + + + +ON REWARDS AND RICHES + + +We have all been so occupied with the war in Europe that few of us, I +suppose, have even heard of another war which has been raging in the law +courts for 150 days or so between two South African corporations over some +question of property. It seems to have been marked by a good deal of +frightfulness. In the closing scenes Mr. Hughes, one of the counsel, +complained that he had been called a fool, a liar, a scoundrel, and so on +by his opponent, and the judge lamented that the case had been the occasion +of so much barristerial bitterness. + +But it was not the light which the case threw on the manners of counsel +that interested me. After all, these things are part of the game. They have +no more reality than the thumping blows which the Two Macs exchange in the +pantomime. I have no doubt that after their memorable encounter in the +Bardell _v_. Pickwick case, Serjeant Buzfuz and Serjeant Snubbin went out +arm-in-arm, and over their port in the Temple (where the wine is good and +astonishingly cheap) made excellent fun of the whole affair. The wise +juryman never takes any notice of the passion and tears, the heroics and +the indignation of counsel. He knows that they are assumed not to enlighten +but to darken his mind. I always recall in this connection the remark of a +famous lawyer who rose to great eminence by the exercise of his emotions. +He was standing by the graveside of a departed friend and observed that one +of the mourners, a fellow--lawyer, was shedding real tears. "What a waste +of raw material," he remarked in a whisper to his neighbour. "Those tears +would be worth a guinea a drop before a jury." + +What interested me in the case was the statement that the legal costs had +been L150,000, and that Mr. Upjohn, K.C., alone had had a retainer of +L1000, and had been kept going with a "refresher" of L100 a day. I like +that word "refresher." It has a fine bibulous smack about it. Or perhaps it +is a reminiscence of "the ring." Buzfuz feels a bit pumped by the day's +round. He has perspired his L100, as it were, and is doubtful whether he +can come up to the scratch without a refresher. And so he is taken to his +corner by his client and dosed with another L100. Then all his ardour +returns. He sees the thing as clear as daylight--the radiant innocence of +the plaintiff, the black perfidy of the defendant. To-morrow evening the +vision will have faded again, but another L100 will make it as plain as +ever. Yes, it is a good word--"refresher"--a candid word, an honest word. +It puts the relation on a sound business footing. There is no sham +sentiment about it. Give me another refresher, says Buzfuz, and I'll shed +another pailful of tears for you, and blacken both the defendant's eyes for +him. + +But as I read of these princely earnings I could not help thinking of what +an irrational world this is in the matter of rewards. Here are a couple of +lawyers hurling epithets and "cases" at each other at L100 a day. At the +end a verdict is given for this side or that, and outside the people +concerned no one is a penny the better or worse. And not many miles away +hundreds of thousands of men are living in the mud of rat-infested +trenches, with the sky raining destruction upon them, and death and +mutilation the hourly incident of their lives. They have no retaining fee +and no refresher. Their reward is a shilling a day, and it would take them +20,000 days to "earn" what one K.C. pockets each night. Could the mind +conceive a more grotesque inversion of the law of services and rewards? You +die for your country at a shilling a day, while at home Snubbin, K.C., is +perspiring for his client at L100 a day. + +This is old, cheap, and profitless stuff, you say. What is the good of +drawing these contrasts? We know all about them. They are a part of the +eternal inequality of things. Services and rewards never have had, and +never will have, any relation to each other. Please do not remind us that +Charlie Chaplin (or Charles Chaplin as he desires to be known) earns +L130,000 a year by playing the fool in front of a camera, and that +Wordsworth did not earn enough to keep himself in shoe-laces out of poetry +which has become an immortal possession of humanity, and had to beg a noble +nobody (the Earl of Lonsdale, I think) to get him a job as a stamp +distributor to keep him in bread and butter. + +Do not, my dear sir, be alarmed, I am not going to work that ancient theme +off on you. And yet I think it is necessary sometimes to remind ourselves +of these things. It is especially necessary now when there is so much easy +talk about "equality of sacrifice," and so much easy forgetfulness of the +inequality of rewards. It is useful, too, to remind ourselves that riches +have no necessary relation to service. The genius for getting money is an +altogether different thing from the genius for service. I suppose the +Guinnesses (to take an example) are the richest people in Ireland. And I +suppose Tom Kettle was one of the poorest. But who will dare apply the +money test as the real measure of the values of these men to humanity--the +one fabulously rich by brewing the "black stuff," as they call it in +Ireland; the other glorious in his genius for spending himself, without a +thought of return, on every noble cause and dying freely for liberty in the +full tide of his powers? Which means the more to the world? Perhaps one +effect of the war will be to give us a saner standard of values in these +things--will teach us to look behind the money and title to the motives +that get the money and the title. It is not the money and title we should +distrust so much as the false implications attaching to them. + +And, after all, we exaggerate the importance of the material rewards. They +must often be very much of a bore. As the late Lord Salisbury once said, a +man doesn't sleep any better because he has a choice of forty bedrooms in +his house. He can only take one ride even though he has fifty motor-cars. +He cannot get more joy out of the sunshine than you or I can. The birds +sing and the buds swell for all of us, and in the great storehouse of +natural delights there is no money taken and no price on the goods. Mr. +Rockefeller's L100 a minute (if that is his income) is poor consolation for +his bad digestion, and the late Mr. Pierpoint Morgan would probably have +parted with half his millions to get rid of the excrescence that made his +nose an unsightly joke. We cannot count our riches at the bank--even on the +material side, much less on the spiritual. As I came along the village this +morning I saw Jim Squire digging up his potatoes in the golden September +light. I hailed him, and inquired how the crop was turning out. "A +wunnerful fine crop," he said, "and thank the Lord, there ain't a spot o' +disease in 'em." And as he straightened his back, pointed to the tubers +strewn about him, and beamed like the sun at his good fortune, he looked +the very picture of autumn's riches. + + + + +ON TASTE + + +I was in a feminine company the other day when the talk turned on war +economies, with the inevitable allusion to the substitution of margarine +for butter. I found it was generally agreed that the substitution had been +a success. "Well," said one, "I bought some butter the other day--the sort +we used to use--and put it on the table with the margarine which we have +learned to eat. My husband took some, thinking it was margarine, made a wry +face, and said, 'It won't do. This margarine economy is beyond me. We must +return to butter, even if we lose the war.' I explained to him that he was +eating butter, _the_ butter, and he said, 'Well, I'm hanged!' Now, what do +you think of that?" + +I said I thought it showed that taste was a matter of habit, and that +imagination played a larger part in our make-up than we supposed. We say of +this or that thing that it is "an acquired taste," as though the fact was +unusual, whereas the fact would seem to be that we dislike most things +until we have habituated ourselves to them. As a youth I abominated the +taste of tobacco. It was only by an industrious apprenticeship to the herb +that I overcame my natural dislike and got to be its obedient servant. And +even my taste here is unstable. I needed a certain tobacco to be happy and +thought there was no other tobacco like it. But I discovered that was all +nonsense. When the war tax sent the price up, I determined that my +expenditure should not go up with it, and I tried a cheaper sort. I found +it distasteful at first, but now I prefer it to my old brand, just as the +lady's husband finds that he prefers the new margarine to the old butter. + +And it is not only gastronomic taste which seems so much the subject of +habit. That hat that was so absolute a thing last year is as dowdy and +impossible to-day as if it had been the fashion of the Babylonians. It has +always been so. "We had scarce worn cloth one year at the Court," says +Montaigne, "what time we mourned for our King Henrie the Second, but +certainly in every man's opinion all manner of silks were already become so +vile and abject that was any man seen to wear them he was presently judged +to be some countrie fellow or mechanical man." And you remember that in +Utopia gold was held of so small account by comparison with iron that it +was used for the baser purposes of the household. + +We are adaptable creatures, and easily make our tastes conform to our +environment and our customs. There are certain savage tribes who wear rings +through their noses. When Mrs. Brown, of Tooting, sees pictures of them she +remarks to Mr. Brown on the strange habits of these barbarous people. And +Mr. Brown, if he has a touch of humour in him, points to the rings hanging +from Mrs. Brown's ears, and says: "But, my dear, why is it barbarous to +wear a ring in the nostril and civilised to wear rings in the ears?" The +dilemma is not unlike that of the savage tribe whom the Greeks induced to +give up cannibalism. But when the cannibals, who had piously eaten their +parents, were asked instead to adopt the Greek custom of burning the bodies +they were horrified at the suggestion. They would cease to eat them; but +burn them? No. I can imagine Mrs. Brown's savages agreeing to take the +rings out of their noses, but refusing blankly to put them in their ears. + +I have no doubt that the long-haired Cavaliers used to regard the short +hair of the Puritans as the "limit" in bad taste, but the man who today +dares to walk down the Strand with hair streaming down his back is looked +at as a curiosity and a crank, and we all join in that delightful addition +to the Litany which Moody invented: "From long-haired men and short-haired +women, Good Lord, deliver us." But who shall say that our children will not +reverse the prayer? + +Even in my own brief span I have seen men's faces pass through every +hirsute change under the Protean influence of "good taste." I remember +when, to be really a student of good form, a man wore long side-whiskers of +the Dundreary type. Then "mutton chops" and a moustache were the thing; +then only a moustache; now we have got back to the Romans and the clean +shave. But where is the absolute "good taste" in all this? Or take +trousers. If you had lived a hundred years ago and had dared to go about in +trousers instead of knee-breeches you would have been written down a vulgar +fellow. Even the great Duke of Wellington in 1814 was refused admittance to +Almack's because he presented himself in trousers. Now we relegate +knee-breeches to fancy dress balls and Court functions. + +But sometimes the canons of good taste are astonishingly irrational. Who +was it who set Christendom wearing black, sad, hopeless black as the symbol +of mourning? The Roman ladies, who had never heard of the doctrine of the +Resurrection, clothed themselves in white for mourning. It is left for the +Christian world, which looks beyond the grave, to wear the habiliments of +despair. If I go to a funeral I am as conventional as anybody else, for I +have not the courage of a distinguished statesman whom I saw at his +brother's funeral wearing a blue overcoat, check trousers, and a grey +waistcoat, and carrying a green umbrella. I can give you his name if you +doubt me--a great name, too. And he would not deny the impeachment. I am +not prepared to endorse his idea of good taste; but I hate black. "Why +should I wear black for the guests of God?" asked Ruskin. And there is no +answer. Perhaps among the consequences of the war there will be a +repudiation of this false code of taste. + + + + +ON A HAWTHORN HEDGE + + +As I turned into the lane that climbs the hillside to the cottage under the +high beech woods I was conscious of a sort of mild expectation that I could +not explain. It was late evening. Venus, who looks down with such calm +splendour upon this troubled earth in these summer nights, had disappeared, +but the moon had not yet risen. The air was heavy with those rich odours +which seem so much more pungent by night than by day--those odours of +summer eves that Keats has fixed for ever in the imagination:-- + + I cannot see what flowers are at my feet. + Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs; + But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet + Wherewith the seasonable month endows + The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; + White hawthorn.... + +Ah, that was it. I remembered now. A fortnight ago, when I last came up +this lane by night, it was the flash of the white hawthorn in the starlight +that burst upon me with such a sudden beauty. I knew the spot. It was just +beyond here, where the tall hedgerow leans over the grass side-track and +makes a green arbour by the wayside. I should come to it in a minute or +two, and catch once more that ecstasy of spring. + +And when I reached the spot the white hawthorn had vanished. The arbour was +there, but its glory had faded. The two weeks I had spent in Fleet Street +had stripped it of its crown, and the whole pageant of the year must pass +before I could again experience that sudden delight of the hedgerows +bursting into foam. I do not mind confessing that I continued my way up the +lane with something less than my former exhilaration. Partly no doubt this +was due to the fact that the hill at this point begins its job of climbing +in earnest, and is a stiff pull at the end of a long day's work and a +tiresome journey--especially if you are carrying a bag. + +But the real reason of the slight shadow that had fallen on my spirit was +the vanished hawthorn. Poor sentimentalist, you say, to cherish these idle +fancies in this stern world of blood and tears. Well, perhaps it is this +stern world of blood and tears that gives these idle fancies their +poignancy. Perhaps it is through those fancies that one feels the +transitoriness of other things. The coming and the parting in the round of +nature are so wonderfully mingled that we can never be quite sure whether +the joy of the one triumphs over the regret for the other. It is always +"Hail" and "Farewell" in one breath. I heard the cuckoo calling across the +meadows to-day, and already I noticed a faltering in his second note. Soon +the second note will be silent altogether, and the single call will sound +over the valley like the curfew bell of spring. + +Who, I thought, would not fix these fleeting moments of beauty if he could? +Who would not keep the cuckoo's twin shout floating for ever over summer +fields and the blackbird for ever fluting his thanksgiving after summer +showers? Who can see the daffodils nodding their heads in sprightly dance +without sharing the mood of Herrick's immortal lament that that dance +should be so brief:-- + + Fair daffodils, we weep to see + You haste away so soon; + As yet the early-rising sun + Has not attain'd its noon. + Stay, stay. + Until the hasting day + Has run + But to the evensong; + And, having prayed together, we + Will go with you along. + +Yes, I think Herrick would have forgiven me for that momentary lapse into +regretfulness over the white hawthorn. He would have understood. You will +see that he understood if you will recall the second stanza, which, if you +are the person I take you for, you will do without needing to turn to a +book. + +It is the same sense of the transience of beauty that inspired the "Ode to +a Grecian Urn" on which pastoral beauty was fixed in eternal rapture:-- + + Ah, happy, happy boughs I that cannot shed + Your leaves, nor ever bid the spring adieu. + +And there we touch the paradox of this strange life. We would keep the +fleeting beauty of Nature, and yet we would not keep it. The thought of +those trees whose leaves are never shed, and of that eternal spring to +which we never bid adieu, is pleasant to toy with, but after all we would +not have it so. It is no more seriously tenable than the thought that +little Johnny there should remain for ever at the age of ten. You may feel +that you would like him to remain at the age of ten. Indeed you are a +strange parent if you do not look back a little wistfully to the childhood +of your children, and wish you could see them as you once saw them. But you +would not really have Johnny stick at ten. After five years of the +experience you would wish little Johnny dead. For life and its beauty are a +living thing, and not a pretty fancy sculptured on a Grecian urn. + +And so with the pageant of Nature. If the pageant stopped, the wonder +itself would stop. I should have no sudden shock of delight at hearing the +first call of the cuckoo in spring or seeing my hawthorn hedge burst into +snowy blossoms. I should no longer remark the jolly clatter of the rooks in +the February trees which forms the prologue of spring, nor look out for the +coming of the first primrose or the arrival of the first swallow. I should +cease, it is true, to have the pangs of "Farewell," but I should cease also +to have the ecstasy of "Hail." I should have my Grecian urn, but I should +have lost the magic of the living world. + +By the time I had reached the gate I had buried my regrets for the vanished +hawthorn. I knew that to-morrow I should find new miracles in the +hedgerows--the wild rose and the honeysuckle, and after them the +blackberries, and after these again the bright-hued hips and haws. And +though the cuckoo's note should fail him, there would remain the thrush, +and after the thrush that constant little fellow in the red waistcoat would +keep the song going through the dark winter days. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Pebbles on the Shore +by Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEBBLES ON THE SHORE *** + +***** This file should be named 10675.txt or 10675.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/6/7/10675/ + +Produced by Brendan Lane and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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