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diff --git a/old/miscy12.txt b/old/miscy12.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..60a9c99 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/miscy12.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5205 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Miscellany of Men, by G. K. Chesterton +#13 in our series by G. K. Chesterton + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: A Miscellany of Men + +Author: G. K. Chesterton + +Release Date: December, 1999 [EBook #2015] +[This file was last updated on February 22, 2003] + +Edition: 12 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MISCELLANY OF MEN *** + + + + +This Etext prepared by Michael Pullen with proofreading assistance +by Michael K. Johnson and Joe Moretti + + + + + +A MISCELLANY OF MEN + +By G. K. CHESTERTON + + + + +CONTENTS + +THE SUFFRAGIST +THE POET AND THE CHEESE +THE THING +THE MAN WHO THINKS BACKWARDS +THE NAMELESS MAN +THE GARDENER AND THE GUINEA +THE VOTER AND THE TWO VOICES +THE MAD OFFICIAL +THE ENCHANTED MAN +THE SUN WORSHIPPER +THE WRONG INCENDIARY +THE FREE MAN +THE HYPOTHETICAL HOUSEHOLDER +THE PRIEST OF SPRING +THE REAL JOURNALIST +THE SENTIMENTAL SCOT +THE SECTARIAN OF SOCIETY +THE FOOL +THE CONSCRIPT AND THE CRISIS +THE MISER AND HIS FRIENDS +THE MYSTAGOGUE +THE RED REACTIONARY +THE SEPARATIST AND SACRED THINGS +THE MUMMER +THE ARISTOCRATIC 'ARRY +THE NEW THEOLOGIAN +THE ROMANTIC IN THE RAIN +THE FALSE PHOTOGRAPHER +THE SULTAN +THE ARCHITECT OF SPEARS +THE MAN ON TOP +THE OTHER KIND OF MAN +THE MEDIAEVAL VILLAIN +THE DIVINE DETECTIVE +THE ELF OF JAPAN +THE CHARTERED LIBERTINE +THE CONTENTED MAN +THE ANGRY AUTHOR: HIS FAREWELL + + + + +THE SUFFRAGIST + + +Rightly or wrongly, it is certain that a man both liberal and chivalric, +can and very often does feel a dis-ease and distrust touching those +political women we call Suffragettes. Like most other popular sentiments, +it is generally wrongly stated even when it is rightly felt. One part of +it can be put most shortly thus: that when a woman puts up her fists to a +man she is putting herself in the only posture in which he is not afraid +of her. He can be afraid of her speech and still more of her silence; but +force reminds him of a rusted but very real weapon of which he has grown +ashamed. But these crude summaries are never quite accurate in any matter +of the instincts. For the things which are the simplest so long as they +are undisputed invariably become the subtlest when once they are disputed: +which was what Joubert meant, I suppose, when he said, "It is not hard to +believe in God if one does not define Him." When the evil instincts of +old Foulon made him say of the poor, "Let them eat grass," the good and +Christian instincts of the poor made them hang him on a lamppost with his +mouth stuffed full of that vegetation. But if a modern vegetarian +aristocrat were to say to the poor, "But why don't you like grass?" their +intelligences would be much more taxed to find such an appropriate +repartee. And this matter of the functions of the sexes is primarily a +matter of the instincts; sex and breathing are about the only two things +that generally work best when they are least worried about. That, I +suppose, is why the same sophisticated age that has poisoned the world +with Feminism is also polluting it with Breathing Exercises. We plunge at +once into a forest of false analogies and bad blundering history; while +almost any man or woman left to themselves would know at least that sex is +quite different from anything else in the world. + +There is no kind of comparison possible between a quarrel of man and woman +(however right the woman may be) and the other quarrels of slave and +master, of rich and poor, or of patriot and invader, with which the +Suffragists deluge us every day. The difference is as plain as noon; +these other alien groups never came into contact until they came into +collision. Races and ranks began with battle, even if they afterwards +melted into amity. But the very first fact about the sexes is that they +like each other. They seek each other: and awful as are the sins and +sorrows that often come of their mating, it was not such things that made +them meet. It is utterly astounding to note the way in which modern +writers and talkers miss this plain, wide, and overwhelming fact: one +would suppose woman a victim and nothing else. By this account ideal, +emancipated woman has, age after age, been knocked silly with a stone axe. +But really there is no fact to show that ideal, emancipated woman was +ever knocked silly; except the fact that she is silly. And that might +have arisen in so many other ways. Real responsible woman has never been +silly; and any one wishing to knock her would be wise (like the +streetboys) to knock and run away. It is ultimately idiotic to compare +this prehistoric participation with any royalties or rebellions. Genuine +royalties wish to crush rebellions. Genuine rebels wish to destroy kings. +The sexes cannot wish to abolish each other; and if we allow them any +sort of permanent opposition it will sink into something as base as a +party system. + +As marriage, therefore, is rooted in an aboriginal unity of instincts, you +cannot compare it, even in its quarrels, with any of the mere collisions +of separate institutions. You could compare it with the emancipation of +negroes from planters--if it were true that a white man in early youth +always dreamed of the abstract beauty of a black man. You could compare +it with the revolt of tenants against a landlord--if it were true that +young landlords wrote sonnets to invisible tenants. You could compare it +to the fighting policy of the Fenians--if it were true that every normal +Irishman wanted an Englishman to come and live with him. But as we know +there are no instincts in any of these directions, these analogies are not +only false but false on the cardinal fact. I do not speak of the +comparative comfort or merit of these different things: I say they are +different. It may be that love turned to hate is terribly common in +sexual matters: it may be that hate turned to love is not uncommon in the +rivalries of race or class. But any philosophy about the sexes that +begins with anything but the mutual attraction of the sexes, begins with a +fallacy; and all its historical comparisons are as irrelevant and +impertinent as puns. + +But to expose such cold negation of the instincts is easy: to express or +even half express the instincts is very hard. The instincts are very much +concerned with what literary people call "style" in letters or more vulgar +people call "style" in dress. They are much concerned with how a thing is +done, as well as whether one may do it: and the deepest elements in their +attraction or aversion can often only be conveyed by stray examples or +sudden images. When Danton was defending himself before the Jacobin +tribunal he spoke so loud that his voice was heard across the Seine, in +quite remote streets on the other side of the river. He must have +bellowed like a bull of Bashan. Yet none of us would think of that +prodigy except as something poetical and appropriate. None of us would +instinctively feel that Danton was less of a man or even less of a +gentleman, for speaking so in such an hour. But suppose we heard that +Marie Antoinette, when tried before the same tribunal, had howled so that +she could be heard in the Faubourg St. Germain--well, I leave it to the +instincts, if there are any left. It is not wrong to howl. Neither is it +right. It is simply a question of the instant impression on the artistic +and even animal parts of humanity, if the noise were heard suddenly like a +gun. + +Perhaps the nearest verbal analysis of the instinct may be found in the +gestures of the orator addressing a crowd. For the true orator must +always be a demagogue: even if the mob be a small mob, like the French +committee or the English House of Lords. And "demagogue," in the good +Greek meaning, does not mean one who pleases the populace, but one who +leads it: and if you will notice, you will see that all the instinctive +gestures of oratory are gestures of military leadership; pointing the +people to a path or waving them on to an advance. Notice that long sweep +of the arm across the body and outward, which great orators use naturally +and cheap orators artificially. It is almost the exact gesture of the +drawing of a sword. + +The point is not that women are unworthy of votes; it is not even that +votes are unworthy of women. It is that votes are unworthy of men, so +long as they are merely votes; and have nothing in them of this ancient +militarism of democracy. The only crowd worth talking to is the crowd +that is ready to go somewhere and do something; the only demagogue worth +hearing is he who can point at something to be done: and, if he points +with a sword, will only feel it familiar and useful like an elongated +finger. Now, except in some mystical exceptions which prove the rule, +these are not the gestures, and therefore not the instincts, of women. +No honest man dislikes the public woman. He can only dislike the +political woman; an entirely different thing. The instinct has nothing to +do with any desire to keep women curtained or captive: if such a desire +exists. A husband would be pleased if his wife wore a gold crown and +proclaimed laws from a throne of marble; or if she uttered oracles from +the tripod of a priestess; or if she could walk in mystical motherhood +before the procession of some great religious order. But that she should +stand on a platform in the exact altitude in which he stands; leaning +forward a little more than is graceful and holding her mouth open a little +longer and wider than is dignified--well, I only write here of the facts +of natural history; and the fact is that it is this, and not publicity or +importance, that hurts. It is for the modern world to judge whether such +instincts are indeed danger signals; and whether the hurting of moral as +of material nerves is a tocsin and a warning of nature. + + + + +THE POET AND THE CHEESE + + +There is something creepy in the flat Eastern Counties; a brush of the +white feather. There is a stillness, which is rather of the mind than of +the bodily senses. Rapid changes and sudden revelations of scenery, even +when they are soundless, have something in them analogous to a movement of +music, to a crash or a cry. Mountain hamlets spring out on us with a +shout like mountain brigands. Comfortable valleys accept us with open +arms and warm words, like comfortable innkeepers. But travelling in the +great level lands has a curiously still and lonely quality; lonely even +when there are plenty of people on the road and in the market-place. +One's voice seems to break an almost elvish silence, and something +unreasonably weird in the phrase of the nursery tales, "And he went a +little farther and came to another place," comes back into the mind. + +In some such mood I came along a lean, pale road south of the fens, and +found myself in a large, quiet, and seemingly forgotten village. It was +one of those places that instantly produce a frame of mind which, it may +be, one afterwards decks out with unreal details. I dare say that grass +did not really grow in the streets, but I came away with a curious +impression that it did. I dare say the marketplace was not literally +lonely and without sign of life, but it left the vague impression of being +so. The place was large and even loose in design, yet it had the air of +something hidden away and always overlooked. It seemed shy, like a big +yokel; the low roofs seemed to be ducking behind the hedges and railings; +and the chimneys holding their breath. I came into it in that dead hour +of the afternoon which is neither after lunch nor before tea, nor anything +else even on a half-holiday; and I had a fantastic feeling that I had +strayed into a lost and extra hour that is not numbered in the twenty-four. + +I entered an inn which stood openly in the market-place yet was almost as +private as a private house. Those who talk of "public-houses" as if they +were all one problem would have been both puzzled and pleased with such a +place. In the front window a stout old lady in black with an elaborate +cap sat doing a large piece of needlework. She had a kind of comfortable +Puritanism about her; and might have been (perhaps she was) the original +Mrs. Grundy. A little more withdrawn into the parlour sat a tall, strong, +and serious girl, with a face of beautiful honesty and a pair of scissors +stuck in her belt, doing a small piece of needlework. Two feet behind +them sat a hulking labourer with a humorous face like wood painted scarlet, +with a huge mug of mild beer which he had not touched, and probably would +not touch for hours. On the hearthrug there was an equally motionless cat; +and on the table a copy of 'Household Words'. + +I was conscious of some atmosphere, still and yet bracing, that I had met +somewhere in literature. There was poetry in it as well as piety; and yet +it was not poetry after my particular taste. It was somehow at once solid +and airy. Then I remembered that it was the atmosphere in some of +Wordsworth's rural poems; which are full of genuine freshness and wonder, +and yet are in some incurable way commonplace. This was curious; for +Wordsworth's men were of the rocks and fells, and not of the fenlands or +flats. But perhaps it is the clearness of still water and the mirrored +skies of meres and pools that produces this crystalline virtue. Perhaps +that is why Wordsworth is called a Lake Poet instead of a mountain poet. +Perhaps it is the water that does it. Certainly the whole of that town +was like a cup of water given at morning. + +After a few sentences exchanged at long intervals in the manner of rustic +courtesy, I inquired casually what was the name of the town. The old lady +answered that its name was Stilton, and composedly continued her +needlework. But I had paused with my mug in air, and was gazing at her +with a suddenly arrested concern. "I suppose," I said, "that it has +nothing to do with the cheese of that name." "Oh, yes," she answered, +with a staggering indifference, "they used to make it here." + +I put down my mug with a gravity far greater than her own. "But this +place is a Shrine!" I said. "Pilgrims should be pouring into it from +wherever the English legend has endured alive. There ought to be a +colossal statue in the market-place of the man who invented Stilton cheese. +There ought to be another colossal statue of the first cow who provided +the foundations of it. There should be a burnished tablet let into the +ground on the spot where some courageous man first ate Stilton cheese, and +survived. On the top of a neighbouring hill (if there are any +neighbouring hills) there should be a huge model of a Stilton cheese, made +of some rich green marble and engraven with some haughty motto: I suggest +something like 'Ver non semper viret; sed Stiltonia semper virescit.'" +The old lady said, "Yes, sir," and continued her domestic occupations. + +After a strained and emotional silence, I said, "If I take a meal here +tonight can you give me any Stilton?" + +"No, sir; I'm afraid we haven't got any Stilton," said the immovable one, +speaking as if it were something thousands of miles away. + +"This is awful," I said: for it seemed to me a strange allegory of England +as she is now; this little town that had lost its glory; and forgotten, so +to speak, the meaning of its own name. And I thought it yet more symbolic +because from all that old and full and virile life, the great cheese was +gone; and only the beer remained. And even that will be stolen by the +Liberals or adulterated by the Conservatives. Politely disengaging myself, +I made my way as quickly as possible to the nearest large, noisy, and +nasty town in that neighbourhood, where I sought out the nearest vulgar, +tawdry, and avaricious restaurant. + +There (after trifling with beef, mutton, puddings, pies, and so on) I got +a Stilton cheese. I was so much moved by my memories that I wrote a +sonnet to the cheese. Some critical friends have hinted to me that my +sonnet is not strictly new; that it contains "echoes" (as they express it) +of some other poem that they have read somewhere. Here, at least, are the +lines I wrote : + +SONNET TO A STILTON CHEESE + + +Stilton, thou shouldst be living at this hour +And so thou art. Nor losest grace thereby; +England has need of thee, and so have I-- +She is a Fen. Far as the eye can scour, +League after grassy league from Lincoln tower +To Stilton in the fields, she is a Fen. +Yet this high cheese, by choice of fenland men, +Like a tall green volcano rose in power. + +Plain living and long drinking are no more, +And pure religion reading 'Household Words', +And sturdy manhood sitting still all day +Shrink, like this cheese that crumbles to its core; +While my digestion, like the House of Lords, +The heaviest burdens on herself doth lay. + +I confess I feel myself as if some literary influence, something that has +haunted me, were present in this otherwise original poem; but it is +hopeless to disentangle it now. + + + + +THE THING + + +The wind awoke last night with so noble a violence that it was like the +war in heaven; and I thought for a moment that the Thing had broken free. +For wind never seems like empty air. Wind always sounds full and +physical, like the big body of something; and I fancied that the Thing +itself was walking gigantic along the great roads between the forests of +beech. + +Let me explain. The vitality and recurrent victory of Christendom have +been due to the power of the Thing to break out from time to time from its +enveloping words and symbols. Without this power all civilisations tend +to perish under a load of language and ritual. One instance of this we +hear much in modern discussion: the separation of the form from the spirit +of religion. But we hear too little of numberless other cases of the same +stiffening and falsification; we are far too seldom reminded that just as +church-going is not religion, so reading and writing are not knowledge, +and voting is not self-government. It would be easy to find people in the +big cities who can read and write quickly enough to be clerks, but who are +actually ignorant of the daily movements of the sun and moon. + +The case of self-government is even more curious, especially as one +watches it for the first time in a country district. Self-government arose +among men (probably among the primitive men, certainly among the ancients) +out of an idea which seems now too simple to be understood. The notion +of self-government was not (as many modern friends and foes of it seem to +think) the notion that the ordinary citizen is to be consulted as one +consults an Encyclopaedia. He is not there to be asked a lot of fancy +questions, to see how he answers them. He and his fellows are to be, +within reasonable human limits, masters of their own lives. They shall +decide whether they shall be men of the oar or the wheel, of the spade or +the spear. The men of the valley shall settle whether the valley shall be +devastated for coal or covered with corn and vines; the men of the town +shall decide whether it shall be hoary with thatches or splendid with +spires. Of their own nature and instinct they shall gather under a +patriarchal chief or debate in a political market-place. And in case the +word "man" be misunderstood, I may remark that in this moral atmosphere, +this original soul of self-government, the women always have quite as much +influence as the men. But in modern England neither the men nor the women +have any influence at all. In this primary matter, the moulding of the +landscape, the creation of a mode of life, the people are utterly impotent. +They stand and stare at imperial and economic processes going on, as +they might stare at the Lord Mayor's Show. + +Round about where I live, for instance, two changes are taking place which +really affect the land and all things that live on it, whether for good or +evil. The first is that the urban civilisation (or whatever it is) is +advancing; that the clerks come out in black swarms and the villas advance +in red battalions. The other is that the vast estates into which England +has long been divided are passing out of the hands of the English gentry +into the hands of men who are always upstarts and often actually +foreigners. + +Now, these are just the sort of things with which self-government was +really supposed to grapple. People were supposed to be able to indicate +whether they wished to live in town or country, to be represented by a +gentleman or a cad. I do not presume to prejudge their decision; perhaps +they would prefer the cad; perhaps he is really preferable. I say that +the filling of a man's native sky with smoke or the selling of his roof +over his head illustrate the sort of things he ought to have some say in, +if he is supposed to be governing himself. But owing to the strange trend +of recent society, these enormous earthquakes he has to pass over and +treat as private trivialities. In theory the building of a villa is as +incidental as the buying of a hat. In reality it is as if all Lancashire +were laid waste for deer forests; or as if all Belgium were flooded by the +sea. In theory the sale of a squire's land to a moneylender is a minor +and exceptional necessity. In reality it is a thing like a German +invasion. Sometimes it is a German invasion. + +Upon this helpless populace, gazing at these prodigies and fates, comes +round about every five years a thing called a General Election. It is +believed by antiquarians to be the remains of some system of +self-government; but it consists solely in asking the citizen questions +about everything except what he understands. The examination paper of the +Election generally consists of some such queries as these: "I. Are the +green biscuits eaten by the peasants of Eastern Lithuania in your opinion +fit for human food? II. Are the religious professions of the President of +the Orange Free State hypocritical or sincere? III. Do you think that the +savages in Prusso-Portuguese East Bunyipland are as happy and hygienic as +the fortunate savages in Franco-British West Bunyipland? IV. Did the +lost Latin Charter said to have been exacted from Henry III reserve the +right of the Crown to create peers? V. What do you think of what America +thinks of what Mr. Roosevelt thinks of what Sir Eldon Gorst thinks of the +state of the Nile? VI. Detect some difference between the two persons in +frock-coats placed before you at this election." + +Now, it never was supposed in any natural theory of self-government that +the ordinary man in my neighbourhood need answer fantastic questions like +these. He is a citizen of South Bucks, not an editor of 'Notes and +Queries'. He would be, I seriously believe, the best judge of whether +farmsteads or factory chimneys should adorn his own sky-line, of whether +stupid squires or clever usurers should govern his own village. But these +are precisely the things which the oligarchs will not allow him to touch +with his finger. Instead, they allow him an Imperial destiny and divine +mission to alter, under their guidance, all the things that he knows +nothing about. The name of self-government is noisy everywhere: the Thing +is throttled. + +The wind sang and split the sky like thunder all the night through; in +scraps of sleep it filled my dreams with the divine discordances of +martyrdom and revolt; I heard the horn of Roland and the drums of Napoleon +and all the tongues of terror with which the Thing has gone forth: the +spirit of our race alive. But when I came down in the morning only a +branch or two was broken off the tree in my garden; and none of the great +country houses in the neighbourhood were blown down, as would have +happened if the Thing had really been abroad. + + + + +THE MAN WHO THINKS BACKWARDS + + +The man who thinks backwards is a very powerful person to-day: indeed, if +he is not omnipotent, he is at least omnipresent. It is he who writes +nearly all the learned books and articles, especially of the scientific or +skeptical sort; all the articles on Eugenics and Social Evolution and +Prison Reform and the Higher Criticism and all the rest of it. But +especially it is this strange and tortuous being who does most of the +writing about female emancipation and the reconsidering of marriage. For +the man who thinks backwards is very frequently a woman. + +Thinking backwards is not quite easy to define abstractedly; and, perhaps, +the simplest method is to take some object, as plain as possible, and from +it illustrate the two modes of thought: the right mode in which all real +results have been rooted; the wrong mode, which is confusing all our +current discussions, especially our discussions about the relations of the +sexes. Casting my eye round the room, I notice an object which is often +mentioned in the higher and subtler of these debates about the sexes: I +mean a poker. I will take a poker and think about it; first forwards and +then backwards; and so, perhaps, show what I mean. + +The sage desiring to think well and wisely about a poker will begin +somewhat as follows: Among the live creatures that crawl about this star +the queerest is the thing called Man. This plucked and plumeless bird, +comic and forlorn, is the butt of all the philosophies. He is the only +naked animal; and this quality, once, it is said, his glory, is now his +shame. He has to go outside himself for everything that he wants. He +might almost be considered as an absent-minded person who had gone bathing +and left his clothes everywhere, so that he has hung his hat upon the +beaver and his coat upon the sheep. The rabbit has white warmth for a +waistcoat, and the glow-worm has a lantern for a head. But man has no +heat in his hide, and the light in his body is darkness; and he must look +for light and warmth in the wild, cold universe in which he is cast. +This is equally true of his soul and of his body; he is the one creature +that has lost his heart as much as he has lost his hide. In a spiritual +sense he has taken leave of his senses; and even in a literal sense he has +been unable to keep his hair on. And just as this external need of his +has lit in his dark brain the dreadful star called religion, so it has lit +in his hand the only adequate symbol of it: I mean the red flower called +Fire. Fire, the most magic and startling of all material things, is a +thing known only to man and the expression of his sublime externalism. It +embodies all that is human in his hearths and all that is divine on his +altars. It is the most human thing in the world; seen across wastes of +marsh or medleys of forest, it is veritably the purple and golden flag of +the sons of Eve. But there is about this generous and rejoicing thing an +alien and awful quality: the quality of torture. Its presence is life; +its touch is death. Therefore, it is always necessary to have an +intermediary between ourselves and this dreadful deity; to have a priest +to intercede for us with the god of life and death; to send an ambassador +to the fire. That priest is the poker. Made of a material more merciless +and warlike than the other instruments of domesticity, hammered on the +anvil and born itself in the flame, the poker is strong enough to enter +the burning fiery furnace, and, like the holy children, not be consumed. +In this heroic service it is often battered and twisted, but is the more +honourable for it, like any other soldier who has been under fire. + +Now all this may sound very fanciful and mystical, but it is the right +view of pokers, and no one who takes it will ever go in for any wrong view +of pokers, such as using them to beat one's wife or torture one's children, +or even (though that is more excusable) to make a policeman jump, as the +clown does in the pantomime. He who has thus gone back to the beginning, +and seen everything as quaint and new, will always see things in their +right order, the one depending on the other in degree of purpose and +importance: the poker for the fire and the fire for the man and the man +for the glory of God. + +This is thinking forwards. Now our modern discussions about everything, +Imperialism, Socialism, or Votes for Women, are all entangled in an +opposite train of thought, which runs as follows:--A modern intellectual +comes in and sees a poker. He is a positivist; he will not begin with any +dogmas about the nature of man, or any day-dreams about the mystery of +fire. He will begin with what he can see, the poker; and the first thing +he sees about the poker is that it is crooked. He says, "Poor poker; it's +crooked." Then he asks how it came to be crooked; and is told that there +is a thing in the world (with which his temperament has hitherto left him +unacquainted)--a thing called fire. He points out, very kindly and +clearly, how silly it is of people, if they want a straight poker, to put +it into a chemical combustion which will very probably heat and warp it. +"Let us abolish fire," he says, "and then we shall have perfectly straight +pokers. Why should you want a fire at all?" They explain to him that a +creature called Man wants a fire, because he has no fur or feathers. He +gazes dreamily at the embers for a few seconds, and then shakes his head. +"I doubt if such an animal is worth preserving," he says. "He must +eventually go under in the cosmic struggle when pitted against +well-armoured and warmly protected species, who have wings and trunks and +spires and scales and horns and shaggy hair. If Man cannot live without +these luxuries, you had better abolish Man." At this point, as a rule, the +crowd is convinced; it heaves up all its clubs and axes, and abolishes him. +At least, one of him. + +Before we begin discussing our various new plans for the people's welfare, +let us make a kind of agreement that we will argue in a straightforward +way, and not in a tail-foremost way. The typical modern movements may be +right; but let them be defended because they are right, not because they +are typical modern movements. Let us begin with the actual woman or man +in the street, who is cold; like mankind before the finding of fire. Do +not let us begin with the end of the last red-hot discussion--like the end +of a red hot poker. Imperialism may be right. But if it is right, it is +right because England has some divine authority like Israel, or some human +authority like Rome; not because we have saddled ourselves with South +Africa, and don't know how to get rid of it. Socialism may be true. But +if it is true, it is true because the tribe or the city can really declare +all land to be common land, not because Harrod's Stores exist and the +commonwealth must copy them. Female suffrage may be just. But if it is +just, it is just because women are women, not because women are sweated +workers and white slaves and all sorts of things that they ought never to +have been. Let not the Imperialist accept a colony because it is there, +nor the Suffragist seize a vote because it is lying about, nor the +Socialist buy up an industry merely because it is for sale. + +Let us ask ourselves first what we really do want, not what recent legal +decisions have told us to want, or recent logical philosophies proved +that we must want, or recent social prophecies predicted that we shall +some day want. If there must be a British Empire, let it be British, and +not, in mere panic, American or Prussian. If there ought to be female +suffrage, let it be female, and not a mere imitation as coarse as the male +blackguard or as dull as the male clerk. If there is to be Socialism, let +it be social; that is, as different as possible from all the big +commercial departments of to-day. The really good journeyman tailor does +not cut his coat according to his cloth; he asks for more cloth. The +really practical statesman does not fit himself to existing conditions, he +denounces the conditions as unfit. History is like some deeply planted +tree which, though gigantic in girth, tapers away at last into tiny twigs; +and we are in the topmost branches. Each of us is trying to bend the tree +by a twig: to alter England through a distant colony, or to capture the +State through a small State department, or to destroy all voting through a +vote. In all such bewilderment he is wise who resists this temptation of +trivial triumph or surrender, and happy (in an echo of the Roman poet) who +remembers the roots of things. + + + + +THE NAMELESS MAN + + +There are only two forms of government the monarchy or personal government, +and the republic or impersonal government. England is not a government; +England is an anarchy, because there are so many kings. But there is one +real advantage (among many real disadvantages) in the method of abstract +democracy, and that is this: that under impersonal government politics are +so much more personal. In France and America, where the State is an +abstraction, political argument is quite full of human details--some might +even say of inhuman details. But in England, precisely because we are +ruled by personages, these personages do not permit personalities. In +England names are honoured, and therefore names are suppressed. But in +the republics, in France especially, a man can put his enemies' names into +his article and his own name at the end of it. + + +This is the essential condition of such candour. If we merely made our +anonymous articles more violent, we should be baser than we are now. We +should only be arming masked men with daggers instead of cudgels. And I, +for one, have always believed in the more general signing of articles, and +have signed my own articles on many occasions when, heaven knows, I had +little reason to be vain of them. I have heard many arguments for +anonymity; but they all seem to amount to the statement that anonymity is +safe, which is just what I complain of. In matters of truth the fact that +you don't want to publish something is, nine times out of ten, a proof +that you ought to publish it. + +But there is one answer to my perpetual plea for a man putting his name to +his writing. There is one answer, and there is only one answer, and it is +never given. It is that in the modern complexity very often a man's name +is almost as false as his pseudonym. The prominent person today is +eternally trying to lose a name, and to get a title. For instance, we all +read with earnestness and patience the pages of the 'Daily Mail', and +there are times when we feel moved to cry, "Bring to us the man who +thought these strange thoughts! Pursue him, capture him, take great care +of him. Bring him back to us tenderly, like some precious bale of silk, +that we may look upon the face of the man who desires such things to be +printed. Let us know his name; his social and medical pedigree." But in +the modern muddle (it might be said) how little should we gain if those +frankly fatuous sheets were indeed subscribed by the man who had inspired +them. Suppose that after every article stating that the Premier is a +piratical Socialist there were printed the simple word "Northcliffe." What +does that simple word suggest to the simple soul? To my simple soul +(uninstructed otherwise) it suggests a lofty and lonely crag somewhere in +the wintry seas towards the Orkheys or Norway; and barely clinging to the +top of this crag the fortress of some forgotten chieftain. As it happens, +of course, I know that the word does not mean this; it means another Fleet +Street journalist like myself or only different from myself in so far as +he has sought to secure money while I have sought to secure a jolly time. + +A title does not now even serve as a distinction: it does not distinguish. +A coronet is not merely an extinguisher: it is a hiding-place. + +But the really odd thing is this. This false quality in titles does not +merely apply to the new and vulgar titles, but to the old and historic +titles also. For hundreds of years titles in England have been +essentially unmeaning; void of that very weak and very human instinct in +which titles originated. In essential nonsense of application there is +nothing to choose between Northcliffe and Norfolk. The Duke of Norfolk +means (as my exquisite and laborious knowledge of Latin informs me) the +Leader of Norfolk. It is idle to talk against representative government +or for it. All government is representative government until it begins to +decay. Unfortunately (as is also evident) all government begins to decay +the instant it begins to govern. All aristocrats were first meant as +envoys of democracy; and most envoys of democracy lose no time in becoming +aristocrats. By the old essential human notion, the Duke of Norfolk ought +simply to be the first or most manifest of Norfolk men. + +I see growing and filling out before me the image of an actual Duke of +Norfolk. For instance, Norfolk men all make their voices run up very high +at the end of a sentence. The Duke of Norfolk's voice, therefore, ought +to end in a perfect shriek. They often (I am told) end sentences with the +word "together"; entirely irrespective of its meaning. Thus I shall +expect the Duke of Norfolk to say: "I beg to second the motion together"; +or "This is a great constitutional question together." I shall expect him +to know much about the Broads and the sluggish rivers above them; to know +about the shooting of water-fowl, and not to know too much about anything +else. Of mountains he must be wildly and ludicrously ignorant. He must +have the freshness of Norfolk; nay, even the flatness of Norfolk. He must +remind me of the watery expanses, the great square church towers and the +long level sunsets of East England. If he does not do this, I decline to +know him. + +I need not multiply such cases; the principle applies everywhere. Thus I +lose all interest in the Duke of Devonshire unless he can assure me that +his soul is filled with that strange warm Puritanism, Puritanism shot with +romance, which colours the West Country. He must eat nothing but clotted +cream, drink nothing but cider, reading nothing but 'Lorna Doone', and be +unacquainted with any town larger than Plymouth, which he must regard with +some awe, as the Central Babylon of the world. Again, I should expect the +Prince of Wales always to be full of the mysticism and dreamy ardour of +the Celtic fringe. + +Perhaps it may be thought that these demands are a little extreme; and +that our fancy is running away with us. Nevertheless, it is not my Duke +of Devonshire who is funny; but the real Duke of Devonshire. The point is +that the scheme of titles is a misfit throughout: hardly anywhere do we +find a modern man whose name and rank represent in any way his type, his +locality, or his mode of life. As a mere matter of social comedy, the +thing is worth noticing. You will meet a man whose name suggests a gouty +admiral, and you will find him exactly like a timid organist: you will +hear announced the name of a haughty and almost heathen grande dame, and +behold the entrance of a nice, smiling Christian cook. These are light +complications of the central fact of the falsification of all names and +ranks. Our peers are like a party of mediaeval knights who should have +exchanged shields, crests, and pennons. For the present rule seems to be +that the Duke of Sussex may lawfully own the whole of Essex; and that the +Marquis of Cornwall may own all the hills and valleys so long as they are +not Cornish. + +The clue to all this tangle is as simple as it is terrible. If England is +an aristocracy, England is dying. If this system IS the country, as some +say, the country is stiffening into more than the pomp and paralysis of +China. It is the final sign of imbecility in a people that it calls cats +dogs and describes the sun as the moon--and is very particular about the +preciseness of these pseudonyms. To be wrong, and to be carefully wrong, +that is the definition of decadence. The disease called aphasia, in which +people begin by saying tea when they mean coffee, commonly ends in their +silence. Silence of this stiff sort is the chief mark of the powerful +parts of modern society. They all seem straining to keep things in rather +than to let things out. For the kings of finance speechlessness is +counted a way of being strong, though it should rather be counted a way of +being sly. By this time the Parliament does not parley any more than the +Speaker speaks. Even the newspaper editors and proprietors are more +despotic and dangerous by what they do not utter than by what they do. We +have all heard the expression "golden silence." The expression "brazen +silence" is the only adequate phrase for our editors. If we wake out of +this throttled, gaping, and wordless nightmare, we must awake with a yell. +The Revolution that releases England from the fixed falsity of its +present position will be not less noisy than other revolutions. It will +contain, I fear, a great deal of that rude accomplishment described among +little boys as "calling names"; but that will not matter much so long as +they are the right names. + + + + +THE GARDENER AND THE GUINEA + + +Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as an English Peasant. Indeed, +the type can only exist in community, so much does it depend on +cooperation and common laws. One must not think primarily of a French +Peasant; any more than of a German Measle. The plural of the word is its +proper form; you cannot have a Peasant till you have a peasantry. The +essence of the Peasant ideal is equality; and you cannot be equal all by +yourself. + +Nevertheless, because human nature always craves and half creates the +things necessary to its happiness, there are approximations and +suggestions of the possibility of such a race even here. The nearest +approach I know to the temper of a Peasant in England is that of the +country gardener; not, of course, the great scientific gardener attached +to the great houses; he is a rich man's servant like any other. I mean +the small jobbing gardener who works for two or three moderate-sized +gardens; who works on his own; who sometimes even owns his house; and who +frequently owns his tools. This kind of man has really some of the +characteristics of the true Peasant--especially the characteristics that +people don't like. He has none of that irresponsible mirth which is the +consolation of most poor men in England. The gardener is even disliked +sometimes by the owners of the shrubs and flowers; because (like Micaiah) +he prophesies not good concerning them, but evil. The English gardener is +grim, critical, self-respecting; sometimes even economical. Nor is this +(as the reader's lightning wit will flash back at me) merely because the +English gardener is always a Scotch gardener. The type does exist in pure +South England blood and speech; I have spoken to the type. I was speaking +to the type only the other evening, when a rather odd little incident +occurred. + +It was one of those wonderful evenings in which the sky was warm and +radiant while the earth was still comparatively cold and wet. But it is +of the essence of Spring to be unexpected; as in that heroic and hackneyed +line about coming "before the swallow dares." Spring never is Spring +unless it comes too soon. And on a day like that one might pray, without +any profanity, that Spring might come on earth as it was in heaven. The +gardener was gardening. I was not gardening. It is needless to explain +the causes of this difference; it would be to tell the tremendous history +of two souls. It is needless because there is a more immediate +explanation of the case: the gardener and I, if not equal in agreement, +were at least equal in difference. It is quite certain that he would not +have allowed me to touch the garden if I had gone down on my knees to him. +And it is by no means certain that I should have consented to touch the +garden if he had gone down on his knees to me. His activity and my +idleness, therefore, went on steadily side by side through the long sunset +hours. + +And all the time I was thinking what a shame it was that he was not +sticking his spade into his own garden, instead of mine: he knew about the +earth and the underworld of seeds, the resurrection of Spring and the +flowers that appear in order like a procession marshalled by a herald. +He possessed the garden intellectually and spiritually, while I only +possessed it politically. I know more about flowers than coal-owners know +about coal; for at least I pay them honour when they are brought above the +surface of the earth. I know more about gardens than railway shareholders +seem to know about railways: for at least I know that it needs a man to +make a garden; a man whose name is Adam. But as I walked on that grass my +ignorance overwhelmed me--and yet that phrase is false, because it +suggests something like a storm from the sky above. It is truer to say +that my ignorance exploded underneath me, like a mine dug long before; and +indeed it was dug before the beginning of the ages. Green bombs of bulbs +and seeds were bursting underneath me everywhere; and, so far as my +knowledge went, they had been laid by a conspirator. I trod quite +uneasily on this uprush of the earth; the Spring is always only a fruitful +earthquake. With the land all alive under me I began to wonder more and +more why this man, who had made the garden, did not own the garden. If I +stuck a spade into the ground, I should be astonished at what I found +there...and just as I thought this I saw that the gardener was astonished +too. + +Just as I was wondering why the man who used the spade did not profit by +the spade, he brought me something he had found actually in my soil. It +was a thin worn gold piece of the Georges, of the sort which are called, I +believe, Spade Guineas. Anyhow, a piece of gold. + +If you do not see the parable as I saw it just then, I doubt if I can +explain it just now. He could make a hundred other round yellow fruits: +and this flat yellow one is the only sort that I can make. How it came +there I have not a notion--unless Edmund Burke dropped it in his hurry to +get back to Butler's Court. But there it was: this is a cold recital of +facts. There may be a whole pirate's treasure lying under the earth there, +for all I know or care; for there is no interest in a treasure without a +Treasure Island to sail to. If there is a treasure it will never be found, +for I am not interested in wealth beyond the dreams of avarice since I +know that avarice has no dreams, but only insomnia. And, for the other +party, my gardener would never consent to dig up the garden. + +Nevertheless, I was overwhelmed with intellectual emotions when I saw that +answer to my question; the question of why the garden did not belong to +the gardener. No better epigram could be put in reply than simply putting +the Spade Guinea beside the Spade. This was the only underground seed +that I could understand. Only by having a little more of that dull, +battered yellow substance could I manage to be idle while he was active. +I am not altogether idle myself; but the fact remains that the power is in +the thin slip of metal we call the Spade Guinea, not in the strong square +and curve of metal which we call the Spade. And then I suddenly +remembered that as I had found gold on my ground by accident, so richer +men in the north and west counties had found coal in their ground, also by +accident. + +I told the gardener that as he had found the thing he ought to keep it, +but that if he cared to sell it to me it could be valued properly, and +then sold. He said at first, with characteristic independence, that he +would like to keep it. He said it would make a brooch for his wife. But +a little later he brought it back to me without explanation. I could not +get a ray of light on the reason of his refusal; but he looked lowering +and unhappy. Had he some mystical instinct that it is just such +accidental and irrational wealth that is the doom of all peasantries? +Perhaps he dimly felt that the boy's pirate tales are true; and that +buried treasure is a thing for robbers and not for producers. Perhaps he +thought there was a curse on such capital: on the coal of the coal-owners, +on the gold of the gold-seekers. Perhaps there is. + + + + +THE VOTER AND THE TWO VOICES + + +The real evil of our Party System is commonly stated wrong. It was stated +wrong by Lord Rosebery, when he said that it prevented the best men from +devoting themselves to politics, and that it encouraged a fanatical +conflict. I doubt whether the best men ever would devote themselves to +politics. The best men devote themselves to pigs and babies and things +like that. And as for the fanatical conflict in party politics, I wish +there was more of it. The real danger of the two parties with their two +policies is that they unduly limit the outlook of the ordinary citizen. +They make him barren instead of creative, because he is never allowed to +do anything except prefer one existing policy to another. We have not got +real Democracy when the decision depends upon the people. We shall have +real Democracy when the problem depends upon the people. The ordinary man +will decide not only how he will vote, but what he is going to vote about. + +It is this which involves some weakness in many current aspirations +towards the extension of the suffrage; I mean that, apart from all +questions of abstract justice, it is not the smallness or largeness of the +suffrage that is at present the difficulty of Democracy. It is not the +quantity of voters, but the quality of the thing they are voting about. A +certain alternative is put before them by the powerful houses and the +highest political class. Two roads are opened to them; but they must go +down one or the other. They cannot have what they choose, but only which +they choose. To follow the process in practice we may put it thus. The +Suffragettes--if one may judge by their frequent ringing of his bell--want +to do something to Mr. Asquith. I have no notion what it is. Let us say +(for the sake of argument) that they want to paint him green. We will +suppose that it is entirely for that simple purpose that they are always +seeking to have private interviews with him; it seems as profitable as any +other end that I can imagine to such an interview. Now, it is possible +that the Government of the day might go in for a positive policy of +painting Mr. Asquith green; might give that reform a prominent place in +their programme. Then the party in opposition would adopt another policy, +not a policy of leaving Mr. Asquith alone (which would be considered +dangerously revolutionary), but some alternative course of action, as, for +instance, painting him red. Then both sides would fling themselves on the +people, they would both cry that the appeal was now to the Caesar of +Democracy. A dark and dramatic air of conflict and real crisis would +arise on both sides; arrows of satire would fly and swords of eloquence +flame. The Greens would say that Socialists and free lovers might well +want to paint Mr. Asquith red; they wanted to paint the whole town red. +Socialists would indignantly reply that Socialism was the reverse of +disorder, and that they only wanted to paint Mr. Asquith red so that he +might resemble the red pillar-boxes which typified State control. The +Greens would passionately deny the charge so often brought against them by +the Reds; they would deny that they wished Mr. Asquith green in order that +he might be invisible on the green benches of the Commons, as certain +terrified animals take the colour of their environment. + +There would be fights in the street perhaps, and abundance of ribbons, +flags, and badges, of the two colours. One crowd would sing, "Keep the +Red Flag Flying," and the other, "The Wearing of the Green." But when the +last effort had been made and the last moment come, when two crowds were +waiting in the dark outside the public building to hear the declaration of +the poll, then both sides alike would say that it was now for democracy to +do exactly what it chose. England herself, lifting her head in awful +loneliness and liberty, must speak and pronounce judgment. Yet this +might not be exactly true. England herself, lifting her head in awful +loneliness and liberty, might really wish Mr. Asquith to be pale blue. +The democracy of England in the abstract, if it had been allowed to make +up a policy for itself, might have desired him to be black with pink spots. +It might even have liked him as he is now. But a huge apparatus of +wealth, power, and printed matter has made it practically impossible for +them to bring home these other proposals, even if they would really prefer +them. No candidates will stand in the spotted interest; for candidates +commonly have to produce money either from their own pockets or the +pasty's; and in such circles spots are not worn. No man in the social +position of a Cabinet Minister, perhaps, will commit himself to the +pale-blue theory of Mr. Asquith; therefore it cannot be a Government +measure, therefore it cannot pass. + +Nearly all the great newspapers, both pompous and frivolous, will declare +dogmatically day after day, until every one half believes it, that red and +green are the only two colours in the paint-box. THE OBSERVER will say: +"No one who knows the solid framework of politics or the emphatic first +principles of an Imperial people can suppose for a moment that there is +any possible compromise to be made in such a matter; we must either fulfill +our manifest racial destiny and crown the edifice of ages with the august +figure of a Green Premier, or we must abandon our heritage, break our +promise to the Empire, fling ourselves into final anarchy, and allow the +flaming and demoniac image of a Red Premier to hover over our dissolution +and our doom." The DAILY MAIL would say: "There is no halfway house in +this matter; it must be green or red. We wish to see every honest +Englishman one colour or the other." And then some funny man in the +popular Press would star the sentence with a pun, and say that the DAILY +MAIL liked its readers to be green and its paper to be read. But no one +would even dare to whisper that there is such a thing as yellow. + +For the purposes of pure logic it is clearer to argue with silly examples +than with sensible ones: because silly examples are simple. But I could +give many grave and concrete cases of the kind of thing to which I refer. +In the later part of the Boer War both parties perpetually insisted in +every speech and pamphlet that annexation was inevitable and that it was +only a question whether Liberals or Tories should do it. It was not +inevitable in the least; it would have been perfectly easy to make peace +with the Boers as Christian nations commonly make peace with their +conquered enemies. Personally I think that it would have been better for +us in the most selfish sense, better for our pocket and prestige, if we +had never effected the annexation at all; but that is a matter of opinion. +What is plain is that it was not inevitable; it was not, as was said, +the only possible course; there were plenty of other courses; there were +plenty of other colours in the box. Again, in the discussion about +Socialism, it is repeatedly rubbed into the public mind that we must +choose between Socialism and some horrible thing that they call +Individualism. I don't know what it means, but it seems to mean that +anybody who happens to pull out a plum is to adopt the moral philosophy of +the young Horner--and say what a good boy he is for helping himself. + +It is calmly assumed that the only two possible types of society are a +Collectivist type of society and the present society that exists at this +moment and is rather like an animated muck-heap. It is quite unnecessary +to say that I should prefer Socialism to the present state of things. I +should prefer anarchism to the present state of things. But it is simply +not the fact that Collectivism is the only other scheme for a more equal +order. A Collectivist has a perfect right to think it the only sound +scheme; but it is not the only plausible or possible scheme. We might +have peasant proprietorship; we might have the compromise of Henry George; +we might have a number of tiny communes; we might have co-operation; we +might have Anarchist Communism; we might have a hundred things. I am not +saying that any of these are right, though I cannot imagine that any of +them could be worse than the present social madhouse, with its top-heavy +rich and its tortured poor; but I say that it is an evidence of the stiff +and narrow alternative offered to the civic mind, that the civic mind is +not, generally speaking, conscious of these other possibilities. The +civic mind is not free or alert enough to feel how much it has the world +before it. There are at least ten solutions of the Education question, +and no one knows which Englishmen really want. For Englishmen are only +allowed to vote about the two which are at that moment offered by the +Premier and the Leader of the Opposition. There are ten solutions of the +drink question; and no one knows which the democracy wants; for the +democracy is only allowed to fight about one Licensing Bill at a time. + +So that the situation comes to this: The democracy has a right to answer +questions, but it has no right to ask them. It is still the political +aristocracy that asks the questions. And we shall not be unreasonably +cynical if we suppose that the political aristocracy will always be rather +careful what questions it asks. And if the dangerous comfort and +self-flattery of modern England continues much longer there will be less +democratic value in an English election than in a Roman saturnalia of +slaves. For the powerful class will choose two courses of action, both of +them safe for itself, and then give the democracy the gratification of +taking one course or the other. The lord will take two things so much +alike that he would not mind choosing from them blindfold--and then for a +great jest he will allow the slaves to choose. + + + + +THE MAD OFFICIAL + + +Going mad is the slowest and dullest business in the world. I have very +nearly done it more than once in my boyhood, and so have nearly all my +friends, born under the general doom of mortals, but especially of moderns; +I mean the doom that makes a man come almost to the end of thinking +before he comes to the first chance of living. + +But the process of going mad is dull, for the simple reason that a man +does not know that it is going on. Routine and literalism and a certain +dry-throated earnestness and mental thirst, these are the very atmosphere +of morbidity. If once the man could become conscious of his madness, he +would cease to be man. He studies certain texts in Daniel or cryptograms +in Shakespeare through monstrously magnifying spectacles, which are on his +nose night and day. If once he could take off the spectacles he would +smash them. He deduces all his fantasies about the Sixth Seal or the +Anglo-Saxon Race from one unexamined and invisible first principle. If +he could once see the first principle, he would see that it is not there. + +This slow and awful self-hypnotism of error is a process that can occur +not only with individuals, but also with whole societies. It is hard to +pick out and prove; that is why it is hard to cure. But this mental +degeneration may be brought to one test, which I truly believe to be a +real test. A nation is not going mad when it does extravagant things, so +long as it does them in an extravagant spirit. Crusaders not cutting +their beards till they found Jerusalem, Jacobins calling each other +Harmodius and Epaminondas when their names were Jacques and Jules, these +are wild things, but they were done in wild spirits at a wild moment. + +But whenever we see things done wildly, but taken tamely, then the State +is growing insane. For instance, I have a gun license. For all I know, +this would logically allow me to fire off fifty-nine enormous field-guns +day and night in my back garden. I should not be surprised at a man doing +it; for it would be great fun. But I should be surprised at the +neighbours putting up with it, and regarding it as an ordinary thing +merely because it might happen to fulfill the letter of my license. + +Or, again, I have a dog license; and I may have the right (for all I know) +to turn ten thousand wild dogs loose in Buckinghamshire. I should not be +surprised if the law were like that; because in modern England there is +practically no law to be surprised at. I should not be surprised even at +the man who did it; for a certain kind of man, if he lived long under the +English landlord system, might do anything. But I should be surprised at +the people who consented to stand it. I should, in other words, think the +world a little mad if the incident, were received in silence. + +Now things every bit as wild as this are being received in silence every +day. All strokes slip on the smoothness of a polished wall. All blows +fall soundless on the softness of a padded cell. For madness is a passive +as well as an active state: it is a paralysis, a refusal of the nerves to +respond to the normal stimuli, as well as an unnatural stimulation. There +are commonwealths, plainly to be distinguished here and there in history, +which pass from prosperity to squalor, or from glory to insignificance, or +from freedom to slavery, not only in silence, but with serenity. The face +still smiles while the limbs, literally and loathsomely, are dropping from +the body. These are peoples that have lost the power of astonishment at +their own actions. When they give birth to a fantastic fashion or a +foolish law, they do not start or stare at the monster they have brought +forth. They have grown used to their own unreason; chaos is their cosmos; +and the whirlwind is the breath of their nostrils. These nations are +really in danger of going off their heads en masse; of becoming one vast +vision of imbecility, with toppling cities and crazy country-sides, all +dotted with industrious lunatics. One of these countries is modern +England. + +Now here is an actual instance, a small case of how our social conscience +really works: tame in spirit, wild in result, blank in realisation; a +thing without the light of mind in it. I take this paragraph from a daily +paper:--"At Epping, yesterday, Thomas Woolbourne, a Lambourne labourer, +and his wife were summoned for neglecting their five children. Dr. Alpin +said he was invited by the inspector of the N.S.P.C.C. to visit +defendants' cottage. Both the cottage and the children were dirty. The +children looked exceedingly well in health, but the conditions would be +serious in case of illness. Defendants were stated to be sober. The man +was discharged. The woman, who said she was hampered by the cottage +having no water supply and that she was ill, was sentenced to six weeks' +imprisonment. The sentence caused surprise, and the woman was removed +crying, 'Lord save me!'" + +I know no name for this but Chinese. It calls up the mental picture of +some archaic and changeless Eastern Court, in which men with dried faces +and stiff ceremonial costumes perform some atrocious cruelty to the +accompaniment of formal proverbs and sentences of which the very meaning +has been forgotten. In both cases the only thing in the whole farrago +that can be called real is the wrong. If we apply the lightest touch of +reason to the whole Epping prosecution it dissolves into nothing. + +I here challenge any person in his five wits to tell me what that woman +was sent to prison for. Either it was for being poor, or it was for being +ill. Nobody could suggest, nobody will suggest, nobody, as a matter of +fact, did suggest, that she had committed any other crime. The doctor was +called in by a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Was +this woman guilty of cruelty to children? Not in the least. Did the +doctor say she was guilty of cruelty to children? Not in the least. Was +these any evidence even remotely bearing on the sin of cruelty? Not a rap. +The worse that the doctor could work himself up to saying was that +though the children were "exceedingly" well, the conditions would be +serious in case of illness. If the doctor will tell me any conditions +that would be comic in case of illness, I shall attach more weight to his +argument. + +Now this is the worst effect of modern worry. The mad doctor has gone mad. +He is literally and practically mad; and still he is quite literally and +practically a doctor. The only question is the old one, Quis docebit +ipsum doctorem? Now cruelty to children is an utterly unnatural thing; +instinctively accursed of earth and heaven. But neglect of children is a +natural thing; like neglect of any other duty, it is a mere difference of +degree that divides extending arms and legs in calisthenics and extending +them on the rack. It is a mere difference of degree that separates any +operation from any torture. The thumb-screw can easily be called Manicure. +Being pulled about by wild horses can easily be called Massage. The +modern problem is not so much what people will endure as what they will +not endure. But I fear I interrupt.... The boiling oil is boiling; and +the Tenth Mandarin is already reciting the "Seventeen Serious Principles +and the Fifty-three Virtues of the Sacred Emperor." + + + + +THE ENCHANTED MAN + + +When I arrived to see the performance of the Buckinghamshire Players, who +acted Miss Gertrude Robins's POT LUCK at Naphill a short time ago, it is +the distressing, if scarcely surprising, truth that I entered very late. +This would have mattered little, I hope, to any one, but that late comers +had to be forced into front seats. For a real popular English audience +always insists on crowding in the back part of the hall; and (as I have +found in many an election) will endure the most unendurable taunts rather +than come forward. The English are a modest people; that is why they are +entirely ruled and run by the few of them that happen to be immodest. In +theatrical affairs the fact is strangely notable; and in most playhouses +we find the bored people in front and the eager people behind. + +As far as the performance went I was quite the reverse of a bored person; +but I may have been a boring person, especially as I was thus required to +sit in the seats of the scornful. It will be a happy day in the dramatic +world when all ladies have to take off their hats and all critics have to +take off their heads. The people behind will have a chance then. And as +it happens, in this case, I had not so much taken off my head as lost it. +I had lost it on the road; on that strange journey that was the cause of +my coming in late. I have a troubled recollection of having seen a very +good play and made a very bad speech; I have a cloudy recollection of +talking to all sorts of nice people afterwards, but talking to them +jerkily and with half a head, as a man talks when he has one eye on a +clock. + +And the truth is that I had one eye on an ancient and timeless clock, hung +uselessly in heaven; whose very name has passed into a figure for such +bemused folly. In the true sense of an ancient phrase, I was moonstruck. +A lunar landscape a scene of winter moonlight had inexplicably got in +between me and all other scenes. If any one had asked me I could not have +said what it was; I cannot say now. Nothing had occurred to me; except +the breakdown of a hired motor on the ridge of a hill. It was not an +adventure; it was a vision. + +I had started in wintry twilight from my own door; and hired a small car +that found its way across the hills towards Naphill. But as night +blackened and frost brightened and hardened it I found the way +increasingly difficult; especially as the way was an incessant ascent. +Whenever we topped a road like a staircase it was only to turn into a yet +steeper road like a ladder. + +At last, when I began to fancy that I was spirally climbing the Tower of +Babel in a dream, I was brought to fact by alarming noises, stoppage, and +the driver saying that "it couldn't be done." I got out of the car and +suddenly forgot that I had ever been in it. + +From the edge of that abrupt steep I saw something indescribable, which I +am now going to describe. When Mr. Joseph Chamberlain delivered his great +patriotic speech on the inferiority of England to the Dutch parts of South +Africa, he made use of the expression "the illimitable veldt." The word +"veldt" is Dutch, and the word "illimitable" is Double Dutch. But the +meditative statesman probably meant that the new plains gave him a sense +of largeness and dreariness which he had never found in England. Well, +if he never found it in England it was because he never looked for it in +England. In England there is an illimitable number of illimitable veldts. +I saw six or seven separate eternities in cresting as many different +hills. One cannot find anything more infinite than a finite horizon, free +and lonely and innocent. The Dutch veldt may be a little more desolate +than Birmingham. But I am sure it is not so desolate as that English hill +was, almost within a cannon-shot of High Wycombe. + +I looked across a vast and voiceless valley straight at the moon, as if at +a round mirror. It may have been the blue moon of the proverb; for on +that freezing night the very moon seemed blue with cold. A deathly frost +fastened every branch and blade to its place. The sinking and softening +forests, powdered with a gray frost, fell away underneath me into an abyss +which seemed unfathomable. One fancied the world was soundless only +because it was bottomless: it seemed as if all songs and cries had been +swallowed in some unresisting stillness under the roots of the hills. I +could fancy that if I shouted there would be no echo; that if I hurled +huge stones there would be no noise of reply. A dumb devil had bewitched +the landscape: but that again does not express the best or worst of it. +All those hoary and frosted forests expressed something so inhuman that it +has no human name. A horror of unconsciousness lay on them; that is the +nearest phrase I know. It was as if one were looking at the back of the +world; and the world did not know it. I had taken the universe in the +rear. I was behind the scenes. I was eavesdropping upon an unconscious +creation. + +I shall not express what the place expressed. I am not even sure that it +is a thing that ought to be expressed. There was something heathen about +its union of beauty and death; sorrow seemed to glitter, as it does in +some of the great pagan poems. I understood one of the thousand poetical +phrases of the populace, "a God-forsaken place." Yet something was +present there; and I could not yet find the key to my fixed impression. +Then suddenly I remembered the right word. It was an enchanted place. +It had been put to sleep. In a flash I remembered all the fairy-tales +about princes turned to marble and princesses changed to snow. We were in +a land where none could strive or cry out; a white nightmare. The moon +looked at me across the valley like the enormous eye of a hypnotist; the +one white eye of the world. + +There was never a better play than POT LUCK; for it tells a tale with a +point and a tale that might happen any day among English peasants. There +were never better actors than the local Buckinghamshire Players: for they +were acting their own life with just that rise into exaggeration which is +the transition from life to art. But all the time I was mesmerised by the +moon; I saw all these men and women as enchanted things. The poacher shot +pheasants; the policeman tracked pheasants; the wife hid pheasants; they +were all (especially the policeman) as true as death. But there was +something more true to death than true to life about it all: the figures +were frozen with a magic frost of sleep or fear or custom such as does not +cramp the movements of the poor men of other lands. I looked at the +poacher and the policeman and the gun; then at the gun and the policeman +and the poacher; and I could find no name for the fancy that haunted and +escaped me. The poacher believed in the Game Laws as much as the +policeman. The poacher's wife not only believed in the Game Laws, but +protected them as well as him. She got a promise from her husband that he +would never shoot another pheasant. Whether he kept it I doubt; I fancy +he sometimes shot a pheasant even after that. But I am sure he never shot +a policeman. For we live in an enchanted land. + + + + +THE SUN WORSHIPPER + + +There is a shrewd warning to be given to all people who are in revolt. +And in the present state of things, I think all men are revolting in that +sense; except a few who are revolting in the other sense. But the warning +to Socialists and other revolutionaries is this: that as sure as fate, if +they use any argument which is atheist or materialistic, that argument +will always be turned against them at last by the tyrant and the slave. +To-day I saw one too common Socialist argument turned Tory, so to speak, +in a manner quite startling and insane. I mean that modern doctrine, +taught, I believe, by most followers of Karl Marx, which is called the +materialist theory of history. The theory is, roughly, this: that all the +important things in history are rooted in an economic motive. In short, +history is a science; a science of the search for food. + +Now I desire, in passing only, to point out that this is not merely untrue, +but actually the reverse of the truth. It is putting it too feebly to +say that the history of man is not only economic. Man would not have any +history if he were only economic. The need for food is certainly +universal, so universal that it is not even human. Cows have an economic +motive, and apparently (I dare not say what ethereal delicacies may be in +a cow) only an economic motive. The cow eats grass anywhere and never +eats anything else. In short, the cow does fulfill the materialist theory +of history: that is why the cow has no history. "A History of Cows" would +be one of the simplest and briefest of standard works. But if some cows +thought it wicked to eat long grass and persecuted all who did so; if the +cow with the crumpled horn were worshipped by some cows and gored to death +by others; if cows began to have obvious moral preferences over and above +a desire for grass, then cows would begin to have a history. They would +also begin to have a highly unpleasant time, which is perhaps the same +thing. + +The economic motive is not merely not inside all history; it is actually +outside all history. It belongs to Biology or the Science of Life; that +is, it concerns things like cows, that are not so very much alive. Men +are far too much alive to get into the science of anything; for them we +have made the art of history. To say that human actions have depended on +economic support is like saying that they have depended on having two legs. +It accounts for action, but not for such varied action; it is a +condition, but not a motive; it is too universal to be useful. Certainly +a soldier wins the Victoria Cross on two legs; he also runs away on two +legs. But if our object is to discover whether he will become a V.C. or a +coward the most careful inspection of his legs will yield us little or no +information. In the same way a man will want food if he is a dreamy +romantic tramp, and will want food if he is a toiling and sweating +millionaire. A man must be supported on food as he must be supported on +legs. But cows (who have no history) are not only furnished more +generously in the matter of legs, but can see their food on a much grander +and more imaginative scale. A cow can lift up her eyes to the hills and +see uplands and peaks of pure food. Yet we never see the horizon broken +by crags of cake or happy hills of cheese. + +So far the cow (who has no history) seems to have every other advantage. +But history--the whole point of history--precisely is that some two legged +soldiers ran away while others, of similar anatomical structure, did not. +The whole point of history precisely is: some people (like poets and +tramps) chance getting money by disregarding it, while others (such as +millionaires) will absolutely lose money for the fun of bothering about it. +There would be no history if there were only economic history. All the +historical events have been due to the twists and turns given to the +economic instinct by forces that were not economic. For instance, this +theory traces the French war of Edward III to a quarrel about the French +wines. Any one who has even smelt the Middle Ages must feel fifty answers +spring to his lips; but in this cause one will suffice. There would have +been no such war, then, if we all drank water like cows. But when one is +a man one enters the world of historic choice. The act of drinking wine +is one that requires explanation. So is the act of not drinking wine. + +But the capitalist can get much more fun out of the doctrine. + +When strikes were splitting England right and left a little while ago, an +ingenious writer, humorously describing himself as a Liberal, said that +they were entirely due to the hot weather. The suggestion was eagerly +taken up by other creatures of the same kind, and I really do not see why +it was not carried farther and applied to other lamentable uprisings in +history. Thus, it is a remarkable fact that the weather is generally +rather warm in Egypt; and this cannot but throw a light on the sudden and +mysterious impulse of the Israelites to escape from captivity. The +English strikers used some barren republican formula (and as the +definitions of the medieval schoolmen), some academic shibboleth about +being free men and not being forced to work except for a wage accepted by +them. Just in the same way the Israelites in Egypt employed some dry +scholastic quibble about the extreme difficulty of making bricks with +nothing to make them of. But whatever fantastic intellectual excuses they +may have put forward for their strange and unnatural conduct in walking +out when the prison door was open, there can be no doubt that the real +cause was the warm weather. Such a climate notoriously also produces +delusions and horrible fancies, such as Mr. Kipling describes. And it +was while their brains were disordered by the heat that the Jews fancied +that they were founding a nation, that they were led by a prophet, and, in +short, that they were going to be of some importance in the affairs of the +world. + +Nor can the historical student fail to note that the French monarchy was +pulled down in August; and that August is a month in summer. + +In spite of all this, however, I have some little difficulty myself in +accepting so simple a form of the Materialist Theory of History (at these +words all Marxian Socialists will please bow their heads three times), and +I rather think that exceptions might be found to the principle. Yet it is +not chiefly such exceptions that embarrass my belief in it. + +No; my difficulty is rather in accounting for the strange coincidence by +which the shafts of Apollo split us exclusively along certain lines of +class and of economics. I cannot understand why all solicitors did not +leave off soliciting, all doctors leave off doctoring, all judges leave +off judging, all benevolent bankers leave off lending money at high +interest, and all rising politicians leave off having nothing to add to +what their right honourable friend told the House about eight years ago. +The quaint theoretic plea of the workers, that they were striking because +they were ill paid, seems to receive a sort of wild and hazy confirmation +from the fact that, throughout the hottest weather, judges and other +persons who are particularly well paid showed no disposition to strike. +I have to fall back therefore on metaphysical fancies of my own; and I +continue to believe that the anger of the English poor (to steal a phrase +from Sir Thomas Browne) came from something in man that is other than the +elements and that owes no homage unto the sun. + +When comfortable people come to talking stuff of that sort, it is really +time that the comfortable classes made a short summary and confession of +what they have really done with the very poor Englishman. The dawn of the +mediaeval civilisation found him a serf; which is a different thing from a +slave. He had security; although the man belonged to the land rather than +the land to the man. He could not be evicted; his rent could not be +raised. In practice, it came to something like this: that if the lord +rode down his cabbages he had not much chance of redress; but he had the +chance of growing more cabbages. He had direct access to the means of +production. + +Since then the centuries in England have achieved something different; and +something which, fortunately, is perfectly easy to state. There is no +doubt about what we have done. We have kept the inequality, but we have +destroyed the security. The man is not tied to the land, as in serfdom; +nor is the land tied to the man, as in a peasantry. The rich man has +entered into an absolute ownership of farms and fields; and (in the modern +industrial phrase) he has locked out the English people. They can only +find an acre to dig or a house to sleep in by accepting such competitive +and cruel terms as he chooses to impose. + +Well, what would happen then, over the larger parts of the planet, parts +inhabited by savages? Savages, of course, would hunt and fish. That +retreat for the English poor was perceived; and that retreat was cut off. +Game laws were made to extend over districts like the Arctic snows or the +Sahara. The rich man had property over animals he had no more dreamed of +than a governor of Roman Africa had dreamed of a giraffe. He owned all +the birds that passed over his land: he might as well have owned all the +clouds that passed over it. If a rabbit ran from Smith's land to Brown's +land, it belonged to Brown, as if it were his pet dog. The logical +answer to this would be simple: Any one stung on Brown's land ought to be +able to prosecute Brown for keeping a dangerous wasp without a muzzle. + +Thus the poor man was forced to be a tramp along the roads and to sleep in +the open. That retreat was perceived; and that retreat was cut off. A +landless man in England can be punished for behaving in the only way that +a landless man can behave: for sleeping under a hedge in Surrey or on a +seat on the Embankment. His sin is described (with a hideous sense of +fun) as that of having no visible means of subsistence. + +The last possibility, of course, is that upon which all human beings would +fall back if they were sinking in a swamp or impaled on a spike or +deserted on an island. It is that of calling out for pity to the passerby. +That retreat was perceived; and that retreat was cut off. A man in +England can be sent to prison for asking another man for help in the name +of God. + +You have done all these things, and by so doing you have forced the poor +to serve the rich, and to serve them on the terms of the rich. They have +still one weapon left against the extremes of insult and unfairness: that +weapon is their numbers and the necessity of those numbers to the working +of that vast and slavish machine. And because they still had this last +retreat (which we call the Strike), because this retreat was also +perceived, there was talk of this retreat being also cut off. Whereupon +the workmen became suddenly and violently angry; and struck at your Boards +and Committees here, there, and wherever they could. And you opened on +them the eyes of owls, and said, "It must be the sunshine." You could only +go on saying, "The sun, the sun." That was what the man in Ibsen said, +when he had lost his wits. + + + + +THE WRONG INCENDIARY + + +I stood looking at the Coronation Procession--I mean the one in +Beaconsfield; not the rather elephantine imitation of it which, I believe, +had some success in London--and I was seriously impressed. Most of my +life is passed in discovering with a deathly surprise that I was quite +right. Never before have I realised how right I was in maintaining that +the small area expresses the real patriotism: the smaller the field the +taller the tower. There were things in our local procession that did not +(one might even reverently say, could not) occur in the London procession. +One of the most prominent citizens in our procession (for instance) had +his face blacked. Another rode on a pony which wore pink and blue +trousers. I was not present at the Metropolitan affair, and therefore my +assertion is subject to such correction as the eyewitness may always offer +to the absentee. But I believe with some firmness that no such features +occurred in the London pageant. + +But it is not of the local celebration that I would speak, but of +something that occurred before it. In the field beyond the end of my +garden the materials for a bonfire had been heaped; a hill of every kind +of rubbish and refuse and things that nobody wants; broken chairs, dead +trees, rags, shavings, newspapers, new religions, in pamphlet form, +reports of the Eugenic Congress, and so on. All this refuse, material and +mental, it was our purpose to purify and change to holy flame on the day +when the King was crowned. The following is an account of the rather +strange thing that really happened. I do not know whether it was any sort +of symbol; but I narrate it just as it befell. + +In the middle of the night I woke up slowly and listened to what I +supposed to be the heavy crunching of a cart-wheel along a road of loose +stones. Then it grew louder, and I thought somebody was shooting out +cartloads of stones; then it seemed as if the shock was breaking big +stones into pieces. Then I realised that under this sound there was also +a strange, sleepy, almost inaudible roar; and that on top of it every now +and then came pigmy pops like a battle of penny pistols. Then I knew what +it was. I went to the window; and a great firelight flung across two +meadows smote me where I stood. "Oh, my holy aunt," I thought, "they've +mistaken the Coronation Day." + +And yet when I eyed the transfigured scene it did not seem exactly like a +bonfire or any ritual illumination. It was too chaotic, and too close to +the houses of the town. All one side of a cottage was painted pink with +the giant brush of flame; the next side, by contrast, was painted as black +as tar. Along the front of this ran a blackening rim or rampart edged +with a restless red ribbon that danced and doubled and devoured like a +scarlet snake; and beyond it was nothing but a deathly fulness of light. + +I put on some clothes and went down the road; all the dull or startling +noises in that din of burning growing louder and louder as I walked. The +heaviest sound was that of an incessant cracking and crunching, as if some +giant with teeth of stone was breaking up the bones of the world. I had +not yet come within sight of the real heart and habitat of the fire; but +the strong red light, like an unnatural midnight sunset, powdered the +grayest grass with gold and flushed the few tall trees up to the last +fingers of their foliage. Behind them the night was black and cavernous; +and one could only trace faintly the ashen horizon beyond the dark and +magic Wilton Woods. As I went, a workman on a bicycle shot a rood past me; +then staggered from his machine and shouted to me to tell him where the +fire was. I answered that I was going to see, but thought it was the +cottages by the wood-yard. He said, "My God!" and vanished. + +A little farther on I found grass and pavement soaking and flooded, and +the red and yellow flames repainted in pools and puddles. Beyond were dim +huddles of people and a small distant voice shouting out orders. The +fire-engines were at work. I went on among the red reflections, which +seemed like subterranean fires; I had a singular sensation of being in a +very important dream. Oddly enough, this was increased when I found that +most of my friends and neighbours were entangled in the crowd. Only in +dreams do we see familiar faces so vividly against a black background of +midnight. I was glad to find (for the workman cyclist's sake) that the +fire was not in the houses by the wood-yard, but in the wood-yard itself. +There was no fear for human life, and the thing was seemingly accidental; +though there were the usual ugly whispers about rivalry and revenge. But +for all that I could not shake off my dream-drugged soul a swollen, tragic, +portentous sort of sensation, that it all had something to do with the +crowning of the English King, and the glory or the end of England. It was +not till I saw the puddles and the ashes in broad daylight next morning +that I was fundamentally certain that my midnight adventure had not +happened outside this world. + +But I was more arrogant than the ancient Emperors Pharaoh or +Nebuchadnezzar; for I attempted to interpret my own dream. The fire was +feeding upon solid stacks of unused beech or pine, gray and white piles of +virgin wood. It was an orgy of mere waste; thousands of good things were +being killed before they had ever existed. Doors, tables, walkingsticks, +wheelbarrows, wooden swords for boys, Dutch dolls for girls I could hear +the cry of each uncreated thing as it expired in the flames. And then I +thought of that other noble tower of needless things that stood in the +field beyond my garden; the bonfire, the mountain of vanities, that is +meant for burning; and how it stood dark and lonely in the meadow, and the +birds hopped on its corners and the dew touched and spangled its twigs. +And I remembered that there are two kinds of fires, the Bad Fire and the +Good Fire the last must surely be the meaning of Bonfire. And the paradox +is that the Good Fire is made of bad things, of things that we do not want; +but the Bad Fire is made of good things, of things that we do want; like +all that wealth of wood that might have made dolls and chairs and tables, +but was only making a hueless ash. + +And then I saw, in my vision, that just as there are two fires, so there +are two revolutions. And I saw that the whole mad modern world is a race +between them. Which will happen first--the revolution in which bad things +shall perish, or that other revolution, in which good things shall perish +also? One is the riot that all good men, even the most conservative, +really dream of, when the sneer shall be struck from the face of the +well-fed; when the wine of honour shall be poured down the throat of +despair; when we shall, so far as to the sons of flesh is possible, take +tyranny and usury and public treason and bind them into bundles and burn +them. And the other is the disruption that may come prematurely, +negatively, and suddenly in the night; like the fire in my little town. + +It may come because the mere strain of modern life is unbearable; and in +it even the things that men do desire may break down; marriage and fair +ownership and worship and the mysterious worth of man. The two +revolutions, white and black, are racing each other like two railway +trains; I cannot guess the issue...but even as I thought of it, the +tallest turret of the timber stooped and faltered and came down in a +cataract of noises. And the fire, finding passage, went up with a spout +like a fountain. It stood far up among the stars for an instant, a +blazing pillar of brass fit for a pagan conqueror, so high that one could +fancy it visible away among the goblin trees of Burnham or along the +terraces of the Chiltern Hills. + + + + +THE FREE MAN + + +The idea of liberty has ultimately a religious root; that is why men find +it so easy to die for and so difficult to define. It refers finally to +the fact that, while the oyster and the palm tree have to save their lives +by law, man has to save his soul by choice. Ruskin rebuked Coleridge for +praising freedom, and said that no man would wish the sun to be free. It +seems enough to answer that no man would wish to be the sun. Speaking as +a Liberal, I have much more sympathy with the idea of Joshua stopping the +sun in heaven than with the idea of Ruskin trotting his daily round in +imitation of its regularity. Joshua was a Radical, and his astronomical +act was distinctly revolutionary. For all revolution is the mastering of +matter by the spirit of man, the emergence of that human authority within +us which, in the noble words of Sir Thomas Browne, "owes no homage unto +the sun." + +Generally, the moral substance of liberty is this: that man is not meant +merely to receive good laws, good food or good conditions, like a tree in +a garden, but is meant to take a certain princely pleasure in selecting +and shaping like the gardener. Perhaps that is the meaning of the trade +of Adam. And the best popular words for rendering the real idea of +liberty are those which speak of man as a creator. We use the word "make" +about most of the things in which freedom is essential, as a country walk +or a friendship or a love affair. When a man "makes his way" through a +wood he has really created, he has built a road, like the Romans. When a +man "makes a friend," he makes a man. And in the third case we talk of a +man "making love," as if he were (as, indeed, he is) creating new masses +and colours of that flaming material an awful form of manufacture. In its +primary spiritual sense, liberty is the god in man, or, if you like the +word, the artist. + +In its secondary political sense liberty is the living influence of the +citizen on the State in the direction of moulding or deflecting it. Men +are the only creatures that evidently possess it. On the one hand, the +eagle has no liberty; he only has loneliness. On the other hand, ants, +bees, and beavers exhibit the highest miracle of the State influencing the +citizen; but no perceptible trace of the citizen influencing the State. +You may, if you like, call the ants a democracy as you may call the bees a +despotism. But I fancy that the architectural ant who attempted to +introduce an art nouveau style of ant-hill would have a career as curt and +fruitless as the celebrated bee who wanted to swarm alone. The isolation +of this idea in humanity is akin to its religious character; but it is not +even in humanity by any means equally distributed. The idea that the +State should not only be supported by its children, like the ant-hill, but +should be constantly criticised and reconstructed by them, is an idea +stronger in Christendom than any other part of the planet; stronger in +Western than Eastern Europe. And touching the pure idea of the individual +being free to speak and act within limits, the assertion of this idea, we +may fairly say, has been the peculiar honour of our own country. For my +part I greatly prefer the Jingoism of Rule Britannia to the Imperialism of +The Recessional. I have no objection to Britannia ruling the waves. I +draw the line when she begins to rule the dry land--and such damnably dry +land too--as in Africa. And there was a real old English sincerity in the +vulgar chorus that "Britons never shall be slaves." We had no equality +and hardly any justice; but freedom we were really fond of. And I think +just now it is worth while to draw attention to the old optimistic +prophecy that "Britons never shall be slaves." + +The mere love of liberty has never been at a lower ebb in England than it +has been for the last twenty years. Never before has it been so easy to +slip small Bills through Parliament for the purpose of locking people up. +Never was it so easy to silence awkward questions, or to protect +highplaced officials. Two hundred years ago we turned out the Stuarts +rather than endanger the Habeas Corpus Act. Two years ago we abolished the +Habeas Corpus Act rather than turn out the Home Secretary. We passed a +law (which is now in force) that an Englishman's punishment shall not +depend upon judge and jury, but upon the governors and jailers who have +got hold of him. But this is not the only case. The scorn of liberty is +in the air. A newspaper is seized by the police in Trafalgar Square +without a word of accusation or explanation. The Home Secretary says that +in his opinion the police are very nice people, and there is an end of the +matter. A Member of Parliament attempts to criticise a peerage. The +Speaker says he must not criticise a peerage, and there the matter drops. + +Political liberty, let us repeat, consists in the power of criticising +those flexible parts of the State which constantly require reconsideration, +not the basis, but the machinery. In plainer words, it means the power +of saying the sort of things that a decent but discontented citizen wants +to say. He does not want to spit on the Bible, or to run about without +clothes, or to read the worst page in Zola from the pulpit of St. Paul's. +Therefore the forbidding of these things (whether just or not) is only +tyranny in a secondary and special sense. It restrains the abnormal, not +the normal man. But the normal man, the decent discontented citizen, does +want to protest against unfair law courts. He does want to expose +brutalities of the police. He does want to make game of a vulgar +pawnbroker who is made a Peer. He does want publicly to warn people +against unscrupulous capitalists and suspicious finance. If he is run in +for doing this (as he will be) he does want to proclaim the character or +known prejudices of the magistrate who tries him. If he is sent to prison +(as he will be) he does want to have a clear and civilised sentence, +telling him when he will come out. And these are literally and exactly +the things that he now cannot get. That is the almost cloying humour of +the present situation. I can say abnormal things in modern magazines. It +is the normal things that I am not allowed to say. I can write in some +solemn quarterly an elaborate article explaining that God is the devil; I +can write in some cultured weekly an aesthetic fancy describing how I +should like to eat boiled baby. The thing I must not write is rational +criticism of the men and institutions of my country. + +The present condition of England is briefly this: That no Englishman can +say in public a twentieth part of what he says in private. One cannot say, +for instance, that--But I am afraid I must leave out that instance, +because one cannot say it. I cannot prove my case--because it is so true. + + + + +THE HYPOTHETICAL HOUSEHOLDER + + +We have read of some celebrated philosopher who was so absent-minded that +he paid a call at his own house. My own absent-mindedness is extreme, and +my philosophy, of course, is the marvel of men and angels. But I never +quite managed to be so absent-minded as that. Some yards at least from my +own door, something vaguely familiar has always caught my eye; and thus +the joke has been spoiled. Of course I have quite constantly walked into +another man's house, thinking it was my own house; my visits became almost +monotonous. But walking into my own house and thinking it was another +man's house is a flight of poetic detachment still beyond me. Something +of the sensations that such an absent-minded man must feel I really felt +the other day; and very pleasant sensations they were. The best parts of +every proper romance are the first chapter and the last chapter; and to +knock at a strange door and find a nice wife would be to concentrate the +beginning and end of all romance. + +Mine was a milder and slighter experience, but its thrill was of the same +kind. For I strolled through a place I had imagined quite virgin and +unvisited (as far as I was concerned), and I suddenly found I was treading +in my own footprints, and the footprints were nearly twenty years old. + +It was one of those stretches of country which always suggests an almost +unnatural decay; thickets and heaths that have grown out of what were once +great gardens. Garden flowers still grow there as wild flowers, as it +says in some good poetic couplet which I forget; and there is something +singularly romantic and disastrous about seeing things that were so long a +human property and care fighting for their own hand in the thicket. One +almost expects to find a decayed dog-kennel; with the dog evolved into a +wolf. + +This desolate garden-land had been even in my youth scrappily planned out +for building. The half-built or empty houses had appeared quite +threateningly on the edge of this heath even when I walked over it years +ago and almost as a boy. I was astonished that the building had gone no +farther; I suppose somebody went bankrupt and somebody else disliked +building. But I remember, especially along one side of this tangle or +coppice, that there had once been a row of half-built houses. The brick +of which they were built was a sort of plain pink; everything else was a +blinding white; the houses smoked with white dust and white sawdust; and +on many of the windows were rubbed those round rough disks of white which +always delighted me as a child. They looked like the white eyes of some +blind giant. + +I could see the crude, parched pink-and-white villas still; though I had +not thought at all of them for a quarter of my life; and had not thought +much of them even when I saw them. Then I was an idle, but eager youth +walking out from London; now I was a most reluctantly busy middle-aged +person, coming in from the country. Youth, I think, seems farther off +than childhood, for it made itself more of a secret. Like a prenatal +picture, distant, tiny, and quite distinct, I saw this heath on which I +stood; and I looked around for the string of bright, half-baked villas. +They still stood there; but they were quite russet and weather-stained, as +if they had stood for centuries. + +I remembered exactly what I had done on that day long ago. I had half +slid on a miry descent; it was still there; a little lower I had knocked +off the top of a thistle; the thistles had not been discouraged, but were +still growing. I recalled it because I had wondered why one knocks off +the tops of thistles; and then I had thought of Tarquin; and then I had +recited most of Macaulay's VIRGINIA to myself, for I was young. And then +I came to a tattered edge where the very tuft had whitened with the +sawdust and brick-dust from the new row of houses; and two or three green +stars of dock and thistle grew spasmodically about the blinding road. + +I remembered how I had walked up this new one-sided street all those years +ago; and I remembered what I had thought. I thought that this red and +white glaring terrace at noon was really more creepy and more lonesome +than a glimmering churchyard at midnight. The churchyard could only be +full of the ghosts of the dead; but these houses were full of the ghosts +of the unborn. And a man can never find a home in the future as he can +find it in the past. I was always fascinated by that mediaeval notion of +erecting a rudely carpentered stage in the street, and acting on it a +miracle play of the Holy Family or the Last Judgment. And I thought to +myself that each of these glaring, gaping, new jerry-built boxes was +indeed a rickety stage erected for the acting of a real miracle play; that +human family that is almost the holy one, and that human death that is +near to the last judgment. + +For some foolish reason the last house but one in that imperfect row +especially haunted me with its hollow grin and empty window-eyes. +Something in the shape of this brick-and-mortar skeleton was attractive; +and there being no workmen about, I strolled into it for curiosity and +solitude. I gave, with all the sky-deep gravity of youth, a benediction +upon the man who was going to live there. I even remember that for the +convenience of meditation I called him James Harrogate. + +As I reflected it crawled back into my memory that I had mildly played the +fool in that house on that distant day. I had some red chalk in my pocket, +I think, and I wrote things on the unpapered plaster walls; things +addressed to Mr. Harrogate. A dim memory told me that I had written up in +what I supposed to be the dining-room: + + +James Harrogate, thank God for meat, +Then eat and eat and eat and eat, + + +or something of that kind. I faintly feel that some longer lyric was +scrawled on the walls of what looked like a bedroom, something beginning: + + +When laying what you call your head, +O Harrogate, upon your bed, + + +and there all my memory dislimns and decays. But I could still see quite +vividly the plain plastered walls and the rude, irregular writing, and the +places where the red chalk broke. I could see them, I mean, in memory; +for when I came down that road again after a sixth of a century the house +was very different. + +I had seen it before at noon, and now I found it in the dusk. But its +windows glowed with lights of many artificial sorts; one of its low square +windows stood open; from this there escaped up the road a stream of +lamplight and a stream of singing. Some sort of girl, at least, was +standing at some sort of piano, and singing a song of healthy +sentimentalism in that house where long ago my blessing had died on the +wind and my poems been covered up by the wallpaper. I stood outside that +lamplit house at dusk full of those thoughts that I shall never express if +I live to be a million any better than I expressed them in red chalk upon +the wall. But after I had hovered a little, and was about to withdraw, a +mad impulse seized me. I rang the bell. I said in distinct accents to a +very smart suburban maid, "Does Mr. James Harrogate live here?" + +She said he didn't; but that she would inquire, in case I was looking for +him in the neighbourhood; but I excused her from such exertion. I had one +moment's impulse to look for him all over the world; and then decided not +to look for him at all. + + + + +THE PRIEST OF SPRING + + +The sun has strengthened and the air softened just before Easter Day. +But it is a troubled brightness which has a breath not only of novelty but +of revolution, There are two great armies of the human intellect who will +fight till the end on this vital point, whether Easter is to be +congratulated on fitting in with the Spring--or the Spring on fitting in +with Easter. + +The only two things that can satisfy the soul are a person and a story; +and even a story must be about a person. There are indeed very voluptuous +appetites and enjoyments in mere abstractions like mathematics, logic, or +chess. But these mere pleasures of the mind are like mere pleasures of +the body. That is, they are mere pleasures, though they may be gigantic +pleasures; they can never by a mere increase of themselves amount to +happiness. A man just about to be hanged may enjoy his breakfast; +especially if it be his favourite breakfast; and in the same way he may +enjoy an argument with the chaplain about heresy, especially if it is his +favourite heresy. But whether he can enjoy either of them does not depend +on either of them; it depends upon his spiritual attitude towards a +subsequent event. And that event is really interesting to the soul; +because it is the end of a story and (as some hold) the end of a person. + +Now it is this simple truth which, like many others, is too simple for our +scientists to see. This is where they go wrong, not only about true +religion, but about false religions too; so that their account of +mythology is more mythical than the myth itself. I do not confine myself +to saying that they are quite incorrect when they state (for instance) +that Christ was a legend of dying and reviving vegetation, like Adonis or +Persephone. I say that even if Adonis was a god of vegetation, they have +got the whole notion of him wrong. Nobody, to begin with, is sufficiently +interested in decaying vegetables, as such, to make any particular mystery +or disguise about them; and certainly not enough to disguise them under +the image of a very handsome young man, which is a vastly more interesting +thing. If Adonis was connected with the fall of leaves in autumn and the +return of flowers in spring, the process of thought was quite different. +It is a process of thought which springs up spontaneously in all children +and young artists; it springs up spontaneously in all healthy societies. +It is very difficult to explain in a diseased society. + +The brain of man is subject to short and strange snatches of sleep. A +cloud seals the city of reason or rests upon the sea of imagination; a +dream that darkens as much, whether it is a nightmare of atheism or a +daydream of idolatry. And just as we have all sprung from sleep with a +start and found ourselves saying some sentence that has no meaning, save +in the mad tongues of the midnight; so the human mind starts from its +trances of stupidity with some complete phrase upon its lips; a complete +phrase which is a complete folly. Unfortunately it is not like the dream +sentence, generally forgotten in the putting on of boots or the putting in +of breakfast. This senseless aphorism, invented when man's mind was +asleep, still hangs on his tongue and entangles all his relations to +rational and daylight things. All our controversies are confused by +certain kinds of phrases which are not merely untrue, but were always +unmeaning; which are not merely inapplicable, but were always +intrinsically useless. We recognise them wherever a man talks of "the +survival of the fittest," meaning only the survival of the survivors; or +wherever a man says that the rich "have a stake in the country," as if the +poor could not suffer from misgovernment or military defeat; or where a +man talks about "going on towards Progress," which only means going on +towards going on; or when a man talks about "government by the wise few," +as if they could be picked out by their pantaloons. "The wise few" must +mean either the few whom the foolish think wise or the very foolish who +think themselves wise. + +There is one piece of nonsense that modern people still find themselves +saying, even after they are more or less awake, by which I am particularly +irritated. It arose in the popularised science of the nineteenth century, +especially in connection with the study of myths and religions. The +fragment of gibberish to which I refer generally takes the form of saying +"This god or hero really represents the sun." Or "Apollo killing the +Python MEANS that the summer drives out the winter." Or "The King dying in +a western battle is a SYMBOL of the sun setting in the west." Now I +should really have thought that even the skeptical professors, whose +skulls are as shallow as frying-pans, might have reflected that human +beings never think or feel like this. Consider what is involved in this +supposition. It presumes that primitive man went out for a walk and saw +with great interest a big burning spot on the sky. He then said to +primitive woman, "My dear, we had better keep this quiet. We mustn't let +it get about. The children and the slaves are so very sharp. They might +discover the sun any day, unless we are very careful. So we won't call +it 'the sun,' but I will draw a picture of a man killing a snake; and +whenever I do that you will know what I mean. The sun doesn't look at all +like a man killing a snake; so nobody can possibly know. It will be a +little secret between us; and while the slaves and the children fancy I am +quite excited with a grand tale of a writhing dragon and a wrestling +demigod, I shall really MEAN this delicious little discovery, that there +is a round yellow disc up in the air." One does not need to know much +mythology to know that this is a myth. It is commonly called the Solar +Myth. + +Quite plainly, of course, the case was just the other way. The god was +never a symbol or hieroglyph representing the sun. The sun was a +hieroglyph representing the god. Primitive man (with whom my friend +Dombey is no doubt well acquainted) went out with his head full of gods +and heroes, because that is the chief use of having a head. Then he saw +the sun in some glorious crisis of the dominance of noon on the distress +of nightfall, and he said, "That is how the face of the god would shine +when he had slain the dragon," or "That is how the whole world would bleed +to westward, if the god were slain at last." + +No human being was ever really so unnatural as to worship Nature. No man, +however indulgent (as I am) to corpulency, ever worshipped a man as round +as the sun or a woman as round as the moon. No man, however attracted to +an artistic attenuation, ever really believed that the Dryad was as lean +and stiff as the tree. We human beings have never worshipped Nature; and +indeed, the reason is very simple. It is that all human beings are +superhuman beings. We have printed our own image upon Nature, as God has +printed His image upon us. We have told the enormous sun to stand still; +we have fixed him on our shields, caring no more for a star than for a +starfish. And when there were powers of Nature we could not for the time +control, we have conceived great beings in human shape controlling them. +Jupiter does not mean thunder. Thunder means the march and victory of +Jupiter. Neptune does not mean the sea; the sea is his, and he made it. +In other words, what the savage really said about the sea was, "Only my +fetish Mumbo could raise such mountains out of mere water." What the +savage really said about the sun was, "Only my great great-grandfather +Jumbo could deserve such a blazing crown." + +About all these myths my own position is utterly and even sadly simple. +I say you cannot really understand any myths till you have found that one +of them is not a myth. Turnip ghosts mean nothing if there are no real +ghosts. Forged bank-notes mean nothing if there are no real bank-notes. +Heathen gods mean nothing, and must always mean nothing, to those of us +that deny the Christian God. When once a god is admitted, even a false +god, the Cosmos begins to know its place: which is the second place. When +once it is the real God the Cosmos falls down before Him, offering flowers +in spring as flames in winter. "My love is like a red, red rose" does not +mean that the poet is praising roses under the allegory of a young lady. +"My love is an arbutus" does not mean that the author was a botanist so +pleased with a particular arbutus tree that he said he loved it. "Who art +the moon and regent of my sky" does not mean that Juliet invented Romeo to +account for the roundness of the moon. "Christ is the Sun of Easter" does +not mean that the worshipper is praising the sun under the emblem of +Christ. Goddess or god can clothe themselves with the spring or summer; +but the body is more than raiment. Religion takes almost disdainfully the +dress of Nature; and indeed Christianity has done as well with the snows +of Christmas as with the snow-drops of spring. And when I look across +the sun-struck fields, I know in my inmost bones that my joy is not solely +in the spring, for spring alone, being always returning, would be always +sad. There is somebody or something walking there, to be crowned with +flowers: and my pleasure is in some promise yet possible and in the +resurrection of the dead. + + + + +THE REAL JOURNALIST + + +Our age which has boasted of realism will fail chiefly through lack of +reality. Never, I fancy, has there been so grave and startling a divorce +between the real way a thing is done and the look of it when it is done. +I take the nearest and most topical instance to hand a newspaper. +Nothing looks more neat and regular than a newspaper, with its parallel +columns, its mechanical printing, its detailed facts and figures, its +responsible, polysyllabic leading articles. Nothing, as a matter of fact, +goes every night through more agonies of adventure, more hairbreadth +escapes, desperate expedients, crucial councils, random compromises, or +barely averted catastrophes. Seen from the outside, it seems to come +round as automatically as the clock and as silently as the dawn. Seen +from the inside, it gives all its organisers a gasp of relief every +morning to see that it has come out at all; that it has come out without +the leading article upside down or the Pope congratulated on discovering +the North Pole. + +I will give an instance (merely to illustrate my thesis of unreality) from +the paper that I know best. Here is a simple story, a little episode in +the life of a journalist, which may be amusing and instructive: the tale +of how I made a great mistake in quotation. There are really two stories: +the story as seen from the outside, by a man reading the paper; and the +story seen from the inside, by the journalists shouting and telephoning +and taking notes in shorthand through the night. + +This is the outside story; and it reads like a dreadful quarrel. The +notorious G. K. Chesterton, a reactionary Torquemada whose one gloomy +pleasure was in the defence of orthodoxy and the pursuit of heretics, long +calculated and at last launched a denunciation of a brilliant leader of +the New Theology which he hated with all the furnace of his fanatic soul. +In this document Chesterton darkly, deliberately, and not having the fear +of God before his eyes, asserted that Shakespeare wrote the line "that +wreathes its old fantastic roots so high." This he said because he had +been kept in ignorance by Priests; or, perhaps, because he thought +craftily that none of his dupes could discover a curious and forgotten +rhyme called 'Elegy in a Country Churchyard'. Anyhow, that orthodox +gentleman made a howling error; and received some twenty-five letters and +post-cards from kind correspondents who pointed out the mistake. + +But the odd thing is that scarcely any of them could conceive that it was +a mistake. The first wrote in the tone of one wearied of epigrams, and +cried, "What is the joke NOW?" Another professed (and practised, for all +I know, God help him) that he had read through all Shakespeare and failed +to find the line. A third wrote in a sort of moral distress, asking, as +in confidence, if Gray was really a plagiarist. They were a noble +collection; but they all subtly assumed an element of leisure and +exactitude in the recipient's profession and character which is far from +the truth. Let us pass on to the next act of the external tragedy. + +In Monday's issue of the same paper appeared a letter from the same +culprit. He ingenuously confessed that the line did not belong to +Shakespeare, but to a poet whom he called Grey. Which was another +cropper--or whopper. This strange and illiterate outbreak was printed by +the editor with the justly scornful title, "Mr. Chesterton 'Explains'?" +Any man reading the paper at breakfast saw at once the meaning of the +sarcastic quotation marks. They meant, of course, "Here is a man who +doesn't know Gray from Shakespeare; he tries to patch it up and he can't +even spell Gray. And that is what he calls an Explanation." That is the +perfectly natural inference of the reader from the letter, the mistake, +and the headline--as seen from the outside. The falsehood was serious; +the editorial rebuke was serious. The stern editor and the sombre, +baffled contributor confront each other as the curtain falls. + +And now I will tell you exactly what really happened. It is honestly +rather amusing; it is a story of what journals and journalists really are. +A monstrously lazy man lives in South Bucks partly by writing a column +in the Saturday Daily News. At the time he usually writes it (which is +always at the last moment) his house is unexpectedly invaded by infants of +all shapes and sizes. His Secretary is called away; and he has to cope +with the invading pigmies. Playing with children is a glorious thing; but +the journalist in question has never understood why it was considered a +soothing or idyllic one. It reminds him, not of watering little budding +flowers, but of wrestling for hours with gigantic angels and devils. +Moral problems of the most monstrous complexity besiege him incessantly. +He has to decide before the awful eyes of innocence, whether, when a +sister has knocked down a brother's bricks, in revenge for the brother +having taken two sweets out of his turn, it is endurable that the brother +should retaliate by scribbling on the sister's picture book, and whether +such conduct does not justify the sister in blowing out the brother's +unlawfully lighted match. + +Just as he is solving this problem upon principles of the highest morality, +it occurs to him suddenly that he has not written his Saturday article; +and that there is only about an hour to do it in. He wildly calls to +somebody (probably the gardener) to telephone to somewhere for a messenger; +he barricades himself in another room and tears his hair, wondering what +on earth he shall write about. A drumming of fists on the door outside +and a cheerful bellowing encourage and clarify his thoughts; and he is +able to observe some newspapers and circulars in wrappers lying on the +table. One is a dingy book catalogue; the second is a shiny pamphlet +about petrol; the third is a paper called The Christian Commonwealth. He +opens it anyhow, and sees in the middle of a page a sentence with which he +honestly disagrees. It says that the sense of beauty in Nature is a new +thing, hardly felt before Wordsworth. A stream of images and pictures +pour through his head, like skies chasing each other or forests running by. +"Not felt before Wordsworth!" he thinks. "Oh, but this won't do... +bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang...night's candles are +burnt out... glowed with living sapphires. leaving their moon-loved +maze...antique roots fantastic... antique roots wreathed high...what is +it in As You Like It?" + +He sits down desperately; the messenger rings at the bell; the children +drum on the door; the servants run up from time to time to say the +messenger is getting bored; and the pencil staggers along, making the +world a present of fifteen hundred unimportant words, and making +Shakespeare a present of a portion of Gray's Elegy; putting "fantastic +roots wreathed high" instead of "antique roots peep out." Then the +journalist sends off his copy and turns his attention to the enigma of +whether a brother should commandeer a sister's necklace because the sister +pinched him at Littlehampton. That is the first scene; that is how an +article is really written. + +The scene now changes to the newspaper office. The writer of the article +has discovered his mistake and wants to correct it by the next day: but +the next day is Sunday. He cannot post a letter, so he rings up the paper +and dictates a letter by telephone. He leaves the title to his friends at +the other end; he knows that they can spell "Gray," as no doubt they can: +but the letter is put down by journalistic custom in a pencil scribble and +the vowel may well be doubtful. The friend writes at the top of the +letter "'G. K. C.' Explains," putting the initials in quotation marks. +The next man passing it for press is bored with these initials (I am with +him there) and crosses them out, substituting with austere civility, "Mr. +Chesterton Explains." But and now he hears the iron laughter of the Fates, +for the blind bolt is about to fall--but he neglects to cross out the +second "quote" (as we call it) and it goes up to press with a "quote" +between the last words. Another quotation mark at the end of "explains" +was the work of one merry moment for the printers upstairs. So the +inverted commas were lifted entirely off one word on to the other and a +totally innocent title suddenly turned into a blasting sneer. But that +would have mattered nothing so far, for there was nothing to sneer at. In +the same dark hour, however, there was a printer who was (I suppose) so +devoted to this Government that he could think of no Gray but Sir Edward +Grey. He spelt it "Grey" by a mere misprint, and the whole tale was +complete: first blunder, second blunder, and final condemnation. + +That is a little tale of journalism as it is; if you call it egotistic and +ask what is the use of it I think I could tell you. You might remember it +when next some ordinary young workman is going to be hanged by the neck on +circumstantial evidence. + + + + +THE SENTIMENTAL SCOT + + +Of all the great nations of Christendom, the Scotch are by far the most +romantic. I have just enough Scotch experience and just enough Scotch +blood to know this in the only way in which a thing can really be known; +that is, when the outer world and the inner world are at one. I know it +is always said that the Scotch are practical, prosaic, and puritan; that +they have an eye to business. I like that phrase "an eye" to business. + +Polyphemus had an eye for business; it was in the middle of his forehead. +It served him admirably for the only two duties which are demanded in a +modern financier and captain of industry: the two duties of counting sheep +and of eating men. But when that one eye was put out he was done for. +But the Scotch are not one-eyed practical men, though their best friends +must admit that they are occasionally business-like. They are, quite +fundamentally, romantic and sentimental, and this is proved by the very +economic argument that is used to prove their harshness and hunger for the +material. The mass of Scots have accepted the industrial civilisation, +with its factory chimneys and its famine prices, with its steam and smoke +and steel--and strikes. The mass of the Irish have not accepted it. The +mass of the Irish have clung to agriculture with claws of iron; and have +succeeded in keeping it. That is because the Irish, though far inferior +to the Scotch in art and literature, are hugely superior to them in +practical politics. You do need to be very romantic to accept the +industrial civilisation. It does really require all the old Gaelic +glamour to make men think that Glasgow is a grand place. Yet the miracle +is achieved; and while I was in Glasgow I shared the illusion. I have +never had the faintest illusion about Leeds or Birmingham. The industrial +dream suited the Scots. Here was a really romantic vista, suited to a +romantic people; a vision of higher and higher chimneys taking hold upon +the heavens, of fiercer and fiercer fires in which adamant could evaporate +like dew. Here were taller and taller engines that began already to +shriek and gesticulate like giants. Here were thunderbolts of +communication which already flashed to and fro like thoughts. It was +unreasonable to expect the rapt, dreamy, romantic Scot to stand still in +such a whirl of wizardry to ask whether he, the ordinary Scot, would be +any the richer. + +He, the ordinary Scot, is very much the poorer. Glasgow is not a rich +city. It is a particularly poor city ruled by a few particularly rich men. +It is not, perhaps, quite so poor a city as Liverpool, London, +Manchester, Birmingham, or Bolton. It is vastly poorer than Rome, Rouen, +Munich, or Cologne. A certain civic vitality notable in Glasgow may, +perhaps, be due to the fact that the high poetic patriotism of the Scots +has there been reinforced by the cutting common sense and independence of +the Irish. In any case, I think there can be no doubt of the main +historical fact. The Scotch were tempted by the enormous but unequal +opportunities of industrialism, because the Scotch are romantic. The +Irish refused those enormous and unequal opportunities, because the Irish +are clear-sighted. They would not need very clear sight by this time to +see that in England and Scotland the temptation has been a betrayal. The +industrial system has failed. + +I was coming the other day along a great valley road that strikes out of +the westland counties about Glasgow, more or less towards the east and the +widening of the Forth. It may, for all I know (I amused myself with the +fancy), be the way along which Wallace came with his crude army, when he +gave battle before Stirling Brig; and, in the midst of mediaeval +diplomacies, made a new nation possible. Anyhow, the romantic quality of +Scotland rolled all about me, as much in the last reek of Glasgow as in +the first rain upon the hills. The tall factory chimneys seemed trying to +be taller than the mountain peaks; as if this landscape were full (as its +history has been full) of the very madness of ambition. The wageslavery +we live in is a wicked thing. But there is nothing in which the Scotch +are more piercing and poetical, I might say more perfect, than in their +Scotch wickedness. It is what makes the Master of Ballantrae the most +thrilling of all fictitious villains. It is what makes the Master of +Lovat the most thrilling of all historical villains. It is poetry. It +is an intensity which is on the edge of madness or (what is worse) magic. +Well, the Scotch have managed to apply something of this fierce +romanticism even to the lowest of all lordships and serfdoms; the +proletarian inequality of today. You do meet now and then, in Scotland, +the man you never meet anywhere else but in novels; I mean the self-made +man; the hard, insatiable man, merciless to himself as well as to others. +It is not "enterprise"; it is kleptomania. He is quite mad, and a much +more obvious public pest than any other kind of kleptomaniac; but though +he is a cheat, he is not an illusion. He does exist; I have met quite two +of him. Him alone among modern merchants we do not weakly flatter when we +call him a bandit. Something of the irresponsibility of the true dark +ages really clings about him. Our scientific civilisation is not a +civilisation; it is a smoke nuisance. Like smoke it is choking us; like +smoke it will pass away. Only of one or two Scotsmen, in my experience, +was it true that where there is smoke there is fire. + +But there are other kinds of fire; and better. The one great advantage of +this strange national temper is that, from the beginning of all chronicles, +it has provided resistance as well as cruelty. In Scotland nearly +everything has always been in revolt--especially loyalty. If these people +are capable of making Glasgow, they are also capable of wrecking it; and +the thought of my many good friends in that city makes me really doubtful +about which would figure in human memories as the more huge calamity of +the two. In Scotland there are many rich men so weak as to call +themselves strong. But there are not so many poor men weak enough to +believe them. + +As I came out of Glasgow I saw men standing about the road. They had +little lanterns tied to the fronts of their caps, like the fairies who +used to dance in the old fairy pantomimes. They were not, however, +strictly speaking, fairies. They might have been called gnomes, since +they worked in the chasms of those purple and chaotic hills. They worked +in the mines from whence comes the fuel of our fires. Just at the moment +when I saw them, moreover, they were not dancing; nor were they working. +They were doing nothing. Which, in my opinion (and I trust yours), was +the finest thing they could do. + + + + +THE SECTARIAN OF SOCIETY + + +A fixed creed is absolutely indispensable to freedom. For while men are +and should be various, there must be some communication between them if +they are to get any pleasure out of their variety. And an intellectual +formula is the only thing that can create a communication that does not +depend on mere blood, class, or capricious sympathy. If we all start with +the agreement that the sun and moon exist, we can talk about our different +visions of them. The strong-eyed man can boast that he sees the sun as a +perfect circle. The shortsighted man may say (or if he is an +impressionist, boast) that he sees the moon as a silver blur. The +colour-blind man may rejoice in the fairy-trick which enables him to live +under a green sun and a blue moon. But if once it be held that there is +nothing but a silver blur in one man's eye or a bright circle (like a +monocle) in the other man's, then neither is free, for each is shut up in +the cell of a separate universe. + +But, indeed, an even worse fate, practically considered, follows from the +denim of the original intellectual formula. Not only does the individual +become narrow, but he spreads narrowness across the world like a cloud; he +causes narrowness to increase and multiply like a weed. For what happens +is this: that all the shortsighted people come together and build a city +called Myopia, where they take short-sightedness for granted and paint +short-sighted pictures and pursue very short-sighted policies. Meanwhile +all the men who can stare at the sun get together on Salisbury Plain and +do nothing but stare at the sun; and all the men who see a blue moon band +themselves together and assert the blue moon, not once in a blue moon, but +incessantly. So that instead of a small and varied group, you have +enormous monotonous groups. Instead of the liberty of dogma, you have the +tyranny of taste. + +Allegory apart, instances of what I mean will occur to every one; perhaps +the most obvious is Socialism. Socialism means the ownership by the organ +of government (whatever it is) of all things necessary to production. If +a man claims to be a Socialist in that sense he can be any kind of man he +likes in any other sense--a bookie, a Mahatma, a man about town, an +archbishop, a Margate nigger. Without recalling at the moment +clear-headed Socialists in all of these capacities, it is obvious that a +clear-headed Socialist (that is, a Socialist with a creed) can be a +soldier, like Mr. Blatchford, or a Don, like Mr. Ball, or a Bathchairman +like Mr. Meeke, or a clergyman like Mr. Conrad Noel, or an artistic +tradesman like the late Mr. William Morris. + +But some people call themselves Socialists, and will not be bound by what +they call a narrow dogma; they say that Socialism means far, far more than +this; all that is high, all that is free, all that is, etc., etc. Now +mark their dreadful fate; for they become totally unfit to be tradesmen, +or soldiers, or clergymen, or any other stricken human thing, but become a +particular sort of person who is always the same. When once it has been +discovered that Socialism does not mean a narrow economic formula, it is +also discovered that Socialism does mean wearing one particular kind of +clothes, reading one particular kind of books, hanging up one particular +kind of pictures, and in the majority of cases even eating one particular +kind of food. For men must recognise each other somehow. These men will +not know each other by a principle, like fellow citizens. They cannot know +each other by a smell, like dogs. So they have to fall back on general +colouring; on the fact that a man of their sort will have a wife in pale +green and Walter Crane's "Triumph of Labour" hanging in the hall. + +There are, of course, many other instances; for modern society is almost +made up of these large monochrome patches. Thus I, for one, regret the +supersession of the old Puritan unity, founded on theology, but embracing +all types from Milton to the grocer, by that newer Puritan unity which is +founded rather on certain social habits, certain common notions, both +permissive and prohibitive, in connection with Particular social pleasures. + + +Thus I, for one, regret that (if you are going to have an aristocracy) it +did not remain a logical one founded on the science of heraldry; a thing +asserting and defending the quite defensible theory that physical +genealogy is the test; instead of being, as it is now, a mere machine of +Eton and Oxford for varnishing anybody rich enough with one monotonous +varnish. + +And it is supremely so in the case of religion. As long as you have a +creed, which every one in a certain group believes or is supposed to +believe, then that group will consist of the old recurring figures of +religious history, who can be appealed to by the creed and judged by it; +the saint, the hypocrite, the brawler, the weak brother. These people do +each other good; or they all join together to do the hypocrite good, with +heavy and repeated blows. But once break the bond of doctrine which alone +holds these people together and each will gravitate to his own kind +outside the group. The hypocrites will all get together and call each +other saints; the saints will get lost in a desert and call themselves +weak brethren; the weak brethren will get weaker and weaker in a general +atmosphere of imbecility; and the brawler will go off looking for somebody +else with whom to brawl. + +This has very largely happened to modern English religion; I have been in +many churches, chapels, and halls where a confident pride in having got +beyond creeds was coupled with quite a paralysed incapacity to get beyond +catchwords. But wherever the falsity appears it comes from neglect of the +same truth: that men should agree on a principle, that they may differ on +everything else; that God gave men a law that they might turn it into +liberties. + +There was hugely more sense in the old people who said that a wife and +husband ought to have the same religion than there is in all the +contemporary gushing about sister souls and kindred spirits and auras of +identical colour. As a matter of fact, the more the sexes are in violent +contrast the less likely they are to be in violent collision. The more +incompatible their tempers are the better. Obviously a wife's soul cannot +possibly be a sister soul. It is very seldom so much as a first cousin. +There are very few marriages of identical taste and temperament; they are +generally unhappy. But to have the same fundamental theory, to think the +same thing a virtue, whether you practise or neglect it, to think the same +thing a sin, whether you punish or pardon or laugh at it, in the last +extremity to call the same thing duty and the same thing disgrace--this +really is necessary to a tolerably happy marriage; and it is much better +represented by a common religion than it is by affinities and auras. And +what applies to the family applies to the nation. A nation with a root +religion will be tolerant. A nation with no religion will be bigoted. +Lastly, the worst effect of all is this: that when men come together to +profess a creed, they come courageously, though it is to hide in catacombs +and caves. But when they come together in a clique they come sneakishly, +eschewing all change or disagreement, though it is to dine to a brass band +in a big London hotel. For birds of a feather flock together, but birds +of the white feather most of all. + + + + +THE FOOL + + +For many years I had sought him, and at last I found him in a club. I had +been told that he was everywhere; but I had almost begun to think that he +was nowhere. I had been assured that there were millions of him; but +before my late discovery I inclined to think that there were none of him. +After my late discovery I am sure that there is one; and I incline to +think that there are several, say, a few hundreds; but unfortunately most +of them occupying important positions. When I say "him," I mean the +entire idiot. + +I have never been able to discover that "stupid public" of which so many +literary men complain. The people one actually meets in trains or at +tea parties seem to me quite bright and interesting; certainly quite enough +so to call for the full exertion of one's own wits. And even when I have +heard brilliant "conversationalists" conversing with other people, the +conversation had much more equality and give and take than this age of +intellectual snobs will admit. I have sometimes felt tired, like other +people; but rather tired with men's talk and variety than with their +stolidity or sameness; therefore it was that I sometimes longed to find +the refreshment of a single fool. + +But it was denied me. Turn where I would I found this monotonous +brilliancy of the general intelligence, this ruthless, ceaseless sparkle +of humour and good sense. The "mostly fools" theory has been used in an +anti-democratic sense; but when I found at last my priceless ass, I did +not find him in what is commonly called the democracy; nor in the +aristocracy either. The man of the democracy generally talks quite +rationally, sometimes on the anti-democratic side, but always with an idea +of giving reasons for what he says and referring to the realities of his +experience. Nor is it the aristocracy that is stupid; at least, not that +section of the aristocracy which represents it in politics. They are +often cynical, especially about money, but even their boredom tends to +make them a little eager for any real information or originality. If a +man like Mr. Winston Churchill or Mr. Wyndham made up his mind for any +reason to attack Syndicalism he would find out what it was first. Not so +the man I found in the club. + +He was very well dressed; he had a heavy but handsome face; his black +clothes suggested the City and his gray moustaches the Army; but the whole +suggested that he did not really belong to either, but was one of those +who dabble in shares and who play at soldiers. There was some third +element about him that was neither mercantile nor military. His manners +were a shade too gentlemanly to be quite those of a gentleman. They +involved an unction and over-emphasis of the club-man: then I suddenly +remembered feeling the same thing in some old actors or old playgoers who +had modelled themselves on actors. As I came in he said, "If I was the +Government," and then put a cigar in his mouth which he lit carefully with +long intakes of breath. Then he took the cigar out of his mouth again and +said, "I'd give it 'em," as if it were quite a separate sentence. But +even while his mouth was stopped with the cigar his companion or +interlocutor leaped to his feet and said with great heartiness, snatching +up a hat, "Well, I must be off. Tuesday!". I dislike these dark +suspicions, but I certainly fancied I recognised the sudden geniality with +which one takes leave of a bore. + +When, therefore, he removed the narcotic stopper from his mouth it was to +me that he addressed the belated epigram. "I'd give it 'em." + +"What would you give them," I asked, "the minimum wage?" + +"I'd give them beans," he said. "I'd shoot 'em down shoot 'em down, every +man Jack of them. I lost my best train yesterday, and here's the whole +country paralysed, and here's a handful of obstinate fellows standing +between the country and coal. I'd shoot 'em down!" + +"That would surely be a little harsh," I pleaded. "After all, they are +not under martial law, though I suppose two or three of them have +commissions in the Yeomanry." + +"Commissions in the Yeomanry!" he repeated, and his eyes and face, which +became startling and separate, like those of a boiled lobster, made me +feel sure that he had something of the kind himself. + +"Besides," I continued, "wouldn't it be quite enough to confiscate their +money?" + +"Well, I'd send them all to penal servitude, anyhow," he said, "and I'd +confiscate their funds as well." + +"The policy is daring and full of difficulty," I replied, "but I do not +say that it is wholly outside the extreme rights of the republic. But you +must remember that though the facts of property have become quite +fantastic, yet the sentiment of property still exists. These coal-owners, +though they have not earned the mines, though they could not work the +mines, do quite honestly feel that they own the mines. Hence your +suggestion of shooting them down, or even of confiscating their property, +raises very--" + +"What do you mean?" asked the man with the cigar, with a bullying eye. +"Who yer talking about?" + +"I'm talking about what you were talking about," I replied; "as you put it +so perfectly, about the handful of obstinate fellows who are standing +between the country and the coal. I mean the men who are selling their +own coal for fancy prices, and who, as long as they can get those prices, +care as little for national starvation as most merchant princes and +pirates have cared for the provinces that were wasted or the peoples that +were enslaved just before their ships came home. But though I am a bit of +a revolutionist myself, I cannot quite go with you in the extreme violence +you suggest. You say--" + +"I say," he cried, bursting through my speech with a really splendid +energy like that of some noble beast, "I say I'd take all these blasted +miners and--" + +I had risen slowly to my feet, for I was profoundly moved; and I stood +staring at that mental monster. + +"Oh," I said, "so it is the miners who are all to be sent to penal +servitude, so that we may get more coal. It is the miners who are to be +shot dead, every man Jack of them; for if once they are all shot dead they +will start mining again...You must forgive me, sir; I know I seem somewhat +moved. The fact is, I have just found something. Something I have been +looking for four years." + +"Well," he asked, with no unfriendly stare, "and what have you found?" + +"No," I answered, shaking my head sadly, "I do not think it would be quite +kind to tell you what I have found." + +He had a hundred virtues, including the capital virtue of good humour, and +we had no difficulty in changing the subject and forgetting the +disagreement. He talked about society, his town friends and his country +sports, and I discovered in the course of it that he was a county +magistrate, a Member of Parliament, and a director of several important +companies. He was also that other thing, which I did not tell him. + +The moral is that a certain sort of person does exist, to whose glory this +article is dedicated. He is not the ordinary man. He is not the miner, +who is sharp enough to ask for the necessities of existence. He is not +the mine-owner, who is sharp enough to get a great deal more, by selling +his coal at the best possible moment. He is not the aristocratic +politician, who has a cynical but a fair sympathy with both economic +opportunities. But he is the man who appears in scores of public places +open to the upper middle class or (that less known but more powerful +section) the lower upper class. Men like this all over the country are +really saying whatever comes into their heads in their capacities of +justice of the peace, candidate for Parliament, Colonel of the Yeomanry, +old family doctor, Poor Law guardian, coroner, or above all, arbiter in +trade disputes. He suffers, in the literal sense, from softening of the +brain; he has softened it by always taking the view of everything most +comfortable for his country, his class, and his private personality. He +is a deadly public danger. But as I have given him his name at the +beginning of this article there is no need for me to repeat it at the end. + + + + +THE CONSCRIPT AND THE CRISIS + + +Very few of us ever see the history of our own time happening. And I +think the best service a modern journalist can do to society is to record +as plainly as ever he can exactly what impression was produced on his mind +by anything he has actually seen and heard on the outskirts of any modern +problem or campaign. Though all he saw of a railway strike was a flat +meadow in Essex in which a train was becalmed for an hour or two, he will +probably throw more light on the strike by describing this which he has +seen than by describing the steely kings of commerce and the bloody +leaders of the mob whom he has never seen--nor any one else either. If he +comes a day too late for the battle of Waterloo (as happened to a friend +of my grandfather) he should still remember that a true account of the day +after Waterloo would be a most valuable thing to have. Though he was on +the wrong side of the door when Rizzio was being murdered, we should still +like to have the wrong side described in the right way. Upon this +principle I, who know nothing of diplomacy or military arrangements, and +have only held my breath like the rest of the world while France and +Germany were bargaining, will tell quite truthfully of a small scene I saw, +one of the thousand scenes that were, so to speak, the anterooms of that +inmost chamber of debate. + +In the course of a certain morning I came into one of the quiet squares of +a small French town and found its cathedral. It was one of those gray and +rainy days which rather suit the Gothic. The clouds were leaden, like the +solid blue-gray lead of the spires and the jewelled windows; the sloping +roofs and high-shouldered arches looked like cloaks drooping with damp; +and the stiff gargoyles that stood out round the walls were scoured with +old rains and new. I went into the round, deep porch with many doors and +found two grubby children playing there out of the rain. I also found a +notice of services, etc., and among these I found the announcement that at +11.30 (that is about half an hour later) there would be a special service +for the Conscripts, that is to say, the draft of young men who were being +taken from their homes in that little town and sent to serve in the French +Army; sent (as it happened) at an awful moment, when the French Army was +encamped at a parting of the ways. There were already a great many people +there when I entered, not only of all kinds, but in all attitudes, +kneeling, sitting, or standing about. And there was that general sense +that strikes every man from a Protestant country, whether he dislikes the +Catholic atmosphere or likes it; I mean, the general sense that the thing +was "going on all the time"; that it was not an occasion, but a perpetual +process, as if it were a sort of mystical inn. + +Several tricolours were hung quite near to the altar, and the young men, +when they came in, filed up the church and sat right at the front. They +were, of course, of every imaginable social grade; for the French +conscription is really strict and universal. Some looked like young +criminals, some like young priests, some like both. Some were so +obviously prosperous and polished that a barrack-room must seem to them +like hell; others (by the look of them) had hardly ever been in so decent +a place. But it was not so much the mere class variety that most sharply +caught an Englishman's eye. It was the presence of just those one or two +kinds of men who would never have become soldiers in any other way. + +There are many reasons for becoming a soldier. It may be a matter of +hereditary luck or abject hunger or heroic virtue or fugitive vice; it may +be an interest in the work or a lack of interest in any other work. But +there would always be two or three kinds of people who would never tend to +soldiering; all those kinds of people were there. A lad with red hair, +large ears, and very careful clothing, somehow conveyed across the church +that he had always taken care of his health, not even from thinking about +it, but simply because he was told, and that he was one of those who pass +from childhood to manhood without any shock of being a man. In the row +in front of him there was a very slight and vivid little Jew, of the sort +that is a tailor and a Socialist. By one of those accidents that make +real life so unlike anything else, he was the one of the company who +seemed especially devout. Behind these stiff or sensitive boys were +ranged the ranks of their mothers and fathers, with knots and bunches of +their little brothers and sisters. + +The children kicked their little legs, wriggled about the seats, and gaped +at the arched roof while their mothers were on their knees praying their +own prayers, and here and there crying. The gray clouds of rain outside +gathered, I suppose, more and more; for the deep church continuously +darkened. The lads in front began to sing a military hymn in odd, rather +strained voices; I could not disentangle the words, but only one perpetual +refrain; so that it sounded like + + +Sacrarterumbrrar pour la patrie, +Valdarkararump pour la patrie. + + +Then this ceased; and silence continued, the coloured windows growing +gloomier and gloomier with the clouds. In the dead stillness a child +started crying suddenly and incoherently. In a city far to the north a +French diplomatist and a German aristocrat were talking. + +I will not make any commentary on the thing that could blur the outline of +its almost cruel actuality. I will not talk nor allow any one else to +talk about "clericalism" and "militarism." Those who talk like that are +made of the same mud as those who call all the angers of the unfortunate +"Socialism." The women who were calling in the gloom around me on God and +the Mother of God were not "clericalists "; or, if they were, they had +forgotten it. And I will bet my boots the young men were not +"militarists"--quite the other way just then. The priest made a short +speech; he did not utter any priestly dogmas (whatever they are), he +uttered platitudes. In such circumstances platitudes are the only +possible things to say; because they are true. He began by saying that he +supposed a large number of them would be uncommonly glad not to go. They +seemed to assent to this particular priestly dogma with even more than +their alleged superstitious credulity. He said that war was hateful, and +that we all hated it; but that "in all things reasonable" the law of one's +own commonwealth was the voice of God. He spoke about Joan of Arc; and +how she had managed to be a bold and successful soldier while still +preserving her virtue and practising her religion; then he gave them each +a little paper book. To which they replied (after a brief interval for +reflection): + + +Pongprongperesklang pour la patrie, +Tambraugtararronc pour la patrie. + + +which I feel sure was the best and most pointed reply. + +While all this was happening feelings quite indescribable crowded about my +own darkening brain, as the clouds crowded above the darkening church. +They were so entirely of the elements and the passions that I cannot utter +them in an idea, but only in an image. It seemed to me that we were +barricaded in this church, but we could not tell what was happening +outside the church. The monstrous and terrible jewels of the windows +darkened or glistened under moving shadow or light, but the nature of that +light and the shapes of those shadows we did not know and hardly dared to +guess. The dream began, I think, with a dim fancy that enemies were +already in the town, and that the enormous oaken doors were groaning under +their hammers. Then I seemed to suppose that the town itself had been +destroyed by fire, and effaced, as it may be thousands of years hence, and +that if I opened the door I should come out on a wilderness as flat and +sterile as the sea. Then the vision behind the veil of stone and slate +grew wilder with earthquakes. I seemed to see chasms cloven to the +foundations of all things, and letting up an infernal dawn. Huge things +happily hidden from us had climbed out of the abyss, and were striding +about taller than the clouds. And when the darkness crept from the +sapphires of Mary to the sanguine garments of St. John I fancied that some +hideous giant was walking round the church and looking in at each window +in turn. + +Sometimes, again, I thought of that church with coloured windows as a ship +carrying many lanterns struggling in a high sea at night. Sometimes I +thought of it as a great coloured lantern itself, hung on an iron chain +out of heaven and tossed and swung to and fro by strong wings, the wings +of the princes of the air. But I never thought of it or the young men +inside it save as something precious and in peril, or of the things +outside but as something barbaric and enormous. + +I know there are some who cannot sympathise with such sentiments of +limitation; I know there are some who would feel no touch of the heroic +tenderness if some day a young man, with red hair, large ears, and his +mother's lozenges in his pocket, were found dead in uniform in the passes +of the Vosges. But on this subject I have heard many philosophies and +thought a good deal for myself; and the conclusion I have come to is +Sacrarterumbrrar pour la Pattie, and it is not likely that I shall alter +it now. + +But when I came out of the church there were none of these things, but +only a lot of Shops, including a paper-shop, on which the posters +announced that the negotiations were proceeding satisfactorily. + + + + +THE MISER AND HIS FRIENDS + + +It is a sign of sharp sickness in a society when it is actually led by +some special sort of lunatic. A mild touch of madness may even keep a man +sane; for it may keep him modest. So some exaggerations in the State may +remind it of its own normal. But it is bad when the head is cracked; when +the roof of the commonwealth has a tile loose. + +The two or three cases of this that occur in history have always been +gibbeted gigantically. Thus Nero has become a black proverb, not merely +because he was an oppressor, but because he was also an aesthete--that is, +an erotomaniac. He not only tortured other people's bodies; he tortured +his own soul into the same red revolting shapes. Though he came quite +early in Roman Imperial history and was followed by many austere and noble +emperors, yet for us the Roman Empire was never quite cleansed of that +memory of the sexual madman. The populace or barbarians from whom we come +could not forget the hour when they came to the highest place of the earth, +saw the huge pedestal of the earthly omnipotence, read on it Divus Caesar, +and looked up and saw a statue without a head. + +It is the same with that ugly entanglement before the Renaissance, from +which, alas, most memories of the Middle Ages are derived. Louis XI was a +very patient and practical man of the world; but (like many good business +men) he was mad. The morbidity of the intriguer and the torturer clung +about everything he did, even when it was right. And just as the great +Empire of Antoninus and Aurelius never wiped out Nero, so even the silver +splendour of the latter saints, such as Vincent de Paul, has never painted +out for the British public the crooked shadow of Louis XI. Whenever the +unhealthy man has been on top, he has left a horrible savour that humanity +finds still in its nostrils. Now in our time the unhealthy man is on top; +but he is not the man mad on sex, like Nero; or mad on statecraft, like +Louis XI; he is simply the man mad on money. Our tyrant is not the satyr +or the torturer; but the miser. + +The modern miser has changed much from the miser of legend and anecdote; +but only because he has grown yet more insane. The old miser had some +touch of the human artist about him in so far that he collected gold--a +substance that can really be admired for itself, like ivory or old oak. +An old man who picked up yellow pieces had something of the simple ardour, +something of the mystical materialism, of a child who picks out yellow +flowers. Gold is but one kind of coloured clay, but coloured clay can be +very beautiful. The modern idolater of riches is content with far less +genuine things. The glitter of guineas is like the glitter of buttercups, +the chink of pelf is like the chime of bells, compared with the dreary +papers and dead calculations which make the hobby of the modern miser. + +The modern millionaire loves nothing so lovable as a coin. He is content +sometimes with the dead crackle of notes; but far more often with the mere +repetition of noughts in a ledger, all as like each other as eggs to eggs. +And as for comfort, the old miser could be comfortable, as many tramps +and savages are, when he was once used to being unclean. A man could find +some comfort in an unswept attic or an unwashed shirt. But the Yankee +millionaire can find no comfort with five telephones at his bed-head and +ten minutes for his lunch. The round coins in the miser's stocking were +safe in some sense. The round noughts in the millionaire's ledger are +safe in no sense; the same fluctuation which excites him with their +increase depresses him with their diminution. The miser at least collects +coins; his hobby is numismatics. The man who collects noughts collects +nothings. + +It may be admitted that the man amassing millions is a bit of an idiot; +but it may be asked in what sense does he rule the modern world. The +answer to this is very important and rather curious. The evil enigma for +us here is not the rich, but the Very Rich. The distinction is important; +because this special problem is separate from the old general quarrel +about rich and poor that runs through the Bible and all strong books, old +and new. The special problem to-day is that certain powers and privileges +have grown so world-wide and unwieldy that they are out of the power of +the moderately rich as well as of the moderately poor. They are out of +the power of everybody except a few millionaires--that is, misers. In +the old normal friction of normal wealth and poverty I am myself on the +Radical side. I think that a Berkshire squire has too much power over his +tenants; that a Brompton builder has too much power over his workmen; that +a West London doctor has too much power over the poor patients in the West +London Hospital. + +But a Berkshire squire has no power over cosmopolitan finance, for +instance. A Brompton builder has not money enough to run a Newspaper +Trust. A West End doctor could not make a corner in quinine and freeze +everybody out. The merely rich are not rich enough to rule the modern +market. The things that change modern history, the big national and +international loans, the big educational and philanthropic foundations, +the purchase of numberless newspapers, the big prices paid for peerages, +the big expenses often incurred in elections--these are getting too big +for everybody except the misers; the men with the largest of earthly +fortunes and the smallest of earthly aims. + +There are two other odd and rather important things to be said about them. +The first is this: that with this aristocracy we do not have the chance +of a lucky variety in types which belongs to larger and looser +aristocracies. The moderately rich include all kinds of people even good +people. Even priests are sometimes saints; and even soldiers are +sometimes heroes. Some doctors have really grown wealthy by curing their +patients and not by flattering them; some brewers have been known to sell +beer. But among the Very Rich you will never find a really generous man, +even by accident. They may give their money away, but they will never +give themselves away; they are egoistic, secretive, dry as old bones. To +be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it. + +Lastly, the most serious point about them is this: that the new miser is +flattered for his meanness and the old one never was. It was never called +self-denial in the old miser that he lived on bones. It is called +self-denial in the new millionaire if he lives on beans. A man like +Dancer was never praised as a Christian saint for going in rags. A man +like Rockefeller is praised as a sort of pagan stoic for his early rising +or his unassuming dress. His "simple" meals, his "simple" clothes, his +"simple" funeral, are all extolled as if they were creditable to him. +They are disgraceful to him: exactly as disgraceful as the tatters and +vermin of the old miser were disgraceful to him. To be in rags for +charity would be the condition of a saint; to be in rags for money was +that of a filthy old fool. Precisely in the same way, to be "simple" for +charity is the state of a saint; to be "simple" for money is that of a +filthy old fool. Of the two I have more respect for the old miser, +gnawing bones in an attic: if he was not nearer to God, he was at least a +little nearer to men. His simple life was a little more like the life of +the real poor. + + + + +THE MYSTAGOGUE + + +Whenever you hear much of things being unutterable and indefinable and +impalpable and unnamable and subtly indescribable, then elevate your +aristocratic nose towards heaven and snuff up the smell of decay. It is +perfectly true that there is something in all good things that is beyond +all speech or figure of speech. But it is also true that there is in all +good things a perpetual desire for expression and concrete embodiment; and +though the attempt to embody it is always inadequate, the attempt is +always made. If the idea does not seek to be the word, the chances are +that it is an evil idea. If the word is not made flesh it is a bad word. + +Thus Giotto or Fra Angelieo would have at once admitted theologically that +God was too good to be painted; but they would always try to paint Him. +And they felt (very rightly) that representing Him as a rather quaint old +man with a gold crown and a white beard, like a king of the elves, was +less profane than resisting the sacred impulse to express Him in some way. +That is why the Christian world is full of gaudy pictures and twisted +statues which seem, to many refined persons, more blasphemous than the +secret volumes of an atheist. The trend of good is always towards +Incarnation. But, on the other hand, those refined thinkers who worship +the Devil, whether in the swamps of Jamaica or the salons of Paris, always +insist upon the shapelessness, the wordlessness, the unutterable character +of the abomination. They call him "horror of emptiness," as did the black +witch in Stevenson's Dynamiter; they worship him as the unspeakable name; +as the unbearable silence. They think of him as the void in the heart of +the whirlwind; the cloud on the brain of the maniac; the toppling turrets +of vertigo or the endless corridors of nightmare. It was the Christians +who gave the Devil a grotesque and energetic outline, with sharp horns and +spiked tail. It was the saints who drew Satan as comic and even lively. +The Satanists never drew him at all. + +And as it is with moral good and evil, so it is also with mental clarity +and mental confusion. There is one very valid test by which we may +separate genuine, if perverse and unbalanced, originality and revolt from +mere impudent innovation and bluff. The man who really thinks he has an +idea will always try to explain that idea. The charlatan who has no idea +will always confine himself to explaining that it is much too subtle to be +explained. The first idea may really be very outree or specialist; it may +really be very difficult to express to ordinary people. But because the +man is trying to express it, it is most probable that there is something +in it, after all. The honest man is he who is always trying to utter the +unutterable, to describe the indescribable; but the quack lives not by +plunging into mystery, but by refusing to come out of it. + +Perhaps this distinction is most comically plain in the case of the thing +called Art, and the people called Art Critics. It is obvious that an +attractive landscape or a living face can only half express the holy +cunning that has made them what they are. It is equally obvious that a +landscape painter expresses only half of the landscape; a portrait painter +only half of the person; they are lucky if they express so much. And +again it is yet more obvious that any literary description of the pictures +can only express half of them, and that the less important half. Still, +it does express something; the thread is not broken that connects God With +Nature, or Nature with men, or men with critics. The "Mona Lisa" was in +some respects (not all, I fancy) what God meant her to be. Leonardo's +picture was, in some respects, like the lady. And Walter Pater's rich +description was, in some respects, like the picture. Thus we come to the +consoling reflection that even literature, in the last resort, can express +something other than its own unhappy self. + +Now the modern critic is a humbug, because he professes to be entirely +inarticulate. Speech is his whole business; and he boasts of being +speechless. Before Botticelli he is mute. But if there is any good in +Botticelli (there is much good, and much evil too) it is emphatically the +critic's business to explain it: to translate it from terms of painting +into terms of diction. Of course, the rendering will be inadequate--but +so is Botticelli. It is a fact he would be the first to admit. But +anything which has been intelligently received can at least be +intelligently suggested. Pater does suggest an intelligent cause for the +cadaverous colour of Botticelli's "Venus Rising from the Sea." Ruskin +does suggest an intelligent motive for Turner destroying forests and +falsifying landscapes. These two great critics were far too fastidious +for my taste; they urged to excess the idea that a sense of art was a sort +of secret; to be patiently taught and slowly learnt. Still, they thought +it could be taught: they thought it could be learnt. They constrained +themselves, with considerable creative fatigue, to find the exact +adjectives which might parallel in English prose what has been clone in +Italian painting. The same is true of Whistler and R. A. M. Stevenson +and many others in the exposition of Velasquez. They had something to say +about the pictures; they knew it was unworthy of the pictures, but they +said it. + +Now the eulogists of the latest artistic insanities (Cubism and +Post Impressionism and Mr. Picasso) are eulogists and nothing else. They +are not critics; least of all creative critics. They do not attempt to +translate beauty into language; they merely tell you that it is +untranslatable--that is, unutterable, indefinable, indescribable, +impalpable, ineffable, and all the rest of it. The cloud is their banner; +they cry to chaos and old night. They circulate a piece of paper on which +Mr. Picasso has had the misfortune to upset the ink and tried to dry it +with his boots, and they seek to terrify democracy by the good old +anti-democratic muddlements: that "the public" does not understand these +things; that "the likes of us" cannot dare to question the dark decisions +of our lords. + +I venture to suggest that we resist all this rubbish by the very simple +test mentioned above. If there were anything intelligent in such art, +something of it at least could be made intelligible in literature. Man is +made with one head, not with two or three. No criticism of Rembrandt is +as good as Rembrandt; but it can be so written as to make a man go back +and look at his pictures. If there is a curious and fantastic art, it is +the business of the art critics to create a curious and fantastic literary +expression for it; inferior to it, doubtless, but still akin to it. If +they cannot do this, as they cannot; if there is nothing in their eulogies, +as there is nothing except eulogy--then they are quacks or the +high-priests of the unutterable. If the art critics can say nothing about +the artists except that they are good it is because the artists are bad. +They can explain nothing because they have found nothing; and they have +found nothing because there is nothing to be found. + + + + +THE RED REACTIONARY + + +The one case for Revolution is that it is the only quite clean and +complete road to anything--even to restoration. Revolution alone can be +not merely a revolt of the living, but also a resurrection of the dead. + +A friend of mine (one, in fact, who writes prominently on this paper) was +once walking down the street in a town of Western France, situated in that +area that used to be called La Vendee; which in that great creative crisis +about 1790 formed a separate and mystical soul of its own, and made a +revolution against a revolution. As my friend went down this street he +whistled an old French air which he had found, like Mr. Gandish, "in his +researches into 'istry," and which had somehow taken his fancy; the song +to which those last sincere loyalists went into battle. I think the +words ran: + +Monsieur de Charette. +Dit au gens d'ici. +Le roi va remettre. +Le fleur de lys. + +My friend was (and is) a Radical, but he was (and is) an Englishman, and +it never occurred to him that there could be any harm in singing archaic +lyrics out of remote centuries; that one had to be a Catholic to enjoy the +"Dies Irae," or a Protestant to remember "Lillibullero." Yet he was +stopped and gravely warned that things so politically provocative might +get him at least into temporary trouble. + +A little time after I was helping King George V to get crowned, by walking +round a local bonfire and listening to a local band. Just as a bonfire +cannot be too big, so (by my theory of music) a band cannot be too loud, +and this band was so loud, emphatic, and obvious, that I actually +recognised one or two of the tunes. And I noticed that quite a formidable +proportion of them were Jacobite tunes; that is, tunes that had been +primarily meant to keep George V out of his throne for ever. Some of the +real airs of the old Scottish rebellion were played, such as "Charlie is +My Darling," or "What's a' the steer, kimmer?" songs that men had sung +while marching to destroy and drive out the monarchy under which we live. +They were songs in which the very kinsmen of the present King were swept +aside as usurpers. They were songs in which the actual words "King +George" occurred as a curse and a derision. Yet they were played to +celebrate his very Coronation; played as promptly and innocently as if +they had been "Grandfather's Clock" or "Rule Britannia" or "The +Honeysuckle and the Bee." + +That contrast is the measure, not only between two nations, but between +two modes of historical construction and development. For there is not +really very much difference, as European history goes, in the time that +has elapsed between us and the Jacobite and between us and the Jacobin. +When George III was crowned the gauntlet of the King's Champion was picked +up by a partisan of the Stuarts. When George III was still on the throne +the Bourbons were driven out of France as the Stuarts had been driven out +of England. Yet the French are just sufficiently aware that the Bourbons +might possibly return that they will take a little trouble to discourage +it; whereas we are so certain that the Stuarts will never return that we +actually play their most passionate tunes as a compliment to their rivals. +And we do not even do it tauntingly. I examined the faces of all the +bandsmen; and I am sure they were devoid of irony: indeed, it is difficult +to blow a wind instrument ironically. We do it quite unconsciously; +because we have a huge fundamental dogma, which the French have not. We +really believe that the past is past. It is a very doubtful point. + +Now the great gift of a revolution (as in France) is that it makes men +free in the past as well as free in the future. Those who have cleared +away everything could, if they liked, put back everything. But we who +have preserved everything--we cannot restore anything. Take, for the sake +of argument, the complex and many coloured ritual of the Coronation +recently completed. That rite is stratified with the separate centuries; +from the first rude need of discipline to the last fine shade of culture +or corruption, there is nothing that cannot be detected or even dated. +The fierce and childish vow of the lords to serve their lord "against all +manner of folk" obviously comes from the real Dark Ages; no longer +confused, even by the ignorant, with the Middle Ages. It comes from some +chaos of Europe, when there was one old Roman road across four of our +counties; and when hostile "folk" might live in the next village. The +sacramental separation of one man to be the friend of the fatherless and +the nameless belongs to the true Middle Ages; with their great attempt to +make a moral and invisible Roman Empire; or (as the Coronation Service +says) to set the cross for ever above the ball. Elaborate local +tomfooleries, such as that by which the Lord of the Manor of Work-sop is +alone allowed to do something or other, these probably belong to the decay +of the Middle Ages, when that great civilisation died out in grotesque +literalism and entangled heraldry. Things like the presentation of the +Bible bear witness to the intellectual outburst at the Reformation; things +like the Declaration against the Mass bear witness to the great wars of +the Puritans; and things like the allegiance of the Bishops bear witness +to the wordy and parenthetical political compromises which (to my deep +regret) ended the wars of religion. + +But my purpose here is only to point out one particular thing. In all +that long list of variations there must be, and there are, things which +energetic modern minds would really wish, with the reasonable modification, +to restore. Dr. Clifford would probably be glad to see again the great +Puritan idealism that forced the Bible into an antique and almost frozen +formality. Dr. Horton probably really regrets the old passion that +excommunicated Rome. In the same way Mr. Belloc would really prefer the +Middle Ages; as Lord Rosebery would prefer the Erastian oligarchy of the +eighteenth century. The Dark Ages would probably be disputed (from widely +different motives) by Mr. Rudyard Kipling and Mr. Cunninghame Graham. +But Mr. Cunninghame Graham would win. + +But the black case against Conservative (or Evolutionary) politics is that +none of these sincere men can win. Dr. Clifford cannot get back to the +Puritans; Mr. Belloc cannot get back to the mediaevals; because (alas) +there has been no Revolution to leave them a clear space for building or +rebuilding. Frenchmen have all the ages behind them, and can wander back +and pick and choose. But Englishmen have all the ages on top of them, and +can only lie groaning under that imposing tower, without being able to +take so much as a brick out of it. If the French decide that their +Republic is bad they can get rid of it; but if we decide that a Republic +was good, we should have much more difficulty. If the French democracy +actually desired every detail of the mediaeval monarchy, they could have +it. I do not think they will or should, but they could. If another +Dauphin were actually crowned at Rheims; if another Joan of Arc actually +bore a miraculous banner before him; if mediaeval swords shook and. +blazed in every gauntlet; if the golden lilies glowed from every tapestry; +if this were really proved to be the will of France and the purpose of +Providence--such a scene would still be the lasting and final +justification of the French Revolution. + +For no such scene could conceivably have happened under Louis XVI. + + + + +THE SEPARATIST AND SACRED THINGS + + +In the very laudable and fascinating extensions of our interest in Asiatic +arts or faiths, there are two incidental injustices which we tend nowadays +to do to our own records and our own religion. The first is a tendency to +talk as if certain things were not only present in the higher Orientals, +but were peculiar to them. Thus our magazines will fall into a habit of +wondering praise of Bushido, the Japanese chivalry, as if no Western +knights had ever vowed noble vows, or as if no Eastern knights had ever +broken them. Or again, our drawing-rooms will be full of the praises of +Indian renunciation and Indian unworldliness, as if no Christians had been +saints, or as if all Buddhists had been. But if the first injustice is to +think of human virtues as peculiarly Eastern, the other injustice is a +failure to appreciate what really is peculiarly Eastern. It is too much +taken for granted that the Eastern sort of idealism is certainly superior +and convincing; whereas in truth it is only separate and peculiar. All +that is richest, deepest, and subtlest in the East is rooted in Pantheism; +but all that is richest, deepest, and subtlest in us is concerned with +denying passionately that Pantheism is either the highest or the purest +religion. + +Thus, in turning over some excellent books recently written on the spirit +of Indian or Chinese art and decoration, I found it quietly and curiously +assumed that the artist must be at his best if he flows with the full +stream of Nature; and identifies himself with all things; so that the +stars are his sleepless eyes and the forests his far-flung arms. Now in +this way of talking both the two injustices will be found. In so far as +what is claimed is a strong sense of the divine in all things, the Eastern +artists have no more monopoly of it than they have of hunger and thirst. + +I have no doubt that the painters and poets of the Far East do exhibit +this; but I rebel at being asked to admit that we must go to the Far East +to find it. Traces of such sentiments can be found, I fancy, even in +other painters and poets. I do not question that the poet Wo Wo (that +ornament of the eighth dynasty) may have written the words: "Even the most +undignified vegetable is for this person capable of producing meditations +not to be exhibited by much weeping." But, I do not therefore admit that +a Western gentleman named Wordsworth (who made a somewhat similar remark) +had plagiarised from Wo Wo, or was a mere Occidental fable and travesty of +that celebrated figure. I do not deny that Tinishona wrote that exquisite +example of the short Japanese poem entitled "Honourable Chrysanthemum in +Honourable Hole in Wall." But I do not therefore admit that Tennyson's +little verse about the flower in the cranny was not original and even +sincere. + +It is recorded (for all I know) of the philanthropic Emperor Bo, that when +engaged in cutting his garden lawn with a mower made of alabaster and +chrysoberyl, he chanced to cut down a small flower; whereupon, being much +affected, he commanded his wise men immediately to take down upon tablets +of ivory the lines beginning: "Small and unobtrusive blossom with ruby +extremities." But this incident, touching as it is, does not shake my +belief in the incident of Robert Burns and the daisy; and I am left with +an impression that poets are pretty much the same everywhere in their +poetry--and in their prose. + +I have tried to convey my sympathy and admiration for Eastern art and its +admirers, and if I have not conveyed them I must give it up and go on to +more general considerations. I therefore proceed to say--with the utmost +respect, that it is Cheek, a rarefied and etherealised form of Cheek, for +this school to speak in this way about the mother that bore them, the +great civilisation of the West. The West also has its magic landscapes, +only through our incurable materialism they look like landscapes as well +as like magic. The West also has its symbolic figures, only they look +like men as well as symbols. It will be answered (and most justly) that +Oriental art ought to be free to follow its own instinct and tradition; +that its artists are concerned to suggest one thing and our artists +another; that both should be admired in their difference. Profoundly true; +but what is the difference? It is certainly not as the Orientalisers +assert, that we must go to the Far East for a sympathetic and +transcendental interpretation of Nature. We have paid a long enough toll +of mystics and even of madmen to be quit of that disability. + +Yet there is a difference, and it is just what I suggested. The Eastern +mysticism is an ecstasy of unity; the Christian mysticism is an ecstasy of +creation, that is of separation and mutual surprise. The latter says, +like St. Francis, "My brother fire and my sister water "; the former says, +"Myself fire and myself water." Whether you call the Eastern attitude an +extension of oneself into everything or a contraction of oneself into +nothing is a matter of metaphysical definition. The effect is the same, +an effect which lives and throbs throughout all the exquisite arts of the +East. This effect is the Sing called rhythm, a pulsation of pattern, or +of ritual, or of colours, or of cosmic theory, but always suggesting the +unification of the individual with the world. But there is quite another +kind of sympathy the sympathy with a thing because it is different. No +one will say that Rembrandt did not sympathise with an old woman; but no +one will say that Rembrandt painted like an old woman. No one will say +that Reynolds did not appreciate children; but no one will say he did it +childishly. The supreme instance of this divine division is sex, and that +explains (what I could never understand in my youth) why Christendom +called the soul the bride of God. For real love is an intense +realisation of the "separateness" of all our souls. The most heroic and +human love-poetry of the world is never mere passion; precisely because +mere passion really is a melting back into Nature, a meeting of the waters. +And water is plunging and powerful; but it is only powerful downhill. +The high and human love-poetry is all about division rather than identity; +and in the great love-poems even the man as he embraces the woman sees her, +in the same instant, afar off; a virgin and a stranger. + +For the first injustice, of which we have spoken, still recurs; and if we +grant that the East has a right to its difference, it is not realised in +what we differ. That nursery tale from nowhere about St. George and the +Dragon really expresses best the relation between the West and the East. +There were many other differences, calculated to arrest even the +superficial eye, between a saint and a dragon. But the essential +difference was simply this: that the Dragon did want to eat St. George; +whereas St. George would have felt a strong distaste for eating the Dragon. +In most of the stories he killed the Dragon. In many of the stories he +not only spared, but baptised it. But in neither case did the Christian +have any appetite for cold dragon. The Dragon, however, really has an +appetite for cold Christian--and especially for cold Christianity. This +blind intention to absorb, to change the shape of everything and digest it +in the darkness of a dragon's stomach; this is what is really meant by the +Pantheism and Cosmic Unity of the East. The Cosmos as such is cannibal; +as old Time ate his children. The Eastern saints were saints because they +wanted to be swallowed up. The Western saint, like St. George, was +sainted by the Western Church precisely because he refused to be swallowed. +The same process of thought that has prevented nationalities +disappearing in Christendom has prevented the complete appearance of +Pantheism. All Christian men instinctively resist the idea of being +absorbed into an Empire; an Austrian, a Spanish, a British, or a Turkish +Empire. But there is one empire, much larger and much more tyrannical, +which free men will resist with even stronger passion. The free man +violently resists being absorbed into the empire which is called the +Universe. He demands Home Rule for his nationality, but still more Home +Rule for his home. Most of all he demands Home Rule for himself. He +claims the right to be saved, in spite of Moslem fatalism. He claims the +right to be damned in spite of theosophical optimism. He refuses to be +the Cosmos; because he refuses to forget it. + + + + +THE MUMMER + + +The night before Christmas Eve I heard a burst of musical voices so close +that they might as well have been inside the house instead of just outside; +so I asked them inside, hoping that they might then seem farther away. +Then I realised that they were the Christmas Mummers, who come every year +in country parts to enact the rather rigid fragments of the old Christmas +play of St. George, the Turkish Knight, and the Very Venal Doctor. I will +not describe it; it is indescribable; but I will describe my parallel +sentiments as it passed. + +One could see something of that half-failure that haunts our artistic +revivals of mediaeval dances, carols, or Bethlehem Plays. There are +elements in all that has come to us from the more morally simple society +of the Middle Ages: elements which moderns, even when they are +mediaevalists, find it hard to understand and harder to imitate. The +first is the primary idea of Mummery itself. If you will observe a child +just able to walk, you will see that his first idea is not to dress up as +anybody--but to dress up. Afterwards, of course, the idea of being the +King or Uncle William will leap to his lips. But it is generally +suggested by the hat he has already let fall over his nose, from far +deeper motives. Tommy does not assume the hat primarily because it is +Uncle William's hat, but because it is not Tommy's hat. It is a ritual +investiture; and is akin to those Gorgon masks that stiffened the dances +of Greece or those towering mitres that came from the mysteries of Persia. +For the essence of such ritual is a profound paradox: the concealment of +the personality combined with the exaggeration of the person. The man +performing a rite seeks to be at once invisible and conspicuous. It is +part of that divine madness which all other creatures wonder at in Man, +that he alone parades this pomp of obliteration and anonymity. Man is not, +perhaps, the only creature who dresses himself, but he is the only +creature who disguises himself. Beasts and birds do indeed take the +colours of their environment; but that is not in order to be watched, but +in order not to be watched; it is not the formalism of rejoicing, but the +formlessness of fear. It is not so with men, whose nature is the +unnatural. Ancient Britons did not stain themselves blue because they +lived in blue forests; nor did Georgian beaux and belles powder their hair +to match an Arctic landscape; the Britons were not dressing up as +kingfishers nor the beaux pretending to be polar bears. Nay, even when +modern ladies paint their faces a bright mauve, it is doubted by some +naturalists whether they do it with the idea of escaping notice. So +merry-makers (or Mummers) adopt their costume to heighten and exaggerate +their own bodily presence and identity; not to sink it, primarily speaking, +in another identity. It is not Acting--that comparatively low +profession-comparatively I mean. It is Mummery; and, as Mr. Kensit would +truly say, all elaborate religious ritual is Mummery. That is, it is the +noble conception of making Man something other and more than himself when +he stands at the limit of human things. It is only careful faddists and +feeble German philosophers who want to wear no clothes; and be "natural" +in their Dionysian revels. Natural men, really vigorous and exultant men, +want to wear more and more clothes when they are revelling. They want +worlds of waistcoats and forests of trousers and pagodas of tall hats +toppling up to the stars. + +Thus it is with the lingering Mummers at Christmas in the country. If our +more refined revivers of Miracle Plays or Morrice Dances tried to +reconstruct the old Mummers' Play of St. George and the Turkish Knight (I +do not know why they do not) they would think at once of picturesque and +appropriate dresses. St. George's panoply would be pictured from the best +books of armour and blazonry: the Turkish Knight's arms and ornaments +would be traced from the finest Saracenic arabesques. When my garden door +opened on Christmas Eve and St. George of England entered, the appearance +of that champion was slightly different. His face was energetically +blacked all over with soot, above which he wore an aged and very tall top +hat; he wore his shirt outside his coat like a surplice, and he flourished +a thick umbrella. Now do not, I beg you, talk about "ignorance"; or +suppose that the Mummer in question (he is a very pleasant Ratcatcher, +with a tenor voice) did this because he knew no better. Try to realise +that even a Ratcatcher knows St. George of England was not black, and did +not kill the Dragon with an umbrella. The Rat-catcher is not under this +delusion; any more than Paul Veronese thought that very good men have +luminous rings round their heads; any more than the Pope thinks that +Christ washed the feet of the twelve in a Cathedral; any more than the +Duke of Norfolk thinks the lions on a tabard are like the lions at the Zoo. +These things are denaturalised because they are symbols; because the +extraordinary occasion must hide or even disfigure the ordinary people. +Black faces were to mediaeval mummeries what carved masks were to Greek +plays: it was called being "vizarded." My Rat-catcher is not sufficiently +arrogant to suppose for a moment that he looks like St. George. But he is +sufficiently humble to be convinced that if he looks as little like +himself as he can, he will be on the right road. + +This is the soul of Mumming; the ostentatious secrecy of men in disguise. +There are, of course, other mediaeval elements in it which are also +difficult to explain to the fastidious mediaevalists of to-day. There is, +for instance, a certain output of violence into the void. It can best be +defined as a raging thirst to knock men down without the faintest desire +to hurt them. All the rhymes with the old ring have the trick of turning +on everything in which the rhymsters most sincerely believed, merely for +the pleasure of blowing off steam in startling yet careless phrases. When +Tennyson says that King Arthur "drew all the petty princedoms under him," +and "made a realm and ruled," his grave Royalism is quite modern. Many +mediaevals, outside the mediaeval republics, believed in monarchy as +solemnly as Tennyson. But that older verse + +When good King Arthur ruled this land +He was a goodly King-- +He stole three pecks of barley-meal +To make a bag-pudding. + +is far more Arthurian than anything in The Idylls of the King. There are +other elements; especially that sacred thing that can perhaps be called +Anachronism. All that to us is Anachronism was to mediaevals merely +Eternity. But the main excellence of the Mumming Play lies still, I think, +in its uproarious secrecy. If we cannot hide our hearts in healthy +darkness, at least we can hide our faces in healthy blacking. If you +cannot escape like a philosopher into a forest, at least you can carry the +forest with you, like a Jack-in-the-Green. It is well to walk under +universal ensigns; and there is an old tale of a tyrant to whom a walking +forest was the witness of doom. That, indeed, is the very intensity of +the notion: a masked man is ominous; but who shall face a mob of masks? + + + + +THE ARISTOCRATIC 'ARRY + + +The Cheap Tripper, pursued by the curses of the aesthetes and the +antiquaries, really is, I suppose, a symptom of the strange and almost +unearthly ugliness of our diseased society. The costumes and customs of a +hundred peasantries are there to prove that such ugliness does not +necessarily follow from mere poverty, or mere democracy, or mere +unlettered simplicity of mind. + +But though the tripper, artistically considered, is a sign of our +decadence, he is not one of its worst signs, but relatively one of its +best; one of its most innocent and most sincere. Compared with many of +the philosophers and artists who denounce him; he looks like a God fearing +fisher or a noble mountaineer. His antics with donkeys and concertinas, +crowded charabancs, and exchanged hats, though clumsy, are not so vicious +or even so fundamentally vulgar as many of the amusements of the +overeducated. People are not more crowded on a char-a-banc than they are +at a political "At Home," or even an artistic soiree; and if the female +trippers are overdressed, at least they are not overdressed and +underdressed at the same time. It is better to ride a donkey than to be a +donkey. It is better to deal with the Cockney festival which asks men and +women to change hats, rather than with the modern Utopia that wants them +to change heads. + +But the truth is that such small, but real, element of vulgarity as there +is indeed in the tripper, is part of a certain folly and falsity which is +characteristic of much modernity, and especially of the very people who +persecute the poor tripper most. There is something in the whole society, +and even especially in the cultured part of it, that does things in a +clumsy and unbeautiful way. + +A case occurs to me in the matter of Stonehenge, which I happened to visit +yesterday. Now to a person really capable of feeling the poetry of +Stonehenge it is almost a secondary matter whether he sees Stonehenge at +all. The vast void roll of the empty land towards Salisbury, the gray +tablelands like primeval altars, the trailing rain-clouds, the vapour of +primeval sacrifices, would all tell him of a very ancient and very lonely +Britain. It would not spoil his Druidic mood if he missed Stonehenge. +But it does spoil his mood to find Stonehenge--surrounded by a brand-new +fence of barbed wire, with a policeman and a little shop selling picture +post-cards. + +Now if you protest against this, educated people will instantly answer you, +"Oh, it was done to prevent the vulgar trippers who chip stones and carve +names and spoil the look of Stonehenge." It does not seem to occur to +them that barbed wire and a policeman rather spoil the look of Stonehenge. +The scratching of a name, particularly when performed with blunt penknife +or pencil by a person of imperfect School Board education, can be trusted +in a little while to be indistinguishable from the grayest hieroglyphic by +the grandest Druid of old. But nobody could get a modern policeman into +the same picture with a Druid. This really vital piece of vandalism was +done by the educated, not the uneducated; it was done by the influence of +the artists or antiquaries who wanted to preserve the antique beauty of +Stonehenge. It seems to me curious to preserve your lady's beauty from +freckles by blacking her face all over; or to protect the pure whiteness +of your wedding garment by dyeing it green. + +And if you ask, "But what else could any one have done, what could the +most artistic age have done to save the monument?" I reply, "There are +hundreds of things that Greeks or Mediaevals might have done; and I have +no notion what they would have chosen; but I say that by an instinct in +their whole society they would have done something that was decent and +serious and suitable to the place. Perhaps some family of knights or +warriors would have the hereditary duty of guarding such a place. If so +their armour would be appropriate; their tents would be appropriate; not +deliberately--they would grow like that. Perhaps some religious order +such as normally employ nocturnal watches and the relieving of guard would +protect such a place. Perhaps it would be protected by all sorts of +rituals, consecrations, or curses, which would seem to you mere raving +superstition and silliness. But they do not seem to me one twentieth part +so silly, from a purely rationalist point of view, as calmly making a spot +hideous in order to keep it beautiful." + +The thing that is really vulgar, the thing that is really vile, is to live +in a good place Without living by its life. Any one who settles down in a +place without becoming part of it is (barring peculiar personal cases, of +course) a tripper or wandering cad. For instance, the Jew is a genuine +peculiar case. The Wandering Jew is not a wandering cad. He is a highly +civilised man in a highly difficult position; the world being divided, and +his own nation being divided, about whether he can do anything else except +wander. + +The best example of the cultured, but common, tripper is the educated +Englishman on the Continent. We can no longer explain the quarrel by +calling Englishmen rude and foreigners polite. Hundreds of Englishmen are +extremely polite, and thousands of foreigners are extremely rude. The +truth of the matter is that foreigners do not resent the rude Englishman. +What they do resent, what they do most justly resent, is the polite +Englishman. He visits Italy for Botticellis or Flanders for Rembrandts, +and he treats the great nations that made these things courteously--as he +would treat the custodians of any museum. It does not seem to strike him +that the Italian is not the custodian of the pictures, but the creator of +them. He can afford to look down on such nations--when he can paint such +pictures. + +That is, in matters of art and travel, the psychology of the cad. If, +living in Italy, you admire Italian art while distrusting Italian +character, you are a tourist, or cad. If, living in Italy, you admire +Italian art while despising Italian religion, you are a tourist, or cad. +It does not matter how many years you have lived there. Tourists will +often live a long time in hotels without discovering the nationality of +the waiters. Englishmen will often live a long time in Italy without +discovering the nationality of the Italians. But the test is simple. If +you admire what Italians did without admiring Italians--you are a cheap +tripper. + +The same, of course, applies much nearer home. I have remarked elsewhere +that country shopkeepers are justly offended by London people, who, coming +among them, continue to order all their goods from London. It is caddish +to wink and squint at the colour of a man's wine, like a wine taster; and +then refuse to drink it. It is equally caddish to wink and squint at the +colour of a man's orchard, like a landscape painter; and then refuse to +buy the apples. It is always an insult to admire a thing and not use it. +But the main point is that one has no right to see Stonehenge without +Salisbury Plain and Salisbury: One has no right to respect the dead +Italians without respecting the live ones. One has no right to visit a +Christian society like a diver visiting the deep-sea fishes--fed along a +lengthy tube by another atmosphere, and seeing the sights without +breathing the air. It is very real bad manners. + + + + +THE NEW THEOLOGIAN + + +It is an old story that names do not fit things; it is an old story that +the oldest forest is called the New Forest, and that Irish stew is almost +peculiar to England. But these are traditional titles that tend, of their +nature, to stiffen; it is the tragedy of to-day that even phrases invented +for to-day do not fit it. The forest has remained new while it is nearly +a thousand years old; but our fashions have grown old while they were +still new. + +The extreme example of this is that when modern wrongs are attacked, they +are almost always attacked wrongly. People seem to have a positive +inspiration for finding the inappropriate phrase to apply to an offender; +they are always accusing a man of theft when he has been convicted of +murder. They must accuse Sir Edward Carson of outrageous rebellion, when +his offence has really been a sleek submission to the powers that be. +They must describe Mr. Lloyd George as using his eloquence to rouse the +mob, whereas he has really shown considerable cleverness in damping it +down. It was probably under the same impulse towards a mysterious misfit +of names that people denounced Dr. Inge as "the Gloomy Dean." + +Now there is nothing whatever wrong about being a Dean; nor is there +anything wrong about being gloomy. The only question is what dark but +sincere motives have made you gloomy. What dark but sincere motives have +made you a Dean. Now the address of Dr. Inge which gained him this +erroneous title was mostly concerned with a defence of the modern +capitalists against the modern strikers, from whose protest he appeared to +anticipate appalling results. Now if we look at the facts about that +gentleman's depression and also about his Deanery, we shall find a very +curious state of things. + +When Dr. Inge was called "the Gloomy Dean" a great injustice was done him. +He had appeared as the champion of our capitalist community against the +forces of revolt; and any one who does that exceeds in optimism rather +than pessimism. A man who really thinks that strikers have suffered no +wrong, or that employers have done no wrong--such a man is not a Gloomy +Dean, but a quite wildly and dangerously happy Dean. A man who can feel +satisfied with modern industrialism must be a man with a mysterious +fountain of high spirits. And the actual occasion is not less curious; +because, as far as I can make out, his title to gloom reposes on his +having said that our worker's demand high wages, while the placid people +of the Far East will quite cheerfully work for less. + +This is true enough, of course, and there does not seem to be much +difficulty about the matter. Men of the Far East will submit to very low +wages for the same reason that they will submit to "the punishment known +as Li, or Slicing"; for the same reason that they will praise polygamy and +suicide; for the same reason that they subject the wife utterly to the +husband or his parents; for the same reason that they serve their temples +with prostitutes for priests; for the same reason that they sometimes seem +to make no distinction between sexual passion and sexual perversion. They +do it, that is, because they are Heathens; men with traditions different +from ours about the limits of endurance and the gestures of self-respect. +They may be very much better than we are in hundreds of other ways; and I +can quite understand a man (though hardly a Dean) really preferring their +historic virtues to those of Christendom. A man may perhaps feel more +comfortable among his Asiatic coolies than among his European comrades: +and as we are to allow the Broadest Thought in the Church, Dr. Inge has as +much right to his heresy as anybody else. It is true that, as Dr. Inge +says, there are numberless Orientals who will do a great deal of work for +very little money; and it is most undoubtedly true that there are several +high-placed and prosperous Europeans who like to get work done and pay as +little as possible for it. + +But I cannot make out why, with his enthusiasm for heathen habits and +traditions, the Dean should wish to spread in the East the ideas which he +has found so dreadfully unsettling in the West. If some thousands of +years of paganism have produced the patience and industry that Dean Inge +admires, and if some thousand years of Christianity have produced the +sentimentality and sensationalism which he regrets, the obvious deduction +is that Dean Inge would be much happier if he were a heathen Chinese. +Instead of supporting Christian missions to Korea or Japan, he ought to be +at the head of a great mission in London for converting the English to +Taoism or Buddhism. There his passion for the moral beauties of paganism +would have free and natural play; his style would improve; his mind would +begin slowly to clear; and he would be free from all sorts of little +irritating scrupulosities which must hamper even the most Conservative +Christian in his full praise of sweating and the sack. + +In Christendom he will never find rest. The perpetual public criticism +and public change which is the note of all our history springs from a +certain spirit far too deep to be defined. It is deeper than democracy; +nay, it may often appear to be non-democratic; for it may often be the +special defence of a minority or an individual. It will often leave the +ninety-and-nine in the wilderness and go after that which is lost. It +will often risk the State itself to right a single wrong; and do justice +though the heavens fall. Its highest expression is not even in the +formula of the great gentlemen of the French Revolution who said that all +men were free and equal. Its highest expression is rather in the formula +of the peasant who said that a man's a man for a' that. If there were but +one slave in England, and he did all the work while the rest of us made +merry, this spirit that is in us would still cry aloud to God night and +day. Whether or no this spirit was produced by, it clearly works with, a +creed which postulates a humanised God and a vividly personal immortality. +Men must not be busy merely like a swarm, or even happy merely like a +herd; for it is not a question of men, but of a man. A man's meals may be +poor, but they must not be bestial; there must always be that about the +meal which permits of its comparison to the sacrament. A man's bed may +be hard, but it must not be abject or unclean: there must always be about +the bed something of the decency of the death-bed. + +This is the spirit which makes the Christian poor begin their terrible +murmur whenever there is a turn of prices or a deadlock of toil that +threatens them with vagabondage or pauperisation; and we cannot encourage +the Dean with any hope that this spirit can be cast out. Christendom will +continue to suffer all the disadvantages of being Christian: it is the +Dean who must be gently but firmly altered. He had absent-mindedly +strayed into the wrong continent and the wrong creed. I advise him to +chuck it. + +But the case is more curious still. To connect the Dean with Confucian +temples or traditions may have appeared fantastic; but it is not. Dr. +Inge is not a stupid old Tory Rector, strict both on Church and State. +Such a man might talk nonsense about the Christian Socialists being "court +chaplains of King Demos" or about his own superb valour in defying the +democracy that rages in the front pews of Anglican churches. We should +not expect a mere old-fashioned country clergyman to know that Demos has +never been king in England and precious seldom anywhere else; we should +not expect him to realise that if King Demos had any chaplains they would +be uncommonly poorly paid. But Dr. Inge is not old-fashioned; he +considers himself highly progressive and advanced. He is a New Theologian; +that is, he is liberal in theology--and nothing else. He is apparently +in sober fact, and not as in any fantasy, in sympathy with those who would +soften the superior claim of our creed by urging the rival creeds of the +East; with those who would absorb the virtues of Buddhism or of Islam. He +holds a high seat in that modern Parliament of Religions where all +believers respect each other's unbelief. + +Now this has a very sharp moral for modern religious reformers. When next +you hear the "liberal" Christian say that we should take what is best in +Oriental faiths, make quite sure what are the things that people like Dr. +Inge call best; what are the things that people like Dr. Inge propose to +take. You will not find them imitating the military valour of the Moslem. +You will not find them imitating the miraculous ecstasy of the Hindoo. +The more you study the "broad" movement of today, the more you will find +that these people want something much less like Chinese metaphysics, and +something much more like Chinese Labour. You will find the levelling of +creeds quite unexpectedly close to the lowering of wages. Dr. Inge is +the typical latitudinarian of to-day; and was never more so than when he +appeared not as the apostle of the blacks, but as the apostle of the +blacklegs. Preached, as it is, almost entirely among the prosperous and +polite, our brotherhood with Buddhism or Mohammedanism practically means +this--that the poor must be as meek as Buddhists, while the rich may be as +ruthless as Mohammedans. That is what they call the reunion of all +religions. + + + + +THE ROMANTIC IN THE RAIN + + +The middle classes of modern England are quite fanatically fond of washing; +and are often enthusiastic for teetotalism. I cannot therefore +comprehend why it is that they exhibit a mysterious dislike of rain. +Rain, that inspiring and delightful thing, surely combines the qualities +of these two ideals with quite a curious perfection. Our philanthropists +are eager to establish public baths everywhere. Rain surely is a public +bath; it might almost be called mixed bathing. The appearance of persons +coming fresh from this great natural lustration is not perhaps polished or +dignified; but for the matter of that, few people are dignified when +coming out of a bath. But the scheme of rain in itself is one of an +enormous purification. It realises the dream of some insane hygienist: it +scrubs the sky. Its giant brooms and mops seem to reach the starry +rafters and Starless corners of the cosmos; it is a cosmic spring cleaning. + +If the Englishman is really fond of cold baths, he ought not to grumble at +the English climate for being a cold bath. In these days we are +constantly told that we should leave our little special possessions and +join in the enjoyment of common social institutions and a common social +machinery. I offer the rain as a thoroughly Socialistic institution. It +disregards that degraded delicacy which has hitherto led each gentleman to +take his shower-bath in private. It is a better shower-bath, because it +is public and communal; and, best of all, because somebody else pulls the +string. + +As for the fascination of rain for the water drinker, it is a fact the +neglect of which I simply cannot comprehend. The enthusiastic water +drinker must regard a rainstorm as a sort of universal banquet and debauch +of his own favourite beverage. Think of the imaginative intoxication of +the wine drinker if the crimson clouds sent down claret or the golden +clouds hock. Paint upon primitive darkness some such scenes of apocalypse, +towering and gorgeous skyscapes in which champagne falls like fire from +heaven or the dark skies grow purple and tawny with the terrible colours +of port. All this must the wild abstainer feel, as he rolls in the long +soaking grass, kicks his ecstatic heels to heaven, and listens to the +roaring rain. It is he, the water drinker, who ought to be the true +bacchanal of the forests; for all the forests are drinking water. +Moreover, the forests are apparently enjoying it: the trees rave and reel +to and fro like drunken giants; they clash boughs as revellers clash cups; +they roar undying thirst and howl the health of the world. + +All around me as I write is a noise of Nature drinking: and Nature makes a +noise when she is drinking, being by no means refined. If I count it +Christian mercy to give a cup of cold water to a sufferer, shall I +complain of these multitudinous cups of cold water handed round to all +living things; a cup of water for every shrub; a cup of water for every +weed? I would be ashamed to grumble at it. As Sir Philip Sidney said, +their need is greater than mine--especially for water. + +There is a wild garment that still carries nobly the name of a wild +Highland clan: a elan come from those hills where rain is not so much an +incident as an atmosphere. Surely every man of imagination must feel a +tempestuous flame of Celtic romance spring up within him whenever he puts +on a mackintosh. I could never reconcile myself to carrying all umbrella; +it is a pompous Eastern business, carried over the heads of despots in the +dry, hot lands. Shut up, an umbrella is an unmanageable walkingstick; +open, it is an inadequate tent. For my part, I have no taste for +pretending to be a walking pavilion; I think nothing of my hat, and +precious little of my head. If I am to be protected against wet, it must +be by some closer and more careless protection, something that I can +forget altogether. It might be a Highland plaid. It might be that yet +more Highland thing, a mackintosh. + +And there is really something in the mackintosh of the military qualities +of the Highlander. The proper cheap mackintosh has a blue and white sheen +as of steel or iron; it gleams like armour. I like to think of it as the +uniform of that ancient clan in some of its old and misty raids. I like +to think of all the Macintoshes, in their mackintoshes, descending on some +doomed Lowland village, their wet waterproofs flashing in the sun or moon. +For indeed this is one of the real beauties of rainy weather, that while +the amount of original and direct light is commonly lessened, the number +of things that reflect light is unquestionably increased. There is less +sunshine; but there are more shiny things; such beautifully shiny things +as pools and puddles and mackintoshes. It is like moving in a world of +mirrors. + +And indeed this is the last and not the least gracious of the casual works +of magic wrought by rain: that while it decreases light, yet it doubles it. +If it dims the sky, it brightens the earth. It gives the roads (to the +sympathetic eye) something of the beauty of Venice. Shallow lakes of +water reiterate every detail of earth and sky; we dwell in a double +universe. Sometimes walking upon bare and lustrous pavements, wet under +numerous lamps, a man seems a black blot on all that golden looking-glass, +and could fancy he was flying in a yellow sky. But wherever trees and +towns hang head downwards in a pigmy puddle, the sense of Celestial +topsy-turvydom is the same. This bright, wet, dazzling confusion of shape +and shadow, of reality and reflection, will appeal strongly to any one +with the transcendental instinct about this dreamy and dual life of ours. +It will always give a man the strange sense of looking down at the skies. + + + + +THE FALSE PHOTOGRAPHER + + +When, as lately, events have happened that seem (to the fancy, at least) +to test if not stagger the force of official government, it is amusing to +ask oneself what is the real weakness of civilisation, ours especially, +when it contends with the one lawless man. I was reminded of one weakness +this morning in turning over an old drawerful of pictures. + +This weakness in civilisation is best expressed by saying that it cares +more for science than for truth. It prides itself on its "methods" more +than its results; it is satisfied with precision, discipline, good +communications, rather than with the sense of reality. But there are +precise falsehoods as well as precise facts. Discipline may only mean a +hundred men making the same mistake at the same minute. And good +communications may in practice be very like those evil communications +which are said to corrupt good manners. Broadly, we have reached a +"scientific age," which wants to know whether the train is in the +timetable, but not whether the train is in the station. I take one +instance in our police inquiries that I happen to have come across: the +case of photography. + +Some years ago a poet of considerable genius tragically disappeared, and +the authorities or the newspapers circulated a photograph of him, so that +he might be identified. The photograph, as I remember it, depicted or +suggested a handsome, haughty, and somewhat pallid man with his head +thrown back, with long distinguished features, colourless thin hair and +slight moustache, and though conveyed merely by the head and shoulders, a +definite impression of height. If I had gone by that photograph I should +have gone about looking for a long soldierly but listless man, with a +profile rather like the Duke of Connaught's. + +Only, as it happened, I knew the poet personally; I had seen him a great +many times, and he had an appearance that nobody could possibly forget, if +seen only once. He had the mark of those dark and passionate Westland +Scotch, who before Burns and after have given many such dark eyes and dark +emotions to the world. But in him the unmistakable strain, Gaelic or +whatever it is, was accentuated almost to oddity; and he looked like some +swarthy elf. He was small, with a big head and a crescent of coalblack +hair round the back of a vast dome of baldness. Immediately under his +eyes his cheekbones had so high a colour that they might have been painted +scarlet; three black tufts, two on the upper lip and one under the lower, +seemed to touch up the face with the fierce moustaches of Mephistopheles. +His eyes had that "dancing madness" in them which Stevenson saw in the +Gaelic eyes of Alan Breck; but he sometimes distorted the expression by +screwing a monstrous monocle into one of them. A man more unmistakable +would have been hard to find. You could have picked him out in any +crowd--so long as you had not seen his photograph. + +But in this scientific picture of him twenty causes, accidental and +conventional, had combined to obliterate him altogether. The limits of +photography forbade the strong and almost melodramatic colouring of cheek +and eyebrow. The accident of the lighting took nearly all the darkness +out of the hair and made him look almost like a fair man. The framing and +limitation of the shoulders made him look like a big man; and the +devastating bore of being photographed when you want to write poetry made +him look like a lazy man. Holding his head back, as people do when they +are being photographed (or shot), but as he certainly never held it +normally, accidentally concealed the bald dome that dominated his slight +figure. Here we have a clockwork picture, begun and finished by a button +and a box of chemicals, from which every projecting feature has been more +delicately and dexterously omitted than they could have been by the most +namby-pamby flatterer, painting in the weakest water-colours, on the +smoothest ivory. + +I happen to possess a book of Mr. Max Beerbohm's caricatures, one of which +depicts the unfortunate poet in question. To say it represents an utterly +incredible hobgoblin is to express in faint and inadequate language the +license of its sprawling lines. The authorities thought it strictly safe +and scientific to circulate the poet's photograph. They would have +clapped me in an asylum if I had asked them to circulate Max's caricature. +But the caricature would have been far more likely to find the man. + +This is a small but exact symbol of the failure of scientific civilisation. +It is so satisfied in knowing it has a photograph of a man that it never +asks whether it has a likeness of him. Thus declarations, seemingly most +detailed, have flashed along the wires of the world ever since I was a boy. +We were told that in some row Boer policemen had shot an Englishman, a +British subject, an English citizen. A long time afterwards we were quite +casually informed that the English citizen was quite black. Well, it +makes no difference to the moral question; black men should be shot on the +same ethical principles as white men. But it makes one distrust +scientific communications which permitted so startling an alteration of +the photograph. I am sorry we got hold of a photographic negative in +which a black man came out white. Later we were told that an Englishman +had fought for the Boers against his own flag, which would have been a +disgusting thing to do. Later, it was admitted that he was an Irishman; +which is exactly as different as if he had been a Pole. Common sense, +with all the facts before it, does see that black is not white, and that a +nation that has never submitted has a right to moral independence. But +why does it so seldom have all the facts before it? Why are the big +aggressive features, such as blackness or the Celtic wrath, always left +out in such official communications, as they were left out in the +photograph? My friend the poet had hair as black as an African and eyes +as fierce as an Irishman; why does our civilisation drop all four of the +facts? Its error is to omit the arresting thing--which might really +arrest the criminal. It strikes first the chilling note of science, +demanding a man "above the middle height, chin shaven, with gray +moustache," etc., which might mean Mr. Balfour or Sir Redvers Buller. +It does not seize the first fact of impression, as that a man is +obviously a sailor or a Jew or a drunkard or a gentleman or a nigger +or an albino or a prize-fighter or an imbecile or an American. These +are the realities by which the people really recognise each other. +They are almost always left out of the inquiry. + + + + +THE SULTAN + + +There is one deep defect in our extension of cosmopolitan and Imperial +cultures. That is, that in most human things if you spread your butter +far you spread it thin. But there is an odder fact yet: rooted in +something dark and irrational in human nature. That is, that when you +find your butter thin, you begin to spread it. And it is just when you +find your ideas wearing thin in your own mind that you begin to spread +them among your fellow-creatures. It is a paradox; but not my paradox. +There are numerous cases in history; but I think the strongest case is +this. That we have Imperialism in all our clubs at the very time when we +have Orientalism in all our drawing-rooms. + +I mean that the colonial ideal of such men as Cecil Rhodes did not arise +out of any fresh creative idea of the Western genius, it was a fad, and +like most fads an imitation. For what was wrong with Rhodes was not that, +like Cromwell or Hildebrand, he made huge mistakes, nor even that he +committed great crimes. It was that he committed these crimes and errors +in order to spread certain ideas. And when one asked for the ideas they +could not be found. Cromwell stood for Calvinism, Hildebrand for +Catholicism: but Rhodes had no principles whatever to give to the world. +He had only a hasty but elaborate machinery for spreading the principles +that he hadn't got. What he called his ideals were the dregs of a +Darwinism which had already grown not only stagnant, but poisonous. That +the fittest must survive, and that any one like himself must be the +fittest; that the weakest must go to the wall, and that any one he could +not understand must be the weakest; that was the philosophy which he +lumberingly believed through life, like many another agnostic old bachelor +of the Victorian era. All his views on religion (reverently quoted in the +Review of Reviews) were simply the stalest ideas of his time. It was not +his fault, poor fellow, that he called a high hill somewhere in South +Africa "his church." It was not his fault, I mean, that he could not see +that a church all to oneself is not a church at all. It is a madman's +cell. It was not his fault that he "figured out that God meant as much of +the planet to be Anglo-Saxon as possible." Many evolutionists much wiser +had "figured out" things even more babyish. He was an honest and humble +recipient of the plodding popular science of his time; he spread no ideas +that any cockney clerk in Streatham could not have spread for him. But it +was exactly because he had no ideas to spread that he invoked slaughter, +violated justice, and ruined republics to spread them. + +But the case is even stronger and stranger. Fashionable Imperialism not +only has no ideas of its own to extend; but such ideas as it has are +actually borrowed from the brown and black peoples to whom it seeks to +extend them. The Crusading kings and knights might be represented as +seeking to spread Western ideas in the East. But all that our Imperialist +aristocrats could do would be to spread Eastern ideas in the East. For +that very governing class which urges Occidental Imperialism has been +deeply discoloured with Oriental mysticism and Cosmology. + +The same society lady who expects the Hindoos to accept her view of +politics has herself accepted their view of religion. She wants first to +steal their earth, and then to share their heaven. The same Imperial +cynic who wishes the Turks to submit to English science has himself +submitted to Turkish philosophy, to a wholly Turkish view of despotism and +destiny. + +There is an obvious and amusing proof of this in a recent life of Rhodes. +The writer admits with proper Imperial gloom the fact that Africa is +still chiefly inhabited by Africans. He suggests Rhodes in the South +confronting savages and Kitchener in the North facing Turks, Arabs, and +Soudanese, and then he quotes this remark of Cecil Rhodes: "It is +inevitable fate that all this should be changed; and I should like to be +the agent of fate." That was Cecil Rhodes's one small genuine idea; and +it is an Oriental idea. + +Here we have evident all the ultimate idiocy of the present Imperial +position. Rhodes and Kitchener are to conquer Moslem bedouins and +barbarians, in order to teach them to believe only in inevitable fate. +We are to wreck provinces and pour blood like Niagara, all in order to +teach a Turk to say "Kismet "; which he has said since his cradle. We are +to deny Christian justice and destroy international equality, all in order +to teach an Arab to believe he is "an agent of fate," when he has never +believed anything else. If Cecil Rhodes's vision could come true (which +fortunately is increasingly improbable), such countries as Persia or +Arabia would simply be filled with ugly and vulgar fatalists in billycocks, +instead of with graceful and dignified fatalists in turbans. The best +Western idea, the idea of spiritual liberty and danger, of a doubtful and +romantic future in which all things may happen--this essential Western +idea Cecil Rhodes could not spread, because (as he says himself) he did +not believe in it. + +It was an Oriental who gave to Queen Victoria the crown of an Empress in +addition to that of a Queen. He did not understand that the title of King +is higher than that of Emperor. For in the East titles are meant to be +vast and wild; to be extravagant poems: the Brother of the Sun and Moon, +the Caliph who lives for ever. But a King of England (at least in the +days of real kings) did not bear a merely poetical title; but rather a +religious one. He belonged to his people and not merely they to him. He +was not merely a conqueror, but a father--yes, even when he was a bad +father. But this sort of solid sanctity always goes with local affections +and limits: and the Cecil Rhodes Imperialism set up not the King, but the +Sultan; with all the typically Eastern ideas of the magic of money, of +luxury without uproar; of prostrate provinces and a chosen race. Indeed +Cecil Rhodes illustrated almost every quality essential to the Sultan, +from the love of diamonds to the scorn of woman. + + + + +THE ARCHITECT OF SPEARS + + +The other day, in the town of Lincoln, I suffered an optical illusion +which accidentally revealed to me the strange greatness of the Gothic +architecture. Its secret is not, I think, satisfactorily explained in +most of the discussions on the subject. It is said that the Gothic +eclipses the classical by a certain richness and complexity, at once +lively and mysterious. This is true; but Oriental decoration is equally +rich and complex, yet it awakens a widely different sentiment. No man +ever got out of a Turkey carpet the emotions that he got from a cathedral +tower. Over all the exquisite ornament of Arabia and India there is the +presence of something stiff and heartless, of something tortured and +silent. Dwarfed trees and crooked serpents, heavy flowers and hunchbacked +birds accentuate by the very splendour and contrast of their colour the +servility and monotony of their shapes. It is like the vision of a +sneering sage, who sees the whole universe as a pattern. Certainly no one +ever felt like this about Gothic, even if he happens to dislike it. Or, +again, some will say that it is the liberty of the Middle Ages in the use +of the comic or even the coarse that makes the Gothic more interesting +than the Greek. There is more truth in this; indeed, there is real truth +in it. Few of the old Christian cathedrals would have passed the Censor +of Plays. We talk of the inimitable grandeur of the old cathedrals; but +indeed it is rather their gaiety that we do not dare to imitate. We +should be rather surprised if a chorister suddenly began singing "Bill +Bailey" in church. Yet that would be only doing in music what the +mediaevals did in sculpture. They put into a Miserere seat the very +scenes that we put into a music hall song: comic domestic scenes similar to +the spilling of the beer and the hanging out of the washing. But though +the gaiety of Gothic is one of its features, it also is not the secret of +its unique effect. We see a domestic topsy-turvydom in many Japanese +sketches. But delightful as these are, with their fairy tree-tops, paper +houses, and toddling, infantile inhabitants, the pleasure they give is of +a kind quite different from the joy and energy of the gargoyles. Some +have even been so shallow and illiterate as to maintain that our pleasure +in medieval building is a mere pleasure in what is barbaric, in what is +rough, shapeless, or crumbling like the rocks. This can be dismissed +after the same fashion; South Sea idols, with painted eyes and radiating +bristles, are a delight to the eye; but they do not affect it in at all +the same way as Westminster Abbey. Some again (going to another and +almost equally foolish extreme) ignore the coarse and comic in +mediaevalism; and praise the pointed arch only for its utter purity and +simplicity, as of a saint with his hands joined in prayer. Here, again, +the uniqueness is missed. There are Renaissance things (such as the +ethereal silvery drawings of Raphael), there are even pagan things (such +as the Praying Boy) which express as fresh and austere a piety. None of +these explanations explain. And I never saw what was the real point about +Gothic till I came into the town of Lincoln, and saw it behind a row of +furniture-vans. + +I did not know they were furniture-vans; at the first glance and in the +smoky distance I thought they were a row of cottages. A low stone wall +cut off the wheels, and the vans were somewhat of the same colour as the +yellowish clay or stone of the buildings around them. I had come across +that interminable Eastern plain which is like the open sea, and all the +more so because the one small hill and tower of Lincoln stands up in it +like a light-house. I had climbed the sharp, crooked streets up to this +ecclesiastical citadel; just in front of me was a flourishing and richly +coloured kitchen garden; beyond that was the low stone wall; beyond that +the row of vans that looked like houses; and beyond and above that, +straight and swift and dark, light as a flight of birds, and terrible as +the Tower of Babel, Lincoln Cathedral seemed to rise out of human sight. + +As I looked at it I asked myself the questions that I have asked here; +what was the soul in all those stones? They were varied, but it was not +variety; they were solemn, but it was not solemnity; they were farcical, +but it was not farce. What is it in them that thrills and soothes a man +of our blood and history, that is not there in an Egyptian pyramid or an +Indian temple or a Chinese pagoda? All of a sudden the vans I had +mistaken for cottages began to move away to the left. In the start this +gave to my eye and mind I really fancied that the Cathedral was moving +towards the right. The two huge towers seemed to start striding across +the plain like the two legs of some giant whose body was covered with the +clouds. Then I saw what it was. + +The truth about Gothic is, first, that it is alive, and second, that it is +on the march. It is the Church Militant; it is the only fighting +architecture. All its spires are spears at rest; and all its stones are +stones asleep in a catapult. In that instant of illusion, I could hear the +arches clash like swords as they crossed each other. The mighty and +numberless columns seemed to go swinging by like the huge feet of imperial +elephants. The graven foliage wreathed and blew like banners going into +battle; the silence was deafening with ail the mingled noises of a +military march; the great bell shook down, as the organ shook up its +thunder. The thirsty-throated gargoyles shouted like trumpets from all +the roofs and pinnacles as they passed; and from the lectern in the core +of the cathedral the eagle of the awful evangelist clashed his wings of +brass, + +And amid all the noises I seemed to hear the voice of a man shouting in +the midst like one ordering regiments hither and thither in the fight; the +voice of the great half-military master-builder; the architect of spears. +I could almost fancy he wore armour while he made that church; and I knew +indeed that, under a scriptural figure, he had borne in either hand the +trowel and the sword. + +I could imagine for the moment that the whole of that house of life had +marched out of the sacred East, alive and interlocked, like an army. +Some Eastern nomad had found it solid and silent in the red circle of the +desert. He had slept by it as by a world-forgotten pyramid; and been woke +at midnight by the wings of stone and brass, the tramping of the tall +pillars, the trumpets of the waterspouts. On such a night every snake or +sea-beast must have turned and twisted in every crypt or corner of the +architecture. And the fiercely coloured saints marching eternally in the +flamboyant windows would have carried their glorioles like torches across +dark lands and distant seas; till the whole mountain of music and darkness +and lights descended roaring on the lonely Lincoln hill. So for some +hundred and sixty seconds I saw the battle-beauty of the Gothic; then the +last furniture-van shifted itself away; and I saw only a church tower in a +quiet English town, round which the English birds were floating. + + + + +THE MAN ON TOP + + +There is a fact at the root of all realities to-day which cannot be stated +too simply. It is that the powers of this world are now not trusted +simply because they are not trustworthy. This can be quite clearly seen +and said without any reference to our several passions or partisanships. +It does not follow that we think such a distrust a wise sentiment to +express; it does not even follow that we think it a good sentiment to +entertain. But such is the sentiment, simply because such is the fact. +The distinction can be quite easily defined in an example. I do not +think that private workers owe an indefinite loyalty to their employer. +But I do think that patriotic soldiers owe a more or less indefinite +loyalty to their leader in battle. But even if they ought to trust their +captain, the fact remains that they often do not trust him; and the fact +remains that he often is not fit to be trusted. + +Most of the employers and many of the Socialists seem to have got a very +muddled ethic about the basis of such loyalty; and perpetually try to put +employers and officers upon the same disciplinary plane. I should have +thought myself that the difference was alphabetical enough. It has +nothing to do with the idealising of war or the materialising of trade; it +is a distinction in the primary purpose. There might be much more +elegance and poetry in a shop under William Morris than in a regiment +under Lord Kitchener. But the difference is not in the persons or the +atmosphere, but in the aim. The British Army does not exist in order to +pay Lord Kitchener. William Morris's shop, however artistic and +philanthropic, did exist to pay William Morris. If it did not pay the +shopkeeper it failed as a shop; but Lord Kitchener does not fail if he is +underpaid, but only if he is defeated. The object of the Army is the +safety of the nation from one particular class of perils; therefore, since +all citizens owe loyalty to the nation, all citizens who are soldiers owe +loyalty to the Army. But nobody has any obligation to make some +particular rich man richer. A man is bound, of course, to consider the +indirect results of his action in a strike; but he is bound to consider +that in a swing, or a giddy-go-round, or a smoking concert; in his wildest +holiday or his most private conversation. But direct responsibility like +that of a soldier he has none. He need not aim solely and directly at the +good of the shop; for the simple reason that the shop is not aiming solely +and directly at the good of the nation. The shopman is, under decent +restraints, let us hope, trying to get what he can out of the nation; the +shop assistant may, under the same decent restraints, get what he can out +of the shopkeeper. All this distinction is very obvious. At least I +should have thought so. + +But the primary point which I mean is this. That even if we do take the +military view of mercantile service, even if we do call the rebellious +shop assistant "disloyal"--that leaves exactly where it was the question +of whether he is, in point of fact, in a good or bad shop. Granted that +all Mr. Poole's employees are bound to follow for ever the cloven pennon +of the Perfect Pair of Trousers, it is all the more true that the pennon +may, in point of fact, become imperfect. Granted that all Barney Barnato's +workers ought to have followed him to death or glory, it is still a +Perfectly legitimate question to ask which he was likely to lead them to. +Granted that Dr. Sawyer's boy ought to die for his master's medicines, we +may still hold an inquest to find out if he died of them. While we +forbid the soldier to shoot the general, we may still wish the general +were shot. + +The fundamental fact of our time is the failure of the successful man. +Somehow we have so arranged the rules of the game that the winners are +worthless for other purposes; they can secure nothing except the prize. +The very rich are neither aristocrats nor self-made men; they are +accidents--or rather calamities. All revolutionary language is a +generation behind the times in talking of their futility. A revolutionist +would say (with perfect truth) that coal-owners know next to nothing about +coal-mining. But we are past that point. Coal-owners know next to +nothing about coal-owning. They do not develop and defend the nature of +their own monopoly with any consistent and courageous policy, however +wicked, as did the old aristocrats with the monopoly of land. They have +not the virtues nor even the vices of tyrants; they have only their powers. +It is the same with all the powerful of to-day; it is the same, for +instance, with the high-placed and high-paid official. Not only is the +judge not judicial, but the arbiter is not even arbitrary. The arbiter +decides, not by some gust of justice or injustice in his soul like the old +despot dooming men under a tree, but by the permanent climate of the class +to which he happens to belong. The ancient wig of the judge is often +indistinguishable from the old wig of the flunkey. + +To judge about success or failure one must see things very simply; one +must see them in masses, as the artist, half closing his eyes against +details, sees light and shade. That is the only way in which a just +judgment can be formed as to whether any departure or development, such as +Islam or the American Republic, has been a benefit upon the whole. Seen +close, such great erections always abound in ingenious detail and +impressive solidity; it is only by seeing them afar off that one can tell +if the Tower leans. + +Now if we thus take in the whole tilt or posture of our modern state, we +shall simply see this fact: that those classes who have on the whole +governed, have on the whole failed. If you go to a factory you will see +some very wonderful wheels going round; you will be told that the employer +often comes there early in the morning; that he has great organising power; +that if he works over the colossal accumulation of wealth he also works +over its wise distribution. All this may be true of many employers, and +it is practically said of all. + +But if we shade our eyes from all this dazzle of detail; if we simply ask +what has been the main feature, the upshot, the final fruit of the +capitalist system, there is no doubt about the answer. The special and +solid result of the reign of the employers has been--unemployment. +Unemployment not only increasing, but becoming at last the very pivot upon +which the whole process turns. + +Or, again, if you visit the villages that depend on one of the great +squires, you will hear praises, often just, of the landlord's good sense +or good nature; you will hear of whole systems of pensions or of care for +the sick, like those of a small and separate nation; you will see much +cleanliness, order, and business habits in the offices and accounts of the +estate. But if you ask again what has been the upshot, what has been the +actual result of the reign of landlords, again the answer is plain. At +the end of the reign of landlords men will not live on the land. The +practical effect of having landlords is not having tenants. The practical +effect of having employers is that men are not employed. The unrest of +the populace is therefore more than a murmur against tyranny; it is +against a sort of treason. It is the suspicion that even at the top of +the tree, even in the seats of the mighty, our very success is +unsuccessful. + + + + +THE OTHER KIND OF MAN + + +There are some who are conciliated by Conciliation Boards. There are some +who, when they hear of Royal Commissions, breathe again--or snore again. +There are those who look forward to Compulsory Arbitration Courts as to +the islands of the blest. These men do not understand the day that they +look upon or the sights that their eyes have seen. + +The almost sacramental idea of representation, by which the few may +incarnate the many, arose in the Middle Ages, and has done great things +for justice and liberty. It has had its real hours of triumph, as when +the States General met to renew France's youth like the eagle's; or when +all the virtues of the Republic fought and ruled in the figure of +Washington. It is not having one of its hours of triumph now. The real +democratic unrest at this moment is not an extension of the representative +process, but rather a revolt against it. It is no good giving those now +in revolt more boards and committees and compulsory regulations. It is +against these very things that they are revolting. Men are not only +rising against their oppressors, but against their representatives or, as +they would say, their misrepresentatives. The inner and actual spirit of +workaday England is coming out not in applause, but in anger, as a god who +should come out of his tabernacle to rebuke and confound his priests. + +There is a certain kind of man whom we see many times in a day, but whom +we do not, in general, bother very much about. He is the kind of man of +whom his wife says that a better husband when he's sober you couldn't have. +She sometimes adds that he never is sober; but this is in anger and +exaggeration. Really he drinks much less and works much more than the +modern legend supposes. But it is quite true that he has not the horror +of bodily outbreak, natural to the classes that contain ladies; and it is +quite true that he never has that alert and inventive sort of industry +natural to the classes from which men can climb into great wealth. He has +grown, partly by necessity, but partly also by temper, accustomed to have +dirty clothes and dirty hands normally and without discomfort. He regards +cleanliness as a kind of separate and special costume; to be put on for +great festivals. He has several really curious characteristics, which +would attract the eyes of sociologists, if they had any eyes. For +instance, his vocabulary is coarse and abusive, in marked contrast to his +actual spirit, which is generally patient and civil. He has an odd way of +using certain words of really horrible meaning, but using them quite +innocently and without the most distant taint of the evils to which they +allude. He is rather sentimental; and, like most sentimental people, not +devoid of snobbishness. At the same time, he believes the ordinary manly +commonplaces of freedom and fraternity as he believes most of the decent +traditions of Christian men: he finds it very difficult to act according +to them, but this difficulty is not confined to him. He has a strong and +individual sense of humour, and not much power of corporate or militant +action. He is not a Socialist. Finally, he bears no more resemblance to +a Labour Member than he does to a City Alderman or a Die-Hard Duke. This +is the Common Labourer of England; and it is he who is on the march at +last. + +See this man in your mind as you see him in the street, realise that it is +his open mind we wish to influence or his empty stomach we wish to cure, +and then consider seriously (if you can) the five men, including two of +his own alleged oppressors, who were summoned as a Royal Commission to +consider his claims when he or his sort went out on strike upon the +railways. I knew nothing against, indeed I knew nothing about, any of the +gentlemen then summoned, beyond a bare introduction to Mr. Henderson, +whom I liked, but whose identity I was in no danger of confusing with that +of a railway-porter. I do not think that any old gentleman, however +absent-minded, would be likely on arriving at Euston, let us say, to hand +his Gladstone-bag to Mr. Henderson or to attempt to reward that politician +with twopence. Of the others I can only judge by the facts about their +status as set forth in the public Press. The Chairman, Sir David Harrell, +appeared to be an ex-official distinguished in (of all things in the +world) the Irish Constabulary. I have no earthly reason to doubt that the +Chairman meant to be fair; but I am not talking about what men mean to be, +but about what they are. The police in Ireland are practically an army of +occupation; a man serving in them or directing them is practically a +soldier; and, of course, he must do his duty as such. But it seems truly +extraordinary to select as one likely to sympathise with the democracy of +England a man whose whole business in life it has been to govern against +its will the democracy of Ireland. What should we say if Russian strikers +were offered the sympathetic arbitration of the head of the Russian Police +in Finland or Poland? And if we do not know that the whole civilised +world sees Ireland with Poland as a typical oppressed nation, it is time +we did. The Chairman, whatever his personal virtues, must be by instinct +and habit akin to the capitalists in the dispute. Two more of the +Commissioners actually were the capitalists in the dispute. Then came Mr. +Henderson (pushing his trolley and cheerily crying, "By your leave."), +and then another less known gentleman who had "corresponded" with the +Board of Trade, and had thus gained some strange claim to represent the +very poor. + +Now people like this might quite possibly produce a rational enough report, +and in this or that respect even improve things. Men of that kind are +tolerably kind, tolerably patriotic, and tolerably business-like. But if +any one supposes that men of that kind can conceivably quiet any real +'quarrel with the Man of the Other Kind, the man whom I first described, +it is frantic. The common worker is angry exactly because he has found +out that all these boards consist of the same well-dressed Kind of Man, +whether they are called Governmental or Capitalist. If any one hopes that +he will reconcile the poor, I say, as I said at the beginning, that such a +one has not looked on the light of day or dwelt in the land of the living. + +But I do not criticise such a Commission except for one most practical and +urgent purpose. It will be answered to me that the first Kind of Man of +whom I spoke could not really be on boards and committees, as modern +England is managed. His dirt, though necessary and honourable, would be +offensive: his speech, though rich and figurative, would be almost +incomprehensible. Let us grant, for the moment, that this is so. This +Kind of Man, with his sooty hair or sanguinary adjectives, cannot be +represented at our committees of arbitration. Therefore, the other Kind +of Man, fairly prosperous, fairly plausible, at home at least with the +middle class, capable at least of reaching and touching the upper class, +he must remain the only Kind of Man for such councils. + +Very well. If then, you give at any future time any kind of compulsory +powers to such councils to prevent strikes, you will be driving the first +Kind of Man to work for a particular master as much as if you drove him +with a whip. + + + + +THE MEDIAEVAL VILLAIN + + +I see that there have been more attempts at the whitewashing of King John. + +But the gentleman who wrote has a further interest in the matter; for he +believes that King John was innocent, not only on this point, but as a +whole. He thinks King John has been very badly treated; though I am not +sure whether he would attribute to that Plantagenet a saintly merit or +merely a humdrum respectability. + +I sympathise with the whitewashing of King John, merely because it is a +protest against our waxwork style of history. Everybody is in a +particular attitude, with particular moral attributes; Rufus is always +hunting and Coeur-de-Lion always crusading; Henry VIII always marrying, +and Charles I always having his head cut off; Alfred rapidly and in +rotation making his people's clocks and spoiling their cakes; and King +John pulling out Jews' teeth with the celerity and industry of an American +dentist. Anything is good that shakes all this stiff simplification, and +makes us remember that these men were once alive; that is, mixed, free, +flippant, and inconsistent. It gives the mind a healthy kick to know that +Alfred had fits, that Charles I prevented enclosures, that Rufus was +really interested in architecture, that Henry VIII was really interested +in theology. + +And as these scraps of reality can startle us into more solid imagination +of events, so can even errors and exaggerations if they are on the right +side. It does some good to call Alfred a prig, Charles I a Puritan, and +John a jolly good fellow; if this makes us feel that they were people whom +we might have liked or disliked. I do not myself think that John was a +nice gentleman; but for all that the popular picture of him is all wrong. +Whether he had any generous qualities or not, he had what commonly makes +them possible, dare-devil courage, for instance, and hotheaded decision. +But, above all, he had a morality which he broke, but which we +misunderstand. + +The mediaeval mind turned centrally upon the pivot of Free Will. In their +social system the mediaevals were too much PARTI-PER-PALE, as their +heralds would say, too rigidly cut up by fences and quarterings of guild +or degree. But in their moral philosophy they always thought of man as +standing free and doubtful at the cross-roads in a forest. While they +clad and bound the body and (to some extent) the mind too stiffly and +quaintly for our taste, they had a much stronger sense than we have of the +freedom of the soul. For them the soul always hung poised like an eagle +in the heavens of liberty. Many of the things that strike a modern as +most fantastic came from their keen sense of the power of choice. + +For instance, the greatest of the Schoolmen devotes folios to the minute +description of what the world would have been like if Adam had refused the +apple; what kings, laws, babies, animals, planets would have been in an +unfallen world. So intensely does he feel that Adam might have decided +the other way that he sees a complete and complex vision of another world, +a world that now can never be. + +This sense of the stream of life in a man that may turn either way can be +felt through all their popular ethics in legend, chronicle, and ballad. +It is a feeling which has been weakened among us by two heavy intellectual +forces. The Calvinism of the seventeenth century and the physical science +of the nineteenth, whatever other truths they may have taught, have +darkened this liberty with a sense of doom. We think of bad men as +something like black men, a separate and incurable kind of people. The +Byronic spirit was really a sort of operatic Calvinism. It brought the +villain upon the stage; the lost soul; the modern version of King John. +But the contemporaries of King John did not feel like that about him, even +when they detested him. They instinctively felt him to be a man of mixed +passions like themselves, who was allowing his evil passions to have much +too good a time of it. They might have spoken of him as a man in +considerable danger of going to hell; but they would have not talked of +him as if he had come from there. In the ballads of Percy or Robin Hood +it frequently happens that the King comes upon the scene, and his ultimate +decision makes the climax of the tale. But we do not feel, as we do in +the Byronic or modern romance, that there is a definite stage direction +"Enter Tyrant." Nor do we behold a deus ex machina who is certain to do +all that is mild and just. The King in the ballad is in a state of virile +indecision. Sometimes he will pass from a towering passion to the most +sweeping magnanimity and friendliness; sometimes he will begin an act of +vengeance and be turned from it by a jest. Yet this august levity is not +moral indifference; it is moral freedom. It is the strong sense in the +writer that the King, being the type of man with power, will probably +sometimes use it badly and sometimes well. In this sense John is +certainly misrepresented, for he is pictured as something that none of his +own friends or enemies saw. In that sense he was certainly not so black +as he is painted, for he lived in a world where every one was piebald. + +King John would be represented in a modern play or novel as a kind of +degenerate; a shifty-eyed moral maniac with a twist in his soul's backbone +and green blood in his veins. The mediaevals were quite capable of +boiling him in melted lead, but they would have been quite incapable of +despairing of his soul in the modern fashion. A striking a fortiori case +is that of the strange mediaeval legend of Robert the Devil. Robert was +represented as a monstrous birth sent to an embittered woman actually in +answer to prayers to Satan, and his earlier actions are simply those of +the infernal fire let loose upon earth. Yet though he can be called +almost literally a child of hell, yet the climax of the story is his +repentance at Rome and his great reparation. That is the paradox of +mediaeval morals: as it must appear to the moderns. We must try to +conceive a race of men who hated John, and sought his blood, and believed +every abomination about him, who would have been quite capable of +assassinating or torturing him in the extremity of their anger. And yet +we must admit that they would not really have been fundamentally surprised +if he had shaved his head in humiliation, given all his goods to the poor, +embraced the lepers in a lazar-house, and been canonised as a saint in +heaven. So strongly did they hold that the pivot of Will should turn +freely, which now is rusted, and sticks. + +For we, whatever our political opinions, certainly never think of our +public men like that. If we hold the opinion that Mr. Lloyd George is a +noble tribune of the populace and protector of the poor, we do not admit +that he can ever have paltered with the truth or bargained with the +powerful. If we hold the equally idiotic opinion that he is a red and +rabid Socialist, maddening mobs into mutiny and theft, then we expect him +to go on maddening them--and us. We do not expect him, let us say, +suddenly to go into a monastery. We have lost the idea of repentance; +especially in public things; that is why we cannot really get rid of our +great national abuses of economic tyranny and aristocratic avarice. +Progress in the modern sense is a very dismal drudge; and mostly consists +of being moved on by the police. We move on because we are not allowed to +move back. But the really ragged prophets, the real revolutionists who +held high language in the palaces of kings, they did not confine +themselves to saying, "Onward, Christian soldiers," still less, "Onward, +Futurist soldiers"; what they said to high emperors and to whole empires +was, "Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die?" + + + + +THE DIVINE DETECTIVE + + +Every person of sound education enjoys detective stories, and there are +even several points on which they have a hearty superiority to most modern +books. A detective story generally describes six living men discussing +how it is that a man is dead. A modern philosophic story generally +describes six dead men discussing how any man can possibly be alive. But +those who have enjoyed the roman policier must have noted one thing, that +when the murderer is caught he is hardly ever hanged. "That," says +Sherlock Holmes, "is the advantage of being a private detective"; after he +has caught he can set free. The Christian Church can best be defined as +an enormous private detective, correcting that official detective--the +State. This, indeed, is one of the injustices done to historic +Christianity; injustices which arise from looking at complex exceptions +and not at the large and simple fact. We are constantly being told that +theologians used racks and thumbscrews, and so they did. Theologians +used racks and thumbscrews just as they used thimbles and three-legged +stools, because everybody else used them. Christianity no more created +the mediaeval tortures than it did the Chinese tortures; it inherited them +from any empire as heathen as the Chinese. + +The Church did, in an evil hour, consent to imitate the commonwealth and +employ cruelty. But if we open our eyes and take in the whole picture, if +we look at the general shape and colour of the thing, the real difference +between the Church and the State is huge and plain. The State, in all +lands and ages, has created a machinery of punishment, more bloody and +brutal in some places than others, but bloody and brutal everywhere. The +Church is the only institution that ever attempted to create a machinery +of pardon. The Church is the only thing that ever attempted by system to +pursue and discover crimes, not in order to avenge, but in order to +forgive them. The stake and rack were merely the weaknesses of the +religion; its snobberies, its surrenders to the world. Its +speciality--or, if you like, its oddity--was this merciless mercy; the +unrelenting sleuthhound who seeks to save and not slay. + +I can best illustrate what I mean by referring to two popular plays on +somewhat parallel topics, which have been successful here and in America. +The Passing of the Third Floor Back is a humane and reverent experiment, +dealing with the influence of one unknown but divine figure as he passes +through a group of Squalid characters. I have no desire to make cheap fun +of the extremely abrupt conversions of all these people; that is a point +of art, not of morals; and, after all, many conversions have been abrupt. +This saviour's method of making people good is to tell them how good they +are already; and in the case of suicidal outcasts, whose moral backs are +broken, and who are soaked with sincere self-contempt, I can imagine that +this might be quite the right way. I should not deliver this message to +authors or members of Parliament, because they would so heartily agree +with it. + +Still, it is not altogether here that I differ from the moral of Mr. +Jerome's play. I differ vitally from his story because it is not a +detective story. There is in it none of this great Christian idea of +tearing their evil out of men; it lacks the realism of the saints. +Redemption should bring truth as well as peace; and truth is a fine thing, +though the materialists did go mad about it. Things must be faced, even +in order to be forgiven; the great objection to "letting sleeping dogs +lie" is that they lie in more senses than one. But in Mr. Jerome's +Passing of the Third Floor Back the redeemer is not a divine detective, +pitiless in his resolve to know and pardon. Rather he is a sort of divine +dupe, who does not pardon at all, because he does not see anything that is +going on. It may, or may not, be true to say, "Tout comprendre est tout +pardonner." But it is much more evidently true to say, "Rien comprendre +est rien Pardonner," and the "Third Floor Back" does not seem to +comprehend anything. He might, after all, be a quite selfish +sentimentalist, who found it comforting to think well of his neighbours. +There is nothing very heroic in loving after you have been deceived. The +heroic business is to love after you have been undeceived. + +When I saw this play it was natural to compare it with another play which +I had not seen, but which I have read in its printed version. I mean Mr. +Rann Kennedy's Servant in the House, the success of which sprawls over so +many of the American newspapers. This also is concerned with a dim, yet +evidently divine, figure changing the destinies of a whole group of +persons. It is a better play structurally than the other; in fact, it is +a very fine play indeed; but there is nothing aesthetic or fastidious +about it. It is as much or more than the other sensational, democratic, +and (I use the word in a sound and good sense) Salvationist. + +But the difference lies precisely in this--that the Christ of Mr. +Kennedy's play insists on really knowing all the souls that he loves; he +declines to conquer by a kind of supernatural stupidity. He pardons evil, +but he will not ignore it. In other words, he is a Christian, and not a +Christian Scientist. The distinction doubtless is partly explained by the +problems severally selected. Mr. Jerome practically supposes Christ to be +trying to save disreputable people; and that, of course, is naturally a +simple business. Mr. Kennedy supposes Him to be trying to save the +reputable people, which is a much larger affair. The chief characters in +The Servant in the House are a popular and strenuous vicar, universally +respected, and his fashionable and forcible wife. It would have been no +good to tell these people they had some good in them--for that was what +they were telling themselves all day long. They had to be reminded that +they had some bad in them--instinctive idolatries and silent treasons +which they always tried to forget. It is in connection with these crimes +of wealth and culture that we face the real problem of positive evil. The +whole of Mr. Blatchford's controversy about sin was vitiated throughout by +one's consciousness that whenever he wrote the word "sinner" he thought of +a man in rags. But here, again, we can find truth merely by referring to +vulgar literature--its unfailing fountain. Whoever read a detective +story about poor people? The poor have crimes; but the poor have no +secrets. And it is because the proud have secrets that they need to be +detected before they are forgiven. + + + + +THE ELF OF JAPAN + + +There are things in this world of which I can say seriously that I love +them but I do not like them. The point is not merely verbal, but +psychologically quite valid. Cats are the first things that occur to me +as examples of the principle. Cats are so beautiful that a creature from +another star might fall in love with them, and so incalculable that he +might kill them. Some of my friends take quite a high moral line about +cats. Some, like Mr. Titterton, I think, admire a cat for its moral +independence and readiness to scratch anybody "if he does not behave +himself." Others, like Mr. Belloe, regard the cat as cruel and secret, a +fit friend for witches; one who will devour everything, except, indeed, +poisoned food, "so utterly lacking is it in Christian simplicity and +humility." For my part, I have neither of these feelings. I admire cats +as I admire catkins; those little fluffy things that hang on trees. They +are both pretty and both furry, and both declare the glory of God. And +this abstract exultation in all living things is truly to be called Love; +for it is a higher feeling than mere affectional convenience; it is a +vision. It is heroic, and even saintly, in this: that it asks for nothing +in return. I love all the eats in the street as St. Francis of Assisi +loved all the birds in the wood or all the fishes in the sea; not so much, +of course, but then I am not a saint. But he did not wish to bridle a +bird and ride on its back, as one bridles and rides on a horse. He did +not wish to put a collar round a fish's neck, marked with the name +"Francis," and the address "Assisi"--as one does with a dog. He did not +wish them to belong to him or himself to belong to them; in fact, it would +be a very awkward experience to belong to a lot of fishes. But a man does +belong to his dog, in another but an equally real sense with that in which +the dog belongs to him. The two bonds of obedience and responsibility +vary very much with the dogs and the men; but they are both bonds. In +other words, a man does not merely love a dog; as he might (in a mystical +moment) love any sparrow that perched on his windowsill or any rabbit that +ran across his path. A man likes a dog; and that is a serious matter. + +To me, unfortunately perhaps (for I speak merely of individual taste), a +cat is a wild animal. A cat is Nature personified. Like Nature, it is so +mysterious that one cannot quite repose even in its beauty. But like +Nature again, it is so beautiful that one cannot believe that it is really +cruel. Perhaps it isn't; and there again it is like Nature. Men of old +time worshipped cats as they worshipped crocodiles; and those magnificent +old mystics knew what they were about. The moment in which one really +loves cats is the same as that in which one (moderately and within reason) +loves crocodiles. It is that divine instant when a man feels himself--no, +not absorbed into the unity of all things (a loathsome fancy)--but +delighting in the difference of all things. At the moment when a man +really knows he is a man he will feel, however faintly, a kind of +fairy-tale pleasure in the fact that a crocodile is a crocodile. All the +more will he exult in the things that are more evidently beautiful than +crocodiles, such as flowers and birds and eats--which are more beautiful +than either. But it does not follow that he will wish to pick all the +flowers or to cage all the birds or to own all the cats. + +No one who still believes in democracy and the rights of man will admit +that any division between men and men can be anything but a fanciful +analogy to the division between men and animals. But in the sphere of +such fanciful analogy there are even human beings whom I feel to be like +eats in this respect: that I can love them without liking them. I feel it +about certain quaint and alien societies, especially about the Japanese. +The exquisite old Japanese draughtsmanship (of which we shall see no more, +now Japan has gone in for Progress and Imperialism) had a quality that was +infinitely attractive and intangible. Japanese pictures were really +rather like pictures made by cats. They were full of feathery softness +and of sudden and spirited scratches. If any one will wander in some +gallery fortunate enough to have a fine collection of those slight +water-colour sketches on rice paper which come from the remote East, he +will observe many elements in them which a fanciful person might consider +feline. There is, for instance, that odd enjoyment of the tops of trees; +those airy traceries of forks and fading twigs, up to which certainly no +artist, but only a cat could climb. There is that elvish love of the full +moon, as large and lucid as a Chinese lantern, hung in these tenuous +branches. That moon is so large and luminous that one can imagine a +hundred cats howling under it. Then there is the exhaustive treatment of +the anatomy of birds and fish; subjects in which cats are said to be +interested. Then there is the slanting cat-like eye of all these Eastern +gods and men--but this is getting altogether too coincident. We shall +have another racial theory in no time (beginning "Are the Japs Cats?"), +and though I shall not believe in my theory, somebody else might. There +are people among my esteemed correspondents who might believe anything. +It is enough for me to say here that in this small respect Japs affect me +like cats. I mean that I love them. I love their quaint and native +poetry, their instinct of easy civilisation, their unique unreplaceable +art, the testimony they bear to the bustling, irrepressible activities of +nature and man. If I were a real mystic looking down on them from a real +mountain, I am sure I should love them more even than the strong winged and +unwearied birds or the fruitful, ever multiplying fish. But, as for liking +them, as one likes a dog--that is quite another matter. That would mean +trusting them. + +In the old English and Scotch ballads the fairies are regarded very much +in the way that I feel inclined to regard Japs and cats. They are not +specially spoken of as evil; they are enjoyed as witching and wonderful; +but they are not trusted as good. You do not say the wrong words or give +the wrong gifts to them; and there is a curious silence about what would +happen to you if you did. Now to me, Japan, the Japan of Art, was always +a fairyland. What trees as gay as flowers and peaks as white as wedding +cakes; what lanterns as large as houses and houses as frail as lanterns! +but... but... the missionary explained (I read in the paper) that the +assertion and denial about the Japanese use of torture was a mere matter +of verbal translation. "The Japanese would not call twisting the thumbs +back 'torture.'" + + + + +THE CHARTERED LIBERTINE + + +I find myself in agreement with Mr. Robert Lynd for his most just remark +in connection with the Malatesta case, that the police are becoming a +peril to society. I have no attraction to that sort of atheist asceticism +to which the purer types of Anarchism tend; but both an atheist and an +ascetic are better men than a spy; and it is ignominious to see one's +country thus losing her special point of honour about asylum and liberty. +It will be quite a new departure if we begin to protect and whitewash +foreign policemen. I always understood it was only English policemen who +were absolutely spotless. A good many of us, however, have begun to feel +with Mr. Lynd, and on all sides authorities and officials are being +questioned. But there is one most graphic and extraordinary fact, which +it did not lie in Mr. Lynd's way to touch upon, but which somebody really +must seize and emphasise. It is this: that at the very time when we are +all beginning to doubt these authorities, we are letting laws pass to +increase their most capricious powers. All our commissions, petitions, +and letters to the papers are asking whether these authorities can give an +account of their stewardship. And at the same moment all our laws are +decreeing that they shall not give any account of their stewardship, but +shall become yet more irresponsible stewards. Bills like the +Feeble-Minded Bill and the Inebriate Bill (very appropriate names for +them) actually arm with scorpions the hand that has chastised the +Malatestas and Maleckas with whips. The inspector, the doctor, the police +sergeant, the well-paid person who writes certificates and "passes" this, +that, or the other; this sort of man is being trusted with more authority, +apparently because he is being doubted with more reason. In one room we +are asking why the Government and the great experts between them cannot +sail a ship. In another room we are deciding that the Government and +experts shall be allowed, without trial or discussion, to immure any one's +body, damn any one's soul, and dispose of unborn generations with the +levity of a pagan god. We are putting the official on the throne while he +is still in the dock. + +The mere meaning of words is now strangely forgotten and falsified; as +when people talk of an author's "message," without thinking whom it is +from; and I have noted in these connections the strange misuse of another +word. It is the excellent mediaeval word "charter." I remember the Act +that sought to save gutter-boys from cigarettes was called "The Children's +Charter." Similarly the Act which seeks to lock up as lunatics people who +are not lunatics was actually called a "charter" of the feeble-minded. +Now this terminology is insanely wrong, even if the Bills are right. Even +were they right in theory they would be applied only to the poor, like +many better rules about education and cruelty. A woman was lately +punished for cruelty because her children were not washed when it was +proved that she had no water. From that it will be an easy step in +Advanced Thought to punishing a man for wine-bibbing when it is proved +that he had no wine. Rifts in right reason widen down the ages. And +when we have begun by shutting up a confessedly kind person for cruelty, +we may yet come to shutting up Mr. Tom Mann for feeblemindedness. + +But even if such laws do good to children or idiots, it is wrong to use +the word "charter." A charter does not mean a thing that does good to +people. It means a thing that grants people more rights and liberties. +It may be a good thing for gutter-boys to be deprived of their cigarettes: +it might be a good thing for aldermen to be deprived of their cigars. +But I think the Goldsmiths' Company would be very much surprised if the +King granted them a new charter (in place of their mediaeval charter), and +it only meant that policemen might pull the cigars out of their mouths. +It may be a good thing that all drunkards should be locked up: and many +acute statesmen (King John, for instance) would certainly have thought it +a good thing if all aristocrats could be locked up. But even that +somewhat cynical prince would scarcely have granted to the barons a thing +called "the Great Charter" and then locked them all up on the strength of +it. If he had, this interpretation of the word "charter" would have +struck the barons with considerable surprise. I doubt if their narrow +mediaeval minds could have taken it in. + +The roots of the real England are in the early Middle Ages, and no +Englishman will ever understand his own language (or even his own +conscience) till he understands them. And he will never understand them +till he understands this word "charter." I will attempt in a moment to +state in older, more suitable terms, what a charter was. In modern, +practical, and political terms, it is quite easy to state what a charter +was. A charter was the thing that the railway workers wanted last +Christmas and did not get; and apparently will never get. It is called in +the current jargon "recognition"; the acknowledgment in so many words by +society of the immunities or freedoms of a certain set of men. If there +had been railways in the Middle Ages there would probably have been a +railwaymen's guild; and it would have had a charter from the King, +defining their rights. A charter is the expression of an idea still true +and then almost universal: that authority is necessary for nothing so much +as for the granting of liberties. Like everything mediaeval, it ramified +back to a root in religion; and was a sort of small copy of the Christian +idea of man's creation. Man was free, not because there was no God, but +because it needed a God to set him free. By authority he was free. By +authority the craftsmen of the guilds were free. Many other great +philosophers took and take the other view: the Lucretian pagans, the +Moslem fatalists, the modern monists and determinists, all roughly confine +themselves to saying that God gave man a law. The mediaeval Christian +insisted that God gave man a charter. Modern feeling may not sympathise +with its list of liberties, which included the liberty to be damned; but +that has nothing to do with the fact that it was a gift of liberties and +not of laws. This was mirrored, however dimly, in the whole system. +There was a great deal of gross inequality; and in other aspects absolute +equality was taken for granted. But the point is that equality and +inequality were ranks--or rights. There were not only things one was +forbidden to do; but things one was forbidden to forbid. A man was not +only definitely responsible, but definitely irresponsible. The holidays +of his soul were immovable feasts. All a charter really meant lingers +alive in that poetic phrase that calls the wind a "chartered" libertine. + +Lie awake at night and hear the wind blowing; hear it knock at every man's +door and shout down every man's chimney. Feel how it takes liberties with +everything, having taken primary liberty for itself; feel that the wind is +always a vagabond and sometimes almost a housebreaker. But remember that +in the days when free men had charters, they held that the wind itself was +wild by authority; and was only free because it had a father. + + + + +THE CONTENTED MAN + + +The word content is not inspiring nowadays; rather it is irritating +because it is dull. It prepares the mind for a little sermon in the style +of the Vicar of Wakefield about how you and I should be satisfied with our +countrified innocence and our simple village sports. The word, however, +has two meanings, somewhat singularly connected; the "sweet content" of +the poet and the "cubic content" of the mathematician. Some distinguish +these by stressing the different syllables. Thus, it might happen to any +of us, at some social juncture, to remark gaily, "Of the content of the +King of the Cannibal Islands' Stewpot I am content to be ignorant"; or +"Not content with measuring the cubic content of my safe, you are stealing +the spoons." And there really is an analogy between the mathematical and +the moral use of the term, for lack of the observation of which the latter +has been much weakened and misused. + +The preaching of contentment is in disrepute, well deserved in so far that +the moral is really quite inapplicable to the anarchy and insane peril of +our tall and toppling cities. Content suggests some kind of security; and +it is not strange that our workers should often think about rising above +their position, since they have so continually to think about sinking +below it. The philanthropist who urges the poor to saving and simple +pleasures deserves all the derision that he gets. To advise people to be +content with what they have got may or may not be sound moral philosophy. + +But to urge people to be content with what they haven't got is a piece of +impudence hard for even the English poor to pardon. But though the creed +of content is unsuited to certain special riddles and wrongs, it remains +true for the normal of mortal life. We speak of divine discontent; +discontent may sometimes be a divine thing, but content must always be the +human thing. It may be true that a particular man, in his relation to +his master or his neighbour, to his country or his enemies, will do well +to be fiercely unsatisfied or thirsting for an angry justice. But it is +not true, no sane person can call it true, that man as a whole in his +general attitude towards the world, in his posture towards death or green +fields, towards the weather or the baby, will be wise to cultivate +dissatisfaction. In a broad estimate of our earthly experience, the great +truism on the tablet remains: he must not covet his neighbour's ox nor his +ass nor anything that is his. In highly complex and scientific +civilisations he may sometimes find himself forced into an exceptional +vigilance. But, then, in highly complex and scientific civilisations, +nine times out of ten, he only wants his own ass back. + +But I wish to urge the case for cubic content; in which (even more than in +moral content) I take a personal interest. Now, moral content has been +undervalued and neglected because of its separation from the other meaning. +It has become a negative rather than a positive thing. In some accounts +of contentment it seems to be little more than a meek despair. + +But this is not the true meaning of the term; it should stand for the idea +of a positive and thorough appreciation of the content of anything; for +feeling the substance and not merely the surface of experience. +"Content" ought to mean in English, as it does in French, being pleased; +placidly, perhaps, but still positively pleased. Being contented with +bread and cheese ought not to mean not caring what you eat. It ought to +mean caring for bread and cheese; handling and enjoying the cubic content +of the bread and cheese and adding it to your own. Being content with an +attic ought not to mean being unable to move from it and resigned to +living in it. It ought to mean appreciating what there is to appreciate +in such a position; such as the quaint and elvish slope of the ceiling or +the sublime aerial view of the opposite chimney-pots. And in this sense +contentment is a real and even an active virtue; it is not only +affirmative, but creative. The poet in the attic does not forget the +attic in poetic musings; he remembers whatever the attic has of poetry; he +realises how high, how starry, how cool, how unadorned and simple--in +short, how Attic is the attic. + +True contentment is a thing as active as agriculture. It is the power of +getting out of any situation all that there is in it. It is arduous and +it is rare. The absence of this digestive talent is what makes so cold +and incredible the tales of so many people who say they have been +"through" things; when it is evident that they have come out on the other +side quite unchanged. A man might have gone "through" a plum pudding as a +bullet might go through a plum pudding; it depends on the size of the +pudding--and the man. But the awful and sacred question is "Has the +pudding been through him?" Has he tasted, appreciated, and absorbed the +solid pudding, with its three dimensions and its three thousand tastes and +smells? Can he offer himself to the eyes of men as one who has cubically +conquered and contained a pudding? + +In the same way we may ask of those who profess to have passed through +trivial or tragic experiences whether they have absorbed the content of +them; whether they licked up such living water as there was. It is a +pertinent question in connection with many modern problems. + +Thus the young genius says, "I have lived in my dreary and squalid village +before I found success in Paris or Vienna." The sound philosopher will +answer, "You have never lived in your village, or you would not call it +dreary and squalid." + +Thus the Imperialist, the Colonial idealist (who commonly speaks and +always thinks with a Yankee accent) will say, "I've been right away from +these little muddy islands, and seen God's great seas and prairies." The +sound philosopher will reply, "You have never been in these islands; you +have never seen the weald of Sussex or the plain of Salisbury; otherwise +you could never have called them either muddy or little." + +Thus the Suffragette will say, "I have passed through the paltry duties of +pots and pans, the drudgery of the vulgar kitchen; but I have come out to +intellectual liberty." The sound philosopher will answer, "You have never +passed through the kitchen, or you never would call it vulgar. Wiser and +stronger women than you have really seen a poetry in pots and pans; +naturally, because there is a poetry in them." It is right for the +village violinist to climb into fame in Paris or Vienna; it is right for +the stray Englishman to climb across the high shoulder of the world; it is +right for the woman to climb into whatever cathedrae or high places she +can allow to her sexual dignity. But it is wrong that any of these +climbers should kick the ladder by which they have climbed. But indeed +these bitter people who record their experiences really record their lack +of experiences. It is the countryman who has not succeeded in being a +countryman who comes up to London. It is the clerk who has not succeeded +in being a clerk who tries (on vegetarian principles) to be a countryman. +And the woman with a past is generally a woman angry about the past she +never had. + +When you have really exhausted an experience you always reverence and love +it. The two things that nearly all of us have thoroughly and really been +through are childhood and youth. And though we would not have them back +again on any account, we feel that they are both beautiful, because we +have drunk them dry. + + + + +THE ANGRY AUTHOR: HIS FAREWELL + + +I have republished all these old articles of mine because they cover a +very controversial period, in which I was in nearly all the controversies, +whether I was visible there or no. And I wish to gather up into this last +article a valedictory violence about all such things; and then pass to +where, beyond these voices, there is peace--or in other words, to the +writing of Penny Dreadfuls; a noble and much-needed work. But before I +finally desert the illusions of rationalism for the actualities of romance, +I should very much like to write one last roaring, raging book telling +all the rationalists not to be so utterly irrational. The book would be +simply a string of violent vetoes, like the Ten Commandments. I would +call it "Don'ts for Dogmatists; or Things I am Tired Of." + +This book of intellectual etiquette, like most books of etiquette, would +begin with superficial things; but there would be, I fancy, a wailing +imprecation in the words that could not be called artificial; it might +begin thus:-(1) Don't use a noun and then an adjective that crosses out +the noun. An adjective qualifies, it cannot contradict. Don't say, "Give +me a patriotism that is free from all boundaries." It is like saying, +"Give me a pork pie with no pork in it." Don't say, "I look forward to +that larger religion that shall have no special dogmas." It is like +saying, "I look forward to that larger quadruped who shall have no feet." +A quadruped means something with four feet; and a religion means something +that commits a man to some doctrine about the universe. Don't let the +meek substantive be absolutely murdered by the joyful, exuberant adjective. + + +(2) Don't say you are not going to say a thing, and then say it. This +practice is very flourishing and successful with public speakers. The +trick consists of first repudiating a certain view in unfavourable terms, +and then repeating the same view in favourable terms. Perhaps the +simplest form of it may be found in a landlord of my neighbourhood, who +said to his tenants in an election speech, "Of course I'm not going to +threaten you, but if this Budget passes the rents will go up." The thing +can be done in many forms besides this. "I am the last man to mention +party politics; but when I see the Empire rent in pieces by irresponsible +Radicals," etc. "In this hall we welcome all creeds. We have no hostility +against any honest belief; but only against that black priestcraft and +superstition which can accept such a doctrine as," etc. "I would not say +one word that could ruffle our relations with Germany. But this I will +say; that when I see ceaseless and unscrupulous armament," etc. "Please +don't do it. Decide to make a remark or not to make a remark. But don't +fancy that you have somehow softened the saying of a thing by having just +promised not to say it. + +(3) Don't use secondary words as primary words. "Happiness" (let us say) +is a primary word. You know when you have the thing, and you jolly well +know when you haven't. "Progress" is a secondary word; it means the +degree of one's approach to happiness, or to some such solid ideal. But +modern controversies constantly turn on asking, "Does Happiness help +Progress?" Thus, I see in the New Age this week a letter from Mr. +Egerton Swann, in which he warns the world against me and my friend Mr. +Belloc, on the ground that our democracy is "spasmodic" (whatever that +means); while our "reactionism is settled and permanent." It never +strikes Mr. Swann that democracy means something in itself; while +"reactionism" means nothing--except in connection with democracy. You +cannot react except from something. If Mr. Swann thinks I have ever +reacted from the doctrine that the people should rule, I wish he would +give me the reference. + +(4) Don't say, "There is no true creed; for each creed believes itself +right and the others wrong." Probably one of the creeds is right and the +others are wrong. Diversity does show that most of the views must be +wrong. It does not by the faintest logic show that they all must be wrong. +I suppose there is no subject on which opinions differ with more +desperate sincerity than about which horse will win the Derby. These are +certainly solemn convictions; men risk ruin for them. The man who puts +his shirt on Potosi must believe in that animal, and each of the other men +putting their last garments upon other quadrupeds must believe in them +quite as sincerely. They are all serious, and most of them are wrong. +But one of them is right. One of the faiths is justified; one of the +horses does win; not always even the dark horse which might stand for +Agnosticism, but often the obvious and popular horse of Orthodoxy. +Democracy has its occasional victories; and even the Favourite has been +known to come in first. But the point here is that something comes in +first. That there were many beliefs does not destroy the fact that there +was one well-founded belief. I believe (merely upon authority) that the +world is round. That there may be tribes who believe it to be triangular +or oblong does not alter the fact that it is certainly some shape, and +therefore not any other shape. Therefore I repeat, with the wail of +imprecation, don't say that the variety of creeds prevents you from +accepting any creed. It is an unintelligent remark. + +(5) Don't (if any one calls your doctrine mad, which is likely enough), +don't answer that madmen are only the minority and the sane only the +majority. The sane are sane because they are the corporate substance of +mankind; the insane are not a minority because they are not a mob. The +man who thinks himself a man thinks the next man a man; he reckons his +neighbour as himself. But the man who thinks he is a chicken does not try +to look through the man who thinks he is glass. The man who thinks +himself Jesus Christ does not quarrel with the man who thinks himself +Rockefeller; as would certainly happen if the two had ever met. But +madmen never meet. It is the only thing they cannot do. They can talk, +they can inspire, they can fight, they can found religions; but they +cannot meet. Maniacs can never be the majority; for the simple reason +that they can never be even a minority. If two madmen had ever agreed +they might have conquered the world. + +(6) Don't say that the idea of human equality is absurd, because some men +are tall and some short, some clever and some stupid. At the height of +the French Revolution it was noticed that Danton was tall and Murat short. +In the wildest popular excitement of America it is known that +Rockefeller is stupid and that Bryan is clever. The doctrine of human +equality reposes upon this: That there is no man really clever who has not +found that he is stupid. That there is no big man who has not felt small. +Some men never feel small; but these are the few men who are. + +(7) Don't say (O don't say) that Primitive Man knocked down a woman with a +club and carried her away. Why on earth should he? Does the male sparrow +knock down the female sparrow with a twig? Does the male giraffe knock +down the female giraffe with a palm tree? Why should the male have had to +use any violence at any time in order to make the female a female? Why +should the woman roll herself in the mire lower than the sow or the +she-bear; and profess to have been a slave where all these creatures were +creators; where all these beasts were gods? Do not talk such bosh. I +implore you, I supplicate you not to talk such bosh. Utterly and +absolutely abolish all such bosh--and we may yet begin to discuss these +public questions properly. But I fear my list of protests grows too long; +and I know it could grow longer for ever. The reader must forgive my +elongations and elaborations. I fancied for the moment that I was writing +a book. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Miscellany of Men, by G. K. Chesterton + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MISCELLANY OF MEN *** + +This file should be named miscy12.txt or miscy12.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, miscy13.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, miscy11a.txt + +This Etext prepared by Michael Pullen with proofreading assistance +by Michael K. Johnson and Joe Moretti + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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