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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Boon, The Mind of the Race, The Wild Asses of the Devil, and The Last Trump; + Being a First Selection from the Literary Remains of George + Boon, Appropriate to the Times + +Author: Herbert George Wells + +Release Date: January 15, 2011 [EBook #34962] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BOON, THE MIND OF THE RACE *** + + + + +Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Barbara Tozier, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + +</pre> + +<div id="frontmatter"> + <!-- <a class="pagenum" id="page1" title="1"> </a> Half-title --> + <!-- <a class="pagenum" id="page2" title="2"> </a> [Blank Page]--> + <div id="title_page"><a class="pagenum disguise" id="page3" title="3"> </a> + <h1>Boon, The Mind of the Race, + The Wild Asses of the Devil, + <em>and</em> The Last Trump</h1> + + <p class="subtitle">Being a First Selection from the + Literary Remains of George Boon, + Appropriate to the Times</p> + + <p class="author_list">Prepared for Publication by<br /> + <span class="putative_author">REGINALD BLISS</span><br /> + AUTHOR OF “THE COUSINS OF CHARLOTTE BRONTE,” + “A CHILD’S HISTORY OF THE CRYSTAL PALACE,” + “FIRELIGHT RAMBLES,” “EDIBLE FUNGI,” + “WHALES IN CAPTIVITY,” AND OTHER WORKS</p> + + <p class="true_author"><span class="smaller">WITH</span><br /> + An Ambiguous Introduction by<br /> + <span class="author">H. G. WELLS</span></p> + + <p><span class="publisher">T. FISHER UNWIN, LTD.</span><br /> + LONDON; ADELPHI TERRACE</p> + + </div> + <div id="copyright_page"><a class="pagenum disguise" id="page4" title="4"> </a> + <p>First published in 1915</p> + <p>(All rights reserved)</p> + </div> + <div id="intro"><a class="pagenum" id="page5" title="5"> </a> + <h2>INTRODUCTION</h2> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">Whenever</span> a publisher gets a book by one author he wants an Introduction + written to it by another, and Mr. Fisher Unwin is no exception to the + rule. Nobody reads Introductions, they serve no useful purpose, and + they give no pleasure, but they appeal to the business mind, I think, + because as a rule they cost nothing. At any rate, by the pressure of a + certain inseparable intimacy between Mr. Reginald Bliss and myself, + this Introduction has been extracted from me. I will confess that I + have not read his book through, though I have a kind of first-hand + knowledge of its contents, and that it seems to me an indiscreet, + ill-advised book….</p> + + <p>I have a very strong suspicion that this Introduction idea is designed + to entangle me in the responsibility for the book. In America, at any + rate, “The Life of George Meek, Bath Chairman,” was ascribed to me + <a class="pagenum" id="page6" title="6"> </a>upon no better evidence. Yet any one who likes may go to Eastbourne + and find Meek with chair and all complete. But in view of the + complications of the book market and the large simplicities of the + public mind, I do hope that the reader—and by that I mean the + reviewer—will be able to see the reasonableness and the necessity of + distinguishing between me and Mr. Reginald Bliss. I do not wish to + escape the penalties of thus participating in, and endorsing, his + manifest breaches of good taste, literary decorum, and friendly + obligation, but as a writer whose reputation is already too crowded + and confused and who is for the ordinary purposes of every day known + mainly as a novelist, I should be glad if I could escape the public + identification I am now repudiating. Bliss is Bliss and Wells is + Wells. And Bliss can write all sorts of things that Wells could not + do.</p> + + <p>This Introduction has really no more to say than that.</p> + + <p class="signature">H. G. WELLS.</p> + + </div> + <div id="contents"><a class="pagenum cheater" id="page7" title="7"> </a> + <h2>CONTENTS</h2> + <ol> + <li><a href="#intro">INTRODUCTION</a> <a href="#page5" class="toc_page">5</a></li> + <li><a href="#first" class="toc_chapter_no">CHAPTER THE FIRST</a> <br /> + THE BACK OF MISS BATHWICK AND GEORGE BOON <a href="#page9" class="toc_page">9</a></li> + <li><a href="#second" class="toc_chapter_no">CHAPTER THE SECOND</a> <br /> + BEING THE FIRST CHAPTER OF “THE MIND OF THE RACE” <a href="#page43" class="toc_page">43</a></li> + <li><a href="#third" class="toc_chapter_no">CHAPTER THE THIRD</a> <br /> + THE GREAT SLUMP, THE REVIVAL OF LETTERS, AND THE GARDEN BY THE SEA <a href="#page64" class="toc_page">64</a></li> + <li><a href="#fourth" class="toc_chapter_no">CHAPTER THE FOURTH</a> <br /> + OF ART, OF LITERATURE, OF MR HENRY JAMES <a href="#page84" class="toc_page">84</a></li> + <li><a href="#fifth" class="toc_chapter_no">CHAPTER THE FIFTH</a> <br /> + OF THE ASSEMBLING AND OPENING OF THE WORLD CONFERENCE ON THE MIND OF THE RACE <a href="#page129" class="toc_page">129</a></li> + <li><a class="pagenum cheater" id="page8" title="8"> </a><a href="#sixth" class="toc_chapter_no">CHAPTER THE SIXTH</a> <br /> + OF NOT LIKING HALLERY AND THE ROYAL SOCIETY FOR THE DISCOURAGEMENT OF LITERATURE <a href="#page173" class="toc_page">173</a></li> + <li><a href="#seventh" class="toc_chapter_no">CHAPTER THE SEVENTH</a> <br /> + WILKINS MAKES CERTAIN OBJECTIONS <a href="#page189" class="toc_page">189</a></li> + <li><a href="#eighth" class="toc_chapter_no">CHAPTER THE EIGHTH</a> <br /> + THE BEGINNING OF “THE WILD ASSES OF THE DEVIL” <a href="#page223" class="toc_page">223</a></li> + <li><a href="#ninth" class="toc_chapter_no">CHAPTER THE NINTH</a> <br /> + THE HUNTING OF THE WILD ASSES OF THE DEVIL <a href="#page255" class="toc_page">255</a></li> + <li><a href="#tenth" class="toc_chapter_no">CHAPTER THE TENTH</a> <br /> + THE STORY OF THE LAST TRUMP <a href="#page295" class="toc_page">295</a></li> + </ol> + </div> +</div> +<p id="internal_title"><a class="pagenum" id="page9" title="9"> </a>BOON, THE MIND OF THE RACE, THE WILD ASSES OF THE DEVIL, + <em>and</em> THE LAST TRUMP</p> +<div class='chapter' id='first'> + <h2>CHAPTER THE FIRST<br /> + <span class="chapter_title">The Back of Miss Bathwick and George Boon</span></h2> + <div class="section" id="s1-1"> + <h3>§ 1</h3> + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">It</span> is quite probable that the reader does not know of the death of + George Boon, and that “remains” before his name upon the title-page + will be greeted with a certain astonishment. In the ordinary course of + things, before the explosion of the war, the death of George Boon + would have been an event—oh! a three-quarters of a column or more <a class="pagenum" id="page10" title="10"> </a>in + the <cite>Times</cite> event, and articles in the monthlies and reminiscences. As + it is, he is not so much dead as missing. Something happened at the + eleventh hour—I think it was chiefly the Admiralty report of the + fight off the Falkland Islands—that blew his obituary notices clean + out of the papers. And yet he was one of our most popular writers, and + in America I am told he was in the “hundred thousand class.” But now + we think only of Lord Kitchener’s hundred thousands.</p> + + <p>It is no good pretending about it. The war has ended all that. Boon + died with his age. After the war there will be a new sort of + book-trade and a crop of new writers and a fresh tone, and everything + will be different. This is an obituary, of more than George Boon…. I + regard the outlook with profound dismay. I try to keep my mind off it + by drilling with the Shrewsbury last line of volunteers and training + down the excrescences of my physical style. When the war is over will + be time enough to consider the prospects <a class="pagenum" id="page11" title="11"> </a>of a superannuated man of + letters. We National Volunteers are now no mere soldiers on paper; we + have fairly washable badges by way of uniform; we have bought + ourselves dummy rifles; we have persuaded the War Office to give us a + reluctant recognition on the distinct understanding that we have + neither officers nor authority. In the event of an invasion, I + understand, we are to mobilize and … do quite a number of useful + things. But until there is an invasion in actual progress, nothing is + to be decided more precisely than what this whiff of printer’s + shrapnel, these four full stops, conveys….</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s1-2"><a class="pagenum" id="page12" title="12"> </a> + <h3>§ 2</h3> + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">I must</span> confess I was monstrously disappointed when at last I could get + my hands into those barrels in the attic in which Boon had stored his + secret writings. There was more perhaps than I had expected; I do not + complain of the quantity, but of the disorder, the incompleteness, the + want of discipline and forethought.</p> + + <p>Boon had talked so often and so convincingly of these secret books he + was writing, he had alluded so frequently to this or that great + project, he would begin so airily with “In the seventeenth chapter of + my ‘Wild Asses of the Devil,’” or “I have been recasting the third + part of our ‘Mind of the Race,’” that it came as an enormous shock to + me to find there was no seventeenth chapter; there was not <a class="pagenum" id="page13" title="13"> </a>even a + completed first chapter to the former work, and as for the latter, + there seems nothing really finished or settled at all beyond the + fragments I am now issuing, except a series of sketches of Lord + Rosebery, for the most part in a toga and a wreath, engaged in a + lettered retirement at his villa at Epsom, and labelled “Patrician + Dignity, the Last Phase”—sketches I suppress as of no present + interest—and a complete gallery of imaginary portraits (with several + duplicates) of the Academic Committee that has done so much for + British literature (the Polignac prize, for example, and Sir Henry + Newbolt’s professorship) in the last four or five years. So + incredulous was I that this was all, that I pushed my inquiries from + their original field in the attic into other parts of the house, + pushed them, indeed, to the very verge of ransacking, and in that I + greatly deepened the want of sympathy already separating me from Mrs. + Boon. But I was stung by a thwarted sense of duty, and quite resolved + that no ill-advised interference should stand between me and <a class="pagenum" id="page14" title="14"> </a>the + publication of what Boon has always represented to me as the most + intimate productions of his mind.</p> + + <p>Yet now the first rush of executorial emotion is over I can begin to + doubt about Boon’s intention in making me his “literary executor.” Did + he, after all, intend these pencilled scraps, these marginal + caricatures, and—what seems to me most objectionable—annotated + letters from harmless prominent people for publication? Or was his + selection of me his last effort to prolong what was, I think, if one + of the slightest, one also of the most sustained interests of his + life, and that was a prolonged faint jeering at my expense? Because + always—it was never hidden from me—in his most earnest moments Boon + jeered at me. I do not know why he jeered at me, it was always rather + pointless jeering and far below his usual level, but jeer he did. Even + while we talked most earnestly and brewed our most intoxicating + draughts of project and conviction, there was always this scarce + perceptible blossom and flavour of ridicule floating like a drowning + sprig of <a class="pagenum" id="page15" title="15"> </a>blue borage in the cup. His was indeed essentially one of + those suspended minds that float above the will and action; when at + last reality could be evaded no longer it killed him; he never really + believed nor felt the urgent need that goads my more accurate nature + to believe and do. Always when I think of us together, I feel that I + am on my legs and that he sits about. And yet he could tell me things + I sought to know, prove what I sought to believe, shape beliefs to a + conviction in me that I alone could never attain.</p> + + <p>He took life as it came, let his fancy play upon it, selected, + elucidated, ignored, threw the result in jest or observation or + elaborate mystification at us, and would have no more of it…. He + would be earnest for a time and then break away. “The Last Trump” is + quite typical of the way in which he would turn upon himself. It sets + out so straight for magnificence; it breaks off so abominably. You + will read it.</p> + + <p>Yet he took things more seriously than he seemed to do.</p> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page16" title="16"> </a>This war, I repeat, killed him. He could not escape it. It bore him + down. He did his best to disregard it. But its worst stresses caught + him in the climax of a struggle with a fit of pneumonia brought on by + a freak of bathing by moonlight—in an English October, a thing he did + to distract his mind from the tension after the Marne—and it + destroyed him. The last news they told him was that the Germans had + made their “shoot and scuttle” raid upon Whitby and Scarborough. There + was much circumstantial description in the morning’s paper. They had + smashed up a number of houses and killed some hundreds of people, + chiefly women and children. Ten little children had been killed or + mutilated in a bunch on their way to school, two old ladies at a + boarding-house had had their legs smashed, and so on.</p> + + <p>“Take this newspaper,” he said, and held it out to his nurse. “Take + it,” he repeated irritably, and shook it at her.</p> + + <p>He stared at it as it receded. Then he seemed to be staring at distant + things.</p> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page17" title="17"> </a>“Wild Asses of the Devil,” he said at last. “Oh! Wild Asses of the + Devil! I thought somehow it was a joke. It wasn’t a joke. There they + are, and the world is theirs.”</p> + + <p>And he turned his face to the wall and never spoke again.</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s1-3"><a class="pagenum" id="page18" title="18"> </a> + <h3>§ 3</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">But</span> before I go on it is necessary to explain that the George Boon I + speak of is not exactly the same person as the George Boon, the Great + Writer, whose fame has reached to every bookshop in the world. The + same bodily presence perhaps they had, but that is all. Except when he + chose to allude to them, those great works on which that great fame + rests, those books and plays of his that have made him a household + word in half a dozen continents, those books with their style as + perfect and obvious as the gloss upon a new silk hat, with their flat + narrative trajectory that nothing could turn aside, their unsubdued + and apparently unsubduable healthy note, their unavoidable humour, and + their robust pathos, never came between us. We talked perpetually <a class="pagenum" id="page19" title="19"> </a>of + literature and creative projects, but never of that “output” of his. + We talked as men must talk who talk at all, with an untrammelled + freedom; now we were sublime and now curious, now we pursued + subtleties and now we were utterly trivial, but always it was in an + undisciplined, irregular style quite unsuitable for publication. That, + indeed, was the whole effect of the George Boon I am now trying to + convey, that he was indeed essentially not for publication. And this + effect was in no degree diminished by the fact that the photograph of + his beautiful castellated house, and of that extraordinarily + irrelevant person Mrs. Boon—for I must speak my mind of her—and of + her two dogs (Binkie and Chum), whom he detested, were, so to speak, + the poulet and salade in the menu of every illustrated magazine.</p> + + <p>The fact of it is he was one of those people who will <em>not</em> + photograph; so much of him was movement, gesture, expression, + atmosphere, and colour, and so little of him was form. His was the + exact converse of that semi-mineral physical quality that men <a class="pagenum" id="page20" title="20"> </a>call + handsome, and now that his career has come to its sad truncation I see + no reason why I should further conceal the secret of the clear, + emphatic, solid impression he made upon all who had not met him. It + was, indeed, a very simple secret;—</p> + + <p><em>He never wrote anything for his public with his own hand.</em></p> + + <p>He did this of set intention. He distrusted a certain freakishness of + his finger-tips that he thought might have injured him with his + multitudinous master. He knew his holograph manuscript would certainly + get him into trouble. He employed a lady, the lady who figures in his + will, Miss Bathwick, as his amanuensis. In Miss Bathwick was all his + security. She was a large, cool, fresh-coloured, permanently young + lady, full of serious enthusiasms; she had been faultlessly educated + in a girls’ high school of a not too modern type, and she regarded + Boon with an invincible respect. She wrote down his sentences + (spelling without blemish in all the European languages) as they came + from <a class="pagenum" id="page21" title="21"> </a> his lips, with the aid of a bright, efficient, new-looking + typewriter. If he used a rare word or a whimsical construction, she + would say, “I beg your pardon, Mr. Boon,” and he would at once correct + it; and if by any lapse of an always rather too nimble imagination he + carried his thoughts into regions outside the tastes and interests of + that enormous <em>ante-bellum</em> public it was his fortune to please, then, + according to the nature of his divagation, she would either cough or + sigh or—in certain eventualities—get up and leave the room.</p> + + <p>By this ingenious device—if one may be permitted to use the + expression for so pleasant and trustworthy an assistant—he did to a + large extent free himself from the haunting dread of losing his public + by some eccentricity of behaviour, some quirk of thought or + fluctuation of “attitude” that has pursued him ever since the great + success of “Captain Clayball,” a book he wrote to poke fun at the + crude imaginings of a particularly stupid schoolboy he liked, had put + him into the forefront of our literary world.</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s1-4"><a class="pagenum" id="page22" title="22"> </a> + <h3>§ 4</h3> + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">He</span> had a peculiar, and, I think, a groundless terror of the public of + the United States of America, from which country he derived the larger + moiety of his income. In spite of our remonstrances, he subscribed to + the New York <cite>Nation</cite> to the very end, and he insisted, in spite of + fact, reason, and my earnest entreaties (having regard to the future + unification of the English-speaking race), in figuring that + continental empire as a vain, garrulous, and prosperous female of + uncertain age, and still more uncertain temper, with unfounded + pretensions to intellectuality and an ideal of refinement of the most + negative description, entirely on the strength of that one sample. One + might as well judge England by the <cite>Spectator</cite>. My protests seemed + only to intensify his zest in his <a class="pagenum" id="page23" title="23"> </a>personification of Columbia as the + Aunt Errant of Christendom, as a wild, sentimental, and advanced + maiden lady of inconceivable courage and enterprise, whom everything + might offend and nothing cow. “I know,” he used to say, “something + will be said or done and she’ll have hysterics; the temptation to + smuggle something through Miss Bathwick’s back is getting almost too + much for me. I <em>could</em>, you know. Or some one will come along with + something a little harder and purer and emptier and more emphatically + handsome than I can hope to do. I shall lose her one of these days…. + How can I hope to keep for ever that proud and fickle heart?”</p> + + <p>And then I remember he suddenly went off at a tangent to sketch out a + great novel he was to call “Aunt Columbia.” “No,” he said, “they would + suspect that—‘Aunt Dove.’” She was to be a lady of great, + unpremeditated wealth, living on a vast estate near a rather crowded + and troublesome village. Everything she did and said affected <a class="pagenum" id="page24" title="24"> </a>the + village enormously. She took the people’s children into her + employment; they lived on her surplus vegetables. She was to have a + particularly troublesome and dishonest household of servants and a + spoiled nephew called Teddy. And whenever she felt dull or energetic + she drove down into the village and lectured and blamed the + villagers—for being overcrowded, for being quarrelsome, for being + poor and numerous, for not, in fact, being spinster ladies of enormous + good fortune…. That was only the beginning of one of those vast + schemes of his that have left no trace now in all the collection.</p> + + <p>His fear of shocking America was, I think, unfounded; at any rate, he + succeeded in the necessary suppressions every time, and until the day + of his death it was rare for the American press-cuttings that were + removed in basketfuls almost daily with the other debris of his + breakfast-table to speak of him in anything but quasi-amorous tones. + He died for them the most spiritual as well as the most intellectual + of men; “not simply intellectual, but lovable.” <a class="pagenum" id="page25" title="25"> </a>They spoke of his + pensive eyes, though, indeed, when he was not glaring at a camera they + were as pensive as champagne, and when the robust pathos bumped + against the unavoidable humour as they were swept along the narrow + torrent of his story they said with all the pleasure of an apt + quotation that indeed in his wonderful heart laughter mingled with + tears.</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s1-5"><a class="pagenum" id="page26" title="26"> </a> + <h3>§ 5</h3> + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">I think</span> George Boon did on the whole enjoy the remarkable setting of + his philosophical detachment very keenly; the monstrous fame of him + that rolled about the world, that set out east and came back + circumferentially from the west and beat again upon his doors. He + laughed irresponsibly, spent the resulting money with an intelligent + generosity, and talked of other things. “It is the quality of life,” + he said, and “The people love to have it so.”</p> + + <p>I seem to see him still, hurrying but not dismayed, in flight from the + camera of an intrusive admirer—an admirer not so much of him as of + his popularity—up one of his garden walks towards his agreeable + study. I recall his round, enigmatical face, an affair of rosy + rotundities, his very bright, active <a class="pagenum" id="page27" title="27"> </a>eyes, his queer, wiry, black hair + that went out to every point in the heavens, his ankles and neck and + wrists all protruding from his garments in their own peculiar way, + protruding a little more in the stress of flight. I recall, too, his + general effect of careless and, on the whole, commendable dirtiness, + accentuated rather than corrected by the vivid tie of soft + orange-coloured silk he invariably wore, and how his light paces + danced along the turf. (He affected in his private dominions trousers + of faint drab corduroy that were always too short, braced up with + vehement tightness, and displaying claret-coloured socks above his + easy, square-toed shoes.) And I know that even that lumbering camera + coming clumsily to its tripod ambush neither disgusted nor vulgarized + him. He liked his game; he liked his success and the opulent + stateliness it gave to the absurdities of Mrs. Boon and all the + circumstances of his profoundly philosophical existence; and he liked + it all none the worse because it was indeed nothing of himself at all, + because he in <a class="pagenum" id="page28" title="28"> </a>his essence was to dull intelligences and commonplace + minds a man invisible, a man who left no impression upon the + camera-plate or moved by a hair’s breadth the scale of a materialist + balance.</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s1-6"><a class="pagenum" id="page29" title="29"> </a> + <h3>§ 6</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">But</span> I will confess the state of the remains did surprise and + disappoint me.</p> + + <p>His story of great literary enterprises, holograph and conducted in + the profoundest secrecy, tallied so completely with, for example, + certain reservations, withdrawals that took him out of one’s company + and gave him his evident best companionship, as it were, when he was + alone. It was so entirely like him to concoct lengthy books away from + his neatly ordered study, from the wise limitations of Miss Bathwick’s + significant cough and her still more significant back, that we all, I + think, believed in these unseen volumes unquestioningly. While those + fine romances, those large, bright plays, were being conceived in a + publicity about as scandalous as a royal gestation, publicly planned + <a class="pagenum" id="page30" title="30"> </a>and announced, developed, written, boomed, applauded, there was, we + knew, this undercurrent of imaginative activity going on, concealed + from Miss Bathwick’s guardian knowledge, withdrawn from the stately + rhythm of her keys. What more natural than to believe he was also + writing it down?</p> + + <p>Alas! I found nothing but fragments. The work upon which his present + fame is founded was methodical, punctual and careful, and it + progressed with a sort of inevitable precision from beginning to end, + and so on to another beginning. Not only in tone and spirit but in + length (that most important consideration) he was absolutely + trustworthy; his hundred thousand words of good, healthy, + straightforward story came out in five months with a precision almost + astronomical. In that sense he took his public very seriously. To have + missed his morning’s exercises behind Miss Bathwick’s back would have + seemed to him the most immoral—nay, worse, the most uncivil of + proceedings.</p> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page31" title="31"> </a>“She wouldn’t understand it,” he would say, and sigh and go.</p> + + <p>But these scraps and fragments are of an irregularity diametrically + contrasting with this. They seem to have been begun upon impulse at + any time, and abandoned with an equal impulsiveness, and they are + written upon stationery of a variety and nature that alone would + condemn them in the eyes of an alienist. The handwriting is always + atrocious and frequently illegible, the spelling is strange, and + sometimes indecently bad, the punctuation is sporadic, and many of the + fragments would be at once put out of court as modern literature by + the fact that they are written in pencil on <em>both sides of the paper!</em> + Such of the beginnings as achieve a qualified completeness are of + impossible lengths; the longest is a piece—allowing for gaps—of + fourteen thousand words, and another a fragment shaping at about + eleven. These are, of course, quite impossible sizes, neither essay + nor short story nor novel, and no editor or publisher would venture to + annoy the public with writings of so bizarre <a class="pagenum" id="page32" title="32"> </a>a dimension. In addition + there are fragments of verse. But I look in vain for anything beyond + the first chapter of that tremendous serial, “The Wild Asses of the + Devil,” that kept on day by day through June and July to the very + outbreak of the war, and only a first chapter and a few illustrations + and memoranda and fragments for our “Mind of the Race,” that went on + intermittently for several years. Whole volumes of that great + hotchpotch of criticism are lost in the sandbanks of my treacherous + memory for ever.</p> + + <p>Much of the matter, including a small MS. volume of those brief verses + called Limericks (personal always, generally actionable, and + frequently lacking in refinement), I set aside at an early date. Much + else also I rejected as too disjointed and unfinished, or too + eccentric. Two bizarre fragments called respectively “Jane in Heaven” + and “An Account of a Play,” I may perhaps find occasion to issue at a + later date, and there were also several brief imitations of Villiers + de l’Isle Adam quite alien <a class="pagenum" id="page33" title="33"> </a>to contemporary Anglo-Saxon taste, which + also I hold over. Sometimes upon separate sheets, sometimes in the + margins of other compositions, and frequently at the end of letters + received by him I found a curious abundance of queer little drawings, + caricatures of his correspondents, burlesque renderings of + occurrences, disrespectful sidenotes to grave and pregnant utterances, + and the like. If ever the correspondence of George Boon is published, + it will have to be done in <em>fac-simile</em>. There is a considerable + number of impressions of the back of Miss Bathwick’s head, with and + without the thread of velvet she sometimes wore about her neck, and + quite a number of curiously idealized studies of that American reading + public he would always so grotesquely and annoyingly insist on calling + “Her.” And among other things I found a rendering of myself as a + short, flattened little object that has a touch of malignity in it I + had no reason to expect. Few or none of these quaint comments are + drawn with Indian ink upon millboard in a manner suitable for + reproduction, and even <a class="pagenum" id="page34" title="34"> </a>were they so, I doubt whether the public would + care for very many of them. (I give my own portrait—it is singularly + unlike me—to show the style of thing he did.)</p> + + + <div class="illo" id="illo01"> + <img src="images/illo-01.png" width="138" height="157" alt="Sketch of a fellow with a huge nose." /> + </div> + + <p>Of the “Mind of the Race” I may perhaps tell first. I find he had + written out and greatly embellished the singularly vivid and detailed + and happily quite imaginary account of the murder of that eminent + litterateur, Dr. Tomlinson Keyhole, with which the “Mind of the Race” + was to have concluded; and there are an extraordinarily offensive + interview with Mr. Raymond Blathwayt (which, since it now “dates” so + markedly, I have decided to suppress altogether) and an unfinished + study of “the Literary Statesmen of the Transition <a class="pagenum" id="page35" title="35"> </a>Years from the + Nineteenth to the Twentieth Centuries” (including a lengthy comparison + of the greatness of Lords Bryce and Morley, a eulogy of Lord Morley + and a discussion whether he has wit or humour) that were new to me. + And perhaps I may note at this point the twenty sixpenny washing books + in which Boon had commenced what I am firmly convinced is a general + index of the works of Plato and Aristotle. It is conceivable he did + this merely as an aid to his private reading, though the idea of a + popular romancer reading anything will come to the general reader with + a little shock of surprise.</p> + + <div class="illo" id="illo02"> + <img src="images/illo-02.png" width="146" height="202" alt="Sketch of a bespectacled man pointing." /> + + <p class="caption">Boon’s idea of <em>Aristotle</em> (in modern dress), from the + washing books.</p> + <p class="caption_comment">(When asked, “<em>Why</em> in modern dress?” Boon replied simply that he + would be.)</p> + </div> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page36" title="36"> </a>For my own part and having in memory his subtle and elusive talk, I am + rather inclined to think that at one time he did go so far as to + contemplate a familiar and humorous commentary upon these two pillars + of the world’s thought. An edition of them edited and copiously + illustrated by him would, I feel sure, have been a remarkable addition + to any gentleman’s library. If he did turn his mind to anything of the + sort he speedily abandoned the idea again, and with this mention and + the note that he detested Aristotle, those six and twenty washing + books may very well follow the bulk of the drawings and most of the + verse back into their original oblivion….</p> + + <div class="illo" id="illo03"><a class="pagenum" id="page37" title="37"> </a> + <img src="images/illo-03.png" width="123" height="213" alt="A lumpy man with almost no hair." /> + + <p class="caption">Boon’s idea of <em>Plato</em>, from the washing books.</p> + + <p class="caption_comment">(Boon absolutely rejected the Indian Bacchus bust as a portrait of + <em>Plato</em>. When asked why, he remarked merely that it wasn’t like him.)</p> + </div> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s1-7"><a class="pagenum" id="page38" title="38"> </a> + <h3>§ 7</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">But</span> now you will begin to understand the nature of the task that lies + before me. If I am to do any justice to the cryptic George Boon, if + indeed I am to publish anything at all about him, I must set myself to + edit and convey these books whose only publication was in fact by word + of mouth in his garden arbours, using these few fragments as the + merest accessories to that. I have hesitated, I have collected + unfavourable advice, but at last I have resolved to make at least one + experimental volume of Boon’s remains. After all, whatever we have of + Aristotle and Socrates and all that we most value of Johnson comes + through the testimony of hearers. And though I cannot venture to + compare myself with Boswell….</p> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page39" title="39"> </a>I know the dangers I shall run in this attempt to save my friend from + the devastating expurgations of his written ostensible career. I + confess I cannot conceal from myself that, for example, I must needs + show Boon, by the standards of every day, a little treacherous.</p> + + <p>When I thrust an arm into one or other of the scores of densely packed + bins of press cuttings that cumber the attics of his castellated + mansion and extract a sample clutch, I find almost invariably praise, + not judicious or intelligent praise perhaps, but slab and generous + praise, paragraphs, advice, photographs, notices, notes, allusions and + comparisons, praise of the unparalleled gloss on his style by Doctor + Tomlinson Keyhole under the pseudonym of “Simon up to Snuff,” praise + of the healthiness of the tone by Doctor Tomlinson Keyhole under the + pseudonym of “The Silver Fish,” inspired announcements of some + forthcoming venture made by Doctor Tomlinson Keyhole under the + pseudonym of “The True-Born Englishman,” and interesting and exalting + speculations <a class="pagenum" id="page40" title="40"> </a>as to the precise figure of Boon’s income over Dr. + Tomlinson Keyhole’s own signature; I find chatty, if a little + incoherent, notices by Braybourne of the most friendly and helpful + sort, and interviews of the most flattering description by this + well-known litterateur and that. And I reflect that while all this was + going on, there was Boon on the other side of Miss Bathwick’s rampart + mind, not only not taking them and himself seriously, not only not + controlling his disrespectful internal commentary on these excellent + men, but positively writing it down, regaling himself with the + imagined murder of this leader of thought and the forcible abduction + to sinister and melancholy surroundings of that!</p> + + <p>And yet I find it hard to do even this measure of justice to my + friend. He was treacherous, it must be written, and yet he was, one + must confess, a singularly attractive man. There was a certain quality + in his life—it was pleasant. When I think of doing him justice I am + at once dashed and consoled by the thought of how little <a class="pagenum" id="page41" title="41"> </a>he cared how + I judged him. And I recall him very vividly as I came upon him on one + occasion.</p> + + <p>He is seated on a garden roller—an implement which makes a faultless + outdoor seat when the handle is adjusted at a suitable angle against a + tree, and one has taken the precaution to skid the apparatus with a + piece of rockery or other convenient object. His back is against the + handle, his legs lie in a boneless curve over the roller, and an inch + or so of native buff shows between the corduroy trousers and the + claret-coloured socks. He appears to be engaged partly in the + degustation of an unappetizing lead pencil, and partly in the + contemplation of a half-quire of notepaper. The expression of his + rubicund face is distinctly a happy one. At the sound of my approach + he looks up. “I’ve been drawing old Keyhole again!” he says like a + schoolboy.</p> + + <div class="illo" id="illo04"><a class="pagenum" id="page42" title="42"> </a> + <img src="images/illo-04.png" width="175" height="235" alt="A mousy mustachioed man" /> + </div> + + <p>Nevertheless, if critics of standing are to be drawn like this by + authors of position, then it seems to me that there is nothing before + us but to say Good-bye for ever to the Dignity of Letters.</p> + + </div> +</div> +<div class='chapter' id='second'><a class="pagenum" id="page43" title="43"> </a> + <h2>CHAPTER THE SECOND<br /> + <span class="chapter_title">Being the First Chapter of "The Mind of the Race"</span></h2> + <div class="section" id="s2-1"> + <h3>§ 1</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">It</span> was one of Boon’s peculiarities to maintain a legend about every + one he knew, and to me it was his humour to ascribe a degree of moral + earnestness that I admit only too sadly is altogether above my + quality. Having himself invented this great project of a book upon the + Mind of the Race which formed always at least the thread of the + discourse when I was present, he next went some way towards foisting + it upon me. He would talk to me about it in a tone of remonstrance, + raise imaginary difficulties to propositions I was supposed to make + and <a class="pagenum" id="page44" title="44"> </a>superstitions I entertained, speak of it as “this book Bliss is + going to write”; and at the utmost admit no more than collaboration. + Possibly I contributed ideas; but I do not remember doing so now very + distinctly. Possibly my influence was quasi-moral. The proposition + itself fluctuated in his mind to suit this presentation and that, it + had more steadfastness in mine. But if I was the anchorage he was the + ship. At any rate we planned and discussed a book that Boon pretended + that I was writing and that I believed him to be writing, in entire + concealment from Miss Bathwick, about the collective mind of the whole + human race.</p> + + <p>Edwin Dodd was with us, I remember, in one of those early talks, when + the thing was still taking form, and he sat on a large inverted + flowerpot—we had camped in the greenhouse after lunch—and he was + smiling, with his head slightly on one side and a wonderfully foxy + expression of being on his guard that he always wore with Boon. Dodd + is a leading member of the Rationalist Press Association, a militant + agnostic, and <a class="pagenum" id="page45" title="45"> </a>a dear, compact man, one of those Middle Victorians who + go about with a preoccupied, caulking air, as though, after having + been at great cost and pains to banish God from the Universe, they + were resolved not to permit Him back on any terms whatever. He has + constituted himself a sort of alert customs officer of a materialistic + age, saying suspiciously, “Here, now, what’s this rapping under the + table here?” and examining every proposition to see that the Creator + wasn’t being smuggled back under some specious new generalization. + Boon used to declare that every night Dodd looked under his bed for + the Deity, and slept with a large revolver under his pillow for fear + of a revelation…. From the first Dodd had his suspicions about this + collective mind of Boon’s. Most unjustifiable they seemed to me then, + but he had them.</p> + + <p>“You must admit, my dear Dodd——” began Boon.</p> + + <p>“I admit nothing,” said Dodd smartly.</p> + + <p>“You perceive something more extensive than individual wills and + individual processes <a class="pagenum" id="page46" title="46"> </a>of reasoning in mankind, a body of thought, a + trend of ideas and purposes, a thing made up of the synthesis of all + the individual instances, something more than their algebraic sum, + losing the old as they fall out, taking up the young, a common Mind + expressing the species——”</p> + + <p>“Oh—figuratively, perhaps!” said Dodd.</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s2-2"><a class="pagenum" id="page47" title="47"> </a> + <h3>§ 2</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">For</span> my own part I could not see where Dodd’s “figuratively” comes in. + The mind of the race is as real to me as the mind of Dodd or my own. + Because Dodd is completely made up of Dodd’s right leg plus Dodd’s + left leg, plus Dodd’s right arm plus Dodd’s left arm plus Dodd’s head + and Dodd’s trunk, it doesn’t follow that Dodd is a mere figurative + expression….</p> + + <p>Dodd, I remember, protested he had a self-consciousness that held all + these constituents together, but there was a time when Dodd was six + months old, let us say, and there are times now when Dodd sleeps or is + lost in some vivid sensation or action, when that clear sense of self + is in abeyance. There is no reason why the collective mind of the + world should not presently become at least <a class="pagenum" id="page48" title="48"> </a>as self-conscious as Dodd. + Boon, indeed, argued that that was happening even now, that our very + talk in the greenhouse was to that synthetic over-brain like a child’s + first intimations of the idea of “me.” “It’s a <em>fantastic</em> notion,” + said Dodd, shaking his head.</p> + + <p>But Boon was fairly launched now upon his topic, and from the first, I + will confess, it took hold of me.</p> + + <p>“You mustn’t push the analogy of Dodd’s mind too far,” said Boon. + “These great Over-minds——”</p> + + <p>“So there are several!” said Dodd.</p> + + <p>“They fuse, they divide. These great Over-minds, these race minds, + share nothing of the cyclic fate of the individual life; there is no + birth for them, no pairing and breeding, no inevitable death. That is + the lot of such intermediate experimental creatures as ourselves. The + creatures below us, like the creatures above us, are free from + beginnings and ends. The Amoeba never dies; it divides at times, parts + of it die here and there, it has no sex, no begetting. <a class="pagenum" id="page49" title="49"> </a>(Existence + without a love interest. My God! how it sets a novelist craving!) + Neither has the germ plasm. These Over-minds, which for the most part + clothe themselves in separate languages and maintain a sort of + distinction, stand to us as we stand to the amœbæ or the germ cells + we carry; they are the next higher order of being; they emerge above + the intense, intensely defined struggle of individuals which is the + more obvious substance of lives at the rank of ours; they grow, they + divide, they feed upon one another, they coalesce and rejuvenate. So + far they are like amœbæ. But they think, they accumulate experiences, + they manifest a collective will.”</p> + + <p>“Nonsense!” said Dodd, shaking his head from side to side.</p> + + <p>“But the thing is manifest!”</p> + + <p>“I’ve never met it.”</p> + + <p>“You met it, my dear Dodd, the moment you were born. Who taught you to + talk? Your mother, you say. But whence the language? Who made the + language that gives a bias to all your thoughts? And who taught <a class="pagenum" id="page50" title="50"> </a>you to + think, Dodd? Whence came your habits of conduct? Your mother, your + schoolmaster were but mouthpieces, the books you read the mere + forefront of that great being of Voices! There it is—your antagonist + to-day. You are struggling against it with tracts and arguments….”</p> + + <p>But now Boon was fairly going. Physically, perhaps, we were the + children of our ancestors, but mentally we were the offspring of the + race mind. It was clear as daylight. How could Dodd dare to argue? We + emerged into a brief independence of will, made our personal + innovation, became, as it were, new thoughts in that great + intelligence, new elements of effort and purpose, and were presently + incorporated or forgotten or both in its immortal growth. Would the + Race Mind incorporate Dodd or dismiss him? Dodd sat on his flowerpot, + shaking his head and saying “Pooh!” to the cinerarias; and I listened, + never doubting that Boon felt the truth he told so well. He came near + making the Race soul incarnate. One felt it about us, receptive and + responsive to Boon’s words. <a class="pagenum" id="page51" title="51"> </a>He achieved personification. He spoke of + wars that peoples have made, of the roads and cities that grow and the + routes that develop, no man planning them. He mentioned styles of + architecture and styles of living; the gothic cathedral, I remember, + he dwelt upon, a beauty, that arose like an exhalation out of + scattered multitudes of men. He instanced the secular abolition of + slavery and the establishment of monogamy as a development of + Christian teaching, as things untraceable to any individual’s purpose. + He passed to the mysterious consecutiveness of scientific research, + the sudden determination of the European race mind to know more than + chance thoughts could tell it….</p> + + <p>“Francis Bacon?” said Dodd.</p> + + <p>“Men like Bacon are no more than bright moments, happy thoughts, the + discovery of the inevitable word; the race mind it was took it up, the + race mind it was carried it on.”</p> + + <p>“Mysticism!” said Dodd. “Give me the Rock of Fact!” He shook his head + so <a class="pagenum" id="page52" title="52"> </a>violently that suddenly his balance was disturbed; clap went his + feet, the flowerpot broke beneath him, and our talk was lost in the + consequent solicitudes.</p> + + <div class="illo" id="illo05"> + <img src="images/illo-05.png" width="499" height="328" alt="A man sitting on an upturned flowerpot." /> + <p class="caption">Dodd the Agnostic just before the flowerpot broke.</p> + </div> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s2-3"><a class="pagenum" id="page53" title="53"> </a> + <h3>§ 3</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">Now</span> that I have been searching my memory, I incline rather more than I + did to the opinion that the bare suggestion at any rate of this + particular Book did come from me. I probably went to Boon soon after + this talk with Dodd and said a fine book might be written about the + Mind of Humanity, and in all likelihood I gave some outline—I have + forgotten what. I wanted a larger picture of that great Being his + imagination had struck out. I remember at any, rate Boon taking me + into his study, picking out Goldsmith’s “Inquiry into the Present + State of Polite Learning,” turning it over and reading from it. + “Something in this line?” he said, and read:</p> + + <blockquote> + <p>“‘Complaints of our degeneracy in literature as well as in + morals I own have been frequently exhibited of <a class="pagenum" id="page54" title="54"> </a>late…. The + dullest critic who strives at a reputation for delicacy, by + showing he cannot be pleased …’</p> + </blockquote> + + <p>“The old, old thing, you see! The weak protest of the living.”</p> + + <p>He turned over the pages. “He shows a proper feeling, but he’s a + little thin…. He says some good things. But—‘The age of Louis XIV, + notwithstanding these respectable names, is still vastly, superior.’ + Is it? Guess the respectable names that age of Louis XIV could + override!—Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Montesquieu, D’Alembert! And + now tell me the respectable names of the age of Louis XIV. And the + conclusion of the whole matter—</p> + + <blockquote> + <p>“‘Thus the man who, under the patronage of the great might + have done honour to humanity, when only patronized by the + bookseller becomes a thing a little superior to the fellow who + works at the press.’</p> + </blockquote> + + <p>“‘The patronage of the great’! ‘Fellow who works at the press’! + Goldsmith was a damnably genteel person at times in spite of the + ‘Vicar’! It’s printed with the long ‘s,’ <a class="pagenum" id="page55" title="55"> </a>you see. It all helps to + remind one that times have changed.” …</p> + + <p>I followed his careless footsteps into the garden; he went + gesticulating before me, repeating, “‘An Inquiry into the State of + Polite Learning’! That’s what your ‘Mind of the Race’ means. Suppose + one did it now, we should do it differently in every way, from that.”</p> + + <p>“Yes, but how should we do it?” said I.</p> + + <p>The project had laid hold upon me. I wanted a broad outline of the + whole apparatus of thinking and determination in the modern State; + something that should bring together all its various activities, which + go on now in a sort of deliberate ignorance of one another, which + would synthesize research, education, philosophical discussion, moral + training, public policy. “There is,” I said, “a disorganized abundance + now.”</p> + + <p>“It’s a sort of subconscious mind,” said Boon, seeming to take me + quite seriously, “with a half instinctive will….”</p> + + <p>We discussed what would come into <a class="pagenum" id="page56" title="56"> </a>the book. One got an impression of + the enormous range and volume of intellectual activity that pours + along now, in comparison with the jejune trickle of Goldsmith’s days. + Then the world had—what? A few English writers, a few men in France, + the Royal Society, the new Berlin Academy (conducting its transactions + in French), all resting more or less upon the insecure patronage of + the “Great”; a few schools, public and private, a couple of dozen of + universities in all the world, a press of which <cite>The Gentleman’s + Magazine</cite> was the brightest ornament. Now——</p> + + <p>It is a curious thing that it came to us both as a new effect, this + enormously greater size of the intellectual world of to-day. We didn’t + at first grasp the implications of that difference, we simply found it + necessitated an enlargement of our conception. “And then a man’s + thoughts lived too in a world that had been created, lock, stock, and + barrel, a trifle under six thousand years ago!…”</p> + + <p>We fell to discussing the range and divisions <a class="pagenum" id="page57" title="57"> </a>of our subject. The main + stream, we settled, was all that one calls “literature” in its broader + sense. We should have to discuss that principally. But almost as + important as the actual development of ideas, suggestions, ideals, is + the way they are distributed through the body of humanity, developed, + rendered, brought into touch with young minds and fresh minds, who are + drawn so into participation, who themselves light up and become new + thoughts. One had to consider journalism, libraries, book + distribution, lecturing, teaching. Then there is the effect of laws, + of inventions…. “Done in a large, dull, half-abstract way,” said + Boon, “one might fill volumes. One might become an Eminent + Sociologist. You might even invent terminology. It’s a chance——”</p> + + <p>We let it pass. He went on almost at once to suggest a more congenial + form, a conversational novel. I followed reluctantly. I share the + general distrust of fiction as a vehicle of discussion. We would, he + insisted, invent a personality who would <a class="pagenum" id="page58" title="58"> </a>embody our Idea, who should + be fanatically obsessed by this idea of the Mind of the Race, who + should preach it on all occasions and be brought into illuminating + contact with all the existing mental apparatus and organization of the + world. “Something of your deep, moral earnestness, you know, only a + little more presentable and not quite so vindictive,” said Boon, “and + without your—lapses. I seem to see him rather like Leo Maxse: the + same white face, the same bright eyes, the same pervading suggestion + of nervous intensity, the same earnest, quasi-reasonable voice—but + instead of that anti-German obsession of his, an intelligent passion + for the racial thought. He must be altogether a fanatic. He must think + of the Mind of the Race in season and out of season. Collective + thought will be no joke to him; it will be the supremely important + thing. He will be passionately a patriot, entirely convinced of your + proposition that ‘the thought of a community is the life of a + community,’ and almost as certain that the tide of our thought is + ebbing.”</p> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page59" title="59"> </a>“Is it?” said I.</p> + + <p>“I’ve never thought. The ‘Encyclopædia Britannica’ says it is.”</p> + + <p>“We must call the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica.’”</p> + + <p>“As a witness—in the book—rather! But, anyhow, this man of ours will + believe it and struggle against it. It will make him ill; it will + spoil the common things of life for him altogether. I seem to see him + interrupting some nice, bright, clean English people at tennis. ‘Look + here, you know,’ he will say, ‘this is all very well. But have you + <em>thought</em> to-day? They tell me the Germans are thinking, the + Japanese.’ I see him going in a sort of agony round and about + Canterbury Cathedral. ‘Here are all these beautiful, tranquil + residences clustering round this supremely beautiful thing, all these + well-dressed, excellent, fresh-coloured Englishmen in their beautiful + clerical raiment—deans, canons—and what have they <em>thought</em>, any of + them? I keep my ear to the <cite>Hibbert Journal</cite>, but is it enough?’ + Imagine him going through London on an <a class="pagenum" id="page60" title="60"> </a>omnibus. He will see as clear + as the advertisements on the hoardings the signs of the formal + breaking up of the old Victorian Church of England and Dissenting + cultures that have held us together so long. He will see that the + faith has gone, the habits no longer hold, the traditions lie lax like + cut string—there is nothing to replace these things. People do this + and that dispersedly; there is democracy in beliefs even, and any + notion is as good as another. And there is America. Like a burst + Haggis. Intellectually. The Mind is confused, the Race in the violent + ferment of new ideas, in the explosive development of its own + contrivances, has lost its head. It isn’t thinking any more; it’s + stupefied one moment and the next it’s diving about——</p> + + <p>“It will be as clear as day to him that a great effort of intellectual + self-control must come if the race is to be saved from utter confusion + and dementia. And nobody seems to see it but he. He will go about + wringing his hands, so to speak. I fancy him at last at a + writing-desk, nervous white fingers <a class="pagenum" id="page61" title="61"> </a>clutched in his black hair. ‘How + can I put it so that they <em>must</em> attend and see?’”</p> + + <p>So we settled on our method and principal character right away. But we + got no farther because Boon insisted before doing anything else on + drawing a fancy portrait of this leading character of ours and + choosing his name. We decided to call him Hallery, and that he should + look something like this—</p> + + <div class="illo" id="illo06"><a class="pagenum" id="page62" title="62"> </a> + <img src="images/illo-06.png" width="177" height="554" alt="A man stands facing forward, hands behind his back." /> + <p class="caption">Hallery preparing to contradict.</p> + </div> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page63" title="63"> </a>That was how “The Mind of the Race” began, the book that was to have + ended at last in grim burlesque with Hallery’s murder of Dr. Tomlinson + Keyhole in his villa at Hampstead, and the conversation at dawn with + that incredulous but literate policeman at Highgate—he was reading a + World’s Classic—to whom Hallery gave himself up.</p> + </div> +</div> +<div class='chapter' id='third'><a class="pagenum" id="page64" title="64"> </a> + <h2>CHAPTER THE THIRD<br /> + <span class="chapter_title">The Great Slump, the Revival of Letters, and the Garden by the Sea</span></h2> + <div class="section" id="s3-1"> + <h3>§ 1</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">The</span> story, as Boon planned it, was to begin with a spacious + Introduction. We were to tell of the profound decadence of letters at + the opening of the Twentieth Century and how a movement of revival + began. A few notes in pencil of this opening do exist among the + Remains, and to those I have referred. He read them over to me….</p> + + <p>“‘We begin,’” he said, “‘in a minor key. The impetus of the Romantic + movement we declare is exhausted; the Race Mind, not only of the + English-speaking peoples but of the whole world, has come upon a + period <a class="pagenum" id="page65" title="65"> </a>of lethargy. The Giants of the Victorian age——’”</p> + + <p>My eye discovered a familiar binding among the flower-pots. “You have + been consulting the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica,’” I said.</p> + + <p>He admitted it without embarrassment.</p> + + <p>“I have prigged the whole thing from the last Victorian Edition—with + some slight variations…. ‘The Giants of the Victorian age had + passed. Men looked in vain for their successors. For a time there was + an evident effort to fill the vacant thrones; for a time it seemed + that the unstinted exertions of Miss Marie Corelli, Mr. Hall Caine, + Mrs. Humphry Ward, and the friends of Mr. Stephen Phillips might go + some way towards obliterating these magnificent gaps. And then, slowly + but surely, it crept into men’s minds that the game was up——’”</p> + + <p>“You will alter that phrase?” I said.</p> + + <p>“Certainly. But it must serve now … ‘that, humanly speaking, it was + impossible that anything, at once so large, so copious, <a class="pagenum" id="page66" title="66"> </a>so broadly and + unhesitatingly popular, so nobly cumulative as the Great Victorian + Reputations could ever exist again. The Race seemed threatened with + intellectual barrenness; it had dropped its great blossoms, and stood + amidst the pile of their wilting but still showy petals, budless and + bare. It is curious to recall the public utterances upon literature + that distinguished this desolate and melancholy time. It is a chorus + of despair. There is in the comments of such admirable but ageing + critics as still survived, of Mr. Gosse, for example, and the + venerable Sir Sidney Colvin and Mr. Mumchance, an inevitable + suggestion of widowhood; the judges, bishops, statesmen who are called + to speak upon literature speak in the same reminiscent, inconsolable + note as of a thing that is dead. Year after year one finds the + speakers at the Dinner of the Royal Literary Fund admitting the + impudence of their appeal. I remember at one of these festivities + hearing the voice of Mr. Justice Gummidge break…. The strain, it is + needless to say, found its echo in Dr. Tomlinson <a class="pagenum" id="page67" title="67"> </a>Keyhole; he confessed + he never read anything that is less than thirty years old with the + slightest enjoyment, and threw out the suggestion that nothing new + should be published—at least for a considerable time—unless it was + clearly shown to be posthumous….</p> + + <p>“‘Except for a few irresistible volumes of facetiousness, the reading + public very obediently followed the indications of authority in these + matters, just as it had followed authority and sustained the Giants in + the great Victorian days. It bought the long-neglected + classics—anything was adjudged a classic that was out of + copyright—it did its best to read them, to find a rare smack in their + faded allusions, an immediate application for their forgotten topics. + It made believe that architects were still like Mr. Pecksniff and + schoolmasters like Squeers, that there were no different women from + Jane Austen’s women, and that social wisdom ended in Ruskin’s fine + disorder. But with the decay, of any intellectual observation of the + present these past things had <a class="pagenum" id="page68" title="68"> </a>lost their vitality. A few resolute + people maintained an artificial interest in them by participation in + quotation-hunting competitions and the like, but the great bulk of the + educated classes ceased presently to read anything whatever. The + classics were still bought by habit, as people who have lost faith + will still go to church; but it is only necessary to examine some + surviving volume of this period to mark the coruscation of printer’s + errors, the sheets bound in upside down or accidentally not inked in + printing or transferred from some sister classic in the same series, + to realize that these volumes were mere receipts for the tribute paid + by the pockets of stupidity to the ancient prestige of thought….</p> + + <p>“‘An air of completion rested upon the whole world of letters. A + movement led by Professor Armstrong, the eminent educationist, had + even gone some way towards banishing books from the schoolroom—their + last refuge. People went about in the newly invented automobile and + played open-air games; they diverted what attention they had <a class="pagenum" id="page69" title="69"> </a>once + given to their minds to the more rational treatment of their stomachs. + Reading became the last resort of those too sluggish or too poor to + play games; one had recourse to it as a substitute for the ashes of + more strenuous times in the earlier weeks of mourning for a near + relative, and even the sale of classics began at last to decline. An + altogether more satisfying and alluring occupation for the human + intelligence was found in the game of Bridge. This was presently + improved into Auction Bridge. Preparations were made for the erection + of a richly decorative memorial in London to preserve the memory of + Shakespeare, an English Taj Mahal; an Academy of uncreative literature + was established under the Presidency of Lord Reay (who had never + written anything at all), and it seemed but the matter of a few years + before the goal of a complete and final mental quiet would be attained + by the whole English-speaking community….’”</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s3-2"><a class="pagenum" id="page70" title="70"> </a> + <h3>§ 2</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph">“<span class="first_word">You</span> know,” I said, “that doesn’t exactly represent——”</p> + + <p>“Hush!” said Boon. “It was but a resting phase! And at this point I + part company with the ‘Encyclopædia.’”</p> + + <p>“But you didn’t get all that out of the ‘Encyclopædia’?”</p> + + <p>“Practically—yes. I may have rearranged it a little. The + Encyclopædist is a most interesting and representative person. He + takes up an almost eighteenth-century attitude, holds out hopes of a + revival of Taste under an Academy, declares the interest of the great + mass of men in literature is always ’empirical,’ regards the great + Victorian boom in letters as quite abnormal, and seems to ignore what + you would call that necessary element of vitalizing thought…. It’s + <a class="pagenum" id="page71" title="71"> </a>just here that Hallery will have to dispute with him. We shall have to + bring them together in our book somehow…. Into this impressive scene + of decline and the ebb of all thinking comes this fanatic Hallery of + ours, reciting with passionate conviction, ‘the thought of a nation is + the life of a nation.’ You see our leading effect?”</p> + + <p>He paused. “We have to represent Hallery as a voice crying in the + wilderness. We have to present him in a scene of infinite intellectual + bleakness, with the thinnest scrub of second-rate books growing + contemptibly, and patches of what the Encyclopædist calls + tares—wind-wilted tares—about him. A mournful Encyclopædist like + some lone bird circling in the empty air beneath the fading stars…. + Well, something of that effect, anyhow! And then, you know, suddenly, + mysteriously one grows aware of light, of something coming, of + something definitely coming, of the dawn of a great Literary + Revival….”</p> + + <p>“How does it come?”</p> + + <p>“Oh! In the promiscuous way of these <a class="pagenum" id="page72" title="72"> </a>things. The swing of the + pendulum, it may be. Some eminent person gets bored at the prospect of + repeating that rigmarole about the great Victorians and our present + slackness for all the rest of his life, and takes a leaf from one of + Hallery’s books. We might have something after the fashion of the + Efficiency and Wake-up-England affair. Have you ever heard guinea-fowl + at dawn?”</p> + + <p>“I’ve heard them at twilight. They say, ‘Come back. Come back.’ But + what has that to do with——”</p> + + <p>“Nothing. There’s a movement, a stir, a twittering, and then a sudden + promiscuous uproar, articles in the reviews, articles in the + newspapers, paragraphs, letters, associations, societies, leagues. I + imagine a very great personality indeed in the most extraordinary and + unexpected way coming in….” (It was one of Boon’s less amiable + habits to impute strange and uncanny enterprises, the sudden adoption + of movements, manias, propagandas, adhesion to vegetarianism, + socialism, the strangest <a class="pagenum" id="page73" title="73"> </a>eccentricities, to the British royal family.) + “As a result Hallery finds himself perforce a person of importance. + ‘The thought of a nation is the life of a nation,’ one hears it from + royal lips; ‘a literature, a living soul, adequate to this vast + empire,’ turns up in the speech of a statesman of the greatest + literary pretensions. Arnold White responds to the new note. The + <cite>Daily Express</cite> starts a Literary Revival on its magazine page and + offers a prize. The <cite>Times</cite> follows suit. Reports of what is afoot + reach social circles in New York…. The illumination passes with a + dawnlike swiftness right across the broad expanse of British life, + east and west flash together; the ladies’ papers and the motoring + journals devote whole pages to ‘New Literature,’ and there is an + enormous revival of Book Teas…. That sort of thing, you + know—extensively.”</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s3-3"><a class="pagenum" id="page74" title="74"> </a> + <h3>§ 3</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph">“<span class="first_word">So</span> much by way of prelude. Now picture to yourself the immediate + setting of my conference. Just hand me that book by the + ‘Encyclopædia.’”</p> + + <p>It was Mallock’s “New Republic.” He took it, turned a page or so, + stuck a finger in it, and resumed.</p> + + <p>“It is in a narrow, ill-kept road by the seaside, Bliss. A long wall, + plaster-faced, blotched and peeling, crested with uncivil glass + against the lower orders, is pierced by cast-iron gates clumsily + classical, and through the iron bars of these there is visible the + deserted gatekeeper’s lodge, its cracked windows opaque with + immemorial dirt, and a rich undergrowth of nettles beneath the rusty + cypresses and stone-pines that border the carriage-way. An automobile + throbs in the <a class="pagenum" id="page75" title="75"> </a>road; its occupants regard a board leaning all askew + above the parapet, and hesitate to descend. On the board, which has + been enriched by the attentions of the passing boy with innumerable + radiant mud pellets, one reads with difficulty—</p> + + <div id="placard"> + <p><span class="emphasize">THIS CLASSICAL VILLA</span> + with magnificent gardens in the Victorian-Italian + style reaching down to the sea, and + replete with Latin and Greek inscriptions, + a garden study, literary associations, fully + matured Oxford allusions, and a great + number of conveniently arranged + bedrooms, to be + <span class="emphasize">LET OR SOLD.</span></p> + + <p><span class="apply">Apply to the owner,</span> + <span class="emphasize">Mr. W. H. MALLOCK,</span> + original author of<br /> + “The New Republic.”</p> + + <p class="apply">Key within.</p> + </div> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page76" title="76"> </a>“‘This <em>must</em> be it, my dear Archer,’ says one of the occupants of the + motor-car, and he rises, throws aside his furs, and reveals—the + urbane presence of the Encyclopædist. He descends, and rings a + clangorous bell…. Eh?”</p> + + <p>“It’s the garden of the ‘New Republic’?”</p> + + <p>“Exactly. Revisited. It’s an astonishing thing. Do you know the date + of the ‘New Republic’? The book’s nearly forty years old! About the + time of Matthew Arnold’s ‘Friendship’s Garland,’ and since that time + there’s been nothing like a systematic stocktaking of the + English-speaking mind—until the Encyclopædist reported ‘no effects.’ + And I propose to make this little party in the motor-car a sort of + scratch expedition, under the impetus of the proposed Revival of + Thought. They are prospecting for a Summer Congress, which is to go + into the state of the republic of letters thoroughly. It isn’t perhaps + quite Gosse’s style, but he has to be there—in a way he’s the + official British man of letters—but we shall do what <a class="pagenum" id="page77" title="77"> </a>we can for him, + we shall make him show a strong disposition towards protective ironies + and confess himself not a little bothered at being dragged into the + horrid business. And I think we must have George Moore, who has played + uncle to so many movements and been so uniformly disappointed in his + nephews. And William Archer, with that face of his which is so exactly + like his mind, a remarkably fine face mysteriously marred by an + expression of unscrupulous integrity. And lastly, Keyhole.”</p> + + <p>“Why Keyhole?” I asked.</p> + + <p>“Hallery has to murder some one. I’ve planned that—and who <em>would</em> he + murder but Keyhole?… And we have to hold the first meeting in + Mallock’s garden to preserve the continuity of English thought.</p> + + <p>“Very well! Then we invent a morose, elderly caretaker, greatly + embittered at this irruption. He parleys for a time through the gate + with all the loyalty of his class, mentions a number of discouraging + defects, more particularly in the drainage, alleges the whole place is + clammy, and only at Gosse’s clearly <a class="pagenum" id="page78" title="78"> </a>enunciated determination to enter + produces the key.”</p> + + <p>Boon consulted his text. “Naturally one would give a chapter to the + Villa by the Sea and Mallock generally. Our visitors explore. They + visit one scene after another familiar to the good Mallockite; they + descend ‘the broad flights of steps flanked by Gods and Goddesses’ + that lead from one to another of the ‘long, straight terraces set with + vases and Irish yews,’ and the yews, you know, have suffered from the + want of water, the vases are empty, and ivy, under the benediction of + our modest climate, has already veiled the classical freedom—the + conscientious nudity, one might say—of the statuary. The laurels have + either grown inordinately or perished, and the ‘busts of orators, + poets, and philosophers’ ‘with Latin inscriptions,’ stand either + bleakly exposed or else swallowed up, in a thicket. There is a + pleasing struggle to translate the legends, and one gathers + scholarship is not extinct in England.</p> + + <p>“The one oasis in a universal weediness <a class="pagenum" id="page79" title="79"> </a>is the pond about the ‘scaly + Triton,’ which has been devoted to the culture of spring onions, a + vegetable to which the aged custodian quite superfluously avows + himself very ‘partial.’ The visitors return to the house, walk along + its terrace, survey its shuttered front, and they spend some time + going through its musty rooms. Dr. Keyhole distinguishes himself by + the feverish eagerness of his curiosity about where Leslie slept and + where was the boudoir of Mrs. Sinclair. He insists that a very sad and + painful scandal about these two underlies the <cite>New Republic</cite>, and + professes a thirsty desire to draw a veil over it as conspicuously as + possible. The others drag him away to the summer dining-room, now a + great brier tangle, where once Lady Grace so pleasantly dined her + guests. The little arena about the fountain in a porphyry basin they + do not find, but the garden study they peer into, and see its inkpot + in the shape of a classical temple, just as Mr. Mallock has described + it, and the windowless theatre, and, in addition, they find a small + private <a class="pagenum" id="page80" title="80"> </a>gas-works that served it. The old man lets them in, and by the + light of uplifted vestas they see the decaying, rat-disordered ruins + of the scene before which Jenkinson who was Jowett, and Herbert who + was Ruskin, preached. It is as like a gorge in the Indian Caucasus as + need be. The Brocken act-drop above hangs low enough to show the toes + of the young witch, still brightly pink….</p> + + + <p>“They go down to the beach, and the old man, with evil chuckles, + recalls a hitherto unpublished anecdote of mixed bathing in the + ’seventies, in which Mrs. Sinclair and a flushed and startled Dr. + Jenkinson, Greek in thought rather than action, play the chief parts, + and then they wade through a nettle-bed to that ‘small classical + portico’ which leads to the locked enclosure containing the three + tombs, with effigies after the fashion of Genoa Cemetery. But the key + of the gate is lost, so that they cannot go in to examine them, and + the weeds have hidden the figures altogether.</p> + + <p>“‘That’s a pity,’ some one remarks, ‘for <a class="pagenum" id="page81" title="81"> </a>it’s here, no doubt, that old + Laurence lies, with his first mistress and his last—under these + cypresses.’</p> + + <p>“The aged custodian makes a derisive noise, and every one turns to + him.</p> + + <p>“‘I gather you throw some doubt?’ the Encyclopædist begins in his + urbane way.</p> + + <p>“‘Buried—under the cypresses—first mistress and last!’ The old man + makes his manner invincibly suggestive of scornful merriment.</p> + + <p>“‘But isn’t it so?’</p> + + <p>“‘Bless y’r ’art, <em>no</em>! Mr. Laurence—buried! Mr. Laurence worn’t + never alive!’</p> + + <p>“‘But there was a <em>young</em> Mr. Laurence?’</p> + + <p>“‘That was Mr. Mallup ’imself, that was! ’E was a great mistifier was + Mr. Mallup, and sometimes ’e went about pretendin’ to be Mr. Laurence + and sometimes he was Mr. Leslie, and sometimes——But there, you’d + ’ardly believe. ’E got all this up—cypresses, chumes, everythink—out + of ’is ’ed. Po’try. Why! ’Ere! Jest come along ’ere, gents!’</p> + + <p>“He leads the way along a narrow privet <a class="pagenum" id="page82" title="82"> </a>alley that winds its + surreptitious way towards an alcove.</p> + + <p>“‘Miss Merton,’ he says, flinging the door of this open.</p> + + <p>“‘The Roman Catholic young person?’ says Dr. Tomlinson Keyhole.</p> + + <p>“‘Quite right, sir,’ says the aged custodian.</p> + + <p>“They peer in.</p> + + <p>“Hanging from a peg the four visitors behold a pale blue dress cut in + the fashion of the ’seventies, a copious ‘chignon’ of fair hair, large + earrings, and on the marble bench a pair of open-work stockings and + other articles of feminine apparel. A tall mirror hangs opposite these + garments, and in a little recess convenient to the hand are the dusty + and decaying materials for a hasty ‘make-up.’</p> + + <p>“The old custodian watches the effect of this display upon the others + with masked enjoyment.</p> + + <p>“‘You mean Miss Merton <em>painted</em>?’ said the Encyclopædist, knitting + his brows.</p> + + <p>“‘Mr. Mallup did,’ says the aged custodian.</p> + + <p>“‘You mean——?’</p> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page83" title="83"> </a>“‘Mr. Mallup was Miss Merton. ’E got <em>’er</em> up too. Parst ’er orf as a + young lady, ’e did. Oh, ’e was a great mistifier was Mr. Mallup. None + of the three of ’em wasn’t real people, really; he got ’em all up.’</p> + + <p>“‘She had sad-looking eyes, a delicate, proud mouth, and a worn, + melancholy look,’ muses Mr. Archer.</p> + + <p>“‘And young Laurence was in love with her,’ adds the Encyclopædist….</p> + + <p>“‘They was all Mr. Mallup,’ says the aged custodian. ‘Made up out of + ’is ’ed. And the gents that pretended they was Mr. ’Uxley and Mr. + Tyndall in disguise, one was Bill Smithers, the chemist’s assistant, + and the other was the chap that used to write and print the <cite>Margate + Advertiser</cite> before the noo papers come.’”</p> + </div> +</div> +<div class='chapter' id='fourth'><a class="pagenum" id="page84" title="84"> </a> + <h2>CHAPTER THE FOURTH<br /> + <span class="chapter_title">Of Art, of Literature, of Mr. Henry James</span></h2> + <div class="section" id="s4-1"> + <h3>§ 1</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">The</span> Garden by the Sea chapter was to have gone on discursively with a + discussion upon this project of a conference upon the Mind of the + Race. The automobile-ful of gentlemen who had first arrived was to + have supplied the opening interlocutors, but presently they were to + have been supplemented by the most unexpected accessories. It would + have been an enormously big dialogue if it had ever been written, and + Boon’s essentially lazy temperament was all against its ever getting + written. There were to have been disputes from the outset as to the + very purpose that had brought them all together. “A sort of <a class="pagenum" id="page85" title="85"> </a>literary + stocktaking” was to have been Mr. Archer’s phrase. Repeated. + Unhappily, its commercialism was to upset Mr. Gosse extremely; he was + to say something passionately bitter about its “utter lack of + dignity.” Then relenting a little, he was to urge as an alternative + “some controlling influence, some standard and restraint, a new and + better Academic influence.” Dr. Keyhole was to offer his journalistic + services in organizing an Academic plebiscite, a suggestion which was + to have exasperated Mr. Gosse to the pitch of a gleaming silence.</p> + + <p>In the midst of this conversation the party is joined by Hallery and + an American friend, a quiet Harvard sort of man speaking meticulously + accurate English, and still later by emissaries of Lord Northcliffe + and Mr. Hearst, by Mr. Henry James, rather led into it by a + distinguished hostess, by Mr. W. B. Yeats, late but keen, and by that + Sir Henry Lunn who organizes the Swiss winter sports hotels. All these + people drift in with an all too manifestly simulated accidentalness + that at last arouses the distrust of the elderly <a class="pagenum" id="page86" title="86"> </a>custodian, so that + Mr. Orage, the gifted editor of the <cite>New Age</cite>, arriving last, is + refused admission. The sounds of the conflict at the gates do but + faintly perturb the conference within, which is now really getting to + business, but afterwards Mr. Orage, slightly wounded in the face by a + dexterously plied rake and incurably embittered, makes his existence + felt by a number of unpleasant missiles discharged from over the wall + in the direction of any audible voices. Ultimately Mr. Orage gets into + a point of vantage in a small pine-tree overlooking the seaward corner + of the premises, and from this he contributes a number of comments + that are rarely helpful, always unamiable, and frequently in the worst + possible taste.</p> + + <p>Such was Boon’s plan for the second chapter of “The Mind of the Race.” + But that chapter he never completely planned. At various times Boon + gave us a number of colloquies, never joining them together in any + regular order. The project of taking up the discussion of the Mind of + the Race at the <a class="pagenum" id="page87" title="87"> </a>exact point Mr. Mallock had laid it down, and taking + the villa by the sea for the meeting-place, was at once opposed by + Hallery and his American friend with an evidently preconcerted + readiness. They pointed out the entire democratization of thought and + literature that had been going on for the past four decades. It was no + longer possible to deal with such matters in the old aristocratic + country-house style; it was no longer possible to take them up from + that sort of beginning; the centre of mental gravity among the + English-speaking community had shifted socially and geographically; + what was needed now was something wider and ampler, something more in + the nature of such a conference as the annual meeting of the British + Association. Science left the gentleman’s mansion long ago; literature + must follow it—had followed it. To come back to Mr. Lankester’s Villa + by the sea was to come back to a beaten covert. The Hearst + representative took up a strongly supporting position, and suggested + that if indeed we wished to move with the <a class="pagenum" id="page88" title="88"> </a>times the thing to do was to + strike out boldly for a special annex of the Panama Exhibition at San + Francisco and for organization upon sound American lines. It was a + case, he said, even for “exhibits.” Sir Henry Lunn, however, objected + that in America the Anglo-Saxon note was almost certain to be too + exclusively sounded; that we had to remember there were vigorous + cultures growing up and growing up more and more detachedly upon the + continent of Europe; we wanted, at least, their reflected lights … + some more central position…. In fact, Switzerland … where also + numerous convenient hotels … patronized, he gathered from the + illustrated papers, by Lord Lytton, Mrs. Asquith, Mr. F. R. Benson … + and all sorts of helpful leading people.</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s4-2"><a class="pagenum" id="page89" title="89"> </a> + <h3>§ 2</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">Meanwhile</span> Boon’s plan was to make Mr. George Moore and Mr. Henry James + wander off from the general dispute, and he invented a dialogue that + even at the time struck me as improbable, in which both gentlemen + pursue entirely independent trains of thought.</p> + + <p>Mr. Moore’s conception of the projected symposium was something rather + in the vein of the journeyings of Shelley, Byron, and their charming + companions through France to Italy, but magnified to the dimensions of + an enormous pilgrimage, enlarged to the scale of a stream of refugees. + “What, my dear James,” he asked, “is this mind of humanity at all + without a certain touch of romance, of adventure? Even Mallock + appreciated the <a class="pagenum" id="page90" title="90"> </a>significance of <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">frou-frou</em>; but these fellows behind + here….”</p> + + <p>To illustrate his meaning better, he was to have told, with an + extraordinary and loving mastery of detail, of a glowing little + experience that had been almost forced upon him at Nismes by a pretty + little woman from Nebraska, and the peculiar effect it had had, and + particularly the peculiar effect that the coincidence that both + Nebraska and Nismes begin with an “N” and end so very differently, had + had upon his imagination….</p> + + <p>Meanwhile Mr. James, being anxious not merely to state but also to + ignore, laboured through the long cadences of his companion as an + indefatigable steam-tug might labour endlessly against a rolling sea, + elaborating his own particular point about the proposed conference.</p> + + <p>“Owing it as we do,” he said, “very, very largely to our friend Gosse, + to that peculiar, that honest but restless and, as it were, at times + almost malignantly ambitious organizing energy of our friend, I cannot + <a class="pagenum" id="page91" title="91"> </a>altogether—altogether, even if in any case I should have taken so + extreme, so devastatingly isolating a step as, to put it violently, + <em>stand out</em>; yet I must confess to a considerable anxiety, a kind of + distress, an apprehension, the terror, so to speak, of the kerbstone, + at all this stream of intellectual trafficking, of going to and fro, + in a superb and towering manner enough no doubt, but still essentially + going to and fro rather than in any of the completed senses of the + word <em>getting there</em>, that does so largely constitute the aggregations + and activities we are invited to traverse. My poor head, such as it is + and as much as it can and upon such legs—save the mark!—as it can + claim, must, I suppose, play its inconsiderable part among the wheels + and the rearings and the toots and the whistles and all this uproar, + this—Mm, Mm!—let us say, this <em>infernal</em> uproar, of the occasion; + and if at times one has one’s doubts before plunging in, whether after + all, after the plunging and the dodging and the close shaves and + narrow squeaks, one does begin to feel that one is getting through, + whether <a class="pagenum" id="page92" title="92"> </a>after all one <em>will</em> get through, and whether indeed there is + any getting through, whether, to deepen and enlarge and display one’s + doubt quite openly, there is in truth any sort of ostensible and + recognizable other side attainable and definable at all, whether to + put this thing with a lucidity that verges on the brutal, whether our + amiable and in most respects our adorable Gosse isn’t indeed preparing + here and now, not the gathering together of a conference but the + assembling, the <em>meet</em>, so to speak, of a wild-goose chase of an + entirely desperate and hopeless description.”</p> + + <p>At that moment Mr. George Moore was saying: “Little exquisite + shoulders without a touch of colour and with just that suggestion of + rare old ivory in an old shop window in some out-of-the-way corner of + Paris that only the most patent abstinence from baths and the + brutality of soaping——”</p> + + <p>Each gentleman stopped simultaneously.</p> + + <p>Ahead the path led between box-hedges to a wall, and above the wall + was a pine-tree, and the Editor of the <cite>New Age</cite> was reascending <a class="pagenum" id="page93" title="93"> </a>the + pine-tree in a laborious and resolute manner, gripping with some + difficulty in his hand a large and very formidable lump of + unpleasantness….</p> + + <p>With a common impulse the two gentlemen turned back towards the house.</p> + + <p>Mr. James was the first to break the momentary silence. “And so, my + dear Moore, and so—to put it shortly—without any sort of positive + engagement or entanglement or pledge or pressure—I <em>came</em>. And at the + proper time and again with an entirely individual detachment and as + little implication as possible I shall <em>go</em>….”</p> + + <p>Subsequently Mr. James was to have buttonholed Hallery’s American, and + in the warm bath of his sympathy to have opened and bled slowly from + another vein of thought.</p> + + <p>“I admit the abundance of—what shall I say?—<em>activities</em> that our + friend is summoning, the tremendous wealth of matter, of material for + literature and art, that has accumulated during the last few decades. + No one could appreciate, could savour and watch and <a class="pagenum" id="page94" title="94"> </a>respond, more than + myself to the tremendous growing clangour of the mental process as the + last half-century has exhibited it. But when it comes to the + enterprise of gathering it together, and not simply just gathering it + together, but gathering it <em>all</em> together, then surely one must at + some stage ask the question, <em>Why</em> all? Why, in short, attempt to a + comprehensiveness that must be overwhelming when in fact the need is + for a selection that shall not merely represent but elucidate and + lead. Aren’t we, after all, all of us after some such indicating + projection of a leading digit, after such an insistence on the + outstandingly essential in face of this abundance, this saturation, + this fluid chaos that perpetually increases? Here we are gathering + together to celebrate and summarize literature in some sort of + undefined and unprecedented fashion, and for the life of me I find it + impossible to determine what among my numerous associates and friends + and—to embrace still larger quantities of the stuff in hand—my + contemporaries is considered to be the literature in question. So + <a class="pagenum" id="page95" title="95"> </a>confused now are we between matter and treatment, between what is + stated and documented and what is prepared and presented, that for the + life of me I do not yet see whether we are supposed to be building an + ark or whether by immersion and the meekest of submersions and an + altogether complete submission of our distended and quite helpless + carcasses to its incalculable caprice we are supposed to be + celebrating and, in the whirling uncomfortable fashion of flotsam at + large, indicating and making visible the whole tremendous cosmic + inundation….”</p> + + <div class="illo" id="illo07"><a class="pagenum" id="page96" title="96"> </a> + <img src="images/illo-07.png" width="265" height="327" alt="A tall man and a short man walk along a path." /> + <p class="caption">Mr. James converses with Mr. George Moore upon matters + of vital importance to both of them.</p> + </div> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s4-3"><a class="pagenum" id="page97" title="97"> </a> + <h3>§ 3</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">It</span> was entirely in the quality of Boon’s intellectual untidiness that + for a time he should go off at a tangent in pursuit of Mr. Henry James + and leave his literary picnic disseminated about the grounds of Mr. + Mallock’s villa. There, indeed, they remained. The story when he took + it up again picked up at quite a different point.</p> + + <p>I remember how Boon sat on the wall of his vegetable garden and + discoursed upon James, while several of us squatted about on the + cucumber-frames and big flowerpots and suchlike seats, and how over + the wall Ford Madox Hueffer was beating Wilkins at Badminton. Hueffer + wanted to come and talk too; James is one of his countless + subjects—and what an omniscient man he is <a class="pagenum" id="page98" title="98"> </a>too!—but Wilkins was too + cross to let him off….</p> + + <p>So that all that Hueffer was able to contribute was an exhortation not + to forget that Henry James knew Turgenev and that he had known them + both, and a flat denial that Dickens was a novelist. This last was the + tail of that Pre-Raphaelite feud begun in <cite>Household Words</cite>, oh! + generations ago….</p> + + <p>“Got you there, my boy!” said Wilkins. “Seven, twelve.”</p> + + <p>We heard no more from Hueffer.</p> + + <p>“You see,” Boon said, “you can’t now talk of literature without going + through James. James is unavoidable. James is to criticism what + Immanuel Kant is to philosophy—a partially comprehensible essential, + an inevitable introduction. If you understand what James is up to and + if you understand what James is not up to, then you are placed. You + are in the middle of the critical arena. You are in a position to lay + about you with significance. Otherwise….</p> + + <p>“I want to get this Hallery of mine, who is to be the hero of ‘The + Mind of the Race,’ <a class="pagenum" id="page99" title="99"> </a>into a discussion with Henry James, but that, you + know, is easier said than imagined. Hallery is to be one of those + enthusiastic thinkers who emit highly concentrated opinion in gobbets, + suddenly. James—isn’t….”</p> + + <p>Boon meditated upon his difficulties. “Hallery’s idea of literature is + something tremendously comprehensive, something that pierces always + down towards the core of things, something that carries and changes + all the activities of the race. This sort of thing.”</p> + + <p>He read from a scrap of paper—</p> + + <p>“‘The thought of a community is the life of that community, and if the + collective thought of a community is disconnected and fragmentary, + then the community is collectively vain and weak. That does not + constitute an incidental defect but essential failure. Though that + community have cities such as the world has never seen before, fleets + and hosts and glories, though it count its soldiers by the army corps + and its children by the million, yet if it hold not to <a class="pagenum" id="page100" title="100"> </a>the reality of + thought and formulated will beneath these outward things, it will + pass, and all its glories will pass, like smoke before the wind, like + mist beneath the sun; it will become at last only one more vague and + fading dream upon the scroll of time, a heap of mounds and pointless + history, even as are Babylon and Nineveh.’”</p> + + <p>“I’ve heard that before somewhere,” said Dodd.</p> + + <p>“Most of this dialogue will have to be quotation,” said Boon.</p> + + <p>“He makes literature include philosophy?”</p> + + <p>“Everything. It’s all the central things. It’s the larger Bible to + him, a thing about which all the conscious direction of life revolves. + It’s alive with passion and will. Or if it isn’t, then it ought to + be…. And then as the antagonist comes this artist, this man who + seems to regard the whole seething brew of life as a vat from which + you skim, with slow, dignified gestures, works of art. … Works of + art whose only claim is their art…. Hallery is going to be very + impatient about art.”</p> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page101" title="101"> </a>“Ought there to be such a thing as a literary artist?” some one said.</p> + + <p>“Ought there, in fact, to be Henry James?” said Dodd.</p> + + <p>“I don’t think so. Hallery won’t think so. You see, the discussion + will be very fundamental. There’s contributory art, of course, and a + way of doing things better or worse. Just as there is in war, or + cooking. But the way of doing isn’t the end. First the end must be + judged—and then if you like talk of how it is done. Get there as + splendidly as possible. But get there. James and George Moore, neither + of them take it like that. They leave out getting there, or the thing + they get to is so trivial as to amount to scarcely more than an + omission….”</p> + + <p>Boon reflected. “In early life both these men poisoned their minds in + studios. Thought about pictures even might be less studio-ridden than + it is. But James has never discovered that a novel isn’t a picture…. + That life isn’t a studio….</p> + + <p>“He wants a novel to be simply and completely <em>done</em>. He wants it to + have a unity, <a class="pagenum" id="page102" title="102"> </a>he demands homogeneity…. Why <em>should</em> a book have + that? For a picture it’s reasonable, because you have to see it all at + once. But there’s no need to see a book all at once. It’s like wanting + to have a whole county done in one style and period of architecture. + It’s like insisting that a walking tour must stick to one valley….</p> + + <p>“But James <em>begins</em> by taking it for granted that a novel is a work of + art that must be judged by its oneness. Judged first by its oneness. + Some one gave him that idea in the beginning of things and he has + never found it out. He doesn’t find things out. He doesn’t even seem + to want to find things out. You can see that in him; he is eager to + accept things—elaborately. You can see from his books that he accepts + etiquettes, precedences, associations, claims. That is his + peculiarity. He accepts very readily and then—elaborates. He has, I + am convinced, one of the strongest, most abundant minds alive in the + whole world, and he has the smallest penetration. Indeed, he has no + penetration. He is the culmination <a class="pagenum" id="page103" title="103"> </a>of the Superficial type. Or else he + would have gone into philosophy and been greater even than his + wonderful brother…. But here he is, spinning about, like the most + tremendous of water-boatmen—you know those insects?—kept up by + surface tension. As if, when once he pierced the surface, he would + drown. It’s incredible. A water-boatman as big as an elephant. I was + reading him only yesterday ‘The Golden Bowl’; it’s dazzling how never + for a moment does he go through.”</p> + + <p>“Recently he’s been explaining himself,” said Dodd.</p> + + <p>“His ‘Notes on Novelists.’ It’s one sustained demand for the picture + effect. Which is the denial of the sweet complexity of life, of the + pointing this way and that, of the spider on the throne. Philosophy + aims at a unity and never gets there…. That true unity which we all + suspect, and which no one attains, if it is to be got at all it is to + be got by penetrating, penetrating down and through. The picture, on + the other hand, is forced to a unity because it can see only one + aspect at a time. I am doubtful <a class="pagenum" id="page104" title="104"> </a>even about that. Think of Hogarth or + Carpaccio. But if the novel is to follow life it must be various and + discursive. Life is diversity and entertainment, not completeness and + satisfaction. All actions are half-hearted, shot delightfully with + wandering thoughts—about something else. All true stories are a felt + of irrelevances. But James sets out to make his novels with the + presupposition that they can be made continuously relevant. And + perceiving the discordant things, he tries to get rid of them. He sets + himself to pick the straws out of the hair of Life before he paints + her. But without the straws she is no longer the mad woman we love. He + talks of ‘selection,’ and of making all of a novel definitely <em>about</em> + a theme. He objects to a ‘saturation’ that isn’t oriented. And he + objects, if you go into it, for no clear reason at all. Following up + his conception of selection, see what in his own practice he omits. In + practice James’s selection becomes just omission and nothing more. He + omits everything that demands digressive treatment or collateral + <a class="pagenum" id="page105" title="105"> </a>statement. For example, he omits opinions. In all his novels you will + find no people with defined political opinions, no people with + religious opinions, none with clear partisanships or with lusts or + whims, none definitely up to any specific impersonal thing. There are + no poor people dominated by the imperatives of Saturday night and + Monday morning, no dreaming types—and don’t we all more or less live + dreaming? And none are ever decently forgetful. All that much of + humanity he clears out before he begins his story. It’s like cleaning + rabbits for the table.</p> + + <p>“But you see how relentlessly it follows from the supposition that the + novel is a work of art aiming at pictorial unities!</p> + + <p>“All art too acutely self-centred comes to this sort of thing. James’s + denatured people are only the equivalent in fiction of those + egg-faced, black-haired ladies, who sit and sit, in the Japanese + colour-prints, the unresisting stuff for an arrangement of blacks….</p> + + <p>“Then with the eviscerated people he has <a class="pagenum" id="page106" title="106"> </a>invented he begins to make up + stories. What stories they are! Concentrated on suspicion, on a gift, + on possessing a ‘piece’ of old furniture, on what a little girl may or + may not have noted in an emotional situation. These people cleared for + artistic treatment never make lusty love, never go to angry war, never + shout at an election or perspire at poker; never in any way <em>date</em>…. + And upon the petty residuum of human interest left to them they focus + minds of a Jamesian calibre….</p> + + <p>“The only living human motives left in the novels of Henry James are a + certain avidity, and an entirely superficial curiosity. Even when + relations are irregular or when sins are hinted at, you feel that + these are merely attitudes taken up, gambits before the game of + attainment and over-perception begins…. His people nose out + suspicions, hint by hint, link by link. Have you ever known living + human beings do that? The thing his novel is <em>about</em> is always there. + It is like a church lit but without a congregation to distract you, + with every light and line <a class="pagenum" id="page107" title="107"> </a>focused on the high altar. And on the altar, + very reverently placed, intensely there, is a dead kitten, an + egg-shell, a bit of string…. Like his ‘Altar of the Dead,’ with + nothing to the dead at all…. For if there was they couldn’t all be + candles and the effect would vanish…. And the elaborate, copious + emptiness of the whole Henry James exploit is only redeemed and made + endurable by the elaborate, copious wit. Upon the desert his selection + has made Henry James erects palatial metaphors…. The chief fun, the + only exercise, in reading Henry James is this clambering over vast + metaphors….</p> + + <p>“Having first made sure that he has scarcely anything left to express, + he then sets to work to express it, with an industry, a wealth of + intellectual stuff that dwarfs Newton. He spares no resource in the + telling of his dead inventions. He brings up every device of language + to state and define. Bare verbs he rarely tolerates. He splits his + infinitives and fills them up with adverbial stuffing. He presses the + passing colloquialism <a class="pagenum" id="page108" title="108"> </a>into his service. His vast paragraphs sweat and + struggle; they could not sweat and elbow and struggle more if God + Himself was the processional meaning to which they sought to come. And + all for tales of nothingness…. It is leviathan retrieving pebbles. + It is a magnificent but painful hippopotamus resolved at any cost, + even at the cost of its dignity, upon picking up a pea which has got + into a corner of its den. Most things, it insists, are beyond it, but + it can, at any rate, modestly, and with an artistic singleness of + mind, pick up that pea….”</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s4-4"><a class="pagenum" id="page109" title="109"> </a> + <h3>§ 4</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph">“<span class="first_word">A little</span> while ago,” said Boon, suddenly struggling with his trouser + pocket and producing some pieces of paper, “I sketched out a novel, + and as it was rather in the manner of Henry James I think perhaps you + might be interested by it now. So much, that is, as there is of it. It + is to be called ‘The Spoils of Mr. Blandish,’ and it is all about this + particular business of the selective life. Mr. Blandish, as I saw him, + was pretty completely taken from the James ideal…. He was a man with + an exquisite apprehension of particulars, with just that sense of + there being a rightness attainable, a fitness, a charm, a finish…. + In any little affair…. He believed that in speech and still more + that in writing there was an inevitable right word, in actions great + and <a class="pagenum" id="page110" title="110"> </a>small a mellowed etiquette, in everything a possible perfection. + He was, in fact, the very soul of Henry James—as I understand it…. + This sort of man—</p> + + <div class="illo" id="illo08"> + <img src="images/illo-08.png" width="250" height="413" alt="A mustachioed middle aged man with pigs feet." /> + <p class="caption">Mr. Blandish going delicately through life. “Oh no! oh + no! But <em>Yes!</em> and <em>This is it!</em>”</p> + </div> + + <p>“Going delicately.”</p> + + <p>I was able to secure the sketch.</p> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page111" title="111"> </a>“He didn’t marry, he didn’t go upon adventures; lust, avarice, + ambition, all these things that as Milton says are to be got ‘not + without dust and heat,’ were not for him. Blood and dust and heat—he + ruled them out. But he had independent means, he could live freely and + delicately and charmingly, he could travel and meet and be delighted + by all the best sorts of people in the best sorts of places. So for + years he enriched his resonances, as an admirable violin grows richer + with every note it sounds. He went about elaborately, avoiding + ugliness, death, suffering, industrialism, politics, sport, the + thought of war, the red blaze of passion. He travelled widely in the + more settled parts of the world. Chiefly he visited interesting and + ancient places, putting his ever more exquisite sensorium at them, + consciously taking delicate impressions upon the refined wax of his + being. In a manner most carefully occasional, he wrote. Always of + faded places. His ‘Ypres’ was wonderful. His ‘Bruges’ and his ‘Hour of + Van Eyk’….</p> + + <p>“Such,” said Boon, “is the hero. The <a class="pagenum" id="page112" title="112"> </a>story begins, oh! quite in the + James manner with——” He read—</p> + + <p>“‘At times it seemed inaccessible, a thing beyond hope, beyond + imagining, and then at times it became so concrete an imagination, a + desire so specific, so nearly expressed, as to grow if not to the + exact particulars of longitude and latitude, yet at any rate so far as + county and district and atmosphere were concerned, so far indeed as an + intuition of proximity was concerned, an intimation that made it seem + at last at certain moments as if it could not possibly be very much + farther than just round the corner or over the crest….’</p> + + <p>“But I’ve left a good bit of that to write up. In the book there will + be pages and sheets of that sentence. The gist is that Mr. Blandish + wants a house to live in and that he has an idea of the kind of house + he wants. And the chapter, the long, unresting, progressing chapter, + expands and expands; it never jumps you forward, it never lets you + off, you can’t skip and you can’t escape, until there comes at last a + culminating distension of statement in which you realize more and <a class="pagenum" id="page113" title="113"> </a>more + clearly, until you realize it with the unforgettable certainty of a + thing long fought for and won at last, that Mr. Blandish has actually + come upon the house and with a vigour of decision as vivid as a flash + of lightning in a wilderness of troubled clouds, as vivid indeed as + the loud, sonorous bursting of a long blown bladder, has said ‘<em>This + is it!</em>’ On that ‘<em>This is it</em>’ my chapter ends, with an effect of + enormous relief, with something of the beautiful serenity that follows + a difficult parturition.</p> + + <p>“The story is born.</p> + + <p>“And then we leap forward to possession.</p> + + <p>“‘And here he was, in the warmest reality, in the very heart of the + materialization of his dream——’ He has, in fact, got the house. For + a year or so from its first accidental discovery he had done nothing + but just covet the house; too fearful of an overwhelming + disappointment even to make a definite inquiry as to its + accessibility. But he has, you will gather, taken apartments in the + neighbourhood, thither he visits frequently, and almost every day <a class="pagenum" id="page114" title="114"> </a>when + he walks abroad the coveted house draws him. It is in a little seaside + place on the east coast, and the only available walks are along the + shore or inland across the golf-links. Either path offers tempting + digressions towards <em>it</em>. He comes to know it from a hundred aspects + and under a thousand conditions of light and atmosphere…. And while + still in the early stage he began a curious and delicious secret + practice in relationship. You have heard of the Spaniard in love, in + love with a woman he had seen but once, whom he might never see again, + a princess, etiquette-defended, a goddess, and who yet, seeing a + necklace that became her, bought it for the joy of owning something + that was at least by fitness hers. Even so did Mr. Blandish begin to + buy first one little article and then, the fancy growing upon him more + and more, things, ‘pieces’ they call them, that were in the vein of + Samphire House. And then came the day, the wonderful day, when as he + took his afternoon feast of the eye, the door opened, some one came + out towards him….</p> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page115" title="115"> </a>“It was incredible. They were giving him tea with hot, inadvisable + scones—but their hotness, their close heaviness, he accepted with a + ready devotion, would have accepted had they been ten times as hot and + close and heavy, not heedlessly, indeed, but gratefully, willingly + paying his price for these astonishing revelations that without an + effort, serenely, calmly, dropped in between her gentle demands + whether he would have milk and her mild inquiries as to the exact + quantity of sugar his habits and hygienic outlook demanded, that his + hostess so casually made. These generous, heedless people were talking + of departures, of abandonments, of, so they put it, selling the dear + old place, if indeed any one could be found to buy a place so old and + so remote and—she pointed her intention with a laugh—so very, very + dear. Repletion of scones were a small price to pay for such a + glowing, such an incredible gift of opportunity, thrust thus straight + into the willing, amazed hands….</p> + + <p>“He gets the house. He has it done <a class="pagenum" id="page116" title="116"> </a>up. He furnishes it, and every + article of furniture seems a stroke of luck too good to be true. And + to crown it all I am going to write one of those long crescendo + passages that James loves, a sentence, pages of it, of happy event + linking to happy event until at last the incredible completion, a + butler, unquestionably Early Georgian, respectability, competence + equally unquestionable, a wife who could cook, and cook well, no + children, no thought or possibility of children, and to crown all, the + perfect name—Mutimer!</p> + + <div class="illo" id="illo09"><img src="images/illo-09.png" width="153" height="276" alt="A small bewhiskered man (standing) with a slight grin." /> + <p class="caption">Mutimer at first.</p> + </div> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page117" title="117"> </a>“All this you must understand is told retrospectively as Blandish + installs himself in Samphire House. It is told to the refrain, ‘Still, + fresh every morning, came the persuasion “This is too good to be + true.”’ And as it is told, something else, by the most imperceptible + degrees, by a gathering up of hints and allusions and pointing + details, gets itself told too, and that is the growing realization in + the mind of Blandish of a something extra, of something not quite + bargained for,—the hoard and the haunting. About the house hangs a + presence….</p> + + <p>“He had taken it at first as a mere picturesque accessory to the whole + picturesque and delightful wreathing of association and tradition + about the place, that there should be this ancient flavour of the + cutlass and the keg, this faint aroma of buried doubloons and + Stevensonian experiences. He had assumed, etc…. He had gathered, + etc…. And it was in the most imperceptible manner that beyond his + sense of these takings and assumptions and gatherings there grew his + perception that the delicate <a class="pagenum" id="page118" title="118"> </a>quiver of appreciation, at first his + utmost tribute to these illegal and adventurous and sanguinary + associations, was broadening and strengthening, was, one hardly knew + whether to say developing or degenerating, into a nervous reaction, + more spinal and less equivocally agreeable, into the question, sensed + rather than actually thought or asked, whether in fact the place + didn’t in certain lights and certain aspects and at certain + unfavourable moments come near to evoking the ghost—if such sorites + are permissible in the world of delicate shades—of the ghost, of the + ghost of a shiver—of <em>aversion</em>….</p> + + <p>“And so at page a hundred and fifty or thereabouts we begin to get + into the story,” said Boon.</p> + + <p>“You wade through endless marshes of subtle intimation, to a sense of + a Presence in Samphire House. For a number of pages you are quite + unable to tell whether this is a ghost or a legend or a foreboding or + simply old-fashioned dreams that are being allusively placed before + you. But <a class="pagenum" id="page119" title="119"> </a>there is an effect piled up very wonderfully, of Mr. + Blandish, obsessed, uneasy, watching furtively and steadfastly his + guests, his callers, his domestics, continually asking himself, ‘Do + they note it? Are they feeling it?’</p> + + <p>“We break at last into incidents. A young friend of the impossible + name of Deshman helps evolve the story; he comes to stay; he seems to + feel the influence from the outset, he cannot sleep, he wanders about + the house…. Do others know? <em>Others?</em>… The gardener takes to + revisiting the gardens after nightfall. He is met in the shrubbery + with an unaccountable spade in his hand and answers huskily. Why + should a gardener carry a spade? Why should he answer huskily? Why + should the presence, the doubt, the sense of something else elusively + in the air about them, become intensified at the encounter? Oh! + conceivably of course in many places, but just <em>there</em>! As some sort + of protection, it may be…. Then suddenly as Mr. Blandish sits at his + lonely but beautifully <a class="pagenum" id="page120" title="120"> </a>served dinner he becomes aware for the first + time of a change in Mutimer.</p> + + <div class="illo" id="illo10"><img src="images/illo-10.png" width="150" height="281" alt="The bewhiskered man has bags under his eyes and slumps a little." /> + <p class="caption">Mutimer at the end of a year.</p> + </div> + + <p>“Something told him in that instant that Mutimer also <em>knew</em>….</p> + + <p>“Deshman comes again with a new and disconcerting habit of tapping the + panelling and measuring the thickness of the walls when he thinks no + one is looking, and then a sister of Mr. Blandish and a friend, a + woman, yet not so much a woman as a disembodied intelligence in a + feminine <a class="pagenum" id="page121" title="121"> </a>costume with one of those impalpable relationships with + Deshman that people have with one another in the world of Henry James, + an association of shadows, an atmospheric liaison. Follow some almost + sentenceless conversations. Mr. Blandish walks about the shrubbery + with the friend, elaborately getting at it—whatever it is—and in + front of them, now hidden by the yew hedges, now fully in view, walks + Deshman with the married and settled sister of Mr. Blandish….</p> + + <p>“‘So,’ said Mr. Blandish, pressing the point down towards the newly + discovered sensitiveness, ‘where we feel, he it seems <em>knows</em>.’</p> + + <p>“She seemed to consider.</p> + + <p>“‘He doesn’t know completely,’ was her qualification.</p> + + <p>“‘But he has something—something tangible.’</p> + + <p>“‘If he can make it tangible.’</p> + + <p>“On that the mind of Mr. Blandish played for a time.</p> + + <p>“‘Then it isn’t altogether tangible yet?’</p> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page122" title="122"> </a>“‘It isn’t tangible enough for him to go upon.’</p> + + <p>“‘Definitely something.’</p> + + <p>“Her assent was mutely concise.</p> + + <p>“‘That we on our part——?’</p> + + <p>“The <em>we</em> seemed to trouble her.</p> + + <p>“‘He knows more than you do,’ she yielded.</p> + + <p>“The gesture, the half turn, the momentary halt in the paces of Mr. + Blandish, plied her further.</p> + + <p>“‘More, I think, than he has admitted—to any one.’</p> + + <p>“‘Even to you?’</p> + + <p>“He perceived an interesting wave of irritation. ‘Even to me,’ he had + wrung from her, but at the price of all further discussion.</p> + + <p>“Putting the thing crassly,” said Boon, “Deshman has got wind of a + hoard, of a treasure, of something—Heaven as yet only knows what + something—buried, imbedded, in some as yet unexplained way + incorporated with Samphire House. On the whole the stress lies rather + on treasure, the treasure <a class="pagenum" id="page123" title="123"> </a>of smuggling, of longshore practices, of + illegality on the high seas. And still clearer is it that the amiable + Deshman wants to get at it without the participation of Mr. Blandish. + Until the very end you are never quite satisfied why Deshman wants to + get at it in so private a fashion. As the plot thickens you are played + about between the conviction that Deshman wants the stuff for himself + and the firm belief of the lady that against the possible intervention + of the Treasury, he wants to secure it for Mr. Blandish, to secure it + at least generously if nefariously, lest perhaps it should fall under + the accepted definition and all the consequent confiscations of + treasure trove. And there are further beautiful subtleties as to + whether she really believes in this more kindly interpretation of the + refined but dubitable Deshman…. A friend of Deshman’s, shameless + under the incredible name of Mimbleton, becomes entangled in this + thick, sweet flow of narrative—the James method of introducing a + character always reminds me of going round with the lantern when one + <a class="pagenum" id="page124" title="124"> </a>is treacling for moths. Mimbleton has energy. He presses. Under a + summer dawn of delicious sweetness Mimbleton is found insensible on + the croquet lawn by Mr. Blandish, who, like most of the characters in + the narrative from first to last, has been unable to sleep. And at the + near corner of the house, close to a never before remarked ventilator, + is a hastily and inaccurately refilled excavation….</p> + + <p>“Then events come hurrying in a sort of tangled haste—making + sibyl-like gestures.</p> + + <p>“At the doorway Mutimer appears—swaying with some profound emotion. + He is still in his evening attire. He has not yet gone to bed. In + spite of the dawn he carried a burning candle—obliquely. At the sight + of his master he withdraws—backwards and with difficulty….</p> + + <p>“Then,” said Boon, “I get my crowning chapter: the breakfast, a + peculiar <em>something</em>, something almost palpable in the + atmosphere—Deshman hoarse and a little talkative, Mimbleton with a + possibly nervous headache, husky also and demanding tea <a class="pagenum" id="page125" title="125"> </a>in a thick + voice, Mutimer waiting uneasily, and Mr. Blandish, outwardly calm, yet + noting every particular, thinking meanings into every word and + movement, and growing more and more clear in his conviction that + <em>Mutimer knows—knows everything</em>….</p> + + <div class="illo" id="illo11"><img src="images/illo-11.png" width="164" height="272" alt="The small bewhiskered man now has a large bulbous nose." /> + <p class="caption">Mutimer as the plot thickens.</p> + </div> + + <p>“Book two opens with Mr. Blandish practically in possession of the + facts. Putting the thing coarsely, the treasure is—1813 brandy, in + considerable quantities bricked up in a disused cellar of Samphire + <a class="pagenum" id="page126" title="126"> </a>House. Samphire House, instead of being the fine claret of a refuge + Mr. Blandish supposed, is a loaded port. But of course in the novel we + shall not put things coarsely, and for a long time you will be by no + means clear what the ‘spirit’ is that Mr. Blandish is now resolved to + exorcise. He is, in fact, engaged in trying to get that brandy away, + trying to de-alcoholize his existence, trying—if one must put the + thing in all the concrete crudity of his fundamental intention—to + sell the stuff….</p> + + <p>“Now in real life you would just go and sell it. But people in the + novels of Henry James do not do things in the inattentive, offhand, + rather confused, and partial way of reality: they bring enormous + brains to bear upon the minutest particulars of existence. Mr. + Blandish, following the laws of that world, has not simply to sell his + brandy: he has to sell it subtly, intricately, interminably, with a + delicacy, with a dignity….</p> + + <p>“He consults friends—impalpable, intricate, inexhaustible friends.</p> + + <p>“There are misunderstandings. One old <a class="pagenum" id="page127" title="127"> </a>and trusted intimate concludes + rather hastily that Mr. Blandish is confessing that he has written a + poem, another that he is making a proposal of marriage, another that + he wishes an introduction to the secretary of the Psychical Research + Society…. All this,” said Boon, “remains, perhaps indefinitely, to + be worked out. Only the end, the end, comes with a rush. Deshman has + found for him—one never gets nearer to it than the ‘real right + people.’ The real right people send their agent down, a curious blend + of gentleman and commercial person he is, to investigate, to verify, + to estimate quantities. Ultimately he will—shall we say it?—make an + offer. With a sense of immense culmination the reader at last + approaches the hoard….</p> + + <p>“You are never told the thing exactly. It is by indefinable + suggestions, by exquisite approaches and startings back, by + circumlocution the most delicate, that your mind at last shapes its + realization, that—the last drop of the last barrel has gone and that + Mutimer, the butler, lies dead or <a class="pagenum" id="page128" title="128"> </a>at least helpless—in the inner + cellar. And a beautiful flavour, ripe and yet rare, rich without + opulence, hangs—<em lang="it" xml:lang="it">diminuendo morendo</em>—in the air….”</p> + </div> +</div> +<div class='chapter' id='fifth'><a class="pagenum" id="page129" title="129"> </a> + <h2>CHAPTER THE FIFTH<br /> + <span class="chapter_title">Of the Assembling and Opening of the World Conference on the Mind of the Race</span></h2> + <div class="section" id="s5-1"> + <h3>§ 1</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">It</span> must be borne in mind that not even the opening chapter of this + huge book, “The Mind of the Race,” was ever completely written. The + discussion in the Garden by the Sea existed merely so far as the + fragment of dialogue I have quoted took it. I do not know what Mr. + Gosse contributed except that it was something bright, and that + presently he again lost his temper and washed his hands of the whole + affair and went off with Mr. Yeats to do a little Academy thing of + their own round a corner, <a class="pagenum" id="page130" title="130"> </a>and I do not know what became of the + emissaries of Lord Northcliffe and Mr. Hearst. One conversation drops + out of mind and another begins; it is like the battle of the Aisne + passing slowly into the battle of the Yser. The idea develops into the + holding of a definite congress upon the Mind of the Race at some + central place. I don’t think Boon was ever very clear whether that + place was Chautauqua, or Grindelwald, or Stratford, or Oxford during + the Long Vacation, or the Exhibition grounds at San Francisco. It was, + at any rate, some such place, and it was a place that was speedily + placarded with all sorts of bills and notices and counsels, such as, + “To the Central Hall,” or “Section B: Criticism and Reviewing,” or + “Section M: Prose Style,” or “Authors’ Society (British) Solicitors’ + Department,” or “Exhibit of the Reading Room of the British Museum.”</p> + + <p>Manifestly the model of a meeting of the British Association for the + Advancement of Science dominated his mind more and more, until at last + he began to concoct a presidential address. And he invented a man + <a class="pagenum" id="page131" title="131"> </a>called J. B. Pondlebury, very active and illiterate, but an excellent + organizer, trained by Selfridge, that Marshal Field of London, who is + very directive throughout. J. B. Pondlebury orders the special trains, + contrives impossible excursions, organizes garden fêtes and water + parties, keeps people together who would prefer to be separated, and + breaks up people who have been getting together. Through all these + things drifts Hallery, whose writings started the idea, and sometimes + he is almost, as it were, leader and sometimes he is like a drowned + body in the torrent below Niagara—Pondlebury being Niagara.</p> + + <p>On the whole the atmosphere of the great conference was American, and + yet I distinctly remember that it was the Special Train to Bâle of + which he gave us an account one afternoon; it was a night journey of + considerable eventfulness, with two adjacent carriages de luxe + labelled respectively “Specially Reserved for Miss Marie Corelli,” and + “Specially Reserved for Mr. and Mrs. George Bernard Shaw,” with + conspicuous <a class="pagenum" id="page132" title="132"> </a>reiterations. The other compartments were less exclusive, + and contained curious minglings of greatness, activity, and + reputation. Sir J. M. Barrie had an upper berth in a <em>wagon-lit</em>, + where he remained sympathetically silent above a crowd of younger + reputations, a crowd too numerous to permit the making of the lower + berth and overflowing into the corridor. I remember Boon kept jamming + new people into that congestion. The whole train, indeed, was to be + fearfully overcrowded. That was part of the joke. James Joyce I recall + as a novelist strange to me that Boon insisted was a “first-rater.” He + represented him as being of immense size but extreme bashfulness. And + he talked about D. H. Lawrence, St. John Ervine, Reginald Wright + Kauffman, Leonard Merrick, Viola Meynell, Rose Macaulay, Katherine + Mansfield, Mary Austin, Clutton Brock, Robert Lynd, James Stephens, + Philip Guedalla, H. M. Tomlinson, Denis Garstin, Dixon Scott, Rupert + Brooke, Geoffrey Young, F. S. Flint, Marmaduke Pickthall, Randolph S. + Bourne, James Milne——</p> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page133" title="133"> </a>“Through all the jam, I think we must have Ford Madox Hueffer, + wandering to and fro up and down the corridor, with distraught blue + eyes, laying his hands on heads and shoulders, the Only Uncle of the + Gifted Young, talking in a languid, plangent tenor, now boasting about + trivialities, and now making familiar criticisms (which are invariably + ill-received), and occasionally quite absent-mindedly producing + splendid poetry….”</p> + + <p>Like most authors who have made their way to prominence and profit, + Boon was keenly sympathetic with any new writer who promised to do + interesting work, and very ready with his praise and recognition. That + disposition in these writing, prolific times would alone have choked + the corridor. And he liked young people even when their promises were + not exactly convincing. He hated to see a good book neglected, and was + for ever ramming “The Crystal Age” and “Said the Fisherman” and “Tony + Drum” and “George’s Mother” and “A Hind Let Loose” and “Growing Pains” + <a class="pagenum" id="page134" title="134"> </a>down the throats of his visitors. But there were very human and + definite limits to his appreciations. Conspicuous success, and + particularly conspicuous respectable success, chilled his generosity. + Conrad he could not endure. I do him no wrong in mentioning that; it + is the way with most of us; and a score of flourishing contemporaries + who might have liked tickets for the Conference special would have + found great difficulty in getting them.</p> + + <p>There is a fascination in passing judgements and drawing up class + lists. For a time the high intention of the Mind of the Race was + forgotten while we talked the narrow “shop” of London literary + journalism, and discovered and weighed and log-rolled and—in the case + of the more established—blamed and condemned. That Bâle train became + less and less like a train and more and more like a descriptive + catalogue.</p> + + <p>For the best part of an afternoon we talked of the young and the new, + and then we fell into a discussion about such <a class="pagenum" id="page135" title="135"> </a>reputations as + Pickthall’s and W. H. Hudson’s and the late Stephen Crane’s, + reputations ridiculously less than they ought to be, so that these + writers, who are certainly as securely classic as Beckford or Herrick, + are still unknown to half the educated English reading public. Was it + due to the haste of criticism or the illiteracy of publishers? That + question led us so far away from the special Bâle train that we never + returned to it. But I know that we decided that the real and + significant writers were to be only a small portion of the crowd that + congested the train; there were also to be endless impostors, + imitators, editors, raiders of the world of print…. At every + important station there was to be a frightful row about all these + people’s tickets, and violent attempts to remove doubtful cases…. + Then Mr. Clement K. Shorter was to come in to advise and help the + conductor…. Ultimately this led to trouble about Mr. Shorter’s own + credentials….</p> + + <p>Some of Boon’s jokes about this train were, to say the best of them, + obvious. <a class="pagenum" id="page136" title="136"> </a>Mr. Compton Mackenzie was in trouble about his excess + luggage, for example. Mr. Upton Sinclair, having carried out his ideal + of an innocent frankness to a logical completeness in his travelling + equipment, was forcibly wrapped in blankets by the train officials. + Mr. Thomas Hardy had a first-class ticket but travelled by choice or + mistake in a second-class compartment, his deserted place being + subsequently occupied by that promising young novelist Mr. Hugh + Walpole, provided with a beautiful fur rug, a fitted dressing-bag, a + writing slope, a gold-nibbed fountain pen, innumerable introductions, + and everything that a promising young novelist can need. The brothers + Chesterton, Mr. Maurice Baring, and Mr. Belloc sat up all night in the + <em>wagon-restaurant</em> consuming beer enormously and conversing upon + immortality and whether it extends to Semitic and Oriental persons. At + the end of the train, I remember, there was to have been a horse-van + containing Mr. Maurice Hewlett’s charger—Mr. Hewlett himself, I + believe, was left behind by accident at the <a class="pagenum" id="page137" title="137"> </a>Gare de Lyons—Mr. + Cunninghame Graham’s Arab steed, and a large, quiet sheep, the + inseparable pet of Mr. Arthur Christopher Benson….</p> + + <p>There was also, I remember, a description of the whole party running + for early coffee, which gave Boon ample and regrettable opportunities + for speculations upon the <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">déshabille</em> of his contemporaries. Much of + the detail of that invention I prefer to forget, but I remember Mr. + Shaw was fully prepared for the emerging with hand-painted pyjamas, + over which he was wearing a saffron dressing-gown decorated in green + and purple scrolls by one of the bolder artists associated with Mr. + Roger Fry, and as these special train allusions are all that I can + ever remember Boon saying about Shaw, and as the drawing does in + itself amount to a criticism, I give it here….</p> + + <div class="illo" id="illo12"><a class="pagenum" id="page138" title="138"> </a> + <img src="images/illo-12.png" width="496" height="547" alt="A tall slender man whose flowing coat is covered with swirls." /> + <p class="caption">How Mr. Shaw knocked them all on Bâle platform, and + got right into the middle of the picture. Remark his earnest face. + This surely is no mountebank.</p> + </div> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s5-2"><a class="pagenum" id="page139" title="139"> </a> + <h3>§ 2</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">Boon</span> was greatly exercised over the problem of a president.</p> + + <p>“Why have a president?” Dodd helped.</p> + + <p>“There must be a Presidential Address,” said Boon, “and these things + always do have a president.”</p> + + <p>“Lord Rosebery,” suggested Wilkins.</p> + + <p>“Lord Morley,” said Dodd.</p> + + <p>“Lord Bryce.”</p> + + <p>Then we looked at one another.</p> + + <p>“For my own part,” said Boon, “if we are going in for that sort of + thing, I favour Lord Reay.</p> + + <p>“You see, Lord Reay has never done anything at all connected with + literature. Morley and Bryce and Rosebery have at any rate written + things—historical studies, addresses, things like that—but Reay has + never written <a class="pagenum" id="page140" title="140"> </a>anything, and he let Gollancz make him president of the + British Academy without a murmur. This seems to mark him out for this + further distinction. He is just the sort of man who would be made—and + who would let himself be made—president of a British affair of this + sort, and they would hoist him up and he would talk for two or three + hours without a blush. Just like that other confounded peer—what was + his name?—who bored and bored and bored at the Anatole France + dinner…. In the natural course of things it would be one of these + literary lords….”</p> + + <p>“What would he say?” asked Dodd.</p> + + <p>“Maunderings, of course. It will make the book rather dull. I doubt if + I can report him at length…. He will speak upon contemporary + letters, the lack of current achievement…. I doubt if a man like + Lord Reay ever reads at all. One wonders sometimes what these British + literary aristocrats do with all their time. Probably he left off + reading somewhere in the eighties. He won’t have noted it, of course, + and he will be under <a class="pagenum" id="page141" title="141"> </a>the impression that nothing has been written for + the past thirty years.”</p> + + <p>“Good Lord!” said Wilkins.</p> + + <p>“And he’ll say that. Slowly. Steadily. Endlessly. Then he will thank + God for the English classics, ask where now is our Thackeray? where + now our Burns? our Charlotte Brontë? our Tennyson? say a good word for + our immortal bard, and sit down amidst the loud applause of thousands + of speechlessly furious British and American writers….”</p> + + <p>“I don’t see that this will help your book forward,” said Dodd.</p> + + <p>“No, but it’s a proper way of beginning. Like Family Prayers.”</p> + + <p>“I suppose,” said Wilkins, “if you told a man of that sort that there + were more and better poets writing in English beautifully in 1914 than + ever before he wouldn’t believe it. I suppose if you said that Ford + Madox Hueffer, for example, had produced sweeter and deeper poetry + than Alfred, Lord Tennyson, he’d have a fit.”</p> + + <p>“He’d have nothing of the kind. You <a class="pagenum" id="page142" title="142"> </a>could no more get such an idea + into the head of one of these great vestiges of our Gladstonian days + than you could get it into the seat of a Windsor chair…. And people + don’t have fits unless something has got into them…. No, he’d + reflect quite calmly that first of all he’d never heard of this + Hueffer, then that probably he was a very young man. And, anyhow, one + didn’t meet him in important places…. And after inquiry he would + find out he was a journalist…. And then probably he’d cease to + cerebrate upon the question….”</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s5-3"><a class="pagenum" id="page143" title="143"> </a> + <h3>§ 3</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph">“<span class="first_word">Besides</span>,” said Boon, “we must have one of our literary peers because + of America.”</p> + + <p>“You’re unjust to America,” I said.</p> + + <p>“No,” said Boon. “But Aunt Dove—I know her ways.”</p> + + <p>That led to a long, rambling discussion about the American literary + atmosphere. Nothing that I could say would make him relent from his + emphatic assertion that it is a spinster atmosphere, an atmosphere in + which you can’t say all sorts of things and where all sorts of things + have to be specially phrased. “And she can’t stand young things and + crude things——”</p> + + <p>“America!” said Wilkins.</p> + + <p>“The America I mean. The sort of America that ought to supply young + new writers with caresses and—nourishment.<a class="pagenum" id="page144" title="144"> </a>…Instead of which you + get the <cite>Nation</cite>…. That bleak acidity, that refined appeal to take + the child away.”</p> + + <p>“But they don’t produce new young writers!” said Wilkins.</p> + + <p>“But they do!” said Boon. “And they strangle them!”</p> + + <p>It was extraordinary what a power metaphors and fancies had upon Boon. + Only those who knew him intimately can understand how necessary Miss + Bathwick was to him. He would touch a metaphor and then return and sip + it, and then sip and drink and swill until it had intoxicated him + hopelessly.</p> + + <p>“America,” said Boon, “can produce such a supreme writer as Stephen + Crane—the best writer of English for the last half-century—or Mary + Austin, who used to write—— What other woman could touch her? But + America won’t own such children. It’s amazing. It’s a case of + concealment of birth. She exposes them. Whether it’s Shame—or a + Chinese trick…. She’ll sit never knowing she’s had a Stephen Crane, + <a class="pagenum" id="page145" title="145"> </a>adoring the European reputation, the florid mental gestures of a + Conrad. You see, she can tell Conrad ‘writes.’ It shows. And she’ll + let Mary Austin die of neglect, while she worships the ‘art’ of Mary + Ward. It’s like turning from the feet of a goddess to a pair of + goloshes. She firmly believes that old quack Bergson is a bigger man + than her own unapproachable William James…. She’s incredible. I tell + you it’s only conceivable on one supposition…. I’d never thought + before about these disgraceful sidelights on Miss Dove’s career….</p> + + <p>“We English do make foundlings of some of her little victims, + anyhow…. But why hasn’t she any natural instinct in the matter?</p> + + <p>“Now, if one represented that peculiar Bostonian intellectual + gentility, the <cite>Nation</cite> kind of thing, as a very wicked, sour + lady’s-maid with a tremendous influence over the Spinster’s + conduct….”</p> + + <p>His mind was running on.</p> + + <p>“I begin to see a melodramatic strain in this great novel, ‘Miss + Dove.’… ‘Miss <a class="pagenum" id="page146" title="146"> </a>Dove’s Derelicts.’… Too broad, I am afraid. If one + were to represent Sargent and Henry James as two children left out one + cold night in a basket at a cottage in the village by a mysterious + stranger, with nothing but a roll of dollars and a rough drawing of + the Washington coat-of-arms to indicate their parentage….</p> + + <p>“Then when they grow up they go back to the big house and she’s almost + kind to them….</p> + + <p>“Have you ever read the critical articles of Edgar Allan Poe? They’re + very remarkable. He is always demanding an American Literature. It is + like a deserted baby left to die in its cradle, weeping and wailing + for its bottle…. What he wanted, of course, was honest and + intelligent criticism.</p> + + <p>“To this day America kills her Poes….”</p> + + <p>“But confound it!” said Wilkins, “America does make discoveries for + herself. Hasn’t she discovered Lowes Dickinson?”</p> + + <p>“But that merely helps my case. Lowes Dickinson has just the qualities + that take the <a class="pagenum" id="page147" title="147"> </a>American judgement; he carries the shadow of King’s + College Chapel about with him wherever he goes; he has an unobtrusive + air of being doubly starred in Baedeker and not thinking anything of + it. And also she took Noyes to her bosom. But when has American + criticism ever had the intellectual pluck to proclaim an American?</p> + + <p>“And so, you see,” he remarked, going off again at a tangent, “if we + are going to bid for American adhesions there’s only one course open + to us in the matter of this presidential address…. Lord Morley….”</p> + + <p>“You’re a little difficult to follow at times,” said Wilkins.</p> + + <p>“Because he’s the man who’s safest not to say anything about babies + or—anything alive…. Obviously a literary congress in America must + be a festival in honour of sterility.</p> + + <p>“Aunt Dove demands it. Like celebrating the virginity of Queen + Elizabeth….”</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s5-4"><a class="pagenum" id="page148" title="148"> </a> + <h3>§ 4</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">I find</span> among the fragments of my departed friend some notes that seem + to me to be more or less relevant here. They are an incomplete report + of the proceedings of a section S, devoted to <em>Poiometry</em>, apparently + the scientific measurement of literary greatness. It seems to have + been under the control of a special committee, including Mr. James + Huneker, Mr. Slosson, Sir Thomas Seccombe, Mr. James Douglas, Mr. + Clement K. Shorter, the acting editor of the <cite>Bookman</cite>, and the + competition editress of the <cite>Westminster Gazette</cite>….</p> + + <p>Apparently the notes refer to some paper read before the section. Its + authorship is not stated, nor is there any account of its reception. + But the title is “The Natural <a class="pagenum" id="page149" title="149"> </a>History of Greatness, with especial + reference to Literary Reputations.”</p> + + <p>The opening was evidently one of those rapid historical sketches + frequent in such papers.</p> + + <p>“Persuasion that human beings are sometimes of disproportionate size + appears first in the Egyptian and Syrian wall paintings…. Probably + innate…. The discouragement of the young a social necessity in all + early societies. In all societies?… Exaggerated stories about the + departed…. Golden ages. Heroic ages. Ancestor worship…. Dead dogs + better than living lions…. Abraham. Moses. The Homeric reputation, + the first great literary cant. Resentment against Homer’s exaggerated + claims on the part of intelligent people. Zoilus. Caricature of the + Homerists in the Satyricon. Other instances of unorthodox ancient + criticism…. Shakespeare as an intellectual nuisance…. Extreme + suffering caused to contemporary writers by the Shakespeare legend….</p> + + <p>“Another form of opposition to these <a class="pagenum" id="page150" title="150"> </a>obsessions is the creation of + countervailing reputations. Certain people in certain ages have + resolved to set up Great Men of their own to put beside these Brocken + spectres from the past. This marks a certain stage of social + development, the beginning of self-consciousness in a civilized + community. Self-criticism always begins in self-flattery. Virgil as an + early instance of a Great Man of set intentions; deliberately put up + as the Latin Homer….</p> + + <p>“Evolution of the greatness of Aristotle during the Middle Ages.</p> + + <p>“Little sense of contemporary Greatness among the Elizabethans.</p> + + <p>“Comparison with the past the prelude to Great-Man-Making, begins with + such a work as Swift’s ‘Battle of the Books.’ Concurrently the decline + in religious feeling robs the past of its half-mystical prestige. The + Western world ripe for Great Men in the early nineteenth century. The + Germans as a highly competitive and envious people take the lead. The + inflation of Schiller. The greatness of Goethe. Incredible dullness of + <a class="pagenum" id="page151" title="151"> </a>“Elective Affinities,” of “Werther,” of “Wilhelm Meister’s + Apprenticeship.” The second part of “Faust” a tiresome muddle. Large + pretentiousness of the man’s career. Resolve of the Germans to have a + Great Fleet, a Great Empire, a Great Man. Difficulty in finding a + suitable German for Greatening. Expansion of the Goethe legend. German + efficiency brought to bear on the task. Lectures. Professors. Goethe + compared to Shakespeare. Compared to Homer. Compared to Christ. + Compared to God. Discovered to be incomparable….</p> + + <p>“Stimulation of Scotch activities. The Scotch also passionately and + aggressively patriotic. Fortunate smallness of Scotland and lack of + adjacent docile Germans has alone saved the world from another + Prussia. Desperation of the search for a real Scotch First Rater. The + discovery that Burns was as great as Shakespeare. Greater. The booming + of Sir Walter Scott. Wake up, England! The production of Dickens. The + slow but enormous discovery of Wordsworth. Victorian age sets up as a + rival to the Augustine. <a class="pagenum" id="page152" title="152"> </a>Selection of Great Men in every department. + The Great Victorian painters. Sir Frederick Leighton, compared with + Titian and Michael Angelo. Tennyson as Virgil. Lord Tennyson at the + crest of the Victorian Greatness wave. His hair. His cloak. His noble + bearing. His aloofness. His Great Pipe. His price per word. His + intellectual familiarities with Queen Victoria….</p> + + <p>“Longfellow essentially an American repartee….</p> + + <p>“Ingratitude of British Royal Family to those who contributed to the + Victorian Greatness period, shown in the absence of representative + Great Men from the Buckingham Palace Monument. Victoria did not do it + all. Compare the Albert Memorial….</p> + + <p>“Interesting task to plan an alternative pedestal. Proposal to make + designs for a monument to our own times. Symbolic corner groups by + Will Dyson. Frieze of representative men by Max. Canopy by Wyndham + Lewis. Lost opportunity for much bright discussion….</p> + + <p>“Analysis of literary greatness. Is any <a class="pagenum" id="page153" title="153"> </a>literary achievement essential + to greatness? Probably a minute minimum indispensable. Burns. + Fitzgerald. But compare Lord Acton and Lord Reay. Necessity of a + marked personality. Weaknesses, but no unpopular vices. Greatness + blighted by want of dignity. Laurence Sterne. Reciprocal duty of those + made Great not to distress their Public. But imperfectly established + scandal or complexity of relationship may give scope for vindications + and research. Or a certain irregularity of life may create a loyal and + devoted following of sympathizers. Shelley…. Then capable advocacy + is needed and a critical world large enough to be effective but small + enough to be unanimous. Part an able publisher may play in + establishing and developing a Great Man…. Quiet Push, not Noisy + Push. Injury done by tactless advertisement…. The element of + luck….</p> + + <p>“These are the seeds of greatness, but the growth depends upon the + soil. The best soil is a large uncritical public newly come to + reading, a little suspicious of the propriety <a class="pagenum" id="page154" title="154"> </a>of the practice and in a + state of intellectual snobbishness. It must also be fairly uniform and + on some common basis of ideas. Ideally represented by the reading + publics of Germany, Britain, the United States, and France in the + middle nineteenth century….</p> + + <p>“Decline in the output of Greatness towards the end of the Victorian + time. Probably due in all cases to an enlargement of the reading + public to unmanageable dimensions. No reputation sufficiently elastic + to cover it. The growth of Chicago, New York, and the West destroyed + the preponderance of Boston in America, and the Civil War broke the + succession of American Great Men. Rarity of new American-born + Greatnesses after the war. Dumping of established greatnesses from + England gave no chance to the native market. No Protection for America + in this respect. In Great Britain the board schools create big masses + of intelligent people inaccessible to the existing machinery by which + Greatness is imposed. The Greatness output in Britain declines also in + consequence. <a class="pagenum" id="page155" title="155"> </a>Mrs. Humphry Ward, the last of the British Victorian + Great. Expressed admiration of Mr. Gladstone for her work. Support of + the <cite>Spectator</cite>. Profound respect of the American people. Rumour that + she is represented as a sea goddess at the base of the Queen Victoria + Memorial unfounded. Nobody is represented on the Queen Victoria + Memorial except Queen Victoria…. Necessity after the epoch of Mrs. + Ward of more and more flagrant advertisement to reach the enlarged + public, so that at last touch is lost with the critical centres. Great + Men beyond the Limit. Self-exploded candidates for Greatness. + Boomsters. Best Sellers. Mr. Hall Caine as the shocking example….</p> + + <p>“Other causes contributing to the decay of Greatness among literary + men. Competition of politicians, princes, personages generally for the + prestige of the literary man. Superior initial advantage in + conspicuousness. The genuine writer handicapped. The process already + beginning at the crest of the period. Queen Victoria’s ‘Leaves from a + Highland Diary.’ Mr. Gladstone and the higher <a class="pagenum" id="page156" title="156"> </a>windiness. Later + developments. The Kaiser as a man of letters. Mr. Roosevelt as writer + and critic. The Essays of President Wilson. The case of Lord Rosebery. + Mr. Haldane as a philosopher. As a critic. His opinion of Goethe. + Compare the royal and noble authors of Byzantium. Compare the Roman + Emperor becoming Pontifex Maximus. Compare the cannibal chief in a + general’s hat….</p> + + <p>“Return of the literary men as such to a decent obscurity. From which + they are unlikely to emerge again. This an unmixed blessing. So long + as good writing and sound thinking are still appreciated the less we + hear about authors the better. Never so little recognized Greatness + and never so much wise, subtle, sweet, and boldly conceived literary + work as now. This will probably continue. [He was writing before the + war.] The English-reading literary world too large now for the + operations of Greatening. Doubtful case of Rabindranath Tagore. + Discuss this. Special suitability of India as a basis for Greatness. + <a class="pagenum" id="page157" title="157"> </a>India probably on the verge of a Greatness period….</p> + + <p>“Disrespect a natural disposition in the young. Checked and subdued in + small societies, but now happily rampant in the uncontrollable + English-speaking communities. The new (undignified) criticism. The + <cite>English Review</cite>. Mr. Austin Harrison and the street-boy style. The + literature of the chalked fence. The <cite>New Age</cite>. Literary carbolic + acid—with an occasional substitution of vitriol…. Insurrection of + the feminine mind against worship. Miss Rebecca West as the last birth + of time. A virile-minded generation of young women indicated. Mrs. + Humphry Ward blushes publicly for the <cite>Freewoman</cite> in the <cite>Times</cite>. + Hitherto Greatness has demanded the applause of youth and feminine + worship as necessary conditions. As necessary to its early stages as + down to an eider chick. Impossible to imagine Incipient Greatness + nestling comfortably upon Orage, Austin Harrison, and Rebecca West. + Dearth of young Sidney Colvins…. Unhappy position <a class="pagenum" id="page158" title="158"> </a>of various + derelict and still imperfectly developed Great surviving from the old + times. Arnold Bennett as an aborted Great Man. Would have made a Great + Victorian and had a crowd of satellite helpers. Now no one will ever + treasure his old hats and pipes….</p> + + <p>“Idea of an experimental resurrection of those who still live in our + hearts. If Goethe had a second time on earth——? Could he do it now? + Would Lord Haldane perceive him? Imaginary description of Lord + Haldane’s recognition of a youthful Goethe. They meet by accident + during a walking tour in Germany. Amiable aloofness of Lord Haldane. + His gradual discovery of an intellectual superior in his modest + companion. Public proclamation of his find…. Doubts….</p> + + <p>“Peroration. Will the world be happy without Literary Greatnesses? + Improvise and take a cheerful line upon this question.”</p> + + <div class="illo" id="illo13"><a class="pagenum" id="page159" title="159"> </a> + <img src="images/illo-13.png" width="656" height="337" alt="A young woman holding a huge, ink-dripping feather pen behind her back." /> + <p>Miss Rebecca West, pensive, after writing her + well-known opinion of that Great Good Woman-Soul, Miss Ellen Key.</p> + </div> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s5-5"><a class="pagenum" id="page160" title="160"> </a> + <h3>§ 5</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">Ultimately</span>, against every possibility of the case, Boon decided that + the President of his conference must be Hallery. And he wrote his + presidential address. But he never read that address to us. Some + shyness I think restrained him. I dig it out here now for the first + time, a little astonished at it, disposed to admire something in its + spirit…. But yet one has to admit that it shows an extraordinary + lapse from Boon’s accustomed mocking humour.</p> + + <p>Here is the opening.</p> + + <p>“Hallery then advanced to the edge of the platform and fumbled with + his manuscript. His face was very white and his expression bitterly + earnest. With an appearance of effort he began, omitting in his + nervousness any form of address to his audience—</p> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page161" title="161"> </a>“‘For the most part, the life of human communities has been as + unconscious as the life of animals. They have been born as unknowingly + as the beasts; they have followed unforeseen and unheeded destinies, + and destruction has come to them from forces scarcely anticipated and + not understood. Tribes, nations beyond counting, have come and passed, + with scarcely a mental activity beyond a few legends, a priestly guess + at cosmogony, a few rumours and traditions, a list of kings as bare as + a schoolboy’s diary, a war or so, a triumph or so…. We are still + only in the beginning of history—in the development, that is, of a + racial memory; we have as yet hardly begun to inquire into our racial + origins, our racial conditions, our racial future…. Philosophy, + which is the discussion of the relation of the general to the + particular, of the whole to the part, of the great and yet vague life + of the race to the intense yet manifestly incomplete life of the + individual, is still not three thousand years old. Man has lived + consciously as man it may be for hundreds of thousands of years, <a class="pagenum" id="page162" title="162"> </a>he + has learnt of himself by talking to his fellows, he has expressed + personal love and many personal feelings with a truth and beauty that + are well nigh final, but the race does but begin to live as a + conscious being. It begins to live as a conscious being, and as it + does so, the individual too begins to live in a new way, a greater, + more understanding, and more satisfying way. His thoughts apprehend + interests beyond himself and beyond his particular life….’</p> + + <p>“At this point Hallery became so acutely aware of his audience that + for some seconds he could not go on reading. A number of people in + various parts of the hall had suddenly given way to their coughs, a + bald-headed gentleman about the middle of the assembly had discovered + a draught, and was silently but conspicuously negotiating for the + closing of a window by an attendant, and at the back a + cultivated-looking young gentleman was stealing out on tiptoe.</p> + + <div class="illo" id="illo14"><a class="pagenum" id="page163" title="163"> </a> + <img src="images/illo-14.png" width="417" height="348" alt="An elongated young man walking carefully with toes pointed." /> + <p class="caption">The first departure.</p> + </div> + + <p>“For a moment Hallery was distressed by the thought that perhaps he + might have taken a more amusing line than the one he had chosen, and + then, realizing how vain were such regrets and rather quickening his + pace, he resumed the reading of his address—</p> + + <p>“‘You see that I am beginning upon a very comprehensive scale, for I + propose to bring within the scope of this conference all that arises + out of these two things, out of the realization of the incompleteness + of man’s <a class="pagenum" id="page164" title="164"> </a>individual life on the one hand and out of the realization of + a greater being in which man lives, of a larger racial life and ampler + references upon the other. All this much—and with a full awareness of + just how much it is—I am going to claim as literature and our + province. Religion, I hold, every religion so far as it establishes + and carries ideas, is literature, philosophy is literature, science is + literature; a pamphlet or a leading article. I put all these things + together——’</p> + + <p>“At this point there was a second departure.</p> + + <div class="illo" id="illo15"> + <img src="images/illo-15.png" width="172" height="291" alt="A bald man wearing a long coat walks along with eyes downcast." /> + <p class="caption">The second departure.</p> + </div> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page165" title="165"> </a>Almost immediately followed by a third.</p> + + <div class="illo" id="illo16"> + <img src="images/illo-16.png" width="86" height="331" alt="A middle-aged woman stands facing us." /> + <p class="caption">The third departure.</p> + </div> + + <p>“Hallery halted for a second time and then gripped the reading-desk + with both hands, and, reading now with a steadily accelerated + velocity, heeded his audience no more—</p> + + <p>“‘I put all these things together because, indeed, it is only + associations of antiquity and prescription and prestige can separate + them. Altogether they constitute the great vague body of man’s + super-personal mental <a class="pagenum" id="page166" title="166"> </a>life, his unselfish life, his growing life, as a + premeditating, self-conscious race and destiny. Here in growing + volume, in this comprehensive literature of ours, preserved, selected, + criticized, re-stated, continually rather more fined, continually + rather more clarified, we have the mind, not of a mortal but of an + immortal adventurer. Whom for the moment, fractionally, + infinitesimally, whenever we can forget ourselves in pure feeling, in + service, in creative effort or disinterested thought, we are + privileged in that measure to become. This wonder that we celebrate, + this literature, is the dawn of human divinity. . . . . . . . . . . . + . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . + . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ’”</p> + + <p>But though Hallery went on, I do not, on reflection, think that I + will. I doubt if Boon ever decided to incorporate this extraordinary + Presidential Address in our book; I think perhaps he meant to revise + it or substitute something else. He wanted to state a case for the + extreme importance of literature, and to my mind he carried his + statement into regions mystical, to say <a class="pagenum" id="page167" title="167"> </a>the least of it, and likely to + be considered blasphemous by many quite right-minded people. For + instance, he made Hallery speak of the Word that links men’s minds. He + brings our poor, mortal, mental activities into the most extraordinary + relationship with those greater things outside our lives which it is + our duty to revere as much as possible and to think about as little as + possible; he draws no line between them…. He never, I say, read the + paper to us…. I cannot guess whether he did not read it to us + because he doubted himself or because he doubted us, and I do not even + care to examine my own mind to know whether I do or do not believe in + the thesis he sets so unhesitatingly down. In a sense it is no doubt + true that literature is a kind of over-mind of the race, and in a + sense, no doubt, the Bible and the Koran, the Talmud and the Prayer + Book are literature. In a sense Mr. Upton Sinclair’s “Bible” for + Socialists of bits from ancient and modern writings is literature. In + a sense, too, literature does go on rather like a continuous <a class="pagenum" id="page168" title="168"> </a>mind + thinking…. But I feel that all this is just in a sense…. I don’t + really believe it. I am not quite sure what I do really believe, but I + certainly recoil from anything so crudely positive as Hallery’s wild + assertions…. It would mean worshipping literature. Or at least + worshipping the truth in literature….</p> + + <p>Of course, one knows that real literature is something that has to do + with leisure and cultivated people and books and shaded lamps and all + that sort of thing. But Hallery wants to drag in not only cathedrals + and sanctuaries, but sky-signs and hoardings…. He wants literature + to embrace whatever is in or whatever changes the mind of the race, + except purely personal particulars. And I think Boon was going to make + Hallery claim this, just in order to show up against these tremendous + significances the pettiness of the contemporary literary life, the + poverty and levity of criticism, the mean business side of modern + book-making and book-selling….</p> + + <p>Turning over the pages of this rejected <a class="pagenum" id="page169" title="169"> </a>address, which I am sure the + reader would not thank me for printing, I do come upon this + presentable passage, which illustrates what I am saying—</p> + + <p>“So that every man who writes to express or change or criticize an + idea, every man who observes and records a fact in the making of a + research, every man who hazards or tests a theory, every artist of any + sort who really expresses, does thereby, in that very act, + participate, share in, become for just that instant when he is novel + and authentically <em>true</em>, the Mind of the Race, the thinking divinity. + Do you not see, then, what an arrogant worship, what a sacramental + thing it is to lift up brain and hand and say, ‘<em>I too will add</em>’? We + bring our little thoughts as the priest brings a piece of common bread + to consecration, and though we have produced but a couplet or a dozen + lines of prose, we have nevertheless done the parallel miracle. And + all reading that is reading with the mind, all conscious subjugation + of our attention to expressed beauty, or expressed truth, is + sacramental, is communion <a class="pagenum" id="page170" title="170"> </a>with the immortal being. We lift up our + thoughts out of the little festering pit of desire and vanity which is + one’s individual self into that greater self….”</p> + + <p>So he talks, and again presently of “that world-wide immortal + communion incessant as the march of sun and planets amidst the + stars….”</p> + + <p>And then, going on with his vast comparison, for I cannot believe this + is more than a fantastic parallelism: “And if the mind that does, as + we say, create is like the wafer that has become miraculously divine, + then though you may not like to think of it, all you who give out + books, who print books and collect books, and sell books and lend + them, who bring pictures to people’s eyes, set things forth in + theatres, hand out thought in any way from the thinking to the + attentive mind, all you are priests, you do a priestly office, and + every bookstall and hoarding is a wayside shrine, offering consolation + and release to men and women from the intolerable prison of their + narrow selves….”</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s5-6"><a class="pagenum" id="page171" title="171"> </a> + <h3>§ 6</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">That</span>, I think, is what Boon really at the bottom of his heart felt and + believed about literature.</p> + + <p>And yet in some way he could also not believe it; he could recognize + something about it that made him fill the margin of the manuscript of + this address with grotesque figures of an imaginary audience going + out. They were, I know, as necessary to his whole conception as his + swinging reference to the stars; both were as much part of his + profound belief as the gargoyle on the spire and the high altar are + necessary parts of a Gothic cathedral. And among other figures I am + amused rather than hurt to find near the end this of myself—</p> + + <div class="illo" id="illo17"><a class="pagenum" id="page172" title="172"> </a> + <img src="images/illo-17.png" width="252" height="272" alt="A sketchy sketch of a man with nose held high." /> + <p class="caption">Too high-pitched even for Reginald.</p> + </div> + </div> +</div> +<div class='chapter' id='sixth'><a class="pagenum" id="page173" title="173"> </a> + <h2>CHAPTER THE SIXTH<br /> + <span class="chapter_title">Of not liking Hallery and the Royal Society for the Discouragement of Literature</span></h2> + <div class="section" id="s6-1"> + <h3>§ 1</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">In</span> the same peculiar receptacle in which I find this presidential + address I found a quantity of other papers and scraps of paper, upon + which Boon, I should judge, had been thinking about that address and + why he was ashamed to produce it to us, and why he perceived that this + audience would dislike Hallery so much that he was obliged to admit + that they would go out before his lecture was finished, and why he + himself didn’t somehow like this Hallery that he had made. <a class="pagenum" id="page174" title="174"> </a>All these + writings are in the nature of fragments, some are illegible and more + are incomprehensible; but it is clear that his mind attacked these + questions with a most extraordinary width of reference. I find him + writing about the One and the Many, the General and the Particular, + the Species and the Individual, declaring that it is through “the + dimensions (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">sic</em>) of space and time” that “individuation” becomes + possible, and citing Darwin, Heraclitus, Kant, Plato, and Tagore, all + with a view to determining just exactly what it was that irritated + people in the breadth and height and expression of Hallery’s views. Or + to be more exact, what he knew would have irritated people with these + views if they had ever been expressed.</p> + + <p>Here is the sort of thing that I invite the intelligent reader to link + up if he can with the very natural phenomenon of a number of quite + ordinary sensible people hostile and in retreat before a tedious, + perplexing, and presumptuous discourse—</p> + + <p>“The individual human mind spends itself <a class="pagenum" id="page175" title="175"> </a>about equally in headlong + flight from the Universal, which it dreads as something that will + envelop and subjugate it, and in headlong flight to the Universal, + which it seeks as a refuge from its own loneliness and silliness. It + knows very certainly that the Universal will ultimately comprehend and + incorporate it, yet it desires always that the Universal should + <em>mother</em> it, take it up without injuring it in the slightest degree, + foment and nourish its egotism, cherish fondly all its distinctions, + give it all the kingdoms of existence to play with….</p> + + <p>“Ordinary people snuggle up to God as a lost leveret in a freezing + wilderness might snuggle up to a Siberian tiger….</p> + + <p>“You see that man who flies and seeks, who needs and does not want, + does at last get to a kind of subconscious compromise over the matter. + Couldn’t he perhaps get the Infinite with the chill off? Couldn’t he + perhaps find a warm stuffed tiger? He cheats himself by hiding in what + he can pretend is the goal. So he tries to escape from the pursuit of + the living God to dead gods, evades <a class="pagenum" id="page176" title="176"> </a>religion in a church, does his + best to insist upon time-honoured formulæ; God must have a button on + the point. And it is our instinctive protection of the subconscious + arrangement that makes us so passionately resentful at raw religion, + at crude spiritual realities, at people who come at us saying harsh + understandable things about these awful matters…. <em>They may wake the + tiger!…</em></p> + + <p>“We like to think of religion as something safely specialized, + codified, and put away. Then we can learn the rules and kick about a + bit. But when some one comes along saying that science is religion, + literature is religion, business—they’ll come to that + presently!—business is religion!…</p> + + <p>“It spoils the afternoon….</p> + + <p>“But that alone does not explain why Hallery, delivering his insistent + presidential address, is detestable to his audience—for it is quite + clear that he is detestable. I’m certain of it. No, what is the matter + there is that the aggression of the universal is pointed and + embittered by an all too justifiable suspicion <a class="pagenum" id="page177" title="177"> </a>that the individual who + maintains it is still more aggressive, has but armed himself with the + universal in order to achieve our discomfiture…. It’s no good his + being modest; that only embitters it. It is no good his making + disavowals; that only shows that he is aware of it….</p> + + <p>“Of course I invented Hallery only to get this burthen off myself….</p> + + <p>“All spiritual truths ought to be conveyed by a voice speaking out of + a dark void. As Hardy wants his spirits to speak in the ‘Dynasts.’ + Failing that, why should we not deal with these questions through the + anonymity of a gramophone?…</p> + + <p>“A modern religion founded on a mysterious gramophone which was + discovered carefully packed in a box of peculiar construction on a + seat upon Primrose Hill….</p> + + <p>“How well the great organized religions have understood this! How + sound is the effort to meet it by shaving a priest’s head or obliging + him to grow a beard, putting him into canonicals, drilling him and + regimenting <a class="pagenum" id="page178" title="178"> </a>him, so as to make him into a mere type….</p> + + <p>“If I were to found a religion, I think I should insist upon masked + priests….”</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s6-2"><a class="pagenum" id="page179" title="179"> </a> + <h3>§ 2</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">This</span> idea that the defensive instinct of the individuality, Jealousy, + is constantly at war not only with other individualities but with all + the great de-individualizing things, with Faith, with Science, with + Truth, with Beauty; that out of its resentments and intricate devices + one may draw the explanation of most of the perplexities and humours + of the intellectual life, indeed the explanation of most life and of + most motives, is the quintessence of Boon. The Mind of the Race toils + through this jungle of jealous individuality to emerge. And the + individual, knowing that single-handed he hasn’t a chance against the + immortal, allies himself with this and that, with sham immortalities, + and partially effaced and partially confuted general things. And so it + sets up its Greatnesses, <a class="pagenum" id="page180" title="180"> </a>to save it from greatness, its solemnities to + preserve it from the overwhelming gravity of truth. “See,” it can say, + “I have my gods already, thank you. I do not think we will discuss + this matter further.”</p> + + <p>I admit the difficulty of following Boon in this. I admit, too, that I + am puzzled about his Mind of the Race. Does he mean by that expression + a Great Wisdom and Will that must be, or a Great Wisdom and Will that + might be?</p> + + <p>But here he goes on with the topic of Hallery again.</p> + + <p>“I invented Hallery to get rid of myself, but, after all, Hallery is + really no more than the shadow of myself, and if I were impersonal and + well bred, and if I spoke behind a black screen, it would still be as + much my voice as ever. I do not see how it is possible to prevent the + impersonal things coming by and through persons; but at any rate we + can begin to recognize that the person who brings the message is only + in his way like the messenger-boy who brings the telegrams. The writer + may <a class="pagenum" id="page181" title="181"> </a>have a sensitive mind, the messenger-boy may have nimble heels; + that does not make him the creator of the thing that comes. Then I + think people will be able to listen to such lectures as this of + Hallery’s without remembering all the time that it’s a particular + human being with a white face and a lisp…. And perhaps they will be + able to respect literature and fine thought for the sake of the + general human mind for which they live and for the sake of their own + receptiveness….”</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s6-3"><a class="pagenum" id="page182" title="182"> </a> + <h3>§ 3</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">And</span> from that Boon suddenly went off into absurdities.</p> + + <p>“Should all literature be anonymous?” he asks at the head of a sheet + of notes.</p> + + <p>“But one wants an author’s name as a brand. Perhaps a number would + suffice. Would authors write if they remained unknown? Mixed motives. + Could one run a church with an unsalaried priesthood? But certainly + now the rewards are too irregular, successful authors are absurdly + flattered and provoked to impossible ambitions. Could we imitate the + modern constitutional State by permitting limited ambitions but + retaining all the higher positions inaccessible to mere enterprise and + merit? Hereditary Novelists, Poets, and Philosophers, for example. The + real ones undistinguished. Hereditary Historians <a class="pagenum" id="page183" title="183"> </a>and Scientific Men + are already practical reality. Then such mischievous rewards and + singlings out as the Nobel Prize could be distributed among these + Official Intellectuals by lot or (better) by seniority. It would + prevent much heartburning….”</p> + + <p>These last notes strike me as an extraordinary declension from the, at + least, exalted argument of the preceding memoranda. But they do serve + to emphasize the essence of—what shall I call it?—Boonism, the idea + that there is a great collective mental process going on in many + minds, and that it is impertinent and distracting to single out + persons, great men, groups and schools, coteries and Academies. The + flame burns wide and free. It is here; it is gone. You had it; you + have it not. And again you see it plainly, stretching wide across the + horizon….</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s6-4"><a class="pagenum" id="page184" title="184"> </a> + <h3>§ 4</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">But</span> after these scrappy notes about Jealousy and how people protect + their minds against ideas, and especially the idea which is God, and + against the mental intrusions of their fellow-creatures conveying + ideas, I understand better the purport of that uninvited society, + which he declared insisted upon coming to the Great Conference upon + the Mind of the Race, and which held such enthusiastic and crowded + meetings that at last it swamped all the rest of the enterprise. It + was, he declared, to the bitter offence of Dodd, a society with very + much the same attitude towards all impersonal mental activities that + the Rationalist Press Association has to Religion, and it was called + the Royal Society for the Discouragement of Literature.</p> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page185" title="185"> </a>“Why ‘Royal’?” I asked.</p> + + <p>“Oh—obviously,” he said….</p> + + <p>This Royal Society was essentially an organization of the conservative + instincts of man. Its aim was to stop all this thinking….</p> + + <p>And yet in some extraordinary way that either I did not note at the + time or that he never explained, it became presently the whole + Conference! The various handbills, pamphlets in outline, notes for + lectures, and so forth, that accompanied his notes of the Proceedings + of the Royal Society may either be intended as part of the sectional + proceedings of the great conference or as the production of this + hostile organization. I will make a few extracts from the more legible + of these memoranda which render the point clearer.</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s6-5"><a class="pagenum" id="page186" title="186"> </a> + <h3>§ 5<br /> + <span class="section_title">Publishers and Book Distributors</span></h3> + + <p class="section_subtitle">(Comparable to the Priest who hands the Elements and as much upon + their Honour.)</p> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">The</span> Publisher regrets that the copy for this section is missing, and + fears that the substance of it must be left to the imagination of the + reader. This is the more regrettable as the section was probably of a + highly technical nature.</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s6-6"><a class="pagenum" id="page187" title="187"> </a> + <h3>§ 6<br /> + <span class="section_title">The Young Reviewer</span></h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">Here</span>, again, Mr. Boon’s notes are not to be found, and repeated + applications to Mr. Bliss have produced nothing but a vague telegram + to “go ahead.”</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s6-7"><a class="pagenum" id="page188" title="188"> </a> + <h3>§ 7<br /> + <span class="section_title">The Schoolmaster and Literature</span></h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph">“<span class="first_word">Essentially</span> the work of the schoolmaster is to prepare the young and + naturally over-individualized mind for communion with the Mind of the + Race. Essentially his curriculum deals with modes of expression, with + languages, grammar, the mathematical system of statement, the various + scientific systems of statement, the common legend of history. All + leads up, as the scholar approaches adolescence, to the introduction + to living literature, living thought, criticism, and religion. But + when we consider how literature is taught in schools——”</p> + + <p>Here the writing leaves off abruptly, and then there is written in + very minute letters far down the page and apparently after an interval + for reflection—</p> + + <blockquote> + <p>“Scholastic humour</p> + <hr class="thoughtbreak" /> + <p class="post_thoughtbreak"><em>O God!</em>”</p> + </blockquote> + </div> +</div> +<div class='chapter' id='seventh'><a class="pagenum" id="page189" title="189"> </a> + <h2>CHAPTER THE SEVENTH<br /> + <span class="chapter_title">Wilkins makes Certain Objections</span></h2> + + <div class="section" id="s7-1"> + <h3>§ 1</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">Wilkins</span> the author began to think about the Mind of the Race quite + suddenly. He made an attack upon Boon as we sat in the rose-arbour + smoking after lunch. Wilkins is a man of a peculiar mental + constitution; he alternates between a brooding sentimental egotism and + a brutal realism, and he is as weak and false in the former mood as he + is uncompromising in the latter. I think the attraction that certainly + existed between him and Boon must have been the attraction of + opposites, for Boon is as emotional and sentimental in relation to the + impersonal aspects <a class="pagenum" id="page190" title="190"> </a>of life as he is pitiless in relation to himself. + Wilkins still spends large portions of his time thinking solemnly + about some ancient trouble in which he was treated unjustly; I believe + I once knew what it was, but I have long since forgotten. Yet when his + mind does get loose from his own “case” for a bit it is, I think, a + very penetrating mind indeed. And, at any rate, he gave a lot of + exercise to Boon.</p> + + <p>“All through this book, Boon,” he began.</p> + + <p>“What book?” asked Dodd.</p> + + <p>“This one we are in. All through this book you keep on at the idea of + the Mind of the Race. It is what the book is about; it is its theme. + Yet I don’t see exactly what you are driving at. Sometimes you seem to + be making out this Mind of the Race to be a kind of God——”</p> + + <p>“A synthetic God,” said Boon. “If it is to be called a God at all.”</p> + + <p>Dodd nodded as one whose worst suspicions are confirmed.</p> + + <p>“Then one has to assume it is a continuing, coherent mind, that is + slowly <a class="pagenum" id="page191" title="191"> </a>becoming wider, saner, profounder, more powerful?”</p> + + <p>Boon never likes to be pressed back upon exact statements. “Yes,” he + said reluctantly. “In general—on the whole—yes. What are you driving + at?”</p> + + <p>“It includes all methods of expression from the poster when a play is + produced at His Majesty’s Theatre, from the cheering of the crowd when + a fireman rescues a baby, up to—Walter Pater.”</p> + + <p>“So far as Pater expresses anything,” said Boon.</p> + + <p>“Then you go on from the elevation this idea of a secular quasi-divine + racial mental progress gives you, to judge and condemn all sorts of + decent artistic and literary activities that don’t fall in or don’t + admit that they fall in….”</p> + + <p>“Something of that idea,” said Boon, growing a little + testy—“something of that idea.”</p> + + <p>“It gives you an opportunity of annoying a number of people you don’t + like.”</p> + + <p>“If I offend, it is their fault!” said Boon <a class="pagenum" id="page192" title="192"> </a>hotly. “Criticism can have + no friendships. If they like to take it ill…. My criticism is + absolutely, honest…. Some of them are my dearest friends.”</p> + + <p>“They won’t be,” said Wilkins, “when all this comes out…. But, + anyhow, your whole case, your justification, your thesis is that there + is this Mind of the Race, overriding, dominating—— And that you are + its Prophet.”</p> + + <p>“Because a man confesses a belief, Wilkins, that doesn’t make him a + Prophet. I don’t set up—I express.”</p> + + <p>“Your Mind of the Race theory has an elegance, a plausibility, I + admit,” said Wilkins.</p> + + <p>Dodd’s expression indicated that it didn’t take him in. He compressed + his lips. Not a bit of it.</p> + + <p>“But is this in reality true? Is this what exists and goes on? We + people who sit in studies and put in whole hours of our days thinking + and joining things together do get a kind of coherence into our ideas + about the world. Just because there is leisure and time <a class="pagenum" id="page193" title="193"> </a>for us to + think. But are you sure that is the Race at all? That is my point. + Aren’t we intellectually just a by-product? If you went back to the + time of Plato, you would say that the idea of his “Republic” was what + was going on in the Mind of the Race then. But I object that that was + only the futile fancy of a gentleman of leisure. What was really going + on was the gathering up of the Macedonian power to smash through + Greece, and then make Greece conquer Asia. Your literature and + philosophy are really just the private entertainment of old gentlemen + out of the hurly-burly and ambitious young men too delicate to hunt or + shoot. Thought is nothing in the world until it begins to operate in + will and act, and the history of mankind doesn’t show now, and it + never has shown, any consecutive relation to human thinking. The real + Mind of the Race is, I submit, something not literary at all, not + consecutive, but like the inconsecutive incoherences of an idiot——”</p> + + <p>“No,” said Boon, “of a child.”</p> + + <p>“You have wars, you have great waves <a class="pagenum" id="page194" title="194"> </a>of religious excitement, you have + patriotic and imperial delusions, you have ill-conceived and + surprising economic changes——”</p> + + <p>“As if humanity as a whole were a mere creature of chance and + instinct,” said Boon.</p> + + <p>“Exactly,” said Wilkins.</p> + + <p>“I admit that,” said Boon. “But my case is that sanity grows. That + what was ceases to be. The mind of reason gets now out of the study + into the market-place.”</p> + + <p>“You mean really, Boon, that the Mind of the Race isn’t a mind that + <em>is</em>, it is just a mind that becomes.”</p> + + <p>“That’s what it’s all about,” said Boon.</p> + + <p>“And that is where I want to take you up,” said Wilkins. “I want to + suggest that the Mind of the Race may be just a gleam of conscious + realization that passes from darkness to darkness——”</p> + + <p>“<em>No</em>,” said Boon.</p> + + <p>“Why not?”</p> + + <p>“Because I will not have it so,” said Boon.</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s7-2"><a class="pagenum" id="page195" title="195"> </a> + <h3>§ 2</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">There</span> can be no denying that from quite an early stage in the + discussion Boon was excited and presently on the verge of ill-temper. + This dragging of his will into a question of fact showed, I think, the + beginning of his irritation. And he was short and presently rather + uncivil in his replies to Wilkins.</p> + + <p>Boon argued that behind the individualities and immediacies of life + there was in reality a consecutive growth of wisdom, that larger + numbers of people and a larger proportion of people than ever before + were taking part in the World Mind process, and that presently this + would become a great conscious general thinking of the race together.</p> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page196" title="196"> </a>Wilkins admitted that there had been a number of starts in the + direction of impersonal understanding and explanation; indeed, there + was something of the sort in every fresh religious beginning; but he + argued that these starts do not show a regular progressive movement, + and that none of them had ever achieved any real directive and + unifying power over their adherents; that only a few Christians had + ever grasped Christianity, that Brahminism fell to intellectual powder + before it touched the crowd, that nowadays there was less sign than + ever of the honest intellectuals getting any hold whatever upon the + minds and movements of the popular mass….</p> + + <p>“The Mind of the Race,” said Wilkins, “seems at times to me much more + like a scared child cowering in the corner of a cage full of apes.”</p> + + <p>Boon was extraordinarily disconcerted by these contradictions.</p> + + <p>“It will grow up,” he snatched.</p> + + <p>“If the apes let it,” said Wilkins. “You can see how completely the + thinkers and <a class="pagenum" id="page197" title="197"> </a>poets and all this stuff of literature and the study + don’t represent the real Mind, such as it is, of Humanity, when you + note how the mass of mankind turns naturally to make and dominate its + own organs of expression. Take the popular press, take the popular + theatre, take popular religion, take current fiction, take the + music-hall, watch the development of the cinematograph. There you have + the real body of mankind expressing itself. If you are right, these + things should fall in a kind of relationship to the intellectual + hierarchy. But the intellectual hierarchy goes and hides away in + country houses and beautiful retreats and provincial universities and + stuffy high-class periodicals. It’s afraid of the mass of men, it + dislikes and dreads the mass of men, and it affects a pride and + aloofness to cover it. Plato wanted to reorganize social order and the + common life; the young man in the twopenny tube was the man he was + after. He wanted to exercise him and teach him exactly what to do with + the young woman beside him. Instead of which poor Plato has <a class="pagenum" id="page198" title="198"> </a>become + just an occasion for some Oxford don to bleat about his unapproachable + style and wisdom….”</p> + + <p>“I admit we’re not connected up yet,” said Boon.</p> + + <p>“You’re more disconnected than ever you were. In the Middle Ages there + was something like a connected system of ideas in Christendom, so that + the Pope and the devout fishwife did in a sense march together….”</p> + + <p>You see the wrangling argument on which they were launched.</p> + + <p>Boon maintained that there was a spreading thought process, clearly + perceptible nowadays, and that those detachments of Wilkins’ were not + complete. He instanced the cheap editions of broad-thinking books, the + variety of articles in the modern newspaper, the signs of wide + discussions. Wilkins, on the other hand, asserted a predominant + intellectual degeneration…. Moreover, Wilkins declared, with the + murmurous approval of Dodd, that much even of the Academic thought + process was going wrong, that <a class="pagenum" id="page199" title="199"> </a>Bergson’s Pragmatism for Ladies was a + poor substitute even for Herbert Spencer, that the boom about + “Mendelism” was a triumph of weak thinking over comprehensive ideas.</p> + + <p>“Even if we leave the masses out of account, it is still rather more + than doubtful if there is any secular intellectual growth.”</p> + + <p>And it is curious to recall now that as an instance of a degenerative + thought process among educated people Wilkins instanced modern + Germany. Here, he said, in the case of a Mind covering over a hundred + million people altogether, was a real retrocession of intellectual + freedom. The pretentious expression of instinctive crudity had always + been the peculiar weakness of the German mind. It had become more and + more manifest, he said, as nationalism had ousted foreign influence. + You see what pretty scope for mutual contradiction there was in all + this. “Let me get books,” cried Wilkins, “and I will read you samples + of the sort of thing that passes for thinking in Germany. I will read + you some of Houston Stewart Chamberlain, some <a class="pagenum" id="page200" title="200"> </a>of Nietzsche’s boiling + utterance, some of Schopenhauer.”</p> + + <p>“Let me,” said Wilkins, “read a passage I have picked almost haphazard + from Schopenhauer. One gets Schopenhauer rammed down one’s throat as a + philosopher, as a deep thinker, as the only alternative to the + Hegelian dose. And just listen——”</p> + + <p>He began to read in a voice of deliberate malice, letting his voice + italicize the more scandalous transitions of what was certainly a very + foolish and ill-knit piece of assertion.</p> + + <blockquote> + <p>“‘Little men have a decided inclination for big women, and + <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">vice versâ</em>; and indeed in a little man the preference for + big women will be so much the more passionate if he himself + was begotten by a big father, and only remains little through + the influence of his mother; because he has inherited from his + father the vascular system and its energy which was able to + supply a large body with blood. If, on the other hand, his + father and grandfather were both little, that inclination will + make itself less felt. At the foundation of the aversion of a + big woman to big men lies <em>the intention of Nature</em> to avoid + too big a race…. Further, the consideration as to the + complexion is very decided. Blondes prefer dark persons or + brunettes; but the latter seldom prefer the <a class="pagenum" id="page201" title="201"> </a>former. <em>The + reason is</em>, that fair hair and blue eyes are in themselves a + variation from the type, almost an abnormity, analogous to + white mice, or at least to grey horses. In no part of the + world, not even in the vicinity of the Pole, are they + indigenous, except in Europe, and are clearly of Scandinavian + origin. I may here express my opinion in passing that the + white colour of the skin is not natural to man, but that by + nature he has a black or brown skin, like <em>our forefathers the + Hindus</em>; that consequently a white man has never originally + sprung from the womb of Nature, and that thus there is no such + thing as a white race, much as this is talked of, but every + white man is a faded or bleached one. Forced into this strange + world, where he only exists like an exotic plant, and like + this requires in winter the hothouse, in the course of + thousands of years man became white. The gipsies, an Indian + race which immigrated only about four centuries ago, show the + transition from the complexion of the Hindu to our own. + <em>Therefore</em> in sexual love Nature strives to return to dark + hair and brown eyes as the primitive type; but the white + colour of the skin has become second nature, though not so + that the brown of the Hindu repels us. Finally, each one also + seeks in the particular parts of the body the corrective of + his own defects and aberrations, and does so the more + decidedly the more important the part is. <em>Therefore</em> + snub-nosed individuals have an inexpressible liking for + hook-noses, parrot-faces; and it is the same with regard to + all other parts. Men with excessively slim, long bodies and + limbs can find <a class="pagenum" id="page202" title="202"> </a>beauty in a body which is even beyond measure + stumpy and short…. Whoever is himself in some respects very + perfect does not indeed seek and love imperfection in this + respect, but is yet more easily reconciled to it than others; + because he himself insures the children against great + imperfection of this part. For example, whoever is himself + very white will not object to a yellow complexion; but whoever + has the latter will find dazzling whiteness divinely + beautiful.’ (You will note that he perceives he has + practically contradicted this a few lines before, and that + evidently he has gone back and stuck in that saving clause + about a white skin being second nature.) ‘The rare case in + which a man falls in love with a decidedly ugly woman occurs + when, beside the exact harmony of the degree of sex explained + above, the whole of her abnormities are precisely the + opposite, and thus the corrective, of his. The love is then + wont to reach a high degree….’</p> + </blockquote> + + <p>“And so on and so on,” said Wilkins. “Just a foolish, irresponsible + saying of things. And all this stuff, this celibate cerebration, you + must remember, is not even fresh; it was said far more funnily and + pleasantly by old Campanella in his ‘City of the Sun.’ And, mind you, + this isn’t a side issue Schopenhauer is upon; it isn’t a moment of + relaxation; this argument is <a class="pagenum" id="page203" title="203"> </a>essential to the whole argument of his + philosophy….”</p> + + <p>“But after all,” said Boon, “Schopenhauer is hardly to be considered a + modern. He was pre-Darwinian.”</p> + + <p>“Exactly why I begin with him,” said Wilkins. “He was a contemporary + of Darwin, and it was while Darwin was patiently and industriously + building up evidence, that this nonsense, a whole torrent of it, a + complete doctrine about the Will to Live, was being poured out. But + what I want you to notice is that while the sort of cautious massing + of evidence, the close reasoning, the honesty and veracity, that + distinguished the method of Darwin and Huxley, are scarcely to be met + with anywhere to-day, this spouting style of doing things is + everywhere. Take any of the stuff of that intellectual jackdaw, + Bernard Shaw, and you will find the Schopenhauer method in full + development; caught-up ideas, glib, irrational transitions, wild + assertions about the Life Force, about the effects of alcohol, about + ‘fear-poisoned’ meat, about medical science, <a class="pagenum" id="page204" title="204"> </a>about economic processes, + about Russia, about the Irish temperament and the English + intelligence, about the thoughts and mental processes of everybody and + every sort of mind, stuff too incoherent and recklessly positive ever + to be systematically answered. And yet half at least of the + English-speaking intelligenzia regards Shaw as a part of the thought + process of the world. Schopenhauer was a pioneer in the game of + impudent assertion, very properly disregarded by his own generation; + Shaw’s dementia samples this age. You see my case? In any rationally + trained, clear-headed period Shaw would have been looked into, + dissected, and disposed of long ago…. And here I have two other of + the voices that this time respects. It is all my argument that they + are respected now enormously, Boon; not merely that they exist. Men to + talk and write foolishly, to make groundless positive statements and + to misapprehend an opponent there have always been, but this age now + tolerates and accepts them. Here is that invalid Englishman, Houston + Stewart Chamberlain, <a class="pagenum" id="page205" title="205"> </a>who found a more congenial, intellectual + atmosphere in Germany, and this is his great book, ‘The Foundations of + the Nineteenth Century.’ This book has been received with the utmost + solemnity in the highest quarters; nowhere has it been handed over to + the derision which is its only proper treatment. You remember a rather + readable and rather pretentious history we had in our schooldays, full + of bad ethnology about Kelts and Anglo-Saxons, called J. R. Green’s + ‘History of the English People’; it was part of that movement of + professorial barbarity, of braggart race-Imperialism and + anti-Irishism, of which Froude and Freeman were leaders; it smelt of + Carlyle and Germany, it helped provoke the Keltic Renascence. Well, + that was evidently, the germ of Herr Chamberlain. Here——”</p> + + <p>Wilkins turned over the pages.</p> + + <p>“Here he is, in fairly good form. It is a section called ‘The Turning + Point,’ and it’s quite on all fours with Schopenhauer’s ‘our ancestors + the Hindus.’ It is part of a sketch in outline of the history of the + past. <a class="pagenum" id="page206" title="206"> </a>‘The important thing,’ he says, is to ‘fix the turning-point of + the history of Europe.’ While he was at it he might just as well have + <em>fixed</em> the equator of the history of Europe and its sparking-plug and + the position of its liver. Now, listen—</p> + + <blockquote> + <p>“‘The awakening of the Teutonic peoples to the consciousness + of their all-important vocation as the founders of a + completely new civilization and culture marks the + turning-point; the year 1200 can be designated the central + moment of this awakening.’</p> + </blockquote> + + + <p>“Just consider that. He does not even trouble to remind us of the very + considerable literature that must exist, of course, as evidence of + that awakening. He just flings the statement out, knowing that his + sort of follower swallows all such statements blind, and then, + possibly with some qualms of doubt about what may have been happening + in Spain and Italy and India and China and Japan, he goes on—</p> + + <blockquote> + <p>“‘Scarcely any one will have the hardihood to deny that the + inhabitants of Northern Europe have become <a class="pagenum" id="page207" title="207"> </a>the makers of the + world’s history. At no time have they stood alone … others, + too, have exercised influence—indeed great influence—upon + the destinies of mankind, but then <em>always merely as opponents + of the men from the north</em>….’</p> + </blockquote> + + <p>“Poor Jenghiz Khan, who had founded the Mogul Empire in India just + about that time, and was to lay the foundations of the Yuen dynasty, + and prepare the way for the great days of the Mings, never knew how + <em>mere</em> his relations were with these marvellous ‘men from the north.’ + The Tartars, it is true, were sacking Moscow somewhere about twelve + hundred…. But let us get on to more of the recital of Teutonic + glories.</p> + + <blockquote> + <p>“‘If, however, the Teutons were not the only people who + moulded the world’s history’ (generous admission) ‘they + unquestionably’ (that <em>unquestionably</em>!) ‘deserve the first + place; all those who appear as genuine shapers of the + destinies of mankind, whether as builders of States or as + discoverers of new thoughts and of original art’ (oh Japan! oh + Ming dynasty! oh art and life of India!) ‘belong to the + Teutonic race. The impulse given by the Arabs is short lived’ + (astronomy, chemistry, mathematics, modern science + generally!); ‘the Mongolians destroy but do not <a class="pagenum" id="page208" title="208"> </a>create + anything’ (Samarkand, Delhi, Pekin); ‘the great Italians of + the <em lang="it" xml:lang="it">rinascimento</em> were <em>all</em> born either in the north, + saturated with Lombardic, Gothic, and Frankish blood, or in + the extreme Germano-Hellenic south; in Spain it was the + Western Goths who formed the element of life; the Jews are + working out their “Renaissance” of to-day by following in + every sphere as closely as possible the example of the + Teutonic peoples.’</p> + </blockquote> + + <p>“That dodge of claiming all the great figures of the non-Teutonic + nations as Teutons is carried out to magnificent extremes. Dante is a + Teuton on the strength of his profile and his surname, and there is + some fine play about the race of Christ. He came from Galilee, + notoriously non-Jewish, and so on; but Lord Redesdale, who writes a + sympathetic Introduction, sets the seal on the Teutonic nationality of + Christ by reminding us that Joseph was only the putative father….</p> + + <p>“It makes a born Teuton like myself feel his divinity,” said Wilkins, + and read, browsing: “‘From the moment the Teuton awakes a new world + begins to open out——’ Um! Um!… Oh, here we are again!—</p> + + <blockquote> + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page209" title="209"> </a>“‘It is equally untrue that our culture is a renaissance of + the Hellenic and the Roman; it was only after the birth of the + Teutonic peoples that the renaissance of past achievements was + possible and not <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">vice versâ</em>.’… I wonder what exactly + <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">vice versâ</em> means there!… ‘The mightiest creators of that + epoch—a Shakespeare, a Michael Angelo—<em>do not know a word of + Greek or Latin</em>.’</p> + </blockquote> + + <p>“The stalwart ignorance of it! Little Latin and less Greek even Ben + Jonson allowed our William, and manifestly he was fed on Tudor + translations. And the illiteracy of Michael Angelo is just an + inspiration of Chamberlain’s. He knows his readers. Now, in itself + there is no marvel in this assertive, prejudiced, garrulous ignorance; + it is semi-sober Bierhalle chatter, written down; and, God forgive us! + most of us have talked in this way at one time or another; the sign + and the wonder for you, Boon, is that this stuff has been taken quite + seriously by all Germany and England and America, that it is accepted + as first-rank stuff, that it has never been challenged, cut up, and + sent to the butterman. It is Modern Thought. It <a class="pagenum" id="page210" title="210"> </a>is my second sample of + the contemporary Mind of the Race. And now, gentlemen, we come to the + third great intellectual high-kicker, Nietzsche. Nietzsche, I admit, + had once a real and valid idea, and his work is built upon that real + and valid idea; it is an idea that comes into the head of every + intelligent person who grasps the idea of the secular change of + species, the idea of Darwinism, in the course of five or six minutes + after the effective grasping. This is the idea that <em>man is not + final</em>. But Nietzsche was so constituted that to get an idea was to + receive a revelation; this step, that every bright mind does under + certain circumstances take, seemed a gigantic stride to him, a stride + only possible to him, and for the rest of his lucid existence he + resounded variations, he wrote epigrammatic cracker-mottoes and sham + Indian apophthegms, round and about his amazing discovery. And the + whole thing is summed up in the title of Dr. Alexander Tille’s ‘Von + Darwin bis Nietzsche,’ in which this miracle of the obvious, this + necessary corollary, is <a class="pagenum" id="page211" title="211"> </a>treated as a huge advance of the mind of + mankind. No one slays this kind of thing nowadays. It goes on and goes + on, a perpetually reinforced torrent of unreason washing through the + brain of the race. There was a time when the general intelligence + would have resisted and rejected Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Chamberlain, + Shaw; now it resists such invasions less and less. That, Boon, is my + case.”</p> + + <p>Wilkins, with his little pile of books for reference, his sombre + manner, and his persistence, was indeed curiously suggestive of an + advocate opening a trial. The Mind of the Race was far less of a + continuity than it was when a generally recognized and understood + orthodox Christianity held it together, as a backbone holds together + the ribs and limbs and head of a body. That manifestly was what he was + driving at, as Dodd presently complained. In those stabler days every + one with ideas, willingly or unwillingly, had to refer to that + doctrinal core, had to link up to it even if the connection was used + only as a point of departure. <a class="pagenum" id="page212" title="212"> </a>Now more and more, as in these three + examples, people began irresponsibly in the air, with rash assertions + about life and race and the tendency of things. And the louder they + shouted, the more fantastic and remarkable they were, the more likely + they were to gather a following and establish a fresh vortex in the + deliquescent confusion.</p> + + <p>On the whole, Boon was disposed to tolerate these dispersed + beginnings. “We attack truth in open order,” he said, “instead of in + column.”</p> + + <p>“I don’t mind fresh beginnings,” said Wilkins; “I don’t mind open + order, but I do object to blank ignorance and sheer misconception. It + isn’t a new beginning for Schopenhauer to say we are descended from + Hindus; it is just stupidity and mental retrogression. We are no more + descended from Hindus than Hindus are descended from us; that we may + have a common ancestry is quite a different thing. One might as well + say that the chimpanzee is descended from a gorilla or <a class="pagenum" id="page213" title="213"> </a>a gorilla from + a chimpanzee. And it isn’t any sort of truth, it is just a loud lie, + that the ‘Germanic’ peoples realized anything whatever in the year + 1200. But all these—what shall I call them?—<em>moderns</em> are more and + more up to that kind of thing, stating plausible things that have + already been disproved, stating things erroneously, inventing + pseudo-facts, and so getting off with a flourish. In the fields of + ideas, and presently in the fields of action, these wildly kicking + personalities have swamped any orderly progress; they have arrested + and disowned all that clearing up of thought and all that patient, + triumphant arrangement of proven fact which characterized the late + eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century. During that + time the great analysis of biological science went on, which + culminated in an entire revision of our conceptions of species, which + opened a conceivable and hitherto undreamed-of past and future to the + human imagination, which seemed to have revised and relaid the very + foundations of philosophical discussion. And on that foundation, what + has been done?”</p> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page214" title="214"> </a>“Naturally,” cried Boon, “after a great achievement there must be a + pause. The Mind of the Race must have its digestive interludes.”</p> + + <p>“But this is indigestion! First comes Herbert Spencer, with his + misconception of the life process as a struggle of individuals to + survive. His word ‘Evolution’ is the quintessence of the + misunderstanding; his image of a steadfast, mechanical unfolding + through selfishness, masked plausibly and disastrously the intricate, + perplexing vision of the truth. From that sort of thing we go at a + stride to the inevitable Super Man, the megatherium individual of + futurity, the large egoist, and all that nonsense. Then comes a swarm + of shallow, incontinent thinkers, anxious to find a simple driving + force with a simple name for the whole process; the ‘Life Force’ and + ‘Will,’ and so on. These things, my dear Boon, are just the appalling + bubbles of gas that show how completely the Mind of the Race has + failed to assimilate….”</p> + + <p>“It is remarkable,” said Boon, “how a <a class="pagenum" id="page215" title="215"> </a>metaphor may run away with the + clearest of thinkers. The Mind of the Race is not so consistently + gastric as all that.”</p> + + <p>“You started the metaphor,” said Wilkins.</p> + + <p>“And you mounted it and it bolted with you. To these unpleasant + consequences…. Well, I hold, on the contrary, that after the + superficialities of the sixties and seventies and eighties people’s + minds have been getting a firmer and firmer grip upon the reality of + specific instability. The new body of intellectual experiment, which + isn’t indigestion at all but only a preliminary attack, is all that + mass of trial thinking that one lumps together in one’s mind when one + speaks of Pragmatism. With the breakdown of specific boundaries the + validity of the logical process beyond finite ends breaks down. We + make our truth for our visible purposes as we go along, and if it does + not work we make it afresh. We see life once more as gallant + experiment. The boundaries of our universe recede not only in time and + space but thought. The hard-and-fast line between the scientific and + the poetic method disappears….”</p> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page216" title="216"> </a>“And you get Bergson,” said Wilkins triumphantly.</p> + + <p>“Bergson is of that class and type that exploits the affairs of + thought. But I refuse to have Pragmatism judged by Bergson. He takes + hold of the unfinished inquiries that constitute the movement of + Pragmatism and he makes a soft scepticism for delicate minds with easy + ways back to any old-established orthodoxy they may regret.”</p> + + <p>“But here is my case again,” said Wilkins. “It is only through Bergson + that the Mind of the Race, the great operating mass mind out there, + can take hold of this new system of ideas….”</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s7-3"><a class="pagenum" id="page217" title="217"> </a> + <h3>§ 3</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">But</span> now Boon and Wilkins were fairly launched upon a vital and + entirely inconclusive controversy. Was the thought process of the + world growing, spreading, progressing, or was it going to pieces? The + one produced a hundred instances of the enlarging and quickening of + men’s minds, the other replied by instancing vulgarities, distortions, + wide acceptance of nonsense. Did public advertisements make a more + intelligent or less intelligent appeal now than they used to do? For + half an afternoon they fought over the alleged degeneration of the + <cite>Times</cite>, multiplying instances, comparing the “Parnellism and Crime” + pamphlet with Lord Northcliffe’s war indiscretions, and discussing the + comparative merits of Mr. Moberly Bell’s <a class="pagenum" id="page218" title="218"> </a>campaign to sell the + twenty-year-old “Encyclopædia Britannica” and found a “Book Club” that + should abolish booksellers, with the displayed and illustrated + advertisements of the new period.</p> + + <p>The talk, you see, went high and low and came to no conclusion; but I + think that on the whole Wilkins did succeed in shaking Boon’s + half-mystical confidence in the inevitableness of human wisdom. The + honours, I think, lay with Wilkins. Boon did seem to establish that in + physical science there had been, and was still, a great and growing + process; but he was not able to prove, he could only express his + faith, that the empire of sanity was spreading to greater and more + human issues. He had to fall back upon prophecy. Presently there would + be another big lunge forward, and so forth. But Wilkins, on his side, + was able to make a case for a steady rotting in political life, an + increase in loudness, emptiness, and violence in the last twenty + years: he instanced Carsonism, the methods of Tariff Reform, the + vehement <a class="pagenum" id="page219" title="219"> </a>Feminist movement, the malignant silliness of the “rebel” + Labour Press, the rankness of German “patriotism.”…</p> + + <p>“But there are young people thinking,” said Boon at last. “It isn’t + just these matured showings. Where one youth thought thirty years ago, + fifty are thinking now. These wild, loud things are just an irruption. + Just an irruption….”</p> + + <p>The mocker was distressed.</p> + + <p>The idea of active intellectual wrongness distressed him so much that + he cast aside all his detachment from Hallery, and showed plainly that + to this imaginary Hallery’s idea of a secular growth of wisdom in + mankind he himself was quite passionately clinging….</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s7-4"><a class="pagenum" id="page220" title="220"> </a> + <h3>§ 4</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">He</span> was so distressed that one day he talked about it to me alone for + some time.</p> + + <p>“Wilkins,” he said, “insists on Facts. It is difficult to argue with + him on that basis. You see, I don’t intend Hallery’s view to be an + induction from facts. It’s a conviction, an intuition. It is not the + sort of thing one perceives after reading the newspaper placards or + looking at the bookshelves in the British Museum. It’s something one + knows for certain in the middle of the night. There is the Mind of the + Race, I mean. It is something General; it is a refuge from the + Particular and it is in the nature of God. That’s plain, isn’t it? And + through it there is Communion. These phases, these irruptions are + incidents. If all the world went frantic; if presently some <a class="pagenum" id="page221" title="221"> </a>horrible + thing, some monstrous war smashed all books and thinking and + civilization, still the mind would be there. It would immediately go + on again and presently it would pick up all that had been done + before—just as a philosopher would presently go on reading again + after the servant-girl had fallen downstairs with the crockery…. It + keeps on anyhow….</p> + + <p>“Oh! I don’t know <em>how</em>, my dear fellow. I can’t explain. I’m not + telling you of something I’ve reasoned out and discovered; I’m telling + you of something I <em>know</em>. It’s faith if you like. It keeps on and I + know it keeps on—although I can’t for the life of me tell how….”</p> + + <p>He stopped. He flushed.</p> + + <p>“That, you see, is Hallery’s point of view,” he said awkwardly.</p> + + <p>“But Wilkins perhaps wouldn’t contradict that. His point is merely + that to be exact about words, that God-Mind, that General Mind of + yours, isn’t exactly to be called the Mind of the Race.”</p> + + <p>“But it is the Mind of the Race,” said <a class="pagenum" id="page222" title="222"> </a>Boon. “It is the Mind of the + Race. Most of the Race is out of touch with it, lost to it. Much of + the Race is talking and doing nonsense and cruelty; astray, absurd. + That does not matter to the Truth, Bliss. It matters to Literature. It + matters because Literature, the clearing of minds, the release of + minds, the food and guidance of minds, is the way, Literature is + illumination, the salvation of ourselves and of every one from + isolations….”</p> + + <p>“Might be,” I suggested.</p> + + <p>“Must be,” he said. “Oh! I know I’ve lived behind Miss Bathwick…. + But I’m breaking out…. One of these days I will begin to dictate to + her—and not mind what she does…. I’m a successful + nobody—superficially—and it’s only through my private thoughts and + private jeering that I’ve come to see these things….”</p> + </div> +</div> +<div class='chapter' id='eighth'><a class="pagenum" id="page223" title="223"> </a> + <h2>CHAPTER THE EIGHTH<br /> + <span class="chapter_title">The Beginning of "The Wild Asses of the Devil"</span></h2> + + <div class="section" id="s8-1"> + <h3>§ 1</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">One</span> day a little time after the argument with Wilkins, Boon told me he + would read me a story. He read it from a pencilled manuscript. After + some anxious seeking I have found most of it again and put it + together. Only a few pages are missing. Here is the story. I am sorry + to say it was never finished. But he gave me a very clear conception + of the contemplated end. That I will indicate in its place. And I + think you will see how its idea springs from the talk with Wilkins I + have had to render in the previous chapter.</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s8-2"><a class="pagenum" id="page224" title="224"> </a> + <h3>§ 2</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">There</span> was once an Author who pursued fame and prosperity in a + pleasant villa on the south coast of England. He wrote stories of an + acceptable nature and rejoiced in a growing public esteem, carefully + offending no one and seeking only to please. He had married under + circumstances of qualified and tolerable romance a lady who wrote + occasional but otherwise regular verse, he was the father of a little + daughter, whose reported sayings added much to his popularity, and + some of the very best people in the land asked him to dinner. He was a + deputy-lieutenant and a friend of the Prime Minister, a literary + knighthood was no remote possibility for him, and even the Nobel + prize, given a sufficient longevity, was not altogether beyond his + hopes. And this amount <a class="pagenum" id="page225" title="225"> </a>of prosperity had not betrayed him into any + un-English pride. He remembered that manliness and simplicity which + are expected from authors. He smoked pipes and not the excellent + cigars he could have afforded. He kept his hair cut and never posed. + He did not hold himself aloof from people of the inferior and less + successful classes. He habitually travelled third class in order to + study the characters he put into his delightful novels; he went for + long walks and sat in inns, accosting people; he drew out his + gardener. And though he worked steadily, he did not give up the care + of his body, which threatened a certain plumpness and what is more to + the point, a localized plumpness, not generally spread over the system + but exaggerating the anterior equator. This expansion was his only + care. He thought about fitness and played tennis, and every day, wet + or fine, he went for at least an hour’s walk….</p> + + <p>Yet this man, so representative of Edwardian literature—for it is in + the reign of good King Edward the story begins—in <a class="pagenum" id="page226" title="226"> </a>spite of his + enviable achievements and prospects, was doomed to the most exhausting + and dubious adventures before his life came to its unhonoured end….</p> + + <p>Because I have not told you everything about him. Sometimes—in the + morning sometimes—he would be irritable and have quarrels with his + shaving things, and there were extraordinary moods when it would seem + to him that living quite beautifully in a pleasant villa and being + well-off and famous, and writing books that were always good-humoured + and grammatical and a little distinguished in an inoffensive way, was + about as boring and intolerable a life as any creature with a soul to + be damned could possibly pursue. Which shows only that God in putting + him together had not forgotten that viscus the liver which is usual on + such occasions….</p> + + <div class="illo" id="illo18"><a class="pagenum" id="page227" title="227"> </a> + <img src="images/illo-18.png" width="210" height="206" alt="A plumpish, mustachioed man holding a tennis racket." /> + </div> + + <p>The winter at the seaside is less agreeable and more bracing than the + summer, and there were days when this Author had almost to force + himself through the wholesome, necessary routines of his life, when + the south-west wind savaged his villa and roared in the chimneys and + slapped its windows with gustsful of rain and promised to wet that + Author thoroughly and exasperatingly down his neck and round his + wrists and ankles directly he put his nose outside his door. And the + grey waves he saw from his window came rolling inshore under the + hurrying grey rain-bursts, line after line, to smash along the + undercliff into vast, feathering fountains of foam and sud and send a + salt-tasting <a class="pagenum" id="page228" title="228"> </a>spin-drift into his eyes. But manfully he would put on + his puttees and his water-proof cape and his biggest brierwood pipe, + and out he would go into the whurryballoo of it all, knowing that so + he would be all the brighter for his nice story-writing after tea.</p> + + <p>On such a day he went out. He went out very resolutely along the + seaside gardens of gravel and tamarisk and privet, resolved to oblige + himself to go right past the harbour and up to the top of the east + cliff before ever he turned his face back to the comforts of fire and + wife and tea and buttered toast….</p> + + <p>And somewhere, perhaps half a mile away from home, he became aware of + a queer character trying to keep abreast of him.</p> + + <p>His impression was of a very miserable black man in the greasy, + blue-black garments of a stoker, a lascar probably from a steamship in + the harbour, and going with a sort of lame hobble.</p> + + <p>As he passed this individual the Author <a class="pagenum" id="page229" title="229"> </a>had a transitory thought of + how much Authors don’t know in the world, how much, for instance, this + shivering, cringing body might be hiding within itself, of inestimable + value as “local colour” if only one could get hold of it for “putting + into” one’s large acceptable novels. Why doesn’t one sometimes tap + these sources? Kipling, for example, used to do so, with most + successful results…. And then the Author became aware that this + enigma was hurrying to overtake him. He slackened his pace….</p> + + <p>The creature wasn’t asking for a light; it was begging for a box of + matches. And, what was odd, in quite good English.</p> + + <p>The Author surveyed the beggar and slapped his pockets. Never had he + seen so miserable a face. It was by no means a prepossessing face, + with its aquiline nose, its sloping brows, its dark, deep, bloodshot + eyes much too close together, its V-shaped, dishonest mouth and + drenched chin-tuft. And yet it was attractively animal and pitiful. + The idea flashed suddenly into the <a class="pagenum" id="page230" title="230"> </a>Author’s head: “Why not, instead of + going on, thinking emptily, through this beastly weather—why not take + this man back home now, to the warm, dry study, and give him a hot + drink and something to smoke, and <em>draw him out</em>?”</p> + + <p>Get something technical and first-hand that would rather score off + Kipling.</p> + + <p>“Its damnably cold!” he shouted, in a sort of hearty, forecastle + voice.</p> + + <p>“It’s worse than that,” said the strange stoker.</p> + + <p>“It’s a hell of a day!” said the Author, more forcible than ever.</p> + + <p>“Don’t remind me of hell,” said the stoker, in a voice of inappeasable + regret.</p> + + <p>The Author slapped his pockets again. “You’ve got an infernal cold. + Look here, my man—confound it! would you like a hot grog?…”</p> + + <div class="illo" id="illo19"><a class="pagenum" id="page231" title="231"> </a> + <img src="images/illo-19.png" width="480" height="263" alt="The Author in a cape, being follwed by a dark character in the rain." /> + </div> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s8-3"><a class="pagenum" id="page232" title="232"> </a> + <h3>§ 3</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">The</span> scene shifts to the Author’s study—a blazing coal fire, the + stoker sitting dripping and steaming before it, with his feet inside + the fender, while the Author fusses about the room, directing the + preparation of hot drinks. The Author is acutely aware not only of the + stoker but of himself. The stoker has probably never been in the home + of an Author before; he is probably awe-stricken at the array of + books, at the comfort, convenience, and efficiency of the home, at the + pleasant personality entertaining him…. Meanwhile the Author does + not forget that the stoker is material, is “copy,” is being watched, + <em>observed</em>. So he poses and watches, until presently he forgets to + pose in his astonishment at the thing he is observing. <a class="pagenum" id="page233" title="233"> </a>Because this + stoker is rummier than a stoker ought to be——</p> + + <p>He does not simply accept a hot drink; he informs his host just how + hot the drink must be to satisfy him.</p> + + <p>“Isn’t there something you could put in it—something called red + pepper? I’ve tasted that once or twice. It’s good. If you could put in + a bit of red pepper.”</p> + + <p>“If you can stand that sort of thing?”</p> + + <p>“And if there isn’t much water, can’t you set light to the stuff? Or + let me drink it boiling, out of a pannikin or something? Pepper and + all.”</p> + + <p>Wonderful fellows, these stokers! The Author went to the bell and + asked for red pepper.</p> + + <p>And then as he came back to the fire he saw something that he + instantly dismissed as an optical illusion, as a mirage effect of the + clouds of steam his guest was disengaging. The stoker was sitting, all + crouched up, as close over the fire as he could contrive; and he was + holding his black hands, not to the fire but <em>in</em> the fire, holding + them <a class="pagenum" id="page234" title="234"> </a>pressed flat against two red, glowing masses of coal…. He + glanced over his shoulder at the Author with a guilty start, and then + instantly the Author perceived that the hands were five or six inches + away from the coal.</p> + + <p>Then came smoking. The Author produced one of his big cigars—for + although a conscientious pipe-smoker himself he gave people cigars; + and then, again struck by something odd, he went off into a corner of + the room where a little oval mirror gave him a means of watching the + stoker undetected. And this is what he saw.</p> + + <p>He saw the stoker, after a furtive glance at him, deliberately turn + the cigar round, place the lighted end in his mouth, inhale strongly, + and blow a torrent of sparks and smoke out of his nose. His firelit + face as he did this expressed a diabolical relief. Then very hastily + he reversed the cigar again, and turned round to look at the Author. + The Author turned slowly towards him.</p> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page235" title="235"> </a>“You like that cigar?” he asked, after one of those mutual pauses that + break down a pretence.</p> + + <p>“It’s admirable.”</p> + + <p>“Why do you smoke it the other way round?”</p> + + <p>The stoker perceived he was caught. “It’s a stokehole trick,” he said. + “Do you mind if I do it? I didn’t think you saw.”</p> + + <p>“Pray smoke just as you like,” said the Author, and advanced to watch + the operation.</p> + + <p>It was exactly like the fire-eater at a village fair. The man stuck + the burning cigar into his mouth and blew sparks out of his nostrils. + “Ah!” he said, with a note of genuine satisfaction. And then, with the + cigar still burning in the corner of his mouth, he turned to the fire + and <em>began to rearrange the burning coals with his hands</em> so as to + pile up a great glowing mass. He picked up flaming and white-hot lumps + as one might pick up lumps of sugar. The Author watched him, + dumbfounded.</p> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page236" title="236"> </a>“I say!” he cried. “You stokers get a bit tough.”</p> + + <p>The stoker dropped the glowing piece of coal in his hand. “I forgot,” + he said, and sat back a little.</p> + + <p>“Isn’t that a bit—<em>extra</em>?” asked the Author, regarding him. “Isn’t + that some sort of trick?”</p> + + <p>“We get so tough down there,” said the stoker, and paused discreetly + as the servant came in with the red pepper.</p> + + <p>“Now you can drink,” said the Author, and set himself to mix a drink + of a pungency that he would have considered murderous ten minutes + before. When he had done the stoker reached over and added more red + pepper.</p> + + <p>“I don’t quite see how it is your hand doesn’t burn,” said the Author + as the stoker drank. The stoker shook his head over the uptilted + glass.</p> + + <p>“Incombustible,” he said, putting it down. “Could I have just a tiny + drop more? Just brandy and pepper, if you <em>don’t</em> mind. Set alight. I + don’t care <a class="pagenum" id="page237" title="237"> </a>for water except when it’s super-heated steam.”</p> + + <p>And as the Author poured out another stiff glass of this incandescent + brew, the stoker put up his hand and scratched the matted black hair + over his temple. Then instantly he desisted and sat looking wickedly + at the Author, while the Author stared at him aghast. For at the + corner of his square, high, narrow forehead, revealed for an instant + by the thrusting back of the hair, a curious stumpy excrescence had + been visible; and the top of his ear—he had a pointed top to his ear!</p> + + <p>“A-a-a-a-h!” said the Author, with dilated eyes.</p> + + <p>“A-a-a-a-h!” said the stoker, in hopeless distress.</p> + + <p>“But you aren’t——!”</p> + + <p>“I know—I know I’m not. I know…. I’m a devil. A poor, lost, + homeless devil.”</p> + + <p>And suddenly, with a gesture of indescribable despair, the apparent + stoker <a class="pagenum" id="page238" title="238"> </a>buried his face in his hands and burst into tears.</p> + + <p>“Only man who’s ever been decently kind to me,” he sobbed. “And + now—you’ll chuck me out again into the beastly wet and cold…. + Beautiful fire…. Nice drink…. Almost homelike…. Just to torment + me…. Boo-ooh!”</p> + + <p>And let it be recorded to the credit of our little Author, that he did + overcome his momentary horror, that he did go quickly round the table, + and that he patted that dirty stoker’s shoulder.</p> + + <p>“There!” he said. “There! Don’t mind my rudeness. Have another nice + drink. Have a hell of a drink. I won’t turn you out if you’re + unhappy—on a day like this. Have just a mouthful of pepper, man, and + pull yourself together.”</p> + + <p>And suddenly the poor devil caught hold of his arm. “Nobody good to + me,” he sobbed. “Nobody good to me.” And his tears ran down over the + Author’s plump little hand—scalding tears.</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s8-4"><a class="pagenum" id="page239" title="239"> </a> + <h3>§ 4</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">All</span> really wonderful things happen rather suddenly and without any + great emphasis upon their wonderfulness, and this was no exception to + the general rule. This Author went on comforting his devil as though + this was nothing more than a chance encounter with an unhappy child, + and the devil let his grief and discomfort have vent in a manner that + seemed at the time as natural as anything could be. He was clearly a + devil of feeble character and uncertain purpose, much broken down by + harshness and cruelty, and it throws a curious light upon the general + state of misconception with regard to matters diabolical that it came + as a quite pitiful discovery to our Author that a devil could be + unhappy and heart-broken. For a long time his most earnest and + persistent questioning <a class="pagenum" id="page240" title="240"> </a>could gather nothing except that his guest was + an exile from a land of great warmth and considerable entertainment, + and it was only after considerable further applications of brandy and + pepper that the sobbing confidences of the poor creature grew into the + form of a coherent and understandable narrative.</p> + + <p>And then it became apparent that this person was one of the very + lowest types of infernal denizen, and that his role in the dark realms + of Dis had been that of watcher and minder of a herd of sinister + beings hitherto unknown to our Author, the Devil’s Wild Asses, which + pastured in a stretch of meadows near the Styx. They were, he + gathered, unruly, dangerous, and enterprising beasts, amenable only to + a certain formula of expletives, which instantly reduced them to + obedience. These expletives the stoker-devil would not repeat; to do + so except when actually addressing one of the Wild Asses would, he + explained, involve torments of the most terrible description. The bare + thought of them gave <a class="pagenum" id="page241" title="241"> </a>him a shivering fit. But he gave the Author to + understand that to crack these curses as one drove the Wild Asses to + and from their grazing on the Elysian fields was a by no means + disagreeable amusement. The ass-herds would try who could crack the + loudest until the welkin rang.</p> + + <p>And speaking of these things, the poor creature gave a picture of + diabolical life that impressed the Author as by no means unpleasant + for any one with a suitable constitution. It was like the Idylls of + Theocritus done in fire; the devils drove their charges along burning + lanes and sat gossiping in hedges of flames, rejoicing in the warm, + dry breezes (which it seems are rendered peculiarly bracing by the + faint flavour of brimstone in the air), and watching the harpies and + furies and witches circling in the perpetual afterglow of that + inferior sky. And ever and again there would be holidays, and one + would take one’s lunch and wander over the sulphur craters picking + <a class="pagenum" id="page242" title="242"> </a>flowers of sulphur or fishing for the souls of usurers and publishers + and house-agents and land-agents in the lakes of boiling pitch. It was + good sport, for the usurers and publishers and house-agents and + land-agents were always eager to be caught; they crowded round the + hooks and fought violently for the bait, and protested vehemently and + entertainingly against the Rules and Regulations that compelled their + instant return to the lake of fire.</p> + + <p>And sometimes when he was on holiday this particular devil would go + through the saltpetre dunes, where the witches-brooms grow and the + blasted heath is in flower, to the landing-place of the ferry whence + the Great Road runs through the shops and banks of the Via Dolorosa to + the New Judgement Hall, and watch the crowds of damned arriving by the + steam ferry-boats of the Consolidated Charon Company. This + steamboat-gazing seems about as popular down there as it is at + Folkestone. Almost every day notable <a class="pagenum" id="page243" title="243"> </a>people arrive, and, as the devils + are very well informed about terrestrial affairs—for of course all + the earthly newspapers go straight to hell—whatever else could one + expect?—they get ovations of an almost undergraduate intensity. At + times you can hear their cheering or booing, as the case may be, right + away on the pastures where the Wild Asses feed. And that had been this + particular devil’s undoing.</p> + + <p>He had always been interested in the career of the Rt. Hon. W. E. + Gladstone….</p> + + <p>He was minding the Wild Asses. He knew the risks. He knew the + penalties. But when he heard the vast uproar, when he heard the eager + voices in the lane of fire saying, “It’s Gladstone at last!” when he + saw how quietly and unsuspiciously the Wild Asses cropped their + pasture, the temptation was too much. He slipped away. He saw the + great Englishman landed after a slight struggle. He joined in the + outcry of “Speech! Speech!” He heard the first delicious promise of a + <a class="pagenum" id="page244" title="244"> </a>Home Rule movement which should break the last feeble links of + Celestial Control….</p> + + <p>And meanwhile the Wild Asses escaped—according to the rules and the + prophecies….</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s8-5"><a class="pagenum" id="page245" title="245"> </a> + <h3>§ 5</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">The</span> little Author sat and listened to this tale of a wonder that never + for a moment struck him as incredible. And outside his rain-lashed + window the strung-out fishing smacks pitched and rolled on their way + home to Folkestone harbour….</p> + + <p>The Wild Asses escaped.</p> + + <p>They got away to the world. And his superior officers took the poor + herdsman and tried him and bullied him and passed this judgement upon + him: that he must go to the earth and find the Wild Asses, and say to + them that certain string of oaths that otherwise must never be + repeated, and so control them and bring them back to hell. That—or + else one pinch of salt on their tails. It did not <a class="pagenum" id="page246" title="246"> </a>matter which. One by + one he must bring them back, driving them by spell and curse to the + cattle-boat of the ferry. And until he had caught and brought them all + back he might never return again to the warmth and comfort of his + accustomed life. That was his sentence and punishment. And they put + him into a shrapnel shell and fired him out among the stars, and when + he had a little recovered he pulled himself together and made his way + to the world.</p> + + <p>But he never found his Wild Asses and after a little time he gave up + trying.</p> + + <p>He gave up trying because the Wild Asses, once they had got out of + control, developed the most amazing gifts. They could, for instance, + disguise themselves with any sort of human shape, and the only way in + which they differed then from a normal human being was—according to + the printed paper of instructions that had been given to their + custodian when he was fired out—that “their general conduct remains + that of a Wild Ass of the Devil.”</p> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page247" title="247"> </a>“And what interpretation can we put upon <em>that</em>?” he asked the + listening Author.</p> + + <p>And there was one night in the year—Walpurgis Night, when the Wild + Asses became visibly great black wild asses and kicked up their hind + legs and brayed. They had to. “But then, of course,” said the devil, + “they would take care to shut themselves up somewhere when they felt + that coming on.”</p> + + <p>Like most weak characters, the stoker devil was intensely egotistical. + He was anxious to dwell upon his own miseries and discomforts and + difficulties and the general injustice of his treatment, and he was + careless and casually indicative about the peculiarities of the Wild + Asses, the matter which most excited and interested the Author. He + bored on with his doleful story, and the Author had to interrupt with + questions again and again in order to get any clear idea of the + situation.</p> + + <p>The devil’s main excuse for his nervelessness was his profound + ignorance of human nature. “So far as I can see,” <a class="pagenum" id="page248" title="248"> </a>he said, “they might + all be Wild Asses. I tried it once——”</p> + + <p>“Tried what?”</p> + + <p>“The formula. You know.”</p> + + <p>“Yes?”</p> + + <p>“On a man named Sir Edward Carson.”</p> + + <p>“Well?”</p> + + <p>“<em>Ugh!</em>” said the devil.</p> + + <p>“Punishment?”</p> + + <p>“Don’t speak of it. He was just a professional lawyer-politician who + had lost his sense of values…. How was <em>I</em> to know?… But our + people certainly know how to hurt….”</p> + + <p>After that it would seem this poor devil desisted absolutely from any + attempt to recover his lost charges. He just tried to live for the + moment and make his earthly existence as tolerable as possible. It was + clear he hated the world. He found it cold, wet, draughty…. “I can’t + understand why everybody insists upon living outside of it,” he said. + “If you went inside——”</p> + + <p>He sought warmth and dryness. For <a class="pagenum" id="page249" title="249"> </a>a time he found a kind of + contentment in charge of the upcast furnace of a mine, and then he was + superseded by an electric-fan. While in this position he read a vivid + account of the intense heat in the Red Sea, and he was struck by the + idea that if he could get a job as stoker upon an Indian liner he + might snatch some days of real happiness during that portion of the + voyage. For some time his natural ineptitude prevented his realizing + this project, but at last, after some bitter experiences of + homelessness during a London December, he had been able to ship on an + Indiaward boat—only to get stranded in Folkestone in consequence of a + propeller breakdown. And so here he was!</p> + + <p>He paused.</p> + + <p>“But about these Wild Asses?” said the Author.</p> + + <p>The mournful, dark eyes looked at him hopelessly.</p> + + <p>“Mightn’t they do a lot of mischief?” asked the Author.</p> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page250" title="250"> </a>“They’ll do no end of mischief,” said the despondent devil.</p> + + <p>“Ultimately you’ll catch it for that?”</p> + + <p>“Ugh!” said the stoker, trying not to think of it.</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s8-6"><a class="pagenum" id="page251" title="251"> </a> + <h3>§ 6</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">Now</span> the spirit of romantic adventure slumbers in the most unexpected + places, and I have already told you of our plump Author’s discontents. + He had been like a smouldering bomb for some years. Now, he burst out. + He suddenly became excited, energetic, stimulating, uplifting.</p> + + <div class="illo" id="illo20"> + <img src="images/illo-20.png" width="460" height="215" alt="The Author gesticulates widely while the devil sits dejectedly." /> + <p class="caption">The Author uplifts the devil.</p> + </div> + + <p>He stood over the drooping devil.</p> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page252" title="252"> </a>“But my dear chap!” he said. “You must pull yourself together. You + must do better than this. These confounded brutes may be doing all + sorts of mischief. While you—shirk….”</p> + + <p>And so on. Real ginger.</p> + + <p>“If I had some one to go with me. Some one who knew his way about.”</p> + + <p>The Author took whisky in the excitement of the moment. He began to + move very rapidly about his room and make short, sharp gestures. You + know how this sort of emotion wells up at times. “We must work from + some central place,” said the Author. “To begin with, London perhaps.”</p> + + <p>It was not two hours later that they started, this Author and this + devil he had taken to himself, upon a mission. They went out in + overcoats and warm underclothing—the Author gave the devil a thorough + outfit, a double lot of Jaeger’s extra thick—and they were resolved + to find the Wild Asses of the Devil and send them back to hell, or at + least the Author was, in the shortest possible time. In the picture + <a class="pagenum" id="page253" title="253"> </a>you will see him with a field-glass slung under his arm, the better to + watch suspected cases; in his pocket, wrapped in oiled paper, is a lot + of salt to use if by chance he finds a Wild Ass when the devil and his + string of oaths is not at hand. So he started. And when he had caught + and done for the Wild Asses, then the Author supposed that he would + come back to his nice little villa and his nice little wife, and to + his little daughter who said the amusing things, and to his + popularity, his large gilt-edged popularity, and—except for an added + prestige—be just exactly the man he had always been. Little knowing + that whosoever takes unto himself a devil and goes out upon a quest, + goes out upon a quest from which there is no returning——</p> + + <p>Nevermore.</p> + + <div class="illo" id="illo21"><a class="pagenum" id="page254" title="254"> </a> + <img src="images/illo-21.png" width="435" height="287" alt="The Author and the devil in matching coats stride out in the rain." /> + <p class="caption">Precipitate start of the Wild Ass hunters.</p> + </div> + </div> +</div> +<div class='chapter' id='ninth'><a class="pagenum" id="page255" title="255"> </a> + <h2>CHAPTER THE NINTH<br /> + <span class="chapter_title">The Hunting of the Wild Asses of the Devil</span></h2> + + <div class="section" id="s9-1"> + <h3>§ 1</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">At</span> this point the surviving manuscript comes to an abrupt end.</p> + + <p>But Boon read or extemporized far beyond this point.</p> + + <p>He made a figure that was at once absurd and pitiful of his little + Author making this raid upon the world, resolved to detect and + exorcise these suspected Wild Asses, and he told us at great length of + how steadily and inevitably the poor enthusiast entangled himself in + feuds and false accusations, libels and denunciations, free fights, + burglaries, and so to universal execration in a perpetually <a class="pagenum" id="page256" title="256"> </a>tightening + coil. “I’ll stick to it,” he squeaks, with every fresh blow of Fate. + Behind him, with a developing incurable bronchitis that could never be + fatal, toiled the devil, more and more despondent, more and more + draggle-tailed, voiceless and unhelpful.</p> + + <p>After a time he was perpetually trying to give his Author the slip.</p> + + <p>But continually it is clearer that there <em>were</em> diabolical Wild Asses + loose and active in the affairs of the world….</p> + + <p>One day the Author had an inspiration. “Was your lot the only lot that + ever escaped?”</p> + + <p>“Oh no!” said the devil. “Ages before—there were some. It led to an + awful row. Just before the Flood. They had to be drowned out. That’s + why they’ve been so stiff with me…. I’m not quite sure whether they + didn’t interbreed. They say in hell that the world has never been + quite the same place since.”…</p> + + <p>You see the scope this story gave Boon’s disposition to derision. + There were endless <a class="pagenum" id="page257" title="257"> </a>things that Boon hated, movements that seemed to + him wanton and mischievous, outbreaks of disastrous violence, evil + ideas. I should get myself into as much hot water as his Author did if + I were to tell all this poor man’s adventures. He went to Ulster, he + pursued prominent Tariff Reformers, he started off to Mexico and came + back to investigate Pan-Germanism. I seem to remember his hanging for + days about the entrance to Printing House Square…. And there was a + scene in the House of Commons. The Author and the devil had been + tracking a prominent politician—never mind whom—with the growing + belief that here at last they had one of them. And Walpurgis Night + grew near. Walpurgis Night came.</p> + + <p>“We must not lose sight of him,” said the Author, very alert and + ruthless. “If necessary we must smash the windows, blow open doors.”</p> + + <p>But the great man went down to the House as though nothing could + possibly happen. They followed him.</p> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page258" title="258"> </a>“He will certainly rush home,” said the Author, as the clock crept + round to half-past eleven. “But anyhow let us get into the Strangers’ + Gallery and keep our eyes on him to the last.”</p> + + <p>They managed it with difficulty.</p> + + <p>I remember how vividly Boon drew the picture for us: the rather bored + House, a coming and going of a few inattentive Members, the nodding + Speaker and the clerks, the silent watchers in the gallery, a little + flicker of white behind the grille. And then at five minutes to twelve + the honourable Member arose….</p> + + <p>“We were wrong,” said the Author.</p> + + <p>“The draught here is fearful,” said the devil. “Hadn’t we better go?”</p> + + <p>The honourable Member went on speaking showy, memorable, mischievous + things. The seconds ticked away. And then—then it happened.</p> + + <p>The Author made a faint rattling sound in his throat and clung to the + rail before him. The devil broke into a cold sweat. There, visible to + all men, was a large <a class="pagenum" id="page259" title="259"> </a>black Wild Ass, kicking up its heels upon the + floor of the House. And braying.</p> + + <p>And nobody was minding!</p> + + <p>The Speaker listened patiently, one long finger against his cheek. The + clerks bowed over the papers. The honourable Member’s two colleagues + listened like men under an anæsthetic, each sideways, each with his + arm over the back of the seat. Across the House one Member was + furtively writing a letter and three others were whispering together.</p> + + <p>The Author felt for the salt, then he gripped the devil’s wrist.</p> + + <p>“Say those words!” he shouted quite loudly—“say those words! Say them + now. Then—we shall have him.”</p> + + <p>But you know those House of Commons ushers. And at that time their + usual alertness had been much quickened by several Suffragette + outrages. Before the devil had got through his second sentence or the + Author could get his salt out of his pocket both devil and Author were + travelling violently, scruff and pant-seat irresistibly gripped, down + Saint Stephen’s Hall….</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s9-2"><a class="pagenum" id="page260" title="260"> </a> + <h3>§ 2</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph">“<span class="first_word">And</span> you really begin to think,” said Wilkins, “that there has been an + increase in violence and unreasonableness in the world?”</p> + + <p>“My case is that it is an irruption,” said Boon. “But I do begin to + see a sort of violence of mind and act growing in the world.”</p> + + <p>“There has always been something convulsive and extravagant in human + affairs,” said Wilkins. “No public thing, no collective thing, has + ever had the sanity of men thinking quietly in a study.”</p> + + <p>And so we fell to discussing the Mind of the Race again, and whether + there was indeed any sanity growing systematically out of human + affairs, or whether this Mind of the Race was just a poor tormented + <a class="pagenum" id="page261" title="261"> </a>rag of partial understanding that would never control the blind forces + that had made and would destroy it. And it was inevitable that such a + talk should presently drift to the crowning human folly, to that + crowned Wild Ass of the Devil, aggressive militarism. That talk was + going on, I remember, one very bright, warm, sunny day in May, or it + may be in June, of 1914. And we talked of militarism as a flourish, as + a kicking up of the national heels, as extravagance and waste; but, + what seems to me so singular now, we none of us spoke of it or thought + of it as a thing that could lead to the full horror of a universal + war. Human memory is so strange and treacherous a thing that I doubt + now if many English people will recall our habitual disregard in those + days of war as a probability. We thought of it as a costly, foolish + threatening, but that it could actually happen——!</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s9-3"><a class="pagenum" id="page262" title="262"> </a> + <h3>§ 3</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">Some</span> things are so shocking that they seem to have given no shock at + all, just as there are noises that are silences because they burst the + ears. And for some days after the declaration of war against Germany + the whole business seemed a vast burlesque. It was incredible that + this great people, for whom all Western Europe has mingled, and will + to the end of time mingle, admiration with a certain humorous + contempt, was really advancing upon civilization, enormously armed, + scrupulously prepared, bellowing, “Deutschland, Deutschland ueber + Alles!” smashing, destroying, killing. We felt for a time, in spite of + reason, that it was a joke, that presently Michael would laugh….</p> + + <p>But by Jove! the idiot wasn’t laughing….</p> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page263" title="263"> </a>For some weeks nobody in the circle about Boon talked of anything but + the war. The Wild Asses of the Devil became an allusion, to indicate + all this that was kicking Europe to splinters. We got maps, and still + more maps; we sent into the town for newspapers and got special + intelligence by telephone; we repeated and discussed rumours. The + Belgians were showing pluck and resource, but the French were + obviously shockingly unprepared. There were weeks—one may confess it + now that they have so abundantly proved the contrary—when the French + seemed crumpling up like pasteboard. They were failing to save the + line of the Meuse, Maubeuge, Lille, Laon; there were surrenders, there + was talk of treachery, and General French, left with his flank + exposed, made a costly retreat. It was one Sunday in early September + that Wilkins came to us with a <cite>Sunday Observer</cite>. “Look,” he said, + “they are down on the Seine! They are sweeping right round behind the + Eastern line. They <a class="pagenum" id="page264" title="264"> </a>have broken the French in two. Here at Senlis they + are almost within sight of Paris….”</p> + + <p>Then some London eavesdropper talked of the British retreat. + “Kitchener says our Army has lost half its fighting value. Our base is + to be moved again from Havre to La Rochelle….”</p> + + <p>Boon sat on the edge of his hammock.</p> + + <p>“The Germans must be beaten,” he said. “The new world is killed; we go + back ten thousand years; there is no light, no hope, no thought nor + freedom any more unless the Germans are beaten…. Until the Germans + are beaten there is nothing more to be done in art, in literature, in + life. They are a dull, envious, greedy, cunning, vulgar, interfering, + and intolerably conceited people. A world under their dominance will + be intolerable. I will not live in it….”</p> + + <p>“I had never believed they would do it,” said Wilkins….</p> + + <p>“Both my boys,” said Dodd, “have gone into the Officers’ Training + Corps. <a class="pagenum" id="page265" title="265"> </a>They were in their cadet corps at school.”</p> + + <p>“Wasn’t one an engineer?” asked Boon.</p> + + <p>“The other was beginning to paint rather well,” said Dodd. “But it all + has to stop.”</p> + + <p>“I suppose I shall have to do something,” said the London + eavesdropper. “I’m thirty-eight…. I can ride and I’m pretty fit…. + It’s a nuisance.”</p> + + <p>“What is a man of my kind to do?” asked Wilkins. “I’m forty-eight.”</p> + + <p>“I can’t believe the French are as bad as they seem,” said Boon. “But, + anyhow, we’ve no business to lean on the French…. But I wonder + now—— Pass me that map.”</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s9-4"><a class="pagenum" id="page266" title="266"> </a> + <h3>§ 4</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">Next</span> week things had mended, and the French and British were pushing + the Germans back from the Marne to the Aisne. Whatever doubts we had + felt about the French were dispelled in that swift week of recovery. + They were all right. It was a stupendous relief, for if France had + gone down, if her spirit had failed us, then we felt all liberalism, + all republicanism, all freedom and light would have gone out in this + world for centuries.</p> + + <p>But then again at the Aisne the Germans stood, and our brisk rush of + hope sobered down towards anxiety as the long flanking movement + stretched towards the sea and the Antwerp situation developed….</p> + + <p>By imperceptible degrees our minds began to free themselves from the + immediate <a class="pagenum" id="page267" title="267"> </a>struggle of the war, from strategy and movements, from the + daily attempt to unriddle from reluctant and ambiguous dispatches, + Dutch rumours, censored gaps, and uninforming maps what was happening. + It became clear to us that there were to be no particular dramatic + strokes, no sudden, decisive battles, no swift and clear conclusions. + The struggle began to assume in our minds its true proportions, its + true extent, in time, in space, in historical consequence. We had + thought of a dramatic three months’ conflict and a redrawn map of + Europe; we perceived we were in the beginnings of a far vaster + conflict; the end of an age; the slow, murderous testing and + condemnation of whole systems of ideas that had bound men uneasily in + communities for all our lives. We discussed—as all the world was + discussing—the huge organization of sentiment and teaching that had + produced this aggressive German patriotism, this tremendous national + unanimity. Ford Madox Hueffer came in to tell us stories of a + <a class="pagenum" id="page268" title="268"> </a>disciplined professoriate, of all education turned into a war + propaganda, of the deliberate official mental moulding of a whole + people that was at once fascinating and incredible. We went over + Bernhardi and Treitschke; we weighed Nietzsche’s share in that mental + growth. Our talk drifted with the changing season and Boon’s sudden + illness after his chill, from his garden to his sitting-room, where he + lay wrapped up upon a sofa, irritable and impatient with this + unaccustomed experience of ill-health.</p> + + <p>“You see how much easier it is to grow an evil weed than a wholesome + plant,” he said. “While this great strong wickedness has developed in + Germany, what thought have we had in our English-speaking community? + What does our world of letters amount to? Clowns and dons and prigs, + cults of the precious and cults of style, a few squeaking + author-journalists and such time-serving scoundrels as I, with my + patent Bathwick filter, my twenty editions, and my thousands a year. + None of us <a class="pagenum" id="page269" title="269"> </a>with any sense of a whole community or a common purpose! + Where is our strength to go against that strength of the heavy German + mind? Where is the Mind of our Race?”</p> + + <p>He looked at me with tired eyes.</p> + + <p>“It has been a joke with us,” he said.</p> + + <p>“Is there no power of thought among free men strong enough to swing + them into armies that can take this monster by the neck? Must men be + bullied for ever? Are there no men to think at least as earnestly as + one climbs a mountain, and to write with their uttermost pride? Are + there no men to face truth as those boys at Mons faced shrapnel, and + to stick for the honour of the mind and for truth and beauty as those + lads stuck to their trenches? Bliss and I have tried to write of all + the world of letters, and we have found nothing to write about but + posturing and competition and sham reputations, and of dullness and + impudence hiding and sheltering in the very sheath of the sword of + thought…. For a little <a class="pagenum" id="page270" title="270"> </a>while after the war began our people seemed + noble and dignified; but see now how all Britain breaks after its + first quiet into chatter about spies, sentimentality about the + architecture of Louvain, invasion scares, the bitter persecution of + stray Germans, and petty disputes and recriminations like a pool under + a breeze. And below that nothing. While still the big thing goes on, + ungrasped, day after day, a monstrous struggle of our world against + the thing it will not have…. No one is clear about what sort of + thing we will have. It is a nightmare in which we try continually to + escape and have no-whither to escape…. What is to come out of this + struggle? Just anything that may come out of it, or something we mean + <em>shall</em> come out of it?”</p> + + <p>He sat up in his bed; his eyes were bright and he had little red spots + in his cheeks.</p> + + <p>“At least the Germans stand for something. It may be brutal, stupid, + intolerable, but there it is—a definite intention, <a class="pagenum" id="page271" title="271"> </a>a scheme of + living, an order, Germanic Kultur. But what the devil do <em>we</em> stand + for? Was there anything that amounted to an intellectual life at all + in all our beastly welter of writing, of nice-young-man poetry, of + stylish fiction and fiction without style, of lazy history, popular + philosophy, slobbering criticism, Academic civilities? Is there + anything here to hold a people together? Is there anything to make a + new world? A literature ought to dominate the mind of its people. Yet + here comes the gale, and all we have to show for our racial thought, + all the fastness we have made for our souls, is a flying scud of paper + scraps, poems, such poems! casual articles, whirling headlong in the + air, a few novels drowning in the floods….”</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s9-5"><a class="pagenum" id="page272" title="272"> </a> + <h3>§ 5</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">There</span> were times during his illness and depression when we sat about + Boon very much after the fashion of Job’s Comforters. And I remember + an occasion when Wilkins took upon himself the responsibility for a + hopeful view. There was about Wilkins’s realistic sentimentality + something at once akin and repugnant to Boon’s intellectual mysticism, + so that for a time Boon listened resentfully, and then was moved to + spirited contradiction. Wilkins declared that the war was like one of + those great illnesses that purge the system of a multitude of minor + ills. It was changing the spirit of life about us; it would end a vast + amount of mere pleasure-seeking and aimless extravagance; it was + giving people a sterner sense of duty and a more vivid apprehension of + <a class="pagenum" id="page273" title="273"> </a>human brotherhood. This ineffective triviality in so much of our + literary life of which Boon complained would give place to a sense of + urgent purpose….</p> + + <p>“War,” said Boon, turning his face towards Wilkins, “does nothing but + destroy.”</p> + + <p>“All making is destructive,” said Wilkins, while Boon moved + impatiently; “the sculptor destroys a block of marble, the painter + scatters a tube of paint….”</p> + + <p>Boon’s eye had something of the expression of a man who watches + another ride his favourite horse.</p> + + <p>“See already the new gravity in people’s faces, the generosities, the + pacification of a thousand stupid squabbles——”</p> + + <p>“If you mean Carsonism,” said Boon, “it’s only sulking until it can + cut in again.”</p> + + <p>“I deny it,” said Wilkins, warming to his faith. “This is the firing + of the clay of Western European life. It stops our little arts + perhaps—but see the new beauty that comes…. We can well spare our + professional books and professional writing for a time to get such + humour <a class="pagenum" id="page274" title="274"> </a>and wonder as one can find in the soldiers’ letters from the + front. Think of all the people whose lives would have been slack and + ignoble from the cradle to the grave, who are being twisted up now to + the stern question of enlistment; think of the tragedies of separation + and danger and suffering that are throwing a stern bright light upon + ten thousand obscure existences….”</p> + + <p>“And the noble procession of poor devils tramping through the slush + from their burning homes, God knows whither! And the light of fire + appearing through the cracks of falling walls, and charred bits of old + people in the slush of the roadside, and the screams of men + disembowelled, and the crying of a dying baby, in a wet shed full of + starving refugees who do not know whither to go. Go on, Wilkins.”</p> + + <p>“Oh, if you choose to dwell on the horrors——!”</p> + + <p>“The one decent thing that we men who sit at home in the warm can do + is to dwell on the horrors and do our <a class="pagenum" id="page275" title="275"> </a>little best to make sure that + never, never shall this thing happen again. And that won’t be done, + Wilkins, by leaving War alone. War, war with modern machines, is a + damned great horrible trampling monster, a filthy thing, an indecency; + we aren’t doing anything heroic, we are trying to lift a foul + stupidity off the earth, we are engaged in a colossal sanitary job. + These men who go for us into the trenches, they come back with no + illusions. They know how dirty and monstrous it is. They are like men + who have gone down for the sake of the people they love to clear out a + choked drain. They have no illusions about being glorified. They only + hope they aren’t blood-poisoned and their bodies altogether ruined. + And as for the bracing stir of it, they tell me, Wilkins, that their + favourite song now in the trenches is—</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <p>“‘Nobody knows how bored we are,</p> + <p class="i4">Bored we are,</p> + <p class="i4">Bored we are,</p> + <p>Nobody knows how bored we are,</p> + <p class="i4">And nobody seems to care.’</p> + </div> + + <p class="continued_paragraph"><a class="pagenum" id="page276" title="276"> </a>Meanwhile you sit at home and feel vicariously ennobled.”</p> + + + <p>He laid his hand on a daily newspaper beside him.</p> + + <p>“Oh, you’re not the only one. I will make you ashamed of yourself, + Wilkins. Here’s the superlative to your positive. Here’s the sort of + man I should like to hold for five minutes head downwards in the bilge + of a trench, writing on the Heroic Spirit in the <cite>Morning Post</cite>. He’s + one of your gentlemen who sit in a room full of books and promise + themselves much moral benefit from the bloodshed in France. Coleridge, + he says, Coleridge—the heroic, self-controlled Spartan Coleridge was + of his opinion and very hard on Pacificism—Coleridge complained of + peace-time in such words as these: ‘All individual dignity and power, + engulfed in courts, committees, institutions…. One benefit-club for + mutual flattery.’… And then, I suppose, the old loafer went off to + sponge on somebody…. And here’s the stuff the heroic, spirited + Osborn, the <cite>Morning Post</cite> gentleman—unhappily <a class="pagenum" id="page277" title="277"> </a>not a German, and + unhappily too old for trench work—quotes with delight + now—<em>now!</em>—after Belgium!—</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>“‘My spear, my sword, my shaggy shield!</p> + <p>With these I till, with these I sow,</p> + <p>With these I reap my harvest field—</p> + <p>No other wealth the gods bestow:</p> + <p>With these I plant the fertile vine,</p> + <p>With these I press the luscious wine.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>My spear, my sword, my shaggy shield!</p> + <p>They make me lord of all below—</p> + <p>For those who dread my spear to wield,</p> + <p>Before my shaggy shield must bow.</p> + <p>Their fields, their vineyards, they resign,</p> + <p>And all that cowards have is mine.’</p> + </div> + </div> + + <p>“He goes on to this—</p> + + <blockquote> + <p>“‘It is in vain that the Pacificist rages at such staunch + braggadocio. It blares out a political truth of timeless + validity in words that are by no means politic. Sparta was the + working model in ancient times of the State that lives by and + for warfare, though never despising the rewards of an astute + diplomacy; she was the Prussia of antiquity….</p> + + <p>“‘Spartan ideal of duty and discipline.’…</p> + </blockquote> + + + <p>“You see the spirit of him! You see what has got loose! It is a real + and potent <a class="pagenum" id="page278" title="278"> </a>spirit; you have to reckon with it through all this + business. To this sort of mind the ‘Pacificist’ is a hateful fool. The + Pacificist prefers making vineyards, painting pictures, building + Gothic cathedrals, thinking clear thoughts to bawling “Bruteland, + Bruteland, over all!” and killing people and smashing things up. He is + a maker. That is what is intended here by a ‘coward.’ All real + creative activity is hateful to a certain ugly, influential, + aggressive type of mind, to this type of mind that expresses itself + here in England through the <cite>Morning Post</cite> and <cite>Spectator</cite>. Both these + papers are soaked through and through with a genuine detestation of + all fine creation, all beauty, all novelty, all frank, generous, and + pleasant things. In peace-time they maintain an attitude of dyspeptic + hostility to free art, to free literature, to fresh thought. They + stand uncompromisingly for ugliness, dullness, and restriction—as + ends in themselves. When you talk, Wilkins, of the intellectual good + of the war, I ask you to note the new exultation that has come into + these evil papers. When <a class="pagenum" id="page279" title="279"> </a>they speak of the ‘moral benefits’ of war they + mean the smashing up of everything that they hate and we care for. + They mean reaction. This good man Osborn, whom I have never seen or + heard of before, seems to be quintessential of all that side. I can + imagine him. I believe I could reconstruct him from this article I + have here, just as anatomists have reconstructed extinct monsters from + a single bone. He is, I am certain, a don. The emotional note suggests + Oxford. He is a classical scholar. And that is the extent of his + knowledge. Something in this way.”</p> + + <p>He began to sketch rapidly.</p> + + <div class="illo" id="illo22"> + <img src="images/illo-22.png" width="266" height="255" alt="A man wearing glasses, arms and legs outstretched. In one hand he has a mortarboard." />_ + <p class="caption">Fancy portrait of Mr. E. B. Osborn, singing about his + sword and his shield and his ruthless virility, and all that sort of + thing.</p> + </div> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page280" title="280"> </a>“You have to realize that while the Pacificists talk of the horrible + ugliness of war and the necessity of establishing an everlasting + world-peace, whiskered old ladies in hydropaths, dons on the <cite>Morning + Post</cite>, chattering district visitors and blustering, bellowing parsons, + people who are ever so much more representative of general humanity + than we literary oddities—all that sort of people tucked away + somewhere safe, are in a state of belligerent lustfulness and + prepared—oh, prepared to give the very eyes of everybody else in this + country, prepared to sacrifice the lives of all their servants and see + the poor taxed to the devil, first for a victory over Germany and then + for the closest, silliest, loudest imitation of Prussian swagger on + our part (with them, of course, on the very top of it all) that we can + contrive. That spirit is loose, Wilkins. All the dowagers are mewing + for blood, all the male old women who teach classics and dream of + re-action at Oxford and Cambridge, are having the time of their lives. + They trust to panic, to loud <a class="pagenum" id="page281" title="281"> </a>accusations, to that fear of complexity + that comes with fatigue. They trust to the exhaustion of delicate + purposes and sensitive nerves. And this force-loving, bullying + silliness is far more likely to come out on top, after the distresses + of this war, after the decent men are dead in the trenches and the + wise ones shouted to silence, than any finely intellectual, + necessarily difficult plan to put an end for ever to all such + senseless brutalities.”</p> + + <p>“I think you underrate the power of—well, modern sanity,” said + Wilkins.</p> + + <p>“Time will show,” said Boon. “I hope I do.”</p> + + <p>“This man Osborn, whoever he may be, must be just a fantastic + extremist…. I do not see that he is an answer to my suggestion that + for the whole mass of people this war means graver thought, steadier + thought, a firmer collective purpose. It isn’t only by books and + formal literature that people think. There is the tremendous effect of + realized and accumulated facts——”</p> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page282" title="282"> </a>“Wilkins,” said Boon, “do not cuddle such illusions. It is only in + books and writings that facts get assembled. People are not grasping + any comprehensive effects at all at the present time. One day one + monstrous thing batters on our minds—a battleship is blown up or a + hundred villagers murdered—and next day it is another. We do not so + much think about it as get mentally scarred…. You can see in this + spy hunt that is going on and in the increasing denunciations and + wrangling of the papers how the strain is telling…. Attention is + overstrained and warms into violence. People are reading no books. + They are following out no conclusions. No intellectual force whatever + is evident dominating the situation. No organization is at work for a + sane peace. Where is any <em>power</em> for Pacificism? Where is any strength + on its side? America is far too superior to do anything but trade, the + liberals here sniff at each other and quarrel gently but firmly on + minor points, Mr. Norman Angell advertises himself in a <a class="pagenum" id="page283" title="283"> </a>small magazine + and resents any other work for peace as though it were an infringement + of his copyright. Read the daily papers; go and listen to the talk of + people! Don’t theorize, but watch. The mind you will meet is not in + the least like a mind doing something slowly but steadfastly; far more + is it like a mind being cruelly smashed about and worried and sticking + to its immediate purpose with a narrower and narrower intensity. Until + at last it is a pointed intensity. It is like a dying man strangling a + robber in his death-grip…. We shall beat them, but we shall be dead + beat doing it…. You see, Wilkins, I have tried to think as you do. + In a sort of way this war has inverted our relations. I say these + things now because they force themselves upon me….”</p> + + <p>Wilkins considered for some moments.</p> + + <p>“Even if nothing new appears,” he said at last, “the mere beating down + and discrediting of the militarist system leaves a world released….”</p> + + <p>“But will it be broken down?” said Boon. “Think of the Osborns.”</p> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page284" title="284"> </a>And then he cried in a voice of infinite despair: “No! War is just the + killing of things and the smashing of things. And when it is all over, + then literature and civilization will have to begin all over again. + They will have to begin lower down and against a heavier load, and the + days of our jesting are done. The Wild Asses of the Devil are loose + and there is no restraining them. What is the good, Wilkins, of + pretending that the Wild Asses are the instruments of Providence + kicking better than we know? It is all evil. Evil. An evil year. And I + lie here helpless, spitting and spluttering, with this chill upon my + chest…. I cannot say or write what I would…. And in the days of my + sunshine there were things I should have written, things I should have + understood….”</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s9-6"><a class="pagenum" id="page285" title="285"> </a> + <h3>§ 6</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">Afterwards</span> Boon consoled himself very much for a time by making + further speculative sketches of Mr. Osborn, as the embodiment of the + Heroic Spirit. I append one or two of the least offensive of these + drawings.</p> + + <div class="illo" id="illo23"><a class="pagenum" id="page286" title="286"> </a> + <img src="images/illo-23.png" width="625" height="407" alt="A man in knight's armor aims a sword at an unarmed man. His shield reads 'Down with Science!'" /> + <p class="caption">Fancy sketch of Mr. Osborn (the Heroic Spirit) + compelling his tailor to make him trousers for nothing.</p> + <div class="poem caption"> + <p>My weapon with my tailor speaks,</p> + <p>It cuts my coat and sews my breeks.</p> + </div> + </div> + + <div class="illo" id="illo24"><a class="pagenum" id="page287" title="287"> </a> + <img src="images/illo-24.png" width="531" height="370" alt="A deranged-looking man chases a small haloed man." /> + <p class="caption">Mr. Osborn, in a moment of virile indignation, swiping + St. Francis of Assisi one with a club.</p> + </div> + + <div class="illo" id="illo25"><a class="pagenum" id="page288" title="288"> </a> + <img src="images/illo-25.png" width="383" height="470" alt="A dancing man with a long feather in his hair and a dagger through his nose." /> + <p class="caption">The soul of Mr. Osborn doing a war dance (as a Spartan + Red Indian) in order to work itself up for a “<cite>Morning Post</cite>” + article.</p> + </div> + + <div class="illo" id="illo26"><a class="pagenum" id="page289" title="289"> </a> + <img src="images/illo-26.png" width="622" height="576" alt="A German soldier stnds looking over a dead soldier and child. Smoke wafts in the background." /> + <p class="caption">Mr. Osborn’s dream of himself as a Prussian Spartan + refreshing himself with Hero’s food (fresh human liver) and drink + (blood and champagne) after a good Go In at some Pacificist softs.</p> + </div> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s9-7"><a class="pagenum" id="page290" title="290"> </a> + <h3>§ 7</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">Boon’s</span> pessimistic outlook on the war had a profoundly depressing + effect upon me. I do all in my power to believe that Wilkins is right, + and that the hopelessness that darkened Boon’s last days was due to + the overshadowing of his mind by his illness. It was not simply that + he despaired of the world at large; so far as I am concerned, he + pointed and barbed his opinion by showing how inevitable it was that + the existing publishing and book trade would be shattered to + fragments. Adapted as I am now to the necessities of that trade, + incapable as I am of the fresh exertions needed to bring me into a + successful relationship to the unknown exigencies of the future, the + sense of complete personal ruin mingled with and intensified the + vision he imposed <a class="pagenum" id="page291" title="291"> </a>upon me of a world laid waste. I lay awake through + long stretches of the night contemplating now my own life, no longer + in its first vigour, pinched by harsh necessities and the fiercer + competition of a young and needy generation, and now all life with its + habits and traditions strained and broken. My daily fatigues at drill + and the universal heavy cold in the head that has oppressed all + Britain this winter almost more than the war, have added their quota + to my nightly discomfort. And when at last I have slept I have been + oppressed with peculiar and melancholy dreams.</p> + + <p>One is so vividly in my mind that I am obliged to tell it here, + although I am doubtful whether, except by a very extreme stretching of + the meaning of words, we can really consider it among the Remains of + George Boon.</p> + + <p>It was one of those dreams of which the scenery is not so much a + desolate place as desolation itself, and I was there toiling up great + steepnesses with a little box of something in my hand. And I knew, in + that <a class="pagenum" id="page292" title="292"> </a>queer confused way that is peculiar to dreams, that I was not + myself but that I was the Author who is the hero of the Wild Asses of + the Devil, and also that I was neither he nor I, but all sorts of + authors, the spirit of authorship, no Author in particular but the + Author at large, and that, since the melancholy devil had deserted + me—he had sneaked off Heaven knows whither—it rested with me and + with me alone to discover and catch and send out of this tormented + world those same Wild Asses of the Devil of which you have read. And + so I had salt in my box, Attic Salt, a precious trust, the one thing + in all the universe with which I could subdue them.</p> + + <p>And then suddenly there I was amidst all those very asses of which I + have told you. There they were all about me, and they were more wild + and horrible than I can describe to you. It was not that they were + horrible in any particular way, they were just horrible, and they + kicked up far over head, and leapt and did not even seem to trouble to + elude my poor ineffectual efforts to get within salting distance of + them. I <a class="pagenum" id="page293" title="293"> </a>toiled and I pursued amidst mad mountains that were suddenly + marble flights of stairs that sloped and slid me down to precipices + over which I floated; and then we were in soft places knee-deep in + blood-red mud; and then they were close to my face, eye to eye, + enormous revolving eyes, like the lanterns of lighthouses; and then + they swept away, and always I grew smaller and feebler and more + breathless, and always they grew larger, until only their vast legs + danced about me on the sward, and all the rest was hidden. And all the + while I was tugging at my box of Attic Salt, to get it open, to get a + pinch. Suddenly I saw they were all coming down upon me, and all the + magic salt I had was in the box that would not open….</p> + + <p>I saw the sward they trampled, and it was not sward, it was living + beings, men hurt by dreadful wounds, and poor people who ran in + streaming multitudes under the beating hoofs, and a lichenous growth + of tender things and beautiful and sweet and right things on which + they beat, splashing it all to blood and dirt. I <a class="pagenum" id="page294" title="294"> </a>could not open my + box. I could not open my box. And a voice said: “Your box! Your box! + Laugh at them for the fools they are, and at the salt sting of + laughter back they will fly to hell!”</p> + + <p>But I could not open my box, for I thought of my friend’s sons and + dear friends of my own, and there was no more spirit in me. “We cannot + laugh!” I cried. “We cannot laugh! Another generation! Another + generation may have the heart to do what we cannot do.”</p> + + <p>And the voice said: “Courage! Only your poor courage can save us!”</p> + + <p>But in my dream I could do no more than weep pitifully and weep, and + when I woke up my eyes were wet with tears.</p> + </div> +</div> +<div class='chapter' id='tenth'><a class="pagenum" id="page295" title="295"> </a> + <h2>CHAPTER THE TENTH<br /> + <span class="chapter_title">The Story of the Last Trump</span></h2> + + <div class="section" id="s10-1"> + <h3>§ 1</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph">“<span class="first_word">After</span> this war,” said Wilkins, “after its revelation of horrors and + waste and destruction, it is impossible that people will tolerate any + longer that system of diplomacy and armaments and national aggression + that has brought this catastrophe upon mankind. This is the war that + will end war.”</p> + + <p>“Osborn,” said Boon, “Osborn.”</p> + + <p>“But after all the world has seen——!”</p> + + <p>“The world doesn’t see,” said Boon….</p> + + <p>Boon’s story of the Last Trump may well come after this to terminate + my book. It has been by no means an easy task to assemble the various + portions of <a class="pagenum" id="page296" title="296"> </a>this manuscript. It is written almost entirely in pencil, + and sometimes the writing is so bad as to be almost illegible. But + here at last it is, as complete, I think, as Boon meant it to be. It + is his epitaph upon his dream of the Mind of the Race.</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s10-2"><a class="pagenum" id="page297" title="297"> </a> + <h3>§ 2 + + <span class="section_title">The Story of the Last Trump</span></h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">The</span> story of the Last Trump begins in Heaven and it ends in all sorts + of places round about the world….</p> + + <p>Heaven, you must know, is a kindly place, and the blessed ones do not + go on for ever singing Alleluia, whatever you may have been told. For + they too are finite creatures, and must be fed with their eternity in + little bits, as one feeds a chick or a child. So that there are + mornings and changes and freshness, there is time to condition their + lives. And the children are still children, gravely eager about their + playing and ready always for new things; just children they are, but + blessèd as you see them in the pictures beneath the careless feet <a class="pagenum" id="page298" title="298"> </a>of + the Lord God. And one of these blessèd children routing about in an + attic—for Heaven is, of course, full of the most heavenly attics, + seeing that it has children—came upon a number of instruments stored + away, and laid its little chubby hands upon them….</p> + + <p>Now indeed I cannot tell what these instruments were, for to do so + would be to invade mysteries…. But one I may tell of, and that was a + great brazen trumpet which the Lord God had made when He made the + world—for the Lord God finishes all His jobs—to blow when the time + for our Judgement came round. And He had made it and left it; there it + was, and everything was settled exactly as the Doctrine of + Predestination declares. And this blessèd child conceived one of those + unaccountable passions of childhood for its smoothness and brassiness, + and he played with it and tried to blow it, and trailed it about with + him out of the attic into the gay and golden streets, and, after many + fitful wanderings, to those <a class="pagenum" id="page299" title="299"> </a>celestial battlements of crystal of which + you have doubtless read. And there the blessed child fell to counting + the stars, and forgot all about the Trumpet beside him until a + flourish of his elbow sent it over….</p> + + <p>Down fell the trump, spinning as it fell, and for a day or so, which + seemed but moments in heaven, the blessed child watched its fall until + it was a glittering little speck of brightness….</p> + + <p>When it looked a second time the trump was gone….</p> + + <p>I do not know what happened to that child when at last it was time for + Judgement Day and that shining trumpet was missed. I know that + Judgement Day is long overpassed, because of the wickedness of the + world; I think perhaps it was in A.D. 1000 when the expected Day + should have dawned that never came, but no other heavenly particulars + do I know at all, because now my scene changes to the narrow ways of + this Earth….</p> + + <p>And the Prologue in Heaven ends.</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s10-3"><a class="pagenum" id="page300" title="300"> </a> + <h3>§ 3</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">And</span> now the scene is a dingy little shop in Caledonian Market, where + things of an incredible worthlessness lie in wait for such as seek + after an impossible cheapness. In the window, as though it had always + been there and never anywhere else, lies a long, battered, discoloured + trumpet of brass that no prospective purchaser has ever been able to + sound. In it mice shelter, and dust and fluff have gathered after the + fashion of this world. The keeper of the shop is a very old man, and + he bought the shop long ago, but already this trumpet was there; he + has no idea whence it came, nor its country or origin, nor anything + about it. But once in a moment of enterprise that led to nothing he + decided to call it an <a class="pagenum" id="page301" title="301"> </a>Ancient Ceremonial Shawm, though he ought to + have known that whatever a shawm may be the last thing it was likely + to be is a trumpet, seeing that they are always mentioned together. + And above it hung concertinas and melodeons and cornets and tin + whistles and mouth-organs and all that rubbish of musical instruments + which delight the hearts of the poor. Until one day two blackened + young men from the big motor works in the Pansophist Road stood + outside the window and argued.</p> + + <p>They argued about these instruments in stock and how you made these + instruments sound, because they were fond of argument, and one + asserted and the other denied that he could make every instrument in + the place sound a note. And the argument rose high, and led to a bet.</p> + + <p>“Supposing, of course, that the instrument is in order,” said Hoskin, + who was betting he could.</p> + + <p>“That’s understood,” said Briggs.</p> + + <p>And then they called as witnesses certain <a class="pagenum" id="page302" title="302"> </a>other young and black and + greasy men in the same employment, and after much argument and + discussion that lasted through the afternoon, they went in to the + little old dealer about teatime, just as he was putting a blear-eyed, + stinking paraffin-lamp to throw an unfavourable light upon his always + very unattractive window. And after great difficulty they arranged + that for the sum of one shilling, paid in advance, Hoskin should have + a try at every instrument in the shop that Briggs chose to indicate.</p> + + <p>And the trial began.</p> + + <p>The third instrument that was pitched upon by Briggs for the trial was + the strange trumpet that lay at the bottom of the window, the trumpet + that you, who have read the Introduction, know was the trumpet for the + Last Trump. And Hoskin tried and tried again, and then, blowing + desperately, hurt his ears. But he could get no sound from the + trumpet. Then he examined the trumpet more carefully and discovered + the mice and fluff and other <a class="pagenum" id="page303" title="303"> </a>things in it, and demanded that it should + be cleaned; and the old dealer, nothing loth, knowing they were used + to automobile-horns and such-like instruments, agreed to let them + clean it on condition that they left it shiney. So the young men, + after making a suitable deposit (which, as you shall hear, was + presently confiscated), went off with the trumpet, proposing to clean + it next day at the works and polish it with the peculiarly excellent + brass polish employed upon the honk-honk horns of the firm. And this + they did, and Hoskin tried again.</p> + + <p>But he tried in vain. Whereupon there arose a great argument about the + trumpet, whether it was in order or not, whether it was possible for + any one to sound it. For if not, then clearly it was outside the + condition of the bet.</p> + + <p>Others among the young men tried it, including two who played wind + instruments in a band and were musically knowing men. After their own + failure they were strongly on the side of Hoskin <a class="pagenum" id="page304" title="304"> </a>and strongly against + Briggs, and most of the other young men were of the same opinion.</p> + + <p>“Not a bit of it,” said Briggs, who was a man of resource. “<em>I</em>’ll + show you that it can be sounded.”</p> + + <p>And taking the instrument in his hand, he went towards a peculiarly + powerful foot blow-pipe that stood at the far end of the toolshed. + “Good old Briggs!” said one of the other young men, and opinion veered + about.</p> + + <p>Briggs removed the blow-pipe from its bellows and tube, and then + adjusted the tube very carefully to the mouthpiece of the trumpet. + Then with great deliberation he produced a piece of bees-waxed string + from a number of other strange and filthy contents in his pocket and + tied the tube to the mouthpiece. And then he began to work the treadle + of the bellows.</p> + + <p>“Good old Briggs!” said the one who had previously admired him.</p> + + <p>And then something incomprehensible happened.</p> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page305" title="305"> </a>It was a flash. Whatever else it was, it was a flash. And a sound that + seemed to coincide exactly with the flash.</p> + + <p>Afterwards the young men agreed to it that the trumpet blew to bits. + It blew to bits and vanished, and they were all flung upon their + faces—not backward, be it noted, but on their faces—and Briggs was + stunned and scared. The toolshed windows were broken and the various + apparatus and cars around were much displaced, and <em>no traces of the + trumpet were ever discovered</em>.</p> + + <p>That last particular puzzled and perplexed poor Briggs very much. It + puzzled and perplexed him the more because he had had an impression, + so extraordinary, so incredible, that he was never able to describe it + to any other living person. But his impression was this: that the + flash that came with the sound came, not from the trumpet but to it, + that it smote down to it and took it, and that its shape was in the + exact likeness of a hand and arm of fire.</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s10-4"><a class="pagenum" id="page306" title="306"> </a> + <h3>§ 4</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">And</span> that was not all, that was not the only strange thing about the + disappearance of that battered trumpet. There was something else, even + more difficult to describe, an effect as though for one instant + something opened….</p> + + <p>The young men who worked with Hoskin and Briggs had that clearness of + mind which comes of dealing with machinery, and they all felt this + indescribable something else, as if for an instant the world wasn’t + the world, but something lit and wonderful, larger——</p> + + <p>This is what one of them said of it.</p> + + <p>“I felt,” he said, “just for a minute—as though I was blown to + Kingdom Come.”</p> + + <p>“It is just how it took me,” said <a class="pagenum" id="page307" title="307"> </a>another. “‘Lord,’ I says, ‘here’s + Judgement Day!’ and then there I was sprawling among the flies….”</p> + + <p>But none of the others felt that they could say anything more definite + than that.</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s10-5"><a class="pagenum" id="page308" title="308"> </a> + <h3>§ 5</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">Moreover</span>, there was a storm. All over the world there was a storm that + puzzled meteorology, a moment’s gale that left the atmosphere in a + state of wild swaygog, rains, tornadoes, depressions, irregularities + for weeks. News came of it from all the quarters of the earth.</p> + + <p>All over China, for example, that land of cherished graves, there was + a dust-storm, dust leaped into the air. A kind of earthquake shook + Europe—an earthquake that seemed to have at heart the peculiar + interests of Mr. Algernon Ashton; everywhere it cracked mausoleums and + shivered the pavements of cathedrals, swished the flower-beds of + cemeteries, and tossed tombstones aside. A crematorium in Texas blew + up. The sea was greatly <a class="pagenum" id="page309" title="309"> </a>agitated, and the beautiful harbour of Sydney, + in Australia, was seen to be littered with sharks floating upside down + in manifest distress….</p> + + <p>And all about the world a sound was heard like the sound of a trumpet + instantly cut short.</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s10-6"><a class="pagenum" id="page310" title="310"> </a> + <h3>§ 6</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">But</span> this much is only the superficial dressing of the story. The + reality is something different. It is this: that in an instant, and + for an instant, the dead lived, and all that are alive in the world + did for a moment see the Lord God and all His powers, His hosts of + angels, and all His array looking down upon them. They saw Him as one + sees by a flash of lightning in the darkness, and then instantly the + world was opaque again, limited, petty, habitual. That is the + tremendous reality of this story. Such glimpses have happened in + individual cases before. The Lives of the saints abound in them. Such + a glimpse it was that came to Devindranath Tagore upon the burning + ghat at Benares. <a class="pagenum" id="page311" title="311"> </a>But this was not an individual but a world + experience; the flash came to every one. Not always was it quite the + same, and thereby the doubter found his denials, when presently a sort + of discussion broke out in the obscurer Press. For this one testified + that it seemed that “One stood very near to me,” and another saw “all + the hosts of heaven flame up towards the Throne.”</p> + + <p>And there were others who had a vision of brooding watchers, and + others who imagined great sentinels before a veiled figure, and some + one who felt nothing more divine than a sensation of happiness and + freedom such as one gets from a sudden burst of sunshine in the + spring…. So that one is forced to believe that something more than + wonderfully wonderful, something altogether strange, was seen, and + that all these various things that people thought they saw were only + interpretations drawn from their experiences and their imaginations. + It was a light, it was beauty, it was high and <a class="pagenum" id="page312" title="312"> </a>solemn, it made this + world seem a flimsy transparency….</p> + + <p>Then it had vanished….</p> + + <p>And people were left with the question of what they had seen, and just + how much it mattered.</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s10-7"><a class="pagenum" id="page313" title="313"> </a> + <h3>§ 7</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">A little</span> old lady sat by the fire in a small sitting-room in West + Kensington. Her cat was in her lap, her spectacles were on her nose; + she was reading the morning’s paper, and beside her, on a little + occasional table, was her tea and a buttered muffin. She had finished + the crimes and she was reading about the Royal Family. When she had + read all there was to read about the Royal Family, she put down the + paper, deposited the cat on the hearthrug, and turned to her tea. She + had poured out her first cup and she had just taken up a quadrant of + muffin when the trump and the flash came. Through its instant duration + she remained motionless with the quadrant of muffin poised halfway to + her mouth. Then very slowly she put the morsel down.</p> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page314" title="314"> </a>“Now what was that?” she said.</p> + + <p>She surveyed the cat, but the cat was quite calm. Then she looked + very, very hard at her lamp. It was a patent safety lamp, and had + always behaved very well. Then she stared at the window, but the + curtains were drawn and everything was in order.</p> + + <p>“One might think I was going to be ill,” she said, and resumed her + toast.</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s10-8"><a class="pagenum" id="page315" title="315"> </a> + <h3>§ 8</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">Not</span> far away from this old lady, not more than three-quarters of a + mile at most, sat Mr. Parchester in his luxurious study, writing a + perfectly beautiful, sustaining sermon about the Need of Faith in God. + He was a handsome, earnest, modern preacher, he was rector of one of + our big West End churches, and he had amassed a large, fashionable + congregation. Every Sunday, and at convenient intervals during the + week, he fought against Modern Materialism, Scientific Education, + Excessive Puritanism, Pragmatism, Doubt, Levity, Selfish + Individualism, Further Relaxation of the Divorce Laws, all the Evils + of our Time—and anything else that was unpopular. He believed quite + simply, he <a class="pagenum" id="page316" title="316"> </a>said, in all the old, simple, kindly things. He had the + face of a saint, but he had rendered this generally acceptable by + growing side whiskers. And nothing could tame the beauty of his voice.</p> + + <p>He was an enormous asset in the spiritual life of the metropolis—to + give it no harsher name—and his fluent periods had restored faith and + courage to many a poor soul hovering on the brink of the dark river of + thought….</p> + + <p>And just as beautiful Christian maidens played a wonderful part in the + last days of Pompeii, in winning proud Roman hearts to a hated and + despised faith, so Mr. Parchester’s naturally graceful gestures, and + his simple, melodious, trumpet voice won back scores of our half-pagan + rich women to church attendance and the social work of which his + church was the centre….</p> + + <p>And now by the light of an exquisitely shaded electric lamp he was + writing this sermon of quiet, confident belief (with occasional hard + smacks, perfect stingers in fact, at current unbelief and rival + leaders <a class="pagenum" id="page317" title="317"> </a>of opinion) in the simple, divine faith of our fathers….</p> + + <p>When there came this truncated trump and this vision….</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s10-9"><a class="pagenum" id="page318" title="318"> </a> + <h3>§ 9</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">Of</span> all the innumerable multitudes who for the infinitesimal fraction + of a second had this glimpse of the Divinity, none were so blankly and + profoundly astonished as Mr. Parchester. For—it may be because of his + subtly spiritual nature—he <em>saw</em>, and seeing believed. He dropped his + pen and let it roll across his manuscript, he sat stunned, every drop + of blood fled from his face and his lips and his eyes dilated.</p> + + <p>While he had just been writing and arguing about God, there <em>was</em> God!</p> + + <p>The curtain had been snatched back for an instant; it had fallen + again; but his mind had taken a photographic impression of everything + that he had seen—the grave presences, the hierarchy, the effulgence, + the vast concourse, the terrible, gentle eyes. <a class="pagenum" id="page319" title="319"> </a>He felt it, as though + the vision still continued, behind the bookcases, behind the pictured + wall and the curtained window: <em>even now there was judgement!</em></p> + + <p>For quite a long time he sat, incapable of more than apprehending this + supreme realization. His hands were held out limply upon the desk + before him. And then very slowly his staring eyes came back to + immediate things, and fell upon the scattered manuscript on which he + had been engaged. He read an unfinished sentence and slowly recovered + its intention. As he did so, a picture of his congregation came to him + as he saw it from the pulpit during his evening sermon, as he had + intended to see it on the Sunday evening that was at hand, with Lady + Rupert in her sitting and Lady Blex in hers and Mrs. Munbridge, the + rich and in her Jewish way very attractive Mrs. Munbridge, running + them close in her adoration, and each with one or two friends they had + brought to adore him, and behind them the Hexhams and the Wassinghams + and behind them others and others and others, <a class="pagenum" id="page320" title="320"> </a>ranks and ranks of + people, and the galleries on either side packed with worshippers of a + less dominant class, and the great organ and his magnificent choir + waiting to support him and supplement him, and the great altar to the + left of him, and the beautiful new Lady Chapel, done by Roger Fry and + Wyndham Lewis and all the latest people in Art, to the right. He + thought of the listening multitude, seen through the haze of the + thousand electric candles, and how he had planned the paragraphs of + his discourse so that the notes of his beautiful voice should float + slowly down, like golden leaves in autumn, into the smooth tarn of + their silence, word by word, phrase by phrase, until he came to—</p> + + <p>“Now to God the Father, God the Son——”</p> + + <p>And all the time he knew that Lady Blex would watch his face and Mrs. + Munbridge, leaning those graceful shoulders of hers a little forward, + would watch his face….</p> + + <p>Many people would watch his face.</p> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page321" title="321"> </a>All sorts of people would come to Mr. Parchester’s services at times. + Once it was said Mr. Balfour had come. Just to hear him. After his + sermons, the strangest people would come and make confessions in the + beautifully furnished reception-room beyond the vestry. All sorts of + people. Once or twice he had asked people to come and listen to him; + and one of them had been a very beautiful woman. And often he had + dreamt of the people who might come: prominent people, influential + people, remarkable people. But never before had it occurred to Mr. + Parchester that, a little hidden from the rest of the congregation, + behind the thin veil of this material world, there was another + auditorium. And that God also, God also, watched his face.</p> + + <p>And watched him through and through.</p> + + <p>Terror seized upon Mr. Parchester.</p> + + <p>He stood up, as though Divinity had come into the room before him. He + was trembling. He felt smitten and about to be smitten.</p> + + <p>He perceived that it was hopeless to <a class="pagenum" id="page322" title="322"> </a>try and hide what he had written, + what he had thought, the unclean egotism he had become.</p> + + <p>“I did not know,” he said at last.</p> + + <p>The click of the door behind him warned him that he was not alone. He + turned and saw Miss Skelton, his typist, for it was her time to come + for his manuscript and copy it out in the specially legible type he + used. For a moment he stared at her strangely.</p> + + <p>She looked at him with those deep, adoring eyes of hers. “Am I too + soon, sir?” she asked in her slow, unhappy voice, and seemed prepared + for a noiseless departure.</p> + + <p>He did not answer immediately. Then he said: “Miss Skelton, the + Judgement of God is close at hand!”</p> + + <p>And seeing she stood perplexed, he said—</p> + + <p>“Miss Skelton, how can you expect me to go on acting and mouthing this + Tosh when the Sword of Truth hangs over us?”</p> + + <p>Something in her face made him ask a question.</p> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page323" title="323"> </a>“Did <em>you</em> see anything?” he asked.</p> + + <p>“I thought it was because I was rubbing my eyes.”</p> + + <p>“Then indeed there is a God! And He is watching us now. And all this + about us, this sinful room, this foolish costume, this preposterous + life of blasphemous pretension——!”</p> + + <p>He stopped short, with a kind of horror on his face.</p> + + <p>With a hopeless gesture he rushed by her. He appeared wild-eyed upon + the landing before his manservant, who was carrying a scuttle of coal + upstairs.</p> + + <p>“Brompton,” he said, “what are you doing?”</p> + + <p>“Coal, sir.”</p> + + <p>“Put it down, man!” he said. “Are you not an immortal soul? God is + here! As close as my hand! Repent! Turn to Him! The Kingdom of Heaven + is at hand!”</p> + + </div> + <div class="section" id="s10-10"><a class="pagenum" id="page324" title="324"> </a> + <h3>§ 10</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">Now</span> if you are a policeman perplexed by a sudden and unaccountable + collision between a taxicab and an electric standard, complicated by a + blinding flash and a sound like an abbreviated trump from an + automobile horn, you do not want to be bothered by a hatless clerical + gentleman suddenly rushing out of a handsome private house and telling + you that “the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!” You are respectful to him + because it is the duty of a policeman to be respectful to Gentlemen, + but you say to him, “Sorry I can’t attend to that now, sir. One thing + at a time. I’ve got this little accident to see to.” And if he + persists in dancing round the gathering crowd and coming at you again, + you say: <a class="pagenum" id="page325" title="325"> </a>“I’m afraid I must ask you just to get away from here, sir. + You aren’t being a ‘elp, sir.” And if, on the other hand, you are a + well-trained clerical gentleman, who knows his way about in the world, + you do not go on pestering a policeman on duty after he has said that, + even although you think God is looking at you and Judgement is close + at hand. You turn away and go on, a little damped, looking for some + one else more likely to pay attention to your tremendous tidings.</p> + + <p>And so it happened to the Reverend Mr. Parchester.</p> + + <p>He experienced a curious little recession of confidence. He went on + past quite a number of people without saying anything further, and the + next person he accosted was a flower-woman sitting by her basket at + the corner of Chexington Square. She was unable to stop him at once + when he began to talk to her because she was tying up a big bundle of + white chrysanthemums and had an end of string behind her teeth. And + her <a class="pagenum" id="page326" title="326"> </a>daughter who stood beside her was the sort of girl who wouldn’t + say “Bo!” to a goose.</p> + + <p>“Do you know, my good woman,” said Mr. Parchester, “that while we poor + creatures of earth go about our poor business here, while we sin and + blunder and follow every sort of base end, close to us, above us, + around us, watching us, judging us, are God and His holy angels? I + have had a vision, and I am not the only one. I have <em>seen</em>. We are + <em>in</em> the Kingdom of Heaven now and here, and Judgement is all about us + now! Have you seen nothing? No light? No sound? No warning?”</p> + + <p>By this time the old flower-seller had finished her bunch of flowers + and could speak. “I saw it,” she said. “And Mary—she saw it.”</p> + + <p>“Well?” said Mr. Parchester.</p> + + <p>“But, Lord! It don’t <em>mean</em> nothing!” said the old flower-seller.</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s10-11"><a class="pagenum" id="page327" title="327"> </a> + <h3>§ 11</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">At</span> that a kind of chill fell upon Mr. Parchester. He went on across + Chexington Square by his own inertia.</p> + + <p>He was still about as sure that he had seen God as he had been in his + study, but now he was no longer sure that the world would believe that + he had. He felt perhaps that this idea of rushing out to tell people + was precipitate and inadvisable. After all, a priest in the Church of + England is only one unit in a great machine; and in a world-wide + spiritual crisis it should be the task of that great machine to act as + one resolute body. This isolated crying aloud in the street was + unworthy of a consecrated priest. It was a dissenting kind of thing to + do. A vulgar individualistic screaming. <a class="pagenum" id="page328" title="328"> </a>He thought suddenly that he + would go and tell his Bishop—the great Bishop Wampach. He called a + taxicab, and within half an hour he was in the presence of his + commanding officer. It was an extraordinarily difficult and painful + interview….</p> + + <p>You see, Mr. Parchester believed. The Bishop impressed him as being + quite angrily resolved not to believe. And for the first time in his + career Mr. Parchester realized just how much jealous hostility a + beautiful, fluent, and popular preacher may arouse in the minds of the + hierarchy. It wasn’t, he felt, a conversation. It was like flinging + oneself into the paddock of a bull that has long been anxious to gore + one.</p> + + <p>“Inevitably,” said the Bishop, “this theatricalism, this star-turn + business, with its extreme spiritual excitements, its exaggerated soul + crises and all the rest of it, leads to such a breakdown as afflicts + you. Inevitably! You were at least wise to come to me. I can see you + are only in the beginning of your trouble, that <a class="pagenum" id="page329" title="329"> </a>already in your mind + fresh hallucinations are gathering to overwhelm you, voices, special + charges and missions, strange revelations…. I wish I had the power + to suspend you right away, to send you into retreat….”</p> + + <p>Mr. Parchester made a violent effort to control himself. “But I tell + you,” he said, “that I saw God!” He added, as if to reassure himself: + “More plainly, more certainly, than I see you.”</p> + + <p>“Of course,” said the Bishop, “this is how strange new sects come into + existence; this is how false prophets spring out of the bosom of the + Church. Loose-minded, excitable men of your stamp——”</p> + + <p>Mr. Parchester, to his own astonishment, burst into tears. “But I tell + you,” he wept, “He is here. I have seen. I know.”</p> + + <p>“Don’t talk such nonsense!” said the Bishop. “There is no one here but + you and I!”</p> + + <p>Mr. Parchester expostulated. “But,” he protested, “He is omnipresent.”</p> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page330" title="330"> </a>The Bishop controlled an expression of impatience. “It is + characteristic of your condition,” he said, “that you are unable to + distinguish between a matter of fact and a spiritual truth…. Now + listen to me. If you value your sanity and public decency and the + discipline of the Church, go right home from here and go to bed. Send + for Broadhays, who will prescribe a safe sedative. And read something + calming and graceful and purifying. For my own part, I should be + disposed to recommend the ‘Life of Saint Francis of Assisi.’….”</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s10-12"><a class="pagenum" id="page331" title="331"> </a> + <h3>§ 12</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">Unhappily</span> Mr. Parchester did not go home. He went out from the + Bishop’s residence stunned and amazed, and suddenly upon his + desolation came the thought of Mrs. Munbridge….</p> + + <p>She would understand….</p> + + <p>He was shown up to her own little sitting-room. She had already gone + up to her room to dress, but when she heard that he had called, and + wanted very greatly to see her, she slipped on a loose, beautiful + tea-gown <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">négligé</em> thing, and hurried to him. He tried to tell her + everything, but she only kept saying “There! there!” She was sure he + wanted a cup of tea, he looked so pale and exhausted. She rang to have + the tea equipage brought back; she put the dear saint in an arm-chair + <a class="pagenum" id="page332" title="332"> </a>by the fire; she put cushions about him, and ministered to him. And + when she began partially to comprehend what he had experienced, she + suddenly realized that she too had experienced it. That vision had + been a brain-wave between their two linked and sympathetic brains. And + that thought glowed in her as she brewed his tea with her own hands. + He had been weeping! How tenderly he felt all these things! He was + more sensitive than a woman. What madness to have expected + understanding from the Bishop! But that was just like his + unworldliness. He was not fit to take care of himself. A wave of + tenderness carried her away. “Here is your tea!” she said, bending + over him, and fully conscious of her fragrant warmth and sweetness, + and suddenly, she could never afterwards explain why she was so, she + was moved to kiss him on his brow….</p> + + <p>How indescribable is the comfort of a true-hearted womanly friend! The + safety of it! The consolation!…</p> + + <p><a class="pagenum" id="page333" title="333"> </a>About half-past seven that evening Mr. Parchester returned to his own + home, and Brompton admitted him. Brompton was relieved to find his + employer looking quite restored and ordinary again. “Brompton,” said + Mr. Parchester, “I will not have the usual dinner to-night. Just a + single mutton cutlet and one of those quarter-bottles of Perrier Jouet + on a tray in my study. I shall have to finish my sermon to-night.”</p> + + <p>(And he had promised Mrs. Munbridge he would preach that sermon + specially for her.)</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s10-13"><a class="pagenum" id="page334" title="334"> </a> + <h3>§ 13</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">And</span> as it was with Mr. Parchester and Brompton and Mrs. Munbridge, and + the taxi-driver and the policeman and the little old lady and the + automobile mechanics and Mr. Parchester’s secretary and the Bishop, so + it was with all the rest of the world. If a thing is sufficiently + strange and great no one will perceive it. Men will go on in their own + ways though one rose from the dead to tell them that the Kingdom of + Heaven was at hand, though the Kingdom itself and all its glory became + visible, blinding their eyes. They and their ways are one. Men will go + on in their ways as rabbits will go on feeding in their hutches within + a hundred yards of a battery of artillery. For rabbits are rabbits, + and made to eat and breed, and <a class="pagenum" id="page335" title="335"> </a>men are human beings and creatures of + habit and custom and prejudice; and what has made them, what will + judge them, what will destroy them—they may turn their eyes to it at + times as the rabbits will glance at the concussion of the guns, but it + will never draw them away from eating their lettuce and sniffing after + their does….</p> + </div> + <div class="section" id="s10-14"><a class="pagenum" id="page336" title="336"> </a> + <h3>§ 14</h3> + + <p class="first_paragraph"><span class="first_word">There</span> was something of invalid peevishness even in the handwriting of + Boon’s last story, the Story of the Last Trump.</p> + + <p>Of course, I see exactly what Boon is driving at in this fragment.</p> + + <p>The distresses of the war had for a time broken down his faith in the + Mind of the Race, and so he mocked at the idea that under any sort of + threat or warning whatever men’s minds can move out of the grooves in + which they run. And yet in happier moods that was his own idea, and my + belief in it came from him. That he should, in his illness, fall away + from that saving confidence which he could give to me, and that he + should die before his courage returned, seems just a part of the + inexplicable tragedy of life. <a class="pagenum" id="page337" title="337"> </a>Because clearly this end of the Story of + the Last Trump is forced and false, is unjust to life. I know how + feebly we apprehend things, I know how we forget, but because we + forget it does not follow that we never remember, because we fail to + apprehend perfectly it does not follow that we have no understanding. + And so I feel that the true course of the Story of the Last Trump + should have been far larger and much more wonderful and subtle than + Boon made it. That instant vision of God would not have been dismissed + altogether. People might have gone on, as Boon tells us they went on, + but they would have been haunted nevertheless by a new sense of deep, + tremendous things….</p> + + <p>Cynicism is humour in ill-health. It would have been far more + difficult to tell the story of how a multitude of commonplace people + were changed by a half-dubious perception that God was indeed close at + hand to them, a perception that they would sometimes struggle with and + <a class="pagenum" id="page338" title="338"> </a>deny, sometimes realize overwhelmingly; it would have been a + beautiful, pitiful, wonderful story, and it may be if Boon had lived + he would have written it. He could have written it. But he was too ill + for that much of writing, and the tired pencil turned to the easier + course….</p> + + <p>I can’t believe after all I know of him, and particularly after the + intimate talk I have repeated, that he would have remained in this + mood. He would, I am certain, have altered the Story of the Last + Trump. He must have done so.</p> + + <p>And so, too, about this war, this dreadful outbreak of brutish + violence which has darkened all our lives, I do not think he would + have remained despairful. As his health mended, as the braveries of + spring drew near, he would have risen again to the assurance he gave + me that the Mind is immortal and invincible.</p> + + <p>Of course there is no denying the evil, the black evils of this war; + many of us are impoverished and ruined, many of us are wounded, almost + all of us have lost friends <a class="pagenum" id="page339" title="339"> </a>and suffered indirectly in a hundred ways. + And all that is going on yet. The black stream of consequence will + flow for centuries. But all this multitudinous individual unhappiness + is still compatible with a great progressive movement in the general + mind. Being wounded and impoverished, being hurt and seeing things + destroyed, is as much living and learning as anything else in the + world. The tremendous present disaster of Europe may not be, after + all, a disaster for mankind. Horrible possibilities have to be + realized, and they can be realized only by experience; complacencies, + fatuities have to be destroyed; we have to learn and relearn what Boon + once called “the bitter need for honesty.” We must see these things + from the standpoint of the Race Life, whose days are hundreds of + years….</p> + + <p>Nevertheless, such belief cannot alter for me the fact that Boon is + dead and our little circle is scattered. I feel that no personal + comfort nor any further happiness of the mind remains in store for <a class="pagenum" id="page340" title="340"> </a>me. + My duties as his literary executor still give me access to the dear + old house and the garden of our security, and, in spite of a + considerable coolness between myself and Mrs. Boon—who would + willingly have all this material destroyed and his reputation rest + upon his better-known works—I make my duty my excuse to go there + nearly every day and think. I am really in doubt about many matters. I + cannot determine, for example, whether it may not be possible to make + another volume from the fragments still remaining over after this one. + There are great quantities of sketches, several long pieces of Vers + Libre, the story of “Jane in Heaven,” the draft of a novel. And so I + go there and take out the papers and fall into fits of thinking. I + turn the untidy pages and think about Boon and of all the stream of + nonsense and fancy that was so much more serious to him and to me than + the serious business of life. I go there, I know, very much as a cat + hangs about its home after its people have <a class="pagenum" id="page341" title="341"> </a>departed—that is to say, a + little incredulously and with the gleam of a reasonless hope….</p> + + <p>There must, I suppose, come a limit to these visitations, and I shall + have to go about my own business. I can see in Mrs. Boon’s eye that + she will presently demand conclusive decisions. In a world that has + grown suddenly chilly and lonely I know I must go on with my work + under difficult and novel conditions (and now well into the routines + of middle age) as if there were no such things as loss and + disappointment. I am, I learned long ago, an uncreative, unimportant + man. And yet, I suppose, I do something; I count; it is better that I + should help than not in the great task of literature, the great task + of becoming the thought and the expressed intention of the race, the + task of taming violence, organizing the aimless, destroying error, the + task of waylaying the Wild Asses of the Devil and sending them back to + Hell. It does not matter how individually feeble we writers <a class="pagenum" id="page342" title="342"> </a>and + disseminators are; we have to hunt the Wild Asses. As the feeblest + puppy has to bark at cats and burglars. And we have to do it because + we know, in spite of the darkness, the wickedness, the haste and hate, + we know in our hearts, though no momentary trumpeting has shown it to + us, that judgement is all about us and God stands close at hand.</p> + + <p>Yes, we go on.</p> + + <p>But I wish that George Boon were still in the world with me, and I + wish that he could have written a different ending to the Story of the + Last Trump.</p> + + </div> +</div> +<div id="the_end"><!-- <a class="pagenum" id="page343" title="343"> </a> --> + <p class="fancy">The Gresham Press</p> + <p>UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED</p> + <p>WOKING AND LONDON</p> +</div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Boon, The Mind of the Race, The Wild +Asses of the Devil, and The Last Tru, by Herbert George Wells + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BOON, THE MIND OF THE RACE *** + +***** This file should be named 34962-h.htm or 34962-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/9/6/34962/ + +Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Barbara Tozier, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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