diff options
| author | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-04-21 07:21:03 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-04-21 07:21:03 -0700 |
| commit | 4916040b9d89c3409efccf597a8a6a0d7d31527e (patch) | |
| tree | b2ae2c3796b9f86c50528124206c8a1402ae5e6c | |
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 4 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75928-0.txt | 1782 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75928-h/75928-h.htm | 2136 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75928-h/images/cover.jpg | bin | 0 -> 875577 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75928-h/images/i_title.jpg | bin | 0 -> 85790 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
7 files changed, 3935 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/75928-0.txt b/75928-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..aeebc31 --- /dev/null +++ b/75928-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1782 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75928 *** + + + + + + WORKS BY ARNOLD BENNETT + + +NOVELS + + A Man from the North + Anna of the Five Towns + Leonora + A Great Man + Sacred and Profane Love + Whom God hath Joined + Buried Alive + The Old Wives’ Tale + The Glimpse + Helen with the High Hand + Clayhanger + The Card + Hilda Lessways + The Regent + The Price of Love + These Twain + The Lion’s Share + The Pretty Lady + The Roll-Call + + +FANTASIAS + + The Grand Babylon Hotel + The Gates of Wrath + Teresa of Watling Street + The Loot of Cities + Hugo + The Ghost + The City of Pleasure + + +SHORT STORIES + + Tales of the Five Towns + The Grim Smile of the Five Towns + The Matador of the Five Towns + + +BELLES-LETTRES + + How to Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day + The Human Machine + Mental Efficiency + Literary Taste + Friendship and Happiness + Married Life + Those United States + Paris Nights + Books and Persons + + +DRAMA + + Polite Farces + Cupid and Common Sense + What the Public Wants + The Honeymoon + The Great Adventure + The Title + + + + + SELF AND SELF-MANAGEMENT + + + + + SELF AND + SELF-MANAGEMENT + + + ESSAYS ABOUT EXISTING + + + + + BY + ARNOLD BENNETT + + + + + HODDER AND STOUGHTON + LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO + MCMXVIII + + + + + CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + RUNNING AWAY FROM LIFE 3 + + SOME AXIOMS ABOUT WAR-WORK 25 + + THE DIARY HABIT 45 + + A DANGEROUS LECTURE TO A YOUNG + WOMAN 65 + + THE COMPLETE FUSSER 85 + + THE MEANING OF FROCKS 103 + + + + + RUNNING AWAY FROM LIFE + + + + + RUNNING AWAY FROM LIFE + + + I + +I WILL take the extreme case of the social butterfly, because it +has the great advantage of simplicity. This favourite variety of +the lepidopteral insects is always spoken of as female. But as the +variety persists from generation to generation obviously it cannot be +of one sex only. And, as a fact, there are indubitably male social +butterflies, though the differences between the male and the female may +be slight. I shall, however, confine myself to the case of the female +social butterfly--again for the sake of simplicity. + +This beautiful creature combines the habits of the butterfly with the +habits of the moth. For whereas the moth flies only by night and the +butterfly flies only by day, the social butterfly flies both by day +and by night. She is universally despised and condemned, and almost +universally envied: one of the strangest among the many strange facts +of natural history. She lives with a single purpose--to be for ever in +the movement--not any particular movement, but _the_ movement, +which is a grand combined tendency comprising all lesser tendencies. +For the social butterfly the constituents of the movement are chiefly +men, theatres, restaurants, dances, noise, and hurry. The minor +constituents may and do frequently change, but the major constituents +have not changed for a considerable number of years. The minor +constituents of the movement are usually ‘serious,’ and hence in a +minor way the social butterfly is serious. If books happen to be of the +movement, she will learn the names of books and authors, and in urgent +crises will even read. If music, she will learn to distinguish from +all other sounds the sounds which are of the movement, the sounds at +which she must shut her eyes in ecstasy and sigh. If social reform, she +will at once be ready to reform everybody and everything except herself +and her existence. If charity or mercifulness, she will be charitable +or merciful according to the latest devices and in the latest frocks. +Yes, and if war happens to be of the movement, she will be serious +about the war. + +You observe how sarcastic I am about the social butterfly. It is +necessary to be so. The social butterfly never has since the earliest +times been mentioned in print without sarcasm or pity, and she never +will be. She is greatly to be pitied. What is her aim? Her aim, like +the aim of most people except the very poor (whose aim is simply to +keep alive), is happiness. But the unfortunate creature, as you and +I can so clearly see, has confused happiness with pleasure. She runs +day and night after pleasure--that is to say, after distraction: +eating, drinking, posing, seeing, being seen, laughing, jostling, and +the singular delight of continual imitation. She is only alive in +public, and the whole of her days and nights are spent in being in +public, or in preparing to be in public, or in recovering from the +effects of being in public. Habit drives her on from one excitement to +another. She flies eternally from something mysterious and sinister +which is eternally overtaking her. You and I know that she is never +happy--she is only intoxicated or narcotised by a drug that she calls +pleasure. And her youth is going; her figure is going; her complexion +is practically gone. She is laying up naught for the future save +disappointment, dissatisfaction, disillusion, and no doubt rheumatism. +And all this inordinate, incredible folly springs from a wrong and +childish interpretation of the true significance of happiness. + + + II + +How much wiser, you say, and indeed we all say, is that other young +woman who has chosen the part of content. She has come to terms with +the universe. She is not for ever gadding about in search of something +which she has not got, and which not one person in a hundred round +about her has got. She has said: ‘The universe is stronger than I am. I +will accommodate myself to the universe.’ + +And she acts accordingly. She makes the best of her lot. She treats +her body in a sane manner, and she treats her mind in a sane manner. +She has perceived the futility of what is known as pleasure in circles +where they play bridge and organise charity fêtes on the Field of +the Cloth of Gold. She has frankly admitted that youth is fleeting, +and that part of it must be spent in making preparations against the +rigours of old age. She seeks her pleasure in literature and the arts +because such pleasure strengthens instead of weakening the mind, +and never palls. She is prudent. She is aware that there can be no +happiness where duty has been left undone, and that loving-kindness +is a main source of felicity. Hence she is attentive to duty, and +she practises the altruism which is at once the cause and the result +of loving-kindness. She deliberately cultivates cheerfulness and +resignation; she discourages discontent as gardeners discourage a weed. +She has duly noted that the kingdom of heaven is ‘within you,’ not near +the band at the expensive restaurant, nor in the trying-on room of the +fashionable dressmaker’s next door to the expensive restaurant, nor in +the _salons_ of the well-advertised great. Her life is reflected +in her face, which is a much better face than the face of the social +butterfly. Whatever may occur--within reason--she is armed against +destiny, married or single. + + + III + +What can there be in common between these two types? Well, the point +I am coming to is that they may have one tragic similarity which +vitiates their lives equally, or almost equally. One may be vastly more +admirable than the other, and in many matters vastly more sensible. +And yet they may both have made the same stupendous mistake: the +misinterpretation of the significance of the word happiness. Towards +the close of existence, and even throughout existence, the second, in +spite of all her precautions, may suffer the secret and hidden pangs of +unhappiness just as acutely as the first; and her career may in the +end present itself to her as just as much a sham. + +And for the same reason. The social butterfly was running after +something absurd, and the other woman knew that it was absurd and left +it alone. But the root of the matter was more profound. The social +butterfly’s chief error was not that she was running after something, +but that she was running away from something--something which I have +described as mysterious and sinister. And the other woman also may +be--and as a fact frequently is--running away from just that mysterious +and sinister something. And that something is neither more nor less +than life itself in its every essence. Both may be afraid of life and +may have to pay an equal price for their cowardice. Both may have +refused to listen to the voice within them, and will suffer equally for +the wilful shutting of the ear. + +(It is true that the other woman may just possibly have a true vocation +for a career of resignation and altruism, and the spreading of a +sort of content in a thin layer over the entire length of existence. +If so, well and good. But it is also true that the social butterfly +may have a true vocation for being a social butterfly, and the thick +squandering of a sort of pleasure on the earlier part of existence, to +the deprivation of the latter part. Then neither the one nor the other +will have been guilty of the cowardice of running away from life.) + +My point is that you may take refuge in good works or you may take +refuge in bad works, but that the supreme offence against life lies in +taking refuge from it, and that if you commit this offence you will +miss the only authentic happiness--which springs no more from content +and resignation than it springs from mere pleasure. It is indisputable +that the conscience can be, and is constantly narcotised as much by +relatively good deeds as by relatively bad deeds. Nevertheless, to +dope the conscience is always a crime, and is always punished by the +ultimate waking up of the conscience. + + + IV + +To take refuge from life is to refuse it. Life generally offers due +scope for the leading instinct in a man or a woman; and sometimes it +offers the scope at a very low price, at no price at all. + +For example, a young man may have a very marked instinct for +engineering, and his father may be a celebrated and wealthy engineer +who is only too anxious that the son should follow the same profession. +Life has offered the scope and charged nothing for it. + +But, on the other hand, a man may have a very marked instinct for +authorship, and his father may be a celebrated and wealthy engineer +who, being convinced that literature is an absurd and despicable +profession, has determined that his son shall not be an author but an +engineer. ‘Become an engineer,’ says the father, ‘and I will give you +unique help, and you are a made man. Become an author, and you get +nothing whatever from me except opposition.’ + +Life, however, which has provided the instinct for literature, has also +provided the scope for its fulfilment. The scope for young authors +is vaster to-day on two continents than ever it was. But the price +which in this case life quotes is very high. The young man hesitates. +The price quoted includes comfort, parental approval, domestic peace, +money, luxury, and perhaps also a comfortable and not unsatisfactory +marriage. It includes practically all the ingredients of the mixture +commonly known as happiness. Of course, by following literature the +young man may recover all and more than all the price paid. But also he +may not. The chances are about a hundred to one that he will not. He is +risking nearly everything in order to buy a ticket in a lottery. + +Let us say that, being a prudent and obedient young fellow, he declines +to beggar himself for a ticket in a lottery. His instinct towards +literature has not developed very far; he sacrifices it and becomes +the engineer. By industry and goodwill and native brains he becomes +a very fair engineer, the prop of the firm, the aid, and in due +course the successor, of his father. He treats his work-people well. +He marries a delightful girl, and he even treats her well. He has +delightful children. He is a terrific worldly success, and a model to +his fellow-creatures. That man’s attention to duty, his altruism, his +real kindness, are the theme of conversation among all his friends. He +treats his conscience with the most extraordinary respect. + +And yet, if his instinct towards literature was genuine, he is not +fundamentally happy, and when he chances to meet an author, or to read +about authors (even about their suicides of despair), or to be deeply +impressed by a book, he is acutely aware that he has committed the sin +of taking refuge from life; he knows that the extraordinary respect +which he pays to his conscience is at bottom a doping of that organ; +he perceives that the smooth path is in fact the rough path, and that +the rough path, which he dared not face, might have been, with all +its asperities, the smooth one. His existence is a vast secret and +poisonous regret; and there is nothing whatever to be done; there is no +antidote for the poison; the dope is a drug--and insufficient at that. + + + V + +Women, even in these latter days when reason is supposed to have +got human nature by the neck, have far greater opportunities and +temptations than men to run away from life. Indeed, many of them are +taught and encouraged to do so. The practice of the three ancient +cardinal female virtues--shutting your eyes, stopping your ears, and +burying your head in the sand--is very carefully inculcated; and then, +of course, people turn round on young women and upbraid them because +they are afraid of existence! And, though things are changing, they +have not yet definitely changed. I would not blame a whole sex--no +matter which--for anything whatever. But to state a fact is not to +blame. The fact is that women, when they get a chance, do show a +tendency to shirk life. Large numbers of them come to grips with life +simply because they are compelled to do so. A woman whose material +existence is well assured will not as a rule go out into the world. +Further, she will not marry as willingly as the woman who needs a home +and cannot see the prospect of it except through marriage. By which +I mean to imply that with women the achievement of marriage is due +less to the instinct to mate than to an economic instinct. Men are +wicked animals and know not righteousness, but it may be said of them +generally that with them the achievement of marriage _is_ due to +the instinct to mate. + +Examining the cases of certain women who put off marrying, I have been +forced to the conclusion that their only reason for hesitating to +marry is that men are not perfect, and that to marry an imperfect man +involves risk. It does, but the reason is not valid. Risk is the very +essence of life, and the total absence of danger is equal to death. +I do not say that to follow an unsatisfactory vocation and to fail in +it is better than to follow no vocation. But I am inclined to say that +any marriage is better than no marriage--for both sexes. And I think +that the most tragic spectacle on earth is an old woman metaphorically +wrapped in cotton-wool who at some period of her career has refused +life because of the peril of inconvenience and unhappiness. + +Both men and women can run away from life in ways far more subtle and +less drastic than those which I have named. For the sake of clearness +I have confined myself to rather crude and obvious examples of flight. +There are probably few of us who are not conscious of having declined +at least some minor challenge of existence. And there are still fewer +of us who can charge ourselves with having been consistently too bold +in our desire to get the full savour of existence. + + + VI + +Each individual must define happiness for himself or herself. For my +part, I rule out practically all the dictionary definitions. In most +dictionaries you will find that the principal meaning attached to the +word is ‘good fortune’ or ‘prosperity.’ Which is notoriously absurd. +Then come such definitions as ‘a state of well-being characterised +by relative permanence, by dominantly agreeable emotion ... and by a +natural desire for its continuation.’ This last is from Webster, and +it is very clever. Yet I will have none of it, unless I am allowed to +define the word ‘well-being’ in my own way. + +For me, an individual cannot be in a state of well-being if any of his +faculties are permanently idle through any fault of his own. The full +utilisation of all the faculties seems to me to be the foundation of +well-being. But I doubt if a full utilisation of all the faculties +necessarily involves the idea of good fortune, or prosperity, or +tranquillity, or contentedness with one’s lot, or even a ‘dominantly +agreeable emotion’; very often it rather involves the contrary. + +In my view happiness includes chiefly the idea of ‘satisfaction after +full honest effort.’ Everybody is guilty of mistakes and of serious +mistakes, and the contemplation of these mistakes must darken, be it +ever so little, the last years of existence. But it need not be fatal +to a general satisfaction. Men and women may in the end be forced to +admit: ‘I made a fool of myself,’ and still be fairly happy. But no +one can possibly be satisfied, and therefore no one can in my sense be +happy, who feels that in some paramount affair he has failed to take +up the challenge of life. For a voice within him, which none else can +hear, but which he cannot choke, will constantly be murmuring: + +‘You lacked courage. You hadn’t the pluck. You ran away.’ + +And it is happier to be unhappy in the ordinary sense all one’s life +than to have to listen at the end to that dreadful interior verdict. + + + + + SOME AXIOMS ABOUT WAR-WORK + + + + + SOME AXIOMS ABOUT WAR-WORK + + + I + +THIS essay concerns men, but it concerns women more. + +When citizens begin to learn, through newspapers and general rumour, +that voluntary war-work is afoot, and that volunteers are badly wanted, +and that there is work for all who love their country, then those who +love their country are at once sharply divided into two classes--the +people to whom the work comes, and the people who have to go out to +seek the work. The former are the people of prominent social position; +the latter are the remainder of the population. The prominent persons +will see work rolling up to their front doors in quantities huge +enough to overthrow the entire house. The remainder will look out of +the window and see nothing at all unusual in the street. They are then +apt to say: ‘This is very odd. There is much work to do. I am ready to +do my share. Why doesn’t somebody come along and ask me to do it?’ And +they feel rather hurt at the neglect, and finally they sigh: ‘Well, if +no one gives me anything to do, of course I can’t do anything.’ + +Such an attitude would be quite reasonable if society was like a +telephone-exchange, and anybody could get precisely the person he or +she was after by paying a girl a pound or two a week to stick plugs +into holes. But society not being like a telephone-exchange, the +attitude is unreasonable. Patriots cannot expect the organisers of +war-work to run up and down streets knocking at doors and crying: +‘Come! You are the very woman I need!’ However much urgent war-work +is waiting to be done, nine-tenths of the individuals who are anxious +to do it will have to put themselves to a certain amount of trouble in +order to discover the work, perhaps to a great deal of trouble. Having +located the work, they may even have almost to beg for the privilege of +doing it. Again, they are rather hurt. They demand, why should they go +on their knees? They are not asking a favour. + +A woman will say: + +‘I went and offered my services. And he looked at me as if I was a +doubtful character, and you never heard such a cross-examination as I +had to go through! It was most humiliating.’ + +True! True! But could she reasonably expect the cross-examiner to see +into the inside of her head? The first use and the last use of the +gift of speech is to ask questions. Moreover, respected madam, it is +quite probable that the cross-examiner was not a bit suspicious, and +that his manner was simply due to dumbfoundedness, to mere inability +to believe that so ideal a person as yourself had, so to speak, fallen +from heaven straight into his net. And further, respected madam, are +not you yourself suspicious? If the cross-examiner had come to you, +instead of you going to him, might not your first thought have been: +‘What advantage is he trying to gain by coming to me? I shall say No!’ +If it is true that people who ask for work are stared at, it is equally +true that people who are asked to work also stare--a little haughtily. +And when the latter graciously promise assistance, they often say to +themselves: ‘I shall do as little as I can, because I’m not going to be +taken advantage of.’ And they almost invariably end by doing more than +they can, and by insisting on being taken advantage of. Human nature +is mean, but it is also noble. + +Axiom: The preliminary trouble and weariness and annoyance incidental +to getting the work are themselves a necessary and inevitable part of +war-work, just as much as bandaging the brows of heroes. + + + II + +Life is a continual passage from one illusion to another. No sooner +has the eager volunteer found out that the desire to help is apt to +be treated as evidence of a criminal disposition, and that war-work +is as shy as deer in the depths of a forest--no sooner has he or she +discovered these things than yet another discovery destroys yet another +illusion. The war-work when brought to bay and caught is not the right +kind of war-work. You--for I may as well admit that I am talking direct +to the eager volunteer--you had expected something else. This war-work +that presents itself is either beneath your powers, or it is beyond +your powers; or it is unsuited to your individuality or to your social +station or to your health or to your hands or feet. You can scarcely +say what you had expected, but at any rate ... I will tell you what +you had expected. You had expected the ideal--work that showed you at +your best, picturesque work, interesting work, work free from monotony, +work of which you could see the immediate beautiful results, work which +taxed you without overtaxing you, really important work without the +moral risks attaching to real responsibility. Such was the work you +had expected, and the chances are ten to one that the work you have +actually got is dull, monotonous, apparently futile; any fool could do +it, though it is exhausting and inconvenient. Or, on the other hand, +it is, while dull and monotonous, too exacting for a well-intentioned +mediocre brain like yours (you don’t actually mean that, but you try to +be modest)--in short it is not suitable work. + +Axiom: There is not enough suitable work to go round, nor the +thousandth part of what would be enough. Unsuitableness is a +characteristic of nearly all war-work. Lowering your great powers +down, or forcing your little powers up, to the level of the work +offered--this, too, is part of war-work. + + + III + +Again, you have to get away from the illusion that you can live a +new life and still keep on living the old life. Everybody, as has +somewhere been stated, possesses twenty-four hours in each day. +Everybody occupies every one of his twenty-four hours. You do, though +you may think you don’t. If you do not occupy them in labour then you +occupy them in idleness; if not in usefulness, then in futility. Now +idleness and futility are much more difficult to expel from hours +which they have appropriated than labour and usefulness are difficult +to expel. But if war-work is brought in, something will have to be +expelled. Habits of labour and usefulness are sometimes hard enough +to change; habits of idleness and futility are still harder. If you +were previously spending your afternoons in giving and accepting +elaborate afternoon teas, you will have more trouble in devoting +your afternoons to war-work than if you had been spending them, for +example, in the pursuit of knowledge. It is child’s play to abandon the +pursuit of knowledge; no moral stamina is required; but to give up the +exciting sociabilities of afternoon tea is a tremendous feat. So much +so, that if you are a votary of this indigestive practice, you will +infallibly endeavour to persuade yourself at first: ‘I can manage the +two--war-work and afternoon teas as well. I can fit them in.’ + +You cannot fit them in--at any rate successfully. The essence of +war-work is that it may not be fitted in. If it does not mean +sacrifice, it means naught. Sacrifice is giving something for nothing. +You cannot give something and yet stick to it. Certain persons are +apt to buy an article to give away, and then are so pleased with +the article that they decide to keep it for themselves. They thus +obtain for a period the sensation of benevolence without any ultimate +corresponding sacrifice. This is the nearest approach, that I know of, +to giving something and yet sticking to it; but it has no relation +whatever to war-work. + +Axiom: If a tea-cup is full you cannot pour anything into it until you +have poured something out. + + + IV + +The next, and the next to the last, illusion to go is a masterpiece +of simple-mindedness, and yet nearly all who take up war-work are +found at first to be under its sway. It is the illusion that war-work, +being a fine and noble thing, ought to change people’s natures +and dispositions, in such a manner as to produce the maximum of +co-operating effort with the minimum of friction. + +Now the very heart of all war-work is the grand and awe-inspiring +institution of the Committee. If you are engaged on war-work you +are bound to sit on a Committee; or, in default of a Committee, a +Sub-Committee (which usually has more real power than the bumptious +and unwieldy body that overlords it). And, if you are on neither a +Committee nor a Sub-Committee, then you are bound sooner or later to +be called up before a Committee or a Sub-Committee, and to be in a +position to give the Committee or Sub-Committee a piece of your mind. +Thus your legitimate ambition will somehow be satisfied. + +But let us suppose that you are at once elected to a Committee. Well, +among the members of the Committee are three persons you know--Miss X, +Mr. Y, and Mrs. Z. Miss X used to be a mannish and reckless and cheeky +young maid. Mr. Y used to be an interfering and narrow-minded old maid. +Mrs. Z used to be nothing in particular. You enter the Committee-room, +and you see these three, together with a few others who have not a +very promising air. (Probably no sight is more depressing than the +cordon of faces round a Committee-room table.) You, however, are not +downcast. You feel in yourself the uplifting power of a great ideal. +You are determined to make the best of yourself and of everybody. And +you are convinced that everybody is determined to do the same. But in +less than five minutes Miss X, despite her obvious lack of experience, +is offering the most absurd proposals; she has put her elbows on the +table; and she is calmly teaching all her grandmothers to suck eggs. +Mr. Y is objecting to the ruling of the Chairman, and obstinately +arguing against a resolution that has been carried, and indeed implying +that the Committee ought not to do anything at all. As for Mrs. Z she +has scarcely opened her mouth; when the Chairman asked her for her +opinion she blushed and said she rather agreed, and she voted both for +and against the first resolution. + +‘Is it conceivable,’ you exclaim in your soul, ‘is it conceivable +that these individuals can behave so in such a supreme crisis of +the nation’s history, at a moment when the nation has need of every +citizen’s loyal goodwill, of every--?’ etc. etc. ‘No! They cannot have +realised that we are at war!’ + +And sundry other members of the Committee are not much better than +the ignoble three. Indeed, your faith in Committees is practically +destroyed. You say to yourself, with your blunt, vigorous common +sense: ‘If only the Committee would adjourn and leave the whole matter +to me, I am sure I could manage it much better than they are doing.’ +You consider that a Committee is a device for wasting time and for +flattering the conceit of opinionated fools.... Then Mr. Y becomes +absolutely impossible. You feel that you are prepared to stand a lot, +but that there is a limit and that Mr. Y has gone beyond it. You are +ready to work, and to work hard, but you cannot be expected to work +with people who are impossible. You decide to send in your resignation +to the Chairman at once. + +I hope you will not send it in. For at least half the Committee are +thinking just as you are thinking. And one or two of them are thinking +these things, not apropos of Miss X, Mr. Y, or Mrs. Z, but apropos of +you! And if you are startled at the spectacle of people persisting in +being just themselves in war-work, then the fault is yours, and you +should be gently ashamed. You ought to have known that people are never +more themselves than in a great crisis, especially when the crisis is +prolonged. You ought to be thankful that the Committee has unscaled +your eyes to so fundamental a truth. You have realised that we are +at war,--you ought also to realise that it takes all sorts to make a +world, even a world at war. You ought to imagine what would happen if +every member of the Committee, like you, resigned because Mr. Y was +impossible, and thus left the impossible Mr. Y in possession of the +table and the secretary. + +Axiom: The most valorous and morally valuable war-work is the work of +working with impossible people. + +And may I warn you that you will later on, if you succeed as a +war-worker, encounter more terrible phenomena than Mr. Y, who at the +worst can always be out-voted? You will encounter, for example, the +famous and fashionable lady who, justifiably relying on human nature’s +profound and incurable snobbishness, will give all the hard work to you +and those like you, while appropriating all the glory and advertisement +for herself. And, more terrible even than the famous and fashionable +lady, you will run up against the Official Mind. The Official Mind is +the worst of all obstacles to getting things done. And the gravest +danger of the war-worker, particularly if he attains high rank on +Committees, is the danger of becoming official-minded himself. + + + V + +When you have proved that in war-work you are a decent human being--and +you will prove this by sticking to the work long after you are weary of +it, and by refusing to fly off to something else because it promises +to be more diverting and less annoying than your present job--then you +will part company with the war-workers’ last illusion. Namely, the +illusion that her efforts will meet with gratitude. Gratitude is going +to be an extremely rare commodity, and it is not a very good thing to +receive, anyhow. You see, there will be so few people with leisure to +devote to gratitude. Everybody is or will be war-working. Even soldiers +and sailors are doing something for the war, though to listen to some +civilians one would suppose the military side of war to be relatively +quite unimportant. No! Gratitude will not choke the market. On the +contrary, criticism will be rife, for we are all experts in war-work. +The highest hope of the average war-worker must be to escape censure. +Official food-controllers, who are possibly the supreme type of +war-worker, are thankful if they escape with their heads. And herein is +a great lesson. + +Axiom: The reward of war-work will be in the treaty of peace. + + + + + THE DIARY HABIT + + + + + THE DIARY HABIT + + + I + +LET us consider, first, a strange quality of the written word. + +The spoken word is bad enough. Such things as misfortunes, blunders, +sins, and apprehensions become more serious when they have been +described even in conversation. A woman who secretly fears cancer +will fear it much more once she has mentioned her fear to another +person. The spoken word has somehow given reality to her fear. But the +written word is far more formidable than the spoken word. It is said +that the ignorant and the uncultured have a superstitious dread of +writing. The dread is not superstitious; it is based on a mysterious +and intimidating phenomenon which nearly anybody can test for himself. +The fact is that almost all people are afraid of writing--I mean true, +honest writing. Vast numbers of people hate and loathe it, as though +it were a high explosive that might suddenly go off and blow them to +pieces. (That is one reason why realistic novels never have a very +large sale.) But the difference between one man’s dread of writing +and another man’s dread of writing is merely a difference of degree, +not of kind. And if any among you asserts that he has no fear of the +written word, merely because it is written, let him try the following +experiment. + +Take--O exceptional individual!--take some concealed and blameworthy +action or series of thoughts of your own. I do not mean necessarily +murder or embezzlement; not everybody has committed murder or +embezzlement, or even desires to do so; I mean some matter--any +matter--of which you are so ashamed, or about which you are so +nervous, that you have never mentioned it to a soul. All of us--even +you--have such matters hidden beneath waistcoat or corsage. Write down +that matter; put it in black and white. The chances are that you won’t; +the chances are that you will find some excuse for not writing it down. + +You may say: + +‘Ah! But suppose some one happened to see it!’ + +To which I would reply: + +‘Write it and lock it up in your safe.’ + +To which you may rejoin: + +‘Ah! But I might lose the key of the safe and some one might find it +and open the safe. Also I might die suddenly.’ + +To which I would retort: + +‘If you are dead you needn’t mind discovery.’ + +To which you might respond: + +‘How do you know that if I was dead I needn’t mind discovery?’ + +Well, I will yield you that point, and still prove to you that your +objection to the written word does not spring from the fear of +giving yourself away. The experiment shall be performed under strict +conditions. + +Empty your house of all its inhabitants save yourself. Lock the +front-door and the back-door. Go upstairs to your own room. Lock the +door of your own room. Pile furniture before the door, so that you +cannot possibly be surprised. Light a fire. Place the writing-table +near the fire. Arrange it so that at the slightest alarm of discovery +you can with a single movement thrust your writing into the fire. Then +begin to write down that of which you are ashamed. You are absolutely +safe. Nevertheless you will hesitate to write. And you will not have +got very far in your narration before you find yourself writing down +something that is not quite so unpleasant as the truth, or before you +find yourself omitting some detail which ought not to be omitted. You +will have great difficulty in forcing yourself to be utterly frank on +paper. You may fail in being utterly frank; you probably will so fail; +most people do. When you have finished and hold the document in your +hand, you will start guiltily if the newly moved furniture creaks in +front of the door. You will read through the document with discomfort +and constraint. And you will stick it in the fire and watch it burn +with a very clear feeling of relief. + +Why all these strange sensations? You could not have been caught in the +act. Moreover, there was nothing on the paper of which you were not +fully aware, and which you had not fully realised. Nobody can write +down that which he does not know and realise. Quite possibly the whole +matter had been thoroughly familiar to you, a commonplace of your +brain, for weeks, months, years. Quite possibly you had recalled every +detail of it hundreds of times, and it had never caused you any grave +inconvenience. But, instantly it is written down it becomes acutely, +intolerably disturbing--so much so that you cannot rest until the +written word is destroyed. You are precisely the same man as you were +before beginning to write; naught is altered; you have committed no +new crime. But you have a new shame. I repeat, why? The only immediate +answer is that the honest written word possesses a mysterious and +intimidating power. This power has to do with the sense of sight. You +see something. You do not see your action or your thoughts as it might +be on the cinema screen--happily!--but you do see _something_ in +regard to the matter. + + + II + +The above considerations are offered to that enormous class of people, +springing up afresh every year, who say to themselves: ‘I will keep +a diary and it shall be absolutely true.’ You may keep a diary, but +beyond question it will not be absolutely true. You will be lucky, or +you must be rather gifted, if it is not studded with untruths. You +protest that you have a well-earned reputation for veracity. I would +not doubt it. When I say ‘untruths’ I do not mean, for instance, that +if the day was beautifully fine you would write in your diary: ‘A very +wet day to-day; went for a walk and got soaked through.’ I am convinced +that you would be above such lying perversions. But also I am convinced +that if a husband and wife, both as veracious and conscientious as +yourself, had a quarrel and described the history of the quarrel +each in a private diary, the two accounts would by no means coincide, +and the whole truth would be in neither of them. Some people start a +diary as casually as they start golf, stamps, or a new digestive cure. +Whereas to start a diary ought to be a solemn and notable act, done +with a due appreciation of the difficulties thereby initiated. The very +essence of a diary is truth--a diary of untruth would be pointless--and +to attain truth is the hardest thing on earth. To attain partial truth +is not a bit easy, and even to avoid falsehood is decidedly a feat. + + + III + +Having discouraged, I now wish to encourage. Many who want to keep +diaries and who ought to keep diaries do not, because they are too +diffident. They say: ‘My life is not interesting enough.’ I ask: +‘Interesting to whom? To the world in general or to themselves?’ It +is necessary only that a life should be interesting to the person who +lives that life. If you have a desire to keep a diary, it follows that +your existence is interesting to you. Otherwise obviously you would not +wish to make a record of it. The greatest diarists did not lead very +palpitating lives. Ninety-five per cent. of _Pepys’s Diary_ deals +with tiny daily happenings of the most banal sort--such happenings as +we all go through. If Pepys re-read his entries the day after he wrote +them, he must have found them somewhat tedious. Certainly he had not +the slightest notion that he was writing one of the great outstanding +books of English literature. + +But diaries are the opposite of novels, in that time increases instead +of decreasing their interest. After a reasonable period every sentence +in a diary blossoms into interest, and the diarist simply cannot be +dull--any more than a great wit such as Sidney Smith could be unfunny. +If Sidney Smith asked Helen to pass him the salt, the entire table +roared with laughter because it was inexplicably so funny. If the +diarist writes in his diary, ‘I asked Helen to pass me the salt,’ +within three years he will find the sentence inexplicably interesting +to himself. In thirty years his family will be inexplicably interested +to read that on a certain day he asked Helen to pass him the salt. In +three hundred years a whole nation will be reading with inexplicable +and passionate interest that centuries earlier he asked Helen to pass +him the salt, and critics will embroider theories upon both Helen +and the salt and will even earn a living by producing new annotated +editions of Helen and the salt. And if the diary turns up after three +thousand years, the entire world will hum with the inexplicable +thrilling fact that he asked Helen to pass him the salt; which +fact will be cabled round the globe as a piece of latest news; and +immediately afterwards there will be cabled round the globe the views +of expert scholars of all nationalities on the problem whether, when +he had asked Helen to pass him the salt, Helen did actually pass him +the salt, or not. Timid prospective diarists in need of encouragement +should keep this great principle in mind. + +You will say: + +‘But what do I care about posterity? I would not keep a diary for the +sake of posterity.’ + +Possibly not, but some people would. Some people, if they thought their +diaries would be read three hundred years hence, or even a hundred +years hence, would begin diaries to-morrow and persevere with them to +the day of death. Some people of course are peculiar. And I admit that +I am of your opinion. The thought of posterity leaves me stone cold. + +There is only one valid reason for beginning a diary--namely, that you +find pleasure in beginning it; and only one valid reason for continuing +a diary--namely, that you find pleasure in continuing it. You may find +profit in doing so, but that is not the main point--though it is a +point. You will most positively experience pleasure in reading it after +a long interval; but that is not the main point either--though it is an +important point. A diary should find its sufficient justification in +the writing of it. If the act of writing is not its own reward, then +let the diary remain for ever unwritten. + + + IV + +But beware of that word ‘writing’. Just as some persons are nervous +when entering a drawing-room (or even a restaurant!), so some persons +are nervous when taking up a pen. All persons, as I have tried to show, +are nervous about the psychological effects of the written word, but +some persons--indeed many--are additionally nervous about the mere +business of writing the word. They begin to hanker, with awe, after +a mysterious ideal known as ‘correct style.’ They are actually under +the delusion that writing is essentially different from talking--a +secret trade process!--and they are not aware that he who says or +thinks interesting things can write interesting things, and that he who +can make himself understood in speech can make himself understood in +writing--if he goes the right way to work! + +I have known people, especially the young, who could discourse on +themselves in the most attractive manner for hours, and yet who simply +could not discover in their heads sufficient material for a short +letter. They would bemoan: ‘I can’t think of anything to say.’ It was +true. And, of course, they could not think of anything to _say_, +the reason being that they were trying to think of something to +_write_, and very wrongly assuming that writing is necessarily +different from saying! Writing may be different from saying, but it +need not be different, and for the diarist it should not be different. +And, above all, it should not be superficially different. The +inexperienced, when they use ink, have a pestilent notion that saying +has to be translated or transmogrified into writing. They conceive an +idea in spoken words, and then they subconsciously or consciously ask +themselves: ‘I should say it like that--but how ought I to write it?’ +They alter the forms of their sentences. They worry about grammar and +phrase-construction and even spelling. As for grammar and spelling, in +the greatest age of English literature neither subject was understood, +and no writer could be trusted either in spelling or in grammar. +To this day very few writers of genius are to be trusted either in +spelling or in grammar. As for phrase-construction, the phrase that +comes to your tongue is more likely to be well constructed than the +phrase which you bring forcibly into being at the point of your pen. +If you know enough grammar to talk comprehensibly, you know enough to +write comprehensibly, and you need not trouble about anything else; in +fact, you ought not to do so, and you must not. Formality in a diary is +a mistake. Write as you think, as you speak, and it may be given to you +to produce literature. But if while you are writing you remember that +there is such a thing as literature, you will assuredly never produce +literature. + +This does not mean that you are entitled to write anyhow, without +thought and without effort. Not a bit. Good diaries are not achieved +thus. Although you may and should ignore the preoccupations of what I +will call, sarcastically, ‘literary composition,’ you must have always +before you the ideal of effectively getting your thought on to the +paper. You would, sooner or later, _say_ your thought effectively, +but in writing it down some travail is needed to imagine what the +perhaps unstudied spoken words would be. And also, the memory must +be fully and honestly exercised to recall the scene or the incident +described. By carelessness you run the risk of ‘leaving out the +interesting part.’ By being conscientious you ensure that the maximum +of interest is attained. + +Lastly, it is necessary to conquer the human objection to hard labour +of any sort. It is not a paradox to assert that man often dislikes +the work which he likes. For myself, every day anew, I hate to start +work. You may end your day with the full knowledge that you have had +experiences that day worthy to go into the diary, which experiences +remain in your mind obstinately. And yet you hate to open the diary, +and even when you have opened it you hate to put your back into the +business of writing. You are tempted to write without reflection, +without order, and too briefly. To resist the temptation to be slack +and casual and second-rate involves constant effort. Diary-keeping +should be a pastime, but properly done it is also a task--like many +other pastimes. I have kept a diary for over twenty-one years, +and I know a little about it. I know more than a little about the +remorse--alas, futile!--which follows negligence. In diary-keeping +negligence cannot be repaired. That which is gone is gone beyond +return. + + + + + A DANGEROUS LECTURE TO A YOUNG WOMAN + + + + + A DANGEROUS LECTURE TO A YOUNG WOMAN + + + I + +IT was at a war-charity sale, in a hot, crowded public room of +a fashionable hotel, amid the humorous bellowings of an amateur +auctioneer and the guffaws of amused bidders, that this thing happened +to me. A young woman was passing, and, as she passed, she looked and +stopped, and abruptly charged me with being myself. I admitted the +undeniable. + +‘I hope you’ll excuse me,’ she said. ‘I’ve read all your books.’ + +‘The usual amiable chatter,’ I thought, and made aloud my usual, +stilted, self-conscious reply to such a conversational opening: + +‘You must have worked very hard.’ + +She frowned--just a little frown in the middle of her forehead. She +was very well-dressed (which is not a fault), and she had a pleasant, +sympathetic, serious face. She said: + +‘I’ve often wanted to tell you; in fact, I thought I ought to tell you +about all those little books of yours about life and improving oneself, +and being efficient and not wasting time, and so on, and so on. They’re +very nice to read, but they’ve never done me any good--practically.’ +She smiled. + +(No; it was not to be the usual amiable chatter!) + +‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘But, of course, books don’t act by themselves. +You can’t expect them to be of much practical good until you begin to +put them into practice.’ + +‘But that’s just the point,’ she answered. ‘I can’t _begin_ to put +them into practice. I can’t resolve, and I can’t concentrate, and I +can’t clench my teeth and make up my mind. And if I do make a sort of +start, it’s a failure after the first day. And this goes on year after +year. No use blaming me--I can’t help myself. I want awfully--but I +can’t.’ + +‘But _what_ do you want?’ + +‘I want to make the best of myself. I want to stop wasting time and to +perfect my “human machine.” I want to succeed in life. I want to live +properly and bring out all my faculties. Only, you see, I haven’t got +any resolution. I simply have not got it in me. You tell me to make +up my mind, steel myself, resolve, stick to it, and so forth. Well, I +just can’t. And yet I do want to. You’ve never dealt with my case--and, +what’s more, I don’t think you can deal with it. I hope you’ll pardon +all this bluntness. But I thought that, as a student of human nature, +you might be interested.’ + +I stood silent for a moment. She bowed with much charm and fled away. +I gazed everywhere. But she was lost in the huge room. I could not +very well run in pursuit of her--these things are not done in literary +circles. She had vanished. And I knew naught of her. She might be young +girl, young wife, young mother, anything--but I knew naught of her +except that she had a sympathetic, rather sad face, and that she had +left an arrow quivering in my side. + + + II + +A few hours later, however, I spoke to the young creature as follows: + +‘It seems to me that you may have been running your delightful head +up against an impossible proposition. Perhaps you have been hoping to +_create_ energy in yourself. Now, you cannot create energy, either +in yourself or elsewhere. Nobody can. You can only set energy free, +loosen it, transform it, direct it. + +‘You may take a ton of coal and warm a house with it. The heat-energy +of the coal is transformed, set free, and directed to a certain +purpose. But if you try to warm the house by means of open coal fires +in old-fashioned fire-grates, you will warm the chimneys and some of +the air above the chimneys--and yet the rooms of the house will not be +appreciably warmer than they were when you began. On the other hand, +you may take a ton of exactly the same kind of coal and by means of +a steam-heating system in the cellar warm the rooms of the house to +such an extent that you have to wear your summer clothes in the depth +of winter. The steam-heating system, however, has not increased the +heat-energy of the coal; it has merely set free, utilised, and directed +the heat-energy of the coal in a common-sense--that is to say, a +scientific--manner. No amount of common sense and ingenuity will get +as much heat-energy out of half a ton as out of a ton of coal. You may +devise the most marvellous steam-heating system that exists on this +side of the grave, but if there is no fuel in the furnace, or if there +is in the furnace a quantity of coal inadequate to the size of the +house, the house will never be comfortable except for polar bears and +lovers. The available coal is the prime factor. + +‘Well, an individual is born with a certain amount of energy--and +no more. Just as you cannot pour five quarts out of a gallon (as a +rule, you cannot pour even four quarts), so you cannot extract from +that individual more energy than there is in him. And, what is more +important, you cannot put additional quantities of energy into him. You +may sometimes seem to be putting energy into him, but you are not; you +are simply setting his original energy free, applying a match to the +coal or fanning the fire. An individual is an island on whose rocky +shores no ship can ever land that most mysterious commodity--energy. +You may transfuse blood, but not the inexplicable force that makes the +heart beat and defies circumstance. + +‘Some individuals appear to lack energy, when, as a fact, they are full +of energy which is merely dormant, waiting for the match, or waiting +for direction. Other individuals appear to lack energy, and, in fact, +do lack energy. And you cannot supply their need any more than you can +stop their hair from growing. + +‘No, young lady; it is useless to interrupt me by asking me to define +what I mean by the word “energy.” To define some words is to cripple +them. You know well enough what I mean by energy. I mean the most +fundamental thing in you. + +‘Being a reasonable woman, you admit this--and then go on to demand, +first, how you can be quite sure whether you have been born with a +large or medium or a small quantity of energy, and, second, how you can +be quite sure that you have not lots of energy lying dormant within +you. You cannot be quite sure of anything. This is not a perfect world. + +‘But, as regards the second part of your question, you can be +reasonably sure after a certain number of years--I will not suggest +how many--that energy is not lying dormant within you, awaiting the +match. It is impossible for anybody indefinitely to continue to wander +in a world full of lighted matches without one day encountering the +particular match that will set fire to _his_ fuel. And beware of +that match, for sometimes the result of the contact is an explosion +which shatters everything in the vicinity. If you have dormant energy, +one day it will wake up and worry you, and you will know it is there. + +‘As regards the first part of your question, the usual index of the +amount of energy possessed by an individual is the intensity of the +desires of that individual. It is desire that uses energy. Strong +desires generally betoken much energy, and they are definite desires. +Without desires, energy is rendered futile. Nobody will consume energy +in action unless he desires to perform the action, either for itself or +as a means to a desired end. + +‘But now you complain that I am once more avoiding your case. You +assert that you have desires without the corresponding energy or +corresponding will to put them into execution. I doubt it. I do not +admit it. You must not confuse vague, general aspirations with desire. +A real desire is definite, concrete. If you have a real desire, you +know what you want. You cannot merely want--you are bound to want +something. + +‘Further, to want something only at intervals, when the mind is +otherwise unoccupied, is no proof of a real desire; it amounts to +nothing more than a sweet, sad diversion, a spiritual pastime, a simple +and pleasant way of making yourself believe that you are a serious +person. The desire which indicates great energy is always there, +worrying. It is an obsession; it is a nuisance; it is a whip and a +scorpion; it has no mercy. + +‘And individuals having immense energy have commonly been actuated by +a single paramount desire, which monopolises and canalises all their +force. The pity is that these individuals have become the special +symbols of success. When they have achieved their single paramount +desire, they are said to have “got on,” to have succeeded. And every +one points an admiring finger at them and cries, “This is success in +life!” And the majority of books about success in life deal with this +particular brand of success, and assume that it is the only brand +of success worth a bilberry, and exhort all people to imitate the +notorious exemplars of the art of “getting on” and in that narrow +sense. Which is absurd. + +‘And now, perhaps, we both feel that I am at last approaching your case. + +‘But I do not wish to be personal. Let us take the case of Mr. Flack, +who died last week, unknown. His discerning friends said of him: +“He had a wonderful financial gift. If he’d concentrated on it, he +might have rivalled Harriman. But he wouldn’t concentrate either on +that or on anything else. He was interested in too many different +subjects--books, pictures, music, travel, physical science, love, +economics--in fact, everything interested him, and he was always +interested in something. He was too all-round. He frittered his +energy away, and wasted enormous quantities of time. And so he never +succeeded.” + +‘Such was the verdict of some of Flack’s admirers. But it occurs to me +that Flack may have succeeded after all. Certainly he did not succeed +in being a financial magnate. But he succeeded in being interested +in a large number of things, and therefore in having a wide mind. He +succeeded in being always interested. And he succeeded in not being +lop-sided, which men of one supreme desire as a rule are. (Men who are +successful in the narrow sense generally pay a fearful price for their +success.) His friends regret that he wasted his time, but really, if he +accomplished all that he admittedly did accomplish, he couldn’t have +wasted a very great deal of time. + +‘Quite possibly the late Mr. Flack used to wake up in the night and +curse himself because he could not concentrate, and because he could +not stick to one thing, and because he wasted his time, and because, +with all his gifts, he did not materially progress, and because he made +no impression on the great public. Quite possibly, in moments of gloom, +he had regrets about the dissipation of his energy. But he could not +honestly have regarded himself as a failure. + +‘I should like to know why it is necessarily more righteous to confine +one’s energy to a single direction than to let it spread out in various +directions. It is not more righteous. If a man has one imperious +desire, his righteousness is to satisfy it fully. But if a man has many +mild, equal desires, _his_ righteousness is to satisfy all of them +as reasonably well as circumstances permit. And I see no reason why +one should be deemed more successful than the other. + +‘Yes, young woman; I know what your excellent modesty is going to +say. It is going to say that the late Mr. Flack did show energy, +though he “frittered it away,” and that you do not show energy. +Now, I do not want to defend you against yourself (for possibly +you enjoy denouncing yourself and proving that you are worthless). +Nevertheless, I would point out that energy is often used in ways quite +unsuspected. Energy is a very various thing. Some people use energy +in arranging time-tables and sticking to them, and in clenching their +teeth and making terrific resolves and executing them, and in never +wasting a moment, and in climbing--climbing. And this is all very +laudable. But energy can be used in other ways--in contemplation, in +self-understanding, in understanding other people, in pleasing other +people, in appreciating the world, in lessening the friction of life. + +‘I have personally come across persons--especially women--who were +idle, who were mentally inefficient, who made no material contribution +to the enterprise of remaining alive, but whose mere manner of +existence was such that I would say to them in my heart, “It is enough +for me that you exist.” + +‘We have all of us come across such persons. And the world would be a +markedly inferior sort of place if they did not exist exactly as they +are. + +‘You, dear young woman, may or may not be one of these. I cannot +decide. But, anyhow, if you are not one of the hard-striving, resolute, +persevering, teeth-clenching, totally efficient, one-ideaed, ambitious +species, you need not despair. + +‘Imagine what the world would be like if we were all ruthlessly +set on “succeeding”! It would be like a scene of carnage. And it is +conceivable that you are, in fact, much more efficient than you think, +and that you are wasting much less time than you think, and that you +are employing much more energy than you think. You complained that +you lacked resolution, which means that you lacked one steady desire. +But perhaps your steady desire and resolution are so instinctive, so +profoundly a part of you, that they function without being noticed. +And if you do indeed lack one steady desire and the energy firmly to +resolve--well, you just do. And you will have to be content with your +lot. Why envy others? An over-mastering desire and its accompanying +energy are not necessarily to be envied. + +‘A dangerous doctrine, you say. You say that I am leaving the door open +to sloth and slackness and other evils. You say that I am finding an +excuse for every unserious person under the sun. Perhaps so; but what +I have said is true, and I will not be afraid of the truth because it +happens to be dangerous. Moreover, every person ought to know in his +heart whether or not he is conducting his existence satisfactorily. But +he must interrogate his conscience fairly. It is not fair, either to +one’s conscience or to oneself, to listen to it always, for example, in +the desolating dark hour before the dawn, and never to listen to it, +for example, after one has had a good meal or a good slice of any sort +of honest pleasure. + +‘And, lastly, I have mentioned envy. We are apt to mistake mere envy +of the successful for an individual desire to succeed. Yet an envious +realisation of all the advantages (and none of the disadvantages) of +success is scarcely the same thing as a genuine instinct for “getting +on”--is it?’ + + + III + +This long speech which I made to the young, dissatisfied creature might +have been extremely effective if I could have made it to her face. I +ought, however, to mention that I did not make it to her face. I have +been reporting a harangue which I delivered in the sleepless middle of +the night to her imagined image. It is easier to be effective in reply +when the argumentative opponent is not present. + + + + + THE COMPLETE FUSSER + + + + + THE COMPLETE FUSSER + + + I + +FREQUENTERS of lunatic asylums are familiar with the person who, being +convinced that he is a poached egg, continually demands to be put on +hot toast, and is continually unhappy because nobody will put him on +hot toast. This man is quite harmless; he is merely a bore by reason of +a ridiculous delusion about the fulfilment of his true destiny being +bound up with hot toast; in character he is one of the most amiable +individuals that ever lived, amiable even to the point of offering +himself for consumption to those of his fellow-patients who are hungry, +and who happen to fancy a poached egg with their tea. Nevertheless, on +the score of his undeniable delusion he is segregated from ordinary +society, and indeed imprisoned for life. Such may be the consequence of +a delusion. + +But not all deluded people are treated alike. A lady went for the +week-end to stay in a country cottage. Now, this lady was accustomed to +smoke a cigarette in her bath of a morning. + +Let there be no mistake. She was a perfectly respectable lady. In +former days respectable ladies neither smoked cigarettes nor took +baths. The one habit was nearly as disreputable as the other. In the +present epoch they do both with impunity, and though possibly a section +of the public may consider that while for a woman to smoke a cigarette +is quite nice, and for a woman to have a bath is quite nice, to smoke a +cigarette in a bath is not quite nice for a woman, that section of the +public is in a very small minority and should therefore be howled down. + +Anyhow the lady in question was everything that a lady ought to be. She +was in fact a well-known social worker and writer on social subjects. +On the Sunday morning a terrible rumour was propagated throughout the +country cottage. The lady did not smoke merely a cigarette in her +bath--she smoked a special brand of cigarette in her bath. And she +had forgotten to bring a due supply of the special brand, and her +cigarette-case had been emptied on the previous night. It became known +that she was in a fearful state, and would not be comforted. The brand +was Egyptian. At first none but the brand would do for her, but after a +period of agony she announced that she was ready to smoke any Egyptian +or Turkish cigarette. The cottage, however, was neither Egyptian nor +Turkish, but a Virginian cottage. She could not be induced to try a +Virginian cigarette, and the cottage was miles from anywhere, and the +day was the Sabbath. + +She came downstairs miserable, unnerved, futile, a nuisance to herself +and to her hosts. She could not discuss important social matters, +which she had come on purpose to discuss. She could do naught except +sympathise with herself, and this she did on a tremendous scale. In the +afternoon a visitor called who possessed Egyptian cigarettes. The lady +got one, and at the first puff was instantly restored to her normal +condition. The hot toast had been brought to the poached egg. + +The lady, I maintain, was suffering from a delusion at least as +outrageous as the poached egg delusion, the delusion that her body and +brain could not function properly--in other words that her destiny +could not be fulfilled--unless she took into her mouth at a certain +time a particular variety of gaseous fluid scarcely distinguishable +from a thousand other similar varieties of gaseous fluid. Her physical +perceptions were not at all delicate. Like most women, for example, +she could not tell the difference between tea stewed and tea properly +infused. If a Virginian cigarette had been falsely marked in an +Egyptian manner she would have smoked it with gusto. And if she had +been smoking in the dark she could not have told whether her cigarette +was in or out--unless she inhaled. + +The delusion was nothing but a delusion. Her mind, by a habitual +process, had imagined it, and she had ended by being victimised by +it. She had ended by seriously believing that she was physically and +spiritually dependent upon a factor which had no appreciable power +beyond the power mistakenly and insanely attributed to it by her morbid +imagination. + +But, did any one suggest that she ought to be confined in a lunatic +asylum? Assuredly not. If ever she goes to a lunatic asylum it will +be as a visitor, to smile superiorly at the man whose welfare depends +utterly on hot toast. From the moral height of a cigarette she will +pity hot toast. + +Far from scheming to get the lady into a lunatic asylum, her hosts were +extraordinarily sympathetic, and even when they were by themselves the +worst thing they said was: + +‘Poor thing! She’s rather fussy about cigarettes.’ + + + II + +No one, I think, will assert that I have overdrawn the picture of +a person victimised by a delusion and yet not inhabiting a lunatic +asylum. Every one will be able out of his own experience of the world +to match my example with examples of his own. And indeed there are few +of us who are not familiar with at least one example immensely worse +than the lady who staked her daily existence on getting an Egyptian +cigarette in her bath. Few of us have not met the gentleman who can +only be described as ‘the complete fusser.’ + +This gentleman has slowly convinced himself that the proper fulfilment +of his destiny depends absolutely upon about ten thousand different +things. All things of course have their importance, but this gentleman +attaches a supreme and quite fatal importance to all the ten thousand +things. He begins to be fussy on waking up, and he stops being fussy +when he goes to sleep. He may not smoke a cigarette in his bath, but he +will probably keep a thermometer in his bath because he is convinced +that there is a ‘right’ temperature for the bath-water, and that any +other temperature would impair his efficiency. He may detest smoking, +in which case he will probably have rigid ideas about the precise sort +of woven stuff he must wear next to his skin. He may be almost any +kind of character, and yet be fussy. He may be so tidy that he cannot +exist in a room, either in his own house or in anybody else’s, until he +has been round the walls and made all the pictures exactly horizontal. +He may be so untidy that if his wife privily tidies his desk he is put +off work for the rest of the day. He may be so fond of open air that he +can only sleep with his head out of a window, or so afraid of open air +that a draught deranges all his activities for a fortnight. He may be +so regular that he kisses his wife by the clock, or so irregular that +he is never conscious of appetite until a meal has been going cold for +half an hour. And so on endlessly. + +But whatever he does and thinks he does and thinks under the conviction +that if he did and thought otherwise the consequences would be +disastrous to himself if not to others. Whereas the truth is that to +change all his habits from morn to eve would result in great benefit +to him. He spends his days attaching vast quantities of importance to a +vast number of things. Whereas the truth is, that scarcely any of the +said things are important in more than the slightest degree. He is the +victim of not one delusion but of hundreds of delusions, and especially +the grand delusion that the world is ready to come to an end on the +most trifling provocation. + +But there is no hope of him being sent to join the poached egg in the +lunatic asylum. His friends are content to say of him: + +‘He’s rather a particular man.’ + +True, his enemies scorn and objurgate him, and proclaim him pernicious +to society. You naturally are his enemy, and you scorn him. But you +should beware how you scorn him, because you may unconsciously be on +the way to becoming a complete fusser yourself. All of us--or at +any rate ninety-nine out of every hundred of us--have within us the +insidious microbe of fussiness. + + + III + +The way to becoming a complete fusser is obscure at the start of it. +To determine the predisposing causes to fussiness would necessitate +volumes of research into the secrets of individuality and the origins +of character--and would assuredly lead to no practical result, because +these creative mysteries lie beyond our influence--at any rate for the +present. A man is born with or without the instinct to fuss--that must +suffice for us. + +Nevertheless the real instinct to fuss ought not to be confused with +perfectly normal impulses which may superficially resemble it. Thus +it is often assumed that domestic servants as a class are fussy, +especially about their food. I can see no reason why domestic +servants as a class should be fussy, and I do not believe they are. +What is mistaken for fussiness in them is merely the universal human +prejudice against anything to which one is not accustomed. Labouring +people are, unfortunately for themselves, used to a narrow diet. A +hundred comestibles which to their alleged superiors may seem quite +commonplace are fearsomely strange to labouring people. A rural girl +goes to serve in a large house; she is offered excellent fish, and she +refuses it; she ‘can’t fancy it.’ Whereupon the mistress exclaims upon +the astounding fussiness of the poor! The explanation of the affair is +simply that the rural girl has never had opportunity to regard fish as +an article of diet. + +Similar phenomena may be observed in children of even the superior +unfussy classes. And, for another instance, gardeners will grow the +most superb asparagus who would not dream of eating it, and could +scarcely bring themselves to eat it. For them asparagus is not a +luxury, but something unnatural in the mouth, like snails or the +hind-legs of frogs. Snails and the hind-legs of frogs are luxuries in +various parts of the world; the Anglo-Saxon maid-scorning mistress +would certainly recoil from them if they were put on her plate, and in +so doing she would not lay herself open to a charge of fussiness. Yet +in recoiling from them she would be behaving exactly like the rural +maid whom she scorns. + +Nor must fussiness be confused with certain profound and incurable +antipathies, such as the strong repulsion of some individuals for cats, +apples, horses, etc. + +The real instinct to fuss can always be distinguished from the other +thing by this--the real instinct to fuss is progressive. If it is +not checked with extreme firmness it goes steadily on its way. And +though the start of the way to becoming a complete fusser may be +obscure, the later portions of the journey are not so obscure. Pride, +if not conceit, presides over them, and is always pushing forward +the traveller from one abnormality to the next. Thus a man discloses +a dislike to black clothes. His aunt dies at a great distance and +leaves him some money. His wife asks him: ‘Shall you wear black?’ He +answers with somewhat pained dignity: ‘Darling, you know I never wear +black.’ He is now known to himself and to his wife as the man who will +not wear black. Then his father dies, in the same town where the son +lives; the objector to black will have to attend the funeral. After a +little conversation with him the wife says to friends: ‘You know Edward +objects to black. He does really. He _never_ wears it, and I’m +afraid he won’t wear it even for his father’s funeral.’ + +Henceforth Edward is known not merely to himself and his wife but to +the whole town as the man who won’t wear black. It is a distinction. +He is proud of it. His wife is rather impressed by the sturdiness of +his resolution. He has suffered a little for his objection to black. +His reputation is made. An anti-black clause inserts itself into his +religion. Pride develops into conceit. Success and renown encourage the +instinct to fuss, and soon he has grown fussy about something else. And +thus does the fellow reach his goal of being a complete fusser. + + + IV + +There is no cure for the complete fusser. You might think that some +tremendous disaster--such as marrying a shrew who hated fussing, or +being cast on a desert island, or being imprisoned--would cure him. +But it would not. It would only cause a change in the symptoms; for +every human environment whatsoever gives occasion for fussiness to +the complete fusser. Even in the army, even in the lowest and most +order-ridden grades of the army, the complete fusser contrives to +flourish. And he is incurable because he is unconscious of being fussy. +What the world regards as fussiness he regards as wisdom essential to a +reasonable existence. He sincerely looks down upon the rest of mankind. +Spiritual pride puts him into the category of the hopeless case--along +with the alcoholic drunkard, the genuine kleptomaniac, and other +specimens whom he would chillingly despise. + +Apparently the sole use of the complete fusser is to serve as a +terrible warning to those who are on the way to becoming complete +fussers themselves--a terrible warning to pull up. + +That fussiness in its earlier stages can be cured is certain. But the +cure is very drastic in nature. There are lucid moments in the life +of the as yet incomplete fusser when he suspects his malady, when he +guiltily says to himself: ‘I know I am peculiar, but--’ Such a moment +must be seized, and immediate action taken. (The ‘but’ must be choked. +The ‘but’ may be full of wisdom, but it must be choked; the ‘but’ is +fatal.) If the fusser is anti-black let him proceed to the shopping +quarter at once. Let him not order a suit-to-measure of black. Let him +buy a ready-made suit. Let him put it on in the store or shop, and let +him have the other suit sent home. Let him then walk about the town in +black.... He is saved! No less thorough procedure will save him. + +And similarly for all other varieties of fussiness. + + + + + THE MEANING OF FROCKS + + + + + THE MEANING OF FROCKS + + + I + +BEING a man, I know that on the subject of women’s fashions men +still talk a vast amount of nonsense, partly sincere and partly +insincere--especially when there are no women present. The fact is +that the whole subject is deeply misunderstood, and the great majority +of people, both men and women, live and dress and die without getting +anywhere near the truth of it. + +Men try to explain the feminine cult of clothes by asserting that women +as a sex are vain. It is a profound truth that women as a sex are vain. +It is also a profound truth that men as a sex are vain. Have you ever +been with a man into a hosier’s shop? If you are a woman you certainly +have not, because, though a woman is often glad to be accompanied by a +man when she is choosing her adornments, a man will not allow a woman +to watch him at the same work. Fashionable dressmakers are delighted +to welcome the accompanying man. But at the sight of a woman in his +establishment the fashionable hosier would begin to fear for the safety +of the commonwealth. Even if you are a man you probably have not been +with another man into a hosier’s shop. Men prefer to do these deeds +quite alone; they shun even their own sex; the shopman does not count. +Why this secrecy? The answer is clear. Men are ashamed of themselves on +such occasions because on such occasions their real vanity is exposed. +Tailors, hosiers, and hatters are a loyal clan; but it must be admitted +that they all have a strange look on their faces. That look is due to +the revelations of male vanity which they carry locked eternally in +their breasts. To these purveyors men give themselves away and are +shameless before them. The ordinary man well knows that he is vain. +Besides, you can see him surreptitiously glancing at himself in shop +windows any day. And in some American periodicals there are positively +more advertisements of men’s finery than of women’s. + +Again, men try to explain the feminine cult of clothes by asserting +that women are like sheep and must follow one another. What one does +all must do. This argument is more than insincere; it is impudent. +For women show much wider originality and variations of attire +among themselves than men do among themselves. Half a dozen average +well-dressed women will be as different one from another as half a +dozen flowers of different species; you could distinguish between +them half a mile off. But half a dozen well-dressed men would be +indistinguishably alike if you decapitated them. It is notorious that +men are the slaves of fashion. If a new shade of cravat or sock comes +out, the city will be painted with that shade in less than a week. One +year every handkerchief is worn in the sleeve. Another year it will be +shocking to wear a handkerchief in the sleeve, because the only proper +place for wearing a handkerchief is in a pocket over the heart. At the +slightest change in the fashionable diameter of the leg of a pair of +trousers every man with adequate cash or credit will rush privily to +his tailor’s, and in sixty hours a parcel will arrive at that man’s +home marked: ‘Very urgent. Deliver at once.’ + +Men have a perfect passion for being exactly like other men--not merely +in clothes, but in everything. So much so that they cannot bear to +think that there are men unlike themselves. Thus men will form clubs of +which all the members are alike in some important point, so that while +they are in the club they will live under the beautiful illusion of +universal resemblance. They loathe opinions which are unfashionable, +or unfashionable in their particular set and environment; they will +not even read about such opinions if they can help it; they are ready +to imprison or kill (and often actually have imprisoned or killed) the +holders of such opinions, solely because they are not in the fashion. +And could a man with a bag-wig walk down the Strand or Fifth Avenue +without having it knocked off or being arrested for obstruction? He +could not. Nevertheless a bag-wig is less preposterous than a silk hat. + +Yet again, men try to explain the feminine cult of clothes by asserting +that women as a sex really enjoy the huge task of dressing, and really +enjoy spending money for the sake of spending money, and have no +brains above personal embellishment. All these arguments are patently +ridiculous. To very many well-dressed women the task of dressing is +naught but a tedious and heavy burden. As for brains, it frequently +occurs that the women with the most intelligence (intelligence far +surpassing that of the average man) are the most _chic_. In regard +to the enjoyment of mere spending, the charge is true. It is, however, +equally true of men. I could refer to tailors, hosiers, and hatters, +but I will not. Take, for a change, two dining parties at a restaurant, +one consisting of three men and three women, the other consisting of +six men. The bill of the six men will be the heavier. As a sex men, in +the French phrase, ‘refuse themselves nothing.’ And their felicity in +spending for the sake of spending is touchingly boyish. + +Whatever may be the explanation of the subjection of women to costly +fashion, we are now, at any rate, in a position to say what the +explanation is _not_. It is not that women are specially vain. +It is not that women are specially like sheep. It is not that they +lack intelligence. It is not that they enjoy the tyranny. And it is +not that they are spendthrift. If the explanation lay in any of these +directions men would read fashion papers, go to sales, and change their +suits four times a day. + + + II + +You will say: + +‘Women adorn themselves in order to be attractive to the other sex.’ + +This is true, but only to a limited extent. And men also adorn +themselves in order to be attractive to the other sex. Moreover, a +woman who has found the man of her desire, and is utterly satisfied +therewith, will still go on adorning herself, even though the man in +question has made it quite clear that she would attract him just as +strongly in a sack as in a Poiret gown. Further, some fashions do +not attract; they excite ridicule rather than admiration; yet they +are persisted in. And women of the classes who do not and cannot +cultivate fashionableness succeed at least as well as the other woman +in attracting men, even when these men by reason of laborious lives +have almost no leisure for dalliance. The truth is that the competition +among women for men is chiefly a legend--not wholly. There are more +women than men, but not many more. Women want marriage more than +men want marriage, but not much more. Competition is by no means so +fierce that women have to perform prodigies of self-ornamentation +in order to inveigle a fellow-creature so simple that he worries +about the tint of his own necktie and socks; and the idea of such a +phenomenon is derogatory to women. After all, nature has the business +of sex-attraction in hand, and she is not dependent on fashions. Long +before fashions had been evolved she managed it precisely as well as +she manages it to-day. She relies, not upon textile stuffs, but upon +the stuff that dreams are made on; namely, glances, gestures, actions, +and speech. + +The authentic major explanation of the expensive fashionableness of +women must be sought in another direction. As usual, men are at the +bottom of the affair. When woman gloriously dresses herself up to go +out, she does so in order to prove to the world something which man +wants to be proved to the world. In old days the two attributes which +man held in the highest esteem were wealth and idleness. To be poor was +shameful, and to work for a living was shameful. Man, therefore, had to +demonstrate publicly that he was neither needy nor industrious. One of +the best methods of demonstration was costume, and the costume of the +successful man in those days was very expensive, and so gorgeous and +delicate as to make toil impossible for him. + +The time came when man ceased to be proud of his own idleness, and his +costume altered accordingly. Then the duty of demonstrating wealth +and idleness by means of costume fell on woman. Man could not do +the demonstration on his own person--he was too busy--and hence he +employed the lady to be expensive on his behalf. Such was her function, +and still is her function. The Rue de la Paix is based firmly on the +distant past. Assuredly long years will elapse before feminine costume +ceases to be used as a demonstration that man possesses the attributes +that are most admired. Estates demonstrate the possession of those +attributes; bonds demonstrate the possession of those attributes. But +estates are a fixture, and bonds are kept in a safe. Costume walks +about; your wife can take it to the seaside with her; the world cannot +help noticing it; and it has the further advantage of ministering to +the senses. + +The proofs of the substantial correctness of this explanation of +women’s dress are innumerable. Perhaps the principal proof is that the +very man who grumbles at fashionableness in women would be the first to +complain if his wife started to ignore fashion and to dress merely for +comfort, utility, and charm. No man objects to the inexpensiveness of +his wife’s clothes, but every man objects to them looking inexpensive. +The advertised lure of a blouse marked one pound at a sale is that it +has the air of a blouse costing two pounds. Suppose a rich man sees +a delightful typewriting young woman walking down the street, falls +in love with her, and marries her. Now, although the clothes in which +he saw her suited her admirably in every way, and although she has +simple tastes, and more elaborate clothes do not suit her so well, the +first thing she has to do on marriage is to alter her style of dress +for a more expensive style. Otherwise the man will say: ‘I don’t want +my wife to look like a clerk.’ In other words: ‘I insist on my wife +demonstrating to the universe that I possess wealth and can afford +to keep her idle on my behalf.’ Even in small provincial towns where +personal adornment is theoretically discouraged, and where people +preach the entirely false maxim that externals don’t matter--even there +the theory holds good. The middle-class wife will have her sealskin +coat before she has her automobile. Fur coats are detestable garments +to walk in, but real sealskin is a symbol which cannot be denied. + +And it is as important that that costume should prove idleness as that +it should prove wealth. Hence the fragility of extremely fashionable +costumes, and their unpracticalness. The fashionable costume must be +of such a nature that the least touch of the workaday world will ruin +it; and it must go beyond this--it must be of such a nature that the +wearer is actually prevented by it from her full and proper activity. +An unconsidered movement would rip it to pieces. Rich Chinese males +till recently kept their finger-nails so long that it was impossible +for them to use their hands, and they maimed females so that they could +not walk. Both sexes were thus rendered helpless, and the ability +to be futile was proved like a problem of Euclid. We laugh at that. +Crinolines were admirably designed to hinder honest work. And we laugh +at crinolines too. But we still have the corset, though the corset is +not the homicidal contrivance it once was. And we have the high-heeled +shoe, higher than ever. You say: ‘But women have high heels to increase +their apparent height.’ Not a bit! All women whose business it is to +demonstrate idleness to the universe wear high heels, because high +heels are a clear presumption that the wearer is not obliged really +to exert herself. If a woman with a rich husband is so inordinately +tall that she is ashamed of her height, she will wear high heels to +prove that her husband is rich. And, not to be outdone, the delightful +typewriting girl walking down the street at 8.30 A.M. will +also wear high heels--and each hurried step she takes is a miracle of +balance, pluck, and endurance. Life is marvellous. + + + III + +You will say: + +‘Life may be marvellous, but these revelations about human motives are +terrible, and they depress us.’ + +They ought not to depress you. The saving quality about human motives +is that they are so human, and therefore so forgivable. And, be it +remembered, I have not asserted that the demonstration of wealth and +leisure is the sole explanation of fashionableness. I have already +referred to the desire to be attractive; and to this must be added the +sense of beauty, which is nearly allied to it. The woman who bedecks +herself is actuated by all three motives--the motive of ostentation (to +satisfy primarily the man), the motive to attract, and the motive to +satisfy the sense of beauty. + +As regards the last, it may be said that the sense of beauty does not +regularly improve in mankind, like, for instance, the sense of justice. +No feminine raiment has ever equalled the classic Greek, which was +not costly. But then the Greeks were not worried by too much wealth. +And the Greek dress would be highly inconvenient without the Greek +daily life, and especially without the Greek climate. And I doubt if +nowadays we should care greatly for the Greek life. Still, the sense +of beauty does emphatically exist among us, and the desire of women to +be attractive is quite as powerful as it was in the time of Aspasia. +These two motives are constantly, and often victoriously, fighting +against the motive of ostentation, and it is probably the interplay of +the three motives that produces the continual confusing and expensive +changes of fashion, as has been well argued by Professor Franklin Henry +Giddings, one of the most brilliant social philosophers in the United +States. + +‘But all this must be altered!’ the ardent among you will cry out. +‘In future women must dress solely to be attractive and to satisfy the +sense of beauty.’ + +Well, they just won’t. Men will never allow it, and women themselves +would never agree to it. Costume will always be more than costume; +costume is so handy and effective as a symbol of something else; and +that something else will always be--success. When wealth ceases to be +the standard of success, then costume will cease to be employed as a +proof of wealth, and not before. Meanwhile, we must admit that, if the +possession of wealth has to be proved to the world, it could not be +proved in a more charming and less offensive way than in the costumes +of women. The spectacle of a stylish dress stylishly worn is extremely +agreeable. The spectacle of a room full of stylish dresses stylishly +worn is thrilling. He among you who has never been to a ball should go +to one and try the experience for himself. + +Leisure, the ability to be idle and useless, is still to a certain +extent a standard of success in life, but not anything like so much +as in the past. People are gradually perceiving that to be idle and +useless is vicious. Hence the unpracticalness of women’s costumes will +gradually decrease. Beyond question high heels, for example, will +vanish from our pavements and from our drawing-rooms. I even have hope +that women will one day wear dresses which they can put on and fasten +unaided without the help of one, two, or three assistants. But such +changes will arrive slowly. You cannot hurry nature. It is a great +truth that the present is firmly rooted in the past. It refuses to be +pulled up by the roots. Futile to announce that you will in future be +guided by nothing but common sense! Whose common sense? Common sense +is a purely relative thing. The common sense of the past often seems +silly to us, and the common sense of the present will often seem silly +to the future. The progress of mankind is an extraordinarily complex +business. It cannot be settled in a phrase. Nothing in it is simple; +nothing in it is unrelated to the rest. Everything in it has a reason +which will appeal to true intelligence. And men should bear this in +mind when they talk lightly and scornfully (and foolishly) about +women’s fashions. + +To conclude, let me utter one word about the secret fear that lies +always at the back of most men’s minds--the fear that such-and-such a +change in the habits of women will destroy their femininity. This fear +is groundless. Femininity--thank heaven!--is entirely indestructible. +It will survive all progress and all revolutions of taste. And when the +end comes on this cooling planet the last vestige of it will be there, +fronting the last vestige of masculinity. + + +Printed in Great Britain by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty +at the Edinburgh University Press. + + + + + =TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES= + +Simple typographical errors have been silently corrected; unbalanced +quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and +otherwise left unbalanced. + +Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant +preference was found in the original book; otherwise they were not +changed. + +Inconsistent hyphens left as printed. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75928 *** diff --git a/75928-h/75928-h.htm b/75928-h/75928-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..055894e --- /dev/null +++ b/75928-h/75928-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2136 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + Self and Self-management: Essays about Existing | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +/* General headers */ + +h1 { + text-align: center; + clear: both; +} + +h2 { + text-align: center; + font-weight: bold; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; + text-indent: 1.5em; +} + +.nind {text-indent:0;} + +.nindc {text-align:center; text-indent:0;} + +.large {font-size: 125%;} + +.space-above2 { margin-top: 2em; } +.space-below2 { margin-bottom: 2em; } +.space-above3 { margin-top: 3em; } +.space-below3 { margin-bottom: 3em; } + +.allsmcap {font-variant: small-caps; text-transform: lowercase;} + +.spa1 { + margin-top: 1em + } + +.toc { + margin: 1em auto; + max-width: 25em; + border: 2px solid black; + text-indent: 0%; + text-align: center + } + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + +hr.r65 {width: 65%; margin-top: 3em; margin-bottom: 3em; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +ul {margin-left: 3em; padding-left: 0;} +li {list-style-type: none; padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2.5em; text-align: left;} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} +table.autotable { border-collapse: collapse; } +table.autotable td { padding: 0.25em; } + +.tdl {text-align: left;} +.tdr {text-align: right;} + +.tdlh2 { + text-align: left; + margin-left: 2em; + text-indent: 2em + } + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-indent: 0; +} /* page numbers */ + + +.allsmcap {font-variant: small-caps; text-transform: lowercase;} + +/* Images */ + +img { + max-width: 100%; + width: 100%; + height: auto + } + +.width500 { + max-width: 500px + } + +.x-ebookmaker img { + width: 80% + } + +.x-ebookmaker .width500 { + width: 100% + } + + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; +} + +/* Transcriber's notes */ +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:small; + padding:0.5em; + margin-bottom:5em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; +} + + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75928 ***</div> + + +<figure class="figcenter width500" id="cover"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="1776" height="2560" alt="A collection of essays by Arnold Bennett on the subject of the individual and self-betterment."> +</figure> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<div class="toc"> +<p class="nindc space-below2"><span class="large">WORKS BY ARNOLD BENNETT</span></p> + + +<p class="nindc">NOVELS</p> + + +<ul><li> A Man from the North</li> +<li> Anna of the Five Towns</li> +<li> Leonora</li> +<li> A Great Man</li> +<li> Sacred and Profane Love</li> +<li> Whom God hath Joined</li> +<li> Buried Alive</li> +<li> The Old Wives’ Tale</li> +<li> The Glimpse</li> +<li> Helen with the High Hand</li> +<li> Clayhanger</li> +<li> The Card</li> +<li> Hilda Lessways</li> +<li> The Regent</li> +<li> The Price of Love</li> +<li> These Twain</li> +<li> The Lion’s Share</li> +<li> The Pretty Lady</li> +<li> The Roll-Call</li> +</ul> + + +<p class="nindc">FANTASIAS</p> + + +<ul><li> The Grand Babylon Hotel</li> +<li> The Gates of Wrath</li> +<li> Teresa of Watling Street</li> +<li> The Loot of Cities</li> +<li> Hugo</li> +<li> The Ghost</li> +<li> The City of Pleasure</li> +</ul> + + +<p class="nindc">SHORT STORIES</p> + + +<ul><li> Tales of the Five Towns</li> +<li> The Grim Smile of the Five Towns</li> +<li> The Matador of the Five Towns</li> +</ul> + + +<p class="nindc">BELLES-LETTRES</p> + + +<ul><li> How to Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day</li> +<li> The Human Machine</li> +<li> Mental Efficiency</li> +<li> Literary Taste</li> +<li> Friendship and Happiness</li> +<li> Married Life</li> +<li> Those United States</li> +<li> Paris Nights</li> +<li> Books and Persons</li> +</ul> + + +<p class="nindc">DRAMA</p> + + +<ul><li> Polite Farces</li> +<li> Cupid and Common Sense</li> +<li> What the Public Wants</li> +<li> The Honeymoon</li> +<li> The Great Adventure</li> +<li> The Title</li> +</ul> +</div> +</div> + + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="SELF_AND_SELF-MANAGEMENT">SELF AND SELF-MANAGEMENT</h2> +</div> + + +<figure class="figcenter width500" id="i_title"> +<img src="images/i_title.jpg" width="1200" height="1812" alt="Title page of the book Self and Self-management Essays about Existing."> +</figure> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h1>SELF AND<br> +SELF-MANAGEMENT</h1> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2">ESSAYS ABOUT EXISTING</p> + + + + +<p class="nindc space-above3 space-below2"><span class="allsmcap">BY</span><br> +<span class="large">ARNOLD BENNETT</span></p> + + + + +<p class="nindc space-above3 space-below3">HODDER AND STOUGHTON<br> +LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO<br> +MCMXVIII +</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2> +</div> + + +<table class="autotable"> +<tbody><tr> +<td class="tdl"> </td> +<td class="tdr"> <span class="allsmcap">PAGE</span></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl">RUNNING AWAY FROM LIFE</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl">SOME AXIOMS ABOUT WAR-WORK</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_25">25</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl">THE DIARY HABIT</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_45">45</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl">A DANGEROUS LECTURE TO A YOUNG <br> +<span class="tdlh2">WOMAN</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_65">65</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl">THE COMPLETE FUSSER</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_85">85</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl">THE MEANING OF FROCKS</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_103">103</a></td> +</tr> +</tbody> +</table> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="RUNNING_AWAY_FROM_LIFE">RUNNING AWAY FROM LIFE</h2> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="RUNNING">RUNNING AWAY FROM LIFE</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nindc">I</p> + +<p class="nind"> +I WILL take the extreme case of the social butterfly, because it +has the great advantage of simplicity. This favourite variety of +the lepidopteral insects is always spoken of as female. But as the +variety persists from generation to generation obviously it cannot be +of one sex only. And, as a fact, there are indubitably male social +butterflies, though the differences between the male and the female may +be slight. I shall, however, confine myself to the case of the female +social butterfly—again for the sake of simplicity.</p> + +<p>This beautiful creature combines the habits of the butterfly with the +habits of the moth. For whereas the moth flies only by night and the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span> +butterfly flies only by day, the social butterfly flies both by day +and by night. She is universally despised and condemned, and almost +universally envied: one of the strangest among the many strange facts +of natural history. She lives with a single purpose—to be for ever in +the movement—not any particular movement, but <i>the</i> movement, +which is a grand combined tendency comprising all lesser tendencies. +For the social butterfly the constituents of the movement are chiefly +men, theatres, restaurants, dances, noise, and hurry. The minor +constituents may and do frequently change, but the major constituents +have not changed for a considerable number of years. The minor +constituents of the movement are usually ‘serious,’ and hence in a +minor way the social butterfly is serious. If books happen to be of the +movement, she will learn the names of books and authors, and in urgent +crises will even read. If music, she will learn to distinguish from +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span> +all other sounds the sounds which are of the movement, the sounds at +which she must shut her eyes in ecstasy and sigh. If social reform, she +will at once be ready to reform everybody and everything except herself +and her existence. If charity or mercifulness, she will be charitable +or merciful according to the latest devices and in the latest frocks. +Yes, and if war happens to be of the movement, she will be serious +about the war.</p> + +<p>You observe how sarcastic I am about the social butterfly. It is +necessary to be so. The social butterfly never has since the earliest +times been mentioned in print without sarcasm or pity, and she never +will be. She is greatly to be pitied. What is her aim? Her aim, like +the aim of most people except the very poor (whose aim is simply to +keep alive), is happiness. But the unfortunate creature, as you and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span> +I can so clearly see, has confused happiness with pleasure. She runs +day and night after pleasure—that is to say, after distraction: +eating, drinking, posing, seeing, being seen, laughing, jostling, and +the singular delight of continual imitation. She is only alive in +public, and the whole of her days and nights are spent in being in +public, or in preparing to be in public, or in recovering from the +effects of being in public. Habit drives her on from one excitement to +another. She flies eternally from something mysterious and sinister +which is eternally overtaking her. You and I know that she is never +happy—she is only intoxicated or narcotised by a drug that she calls +pleasure. And her youth is going; her figure is going; her complexion +is practically gone. She is laying up naught for the future save +disappointment, dissatisfaction, disillusion, and no doubt rheumatism. +And all this inordinate, incredible folly springs from a wrong and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span> +childish interpretation of the true significance of happiness.</p> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2">II</p> + +<p>How much wiser, you say, and indeed we all say, is that other young +woman who has chosen the part of content. She has come to terms with +the universe. She is not for ever gadding about in search of something +which she has not got, and which not one person in a hundred round +about her has got. She has said: ‘The universe is stronger than I am. I +will accommodate myself to the universe.’</p> + +<p>And she acts accordingly. She makes the best of her lot. She treats +her body in a sane manner, and she treats her mind in a sane manner. +She has perceived the futility of what is known as pleasure in circles +where they play bridge and organise charity fêtes on the Field of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span> +the Cloth of Gold. She has frankly admitted that youth is fleeting, +and that part of it must be spent in making preparations against the +rigours of old age. She seeks her pleasure in literature and the arts +because such pleasure strengthens instead of weakening the mind, +and never palls. She is prudent. She is aware that there can be no +happiness where duty has been left undone, and that loving-kindness +is a main source of felicity. Hence she is attentive to duty, and +she practises the altruism which is at once the cause and the result +of loving-kindness. She deliberately cultivates cheerfulness and +resignation; she discourages discontent as gardeners discourage a weed. +She has duly noted that the kingdom of heaven is ‘within you,’ not near +the band at the expensive restaurant, nor in the trying-on room of the +fashionable dressmaker’s next door to the expensive restaurant, nor in +the <i>salons</i> of the well-advertised great. Her life is reflected +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span> +in her face, which is a much better face than the face of the social +butterfly. Whatever may occur—within reason—she is armed against +destiny, married or single.</p> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2">III</p> + +<p>What can there be in common between these two types? Well, the point +I am coming to is that they may have one tragic similarity which +vitiates their lives equally, or almost equally. One may be vastly more +admirable than the other, and in many matters vastly more sensible. +And yet they may both have made the same stupendous mistake: the +misinterpretation of the significance of the word happiness. Towards +the close of existence, and even throughout existence, the second, in +spite of all her precautions, may suffer the secret and hidden pangs of +unhappiness just as acutely as the first; and her career may in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span> +end present itself to her as just as much a sham.</p> + +<p>And for the same reason. The social butterfly was running after +something absurd, and the other woman knew that it was absurd and left +it alone. But the root of the matter was more profound. The social +butterfly’s chief error was not that she was running after something, +but that she was running away from something—something which I have +described as mysterious and sinister. And the other woman also may +be—and as a fact frequently is—running away from just that mysterious +and sinister something. And that something is neither more nor less +than life itself in its every essence. Both may be afraid of life and +may have to pay an equal price for their cowardice. Both may have +refused to listen to the voice within them, and will suffer equally for +the wilful shutting of the ear.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span></p> + +<p>(It is true that the other woman may just possibly have a true vocation +for a career of resignation and altruism, and the spreading of a +sort of content in a thin layer over the entire length of existence. +If so, well and good. But it is also true that the social butterfly +may have a true vocation for being a social butterfly, and the thick +squandering of a sort of pleasure on the earlier part of existence, to +the deprivation of the latter part. Then neither the one nor the other +will have been guilty of the cowardice of running away from life.)</p> + +<p>My point is that you may take refuge in good works or you may take +refuge in bad works, but that the supreme offence against life lies in +taking refuge from it, and that if you commit this offence you will +miss the only authentic happiness—which springs no more from content +and resignation than it springs from mere pleasure. It is indisputable +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span> +that the conscience can be, and is constantly narcotised as much by +relatively good deeds as by relatively bad deeds. Nevertheless, to +dope the conscience is always a crime, and is always punished by the +ultimate waking up of the conscience.</p> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2">IV</p> + +<p>To take refuge from life is to refuse it. Life generally offers due +scope for the leading instinct in a man or a woman; and sometimes it +offers the scope at a very low price, at no price at all.</p> + +<p>For example, a young man may have a very marked instinct for +engineering, and his father may be a celebrated and wealthy engineer +who is only too anxious that the son should follow the same profession. +Life has offered the scope and charged nothing for it.</p> + +<p>But, on the other hand, a man may have a very marked instinct for +authorship, and his father may be a celebrated and wealthy engineer +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span> +who, being convinced that literature is an absurd and despicable +profession, has determined that his son shall not be an author but an +engineer. ‘Become an engineer,’ says the father, ‘and I will give you +unique help, and you are a made man. Become an author, and you get +nothing whatever from me except opposition.’</p> + +<p>Life, however, which has provided the instinct for literature, has also +provided the scope for its fulfilment. The scope for young authors +is vaster to-day on two continents than ever it was. But the price +which in this case life quotes is very high. The young man hesitates. +The price quoted includes comfort, parental approval, domestic peace, +money, luxury, and perhaps also a comfortable and not unsatisfactory +marriage. It includes practically all the ingredients of the mixture +commonly known as happiness. Of course, by following literature the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span> +young man may recover all and more than all the price paid. But also he +may not. The chances are about a hundred to one that he will not. He is +risking nearly everything in order to buy a ticket in a lottery.</p> + +<p>Let us say that, being a prudent and obedient young fellow, he declines +to beggar himself for a ticket in a lottery. His instinct towards +literature has not developed very far; he sacrifices it and becomes +the engineer. By industry and goodwill and native brains he becomes +a very fair engineer, the prop of the firm, the aid, and in due +course the successor, of his father. He treats his work-people well. +He marries a delightful girl, and he even treats her well. He has +delightful children. He is a terrific worldly success, and a model to +his fellow-creatures. That man’s attention to duty, his altruism, his +real kindness, are the theme of conversation among all his friends. He +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span> +treats his conscience with the most extraordinary respect.</p> + +<p>And yet, if his instinct towards literature was genuine, he is not +fundamentally happy, and when he chances to meet an author, or to read +about authors (even about their suicides of despair), or to be deeply +impressed by a book, he is acutely aware that he has committed the sin +of taking refuge from life; he knows that the extraordinary respect +which he pays to his conscience is at bottom a doping of that organ; +he perceives that the smooth path is in fact the rough path, and that +the rough path, which he dared not face, might have been, with all +its asperities, the smooth one. His existence is a vast secret and +poisonous regret; and there is nothing whatever to be done; there is no +antidote for the poison; the dope is a drug—and insufficient at that.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span></p> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2">V</p> + +<p>Women, even in these latter days when reason is supposed to have +got human nature by the neck, have far greater opportunities and +temptations than men to run away from life. Indeed, many of them are +taught and encouraged to do so. The practice of the three ancient +cardinal female virtues—shutting your eyes, stopping your ears, and +burying your head in the sand—is very carefully inculcated; and then, +of course, people turn round on young women and upbraid them because +they are afraid of existence! And, though things are changing, they +have not yet definitely changed. I would not blame a whole sex—no +matter which—for anything whatever. But to state a fact is not to +blame. The fact is that women, when they get a chance, do show a +tendency to shirk life. Large numbers of them come to grips with life +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span> +simply because they are compelled to do so. A woman whose material +existence is well assured will not as a rule go out into the world. +Further, she will not marry as willingly as the woman who needs a home +and cannot see the prospect of it except through marriage. By which +I mean to imply that with women the achievement of marriage is due +less to the instinct to mate than to an economic instinct. Men are +wicked animals and know not righteousness, but it may be said of them +generally that with them the achievement of marriage <i>is</i> due to +the instinct to mate.</p> + +<p>Examining the cases of certain women who put off marrying, I have been +forced to the conclusion that their only reason for hesitating to +marry is that men are not perfect, and that to marry an imperfect man +involves risk. It does, but the reason is not valid. Risk is the very +essence of life, and the total absence of danger is equal to death. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span> +I do not say that to follow an unsatisfactory vocation and to fail in +it is better than to follow no vocation. But I am inclined to say that +any marriage is better than no marriage—for both sexes. And I think +that the most tragic spectacle on earth is an old woman metaphorically +wrapped in cotton-wool who at some period of her career has refused +life because of the peril of inconvenience and unhappiness.</p> + +<p>Both men and women can run away from life in ways far more subtle and +less drastic than those which I have named. For the sake of clearness +I have confined myself to rather crude and obvious examples of flight. +There are probably few of us who are not conscious of having declined +at least some minor challenge of existence. And there are still fewer +of us who can charge ourselves with having been consistently too bold +in our desire to get the full savour of existence.</p> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2">VI</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span></p> + +<p>Each individual must define happiness for himself or herself. For my +part, I rule out practically all the dictionary definitions. In most +dictionaries you will find that the principal meaning attached to the +word is ‘good fortune’ or ‘prosperity.’ Which is notoriously absurd. +Then come such definitions as ‘a state of well-being characterised +by relative permanence, by dominantly agreeable emotion ... and by a +natural desire for its continuation.’ This last is from Webster, and +it is very clever. Yet I will have none of it, unless I am allowed to +define the word ‘well-being’ in my own way.</p> + +<p>For me, an individual cannot be in a state of well-being if any of his +faculties are permanently idle through any fault of his own. The full +utilisation of all the faculties seems to me to be the foundation of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span> +well-being. But I doubt if a full utilisation of all the faculties +necessarily involves the idea of good fortune, or prosperity, or +tranquillity, or contentedness with one’s lot, or even a ‘dominantly +agreeable emotion’; very often it rather involves the contrary.</p> + +<p>In my view happiness includes chiefly the idea of ‘satisfaction after +full honest effort.’ Everybody is guilty of mistakes and of serious +mistakes, and the contemplation of these mistakes must darken, be it +ever so little, the last years of existence. But it need not be fatal +to a general satisfaction. Men and women may in the end be forced to +admit: ‘I made a fool of myself,’ and still be fairly happy. But no +one can possibly be satisfied, and therefore no one can in my sense be +happy, who feels that in some paramount affair he has failed to take +up the challenge of life. For a voice within him, which none else can +hear, but which he cannot choke, will constantly be murmuring:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span></p> + +<p>‘You lacked courage. You hadn’t the pluck. You ran away.’</p> + +<p>And it is happier to be unhappy in the ordinary sense all one’s life +than to have to listen at the end to that dreadful interior verdict.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="SOME_AXIOMS_ABOUT_WAR-WORK">SOME AXIOMS ABOUT WAR-WORK</h2> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="SOME_AXIOMS">SOME AXIOMS ABOUT WAR-WORK</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2">I</p> + +<p class="nind"> +THIS essay concerns men, but it concerns women more.</p> + +<p>When citizens begin to learn, through newspapers and general rumour, +that voluntary war-work is afoot, and that volunteers are badly wanted, +and that there is work for all who love their country, then those who +love their country are at once sharply divided into two classes—the +people to whom the work comes, and the people who have to go out to +seek the work. The former are the people of prominent social position; +the latter are the remainder of the population. The prominent persons +will see work rolling up to their front doors in quantities huge +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span> +enough to overthrow the entire house. The remainder will look out of +the window and see nothing at all unusual in the street. They are then +apt to say: ‘This is very odd. There is much work to do. I am ready to +do my share. Why doesn’t somebody come along and ask me to do it?’ And +they feel rather hurt at the neglect, and finally they sigh: ‘Well, if +no one gives me anything to do, of course I can’t do anything.’</p> + +<p>Such an attitude would be quite reasonable if society was like a +telephone-exchange, and anybody could get precisely the person he or +she was after by paying a girl a pound or two a week to stick plugs +into holes. But society not being like a telephone-exchange, the +attitude is unreasonable. Patriots cannot expect the organisers of +war-work to run up and down streets knocking at doors and crying: +‘Come! You are the very woman I need!’ However much urgent war-work +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span> +is waiting to be done, nine-tenths of the individuals who are anxious +to do it will have to put themselves to a certain amount of trouble in +order to discover the work, perhaps to a great deal of trouble. Having +located the work, they may even have almost to beg for the privilege of +doing it. Again, they are rather hurt. They demand, why should they go +on their knees? They are not asking a favour.</p> + +<p>A woman will say:</p> + +<p>‘I went and offered my services. And he looked at me as if I was a +doubtful character, and you never heard such a cross-examination as I +had to go through! It was most humiliating.’</p> + +<p>True! True! But could she reasonably expect the cross-examiner to see +into the inside of her head? The first use and the last use of the +gift of speech is to ask questions. Moreover, respected madam, it is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span> +quite probable that the cross-examiner was not a bit suspicious, and +that his manner was simply due to dumbfoundedness, to mere inability +to believe that so ideal a person as yourself had, so to speak, fallen +from heaven straight into his net. And further, respected madam, are +not you yourself suspicious? If the cross-examiner had come to you, +instead of you going to him, might not your first thought have been: +‘What advantage is he trying to gain by coming to me? I shall say No!’ +If it is true that people who ask for work are stared at, it is equally +true that people who are asked to work also stare—a little haughtily. +And when the latter graciously promise assistance, they often say to +themselves: ‘I shall do as little as I can, because I’m not going to be +taken advantage of.’ And they almost invariably end by doing more than +they can, and by insisting on being taken advantage of. Human nature +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span> +is mean, but it is also noble.</p> + +<p>Axiom: The preliminary trouble and weariness and annoyance incidental +to getting the work are themselves a necessary and inevitable part of +war-work, just as much as bandaging the brows of heroes.</p> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2">II</p> + +<p>Life is a continual passage from one illusion to another. No sooner +has the eager volunteer found out that the desire to help is apt to +be treated as evidence of a criminal disposition, and that war-work +is as shy as deer in the depths of a forest—no sooner has he or she +discovered these things than yet another discovery destroys yet another +illusion. The war-work when brought to bay and caught is not the right +kind of war-work. You—for I may as well admit that I am talking direct +to the eager volunteer—you had expected something else. This war-work +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span> +that presents itself is either beneath your powers, or it is beyond +your powers; or it is unsuited to your individuality or to your social +station or to your health or to your hands or feet. You can scarcely +say what you had expected, but at any rate ... I will tell you what +you had expected. You had expected the ideal—work that showed you at +your best, picturesque work, interesting work, work free from monotony, +work of which you could see the immediate beautiful results, work which +taxed you without overtaxing you, really important work without the +moral risks attaching to real responsibility. Such was the work you +had expected, and the chances are ten to one that the work you have +actually got is dull, monotonous, apparently futile; any fool could do +it, though it is exhausting and inconvenient. Or, on the other hand, +it is, while dull and monotonous, too exacting for a well-intentioned +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span> +mediocre brain like yours (you don’t actually mean that, but you try to +be modest)—in short it is not suitable work.</p> + +<p>Axiom: There is not enough suitable work to go round, nor the +thousandth part of what would be enough. Unsuitableness is a +characteristic of nearly all war-work. Lowering your great powers +down, or forcing your little powers up, to the level of the work +offered—this, too, is part of war-work.</p> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2">III</p> + +<p>Again, you have to get away from the illusion that you can live a +new life and still keep on living the old life. Everybody, as has +somewhere been stated, possesses twenty-four hours in each day. +Everybody occupies every one of his twenty-four hours. You do, though +you may think you don’t. If you do not occupy them in labour then you +occupy them in idleness; if not in usefulness, then in futility. Now +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span> +idleness and futility are much more difficult to expel from hours +which they have appropriated than labour and usefulness are difficult +to expel. But if war-work is brought in, something will have to be +expelled. Habits of labour and usefulness are sometimes hard enough +to change; habits of idleness and futility are still harder. If you +were previously spending your afternoons in giving and accepting +elaborate afternoon teas, you will have more trouble in devoting +your afternoons to war-work than if you had been spending them, for +example, in the pursuit of knowledge. It is child’s play to abandon the +pursuit of knowledge; no moral stamina is required; but to give up the +exciting sociabilities of afternoon tea is a tremendous feat. So much +so, that if you are a votary of this indigestive practice, you will +infallibly endeavour to persuade yourself at first: ‘I can manage the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span> +two—war-work and afternoon teas as well. I can fit them in.’</p> + +<p>You cannot fit them in—at any rate successfully. The essence of +war-work is that it may not be fitted in. If it does not mean +sacrifice, it means naught. Sacrifice is giving something for nothing. +You cannot give something and yet stick to it. Certain persons are +apt to buy an article to give away, and then are so pleased with +the article that they decide to keep it for themselves. They thus +obtain for a period the sensation of benevolence without any ultimate +corresponding sacrifice. This is the nearest approach, that I know of, +to giving something and yet sticking to it; but it has no relation +whatever to war-work.</p> + +<p>Axiom: If a tea-cup is full you cannot pour anything into it until you +have poured something out.</p> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2">IV</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span></p> + +<p>The next, and the next to the last, illusion to go is a masterpiece +of simple-mindedness, and yet nearly all who take up war-work are +found at first to be under its sway. It is the illusion that war-work, +being a fine and noble thing, ought to change people’s natures +and dispositions, in such a manner as to produce the maximum of +co-operating effort with the minimum of friction.</p> + +<p>Now the very heart of all war-work is the grand and awe-inspiring +institution of the Committee. If you are engaged on war-work you +are bound to sit on a Committee; or, in default of a Committee, a +Sub-Committee (which usually has more real power than the bumptious +and unwieldy body that overlords it). And, if you are on neither a +Committee nor a Sub-Committee, then you are bound sooner or later to +be called up before a Committee or a Sub-Committee, and to be in a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span> +position to give the Committee or Sub-Committee a piece of your mind. +Thus your legitimate ambition will somehow be satisfied.</p> + +<p>But let us suppose that you are at once elected to a Committee. Well, +among the members of the Committee are three persons you know—Miss X, +Mr. Y, and Mrs. Z. Miss X used to be a mannish and reckless and cheeky +young maid. Mr. Y used to be an interfering and narrow-minded old maid. +Mrs. Z used to be nothing in particular. You enter the Committee-room, +and you see these three, together with a few others who have not a +very promising air. (Probably no sight is more depressing than the +cordon of faces round a Committee-room table.) You, however, are not +downcast. You feel in yourself the uplifting power of a great ideal. +You are determined to make the best of yourself and of everybody. And +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span> +you are convinced that everybody is determined to do the same. But in +less than five minutes Miss X, despite her obvious lack of experience, +is offering the most absurd proposals; she has put her elbows on the +table; and she is calmly teaching all her grandmothers to suck eggs. +Mr. Y is objecting to the ruling of the Chairman, and obstinately +arguing against a resolution that has been carried, and indeed implying +that the Committee ought not to do anything at all. As for Mrs. Z she +has scarcely opened her mouth; when the Chairman asked her for her +opinion she blushed and said she rather agreed, and she voted both for +and against the first resolution.</p> + +<p>‘Is it conceivable,’ you exclaim in your soul, ‘is it conceivable +that these individuals can behave so in such a supreme crisis of +the nation’s history, at a moment when the nation has need of every +citizen’s loyal goodwill, of every—?’ etc. etc. ‘No! They cannot have +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span> +realised that we are at war!’</p> + +<p>And sundry other members of the Committee are not much better than +the ignoble three. Indeed, your faith in Committees is practically +destroyed. You say to yourself, with your blunt, vigorous common +sense: ‘If only the Committee would adjourn and leave the whole matter +to me, I am sure I could manage it much better than they are doing.’ +You consider that a Committee is a device for wasting time and for +flattering the conceit of opinionated fools.... Then Mr. Y becomes +absolutely impossible. You feel that you are prepared to stand a lot, +but that there is a limit and that Mr. Y has gone beyond it. You are +ready to work, and to work hard, but you cannot be expected to work +with people who are impossible. You decide to send in your resignation +to the Chairman at once.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span></p> + +<p>I hope you will not send it in. For at least half the Committee are +thinking just as you are thinking. And one or two of them are thinking +these things, not apropos of Miss X, Mr. Y, or Mrs. Z, but apropos of +you! And if you are startled at the spectacle of people persisting in +being just themselves in war-work, then the fault is yours, and you +should be gently ashamed. You ought to have known that people are never +more themselves than in a great crisis, especially when the crisis is +prolonged. You ought to be thankful that the Committee has unscaled +your eyes to so fundamental a truth. You have realised that we are +at war,—you ought also to realise that it takes all sorts to make a +world, even a world at war. You ought to imagine what would happen if +every member of the Committee, like you, resigned because Mr. Y was +impossible, and thus left the impossible Mr. Y in possession of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span> +table and the secretary.</p> + +<p>Axiom: The most valorous and morally valuable war-work is the work of +working with impossible people.</p> + +<p>And may I warn you that you will later on, if you succeed as a +war-worker, encounter more terrible phenomena than Mr. Y, who at the +worst can always be out-voted? You will encounter, for example, the +famous and fashionable lady who, justifiably relying on human nature’s +profound and incurable snobbishness, will give all the hard work to you +and those like you, while appropriating all the glory and advertisement +for herself. And, more terrible even than the famous and fashionable +lady, you will run up against the Official Mind. The Official Mind is +the worst of all obstacles to getting things done. And the gravest +danger of the war-worker, particularly if he attains high rank on +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span> +Committees, is the danger of becoming official-minded himself.</p> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2">V</p> + +<p>When you have proved that in war-work you are a decent human being—and +you will prove this by sticking to the work long after you are weary of +it, and by refusing to fly off to something else because it promises +to be more diverting and less annoying than your present job—then you +will part company with the war-workers’ last illusion. Namely, the +illusion that her efforts will meet with gratitude. Gratitude is going +to be an extremely rare commodity, and it is not a very good thing to +receive, anyhow. You see, there will be so few people with leisure to +devote to gratitude. Everybody is or will be war-working. Even soldiers +and sailors are doing something for the war, though to listen to some +civilians one would suppose the military side of war to be relatively +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span> +quite unimportant. No! Gratitude will not choke the market. On the +contrary, criticism will be rife, for we are all experts in war-work. +The highest hope of the average war-worker must be to escape censure. +Official food-controllers, who are possibly the supreme type of +war-worker, are thankful if they escape with their heads. And herein is +a great lesson.</p> + +<p>Axiom: The reward of war-work will be in the treaty of peace.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_DIARY_HABIT">THE DIARY HABIT</h2> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_DIARY">THE DIARY HABIT</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2">I</p> + +<p class="nind"> +LET us consider, first, a strange quality of the written word.</p> + +<p>The spoken word is bad enough. Such things as misfortunes, blunders, +sins, and apprehensions become more serious when they have been +described even in conversation. A woman who secretly fears cancer +will fear it much more once she has mentioned her fear to another +person. The spoken word has somehow given reality to her fear. But the +written word is far more formidable than the spoken word. It is said +that the ignorant and the uncultured have a superstitious dread of +writing. The dread is not superstitious; it is based on a mysterious +and intimidating phenomenon which nearly anybody can test for himself. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span> +The fact is that almost all people are afraid of writing—I mean true, +honest writing. Vast numbers of people hate and loathe it, as though +it were a high explosive that might suddenly go off and blow them to +pieces. (That is one reason why realistic novels never have a very +large sale.) But the difference between one man’s dread of writing +and another man’s dread of writing is merely a difference of degree, +not of kind. And if any among you asserts that he has no fear of the +written word, merely because it is written, let him try the following +experiment.</p> + +<p>Take—O exceptional individual!—take some concealed and blameworthy +action or series of thoughts of your own. I do not mean necessarily +murder or embezzlement; not everybody has committed murder or +embezzlement, or even desires to do so; I mean some matter—any +matter—of which you are so ashamed, or about which you are so +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span> +nervous, that you have never mentioned it to a soul. All of us—even +you—have such matters hidden beneath waistcoat or corsage. Write down +that matter; put it in black and white. The chances are that you won’t; +the chances are that you will find some excuse for not writing it down.</p> + +<p>You may say:</p> + +<p>‘Ah! But suppose some one happened to see it!’</p> + +<p>To which I would reply:</p> + +<p>‘Write it and lock it up in your safe.’</p> + +<p>To which you may rejoin:</p> + +<p>‘Ah! But I might lose the key of the safe and some one might find it +and open the safe. Also I might die suddenly.’</p> + +<p>To which I would retort:</p> + +<p>‘If you are dead you needn’t mind discovery.’</p> + +<p>To which you might respond:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span></p> + +<p>‘How do you know that if I was dead I needn’t mind discovery?’</p> + +<p>Well, I will yield you that point, and still prove to you that your +objection to the written word does not spring from the fear of +giving yourself away. The experiment shall be performed under strict +conditions.</p> + +<p>Empty your house of all its inhabitants save yourself. Lock the +front-door and the back-door. Go upstairs to your own room. Lock the +door of your own room. Pile furniture before the door, so that you +cannot possibly be surprised. Light a fire. Place the writing-table +near the fire. Arrange it so that at the slightest alarm of discovery +you can with a single movement thrust your writing into the fire. Then +begin to write down that of which you are ashamed. You are absolutely +safe. Nevertheless you will hesitate to write. And you will not have +got very far in your narration before you find yourself writing down +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span> +something that is not quite so unpleasant as the truth, or before you +find yourself omitting some detail which ought not to be omitted. You +will have great difficulty in forcing yourself to be utterly frank on +paper. You may fail in being utterly frank; you probably will so fail; +most people do. When you have finished and hold the document in your +hand, you will start guiltily if the newly moved furniture creaks in +front of the door. You will read through the document with discomfort +and constraint. And you will stick it in the fire and watch it burn +with a very clear feeling of relief.</p> + +<p>Why all these strange sensations? You could not have been caught in the +act. Moreover, there was nothing on the paper of which you were not +fully aware, and which you had not fully realised. Nobody can write +down that which he does not know and realise. Quite possibly the whole +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span> +matter had been thoroughly familiar to you, a commonplace of your +brain, for weeks, months, years. Quite possibly you had recalled every +detail of it hundreds of times, and it had never caused you any grave +inconvenience. But, instantly it is written down it becomes acutely, +intolerably disturbing—so much so that you cannot rest until the +written word is destroyed. You are precisely the same man as you were +before beginning to write; naught is altered; you have committed no +new crime. But you have a new shame. I repeat, why? The only immediate +answer is that the honest written word possesses a mysterious and +intimidating power. This power has to do with the sense of sight. You +see something. You do not see your action or your thoughts as it might +be on the cinema screen—happily!—but you do see <i>something</i> in +regard to the matter.</p> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2">II</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span></p> + +<p>The above considerations are offered to that enormous class of people, +springing up afresh every year, who say to themselves: ‘I will keep +a diary and it shall be absolutely true.’ You may keep a diary, but +beyond question it will not be absolutely true. You will be lucky, or +you must be rather gifted, if it is not studded with untruths. You +protest that you have a well-earned reputation for veracity. I would +not doubt it. When I say ‘untruths’ I do not mean, for instance, that +if the day was beautifully fine you would write in your diary: ‘A very +wet day to-day; went for a walk and got soaked through.’ I am convinced +that you would be above such lying perversions. But also I am convinced +that if a husband and wife, both as veracious and conscientious as +yourself, had a quarrel and described the history of the quarrel +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span> +each in a private diary, the two accounts would by no means coincide, +and the whole truth would be in neither of them. Some people start a +diary as casually as they start golf, stamps, or a new digestive cure. +Whereas to start a diary ought to be a solemn and notable act, done +with a due appreciation of the difficulties thereby initiated. The very +essence of a diary is truth—a diary of untruth would be pointless—and +to attain truth is the hardest thing on earth. To attain partial truth +is not a bit easy, and even to avoid falsehood is decidedly a feat.</p> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2">III</p> + +<p>Having discouraged, I now wish to encourage. Many who want to keep +diaries and who ought to keep diaries do not, because they are too +diffident. They say: ‘My life is not interesting enough.’ I ask: +‘Interesting to whom? To the world in general or to themselves?’ It +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span> +is necessary only that a life should be interesting to the person who +lives that life. If you have a desire to keep a diary, it follows that +your existence is interesting to you. Otherwise obviously you would not +wish to make a record of it. The greatest diarists did not lead very +palpitating lives. Ninety-five per cent. of <i>Pepys’s Diary</i> deals +with tiny daily happenings of the most banal sort—such happenings as +we all go through. If Pepys re-read his entries the day after he wrote +them, he must have found them somewhat tedious. Certainly he had not +the slightest notion that he was writing one of the great outstanding +books of English literature.</p> + +<p>But diaries are the opposite of novels, in that time increases instead +of decreasing their interest. After a reasonable period every sentence +in a diary blossoms into interest, and the diarist simply cannot be +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span> +dull—any more than a great wit such as Sidney Smith could be unfunny. +If Sidney Smith asked Helen to pass him the salt, the entire table +roared with laughter because it was inexplicably so funny. If the +diarist writes in his diary, ‘I asked Helen to pass me the salt,’ +within three years he will find the sentence inexplicably interesting +to himself. In thirty years his family will be inexplicably interested +to read that on a certain day he asked Helen to pass him the salt. In +three hundred years a whole nation will be reading with inexplicable +and passionate interest that centuries earlier he asked Helen to pass +him the salt, and critics will embroider theories upon both Helen +and the salt and will even earn a living by producing new annotated +editions of Helen and the salt. And if the diary turns up after three +thousand years, the entire world will hum with the inexplicable +thrilling fact that he asked Helen to pass him the salt; which +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span> +fact will be cabled round the globe as a piece of latest news; and +immediately afterwards there will be cabled round the globe the views +of expert scholars of all nationalities on the problem whether, when +he had asked Helen to pass him the salt, Helen did actually pass him +the salt, or not. Timid prospective diarists in need of encouragement +should keep this great principle in mind.</p> + +<p>You will say:</p> + +<p>‘But what do I care about posterity? I would not keep a diary for the +sake of posterity.’</p> + +<p>Possibly not, but some people would. Some people, if they thought their +diaries would be read three hundred years hence, or even a hundred +years hence, would begin diaries to-morrow and persevere with them to +the day of death. Some people of course are peculiar. And I admit that +I am of your opinion. The thought of posterity leaves me stone cold.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span></p> + +<p>There is only one valid reason for beginning a diary—namely, that you +find pleasure in beginning it; and only one valid reason for continuing +a diary—namely, that you find pleasure in continuing it. You may find +profit in doing so, but that is not the main point—though it is a +point. You will most positively experience pleasure in reading it after +a long interval; but that is not the main point either—though it is an +important point. A diary should find its sufficient justification in +the writing of it. If the act of writing is not its own reward, then +let the diary remain for ever unwritten.</p> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2">IV</p> + +<p>But beware of that word ‘writing’. Just as some persons are nervous +when entering a drawing-room (or even a restaurant!), so some persons +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span> +are nervous when taking up a pen. All persons, as I have tried to show, +are nervous about the psychological effects of the written word, but +some persons—indeed many—are additionally nervous about the mere +business of writing the word. They begin to hanker, with awe, after +a mysterious ideal known as ‘correct style.’ They are actually under +the delusion that writing is essentially different from talking—a +secret trade process!—and they are not aware that he who says or +thinks interesting things can write interesting things, and that he who +can make himself understood in speech can make himself understood in +writing—if he goes the right way to work!</p> + +<p>I have known people, especially the young, who could discourse on +themselves in the most attractive manner for hours, and yet who simply +could not discover in their heads sufficient material for a short +letter. They would bemoan: ‘I can’t think of anything to say.’ It was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span> +true. And, of course, they could not think of anything to <i>say</i>, +the reason being that they were trying to think of something to +<i>write</i>, and very wrongly assuming that writing is necessarily +different from saying! Writing may be different from saying, but it +need not be different, and for the diarist it should not be different. +And, above all, it should not be superficially different. The +inexperienced, when they use ink, have a pestilent notion that saying +has to be translated or transmogrified into writing. They conceive an +idea in spoken words, and then they subconsciously or consciously ask +themselves: ‘I should say it like that—but how ought I to write it?’ +They alter the forms of their sentences. They worry about grammar and +phrase-construction and even spelling. As for grammar and spelling, in +the greatest age of English literature neither subject was understood, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span> +and no writer could be trusted either in spelling or in grammar. +To this day very few writers of genius are to be trusted either in +spelling or in grammar. As for phrase-construction, the phrase that +comes to your tongue is more likely to be well constructed than the +phrase which you bring forcibly into being at the point of your pen. +If you know enough grammar to talk comprehensibly, you know enough to +write comprehensibly, and you need not trouble about anything else; in +fact, you ought not to do so, and you must not. Formality in a diary is +a mistake. Write as you think, as you speak, and it may be given to you +to produce literature. But if while you are writing you remember that +there is such a thing as literature, you will assuredly never produce +literature.</p> + +<p>This does not mean that you are entitled to write anyhow, without +thought and without effort. Not a bit. Good diaries are not achieved +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span> +thus. Although you may and should ignore the preoccupations of what I +will call, sarcastically, ‘literary composition,’ you must have always +before you the ideal of effectively getting your thought on to the +paper. You would, sooner or later, <i>say</i> your thought effectively, +but in writing it down some travail is needed to imagine what the +perhaps unstudied spoken words would be. And also, the memory must +be fully and honestly exercised to recall the scene or the incident +described. By carelessness you run the risk of ‘leaving out the +interesting part.’ By being conscientious you ensure that the maximum +of interest is attained.</p> + +<p>Lastly, it is necessary to conquer the human objection to hard labour +of any sort. It is not a paradox to assert that man often dislikes +the work which he likes. For myself, every day anew, I hate to start +work. You may end your day with the full knowledge that you have had +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span> +experiences that day worthy to go into the diary, which experiences +remain in your mind obstinately. And yet you hate to open the diary, +and even when you have opened it you hate to put your back into the +business of writing. You are tempted to write without reflection, +without order, and too briefly. To resist the temptation to be slack +and casual and second-rate involves constant effort. Diary-keeping +should be a pastime, but properly done it is also a task—like many +other pastimes. I have kept a diary for over twenty-one years, +and I know a little about it. I know more than a little about the +remorse—alas, futile!—which follows negligence. In diary-keeping +negligence cannot be repaired. That which is gone is gone beyond +return.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="A_DANGEROUS_LECTURE_TO_A_YOUNG_WOMAN">A DANGEROUS LECTURE TO A YOUNG WOMAN</h2> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="A_DANGEROUS">A DANGEROUS LECTURE TO A YOUNG WOMAN</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2">I</p> + +<p class="nind"> +IT was at a war-charity sale, in a hot, crowded public room of +a fashionable hotel, amid the humorous bellowings of an amateur +auctioneer and the guffaws of amused bidders, that this thing happened +to me. A young woman was passing, and, as she passed, she looked and +stopped, and abruptly charged me with being myself. I admitted the +undeniable.</p> + +<p>‘I hope you’ll excuse me,’ she said. ‘I’ve read all your books.’</p> + +<p>‘The usual amiable chatter,’ I thought, and made aloud my usual, +stilted, self-conscious reply to such a conversational opening:</p> + +<p>‘You must have worked very hard.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</span></p> + +<p>She frowned—just a little frown in the middle of her forehead. She +was very well-dressed (which is not a fault), and she had a pleasant, +sympathetic, serious face. She said:</p> + +<p>‘I’ve often wanted to tell you; in fact, I thought I ought to tell you +about all those little books of yours about life and improving oneself, +and being efficient and not wasting time, and so on, and so on. They’re +very nice to read, but they’ve never done me any good—practically.’ +She smiled.</p> + +<p>(No; it was not to be the usual amiable chatter!)</p> + +<p>‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘But, of course, books don’t act by themselves. +You can’t expect them to be of much practical good until you begin to +put them into practice.’</p> + +<p>‘But that’s just the point,’ she answered. ‘I can’t <i>begin</i> to put +them into practice. I can’t resolve, and I can’t concentrate, and I +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span> +can’t clench my teeth and make up my mind. And if I do make a sort of +start, it’s a failure after the first day. And this goes on year after +year. No use blaming me—I can’t help myself. I want awfully—but I +can’t.’</p> + +<p>‘But <i>what</i> do you want?’</p> + +<p>‘I want to make the best of myself. I want to stop wasting time and to +perfect my “human machine.” I want to succeed in life. I want to live +properly and bring out all my faculties. Only, you see, I haven’t got +any resolution. I simply have not got it in me. You tell me to make +up my mind, steel myself, resolve, stick to it, and so forth. Well, I +just can’t. And yet I do want to. You’ve never dealt with my case—and, +what’s more, I don’t think you can deal with it. I hope you’ll pardon +all this bluntness. But I thought that, as a student of human nature, +you might be interested.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span></p> + +<p>I stood silent for a moment. She bowed with much charm and fled away. +I gazed everywhere. But she was lost in the huge room. I could not +very well run in pursuit of her—these things are not done in literary +circles. She had vanished. And I knew naught of her. She might be young +girl, young wife, young mother, anything—but I knew naught of her +except that she had a sympathetic, rather sad face, and that she had +left an arrow quivering in my side.</p> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2">II</p> + +<p>A few hours later, however, I spoke to the young creature as follows:</p> + +<p>‘It seems to me that you may have been running your delightful head +up against an impossible proposition. Perhaps you have been hoping to +<i>create</i> energy in yourself. Now, you cannot create energy, either +in yourself or elsewhere. Nobody can. You can only set energy free, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span> +loosen it, transform it, direct it.</p> + +<p>‘You may take a ton of coal and warm a house with it. The heat-energy +of the coal is transformed, set free, and directed to a certain +purpose. But if you try to warm the house by means of open coal fires +in old-fashioned fire-grates, you will warm the chimneys and some of +the air above the chimneys—and yet the rooms of the house will not be +appreciably warmer than they were when you began. On the other hand, +you may take a ton of exactly the same kind of coal and by means of +a steam-heating system in the cellar warm the rooms of the house to +such an extent that you have to wear your summer clothes in the depth +of winter. The steam-heating system, however, has not increased the +heat-energy of the coal; it has merely set free, utilised, and directed +the heat-energy of the coal in a common-sense—that is to say, a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span> +scientific—manner. No amount of common sense and ingenuity will get +as much heat-energy out of half a ton as out of a ton of coal. You may +devise the most marvellous steam-heating system that exists on this +side of the grave, but if there is no fuel in the furnace, or if there +is in the furnace a quantity of coal inadequate to the size of the +house, the house will never be comfortable except for polar bears and +lovers. The available coal is the prime factor.</p> + +<p>‘Well, an individual is born with a certain amount of energy—and +no more. Just as you cannot pour five quarts out of a gallon (as a +rule, you cannot pour even four quarts), so you cannot extract from +that individual more energy than there is in him. And, what is more +important, you cannot put additional quantities of energy into him. You +may sometimes seem to be putting energy into him, but you are not; you +are simply setting his original energy free, applying a match to the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span> +coal or fanning the fire. An individual is an island on whose rocky +shores no ship can ever land that most mysterious commodity—energy. +You may transfuse blood, but not the inexplicable force that makes the +heart beat and defies circumstance.</p> + +<p>‘Some individuals appear to lack energy, when, as a fact, they are full +of energy which is merely dormant, waiting for the match, or waiting +for direction. Other individuals appear to lack energy, and, in fact, +do lack energy. And you cannot supply their need any more than you can +stop their hair from growing.</p> + +<p>‘No, young lady; it is useless to interrupt me by asking me to define +what I mean by the word “energy.” To define some words is to cripple +them. You know well enough what I mean by energy. I mean the most +fundamental thing in you.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span></p> + +<p>‘Being a reasonable woman, you admit this—and then go on to demand, +first, how you can be quite sure whether you have been born with a +large or medium or a small quantity of energy, and, second, how you can +be quite sure that you have not lots of energy lying dormant within +you. You cannot be quite sure of anything. This is not a perfect world.</p> + +<p>‘But, as regards the second part of your question, you can be +reasonably sure after a certain number of years—I will not suggest +how many—that energy is not lying dormant within you, awaiting the +match. It is impossible for anybody indefinitely to continue to wander +in a world full of lighted matches without one day encountering the +particular match that will set fire to <i>his</i> fuel. And beware of +that match, for sometimes the result of the contact is an explosion +which shatters everything in the vicinity. If you have dormant energy, +one day it will wake up and worry you, and you will know it is there.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span></p> + +<p>‘As regards the first part of your question, the usual index of the +amount of energy possessed by an individual is the intensity of the +desires of that individual. It is desire that uses energy. Strong +desires generally betoken much energy, and they are definite desires. +Without desires, energy is rendered futile. Nobody will consume energy +in action unless he desires to perform the action, either for itself or +as a means to a desired end.</p> + +<p>‘But now you complain that I am once more avoiding your case. You +assert that you have desires without the corresponding energy or +corresponding will to put them into execution. I doubt it. I do not +admit it. You must not confuse vague, general aspirations with desire. +A real desire is definite, concrete. If you have a real desire, you +know what you want. You cannot merely want—you are bound to want +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span> +something.</p> + +<p>‘Further, to want something only at intervals, when the mind is +otherwise unoccupied, is no proof of a real desire; it amounts to +nothing more than a sweet, sad diversion, a spiritual pastime, a simple +and pleasant way of making yourself believe that you are a serious +person. The desire which indicates great energy is always there, +worrying. It is an obsession; it is a nuisance; it is a whip and a +scorpion; it has no mercy.</p> + +<p>‘And individuals having immense energy have commonly been actuated by +a single paramount desire, which monopolises and canalises all their +force. The pity is that these individuals have become the special +symbols of success. When they have achieved their single paramount +desire, they are said to have “got on,” to have succeeded. And every +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</span> +one points an admiring finger at them and cries, “This is success in +life!” And the majority of books about success in life deal with this +particular brand of success, and assume that it is the only brand +of success worth a bilberry, and exhort all people to imitate the +notorious exemplars of the art of “getting on” and in that narrow +sense. Which is absurd.</p> + +<p>‘And now, perhaps, we both feel that I am at last approaching your case.</p> + +<p>‘But I do not wish to be personal. Let us take the case of Mr. Flack, +who died last week, unknown. His discerning friends said of him: +“He had a wonderful financial gift. If he’d concentrated on it, he +might have rivalled Harriman. But he wouldn’t concentrate either on +that or on anything else. He was interested in too many different +subjects—books, pictures, music, travel, physical science, love, +economics—in fact, everything interested him, and he was always +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span> +interested in something. He was too all-round. He frittered his +energy away, and wasted enormous quantities of time. And so he never +succeeded.”</p> + +<p>‘Such was the verdict of some of Flack’s admirers. But it occurs to me +that Flack may have succeeded after all. Certainly he did not succeed +in being a financial magnate. But he succeeded in being interested +in a large number of things, and therefore in having a wide mind. He +succeeded in being always interested. And he succeeded in not being +lop-sided, which men of one supreme desire as a rule are. (Men who are +successful in the narrow sense generally pay a fearful price for their +success.) His friends regret that he wasted his time, but really, if he +accomplished all that he admittedly did accomplish, he couldn’t have +wasted a very great deal of time.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span></p> + +<p>‘Quite possibly the late Mr. Flack used to wake up in the night and +curse himself because he could not concentrate, and because he could +not stick to one thing, and because he wasted his time, and because, +with all his gifts, he did not materially progress, and because he made +no impression on the great public. Quite possibly, in moments of gloom, +he had regrets about the dissipation of his energy. But he could not +honestly have regarded himself as a failure.</p> + +<p>‘I should like to know why it is necessarily more righteous to confine +one’s energy to a single direction than to let it spread out in various +directions. It is not more righteous. If a man has one imperious +desire, his righteousness is to satisfy it fully. But if a man has many +mild, equal desires, <i>his</i> righteousness is to satisfy all of them +as reasonably well as circumstances permit. And I see no reason why +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span> +one should be deemed more successful than the other.</p> + +<p>‘Yes, young woman; I know what your excellent modesty is going to +say. It is going to say that the late Mr. Flack did show energy, +though he “frittered it away,” and that you do not show energy. +Now, I do not want to defend you against yourself (for possibly +you enjoy denouncing yourself and proving that you are worthless). +Nevertheless, I would point out that energy is often used in ways quite +unsuspected. Energy is a very various thing. Some people use energy +in arranging time-tables and sticking to them, and in clenching their +teeth and making terrific resolves and executing them, and in never +wasting a moment, and in climbing—climbing. And this is all very +laudable. But energy can be used in other ways—in contemplation, in +self-understanding, in understanding other people, in pleasing other +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span> +people, in appreciating the world, in lessening the friction of life.</p> + +<p>‘I have personally come across persons—especially women—who were +idle, who were mentally inefficient, who made no material contribution +to the enterprise of remaining alive, but whose mere manner of +existence was such that I would say to them in my heart, “It is enough +for me that you exist.”</p> + +<p>‘We have all of us come across such persons. And the world would be a +markedly inferior sort of place if they did not exist exactly as they +are.</p> + +<p>‘You, dear young woman, may or may not be one of these. I cannot +decide. But, anyhow, if you are not one of the hard-striving, resolute, +persevering, teeth-clenching, totally efficient, one-ideaed, ambitious +species, you need not despair.</p> + +<p>‘Imagine what the world would be like if we were all ruthlessly +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span> +set on “succeeding”! It would be like a scene of carnage. And it is +conceivable that you are, in fact, much more efficient than you think, +and that you are wasting much less time than you think, and that you +are employing much more energy than you think. You complained that +you lacked resolution, which means that you lacked one steady desire. +But perhaps your steady desire and resolution are so instinctive, so +profoundly a part of you, that they function without being noticed. +And if you do indeed lack one steady desire and the energy firmly to +resolve—well, you just do. And you will have to be content with your +lot. Why envy others? An over-mastering desire and its accompanying +energy are not necessarily to be envied.</p> + +<p>‘A dangerous doctrine, you say. You say that I am leaving the door open +to sloth and slackness and other evils. You say that I am finding an +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span> +excuse for every unserious person under the sun. Perhaps so; but what +I have said is true, and I will not be afraid of the truth because it +happens to be dangerous. Moreover, every person ought to know in his +heart whether or not he is conducting his existence satisfactorily. But +he must interrogate his conscience fairly. It is not fair, either to +one’s conscience or to oneself, to listen to it always, for example, in +the desolating dark hour before the dawn, and never to listen to it, +for example, after one has had a good meal or a good slice of any sort +of honest pleasure.</p> + +<p>‘And, lastly, I have mentioned envy. We are apt to mistake mere envy +of the successful for an individual desire to succeed. Yet an envious +realisation of all the advantages (and none of the disadvantages) of +success is scarcely the same thing as a genuine instinct for “getting +on”—is it?’</p> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2">III</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span></p> + +<p>This long speech which I made to the young, dissatisfied creature might +have been extremely effective if I could have made it to her face. I +ought, however, to mention that I did not make it to her face. I have +been reporting a harangue which I delivered in the sleepless middle of +the night to her imagined image. It is easier to be effective in reply +when the argumentative opponent is not present.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_COMPLETE_FUSSER">THE COMPLETE FUSSER</h2> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_COMPLETE">THE COMPLETE FUSSER</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2">I</p> + +<p class="nind"> +FREQUENTERS of lunatic asylums are familiar with the person who, being +convinced that he is a poached egg, continually demands to be put on +hot toast, and is continually unhappy because nobody will put him on +hot toast. This man is quite harmless; he is merely a bore by reason of +a ridiculous delusion about the fulfilment of his true destiny being +bound up with hot toast; in character he is one of the most amiable +individuals that ever lived, amiable even to the point of offering +himself for consumption to those of his fellow-patients who are hungry, +and who happen to fancy a poached egg with their tea. Nevertheless, on +the score of his undeniable delusion he is segregated from ordinary +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span> +society, and indeed imprisoned for life. Such may be the consequence of +a delusion.</p> + +<p>But not all deluded people are treated alike. A lady went for the +week-end to stay in a country cottage. Now, this lady was accustomed to +smoke a cigarette in her bath of a morning.</p> + +<p>Let there be no mistake. She was a perfectly respectable lady. In +former days respectable ladies neither smoked cigarettes nor took +baths. The one habit was nearly as disreputable as the other. In the +present epoch they do both with impunity, and though possibly a section +of the public may consider that while for a woman to smoke a cigarette +is quite nice, and for a woman to have a bath is quite nice, to smoke a +cigarette in a bath is not quite nice for a woman, that section of the +public is in a very small minority and should therefore be howled down.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span></p> + +<p>Anyhow the lady in question was everything that a lady ought to be. She +was in fact a well-known social worker and writer on social subjects. +On the Sunday morning a terrible rumour was propagated throughout the +country cottage. The lady did not smoke merely a cigarette in her +bath—she smoked a special brand of cigarette in her bath. And she +had forgotten to bring a due supply of the special brand, and her +cigarette-case had been emptied on the previous night. It became known +that she was in a fearful state, and would not be comforted. The brand +was Egyptian. At first none but the brand would do for her, but after a +period of agony she announced that she was ready to smoke any Egyptian +or Turkish cigarette. The cottage, however, was neither Egyptian nor +Turkish, but a Virginian cottage. She could not be induced to try a +Virginian cigarette, and the cottage was miles from anywhere, and the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span> +day was the Sabbath.</p> + +<p>She came downstairs miserable, unnerved, futile, a nuisance to herself +and to her hosts. She could not discuss important social matters, +which she had come on purpose to discuss. She could do naught except +sympathise with herself, and this she did on a tremendous scale. In the +afternoon a visitor called who possessed Egyptian cigarettes. The lady +got one, and at the first puff was instantly restored to her normal +condition. The hot toast had been brought to the poached egg.</p> + +<p>The lady, I maintain, was suffering from a delusion at least as +outrageous as the poached egg delusion, the delusion that her body and +brain could not function properly—in other words that her destiny +could not be fulfilled—unless she took into her mouth at a certain +time a particular variety of gaseous fluid scarcely distinguishable +from a thousand other similar varieties of gaseous fluid. Her physical +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span> +perceptions were not at all delicate. Like most women, for example, +she could not tell the difference between tea stewed and tea properly +infused. If a Virginian cigarette had been falsely marked in an +Egyptian manner she would have smoked it with gusto. And if she had +been smoking in the dark she could not have told whether her cigarette +was in or out—unless she inhaled.</p> + +<p>The delusion was nothing but a delusion. Her mind, by a habitual +process, had imagined it, and she had ended by being victimised by +it. She had ended by seriously believing that she was physically and +spiritually dependent upon a factor which had no appreciable power +beyond the power mistakenly and insanely attributed to it by her morbid +imagination.</p> + +<p>But, did any one suggest that she ought to be confined in a lunatic +asylum? Assuredly not. If ever she goes to a lunatic asylum it will +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span> +be as a visitor, to smile superiorly at the man whose welfare depends +utterly on hot toast. From the moral height of a cigarette she will +pity hot toast.</p> + +<p>Far from scheming to get the lady into a lunatic asylum, her hosts were +extraordinarily sympathetic, and even when they were by themselves the +worst thing they said was:</p> + +<p>‘Poor thing! She’s rather fussy about cigarettes.’</p> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2">II</p> + +<p>No one, I think, will assert that I have overdrawn the picture of +a person victimised by a delusion and yet not inhabiting a lunatic +asylum. Every one will be able out of his own experience of the world +to match my example with examples of his own. And indeed there are few +of us who are not familiar with at least one example immensely worse +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span> +than the lady who staked her daily existence on getting an Egyptian +cigarette in her bath. Few of us have not met the gentleman who can +only be described as ‘the complete fusser.’</p> + +<p>This gentleman has slowly convinced himself that the proper fulfilment +of his destiny depends absolutely upon about ten thousand different +things. All things of course have their importance, but this gentleman +attaches a supreme and quite fatal importance to all the ten thousand +things. He begins to be fussy on waking up, and he stops being fussy +when he goes to sleep. He may not smoke a cigarette in his bath, but he +will probably keep a thermometer in his bath because he is convinced +that there is a ‘right’ temperature for the bath-water, and that any +other temperature would impair his efficiency. He may detest smoking, +in which case he will probably have rigid ideas about the precise sort +of woven stuff he must wear next to his skin. He may be almost any +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span> +kind of character, and yet be fussy. He may be so tidy that he cannot +exist in a room, either in his own house or in anybody else’s, until he +has been round the walls and made all the pictures exactly horizontal. +He may be so untidy that if his wife privily tidies his desk he is put +off work for the rest of the day. He may be so fond of open air that he +can only sleep with his head out of a window, or so afraid of open air +that a draught deranges all his activities for a fortnight. He may be +so regular that he kisses his wife by the clock, or so irregular that +he is never conscious of appetite until a meal has been going cold for +half an hour. And so on endlessly.</p> + +<p>But whatever he does and thinks he does and thinks under the conviction +that if he did and thought otherwise the consequences would be +disastrous to himself if not to others. Whereas the truth is that to +change all his habits from morn to eve would result in great benefit +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</span> +to him. He spends his days attaching vast quantities of importance to a +vast number of things. Whereas the truth is, that scarcely any of the +said things are important in more than the slightest degree. He is the +victim of not one delusion but of hundreds of delusions, and especially +the grand delusion that the world is ready to come to an end on the +most trifling provocation.</p> + +<p>But there is no hope of him being sent to join the poached egg in the +lunatic asylum. His friends are content to say of him:</p> + +<p>‘He’s rather a particular man.’</p> + +<p>True, his enemies scorn and objurgate him, and proclaim him pernicious +to society. You naturally are his enemy, and you scorn him. But you +should beware how you scorn him, because you may unconsciously be on +the way to becoming a complete fusser yourself. All of us—or at +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</span> +any rate ninety-nine out of every hundred of us—have within us the +insidious microbe of fussiness.</p> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2">III</p> + +<p>The way to becoming a complete fusser is obscure at the start of it. +To determine the predisposing causes to fussiness would necessitate +volumes of research into the secrets of individuality and the origins +of character—and would assuredly lead to no practical result, because +these creative mysteries lie beyond our influence—at any rate for the +present. A man is born with or without the instinct to fuss—that must +suffice for us.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless the real instinct to fuss ought not to be confused with +perfectly normal impulses which may superficially resemble it. Thus +it is often assumed that domestic servants as a class are fussy, +especially about their food. I can see no reason why domestic +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span> +servants as a class should be fussy, and I do not believe they are. +What is mistaken for fussiness in them is merely the universal human +prejudice against anything to which one is not accustomed. Labouring +people are, unfortunately for themselves, used to a narrow diet. A +hundred comestibles which to their alleged superiors may seem quite +commonplace are fearsomely strange to labouring people. A rural girl +goes to serve in a large house; she is offered excellent fish, and she +refuses it; she ‘can’t fancy it.’ Whereupon the mistress exclaims upon +the astounding fussiness of the poor! The explanation of the affair is +simply that the rural girl has never had opportunity to regard fish as +an article of diet.</p> + +<p>Similar phenomena may be observed in children of even the superior +unfussy classes. And, for another instance, gardeners will grow the +most superb asparagus who would not dream of eating it, and could +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</span> +scarcely bring themselves to eat it. For them asparagus is not a +luxury, but something unnatural in the mouth, like snails or the +hind-legs of frogs. Snails and the hind-legs of frogs are luxuries in +various parts of the world; the Anglo-Saxon maid-scorning mistress +would certainly recoil from them if they were put on her plate, and in +so doing she would not lay herself open to a charge of fussiness. Yet +in recoiling from them she would be behaving exactly like the rural +maid whom she scorns.</p> + +<p>Nor must fussiness be confused with certain profound and incurable +antipathies, such as the strong repulsion of some individuals for cats, +apples, horses, etc.</p> + +<p>The real instinct to fuss can always be distinguished from the other +thing by this—the real instinct to fuss is progressive. If it is +not checked with extreme firmness it goes steadily on its way. And +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</span> +though the start of the way to becoming a complete fusser may be +obscure, the later portions of the journey are not so obscure. Pride, +if not conceit, presides over them, and is always pushing forward +the traveller from one abnormality to the next. Thus a man discloses +a dislike to black clothes. His aunt dies at a great distance and +leaves him some money. His wife asks him: ‘Shall you wear black?’ He +answers with somewhat pained dignity: ‘Darling, you know I never wear +black.’ He is now known to himself and to his wife as the man who will +not wear black. Then his father dies, in the same town where the son +lives; the objector to black will have to attend the funeral. After a +little conversation with him the wife says to friends: ‘You know Edward +objects to black. He does really. He <i>never</i> wears it, and I’m +afraid he won’t wear it even for his father’s funeral.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</span></p> + +<p>Henceforth Edward is known not merely to himself and his wife but to +the whole town as the man who won’t wear black. It is a distinction. +He is proud of it. His wife is rather impressed by the sturdiness of +his resolution. He has suffered a little for his objection to black. +His reputation is made. An anti-black clause inserts itself into his +religion. Pride develops into conceit. Success and renown encourage the +instinct to fuss, and soon he has grown fussy about something else. And +thus does the fellow reach his goal of being a complete fusser.</p> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2">IV</p> + +<p>There is no cure for the complete fusser. You might think that some +tremendous disaster—such as marrying a shrew who hated fussing, or +being cast on a desert island, or being imprisoned—would cure him. +But it would not. It would only cause a change in the symptoms; for +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span> +every human environment whatsoever gives occasion for fussiness to +the complete fusser. Even in the army, even in the lowest and most +order-ridden grades of the army, the complete fusser contrives to +flourish. And he is incurable because he is unconscious of being fussy. +What the world regards as fussiness he regards as wisdom essential to a +reasonable existence. He sincerely looks down upon the rest of mankind. +Spiritual pride puts him into the category of the hopeless case—along +with the alcoholic drunkard, the genuine kleptomaniac, and other +specimens whom he would chillingly despise.</p> + +<p>Apparently the sole use of the complete fusser is to serve as a +terrible warning to those who are on the way to becoming complete +fussers themselves—a terrible warning to pull up.</p> + +<p>That fussiness in its earlier stages can be cured is certain. But the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</span> +cure is very drastic in nature. There are lucid moments in the life +of the as yet incomplete fusser when he suspects his malady, when he +guiltily says to himself: ‘I know I am peculiar, but—’ Such a moment +must be seized, and immediate action taken. (The ‘but’ must be choked. +The ‘but’ may be full of wisdom, but it must be choked; the ‘but’ is +fatal.) If the fusser is anti-black let him proceed to the shopping +quarter at once. Let him not order a suit-to-measure of black. Let him +buy a ready-made suit. Let him put it on in the store or shop, and let +him have the other suit sent home. Let him then walk about the town in +black.... He is saved! No less thorough procedure will save him.</p> + +<p>And similarly for all other varieties of fussiness.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_MEANING_OF_FROCKS">THE MEANING OF FROCKS</h2> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_MEANING">THE MEANING OF FROCKS</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2">I</p> + +<p class="nind"> +BEING a man, I know that on the subject of women’s fashions men +still talk a vast amount of nonsense, partly sincere and partly +insincere—especially when there are no women present. The fact is +that the whole subject is deeply misunderstood, and the great majority +of people, both men and women, live and dress and die without getting +anywhere near the truth of it.</p> + +<p>Men try to explain the feminine cult of clothes by asserting that women +as a sex are vain. It is a profound truth that women as a sex are vain. +It is also a profound truth that men as a sex are vain. Have you ever +been with a man into a hosier’s shop? If you are a woman you certainly +have not, because, though a woman is often glad to be accompanied by a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span> +man when she is choosing her adornments, a man will not allow a woman +to watch him at the same work. Fashionable dressmakers are delighted +to welcome the accompanying man. But at the sight of a woman in his +establishment the fashionable hosier would begin to fear for the safety +of the commonwealth. Even if you are a man you probably have not been +with another man into a hosier’s shop. Men prefer to do these deeds +quite alone; they shun even their own sex; the shopman does not count. +Why this secrecy? The answer is clear. Men are ashamed of themselves on +such occasions because on such occasions their real vanity is exposed. +Tailors, hosiers, and hatters are a loyal clan; but it must be admitted +that they all have a strange look on their faces. That look is due to +the revelations of male vanity which they carry locked eternally in +their breasts. To these purveyors men give themselves away and are +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span> +shameless before them. The ordinary man well knows that he is vain. +Besides, you can see him surreptitiously glancing at himself in shop +windows any day. And in some American periodicals there are positively +more advertisements of men’s finery than of women’s.</p> + +<p>Again, men try to explain the feminine cult of clothes by asserting +that women are like sheep and must follow one another. What one does +all must do. This argument is more than insincere; it is impudent. +For women show much wider originality and variations of attire +among themselves than men do among themselves. Half a dozen average +well-dressed women will be as different one from another as half a +dozen flowers of different species; you could distinguish between +them half a mile off. But half a dozen well-dressed men would be +indistinguishably alike if you decapitated them. It is notorious that +men are the slaves of fashion. If a new shade of cravat or sock comes +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</span> +out, the city will be painted with that shade in less than a week. One +year every handkerchief is worn in the sleeve. Another year it will be +shocking to wear a handkerchief in the sleeve, because the only proper +place for wearing a handkerchief is in a pocket over the heart. At the +slightest change in the fashionable diameter of the leg of a pair of +trousers every man with adequate cash or credit will rush privily to +his tailor’s, and in sixty hours a parcel will arrive at that man’s +home marked: ‘Very urgent. Deliver at once.’</p> + +<p>Men have a perfect passion for being exactly like other men—not merely +in clothes, but in everything. So much so that they cannot bear to +think that there are men unlike themselves. Thus men will form clubs of +which all the members are alike in some important point, so that while +they are in the club they will live under the beautiful illusion of +universal resemblance. They loathe opinions which are unfashionable, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</span> +or unfashionable in their particular set and environment; they will +not even read about such opinions if they can help it; they are ready +to imprison or kill (and often actually have imprisoned or killed) the +holders of such opinions, solely because they are not in the fashion. +And could a man with a bag-wig walk down the Strand or Fifth Avenue +without having it knocked off or being arrested for obstruction? He +could not. Nevertheless a bag-wig is less preposterous than a silk hat.</p> + +<p>Yet again, men try to explain the feminine cult of clothes by asserting +that women as a sex really enjoy the huge task of dressing, and really +enjoy spending money for the sake of spending money, and have no +brains above personal embellishment. All these arguments are patently +ridiculous. To very many well-dressed women the task of dressing is +naught but a tedious and heavy burden. As for brains, it frequently +occurs that the women with the most intelligence (intelligence far +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</span> +surpassing that of the average man) are the most <i>chic</i>. In regard +to the enjoyment of mere spending, the charge is true. It is, however, +equally true of men. I could refer to tailors, hosiers, and hatters, +but I will not. Take, for a change, two dining parties at a restaurant, +one consisting of three men and three women, the other consisting of +six men. The bill of the six men will be the heavier. As a sex men, in +the French phrase, ‘refuse themselves nothing.’ And their felicity in +spending for the sake of spending is touchingly boyish.</p> + +<p>Whatever may be the explanation of the subjection of women to costly +fashion, we are now, at any rate, in a position to say what the +explanation is <i>not</i>. It is not that women are specially vain. +It is not that women are specially like sheep. It is not that they +lack intelligence. It is not that they enjoy the tyranny. And it is +not that they are spendthrift. If the explanation lay in any of these +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</span> +directions men would read fashion papers, go to sales, and change their +suits four times a day.</p> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2">II</p> + +<p>You will say:</p> + +<p>‘Women adorn themselves in order to be attractive to the other sex.’</p> + +<p>This is true, but only to a limited extent. And men also adorn +themselves in order to be attractive to the other sex. Moreover, a +woman who has found the man of her desire, and is utterly satisfied +therewith, will still go on adorning herself, even though the man in +question has made it quite clear that she would attract him just as +strongly in a sack as in a Poiret gown. Further, some fashions do +not attract; they excite ridicule rather than admiration; yet they +are persisted in. And women of the classes who do not and cannot +cultivate fashionableness succeed at least as well as the other woman +in attracting men, even when these men by reason of laborious lives +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</span> +have almost no leisure for dalliance. The truth is that the competition +among women for men is chiefly a legend—not wholly. There are more +women than men, but not many more. Women want marriage more than +men want marriage, but not much more. Competition is by no means so +fierce that women have to perform prodigies of self-ornamentation +in order to inveigle a fellow-creature so simple that he worries +about the tint of his own necktie and socks; and the idea of such a +phenomenon is derogatory to women. After all, nature has the business +of sex-attraction in hand, and she is not dependent on fashions. Long +before fashions had been evolved she managed it precisely as well as +she manages it to-day. She relies, not upon textile stuffs, but upon +the stuff that dreams are made on; namely, glances, gestures, actions, +and speech.</p> + +<p>The authentic major explanation of the expensive fashionableness of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</span> +women must be sought in another direction. As usual, men are at the +bottom of the affair. When woman gloriously dresses herself up to go +out, she does so in order to prove to the world something which man +wants to be proved to the world. In old days the two attributes which +man held in the highest esteem were wealth and idleness. To be poor was +shameful, and to work for a living was shameful. Man, therefore, had to +demonstrate publicly that he was neither needy nor industrious. One of +the best methods of demonstration was costume, and the costume of the +successful man in those days was very expensive, and so gorgeous and +delicate as to make toil impossible for him.</p> + +<p>The time came when man ceased to be proud of his own idleness, and his +costume altered accordingly. Then the duty of demonstrating wealth +and idleness by means of costume fell on woman. Man could not do +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</span> +the demonstration on his own person—he was too busy—and hence he +employed the lady to be expensive on his behalf. Such was her function, +and still is her function. The Rue de la Paix is based firmly on the +distant past. Assuredly long years will elapse before feminine costume +ceases to be used as a demonstration that man possesses the attributes +that are most admired. Estates demonstrate the possession of those +attributes; bonds demonstrate the possession of those attributes. But +estates are a fixture, and bonds are kept in a safe. Costume walks +about; your wife can take it to the seaside with her; the world cannot +help noticing it; and it has the further advantage of ministering to +the senses.</p> + +<p>The proofs of the substantial correctness of this explanation of +women’s dress are innumerable. Perhaps the principal proof is that the +very man who grumbles at fashionableness in women would be the first to +complain if his wife started to ignore fashion and to dress merely for +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</span> +comfort, utility, and charm. No man objects to the inexpensiveness of +his wife’s clothes, but every man objects to them looking inexpensive. +The advertised lure of a blouse marked one pound at a sale is that it +has the air of a blouse costing two pounds. Suppose a rich man sees +a delightful typewriting young woman walking down the street, falls +in love with her, and marries her. Now, although the clothes in which +he saw her suited her admirably in every way, and although she has +simple tastes, and more elaborate clothes do not suit her so well, the +first thing she has to do on marriage is to alter her style of dress +for a more expensive style. Otherwise the man will say: ‘I don’t want +my wife to look like a clerk.’ In other words: ‘I insist on my wife +demonstrating to the universe that I possess wealth and can afford +to keep her idle on my behalf.’ Even in small provincial towns where +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</span> +personal adornment is theoretically discouraged, and where people +preach the entirely false maxim that externals don’t matter—even there +the theory holds good. The middle-class wife will have her sealskin +coat before she has her automobile. Fur coats are detestable garments +to walk in, but real sealskin is a symbol which cannot be denied.</p> + +<p>And it is as important that that costume should prove idleness as that +it should prove wealth. Hence the fragility of extremely fashionable +costumes, and their unpracticalness. The fashionable costume must be +of such a nature that the least touch of the workaday world will ruin +it; and it must go beyond this—it must be of such a nature that the +wearer is actually prevented by it from her full and proper activity. +An unconsidered movement would rip it to pieces. Rich Chinese males +till recently kept their finger-nails so long that it was impossible +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</span> +for them to use their hands, and they maimed females so that they could +not walk. Both sexes were thus rendered helpless, and the ability +to be futile was proved like a problem of Euclid. We laugh at that. +Crinolines were admirably designed to hinder honest work. And we laugh +at crinolines too. But we still have the corset, though the corset is +not the homicidal contrivance it once was. And we have the high-heeled +shoe, higher than ever. You say: ‘But women have high heels to increase +their apparent height.’ Not a bit! All women whose business it is to +demonstrate idleness to the universe wear high heels, because high +heels are a clear presumption that the wearer is not obliged really +to exert herself. If a woman with a rich husband is so inordinately +tall that she is ashamed of her height, she will wear high heels to +prove that her husband is rich. And, not to be outdone, the delightful +typewriting girl walking down the street at 8.30 <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span> will +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</span> +also wear high heels—and each hurried step she takes is a miracle of +balance, pluck, and endurance. Life is marvellous.</p> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2">III</p> + +<p>You will say:</p> + +<p>‘Life may be marvellous, but these revelations about human motives are +terrible, and they depress us.’</p> + +<p>They ought not to depress you. The saving quality about human motives +is that they are so human, and therefore so forgivable. And, be it +remembered, I have not asserted that the demonstration of wealth and +leisure is the sole explanation of fashionableness. I have already +referred to the desire to be attractive; and to this must be added the +sense of beauty, which is nearly allied to it. The woman who bedecks +herself is actuated by all three motives—the motive of ostentation (to +satisfy primarily the man), the motive to attract, and the motive to +satisfy the sense of beauty.</p> + +<p>As regards the last, it may be said that the sense of beauty does not +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</span> +regularly improve in mankind, like, for instance, the sense of justice. +No feminine raiment has ever equalled the classic Greek, which was +not costly. But then the Greeks were not worried by too much wealth. +And the Greek dress would be highly inconvenient without the Greek +daily life, and especially without the Greek climate. And I doubt if +nowadays we should care greatly for the Greek life. Still, the sense +of beauty does emphatically exist among us, and the desire of women to +be attractive is quite as powerful as it was in the time of Aspasia. +These two motives are constantly, and often victoriously, fighting +against the motive of ostentation, and it is probably the interplay of +the three motives that produces the continual confusing and expensive +changes of fashion, as has been well argued by Professor Franklin Henry +Giddings, one of the most brilliant social philosophers in the United +States.</p> + +<p>‘But all this must be altered!’ the ardent among you will cry out. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</span> +‘In future women must dress solely to be attractive and to satisfy the +sense of beauty.’</p> + +<p>Well, they just won’t. Men will never allow it, and women themselves +would never agree to it. Costume will always be more than costume; +costume is so handy and effective as a symbol of something else; and +that something else will always be—success. When wealth ceases to be +the standard of success, then costume will cease to be employed as a +proof of wealth, and not before. Meanwhile, we must admit that, if the +possession of wealth has to be proved to the world, it could not be +proved in a more charming and less offensive way than in the costumes +of women. The spectacle of a stylish dress stylishly worn is extremely +agreeable. The spectacle of a room full of stylish dresses stylishly +worn is thrilling. He among you who has never been to a ball should go +to one and try the experience for himself.</p> + +<p>Leisure, the ability to be idle and useless, is still to a certain +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</span> +extent a standard of success in life, but not anything like so much +as in the past. People are gradually perceiving that to be idle and +useless is vicious. Hence the unpracticalness of women’s costumes will +gradually decrease. Beyond question high heels, for example, will +vanish from our pavements and from our drawing-rooms. I even have hope +that women will one day wear dresses which they can put on and fasten +unaided without the help of one, two, or three assistants. But such +changes will arrive slowly. You cannot hurry nature. It is a great +truth that the present is firmly rooted in the past. It refuses to be +pulled up by the roots. Futile to announce that you will in future be +guided by nothing but common sense! Whose common sense? Common sense +is a purely relative thing. The common sense of the past often seems +silly to us, and the common sense of the present will often seem silly +to the future. The progress of mankind is an extraordinarily complex +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</span> +business. It cannot be settled in a phrase. Nothing in it is simple; +nothing in it is unrelated to the rest. Everything in it has a reason +which will appeal to true intelligence. And men should bear this in +mind when they talk lightly and scornfully (and foolishly) about +women’s fashions.</p> + +<p>To conclude, let me utter one word about the secret fear that lies +always at the back of most men’s minds—the fear that such-and-such a +change in the habits of women will destroy their femininity. This fear +is groundless. Femininity—thank heaven!—is entirely indestructible. +It will survive all progress and all revolutions of taste. And when the +end comes on this cooling planet the last vestige of it will be there, +fronting the last vestige of masculinity.</p> + + +<hr class="r65"> + + +<p class="nindc"> +Printed in Great Britain by T. and A. <span class="allsmcap">CONSTABLE</span>, +Printers to His Majesty<br> +at the Edinburgh University Press.<br> +</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<div class="transnote spa1"> +<p class="nindc"><b>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES</b></p> + + +<p>Simple typographical errors have been silently corrected; unbalanced +quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and +otherwise left unbalanced.</p> + +<p>Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant +preference was found in the original book; otherwise they were not +changed.</p> + +<p>Inconsistent hyphens left as printed.</p> +</div></div> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75928 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/75928-h/images/cover.jpg b/75928-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e66658e --- /dev/null +++ b/75928-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/75928-h/images/i_title.jpg b/75928-h/images/i_title.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..aeec31b --- /dev/null +++ b/75928-h/images/i_title.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b5dba15 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this book outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..750df85 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +book #75928 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75928) |
